The Turmoil: A Novel

THE TURMOIL

A NOVEL

By Booth Tarkington

1915.

To Laurel.

CHAPTER I

There is a midland city in the heart of fair, open country, a dirty and

wonderful city nesting dingily in the fog of its own smoke. The stranger

must feel the dirt before he feels the wonder, for the dirt will be upon

him instantly. It will be upon him and within him, since he must breathe

it, and he may care for no further proof that wealth is here better

loved than cleanliness; but whether he cares or not, the negligently

tended streets incessantly press home the point, and so do the flecked

and grimy citizens. At a breeze he must smother in the whirlpools of

dust, and if he should decline at any time to inhale the smoke he has

the meager alternative of suicide.

The smoke is like the bad breath of a giant panting for more and more

riches. He gets them and pants the fiercer, smelling and swelling

prodigiously. He has a voice, a hoarse voice, hot and rapacious trained

to one tune: “Wealth! I will get Wealth! I will make Wealth! I will sell

Wealth for more Wealth! My house shall be dirty, my garment shall be

dirty, and I will foul my neighbor so that he cannot be clean--but I

will get Wealth! There shall be no clean thing about me: my wife shall

be dirty and my child shall be dirty, but I will get Wealth!” And yet it

is not wealth that he is so greedy for: what the giant really wants is

hasty riches. To get these he squanders wealth upon the four winds, for

wealth is in the smoke.

Not so long ago as a generation, there was no panting giant here, no

heaving, grimy city; there was but a pleasant big town of neighborly

people who had understanding of one another, being, on the whole, much

of the same type. It was a leisurely and kindly place--“homelike,” it

was called--and when the visitor had been taken through the State Asylum

for the Insane and made to appreciate the view of the cemetery from a

little hill, his host's duty as Baedeker was done. The good burghers

were given to jogging comfortably about in phaetons or in surreys for

a family drive on Sunday. No one was very rich; few were very poor; the

air was clean, and there was time to live.

But there was a spirit abroad in the land, and it was strong here as

elsewhere--a spirit that had moved in the depths of the American soil

and labored there, sweating, till it stirred the surface, rove the

mountains, and emerged, tangible and monstrous, the god of all good

American hearts--Bigness. And that god wrought the panting giant.

In the souls of the burghers there had always been the profound

longing for size. Year by year the longing increased until it became

an accumulated force: We must Grow! We must be Big! We must be Bigger!

Bigness means Money! And the thing began to happen; their longing became

a mighty Will. We must be Bigger! Bigger! Bigger! Get people here! Coax

them here! Bribe them! Swindle them into coming, if you must, but get

them! Shout them into coming! Deafen them into coming! Any kind of

people; all kinds of people! We must be Bigger! Blow! Boost! Brag!

Kill the fault-finder! Scream and bellow to the Most High: Bigness is

patriotism and honor! Bigness is love and life and happiness! Bigness is

Money! We want Bigness!

They got it. From all the states the people came; thinly at first, and

slowly, but faster and faster in thicker and thicker swarms as the quick

years went by. White people came, and black people and brown people

and yellow people; the negroes came from the South by the thousands and

thousands, multiplying by other thousands and thousands faster than

they could die. From the four quarters of the earth the people came,

the broken and the unbroken, the tame and the wild--Germans, Irish,

Italians, Hungarians, Scotch, Welsh, English, French, Swiss, Swedes,

Norwegians, Greeks, Poles, Russian Jews, Dalmatians, Armenians,

Rumanians, Servians, Persians, Syrians, Japanese, Chinese, Turks, and

every hybrid that these could propagate. And if there were no Eskimos

nor Patagonians, what other human strain that earth might furnish failed

to swim and bubble in this crucible?

With Bigness came the new machinery and the rush; the streets began to

roar and rattle, the houses to tremble; the pavements were worn under

the tread of hurrying multitudes. The old, leisurely, quizzical look of

the faces was lost in something harder and warier; and a cockney

type began to emerge discernibly--a cynical young mongrel barbaric

of feature, muscular and cunning; dressed in good fabrics fashioned

apparently in imitation of the sketches drawn by newspaper comedians.

The female of his kind came with him--a pale girl, shoddy and a little

rouged; and they communicated in a nasal argot, mainly insolences and

elisions. Nay, the common speech of the people showed change: in

place of the old midland vernacular, irregular but clean, and not

unwholesomely drawling, a jerky dialect of coined metaphors began to

be heard, held together by GUNNAS and GOTTAS and much fostered by the

public journals.

The city piled itself high in the center, tower on tower for a nucleus,

and spread itself out over the plain, mile after mile; and in its

vitals, like benevolent bacilli contending with malevolent in the body

of a man, missions and refuges offered what resistance they might to the

saloons and all the hells that cities house and shelter. Temptation

and ruin were ready commodities on the market for purchase by the

venturesome; highwaymen walked the streets at night and sometimes

killed; snatching thieves were busy everywhere in the dusk; while

house-breakers were a common apprehension and frequent reality. Life

itself was somewhat safer from intentional destruction than it was in

medieval Rome during a faction war--though the Roman murderer was more

like to pay for his deed--but death or mutilation beneath the wheels lay

in ambush at every crossing.

The politicians let the people make all the laws they liked; it did

not matter much, and the taxes went up, which is good for politicians.

Law-making was a pastime of the people; nothing pleased them more.

Singular fermentation of their humor, they even had laws forbidding

dangerous speed. More marvelous still, they had a law forbidding smoke!

They forbade chimneys to smoke and they forbade cigarettes to smoke.

They made laws for all things and forgot them immediately; though

sometimes they would remember after a while, and hurry to make new laws

that the old laws should be enforced--and then forget both new and old.

Wherever enforcement threatened Money or Votes--or wherever it was too

much to bother--it became a joke. Influence was the law.

So the place grew. And it grew strong.

Straightway when he came, each man fell to the same worship:

Give me of thyself, O Bigness:

Power to get more power!

Riches to get more riches!

Give me of thy sweat that I may sweat more!

Give me Bigness to get more Bigness to myself,

O Bigness, for Thine is the Power and the Glory! And

there is no end but Bigness, ever and for ever!

CHAPTER II

The Sheridan Building was the biggest skyscraper; the Sheridan Trust

Company was the biggest of its kind, and Sheridan himself had been the

biggest builder and breaker and truster and buster under the smoke. He

had come from a country cross-roads, at the beginning of the growth, and

he had gone up and down in the booms and relapses of that period; but

each time he went down he rebounded a little higher, until finally,

after a year of overwork and anxiety--the latter not decreased by a

chance, remote but possible, of recuperation from the former in the

penitentiary--he found himself on top, with solid substance under

his feet; and thereafter “played it safe.” But his hunger to get was

unabated, for it was in the very bones of him and grew fiercer.

He was the city incarnate. He loved it, calling it God's country, as he

called the smoke Prosperity, breathing the dingy cloud with relish. And

when soot fell upon his cuff he chuckled; he could have kissed it. “It's

good! It's good!” he said, and smacked his lips in gusto. “Good, clean

soot; it's our life-blood, God bless it!” The smoke was one of his

great enthusiasms; he laughed at a committee of plaintive housewives who

called to beg his aid against it. “Smoke's what brings your husbands'

money home on Saturday night,” he told them, jovially. “Smoke may hurt

your little shrubberies in the front yard some, but it's the catarrhal

climate and the adenoids that starts your chuldern coughing. Smoke makes

the climate better. Smoke means good health: it makes the people wash

more. They have to wash so much they wash off the microbes. You go

home and ask your husbands what smoke puts in their pockets out o' the

pay-roll--and you'll come around next time to get me to turn out more

smoke instead o' chokin' it off!”

It was Narcissism in him to love the city so well; he saw his reflection

in it; and, like it, he was grimy, big, careless, rich, strong, and

unquenchably optimistic. From the deepest of his inside all the way out

he believed it was the finest city in the world. “Finest” was his word.

He thought of it as his city as he thought of his family as his family;

and just as profoundly believed his city to be the finest city in

the world, so did he believe his family to be--in spite of his son

Bibbs--the finest family in the world. As a matter of fact, he knew

nothing worth knowing about either.

Bibbs Sheridan was a musing sort of boy, poor in health, and considered

the failure--the “odd one”--of the family. Born during that most

dangerous and anxious of the early years, when the mother fretted and

the father took his chance, he was an ill-nourished baby, and

grew meagerly, only lengthwise, through a feeble childhood. At his

christening he was committed for life to “Bibbs” mainly through lack of

imagination on his mother's part, for though it was her maiden name, she

had no strong affection for it; but it was “her turn” to name the baby,

and, as she explained later, she “couldn't think of anything else she

liked AT ALL!” She offered this explanation one day when the sickly boy

was nine and after a long fit of brooding had demanded some reason for

his name's being Bibbs. He requested then with unwonted vehemence to

be allowed to exchange names with his older brother, Roscoe Conkling

Sheridan, or with the oldest, James Sheridan, Junior, and upon being

refused went down into the cellar and remained there the rest of

that day. And the cook, descending toward dusk, reported that he had

vanished; but a search revealed that he was in the coal-pile, completely

covered and still burrowing. Removed by force and carried upstairs,

he maintained a cryptic demeanor, refusing to utter a syllable of

explanation, even under the lash. This obvious thing was wholly a

mystery to both parents; the mother was nonplussed, failed to trace and

connect; and the father regarded his son as a stubborn and mysterious

fool, an impression not effaced as the years went by.

At twenty-two, Bibbs was physically no more than the outer scaffolding

of a man, waiting for the building to begin inside--a long-shanked,

long-faced, rickety youth, sallow and hollow and haggard, dark-haired

and dark-eyed, with a peculiar expression of countenance; indeed, at

first sight of Bibbs Sheridan a stranger might well be solicitous, for

he seemed upon the point of tears. But to a slightly longer gaze, not

grief, but mirth, was revealed as his emotion; while a more searching

scrutiny was proportionately more puzzling--he seemed about to burst out

crying or to burst out laughing, one or the other, inevitably, but it

was impossible to decide which. And Bibbs never, on any occasion of his

life, either laughed aloud or wept.

He was a “disappointment” to his father. At least that was the parent's

word--a confirmed and established word after his first attempt to make

a “business man” of the boy. He sent Bibbs to “begin at the bottom and

learn from the ground up” in the machine-shop of the Sheridan Automatic

Pump Works, and at the end of six months the family physician sent Bibbs

to begin at the bottom and learn from the ground up in a sanitarium.

“You needn't worry, mamma,” Sheridan told his wife. “There's nothin' the

matter with Bibbs except he hates work so much it makes him sick. I put

him in the machine-shop, and I guess I know what I'm doin' about as well

as the next man. Ole Doc Gurney always was one o' them nutty alarmists.

Does he think I'd do anything 'd be bad for my own flesh and blood? He

makes me tired!”

Anything except perfectly definite health or perfectly definite disease

was incomprehensible to Sheridan. He had a genuine conviction that lack

of physical persistence in any task involving money must be due to some

subtle weakness of character itself, to some profound shiftlessness or

slyness. He understood typhoid fever, pneumonia, and appendicitis--one

had them, and either died or got over them and went back to work--but

when the word “nervous” appeared in a diagnosis he became honestly

suspicious: he had the feeling that there was something contemptible

about it, that there was a nigger in the wood-pile somewhere.

“Look at me,” he said. “Look at what I did at his age! Why, when I was

twenty years old, wasn't I up every morning at four o'clock choppin'

wood--yes! and out in the dark and the snow--to build a fire in a

country grocery store? And here Bibbs has to go and have a DOCTOR

because he can't--Pho! it makes me tired! If he'd gone at it like a man

he wouldn't be sick.”

He paced the bedroom--the usual setting for such parental

discussions--in his nightgown, shaking his big, grizzled head and

gesticulating to his bedded spouse. “My Lord!” he said. “If a little,

teeny bit o' work like this is too much for him, why, he ain't fit for

anything! It's nine-tenths imagination, and the rest of it--well, I

won't say it's deliberate, but I WOULD like to know just how much of

it's put on!”

“Bibbs didn't want the doctor,” said Mrs. Sheridan. “It was when he was

here to dinner that night, and noticed how he couldn't eat anything.

Honey, you better come to bed.”

“Eat!” he snorted. “Eat! It's work that makes men eat! And it's

imagination that keeps people from eatin'. Busy men don't get time for

that kind of imagination; and there's another thing you'll notice

about good health, if you'll take the trouble to look around you Mrs.

Sheridan: busy men haven't got time to be sick and they don't GET sick.

You just think it over and you'll find that ninety-nine per cent. of the

sick people you know are either women or loafers. Yes, ma'am!”

“Honey,” she said again, drowsily, “you better come to bed.”

“Look at the other boys,” her husband bade her. “Look at Jim and Roscoe.

Look at how THEY work! There isn't a shiftless bone in their bodies.

Work never made Jim or Roscoe sick. Jim takes half the load off my

shoulders already. Right now there isn't a harder-workin', brighter

business man in this city than Jim. I've pushed him, but he give me

something to push AGAINST. You can't push 'nervous dyspepsia'! And look

at Roscoe; just LOOK at what that boy's done for himself, and barely

twenty-seven years old--married, got a fine wife, and ready to build

for himself with his own money, when I put up the New House for you and

Edie.”

“Papa, you'll catch cold in your bare feet,” she murmured. “You better

come to bed.”

“And I'm just as proud of Edie, for a girl,” he continued, emphatically,

“as I am of Jim and Roscoe for boys. She'll make some man a mighty good

wife when the time comes. She's the prettiest and talentedest girl in

the United States! Look at that poem she wrote when she was in school

and took the prize with; it's the best poem I ever read in my life, and

she'd never even tried to write one before. It's the finest thing I

ever read, and R. T. Bloss said so, too; and I guess he's a good enough

literary judge for me--turns out more advertisin' liter'cher than any

man in the city. I tell you she's smart! Look at the way she worked me

to get me to promise the New House--and I guess you had your finger

in that, too, mamma! This old shack's good enough for me, but you and

little Edie 'll have to have your way. I'll get behind her and push her

the same as I will Jim and Roscoe. I tell you I'm mighty proud o' them

three chuldern! But Bibbs--” He paused, shaking his head. “Honest,

mamma, when I talk to men that got ALL their boys doin' well and worth

their salt, why, I have to keep my mind on Jim and Roscoe and forget

about Bibbs.”

Mrs. Sheridan tossed her head fretfully upon the pillow. “You did the

best you could, papa,” she said, impatiently, “so come to bed and quit

reproachin' yourself for it.”

He glared at her indignantly. “Reproachin' myself!” he snorted. “I ain't

doin' anything of the kind! What in the name o' goodness would I want

to reproach myself for? And it wasn't the 'best I could,' either. It was

the best ANYBODY could! I was givin' him a chance to show what was

in him and make a man of himself--and here he goes and gets 'nervous

dyspepsia' on me!”

He went to the old-fashioned gas-fixture, turned out the light, and

muttered his way morosely into bed.

“What?” said his wife, crossly, bothered by a subsequent mumbling.

“More like hook-worm, I said,” he explained, speaking louder. “I don't

know what to do with him!”

CHAPTER III

Beginning at the beginning and learning from the ground up was a long

course for Bibbs at the sanitarium, with milk and “zwieback” as the

basis of instruction; and the months were many and tiresome before he

was considered near enough graduation to go for a walk leaning on a

nurse and a cane. These and subsequent months saw the planning, the

building, and the completion of the New House; and it was to that abode

of Bigness that Bibbs was brought when the cane, without the nurse, was

found sufficient to his support.

Edith met him at the station. “Well, well, Bibbs!” she said, as he came

slowly through the gates, the last of all the travelers from that train.

She gave his hand a brisk little shake, averting her eyes after a quick

glance at him, and turning at once toward the passage to the street. “Do

you think they ought to've let you come? You certainly don't look well!”

“But I certainly do look better,” he returned, in a voice as slow as

his gait; a drawl that was a necessity, for when Bibbs tried to speak

quickly he stammered. “Up to about a month ago it took two people to see

me. They had to get me in a line between 'em!”

Edith did not turn her eyes directly toward him again, after her first

quick glance; and her expression, in spite of her, showed a faint,

troubled distaste, the look of a healthy person pressed by some

obligation of business to visit a “bad” ward in a hospital. She was

nineteen, fair and slim, with small, unequal features, but a prettiness

of color and a brilliancy of eyes that created a total impression close

upon beauty. Her movements were eager and restless: there was something

about her, as kind old ladies say, that was very sweet; and there was

something that was hurried and breathless. This was new to Bibbs; it was

a perceptible change since he had last seen her, and he bent upon her

a steady, whimsical scrutiny as they stood at the curb, waiting for an

automobile across the street to disengage itself from the traffic.

“That's the new car,” she said. “Everything's new. We've got four now,

besides Jim's. Roscoe's got two.”

“Edith, you look--” he began, and paused.

“Oh, WE're all well,” she said, briskly; and then, as if something in

his tone had caught her as significant, “Well, HOW do I look, Bibbs?”

“You look--” He paused again, taking in the full length of her--her trim

brown shoes, her scant, tapering, rough skirt, and her coat of brown

and green, her long green tippet and her mad little rough hat in the mad

mode--all suited to the October day.

“How do I look?” she insisted.

“You look,” he answered, as his examination ended upon an incrusted

watch of platinum and enamel at her wrist, “you look--expensive!” That

was a substitute for what he intended to say, for her constraint and

preoccupation, manifested particularly in her keeping her direct

glance away from him, did not seem to grant the privilege of impulsive

intimacies.

“I expect I am!” she laughed, and sidelong caught the direction of his

glance. “Of course I oughtn't to wear it in the daytime--it's an evening

thing, for the theater--but my day wrist-watch is out of gear. Bobby

Lamhorn broke it yesterday; he's a regular rowdy sometimes. Do you want

Claus to help you in?”

“Oh no,” said Bibbs. “I'm alive.” And after a fit of panting subsequent

to his climbing into the car unaided, he added, “Of course, I have to

TELL people!”

“We only got your telegram this morning,” she said, as they began to

move rapidly through the “wholesale district” neighboring the station.

“Mother said she'd hardly expected you this month.”

“They seemed to be through with me up there in the country,” he

explained, gently. “At least they said they were, and they wouldn't keep

me any longer, because so many really sick people wanted to get in. They

told me to go home--and I didn't have any place else to go. It'll be all

right, Edith; I'll sit in the woodshed until after dark every day.”

“Pshaw!” She laughed nervously. “Of course we're all of us glad to have

you back.”

“Yes?” he said. “Father?”

“Of course! Didn't he write and tell you to come home?” She did not turn

to him with the question. All the while she rode with her face directly

forward.

“No,” he said; “father hasn't written.”

She flushed a little. “I expect I ought to've written sometime, or one

of the boys--”

“Oh no; that was all right.”

“You can't think how busy we've all been this year, Bibbs. I often

planned to write--and then, just as I was going to, something would turn

up. And I'm sure it's been just the same way with Jim and Roscoe. Of

course we knew mamma was writing often and--”

“Of course!” he said, readily. “There's a chunk of coal fallen on your

glove, Edith. Better flick it off before it smears. My word! I'd almost

forgotten how sooty it is here.”

“We've been having very bright weather this month--for us.” She blew the

flake of soot into the air, seeming relieved.

He looked up at the dingy sky, wherein hung the disconsolate sun like

a cold tin pan nailed up in a smoke-house by some lunatic, for a

decoration. “Yes,” said Bibbs. “It's very gay.” A few moments later, as

they passed a corner, “Aren't we going home?” he asked.

“Why, yes! Did you want to go somewhere else first?”

“No. Your new driver's taking us out of the way, isn't he?”

“No. This is right. We're going straight home.”

“But we've passed the corner. We always turned--”

“Good gracious!” she cried. “Didn't you know we'd moved? Didn't you know

we were in the New House?”

“Why, no!” said Bibbs. “Are you?”

“We've been there a month! Good gracious! Didn't you know--” She broke

off, flushing again, and then went on hastily: “Of course, mamma's never

been so busy in her life; we ALL haven't had time to do anything but

keep on the hop. Mamma couldn't even come to the station to-day. Papa's

got some of his business friends and people from around the

OLD-house neighborhood coming to-night for a big dinner and

'house-warming'--dreadful kind of people--but mamma's got it all on her

hands. She's never sat down a MINUTE; and if she did, papa would have

her up again before--”

“Of course,” said Bibbs. “Do you like the new place, Edith?”

“I don't like some of the things father WOULD have in it, but it's the

finest house in town, and that ought to be good enough for me! Papa

bought one thing I like--a view of the Bay of Naples in oil that's

perfectly beautiful; it's the first thing you see as you come in the

front hall, and it's eleven feet long. But he would have that old

fruit picture we had in the Murphy Street house hung up in the new

dining-room. You remember it--a table and a watermelon sliced open,

and a lot of rouged-looking apples and some shiny lemons, with two dead

prairie-chickens on a chair? He bought it at a furniture-store years and

years ago, and he claims it's a finer picture than any they saw in the

museums, that time he took mamma to Europe. But it's horribly out of

date to have those things in dining-rooms, and I caught Bobby Lamhorn

giggling at it; and Sibyl made fun of it, too, with Bobby, and then told

papa she agreed with him about its being such a fine thing, and said he

did just right to insist on having it where he wanted it. She makes me

tired! Sibyl!”

Edith's first constraint with her brother, amounting almost to

awkwardness, vanished with this theme, though she still kept her full

gaze always to the front, even in the extreme ardor of her denunciation

of her sister-in-law.

“SIBYL!” she repeated, with such heat and vigor that the name seemed

to strike fire on her lips. “I'd like to know why Roscoe couldn't have

married somebody from HERE that would have done us some good! He could

have got in with Bobby Lamhorn years ago just as well as now, and

Bobby'd have introduced him to the nicest girls in town, but instead of

that he had to go and pick up this Sibyl Rink! I met some awfully

nice people from her town when mamma and I were at Atlantic City, last

spring, and not one had ever heard of the Rinks! Not even HEARD of 'em!”

“I thought you were great friends with Sibyl,” Bibbs said.

“Up to the time I found her out!” the sister returned, with continuing

vehemence. “I've found out some things about Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan

lately--”

“It's only lately?”

“Well--” Edith hesitated, her lips setting primly. “Of course, I

always did see that she never cared the snap of her little finger about

ROSCOE!”

“It seems,” said Bibbs, in laconic protest, “that she married him.”

The sister emitted a shrill cry, to be interpreted as contemptuous

laughter, and, in her emotion, spoke too impulsively: “Why, she'd have

married YOU!”

“No, no,” he said; “she couldn't be that bad!”

“I didn't mean--” she began, distressed. “I only meant--I didn't mean--”

“Never mind, Edith,” he consoled her. “You see, she couldn't have

married me, because I didn't know her; and besides, if she's as

mercenary as all that she'd have been too clever. The head doctor even

had to lend me the money for my ticket home.”

“I didn't mean anything unpleasant about YOU,” Edith babbled. “I only

meant I thought she was the kind of girl who was so simply crazy to

marry somebody she'd have married anybody that asked her.”

“Yes, yes,” said Bibbs, “it's all straight.” And, perceiving that

his sister's expression was that of a person whose adroitness has set

matters perfectly to rights, he chuckled silently.

“Roscoe's perfectly lovely to her,” she continued, a moment later. “Too

lovely! If he'd wake up a little and lay down the law, some day, like a

MAN, I guess she'd respect him more and learn to behave herself!”

“'Behave'?”

“Oh, well, I mean she's so insincere,” said Edith, characteristically

evasive when it came to stating the very point to which she had led, and

in this not unique of her sex.

Bibbs contented himself with a non-committal gesture. “Business

is crawling up the old streets,” he said, his long, tremulous hand

indicating a vasty structure in course of erection. “The boarding-houses

come first and then the--”

“That isn't for shops,” she informed him. “That's a new investment of

papa's--the 'Sheridan Apartments.'”

“Well, well,” he murmured. “I supposed 'Sheridan' was almost well enough

known here already.”

“Oh, we're well enough known ABOUT!” she said, impatiently. “I guess

there isn't a man, woman, child, or nigger baby in town that doesn't

know who we are. But we aren't in with the right people.”

“No!” he exclaimed. “Who's all that?”

“Who's all what?”

“The 'right people.'”

“You know what I mean: the best people, the old families--the people

that have the real social position in this town and that know they've

got it.”

Bibbs indulged in his silent chuckle again; he seemed greatly amused. “I

thought that the people who actually had the real what-you-may-call-it

didn't know it,” he said. “I've always understood that it was very

unsatisfactory, because if you thought about it you didn't have it, and

if you had it you didn't know it.”

“That's just bosh,” she retorted. “They know it in this town, all right!

I found out a lot of things, long before we began to think of building

out in this direction. The right people in this town aren't always the

society-column ones, and they mix around with outsiders, and they don't

all belong to any one club--they're taken in all sorts into all their

clubs--but they're a clan, just the same; and they have the clan feeling

and they're just as much We, Us and Company as any crowd you read about

anywhere in the world. Most of 'em were here long before papa came, and

the grandfathers of the girls of my age knew each other, and--”

“I see,” Bibbs interrupted, gravely. “Their ancestors fled together

from many a stricken field, and Crusaders' blood flows in their veins. I

always understood the first house was built by an old party of the name

of Vertrees who couldn't get along with Dan'l Boone, and hurried away to

these parts because Dan'l wanted him to give back a gun he'd lent him.”

Edith gave a little ejaculation of alarm. “You mustn't repeat that

story, Bibbs, even if it's true. The Vertreeses are THE best family, and

of course the very oldest here; they were an old family even before

Mary Vertrees's great-great-grandfather came west and founded this

settlement. He came from Lynn, Massachusetts, and they have relatives

there YET--some of the best people in Lynn!”

“No!” exclaimed Bibbs, incredulously.

“And there are other old families like the Vertreeses,” she went on,

not heeding him; “the Lamhorns and the Kittersbys and the J. Palmerston

Smiths--”

“Strange names to me,” he interrupted. “Poor things! None of them have

my acquaintance.”

“No, that's just it!” she cried. “And papa had never even heard the name

of Vertrees! Mrs. Vertrees went with some anti-smoke committee to see

him, and he told her that smoke was what made her husband bring home his

wages from the pay-roll on Saturday night! HE told us about it, and I

thought I just couldn't live through the night, I was so ashamed! Mr.

Vertrees has always lived on his income, and papa didn't know him, of

course. They're the stiffist, most elegant people in the whole town. And

to crown it all, papa went and bought the next lot to the old Vertrees

country mansion--it's in the very heart of the best new residence

district now, and that's where the New House is, right next door to

them--and I must say it makes their place look rather shabby! I met Mary

Vertrees when I joined the Mission Service Helpers, but she never did

any more than just barely bow to me, and since papa's break I doubt if

she'll do that! They haven't called.”

“And you think if I spread this gossip about Vertrees the First stealing

Dan'l Boone's gun, the chances that they WILL call--”

“Papa knows what a break he made with Mrs. Vertrees. I made him

understand that,” said Edith, demurely, “and he's promised to try and

meet Mr. Vertrees and be nice to him. It's just this way: if we don't

know THEM, it's practically no use in our having built the New House;

and if we DO know them and they're decent to us, we're right with the

right people. They can do the whole thing for us. Bobby Lamhorn told

Sibyl he was going to bring his mother to call on her and on mamma, but

it was weeks ago, and I notice he hasn't done it; and if Mrs. Vertrees

decides not to know us, I'm darn sure Mrs Lamhorn'll never come. That's

ONE thing Sibyl didn't manage! She SAID Bobby offered to bring his

mother--”

“You say he is a friend of Roscoe's?” Bibbs asked.

“Oh, he's a friend of the whole family,” she returned, with a petulance

which she made an effort to disguise. “Roscoe and he got acquainted

somewhere, and they take him to the theater about every other night.

Sibyl has him to lunch, too, and keeps--” She broke off with an angry

little jerk of the head. “We can see the New House from the second

corner ahead. Roscoe has built straight across the street from us, you

know. Honestly, Sibyl makes me think of a snake, sometimes--the way

she pulls the wool over people's eyes! She honeys up to papa and gets

anything in the world she wants out of him, and then makes fun of him

behind his back--yes, and to his face, but HE can't see it! She got

him to give her a twelve-thousand-dollar porch for their house after it

was--”

“Good heavens!” said Bibbs, staring ahead as they reached the corner and

the car swung to the right, following a bend in the street. “Is that the

New House?”

“Yes. What do you think of it?”

“Well,” he drawled, “I'm pretty sure the sanitarium's about half a size

bigger; I can't be certain till I measure.”

And a moment later, as they entered the driveway, he added, seriously:

“But it's beautiful!”

CHAPTER IV

It was gray stone, with long roofs of thick green slate. An architect

who loved the milder “Gothic motives” had built what he liked: it was to

be seen at once that he had been left unhampered, and he had wrought a

picture out of his head into a noble and exultant reality. At the same

time a landscape-designer had played so good a second, with ready-made

accessories of screen, approach and vista, that already whatever look

of newness remained upon the place was to its advantage, as showing at

least one thing yet clean under the grimy sky. For, though the smoke was

thinner in this direction, and at this long distance from the heart

of the town, it was not absent, and under tutelage of wind and weather

could be malignant even here, where cows had wandered in the meadows and

corn had been growing not ten years gone.

Altogether, the New House was a success. It was one of those architects'

successes which leave the owners veiled in privacy; it revealed nothing

of the people who lived in it save that they were rich. There are houses

that cannot be detached from their own people without protesting: every

inch of mortar seems to mourn the separation, and such a house--no

matter what be done to it--is ever murmurous with regret, whispering the

old name sadly to itself unceasingly. But the New House was of a kind

to change hands without emotion. In our swelling cities, great places

of its type are useful as financial gauges of the business tides;

rich families, one after another, take title and occupy such houses as

fortunes rise and fall--they mark the high tide. It was impossible to

imagine a child's toy wagon left upon a walk or driveway of the New

House, and yet it was--as Bibbs rightly called it--“beautiful.”

What the architect thought of the “Golfo di Napoli,” which hung in its

vast gold revel of rococo frame against the gray wood of the hall, is to

be conjectured--perhaps he had not seen it.

“Edith, did you say only eleven feet?” Bibbs panted, staring at it, as

the white-jacketed twin of a Pullman porter helped him to get out of his

overcoat.

“Eleven without the frame,” she explained. “It's splendid, don't you

think? It lightens things up so. The hall was kind of gloomy before.”

“No gloom now!” said Bibbs.

“This statue in the corner is pretty, too,” she remarked. “Mamma and I

bought that.” And Bibbs turned at her direction to behold, amid a

grove of tubbed palms, a “life-size,” black-bearded Moor, of a plastic

composition painted with unappeasable gloss and brilliancy. Upon his

chocolate head he wore a gold turban; in his hand he held a gold-tipped

spear; and for the rest, he was red and yellow and black and silver.

“Hallelujah!” was the sole comment of the returned wanderer, and Edith,

saying she would “find mamma,” left him blinking at the Moor. Presently,

after she had disappeared, he turned to the colored man who stood

waiting, Bibbs's traveling-bag in his hand. “What do YOU think of it?”

Bibbs asked, solemnly.

“Gran'!” replied the servitor. “She mighty hard to dus'. Dus' git in all

'em wrinkles. Yessuh, she mighty hard to dus'.”

“I expect she must be,” said Bibbs, his glance returning reflectively

to the black bull beard for a moment. “Is there a place anywhere I could

lie down?”

“Yessuh. We got one nem spare rooms all fix up fo' you, suh. Right up

staihs, suh. Nice room.”

He led the way, and Bibbs followed slowly, stopping at intervals to

rest, and noting a heavy increase in the staff of service since the

exodus from the “old” house. Maids and scrubwomen were at work under the

patently nominal direction of another Pullman porter, who was profoundly

enjoying his own affectation of being harassed with care.

“Ev'ything got look spick an' span fo' the big doin's to-night,” Bibbs's

guide explained, chuckling. “Yessuh, we got big doin's to-night! Big

doin's!”

The room to which he conducted his lagging charge was furnished in

every particular like a room in a new hotel; and Bibbs found it

pleasant--though, indeed, any room with a good bed would have

seemed pleasant to him after his journey. He stretched himself flat

immediately, and having replied “Not now” to the attendant's offer to

unpack the bag, closed his eyes wearily.

White-jacket, racially sympathetic, lowered the window-shades and made

an exit on tiptoe, encountering the other white-jacket--the harassed

overseer--in the hall without. Said the emerging one: “He mighty shaky,

Mist' Jackson. Drop right down an' shet his eyes. Eyelids all black.

Rich folks gotta go same as anybody else. Anybody ast me if I change

'ith 'at ole boy--No, suh! Le'm keep 'is money; I keep my black skin an'

keep out the ground!”

Mr. Jackson expressed the same preference. “Yessuh, he look tuh me like

somebody awready laid out,” he concluded. And upon the stairway landing,

near by, two old women, on all-fours at their work, were likewise

pessimistic.

“Hech!” said one, lamenting in a whisper. “It give me a turn to see him

go by--white as wax an' bony as a dead fish! Mrs. Cronin, tell me: d'it

make ye kind o' sick to look at um?”

“Sick? No more than the face of a blessed angel already in heaven!”

“Well,” said the other, “I'd a b'y o' me own come home t' die once--”

She fell silent at a rustling of skirts in the corridor above them.

It was Mrs. Sheridan hurrying to greet her son.

She was one of those fat, pink people who fade and contract with age

like drying fruit; and her outside was a true portrait of her. Her

husband and her daughter had long ago absorbed her. What intelligence

she had was given almost wholly to comprehending and serving those

two, and except in the presence of one of them she was nearly always

absent-minded. Edith lived all day with her mother, as daughters do; and

Sheridan so held his wife to her unity with him that she had long ago

become unconscious of her existence as a thing separate from his. She

invariably perceived his moods, and nursed him through them when she

did not share them; and she gave him a profound sympathy with the inmost

spirit and purpose of his being, even though she did not comprehend it

and partook of it only as a spectator. They had known but one actual

altercation in their lives, and that was thirty years past, in the early

days of Sheridan's struggle, when, in order to enhance the favorable

impression he believed himself to be making upon some capitalists, he

had thought it necessary to accompany them to a performance of “The

Black Crook.” But she had not once referred to this during the last ten

years.

Mrs. Sheridan's manner was hurried and inconsequent; her clothes rustled

more than other women's clothes; she seemed to wear too many at a time

and to be vaguely troubled by them, and she was patting a skirt down

over some unruly internal dissension at the moment she opened Bibbs's

door.

At sight of the recumbent figure she began to close the door softly,

withdrawing, but the young man had heard the turning of the knob and the

rustling of skirts, and he opened his eyes.

“Don't go, mother,” he said. “I'm not asleep.” He swung his long legs

over the side of the bed to rise, but she set a hand on his shoulder,

restraining him; and he lay flat again.

“No,” she said, bending over to kiss his cheek, “I just come for a

minute, but I want to see how you seem. Edith said--”

“Poor Edith!” he murmured. “She couldn't look at me. She--”

“Nonsense!” Mrs. Sheridan, having let in the light at a window, came

back to the bedside. “You look a great deal better than what you did

before you went to the sanitarium, anyway. It's done you good; a body

can see that right away. You need fatting up, of course, and you haven't

got much color--”

“No,” he said, “I haven't much color.”

“But you will have when you get your strength back.”

“Oh yes!” he responded, cheerfully. “THEN I will.”

“You look a great deal better than what I expected.”

“Edith must have a great vocabulary!” he chuckled.

“She's too sensitive,” said Mrs. Sheridan, “and it makes her exaggerate

a little. What about your diet?”

“That's all right. They told me to eat anything.”

“Anything at all?”

“Well--anything I could.”

“That's good,” she said, nodding. “They mean for you just to build up

your strength. That's what they told me the last time I went to see you

at the sanitarium. You look better than what you did then, and that's

only a little time ago. How long was it?”

“Eight months, I think.”

“No, it couldn't be. I know it ain't THAT long, but maybe it was

longer'n I thought. And this last month or so I haven't had scarcely

even time to write more than just a line to ask how you were gettin'

along, but I told Edith to write, the weeks I couldn't, and I asked

Jim to, too, and they both said they would, so I suppose you've kept up

pretty well on the home news.”

“Oh yes.”

“What I think you need,” said the mother, gravely, “is to liven up a

little and take an interest in things. That's what papa was sayin' this

morning, after we got your telegram; and that's what'll stimilate your

appetite, too. He was talkin' over his plans for you--”

“Plans?” Bibbs, turning on his side, shielded his eyes from the light

with his hand, so that he might see her better. “What--” He paused.

“What plans is he making for me, mother?”

She turned away, going back to the window to draw down the shade.

“Well, you better talk it over with HIM,” she said, with perceptible

nervousness. “He better tell you himself. I don't feel as if I had any

call, exactly, to go into it; and you better get to sleep now, anyway.”

She came and stood by the bedside once more. “But you must remember,

Bibbs, whatever papa does is for the best. He loves his chuldern and

wants to do what's right by ALL of 'em--and you'll always find he's

right in the end.”

He made a little gesture of assent, which seemed to content her; and

she rustled to the door, turning to speak again after she had opened it.

“You get a good nap, now, so as to be all rested up for to-night.”

“You--you mean--he--” Bibbs stammered, having begun to speak too

quickly. Checking himself, he drew a long breath, then asked, quietly,

“Does father expect me to come down-stairs this evening?”

“Well, I think he does,” she answered. “You see, it's the

'house-warming,' as he calls it, and he said he thinks all our chuldern

ought to be around us, as well as the old friends and other folks. It's

just what he thinks you need--to take an interest and liven up. You

don't feel too bad to come down, do you?”

“Mother?”

“Well?”

“Take a good look at me,” he said.

“Oh, see here!” she cried, with brusque cheerfulness. “You're not so bad

off as you think you are, Bibbs. You're on the mend; and it won't do you

any harm to please your--”

“It isn't that,” he interrupted. “Honestly, I'm only afraid it might

spoil somebody's appetite. Edith--”

“I told you the child was too sensitive,” she interrupted, in turn.

“You're a plenty good-lookin' enough young man for anybody! You look

like you been through a long spell and begun to get well, and that's all

there is to it.”

“All right. I'll come to the party. If the rest of you can stand it, I

can!”

“It 'll do you good,” she returned, rustling into the hall. “Now take

a nap, and I'll send one o' the help to wake you in time for you to get

dressed up before dinner. You go to sleep right away, now, Bibbs!”

Bibbs was unable to obey, though he kept his eyes closed. Something

she had said kept running in his mind, repeating itself over and over

interminably. “His plans for you--his plans for you--his plans for

you--his plans for you--” And then, taking the place of “his plans for

you,” after what seemed a long, long while, her flurried voice came

back to him insistently, seeming to whisper in his ear: “He loves his

chuldern--he loves his chuldern--he loves his chuldern”--“you'll find

he's always right--you'll find he's always right--” Until at last, as he

drifted into the state of half-dreams and distorted realities, the voice

seemed to murmur from beyond a great black wing that came out of the

wall and stretched over his bed--it was a black wing within the room,

and at the same time it was a black cloud crossing the sky, bridging the

whole earth from pole to pole. It was a cloud of black smoke, and out

of the heart of it came a flurried voice whispering over and over, “His

plans for you--his plans for you--his plans for you--” And then there

was nothing.

He woke refreshed, stretched himself gingerly--as one might have a care

against too quick or too long a pull upon a frayed elastic--and, getting

to his feet, went blinking to the window and touched the shade so that

it flew up, letting in a pale sunset.

He looked out into the lemon-colored light and smiled wanly at the

next house, as Edith's grandiose phrase came to mind, “the old Vertrees

country mansion.” It stood in a broad lawn which was separated from the

Sheridans' by a young hedge; and it was a big, square, plain old box

of a house with a giant salt-cellar atop for a cupola. Paint had been

spared for a long time, and no one could have put a name to the color of

it, but in spite of that the place had no look of being out at heel, and

the sward was as neatly trimmed as the Sheridans' own.

The separating hedge ran almost beneath Bibbs's window--for this wing of

the New House extended here almost to the edge of the lot--and, directly

opposite the window, the Vertreeses' lawn had been graded so as to make

a little knoll upon which stood a small rustic “summer-house.” It was

almost on a level with Bibbs's window and not thirty feet away; and

it was easy for him to imagine the present dynasty of Vertreeses

in grievous outcry when they had found this retreat ruined by the

juxtaposition of the parvenu intruder. Probably the “summer-house” was

pleasant and pretty in summer. It had the look of a place wherein little

girls had played for a generation or so with dolls and “housekeeping,”

or where a lovely old lady might come to read something dull on warm

afternoons; but now in the thin light it was desolate, the color of

dust, and hung with haggard vines which had lost their leaves.

Bibbs looked at it with grave sympathy, probably feeling some kinship

with anything so dismantled; then he turned to a cheval-glass beside the

window and paid himself the dubious tribute of a thorough inspection. He

looked the mirror up and down, slowly, repeatedly, but came in the end

to a long and earnest scrutiny of the face. Throughout this cryptic

seance his manner was profoundly impersonal; he had the air of an

entomologist intent upon classifying a specimen, but finally he appeared

to become pessimistic. He shook his head solemnly; then gazed again

and shook his head again, and continued to shake it slowly, in complete

disapproval.

“You certainly are one horrible sight!” he said, aloud.

And at that he was instantly aware of an observer. Turning quickly,

he was vouchsafed the picture of a charming lady, framed in a

rustic aperture of the “summer-house” and staring full into his

window--straight into his eyes, too, for the infinitesimal fraction of

a second before the flashingly censorious withdrawal of her own.

Composedly, she pulled several dead twigs from a vine, the manner of her

action conveying a message or proclamation to the effect that she was in

the summer-house for the sole purpose of such-like pruning and tending,

and that no gentleman could suppose her presence there to be due to any

other purpose whatsoever, or that, being there on that account, she

had allowed her attention to wander for one instant in the direction of

things of which she was in reality unconscious.

Having pulled enough twigs to emphasize her unconsciousness--and at the

same time her disapproval--of everything in the nature of a Sheridan

or belonging to a Sheridan, she descended the knoll with maintained

composure, and sauntered toward a side-door of the country mansion of

the Vertreeses. An elderly lady, bonneted and cloaked, opened the door

and came to meet her.

“Are you ready, Mary? I've been looking for you. What were you doing?”

“Nothing. Just looking into one of Sheridans' windows,” said Mary

Vertrees. “I got caught at it.”

“Mary!” cried her mother. “Just as we were going to call! Good heavens!”

“We'll go, just the same,” the daughter returned. “I suppose those women

would be glad to have us if we'd burned their house to the ground.”

“But WHO saw you?” insisted Mrs. Vertrees.

“One of the sons, I suppose he was. I believe he's insane, or something.

At least I hear they keep him in a sanitarium somewhere, and never talk

about him. He was staring at himself in a mirror and talking to himself.

Then he looked out and caught me.”

“What did he--”

“Nothing, of course.”

“How did he look?”

“Like a ghost in a blue suit,” said Miss Vertrees, moving toward the

street and waving a white-gloved hand in farewell to her father, who

was observing them from the window of his library. “Rather tragic and

altogether impossible. Do come on, mother, and let's get it over!”

And Mrs. Vertrees, with many misgivings, set forth with her daughter for

their gracious assault upon the New House next door.

CHAPTER V

Mr. Vertrees, having watched their departure with the air of a man who

had something at hazard upon the expedition, turned from the window and

began to pace the library thoughtfully, pending their return. He was

about sixty; a small man, withered and dry and fine, a trim little

sketch of an elderly dandy. His lambrequin mustache--relic of a

forgotten Anglomania--had been profoundly black, but now, like his

smooth hair, it was approaching an equally sheer whiteness; and though

his clothes were old, they had shapeliness and a flavor of mode. And for

greater spruceness there were some jaunty touches; gray spats, a narrow

black ribbon across the gray waistcoat to the eye-glasses in a pocket,

a fleck of color from a button in the lapel of the black coat, labeling

him the descendant of patriot warriors.

The room was not like him, being cheerful and hideous, whereas Mr.

Vertrees was anxious and decorative. Under a mantel of imitation black

marble a merry little coal-fire beamed forth upon high and narrow

“Eastlake” bookcases with long glass doors, and upon comfortable,

incongruous furniture, and upon meaningless “woodwork” everywhere,

and upon half a dozen Landseer engravings which Mr. and Mrs. Vertrees

sometimes mentioned to each other, after thirty years of possession, as

“very fine things.” They had been the first people in town to possess

Landseer engravings, and there, in art, they had rested, but they still

had a feeling that in all such matters they were in the van; and when

Mr. Vertrees discovered Landseers upon the walls of other people's

houses he thawed, as a chieftain to a trusted follower; and if he

found an edition of Bulwer Lytton accompanying the Landseers as a final

corroboration of culture, he would say, inevitably, “Those people know

good pictures and they know good books.”

The growth of the city, which might easily have made him a millionaire,

had ruined him because he had failed to understand it. When towns begin

to grow they have whims, and the whims of a town always ruin somebody.

Mr. Vertrees had been most strikingly the somebody in this case. At

about the time he bought the Landseers, he owned, through inheritance,

an office-building and a large house not far from it, where he spent the

winter; and he had a country place--a farm of four hundred acres--where

he went for the summers to the comfortable, ugly old house that was his

home now, perforce, all the year round. If he had known how to sit

still and let things happen he would have prospered miraculously; but,

strangely enough, the dainty little man was one of the first to fall

down and worship Bigness, the which proceeded straightway to enact the

role of Juggernaut for his better education. He was a true prophet of

the prodigious growth, but he had a fatal gift for selling good and

buying bad. He should have stayed at home and looked at his Landseers

and read his Bulwer, but he took his cow to market, and the trained

milkers milked her dry and then ate her. He sold the office-building and

the house in town to buy a great tract of lots in a new suburb; then

he sold the farm, except the house and the ground about it, to pay the

taxes on the suburban lots and to “keep them up.” The lots refused to

stay up; but he had to do something to keep himself and his family up,

so in despair he sold the lots (which went up beautifully the next year)

for “traction stock” that was paying dividends; and thereafter he ceased

to buy and sell. Thus he disappeared altogether from the commercial

surface at about the time James Sheridan came out securely on top; and

Sheridan, until Mrs. Vertrees called upon him with her “anti-smoke”

committee, had never heard the name.

Mr. Vertrees, pinched, retired to his Landseers, and Mrs. Vertrees

“managed somehow” on the dividends, though “managing” became more and

more difficult as the years went by and money bought less and less. But

there came a day when three servitors of Bigness in Philadelphia took

greedy counsel with four fellow-worshipers from New York, and not long

after that there were no more dividends for Mr. Vertrees. In fact, there

was nothing for Mr. Vertrees, because the “traction stock” henceforth

was no stock at all, and he had mortgaged his house long ago to help

“manage somehow” according to his conception of his “position in

life”--one of his own old-fashioned phrases. Six months before the

completion of the New House next door, Mr. Vertrees had sold his horses

and the worn Victoria and “station-wagon,” to pay the arrears of his two

servants and re-establish credit at the grocer's and butcher's--and a

pair of elderly carriage-horses with such accoutrements are not very

ample barter, in these days, for six months' food and fuel and service.

Mr. Vertrees had discovered, too, that there was no salary for him in

all the buzzing city--he could do nothing.

It may be said that he was at the end of his string. Such times do come

in all their bitterness, finally, to the man with no trade or craft, if

his feeble clutch on that slippery ghost, Property, shall fail.

The windows grew black while he paced the room, and smoky twilight

closed round about the house, yet not more darkly than what closed round

about the heart of the anxious little man patrolling the fan-shaped zone

of firelight. But as the mantel clock struck wheezily six there was the

rattle of an outer door, and a rich and beautiful peal of laughter went

ringing through the house. Thus cheerfully did Mary Vertrees herald her

return with her mother from their expedition among the barbarians.

She came rushing into the library and threw herself into a deep chair by

the hearth, laughing so uncontrollably that tears were in her eyes. Mrs.

Vertrees followed decorously, no mirth about her; on the contrary,

she looked vaguely disturbed, as if she had eaten something not quite

certain to agree with her, and regretted it.

“Papa! Oh, oh!” And Miss Vertrees was fain to apply a handkerchief upon

her eyes. “I'm SO glad you made us go! I wouldn't have missed it--”

Mrs. Vertrees shook her head. “I suppose I'm very dull,” she said,

gently. “I didn't see anything amusing. They're most ordinary, and the

house is altogether in bad taste, but we anticipated that, and--”

“Papa!” Mary cried, breaking in. “They asked us to DINNER!”

“What!”

“And I'm GOING!” she shouted, and was seized with fresh paroxysms.

“Think of it! Never in their house before; never met any of them but the

daughter--and just BARELY met her--”

“What about you?” interrupted Mr. Vertrees, turning sharply upon his

wife.

She made a little face as if positive now that what she had eaten would

not agree with her. “I couldn't!” she said. “I--”

“Yes, that's just--just the way she--she looked when they asked her!”

cried Mary, choking. “And then she--she realized it, and tried to turn

it into a cough, and she didn't know how, and it sounded like--like a

squeal!”

“I suppose,” said Mrs. Vertrees, much injured, “that Mary will have an

uproarious time at my funeral. She makes fun of--”

Mary jumped up instantly and kissed her; then she went to the mantel

and, leaning an elbow upon it, gazed thoughtfully at the buckle of her

shoe, twinkling in the firelight.

“THEY didn't notice anything,” she said. “So far as they were concerned,

mamma, it was one of the finest coughs you ever coughed.”

“Who were 'they'?” asked her father. “Whom did you see?”

“Only the mother and daughter,” Mary answered. “Mrs. Sheridan is dumpy

and rustly; and Miss Sheridan is pretty and pushing--dresses by the

fashion magazines and talks about New York people that have

their pictures in 'em. She tutors the mother, but not very

successfully--partly because her own foundation is too flimsy and partly

because she began too late. They've got an enormous Moor of painted

plaster or something in the hall, and the girl evidently thought it was

to her credit that she selected it!”

“They have oil-paintings, too,” added Mrs. Vertrees, with a glance of

gentle pride at the Landseers. “I've always thought oil-paintings in a

private house the worst of taste.”

“Oh, if one owned a Raphael or a Titian!” said Mr. Vertrees, finishing

the implication, not in words, but with a wave of his hand. “Go on,

Mary. None of the rest of them came in? You didn't meet Mr. Sheridan

or--” He paused and adjusted a lump of coal in the fire delicately with

the poker. “Or one of the sons?”

Mary's glance crossed his, at that, with a flash of utter comprehension.

He turned instantly away, but she had begun to laugh again.

“No,” she said, “no one except the women, but mamma inquired about the

sons thoroughly!”

“Mary!” Mrs. Vertrees protested.

“Oh, most adroitly, too!” laughed the girl. “Only she couldn't help

unconsciously turning to look at me--when she did it!”

“Mary Vertrees!”

“Never mind, mamma! Mrs. Sheridan and Miss Sheridan neither of THEM

could help unconsciously turning to look at me--speculatively--at the

same time! They all three kept looking at me and talking about the

oldest son, Mr. James Sheridan, Junior. Mrs. Sheridan said his father is

very anxious 'to get Jim to marry and settle down,' and she assured me

that 'Jim is right cultivated.' Another of the sons, the youngest one,

caught me looking in the window this afternoon; but they didn't seem

to consider him quite one of themselves, somehow, though Mrs. Sheridan

mentioned that a couple of years or so ago he had been 'right sick,'

and had been to some cure or other. They seemed relieved to bring the

subject back to 'Jim' and his virtues--and to look at me! The other

brother is the middle one, Roscoe; he's the one that owns the new house

across the street, where that young black-sheep of the Lamhorns, Robert,

goes so often. I saw a short, dark young man standing on the porch with

Robert Lamhorn there the other day, so I suppose that was Roscoe. 'Jim'

still lurks in the mists, but I shall meet him to-night. Papa--” She

stepped nearer to him so that he had to face her, and his eyes were

troubled as he did. There may have been a trouble deep within her own,

but she kept their surface merry with laughter. “Papa, Bibbs is the

youngest one's name, and Bibbs--to the best of our information--is a

lunatic. Roscoe is married. Papa, does it have to be Jim?”

“Mary!” Mrs. Vertrees cried, sharply. “You're outrageous! That's a

perfectly horrible way of talking!”

“Well, I'm close to twenty-four,” said Mary, turning to her. “I haven't

been able to like anybody yet that's asked me to marry him, and maybe I

never shall. Until a year or so ago I've had everything I ever wanted in

my life--you and papa gave it all to me--and it's about time I began

to pay back. Unfortunately, I don't know how to do anything--but

something's got to be done.”

“But you needn't talk of it like THAT!” insisted the mother,

plaintively. “It's not--it's not--”

“No, it's not,” said Mary. “I know that!”

“How did they happen to ask you to dinner?” Mr. Vertrees inquired,

uneasily. “'Stextrawdn'ry thing!”

“Climbers' hospitality,” Mary defined it. “We were so very cordial and

easy! I think Mrs. Sheridan herself might have done it just as any kind

old woman on a farm might ask a neighbor, but it was Miss Sheridan who

did it. She played around it awhile; you could see she wanted to--she's

in a dreadful hurry to get into things--and I fancied she had an idea it

might impress that Lamhorn boy to find us there to-night. It's a sort of

house-warming dinner, and they talked about it and talked about it--and

then the girl got her courage up and blurted out the invitation. And

mamma--” Here Mary was once more a victim to incorrigible merriment.

“Mamma tried to say yes, and COULDN'T! She swallowed and squealed--I

mean you coughed, dear! And then, papa, she said that you and she had

promised to go to a lecture at the Emerson Club to-night, but that her

daughter would be delighted to come to the Big Show! So there I am,

and there's Mr. Jim Sheridan--and there's the clock. Dinner's at

seven-thirty!”

And she ran out of the room, scooping up her fallen furs with a gesture

of flying grace as she sped.

When she came down, at twenty minutes after seven, her father stood in

the hall, at the foot of the stairs, waiting to be her escort through

the dark. He looked up and watched her as she descended, and his gaze

was fond and proud--and profoundly disturbed. But she smiled and nodded

gaily, and, when she reached the floor, put a hand on his shoulder.

“At least no one could suspect me to-night,” she said. “I LOOK rich,

don't I, papa?”

She did. She had a look that worshipful girl friends bravely called

“regal.” A head taller than her father, she was as straight and jauntily

poised as a boy athlete; and her brown hair and her brown eyes were

like her mother's, but for the rest she went back to some stronger and

livelier ancestor than either of her parents.

“Don't I look too rich to be suspected?” she insisted.

“You look everything beautiful, Mary,” he said, huskily.

“And my dress?” She threw open her dark velvet cloak, showing a splendor

of white and silver. “Anything better at Nice next winter, do you

think?” She laughed, shrouding her glittering figure in the cloak again.

“Two years old, and no one would dream it! I did it over.”

“You can do anything, Mary.”

There was a curious humility in his tone, and something more--a

significance not veiled and yet abysmally apologetic. It was as if

he suggested something to her and begged her forgiveness in the same

breath.

And upon that, for the moment, she became as serious as he. She lifted

her hand from his shoulder and then set it back more firmly, so that he

should feel the reassurance of its pressure.

“Don't worry,” she said, in a low voice and gravely. “I know exactly

what you want me to do.”

CHAPTER VI

It was a brave and lustrous banquet; and a noisy one, too, because there

was an orchestra among some plants at one end of the long dining-room,

and after a preliminary stiffness the guests were impelled to

converse--necessarily at the tops of their voices. The whole company

of fifty sat at a great oblong table, improvised for the occasion by

carpenters; but, not betraying itself as an improvisation, it seemed

a permanent continent of damask and lace, with shores of crystal and

silver running up to spreading groves of orchids and lilies and

white roses--an inhabited continent, evidently, for there were three

marvelous, gleaming buildings: one in the center and one at each end,

white miracles wrought by some inspired craftsman in sculptural icing.

They were models in miniature, and they represented the Sheridan

Building, the Sheridan Apartments, and the Pump Works. Nearly all the

guests recognized them without having to be told what they were, and

pronounced the likenesses superb.

The arrangement of the table was visibly baronial. At the head sat the

great Thane, with the flower of his family and of the guests about him;

then on each side came the neighbors of the “old” house, grading down to

vassals and retainers--superintendents, cashiers, heads of departments,

and the like--at the foot, where the Thane's lady took her place as a

consolation for the less important. Here, too, among the thralls and

bondmen, sat Bibbs Sheridan, a meek Banquo, wondering how anybody could

look at him and eat.

Nevertheless, there was a vast, continuous eating, for these were

wholesome folk who understood that dinner meant something intended

for introduction into the system by means of an aperture in the face,

devised by nature for that express purpose. And besides, nobody looked

at Bibbs.

He was better content to be left to himself; his voice was not strong

enough to make itself heard over the hubbub without an exhausting

effort, and the talk that went on about him was too fast and too

fragmentary for his drawl to keep pace with it. So he felt relieved when

each of his neighbors in turn, after a polite inquiry about his health,

turned to seek livelier responses in other directions. For the talk

went on with the eating, incessantly. It rose over the throbbing of the

orchestra and the clatter and clinking of silver and china and glass,

and there was a mighty babble.

“Yes, sir! Started without a dollar.”... “Yellow flounces on the

overskirt--“... “I says, 'Wilkie, your department's got to go bigger

this year,' I says.”... “Fifteen per cent. turnover in thirty-one

weeks.”... “One of the biggest men in the biggest--“... “The wife says

she'll have to let out my pants if my appetite--“... “Say, did you see

that statue of a Turk in the hall? One of the finest things I ever--“...

“Not a dollar, not a nickel, not one red cent do you get out o' me,' I

says, and so he ups and--“... “Yes, the baby makes four, they've lost

now.”... “Well, they got their raise, and they went in big.”... “Yes,

sir! Not a dollar to his name, and look at what--“... “You wait! The

population of this town's goin' to hit the million mark before she

stops.”... “Well, if you can show me a bigger deal than--”

And through the interstices of this clamoring Bibbs could hear the

continual booming of his father's heavy voice, and once he caught the

sentence, “Yes, young lady, that's just what did it for me, and that's

just what'll do it for my boys--they got to make two blades o' grass

grow where one grew before!” It was his familiar flourish, an old

story to Bibbs, and now jovially declaimed for the edification of Mary

Vertrees.

It was a great night for Sheridan--the very crest of his wave. He sat

there knowing himself Thane and master by his own endeavor; and his big,

smooth, red face grew more and more radiant with good will and with the

simplest, happiest, most boy-like vanity. He was the picture of health,

of good cheer, and of power on a holiday. He had thirty teeth, none

bought, and showed most of them when he laughed; his grizzled hair was

thick, and as unruly as a farm laborer's; his chest was deep and big

beneath its vast facade of starched white linen, where little diamonds

twinkled, circling three large pearls; his hands were stubby and strong,

and he used them freely in gestures of marked picturesqueness; and,

though he had grown fat at chin and waist and wrist, he had not lost the

look of readiness and activity.

He dominated the table, shouting jocular questions and railleries at

every one. His idea was that when people were having a good time they

were noisy; and his own additions to the hubbub increased his pleasure,

and, of course, met the warmest encouragement from his guests. Edith had

discovered that he had very foggy notions of the difference between a

band and an orchestra, and when it was made clear to him he had held out

for a band until Edith threatened tears; but the size of the orchestra

they hired consoled him, and he had now no regrets in the matter.

He kept time to the music continually--with his feet, or pounding on the

table with his fist, and sometimes with spoon or knife upon his plate

or a glass, without permitting these side-products to interfere with the

real business of eating and shouting.

“Tell 'em to play 'Nancy Lee'!” he would bellow down the length of

the table to his wife, while the musicians were in the midst of the

“Toreador” song, perhaps. “Ask that fellow if they don't know 'Nancy

Lee'!” And when the leader would shake his head apologetically in answer

to an obedient shriek from Mrs. Sheridan, the “Toreador” continuing

vehemently, Sheridan would roar half-remembered fragments of “Nancy

Lee,” naturally mingling some Bizet with the air of that uxorious

tribute.

“Oh, there she stands and waves her hands while I'm away! A sail-er's

wife a sail-er's star should be! Yo ho, oh, oh! Oh, Nancy, Nancy, Nancy

Lee! Oh, Na-hancy Lee!”

“HAY, there, old lady!” he would bellow. “Tell 'em to play 'In the

Gloaming.' In the gloaming, oh, my darling, la-la-lum-tee--Well, if they

don't know that, what's the matter with 'Larboard Watch, Ahoy'? THAT'S

good music! That's the kind o' music I like! Come on, now! Mrs. Callin,

get 'em singin' down in your part o' the table. What's the matter you

folks down there, anyway? Larboard watch, ahoy!”

“What joy he feels, as--ta-tum-dum-tee-dee-dum steals. La-a-r-board

watch, ahoy!”

No external bubbling contributed to this effervescence; the Sheridans'

table had never borne wine, and, more because of timidity about it than

conviction, it bore none now; though “mineral waters” were copiously

poured from bottles wrapped, for some reason, in napkins, and proved

wholly satisfactory to almost all of the guests. And certainly no wine

could have inspired more turbulent good spirits in the host. Not even

Bibbs was an alloy in this night's happiness, for, as Mrs. Sheridan had

said, he had “plans for Bibbs”--plans which were going to straighten out

some things that had gone wrong.

So he pounded the table and boomed his echoes of old songs, and then,

forgetting these, would renew his friendly railleries, or perhaps,

turning to Mary Vertrees, who sat near him, round the corner of the

table at his right, he would become autobiographical. Gentlemen less

naive than he had paid her that tribute, for she was a girl who inspired

the autobiographical impulse in every man who met her--it needed but the

sight of her.

The dinner seemed, somehow, to center about Mary Vertrees and the

jocund host as a play centers about its hero and heroine; they were the

rubicund king and the starry princess of this spectacle--they paid court

to each other, and everybody paid court to them. Down near the

sugar Pump Works, where Bibbs sat, there was audible speculation and

admiration. “Wonder who that lady is--makin' such a hit with the old

man.” “Must be some heiress.” “Heiress? Golly, I guess I could stand it

to marry rich, then!”

Edith and Sibyl were radiant: at first they had watched Miss Vertrees

with an almost haggard anxiety, wondering what disasterous effect

Sheridan's pastoral gaieties--and other things--would have upon her,

but she seemed delighted with everything, and with him most of all.

She treated him as if he were some delicious, foolish old joke that

she understood perfectly, laughing at him almost violently when he

bragged--probably his first experience of that kind in his life. It

enchanted him.

As he proclaimed to the table, she had “a way with her.” She had,

indeed, as Roscoe Sheridan, upon her right, discovered just after the

feast began. Since his marriage three years before, no lady had bestowed

upon him so protracted a full view of brilliant eyes; and, with the

look, his lovely neighbor said--and it was her first speech to him--

“I hope you're very susceptible, Mr. Sheridan!”

Honest Roscoe was taken aback, and “Why?” was all he managed to say.

She repeated the look deliberately, which was noted, with a

mystification equal to his own, by his sister across the table. No one,

reflected Edith, could image Mary Vertrees the sort of girl who would

“really flirt” with married men--she was obviously the “opposite of all

that.” Edith defined her as a “thoroughbred,” a “nice girl”; and the

look given to Roscoe was astounding. Roscoe's wife saw it, too, and

she was another whom it puzzled--though not because its recipient was

married.

“Because!” said Mary Vertrees, replying to Roscoe's monosyllable. “And

also because we're next-door neighbors at table, and it's dull times

ahead for both of us if we don't get along.”

Roscoe was a literal young man, all stocks and bonds, and he had been

brought up to believe that when a man married he “married and settled

down.” It was “all right,” he felt, for a man as old as his father to

pay florid compliments to as pretty a girl as this Miss Vertrees, but

for himself--“a young married man”--it wouldn't do; and it wouldn't

even be quite moral. He knew that young married people might have

friendships, like his wife's for Lamhorn; but Sibyl and Lamhorn never

“flirted”--they were always very matter-of-fact with each other. Roscoe

would have been troubled if Sibyl had ever told Lamhorn she hoped he was

susceptible.

“Yes--we're neighbors,” he said, awkwardly.

“Next-door neighbors in houses, too,” she added.

“No, not exactly. I live across the street.”

“Why, no!” she exclaimed, and seemed startled. “Your mother told me this

afternoon that you lived at home.”

“Yes, of course I live at home. I built that new house across the

street.”

“But you--” she paused, confused, and then slowly a deep color came into

her cheek. “But I understood--”

“No,” he said; “my wife and I lived with the old folks the first year,

but that's all. Edith and Jim live with them, of course.”

“I--I see,” she said, the deep color still deepening as she turned from

him and saw, written upon a card before the gentleman at her left the

name, “Mr. James Sheridan, Jr.” And from that moment Roscoe had little

enough cause for wondering what he ought to reply to her disturbing

coquetries.

Mr. James Sheridan had been anxiously waiting for the dazzling visitor

to “get through with old Roscoe,” as he thought of it, and give a

bachelor a chance. “Old Roscoe” was the younger, but he had always been

the steady wheel-horse of the family. Jim was “steady” enough, but was

considered livelier than Roscoe, which in truth is not saying much for

Jim's liveliness. As their father habitually boasted, both brothers were

“capable, hard-working young business men,” and the principal difference

between them was merely that which resulted from Jim's being still a

bachelor. Physically they were of the same type: dark of eyes and of

hair, fresh-colored and thick-set, and though Roscoe was several inches

taller than Jim, neither was of the height, breadth, or depth of the

father. Both wore young business men's mustaches, and either could have

sat for the tailor-shop lithographs of young business men wearing “rich

suitings in dark mixtures.”

Jim, approving warmly of his neighbor's profile, perceived her access of

color, which increased his approbation. “What's that old Roscoe saying

to you, Miss Vertrees?” he asked. “These young married men are mighty

forward nowadays, but you mustn't let 'em make you blush.”

“Am I blushing?” she said. “Are you sure?” And with that she gave him

ample opportunity to make sure, repeating with interest the look wasted

upon Roscoe. “I think you must be mistaken,” she continued. “I think

it's your brother who is blushing. I've thrown him into confusion.”

“How?”

She laughed, and then, leaning to him a little, said in a tone as

confidential as she could make it, under cover of the uproar. “By trying

to begin with him a courtship I meant for YOU!”

This might well be a style new to Jim; and it was. He supposed it a

nonsensical form of badinage, and yet it took his breath. He realized

that he wished what she said to be the literal truth, and he was

instantly snared by that realization.

“By George!” he said. “I guess you're the kind of girl that can say

anything--yes, and get away with it, too!”

She laughed again--in her way, so that he could not tell whether she was

laughing at him or at herself or at the nonsense she was talking; and

she said: “But you see I don't care whether I get away with it or not.

I wish you'd tell me frankly if you think I've got a chance to get away

with YOU?”

“More like if you've got a chance to get away FROM me!” Jim was inspired

to reply. “Not one in the world, especially after beginning by making

fun of me like that.”

“I mightn't be so much in fun as you think,” she said, regarding him

with sudden gravity.

“Well,” said Jim, in simple honesty, “you're a funny girl!”

Her gravity continued an instant longer. “I may not turn out to be funny

for YOU.”

“So long as you turn out to be anything at all for me, I expect I can

manage to be satisfied.” And with that, to his own surprise, it was his

turn to blush, whereupon she laughed again.

“Yes,” he said, plaintively, not wholly lacking intuition, “I can see

you're the sort of girl that would laugh the minute you see a man really

means anything!”

“'Laugh'!” she cried, gaily. “Why, it might be a matter of life and

death! But if you want tragedy, I'd better put the question at once,

considering the mistake I made with your brother.”

Jim was dazed. She seemed to be playing a little game of mockery and

nonsense with him, but he had glimpses of a flashing danger in it;

he was but too sensible of being outclassed, and had somewhere a

consciousness that he could never quite know this giddy and alluring

lady, no matter how long it pleased her to play with him. But he

mightily wanted her to keep on playing with him.

“Put what question?” he said, breathlessly.

“As you are a new neighbor of mine and of my family,” she returned,

speaking slowly and with a cross-examiner's severity, “I think it would

be well for me to know at once whether you are already walking out with

any young lady or not. Mr. Sheridan, think well! Are you spoken for?”

“Not yet,” he gasped. “Are you?”

“NO!” she cried, and with that they both laughed again; and the pastime

proceeded, increasing both in its gaiety and in its gravity.

Observing its continuance, Mr. Robert Lamhorn, opposite, turned from a

lively conversation with Edith and remarked covertly to Sibyl that Miss

Vertrees was “starting rather picturesquely with Jim.” And he added,

languidly, “Do you suppose she WOULD?”

For the moment Sibyl gave no sign of having heard him, but seemed

interested in the clasp of a long “rope” of pearls, a loop of which she

was allowing to swing from her fingers, resting her elbow upon the table

and following with her eyes the twinkle of diamonds and platinum in the

clasp at the end of the loop. She wore many jewels. She was pretty,

but hers was not the kind of prettiness to be loaded with too sumptuous

accessories, and jeweled head-dresses are dangerous--they may emphasize

the wrongness of the wearer.

“I said Miss Vertrees seems to be starting pretty strong with Jim,”

repeated Mr. Lamhorn.

“I heard you.” There was a latent discontent always somewhere in her

eyes, no matter what she threw upon the surface of cover it, and just

now she did not care to cover it; she looked sullen. “Starting any

stronger than you did with Edith?” she inquired.

“Oh, keep the peace!” he said, crossly. “That's off, of course.”

“You haven't been making her see it this evening--precisely,” said

Sibyl, looking at him steadily. “You've talked to her for--”

“For Heaven's sake,” he begged, “keep the peace!”

“Well, what have you just been doing?”

“SH!” he said. “Listen to your father-in-law.”

Sheridan was booming and braying louder than ever, the orchestra having

begun to play “The Rosary,” to his vast content.

“I COUNT THEM OVER, LA-LA-TUM-TEE-DUM,” he roared, beating the measures

with his fork. “EACH HOUR A PEARL, EACH PEARL TEE-DUM-TUM-DUM--What's

the matter with all you folks? Why'n't you SING? Miss Vertrees, I bet a

thousand dollars YOU sing! Why'n't--”

“Mr. Sheridan,” she said, turning cheerfully from the ardent Jim, “you

don't know what you interrupted! Your son isn't used to my rough ways,

and my soldier's wooing frightens him, but I think he was about to say

something important.”

“I'll say something important to him if he doesn't!” the father

threatened, more delighted with her than ever. “By gosh! if I was his

age--or a widower right NOW--”

“Oh, wait!” cried Mary. “If they'd only make less noise! I want Mrs.

Sheridan to hear.”

“She'd say the same,” he shouted. “She'd tell me I was mighty slow if I

couldn't get ahead o' Jim. Why, when I was his age--”

“You must listen to your father,” Mary interrupted, turning to Jim, who

had grown red again. “He's going to tell us how, when he was your age,

he made those two blades of grass grow out of a teacup--and you could

see for yourself he didn't get them out of his sleeve!”

At that Sheridan pounded the table till it jumped. “Look here, young

lady!” he roared. “Some o' these days I'm either goin' to slap you--or

I'm goin' to kiss you!”

Edith looked aghast; she was afraid this was indeed “too awful,” but

Mary Vertrees burst into ringing laughter.

“Both!” she cried. “Both! The one to make me forget the other!”

“But which--” he began, and then suddenly gave forth such stentorian

trumpetings of mirth that for once the whole table stopped to listen.

“Jim,” he roared, “if you don't propose to that girl to-night I'll send

you back to the machine-shop with Bibbs!”

And Bibbs--down among the retainers by the sugar Pump Works, and

watching Mary Vertrees as a ragged boy in the street might watch a rich

little girl in a garden--Bibbs heard. He heard--and he knew what his

father's plans were now.

CHAPTER VII

Mrs. Vertrees “sat up” for her daughter, Mr. Vertrees having retired

after a restless evening, not much soothed by the society of his

Landseers. Mary had taken a key, insisting that he should not come for

her and seeming confident that she would not lack for escort; nor did

the sequel prove her confidence unwarranted. But Mrs. Vertrees had a

long vigil of it.

She was not the woman to make herself easy--no servant had ever seen her

in a wrapper--and with her hair and dress and her shoes just what they

had been when she returned from the afternoon's call, she sat through

the slow night hours in a stiff little chair under the gaslight in her

own room, which was directly over the “front hall.” There, book in hand,

she employed the time in her own reminiscences, though it was her belief

that she was reading Madame de Remusat's.

Her thoughts went backward into her life and into her husband's; and the

deeper into the past they went, the brighter the pictures they brought

her--and there is tragedy. Like her husband, she thought backward

because she did not dare think forward definitely. What thinking forward

this troubled couple ventured took the form of a slender hope which

neither of them could have borne to hear put in words, and yet they

had talked it over, day after day, from the very hour when they heard

Sheridan was to build his New House next door. For--so quickly does

any ideal of human behavior become an antique--their youth was of the

innocent old days, so dead! of “breeding” and “gentility,” and no craft

had been more straitly trained upon them than that of talking about

things without mentioning them. Herein was marked the most vital

difference between Mr. and Mrs. Vertrees and their big new neighbor.

Sheridan, though his youth was of the same epoch, knew nothing of such

matters. He had been chopping wood for the morning fire in the country

grocery while they were still dancing.

It was after one o'clock when Mrs. Vertrees heard steps and the delicate

clinking of the key in the lock, and then, with the opening of the door,

Mary's laugh, and “Yes--if you aren't afraid--to-morrow!”

The door closed, and she rushed up-stairs, bringing with her a breath

of cold and bracing air into her mother's room. “Yes,” she said, before

Mrs. Vertrees could speak, “he brought me home!”

She let her cloak fall upon the bed, and, drawing an old red-velvet

rocking-chair forward, sat beside her mother after giving her a light

pat upon the shoulder and a hearty kiss upon the cheek.

“Mamma!” Mary exclaimed, when Mrs. Vertrees had expressed a hope that

she had enjoyed the evening and had not caught cold. “Why don't you ask

me?”

This inquiry obviously made her mother uncomfortable. “I don't--” she

faltered. “Ask you what, Mary?”

“How I got along and what he's like.”

“Mary!”

“Oh, it isn't distressing!” said Mary. “And I got along so fast--” She

broke off to laugh; continuing then, “But that's the way I went at it,

of course. We ARE in a hurry, aren't we?”

“I don't know what you mean,” Mrs. Vertrees insisted, shaking her head

plaintively.

“Yes,” said Mary, “I'm going out in his car with him to-morrow

afternoon, and to the theater the next night--but I stopped it there.

You see, after you give the first push, you must leave it to them while

YOU pretend to run away!”

“My dear, I don't know what to--”

“What to make of anything!” Mary finished for her. “So that's all

right! Now I'll tell you all about it. It was gorgeous and deafening and

tee-total. We could have lived a year on it. I'm not good at figures,

but I calculated that if we lived six months on poor old Charlie and Ned

and the station-wagon and the Victoria, we could manage at least twice

as long on the cost of the 'house-warming.' I think the orchids alone

would have lasted us a couple of months. There they were, before me, but

I couldn't steal 'em and sell 'em, and so--well, so I did what I could!”

She leaned back and laughed reassuringly to her troubled mother. “It

seemed to be a success--what I could,” she said, clasping her hands

behind her neck and stirring the rocker to motion as a rhythmic

accompaniment to her narrative. “The girl Edith and her sister-in-law,

Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan, were too anxious about the effect of things on me.

The father's worth a bushel of both of them, if they knew it. He's

what he is. I like him.” She paused reflectively, continuing, “Edith's

'interested' in that Lamhorn boy; he's good-looking and not stupid, but

I think he's--” She interrupted herself with a cheery outcry: “Oh! I

mustn't be calling him names! If he's trying to make Edith like him, I

ought to respect him as a colleague.”

“I don't understand a thing you're talking about,” Mrs. Vertrees

complained.

“All the better! Well, he's a bad lot, that Lamhorn boy; everybody's

always known that, but the Sheridans don't know the everybodies that

know. He sat between Edith and Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan. SHE'S like those

people you wondered about at the theater, the last time we went--dressed

in ball-gowns; bound to show their clothes and jewels SOMEwhere! She

flatters the father, and so did I, for that matter--but not that way. I

treated him outrageously!”

“Mary!”

“That's what flattered him. After dinner he made the whole regiment of

us follow him all over the house, while he lectured like a guide on the

Palatine. He gave dimensions and costs, and the whole b'ilin' of 'em

listened as if they thought he intended to make them a present of the

house. What he was proudest of was the plumbing and that Bay of Naples

panorama in the hall. He made us look at all the plumbing--bath-rooms

and everywhere else--and then he made us look at the Bay of Naples. He

said it was a hundred and eleven feet long, but I think it's more. And

he led us all into the ready-made library to see a poem Edith had taken

a prize with at school. They'd had it printed in gold letters and framed

in mother-of-pearl. But the poem itself was rather simple and wistful

and nice--he read it to us, though Edith tried to stop him. She was

modest about it, and said she'd never written anything else. And then,

after a while, Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan asked me to come across the street

to her house with them--her husband and Edith and Mr. Lamhorn and Jim

Sheridan--”

Mrs. Vertrees was shocked. “'Jim'!” she exclaimed. “Mary, PLEASE--”

“Of course,” said Mary. “I'll make it as easy for you as I can,

mamma. Mr. James Sheridan, Junior. We went over there, and Mrs. Roscoe

explained that 'the men were all dying for a drink,' though I noticed

that Mr. Lamhorn was the only one near death's door on that account.

Edith and Mrs. Roscoe said they knew I'd been bored at the dinner. They

were objectionably apologetic about it, and they seemed to think NOW we

were going to have a 'good time' to make up for it. But I hadn't been

bored at the dinner, I'd been amused; and the 'good time' at Mrs.

Roscoe's was horribly, horribly stupid.”

“But, Mary,” her mother began, “is--is--” And she seemed unable to

complete the question.

“Never mind, mamma. I'll say it. Is Mr. James Sheridan, Junior, stupid?

I'm sure he's not at all stupid about business. Otherwise--Oh, what

right have I to be calling people 'stupid' because they're not exactly

my kind? On the big dinner-table they had enormous icing models of the

Sheridan Building--”

“Oh, no!” Mrs. Vertrees cried. “Surely not!”

“Yes, and two other things of that kind--I don't know what. But, after

all, I wondered if they were so bad. If I'd been at a dinner at a palace

in Italy, and a relief or inscription on one of the old silver pieces

had referred to some great deed or achievement of the family, I

shouldn't have felt superior; I'd have thought it picturesque and

stately--I'd have been impressed. And what's the real difference? The

icing is temporary, and that's much more modest, isn't it? And why is

it vulgar to feel important more on account of something you've done

yourself than because of something one of your ancestors did? Besides,

if we go back a few generations, we've all got such hundreds of

ancestors it seems idiotic to go picking out one or two to be proud of

ourselves about. Well, then, mamma, I managed not to feel superior to

Mr. James Sheridan, Junior, because he didn't see anything out of place

in the Sheridan Building in sugar.”

Mrs. Vertrees's expression had lost none of its anxiety pending the

conclusion of this lively bit of analysis, and she shook her head

gravely. “My dear, dear child,” she said, “it seems to me--It looks--I'm

afraid--”

“Say as much of it as you can, mamma,” said Mary, encouragingly. “I can

get it, if you'll just give me one key-word.”

“Everything you say,” Mrs. Vertrees began, timidly, “seems to have the

air of--it is as if you were seeking to--to make yourself--”

“Oh, I see! You mean I sound as if I were trying to force myself to like

him.”

“Not exactly, Mary. That wasn't quite what I meant,” said Mrs. Vertrees,

speaking direct untruth with perfect unconsciousness. “But you said

that--that you found the latter part of the evening at young Mrs.

Sheridan's unentertaining--”

“And as Mr. James Sheridan was there, and I saw more of him than at

dinner, and had a horribly stupid time in spite of that, you think I--”

And then it was Mary who left the deduction unfinished.

Mrs. Vertrees nodded; and though both the mother and the daughter

understood, Mary felt it better to make the understanding definite.

“Well,” she asked, gravely, “is there anything else I can do? You and

papa don't want me to do anything that distresses me, and so, as this is

the only thing to be done, it seems it's up to me not to let it distress

me. That's all there is about it, isn't it?”

“But nothing MUST distress you!” the mother cried.

“That's what I say!” said Mary, cheerfully. “And so it doesn't. It's all

right.” She rose and took her cloak over her arm, as if to go to her own

room. But on the way to the door she stopped, and stood leaning against

the foot of the bed, contemplating a threadbare rug at her feet.

“Mother, you've told me a thousand times that it doesn't really matter

whom a girl marries.”

“No, no!” Mrs. Vertrees protested. “I never said such a--”

“No, not in words; I mean what you MEANT. It's true, isn't it, that

marriage really is 'not a bed of roses, but a field of battle'? To get

right down to it, a girl could fight it out with anybody, couldn't she?

One man as well as another?”

“Oh, my dear! I'm sure your father and I--”

“Yes, yes,” said Mary, indulgently. “I don't mean you and papa. But

isn't it propinquity that makes marriages? So many people say so, there

must be something in it.”

“Mary, I can't bear for you to talk like that.” And Mrs. Vertrees

lifted pleading eyes to her daughter--eyes that begged to be spared. “It

sounds--almost reckless!”

Mary caught the appeal, came to her, and kissed her gaily. “Never fret,

dear! I'm not likely to do anything I don't want to do--I've always been

too thorough-going a little pig! And if it IS propinquity that does our

choosing for us, well, at least no girl in the world could ask for more

than THAT! How could there be any more propinquity than the very house

next door?”

She gave her mother a final kiss and went gaily all the way to the door

this time, pausing for her postscript with her hand on the knob. “Oh,

the one that caught me looking in the window, mamma, the youngest one--”

“Did he speak of it?” Mrs. Vertrees asked, apprehensively.

“No. He didn't speak at all, that I saw, to any one. I didn't meet him.

But he isn't insane, I'm sure; or if he is, he has long intervals when

he's not. Mr. James Sheridan mentioned that he lived at home when he was

'well enough'; and it may be he's only an invalid. He looks dreadfully

ill, but he has pleasant eyes, and it struck me that if--if one were

in the Sheridan family”--she laughed a little ruefully--“he might be

interesting to talk to sometimes, when there was too much stocks and

bonds. I didn't see him after dinner.”

“There must be something wrong with him,” said Mrs. Vertrees. “They'd

have introduced him if there wasn't.”

“I don't know. He's been ill so much and away so much--sometimes people

like that just don't seem to 'count' in a family. His father spoke of

sending him back to a machine-shop of some sort; I suppose he meant

when the poor thing gets better. I glanced at him just then, when Mr.

Sheridan mentioned him, and he happened to be looking straight at me;

and he was pathetic-looking enough before that, but the most tragic

change came over him. He seemed just to die, right there at the table!”

“You mean when his father spoke of sending him to the shop place?”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Sheridan must be very unfeeling.”

“No,” said Mary, thoughtfully, “I don't think he is; but he might be

uncomprehending, and certainly he's the kind of man to do anything he

once sets out to do. But I wish I hadn't been looking at that poor boy

just then! I'm afraid I'll keep remembering--”

“I wouldn't.” Mrs. Vertrees smiled faintly, and in her smile there

was the remotest ghost of a genteel roguishness. “I'd keep my mind on

pleasanter things, Mary.”

Mary laughed and nodded. “Yes, indeed! Plenty pleasant enough, and

probably, if all were known, too good--even for me!”

And when she had gone Mrs. Vertrees drew a long breath, as if a burden

were off her mind, and, smiling, began to undress in a gentle reverie.

CHAPTER VIII

Edith, glancing casually into the “ready-made” library, stopped

abruptly, seeing Bibbs there alone. He was standing before the

pearl-framed and golden-lettered poem, musingly inspecting it. He read

it:

FUGITIVE

I will forget the things that sting:

The lashing look, the barbed word.

I know the very hands that fling

The stones at me had never stirred

To anger but for their own scars.

They've suffered so, that's why they strike.

I'll keep my heart among the stars

Where none shall hunt it out. Oh, like

These wounded ones I must not be,

For, wounded, I might strike in turn!

So, none shall hurt me. Far and free

Where my heart flies no one shall learn.

“Bibbs!” Edith's voice was angry, and her color deepened suddenly as she

came into the room, preceded by a scent of violets much more powerful

than that warranted by the actual bunch of them upon the lapel of her

coat.

Bibbs did not turn his head, but wagged it solemnly, seeming depressed

by the poem. “Pretty young, isn't it?” he said. “There must have been

something about your looks that got the prize, Edith; I can't believe

the poem did it.”

She glanced hurriedly over her shoulder and spoke sharply, but in a

low voice: “I don't think it's very nice of you to bring it up at all,

Bibbs. I'd like a chance to forget the whole silly business. I didn't

want them to frame it, and I wish to goodness papa'd quit talking about

it; but here, that night, after the dinner, didn't he go and read it

aloud to the whole crowd of 'em! And then they all wanted to know what

other poems I'd written and why I didn't keep it up and write some more,

and if I didn't, why didn't I, and why this and why that, till I thought

I'd die of shame!”

“You could tell 'em you had writer's cramp,” Bibbs suggested.

“I couldn't tell 'em anything! I just choke with mortification every

time anybody speaks of the thing.”

Bibbs looked grieved. “The poem isn't THAT bad, Edith. You see, you were

only seventeen when you wrote it.”

“Oh, hush up!” she snapped. “I wish it had burnt my fingers the first

time I touched it. Then I might have had sense enough to leave it where

it was. I had no business to take it, and I've been ashamed--”

“No, no,” he said, comfortingly. “It was the very most flattering thing

ever happened to me. It was almost my last flight before I went to the

machine-shop, and it's pleasant to think somebody liked it enough to--”

“But I DON'T like it!” she exclaimed. “I don't even understand it--and

papa made so much fuss over its getting the prize, I just hate it! The

truth is I never dreamed it'd get the prize.”

“Maybe they expected father to endow the school,” Bibbs murmured.

“Well, I had to have something to turn in, and I couldn't write a LINE!

I hate poetry, anyhow; and Bobby Lamhorn's always teasing me about how

I 'keep my heart among the stars.' He makes it seem such a mushy kind of

thing, the way he says it. I hate it!”

“You'll have to live it down, Edith. Perhaps abroad and under another

name you might find--”

“Oh, hush up! I'll hire some one to steal it and burn it the first

chance I get.” She turned away petulantly, moving to the door. “I'd like

to think I could hope to hear the last of it before I die!”

“Edith!” he called, as she went into the hall.

“What's the matter?”

“I want to ask you: Do I really look better, or have you just got used

to me?”

“What on earth do you mean?” she said, coming back as far as the

threshold.

“When I first came you couldn't look at me,” Bibbs explained, in his

impersonal way. “But I've noticed you look at me lately. I wondered if

I'd--”

“It's because you look so much better,” she told him, cheerfully. “This

month you've been here's done you no end of good. It's the change.”

“Yes, that's what they said at the sanitarium--the change.”

“You look worse than 'most anybody I ever saw,” said Edith, with supreme

candor. “But I don't know much about it. I've never seen a corpse in my

life, and I've never even seen anybody that was terribly sick, so you

mustn't judge by me. I only know you do look better, I'm glad to say.

But you're right about my not being able to look at you at first. You

had a kind of whiteness that--Well, you're almost as thin, I suppose,

but you've got more just ordinarily pale; not that ghastly look. Anybody

could look at you now, Bibbs, and no--not get--”

“Sick?”

“Well--almost that!” she laughed. “And you're getting a better color

every day, Bibbs; you really are. You're getting along splendidly.”

“I--I'm afraid so,” he said, ruefully.

“'Afraid so'! Well, if you aren't the queerest! I suppose you mean

father might send you back to the machine-shop if you get well enough.

I heard him say something about it the night of the--” The jingle of

a distant bell interrupted her, and she glanced at her watch. “Bobby

Lamhorn! I'm going to motor him out to look at a place in the country.

Afternoon, Bibbs!”

When she had gone, Bibbs mooned pessimistically from shelf to shelf,

his eye wandering among the titles of the books. The library consisted

almost entirely of handsome “uniform editions”: Irving, Poe, Cooper,

Goldsmith, Scott, Byron, Burns, Longfellow, Tennyson, Hume, Gibbon,

Prescott, Thackeray, Dickens, De Musset, Balzac, Gautier, Flaubert,

Goethe, Schiller, Dante, and Tasso. There were shelves and shelves

of encyclopedias, of anthologies, of “famous classics,” of “Oriental

masterpieces,” of “masterpieces of oratory,” and more shelves of

“selected libraries” of “literature,” of “the drama,” and of “modern

science.” They made an effective decoration for the room, all these

big, expensive books, with a glossy binding here and there twinkling a

reflection of the flames that crackled in the splendid Gothic fireplace;

but Bibbs had an impression that the bookseller who selected them

considered them a relief, and that white-jacket considered them a

burden of dust, and that nobody else considered them at all. Himself, he

disturbed not one.

There came a chime of bells from a clock in another part of the house,

and white-jacket appeared beamingly in the doorway, bearing furs.

“Awready, Mist' Bibbs,” he announced. “You' ma say wrap up wawm f' you'

ride, an' she cain' go with you to-day, an' not f'git go see you' pa at

fo' 'clock. Aw ready, suh.”

He equipped Bibbs for the daily drive Dr. Gurney had commanded; and in

the manner of a master of ceremonies unctuously led the way. In the

hall they passed the Moor, and Bibbs paused before it while white-jacket

opened the door with a flourish and waved condescendingly to the

chauffeur in the car which stood waiting in the driveway.

“It seems to me I asked you what you thought about this 'statue' when I

first came home, George,” said Bibbs, thoughtfully. “What did you tell

me?”

“Yessuh!” George chuckled, perfectly understanding that for some unknown

reason Bibbs enjoyed hearing him repeat his opinion of the Moor. “You

ast me when you firs' come home, an' you ast me nex' day, an' mighty

near ev'y day all time you been here; an' las' Sunday you ast me

twicet.” He shook his head solemnly. “Look to me mus' be somep'm might

lamiDAL 'bout 'at statue!”

“Mighty what?”

“Mighty lamiDAL!” George, burst out laughing. “What DO 'at word mean,

Mist' Bibbs?”

“It's new to me, George. Where did you hear it?”

“I nev' DID hear it!” said George. “I uz dess sittin' thinkum to myse'f

an' she pop in my head--'lamiDAL,' dess like 'at! An' she soun' so good,

seem like she GOTTA mean somep'm!”

“Come to think of it, I believe she does mean something. Why, yes--”

“Do she?” cried George. “WHAT she mean?”

“It's exactly the word for the statue,” said Bibbs, with conviction, as

he climbed into the car. “It's a lamiDAL statue.”

“Hiyi!” George exulted. “Man! Man! Listen! Well, suh, she mighty lamiDAL

statue, but lamiDAL statue heap o' trouble to dus'!”

“I expect she is!” said Bibbs, as the engine began to churn; and a moment later he was swept from sight.

George turned to Mist' Jackson, who had been listening benevolently in

the hallway. “Same he aw-ways say, Mist' Jackson--'I expec' she is!'

Ev'y day he try t' git me talk 'bout 'at lamiDAL statue, an' aw-ways,

las' thing HE say, 'I expec' she is!' You know, Mist' Jackson, if he git

well, 'at young man go' be pride o' the family, Mist' Jackson. Yes-suh,

right now I pick 'im fo' firs' money!”

“Look out with all 'at money, George!” Jackson warned the enthusiast.

“White folks 'n 'is house know 'im heap longer'n you. You the on'y man

bettin' on 'im!”

“I risk it!” cried George, merrily. “I put her all on now--ev'y cent!

'At boy's go' be flower o' the flock!”

This singular prophecy, founded somewhat recklessly upon gratitude for

the meaning of “lamiDAL,” differed radically from another prediction

concerning Bibbs, set forth for the benefit of a fair auditor some

twenty minutes later.

Jim Sheridan, skirting the edges of the town with Mary Vertrees

beside him, in his own swift machine, encountered the invalid upon

the highroad. The two cars were going in opposite directions, and the

occupants of Jim's had only a swaying glimpse of Bibbs sitting alone on

the back seat--his white face startlingly white against cap and collar

of black fur--but he flashed into recognition as Mary bowed to him.

Jim waved his left hand carelessly. “It's Bibbs, taking his

constitutional,” he explained.

“Yes, I know,” said Mary. “I bowed to him, too, though I've never met

him. In fact, I've only seen him once--no, twice. I hope he won't think

I'm very bold, bowing to him.”

“I doubt if he noticed it,” said honest Jim.

“Oh, no!” she cried.

“What's the trouble?”

“I'm almost sure people notice it when I bow to them.”

“Oh, I see!” said Jim. “Of course they would ordinarily, but Bibbs is

funny.”

“Is he? How?” she asked. “He strikes me as anything but funny.”

“Well, I'm his brother,” Jim said, deprecatingly, “but I don't know what

he's like, and, to tell the truth, I've never felt exactly like I WAS

his brother, the way I do Roscoe. Bibbs never did seem more than half

alive to me. Of course Roscoe and I are older, and when we were boys we

were too big to play with him, but he never played anyway, with boys his

own age. He'd rather just sit in the house and mope around by himself.

Nobody could ever get him to DO anything; you can't get him to do

anything now. He never had any LIFE in him; and honestly, if he is my

brother, I must say I believe Bibbs Sheridan is the laziest man God ever

made! Father put him in the machine-shop over at the Pump Works--best

thing in the world for him--and he was just plain no account. It made

him sick! If he'd had the right kind of energy--the kind father's got,

for instance, or Roscoe, either--why, it wouldn't have made him sick.

And suppose it was either of them--yes, or me, either--do you think any

of us would have stopped if we WERE sick? Not much! I hate to say it,

but Bibbs Sheridan'll never amount to anything as long as he lives.”

Mary looked thoughtful. “Is there any particular reason why he should?”

she asked.

“Good gracious!” he exclaimed. “You don't mean that, do you? Don't you

believe in a man's knowing how to earn his salt, no matter how much

money his father's got? Hasn't the business of this world got to be

carried on by everybody in it? Are we going to lay back on what we've

got and see other fellows get ahead of us? If we've got big things

already, isn't it every man's business to go ahead and make 'em bigger?

Isn't it his duty? Don't we always want to get bigger and bigger?”

“Ye-es--I don't know. But I feel rather sorry for your brother. He

looked so lonely--and sick.”

“He's gettin' better every day,” Jim said. “Dr. Gurney says so. There's

nothing much the matter with him, really--it's nine-tenths imaginary.

'Nerves'! People that are willing to be busy don't have nervous

diseases, because they don't have time to imagine 'em.”

“You mean his trouble is really mental?”

“Oh, he's not a lunatic,” said Jim. “He's just queer. Sometimes he'll

say something right bright, but half the time what he says is 'way off

the subject, or else there isn't any sense to it at all. For instance,

the other day I heard him talkin' to one of the darkies in the hall. The

darky asked him what time he wanted the car for his drive, and anybody

else in the world would have just said what time they DID want it, and

that would have been all there was to it; but here's what Bibbs says,

and I heard him with my own ears. 'What time do I want the car?' he

says. 'Well, now, that depends--that depends,' he says. He talks slow

like that, you know. 'I'll tell you what time I want the car, George,'

he says, 'if you'll tell ME what you think of this statue!' That's

exactly his words! Asked the darky what he thought of that Arab Edith

and mother bought for the hall!”

Mary pondered upon this. “He might have been in fun, perhaps,” she

suggested.

“Askin' a darky what he thought of a piece of statuary--of a work

of art! Where on earth would be the fun of that? No, you're just

kind-hearted--and that's the way you OUGHT to be, of course--”

“Thank you, Mr. Sheridan!” she laughed.

“See here!” he cried. “Isn't there any way for us to get over this

Mister and Miss thing? A month's got thirty-one days in it; I've managed

to be with you a part of pretty near all the thirty-one, and I think you

know how I feel by this time--”

She looked panic-stricken immediately. “Oh, no,” she protested, quickly.

“No, I don't, and--”

“Yes, you do,” he said, and his voice shook a little. “You couldn't help

knowing.”

“But I do!” she denied, hurriedly. “I do help knowing. I mean--Oh,

wait!”

“What for? You do know how I feel, and you--well, you've certainly

WANTED me to feel that way--or else pretended--”

“Now, now!” she lamented. “You're spoiling such a cheerful afternoon!”

“'Spoilin' it!'” He slowed down the car and turned his face to her

squarely. “See here, Miss Vertrees, haven't you--”

“Stop! Stop the car a minute.” And when he had complied she faced him as

squarely as he evidently desired her to face him. “Listen. I don't want

you to go on, to-day.”

“Why not?” he asked, sharply.

“I don't know.”

“You mean it's just a whim?”

“I don't know,” she repeated. Her voice was low and troubled and honest,

and she kept her clear eyes upon his.

“Will you tell me something?”

“Almost anything.”

“Have you ever told any man you loved him?”

And at that, though she laughed, she looked a little contemptuous. “No,”

she said. “And I don't think I ever shall tell any man that--or ever

know what it means. I'm in earnest, Mr. Sheridan.”

“Then you--you've just been flirting with me!” Poor Jim looked both

furious and crestfallen.

“Not one bit!” she cried. “Not one word! Not one syllable! I've meant

every single thing!”

“I don't--”

“Of course you don't!” she said. “Now, Mr. Sheridan, I want you to start

the car. Now! Thank you. Slowly, till I finish what I have to say. I

have not flirted with you. I have deliberately courted you. One thing

more, and then I want you to take me straight home, talking about the

weather all the way. I said that I do not believe I shall ever 'care'

for any man, and that is true. I doubt the existence of the kind of

'caring' we hear about in poems and plays and novels. I think it must be

just a kind of emotional TALK--most of it. At all events, I don't feel

it. Now, we can go faster, please.”

“Just where does that let me out?” he demanded. “How does that excuse

you for--”

“It isn't an excuse,” she said, gently, and gave him one final look,

wholly desolate. “I haven't said I should never marry.”

“What?” Jim gasped.

She inclined her head in a broken sort of acquiescence, very humble,

unfathomably sorrowful.

“I promise nothing,” she said, faintly.

“You needn't!” shouted Jim, radiant and exultant. “You needn't! By

George! I know you're square; that's enough for me! You wait and promise

whenever you're ready!”

“Don't forget what I asked,” she begged him.

“Talk about the weather? I will! God bless the old weather!” cried the

happy Jim.

CHAPTER IX

Through the open country Bibbs was borne flying between brown fields

and sun-flecked groves of gray trees, to breathe the rushing, clean

air beneath a glorious sky--that sky so despised in the city, and so

maltreated there, that from early October to mid-May it was impossible

for men to remember that blue is the rightful color overhead.

Upon each of Bibbs's cheeks there was a hint of something almost

resembling a pinkishness; not actual color, but undeniably its phantom.

How largely this apparition may have been the work of the wind upon his

face it is difficult to calculate, for beyond a doubt it was partly the

result of a lady's bowing to him upon no more formal introduction than

the circumstance of his having caught her looking into his window a

month before. She had bowed definitely; she had bowed charmingly. And it

seemed to Bibbs that she must have meant to convey her forgiveness.

There had been something in her recognition of him unfamiliar to

his experience, and he rode the warmer for it. Nor did he lack the

impression that he would long remember her as he had just seen her: her

veil tumultuously blowing back, her face glowing in the wind--and that

look of gay friendliness tossed to him like a fresh rose in carnival.

By and by, upon a rising ground, the driver halted the car, then backed

and tacked, and sent it forward again with its nose to the south and the

smoke. Far before him Bibbs saw the great smudge upon the horizon,

that nest of cloud in which the city strove and panted like an engine

shrouded in its own steam. But to Bibbs, who had now to go to the very

heart of it, for a commanded interview with his father, the distant

cloud was like an implacable genius issuing thunderously in smoke from

his enchanted bottle, and irresistibly drawing Bibbs nearer and nearer.

They passed from the farm lands, and came, in the amber light of

November late afternoon, to the farthermost outskirts of the city; and

here the sky shimmered upon the verge of change from blue to gray;

the smoke did not visibly permeate the air, but it was there,

nevertheless--impalpable, thin, no more than the dust of smoke. And

then, as the car drove on, the chimneys and stacks of factories came

swimming up into view like miles of steamers advancing abreast, every

funnel with its vast plume, savage and black, sweeping to the horizon,

dripping wealth and dirt and suffocation over league on league already

rich and vile with grime.

The sky had become only a dingy thickening of the soiled air; and a roar

and clangor of metals beat deafeningly on Bibbs's ears. And now the car

passed two great blocks of long brick buildings, hideous in all ways

possible to make them hideous; doorways showing dark one moment and

lurid the next with the leap of some virulent interior flame, revealing

blackened giants, half naked, in passionate action, struggling with

formless things in the hot illumination. And big as these shops were,

they were growing bigger, spreading over a third block, where two new

structures were mushrooming to completion in some hasty cement process

of a stability not over-reassuring. Bibbs pulled the rug closer about

him, and not even the phantom of color was left upon his cheeks as he

passed this place, for he knew it too well. Across the face of one of

the buildings there was an enormous sign: “Sheridan Automatic Pump Co.,

Inc.”

Thence they went through streets of wooden houses, all grimed, and

adding their own grime from many a sooty chimney; flimsey wooden houses

of a thousand flimsy whimsies in the fashioning, built on narrow lots

and nudging one another crossly, shutting out the stingy sunlight from

one another; bad neighbors who would destroy one another root and branch

some night when the right wind blew. They were only waiting for that

wind and a cigarette, and then they would all be gone together--a pinch

of incense burned upon the tripod of the god.

Along these streets there were skinny shade-trees, and here and there

a forest elm or walnut had been left; but these were dying. Some people

said it was the scale; some said it was the smoke; and some were sure

that asphalt and “improving” the streets did it; but Bigness was in

too Big a hurry to bother much about trees. He had telegraph-poles

and telephone-poles and electric-light-poles and trolley-poles by the

thousand to take their places. So he let the trees die and put up his

poles. They were hideous, but nobody minded that; and sometimes the

wires fell and killed people--but not often enough to matter at all.

Thence onward the car bore Bibbs through the older parts of the

town where the few solid old houses not already demolished were in

transition: some, with their fronts torn away, were being made into

segments of apartment-buildings; others had gone uproariously into

trade, brazenly putting forth “show-windows” on their first floors,

seeming to mean it for a joke; one or two with unaltered facades peeped

humorously over the tops of temporary office buildings of one story

erected in the old front yards. Altogether, the town here was like a

boarding-house hash the Sunday after Thanksgiving; the old ingredients

were discernible.

This was the fringe of Bigness's own sanctuary, and now Bibbs reached

the roaring holy of holies itself. The car must stop at every crossing

while the dark-garbed crowds, enveloped in maelstroms of dust, hurried

before it. Magnificent new buildings, already dingy, loomed hundreds of

feet above him; newer ones, more magnificent, were rising beside them,

rising higher; old buildings were coming down; middle-aged buildings

were coming down; the streets were laid open to their entrails and men

worked underground between palisades, and overhead in metal cobwebs

like spiders in the sky. Trolley-cars and long interurban cars, built to

split the wind like torpedo-boats, clanged and shrieked their way

round swarming corners; motor-cars of every kind and shape known to

man babbled frightful warnings and frantic demands; hospital ambulances

clamored wildly for passage; steam-whistles signaled the swinging of

titanic tentacle and claw; riveters rattled like machine-guns; the

ground shook to the thunder of gigantic trucks; and the conglomerate

sound of it all was the sound of earthquake playing accompaniments for

battle and sudden death. On one of the new steel buildings no work

was being done that afternoon. The building had killed a man in the

morning--and the steel-workers always stop for the day when that

“happens.”

And in the hurrying crowds, swirling and sifting through the

brobdingnagian camp of iron and steel, one saw the camp-followers and

the pagan women--there would be work to-day and dancing to-night. For

the Puritan's dry voice is but the crackling of a leaf underfoot in the

rush and roar of the coming of the new Egypt.

Bibbs was on time. He knew it must be “to the minute” or his father

would consider it an outrage; and the big chronometer in Sheridan's

office marked four precisely when Bibbs walked in. Coincidentally with

his entrance five people who had been at work in the office, under

Sheridan's direction, walked out. They departed upon no visible or

audible suggestion, and with a promptness that seemed ominous to

the new-comer. As the massive door clicked softly behind the elderly

stenographer, the last of the procession, Bibbs had a feeling that

they all understood that he was a failure as a great man's son, a

disappointment, the “queer one” of the family, and that he had been

summoned to judgment--a well-founded impression, for that was exactly

what they understood.

“Sit down,” said Sheridan.

It is frequently an advantage for deans, school-masters, and worried

fathers to place delinquents in the sitting-posture. Bibbs sat.

Sheridan, standing, gazed enigmatically upon his son for a period of

silence, then walked slowly to a window and stood looking out of it, his

big hands, loosely hooked together by the thumbs, behind his back. They

were soiled, as were all other hands down-town, except such as might be

still damp from a basin.

“Well, Bibbs,” he said at last, not altering his attitude, “do you know

what I'm goin' to do with you?”

Bibbs, leaning back in his chair, fixed his eyes contemplatively upon

the ceiling. “I heard you tell Jim,” he began, in his slow way. “You

said you'd send him to the machine-shop with me if he didn't propose to

Miss Vertrees. So I suppose that must be your plan for me. But--”

“But what?” said Sheridan, irritably, as the son paused.

“Isn't there somebody you'd let ME propose to?”

That brought his father sharply round to face him. “You beat the devil!

Bibbs, what IS the matter with you? Why can't you be like anybody else?”

“Liver, maybe,” said Bibbs, gently.

“Boh! Even ole Doc Gurney says there's nothin' wrong with you

organically. No. You're a dreamer, Bibbs; that's what's the matter,

and that's ALL the matter. Oh, not one o' these BIG dreamers that put

through the big deals! No, sir! You're the kind o' dreamer that just

sets out on the back fence and thinks about how much trouble there must

be in the world! That ain't the kind that builds the bridges, Bibbs;

it's the kind that borrows fifteen cents from his wife's uncle's

brother-in-law to get ten cent's worth o' plug tobacco and a nickel's

worth o' quinine!”

He put the finishing touch on this etching with a snort, and turned

again to the window.

“Look out there!” he bade his son. “Look out o' that window! Look at the

life and energy down there! I should think ANY young man's blood would

tingle to get into it and be part of it. Look at the big things young

men are doin' in this town!” He swung about, coming to the mahogany desk

in the middle of the room. “Look at what I was doin' at your age! Look

at what your own brothers are doin'! Look at Roscoe! Yes, and look

at Jim! I made Jim president o' the Sheridan Realty Company last

New-Year's, with charge of every inch o' ground and every brick and

every shingle and stick o' wood we own; and it's an example to any young

man--or ole man, either--the way he took ahold of it. Last July we found

out we wanted two more big warehouses at the Pump Works--wanted 'em

quick. Contractors said it couldn't be done; said nine or ten months

at the soonest; couldn't see it any other way. What'd Jim do? Took the

contract himself; found a fellow with a new cement and concrete process;

kept men on the job night and day, and stayed on it night and day

himself--and, by George! we begin to USE them warehouses next week! Four

months and a half, and every inch fireproof! I tell you Jim's one o'

these fellers that make miracles happen! Now, I don't say every young

man can be like Jim, because there's mighty few got his ability, but

every young man can go in and do his share. This town is God's own

country, and there's opportunity for anybody with a pound of energy and

an ounce o' gumption. I tell you these young business men I watch just

do my heart good! THEY don't set around on the back fence--no, sir! They

take enough exercise to keep their health; and they go to a baseball

game once or twice a week in summer, maybe, and they're raisin' nice

families, with sons to take their places sometime and carry on the

work--because the work's got to go ON! They're puttin' their life-blood

into it, I tell you, and that's why we're gettin' bigger every minute,

and why THEY'RE gettin' bigger, and why it's all goin' to keep ON

gettin' bigger!”

He slapped the desk resoundingly with his open palm, and then, observing

that Bibbs remained in the same impassive attitude, with his eyes still

fixed upon the ceiling in a contemplation somewhat plaintive, Sheridan

was impelled to groan. “Oh, Lord!” he said. “This is the way you always

were. I don't believe you understood a darn word I been sayin'! You

don't LOOK as if you did. By George! it's discouraging!”

“I don't understand about getting--about getting bigger,” said Bibbs,

bringing his gaze down to look at his father placatively. “I don't see

just why--”

“WHAT?” Sheridan leaned forward, resting his hands upon the desk and

staring across it incredulously at his son.

“I don't understand--exactly--what you want it all bigger for?”

“Great God!” shouted Sheridan, and struck the desk a blow with his

clenched fist. “A son of mine asks me that! You go out and ask the

poorest day-laborer you can find! Ask him that question--”

“I did once,” Bibbs interrupted; “when I was in the machine-shop. I--”

“Wha'd he say?”

“He said, 'Oh, hell!'” answered Bibbs, mildly.

“Yes, I reckon he would!” Sheridan swung away from the desk. “I reckon

he certainly would! And I got plenty sympathy with him right now,

myself!”

“It's the same answer, then?” Bibbs's voice was serious, almost

tremulous.

“Damnation!” Sheridan roared. “Did you ever hear the word Prosperity,

you ninny? Did you ever hear the word Ambition? Did you ever hear the

word PROGRESS?”

He flung himself into a chair after the outburst, his big chest surging,

his throat tumultuous with gutteral incoherences. “Now then,” he said,

huskily, when the anguish had somewhat abated, “what do you want to do?”

“Sir?”

“What do you WANT to do, I said.”

Taken by surprise, Bibbs stammered. “What--what do--I--what--”

“If I'd let you do exactly what you had the whim for, what would you

do?”

Bibbs looked startled; then timidity overwhelmed him--a profound

shyness. He bent his head and fixed his lowered eyes upon the toe of his

shoe, which he moved to and fro upon the rug, like a culprit called to

the desk in school.

“What would you do? Loaf?”

“No, sir.” Bibbs's voice was almost inaudible, and what little sound it

made was unquestionably a guilty sound. “I suppose I'd--I'd--”

“Well?”

“I suppose I'd try to--to write.”

“Write what?”

“Nothing important--just poems and essays, perhaps.”

“That all?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I see,” said his father, breathing quickly with the restraint he was

putting upon himself. “That is, you want to write, but you don't want to

write anything of any account.”

“You think--”

Sheridan got up again. “I take my hat off to the man that can write

a good ad,” he said, emphatically. “The best writin' talent in this

country is right spang in the ad business to-day. You buy a magazine for

good writin'--look on the back of it! Let me tell you I pay money for

that kind o' writin'. Maybe you think it's easy. Just try it! I've tried

it, and I can't do it. I tell you an ad's got to be written so it makes

people do the hardest thing in this world to GET 'em to do: it's got to

make 'em give up their MONEY! You talk about 'poems and essays.' I tell

you when it comes to the actual skill o' puttin' words together so as to

make things HAPPEN, R. T. Bloss, right here in this city, knows more in

a minute than George Waldo Emerson ever knew in his whole life!”

“You--you may be--” Bibbs said, indistinctly, the last word smothered in

a cough.

“Of COURSE I'm right! And if it ain't just like you to want to take up

with the most out-o'-date kind o' writin' there is! 'Poems and essays'!

My Lord, Bibbs, that's WOMEN'S work! You can't pick up a newspaper

without havin' to see where Mrs. Rumskididle read a paper on 'Jane

Eyre,' or 'East Lynne,' at the God-Knows-What Club. And 'poetry'! Why,

look at Edith! I expect that poem o' hers would set a pretty high-water

mark for you, young man, and it's the only one she's ever managed to

write in her whole LIFE! When I wanted her to go on and write some more

she said it took too much time. Said it took months and months. And

Edith's a smart girl; she's got more energy in her little finger than

you ever give me a chance to see in your whole body, Bibbs. Now look

at the facts: say she could turn out four or five poems a year and you

could turn out maybe two. That medal she got was worth about fifteen

dollars, so there's your income--thirty dollars a year! That's a fine

success to make of your life! I'm not sayin' a word against poetry. I

wouldn't take ten thousand dollars right now for that poem of Edith's;

and poetry's all right enough in its place--but you leave it to the

girls. A man's got to do a man's work in this world!”

He seated himself in a chair at his son's side and, leaning over, tapped

Bibbs confidentially on the knee. “This city's got the greatest future

in America, and if my sons behave right by me and by themselves they're

goin' to have a mighty fair share of it--a mighty fair share. I love

this town. It's God's own footstool, and it's made money for me every

day right along, I don't know how many years. I love it like I do my own

business, and I'd fight for it as quick as I'd fight for my own family.

It's a beautiful town. Look at our wholesale district; look at any

district you want to; look at the park system we're puttin' through,

and the boulevards and the public statuary. And she grows. God! how she

grows!” He had become intensely grave; he spoke with solemnity. “Now,

Bibbs, I can't take any of it--nor any gold or silver nor buildings nor

bonds--away with me in my shroud when I have to go. But I want to leave

my share in it to my boys. I've worked for it; I've been a builder and

a maker; and two blades of grass have grown where one grew before,

whenever I laid my hand on the ground and willed 'em to grow. I've built

big, and I want the buildin' to go on. And when my last hour comes I

want to know that my boys are ready to take charge; that they're fit

to take charge and go ON with it. Bibbs, when that hour comes I want

to know that my boys are big men, ready and fit to take hold of big things.

Bibbs, when I'm up above I want to know that the big share I've made

mine, here below, is growin' bigger and bigger in the charge of my

boys.”

He leaned back, deeply moved. “There!” he said, huskily. “I've never

spoken more what was in my heart in my life. I do it because I want you

to understand--and not think me a mean father. I never had to talk that

way to Jim and Roscoe. They understood without any talk, Bibbs.”

“I see,” said Bibbs. “At least I think I do. But--”

“Wait a minute!” Sheridan raised his hand. “If you see the least bit

in the world, then you understand how it feels to me to have my son set

here and talk about 'poems and essays' and such-like fooleries. And you

must understand, too, what it meant to start one o' my boys and have

him come back on me the way you did, and have to be sent to a sanitarium

because he couldn't stand work. Now, let's get right down to it, Bibbs.

I've had a whole lot o' talk with ole Doc Gurney about you, one time

another, and I reckon I understand your case just about as well as he

does, anyway! Now here, I'll be frank with you. I started you in harder

than what I did the other boys, and that was for your own good, because

I saw you needed to be shook up more'n they did. You were always kind of

moody and mopish--and you needed work that'd keep you on the jump. Now,

why did it make you sick instead of brace you up and make a man of you

the way it ought of done? I pinned ole Gurney down to it. I says, 'Look

here, ain't it really because he just plain hated it?' 'Yes,' he says,

'that's it. If he'd enjoyed it, it wouldn't 'a' hurt him. He loathes it,

and that affects his nervous system. The more he tries it, the more he

hates it; and the more he hates it, the more injury it does him.' That

ain't quite his words, but it's what he meant. And that's about the way

it is.”

“Yes,” said Bibbs, “that's about the way it is.”

“Well, then, I reckon it's up to me not only to make you do it, but to

make you like it!”

Bibbs shivered. And he turned upon his father a look that was almost

ghostly. “I can't,” he said, in a low voice. “I can't.”

“Can't go back to the shop?”

“No. Can't like it. I can't.”

Sheridan jumped up, his patience gone. To his own view, he had reasoned

exhaustively, had explained fully and had pleaded more than a father

should, only to be met in the end with the unreasoning and mysterious

stubbornness which had been Bibbs's baffling characteristic from

childhood. “By George, you will!” he cried. “You'll go back there and

you'll like it! Gurney says it won't hurt you if you like it, and he

says it'll kill you if you go back and hate it; so it looks as if it

was about up to you not to hate it. Well, Gurney's a fool! Hatin' work

doesn't kill anybody; and this isn't goin' to kill you, whether you hate

it or not. I've never made a mistake in a serious matter in my life,

and it wasn't a mistake my sendin' you there in the first place. And

I'm goin' to prove it--I'm goin' to send you back there and vindicate my

judgment. Gurney says it's all 'mental attitude.' Well, you're goin'

to learn the right one! He says in a couple more months this fool thing

that's been the matter with you'll be disappeared completely and you'll

be back in as good or better condition than you were before you ever

went into the shop. And right then is when you begin over--right in that

same shop! Nobody can call me a hard man or a mean father. I do the best

I can for my chuldern, and I take full responsibility for bringin' my

sons up to be men. Now, so far, I've failed with you. But I'm not goin'

to keep ON failin'. I never tackled a job YET I didn't put through, and

I'm not goin' to begin with my own son. I'm goin' to make a MAN of you.

By God! I am!”

Bibbs rose and went slowly to the door, where he turned. “You say you

give me a couple of months?” he said.

Sheridan pushed a bell-button on his desk. “Gurney said two months more

would put you back where you were. You go home and begin to get yourself

in the right 'mental attitude' before those two months are up! Good-by!”

“Good-by, sir,” said Bibbs, meekly.

CHAPTER X

Bibbs's room, that neat apartment for transients to which the “lamidal”

George had shown him upon his return, still bore the appearance of

temporary quarters, possibly because Bibbs had no clear conception

of himself as a permanent incumbent. However, he had set upon the

mantelpiece the two photographs that he owned: one, a “group” twenty

years old--his father and mother, with Jim and Roscoe as boys--and the

other a “cabinet” of Edith at sixteen. And upon a table were the books

he had taken from his trunk: Sartor Resartus, Virginibus Puerisque,

Huckleberry Finn, and Afterwhiles. There were some other books in the

trunk--a large one, which remained unremoved at the foot of the bed,

adding to the general impression of transiency. It contained nearly all

the possessions as well as the secret life of Bibbs Sheridan, and Bibbs

sat beside it, the day after his interview with his father, raking over

a small collection of manuscripts in the top tray. Some of these he

glanced through dubiously, finding little comfort in them; but one made

him smile. Then he shook his head ruefully indeed, and ruefully began to

read it. It was written on paper stamped “Hood Sanitarium,” and bore the

title, “Leisure.”

A man may keep a quiet heart at seventy miles an hour, but not if

he is running the train. Nor is the habit of contemplation a useful

quality in the stoker of a foundry furnace; it will not be found to

recommend him to the approbation of his superiors. For a profession

adapted solely to the pursuit of happiness in thinking, I would

choose that of an invalid: his money is time and he may spend it on

Olympus. It will not suffice to be an amateur invalid. To my way

of thinking, the perfect practitioner must be to all outward

purposes already dead if he is to begin the perfect enjoyment of

life. His serenity must not be disturbed by rumors of recovery; he

must lie serene in his long chair in the sunshine. The world must

be on the other side of the wall, and the wall must be so thick and

so high that he cannot hear the roaring of the furnace fires and the

screaming of the whistles. Peace--

Having read so far as the word “peace,” Bibbs suffered an interruption

interesting as a coincidence of contrast. High voices sounded in the

hall just outside his door; and it became evident that a woman's quarrel

was in progress, the parties to it having begun it in Edith's room, and

continuing it vehemently as they came out into the hall.

“Yes, you BETTER go home!” Bibbs heard his sister vociferating, shrilly.

“You better go home and keep your mind a little more on your HUSBAND!”

“Edie, Edie!” he heard his mother remonstrating, as peacemaker.

“You see here!” This was Sibyl, and her voice was both acrid and

tremulous. “Don't you talk to me that way! I came here to tell Mother

Sheridan what I'd heard, and to let her tell Father Sheridan if she

thought she ought to, and I did it for your own good.”

“Yes, you did!” And Edith's gibing laughter tooted loudly. “Yes, you

did! YOU didn't have any other reason! OH no! YOU don't want to break it

up between Bobby Lamhorn and me because--”

“Edie, Edie! Now, now!”

“Oh, hush up, mamma! I'd like to know, then, if she says her new friends

tell her he's got such a reputation that he oughtn't to come here, what

about his not going to HER house. How--”

“I've explained that to Mother Sheridan.” Sibyl's voice indicated that

she was descending the stairs. “Married people are not the same. Some

things that should be shielded from a young girl--”

This seemed to have no very soothing effect upon Edith. “'Shielded from

a young girl'!” she shrilled. “You seem pretty willing to be the shield!

You look out Roscoe doesn't notice what kind of a shield you are!”

Sibyl's answer was inaudible, but Mrs. Sheridan's flurried attempts at

pacification were renewed. “Now, Edie, Edie, she means it for your good,

and you'd oughtn't to--”

“Oh, hush up, mamma, and let me alone! If you dare tell papa--”

“Now, now! I'm not going to tell him to-day, and maybe--”

“You've got to promise NEVER to tell him!” the girl cried, passionately.

“Well, we'll see. You just come back in your own room, and we'll--”

“No! I WON'T 'talk it over'! Stop pulling me! Let me ALONE!” And Edith,

flinging herself violently upon Bibbs's door, jerked it open, swung

round it into the room, slammed the door behind her, and threw herself,

face down, upon the bed in such a riot of emotion that she had no

perception of Bibbs's presence in the room. Gasping and sobbing in a

passion of tears, she beat the coverlet and pillows with her clenched

fists. “Sneak!” she babbled aloud. “Sneak! Snake-in-the-grass! Cat!”

Bibbs saw that she did not know he was there, and he went softly toward

the door, hoping to get away before she became aware of him; but some

sound of his movement reached her, and she sat up, startled, facing him.

“Bibbs! I thought I saw you go out awhile ago.”

“Yes. I came back, though. I'm sorry--”

“Did you hear me quarreling with Sibyl?”

“Only what you said in the hall. You lie down again, Edith. I'm going

out.”

“No; don't go.” She applied a handkerchief to her eyes, emitted a sob,

and repeated her request. “Don't go. I don't mind you; you're quiet,

anyhow. Mamma's so fussy, and never gets anywhere. I don't mind you at

all, but I wish you'd sit down.”

“All right.” And he returned to his chair beside the trunk. “Go ahead

and cry all you want, Edith,” he said. “No harm in that!”

“Sibyl told mamma--OH!” she began, choking. “Mary Vertrees had mamma and

Sibyl and I to tea, one afternoon two weeks or so ago, and she had some

women there that Sibyl's been crazy to get in with, and she just laid

herself out to make a hit with 'em, and she's been running after 'em

ever since, and now she comes over here and says THEY say Bobby Lamhorn

is so bad that, even though they like his family, none of the nice

people in town would let him in their houses. In the first place, it's

a falsehood, and I don't believe a word of it; and in the second place

I know the reason she did it, and, what's more, she KNOWS I know it! I

won't SAY what it is--not yet--because papa and all of you would think

I'm as crazy as she is snaky; and Roscoe's such a fool he'd probably

quit speaking to me. But it's true! Just you watch her; that's all I

ask. Just you watch that woman. You'll see!”

As it happened, Bibbs was literally watching “that woman.” Glancing from

the window, he saw Sibyl pause upon the pavement in front of the old

house next door. She stood a moment, in deep thought, then walked

quickly up the path to the door, undoubtedly with the intention

of calling. But he did not mention this to his sister, who, after

delivering herself of a rather vague jeremiad upon the subject of her

sister-in-law's treacheries, departed to her own chamber, leaving him to

his speculations. The chief of these concerned the social elasticities

of women. Sibyl had just been a participant in a violent scene; she had

suffered hot insult of a kind that could not fail to set her quivering

with resentment; and yet she elected to betake herself to the presence

of people whom she knew no more than “formally.” Bibbs marveled. Surely,

he reflected, some traces of emotion must linger upon Sibyl's face or in

her manner; she could not have ironed it all quite out in the three or

four minutes it took her to reach the Vertreeses' door.

And in this he was not mistaken, for Mary Vertrees was at that moment

wondering what internal excitement Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan was striving to

master. But Sibyl had no idea that she was allowing herself to exhibit

anything except the gaiety which she conceived proper to the manner of a

casual caller. She was wholly intent upon fulfilling the sudden purpose

that brought her, and she was no more self-conscious than she was finely

intelligent. For Sibyl Sheridan belonged to a type Scriptural in its

antiquity. She was merely the idle and half-educated intriguer who may

and does delude men, of course, and the best and dullest of her own sex

as well, finding invariably strong supporters among these latter. It is

a type that has wrought some damage in the world and would have wrought

greater, save for the check put upon its power by intelligent women

and by its own “lack of perspective,” for it is a type that never sees

itself. Sibyl followed her impulses with no reflection or question--it

was like a hound on the gallop after a master on horseback. She had not

even the instinct to stop and consider her effect. If she wished to make

a certain impression she believed that she made it. She believed that

she was believed.

“My mother asked me to say that she was sorry she couldn't come down,”

Mary said, when they were seated.

Sibyl ran the scale of a cooing simulance of laughter, which she had

been brought up to consider the polite thing to do after a remark

addressed to her by any person with whom she was not on familiar terms.

It was intended partly as a courtesy and partly as the foundation for an

impression of sweetness.

“Just thought I'd fly in a minute,” she said, continuing the cooing to

relieve the last doubt of her gentiality. “I thought I'd just behave

like REAL country neighbors. We are almost out in the country, so far

from down-town, aren't we? And it seemed such a LOVELY day! I wanted

to tell you how much I enjoyed meeting those nice people at tea that

afternoon. You see, coming here a bride and never having lived here

before, I've had to depend on my husband's friends almost entirely, and

I really've known scarcely anybody. Mr. Sheridan has been so engrossed

in business ever since he was a mere boy, why, of course--”

She paused, with the air of having completed an explanation.

“Of course,” said Mary, sympathetically accepting it.

“Yes. I've been seeing quite a lot of the Kittersbys since that

afternoon,” Sibyl went on. “They're really delightful people. Indeed

they are! Yes--”

She stopped with unconscious abruptness, her mind plainly wandering to

another matter; and Mary perceived that she had come upon a definite

errand. Moreover, a tensing of Sibyl's eyelids, in that moment of

abstraction as she looked aside from her hostess, indicated that the

errand was a serious one for the caller and easily to be connected

with the slight but perceptible agitation underlying her assumption of

cheerful ease. There was a restlessness of breathing, a restlessness of

hands.

“Mrs. Kittersby and her daughter were chatting about some of the people

here in town the other day,” said Sibyl, repeating the cooing and

protracting it. “They said something that took ME by surprise! We were

talking about our mutual friend, Mr. Robert Lamhorn--”

Mary interrupted her promptly. “Do you mean 'mutual' to include my

mother and me?” she asked.

“Why, yes; the Kittersbys and you and all of us Sheridans, I mean.”

“No,” said Mary. “We shouldn't consider Mr. Robert Lamhorn a friend of

ours.”

To her surprise, Sibyl nodded eagerly, as if greatly pleased. “That's

just the way Mrs. Kittersby talked!” she cried, with a vehemence that

made Mary stare. “Yes, and I hear that's the way ALL you old families

here speak of him!”

Mary looked aside, but otherwise she was able to maintain her composure.

“I had the impression he was a friend of yours,” she said; adding,

hastily, “and your husband's.”

“Oh yes,” said the caller, absently. “He is, certainly. A man's

reputation for a little gaiety oughtn't to make a great difference to

married people, of course. It's where young girls are in question. THEN

it may be very, very dangerous. There are a great many things safe and

proper for married people that might be awf'ly imprudent for a young

girl. Don't you agree, Miss Vertrees?”

“I don't know,” returned the frank Mary. “Do you mean that you intend

to remain a friend of Mr. Lamhorn's, but disapprove of Miss Sheridan's

doing so?”

“That's it exactly!” was the naive and ardent response of Sibyl. “What

I feel about it is that a man with his reputation isn't at all suitable

for Edith, and the family ought to be made to understand it. I tell

you,” she cried, with a sudden access of vehemence, “her father ought to

put his foot down!”

Her eyes flashed with a green spark; something seemed to leap out and

then retreat, but not before Mary had caught a glimpse of it, as one

might catch a glimpse of a thing darting forth and then scuttling back

into hiding under a bush.

“Of course,” said Sibyl, much more composedly, “I hardly need say that

it's entirely on Edith's account that I'm worried about this. I'm as

fond of Edith as if she was really my sister, and I can't help fretting

about it. It would break my heart to have Edith's life spoiled.”

This tune was off the key, to Mary's ear. Sibyl tried to sing with

pathos, but she flatted.

And when a lady receives a call from another who suffers under the

stress of some feeling which she wishes to conceal, there is not

uncommonly developed a phenomenon of duality comparable to the effect

obtained by placing two mirrors opposite each other, one clear and

the other flawed. In this case, particularly, Sibyl had an imperfect

consciousness of Mary. The Mary Vertrees that she saw was merely

something to be cozened to her own frantic purpose--a Mary Vertrees who

was incapable of penetrating that purpose. Sibyl sat there believing

that she was projecting the image of herself that she desired to

project, never dreaming that with every word, every look, and every

gesture she was more and more fully disclosing the pitiable truth to

the clear eyes of Mary. And the Sibyl that Mary saw was an overdressed

woman, in manner half rustic, and in mind as shallow as a pan, but

possessed by emotions that appeared to be strong--perhaps even violent.

What those emotions were Mary had not guessed, but she began to suspect.

“And Edith's life WOULD be spoiled,” Sibyl continued. “It would be a

dreadful thing for the whole family. She's the very apple of Father

Sheridan's eye, and he's as proud of her as he is of Jim and Roscoe. It

would be a horrible thing for him to have her marry a man like Robert

Lamhorn; but he doesn't KNOW anything about him, and if somebody doesn't

tell him, what I'm most afraid of is that Edith might get his consent

and hurry on the wedding before he finds out, and then it would be too

late. You see, Miss Vertrees, it's very difficult for me to decide just

what it's my duty to do.”

“I see,” said Mary, looking at her thoughtfully, “Does Miss Sheridan

seem to--to care very much about him?”

“He's deliberately fascinated her,” returned the visitor, beginning to

breathe quickly and heavily. “Oh, she wasn't difficult! She knew she

wasn't in right in this town, and she was crazy to meet the people that

were, and she thought he was one of 'em. But that was only the start

that made it easy for him--and he didn't need it. He could have done

it, anyway!” Sibyl was launched now; her eyes were furious and her voice

shook. “He went after her deliberately, the way he does everything; he's

as cold-blooded as a fish. All he cares about is his own pleasure, and

lately he's decided it would be pleasant to get hold of a piece of real

money--and there was Edith! And he'll marry her! Nothing on earth can

stop him unless he finds out she won't HAVE any money if she marries

him, and the only person that could make him understand that is Father

Sheridan. Somehow, that's got to be managed, because Lamhorn is going to

hurry it on as fast as he can. He told me so last night. He said he was

going to marry her the first minute he could persuade her to it--and

little Edith's all ready to be persuaded!” Sibyl's eyes flashed green

again. “And he swore he'd do it,” she panted. “He swore he'd marry Edith

Sheridan, and nothing on earth could stop him!”

And then Mary understood. Her lips parted and she stared at the babbling

creature incredulously, a sudden vivid picture in her mind, a canvas of

unconscious Sibyl's painting. Mary beheld it with pity and horror: she

saw Sibyl clinging to Robert Lamhorn, raging, in a whisper, perhaps--for

Roscoe might have been in the house, or servants might have heard.

She saw Sibyl entreating, beseeching, threatening despairingly, and

Lamhorn--tired of her--first evasive, then brutally letting her have the

truth; and at last, infuriated, “swearing” to marry her rival. If Sibyl

had not babbled out the word “swore” it might have been less plain.

The poor woman blundered on, wholly unaware of what she had confessed.

“You see,” she said, more quietly, “whatever's going to be done ought to

be done right away. I went over and told Mother Sheridan what I'd heard

about Lamhorn--oh, I was open and aboveboard! I told her right before

Edith. I think it ought all to be done with perfect frankness, because

nobody can say it isn't for the girl's own good and what her best friend

would do. But Mother Sheridan's under Edith's thumb, and she's afraid

to ever come right out with anything. Father Sheridan's different. Edith

can get anything she wants out of him in the way of money or ordinary

indulgence, but when it comes to a matter like this he'd be a steel

rock. If it's a question of his will against anybody else's he'd make

his will rule if it killed 'em both! Now, he'd never in the world let

Lamhorn come near the house again if he knew his reputation. So, you

see, somebody's got to tell him. It isn't a very easy position for me,

is it, Miss Vertrees?”

“No,” said Mary, gravely.

“Well, to be frank,” said Sibyl, smiling, “that's why I've come to you.”

“To ME!” Mary frowned.

Sibyl rippled and cooed again. “There isn't ANYBODY ever made such a hit

with Father Sheridan in his life as you have. And of course we ALL

hope you're not going to be exactly an outsider in the affairs of the

family!” (This sally with another and louder effect of laughter). “And

if it's MY duty, why, in a way, I think it might be thought yours, too.”

“No, no!” exclaimed Mary, sharply.

“Listen,” said Sibyl. “Now suppose I go to Father Sheridan with this

story, and Edith says it's not true; suppose she says Lamhorn has a

good reputation and that I'm repeating irresponsible gossip, or suppose

(what's most likely) she loses her temper and says I invented it, then

what am I going to do? Father Sheridan doesn't know Mrs. Kittersby and

her daughter, and they're out of the question, anyway. But suppose I

could say: 'All right, if you want proof, ask Miss Vertrees. She came

with me, and she's waiting in the next room right now, to--”

“No, no,” said Mary, quickly. “You mustn't--”

“Listen just a minute more,” Sibyl urged, confidingly. She was on easy

ground now, to her own mind, and had no doubt of her success. “You

naturally don't want to begin by taking part in a family quarrel, but

if YOU take part in it, it won't be one. You don't know yourself what

weight you carry over there, and no one would have the right to say you

did it except out of the purest kindness. Don't you see that Jim and

his father would admire you all the more for it? Miss Vertrees, listen!

Don't you see we OUGHT to do it, you and I? Do you suppose Robert

Lamhorn cares a snap of his finger for her? Do you suppose a man like

him would LOOK at Edith Sheridan if it wasn't for the money?” And again

Sibyl's emotion rose to the surface. “I tell you he's after nothing on

earth but to get his finger in that old man's money-pile, over there,

next door! He'd marry ANYBODY to do it. Marry Edith?” she cried. “I tell

you he'd marry their nigger cook for THAT!”

She stopped, afraid--at the wrong time--that she had been too vehement,

but a glance at Mary reassured her, and Sibyl decided that she had

produced the effect she wished. Mary was not looking at her; she was

staring straight before her at the wall, her eyes wide and shining. She

became visibly a little paler as Sibyl looked at her.

“After nothing on earth but to get his finger in that old man's

money-pile, over there, next door!” The voice was vulgar, the words were

vulgar--and the plain truth was vulgar! How it rang in Mary Vertrees's

ears! The clear mirror had caught its own image clearly in the flawed

one at last.

Sibyl put forth her best bid to clench the matter. She offered her

bargain. “Now don't you worry,” she said, sunnily, “about this setting

Edith against you. She'll get over it after a while, anyway, but if she

tried to be spiteful and make it uncomfortable for you when you drop in

over there, or managed so as to sort of leave you out, why, I've got a

house, and Jim likes to come there. I don't THINK Edith WOULD be that

way; she's too crazy to have you take her around with the smart crowd,

but if she DID, you needn't worry. And another thing--I guess you won't

mind Jim's own sister-in-law speaking of it. Of course, I don't know

just how matters stand between you and Jim, but Jim and Roscoe are about

as much alike as two brothers can be, and Roscoe was very slow making up

his mind; sometimes I used to think he actually never WOULD. Now, what

I mean is, sisters-in-law can do lots of things to help matters on like

that. There's lots of little things can be said, and lots--”

She stopped, puzzled. Mary Vertrees had gone from pale to scarlet, and

now, still scarlet indeed, she rose, without a word of explanation, or

any other kind of word, and walked slowly to the open door and out of

the room.

Sibyl was a little taken aback. She supposed Mary had remembered

something neglected and necessary for the instruction of a servant, and

that she would return in a moment; but it was rather a rude excess of

absent-mindedness not to have excused herself, especially as her guest

was talking. And, Mary's return being delayed, Sibyl found time to think

this unprefaced exit odder and ruder than she had first considered it.

There might have been more excuse for it, she thought, had she been

speaking of matters less important--offering to do the girl all the

kindness in her power, too!

Sibyl yawned and swung her muff impatiently; she examined the sole of

her shoe; she decided on a new shape of heel; she made an inventory

of the furniture of the room, of the rugs, of the wall-paper and

engravings. Then she looked at her watch and frowned; went to a window

and stood looking out upon the brown lawn, then came back to the chair

she had abandoned, and sat again. There was no sound in the house.

A strange expression began imperceptibly to alter the planes of her

face, and slowly she grew as scarlet as Mary--scarlet to the ears. She

looked at her watch again--and twenty-five minutes had elapsed since she

had looked at it before.

She went into the hall, glanced over her shoulder oddly; then she let

herself softly out of the front door, and went across the street to her

own house.

Roscoe met her upon the threshold, gloomily. “Saw you from the window,”

he explained. “You must find a lot to say to that old lady.”

“What old lady?”

“Mrs. Vertrees. I been waiting for you a long time, and I saw the

daughter come out, fifteen minutes ago, and post a letter, and then walk

on up the street. Don't stand out on the porch,” he said, crossly.

“Come in here. There's something it's come time I'll have to talk to you

about. Come in!”

But as she was moving to obey he glanced across at his father's house

and started. He lifted his hand to shield his eyes from the setting sun,

staring fixedly. “Something's the matter over there,” he muttered, and

then, more loudly, as alarm came into his voice, he said, “What's the

matter over there?”

Bibbs dashed out of the gate in an automobile set at its highest speed,

and as he saw Roscoe he made a gesture singularly eloquent of calamity,

and was lost at once in a cloud of dust down the street. Edith had

followed part of the way down the drive, and it could be seen that she

was crying bitterly. She lifted both arms to Roscoe, summoning him.

“By George!” gasped Roscoe. “I believe somebody's dead!”

And he started for the New House at a run.

CHAPTER XI

Sheridan had decided to conclude his day's work early that afternoon,

and at about two o'clock he left his office with a man of affairs from

foreign parts, who had traveled far for a business conference with

Sheridan and his colleagues. Herr Favre, in spite of his French name,

was a gentleman of Bavaria. It was his first visit to our country, and

Sheridan took pleasure in showing him the sights of the country's finest

city. They got into an open car at the main entrance of the Sheridan

Building, and were driven first, slowly and momentously, through the

wholesale district and the retail district; then more rapidly they

inspected the packing-houses and the stock-yards; then skirmished over

the “park system” and “boulevards”; and after that whizzed through the

“residence section” on their way to the factories and foundries.

“All cray,” observed Herr Favre, smilingly.

“'Cray'?” echoed Sheridan. “I don't know what you mean. 'Cray'?”

“No white,” said Herr Favre, with a wave of his hand toward the

long rows of houses on both sides of the street. “No white lace

window-curtains; all cray lace window-curtains.”

“Oh. I see!” Sheridan laughed indulgently. “You mean 'GRAY.' No, they

ain't, they're white. I never saw any gray ones.”

Herr Favre shook his head, much amused. “There are NO white ones,”

he said. “There is no white ANYTHING in your city; no white

window-curtains, no white house, no white peeble!” He pointed upward.

“Smoke!” Then he sniffed the air and clasped his nose between forefinger

and thumb. “Smoke! Smoke ef'rywhere. Smoke in your insites.” He tapped

his chest. “Smoke in your lunks!”

“Oh! SMOKE!” Sheridan cried with gusto, drawing in a deep breath and

patently finding it delicious. “You BET we got smoke!”

“Exbensif!” said Herr Favre. “Ruins foliage; ruins fabrics. Maybe in

summer it iss not so bad, but I wonder your wifes will bear it.”

Sheridan laughed uproariously. “They know it means new spring hats for

'em!”

“They must need many, too!” said the visitor. “New hats, new all things,

but nothing white. In Munchen we could not do it; we are a safing

peeble.”

“Where's that?”

“In Munchen. You say 'Munich.'”

“Well, I never been to Munich, but I took in the Mediterranean trip,

and I tell you, outside o' some right good scenery, all I saw was mighty

dirty and mighty shiftless and mighty run-down at the heel. Now comin'

right down TO it, Mr. Farver, wouldn't you rather live here in this town

than in Munich? I know you got more enterprise up there than the part of

the old country I saw, and I know YOU'RE a live business man and you're

associated with others like you, but when it comes to LIVIN' in a place,

wouldn't you heap rather be here than over there?”

“For me,” said Herr Favre, “no. Here I should not think I was living. It

would be like the miner who goes into the mine to work; nothing else.”

“We got a good many good citizens here from your part o' the world. THEY

like it.”

“Oh yes.” And Herr Favre laughed deprecatingly. “The first generation,

they bring their Germany with them; then, after that, they are

Americans, like you.” He tapped his host's big knee genially. “You are

patriot; so are they.”

“Well, I reckon you must be a pretty hot little patriot yourself, Mr.

Farver!” Sheridan exclaimed, gaily. “You certainly stand up for your

own town, if you stick to sayin' you'd rather live there than you would

here. Yes, SIR! You sure are some patriot to say THAT--after you've seen

our city! It ain't reasonable in you, but I must say I kind of admire

you for it; every man ought to stick up for his own, even when he sees

the other fellow's got the goods on him. Yet I expect way down deep in

your heart, Mr. Farver, you'd rather live right here than any place else

in the world, if you had your choice. Man alive! this is God's country,

Mr. Farver, and a blind man couldn't help seein' it! You couldn't stand

where you do in a business way and NOT see it. Soho, boy! Here we are.

This is the big works, and I'll show you something now that'll make your

eyes stick out!”

They had arrived at the Pump Works; and for an hour Mr. Favre was

personally conducted and personally instructed by the founder and

president, the buzzing queen bee of those buzzing hives.

“Now I'll take you for a spin in the country,” said Sheridan, when at

last they came out to the car again. “We'll take a breezer.” But, with

his foot on the step, he paused to hail a neat young man who came out

of the office smiling a greeting. “Hello, young fellow!” Sheridan said,

heartily. “On the job, are you, Jimmie? Ha! They don't catch you OFF of

it very often, I guess, though I do hear you go automobile-ridin' in

the country sometimes with a mighty fine-lookin' girl settin' up beside

you!” He roared with laughter, clapping his son upon the shoulder.

“That's all right with me--if it is with HER! So, Jimmie? Well, when we

goin' to move into your new warehouses? Monday?”

“Sunday, if you want to,” said Jim.

“No!” cried his father, delighted. “Don't tell me you're goin' to keep

your word about dates! That's no way to do contractin'! Never heard of a

contractor yet didn't want more time.”

“They'll be all ready for you on the minute,” said Jim. “I'm going over

both of 'em now, with Links and Sherman, from foundation to roof. I

guess they'll pass inspection, too!”

“Well, then, when you get through with that,” said his father, “you go

and take your girl out ridin'. By George! you've earned it! You tell

her you stand high with ME!” He stepped into the car, waving a waggish

farewell, and when the wheels were in motion again, he turned upon his

companion a broad face literally shining with pride. “That's my boy

Jimmie!” he said.

“Fine young man, yes,” said Herr Favre.

“I got two o' the finest boys,” said Sheridan, “I got two o' the finest

boys God ever made, and that's a fact, Mr. Farver! Jim's the oldest, and

I tell you they got to get up the day before if they expect to catch HIM

in bed! My other boy, Roscoe, he's always to the good, too, but Jim's

a wizard. You saw them two new-process warehouses, just about finished?

Well, JIM built 'em. I'll tell you about that, Mr. Farver.” And he

recited this history, describing the new process at length; in fact, he

had such pride in Jim's achievement that he told Herr Favre all about it

more than once.

“Fine young man, yes,” repeated the good Munchner, three-quarters of an

hour later. They were many miles out in the open country by this time.

“He is that!” said Sheridan, adding, as if confidentially: “I got a fine

family, Mr. Farver--fine chuldern. I got a daughter now; you take her

and put her anywhere you please, and she'll shine up with ANY of 'em.

There's culture and refinement and society in this town by the car-load,

and here lately she's been gettin' right in the thick of it--her and my

daughter-in-law, both. I got a mighty fine daughter-in-law, Mr. Farver.

I'm goin' to get you up for a meal with us before you leave town, and

you'll see--and, well, sir, from all I hear the two of 'em been holdin'

their own with the best. Myself, I and the wife never had time for much

o' that kind o' doin's, but it's all right and good for the chuldern;

and my daughter she's always kind of taken to it. I'll read you a poem

she wrote when I get you up at the house. She wrote it in school and

took the first prize for poetry with it. I tell you they don't make 'em

any smarter'n that girl, Mr. Farver. Yes, sir; take us all round, we're

a pretty happy family; yes, sir. Roscoe hasn't got any chuldern yet,

and I haven't ever spoke to him and his wife about it--it's kind of

a delicate matter--but it's about time the wife and I saw some

gran'-chuldern growin' up around us. I certainly do hanker for about

four or five little curly-headed rascals to take on my knee. Boys, I

hope, o' course; that's only natural. Jim's got his eye on a mighty

splendid-lookin' girl; lives right next door to us. I expect you heard

me joshin' him about it back yonder. She's one of the ole blue-bloods

here, and I guess it was a mighty good stock--to raise HER! She's one

these girls that stand right up and look at you! And pretty? She's

the prettiest thing you ever saw! Good size, too; good health and good

sense. Jim'll be just right if he gets her. I must say it tickles ME

to think o' the way that boy took ahold o' that job back yonder. Four

months and a half! Yes, sir--”

He expanded this theme once more; and thus he continued to entertain

the stranger throughout the long drive. Darkness had fallen before they

reached the city on their return, and it was after five when Sheridan

allowed Herr Favre to descend at the door of his hotel, where boys were

shrieking extra editions of the evening paper.

“Now, good night, Mr. Farver,” said Sheridan, leaning from the car to

shake hands with his guest. “Don't forget I'm goin' to come around and

take you up to--Go on away, boy!”

A newsboy had thrust himself almost between them, yelling, “Extry!

Secon' Extry. Extry, all about the horrable acciDENT. Extry!”

“Get out!” laughed Sheridan. “Who wants to read about accidents? Get

out!”

The boy moved away philosophically. “Extry! Extry!” he shrilled. “Three

men killed! Extry! Millionaire killed! Two other men killed! Extry!

Extry!”

“Don't forget, Mr. Farver,” Sheridan completed his interrupted

farewells. “I'll come by to take you up to our house for dinner. I'll be

here for you about half-past five to-morrow afternoon. Hope you 'njoyed

the drive much as I have. Good night--good night!” He leaned back,

speaking to the chauffer. “Now you can take me around to the Central

City barber-shop, boy. I want to get a shave 'fore I go up home.”

“Extry! Extry!” screamed the newsboys, zig-zagging among the crowds like

bats in the dusk. “Extry! All about the horrable acciDENT! Extry!” It

struck Sheridan that the papers sent out too many “Extras”; they printed

“Extras” for all sorts of petty crimes and casualties. It was a mistake,

he decided, critically. Crying “Wolf!” too often wouldn't sell the

goods; it was bad business. The papers would “make more in the long

run,” he was sure, if they published an “Extra” only when something of

real importance happened.

“Extry! All about the hor'ble AX'nt! Extry!” a boy squawked under his

nose, as he descended from the car.

“Go on away!” said Sheridan, gruffly, though he smiled. He liked to see

the youngsters working so noisily to get on in the world.

But as he crossed the pavement to the brilliant glass doors of the

barber-shop, a second newsboy grasped the arm of the one who had thus

cried his wares.

“Say, Yallern,” said this second, hoarse with awe, “'n't chew know who

that IS?”

“Who?”

“It's SHERIDAN!”

“Jeest!” cried the first, staring insanely.

At about the same hour, four times a week--Monday, Wednesday, Friday,

and Saturday--Sheridan stopped at this shop to be shaved by the head

barber. The barbers were negroes, he was their great man, and it was

their habit to give him a “reception,” his entrance being always the

signal for a flurry of jocular hospitality, followed by general excesses

of briskness and gaiety. But it was not so this evening.

The shop was crowded. Copies of the “Extra” were being read by men

waiting, and by men in the latter stages of treatment. “Extras” lay upon

vacant seats and showed from the pockets of hanging coats.

There was a loud chatter between the practitioners and their recumbent

patients, a vocal charivari which stopped abruptly as Sheridan opened

the door. His name seemed to fizz in the air like the last sputtering

of a firework; the barbers stopped shaving and clipping; lathered men

turned their prostrate heads to stare, and there was a moment of amazing

silence in the shop.

The head barber, nearest the door, stood like a barber in a tableau. His

left hand held stretched between thumb and forefinger an elastic section

of his helpless customer's cheek, while his right hand hung poised above

it, the razor motionless. And then, roused from trance by the door's

closing, he accepted the fact of Sheridan's presence. The barber

remembered that there are no circumstances in life--or just after

it--under which a man does not need to be shaved.

He stepped forward, profoundly grave. “I be through with this man in the

chair one minute, Mist' Sheridan,” he said, in a hushed tone. “Yessuh.”

And of a solemn negro youth who stood by, gazing stupidly, “You goin'

RESIGN?” he demanded in a fierce undertone. “You goin' take Mist'

Sheridan's coat?” He sent an angry look round the shop, and the barbers,

taking his meaning, averted their eyes and fell to work, the murmur of

subdued conversation buzzing from chair to chair.

“You sit down ONE minute, Mist' Sheridan,” said the head barber, gently.

“I fix nice chair fo' you to wait in.”

“Never mind,” said Sheridan. “Go on get through with your man.”

“Yessuh.” And he went quickly back to his chair on tiptoe, followed by

Sheridan's puzzled gaze.

Something had gone wrong in the shop, evidently. Sheridan did not know

what to make of it. Ordinarily he would have shouted a hilarious demand

for the meaning of the mystery, but an inexplicable silence had been

imposed upon him by the hush that fell upon his entrance and by the odd

look every man in the shop had bent upon him.

Vaguely disquieted, he walked to one of the seats in the rear of the

shop, and looked up and down the two lines of barbers, catching quickly

shifted, furtive glances here and there. He made this brief survey after

wondering if one of the barbers had died suddenly, that day, or the

night before; but there was no vacancy in either line.

The seat next to his was unoccupied, but some one had left a copy of

the “Extra” there, and, frowning, he picked it up and glanced at it. The

first of the swollen display lines had little meaning to him:

Fatally Faulty. New Process Roof Collapses Hurling Capitalist to

Death with Inventor. Seven Escape When Crash Comes. Death Claims--

Thus far had he read when a thin hand fell upon the paper, covering the

print from his eyes; and, looking up, he saw Bibbs standing before him,

pale and gentle, immeasurably compassionate.

“I've come for you, father,” said Bibbs. “Here's the boy with your coat

and hat. Put them on and come home.”

And even then Sheridan did not understand. So secure was he in the

strength and bigness of everything that was his, he did not know what

calamity had befallen him. But he was frightened.

Without a word, he followed Bibbs heavily out throught the still shop,

but as they reached the pavement he stopped short and, grasping his

son's sleeve with shaking fingers, swung him round so that they stood

face to face.

“What--what--” His mouth could not do him the service he asked of it, he

was so frightened.

“Extry!” screamed a newsboy straight in his face. “Young North Side

millionaire insuntly killed! Extry!”

“Not--JIM!” said Sheridan.

Bibbs caught his father's hand in his own.

“And YOU come to tell me that?”

Sheridan did not know what he said. But in those first words and in the

first anguish of the big, stricken face Bibbs understood the unuttered

cry of accusation:

“Why wasn't it you?”

CHAPTER XII

Standing in the black group under gaunt trees at the cemetery, three

days later, Bibbs unwillingly let an old, old thought become definite

in his mind: the sickly brother had buried the strong brother, and Bibbs

wondered how many million times that had happened since men first made a

word to name the sons of one mother. Almost literally he had buried his

strong brother, for Sheridan had gone to pieces when he saw his dead

son. He had nothing to help him meet the shock, neither definite

religion nor “philosophy” definite or indefinite. He could only beat his

forehead and beg, over and over, to be killed with an ax, while his wife

was helpless except to entreat him not to “take on,” herself adding a

continuous lamentation. Edith, weeping, made truce with Sibyl and saw to

it that the mourning garments were beyond criticism. Roscoe was dazed,

and he shirked, justifying himself curiously by saying he “never had

any experience in such matters.” So it was Bibbs, the shy outsider, who

became, during this dreadful little time, the master of the house; for

as strange a thing as that, sometimes, may be the result of a death. He

met the relatives from out of town at the station; he set the time

for the funeral and the time for meals; he selected the flowers and

he selected Jim's coffin; he did all the grim things and all the other

things. Jim had belonged to an order of Knights, who lengthened the

rites with a picturesque ceremony of their own, and at first Bibbs

wished to avoid this, but upon reflection he offered no objection--he

divined that the Knights and their service would be not precisely a

consolation, but a satisfaction to his father. So the Knights led the

procession, with their band playing a dirge part of the long way to the

cemetery; and then turned back, after forming in two lines, plumed

hats sympathetically in hand, to let the hearse and the carriages pass

between.

“Mighty fine-lookin' men,” said Sheridan, brokenly. “They all--all liked

him. He was--” His breath caught in a sob and choked him. “He was--a

Grand Supreme Herald.”

Bibbs had divined aright.

“Dust to dust,” said the minister, under the gaunt trees; and at that

Sheridan shook convulsively from head to foot. All of the black group

shivered, except Bibbs, when it came to “Dust to dust.” Bibbs stood

passive, for he was the only one of them who had known that thought as a

familiar neighbor; he had been close upon dust himself for a long, long

time, and even now he could prophesy no protracted separation between

himself and dust. The machine-shop had brought him very close, and if

he had to go back it would probably bring him closer still; so close--as

Dr. Gurney predicted--that no one would be able to tell the difference

between dust and himself. And Sheridan, if Bibbs read him truly, would

be all the more determined to “make a man” of him, now that there was

a man less in the family. To Bibbs's knowledge, no one and nothing had

ever prevented his father from carrying through his plans, once he had

determined upon them; and Sheridan was incapable of believing that any

plan of his would not work out according to his calculations. His nature

unfitted him to accept failure. He had the gift of terrible persistence,

and with unflecked confidence that his way was the only way he would

hold to that way of “making a man” of Bibbs, who understood very well,

in his passive and impersonal fashion, that it was a way which might

make, not a man, but dust of him. But he had no shudder for the thought.

He had no shudder for that thought or for any other thought. The

truth about Bibbs was in the poem which Edith had adopted: he had so

thoroughly formed the over-sensitive habit of hiding his feelings that

no doubt he had forgotten--by this time--where he had put some of them,

especially those which concerned himself. But he had not hidden his

feelings about his father where they could not be found. He was strange

to his father, but his father was not strange to him. He knew that

Sheridan's plans were conceived in the stubborn belief that they would

bring about a good thing for Bibbs himself; and whatever the result was

to be, the son had no bitterness. Far otherwise, for as he looked at the

big, woeful figure, shaking and tortured, an almost unbearable pity laid

hands upon Bibbs's throat. Roscoe stood blinking, his lip quivering;

Edith wept audibly; Mrs. Sheridan leaned in half collapse against her

husband; but Bibbs knew that his father was the one who cared.

It was over. Men in overalls stepped forward with their shovels, and

Bibbs nodded quickly to Roscoe, making a slight gesture toward the line

of waiting carriages. Roscoe understood--Bibbs would stay and see the

grave filled; the rest were to go. The groups began to move away over

the turf; wheels creaked on the graveled drive; and one by one the

carriages filled and departed, the horses setting off at a walk. Bibbs

gazed steadfastly at the workmen; he knew that his father kept looking

back as he went toward the carriage, and that was a thing he did not

want to see. But after a little while there were no sounds of wheels

or hoofs on the gravel, and Bibbs, glancing up, saw that every one had

gone. A coupe had been left for him, the driver dozing patiently.

The workmen placed the flowers and wreaths upon the mound and about

it, and Bibbs altered the position of one or two of these, then stood

looking thoughtfully at the grotesque brilliancy of that festal-seeming

hillock beneath the darkening November sky. “It's too bad!” he half

whispered, his lips forming the words--and his meaning was that it was

too bad that the strong brother had been the one to go. For this was

his last thought before he walked to the coupe and saw Mary Vertrees

standing, all alone, on the other side of the drive.

She had just emerged from a grove of leafless trees that grew on a

slope where the tombs were many; and behind her rose a multitude of the

barbaric and classic shapes we so strangely strew about our graveyards:

urn-crowned columns and stone-draped obelisks, shop-carved angels and

shop-carved children poising on pillars and shafts, all lifting--in

unthought pathos--their blind stoniness toward the sky. Against such

a background, Bibbs was not incongruous, with his figure, in black, so

long and slender, and his face so long and thin and white; nor was the

undertaker's coupe out of keeping, with the shabby driver dozing on the

box and the shaggy horses standing patiently in attitudes without

hope and without regret. But for Mary Vertrees, here was a grotesque

setting--she was a vivid, living creature of a beautiful world. And a

graveyard is not the place for people to look charming.

She also looked startled and confused, but not more startled and

confused than Bibbs. In “Edith's” poem he had declared his intention of

hiding his heart “among the stars”; and in his boyhood one day he had

successfully hidden his body in the coal-pile. He had been no comrade

of other boys or of girls, and his acquaintances of a recent period were

only a few fellow-invalids and the nurses at the Hood Sanitarium. All

his life Bibbs had kept himself to himself--he was but a shy onlooker in

the world. Nevertheless, the startled gaze he bent upon the

unexpected lady before him had causes other than his shyness and her

unexpectedness. For Mary Vertrees had been a shining figure in the

little world of late given to the view of this humble and elusive

outsider, and spectators sometimes find their hearts beating faster than

those of the actors in the spectacle. Thus with Bibbs now. He started

and stared; he lifted his hat with incredible awkwardness, his fingers

fumbling at his forehead before they found the brim.

“Mr. Sheridan,” said Mary, “I'm afraid you'll have to take me home with

you. I--” She stopped, not lacking a momentary awkwardness of her own.

“Why--why--yes,” Bibbs stammered. “I'll--I'll be de--Won't you get in?”

In that manner and in that place they exchanged their first words. Then

Mary without more ado got into the coupe, and Bibbs followed, closing

the door.

“You're very kind,” she said, somewhat breathlessly. “I should have had

to walk, and it's beginning to get dark. It's three miles, I think.”

“Yes,” said Bibbs. “It--it is beginning to get dark. I--I noticed that.”

“I ought to tell you--I--” Mary began, confusedly. She bit her lip, sat

silent a moment, then spoke with composure. “It must seem odd, my--”

“No, no!” Bibbs protested, earnestly. “Not in the--in the least.”

“It does, though,” said Mary. “I had not intended to come to the

cemetery, Mr. Sheridan, but one of the men in charge at the house came

and whispered to me that 'the family wished me to'--I think your sister

sent him. So I came. But when we reached here I--oh, I felt that perhaps

I--”

Bibbs nodded gravely. “Yes, yes,” he murmured.

“I got out on the opposite side of the carriage,” she continued. “I mean

opposite from--from where all of you were. And I wandered off over in

the other direction; and I didn't realize how little time it takes.

From where I was I couldn't see the carriages leaving--at least I didn't

notice them. So when I got back, just now, you were the only one here.

I didn't know the other people in the carriage I came in, and of course

they didn't think to wait for me. That's why--”

“Yes,” said Bibbs, “I--” And that seemed all he had to say just then.

Mary looked out through the dusty window. “I think we'd better be going

home, if you please,” she said.

“Yes,” Bibbs agreed, not moving. “It will be dark before we get there.”

She gave him a quick little glance. “I think you must be very tired,

Mr. Sheridan; and I know you have reason to be,” she said, gently. “If

you'll let me, I'll--” And without explaining her purpose she opened the

door on her side of the coupe and leaned out.

Bibbs started in blank perplexity, not knowing what she meant to do.

“Driver!” she called, in her clear voice, loudly. “Driver! We'd like to

start, please! Driver! Stop at the house just north of Mr. Sheridan's,

please.” The wheels began to move, and she leaned back beside Bibbs

once more. “I noticed that he was asleep when we got in,” she said. “I

suppose they have a great deal of night work.”

Bibbs drew a long breath and waited till he could command his voice.

“I've never been able to apologize quickly,” he said, with his

accustomed slowness, “because if I try to I stammer. My brother Roscoe

whipped me once, when we were boys, for stepping on his slate-pencil.

It took me so long to tell him it was an accident, he finished before I

did.”

Mary Vertrees had never heard anything quite like the drawling, gentle

voice or the odd implication that his not noticing the motionless state

of their vehicle was an “accident.” She had formed a casual impression

of him, not without sympathy, but at once she discovered that he was

unlike any of her cursory and vague imaginings of him. And suddenly she

saw a picture he had not intended to paint for sympathy: a sturdy boy

hammering a smaller, sickly boy, and the sickly boy unresentful. Not

that picture alone; others flashed before her. Instantaneously she had a

glimpse of Bibbs's life and into his life. She had a queer feeling, new

to her experience, of knowing him instantly. It startled her a little;

and then, with some surprise, she realized that she was glad he had sat

so long, after getting into the coupe, before he noticed that it had

not started. What she did not realize, however, was that she had made

no response to his apology, and they passed out of the cemetery gates,

neither having spoken again.

Bibbs was so content with the silence he did not know that it was

silence. The dusk, gathering in their small inclosure, was filled with a

rich presence for him; and presently it was so dark that neither of the

two could see the other, nor did even their garments touch. But neither

had any sense of being alone. The wheels creaked steadily, rumbling

presently on paved streets; there were the sounds, as from a distance,

of the plod-plod of the horses; and sometimes the driver became audible,

coughing asthmatically, or saying, “You, JOE!” with a spiritless flap of

the whip upon an unresponsive back. Oblongs of light from the lamps

at street-corners came swimming into the interior of the coupe and,

thinning rapidly to lances, passed utterly, leaving greater darkness.

And yet neither of these two last attendants at Jim Sheridan's funeral

broke the silence.

It was Mary who preceived the strangeness of it--too late. Abruptly she

realized that for an indefinite interval she had been thinking of her

companion and not talking to him. “Mr. Sheridan,” she began, not knowing

what she was going to say, but impelled to say anything, as she realized

the queerness of this drive--“Mr. Sheridan, I--”

The coupe stopped. “You, JOE!” said the driver, reproachfully, and

climbed down and opened the door.

“What's the trouble?” Bibbs inquired.

“Lady said stop at the first house north of Mr. Sheridan's, sir.”

Mary was incredulous; she felt that it couldn't be true and that it

mustn't be true that they had driven all the way without speaking.

“What?” Bibbs demanded.

“We're there, sir,” said the driver, sympathetically. “Next house north

of Mr. Sheridan's.”

Bibbs descended to the curb. “Why, yes,” he said. “Yes, you seem to

be right.” And while he stood staring at the dimly illuminated front

windows of Mr. Vertrees's house Mary got out, unassisted.

“Let me help you,” said Bibbs, stepping toward her mechanically; and she

was several feet from the coupe when he spoke.

“Oh no,” she murmured. “I think I can--” She meant that she could get

out of the coupe without help, but, perceiving that she had already

accomplished this feat, she decided not to complete the sentence.

“You, JOE!” cried the driver, angrily, climbing to his box. And he

rumbled away at his team's best pace--a snail's.

“Thank you for bringing me home, Mr. Sheridan,” said Mary, stiffly. She

did not offer her hand. “Good night.”

“Good night,” Bibbs said in response, and, turning with her, walked

beside her to the door. Mary made that a short walk; she almost ran.

Realization of the queerness of their drive was growing upon her,

beginning to shock her; she stepped aside from the light that fell

through the glass panels of the door and withheld her hand as it touched

the old-fashioned bell-handle.

“I'm quite safe, thank you,” she said, with a little emphasis. “Good

night.”

“Good night,” said Bibbs, and went obediently. When he reached the

street he looked back, but she had vanished within the house.

Moving slowly away, he caromed against two people who were turning out

from the pavement to cross the street. They were Roscoe and his wife.

“Where are your eyes, Bibbs?” demanded Roscoe. “Sleep-walking, as

usual?”

But Sibyl took the wanderer by the arm. “Come over to our house for a

little while, Bibbs,” she urged. “I want to--”

“No, I'd better--”

“Yes. I want you to. Your father's gone to bed, and they're all quiet

over there--all worn out. Just come for a minute.”

He yielded, and when they were in the house she repeated herself with

real feeling: “'All worn out!' Well, if anybody is, YOU are, Bibbs! And

I don't wonder; you've done every bit of the work of it. You mustn't get

down sick again. I'm going to make you take a little brandy.”

He let her have her own way, following her into the dining-room, and

was grateful when she brought him a tiny glass filled from one of the

decanters on the sideboard. Roscoe gloomily poured for himself a much

heavier libation in a larger glass; and the two men sat, while Sibyl

leaned against the sideboard, reviewing the episodes of the day and

recalling the names of the donors of flowers and wreaths. She pressed

Bibbs to remain longer when he rose to go, and then, as he persisted,

she went with him to the front door. He opened it, and she said:

“Bibbs, you were coming out of the Vertreeses' house when we met you.

How did you happen to be there?”

“I had only been to the door,” he said. “Good night, Sibyl.”

“Wait,” she insisted. “We saw you coming out.”

“I wasn't,” he explained, moving to depart. “I'd just brought Miss

Vertrees home.”

“What?” she cried.

“Yes,” he said, and stepped out upon the porch, “that was it. Good

night, Sibyl.”

“Wait!” she said, following him across the threshold. “How did that

happen? I thought you were going to wait while those men filled

the--the--” She paused, but moved nearer him insistently.

“I did wait. Miss Vertrees was there,” he said, reluctantly. “She

had walked away for a while and didn't notice that the carriages were

leaving. When she came back the coupe waiting for me was the only one

left.”

Sibyl regarded him with dilating eyes. She spoke with a slow

breathlessness. “And she drove home from Jim's funeral--with you!”

Without warning she burst into laughter, clapped her hand ineffectually

over her mouth, and ran back uproariously into the house, hurling the

door shut behind her.

CHAPTER XIII

Bibbs went home pondering. He did not understand why Sibyl had laughed.

The laughter itself had been spontaneous and beyond suspicion, but it

seemed to him that she had only affected the effort to suppress it and

that she wished it to be significant. Significant of what? And why had

she wished to impress upon him the fact of her overwhelming amusement?

He found no answer, but she had succeeded in disturbing him, and he

wished that he had not encountered her.

At home, uncles, aunts, and cousins from out of town were wandering

about the house, several mournfully admiring the “Bay of Naples,” and

others occupied with the Moor and the plumbing, while they waited for

trains. Edith and her mother had retired to some upper fastness, but

Bibbs interviewed Jackson and had the various groups of relatives

summoned to the dining-room for food. One great-uncle, old Gideon

Sheridan from Boonville, could not be found, and Bibbs went in search of

him. He ransacked the house, discovering the missing antique at last

by accident. Passing his father's closed door on tiptoe, Bibbs heard

a murmurous sound, and paused to listen. The sound proved to be a

quavering and rickety voice, monotonously bleating:

“The Lo-ord givuth and the Lo-ord takuth away! We got to remember that;

we got to remember that! I'm a-gittin' along, James; I'm a-gittin'

along, and I've seen a-many of 'em go--two daughters and a son the Lord

give me, and He has taken all away. For the Lo-ord givuth and the Lo-ord

takuth away! Remember the words of Bildad the Shuhite, James. Bildad the

Shuhite says, 'He shall have neither son nor nephew among his people,

nor any remaining in his dwellings.' Bildad the Shuhite--”

Bibbs opened the door softly. His father was lying upon the bed, in

his underclothes, face downward, and Uncle Gideon sat near by, swinging

backward and forward in a rocking-chair, stroking his long white beard

and gazing at the ceiling as he talked. Bibbs beckoned him urgently, but

Uncle Gideon paid no attention.

“Bildad the Shuhite spake and he says, 'If thy children have sinned

against Him and He have cast them away--'”

There was a muffled explosion beneath the floor, and the windows

rattled. The figure lying face downward on the bed did not move, but

Uncle Gideon leaped from his chair. “My God!” he cried. “What's that?”

There came a second explosion, and Uncle Gideon ran out into the hall.

Bibbs went to the head of the great staircase, and, looking down,

discovered the source of the disturbance. Gideon's grandson, a boy

of fourteen, had brought his camera to the funeral and was taking

“flash-lights” of the Moor. Uncle Gideon, reassured by Bibbs's

explanation, would have returned to finish his quotation from Bildad the

Shuhite, but Bibbs detained him, and after a little argument persuaded

him to descend to the dining-room whither Bibbs followed, after closing

the door of his father's room.

He kept his eye on Gideon after dinner, diplomatically preventing

several attempts on the part of that comforter to reascend the stairs;

and it was a relief to Bibbs when George announced that an automobile

was waiting to convey the ancient man and his grandson to their train.

They were the last to leave, and when they had gone Bibbs went sighing

to his own room.

He stretched himself wearily upon the bed, but presently rose, went to

the window, and looked for a long time at the darkened house where

Mary Vertrees lived. Then he opened his trunk, took therefrom a small

note-book half filled with fragmentary scribblings, and began to write:

Laughter after a funeral. In this reaction people will laugh at

anything and at nothing. The band plays a dirge on the way to the

cemetery, but when it turns back, and the mourning carriages are

out of hearing, it strikes up, “Darktown is Out To-night.” That

is natural--but there are women whose laughter is like the whirring

of whips. Why is it that certain kinds of laughter seem to spoil

something hidden away from the laughers? If they do not know of

it, and have never seen it, how can their laughter hurt it? Yet it

does. Beauty is not out of place among grave-stones. It is not

out of place anywhere. But a woman who has been betrothed to a

man would not look beautiful at his funeral. A woman might look

beautiful, though, at the funeral of a man whom she had known and

liked. And in that case, too, she would probably not want to talk

if she drove home from the cemetery with his brother: nor would

she want the brother to talk. Silence is usually either stupid or

timid. But for a man who stammers if he tries to talk fast, and

drawls so slowly, when he doesn't stammer, that nobody has time to

listen to him, silence is advisable. Nevertheless, too much silence

is open to suspicion. It may be reticence, or it may be a vacuum.

It may be dignity, or it may be false teeth.

Sometimes an imperceptible odor will become perceptible in a small

inclosure, such as a closed carriage. The ghost of gasoline rising

from a lady's glove might be sweeter to the man riding beside her

than all the scents of Arcady in spring. It depends on the lady--

but there ARE! Three miles may be three hundred miles, or it may

be three feet. When it is three feet you have not time to say a

great deal before you reach the end of it. Still, it may be that

one should begin to speak.

No one could help wishing to stay in a world that holds some of

the people that are in this world. There are some so wonderful

you do not understand how the dead COULD die. How could they let

themselves? A falling building does not care who falls with it.

It does not choose who shall be upon its roof and who shall not.

Silence CAN be golden? Yes. But perhaps if a woman of the world

should find herself by accident sitting beside a man for the length

of time it must necessarily take two slow old horses to jog three

miles, she might expect that man to say something of some sort!

Even if she thought him a feeble hypochondriac, even if she had

heard from others that he was a disappointment to his own people,

even if she had seen for herself that he was a useless and

irritating encumbrance everywhere, she might expect him at least

to speak--she might expect him to open his mouth and try to make

sounds, if he only barked. If he did not even try, but sat every

step of the way as dumb as a frozen fish, she might THINK him a

frozen fish. And she might be right. She might be right if she

thought him about as pleasant a companion as--as Bildad the Shuhite!

Bibbs closed his note-book, replacing it in his trunk. Then, after a

period of melancholy contemplation, he undressed, put on a dressing-gown

and slippers, and went softly out into the hall--to his father's door.

Upon the floor was a tray which Bibbs had sent George, earlier in the

evening, to place upon a table in Sheridan's room--but the food was

untouched. Bibbs stood listening outside the door for several minutes.

There came no sound from within, and he went back to his own room and to

bed.

In the morning he woke to a state of being hitherto unknown in his

experience. Sometimes in the process of waking there is a little

pause--sleep has gone, but coherent thought has not begun. It is

a curious half-void, a glimpse of aphasia; and although the person

experiencing it may not know for that instant his own name or age or

sex, he may be acutely conscious of depression or elation. It is the

moment, as we say, before we “remember”; and for the first time in

Bibbs's life it came to him bringing a vague happiness. He woke to a

sense of new riches; he had the feeling of a boy waking to a birthday.

But when the next moment brought him his memory, he found nothing that

could explain his exhilaration. On the contrary, under the circumstances

it seemed grotesquely unwarranted. However, it was a brief visitation

and was gone before he had finished dressing. It left a little trail,

the pleased recollection of it and the puzzle of it, which remained

unsolved. And, in fact, waking happily in the morning is not usually

the result of a drive home from a funeral. No wonder the sequence evaded

Bibbs Sheridan!

His father had gone when he came down-stairs. “Went on down to 's

office, jes' same,” Jackson informed him. “Came sat breakfas'-table, all

by 'mself; eat nothin'. George bring nice breakfas', but he di'n' eat

a thing. Yessuh, went on down-town, jes' same he yoosta do. Yessuh, I

reckon putty much ev'y-thing goin' go on same as it yoosta do.”

It struck Bibbs that Jackson was right. The day passed as other days had

passed. Mrs. Sheridan and Edith were in black, and Mrs. Sheridan cried

a little, now and then, but no other external difference was to be

seen. Edith was quiet, but not noticeably depressed, and at lunch proved

herself able to argue with her mother upon the propriety of receiving

calls in the earliest stages of “mourning.” Lunch was as usual--for Jim

and his father had always lunched down-town--and the afternoon was as

usual. Bibbs went for his drive, and his mother went with him, as she

sometimes did when the weather was pleasant. Altogether, the usualness

of things was rather startling to Bibbs.

During the drive Mrs. Sheridan talked fragmentarily of Jim's childhood.

“But you wouldn't remember about that,” she said, after narrating an

episode. “You were too little. He was always a good boy, just like that.

And he'd save whatever papa gave him, and put it in the bank. I reckon

it'll just about kill your father to put somebody in his place as

president of the Realty Company, Bibbs. I know he can't move Roscoe

over; he told me last week he'd already put as much on Roscoe as any

one man could handle and not go crazy. Oh, it's a pity--” She stopped

to wipe her eyes. “It's a pity you didn't run more with Jim, Bibbs, and

kind o' pick up his ways. Think what it'd meant to papa now! You never

did run with either Roscoe or Jim any, even before you got sick. Of

course, you were younger; but it always DID seem queer--and you three

bein' brothers like that. I don't believe I ever saw you and Jim sit

down together for a good talk in my life.”

“Mother, I've been away so long,” Bibbs returned, gently. “And since I

came home I--”

“Oh, I ain't reproachin' you, Bibbs,” she said. “Jim ain't been home

much of an evening since you got back--what with his work and callin'

and goin' to the theater and places, and often not even at the house for

dinner. Right the evening before he got hurt he had his dinner at some

miser'ble rest'rant down by the Pump Works, he was so set on overseein'

the night work and gettin' everything finished up right to the minute he

told papa he would. I reckon you might 'a' put in more time with Jim if

there'd been more opportunity, Bibbs. I expect you feel almost as if you

scarcely really knew him right well.”

“I suppose I really didn't, mother. He was busy, you see, and I hadn't

much to say about the things that interested him, because I don't know

much about them.”

“It's a pity! Oh, it's a pity!” she moaned. “And you'll have to learn to

know about 'em NOW, Bibbs! I haven't said much to you, because I felt it

was all between your father and you, but I honestly do believe it will

just kill him if he has to have any more trouble on top of all this!

You mustn't LET him, Bibbs--you mustn't! You don't know how he's grieved

over you, and now he can't stand any more--he just can't! Whatever he

says for you to do, you DO it, Bibbs, you DO it! I want you to promise

me you will.”

“I would if I could,” he said, sorrowfully.

“No, no! Why can't you?” she cried, clutching his arm. “He wants you to

go back to the machine-shop and--”

“And--'like it'!” said Bibbs.

“Yes, that's it--to go in a cheerful spirit. Dr. Gurney said it wouldn't

hurt you if you went in a cheerful spirit--the doctor said that himself,

Bibbs. So why can't you do it? Can't you do that much for your father?

You ought to think what he's done for YOU. You got a beautiful house

to live in; you got automobiles to ride in; you got fur coats and warm

clothes; you been taken care of all your life. And you don't KNOW how

he worked for the money to give all these things to you! You don't DREAM

what he had to go through and what he risked when we were startin' out

in life; and you never WILL know! And now this blow has fallen on him

out of a clear sky, and you make it out to be a hardship to do like he

wants you to! And all on earth he asks is for you to go back to the work

in a cheerful spirit, so it won't hurt you! That's all he asks. Look,

Bibbs, we're gettin' back near home, but before we get there I want you

to promise me that you'll do what he asks you to. Promise me!”

In her earnestness she cleared away her black veil that she might see

him better, and it blew out on the smoky wind. He readjusted it for her

before he spoke.

“I'll go back in as cheerful a spirit as I can, mother,” he said.

“There!” she exclaimed, satisfied. “That's a good boy! That's all I

wanted you to say.”

“Don't give me any credit,” he said, ruefully. “There isn't anything

else for me to do.”

“Now, don't begin talkin' THAT way!”

“No, no,” he soothed her. “We'll have to begin to make the spirit a

cheerful one. We may--” They were turning into their own driveway as

he spoke, and he glanced at the old house next door. Mary Vertrees was

visible in the twilight, standing upon the front steps, bareheaded, the

door open behind her. She bowed gravely.

“'We may'--what?” asked Mrs. Sheridan, with a slight impatience.

“What is it, mother?”

“You said, 'We may,' and didn't finish what you were sayin'.”

“Did I?” said Bibbs, blankly. “Well, what WERE we saying?”

“Of all the queer boys!” she cried. “You always were. Always! You

haven't forgot what you just promised me, have you?”

“No,” he answered, as the car stopped. “No, the spirit will be as

cheerful as the flesh will let it, mother. It won't do to behave like--”

His voice was low, and in her movement to descend from the car she

failed to hear his final words.

“Behave like who, Bibbs?”

“Nothing.”

But she was fretful in her grief. “You said it wouldn't do to behave

like SOMEBODY. Behave like WHO?”

“It was just nonsense,” he explained, turning to go in. “An obscure

person I don't think much of lately.”

“Behave like WHO?” she repeated, and upon his yielding to her petulant

insistence, she made up her mind that the only thing to do was to tell

Dr. Gurney about it.

“Like Bildad the Shuhite!” was what Bibbs said.

CHAPTER XIV

The outward usualness of things continued after dinner. It was

Sheridan's custom to read the evening paper beside the fire in the

library, while his wife, sitting near by, either sewed (from old habit)

or allowed herself to be repeatedly baffled by one of the simpler forms

of solitaire. To-night she did neither, but sat in her customary chair,

gazing at the fire, while Sheridan let the unfolded paper rest upon his

lap, though now and then he lifted it, as if to read, and let it fall

back upon his knees again. Bibbs came in noiselessly and sat in a

corner, doing nothing; and from a “reception-room” across the hall an

indistinct vocal murmur became just audible at intervals. Once, when

this murmur grew louder, under stress of some irrepressible merriment,

Edith's voice could be heard--“Bobby, aren't you awful!” and Sheridan

glanced across at his wife appealingly.

She rose at once and went into the “reception-room”; there was a flurry

of whispering, and the sound of tiptoeing in the hall--Edith and her

suitor changing quarters to a more distant room. Mrs. Sheridan returned

to her chair in the library.

“They won't bother you any more, papa,” she said, in a comforting voice.

“She told me at lunch he'd 'phoned he wanted to come up this evening,

and I said I thought he'd better wait a few days, but she said she'd

already told him he could.” She paused, then added, rather guiltily: “I

got kind of a notion maybe Roscoe don't like him as much as he used

to. Maybe--maybe you better ask Roscoe, papa.” And as Sheridan nodded

solemnly, she concluded, in haste: “Don't say I said to. I might be

wrong about it, anyway.”

He nodded again, and they sat for some time in a silence which Mrs.

Sheridan broke with a little sniff, having fallen into a reverie that

brought tears. “That Miss Vertrees was a good girl,” she said. “SHE was

all right.”

Her husband evidently had no difficulty in following her train of

thought, for he nodded once more, affirmatively.

“Did you--How did you fix it about the--the Realty Company?” she

faltered. “Did you--”

He rose heavily, helping himself to his feet by the arms of his chair.

“I fixed it,” he said, in a husky voice. “I moved Cantwell up, and put

Johnston in Cantwell's place, and split up Johnston's work among the

four men with salaries high enough to take it.” He went to her, put

his hand upon her shoulder, and drew a long, audible, tremulous breath.

“It's my bedtime, mamma; I'm goin' up.” He dropped the hand from her

shoulder and moved slowly away, but when he reached the door he stopped

and spoke again, without turning to look at her. “The Realty Company'll

go right on just the same,” he said. “It's like--it's like sand, mamma.

It puts me in mind of chuldern playin' in a sand-pile. One of 'em sticks

his finger in the sand and makes a hole, and another of 'em'll pat the

place with his hand, and all the little grains of sand run in and fill

it up and settle against one another; and then, right away it's flat on

top again, and you can't tell there ever was a hole there. The Realty

Company'll go on all right, mamma. There ain't anything anywhere, I

reckon, that wouldn't go right on--just the same.”

And he passed out slowly into the hall; then they heard his heavy tread

upon the stairs.

Mrs. Sheridan, rising to follow him, turned a piteous face to her son.

“It's so forlone,” she said, chokingly. “That's the first time he spoke

since he came in the house this evening. I know it must 'a' hurt him to

hear Edith laughin' with that Lamhorn. She'd oughtn't to let him come,

right the very first evening this way; she'd oughtn't to done it! She

just seems to lose her head over him, and it scares me. You heard what

Sibyl said the other day, and--and you heard what--what--”

“What Edith said to Sibyl?” Bibbs finished the sentence for her.

“We CAN'T have any trouble o' THAT kind!” she wailed. “Oh, it looks as

if movin' up to this New House had brought us awful bad luck! It scares

me!” She put both her hands over her face. “Oh, Bibbs, Bibbs! if you

only wasn't so QUEER! If you could only been a kind of dependable son!

I don't know what we're all comin' to!” And, weeping, she followed her

husband.

Bibbs gazed for a while at the fire; then he rose abruptly, like a man

who has come to a decision, and briskly sought the room--it was called

“the smoking-room”--where Edith sat with Mr. Lamhorn. They looked up in

no welcoming manner, at Bibbs's entrance, and moved their chairs to a

less conspicuous adjacency.

“Good evening,” said Bibbs, pleasantly; and he seated himself in a

leather easy-chair near them.

“What is it?” asked Edith, plainly astonished.

“Nothing,” he returned, smiling.

She frowned. “Did you want something?” she asked.

“Nothing in the world. Father and mother have gone up-stairs; I sha'n't

be going up for several hours, and there didn't seem to be anybody left

for me to chat with except you and Mr. Lamhorn.”

“'CHAT with'!” she echoed, incredulously.

“I can talk about almost anything,” said Bibbs with an air of

genial politeness. “It doesn't matter to ME. I don't know much about

business--if that's what you happened to be talking about. But you

aren't in business, are you, Mr. Lamhorn?”

“Not now,” returned Lamhorn, shortly.

“I'm not, either,” said Bibbs. “It was getting cloudier than usual, I

noticed, just before dark, and there was wind from the southwest. Rain

to-morrow, I shouldn't be surprised.”

He seemed to feel that he had begun a conversation the support of

which had now become the pleasurable duty of other parties; and he

sat expectantly, looking first at his sister, then at Lamhorn, as if

implying that it was their turn to speak. Edith returned his gaze with

a mixture of astonishment and increasing anger, while Mr. Lamhorn was

obviously disturbed, though Bibbs had been as considerate as possible in

presenting the weather as a topic. Bibbs had perceived that Lamhorn had

nothing in his mind at any time except “personalities”--he could talk

about people and he could make love. Bibbs, wishing to be courteous,

offered the weather.

Lamhorn refused it, and concluded from Bibbs's luxurious attitude in the

leather chair that this half-crazy brother was a permanent fixture for

the rest of the evening. There was not reason to hope that he would

move, and Lamhorn found himself in danger of looking silly.

“I was just going,” he said, rising.

“Oh NO!” Edith cried, sharply.

“Yes. Good night! I think I--”

“Too bad,” said Bibbs, genially, walking to the door with the visitor,

while Edith stood staring as the two disappeared in the hall. She heard

Bibbs offering to “help” Lamhorn with his overcoat and the latter rather

curtly declining assistance, these episodes of departure being followed

by the closing of the outer door. She ran into the hall.

“What's the matter with you?” she cried, furiously. “What do you MEAN?

How did you dare come in there when you knew--”

Her voice broke; she made a gesture of rage and despair, and ran up the

stairs, sobbing. She fled to her mother's room, and when Bibbs came up,

a few minutes later, Mrs. Sheridan met him at his door.

“Oh, Bibbs,” she said, shaking her head woefully, “you'd oughtn't to

distress your sister! She says you drove that young man right out of the

house. You'd ought to been more considerate.”

Bibbs smiled faintly, noting that Edith's door was open, with Edith's

naive shadow motionless across its threshold. “Yes,” he said. “He

doesn't appear to be much of a 'man's man.' He ran at just a glimpse of

one.”

Edith's shadow moved; her voice came quavering: “You call yourself one?”

“No, no,” he answered. “I said, 'just a glimpse of one.' I didn't

claim--” But her door slammed angrily; and he turned to his mother.

“There,” he said, sighing. “That's almost the first time in my life I

ever tried to be a man of action, mother, and I succeeded perfectly in

what I tried to do. As a consequence I feel like a horse-thief!”

“You hurt her feelin's,” she groaned. “You must 'a' gone at it too

rough, Bibbs.”

He looked upon her wanly. “That's my trouble, mother,” he murmured. “I'm

a plain, blunt fellow. I have rough ways, and I'm a rough man.”

For once she perceived some meaning in his queerness. “Hush your

nonsense!” she said, good-naturedly, the astral of a troubled smile

appearing. “You go to bed.”

He kissed her and obeyed.

Edith gave him a cold greeting the next morning at the breakfast-table.

“You mustn't do that under a misapprehension,” he warned her, when they

were alone in the dining-room.

“Do what under a what?” she asked.

“Speak to me. I came into the smoking-room last night 'on purpose,'” he

told her, gravely. “I have a prejudice against that young man.”

She laughed. “I guess you think it means a great deal who you have

prejudices against!” In mockery she adopted the manner of one who

implores. “Bibbs, for pity's sake PROMISE me, DON'T use YOUR influence

with papa against him!” And she laughed louder.

“Listen,” he said, with peculiar earnestness. “I'll tell you now,

because--because I've decided I'm one of the family.” And then, as

if the earnestness were too heavy for him to carry it further, he

continued, in his usual tone, “I'm drunk with power, Edith.”

“What do you want to tell me?” she demanded, brusquely.

“Lamhorn made love to Sibyl,” he said.

Edith hooted. “SHE did to HIM! And because you overheard that spat

between us the other day when I the same as accused her of it, and said

something like that to you afterward--”

“No,” he said, gravely. “I KNOW.”

“How?”

“I was there, one day a week ago, with Roscoe, and I heard Sibyl and

Lamhorn--”

Edith screamed with laughter. “You were with ROSCOE--and you heard

Lamhorn making love to Sibyl!”

“No. I heard them quarreling.”

“You're funnier than ever, Bibbs!” she cried. “You say he made love to

her because you heard them quarreling!”

“That's it. If you want to know what's 'between' people, you can--by the

way they quarrel.”

“You'll kill me, Bibbs! What were they quarreling about?”

“Nothing. That's how I knew. People who quarrel over nothing!--it's

always certain--”

Edith stopped laughing abruptly, but continued her mockery. “You ought

to know. You've had so much experience, yourself!”

“I haven't any, Edith,” he said. “My life has been about as exciting as

an incubator chicken's. But I look out through the glass at things.”

“Well, then,” she said, “if you look out through the glass you must know

what effect such stuff would have upon ME!” She rose, visibly agitated.

“What if it WAS true?” she demanded, bitterly. “What if it was true a

hundred times over? You sit there with your silly face half ready to

giggle and half ready to sniffle, and tell me stories like that, about

Sibyl picking on Bobby Lamhorn and worrying him to death, and you think

it matters to ME? What if I already KNEW all about their 'quarreling'?

What if I understood WHY she--” She broke off with a violent gesture, a

sweep of her arm extended at full length, as if she hurled something to

the ground. “Do you think a girl that really cared for a man would pay

any attention to THAT? Or to YOU, Bibbs Sheridan!”

He looked at her steadily, and his gaze was as keen as it was steady.

She met it with unwavering pride. Finally he nodded slowly, as if she

had spoken and he meant to agree with what she said.

“Ah, yes,” he said. “I won't come into the smoking-room again. I'm

sorry, Edith. Nobody can make you see anything now. You'll never see

until you see for yourself. The rest of us will do better to keep out of

it--especially me!”

“That's sensible,” she responded, curtly. “You're most surprising of all

when you're sensible, Bibbs.”

“Yes,” he sighed. “I'm a dull dog. Shake hands and forgive me, Edith.”

Thawing so far as to smile, she underwent this brief ceremony, and

George appeared, summoning Bibbs to the library; Dr. Gurney was waiting

there, he announced. And Bibbs gave his sister a shy but friendly touch

upon the shoulder as a complement to the handshaking, and left her.

Dr. Gurney was sitting by the log fire, alone in the room, and he merely

glanced over his shoulder when his patient came in. He was not over

fifty, in spite of Sheridan's habitual “ole Doc Gurney.” He was gray,

however, almost as thin as Bibbs, and nearly always he looked drowsy.

“Your father telephoned me yesterday afternoon, Bibbs,” he said, not

rising. “Wants me to 'look you over' again. Come around here in front of

me--between me and the fire. I want to see if I can see through you.”

“You mean you're too sleepy to move,” returned Bibbs, complying. “I

think you'll notice that I'm getting worse.”

“Taken on about twelve pounds,” said Gurney. “Thirteen, maybe.”

“Twelve.”

“Well, it won't do.” The doctor rubbed his eyelids. “You're so much

better I'll have to use some machinery on you before we can know just

where you are. You come down to my place this afternoon. Walk down--all

the way. I suppose you know why your father wants to know.”

Bibbs nodded. “Machine-shop.”

“Still hate it?”

Bibbs nodded again.

“Don't blame you!” the doctor grunted. “Yes, I expect it'll make a lump

in your gizzard again. Well, what do you say? Shall I tell him you've

got the old lump there yet? You still want to write, do you?”

“What's the use?” Bibbs said, smiling ruefully. “My kind of writing!”

“Yes,” the doctor agreed. “I suppose if you broke away and lived on

roots and berries until you began to 'attract the favorable attention of

editors' you might be able to hope for an income of four or five hundred

dollars a year by the time you're fifty.”

“That's about it,” Bibbs murmured.

“Of course I know what you want to do,” said Gurney, drowsily. “You

don't hate the machine-shop only; you hate the whole show--the noise and

jar and dirt, the scramble--the whole bloomin' craze to 'get on.' You'd

like to go somewhere in Algiers, or to Taormina, perhaps, and bask on a

balcony, smelling flowers and writing sonnets. You'd grow fat on it and

have a delicate little life all to yourself. Well, what do you say? I

can lie like sixty, Bibbs! Shall I tell your father he'll lose another

of his boys if you don't go to Sicily?”

“I don't want to go to Sicily,” said Bibbs. “I want to stay right here.”

The doctor's drowsiness disappeared for a moment, and he gave his

patient a sharp glance. “It's a risk,” he said. “I think we'll find

you're so much better he'll send you back to the shop pretty quick.

Something's got hold of you lately; you're not quite so lackadaisical as

you used to be. But I warn you: I think the shop will knock you just as

it did before, and perhaps even harder, Bibbs.”

He rose, shook himself, and rubbed his eyelids. “Well, when we go over

you this afternoon what are we going to say about it?”

“Tell him I'm ready,” said Bibbs, looking at the floor.

“Oh no,” Gurney laughed. “Not quite yet; but you may be almost. We'll

see. Don't forget I said to walk down.”

And when the examination was concluded, that afternoon, the doctor

informed Bibbs that the result was much too satisfactory to be pleasing.

“Here's a new 'situation' for a one-act farce,” he said, gloomily, to

his next patient when Bibbs had gone. “Doctor tells a man he's well, and

that's his death sentence, likely. Dam' funny world!”

Bibbs decided to walk home, though Gurney had not instructed him upon

this point. In fact, Gurney seemed to have no more instructions on any

point, so discouraging was the young man's improvement. It was a dingy

afternoon, and the smoke was evident not only to Bibbs's sight, but to

his nostrils, though most of the pedestrians were so saturated with

the smell they could no longer detect it. Nearly all of them walked

hurriedly, too intent upon their destinations to be more than half aware

of the wayside; they wore the expressions of people under a vague yet

constant strain. They were all lightly powdered, inside and out, with

fine dust and grit from the hard-paved streets, and they were unaware of

that also. They did not even notice that they saw the smoke, though the

thickened air was like a shrouding mist. And when Bibbs passed the new

“Sheridan Apartments,” now almost completed, he observed that the marble

of the vestibule was already streaky with soot, like his gloves, which

were new.

That recalled to him the faint odor of gasolene in the coupe on the way

from his brother's funeral, and this incited a train of thought which

continued till he reached the vicinity of his home. His route was by

a street parallel to that on which the New House fronted, and in his

preoccupation he walked a block farther than he intended, so that,

having crossed to his own street, he approached the New House from the

north, and as he came to the corner of Mr. Vertrees's lot Mr. Vertrees's

daughter emerged from the front door and walked thoughtfully down the

path to the old picket gate. She was unconscious of the approach of the

pedestrian from the north, and did not see him until she had opened the

gate and he was almost beside her. Then she looked up, and as she

saw him she started visibly. And if this thing had happened to

Robert Lamhorn, he would have had a thought far beyond the horizon of

faint-hearted Bibbs's thoughts. Lamhorn, indeed, would have spoken his

thought. He would have said: “You jumped because you were thinking of

me!”

CHAPTER XV

Mary was the picture of a lady flustered. She stood with one hand

closing the gate behind her, and she had turned to go in the direction

Bibbs was walking. There appeared to be nothing for it but that they

should walk together, at least as far as the New House. But Bibbs had

paused in his slow stride, and there elapsed an instant before either

spoke or moved--it was no longer than that, and yet it sufficed for each

to seem to say, by look and attitude, “Why, it's YOU!”

Then they both spoke at once, each hurriedly pronouncing the other's

name as if about to deliver a message of importance. Then both came to

a stop simultaneously, but Bibbs made a heroic effort, and as they began

to walk on together he contrived to find his voice.

“I--I--hate a frozen fish myself,” he said. “I think three miles was too

long for you to put up with one.”

“Good gracious!” she cried, turning to him a glowing face from which

restraint and embarrassment had suddenly fled. “Mr. Sheridan, you're

lovely to put it that way. But it's always the girl's place to say it's

turning cooler! I ought to have been the one to show that we didn't know

each other well enough not to say SOMETHING! It was an imposition for

me to have made you bring me home, and after I went into the house I

decided I should have walked. Besides, it wasn't three miles to the

car-line. I never thought of it!”

“No,” said Bibbs, earnestly. “I didn't, either. I might have said

something if I'd thought of anything. I'm talking now, though; I must

remember that, and not worry about it later. I think I'm talking, though

it doesn't sound intelligent even to me. I made up my mind that if I

ever met you again I'd turn on my voice and keep it going, no mater what

it said. I--”

She interrupted him with laughter, and Mary Vertrees's laugh was one

which Bibbs's father had declared, after the house-warming, “a cripple

would crawl five miles to hear.” And at the merry lilting of it Bibbs's

father's son took heart to forget some of his trepidation. “I'll be any

kind of idiot,” he said, “if you'll laugh at me some more. It won't be

difficult for me.”

She did; and Bibbs's cheeks showed a little actual color, which Mary

perceived. It recalled to her, by contrast, her careless and irritated

description of him to her mother just after she had seen him for the

first time. “Rather tragic and altogether impossible.” It seemed to her

now that she must have been blind.

They had passed the New House without either of them showing--or

possessing--any consciousness that it had been the destination of one of

them.

“I'll keep on talking,” Bibbs continued, cheerfully, “and you keep on

laughing. I'm amounting to something in the world this afternoon. I'm

making a noise, and that makes you make music. Don't be bothered by my

bleating out such things as that. I'm really frightened, and that makes

me bleat anything. I'm frightened about two things: I'm afraid of what

I'll think of myself later if I don't keep talking--talking now, I

mean--and I'm afraid of what I'll think of myself if I do. And besides

these two things, I'm frightened, anyhow. I don't remember talking as

much as this more than once or twice in my life. I suppose it was always

in me to do it, though, the first time I met any one who didn't know me

well enough not to listen.”

“But you're not really talking to me,” said Mary. “You're just thinking

aloud.”

“No,” he returned, gravely. “I'm not thinking at all; I'm only making

vocal sounds because I believe it's more mannerly. I seem to be the

subject of what little meaning they possess, and I'd like to change it,

but I don't know how. I haven't any experience in talking, and I don't

know how to manage it.”

“You needn't change the subject on my account, Mr. Sheridan,” she said.

“Not even if you really talked about yourself.” She turned her

face toward him as she spoke, and Bibbs caught his breath; he was

pathetically amazed by the look she gave him. It was a glowing look,

warmly friendly and understanding, and, what almost shocked him, it was

an eagerly interested look. Bibbs was not accustomed to anything like

that.

“I--you--I--I'm--” he stammered, and the faint color in his cheeks grew

almost vivid.

She was still looking at him, and she saw the strange radiance that came

into his face. There was something about him, too, that explained how

“queer” many people might think him; but he did not seem “queer” to Mary

Vertrees; he seemed the most quaintly natural person she had ever met.

He waited, and became coherent. “YOU say something now,” he said. “I

don't even belong in the chorus, and here I am, trying to sing the funny

man's solo! You--”

“No,” she interrupted. “I'd rather play your accompaniment.”

“I'll stop and listen to it, then.”

“Perhaps--” she began, but after pausing thoughtfully she made a

gesture with her muff, indicating a large brick church which they were

approaching. “Do you see that church, Mr. Sheridan?”

“I suppose I could,” he answered in simple truthfulness, looking at her.

“But I don't want to. Once, when I was ill, the nurse told me I'd better

say anything that was on my mind, and I got the habit. The other reason

I don't want to see the church is that I have a feeling it's where

you're going, and where I'll be sent back.”

She shook her head in cheery negation. “Not unless you want to be. Would

you like to come with me?”

“Why--why--yes,” he said. “Anywhere!” And again it was apparent that he

spoke in simple truthfulness.

“Then come--if you care for organ music. The organist is an old friend

of mine, and sometimes he plays for me. He's a dear old man. He had

a degree from Bonn, and was a professor afterward, but he gave up

everything for music. That's he, waiting in the doorway. He looks like

Beethoven, doesn't he? I think he knows that, perhaps and enjoys it a

little. I hope so.”

“Yes,” said Bibbs, as they reached the church steps. “I think Beethoven

would like it, too. It must be pleasant to look like other people.”

“I haven't kept you?” Mary said to the organist.

“No, no,” he answered, heartily. “I would not mind so only you should

shooer come!”

“This is Mr. Sheridan, Dr. Kraft. He has come to listen with me.”

The organist looked bluntly surprised. “Iss that SO?” he exclaimed.

“Well, I am glad if you wish him, and if he can stant my liddle playink.

He iss musician himself, then, of course.”

“No,” said Bibbs, as the three entered the church together. “I--I played

the--I tried to play--” Fortunately he checked himself; he had been

about to offer the information that he had failed to master the

jews'-harp in his boyhood. “No, I'm not a musician,” he contented

himself with saying.

“What?” Dr. Kraft's surprise increased. “Young man, you are fortunate!

I play for Miss Vertrees; she comes always alone. You are the first. You

are the first one EVER!”

They had reached the head of the central aisle, and as the organist

finished speaking Bibbs stopped short, turning to look at Mary Vertrees

in a dazed way that was not of her perceiving; for, though she stopped

as he did, her gaze followed the organist, who was walking away from

them toward the front of the church, shaking his white Beethovian mane

roguishly.

“It's false pretenses on my part,” Bibbs said. “You mean to be kind to

the sick, but I'm not an invalid any more. I'm so well I'm going back

to work in a few days. I'd better leave before he begins to play, hadn't

I?”

“No,” said Mary, beginning to walk forward. “Not unless you don't like

great music.”

He followed her to a seat about half-way up the aisle while Dr. Kraft

ascended to the organ. It was an enormous one, the procession of pipes

ranging from long, starveling whistles to thundering fat guns; they

covered all the rear wall of the church, and the organist's figure,

reaching its high perch, looked like that of some Lilliputian magician

ludicrously daring the attempt to control a monster certain to overwhelm

him.

“This afternoon some Handel!” he turned to shout.

Mary nodded. “Will you like that?” she asked Bibbs.

“I don't know. I never heard any except 'Largo.' I don't know anything

about music. I don't even know how to pretend I do. If I knew enough to

pretend, I would.”

“No,” said Mary, looking at him and smiling faintly, “you wouldn't.”

She turned away as a great sound began to swim and tremble in the air;

the huge empty space of the church filled with it, and the two people

listening filled with it; the universe seemed to fill and thrill with

it. The two sat intensely still, the great sound all round about them,

while the church grew dusky, and only the organist's lamp made a

tiny star of light. His white head moved from side to side beneath it

rhythmically, or lunged and recovered with the fierceness of a duelist

thrusting, but he was magnificently the master of his giant, and it sang

to his magic as he bade it.

Bibbs was swept away upon that mighty singing. Such a thing was wholly

unknown to him; there had been no music in his meager life. Unlike

the tale, it was the Princess Bedrulbudour who had brought him to the

enchanted cave, and that--for Bibbs--was what made its magic dazing. It

seemed to him a long, long time since he had been walking home drearily

from Dr. Gurney's office; it seemed to him that he had set out upon a

happy journey since then, and that he had reached another planet, where

Mary Vertrees and he sat alone together listening to a vast choiring of

invisible soldiers and holy angels. There were armies of voices about

them singing praise and thanksgiving; and yet they were alone. It was

incredible that the walls of the church were not the boundaries of

the universe, to remain so for ever; incredible that there was a smoky

street just yonder, where housemaids were bringing in evening papers

from front steps and where children were taking their last spins on

roller-skates before being haled indoors for dinner.

He had a curious sense of communication with his new friend. He knew

it could not be so, and yet he felt as if all the time he spoke to her,

saying: “You hear this strain? You hear that strain? You know the dream

that these sounds bring to me?” And it seemed to him as though she

answered continually: “I hear! I hear that strain, and I hear the new

one that you are hearing now. I know the dream that these sounds bring

to you. Yes, yes, I hear it all! We hear--together!”

And though the church grew so dim that all was mysterious shadow except

the vague planes of the windows and the organist's light, with the white

head moving beneath it, Bibbs had no consciousness that the girl sitting

beside him had grown shadowy; he seemed to see her as plainly as ever in

the darkness, though he did not look at her. And all the mighty chanting

of the organ's multitudinous voices that afternoon seemed to Bibbs to be

chorusing of her and interpreting her, singing her thoughts and singing

for him the world of humble gratitude that was in his heart because she

was so kind to him. It all meant Mary.

CHAPTER XVI

But when she asked him what it meant, on their homeward way, he was

silent. They had come a few paces from the church without speaking,

walking slowly.

“I'll tell you what it meant to me,” she said, as he did not immediately

reply. “Almost any music of Handel's always means one thing above all

others to me: courage! That's it. It makes cowardice of whining seem so

infinitesimal--it makes MOST things in our hustling little lives seem

infinitesimal.”

“Yes,” he said. “It seems odd, doesn't it, that people down-town are

hurrying to trains and hanging to straps in trolley-cars, weltering

every way to get home and feed and sleep so they can get down-town

to-morrow. And yet there isn't anything down there worth getting to.

They're like servants drudging to keep the house going, and believing

the drudgery itself is the great thing. They make so much noise and fuss

and dirt they forget that the house was meant to live in. The housework

has to be done, but the people who do it have been so overpaid that

they're confused and worship the housework. They're overpaid, and yet,

poor things! they haven't anything that a chicken can't have. Of

course, when the world gets to paying its wages sensibly that will be

different.”

“Do you mean 'communism'?” she asked, and she made their slow pace a

little slower--they had only three blocks to go.

“Whatever the word is, I only mean that things don't look very sensible

now--especially to a man that wants to keep out of 'em and can't!

'Communism'? Well, at least any 'decent sport' would say it's fair for

all the strong runners to start from the same mark and give the weak

ones a fair distance ahead, so that all can run something like even

on the stretch. And wouldn't it be pleasant, really, if they could all

cross the winning-line together? Who really enjoys beating anybody--if

he sees the beaten man's face? The only way we can enjoy getting ahead

of other people nowadays is by forgetting what the other people feel.

And that,” he added, “is nothing of what the music meant to me. You see,

if I keep talking about what it didn't mean I can keep from telling you

what it did mean.”

“Didn't it mean courage to you, too--a little?” she asked. “Triumph and

praise were in it, and somehow those things mean courage to me.”

“Yes, they were all there,” Bibbs said. “I don't know the name of what

he played, but I shouldn't think it would matter much. The man that

makes the music must leave it to you what it can mean to you, and the

name he puts to it can't make much difference--except to himself and

people very much like him, I suppose.”

“I suppose that's true, though I'd never thought of it like that.”

“I imagine music must make feelings and paint pictures in the minds of

the people who hear it,” Bibbs went on, musingly, “according to their

own natures as much as according to the music itself. The musician might

compose something and play it, wanting you to think of the Holy Grail,

and some people who heard it would think of a prayer-meeting, and some

would think of how good they were themselves, and a boy might think of

himself at the head of a solemn procession, carrying a banner and riding

a white horse. And then, if there were some jubilant passages in the

music, he'd think of a circus.”

They had reached her gate, and she set her hand upon it, but did

not open it. Bibbs felt that this was almost the kindest of her

kindnesses--not to be prompt in leaving him.

“After all,” she said, “you didn't tell me whether you liked it.”

“No. I didn't need to.”

“No, that's true, and I didn't need to ask. I knew. But you said you

were trying to keep from telling me what it did mean.”

“I can't keep from telling it any longer,” he said. “The music meant to

me--it meant the kindness of--of you.”

“Kindness? How?”

“You thought I was a sort of lonely tramp--and sick--”

“No,” she said, decidedly. “I thought perhaps you'd like to hear Dr.

Kraft play. And you did.”

“It's curious; sometimes it seemed to me that it was you who were

playing.”

Mary laughed. “I? I strum! Piano. A little Chopin--Grieg--Chaminade. You

wouldn't listen!”

Bibbs drew a deep breath. “I'm frightened again,” he said, in an

unsteady voice. “I'm afraid you'll think I'm pushing, but--” He paused,

and the words sank to a murmur.

“Oh, if you want ME to play for you!” she said. “Yes, gladly. It will be

merely absurd after what you heard this afternoon. I play like a hundred

thousand other girls, and I like it. I'm glad when any one's willing to

listen, and if you--” She stopped, checked by a sudden recollection,

and laughed ruefully. “But my piano won't be here after to-night. I--I'm

sending it away to-morrow. I'm afraid that if you'd like me to play to

you you'd have to come this evening.”

“You'll let me?” he cried.

“Certainly, if you care to.”

“If I could play--” he said, wistfully, “if I could play like that old

man in the church I could thank you.”

“Ah, but you haven't heard me play. I KNOW you liked this afternoon,

but--”

“Yes,” said Bibbs. “It was the greatest happiness I've ever known.”

It was too dark to see his face, but his voice held such plain honesty,

and he spoke with such complete unconsciousness of saying anything

especially significant, that she knew it was the truth. For a moment she

was nonplussed, then she opened the gate and went in. “You'll come after

dinner, then?”

“Yes,” he said, not moving. “Would you mind if I stood here until time

to come in?”

She had reached the steps, and at that she turned, offering him the

response of laughter and a gay gesture of her muff toward the lighted

windows of the New House, as though bidding him to run home to his

dinner.

That night, Bibbs sat writing in his note-book.

Music can come into a blank life, and fill it. Everything that

is beautiful is music, if you can listen.

There is no gracefulness like that of a graceful woman at a grand

piano. There is a swimming loveliness of line that seems to merge

with the running of the sound, and you seem, as you watch her, to

see what you are hearing and to hear what you are seeing.

There are women who make you think of pine woods coming down to

a sparkling sea. The air about such a woman is bracing, and when

she is near you, you feel strong and ambitious; you forget that

the world doesn't like you. You think that perhaps you are a great

fellow, after all. Then you come away and feel like a boy who has

fallen in love with his Sunday-school teacher. You'll be whipped

for it--and ought to be.

There are women who make you think of Diana, crowned with the moon.

But they do not have the “Greek profile.” I do not believe Helen

of Troy had a “Greek profile”; they would not have fought about her

if her nose had been quite that long. The Greek nose is not the

adorable nose. The adorable nose is about an eighth of an inch

shorter.

Much of the music of Wagner, it appears, is not suitable to the

piano. Wagner was a composer who could interpret into music such

things as the primitive impulses of humanity--he could have made a

machine-shop into music. But not if he had to work in it. Wagner

was always dealing in immensities--a machine-shop would have put a

majestic lump in so grand a gizzard as that.

There is a mystery about pianos, it seems. Sometimes they have to

be “sent away.” That is how some people speak of the penitentiary.

“Sent away” is a euphuism for “sent to prison.” But pianos are not

sent to prison, and they are not sent to the tuner--the tuner is

sent to them. Why are pianos “sent away”--and where?

Sometimes a glorious day shines into the most ordinary and useless

life. Happiness and beauty come caroling out of the air into the

gloomy house of that life as if some stray angel just happened to

perch on the roof-tree, resting and singing. And the night after

such a day is lustrous and splendid with the memory of it. Music

and beauty and kindness--those are the three greatest things God

can give us. To bring them all in one day to one who expected

nothing--ah! the heart that received them should be as humble as

it is thankful. But it is hard to be humble when one is so rich

with new memories. It is impossible to be humble after a day of

glory.

Yes--the adorable nose is more than an eighth of an inch shorter

than the Greek nose. It is a full quarter of an inch shorter.

There are women who will be kinder to a sick tramp than to a

conquering hero. But the sick tramp had better remember that's

what he is. Take care, take care! Humble's the word!

CHAPTER XVII

That “mystery about pianos” which troubled Bibbs had been a mystery to

Mr. Vertrees, and it was being explained to him at about the time Bibbs

scribbled the reference to it in his notes. Mary had gone up-stairs upon

Bibbs's departure at ten o'clock, and Mr. and Mrs. Vertrees sat until

after midnight in the library, talking. And in all that time they found

not one cheerful topic, but became more depressed with everything and

with every phase of everything that they discussed--no extraordinary

state of affairs in a family which has always “held up its head,”

only to arrive in the end at a point where all it can do is to look on

helplessly at the processes of its own financial dissolution. For that

was the point which this despairing couple had reached--they could do

nothing except look on and talk about it. They were only vaporing, and

they knew it.

“She needn't to have done that about her piano,” vapored Mr. Vertrees.

“We could have managed somehow without it. At least she ought to have

consulted me, and if she insisted I could have arranged the details with

the--the dealer.”

“She thought that it might be--annoying for you,” Mrs. Vertrees

explained. “Really, she planned for you not to know about it until

they had removed--until after to-morrow, that is, but I decided to--to

mention it. You see, she didn't even tell me about it until this

morning. She has another idea, too, I'm afraid. It's--it's--”

“Well?” he urged, as she found it difficult to go on.

“Her other idea is--that is, it was--I think it can be avoided, of

course--it was about her furs.”

“No!” he exclaimed, quickly. “I won't have it! You must see to that. I'd

rather not talk to her about it, but you mustn't let her.”

“I'll try not,” his wife promised. “Of course, they're very handsome.”

“All the more reason for her to keep them!” he returned, irritably.

“We're not THAT far gone, I think!”

“Perhaps not yet,” Mrs. Vertrees said. “She seems to be troubled about

the--the coal matter and--about Tilly. Of course the piano will take

care of some things like those for a while and--”

“I don't like it. I gave her the piano to play on, not to--”

“You mustn't be distressed about it in ONE way,” she said, comfortingly.

“She arranged with the--with the purchaser that the men will come for it

about half after five in the afternoon. The days are so short now it's

really quite winter.”

“Oh, yes,” he agreed, moodily. “So far as that goes people have a

right to move a piece of furniture without stirring up the neighbors, I

suppose, even by daylight. I don't suppose OUR neighbors are paying much

attention just now, though I hear Sheridan was back in his office early

the morning after the funeral.”

Mrs. Vertrees made a little sound of commiseration. “I don't believe

that was because he wasn't suffering, though. I'm sure it was only

because he felt his business was so important. Mary told me he seemed

wrapped up in his son's succeeding; and that was what he bragged about

most. He isn't vulgar in his boasting, I understand; he doesn't talk a

great deal about his--his actual money--though there was something about

blades of grass that I didn't comprehend. I think he meant something

about his energy--but perhaps not. No, his bragging usually seemed to be

not so much a personal vainglory as about his family and the greatness

of this city.”

“'Greatness of this city'!” Mr. Vertrees echoed, with dull bitterness.

“It's nothing but a coal-hole! I suppose it looks 'great' to the man who

has the luck to make it work for him. I suppose it looks 'great' to any

YOUNG man, too, starting out to make his fortune out of it. The fellows

that get what they want out of it say it's 'great,' and everybody else

gets the habit. But you have a different point of view if it's the

city that got what it wanted out of you! Of course Sheridan says it's

'great'.”

Mrs. Vertrees seemed unaware of this unusual outburst. “I believe,” she

began, timidly, “he doesn't boast of--that is, I understand he has never

seemed so interested in the--the other one.”

Her husband's face was dark, but at that a heavier shadow fell upon

it; he looked more haggard than before. “'The other one',” he repeated,

averting his eyes. “You mean--you mean the third son--the one that was

here this evening?”

“Yes, the--the youngest,” she returned, her voice so feeble it was

almost a whisper.

And then neither of them spoke for several long minutes. Nor did either

look at the other during that silence.

At last Mr. Vertrees contrived to cough, but not convincingly.

“What--ah--what was it Mary said about him out in the hall, when she

came in this afternoon? I heard you asking her something about him, but

she answered in such a low voice I didn't--ah--happen to catch it.”

“She--she didn't say much. All she said was this: I asked her if she had

enjoyed her walk with him, and she said, 'He's the most wistful creature

I've ever known.'”

“Well?”

“That was all. He IS wistful-looking; and so fragile--though he doesn't

seem quite so much so lately. I was watching Mary from the window when

she went out to-day, and he joined her, and if I hadn't known about him

I'd have thought he had quite an interesting face.”

“If you 'hadn't known about him'? Known what?”

“Oh, nothing, of course,” she said, hurriedly. “Nothing definite, that

is. Mary said decidely, long ago, that he's not at all insane, as we

thought at first. It's only--well, of course it IS odd, their attitude

about him. I suppose it's some nervous trouble that makes him--perhaps

a little queer at times, so that he can't apply himself to anything--or

perhaps does odd things. But, after all, of course, we only have an

impression about it. We don't know--that is, positively. I--” She

paused, then went on: “I didn't know just how to ask--that is--I didn't

mention it to Mary. I didn't--I--” The poor lady floundered pitifully,

concluding with a mumble. “So soon after--after the--the shock.”

“I don't think I've caught more than a glimpse of him,” said Mr.

Vertrees. “I wouldn't know him if I saw him, but your impression of

him is--” He broke off suddenly, springing to his feet in agitation. “I

can't imagine her--oh, NO!” he gasped. And he began to pace the floor.

“A half-witted epileptic!”

“No, no!” she cried. “He may be all right. We--”

“Oh, it's horrible! I can't--” He threw himself back into his chair

again, sweeping his hands across his face, then letting them fall limply

at his sides.

Mrs. Vertrees was tremulous. “You mustn't give way so,” she said,

inspired for once almost to direct discourse. “Whatever Mary might think

of doing, it wouldn't be on her own account; it would be on ours. But if

WE should--should consider it, that wouldn't be on OUR own account. It

isn't because we think of ourselves.”

“Oh God, no!” he groaned. “Not for us! We can go to the poorhouse, but

Mary can't be a stenographer!”

Sighing, Mrs. Vertrees resumed her obliqueness. “Of course,” she

murmured, “it all seems very premature, speculating about such things,

but I had a queer sort of feeling that she seemed quite interested in

this--” She had almost said “in this one,” but checked herself. “In this

young man. It's natural, of course; she is always so strong and well,

and he is--he seems to be, that is--rather appealing to the--the

sympathies.”

“Yes!” he agreed, bitterly. “Precisely. The sympathies!”

“Perhaps,” she faltered, “perhaps you might feel easier if I could have

a little talk with some one?”

“With whom?”

“I had thought of--not going about it too brusquely, of course, but

perhaps just waiting for his name to be mentioned, if I happened to

be talking with somebody that knew the family--and then I might find

a chance to say that I was sorry to hear he'd been ill so much,

and--Something of that kind perhaps?”

“You don't know anybody that knows the family.”

“Yes. That is--well, in a way, of course, one OF the family. That Mrs.

Roscoe Sheridan is not a--that is, she's rather a pleasant-faced little

woman, I think, and of course rather ordinary. I think she is interested

about--that is, of course, she'd be anxious to be more intimate with

Mary, naturally. She's always looking over here from her house; she

was looking out the window this afternoon when Mary went out, I

noticed--though I don't think Mary saw her. I'm sure she wouldn't think

it out of place to--to be frank about matters. She called the other day,

and Mary must rather like her--she said that evening that the call had

done her good. Don't you think it might be wise?”

“Wise? I don't know. I feel the whole matter is impossible.”

“Yes, so do I,” she returned, promptly. “It isn't really a thing we

should be considering seriously, of course. Still--”

“I should say not! But possibly--”

Thus they skirmished up and down the field, but before they turned the

lights out and went up-stairs it was thoroughly understood between

them that Mrs. Vertrees should seek the earliest opportunity to obtain

definite information from Sibyl Sheridan concerning the mental and

physical status of Bibbs. And if he were subject to attacks of lunacy,

the unhappy pair decided to prevent the sacrifice they supposed their

daughter intended to make of herself. Altogether, if there were spiteful

ghosts in the old house that night, eavesdropping upon the woeful

comedy, they must have died anew of laughter!

Mrs. Vertrees's opportunity occurred the very next afternoon. Darkness

had fallen, and the piano-movers had come. They were carrying the piano

down the front steps, and Mrs. Vertrees was standing in the open doorway

behind them, preparing to withdraw, when she heard a sharp exclamation;

and Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan, bareheaded, emerged from the shadow into the

light of the doorway.

“Good gracious!” she cried. “It did give me a fright!”

“It's Mrs. Sheridan, isn't it?” Mrs. Vertrees was perplexed by this

informal appearance, but she reflected that it might be providential.

“Won't you come in?”

“No. Oh no, thank you!” Sibyl panted, pressing her hand to her side.

“You don't know what a fright you've given me! And it was nothing but

your piano!” She laughed shrilly. “You know, since our tragedy coming

so suddenly the other day, you have no idea how upset I've been--almost

hysterical! And I just glanced out of the window, a minute or so ago,

and saw your door wide open and black figures of men against the light,

carrying something heavy, and I almost fainted. You see, it was just the

way it looked when I saw them bringing my poor brother-in-law in,

next door, only such a few short days ago. And I thought I'd seen your

daughter start for a drive with Bibbs Sheridan in a car about three

o'clock--and-- They aren't back yet, are they?”

“No. Good heavens!”

“And the only thing I could think of was that something must have

happened to them, and I just dashed over--and it was only your PIANO!”

She broke into laughter again. “I suppose you're just sending it

somewhere to be repaired, aren't you?”

“It's--it's being taken down-town,” said Mrs. Vertrees. “Won't you come

in and make me a little visit. I was SO sorry, the other day, that I

was--ah--” She stopped inconsequently, then repeated her invitation.

“Won't you come in? I'd really--”

“Thank you, but I must be running back. My husband usually gets home

about this time, and I make a little point of it always to be there.”

“That's very sweet.” Mrs. Vertrees descended the steps and walked toward

the street with Sibyl. “It's quite balmy for so late in November, isn't

it? Almost like a May evening.”

“I'm afraid Miss Vertrees will miss her piano,” said Sibyl, watching

the instrument disappear into the big van at the curb. “She plays

wonderfully, Mrs. Kittersby tells me.”

“Yes, she plays very well. One of your relatives came to hear her

yesterday, after dinner, and I think she played all evening for him.”

“You mean Bibbs?” asked Sibyl.

“The--the youngest Mr. Sheridan. Yes. He's very musical, isn't he?”

“I never heard of it. But I shouldn't think it would matter much whether

he was or not, if he could get Miss Vertrees to play to him. Does your

daughter expect the piano back soon?”

“I--I believe not immediately. Mr. Sheridan came last evening to hear

her play because she had arranged with the--that is, it was to be

removed this afternoon. He seems almost well again.”

“Yes.” Sibyl nodded. “His father's going to try to start him to work.”

“He seems very delicate,” said Mrs. Vertrees. “I shouldn't think he

would be able to stand a great deal, either physically or--” She paused

and then added, glowing with the sense of her own adroitness--“or

mentally.”

“Oh, mentally Bibbs is all right,” said Sibyl, in an odd voice.

“Entirely?” Mrs. Vertrees asked, breathlessly.

“Yes, entirely.”

“But has he ALWAYS been?” This question came with the same anxious

eagerness.

“Certainly. He had a long siege of nervous dyspepsia, but he's over it.”

“And you think--”

“Bibbs is all right. You needn't wor--” Sibyl choked, and pressed

her handkerchief to her mouth. “Good night, Mrs. Vertrees,” she said,

hurriedly, as the head-lights of an automobile swung round the corner

above, sending a brightening glare toward the edge of the pavement where

the two ladies were standing.

“Won't you come in?” urged Mrs. Vertrees, cordially, hearing the sound

of a cheerful voice out of the darkness beyond the approaching glare.

“Do! There's Mary now, and she--”

But Sibyl was half-way across the street. “No, thanks,” she called.

“I hope she won't miss her piano!” And she ran into her own house

and plunged headlong upon a leather divan in the hall, holding her

handkerchief over her mouth.

The noise of her tumultuous entrance was evidently startling in the

quiet house, for upon the bang of the door there followed the crash of

a decanter, dropped upon the floor of the dining-room at the end of the

hall; and, after a rumble of indistinct profanity, Roscoe came forth,

holding a dripping napkin in his hand.

“What's your excitement?” he demanded. “What do you find to go into

hysterics over? Another death in the family?”

“Oh, it's funny!” she gasped. “Those old frost-bitten people! I guess

THEY'RE getting their come-uppance!” Lying prone, she elevated her feet

in the air, clapped her heels together repeatedly, in an ecstasy.

“Come through, come through!” said her husband, crossly. “What you been

up to?”

“Me?” she cried, dropping her feet and swinging around to face him.

“Nothing. It's them! Those Vertreeses!” She wiped her eyes. “They've had

to sell their piano!”

“Well, what of it?”

“That Mrs. Kittersby told me all about 'em a week ago,” said Sibyl.

“They've been hard up for a long time, and she says as long ago as

last winter she knew that girl got a pair of walking-shoes re-soled and

patched, because she got it done the same place Mrs. Kittersby's cook

had HERS! And the night of the house-warming I kind of got suspicious,

myself. She didn't have one single piece of any kind of real jewelry,

and you could see her dress was an old one done over. Men can't tell

those things, and you all made a big fuss over her, but I thought she

looked a sight, myself! Of course, EDITH was crazy to have her, and--”

“Well, well?” he urged, impatiently.

“Well, I'm TELLING you! Mrs. Kittersby says they haven't got a THING!

Just absolutely NOTHING--and they don't know anywhere to turn! The

family's all died out but them, and all the relatives they got are very

distant, and live East and scarcely know 'em. She says the whole town's

been wondering what WOULD become of 'em. The girl had plenty chances to

marry up to a year or so ago, but she was so indifferent she scared the

men off, and the ones that had wanted to went and married other girls.

Gracious! they were lucky! Marry HER? The man that found himself tied up

to THAT girl--”

“Terrible funny, terrible funny!” said Roscoe, with sarcasm. “It's so

funny I broke a cut-glass decanter and spilled a quart of--”

“Wait!” she begged. “You'll see. I was sitting by the window a little

while ago, and I saw a big wagon drive up across the street and some men

go into the house. It was too dark to make out much, and for a minute

I got the idea they were moving out--the house has been foreclosed on,

Mrs. Kittersby says. It seemed funny, too, because I knew that girl was

out riding with Bibbs. Well, I thought I'd see, so I slipped over--and

it was their PIANO! They'd sold it and were trying to sneak it out after

dark, so nobody'd catch on!” Again she gave way to her enjoyment, but

resumed, as her husband seemed about to interrupt the narrative. “Wait a

minute, can't you? The old lady was superintending, and she gave it all

away. I sized her up for one of those old churchy people that tell

all kinds of lies except when it comes to so many words, and then they

can't. She might just as well told me outright! Yes, they'd sold it;

and I hope they'll pay some of their debts. They owe everybody, and last

week a coal-dealer made an awful fuss at the door with Mr. Vertrees.

Their cook told our upstairs girl, and she said she didn't know WHEN

she'd seen any money, herself! Did you ever hear of such a case as that

girl in your LIFE?”

“What girl? Their cook?”

“That Vertrees girl! Don't you see they looked on our coming up into

this neighborhood as their last chance? They were just going down and

out, and here bobs up the green, rich Sheridan family! So they doll

the girl up in her old things, made over, and send her out to get a

Sheridan--she's GOT to get one! And she just goes in blind; and she

tries it on first with YOU. You remember, she just plain TOLD you she

was going to mash you, and then she found out you were the married one,

and turned right square around to Jim and carried him off his feet.

Oh, Jim was landed--there's no doubt about THAT! But Jim was lucky;

he didn't live to STAY landed, and it's a good thing for him!” Sibyl's

mirth had vanished, and she spoke with virulent rapidity. “Well, she

couldn't get you, because you were married, and she couldn't get Jim,

because Jim died. And there they were, dead broke! Do you know what she

did? Do you know what she's DOING?”

“No, I don't,” said Roscoe, gruffly.

Sibyl's voice rose and culminated in a scream of renewed hilarity.

“BIBBS! She waited in the grave-yard, and drove home with him from JIM'S

FUNERAL! Never spoke to him before! Jim wasn't COLD!”

She rocked herself back and forth upon the divan. “Bibbs!” she shrieked.

“Bibbs! Roscoe, THINK of it! BIBBS!”

He stared unsympathetically, but her mirth was unabated for all that.

“And yesterday,” she continued, between paroxysms--“yesterday she came

out of the house--just as he was passing. She must have been looking

out--waiting for the chance; I saw the old lady watching at the window!

And she got him there last night--to 'PLAY' to him; the old lady gave

that away! And to-day she made him take her out in a machine! And the

cream of it is that they didn't even know whether he was INSANE or

not--they thought maybe he was, but she went after him just the same!

The old lady set herself to pump me about it to-day. BIBBS! Oh, my Lord!

BIBBS!”

But Roscoe looked grim. “So it's funny to you, is it? It sounds kind of

pitiful to me. I should think it would to a woman, too.”

“Oh, it might,” she returned, sobering. “It might, if those people

weren't such frozen-faced smart Alecks. If they'd had the decency to

come down off the perch a little I probably wouldn't think it was funny,

but to see 'em sit up on their pedestal all the time they're eating

dirt--well, I think it's funny! That girl sits up as if she was Queen

Elizabeth, and expects people to wallow on the ground before her until

they get near enough for her to give 'em a good kick with her old

patched shoes--oh, she'd do THAT, all right!--and then she powders up

and goes out to mash--BIBBS SHERIDAN!”

“Look here,” said Roscoe, heavily; “I don't care about that one way or

another. If you're through, I got something I want to talk to you about.

I was going to, that day just before we heard about Jim.”

At this Sibyl stiffened quickly; her eyes became intensely bright. “What

is it?”

“Well,” he began, frowning, “what I was going to say then--” He broke

off, and, becoming conscious that he was still holding the wet napkin in

his hand, threw it pettishly into a corner. “I never expected I'd have

to say anything like this to anybody I MARRIED; but I was going to ask

you what was the matter between you and Lamhorn.”

Sibyl uttered a sharp monosyllable. “Well?”

“I felt the time had come for me to know about it,” he went on. “You

never told me anything--”

“You never asked,” she interposed, curtly.

“Well, we'd got in a way of not talking much,” said Roscoe. “It looks to

me now as if we'd pretty much lost the run of each other the way a good

many people do. I don't say it wasn't my fault. I was up early and down

to work all day, and I'd come home tired at night, and want to go to bed

soon as I'd got the paper read--unless there was some good musical show

in town. Well, you seemed all right until here lately, the last month or

so, I began to see something was wrong. I couldn't help seeing it.”

“Wrong?” she said. “What like?”

“You changed; you didn't look the same. You were all strung up and

excited and fidgety; you got to looking peakid and run down. Now then,

Lamhorn had been going with us a good while, but I noticed that not long

ago you got to picking on him about every little thing he did; you got

to quarreling with him when I was there and when I wasn't. I could see

you'd been quarreling whenever I came in and he was here.”

“Do you object to that?” asked Sibyl, breathing quickly.

“Yes--when it injures my wife's health!” he returned, with a quick lift

of his eyes to hers. “You began to run down just about the time you

began falling out with him.” He stepped close to her. “See here, Sibyl,

I'm going to know what it means.”

“Oh, you ARE?” she snapped.

“You're trembling,” he said, gravely.

“Yes. I'm angry enough to do more than tremble, you'll find. Go on!”

“That was all I was going to say the other day,” he said. “I was going

to ask you--”

“Yes, that was all you were going to say THE OTHER DAY. Yes. What else

have you to say to-night?”

“To-night,” he replied, with grim swiftness, “I want to know why you

keep telephoning him you want to see him since he stopped coming here.”

She made a long, low sound of comprehension before she said, “And what

else did Edith want you to ask me?”

“I want to know what you say over the telephone to Lamhorn,” he said,

fiercely.

“Is that all Edith told you to ask me? You saw her when you stopped in

there on your way home this evening, didn't you? Didn't she tell you

then what I said over the telephone to Mr. Lamhorn?”

“No, she didn't!” he vociferated, his voice growing louder. “She said,

'You tell your wife to stop telephoning Robert Lamhorn to come and see

her, because he isn't going to do it!' That's what she said! And I want

to know what it means. I intend--”

A maid appeared at the lower end of the hall. “Dinner is ready,” she

said, and, giving the troubled pair one glance, went demurely into the

dining-room. Roscoe disregarded the interruption.

“I intend to know exactly what has been going on,” he declared. “I mean

to know just what--”

Sibyl jumped up, almost touching him, standing face to face with him.

“Oh, you DO!” she cried, shrilly. “You mean to know just what's what, do

you? You listen to your sister insinuating ugly things about your

wife, and then you come home making a scene before the servants and

humiliating me in their presence! Do you suppose that Irish girl didn't

hear every word you said? You go in there and eat your dinner alone! Go

on! Go and eat your dinner alone--because I won't eat with you!”

And she broke away from the detaining grasp he sought to fasten upon

her, and dashed up the stairway, panting. He heard the door of her room

slam overhead, and the sharp click of the key in the lock.

CHAPTER XVIII

At seven o'clock on the last morning of that month, Sheridan, passing

through the upper hall on his way to descend the stairs for breakfast,

found a couple of scribbled sheets of note-paper lying on the floor. A

window had been open in Bibbs's room the evening before; he had left his

note-book on the sill--and the sheets were loose. The door was open, and

when Bibbs came in and closed it, he did not notice that the two sheets

had blown out into the hall. Sheridan recognized the handwriting and

put the sheets in his coat pocket, intending to give them to George

or Jackson for return to the owner, but he forgot and carried them

down-town with him. At noon he found himself alone in his office, and,

having a little leisure, remembered the bits of manuscript, took them

out, and glanced at them. A glance was enough to reveal that they were

not epistolary. Sheridan would not have read a “private letter” that

came into his possession in that way, though in a “matter of business”

he might have felt it his duty to take advantage of an opportunity

afforded in any manner whatsoever. Having satisfied himself that Bibbs's

scribblings were only a sample of the kind of writing his son preferred

to the machine-shop, he decided, innocently enough, that he would be

justified in reading them.

It appears that a lady will nod pleasantly upon some windy

generalization of a companion, and will wear the most agreeable

expression of accepting it as the law, and then--days afterward,

when the thing is a mummy to its promulgator--she will inquire out

of a clear sky: “WHY did you say that the people down-town have

nothing in life that a chicken hasn't? What did you mean?” And she

may say it in a manner that makes a sensible reply very difficult

--you will be so full of wonder that she remembered so seriously.

Yet, what does the rooster lack? He has food and shelter; he is

warm in winter; his wives raise not one fine family for him, but

dozens. He has a clear sky over him; he breathes sweet air; he

walks in his April orchard under a roof of flowers. He must die,

violently perhaps, but quickly. Is Midas's cancer a better way?

The rooster's wives and children must die. Are those of Midas

immortal? His life is shorter than the life of Midas, but Midas's

life is only a sixth as long as that of the Galapagos tortoise.

The worthy money-worker takes his vacation so that he may refresh

himself anew for the hard work of getting nothing that the rooster

doesn't get. The office-building has an elevator, the rooster

flies up to the bough. Midas has a machine to take him to his work;

the rooster finds his worm underfoot. The “business man” feels

a pressure sometimes, without knowing why, and sits late at wine

after the day's labor; next morning he curses his head because it

interferes with the work--he swears never to relieve that pressure

again. The rooster has no pressure and no wine; this difference is

in his favor.

The rooster is a dependent; he depends upon the farmer and the

weather. Midas is a dependent; he depends upon the farmer and the

weather. The rooster thinks only of the moment; Midas provides for

to-morrow. What does he provide for to-morrow? Nothing that the

rooster will not have without providing.

The rooster and the prosperous worker: they are born, they grub,

they love; they grub and love grubbing; they grub and they die.

Neither knows beauty; neither knows knowledge. And after all, when

Midas dies and the rooster dies, there is one thing Midas has had

and rooster has not. Midas has had the excitement of accumulating

what he has grubbed, and that has been his life and his love and

his god. He cannot take that god with him when he dies. I wonder

if the worthy gods are those we can take with us.

Midas must teach all to be as Midas; the young must be raised in

his religion--

The manuscript ended there, and Sheridan was not anxious for more.

He crumpled the sheets into a ball, depositing it (with vigor) in a

waste-basket beside him; then, rising, he consulted a Cyclopedia of

Names, which a book-agent had somehow sold to him years before; a

volume now first put to use for the location of “Midas.” Having read the

legend, Sheridan walked up and down the spacious office, exhaling

the breath of contempt. “Dam' fool!” he mumbled. But this was no new

thought, nor was the contrariness of Bibbs's notes a surpise to him; and

presently he dismissed the matter from his mind.

He felt very lonely, and this was, daily, his hardest hour. For a long

time he and Jim had lunched together habitually. Roscoe preferred a

club luncheon, but Jim and his father almost always went to a small

restaurant near the Sheridan Building, where they spent twenty minutes

in the consumption of food, and twenty in talk, with cigars. Jim came

for his father every day, at five minutes after twelve, and Sheridan

was again in his office at five minutes before one. But now that Jim no

longer came, Sheridan remained alone in his office; he had not gone out

to lunch since Jim's death, nor did he have anything sent to him--he

fasted until evening.

It was the time he missed Jim personally the most--the voice and eyes

and handshake, all brisk and alert, all business-like. But these things

were not the keenest in Sheridan's grief; his sense of loss went far

deeper. Roscoe was dependable, a steady old wheel-horse, and that was

a great comfort; but it was in Jim that Sheridan had most happily

perceived his own likeness. Jim was the one who would have been surest

to keep the great property growing greater, year by year. Sheridan had

fallen asleep, night after night, picturing what the growth would be

under Jim. He had believed that Jim was absolutely certain to be one of

the biggest men in the country. Well, it was all up to Roscoe now!

That reminded him of a question he had in mind to ask Roscoe. It was a

question Sheridan considered of no present importance, but his wife had

suggested it--though vaguely--and he had meant to speak to Roscoe about

it. However, Roscoe had not come into his father's office for several

days, and when Sheridan had seen his son at home there had been no

opportunity.

He waited until the greater part of his day's work was over, toward four

o'clock, and then went down to Roscoe's office, which was on a lower

floor. He found several men waiting for business interviews in an outer

room of the series Roscoe occupied; and he supposed that he would

find his son busy with others, and that his question would have to

be postponed, but when he entered the door marked “R. C. Sheridan.

Private,” Roscoe was there alone.

He was sitting with his back to the door, his feet on a window-sill, and

he did not turn as his father opened the door.

“Some pretty good men out there waitin' to see you, my boy,” said

Sheridan. “What's the matter?”

“Nothing,” Roscoe answered indistinctly, not moving.

“Well, I guess that's all right, too. I let 'em wait sometimes myself!

I just wanted to ask you a question, but I expect it'll keep, if you're

workin' something out in your mind!”

Roscoe made no reply; and his father, who had turned to the door, paused

with his hand on the knob, staring curiously at the motionless figure in

the chair. Usually the son seemed pleased and eager when he came to the

office. “You're all right, ain't you?” said Sheridan. “Not sick, are

you?”

“No.”

Sheridan was puzzled; then, abruptly, he decided to ask his question. “I

wanted to talk to you about that young Lamhorn,” he said. “I guess your

mother thinks he's comin' to see Edith pretty often, and you known him

longer'n any of us, so--”

“I won't,” said Roscoe, thickly--“I won't say a dam' thing about him!”

Sheridan uttered an exclamation and walked quickly to a position

near the window where he could see his son's face. Roscoe's eyes were

bloodshot and vacuous; his hair was disordered, his mouth was distorted,

and he was deathly pale. The father stood aghast.

“By George!” he muttered. “ROSCOE!”

“My name,” said Roscoe. “Can' help that.”

“ROSCOE!” Blank astonishment was Sheridan's first sensation. Probably

nothing in the world could have more amazed his than to find Roscoe--the

steady old wheel-horse--in this condition. “How'd you GET this way?” he

demanded. “You caught cold and took too much for it?”

For reply Roscoe laughed hoarsely. “Yeuh! Cold! I been drinkun all time,

lately. Firs' you notice it?”

“By George!” cried Sheridan. “I THOUGHT I'd smelt it on you a good deal

lately, but I wouldn't 'a' believed you'd take more'n was good for you.

Boh! To see you like a common hog!”

Roscoe chuckled and threw out his right arm in a meaningless gesture.

“Hog!” he repeated, chuckling.

“Yes, a hog!” said Sheridan, angrily. “In business hours! I don't object

to anybody's takin' a drink if you wants to, out o' business hours; nor,

if a man keeps his work right up to the scratch, I wouldn't be the one

to baste him if he got good an' drunk once in two, three years, maybe.

It ain't MY way. I let it alone, but I never believed in forcin' my way

on a grown-up son in moral matters. I guess I was wrong! You think them

men out there are waitin' to talk business with a drunkard? You think

you can come to your office and do business drunk? By George! I wonder

how often this has been happening and me not on to it! I'll have a look

over your books to-morrow, and I'll--”

Roscoe stumbled to his feet, laughing wildly, and stood swaying,

contriving to hold himself in position by clutching the back of the

heavy chair in which he had been sitting.

“Hoo--hoorah!” he cried. “'S my principles, too. Be drunkard all you

want to--outside business hours. Don' for Gossake le'n'thing innerfere

business hours! Business! Thassit! You're right, father. Drink! Die!

L'everything go to hell, but DON' let innerfere business!”

Sheridan had seized the telephone upon Roscoe's desk, and was calling

his own office, overhead. “Abercrombie? Come down to my son Roscoe's

suite and get rid of some gentlemen that are waitin' there to see him in

room two-fourteen. There's Maples and Schirmer and a couple o' fellows

on the Kinsey business. Tell 'em something's come up I have to go over

with Roscoe, and tell 'em to come back day after to-morrow at two.

You needn't come in to let me know they're gone; we don't want to be

disturbed. Tell Pauly to call my house and send Claus down here with a

closed car. We may have to go out. Tell him to hustle, and call me at

Roscoe's room as soon as the car gets here. 'T's all!”

Roscoe had laughed bitterly throughout this monologue. “Drunk in

business hours! Thass awf'l! Mus'n' do such thing! Mus'n' get drunk,

mus'n' gamble, mus'n' kill 'nybody--not in business hours! All right any

other time. Kill 'nybody you want to--'s long 'tain't in business

hours! Fine! Mus'n' have any trouble 't'll innerfere business. Keep your

trouble 't home. Don' bring it to th' office. Might innerfere business!

Have funerals on Sunday--might innerfere business! Don' let your wife

innerfere business! Keep all, all, ALL your trouble an' your meanness,

an' your trad--your tradegy--keep 'em ALL for home use! If you got die,

go on die 't home--don' die round th' office! Might innerfere business!”

Sheridan picked up a newspaper from Roscoe's desk, and sat down with his

back to his son, affecting to read. Roscoe seemed to be unaware of his

father's significant posture.

“You know wh' I think?” he went on. “I think Bibbs only one the fam'ly

any 'telligence at all. Won' work, an' di'n' get married. Jim worked,

an' he got killed. I worked, an' I got married. Look at me! Jus' look at

me, I ask you. Fine 'dustriss young business man. Look whass happen' to

me! Fine!” He lifted his hand from the sustaining chair in a deplorable

gesture, and, immediately losing his balance, fell across the chair

and caromed to the floor with a crash, remaining prostrate for several

minutes, during which Sheridan did not relax his apparent attention to

the newspaper. He did not even look round at the sound of Roscoe's fall.

Roscoe slowly climbed to an upright position, pulling himself up

by holding to the chair. He was slightly sobered outwardly, having

progressed in the prostrate interval to a state of befuddlement less

volatile. He rubbed his dazed eyes with the back of his left hand.

“What--what you ask me while ago?” he said.

“Nothin'.”

“Yes, you did. What--what was it?”

“Nothin'. You better sit down.”

“You ask' me what I thought about Lamhorn. You did ask me that. Well, I

won't tell you. I won't say dam' word 'bout him!”

The telephone-bell tinkled. Sheridan placed the receiver to his ear and

said, “Right down.” Then he got Roscoe's coat and hat from a closet and

brought them to his son. “Get into this coat,” he said. “You're goin'

home.”

“All ri',” Roscoe murmured, obediently.

They went out into the main hall by a side door, not passing through the

outer office; and Sheridan waited for an empty elevator, stopped it, and

told the operator to take on no more passengers until they reached

the ground floor. Roscoe walked out of the building and got into the

automobile without lurching, and twenty minutes later walked into his

own house in the same manner, neither he nor his father having spoken a

word in the interval.

Sheridan did not go in with him; he went home, and to his own room

without meeting any of his family. But as he passed Bibbs's door he

heard from within the sound of a cheerful young voice humming jubilant

fragments of song:

WHO looks a mustang in the eye?...

With a leap from the ground

To the saddle in a bound.

And away--and away!

Hi-yay!

It was the first time in Sheridan's life that he had ever detected

any musical symptom whatever in Bibbs--he had never even heard him

whistle--and it seemed the last touch of irony that the useless fool

should be merry to-day.

To Sheridan it was Tom o' Bedlam singing while the house burned; and he

did not tarry to enjoy the melody, but went into his own room and locked

the door.

CHAPTER XIX

He emerged only upon a second summons to dinner, two hours later, and

came to the table so white and silent that his wife made her anxiety

manifest and was but partially reassured by his explanation that his

lunch had “disagreed” with him a little.

Presently, however, he spoke effectively. Bibbs, whose appetite had

become hearty, was helping himself to a second breast of capon from

white-jacket's salver. “Here's another difference between Midas and

chicken,” Sheridan remarked, grimly. “Midas can eat rooster, but rooster

can't eat Midas. I reckon you overlooked that. Midas looks to me like he

had the advantage there.”

Bibbs retained enough presence of mind to transfer the capon breast to

his plate without dropping it and to respond, “Yes--he crows over it.”

Having returned his antagonists's fire in this fashion, he blushed--for

he could blush distinctly now--and his mother looked upon him with

pleasure, though the reference to Midas and roosters was of course

jargon to her. “Did you ever see anybody improve the way that child

has!” she exclaimed. “I declare, Bibbs, sometimes lately you look right

handsome!”

“He's got to be such a gadabout,” Edith giggled.

“I found something of his on the floor up-stairs this morning, before

anybody was up,” said Sheridan. “I reckon if people lose things in this

house and expect to get 'em back, they better get up as soon as I do.”

“What was it he lost?” asked Edith.

“He knows!” her father returned. “Seems to me like I forgot to bring it

home with me. I looked it over--thought probably it was something pretty

important, belongin' to a busy man like him.” He affected to search

his pockets. “What DID I do with it, now? Oh yes! Seems to me like I

remember leavin' it down at the office--in the waste-basket.”

“Good place for it,” Bibbs murmured, still red.

Sheridan gave him a grin. “Perhaps pretty soon you'll be gettin' up

early enough to find things before I do!”

It was a threat, and Bibbs repeated the substance of it, later in the

evening, to Mary Vertrees--they had come to know each other that well.

“My time's here at last,” he said, as they sat together in the

melancholy gas-light of the room which had been denuded of its piano.

That removal had left an emptiness so distressing to Mr. and Mrs.

Vertrees that neither of them had crossed the threshold since the dark

day; but the gas-light, though from a single jet, shed no melancholy

upon Bibbs, nor could any room seem bare that knew the glowing presence

of Mary. He spoke lightly, not sadly.

“Yes, it's come. I've shirked and put off, but I can't shirk and put off

any longer. It's really my part to go to him--at least it would save my

face. He means what he says, and the time's come to serve my sentence.

Hard labor for life, I think.”

Mary shook her head. “I don't think so. He's too kind.”

“You think my father's KIND?” And Bibbs stared at her.

“Yes. I'm sure of it. I've felt that he has a great, brave heart. It's

only that he has to be kind in his own way--because he can't understand

any other way.”

“Ah yes,” said Bibbs. “If that's what you mean by 'kind'!”

She looked at him gravely, earnest concern in her friendly eyes. “It's

going to be pretty hard for you, isn't it?”

“Oh--self-pity!” he returned, smiling. “This has been just the last

flicker of revolt. Nobody minds work if he likes the kind of work.

There'd be no loafers in the world if each man found the thing that he

could do best; but the only work I happen to want to do is useless--so I

have to give it up. To-morrow I'll be a day-laborer.”

“What is it like--exactly?”

“I get up at six,” he said. “I have a lunch-basket to carry with me,

which is aristocratic and no advantage. The other workmen have tin

buckets, and tin buckets are better. I leave the house at six-thirty,

and I'm at work in my overalls at seven. I have an hour off at noon, and

work again from one till five.”

“But the work itself?”

“It wasn't muscularly exhausting--not at all. They couldn't give me a

heavier job because I wasn't good enough.”

“But what will you do? I want to know.”

“When I left,” said Bibbs, “I was 'on' what they call over there a

'clipping-machine,' in one of the 'by-products' departments, and that's

what I'll be sent back to.”

“But what is it?” she insisted.

Bibbs explained. “It's very simple and very easy. I feed long strips of

zinc into a pair of steel jaws, and the jaws bite the zinc into little

circles. All I have to do is to see that the strip goes into the jaws at

a certain angle--and yet I was a very bad hand at it.”

He had kept his voice cheerful as he spoke, but he had grown a shade

paler, and there was a latent anguish deep in his eyes. He may have

known it and wished her not to see it, for he turned away.

“You do that all day long?” she asked, and as he nodded, “It seems

incredible!” she exclaimed. “YOU feeding a strip of zinc into a machine

nine hours a day! No wonder--” She broke off, and then, after a keen

glance at his face, she said: “I should think you WOULD have been a 'bad

hand at it'!”

He laughed ruefully. “I think it's the noise, though I'm ashamed to

say it. You see, it's a very powerful machine, and there's a sort of

rhythmical crashing--a crash every time the jaws bite off a circle.”

“How often is that?”

“The thing should make about sixty-eight disks a minute--a little more

than one a second.”

“And you're close to it?”

“Oh, the workman has to sit in its lap,” he said, turning to her more

gaily. “The others don't mind. You see, it's something wrong with me. I

have an idiotic way of flinching from the confounded thing--I flinch and

duck a little every time the crash comes, and I couldn't get over it. I

was a treat to the other workmen in that room; they'll be glad to see me

back. They used to laugh at me all day long.”

Mary's gaze was averted from Bibbs now; she sat with her elbow resting

on the arm of the chair, her lifted hand pressed against her cheek. She

was staring at the wall, and her eyes had a burning brightness in them.

“It doesn't seem possible any one could do that to you,” she said, in a

low voice. “No. He's not kind. He ought to be proud to help you to the

leisure to write books; it should be his greatest privilege to have them

published for you--”

“Can't you SEE him?” Bibbs interrupted, a faint ripple of hilarity in

his voice. “If he could understand what you're saying--and if you can

imagine his taking such a notion, he'd have had R. T. Bloss put up

posters all over the country: 'Read B. Sheridan. Read the Poet with a

Punch!' No. It's just as well he never got the--But what's the use? I've

never written anything worth printing, and I never shall.”

“You could!” she said.

“That's because you've never seen the poor little things I've tried to

do.”

“You wouldn't let me, but I KNOW you could! Ah, it's a pity!”

“It isn't,” said BIBBS, honestly. “I never could--but you're the kindest

lady in this world, Miss Vertrees.”

She gave him a flashing glance, and it was as kind as he said she was.

“That sounds wrong,” she said, impulsively. “I mean 'Miss Vertrees.'

I've thought of you by your first name ever since I met you. Wouldn't

you rather call me 'Mary'?”

Bibbs was dazzled; he drew a long, deep breath and did not speak.

“Wouldn't you?” she asked, without a trace of coquetry.

“If I CAN!” he said, in a low voice.

“Ah, that's very pretty!” she laughed. “You're such an honest person,

it's pleasant to have you gallant sometimes, by way of variety.” She

became grave again immediately. “I hear myself laughing as if it were

some one else. It sounds like laughter on the eve of a great calamity.”

She got up restlessly, crossed the room and leaned against the wall,

facing him. “You've GOT to go back to that place?”

He nodded.

“And the other time you did it--”

“Just over it,” said Bibbs. “Two years. But I don't mind the prospect of

a repetition so much as--”

“So much as what?” she prompted, as he stopped.

Bibbs looked up at her shyly. “I want to say it, but--but I come to a

dead balk when I try. I--”

“Go on. Say it, whatever it is,” she bade him. “You wouldn't know how to

say anything I shouldn't like.”

“I doubt if you'd either like or dislike what I want to say,” he

returned, moving uncomfortably in his chair and looking at his feet--he

seemed to feel awkward, thoroughly. “You see, all my life--until I met

you--if I ever felt like saying anything, I wrote it instead. Saying

things is a new trick for me, and this--well, it's just this: I used to

feel as if I hadn't ever had any sort of a life at all. I'd never been

of use to anything or anybody, and I'd never had anything, myself,

except a kind of haphazard thinking. But now it's different--I'm still

of no use to anybody, and I don't see any prospect of being useful,

but I have had something for myself. I've had a beautiful and happy

experience, and it makes my life seem to be--I mean I'm glad I've lived

it! That's all; it's your letting me be near you sometimes, as you have,

this strange, beautiful, happy little while!”

He did not once look up, and reached silence, at the end of what he had

to say, with his eyes still awkwardly regarding his feet. She did not

speak, but a soft rustling of her garments let him know that she had

gone back to her chair again. The house was still; the shabby old room

was so quiet that the sound of a creaking in the wall seemed sharp and

loud.

And yet, when Mary spoke at last, her voice was barely audible. “If you

think it has been--happy--to be friends with me--you'd want to--to make

it last.”

“Yes,” said Bibbs, as faintly.

“You'd want to go on being my friend as long as we live, wouldn't you?”

“Yes,” he gulped.

“But you make that kind of speech to me because you think it's over.”

He tried to evade her. “Oh, a day-laborer can't come in his overalls--”

“No,” she interrupted, with a sudden sharpness. “You said what you did

because you think the shop's going to kill you.”

“No, no!”

“Yes, you do think that!” She rose to her feet again and came and stood

before him. “Or you think it's going to send you back to the sanitarium.

Don't deny it, Bibbs. There! See how easily I call you that! You see I'm

a friend, or I couldn't do it. Well, if you meant what you said--and you

did mean it, I know it!--you're not going to go back to the sanitarium.

The shop sha'n't hurt you. It sha'n't!”

And now Bibbs looked up. She stood before him, straight and tall,

splendid in generous strength, her eyes shining and wet.

“If I mean THAT much to you,” she cried, “they can't harm you! Go

back to the shop--but come to me when your day's work is done. Let the

machines crash their sixty-eight times a minute, but remember each crash

that deafens you is that much nearer the evening and me!”

He stumbled to his feet. “You say--” he gasped.

“Every evening, dear Bibbs!”

He could only stare, bewildered.

“EVERY evening. I want you. They sha'n't hurt you again!” And she held

out her hand to him; it was strong and warm in his tremulous clasp. “If

I could, I'd go and feed the strips of zinc to the machine with you,”

she said. “But all day long I'll send my thoughts to you. You must keep

remembering that your friend stands beside you. And when the work is

done--won't the night make up for the day?”

Light seemed to glow from her; he was blinded by that radiance

of kindness. But all he could say was, huskily, “To think you're

there--with me--standing beside the old zinc-eater--”

And they laughed and looked at each other, and at last Bibbs found what

it meant not to be alone in the world. He had a friend.

CHAPTER XX

When he came into the New House, a few minutes later, he found his

father sitting alone by the library fire. Bibbs went in and stood before

him. “I'm cured, father,” he said. “When do I go back to the shop? I'm

ready.”

The desolate and grim old man did not relax. “I was sittin' up to give

you a last chance to say something like that. I reckon it's about time!

I just wanted to see if you'd have manhood enough not to make me take

you over there by the collar. Last night I made up my mind I'd give you

just one more day. Well, you got to it before I did--pretty close to

the eleventh hour! All right. Start in to-morrow. It's the first o' the

month. Think you can get up in time?”

“Six o'clock,” Bibbs responded, briskly. “And I want to tell you--I'm

going in a 'cheerful spirit.' As you said, I'll go and I'll 'like it'!”

“That's YOUR lookout!” his father grunted. “They'll put you back on the

clippin'-machine. You get nine dollars a week.”

“More than I'm worth, too,” said Bibbs, cheerily. “That reminds me, I

didn't mean YOU by 'Midas' in that nonsense I'd been writing. I meant--”

“Makes a hell of a lot o' difference what you meant!”

“I just wanted you to know. Good night, father.”

“G'night!”

The sound of the young man's footsteps ascending the stairs became

inaudible, and the house was quiet. But presently, as Sheridan sat

staring angrily at the fire, the shuffling of a pair of slippers could

be heard descending, and Mrs. Sheridan made her appearance, her oblique

expression and the state of her toilette being those of a person who,

after trying unsuccessfully to sleep on one side, has got up to look for

burglars.

“Papa!” she exclaimed, drowsily. “Why'n't you go to bed? It must be

goin' on 'leven o'clock!”

She yawned, and seated herself near him, stretching out her hands to

the fire. “What's the matter?” she asked, sleep and anxiety striving

sluggishly with each other in her voice. “I knew you were worried all

dinner-time. You got something new on your mind besides Jim's bein'

taken away like he was. What's worryin' you now, papa?”

“Nothin'.”

She jeered feebly. “N' tell ME that! You sat up to see Bibbs, didn't

you?”

“He starts in at the shop again to-morrow morning,” said Sheridan.

“Just the same as he did before?”

“Just pre-CISELY!”

“How--how long you goin' to keep him at it, papa?” she asked, timidly.

“Until he KNOWS something!” The unhappy man struck his palms together,

then got to his feet and began to pace the room, as was his wont when he

talked. “He'll go back to the machine he couldn't learn to tend properly

in the six months he was there, and he'll stick to it till he DOES learn

it! Do you suppose that lummix ever asked himself WHY I want him to

learn it? No! And I ain't a-goin' to tell him, either! When he went

there I had 'em set him on the simplest machine we got--and he stuck

there! How much prospect would there be of his learnin' to run the whole

business if he can't run the easiest machine in it? I sent him there

to make him THOROUGH. And what happened? He didn't LIKE it! That boy's

whole life, there's been a settin' up o' something mulish that's against

everything I want him to do. I don't know what it is, but it's got to be

worked out of him. Now, labor ain't any more a simple question than what

it was when we were young. My idea is that, outside o' union troubles,

the man that can manage workin'-men is the man that's been one himself.

Well, I set Bibbs to learn the men and to learn the business, and HE

set himself to balk on the first job! That's what he did, and the balk's

lasted close on to three years. If he balks again I'm just done with

him! Sometimes I feel like I was pretty near done with everything,

anyhow!”

“I knew there was something else,” said Mrs. Sheridan, blinking over

a yawn. “You better let it go till to-morrow and get to bed now--'less

you'll tell me?”

“Suppose something happened to Roscoe,” he said. “THEN what'd I have to

look forward to? THEN what could I depend on to hold things together? A

lummix! A lummix that hasn't learned how to push a strip o' zinc along a

groove!”

“Roscoe?” she yawned. “You needn't worry about Roscoe, papa. He's the

strongest child we had. I never did know anybody keep better health than

he does. I don't believe he's even had a cold in five years. You better

go up to bed, papa.”

“Suppose something DID happen to him, though. You don't know what it

means, keepin' property together these days--just keepin' it ALIVE, let

alone makin' it grow the way I do. I've seen too many estates hacked

away in chunks, big and little. I tell you when a man dies the wolves

come out o' the woods, pack after pack, to see what they can tear off

for themselves; and if that dead man's chuldern ain't on the job, night

and day, everything he built'll get carried off. Carried off? I've seen

a big fortune behave like an ash-barrel in a cyclone--there wasn't even

a dust-heap left to tell where it stood! I've seen it, time and again.

My Lord! when I think o' such things comin' to ME! It don't seem like

I deserved it--no man ever tried harder to raise his boys right than I

have. I planned and planned and planned how to bring 'em up to be guards

to drive the wolves off, and how to be builders to build, and build

bigger. I tell you this business life is no fool's job nowadays--a man's

got to have eyes in the back of his head. You hear talk, sometimes, 'd

make you think the millennium had come--but right the next breath you'll

hear somebody hollerin' about 'the great unrest.' You BET there's a

'great unrest'! There ain't any man alive smart enough to see what it's

goin' to do to us in the end, nor what day it's got set to bust loose,

but it's frothin' and bubblin' in the boiler. This country's been

fillin' up with it from all over the world for a good many years, and

the old camp-meetin' days are dead and done with. Church ain't what it

used to be. Nothin's what it used to be--everything's turned up from the

bottom, and the growth is so big the roots stick out in the air. There's

an awful ruction goin' on, and you got to keep hoppin' if you're goin'

to keep your balance on the top of it. And the schemers! They run like

bugs on the bottom of a board--after any piece o' money they hear is

loose. Fool schemes and crooked schemes; the fool ones are the most and

the worst! You got to FIGHT to keep your money after you've made it. And

the woods are full o' mighty industrious men that's got only one motto:

'Get the other fellow's money before he gets yours!' And when a man's

built as I have, when he's built good and strong, and made good things

grow and prosper--THOSE are the fellows that lay for the chance to slide

in and sneak the benefit of it and put their names to it! And what's

the use of my havin' ever been born, if such a thing as that is goin'

to happen? What's the use of my havin' worked my life and soul into my

business, if it's all goin' to be dispersed and scattered soon as I'm in

the ground?”

He strode up and down the long room, gesticulating--little regarding

the troubled and drowsy figure by the fireside. His throat rumbled

thunderously; the words came with stormy bitterness. “You think this is

a time for young men to be lyin' on beds of ease? I tell you there never

was such a time before; there never was such opportunity. The sluggard

is despoiled while he sleeps--yes, by George! if a man lays down they'll

eat him before he wakes!--but the live man can build straight up till

he touches the sky! This is the business man's day; it used to be the

soldier's day and the statesman's day, but this is OURS! And it ain't a

Sunday to go fishin'--it's turmoil! turmoil!--and you got to go out and

live it and breathe it and MAKE it yourself, or you'll only be a dead

man walkin' around dreamin' you're alive. And that's what my son Bibbs

has been doin' all his life, and what he'd rather do now than go out and

do his part by me. And if anything happens to Roscoe--”

“Oh, do stop worryin' over such nonsense,” Mrs. Sheridan interrupted,

irritated into sharp wakefulness for the moment. “There isn't anything

goin' to happen to Roscoe, and you're just tormentin' yourself about

nothin'. Aren't you EVER goin' to bed?”

Sheridan halted. “All right, mamma,” he said, with a vast sigh. “Let's

go up.” And he snapped off the electric light, leaving only the rosy

glow of the fire.

“Did you speak to Roscoe?” she yawned, rising lopsidedly in her

drowsiness. “Did you mention about what I told you the other evening?”

“No. I will to-morrow.”

But Roscoe did not come down-town the next day, nor the next; nor did

Sheridan see fit to enter his son's house. He waited. Then, on the

fourth day of the month, Roscoe walked into his father's office at nine

in the morning, when Sheridan happened to be alone.

“They told me down-stairs you'd left word you wanted to see me.”

“Sit down,” said Sheridan, rising.

Roscoe sat. His father walked close to him, sniffed suspiciously, and

then walked away, smiling bitterly. “Boh!” he exclaimed. “Still at it!”

“Yes,” said Roscoe. “I've had a couple of drinks this morning. What

about it?”

“I reckon I better adopt some decent young man,” his father returned.

“I'd bring Bibbs up here and put him in your place if he was fit. I

would!”

“Better do it,” Roscoe assented, sullenly.

“When'd you begin this thing?”

“I always did drink a little. Ever since I grew up, that is.”

“Leave that talk out! You know what I mean.”

“Well, I don't know as I ever had too much in office hours--until the

other day.”

Sheridan began cutting. “It's a lie. I've had Ray Wills up from your

office. He didn't want to give you away, but I put the hooks into him,

and he came through. You were drunk twice before and couldn't work. You

been leavin' your office for drinks every few hours for the last three

weeks. I been over your books. Your office is way behind. You haven't

done any work, to count, in a month.”

“All right,” said Roscoe, drooping under the torture. “It's all true.”

“What you goin' to do about it?”

Roscoe's head was sunk between his shoulders. “I can't stand very much

talk about it, father,” he said, pleadingly.

“No!” Sheridan cried. “Neither can I! What do you think it means to ME?”

He dropped into the chair at his big desk, groaning. “I can't stand to

talk about it any more'n you can to listen, but I'm goin' to find out

what's the matter with you, and I'm goin' to straighten you out!”

Roscoe shook his head helplessly.

“You can't straighten me out.”

“See here!” said Sheridan. “Can you go back to your office and stay

sober to-day, while I get my work done, or will I have to hire a couple

o' huskies to follow you around and knock the whiskey out o' your hand

if they see you tryin' to take it?”

“You needn't worry about that,” said Roscoe, looking up with a faint

resentment. “I'm not drinking because I've got a thirst.”

“Well, what have you got?”

“Nothing. Nothing you can do anything about. Nothing, I tell you.”

“We'll see about that!” said Sheridan, harshly. “Now I can't fool with

you to-day, and you get up out o' that chair and get out o' my

office. You bring your wife to dinner to-morrow. You didn't come last

Sunday--but you come to-morrow. I'll talk this out with you when the

women-folks are workin' the phonograph, after dinner. Can you keep sober

till then? You better be sure, because I'm going to send Abercrombie

down to your office every little while, and he'll let me know.”

Roscoe paused at the door. “You told Abercrombie about it?” he asked.

“TOLD him!” And Sheridan laughed hideously. “Do you suppose there's an

elevator-boy in the whole dam' building that ain't on to you?”

Roscoe settled his hat down over his eyes and went out.

CHAPTER XXI

“WHO looks a mustang in the eye?

Changety, chang, chang! Bash! Crash! BANG!”

So sang Bibbs, his musical gaieties inaudible to his fellow-workmen

because of the noise of the machinery. He had discovered long ago that

the uproar was rhythmical, and it had been intolerable; but now, on the

afternoon of the fourth day of his return, he was accompanying the

swing and clash of the metals with jubilant vaquero fragments, mingling

improvisations of his own among them, and mocking the zinc-eater's crash

with vocal imitations:

Fearless and bold,

Chang! Bash! Behold!

With a leap from the ground

To the saddle in a bound,

And away--and away!

Hi-YAY!

WHO looks a chang, chang, bash, crash, bang!

WHO cares a dash how you bash and you crash?

NIGHT'S on the way

EACH time I say,

Hi-YAY!

Crash, chang! Bash, chang! Chang, bang, BANG!

The long room was ceaselessly thundering with metallic sound; the

air was thick with the smell of oil; the floor trembled perpetually;

everything was implacably in motion--nowhere was there a rest for the

dizzied eye. The first time he had entered the place Bibbs had become

dizzy instantly, and six months of it had only added increasing nausea

to faintness. But he felt neither now. “ALL DAY LONG I'LL SEND MY

THOUGHTS TO YOU. YOU MUST KEEP REMEMBERING THAT YOUR FRIEND STANDS

BESIDE YOU.” He saw her there beside him, and the greasy, roaring place

became suffused with radiance. The poet was happy in his machine-shop;

he was still a poet there. And he fed his old zinc-eater, and sang:

Away--and away!

Hi-YAY!

Crash, bash, crash, bash, CHANG!

Wild are his eyes,

Fiercely he dies!

Hi-YAH!

Crash, bash, bang! Bash, CHANG!

Ready to fling

Our gloves in the ring--

He was unaware of a sensation that passed along the lines of workmen.

Their great master had come among them, and they grinned to see him

standing with Dr. Gurney behind the unconscious Bibbs. Sheridan nodded

to those nearest him--he had personal acquaintance with nearly all of

them--but he kept his attention upon his son. Bibbs worked steadily,

never turning from his machine. Now and then he varied his musical

programme with remarks addressed to the zinc-eater.

“Go on, you old crash-basher! Chew it up! It's good for you, if

you don't try to bolt your vittles. Fletcherize, you pig! That's

right--YOU'LL never get a lump in your gizzard. Want some more? Here's a

nice, shiny one.”

The words were indistinguishable, but Sheridan inclined his head to

Gurney's ear and shouted fiercely: “Talkin' to himself! By George!”

Gurney laughed reassuringly, and shook his head.

Bibbs returned to song:

Chang! Chang, bash, chang! It's I!

WHO looks a mustang in the eye?

Fearless and bo--

His father grasped him by the arm. “Here!” he shouted. “Let ME show you

how to run a strip through there. The foreman says you're some better'n

you used to be, but that's no way to handle--Get out the way and let me

show you once.”

“Better be careful,” Bibbs warned him, stepping to one side.

“Careful? Boh!” Sheridan seized a strip of zinc from the box. “What

you talkin' to yourself about? Tryin' to make yourself think you're so

abused you're goin' wrong in the head?”

“'Abused'? No!” shouted Bibbs. “I was SINGING--because I 'like it'! I

told you I'd come back and 'like it.'”

Sheridan may not have understood. At all events, he made no reply,

but began to run the strip of zinc through the machine. He did it

awkwardly--and with bad results.

“Here!” he shouted. “This is the way. Watch how I do it. There's nothin'

to it, if you put your mind on it.” By his own showing then his mind was

not upon it. He continued to talk. “All you got to look out for is to

keep it pressed over to--”

“Don't run your hand up with it,” Bibbs vociferated, leaning toward him.

“Run nothin'! You GOT to--”

“Look out!” shouted Bibbs and Gurney together, and they both sprang

forward. But Sheridan's right hand had followed the strip too far, and

the zinc-eater had bitten off the tips of the first and second fingers.

He swore vehemently, and wrung his hand, sending a shower of red drops

over himself and Bibbs, but Gurney grasped his wrist, and said, sharply:

“Come out of here. Come over to the lavatory in the office. Bibbs, fetch

my bag. It's in my machine, outside.”

And when Bibbs brought the bag to the washroom he found the doctor

still grasping Sheridan's wrist, holding the injured hand over a basin.

Sheridan had lost color, and temper, too. He glared over his shoulder at

his son as the latter handed the bag to Gurney.

“You go on back to your work,” he said. “I've had worse snips than that

from a pencil-sharpener.”

“Oh no, you haven't!” said Gurney.

“I have, too!” Sheridan retorted, angrily. “Bibbs, you go on back to

your work. There's no reason to stand around here watchin' ole Doc

Gurney tryin' to keep himself awake workin' on a scratch that only needs

a little court-plaster. I slipped, or it wouldn't happened. You get back

on your job.”

“All right,” said Bibbs.

“HERE!” Sheridan bellowed, as his son was passing out of the door.

“You watch out when you're runnin' that machine! You hear what I say? I

slipped, or I wouldn't got scratched, but you--YOU'RE liable to get your

whole hand cut off! You keep your eyes open!”

“Yes, sir.” And Bibbs returned to the zinc-eater thoughtfully.

Half an hour later, Gurney touched him on the shoulder and beckoned him

outside, where conversation was possible. “I sent him home, Bibbs. He'll

have to be careful of that hand. Go get your overalls off. I'll take you

for a drive and leave you at home.”

“Can't,” said Bibbs. “Got to stick to my job till the whistle blows.”

“No, you don't,” the doctor returned, smothering a yawn. “He wants me to

take you down to my office and give you an overhauling to see how much

harm these four days on the machine have done you. I guess you folks

have got that old man pretty thoroughly upset, between you, up at your

house! But I don't need to go over you. I can see with my eyes half

shut--”

“Yes,” Bibbs interrupted, “that's what they are.”

“I say I can see you're starting out, at least, in good shape. What's

made the difference?”

“I like the machine,” said Bibbs. “I've made a friend of it. I serenade

it and talk to it, and then it talks back to me.”

“Indeed, indeed? What does it say?”

“What I want to hear.”

“Well, well!” The doctor stretched himself and stamped his foot

repeatedly. “Better come along and take a drive with me. You can take

the time off that he allowed for the examination, and--”

“Not at all,” said Bibbs. “I'm going to stand by my old zinc-eater till

five o'clock. I tell you I LIKE it!”

“Then I suppose that's the end of your wanting to write.”

“I don't know about that,” Bibbs said, thoughtfully; “but the zinc-eater

doesn't interfere with my thinking, at least. It's better than being

in business; I'm sure of that. I don't want anything to change. I'd be

content to lead just the life I'm leading now to the end of my days.”

“You do beat the devil!” exclaimed Gurney. “Your father's right when he

tells me you're a mystery. Perhaps the Almighty knew what He was doing

when He made you, but it takes a lot of faith to believe it! Well, I'm

off. Go on back to your murdering old machine.” He climbed into his car,

which he operated himself, but he refrained from setting it immediately

in motion. “Well, I rubbed it in on the old man that you had warned him

not to slide his hand along too far, and that he got hurt because he

didn't pay attention to your warning, and because he was trying to show

you how to do something you were already doing a great deal better

than he could. You tell him I'll be around to look at it and change the

dressing to-morrow morning. Good-by.”

But when he paid the promised visit, the next morning, he did more than

change the dressing upon the damaged hand. The injury was severe of

its kind, and Gurney spent a long time over it, though Sheridan was

rebellious and scornful, being brought to a degree of tractability

only by means of horrible threats and talk of amputation. However, he

appeared at the dinner-table with his hand supported in a sling, which

he seemed to regard as an indignity, while the natural inquiries upon

the subject evidently struck him as deliberate insults. Mrs. Sheridan,

having been unable to contain her solicitude several times during the

day, and having been checked each time in a manner that blanched her

cheek, hastened to warn Roscoe and Sibyl, upon their arrival at five, to

omit any reference to the injury and to avoid even looking at the sling

if they possibly could.

The Sheridans dined on Sundays at five. Sibyl had taken pains not to

arrive either before or after the hand was precisely on the hour;

and the members of the family were all seated at the table within two

minutes after she and Roscoe had entered the house.

It was a glum gathering, overhung with portents. The air seemed charged,

awaiting any tiny ignition to explode; and Mrs. Sheridan's expression,

as she sat with her eyes fixed almost continually upon her husband, was

that of a person engaged in prayer. Edith was pale and intent.

Roscoe looked ill; Sibyl looked ill; and Sheridan looked both ill and

explosive. Bibbs had more color than any of these, and there was a

strange brightness, like a light, upon his face. It was curious to see

anything so happy in the tense gloom of that household.

Edith ate little, but gazed nearly all the time at her plate. She never

once looked at Sibyl, though Sibyl now and then gave her a quick glance,

heavily charged, and then looked away. Roscoe ate nothing, and, like

Edith, kept his eyes upon his plate and made believe to occupy himself

with the viands thereon, loading his fork frequently, but not lifting

it to his mouth. He did not once look at his father, though his father

gazed heavily at him most of the time. And between Edith and Sibyl, and

between Roscoe and his father, some bitter wireless communication seemed

continually to be taking place throughout the long silences prevailing

during this enlivening ceremony of Sabbath refection.

“Didn't you go to church this morning, Bibbs?” his mother asked, in the

effort to break up one of those ghastly intervals.

“What did you say, mother?”

“Didn't you go to church this morning?”

“I think so,” he answered, as from a roseate trance.

“You THINK so! Don't you know?”

“Oh yes. Yes, I went to church!”

“Which one?”

“Just down the street. It's brick.”

“What was the sermon about?”

“What, mother?”

“Can't you hear me?” she cried. “I asked you what the sermon was about?”

He roused himself. “I think it was about--” He frowned, seeming to

concentrate his will to recollect. “I think it was about something in

the Bible.”

White-jacket George was glad of an opportunity to leave the room and

lean upon Mist' Jackson's shoulder in the pantry. “He don't know they

WAS any suhmon!” he concluded, having narrated the dining-room dialogue.

“All he know is he was with 'at lady lives nex' do'!” George was right.

“Did you go to church all by yourself, Bibbs?” Sibyl asked.

“No,” he answered. “No, I didn't go alone.”

“Oh?” Sibyl gave the ejaculation an upward twist, as of mocking inquiry,

and followed it by another, expressive of hilarious comprehension. “OH!”

Bibbs looked at her studiously, but she spoke no further. And that

completed the conversation at the lugubrious feast.

Coffee came finally, was disposed of quickly, and the party dispersed to

other parts of the house. Bibbs followed his father and Roscoe into the

library, but was not well received.

“YOU go and listen to the phonograph with the women-folks,” Sheridan

commanded.

Bibbs retreated. “Sometimes you do seem to be a hard sort of man!” he

said.

However, he went obediently to the gilt-and-brocade room in which his

mother and his sister and his sister-in-law had helplessly withdrawn,

according to their Sabbatical custom. Edith sat in a corner, tapping her

feet together and looking at them; Sibyl sat in the center of the room,

examining a brooch which she had detached from her throat; and Mrs.

Sheridan was looking over a collection of records consisting exclusively

of Caruso and rag-time. She selected one of the latter, remarking that

she thought it “right pretty,” and followed it with one of the former

and the same remark.

As the second reached its conclusion, George appeared in the broad

doorway, seeming to have an errand there, but he did not speak. Instead,

he favored Edith with a benevolent smile, and she immediately left

the room, George stepping aside for her to precede him, and then

disappearing after her in the hall with an air of successful diplomacy.

He made it perfectly clear that Edith had given him secret instructions

and that it had been his pride and pleasure to fulfil them to the

letter.

Sibyl stiffened in her chair; her lips parted, and she watched with

curious eyes the vanishing back of the white jacket.

“What's that?” she asked, in a low voice, but sharply.

“Here's another right pretty record,” said Mrs. Sheridan,

affecting--with patent nervousness--not to hear. And she unloosed the

music.

Sibyl bit her lip and began to tap her chin with the brooch. After a

little while she turned to Bibbs, who reposed at half-length in a gold

chair, with his eyes closed.

“Where did Edith go?” she asked, curiously.

“Edith?” he repeated, opening his eyes blankly. “Is she gone?”

Sibyl got up and stood in the doorway. She leaned against the casing,

still tapping her chin with the brooch. Her eyes were dilating; she was

suddenly at high tension, and her expression had become one of sharp

excitement. She listened intently.

When the record was spun out she could hear Sheridan rumbling in the

library, during the ensuing silence, and Roscoe's voice, querulous and

husky: “I won't say anything at all. I tell you, you might just as well

let me alone!”

But there were other sounds: a rustling and murmur, whispering, low

protesting cadences in a male voice. And as Mrs. Sheridan started

another record, a sudden, vital resolve leaped like fire in the eyes of

Sibyl. She walked down the hall and straight into the smoking-room.

Lamhorn and Edith both sprang to their feet, separating. Edith became

instantly deathly white with a rage that set her shaking from head to

foot, and Lamhorn stuttered as he tried to speak.

But Edith's shaking was not so violent as Sibyl's, nor was her face so

white. At sight of them and of their embrace, all possible consequences

became nothing to Sibyl. She courtesied, holding up her skirts and

contorting her lips to the semblance of a smile.

“Sit just as you were--both of you!” she said. And then to Edith: “Did

you tell my husband I had been telephoning to Lamhorn?”

“You march out of here!” said Edith, fiercely. “March straight out of

here!”

Sibyl leveled a forefinger at Lamhorn.

“Did you tell her I'd been telephoning you I wanted you to come?”

“Oh, good God!” Lamhorn said. “Hush!”

“You knew she'd tell my husband, DIDN'T you?” she cried. “You knew

that!”

“HUSH!” he begged, panic-stricken.

“That was a MANLY thing to do! Oh, it was like a gentleman! You wouldn't

come--you wouldn't even come for five minutes to hear what I had to say!

You were TIRED of what I had to say! You'd heard it all a thousand times

before, and you wouldn't come! No! No! NO!” she stormed. “You wouldn't

even come for five minutes, but you could tell that little cat! And SHE

told my husband! You're a MAN!”

Edith saw in a flash that the consequences of battle would be ruinous to

Sibyl, and the furious girl needed no further temptation to give way

to her feelings. “Get out of this house!” she shrieked. “This is my

father's house. Don't you dare speak to Robert like that!”

“No! No! I mustn't SPEAK--”

“Don't you DARE!”

Edith and Sibyl began to scream insults at each other simultaneously,

fronting each other, their furious faces close. Their voices shrilled

and rose and cracked--they screeched. They could be heard over the noise

of the phonograph, which was playing a brass-band selection. They could

be heard all over the house. They were heard in the kitchen; they could

have been heard in the cellar. Neither of them cared for that.

“You told my husband!” screamed Sibyl, bringing her face still closer to

Edith's. “You told my husband! This man put THAT in your hands to strike

me with! HE did!”

“I'll tell your husband again! I'll tell him everything I know! It's

TIME your husband--”

They were swept asunder by a bandaged hand. “Do you want the neighbors

in?” Sheridan thundered.

There fell a shocking silence. Frenzied Sibyl saw her husband and his

mother in the doorway, and she understood what she had done. She moved

slowly toward the door; then suddenly she began to run. She ran into the

hall, and through it, and out of the house. Roscoe followed her heavily,

his eyes on the ground.

“NOW THEN!” said Sheridan to Lamhorn.

The words were indefinite, but the voice was not. Neither was the

vicious gesture of the bandaged hand, which concluded its orbit in the

direction of the door in a manner sufficient for the swift dispersal of

George and Jackson and several female servants who hovered behind Mrs.

Sheridan. They fled lightly.

“Papa, papa!” wailed Mrs. Sheridan. “Look at your hand! You'd oughtn't

to been so rough with Edie; you hurt your hand on her shoulder. Look!”

There was, in fact, a spreading red stain upon the bandages at the tips

of the fingers, and Sheridan put his hand back in the sling. “Now then!”

he repeated. “You goin' to leave my house?”

“He will NOT!” sobbed Edith. “Don't you DARE order him out!”

“Don't you bother, dear,” said Lamhorn, quietly. “He doesn't understand.

YOU mustn't be troubled.” Pallor was becoming to him; he looked very

handsome, and as he left the room he seemed in the girl's distraught

eyes a persecuted noble, indifferent to the rabble yawping insult at his

heels--the rabble being enacted by her father.

“Don't come back, either!” said, Sheridan, realistic in this

impersonation. “Keep off the premises!” he called savagely into the

hall. “This family's through with you!”

“It is NOT!” Edith cried, breaking from her mother. “You'll SEE about

that! You'll find out! You'll find out what'll happen! What's HE done?

I guess if I can stand it, it's none of YOUR business, is it? What's

HE done, I'd like to know? You don't know anything about it. Don't you

s'pose he told ME? She was crazy about him soon as he began going there,

and he flirted with her a little. That's everything he did, and it

was before he met ME! After that he wouldn't, and it wasn't anything,

anyway--he never was serious a minute about it. SHE wanted it to be

serious, and she was bound she wouldn't give him up. He told her long

ago he cared about me, but she kept persecuting him and--”

“Yes,” said Sheridan, sternly; “that's HIS side of it! That'll do! He

doesn't come in this house again!”

“You look out!” Edith cried.

“Yes, I'll look out! I'd 'a' told you to-day he wasn't to be allowed on

the premises, but I had other things on my mind. I had Abercrombie

look up this young man privately, and he's no 'count. He's no 'count

on earth! He's no good! He's NOTHIN'! But it wouldn't matter if he was

George Washington, after what's happened and what I've heard to-night!”

“But, papa,” Mrs. Sheridan began, “if Edie says it was all Sibyl's

fault, makin' up to him, and he never encouraged her much, nor--”

“'S enough!” he roared. “He keeps off these premises! And if any of you

so much as ever speak his name to me again--”

But Edith screamed, clapping her hands over her ears to shut out the

sound of his voice, and ran up-stairs, sobbing loudly, followed by her

mother. However, Mrs. Sheridan descended a few minutes later and joined

her husband in the library. Bibbs, still sitting in his gold chair, saw

her pass, roused himself from reverie, and strolled in after her.

“She locked her door,” said Mrs. Sheridan, shaking her head woefully.

“She wouldn't even answer me. They wasn't a sound from her room.”

“Well,” said her husband, “she can settle her mind to it. She

never speaks to that fellow again, and if he tries to telephone her

to-morrow--Here! You tell the help if he calls up to ring off and say

it's my orders. No, you needn't. I'll tell 'em myself.”

“Better not,” said Bibbs, gently.

His father glared at him.

“It's no good,” said Bibbs. “Mother, when you were in love with

father--”

“My goodness!” she cried. “You ain't a-goin' to compare your father to

that--”

“Edith feels about him just what you did about father,” said Bibbs. “And

if YOUR father had told you--”

“I won't LISTEN to such silly talk!” she declared, angrily.

“So you're handin' out your advice, are you, Bibbs?” said Sheridan.

“What is it?”

“Let her see him all she wants.”

“You're a--” Sheridan gave it up. “I don't know what to call you!”

“Let her see him all she wants,” Bibbs repeated, thoughtfully. “You're

up against something too strong for you. If Edith were a weakling

you'd have a chance this way, but she isn't. She's got a lot of your

determination, father, and with what's going on inside of her she'll

beat you. You can't keep her from seeing him, as long as she feels about

him the way she does now. You can't make her think less of him, either.

Nobody can. Your only chance is that she'll do it for herself, and if

you give her time and go easy she probably will. Marriage would do it

for her quickest, but that's just what you don't want, and as you DON'T

want it, you'd better--”

“I can't stand any more!” Sheridan burst out. “If it's come to BIBBS

advisin' me how to run this house I better resign. Mamma, where's that

nigger George? Maybe HE'S got some plan how I better manage my family.

Bibbs, for God's sake go and lay down! 'Let her see him all she wants'!

Oh, Lord! here's wisdom; here's--”

“Bibbs,” said Mrs. Sheridan, “if you haven't got anything to do, you

might step over and take Sibyl's wraps home--she left 'em in the hall. I

don't think you seem to quiet your poor father very much just now.”

“All right.” And Bibbs bore Sibyl's wraps across the street and

delivered them to Roscoe, who met him at the door. Bibbs said only,

“Forgot these,” and, “Good night, Roscoe,” cordially and cheerfully, and

returned to the New House. His mother and father were still talking in

the library, but with discretion he passed rapidly on and upward to his

own room, and there he proceeded to write in his note-book.

CHAPTER XXII

There seems to be another curious thing about Love [Bibbs wrote].

Love is blind while it lives and only opens its eyes and becomes

very wide awake when it dies. Let it alone until then.

You cannot reason with love or with any other passion. The wise

will not wish for love--nor for ambition. These are passions

and bring others in their train--hatreds and jealousies--all

blind. Friendship and a quiet heart for the wise.

What a turbulence is love! It is dangerous for a blind thing to

be turbulent; there are precipices in life. One would not cross

a mountain-pass with a thick cloth over his eyes. Lovers do.

Friendship walks gently and with open eyes.

To walk to church with a friend! To sit beside her there! To rise

when she rises, and to touch with one's thumb and fingers the other

half of the hymn-book that she holds! What lover, with his fierce

ways, could know this transcendent happiness?

Friendship brings everything that heaven could bring. There is no

labor that cannot become a living rapture if you know that a friend

is thinking of you as you labor. So you sing at your work. For

the work is part of the thoughts of your friend; so you love it!

Love is demanding and claiming and insistent. Friendship is all

kindness--it makes the world glorious with kindness. What color

you see when you walk with a friend! You see that the gray sky

is brilliant and shimmering; you see that the smoke has warm

browns and is marvelously sculptured--the air becomes iridescent.

You see the gold in brown hair. Light floods everything.

When you walk to church with a friend you know that life can give

you nothing richer. You pray that there will be no change in

anything for ever.

What an adorable thing it is to discover a little foible in your

friend, a bit of vanity that gives you one thing more about her to

adore! On a cold morning she will perhaps walk to church with you

without her furs, and she will blush and return an evasive answer

when you ask her why she does not wear them. You will say no

more, because you understand. She looks beautiful in her furs;

you love their darkness against her cheek; but you comprehend that

they conceal the loveliness of her throat and the fine line of her

chin, and that she also has comprehended this, and, wishing to

look still more bewitching, discards her furs at the risk of

taking cold. So you hold your peace, and try to look as if you

had not thought it out.

This theory is satisfactory except that it does not account for

the absence of the muff. Ah, well, there must always be a mystery

somewhere! Mystery is a part of enchantment.

Manual labor is best. Your heart can sing and your mind can dream

while your hands are working. You could not have a singing heart

and a dreaming mind all day if you had to scheme out dollars,

or if you had to add columns of figures. Those things take your

attention. You cannot be thinking of your friend while you write

letters beginning “Yours of the 17th inst. rec'd and contents

duly noted.” But to work with your hands all day, thinking and

singing, and then, after nightfall, to hear the ineffable kindness

of your friend's greeting--always there--for you! Who would wake

from such a dream as this?

Dawn and the sea--music in moonlit gardens--nightingales

serenading through almond-groves in bloom--what could bring such

things into the city's turmoil? Yet they are here, and roses

blossom in the soot. That is what it means not to be alone!

That is what a friend gives you!

Having thus demonstrated that he was about twenty-five and had formed a

somewhat indefinite definition of friendship, but one entirely his own

(and perhaps Mary's) Bibbs went to bed, and was the only Sheridan to

sleep soundly through the night and to wake at dawn with a light heart.

His cheerfulness was vaguely diminished by the troublous state of

affairs of his family. He had recognized his condition when he wrote,

“Who would wake from such a dream as this?” Bibbs was a sympathetic

person, easily touched, but he was indeed living in a dream, and all

things outside of it were veiled and remote--for that is the way of

youth in a dream. And Bibbs, who had never before been of any age,

either old or young, had come to his youth at last.

He went whistling from the house before even his father had come

down-stairs. There was a fog outdoors, saturated with a fine powder of

soot, and though Bibbs noticed absently the dim shape of an automobile

at the curb before Roscoe's house, he did not recognize it as Dr.

Gurney's, but went cheerily on his way through the dingy mist. And when

he was once more installed beside his faithful zinc-eater he whistled

and sang to it, as other workmen did to their own machines sometimes,

when things went well. His comrades in the shop glanced at him amusedly

now and then. They liked him, and he ate his lunch at noon with a group

of Socialists who approved of his ideas and talked of electing him to

their association.

The short days of the year had come, and it was dark before the whistles

blew. When the signal came, Bibbs went to the office, where he divested

himself of his overalls--his single divergence from the routine of his

fellow-workmen--and after that he used soap and water copiously. This

was his transformation scene: he passed into the office a rather frail

young working-man noticeably begrimed, and passed out of it to the

pavement a cheerfully pre-occupied sample of gentry, fastidious to the

point of elegance.

The sidewalk was crowded with the bearers of dinner-pails, men and

boys and women and girls from the work-rooms that closed at five. Many

hurried and some loitered; they went both east and west, jostling one

another, and Bibbs, turning his face homeward, was forced to go slowly.

Coming toward him, as slowly, through the crowd, a tall girl caught

sight of his long, thin figure and stood still until he had almost

passed her, for in the thick crowd and the thicker gloom he did not

recognize her, though his shoulder actually touched hers. He would have

gone by, but she laughed delightedly; and he stopped short, startled.

Two boys, one chasing the other, swept between them, and Bibbs stood

still, peering about him in deep perplexity. She leaned toward him.

“I knew YOU!” she said.

“Good heavens!” cried Bibbs. “I thought it was your voice coming out of

a star!”

“There's only smoke overhead,” said Mary, and laughed again. “There

aren't any stars.”

“Oh yes, there were--when you laughed!”

She took his arm, and they went on. “I've come to walk home with you,

Bibbs. I wanted to.”

“But were you here in the--”

“In the dark? Yes! Waiting? Yes!”

Bibbs was radiant; he felt suffocated with happiness. He began to scold

her.

“But it's not safe, and I'm not worth it. You shouldn't have--you ought

to know better. What did--”

“I only waited about twelve seconds,” she laughed. “I'd just got here.”

“But to come all this way and to this part of town in the dark, you--”

“I was in this part of town already,” she said. “At least, I was only

seven or eight blocks away, and it was dark when I came out, and I'd

have had to go home alone--and I preferred going home with you.”

“It's pretty beautiful for me,” said Bibbs, with a deep breath. “You'll

never know what it was to hear your laugh in the darkness--and then

to--to see you standing there! Oh, it was like--it was like--how can I

TELL you what it was like?” They had passed beyond the crowd now, and

a crossing-lamp shone upon them, which revealed the fact that again she

was without her furs. Here was a puzzle. Why did that adorable little

vanity of hers bring her out without them in the DARK? But of course she

had gone out long before dark. For undefinable reasons this explanation

was not quite satisfactory; however, allowing it to stand, his

solicitude for her took another turn. “I think you ought to have a car,”

he said, “especially when you want to be out after dark. You need one in

winter, anyhow. Have you ever asked your father for one?”

“No,” said Mary. “I don't think I'd care for one particularly.”

“I wish you would.” Bibbs's tone was earnest and troubled. “I think in

winter you--”

“No, no,” she interrupted, lightly. “I don't need--”

“But my mother tried to insist on sending one over here every afternoon

for me. I wouldn't let her, because I like the walk, but a girl--”

“A girl likes to walk, too,” said Mary. “Let me tell you where I've been

this afternoon and how I happened to be near enough to make you take me

home. I've been to see a little old man who makes pictures of the smoke.

He has a sort of warehouse for a studio, and he lives there with his

mother and his wife and their seven children, and he's gloriously happy.

I'd seen one of his pictures at an exhibition, and I wanted to see

more of them, so he showed them to me. He has almost everthing he ever

painted; I don't suppose he's sold more than four or five pictures in

his life. He gives drawing-lessons to keep alive.”

“How do you mean he paints the smoke?” Bibbs asked.

“Literally. He paints from his studio window and from the

street--anywhere. He just paints what's around him--and it's beautiful.”

“The smoke?”

“Wonderful! He sees the sky through it, somehow. He does the ugly roofs

of cheap houses through a haze of smoke, and he does smoky sunsets and

smoky sunrises, and he has other things with the heavy, solid, slow

columns of smoke going far out and growing more ethereal and mixing

with the hazy light in the distance; and he has others with the broken

sky-line of down-town, all misted with the smoke and puffs and jets of

vapor that have colors like an orchard in mid-April. I'm going to take

you there some Sunday afternoon, Bibbs.”

“You're showing me the town,” he said. “I didn't know what was in it at

all.”

“There are workers in beauty here,” she told him, gently. “There are

other painters more prosperous than my friend. There are all sorts of

things.”

“I didn't know.”

“No. Since the town began growing so great that it called itself

'greater,' one could live here all one's life and know only the side of

it that shows.”

“The beauty-workers seem buried very deep,” said Bibbs. “And I imagine

that your friend who makes the smoke beautiful must be buried deepest

of all. My father loves the smoke, but I can't imagine his buying one

of your friend's pictures. He'd buy the 'Bay of Naples,' but he wouldn't

get one of those. He'd think smoke in a picture was horrible--unless he

could use it for an advertisement.”

“Yes,” she said, thoughtfully. “And really he's the town. They ARE

buried pretty deep, it seems, sometimes, Bibbs.”

“And yet it's all wonderful,” he said. “It's wonderful to me.”

“You mean the town is wonderful to you?”

“Yes, because everything is, since you called me your friend. The city

is only a rumble on the horizon for me. It can't come any closer than

the horizon so long as you let me see you standing by my old zinc-eater

all day long, helping me. Mary--” He stopped with a gasp. “That's the

first time I've called you 'Mary'!”

“Yes.” She laughed, a little tremuously. “Though I wanted you to!”

“I said it without thinking. It must be because you came there to walk

home with me. That must be it.”

“Women like to have things said,” Mary informed him, her tremulous

laughter continuing. “Were you glad I came for you?”

“No--not 'glad.' I felt as if I were being carried straight up and up

and up--over the clouds. I feel like that still. I think I'm that way

most of the time. I wonder what I was like before I knew you. The person

I was then seems to have been somebody else, not Bibbs Sheridan at

all. It seems long, long ago. I was gloomy and sickly--somebody

else--somebody I don't understand now, a coward afraid of

shadows--afraid of things that didn't exist--afraid of my old

zinc-eater! And now I'm only afraid of what might change anything.”

She was silent a moment, and then, “You're happy, Bibbs?” she asked.

“Ah, don't you see?” he cried. “I want it to last for a thousand,

thousand years, just as it is! You've made me so rich, I'm a miser. I

wouldn't have one thing different--nothing, nothing!”

“Dear Bibbs!” she said, and laughed happily.

CHAPTER XXIII

Bibbs continued to live in the shelter of his dream. He had told Edith,

after his ineffective effort to be useful in her affairs, that he had

decided that he was “a member of the family”; but he appeared to have

relapsed to the retired list after that one attempt at participancy--he

was far enough detached from membership now. These were turbulent days

in the New House, but Bibbs had no part whatever in the turbulence--he

seemed an absent-minded stranger, present by accident and not wholly

aware that he was present. He would sit, faintly smiling over pleasant

imaginings and dear reminiscences of his own, while battle raged between

Edith and her father, or while Sheridan unloosed jeremiads upon the

sullen Roscoe, who drank heavily to endure them. The happy dreamer

wandered into storm-areas like a somnambulist, and wandered out again

unawakened. He was sorry for his father and for Roscoe, and for Edith

and for Sibyl, but their sufferings and outcries seemed far away.

Sibyl was under Gurney's care. Roscoe had sent for him on Sunday night,

not long after Bibbs returned the abandoned wraps; and during the first

days of Sibyl's illness the doctor found it necessary to be with her

frequently, and to install a muscular nurse. And whether he would or

no, Gurney received from his hysterical patient a variety of pungent

information which would have staggered anybody but a family physician.

Among other things he was given to comprehend the change in Bibbs, and

why the zinc-eater was not putting a lump in the operator's gizzard as

of yore.

Sibyl was not delirious--she was a thin little ego writhing and

shrieking in pain. Life had hurt her, and had driven her into hurting

herself; her condition was only the adult's terrible exaggeration of

that of a child after a bad bruise--there must be screaming and telling

mother all about the hurt and how it happened. Sibyl babbled herself

hoarse when Gurney withheld morphine. She went from the beginning to the

end in a breath. No protest stopped her; nothing stopped her.

“You ought to let me die!” she wailed. “It's cruel not to let me die!

What harm have I ever done to anybody that you want to keep me alive?

Just look at my life! I only married Roscoe to get away from home, and

look what that got me into!--look where I am now! He brought me to this

town, and what did I have in my life but his FAMILY? And they didn't

even know the right crowd! If they had, it might have been SOMETHING!

I had nothing--nothing--nothing in the world! I wanted to have a good

time--and how could I? Where's any good time among these Sheridans? They

never even had wine on the table! I thought I was marrying into a rich

family where I'd meet attractive people I'd read about, and travel, and

go to dances--and, oh, my Lord! all I got was these Sheridans! I did

the best I could; I did, indeed! Oh, I DID! I just tried to live. Every

woman's got a right to live, some time in her life, I guess! Things were

just beginning to look brighter--we'd moved up here, and that frozen

crowd across the street were after Jim for their daughter, and they'd

have started us with the right people--and then I saw how Edith was

getting him away from me. She did it, too! She got him! A girl with

money can do that to a married woman--yes, she can, every time! And what

could I do? What can any woman do in my fix? I couldn't do ANYTHING but

try to stand it--and I couldn't stand it! I went to that icicle--that

Vertrees girl--and she could have helped me a little, and it wouldn't

have hurt her. It wouldn't have done her any harm to help me THAT

little! She treated me as if I'd been dirt that she wouldn't even take

the trouble to sweep out of her house! Let her WAIT!”

Sibyl's voice, hoarse from babbling, became no more than a husky

whisper, though she strove to make it louder. She struggled half

upright, and the nurse restrained her. “I'd get up out of this bed to

show her she can't do such things to me! I was absolutely ladylike, and

she walked out and left me there alone! She'll SEE! She started after

Bibbs before Jim's casket was fairly underground, and she thinks she's

landed that poor loon--but she'll see! She'll see! If I'm ever able

to walk across the street again I'll show her how to treat a woman in

trouble that comes to her for help! It wouldn't have hurt her any--it

wouldn't--it wouldn't. And Edith needn't have told what she told

Roscoe--it wouldn't have hurt her to let me alone. And HE told her I

bored him--telephoning him I wanted to see him. He needn't have done

it! He needn't--needn't--” Her voice grew fainter, for that while,

with exhaustion, though she would go over it all again as soon as her

strength returned. She lay panting. Then, seeing her husband standing

disheveled in the doorway, “Don't come in, Roscoe,” she murmured. “I

don't want to see you.” And as he turned away she added, “I'm kind of

sorry for you, Roscoe.”

Her antagonist, Edith, was not more coherent in her own wailings,

and she had the advantage of a mother for listener. She had also the

disadvantage of a mother for duenna, and Mrs. Sheridan, under her

husband's sharp tutelage, proved an effective one. Edith was reduced to

telephoning Lamhorn from shops whenever she could juggle her mother into

a momentary distraction over a counter.

Edith was incomparably more in love than before Lamhorn's expulsion. Her

whole being was nothing but the determination to hurdle everything that

separated her from him. She was in a state that could be altered by only

the lightest and most delicate diplomacy of suggestion, but Sheridan,

like legions of other parents, intensified her passion and fed it hourly

fuel by opposing to it an intolerable force. He swore she should cool,

and thus set her on fire.

Edith planned neatly. She fought hard, every other evening, with her

father, and kept her bed betweentimes to let him see what his violence

had done to her. Then, when the mere sight of her set him to breathing

fast, she said pitiably that she might bear her trouble better if she

went away; it was impossible to be in the same town with Lamhorn and not

think always of him. Perhaps in New York she might forget a little.

She had written to a school friend, established quietly with an aunt in

apartments--and a month or so of theaters and restaurants might bring

peace. Sheridan shouted with relief; he gave her a copious cheque, and

she left upon a Monday morning wearing violets with her mourning and

having kissed everybody good-by except Sibyl and Bibbs. She might have

kissed Bibbs, but he failed to realize that the day of her departure

had arrived, and was surprised, on returning from his zinc-eater, that

evening, to find her gone. “I suppose they'll be maried there,” he said,

casually.

Sheridan, seated, warming his stockinged feet at the fire, jumped up,

fuming. “Either you go out o' here, or I will, Bibbs!” he snorted. “I

don't want to be in the same room with the particular kind of idiot you

are! She's through with that riff-raff; all she needed was to be kept

away from him a few weeks, and I KEPT her away, and it did the business.

For Heaven's sake, go on out o' here!”

Bibbs obeyed the gesture of a hand still bandaged. And the black silk

sling was still round Sheridan's neck, but no word of Gurney's and no

excruciating twinge of pain could keep Sheridan's hand in the sling. The

wounds, slight enough originally, had become infected the first time he

had dislodged the bandages, and healing was long delayed. Sheridan had

the habit of gesture; he could not “take time to remember,” he said,

that he must be careful, and he had also a curious indignation with his

hurt; he refused to pay it the compliment of admitting its existence.

The Saturday following Edith's departure Gurney came to the Sheridan

Building to dress the wounds and to have a talk with Sheridan which

the doctor felt had become necessary. But he was a little before

the appointed time and was obliged to wait a few minutes in an

anteroom--there was a directors' meeting of some sort in Sheridan's

office. The door was slightly ajar, leaking cigar-smoke and oratory, the

latter all Sheridan's, and Gurney listened.

“No, sir; no, sir; no, sir!” he heard the big voice rumbling, and then,

breaking into thunder, “I tell you NO! Some o' you men make me sick!

You'd lose your confidence in Almighty God if a doodle-bug flipped his

hind leg at you! You say money's tight all over the country. Well, what

if it is? There's no reason for it to be tight, and it's not goin' to

keep OUR money tight! You're always runnin' to the woodshed to hide

your nickels in a crack because some fool newspaper says the market's a

little skeery! You listen to every street-corner croaker and then

come and set here and try to scare ME out of a big thing! We're IN on

this--understand? I tell you there never WAS better times. These are

good times and big times, and I won't stand for any other kind o' talk.

This country's on its feet as it never was before, and this city's on

its feet and goin' to stay there!” And Gurney heard a series of whacks

and thumps upon the desk. “'Bad times'!” Sheridan vociferated, with

accompanying thumps. “Rabbit talk! These times are glorious, I tell you!

We're in the promised land, and we're goin' to STAY there! That's all,

gentlemen. The loan goes!”

The directors came forth, flushed and murmurous, and Gurney hastened

in. His guess was correct: Sheridan had been thumping the desk with his

right hand. The physician scolded wearily, making good the fresh damage

as best he might; and then he said what he had to say on the subject of

Roscoe and Sibyl, his opinion meeting, as he expected, a warmly hostile

reception. But the result of this conversation was that by telephonic

command Roscoe awaited his father, an hour later, in the library at the

New House.

“Gurney says your wife's able to travel,” Sheridan said brusquely, as he

came in.

“Yes.” Roscoe occupied a deep chair and sat in the dejected attitude

which had become his habit. “Yes, she is.”

“Edith had to leave town, and so Sibyl thinks she'll have to, too!”

“Oh, I wouldn't put it that way,” Roscoe protested, drearily.

“No, I hear YOU wouldn't!” There was a bitter gibe in the father's

voice, and he added: “It's a good thing she's goin' abroad--if she'll

stay there. I shouldn't think any of us want her here any more--you

least of all!”

“It's no use your talking that way,” said Roscoe. “You won't do any

good.”

“Well, when are you comin' back to your office?” Sheridan used a

brisker, kinder tone. “Three weeks since you showed up there at all.

When you goin' to be ready to cut out whiskey and all the rest o' the

foolishness and start in again? You ought to be able to make up for a

lot o' lost time and a lot o' spilt milk when that woman takes herself

out o' the way and lets you and all the rest of us alone.”

“It's no use, father, I tell you. I know what Gurney was going to say to

you. I'm not going back to the office. I'm DONE!”

“Wait a minute before you talk that way!” Sheridan began his sentry-go

up and down the room. “I suppose you know it's taken two pretty good

men about sixteen hours a day to set things straight and get 'em runnin'

right again, down in your office?”

“They must be good men.” Roscoe nodded indifferently. “I thought I was

doing about eight men's work. I'm glad you found two that could handle

it.”

“Look here! If I worked you it was for your own good. There are plenty

men drive harder'n I do, and--”

“Yes. There are some that break down all the other men that work with

'em. They either die, or go crazy, or have to quit, and are no use

the rest of their lives. The last's my case, I guess--'complicated by

domestic difficulties'!”

“You set there and tell me you give up?” Sheridan's voice shook, and

so did the gesticulating hand which he extended appealingly toward the

despondent figure. “Don't do it, Roscoe! Don't say it! Say you'll come

down there again and be a man! This woman ain't goin' to trouble you any

more. The work ain't goin' to hurt you if you haven't got her to worry

you, and you can get shut o' this nasty whiskey-guzzlin'; it ain't

fastened on you yet. Don't say--”

“It's no use on earth,” Roscoe mumbled. “No use on earth.”

“Look here! If you want another month's vacation--”

“I know Gurney told you, so what's the use talking about 'vacations'?”

“Gurney!” Sheridan vociferated the name savagely. “It's Gurney, Gurney,

Gurney! Always Gurney! I don't know what the world's comin' to with

everybody runnin' around squealin', 'The doctor says this,' and, 'The

doctor says that'! It makes me sick! How's this country expect to get

its Work done if Gurney and all the other old nanny-goats keep up this

blattin'--'Oh, oh! Don't lift that stick o' wood; you'll ruin your

NERVES!' So he says you got 'nervous exhaustion induced by overwork and

emotional strain.' They always got to stick the Work in if they see a

chance! I reckon you did have the 'emotional strain,' and that's all's

the matter with you. You'll be over it soon's this woman's gone, and

Work's the very thing to make you quit frettin' about her.”

“Did Gurney tell you I was fit to work?”

“Shut up!” Sheridan bellowed. “I'm so sick o' that man's name I feel

like shootin' anybody that says it to me!” He fumed and chafed, swearing

indistinctly, then came and stood before his son. “Look here; do you

think you're doin' the square thing by me? Do you? How much you worth?”

“I've got between seven and eight thousand a year clear, of my own,

outside the salary. That much is mine whether I work or not.”

“It is? You could'a pulled it out without me, I suppose you think, at

your age?”

“No. But it's mine, and it's enough.”

“My Lord! It's about what a Congressman gets, and you want to quit

there! I suppose you think you'll get the rest when I kick the bucket,

and all you have to do is lay back and wait! You let me tell you right

here, you'll never see one cent of it. You go out o' business now, and

what would you know about handlin' it five or ten or twenty years from

now? Because I intend to STAY here a little while yet, my boy! They'd

either get it away from you or you'd sell for a nickel and let it be

split up and--” He whirled about, marched to the other end of the room,

and stood silent a moment. Then he said, solemnly: “Listen. If you go

out now, you leave me in the lurch, with nothin' on God's green earth

to depend on but your brother--and you know what he is. I've depended on

you for it ALL since Jim died. Now you've listened to that dam' doctor,

and he says maybe you won't ever be as good a man as you were, and that

certainly you won't be for a year or so--probably more. Now, that's all

a lie. Men don't break down that way at your age. Look at ME! And I tell

you, you can shake this thing off. All you need is a little GET-up and

a little gumption. Men don't go away for YEARS and then come back into

MOVING businesses like ours--they lose the strings. And if you could, I

won't let you--if you lay down on me now, I won't--and that's because if

you lay down you prove you ain't the man I thought you were.” He cleared

his throat and finished quietly: “Roscoe, will you take a month's

vacation and come back and go to it?”

“No,” said Roscoe, listlessly. “I'm through.”

“All right,” said Sheridan. He picked up the evening paper from a

table, went to a chair by the fire and sat down, his back to his son.

“Good-by.”

Roscoe rose, his head hanging, but there was a dull relief in his eyes.

“Best I can do,” he muttered, seeming about to depart, yet lingering. “I

figure it out a good deal like this,” he said. “I didn't KNOW my job

was any strain, and I managed all right, but from what Gur--from what

I hear, I was just up to the limit of my nerves from overwork, and

the--the trouble at home was the extra strain that's fixed me the way I

am. I tried to brace, so I could stand the work and the trouble too, on

whiskey--and that put the finish to me! I--I'm not hitting it as hard as

I was for a while, and I reckon pretty soon, if I can get to feeling a

little more energy, I better try to quit entirely--I don't know. I'm all

in--and the doctor says so. I thought I was running along fine up to a

few months ago, but all the time I was ready to bust, and didn't know

it. Now, then, I don't want you to blame Sibyl, and if I were you

I wouldn't speak of her as 'that woman,' because she's your

daughter-in-law and going to stay that way. She didn't do anything

wicked. It was a shock to me, and I don't deny it, to find what she had

done--encouraging that fellow to hang around her after he began trying

to flirt with her, and losing her head over him the way she did. I don't

deny it was a shock and that it'll always be a hurt inside of me I'll

never get over. But it was my fault; I didn't understand a woman's

nature.” Poor Roscoe spoke in the most profound and desolate earnest.

“A woman craves society, and gaiety, and meeting attractive people, and

traveling. Well, I can't give her the other things, but I can give her

the traveling--real traveling, not just going to Atlantic City or

New Orleans, the way she has, two, three times. A woman has to have

something in her life besides a business man. And that's ALL I was. I

never understood till I heard her talking when she was so sick, and I

believe if you'd heard her then you wouldn't speak so hard-heartedly

about her; I believe you might have forgiven her like I have. That's

all. I never cared anything for any girl but her in my life, but I was

so busy with business I put it ahead of her. I never THOUGHT about her,

I was so busy thinking business. Well, this is where it's brought us

to--and now when you talk about 'business' to me I feel the way you do

when anybody talks about Gurney to you. The word 'business' makes me

dizzy--it makes me honestly sick at the stomach. I believe if I had

to go down-town and step inside that office door I'd fall down on the

floor, deathly sick. You talk about a 'month's vacation'--and I get just

as sick. I'm rattled--I can't plan--I haven't got any plans--can't make

any, except to take my girl and get just as far away from that office as

I can--and stay. We're going to Japan first, and if we--”

His father rustled the paper. “I said good-by, Roscoe.”

“Good-by,” said Roscoe, listlessly.

CHAPTER XXIV

Sheridan waited until he heard the sound of the outer door closing; then

he rose and pushed a tiny disk set in the wall. Jackson appeared.

“Has Bibbs got home from work?”

“Mist' Bibbs? No, suh.”

“Tell him I want to see him, soon as he comes.”

“Yessuh.”

Sheridan returned to his chair and fixed his attention fiercely upon

the newspaper. He found it difficult to pursue the items beyond

their explanatory rubrics--there was nothing unusual or startling to

concentrate his attention:

“Motorman Puts Blame on Brakes. Three Killed when Car Slides.”

“Burglars Make Big Haul.”

“Board Works Approve Big Car-line Extension.”

“Hold-up Men Injure Two. Man Found in Alley, Skull Fractured.”

“Sickening Story Told in Divorce Court.”

“Plan New Eighteen-story Structure.”

“School-girl Meets Death under Automobile.”

“Negro Cuts Three. One Dead.”

“Life Crushed Out. Third Elevator Accident in Same Building Causes

Action by Coroner.”

“Declare Militia will be Menace. Polish Societies Protest to

Governor in Church Rioting Case.”

“Short $3,500 in Accounts, Trusted Man Kills Self with Drug.”

“Found Frozen. Family Without Food or Fuel. Baby Dead when

Parents Return Home from Seeking Work.”

“Minister Returned from Trip Abroad Lectures on Big Future of Our

City. Sees Big Improvement during Short Absence. Says No

European City Holds Candle.” (Sheridan nodded approvingly here.)

Bibbs came through the hall whistling, and entered the room briskly.

“Well, father, did you want me?”

“Yes. Sit down.” Sheridan got up, and Bibbs took a seat by the fire,

holding out his hands to the crackling blaze, for it was cold outdoors.

“I came within seven of the shop record to-day,” he said. “I handled

more strips than any other workman has any day this month. The nearest

to me is sixteen behind.”

“There!” exclaimed his father, greatly pleased. “What'd I tell you?

I'd like to hear Gurney hint again that I wasn't right in sending you

there--I would just like to hear him! And you--ain't you ashamed of

makin' such a fuss about it? Ain't you?”

“I didn't go at it in the right spirit the other time,” Bibbs said,

smiling brightly, his face ruddy in the cheerful firelight. “I didn't

know the difference it meant to like a thing.”

“Well, I guess I've pretty thoroughly vindicated my judgement. I guess I

HAVE! I said the shop'd be good for you, and it was. I said it wouldn't

hurt you, and it hasn't. It's been just exactly what I said it would be.

Ain't that so?”

“Looks like it!” Bibbs agreed, gaily.

“Well, I'd like to know any place I been wrong, first and last! Instead

o' hurting you, it's been the makin' of you--physically. You're a good

inch taller'n what I am, and you'd be a bigger man than what I am

if you'd get some flesh on your bones; and you ARE gettin' a little.

Physically, it's started you out to be the huskiest one o' the whole

family. Now, then, mentally--that's different. I don't say it unkindly,

Bibbs, but you got to do something for yourself mentally, just like

what's begun physically. And I'm goin' to help you.”

Sheridan decided to sit down again. He brought his chair close to his

son's, and, leaning over, tapped Bibbs's knee confidentially. “I got

plans for you, Bibbs,” he said.

Bibbs instantly looked thoroughly alarmed. He drew back. “I--I'm all

right now, father.”

“Listen.” Sheridan settled himself in his chair, and spoke in the tone

of a reasonable man reasoning. “Listen here, Bibbs. I had another blow

to-day, and it was a hard one and right in the face, though I HAVE been

expectin' it some little time back. Well, it's got to be met. Now I'll

be frank with you. As I said a minute ago, mentally I couldn't ever

called you exactly strong. You been a little weak both ways, most of

your life. Not but what I think you GOT a mentality, if you'd learn to

use it. You got will-power, I'll say that for you. I never knew boy or

man that could be stubborner--never one in my life! Now, then, you've

showed you could learn to run that machine best of any man in the shop,

in no time at all. That looks to me like you could learn to do other

things. I don't deny but what it's an encouragin' sign. I don't deny

that, at all. Well, that helps me to think the case ain't so hopeless as

it looks. You're all I got to meet this blow with, but maybe you ain't

as poor material as I thought. Your tellin' me about comin' within

seven strips of the shop's record to-day looks to me like encouragin'

information brought in at just about the right time. Now, then, I'm

goin' to give you a raise. I wanted to send you straight on up through

the shops--a year or two, maybe--but I can't do it. I lost Jim, and now

I've lost Roscoe. He's quit. He's laid down on me. If he ever comes back

at all, he'll be a long time pickin' up the strings, and, anyway, he

ain't the man I thought he was. I can't count on him. I got to have

SOMEBODY I KNOW I can count on. And I'm down to this: you're my last

chance. Bibbs, I got to learn you to use what brains you got and see if

we can't develop 'em a little. Who knows? And I'm goin' to put my time

in on it. I'm goin' to take you right down-town with ME, and I won't be

hard on you if you're a little slow at first. And I'm goin' to do the

big thing for you. I'm goin' to make you feel you got to do the big

thing for me, in return. I've vindicated my policy with you about the

shop, and now I'm goin' to turn right around and swing you 'way over

ahead of where the other boys started, and I'm goin' to make an appeal

to your ambition that'll make you dizzy!” He tapped his son on the knee

again. “Bibbs, I'm goin' to start you off this way: I'm goin' to

make you a director in the Pump Works Company; I'm goin' to make you

vice-president of the Realty Company and a vice-president of the Trust

Company!”

Bibbs jumped to his feet, blanched. “Oh no!” he cried.

Sheridan took his dismay to be the excitement of sudden joy. “Yes,

sir! And there's some pretty fat little salaries goes with those

vice-presidencies, and a pinch o' stock in the Pump Company with the

directorship. You thought I was pretty mean about the shop--oh, I know

you did!--but you see the old man can play it both ways. And so right

now, the minute you've begun to make good the way I wanted you to,

I deal from the new deck. And I'll keep on handin' it out bigger and

bigger every time you show me you're big enough to play the hand I deal

you. I'm startin' you with a pretty big one, my boy!”

“But I don't--I don't--I don't want it!” Bibbs stammered.

“What'd you say?” Sheridan thought he had not heard aright.

“I don't want it, father. I thank you--I do thank you--”

Sheridan looked perplexed. “What's the matter with you? Didn't you

understand what I was tellin' you?”

“Yes.”

“You sure? I reckon you didn't. I offered--”

“I know, I know! But I can't take it.”

“What's the matter with you?” Sheridan was half amazed, half suspicious.

“Your head feel funny?”

“I've never been quite so sane in my life,” said Bibbs, “as I have

lately. And I've got just what I want. I'm living exactly the right

life. I'm earning my daily bread, and I'm happy in doing it. My wages

are enough. I don't want any more money, and I don't deserve any--”

“Damnation!” Sheridan sprang up. “You've turned Socialist! You been

listening to those fellows down there, and you--”

“No, sir. I think there's a great deal in what they say, but that isn't

it.”

Sheridan tried to restrain his growing fury, and succeeded partially.

“Then what is it? What's the matter?”

“Nothing,” his son returned, nervously. “Nothing--except that I'm

content. I don't want to change anything.”

“Why not?”

Bibbs had the incredible folly to try to explain. “I'll tell you,

father, if I can. I know it may be hard to understand--”

“Yes, I think it may be,” said Sheridan, grimly. “What you say usually

is a LITTLE that way. Go on!”

Perturbed and distressed, Bibbs rose instinctively; he felt himself at

every possible disadvantage. He was a sleeper clinging to a dream--a

rough hand stretched to shake him and waken him. He went to a table and

made vague drawings upon it with a finger, and as he spoke he kept his

eyes lowered. “You weren't altogether right about the shop--that is,

in one way you weren't, father.” He glanced up apprehensively. Sheridan

stood facing him, expressionless, and made no attempt to interrupt.

“That's difficult to explain,” Bibbs continued, lowering his eyes again,

to follow the tracings of his finger. “I--I believe the shop might have

done for me this time if I hadn't--if something hadn't helped me to--oh,

not only to bear it, but to be happy in it. Well, I AM happy in it.

I want to go on just as I am. And of all things on earth that I don't

want, I don't want to live a business life--I don't want to be drawn

into it. I don't think it IS living--and now I AM living. I have the

healthful toil--and I can think. In business as important as yours I

couldn't think anything but business. I don't--I don't think making

money is worth while.”

“Go on,” said Sheridan, curtly, as Bibbs paused timidly.

“It hasn't seemed to get anywhere, that I can see,” said Bibbs. “You

think this city is rich and powerful--but what's the use of its being

rich and powerful? They don't teach the children any more in the schools

because the city is rich and powerful. They teach them more than they

used to because some people--not rich and powerful people--have thought

the thoughts to teach the children. And yet when you've been reading

the paper I've heard you objecting to the children being taught anything

except what would help them to make money. You said it was wasting the

taxes. You want them taught to make a living, but not to live. When I

was a little boy this wasn't an ugly town; now it's hideous. What's the

use of being big just to be hideous? I mean I don't think all this has

meant really going ahead--it's just been getting bigger and dirtier and

noisier. Wasn't the whole country happier and in many ways wiser when it

was smaller and cleaner and quieter and kinder? I know you think I'm an

utter fool, father, but, after all, though, aren't business and politics

just the housekeeping part of life? And wouldn't you despise a woman

that not only made her housekeeping her ambition, but did it so noisily

and dirtily that the whole neighborhood was in a continual turmoil over

it? And suppose she talked and thought about her housekeeping all

the time, and was always having additions built to her house when she

couldn't keep clean what she already had; and suppose, with it all, she

made the house altogether unpeaceful and unlivable--”

“Just one minute!” Sheridan interrupted, adding, with terrible courtesy,

“If you will permit me? Have you ever been right about anything?”

“I don't quite--”

“I ask the simple question: Have you ever been right about anything

whatever in the course of your life? Have you ever been right upon

any subject or question you've thought about and talked about? Can you

mention one single time when you were proved to be right?”

He was flourishing the bandaged hand as he spoke, but Bibbs said only,

“If I've always been wrong before, surely there's more chance that I'm

right about this. It seems reasonable to suppose something would be due

to bring up my average.”

“Yes, I thought you wouldn't see the point. And there's another you

probably couldn't see, but I'll take the liberty to mention it. You been

balkin' all your life. Pretty much everything I ever wanted you to do,

you'd let out SOME kind of a holler, like you are now--and yet I can't

seem to remember once when you didn't have to lay down and do what I

said. But go on with your remarks about our city and the business of

this country. Go on!”

“I don't want to be a part of it,” said Bibbs, with unwonted decision.

“I want to keep to myself, and I'm doing it now. I couldn't, if I went

down there with you. I'd be swallowed into it. I don't care for money

enough to--”

“No,” his father interrupted, still dangerously quiet. “You've never had

to earn a living. Anybody could tell that by what you say. Now, let me

remind you: you're sleepin' in a pretty good bed; you're eatin' pretty

fair food; you're wearin' pretty fine clothes. Just suppose one o' these

noisy housekeepers--me, for instance--decided to let you do your own

housekeepin'. May I ask what your proposition would be?”

“I'm earning nine dollars a week,” said Bibbs, sturdily. “It's enough. I

shouldn't mind at all.”

“Who's payin' you that nine dollars a week?”

“My work!” Bibbs answered. “And I've done so well on that

clipping-machine I believe I could work up to fifteen or even twenty

a week at another job. I could be a fair plumber in a few months,

I'm sure. I'd rather have a trade than be in business--I should,

infinitely!”

“You better set about learnin' one pretty dam' quick!” But Sheridan

struggled with his temper and again was partially successful in

controlling it. “You better learn a trade over Sunday, because you're

either goin' down with me to my office Monday morning--or--you can go to

plumbing!”

“All right,” said Bibbs, gently. “I can get along.”

Sheridan raised his hands sardonically, as in prayer. “O God,” he said,

“this boy was crazy enough before he began to earn his nine dollars a

week, and now his money's gone to his head! Can't You do nothin' for

him?” Then he flung his hands apart, palms outward, in a furious gesture

of dismissal. “Get out o' this room! You got a skull that's thicker'n a

whale's thigh-bone, but it's cracked spang all the way across! You hated

the machine-shop so bad when I sent you there, you went and stayed sick

for over two years--and now, when I offer to take you out of it and give

you the mint, you holler for the shop like a calf for its mammy! You're

cracked! Oh, but I got a fine layout here! One son died, one quit, and

one's a loon! The loon's all I got left! H. P. Ellersly's wife had

a crazy brother, and they undertook to keep him at the house. First

morning he was there he walked straight though a ten-dollar plate-glass

window out into the yard. He says, 'Oh, look at the pretty dandelion!'

That's what you're doin'! You want to spend your life sayin', 'Oh, look

at the pretty dandelion!' and you don't care a tinker's dam' what you

bust! Well, mister, loon or no loon, cracked and crazy or whatever you

are, I'll take you with me Monday morning, and I'll work you and learn

you--yes, and I'll lam you, if I got to--until I've made something out

of you that's fit to be called a business man! I'll keep at you while

I'm able to stand, and if I have to lay down to die I'll be whisperin'

at you till they get the embalmin'-fluid into me! Now go on, and don't

let me hear from you again till you can come and tell me you've waked

up, you poor, pitiful, dandelion-pickin' SLEEP-WALKER!”

Bibbs gave him a queer look. There was something like reproach in it,

for once; but there was more than that--he seemed to be startled by his

father's last word.

CHAPTER XXV

There was sleet that evening, with a whopping wind, but neither this

storm nor that other which so imminently threatened him held place

in the consciousness of Bibbs Sheridan when he came once more to the

presence of Mary. All was right in his world as he sat with her, reading

Maurice Maeterlinck's Alladine and Palomides. The sorrowful light of

the gas-jet might have been May morning sunshine flashing amber and rose

through the glowing windows of the Sainte-Chapelle, it was so bright for

Bibbs. And while the zinc-eater held out to bring him such golden nights

as these, all the king's horses and all the king's men might not serve

to break the spell.

Bibbs read slowly, but in a reasonable manner, as if he were talking;

and Mary, looking at him steadily from beneath her curved fingers,

appeared to discover no fault. It had grown to be her habit to look at

him whenever there was an opportunity. It may be said, in truth, that

while they were together, and it was light, she looked at him all the

time.

When he came to the end of Alladine and Palomides they were silent a

little while, considering together; then he turned back the pages and

said: “There's something I want to read over. This:”

You would think I threw a window open on the dawn.... She has a

soul that can be seen around her--that takes you in its arms like

an ailing child and without saying anything to you consoles you

for everything.... I shall never understand it all. I do not know

how it can all be, but my knees bend in spite of me when I speak

of it....

He stopped and looked at her.

“You boy!” said Mary, not very clearly.

“Oh yes,” he returned. “But it's true--especially my knees!”

“You boy!” she murmured again, blushing charmingly. “You might read

another line over. The first time I ever saw you, Bibbs, you were

looking into a mirror. Do it again. But you needn't read it--I can give

it to you: 'A little Greek slave that came from the heart of Arcady!'”

“I! I'm one of the hands at the Pump Works--and going to stay one,

unless I have to decide to study plumbing.”

“No.” She shook her head. “You love and want what's beautiful and

delicate and serene; it's really art that you want in your life, and

have always wanted. You seemed to me, from the first, the most wistful

person I had ever known, and that's what you were wistful for.”

Bibbs looked doubtful and more wistful than ever; but after a moment or

two the matter seemed to clarify itself to him. “Why, no,” he said; “I

wanted something else more than that. I wanted you.”

“And here I am!” she laughed, completely understanding. “I think we're

like those two in The Cloister and the Hearth. I'm just the rough

Burgundian cross-bow man, Denys, who followed that gentle Gerard and

told everybody that the devil was dead.”

“He isn't, though,” said Bibbs, as a hoarse little bell in the next room

began a series of snappings which proved to be ten, upon count. “He gets

into the clock whenever I'm with you.” And, sighing deeply he rose to

go.

“You're always very prompt about leaving me.”

“I--I try to be,” he said. “It isn't easy to be careful not to risk

everything by giving myself a little more at a time. If I ever saw you

look tired--”

“Have you ever?”

“Not yet. You always look--you always look--”

“How?”

“Care-free. That's it. Except when you feel sorry for me about

something, you always have that splendid look. It puts courage into

people to see it. If I had a struggle to face I'd keep remembering that

look--and I'd never give up! It's a brave look, too, as though gaiety

might be a kind of gallantry on your part, and yet I don't quite

understand why it should be, either.” He smiled quizzically, looking

down upon her. “Mary, you haven't a 'secret sorrow,' have you?”

For answer she only laughed.

“No,” he said; “I can't imagine you with a care in the world. I think

that's why you were so kind to me--you have nothing but happiness in

your own life, and so you could spare time to make my troubles turn to

happiness, too. But there's one little time in the twenty-four hours

when I'm not happy. It's now, when I have to say good night. I feel

dismal every time it comes--and then, when I've left the house, there's

a bad little blankness, a black void, as though I were temporarily

dead; and it lasts until I get it established in my mind that I'm really

beginning another day that's to end with YOU again. Then I cheer up. But

now's the bad time--and I must go through it, and so--good night.” And

he added with a pungent vehemence of which he was little aware, “I hate

it!”

“Do you?” she said, rising to go to the door with him. But he stood

motionless, gazing at her wonderingly.

“Mary! Your eyes are so--” He stopped.

“Yes?” But she looked quickly away.

“I don't know,” he said. “I thought just then--”

“What did you think?”

“I don't know--it seemed to me that there was something I ought to

understand--and didn't.”

She laughed and met his wondering gaze again frankly. “My eyes are

pleased,” she said. “I'm glad that you miss me a little after you go.”

“But to-morrow's coming faster than other days if you'll let it,” he

said.

She inclined her head. “Yes. I'll--'let it'!”

“Going to church,” said Bibbs. “It IS going to church when I go with

you!”

She went to the front door with him; she always went that far. They had

formed a little code of leave-taking, by habit, neither of them ever

speaking of it; but it was always the same. She always stood in the

doorway until he reached the sidewalk, and there he always turned and

looked back, and she waved her hand to him. Then he went on, halfway to

the New House, and looked back again, and Mary was not in the doorway,

but the door was open and the light shone. It was as if she meant to

tell him that she would never shut him out; he could always see that

friendly light of the open doorway--as if it were open for him to come

back, if he would. He could see it until a wing of the New House came

between, when he went up the path. The open doorway seemed to him the

beautiful symbol of her friendship--of her thought of him; a symbol of

herself and of her ineffable kindness.

And she kept the door open--even to-night, though the sleet and fine

snow swept in upon her bare throat and arms, and her brown hair was

strewn with tiny white stars. His heart leaped as he turned and saw that

she was there, waving her hand to him, as if she did not know that the

storm touched her. When he had gone on, Mary did as she always did--she

went into an unlit room across the hall from that in which they had

spent the evening, and, looking from the window, watched him until he

was out of sight. The storm made that difficult to-night, but she

caught a glimpse of him under the street-lamp that stood between the two

houses, and saw that he turned to look back again. Then, and not before,

she looked at the upper windows of Roscoe's house across the street.

They were dark. Mary waited, but after a little while she closed the

front door and returned to her window. A moment later two of the upper

windows of Roscoe's house flashed into light and a hand lowered the

shade of one of them. Mary felt the cold then--it was the third night

she had seen those windows lighted and the shade lowered, just after

Bibbs had gone.

But Bibbs had no glance to spare for Roscoe's windows. He stopped for

his last look back at the open door, and, with a thin mantle of white

already upon his shoulders, made his way, gasping in the wind, to the

lee of the sheltering wing of the New House.

A stricken George, muttering hoarsely, admitted him, and Bibbs became

aware of a paroxysm within the house. Terrible sounds came from the

library: Sheridan cursing as never before; his wife sobbing, her voice

rising to an agonized squeal of protest upon each of a series of muffled

detonations--the outrageous thumping of a bandaged hand upon wood; then

Gurney, sharply imperious, “Keep your hand in that sling! Keep your hand

in that sling, I say!”

“LOOK!” George gasped, delighted to play herald for so important a

tragedy; and he renewed upon his face the ghastly expression with which

he had first beheld the ruins his calamitous gesture laid before the

eyes of Bibbs. “Look at 'at lamidal statue!”

Gazing down the hall, Bibbs saw heroic wreckage, seemingly

Byzantine--painted colossal fragments of the shattered torso,

appallingly human; and gilded and silvered heaps of magnificence strewn

among ruinous palms like the spoil of a barbarians' battle. There had

been a massacre in the oasis--the Moor had been hurled headlong from his

pedestal.

“He hit 'at ole lamidal statue,” said George. “POW!”

“My father?”

“YESsuh! POW! he hit 'er! An' you' ma run tell me git doctuh quick 's

I kin telefoam--she sho' you' pa goin' bus' a blood-vessel. He ain't

takin' on 'tall NOW. He ain't nothin' 'tall to what he was 'while ago.

You done miss' it, Mist' Bibbs. Doctuh got him all quiet' down, to what

he was. POW! he hit'er! Yessuh!” He took Bibbs's coat and proffered a

crumpled telegraph form. “Here what come,” he said. “I pick 'er up when

he done stompin' on 'er. You read 'er, Mist' Bibbs--you' ma tell me tuhn

'er ovuh to you soon's you come in.”

Bibbs read the telegram quickly. It was from New York and addressed to

Mrs. Sheridan.

Sure you will all approve step have taken as was so wretched my

health would probably suffered severely Robert and I were married

this afternoon thought best have quiet wedding absolutely sure

you will understand wisdom of step when you know Robert better am

happiest woman in world are leaving for Florida will wire address

when settled will remain till spring love to all father will like

him too when knows him like I do he is just ideal.

Edith Lamhorn.

CHAPTER XXVI

George departed, and Bibbs was left gazing upon chaos and listening to

thunder. He could not reach the stairway without passing the open doors

of the library, and he was convinced that the mere glimpse of him, just

then, would prove nothing less than insufferable for his father. For

that reason he was about to make his escape into the gold-and-brocade

room, intending to keep out of sight, when he heard Sheridan

vociferously demanding his presence.

“Tell him to come in here! He's out there. I heard George just let him

in. Now you'll SEE!” And tear-stained Mrs. Sheridan, looking out into

the hall, beckoned to her son.

Bibbs went as far as the doorway. Gurney sat winding a strip of white

cotton, his black bag open upon a chair near by; and Sheridan was

striding up and down, his hand so heavily wrapped in fresh bandages that

he seemed to be wearing a small boxing-glove. His eyes were bloodshot;

his forehead was heavily bedewed; one side of his collar had broken

loose, and there were blood-stains upon his right cuff.

“THERE'S our little sunshine!” he cried, as Bibbs appeared. “THERE'S the

hope o' the family--my lifelong pride and joy! I want--”

“Keep you hand in that sling,” said Gurney, sharply.

Sheridan turned upon him, uttering a sound like a howl. “For God's sake,

sing another tune!” he cried. “You said you 'came as a doctor but stay

as a friend,' and in that capacity you undertake to sit up and criticize

ME--”

“Oh, talk sense,” said the doctor, and yawned intentionally. “What do

you want Bibbs to say?”

“You were sittin' up there tellin' me I got 'hysterical'--'hysterical,'

oh Lord! You sat up there and told me I got 'hysterical' over nothin'!

You sat up there tellin' me I didn't have as heavy burdens as many

another man you knew. I just want you to hear THIS. Now listen!” He

swung toward the quiet figure waiting in the doorway. “Bibbs, will you

come down-town with me Monday morning and let me start you with two

vice-presidencies, a directorship, stock, and salaries? I ask you.”

“No, father,” said Bibbs, gently.

Sheridan looked at Gurney and then faced his son once more.

“Bibbs, you want to stay in the shop, do you, at nine dollars a week,

instead of takin' up my offer?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And I'd like the doctor to hear: What'll you do if I decide you're

too high-priced a workin'-man either to live in my house or work in my

shop?”

“Find other work,” said Bibbs.

“There! You hear him for yourself!” Sheridan cried. “You hear what--”

“Keep you hand in that sling! Yes, I hear him.”

Sheridan leaned over Gurney and shouted, in a voice that cracked and

broke, piping into falsetto: “He thinks of bein' a PLUMBER! He wants to

be a PLUMBER! He told me he couldn't THINK if he went into business--he

wants to be a plumber so he can THINK!”

He fell back a step, wiping his forhead with the back of his left hand.

“There! That's my son! That's the only son I got now! That's my chance

to live,” he cried, with a bitterness that seemed to leave ashes in his

throat. “That's my one chance to live--that thing you see in the doorway

yonder!”

Dr. Gurney thoughtfully regarded the bandage strip he had been winding,

and tossed it into the open bag. “What's the matter with giving Bibbs a

chance to live?” he said, coolly. “I would if I were you. You've had TWO

that went into business.”

Sheridan's mouth moved grotesquely before he could speak. “Joe Gurney,”

he said, when he could command himself so far, “are you accusin' me of

the responsibility for the death of my son James?”

“I accuse you of nothing,” said the doctor. “But just once I'd like

to have it out with you on the question of Bibbs--and while he's here,

too.” He got up, walked to the fire, and stood warming his hands behind

his back and smiling. “Look here, old fellow, let's be reasonable,” he

said. “You were bound Bibbs should go to the shop again, and I gave you

and him, both, to understand pretty plainly that if he went it was at

the risk of his life. Well, what did he do? He said he wanted to go. And

he did go, and he's made good there. Now, see: Isn't that enough? Can't

you let him off now? He wants to write, and how do you know that he

couldn't do it if you gave him a chance? How do you know he hasn't some

message--something to say that might make the world just a little

bit happier or wiser? He MIGHT--in time--it's a possibility not to be

denied. Now he can't deliver any message if he goes down there with you,

and he won't HAVE any to deliver. I don't say going down with you is

likely to injure his health, as I thought the shop would, and as the

shop did, the first time. I'm not speaking as doctor now, anyhow. But

I tell you one thing I know: if you take him down there you'll kill

something that I feel is in him, and it's finer, I think, than his

physical body, and you'll kill it deader than a door-nail! And so

why not let it live? You've about come to the end of your string, old

fellow. Why not stop this perpetual devilish fighting and give Bibbs his

chance?”

Sheridan stood looking at him fixedly. “What 'fighting?'”

“Yours--with nature.” Gurney sustained the daunting gaze of his fierce

antagonist equably. “You don't seem to understand that you've been

struggling against actual law.”

“What law?”

“Natural law,” said Gurney. “What do you think beat you with Edith? Did

Edith, herself, beat you? Didn't she obey without question something

powerful that was against you? EDITH wasn't against you, and you weren't

against HER, but you set yourself against the power that had her in its

grip, and it shot out a spurt of flame--and won in a walk! What's taken

Roscoe from you? Timbers bear just so much strain, old man; but YOU

wanted to send the load across the broken bridge, and you thought you

could bully or coax the cracked thing into standing. Well, you couldn't!

Now here's Bibbs. There are thousands of men fit for the life you want

him to lead--and so is he. It wouldn't take half of Bibbs's brains to be

twice as good a business man as Jim and Roscoe put together.”

“WHAT!” Sheridan goggled at him like a zany.

“Your son Bibbs,” said the doctor, composedly, “Bibbs Sheridan has

the kind and quantity of 'gray matter' that will make him a success in

anything--if he ever wakes up! Personally I should prefer him to remain

asleep. I like him that way. But the thousands of men fit for the life

you want him to lead aren't fit to do much with the life he OUGHT

to lead. Blindly, he's been fighting for the chance to lead it--he's

obeying something that begs to stay alive within him; and, blindly, he

knows you'll crush it out. You've set your will to do it. Let me tell

you something more. You don't know what you've become since Jim's going

thwarted you--and that's what was uppermost, a bafflement stronger than

your normal grief. You're half mad with a consuming fury against the

very self of the law--for it was the very self of the law that took Jim

from you. That was a law concerning the cohesion of molecules. The very

self of the law took Roscoe from you and gave Edith the certainty of

beating you; and the very self of the law makes Bibbs deny you to-night.

The LAW beats you. Haven't you been whipped enough? But you want to whip

the law--you've set yourself against it, to bend it to your own ends, to

wield it and twist it--”

The voice broke from Sheridan's heaving chest in a shout. “Yes! And by

God, I will!”

“So Ajax defied the lightning,” said Gurney.

“I've heard that dam'-fool story, too,” Sheridan retorted, fiercely.

“That's for chuldern and niggers. It ain't twentieth century, let me

tell you! 'Defied the lightning,' did he, the jackass! If he'd been half

a man he'd 'a' got away with it. WE don't go showin' off defyin' the

lightning--we hitch it up and make it work for us like a black-steer! A

man nowadays would just as soon think o' defyin' a wood-shed!”

“Well, what about Bibbs?” said Gurney. “Will you be a really big man now

and--”

“Gurney, you know a lot about bigness!” Sheridan began to walk to and

fro again, and the doctor returned gloomily to his chair. He had shot

his bolt the moment he judged its chance to strike center was best, but

the target seemed unaware of the marksman.

“I'm tryin' to make a big man out o' that poor truck yonder,” Sheridan

went on, “and you step in, beggin' me to let him be Lord knows what--I

don't! I suppose you figure it out that now I got a SON-IN-LAW, I

mightn't need a son! Yes, I got a son-in-law now--a spender!”

“Oh, put your hand back!” said Gurney, wearily.

There was a bronze inkstand upon the table. Sheridan put his right hand

in the sling, but with his left he swept the inkstand from the table

and half-way across the room--a comet with a destroying black tail. Mrs.

Sheridan shrieked and sprang toward it.

“Let it lay!” he shouted, fiercely. “Let it lay!” And, weeping, she

obeyed. “Yes, sir,” he went on, in a voice the more ominous for the

sudden hush he put upon it. “I got a spender for a son-in-law! It's

wonderful where property goes, sometimes. There was ole man Tracy--you

remember him, Doc--J. R. Tracy, solid banker. He went into the bank as

messenger, seventeen years old; he was president at forty-three, and he

built that bank with his life for forty years more. He was down there

from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon the day before he

died--over eighty! Gilt edge, that bank? It was diamond edge! He used

to eat a bag o' peanuts and an apple for lunch; but he wasn't

stingy--he was just livin' in his business. He didn't care for pie or

automobiles--he had his bank. It was an institution, and it come pretty

near bein' the beatin' heart o' this town in its time. Well, that ole

man used to pass one o' these here turned-up-nose and turned-up-pants

cigarette boys on the streets. Never spoke to him, Tracy didn't. Speak

to him? God! he wouldn't 'a' coughed on him! He wouldn't 'a' let him

clean the cuspidors at the bank! Why, if he'd 'a' just seen him standin'

in FRONT the bank he'd 'a' had him run off the street. And yet all Tracy

was doin' every day of his life was workin' for that cigarette boy!

Tracy thought it was for the bank; he thought he was givin' his life and

his life-blood and the blood of his brain for the bank, but he wasn't.

It was every bit--from the time he went in at seventeen till he died in

harness at eighty-three--it was every last lick of it just slavin' for

that turned-up-nose, turned-up-pants cigarette boy. AND TRACY DIDN'T

EVEN KNOW HIS NAME! He died, not ever havin' heard it, though he chased

him off the front steps of his house once. The day after Tracy died his

old-maid daughter married the cigarette--and there AIN'T any Tracy bank

any more! And now”--his voice rose again--“and now I got a cigarette

son-in-law!”

Gurney pointed to the flourishing right hand without speaking, and

Sheridan once more returned it to the sling.

“My son-in-law likes Florida this winter,” Sheridan went on. “That's

good, and my son-in-law better enjoy it, because I don't think he'll be

there next winter. They got twelve-thousand dollars to spend, and I hear

it can be done in Florida by rich sons-in-law. When Roscoe's woman got

me to spend that much on a porch for their new house, Edith wouldn't

give me a minute's rest till I turned over the same to her. And she's

got it, besides what I gave her to go East on. It'll be gone long before

this time next year, and when she comes home and leaves the cigarette

behind--for good--she'll get some more. MY name ain't Tracy, and there

ain't goin' to be any Tracy business in the Sheridan family. And there

ain't goin' to be any college foundin' and endowin' and trusteein',

nor God-knows-what to keep my property alive when I'm gone! Edith'll

be back, and she'll get a girl's share when she's through with that

cigarette, but--”

“By the way,” interposed Gurney, “didn't Mrs. Sheridan tell me that

Bibbs warned you Edith would marry Lamhorn in New York?”

Sheridan went completely to pieces: he swore, while his wife screamed

and stopped her ears. And as he swore he pounded the table with his

wounded hand, and when the doctor, after storming at him ineffectively,

sprang to catch and protect that hand, Sheridan wrenched it away,

tearing the bandage. He hammered the table till it leaped.

“Fool!” he panted, choking. “If he's shown gumption enough to guess

right the first time in his life, it's enough for me to begin learnin'

him on!” And, struggling with the doctor, he leaned toward Bibbs,

thrusting forward his convulsed face, which was deathly pale. “My name

ain't Tracy, I tell you!” he screamed, hoarsely. “You give in, you

stubborn fool! I've had my way with you before, and I'll have my way

with you now!”

Bibbs's face was as white as his father's, but he kept remembering that

“splendid look” of Mary's which he had told her would give him courage

in a struggle, so that he would “never give up.”

“No. You can't have your way,” he said. And then, obeying a significant