THE RIVET IN GRANDFATHER'S NECK

A Comedy of Limitations

BY

JAMES BRANCH CABELL

"_To this new South, who values her high past in chief, as fitfoundation of that edifice whereon she labors day by day, and withaugmenting strokes_. "

1915

TO

PRISCILLA BRADLEY CABELL

 "Nightly I mark and praise, or great or small, Such stars as proudly struggle one by one To heaven's highest place, as Procyon, Antarês, Naös, Tejat and Nibal Attain supremacy, and proudly fall, Still glorious, and glitter, and are gone So very soon;--whilst steadfast and alone Polaris gleams, and is not changed at all. 

 "Daily I find some gallant dream that ranges The heights of heaven; and as others do, I serve my dream until my dream estranges Its errant bondage, and I note anew That nothing dims, nor shakes, nor mars, nor changes, Fond faith in you and in my love of you. "

CONTENTS

PART ONE - PROPINQUITY

PART TWO - RENASCENCE

PART THREE - TERTIUS

PART FOUR - APPRECIATION

PART FIVE - SOUVENIR

PART SIX - BYWAYS

PART SEVEN - YOKED

PART EIGHT - HARVEST

PART NINE - RELICS

PART TEN - IMPRIMIS

In the middle of the cupboard door was the carved figure of a man. . . . He had goat's legs, little horns on his head, and a long beard; thechildren in the room called him, "Major-General-field-sergeant-commander-Billy-goat's-legs" . . . He was always looking at thetable under the looking-glass where stood a very pretty littleshepherdess made of china. . . . Close by her side stood a littlechimney-sweep, as black as coal and also made of china. . . . Nearto them stood another figure. . . . He was an old Chinaman who could nodhis head, and used to pretend he was the grandfather of the shepherdess, although he could not prove it. He, however, assumed authority over her, and therefore when "Major-general-field-sergeant-commander-Billy-goat's-legs" asked for the little shepherdess to be his wife, he nodded his headto show that he consented. 

Then the little shepherdess cried, and looked at her sweetheart, thechimney-sweep. "I must entreat you, " said she, "to go out with me intothe wide world, for we cannot stay here. " . . . When the chimney-sweep sawthat she was quite firm, he said, "My way is through the stove up thechimney. " . . . So at last they reached the top of the chimney. . . . The skywith all its stars was over their heads. . . . They could see for a verylong distance out into the wide world, and the poor little shepherdessleaned her head on her chimney-sweep's shoulder and wept. "This is toomuch, " she said, "the world is too large. " . . . And so with a great dealof trouble they climbed down the chimney and peeped out. . . . There laythe old Chinaman on the floor . . . Broken into three pieces. . . . "This isterrible, " said the shepherdess. "He can be riveted, " said thechimney-sweep. . . . The family had the Chinaman's back mended and a strongrivet put through his neck; he looked as good as new, but when"Major-General-field-sergeant-commander-Billy-goat's-legs" again askedfor the shepherdess to be his wife, the old Chinaman could no longer nodhis head. 

And so the little china people remained together and were thankful forthe rivet in grandfather's neck, and continued to love each other untilthey were broken to pieces. 

PART ONE - PROPINQUITY

 _"A singer, eh?. . . Well, well! but when he sings Take jealous heed lest idiosyncrasies Entinge and taint too deep his melodies; See that his lute has no discordant strings To harrow us; and let his vaporings Be all of virtue and its victories, And of man's best and noblest qualities, And scenery, and flowers, and similar things_. 

 "Thus bid our paymasters whose mutterings Some few deride, and blithely link their rhymes At random; and, as ever, on frail wings Of wine-stained paper scribbled with such rhymes Men mount to heaven, and loud laughter springs From hell's midpit, whose fuel is such rhymes. "

PAUL VERVILLE. _Nascitur_. 

I

At a very remote period, when editorials were mostly devoted todiscussion as to whether the Democratic Convention (shortly to be heldin Chicago) would or would not declare in favor of bi-metallism; whengolf was a novel form of recreation in America, and people disputed howto pronounce its name, and pedestrians still turned to stare after anautomobile; when, according to the fashion notes, "the godet skirts andhuge sleeves of the present modes" were already doomed to extinction;when the baseball season had just begun, and some of our people werediscussing the national game, and others the spectacular burning of theold Pennsylvania Railway depot at Thirty-third and Market Street inPhiladelphia, and yet others the significance of General Fitzhugh Lee'srecent appointment as consul-general to Habana:--at this remote time, Lichfield talked of nothing except the Pendomer divorce case. 

And Colonel Rudolph Musgrave had very narrowly escaped being named asthe co-respondent. This much, at least, all Lichfield knew when GeorgePendomer--evincing unsuspected funds of generosity--permitted his wifeto secure a divorce on the euphemistic grounds of "desertion. " JohnCharteris, acting as Rudolph Musgrave's friend, had patched up thisarrangement; and the colonel and Mrs. Pendomer, so rumor ran, were to bemarried very quietly after a decent interval. 

Remained only to deliberate whether this sop to the conventions shouldbe accepted as sufficient. 

"At least, " as Mrs. Ashmeade sagely observed, "we can combinevituperation with common-sense, and remember it is not the first time aMusgrave has figured in an entanglement of the sort. A lecherous race!proverbial flutterers of petticoats! His surname convicts the manunheard and almost excuses him. All of us feel that. And, moreover, itis not as if the idiots had committed any unpardonable sin, for theyhave kept out of the newspapers. "

Her friend seemed dubious, and hazarded something concerning "the merestsense of decency. "

"In the name of the Prophet, figs! People--I mean the people who countin Lichfield--are charitable enough to ignore almost any crime which isjust a matter of common knowledge. In fact, they are mildly grateful. Itgives them something to talk about. But when detraction is printed inthe morning paper you can't overlook it without incurring the suspicionof being illiterate and virtueless. That's Lichfield. "

"But, Polly--"

"Sophist, don't I know my Lichfield? I know it almost as well as I knowRudolph Musgrave. And so I prophesy that he will not marry ClaricePendomer, because he is inevitably tired of her by this. He will marrymoney, just as all the Musgraves do. Moreover, I prophesy that we willgabble about this mess until we find a newer target for our stonethrowing, and be just as friendly with the participants to their facesas we ever were. So don't let me hear any idiotic talk about whether orno _I_ am going to receive her--"

"Well, after all, she was born a Bellingham. We must remember that. "

"Wasn't I saying I knew my Lichfield?" Mrs. Ashmeade placidly observed. 

 * * * * *

And time, indeed, attested her to be right in every particular. 

Yet it must be recorded that at this critical juncture chance ratherremarkably favored Colonel Musgrave and Mrs. Pendomer, by givingLichfield something of greater interest to talk about; since now, justin the nick of occasion, occurred the notorious Scott Musgrave murder. Scott Musgrave--a fourth cousin once removed of the colonel's, to bequite accurate--had in the preceding year seduced the daughter of avillage doctor, a negligible "half-strainer" up country at Warren; andher two brothers, being irritated, picked this particular season towaylay him in the street, as he reeled homeward one night from theCommodores' Club, and forthwith to abolish Scott Musgrave after theprimitive methods of their lower station in society. 

These details, indeed, were never officially made public, since adiscreet police force "found no clues"; for Fred Musgrave (of King'sGarden), as befitted the dead man's well-to-do brother, had been at nolittle pains to insure constabulary shortsightedness, in preference tohaving the nature of Scott Musgrave's recreations unsympatheticallyaired. Fred Musgrave thereby afforded Lichfield a delectable opportunity(conversationally and abetted by innumerable "they _do_ say's") toaccredit the murder, turn by turn, to every able-bodied person residingwithin stone's throw of its commission. So that few had time, now, totalk of Rudolph Musgrave and Clarice Pendomer; for it was not inLichfieldian human nature to discuss a mere domestic imbroglio whenhere, also in the Musgrave family, was a picturesque and goryassassination to lay tongue to. 

So Colonel Musgrave was duly reëlected that spring to the librarianshipof the Lichfield Historical Association, and the name of Mrs. GeorgePendomer was not stricken from the list of patronesses of the LichfieldGerman Club, but was merely altered to "Mrs. Clarice Pendomer. "

 * * * * *

At the bottom of his heart Colonel Musgrave was a trifle irritated thathis self-sacrifice should be thus unrewarded by martyrdom. Circumstanceshad enabled him to assume, and he had gladly accepted, the blame forJohn Charteris's iniquity, rather than let Anne Charteris know the truthabout her husband and Clarice Pendomer. The truth would have killedAnne, the colonel believed; and besides, the colonel had enjoyed theperformance of a picturesque action. 

And having acted as a hero in permitting himself to be pilloried as alibertine, it was preferable of course not to have incurred ostracismthereby. His common-sense conceded this; and yet, to Colonel Musgrave, it could not but be evident that Destiny was hardly rising to thepossibilities of the situation. 

II

Concerning Colonel Musgrave one finds the ensuing account in apublication of the period devoted to biographies of more or lessprominent Americans. It is reproduced unchanged, because these memoirswere--in the old days--compiled by the person whom they commemorated. The custom was a worthy one, since the value of an autobiography isdetermined by the nature of its superfluities and falsehoods. 

"MUSGRAVE, RUDOLPH VARTREY, editor; _b_. Lichfield, Sill. , Mar. 14, 1856; _s_. William Sebastian and Martha (Allardyce) M; _g. S_. Theodorick Q. M. , gov. Of Sill. 1805-8, judge of the General Ct. , 1808-11, judge Supreme Ct. Of Appeals, 1811-50 and pres. Supreme Ct. OfAppeals, 1841-50; grad. King's Coll. And U. Of Sill. Corr. Sec. Lichfield Hist. Soc. , and editor Sill. Mag. Of Biog. Since 1890; dir. Traders Nat. Bank, Sill. ; mem. Soc. Of the Sons of Col. Govs. , pres. Sill. Soc. Of Protestant Martyrs, comdr. Sill. Mil. Order of LostBattles, mem. Exec. Bd. Sill. Hist. Assn. For the Preservation of Ruins. Democrat, Episcopalian, unmarried. _Author_: Colonial Lichfield, 1892;Right on the Scaffold, 1893; Secession and the South, 1894; Chart of theDescendants of Zenophon Perkins, 1894; Recollections of a Gracious Era, 1895; Notes as to the Vartreys of Westphalia, 1896. Has also writtennumerous pamphlets on hist. , biog. And geneal. Subjects. _Address_:Lichfield, Sill. "

For Colonel Musgrave was by birth the lineal head of all the Musgravesof Matocton, which is in Lichfield, as degrees are counted there, equivalent to what being born a marquis would mean in England. Handsomeand trim and affable, he defied chronology by looking ten years youngerthan he was known to be. For at least a decade he had been invaluable toLichfield matrons alike against the entertainment of an "out-of-towngirl, " the management of a cotillion and the prevention of unpleasantpauses among incongruous dinner companies. 

In short, he was by all accounts the social triumph of his generation;and his military title, won by four years of arduous service atreceptions and parades while on the staff of a former Governor of theState, this seasoned bachelor carried off with plausibility anddistinction. 

The story finds him "Librarian and Corresponding Secretary" of theLichfield Historical Association, which office he had held for some sixyears. The salary was small, and the colonel had inherited little; buthis sister, Miss Agatha Musgrave, who lived with him, was a notablehousekeeper. He increased his resources in a gentlemanly fashion bygenealogical research, directed mostly toward the rehabilitation ofambiguous pedigrees; and for the rest, no other man could have fulfilledmore gracefully the main duty of the Librarian, which was to exhibit theAssociation's collection of relics to hurried tourists "doing"Lichfield. 

His "Library manner" was modeled upon that which an eighteenth centuryportrait would conceivably possess, should witchcraft set the canvasbreathing. 

III

Also the story finds Colonel Musgrave in the company of his sister on awarm April day, whilst these two sat upon the porch of the Musgrave homein Lichfield, and Colonel Musgrave waited until it should be time toopen the Library for the afternoon. And about them birds twitteredcheerily, and the formal garden flourished as gardens thrive nowhereexcept in Lichfield, and overhead the sky was a turkis-blue, save for afew irrelevant clouds which dappled it here and there like splashes ofwhipped cream. 

Yet, for all this, the colonel was ill-at-ease; and care was on hisbrow, and venom in his speech. 

"And one thing, " Colonel Musgrave concluded, with decision, "I wishdistinctly understood, and that is, if she insists on having young menloafing about her--as, of course, she will--she will have to entertainthem in the garden. I won't have them in the house, Agatha. You rememberthat Langham girl you had here last Easter?" he added, disconsolately--"the one who positively littered up the house with young men, and sang idiotic jingles to them at all hours of the night aboutthe Bailey family and the correct way to spell chicken? She drove me tothe verge of insanity, and I haven't a doubt that this Patricia personwill be quite as obstreperous. So, please mention it to her, Agatha--casually, of course--that, in Lichfield, when one is partial toeither vocal exercise or amorous daliance, the proper scene of action isthe garden. I really cannot be annoyed by her. "

"But, Rudolph, " his sister protested, "you forget she is engaged to theEarl of Pevensey. An engaged girl naturally wouldn't care about meetingany young men. "

"H'm!" said the colonel, drily. 

Ensued a pause, during which the colonel lighted yet another cigarette. 

Then, "I have frequently observed, " he spoke, in absent wise, "that allyoung women having that peculiarly vacuous expression about the eyes--Ibelieve there are misguided persons who describe such eyes as being'dreamy, '--are invariably possessed of a fickle, unstable and coquettishtemperament. Oh, no! You may depend upon it, Agatha, the fact that shecontemplates purchasing the right to support a peculiarly disreputablemember of the British peerage will not hinder her in the least frommaking advances to all the young men in the neighborhood. "

Miss Musgrave was somewhat ruffled. She was a homely little woman withnothing of the ordinary Musgrave comeliness. Candor even compels thestatement that in her pudgy swarthy face there was a droll suggestionof the pug-dog. 

"I am sure, " Miss Musgrave remonstrated, with placid dignity, "that youknow nothing whatever about her, and that the reports about the earlhave probably been greatly exaggerated, and that her picture shows herto be an unusually attractive girl. Though it is true, " Miss Musgraveconceded after reflection, "that there are any number of persons in theHouse of Lords that I wouldn't in the least care to have in my ownhouse, even with the front parlor all in linen as it unfortunately is. So awkward when you have company! And the Bible does bid us not to putour trust in princes, and, for my part, I never thought that photographscould be trusted, either. "

"Scorn not the nobly born, Agatha, " her brother admonished her, "nortreat with lofty scorn the well-connected. The very best people aresometimes respectable. And yet, " he pursued, with a slight hiatus ofthought, "I should not describe her as precisely an attractive-lookinggirl. She seems to have a lot of hair, --if it is all her own, which itprobably isn't, --and her nose is apparently straight enough, and Igather she is not absolutely deformed anywhere; but that is all I canconscientiously say in her favor. She is artificial. Her hair, now! Ithas a--well, you would not call it exactly a crinkle or precisely awave, but rather somewhere between the two. Yes, I think I shoulddescribe it as a ripple. I fancy it must be rather like the reflectionof a sunset in--a duck-pond, say, with a faint wind ruffling the water. For I gather that her hair is of some light shade, --induced, I haven't adoubt, by the liberal use of peroxides. And this ripple, too, Agatha, itstands to reason, must be the result of coercing nature, for I havenever seen it in any other woman's hair. Moreover, " Colonel Musgravecontinued, warming somewhat to his subject, "there is a dimple--on theright side of her mouth, immediately above it, --which speaks of the mostfrivolous tendencies. I dare say it comes and goes when shetalks, --winks at you, so to speak, in a manner that must be simplyidiotic. That foolish little cleft in her chin, too--"

But at this point, his sister interrupted him. 

"I hadn't a notion, " said she, "that you had even looked at thephotograph. And you seem to have it quite by heart, Rudolph, --and somepeople admire dimples, you know, and, at any rate, her mother had redhair, so Patricia isn't really responsible. I decided that it would befoolish to use the best mats to-night. We can save them for Sundaysupper, because I am only going to have eggs and a little cold meat, andnot make company of her. "

For no apparent reason, Rudolph Musgrave flushed. 

"I inspected it--quite casually--last night. Please don't be absurd, Agatha! If we were threatened with any other direful visitation--influenza, say, or the seventeen-year locust, --I shouldnaturally read up on the subject in order to know what to expect. Andsince Providence has seen fit to send us a visitor rather than avisitation--though, personally, I should infinitely prefer theinfluenza, as interfering in less degree with my comfort, --I have, ofcourse, neglected no opportunity of finding out what we may reasonablylook forward to. I fear the worst, Agatha. For I repeat, the girl's faceis, to me, absolutely unattractive!"

The colonel spoke with emphasis, and flung away his cigarette, and tookup his hat to go. 

And then, "I suppose, " said Miss Musgrave, absently, "you will befalling in love with her, just as you did with Anne Charteris and AlineVan Orden and all those other minxes. I _would_ like to see you married, Rudolph, only I couldn't stand your having a wife. "

"I! I!" sputtered the colonel. "I think you must be out of your head! Ifall in love with that chit! Good Lord, Agatha, you are positivelyidiotic!"

And the colonel turned on his heel, and walked stiffly through thegarden. But, when half-way down the path, he wheeled about and cameback. 

"I beg your pardon, Agatha, " he said, contritely, "it was not myintention to be discourteous. But somehow--somehow, dear, I don't quitesee the necessity for my falling in love with anybody, so long as I haveyou. "

And Miss Musgrave, you may be sure, forgave him promptly; andafterward--with a bit of pride and an infinity of love in her kind, homely face, --her eyes followed him out of the garden on his way to openthe Library. And she decided in her heart that she had the dearest andbest and handsomest brother in the universe, and that she must rememberto tell him, accidentally, how becoming his new hat was. And then, atsome unspoken thought, she smiled, wistfully. 

"She would be a very lucky girl if he did, " said Miss Musgrave, aproposof nothing in particular; and tossed her grizzly head. 

"An earl, indeed!" said Miss Musgrave

IV

And this is how it came about:

Patricia Vartrey (a second cousin once removed of Colonel RudolphMusgrave's), as the older inhabitants of Lichfield will volubly attest, was always a person who did peculiar things. The list of hereccentricities is far too lengthy here to be enumerated; but she beganit by being born with red hair--Titian reds and auburns wereundiscovered euphemisms in those days--and, in Lichfield, this is notregarded as precisely a lady-like thing to do; and she ended it, as faras Lichfield was concerned, by eloping with what Lichfield in its horrorcould only describe, with conscious inadequacy, as "a quite unheard-ofperson. "

Indisputably the man was well-to-do already; and from this nightmarishtopsy-turvidom of Reconstruction the fellow visibly was plucking wealth. Also young Stapylton was well enough to look at, too, as Lichfieldflurriedly conceded. 

But it was equally undeniable that he had made his money through aseries of commercial speculations distinguished both by shiftiness anddaring, and that the man himself had been until the War a whollynegligible "poor white" person, --an overseer, indeed, for "Wild Will"Musgrave, Colonel Musgrave's father, who was of course the sameLieutenant-Colonel William Sebastian Musgrave, C. S. A. , that met hisdeath at Gettysburg. 

This upstart married Patricia Vartrey, for all the chatter andwhispering, and carried her away from Lichfield, as yet a little dubiousas to what recognition, if any, should be accorded the existence of theStapyltons. And afterward (from a notoriously untruthful North, indeed)came rumors that he was rapidly becoming wealthy; and of PatriciaVartrey's death at her daughter's birth; and of the infant's health andstrength and beauty, and of her lavish upbringing, --a Frenchwoman, Lichfield whispered, with absolutely nothing to do but attend upon thechild. 

And then, little by little, a new generation sprang up, and, little bylittle, the interest these rumors waked became more lax; and it wasbrought about, at last, by the insidious transitions of time, thatPatricia Vartrey was forgotten in Lichfield. Only a few among the oldermen remembered her; some of them yet treasured, as these fogies so oftendo, a stray fan or an odd glove; and in bycorners of sundrytime-toughened hearts there lurked the memory of a laughing word or of aglance or of some such casual bounty, that Patricia Vartrey had accordedthese hearts' owners when the world was young. 

But Agatha Musgrave, likewise, remembered the orphan cousin who hadbeen reared with her. She had loved Patricia Vartrey; and, in due time, she wrote to Patricia's daughter, --in stately, antiquated phrases thatastonished the recipient not a little, --and the girl had answered. Thecorrespondence flourished. And it was not long before Miss Musgrave hadinduced her young cousin to visit Lichfield. 

Colonel Rudolph Musgrave, be it understood, knew nothing of all thisuntil the girl was actually on her way. And now, she was to arrive thatafternoon, to domicile herself in his quiet house for two longweeks--this utter stranger, look you!--and upset his comfort, ask himsilly questions, expect him to talk to her, and at the end of her visit, possibly, present him with some outlandish gimcrack made of cardboardand pink ribbons, in which she would expect him to keep his papers. TheLangham girl did that. 

 * * * * *

It is honesty's part to give you the man no better than he was. Lichfield at large had pampered him; many women had loved him; and aboveall, Miss Agatha had spoiled him. After fifteen years of being the pivotabout which the economy of a household revolves, after fifteen years ofbeing the inevitable person whose approval must be secured before anydomestic alteration, however trivial, may be considered, no mortal manmay hope to remain a paragon of unselfishness. 

Colonel Musgrave joyed in the society of women. But he classedthem--say, with the croquettes adorned with pink paper frills which werethen invariably served at the suppers of the Lichfield German Club, --asacceptable enough, upon a conscious holiday, but wholly incongruous withthe slippered ease of home. When you had an inclination for femininesociety, you shaved and changed your clothes and thought up an impromptuor so against emergency, and went forth to seek it. That was natural;but to have a petticoated young person infesting your house, hourly, wasas preposterous as ice-cream soda at breakfast. 

The metaphor set him off at a tangent. He wondered if this Patriciaperson could not (tactfully) be induced to take her bath afterbreakfast, as Agatha did? after he had his? Why, confound the girl, hewas not responsible for there being only one bathroom in the house! Itwas necessary for him to have his bath and be at the Library by nineo'clock. This interloper must be made to understand as much. 

The colonel reached the Library undecided as to whether Miss Stapyltonhad better breakfast in her room, or if it would be entirely proper forher to come to the table in one of those fluffy lace-trimmed garmentssuch as Agatha affected at the day's beginning?

The question was a nice one. It was not as though servants were willingto be bothered with carrying trays to people's rooms; he knew whatAgatha had to say upon that subject. It was not as though he were thechit's first cousin, either. He almost wished himself in the decline oflife, and free to treat the girl paternally. 

And so he fretted all that afternoon. 

 * * * * *

Then, too, he reflected that it would be very awkward if Agatha shouldbe unwell while this Patricia person was in the house. Agatha in hernormal state was of course the kindliest and cheeriest gentlewoman inthe universe, but any physical illness appeared to transform her naturedisastrously. She had her "attacks, " she "felt badly" very oftennowadays, poor dear; and how was a Patricia person to be expected tomake allowances for the fact that at such times poor Agatha wasunavoidably a little cross and pessimistic?

V

Yet Colonel Musgrave strolled into his garden, later, with a tolerableaffectation of unconcern. Women, after all, he assured himself, werenecessary for the perpetuation of the species; and, resolving for thefuture to view these weakly, big-hipped and slope-shouldered makeshiftsof Nature's with larger tolerance, he cocked his hat at adevil-may-carish angle, and strode up the walk, whistling jauntily andhaving, it must be confessed, to the unprejudiced observer very much theair of a sheep in wolf's clothing. 

"At worst, " he was reflecting, "I can make love to her. They, as a rule, take kindlily enough to that; and in the exercise of hospitality a hostmust go to all lengths to divert his guests. Failure is notpermitted. . . . "

Then She came to him. 

She came to him across the trim, cool lawn, leisurely, yet with aresilient tread that attested the vigor of her slim young body. She wasall in white, diaphanous, ethereal, quite incredibly incredible; but asshe passed through the long shadows of the garden--fire-new, from theheart of the sunset, Rudolph Musgrave would have sworn to you, --the lacyfolds and furbelows and semi-transparencies that clothed her were nowtinged with gold, and now, as a hedge or flower-bed screened her fromthe horizontal rays, were softened into multitudinous graduations ofgrays and mauves and violets. 

"Failure is not permitted, " he was repeating in his soul. . . . 

"You're Cousin Rudolph, aren't you?" she asked. "How perfectlyentrancing! You see until to-day I always thought that if I had beenoffered the choice between having cousins or appendicitis I would havepreferred to be operated on. "

And Rudolph Musgrave noted, with a delicious tingling somewhere abouthis heart, that her hair was really like the reflection of a sunset inrippling waters, --only many times more beautiful, of course, --and thather mouth was an inconsiderable trifle, a scrap of sanguine curves, andthat her eyes were purple glimpses of infinity. 

Then he observed that his own mouth was giving utterance to diversirrelevant and foolish sounds, which eventually resolved themselves intothe statement he was glad to see her. And immediately afterward thebanality of this remark brought the hot blood to his face and, for therest of the day, stung him and teased him, somewhere in the backgroundof his mind, like an incessant insect. 

Glad, indeed!

Before he had finished shaking hands with Patricia Stapylton, it wasall over with the poor man. 

"Er--h'm!" quoth he. 

"Only, " Miss Stapylton was meditating, with puckered brow, "it would beunseemly for me to call you Rudolph--"

"You impertinent minx!" cried he, in his soul; "I should rather think itwould be!"

"--and Cousin Rudolph sounds exactly like a dried-up little man witheyeglasses and crows' feet and a gentle nature. I rather thought youwere going to be like that, and I regard it as extremely hospitable ofyou not to be. You are more like--like what now?" Miss Stapylton put herhead to one side and considered the contents of her vocabulary, --"youare like a viking. I shall call you Olaf, " she announced, when she hadreached a decision. 

This, look you, to the most dignified man in Lichfield, --a person whohad never borne a nickname in his life. You must picture for yourselfhow the colonel stood before her, big, sturdy and blond, and glared downat her, and assured himself that he was very indignant; like Timanthes, the colonel's biographer prefers to draw a veil before the countenanceto which art is unable to do justice. 

Then, "I have no admiration for the Northmen, " Rudolph Musgravedeclared, stiffly. "They were a rude and barbarous nation, proverbiallyaddicted to piracy and intemperance. "

"My goodness gracious!" Miss Stapylton observed, --and now, for thefirst time, he saw the teeth that were like grains of rice upon a pinkrose petal. Also, he saw dimples. "And does one mean all that by aviking?"

"The vikings, " he informed her--and his Library manner had settled uponhim now to the very tips of his fingers--"were pirates. The word is ofIcelandic origin, from _vik_, the name applied to the small inlets alongthe coast in which they concealed their galleys. I may mention that Olafwas not a viking, but a Norwegian king, being the first Christianmonarch to reign in Norway. "

"Dear me!" said Miss Stapylton; "how interesting!"

Then she yawned with deliberate cruelty. 

"However, " she concluded, "I shall call you Olaf, just the same. "

"Er--h'm!" said the colonel. 

 * * * * *

And this stuttering boor (he reflected) was Colonel Rudolph Musgrave, confessedly the social triumph of his generation! This imbecile, withouta syllable to say for himself, without a solitary adroit word withintongue's reach, wherewith to annihilate the hussy, was a Musgrave ofMatocton!

 * * * * *

And she did. To her he was "Olaf" from that day forth. 

Rudolph Musgrave called her, "You. " He was nettled, of course, by herforwardness--"Olaf, " indeed!--yet he found it, somehow, difficult tobear this fact in mind continuously. 

For while it is true our heroes and heroines in fiction no longer fallin love at first sight, Nature, you must remember, is too busilyemployed with other matters to have much time to profit by currentliterature. Then, too, she is not especially anxious to be realistic. She prefers to jog along in the old rut, contentedly turning outchromolithographic sunrises such as they give away at the tea stores, contentedly staging the most violent and improbable melodramas;and--sturdy old Philistine that she is--she even now permits herchildren to fall in love in the most primitive fashion. 

She is not particularly interested in subtleties and soul analyses; shemerely chuckles rather complacently when a pair of eyes are drawn, somehow, to another pair of eyes, and an indescribable something isaltered somewhere in some untellable fashion, and the world, suddenly, becomes the most delightful place of residence in all the universe. Indeed, it is her favorite miracle, this. For at work of this sort theold Philistine knows that she is an adept; and she has rejoiced in theskill of her hands, with a sober workmanly joy, since Cain first wenta-wooing in the Land of Nod. 

So Colonel Rudolph Musgrave, without understanding what had happened tohim, on a sudden was strangely content with life. 

It was at supper--dinner, in Lichfield, when not a formalentertainment, is eaten at two in the afternoon--that he fella-speculating as to whether Her eyes, after all, could be fitlydescribed as purple. 

Wasn't there a grayer luminosity about them than he had at firstsuspected?--wasn't the cool glow of them, in a word, rather that ofsunlight falling upon a wet slate roof?

It was a delicate question, an affair of nuances, of almostimperceptible graduations; and in debating a matter of such nicety, aman must necessarily lay aside all petty irritation, such as beingnettled by an irrational nickname, and approach the question withunbiased mind. 

He did. And when, at last, he had come warily to the verge of decision, Miss Musgrave in all innocence announced that they would excuse him ifhe wished to get back to his work. 

He discovered that, somehow, the three had finished supper; and, somehow, he presently discovered himself in his study, where eighto'clock had found him every evening for the last ten years, when he wasnot about his social diversions. An old custom, you will observe, is notlightly broken. 

VI

Subsequently: "I have never approved of these international marriages, "said Colonel Musgrave, with heat. "It stands to reason, she is simplymarrying the fellow for his title. _(The will of Jeremiah Brown, dated29 November, 1690, recorded 2 February, 1690-1, mentions his wife ElizaBrown and appoints her his executrix. )_ She can't possibly care for him. _(This, then, was the second wife of Edward Osborne of Henrico, who, marrying him 15 June, 1694, died before January, 1696-7. )_ But they areall flibbertigibbets, every one of them. _(She had apparently nochildren by either marriage--)_ And I dare say she is no better than therest. "

Came a tap on the door. Followed a vision of soft white folds andfurbelows and semi-transparencies and purple eyes and a pouting mouth. 

"I am become like a pelican in the wilderness, Olaf, " the owner of thesevanities complained. "Are you very busy? Cousin Agatha is about herhousekeeping, and I have read the afternoon paper all through, --even thelist of undelivered letters and the woman's page, --and I just want tosee the Gilbert Stuart picture, " she concluded, --exercising, one isafraid, a certain economy in regard to the truth. 

This was a little too much. If a man's working-hours are not to berespected--if his privacy is to be thus invaded on the flimsiest ofpretexts, --why, then, one may very reasonably look for chaos to comeagain. This, Rudolph Musgrave decided, was a case demanding firm andinstant action. Here was a young person who needed taking down a peg ortwo, and that at once. 

But he made the mistake of looking at her first. And after that, he liedglibly. "Good Lord, no! I am not in the least busy now. In fact, I wasjust about to look you two up. "

"I was rather afraid of disturbing you. " She hesitated; and a lucentmischief woke in her eyes. "You are so patriarchal, Olaf, " she lamented. "I felt like a lion venturing into a den of Daniels. But if you crossyour heart you aren't really busy--why, then, you can show me theStuart, Olaf. "

It is widely conceded that Gilbert Stuart never in his after worksurpassed the painting which hung then in Rudolph Musgrave's study, --theportrait of the young Gerald Musgrave, afterward the friend of Jeffersonand Henry, and, still later, the author of divers bulky tomes, pertaining for the most part to ethnology. The boy smiles at you fromthe canvas, smiles ambiguously, --smiles with a woman's mouth, set abovea resolute chin, however, --and with a sort of humorous sadness in hiseyes. These latter are of a dark shade of blue--purple, if youwill, --and his hair is tinged with red. 

"Why, he took after me!" said Miss Stapylton. "How thoughtful of him, Olaf!"

And Rudolph Musgrave saw the undeniable resemblance. It gave him a queersort of shock, too, as he comprehended, for the first time, that thefaint blue vein on that lifted arm held Musgrave blood, --the same bloodwhich at this thought quickened. For any person guided by appearances, Rudolph Musgrave considered, would have surmised that the vein inquestion contained celestial ichor or some yet diviner fluid. 

"It is true, " he conceded, "that there is a certain likeness. "

"And he is a very beautiful boy, " said Miss Stapylton, demurely. "Thankyou, Olaf; I begin to think you are a dangerous flatterer. But he isonly a boy, Olaf! And I had always thought of Gerald Musgrave as alearned person with a fringe of whiskers all around his face--like acenterpiece, you know. "

The colonel smiled. "This portrait was painted early in life. Ourkinsman was at that time, I believe, a person of rather frivoloustendencies. Yet he was not quite thirty when he first established hisreputation by his monograph upon _The Evolution of Marriage_. Andafterwards, just prior to his first meeting with Goethe, you willremember--"

"Oh, yes!" Miss Stapylton assented, hastily; "I remember perfectly. Iknow all about him, thank you. And it was that beautiful boy, Olaf, thatyoung-eyed cherub, who developed into a musty old man who wrote mustyold books, and lived a musty, dusty life all by himself, and nevermarried or had any fun at all! How _horrid_, Olaf!" she cried, with aqueer shrug of distaste. 

"I fail, " said Colonel Musgrave, "to perceive anything--ah--horrid in alife devoted to the study of anthropology. His reputation when he diedwas international. "

"But he never had any fun, you jay-bird! And, oh, Olaf! Olaf! that boycould have had so much fun! The world held so much for him! Why, Fortuneis only a woman, you know, and what woman could have refused himanything if he had smiled at her like that when he asked for it?"

Miss Stapylton gazed up at the portrait for a long time now, her handsclasped under her chin. Her face was gently reproachful. 

"Oh, boy dear, boy dear!" she said, with a forlorn little quaver in hervoice, "how _could_ you be _so_ foolish? _Didn't_ you know there wassomething better in the world than grubbing after musty old tribes andcustoms and folk-songs? Oh, precious child, how could you?"

Gerald Musgrave smiled back at her, ambiguously; and Rudolph Musgravelaughed. "I perceive, " said he, "you are a follower of Epicurus. For mypart, I must have fetched my ideals from the tub of the Stoic. I canconceive of no nobler life than one devoted to furthering the cause ofscience. "

She looked up at him, with a wan smile. "A barren life!" she said: "ah, yes, his was a wasted life! His books are all out-of-date now, andnobody reads them, and it is just as if he had never been. A barrenlife, Olaf! And that beautiful boy might have had so much fun--Life isqueer, isn't it, Olaf?"

Again he laughed, "The criticism, " he suggested, "is not altogetheroriginal. And Science, no less than War, must have her unsung heroes. You must remember, " he continued, more seriously, "that any great workmust have as its foundation the achievements of unknown men. I fancythat Cheops did not lay every brick in his pyramid with his own hand;and I dare say Nebuchadnezzar employed a few helpers when he was layingout his hanging gardens. But time cannot chronicle these lesser men. Their sole reward must be the knowledge that they have aided somewhat inthe unending work of the world. "

Her face had altered into a pink and white penitence which was flavoredwith awe. 

"I--I forgot, " she murmured, contritely; "I--forgot you were--likehim--about your genealogies, you know. Oh, Olaf, I'm very silly! Ofcourse, it is tremendously fine and--and nice, I dare say, if you likeit, --to devote your life to learning, as you and he have done. I forgot, Olaf. Still, I am sorry, somehow, for that beautiful boy, " she ended, with a disconsolate glance at the portrait. 

VII

Long after Miss Stapylton had left him, the colonel sat alone in hisstudy, idle now, and musing vaguely. There were no more addendaconcerning the descendants of Captain Thomas Osborne that night. 

At last, the colonel rose and threw open a window, and stood lookinginto the moonlit garden. The world bathed in a mist of blue and silver. There was a breeze that brought him sweet, warm odors from the garden, together with a blurred shrilling of crickets and the conspiratorialconference of young leaves. 

"Of course, it is tremendously fine and--and nice, if you like it, " hesaid, with a faint chuckle. "I wonder, now, if I do like it?"

He was strangely moved. He seemed, somehow, to survey Rudolph Musgraveand all his doings with complete and unconcerned aloofness. The man'slife, seen in its true proportions, dwindled into the merest flicker ofa match; he had such a little while to live, this Rudolph Musgrave! Andhe spent the serious hours of this brief time writing notes and chartsand pamphlets that perhaps some hundred men in all the universe mightcare to read--pamphlets no better and no more accurate than hundreds ofother men were writing at that very moment. 

No, the capacity for originative and enduring work was not in him; andthis incessant compilation of dreary footnotes, this incessant rummagingamong the bones of the dead--did it, after all, mean more to thisRudolph Musgrave than one full, vivid hour of life in that militantworld yonder, where men fought for other and more tangible prizes thanthe mention of one's name in a genealogical journal?

He could not have told you. In his heart, he knew that a thorough digestof the Wills and Orders of the Orphans' Court of any county must alwaysrank as a useful and creditable performance; but, from without, thesounds and odors of Spring were calling to him, luring him, wringing hisvery heart, bidding him come forth into the open and crack a jest or twobefore he died, and stare at the girls a little before the match hadflickered out. 

 * * * * *

At this time he heard a moaning noise. The colonel gave a shrug, sighed, and ascended to his sister's bedroom. He knew that Agatha must be ill;and that there is no more efficient quietus to wildish meditations thanthe heating of hot-water bottles and the administration of hypnotics hehad long ago discovered. 

PART TWO - RENASCENCE

 "As one imprisoned that hath lain alone And dreamed of sunlight where no vagrant gleam Of sunlight pierces, being freed, must deem This too but dreaming, and must dread the sun Whose glory dazzles, --even as such-an-one Am I whose longing was but now supreme For this high hour, and, now it strikes, esteem I do but dream long dreamed-of goals are won. 

 "Phyllis, I am not worthy of thy love. I pray thee let no kindly word be said Of me at all, for in the train thereof, Whenas yet-parted lips, sigh-visited, End speech and wait, mine when I will to move, Such joy awakens that I grow afraid. "THOMAS ROWLAND. _Triumphs of Phyllis_. 

I

They passed with incredible celerity, those next ten days--thosestrange, delicious, topsy-turvy days. To Rudolph Musgrave it seemedafterward that he had dreamed them away in some vague Lotus Land--in adelectable country where, he remembered, there were always purple eyesthat mocked you, and red lips that coaxed you now, and now cast gibes atyou. 

You felt, for the most part of your stay in this country, flushed andhot and uncomfortable and unbelievably awkward, and you were mercilesslybedeviled there; but not for all the accumulated wealth of Samarkand andInd and Ophir would you have had it otherwise. Ah, no, not otherwise inthe least trifle. For now uplifted to a rosy zone of acquiescence, youpartook incuriously at table of nectar and ambrosia, and noted abroad, without any surprise, that you trod upon a more verdant grass thanusual, and that someone had polished up the sun a bit; and, in fine, yousnatched a fearful joy from the performance of the most trivialfunctions of life. 

Yet always he remembered that it could not last; always he rememberedthat in the autumn Patricia was to marry Lord Pevensey. She sometimesgave him letters to mail which were addressed to that nobleman. Hewondered savagely what was in them; he posted them with a vicious shove;and, for the time, they caused him acute twinges of misery. But not forlong; no, for, in sober earnest, if some fantastic sequence of eventshad made his one chance of winning Patricia Stapylton dependent on hisspending a miserable half-hour in her company, Rudolph Musgrave couldnot have done it. 

As for Miss Stapylton, she appeared to delight in the cloistered, easy-going life of Lichfield. The quaint and beautiful old town fellshort in nothing of her expectations, in spite of the fact that she hadpreviously read John Charteris's tales of Lichfield, --"those effusionswhich" (if the _Lichfield Courier-Herald_ is to be trusted) "havebuilded, by the strength and witchery of record and rhyme, romance andpoem, a myriad-windowed temple in Lichfield's honor--exquisite, luminous, and enduring--for all the world to see. "

Miss Stapylton appeared to delight in the cloistered easy-going life ofLichfield, --that town which was once, as the outside world hashalf-forgotten now, the center of America's wealth, politics andculture, the town to which Europeans compiling "impressions" of Americadevoted one of their longest chapters in the heyday of Elijah Pogram andJefferson Brick. But the War between the States has changed all that, and Lichfield endures to-day only as a pleasant backwater. 

Very pleasant, too, it was in the days of Patricia's advent. There werestrikingly few young men about, to be sure; most of them on reachingmaturity had settled in more bustling regions. But many maidens remainedwhom memory delights to catalogue, --tall, brilliant Lizzie Allardyce, the lovely and cattish Marian Winwood, to whom Felix Kennaston wrotethose wonderful love-letters which she published when he marriedKathleen Saumarez, the rich Baugh heiresses from Georgia, the Pridetwins, and Mattie Ferneyhaugh, whom even rival beauties loved, they say, and other damsels by the score, --all in due time to be wooed and won, and then to pass out of the old town's life. 

Among the men of Rudolph Musgrave's generation--those gallant oldsterswho were born and bred, and meant to die, in Lichfield, --Patricia didnot lack for admirers. Tom May was one of them, of course; rarely apretty face escaped the tribute of at least one proposal from Tom May. Then there was Roderick Taunton, he with the leonine mane, who sparedher none of his forensic eloquence, but found Patricia less tractablethan the most stubborn of juries. Bluff Walter Thurman, too, who wassaid to know more of Dickens, whist and criminal law than any other manliving, came to worship at her shrine, as likewise did huge red-facedAshby Bland, famed for that cavalry charge which history-books tell youthat he led, and at which he actually was not present, for reasons allLichfield knew and chuckled over. And Courtney Thorpe and CharlesMaupin, doctors of the flesh and the spirit severally, were others amongthe rivals who gathered about Patricia at decorous festivals when, candles lighted, the butler and his underlings came with trays ofdelectable things to eat, and the "nests" of tables were set out, andpleasant chatter abounded. 

And among Patricia's attendants Colonel Musgrave, it is needless torelate, was preëminently pertinacious. The two found a deal to talkabout, somehow, though it is doubtful if many of their comments were ofsufficient importance or novelty to merit record. Then, also, he oftenread aloud to her from lovely books, for the colonel read admirably anddid not scruple to give emotional passages their value. _Trilby_, published the preceding spring in book form, was one of these books, forall this was at a very remote period; and the _Rubaiyat_ was another, for that poem was as yet unhackneyed and hardly wellknown enough to beparodied in those happy days. 

Once he read to her that wonderful sad tale of Hans Christian Andersen'swhich treats of the china chimney-sweep and the shepherdess, who elopedfrom their bedizened tiny parlor-table, and were frightened by thevastness of the world outside, and crept ignominiously back to their fithome. "And so, " the colonel ended, "the little china people remainedtogether, and were thankful for the rivet in grandfather's neck, andcontinued to love each other until they were broken to pieces. "

"It was really a very lucky thing, " Patricia estimated, "that thegrandfather had a rivet in his neck and couldn't nod to thebilly-goat-legged person to take the shepherdess away into his cupboard. I don't doubt the little china people were glad of it. But afterclimbing so far--and seeing the stars, --I think they ought to have hadmore to be glad for. " Her voice was quaintly wistful. 

"I will let you into a secret--er--Patricia. That rivet was made out ofthe strongest material in the whole universe. And the old grandfatherwas glad, at bottom, he had it in his neck so that he couldn't nod andseparate the shepherdess from the chimney-sweep. "

"Yes, --I guess he had been rather a rip among the bric-à-brac in his dayand sympathized with them?"

"No, it wasn't just that. You see these little china people had forsakentheir orderly comfortable world on the parlor table to climb very high. It was a brave thing to do, even though they faltered and came backafter a while. It is what we all want to do, Patricia--to climb towardthe stars, --even those of us who are too lazy or too cowardly to attemptit. And when others try it, we are envious and a little uncomfortable, and we probably scoff; but we can't help admiring, and there is a rivetin the neck of all of us which prevents us from interfering. Oh, yes, we little china people have a variety of rivets, thank God, to preventtoo frequent nodding and too cowardly a compromise withbaseness, --rivets that are a part of us and force us into flashes ofupright living, almost in spite of ourselves, when duty and inclinationgrapple. There is always the thing one cannot do for the reason that oneis constituted as one is. That, I take it, is the real rivet ingrandfather's neck and everybody else's. "

He spoke disjointedly, vaguely, but the girl nodded. "I think Iunderstand, Olaf. Only, it is a two-edged rivet--to mix metaphors--andkeeps us stiffnecked against all sorts of calls. No, I am not sure thatthe thing one cannot do because one is what one is, proves to be alwaysa cause for international jubilations and fireworks on the lawn. "

II

Thus Lichfield, as to its staid trousered citizenry, fell prostrate atMiss Stapylton's feet, and as to the remainder of its adults, vociferously failed to see anything in the least remarkable in herappearance, and avidly took and compared notes as to her personalapparel. 

"You have brought Asmodeus into Lichfield, " Colonel Musgrave one dayrebuked Miss Stapylton, as they sat in the garden. "The demon of prideand dress is rampant everywhere--er--Patricia. Even Agatha does her hairdifferently now; and in church last Sunday I counted no less than sevenduplicates of that blue hat of yours. "

Miss Stapylton was moved to mirth. "Fancy your noticing a thing likethat!" said she. "I didn't know you were even aware I had a blue hat. "

"I am no judge, " he conceded, gravely, "of such fripperies. I don'tpretend to be. But, on the other hand, I must plead guilty to derivingconsiderable harmless amusement from your efforts to dress as an exampleand an irritant to all Lichfield. "

"You wouldn't have me a dowd, Olaf?" said she, demurely. "I have to beneat and tidy, you know. You wouldn't have me going about in acontinuous state of unbuttonedness and black bombazine like Mrs. Rabbet, would you?"

Rudolph Musgrave debated as to this. "I dare say, " he at last conceded, cautiously, "that to the casual eye your appearance is somewhat--er--more pleasing than that of our rector's wife. But, on theother hand----"

"Olaf, I am embarrassed by such fulsome eulogy. Mrs. Rabbet isn't a dayunder forty-nine. And you consider me _somewhat_ better-looking than sheis!"

He inspected her critically, and was confirmed in his opinion. 

"Olaf"--coaxingly--"do you really think I am as ugly as that?"

"Pouf!" said the colonel airily; "I dare say you are well enough. "

"Olaf"--and this was even more cajoling--"do you know you've never toldme what sort of a woman you most admire?"

"I don't admire any of them, " said Colonel Musgrave, stoutly. "They aretoo vain and frivolous--especially the pink-and-white ones, " he added, unkindlily. 

"Cousin Agatha has told me all about your multifarious affairs ofcourse. She depicts you as a sort of cardiacal buccaneer and visiblygloats over the tale of your enormities. She is perfectly dear aboutit. But have you never--_cared_--for any woman, Olaf?"

Precarious ground, this! His eyes were fixed upon her now. And hers, fordoubtless sufficient reasons, were curiously intent upon anything in theuniverse rather than Rudolph Musgrave. 

"Yes, " said he, with a little intake of the breath; "yes, I cared once. "

"And--she cared?" asked Miss Stapylton. 

She happened, even now, not to be looking at him. 

"She!" Rudolph Musgrave cried, in real surprise. "Why, God bless mysoul, of course she didn't! She didn't know anything about it. "

"You never told her, Olaf?"--and this was reproachful. Then Patriciasaid: "Well! and did she go down in the cellar and get the wood-ax orwas she satisfied just to throw the bric-à-brac at you?"

And Colonel Musgrave laughed aloud. 

"Ah!" said he; "it would have been a brave jest if I had told her, wouldn't it? She was young, you see, and wealthy, and--ah, well, I won'tdeceive you by exaggerating her personal attractions! I will serve up toyou no praises of her sauced with lies. And I scorn to fall back on thestock-in-trade of the poets, --all their silly metaphors and similes andsuchlike nonsense. I won't tell you that her complexion reminded me ofroses swimming in milk, for it did nothing of the sort. Nor am I goingto insist that her eyes had a fire like that of stars, or proclaim thatCupid was in the habit of lighting his torch from them. I don't thinkhe was. I would like to have caught the brat taking any such libertieswith those innocent, humorous, unfathomable eyes of hers! And theydidn't remind me of violets, either, " he pursued, belligerently, "nordid her mouth look to me in the least like a rosebud, nor did I have theslightest difficulty in distinguishing between her hands and lilies. Iconsider these hyperbolical figures of speech to be idiotic. Ah, no!"cried Colonel Musgrave, warming to his subject--and regarding it, too, very intently; "ah, no, a face that could be patched together at thenearest florist's would not haunt a man's dreams o'nights, as hers does!I haven't any need for praises sauced with lies! I spurn hyperbole. Iscorn exaggeration. I merely state calmly and judicially that she wasGod's masterpiece, --the most beautiful and adorable and indescribablecreature that He ever made. "

She smiled at this. "You should have told her, Olaf, " said MissStapylton. "You should have told her that you cared. "

He gave a gesture of dissent. "She had everything, " he pointed out, "everything the world could afford her. And, doubtless, she would havebeen very glad to give it all up for me, wouldn't she?--for me, whohaven't youth or wealth or fame or anything? Ah, I dare say she wouldhave been delighted to give up the world she knew and loved, --the worldthat loved her, --for the privilege of helping me digest old countyrecords!"

And Rudolph Musgrave laughed again, though not mirthfully. 

But the girl was staring at him, with a vague trouble in her eyes. "Youshould have told her, Olaf, " she repeated. 

And at this point he noted that the arbutus-flush in her cheeks began towiden slowly, until, at last, it had burned back to the little pinkears, and had merged into the coppery glory of her hair, and had madeher, if such a thing were possible--which a minute ago it manifestly wasnot, --more beautiful and adorable and indescribable than ever before. 

"Ah, yes!" he scoffed, "Lichfield would have made a fitting home forher. She would have been very happy here, shut off from the world withus, --with us, whose forefathers have married and intermarried with oneanother until the stock is worthless, and impotent for any furtherachievement. For here, you know, we have the best blood in America, and--for utilitarian purposes--that means the worst blood. Ah, we may prateof our superiority to the rest of the world, --and God knows, wedo!--but, at bottom, we are worthless. We are worn out, I tell you! weare effete and stunted in brain and will-power, and the very desire oflife is gone out of us! We are contented simply to exist in Lichfield. And she--"

He paused, and a new, fierce light came into his eyes. "She was sobeautiful!" he said, half-angrily, between clenched teeth. 

"You are just like the rest of them, Olaf, " she lamented, with a hintof real sadness. "You imagine you are in love with a girl because youhappen to like the color of her eyes, or because there is a curve abouther lips that appeals to you. That isn't love, Olaf, as we womenunderstand it. Ah, no, a girl's love for a man doesn't depend altogetherupon his fitness to be used as an advertisement for somebody'sready-made clothing. "

"You fancy you know what you are talking about, " said Rudolph Musgrave, "but you don't. You don't realize, you see, how beautiful she--was. "

And this time, he nearly tripped upon the tense, for her hand was on hisarm, and, in consequence, a series of warm, delicious little shivers wasrunning about his body in a fashion highly favorable to extremeperturbation of mind. 

"You should have told her, Olaf, " she said, wistfully. "Oh, Olaf, Olaf, why didn't you tell her?"

She did not know, of course, how she was tempting him; she did not know, of course, how her least touch seemed to waken every pulse in his bodyto an aching throb, and set hope and fear a-drumming in his breast. Obviously, she did not know; and it angered him that she did not. 

"She would have laughed at me, " he said, with a snarl; "how she wouldhave laughed!"

"She wouldn't have laughed, Olaf. " And, indeed, she did not look as ifshe would. 

"But much you know of her!" said Rudolph Musgrave, morosely. "She wasjust like the rest of them, I tell you! She knew how to stare a man outof countenance with big purple eyes that were like violets with the dewon them, and keep her paltry pink-and-white baby face all pensive andsober, till the poor devil went stark, staring mad, and would havepawned his very soul to tell her that he loved her! She knew! She did iton purpose. She would look pensive just to make an ass of you! She--"

And here the colonel set his teeth for a moment, and resolutely drewback from the abyss. 

"She would not have cared for me, " he said, with a shrug. "I was notexactly the sort of fool she cared for. What she really cared for was ayoung fool who could dance with her in this silly new-fangled glidingstyle, and send her flowers and sweet-meats, and make love to herglibly--and a petticoated fool who would envy her fine feathers, --and, at last, a knavish fool who would barter his title for her money. Shepreferred fools, you see, but she would never have cared for amiddle-aged penniless fool like me. And so, " he ended, with a viciousoutburst of mendacity, "I never told her, and she married a title andlived unhappily in gilded splendor ever afterwards. "

"You should have told her, Olaf, " Miss Stapylton persisted; and then sheasked, in a voice that came very near being inaudible: "Is it too lateto tell her now, Olaf?"

The stupid man opened his lips a little, and stood staring at her withhungry eyes, wondering if it were really possible that she did not hearthe pounding of his heart; and then his teeth clicked, and he gave adespondent gesture. 

"Yes, " he said, wearily, "it is too late now. "

Thereupon Miss Stapylton tossed her head. "Oh, very well!" said she;"only, for my part, I think you acted very foolishly, and I don't seethat you have the least right to complain. I quite fail to see how youcould have expected her to marry you--or, in fact, how you can expectany woman to marry you, --if you won't, at least, go to the trouble ofasking her to do so!"

Then Miss Stapylton went into the house, and slammed the door after her. 

III

Nor was that the worst of it. For when Rudolph Musgrave followed her--ashe presently did, in a state of considerable amaze, --his sisterinformed him that Miss Stapylton had retired to her room with anunaccountable headache. 

And there she remained for the rest of the evening. It was an unusuallylong evening. 

Yet, somehow, in spite of its notable length--affording, as it did, anexcellent opportunity for undisturbed work, --Colonel Musgrave found, with a pricking conscience, that he made astonishingly slight progressin an exhaustive monograph upon the fragmentary Orderly Book of anobscure captain in a long-forgotten regiment, which if it had notactually served in the Revolution, had at least been demonstrablygranted money "for services, " and so entitled hundreds of aspirants tobecome the Sons (or Daughters) of various international disagreements. 

Nor did he see her at breakfast--nor at dinner. 

IV

A curious little heartache accompanied Colonel Musgrave on his way homethat afternoon. He had not seen Patricia Stapylton for twenty-fourhours, and he was just beginning to comprehend what life would be likewithout her. He did not find the prospect exhilarating. 

Then, as he came up the orderly graveled walk, he heard, issuing fromthe little vine-covered summer-house, a loud voice. It was a man'svoice, and its tones were angry. 

"No! no!" the man was saying; "I'll agree to no such nonsense, I tellyou! What do you think I am?"

"I think you are a jackass-fool, " Miss Stapylton said, crisply, "and afortune-hunter, and a sot, and a travesty, and a whole heap of otherthings I haven't, as yet had time to look up in the dictionary. And Ithink--I think you call yourself an English gentleman? Well, all I haveto say is God pity England if her gentlemen are of your stamp! Thereisn't a costermonger in all Whitechapel who would dare talk to me asyou've done! I would like to snatch you bald-headed, I would like tokill you--And do you think, now, if you were the very last man left inall the _world_ that I would--No, don't you try to answer me, for Idon't wish to hear a single word you have to say. Oh, oh! how _dare_you!"

"Well, I've had provocation enough, " the man's voice retorted, sullenly. "Perhaps, I have cut up a bit rough, Patricia, but, then, you've beentalkin' like a fool, you know. But what's the odds? Let's kiss and makeup, old girl. "

"Don't touch me!" she panted; "ah, don't you _dare!_"

"You little devil! you infernal little vixen? You'll jilt me, will you?"

"Let me go!" the girl cried, sharply. Rudolph Musgrave went into thesummer-house. 

The man Colonel Musgrave found there was big and loose-jointed, withtraces of puffiness about his face. He had wheat-colored hair andweakish-looking, pale blue eyes. One of his arms was about MissStapylton, but he released her now, and blinked at Rudolph Musgrave. 

"And who are you, pray?" he demanded, querulously. "What do you want, anyhow? What do you mean by sneakin' in here and tappin' on a fellow'sshoulder--like a damn' woodpecker, by Jove! I don't know you. "

There was in Colonel Musgrave's voice a curious tremor, when he spoke;but to the eye he was unruffled, even faintly amused. 

"I am the owner of this garden, " he enunciated, with leisurelydistinctness, "and it is not my custom to permit gentlewomen to beinsulted in it. So I am afraid I must ask you to leave it. "

"Now, see here, " the man blustered, weakly, "we don't want any heroics, you know. See here, you're her cousin, ain't you? By God, I'll leave itto you, you know! She's treated me badly, don't you understand. She's ajilt, you know. She's playin' fast and loose----"

He never got any further, for at this point Rudolph Musgrave took him bythe coat-collar and half-dragged, half-pushed him through the garden, shaking him occasionally with a quiet emphasis. The colonel was angry, and it was a matter of utter indifference to him that they weretrampling over flower-beds, and leaving havoc in their rear. 

But when they had reached the side-entrance, he paused and opened it, and then shoved his companion into an open field, where a number ofcows, fresh from the evening milking, regarded them with incurious eyes. It was very quiet here, save for the occasional jangle of the cow-bellsand the far-off fifing of frogs in the marsh below. 

"It would have been impossible, of course, " said Colonel Musgrave, "forme to have offered you any personal violence as long as you were, in amanner, a guest of mine. This field, however, is the property of JudgeWilloughby, and here I feel at liberty to thrash you. "

Then he thrashed the man who had annoyed Patricia Stapylton. 

That thrashing was, in its way, a masterpiece. There was a certainconscientiousness about it, a certain thoroughness of execution--acertain plodding and painstaking carefulness, in a word, such as ispossible only to those who have spent years in guiding fat-wittedtourists among the antiquities of the Lichfield Historical Association. 

"You ought to exercise more, " Rudolph Musgrave admonished his victim, when he had ended. "You are entirely too flabby now, you know. That pathyonder will take you to the hotel, where, I imagine, you are staying. There is a train leaving Lichfield at six-fifteen, and if I were you, Iwould be very careful not to miss that train. Good-evening. I am sorryto have been compelled to thrash you, but I must admit I have enjoyed itexceedingly. "

Then he went back into the garden. 

V

In the shadow of a white lilac-bush, Colonel Musgrave paused with anawed face. 

"Good Lord!" said he, aghast at the notion; "what would Agatha say ifshe knew I had been fighting like a drunken truck-driver! Or, rather, what would she refrain from saying! Only, she wouldn't believe it of me. And, for the matter of that, " Rudolph Musgrave continued, after amoment's reflection, "I wouldn't have believed it of myself a week ago. I think I am changing, somehow. A week ago I would have fetched in thepolice and sworn out a warrant; and, if the weather had been as damp asit is, I would have waited to put on my rubbers before I would have donethat much. "

VI

He found her still in the summer-house, expectant of him, it seemed, herlips parted, her eyes glowing. Rudolph Musgrave, looking down into twinvivid depths, for a breathing-space, found time to rejoice that he hadrefused to liken them to stars. Stars, forsooth!--and, pray, what paltrysun, what irresponsible comet, what pallid, clinkered satellite, mightboast a purple splendor such as this? For all asterial scintillations, at best, had but a clap-trap glitter; whereas the glow of Patricia'seyes was a matter worthy of really serious attention. 

"What have you done with him, Olaf?" the girl breathed, quickly. 

"I reasoned with him, " said Colonel Musgrave. "Oh, I found him quiteamenable to logic. He is leaving Lichfield this evening, I think. "

Thereupon Miss Stapylton began to laugh. "Yes, " said she, "you must haveremonstrated very feelingly. Your tie's all crooked, Olaf dear, and yourhair's all rumpled, and there's dust all over your coat. You woulddisgrace a rag-bag. Oh, I'm glad you reasoned--that way! It wasn'tdignified, but it was dear of you, Olaf. Pevensey's a beast. "

He caught his breath at this. "Pevensey!" he stammered; "the Earl ofPevensey!--the man you are going to marry!"

"Dear me, no!" Miss Stapylton answered, with utmost unconcern; "I wouldsooner marry a toad. Why, didn't you know, Olaf? I thought, of course, you knew you had been introducing athletics and better manners among thepeerage! That sounds like a bill in the House of Commons, doesn't it?"Then Miss Stapylton laughed again, and appeared to be in a state ofagreeable, though somewhat nervous, elation. "I wrote to him two daysago, " she afterward explained, "breaking off the engagement. So he camedown at once and was very nasty about it. "

"You--you have broken your engagement, " he echoed, dully; and continued, with a certain deficiency of finesse, "But I thought you wanted to be acountess?"

"Oh, you boor, you vulgarian!" the girl cried, "Oh, you do put things socrudely, Olaf! You are hopeless. "

She shook an admonitory forefinger in his direction, and pouted in themost dangerous fashion. 

"But he always seemed so nice, " she reflected, with puckered brows, "until to-day, you know. I thought he would be eminently suitable. Iliked him tremendously until--" and here, a wonderful, tender changecame into her face, a wistful quaver woke in her voice--"until I foundthere was some one else I liked better. "

"Ah!" said Rudolph Musgrave. 

So, that was it--yes, that was it! Her head was bowed now--her glorious, proud little head, --and she sat silent, an abashed heap of fluffy frillsand ruffles, a tiny bundle of vaporous ruchings and filmy tucks andsuchlike vanities, in the green dusk of the summer-house. 

But he knew. He had seen her face grave and tender in the twilight, andhe knew. 

She loved some man--some lucky devil! Ah, yes, that was it! And he knewthe love he had unwittingly spied upon to be august; the shamedexultance of her face and her illumined eyes, the crimson banners hercheeks had flaunted, --these were to Colonel Musgrave as a piece ofsacred pageantry; and before it his misery was awed, his envy wentposting to extinction. 

Thus the stupid man reflected, and made himself very unhappy over it. 

Then, after a little, the girl threw back her head and drew a deepbreath, and flashed a tremulous smile at him. 

"Ah, yes, " said she; "there are better things in life than coronets, aren't there, Olaf?"

You should have seen how he caught up the word!

"Life!" he cried, with a bitter thrill of speech; "ah, what do I know oflife? I am only a recluse, a dreamer, a visionary! You must learn oflife from the men who have lived, Patricia. I haven't ever lived. Ihave always chosen the coward's part. I have chosen to shut myself offfrom the world, to posture in a village all my days, and to consider itstrifles as of supreme importance. I have affected to scorn that braveworld yonder where a man is proven. And, all the while, I was afraid ofit, I think. I was afraid of you before you came. "

At the thought of this Rudolph Musgrave laughed as he fell to pacing upand down before her. 

"Life!" he cried, again, with a helpless gesture; and then smiled ather, very sadly. "'Didn't I know there was something better in life thangrubbing after musty tribes and customs and folk-songs?'" he quoted. "Why, what a question to ask of a professional genealogist! Don't yourealize, Patricia, that the very bread I eat is, actually, earned by theachievements of people who have been dead for centuries? and in part, ofcourse, by tickling the vanity of living snobs? That constitutes a nicetrade for an able-bodied person as long as men are paid for emptyinggarbage-barrels--now, doesn't it? And yet it is not altogether for thepay's sake I do it, " he added, haltingly. "There really is a fascinationabout the work. You are really working out a puzzle, --like a fellowsolving a chess-problem. It isn't really work, it is amusement. And whenyou are establishing a royal descent, and tracing back to czars andPlantagenets and Merovingians, and making it all seem perfectlyplausible, the thing is sheer impudent, flagrant art, and _you_ are theartist--" He broke off here and shrugged. "No, I could hardly make youunderstand. It doesn't matter. It is enough that I have bartered youthand happiness and the very power of living for the privilege of grubbingin old county records. "

He paused. It is debatable if he had spoken wisely, or had spoken evenin consonance with fact, but his outburst had, at least, the savinggrace of sincerity. He was pallid now, shaking in every limb, and in hisheart was a dull aching. She seemed so incredibly soft and little andchildlike, as she looked up at him with troubled eyes. 

"I--I don't quite understand, " she murmured. "It isn't as if you were anold man, Olaf. It isn't as if--"

But he had scarcely heard her. "Ah, child, child!" he cried, "why didyou come to waken me? I was content in my smug vanities. I was contentin my ignorance. I could have gone on contentedly grubbing through mymusty, sleepy life here, till death had taken me, if only you had notshown me what life might mean! Ah, child, child, why did you waken me?"

"I?" she breathed; and now the flush of her cheeks had widened, wondrously. 

"You! you!" he cried, and gave a wringing motion of his hands, for theself-esteem of a complacent man is not torn away without agony. "Whoelse but you? I had thought myself brave enough to be silent, but stillI must play the coward's part! That woman I told you of--that woman Iloved--was you! Yes, you, you!" he cried, again and again, in a sort offrenzy. 

And then, on a sudden, Colonel Musgrave began to laugh. 

"It is very ridiculous, isn't it?" he demanded of her. "Yes, it isvery--very funny. Now comes the time to laugh at me! Now comes the timeto lift your brows, and to make keen arrows of your eyes, and of yourtongue a little red dagger! I have dreamed of this moment many and manya time. So laugh, I say! Laugh, for I have told you that I love you. Youare rich, and I am a pauper--you are young, and I am old, remember, --andI love you, who love another man! For the love of God, laugh at me andhave done--laugh! for, as God lives, it is the bravest jest I have everknown!"

But she came to him, with a wonderful gesture of compassion, and caughthis great, shapely hands in hers. 

"I--I knew you cared, " she breathed. "I have always known you cared. Iwould have been an idiot if I hadn't. But, oh, Olaf, I didn't know youcared so much. You frighten me, Olaf, " she pleaded, and raised a tearfulface to his. "I am very fond of you, Olaf dear. Oh, don't think I am notfond of you. " And the girl paused for a breathless moment. "I think Imight have married you, Olaf, " she said, half-wistfully, "if--if ithadn't been for one thing. "

Rudolph Musgrave smiled now, though he found it a difficult business. "Yes, " he assented, gravely, "I know, dear. If it were not for the otherman--that lucky devil! Yes, he is a very, very lucky devil, child, andhe constitutes rather a big 'if, ' doesn't he?"

Miss Stapylton, too, smiled a little. "No, " said she, "that isn't quitethe reason. The real reason is, as I told you yesterday, that I quitefail to see how you can expect any woman to marry you, you jay-bird, ifyou won't go to the trouble of asking her to do so. "

And, this time, Miss Stapylton did not go into the house. 

VII

When they went in to supper, they had planned to tell Miss Agatha oftheir earth-staggering secret at once. But the colonel comprehended, atthe first glimpse of his sister, that the opportunity would beill-chosen. 

The meal was an awkward half-hour. Miss Agatha, from the head of thetable, did very little talking, save occasionally to evince views oflife that were both lachrymose and pugnacious. And the lovers talkedwith desperate cheerfulness, so that there might be no outbreak so longas Pilkins--preëminently ceremonious among butlers, and as yet inclinedto scoff at the notion that the Musgraves of Matocton were not divinelyentrusted to his guardianship, --was in the room. 

Coming so close upon the heels of his high hour, this contretemps ofAgatha's having one of her "attacks, " seemed more to Rudolph Musgravethan a man need rationally bear with equanimity. Perhaps it was a triflestiffly that he said he did not care for any raspberries. 

His sister burst into tears. 

"That's all the thanks I get. I slave my life out, and what thanks do Iget for it? I never have any pleasure, I never put my foot out of thehouse except to go to market, --and what thanks do I get for it? That'swhat I want you to tell me with the first raspberries of the season. That's what I want! Oh, I don't wonder you can't look me in the eye. AndI wish I was dead! that's what I wish!"

Colonel Musgrave did not turn at once toward Patricia, when his sisterhad stumbled, weeping, from the dining-room. 

"I--I am so sorry, Olaf, " said a remote and tiny voice. 

Then he touched her hand with his finger-tips, ever so lightly. "Youmust not worry about it, dear. I daresay I was unpardonably brusque. AndAgatha's health is not good, so that she is a trifle irritable at times. Why, good Lord, we have these little set-to's ever so often, and nevergive them a thought afterwards. That is one of the many things thefuture Mrs. Musgrave will have to get accustomed to, eh? Or does thatappalling prospect frighten you too much?"

And Patricia brazenly confessed that it did not. She also made a face athim, and accused Rudolph Musgrave of trying to crawl out of marryingher, which proceeding led to frivolities unnecessary to record, butfound delectable by the participants. 

VIII

Colonel Musgrave was alone. He had lifted his emptied coffee-cup and heswished the lees gently to and fro. He was curiously intent upon theselees, considered them in the light of a symbol. . . . 

Then a comfortable, pleasant-faced mulattress came to clear thesupper-table. Virginia they called her. Virginia had been nurse in turnto all the children of Rudolph Musgrave's parents; and to the end of herlife she appeared to regard the emancipation of the South's negroes asan irrelevant vagary of certain "low-down" and probably "ornery" Yankees--as an, in short, quite eminently "tacky" proceeding which verycertainly in no way affected her vested right to tyrannize over theMusgrave household. 

"Virginia, " said Colonel Musgrave, "don't forget to make up a fire inthe kitchen-stove before you go to bed. And please fill the kettlebefore you go upstairs, and leave it on the stove. Miss Agatha is notwell to-night. "

"Yaas, suh. I unnerstan', suh, " Virginia said, sedately. 

Virginia filled her tray, and went away quietly, her pleasant yellowface as imperturbable as an idol's. 

PART THREE - TERTIUS

 "It is in many ways made plain to us That love must grow like any common thing, Root, bud, and leaf, ere ripe for garnering The mellow fruitage front us; even thus Must Helena encounter Theseus Ere Paris come, and every century Spawn divers queens who die with Antony But live a great while first with Julius. 

 "Thus I have spoken the prologue of a play Wherein I have no part, and laugh, and sit Contented in the wings, whilst you portray An amorous maid with gestures that befit This lovely rôle, --as who knows better, pray, Than I that helped you in rehearsing it?"

Horace Symonds. _Civic Voluntaries_. 

I

When the Presidential campaign was at its height; when in varioussections of the United States "the boy orator of La Platte" was makinginvidious remarks concerning the Republican Party, and in Canton (Ohio)Mr. M. A. Hanna was cheerfully expressing his confidence as to theoutcome of it all; when the Czar and the Czarina were visiting PresidentFaure in Paris "amid unparalleled enthusiasm"; and when semi-educatedpeople were appraising, with a glibness possible to ignorance only, theliterary achievements of William Morris and George du Maurier, who hadjust died:--at this remote time, Roger Stapylton returned to Lichfield. 

For in that particular October Patricia's father, an accommodatingphysician having declared old Roger Stapylton's health to necessitate aSouthern sojourn, leased the Bellingham mansion in Lichfield. Ithappened that, by rare good luck, Tom Bellingham--of the Bellinghams ofAssequin, not the Bellinghams of Bellemeade, who indeed immigrated afterthe War of 1812 and have never been regarded as securely establishedfrom a social standpoint, --was at this time in pecuniary difficulties onaccount of having signed another person's name to a cheque. 

Roger Stapylton refurnished the house in the extreme degree ofLichfieldian elegance. Colonel Musgrave was his mentor throughout theprocess; and the oldest families of Lichfield very shortly sat at tablewith the former overseer, and not at all unwillingly, since his dinnerswere excellent and an infatuated Rudolph Musgrave--an axiom now inplanning any list of guests, --was very shortly to marry the man'sdaughter. 

In fact, the matter had been settled; and Colonel Musgrave had receivedfrom Roger Stapylton an exuberantly granted charter of courtship. 

This befell, indeed, upon a red letter day in Roger Stapylton's life. The banker was in business matters wonderfully shrewd, as diverstransactions, since the signing of that half-forgotten contract wherebyhe was to furnish a certain number of mules for the Confederate service, strikingly attested: but he had rarely been out of the country whereinhis mother bore him; and where another nabob might have dreamed of anearl, or even have soared aspiringly in imagination toward amarchioness-ship for his only child, old Stapylton retained unshakenfaith in the dust-gathering creed of his youth. 

He had tolerated Pevensey, had indeed been prepared to purchase him muchas he would have ordered any other expensive trinket or knickknack whichPatricia desired. But he had never viewed the match with enthusiasm. 

Now, though, old Stapylton exulted. His daughter--half a Vartreyalready--would become by marriage a Musgrave of Matocton, no less. Pat'scarriage would roll up and down the oak-shaded avenue from which he hadso often stepped aside with an uncovered head, while gentlemen andladies cantered by; and it would be Pat's children that would play aboutthe corridors of the old house at whose doors he had lived solong, --those awe-inspiring corridors, which he had very rarely entered, except on Christmas Day and other recognized festivities, when, dressedto the nines, the overseer and his uneasy mother were by immemorialcustom made free of the mansion, with every slave upon the bigplantation. 

"They were good days, sir, " he chuckled. "Heh, we'll stick to the oldcustoms. We'll give a dinner and announce it at dessert, just as yourhonored grandfather did your Aunt Constantia's betrothal--"

For about the Musgraves of Matocton there could be no question. It wasthe old man's delight to induce Rudolph Musgrave to talk concerning hisancestors; and Stapylton soon had their history at his finger-tips. Hecould have correctly blazoned every tincture in their armorial bearingsand have explained the origin of every rampant, counter-changed orcouchant beast upon the shield. 

He knew it was the _Bona Nova_ in the November of 1619, --for the firstMusgrave had settled in Virginia, prior to his removal toLichfield, --which had the honor of transporting the forebear of thisfamily into America. Stapylton could have told you offhand which scionsof the race had represented this or that particular county in the Houseof Burgesses, and even for what years; which three of them wereGovernors, and which of them had served as officers of the State Line inthe Revolution; and, in fine, was more than satisfied to have hisdaughter play Penelophon to Colonel Musgrave's debonair mature Cophetua. 

In a word, Roger Stapylton had acquiesced to the transferal of hisdaughter's affections with the peculiar equanimity of a properly rearedAmerican parent. He merely stipulated that, since his business affairsprevented an indefinite stay in Lichfield, Colonel Musgrave shouldpresently remove to New York City, where the older man held ready forhim a purely ornamental and remunerative position with the InsuranceCompany of which Roger Stapylton was president. 

But upon this point Rudolph Musgrave was obdurate. 

He had voiced, and with sincerity, as you may remember, his desire to beproven upon a larger stage than Lichfield afforded. Yet the sinceritywas bred of an emotion it did not survive. To-day, unconsciously, Rudolph Musgrave was reflecting that he was used to living in Lichfield, and would appear to disadvantage in a new surrounding, and very probablywould not be half so comfortable. 

Aloud he said, in firm belief that he spoke truthfully: "I cannotconscientiously give up the Library, sir. I realize the work may notseem important in your eyes. Indeed, in anybody's eyes it must seem aninadequate outcome of a man's whole life. But it unfortunately happensto be the only kind of work I am capable of doing. And--if you willpardon me, sir, --I do not think it would be honest for me to accept thisgenerous salary and give nothing in return. "

But here Patricia broke in. 

Patricia agreed with Colonel Musgrave in every particular. Indeed, hadColonel Musgrave proclaimed his intention of setting up in life as anassassin, Patricia would readily have asserted homicide to be the mostpraiseworthy of vocations. As it was, she devoted no little volubilityand emphasis and eulogy to the importance of a genealogist in theeternal scheme of things; and gave her father candidly to understandthat an inability to appreciate this fact was necessarily indicative ofa deplorably low order of intelligence. 

Musgrave was to remember--long afterward--how glorious and dear thisbrightly-colored, mettlesome and tiny woman had seemed to him in thesecond display of temper he witnessed in Patricia. It was a revelationof an additional and as yet unsuspected adorability. 

Her father, though, said: "Pat, I've suspected for a long time it wasfoolish of me to have a red-haired daughter. " Thus he capitulated, --andwith an ineffable air of routine. 

Colonel Musgrave was, in a decorous fashion, the happiest of livingpersons. 

II

Colonel Musgrave was, in a decorous fashion, the happiest of livingpersons. . . . 

As a token of this he devoted what little ready money he possessed torenovating Matocton, where he had not lived for twenty years. He rarelythought of money, not esteeming it an altogether suitable subject for agentleman's meditations. And to do him justice, the reflection that oldStapylton's wealth would some day be at Rudolph Musgrave's disposal wasnever more than an agreeable minor feature of Patricia's entouragewhenever, as was very often, Colonel Musgrave fell to thinking of howadorable Patricia was in every particular. 

Yet there were times when he thought of Anne Charteris as well. He hadnot seen her for a whole year now, for the Charterises had leftLichfield shortly after the Pendomer divorce case had been settled, andwere still in Europe. 

This was the evening during which Roger Stapylton had favorably receivedhis declaration; and Colonel Musgrave was remembering the time that heand Anne had last spoken with a semblance of intimacy--that caustictime when Anne Charteris had interrupted him in high words with herhusband, and circumstances had afforded to Rudolph Musgrave no choicesave to confess, to this too-perfect woman, of all created beings, his"true relations" with Clarice Pendomer. 

Even as yet the bitterness of that humiliation was not savorless. . . . 

It seemed to him that he could never bear to think of the night whenAnne had heard his stammerings through, and had merely listened, and inlistening had been unreasonably beautiful. So Godiva might have lookedon Peeping Tom, with more of wonder than of loathing, just at first. . . . 

It had been very hard to bear. But it seemed necessary. The truth wouldhave hurt Anne too much. . . . 

He noted with the gusto of a connoisseur how neatly the dénouement ofthis piteous farce had been prepared. His rage with Charteris; Anne'soverhearing, and misinterpretation of, a dozen angry words; that oldaffair with Clarice--immediately before her marriage (one of how manypleasurable gallantries? the colonel idly wondered, and regretted thathe had no Leporello to keep them catalogued for consultation)--andGeorge Pendomer's long-smoldering jealousy of Rudolph Musgrave: allfitted in as neatly as the bits of a puzzle. 

It had been the simplest matter in the world to shield John Charteris. Yet, the colonel wished he could be sure it was an unadulterated desireof protecting Anne which had moved him. There had been very certainly anenjoyment all the while in reflecting how nobly Rudolph Musgrave wasbehaving for the sake of "the only woman he had ever loved. " Yes, onehad undoubtedly phrased it thus--then, and until the time one metPatricia. 

But Anne was different, and in the nature of things must always be alittle different, from all other people--even Patricia Stapylton. 

Always in reverie the colonel would come back to this, --that Anne couldnot be thought of, quite, in the same frame of mind wherein oneappraised other persons. Especially must he concede this curiouscircumstance whenever, as to-night, he considered divers matters thathad taken place quite long enough ago to have been forgotten. 

It was a foolish sort of a reverie, and scarcely worth the setting down. It was a reverie of the kind that everyone, and especially everyone'swife, admits to be mawkish and unprofitable; and yet, somehow, the nextstill summer night, or long sleepy Sunday afternoon, or, perhaps, somecheap, jigging and heartbreaking melody, will set a carnival of oldloves and old faces awhirl in the brain. One grows very sad over it, ofcourse, and it becomes apparent that one has always been ill-treated bythe world; but the sadness is not unpleasant, and one is quite willingto forgive. 

Yes, --it was a long, long time ago. It must have been a great number ofcenturies. Matocton was decked in its spring fripperies of burgeoning, and the sky was a great, pale turquoise, and the buttercups left agolden dust high up on one's trousers. One had not become entirelyaccustomed to long trousers then, and one was rather proud of them. Onewas lying on one's back in the woods, where the birds were astir andeager to begin their house-building, and twittered hysterically over thepotentialities of straws and broken twigs. 

Overhead, the swelling buds of trees were visible against the sky, andthe branches were like grotesque designs on a Japanese plate. There wasa little clump of moss, very cool and soft, that just brushed one'scheek. 

One was thinking--really thinking--for the first time in one's life;and, curiously enough, one was thinking about a girl, although girlswere manifestly of no earthly importance. 

But Anne Willoughby was different. Even at the age when girls seemedfeckless creatures, whose aimings were inexplicable, both as concernedexistence in general, and, more concretely, as touched gravel-shootersand snowballs, and whose reasons for bursting into tears were recondite, one had perceived the difference. One wondered about it from time totime. 

Gradually, there awoke an uneasy self-conscious interest as to allmatters that concerned her, a mental pricking up of the ears when hername was mentioned. 

One lay awake o' nights, wondering why her hair curled so curiouslyabout her temples, and held such queer glowing tints in its depths whensunlight fell upon it. One was uncomfortable and embarrassed andBriarean-handed in her presence, but with her absence came theoverwhelming desire of seeing her again. 

After a little, it was quite understood that one was in love with AnneWilloughby. . . . 

It was a matter of minor importance that her father was the wealthiestman in Fairhaven, and that one's mother was poor. One would go away intoforeign lands after a while, and come back with a great deal ofmoney, --lakes of rupees and pieces of eight, probably. It was verysimple. 

But Anne's father had taken an unreasonable view of the matter, andcarried Anne off to a terrible aunt, who returned one's lettersunopened. That was the end of Anne Willoughby. 

Then, after an interval--during which one fell in and out of loveassiduously, and had upon the whole a pleasant time, --Anne Charteris hadcome to Lichfield. One had found that time had merely added poise andself-possession and a certain opulence to the beauty which had causedone's voice to play fantastic tricks in conference with AnneWilloughby, --ancient, unforgotten conferences, wherein one had pointedout the many respects in which she differed from all other women, andthe perfect feasibility of marrying on nothing a year. 

Much as one loved Patricia, and great as was one's happiness, men didnot love as boys did, after all. . . . 

"'Ah, Boy, it is a dream for life too high, '" said Colonel Musgrave, inhis soul. "And now let's think of something sensible. Let's think aboutthe present political crisis, and what to give the groomsmen, and howmuch six times seven is. Meanwhile, you are not the fellow in _AuxItaliens_, you know; you are not bothered by the faint, sweet smell ofany foolish jasmine-flower, you understand, or by any equally foolishhankerings after your lost youth. You are simply a commonplace, every-day sort of man, not thoroughly hardened as yet to being engaged, and you are feeling a bit pulled down to-night, because your liver orsomething is out of sorts. "

Upon reflection, Colonel Musgrave was quite sure that he was happy; andthat it was only his liver or something which was upset. But, at allevents, the colonel's besetting infirmity was always to shrink frommaking changes; instinctively he balked against commission of any actionwhich would alter his relations with accustomed circumstances orpersons. It was very like Rudolph Musgrave that even now, for all theglow of the future's bright allure, his heart should hark back to thepast and its absurd dear memories, with wistfulness. 

And he found it, as many others have done, but cheerless sexton's work, this digging up of boyish recollections. One by one, they come tolight--the brave hopes and dreams and aspirations of youth; the ruddylife has gone out of them; they have shriveled into an alien, patheticdignity. They might have been one's great-grandfather's or Hannibal's orAdam's; the boy whose life was swayed by them is quite as dead as these. 

Amaryllis is dead, too. Perhaps, you drop in of an afternoon to talkover old happenings. She is perfectly affable. She thinks it is time youwere married. She thinks it very becoming, the way you have stoutened. And, no, they weren't at the Robinsons'; that was the night littleAmaryllis was threatened with croup. 

Then, after a little, the lamps of welcome are lighted in her eyes, herbreath quickens, her cheeks mount crimson flags in honor of her lord, her hero, her conqueror. 

It is Mr. Grundy, who is happy to meet you, and hopes you will stay todinner. He patronizes you a trifle; his wife, you see, has told him allabout that boy who is as dead as Hannibal. You don't mind in the least;you dine with Mr. And Mrs. Grundy, and pass a very pleasant evening. 

Colonel Musgrave had dined often with the Charterises. 

III

And then some frolic god, _en route_ from homicide by means of anunloaded pistol in Chicago for the demolishment of a likely ship offPalos, with the coöperancy of a defective pistonrod, stayed in hisflight to bring Joe Parkinson to Lichfield. 

It was Roger Stapylton who told the colonel of this advent, as the veryapex of jocularity. 

"For you remember the Parkinsons, I suppose?"

"The ones that had a cabin near Matocton? Very deserving people, Ibelieve. "

"And _their_ son, sir, wants to marry my daughter, " said Mr. Stapylton, --"_my_ daughter, who is shortly to be connected by marriagewith the Musgraves of Matocton! I don't know what this world will cometo next. "

It was a treat to see him shake his head in deprecation of such anarchy. 

Then Roger Stapylton said, more truculently: "Yes, sir! on account of aboy-and-girl affair five years ago, this half-strainer, this poor-whitetrash, has actually had the presumption, sir, --but I don't doubt thatPat has told you all about it?"

"Why, no, " said Colonel Musgrave. "She did not mention it thisafternoon. She was not feeling very well. A slight headache. I noticedshe was not inclined to conversation. "

It had just occurred to him, as mildly remarkable, that Patricia hadnever at any time alluded to any one of those countless men who musthave inevitably made love to her. 

"Though, mind you, I don't say anything against Joe. He's a fine youngfellow. Paid his own way through college. Done good work in Panama andin Alaska too. But--confound it, sir, the boy's a fool! Now I put it toyou fairly, ain't he a fool?" said Mr. Stapylton. 

"Upon my word, sir, if his folly has no other proof than an adoration ofyour daughter, " the colonel protested, "I must in self-defense beg leaveto differ with you. "

Yes, that was it undoubtedly. Patricia had too high a sense of honor toexhibit these defeated rivals in a ridiculous light, even to him. It wasa revelation of an additional and as yet unsuspected adorability. 

Then after a little further talk they separated. Colonel Musgrave leftthat night for Matocton in order to inspect the improvements which werebeing made there. He was to return to Lichfield on the ensuingWednesday, when his engagement to Patricia was to be announced--"justas your honored grandfather did your Aunt Constantia's betrothal. "

Meanwhile Joe Parkinson, a young man much enamored, who fought the worldby ordinary like Hal o' the Wynd, "for his own hand, " was seeingPatricia every day. 

IV

Colonel Musgrave remained five days at Matocton, that he might put hishouse in order against his nearing marriage. It was a pleasant sight tosee the colonel stroll about the paneled corridors and pause to chatwith divers deferential workmen who were putting the last touches there, or to observe him mid-course in affable consultation with gardenersanent the rolling of a lawn or the retrimming of a rosebush, and to markthe bearing of the man so optimistically colored by goodwill toward thesolar system. 

He joyed in his old home, --in the hipped roof of it, the mullionedcasements, the wide window-seats, the high and spacious rooms, thegeometrical gardens and broad lawns, in all that was quaint andbeautiful at Matocton, --because it would be Patricia's so very soon, thelovely frame of a yet lovelier picture, as the colonel phrased it with aflight of imagery. 

Gravely he inspected all the portraits of his feminine ancestors that hemight decide, as one without bias, whether Matocton had ever boasted amore delectable mistress. Equity--or in his fond eyes atleast, --demanded a negative. Only in one of these canvases, acounterfeit of Miss Evelyn Ramsay, born a Ramsay of Blenheim, that hadmarried the common great-great-grandfather of both the colonel andPatricia--Major Orlando Musgrave, an aide-de-camp to General Charles Leein the Revolution, --Rudolph Musgrave found, or seemed to find, dearlikenesses to that demented seraph who was about to stoop to hisunworthiness. 

He spent much time before this portrait. Yes, yes! this woman had beenlovely in her day. And this bright, roguish shadow of her was lovely, too, eternally postured in white patnet, trimmed with a vine ofrose-colored satin leaves, a pink rose in her powdered hair and a hugeostrich plume as well. 

Yet it was an adamantean colonel that remarked:

"My dear, perhaps it is just as fortunate as not that you have quittedMatocton. For I have heard tales of you, Miss Ramsay. Oh, no! I honestlydo not believe that you would have taken kindlily to any youngperson--not even in the guise of a great-great-grand-daughter, --to whomyou cannot hold a candle, madam. A fico for you, madam, " said the mostundutiful of great-great-grandsons. 

Let us leave him to his roseate meditations. Questionless, in the womanhe loved there was much of his own invention: but the circumstance isnot unhackneyed; and Colonel Musgrave was in a decorous fashion thehappiest of living persons. 

Meanwhile Joe Parkinson, a young man much enamored, who fought theworld by ordinary, like Hal o' the Wynd "for his own hand, " was seeingPatricia every day. 

V

Joe Parkinson--tall and broad-shouldered, tanned, resolute, chary ofspeech, decisive in gesture, having close-cropped yellow hair and frank, keen eyes like amethysts, --was the one alien present when ColonelMusgrave came again into Roger Stapylton's fine and choicely-furnishedmansion. 

This was on the evening Roger Stapylton gave the long-anticipated dinnerat which he was to announce his daughter's engagement. As much indeedwas suspected by most of his dinner-company, so carefully selected fromthe aristocracy of Lichfield; and the heart of the former overseer, asthese handsome, courtly and sweet voiced people settled according totheir rank about his sumptuous table, was aglow with pride. 

Then Rudolph Musgrave turned to his companion and said softly: "My dear, you are like a wraith. What is it?"

"I have a headache, " said Patricia. "It is nothing. "

"You reassure me, " the colonel gaily declared, "for I had feared it wasa heartache--"

She faced him. Desperation looked out of her purple eyes. "It is, " thegirl said swiftly. 

"Ah--?" Only it was an intake of the breath, rather than aninterjection. Colonel Musgrave ate his fish with deliberation. "YoungParkinson?" he presently suggested. 

"I thought I had forgotten him. I didn't know I cared--I didn't know I_could_ care so much--" And there was a note in her voice which thrustthe poor colonel into an abyss of consternation. 

"Remember that these people are your guests, " he said, in perfectearnest. 

"--and I refused him this afternoon for the last time, and he is goingaway to-morrow--"

But here Judge Allardyce broke in, to tell Miss Stapylton of thepleasure with which he had _nolle prosequied_ the case against TomBellingham. 

"A son of my old schoolmate, ma'am, " the judge explained. "A Bellinghamof Assequin. Oh, indiscreet of course--but, God bless my soul! when werethe Bellinghams anything else? The boy regretted it as much as anybody. "

And she listened with almost morbid curiosity concerning the finerdetails of legal intricacy. 

Colonel Musgrave was mid-course in an anecdote which the lady upon theother side of him found wickedly amusing. 

He was very gay. He had presently secured the attention of the companyat large, and held it through a good half-hour; for by common consentRudolph Musgrave was at his best to-night, and Lichfield found his bestworth listening to. 

"Grinning old popinjay!" thought Mr. Parkinson; and envied him andinternally noted, and with an unholy fervor cursed, the adroitness ofintonation and the discreetly modulated gesture with which the colonelgave to every point of his merry-Andrewing its precise value. 

The colonel's mind was working busily on matters oddly apart from thoseof which he talked. He wanted this girl next to him--at whom he did notlook. He loved her as that whippersnapper yonder was not capable ofloving anyone. Young people had these fancies; and they outlived them, as the colonel knew of his own experience. Let matters take their courseunhindered, at all events by him. For it was less his part than that ofany other man alive to interfere when Rudolph Musgrave stood within afinger's reach of, at worst, his own prosperity and happiness. 

He would convey no note to Roger Stapylton. Let the banker announce theengagement. Let the young fellow go to the devil. Colonel Musgrave wouldmarry the girl and make Patricia, at worst, content. To do otherwise, even to hesitate, would be the emptiest quixotism. . . . 

Then came the fatal thought, "But what a gesture!" To fling away hishappiness--yes, even his worldly fortune, --and to do it smilingly!Patricia must, perforce, admire him all her life. 

Then as old Stapylton stirred in his chair and broke into a widepremonitory smile, Colonel Musgrave rose to his feet. And of thatcompany Clarice Pendomer at least thought of how like he was to the boywho had fought the famous duel with George Pendomer some fifteen yearsago. 

Ensued a felicitous speech. Rudolph Musgrave was familiar with hisaudience. And therefore:

Colonel Musgrave alluded briefly to the pleasure he took in addressingsuch a gathering. He believed no other State in the 'Union could haveafforded an assembly of more distinguished men and fairer women. But thefact was not unnatural; they might recall the venerable saying thatblood will tell? Well, it was their peculiar privilege to representto-day that sturdy stock which, when this great republic was in thepangs of birth, had with sword and pen and oratory discomfited thehirelings of England and given to history the undying names of severalRevolutionary patriots, --all of whom he enumerated with the customarypause after each cognomen to allow for the customary applause. 

And theirs, too, was the blood of those heroic men who fought morerecently beneath the stars and bars, as bravely, he would make bold tosay, as Leonidas at Thermopylae, in defense of their loved Southland. Right, he conceded, had not triumphed here. For hordes of brutalsoldiery had invaded the fertile soil, the tempest of war had swept theland and left it desolate. The South lay battered and bruised, and prostrate in blood, the "Niobe of nations, " as sad a victim of ingratitudeas King Lear. 

The colonel touched upon the time when buzzards, in the guise ofcarpet-baggers, had battened upon the recumbent form; and spokeslightingly of divers persons of antiquity as compared with variousConfederate leaders, whose names were greeted with approving nods andripples of polite enthusiasm. 

But the South, and in particular the grand old Commonwealth which theyinhabited, he stated, had not long sat among the ruins of her temples, like a sorrowing priestess with veiled eyes and a depressed soul, mourning for that which had been. Like the fabled Phoenix, she had risenfrom the ashes of her past. To-day she was once more to be seen in herhereditary position, the brightest gem in all that glorious galaxy ofStates which made America the envy of every other nation. Herbattlefields converted into building lots, tall factories smoked whereonce a holocaust had flamed, and where cannon had roared you heardto-day the tinkle of the school bell. Such progress was without aparallel. 

Nor was there any need for him, he was assured, to mention theimperishable names of their dear homeland's poets and statesmen ofto-day, the orators and philanthropists and prominent business-men whojostled one another in her splendid, new asphalted streets, since allwere quite familiar to his audience, --as familiar, he would venture topredict, as they would eventually be to the most cherished recollectionsof Macaulay's prophesied New Zealander, when this notorious antipodeanshould pay his long expected visit to the ruins of St. Paul's. 

In fine, by a natural series of transitions, Colonel Musgrave thusworked around to "the very pleasing duty with which our host, in view ofthe long and intimate connection between our families, has seen fit tohonor me"--which was, it developed, to announce the imminent marriage ofMiss Patricia Stapylton and Mr. Joseph Parkinson. 

It may conservatively be stated that everyone was surprised. 

Old Stapylton had half risen, with a purple face. 

The colonel viewed him with a look of bland interrogation. 

There was silence for a heart-beat. 

Then Stapylton lowered his eyes, if just because the laws of caste hadtriumphed, and in consequence his glance crossed that of his daughter, who sat motionless regarding him. She was an unusually pretty girl, hethought, and he had always been inordinately proud of her. It was notpride she seemed to beg him muster now. Patricia through that moment wasnot the fine daughter the old man was sometimes half afraid of. She was, too, like a certain defiant person--oh, of an incredible beauty, suchas women had not any longer!--who had hastily put aside her bonnet andhad looked at a young Roger Stapylton in much this fashion very longago, because the minister was coming downstairs, and they wouldpresently be man and wife, --provided always her pursuing brothers didnot arrive in time. . . . 

Old Roger Stapylton cleared his throat. 

Old Roger Stapylton said, half sheepishly: "My foot's asleep, that'sall. I beg everybody's pardon, I'm sure. Please go on"--he had comewithin an ace of saying "Mr. Rudolph, " and only in the nick of time didhe continue, "Colonel Musgrave. "

So the colonel continued in time-hallowed form, with happy allusions toMr. Parkinson's anterior success as an engineer before he came "like ayoung Lochinvar to wrest away his beautiful and popular fiancée from usfainthearted fellows of Lichfield"; touched of course upon the colonel'spersonal comminglement of envy and rage, and so on, as an old bachelorwho saw too late what he had missed in life; and concluded by proposingthe health of the young couple. 

This was drunk with all the honors. 

VI

Upon what Patricia said to the colonel in the drawing-room, what JoeParkinson blurted out in the hall, and chief of all, what RogerStapylton asseverated to Rudolph Musgrave in the library, after theother guests had gone, it is unnecessary to dwell in this place. To eachof these in various fashions did Colonel Musgrave explain such reasonsas, he variously explained, must seem to any gentleman sufficient causefor acting as he had done; but most candidly, and even with a touch ofeloquence, to Roger Stapylton. 

"You are like your grandfather, sir, at times, " the latter said, inconsequently enough, when the colonel had finished. 

And Rudolph Musgrave gave a little bowing gesture, with an entiregravity. He knew it was the highest tribute that Stapylton could pay toany man. 

"She's a daughter any father might be proud of, " said the banker, also. He removed his cigar from his mouth and looked at it critically. "She'srather like her mother sometimes, " he said carelessly. "Her mother madea runaway match, you may remember--Damn' poor cigar, this. But no, youwouldn't, I reckon. I had branched out into cotton then and had a littleplace just outside of Chiswick--"

So that, all in all, Colonel Musgrave returned homeward not entirelydissatisfied. 

VII

The colonel sat for a long while before his fire that night. The roomseemed less comfortable than he had ever known it. So many of his booksand pictures and other furnishings had been already carried to Matoctonthat the walls were a little bare. Also there was a formidable pile ofbills upon the table by him, --from contractors and upholsterers andfurniture-houses, and so on, who had been concerned in the laterenovation of Matocton, --the heralds of a host he hardly saw his way todealing with. 

He had flung away a deal of money that evening, with something which tohim was dearer. Had you attempted to condole with him he would not haveunderstood you. 

"But what would you have had a gentleman do, sir?" Colonel Musgravewould have said, in real perplexity. 

Besides, it was, in fact, not sorrow that he felt, rather it wascontentment, when he remembered the girl's present happiness; and whatalone depressed the colonel's courtly affability toward the universe atlarge was the queer, horrible new sense of being somehow out of touchwith yesterday's so comfortable world, of being out-moded, of beingalmost old. 

"Eh, well!" he said; "I am of a certain age undoubtedly. "

By an odd turn the colonel thought of how his friends of his own classand generation had honestly admired the after-dinner speech which he hadmade that evening. And he smiled, but very tenderly, because they wereall men and women whom he loved. 

"The most of us have known each other for a long while. The most of us, in fact, are of a certain age. . . . I think no people ever met the sorryproblem that we faced. For we were born the masters of a leisured, ordered world; and by a tragic quirk of destiny were thrust into a quitenew planet, where we were for a while the inferiors, and after that justthe competitors of yesterday's slaves. 

"We couldn't meet the new conditions. Oh, for the love of heaven, let usbe frank, and confess that we have not met them as things practical go. We hadn't the training for it. A man who has not been taught to swim mayrationally be excused for preferring to sit upon the bank; and should heelect to ornament his idleness with protestations that he isself-evidently an excellent swimmer, because once upon a time hisprogenitors were the only people in the world who had the slightestconception of how to perform a natatorial masterpiece, the thing issimply human nature. Talking chokes nobody, worse luck. 

"And yet we haven't done so badly. For the most part we have sat uponthe bank our whole lives long. We have produced nothing--afterall--which was absolutely earth-staggering; and we have talked a deal ofclap-trap. But meanwhile we have at least enhanced the comeliness of ourparticular sand-bar. We have lived a courteous and tranquil andindependent life thereon, just as our fathers taught us. It may be--inthe final outcome of things--that will be found an even finer pursuitthan the old one of producing Presidents. 

"Besides, we have produced ourselves. We have been gentlefolk in spiteof all, we have been true even in our iniquities to the traditions ofour race. No, I cannot assert that these traditions always square withethics or even with the Decalogue, for we have added a very complexEleventh Commandment concerning honor. And for the rest, we havedefiantly embroidered life, and indomitably we have converted thecommonest happening of life into a comely thing. We have been artists ifnot artizans. "

There was upon the table a large photograph in sepia of PatriciaStapylton. He studied this now. She was very beautiful, he thought. 

"'Nor thou detain her vesture's hem'--" said the colonel aloud. "Oh, that infernal Yankee understood, even though he was born in Boston!" Andthis as coming from a Musgrave of Matocton, may fairly be considered asa sweeping tribute to the author of _Give All to Love_. 

Colonel Musgrave was intent upon the portrait. . . . So! she had chosen atlast between himself and this young fellow, a workman born of workmen, who went about the world building bridges and canals and tunnels andsuch, in those far countries which were to Colonel Musgrave just so manygray or pink or fawn-colored splotches on the map. It seemed to ColonelMusgrave almost an allegory. 

So Colonel Musgrave filled a glass with the famed Lafayette madeira ofMatocton, and solemnly drank yet another toast. He loved to do, as youalready know, that which was colorful. 

"To this new South, " he said. "To this new South that has not any longerneed of me or of my kind. 

"To this new South! She does not gaze unwillingly, nor too complacently, upon old years, and dares concede that but with loss of manliness mayany man encroach upon the heritage of a dog or of a trotting-horse, andconsider the exploits of an ancestor to guarantee an innate and personalexcellence. 

"For to her all former glory is less a jewel than a touchstone, and withher portion of it daily she appraises her own doing, and without vainspeech. And her high past she values now, in chief, as fit foundation ofthat edifice whereon she labors day by day, and with augmentingstrokes. "

 * * * * *

And yet--"It may be he will serve you better. But, oh, it isn'tpossible that he should love you more than I, " said Colonel Musgrave ofMatocton. 

The man was destined to remember that utterance--and, with therecollection, to laugh not altogether in either scorn or merriment. 

PART FOUR - APPRECIATION

 "You have chosen; and I cry content thereto, And cry your pardon also, and am reproved In that I took you for a woman I loved Odd centuries ago, and would undo That curious error. Nay, your eyes are blue, Your speech is gracious, but you are not she, And I am older--and changed how utterly!-- I am no longer I, you are not you. 

 "Time, destined as we thought but to befriend And guerdon love like ours, finds you beset With joys and griefs I neither share nor mend Who am a stranger; and we two are met Nor wholly glad nor sorry; and the end Of too much laughter is a faint regret. "

R. E. TOWNSEND. _Sonnets for Elena. _

I

Next morning Rudolph Musgrave found the world no longer an impassionedplace, but simply a familiar habitation, --no longer the wrestling-groundof big emotions, indeed, but undoubtedly a spot, whatever were its otherpretensions to praise, wherein one was at home. He breakfasted on hamand eggs, in a state of tolerable equanimity; and mildly wondered athimself for doing it. 

The colonel was deep in a heraldic design and was whistling through histeeth when Patricia came into the Library. He looked up, with theoutlines of a frown vanishing like pencilings under the india-rubber ofprofessional courtesy, --for he was denoting _or_ at the moment, which isfussy work, as it consists exclusively of dots. 

Then his chair scraped audibly upon the floor as he pushed it from him. It occurred to Rudolph Musgrave after an interval that he was stillhalf-way between sitting and standing, and that his mouth was open. . . . 

He could hear a huckster outside on Regis Avenue. The colonel neverforgot the man was crying "Fresh oranges!"

"He kissed me, Olaf. Yes, I let him kiss me, even after he had asked meif he could. No sensible girl would ever do that, of course. And then Iknew--"

Patricia was horribly frightened. 

"And afterwards the jackass-fool made matters worse by calling me 'hisdarling. ' There is no more hateful word in the English language than'darling. ' It sounds like castor-oil tastes, or a snail looks after youhave put salt on him. "

The colonel deliberated this information; and he appeared to understand. 

"So Parkinson has gone the way of Pevensey, --. And of I wonder how manyothers? Well, may Heaven be very gracious to us both!" he said. "For Iam going to do it. "

Then composedly he took up the telephone upon his desk and called RogerStapylton. 

"I want you to come at once to Dr. Rabbet's, --yes, the rectory, nextdoor to St. Luke's. Patricia and I are to be married there in half anhour. We are on our way to the City Hall to get the license now. . . . No, she might change her mind again, you see. . . . I have not the least notionhow it happened. I don't care. . . . Then you will have to be rude to himor else not see your only daughter married. . . . Kindly permit me torepeat, sir, that I don't care about that or anything else. And for therest, Patricia was twenty-one last December. "

The colonel hung up the receiver. "And now, " he said, "we are going tothe City Hall. "

"Are you?" said Patricia, with courteous interest. "Well, my way liesuptown. I have to stop in at Greenberg's and get a mustard plaster forthe parrot. "

He had his hat by this. "It isn't cool enough for me to need anovercoat, is it?"

"I think you must be crazy, " she said, sharply. 

"Of course I am. So I am going to marry you. "

"Let me go--! Oh, and I had thought you were a gentleman--. "

"I fear that at present I am simply masculine. " He became aware that hishands, in gripping both her shoulders, were hurting the girl. 

"Come now, " he continued, "will you go quietly or will I have to carryyou?"

She said, "And you would, too--. " She spoke in wonder, for Patricia hadglimpsed an unguessed Rudolph Musgrave. 

His hands went under her arm-pits and he lifted her like a feather. Heheld her thus at arm's length. 

"You--you adorable whirligig!" he laughed. "I am a stronger animal thanyou. It would be as easy for me to murder you as it would be for you tokill one of those flies on the window-pane. Do you quite understand thatfact, Patricia?"

"Oh, but you are an idiot--. "

"In wanting you, my dear?"

"Please put me down. "

She thoroughly enjoyed her helplessness. He saw it, long before helowered her. 

"Why, not so much in that, " said Miss Stapylton, "because inasmuch as Iam a woman of superlative charm, of course you can't help yourself. Buthow do you know that Dr. Rabbet may not be somewhere else, harrying adefenseless barkeeper, or superintending the making of dress-shirtprotectors for the Hottentots, or doing something else clerical, when weget to the rectory?"

After an irrelevant interlude she stamped her foot. 

"I don't care what you say, I won't marry an atheist. If you had theleast respect for his cloth, Olaf, you would call him up andarrange--Oh, well! whatever you want to arrange--and permit me to powdermy nose without being bothered, because I don't want people to think youare marrying a second helping to butter, and I never did like thatBaptist man on the block above, anyhow. And besides, " said Patricia, aswith the occurrence of a new view-point, "think what a delicious scandalit will create!"

II

Patricia spoke the truth. By supper-time Lichfield had so industriouslyembroidered the Stapylton dinner and the ensuing marriage withhypotheses and explanations and unparented rumors that none of theparticipants in the affair but could advantageously have exchangedreputations with Benedict Arnold or Lucretia Borgia, had Lichfieldbelieved a tithe of what Lichfield was repeating. 

A duel was of course anticipated between Mr. Parkinson and ColonelMusgrave, and the colonel indeed offered, through Major Wadleigh, anysatisfaction which Mr. Parkinson might desire. 

The engineer, with garnishments of profanity, considered dueling to be apainstakingly-described absurdity and wished "the old popinjay" joy ofhis bargain. 

Lichfield felt that only showed what came of treating poor-white trashas your equals, and gloried in the salutary moral. 

III

Meanwhile the two originators of so much Lichfieldian diversion were notunhappy. 

But indeed it were irreverent even to try to express the happiness oftheir earlier married life . . . 

They were an ill-matched couple in so many ways that no long-headedperson could conceivably have anticipated--in the outcome--more thandecorous tolerance of each other. For apart from the disparity in ageand tastes and rearing, there was always the fact to be weighed that inmarrying the only child of a wealthy man Rudolph Musgrave was makingwhat Lichfield called "an eminently sensible match"--than which, asLichfield knew, there is no more infallible recipe for discord. 

In this case the axiom seemed, after the manner of all general rules, tobulwark itself with an exception. Colonel Musgrave continued to emanatean air of contentment which fell perilously short of fatuity; and thatPatricia was honestly fond of him was evident to the most impecunious ofLichfield's bachelors. 

True, curtains had been lifted, a little by a little. Patricia couldhardly have told you at what exact moment it was that she discoveredMiss Agatha--who continued of course to live with them--was adipsomaniac. Very certainly Rudolph Musgrave was not Patricia'sinformant; it is doubtful if the colonel ever conceded his sister'sinfirmity in his most private meditations; so that Patricia found thecause of Miss Agatha's "attacks" to be an open secret of which everyonein the house seemed aware and of which by tacit agreement nobody everspoke. It bewildered Patricia, at first, to find that as concernedLichfield at large any over-indulgence in alcohol by a member of theMusgrave family was satisfactorily accounted for by the matter-of-coursestatement that the Musgraves usually "drank, "--just as the Allardycesnotoriously perpetuated the taint of insanity, and the Townsends wereproverbially unable "to let women alone, " and the Vartreys weredeplorably prone to dabble in literature. These things had been for along while just as they were to-day; and therefore (Lichfield estimated)they must be reasonable. 

Then, too, Patricia would have preferred to have been rid of the oldmulatto woman Virginia, because it was through Virginia that Miss Agathafurtively procured intoxicants. But Rudolph Musgrave would not considerVirginia's leaving. "Virginia's faithfulness has been proven by too manyyears of faithful service" was the formula with which he dismissed thesuggestion . . . Afterward Patricia learned from Miss Agatha of the wrongthat had been done Virginia by Olaf's uncle, Senator Edward Musgrave, the noted ante-bellum orator, and understood that Olaf--without, ofcourse, conceding it to himself, because that was Olaf's way--was tryingto make reparation. Patricia respected the sentiment, and continued tofret under its manifestation. 

Miss Agatha also told Patricia of how the son of Virginia and SenatorMusgrave had come to a disastrous end--"lynched in Texas, I believe, only it may not have been Texas. And indeed when I come to think of it, I don't believe it was, because I know we first heard of it on a Monday, and Virginia couldn't do the washing that week and I had to send it out. And for the usual crime, of course. It simply shows you how much betteroff the darkies were before the War, " Miss Agatha said. 

Patricia refrained from comment, not being willing to consider thededuction strained. For love is a contagious infection; and lovingRudolph Musgrave so much, Patricia must perforce love any person whom heloved as conscientiously as she would have strangled any person withwhom he had flirted. 

And yet, to Patricia, it was beginning to seem that Patricia Musgravewas not living, altogether, in that Lichfield which John Charteris hasmade immortal--"that nursery of Free Principles" (according to the_Lichfield Courier-Herald_) "wherein so many statesmen, lieutenants-general and orators were trained to further the faith oftheir fathers, to thrill the listening senates, draft constitutions, andbruise the paws of the British lion. "

IV

It may be remembered that Lichfield had asked long ago, "But who, pray, are the Stapyltons?" It was characteristic of Colonel Musgrave that hewent about answering the question without delay. The Stapletons--for"Stapylton" was a happy innovation of Roger Stapylton's dead wife--thecolonel knew to have been farmers in Brummell County, and BrummellCourthouse is within an hour's ride, by rail, of Lichfield. 

So he set about his labor of love. 

And in it he excelled himself. The records of Brummell date back to 1750and are voluminous; but Rudolph Musgrave did not overlook an item in anyWill Book, or in any Orders of the Court, that pertained, howeverremotely, to the Stapletons. Then he renewed his labors at thecourthouse of the older county from which Brummell was formed in 1750, and through many fragmentary, evil-odored and unindexed volumesindefatigably pursued the family's fortune back to the immigration ofits American progenitor in 1619, --and, by the happiest fatality, uponthe same _Bona Nova_ which enabled the first American Musgrave to gracethe Colony of Virginia with his presence. It could no longer be saidthat the wife of a Musgrave of Matocton lacked an authentic andtolerably ancient pedigree. 

The colonel made a book of his Stapyltonian researches which hevaingloriously proclaimed to be the stupidest reading within the amplefield of uninteresting printed English. Patricia was allowed to see noword of it until the first ten copies had come from the printer's, verysplendid in green "art-vellum" and stamped with the Stapyltoncoat-of-arms in gold. 

She read the book. "It is perfectly superb, " was her verdict. "It is asdear as remembered kisses after death and as sweet as a plaintiff in abreach-of-promise suit. Only I would have preferred it served with a fewkings and dukes for parsley. The Stapletons don't seem to have beenanything but perfectly respectable mediocrities. "

The colonel smiled. At the bottom of his heart he shared Patricia'sregret that the Stapylton pedigree was unadorned by a potentate, becausenobody can stay unimpressed by a popular superstition, however crass thething may be. But for all this, an appraisal of himself and his ownachievements profusely showed high lineage is not invariably a guaranteeof excellence; and so he smiled and said:

"There are two ends to every stick. It was the Stapletons and others oftheir sort, rather than any soft-handed Musgraves, who converted awilderness, a little by a little, into the America of to-day. The taskwas tediously achieved, and without ostentation; and always the ship hadits resplendent figure-head, as always it had its hidden, nay! grimy, engines, which propelled the ship. And, however direfully America maydiffer from Utopia, to have assisted in the making of America is no meandistinction. We Musgraves and our peers, I sometimes think, may possiblyhave been just gaudy autumn leaves which happened to lie in the path ofa high wind. And to cut a gallant figure in such circumstances does notnecessarily prove the performer to be a _rara avis_, even though herides the whirlwind quite as splendidly as any bird existent. "

Patricia fluttered, and as lightly and irresponsibly as a wren mighthave done, perched on his knee. 

"No! there is really something in heredity, after all. Now, you are aMusgrave in every vein of you. It always seems like a sort of flippancyfor you to appear in public without a stock and a tarnished gilt framewith most of the gilt knocked off and a catalogue-number tucked in thecorner. " Patricia spoke without any regard for punctuation. "And I am sounlike you. I am only a Stapylton. I do hope you don't mind my beingmerely a Stapylton, Olaf, because if only I wasn't too modest to eventhink of alluding to the circumstance, I would try to tell you about thetiniest fraction of how much a certain ravishingly beautifulhalf-strainer loves you, Olaf, and the consequences would bedeplorable. "

"My dear----" he began. 

"Ouch!" said Patricia; "you are tickling me. You don't shave half asoften as you used to, do you? No, nowadays you think you have me safeand don't have to bother about being attractive. If I had a music-box Icould put your face into it and play all sorts of tunes, only I preferto look at it. You are a slattern and a jay-bird and a joy forever. Andbesides, the first Stapleton seems to have blundered somehow into theHouse of Burgesses, so that entitles me to be a Colonial Dame on myfather's side, too, doesn't it, Olaf?"

The colonel laughed. "Madam Vanity!" said he, "I repeat that to bedescended of a line of czars or from a house of emperors is, at theworst, an empty braggartism, or, at best--upon the plea of heredity--ahandy palliation for iniquity; and to be descended of sturdy and honestand clean-blooded folk is beyond doubt preferable, since upon quitesimilar grounds it entitles one to hope that even now, 'when theirgeneration is gone, when their play is over, when their panorama iswithdrawn in tatters from the stage of the world, ' there may yet surviveof them 'some few actions worth remembering, and a few children who haveretained some happy stamp from the disposition of their parents. '"

Patricia--with eyes widened in admiration at his rhetoric, --had turnedan enticing shade of pink. 

"I am glad of that, " she said. 

She snuggled so close he could not see her face now. She was to allappearances attempting to twist the top-button from his coat. 

"I am very glad that it entitles one to hope--about thechildren--Because--"

The colonel lifted her a little from him. He did not say anything. Buthe was regarding her half in wonder and one-half in worship. 

She, too, was silent. Presently she nodded. 

He kissed her as one does a very holy relic. 

It was a moment to look back upon always. There was no period in RudolphMusgrave's life when he could not look back upon this instant and exultbecause it had been his. 

 * * * * *

Only, Patricia found out afterward, with an inexplicable disappointment, that her husband had not been talking extempore, but was freely quotinghis "Compiler's Foreword" just as it figured in the printed book. 

One judges this posturing, so inevitable of detection, to have been assignificant of much in Rudolph Musgrave as was the fact of its belateddiscovery characteristic of Patricia. 

Yet she had read this book about her family from purely normal motives:first, to make certain how old her various cousins were; secondly, togloat over any traces of distinction such as her ancestry afforded;thirdly, to note with what exaggerated importance the text seemed toaccredit those relatives she did not esteem, and mentally to annotateeach page with unprintable events "which _everybody_ knew about"; andfourthly, to reflect, as with a gush of steadily augmenting love, howdear and how unpractical it was of Olaf to have concocted thesedate-bristling pages--so staunch and blind in his misguided gratitudetoward those otherwise uninteresting people who had rendered possiblethe existence of a Patricia. 

V

Matters went badly with Patricia in the ensuing months. Her mother'sblood told here, as Colonel Musgrave saw with disquietude. He knew thewomen of his race had by ordinary been unfit for childbearing; indeed, the daughters of this famous house had long, in a grim routine, perished, just as Patricia's mother had done, in their first maternalessay. There were many hideous histories the colonel could have told youof, unmeet to be set down, and he was familiar with this talk of pelvicanomalies which were congenital. But he had never thought of Patricia, till this, as being his kinswoman, and in part a Musgrave. 

And even now the Stapylton blood that was in her pulled Patricia throughlong weeks of anguish. Surgeons dealt with her very horribly in a famedNorthern hospital, whither she had been removed. By her obduraterequest--and secretly, to his own preference, since it was never in hispower to meet discomfort willingly--Colonel Musgrave had remained inLichfield. Patricia knew that officious people would tell him her lifecould be saved only by the destruction of an unborn boy. 

She never questioned her child would be a boy. She knew that Olaf wanteda boy. 

"Oh, even more than he does me, daddy. And so he mustn't know, you see, until it is all over. Because Olaf is such an ill-informed person thathe really believes he prefers me. "

"Pat, " her father inconsequently said, "I'm proud of you! And--and, byGod, if I _want_ to cry, I guess I am old enough to know my own mind!And I'll help you in this if you'll only promise not to die in spite ofwhat these damn' doctors say, because you're _mine_, Pat, and so yourealize a bargain is a bargain. "

"Yes--I am really yours, daddy. It is just my crazy body that is aMusgrave, " Patricia explained. "The real me is an unfortunate Stapyltonwho has somehow got locked up in the wrong house. It is not a desirableresidence, you know, daddy. No modern improvements, for instance. But Ihave to live in it!. . . Still, I have not the least intention of dying, and I solemnly promise that I won't. "

So these two hoodwinked Rudolph Musgrave, and brought it about bysubterfuge that his child was born. At most he vaguely understood thatPatricia was having rather a hard time of it, and steadfastly druggedthis knowledge by the performance of trivialities. He was eating acucumber sandwich at the moment young Roger Musgrave came into theworld, and by that action very nearly accomplished Patricia's death. 

VI

And the gods cursed Roger Stapylton with such a pride in, and so great alove for, his only grandson that the old man could hardly bear to be outof the infant's presence. He was frequently in Lichfield nowadays; andhe renewed his demands that Rudolph Musgrave give up theexhaustively-particularized librarianship, so that "the little coot"would be removed to New York and all three of them be with RogerStapylton always. 

Patricia had not been well since little Roger's birth. 

It was a peaked and shrewish Patricia, rather than Rudolph Musgrave, whofought out the long and obstinate battle with Roger Stapylton. 

She was jealous at the bottom of her heart. She would not have anyone, not even her father, be too fond of what was preëminently hers; theworld at large, including Rudolph Musgrave, was at liberty to adore herboy, as was perfectly natural, but not to meddle: and in fine, Patriciawas both hysterical and vixenish whenever a giving up of the Librarywork was suggested. 

The old man did not quarrel with her. And with Roger Stapylton'sloneliness in these days, and the long thoughts it bred, we have nothinghere to do. But when he died, stricken without warning, some five yearsafter Patricia's marriage, his will was discovered to bequeathpractically his entire fortune to little Roger Musgrave when the childshould come of age; and to Rudolph Musgrave, as Patricia's husband, whatwas a reasonable income when judged by Lichfield's unexacting standardsrather than by Patricia's anticipations. In a word, Patricia found thatshe and the colonel could for the future count upon a little more thanhalf of the income she had previously been allowed by Roger Stapylton. 

"It isn't fair!" she said. "It's monstrous! And all because you were soobstinate about your picayune Library!"

"Patricia--" he began. 

"Oh, I tell you it's absurd, Olaf! The money logically ought to havebeen left to me. And here I will have to come to you for every penny of_my_ money. And Heaven knows I have had to scrimp enough to support usall on what I used to have--Olaf, " Patricia said, in another voice, "Olaf! why, what is it, dear?"

"I was reflecting, " said Colonel Musgrave, "that, as you justly observe, both Agatha and I have been practically indebted to you for our supportthese past five years--"

VII

It must be enregistered, not to the man's credit, but rather as a simplefact, that it was never within Colonel Musgrave's power to forget theincident immediately recorded. 

He forgave; when Patricia wept, seeing how leaden-colored his handsomeface had turned, he forgave as promptly and as freely as he was learningto pardon the telling of a serviceable lie, or the perpetration of anoccasional barbarism in speech, by Patricia. For he, a Musgrave ofMatocton, had married a Stapylton; he had begun to comprehend that theirstandards were different, and that some daily conflict between thesestandards was inevitable. 

And besides, as it has been veraciously observed, the truth of an insultis the barb which prevents its retraction. Patricia spoke the truth:Rudolph Musgrave and all those rationally reliant upon Rudolph Musgravefor support, had lived for some five years upon the money which theyowed to Patricia. He saw about him other scions of old families whoaccepted such circumstances blithely: but, he said, he was a Musgraveof Matocton; and, he reflected, in the kingdom of the blind the one-eyedis necessarily very unhappy. 

He did not mean to touch a penny of such moneys as Roger Stapylton hadbequeathed to him; for the colonel considered--now--it was a man's dutypersonally to support his wife and child and sister. And he vigorouslyattempted to discharge this obligation, alike by virtue of his salary atthe Library, and by spasmodic raids upon his tiny capital, and--chief ofall--by speculation in the Stock Market. 

Oddly enough, his ventures were through a long while--for the mostpart--successful. Here he builded a desperate edifice whose foundationswere his social talents; and it was with quaint self-abhorrence he oftennoted how the telling of a smutty jest or the insistence upon amanifestly superfluous glass of wine had purchased from some properlytickled magnate a much desiderated "tip. "

And presently these tips misled him. So the colonel borrowed from"Patricia's account. "

And on this occasion he guessed correctly. 

And then he stumbled upon such a chance for reinvestment as does notoften arrive. And so he borrowed a trifle more in common justice toPatricia. . . . 

VIII

When those then famous warriors, Colonel Gaynor and Captain Green, wereobstinately fighting extradition in Quebec; when in Washington theSenate was wording a suitable resolution wherewith to congratulate Cubaupon that island's brand-new independence; and when MessieursFitzsimmons and Jeffries were making amicable arrangements in SanFrancisco to fight for the world's championship:--at this remote time, in Chicago (on the same day, indeed, that in this very city Mr. S. E. Gross was legally declared the author of a play called Cyrano deBergerac), the Sons of the Colonial Governors opened their tenthbiennial convention. You may depend upon it that Colonel RudolphMusgrave represented the Lichfield chapter. 

It was two days later the telegram arrived. It read:

 _Agatha very ill come to me roger in perfect health. _ PATRICIA. 

He noted how with Stapyltonian thrift Patricia telegraphed ten wordsprecisely. . . . 

And when he had reached home, late in the evening, the colonel, nothaving taken his bunch of keys with him, laid down his dress-suit caseon the dark porch, and reached out one hand to the door-bell. He foundit muffled with some flimsy, gritty fabric. He did not ring. 

Upon the porch was a rustic bench. He sat upon it for a quarter of anhour--precisely where he had first talked with Agatha about Patricia'sfirst coming to Lichfield. . . . Once the door of a house across the streetwas opened, with a widening gush of amber light wherein he saw threewomen fitting wraps about them. One of them was adjusting a lace scarfabove her hair. 

"No, we're not a _bit_ afraid--Just around the corner, you know--_Such_a pleasant evening----" Their voices carried far in the still night. 

Rudolph Musgrave was not thinking of anything. Presently he went aroundthrough the side entrance, and thus came into the kitchen, where the oldmulattress, Virginia, was sitting alone. The room was very hot. . . . InAgatha's time supper would have been cooked upon the gas-range in thecellar, he reflected. . . . Virginia had risen and made as though to takehis dress-suit case, her pleasant yellow face as imperturbable as anidol's. 

"No--don't bother, Virginia, " said Colonel Musgrave. 

He met Patricia in the dining-room, on her way to the kitchen. She hadnot chosen--as even the most sensible of us will instinctively declineto do--to vex the quiet of a house wherein death was by ringing a bell. 

Holding his hand in hers, fondling it as she talked, Patricia told howthree nights before Miss Agatha had been "queer, you know, " at supper. Patricia had not liked to leave her, but it was the night of the Woman'sClub's second Whist Tournament. And Virginia had promised to watch MissAgatha. And, anyhow, Miss Agatha had gone to bed before Patricia leftthe house, and _anybody_ would have thought she was going to sleep allnight. And, in fine, Patricia's return at a drizzling half-past elevenhad found Miss Agatha sitting in the garden, in her night-dress only, weeping over fancied grievances--and Virginia asleep in the kitchen. AndAgatha had died that afternoon of pneumonia. 

Even in the last half-stupor she was asking always when would Rudolphcome? Patricia told him. . . . 

Rudolph Musgrave did not say anything. Without any apparent emotion heput Patricia aside, much as he did the dress-suit case which he hadforgotten to lay down until Patricia had ended her recital. 

He went upstairs--to the front room, Patricia's bedroom. Patriciafollowed him. 

Agatha's body lay upon the bed, with a sheet over all. The undertaker'sskill had arranged everything with smug and horrible tranquillity. 

Rudolph Musgrave remembered he was forty-six years old; and when in allthese years had there been a moment when Agatha--the real Agatha--hadnot known that what he had done was self-evidently correct, becauseotherwise Rudolph would not have done it?

"I trust you enjoyed your whist-game, Patricia. "

"Well, I couldn't help it. I'm not running a sanitarium. I wasn'tresponsible for her eternal drinking. "

The words skipped out of either mouth like gleeful little devils. 

Then both were afraid, and both were as icily tranquil as the thing uponthe bed. You could not hear anything except the clock upon the mantel. Colonel Musgrave went to the mantel, opened the clock, and with an odddeliberation removed the pendulum from its hook. Followed one metallicgasp, as of indignation, and then silence. 

He spoke, still staring at the clock, his back turned to Patricia. "Youmust be utterly worn out. You had better go to bed. "

He shifted by the fraction of an inch the old-fashioned "hand-colored"daguerreotype of his father in Confederate uniform. "Please don't wearthat black dress again. It is no cause for mourning that we are rid ofan encumbrance. "

Behind him, very far away, it seemed, he heard Patricia wailing, "Olaf----!"

Colonel Musgrave turned without any haste. "Please go, " he said, andappeared to plead with her. "You must be frightfully tired. I am sorrythat I was not here. I seem always to evade my responsibilities, somehow--"

Then he began to laugh. "It _is_ rather amusing, after all. Agatha wasthe most noble person I have ever known. The--this habit of hers towhich you have alluded was not a part of her. And I loved Agatha. And Isuppose loving is not altogether dependent upon logic. In any event, Iloved Agatha. And when I came back to her I had come home, somehow--wherever she might be at the time. That has been true, oh, eversince I can remember--"

He touched the dead hand now. "Please go!" he said, and he did not looktoward Patricia. "For Agatha loved me better than she did God, you know. The curse was born in her. She had to pay for what those dead, soft-handed Musgraves did. That is why her hands are so cold now. Shehad to pay for the privilege of being a Musgrave, you see. But then wecannot always pick and choose as to what we prefer to be. "

"Oh, yes, of course, it is all my fault. Everything is my fault. But Godknows what would have become of you and your Agatha if it hadn't beenfor me. Oh! oh!" Patricia wailed. "I was a child and I hadn't any bettersense, and I married you, and you've been living off my money eversince! There hasn't been a Christmas present or a funeral wreath boughtin this house since I came into it I didn't pick out and pay for out ofmy own pocket. And all the thanks I get for it is this perpetualfault-finding, and I wish I was dead like this poor saint here. Shespent her life slaving for you. And what thanks did she get for it? Oh, you ought to go down on your knees, Rudolph Musgrave--!"

"Please leave, " he said. 

"I will leave when I feel like it, and not a single minute before, andyou might just as well understand as much. You _have_ been living off mymoney. Oh, you needn't go to the trouble of lying. And she did too. Andshe hated me, she always hated me, because I had been fool enough tomarry you, and she carried on like a lunatic more than half the time, and I always pretended not to notice it, and this is my reward fortrying to behave like a lady. "

Patricia tossed her head. "Yes, and you needn't look at me as if I weresome sort of a bug you hadn't ever seen before and didn't approve of, because I've seen you try that high-and-mighty trick too often for it towork with me. "

Patricia stood now beneath the Stuart portrait of young Gerald Musgrave. She had insisted, long ago, that it be hung in her own bedroom--"becauseit was through that beautiful boy we first got really acquainted, Olaf. "The boy smiles at you from the canvas, smiles ambiguously, as thecolonel now noted. 

"I think you had better go, " said Colonel Musgrave. "Please go, Patricia, before I murder you. "

She saw that he was speaking in perfect earnest. 

IX

Rudolph Musgrave sat all night beside the body. He had declined to speakwith innumerable sympathetic cousins--Vartreys and Fentons andAllardyces and Musgraves, to the fifth and sixth remove--who had comefrom all quarters, with visiting-cards and low-voiced requests to beinformed "if there is anything we can possibly do. "

Rudolph Musgrave sat all night beside the body. He had not any strengthfor anger now, and hardly for grief, Agatha had been his charge; and thefact that he had never plucked up courage to allude to her practises wasnow an enormity in which he could not quite believe. His cowardice andits fruitage confronted him, and frightened him into a panic frenzy ofremorse. 

Agatha had been his charge; and he had entrusted the stewardship toPatricia. Between them--that Patricia might have her card-game, that hemight sit upon a platform for an hour or two with a half-dozen otherpompous fools--they had let Agatha die. There was no mercy in him forPatricia or for himself. He wished Patricia had been a man. Had any man--an emperor or a coal-heaver, it would not have mattered--spoken asPatricia had done within the moment, here, within arm's reach of thepoor flesh that had been Agatha's, Rudolph Musgrave would have known hisduty. But, according to his code, it was not permitted to bediscourteous to a woman. . . . 

He caught himself with grotesque meanness wishing that Agatha had beenthere, --privileged by her sex where he was fettered, --she who was sogenerous of heart and so fiery of tongue at need; and comprehension thatAgatha would never abet or adore him any more smote him anew. 

 * * * * *

And chance reserved for him more poignant torture. Next day, whileRudolph Musgrave was making out the list of honorary pall-bearers, thepostman brought a letter which had been forwarded from Chicago. It wasfrom Agatha, written upon the morning of that day wherein later she hadbeen, as Patricia phrased it, "queer, you know. "

He found it wildly droll to puzzle out those "crossed" four sheets oftrivialities written in an Italian hand so minute and orderly that thefinished page suggested a fly-screen. He had so often remonstrated withAgatha about her penuriousness as concerned stationery. 

"Selina Brice & the Rev'd Henry Anstruther, who now has a church inSeattle, have announced their engagement. Stanley Haggage has gone toAlabama to marry Leonora Bright, who moved from here a year ago. Theyare both as poor as church mice, & I think marriage in such a case anunwise step for anyone. It brings cares & anxieties enough any way, without starting out with poverty to increase and render deeper everytrouble. . . . "

Such was the tenor of Agatha's last letter, of the last self-expressionof that effigy upstairs who (you could see) knew everything and was notdiscontent. 

Here the dead spoke, omniscient; and told you that Stanley Haggage hadgone to Alabama, and that marriage brought new cares and anxieties. 

"I cannot laugh, " said Rudolph Musgrave, aloud. "I know the jestdeserves it. But I cannot laugh, because my upper lip seems to be madeof leather and I can't move it. And, besides, I loved Agatha to a degreewhich only You and I have ever known of. She never understood quite howI loved her. Oh, won't You make her understand just how I loved her? ForAgatha is dead, because You wanted her to be dead, and I have never toldher how much I loved her, and now I cannot ever tell her how much Iloved her. Oh, won't You please show me that You have made herunderstand? or else have me struck by lightning? or do _anything_. . . . ?"

Nothing was done. 

X

And afterward Rudolph Musgrave and his wife met amicably, and withoutreference to their last talk. Patricia wore black-and-white for some sixmonths, and Colonel Musgrave accepted the compromise tacitly. All passedwith perfect smoothness between them; and anyone in Lichfield would havetold you that the Musgraves were a model couple. 

She called him "Rudolph" now. 

"Olaf is such a silly-sounding nickname for two old married people, youknow, " Patricia estimated. 

The colonel negligently said that he supposed it did sound odd. 

"Only I don't think Clarice Pendomer would care about coming, " heresumed, --for the two were discussing an uncompleted list of the peoplePatricia was to invite to their first house-party. 

"And for heaven's sake, why not? We always have her to everything. "

He could not tell her it was because the Charterises were to be amongtheir guests. So he said: "Oh, well--!"

"Mrs. C. B. Pendomer, then"--Patricia wrote the name with a flourish. "Oh, you jay-bird, I'm not jealous. Everybody knows you never had anymore morals than a tom-cat on the back fence. It's a lucky thing the boydidn't take after you, isn't it? He doesn't, not a bit. No, HarryPendomer is the puniest black-haired little wretch, whereas your otherson, sir, resembles his mother and is in consequence a ravishinglybeautiful person of superlative charm--"

He was staring at her so oddly that she paused. So Patricia was familiarwith that old scandal which linked his name with Clarice Pendomer's! Hewas wondering if Patricia had married him in the belief that she wasmarrying a man who, appraised by any standards, had acted infamously. 

"I was only thinking you had better ask Judge Allardyce, Patricia. Yousee, he is absolutely certain not to come--"

 * * * * *

This year the Musgraves had decided not to spend the spring alonetogether at Matocton, as they had done the four preceding years. 

"It looks so silly, " as Patricia pointed out. 

And, besides, a house-party is the most economical method, --as she alsopointed out, being born a Stapylton--of paying off your socialobligations, because you can always ask so many people who, you know, have made other plans, and cannot accept. 

 * * * * *

"So we will invite Judge Allardyce, of course, " said Patricia. "I hadforgotten his court met in June. Oh, and Peter Blagden too. It hadslipped my mind his uncle was dead. . . . "

"I learned this morning Mrs. Haggage was to lecture in Louisville on thesixteenth. She was reading up in the Library, you see--"

"Rudolph, you are the lodestar of my existence. I will ask her to comeon the fourteenth and spend a week. I never could abide the hag, but shehas such a--There! I've made a big blot right in the middle of'darling, ' and spoiled a perfectly good sheet of paper!. . . You'd bettermail it at once, though, because the evening-paper may have something init about her lecture. "

XI

Rudolph--"

"Why--er--yes, dear?"

This was after supper, and Patricia was playing solitaire. Her husbandwas reading the paper. 

"Agatha told me all about Virginia, you know--"

Here Colonel Musgrave frowned. "It is not a pleasant topic. "

"You jay-bird, you behave entirely too much as if you were mygrandfather. As I was saying, Agatha told me all about your uncle andVirginia, " Patricia hurried on. "And how she ran away afterwards, andhid in the woods for three days, and came to your father's plantation, and how your father bought her, and how her son was born, and how herson was lynched--"

"Now, really, Patricia! Surely there are other matters which may be moreprofitably discussed. "

"Of course. Now, for instance, why is the King of Hearts the only onethat hasn't a moustache?" Patricia peeped to see what cards lay beneaththat monarch, and upon reflection moved the King of Spades into thevacant space. She was a devotee of solitaire and invariably cheated atit. 

She went on, absently: "But don't you see? That colored boy was your ownfirst cousin, and he was killed for doing exactly what his father haddone. Only they sent the father to the Senate and gave him columns offlubdub and laid him out in state when he died--and they poured keroseneupon the son and burned him alive. And I believe Virginia thinks thatwasn't fair. "

"What do you mean?"

"I honestly believe Virginia hates the Musgraves. She is only a negro, of course, but then she was a mother once--Oh, yes! all I need is ablack eight--" Patricia demanded, "Now look at your brother Hector--theawfully dissipated one that died of an overdose of opiates. When ithappened wasn't Virginia taking care of him?"

"Of course. She is an invaluable nurse. "

"And nobody else was here when Agatha went out into the rain. Now, whatif she had just let Agatha go, without trying to stop her? It would havebeen perfectly simple. So is this. All I have to do is to take them offnow. "

Colonel Musgrave negligently returned to his perusal of the afternoonpaper. "You are suggesting--if you will overlook my frankness--the mostdeplorable sort of nonsense, Patricia. "

"I know exactly how Balaam felt, " she said, irrelevantly, and fell toshuffling the cards. "You don't, and you won't, understand that Virginiais a human being. In any event, I wish you would get rid of her. "

"I couldn't decently do that, " said Rudolph Musgrave, with carefulpatience. "Virginia's faithfulness has been proven by too many years offaithful service. Nothing more strikingly attests the folly of freeingthe negro than the unwillingness of the better class of slaves to leavetheir former owners--"

"Now you are going to quote a paragraph or so from your Gracious Era. Asif I hadn't read everything you ever wrote! You are a fearful humbug insome ways, Rudolph. "

"And you are a red-headed rattlepate, madam. But seriously, Patricia, you who were reared in the North are strangely unwilling to concede thatwe of the South are after all best qualified to deal with the NegroProblem. We know the negro as you cannot ever know him. "

"You! Oh, God ha' mercy on us!" mocked Patricia. "There wasn't any NegroProblem hereabouts, you beautiful idiot, so long as there were anynegroes. Why, to-day there is hardly one full-blooded negro inLichfield. There are only a thousand or so of mulattoes who share theblood of people like your Uncle Edward. And for the most part they takeafter their white kin, unfortunately. And there you have the LichfieldNegro Problem in a nutshell. It is a venerable one and fully set forthin the Bible. You needn't attempt to argue with me, because you are aninnyhammer, and I am a second Nestor. The Holy Scriptures are perfectlyexplicit as to what happens to the heads of the children and their teethtoo. "

"I wish you wouldn't jest about such matters--"

"Because it isn't lady-like? But, Rudolph, you know perfectly well thatI am not a lady. "

"My dear!" he cried, in horror that was real, "and what on earth have Isaid even to suggest--"

"Oh, not a syllable; it isn't at all the sort of thing that your sort_says_ . . . And I am not your sort. I don't know that I altogether wish Iwere. But _if_ I were, it would certainly make things easier, " Patriciaadded sharply. 

"My dear--!" he again protested. 

"Now, candidly, Rudolph"--relinquishing the game, she fell to shufflingthe cards--"just count up the number of times this month that my--oh, well! I really don't know what to call it except my deplorable omissionin failing to be born a lady--has seemed to you to yank the very lastrag off the gooseberry-bush?"

He scoffed. "What nonsense! Although, of course, Patricia--"

She nodded, mischief in her brightly-colored tiny face. "Yes, that isjust your attitude, you beautiful idiot. "

"--although, of course--now, quite honestly, Patricia, I haveoccasionally wished that you would not speak of sacred and--er, physical and sociological matters in exactly the tone in which--well! inwhich you sometimes do speak of them. It may sound old-fashioned, but Ihave always believed that decency is quite as important in mentalaffairs as it is in physical ones, and that as a consequence, agentlewoman should always clothe her thoughts with at least the samecare she accords her body. Oh, don't misunderstand me! Of course itdoesn't do any harm, my dear, between us. But outside--you see, forpeople to know that you think about such things must necessarily givethem a false opinion of you. "

Patricia meditated. 

She said, with utter solemnity, "Anathema maranatha! oh, hell to damn!may the noses of all respectable people be turned upside down andjackasses dance eternally upon their grandmothers' graves!"

"Patricia--!" cried a shocked colonel. 

"I mean every syllable of it. No, Rudolph; _I_ can't help it if thevinaigretted beauties of your boyhood were unabridged dictionaries ofprudery. You see, I know almost all the swearwords there are. And I readthe newspapers, and medical books, and even the things that boys chalkup on fences. In consequence I am not a bit whiteminded, because if youuse your mind at all it gets more or less dingy, just like usinganything else. "

He could not help but laugh, much as he disapproved. Patricia flutteredand, as a wren might have done, perched presently upon his knee. 

"Rudolph, can't you laugh more often, and not devote so much time totracing out the genealogies of those silly people, and being sotediously beautiful and good?" she asked, and with a hint ofseriousness. "Rudolph, you don't know how I would adore you if you wouldrob a church or cut somebody's throat in an alley, and tell me all aboutit because you knew I wouldn't betray you. You are so infernallyrespectable in everything you do! How did you come to bully me that dayat the Library? It seems almost as if those two were different people. . . Doesn't it, Rudolph?"

"My dear, " the colonel said whimsically, "I am afraid we are rather likethe shepherdess and the chimney-sweep of the fable I read you very longago. We climbed up so far that we could see the stars, once, very longago, Patricia, and we have come back to live upon the parlor table. Isuppose it happens to all the little china people. "

She took his meaning. Each was aware of an odd sense of intimacy. "Everything we have to be glad for now, Rudolph, is the rivet ingrandfather's neck. It is rather a fiasco, isn't it?"

"Eh, there are all sorts of rivets, Patricia. And the thing one cannotdo because one is what one is, need not be necessarily a cause forgrief. "

XII

It was excellent to see Jack Charteris again, as Colonel Musgrave didwithin a few days of this. Musgrave was unreasonably fond of thenovelist and frankly confessed it would be as preposterous to connectCharteris with any of the accepted standards of morality as it would beto judge an artesian-well from the standpoint of ethics. 

Anne was not yet in Lichfield. She had broken the journey to visit amaternal grand-aunt and some Virginia cousins, in Richmond, Charterisexplained, and was to come thence to Matocton. 

"And so you have acquired a boy and, by my soul, a very handsome wife, Rudolph?"

"It is sufficiently notorious, " said Colonel Musgrave. "Yes, we arequite absurdly happy. " He laughed and added: "Patricia--but you don'tknow her droll way of putting things--says that the only rationalcomplaint I can advance against her is her habit of rushing into ahospital every month or so and having a section or two of her personremoved by surgeons. It worries me, --only, of course, it is not thesort of thing you can talk about. And, as Patricia says, it _is_ anunpleasant thing to realize that your wife is not leaving you throughthe ordinary channels of death or of type-written decrees of the court, but only in vulgar fractions, as it were--"

"Please don't be quite so brutal, Rudolph. It is not becoming in aMusgrave of Matocton to speak of women in any tone other than the mosthoneyed accents of chivalry. "

"Oh, I was only quoting Patricia, " the colonel largely said, "and--er--Jack, " he continued. "By the way, Jack, Clarice Pendomer willbe at Matocton--"

"I rejoice in her good luck, " said Charteris, equably. 

"--and--well! I was wondering--?"

"I can assure you that there will be no--trouble. That skeleton issafely locked in its closet, and the key to that closet is missing--morethanks to you. You acted very nobly in the whole affair, Rudolph. I wishI could do things like that. As it is, of course, I shall always detestyou for having been able to do it. "

Charteris said, thereafter: "I shall always envy you, though, Rudolph. No other man I know has ever attained the good old troubadourish idealof _domnei_--that love which rather abhors than otherwise the notion ofpossessing its object. I still believe it was a distinct relief to acertain military officer, whose name we need not mention, when Annedecided not to marry you. "

The colonel grinned, a trifle consciously. "Well, Anne meant youth, youcomprehend, and all the things we then believed in, Jack. It would havebeen decidedly difficult to live up to such a contract, and--as itwere--to fulfil every one of the implied specifications!"

"And yet"--here Charteris flicked his cigarette--"Anne ruled in thestead of Aline Van Orden. And Aline, in turn, had followed ClaricePendomer. And before the coming of Clarice had Pauline Romeyne, whomtime has converted into Polly Ashmeade, reigned in the land--"

"Don't be an ass!" the colonel pleaded; and then observed, inconsequently: "I can't somehow quite realize Aline is dead. Lord, Lord, the letters that I wrote to her! She sent them all back, you know, in genuine romantic fashion, after we had quarreled. I found thoseboyish ravings only the other day in my father's desk at Matocton, andskimmed them over. I shall read them through some day and appropriatelymeditate over life's mysteries that are too sad for tears. "

He meditated now. 

"It wouldn't be quite equitable, Jack, " the colonel summed it up, "ifthe Aline I loved--no, I don't mean the real woman, the one you and allthe other people knew, the one that married the enterprising brewer anddied five years ago--were not waiting for me somewhere. I can't expressjust what I mean, but you will understand, I know--?"

"That heaven is necessarily run on a Mohammedan basis? Why, of course, "said Mr. Charteris. "Heaven, as I apprehend it, is a place where weshall live eternally among those ladies of old years who nevercondescended actually to inhabit any realm more tangible than that ofour boyish fancies. It is the obvious definition; and I defy you toevolve a more enticing allurement toward becoming a deacon. "

"You romancers are privileged to talk nonsense anywhere, " the colonelestimated, "and I suppose that in the Lichfield you have made famous, Jack, you have a double right. "

"Ah, but I never wrote a line concerning Lichfield. I only wrote aboutthe Lichfield whose existence you continue to believe in, in spite ofthe fact that you are actually living in the real Lichfield, " Charterisreturned. "The vitality of the legend is wonderful. "

He cocked his head to one side--an habitual gesture with Charteris--andthe colonel noted, as he had often done before, how extraordinarilyreminiscent Jack was of a dried-up, quizzical black parrot. SaidCharteris:

"I love to serve that legend. I love to prattle of 'ole Marster' and'ole Miss, ' and throw in a sprinkling of 'mockin'-buds' and 'hants' and'horg-killing time, ' and of sweeping animadversions as to all 'freeniggers'; and to narrate how 'de quality use ter cum'--you spell itc-u-m because that looks so convincingly like dialect--'ter de grethous. ' Those are the main ingredients. And, as for the unavoidablelove-interest--" Charteris paused, grinned, and pleasantly resumed:"Why, jes arter dat, suh, a hut Yankee cap'en, whar some uv our folksdone shoot in de laig, wuz lef on de road fer daid--a quite notoriouscustom on the part of all Northern armies--un Young Miss had him fotchup ter de gret hous, un nuss im same's he one uv de fambly, un dem twojes fit un argufy scanlous un never spicion huccum dey's in love wideach othuh till de War's ovuh. And there you are! I need not mentionthat during the tale's progress it is necessary to introduce at leastone favorable mention of Lincoln, arrange a duel 'in de low grouns'immediately after day-break, and have the family silver interred in theback garden, because these points will naturally suggest themselves. "

"Jack, Jack!" the colonel cried, "it is an ill bird that fouls its ownnest. "

"But, believe me, I don't at heart, " said Charteris, in a queer earnestvoice. "There is a sardonic imp inside me that makes me jeer at thecommoner tricks of the trade--and yet when I am practising that trade, when I am writing of those tender-hearted, brave and gracious men andwomen, and of those dear old darkies, I very often write with tears inmy eyes. I tell you this with careful airiness because it is true andbecause it would embarrass me so horribly if you believed it. "

Then he was off upon another tack. "And wherein, pray, have I harmedLichfield by imagining a dream city situated half way between Atlantisand Avalon and peopled with superhuman persons--and by having calledthis city Lichfield? The portrait did not only flatter Lichfield, itflattered human nature. So, naturally, it pleased everybody. Yes, that, I take it, is the true secret of romance--to induce the momentarydelusion that humanity is a superhuman race, profuse in aspiration, andprodigal in the exercise of glorious virtues and stupendous vices. As amatter of fact, all human passions are depressingly chicken-hearted, Ifind. Were it not for the police court records, I would pessimisticallyinsist that all of us elect to love one person and to hate another withvery much the same enthusiasm that we display in expressing a preferencefor rare roast beef as compared with the outside slice. Oh, really, Rudolph, you have no notion how salutary it is to the self-esteem of usromanticists to run across, even nowadays, an occasional breach of thepeace. For then sometimes--when the coachman obligingly cuts thebutler's throat in the back-alley, say--we actually presume to think fora moment that our profession is almost as honest as that of makingcounterfeit money. . . . "

The colonel did not interrupt his brief pause of meditation. Then thenovelist said:

"Why, no; if I were ever really to attempt a tale of Lichfield, I wouldnot write a romance but a tragedy. I think that I would call my tragedy_Futility_, for it would mirror the life of Lichfield with unengagingcandor; and, as a consequence, people would complain that my tragedylacked sustained interest, and that its participants were inconsistent;that it had no ordered plot, no startling incidents, no high endeavors, and no especial aim; and that it was equally deficient in alltime-hallowed provocatives of either laughter or tears. For very fewpeople would understand that a life such as this, when rightly viewed, is the most pathetic tragedy conceivable. "

"Oh, come, now, Jack! come, recollect that your reasoning powers arealmost as worthy of employment as your rhetorical abilities! We are notquite so bad as that, you know. We may be a little behind the times inLichfield; we certainly let well enough alone, and we take things prettymuch as they come; but we meddle with nobody, and, after all, we don'tdo any especial harm. "

"We don't do anything whatever in especial, Rudolph. That would beprecisely the theme of my story of the real Lichfield if I were everbold enough to write it. There seems to be a sort of blight uponLichfield. Oh, yes! it would be unfair, perhaps, to contrast it with thebigger Southern cities, like Richmond and Atlanta and New Orleans; buteven the inhabitants of smaller Southern towns are beginning to buyexcursion tickets, and thereby ascertain that the twentieth century hasreally begun. Yes, it is only in Lichfield I can detect the raw stuff ofa genuine tragedy; for, depend upon it, Rudolph, the most pathetictragedy in life is to get nothing in particular out of it. "

"But, for my part, I don't see what you are driving at, " the colonelstoutly said. 

And Charteris only laughed. "And I hardly expected you to do so, Rudolph--or not yet, at least. "

PART FIVE - SOUVENIR

 "I am contented by remembrances-- Dreams of dead passions, wraiths of vanished times, Fragments of vows, and by-ends of old rhymes-- Flotsam and jetsam tumbling in the seas Whereon, long since, put forth our argosies Which, bent on traffic in the Isles of Love, Lie foundered somewhere in some firth thereof, Encradled by eternal silences. "

 "Thus, having come to naked bankruptcy, Let us part friends, as thrifty tradesmen do When common ventures fail, for it may be These battered oaths and rhymes may yet ring true To some fair woman's hearing, so that she Will listen and think of love, and I of you. "

F. Ashcroft Wheeler. _Revisions_. 

I

When the _Reliance_, the _Constitution_ and the _Columbia_ were holdingtrial races off Newport to decide which one of these yachts shoulddefend the _America's_ cup; when the tone of the Japanese press as toRussia's actions in Manchuria was beginning to grow ominous; when theJews of America were drafting a petition to the Czar; and when it wasrumored that the health of Pope Leo XIII was commencing to fail:--atthis remote time, the Musgraves gave their first house-party. 

And at this period Colonel Musgrave noted and admired the apparentunconcern with which John Charteris and Clarice Pendomer encountered atMatocton. And at this period Colonel Musgrave noted with approval theintimacy which was, obviously, flourishing between the little novelistand Patricia. 

Also Colonel Musgrave had presently good reason to lament a contretemps, over which he was sulking when Mrs. Pendomer rustled to her seat at thebreakfast-table, with a shortness of breath that was partly due to thestairs, and in part attributable to her youthful dress, which fitted atrifle too perfectly. 

"Waffles?" said Mrs. Pendomer. "At my age and weight the first is anexperiment and the fifth an amiable indiscretion of which I aminvariably guilty. Sugar, please. " She yawned, and reached agenerously-proportioned arm toward the sugar-bowl. "Yes, that will do, Pilkins. "

Colonel Musgrave--since the remainder of his house-party had alreadybreakfasted--raised his fine eyes toward the chandelier, and sighed, asPilkins demurely closed the dining-room door. 

Leander Pilkins--butler for a long while now to the Musgraves ofMatocton--would here, if space permitted, be the subject of an encomium. Leander Pilkins was in Lichfield considered to be, upon the whole, thehandsomest man whom Lichfield had produced; for this quadroon's skin waslike old ivory, and his profile would have done credit to an emperor. His terrapin is still spoken of in Lichfield as people in less favoredlocalities speak of the Golden Age, and his mayonnaise (boastsLichfield) would have compelled an Olympian to plead for a secondhelping. For the rest, his deportment in all functions of butlership isbest described as super-Chesterfieldian; and, indeed, he was generallyknown to be a byblow of Captain Beverley Musgrave's, who in his day wasLichfield's arbiter as touched the social graces. And so, no more ofPilkins. 

Mrs. Pendomer partook of chops. "Is this remorse, " she queried, "or aconvivially induced requirement for bromides? At this unearthly hour ofthe morning it is very often difficult to disentangle the two. "

"It is neither, " said Colonel Musgrave, and almost snappishly. 

Followed an interval of silence. "Really, " said Mrs. Pendomer, and aswith sympathy, "one would think you had at last been confronted with oneof your thirty-seven pasts--or is it thirty-eight, Rudolph?"

Colonel Musgrave frowned disapprovingly at her frivolity; he swallowedhis coffee, and buttered a superfluous potato. "H'm!" said he; "then youknow?"

"I know, " sighed she, "that a sleeping past frequently suffers frominsomnia. "

"And in that case, " said he, darkly, "it is not the only sufferer. "

Mrs. Pendomer considered the attractions of a third waffle--a mellowblending of autumnal yellows, fringed with a crisp and irresistiblebrown, that, for the moment, put to flight all dreams and visions ofslenderness. 

"And Patricia?" she queried, with a mental hiatus. 

Colonel Musgrave flushed. 

"Patricia, " he conceded, with mingled dignity and sadness, "is, afterall, still in her twenties----"

"Yes, " said Mrs. Pendomer, with a dryness which might mean anything ornothing; "she _was_ only twenty-one when she married you. "

"I mean, " he explained, with obvious patience, "that at her age she--notunnaturally--takes an immature view of things. Her unspoiled purity, "he added, meditatively, "and innocence and general unsophistication are, of course, adorable, but I can admit to thinking that for a journeythrough life they impress me as excess baggage. "

"Patricia, " said Mrs. Pendomer, soothingly, "has ideals. And ideals, like a hare-lip or a mission in life, should be pitied rather thancondemned, when our friends possess them; especially, " she continued, buttering her waffle, "as so many women have them sandwiched betweentheir last attack of measles and their first imported complexion. No oneof the three is lasting, Rudolph. "

"H'm!" said he. 

There was another silence. The colonel desperately felt that matterswere not advancing. 

"H'm!" said she, with something of interrogation in her voice. 

"See here, Clarice, I have known you----"

"You have not!" cried she, very earnestly; "not by five years!"

"Well, say for some time. You are a sensible woman----"

"A man, " Mrs. Pendomer lamented, parenthetically, "never suspects awoman of discretion, until she begins to lose her waist. "

"--and I am sure that I can rely upon your womanly tact, and finerinstincts, --and that sort of thing, you know--to help me out of a deuceof a mess. "

Mrs. Pendomer ate on, in an exceedingly noncommittal fashion, as hepaused, inquiringly. 

"She has been reading some letters, " said he, at length; "some lettersthat I wrote a long time ago. "

"In the case of so young a girl, " observed Mrs. Pendomer, with perfectcomprehension, "I should have undoubtedly recommended a judicioussupervision of her reading-matter. "

"She was looking through an old escritoire, " he explained; "JackCharteris had suggested that some of my father's letters--during theWar, you know--. Might be of value--"

He paused, for Mrs. Pendomer appeared on the verge of a question. 

But she only said, "So it was Mr. Charteris who suggested Patricia'ssearching the desk. Ah, yes! And then--?"

"And it was years ago--and just the usual sort of thing, though it mayhave seemed from the letters--Why, I hadn't given the girl a thought, "he cried, in virtuous indignation, "until Patricia found theletters--and read them!"

"Naturally, " she assented--"yes, --just as I read George's. "

The smile with which she accompanied this remark, suggested that bothMr. Pendomer's correspondence and home life were at times of aninteresting nature. 

"I had destroyed the envelopes when she returned them, " continuedColonel Musgrave, with morose confusion of persons. "Patricia doesn'teven know who the girl was--her name, somehow, was not mentioned. "

"'Woman of my heart'--'Dearest girl in all the world, '" quoted Mrs. Pendomer, reminiscently, "and suchlike tender phrases, scattered in witha pepper-cruet, after the rough copy was made in pencil, and dated just'Wednesday, ' or 'Thursday, ' of course. Ah, you were always very careful, Rudolph, " she sighed; "and now that makes it all the worse, because--asfar as all the evidence goes--these letters may have been returnedyesterday. "

"Why--!" Colonel Musgrave pulled up short, hardly seeing his way clearthrough the indignant periods on which he had entered. "I declined, "said he, somewhat lamely, "to discuss the matter with her, in herpresent excited and perfectly unreasonable condition. "

Mrs. Pendomer's penciled eyebrows rose, and her lips--which were quiteas red as there was any necessity for their being--twitched. 

"Hysterics?" she asked. 

"Worse!" groaned Colonel Musgrave; "patient resignation under unmeritedaffliction!"

He had picked up a teaspoon, and he carefully balanced it upon hisforefinger. 

"There were certain phrases in these letters which were, somehow, repeated in certain letters I wrote to Patricia the summer we wereengaged, and--not to put too fine a point upon it--she doesn't like it. "

Mrs. Pendomer smiled, as though she considered this not improbable; andhe continued, with growing embarrassment and indignation:

"She says there must have been others"--Mrs. Pendomer's smile grewreminiscent--"any number of others; that she is only an incident in mylife. Er--as you have mentioned, Patricia has certain notions--Northernidiocies about the awfulness of a young fellow's sowing his wild oats, which you and I know perfectly well he is going to do, anyhow, if he isworth his salt. But she doesn't know it, poor little girl. So she won'tlisten to reason, and she won't come downstairs--which, " lamentedRudolph Musgrave, plaintively, "is particularly awkward in ahouse-party. "

He drummed his fingers, for a moment, on the table. 

"It is, " he summed up, "a combination of Ibsen and hysterics, andof--er, rather declamatory observations concerning there being one lawfor the man and another for the woman, and Patricia's realization of themistake we both made--and all that sort of nonsense, you know, exactlyas if, I give you my word, she were one of those women who want tovote. " The colonel, patently, considered that feminine outrageousnesscould go no farther. "And she is taking menthol and green tea andmustard plasters and I don't know what all, in bed, prior to--to----"

"Taking leave?" Mrs. Pendomer suggested. 

"Er--that was mentioned, I believe, " said Colonel Musgrave. "But ofcourse she was only talking. "

Mrs. Pendomer looked about her; and, without, the clean-shaven lawnsand trim box-hedges were very beautiful in the morning sunlight; within, the same sunlight sparkled over the heavy breakfast service, and gleamedin the high walnut panels of the breakfast-room. She viewed thecomfortable appointments about her a little wistfully, for Mrs. Pendomer's purse was not over-full. 

"Of course, " said she, as in meditation, "there was the money. "

"Yes, " said Rudolph Musgrave, slowly; "there was the money. "

He sprang to his feet, and drew himself erect. Here was a moment he mustgive its full dramatic value. 

"Oh, no, Clarice, my marriage may have been an eminently sensible one, but I love my wife. Oh, believe me, I love her very tenderly, poorlittle Patricia! I have weathered some forty-seven birthdays; and I havedone much as other men do, and all that--there have been flirtations andsuchlike, and--er--some women have been kinder to me than I deserved. But I love her; and there has not been a moment since she came into mylife I haven't loved her, and been--" he waved his hands now impotently, almost theatrically--"sickened at the thought of the others. "

Mrs. Pendomer's foot tapped the floor whilst he spoke. When he had madean ending, she inclined her head toward him. 

"Thank you!" said Mrs. Pendomer. 

Colonel Musgrave bit his lip; and he flushed. 

"That, " said he, hastily, "was different. "

But the difference, whatever may have been its nature, was seemingly amatter of unimportance to Mrs. Pendomer, who was in meditation. Sherested her ample chin on a much-bejeweled hand for a moment; and, whenMrs. Pendomer raised her face, her voice was free from affectation. 

"You will probably never understand that this particular July day is acrucial point in your life. You will probably remember it, if youremember it at all, simply as that morning when Patricia found somegirl-or-another's old letters, and behaved rather unreasonably aboutthem. It was the merest trifle, you will think. . . . John Charterisunderstands women better than you do, Rudolph. "

"I need not pretend at this late day to be as clever as Jack, " thecolonel said, in some bewilderment. "But why not more succinctly statethat the Escurial is not a dromedary, although there are many flies inFrance? For what on earth has Jack to do with crucial points and Julymornings?"

"Why, I suppose, I only made bold to introduce his name for the sake ofan illustration, Rudolph. For the last person in the world to realize, precisely, why any woman did anything is invariably the woman who didit. . . . Yet there comes in every married woman's existence that time whenshe realizes, suddenly, that her husband has a past which might betaken as, in itself, a complete and rounded life--as a life which hadrun the gamut of all ordinary human passions, and had become familiarwith all ordinary human passions a dishearteningly long while before sheever came into that life. A woman never realizes that of her lover, somehow. But to know that your husband, the father of your child, haslived for other women a life in which you had no part, and never canhave part!--she realizes that, at one time or another, and--and itsickens her. " Mrs. Pendomer smiled as she echoed his phrase, but hereyes were not mirthful. 

"Ah, she hungers for those dead years, Rudolph, and, though you devoteyour whole remaining life to her, nothing can ever make up for them; andshe always hates those shadowy women who have stolen them from her. Awoman never, at heart, forgives the other women who have loved herhusband, even though she cease to care for him herself. For sheremembers--ah, you men forget so easily, Rudolph! God had not inventedmemory when he created Adam; it was kept for the woman. "

Then ensued a pause, during which Rudolph Musgrave smiled down upon her, irresolutely; for he abhorred "a scene, " as his vernacular phrased it, and to him Clarice's present manner bordered upon both the scenic andthe incomprehensible. 

"Ah!--you women!" he temporized. 

There was a glance from eyes whose luster time and irregular living hadconspired to dim. 

"Ah!--you men!" Mrs. Pendomer retorted. "And there we have the tragedyof life in a nutshell!"

Silence lasted for a while. The colonel was finding this matutinal talkdiscomfortably opulent in pauses. 

"Rudolph, and has it never occurred to you that in marrying Patricia youswindled her?"

And naturally his eyebrows lifted. 

"Because a woman wants love. "

"Well, well! and don't I love Patricia?"

"I dare say that you think you do. Only you have played at loving solong you are really unable to love anybody as a girl has every right tobe loved in her twenties. Yes, Rudolph, you are being rather subtlypunished for the good times you have had. And, after all, the saddestpunishment is something that happens in us, not something which happensto us. "

"I wish you wouldn't laugh, Clarice----"

"I wish I didn't have to. For I would get far more comfort out ofcrying, and I don't dare to, because of my complexion. It comes in around pasteboard box nowadays, you know, Rudolph, with Frenchmendacities all over the top--and my eyebrows come in a fat crayon, andthe healthful glow of my lips comes in a little porcelain tub. "

Mrs. Pendomer was playing with a teaspoon now, and a smile hovered aboutthe aforementioned lips. 

"And yet, do you remember, Rudolph, " said she, "that evening atAssequin, when I wore a blue gown, and they were playing _Fleursd'Amour_, and--you said--?"

"Yes"--there was an effective little catch in his voice--"you were awonderful girl, Clarice--'my sunshine girl, ' I used to call you. Andblue was always your color; it went with your eyes so exactly. And thosebig sleeves they wore then--those tell-tale, crushable sleeves!--theysuited your slender youthfulness so perfectly! Ah, I remember it asthough it were yesterday!"

Mrs. Pendomer majestically rose to her feet. 

"It was pink! And it was at the Whitebrier you said--what you said!And--and you don't deserve anything but what you are getting, " sheconcluded, grimly. 

"I--it was so long ago, " Rudolph Musgrave apologized, with mingleddiscomfort and vagueness. 

"Yes, " she conceded, rather sadly; "it was so long--oh, very long ago!For we were young then, and we believed in things, and--and JackCharteris had not taken a fancy to me--" She sighed and drummed herfingers on the table. "But women have always helped and shielded you, haven't they, Rudolph? And now I am going to help you too, for you haveshown me the way. You don't deserve it in the least, but I'll do it. "

II

Thus it shortly came about that Mrs. Pendomer mounted, in meditativemood, to Mrs. Musgrave's rooms; and that Mrs. Pendomer, recovering herbreath, entered, without knocking, into a gloom where cologne andmenthol and the odor of warm rubber contended for mastery. For Patriciahad decided that she was very ill indeed, and was sobbing softly in bed. 

Very calmly, Mrs. Pendomer opened a window, letting in a flood of freshair and sunshine; very calmly, she drew a chair--a substantialarm-chair--to the bedside, and, very calmly, she began:

"My dear, Rudolph has told me of this ridiculous affair, and--oh, youequally ridiculous girl!"

She removed, with deft fingers, a damp and clinging bandage from aboutPatricia's head, and patted the back of Patricia's hand, placidly. Patricia was by this time sitting erect in bed, and her coppery hair wasthick about her face, which was colorless; and, altogether, she was veryrigid and very indignant and very pretty, and very, very young. 

"How dare he tell you--or anybody else!" she cried. 

"We are such old friends, remember, " Mrs. Pendomer pleaded, andrearranged the pillows, soothingly, about her hostess; "and I want totalk to you quietly and sensibly. "

Patricia sank back among the pillows, and inhaled the fresh air, which, in spite of herself, she found agreeable. "I--somehow, I don't feel verysensible, " she murmured, half sulky and half shame-faced. 

Mrs. Pendomer hesitated for a moment, and then plunged into the heart ofthings. "You are a woman, dear, " she said, gently, "though heaven knowsit must have been only yesterday you were playing about the nursery--andone of the facts we women must face, eventually, is that man is apolygamous animal. It is unfortunate, perhaps, but it is true. Civilization may veneer the fact, but nothing will ever override it, noteven in these new horseless carriages. A man may give his wife the bestthat is in him--his love, his trust, his life's work--but it is only thebest there is left. We give our hearts; men dole out theirs, as peoplefeed bread to birds, with a crumb for everyone. His wife has theremnant. And the best we women can do is to remember we are crediblyinformed that half a loaf is preferable to no bread at all. "

Her face sobered, and she added, pensively: "We might contrive a betteruniverse, we sister women, but this is not permitted us. So we must takeit as it is. "

Patricia stirred, as talking died away. "I don't believe it, " said she;and she added, with emphasis: "And, anyhow, I hate that nasty trollop!"

"Ah, but you do believe it. " Mrs. Pendomer's voice was insistent. "Youknew it years before you went into long frocks. That knowledge is, Isuppose, a legacy from our mothers. "

Patricia frowned, petulantly, and then burst into choking sobs. "Oh!"she cried, "it's damnable! Some other woman has had what I can neverhave. And I wanted it so!--that first love that means everything--thelove he gave her when I was only a messy little girl, with pig-tails andtoo many hands and feet! Oh, that--that hell-cat! She's had everything!"

There was an interval, during which Mrs. Pendomer smiled crookedly, andPatricia continued to sob, although at lengthening intervals. Then, Mrs. Pendomer lifted the packet of letters lying on the bed, and cleared herthroat. 

"H'm!" said she; "so this is what caused all the trouble? You don'tmind?"

And, considering silence as equivalent to acquiescence, she drew out aletter at hazard, and read aloud:

"'Just a line, woman of all the world, to tell you . . . But what have Ito tell you, after all? Only the old, old message, so often told that itseems scarcely worth while to bother the postman about it. Just threewords that innumerable dead lips have whispered, while life was yet goodand old people were unreasonable and skies were blue--three words thatour unborn children's children will whisper to one another when we toohave gone to help the grasses in their growing or to nourish thevictorious, swaying hosts of some field of daffodils. Just threewords--that is my message to you, my lady. . . . Ah, it is weary waitingfor a sight of your dear face through these long days that are so muchalike and all so empty and colorless! My heart grows hungry as I thinkof your great, green eyes and of the mouth that is like a little wound. I want you so, O dearest girl in all the world! I want you. . . . Ah, timetravels very slowly that brings you back to me, and, meanwhile, I canbut dream of you and send you impotent scrawls that only vex me withtheir futility. For my desire of you--'

"The remainder, " said Mrs. Pendomer, clearing her throat once more, "appears to consist of insanity and heretical sentiments, in about equalproportions, all written at the top of a boy's breaking voice. It isn'tColonel Musgrave's voice--quite--is it?"

During the reading, Patricia, leaning on one elbow, had regarded hercompanion with wide eyes and flushed cheeks. "Now, you see!" she criedindignantly; "he loved her! He was simply crazy about her. "

"Why, yes. " Mrs. Pendomer replaced the letter, carefully, almostcaressingly, among its companions. "My dear, it was years ago. I thinktime has by this wreaked a vengeance far more bitter than you could everplan on the woman who, after all, never thought to wrong you. For thebitterest of all bitter things to a woman--to some women, at least--isto grow old. "

She sighed, and her well-manicured fingers fretted for a moment with thecounterpane. 

"Ah, who will write the tragedy of us women who were 'famous Southernbeauties' once? We were queens of men while our youth lasted, anddiarists still prattle charmingly concerning us. But nothing wasexpected of us save to be beautiful and to condescend to be made muchof, and that is our tragedy. For very few things, my dear, are morepitiable than the middle-age of the pitiful butterfly woman, whose mindcannot--cannot, because of its very nature--reach to anything higher!Middle-age strips her of everything--the admiration, the flattery, theshallow merriment--all the little things that her little mind longsfor--and other women take her place, in spite of her futile, pitifulefforts to remain young. And the world goes on as before, and there is awhispering in the moonlit garden, and young people steal off for whollysuperfluous glasses of water, and the men give her duty dances, and sheis old--ah, so old!--under the rouge and inane smiles and daintyfripperies that caricature her lost youth! No, my dear, you needn't envythis woman! Pity her, my dear!" pleaded Clarice Pendomer, and with anote of earnestness in her voice. 

"Such a woman, " said Patricia, with distinctness, "deserves no pity. "

"Well, " Mrs. Pendomer conceded, drily, "she doesn't get it. Probably, because she always grows fat, from sheer lack of will-power to resistsloth and gluttony--the only agreeable vices left her; and by no stretchof the imagination can a fat woman be converted into either a pleasingor heroic figure. "

Mrs. Pendomer paused for a breathing-space, and smiled, though not verypleasantly. 

"It is, doubtless, " said she, "a sight for gods--and quite certainly formen--to laugh at, this silly woman striving to regain a vanishedfrugality of waist. Yes, I suppose it is amusing--but it is alsopitiful. And it is more pitiful still if she has ever loved a man in theunreasoning way these shallow women sometimes do. Men age so slowly; themen a girl first knows are young long after she has reachedmiddle-age--yes, they go on dancing cotillions and talking nonsense inthe garden, long after she has taken to common-sense shoes. And the manis still young--and he cares for some other woman, who is young and hasall that she has lost--and it seems so unfair!" said Mrs. Pendomer. 

Patricia regarded her for a moment. The purple eyes were alert, theirglance was hard. "You seem to know all about this woman, " Patriciabegan, in a level voice. "I have heard, of course, what everyone inLichfield whispers about you and Rudolph. I have even teased Rudolphabout it, but until to-day I had believed it was a lie. "

"It is often a mistake to indulge in uncommon opinions, " said Mrs. Pendomer. "You get more fun and interest out of it, I don't deny, butthe bill, my dear, is unconscionable. "

"So! you confess it!"

"My dear, and who am I to stand aside like a coward and see you make amountain of this boy-and-girl affair--an affair which Rudolph and I hadpractically forgotten--oh, years ago!--until to-day? Why--why, you_can't_ be jealous of me!" Mrs. Pendomer concluded, half-mockingly. 

Patricia regarded her with deliberation. 

In the windy sunlight, Mrs. Pendomer was a well-preserved woman, but, unmistakably, preserved; moreover, there was a great deal of her, andher nose was in need of a judicious application of powder, of whichthere was a superfluity behind her ears. Was this the siren Patricia haddreaded? Patricia clearly perceived that, whatever had been herhusband's relations with this woman, he had been manifestly entrappedinto the imbroglio--a victim to Mrs. Pendomer's inordinate love ofattention, which was, indeed, tolerably notorious; and Patricia's angeragainst Rudolph Musgrave gave way to a rather contemptuous pity and ahalf-maternal remorse for not having taken better care of him. 

"No, " answered Mrs. Pendomer, to her unspoken thought; "no woman couldbe seriously jealous of me. Yes, I dare say, I am _passée_ and vain andfrivolous and--harmless. But, " she added, meditatively, "you hate me, just the same. "

"My dear Mrs. Pendomer----" Patricia began, with cool courtesy; thenhesitated. "Yes, " she conceded; "I dare say, it is unreasonable--but Ido hate you like the very old Nick. "

"Why, then, " spoke Mrs. Pendomer, with cheerfulness, "everything is asit should be. " She rose and smiled. "I am sorry to say I must be leavingMatocton to-day; the Ullwethers are very pressing, and I really don'tknow how to get out of paying them a visit----"

"So sorry to lose you, " cooed Patricia; "but, of course, you know best. I believe some very good people are visiting the Ullwethers nowadays?"She extended the letters, blandly. "May I restore your property?" shequeried, with utmost gentleness. 

"Thanks!" Clarice Pendomer took them, and kissed her hostess, notwithout tenderness, on the brow. "My dear, be kind to Rudolph. He--he israther an attractive man, you know, --and other women are kind to him. Weof Lichfield have always said that he and Jack Charteris were the mostdangerous men that even Lichfield has ever produced----"

"Why, do people really find Mr. Charteris particularly attractive?"Patricia demanded, so quickly and so innocently that Mrs. Pendomer couldnot deny herself the glance of a charlatan who applauds his fellow'slegerdemain. 

And Patricia colored. 

"Oh, well--! You know how Lichfield gossips, " said Mrs. Pendomer. 

III

Colonel Musgrave had smoked a preposterous number of unsatisfyingcigarettes on the big front porch of Matocton whilst Mrs. Pendomer wasabsent on her mission; and on her return, flushed and triumphant, herose in eloquent silence. 

"I've done it, Rudolph, " said Mrs. Pendomer. 

"Done what?" he queried, blankly. 

"Restored what my incomprehensible lawyers call the _status quo_;achieved peace with honor; carried off the spoils of war; and--inshort--arranged everything, " answered Mrs. Pendomer, and sank into arustic chair, which creaked admonishingly. "And all, " she added, bringing a fan into play, "without a single falsehood. _I_ am not toblame if Patricia has jumped at the conclusion that these letters werewritten to me. "

"My word!" said Rudolph Musgrave, "your methods of restoring domesticpeace to a distracted household are, to say the least, original!" Heseated himself, and lighted another cigarette. 

"Oh, well, Patricia is not deaf, you know, and she has lived inLichfield quite a while. " Mrs. Pendomer said abruptly, "I have half amind to tell you some of the things I know about Aline Van Orden. "

"Please don't, " said Colonel Musgrave, "for I would inevitably beard youon my own porch and smite you to the door-mat. And I am hardly youngenough for such adventures. "

"And poor Aline is dead! And the rest of us are middle-aged now, Rudolph, and we go in to dinner with the veterans who call us 'Madam, 'and we are prominent in charitable enterprises. . . . But there was a timewhen we were not exactly hideous in appearance, and men did many madthings for our sakes, and we never lose the memory of that time. Pleasant memories are among the many privileges of women. Yes, " addedMrs. Pendomer, meditatively, "we derive much the same pleasure from thema cripple does from rearranging the athletic medals he once won, or astarving man from thinking of the many excellent dinners he has eaten;but we can't and we wouldn't part with them, nevertheless. "

Rudolph Musgrave, however, had not honored her with much attention, andwas puzzling over the more or less incomprehensible situation; and, perceiving this, she ran on, after a little:

"Oh, it worked--it worked beautifully! You see, she would always havebeen very jealous of that other woman; but with me it is different. Shehas always known that scandalous story about you and me. And she hasalways known me as I am--a frivolous and--say, corpulent, for it is amore dignified word--and generally unattractive chaperon; and she can'tthink of me as ever having been anything else. Young people never reallybelieve in their elders' youth, Rudolph; at heart, they think we cameinto the world with crow's-feet and pepper-and-salt hair, all complete. So, she is only sorry for you now--rather as a mother would be for anaughty child; as for me, she isn't jealous--but, " sighed Mrs. Pendomer, "she isn't over-fond of me. "

Colonel Musgrave rose to his feet. "It isn't fair, " said he; "theletters were distinctly compromising. It isn't fair you should shoulderthe blame for a woman who was nothing to you. It isn't fair you shouldbe placed in such a false position. "

"What matter?" pleaded Mrs. Pendomer. "The letters are mine to burn, ifI choose. I have read one of them, by the way, and it is almost word forword a letter you wrote me a good twenty years ago. And you re-hashed itfor Patricia's benefit too, it seems! You ought to get a mimeograph. Oh, very well! It doesn't matter now, for Patricia will say nothing--or notat least to you, " she added. 

"Still----" he began. 

"Ah, Rudolph, if I want to do a foolish thing, why won't you let me?What else is a woman for? They are always doing foolish things. I haveknown a woman to throw a man over, because she had seen him without acollar; and I have known another actually to marry a man, because shehappened to be in love with him. I have known a woman to go on wearingpink organdie after she has passed forty, and I have known a woman to goon caring for a man who, she knew, wasn't worth caring for, long afterhe had forgotten. We are not brave and sensible, like you men. So whynot let me be foolish, if I want to be?"

"If, " said Colonel Musgrave in some perplexity, "I understand one wordof this farrago, I will be--qualified in various ways. "

"But you don't have to understand, " she pleaded. 

"You mean--?" he asked. 

"I mean that I was always fond of Aline, anyhow. "

"Nonsense!" And he was conscious, with vexation, that he had undeniablyflushed. 

"I mean, then, I am a woman, and _I_ understand. Everything is as nearwhat it should be as is possible while Patricia is seeing so much of--wewill call it the artistic temperament. " Mrs. Pendomer shrugged. "But ifI went on in that line you would believe I was jealous. And heaven knowsI am not the least bit so--with the unavoidable qualification that, being a woman, I can't help rising superior to common-sense. "

He said, "You mean Jack Charteris--? But what on earth has he to do withthese letters?"

"I don't mean any proper names at all. I simply mean you are not to undomy work. It would only signify trouble and dissatisfaction and giving upall this"--she waved her hand lightly toward the lawns ofMatocton, --"and it would mean our giving you up, for, you know, youhaven't any money of your own, Rudolph. Ah, Rudolph, we can't give youup! We need you to lead our Lichfield germans, and to tell us naughtylittle stories, and keep us amused. So _please_ be sensible, Rudolph. "

"Permit me to point out I firmly believe that silence is the perfectestherald of joy, " observed Colonel Musgrave. "Only I do _not_ understandwhy you should have dragged John Charteris's name into this ludicrousaffair----"

"You really do not understand----?"

But Colonel Musgrave's handsome face declared very plainly that he didnot. 

"Well, " Mrs. Pendomer reflected, "I dare say it is best, upon the whole, you shouldn't. And now you must excuse me, for I am leaving for theUllwethers' to-day, and I shan't ever be invited to Matocton again, andI must tell my maid to pack up. She is a little fool and it will breakher heart to be leaving Pilkins. All human beings are tediously alike. But, allowing ample time for her to dispose of my best lingerie and ofher unavoidable lamentations, I ought to make the six-forty-five. I havenoticed that one usually does--somehow, " said Mrs. Pendomer, and seemedto smack of allegories. 

And yet it may have been because she knew--as who knewbetter?--something of that mischief's nature which was now afoot. 

IV

The colonel burned the malefic letters that afternoon. Indeed, theepisode set him to ransacking the desk in which Patricia had foundthem--a desk which, as you have heard, was heaped with the miscellaneouscorrespondence of the colonel's father dating back a half-century andmore. Much curious matter the colonel discovered there, for "Wild Will"Musgrave's had been a full-blooded career. And over one packet ofletters, in particular, the colonel sat for a long while with anunwontedly troubled face. 

PART SIX - BYWAYS

 "Cry _Kismet!_ and take heart. Eros is gone, Nor may we follow to that loftier air Olympians breathe. Take heart, and enter where A lighter Love, vine-crowned, laughs i' the sun, Oblivious of tangled webs ill-spun By ancient wearied weavers, for it may be His guidance leads to lovers of such as we And hearts so credulous as to be won. 

 "Cry _Kismet!_ Put away vain memories Of all old sorrows and of all old joys, And learn that life is never quite amiss So long as unreflective girls and boys Remember that young lips were meant to kiss, And hold that laughter is a seemly noise. "

PAUL VANDERHOFFEN. _Egeria Answers. _

I

Patricia sat in the great maple-grove that stands behind Matocton, andpondered over a note from her husband, who was in Lichfieldsuperintending the appearance of the July number of the _LichfieldHistorical Association's Quarterly Magazine_. Mr. Charteris lay ather feet, glancing rapidly over a lengthy letter, which was from hiswife, in Richmond. 

The morning mail was just in, and Patricia had despatched Charteris forher letters, on the plea that the woods were too beautiful to leave, andthat Matocton, in the unsettled state which marks the end of the week ina house-party, was intolerable. 

She, undoubtedly, was partial to the grove, having spent the last tenmornings there. Mr. Charteris had overrated her modest literaryabilities so far as to ask her advice in certain details of his newbook, which was to appear in the autumn, and they had found a vernalsolitude, besides being extremely picturesque, to be conducive to theforming of really matured opinions. Moreover, she was assured that noneof the members of the house-party would misunderstand her motives;people were so much less censorious in the country; there was somethingin the pastoral purity of Nature, seen face to face, which brought outone's noblest instincts, and put an end to all horrid gossip andscandal-mongering. 

Didn't Mrs. Barry-Smith think so? And what was her real opinion of thatrumor about the Hardresses, and was the woman as bad as people said shewas? Thus had Patricia spoken in the privacy of her chamber, at thathour when ladies do up their hair for the night, and discourse ofmysteries. It is at this time they are said to babble out their heartsto one another; and so, beyond doubt, this must have been the real stateof the case. 

As Patricia admitted, she had given up bridge and taken to literatureonly during the past year. She might more honestly have said within thelast two weeks. In any event, she now conversed of authors with a fitfulpersistence like that of an ill-regulated machine. Her comments weredelightfully frank and original, as she had an unusually good memory. Oftwo books she was apt to prefer the one with the wider margin, and shewas becoming sufficiently familiar with a number of poets to quote theminaccurately. 

We have all seen John Charteris's portraits, and most of us have readhis books--or at least, the volume entitled _In Old Lichfield_, whichcaused the _Lichfield Courier-Herald_ to apostrophize its author as a"Child of Genius! whose ardent soul has sounded the mysteries of life, whose inner vision sweeps over ever widening fields of thought, andwhose chiseled phrases continue patriotically to perpetuate the beautyof Lichfield's past. " But for present purposes it is sufficient to saythat this jewelsmith of words was slight and dark and hook-nosed, andthat his hair was thin, and that he was not ill-favored. It may be ofinterest to his admirers--a growing cult--to add that his reason forwearing a mustache in a period of clean-shaven faces was that, withoutit, his mouth was not pleasant to look upon. 

"Heigho!" Patricia said, at length, with a little laugh; "it is verystrange that both of our encumbrances should arrive on the same day!"

"It is unfortunate, " Mr. Charteris admitted, lazily; "but the blessedstate of matrimony is liable to these mishaps. Let us be thankful thatmy wife's whim to visit her aunt has given us, at least, two perfect, golden weeks. Husbands are like bad pennies; and wives resemble the catwhose adventures have been commemorated by one of our really popularpoets. They always come back. "

Patricia communed with herself, and to Charteris seemed, as she sat inthe chequered sunlight, far more desirable than a married woman has anyright to be. 

"I wish--" she began, slowly. "Oh, but, you know, it was positivelycriminal negligence not to have included a dozen fairies among mysponsors. "

"I too have desiderated this sensible precaution, " said Charteris, andlaughed his utter comprehension. "But, after all, " he said, and snappedhis fingers gaily, "we still have twenty-four hours, Patricia! Let usforget the crudities of life, and say foolish things to each other. ForI am pastorally inclined this morning, Patricia; I wish to lie at yourfeet and pipe amorous ditties upon an oaten reed. Have you such anarticle about you, Patricia?"

He drew a key-ring from his pocket, and pondered over it. 

"Or would you prefer that I whistle into the opening of this door-key, to the effect that we must gather our rose-buds while we may, for Timeis still a-flying, fa-la, and that a drear old age, not to mention ourspouses, will soon descend upon us, fa-la-di-leero? A door-key is notArcadian, Patricia, but it makes a very creditable noise. "

"Don't be foolish, _mon ami_!" she protested, with an indulgent smile. "I am unhappy. "

"Unhappy that I have chanced to fall in love with you, Patricia? It isan accident which might befall any really intelligent person. "

She shrugged her shoulders, ruefully. 

"I have done wrong to let you talk to me as you have done of late. I--oh, Jack, I am afraid!"

Mr. Charteris meditated. Somewhere in a neighboring thicket a birdtrilled out his song--a contented, half-hushed song that called his mateto witness how infinitely blest above all other birds was he. Mr. Charteris heard him to the end, and languidly made as to applaud; thenMr. Charteris raised his eyebrows. 

"Of your husband, Patricia?" he queried. 

"I--Rudolph doesn't bother about me nowadays sufficiently to--noticeanything. "

Mr. Charteris smiled. "Of my wife, Patricia?"

"Good gracious, no! I have not the least doubt you will explain matterssatisfactorily to your wife, for I have always heard that practise makesperfect. "

Mr. Charteris laughed--a low and very musical laugh. 

"Of me, then, Patricia?"

"I--I think it is rather of myself I am afraid. Oh, I hate you when yousmile like that! You have evil eyes, Jack! Stop it! Quit hounding mewith your illicit fascinations. " The hand she had raised in threateningfashion fell back into her lap, and she shrugged her shoulders oncemore. "My nerves are somewhat upset by the approaching prospect ofconnubial felicity, I suppose. Really, though, _mon ami_, your conceitis appalling. "

Charteris gave vent to a chuckle, and raised the door-key to his lips. 

"When you are quite through your histrionic efforts, " he suggested, apologetically, "I will proceed with my amorous pipings. Really, Patricia, one might fancy you the heroine of a society drama, working upthe sympathies of the audience before taking to evil ways. Surely, youare not about to leave your dear, good, patient husband, Patricia?Heroines only do that on dark and stormy nights, and in an operatoilette; wearing her best gown seems always to affect a heroine in thatway. "

Mr. Charteris, at this point, dropped the key-ring, and drew nearer toher; his voice sank to a pleading cadence. 

"We are in Arcadia, Patricia; virtue and vice are contraband in thischarming country, and must be left at the frontier. Let us be adorablyfoolish and happy, my lady, and forget for a little the evil days thatapproach. Can you not fancy this to be Arcadia, Patricia?--it requiresthe merest trifle of imagination. Listen very carefully, and you willhear the hoofs of fauns rustling among the fallen leaves; they arewatching us, Patricia, from behind every tree-bole. They think you adryad--the queen of all the dryads, with the most glorious eyes and hairand the most tempting lips in all the forest. After a little, shaggy, big-thewed ventripotent Pan will grow jealous, and ravish you away fromme, as he stole Syrinx from her lover. You are very beautiful, Patricia;you are quite incredibly beautiful. I adore you, Patricia. Would youmind if I held your hand? It is a foolish thing to do, but it ispreëminently Arcadian. "

She heard him with downcast eyes; and her cheeks flushed a pink colorthat was agreeable to contemplation. 

"Do--do you really care for me, Jack?" she asked, softly; then cried, "No, no, you needn't answer--because, of course, you worship me madly, unboundedly, distractedly. They all do, but you do it more convincingly. You have been taking lessons at night-school, I dare say, at all sortsof murky institutions. And, Jack, really, cross my heart, I alwaysstopped the others when they talked this way. I tried to stop you, too. You know I did?"

She raised her lashes, a trifle uncertainly, and withdrew her hand fromhis, a trifle slowly. "It is wrong--all horribly wrong. I wonder atmyself, I can't understand how in the world I can be such a fool aboutyou. I must not be alone with you again. I must tell myhusband--everything, " she concluded, and manifestly not meaning a wordof what she said. 

"By all means, " assented Mr. Charteris, readily. "Let's tell my wife, too. It will make things so very interesting. "

"Rudolph would be terribly unhappy, " she reflected. 

"He would probably never smile again, " said Mr. Charteris. "And mywife--oh, it would upset Anne, quite frightfully! It is our altruistic, nay, our bounden duty to save them from such misery. "

"I--I don't know what to do!" she wailed. 

"The obvious course, " said he, after reflection, "is to shake off thebonds of matrimony, without further delay. So let's elope, Patricia. "

Patricia, who was really unhappy, took refuge in flippancy, and laughed. 

"I make it a rule, " said she, "never to elope on Fridays. Besides, nowI think of it, there is, Rudolph--Ah, Rudolph doesn't care a button'sworth about me, I know. The funny part is that he doesn't know it. Hehas simply assumed he is devoted to me, because all respectable peopleare devoted to their wives. I can assure you, _mon ami_, he would be averitable Othello, if there were any scandal, and would infinitelyprefer the bolster to the divorce-court. He would have us followed andtorn apart by wild policemen. "

Mr. Charteris meditated for a moment. 

"Rudolph, as you are perfectly aware, would simply deplore the terriblylax modern notions in regard to marriage and talk to newspaper reportersabout this much--" he measured it between thumb and forefinger--"concerning the beauty and chivalry of the South. He woulddo nothing more. I question if Rudolph Musgrave would ever in anycircumstances be capable of decisive action. "

"Ah, don't make fun of Rudolph!" she cried, quickly. "Rudolph can't helpit if he is conscientious and in consequence rather depressing to livewith. And for all that he so often plays the jackass-fool about women, like Grandma Pendomer, he is a man, Jack--a well-meaning, clean anddunderheaded man! You aren't; you are puny and frivolous, and you sneertoo much, and you are making a fool of me, and--and that's why I likeyou, I suppose. Oh, I wish I were good! I have always tried to be good, and there doesn't seem to be a hatpin in the world that makes a halosit comfortably. Now, Jack, you know I've tried to be good! I've neverlet you kiss me, and I've never let you hold my hand--until to-day--and--and----"

Patricia paused, and laughed. 

"But we were talking of Rudolph, " she said, with a touch of weariness. "Rudolph has all the virtues that a woman most admires until sheattempts to live in the same house with them. "

"I thank you, " said Mr. Charteris, "for the high opinion you entertainof my moral character. " He bestowed a reproachful sigh upon her, andcontinued: "At any rate, Rudolph Musgrave has been an unusually luckyman--the luckiest that I know of. "

Patricia had risen as if to go. She turned her big purple eyes on himfor a moment. 

"You--you think so?" she queried, hesitatingly. 

Afterward she spread out her hands in a helpless gesture, and laughedfor no apparent reason, and sat down again. 

"Why?" said Patricia. 

It took Charteris fully an hour to point out all the reasons. 

Patricia told him very frankly that she considered him to be talkingnonsense, but she seemed quite willing to listen. 

II

Sunset was approaching on the following afternoon when Rudolph Musgrave, fresh from Lichfield, --whither, as has been recorded, the bringing outof the July number of the _Lichfield Historical Associations QuarterlyMagazine_ had called him, --came out on the front porch at Matocton. Hehad arrived on the afternoon train, about an hour previously, in time tosuperintend little Roger's customary evening transactions with anastounding quantity of bread and milk; and, Roger abed, his father, having dressed at once for supper, found himself ready for that mealsomewhat in advance of the rest of the house-party. 

Indeed, only one of them was visible at this moment--a woman, who wasreading on a rustic bench some distance from the house, and whose backwas turned to him. The poise of her head, however, was not unfamiliar;also, it is not everyone who has hair that is like a nimbus ofthrice-polished gold. 

Colonel Musgrave threw back his shoulders, and drew a deep breath. Subsequently, with a fine air of unconcern, he inspected the view fromthe porch, which was, in fact, quite worthy of his attention. Interesting things have happened at Matocton--many events that have beenpreserved in the local mythology, not always to the credit of the oldMusgraves, and a few which have slipped into a modest niche in history. It was, perhaps, on these that Colonel Musgrave pondered so intently. 

Once the farthingaled and red-heeled gentry came in sluggish barges toMatocton, and the broad river on which the estate faces was thick withbellying sails; since the days of railroads, one approaches the mansionthrough the maple-grove in the rear, and enters ignominiously by theback-door. 

The house stands on a considerable elevation. The main portion, with itshipped roof and mullioned windows, is very old, but the two wings thatstretch to the east and west are comparatively modern, and date backlittle over a century. Time has mellowed them into harmony with themajor part of the house, and the kindly Virginia creeper has done itsutmost to conceal the fact that they are constructed of plebeian brickswhich were baked in this country; but Matocton was Matocton long beforethese wings were built, and a mere affair of yesterday, such as theRevolution, antedates them. They were not standing when Tarleton paidhis famous visit to Matocton. 

In the main hall, you may still see the stairs up which he rode onhorseback, and the slashes which his saber hacked upon the hand-rail. 

To the front of the mansion lies a close-shaven lawn, dotted withsundry oaks and maples; and thence, the formal gardens descend in sixbroad terraces. There is when summer reigns no lovelier spot than thisbright medley of squares and stars and triangles and circles--all Euclidin flowerage--which glow with multitudinous colors where the sunstrikes. You will find no new flowers at Matocton, though. Here areverbenas, poppies, lavender and marigolds, sweet-william, hollyhocks andcolumbine, phlox, and larkspur, and meadowsweet, and heart's-ease, justas they were when Thomasine Musgrave, Matocton's first châtelaine, waswont to tend them; and of all floral parvenus the gardens are innocent. Box-hedges mark the walkways. 

The seventh terrace was, until lately, uncultivated, the trees havingbeen cleared away to afford pasturage. It is now closely planted withbeeches, none of great size, and extends to a tangled thicket offieldpines and cedar and sassafras and blackberry bushes, which againmasks a drop of some ten feet to the river. 

The beach here is narrow; at high tide, it is rarely more than fifteenfeet in breadth, and is in many places completely submerged. Past this, the river lapses into the horizon line without a break, save on anextraordinarily clear day when Bigelow's Island may be seen as a dimsmudge upon the west. 

All these things, Rudolph Musgrave regarded with curiously deep interestfor one who had seen them so many times before. Then, with a shrug ofthe shoulders, he sauntered forward across the lawn. He had plannedseveral appropriate speeches, but, when it came to the point of givingthem utterance, he merely held out his hand in an awkward fashion, andsaid:

"Anne!"

She looked up from her reading. 

She did this with two red-brown eyes that had no apparent limits totheir depth. Her hand was soft; it seemed quite lost in the broad palmof a man's hand. 

"Dear Rudolph, " she said, as simply as though they had parted yesterday, "it's awfully good to see you again. "

Colonel Musgrave cleared his throat, and sat down beside her. 

A moment later Colonel Musgrave cleared his throat once more. 

Then Mrs. Charteris laughed. It was a pleasant laugh--a clear, ripplingcarol of clean mirth that sparkled in her eyes, and dimpled in herwholesome cheeks. 

"So! do you find it very, very awkward?"

"Awkward!" he cried. Their glances met in a flash of comprehension whichseemed to purge the air. Musgrave was not in the least self-consciousnow. He laughed, and lifted an admonitory forefinger. 

"Oh, good Cynara, " he said, "I am not what I was. And so I cannot do it, my dear--I really cannot possibly live up to the requirements of being aBuried Past. In a proper story-book or play, I would have to come backfrom New Zealand or the Transvaal, all covered with glory and epaulets, and have found you in the last throes of consumption: instead, you havefattened, Anne, which a Buried Past never does, and which shows a sadlack of appreciation for my feelings. And I--ah, my dear, I must confessthat my hair is growing gray, and that my life has not been entirelyempty without you, and that I ate and enjoyed two mutton-chops atluncheon, though I knew I should see you to-day. I am afraid we areneither of us up to heroics, Anne. So let's be sensible and comfy, mydear. "

"You brute!" she cried--not looking irreparably angry, yet not without areal touch of vexation; "don't you know that every woman cherishes thepicture of her former lovers sitting alone in the twilight, and growinglackadaisical over undying memories and faded letters? And you--youapproach me, after I don't dare to think how many years, as calmly as ifI were an old schoolmate of your mother's, and attempt to talk to meabout mutton-chops! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, RudolphMusgrave. You might, at least, have started a little at seeing me, andhave clasped your hand to your heart, and have said, 'You, you!' orsomething of the sort. I had every right to expect it. "

Mrs. Charteris pouted, and then trifled for a moment with the pages ofher book. 

"And--and I want to tell you that I am sorry for the way I spoke toyou--that night, " she swiftly said. Anne did not look at him. "Womendon't understand things that are perfectly simple to men, I suppose--Imean--that is, Jack said--"

"That you ought to apologize? It was very like him"--and ColonelMusgrave smiled to think how like John Charteris it was. "Jack is quitewonderful, " he observed. 

She looked up, saying impulsively, "Rudolph, you don't know how happy hemakes me. "

"Heartless woman, and would you tempt me to end the tragedy of my lifewith a Shakesperian fifth act of poisonings and assassination? I spurnyou, temptress. For, after all, it was an unpleasantly long while ago wewent mad for each other, " Musgrave announced, and he smiled. "I fancythat the boy and girl we knew of are as dead now as Nebuchadnezzar. 'Marian's married, and I sit here alive and merry at'--well, not atforty year, unluckily--"

"If you continue in that heartless strain, I shall go into the house, "Mrs. Charteris protested. 

Her indignation was exaggerated, but it was not altogether feigned;women cannot quite pardon a rejected suitor who marries and is content. They wish him all imaginable happiness and prosperity, of course; andthey are honestly interested in his welfare; but it seems unexpectedlycallous in him. And besides his wife is so perfectly commonplace. 

Mrs. Charteris, therefore, added, with emphasis: "I am reallydisgracefully happy. "

"Glad to hear it, " said Musgrave, placidly. "So am I. "

"Oh, Rudolph, Rudolph, you are hopeless!" she sighed. "And you used tomake such a nice lover!"

Mrs. Charteris looked out over the river, which was like melting gold, and for a moment was silent. 

"I was frightfully in love with you, Rudolph, " she said, as half inwonder. "After--after that horrible time when my parents forced us tobehave rationally, I wept--oh, I must have wept deluges! I firmlyintended to pine away to an early grave. And that second time I likedyou too, but then--there was Jack, you see. "

"H'm!" said Colonel Musgrave; "yes, I see. "

"I want you to continue to be friends with Jack, " she went on, and herface lighted up, and her voice grew tender. "He has the artistictemperament, and naturally that makes him sensitive, and a trifleirritable at times. It takes so little to upset him, you see, for hefeels so acutely what he calls the discords of life. I think most menare jealous of his talents; so they call him selfish and finicky andconceited. He isn't really, you know. Only, he can't help feeling alittle superior to the majority of men, and his artistic temperamentleads him to magnify the lesser mishaps of life--such as the steak beingoverdone, or missing a train. Oh, really, a thing like that worries himas much as the loss of a fortune, or a death in the family, would upsetanyone else. Jack says there are no such things as trifles in aharmonious and well-proportioned life, and I suppose that's true to menof genius. Of course, I am rather a Philistine, and I grate on him attimes--that is, I used to, but he says I have improved wonderfully. Andso we are ridiculously happy, Jack and I. "

Musgrave cast about vainly for an appropriate speech. Then hecompromised with his conscience, and said: "Your husband is a veryclever man. "

"Isn't he?" She had flushed for pleasure at hearing him praised. Oh, yes, Anne loved Jack Charteris! There was no questioning that; it waswritten in her face, was vibrant in her voice as she spoke of him. 

"Now, really, Rudolph, aren't his books wonderful? I don't appreciatethem, of course, for I'm not clever, but I know you do. I don't see whymen think him selfish. I know better. You have to live with Jack toreally appreciate him. And every day I discover some new side of hischaracter that makes him dearer to me. He's so clever--and so noble. Why, I remember--Well, before Jack made his first hit with _Astaroth'sLackey_, he lived with his sister. They hadn't any money, and, ofcourse, Jack couldn't be expected to take a clerkship or anything likethat, because business details make his head ache, poor boy. So, hissister taught school, and he lived with her. They were very happy--hissister simply adores him, and I am positively jealous of hersometimes--but, unfortunately, the bank in which she kept her moneyfailed one day. I remember it was just before he asked me to marry him, and told me, in his dear, laughing manner, that he hadn't a penny inthe world, and that we would have to live on bread and cheese andkisses. Of course, I had a plenty for us both, though, so we weren'treally in danger of being reduced to that. Well, I wanted to make hissister an allowance. But Jack pointed out, with considerable reason, that one person could live very comfortably on an income that hadformerly supported two. He said it wasn't right I should be burdenedwith the support of his family. Jack was so sensitive, you see, lestpeople might think he was making a mercenary marriage, and that hissister was profiting by it. Now, I call that one of the noblest things Iever heard of, for he is devotedly attached to his sister, and, naturally, it is a great grief to him to see her compelled to work for aliving. His last book was dedicated to her, and the dedication is one ofthe most tender and pathetic things I ever read. "

Musgrave was hardly conscious of what she was saying. She was notparticularly intelligent, this handsome, cheery woman, but her voice, and the richness and sweetness of it, and the vitality of her laugh, contented his soul. 

Anne was different; the knowledge came again to him quite simply thatAnne was different, and in the nature of things must always be a littledifferent from all other people--even Patricia Musgrave. He had nodesire to tell Anne Charteris of this, no idea that it would affect inany way the tenor of his life. He merely accepted the fact that she was, after all, Anne Willoughby, and that her dear presence seemed, somehow, to strengthen and cheer and comfort and content beyond the reach ofexpression. 

Yet Musgrave recognized her lack of cleverness, and liked and admiredher none the less. A vision of Patricia arose--a vision of a dainty, shallow, Dresden-china face with a surprising quantity of vivid hairabout it. Patricia was beautiful; and Patricia was clever, in herpinchbeck way. But Rudolph Musgrave doubted very much if her mockingeyes now ever softened into that brooding, sacred tenderness he had seenin Anne's eyes; and he likewise questioned if a hurried, happy thrillran through Patricia's voice when Patricia spoke of her husband. 

"You have unquestionably married an unusual man, " Musgrave said. "I--byJove, you know, I fancy my wife finds him almost as attractive as youdo. "

"Ah, Rudolph, I can't fancy anyone whom--whom you loved caring foranyone else. Don't I remember, sir, how irresistible you can be when youchoose?"

Anne laughed, and raised plump hands to heaven. 

"Really, though, women pursue him to a perfectly indecent extent. I haveto watch over him carefully; not that I distrust him, of course, for--dear Jack!--he is so devoted to me, and cares so little for otherwomen, that Joseph would seem in comparison only a depraved _roué_. Butthe _women_--why, Rudolph, there was an Italian countess at Rome--theimpudent minx!--who actually made me believe--However, Jackexplained all that, after I had made both a spectacle and a nuisance ofmyself, and he had behaved so nobly in the entire affair that for daysafterwards I was positively limp with repentance. Then in Paris thatflighty Mrs. Hardress--but he explained that, too. Some women areshameless, Rudolph, " Mrs. Charteris concluded, and sighed her pity forthem. 

"Utterly so, " Musgrave assented, gravely. 

He was feeling a thought uncomfortable. To him the place had grownportentous. The sun was low, and the long shadows of the trees wereblack on the dim lawn. People were assembling for supper, and passing toand fro under low-hanging branches; and the gaily-colored gowns of thewomen glimmered through a faint blue haze like that with which Boucherand Watteau and Fragonard loved to veil, and thereby to make wistful, somehow, the antics of those fine parroquet-like manikins who figure intheir _fêtes galantes. _

Inside the house, someone was playing an unpleasant sort of air on thepiano--an air which was quite needlessly creepy and haunting andinsistent. It all seemed like a grim bit out of a play. The tendernessand pride that shone in Anne's eyes as she boasted of her happinesstroubled Rudolph Musgrave. He had a perfectly unreasonable desire tocarry her away, by force, if necessary, and to protect her from cleverpeople, and to buy things for her. 

"So, I am an old, old married woman now, and--and I think in some waysI suit Jack better than a more brilliant person might. I am glad yourwife has taken a fancy to him. And I want you to profit by her example. Jack says she is one of the most attractive women he ever met. He askedme to-day why I didn't do my hair like hers. She must make you veryhappy, Rudolph?"

"My wife, " Colonel Musgrave said, "is in my partial opinion, a veryclever and very beautiful woman. "

"Yes; cleverness and beauty are sufficient to make any man happy, Isuppose, " Anne hazarded. "Jack says, though--_Are_ cleverness and beautythe main things in life, Rudolph?"

"Undoubtedly, " he protested. 

"Now, that, " she said, judicially, "shows the difference in men. Jacksays a man loves a woman, not for her beauty or any other quality shepossesses, but just because she is the woman he loves and can't helploving. "

"Ah! I dare say that is the usual reason. Yes, " said ColonelMusgrave, --"because she is the woman he loves and cannot help loving!"

Anne clapped her hands. "Ah, so I have penetrated your indifference atlast, sir!"

Impulsively, she laid her hand upon his arm, and spoke with earnestness. "Dear Rudolph, I am so glad you've found the woman you can really love. Jack says there is only one possible woman in the world for each man, and that only in a month of Sundays does he find her. "

"Yes. " said Musgrave. He had risen, and was looking down in friendlyfashion into her honest, lovely eyes. "Yes, there is only one possiblewoman. And--yes, I think I found her, Anne, some years ago. "

III

Thus it befell that all passed smoothly with Rudolph Musgrave and AnneCharteris, with whom he was not in the least in love any longer (hereflected), although in the nature of things she must always seem to hima little different from all other people. 

And it befell, too, that the following noon--this day being a Sunday, warm, clear, and somnolent--Anne Charteris and Rudolph Musgrave sat uponthe lawn before Matocton, and little Roger Musgrave was with them. Infact, these two had been high-handedly press-ganged by this small despotto serve against an enemy then harassing his majesty's equanimity and byhim, revilingly, designated as Nothing-to-do. 

And so Anne made for Roger--as she had learned to do for her deadson--in addition to a respectable navy of paper boats, a vast number of"boxes" and "Nantucket sinks" and "picture frames" and "footballs. " Shehad used up the greater part of a magazine before the imp grew tired ofher novel accomplishments. 

For as he invidiously observed, "I can make them for myself now, mostas good as you, only I always tear the bottom of the boat when you pullit out, and my sinks are kind of wobbly. And besides, I've made up astory just like your husband gets money for doing. And if I had aquarter I would buy that green and yellow snake in the toy-store windowand wiggle it at people and scare them into fits. "

"Sonnikins, " said Colonel Musgrave, "suppose you tell us the story, andthen we will see if it is really worth a quarter, and try to save youfrom this unblushing mendicancy. "

"Well, God bless Father and Mother and little cousins--Oh, no, that'swhat I say at night. " Roger's voice now altered, assuming shrillsingsong cadences. His pensive gravity would have appeared excessive ifmanifested by the Great Sphinx. "What I meant to say was that once upona time when the Battle of Gettysburg was going on and houses were beingrobbed and burned, and my dear grandfather was being shot through theheart, a certain house, where the richest man in town lived, was havingfeast and merriment, never dreaming of any harm, or thinking of theirlittle child Rachel, who was on the front porch watching the battle andscreaming with joy at every man that fell dead. One dark-faced man wasstruck with a bullet and was hurt. He saw the child laughing at him andhis heart was full of revenge. So that night, when all had gone to bed, the old dark-faced man went softly in the house and got the little girland set the house on fire. And he carried her out in the mountains, andis that worth a quarter?"

"Good heavens, no!" said Anne. "How dare you leave us in such harrowingsuspense?"

"Well, a whole lot more happened, because all the while Rachel wasasleep. When she woke up, she did not know where under the sun she was. So she walked along for about an hour and came to a little village, andafter a few minutes she came to a large rock, and guess who she met? Shemet her father, and when he saw her he hugged her so hard that when hegot through she did not have any breath left in her. And they walkedalong, and after a while they came to the wood, and it was now about sixo'clock, and it was very dark, and just then nine robbers jumped outfrom behind the trees, and they took a pistol and shot Rachel's father, and the child fainted. Her papa was dead, so she dug a hole and buriedhim, and went right back home. And of course that was all, and if I hadthat snake, I wouldn't try to scare you with it, father, anyhow. "

So Colonel Musgrave gave his son a well-earned coin, as the colonelconsidered, and it having been decreed, "Now, father, _you_ tell astory, " obediently read aloud from a fat red-covered book. The tale wasof the colonel's selecting, and it dealt with a shepherdess and achimney-sweep. 

"And so, " the colonel perorated, "the little china people remainedtogether, and were thankful for the rivet in grandfather's neck, andcontinued to love each other until they were broken to pieces--Andthe tale is a parable, my son. You will find that out some day. I wishyou didn't have to. "

"But is that all, father?"

"You will find it rather more than enough, sonnikins, when you begin tointerpret. Yes, that is all. Only you are to remember always that theyclimbed to the very top of the chimney, where they could see the stars, before they decided to go back and live upon the parlor table under thebrand-new looking-glass. For the stars are disconcertingly unconcernedwhen you have climbed to them, and so altogether unimpressed by yourachievement that it is the nature of all china people to slink homeagain, precisely as your Rachel did--and as Mrs. Charteris will assureyou. "

"I?" said Anne. "Now, honestly, Rudolph, I was thinking you ought not tolet him sit upon the grass, because he really has a cold. And if I wereyou, I would give him a good dose of castor-oil to-night. Some peoplegive it in lemon-juice, I know, but I found with my boy that peppermintis rather less disagreeable. And you could easily send somebody over tothe store at the station----"

Anne broke off short. "Was I being inadequate again? I am sorry, butwith children you never know what a cold may lead to, and I really donot believe it good for him to sit in this damp grass. "

"Sonnikins, " said Rudolph Musgrave, "you had better climb up into mylap, before you and I are Podsnapped from the universe by the onlyembodiment of common-sense just now within our reach. "

He patted the boy's head and latterly resumed: "I am afraid of you, Anne. Whenever I am imagining vain things or stitching romanticpossibilities, like embroideries, about the fabric of my past, I alwaysfind the real you in my path, as undeniable as a gas-bill. I don'tbelieve you ever dare to think, because there is no telling what itmight lead to. You are simply unassailably armored by the courage ofother people's convictions. "

Her candid eyes met his over the boy's bright head. "And what in theworld are you talking about?"

"I am lamenting. I am rending the air and beating my breast on accountof your obstinate preference for being always in the right. I do wishyou would endeavor to impersonate a human being a trifle moreconvincingly----"

But the great gong, booming out for luncheon, interrupted him at thispoint, and Colonel Musgrave was never permitted to finish his complaintagainst Anne's unimaginativeness. 

IV

On that same Sunday morning, while Anne Charteris and Rudolph Musgravecontended with little Roger's boredom on the lawn before Matocton, Patricia and Charteris met by accident on the seventh terrace of thegardens. Patricia had mentioned casually at the breakfast-table that sheintended to spend the forenoon on this terrace unsabbatically makingnotes for a paper on "The Symbolism of Dante, " which she was to readbefore the Lichfield Woman's Club in October; but Mr. Charteris had notoverheard her. 

He was seated on the front porch, working out a somewhat difficult pointin his new book, when it had first occurred to him that this particularterrace would be an inspiring and appropriate place in which to thinkthe matter over, undisturbed, he said. And it was impossible he shouldhave known that anyone was there, as the seventh terrace happens to bethe only one that, being planted with beech-trees, is completelyscreened from observation. From the house, you cannot see anything thathappens there. 

It was a curious accident, though. It really seemed, now that Patriciahad put an ending to their meetings in the maple-grove, Fate wasconspiring to bring them together. 

However, as Mr. Charteris pointed out, there could be no possibleobjection to this conspiracy, since they had decided that theirfriendship was to be of a purely platonic nature. It was a severe trialto him, he confessed, to be forced to put aside certain dreams he hadhad of the future--mad dreams, perhaps, but such as had seemed very dearand very plausible to his impractical artistic temperament. 

Still, it heartened him to hope that their friendship--since it was tobe no more--might prove a survival, or rather a veritable renaissance, of the beautiful old Greek spirit in such matters. And, though the blindchance that mismanaged the world had chained them to uncongenial, thoughcertainly well-meaning, persons, this was no logical reason why he andPatricia should be deprived of the pleasures of intellectualintercourse. Their souls were too closely akin. 

For Mr. Charteris admitted that his soul was Grecian to the core, andout of place and puzzled and very lonely in a sordid, bustling world;and he assured Patricia--she did not object if he called herPatricia?--that her own soul possessed all the beauty and purity andcalm of an Aphrodite sculptured by Phidias. It was such a soul as Horacemight have loved, as Theocritus might have hymned in glad Greek song. Patricia flushed, and dissented somewhat. 

"Frankly, _mon ami_, " she said, "you are far too attractive for yourcompany to be quite safe. You are such an adept in the nameless littleattentions that women love--so profuse with lesser sugar-plums of speechand action--that after two weeks one's husband is really necessary as anantidote. Sugar-plums are good, but, like all palatable things, unwholesome. So I shall prescribe Rudolph's company for myself, to wardoff an attack of moral indigestion. I am very glad he has comeback--really glad, " she added, conscientiously. "Poor old Rudolph! whatbetween his interminable antiquities and those demented sections of thealphabet--What are those things, _mon ami_, that are always going up anddown in Wall Street?"

"Elevators?" Mr. Charteris suggested. 

"Oh, you jay-bird! I mean those N. P. 's and N. Y. C. 's and those otherletters that are always having flurries and panics and passed dividends. They keep him incredibly busy. "

And she sighed, tolerantly. Patricia had come within the last two weeksto believe that she was neglected, if not positively ill-treated, by herhusband; and she had no earthly objection to Mr. Charteris thinkinglikewise. Her face expressed patient resignation now, as they walkedunder the close-matted foliage of the beech-trees, which made apleasant, sun-flecked gloom about them. 

Patricia removed her hat--the morning really was rather close--andpaused where a sunbeam fell upon her copper-colored hair, and glorifiedher wistful countenance. She sighed once more, and added a finishingtouch to the portrait of a _femme incomprise_. 

"Pray, don't think, _mon ami_, " she said very earnestly, "that I amblaming Rudolph! I suppose no wife can ever hope to have any part in herhusband's inner life. "

"Not in her own husband's, of course, " said Charteris, cryptically. 

"No, for while a woman gives her heart all at once, men crumble theirsaway, as one feeds bread to birds--a crumb to this woman, a crumb tothat--and such a little crumb, sometimes! And his wife gets what is leftover. "

"Pray, where did you read that?" said Charteris. 

"I didn't read it anywhere. It was simply a thought that came to me, "Patricia lied, gently. "But don't let's try to be clever. Cleverness isalways a tax, but before luncheon it is an extortion. Personally, itmakes me feel as if I had attended a welsh-rabbit supper the nightbefore. Your wife must be very patient. "

"My wife, " cried Charteris, in turn resolved to screen an unappreciativemate, "is the most dear and most kind-hearted among the Philistines. Andyet, at times, I grant you--"

"Oh, but, of course!" Patricia said impatiently. "I don't for a momentquestion that your wife is an angel. "

"And why?" His eyebrows lifted, and he smiled. 

"Why, wasn't it an angel, " Patricia queried, all impishness now, "whokept the first man and woman out of paradise?"

"If--if I thought you meant that----!" he cried; and then he shruggedhis shoulders. "My wife's virtues merit a better husband than Fate hasaccorded her. Anne is the best woman I have ever known. "

Patricia was not unnaturally irritated. After all, one does not take thetrouble to meet a man accidentally in a plantation of young beech-treesin order to hear him discourse of his wife's good qualities; andbesides, Mr. Charteris was speaking in a disagreeably solemn manner, rather as if he fancied himself in a cathedral. 

Therefore Patricia cast down her eyes again, and said:

"Men of genius are so rarely understood by their wives. "

"We will waive the question of genius. " Mr. Charteris laughed heartily, but he had flushed with pleasure. 

"I suppose, " he continued, pacing up and down with cat-like fervor, "that matrimony is always more or less of a compromise--like twoconvicts chained together trying to catch each other's gait. After awhile, they succeed to a certain extent; the chain is still heavy, ofcourse, but it does not gall them as poignantly as it used to do. And Ifear the artistic temperament is not suited to marriage; its capacityfor suffering is too great. "

Mr. Charteris caught his breath in shuddering fashion, and he pausedbefore Patricia. After a moment he grasped her by both wrists. 

"We are chained fast enough, my lady, " he cried, bitterly, "and oursentence is for life! There are green fields yonder, but our allottedplace is here in the prison-yard. There is laughter yonder in thefields, and the scent of wild flowers floats in to us at times when weare weary, and the whispering trees sway their branches over theprison-wall, and their fruit is good to look on, and they hang withinreach--ah, we might reach them very easily! But this is forbidden fruit, my lady; and it is not included in our wholesome prison-fare. And sodon't think of it! We have been happy, you and I, for a little. Wemight--don't think of it! Don't dare think of it! Go back and help yourhusband drag his chain; it galls him as sorely as it does you. It gallsus all. It is the heaviest chain was ever forged; but we do not dareshake it off!"

"I--oh, Jack, Jack, don't you dare to talk to me like that! We must bebrave. We must be sensible. " Patricia, regardless of her skirts, satdown upon the ground, and produced a pocket-handkerchief. "I--oh, whatdo you mean by making me so unhappy?" she demanded, indignantly. 

"Ah, Patricia, " he murmured, as he knelt beside her, "how can you hopeto have a man ever talk to you in a sane fashion? You shouldn't havesuch eyes, Patricia! They are purple and fathomless like the ocean, andwhen a man looks into them too long his sanity grows weak, and sinksand drowns in their cool depths, and the man must babble out his foolishheart to you. Oh, but indeed, you shouldn't have such eyes, Patricia!They are dangerous, and to ask anybody to believe in their splendor isan insult to his intelligence, and besides, they are much too bright towear in the morning. They are bad form, Patricia. "

"We must be sensible, " she babbled. "Your wife is here; my husband ishere. And we--we aren't children or madmen, Jack dear. So we really mustbe sensible, I suppose. Oh, Jack, " she cried, upon a sudden; "this isn'thonorable!"

"Why, no! Poor little Anne!"

Mr. Charteris's eyes grew tender for a moment, because his wife, in afashion, was dear to him. Then he laughed, very musically. 

"And how can a man remember honor, Patricia, when the choice liesbetween honor and you? You shouldn't have such hair, Patricia! It is anet spun out of the raw stuff of fire and blood and of portentoussunsets; and its tendrils have curled around what little honor I everboasted, and they hold it fast, Patricia. It is dishonorable to loveyou, but I cannot think of that when I am with you and hear you speak. And when I am not with you, just to remember that dear voice is enoughto set my pulses beating faster. Oh, Patricia, you shouldn't have such avoice!"

Charteris broke off in speech. "'Scuse me for interruptin', " the oldmulattress Virginia was saying, "but Mis' Pilkins sen' me say lunchraydy, Miss Patrisy. "

Virginia seemed to notice nothing out-of-the-way. Having delivered hermessage, she went away quietly, her pleasant yellow face asimperturbable as an idol's. But Patricia shivered. 

"She frightens me, _mon ami_. Yes, that old woman always gives megooseflesh, and I don't know why--because she is as deaf as a post--andI simply can't get rid of her. She is a sort of symbol--she, and howmany others, I wonder!. . . Oh, well, let's hurry. "

So Mr. Charteris was never permitted to finish his complaint againstPatricia's voice. 

It was absolutely imperative they should be on time for luncheon; for, as Patricia pointed out, the majority of people are censorious and loseno opportunity for saying nasty things. They are even capable ofsneering at a purely platonic friendship which is attempting to preservethe beautiful old Greek spirit. 

 * * * * *

She was chattering either of her plans for the autumn, or of Dante andthe discovery of his missing cantos, or else of how abominably BobTownsend had treated Rosalind Jemmett, and they had almost reached theupper terrace--little Roger, indeed, his red head blazing in thesunlight, was already sidling by shy instalments toward them--whenPatricia moaned inconsequently and for no ascertainable cause fainted. 

It was the first time for four years she had been guilty of such anindiscretion, she was shortly afterward explaining to various members ofthe Musgraves' house-party. It was the heat, no doubt. But sinceeverybody insisted upon it, she would very willingly toast them inanother bumper of aromatic spirits of ammonia. 

"Just look at that, Rudolph! you've spilt it all over your coat sleeve. I do wish you would try to be a little less clumsy. Oh, well, I'm spruceas a new penny now. So let's all go to luncheon. "

V

Patricia had not been in perfect health for a long while. It seemed toher, in retrospect, that ever since the agonies of little Roger's birthshe had been the victim of what she described as "a sort ofall-overishness. " Then, too, as has been previously recorded, Patriciahad been operated upon by surgeons, and more than once. . . . 

"Good Lord!" as she herself declared, "it has reached the point thatwhen I see a turkey coming to the dinner-table to be carved I can't helptreating it as an ingénue. "

Yet for the last four years she had never fainted, until this. Itdisquieted her. Then, too, awoke faint pricking memories of certainsymptoms . . . Which she had not talked about . . . 

Now they alarmed her; and in consequence she took the next morning'strain to Lichfield. 

VI

Mrs. Ashmeade, who has been previously quoted, now comes into the story. She is only an episode. Still, her intervention led to peculiarresults--results, curiously enough, in which she was not in the leastconcerned. She simply comes into the story for a moment, and then goesout of it; but her part is an important one. 

She is like the watchman who announces the coming of Agamemnon;Clytemnestra sharpens her ax at the news, and the fatal bath is preparedfor the _anax andron_. The tragedy moves on; the house of Atreus falls, and the wrath of implacable gods bellows across the heavens; meanwhile, the watchman has gone home to have tea with his family, and we hear nomore of him. There are any number of morals to this. 

Mrs. Ashmeade comes into the story on the day Patricia went toLichfield, and some weeks after John Charteris's arrival at Matocton. Since then, affairs had progressed in a not unnatural sequence. Mr. Charteris, as we have seen, attributed it to Fate; and, assuredly, theremust be a special providence of some kind that presides over countryhouses--a freakish and whimsical providence, which hugely rejoices inconfounding one's sense of time and direction. 

Through its agency, people unaccountably lose their way in the simplestwalks, and turn up late and embarrassed for luncheon. At the end of theevening, it brings any number of couples blinking out of the dark, withno idea the clock was striking more than half-past nine. 

And it delights in sending one into the garden--in search of roses ordahlias or upas-trees or something of the sort, of course--and therebycausing one to encounter the most unlikely people, and really, quite thelast person one would have thought of meeting, as all frequenters ofhouse-party junketings will assure you. And thus is this specialhouse-party providence responsible for a great number of marriages, and, it may be, for a large percentage of the divorce cases; for, if youdesire very heartily to see anything of another member of a house-party, this lax-minded and easy-going providence will somehow always bring theevent about in a specious manner, and without any apparent thought ofthe consequences. 

And the Musgraves' house-party was no exception. 

Mrs. Ashmeade, for reasons of her own, took daily note of this. Theothers were largely engrossed by their own affairs; they did notseriously concern themselves about the doings of their fellow-guests. And, besides, if John Charteris manifestly sought the company ofPatricia Musgrave, her husband did not appear to be exorbitantlydissatisfied or angry or even lonely; and, be this as it might, the factremained that Celia Reindan was at this time more than a littleinterested in Teddy Anstruther; and Felix Kennaston was undeniably veryattentive to Kathleen Saumarez; and Tom Gelwix was quite certainlydevoting the major part of his existence to sitting upon the beach withRosalind Jemmett. 

For, in Lichfield at all events, everyone's house has at least a pane orso of glass in it; and, if indiscriminate stone-throwing were ever tobecome the fashion, there is really no telling what damage might ensue. And so had Mrs. Ashmeade been a younger woman--had time and an adoringhusband not rendered her as immune to an insanity _à deux_ as any of usmay hope to be upon this side of saintship or senility--why, Mrs. Ashmeade would most probably have remained passive, and Mrs. Ashmeadewould never have come into this story at all. 

As it was, she approached Rudolph Musgrave with a fixed purpose thismorning as he smoked an after-breakfast cigarette on the front porch ofMatocton. And, "Rudolph, " said Mrs. Ashmeade, "are you blind?"

"You mean--?" he asked, and he broke off, for he had really noconception of what she meant. 

And Mrs. Ashmeade said, "I mean Patricia and Charteris. Did you think Iwas by any chance referring to the man in the moon and the Queen ofSheba?"

If ever amazement showed in a man's eyes, it shone now in RudolphMusgrave's. After a little, the pupils widened in a sort of terror. Sothis was what Clarice Pendomer had been hinting at. 

"Nonsense!" he cried. "Why--why, it is utter, preposterous, Bedlamitenonsense!" He caught his breath in wonder at the notion of such a jest, remembering a little packet of letters hidden in his desk. "It--oh, no, Fate hasn't quite so fine a sense of humor as that. The thing isincredible!" Musgrave laughed, and flushed. "I mean----"

"I don't think you need tell me what you mean, " said Mrs. Ashmeade. Shesat down in a large rocking-chair, and fanned herself, for the day waswarm. "Of course, it is officious and presumptuous and disagreeable ofme to meddle. I don't mind your thinking that. But Rudolph, don't makethe mistake of thinking that Fate ever misses a chance of humiliating usby showing how poor are our imaginations. The gipsy never does. She is aposturing mountebank, who thrives by astounding humanity. "

Mrs. Ashmeade paused, and her eyes were full of memories, and very wise. 

"I am only a looker-on at the tragic farce that is being played here, "she continued, after a little, "but lookers-on, you know, see most ofthe game. They are not playing fairly with you, Rudolph. When people setabout an infringement of the Decalogue they owe it to their self-respectto treat with Heaven as a formidable antagonist. To mark the cards isnot enough. They are not playing fairly, my dear, and you ought to knowit. "

He walked up and down the porch once or twice, with his hands behindhim; then he stopped before Mrs. Ashmeade, and smiled down at her. Without, many locusts shrilled monotonously. 

"No, I do not think you are officious or meddling or anything of thesort, I think you are one of the best and kindest-hearted women in theworld. But--bless your motherly soul, Polly! the thing is utterlypreposterous. Of course, Patricia is young, and likes attention, and itpleases her to have men admire her. That, Polly, is perfectly natural. Why, you wouldn't expect her to sit around under the trees, and readpoetry with her own husband, would you? We have been married far toolong for that, Patricia and I. She thinks me rather prosy and stupid attimes, poor girl, because--well, because, in point of fact, I am. But, at the bottom of her heart--Oh, it's preposterous! We are the bestfriends in the world, I tell you! It is simply that she and Jack have agreat deal in common--"

"You don't understand John Charteris. I do, " said Mrs. Ashmeade, placidly. "Charteris is simply a baby with a vocabulary. His moralstandpoint is entirely that of infancy. It would be ludicrous todescribe him as selfish, because he is selfishness incarnate. Isometimes believe it is the only characteristic the man possesses. Hereaches out his hand and takes whatever he wants, just as a baby would, quite simply, and as a matter of course. He wants your wife now, and heis reaching out his hand to take her. He probably isn't conscious ofdoing anything especially wrong; he is always so plausible in whateverhe does that he ends by deceiving himself, I suppose. For he is alwaysplausible. It is worse than useless to argue any matter with him, because he invariably ends by making you feel as if you had been caughtstealing a hat. The only argument that would get the better of JohnCharteris is knocking him down, just as spanking is the only argumentwhich ever gets the better of a baby. Yes, he is very like ababy--thoroughly selfish and thoroughly dependent on other people; only, he is a clever baby who exaggerates his own helplessness in order toappeal to women. He has a taste for women. And women naturally like him, for he impresses them as an irresponsible child astray in an artful anddesigning world. They want to protect him. Even I do, at times. It isreally maternal, you know; we would infinitely prefer for him to be softand little, so that we could pick him up, and cuddle him. But as it is, he is dangerous. He believes whatever he tells himself, you see. "

Her voice died away, and Mrs. Ashmeade fanned herself in the fashionaddicted by perturbed women who, nevertheless, mean to have their sayout--slowly and impersonally, and quite as if she was fanning some oneelse through motives of charity. 

"I don't question, " Musgrave said, at length, "that Jack is the highlyestimable character you describe. But--oh, it is all nonsense, Polly!"he cried, with petulance, and with a tinge--if but the merest nuance--of conviction lacking in his voice. 

The fan continued its majestic sweep from the shade into the sunlight, and back again into the shadow. Without, many locusts shrilledmonotonously. 

"Rudolph, I know what you meant by saying that Fate hadn't such a finesense of humor. "

"My dear madam, it was simply thrown out, in the heat ofconversation--as an axiom----"

For a moment the fan paused; then went on as before. It was nevercharged against Pauline Ashmeade, whatever her shortcomings, that shewas given to unnecessary verbiage. 

Colonel Musgrave was striding up and down, divided between a dispositionto swear at the universe at large and a desire to laugh at it. Somehow, it did not occur to him to doubt what she had told him. He comprehendednow that, chafing under his indebtedness in the affair of Mrs. Pendomer, Charteris would most naturally retaliate by making love to hisbenefactor's wife, because the colonel also knew John Charteris. And forthe rest, it was useless to struggle against a Fate that planned suchpreposterous and elaborate jokes; one might more rationally depend onFate to work out some both ludicrous and horrible solution, hereflected, remembering a little packet of letters hidden in his desk. 

Nevertheless, he paused after a while, and laughed, with a tolerableaffectation of mirth. 

"I say--I--and what in heaven's name, Polly, prompted you to bring methis choice specimen of a mare's-nest?"

"Because I am fond of you, I suppose. Isn't one always privileged to bedisagreeable to one's friends? We have been friends a long while, youknow. "

Mrs. Ashmeade was looking out over the river now, but she seemed to seea great way, a very great way, beyond its glaring waters, and to berather uncertain as to whether what she beheld there was of a humorousor pathetic nature. 

"Rudolph, do you remember that evening--the first summer that I knewyou--at Fortress Monroe, when we sat upon the pier so frightfully late, and the moon rose out of the bay, and made a great, solid-looking, silver path that led straight over the rim of the world, and you talkedto me about--about what, now?"

"Oh, yes, yes!--I remember perfectly! One of the most beautiful eveningsI ever saw. I remember it quite distinctly. I talked--I--and what, inthe Lord's name, did I talk about, Polly?"

"Ah, men forget! A woman never forgets when she is really friends with aman. I know now you were telling me about Anne Charteris, for you havebeen in love with her all your life, Rudolph, in your own particularhalf-hearted and dawdling fashion. Perhaps that is why you have had somany affairs. You plainly found the run of women so unimportant that itput every woman on her pride to prove she was different. Yes, Iremember. But that night I thought you were trying to make love to me, and I was disappointed in you, and--yes, rather pleased. Women are allvain and perfectly inconsistent. But then, girl-children always takeafter their fathers. "

Mrs. Ashmeade rose from her chair. Her fan shut with a snap. 

"You were a dear boy, Rudolph, when I first knew you--and what I likedwas that you never made love to me. Of all the boys I have known andhelped to form, you were the only sensible one--the only one who neverpresumed. That was rather clever of you, Rudolph. It would have beenridiculous, for even arithmetically I am older than you. 

"Wouldn't it have been ridiculous, Rudolph?" she demanded, suddenly. 

"Not in the least, " Musgrave protested, in courteous wise. "You--why, Polly, you were a wonderfully handsome woman. Any boy----"

"Oh, yes!--I was. I'm not now, am I, Rudolph?" Mrs. Ashmeade threw backher head and laughed naturally. "Ah, dear boy that was, it is unfair, isn't it, for an old woman to seize upon you in this fashion, and insiston your making love to her? But I will let you off. You don't have to doit. "

She caught her skirts in her left hand, preparatory to going, and herright hand rested lightly on his arm. She spoke in a rather peculiarvoice. 

"Yes, " she said, "the boy was a very, very dear boy, and I want the manto be equally brave and--sensible. "

Musgrave stared after her. "I wonder--I wonder--? Oh, no, thatcouldn't be, " he said, and wearily. 

"There must be some preposterous situations that don't come about. "

 * * * * *

And afterward he strolled across the lawn, where the locusts wereshrilling, as if in a stubborn prediction of something which wasinevitable, and he meditated upon a great number of things. There were ahost of fleecy little clouds in the sky. He looked up at them, interrogatively. 

And then he smiled and shook his head. 

"Yet I don't know, " said he; "for I am coming to the conclusion that theworld is run on an extremely humorous basis. "

And oddly enough, it was at the same moment that Patricia--inLichfield--reached the same conclusion. 

PART SEVEN - YOKED

 "We are as time moulds us, lacking wherewithal To shape out nobler fortunes or contend Against all-patient Fates, who may not mend The allotted pattern of things temporal Or alter it a jot or e'er let fall A single stitch thereof, until at last The web and its drear weavers be overcast And predetermined darkness swallow all. 

 "They have ordained for us a time to sing, A time to love, a time wherein to tire Of all spent songs and kisses; caroling Such elegies as buried dreams require, Love now departs, and leaves us shivering Beside the embers of a burned-out fire. "

PAUL VANDERHOFFEN. _Egeria Answers. _

I

The doctor's waiting-room smelt strongly of antiseptics. That wasPatricia's predominating thought as she wandered aimlessly about theapartment. She fingered its dusty furniture. She remembered afterwardthe steel-engraving of Jefferson Davis and his Cabinet, with General Leeexplaining some evidently important matter to those attentive andunhumanly stiff politicians; and she remembered, too, how in depictingone statesman, who unavoidably sat with his back to the spectator, theartist had exceeded anatomical possibilities in order to obtain arecognizable full-faced portrait. Yet at the time this picture had notroused her conscious attention. 

She went presently to the long table austerely decorated with two rowsof magazines, each partly covered by its neighbor, just as shingles areplaced. The arrangement irritated her unreasonably. She wanted todisarrange these dog-eared pamphlets, to throw them on the floor, todestroy them. She wondered how many other miserable people had tried toread these hateful books while they waited in this abominable room. 

She started when the door of the consultation-room opened. The doctorwas patting the silk glove of a harassed-looking woman in black as heescorted her to the outer door, and was assuring her that everything wasgoing very well indeed, and that she was not to worry, and so on. 

And presently he spoke with Patricia, for a long while, quite levelly, of matters which it is not suitable to record. Discreet man that he was, Wendell Pemberton could not entirely conceal his wonder that Patriciashould have remained so long in ignorance of her condition. He spokeconcerning malformation and functional weaknesses and, althoughobscurely because of the bugbear of professional courtesy, voiced hisopinion that Patricia had not received the most adroit medical treatmentat the time of little Roger's birth. 

She was dividedly conscious of a desire to laugh and of the notion thatshe must remain outwardly serious, because though this horriblePemberton man was talking abject nonsense, she would presently be havinghim as a dinner-guest. 

But what if he were not talking nonsense? The possibility, considered, roused a sensation of falling through infinity. 

"Yes, yes, " Patricia civilly assented. "These young doctors have takenthis out of me, and that out of me, as you might take the works out of awatch. And it has done no good; and they were mistaken in their firstdiagnoses, because what they took for true osteomalacia was only----Would you mind telling me again? Oh, yes; I had only apseudo-osteomalacic rhachitic pelvis, to begin with. To think ofanybody's being mistaken about a simple little trouble like that! And Isuppose I was just born with it, like my mother and all those otherluckless women with Musgrave blood in them?"

"Fehling and Schliephake at least consider this variety of pelvicanomaly to be congenital in the majority of cases. But, without goinginto the question of heredity at all, I think it only, fair to tell you, Mrs. Musgrave----" And Pemberton went on talking. 

Neither of the two showed any emotion. 

The doctor went on talking. Patricia did not listen. The man wastalking, she comprehended, but to her his words seemed blurred andindistinguishable. "Like a talking-machine when it isn't wound upenough, " she decided. 

Subconsciously Patricia was thinking, "You have two big beads ofperspiration on your nose, and if I were to allude to the fact you wouldvery probably die of embarrassment. "

Aloud Patricia said: "You mean, then, that, to cap it all, a functionaldisorder of my heart has become organic, so that I would inevitably dieunder another operation? or even at a sudden shock? And that particularoperation is now the solitary chance of saving my life! The dilemma isneat, isn't it? How God must laugh at the jokes He contrives, " saidPatricia. "I wish that I could laugh. And I will. I don't care whetheryou think me a reprobate or not, Dr. Pemberton, I want a good stiffdrink of whiskey--the Musgrave size. "

He gave it to her. 

II

Patricia had as yet an hour to spend in Lichfield before her train left. She passed it in the garden of her own home, where she had first seenRudolph Musgrave and he had fought with Pevensey. All that seemed verylong ago. 

The dahlia leaves, she noticed, were edged with yellow. She must look toit that the place was more frequently watered; and that the bulbs weredug up in September. Next year she meant to set the dahlias thinly, likea hedge. . . . 

"Oh, yes, I meant to. Only I won't be alive next year, " she recollected. 

She went about the garden to see if Ned had weeded out the wild-peavines--a pest which had invaded the trim place lately. Only a few of theintruders remained, burnt-out and withered as they are annually by themid-summer sun. There would be no more fight until next April. 

"Oh, and I have prayed to You, I have always tried to do what Youwanted, and I never asked You to let me be born locked up in agood-for-nothing Musgrave body! And You won't even let me see awild-pea vine again! That isn't much to ask, I think. But You won't letme do it. You really do have rather funny notions about Your jokes. "

She began to laugh. 

"Oh, very well!" Patricia said aloud. "It is none of my affair that Youelect to run Your world on an extremely humorous basis. "

She was at Matocton in good time for luncheon. 

III

Colonel Musgrave had a brief interview with his wife after luncheon. Hebegan with quiet remonstrance, and ended with an unheard extenuation ofhis presumption. Patricia's speech on this occasion was of an unfetteredand heady nature. 

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, " she said, when she had finallypaused for breath, and had wiped away her tears, and had powdered hernose, viciously, "to bully a weak and defenseless woman in this way. Idare say everybody in the house has heard us--brawling and squabblingjust like a hod-carrier and his wife. What's that? You haven't said aword for fifteen minutes? Oh, la, la, la! well, I don't care. Anyhow, Ihave, and I am perfectly sure they heard me, and I am sure I don't carein the least, and it's all your fault, anyway. Oh, but you have anabominable nature, Rudolph--a mean and cruel and suspicious nature. Yourbald-headed little Charteris is nothing whatever to me; and I would havebeen quite willing to give him up if you had spoken to me in a decentmanner about it. You only _said_----? I don't care what you said; andbesides, if you did speak to me in a decent manner, it simply shows thatyour thoughts were so horrid and vulgar that even you weren't soabandoned as to dare to put them into words. Very well, then, I won't beseen so much with him in future. I realize you are quite capable ofbeating me if I don't give way to your absurd prejudices. Yes, you are, Rudolph; you're just the sort of man to take pleasure in beating awoman. After the exhibition of temper you've given this afternoon, Ibelieve you are capable of anything. Hand me that parasol! Don't keep ontalking to me; for I don't wish to hear anything you have to say. You'resimply driving me to my grave with your continual nagging and abuse andfault-finding. I'm sure I wish I were dead as much as you do. Is my haton straight? How do you expect me to see into that mirror if you standdirectly in front of it? There! not content with robbing me of everypleasure in life, I verily believe you were going to let me godownstairs with my hat cocked over one ear. And don't you snort and lookat me like that. I'm not going to meet Mr. Charteris. I'm going drivingwith Felix Kennaston; he asked me at luncheon. I suppose you'll objectto him next; you object to all my friends. Very well! Now you've made meutterly miserable for the entire afternoon, and I'm sure I hope you aresatisfied. "

There was a rustle of skirts, and the door slammed. 

IV

Colonel Musgrave went to his own room, where he spent an interval inmeditation. He opened his desk and took out a small packet of papers, some of which he read listlessly. How curiously life re-echoed itself!he reflected, for here, again, were castby love-letters potent to breedmischief; and his talk with Polly Ashmeade had been peculiarlyreminiscent of his more ancient talk with Clarice Pendomer. Everythingthat happened seemed to have happened before. 

But presently he shook his head, sighing. Chance had put into his handsa weapon, and a formidable weapon, it seemed to him, but the colonel didnot care to use it. He preferred to strike with some less grimy cudgel. 

Then he rang for one of the servants, questioned him, and was informedthat Mr. Charteris had gone down to the beach just after luncheon. Amoment later, Colonel Musgrave was walking through the gardens in thisdirection. 

As he came to the thicket which screens the beach, he calledCharteris's name loudly, in order to ascertain his whereabouts. And thenovelist's voice answered--yet not at once, but after a brief silence. It chanced that, at this moment, Musgrave had come to a thin place inthe thicket, and could plainly see Mr. Charteris; he was concealing somewhite object in the hollow of a log that lay by the river. A littlelater, Musgrave came out upon the beach, and found Charteris seated uponthe same log, an open book upon his knees, and looking back over hisshoulder wonderingly. 

"Oh, " said John Charteris, "so it was you, Rudolph? I could not imaginewho it was that called. "

"Yes--I wanted a word with you, Jack. "

Now, there are five little red-and-white bath-houses upon the beach atMatocton; the nearest of them was some thirty feet from Mr. Charteris. It might have been either imagination or the prevalent breeze, butMusgrave certainly thought he heard a door closing. Moreover, as hewalked around the end of the log, he glanced downward as in a casualmanner, and perceived a protrusion which bore an undeniable resemblanceto the handle of a parasol. Musgrave whistled, though, at the bottom ofhis heart, he was not surprised; and then, he sat down upon the log, andfor a moment was silent. 

"A beautiful evening, " said Mr. Charteris. 

Musgrave lighted a cigarette. 

"Jack, I have something rather difficult to say to you--yes, it isdeuced difficult, and the sooner it is over the better. I--why, confound it all, man! I want you to stop making love to my wife. "

Mr. Charteris's eyebrows rose. "Really, Colonel Musgrave----. " he began, coolly. 

"Now, you are about to make a scene, you know, " said Musgrave, raisinghis hand in protest, "and we are not here for that. We are not going totear any passions to tatters; we are not going to rant; we are simplygoing to have a quiet and sensible talk. We don't happen to becharacters in a romance; for you aren't Lancelot, you know, and I am notup to the part of Arthur by a great deal. I am not angry, I am notjealous, nor do I put the matter on any high moral grounds. I simply sayit won't do--no, hang it, it won't do!"

"I dare not question you are an authority in such matters, " said JohnCharteris, sweetly--"since among many others, Clarice Pendomer is nearenough to be an obtainable witness. "

Colonel Musgrave grimaced. "But what a gesture!" he thought, half-enviously. Jack Charteris, quite certainly, meant to make the mostof the immunity Musgrave had purchased for him. None the less, Musgravehad now his cue. Patricia must be listening. 

And so what Colonel Musgrave said was: "Put it that a burnt child dreadsthe fire--is that a reason he should not warn his friends against it?"

"At least, " said Charteris at length, "you are commendably frank. Iappreciate that, Rudolph. I honestly appreciate the fact you have cometo me, not as the husband of that fiction in which kitchen-maidsdelight, breathing fire and speaking balderdash, but as one sensible manto another. Let us be frank, then; let us play with the cards upon thetable. You have charged me with loving your wife; and I answer youfrankly--I do. She does me the honor to return this affection. What, then, Rudolph?"

Musgrave blew out a puff of smoke. "I don't especially mind, " he said, slowly. "According to tradition, of course, I ought to spring at yourthroat with a smothered curse. But, as a matter of fact, I don't see whyI should be irritated. No, in common reason, " he added, uponconsideration, "I am only rather sorry for you both. "

Mr. Charteris sprang to his feet, and walked up and down the beach. "Ah, you hide your feelings well, " he cried, and his laughter was a trifleunconvincing and a bit angry. "But it is unavailing with me. I know! Iknow the sick and impotent hatred of me that is seething in your heart;and I feel for you the pity you pretend to entertain toward me. Yes, Ipity you. But what would you have? Frankly, while in many ways anestimable man, you are no fit mate for Patricia. She has the sensitive, artistic temperament, poor girl; and only we who are cursed with it cantell you what its possession implies. And you--since frankness is theorder of the day, you know--well, you impress me as being a trifleinadequate. It is not your fault, perhaps, but the fact remains that youhave never amounted to anything personally. You have simply traded uponthe accident of being born a Musgrave of Matocton. In consequence youwere enabled to marry Patricia's money, just as the Musgraves ofMatocton always marry some woman who is able to support them. Ah, but itwas her money you married, and not Patricia! Any community of interestbetween you was impossible, and is radically impossible. Your marriagewas a hideous mistake, just as mine was. For you are starving her soul, Rudolph, just as Anne has starved mine. And now, at last, when Patriciaand I have seen our single chance of happiness, we cannot--no! we cannotand we will not--defer to any outworn tradition or to fear of Mrs. Grundy's narrow-minded prattle!"

Charteris swept aside the dogmas of the world with an indignant gestureof somewhat conscious nobility; and he turned to his companion in anattitude of defiance. 

Musgrave was smiling. He smoked and seemed to enjoy his cigarette. 

The day was approaching sunset. The sun, a glowing ball of copper, hunglow in the west over a rampart of purple clouds, whose heights weresmeared with red. A slight, almost imperceptible, mist rose from theriver, and, where the horizon should have been, a dubious cloudlandprevailed. Far to the west were orange-colored quiverings upon thestream's surface, but, nearer, the river dimpled with silver-tippedwaves; and, at their feet, the water grew transparent, and splashed overthe sleek, brown sand, and sucked back, leaving a curved line ofbubbles which, one by one, winked, gaped and burst. There was a drowsypeacefulness in the air; behind them, among the beeches, were manystealthy wood-sounds; and, at long intervals, a sleepy, peevishtwittering went about the nested trees. 

In Colonel Musgrave's face, the primal peace was mirrored. 

"May I ask, " said he at length, "what you propose doing?"

Mr. Charteris answered promptly. "I, of course, propose, " said he, "toask Patricia to share the remainder of my life. "

"A euphemism, as I take it, for an elopement. I hardly thought youintended going so far. "

"Rudolph!" cried Charteris, drawing himself to his full height--and hewas not to blame for the fact that it was but five-feet-six--"I am, Ihope, an honorable man! I cannot eat your salt and steal your honor. SoI loot openly, or not at all. "

The colonel shrugged his shoulders. 

"I presuppose you have counted the cost--and estimated the necessarybreakage?"

"True love, " the novelist declared, in a hushed, sweet voice, "is abovesuch considerations. "

"I think, " said Musgrave slowly, "that any love worthy of the name willalways appraise the cost--to the woman. It is of Patricia I amthinking. "

"She loves me, " Charteris murmured. He glanced up and laughed. "Upon mysoul, you know, I cannot help thinking the situation a bitfarcical--you and I talking over matters in this fashion. But I honestlybelieve the one chance of happiness for any of us hinges on Patricia andme chucking the whole affair, and bolting. "

"No! it won't do--no, hang it, Jack, it will not do!" Musgrave glancedtoward the bath-house, and he lifted his voice. "I am not consideringyou in the least--and under the circumstances, you could hardly expectme to. It is of Patricia I am thinking. I haven't made her altogetherhappy. Our marriage was a mating of incongruities--and possibly you arejustified in calling it a mistake. Yet, day in and day out, I think weget along as well together as do most couples; and it is wasting time tocry over spilt milk. Instead, it rests with us, the two men who loveher, to decide what is best for Patricia. It is she and only she we mustconsider. "

"Ah, you are right!" said Charteris, and his eyes grew tender. "She musthave what she most desires; and all must be sacrificed to that. " Heturned and spoke as simply as a child. "Of course, you know, I shall begiving up a great deal for love of her, but--I am willing. "

Musgrave looked at him for a moment. "H'm doubtless, " he assented. "Why, then, we won't consider the others. We will not consider your wife, who--who worships you. We won't consider the boy. I, for my part, thinkit is a mother's duty to leave an unsullied name to her child, but, probably, my ideas are bourgeois. We won't consider Patricia'srelatives, who, perhaps, will find it rather unpleasant. In short, wemust consider no one save Patricia. "

"Of course, one cannot make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. "

"No; the question is whether it is absolutely necessary to make theomelet. I say no. "

"And I, " quoth Charteris smiling gently, "say yes. "

"For Patricia, " Musgrave went on, as in meditation, but speaking veryclearly, "it means giving up--everything. It means giving up her friendsand the life to which she is accustomed; it means being ashamed to facethose who were formerly her friends. We, the world, our world ofLichfield, I mean--are lax enough as to the divorce question, heavenknows, but we can't pardon immorality when coupled with poverty. And youwould be poor, you know. Your books are tremendously clever, Jack, but--as I happen to know--the proceeds from them would not support twopeople in luxury; and Patricia has nothing. That is a sordid detail, ofcourse, but it is worth considering. Patricia would never be happy in athree-pair back. "

Mr. Charteris was frankly surprised. "Patricia has--nothing?"

"Bless your soul, of course not! Her father left the greater part of hismoney to our boy, you know. Most of it is still held in trust for ourboy, who is named after him. Not a penny of it belongs to Patricia, andeven I cannot touch anything but a certain amount of interest. "

Mr. Charteris looked at the colonel with eyes that were sad and hurtand wistful. "I am perfectly aware of your reason for telling me this, "he said, candidly. "I know I have always been thought a mercenary mansince my marriage. At that time I fancied myself too much in love withAnne to permit any sordid considerations of fortune to stand in the wayof our union. Poor Anne! she little knows what sacrifices I have madefor her! She, too, would be dreadfully unhappy if I permitted her torealize that our marriage was a mistake. "

"God help her--yes!" groaned Musgrave. 

"And as concerns Patricia, you are entirely right. It would be hideouslyunfair to condemn her to a life of comparative poverty. My books sellbetter than you think, Rudolph, but still an author cannot hope toattain affluence so long as he is handicapped by any reverence for theEnglish language. Yes, I was about to do Patricia a great wrong. Irejoice that you have pointed out my selfishness. For I have beenabominably selfish. I confess it. "

"I think so, " assented Musgrave, calmly. "But, then, my opinion is, naturally, rather prejudiced. "

"Yes, I can understand what Patricia must mean to you"--Mr. Charterissighed, and passed his hand over his forehead in a gracefulfashion, --"and I, also, love her far too dearly to imperil herhappiness. I think that heaven never made a woman more worthy to beloved. And I had hoped--ah, well, after all, we cannot utterly defysociety! Its prejudices, however unfounded, must be respected. Whatwould you have? This dunderheaded giantess of a Mrs. Grundy condemns meto be miserable, and I am powerless. The utmost I can do is to refrainfrom whining over the unavoidable. And, Rudolph, you have my word ofhonor that henceforth I shall bear in mind more constantly my dutytoward one of my best and oldest friends. I have not dealt with youquite honestly. I confess it, and I ask your pardon. " Mr. Charteris heldout his hand to seal the compact. 

"Word of honor?" queried Colonel Musgrave, with an odd quizzing sort offondness for the little novelist, as the colonel took the profferedhand. "Why, then, that is settled, and I am glad of it. I told you, youknow, it wouldn't do. See you at supper, I suppose?"

And Rudolph Musgrave glanced at the bath-house, turned on his heel, andpresently plunged into the beech plantation, whistling cheerfully. Theeffect of the melody was somewhat impaired by the apparent necessity ofbreaking off, at intervals, in order to smile. 

The comedy had been admirably enacted, he considered, on both sides; andhe did not object to Jack Charteris's retiring with all the honors ofwar. 

V

The colonel had not gone far, however, before he paused, thrust bothhands into his trousers' pockets, and stared down at the ground for amatter of five minutes. 

Musgrave shook his head. "After all, " said he, "I can't trust them. Patricia is too erratic and too used to having her own way. Jack willtry to break off with her now, of course; but Jack, where women areconcerned, is as weak as water. It is not a nice thing to do, but--well!one must fight fire with fire. "

Thereupon, he retraced his steps. When he had come to the thin spot inthe thicket, Rudolph Musgrave left the path, and entered the shrubbery. There he composedly sat down in the shadow of a small cedar. The sightof his wife upon the beach in converse with Mr. Charteris did not appearto surprise Colonel Musgrave. 

Patricia was speaking quickly. She held a bedraggled parasol in onehand. Her husband noted, with a faint thrill of wonder, that, at times, and in a rather unwholesome, elfish way, Patricia was actuallybeautiful. Her big eyes glowed; they flashed with changing lights asdeep waters glitter in the sun; her copper-colored hair seemed luminous, and her cheeks flushed, arbutus-like. The soft, white stuff that gownedher had the look of foam; against the gray sky she seemed a freakishspirit in the act of vanishing. For sky and water were all one lambentgray by this. In the west was a thin smear of orange; but, for the rest, the world was of a uniform and gleaming gray. She and Charteris stood inthe heart of a great pearl. 

"Ah, believe me, " she was saying, "Rudolph isn't an ophthalmic bat. ButGod keep us all respectable! is Rudolph's notion of a sensiblemorning-prayer. So he just preferred to see nothing and bleat outedifying axioms. That is one of his favorite tricks. No, it was a comedyfor my benefit, I tell you. He will allow a deal for the artistictemperament, no doubt, but he doesn't suppose you fetch along awhite-lace parasol when you go to watch a sunset--especially a parasolhe gave me last month. "

"Indeed, " protested Mr. Charteris, "he saw nothing. I was too quick forhim. "

She shrugged her shoulders. "I saw him looking at it. Accordingly, Ipaid no attention to what he said. But you--ah, Jack, you were splendid!I suppose we shall have to elope at once now, though?"

Charteris gave her no immediate answer. "I am not quite sure, Patricia, that your husband is not--to a certain extent--in the right. Believe me, he did not know you were about. He approached me in a perfectlysensible manner, and exhibited commendable self-restraint; he has playeda difficult part to admiration. I could not have done it better myself. And it is not for us who have been endowed with gifts denied to Rudolph, to reproach him for lacking the finer perceptions and sensibilities oflife. Yet, I must admit that, for the time, I was a little hurt by hisevident belief that we would allow our feeling for each other--which israther beyond his comprehension, isn't it, dear?--to be coerced bymercenary considerations. "

"Oh, Rudolph is just a jackass-fool, anyway. " She was not particularlyinterested in the subject. 

"He can't help that, you know, " Charteris reminded her, gently; then, heasked, after a little: "I suppose it is all true?"

"That what is true?"

"About your having no money of your own?" He laughed, but she could seehow deeply he had been pained by Musgrave's suspicions. "I ask, because, as your husband has discovered, I am utterly sordid, my lady, and careonly for your wealth. "

"Ah, how can you expect a man like that to understand--you? Why, Jack, how ridiculous in you to be hurt by what the brute thinks! You're assolemn as an owl, my dear. Yes, it's true enough. My father was not verywell pleased with us--and that horrid will--Ah, Jack, Jack, howgrotesque, how characteristic it was, his thinking such things wouldinfluence you--you, of all men, who scarcely know what money is!"

"It was even more grotesque I should have been pained by his thinkingit, " Charteris said, sadly. "But what would you have? I am so abominablyin love with you that it seemed a sort of desecration when the manlugged your name into a discussion of money-matters. It really did. Andthen, besides--ah, my lady, you know that I would glory in the thoughtthat I had given up all for you. You know, I think, that I wouldwillingly work my fingers to the bone just that I might possess youalways. So I had dreamed of love in a cottage--an idyl of blissfulpoverty, where Cupid contents himself with crusts and kisses, and mocksat the proverbial wolf on the doorstep. And I give you my word thatuntil to-day I had not suspected how blindly selfish I have been! Forpoor old prosaic Rudolph is in the right, after all. Your delicate, tender beauty must not be dragged down to face the unlovely realitiesand petty deprivations and squalid makeshifts of such an existence asours would be. True, I would glory in them--ah, luxury and riches meanlittle to me, my dear, and I can conceive of no greater happiness thanto starve with you. But true love knows how to sacrifice itself. Yourhusband was right; it would not be fair to you, Patricia. "

"You--you are going to leave me?"

"Yes; and I pray that I may be strong enough to relinquish you forever, because your welfare is more dear to me than my own happiness. No, I donot pretend that this is easy to do. But when my misery is earned byserving you I prize my misery. " Charteris tried to smile. "What wouldyou have? I love you, " he said, simply. 

"Ah, my dear!" she cried. 

Musgrave's heart was sick within him as he heard the same notes in hervoice that echoed in Anne's voice when she spoke of her husband. Thiswas a new Patricia; her speech was low and gentle now, and her eyes helda light Rudolph Musgrave had not seen there for a long while. 

"Ah, my dear, you are the noblest man I have ever known; I wish we womencould be like men. But, oh, Jack, Jack, don't be quixotic! I can't giveyou up, my dear--that would never be for my good. Think how unhappy Ihave been all these years; think how Rudolph is starving my soul! I wantto be free, Jack; I want to live my own life, --for at least a month orso--"

Patricia shivered here. "But none of us is sure of living for a month. You've shown me a glimpse of what life might be; don't let me sink backinto the old, humdrum existence from a foolish sense of honor! I tellyou, I should go mad! I mean to have my fling while I can get it. And Imean to have it with you, Jack--just you! I don't fear poverty. Youcould write some more wonderful books. I could work, too, Jack dear. I--I could teach music--or take in washing--or something, anyway. Lotsof women support themselves, you know. Oh, Jack, we would be so happy!Don't be honorable and brave and disagreeable, Jack dear!"

For a moment Charteris was silent. The nostrils of his beak-like nosewidened a little, and a curious look came into his face. He discoveredsomething in the sand that interested him. 

"After all, " he demanded, slowly, "is it necessary--to go away--to behappy?"

"I don't understand. " Her hand lifted from his arm; then quick remorsesmote her, and it fluttered back, confidingly. 

Charteris rose to his feet. "It is, doubtless, a very spectacular andvery stirring performance to cast your cap over the wind-mill in theface of the world; but, after all, is it not a bit foolish, Patricia?Lots of people manage these things--more quietly. "

"Oh, Jack!" Patricia's face turned red, then white, and stiffened in asort of sick terror. She was a frightened Columbine in stone. "I thoughtyou cared for me--really, not--that way. "

Patricia rose and spoke with composure. "I think I'll go back to thehouse, Mr. Charteris. It's a bit chilly here. You needn't bother tocome. "

Then Mr. Charteris laughed--a choking, sobbing laugh. He raised hishands impotently toward heaven. "And to think, " he cried, "to think thata man may love a woman with his whole heart--with all that is best andnoblest in him--and she understand him so little!"

"I do not think I have misunderstood you, " Patricia said, in a crispvoice. "Your proposition was very explicit. I--am sorry. I thought I hadfound one thing in the world which I would regret to leave--"

"And you really believed that I could sully the great love I bear you bystooping to--that! You really believed that I would sacrifice to you myhome life, my honor, my prospects--all that a man can give--withouttesting the quality of your love! You did not know that I spoke to tryyou--you actually did not know! Eh, but yours is a light nature, Patricia! I do not reproach you, for you are only as your narrowPhilistine life has made you. Yet I had hoped better things of you, Patricia. But you, who pretend to care for me, have leaped at your firstopportunity to pain me--and, if it be any comfort to you, I confess youhave pained me beyond words. " And he sank down on the log, and buriedhis face in his hands. 

She came to him--it was pitiable to see how she came to him, laughingand sobbing all in one breath--and knelt humbly by his side, and raiseda grieved, shamed, penitent face to his. 

"Forgive me!" she wailed; "oh, forgive me!"

"You have pained me beyond words, Patricia, " he repeated. He was notangry--only sorrowful and very much hurt. 

"Ah, Jack! dear Jack, forgive me!"

Mr. Charteris sighed. "But, of course, I forgive you, Patricia, " hesaid. "I cannot help it, though, that I am foolishly sensitive where youare concerned. And I had hoped you knew as much. "

She was happy now. "Dear boy, " she murmured, "don't you see it's justthese constant proofs of the greatness and the wonderfulness of yourlove--Really, though, Jack, wasn't it too horrid of me to misunderstandyou so? Are you quite sure you're forgiven me entirely--without anynasty little reservations?"

Mr. Charteris was quite sure. His face was still sad, but it wasbenevolent. 

"Don't you see, " she went on, "that it's just these things that make mecare for you so much, and feel sure as eggs is eggs we will be happy?Ah, Jack, we will be so utterly happy that I am almost afraid to thinkof it!" Patricia wiped away the last tear, and laughed, and added, in amatter-of-fact fashion: "There's a train at six-five in the morning; wecan leave by that, before anyone is up. "

Charteris started. "Your husband loves you, " he said, in gentle reproof. "And quite candidly, you know, Rudolph is worth ten of me. "

"Bah, I tell you, that was a comedy for my benefit, " she protested, andbegan to laugh. Patricia was unutterably happy now, because she, and notJohn Charteris, had been in the wrong. "Poor Rudolph!--he has such asmug horror of the divorce-court that he would even go so far as topretend to be in love with his own wife in order to keep out of it. Really, Jack, both our better-halves are horribly commonplace and theywill be much better off without us. "

"You forget that Rudolph has my word of honor, " said Mr. Charteris, inindignation. 

And that instant, with one of his baffling changes of mood, he began tolaugh. "Really, though, Patricia, you are very pretty. You are Aprilembodied in sweet flesh; your soul is just a wisp of April cloud, andyour life an April day, half sun that only seems to warm, and halftempest that only plays at ferocity; but you are very pretty. That iswhy I am thinking, light-headedly, it would be a fine and past doubt anagreeable exploit to give up everything for such a woman, and amcomplacently comparing myself to Antony at Actium. I am thinking itwould be an interesting episode in one's _Life and Letters_. You see, mydear, I honestly believe the world revolves around JohnCharteris--although of course I would never admit that to you if Ithought for a moment you would take me seriously. "

Then presently, sighing, he was grave again. "But, no! Rudolph has myword of honor, " Mr. Charteris repeated, and with unconcealed regret. 

"Ah, does that matter?" she cried. "Does anything matter, except that welove each other? I tell you I have given the best part of my life tothat man, but I mean to make the most of what is left. He has had myyouth, my love--there was a time, you know, when I actually fancied Icared for him--and he has only made me unhappy. I hate him, I loathehim, I detest him, I despise him! I never intend to speak to himagain--oh, yes, I shall have to at supper, I suppose, but that doesn'tcount. And I tell you I mean to be happy in the only way that'spossible. Everyone has a right to do that. A woman has an especialright to take her share of happiness in any way she can, because herhour of it is so short. Sometimes--sometimes the woman knows how shortit is and it almost frightens her. . . . But at best, a woman can be reallyhappy through love alone, Jack dear, and it's only when we are young andgood to look at that men care for us; after that, there is nothing leftbut to take to either religion or hand-embroidery, so what does itmatter, after all? Yes, they all grow tired after a while. Jack, I amonly a vain and frivolous person of superlative charm, but I love youvery much, my dear, and I solemnly swear to commit suicide the moment myfirst wrinkle arrives. You shall never grow tired of me, my dear. "

She laughed to think how true this was. 

She hurried on: "Jack, kneel down at once, and swear that you areperfectly sore with loving me, as that ridiculous person says inDickens, and whose name I never could remember. Oh, I forgot--Dickenscaricatures nature, doesn't he, and isn't read by really culturedpeople? You will have to educate me up to your level, Jack, and I warnyou in advance you will not have time to do it. Yes, I am quite awarethat I am talking nonsense, and am on the verge of hysterics, thank you, but I rather like it. It is because I am going to have you all to myselffor whatever future there is, and the thought makes me quite drunk. Willyou kindly ring for the patrol-wagon, Jack? Jack, are you quite sure youlove me? Are you perfectly certain you never loved any one else half somuch? No, don't answer me, for I intend to do all the talking for bothof us for the future! I shall tyrannize over you frightfully, and youwill like it. All I ask in return is that you will be a good boy--bywhich I mean a naughty boy--and do solemnly swear, promise and affirmthat you will meet me at the side-door at half-past five in the morning, with a portmanteau and the intention of never going back to your wife. You swear it? Thank you so much! Now, I think I would like to cry for afew minutes, and, after that, we will go back to the house, beforesupper is over and my eyes are perfectly crimson. "

In fact, Mr. Charteris had consented. Patricia was irresistible as shepleaded and mocked and scolded and coaxed and laughed and cried, all inone bewildering breath. Her plan was simple; it was to slip out ofMatocton at dawn, and walk to the near-by station. There they would takethe train, and snap their fingers at convention. The scheme soundedpreposterous in outline, but she demonstrated its practicability inperformance. And Mr. Charteris consented. 

Rudolph Musgrave sat in the shadow of the cedar with fierce and confusedemotions whirling in his soul. He certainly had never thought of thiscontingency. 

PART EIGHT - HARVEST

 "Time was I coveted the woes they rued Whose love commemorates them, --I that meant To get like grace of love then!--and intent To win as they had done love's plenitude, Rapture and havoc, vauntingly I sued That love like theirs might make a toy of me, At will caressed, at will (if publicly) Demolished, as Love found or found not good. 

 "To-day I am no longer overbrave. I have a fever, --I that always knew This hour was certain!--and am too weak to rave, Too tired to seek (as later I must do) Tried remedies--time, manhood and the grave-- To drug, abate and banish love of you. "ALLEN ROSSITER. _A Fragment_. 

I

When Patricia and Charteris had left the beach, Colonel Musgrave partedthe underbrush and stepped down upon the sand He must have air--air andan open place wherein to fight this out. 

Night had risen about him in bland emptiness. There were no starsoverhead, but a patient, wearied, ancient moon pushed through theclouds. The trees and the river conferred with one another doubtfully. 

He paced up and down the beach. . . . 

Musgrave laughed in the darkness. His heart was racing, racing in him, and his thoughts were blown foam. He raised his hat and bowedfantastically in the darkness, because the colonel loved his gesture. 

"Signor Lucifer, I present my compliments. You have discoursed with mevery plausibly. I honor your cunning, signor, but if you are indeed agentleman, as I have always heard, you will now withdraw and permit meto regard the matter from a standpoint other than my own. For the othersare weak, signor; as you have doubtless discovered, good women and badmen are the weakest of their sex. I am the strongest among them, for allthat I am no Hercules; and the outcome of this matter must rest withme. "

So he sat presently upon the log, where Charteris had sat when Musgravecame to this beach at sunset. Very long ago that seemed now. For now thecolonel was tired--physically outworn, it seemed to him, as if afterprolonged exertion--and now the moon looked down upon him, passionless, cold, inexorable, and seemed to await the colonel's decision. 

And it was woefully hard to come to any decision. For, as you know bythis, it was the colonel's besetting infirmity to shrink from makingchanges; instinctively he balked--under shelter of whatevergrandiloquent excuse--against commission of any action which would alterhis relations with accustomed circumstances or persons. To guide eventswas never his forte, as he forlornly knew; and here he was condemnedperforce to play that uncongenial rôle, with slender chances of reward. 

Yet always Anne's face floated in the darkness. Always Anne's voicewhispered through the lisping of the beeches, through the murmur of thewater. . . . 

He sat thus for a long while. 

II

Musgrave was, not unnaturally, late for supper. It is not to be supposedthat at this meal the colonel faltered in his duties as a host, for, tothe contrary, he narrated several anecdotes in his neatest style. It waswith him a point of honor always to be in company the social triumph ofhis generation. He observed with idle interest that Charteris andPatricia avoided each other in a rather marked manner. Both seemed atrifle more serious than they were wont to be. 

After supper, Tom Gelwix brought forth a mandolin, and most of thehouse-party sang songs, sentimental and otherwise, upon the front porchof Matocton. Anne had disappeared somewhere. Musgrave subsequentlydiscovered her in one of the drawing-rooms, puzzling over a number ofpapers which her maid had evidently just brought to her. 

Mrs. Charteris looked up with a puckered brow. "Rudolph, " said she, "haven't you an account at the Occidental Bank?"

"Hardly an account, dear lady, --merely a deposit large enough toentitle me to receive monthly notices that I have overdrawn it. "

"Why, then, of course, you have a cheque-book. Horrible things, aren'tthey?--such a nuisance remembering to fill out those little stubs. Ofcourse, I forgot to bring mine with me--I always do; and equally, ofcourse, a vexatious debt turns up and finds me without an OccidentalBank cheque to my name. "

Musgrave was amused. "That, " said he, "is easily remedied. I will getyou one; though even if--Ah, well, what is the good of trying to teachyou adorable women anything about business! You shall have yourindispensable blank form in three minutes. "

He returned in rather less than that time, with the cheque. Anne wasalone now. She was gowned in some dull, soft, yellow stuff, and sat by asmall, marble-topped table, twiddling a fountain-pen. 

"You mustn't sneer at my business methods, Rudolph, " she said, pouting alittle as she filled out the cheque. "It isn't polite, sir, in the firstplace, and, in the second, I am really very methodical. Of course, I amalways losing my cheque-book, and drawing cheques and forgetting toenter them, and I usually put down the same deposit two or threetimes--all women do that; but, otherwise, I am really very careful. Imanage all the accounts; I can't expect Jack to do that, you know. " Mrs. Charteris signed her name with a flourish, and nodded at the colonelwisely. "Dear infant, but he is quite too horribly unpractical. Do youknow this bill has been due--oh, for months--and he forgot it entirelyuntil this evening. Fortunately, he can settle it to-morrow; thosedisagreeable publishers of his have telegraphed for him to come to NewYork at once, you know. Otherwise--dear, dear! but marrying a genius isabsolutely ruinous to one's credit, isn't it, Rudolph? The tradespeoplewill refuse to trust us soon. "

Involuntarily, Musgrave had seen the cheque. It was for a considerableamount, and it was made out to John Charteris. 

"Beyond doubt, " said Musgrave, in his soul, "Jack is colossal! He isactually drawing on his wife for the necessary expenses for running awaywith another woman!"

The colonel sat down abruptly before the great, open fireplace, andstared hard at the pine-boughs which were heaped up in it. 

"A penny, " said she, at length. 

He glanced up with a smile. "My dear madam, it would be robbery! For apenny, you may read of the subject of my thoughts in any of the yellowjournals, only far more vividly set forth, and obtain a variety of moreor less savory additions, to boot. I was thinking of the Lethbury case, and wondering how we could have been so long deceived by the man. "

"Ah, poor Mrs. Lethbury!" Anne sighed, "I am very sorry for her, Rudolph; she was a good woman, and was always interested in charitablework. "

"Do you know, " said Colonel Musgrave, with deliberation, "it is she Icannot understand. To discover that he had been systematicallyhoodwinking her for some ten years; that, after making away with as muchof her fortune as he was able to lay hands on, he has betrayed businesstrust after business trust in order to--to maintain anotherestablishment; that he has never cared for her, and has made her hisdupe time after time, in order to obtain money for his gambling debtsand other even less reputable obligations--she must realize all thesethings now, you know, and one would have thought no woman's love couldpossibly survive such a test. Yet, she is standing by him through thickand thin. Yes, I confess, Amelia Lethbury puzzles me. I don't understandher mental attitude. "

Musgrave was looking at Anne very intently as he ended. 

"Why, but of course, " said Anne, "she realizes that it was all the faultof that--that other woman; and, besides, the--the entanglement has beengoing on only a little over eight years--not ten, Rudolph. "

She was entirely in earnest; Colonel Musgrave could see it plainly. 

"I admit I hadn't looked on it in that light, " said he, at length, andwas silent for a moment Then, "Upon my soul, Anne, " he cried, "I believeyou think the woman is only doing the natural thing, only doing thething one has a right to expect of her, in sticking to that blackguardafter she has found him out!"

Mrs. Charteris raised her eyebrows; she was really surprised. "Naturally, she must stand by her husband when he is in trouble; why, if his own wife didn't, who would, Rudolph? It is just now that he needsher most. It would be abominable to desert him now. "

Anne paused and thought. "Depend upon it, she knows a better side of hisnature than we can see; she knows him, possibly, to have been misled, orto have acted thoughtlessly; because otherwise, she would not stand byhim so firmly. " Having reached this satisfactory conclusion, Anne beganto laugh--at Musgrave's lack of penetration, probably. "So, you see, Rudolph, in either case, her conduct is perfectly natural. "

"And this, " he cried, "this is how women reason!"

"Am I very stupid? Jack says I am a bit illogical at times. But, Rudolph, you mustn't expect a woman to judge the man she loves; if youcall on her to do that, she doesn't reason about it; she just goes onloving him, and thinking how horrid you are. Women love men as they dochildren; they punish them sometimes, but only in deference to publicopinion. A woman will always find an excuse for the man she loves. If hedeserts her, she is miserable until she succeeds in demonstrating toherself it was entirely her own fault; after that, she is properlyrepentant, but far less unhappy; and, anyhow, she goes on loving himjust the same. "

The colonel pondered over this. "Women are different, " he said. 

"I don't know. I think that, if all women could be thrown with goodmen, they would all be good. Women want to be good; but there comes atime to each one of them when she wants to make a certain man happy, andwants that more than anything else in the world; and then, of course, ifhe wants--very much--for her to be bad, she will be bad. A bad woman isalways to be explained by a bad man. "

Anne nodded, very wisely; then, she began to laugh, but this time atherself. "I am talking quite like a book, " she said. "Really, I had noidea I was so clever. But I have thought of this before, Rudolph, andbeen sorry for those poor women who--who haven't found the right sort ofman to care for. "

"Yes. " Musgrave's face was alert. "You have been luckier than most, Anne, " he said. 

"Lucky!" she cried, and that queer little thrill of happiness woke againin her rich voice. "Ah, you don't know how lucky I have been, Rudolph! Ihave never cared for any one except--well, yes, you, a great whileago--and Jack. And you are both good men. Ah, Rudolph, it was very dearand sweet and foolish, the way we loved each other, but you don'tmind--very, very much--do you, if I think Jack is the best man in theworld, and by far the best man in the world for me? He is so good to me;he is so good and kind and considerate to me, and, even after all theseyears of matrimony, he is always the lover. A woman appreciates that, Rudolph; she wants her husband to be always her lover, just as Jack is, and never to give in when she coaxes--because she only coaxes when sheknows she is in the wrong--and never, never, to let her see him shavinghimself. If a husband observes these simple rules, Rudolph, his wifewill be a happy woman; and Jack does. In consequence, every day I live Igrow fonder of him, and appreciate him more and more; he grows upon mejust as a taste for strong drink might. Without him--without him--"Anne's voice died away; then she faced Musgrave, indignantly. "Oh, Rudolph!" she cried, "how horrid of you, how mean of you, to come hereand suggest the possibility of Jack's dying or running away from me, ordoing anything dreadful like that!"

Colonel Musgrave was smiling, "I?" said he, equably. "My dear madam! ifyou will reconsider, --"

"No, " she conceded, after deliberation, "it wasn't exactly your fault. Igot started on the subject of Jack, and imagined all sorts of horribleand impossible things. But there is a sort of a something in the airto-night; probably a storm is coming down the river. So I feel verymorbid and very foolish, Rudolph; but, then, I am in love, you see. Isn't it funny, after all these years?" Anne asked with a smile;--"andso you are not to be angry, Rudolph. "

"My dear, " he said, "I assure you, the emotion you raise in me is veryfar from resembling that of anger. " Musgrave rose and laughed. "I fear, you know, we will create a scandal if we sit here any longer. Let's seewhat the others are doing. "

III

That night, after his guests had retired, Colonel Musgrave smoked acigarette on the front porch of Matocton. The moon, now in the zenith, was bright and chill. After a while, Musgrave raised his face toward it, and laughed. 

"Isn't it--isn't it funny?" he demanded, echoing Anne's query ruefully. 

"Eh, well! perhaps I still retained some lingering hope; in a season ofdiscomfort, most of us look vaguely for a miracle. And, at times, itcomes, but, more often, not; life isn't always a pantomime, with a fairygod-mother waiting to break through the darkness in a burst of glory andreunite the severed lovers, and transform their enemies into pantaloons. In this case, it is certain that the fairy will not come. I am condemnedto be my own god in the machine. "

Having demonstrated this to himself, Musgrave went into the house anddrugged his mind correcting proofsheets--for the _Lichfield HistoricalAssociation's Quarterly Magazine_--and brought down to the year 1805 his"List of Wills Recorded in Brummell County. "

IV

The night was well advanced when Charteris stepped noiselessly into theroom. The colonel was then sedately writing amid a host of motionlessmute watchers, for at Matocton most of the portraits hang in the EastDrawing-room. 

Thus, above the great marble mantel, --carved with thyrsi, and supportedby proud deep-bosomed caryatides, --you will find burly SebastianMusgrave, "the Speaker, " an all-overbearing man even on canvas. "Paintme among dukes and earls with my hat on, to show I am in all things aRepublican, and the finest diamond in the Colony shall be yours, " he haddirected the painter, and this was done. Then there is frail WilhelminaMusgrave--that famed beauty whose two-hundred-year-old story allLichfield knows, and no genealogist has ever cared to detail--eternallyweaving flowers about her shepherd hat. There, too, is Evelyn Ramsay, before whose roguish loveliness, as you may remember, the colonel hadsnapped his fingers in those roseate days when he so joyously consideredhis profound unworthiness to be Patricia's husband. There is also thecolonial governor of Albemarle--a Van Dyck this--two Knellers, andLely's portrait of Thomas Musgrave, "the poet, " with serious blue eyesand flaxen hair. The painting of Captain George Musgrave, whodistinguished himself at the siege of Cartagena, is admittedly aninferior piece of work, but it has vigor, none the less; and below ithangs the sword which was presented to him by the Lord High Admiral. 

So quietly did Charteris come that the colonel was not aware of hisentrance until the novelist had coughed gently. He was in adressing-gown, and looked unusually wizened. 

"I saw your light, " he said. "I don't seem to be able to sleep, somehow. It is so infernally hot and still. I suppose there is going to be athunderstorm. I hate thunderstorms. They frighten me. " The little manwas speaking like a peevish child. 

"Oh, well--! it will at least clear the air, " said Rudolph Musgrave. "Sit down and have a smoke, won't you?"

"No, thanks. " Charteris had gone to the bookshelves and was gentlypushing and pulling at the books so as to arrange their backs in amathematically straight line. "I thought I would borrow something toread--Why, this is the Tennyson you had at college, isn't it? Yes, Iremember it perfectly. "

These two had roomed together through their college days. 

"Yes; it is the old Tennyson. And yonder is the identical Swinburne youused to spout from, too. Lord, Jack, it seems a century since I used tolisten by the hour to _The Triumph of Time and Dolores!_"

"Ah, but you didn't really care for them--not even then. " Charterisreached up, his back still turned, and moved a candlestick the fractionof an inch. "There is something so disgustingly wholesome about you, Rudolph. And it appears to be ineradicable. I can't imagine how I evercame to be fond of you. "

The colonel was twirling his pen, his eyes intent upon it. "And yet--we_were_ fond of each other, weren't we, Jack?"

"Why, I positively adored you. You were such a strong and healthyanimal. Upon my word, I don't believe I ever missed a single footballgame you played in. In fact, I almost learned to understand the game onyour account. You see--it was so good to watch you raging about withtouzled hair, like the only original bull of Bashan, and the otherstumbling like ninepins. It used to make me quite inordinately proud. "

The colonel smoked. "But, Lord! how proud _I_ was when you got medals!"

"Yes--I remember. "

"Even if I did bully you sometimes. Remember how I used to twist yourarm to make you write my Latin exercises, Jack?"

"I liked to have you do that, " Charteris said, simply. "It hurt a greatdeal, but I liked it. "

He had come up behind the colonel, who was still seated. "Yes, that wasa long while ago, " said Charteris. "It is rather terrible--isn't it?--toreflect precisely how long ago it was. Why, I shall be bald in a year ortwo from now. But you have kept almost all your beautiful hair, Rudolph. "

Charteris touched the colonel's head, stroking his hair ever so lightlyonce or twice. It was in effect a caress. 

The colonel was aware of the odor of myrrh which always accompaniedCharteris and felt that the little man was trembling. 

"Isn't there--anything you want to tell me, Jack?" the colonel said. Hesat quite still. 

There was the tiniest pause. The caressing finger-tips lifted fromMusgrave's head, but presently gave it one more brief and half-timidtouch. 

"Why, only _au revoir_, I believe. I am leaving at a rather ungodly hourto-morrow and won't see you, but I hope to return within the week. "

"I hope so, Jack. "

"And, after all, it is too late to be reading. I shall go back to bedand take more trional. And then, I dare say, I shall sleep. So good-by, Rudolph. "

"Good-night, Jack. "

"Oh, yes--! I meant good-night, of course. "

The colonel sighed; then he spoke abruptly:

"No, just a moment, Jack. I didn't ask you to come here to-night; butsince you have come, by chance, I am going to follow the promptings ofthat chance, and strike a blow for righteousness with soiled weapons. Jack, do you remember suggesting that my father's correspondence duringthe War might be of value, and that his desk ought to be overhauled?"

"Why, yes, of course. Mrs. Musgrave was telling me she began the task, "said Charteris, and smiled a little. 

"Unluckily; yes--but--well! in any event, it suggested to me that oldletters are dangerous. I really had no idea what that desk contained. Myfather had preserved great stacks of letters. I have been going throughthem. They were most of them from women--letters which should never havebeen written in the first place, and which he certainly had no right tokeep. "

"What! and is 'Wild Will's' love-correspondence still extant? I fancy itmade interesting reading, Rudolph. "

"There were some letters which in a measure concern you, Jack. " Thecolonel handed him a small packet of letters. "If you will read the topone it will explain. I will just go on with my writing. "

He wrote steadily for a moment or two. . . . Then Charteris laughedmusically. 

"I have always known there was a love-affair between my mother and 'WildWill. ' But I never suspected until to-night that I had the honor to beyour half-brother, Rudolph--one of 'Wild Will's' innumerable bastards. "Charteris was pallid, and though he seemed perfectly composed, his eyesglittered as with gusty brilliancies. "I understand now why my reputedfather always made such a difference between my sister and myself. Inever liked old Alvin Charteris, you know. It is a distinct relief to beinformed I have no share in his blood, although of course the knowledgecomes a trifle suddenly. "

"Perhaps I should have kept that knowledge to myself. I know it wouldhave been kinder. I had meant to be kind. I loathe myself for dabblingin this mess. But, in view of all things, it seemed necessary to let youknow I am your own brother in the flesh, and that Patricia is yourbrother's wife. "

"I see, " said Charteris. "According to your standards that would make agreat difference. I don't know, speaking frankly, that it makes muchdifference with me. " He turned again to the bookshelves, so thatMusgrave could no longer see his face. Charteris ran his fingerscaressingly over the backs of a row of volumes. "I loved my mother, Rudolph. I never loved anyone else. That makes a difference. " Then hesaid, "We Musgraves--how patly I catalogue myself already!--we Musgraveshave a deal to answer for, Rudolph. "

"And doesn't that make it all the more our duty to live clean and honestlives? to make the debt no greater than it is?" Both men were oddlyquiet. 

"Eh, I am not so sure. " John Charteris waved airily toward SebastianMusgrave's counterfeit, then toward the other portraits. "It was theywho compounded our inheritances, Rudolph--all that we were to have inthis world of wit and strength and desire and endurance. We know theirhistories. They were proud, brave and thriftless, a greedy and lecherousrace, who squeezed life dry as one does an orange, and left us thedregs. I think that it is droll, but I am not sure it places us underany obligation. In fact, I rather think God owes us an apology, Rudolph. "

He spoke with quaint wistfulness. The colonel sat regarding him insilence, with shocked, disapproving eyes. Then Charteris cocked his headto one side and grinned like a hobgoblin. 

"What wouldn't you give, " he demanded, "to know what I am reallythinking of at this very moment while I talk so calmly? Well, you willnever know. And for the rest, you are at liberty to use yourall-important documents as you may elect. I am John Charteris; whateverman begot my body, he is rotten bones to-day, and it is as such I valuehim. I was never anybody's son--or friend or brother or lover, --but justa pen that someone far bigger and far nobler than John Charteris writeswith occasionally. Whereas you--but, oh, you are funny, Rudolph!" Andthen, "Good-night, dear brother, " Charteris added, sweetly, as he leftthe room. 

 * * * * *

And Rudolph Musgrave could not quite believe in the actuality of whathad just happened. In common with most of us, he got his general notionsconcerning the laws of life from reading fiction; and here was thematerial for a Renaissance tragedy wasted so far as any dénouement went. Destiny, once more, was hardly rising to the possibilities of thesituation. The weapon chance had forged had failed Rudolph Musgraveutterly; and, indeed, he wondered now how he could ever have esteemed itformidable. Jack was his half-brother. In noveldom or in a melodramathis discovery would have transformed their mutual dealings; but as aworkaday world's fact, Musgrave would not honestly say that it had inany way affected his feelings toward Jack, and it appeared to have leftCharteris equally unaltered. 

"I am not sure, though. We can only guess where Jack is concerned. Hegoes his own way always, tricky and furtive and lonelier than any otherhuman being I have ever known. It is loneliness that looks out of hiseyes, really, even when he is mocking and sneering, " the colonelmeditated. 

Then he sighed and went back to the tabulation of his lists of wills. 

V

The day was growing strong in the maple-grove behind Matocton. As yet, the climbing sun fired only the topmost branches, and flooded them witha tempered radiance through which birds plunged and shrilled vaguerumors to one another. Beneath, a green twilight lingered--twilightwhich held a gem-like glow, chill and lucent and steady as that of anemerald. Vagrant little puffs of wind bustled among the leaves, with athin pretense of purpose, and then lapsed, and merged in the large, ambiguous whispering which went stealthily about the grove. 

Rudolph Musgrave sat on a stone beside the road that winds through thewoods toward the railway station, and smoked, nervously. He wasdisheartened of the business of living, and, absurdly enough, as itseemed to him, he was hungry. 

"It has to be done quietly and without the remotest chance of Anne'sever hearing of it, and without the remotest chance of its ever havingto be done again. I have about fifteen minutes in which to convincePatricia both of her own folly and of the fact that Jack is anunmitigated cad, and to get him off the place quietly, so that Anne willsuspect nothing. And I never knew any reasonable argument to appeal toPatricia, and Jack will be a cornered rat! Yes, it is a large contract, and I would give a great deal--a very great deal--to know how I am goingto fulfil it. "

At this moment his wife and Mr. Charteris, carrying two portmanteaux, came around a bend in the road not twenty feet from Musgrave. They wereboth rather cross. In the clean and more prosaic light of morning anelopement seemed almost silly; moreover, Patricia had had no breakfast, and Charteris had been much annoyed by his wife, who had breakfastedwith him, and had insisted on driving to the station with him. It was atrivial-seeming fact, but, perhaps, not unworthy of notice, thatPatricia was carrying her own portmanteau, as well as an umbrella. 

The three faced one another in the cool twilight. The woods stirredlazily about them. The birds were singing on a wager now. 

"Ah, " said Colonel Musgrave, "so you have come at last. I have beenexpecting you for some time. "

Patricia dropped her portmanteau, sullenly. Mr. Charteris placed hiswith care to the side of the road, and said, "Oh!" It was perhaps theonly observation that occurred to him. 

"Patricia, " Musgrave began, very kindly and very gravely, "you areabout to do a foolish thing. At the bottom of your heart, even now, youknow you are about to do a foolish thing--a thing you will regretbitterly and unavailingly for the rest of time. You are turning yourback on the world--our world--on the one possible world you could everbe happy in. You can't be happy in the half-world, Patricia; you aren'tthat sort. But you can never come back to us then, Patricia; it doesn'tmatter what the motive was, what the temptation was, or how great therepentance is--you cannot ever return. That is the law, Patricia;perhaps, it isn't always a just law. We didn't make it, you and I, butit is the law, and we must obey it. Our world merely says that, leavingit once, you cannot ever return: such is the only punishment it awardsyou, for it knows, this wise old world of ours, that such is thebitterest punishment which could ever be devised for you. Our world hasmade you what you are; in every thought and ideal and emotion youpossess, you are a product of our world. You couldn't live in thehalf-world, Patricia; you are a product of our world that can never takeroot in that alien soil. Come back to us before it is too late, Patricia!"

Musgrave shook himself all over, rather like a Newfoundland dog comingout of the water, and the grave note died from his voice. He smiled, andrubbed his hands together. 

"And now, " said he, "I will stop talking like a problem play, and wewill say no more about it. Give me your portmanteau, my dear, and uponmy word of honor, you will never hear a word further from me in thematter. Jack, here, can take the train, just as he intended. And--andyou and I will go back to the house, and have a good, hot breakfasttogether. Eh, Patricia?"

She was thinking, unreasonably enough, how big and strong and clean herhusband looked in the growing light. It was a pity Jack was so small. However, she faced Musgrave coldly, and thought how ludicrously wide ofthe mark were all these threats of ostracism. She shudderingly wished hewould not talk of soil and taking root and hideous things like that, butotherwise the colonel left her unmoved. He was certainly good-looking, though. 

Charteris was lighting a cigarette, with a queer, contented look. Heknew the value of Patricia's stubbornness now; still, he appeared to beusing an unnecessary number of matches. 

"I should have thought you would have perceived the lack of dignity, aswell as the utter uselessness, in making such a scene, " Patricia said. "We aren't suited for each other, Rudolph; and it is better--far betterfor both of us--to have done with the farce of pretending to be. I amsorry that you still care for me. I didn't know that. But, for thefuture, I intend to live my own life. "

Patricia's voice faltered, and she stretched out her hands a littletoward her husband in an odd gust of friendliness. He looked so kind;and he was not smiling in that way she never liked. "Surely that isn'tso unpardonable a crime, Rudolph?" she asked, almost humbly. 

"No, my dear, " he answered, "it is not unpardonable--it is impossible. You can't lead your own life, Patricia; none of us can. Each life isbound up with many others, and every rash act of yours, every hasty wordof yours, must affect to some extent the lives of those who are nearestand most dear to you. But, oh, it is not argument that I would be at!Patricia, there was a woman once--She was young, and wealthy, and--ah, well, I won't deceive you by exaggerating her personal attractions! Iwill serve up to you no praises of her sauced with lies. But fate andnature had combined to give her everything a woman can desire, and allthis that woman freely gave to me--to me who hadn't youth or wealth orfame or anything! And I can't stand by, for that dear dead girl's sake, and watch your life go wrong, Patricia!"

"You are just like the rest of them, Olaf"--and when had she used thathalf-forgotten nickname last, he wondered. "You imagine you are in lovewith a girl because you happen to like the color of her eyes, or becausethere is a curve about her lips that appeals to you. That isn't love, Olaf, as we women understand it. "

And wildly hideous and sad, it seemed to Colonel Musgrave--this drearyparody of their old love-talk. Only, he dimly knew that she hadforgotten John Charteris existed, and that to her this moment seemed noless sardonic. 

Charteris inhaled, lazily; yet, he did not like the trembling aboutPatricia's mouth. Her hands, too, opened and shut tight before shespoke. 

"It is too late now, " she said, dully. "I gave you all there was togive. You gave me just what Grandma Pendomer and all the others had leftyou able to give. That remnant isn't love, Olaf, as we women understandit. And, anyhow, it is too late now. "

Yet Patricia was remembering a time when Rudolph's voice held alwaysthat grave, tender note in speaking to her; it seemed a great while ago. And he was big and manly, just like his voice, Rudolph was; and helooked very kind. Desperately, Patricia began to count over the timesher husband had offended her. Hadn't he talked to her in the mostunwarrantable manner only yesterday afternoon?

"Too late!--oh, not a bit of it!" Musgrave cried. His voice sankpersuasively. "Why, Patricia, you are only thinking the matter over forthe first time. You have only begun to think of it. Why, there is theboy--our boy, Patricia! Surely, you hadn't thought of Roger?"

He had found the right chord at last. It quivered and thrilled under histouch; and the sense of mastery leaped in his blood. Of a sudden, heknew himself dominant. Her face was red, then white, and her eyeswavered before the blaze of his, that held her, compellingly. 

"Now, honestly, just between you and me, " the colonel said, confidentially, "was there ever a better and braver and quainter andhandsomer boy in the world? Why, Patricia, surely, you wouldn'twillingly--of your own accord--go away from him, and never see himagain? Oh, you haven't thought, I tell you! Think, Patricia! Don't youremember that first day, when I came into your room at the hospital andhe--ah, how wrinkled and red and old-looking he was then, wasn't he, little wife? Don't you remember how he was lying on your breast, and howI took you both in my arms, and held you close for a moment, and how fora long, long while there wasn't anything left of the whole wide worldexcept just us three and God smiling down upon us? Don't you remember, Patricia? Don't you remember his first tooth--why, we were as proud ofhim, you and I, as if there had never been a tooth before in all thehistory of the world! Don't you remember the first day he walked? Why, he staggered a great distance--oh, nearly two yards!--and caught hold ofmy hand, and laughed and turned back--to you. You didn't run away fromhim then, Patricia. Are you going to do it now?"

She struggled under his look. She had an absurd desire to cry, just thathe might console her. She knew he would. Why was it so hard to rememberthat she hated Rudolph! Of course, she hated him; she loved that otherman yonder. His name was Jack. She turned toward Charteris, and thereassuring smile with which he greeted her, impressed Patricia as beingsingularly nasty. She hated both of them; she wanted--in that brief timewhich remained for having anything--only her boy, her soft, warm littleRoger who had eyes like Rudolph's. 

"I--I--it's too late, Rudolph, " she stammered, parrot-like. "If you hadonly taken better care of me, Rudolph! If--No, it's too late, I tellyou! You will be kind to Roger. I am only weak and frivolous andheartlesss. I am not fit to be his mother. I'm not fit, Rudolph!Rudolph, I tell you I'm not fit! Ah, let me go, my dear!--in mercy, letme go! For I haven't loved the boy as I ought to, and I am afraid tolook you in the face, and you won't let me take my eyes away--you won'tlet me! Ah, Rudolph, let me go!"

"Not fit?" His voice thrilled with strength, and pulsed with tendercadences. "Ah, Patricia, I am not fit to be his father! But, betweenus--between us, mightn't we do much for him? Come back to us, Patricia--to me and the boy! We need you, my dear. Ah, I am only astolid, unattractive fogy, I know; but you loved me once, and--I am thefather of your child. My standards are out-of-date, perhaps, and in anyevent they are not your standards, and that difference has broken manyties between us; but I am the father of your child. You must--you _must_come back to me and the boy!" Musgrave caught her face between hishands, and lifted it toward his. "Patricia, don't make any mistake!There is nothing you care for so much as that boy. You can't give himup! If you had to walk over red-hot ploughshares to come to him, youwould do it; if you could win him a moment's happiness by a lifetime ofpoverty and misery and degradation, you would do it. And so would I, little wife. That is the tie which still unites us; that is the tiewhich is too strong ever to break. Come back to us, Patricia--to me andthe boy. "

"I--Jack, Jack, take me away!" she wailed helplessly. 

Charteris came forward with a smile. He was quite sure of Patricia now. 

"Colonel Musgrave, " he said, with a faint drawl, "if you have entirelyfinished your edifying and, I assure you, highly entertaining monologue, I will ask you to excuse us. I--oh, man, man!" Charteris cried, notunkindly, "don't you see it is the only possible outcome?"

Musgrave faced him. The glow of hard-earned victory was pulsing in thecolonel's blood, but his eyes were chill stars. "Now, Jack, " he said, equably, "I am going to talk to you. In fact, I am going to discharge anagreeable duty toward you. "

Musgrave drew close to him. Charteris shrugged his shoulders; his smile, however, was not entirely satisfactory. It did not suggest enjoyment. 

"I don't blame you for being what you are, " Musgrave went on, curtly. "You were born so, doubtless. I don't blame a snake for being what itis. But, when I see a snake, I claim the right to set my foot on itshead; when I see a man like you--well, this is the right I claim. "

Thereupon Rudolph Musgrave struck his half-brother in the face with hisopen hand. The colonel was a strong man, physically, and, on thisoccasion, he made no effort to curb his strength. 

"Now, " Musgrave concluded, "you are going away from this place veryquickly, and you are going alone. You will do this because I tell you todo so, and because you are afraid of me. Understand, also--if you willbe so good--that the only reason I don't give you a thorough thrashingis that I don't think you are worth the trouble. I only want Patricia toperceive exactly what sort of man you are. "

The blow staggered Charteris. He seemed to grow smaller. His clothesseemed to hang more loosely about him. His face was paper-white, and thered mark showed plainly upon it. 

"There would be no earthly sense in my hitting you back, " he saidequably. "It would only necessitate my getting the thrashing which, Ican assure you, we are equally anxious to avoid. Of course you are ableto knock me down and so on, because you are nearly twice as big as I am. I fail to see that proves anything in particular. Come, Patricia!" Andhe turned to her, and reached out his hand. 

She shrank from him. She drew away from him, without any vehemence, asif he had been some slimy, harmless reptile. A woman does not like tosee fear in a man's eyes; and there was fear in Mr. Charteris's eyes, for all that he smiled. Patricia's heart sickened. She loathed him, andshe was a little sorry for him. 

"Oh, you cur, you cur!" she gasped, in a wondering whisper. Patriciawent to her husband, and held out her hands. She was afraid of him. Shewas proud of him, the strong animal. "Take me away, Rudolph, " she said, simply; "take me away from that--that coward. Take me away, my dear. Youmay beat me, too, if you like, Rudolph. I dare say I have deserved it. But I want you to deal brutally with me, to carry me away by force, justas you threatened to do the day we were married--at the Library, youremember, when the man was crying 'Fresh oranges!' and you smelt sodeliciously of soap and leather and cigarette smoke. "

Musgrave took both her hands in his. He smiled at Charteris. 

The novelist returned the smile, intensifying its sweetness. "I fancy, Rudolph, " he said, "that, after all, I shall have to take that trainalone. "

Mr. Charteris continued, with a grimace: "You have no notion, though, how annoying it is not to possess an iota of what is vulgarly consideredmanliness. But what am I to do? I was not born with the knack ofenduring physical pain. Oh, yes, I am a coward, if you like to put itnakedly; but I was born so, willy-nilly. Personally, if I had beenconsulted in the matter, I would have preferred the usual portion ofvalor. However! the sanctity of the hearth has been most edifyinglypreserved--and, after all, the woman is not worth squabbling about. "

There was exceedingly little of the mountebank in him now; he kickedPatricia's portmanteau, frankly and viciously, as he stepped over it tolift his own. Holding this in one hand, John Charteris spoke, honestly:

"Rudolph, I had a trifle underrated your resources. For you are a braveman--we physical cowards, you know, admire that above all things--and astrong man and a clever man, in that you have adroitly played upon thepurely brutal traits of women. Any she-animal clings to its young andlooks for protection in its mate. Upon a higher ground I would havebeaten you, but as an animal you are my superior. Still, a thing donehas an end. You have won back your wife in open fight. I fancy, by theway, that you have rather laid up future trouble for yourself in doingso, but I honor the skill you have shown. Colonel Musgrave, it is to youthat, as the vulgar phrase it, I take off my hat. "

Thereupon, Mr. Charteris uncovered his head with perfect gravity, andturned on his heel, and went down the road, whistling melodiously. 

Musgrave stared after him, for a while. The lust of victory died; thetumult and passion and fervor were gone from Musgrave's soul. He couldvery easily imagine the things Jack Charteris would say to Anneconcerning him; and the colonel knew that she would believe them all. Hehad won the game; he had played it, heartily and skilfully andsuccessfully; and his reward was that the old bickerings with Patriciashould continue, and that Anne should be taught to loathe him. Heforesaw it all very plainly as he stood, hand in hand with his wife. 

But Anne would be happy. It was for that he had played. 

VI

They came back to Matocton almost silently. The spell of the dawn wasbroken; it was honest, garish day now, and they were both hungry. 

Patricia's spirits were rising, as a butterfly's might after athunderstorm. Since she had only a few months to live, she would atleast not waste them in squabbling. She would be conscientiouslyagreeable to everybody. 

"Ah, Rudolph, Rudolph!" she cooed, "if I had only known all along thatyou loved me!"

"My dear, " he protested, fondly, "it seemed such a matter of course. " Hewas a little tired, perhaps; the portmanteau seemed very heavy. 

"A woman likes to be told--a woman likes to be told every day. Otherwise, she forgets, " Patricia murmured. Then her face grew tenderlyreproachful. "Ah, Rudolph, Rudolph, see what your carelessness andneglect has nearly led to! It nearly led to my running away with a manlike--like that! It would have been all your fault, Rudolph, if I had. You know it would have been, Rudolph. "

And Patricia sighed once more, and then laughed and became magnanimous. 

"Yes--yes, after all, you are the boy's father. " She smiled up at himkindly and indulgently. "I forgive you, Rudolph, " said Patricia. 

He must have shown that pardon from Patricia just now was not unflavoredwith irony, for she continued, in another voice: "Who, after all, is theone human being you love? You know that it's the boy, and just the boyalone. I gave you that boy. You should remember that, I think--"

"I do remember it, Patricia--"

"I bore the child. I paid the price, not you, " Patricia said, veryquiet. "No, I don't mean the price all women have to pay--" She pausedin their leisurely progress, and drew vague outlines in the roadway withthe ferrule of her umbrella before she looked up into Rudolph Musgrave'sface. She appraised it for a long while and quite as if her husband werea stranger. 

"Yes, I could make you very sorry for me, if I wanted to. " Her thoughtsran thus. "But what's the use? You could only become an interminablenuisance in trying to soothe my dying hours. You have just obstinatelysquatted around in Lichfield and devoted all your time to beingbeautiful and good and mooning around women for I don't know how manyyears. You make me tired, and I have half a mind to tell you so rightnow. And there really is no earthly sense in attempting to explainthings to you. You have so got into the habit of being beautiful andgood that you are capable of quoting Scripture after I have finished. Then I would assuredly box your jaws, because I don't yearn to be a poorstricken dear and weep on anybody's bosom. And I don't particularly careabout your opinion of me, anyway. "

Aloud she said: "Oh, well! let's go and get some breakfast. "

VII

And thus the situation stayed. Patricia told him nothing. And RudolphMusgrave, knowing that according to his lights he had behaved notunhandsomely, was the merest trifle patronizing and rather like a personspeaking from a superior plane in his future dealings with Patricia. Moreover, he was engrossed at this time by his scholarly compilation ofLichfield Legislative Papers prior to 1800, which was printed thefollowing February. 

She told him nothing. She was a devoted mother for two days' space, andthen candidly decided that Roger was developing into the mostinsufferable of little prigs. 

"And, besides, if he had never been born I would quite probably havelived to keep my teeth in a glass of water at night. And I can't helpthinking of that privilege being denied me whenever I look at him. "

She told Rudolph Musgrave nothing. She was finding it mildly amusing tonote how people came and went at Matocton, and to appraise these peopledisinterestedly, because she would never see them again. 

Patricia was drawing her own conclusions as to Lichfield's aristocracy. These people--for the most part a preposterously handsome race--were thepleasantest of companions and their manners were perfection; but therewas enough of old Roger Stapylton's blood in Patricia's veins to makeher feel, however obscurely, that nobody is justified in living withouteven an attempt at any personal achievement. The younger men evinced amarked tendency to leave Lichfield, to make their homes elsewhere, shenoted, and they very often attained prominence; there was Joe Parkinson, for instance, who had lunched at Oyster Bay only last Thursday, according to the _Lichfield Courier-Herald_. And, meanwhile, the men ofher husband's generation clung to their old mansions, and wereornamental, certainly, and were, very certainly, profoundlyself-satisfied; for they adhered to the customs of yesterday under thecomfortable delusion that this was the only way to uphold yesterday'sideals. But what, in heaven's name, had any of these men of RudolphMusgrave's circle ever done beyond enough perfunctory desk-work, say, tofurnish him food and clothes?

"A hamlet of Hamlets, " was Patricia's verdict as to Lichfield--"whoseactual tragedy isn't that their fathers were badly treated, but thatthey themselves are constitutionally unable to do anything except talkabout how badly their fathers were treated. "

No, it was not altogether that these men were indolent. Rudolph andRudolph's peers had been reared in the belief that when any manual laborbecame inevitable, you as a matter of course entrusted its execution toa negro; and, forced themselves to labor, they not unnaturally compliedwith an ever-present sense of unfair treatment, and, in consequence, performed the work inefficiently. Lichfield had no doubt preserved acomely manner of living; but it had produced in the last half-centurynothing of real importance except John Charteris. 

VIII

For Charteris was important. Patricia was rereading all the books thatCharteris had published, and they engrossed her with an augmentingadmiration. 

But it is unnecessary to dilate upon the marvelous and winning picturesof life in Lichfield before the War between the States which Charterishas painted in his novels. "Even as the king of birds that withunwearied wing soars nearest to the sun, yet wears upon his breast thesoftest down, "--as we learn from no less eminent authority than that ofthe _Lichfield Courier-Herald_--"so Mr. Charteris is equally expert indepicting the derring-do and tenderness of those glorious days ofchivalry, of fair women and brave men, of gentle breeding, of splendidculture and wholesome living. "

Patricia was not a little puzzled by these books. The traditionalLichfield, she decided in the outcome, may very possibly have been justthe trick-work of a charlatan's cleverness; but, even in that event, here were the tales of life in Lichfield--ardent, sumptuous andfragrant throughout with the fragrance of love and roses, of rhyme andof youth's lovely fallacies; and for the pot-pourri, if it deserved nohigher name, all who believed that living ought to be a uniformly nobletransaction could not fail to be grateful eternally. 

Esthetic values apart--and, indeed, to all such values Patricia accordeda provisional respect--what most impressed her Stapyltonian mind was thefact that these books represented, in a perfectly tangible way, success. Patricia very heartily admired success when it was brevetted as such bythe applause of others. And while to be a noted stylist, and even to bereasonably sure of annotated reissuement for the plaguing of unbornschoolchildren, was all well enough, in an unimportant, high-minded way, Patricia was far more vividly impressed by the blunt figures which toldhow many of John Charteris's books had been bought and paid for. Sheaccepted these figures as his publishers gave them forth, implicitly;and she marveled over and took odd joy in these figures. They enabledher to admire Charteris's books without reservation. 

By this time Mrs. Ashmeade had managed, in the most natural manner, totell Patricia a deal concerning Charteris. No halo graced the portraitMrs. Ashmeade painted. . . . But, indeed, Patricia now viewed JohnCharteris, considered as a person, without any particular bias. She didnot especially care--now--what the man had done or had omitted to do. 

But the venerable incongruity of the writer and his work confronted herintriguingly. A Charteris writes _In Old Lichfield;_ a Cockneydrug-clerk writes _The Eve of St. Agnes;_ a genteel printer evolves aLovelace; and a cutpurse pens the _Ballad of Dead Ladies_ in a brothel. It is manifestly impossible; and it happens. 

So here, then, was a knave who held, somehow, the keys to a courtlierand nobler world. These tales made living seem a braver business, forall that they were written by a poltroon. Was it pure posturing?Patricia, at least, thought it was not. At worst, such dexterousmaintenance of a pose was hardly despicable, she considered. And, anyhow, she preferred to believe that Charteris had by some miracle putthe best of himself into these books, had somehow clarified theabhorrent mixture of ability and evil which was John Charteris; and thebest in him she found, on this hypothesis, to be a deal more admirablethan the best in Rudolph Musgrave. 

"It _is_ a part of Jack, " she fiercely said. "It is, because I know itis. All this is part of him--as much a part of him as the cowardice andthe trickery. So I don't really care if he is a liar and a coward. Iought to, I suppose. But at the bottom of my heart I admire him. He hasmade something; he has created these beautiful books, and they will behere when we are all dead. He doesn't leave the world just as he foundit. That is the only real cowardice, I think--especially as I am goingto do it----"

And later she said, belligerently: "If I had been a man I could have atleast assassinated somebody who was prominent. I do wish Rudolph wasnot such a stick-in-the-mud. And I wish I liked Rudolph better. But onthe whole I prefer the physical coward to the moral one. Rudolph simplybores me stiff with his benevolent airs. He just walks around the placeforgiving me sixty times to the hour, and if he doesn't stop it I amgoing to slap him. "

Thus Patricia. 

IX

The world knows how Charteris was killed in Fairhaven by JasperHardress--the husband of "that flighty Mrs. Hardress" Anne had spokenof. 

"And I hardly know, " said Mrs. Ashmeade, "whether more to admire thejustice or the sardonic humor of the performance. Here after hundreds ofentanglements with women, John Charteris manages to be shot by a jealousmaniac on account of a woman with whom--for a wonder--his relations wereproven to be innocent. The man needed killing, but it is asking too muchof human nature to put up with his being made a martyr of. "

She cried a little, though. "It--it's because I remember him when he wasturning out his first mustache, " she explained, lucidly. 

 * * * * *

But with the horror and irony of John Charteris's assassination thebiographer of Rudolph Musgrave has really nothing to do save in so faras this event influenced the life of Rudolph Musgrave. 

It was on the day of Charteris's death--a fine, clear afternoon in lateSeptember--that Rudolph Musgrave went bass-fishing with some eight ofhis masculine guests. Luncheon was brought to them in a boat about twoo'clock, along with the day's mail. 

"I say--! But listen, everybody!" cried Alfred Chayter, whose mailincluded a morning paper--the _Lichfield Courier-Herald_, in fact. 

He read aloud. 

"I wish I could be with Anne, " thought Colonel Musgrave. "It may be Icould make things easier. "

But Anne was in Lichfield now. . . . 

He had just finished dressing for supper when it occurred to him thatsince their return from the river he had not seen Patricia. He wasafraid that Patricia, also, would be upset by this deplorable news. 

As he crossed the hall Virginia came out of Patricia's rooms. Thecolonel raised his voice in speaking to her, for with age Virginia wasgrowing very deaf. 

"Yaas, suh, " she said, "I'm doin' middlin' well, suh, thank yeh, suh. Jus' took the evenin' mail to Miss Patricy, like I always do, suh. " Shewent away quietly, her pleasant yellow face as imperturbable as anidol's. 

He went into Patricia's bedroom. Patricia had been taking an afternoonnap, and had not risen from the couch, where she lay with three or fourunopened letters upon her breast. Two she had opened and dropped uponthe floor. She seemed not to hear him when he spoke her name, and yetshe was not asleep, because her eyes were partly unclosed. 

There was no purple glint in them, as once there had been always. Hercountenance, indeed, showed everywhere less brightly tinted thannormally it should be. Her heavy copper-colored hair, alone undimmed, seemed, like some parasitic growth (he thought), to sustain its beautyby virtue of having drained Patricia's body of color and vitality. 

There was a newspaper in her right hand, with flamboyant headlines, because to Lichfield the death of John Charteris was an event ofimportance. 

Patricia seemed very young. You saw that she had suffered. You knew itwas not fair to hurt a child like that. 

But, indeed, Rudolph Musgrave hardly realized as yet that Patricia wasdead. For Colonel Musgrave was thinking of that time when this samePatricia had first come to him, fire-new from the heart of an ancientsunset, and he had noted, for the first time, that her hair was like thereflection of a sunset in rippling waters, and that her mouth was aninconsiderable trifle, a scrap of sanguine curves, and that her eyeswere purple glimpses of infinity. 

"This same Patricia!" he said, aloud. 

PART NINE - RELICS

 "You have chosen the love 'that lives sans murmurings, Sans passion, ' and incuriously endures The gradual lapse of time. You have chosen as yours A level life of little happenings; And through the long autumnal evenings Lord Love, no doubt, is of the company, And hugs your ingleside contentedly, Smiles at old griefs, and rustles needless wings. 

 "And yet I think that sometimes memories Of divers trysts, of blood that urged like wine On moonlit nights, and of that first long kiss Whereby your lips were first made one with mine, Awake and trouble you, and loving is Once more important and perhaps divine. "

 ALLEN ROSSITER. _Two in October. _

I

To those who knew John Charteris only through the medium of the printedpage it must have appeared that the novelist was stayed in mid-career byan accident of unrelieved and singular brutality. And truly, thusextinguished by the unfounded jealousy of a madman, the force ofCharteris's genius seemed, and seems to-day, as emphasized by thatsinister caprice of chance which annihilated it. 

But people in Lichfield, after the manner of each prophet's countrymen, had their own point of view. The artist always stood between thesepeople and the artist's handiwork, in part obscuring it. 

In any event, it was generally agreed in Lichfield that Anne Charteris'sconduct after her husband's death was not all which could be desired. Tobegin with, she attended the funeral, in black, it was true, but wearingonly the lightest of net veils pinned under her chin--"more as if shewere going somewhere on the train, you know, than as if she were ingenuine bereavement. "

"Jack didn't approve of mourning. He said it was a heathen survival. "That was the only explanation she offered. 

It seemed inadequate to Lichfield. It was preferable, as good tastewent, for a widow to be too overcome to attend her husband's funeral atall. And Mrs. Charteris had not wept once during the church ceremony, and had not even had hysterics during the interment at Cedarwood; andshe had capped a scandalous morning's work by remaining with theundertaker and the bricklayers to supervise the closing of JohnCharteris's grave. 

"Why, but of course. It is the last thing I will ever be allowed to dofor him, " she had said, in innocent surprise. "Why shouldn't I?"

Her air was such that you were both to talk to her about appearances. 

"Because she isn't a bit like a widow, " as Mrs. Ashmeade pointed out. "Anybody can condole with a widow, and devote two outer sheets toexplaining that you realize nothing you can say will be of any comfortto her, and begin at the top of the inside page by telling her how muchbetter off he is to-day--which I have always thought a double-edgedassertion when advanced to a man's widow. But you cannot condole with alantern whose light has been blown out. That is what Anne is. "

Mrs. Ashmeade meditated and appeared dissatisfied. "And John Charterisof all people!"

Anne was presently about the Memorial Edition of her husband'scollected writings. It was magnificently printed and when marketedachieved a flattering success. Robert Etheridge Townsend wascommissioned to write the authorized _Life of John Charteris_ and toarrange the two volumes of _Letters_. 

Anne was considered an authority on literature and art in general, through virtue of reflected glory. And in the interviews she grantedvarious journalists it was noticeable that she no longer referred to"Jack" or to "Mr. Charteris, " but to "my husband. " To have been his wifewas her one claim on estimation. And, for the rest, it is inadequate tolove the memory of a martyr. Worship is demanded; and so the wife becamethe priestess. 

II

Into Colonel Musgrave's mental processes during this period it will notdo to pry too closely. The man had his white nights and his battles, inpart with real grief and regret, and in part with sundry emotions whichhe took on faith as the emotions he ought to have, and, therefore, manifestly, suffered under. . . . "Patricia was my wife, Jack was mybrother, " ran his verdict in the outcome; and beyond that he did notcare to go. 

For death cowed his thoughts. In the colonel's explicit theology deadpeople were straightway conveyed to either one or the other of twoplaces. He had very certainly never known anybody who in his opinionmerited the torments of his orthodox Gehenna; so that in imagination hevaguely populated its blazing corridors with Nero and Judas and CaesarBorgia and Henry VIII, and Spanish Inquisitors and the aboriginalAmerican Indians--excepting of course his ancestress Pocahontas--andwith Benedict Arnold and all the "carpet-baggers" and suchlike othereminent practitioners of depravity. For no one whom Rudolph Musgravehad ever encountered in the flesh had been really and profoundly wicked, Rudolph Musgrave considered; and so, he always gravely estimatedthis-or-that acquaintance, after death, to be "better off, poorfellow"--as the colonel phrased it, with a tinge ofself-contradiction--even if he actually refrained in fancy from endowingthe deceased with aureate harps and crowns and footgear. In fine, deathcowed the colonel's thoughts; beyond the grave they did not care toventure, and when confronted with that abyss they decorously balked. 

Patricia and Jack were as a matter of course "better off, " then--and, miraculously purged of faults, with all their defects somehow remedied, the colonel's wife and brother, with Agatha and the colonel's otherinterred relatives, were partaking of dignified joys in bright supernaliridescent realms, which the colonel resignedly looked forward toentering, on some comfortably remote day or another, and thus rejoininghis transfigured kindred. . . . Such was the colonel's charitable decision, in the forming whereof logic was in no way implicated. For religion, asthe colonel would have told you sedately, was not a thing to be reasonedabout. Attempting to do that, you became in Rudolph Musgrave's honesteyes regrettably flippant. 

Meanwhile Cousin Lucy Fentnor was taking care of the colonel and littleRoger. And Lichfield, long before the lettering on Patricia's tombstonehad time to lose its first light dusty gray, had accredited Cousin LucyFentnor with illimitable willingness to become Mrs. Rudolph Musgrave, upon proper solicitation, although such tittle-tattle is neither herenor there; for at worst, a widowed, childless and impoverishedsecond-cousin, discreetly advanced in her forties, was entitled to keephouse for the colonel in his bereavement, as a jointly beneficialarrangement, without provoking scandal's tongue to more than a jocoseinnuendo or two when people met for "auction"--that new-fangledperplexing variant of bridge, just introduced, wherein you bid on thesuits. . . . And, besides, Cousin Lucy Fentnor (as befitted any one born anAllardyce) was to all accounts a notable housekeeper, famed alike forthe perilous glassiness of her hardwood floors, her dexterous managementof servants, her Honiton-braid fancy-work (familiar to every patron ofLichfield charity bazaars), and her unparalleled calves-foot jelly. Under Cousin Lucy Fentnor's systematized coddling little Roger grew likethe proverbial ill weed, and the colonel likewise waxed perceptibly ingirth. 

Thus it was that accident and a woman's intervention seemed once more tocombine in shielding Rudolph Musgrave from discomfort. And inconsequence it was considered improbable that at this late day thecolonel would do the proper thing by Clarice Pendomer, as, at the firsttidings of Patricia's death, had been authentically rumored among theimaginative; and, in fact, Lichfield no longer considered thatnecessary. The claim of outraged morality against these two had beenthrown out of court, through some unworded social statute oflimitation, as far as Lichfield went. Of course it was interesting tonote that the colonel called at Mrs. Pendomer's rather frequentlynowadays; but, then, Clarice Pendomer had all sorts of callersnow--though not many in skirts--and she played poker with men for moneyuntil unregenerate hours of the night, and was reputed with a wealth ofcorroborative detail to have even less discussable sources of income: sothat, indeed, Clarice Pendomer was now rather precariously retainedwithin the social pale through her initial precaution of having beenborn a Bellingham. . . . But all such tittle-tattle, as has been said, isquite beside the mark, since with the decadence of Clarice Pendomer thischronicle has, in the outcome, as scant concern as with the maritalaspirations of Cousin Lucy Fentnor. 

And, moreover, the colonel--in colloquial phrase at least--wenteverywhere. After the six months of comparative seclusion which decencyexacted of his widowerhood--and thereby afforded him ample leisure tocomplete and publish his _Lichfield Legislative Papers prior to1800_--the colonel, be it repeated, went everywhere; and people foundhim no whit the worse company for his black gloves and the somber bandstitched to his coatsleeve. So Lichfield again received him gladly, asthe social triumph of his generation. Handsome and trim and affable, noimaginable tourist could possibly have divined--for everybody inLichfield knew, of course--that Rudolph Musgrave had rounded hishalf-century; and he stayed, as ever, invaluable to Lichfield matronsalike against the entertainment of an "out-of-town" girl, the managementof a cotillon, and the prevention of unpleasant pauses among incongruousdinner-companies. 

But of Anne Charteris he saw very little nowadays. And, indeed, it wasof her own choice that Anne lived apart from Lichfieldian junketings, contented with her dreams and her pride therein, and her remorsefultender memories of the things she might have done for Jack and had notdone--lived upon exalted levels nowadays, to which the colonel's moreurbane bereavement did not aspire. 

III

"Charteris" was engraved in large, raised letters upon the granitecoping over which Anne stepped to enter the trim burial-plot wherein herdead lay. 

The place to-day is one of the "points of interest" in Cedarwood. Tourists, passing through Lichfield, visit it as inevitably as they dothe graves of the Presidents, the Southern generals and the many otherfamous people which the old cemetery contains; and the negro hackmen ofLichfield are already profuse in inaccurate information concerning itsoccupant. In a phrase, the post card which pictures "E 9436--Grave ofJohn Charteris" is among the seven similar misinterpretations oflocalities most frequently demanded in Lichfieldian drugstores andnews-stands. 

Her victoria had paused a trifle farther up the hill, where two bigsycamores overhung the roadway. She came into the place alone, walkingquickly, for she was unwarrantably flustered by her late encounter. Andwhen she found, of all people, Rudolph Musgrave standing by herhusband's grave, as in a sort of puzzled and yet reverent meditation, she was, and somehow as half-guiltily, assuring herself there was nopossible reason for the repugnance--nay, the rage, --which a mereglimpse of trudging, painted and flamboyant Clarice Pendomer hadkindled. Yet it must be recorded that Anne had always detested Clarice. 

Now Anne spoke, as the phrase runs, before she thought. "She came withyou!"

And he answered, as from the depths of an uncalled-for comprehensionwhich was distinctly irritating:

"Yes. And Harry, too, for that matter. Only our talk got somehow to benot quite the sort it would be salutary for him to take an interest in. So we told Harry to walk on slowly to the gate, and be sure not to doany number of things he would never have thought of if we hadn'tsuggested them. You know how people are with children----"

"Harry is--her boy?" Anne, being vexed, had almost added--"and yours?"

"Oh----! Say the _fons et origo_ of the Pendomer divorce case, poorlittle chap. Yes, Harry is her boy. "

Anne said, and again, as she perceived within the moment, a thought tooexpeditiously: "I wish you wouldn't bring them here, Colonel Musgrave. "

Indeed, it seemed to her flat desecration that Musgrave should havebrought his former mistress into this hallowed plot of ground. She didnot mind--illogically, perhaps--his bringing the child. 

"Eh----? Oh, yes, " said Colonel Musgrave. He was sensibly nettled. "Youwish 'Colonel Musgrave' wouldn't bring them here. But then, you see, wehad been to Patricia's grave. And we remembered how Jack stood by usboth when--when things bade fair to be even more unpleasant for Clariceand myself than they actually were. You shouldn't, I think, grudge evensuch moral reprobates the privilege of being properly appreciative ofwhat he did for both of us. Besides, you always come on Saturdays, youknow. We couldn't very well anticipate that you would be here thisafternoon. "

So he had been at pains to spy upon her! Anne phrased it thus in hersoul, being irritated, and crisply answered:

"I am leaving Lichfield to-morrow. I had meant this to be my farewell tothem until October. "

Colonel Musgrave had glanced toward the little headstone, with itsrather lengthy epitaph, which marked the resting-place of this woman'sonly child; and then to the tall shaft whereon was engraved just "JohnCharteris. " The latter inscription was very characteristic of herview-point, he reflected; and yet reasonable, too; as one might mentiona Hector or a Goethe, say, without being at pains to disclaim allusionto the minor sharers of either name. 

"Yes, " he said. "Well, I shall not intrude. "

"No--wait, " she dissented. 

Her voice was altered now, for there had come into it a marvelousgentleness. 

And Colonel Musgrave remained motionless. The whole world wasmotionless, ineffably expectant, as it seemed to him. 

Sunset was at hand. On one side was the high wooden fence which showedthe boundary of Cedarwood, and through its palings and above it, wasvisible the broad, shallow river, comfortably colored, for the mostpart, like _café au lait_, but flecked with many patches of foam andflat iron-colored rocks and innumerable islets, some no bigger than abilliard-table, but with even the tiniest boasting a tree or two. On theother--westward--was a mounting vista of close-shaven turf, and manycopings, like magnified geometrical problems, and a host of stuntedgrowing things--with the staid verdancy of evergreens predominant--and amultitude of candid shafts and slabs and crosses and dwarfed lambs andmeditant angels. 

Some of these thronged memorials were tinged with violet, and otherswere a-glitter like silver, just as the ordered trees shaded them or nofrom the low sun. The disposition of all worldly affairs, the man dimlyknew, was very anciently prearranged by an illimitable and, upon thewhole, a kindly wisdom. 

She was considering the change in him. Anne was recollecting thatColonel Musgrave had somewhat pointedly avoided her since her widowhood. He seemed almost a stranger nowadays. 

And she could not recognize in the man any resemblance to the boy whomshe remembered--so long ago--excepting just his womanish mouth, whichwas as in the old time very full and red and sensitive. And, illogically enough, both this great change in him and this one featurethat had never changed annoyed her equally. 

She was also worried by his odd tone of flippancy. It jarred, itvaguely--for the phrase has no equivalent--"rubbed her the wrong way. "Here at a martyr's tomb it was hideously out-of-place, and yet she didnot see her way clear to rebuke. So she remained silent. 

But Rudolph Musgrave was uncanny in some respects. For he said withinthe moment, "I am not a bit like John Charteris, am I?"

"No, " she answered, quietly. It had been her actual thought. 

Anne stayed a tiny while quite motionless. Her eyes saw nothingphysical. It was the attitude, Colonel Musgrave reflected, of one wholistens to a far-off music and, incommunicably, you knew that the musicwas of a martial sort. She was all in black, of course, very slim andpure and beautiful. The great cluster of red roses, loosely held, waslike blood against the somber gown. 

The widow of John Charteris, in fine, was a very different person fromthat Anne Willoughby whom Rudolph Musgrave had loved so long and longago. This woman had tasted of tonic sorrows unknown to Rudolph Musgrave, and had got consolation too, somehow, in far half-credible uplandsunvisited by him. But, he knew, she lived, and was so exquisite, mainlyby virtue of that delusion which he, of all men, had preserved; AnneCharteris was of his creation, his masterpiece; and viewing her, he wasaware of great reverence and joy. 

Anne was happy. It was for that he had played. 

But aloud, "I am envious, " Rudolph Musgrave declared. "He is the singlesolitary man I ever knew whose widow was contented to be simply hisrelict for ever and ever, amen. For you will always be just the womanJohn Charteris loved, won't you? Yes, if you lived to be thirty-sevenyears older than Methuselah, and every genius and potentate in the worldshould come a-wooing in the meantime, it never would occur to you thatyou could possibly be anything, even to an insane person, except hisrelict. And he has been dead now all of three whole years! So I amenvious, just as we ordinary mortals can't help being of you both;and--may I say it?--I am glad. "

IV

They were standing thus when a boy of ten or eleven came unhurriedlyinto the "section. " He assumed possession of Colonel Musgrave's hand asthough the action were a matter of course. 

"I got lost, Colonel Musgrave, " the child composedly announced. "Iwalked ever so far, and the gate wasn't where we left it. And the roadskept turning and twisting so, it seemed I'd never get anywhere. I don'tlike being lost when it's getting dark and there's so many dead people'round, do you?"

The colonel was moved to disapproval. "Young man, I suppose your poordeserted mother is looking for you everywhere, and has probably torn outevery solitary strand of hair she possesses by this time. "

"I reckon she is, " the boy assented. The topic did not appear to be inhis eyes of preëminent importance. 

Then Anne Charteris said, "Harry, " and her voice was such that RudolphMusgrave wheeled with amazement in his face. 

The boy had gone to her complaisantly, and she stood now with one handon either of his shoulders, regarding him. Her lips were parted, butthey did not move at all. 

"You are Mrs. Pendomer's boy, aren't you?" said Anne Charteris, in awhile. She had some difficulty in articulation. 

"Yes'm, " Harry assented, "and we come here 'most every Wednesday, and, please, ma'am, you're hurtin' me. "

"I didn't mean to--dear, " the woman added, painfully. "Don't interferewith me, Rudolph Musgrave! Your mother must be very fond of you, Harry. I had a little boy once. I was fond of him. He would have been elevenyears old last February. "

"Please, ma'am, I wasn't eleven till April, and I ain't tall for my age, but Tubby Parsons says----"

The woman gave an odd, unhuman sound. "Not until April!"

"Harry, " said Colonel Musgrave then, "an enormous whale is coming downthe river in precisely two minutes. Perhaps if you were to look throughthe palings of that fence you might see him. I don't suppose you wouldcare to, though?"

And Harry strolled resignedly toward the fence. Harry Pendomer did notlike this funny lady who had hurt, frightened eyes. He did not believein the whale, of course, any more than he did in Santa Claus. But likemost children, he patiently accepted the fact that grown people areunaccountable overlords appointed by some vast _bêtise_, whom, if onlythrough prudential motives, it is preferable to humor. 

V

Colonel Musgrave stood now upon the other side of John Charteris'sgrave--just in the spot that was reserved for her own occupancy someday. 

"You are ill, Anne. You are not fit to be out. Go home. "

"I had a little boy once, " she said. "'But that's all past and gone, andgood times and bad times and all times pass over. ' There's an odd simplemusic in the sentence, isn't there? Yet I remember it chiefly because Iused to read that book to him and he loved it. And it was my child thatdied. Why is this other child so like him?"

"Oh, then, that's it, is it?" said Rudolph Musgrave, as in relief. "Bless me, I suppose all these little shavers are pretty much alike. Ican only tell Roger from the other boys by his red head. Humanity in theraw, you know. Still, it is no wonder it gave you a turn. You had muchbetter go home, however, and not take any foolish risks, and put yourfeet in hot water, and rub cologne on your temples, and do all the othersuitable things----"

"I remember now, " she continued, without any apparent emotion, and asthough he had not spoken. "When I came into the room you were sayingthat the child must be considered. You were both very angry, and I wasalarmed--foolishly alarmed, perhaps. And my--and John Charteris said, 'Let him tell, then'--and you told me--"

"The truth, Anne. "

"And he sat quietly by. Oh, if he'd had the grace, the commonmanliness--!" She shivered here. "But he never interrupted you. I--I wasnot looking at him. I was thinking how vile you were. And when you hadended, he said, 'My dear, I am sorry you should have been involved inthis. But since you are, I think we can assure Rudolph that both of uswill regard his confidence as sacred. ' Then I remembered him, andthought how noble he was! And all those years that were so happy, hourby hour, he was letting you--meet his bills!" She seemed to wrench outthe inadequate metaphor. 

You could hear the far-off river, now, faint as the sound of boilingwater. 

After a few pacings Colonel Musgrave turned upon her. He spoke with acurious simplicity. 

"There isn't any use in lying to you. You wouldn't believe. You wouldonly go to some one else--some woman probably, --who would jump at thechance of telling you everything and a deal more. Yes, there are a greatmany 'they _do_ say's' floating about. This was the only one that camenear being--serious. The man was very clever. --Oh, he wasn't vulgarlylecherous. He was simply--Jack Charteris. He always irritated Lichfield, though, by not taking Lichfield very seriously. You would hear everyby-end of retaliative and sniggered-over mythology, and in your presentstate of mind you would believe all of them. I happen to know that agreat many of these stories are not true. "

"A great many of these stories, " Anne repeated, "aren't true! A greatmany aren't! That ought to be consoling, oughtn't it?" She spoke withouta trace of bitterness. 

"I express myself very badly. What I really mean, what I am aiming at, is that I wish you would let me answer any questions you might like toask, because I will answer them truthfully. Very few people would. Yousee, you go about the world so like a gray-stone saint who has juststepped down from her niche for the fraction of a second, " he added, aswith venom, "that it is only human nature to dislike you. "

Anne was not angry. It had come to her, quite as though she wereconsidering some other woman, that what the man said was, in a fashion, true. 

"There is sunlight and fresh air in the street, " John Charteris had beenwont to declare, "and there is a culvert at the corner. I think it is amistake for us to emphasize the culvert. "

So he had trained her to disbelieve in its existence. She saw this now. It did not matter. It seemed to her that nothing mattered any more. 

"I've only one question, I think. Why did you do it?" She spoke withbright amazement in her eyes. 

"Oh, my dear, my dear!" he seriocomically deplored. "Why, because it wassuch a noble thing to do. It was so like the estimable young man in aplay, you know, who acknowledges the crime he never committed and takesa curtain-call immediately afterwards. In fine, I simply observed tomyself, with the late Monsieur de Bergerac, 'But what a gesture!'" Andhe parodied an actor's motion in this rôle. 

She stayed unsmiling and patiently awaiting veracity. Anne did notunderstand that Colonel Musgrave was telling the absolute truth. And so, "You haven't _any_ sense of humor, " he lamented. "You used to have adeal, too, before you took to being conscientiously cheerful, anddiffusing sweetness and light among your cowering associates. Well, itwas because it helped him a little. Oh, I am being truthful now. I hadsome reason to dislike Jack Charteris, but odd as it is, I know to-day Inever did. I ought to have, perhaps. But I didn't. "

"My friend, you are being almost truthful. But I want the truth entire. "

"It isn't polite to disbelieve people, " he reproved her; "or at the veryleast, according to the best books on etiquette, you ought not to do itaudibly. Would you mind if I smoked? I could be more veracious then. There is something in tobacco that makes frankness a matter of course. Ithank you. "

He produced an amber holder, fitted a cigarette into it, and presentlyinhaled twice. He said, with a curt voice:

"The reason, naturally, was you. You may remember certain things thathappened just before John Charteris came and took you. Oh, that isprecisely what he did! You are rather a narrow-minded woman now, inconsequence--or in my humble opinion, at least--and deplorably superior. It pleased the man to have in his house--if you will overlook myventuring into metaphor, --one cool room very sparsely furnished where hecould come when the mood seized him. He took the raw material from me, wherewith to build that room, because he wanted that room. I acquiesced, because I had not the skill wherewith to fight him. "

Anne understood him now, as with a great drench of surprise. And fearwas what she felt in chief when she saw for just this moment as thoughit had lightened, the man's face transfigured, and tender, and strangeto her. 

"I tried to buy your happiness, to--yes, just to keep you blindindefinitely. Had the price been heavier, I would have paid it the moregladly. Fate has played a sorry trick. _You_ would never have seenthrough him. My dear, I have wanted very often to shake you, " he said. 

And she knew, in a glorious terror, that she desired him to shake her, and as she had never desired anything else in life. 

"Oh, well, I am just a common, ordinary, garden-sort of fool. TheMusgraves always are, in one fashion or another, " he sulkily concluded. And now the demigod was merely Rudolph Musgrave again, and she was notafraid any longer, but only inexpressibly fordone. 

"Isn't that like a woman?" he presently demanded of the June heavens. "To drag something out of a man with inflexibility, monomania and moralgrappling-irons, and _then_ not like it! Oh, very well! I am disgustedby your sex's axiomatic variability. I shall take Harry to his fondmamma at once. "

She did not say anything. A certain new discovery obsessed her like apiece of piercing music. 

Then Rudolph Musgrave gave the tiniest of gestures downward. "And I havetold you this, in chief, because we two remember him. He wanted you. Hetook you. You are his. You will always be. He gave you just a fragmentof himself. That fragment was worth more than everything I had tooffer. "

Anne very carefully arranged her roses on the ivy-covered grave. "I donot know--meanwhile, I give these to our master. And my real widowhoodbegins to-day. "

And as she rose he looked at her across the colorful mound, and smiled, half as with embarrassment. A lie, he thought, might ameliorate thesituation, and he bravely hazarded a prodigious one. "Is it necessary totell you that Jack loved you? And that the others never really counted?"

He rejoiced to see that Anne believed him. "No, " she assented, "no, notwith him. Oddly enough, I am proud of that, even now. But--don't yousee?--I never loved him. I was just his priestess--the priestess of astucco god! Otherwise, I would know it wasn't his fault, but altogetherthat of--the others. "

He grimaced and gave a bantering flirt of his head. He said, withquizzing eyes:

"Would it do any good to quote Lombroso, and Maudsley, and Gall, andKrafft-Ebing, and Flechsig, and so on? and to tell you that theexcessive use of one brain faculty must necessarily cause a lack ofnutriment to all the other brain-cells? It would be rather up-to-date. There is a deal I could tell you also as to what poisonous blood heinherited; but to do this I have not the right. " And then RudolphMusgrave said in all sincerity: "'A wild, impetuous whirlwind of passionand faculty slumbered quiet there; such heavenly _melody_ dwelling inthe heart of it. '"

She had put aside alike the drolling and the palliative suggestion, likeflimsy veils. "I think it wouldn't do any good whatever. When growingthings are broken by the whirlwind, they don't, as a rule, discuss thetheory of air-currents as a consolation. Men such as he was take whatthey desire. It isn't fair--to us others. But it's true, for all that--"

Their eyes met warily; and for no reason which they shared in commonthey smiled together. 

"Poor little Lady of Shalott, " said Rudolph Musgrave, "the mirror iscracked from side to side, isn't it? I am sorry. For life is not soeasily disposed of. And there is only life to look at now, and life is abewilderingly complex business, you will find, because the laws of itare so childishly simple--and implacable. And one of these laws seems tobe that in our little planet, might makes right--"

He stayed to puff his cigarette. 

"Oh, Rudolph dear, don't--don't be just a merry-Andrew!" she criedimpulsively, before he had time to continue, which she perceived hemeant to do, as if it did not matter. 

And he took her full meaning, quite as he had been used in the old timesto discourse upon a half-sentence. "I am afraid I am that, rather, " hesaid, reflectively. "But then Clarice and I could hardly have weatheredscandal except by making ourselves particularly agreeable to everybody. And somehow I got into the habit of making people laugh. It isn't verydifficult. I am rather an adept at telling stories which just grazeimpropriety, for instance. You know, they call me the social triumph ofmy generation. And people are glad to see me because I am 'so awfullyfunny' and 'simply killing' and so on. And I suppose it tells in thelong run--like the dyer's hand, you know. "

"It does tell. " Anne was thinking it would always tell. And that, too, would be John Charteris's handiwork. 

Ensued a silence. Rudolph Musgrave was painstakingly intent upon hiscigarette. A nestward-plunging bird called to his mate impatiently. Then Anne shook her head impatiently. 

"Come, while I'm thinking, I will drive you back to Lichfield. "

"Oh, no; that wouldn't do at all, " he said, with absolute decision. "No, you see I have to return the boy. And I can't quite imagine yourcarriage waiting at the doors of 'that Mrs. Pendomer. '"

"Oh, " Anne fleetingly thought, "_he_ would have understood. " But aloudshe only said: "And do you think I hate her any longer? Yes, it is trueI hated her until to-day, and now I'm just sincerely sorry for her. Forshe and I--and you and even the child yonder--and all that any of us isto-day--are just so many relics of John Charteris. Yet he has done withus--at last!"

She said this with an inhalation of the breath; but she did not look athim. 

"Take care!" he said, with an unreasonable harshness. "For I forewarnyou I am imagining vain things. "

"I'm not afraid, somehow. " But Anne did not look at him. 

He saw as with a rending shock how like the widow of John Charteris wasto Anne Willoughby; and unforgotten pulses, very strange and irrationaland dear, perplexed him sorely. He debated, and flung aside thecigarette as an out-moded detail of his hobbling part. 

"You say I did a noble thing for you. I tried to. But quixotism has itsprice. To-day I am not quite the man who did that thing. John Charterishas set his imprint too deep upon us. We served his pleasure. We are notany longer the boy and girl who loved each other. "

She waited in the rising twilight with a yet averted face. The world wasmotionless, ineffably expectant, as it seemed to him. And thedisposition of all worldly affairs, the man dimly knew, was veryanciently prearranged by an illimitable and, upon the whole, a kindlywisdom. 

So that, "My dear, my dear!" he swiftly said: "I don't think I can wordjust what my feeling is for you. Always my view of the world has beenthat you existed, and that some other people existed--as accessories--"

Then he was silent for a heart-beat, appraising her. His hands liftedtoward her and fell within the moment, as if it were in impotence. 

Anne spoke at last, and the sweet voice of her was very glad and proudand confident. 

"My friend, remember that I have not thanked you. You have done the mostfoolish and--the manliest thing I ever knew a man to do, just for mysake. And I have accepted it as if it were a matter of course. And Ishall always do so. Because it was your right to do this very brave andfoolish thing for me. I know you joyed in doing it. Rudolph . . . Youcannot understand how glad I am you joyed in doing it. "

Their eyes met. It is not possible to tell you all they were aware ofthrough that moment, because it is a knowledge so rarely apprehended, and even then for such a little while, that no man who has sensed it canremember afterward aught save the splendor and perfection of it. 

 * * * * *

And yet Anne looked back once. There was just the tall, stark shaft, andon it "John Charteris. " The thing was ominous and vast, all colored likewet gravel, save where the sunlight tipped it with clean silver veryhigh above their reach. 

"Come, " she quickly said to Rudolph Musgrave; "come, for I am afraid. "

VI

And are we then to leave them with glad faces turned to that new daywherein, above the ashes of old errors and follies and mischances andmiseries, they were to raise the structure of such a happiness as earthrarely witnesses? Would it not be, instead, a grateful task more fullyto depicture how Rudolph Musgrave's love of Anne won finally to itsreward, and these two shared the evening of their lives in tranquilservice of unswerving love come to its own at last?

Undoubtedly, since the espousal of one's first love--by oneself--is aphenomenon rarely encountered outside of popular fiction, it would be avery gratifying task to record that Anne and Rudolph Musgrave weremarried that autumn; that subsequently Lichfield was astounded by thefervor of their life-long bliss; that Colonel and (the second) Mrs. Musgrave were universally respected, in a word, and their dinner-partieswere always prominently chronicled by the _Lichfield Courier-Herald_;and that Anne took excellent care of little Roger, and that she and hersecond husband proved eminently suited to each other. 

But, as a matter of fact, not one of these things ever happened. . . . 

"I have been thinking it over, " Anne deplored. "Oh, Rudolph dear, Iperfectly realize you are the best and noblest man I ever knew. And Ihave always loved you very much, my dear; that is why I could neverabide poor Mrs. Pendomer. And yet--it is a feeling I simply can'texplain----"

"That you belong to Jack in spite of everything?" the colonel said. "Why, but of course! I might have known that Jack would never haveallowed any simple incidental happening such as his death to cause hismissing a possible trick. "

Anne would have comforted Rudolph Musgrave; but, to her discomfiture, the colonel was grinning, however ruefully. 

"I was thinking, " he stated, "of the only time that I ever, to myknowledge, talked face to face with the devil. It is rather odd howobstinately life clings to the most hackneyed trick of ballad-makers;and still naively pretends to enrich her productions by the stale deviceof introducing a refrain--so that the idlest remarks of as much as threeyears ago keep cropping up as the actual gist of the present!. . . However, were it within my power, I would evoke Amaimon straightway nowto come up yonder, through your hearthrug, and to answer me quitehonestly if I did not tell him on the beach at Matocton that this, precisely this, would be the outcome of your knowing everything!"

"I told you that I couldn't, quite, _explain_----" Anne said. 

"Eh, but I can, my dear, " he informed her. "The explanation is thatLichfield bore us, shaped us, and made us what we are. We may not enjoya monopoly of the virtues here in Lichfield, but there is one trait atleast which the children of Lichfield share in common. We are loyal. Wegive but once; and when we give, we give all that we have; and when wehave once given it, neither common-sense, nor a concourse ofexpostulating seraphim, nor anything else in the universe, can induce usto believe that a retraction, or even a qualification, of the gift wouldbe quite worthy of us. "

"But that--that's foolish. Why, it's unreasonable, " Anne pointed out. 

"Of course it is. And that is why I am proud of Lichfield. And that iswhy you are to-day Jack's wife and always will be just Jack's wife--andwhy to-day I am Patricia's husband--and why Lichfield to-day isLichfield. There is something braver in life than to be just reasonable, thank God! And so, we keep the faith, my dear, however obsolete we findfidelity to be. We keep to the old faith--we of Lichfield, who havegiven hostages to the past. We remember even now that we gave freely inan old time, and did not haggle. . . . And so, we are proud--yes! we areconsumedly proud, and we know that we have earned the right to beproud. "

A little later Colonel Musgrave said:

"And yet--it takes a monstrous while to dispose of our universe'ssubtleties. I have loved you my whole life long, as accurately as wecan phrase these matters. There is no--no _reasonable_ reason why youshould not marry me now; and you would marry me if I pressed it. And Ido not press it. Perhaps it all comes of our both having been reared inLichfield. Perhaps that is why I, too, have been 'thinking it over. ' Yousee, " he added, with a smile, "the rivet in grandfather's neck is notlightly to be ignored, after all. No, you do not know what I am talkingabout, my dear. And--well, anyhow, I belong to Patricia. Upon the whole, I am glad that I belong to Patricia; for Patricia and what Patriciameant to me was the one vital thing in a certain person's ratherhand-to-mouth existence--oh, yes, in spite of everything! I know it now. Anne Charteris, " the colonel cried, "I wouldn't marry you or any otherwoman breathing, even though you were to kneel and implore me upon theknees of a centipede. For I belong to Patricia; and the rivet staysunbroken, after all. "

"Oh, and am I being very foolish again?" Anne asked. "For I have beenremembering that when--when Jack was not quite truthful about somethings, you know, --the truth he hid was always one which would have hurtme. And I like to believe that was, at least in part, the reason he hidit, Rudolph. So he purchased my happiness--well, at ugly prices perhaps. But he purchased it, none the less; and I had it through all thoseyears. So why shouldn't I--after all--be very grateful to him? And, besides"--her voice broke--"besides, he was Jack, you know. He belongedto me. What does it matter what he did? He belonged to me, and I lovedhim. "

And to the colonel's discomfort Anne began to cry. 

"There, there!" he said, "so the real truth is out at last. And tearsdon't help very much. It does seem a bit unfair, my dear, I know. Butthat is simply because you and I are living in a universe which hasnever actually committed itself, under any penalizing bond, to beentirely candid as to the laws by which it is conducted. "

 * * * * *

But it may be that Rudolph Musgrave voiced quite obsolete views. For hesaid this at a very remote period--when the Beef Trust was being"investigated" in Washington; when an excited Iberian constabulary wasstill hunting the anarchists who had attempted to assassinate the youngKing and Queen of Spain upon their wedding-day; when the rebuilding ofan earthquake-shattered San Francisco was just beginning to be talked ofas a possibility; and when editorials were mostly devoted to discussionof what Mr. Bryan would have to say about bi-metallism when he returnedfrom his foreign tour. 

And, besides, it was Rudolph Musgrave's besetting infirmity always toshrink--under shelter of whatever grandiloquent excuse--from makingchanges. One may permissibly estimate this foible to have weighed withhim a little, even now, just as in all things it had always weighed inLichfield with all his generation. An old custom is not lightly broken. 

PART TEN - IMPRIMIS

 "So let us laugh, lest vain rememberings Breed, as of old, some rude bucolic cry Of awkward anguishes, of dreams that die Without decorum, of Love lacking wings Yet striving you-ward in his flounderings Eternally, --as now, even when I lie As I lie now, who know that you and I Exist and heed not lesser happenings. 

 "I was. I am. I will be. Eh, no doubt For some sufficient cause, I drift, defer, Equivocate, dream, hazard, grow more stout, Age, am no longer Love's idolater, -- And yet I could and would not live without Your faith that heartens and your doubts which spur. "

LIONEL CROCHARD. _Palinodia_. 

I

So weeks and months, and presently irrevocable years, passed tranquilly;and nothing very important seemed to happen nowadays, either for good orill; and Rudolph Musgrave was content enough. 

True, there befell, and with increasing frequency, periods when one mustlie abed, and be coaxed into taking interminable medicines, and beministered unto generally, because one was of a certain age nowadays, and must be prudent. But even such necessities, these underhandedindignities of time, had their alleviations. Trained nurses, forexample, were uncommonly well-informed and agreeable young women, whenyou came to know them--and quite lady-like, too, for all that in ourtopsy-turvy days these girls had to work for their living. Unthinkableas it seemed, the colonel found that his night-nurse, a Miss Ramsay, wasactually by birth a Ramsay of Blenheim; and for a little the discoverydepressed him. But to be made much of, upon whatever terms, was alwaystreatment to which the colonel submitted only too docilely. And, besides, in this queer, comfortable, just half-waking state, thecolonel found one had the drollest dreams, evolving fancies such as werereally a credit to one's imagination. . . . 

For instance, one very often imagined that Patricia was more close athand nowadays. . . . No, she was not here in the room, of course, butoutside, in the street, at the corner below, where the letterbox stood. Yes, she was undoubtedly there, the colonel reflected drowsily. And theyhad been so certain her return could only result in unhappiness, andthey were so wise, that whilst she waited for her opportunity Patriciaherself began to be a little uneasy. She had patrolled the block sixtimes before the chance came. 

And it seemed to Rudolph Musgrave, drowsily pleased by his owninventiveness, that Patricia was glad this afternoon was so hot that noone was abroad except the small boy at the corner house, who sat uponthe bottom porch-step, and, as children so often do, appeared intentlyto appraise the world at large with an inexplicable air ofdisappointment. 

"Now think how Rudolph would feel, "--the colonel whimsically played atreading Patricia's reflection--"if I were to be arrested as a suspiciouscharacter--that's what the newspapers always call them, I think--on hisvery doorstep! And he must have been home a half-hour ago at least, because I know it's after five. But the side-gate's latched, and I can'tring the door-bell--if only because it would be too ridiculous to haveto ask the maid to tell Colonel Musgrave his wife wanted to see him. Besides, I don't know the new house-girl. I wish now we hadn't let oldMary go, even though she was so undependable about thorough-cleaning. "

And it seemed to Rudolph Musgrave that Patricia was tired of pacingbefore the row of houses, each so like the other, and compared herselfto Gulliver astray upon a Brobdingnagian bookshelf which held a "libraryset" of some huge author. She had lost interest, too, in the new houseupon the other side. 

"If things were different I would have to call on them. But as it is, Iam spared that bother at least, " said Patricia, just as if being deaddid not change people at all. 

Then a colored woman, trim and frillily-capped, came out of the watchedhouse. She bore some eight or nine letters in one hand, and fannedherself with them in a leisurely flat-footed progress to the mailbox atthe lower corner. 

"She looks capable, " was Patricia's grudging commentary, in slippingthrough the doorway into the twilight of the hall. "But it isn't safe toleave the front-door open like this. One never knows--No, I can tell bythe look of her she's the sort that can't be induced to sleep on thelot, and takes mysterious bundles home at night. "

II

And it seemed to Rudolph Musgrave, now in the full flow of this drolldream, that Patricia resentfully noted her front-hall had been "meddledwith. " This much alone might Patricia observe in a swift transit to theparlor. 

She waited there until the maid returned; and registered to the woman'scredit the discreet soft closing of the front-door and afterward thewell-nigh inaudible swish of the rear door of the dining-room as themaid went back into the kitchen. 

"In any event, " Patricia largely conceded, "she probably doesn't clashthe knives and forks in the pantry after supper, like she was hostilearmaments with any number of cutlasses apiece. I remember Rudolph simplycouldn't stand it when we had Ethel. "

So much was satisfactory. Only--her parlor was so altered!

There was--to give you just her instantaneous first impression--solittle in it. Broad spaces of plain color showed everywhere; andPatricia's ideal of what a parlor should be, as befitted the châtelaineof a fine home in Lichfield, had always been the tangled elegancies ofthe front show-window of a Woman's Exchange for Fancy Work. The room hadeven been repapered--odiously, as she considered; and the shiny floor ofit boasted just three inefficient rugs, like dingy rafts upon a sea ofvery strong coffee. 

Patricia looked in vain for her grandiose plush-covered chairs, herimmaculate "tidies, " and the proud yellow lambrequin, embroidered inhigh relief with white gardenias, which had formerly adorned themantelpiece. The heart of her hungered for her unforgotten andunforgettable "watered-silk" papering wherein white roses bloomedexuberantly against a yellow background--which deplorably faded if youdid not keep the window-shades down, she remembered--and she wanted backher white thick comfortable carpet which hid the floor completely, sothat everywhere you trod upon the buxomest of stalwart yellow roses, each bunch of which was lavishly tied with wind-blown ribbons. 

Then, too, her cherished spinning-wheel, at least two hundred and fiftyyears old, which had looked so pretty after she had gilded it and addeda knot of pink sarsenet, was departed; and gone as well was themirror-topped table, with its array of china swan and frogs andwater-lilies artistically grouped about its speckless surface. Even herprized engraving of "Michael Angelo Buonarotti"--contentedly regardinghis just finished Moses, while a pope tiptoed into the room through aside-door--had been removed, with all its splendors of red-plush andintricate gilt-framing. 

Just here and there, in fine, like a familiar face in a crowd, she coulddiscover some one of her more sedately-colored "parlor ornaments"; andthe whole history of it--its donor or else its price, the gestures ofthe shopman, even what sort of weather it was when she and Rudolph found"exactly what I've been looking for" in the shop-window, and theStapyltonian, haggling over the price with which Patricia hadbargained--such unimportant details as these now vividly awakened inrecollection. . . . In fine, this room was not her parlor at all, and in itPatricia was lonely. . . . Yes, yes, she would be nowadays, the colonelreflected, for he himself had never been in thorough sympathy with allthe changes made by Roger's self-assured young wife. 

Thus it was with the first floor of the house, through which Patriciastrayed with uniform discomfort. This place was home no longer. 

Thus it was with the first floor of the house. Everywhere the equipmentswere strange, or at best arranged not quite as Patricia would haveplaced them. Yet they had not any look of being recently purchased. Eventhat hideous stair-carpet was a little worn, she noted, as noiselesslyshe mounted to the second story. 

The house was perfectly quiet, save for a tiny shrill continuance ofmelody that somehow seemed only to pierce the silence, not to dispel it. Rudolph--of all things!--had in her absence acquired a canary. Andeverybody knew what an interminable nuisance a canary was. 

She entered the front room. It had been her bedroom ever since hermarriage. She remembered this as with a gush of defiant joy. 

III

So it seemed to Rudolph Musgrave that Patricia came actually into theroom that had been hers. . . . 

A canary was singing there, very sweet and shrill and as in defiant joy. Its trilling seemed to fill the room. In the brief pauses of his songthe old clock, from which Rudolph had removed the pendulum on the nightof Agatha's death would interpose an obstinate slow ticking; andimmediately the clock-noise would be drowned in melody. Otherwise theroom was silent. 

In the alcove stood the bed which had been Patricia's. Intent upon itsoccupant were three persons, with their backs turned to her. OnePatricia could easily divine to be a doctor; he was twiddling ahypodermic syringe between his fingers, and the set of his shoulders wasthat of acquiescence. Profiles of the others she saw: one a passivenurse in uniform, who was patiently chafing the right hand of the bed'soccupant; the other a lean-featured red-haired stranger, who satcrouched in his chair and held the dying man's left hand. 

For in the bed, supported by many pillows, and facing Patricia, was adying man. He was very old, having thick tumbled hair which, like histwo-weeks' beard, was uniformly white. His eyelids drooped a trifle, sothat he seemed to meditate concerning something ineffably remote andserious, yet not, upon the whole, unsatisfactory. You saw and heard theintake of each breath, so painfully drawn, and expelled with manifestrelief, as if the man were very tired of breathing. Yet the bedclothesheaved with his vain efforts just to keep on breathing. And sometimeshis parted lips would twitch curiously. . . . Rudolph Musgrave, too, couldsee all this quite plainly, in the mirror over the mantel. 

The doctor spoke. "Yes--it's the end, Professor Musgrave, " he said. Forthis lean-featured red-haired stranger to whom the doctor spoke, apedagogue to his finger-tips, had once been Patricia's dearly-purchased, chubby baby Roger. 

And Rudolph Musgrave stayed motionless. He knew Patricia was there; butthat fact no longer seemed either very strange or even unnatural; andbesides, it was against some law for him to look at her until Patriciahad called him. . . . Meanwhile, just opposite, above the mirror, andfacing him, was the Stuart portrait of young Gerald Musgrave. Thispicture had now hung there for a great many years. The boy still smiledat you in undiminished raillery, even though he smiled ambiguously, andwith a sort of humorous sadness in his eyes. Once, very long ago--whenthe picture hung downstairs--some one had said that Gerald Musgrave'slife was barren. The dying man could not now recollect, quite, who thatperson was. 

Rudolph Musgrave stayed motionless. He comprehended that he was dying. The greatest of all changes was at hand; and he, who had always shrunkfrom making changes, was now content enough. . . . Indeed, with RudolphMusgrave living had always been a vaguely dissatisfactory business, ahand-to-mouth proceeding which he had scrambled through, as he saw now, without any worthy aim or even any intelligible purpose. He had nothingvery heinous with which to reproach himself; but upon the other side, hehad most certainly nothing of which to be particularly proud. 

So this was all that living came to! You heard of other people beingrapt by splendid sins and splendid virtues, and you anticipated thatto-morrow some such majestic energy would transfigure your own living, and change everything: but the great adventure never arrived, somehow;and the days were frittered away piecemeal, what with eating yourdinner, and taking a wholesome walk, and checking up your bank account, and dovetailing scraps of parish registers and land-patents and countyrecords into an irrefutable pedigree, and seeing that your clothes werepressed, and looking over the newspapers--and what with otherinfinitesimal avocations, each one innocent, none of any particularimportance, and each consuming an irrevocable moment of the allottedtime--until at last you found that living had not, necessarily, anyclimax at all. . . . And Patricia would call him presently. 

Once, very long ago, some one had said that the most pathetic tragedy inlife was to get nothing in particular out of it. The dying man could notnow recollect, quite, who that person was. 

He wondered, vaguely, what might have been the outcome if RudolphMusgrave had whole-heartedly sought, not waited for, the greatadventure; if Rudolph Musgrave had put--however irrationally--moreenergy and less second-thought into living; if Rudolph Musgrave had notbeen contented to be just a Musgrave of Matocton. . . . Well, it was toolate now. He viewed his whole life now, in epitome, and much as you maysee at night the hackneyed vista from your window leap to incisivenessunder the lash of lightning. No, the life of Rudolph Musgrave had neverrisen to the plane of dignity, not even to that of seeming to RudolphMusgrave a connected and really important transaction on RudolphMusgrave's part. Yet Lichfield, none the better for Rudolph Musgrave'shaving lived, was none the worse, thank heaven! And there were youngermen in Lichfield--men who did not mean to fail as Rudolph Musgrave andhis fellows all had failed. . . . Eh, yes, what was the toast that RudolphMusgrave drank, so long ago, to the new Lichfield which these youngermen were making?

"To this new South, that has not any longer need of me or of my kind. 

"To this new South! She does not gaze unwillingly, nor too complacently, upon old years, and dares concede that but with loss of manliness mayany man encroach upon the heritage of a dog or of a trotting-horse, andconsider the exploits of an ancestor to guarantee an innate and personalexcellence. 

"For to her all former glory is less a jewel than a touchstone, and withher portion of it daily she appraises her own doing, and without vainspeech. And her high past she values now, in chief, as fit foundation ofthat edifice whereon she labors day by day, and with augmentingstrokes. "

Yes, that was it. And it was true. Yet Rudolph Musgrave's life on earthwas ending now--the only life that he would ever have on earth--and ithad never risen to the plane of seeming even to Rudolph Musgrave areally important transaction on Rudolph Musgrave's part. . . . 

Then Patricia spoke. Low and very low she called to Olaf, and the dim, wistful eyes of Rudolph Musgrave lifted, and gazed full upon herstanding there, and were no longer wistful. And the man made as thoughto rise, and could not, and his face was very glad. 

For in the dying man had awakened the pulses of an old, strange, half-forgotten magic, and all his old delight in the girl who had sharedin and had provoked this ancient wonder-working, together with a quitenew consciousness of the inseparability of Patricia's foibles from hisexistence; so that he was incuriously aware of his imbecility in nothaving known always that Patricia must come back some day, not as aglorious, unfamiliar angel, but unaltered. 

"I am glad you haven't changed. . . . Why, but of course! Nothing wouldhave counted if you had changed--not even for the better, Patricia. Foryou and what you meant to me were real. That only was real--that we, notbeing demigods, but being just what we were, once climbed together veryhigh, where we could glimpse the stars--and nothing else can ever be ofany importance. What we inherited was too much for us, was it not, mydear? And now it is not formidable any longer. Oh, but I loved you verygreatly, Patricia! And now at last, my dear, I seem to understand--as inthat old, old time when you and I were glad together----"

But he did not say this aloud, for it seemed to him that he stood in acool, pleasant garden, and that Patricia came toward him through thelong shadows of sunset. The lacy folds and furbelows andsemi-transparencies that clothed her were now tinged with gold and now, as a hedge or a flower bed screened her from the level rays, weresoftened into multitudinous graduations of grays and mauves and violets. 

They did not speak. But in her eyes he found compassion and suchtenderness as awed him; and then, as a light is puffed out, they werethe eyes of a friendly stranger. He understood, for an instant, that ofnecessity it was decreed time must turn back and everything, evenRudolph Musgrave, be just as it had been when he first saw Patricia. Forthey had made nothing of their lives; and so, they must begin all overagain. 

"_Failure is not permitted_" he was saying. . . . 

"_You're Cousin Rudolph, aren't you?_" she asked. . . . 

And Rudolph Musgrave knew he had forgotten something of vast import, butwhat this knowledge had pertained to he no longer knew. Then RudolphMusgrave noted, with a delicious tingling somewhere about his heart, that her hair was like the reflection of a sunset in ripplingwaters--only many times more beautiful, of course--and that her mouthwas an inconsiderable trifle, a scrap of sanguine curves, and that hereyes were purple glimpses of infinity. 

THE END