THE THREE BLACK PENNYS

THE THREE BLACK PENNYS

A NOVEL

JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER

GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS

_By Arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf_

COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY

ALFRED A. KNOPF

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

_A DEDICATION_

_Dear John Hemphill_

_This is a record and act of memoryof you at Dower House--of Junenights on the porch, with the foliageof the willow tree powdered againstthe stars; the white-panelled hearthof the yellow room in smoulderingwinter dusks; dinner with the candleswavering in tepid April airs; andthe blue envelopment of late Septembernoons. A quiet reach like the oldgrey house and green fields, the littlevalleys filled with trees and placidtown beyond the hill, where the calendarof our days and companionship isset. _

_Joseph Hergesheimer_

CONTENTS

I THE FURNACE

II THE FORGE

III THE METAL

I THE FURNACE

I

A twilight like blue dust sifted into the shallow fold of the thicklywooded hills. It was early October, but a crisping frost had alreadystamped the maple trees with gold, the Spanish oaks were hung withpatches of wine red, the sumach was brilliant in the darkeningunderbrush. A pattern of wild geese, flying low and unconcerned abovethe hills, wavered against the serene, ashen evening. Howat Penny, standing in the comparative clearing of a road, decided that theshifting, regular flight would not come close enough for a shot. Hedropped the butt of his gun to the ground. Then he raised it again, examining the hammer; the flint was loose, unsatisfactory. There was aprobability that it would miss firing. 

He had no intention of hunting the geese. With the drooping of day hiskeenness had evaporated; an habitual indifference strengthened, permeating him. He turned his dark, young face toward the transparent, green afterglow; the firm eyebrows drawn up at the temples, sombre eyesset, too, at a slight angle, a straight nose, impatient mouth andprojecting chin. Below him, and to the left, a heavy, dark flame andsilvery smoke were rolling from the stack of Shadrach Furnace. Figureswere moving obscurely over the way that led from the coal house, set onthe hill, to the top and opening of the furnace; finishing, Howat Pennyknew, the charge of charcoal, limestone and iron ore. 

Shadrach Furnace had been freshly set in blast; it was on that accounthe was there, to represent, in a way, his father, who owned a halfinterest in the Furnace. However, he had paid little attention to theformality; his indifference was especially centred on the tediousprocesses of iron making, which had, at the same time, made his family. He had gone far out from the Furnace tract into an utterly uninhabitedand virginal region, where he had shot at, and missed, an impressivebuck and killed a small bear. Now, that he had returned, his apathy oncemore flooded him; but he had eaten nothing since morning, and he washungry. 

He could go home, over the nine miles of road that bound the Furnace toMyrtle Forge and the Penny dwelling; there certain of whatever supper hewould elect. But, he decided, he preferred something now, less formal. There were visitors at Myrtle Forge, Abner Forsythe, who owned the otherhalf of Shadrach, his son David, newly back from England and the studyof metallurgy, and a Mr. Winscombe, come out to the Provinces inconnection with the Maryland boundary dispute, accompanied by his wife. All this Howat Penny regarded with profound distaste; necessary socialand conversational forms repelled him. And it annoyed his father when hesat, apparently morose, against the wall, or retired solitary to hisroom. 

He would get supper here; they would be glad to have him at the house ofPeter Heydrick, the manager of the Furnace. Half turning, he could seethe dwelling at his back--a small, grey stone rectangle with a narrowportico on its solid face and a pale glimmer of candles in the lowerwindows. The ground immediately about it was cleared of brush and littletrees, affording Peter Heydrick a necessary, unobstructed view of theFurnace stack while sitting in his house or when aroused at night. Thedwelling was inviting, at once slipping into the dusk and emerging byreason of the warm glow within. Mrs. Heydrick, too, was an excellentcook; there would be plenty of venison, roast partridge, okra soup. Afterwards, under a late moon, he could go back to Myrtle Forge; or hemight stay at the Heydricks all night, and to-morrow kill such a buck ashe had lost. 

The twilight darkened beneath the trees, the surrounding hills losttheir forms, in the east the distance merged into the oncoming night, but the west was still translucent, green. There was a faint movementin the leaves by the roadside, and a grey fox crossed, flattened on theground, and disappeared. Howat Penny could see the liquid gleam of itseyes as it watched him. From the hill by the coal house came the heavybeating of wild turkeys' wings. 

He could go to Peter Heydrick's, where the venison would be excellent, and Mrs. Heydrick was celebrated for her guinea pickle with cucumbers;but ... The Heydricks had no daughter, and the Gilkans had. ThomasGilkan was only a founderman; his house had one room below and apartition above; and Mrs. Gilkan's casual fare could not be compared toMrs. Heydrick's inviting amplitude. Yet there was Fanny Gilkan, erectand flaming haired, who could walk as far as he could himself, and carryher father's clumsy gun all the way. 

His thoughts, deflected by Fanny Gilkan, left the immediate present ofsupper, and rested upon the fact that his--his appreciation of her wasbecoming known at the Furnace; while Dan Hesa must be circulating it, with biting comments, among the charcoal burners. Dan Hesa, althoughyounger than Howat, was already contracting for charcoal, a forwardyoung German; and, Fanny had said with a giggle, he was paying herserious attention. Howat Penny had lately seen a new moroseness amongthe charcoal burners that could only have come from the association ofthe son of Gilbert Penny and the potential owner of Myrtle Forge withthe founderman's daughter. Charcoal burners were lawless men, fugitivein character, often escaped from terms of indenture; Dan Hesa was, heknew, well liked by them; and the hazard created by his attraction toFanny Gilkan drew Howat Penny irresistibly away from the superior meritsof the Heydrick table. 

That was his character: denial as a child had filled him withslow-accumulating rage; later discipline at school had found him utterlyintractable. Something deep and instinctive within him resisted everyeffort to make him a part of any social organization, however admirable;he never formed any personal bonds with humanity in particular. He hadgrown into a solitary being within whom were immovably locked all theconfidences, the spontaneous expressions of self, that bind men into asolidarity of common failings and hopes. He never offered, nor, apparently, required, any marks of sympathy; as a fact, he rarelyexpressed anything except an occasional irrepressible scorn lashing outat individuals or acts that conspicuously displeased him. This hadoccurred more than once at Myrtle Forge, when assemblymen or members ofthe Provincial Council had been seated at dinner. 

It was after such a scene that his mother had witnessed perhaps his onlyattempt at self-explanation. "I am sorry you were disturbed, " he hadpronounced, after standing and regarding her for a silent, frowningspace; "but for me there is something unendurable in men herding likecattle, protecting their fat with warning boards and fences. I can'tmanage the fiddling lies that keep up the whole silly pretence of thestuffy show. If it gets much thicker, " he had threatened, waving vaguelytoward the west, "I'll go out to the Ohio, or the French forts. "

That this was not merely a passive but an active state of mind was amplyexpressed by his resolute movement toward Thomas Gilkan's house. He had, ordinarily, an unusual liking for the charcoal burners, and had spentmany nights in their huts, built, like the charring stacks, of mud andbranches. But, organized by Dan Hesa into an opposition, a criticism ofhis choice of way, they offered an epitome of the conditions he deridedand assailed. 

His feeling for Fanny Gilkan was in the greater part understood, measured; there was a certain amount of inchoate, youthful response toher sheer physical well being, a vague blur of pleasant sensation at herproximity; but beyond that he felt no attraction except a carelessadmiration for her endurance and dexterity in the woods, a certainrelief in the freedom of her companionship. He had never considered herconcretely as a possible source of physical pleasure. He was not easilyexcited sexually, and had had few adventures with women; something ofhis contempt, his indifference, removed him from that, too. His emotionswere deep, vital; and hid beneath a shyness of habit that had grown intoa suspicious reserve. All bonds were irksome to him, and instinctivelyhe avoided the greater with the lesser; instinctively he realized thatthe admission of cloying influences, of the entanglements of sex, wouldmore definitely bind him than any generality of society. 

It had, he thought, grown dark with amazing rapidity. He could now see afeeble light at the Gilkans, ahead and on the right. At the same momenta brighter, flickering radiance fell upon the road, the thick foliage ofthe trees. The blast was gathering at Shadrach Furnace. A clear, almostsmokeless flame rose from the stack against the night-blue sky. Itilluminated the rectangular, stone structure of the coal-house on thehill, and showed the wet and blackened roof of the casting shed below. The flame dwindled and then mounted, hanging like a fabulous oriflammeon a stillness in which Howat Penny could hear the blast forced throughthe Furnace by the great leather bellows. 

He turned in, over the littered ground before the Gilkan house. Fannywas standing in the doorway, her straight, vigorous body sharp againstthe glow inside. "Here's Mr. Howat Penny, " she called over her shoulder. "Is everything off the table? There's not much, " she turned to him, "butthe end of the pork barrel. " A meagre fire was burning in the large, untidy hearth; battered tin ovens had been drawn aside, and a pair ofwood-soled shoes were drying. The rough slab of the table, pushed backagainst a long seat made of a partly hewed and pegged log, was emptybut for some dull scarred pewter and scraps of salt meat. On the narrowstair that led above, a small, touselled form was sleeping--one of thecast boys at the Furnace. 

A thin, peering woman in a hickory-dyed wool dress moved forwardobsequiously. "Mr. Penny!" she echoed the girl's announcement; "and hereI haven't got a thing fit for you. Thomas Gilkan has been too busy toget out, and Fanny she'll fetch nothing unless the mood's on her. If Ionly had a fish I could turn over. " She brushed the end of the tablewith a frayed sleeve. "You might just take a seat, and I'll lookaround. "

Fanny Gilkan listened to her mother with a comprehending smile. Fanny'sface was gaunt, but her grey eyes were wide and compelling, her mouthwas firm and bright; and her hair, her father often said, resembled thefire at the top of Shadrach. Howat knew that she was as impersonal, asessentially unstirred, as himself; but he had a clear doubt of Mrs. Gilkan. The latter was too anxious to welcome him to their unpretendinghome; she obviously moved to throw Fanny and himself together, and todisparage such suits as honest Dan Hesa's. He wondered if the olderwoman thought he might marry her daughter. And wondering he came to theconclusion that the other thing would please the mother almost as well. She had given him to understand that at Fanny's age she would know howto please any Mr. Howat Penny that chance fortune might bring her. 

That some such worldly advice had been poured into Fanny's ears hecould not doubt; and he admired the girl's obvious scorn of such wilesand surrenders. She sat frankly beside him now, as he finished awretched supper, and asked about the country in regions to which she hadnot penetrated. "It's a three days' trip, " he finished a recital of anexcursion of his own. 

"I'd like to go, " she returned; "but I suppose I couldn't find italone. "

He was considering the possibility of such a journey with her--it wouldbe pleasant in the extreme--when her mother interrupted them from thefoot of the stair. 

"A sensible girl, " she declared, "would think about seeing the sights ofa city, and of a cherry-derry dress with ribbons, instead of all thisabout tramping off through the woods with a ragged skirt about yournaked knees. "

Fanny Gilkan's face darkened, and she glanced swiftly at Howat Penny. Hewas filling a pipe, unmoved. Such a trip as he had outlined, with Fanny, was fastening upon his thoughts. It would at once express his entireattitude toward the world, opinion, and the resentful charcoal burners. 

"You wouldn't really go, " he said aloud, half consciously. 

The girl frowned in an effort of concentration, gazing into the thinlight of the dying fire and two watery tallow dips. Her coarsely spundress, coloured with sassafras bark and darker than the yellow hickorystain, drew about her fine shoulders and full, plastic breast. "I'd likeit, " she repeated; "but afterward. There is father--"

She had said father, but Howat Penny determined that she was thinking ofDan Hesa; Dan was as strong as himself, if heavier; a personable youngman. He would make a good husband. But that, he added, was in thefuture; Dan Hesa apparently didn't want to marry Fanny to-morrow, thatweek. Meanwhile a trip with him to the headwaters of a creek would notinjure her in the least. His contempt of a world petty and iron-bound inendless pretence, fanning his smouldering and sullen resentment ingeneral, flamed out in a determination to take her with him if possible. It would conclusively define, state, his attitude toward "men herdinglike cattle. " He did not stop to consider what it might define for FannyGilkan. In the stir of his rebellious self there was no pause forvicarious approximations. If he thought of her at all it was in theindirect opinion that she was better without such a noodle as Dan Hesathreatened to become. 

"I'd get two horses from the Forge, " he continued, apparently to hismildly speculative self; "a few things, not much would be necessary. That gun you carry, " he addressed Fanny indirectly, "is too heavy. I'llget you a lighter, bound in brass. "

She repeated sombrely, leaning with elbows on the table, her chin in herhands, "And afterwards--"

"I thought you were free of that, " he observed; "it sounds like thetown women, the barnyard crowd. I thought you were an independentperson. Certainly, " he went on coldly, "you can't mistake my attitude. Ilike you, but I am not in the least interested in any way that--thatjour mother might appreciate. I am neither a seducer nor the type thatmarries. "

"I understand that, Howat, " she assured him; "and I think, I'm not surebut I think, that what you mean wouldn't bother me either. Anyhow itshouldn't spoil the fun of our trip. But no one else in the world wouldbelieve that simple truth. If you could stay there, in those splendidwoods or a world like them, why, it would be heaven. But you have tocome back, you have to live on, perhaps for a great while, in the worldof Shadrach and Myrtle Forge. I'm not sure that I'd refuse if you askedme to go, Howat. I just don't know if a woman can stand alone, forthat's what it would come to afterward, against a whole lifeful ofmisjudgment. It might be better in the end, for everybody, if shecontinued home, made the best of things with the others. "

"You may possibly be right, " he told her with a sudden resumption ofindifference. After all, it was unimportant whether or not Fanny Gilkanwent with him to the source of the stream he had discovered. Every one, it became more and more evident, was alike, monotonous. He wonderedagain, lounging back against the wall, about the French forts, outpostsin a vast wilderness. There was an increasing friction between theProvince and France, the legacy of King George's War, but Howat Penny'sallegiance to place was as conspicuous by its absence as the othercommunal traits. Beside that, beyond Kaskaskia, at St. Navier and theNorth, there was little thought of French or English; the sheer problemof existence there drowned other considerations. He would, he thought, go out in the spring ... Leave Myrtle Forge with its droning anvil, theendless, unvaried turning of water wheel, and the facile, trivialchatter in and about the house. David Forsythe, back from England in thecapacity of master of fluxing metals, might acquire his, Howat's, interest in the Penny iron. 

Fanny Gilkan said, "You'll burn a hole in your coat with that pipe. " Heroused himself, and she moved across the room and pinched the smokingwicks. The embers on the hearth had expired, and the fireplace was asooty, black cavern. Fanny, at the candles, was the only thing clearlyvisible; the thin radiance slid over the turn of her cheek; her hoveringhand was like a cut-paper silhouette. It was growing late; Thomas Gilkanwould soon be back from the Furnace; he must go. Howat had no will toavoid Gilkan, but the thought of the necessary conversational exchangewearied him. 

The sound of footsteps approached the house from without; it was, hethought, slightly annoyed, the founderman; but the progress deflectedby the door, circled to a window at the side. A voice called low andurgent, "Seemy! Seemy!" It was repeated, and there was an answeringmutter from the stair, a thick murmur and a deep sigh. 

The cast boy slipped crumpled and silent in bare feet across the floor. "Yes, " he called back, rapidly waking. 

The voice from without continued, "They're going to start up the Oley. "

"What is it?" Fanny demanded. 

"The raccoon dogs, " the boy paused at the door. "A lot of the furnacemenand woodcutters from round about are hunting. "

Fanny Gilkan leaned across the table to Howat, her face glowing withinterest. "Come ahead, " she urged; "we can do this anyhow. I like tohear the dogs yelping, and follow them through the night. You can bringyour gun, I'll leave mine back, and perhaps we'll get something reallybig. "

Howat himself responded thoroughly to such an expedition; to the mysteryof the primitive woods, doubly withdrawn in the dark; the calls of theothers, near or far, or completely lost in a silence of stars; the stillimmensity of a land unguessed, mythical--endless trees, endlessmountains, endless rivers with their headwaters buried in arcticcountries beyond human experience, and emptying into the miraculous blueand gilded seas of the tropics. 

Fanny Gilkan would follow the dogs closely, too, with infinite swingand zest. She knew the country better than himself, better almost thanany one else at the Furnace. He stirred at her urgency, and she caughthis arm, dragging him from behind the table. She tied a linsey-woolseyjacket by its arms about her waist, and put out the candles. Outside theblast was steadily in progress at the stack; the clear glow of the flameshifted over the nearby walls, glinted on the new yellow of more distantfoliage, fell in sharp or blurred traceries against the surroundingnight. 

They could hear the short, impatient yelps of the dogs; but, before theyreached them, the hunt was away. A lantern flickered far ahead, a minuteblur vanishing through files of trees. Fanny turned to the right, mounting an abrupt slope thickly wooded toward the crown. A late moon, past full, shed an unsteady light through interlaced boughs, mattedgrape vines, creepers flung from tree to tree; it shone on a hurryingrill, a bright thread drawn through the brush. Fanny Gilkan jumpedlightly from bank to bank. She made her way with lithe ease throughapparently unbroken tangles. It was Fanny who went ahead, who waited forHowat to follow across a fallen trunk higher than his waist. She evenmocked him gaily, declared that, through his slowness, they werehopelessly losing the hunt. 

However, the persistent barking of the dogs contrived to draw them on. They easily passed the stragglers, left a group gathered about a lanternand a black bottle. They caught up to the body of men, but preferred tofollow a little outside of the breathless comments and main, stumblingprogress. They stirred great areas of pigeons and countless indifferentcoveys of partridges barely moved to avoid the swiftly falling feet. Butno deer crossed near them, and the crashing of a heavy animal throughthe bushes diminished into such a steep gulley that they relinquishedthought of pursuit. The chase continued for an unusual distance; themoon sank into the far, unbroken forest; the stars brightened throughthe darkest hour of the night. 

Fanny Gilkan and Howat proceeded more slowly now, but still they wentdirectly, without hesitation, in the direction they chose. They crosseda log felled over a shallow, hurrying creek; the course grew steeper, more densely wooded. "Ruscomb Manor, " Fanny pronounced over hershoulder. "Since a long way back, " he agreed. Finally a sharper, stationary clamour announced that the object of the hunt had beenachieved, and a raccoon treed. They made their way to the dimillumination cast on moving forms and a ring of dogs throwing themselvesupward at the trunk of a tree. There was a concerted cry for "Ebo, " anda wizened, grey negro in a threadbare drugget coat with a scarlethandkerchief about his throat came forward and, kicking aside the dogs, commenced the ascent of the smooth trunk that swept up to the obscurefoliage above. There was a short delay, then a violent agitation ofbranches. A clawing shape shot to the ground, struggled to its feet, butthe raccoon was instantly smothered in a snarling pyramid of dogs. 

Howat Penny was overwhelmingly weary. He had tramped all day, sincebefore morning; while now another dawn was approaching, and the hunterswere at least ten miles from the Furnace. He would have liked to stay, sleep, where he was; but the labour of preparing a proper resting placewould be as great as returning to Shadrach. Besides, Fanny Gilkan waswith him, with her new, cautious regard for the world's opinion. Theystood silent for a moment, under a fleet dejection born of the hour anda cold, seeping mist of which he became suddenly conscious. The barrelof his gun was wet, and instinctively he wiped off the lock. Two menpassing brushed heavily against him and stopped. "Who is it, " onedemanded, "John Rajennas? By God, it's a long way back to old Shadrachwith splintering shoes. " A face drew near Howat, and then retreated. "Oh, Mr. Penny! I didn't know you were up on the hunt. " It was, herecognized, one of the coaling men who worked for Dan Hesa. The otherdiscovered Fanny Gilkan. "And Fanny, too, " the voice grew inimical. Themen drew away, and a sharp whispering fluctuated out of the darkness. 

"Come, " Howat Penny said sharply; "we must get back or stay out here forthe rest of the night. I don't mind admitting I'd like to be where Icould sleep. " She moved forward, now tacitly taking a place behind him, and he led the return, tramping doggedly in the shortest directionpossible. 

The hollows and stream beds were filled with the ghostly mist, andbitterly chill; the night paled slightly, diluted with grey; there was adistant clamour of crows. They entered the Furnace tract by a path atthe base of the rise from where they had started. On the left, at acrossing of roads, one leading to Myrtle Forge, the other a track forthe charcoal sleds, a blacksmith's open shed held a faint smoulder onthe hearth. The blast from Shadrach Furnace rose perpendicular in thestill air. 

Fanny Gilkan slipped away with a murmur. Howat abandoned all thought ofreturning to Myrtle Forge that night. But it was, he corrected theconclusion, morning. The light was palpable; he could see individualtrees, the bulk of the cast-house, built directly against the Furnace;in the illusive radiance the coal house on the hill seemed poised on topof the other structures. A lantern made a reddish blur in thecast-house; it was warm in there when a blast was in progress, and hedetermined to sleep at once. 

Thomas Gilkan, with a fitful light, was testing the sealing clay on theface of the Furnace hearth; two men were rolling out the sand for thecast over the floor of the single, high interior, and another washammering on a wood form used for stamping the pig moulds. The interiorwas soothing; the lights, blurred voices, the hammering, seemed toretreat, to mingle with the subdued, smooth clatter of the turning wheelwithout, the rhythmic collapse of the bellows. Howat Penny was losingconsciousness when an apparently endless, stuttering blast arose closeby. He cursed splenetically. It was the horn, calling the Furnace handsfor the day; and he knew that it would continue for five minutes. 

Others had entered; a little group gathered about Thomas Gilkan's waninglantern. Far above them a window glimmered against the sooty wall. Howatsaw that Dan Hesa was talking to Gilkan, driving in his words by a fistsmiting a broad, hard palm. The group shifted, and the countenance ofthe man who had recognized Howat Penny in the woods swam into the paleradiance. His lassitude swiftly deserted him, receding before theinstant resentment always lying at the back of his sullenintolerance--they were discussing him, mouthing some foul imputationabout the past night. Hesa left the cast-house abruptly, followed by thecharcoal burner; and Howat rose, the length of his rifle thrust forwardunder his arm, and walked deliberately forward. 

The daylight was increasing rapidly; and, as he approached, ThomasGilkan extinguished the flame of the lantern. He was a small man, with aface parched by the heat of the furnace, and a narrowed, reddened visionwithout eyebrows or lashes. He was, Howat had heard, an unexcelledfounder, a position of the greatest importance to the quality of metalrun. There was a perceptible consciousness of this in the manner inwhich Gilkan moved forward to meet Gilbert Penny's son. 

"I don't want to give offence, " the founderman said, "but, Mr. Penny, sir--" he stopped, commenced again without the involuntary mark ofrespect. "Mr. Penny, stay away from my house. There is more that I couldsay but I won't. That is all--keep out of my place. No names, please. "

Howat Penny's resentment swelled in a fiery anger at the stupidity thathad driven Thomas Gilkan into making his request. A sense of humiliationcontributed to an actual fury, the bitterer for the reason that he couldmake no satisfactory reply. Gilkan was a freedman; while he wasoccupying a dwelling at Shadrach Furnace it was his to conduct as heliked. Howat's face darkened--the meagre fool! He would see that therewas another head founder here within a week. 

But there were many positions in the Province for a man of Gilkan'sability, there were few workmen of his sensitive skill with the chargeand blast. Not only Howat's father, but Abner Forsythe as well, wouldsearch to the end all cause for the founderman's leaving. And, inconsequence of that, any detestable misunderstanding must increase. Hedetermined, with an effort unaccustomed and arduous, to ignore theother; after all Gilkan was but an insignificant mouthpiece for thefamiliar ineptitude of the world at large. Thomas Gilkan might continueat the Furnace without interference from him; Fanny marry her stupidlabourer. Howat had seen symptoms of that last night. He would no longercomplicate her existence with avenues of escape from a monotony whichshe patently elected. 

"Very well, Gilkan, " he agreed shortly, choking on his wrath. He turnedand tramped shortly from the interior. A sudden, lengthening sunlightbathed the open and a sullen group of charcoal burners about Dan Hesa. Their faces seemed ebonized by the grinding in of particles of blackenedwood. Some women, even, in gay, primitive clothes, stood back of themen. As Howat passed, a low, hostile murmur rose. He halted, and metthem with a dark, contemptuous countenance, and the murmur died in ashuffling of feet in the dry grass. He turned again, and walked slowlyaway, when a broken piece of rough casting hurtled by his head. In anoverpowering rage he whirled about, throwing his rifle to his shoulder. A man detached from the group was lowering his arm; and, holding thesights hard on the other's metal-buttoned, twill jacket, Howat pulledthe trigger. There was only an answering dull, ineffectual click. 

The rifle slid to the ground, and Howat stared, fascinated, at the manhe had attempted to kill. The charcoal burners were stationary beforethe momentary abandon of Howat Penny's temper. "Right at me, " the manarticulated who had been so nearly shot into oblivion. "--saw the hammerfall. " A tremendous desire to escape possessed Howat; a violent chillovertook him; his knees threatened the loss of all power to hold him up. He stepped backward, his gun stock trailing over the inequalities of theground; then he swung about, and, in an unbroken silence, stumbled away. 

He was not running from anything the charcoal burner might say, do, butfrom a terrifying spectacle of himself; from the vision of a body shotthrough the breast, huddled in the sere underbrush. He was aghast at theunsuspected possibility revealed, as it were, out of a profound dark bythe searing flash of his anger, cold at the thought of such absoluteself-betrayal. Howat saw in fancy the bald triumph of a society to whichhis act consummated would have delivered him; a society that, as hispeer, would have judged, condemned, him. Hundreds of faces--faces mean, insignificant, or pock-marked--merged into one huge, dominantcountenance; hundreds of bodies, unwashed or foul with disease, ormeticulously clean, joined in one body, clothed in the black robe ofdelegated authority, and loomed above him, gigantic and absurd andpowerful, and brought him to death. Deeper than his horror, than anyfear of physical consequences, lay the instinctive shrinking from theobliteration of his individual being, the loss of personal freedom. 

II

He was possessed by an unaccustomed desire to be at Myrtle Forge;usually it was the contrary case, and he was escaping from thecomplicated civilisation of his home; but now the well-ordered house, the serenity of his room, appeared astonishingly inviting. Howatprogressed rapidly past the smithy, and turned to the right, about theFurnace dam, a placid and irregular reach of water holding thereflection of the trees on a mirror still dulled by a vanishing trace ofmist, above which the leaves hung in the motionless air, in the aureatewash of the early sun, as if they had been pressed from gold foil. Beyond the dam the path--he had left the road that connected Forge andFurnace for a more direct way--followed the broad, rippling course ofthe Canary, the stream that supplied the life of Myrtle Forge. Heautomatically avoided the breaks in the rough trail; his mind, a darkand confused chamber, still lighted by appalling flashes of memory. Athing as slight, as incalculable, as a loose flint had been all thatprevented.... He wondered if Fanny and Thomas Gilkan were right in theirshared conviction; Fanny half persuaded, but the elder with a finalitystamped with an accent of the heroic. Whether or not they were rightdidn't concern him, he decided; his only problem was to keep outsideall such entanglements. And at present he wanted to sleep. 

The path left the creek and joined the road that swept about the face ofthe dwelling at Myrtle Forge. The lawn, squarely raised from the publicway by a low brick terrace, showed the length of house behind thedipping, horizontal branches, the beginning, pale gold, of a widespreadbeech. It was a long structure of but two stories, built solidly out ofa dark, flinty stone with an indefinite pinkish glow against the lushsod and sombre, flat greenery of a young English ivy about a narrow, stiff portico. 

Howat crossed the lawn above the house, where a low wing, holding thekitchen and pantries, extended at right angles from the dwelling'slength. A shed with a flagging of broad stones lay inside the angle, where a robust girl with an ozenbrigs skirt caught up on bare legs andfeet thrust into wooden clogs was scrubbing a steaming line of ironpots. He quickly entered the centre hall from a rear door, and mounted, as he hoped, without interruption to his room. That interior wassingularly restful, pleasant, after the confused and dishevelling night. 

The sanded floor, patterned with a broom, held no carpet, nor were thewalls covered, but white and bare save for a number of small, framedengravings--a view of Boston Harbour, Queene Anne's Tomb, and some blackline satirical portrait prints. A stone fireplace, ready for lighting, had iron dogs and fender, and a screen lacquered in flowery wreaths ona slender black stem. At one side stood a hinge-bound chest, its oakpanels glassy with age; on the other, an English set of drawers held amirror stand and scattered trifles--razors and gold sleeve-buttons, aBarcelona handkerchief, candlesticks and flint, a twist of common, pig-tail tobacco; while from a drawer knob hung a banian of brightorange Chinese silk with a dark blue cord. 

By the side of his curled black walnut bed, without drapery, and set, like a French couch, low on three pairs of spiral legs, was a deepcushioned chair into which he sank and dragged off his sodden buckskinbreeches. The room wavered and blurred in his weary vision--squat, rush-bottomed Dutch chairs seemed to revolve about a table withapparently a hundred legs, a bearskin floated across the floor.... Hesecured the banian; and, swathing himself in its cool, sibilant folds, he fell, his face hid in an angle of his arm, into an immediate profoundslumber. 

The shadows of late afternoon were once more gathering when he woke. Helay, with hands clasped behind his head, watching a roseate glowdisperse from the room. From without came the faint, clear voice ofMarta Appletofft, across the road at the farm, calling the chickens; andhe could hear the querulous whistling of the partridges that invariablydeserted the fringes of forest to join the domesticated flocks at feedtime. A sense of well-being flooded him; the project of St. Xavier, theFrench forts, drew far away; never before had he found Myrtle Forge sodesirable. He was, he thought, growing definitely older. He wastwenty-five. 

A light knock fell on his door, and he answered comfortably, thinkingthat it was his mother. But it was Caroline, his oldest sister. "How youhave slept, " she observed, closing the door at her back; "it was hardlynine when you came in, and here it is five. Mother heard you. " CarolinePenny was a warm, unbeautiful girl with a fine, slender body, two yearsyounger than himself. Her colouring was far lighter than Howat's; shehad sympathetic hazel eyes, an inviting mouth, an illusive depression inone cheek that alone saved her from positive ugliness, and tobacco brownhair worn low with a long, turned strand. She had on a pewter-coloured, informal wrap over a black silk petticoat, lacking hoops, with a cutborder of violet and silver brocade; and above low, green kid stays withcoral tulip blossoms worked on the dark velvet of foliage were glimpsesof webby linen and frank, young flesh. 

She came to the edge of the bed, where she sat with a yellow moroccoslipper swinging from a silk clocked, narrow foot. He liked Caroline, Howat lazily thought. Although she did not in the least resemble theirmother in appearance--she could not pretend to such distinction ofbeing--Caroline unmistakably possessed something of the other'spersonality, far more than did Myrtle. She said generally, patently onlydelaying for the moment communications of much greater interest thanhimself, "Where were you last night?" He told her, and she plunged atonce into a rich store of information. 

"Did you know that Mr. And Mrs. Winscombe are staying on? It's so, because of the fever in the city. David and his father stopped allnight, too, and only left after breakfast. He's insane about London, butI could see that he's glad to get back to the Province. Mr. Forsythe isvery abrupt, but ridiculously proud of him--"

"These Winscombes, " Howat interrupted, "what about them? The Forsythesare a common occurrence. "

"David's been gone more than three years, " she replied. "And you shouldhear him talk; he's got a coat with wired tails in his box he's dying towear, but is afraid of his father. Oh, the Winscombes! Well, he's rathersweet, sixty or sixty-five years old; very straight up the back, andwears the loveliest wigs. His servant fixes them on a stand--he turnsthe curls about little rolls of clay, ties them with paper, and thenbakes it in the oven like a pudding. The servant is an Italian with along duck's bill of a nose and quick little black eyes. He makes ournegro women giggle like anything. It's evident he is fearfullyimpertinent. And, what do you think?--he hooks Mrs. Winscombe into herstays! Mother says that that isn't anything, really; Mrs. Winscombe is alady of the court, and the most extraordinary happenings go on there. You see, mother knows a lot about her family, and it's very good; she'spart Polish and part English, and her name's Ludowika. She's agesyounger than her husband. 

"Myrtle doesn't like her, --" she stopped midway in her torrent ofinformation. "I came in to talk to you about Myrtle, " she went on in adifferent voice; "that is, partly about Myrtle, but more of myself andof--"

"How long are the others going to stay?" he cut in heedlessly. 

"I don't know, " she again repressed her own desire; "perhaps they willhave to go back to Annapolis--don't ask me why--but they hope to sailfrom Philadelphia in a week or so. She has marvellous clothes, and Iasked her if she would send me some babies from London. You know whatthey are, Howat--little wooden dolls to show off the fashion; but shemade a harrowing joke, right in front of father and Mrs. Forsythe. Thethings she says are just beyond description; it seems that it's allright to talk anyway now if you call it classic. And she has fans withpictures and rhymes on, honestly--" words apparently failed her. 

Howat laughed. "Little Innocence, " he said. He fell silent, thinking oftheir mother. The court, he knew, had been her right, too, by birth; andhe wondered if, with the reminder of Mrs. Winscombe and her reflectionsof St. James, she regretted her marriage and removal to the Province. She was essentially lady, while Gilbert Penny had been the son of asmall country squire. He had seen a profile of his father as a youngman, at the time he had first met Isabel Kingsfrere Howat. It was ahandsome profile, perhaps a shade heavy, but admirably balanced andstamped with decisive power. He had characteristically invested almosthis last shilling in a tract of eight hundred acres in Pennsylvania andthe passage of himself and his bride to the Province. 

It was natural for men so to adventure, but Howat thought of IsabelPenny with, perhaps, the only marked admiration he felt for any being. There had been a period, short but strenuous, of material difficulties, in which the girl--she had been hardly a woman in years--entirelyunprepared for such a different activity, had been finely competent andcourageous. This had not endured long because Gilbert Penny had beensuccessful almost from the first day of his landing in a new world. Chance letters had enlisted the confidence of David Forsythe, a Quakermerchant of property and increasing importance; the latter became a partowner of an iron furnace situated not far from the Penny holding; heassisted Gilbert in the erection of a forge; and in less than twentyyears Gilbert Penny had grown to be a half proprietor in the Furnace, with--

"Howat, " Caroline broke in on his thoughts sharply, "I came in, as Isaid, to talk about something very important to me, and I intend to doit. " Even after that decided announcement she hesitated, a deepercolour stained her dear cheeks. "You mustn't laugh at me, " she warnedhim; "or think I'm horrid. I can talk to you like this because you seema--a little outside of things, as if you were looking on at a ratherpoorly done play; and you are entirely honest yourself. "

He nodded condescendingly, his interest at last retrieved from thecontemplation of his mother as a young woman. 

"It's about David, " Caroline stated almost defiantly. "Howat, I thinkI'm very fond of David. No, you mustn't interrupt me. When he went awayI liked him a lot; but now that he is back, and quite grown up, it'smore than liking ... Howat. His father brought him out here right awayhe returned, and for a special reason. He was very direct about it; hewants David to marry--Myrtle. I heard father--yes, I listened--and himtalking it over, and our old darling was pleased to death. It's natural, Mr. Forsythe is one of the most influential men in the city; and fatheradores Myrtle more than anything else in the world. " She paused, and hestudied her in a growing wonder; suddenly she seemed older, her mouthwas drawn in a hard line: a new Caroline. "You know Myrtle, " she added. 

He did, and considered the youngest Penny with a new objectivity. Myrtlewas an extremely pretty, even a beautiful girl. "You know Myrtle, " sherepeated; "and why father is so blind is more than I can understand. She doesn't care a ribbon for truth, she never thinks of anything buther own comfort and clothes, and--and she'd make David miserable. Myrtlesimply can't fancy anybody but herself. That's very different from me, Howat; or yourself. You would be a burning lover. " He laughedincredulously. "And I, well, I know what I feel. 

"It's practically made up for David to marry Myrtle, that is, to urge itall that's possible; and she will never care for him, while all hethinks of now is how good looking she is. I want David, terribly, " shesaid, sitting erect with shut hands; "and I will be expected to stepaside, to keep out of the way while Myrtle poses at him. Oh, I know allabout it. I see her rehearsing before the glass. Or I will be expectedto act as a contrast, a plain background, for Myrtle's beauty. 

"You see, there is no one I can talk to but yourself. Even motherwouldn't understand, completely; and she couldn't be honest aboutMyrtle. The best of mothers, after all, are women; and, Howat, there isalways a curious formality between women, a little stiffness. "

"Well, " he demanded, "what do you want me to say, or what did you thinkI might do?"

"I don't know, " she admitted, her eyes bright with unshed tears. "Isuppose I just wanted a little support, or even some encouragement. Idon't propose to let Myrtle walk off with David and not turn my hand. Of course I am not a beauty, but then I'm not a ninny, either. And Ihave a prettier figure; that is, it will still be pretty in ten orfifteen years; Myrtle's soft. "

"Good heavens, " he exclaimed, half serious, "what Indians you all are!"

"I'm quite shameless, " she admitted, "and this is really what Ithought--you can, perhaps, help me sometimes, I don't know how, but hewill be out here a lot, men talk together--"

"And I can tell him that Myrtle is an utterly untrustworthy person whowould make him ultimately miserable. I'll remind him that her beauty isno deeper than he sees it. But that Caroline there, admirable girl, seething with affection in a figure warranted against time oraccident--" her expression brought his banter to an end. He studied herseriously, revolved what she had said. She was right about Myrtle, whowas undoubtedly a vain and silly little fish. His father's immoderateadmiration for her had puzzled him as well as the elder sister. Heremembered that never had he heard their mother express a direct opinionof Myrtle; but neither had Isabel Penny shown the slightest question ofher husband's high regard for their youngest child. She was, he realizedwith a warming of his admiration, beautifully cultivated in the wisdomof the world. 

Caroline was vastly preferable to Myrtle, he felt that instinctively;and he was inclined to give her whatever assistance he could. But thiswould be negligible, and he said so. "You will have to do the trick byyourself, " he advised her. "I wouldn't pretend to tell you how. As yousaid, you're not a ninny. And Myrtle's none too clever, although shewill manage to seem so. It's wonderful how she'll pick up a hint or twoand make a show. You see--she will be talking iron to David as if shehad been raised in a furnace. "

"Men are so senseless!" Caroline exclaimed viciously. She rose. "It'sbeen a help only to talk to you, Howat. I knew you'd understand. Supperwill be along soon. Make yourself into a charmer for Mrs. Winscombe. I'mcertain she thinks the men out here are frightful hobs. " The light haddimmed rapidly in the room, and he moved over to the chest of drawers, where he lit the candles, settling over them their tall, carved glasscylinders. 

III

He dressed slowly, all that Caroline had said, and he thought, tanglingand disentangling deliberately in his mind. Mrs. Winscombe ... Thinkingthere were no presentable men in the Provinces. His hand strayed in thedirection of a quince-coloured satin coat; but he chose instead acommonplace, dun affair with pewter buttons, and carelessly settled hisshoulders in an unremarkable waistcoat. Then, although he could hear aconcerted stir of voices below that announced impending supper, heslipped into a chair for half a pipe. He was indifferent, not diffident, and there was no hesitation in the manner in which he finally approachedthe company seated at supper. His place was, as usual, at his mother'sside; but opposite him where Myrtle usually sat was a rigid, highshouldered man in mulberry and silver, jewelled buckles, and a full, powdered wig. He had thin, dark cheeks, a heavy nose above a firm mouthwith a satirical droop, and small, unpleasantly penetrating eyes. Anexpression of general malice was, however, corrected by a high andserene brow. 

"Mr. Winscombe, " Howat Penny's mother said, "my son. " The former bowedwith formal civility, but gave a baffling effect of mockery which, Howat discovered, enveloped practically every movement and speech. Hewas, he said, enchanted to meet Mr. Penny; and that extravagantexpression, delivered in a slightly harsh, negligent voice, heightenedthe impression of a personality strong and cold; a being as obdurate asan iron bar masquerading in coloured satin and formulating prettyphrases like the sheen on the surface of a deep November pool. GilbertPenny echoed the introduction at the other end of the table. 

Howat saw, in the yellow candlelight, a woman not, he decided, anybetter looking than Caroline, in an extremely low cut gown of scarlet, with a rigid girdle of saffron brocade, a fluted tulle ruff tied with ascarlet string about a long, slim neck, and a cap of sheer cambric witha knot of black ribbons. Her eyes were widely opened and dark, her noseshort, and her mouth full and petulant. She, too, was conventionallyadequate; but her insincerity was clearer than her husband's, it waspronounced quickly, in an impertinent and musical voice, without theslightest pretence of the injection of any interest. Howat Penny felt, in a manner which he was unable to place, that she vaguely resembledhimself; perhaps it lay in her eyebrows slanting slightly toward thetemples; but it was vaguer, more elusive, than that. 

He considered it idly, through the course of supper. At intervals heheard her voice, a little, high-pitched laugh with a curious, underlying flatness: not of tone, her modulations were delicate andexact; but deeper. Again he was dimly conscious of an aspect of herwhich eluded every effort to fix and define. He could not evencomprehend his dwelling upon the immaterial traits of a strange andindifferent woman; he was at a loss to understand how such inquiriesassailed him. He grew, finally, annoyed, and shut his mind to anyfurther consideration of her. 

Mrs. Penny was talking with charming earnestness to the man on her otherhand. The amber radiance flickered over the beautiful curves of hershoulders and cast a warm shadow at the base of her throat. She smiledat her son; and her face, in spite of its present gaiety, held adefinite reminder of her years, almost fifty; but when she turned againher profile, with slightly tilted nose and delightfully fresh lips andchin, was that of a girl no older than Caroline. Howat had often noticedthis. It was amazing--with that slight movement she would seem to loseat once all the years that had accumulated since she was newly married. In a second she would appear to leave them all, her mature children, theheavy, palpably aging presence of Gilbert Penny, the house andobligations that had grown about her, and be remotely young, a strangerto the irrefutable proof that her youth had gone. At such moments he wasalmost reluctant to claim her attention, to bring her again, as it were, into the present, with so much spent, lapsed: at times he almostthought, in that connection, wasted. 

She had, in addition to her profile, a spirit of youth that had remainedundimmed; as if there were within her a reserve warmth, a pricelessgift, which life had never claimed; and it was the contemplation of thatwhich gave Howat the impression that Isabel Penny's life had not fullyflowered. He had never known her to express a regret of the way she hadtaken; he had never even surprised her in a perceptible retrospectivedejection; but the conviction remained. Gilbert Penny had been an almostfaultless husband, tender and firm and successful; but his wife had comefrom other blood and necessities than domestic felicities; she had beena part of a super-cultivation, a world of such niceties as the flawlesscourtesy of Mr. Winscombe discussing with her the unhappy passion of thePrincess Caroline for Lord Hervey. 

Howat Penny thought sombrely of love, of the emotion that hadbrought--or betrayed?--Isabel Howat so far away from her birthright. Ithad gripped his sister no less tyrannically; stripping them, heconsidered, of their essential liberty. The thing was clear enough inhis mind--nothing more than an animal instinct, humiliating to the humanindividual, to breed. It was the mere repetition of nature through theworking of an automatic law. No such obscure fate, he determined, shouldovertake, obliterate, him. Yet it had involved his mother, a person ofthe first superiority. A slight chill, as if a breath of imminent winterhad touched him, communicated itself to his heart. 

A trivial conversation was in progress across the table between Mrs. Winscombe and Myrtle. The latter was an embodiment of the familiar Saxontype of beauty; her hair was fair, infinitely pale gold, her complexiona delicately mingled crimson and white, her eyes as candidly blue asflowers. Her features were finely moulded, and her shoulders, slippingout from azure lutestring, were like smooth handfuls of meringue. Hervoice was always formal, and it sounded stilted, forced, in comparisonwith Mrs. Winscombe's easy periods. 

The supper ended, and the company trailed into a drawing room at theopposite end of the house from the kitchen wing. Howat delayed, andCaroline, urged forward by Mr. Winscombe's sardonically ubiquitous bow, half lingered to cast back a glance of private understanding at herbrother. When he decided reluctantly to follow he was kept back by thesound of a familiar explanation in his father's decisive, full tones. 

"Howat, " he pronounced, obviously addressing the elder Winscombe, "is ablack Penny. That is what we call them in our family. You see, thePennys, some hundreds of years back, acquired a strong Welsh strain. Itake it you are familiar with the Welsh--a solitary-living, dark lot. Unamenable to influence, reflect their country, I suppose; but loversof music. I have a touch of that. Now any one would think that such ablood, so long ago, would have spread out, been diluted, in a thickEnglish stock like the Pennys; or at least that we would all have had alittle, here and there. But nothing of the sort; it sinks entirely outof sight for two or three and sometimes four generations; and thenappears solid, in one individual, as unslacked as the pure, originalthing. The last one was burned as a heretic in Mary's day; although Ibelieve he would have equally stayed Catholic if the affair had been theother way around. Opposition's their breath. This boy--"

"You must not figure to yourself, Mr. Winscombe, " Mrs. Penny's evenvoice admirably cut in, "that the black is a word of reproach. I thinkwe are both at times at a loss with Howat, he is so different from us, from the girls; but he is truly remarkable. I have an unusual affectionfor him; really, his honesty is extraordinary. "

He ought, he knew, either follow the others into the drawing room ormove farther away. His father's explanation repelled him; but hismother's capital defence--it amounted to that--made it evident to himthat he should, by his presence, give her what support he could. 

At the fireplace Gilbert Penny was lost in conversational depths withMr. Winscombe. About the opening, now closed for the introduction of ahearth stove, were tiles picturing in gay glazes the pastoral historyof Ruth, and above the mantel a long, clear mirror held a similitude ofbrilliant colour--the scarlet of Mrs. Winscombe's gown, Myrtle's azurelutestring on a petticoat of ruffled citron spreading over her hoops andlittle white kid slippers with gilt heels, Caroline's flowered Chinesesilk. The room was large and square, with a Turkey floor carpet, andwalls hung with paper printed in lavender and black perspectives fromcopper plates. A great many candles had been lighted, on tables andmantel, and in lacquer stands. One of the latter, at Mrs. Winscombe'sside, showed her features clearly. 

Howat Penny saw that while she was actually no prettier than Carolineshe was infinitely more vivid and compelling. Her face held anextraordinary potency; her bare arms and shoulders were more insistentthan his sister's; there was about her a consciousness of the allurementof body, frankness in its employment. She made no effort to mask herfeeling, which at present was one of complete indifference to hersurroundings; and, not talking, a shadow had settled on her vision. Caroline was seated on a little sofa across from the fireplace, and shemoved her voluminous skirt aside, made a place for him. 

"Almost nothing of Annapolis, " Mrs. Winscombe replied to a query of whatshe had seen in Maryland. "We were there hardly two weeks, and I hadn'trecovered from the trip across the sea. When I think of returning Godknows I'd almost stay here. You wouldn't suppose one person could ventso much. I believe Felix went to a Jockey Club, there were balls andfarces; but I kept in bed. " Mrs. Penny asked, "And London--how are youamused there now?" The other retied the bow of a garter. "Fireworks, Roman candles to Mr. Handel's music, and Italian parties, Villeggiatura. Covent Garden with paper lanterns among the trees, seductions--"

Gilbert Penny smote his hands on the chair arms. "This hectoring of ourcommerce will have to rest somewhere!" he declared; "taking the dutyfrom pig iron, and then restricting its market to London, is noconspicuous improvement. It is those enactments that provide ourcurrency with Spanish pieces instead of English pounds. The West Indiesare too convenient to be overlooked. " Mr. Winscombe replied stiffly, "The Government is prepared to meet infractions of its law. " Mr. Pennymuttered a period about Germany in England, with a more distant echo ofHanoverian whores and deformed firebrands. His guest sat with a harsh, implacable countenance framed in the long shadows of his elaborate wig, his ornate coat tails falling stiffly on either side of his chair. 

Howat, bred in the comparative simplicity of the Province, found thefoppery of the aging man slightly ridiculous; yet he was aware that Mr. Winscombe's essential character had no expression in his satin andpowder; his will was as rugged and virile as that of any adventuringfrontiersman clad in untanned hides. He was, Howat decided, at littledisadvantage with his young wife. He wondered if any deep bond bound thetwo. Their personal feelings were carefully concealed, and in this theyresembled Isabel Howat, rather than Gilbert, her husband. The latter hada habit of expressing publicly his affectionate domestic relations. AndHowat Penny decided that he vastly preferred the others' reserve. 

An awkward silence had developed on top of the brief politicalacerbities. There was no sound but the singing of the wood in the openstove. Myrtle had an absent, speculative gaze; Caroline was biting herlip; Mrs. Winscombe yawned in the face of the assembly. Gilbert Pennysuggested cards, but there was no reply. Howat left the room by a doorthat opened on a rock threshold set in the lawn. The night wasimmaculate, still and cold, with stars brightening in the advance ofwinter. He walked about the house. The counting room of the forge was aseparate stone structure back of the kitchen; and to the right, andfarther away, was a second small building. The ground fell rapidly downto the Forge on the water power below. He could barely discern thetowering bulk of the water wheel and roofs of the sheds. 

He felt uneasy, obscurely and emotionally disturbed. Already FannyGilkan seemed far away, to have dropped out of his life. He would givesome gold to the charcoal burner he had attempted to shoot. Mrs. Winscombe annoyed him by her attitude toward Myrtle Forge, herunvarnished air of condescension. How old was she? A few years more thanhimself, he decided. The Italian hooked her into her stays. A picture ofthis formed in his thoughts and dissolved, leaving behind a faintstinging of his nerves. He recalled her bare--naked--arms ... The oldman, her husband. 

She had spoken of Italian parties; he had seen a picture on a fanlabelled Villeggiatura--a simpering exquisite in a lascivious embracewith a frail beauty on the bank of a stream, and a garland of strippedloves reeling about a slim, diapered Harlequin. It was a differentscene, a different world, from the Province; and its intrusion in theperson of Mrs. Winscombe was like an orris-scented air moving across theface of great trees sweeping their virginal foliage into the region ofstrong and pure winds. 

He was dimly conscious of the awakening in him of undivined pressures, the stirring of attenuated yet persisting influences. He was saturatedin the space, the sheer, immense simplicity of the wild, hardly touchedby the narrow strip of inhabited coast. He had given his existence tothe woods, to hunting cunning beasts, the stoical endurance of blindingfatigue; he had scorned the, to him, sophistications of bricks andcivilization. But now, in the length of an evening, something invidiousand far different had become sentient in his being. Italian parties, andCovent Garden with lanterns among the trees ... Trees clipped andpruned, and gravel walks; seductions. 

A falling meteor flashed a brilliant arc across the black horizon, dropping into what illimitable wilderness? Fireworks set to the shrillscraping of violins. One mingled with the other in his blood, frettinghim, spoiling the serene and sure vigour of youth, binding his feet tothe obscure past. Yet colouring all was the other, the black Welsh bloodof the Pennys. Ever since his boyhood he had heard the fact of hispeculiar inheritance explained, accepted. In the past he had been whathe was without thought, self-appraisal. But now he recognized anessential difference from his family; it came over him in a feeling ofloneliness, of removal from the facile business of living in general. 

For the first time he wondered about his future. It was unguarded by theplacid and safe engagements of the majority of lives. He would, he knew, ultimately possess Myrtle Forge, a part of Shadrach, and a considerablefortune. That was his obvious inheritance. But, suddenly, the materialthing, the actual, grew immaterial, and the visionary assumed a dark andenigmatic reality. 

Howat abruptly quitted the night of the lawn, his sombre questioning, for the house. The candles had been extinguished in the drawing room. Asquare, glass lamp hung at the foot of the stairs; and there heencountered a man in a scratch wig, with a long nose flattened at theend. He bowed obsequiously--a posturing figure in shirtsleeves with agreen cloth waistcoat and black legs. The Italian servant, Howatconcluded. He passed noiselessly, leaving a reek of pomatum and thememory of a servile smile. Howat Penny experienced a strong sense ofdistaste, almost depression, at the other's silent proximity. Itfollowed him to his room, contaminated his sleep with unintelligiblewhispering, oily and disturbing gestures, and fled only at the wideningglimmer of dawn. 

IV

The sun had almost reached the zenith before Mrs. Winscombe appearedfrom her room. And at the same moment David Forsythe arrived on a spentgrey mare. He had come over the forty rough miles which separated MyrtleForge from the city in less than five hours. He was a year older thanHowat, but he appeared actually younger--a candid youth with high colourand light, simply tied hair. He had, he told Howat, important messagesfrom his father to Mr. Winscombe. The latter and Gilbert Penny wereconversing amicably in the lower room at the right of the stairway--achamber with a bed that, nevertheless, was used for informal assemblage. Mr. Winscombe wore an enveloping banian of russet brocade with deepfurred cuffs, and a turban of vermilion silk comfortably replacing awigged formality. Under that brilliant colour his face was as yellow asan orange. 

The written messages were delivered, and David returned to the lawn. Theday was superb--a crystal cold through which the sun's rays filteredwith a faintly perceptible glow. Caroline was standing at Howat's side, and she gave his hand a rapid pressure as David Forsythe approached. "Where's Myrtle?" the latter asked apparently negligently. Howatreplied, "Still in the agony of fixing her hair--for dinner; she'll beat it again before supper. " David whistled a vague tune. Caroline added, "You've got fearfully dressy yourself, since London. " He repliedappropriately, and then became more serious. "I wish, " he told them, "that we belonged to the church of England; you know the Penns have goneback. It's pretty heavy at home after--after some other things. TheQuakers didn't use to be so infernally solemn. You should see the swellsabout the Court; the greatest fun. And old George with a face like aplum--"

"Don't you find anything here that pleases you?" Caroline demanded withasperity. 

"Myrtle's all right, " he admitted; "not many of them are as pretty. "

"I'll tell her you've come, " Caroline promptly volunteered; "she won'tkeep you waiting. There she is! No, it's Mrs. Winscombe. "

She was swathed in a ruffled lilac cloak quilted with a dull goldembroidery; satin slippers were buckled into high pattens of blackpolished wood; and her head, relatively small with tight-drawn hair, wasuncovered. She was not as compelling under the sun as in candle light, he observed. Her face, unpainted, was pale, an expression of petulancediscernible. Yet she was more potent than any other woman he hadencountered. "Isn't that the garden?" she asked, waving beyond the endof the house. "I like gardens. " She moved off in the directionindicated; and--as he felt she expected, demanded--he followed slightlybehind. 

A short, steep terrace descended to a formally planted plot, nowflowerless, enclosed by low privet hedges. There were walks of rolledbark, and, against a lower, denser barrier, a long, white bench. Theground still fell away beyond; and there was a sturdy orchard, clearedof underbrush, with crimson apples among the grey limbs. Beyond, acrossa low, tangled wild, an amphitheatre of hills rose against the sky, drawn from the extreme right about the façade of the dwelling. Theyseemed to enclose Myrtle Forge in a natural domain of its own; and, actually, Gilbert Penny owned most of the acreage within that immediatecircle. 

Mrs. Winscombe sank on the garden bench, where she sat with a handresting on either side of her. Above them a column of smoke rose fromthe kitchen against the blue. A second, heavier cloud rolled up from theForge below. "They have been repairing the forebay, " Howat explained;"the Forge has been closed. I'm supposed to be in the counting house. "

"You work?" she demanded surprised. 

"At the ledger, put things down--what the men are paid, mostly intobacco and shoes, ozenbrigs and molasses and rum; or garters andhandkerchiefs for the women. Then I enter the pig hauled from Shadrach, and the carriage of the blooms. "

"I don't understand any of that, " she announced. 

"It probably wouldn't interest you; the pig's the iron cast at thefurnace. It's worked in the forges, and hammered into blooms andanconies, chunks or stout bars of wrought iron. We do better than twotons a week. " The sound of a short, jarring blow rose from the Forge, itwas repeated, became a continuous part of the serene noon. "That's thehammer now, " he explained. "It goes usually all day and most nights. We're used to it, don't hear it; but strangers complain. "

"Mr. Forsythe said your father was an Ironmaster, one of the biggest inthe Province, and I suppose you'll become that too. " She gazed about atthe hills, sheeted in scarlet and yellow, at the wide sunny hollow thatheld Myrtle Forge. "Here, " she added in a totally unexpected accent offeeling, "it is very beautiful, very big. I thought all the world waslike St. James or Versailles. I've never been to Poland, my mother'sfamily came from there to Paris, but I'm told they have forests and suchthings, too. This is different from Annapolis, that is only an echo ofLondon, but here--" she gazed far beyond him into the profound noon. 

He recovered slowly from the surprise of her unlooked for speech, attitude. Howat studied her frankly, leaning forward with his elbows onhis knees. Her discontent was paramount. It was deeper than he hadsupposed; like his there were disturbing qualities in her blood, qualities at a variance with the obvious part of her being. A sense ofprofound intimacy with her pervaded him. 

"This, " she continued, "is like a cure at a Bath, a great bath of airand light. I should like to stay, I think.... Are you content?"

"It always seemed crowded to me, " he admitted. "Usually I get as faraway as possible, into the woods, the real wilderness. But you heard myfather last night--I'm a black Penny, a solitary, dark lot. You couldn'tjudge from what I might feel. "

"Your father and you are not sympathetic, " she judged acutely. "He ispractical, solid; but it isn't easy to say, even with an explanation, what you are. In London--but I'm sick of London. Myrtle Forge. It'sappalling at night. I'd like to go into the real wilderness, leave offmy hoops and stays, and bathe in a stream; a water nymph and you ... Butthat's only Watteau again, with a cicisbeo holding my shift andstockings. In London you'd be that, a lady's servant of love; but, inthe Province, I wonder?"

He sat half comprehending her words mingling in his brain with thepounding of the trip hammer at the Forge, one familiar and oneunfamiliar yet not strange sound. Above them, on the lawn, he could seeMyrtle--through the middle of the day the sun had increased itswarmth--with skirts like the petals of a fabulous tea rose. The sunglinted on the living gold of her hair and bathed an arm white as snow. David was there no doubt. His thoughts dwelt for a moment on Caroline, then returned to Mrs. Winscombe, to himself. His entire attitude towardher, his observations, had been upset, disarmed, by her unexpected airof soft melancholy. In her lavender wrap she resembled a drooping branchof flowering lilac. She seemed very young; her air of sophistication, her sensuality of being, had vanished. Traces of her illness onshipboard still lingered darkly under her eyes. Asleep, he suddenlythought, her face would be very innocent, purified. This came to himinvoluntarily; there was none of the stinging of the senses she hadevoked in him the night before. His instinct for preservation from anyentanglements with life lay dormant before her surrender to influencesthat left her crumpled, without the slightest interest in any exteriorfact. 

A sententious black servant in maroon livery and a bright worstedwaistcoat announced dinner from the foot of the terrace, and they movedslowly toward the house. There was a concerted interest in the facesthey found already about the table. Howat took his seat at his mother'sside, Gilbert Penny assisted Mrs. Winscombe. David was placed betweenCaroline and Myrtle. Mr. Winscombe, again formally wigged and coated, was absorbed in thought. He said to his hostess, "It's the uncertaintythat puts me in doubt. Ogle thought the thing thoroughly reviewed, whennow Hamilton comes out with his damned Indians and Maryland rum. Forsythe suggests my presence in Council to-morrow, and it's barelypossible that there will be a return to Annapolis. While Ludowika--"

"I can't travel another ell over the atrocities they call roads here, "Mrs. Winscombe declared. "I expect to die returning to England as it is, and I won't put up with any more preliminary torment. You'll have toleave me. "

"At Myrtle Forge, " Gilbert Penny added at once; "at Myrtle Forge as longas you like. Unless, " he added with a smile, "you prefer the gaiety atAbner Forsythe's. " A hot colour suffused David's cheeks. 

Mr. Winscombe bowed over the table, "I am inclined to take advantage ofthat. Ludowika would be the better without even Quaker gaiety for alittle. " He stopped, turned toward her. "I'd like it immensely, " shereplied simply. "I am sure it would give me back all that I've lost inpassage. Perhaps, " she leaned forward, smiling at Howat, "I could seesomething of what's behind those hills, go into the real Arcadia. "

"Out there, " said Mr. Penny, "are the Endless Mountains. "

The faint, involuntary chill again invaded Howat; suddenly an unfamiliarimagery attached to the commonplace phrase uttered by his father--theEndless Mountains! It brought back his doubt, his questioning, of life. It was the inconceivable term endless, without any finality of ultimaterest, without even the arbitrary peace of death, that appalled him. Hethought of life going on and on, with nothing consummated, nothingachieved nor final. He thought of the black Penny who had been burned asa heretic to ashes years before; yet Howat was conscious of the martyr'sbitter stubbornness of soul, alive, still alive and unquenched, inhimself. He wondered about the heritage to come. There was a furtherbelief that it followed exclusively the male line. The Pennys, like manyanother comparatively obscure name, went far back into the primeval soilof civilization. If he had no issue the endlessness might be confounded;a fatality in his long, dangerous excursions would have vanquished theineradicable Welsh blood. He might have no children; yesterday he wouldhave made such a decision; but now he was less sure of himself, of hispower to will. He was dimly conscious of vast exterior forces andtraitorous factors within. It was as if momentarily he had been liftedto a cloud beyond time, from which he saw the entire, stumbling progressof humanity, its beginning hid in humid mist, moving into a nocturnalshadow like a thunder bank. 

He sat with chin on breast and sombre eyes until his mother laid herhand on his shoulder. "Howat, " she protested, "you are too glum for thecomfort of any one near you. I think you must make a pose of beingblack. I'd almost called one of the servants to fiddle in your ear. "

Howat smiled at her; he returned slowly to the actual, the particular. Mr. Winscombe had pushed back his chair, excusing himself in thepressure of necessary preparations. His wife disappeared with him, leaving behind the echo of a discussion about Cecco, the Italianservant. The women followed, with David at Myrtle's shoulder, leavingHowat and Gilbert Penny. 

The latter was still a handsome man, with his own hair silvered on aruddy countenance, and a careful taste in clothes. His nose waspredominant, with a wide-cleft mouth above a square chin. "I hadthought, " he said deliberately, "that you were employed in the countinghouse, but Schwar tells me that it has been a week since you were seenthere. " He raised a broad hand to silence Howat's reply. "While I canafford to keep you merely at hunting, the result to the table is someagre that I'm not justified. There is no St. James here, inPennsylvania, no gentlemen supported by the Crown for the purpose ofamusement. You will have to sail for England if you expect that sort ofthing. " He rose, "You owe an intelligent interest in Myrtle Forge, toyour sisters and mother, toward all that I have accomplished. It's arich property, and it's growing bigger. Already young Forsythe has alist of improvements to be instituted at the Furnace--clerks and amanager and new system for carrying on the blast. "

"I'm not an iron man, " Howat Penny told him, "I'm not a clerk. Davidcan take all that over for you, particularly if he marries one of thegirls. "

"What are you?" the elder demanded sharply. 

"You ought to know. You explained it fully enough to the Winscombes. "

"If it wasn't for that you'd have been dumping slag five years ago. WhatI hoped was that with maturity some sense of obligation would be borninto you. What is this pretended affection for your mother worth if youare unwilling to conserve, make safe, her future, in case I die?" Allthat his father said was logical, just; but it only brought him arenewed sense of his impotence before very old and implacable innerforces. 

"I'll try again, " he briefly agreed. "But I warn you, it will do littlegood. There is no pretence in the affection you spoke of, but--butsomething stronger--" he gave up as hopeless the effort to explain allthat had swept through his mind. 

Gilbert Penny abruptly left the room. 

It transpired that the Italian servant was to be left at Myrtle Forge;he was now assisting the servants in strapping a box behind the chaisethat was to carry Mr. Winscombe and David to the city. Howat picturedthe long, supple hands of the Italian hooking Mrs. Winscombe into herclothes, and a sudden, hot revulsion clouded his brain. When thecarriage had gone, and he stood in the contracted space of the countingroom, before a long, narrow forge book open on a high desk, he was stillconscious of a strong repulsion. It was idiotic to let such aninsignificant fact as the Winscombes' man persistently annoy him. But, in a manner entirely unaccountable, this Cecco had become a symbol ofmuch that was dark, potentially threatening, in his conjectures. 

The hammer fell with a full reiteration through the afternoon; the sun, at a small window, shifted a dusty bar across inkpots and quills anddesk to a higher corner. He could hear the dull turning of the wheel andthe thin, irregular splash of falling water. Other sounds rose atintervals--the tramping of mules dragging pig iron from Shadrach, therumble of its deposit by the Forge. Emanuel Schwar entered with a pieceof paper in his hand. "Eleven hundred weight of number two, " he read;"at six pounds, and a load of charcoal. Jonas Hupp charged with threepairs of woollen stockings, and shoes for Minnie, four shillings more. "

Howat mechanically entered the enumerated items, his distaste for such apetty occupation mounting until it resembled a concrete power forcinghim outside into the mellow end of the day. A figure darkened thedoorway; it was Caroline. "I hardly saw him, " she declared hotly. "Myrtle hung like a sickly flower in his buttonhole. " Her hoopsflattened as she made her way through the narrow entrance. "There's onething about Myrtle, " she continued, "she's frightfully proper in hernarrow little ideas. Myrtle's a prude. And I promise you I won't be if Iget a chance at David. " She stood with vivid, parted lips, bright eyes;almost, Howat thought, charming. Such a spirit in Caroline amazed him;he hadn't conceived of its presence. He recognized a phase of his owncontempt for customary paths, accepted limitations and proprieties. "Remember David's Quaker training, " he told her in his habitual air ofjest. "David's been to London, " she replied. "I saw him pinch theAppletofft girl at the farm. "

Again in his room, he changed into more formal clothes than on theevening previous; he did this without a definite, conscious purpose; itwas as if his attitude of mind required a greater suavity of exterior. He wore a London waistcoat, a gift from his mother, of magenta workedwith black petals and black stone buttons; his breeches were without awrinkle, and the tails of his coat, even if they were not wired likethose David was said to have brought from England, had a notunsatisfactory swing. 

At supper Mrs. Winscombe sat at his left, Caroline and Myrtle had takentheir customary places opposite, the elders had not been disturbed. Mrs. Winscombe had resumed the animation vanished at noon. She wore green andwhite, with plum-coloured ribbons, and a flat shirred cap tied under herchin. The fluted, clear lawn of her elbow sleeves was like a scentedmist. He was again conscious of the warm seduction, the rare finish, ofher body, like a flushed marble under wide hoops and dyed silk. She wastalking to Myrtle about the Court. "I am in waiting with the PrincessAmelia Sophia, " she explained; "I have her stockings. There is afrightful racket of music and parrots and German, with old Handelbellowing and the King eternally clinking one piece of gold on another. "

Gilbert Penny listened with a tightening of his well shaped lips. "It'sinto that chamber pot we pour our sweat and iron, " he asserted. LudowikaWinscombe studied him. "In England, " she said, "the American provincesare supposed to lie hardly beyond the Channel, but here England seems tobe at the other end of the world. " Myrtle added, "I'd like itimmensely. "

And Howat thought of Ludowika--he thought of her tentatively asLudowika--in the brilliant setting of tropical silks and birds. 

He considered the change that had overtaken his father, English born, inthe quarter century he had lived in America; the strong allegianceformed to ideas fundamentally different from those held at St. James;and he wondered if such a transformation would operate in Ludowika ifshe could remain in the Province. It was a fantastic query, and heimpatiently dismissed it, returning to the contemplation of his mother'sproblematic happiness. He determined to question the latter if apermissible occasion arose; suddenly his interest had sharpened towardher mental situation. He compared the two women, what he couldconjecture about Isabel Howat and Ludowika Winscombe; but somethingwithin him, automatic and certain, whispered that no comparison waspossible. His mother possessed a quality of spirit that he had neverfound elsewhere; he could see, in spite of their resemblance of bloodand position, that the elder could never have been merely provocative. Such distinctions, he divined, were the result of qualities mysteriousand deeply concealed. Love, that he had once dismissed as the principleof blind procreation, became more complex, enigmatic. He had noincreased desire to experience it, with the inevitable loss of personalliberty; but he began to be conscious of new depths, unexpectedcomplications, in human relationship. 

He was not so sure of himself. 

They had moved to the less formal of the rooms used as places ofgathering. The bed in a corner was hung in blue shalloon over ruffledwhite muslin, and there was blue at the windows. Against the wall aclavichord, set aside as obsolete, raised its dusky red ebony box ongrooved legs. Myrtle was seated at it picking out an air fromBelshazzar. She held each note in a silvery vibration that had thefragility of old age. Ludowika was by the fire, quartered across acorner; there was no stove, and the wood burning in the opening sent outfrequent, pungent waves of smoke. She coughed and cursed. "Positively, "she declared, "I'll turn salt like a smoked herring. "

She rose, her gaze resting on Howat. "I must go out, " she continued;"breathe. " He was strangely reluctant to accompany her, his feet wereleaden. Nevertheless, in a few moments he found himself at her side onthe lawn. Her sophistication had again disappeared, beneath the starsdrawn across the hills, over Myrtle Forge. There was a pause in thehammering below. "Take me down there, " she commanded. 

He led the way on a beaten path that dropped sharply to a bridge of hewnlogs crossing the spent water. The Forge, a long shed following thestream, was open on the opposite side; an enclosure of ruddy, vaporousgloom with pools of molten colour, clangorous sounds. The bubbling, white cores of three raised and hooded hearths were incessantly agitatedwith long rods by blackened and glistening shapes. At intervals aflushing rod was withdrawn from a fire and plunged in a trough of water;a cloud of ghostly steam arose, a forgeman's visage momentarilyilluminated like a copper mask. A grimy lantern was hung above theanvil, its thin light falling on the ponderous head of the trip hammersuspended at right angles from a turning cogged shaft projection throughthe wall. 

The hearths, set in a row beyond the anvil, had at their back anobscure, mechanical stir, accompanied by the audible suction of squat, drum bellows. The labour was halted at a fire; half naked anatomies, herculean shoulders and incredible arms, gathered about its mouth withhooked bars. An incandescent mass was lifted, born, rayed in anintolerable white heat, into the air. A hammer was swung upon it; and, as if the metal were sentient, a violet radiance scintillated where theblow had fallen. The pasty iron was carried to the anvil, the hooksdropped for wide-jawed tongs; the trip hammer moved up and fell. Thehardening metal darkened to a carnation from which chips scattered likegorgeous petals. The carnation faded under ringing blows; the petals, heaping in the penumbra under foot, were as vividly blue as gentians. The colour vanished from the solidifying bloom ... It was ashen, black. The hammering continued. 

A sense of the vast and antique simplicity of the forging, a feeling ofhammering the earth itself into the superior purposes of man, envelopedHowat. He forgot for the moment his companion, lost in a swelling prideof Myrtle Forge, of his father's fibre--the iron of his character likethe iron he successfully wrought. He could grasp Gilbert Penny'saccomplishment here, take fire at its heroic quality; a thing he foundimpossible in the counting room above, recording such trivial details aswool stockings for Jonas Rupp. He could be a forgeman, he thought, butnever a clerk; and in that limitation he realized that he was inferiorto his father. There were aspects of himself beyond such discipline andcontrol. 

Ludowika Winscombe grasped his arm. "Come away, " she begged; "it's--it'ssavage, like Vulcan and dreadful, early legends. " She hurried him, clinging to his arm, over the ascent to the orderly lawn, the tranquilshine of candle-lit windows. There, with her hood fallen from her head, she sat on a stone step. 

"You frighten me, a little, " she confessed. "Are you at all like--likethat below inside of you? I have a feeling that you might be. If youwere one of the men about Vauxhall you'd be kissing me now ... If Iliked you. But, although I do like you, I wouldn't kiss you for anemerald buckle. " He recognized that she spoke seriously; her voice boreno connective suggestion. Kisses, it appeared, were no more to her thanlittle flowers which she dealt out casually where she pleased. Yet theidea, with its intimate sensual implications, stayed in his thoughts. Heconsidered kissing her, holding her mouth against his; and he wasconscious of a sharp return of his stinging sense of her bodilyseductiveness. 

At the same time an obscure uneasiness, rebellion, possessed him; it wasthe old, familiar feeling of revolt, of distaste for imprisoningcircumstance. It came to him acutely, almost as if a voice had whisperedin his ear, warning him, urging him into the wild, to escape threateningcatastrophe. He determined to leave Myrtle Forge in the morning, toreturn to the stream he had followed into the serene heart of the woods. There he would stay until--until Ludowika Winscombe had gone. Howat hadno especial sense of danger from her; only for the moment she typifiedthe entire world of trivial artifice. He gazed at her with a consciousdetachment possible because of the rarity in his existence of suchfigures as hers. 

She had risen, and her cloak fallen upon the grass. Howat could see herface beneath hair faintly powdered with silver dust and the ruffledpatch of white tied pertly under her chin. Her smoothly turningshoulders, filmed in lawn, and low bodice crowned an extravagantcircumference of ruffled silk and rosettes. Against the night of theProvince, the invisible but felt presence of immutable hills, she waslike a puppet, a grotesque figure of comedy. He regarded her sombrelyfrom the step, his chin cupped in a hand. 

But, again, she surprised him, speaking entirely out of the character hehad assigned her, in a spirit that seemed utterly incongruous, but whichwas yet warm with conviction. "I want to explain a great deal to you, "she said, "that really isn't explainable. It isn't sensible, and yet itis the strongest feeling I remember. It's about here and you and me. Youcan't picture my life, and so you don't know how strange this is, howdifferent from all I've ever lived. 

"I think I told you I was born in Paris--you see some of us came toFrance when Louis took a Polish princess, and there my mother married anEnglish gentleman. Well, it was always the Court, in France and inEngland. Always the Court--do you know what that means? It's a placewhere women are pretty pink and white candies that men are alwayspicking over. It's a great bed with a rose silk counterpane and closeddraperies. Champagne and music and scent and masques. Little plays withthe intrigue in the audience; favours behind green hedges. I was in itwhen I was fourteen, and I had a lover the first year. He showed me howto make pleasure. Don't think that I was indifferent to this, " she addeddirectly; "that I wanted to escape it. I wasn't; I didn't. Only beneatheverything I had a feeling of not being completely satisfied; Iwanted--oh, not very strongly--something else, for an hour. At times theair seemed choking; and inside of me, but not in my body, I seemedchoking too. I used to think about the Polish forests, and that wouldhelp a little. "

She resumed the place at his side, with her silk billowing against hisknee. "This is it, " she declared, her face set against the illimitable, still dark. "I recognized it only a little while ago. I thinkunconsciously I came to America hoping to find it; there was nothing atAnnapolis, but here--" she drew a breath as deep, he noted, as her stayswould permit. "It includes you, somehow, " she continued; "as if you werethe voice. What I said coming away from the Forge, about dreading you, was only momentary. I have another feeling, premonition--" she brokeoff, her manner changed. "All the Court believes in signs: Protestantismand vampires. 

"It seems unreal here; I mean St. James and all that was sotremendously important; incredibly stupid--the Princess Amelia'sstockings. But you can't imagine the jealousy. Every bit of it shall goout of my thoughts. You'll help me, a harmless magic. I'll be as simpleas that girl across the road, with the red cheeks, in a single slip. Youmust call me Ludowika; Ludowika and Howat. I'm not so terribly old, onlytwenty-nine. "

"I am going away to-morrow, " he informed her; "I won't be back beforeyou leave. "

A slight frown gathered about her eyes. Her face was very close to his. "But I don't like that either, " she replied. "You were to be a part ofit, its voice; excursions in the woods. Is it necessary, your absence?"

He knew that it was not; and suddenly he was seized with the convictionthat he would not go. It was as if, again, a voice outside him hadinformed him of the fact. But if there were no reason for his goingthere was as little for his remaining at Myrtle Forge; that was, so faras Ludowika Winscombe was concerned. He had been untouched by all thatshe had said; untouched except for a faint involuntary shiver as she hadspoken of premonition. And that had vanished instantaneously. There washis duty in the counting house. But he was forced to admit to himselfthe insufficiency of that reason; it was too palpably false. 

He had not been moved by the intent of what she had said, but hisimagination had been stirred, as if by the touch of delicate, pointedfingers, at her description of Court--a bed with a silk counterpane ... Behind clipped greenery. He recalled the fan with its paintedVilleggiatura, the naked, wanton loves. "Something different, " she halfrepeated, with a sigh, an accent, of longing. Howat heard her withimpatience; it was absurd to try to picture her tramping in thewilderness, breaking her way hour after hour through thorned underbrush, like Fanny Gilkan. She wouldn't progress a hundred yards in her unsteadypattens and fragile clothes. 

Suddenly the Italian servant appeared absolutely noiselessly at herside, speaking a ridiculous, oily gibberish. "At once, " she replied. Sheturned to Howat. "My bed has been prepared. Are you going to-morrow?"

"No, " he answered awkwardly. She turned and left without further words. The servant walked behind her, resembling an unnatural shadow. 

The metallic clamour at the anvil rose and fell, diminished by theinterposed bulk of the dwellings, ceaselessly forging the Penny iron, the Penny gold. He thought of himself as metal under the hammer; orrather ore at the furnace: he hadn't run clear in the casting; therewere bubbles, bubbles and slag. Endless refinements--first the furnaceand then the forge and then the metal. A contempt for the lesser degreespossessed him, for a flawed or clumsy forging, for weakness of theflesh, the fatality of easy surrender. An overwhelming, passionateemotion swept him to his feet, clenched his hands, filled him with anumbing desire to reach the last purification. 

The mood sank into an inexplicable nostalgia; he dragged the back of ahand impatiently across his vision. His persistent indifference, theinhibition that held him in a contemptuous isolation, again possessedhim, Howat, a black Penny. A last trace of his emotion, caught in theflood of his paramount disdain, vanished like a breath of warm mist. Heentered the house and mounted to his room; the stairs creaked but thatwas the only sound audible within. His candles burned without theirprotecting glasses in smooth, unwavering flames. When they wereextinguished the darkness flowed in and blotted out familiar objects, folded him in a cloak of invisibility, obliterated him in sleep. As helost consciousness he heard the trip hammer dully beating out Pennyiron, Penny gold; beating out, too, the Penny men ... Slag and metal andruffled muslin, roman candles and stars. 

V

There came to him in the counting house, the following afternoon, rumours and echoes of the day's happenings. David Forsythe had arrivedafter dinner, and there had been word from Mr. Winscombe; he would beobliged to return to Maryland, and trusted that Ludowika would not be anonerous charge. David was to take Myrtle and Caroline back with him tothe city, for an exemplary Quaker party. "There's no good asking you, "he told Howat, lounging in the door of the counting room. David wasflushed, his sleeve coated with dust. "Caroline, " he exclaimed, "is asstrong as a forgeman; she upset me on the grass as quickly as youplease, hooked her knee behind me, and there I was. She picked me up, too, and laughed at me, " he stopped, lost in thought. "Myrtle's reallybeautiful, " he said again; "Caroline's not a thing to look at, and yet, do you know, a--a man looks at her. She is wonderfully graceful. "

Howat gave Caroline the vigorous stamp of his brotherly approval. "Sheunderstands a lot, for a girl, " he admitted. "Of course Myrtle's aparticular peach, but I'd never go to her if a buckle--" he stoppedabruptly as Myrtle appeared at David's side. "Isn't he industrious?"she said indifferently. "You'd never guess how father's at him. Have youheard, Howat--Mrs. Winscombe will be here perhaps a month. It's a wonderyou haven't gone away, you are so frightfully annoyed by people. Lastnight you were with her over an hour on the lawn. I could see thatfather thought it queer; but I explained to him that court women neverthought of little things like, well, husbands. "

Howat gazed at her coldly, for the first time conscious that he actuallydisliked Myrtle. He made up his mind, definitely, to assist Caroline asfar as possible. She was absurd, criticizing Mrs. Winscombe. "Where, " hedemanded, "did you get all that about courts? And your sudden, tenderinterest in husbands? That's new, too. You're not thinking of one foryourself, are you? He'd never see you down in the morning. "

A bright, angry colour flooded her cheeks. "You are as coarse aspossible, " she declared. "I'm sure I wish you'd stay away altogetherfrom Myrtle Forge; you've never been anything but a bother. " She leftabruptly. "Sweet disposition. " Howat grinned. "You are seeing familylife as it's actually lived. " Later his thoughts returned to what shehad said about Ludowika Winscombe; he recalled the latter's speech, seated on the doorstep; some stuff about a premonition. Myrtle hadsuggested that he was interested in her. What ridiculous nonsense! Ifhis father said anything on that score the other would discover that hewas no longer a boy. Besides, such insinuations were a breach ofhospitality. How Mrs. Winscombe would laugh at them if she suspectedMyrtle's cheap folly. 

She had asked him to call her Ludowika. He decided that he would; reallyhe couldn't get out of it now. It would do no harm. Ludowika! It was anice name; undoubtedly Polish. He thought again about what she had saidof Polish forests, the dissatisfaction that had followed her for so manyyears. A lover at fourteen. A surprising sentence formed of itself inhis brain. --She had never had a chance. That pasty court life hadspoiled her. It had no significance for himself; he was simply revolvinga slightly melancholy fact. 

Felix Winscombe was a sere figure, yet he was extraordinarily full of apolished virility, rapier-like. Howat could see the dark, satirical faceshadowed by the elaborate wig, the rigid figure in precise, foppishdress. He heard Winscombe's slightly harsh, dominant voice. His positionin England was, he knew, secure, high. Ludowika had been very sensiblein marrying him. That was the way, Howat Penny told himself, thatmarriage should be consummated. He would never marry. David Schwarappeared with a sheaf of papers, which he himself proceeded to docket, and Howat left the counting room. 

He met Ludowika almost immediately; she advanced more simply dressedthan he had ever seen her before. She pointed downward to the waterflashing over the great, turning wheel. "Couldn't we walk along therill? There's a path, and it's beautiful in the shadow. " The streampoured solid and green through the narrow, masoned course of theforebay, sweeping in a lucent arc over the lip of the fall. An earthenpath followed the artificial channel through a dense grove of youngmaples, seeming to hold the sun in their flame-coloured foliage. MyrtleForge was lost, the leaves shut out the sky; underfoot some were alreadydead. The wilderness marched up to the edges of the meagre clearings. 

Ludowika walked ahead, without speech; irregular patches of ruddy lightslid over her flared skirt. Suddenly she stopped with an exclamation;the trees opened before them on the broad Canary sweeping between flatrocks, banks bluely green. Above, the course was broken, swift; butwhere they stood it was tranquil again, and crystal clear. Yellow raysplunging through the unwrinkled surface gilded the pebbles on theshallower bottom. A rock, broad and flat, extended into the stream bythe partial, diagonal dam that turned the water into Myrtle Forge; andLudowika found a seat with her slippers just above the current. HowatPenny sat beside her, then dropped back on the rocks, his hands claspedbehind his head. 

A silence intensified by the whispering stream enveloped them. Hewatched a hawk, diminutive on the pale immensity above. "Heavens, "Ludowika finally spoke, "how wonderful ... Just to sit, not to bebothered by--by things. Just to hear the water. Far away, " she saiddreamily; "girl. "

From where he lay he could see her arms, beautiful and bare, lost insoft Holland above the elbows; he could see the roundness of her bodyabove the lowest of stays. Suddenly she fascinated him; he visualizedher sharply, as though for the first time--a warm, intoxicating entity. He was profoundly disturbed, and sat erect; the stream, the woods, blurred in his vision. He felt as if his heart had been turnedcompletely over in his body; the palms of his hands were wet. He had amomentary, absurd impulse to run, beyond Shadrach Furnace, beyond anydistance he had yet explored, farther even than St. Xavier. LudowikaWinscombe gazed in serene, unconscious happiness before her. He feltthat his face was crimson, and he rose, moved to the water's edge, hisback toward her. He was infuriated at a trembling that passed over him, damned it in a savage and inaudible whisper. 

What particularly appalled him was the fact that his overmasteringsensation came without the slightest volition of his own. He had hadnothing to do with it, his will was powerless. He was betrayed like afortified city whose gate had been thrown open by an unsuspected, aconcealed, traitor inside. In an instant he had been invaded, his beinglevelled, his peculiar pride overthrown. He thought even that he heard adull crash, as if something paramount had irremediably fallen, something that should have been maintained at any cost, until the end oflife. 

Howat felt a sudden hatred of his companion; but that quicklyevaporated; he discovered that she had spread, like a drop of carmine ina goblet of water, through his every nerve. By God, but she had becomehimself! In the space of a breath she was in his blood, in his brain;calling his hands about her, toward her smooth, beautiful arms. She wasthe scent in his nostrils, the sound a breeze newly sprung up stirredout of the leaves. A profound melancholy spread over him, a deepsadness, a conviction of loss. Ludowika was singing softly:

"Last Sunday at St. James's prayers--dressed in all my whalebone airs. "

He had come on disaster. The realization flashed through hisconsciousness and was engulfed in the submerging of his being in theoverwhelming, stinging blood that had swept him from his old security. Yet he had been so detached from the merging influences about him, hisorganization had been so complete in its isolation, his egotism sodeveloped, that a last trace of his entity lingered sentient, viewing asif from a careened but still tenable deck the general submergence. Histhoughts returned to the automatic operation of the consummationobliterating his person, the inexorable blind movement of the thing inwhich he had been caught, dragged into the maw of a supreme purpose. Itwas, of course, the law of mere procreation which he had beforecontemptuously recognized and dismissed; a law for animals; but he wasno longer entirely an animal. Already he had considered the possibilityof an additional force in the directing of human passion, founded onsomething beyond the thirst of flesh, founded perhaps on soaringcompanionships, on--on--The condition, the term, he was searching forevaded him. 

He thought of the word love; and he was struck by the vast inaccuracy ofthat large phrase. It meant, Howat told himself, literally nothing: whatcomplex feeling Isabel Penny might have for her husband, Caroline'sfrank desire for David Forsythe, Myrtle's meagre emotion, Fanny Gilkan'ssense of Hesa and life's necessary compromises, his own collapse--allwere alike called love. It was not only a useless word but a dangerousfalsity. It had without question cloaked immense harm, pretence; it hadperpetuated old lies, brought them plausibly, as if in a distinguishedand reputable company, out of past superstitions and credulity; the realand the meaningless, the good and the evil, hopelessly confused. 

They were seated at supper, four of them only; Isabel and Gilbert Penny, and, opposite him, Ludowika. Occasionally he would glance at her, surreptitiously; his wrists would pound with an irregular, sultrycirculation; longing would harass him like the beating of a club. She, it seemed to him, grew gayer, younger, more simple, every hour. Happiness, peace, radiated in her gaze, the gestures of her hands. Howatwondered at what moment he would destroy it. Reprehensible. A momentmust come--soon--when emotion would level his failing reserve, hisfalling defences. He thrilled at the thought of the inevitabledisclosure. Would she fight against it, deny, satirize his tumult; orsurrender? He couldn't see clearly into that; he didn't care. Then hewondered about the premonition of which she had spoken, deciding to askher to be more explicit. 

An opportunity occurred later. Gilbert Penny had gone down to the Forgestore, his wife had disappeared. Ludowika Winscombe and Howat wereseated in the drawing room. Only a stand of candles was lit at herelbow; her face floated like a pale and lovely wafer against thebillowing shadows of the chamber. The wood on the iron hearth wascharring without flame. He questioned her bluntly, suddenly, out of aprotracted silence. She regarded him speculatively, delaying answer. Then, "I couldn't tell you like this, now; it would be too silly; youwould laugh at me. I hadn't meant to say even what I did. I'd prefer toignore it. "

"What did you mean, what premonition came to you?" he insisted crudely. 

She seemed to draw away from him, increase in years and an attitude oftolerant amusement. Only an immediate reply would save them, herealized. He leaned forward unsteadily, with clenched hands. "I warnedyou, " she proceeded lightly; "and if you do laugh my pride will suffer. "In spite of her obvious determination to speak indifferently her voicegrew serious, "I had a feeling that you mustn't kiss me, thatthis--America, the Province, Myrtle Forge, you, were for somethingdifferent. You see, I had always longed for a peculiar experience, release, and when it came, miraculously, I thought, it must not bespoiled, turned into the old, old thing. That was all. It was in myspirit, " she added almost defiantly, as if that claim might too besusceptible of derision. 

He settled back into his chair, turning upon her a gloomy vision. Whatever penalty threatened them, he knew, must fall. Nothing existingcould keep him from it. He felt a fleet sorrow for her in the inevitabledestruction of the release for which she had so long searched, her newpeace, so soon to be smashed. All sorrow for himself had gone under. Isabel Penny returned to the drawing room, and moved about, her floweredsilk at once gay and obscure in the semidarkness. "The fire, Howat, " shedirected; "it's all but out. " He stirred the logs into a renewed blaze. 

A warm gilding flickered over Ludowika; she smiled at him, relaxed, content. He was surprised that she could not see the tumultuous feelingoverpowering him. He had heard that women were immediately aware ofsuch emotion. But he realized that she had been lulled into a falsesense of security, of present immunity from "the old, old thing, " by herown placidity. He did not know when his mother left the room. Hewondered continuously when it would happen, when the bolt would fall, what she would do. Howat was hot and cold, and possessed by a subtlesense of improbity, a feeling resembling that of a doubtful advancethrough the dark, for a questionable end. This was the least part ofhim, insignificant; his passion grew constantly stronger, more brutal. In a last, vanishing trace of his superior consciousness he recognizedthat the thing must have happened to him as it did; it was the price ofhis more erect pride, his greater contempt, his solitary and unspentstate. 

She rose suddenly and announced that she was about to retire. It savedthem for the moment, for that day; he muttered somethingincomprehensible and she was gone. 

Isabel Penny returned and took Mrs. Winscombe's place before the fire. She spoke trivially, at random intervals. A great longing swept over himto tell his mother everything, try to find an escape in her wisecounsel; but his emotion seemed so ugly that he could not lay it beforeher. Besides, he had a conviction that it would be hopeless: he wasgone. She was discussing Ludowika now. "Really, " she said, "they seemvery well matched, a good arrangement. " She was referring, he realized, to the Winscombes' experience. He never thought of Felix Winscombe asmarried, Ludowika's husband; he had ceased to think of him at all. Thepresent moment banished everything else. "She has a quality usuallydestroyed by life about a Court, " the leisurely voice went on; "sheseems quite happy here, for a little, in a way simple. But, curiouslyenough, she disturbs your father. He can't laugh with her as he usuallydoes with attractive women. "

It was natural, Howat thought, that Gilbert Penny should be uneasybefore such a direct reminder of the setting from which he had takenIsabel Howat. It was a life, memories, in which the elder had no part;that consciousness dictated a part of his father's bitterness toward St. James, the Royal Government. But Gilbert Penny had never had seriousreason to dread it. His wife had left it all behind, permanently, without, apparently, a regret. He had a sudden, astonishing community offeeling with the older man; a momentary dislike of St. James, Versailles, the entire, treacherous, silk mob. A lover at fourteen!Howat damned such a betrayal with a bitterness whose base lay deeplyburied in sex jealousy. 

"I am glad, " the other continued, "that you are not susceptible; Isuppose you'll be off hunting in a day or more; Mrs. Winscombe is brightwine for a young man. Women like her play at sensation, like eatingfigs. " He thought contemptuously what nonsense was talked in connectionwith feminine intuition; it was nothing more than a polite chimera, like all the other famous morals and inhibitions supposed to serve anddirect mankind. 

He wondered once more about his mother, what the course of her life hadbeen--happily occupied, filled, or merely self-contained, hiding much ina deep, even flow? Her head was turned away from him, and he could seethe girlish profile, the astonishing illusion of youth renewed. Howatwanted to ask her how she had experienced, well--love, since there wasno other word. It had come to her quickly, he knew; her affair withGilbert Penny had been headlong, or else it would not have been at all;yet he felt she had not been the victim of such a tyranny as masteredhimself. But, perhaps, after all, secretly, every one was--justanimal-like. He repudiated this firmly, at once. He himself had feltthat he was not entirely animal. 

"The girls, " Isabel Penny said, "will be gallopading now. Myrtle has anew dress, her father gave it to her, an apricot mantua. "

"He's really idiotic about Myrtle, " Howat declared irritably. His motherglanced swiftly at him. She made no comment. "Now Caroline! It'sCaroline who ought to marry David Forsythe. "

"Such things must fall out as they will. "

God, that was true enough, terribly true! He rose and strode into thefarther darkness of the drawing room, returning to the fireplace, marching away again. He saw the white glimmer of Ludowika's arms; hehad a vision of her tying the broad ribbon about her rounded, silkenknee. "... A man now, " his mother's voice was distant, blurred. "Responsibilities; your father--" He had heard this before without beingmoved; but suddenly the words had a new actuality; he was a man now, that was to say he stood finally, irrevocably, alone, beyond assistance, advice. He had never heeded them; he had gone a high-handed, independentway, but the others had been there; unconsciously he had been aware ofthem, even counted on them. Now they had vanished. 

Caroline and Myrtle, bringing David with them again, returned on thefollowing morning. It seemed to Howat that the former was almost lovely;she had a gayer sparkle, a clearer colour, than he had ever seen herpossess before. On the other hand, Myrtle was dull; the dress, itseemed, had not been the unqualified success she had hoped for. Something newer had arrived in the meantime from London. Ludowika, itdeveloped, had one of the later sacques in her boxes; but that, she saidindifferently, must be quite dead now. It seemed to Howat that she tooregarded Myrtle without enthusiasm. Ludowika and Myrtle had had verylittle to say to each other; Myrtle studied Mrs. Winscombe's apparelwith a keen, even belligerent, eye; the other patronized the girl in aspecies of half absent instruction. 

The sky was flawless, leaden blue; the sunlight fell in an envelopingflood over the countryside, but it was pale, without warmth. There wasno wind, not a leaf turned on the trees--a sinuous sheeting of thecountry-side like red-gold armour. But Howat knew that at the first stirof air the leaves would be in stricken flight, the autumn accomplished. Caroline dragged him impetuously down into the garden, among the brown, varnished stems of the withered roses, the sere, dead ranks of scarletsage. "He hugged me, " she told him; "I was quite breathless. It was in ahall, dark; but he didn't say anything. What do you think?" There wasnothing definite that he might express; and he patted her shoulder. Hehad a new kinship with Caroline; Howat now understood her tempest offeeling, concealed beneath her commonplace daily aspect. 

Myrtle and David joined them, and he left, resumed his place at the highdesk in the counting house. Strangely his energy of being communicateditself to the prosaic work before him. It was, he suddenly felt, important for him to master the processes of Myrtle Forge; it would notdo for him to remain merely irresponsible, a juvenile appendage to thePenny iron. He would need all the position, the weight, he could assume;and money of his own. He found a savage pleasure in recording everydetail put before him. He compared the value of pig metal, the cost ofcharcoal, wages, with the return of the blooms and anconies they shippedto England. Howat experienced his father's indignation at the manner inwhich London limited the Province's industries. For the first time hewas conscious of an actual interest in the success of Myrtle Forge, apersonal concern in its output. He had always visualized it asautomatically prosperous, a cause of large, inexact pride; but now itwas all near to him; he considered the competition rapidly increasinghere, and the jealous menace over seas. 

His final trace of careless youth had gone; he felt the advent of theconstant apprehension that underlies all maturity, a sense of theproximity of blind accident, evil chance, disaster. At last he wasopposed to life itself, with an immense stake to gain, to hold; in themidst of a seething, treacherous conflict arbitrarily ended by death. There was no cringing, absolutely no cowardice, in him. He was glad thatit was all immediately about him; he was arrogant in pressing forward totake what he wanted from existence. He forgot all premonitions, doubtwas behind him; he no longer gauged the value of his desire for LudowikaWinscombe. She was something he would, had to, have. 

David Forsythe sat across the back of a chair in Howat's room as thelatter dressed in the rapidly failing light. David had smuggled hisLondon coat with the wired tails out to Myrtle Forge, and had thestiffened portion now spread smoothly out on either side. His cheerful, freshly-coloured face was troubled; he seemed constantly on the point ofbreaking into speech without actually becoming audible. Howat wasthinking of Ludowika. It would happen to-night, he knew. He was at onceapprehensive and glad. 

"You knew, " David ventured finally, "that I'm supposed to ask Myrtle tomarry me. That is, your father and mine hoped I would. Well, " he drew adeep breath, "I don't think I shall. Of course, she is one of theprettiest girls any one ever saw, and she's quite bright--it's wonderfulwhat she has picked up about the Furnace, but yet--" his speech suddenlyran out. With an effort Howat brought himself back from his own vastlymore important concern. "Yes?" he queried, pausing with his fingers inthe buttonholes of a mulberry damask coat. "I have decided to choose, toact, for myself, " David announced; "this is a thing where every man mustbe absolutely free. --Caroline can have me if she likes. "

Howat could not avoid a momentary, inward flicker of amusement at DavidForsythe's absolute freedom of choice. He felt infinitely older than theother, wiser in the circuitous mysteries of being. He pounded David onthe back, exclaimed, "Good!"

"I don't know whether to speak to Abner, " the other proceededunfilially, "or the great Penny first. I don't care too much for eitherjob. It would be pleasanter to go to Caroline. I have an idea shedoesn't exactly dislike me. "

"Perhaps I oughtn't to tell you, " Howat replied gravely; "but Carolinethinks a lot of you. She has admitted it to me--"

David Forsythe danced agilely about the more serious figure; he kickedHowat gaily from behind, ironically patted his cheek. "Hell's buttons!"he cried. "Why didn't you tell me that before? You cast iron ass! I'llmarry Caroline if I have to take her to a charcoal burner's hut. Shewould go, too. "

Howat Penny gripped the other's shoulder, faced him with grimdetermination. "Do you fully realize that Myrtle Forge, Shadrach, willbe us? They will be ours and our wives' and childrens'. We must standtogether, David, whatever happens, whatever we may, personally, think. The iron is big now, but it is going to be great. We mustn't fail, fallapart. We'll need each other; there's going to be trouble, I think. "

David put out his hand. "I didn't know you felt like that, Howat, " hereplied, the effervescent youth vanished from him too. "It's splendid. We'll hammer out some good blooms together. And for the other, nothingshall ever make a breach between us. "

VI

They went down to the supper table silently, absorbed in thought. Davidwas placed where Mr. Winscombe had been seated, on Mrs. Penny's right, and next to Myrtle. Gilbert Penny maintained a flow of high spirits; herallied every one at the table with the exception of, Howat noted, Ludowika. Her hair was simply arranged and undecorated, she woreprimrose with gauze like smoke, an apparently guileless bodice withblurred, warm suggestions of her fragrant body. Howat was conscious ofevery detail of her appearance; she was stamped, as she was thatevening, indelibly on his inner being. He turned toward her but little, addressed to her only the most perfunctory remarks; he was absorbed inthe realization that the most fateful moment he had met was fastapproaching. His father's cheerful voice continued seeminglyinterminably; now it was a London beauty to which he affected to believeDavid had given his heart. The latter replied stoutly:

"I brought that back safely enough; it's here the danger lies. Humiliating to cross the ocean and then be lost in Canary Creek. "

Gilbert Penny shot an obvious, humorous glance at Myrtle. She did notmeet it, but sat with lowered gaze. Caroline made a daring "nose" atHowat; but he too failed to acknowledge her message. David's affair hadsunk from his thoughts. The drawing room was brilliantly lighted: therewas a constant stir of peacock silk, of yellow and apple green and corallutestring, of white shoulders, in the gold radiance of candles likestiff rows of narcissi. Caroline drifted finally into the chamber backof the dining room, and they could hear the tenuous vibrations of theclavichord. Soon David had disappeared. The elder Penny discoveredMyrtle seated sullenly at her mother's side; and, taking her arm, heescorted her in the direction of the suddenly silenced music. 

Ludowika sat on a small couch away from the fireplace. She smiled atHowat as he moved closer to her. She never did things with her hands, henoticed, like the women of his family, embroidery or work on littleheaps of white. She sat motionless, her arms at rest. His mother seemedfar away. The pounding recommenced unsteadily at his wrists, the roomwavered in his vision. Ludowika permeated him like a deep draught ofintoxicating, yellow wine. He had a curious sensation of floating inair, of tea roses. It was clear that, folded in happy contentment, shestill realized nothing.... She must know now, any minute. Howat saw thathis mother had gone. 

He rose and stood before Ludowika, leaning slightly over her. Sheraised her gaze to his; her interrogation deepened. Then her expressionchanged, clouded, her lips parted; she half raised a hand. Her breastrose and fell, sharply, once. Howat picked her up by the shoulders andcrushed her, silk and cool gauze and mouth, against him. Ludowika'sskirts billowed about, half hid, him; a long silence, a long kiss. 

Her head fell back with a sigh, she drooped again upon the sofa. Shehadn't struggled, exclaimed; even now there was no revolt in hercountenance, only a deep trouble. "Howat, " she said softly, "youshouldn't have done that. It was brutal, selfish. You--you knew, afterall that I told you; the premonition--" she broke off, anger shonebrighter in her eyes. "How detestable men are!" She turned away fromhim, her profile against the brocade of the sofa. Unexpectedly he wasalmost cold, and self-contained; he saw the gilded angle of a frame onthe wall, heard the hickory disintegrating on the hearth. 

He had kissed her as a formal declaration; what must come would come. "Iwas an imbecile, " she spoke in a voice at once listless and touched withbitterness; "Arcadia, " she laughed. "I thought it was different here, that you were different; that feeling in my heart--but it's gone now, dead. I suppose I should thank you. But, do you know, I regret it; Iwould rather have stayed at St. James all my life and kept that singlelittle delusion, longing. The premonition was nonsense, too; nothingnew, unexpected, can happen. Kisses are almost the oldest things in theworld, kisses and their results. What is there to be afraid of? You see, I learned it all quite young. 

"I am an imbecile; only it came so suddenly. You would laugh at me ifyou knew what I was thinking. I can even manage a smile at myself. " Sheappeared older, the Mrs. Winscombe who had first come to Myrtle Forge;her mouth was flippant. "The eternal Suzanna, " she remarked, "themonotonous elders or younger. " He paid little heed to her words; thecoldness, the indifference, were fast leaving him. His heart was likethe trip hammer at the Forge. Yellow wine. He was still standing aboveher, and he took her hands in his. She put up her face with a movementof bravado, of mockery, which he ignored. 

"I didn't choose it, " he told her; "it's ruined all that I was. Now, Idon't care; there is nothing else. One thing you are wrong about--ifthere had been another in your life like myself you wouldn't be herewith--as you are. I'm certain of that. It's the only thing I do know. Myfeeling may be a terrible misfortune; I didn't make it; I can't see theend. There isn't any, I think. " He pressed her hands to his throat witha gesture that half dragged her from the sofa. A deeper colour stainedher cheeks, and her breath caught. "Endless, " he repeated, losing theword on her lips. She wilted into a corner of the sofa, and he strodeover to the fire, stood gazing blindly at the pulsating embers. Howatreturned to her almost immediately, but she made no sign of hisnearness. The bitterness had left her face, she appeared weary, pallid;she sat heedlessly crumpling her flounces, a hand bent back on itswrist. 

"I think it is something in myself, " she said presently; "something alittle wrong that I'm dreadfully tired of. Always men. Out here a HowatPenny, just like any fribble about the Court. God, I'd like to be thatgirl across the road, in the barnyard. " He was back at the fire againwhen Gilbert Penny entered the room. The latter dropped a palm onHowat's shoulder. 

"Schwar says the last sow metal was faulty, " he declared; "theFurnace'll need some attention with Abner Forsythe deeper in theProvincial affairs. Splendid thing David's back. Look for a lot fromDavid. " Howat hoped desperately that Ludowika would not leave, go to herroom, while his father was talking. "David says you have anunderstanding, will do great things. I hope so. I hope so. I won't damnhim as an example but he will do you no harm. That is, if he touchesyour confounded person at all. A black Penny, Mrs. Winscombe, " he said, turning to the figure spread in pale silk on the sofa. "Fortunate foryou to have no such confounded, stubborn lot on your hands. Although, "he added laughingly, "Felix Winscombe's no broken reed. But this boy ofmine--you might think he had been run out of Shadrach, " he tapped afinger on Howat's back. "Not like those fellows about the Court, anyway. They tell me he'll go fifty miles through the woods in a day. Now if wecould only keep that at the iron trade--"

His father went on insufferably, without end. Howat withdrew stifflyfrom the other's touch. Irresistibly he drifted back, back to Ludowika. She had not moved; her bent hand seemed dislocated. An immensetenderness for her overwhelmed him; his sheer passion vapourized into apoignant sweetness of solicitous feeling. He was protective; his jaw setrigidly, he enveloped her in an angry barrier from all the world. He hada sensation of standing at bay; in his mulberry damask, in brocade andsilver buttons, he had an impression of himself stooped and savage, confronting a menacing dark with Ludowika flung behind him. Inexplicabletremors assailed him, vast fears. His father's deliberate voicedestroyed the illusion; he saw the candles about him like white andyellow flowers, the suave interior. The others had returned. He heardLudowika speaking; she laughed. His tension relaxed. Suddenly he wasflooded with happiness, as if he had been drenched in sparkling, delightful water. He joined in the gay, trivial clamour that arose. Isabel Penny gazed at him speculatively. 

There would, it appeared, be no other opportunity that evening for himto declare himself to Ludowika. He was vaguely conscious of his mother'sscrutiny; he must avoid exposing Ludowika to any uncomfortablesurmising. His thoughts leaped forward to a revelation that he began tofeel was inevitable; he got even now a tangible pleasure from theconsideration of an announcement of his passion for Ludowika Winscombe, a sheer insistence upon it in the face of an antagonistic world. But forthe present he must be careful. This, the greatest event that hadbefallen him, summed up all that he innately was; it expressed him, ablack Penny, absolutely; Howat felt the distance between himself, hisconvictions, and the convictions of the world, immeasurably widening. His feeling for Ludowika symbolized his isolation from the interwovenfabric of the plane of society; it gave at last a tangible bulk to hisscorn. 

As he had feared, presently she rose and went to her room. Myrtle tookher place on the sofa. Gilbert Penny vanished with a broad witticism atthe well known preference of youth, in certain situations, for its owncouncil. David Forsythe made a wry face at Howat. Caroline gaily laidher arm across her mother's shoulder and propelled her from the room. David stood awkwardly in the middle of the floor; and Howat, hardly lessclumsy, took his departure. He found Caroline awaiting him in the shadowof his door; she followed him and stood silent while he made a light. Her face was serious, and her hands clasped tightly. "Howat, " she saidin a small voice, "it's--it's, that is, David loves me. Whatever do yousuppose father and Myrtle will say?"

"What do you think David is saying to Myrtle now?" he asked drily. "I amglad, Caroline; everything worked out straight for you. David is adamned good Quaker. For some others life isn't so easy. " She laid a warmhand on his shoulder. "I wish you were happy, Howat. " A slightirritation seized him at the facile manner in which she radiated hersatisfaction, and he moved away. "David's going back to-night. I wish hewouldn't, " she said troubled. "That long, dark way. Anything mighthappen. But he has simply got to be at his father's office in themorning. He is going to speak to him first, see what will be given us atthe Furnace. "

"It should be quite a family party at breakfast, " Howat predicted. 

VII

He was entirely right. Ludowika rarely appeared so early; Myrtle's faceseemed wan and pinched, and her father rallied her on her indispositionafter what should have been an entrancing evening. She declaredsuddenly, "I hate David Forsythe!" Gilbert Penny was obviously startled. Caroline half rose, as if she had finished breakfast; but she sat downagain with an expression of determination. Howat looted about from hisremoved place of being. "I do!" Myrtle repeated. "At first he seemed tolike--I mean I liked him, and then everything changed, got horrid. Someone interfered. " Resentment, suspicion, dominated her, she grew shrillwith anger. "I saw him making faces at Howat, as if he and Howat, as ifHowat had, well--"

"Don't generalize, " said Howat coolly; "be particular. "

"As if you had deliberately spoiled any chance, yes, " she declareddefiantly, "any chance I had. "

"That's ridiculous, " Gilbert Penny declared. "What, " he asked his wife, "are they all driving at?" She professed herself equally puzzled. "Howatwould say nothing disadvantageous to young Forsythe. He knows what weall hope. " Caroline suddenly leaned forward, speaking in a level voice:"This has nothing to do with Howat, but with me. I am going to tell youat once, so that you can all say what you wish, get as angry as youlike, and then accept what--what had to be. David and I love each other;we are going to be married. "

Gilbert Penny's surprise slowly gave place to a dark tide suffusing hiscountenance. "You and David, " he half stuttered, "getting married--likethat. " Myrtle was rigid in an indignation that left her momentarilywithout speech. Mrs. Penny, Howat saw, drew into the slight remotenessfrom which she watched the conflicts of her family. "I know I'mfearfully bold, yes, indecent, " Caroline went on, "and undutiful, impertinent. I'm sorry, truly, for that. Perhaps you'll forgive me, later. But I won't apologize for loving David. "

"Incredible, " her father pronounced. "A girl announcing, without theslightest warrant or authority, that she intends to marry. And tramplingon her sister's heart in the bargain. " Howat expostulated, "What does itmatter which he marries? The main affair is to consolidate thefamilies. " The elder glared at him. "Be silent!" he commanded. HowatPenny's ever present resentment rose to the surface. "I am not a girl, "he stated; "nor yet a nigger. And, personally, I think David wasextremely wise. "

"I was sure of it, " Myrtle cried; "he--he has talked against me, helpedCaroline behind my back. " She sobbed thinly, with her arm across hereyes. "If I thought anything like that had occurred, " their fatherasserted, "Howat would--" he paused, gazing heavily about at his family. 

Howat's ill temper arose. "Yes--?" he demanded with a sharp inflection. "Be still, Howat, " his mother said unexpectedly. "This is all veryregrettable, Gilbert, " she told her husband; "but it is an impossiblesubject of discussion. " Gilbert Penny continued hotly, "He wouldn't stayabout here. " She replied equably, "On the contrary, Howat shall be atMyrtle Forge until he himself chooses to leave. "

Howat was conscious of a surprise almost as moving as that pictured onhis father's countenance. He had never heard Isabel Penny speak in thatmanner before; perhaps at last she would reveal what he had longspeculated over--her true, inner situation. But he saw at once that hewas to be again disappointed; the speaker was immediately enveloped inher detachment, the air that seemed almost one of a spectator in thePenny household. She smiled deprecatingly. How fine she was, Howatthought. Gilbert Penny did not readily recover from his consternation;his surprise had notably increased to that. His mouth was open, his facered and agitated. "Before the children, Isabel, " he complained. "Don'tknow what to think. Surely, surely, you don't uphold Howat? Outrageousconduct if it's true. And Myrtle so gentle, never hurt any one in herlife. " Myrtle circled the table, and found a place in his arms. "If theyhad only told me, " she protested. "If Caroline--" He patted her flushedcheeks. "Don't give it another thought, " he directed; "a girl as prettyas you! I'll take you to London, where you'll have a string of men, notQuakers, fine as peacocks. " He bent his gaze on his son. 

"Didn't I tell you last evening that the cast metal has been light?" hedemanded. "Must I beg you to go to the Furnace? Or perhaps that tooconflicts with your mother's fears for you. There are stumps in theroad. " There was a whisper of skirts at the door, and Ludowika Winscombestood smiling at them. Myrtle turned her tear-swollen face upon herfather's shoulder. Howat wondered if Ludowika had slept. He endeavouredin vain to discover from her serene countenance something of herthoughts of what had occurred. He had a sudden inspiration. 

"I can go to Shadrach as soon as Adam saddles a horse, " he told hisfather. "You were curious about the Furnace, " he added to Ludowika, masking the keen anxiety he felt at what was to follow; "it's a sunnyday, a pleasant ride. " She answered without a trace of feeling otherthan a casual politeness. "Thank you, since it will be my onlyopportunity. I'll have to change. " She was gazing, Howat discovered, lightly at Isabel Penny. "I must get the figures from Schwar, " hisfather said. Before he left the room he moved to his wife's side, restedhis hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him with a reassuring nod. Howat saw that, whatever it might be, the bond between them was secure, stronger than any differences of prejudices or blood, more potent thantime itself. The group, the strain, about the table, broke up. 

The horses footed abreast over the road that crossed the hills andforded the watered swales between Myrtle Forge and the Furnace. Ludowika, riding astride, enveloped and hooded in bottle green, had herface muffled in a linen riding mask. He wondered vainly what expressionshe bore. Speech he found unexpectedly difficult. His passion mountedand mounted within him, all his being swept unresistingly in its tide. Howat said at last:

"Are you still so angry at life, at yourself?"

"No, " she replied; "I slept that foolishness away. I must have soundedlike a character in _The Lying Valet. _" Her present mood obscurelytroubled him; he infinitely preferred her in the pale crumpled silk andcandle light of the evening before. "I wish I could tell you what Ifeel, " he said moodily. 

"Why not?" she replied. "It's the most amusing thing possible. Youadvance and I seem to retreat; you reach forward and grasp--my fan, ahandful of petticoat; you protest and sulk--"

"Perhaps in Vauxhall, " he interrupted her savagely, "but not here, notlike that, not with me. This is not a gavotte. I didn't want it; I triedto get away; but it, you, had me in a breath. At once it was all over. God knows what it is. Call it love. It isn't a thing under a hedge, Itell you that, for an hour. It's stronger than anything else that willever touch me, it will last longer.... Like falling into a river. Perhaps I'm different, a black Penny, but what other men take likewater, a woman, is brandy for me. I'm--I'm not used to it. I haven'twanted Kate here and Mary there; but only you. I've got to have you, " hesaid with a marked simplicity. "I've got to, or there will be a badsmash. "

Ludowika rode silently, hid in her mask. He urged his horse closer toher, and laid a hand on her swaying shoulder. "I didn't choose this, " herepeated; "the blame's somewhere else. " He felt a tremor run throughher. "Why say blame?" she finally answered. "I hate moralities andexcuses and tears. If you are set on being gloomy, and talking to heavenabout damnation, take it all away from me. " A shadow moved across thecountryside, and he saw clouds rising out of the north. A sudden windswept through the still forest, and immediately the air was aflame withrushing autumn leaves. They fell across Howat's face and eddied aboutthe horses' legs. The grey bank deepened in space, the sun vanished; thewind was bleak. It seemed to Howat Penny that the world had changed, its gold stricken to dun and gaunt branches, in an instant. The roaddescended to the clustered stone houses about Shadrach Furnace. 

The horses were left under the shed of the smithy at the primitive crossroads. Thomas Gilkan had gone to the river about a purchase of castingsand, but expected to be back for the evening run of metal. Fanny wasaway, Howat learned, visiting Dan Hesa's family. They would, of course, have dinner at the Heydricks; and the latter sent a boy home to preparehis wife. Ludowika and Howat aimlessly followed the turning road thatmounted to the coal house. A levelled and beaten path, built up withstone, led out to the top of the stack, where a group of sooty figureswere gathered about the clear, almost smokeless flame of the blast. Below they lingered on the grassy edge of the stream banked against thehillside and flooding smoothly to the clamorous fall and revolving wheelby the wood shed that covered the bellows. Pointed downward the latterspasmodically discharged a rush of air with a vast creasing of theirdusty leather. A procession of men were wheeling and dumping slag into adreary area beyond. There was a stir of constant life about the Furnace, voices calling, the ringing of metal on metal, the creak of barrows, dogs barking. The plaintive melody of a German song rose on the air. 

Behind a blood red screen of sumach Howat again kissed Ludowika. Herarms tightened about his neck; she raised her face to him with anabandon that blinded him to the world about, and his entire being wasdrawn in an agony of desire to his lips. She sank limply into his rigidembrace, a warm sensuous burden with parted lips. 

At the Heydricks he ate senselessly whatever was placed before him. Thehouse, solidly built of grey stone traced with iron, had two rooms onthe lower floor. The table was set before a fireplace that filled thelength of the wall, its mantel a great, roughly squared log mortaredinto the stones on either side. Small windows opened through deepembrasures, a door bound with flowering, wrought hinges faced the road, and a narrow flight of stairs, with a polished rail and white post, ledabove. Mrs. Heydrick, a large woman in a capacious Holland apron andworsted shoes, moved about the table with steaming pewter trenchardswhile Heydrick and their guests dined. 

Howat Penny's face burned as if from a violent fever; his veins, itseemed, were channels through which ran burning wine. He was deafened bythe tumult within him. Heydrick's voice sounded flat and blurred. Theywere conscious at Shadrach of the thin quality of the last metal. Thecharge had been poorly made up; he, Heydrick, had said at once, when thecinders had come out black, that the lime had been short. His words fledthrough Howat's brain like racing birds; the latter's motions wereunsteady, inexact. 

The clouds had now widened in a sagging plain across the sky, somescattered rain pattered coldly on the fallen leaves. It was pleasantbefore the hickory burning in the deep fireplace; the Heydricks hadtaken for granted that they would wait there for Thomas Gilkan, and theyprotested when Howat and Ludowika moved toward the door. But Howat wasrestless beyond any possibility of patiently hearing Mrs. Heydrick'scheerful, trivial talk. He was so clumsy with Ludowika's cloak that shetook it from him, and, with a careless, feminine scorn in common withMrs. Heydrick, got into it without assistance. They stood for a while inthe cast house, watching a keeper rolling and preparing the pig bed forthe evening flow. They were pressed close together in a profound gloomof damp warmth rising from the wet sand and furnace. An obscure figuremoved a heavy and faintly clanging pile of tamping bars. The sound ofrain on the roof grew louder, continuous. A poignant and then stranglingemotion clutched at Howat Penny's throat. Silently they turned from themurky interior. 

A grey rain was plastering the leaves on the soggy ground; puddlesaccumulated in the scarred road; the smoke from the smithy hung low onthe roof. At the left a small, stone house had a half opened door. Ludowika looked within. "For storing, " Howat told her. Inside were piledsledges and cinder hooks, bars and moulds, and bales of tanned hides. Ludowika explored in the shadows. A sudden eddy of wind slammed to thedoor through which they had entered. They drew together irresistibly, and stood for a long while, crushed in each other's arms; then Ludowikastepped back with her cloak sliding from her shoulders. She restedagainst precarious steps leading aloft through a square opening in theceiling. "For storage, " he said again. He thought his throat had closed, and that he must suffocate. A mechanical impulse to show her what wasabove set his foot upon the lower step, and he caught her waist. "Yousee, " he muttered; "things for the store ... The men, wool stockings, handkerchiefs ... Against their pay. " The drumming rain was scarcely afoot above their heads; an acrid and musty odour rose from the boxes andcanvas-sewed bales about the walls. "Ludowika, " Howat said. Hestopped--she had shut her eyes. All that was Howat Penny, that wasindividually sentient, left him with a pounding rush. 

A faint sound, infinitely far removed, but insistent, penetrated hisblurred senses. It grew louder; rain, rain beating on the roof. Voices, somewhere, outside. Ringing blows on an anvil, a blacksmith, and horseswaiting. Myrtle Forge. Ludowika. Ludowika Winscombe. No, by God, neverthat last again!

He stood outside with his head bare and his face lifted to the coolshock of the rain. Ludowika was muffled in her cloak. Howat could see arenewed activity in the cast house; a group of men were gathered aboutthe furnace hearth, in which he saw Thomas Gilkan. He moved forward tocall the latter; but a tapping was in progress, and he was forced towait. Gilkan swung a long bar against a low, clay face, and instantlythe murky interior was ablaze with a crackling radiance against whichthe tense figures wavered in magnified silhouettes. The metal poured outof the furnace in a continuous, blinding white explosion hung with fansof sparkling gold; the channels of the pig bed rapidly filled with thefluid iron. 

Finally Howat Penny lifted Ludowika to her saddle and swung himself upat her side. The rain had stopped; below the eastern rim of cloud anexpanse showed serenely clear. Their horses soberly took the rise beyondShadrach Furnace and merged into the gathering dusk of the forest road. A deep tranquillity had succeeded the tempest of Howat's emotions; itwould not continue, he knew; already the pressure of immense, newdifficulties gathered about him; but momentarily he ignored them. Hesearched his feelings curiously. 

The fact that struck him most sharply was that he was utterly withoutremorse for what had occurred; it had been inevitable. He experiencednone of the fears against which Ludowika had exclaimed. He lingered overno self-accusations, the reproach of adultery. He was absolutely unablethen to think of Felix Winscombe except as a person generallyunconcerned. If he repeated silently the term husband it was withoutany sense of actuality; the satirical individual in the full bottomedwig, now absent in Maryland, had no importance in the passionatesituation that had arisen between Ludowika and himself. Felix Winscombewould of course have to be met, dealt with; but so would a great manyother exterior conditions. 

Ludowika, in her linen mask, was enigmatic, a figure of mystery. Acomplete silence continued between them; at times they ambled with hishand on her body; then the inequalities of the road forced them apart. The clouds dissolved, the sky was immaculate, green, with dawning starslike dim white flowers. A faint odour of the already mouldering yearrose from the wet earth. Suddenly Ludowika dragged the mask from herface. Quivering with intense feeling she cried:

"I'm glad, Howat! Howat, I'm glad!"

He contrived to put an arm about her, crush her to him for a precariousmoment. "We have had an unforgettable day out of life, " she continuedrapidly; "that is something. It has been different, strangely apart, from all the rest. The rain and that musty little store house and thewonderful iron; a memory to hold, carry away--"

"To carry where?" he interrupted. "You must realize that I'll never letyou go now. I will keep you if we have to go beyond the EndlessMountains. I will keep you in the face of any man or oppositioncreated. "

A wistfulness settled upon her out of which grew a slight hope. "I amafraid of myself, Howat, " she told him; "all that I have been, mylife--against me. But, perhaps, here, with you, it might be different. Perhaps I would be constant. Perhaps all the while I have needed this. Howat, do you think so? Do you think I could forget so much, drop thepast from me, be all new and happy?"

He reassured her, only half intent upon the burden of her words. Heutterly disregarded anything provisional in their position; happiness orunhappiness were unconsidered in the overwhelming determination that sheshould never leave him. No remote question of that entered his brain. The difficulties were many, but he dismissed them with an impatientgesture of his unoccupied hand. Gilbert Penny would be heavilycensorious; he had, Howat recognized, the moral prejudices of a solid, unimaginative blood. But, lately, his father had sunk to a placecomparatively insignificant in his thoughts. This was partly due to thecomplete manner in which Isabel Penny had silenced the elder atbreakfast. His mother, Howat gladly felt, would give him the sympathy ofa wise, broad understanding. David and Caroline would interpose noserious objection. Felix Winscombe remained; a virile figure in spite ofhis years; a man of assured position and a bitter will. 

He determined to speak on the day that Felix Winscombe returned fromAnnapolis; there would be no concealment of what had occurred, and nohypocrisy. A decent regret at Winscombe's supreme loss. The other wouldnot relinquish Ludowika without a struggle. Who would? It wasconceivable that he would summon the assistance of the law, conceivablebut not probable; the situation had its centre in a purely personalpride. Nothing essential could be won legally. A physical encounter wasfar more likely. Howat thought of that coldly. He had no chivalrousinstinct to offer himself as a sop to conventional honour. In anystruggle, exchange of shots, he intended to be victorious.... He wouldhave the naming of the conditions. 

"It's beautiful here, " Ludowika broke into his speculations; "the greatforests and Myrtle Forge. I can almost picture myself directing servantslike your mother, getting supplies out of the store, and watching thecharcoal and iron brought down to the Forge. The sound of the hammer hasbecome a part of my dreams. And you, Howat--I have never before had afeeling like this for a man. There's a little fear in it even. It mustbe stronger than the other, than Europe; I want it to be. " They couldsee below them the lighted windows at Myrtle Forge. The horses turnedunguided into the curving way across the lawn. A figure stoodobsequiously at the door; it was, Howat saw with deep automaticrevulsion, the Italian servant. He wondered again impatiently at thepersistently unpleasant impression the other made on him. Gilbert Pennywas waiting in the hall, and Howat told him fully the result of hisinvestigation. 

His father nodded, satisfied. "You are taking hold a great bit better, "he was obviously pleased. "We must go over the whole iron situation withthe Forsythes. It's time you and David stepped forward. I am gettingbothered by new complications; the thing is spreading out sorapidly--steel and a thousand new methods and refinements. And theEnglish opposition; I'm afraid you'll come into that. "

Ludowika did not again appear that evening, and Howat sat informallybefore a blazing hearth with his mother, Gilbert Penny and Caroline. Myrtle had retired with a headache. Howat felt pleasantly settled, almost middle-aged; he smoked a pipe with the deliberate gestures of hisfather. He wondered at the loss of his old restlessness, his revolt fromjust such placid scenes as the present. Never, he had thought, would hebe caught, bound, with invidious affections, desires. Howat, a blackPenny! He had been subjugated by a force stronger than his rebelliousspirit. Suddenly, recalling Ludowika's doubt, he wondered if he would bea subject to it always. All the elements of his captivity lay soentirely outside of him, beyond his power to measure or comprehend, thata feeling of helplessness came over him. He again had the sense of beingswept twisting in an irresistible flood. But his confusion was dominatedby one great assurance--nothing should deprive him of Ludowika. Anintoxicating memory invaded him, touched every nerve with delight and atyrannical hunger. His fibre seemed to crumble, his knees turn to dust. Years ago he had been poisoned by berries, and limpness almost like thishad gone softly, treacherously, through him. 

VIII

They entered into a period of secret contentment and understanding. Ludowika displayed a grave interest in the details of the house and ironat Myrtle Forge; he explained the processes that resulted in the wroughtblooms despatched by tons in the lumbering, mule-drawn wagons. Theyexplored the farm, where she listened approvingly to the changes heproposed making, kitchen gardens to be planted, the hedges of roses andgravelled paths to be laid--for her. She suggested an Italian walk, latticed above, with a stone seat, and was indicating a corner thatmight be transformed into a semblance of an angle of Versailles, when, suddenly, she stopped, and clasped his wrist. 

"No! No!" she exclaimed, with surprising energy. "We'll have no France, no court, here, but only America; only you and myself, with no past, nomemories, but just the future. " How that was to be realized neither ofthem considered; they avoided all practical issues, difficulties. Theynever mentioned Felix Winscombe's name. However, a long communicationcame from him for his wife. She read it thoughtfully, in the drawingroom, awaiting dinner. No one else but Howat was present, and he wasstanding with his hand on her shoulder. "Felix hasn't been well, " sheremarked presently. "For the first time he has spoken to me of his age. The Maryland affair drags, and that has wearied him. "

"What does he say about returning?" Howat bluntly asked. 

"Shortly, he hopes; that is, in another ten days. He says there is agood ship, the _Lindamira_, by the middle of November. " Howat said, "Excellent. " Ludowika gazed at him swiftly. "It will be difficult. " Hisface became grim, but he made no direct reply. A silence fell on theroom through which vibrated the blows of the trip hammer at the Forge. The day was grey and definitely cold; a small cannon stove glowed in thecounting house; but Ludowika kept mostly to her room. She sent him anote by the Italian, and Howat eyed the fellow bowing in the doorway. Aflexibility that seemed entirely without bones. His eyes were jet slits, his lips shaven and mobile; a wig was repulsively saturated with scentedgrease. Yet it was not in actual details that he oppressed Howat; but bythe vague suggestion of debasing commendations, of surreptitiousunderstanding, insinuations. He seemed, absurdly, unreal, a symbol theintent of which Howat missed; he suppressed an insane movement to touchthe Italian, discover if he was actually before him. 

He reread Ludowika's note whenever he was not actually employed inrecording, until he was obliged to conceal it in the Forge book. 

Later Abner Forsythe arrived with David, and there was a stir ofpreparing rooms and communication with the farm. David's mother wasdead, and Abner conducted the wedding negotiations with the Pennys. "Ithought it would be the pretty little one, " he said at the table, with aQuaker disregard of small niceties of feeling; "but, Gilbert, any girlof yours would be more than the young men of the present deserve. " Itwas a difficult conversation for every one but Ludowika and AbnerForsythe. A greater ease appeared after supper. David and Carolinedisappeared in the direction of the clavichord, from which sounded somescattered, perfunctory measures. The two elder men returned, over adecanter of French spirits, to the inevitable and engrossing subject ofiron and the Crown regulations; Myrtle sat stiffly before the fireplacewith Isabel Penny; and Howat moved up and across the room, his gazelying on Ludowika, spread in an expanse of orange chiffon and boldsilver tracery on the small sofa. 

She smiled at him once, but, for the most part, she was lost in revery. Ludowika had a fan, to hold against the fire; and her white fingers wereplaying with its polished black sticks and glazed paper printed with anornamental bar of music. A faint colour stained her cheeks as he watchedher, and set his heart tumultuously beating. He told himself over andover, with an unabated sense of wonder, that she was his. He longed forthe moment when they could discard all pretence and be frankly, completely, together. That must happen after Felix Winscombe arrived. Meanwhile he was forced to content himself with a look, a quick orlingering contact of fingers, the crush of her body against hismomentarily in a passage. They had returned once to the rock where hehad first been intoxicated by her; in a strangling wave of emotion hehad taken her into his arms; but she had broken away. The width of thestream and screen of trees had apparently disconcerted Ludowika, and shecontrived to make him feel inexcusably young, awkward. 

But usually he dominated her; there was a depth to his passion thatachieved patience, the calmness of unassailable fortitude. She gazed athim often with a surprise that bordered on fear; again she would delightin his mastery, beg him to hold her forever safe against the past. Hereassured her of his ability and determination to accomplish that; therewas not the shadow of a doubt in his own mind. He was more troubled nowthan formerly; but he was eager for the climax to pass, impatient toclaim his own. 

As if a dam had been again thrown across the flood of his emotions hefelt them mounting, growing more and more irrepressible. He slept infeverish snatches, with gaps in which he stared wide-eyed into the dark, trying to realize his coming joy, visualizing Ludowika, a brilliantapparition of flowing silk, on the night. He thought of the store houseat the Furnace, of the rain beating on the roof, and Ludowika ... God, if that old man would only return, go, leave them! The clouds vanishedand left the nights emerald clear, the constellations glittered infrosty immensities of silence. He stood at the open window with hisshoulders bare, revelling in the cold air that flowed over him, defyingwinter, death itself. The moon waned immutably. 

David was now at Shadrach Furnace, living with the Heydricks, and thenecessities that brought him to Myrtle Forge were endless. He wasabsolutely happy, and Howat watched him with mingled longing and envy. His affair, darker, more tragic in spite of a consummation that must bejoyous, seemed infinitely more mature. Caroline was a nice enough girl, but Ludowika was supremely fascinating. David amused him:

"Caroline is a miracle. Of course there are prettier, and Mrs. Winscombehas more air; but none has Caroline's charming manner. Of course, youhave noticed it. Even a thick-headed brother couldn't miss that. We haveplans for you, too. And it's no good your looking glum; we'll glum you. "

The amusement faded from Howat's countenance, and he listened sullenlyto the end of the raillery. His temper was growing daily more uneven, the delight had largely left his reflections. His passion had become tooinsistent for happy conjecturing; the visions of Ludowika now onlytormented him. Her eyes were like burning sapphires, her warm palmscaressed his face; he was increasingly gaunt and shadowed. Once he gavea note for her to the Italian servant, loathing the hand that adroitlycovered the folded sheet, the other's oblique smile; but she sent backword that she was suffering from a headache. He began to plan so that hewould intercept her in unexpected places. She, too, was passionate inher admissions; but, somehow, some one always stumbled toward them, orthey were summoned from beyond. He began to feel that this was not merechance, but desired, deliberately courted, by Ludowika. Very well, hewould end it all, as it were, with a shout when Felix Winscombe cameback. 

When Felix Winscombe came back!

He was, too, increasingly aware of his mother's scrutiny. Howat wascertain that Isabel Penny had surmised a part of his feeling forLudowika. He didn't greatly care; any one might know, he thoughtcontemptuously. It had destroyed his sympathetic feeling for his mother, the only considerate bond that had existed with his family. Unconsciously he placed her on one side of a line, the other held onlyLudowika and himself. 

He explained this to her in a sere reach of the garden. It wasafternoon, the sun low and a haze on the hills. Ludowika had on ascarlet wrap, curiously vivid against the withered, brown aspect of thefaded flower stems. "You and me, " he repeated. She gazed, withoutanswering, at the barrier of hills that closed in Myrtle Forge. Fromthe thickets came the clear whistling of partridges, intensifying theunbroken tranquillity that surrounded the habitations. Howat wassuddenly conscious of the pressure of vast, unguessed regions, primitiveforces, illimitable wildernesses. It brought uppermost in him acorresponding zest in the sheer spaciousness of the land, a feelingalways intensified by the thought of England. "The Province, " he saiddisjointedly, "a place for men. Did you see those that followed the roadthis morning? Perhaps five with their women, some pack horses, kitchentins and hide tents. The men wore buckskin, and furred caps, and thewomen's skirts were sewed leather. One was tramping along with a feedingbaby. Well, God knows where they have been, how many days they havewalked; their shoes were in shreds. And their faces, thin and serious, have looked steadily over rifles at death. The women, too. You'll onlyget them here, in a big country, a new--"

"They were terrible, " Ludowika declared; "savage. I was glad when theywere by. The baby at the woman's great breast!" she shuddered at thememory. "Like animals. "

He gazed at her with a slight surprise; he had never heard her speak sobitterly. He saw her more clearly than ever before; as if her words hadilluminated her extraordinary delicacy of being, had made visible allthe infinite refinements of which she was the result. He had arecurrence of his sense of her incongruity here, balanced on polishedblack pattens, against the darkening hills. The sun disappeared, therewas a cool flare of yellow light, and a feeling of impending evening. The hills were indigo, the forest a dimmer gold, a wind moved audible inthe dry leaves. 

Ludowika gasped. "It's so--so huge, " she said, "all the lonely miles. Attimes I can't bear to think of it. " A faint dread invaded him. "Lastnight, when I couldn't sleep, a thing howled in the woods. And I gotthinking of those naked men at the Forge, with their eyes rimmed inblack, and--and--"

He disregarded the publicity of their position and put an arm about hershoulders, in an overwhelming impulse to calm and reassure her; but sheslipped away. "I'll be all right again, " she promised; "but I think it'smore cheerful with the candles. We'll get your sister to play Belshazzarand pretend we're across the green from St. James. "

A mood darker than any he had lately known settled over him. It wasnatural for Ludowika to be lonely, at first; but in a little she wouldgrow to love the wild like himself. She must. The Province was to be herlife. He was standing before the fire in the informal chamber beyond thedining room, watching his mother's vigorous hands deftly engaged inembroidery. There was no one present, and a sudden, totally desperaterecklessness possessed him. Isabel Penny said:

"Mr. Winscombe will be here shortly. "

"I wish it would be to-night, " he declared. She raised her calm gazewith brows arched in inquiry. "There is something--" he broke off. "Shebelongs to me, " he said in a low, harsh voice, "and not to that oldman. "

Mrs. Penny secured her needle, and put the colourful web aside. She was, as he had been sure she would be, entirely composed, admirable. Herquestioning look grew keener. "I was afraid of that, " she admittedsimply; "after the first. It is very unpleasant and difficult. This isnot London, and your father will make no allowances. You are not anyeasier to bend, Howat. With Mrs. Winscombe--" she paused, "I am notcertain. But there is no doubt about the husband. "

"She belongs to me, " he reiterated sullenly. 

"There is no need for you to make yourself offensively clear. I knowsomething of details of that kind. I told you once that they might meanonly a very little to--to certain women. I am not prepared to judgeabout that. But I know you, what bitter feeling you are capable of. Youare a very pure man, Howat; and for that reason such an occurrence wouldtear you up and across. There is no use in begging you to be cautious, diplomatic. Mr. Winscombe, too, is very determined; he has manyadvantages--maturity, coldness, experience. He won't spare you, either. It's excessively unfortunate. "

"I'll get it over as quickly as possible. I didn't want the thing tohappen, it wasn't from any choice; it hit me like a bullet. Nothing elseis of the slightest importance. I've gone over this again and again;I'll tell him and let him try what he can. Ludowika's gone from--fromthe fireworks and fiddles and stinking courts; I've got her, and, byGod, I'll keep her!"

"Talk quietly; you can't shout yourself into this. Are you certain thatMrs. Winscombe really finds the courts--stinking? I remember, at first, "she stopped. Even in the midst of his passion he listened for whatrevelation she might make; but none followed. She was silent for aminute. "They become a habit, " she said finally; "love, loves, become ahabit. Only men brought up in the same atmosphere can understand. Atfirst Felix Winscombe will be infuriated with you for speaking, then hewill realize more, and the trouble will follow. Are you certain that youhave comprehended? It would be stupid to mistake an episode, you wouldsucceed only in making yourself ridiculous. "

He lifted up both his hands and closed them with a quivering, relentlessforce. 

"Truly, " Isabel Penny remarked, "truly I begin to be sorry for her. There is something she has yet to learn about men. Nothing can be said;and that is what your father will not penetrate. Howat, I am even alittle afraid ... Now. That, I believe, is unusual for me. It's yourblackness, like powder. The explosion can kill. Nothing may be said. Life drags us along by the hair. "

Her questions about Ludowika joined to the memory of the latter'srevulsion from the primitive conditions of the Province and added to theheaviness of his heart. He mentally denied his mother's suggestions, drove them from him, but they left a faint enduring sting, a vagueunrest. His passion for Ludowika swelled, dominated, him; he forgoteverything but his own, supreme desire. Nothing else stood before itsflood; all thought of Ludowika's final happiness was lost with the otherdetritus. The tense closing of his hands had symbolized his feeling, hisintent. He held her in a manner as nakedly primitive as the inchoatesexuality of the emotion that had engulfed him. 

Ludowika did not appear for supper, and he was possessed by a misery ofvague apprehensions. He must know something of her thoughts, have atoken from her of some feeling like his own; and, waiting, he stoppedthe Italian on the stairs. The latter knew his purpose immediately, without a spoken word; and he followed Howat's brusque gesture to hisroom. He hastily wrote a note; and the latter brought him back a reply, only partly satisfactory, with an air of relish. For the first time theaffair had the hateful appearance of an intrigue, like a courtadventure. It was the Italian servant, Howat decided; and immediately herecognized why he disliked the other--it was because he expressed anaspect of slyness that lay over Ludowika and himself. He put that fromhim, too; but it was like brushing away cobwebs. His hunger for Ludowikaincreased all the while; it became more burningly material, insatiableand concrete. 

On the day following she clung to him, when opportunity offered, with adesperate energy of emotion. "You must hold me tighter, " she told him. Her mood rapidly changed, and she complained of the eternal, pervasivefall of the forge hammer. "It will drive me mad, " she declared almostwildly. "I can't bear to think of its going on and on, year after year;listening to it--" He heard her with sombre eyes. She had come to thecounting house, empty for the moment but for themselves, and stood withher countenance shadowed by a frown. "If the hammer stops, " he replied, waving his hand largely, "all this, the Pennys, stop, too. I'm afraidthat sound of beating out iron will be always wrought through our lives. You will get accustomed to it--"

Her expression grew petulant, resentful. "Do you mean that we couldn't, perhaps, go to England, if--if I wanted?" He moved closer to her, brushing the circumference of her skirt. "You asked me to hold you, tokeep you from the past; and I am going to do it. London is all that youwish to forget; it must go completely out of your life ... Never fingeryou again. " A faint dread that deepened almost to antagonism wasvisible on her countenance. "I suppose to men talk like that seems asign of strength, of possession; but it doesn't impress women, really. You see, women give, or else--there is nothing. "

"I had no thought of impressing you, " he said simply; "I only repeatedwhat came into my mind, what I mean. It would be a mistake for me totake you to England, and make both of us miserable. Beside, there ismore to tend here than I'll ever accomplish. " She objected, "But otherpeople, workmen, will do the actual labour. Surely you are not going tokeep on with anything so vulgar--" she indicated the office and desks. Her features sharpened with contempt. "I'll not be a clerk, " he told hergravely. "But I am responsible for a great deal. You should understandthat for you showed it to me. Most of what I am now has been you. " Hereached out his hands to her in a wave of tenderness, but she evadedhim. She stood irresolute for a moment and then abruptly turned anddisappeared. 

A white rim of new moon grew visible at the edge of dusk, and he stoodgazing at it before he entered the dwelling. A dull unrest had becomepart of his inner tumult, a premonition falling over him like anadvancing shadow. But above all his vague fears rose the knowledge thathe would never let Ludowika go from him; that was the root of his being. Now she could never leave him. It was natural, he assured himself again, that she should feel doubts at first; everything here was so differentfrom the life she had known; and women were variable. He would have tounderstand that, learn to accommodate himself to changing, surfacemoods, immovable underneath. 

She had put on for supper, he saw, a daring dress; and her expressionwas that which he had first noted, indifferent, slightly scoffing. Hershoulders and arms gleamed under fragile gauze, her bodice was hardlymore than a caress of silk. He watched her every movement, and got asort of satisfaction from the knowledge that she grew increasinglydisturbed at his unwavering scrutiny. His mother's attitude toward Mrs. Winscombe had not changed by a shade, an inflection; she was correctlycordial in her slightly distant manner. 

In the ebb and flow of the evening Howat was left with Ludowika for alittle, and he bent over her, kissing her sharply. She was coldlyunresponsive; and he kissed her again, trying vainly to bring somewarmth to her lips. She did not avoid him actually, but he felt thatsomething in her, essential, slipped aside from his caress. His emotionchanged to a mounting anger. "You will have to get over this now orlater, " he asserted. She said surprisingly, "Felix will be home thisweek. " He stood with an arm half raised, his head turned, as he had beenarrested by her period. 

"Well?" he demanded stupidly. Her tone had been beyond hiscomprehension. "Felix, " she went on, apparently at random, "is verysatisfactory. " Something of her intent penetrated his stunned faculties. He advanced toward her dark with rage. "And if he is, " he replied, "itwill do him no good. It will do you no good, if you think--" he brokeoff from an accession of emotion. "What damned thing are you thinkingof?"

"The Princess Amelia's stockings, " she answered pertly. 

"You'll never put them on her again, like any dirty chamber maid. "

"Felix, the end of this week, " she repeated. 

"I'll kill him, " Howat whispered; "if he lifts a hand I'll shoot himthrough the head. This was forced on me; some one else, responsible, canpay. " Her chin was up, her expression mocking. "Ridiculous, like anycloddish countryman. " She walked deliberately away, seated herself in agraceful eddy of panniered silk. 

A cold torment succeeded his rage; he had the feeling of beinghopelessly trapped, stifling in his passion. He followed her. "Ludowika, this is horrible, so soon. I am willing to think that I am to blame;stupid; no experience. You will have to be patient with me. Naturallyeverything, now--" he broke off and wandered to a window, holding asidethe draperies, gazing out into the night. The sky was so luminous thatthe barriers of surrounding hills were printed clearly against starryspace. The forest swept about in a dark veil; nowhere could be seen aglimpse of habitation. He heard the wavering cry of an owl. 

The Province, immense, secretive! Paper lanterns strung in parks, hidmusic, provocative smiles only playing with the heart! It wastremendously unfortunate. Why must they suffer so unreasonably?Something, he was certain, had gone wrong; it lay both within them andoutside; a force diverted, a purpose unaccomplished. It bent, broke, them like two twigs; they were no more than two bubbles, momentarilyreflecting the sky, on a profound depth. A wind stirred, oppressed them, and they were gone. A great pity for Ludowika took its place in hisfeelings. He was sorry for himself. Suddenly the rustle of her skirtsapproached. 

An infinitely seductive, warm arm crept about his neck; she abandonedherself to a ruthless embrace. "It's been wonderful, Howat; and--and itisn't over, yet. Nothing lasts, it's a mistake to demand too much. Wemust take what we may. Perhaps, even, later--in London. No, don'tinterrupt me. After all, I'm wiser than you are. I was swept away for alittle. Impossibilities. I am what I am. I was always that, inside ofme. If the longing I told you about had been stronger, it, and not thecourt, would have made me; but it was no more than a glimpse seen from awindow, a thing far away. I'd never reach it. This, now, has been thebest of me, all. "

He had a mingled sense of the truth and futility of her words. It wasas if his passion stood apart from them, dominating them, lashing himwith desire. Nothing she might say, no necessity nor effort, could freethem. The uselessness of words smote him. She spoke again, an urgentflow of dulcet sound against his ear; but it was without meaning, lostin the drumming of his blood. The stir of feet approached, and hereleased her, moving to the fireplace. It was Caroline. She stoppedawkwardly, advancing a needless explanation of a trivial errand from thedoorway, and vanished. 

His position at Myrtle Forge was fast becoming impossible. There wouldbe an explosion now at any moment. He took the fire tongs and idlyrearranged the wood on the hearth. The flames blazed more brightly, their reflection squirmed over the lacquer frames on the walls, gleamedrichly on polished black walnut, and fell across the Turkey floorcarpet. It even reached through the pale candle light and flickered onLudowika's dull red gown, flowered and clouded with blue. She was turnedaway from him, against the window; her shoulders drooped in an attitudeof dejection. The flames died away again. 

IX

Ludowika's manner toward him became self-possessed, even animated; and, Howat thought, preoccupied. She was expectant, with a slightly impatientair, as if she were looking beyond his shoulder. The cause occurred tohim in a flash that ignited his anger like a ready-charged explosive. She was waiting, desiring, the return of her husband. Felix Winscombe, she thought, would mean--escape. He used the word deliberately, realizing that that now expressed her attitude toward the Province, toward him. It made no difference in his feeling for her, hisdetermination that nothing should take her from him. His power ofdetachment vanished; he became utterly the instrument of his passion. 

He didn't press upon her small expressions of his emotion; somehow, without struggle, she had made them seem foolish; beyond that they wereinadequate. He was conscious of the approach of a great climax; hisfeeling was above the satisfaction of trivial caresses. Soon, he toldhimself, soon he would absolutely possess her, for as long as theylived. Ultimately she must be happy with him. He thought the same thingsin a ceaseless round; he walked almost without sight, dischargingmechanically the routine of daily existence; answering inevitablequeries in a perfunctory, dull voice. Myrtle Forge made a distantbackground of immaterial colours and sounds for the slightly mockingfigure of Ludowika. 

In mid-afternoon David arrived with a face stung scarlet by beatingwind, and a clatter of hoofs. He immediately found Gilbert Penny, andthe two men sat together with grave faces, lowered voices. Howat, whohad left the counting house at the sound of the hurried approach, caughta few words as he drew near the others:

"... A bad attack, crumpled him up. Coming out from the city now. " Theywere talking about Felix Winscombe, who, it appeared, had been assaultedby a knife-like pain; and was returning to Myrtle Forge. "Watlow saw noreason why it should be dangerous, " David continued; "he thinks perhapsit came from unusual exertions, entertaining. A little rest, he says. Hethinks the Winscombes will be able to sail on the _Lindamira_ as theyplanned. "

Ludowika listened seriously to Gilbert Penny's few, temperate words ofpreparation. "He has had a pain like that before, " she told them. "Italways passes away. Felix is really very strong, in spite of his age. Hewon't ordinarily go to bed, but I'll insist on that now, simply forrest. " Felix Winscombe appeared at the supper hour. He was helped outof Abner Forsythe's leather-hung chaise, and assisted into the house. Howat saw him under the hanging lamp in the hall; with a painfulsurprise he realized that he was gazing at the haggard face of an oldman. Before he had never connected the thought of definite age with Mr. Winscombe. The man's satirical virility had forbidden any of thepatronage unconsciously extended to the aged. 

A trace of his familiar, mocking smile remained, but it was tremulous;it required, Howat saw, great effort. An involuntary admirationpossessed him for the other's unquenchable courage. The latter protestedvehemently against being led to his room by Ludowika; but she ignoredhis determination to go into supper, swept him away with a firm armabout his waist. 

The house took on the slightly strange and disordered aspect of illness;voices were grave, low; in the morning Howat learned that FelixWinscombe had had another vicious attack in the night. Dr. Watlowarrived, and demanded assistance. Howat Penny, in the room whereLudowika's husband lay exhausted in a bed canopied and draped in gayIndia silk, followed Watlow's actions with a healthy feeling ofrevulsion. The doctor bared Winscombe's spare chest, then filled ashallow, thick glass with spirits; emptying the latter, he set fire tothe interior of the glass; and, when the blue flame had expired, clappedthe cupped interior over the prostrate man's heart. There was, itseemed, little else that could be done; bleeding was judged for theonce unexpeditious. 

An effort at commonplace conversation was maintained at dinner. Ludowikaopenly discussed the arrangements for their return to London. FelixWinscombe had rallied from the night; his wife said that it wasdifficult to restrain him. The most comfortable provisions, shecontinued, had been made for their passage on the _Lindamira_. Howatheard her without resentment. He had no wish to contradict herneedlessly even in thought; he was immovably fixed. Mr. Winscombe'sdebilitated return had completely upset his intentions. An entirelydifferent proceeding would now be demanded, but with an identical end. What pity he felt for the elder had no power to reach or alter hispassion. 

He returned to the counting house, and worked methodically through theafternoon, with an increasing sense of being involved in an irresistiblemovement. This gave him a feeling almost of tranquillity; from thebeginning he had not been responsible. In the face of illness theItalian servant proved utterly undependable; he cringed, stricken withdread, from the spectacle of suffering. And when late in the day Mr. Winscombe, partially drugged with opium, grew consciously weaker, Howat's assistance was required. 

Ludowika now remained in the room with her husband, and there was adiscreet movement in and out by various members of the household. Isabel Penny remained for an hour, Caroline took her place, Myrtlefluttered uncertainly in the doorway. Through the evening FelixWinscombe lay propped on pillows, his head covered by a black gros deNaples cap. His keen personality waned and revived on his long, yellowcountenance. At one side wigs stood in a row on blocks, a brilliant, magenta coat lay in a huddle on a chair. At intervals he spoke, in athinner, higher voice than customary, petulantly uneasy, or with afamiliar, sardonic inflection. At the latter Ludowika would growimmensely cheered. She entirely ignored Howat on the occasions when hewas in the room. He saw her mostly bent over leather boxes, into whichdisappeared her rich store of silk and gold brocades, shoes of purplemorocco, soft white shifts. Howat watched her without an emotion visibleon his sombre countenance. 

Occasionally Mr. Winscombe's tenuous fingers dipped into a snuff box ofblack enamel and brilliants, and he lifted his hand languidly. The man'svitality, his sheer determination, were extraordinary. Even now he wasfar from impotence. He had, Howat had learned, completely dominated theProvincial Councils, forced a mutual compromise and agreement on them. He spoke of still more complicated affairs awaiting him in England. Hedamned the Italian's "white liver, " and threatened to leave him inAmerica. Dr. Watlow had been forced to return to the city. 

Through the unaccustomed stir Howat was ceaselessly aware of hisfeeling for Ludowika; he thought of it with a sense of shame; but iteasily drowned all other considerations. He continued to speculate abouttheir future together. Whatever his father might conclude about hispersonal arrangements, the elder would see that he was necessary to thefuture of the Penny iron. They might live in one of the outlying stonedwellings at the Forge ... For the present. He was glad that GilbertPenny, that he, was rich. Ludowika could continue to dress in rarefabrics, to step in elaborate pattens over the common earth. That couldnot help but influence, assuage, her in the end. The Pennys' position inthe Province, too, was high; the most exclusive assemblies were open tothem. He regarded his satisfaction in these details with something ofMr. Winscombe's bitter humour. In the past he had repudiated them withthe utmost scorn. In the past--dim shapes, scenes, that appeared to haveoccurred years before, but which in reality reached to last month, trooped through his mind. Youth had vanished like a form dropping behinda hill. He looked back; it was gone; his feet hurried forward into theunguessed future; anxiety joined him; the scent that was Ludowikaaccompanied him, an illusive figure. He reached toward it. 

He was standing at the foot of the bed where Felix Winscombe lay. Thelatter was restless, and complained of pains in his arms, reaching downto his fingers. Ludowika bent over him, her face stamped with concern. She regarded Howat with a new expression--narrowed eyes and a glimmer offlawless teeth: a look he had never foreseen there; but it was impotentbefore the thing that was. It had, however, the effect of intensifyinghis desire, his passion for her fragility of silk and flesh. He wouldkiss her hate on her mouth. 

She sat by the bedside, and Howat took a place opposite her. Candlesburned on a highboy, on a table at his back; and their auriferous lightflowed in about the bedstead. The latter was draped from the canopy tothe bases of the posts in a bright printing of pheasants andconventional thickets--cobalt and ruby and orange; and across a heavycounterpane half drawn up stalked a row of panoplied Indians in clippedzephyr. It was a nebulous enclosure with the shadows of the hangingswavering on the coloured wool and cold linen, on the long, seamedcountenance of the prostrate man. 

A clock in the hall struck slowly--it needed winding--ten blurred notes. Felix Winscombe took a sip of water. A minute snapping sounded from thehearth. A window stirred, and there was a dry turning of leaves without;wind. One of the Indians, Howat saw, had his arm raised, flourishing ablade; a stupid effigy of savage spleen. Beyond the drapery Ludowika'sface was dim and white. It was like an ineffable May moon. Ludowika ... Penny. For the first time Howat thought of her endowed with his name, and it gave him a deep thrill of delight. He repeated it with moving butsoundless lips--Ludowika Penny. 

Her husband lay with his eyes closed, his head bowed forward on hischest, as if in sleep. At irregular intervals small, involuntarycontractions of pain twitched at his mouth. At times, too, he mutterednoiselessly. Extraordinary. Ludowika and Felix Winscombe and himself, Howat Penny. A world peopled only by them; the silence of the roomdropped into infinite space, bottomless time. A sudden dread of suchvast emptiness seized Howat; he felt that he must say something, recreate about them the illusion of safe and familiar spaces and walls. It seemed that he was unable to speak; a leaden inhibition lay on hispower of utterance. He made a harsh sound in his throat, loud andstartling. Felix Winscombe raised his head, and Ludowika cried faintly. Then silence again folded them. 

Howat fastened his thoughts on trivial and practical affairs--thefurnishing of the house where he would take Ludowika, what David andhimself intended to do with the iron, and then his last, long talk withhis mother. She was astonishingly wise; she had seen far into Ludowikaand himself, but even her vision had stopped short of encompassing themagnitude of his passion; she had not realized his new patience anddetermination. He found himself counting the gorgeous birds in thebed-hangings--twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, and stoppedabruptly. 

It had grown chilly in the room, and Ludowika had an India cashmereshawl about her shoulders. The sombre garnets and blues hid the tinselgaiety of her gown and her bare shoulders. She appeared older than hehad ever seen her before. Her face, carefully studied, showed no traceof beauty; her eyes were heavy, her lips dark; any efforts of animationwere suspended. She showed completely the effect of her life in courtsand a careless prodigality of hours and emotions. Howat, seeing allthis, felt only a fresh accession of his hunger for her; she was farmore compelling than when romantically viewed as a moon. 

He sat with his chin propped on a palm; she was rigidly upright with herarms at her sides; Felix Winscombe moved higher on the pillows. His eyesglittered in a head like a modelling in clay; his arms stirredceaselessly with weaving fingers. Howat could almost feel Ludowika'shatred striking at him across the bed. He smiled at her, and she facedhim with an expression of stony unresponse. He thought luxuriantly ofher in his arms, with the rain beating on the store house roof; hecaught the odours of the damp, heaped merchandise, the distant clamourin the casting shed. He had a brutal impulse to lean forward and remindher of what had occurred, of the fact that she was his; he wanted tofling it against her present detachment, to mock her with it. Then hewould crush her against his heart. Felix Winscombe raised up on anelbow, distorting the row of sanguinary Indians. 

Ludowika moved to the edge of the bed, and put a firm, graceful armabout him. A grey shadow of pain fell on Mr. Winscombe's features. Thesilence was absolute. He seemed to be waiting in an attitude of mingleddread and resolution. He whispered an unintelligible period, the pain onhis face sharpened, and he released himself from Ludowika's support. Shesank back on her chair, gazing at her husband with wide, concerned eyes. 

Slowly the lines in his face deepened, and a fine, gleaming sweatstarted out on his brow. His face contorted in a spasm of voicelesssuffering, and he drew a stiff hand down either arm. Howat watched himin a species of strained curiosity, with a suspension of breath. Something, he felt, should be done to relieve the oppression of agonygathering on Felix Winscombe's countenance, but a corresponding sense ofcomplete helplessness settled like a leaden coffin about him. The otherbecame unrecognizable; his face seemed to be set in an unnatural grin. His head drew back on a thin, corded neck, and a faint gasping for airstirred in the shadows. Even Howat felt the pain to be unendurable, andLudowika, white as milk, had risen to her feet. She stood with a handhalf raised beneath a fringed corner of the India shawl. 

It was incredible that the sufferer's agony should increase, but it wasapparent that it did remorselessly. All humanity was obliterated in anexcruciating spasm over which streamed some meagre tears. Mr. Winscombe's arms raised and dropped; and, suddenly relaxed, he slippeddown upon the pillows. Immediately the torment vanished from hiscountenance; it became peaceful, released. The familiar mockery of themouth came back. The head, slightly turned, seemed to regard Ludowikawith contentment and interrogation. Howat was conscious of a reliefalmost as marked as that on the face before him. He had gripped hishands until they ached. The tension in the room, too, seemed spent. Hewas about to address a reassuring period to Ludowika, when, at a glimpseof her expression, the words died on his lips. 

He bent over the bed, with his hand on a ridged, still chest; he gazeddown at flaccid eyes, a dropped chin. Felix Winscombe was dead. 

Howat raised up slowly, facing the woman through the draperies. She wasgazing in an incredulous, shocked surprise at the limp, prostrate bodycapped in black gros de Naples. A shuddering fear passed over her, andthen her eyes met those of Howat Penny. Even separated from him by thebed she drew away as if from his touch. He saw that she had forgottenthe dead man in a sharp realization of the portent of the living. Sheglanced about the room in the panic of a trapped lark, an abjectfright, searching for an escape. 

He realized that there was none; Ludowika now belonged to himabsolutely; he was as remorseless as the pain that had killed FelixWinscombe. Below the automatic sensations of the moment Howat wasconscious of utter satisfaction. A miracle had given Ludowika to him; inthe passing of a breath all his difficulty had been ended. She was alonewith him in a province of forests and iron and stars. He would make herforget the gardens of fireworks and scraping violins; but forget or notshe was his ... Ludowika Penny. 

II THE FORGE

X

Jasper Penny stood at a window of his bed room, his left arm carried ina black silk handkerchief, gazing down at the long, low roof of MyrtleForge, built by his great, great grandfather Gilbert over a hundred andten years before. It was February, and he could hear the ringing blowsof axes, cutting the ice out of the forebay to liberate the water powerfor the completion of a forging of iron destined to be rolled intotracks for the slowly lengthening Columbia Steam Railway System. It wasmidday, a grey sky held a brighter, diffused radiance where the veiledsun hung without warmth, and the earth was everywhere frozengranite-like. He could see beyond the Forge shed heaped charcoal, andthe black mass seemed no more dead than the ground or bare, brittletrees sweeping down and up to where, on encircling hills, they werelifted sharply against the cloudy monotony. 

He was ordinarily impervious to the influence of weather, the moredepressing aspects of nature; but now he was conscious of a dejectioncommunicated, in part at least, he felt, by the bleak prospect without. Another, and infinitely more arresting, reason for this feeling had juststirred his thoughts--for the first time he was conscious of theinvidious, beginning weariness of accumulating years. He was hardly pastforty, and he impatiently repudiated the possibility that he wasactually declining; in fact he had not yet reached the zenith of hiscapabilities, physical or mental; yet his broken arm, slow in mending, the pain, had unquestionably depleted him more than a similar accidentten years ago. Not only this, but, during the forced inaction, his mindhad definitely taken a different cast; considerations that had seemed toconstitute the main business of existence had lately faded beforepreoccupations and feelings ignored until now. 

Jasper Penny saw, objectively, not so much the surrounding circumstanceas his own former acts and emotions; detached from his habitual being byhardly more than a month his past was posed before his criticaljudgment. Looked at in this manner his life appeared crowded withsurprisingly meaningless gestures and words, his sheer youth anincomprehensible revolt. A greater part of that had been latelyexpressed by his mother, when he had returned to Myrtle Forge with anarm broken by a fall in a railroad coach travelling to Philadelphia. Shehad said, shaking her head with tightened lips:

"I warned you plenty against those train brigades. It isn't safe norsensible with a good horse service convenient. But then you have alwaysbeen a knowing, head-strong boy and man.... A black Penny. "

How she would get along without that last phrase he was at a loss toconjecture, from his first consciousness he recalled it, now a term ofreproach and now extenuation. Only a few weeks before she had repeatedit in precisely the same tone of mingled admonition and complaint thathad greeted his most boyish mishaps. He had grown so accustomed to it, not only from Gilda Penny but from every one familiar with the Pennysand their history, that it had become part of his automatic entity. Jasper--a black Penny. 

The course of his thoughts turned back to the earliest episodesremembered in that connection, to a time in which the especial qualityhad necessarily freest play. Now he characterized it as mere uninformedwildness; but he still recalled the tremendous impatience with which hehad met the convenient enclosure of a practicable, organized society. Even at Myrtle Forge, where--in contrast to dwelling in the confines ofa city--he had had a rare amount of actual freedom, a feeling ofconstriction had sent him day after day into the woods, hunting ormerely idle along the upper reaches of still unsullied streams. Yet ithad been an especial kind of wildness; he owed that recognition to hisvanished youth. The term generally included champagne parties and thecompanionship of various but similar ladies of the circus or operahouse. But nothing of that had then entered into his deep-rootedrebellion. He had had merely a curious passion for completeindependence, an innate turning from street-bound affairs and men to theisolation and physical accomplishment of arduous excursions on horses orfoot. He had, then, avoided, even dreaded, women. And that instinct, hetold himself, shifting his injured arm to a more comfortable position, had been admirably founded. 

The ax blows ceased; from his position he could just see the top of thegreat wheel that drove the Forge trip hammer; and slowly the rimblurred, commencing to turn. The forebay was open. A pennant of blacksmoke, lurid with flaming cinders, twisted up in the motionless air. Thehammer fell once, experimentally, with a faint jar, and a grimy figureshovelled charcoal into a barrow. 

His mind soon returned to the point where it had been deflected by themovement at the Forge; he could even visualize his mature boyhood--astraight, arrogant figure, black certainly, with up-sloping brows and anoutthrust chin. And that, he thought, not without complacency, was notvery far from a description of himself at present. There were, ofcourse, the whiskers, severely trimmed on his spare face, and showing, in certain lights, a glimmer of silver; but he was as upright, ascomfortably lean, now as then. He was still capable of prolongedphysical exertion.... It was ridiculous to think of himself asdefinitely aging. Yet he was past forty, and the years seemed to go farmore swiftly than at twenty-one. 

Women! The silent pronouncement included the smallest pluralpossible--only two; but it seemed to Jasper Penny that they comprisedall the variations, the faults and virtues, of their entire sex. With acertain, characteristic formality, propriety, he considered his wifefirst, now a year dead. He wondered if she had found the orthodox andconcrete heaven in the frequent ecstatic contemplation of which so muchof her life had been spent. It had been that fine superiority to thematerial that had first attracted him to her, a quality of shiningenthusiasm, of reflected inspiration from a vision, however trite, ofeternal hymning; and it had been that same essence which finally heldthem apart through the greater number of their married years. Phebe'shealth, slowly ebbing, had drawn her farther and farther from the knownworld in general and the affairs and being of her husband in particular;her last strength had gone in the hysteria of protracted religiousemotion, during which she had become scarcely more to Jasper Penny thanan attenuated, rapt invalid lingering in his house. 

Her pale, still presence was usurped by a far different, animated andcolourful, figure. He thought of Essie Scofield, of all that sheparamountly held and expressed, with a reluctance that had lately, almost within the past week, grown to resemble resentment, if not actualirritation. Yet, however, casting back through the years, in his presentremoteness, he was able to recreate her and his emotions as they hadfirst, irresistibly moved together. The absolute opposite of Phebe, already withdrawing into her religious, incorporeal region, EssieScofield had immediately swept him into the whirlpool of her vivid, physical personality. Before her the memory of his wife faded intoinsignificance. But there was no mere retrospect in the considering ofEssie; very much alive she presented, outside the Penny iron, the oneserious preoccupation, complication, of his future. 

At the time when he had first admitted, welcomed, her claim on him, hehad felt a sudden energy in which he had recognized a play of the traitsof a black Penny. Here was a satisfactory, if necessarily private, exercise of his inborn contempt for the evident hypocrisy, thecowardice, of perfunctory inhibitions and safe morals. That, however, had been speedily lost in his rocketing passion, flaring out of a quietcontinence into giddy spaces of unrestraint. Essie, after a momentarysurrender, had attempted retreat, expressing a doubt of the durabilityof their feeling; she had, in fact, made it painfully clear that shewished to escape from the uncomfortable volume of his fervour; but hehad overborne her caution--her wisdom, he now expressed it. 

That, more than anything else, brought before him the undeniable passageof time, the fact that he was rapidly accomplishing middle age--thetotal extinguishing of an emotion which he had felt must outlast life. It had gone, and with it his youth. Of course, he had recognized that hewas no longer thirty; he had been well aware of his years, but onlyduring the last few weeks had there been the slight, perceptibledragging down.... On the black walnut dressing stand past the window laya letter he had received from Essie that morning; it contained her usualappeal for an additional sum of money--he gave her, formally, sixthousand dollars a year; and the manner of the demand, for thenecessities of their daughter, showed his sharpened perceptions that shehad never really experienced the blindness of a generous emotion. Eunice, the child, was incontrovertible proof of that--no more than anadditional lever for her to swing. 

His face darkened, and he moved his shoulder impatiently, as if to throwoff a burden grown unendurable. But it was fastened immovably--hisresponsibility was as baldly apparent as the February noon, its greynessnow blotted by a wind-driven, metallic shift of snow. 

He had been criminally negligent of Eunice. This realization wasaccompanied by no corresponding warmth of parenthood; there was noquickening of blood at the thought of his daughter, but only a newborncondemnation of his neglected, proper pride. He had, thoughtlessly, descended to a singularly low level of conduct. And it must abruptlyterminate. Jasper Penny had not seen Eunice for seven, nine, months; hewould remedy this at once, supervise advantages, a proper place, forher. Afterward Essie and himself could make a mutually satisfactoryagreement. 

XI

Throughout an excellent dinner, terrapin and bass, wild turkey withoysters and fruit preserved in white brandy, he maintained a sombresilence. His mother, on the right, her sister opposite--Phebe's placeseemed scarcely emptier than when she had actually occupied it--held anintermittent verbal exchange patently keyed to Jasper Penny's mood. Theywere women with yellow-white, lace-capped hair, blanched eyebrows andlashes, and small, quick eyes on hardy, reddened faces. Gilda Penny wasslightly the larger, more definite; Amity Merken had a timid, almostfurtive, expression in the opulence of the Penny establishment, whileGilda was complacent; but otherwise the two women were identical. Theirdresses were largely similar--Amity's a dun, Gilda Penny's grey, moiresilk, high with a tight lace collar, and bands of jet trimming fromshoulder to waist, there spreading over crinoline to the floor. Lacefell about their square, capable hands, and Gilda wore broad, lockedbracelets checked in black and gold. 

Sherry, in blue cut decanters stoppered with gilt, gave place to port. An épergne of glass and burnished ormolu, in the form of supporting oakleaves, with numerous sockets for candles, was set, filled with fruit, in the centre of the table; silver lustre plates were laid; but JasperPenny heedlessly fingered the stem of a wine glass. He said suddenly, "I'm going to the city this afternoon. "

"Is it safe yet?" his mother queried doubtfully. "Hadn't you better waittill to-morrow, when you can drive easily, or without stopping at atavern?"

He looked up impatiently. "I shall go by the railroad, " he stateddecisively. "Can't you understand that, with the future of iron almostdependent on steam, it is the commonest foresight for me to patronizesuch customers as the Columbia Railway! I have no intention of adding tothe ignorant prejudice against improved methods of travelling. "

"There's your arm, " she insisted with spirit. 

"An untried engine. The Hecla works along smoothly at twenty miles anhour. " Amity cast a glance of swift appeal at her sister, but GildaPenny persisted. "Ungodly, " was the term she selected. Jasper ignoredher. He had decided to straighten the tangled affair of Eunice at once;he would see Essie that evening, arrive at an understanding about thechild's future. It would be even more difficult to terminate hisconnection with Essie herself. That, he now recognised, was his maindesire. The affair had actually died before Phebe; but its onerousconsequences remained, blighting the future. 

The future! It was that, he now discovered, which occupied him, ratherthan the past. A new need had become apparent, a restless desireanalogous to the urge of seeking youth. Jasper Penny was aware of agreat dissatisfaction, a vast emptiness, in his existence; he had afeeling of waste growing out of the sense of hurrying years. Somehow, obscurely, he had been cheated. He almost envied the commonality of men, not, like himself, black Pennys, impatient of assuaging relationshipsand beliefs. Yet this, too, turned into another phase of hisinheritance--his need was not material, concrete, it had no worldly, graspable implications, and his general contempt was not less butgreater. He wished to bring a final justification to his isolationrather than lose himself in the wide, undistinguished surge of living. 

"You'll stop at the Jannans?" his mother queried. 

"I think not, probably Sanderson's Hotel, Stephen is giving a ballto-night for Graham and his wife. I have some important transactions. "Not an echo of his affair with Essie Scofield had, he knew, penetratedto Myrtle Forge. It was a most fortunate accident. The vulgarityconsequent upon discovery would have been unbearable. Stephen Jannan, his cousin, a lawyer of wide city connections, must have learnedsomething of the truth; but Stephen, properly, had said nothing; acomfortable obscurity had hid him from gabbled scandal. Now, soon, itwould all be over. Unconsciously he drew a deeper breath of relief, ofprospective freedom. 

The Hecla, a wooden barrelled engine with a tall, hinged stack, drew itsbrigade of canary-coloured chariot cars forward with a rapid bumpingover inequal rails. Jasper Penny's seat, number nineteen, wasfortunately in the centre, close by the stove, where a warmth hung thatfailed to reach to the doors. Lost in speculation the journey was bothlong and vague. Twilight deepened within the car, and two flickeringcandles were lit at either end, their pallid light serving only to castthin, climbing shadows over the rocking, box-like interior. At irregularintervals the train stopped with a succession of subsiding crashes, andstarted again at the blowing of a horn; passengers would leave or enter;or it would prove to be merely a halt to take on cut and piled wood fuelfor the engine. 

Finally the train brigade reached the inclined plane leading to theriver and city; the engine was detached, and the cars, fastened to ahemp cable, were lowered spasmodically to where a team of mules drewthem through a gloomy, covered bridge echoing to the slow hoof falls andcreaking of loose planks. Jasper Penny fastened the elaborate frogs ofhis heavily furred overcoat over his injured arm, and with a floridbandanna wiped the cinders from his silk hat. 

The coaches rolled into the station shed, where he changed, taking aswaying Mulberry Street omnibus to Fourth, and Sanderson's Hotel. It wasa towering, square structure of five stories, with a columned whiteportico, and high, divided steps. The clerk, greeting him with a precisefamiliar deference, directed him to a select suite with a privateparlour, a sombre chamber of red plush, dark walls and thickly draped, long windows. There he sat grimly contemplating a distasteful prospect. He knew the casual, ill-prepared dinners presided over by Essie, thecovertly insolent man servant; and an overpowering reluctance came uponhim to sit again at her table. But the confusion of the hotel ordinaryrepelled him too: he had seen in passing a number of men who wouldendeavour to force his opinion on the specie situation or speculation incanals. He rose and pulled sharply at the tasselled bell rope, orderinggrilled pheasant, anchovy toast and champagne to be served where he sat. 

Jasper Penny ate slowly, partly distracted by the market reports in the_U. S. Gazette_. Ninety-two and a half had been offered for SchuylkillNavigation, only fifteen for the West Chester Railroad, but Philadelphiaand Trenton had gone to ninety-eight; while a three and a half dividendhad been declared on the French Town Turnpike and Railway Company. Hewas annoyed afresh by the persistent refusal of the Government to awardthe mail to the Reading Steam System. His thoughts returned to Eunice, his daughter, the coming scene--it would at least be that--with EssieScofield. 

It was but a short distance from the hotel to where Essie lived, overFourth Street to Cherry; and almost immediately he turned by the threestory brick dwelling at the corner and was at her door. The servant, inan untidy white jacket, stood stupidly blocking the narrow hall, untilJasper Penny with an angry impatience waved him aside. There were othersilk hats and coats, and a woman's fringed wrap, on the stand where heleft his stick and outer garments; and from above came a peal of mingledlaughter. The presence of others, now, was singularly inopportune; itwould be no good waiting for their departure--here such gatheringsalmost invariably drew out until dawn; and he abruptly decided that, after a short interval, he would give Essie to understand that he wishedto talk to her privately. 

A young woman with a chalk-white face and oleaginous bandeaux of deadblack hair, in scarlet and green tartan over an extravagant crinoline, was seated on a sofa between two men, each with an arm about her waistand wine glasses elevated in their free hands. Essie was facing themfrom a circular floor hassock, in a blue satin, informal robe overmussed cambric ruffles, heelless nonchalants, and her hair elaboratelydressed with roses, white ribbons and a short ostrich feather. Her body, at once slim and full, was consciously seductive, and her face, slightlyswollen and pasty in the shadows, bore the same, heedless unrestraint. Her dark, widely-opened eyes, an insignificant nose and shortly curved, scarlet lips, held almost the fixed, painted impudence of a cynicallydebased doll. She turned and surveyed Jasper Penny with a petulant, silent inquiry, and whatever gaiety was in progress abruptly terminatedas he advanced into the room. 

"You never let me know you'd be here, " Essie complained; "but I supposeI ought to be glad to see you anyway--after four months without a line. Jasper, Mr. Daniel Culser. " The younger of the men on the sofa, astolidly handsome individual with hard, blue eyes, rose with anover-emphasized composure. "Mr. Penny, extremely pleased. " Jasper Pennywas irritated by the other's instant identification, and he noddedbluntly. "Lambert Babb and Myrtilla Lewis, " Essie continuedindifferently. Babb, an individual of inscrutable age, with ashenwhiskers and a blinking, weak vision in a silvery face, was audiblydelighted. Myrtilla Lewis smiled professionally over her expanse ofbewildering silk plaid. "Wine in the cooler, " Essie added, and DanielCulser moved to where a silver bucket reposed by a tray of glasses andbroken, sugared rusks. Jasper Penny refused the offered drink, and founda chair apart from the others. A moody silence enveloped him which hefound impossible to break, and an increasing uneasiness spread over theroom. 

"Well, " Essie Scofield commanded, "say something. You look as black asan Egyptian. What'll my friends think of you? I suppose it doesn'tmatter any more what it is to me; but you might play at being polite. "

"Don't chip at a man like that, " Myrtilla advised. "Mr. Penny has aright to talk or not. " She smiled more warmly at him, and he saw thatshe had had too much champagne. The room reeked with the thin, acridodour of the wine, and a sickly perfume of vanilla essence. Essie, asusual, had a glass of her favourite drink--orange juice and Frenchbrandy--on the floor beside her, the brandy bottle and fresh orangesconveniently near. His repulsion for her deepened until it seemed as ifactual fingers were compressing his throat, stopping his breath. Hewondered suddenly how far he was responsible for her possibledegeneration. But he had not been the first; her admission of that facthad in the beginning attracted him to an uncommon frankness in herpeculiar make-up. He was willing to assume his fault, to pay for it, whatever payment was possible, and escape.... Not only from her, butfrom all that she embodied, from himself--what he had been--as much asanything else. 

"You are an Ironmaster, " Mr. Babb finally announced; "in fact, one ofour greatest manufacturers. Now, Mr. Penny, what is your personalopinion of engine as against the public coach? Will the railroad survivethe experimental stage, and are such gentlemen as yourself behind it?"

"I saw in the _Ledger_ some days back, " Daniel Culser added, "that yourarm had been broken travelling by steam. "

"One had nothing to do with the other, " Jasper stated tersely, ignoringBabb's query, "but was entirely my own fault. " The conversation laggedpainfully again, during which Essie skilfully compounded another mixtureof spirits and thick, yellow juice. She grew sullen with resentment atJasper Penny's attitude, and exchanged enigmatic glances with Culser. The liquor brought a quick flush to her slightly pendulous cheeks, andshe was enveloped in an increasing bravado. "Penny's a solemn old boy, "she announced generally. Lambert Babb attempted to embrace Myrtilla, but, her gaze on the newcomer, she pushed him away. "You got to be agentleman with me, " she proclaimed with a patently unsteady dignity. "Mygrandfather was a French noble. "

"What I'd like to know, " Essie remarked, "is what's his granddaughter?"

"Better'n you!" Myrtilla heatedly asserted; "one who'd appreciate a realman, and not be playing about private with a tailor's dummy. " DanielCulser's face grew noticeably pinker. "I'm going, " Myrtilla continued, rising. "Mr. Penny, I'd be happy to meet you under more socialconditions. Here I cannot remain for--for reasons. I might be temptedto--" Mr. Babb caught her arm under his, and, at an imperious gesturefrom Essie, piloted her from the room. Culser rose. 

"Don't go, Dan, " Essie Scofield told him defiantly. But Jasper Pennymaintained a silence that forced the younger man to make a stiff exit. "Well, " Essie demanded, flinging herself on the deserted sofa, "nowyou've spoiled my evening. Why did you come at all if you couldn'tbehave genteel?"

"Where, exactly, is Eunice?" he asked abruptly. 

She glanced at him with an instant masking of her resentment. "I've toldyou a hundred times--in the house of a very respectable clergyman. Myletter was clear enough; she's had bronchitis, and there's the doctor, and--"

"Just where is Eunice?" he repeated, interrupting her aggrieved recital. 

"Where I put her, " her voice grew shrill. "You haven't asked to see herfor near a year, you haven't even pretended an interest in--in your owndaughter. I've done the best I could; you know I don't like childrenaround; but I have attended to as much of my duty as you. Now you comeout and insist on being unpleasant all in an hour. Why didn't you write?I'd had her here for you. Come back in two or three days. "

"To-morrow, " he replied. "I am going to see her in the morning. "

"You just ain't. I did the best I knew, but, if it isn't all roses, you'll blame everything on me. I will have Eunice fetched--"

"Where is she?" he asked still again, wearily. 

Every instinct revolted against the degradation into which he hadblindly walked. His youth had betrayed him, involving him, practically adifferent man, in a payment which he realized had but commenced.... Toescape. He had first thought of that with the unconscious convictionthat the mere wish carried its fulfilment. In fact, it would beimmensely difficult; a man, he saw, could not sever himself so casuallyfrom the past; it reached without visible demarcation into the present, the future. All was a piece, one with another; and Essie Scofield wasdrawn in a vivid thread through the entire fabric of his being. 

Yet the need, the longing forward, so newly come into his consciousness, persisted, grew--it had become the predominate design of his weaving. Through this he recognized a reassertion of his pride, the rigid prideof a black Penny, which, in the years immediately past, had beenoverwhelmed by a temporary inner confusion. Beyond forty men returned totheir inheritance, their blood; this fact echoed vaguely among hismemories of things heard; and he felt in himself its measure of truth. His distaste for a largely muddled, pandering society, for men huddled, he thought, like domestic animals, returned in choking waves. In themaculate atmosphere of flat wine and stale cologne he had a sharprecurrence of the scent of pines, lifting warmly in sunny space. 

He produced a morocco bound note book, a gold pencil; and, with thelatter poised, directed a close interrogation at Essie. Her face flushedwith an ungovernable anger, and she pressed a hand over her labouringheart. "Get her then; out Fourth Street, Camden; the Reverend Mr. Needles. But afterwards don't come complaining to me. You ought to haveseen to her; you've got the money, the influence. And you have donenothing, beyond some stinking dollars ... Wouldn't even name her. EuniceScofield, a child without--"

All that she had said was absolutely true, just. 

"I suppose you'll even think I didn't give her the sums you sent; thatdamned Needles has been bleeding me, suspects something. " She stoppedfrom a lack of breath; her darkened face was purplish, in the shadows. "I haven't been well, either--a fierce pain here, in my heart. "

It was the brandy, he told her; she should leave the city, late wineparties, go back into the country. "Go back, " she echoed bitterly. "Where? How?" He winced--the past reaching inexorably into the future. Jasper Penny made no attempt to ignore, forget, his responsibility; headmitted it to her; but at the same time the tyrannical hunger increasedwithin him--the mingled desire for fresh paths and the nostalgia of theold freedom of spirit. But life, that had made him, had in the samedegree created Essie; neither had been the result of the other; they hadbeen swept together, descended blindly in company, submerged in thepassion that he had thought must last forever, but which had burned toashes, to nothing more than a vague sense of putrefaction in life. 

"Thank you, " he said formally, putting away the note book. "Something, of course, must be done; but what, I can only say after I have seenEunice. I am, undoubtedly, more to blame than yourself. "

"I suppose, in this holy strain, you'll end by giving her all and menothing. "

"... What you are getting as long as you live?"

"That's little enough, when I hear how much you have, what all that ironis bringing you. Why, you could let me have twenty, thirty thousand, andnever know it. "

"If you are unable to get on, that too will be rectified. "

"You are really not a bad old thing, Jasper, " she pronounced, mollified. "At one time--do you remember?--you said if ever the chance came youwould marry me. Ah, you needn't fear, I wouldn't have you with all youriron, gold. I--" she stopped abruptly, uneasily. "Not a bad old thing, "she repeated, moving to secure a half-full glass. 

"Why do you call me old?" he asked curiously. 

"I hadn't thought of it before, " she admitted; "but, this evening, youlooked so solemn, and there is grey in your hair, that all at once youseemed like an old gentleman. Now Dan Culser, " she hesitated, and thenswept on, "he's what you'd name young. " At Daniel Culser's age, he toldhimself, he, Jasper Penny, could have walked the other blind; and nowEssie Scofield was calling him old; she had noticed the grey in hishair. He rose to go, and she came close to him, a clinging, soft thingof flesh faintly reeking with brandy. "I have a great deal to pay, wheremoney goes I don't know, even a little would be a help. " He left somegold in her hand, thankful to purchase, at that slight price, amomentary release. 

Outside Cherry Street was blackly cold, a gas lamp at the corner shed awatery, contracted illumination. He made his way back toward the hotel, but a sudden reluctance to mount to his lonely chambers possessed him. Before the glimmering marble façade he took out his watch, a pale goldefflorescence in the gloom, and rang the hour in minute, clear notes. The third quarter past ten. He recalled the ball, but then commencing, at Stephen Jannan's; there it would be indescribably gay, a houseflooded with the music of quadrilles, light, polite-chatter; and hedetermined to proceed and have a cigar with Stephen. 

He walked briskly up Mulberry Street to Sixth and there turned to theleft. Jasper Penny soon passed the shrouded silence of IndependenceSquare, with the new Corinthian doorway of the State House showingvaguely through the irregularly grouped ailanthus trees. Beyond, thebrick wall with its marble coping and high iron fence reached, on theopposite side, to the Jannan corner. The length of the brick dwelling, with white arched windows and coursings faced the vague emptiness ofWashington Square, closed for the winter. 

Inside the hall was bright and filled with the pungent warmth of fathearth coal. A servant, with a phrase of recognition, directed himabove, to a room burdened with masculine greatcoats and silk hats. Therean attendant told him that Mr. Jannan was below. Jasper Penny had nointention of becoming a participant in the hall, but neither did hepropose to linger among wraps, listening to the supercilious chatter ofyoung men in the extreme mode of bright blue coats, painfully tightblack trousers with varnished pumps and expanses of ankle in grey silk. One, inspecting him through an eyeglass on a woven hair guard, expresseda pointed surprise at Jasper Penny's informal garb. "Christoval!" heejaculated. "It approaches an insult to the da-da-darlings. " Anothercommenced to sing a popular minstrel air:

"Blink--a--ho--dink! Ah! Ho!

"Roley Boley--Good morning Ladies all!"

Jasper Penny abruptly descended to a small room used for smoking. Youngmen, he thought impatiently, could no longer even curse respectably. They lisped like females at an embroidery frame. When he was young, younger, he corrected himself, he could have outdrunk, outridden.... Histrain of thought was abruptly terminated by a group unexpectedlyoccupying the smoking room. He saw Stephen Jannan, his wife Liza, thenewly married young Jannans, and a strange woman in glacé muslin and ablack Spanish lace shawl about her shoulders. Stephen greeted himcordially. "Jasper, just at the moment for a waltz with--with Susan. "The stranger blushed painfully, made an involuntary movement backward, and Liza Jannan admonished her husband. "Do you know Miss Brundon, Jasper?" she asked. 

Jasper Penny bowed, and Miss Brundon, with an evident effort, smiled, her shy, blue eyes held resolutely on his countenance. She at onceslipped into the background, talking in a low, clear voice to GrahamJannan's wife; while the older men enveloped themselves in a fragrantveil of cigars. "Come, Mary, Susan, " Mrs. Jannan directed, "out of thishorrid, masculine odour. " Accompanied by her son the women left, andStephen turned to his cousin. "Thought, of course, you knew SusanBrundon, " he remarked. "A school mistress, but superior, and a lady. Hasa place on Spruce Street, by Raspberry Alley, for select younger girls;unique idea, and very successful, I believe. "

Jasper Penny said comfortably, "Humm!" The other continued, "I wantGraham to get out to Shadrach Furnace as soon as may be. That old stonehouse the foremen have occupied is nearly fixed for him. I am very wellcontent, Jasper, to have him in the iron trade, with you practically atits head. No deliberate favours, remember, and I have told him to lookfor nothing. But, at the same time--you comprehend: folly not to pushthe boy on fast as possible. No reason for us all to go through withthe hardships of the first Gilbert and his times. Must have beenfatiguing, the wilderness and English troubles and all that. "

"Splendid, I should say, " Jasper Penny replied. He repeated satiricallythe conversation he had heard above. "Makes me ill. You will rememberthere was a Howat, son of our original settler--now he must have been alad! Married some widow or other; wild at first, but made iron in theend. "

"A black Penny, Jasper; resembled you. Personally, I like it betternow. " Jasper Penny surveyed with approbation Stephen's full, handsomepresence. Jannan was a successful, a big, man. Well, so was he too. Buthe thought with keen longing of the time when he was twenty-one, andfree, free to roam self-sufficient. He thought of that Howat Penny ofwhich they had spoken, black as he was black in the family tradition; hehad seen Hesselius's portrait of the other; and, but for the tied hairand continental buff, it might have been a replica of himself. It wascurious--that dark strain of Welsh blood, cropping out undiminished, concrete, after generations. The one to hold it before Howat had beenburned in Mary's time, in the sixteenth century, dead almost threehundred years. Jasper had a sudden, vivid sense of familiarity with theHowat who had married some widow or other. His mind returned to his own, peculiar problem, to Essie Scofield, to the burden with which he hadencumbered himself, the payment that faced him for--for his sheeryouth. He said abruptly, belated:

"You fit the present formal ease of society, Stephen; you like it and itlikes you. In a superficial way I have done well enough, butunderneath--" his voice sank into silence. A profound, familiardejection seized him; incongruously he thought of Miss Brundon'sdelicate shrinking from the mere contact of the amenities of speech. Super-sensitive. "I must go, " he announced, and refused Stephen Jannan'sinvitation for the night. 

"Stay for some supper, anyhow, " the other insisted, and, a hand on hisarm, led him past the doors open upon the dancing. 

Chandeliers, great coruscating pendants of glass prisms and candles, glittered above the expanse of whirling crinoline and blue coats, vermilion turbans, gilt feathers and flowered hair. The light fell onshoulders as white and elegantly sloping as alabaster vases, draped inrose and citron, in blanched illusion frosted and looped with silver; onbouquets of camellias swinging from jewelled chains against ruffled andbelled skirts swaying about the revealed symmetry of lacy silk stockingsand fragile slippers. "Ah, Jasper, " Stephen Jannan said; "in our time, what! Do you remember your first Wellington boots? The gambling room andveranda at Saratoga? Tender eyes, old boy, and little tapering hands. "Jasper Penny replied, "It seems my hair is grey. " Silence fell on themas they entered the dining room. A long table was burdened withelaborate pagodas of spun barley sugar topped with sprigs of orangeblossom, the moulded creams of a Charlotte Polonaise, champagne jellyvalanced with lemon peel, pyramids of glazed fruits on lacquered plates;with faintly iridescent Belleek and fluted glass and ormolu; and, everywhere, the pale multitudinous flames of candles and the fullerradiance of astral lamps hung with lustres. Jasper Penny idly tore opena bon bon wrapped in a verse on fringed paper, "Viens! Viens! ange du ciel, je t'aime! je t'aime!Et te le dire ici, c'est le bonheur supreme. "

Love and the great hour of life! He had missed both; one, perhaps, withthe other. His marriage to Phebe, except for a brief flare at thebeginning, had been as empty as the affair with Essie Scofield. God, howhollow living seemed! He had missed something; or else existence was anugly deception, the false lure of an incomprehensible jest. The musicbeat in faint, mocking waves on his hearing, the lights of the suppershone in the gold bubbles of his wine glass. He drained it hurriedly. Outside the night, lying cold on deserted squares, blurred with gaslamps, was like a vain death after the idle frivolity of StephenJannan's ball. In an instant, in the shutting of a door, the blacknesshad claimed him; the gaiety of warm flesh and laughter vanished. Death... And he had literally nothing in his hands, nothing in his heart. Aduty, Eunice, remained. The sound of his footfalls on the bricks, thrownback from blank walls, resembled the embodied, stealthy following of theinjustice he had wrought. 

XII

The following morning he made his way past the continuous produce arcadethat held the centre of Market Street to the Camden Ferry. At the riverthe fish stall, with its circular green roof and cornucopias, reachedalmost to the gloomy ferry-house with its heavy odour of wet wood. Theboat clattered through broken ice, by a trim packet ship, the_Susquehanna_, and into the narrow canal through Windmill Island. Camdenwas a depressing region of low, marshy land, its streets unpaved andwithout gas, the gutters full of frozen, stagnant water. He inquired theway to the Reverend Mr. Needles', passed a brick meeting house, and, turning into Fourth Street, isolated frame dwellings, coming at last toa dingy wooden house with broken panes in the upper windows and acollapsing veranda at the edge of a blackened, skeleton wood. 

A tall, gaunt woman in a ravelled worsted shawl answered his summons, and informed him, interrupted by a prolonged coughing, that Mr. Needleswas away on circuit. "I came for a child staying with you, " Jasper Pennyexplained shortly, suppressing an involuntary repulsion at the degradedsurroundings. "She's not well, " the woman replied, with instantsuspicion. "I don't just like to let a chancy person see her. " Hediscarded all subterfuge. "I am her father, " he stated. The othershifted to a whining self-defence. "And her in this sink!" sheexclaimed, gazing at Jasper Penny's furred coat, his glossy hat andgloves and ebony cane. 

"I did all for her I could, considering the small money I was promised, and then half the time I didn't get that, neither. The lady owes forthree weeks right now. I suppose you'll have to come in, " she concludedgrudgingly. They entered a dark hall, clay cold. Beyond, in a slovenlykitchen hardly warmer, he found Eunice, his daughter; a curiouslysluggish child with a pinched, hueless face and a meagre body in a man'sworn flannel shirt and ragged skirt and stockings. 

"Here's your father, " Mrs. Needles ejaculated. 

Eunice stood in the middle of the bare floor, staring with pallid, openmouth at the imposing figure of the man. She said nothing; and JasperPenny found her silence more accusing than a shrill torrent of reproach. "She's kind of heavy like, " Mrs. Needles explained. "I have come to takeyou away, " Jasper Penny said. Then, turning to the woman: "Are those allthe clothes she has?" She grew duskily red. "There are some othersabout, but I don't just know where, and then she spoils them so fast. "

"That's a lie, " the child announced, with a faint patch of colour oneither thin cheek. "Mr. Needles sold them. " The man decided to ignoresuch issues; his sole wish now was to take Eunice away as speedily aspossible. "Well, " he directed impatiently, "get a shawl, something towrap her in. " He regretted vainly that he had not come for the child ina carriage. He paid without a question what the woman said was owing;and, with Eunice folded in a ragged plaid, prepared to depart. "Iguess, " the child decided, in a strangely mature voice, "we'd bettertake my medicine. " She turned toward a mantel, Mrs. Needles made a quickmovement in the same direction, but the small shape was before her. Jasper Penny took a bottle from the diminutive, cold hand. The label hadbeen obliterated; but, impelled by a distrustful curiosity, he took outthe cork. 

Laudanum!

He was at the point of an indignant condemnation when the words perishedwithout utterance--not the haggard woman before him, but himself, JasperPenny, was entirely guilty. He, in reality, had given the drug to hisdaughter, placed her in this sorry and bitter poverty. "Come, Eunice, "he said, taking her by the hand, his face grey and stony. 

Once more in the city he walked with the child to the ferry and foot ofChestnut Street, where they found places in The Reaper, a stage brightlypainted with snowy ships and drawn by four sorrel horses. His firstconcern was to purchase proper clothes for his daughter; then he wouldface the problem of her happier disposal. They passed the columnedfaçade of the Philadelphia Bank, the Custom House with its wide stepsset back from the street, hedged dwellings, and the United States Hotelto Independence Square and Sixth Street, where he lifted the child fromthe stage. They stopped before an entrance between bowed windows whichhad above it the sign, The Misses Dunlop, Millinery. 

Jasper Penny had had no idea that it would be so difficult to procureclothes for a girl of seven. At first he was told that the necessarygarments could not be furnished, when discussion revealed the fact thata nearly complete, diminutive wardrobe, especially ordered from Parisand neglected by the customer, was to be had. In a surprisingly shortwhile a sentimental saleswoman had apparelled Eunice in black velvetwith rows of small bows and gold buckles and a lace collar, cambricpantaloon ruffles swinging about her ankles, a quilted pink satin bonnettied, like those of her elders', with a bow under her right cheek, and amuff and tippet of ermine. Other articles--a frock of rose gros dechine, with a flounced skirt, a drab velvet bonnet turned in greensmocked silk, and sheer underthings--he ordered delivered at Sanderson'sHotel. 

The effect of what laudanum Eunice had taken faded, and her lethargy wasreplaced by an equally still, incredulous amazement. She followed JasperPenny about with the mechanical rigidity of a minute sleepwalker. Theywent into a jewelry store beyond, with a square low bow window and whitetrimming, where he purchased a ring with a ruby, and small goldbracelets with locks and chains. His restless desire was to clotheEunice in money, to overwhelm her with gifts; yet, although an evidentdelight struggled through her stupefaction, he failed to get from theexpenditure the release he sought. A leaden sense of blood guiltinesspersisted in him. At Parkinson's, the confectioner opposite the StateHouse, he bought her syllabubs, a frozen rose cordial and black cake. Onleaving, he paused at the marble steps with a lantern on either side andawning drawn out over the pavement, considering the next move. It shouldbe toys--a German doll, slate and coloured crayons and jumping-figures. Then he took her back to his rooms at the Hotel. 

Sitting in a stiff crimson chair opposite him, the doll clasped instraining fingers, and a flush of excitement on her sharp features, shepresented an enormous difficulty. What, justly, was he to do with her?How could he provide for a reasonable happiness, a healthy, normalexistence? He decided coldly that he would prevent Essie Scofield'sinfluence from ever touching the child again. Essie, he knew, wasutterly without any warmth of motherhood. She had solely and callouslyused their daughter to extort money from him. But, he admitted tohimself, neither had he any feeling of parentage for the small, lonelyfigure before him; nothing but a burning self-accusation, a laceratedpride. His act proceeded entirely from his head in place of his heart. For that very reason, Jasper Penny thought, he could give his daughter agreater measure of security. He would see Stephen Jannan to-morrow andwith the lawyer's assistance get complete control of Eunice's future. Hemust alter his will. 

None of this, however, assisted in solving the actual immediatenecessity. There was, certainly, Myrtle Forge; his mother, however shemight silently suffer, protest, would ultimately accede in his wishes. But it was a dreary place for a child, with only the companionship ofold women. He was, for the greater part, away in the interest of hiswidely scattered activities, forges, furnaces, nail factories androlling mills. 

He felt in anticipation the censure of the Penny connections that wouldrise like a wall and shut Eunice from the companionship of the otherchildren, of the family, embittering her at what he had somewhere hearddescribed as the formative period of growth. His home, he decided, forthe present at least, was an undesirable place for his daughter. 

It was, he discovered, past two, and he remorsefully summoned a servant. He gazed with bewilderment at the list of dinner dishes tended him;bear's meat, he felt, canvas back duck or terrapin, was not a dietproper to seven; but he solved the perplexity by ordering snipe, rolledand sugared cakes filled with whipped cream and preserved strawberries, and a deep apple pandowdy. After this, and a block of nougat, Eunicediscovered herself to be sleepy. As she lay with tossed arms and palestreaming hair under the feather coverlet of a great hotel bed he sawwith a sharp uneasiness that, in a subtle but unmistakable accent, sheresembled her mother, Essie Scofield. 

XIII

His thoughts darkened with the falling day; he supposed them to besolely addressed to the problem of Eunice; but, in reality, theyconstantly evaded his will, following countless trivialities, andreturned to his own, peculiar need. He made some small changes of dressfor the evening, replacing brown with glazed black boots, and struggled, with one hand, through the ordeal of tying a formal neckcloth. He hadpurposely left behind his negro servant as a possible source ofunguarded chatter. When Jasper Penny had finished he went in to Euniceand found her awake. The new clothes lay in their open boxes; and, lighting candles, he wondered if he had better have some one in toassist her. "Can you fix yourself up in these?" he asked, indicating thepurchases. 

"Oh, yes, " she assured him gravely; "that is except the very backestbuttons. " She stood by the folded piles of shirred muslin, the elaboratevelvets and silks and ribbons, obviously at a loss before such anunparalleled choice; and he was once more disturbed by the attenuationof her small body. But that could be soon remedied; she had sufferedother, far greater, irremedial, oppressions; her very birth hadconfronted her, in the puritanical self-righteousness of his world, withan almost insuperable barrier to happiness. Still back of that, evenbefore the birth of himself and Essie Scofield, back, back in theunguessed past, Eunice had been shaped, condemned. Her fate had onlyculminated in his own unbalanced passion, in a desire that had blindedhim like a flash of ignited powder, leaving him with a sense of uttervoid, of inexplicable need. "For what?" he demanded unconsciously andbitterly aloud. 

Eunice, startled, dropped the garment in her hands. She gazed at himwith a shrinking dread. "Come, " he told her gently, "that will be verypretty; and, don't you think, the velvet bonnet with green?" Aftersupper he questioned her. "What time do you usually go to bed?" Sheanswered promptly, "When it got too cold to stay up, at Mr. Needles', but I wouldn't know here. "

"We might go to the Circus, " he suggested, half doubtful of thepropriety of such a course. However, they went. She clung tightly to hissleeve before the illuminated, high-pillared façade of Welches' Circus, where Jasper took seats in a box. Eunice was breathless before thegleaming white and gold of the interior, the fabulous, glitteringchandelier, the crimson draperies and great curtain with itsequestrienne on a curvetting steed. The orchestra, with a blare oftrombones, announced the raising of the curtain and appearance of Mr. John Mays, the celebrated clown. He was followed by Chinese sports, theVision of Cupid and Zephyr, and the songs, the programme stated, ofLowrie and Williams. These gentlemen, in superb yellow satin, emphasizedharmoniously the fact that

"And joy is but a flower, The heart with sorrow meetingWill wither 'neath its power. "

Jasper Penny wondered abstractedly what was to be done with the tense, excitable child at his side? A voice from the wings announced: "Mouseand Harebell, the Lilliputian ponies, with Infant Jockies, the smallestschooled racers in existence. " And the word "schooled" recalled to himthe diffident woman he had met at Stephen Jannan's, the night before. Miss ... Brundon. A place for the education of younger girls. He couldsend Eunice there, for the present at any rate; and decide later uponher ultimate situation. Miss Brundon had a sensitive, yes, distinctly, afine face. Her school, he remembered, was at Raspberry Alley, far outSpruce Street, close to Tenth. He drew a deep breath of relief at thisbridging of the immediate complications the child presented. 

The next morning, again in the Reaper coach, they rolled west overChestnut Street, past a theatre with elevated statues of Comedy andTragedy, the Arcade with its outside stairs mounting across the front, stone mansions set back in gardens with gravelled paths, and the Moorishbulk of Masonic Hall half hid by stores. Beyond the Circus theyproceeded on foot to a four square brick dwelling with weeping willowsand an arched wood sign above the entrance painted with the designation, "Miss Brundon's Select Academy. "

Jasper Penny found Miss Brundon in a small, bare, immaculate office. Shewas sitting at a table; and, as he entered, with Eunice draggingdesperately at his hand, she half rose, with a quick, faint blush. 

"Mr. Penny, " she exclaimed, in a low, charming surprise. "I didn'texpect, so soon, to have the pleasure ... Here, at my school. " He firmlymoved Eunice from her position at his back. "An unexpected pleasure forme, " he replied. "I came to consult with you about this little girl--thedaughter of a friend of mine. A friend, I may add, in difficultcircumstances, and for whom I am prepared to do a great deal. I hadhoped--Stephen Jannan told me about your exceptional establishment--thatyou could take her. She needs just the supervision that I am certain youoffer. "

"Of course, " she replied immediately, "I'd be glad to have any onerecommended by you. I do think my school is unusual. You see, there isalmost no provision for the supervision of such young ladies. And I havebeen very fortunate in my girls; I try not to be snobbish, Mr. Penny;but, indeed, if a place like this is to be useful, some care isrequired. Probably you would like an assurance of their studies anddeportment. "

"No, " he stopped her hastily; "it is quite enough to have seen you. " Adeeper, painful colour suffused her cheeks. He had, he thought, beeninexcusably clumsy. He had unconsciously given voice to the convictionthat Miss Brundon, like her establishment, was exceptional. She was, ordinarily, too pale for beauty; her countenance, with high, cheekbones, was irregular; yet her eyes, tranquil blue, held a steady qualityalmost the radiance of an inward light. Her diffidence, it was clear, co-existed with a firm, inviolable spirit. He said, later:

"You will discover that there are many things Eunice requires, and Iwould be obliged if you would procure them without stint, and send theaccounts to my Philadelphia office. The child has been in circumstancesof considerable poverty; but I wish to give her whatever advantagesmoney can bring. Yes--Eunice Scofield. And--" he hesitated, "in view ofthis.... "

"I understand, oh, completely, " Susan Brundon interrupted him warmly. "You don't wish your charity exposed; and not only on your own account, but from consideration for the susceptibilities of the parents, parent--a mother, I gather. "

It had been, he thought, leaving, ridiculously simple. His meeting withMiss Brundon was a fortunate chance. A fine, delicate, unworldly woman;a fineness different from Phebe's, submerged in the pursuit of her ownsalvation. The former, he realized, was close to forty. If she had beensympathetic with a strange child such as Eunice how admirably she wouldattend any of her own. Unmarried. The blindness of men, their fatuouschoice, suddenly surprised him. 

He determined to proceed directly to Stephen Jannan, and put into motionat once the solving of his daughter's future. Never, he repeated, shouldEunice fall again into the lax hands of Essie Scofield. Stephen wouldadvise him shrewdly, taking advantage of the law, or skilfullyovercoming its obstacles. He had unbounded faith in the power of moneywhere Essie was concerned; at the same time he had no intention oflaying himself open to endless extortion, threats, almost inevitable, ultimate scandal. What a bog he had strayed into, a quagmire reachingabout him in every direction. He must discover firmer ground ahead, release from the act of that other man, his youth. The memory of theserene purity of Miss Brundon's office recurred to him like a breathfrom the open spaces where he had first known the deep pleasure of anutter freedom of spirit. 

Jasper Penny, revolving the complications of his position, made his waydirectly over the uneven sidewalk of Spruce Street to Fourth; there, passing the high, narrow residences of Society Hill, he proceeded toStephen's office, beyond Chestnut. It was in a square brick edifice ofan earlier period, with a broad marble step and door and wide windowscoped in scoured white stone. The lawyer's private chamber was bare, with snowy panelling and mahogany, the high sombre shelves of acalf-bound law library, a ponderous cabriolet table, sturdy, rush-seatedDutch chairs, and a Franklin stove with slender brass capitols andshining hod. 

"A chair, Jasper, " Stephen Jannan directed. "You ought to know them, they came out of Myrtle Forge--some of old Gilbert's. Your mother gavethem to me when she did over the house in this new French fancy. " JasperPenny was momentarily at a loss for an adequate opening of the subjectthat had brought him there. Finally he plunged directly into hispurpose. "You must know, Stephen, " he said, "that I am decidedlyobligated to a Mrs. Scofield. " Jannan nodded shortly. "The thing draggedon for a number of years, but is quite dead now; in fact, it has beenfor a considerable number of months. That, in itself, doesn't bother me;it is comparatively simple; but there is a child, a girl, Stephen. "

"I didn't know that, " the other acknowledged. "It is an ugly difficulty. Do you wish to legitimatize your--the child? There is marriage ofcourse. "

"I have no intention of marrying Essie Scofield, " Jasper Penny saidcoldly. "And I am almost certain she wouldn't consent if I had. I amquite willing to assume a proper responsibility; but there is a limit tomy conception of that. There was never any serious question of marriage;there is none now. I simply wish to get complete control of Eunice; byadoption, perhaps; she is seven years old. "

"There are no laws of adoption, as such, in Pennsylvania, " Jannan toldhim. "The only State with that provision is Louisiana; there, by an actof Legislature, the thing can be legalized. I could arrange it throughcorrespondence, a certain residence within the State. It would becumbersome and expensive, but possible. " He paused, frowning. "Devilishawkward, " he muttered; "make a stench in a family such as ours. However, " he added, "a contract practically to the same effect can bedrawn. This, with her consent, would be entirely binding on Mrs. Scofield. If the child can write it would be well to have her signatureon the deed. Bring them here; she should have counsel. "

"After that, I suppose, the name could be arranged. "

"Exactly. The child, of course, would have no legal status as your heir. Anything she got would have to be willed direct. " The other nodded. Itwas all far more simple than he had hoped. He almost saw a definitelightening of the future. "Is the girl with her mother now?" Jannanqueried. 

"I took her away yesterday, " Jasper Penny replied negligently. "We wentto the Circus, and at present she is at Miss Brandon's Academy. " He wassurprised by the sudden concern on his cousin's handsome, floridcountenance. "By heaven, Jasper, " the lawyer exclaimed, "am I tounderstand that you took a--well, an illegitimate child, to MissBrundon, left her in the School? It's--it's incredible. "

"Why not?"

"If such a thing were known it would ruin Susan Brundon over night. Haven't you a conception of how this is regarded? She would be strippedof pupils as if the place reeked of malignant fever. A most beastlyegotistical and selfish act. "

"Never thought of that, " Jasper Penny admitted. He saw again the fine, sensitive face of Miss Brundon, presiding over the establishment thatwas like an emanation of her diffident and courageous spirit; the lastperson alive he would harm. And people were exactly as Stephen had said, particularly women. They would destroy Susan Brundon ruthlessly, withouta moment's hesitation. He thought of her as suffering incalculably, betrayed by his implied lie; he saw her eyes stricken with pain, herhands twisting together.... He rose sharply. 

"A blind, infernal fool!" he ejaculated, grasping his hat. "I'm glad Isaw you when I did. Put it right at once. Obliged, Stephen; come to youlater about changing my will and the rest. "

He was in such haste to remove the danger of Eunice from Susan Brundonthat not until he again stood at the door of the Academy did he realizewhat a difficult explanation lay before him. Unconsciously he hadreached a point where he would do his utmost to avoid hurting her. Already she occupied an unusual elevation in his thoughts, an unworldlyplane bathed in a white radiance. 

She was not in the office, but soon appeared, with a questioning gaze;and, he felt, an appealing lessening of her reserve. He hesitated, casting vainly about for an acceptable expression of his errand. Anotherlie, he thought, acutely distressed, must be necessary. "I am extremelysorry, Miss Brandon, " he told her, "but unexpected developments in thelast hour make it necessary for me to remove Eunice from your school. "

A slow flush invaded her countenance lifted to meet his troubled gaze. "Mr. Penny!" she exclaimed, in a faint dismay. "Oh, I hope it is becauseof nothing--nothing derogatory you have heard. Please tell medirectly--"

"Absolutely no, " he replied, his voice carrying a vibrating reassurance. "You are entirely without the need of recommendation, far beyond anyunfavourable report. I am profoundly disturbed by causing youinconvenience, and I only hope to offer you sufficient apology; but Ishall have to take Eunice away with me, at once. "

"Perhaps her mother can't bear separation. "

"It is not that, " he said grimly, a tangible hurt sharpening within;"but something that cannot be gone into, with you. " She turned awayimmediately. "I will send for her, " she replied. They stood facing butmutually avoiding each other's gaze while Eunice was being fetched. "Her things have already come from the hotel, " Miss Brundon proceeded. "Where shall I send them?" Eunice broke in with a shrill protest. "Do Ihave to go? I don't want to. " Her face was scarlet with revolt. "I canwalk up and down the room with a book on my head, while another littlegirl had to be all done with a board to her back. "

Jasper Penny wondered if he would see Miss Brundon again soon. The lastwas an afterthought bred by the realization that he could not permit herto depart absolutely from his life. There was a great deal that he, arich and influential man of practical affairs, might do for her. He wascertain that Susan Brundon needed exactly the assistance he could give;probably people robbed her, traded callously on her unsuspicious nature. Yet, when the moment came to leave, he could think of nothing to saybeyond the banality of looking for her at the Jannans'. 

"I go out very little, " she told him; "the work here absorbs me; and, unfortunately, my eyes are not strong. They require constant rest. " Heexpressed regret once more for any disturbance he might have caused;and, after hesitating awkwardly, left with Eunice hanging fretfully athis hand. What, in God's name, was he to do with the child? He walkedslowly, his face half lost in the fur of his overcoat, oblivious, in hisconcentration on the difficulties of her situation, of Euniceprogressing discontentedly at his side. A petulant complaint rose atintervals to an audible sob. Looking down, as the sobs threatened tobecome a continuous crying, he saw the top of the velvet bonnet and herdiminutive hands in scarlet knitted mitts. He would have to stopdragging her from place to place; a suitable position for the presentwas all he hoped for now. There must be other institutions, larger andfarther away, to which Eunice could be sent. He had a vague memory ofsuch a place somewhere on the Delaware, was it at Burlington?

But he could not continue living with his daughter at Sanderson's Hotel. Jasper Penny decided that he would take her that afternoon to the houseof the head machinist of his nail works at Jaffa, the town that, itsbeginning growing largely out of the Penny industries, lay a scant milefrom Myrtle Forge. Speever was a superior man; his wife, a robustCornish woman in a crisp apron, would give Eunice an energetic andproper care. 

A thin, flexible mantle of snow lay over the drab earth, sweeping up toa Grecian marble edifice, making more dreary the bulk of the EasternPenitentiary and foundation of Girard College, and emphasizing thewinter desertion of the reaches of the Fairmount Water Works. She soongrew absorbed in the various aspects of their transportation--the echoof the whip cracking over the mules that drew the coaches across thecovered viaduct, the labouring stationary engine and their slow ascentbeyond. They saw, lining the river, a cemetery elevated starkly againstthe sky; and followed a canal by a broken, black flood between snowybanks. 

Past a town with impressive residences and manufactories with lowspreading veils of smoke, they came on a confusion of canals and canalboats, lock dams and bridges, mules and raffish crews with tanned facesand brightly coloured jackets and boots. Again crossing the river and ashallow, tranquil valley, the train brigade rolled into the main streetof Jaffa. It was a town of small brick dwellings, spaced in orderlyyards, echoing to the diminished clamour of the Penny Rolling Mills onthe outskirts. Beyond the walls, starkly red against the snow, theblackened main street, the river was spotted with ice. 

Edgar Speever's wife accepted Eunice with an immediate and unquestioningcapability, and Jasper Penny turned away with a momentary but immenserelief. In a few days, after the deed for the possession of the childhad been executed, he could place her more permanently. He walked out tothe miscellaneous group of buildings and cluttered yards that held hisinherited activity; and in the small single-roomed building of the mainoffice discussed with his superintendent the changes, improvements ofprocess, then under way. The old nail machines, propelled by the feetand hands of an operator, and producing but one nail at a time, had beenreplaced by a high power engine, self-heading machinery. Thesuperintendent complained of the pig from the new hot blast furnaces. "Impure, " he declared. "And this new stone coal firing, too, makes butpoor stuff. It'll never touch the old charcoal forging. Hammered bar'sat ninety, and I'm glad to get it then. The puddling furnaces will dosomething with the grey pig; we have eight in blast now, turning out therailroad and heavier bars. This year will see forty-five hundred tons ofiron worked, and close to four thousand kegs of nails. "

Jasper Penny listened attentively; it was his intention soon to dispenseentirely with all the time-honoured methods of iron manufacture. Waterpower, with its unequal flow, any large employment of charcoal, growingincreasingly expensive with the rapid diminishment of the forests, mustgive place to the steam blast machine and anthracite. If his manager wasunable to change, develop, with the changing times he would findanother, more scientific. 

Outside the early twilight made more grey the dingy sheds and buildings, the heaped slag; the long brick rectangle of the rolling mill, with itstriple imposed, ventilated roof and the high, smoking stacks of thepuddling furnaces, rising four from either length, gave out anundiminished, deafening uproar, the clamour of the bars falling out fromthe rollers, the spatter of hammers and dull dragging of heavy weights. The engine of the nail works rent all other sound with an unaccustomed, harsh blast.... Jasper Penny was conscious of a deep, involuntaryrelief when he reached the comparative tranquillity, the secession ofvexatious problems, accomplished by Myrtle Forge. 

XIV

There was, as always, an elaborate, steaming supper, with his mother, ina pelisse of black silk ruching, and Amity Merken at their places. Henoted that an empty chair had been put, as customary, at the oppositeend of the table, and with a trace of impatience ordered its removal. Hewondered momentarily at his petty act; and then his thoughts returned toSusan Brundon. Jasper Penny saw her blue gaze lifted to his face, thehesitating smile; he felt again the pervading influence of her delicateyet essentially unshrinking spirit. She would possess an enormoussteadfastness of purpose, he decided; a potentiality of immovableself-sacrifice. Yet she was the gentlest person alive. An unusual andresplendent combination of traits, rare possibilities. 

She had told him that she seldom went about--her school absorbed her, and her eyes needed care, rest. He must ask Stephen Jannan further abouther. They were sitting, Jasper Penny, his mother and her sister, in theparlour; a large, square chamber hung with dark maroon paper and long, many tasselled and corniced window curtains in sombre green plush. Awhite wedgewood mantel with ornaments in olive and blue, above abrass-fretted closed stove, supported a high mirror, against which wereranged a pair of tall astral lamps shining in green and red spars oflight through their pendants, a French clock--a crystal ball in aminiature Ionic pavilion of gilt--and artificial bouquets of colouredwax under glass domes. A thick carpet of purplish black velvet pilecovered the floor from wall to wall; stiff Adam chairs and settee withwheelbacks of black and gold were upholstered in dusky ruby and indigo. Ebony tables of framed, inlaid onyx held tortoise shell and lacquerornaments, an inlaid tulip-wood music-box, volumes in elaborately tooledmorocco, and a globe where, apparently, metallic fish were suspended ina translucent, green gloom. 

The light from the multiple candelabras of ormolu and cut lustresstreamed from the walls over Jasper Penny, sunk forward in profoundabsorption, and his mother's busy, fat hands working with gay worsteds. At her side a low stand of rubbed Chinese vermilion held her spillingyarns. Her face was placid, dryly pinkish and full. An irreproachable, domestic female. Herself the daughter of a successful PennsylvaniaGerman Ironmaster, her wealth had doubled the Penny successes. There hadbeen other children; Jasper could only faintly remember two, mostly inthe form of infantile whimpering. 

The inevitable termination of the evening was readied by the appearanceof a pitcher of steaming, spiced mulled wine. A cupful was formallypresented to Amity Merken; Gilda Penny sipped hers with an audiblesatisfaction, and Jasper Penny absently drank the fragrant compound ofcinnamon bark and lemon, cloves, sugar and claret. A measure of that, before retiring, could not but be beneficial to Susan Brundon, fatiguedby the duties of her Academy. He thought of the sharper breath of thebrandy and oranges compounded by Essie Scofield. A thin odour offoxglove clung to the memory of his wife. 

XV

Jasper Penny supplemented Jannan's letter to Essie Scofield, asking foran appointment with his client at the law office, with a shortcommunication laying before her the condition in which he had foundEunice, his knowledge of her neglect to provide their daughter with thefunds he had sent for that purpose, and definite plans for his completecontrol of the child. At the despatch of this he felt that his duty, where Essie as a formal parent resided, was ended. It was now only aquestion of an agreement on terms. He got no reply, other than anotification from Stephen Jannan that a meeting had been arranged forthe following week. And, at eleven o'clock, on a clear, thin blue wintermorning, he mounted, with Eunice, to the entrance of Jannan's offices onFourth Street. 

Essie Scofield, in widespread mulberry silk with tight sleeves and broadsteel buttons, a close brimmed blue bonnet filled with lilacs and tiedwith an old rose ribbon, was more compelling than Jasper Penny hadremembered her for, actually, years. A coffee-coloured India shawl, witha deep fringe and trace of a lining checkered in cherry and blackslipping from her shoulders, toned her appearance to a potentialdignity. 

"Eunice, " she exclaimed, as the child entered, "do come here at myside!" A small, cold mouth was silently raised for a straining embrace. Stephen Jannan proceeded at once, addressing Essie Scofield. "Mr. Pennyinforms me that he has written you explaining our purpose. I havealready instructed you of the law in such a connexion, and there remainsonly your signatures to these papers. I begged you, if you willremember, to come with counsel, but since you have not done that it willbe best for you to read this deed, which is quite clear in its intent. "

Essie gazed dramatically at the paper the lawyer tended her. "It means, "she said, "that I am to lose Eunice, and because I cannot offer her anyadvantages beyond those of a slim purse. I am a most unfortunatecreature. " Jasper Penny scraped his chair back impatiently, but Stephenenforced his silence with a gesture. "While my client understands thatno monetary consideration can compensate for the breaking of ties ofaffection, " Stephen Jannan went on smoothly, "and while he offers nonein payment to that end, still we feel that some material recognitionshould be due you. Have you anything to say, suggest, at this point?"

Essie Scofield's arm was about Eunice's waist. "I am to be parted frommy little daughter, " she exclaimed; "and my tears are to be stopped withgold--an affectionate breast, a heart-wrung appeal, stilled by a bribe. That is the price paid by a trusting, an unsuspicious, female. Long ago, when a mere girl, dazzled by--"

"We won't go into that, " Jannan interrupted, "but confine ourselves tothe immediate development. By signing the paper in question, andaccepting a sum of money, you surrender all claim to this child, knownas Eunice Scofield. "

"How will that affect my--my position in other ways?" she demanded, in asuddenly shrewd, suspicious tone. "Not at all, " the lawyer assured her. She sobbed once, emotionally; and Eunice regarded her with a wide, unsparing curiosity. "A stranger to me, " she gasped, with a paper whiteface and fluttering eyelids. Jasper Penny ejaculated sharply, "How much, Essie?" In a moment, he judged, familiar with a potential hysteria, shemight faint, scream; there were clerks, people, in the next rooms. Onthe brink of collapse she hesitated, twisting her purple kid gloves. 

"Ten thousand dollars, " she said. 

Stephen Jannan glanced swiftly at his cousin, and the latter nodded. "That is satisfactory, " Jannan announced. "A mere formality--witnesses. "Essie Scofield traced her signature in round, unformed characters;Jasper Penny followed with a hasty, small script; and Eunice, seated atthe impressive table, printed her name slowly, blotting it with atrailing sleeve. The lawyer swung back the door of a heavy safe, andtook out a package of white bills of exchange on the Bank ofPennsylvania. Essie counted the notes independently, thrust the moneyinto a steel-beaded reticule with silk cords, and rose, gatheringtogether her cashmere shawl. She ignored Eunice totally in the veiledgaze she directed at Jasper Penny. "It is better, " she told him, "if youwrite first when you expect to visit me. Really, the last time, withsome friends there, you were impossible. " He bowed stiffly. "Don't let asense of duty bring you, " she concluded boldly. "I get on surprisinglywell as it is, as it is, " she reiterated, and, he thought, her voicebore almost a threat. 

When she had gone the two men sat gazing in a common perplexity at thechild. Stephen Jannan's lips were compressed, Jasper Penny's face wasslightly drawn as if by pain. Eunice was investigating a thick stick ofvermilion sealing wax and a steel die. "Well?" Jannan queried, noddingtoward the table. "I thought something of Burlington, " Penny replied, "but decided to place her in New York. Want to give her all the chancepossible. I intend, at what seems the proper time, to secure her my ownname. " He stopped the objection clouding his cousin's countenance. "Wewon't argue that, please. Now about the will; the provision must beexplicit and generous. There, at least, I am able to meet a justrequirement. " Jasper Penny's will was produced, a codicil projected, appended, and witnesses recalled. 

"I wanted to inquire about Miss Brundon, " Jasper said finally, thebusiness despatched. "She seems to me very fragile for the conducting ofan Academy. Is there no family, men, to support her? And herinstitution--does it continue to progress well?"

"Very. " Jannan replied to the last question first. "Her children comefrom the best families in the city; and, under my advice, her chargesare high. She has a brother, I believe, a cotton merchant of NewOrleans, and quite prosperous. But he has a large family, and Susan willnot permit him to deprive it of a dollar for her benefit. As you say, she is not strong; but in spite of that she needs no man's patronage. The finest qualities, Jasper, the most elevated spirit. A little tooconscientious, perhaps; and, although she is thirty-nine, curiouslyignorant of the world; but rare ... Rare. It almost seems as if therewere a conspiracy to keep ugly truths away from her. "

Truths, Jasper Penny thought bitterly, such as had just been revealed inStephen's office. There was, it seemed, nothing he could do for SusanBrundon. He envied the lawyer his position of familiar adviser, the easewith which the other spoke her name: Susan. He rose, fumbling with ajade seal. "Come, Eunice, " he said, the lines deepening about his mouthand eyes. Stephen Jannan assisted him into the heavy, furred coat. "Well, Jasper, " he remarked sympathetically, "if we could but lookahead, if we were older in our youth, yes, and younger in our increasingage, the world would be a different place. " He held out to Eunice anewly minted Brazilian goldpiece. "Good-bye, " he addressed her; "commandme if I can be of any use. " She clutched the gold tightly, and JasperPenny led her out into the winter street. "We must have dinner, " he saidgravely. "With some yellow rock candy, " she added, "and syllabubs. "

XVI

He returned to Myrtle Forge from New York with a mingled sense ofpleasure and the feeling that his place was unsupportably empty. Theloneliness of which he had been increasingly conscious seemed to haveits focus in his house. The following morning he walked restlessly downthe short, steep descent to the Forge, lying on its swift water divertedfrom Canary Creek. Unlike a great many iron families of increasingprosperity, the Pennys had not erected the unsightly buildings of theirmanufacturing about the scene of their initial activity and mansion. Jasper's father, Daniel Barnes Penny, under whose hand their success hadlargely multiplied, had grouped their first rolling mill and small nailworks by the canal at Jaffa, preserving the pastoral aspect of MyrtleForge, with its farmland and small, ancient, stone buildings. 

Jasper had only made some unimportant changes at the Forge itself--thepigs were subjected to the working of two hearths now, the chafery, where the greater part of the sulphur was burned out, and the finery. The old system of bellows had been replaced by a wood cylinder, compressing air by piston into a chamber from which the blast wasregulated. A blacksmith's shed had been added in the course of time, and a brick coke oven. He stopped at the Forge shed, filled with ruddylight and shadow, the ringing of hammers, and silently watched themalleable metal on the anvil. Flakes of glowing iron fell, changing fromruby to blue and black. 

The Penny iron! The Forge had been operated continuously since seventeentwenty-seven, hammering out the foundation of his, Jasper's, position. He had taken a not inconsiderable place in the succession of the men ofhis family; in him the Pennys had reached their greatest importance, wealth. But after him ... What? He was, now, the last Penny man. Thefoothold Gilbert had cut out of the wild, which Howat and Casimir--anoutlandish name obviously traceable to his mother, the foreignwidow--had, in turn, increased for Daniel and Jasper, would bedissipated. His great, great aunt, Caroline, marrying a solid Quaker, had contributed, too, to the family stamina; while her granddaughter, wedding a Jannan, had increased the social prestige and connections ofthe family. The Jannans, bankers and lawyers, had already converted thegreater part of their iron inheritance into more speculative finance;and the burden of the industry rested on Jasper Penny's shoulders. 

At his death the name, the long and faithful labour, the tangiblemonument of their endurance and rectitude, except for the tenuous, momentary fact of Eunice, would be overthrown, forgot. He was consciousof a strong inner protest against such oblivion. He had, of course, often before lamented the fact that he had no son; but suddenly his lossbecame a hundred times more poignant, regrettable. Jasper Penny caughtagain the remembered, oppressive odour of foxglove, the aromatic reek ofbrandy and oranges; one, in its implications, as sterile as the other. He was possessed by an overwhelming sense of essential failure, arecurrence of the dark mood that had enveloped him in leaving theJannans' ball. 

Yet, he thought again, he was still in the midstride of his life, hispowers. His health was unimpaired; his presence bore none of theslackening aspect of increasing years. These feelings occupied him, speeding in a single cutter sleigh over the crisp snow of the roadleading from his home to Shadrach Furnace, where Graham Jannan and hisyoung wife had been newly installed in the foremens' dwelling. There wasa slight uneasiness about Graham's lungs, in consequence of which he hadbeen taken out of the banking house of an uncle, Jannan and Provost, andset at the more robust task of picking up the management of an ironfurnace. 

It was early afternoon; the sky was as dryly powdered with unbroken blueas was the earth with white. The silver bells and scarlet pompons of theharness crackled in the still, intense cold; and a blanched vapour hungabout the horse's head. Jasper Penny, enveloped in voluminous buffalorobes and fur, gazed with an increased interest at the familiar, flowingscene; nearby the forest had been cut, and suave, rolling fieldsstretched to a far mauve haze of trees; the ultramarine smoke offarmhouse chimneys everywhere climbed into the pale wash of sunlight;orderly fence succeeded fence. How rapidly, and prosperous, the countrywas growing! Even he could remember wide reaches of wild that were nowcultivated. The game, quail and wild turkey and deer, was fastdisappearing. The country was growing amazingly, too, extending throughthe Louisiana Purchase, State by State, to Mexico and the Texan border. The era of the greatness of the United States had hardly begun, while itwas more than probable that the greatness, the power, of the Pennyfamily faced an imminent destruction. His revolt at this, joining themore personal sense of the emptiness of his existence, filled him with abitter energy, a determination to conquer, somehow, the obdurate factshemming him in. 

The sleigh dropped over a rise into a shallow fold of hills, with acollection of structures on a slope, and a number of solid, small greystone dwellings. He glanced subconsciously at the stack of ShadrachFurnace, and saw that it was in blast--a colourless, lively flame, witha thin, white smoke like crumpled muslin, playing about its base. Themetallic ring of a smithy rose at a crossing of roads, and, from thecast house, drifted the refrain of a German song. He turned in by thecomparatively long, low façade of the house where the Jannans wereliving. 

A negro led the horse and sleigh back to a stable; and, briskly soundingthe polished iron doorknocker, he let himself into the dining room, achamber with a wide, pot-hung fireplace and plain mahogany consul tableswith wood chairs brightly painted with archaic flowers and scrolls ingold. Standing at the far side of the room, delicately outlined againsta low, deeply embrasured window, was Susan Brundon. 

A slow tide of colour rose to her ordinarily pale cheeks, correspondingwith a formless gladness permeating his own being. She wore ruffledlavender with a clear lace pelerine caught at her breast by a knot ofstraw-coloured ribbon and sprig of rose geranium. "Mr. Penny, " she said, with a little gasp of surprise; but her gaze was unwavering, candid. 

"Why not?" he replied lightly. "I have a small interest in Shadrach. Youare surprising--so far from that absorbing Academy. "

"It's my eyes again, " she explained. "I am obliged to rest. There is avery good assistant at the school; and Mary sweetly thought the countrywould do me good. "

"It is really miraculous, " Mary Jannan stated, entering from thekitchen; "she'll almost never. Weren't we lucky?" She was a small womanwith smooth brown hair and an air of quiet capability. "And it'ssplendid to see you, " she continued to Jasper Penny. "Don't for aminute think you'll get off before to-morrow, perhaps not then. Grahamis out, chop-chopping wood. Actually--the suave Graham. " She indicated ahigh row of pegs for Jasper Penny's furs. "Everything is terriblyprimitive. Most of the furniture was so sound that we couldn't bringourselves to discard it all, however old-fashioned. Little by little. "Graham Jannan entered, a tall, thin young man with crisp, pale yellowhair and a clean shaven, sanguine countenance with challenging lightblue eyes. He greeted the older man with a firm, cold hand clasp. "Isuppose you've come out to discover what I have learned about iron. Well, I know now that a sow is not necessarily a lady, and that someblooms have no bouquet. Good rum has, though, after sleighing. "

Upon alternately burning his fingers and throat with a steaming glass ofSt. Croix, Jasper Penny and Graham Jannan proceeded to the Furnacewhere, in the cast house, they watched the preparations for a flow ofmetal. The head founder, McQuatty, bearded to the eyes and swathed in ahide apron, stood at the Ironmaster's side. "The charcoal you'd get'snot worth a bawbee, " he complained; "soft stuff would hardly run lead. And where they'd cut six thousand cords of wood will no longer show morethan four. Shadrach ought to put out twenty-eight tons of pig in a week;and you see the statements. "

"Stone coal, " Jasper Penny replied; "and a hot blast. " He turned todescribe the latter to Jannan. "It'll come, " the founder agreed, "andthe quality will go. " He went forward to tap the clay-sealed hearth. Theliquid iron poured into the channels of its sand bed, sputtering andslowly fading to dingy grey. "I'd like you to take hold of this, " JasperPenny told the younger man; "great changes, improvements, are just overthe hill. I'll miss them--a link between the old and the new. But youwould see it all. The railroad will bring about an iron age; and then, perhaps, steel. I look for trouble, too--this damned States Rights. TheSouth has been uneasy since the Carolina Nullification Act. It will be atime for action. " He gazed keenly at Graham Jannan. A promising youngman, he thought, with a considerable asset in his wife. A woman, theright woman, could make a tremendous difference in a man's capabilities. 

He elaborated this thought fantastically at dinner, sitting oppositeSusan Brundon. Mary Jannan wore orange crêpe, with black loops of ballfringe and purple silk dahlias; and, beside her, Miss Brundon's dresswas noticeably simple. She volunteered little, but, when directlyaddressed, answered in a gentle, hesitating voice that veiled thedirectness, the conviction, of her replies. The right woman, JasperPenny repeated silently. Ten, fifteen, years ago, when he had been free, he would have acted immediately on the feeling that Susan Brundon wasexactly the wife he wanted. But no such person had appeared at thatmomentous period in his life. 

However, then he had been a totally different being; perhaps theappreciation of Miss Brundon, her actual reality, lay for him entirelyin his own perceptions. But if she would not have been the woman for himthen, by heaven, she was now! He expressed this unaware of its wideimplications, unconscious of the effect it would instantly have. Thething silently uttered bred an enormously increased need, the absolutedetermination that she was necessary to his most perfunctory being. Thethought of her alone, he discovered, had been sufficient to give him anew energy, a sense of rare satisfaction. 

Shortly expressed, he wanted to marry her; he had not, he told himselfoddly, ever been married. The word had a significance which heretoforehe had completely missed. A strange emotion stirred into being, alonging thrown out from his new desire, the late-born feeling ofdissatisfaction; it was a wish for something in Susan Brundon which heexperienced but could not name. Roughly stated it was a hunger tosurround her with security, comfort, to fortify the, at best, doubtfulposition of life in death for her. Yet he acknowledged to himself thatthis regard for her safety was mostly the result of his own inner, blindstriving. Her happiness had magically become his. Beyond that he wasunable to penetrate. 

After supper they gathered in the chamber beyond the dining room. HereJasper Penny found an incongruous mingling of old and new furniture. There was a high, waxed walnut desk and cabinet, severely simple, andbefore it a chair with a back of elaborately carved and gilded tulipstufted in plum-coloured velvet. The thick carpet was a deep rose, andthe drapery of the mantel and windows garnet. A painted hood ofbrilliant Chinese colours had been fastened before what was evidently anopen hearth, for which a coal stove was substituted. On the middle ofthe floor was an oriental hassock in silver brocade; while a corner helda spinet-piano decorated in roseate cupids, flower sprays and gold leaf. Again, an old clock in Spanish mahogany, with a rudely painted glassdoor, had been left on the wall. 

Mary Jannan, at the piano, wove a delicate succession of arpeggios. Shesang, in a small and graceful voice, a cavatina, _Tanti Palpiti_. Then, "Ah, que les amours ... De beaux heurs. " Jasper Penny listened with anunconscious, approving pretence of understanding. But when, in thecourse of her repertoire, she reached _Sweet Sister Fay_, and _The Hornof My Loved One I Hear_, his pleasure became active. Susan Brundon, onthe hassock, lifted her sensitive face to the mild candle light, and itsstill pallor gave him a shock of delight. Her hands were folded in thevoluminous sweep of her crinoline; the ribbons at her breast rose andfell softly. 

Jasper Penny and Graham were smoking long, fragrant cigars that theformer had produced from a lacquered case, and Jannan had theingredients of the hot punch at his elbow. It amused the young man topersuade Susan Brandon to take a sip from his glass; and they alllaughed at her subsequent gasping. Jasper Penny was astoundingly happy;his being radiated a warmth and contentment more potent than that of theSt. Croix rum. It was accompanied by an extraordinary lightness ofspirit, a feeling of the desirability of life. The memory of his greyinghair had left him; not, it was true, to be replaced by the surgingemotions of youth, but by a deep satisfaction. 

Susan Brundon, Susan ... The right woman. He marvelled again at thebrightness of spirit that shone in her--like a flame through a finepaper lantern. Susan, at Myrtle Forge. His thought became concrete; heknew now, definitely, that he had determined to marry her. His peace ofmind increased. There was no need for hurry, the mere idea wasirradiating; yet there must be no unnecessary delay. Incontrovertibly hehad passed forty. The best period in a man's life. They would go to theWest Indies, he decided. A ring with a square emerald, and roses ofpearls. It was, almost immediately, time to retire. His room, narrowwith a sloping wall, had a small window giving on a flawless rectangleof snow like the purity of Susan Brundon. 

As he lay in bed, staring wakefully against the dark, another memorycrept into his thoughts--the echo of a small, querulous voice, "yellowrock candy and syllabubs. " Eunice! A sudden consternation seized him ashe realized the necessity of telling Susan fully about his daughter. Noescape, evasion, was possible. If she discovered the existence, thehistory, of the child afterward--he lingered over the happiness thatterm implied--it would destroy her. This, he told himself, was notmerely melodrama; he was thinking of her delicate spirituality, socompletely shielded from the bald fatality of facts. An increasing dreadseized him at the thought of the hurt his revelation would inflict onher. The interweaving of life in life, consequence on consequence, theunbroken intricacy of the whole fabric of existence, realized anew, filled him with bitter rebellion. The blind commitment of a vanishedyouth, potent after years, still hung in a dark cloud over SusanBrundon. He was conscious of the past like an insuperable lead weightdragging at his attempted progress. The secret errors of all the paststhat had made him rose in a haggard, shadowy troop about his bed, perpetuated, multiplied, against his aspirations of tranquil release. 

Yet, he told himself, dressing in the bright flood of morning, ifnothing perished but the mere, shredding flesh, one quality persistedequally with the other--the symbol of Essie Scofield was no more actualthan Susan. He had breakfast early, with Graham Jannan; and, in areviving optimism, arranged for the Jannans to bring Miss Brundon toMyrtle Forge for a night before her departure. He whirled away, in asparkling veil of flung snow crystals, before the women appeared. 

Susan Brundon would, naturally, shrink from what he must tell her; buthe was suddenly confident of his ability to convince her of the superiorimportance of the actuality of what they together might make of thefuture. He was accustomed to the bending of circumstance to his will; inthe end he would prove stronger than any hesitancy she might, perhaps, reveal. His desire to have her had grown to such proportions that hecould not, for an instant, think of existence without her as an intimatepart. He even mentally determined when he should go to the city, thejeweller's, for the square emerald and flowered pearls. He would do overthe rooms where he had lived in the thin formality of his marriage withPhebe, settle an amount on Essie ... Shredding flesh. It would do theliving woman no more injury than the dead. Oranges and brandy, satin andgold and ease. 

He wrote, through Stephen Jannan, to Essie Scofield that afternoon, stating the generous terms of his final arrangement with her, making itplain that all personal contact between them had reached an end. Hereafter she must exclusively address any unavoidable communications toMr. Jannan. She disregarded this in a direct, inevitably complaining, laborious scrawl. However, he could read through it her obvious reliefat complete independence. She would, she thought, stay where she was fora little ... A period of perfunctory sentimentality followed. Hedestroyed the letter, turning with deep pleasure to the message fromGraham Jannan that he would bring Susan Brundon and Mary to Myrtle Forgethe following day. 

His mother, with Amity Merken like a timid and reduced replica at herback, greeted the Jannans and Miss Brundon at the door. Jasper Pennycame forward from the smoking room, to the right of the main entrance;where the men retired for an appetizer of gin and bitters. The older manwas garbed with exact care. His whiskers were closely trimmed on eitherside of his severe mouth and shapely, dominant chin; and his sombreeyes, under their brows drawn up toward the temples, held an unusualraillery. Amity Merken, he learned, had desired to stay away from thesupper table; but, to her distress, he forced her into a chair set byhimself. Susan sat at the other end of the table, in the place that hadbeen Phebe's. He gazed at her with a satisfaction without surprise; forit seemed to him that the woman beyond him had always occupied the foreof his existence. She wore pale grey, the opening at her neck filledwith soft lace and pinned with a garnet brooch, and a deep-fringed, white silk shawl. The conversation was ambling, but, to Jasper Penny, pitched in a key of utter delight. He said little through supper; and, at its end, with Graham Jannan, immediately followed the others into theparlour. 

There Mary Jannan repeated her songs, French, English and Italian; andJasper Penny listened with a poignant, emotional response. Graham andhis wife had arranged to sleigh back to Shadrach Furnace that evening;but Susan Brundon was to stay at Myrtle Forge, and take the train fromJaffa to-morrow. The Jannans, finally, departed; and Jasper Penny, showing Susan through the chambers of the lower floor, succeeded indelaying her, seated, in the smoking room. 

XVII

Now that the moment which he had so carefully planned had arrived he wascuriously reluctant to precipitate Susan and himself into the future. The lamps on a mantel, hooded in alabaster, cast a diffused radianceover Susan's silvery dress, on her countenance faintly flushed above thewhite folds of the shawl. "What is that sound?" she suddenly queried. "Iheard it all through supper and before. It seems to live in the walls, the very air, here. "

"The trip hammer of Myrtle Forge, " he replied gravely. "I suppose itmight, fancifully, be called the beating of the Penny heart; it doespound through every associated stone; and I have a notion that when itstops we shall stop too. The Penny men have all been faithful to it, andit has been faithful to us, given us a hold in a new country, a hold ofwrought iron. "

"How beautiful, " she murmured; "how strong and safe!"

"It pleases me that you feel that, " he plunged directly into hispurpose; "for I intend to offer you all the strength and safety itcontains. " Her hands fluttered to her cheeks; a sudden fear touchedher, yet her eyes found his unwaveringly. "If that were all, " hecontinued, standing above her, "if I had only to tell you of the iron, if the metal were flawless, I'd be overwhelmed with gladness. But almostno iron is perfect, the longest refining leaves bubbles, faults. Men arelike that, too ... Susan. " She grew troubled, sensitively following hismood; her hands were now pressed to her breast, her lips parted. She wasso bewilderingly pure, in her dim-lit, pearly haze of silk, that hepaused with an involuntary contraction of pain at what must follow. 

"The child, Eunice, " he struggled on; "I couldn't leave her at theAcademy because it might injure you. I had brought her in a most blindegotism; and so I took her away. She is my daughter. "

He saw that at first she totally missed the implication of his words. "But, " she stammered, "I was told you had no ... How would that--?" Thenshe stopped as sharply as if a hand had compressed her throat. A vividmantle of colour rose in her face; she made a motion of rising, offlight, but sank back weakly. "It is criminally indelicate to speak toyou of this, " he said, "but it was absolutely necessary. I want to marryyou; in that circumstance a lie would be fatal, later or sooner. "

She attempted to speak, her lips quivered, but only a low gasp wasaudible. It was worse, even, than he had feared. Now, however, that hehad told her, he felt happier, more confident. Surely, after a little, she would forgive, forget, "I want to marry you, " he repeated, tornwith pity at her fragility, her visible suffering. "All that might hurtyou has been put out of my life, out of our future. The way is openbefore us, the refining. I would do anything to spare you, believe that;but the truth, now, best. "

"Always, " she said in a faint voice. "I am trying to--to realize. Oh! Isuppose such things do occur; but the child herself, you--don't see howthat, so near--" she broke off, gazing wide-eyed out of her misery. Hewas conscious of the dull, regular beat of the Forge hammer. God, howthe imperfections persisted! But, he told himself savagely, in the endthe metal was steadfast. He would, certainly, overcome her naturalrevulsion from what she had just heard. The colour had left her cheeks, violet shadows gathered about her eyes; she seemed more unsubstantialthan ever. He would repay again and again the suffering he had broughther. Having declared himself he was almost tranquil; there was a totalabsence of the impetuous emotionalism of youth, the blind tyranny ofdesire. His feeling was deeper, and accompanied by a far more involvedphilosophy of self-recognition. At the same time, while acutelyconscious of his absolute need of Susan Brundon, he was at a loss todiscover its essence, shape. Before he had known her he had beenobsessed by a distaste for his existence; he had desperately wantedsomething without definition ... And Susan was that desire, delicate, clear-eyed Susan. Yet, still, the heart of her escaped him. 

Jasper Penny had told himself that his new dissatisfaction was merelythe result of his accumulating years; but, beyond the fact that such anincrease might have brought him different and keener perceptions, thatexplanation was entirely inadequate. He wanted a quality beyond hisexperience, beyond, he realized, any material condition--Susan Brundon, yes; but it was no comparatively simple urge of sex, the naturalselection of the general animal creation. There was no question ofpassionate importunities; those, here, would be worse than futile; allthat he desired was beyond words, moving in obedience to a principle ofwhich he had not caught the slightest glimpse. Yet, confident of hisultimate victory, he maintained the dominating presence of a blackPenny. 

Susan Brundon had sunk back into the depths of her capacious chair; sheseemed utterly exhausted, as if she had been subjected to a prolongedbrutal strain. But still her eyes sought him steady in their hurtregard. "There is so much that I can give you, " he blundered, immediately conscious of the sterility of his phrase. "I mean betterthings--peace and attention and--and understanding. I won't attempt anyof the terms usual, commonplace, at such moments, you must take them, where they are worthy, for granted. I only tell you a lamentable fact, and ask you to marry me, promise you the tenderest care--"

"I know that, " she replied, with obvious difficulty, hesitation. "I'llnot thank you. It is terribly difficult for me. I'd like to answer youas you wish, I mean reply to--to your request. But the other, the child, dragged about; there was such a distrust, a wariness, in her face. "

"There is no good in thinking of that alone, " he stated, with a returnof his customary decision. "No one can walk backwards into the future. Try to consider only the immediate question, what I have asked you--willyou marry me?"

"Is that all you have to explain?" she asked. "Is there, now, no oneelse that counts?" The edge of a cold dread entered his hopes. "If yourefer to the child's mother, " he said stiffly, "she is amply well takencare of, you need waste no sentimental thoughts on her. "

"Ah!" Susan exclaimed, shrinking. Her hands closed tightly on the widesilk of her skirt. The fear deepened within him; it would be impossibleto explain Essie to the woman before him. Essie, falsely draped inconventional attributes, defied him to utter the simple truth. He ragedsilently at his impotence, the inhibition that prevented the expressionof what might be said for himself. Essie Scofield had, like every oneelse, lived in the terms of her being, attracting to herself whatessentially she was; it was neither bad nor good, but inevitable. Hiscontact with her had been the result of mutual qualities, qualities thatwere no longer valid. Yet to say that would place him in a damnablelight, give him the aspect of the meanest opportunist. Susan breathed, "That poor woman. " It was precisely what he had expected, feared--theadventitious illusion! He had an impulse to describe to her, even at theprice of his own condemnation, the condition in which he had foundEunice; but that too perished silently. Jasper Penny grew restive underthe unusual restraint of his position. 

"Do you mind--no more at present. " Susan Brundon said. "I am upset;please, another time; if it is necessary. I feel that I couldn't answeranything now, I must go up; no, your mother will show me. " She rose, andhe realized that she would listen no further. There was an astonishingstrength of purpose behind her deprecating presence. She was moredetermined than himself. He watched her walk evenly from the room, heardthe low stir of voices beyond, with a feeling that he had been perhapsfatally clumsy. All that he had said had been wrong, brutally selfish. He had deliberately invited failure; he should have been patient, waited; given her a chance to know and, if possible, value him, come todepend on him, on his judgment, his ability in her welfare. But, inplace of making himself a necessity, he had launched at once into factswhich she must find hideous. She had said, "another time, if necessary. "His mouth drew into a set line--there would be another and another, until he had persuaded, gained, her. 

He lit a cigar, and walked discontentedly up and across the room. Thesound of the Forge hammer again crept into his consciousness: the Pennyiron--the fibre, the actuality, of the Penny men! He repeated thisarrogantly; but the declaration no longer brought reassurance; thecertainty even of the iron faded from him; he had failed there, too, digging a pit of oblivion for all that their generations of toil hadaccomplished. The past inexorably woven into the pattern of the future!Eunice, so soon wary, distrustful, Susan had seen that immediately, would perpetuate all that he wished dead--Essie and himself boundtogether, projected in an undesirable immortality through endless livesstriving, like himself, to escape from old chains. 

If he failed with Susan his existence would have been an unmitigatedevil; the iron, his petty, material triumphs, would rust, but the othergo on and on. His thoughts became a maze of pity for Eunice, infiniteregret of the past, a bitter energy of hope for what might follow. 

He turned with pride to his forging--long-wrought charcoal iron; theworld would know no better. Still, with his penetration of the future, he realized that the old, careful processes were doomed. He haddifficulty in assembling enough adequate workmen to fill the increasingcontracts for bar iron and rails now; and the demand, with the extensionof steam railways, would grow resistlessly. More wholesale methods ofproduction were being utilized daily; he was one of the foremostadherents of "improvement"; but suddenly he felt a poignant regret atthe inevitable passing of the old order of great Ironmasters, theprincipalities of furnaces and forges. He was still, he felt, such amaster of his men and miles of forests and clearings, lime pits and orebanks, coal holes, mills, coke ovens, hearths and manufactories. Hemight still drive to Virginia through a continuous line of hisinterests; his domination over his labourers, in all their personal andindustrial implications, was patriarchal; he commanded, through theirallegiance and his entire grasp on every iota of their living, theirday's journey; but, he told himself, he was practically the last of hiskind. 

New and different industrial combinations were locking together in greatagglomerations of widely-separated activities; the human was supersededby the industrial machine, where men were efficient, subservient cogs ina cold and successful automaton of business. A system of general creditwas springing up; the old, old payments in kind, in iron or even mealand apparel, or gold, had given place to reciprocal understandings ofdeferred indebtedness. The actual thousands of earlier commerce werereplaced by theoretical millions. His own realty, his personal property, because of such understandings, were outside computation. They were, heknew, reckoned in surprising figures; but in a wide-spread panic, forcedliquidation, the greater part of his wealth would break like straw. Itwas the same with the entire country. 

His thoughts returned to Susan, to the longing for the peace, theinviolable security, she would bring to the centre, the heart, of hislife. No material catastrophe could shape, deplete, her richness ofspirit. Fragile as she was, with her need of rest, her diffidence andpallor, she yet seemed to Jasper Penny the most--the only--secure thingin the world. She defied, he murmured, death itself. Wonderful. 

He moved slowly to his sombre bed room, with its dark velour hangingsand ponderous black walnut furniture, precisely scrolled with gilt. Theinterior absorbed the light of a single lamp, robbing it of radiance. Aclock deliberately struck the hour with an audible whirring of thespring. Jasper Penny took out from a drawer a tall, narrow ledger, itscalf binding powdering in a yellow dust, with a blurring label, "Forgebook. Myrtle Forge, 1750. " He sat, opening it on the arm of an oldWindsor reading chair he had insisted on retaining among the recentupholstery, and studied the entries, some written in a small script withornamental capitals and red lined day headings, others in an abruptmanner with heavy down strokes. The latter, he knew, had been made byhis great grandfather, Howat. 

"Jonas Rupp charged with three pair of woollen stockings ... Shoes forMinnie. " Howat had been young when Minnie's shoes were new; twentysomething--five or six. He must have married not long after. Howat--like himself--a black Penny. The special interest Jasper Pennyfelt for this particular ancestor grew so vivid that he almost felt theother's presence in the room at his shoulder. He consciously repressedthe desire to turn suddenly and surprise the shadowy and yet clearfigure in the gloom. The features of the youth so long gone, and yet, too, he felt, the replica of his own young years, were plain; the darkeyes, slanted brows, the impatient mouth. 

His community of sympathy with the other, who was still, in a measure, himself, was inexplicable; for obviously Howat had escaped Jasper'sblundering--an early marriage, a son, the son whose name, like hismother's, made such an exotic note in a long, sound succession ofIsabels and Carolines and Gilberts, was a far different tale from hisown. Yet it persisted. It seemed to him that the silence of the roomgrew strained, there was the peculiar tension of a muteness desperatelystriving for utterance. He waited, listened, in a rigidity of which hewas suddenly ashamed; ridiculous. He relaxed; the memory of his ownyouth flooded back, rapt him in visions, scents, sounds. The premonitorywhirring of the clock spring sounded once more, followed by the slow, increasing strokes ... Again. His body wavered, on the verge of sleep, and he straightened himself sharply; then he rose and, putting back theForgebook, undressed. 

Susan, at breakfast, her shoulders wrapped in a serious-toned pelerine, said little. Jasper Penny instinctively excluded her from a trivialconversation. She was, he decided, paler than usual, the shadows underher eyes were indigo. He was filled with self-condemnation. Mrs. Penny, gazing at her with a beady discernment, asked if her rest had beeninterrupted. "I am always an indifferent sleeper, " Susan Brundon repliedevasively. He followed her into the carriage that was to take her to thestation at Jaffa; and, ignoring her slight gasp of protest, grasped thereins held by the negro coachman. However, they proceeded over the shortdistance to the town without speech. He was torn between a wish to spareher and the desire to urge his own purpose. But more immediately hewanted to make secure the near hour of his seeing her again. He asked, finally, "Will you be at the Jannans' this week, or are visitorsreceived at the Academy?"

"No, " she replied to the first; "and I have very little time betweenclasses. You see, they fill the whole day, tasks and pleasures. It isdifficult for me to--to talk on a generality of themes with callers. "

"I have no intention of being diffuse, " he replied pointedly. "I couldconfine my entire conversation to one request--"

"Please, " she interrupted pitiably. "I am utterly wretched now. Thesimplest gentility--" she paused, but her wish was clear. He restrainedhimself with difficulty. Drifting slowly across the scattered roofs ofthe town was the leaden smoke of his mills and fires; as they drove intothe main street the thin crash of his iron was audible. Men everywherebowed to him with marked respect. But the woman at his side sat erect, drawn away from him, unmoved by all that, to the world, he was. Therewas an appalling quality in her aloofness from what, materially, hemight advance in extenuation; the things so generally potent here wereno more than slag. He searched within for what might bend, influence, her, for whatever he might have of value in her eyes. He found nothing. It was a novel and painful experience; and it bred in him a certainanger; he became merely stubborn. He declared to himself, with an oath, that he would gain her; and he pulled up his horses viciously at thestation rack. This, too, hurt her; she exclaimed faintly at the brutallydrawn bits. A man hurried forward to take her bag, and then, in ablowing of horn, a harsh exhaust of steam, she was gone. A last, hurriedimpression of her delicate profile on a small pane of glass accompaniedhim back to Myrtle Forge. There his mother regarded him with an openconcern. "Something's on your mind, " she declared. "I passed your doorat midnight, and there was light under it. I've often told you aboutsitting up late. "

"I'm getting along, " he replied lightly. "You fail to do justice to theweight of my increasing majority. But, in a little, you'll be astonishedat my renewed youth. " He became serious in speaking, conscious of thenew life Susan would, must, bring into his existence. 

XVIII

Since he had declared himself so decidedly and at once, no hesitationwas possible; he must, he was aware, move remorselessly forward inassault. To sweep Susan Brundon into his desire, overwhelm herdefences--he called them prejudices but immediately after withdrew thatterm--offered the greatest, the only promise of success. An obliteratingsnow fell for the following thirty hours, and a week went by in thereadjustment to ordinary conditions of living and travel. But at the endof that period Jasper Penny left Myrtle Forge for the city, with adetermined, an almost confident, mouth, and a bright, hard gaze. Lateafternoon, he decided, would be the best time for his appearance at theAcademy. And the western sky was a luminous, bright red when he passedunder the stripped, uneasy branches of the willow trees to the schooldoor. 

Miss Brundon's office, rigorous as the corridor of a hospital, had atable and uncompromising wooden chairs on a rectangle of bluish-pinkcarpet; a glowing, round stove held a place on a square of gleaming, embossed zinc, while the remaining surfaces were scrubbed oak flooringand white calcimine. A large geographer's globe, a sphere of pale, glazed yellow traced in violet and thin vermilion and cobalt, rested onan involuted mahogany stand; and a pile of text books covered in gaymuslin made a single, decisive note of colour. 

She kept him waiting, he felt uneasily, a long while; perhaps she had aclass; but he felt that that was not the reason for her delay. When shefinally appeared in soft brown merino, with a deep fichu of old, darklace, and black ribbons, she courageously held out a delightfully cool, smooth hand. "At first, " she said directly, "I thought it would bebetter not to see you at all. Yet that wasn't genteel; and I felt, too, that I must speak to you. Even at the danger, perhaps, of trespassinginto your privacy. "

"I have given you the absolute right to do that, " he told her. "It willonly bring me pleasure, to--to suppose I interest you enough--"

"Ah, but you do, " she cried with clasping fingers. "It has made my workhere very difficult; the quiet has gone before echoes that I think everychild must hear, echoes from spaces and things that appall me. Here, yousee, I have lived so apart from others, perhaps selfishly, that I hadgrown accustomed to a false sense of peace. Only lessons and littlequestions, little hands. It seems now that I have been outside of lifeitself, in a cowardly seclusion. Yet it had always been that way; Ididn't know. " Her face was deeply troubled, the clear depths of her eyesheld a new questioning doubt. 

"It's because of that, mainly, I ask you to marry me, " he replied, standing before the table at which, unconsciously, she had taken herplace; "it is because of your astonishing purity. You are so beautiful;and this quiet, peace--you must have it all your life; it is the air, the garden air, for you to flower in. I can give it to you, miles of it, farther than you can see. All that you care for heaped about you. Butnot that only, " he insisted, "for I realized that no one lives to whomsuch things are less; I can give you something more, not to be talkedabout; whatever my life has been it has at least brought me to yourfeet. I have learned, for you, that there is a thing men must have, Godknows exactly what--a craving to be satisfied, a--a reaching. And thatitself, the knowledge of such need, is not without value. Because of itI again, and shall again, if necessary, ask you to marry me. "

She replied in a low voice. "You must marry the child's mother. " For thefirst time she avoided him; bright blood burned in her cheeks; a hand onthe edge of the table was straining, white. A sudden feeling ofhelplessness came over him, with, behind it, the ever-present edge ofanger, of impatience. He took a step forward, as if to crush, by sheerinsistence, her opposition; but he stopped. He lost entirely the senseof her fragile physical being; she seemed only a spirit, shining andhigh, and insuperably lovely. Then all feeling was lost but therealization that he could not--in any true sense--live without her. "Susan, " he said, leaning forward, "you must marry me. Do you care forme at all?"

Her breast rose and fell under the delicate contour of her wool gown. "The child's mother, " she repeated, "you should marry her. How can youdo differently? What can it matter if I care about you?" She raised amiserable face. "How can I?" she asked. 

He could think of no other answer than to repeat his supreme necessityfor her. He struggled to tell her that this was an altogether differentman from Essie Scofield's companion; but his words were unconvincing, limited by the inhibition of custom. A transparent dusk deepened in theroom accompanied by a pause only broken by the faint explosions of thesoft coal. The power of persuasion, of speech, appeared to have lefthim. There must be some convincing thing to say, some last, all-powerful, argument. It eluded him. The exasperation returned, spreading through his being. 

"Surely, " she said laboriously, "there is only one course for you, forus all. "

"I'll never marry Essie Scofield!" he declared bluntly. His voice wasunexpectedly loud, unpleasant; and it surprised him only less than SusanBrundon. She drew back, and the colour sank from her cheeks; anincreasing fear of him was visible. "In the first place, " he continued, "Essie probably wouldn't hear of it. And if I managed that it would beonly to make a private hell for us both. It would not, it couldn't, lasta month. There is nothing magical in marriage itself, there's no generalsalvation in it, nothing to change a man or woman. Why, by heaven, that's what you have taught me, that is the heart of my wanting you. Youmust feel it to understand. " He circled the table and laid a hand on theback of her chair. "Susan. "

Her head was bowed, and he could see only her smooth, dark bands of hairand the whiteness of her neck. "Susan, " he said again. "A second wrongwill not cure the first. If one was inexcusable the other would befatal. Married--to some one else, with yourself always before me--surelyyou must see the impossibility of that. And am I to come to nothing, eternally fail, because of the past? Isn't there any escape, any hope, any possibility? You don't realize how very much will go down with me. Iam a man in the middle of life, and haven't the time, the elasticity, ofyouth. A few more years to the descent. But, with you, they could besplendidly useful, happy; happy, I think, for us both. I know that agreat many people would say as you have, but it is wrong in everyaspect, absolutely hopeless. Essie's values are totally different fromyours; she has her own necessities; one measure will not do for allwomen. "

She rose and stood facing him, very near, her crinoline swaying againsthim, and said blindly, "You shall marry her. "

"I'll be damned if I do, " Jasper Penny asserted. "I will marry you, you, " he whispered, with his lips against the fineness of her ear. Herhands were on his shoulders; but she neither drew herself into hisembrace nor repulsed him. He wanted to crush her softness in his arms, to kiss her still face into acquiescence. The quality, the kind, of hisneed made it impossible. She slipped back without a sound into herchair, drooping forward over the table. 

A sharp pity invaded him, holding him back from her, silencing the flowof his reasoning and appeal. It defeated, in the stirring tenderness ofits consideration, his purpose. He could not continue tormenting her, racking her delicate, taut sensibilities by a hard insistence. Hewithdrew quietly, to where his hat and stick rested on a chair, andgathered them up. Still she didn't move, raise her head, break the lowfumbling of the soft coal. He could no longer distinguish her clearly, she was blurring in a dusk deeping so imperceptibly that it seemed agradual failing of his vision. The geographer's globe appeared to swayslightly, like a balloon tied to a string; the gay muslin of the piledtext books had lost their designs. Suddenly the room without motion, theapproaching night, the desirable presence of the woman growing moreimmaterial, more shadow-like to elude his reaching hands, presented asymbol, an epitome, of himself. Day fading swiftly into dark; dissolvingthe realities of table and flesh and floor; leaving only the hunger, the insuperable inner necessity and sense of loss. 

"Good-bye, " he breathed. Jasper Penny saw that she raised her head, hecaught the glimmering pallor of her face. But she said nothing, and sankback into the crumpled position on the table. He went out, closing thedoor of the office, shutting her into the loneliness of her resolve, herinsistence. 

In the familiar rooms at Sanderson's Hotel he revolved again and againall that she had said. For a little he even endeavoured to inspectcalmly the possibility of a marriage with Essie Scofield. Steeped inSusan's spirit he thought of it as a reparation, to Eunice, perhaps toEssie, but more certainly to an essence within himself. But immediatelyhe saw the futility of such a course; the inexorable logic of existencecould not be so easily placated, its rhyming of cause and effectdefeated. All that he had told Susan Brundon recurred strengthened to animmovable conviction. The thought of marrying Essie was intolerable, farcical; to the woman herself it would mean utter boredom. Such a thingmust lead inevitably to a greater misfortune than any of the past. Susan, in her resplendent ignorance of facts, failed to realize theimpossibility of what she upheld. No, no, it was out of the question. 

He wondered if he had progressed in the other, his supreme, wish. And hefelt, with a stirring of blood, that he had. Susan cared for him; heraction had made that plain. That was a tremendous advantage; withanother he would have thought it conclusive; but not--not quite withSusan Brundon. He had a deep regard for her determination, so surprisingin the midst of her fragility. Yet, if pity had not prevented him, thisafternoon, in her office, he might have forced her to a sharperrealization of a more earthly need, the ache for sympathy, consolation, the imperative cry of self. That was his greatest difficulty, toovercome her lifelong habit of thinking of others before herself. Such, he knew, was the root of her appeal for Essie, rather than a cold, dogmatic conception. Self-effacement. 

At this a restive state followed; personally he had no confidence in thesacrifice of individual aims and happiness. Any course of that sort, hetold himself, in the management of his practical affairs, would haveresulted in his failure. There were a hundred men in the countryplotting for his overthrow, anxious to take his position, scheming toundersell him, to discover the secret of the quality of his iron rails. Others he had deliberately, necessarily, ruined. No good would have beenserved by his stepping aside, allowing smaller men to flourish and annoyhim, cut down his production by inconsiderable sales. He, and hisfamily, had built a great, yes, and beneficial, industry by ruthlesslybeating out a broad and broader way for their progress. It was needfulto gaze fixedly at the end desirable and move in the straightest linepossible. 

Susan stopped by the way. A thousand little acts of alleviation, atbest temporary, interrupted her living. Children, not hers, dragged ather skirt. How much better for her to have a child of her own. Theirchild! A great deal that had been vague in his thoughts became concreteat that last period; not only the possible succession of the iron, butthe comprehension that a child now, before the increasing sterility ofmultiplying years, would be an image of all his inmost craving and whichmust else be lost. 

Eunice was different. Pity, mingled with a rigid sense of his duty and afaint accent of parenthood, comprehended his feeling for her. He statedthis to himself clearly, admitting what delinquency it carried. It was, simply, an incontrovertible fact; and it was his habit to meet suchthings squarely. A black Penny, he had no impulse to see existence inimposed sentimental or formally moral conceptions. From all this hereturned with a feeling of delight to his personal longing for SusanBrundon; he saw her bowed over the table in an exhaustion almost anattitude of surrender. A slender, pliable figure in soft merino andlace. He saw her beyond the candles of Graham Jannan's supper table, arose geranium at her breast. The motto of the bon bon partiallyreturned:

"... Ange du ciel ... Je t'aime!... Le bon heur supreme!"

XIX

In the morning he walked over to Stephen Jannan's office on FourthStreet. The day was unexpectedly warm, and a mist rose about the wetbricks of the city. He proceeded directly into Stephen's privateenclosure. "I was about to write you, " the latter stated. "It's wellenough for you to direct Mrs. Scofield to confine her pleas to me, andcomparatively simple to picture her drawing a quarterly sum in anorderly manner; but how you are going to realize that happy conceptionis increasingly beyond me. I have to point out to her daily--a greatnuisance it is--that she cannot have her income before it is due. Heavenknows what she has done with the other money in so short a while. Shehasn't moved, apparently increased her establishment; at your directionthe bills were settled, and heaven knows she had no reluctance inpresenting all that were permissible and a number doubtful. There is, ofcourse, one probability. "

Jasper Penny's thoughts returned to the stony, handsome youth he hadseen in the company of Essie's friends, to the insinuations of the womanwho had been removed protesting her superiority and warning him againsta "tailor's dummy. " Well, it was no longer his affair what Essie didwith her money, what in her affections remained unimpaired. Rather itwas reassuring that she had so promptly found solace; it enlarged hisown feeling of freedom. "It got worse, yesterday, " Stephen Jannancontinued; "she came to the office, insisted on seeing me. Luckily I wasbusy with a mastership that kept me over three hours. But she left, Iwas told, with the air of one soon to return. She was brandied withpurpose. There is no end, Jasper, to what I am prepared to do for you;but, my dear fellow, neither of us can have this. She wept. My younggentlemen were pierced with sympathetic curiosity. You must realize, Jasper, that you are not a sparrow, to float unnoticed from ledge toledge. "

An angry impotence seized Jasper Penny. He was tempted to have StephenJannan turn over to Essie, at once, a conclusive sum of money. Thatwould put an end to any communication between them, provide her with thepower of self-gratification which for Essie Scofield spelledforgetfulness.... For a little, he was obliged, wearily, to add. Together with such a young man as he had seen in her house her capacityfor expenditure would be limitless. She would come back to him withfresh demands, perhaps at an inconceivably awkward time, in a calculatedhysteria--he had cause to know--surprisingly loud and convincing. Susanmust be absolutely secured against that possibility. He could not helpbut think of the latter as yielding in the end, married to him. 

He gazed at Stephen Jannan in a sombre perplexity. "A nuisance, " theother nodded. "Only time, I suppose, and the most rigid adherence toyour statements will convince the lady of what she may expect. In themeanwhile, frankly, we had better put it in some other hands; not somuch on my account as your own--the sympathetic young gentlemen, yousee. That can be easily arranged. "

Jasper Penny was not thinking of the material Essie, the present, concrete problem; but he was once more absorbed in the manner in whichher influence followed, apparently shaped, his existence. He was againappalled by the vitality of the past; the phrase itself was an error, there was no past. All that had gone, that was to come, met ceaselesslyin the present, a confusion of hope and regret. It was evident that hewould have to see Essie again, and explain that what she had from himdepended entirely on her reciprocal attitude. This could only besatisfactory in person. He would go to her at once, to-day. An enormousreluctance to enter her house again possessed him. The mere act had theaspect of an acknowledgment of her continued potency, her influence overhim. He put it off as long as possible, and it was past five when hefinally walked slowly toward her door. 

She was in; and he saw, on the hall stand, a silk hat and overcoat cutin an extreme of current fashion. The servant preceded him above, towardthe room usual for casual gatherings; and he heard a sudden low murmur, expostulation, follow the announcement of his name. Essie Scofieldappeared at the top of the stairs. "Come up, " she said in a hesitating, sullen voice. He mounted without reply. As he had expected Daniel Culserwas present, and rose to greet him negligently, from a lounging attitudeon the sofa. His coat, cut back to the knees, was relentlessly tapered, the collar enormously rolled and revered, and a white Marseilleswaistcoat bore black spots as large as a Bolivian half dollar; while ablack scarf, it was called the Du Casses, fell in an avalanche ofruffles. He moved toward the door, fitting his coat carefully about hisslim waist, "I'm away, Essie, " he proclaimed. 

"When will you come again, Daniel?" she asked with an oppressivehumility. She gazed at Jasper Penny with a momentary delay; then, withan utter disregard of his presence, laid her hands on the younger man'sshoulders. "Soon, " she begged. Obviously ill at ease he abruptlyreleased himself. "I don't care, " she cried defiantly; "I'll tell thewhole world you are the sweetest man in it. Jasper's nothing to me nor Ito him. And I'm not afraid of him, of what he might threaten, either. Stay, Daniel, and you'll see. I will look out for us, Dan. "

Her unexpected frankness was inevitably followed by an awkward silence. Daniel Culser finally cursed below his breath, avoiding Jasper's coldinquiring gaze. "I'm glad I said it, " Essie proceeded; "now he knows howthings are. " She went up again to the younger, and laid a clinging armabout his shoulders. "I'm mad about you, Daniel, you know it; there'snothing I wouldn't do for you, give you if I could. Isn't he beautiful?"she fatulously demanded of Jasper Penny. 

"You are making a fool of yourself and me, " the subject of her adulationroughly declared. He removed her arm so forcibly that the scarlet printof his fingers was visible on her soft, dead white skin. "Probably youhave gone and spoiled everything. And remember what I said. I am a manof my word. "

Jasper Penny dryly thought that the term man was singularlyinappropriate in any connection with the meticulously garbed figurebefore him. Essie would have a difficult time with that stony youth. Sheregarded him with eyes of idolatry, drawing her fingers over the sleeveimpatiently held aside from her touch. "I'm going, " he stated once more, impolitely; but she barred him at the door. "I want you to stay, " shecried excitedly; "hear what I am going to say, what I am going to do foryou. " She advanced toward Jasper Penny. "I asked that Jannan for moremoney because I had given Daniel all I had, and I wanted still more, togive him. I'll demand things all my life for him; everything I have ishis. " She gasped, at the verge of an emotional outburst. Her heartpounded unsteadily beneath an adventitious lace covering; her face wasleaden with startling daubs of vermilion paint. "Give me a great dealof money, now, at once ... So that I can go to Daniel with my handsfull. "

"That is why I came here, " Jasper Penny replied; "to tell you that youmust not use up your income at once, on the first week, almost, of itspayment; because you will be able to get no more until anotherinstalment is due. I haven't the slightest interest in where your moneygoes, it is absolutely your own; but I cannot have you after it everysecond day. The administration will be put in a different quarter, rigidly dispensed; and any continued inopportunities will only result indifficulties for yourself. "

She cursed him in a gasping, spent breath. Essie looked ill, he thought. Daniel Culser, listening at the door, made a movement to leave, but thewoman prevented him, hanging about his neck. "No! No!" she exclaimed. "It will be all right, I can get it ... More. Be patient. " Jasper Pennywalked stiffly to the exit, where he paused at the point of repeatinghis warning. Essie Scofield was lifting a quivering, tear-drenched faceto the vexation of the fashionable youth. He was attempting to repulseher, but she held him with a desperation of feeling. The elder descendedthe stairs without further speech. 

Outside, the warmth of the day had continued into dusk. The mist hadthickened, above which, in a momentary rift, he could see the starsswimming in removed constellations. He was wrapped in an utter loathingof the scene through which he had passed, his undeniable part in it. Itwas all hideous beyond words. His late need, his sense of void andillimitable longing, tormented him ceaselessly. He was sick withrebellion against life, an affair of cunning traps and mud and fog. Above the obscured and huddled odium of the city the distances wereclear, serene. Above the degradation ... Susan. A tyrannical desire tosee her possessed him, an absolute necessity for the purification of hermere presence. Unconsciously he quickened his step, charged withpurpose; but he couldn't go to the Academy now; it was six o'clock. Hemust delay an hour at least. Habit prompted him to a supper which heleft untried on its plates, the lighting of a cigar, quickly cold, forgot. At seven he hurried resolutely over the dark streets with thedim luminosity of occasional gas lamps floating on the unstirring whitegloom. The bricks under foot were soggy, and the curved sign above herentrance, the bare willows, dropped a pattering moisture. 

She saw him immediately, not in the familiar office, but in a hall laidwith cold matting and nearly filled by a stairway, lit with a lamp atthe further end. "I am sorry, " she told him; "I have no place to takeyou. The rhetoric mistress is correcting papers there, " she indicatedthe shut door. He made no immediate answer, content to gaze at hersensitive, appealing countenance. "It is so warm, " she said finally, colouring at his intentness, "and I have been indoors all day. I mightget my things. We could, perhaps ... A walk, " she spoke rapidly, herhead bent from him. She drew back, then hesitated. "Very well, " hereplied. Susan disappeared, but she quickly returned, in a little violetbonnet bound and tied with black, and a dark azure velvet cloak furredat her wrists and throat. She held a muff doubtfully; but, in the end, took it with her. 

Outside, the mist and night enveloped them in a close, damp veil. Theyturned silently to the right, passing the narrow mouth of Currant Alley, and Quince Street beyond. The bricks became precarious, and gave placeto a walk of boards; the corners about a broad, muddy way were built up;but farther on the dwellings were scattered--lighted windows showeddimly behind bare catalpas, iron fences enclosed orderly patches betweensodden flats, gas lamps grew fewer. 

A deep, all-pervading contentment surrounded Jasper Penny, anunreasoning, happy warmth. He said nothing, his stick now striking onthe boards, now sinking into earth, and gazed down at Susan, her facehid by the rim of her bonnet. This companionship was the best, all, thatlife had to offer. He felt no need to importune her about the future, their marriage; curiously it seemed as though they had been married, andwere walking in the security, the peace, of a valid and enduring bond. There was no necessity for talk, laborious explanation, periodsinfinitely more empty than this silence. They walked as close to eachother as her skirt would permit; and at times her muff, swinging on awrist, would brush softly against him. How strangely different theactual values of existence were from the emphasized, trite moments andemotions. In the middle of his life, at the point of his greatestcapability for experience, his most transcendent happiness came from thepresent, the deliberate, unquestioning walk with Susan, the aimlessprogress through an invisible city and under a masked clear heaven ofstars. No remembered thrill compared with it, reached the same height, achieved a similar dignity of consummation. 

The way became more uneven; low clustered sheds rose out of the darknessagainst a deeper black beyond, and they came to the river. The bank wasmarshy, but a track of pounded oyster shells, visible against the mud, led to a wharf extending into the solid, voiceless flow of the water. Jasper Penny stood with Susan gazing into the blanketing gloom. A wan, disintegrated radiance shone from a riding light in the rigging of avessel, and a passing warm blur flattened over the wet deck as a lanternwas carried forward. No other lights, and no movement, rose from theriver; no sound was audible at their back. The city, from the evidenceof Jasper Penny's sensibilities, did not exist; it had fallen out of hisconsciousness; suddenly its bricked miles, its involved life stilled orhectic, stealthy in the dark, seemed a thing temporary, adventitious;he had an extraordinary feeling of sharing in a permanence, acontinuity, outlasting stone, iron, human tradition. He had been swept, he thought, into a movement where centuries were but the fretful tickingof seconds. "Outside death, " he said fantastically, unconsciously aloud. A remarkable sentence recurred to him, the most profound, he toldhimself, ever written: "Before he was I am. " Its vast implicationseasily evaded his finite mind, just as the essence of his presentrapture--it was no less--lay beyond his grasp. He lingered over it; gaveit up ... Returned to Susan. 

"Wonderful, " she said gravely, with a comprehensive wave of her muff. And her simplicity thrilled him the more with the knowledge that sheshared his feeling. She drew up the fur collar of her cloak, shivered;and, in the wordless harmony that pervaded them, they turned andretraced their way. 

The rhetoric mistress had left the office with a low turned lamp, andJasper Penny stopped, taking the furred wrap from Susan's shoulders. Sheslowly untied the velvet strings of her bonnet, and laid it on thetable. She extended her hands toward him, and, taking their coolslightness, he drew her to him. She rested with the fragrance of hercheek against his face, with her hands pressed to his breast. They stoodmotionless; he closed his eyes, and she was gone. He was confused in thedimness empty except for himself, and fumbled with, his gloves. Susan'swrap lay limply over a chair; the damp bonnet ribbons trailed toward thefloor. He looked slowly about, noting every object--a pile of foldedyellow papers, the stove, the globe bearing a quiver of light on itsvarnished surface. 

The willow trees and board above the entrance were dripping ceaselessly;the lights of the city, increasing at its centre, like the discs offloating sunflowers. If he slept he was unaware of it, the magic joy soequally penetrated his waking and subconscious hours, the feeling of anelevation higher than years and mountains was so strong. The morning, hefound, was again cold, and clear. He must go out to Jaffa, where newblast machines demanded attention; but, the day after--

His thoughts were broken by a sharp rap on the outer door. Mr. StephenJannan was below, and demanded to see him immediately. Stephen'sappearance at the hotel at that early hour, he recognized, was unusual. But a glance at his cousin's serious aspect showed him at once that thereason was urgent. Stephen Jannan, as customary, was particularlygarbed; and yet he had an expression of haste, disturbance. He said atonce, in the bedroom where Jasper Penny was folding his scarf. 

"That young waster, Culser, Daniel Culser, was shot and killed in Mrs. Scofield's house last evening. "

The ends of the scarf fell neglected over the soft, cambric frills ofhis shirt. Jasper Penny swallowed dryly. "At what time?" he asked. 

"He was seen in the Old White Bear Tavern at about seven, thenapparently he went back to the woman's. The servant said he found thebody at something past nine, and that there had been no other caller butyourself. "

His hearer expressed a deep, involuntary relief. "I was there late inthe afternoon, " he acknowledged; "but I left around six. " StephenJannan, too, showed a sudden relaxation. "I have already sent a messageto the Mayor, " he continued; "confident that you would clear yourselfwithout delay. Mrs. Scofield's history is, of course, known to thepolice. You have only to establish your alibi; she, Essie Scofield, can't be found for the moment. She may have taken an early stage out ofthe city; but it is probable that she has only moved into another policedistrict. Just where were you, Jasper?"

The latter said stupidly, "Walking with Susan Brundon. "

A swiftly augmented concern gathered on Stephen Jannan's countenance. "You were walking with Susan, " he repeated increduously. "Yes, " Jasperasserted, with a sharp inner dread. "You don't know, but I want to marryher. " Stephen Jannan faced him with an exclamation of anger. "You wantto marry her, and, in consequence, drag her, Susan, into the dirtiestaffair the city is like to know for years. Susan Brundon, with herAcademy; all she has, all her labour, destroyed, ruined, pulled topieces by slanderous tongues! By God, Jasper, what a beast you look! Themost delicate woman, alive, the one farthest from just this sort ofmuck, being sworn in the Mayor's office, testifying in an obscene murdercase, before the Sheriff and Constable, and heaven knows what police andvilely curious!"

A sickening feeling of utter destruction seized on Jasper Penny, adropping of his entire being from the heights of yesterday to the lastdegradation. He felt the blood leave his heart and pound dizzily in hisbrain, and then recede, followed by an icy coldness, a wavering of thecommonplace objects of the room. He raised his fingers to his collar, stared with burning eyes at Stephen Jannan. "Everything spoiled, " thelatter said again; "her pupils will positively be taken from her at onceby all the nice females. Her name will be pronounced, smiled over, inevery despicable quarter of the city, printed in the daily sheets. I--Ican't forgive you for this. Susan, our especial joy!"

Jasper Penny saw in a flash, as vivid and remorseless as a stab oflightning, that this was all true. The fatality of the past, sweepingforward in a black, strangling tide, had overtaken not only himself butSusan, too; Susan, in soft merino, in an azure velvet cloak; her faceagainst his. "I shall go away at once, " he said hoarsely. "I'll neverappear, and they can think what they will. Then there will be nonecessity for her to come forward. She shall be spared that, no matterwhat it costs. "

"Romantic and youthful folly, " Jannan declared; "loud-sounding anduseless. How little you understand Susan--immediately it is known Culserwas killed between seven and nine, whether you stay or go, she will comeforward with the truth, free you from any suspicion. I tell you everydetail will be canvassed, familiar to the boys on the street. A manimportant as yourself, with all your industries and money, and suchsalacity, together with Susan Brundon, will make a pretty story. If Ihad a chance, Jasper, I'm almost certain I'd sacrifice you without aquiver. How could you? Susan Brundon! Never telling her--"

"On the contrary, she knew everything. I am not so low as you seem tothink. "

"That has no importance now!" Stephen Jannan exclaimed impatiently. "Allthat matters is to make it as easy as possible for her, I have, I think, enough position, influence, to keep the dregs out. But there will beenough present, even then. Damnable insinuations, winks, cross-questioning. "

His excitement faded before the exigencies of the unavoidable situation;he became cold, logical, legal. Jasper Penny listened, standing, to hisinstructions, the exact forecasting of every move probable at thehearing in the Mayor's chamber. "After that, " Stephen added, "we canface the problem of Susan's future. She thinks tremendously of herschool. It will fall to pieces in her hands. There can be no question ofmaterial assistance; refused her own brother. 

"Now, understand--stay in these rooms until I send for you. See no one. I'll get on, go to Susan. The thing itself should be short; hercharacter will assist you there. What a mess you have made of living, Jasper. "

XX

In the silence of the sitting room Jasper Penny heard diverse and yetmingled inner voices: Essie's younger, exuberant periods, her joy atpresents of gold and jewelled trifles; changing, rising shrilly, to herlast imploring sobs, her frantic embrace of the man that, beyond anydoubt, she had herself killed. Running through this were the strains ofa quadrille, the light sliding of dancing feet, and the sound of a low, diffident voice, Susan Brundon at the Jannans' ball. The voicecontinued, in a different surrounding, and woven about it was the thincomplaint of a child, of Eunice, taken against her will from theAcademy. These three, Essie and Susan and Eunice, combined, now onerising above the other, yet inexplicably, always, the same. Back of themwere other, less poignant, echoes, flashes of place, impressions ofassociated heat or cold, darkness or light:

He saw the features of Howat Penny, in the canvas by Gustavus Hesselius, regarding him out of a lost youth; he recalled, and again experienced, the sense of Howat's nearness; integral with himself; merging into hisown youth, no less surely lost, yet enduring. His mother joined theimmaterial company, accents, rigid with pride in him. And penetrating, binding, all was the dull beat of the trip hammer at Myrtle Forge. Hehad mechanically finished dressing, and stood absently twisting thedrapery at a window. A fine tracery of lines had suddenly appeared abouthis eyes; the cold rays of the winter sun, streaming over his erectfigure, accentuated the patches of grey plentiful in his hair. 

He saw, on the street below, a parade of firemen, in scarlet tunics andbrass helmets, dragging a glittering engine. The men walked evenlyabreast, at cross ropes. A leader blew a brilliant fanfare on anembossed, silver horn. Women passed, foreshortened into circular bellsof colour, draped with gay pelerines and rich India shawls. He saw alland nothing. The horn of the firemen sounded without meaning on hisdistracted hearing. The flood of his suffering rose darkly, oppressinghis heart, choking his breath. Perhaps if, as he had desired, he hadgone away, Susan would be spared. But Stephen was right; nothing couldkeep her from the pronouncement of the words that would free him andbind herself in intolerable ill. Her uprightness was terrible. It wouldtake her fearful but determined into the pits of any hell. His handsslowly clenched, his muscles tightened, in a spasm of anguish. God, whyhadn't he recognized the desperation in Essie's quivering face! It wouldhave been already too late, he added in thought; it went back, back--

A knock sounded discreetly on the door: and, opening it, he saw a youngman, remembered as a law student in Stephen's office. "They are readyfor you, sir, at the City Hall, " he stated, in an over-emphasized, professional calm. 

XXI

The restrained curiosity and inaudible comments which greeted hispassage through the lower floor of the hotel gave place to a livelierinterest when he was readily recognized on the street. The news of themurder had, evidently, already become city property. He was indicated toindividuals unaware of his identity, with a rapid sketch of the crime, of fabulous ascribed possessions, and hinted oriental indulgence. Hestrode on rapidly, his shoulders squared, his expression contemptuous, challenging; but within he was possessed by an apprehension increasingat every step. It was not, fortunately, far from Sanderson's Hotel tothe City Hall; west on Chestnut Street they reached their destination atthe following corner. The loungers from the trees before the State Househad gathered, with an increasing mob aware of the hearing within, at theentrance to the municipal offices. The windows on either side of themarble steps were crowded with faces, ribald or blank or censorious, andJasper Penny had to force his way into the building. He tried to recallif there was another, more private, ingress, through which Susan mightbe taken; but his thoughts evaded every discipline; they whirled in afeverish course about the sole fact of the public degradation he hadbrought on Susan Brundon. They passed the doors of civic departments, hesaw their signs--Water, City Treasurer, and then entered the Mayor'schamber. 

The latter was seated at a table facing the room with his back to a widewindow, opening on the blank brick wall of the Philosophical Societybuilding; and at one side the High Constable of the district in whichthe murder had been committed was conversing with the Sheriff. Besidethem, Jasper Penny saw, there were only some clerks present and threepolicemen. The Mayor spoke equably to the Ironmaster, directed a chairplaced for his convenience, and resumed the inspection of a number ofreports. He had a gaunt, tight-lipped face framed in luxuriant whiskers, a severely moral aspect oddly contradicted by trousers of tremendoussporting plaid, a waistcoat of green buckskin cassimere, while his silkhat held a rakish, forward angle. The Constable and Sheriff punctuatedtheir converse by prodigious and dexterous spitting into a dangerouslyfar receptacle, and the clerks and police murmured together. The Mayor, finally glancing at a watch enamelled, Jasper Penny saw, with a fay ofthe ballet, spoke to the room in general. "Ten and past. Well! Well!Where are the others? Who is to come still, Hoffernan?"

"Mr. Jannan, sir; and a witness, " a clerk answered. The other gazed atthe paper before him. 

"Susan Brundon, " he read in a loud, uncompromising tone. Jasper Penny'seyes narrowed belligerently; he would see that these pothousepoliticians gave Susan every consideration possible. He was, withStephen, a far from negligible force in the city elections. "Schoolmistress, " the Mayor read on. "Never heard of her or her school. Ah--"Stephen Jannan had entered with Susan. 

Jasper rose as she came forward, and the Mayor had the grace to removehis hat. She wore, he saw, the familiar dress of wool, with a sober, fringed black silk mantle, black gloves and an inconspicuous bonnet. Shemet his harried gaze, and smiled; but beneath her greeting he was awareof a supreme tension. There was, however, no perceptible nervousness inthe manner of her accepting an indicated place; she sat with her handsquietly folded in her lap, the mantle drooping back over the chair. Stephen Jannan, facing the Mayor, made a concise statement in a cold, deliberate voice. "I now propose to show your honour, " he finished, "that, between the hours in which Daniel Culser is said to have beenshot to death, my client was peacefully in the company of Miss Brundon, strolling in an opposite quarter of the city. "

"Hoffernan, " the Mayor pronounced, waving toward the seated woman. Theclerk advanced with a Bible; and, rising, Susan followed the words ofthe oath in a low, clear voice. To Jasper Penny the occasion seemedintolerably prolonged, filled with needless detail. Never had SusanBrundon appeared more utterly desirable, never had his need to protect, shield, her been stronger. He--protect her, he added bitterly; rather hehad betrayed her, dragged her immaculate sweetness down into the foulatmosphere of a criminal hearing. His attention, fastening on thetrivialities of the interior, removed him in a species of self-hypnotismfrom the actualities of the scene. He heard, as if from a distance, thequestioning of the Mayor, "At what time, exactly, did you say? How didyou know that?" Susan said, "I saw the clock at the back of the hall. Inoticed it because I wondered if the younger children had retired. "

"You say you walked with Mr. Penny--where?... How long did you remain atthe river? No way of knowing. Seemed surprisingly short, I'll venture. "Why didn't Stephen put an end to such ill-timed jocularity? "And Mr. Penny had spoken to you of his--his relations with Mrs. Scofield, thewoman in whose house Culser was killed. Did he refer to her on thisparticular evening, standing by the river's brink?" Susan replied in thenegative. "Did he seem ill at ease, worried about anything? Was hehurried in manner?"

To all of this Susan Brundon answered no, in a voice that constantlygrew lower, but which never faltered, hesitated. The Mayor turned asidefor a whispered consultation with the High Constable. The former nodded. "Have you any--shall we say--proprietary interest in Mr. Penny'saffairs?" Her reply was hardly audible in the room stilled for whatmight be revealed. "No, " she breathed, her gloved fingers interlacing. Jasper Penny's lips were drawn in a hard line; Stephen gazed fixedly atthe floor. The Mayor gesticulated affably toward the lawyer. "That'lldo, " he declared. "Pleasure, Mr. Penny, to have you so completelycleared. I shall have to demand your assistance further, though--knowledge of Mrs. Scofield. And, in the case of her apprehensionand trial, you will, of course, be called. Communication will be madethrough Mr. Jannan. No doubt in our mind now of the facts. " A policemanopened the door and a surge of the curious pressed in. "Take her away, "Jasper Penny whispered to Jannan; "this is damnable. "

Susan rose, gathering up her mantle, and moved to Stephen Jannan's side. He offered his arm with a formal courtesy, and together they made theirway out through the corridor. Jasper, lost in a moody abstraction, waited until they had vanished; and then, with a lowered head, walkedrapidly over Chestnut Street in the direction of the terminus of therailroad for Jaffa. A brigade of cars was made up; he took a place andwas immediately dragged on and over the viaduct to the plane and waitingengine beyond. He could see, from the demeanour of the loungers on theJaffa platform, that the news of the murder, his connection with it, hadpreceded him. To-morrow's papers would provide them with full accounts, the name of Susan Brundon among the maculate details.... The meanestcast boy in his works would regard him, the knowledge of Essie, with aleer. 

His mother was at the main door of Myrtle Forge, pale but composed. "Take Mr. Penny's overcoat, " she brusquely directed a servant. He hadnever seen a more delectable supper than the one awaiting him; and hetasted most of what found its way to his plate--he owed that to thematernal solicitude secretly regarding him, hastily masked as he met hismother's gaze. Sitting later in accustomed formality the dulness of aspecies of relief folded him. The minor sounds of his home, thedeliberate loudness of an old clock, the minute warring of his mother'sbone needles, her sister's fits of coughing, painfully restrained, soothed his harried being; subjected to an intolerable strain hisoverwrought nerves had suddenly relaxed; he sank back in a loose, almostsomnolent, state. A mental indolence possessed him; the keen incentivesof life appeared far, unimportant, his late rebellions and desiresinexplicable. Even the iron was a heavy load; the necessity ofconstantly meeting new conditions with new processes, of uprooting monthby month most with which the years had made him familiar, seemed beyondhis power. 

A faint dread crept into his consciousness; he roused himself sharply, straightened his shoulders, glanced about to see if his tacit surrenderhad been noticed--this lassitude creeping over him, the indifference, was, at last, the edge of the authentic shadow of age, of decay; it wasthe deadening of the sensibilities preceding death. He banished itimmediately, and all his desire, his need, his sense of the horror ofthe past day, surged back, reanimated him, sent the blood strongly toits furthest confines. But, none the less, a vague, disturbing memory ofthe other lingered at the back of his perceptions; he had a freshrealization of the necessity for him to make haste, to take atonce--before the hateful anodyne of time had betrayed his vigour--whatlife still, and so fully, held. 

His desire for Susan increased to an intensity robbing it of a greaterpart of the early joy; it had, now, a fretful aspect drawing him intolong and painfully minute rehearsals of his every contact with her, andof the disgraceful publicity brought upon her by his past. At the usualhour the hot wine appeared; the glassful was pressed on Amity Merken;his mother drank hers with the familiar, audible satisfaction. An oldcustom, an old compound, brought from Germany many years ago, binding, in its petty immortality, distant times, places, beings. He saw that hismother was noticeably less able than she had been the week before; herhands fumbled at her knitting, shook holding the glass. Her lined facequivered as she said good night. He bent and kissed a hot, dry brow, conscious of the blanched skull under her fading colour, her ebbingwarmth. He had done this, too--hastened her death; she must havesuffered inordinately in her prideful affection. She said nothing, beyond the repeated admonition that he must not sit up into the night. 

The next day he forced himself to read to the end the report of themurder in the _Gazette_. The references to Susan Brundon were as scantas, evidently, Stephen Jannan could arrange; but her name, her Academy, were invested with an odious publicity. Jasper Penny saw again that hewas a person of moment; his part in the affair gave it a greatlyaugmented importance. Yet now the worst, he told himself, was at an end;the publicity would recede; after a decent interval he could see Susan. 

This mood was interrupted by an imperative communication fromStephen--he must be in the other's office at eleven o'clock to-morrow. Nothing more definite was said; but Jasper Penny was not whollysurprised to see Essie Scofield huddled in a chair at the lawyer'stable. She had made an attempt at the bravado of apparel, but it hadevidently failed midway; her hair hung loosely about a damp brow, thestrings of her bonnet were in disarray, a shawl partially hid a bodicewrongly fastened. Her face was apathetic, with leaden shadows and darklips ceaselessly twisting, now drawn into a petulant line, now droopingin childish impotence. She glanced at him fleetly as he entered, butsaid nothing. Robbed of the pretensions of pride, stripped of femininesubterfuge, she was appalling. He involuntarily recalled the Essie whohad swept him into a riot of emotion--a vivid and palpitating creatureradiating the exuberance of careless health and youth. She could not, hecalculated, be beyond thirty-seven now. He abruptly ceased hisspeculation, turned from her, with a feeling of impropriety. StephenJannan said shortly:

"Al Schimpf will be here. It seemed to me he was the best man to retain. It's obvious that I can't defend her. You will, of course, requireeverything possible done. " Essie Scofield shivered. "I don't want to gointo court, " she articulated, "and answer all the dreadful questions. "There was a stir without, and a hugely fat man in a black cape fastenedwith a silver chain and velvet collar entered. Al Schimpf's face was soburdened with rolling chins that he disregarded the customary fashion ofwhiskers, but a grizzled moustache lay above his well-formed lips, andan imperial divided his heavy, aggressive chin. He was, evidently, fullyinformed of the case before him; for, after saluting Jannan and JasperPenny, he, seated himself directly before Essie Scofield, fastening uponher an unwavering, glacial gaze. 

"Now, pay attention, " he proceeded at once. 

"I'll go over a few facts--this Daniel Culser, you were in love withhim; no length you wouldn't go, lost your senses completely; and he--allhe cared about was the money he could wring out of you. As soon as youwere paid the sums that Mr. Penny allowed you, this Culser got it fromyou; he took every cent and wanted more. Said he would leave you unlessyou got hold of something really worth while. Then, of course, youcarried on, promised to get him more and more; said you could force afortune from Mr. Penny, anything to keep the young man. Hey?" hedemanded suddenly. 

The woman looked up with a haggard wonder, an irrepressible shudder; herhands raised and fell, and she nodded dumbly. 

"Then, while Culser was in the house, Mr. Penny unexpectedly turned upand said--perhaps before Daniel himself--that you could expect nothingmore, and made it plain that he was not to be intimidated. Daniel Culserwas for leaving you, didn't intend to hang around for a bloody littlequarterly; and, when you realized that he meant, or you thought hemeant, what he said, you went crazy and shot him.... What!" He got noresponse from her now; she cowered away from him, hiding behind anupdrawn shoulder, a fold of the shawl. "But listen to this, " Al Schimpfshot at her, leaning forward, "here's what happened, and you mustremember every fact:

"The fellow had been around the house day after day. You had encouragedhim at first; but then you got frightened; he beat you--hearthat?--struck you with his fist, and threatened worse if you didn't gothrough old Penny's pocket for him. He even hinted at something youmight do together, and then get away with a mint. Culser was at it whenMr. Penny called, and took it up when he left, at about six o'clock. Hesaid he wanted money bad, debts were hounding him; and he was going toget it out of Penny, out of you. There's where you said you would warnJasper Penny; and remember how he struck you, in the back, because youturned, and it hurts yet--there up by the left shoulder, the leftshoulder, the left! Then, he had been drinking in your house and at atavern, he threatened to kill you if you didn't do what he wanted. Youhonestly thought he'd do it, and snatched a pistol out of a tabledrawer, and.... Do you understand? That's what happened, and it's allyou know. Said he would kill you, apparently commenced then, and youacted in self-protection. Now, repeat that. "

She gazed at him in a trembling confusion. "But, " she objected, "he wasonly--he said. Oh! I was afraid I'd lose him. " The lawyer moved closerto her, his unwinking, grey-green eyes like slate. "He said he'd killyou, " he reiterated; "remember that, if you don't want to hang. Hestruck you; where?" After a long pause she replied haltingly, "In theback. " Al Schimpf nodded, "Good. And he said you both were to get awaywith a mint. He told you it would be easy; the old man would gladly buysilence; and, by heaven, if he didn't--"

Jasper Penny stonily watched the intolerable degradation of the womanbullied into the safety of a lie. This was worse than anything that hadgone before; he fell deeper and deeper into a strangling, humiliatingself-loathing. Stephen Jannan's handsome countenance was fixed and pale;one hand lay on the table, empty and still. In the silence betweenSchimpf's insistent periods Jasper Penny could hear Essie's sobbinginspirations; he was unable to keep his gaze from her countenance, jelly-like and robbed of every trace of human dignity. He wonderedvaguely at an absence of any sense of responsibility for what EssieScofield had become; he felt that an attitude of self-accusation, ofprofound regret for the way they had taken together, should rest uponhim; but the thought, the effort, were perfunctory, obviously insincere. If now he had a different, perhaps deeper, sense of responsibility, hehad known nothing of it in the first months of his contact with her.... A different man, he reiterated; and one as faithfully representative ashe was to-day. But totally another; men changed, evolved, progressed. Jasper Penny was convinced that it was a progression; but in a broadmanner beyond all hope of his comprehension, and entirely outsidedogmatic good and evil. The germ of it must have been in him from thefirst; his burning necessity for Susan, he told himself, had been bornin him, laid dormant until, yes--it had been stirred into activity byEssie Scofield, by the revulsion which had followed that naturaldevelopment. 

He was suddenly conscious that Al Schimpf had ceased domineering Essie. The lawyer swung about, facing them with an expression of commonplacesatisfaction. "It's all in fine order, " he declared. "I want, ifpossible, to study our jury through a preliminary case or so. We shall, of course, surrender our client at once, without making any difficultyabout moving her from one police district to another. I can produce awitness to the fact that this Culser openly said that he expectedshortly to come into more money. And he had dishonoured debts all about. You will have to appear, Mr. Penny; no way out of that, but our defenceshould go like a song. Now, Mrs. Scofield, I have a carriage outside. "

When they had gone Jasper Penny and Jannan sat in a lengthening silence. Stephen's hand moved among the papers on the table; the other drew adeep breath. "I regret this tremendously for you, " Stephen Jannan saidat last. He spoke with feeling; his momentary anger at the entanglementof Susan vanished. "But it will pass, Jasper. You are too solid a man tobe hurt permanently by private scandal. And you have no concretepolitical position to invite mud slinging. Yes, it will drop out ofmind, and your iron will continue to support enterprise, extension. "

"But Susan, " Jasper Penny demanded, "what about her? Where is she?"

"With Graham at Shadrach. She was badly torn, and I insisted on herretreating for a week or more. There is a very capable assistant at theAcademy. It's too early to speak conclusively, but I am afraid thatSusan's usefulness is ended there. Have you seen the cheaper sheets?Every one, of course, is buying them. Rotten! The assistant, Iunderstand, is anxious to procure the school, and I am consideringallowing her the capital. Something might be arranged paying Susan anincome.... If she would accept; confoundly difficult to come about. "

"I am going to marry her, " Jasper Penny asserted once more. 

"What was the initial trouble?" the other asked, tersely. 

"Essie. " Stephen frowned. 

"She would hit on that, " he agreed; "stand until the last gasp of somefantastic conception of right. "

Jasper explained:

"She thinks I ought to marry Essie, mostly on account of the child. Shelikes me, too, Stephen; I think I may tell you that. Well, I'll keep ather and at her. In the end she will get tired of refusal. " The othershook his head doubtfully. "I've known Susan a good many years, and Ihave never seen her lose an ideal, or even an idea, yet. "

Jasper Penny rose. "Meanwhile I'll have to go through with this trial. Thank God, Susan has no part in it. " He warmly gripped Stephen's palm. "You're worth something in a life, immovable. Thank you, Stephen. "

XXII

It was early in April, an insidiously warm morning with the ailanthustrees in bud before the State House, when Jasper Penny left the courtroom where Essie had been freed. Provision had been made for her--shehad had a severe collapse during the trial--and a feeling almost ofrenewed liberty of spirit permeated Jasper, as, with his overcoat on anarm, he turned to the left and walked over the street in the blandlyexpanding mildness. A train left shortly for Jaffa, and he was bounddirectly home, to Myrtle Forge, anxious to steep himself in the echo ofthe trip hammer mingled with the poignant harmony of spring soundsdrifting from the farm and woods. He was possessed by a sharpened hungerfor all the--now recognized--beauty of the place of his allegiance andbirth, the serenity of the acres Gilbert Penny had beaten out of thewild of the Province. He was astonishingly conscious of himself as apart of the whole Penny succession, proud of Gilbert, of Howat, who hadalways so engaged his fancy, of Casimir, and Daniel, his own father. Theirs was a good heritage; their part of the earth, the ring of theiriron, his particular characteristic of a black Penny, formed a reallysplendid entity. 

The low, horizontal branches of the beech tree on the lawn, older thanthe dwelling, opposed a pleasant variety on the long façade, built ofstone with an appearance of dark pinkish malleability masking itsobduracy. His mother was awaiting him on the narrow portico, and he atonce told her of Essie's release. They stood together, gazing out acrossthe turf, faintly emerald, over the public road, at the grey, solidgroup of farm buildings beyond. The farmer's daughter, in a white slip, emerged against the barnyard, and called the chickens in a high, musicalnote, scattering grain to a hysterical feathery mob. The air was stillwith approaching twilight; the sun slipped below the western trees andshadows gathered under the lilac bushes; the sky was April green. 

"Your father has been dead twelve years, " Gilda Penny said unexpectedly. He looked down and saw that she was decrepit, an old woman. Her mouthhad sunken, her ears projected in dry folds from her scant strands ofhair. He recalled Daniel Barnes Penny; the earliest memories of hismother, a vigorous, brown-faced woman with alert, black eyes, quick-stepping, dictatorial in the sphere of her house and dependents. One after the other, like the sun, they were slipping out of the sightof Myrtle Forge; vanished and remained; passed from falling hand to handthe unextinguished flame of life. Gilda Penny was merging fast into theformless dark. She clung with pathetically tense fingers to his arm asthey turned into the house. 

He had ordered a carriage immediately after an early supper; and, informing his coachman of his wish to proceed alone, drove quickly awaythrough the dusk. He was going to Shadrach Furnace, to meet Susan forthe first time since the unhappy occasion in the Mayor's chamber. He haddecided, stifling his increasing impatience, not to see her untilEssie's trial was over. Susan had been at Graham Jannan's house for nineweeks. Her sight, he had learned, had almost completely failed in ageneral exhaustion; but, with rigorous care, she had nearly recovered. The Academy had been sold to the assistant mistress; and there was anexpressed uncertainty about Susan's near future. It had, however, noexistence in Jasper Penny's thoughts, plans--she must marry him; anyother course would now be absurd. The track from Myrtle Forge to theFurnace was bound into his every thought and association; itsfamiliarity, he mused, had been born in him; his horses, too, tookcorrectly, without pressure, every turning of the way. The road mounted, and then dropped between rounded hills to the clustering buildings, where lighted, pale yellow windows floated on the dusk, crowned by thewide-flung radiance of the Furnace stack. The air was potent in thevalley with the indeterminate scent of budding earth--the premonitoryfragrance of blossoms; and, hardly less delicate, stars flowered whitelyin blue space. 

He paused for a moment before entering Graham Jannan's house, saturatedwith the pastoral tranquillity, listening to the flutter of wings underthe eaves. Then he went in. They had finished supper, but were lingeringat the table, with the candles guttering in an air from the open door. His greeting was simple and glad, and without restraint. Susan wore adress like a white vapour, sprigged with pale buds, her throat and armsbare. She smiled the familiar, hesitating smile, met his questioninggaze with her undeviating courage. Jasper Penny took a chair oppositeher. Little was said. Peace deepened about his spirit. 

Graham, he saw, had a new ruddiness of health; he laid a shawl tenderlyabout his wife's shoulders; and Jasper remembered that a birth wasimminent. Later he drifted with Susan to the door, and they passed outinto the obscurity beyond. Even now he was reluctant to speak, to breakwith importunities the serene mood. "All the iron making, " she spoke atlast, "lovely. I have stood night after night in the cast house watchingthe metal pour out in its glorious colours. And, when I wake, I go to mywindow and see the reflections of the blast on the trees, on the firstleaves. The charcoal burners come down like giants out of the mythologyof the forest. And, when I first came, there was a raccoon hunt, with agreat stirring of lanterns and barking dogs in the dark ... All lovely. "

"It is yours, " he said, bending over her. "You can come here at yourwill. A house built. And Myrtle Forge, too; whatever I have, am. " Hepaused; but, without reply, continued more rapidly. "It's over, the--themisery of the past weeks; the mistakes are dead; they are paid, Susan. Now we may take what is left and make it as beautiful as possible. Aftersuffering, reparation, happiness, is every one's due. And I am certain Ican make you happy. "

A longer pause followed, in which he regarded her with an increasinganxiety. Her face was turned away, her progress grew slower until theystood by the shadowy bulk of a small stone structure. The door was open, and it seemed to him that she looked within. "A store house, " heexplained. Nothing was visible in the interior gloom but some obscureshapes, bales, piled against the walls, and the scant tracery of a rudestair leading up to a greater blackness above. She stopped, as ifarrested by his period, laying a hand on the door frame. 

"Why don't you answer me, Susan?" he proceeded. "You know that I want tomarry you; surely it is all right now. Everything possible has beendone. A great deal of life remains. " Her answer was so low that italmost escaped him; the faintest breath of pain, of longing and regret. "I can't, " she whispered; "not with her, the child. I can't. "

"That, " he replied gently, "is a mistaken idea of responsibility, aneedless sacrifice. I could never urge you into an injustice, a wrong;at last I have got above that; what I want is the most reasonable thingimaginable, the best, in every conceivable way, for yourself and--anyother. You are harming, depriving, no one. You are taking nothing butyour own, what has been yours, and only yours, from the first moment Isaw, no--from my birth. What has happened brought me in a straight roadto you, the long road I have never, really, left. "

"I can't, " she said still again. "I want to, Jasper. Oh, with a heartfull of longing; I am so tired that I would almost give the rest of mylife for another secure hour with you. And I would pay that to give youwhat you want, what you should have. But something stronger than I am, more than all this, holds me; I can't forget that miserable woman, norher child and yours, so thin and suspicious. I am not good enough to beher mother myself, even if I felt I had the right. Inside of me I amquite wicked, selfish. I want my own. But not with the other womanoutside. She'd be looking in at the windows, Jasper, looking in at myheart. I would hear her. " She leaned against her arm, her face hid, hershoulders trembling. 

The musty odour of the stores floated out and enveloped him. He wassuddenly annoyed. Susan herself lost some of her beauty, her radiance. He muttered that she was merely stubborn, blind to reality, tonecessity. His attitude hardened, and he commenced to argue in a low, insistent voice. She made no reply, but remained supported in thedoorway, a vague form against the inner dark. 

"You must change your mind, " he asserted; "you can't be eternally sofoolish. There is absolutely no question of my marrying Essie Scofield. "

"I don't want you to, really, " she admitted in an agonized whisper. "Ishall never again ask you to do that. Ah, God, how low I am. "

He saw, in an unsparing flash of comprehension, that it was useless. Shewould never marry him as long as the past stayed embodied, actual, topeer into their beings. A return of his familiar irritability, spleen, possessed him. "You are too pure for this world, " he said brutally. Sheturned and stood facing him, meeting his scorn with an upliftedcountenance. A shifting reflection from the Furnace stack fell over herin a wan veil, over the vaporous, sprigged white of her dress, her barethroat and arms, her cheeks wet with tears. Out of it her eyes, widewith pain, steadily met his angry scrutiny. Out of it she smiled at himbefore the reflection died. 

III THE METAL

XXIII

In the warm, subdued light of a double lamp with apricot glass shadesHowat Penny was turning over the pages, stiff with dry paste, of analbum filled with opera programmes. The date of the brief, preciselypenned label on the black cover was 1883-84; it was the first of anumber of such thick, recording volumes he had gathered; and the operas, the casts, were of absorbing interest. At once a memento of the heroicperiod of American music and of his first manhood, the faded crudelyembellished strips of paper, bearing names, lyric tenors and sopranos oflimpid, bird-like song long ago lost in rosy and nebulous clouds offable and cherished affection, roused remembered pleasures sharper thanany calm actuality of to-day. He paused with a quiet exclamation, thesingle glass adroitly held in his left, astigmatic, eye fastened on theannouncement of a famous evening, a famous name. His sense of the leafbefore him blurred in the vivid memory of Patti, singing Martha in thecampaign brought by Mapleson in the old Academy of Music against theforces of the new Metropolitan Opera House. He had been one of aconservative number that had supported the established opera, declaringheatedly that the Diva and Mapleson were an unapproachable musicalcombination, before which the shoddier magnificence of its rival, erected practically in a few summer months, would speedily fade. 

Nevertheless, he recalled, the widely heralded performance had beencoolly received. Patti, although she had not perceptibly failed invoice, had been unable to inspire the customary enthusiasm; and thescene at the evening's end, planned to express her overwhelming triumphand superiority, when the horses had been taken from her carriage and ithad been dragged by hand to the portal of the Windsor Hotel, had been nobetter than perfunctory. The wily Mapleson had arranged that beforehand, Howat Penny realized, with a faint, reminiscent smile on his severelips--the "enthusiastic mob" had been coldly recruited, at a price, fromthe choristers. Another memory of Patti, and of that same performance, flooded back--the dinner given her in the Brunswick. He saw again theroom where, on a divan, she had received her hosts, the seventy or moremen of fashion grouped in irreproachable black and white, with her suavemanager, the inevitable tea rose in his lapel, on a knee before Adelina, kissing her hand. The dinner had been laid in the ball room, lit with amultitude of wax candles. The features, appearance, of the moreprominent men, of Mahun Stetson and Daly and William Steinway, wereclear still. The original plan had been to include ladies at thedinner, but the latter, affecting outrage at the Diva's affair with theMarquis de Caux, had refused to lend their countenance to the singer'soccasion. His smile broadened--this was so characteristic of New York inthe eighties. How different it had been; but it was no better, he addedsilently, now. 

It was mid-August, and the air floating in through an open door wasladened with the richness of ultra-luxuriant vegetation, the persistent, metallic whirring of locusts, the mechanical repetition of katydids. Oneof the owls that inhabited the old willow tree before the house criedsoftly.... How different! He straightened up from the book open on hisknees, and the glass fell with a small clatter over his formal, starchedlinen, swinging for an instant on its narrow ribbon. The unwavering lamplight was deflected in green points through the emeralds of his studs. 

The thought of bygone, gala nights of opera fastened on him with apeculiar significance--suddenly they seemed symbolic of his lost youth. Such tides of impassioned song, such poignant, lyric passion, suchtragic sacrifice and death, were all in the extravagant key of youth. The very convention of opera, the glorified unreality of its language, the romantic impossibility of its colour, the sparkling dress like thesparkling voices and blue gardens and gilded halls, were the authenticexpression of the resplendent vagaries of early years. 

The winter of eighty three and four; his first season of New Yorkmusic. The autumn before he had returned from the five years spent inEurope, in Paris practically, with Bundy Provost, related to him by amarriage in the past generation, through the Jannans. He had gone abroadimmediately after his graduation as a lawyer; and in the indolentculture of the five Parisian years, he now realized, he had permanentlylost all hold on his profession. At his return he had driftedimperceptibly into an existence of polite pleasure. It had beendifferent with Bundy; he had gone into the banking house of Provost, lately established in New York; and, with the extraordinary pertinacityand acumen sometimes developed by worldly and rich young men, he hadsteadily risen to a place of financial importance. An opening had, ofcourse, been offered to Howat Penny when he had definitely decided notto settle in Philadelphia, where the Pennys had always been associated, and pursue the law. And, at first, he had occupied a desk in the Provostcounting rooms. But he had soon grown discontented, he disliked routineand a clerk's condition; and, after two years of annoyed effort, withdrew to lead a more congenial existence on a secure, adequateincome. 

"It was a mistake, " he said aloud, in a decided, clearly modulatedvoice, gazing blankly into the warm stillness of the room. It had comepartly from his innate impatience with any inferior state whatever, andpart from the old inability to identify himself with the practicalitiesof existence. He had always viewed with distaste the apparentlynecessary compromises of successful living; the struggle for money, commercial supremacy, seemed unendurably ugly; the jargon andsubterfuges of financial competition beneath his exacting standard ofpersonal dignity. That had been his expression at the time--permeated byan impatient sense of superiority; but now he felt that there wassomething essential lacking in himself. An absence of proper balance. Solely concerned with the appearance, the insignificant surface, of suchefforts as Bundy Provost's, their moving, masculine spirit had evadedhim. Yes, it had been a mistake. He had missed the greatest pleasure ofall, that of accumulating power and influence, of virile achievement. 

Well, it was over now; he was old; his life, his chance, had gone; andall that remained were memories of Patti smiling disdainfully in theflare of oil torches about her carriage; the only concrete record of somany years the scrap books such as that on his knees. 

It had been an error; yet there had been, within him, no choice, nointimation of a different, more desirable, consummation. Bundy had goneone way and himself another in obedience to forces beyond theirunderstanding or control. They had done, briefly, what they were. Therewas no individual blame to attach, no applause; spare moralizing toappend. He returned to the pages before him, to the memories of theradiant Ambre and Marimon, the sylvan echoes of Campanini singingElvino. 

Now his recovered glass was intent on a programme of the rapidlysuccessful Metropolitan forces, of the new German Opera, withSeidl-Krauss singing Elizabeth, and Brandt in _Fidelio_. Even here, after so long, he vibrated again to the exquisite beauty of Lenore'sconstancy and love. Then Dr. Damrosch dead, the sonorous funeral in theOpera House ... That had been changed with the rest; the baignoires weregone, the tiers of boxes newly curved; gone the chandeliers and Turkeyred carpet and gold threaded brocade that had seemed the finalexpression of luxury. Lehmann in the premier of _Tristan und Isolde_, with the vast restrained enthusiasm and tensity when, at the end of thethird act, Niemann bared his wounded breast. Eames' rise; but that, andwhat followed, were in successive books. He closed the one under hishand. 

As the years drew nearer the present their features became larger, moreindistinct, their music grew louder, dissonant. He had retired furtherand further from an opera, a life, with which he was increasingly out ofharmony. Or rather, he added, life moved away from the aging. It was asif the surrounding affair became objective; as if, once a participant ina cast--a production, however, less than grand--he had been conducted toa seat somewhere in the midst of a great, shadowy audience, from whichhe looked out of the gloom at the brilliant, removed spectacle. Thefinal fact that had taken him from the setting of so many of his yearshad been the increasing expense of a discriminating existence in NewYork. Again his distaste for anything short of absolute nicety haddictated the form and conditions of his living. When the situation ofhis rooms had definitely declined, and the cost of possiblelocations--he could not endure a club--became prohibitive; when his onceadequate, unaugmented income assumed the limitations of a meresufficiency; and when, too, the old, familiar figures, the swells of hisown period and acquaintance had vanished one by one with their vanishinghalls of assembly--he had retreated to the traditional place of hisfamily. He had gone back to the home of the Pennys in America. 

Not, however, to Myrtle Forge itself, the true centre of hisinheritance. The house there had been uninhabited since his father'searly years; it was a closed and melancholy memento; he had reanimated acomfortable stone dwelling at Shadrach Furnace; its solid grey façadedrawn out by two happy additions to the original, small square. It hadbeen, traditionally, at first, the house of the head furnacemen;sometime after that, perhaps a hundred years, Graham Jannan, newlymarried, had lived there while occupied with the active manufacture ofiron; and three summers back he, Howat Penny, the last Penny now, hadreturned to the vicinity of Jaffa. 

XXIV

The room in which he sat had two windows, set in the deep recesses ofheavy stone walls, and three doors, two leading into opposite rooms andthe third opening without. The double lamp stood on a low, gate-leggedtable of fibrous, time-blackened oak, together with an orderly array ofperiodicals--the white, typographical page of the _Saturday Review_under the dull rose of _The Living Age_ and chocolate-coloured bulk ofthe _Unpopular, Gil Blas_, the mid-week _Boston Transcript_ andyesterday's _New York Evening Post_. The table bore, in addition, agreen morocco case of dominoes; a mahogany box that, in a recess, mysteriously maintained a visible cigarette; a study of Beethoven, inFrench; an outspread volume by Anatole France, _Jacques Tournebroche_, in a handsome paper cover; a set of copper ash trays; and a dull redfigurine, holding within its few inches the deathless spirit of a heroicage. An angle of the wall before him was filled by a white panelledfireplace, the mantel close against the ceiling; and on the other sideof a doorway, through which he could see Rudolph noiselessly preparingthe dinner table, was a swan-like sofa, in olive wood and pale yellowsatin, from the Venice of the _ottocento_. At his right, beyond awindow, mounted a tall, austere secretary in waxed walnut; and behindhim, under the white chair rail, bookcases extended across the width ofthe room. Gustavus Hesselius' portrait of the first Howat Penny hung ona yellow painted wall, his gilt-braided major's facings still vivid, hisdark, perceptible scorn undimmed. There were, too, framed in oak, alarge photograph of Tamagno, as Othello, with a scrawled, cordialmessage; another of a graceful woman in the Page's costume of _LesHuguenots_, signed "Sempre ... Scalchi"; a water colour drawing by JanBeers; and a Victorian lithograph in powdery foliage and brick of _ThePenny Rolling Mills. Jaffa_. A black-blue rug, from Myrtle Forge, partlycovered the broad, oak boards of the floor; and there was a comfortablevariety of chairs--sturdy, painted Dutch, winged Windsors and a slattedHunterstown rocker. 

Howat Penny's gaze wandered over the familiar furnishing, come to himsurviving the generations of his family, or carefully procured for hisindividual dictates. A sense of tranquillity, of haven, deepened abouthim. "Rudolph, " he inquired, "has Honduras gone for Miss Jannan?"

The man stopped in the doorway, answering in the affirmative. He wasslight, almost fragile, with close, dark hair that stood up across hisforehead, and dry, high-coloured cheeks. Rudolph hesitated, with ahandful of silver; and then returned to his task. Mariana would bealong immediately, Howat Penny thought. He put the album aside and rose, moving toward the door that led without. He was a slender, erect figure, with little to indicate his age except the almost complete silvering ofhis hair--it had, evidently, been black--and a rigidity of body onlyapparent to a sharp scrutiny. 

A porch followed that length of the house, and doubled the end, where hestood peering into the gathering dusk. The old willow tree, inhabited bythe owls, spread a delicate, blurred silhouette across a darkened vistaof shorn wheat fields, filled, in the hollows, with woods; and a lampglimmered from a farm house on a hill to the left. His lawn dropped tothe public road, the hedged enclosure swimming with fireflies; andbeyond he saw the wavering light shafts of his small motor returningfrom the insignificant flag station on the railroad, a mile distant. 

The noise of the engine increased, sliding into a lower gear on theshort curve of the driveway; and he met Mariana Jannan at the entrancedirectly into the dining room. She insisted, to his renewed discomfort, on kissing him. "It's wonderful here, after the city, " she proclaimed;"and I've had to be in town three sweltering days. I'll dress rightaway. "

Honduras, his coloured man, as indispensable outside as Rudolph was in, followed with her bag up the narrow flight of steps to the floor above. He waited through, he thought, a reasonable interval, and then called. An indistinguishable reply floated down, mingled with the filling of atub; and another half hour passed before Mariana appeared in whitechiffon, securing a broad girdle of silver oak leaves, about her slightwaist. "Do you mind?" she turned before him; and, with an impatiencehalf assumed and half actual, he fastened the last hooks of her dress. "As you know, " he reminded her, "I don't attempt cocktails. Will youhave a gin and bitters?"

She wouldn't, frankly; and they embarked on dinner in a pleasant, unstrained silence. Mariana was, he realized, the only person alive forwhom he had a genuine warmth of affection. She was a first cousin; herAunt Elizabeth had married James Penny, his father; but his fondness forher had no root in that fact. It didn't, for example, extend to herbrother Kingsfrere. He speculated again on the reason for her markedeffect. Mariana was not lovely, as had been the charmers of his own day;her features, with the exception of her eyes, were unremarkable. And hereyes, variably blue, were only arresting because of their extraordinaryintensity of vision, their unquenchable and impertinent curiosity. Agirl absolutely different from all his cherished mental images; but, forHowat Penny, always potent, always arousing a response from hissupercritical being, stirring his aesthetic heart. Everything hepossessed--his pictures, the albums, the moderate income, although shehad little need of that--had been willed to her. It would be hers thenjust as it was, practically, now. And he was aware that her feelinggenerously equalled his own. 

His speculation, penetrating deeper than customary, rewarded him withthe thought that she was unusual in the courage of her emotions. Thatwas it--the courage of her emotions! There was a total lack of anypenurious trait, any ulterior thought of appraising herself against apossible advantageous barter. She was never concerned with a consciousprudery in the arrangement of her skirt. Mariana was aristocratic in thecorrect sense of the term; a sense, he realized, now almost lost. And herated aristocracy of bearing higher than any other condition or fact. 

He wondered a little at her patent pleasure in visiting him, an old man, so frequently. Hardly a month passed but that, announced by telegram, she did not appear and stay over night, or for a part of the week. Shewould recount minutely the current gaiety of her polite existence. Heknew the names of her associates, a number of them had been exhibited tohim at Shadrach; the location of their country places; and what mentemporarily monopolized her interest. None of the latter had beenserious. He was, selfishly, glad of that; and waited uneasily throughher every visit until she assured him that her affections had not beenpossessed. However, this condition, he knew, must soon come to an end;Mariana was instinct with sex; and a short while before he had sent hisacknowledgment of her twenty-sixth birthday. 

She sat occupied with salad against the cavernous depths of a fireplacethat, between the kitchen door and a built-in cupboard, filled the sideof the dining room. The long mantel above her head was ladened with thegrey sheen of pewter, and two uncommonly large, fluted bowls of blueStiegel glass. In the centre of the table linen, the Sheffield andcrystal and pictorial Staffordshire, was a vivid expanse of rosegeraniums. She broke off a flower and pinned it with the diamond bar onher breast. "Howat, " she said, "to-morrow's Saturday, and I've asked twopeople out until Sunday night. Eliza Provost and a young man. Do youmind?"

"Tell Rudolph, " he replied. It was not until after dinner, when theywere playing sniff, that he realized that she omitted the young man'sname. He intended to ask it, but, his mind and hand hovering over anivory domino, he forgot. "Twenty, " he announced, reaching for thescoring pad. "Oh, hell, Howat!" she protested. "That's the game, almost. " She emptied her coffee cup, and speculatively fingered one ofthe thin cigars in the box at his hand. "It's the customary thing inPeru, " she observed, pinching the end from the cigar and lighting it. Hewatched her absently, veiled in the fragrant, bluish smoke. Automatically his thoughts returned to the women that, at a breath ofscandal, had refused to attend the dinner to Patti. So much changed; theyears fled like birds in a mist. 

"I feel like a politician, " she told him. "Eliza Provost would pat me onthe back. She's talking from a soap box on the street corners now, winging men for such trifles as forced birth. I'm fond of Eliza; she'sgot a splendid crust. I wish you'd get excited about my rights; but yourinterest really goes no further than a hat from Camille Marchais. Youare deleterious, Howat. Isn't that a lovely word! Which was the firstdouble?" He blocked and won the game. "Fifty-five, " she announced; "andninety-five before. I owe you a dollar and a half. "

She paid the debt promptly from a flexible gold mesh bag on the table;then stooped and wandered among his books. Howat Penny turned toyesterday's _Evening Post_, and Mariana settled beyond the lamp. Outsidethe locusts were desperately shrill, and the heavy ticking of an oldclock grew audible. "I don't like George Moore!" she exclaimed. Heraised surprised, inquiring eyebrows. "He is such a taster, " she added, but particularized no more. She sat, with the scarlet bound book cloudedin the white chiffon of her lap, gazing at the wall. Her lips wereparted, and a brighter colour rose in her cheeks. Her attitude, herexpression, vaguely disturbed him; he had never seen her more warmly, dangerously, alive. A new reluctance stopped the question forming inhis mind; she seemed to have retreated from him. "Moore is a very greatartist, " he said instead. 

"That's little to me, " she replied flippantly, rising. "I think I'll goup; and I almost think I will kiss you again. " He grumbled a protest, and watched her trail from the room, the silver girdle and chiffonemphasizing her thin, vigorous body, the lamplight falling on her bare, sharp shoulders. Howat Penny had early acquired a habit of long hours, and it was past one when he put aside his papers, stood for a moment onthe porch. The fireflies were gone, the locusts seemed farther away, andthe soft, heavy flight of an owl rose from the warm grass. 

Below, on the right, he could vaguely see the broken bulk of what hadbeen Shadrach Furnace, the ruined shape of the past. The Pennys nolonger made iron. His father had marked the last casting. They no longerlistened to the beat of the trip hammer, but to the light rhythm of aconductor's baton; they heard, in place of ringing metal, a tenor'sgrace notes. Soon they would hear nothing. They went out, for all time, with himself. It was fitting that the last, true to their peculiarinheritance, should be a black Penny. He, Howat, was that--the ancientWelsh blood finally gathered in a cup of life before it was spilled. 

Old influences quickened within him; but, attenuated, they were no morethan regrets. They came late to trouble his remnant of living. He waslike the Furnace, a sign of what had been; yet, he thought inself-extenuation, he had brought no dishonour, no dragging of thetradition through the muck of a public scandal. Not that ... Noranything else. Now, when it was absurd, he was resentful of the part hehad played in life; like a minor, cracked voice, he extended a formerfigure with a saving touch of humour, importuning the director becausehe had not been cast in the great rôles. The night mist came up andbrushed him; he was conscious of a sudden chill, an aching of thewrists. "Cracked, " he repeated, aloud, and retreated into the house;where, Rudolph gone up, he put out the lights and stiffly retired. 

XXV

They accomplished little the following morning. Mariana, in a scantbrown linen skirt, a sheer waist through which were visible precariousincidentals and narrow black ribbon, and the confoundedest greenstockings he had ever seen, lounged indolently in a canvas swing. Theheat increased in a reddish haze through which the sun poured likemolten copper. "You'd better come inside, " he said from the doorway;"the house, shut up, is quite comfortable. " Within the damp of the old, stone walls made a comparative coolness. The shades were drawn down, andthey sat in an untimely twilight. 

"When I think of how energetic Eliza will be, " Mariana asserted, "I amalready overwhelmed. But you never look hot, Howat; you are alwaysbeautiful. " His flannels and straw-coloured silk coat were crisplyironed; his hair, his scarf and lustrous yellow shoes, precise. "Howat, "she continued almost anxiously, "you put a lot on, well--good form. Youthink that the way a man knots his tie is tremendously significant--"

"Perhaps, " he returned cautiously. "A good many years have shown me thatthe right man usually wears the right things. "

"Couldn't that be just the smallest bit unfair? Aren't there, afterall, droves of the right men in rubber collars? I don't know any, " sheadded hastily; "that is, not exactly the same. But it seems to me thatyou have lived so exclusively in a certain atmosphere that you mighthave got blinded to--to other things. "

"Perhaps, " he said again, complacently. "I can only judge by my ownfeeling and experience. Now Mapleson, never was a finer conductor ofopera--you didn't catch him in a pink tie in the evening. And some ofthose others, who failed in a couple of weeks, I give you my word, dressshirts with forgetmenots. "

She regarded him with a frowning, half closed vision. "It sounds wrong, "she commented. "It's been your life, of course. " He grew resentful underher scrutiny, the implied criticism. A sudden suspicion entered hismind, connected with her expression last evening, the young man whosename he had omitted to ask. His reluctance to question her returned. Butif Mariana had attached herself to some rowdy, by heaven, he would.... He fixed the glass in his eye, and, pretending to be occupied with aperiodical, studied her. He realized that he would, could, do nothing. She was a woman of determination, and, her father dead, a very adequateincome of her own. His fondness for Mariana resided principally in awish to see her free from the multitudinous snares that he designated ina group as common. He was fearful of her entanglement in the cheapimplications of the undistinguished democracy more prevalent every year. All that was notable, charming, in her, he felt, would be obliterated bytrite connection; he had no more patience for the conventionalfulfilment of her life than he had for the thought of women voting. Howat Penny saw Mariana complete, fine, in herself, as the _Orpheo_ ofChristopher Gluck was fine and complete. He preferred the containedartistry of such music to the cruder, more popular and moral, sounds. 

Early in the afternoon she went to her room, although Honduras had nooccasion to go to the station for considerably more than an hour, explaining that she must dress. Howat Penny sat with his palms on hiswhite flannelled knees, revolving, now, himself in the light of hisaspirations for Mariana. He wondered if, in the absence of any sympathyfor the mass of sentiment and living, he was blind, too, to her greatestpossibilities; if, in short, he was a vicious influence. Perhaps, as theold were said to do, he had hardened into a narrow and erroneousconception of values. Such doubts were both disturbing and unusual;ordinarily he never hesitated in the exact expression of his vigorouslyheld opinions and prejudices; he seldom relaxed the critical elevationof his standards. He was, he thought contemptuously, growing soft;senility was diluting his fibre, blurring his inner vision. 

Nothing of this was visible as he rose on Mariana's reappearance; therewas not a line relaxed; his handsome, dark profile was as pridefullyclear as if it had been stamped on a bronze coin. Mariana wore, simply, blue, with an amber veiling of tulle about her shoulders, and a shortskirt that gave her a marked youthful aspect. She seemed ill at ease;and avoided his gaze, hurrying out to meet the motor as it noisilyturned sharply in at the door. Howat Penny heard Eliza Provost's short, impatient enunciation, and a rapid, masculine utterance. Eliza entered, a girl with a decided, evenly pale face and brown eyes, in a severeblack linen suit and a small hat, and extended a direct hand, a slightlysmiling greeting. Mariana followed, for a moment filling the doorway. "We'll go up, Eliza, " she said, moving with the other to the stair, afew feet distant. A man followed into the house, and Mariana half turnedon the bottom step. "Howat, " she proceeded hurriedly, "this is JamesPolder. " Then she ascended with Eliza Provost. 

An expression of amazement, deepening almost to dismay, was momentarilyvisible on Howat Penny's countenance. His face felt hot, and there wasan uncomfortable pressure in his throat, such as might come from shock. Surely Mariana wouldn't ... Without warning him--! He was conscious ofthe necessity, facing a tall, spare young man with an intent expression, of a polite phrase; and he articulated an adequate something in anoticeably disturbed tone. But, of course, he had made a mistake. JamesPolder's intensity increased, concentrated in a gaze at once belligerentand eager. He said:

"Then Miss Jannan didn't tell you. It was a mistake. It may be I am notexactly desirable here, " his voice sharpened, and he retreated a steptoward the door. 

"No, " Howat Penny replied; "she didn't. " He found himself studying aface at once youthful and lined, a good jaw contradicted by a mouthalready traced with discontent, and yellow-brown eyes kindling with asurprising energy of resentment. "You are Byron Polder's son?" he saidin a manner that carried its own affirmation. "Eunice Scofield'sgrandson. "

"Eunice Penny's, " the other interjected. "Your own grandfather saw tothat. " His hand rested in the doorway, and he stopped Honduras, carryingin the guests' bags. Howat Penny's poise rapidly returned. "Go right up, Honduras, " he directed; "the Windmill room, I think. I had never seenyou, " he said to James Polder, as if in apology. "But your father hasbeen pointed out to me. " He waved the younger man into the room beyond, and moved forward the cigarettes. 

James Polder took one with an evident relief in the commonplace act. Hestruck a match and lit the cigarette with elaborate care. "Will you sitfor a little?" the elder proceeded. "Or perhaps you'd rather change atonce. I've no doubt it was sticky in the city. "

"Thank you; perhaps I'd better--the last. " Rudolph appeared, andconducted the young man above. Howat Penny sat suddenly, his lips foldedin a stubborn line. Mariana had behaved outrageously; she must befamiliar with the whole, miserable, past episode; she had given him somevery bad moments. He had a personal bitterness toward that old, unhappyaffair, the dereliction of his dead grandfather--it had been, he hadalways felt, largely responsible for his own course in life; it had, before his birth even, formed his limitations, as it had those of hisfather. 

The latter had been the child of a dangerously late marriage, a marriagefrom which time and delay had stripped both material potency andsustaining illusion. Jasper Penny had been nearing fifty when his sonwas born; and that act of deliberate sacrifice on the part of his wife, entering middle age, had imposed an inordinate amount of suffering onher last years. Their child, it was true, had been of normal stature, and lived to within a short space of a half century. But then he hadutterly collapsed, died in three days from what had first appeared aslight cold; and, throughout his maturity, he had been a man of feverishmind. His disastrous, blind struggle against the great, newly discoverediron deposits of the Middle West was characteristic of his ill balance. And, in his own, Howat Penny's, successive turn, the latter told himselfagain, he had paid part of the price of his grandfather's indulgence. 

It was incorporated in the Penny knowledge that Susan Brundon hadrefused to marry Jasper while the other woman was alive. The latter haddied, some years after the disgraceful publicity of the murder andtrial; the wedding had then taken place; but it seemed to Howat Penny tohave been almost perfunctory. Yes, he had paid too, in the negativephilosophy, the critical sterility, of his existence. He recognized thisin one of the disconcerting flashes of perception that latelyilluminated him as if from without. Some essential proportion had beendisturbed. He looked up, at a slight sound, and saw Mariana standingbefore him. His expression, he knew, was severe; he had been quiteupset. 

"I can see, " she proceeded slowly, "that I have been very wicked. Ididn't realize, Howat, that it might affect you; how real all that oldstir might be. I am tremendously sorry; you must know that I am awfullyfond of you. It was pure, young selfishness. I was afraid that if Ispoke first you wouldn't let him come. And it was important--I must seehim and talk to him and think about it. You can realize mother andKingsfrere!"

"Where did you meet him?" he demanded shortly. 

"With Eliza, at a meeting, " she went on more rapidly. "He's terriblybrilliant, and a steel man. Isn't it funny? The Pennys were steel, too;or iron, and that's the same. I wish you could be nice to him or justdecent, until--until I know. "

"Mariana!" he exclaimed, rising. "You don't mean that you are really--. That you--"

"Perhaps, Howat, " she answered gravely. "I have only seen him twice; andhe has said nothing; but, you see, I am an experienced young woman. Noother man has made the same impression. "

"That, " he declared coldly, "is unthinkable. You can't know all thefacts. "

"I do; but, somehow, I don't care. "

"Everything about him is impossible--his history, family ... Why, EuniceScofield, well, Penny, married a man from behind a counter, a fellow whosold womens' gloves; yes, and more than half Jew. And this man's motherwas Delia Mullen, a daughter of the dirty ward leader. All this asidefrom--from his bad blood. "

"It's partly yours, you know, " she said quietly. "After all, there areother places I can see him. " She turned away. "Eliza Provost is insane, "he muttered. "No, " Mariana returned, "only superior to narrow littleprejudices. She can see life, people, as they are. Jim Polder is one ofthe most promising men in the steel mills. He is going up and up. Thatis enough for Eliza, it is enough for me; and if it won't do for myfamily--" she made an opening gesture with her fingers. Her expressionhad hardened; she gazed at him with bright, contemptuous eyes. In amoment the affectionate bonds between them seemed to have dissolved. His feeling was one of mingled anger and concern; but he endeavoured toregain his self-control, conscious that a hasty word more might doirreparable harm. 

"Of course, I can't have you meeting him about the streets, " he stated. "It is better here, if necessary. I am very much displeased, " a note ofcomplaint appeared, and she immediately returned to him, laid a hand onhis shoulder. "Nothing is certain, " she assured him. "I wanted to besure, that is all. I don't want to make a mess out of things. "

It was a part of the very quality of emotional courage he had so latelydefined, extolled; a part of her disdain for ordinary prudence andconventional approbation. A direct dislike for this James Polder invadedhim, a determined attitude of hyper-criticism. When the younger manreappeared Howat Penny found justification for this attitude. Thedetails of Polder's apparel, although acceptable in the main, werewithout nicety. His shoes were a crude tan, and his necktie from theouter limbo. His hands, too, had a grimy surface and the nails werebroken, unkempt. 

But it was evident that all the criticism was not to be limited to hisown. James Polder regarded the single glass with a scoffing lip, as ifit were the appendage of a ludicrous Anglomania. He glanced withindifference at Howat Penny's pictures, books, the collected emblems ofhis cultivated years. His brows raised at the photograph of Scalchi inthe Page's trunks--as if, the elder thought, she had been a "pony" inthe _Black Crook_--and was visibly amused at the great Mapleson, posedin a dignified attitude by a broken column. An irrepressible and bitingscorn, Howat Penny saw, was, perhaps, the young man's strongestattribute. He had violent opinions expressed in sudden, sharp movements, gestures with his shoulders, swift frowns and fragmentary sentences. 

Howat Penny had never seen a more ill-ordered youth, and he experiencedan increasing difficulty in keeping a marked asperity from his speechand conduct. Eliza Provost shortly came down, and the three strolled outinto the ruddy light of late afternoon. Howat Penny consumed a long timedressing for the evening; and, in the end, irritably summoned Rudolph. "I can't get these damned studs in, " he complained; "whatever do yousuppose women use for starch now?" Rudolph dexterously fixed theemeralds, then held the black silk waistcoat. "And coats won't hang fora bawbee, " he went on. "Gentlemen like Gary Dilkes used to go regularlyto London, spring and fall, for their things. No doubt then about a manof breeding. You didn't see the other kind around. Wouldn't have 'em. "Rudolph murmured consolingly. "Sat in the pit but never got into theboxes, " his voice grew thin, querulous. "I'm moving along, Rudolph, " headmitted suddenly; "the manners, and, by thunder, the music too, don'tsuit me any more. Give me the old Academy days in Irving Place. " Hehummed a bar from _Ernani_. 

Through dinner he maintained a severe silence, listening with a frowningdisapproval to Eliza Provost's tranquil, subversive utterances. HowatPenny couldn't think what her father was about, permitting her toharangue loafers by the streets and saloons. She was, in a cold way--shehad Peter Jannan Provost's curious grey colouring--a handsome piece of agirl, too. "A fine figger, " he told himself. 

Later, Mariana and James Polder had gone out on the porch, he faced withreluctance the task of furnishing her with entertainment; but, to hisextreme relief, she procured a leather portfolio, and addressed herselfto a sheaf of papers. But that, in itself, was a peculiar way for ayoung woman to spend an evening. She would have done it, he felt, if hehad been half his actual age. God help the man with a fancy for her!Charming visions were woven on his memory from the fading skeins of thepast--a ride in a dilapidated, public fiacre after a masked ball inParis ... At dawn. Confetti tangled in coppery hair, a wilful mouth, fragrantly painted, and phantomlike swans on a black lake. His silk hathad been telescoped in the process of smacking a Frenchman's eye. Perhaps, they had told each other, there would be cards later in theday, an affair of honour. He forgot what, exactly, had happened; butthere had been no duel. 

He looked up with a sudden concern, as if his thoughts might have beenclear to Eliza Provost, in irreproachable evening dress and shell rimmedglasses, intent on statistical pages. Mariana and James Polder appeared;the former, Howat Penny thought, disturbed. Polder's intense countenancewas sombre, his brow corrugated. Mariana, accompanied by Eliza, soonafter went up; and left the two men facing each other across a neutralsilence. "You manufacture steel, I believe, " the elder finally stated. 

"The Company does, " Polder replied more exactly. "I've been in the openhearth since I left school, " he went on; "it was born in me, I've neverthought of anything else. " His tone grew sharp, as if it might occur tothe other to contradict the legitimacy of his pursuit. "I have done wellenough, too, " he said pridefully. "Most of them come on from college. Iwent from shovelling slag in the pit, the crane, to second helper andmelter; they gave me the furnace after a year and now I am foreman. Itwill be better still if a reorganization goes through. Not many men havea chance at the superintendent's office under thirty-five. "

"That is very admirable, " Howat Penny said formally. He wondered, privately, at the far channel into which the original Penny ability hadflowed. There could be no doubt, however objectionable, that JamesPolder was the present repository of the family tradition. He had had itfrom the source; and the iron had not, apparently, been corroded bytainted blood. He was forced to admit that a coarser strain had, perhaps, lent it endurance. All this failed to detract from his initialdislike of young Polder. There was a lack of breeding in the manner inwhich he sat in his chair, thrust forward on its edge, in his arrogantproclamation of ability, success. James Polder was anxious, he realized, to impress him, Howat Penny, with the fact that he was not negligible. Such things were utterly unimportant to him. He was unable to justify, or even explain to himself, his standards of judgment. They were notfounded on admirable conduct, on achievement, what was known as solidworth; but on vague accents, intuitive attitudes of mind visible in ahundred trivial, even absurd, signs. The "right things" were moreindispensable to him than the sublimest attributes. 

On the following morning Mariana, Eliza and Polder disappeared in hiscar--it seemed that the latter was an accomplished mechanic in additionto his other qualities--and Howat Penny faced the disagreeablepossibilities of the near future. Mariana would, he knew, meet thisfellow promiscuously if necessary. As she had indicated, it wasimpossible to conceive of him in Charlotte Jannan's house. The latterwas a rigidly correct woman. She would, too, and properly, be nasty ifshe learned that such meetings had taken place at Shadrach. The onlything to do was to bring Mariana to what he designated as her senses. And, at the start, he had a conviction that he might fail. 

She did not accompany Eliza Provost and Polder, when, late Sundayafternoon, they departed; but sat absorbed in thought through theevening meal. He found his affection for her increasing to an annoyingdegree; he was almost humble in his anxiety not to wound her. 

"Life is so messy, " she said with sudden violence. "You can't think, Howat, how I hate myself; the horridest things go round and roundthrough my mind. We're all wrong--I'm more like you than Iadmitted--born snobs. I mean the kind who look down on people differentfrom themselves. I can't help being on--on edge. I can tell you this, though, I care more for Jim Polder than for any other man I've ever met. I'm mad about him; and yet, somehow, I can't quite think of marryinghim. He's asked me already. But I knew he would. "

"You must wait, " he temporized; "such things clear up after a little. "

"And if they don't?" she demanded. "What if they are choked by a hundredcowardly or selfish thoughts? It can be too late so terribly soon, Howat. You must know that. You see, I can't decide what really is themost valuable, what should be held tight on to, or let go. There are twome's, it seems--one what I want and the other what I am. I want Jim andI'm Mariana Jannan. All that about Eunice or Essie, or whatever her namewas, doesn't matter a bawbee, as you say. I hate it because I think attimes it makes him unhappy. Really, I believe I am fonder of him becauseof it. We owe him something--the superior Jannans and Pennys. Why, Howat, he's your own blood, and you looked at him as if he were agrocer's assistant. And I watched hatefully for the little expressionsthat seemed common. Of course, out in those mills, he would pick up alot that wouldn't touch us; and, after all, he could drop them. "

"If you have any thought of reforming him, " he commented dryly, "youmight as well see a wedding stationer. "

"I could influence him, " she insisted; "I'd at least count for as muchas those shovellers and furnace men. "

"But not, " he proceeded relentlessly, "against the Essie Scofield youdismissed so easily. I don't doubt for a minute the unhappiness youspoke of; it would he a part of his inheritance; and you'd never charmit out of him. Damn it, Mariana, " he burst out, "he's inferior! That'sall, inferior. " Anger and resentment destroyed his caution, his plannedlogic, restraint. "I can see what your life would be, if you can't. Youwould live in a no-man's land; and all the clergymen in the worldcouldn't make you one. "

"It wouldn't be the clergymen, Howat, " she said simply. "And you mustn'tthink I am only a silly with her first young man. I have kissed thembefore, Howat; yes, and liked it. I am not happy with Jim; it'ssomething else, like tearing silk. He is so confident and so helpless;he's drinking now, too. "

"I suppose that is an added attraction, " he commented. She chose toignore this. "I half promised him, " she continued, "to take dinner withhis family. He will be in the city next week. I said I thought you'dbring me. "

"Well, I won't, " he replied in a startled energy. "Mariana, you're outof your head. Go to Byron Polder's house! Me!" In his excitement hedropped a lighted cigarette on the Chinese rug. "I have no one else, "she told him. "Perhaps I'll marry Jim, and go away ... I thought youmight want to be with me, at the last. "

He fumbled for his glass, fixed it in his eye, and then dropped it out, clearing his throat sharply. He rose and crossed the room, and lookedout through the open door at the night. The stars were hazy, and therewas a constant reflection of lightning on the horizon. Howat Penny sworesilently at his increasing softness, his betrayal by his years. Yet itmight be a good thing for her to see the Polder family assembled, Byron--he was a pretentious looking fool--at one end of the table andDelia Mullen Polder at the other. There were more children, too. But ifit became necessary, heaven knew how he would explain all this toCharlotte. "I believe, " he said, apparently innocently, "that they livein the north end of the city. "

"It won't damage you, " she replied indirectly. Already, he thought withpoignant regret, a part of the old Mariana had gone; her voice wasolder, darker with maturity. 

XXVI

Howat Penny arrived in town late on the day when he was to dine withMariana at the Polders. He entered a taxicab, and was carried smoothlythrough the thick, hot air; open electric cars, ladened with damp, pallid salespeople, passed with a harsh ringing; and the foliage inRittenhouse Square hung dusty and limp and still. The houses beyond, onNineteenth Street, where the Jannans' winter dwelling stood, were closedand blankly boarded. The small, provisional entrance before which hestopped opened, and a servant, out of livery, appeared. "Shall I tellthe driver to return, sir?" he queried; "the telephone is disconnected. "He issued instructions, and, with Howat Penny's bag, followed him intothe darkened house. 

The windows of a general chamber on the second floor had been thrownopen; and there he found Mariana's brother. Kingsfrere Jannan was ayoung man with a broad white face, shadowed in pasty green, and leadeneyes. His countenance, Howat knew, masked a keen and avaricioustemperament. He did uncommonly well at auction bridge in the clubs. Kingsfrere, in a grey morning coat with white linen gaiters and arelentless collar, nodded and lounged from the room; and Mariana soonappeared. "Perhaps, Howat, " she said, "it would be better if you didn'tdress. I have an idea the Polder men don't. "

At the stubborn expression which possessed him she exclaimed sharply, "If you tell me that the Colonel or Gary Dilkes were always formallydressed at dinner I think I'll scream. " Nevertheless, he had nointention of relinquishing a habit of years for the Polders, or thenorth end of the city; and when, later, he came down into the hall, where the man stood with his silk hat and cape, Mariana put an arm abouthis shoulders. "I wish every one could he as beautiful as yourself, " shetold him. They passed the Square, bathed in dusk and the beginningshimmer of arc lights, went through the flattened and faintly thunderousarch of a railway, and turned into a broad asphalt street, on whichwide, glistening bulk windows gave place to sombre shops with lurid, flame-streaked vistas, and continuous residences beyond. Howat Pennygazed curiously at the tall, narrow dwellings, often a continuous, similar façade from street corner to corner, then diversified inelaborate, individual design. All, however, had deep stone steps leadingto the sidewalk, thronged with figures in airy white dresses, coatlessmen smoking contentedly; there was a constant light vibration oflaughing voices and subdued calling, and the fainter strains ofmechanical music, the beat of popular marches and attenuated voices ofcelebrated singers. 

The motor turned suddenly in to the curb, and they got out. The housebefore them, like its fellows, was entered from a high flight of redsandstone steps, and was built of a smooth, soapy green stone, with redcoursings, an elaborate cornice and tiled Italian roof. No one wassitting outside, although there was a pile of circular, grass-wovencushions; and Howat sharply rang the bell. A maid in aproned blackadmitted them into a narrow hall, from which stairs mounted with acarved rail terminating in a newel post supporting an almost life-sizedbronze nymph, whose flowing hair was encircled by a wreath ofelectrically lit flowers, and who held a dully shining sheaf ofjonquils. There was no other illumination, and Howat Penny discovered inthe obscurity a high mirror bristling with elk horns, on which hungvarious hats and outer garments. He stood helpless, apparently, in anattitude he found impossible to deny himself, waiting to be relieved ofhis coverings, when Mariana whispered angrily, "Don't be so rotten, Howat. "

Finally the maid secured his cape, and he was conscious of a stir at thehead of the stairs. Immediately after, a shrill, subdued voice carriedto where he stood. "I told you, " it said violently, "... Dress suit. "There was an answering murmur, in which he could distinguish, JamesPolder's impatient tones. The latter descended, and flooded the hallwith, light from a globe in the ceiling. He was garbed in blue serge andflannels. "Isabella, " he stated directly, belligerently even, "thinks weought to change our clothes; but we never do, and I wouldn't hear of--oflying for effect. " Howat Penny's dislike for him pleasantly increased. Mariana, in rose crêpe with a soft, dull gold girdle and long, trumpet-like sleeves of flowered gauze, smiled at him warmly. "It is aharmless pose of Howat's, " she explained: "a concession to the ghosts ofthe past. " She patted the elder on the shoulder. 

Above, James Polder ushered them into a room hung with crimson and giltstamped paper, an elaborately fretted cherry mantel about the asbestosrectangle of an artificial hearth, and a multitude of chairs and divansshrouded in linen. There was an upright, ebonized piano draped in afringed, Roman scarf and holding a towering jar of roses, a great, carved easel with a painstaking, smooth oil painting of a dark man in anattitude of fixed dignity, and an expensively cased talking machine. Theoriginal, evidently, of the portrait, and a small, rotund woman in mauvebrocade, advanced to meet them. Young Polder said, "My mother andfather. This is Miss Jannan and Mr. Howat Penny. "

The latter saw that Mrs. Byron Polder was distinctly nervous; shetwisted the diamonds that occupied a not inconsiderable portion of hershort fingers, and smiled rigidly. "I am very pleased to meet you, MissJannan, " she proceeded; "and Mr. Penny too. " She held out a hand, thenhalf withdrew it; but Mariana captured it in her direct palm. "Thankyou, " she replied. Byron Polder had a more confident poise; in realitythere was a perceptible chill in his manner. He was a handsome man, witha cleanly-shaven face, introspective brown eyes and a petulant, droopingmouth. "You have succeeded in finding your way to my house, " hepronounced enigmatically, gazing at Howat Penny. 

It was, Howat thought, just such an ill-bred utterance as he had lookedfor from Byron Polder; and he made no effort to mitigate it. He wasconscious of, and resolutely ignored, Mariana's veiled entreaty. "Youdon't know my girls, " Mrs. Polder continued rapidly. "Here is Isabella, and Kate will be along for dinner. " A tall, bony woman of, perhaps, thirty-five, in an appalling complication of ribbons and silk, movedforward with a conventional sentence. In her, Howat's appraisements wenton, virginity had been perpetuated in a captious obsession. They stoodawkwardly silent until James Polder exclaimed, "Good heavens, this isn'ta wax works! Why don't we sit down?" The older woman glanced with aconsuming anxiety at Isabella, and nodded violently toward an exit, "It's a quarter after seven, " she said in a swift aside. Isabella, correctly disposed on a chair of muffled and mysterious line, resolutelyignored the appeal. 

"I didn't suppose you'd be in the city, " she addressed Mariana; "I readin the paper that you had gone to Watch Hill with Mrs. Ledyard B. Starr. "

"You can see that I'm back, " Mariana smiled. "The family, of course, areat Andalusia, but we have all been in town the past days. I am reallystaying with Howat at Shadrach. "

"The former location of Shadrach Furnace, I believe, " Byron Polderstated. "Now in ruins. " Howat Penny accurately gathered that the otherinferred the collapse not only of the Furnace. He secured the singleglass in his eye and looked deliberately around. Isabella watched himwith a tense interest. Mrs. Polder gave a short, perturbed giggle. "Justlike George Arliss, " she told her son. James Polder, on the edge of achair, was twitching with repressed uneasiness; he frownedantagonistically and then gazed appealingly at Mariana. "I have beenintroduced to your cousin, Miss Provost, " Isabella again took up hersocial thread. "A dear friend of mine, a talented actress, gave arecitation at Miss Provost's request, for suffrage. "

"Eliza's splendid, " Mariana pronounced. 

"Peter Jannan Provost's daughter, " Byron Polder added fully. But hisvoice indicated that even more, darkly unfavourable, might be revealed. "Miss Provost has been under arrest. " Damn the solemn ass, Howat Pennythought. "She's been in the jug twice now, " Mariana went on cheerfully;"Kingsfrere had to put up a bond the last time. " Mrs. Polder was rapidlyregaining her ease. "Wasn't her mamma scared?" she inquired. "I'd go onif Isabella was taken up. "

"Imagine Isabella!" Jim Polder exploded. "It's quite the thing, " thatindividual asserted. "Isabella, " her mother declared, "it is twenty-fivepast seven. I wish you'd go out and see where dinner is. " She rose withan expression of mingled surprise and pain. "Really, mother, " she said, "that is an extraordinary request. " Her brother snorted. There was asudden muffled clamour of chimes from below, and Mrs. Polder gave a sighof relief. "I didn't want it spoiled, " she explained, descending; "Jimwould be wild after all his eagerness to have things nice. "

The dining room, resembling all the interior, was long and narrow, andhad a high ceiling in varnished light wood. Byron Polder faced his wifeat the opposite end of the table. Howat Penny sat beside Mariana, withJim Polder across; Isabella was on her mother's right; and a waitingplace was filled by a dark, surprisingly beautiful girl. "This is Kate, "Mrs. Polder said proudly. Howat thought he had not seen such a handsomefemale for years. She wore a ruffled, transparent crêpe de Chine waistthat clung in frank curves to full, graceful shoulders; her hair was alustrous, black coil, and she had sultry, topaz eyes and a mouthdrooping like her father's, but more warmly bowed. Kate Polder met thedirect pleasure of his inspection with a privately conveyed admissionthat she understood and subscribed to it. Here, at last, was a girl upto the standard of old days, the divinity of Scalchi herself. She wouldhave created a sensation in Delmonico's, the real Delmonico's. Gary andthe Colonel--

"We think they're elegant, " Mrs. Polder's voice broke in on his revery. He looked up and saw a great fish on a huge platter before his host, afish in surprising semblance to life, had it not been for the rosettesof lemon, the green bed, which surrounded it. "Gracious, no, " sheanswered Mariana's query; "we don't do it home. Mr. Polder has them sentfrom a Rathskeller down town. He'll make a meal off one. " The latter wasplainly chagrined at this light thrown on his petty appetites. Heassumed an air of complete detachment in the portioning of the dish;but, at the same time, managed to supply himself liberally. Theconversation was sporadic. Howat Penny found the dinner lavish, anddivided his attention between it and Kate Polder. James and Marianaaddressed general remarks to the table at succeeding intervals. Mr. Polder gloomed, and Isabella went through the gestures, the accents, ofthe occasion with utter correctness. Howat studied Mariana, but he wasunable to discover her thoughts; she was smiling and cordial; andapologized for losing her slipper. "I always do, " she explained. JamesPolder hastily rose, and came around to assist her. The dinner was at anend, and she stood with a slim, silken foot outheld for him to replacethe fragile object of search. 

They reassembled above, and Mrs. Polder suggested music. "My son saysyou are very fond of good music, " she addressed Howat Penny. "I can tellyou it is a lovely taste. We have the prettiest records that come. Isabella, put on _Hark, Hark, the Lark_. " She obediently rose, and, revolving the handle of the talking machine, fixed the grooved, rubberdisk and needle. Howat listened with a stony countenance to the ensuingstrains. Such instruments were his particular detestation. Mrs. Polderwaved her hand dreamily. "Now, " she said, "the _Sextette_, and _The Endof a Perfect Day_. No, Mr. Penny would like to hear _Salome_, I'm sure, with all those cymbals and creepy Eastern tunes. " An orgy of soundfollowed, applauded--perversely, he was certain--by Mariana. James, hesaw, was as uneasy as himself; but for a totally different reason. Hegazed at Mariana with a fierce devotion patent to the most casual eye;his expression was tormented with concern and longing. 

"When do you return to Harrisburg?" Byron Polder inquired. "My son, " hewent on to Howat Penny, "is a practical iron man. I say iron, althoughthat is no longer the phrase, because of natural associations. Thepresent system of the manufacture of steel, as you doubtless know, evolved from the old Ironmasters, of whose blood James has a generousshare. We look to him to re-establish, er--a departed importance. I needsay no more. " His women's anxiety at this trend of speech becamepainful. "Play a right lively piece, " Mrs. Polder interjected, and anintolerable cacophony of banjoes followed, making conversation futile. 

The evening, Howat Penny felt, was a considerable success; by heaven, Mariana would never get herself into this! Byron Polder's innuendoesmust have annoyed her nicely. When the mechanical disturbance ceased, Mrs. Polder said, "I believe that's the bell. " Evidently she had beencorrect, for, immediately after, a young woman with bright gold hair, and a mobile, pink countenance unceremoniously entered the room. "Oh!"she exclaimed, in an instinctively statuesque surprise; "I didn't knowyou were entertaining company. "

"Come right in, Harriet, " Mrs. Polder heartily proclaimed. "Miss Jannan, Mr. Penny, this is Isabella's friend, Harriet de Barry, a near neighbourand a sweet girl. She's an actress, too; understudies Vivian Blane; andis better, lots say, than the lead. "

Harriet de Barry made a comprehensive gesture. "I wanted to say good-byeto you all, " she announced. "I am going on tour. Leave at midnight. Justhad a wire from Mrs. Blane. " There were polite Polder exclamations, regret, congratulations; through which the son of the house moodilygazed at the carpet. "Haven't you anything to say to Hatty?" his motherdemanded. "And after all the passes she sent you. " Howat Penny sawMariana's gaze rest swiftly on the latest comer's obvious good looks;and the scrutiny, he was certain, held a cold feminine appraisal. Asthey descended to leave Mariana lingered on the stairs with Jim. Thelatter closed the door of the public motor with a low, intense mutter;and, moving away, Howat Penny lit a cigarette with a breath of audiblerelief. 

"I don't know which I detest most, " Mariana declared viciously, "you ormyself. "

"You might include that fish, " he added plaintively. She gazed at him incold contempt, with an ugly, protruding lip. Nothing else was said untilthey were in the opened room at the Jannans. Mariana flung herself on abroad divan, with her narrowed gaze fixed on the points of her slippers. "Comfortable, isn't it, " she addressed him; "this feeling ofsuperiority?" He placidly nodded, inwardly highly pleased. "I wish I'dmarried Jim the first week I knew him, without trying to be so dam'admirable. Howat, what is it that makes people what they are, andaren't?" It was, he told her, difficult to express; but it had to dowith inherited associations. "Mrs. Polder is as kind as possible, " sheasserted; "and I could see that you were absorbed in Kate. "

"Really, Mariana, " he protested, "at times you are a little rough. Sheis a very fine girl; in fact, reminds me of Scalchi. Old Byron, though, what--a regular catafalque!" A blundering step mounted to the stair;Kingsfrere entered and stood wavering and concerned, the collar wiltedand a gaiter missing. "Ought to do something about the front door, " heasserted; "frightful condition, no paint; and full of splinters. Veryplump splinters, " he specified, examining a hand. Mariana surveyed himcoolly, thoroughly. "Sweet, isn't he?" she remarked. "Kingsfrere GilbertTodd Jannan. "

"That's absolutely all, " that individual assured her. "Except if youwant to add Sturgeon; some do. Hullow, Howat! Grand old boy, Howat, " hetold her. "But if he says I'm drunk, I will tell you one of Bundy'sstories about him. This--this elegant deception tremendous noise withthe song birds. " He sat abruptly on a providentially convenient chair. There, limply, he hiccoughed. "Sweet, " Mariana repeated. Kingsfrerefinally rose, and, with a friendly wave, wandered from the room. 

"It was good of you to take me, Howat, " she told him wearily. "Although, now, I can see that you went willingly enough. You thought it would cureme. But of what, Howat--of love? Of a feeling that, perhaps, I'd found areason for living?"

A decidedly uncomfortable feeling, doubt, invaded him. He had anunjustified sense of meddling, of blundering into a paramount situationto which he lacked the key. He had done nothing debatable, he assuredhimself; Mariana's inherent, well--prejudices, couldn't be charged tohim. In the room where he was to sleep the uneasiness followed him. Shewas his greatest, his only concern. Howat Penny reviewed his desire forher, his preference for a Mariana untouched by the common surge ofliving. He recalled the discontent, the feeling of sterility, that hadlately possessed him; the suspicion that his life had been in vain. Allhis philosophy, his accumulated convictions, were involved; and, tie inhand, he sat endeavouring to pierce the confusion of his ideas. 

He was conscious of a slow change gathering within him; and, in itself, that consciousness was disturbing. It had a vaguely dark, chill aspect. He shivered, in the room super-heated by summer; his blood ran thinnerand cold. Howat Penny had a sudden, startling sense of his utterloneliness; there was absolutely no one, now, to whom he could turn forthe understanding born of long and intimately affectionate association. Mariana was lost to him in her own poignant affair ... No children. Somany, so much, dead. His countenance, however, grew firm with thedetermination that age should not find him a coward. He had always beenbitterly contemptuous of the men that, surfeiting their appetites, showed at the impotent last a cheap repentance. But he had done nothingpointedly wrong; he had--the inversion repeated itself--done nothing. 

XXVII

At Shadrach his customary decision returned; he went about, or satreading, well-ordered, cool-appearing, dogmatic. He learned from the_Evening Post_ that Mariana was at Warrenton. She had carefullydescribed to him the Virginia country life, the gaiety and hard ridingof the transplanted English colonies; and he pictured her at thesuccessive horse shows, in the brilliant groups under the Doric columnsof the porticoes. Then, he saw, she had gone north; he found her picturein a realistic Egyptian costume with bare, painted legs at anextravagant ball. He studied her countenance, magnifying it with areading glass; but he saw nothing beyond a surface enjoyment of themoment. 

Then, to his utter surprise, on an evening after dinner, when he wasseated in the settling dusk of the porch, intent on the grey movementsof his familiar owls, a quick step mounted the path, and James Polderappeared. 

"I wanted to ask about Miss Jannan, " the latter stated frankly and atonce. Howat Penny cleared his throat sharply. "I believe she is well, "he stated formally. "You will find it cooler here. " It struck him thatthe young man was not deficient in that particular. More, of stillgreater directness, followed. "I suppose you know, " Polder stated, "thatI want to marry her ... And she won't. "

"I had gathered something of the sort, " the other admitted. "It'snatural, in a way. " Polder proceeded gloomily: "I'd take her away fromso much. And, yet, look here--you can shut me up if you like--what's itall about? Can you tell me that?" Howat Penny couldn't. "I'm not toblame for that old mess any more than you. And it's not my fault ifsomething of--of which you think so much came to me by the back door. I've always wanted what Mariana is, " he burst out, "and I have neverbeen satisfied with what I could get. And when I saw her, hell--what'sthe use!

"Any one in Harrisburg will tell you I am a good man, " he reiterated, ata slightly different angle. "When you kick through out of that racket ofhunkies and steel you've done something. Soon I'll be getting five orsix thousand. " He paused, and the other said dryly, "Admirable. " Thephrase seemed to him inadequate; it sounded in his ear as unpleasantlyas a false note. Yet he was powerless to alter it, change its brusqueaccent. The personal tone of Polder's revelations was inherentlydistasteful to him. He said, rising, "If you will excuse me I'll tellRudolph you will be here. "

"But I won't, " Polder replied; "there's a train back at eleven. I haveto be at the mills for the day shift to-morrow. I came out because Ihad to talk a little about Mariana. " He had deserted the more formaladdress. "And I wanted to tell some one connected with her that I havegimp of my own. I know why she won't marry me, and it's a small reason;it would be small in--"

"Hold up, " Howat Penny interrupted, incensed. "Am I to understand thatyou came here to complain about Miss Jannan's conduct? That won't do, you know. "

"It's a small reason, " the other insisted hotly. "Hardly more than theidiotic fact that I'm not in the Social Register. I am ashamed of her, and I said so. It was so little that I told her I wouldn't argue. Shecould go to the devil. "

"Really, " the other observed, "really, I shall have to ask you tocontrol your language or leave. "

"I wonder if she will?" the surprising James Polder sombrely speculated. "I wonder if I am? But there are other women, with better hearts. "

"Are we to construe this as a threat?" Howat asked in a delicatelybalanced tone. 

"For God's sake, " he begged, "can't you be human!" The other suddenlyrecalled Mariana's imploring anger at the Polders. "Don't be so rotten, Howat. " The confusion of his valuations, his habitual attitudes ofthought, returned. His gaze strayed to the obscured ruin of ShadrachFurnace, at once a monument of departed vigour and presentdisintegration. Perhaps, just as the energy had expired in the Furnace, it had seeped from him. It might be that he was only a sere husk, a drybundle of inhibitions, insensible to the green humanity of life. 

"I couldn't go on my knees to anything, " the younger took up his burden. "Wrong or not it is the way I'm made. I'd not hang about where I wasn'twanted. Although you mightn't think it. And I am sorry I came here. I dothings like that all the time; I mean I do, say, exactly the opposite ofwhat I plan. You'll think I am a braying ass, of course. "

"Stop for a breath, " Howat Penny recommended; "a breath, and acigarette. " He extended his case; and, in place of taking a cigarette, Polder examined the case resentfully. "There is it, " he declared;"correct, like all the rest of you. And it's only old leather. But minewould be different. I could sink and Mariana wouldn't put out a handjust on account of that. It's wrong, " he insisted. Expressed in thatmanner it did seem to Howat Penny a small reason for the withholding ofany paramount salvation. Yet, he told himself, he had no intention, desire, to undertake the weight of any reformation. A futile effort, headded, with his vague consciousness of implacable destiny, his dim senseof man moved from without, in locked progression. Polder was young, rebellious; but he could grow older; he would grow older and comprehend;or else beat himself to death on obdurate circumstance. What concernedHowat was the hope that Mariana would be no further involved in eitherprocess. She too had this to learn--that, in the end, blood was strongerthan will; the dead were terribly potent. He had, even, no inclinationto say any of this to the man frowning in the dusk at his side. It wouldbe useless, a mere preaching. An expression, too, of a slight but actualsympathy for James Polder would be misleading. In the main Howat wasentirely careless of what might happen to the other; it was only where, unfortunately, he touched Mariana that he entered into the elder'sworld. He would sacrifice him for Mariana in an instant. Polder rose. 

"I must leave, " he announced. Howat Penny expressed no regret, and theother hesitated awkwardly. "It's no use!" he finally exclaimed. "I can'treach you; as if one of us spoke Patagonian. Hellish, it seems to me. "He turned and disappeared, as violently as he had come, over theobscurity of the lawn. A reddish, misshapen moon hung low in the sky, and gave the aging man an extraordinarily vivid impression of deadplanets, unthinkable wastes of time, illimitable systems and spaces. James Polder's passionate resentment, his own emotion, were no morearticulate than the thin whirring of the locusts. He went quickly intothe house, to the warm glow of his lamp, the memories of his pictures, the figurine in baked clay with Hermes' wand of victory. 

XXVIII

The heat dragged through the remainder of August and filled Septemberwith steaming days and heavy nights, followed by driving grey storms andpremonitory, chill dawns. A period of sunny tranquillity succeeded, butcrimson blots of sumach, the warmer tone of maples, made it evident thatsummer had lapsed. Honduras mulched the strawberries, and set new teethin his lawn rakes. The days passed without feature, or word fromMariana, and Howat Penny fell into an almost slumberous monotony ofexistence. It was not unpleasant; occupied with small duties, intent onhis papers, or wandering in a past that seemed to grow clearer, ratherthan fade, as time multiplied, he maintained his erect, carefullyordered existence. Then, among his mail, he found a large, formal-appearing envelope which he opened with a mild curiosity. Hisattitude of detachment was soon dispelled. 

Mrs. Corinne de Barry desired the pleasure of his attendance at thewedding of her daughter, Harriet, to James Polder. Details, a church andhour, were appended. The headlong young man, he thought, with a smile, Mariana was well out of that. He had been wise in saying nothing toCharlotte; the thing had expired naturally. But, irrationally, hethought of Polder with a trace of contempt--a man who had, unquestionably, possessed Mariana Jannan's regard marrying thepink-faced understudy to a second-rate emotional actress! In a way itmade him cross; the fellow should have shown a--a greater appreciation, delicacy. "Commonplace, " he said decisively, aloud. The following dayMariana herself appeared, with a touch of sable and a small, wickedlybecoming hat. 

He was at lunch; and, without delay, she took the place smilingly laidfor her by Rudolph. It was characteristic that she made no pretence ofconcealing the reason that had brought her to Shadrach. "Jim's going tomarry that Harriet de Barry, " she said at once, nicely casual. "I had acard, " he informed her. "It's to be on the thirtieth, " Marianaproceeded, "at eight o'clock and in church. Of course you are going. "

"Not at all of course, " he replied energetically. "And you'll stay awayfor the plainest decency. "

"We will go together, " she proceeded calmly. "I want to see Jim married, happy. " She gazed at him with narrowed eyes. 

"Mariana, " he told her, "that's a shameful lie. It is cold, femininecuriosity. It's worse--the only vulgar thing I can remember yourconsidering. I won't hear of it. " He debated the wisdom of recountingJames Polder's last visit to Shadrach and decided in the negative. "Letthe young man depart with his Harriet in peace. "

"It's sickening, isn't it?" she queried. "And yet it is so like Jim. Hehad a very objectional idea of his dignity; he was sensitive in a waythat made me impatient. He couldn't forget himself, you see. That helpedto make it difficult for me; I wasn't used to it; his feelings werealways being damaged. "

Howat Penny nodded. "You'll recall I emphasized that. " Mariana lookedworn by her gaiety, he decided, white; for the first time in his memoryshe seemed older than her actual years. Her friends, he knew, herexistence, bore the general appellation, fast; Howat had no share in thecondemnatory aspect of the term, but he realized that it had a literalapplication. Their pace was feverish, and Mariana plainly showed itseffects. Her voice, already noted as more mature, had, he was sure, hardened. She dabbled her lips thickly with a rouge stick. "Mariana, " hesaid querulously, "I wish, you'd stop this puppet dance you're leading. I wish you would marry. "

"I tried to, " she coolly replied, "but you spoiled my young dream ofhappiness. "

"That isn't true, " he asserted sharply, perturbed. "Anything thathappened, or didn't happen, was only the result of yourself, of what youare. I am extremely anxious to have you settled, and your legs out ofthe Sunday papers. I--I am opposed to your present existence; it's goneon too long. I believe I'd rather see you orating on the streets, likeEliza Provost. And, by thunder, I never thought I should come to that!Champagne and those damnable syncopated tunes played by hystericalniggers make a poor jig. " He spoke impetuously, unconscious of anyreversal of previous judgments, opinions. 

"You are so difficult to please, Howat, " she said wearily; "you wereaghast at the thought of my marrying James, and now you are complainingof the natural alternative. The truth is, " she added brutally, "you areold-fashioned; you think life goes on just as it did when the Academy ofMusic was the centre of your world. And nothing is the same. " She rose, and, with a lighted cigarette and half-shut eyes, fell into a rhythmicstep of sensuous abandon. "You see, " she remarked, pausing. Anincreasing dread for her filled his heart. He felt, in response to herchallenge, a sudden bewilderment in the world of to-day. Things, HowatPenny told himself, were marching to the devil. He said this irritably, loud, and she laughed. "I'm going in by an early train, " she proceeded. "We have left the country. Will you stop for me on the thirtieth? Early, Howat, so we can be sure of a good place. "

His helplessness included the subject of her remarks; he would, herealized, be at James Polder's wedding, but he persisted in his opinion. "A low piece of business, " Howat declared. When she had gone he feltthat he had not penetrated her actual attitude toward Polder'sdeflection. He had not for a moment got beneath her casual manner, herlightness, pretended or actual. He wished vehemently that he were backagain in the past he comprehended, among the familiar figures that hadthronged the notable dinner to Patti, the women who had floated sograciously through the poetry of departed waltzes. He got out his albumsonce more, scrutinized through his polished glass the programmes ofevenings famous in song. But he went to bed a full two hours earlierthan customary; his feet positively dragged up the stairs; above he satstrangely exhausted, breathing heavily for, apparently, no reasonwhatever. 

He retraced, with Mariana, the course over the broad, asphalt way intothe north end of the city early on the evening of the thirtieth. Theyfound the church easily, by reason of a striped canvas tunnel stretchedout to the curb; and a young man with plastered hair and a gardenia ledthem, Mariana on his arm, to a place on the centre aisle. The church hada high nave newly vaulted in maple, and stained glass windows drapedwith smilax, garish in colour against electric lights. Above the altar agreat illuminated cross maintained an unsteady flickering; and--it wasunseasonably cold--heating steam pipes gave out an expanding racket. 

The pews through the centre filled rapidly; there was a low, excitedchatter of voices, and a spreading tropical expanse of the dyedfeathers and iridescent foliage of womens' hats. An overpowering scentof mingled perfumes rose and filled the interior. The strains of anorgan grew audible, contesting with the rattle of the steam pipes. HowatPenny was detached, critical. Mariana, in a dull, black satin wrap ofinnumerable soft folds and wide paisley collar slipping from asheath-like bodice of gleaming, cut steel beading, was silent, incurious. He turned to her, to point out an extravagant figure, but hesaid nothing. She was, evidently, in no mood for the enjoyment of theridiculous. This disturbed him; he had not thought that she would beso--so concerned. He suppressed an impatient exclamation, and returnedto the scrutiny of the culminating ceremony. 

Here was a sphere, vastly larger than his own, to the habits andprejudices of which he was complete stranger. It was as James Polder hadsaid--as if one or the other spoke Patagonian. He had no wish to acquirethe language about him; a positive antagonism to his surroundingpossessed him, beyond reason. He thought--how different Mariana is fromall this, and was annoyed again at her serious bearing. Then he wassurprised by his presence there at all; confound the girl, why didn'tshe play with her own kind! Yet only the other day the glimpse she hadgiven him of her natural associates had filled him with dread. His mind, striving to encompass the problem of Mariana's existence, failed toovercome the walls built about him by time, by habit. He gave it up. Thelouder pealing of the organ announced immediate developments. 

There was a stir in the front of the church, a clergyman in whitevestment advanced; and, at a sudden murmurous interest, a twisting ofheads, the wedding procession moved slowly up the aisle. The ushers, painstakingly adopting various lengths of stride to the requirements ofthe organ, passed in pairs; then followed an equal number of youngwomen, among whom he instantly recognized the handsome presence of KatePolder, in drooping blue bonnets, with prodigious panniers ofcelestial-hued silk, carrying white enamelled shepherd's crooks fromwhich depended loops of artificial buttercups. An open space ensued, inthe centre of which advanced a child with starched white skirtsspringing out in a lacy wheel about spare, bare knees, her pale yellowhair tied in an overwhelming blue bow; and holding outstretched, in aspecies of intense and quivering agony, a white velvet cushion to whichwere pinned two gold wedding bands. 

After that, Howat Penny thought, the prospective bride could furnishonly the diminished spectacle of an anti-climax. Led by the virginalpresence of Isabella Polder she floated forward in a foam of white tulleand dragging satin attached below her bare, full shoulders. A floatingveil, pinned with a wreath of orange blossoms, manifestly wax, coveredthe metallic gold of her hair. Her countenance was unperturbed, statuesque, and pink. As the sentimental clamour of the organ died thesteam pipes took up, with renewed vigour, their utilitarian noise. "Whydon't they turn them off?" Mariana exclaimed in his ear. Personally heenjoyed such an accompaniment to what he designated as the performance. 

He cast the participants in their inevitable rôles--the bride as primadonna, James Polder the heroic tenor. Mrs. Corinne de Barry, a thin, concerned figure in glistening lavender, supported a lamenting mezzo, the bulky, masculine figure at her side, with an imposing diamond on ahand like two bricks, was beautifully basso--

His train of thought was abruptly upset by James Polder's familiar, staccato utterance. The precipitant young man! It stamped out all HowatPenny's humorous condescension; his sensitive ear was conscious of anote, almost, of desperation. He avoided looking at Mariana. Damn it, the thing unexpectedly cut at him like a knife. James Polder said, "Iwill. " The clear, studied tones of Harriet de Barry, understudy toVivian Blane, were spoiled by the crackling of steam. Howat moveduneasily; he had an absurd sense of guilt; he hated the wholeproceeding. What was that Polder, whose voice persisted so darkly in hishearing, about, getting himself into such a snarl? He recalled what theyounger had said on his porch--"women with better hearts. " He hadimplored him, Howat Penny, to be "more human. " The memory, too, of theshaken tone of that request bothered him. Now it appeared that he mighthave been, well, more human. He composed himself, facing suchsentimental illusions, into a savage indifference to what remained ofthe ceremony; he ignored the passage of Polder, with Harriet Polder onhis arm; the relief of the unspeakable child carrying the white velvetcushion no longer in the manner of a hot plate; the united bridesmaidsand ushers. "Thank heaven, that's over!" he ejaculated in thedeeply-comfortable space of the Jannan's motor laundalet. "But itisn't, " Mariana said briefly. She sat silent, with her head turned fromhim, through the remainder of the short drive about Rittenhouse Square. Then she went abruptly to her room. 

Charlotte Jannan and her oldest child, Sophie Lewis, were above in theliving room. The former was handsome in a rigid way; her countenance, squarely and harshly formed, with grey hair exactly waved and pinned, had an expression of cold firmness; her voice was assertive and final. Sophie, apparently midway in appearance between Kingsfrere and Mariana, was gracefully proportioned, and gave an impression of illusive beautyby means of a mystery of veils, such as were caught up on her hat now. They were discussing, he discovered, the family. 

"It's an outrage, Howat, " Charlotte told him, "you never married, andthat the name will go. Here's Mariana at twenty-seven, almost, andnothing in sight; and Sophie flatly refuses, after only one, to haveanother child. I wish now I'd had a dozen. It is really the duty of theproper people. And Eliza Provost won't hear of a man! I tell Sophie it'stheir own fault when they complain about society to-day. It's the faultof this charity work and athletics, too; both extremely levelling. Hundreds of women wind bandages or go to the hunt races and gabble aboutvotes for no reason under heaven but superior associates. "

"Howat will feelingly curse the present with you, " Sophie said rising. "I must go. Borrow the motor, if you don't mind. I saw in the paper aPolder was married. " Howat Penny lit a cigarette, admirably stolid. "Aname I never repeat, " Charlotte Jannan said when her daughter had left. He heard again the echo of James Polder's intense voice, "I will. "Something of his dislike for him, he discovered, had evaporated. Howatthought of Mariana, in her room--alone with what feelings? He realizedthat Charlotte would never have forgiven her for any excursion in thatdirection. He himself had been, was, entirely opposed to such aconnection. However, he could now dismiss it into the past that held amultitude of similarly futile imaginings. 

Charlotte, he inferred, had no elasticity; it was a quality the absenceof which he had not before noted. She was a little narrow in hercomplacency. Her patent satisfaction in Sophie was a shade too--tooworldly. Sam Lewis was, of course, irreproachably situated; but he was, at the same time, thick-witted, an indolent appendage for his name. Suddenly he felt poignantly sorry for Mariana; in a way she seemed tohave been trapped by life. James Polder resembled her in that he hadbeen caught in an ugly net of circumstance. A great deal had been upsetsince his day, when the boxes and pit had been so convenientlyseparated; old boundaries no longer defined, limited, their content;social demarcations were being obliterated by a growing disaffection. Itwas very unfortunate, for, as he was seeing, unhappiness ensued. It wasbound to. An irritability seized him at being dragged into such uselessconjecturing; into, at his age, confusing complications; and he greetedwith relief the long, low front of his dwelling at Shadrach, its oldgrey stone a seeming outcropping of the old green turf, the aged, surrounding trees. 

XXIX

Mariana, however, followed him almost immediately. She stood before himin an informal, belted black wool sweater, a ridiculously inadequateskirt, and the solid shoes he detested on women. But he soon forgot hergarb. 

"Howat, " she told him, "I have made a cowardly and terrible mistake. Iwas meant to marry Jimmy, and I didn't. Perhaps I have ruined his life. Mine will be nothing without him. " They were in the middle room, and afire of hickory was burning in the panelled hearth. She dropped on achair, and sat gazing into the singing flames. Here it's all to do over, he thought, with a feeling of weariness. "He may get along very wellwith his Harriet, " he remarked, resentful of his dissipated contentment. 

"You know he won't, " she replied sharply. "He loves me; and I love him, Howat. I never knew how much, or how little anything else mattered, until I was in my room, after his wedding. It wasn't a wedding, really, "she declared. "All that doesn't make one. He'll find it out, too. Jimmywill be desperate, and I'm afraid he will drink harder. He told me theywere getting frightfully strict about that at the Works. And there'sthat reorganization; it will embitter him if he isn't madesuperintendent. He has worked splendidly for it. That woman he--he wentoff with is a squash, " she said vindictively. "She will be in bed whenhe goes away in the morning, and in crêpe de Chine negligee when he getsback. Perhaps it won't last, " she added thoughtfully. 

The sense of future security generated in Howat Penny by the marriageabruptly departed. He fumbled with his glass, directed it at Mariana. "What do you mean by that?" he demanded. "I would go to him like a shot, if he needed me, " she coolly returned. The dreadful part of it was thathe was sure she would. "Nonsense, " he asserted, hiding his concern;"there will be no fence climbing. " All this came from the letting downof conversational bars, the confounded books he found about on tables. Words, like everything else, had lost their meanings. In his day a badwoman was bad, a good, likewise, good; but the Lord couldn't tell themapart now. It was the dancing, too. Might as well be married to a man, he thought. 

Mariana was haggard, the paint on her face crudely--paint. He saw thatthere were tears in her eyes, and he turned away confused, rose. Theslot in his cigarette box refused to open, and he shook it violently, then put it back with a clatter. "Tell Rudolph you're here, " he saiddisjointedly; and, miserable, left the room. Dressing he stood at awindow; the west held a narrow strip of crimson light under a windy massof cloud. The ruin of Shadrach Furnace was sombre. Within, the room wasalmost bare. There was a large, high-posted bed without drapings, avermilion lacquered table, dark with age, supporting a glass lamp at itsside; a set of drawers with old brass handles; a pair of stiff Adamchairs with wheel backs; and a modern mahogany dressing case, variouslyand conveniently divided, a clear mirror in the door. 

The day failed rapidly, and he lit a pair of small lamps on the set ofdrawers. The sun sank in no time at all. Mariana, crying. The girl oughtto go to her mother, and not come out to him, an old man, with herintimate troubles. "A name I never repeat, " Charlotte had said. That wasjust like her. Small sympathy there, and no more understanding. Heknotted his tie hurriedly, askew; and gathered the ends once more. Ittired him a little to dress in the evening; often he longed to stayrelaxed, pondering, until Rudolph called him to dinner. But every daysomething automatic, tyrannical, dragged him up to his room, encased himin rigid linen, formal black. Mariana, against the fireplace, atelistlessly; and, later, he beat her with shameful ease at sniff. 

"You can't do that, " he pointed out with asperity, when shethoughtlessly joined unequal numbers. "Why not?" she asked. She must beaddled. "It's against the rule. " Mariana said, "I'm tired of rules. "She always had put away the dominoes, but to-night she ignored them, andhe returned the pieces to their morocco case. She relapsed into silenceand a chair; and he sat with gaze fixed on the hickory in the fireplace, burning to impalpable, white ash. 

What a procession of logs had been there reduced to dust, warminggenerations of men now cold. The thought of all those lapsed winters andlives soothed him; the clamour of living seemed to retreat, to leave himin a grey tranquillity. His head sank forward, and his narrow, darkhands rested in absolute immobility on the arms of his chair. He rousedsuddenly to discover that Mariana had gone up, and that there were onlysome fitful, rosy embers of fire left. In November it had been hiscustom to go into town for the winter; and it was time for him to makesuch arrangement; but, all at once, he was overwhelmingly reluctant toface the change, the stir, of moving. The city seemed intolerably noisy, oppressive; the thought of the hurrying, indifferent crowds disconcertedhim. At Shadrach it was quiet, familiar, spacious. He had had enough ofexcursions, strange faces, problems.... He would speak to Rudolph. Stay. 

XXX

The countryside, it appeared to Howat Penny, flamed with autumn andfaded in a day. Throughout the night he heard the crisp sliding of deadleaves over the roof, the lash of the wind swung impotently about therectangular, stone block of his dwelling. At the closing of shutters theDecember gales only penetrated to him in a thin, distant complaint. Theburning hickory curtained the middle room with a ruddy warmth. It was aperiod of extreme peace; he slept for long hours in a deep chair, or satlost in a simulation of sleep, living again in the past. The present wasincreasingly immaterial, unimportant; old controversies occupied him, long since stilled; and among the memories of opera, of Eames as asplendid girl, forgotten rôles, were other, vaguer associations, impressions which seemed to linger from actual happenings, butpersistently evaded definition. At times, his eyes closed, the glow ofhis fireplace burned hotter, more lurid, and was filled with faintlyclamorous sounds; at times there was, woven through his half-wakefuldreaming, a monotonous beat ... Such as the fall of a hammer. He saw, too, strange and yet familiar faces--a girl in silk like an extravaganttea rose; a countenance seamed and glistening with pain floated inshadow; and then another mocked and mocked him. Once he heard thedrumming of rain, close above; and the illusion was so strong that hemade his way to the door; a black void was glistening with cold andrelentless stars.... Now he was standing by a dark, hurrying river, nothing else was visible; and yet he was thrilled by a sense of utterrapture. 

He developed a feeling of the impermanence of life, his hold upon it nostronger than the tenuous cord of a balloon straining impatiently ingreat, unknown currents. The future lost all significance, reality;there were only memories; the vista behind was long and clear, but thedoor to to-morrow was shut. Looking into his mirror the reflection wasfar removed; it was hollow-cheeked and silvered, unfamiliar. He halfexpected to see a different face, not less lean, but more arrogant, witha sharply defined chin. The actual, blurred visage accorded ill with histrains of thought; it was out of place among the troops of gala youth. 

A wired letter, a customary present of cigarettes, came from Mariana onChristmas, gifts from Charlotte and Bundy Provost. There was champagneat his place for dinner; and he sealed crisp money in envelopesinscribed Rudolph, Honduras, and the names of the cook and maid. Hedrank the wine solemnly; the visions were gone; and he saw himself as anold man lingering out of his time, alone. There was, however, littlesentimental melancholy in the realization; he held an upright pride, theinextinguishable accent of a black Penny. His disdain for thecommonality of life still dictated his prejudices. He informed Rudolphagain that the present opera was without song; and again Rudolph gravelyechoed the faith that melody was the heart of music. 

The winds grew even higher, shriller; the falls of snow vanished beforedrenching, brown rains, and the afternoons perceptibly lengthened. Therewas arbutus on the slopes, robins, before he recognized that April wasaccomplished. A farmer ploughed the vegetable garden behind the house;and Honduras dragged the cedar bean poles from their resting place. Mariana soon appeared. 

"I wouldn't miss the spring at Shadrach for a hundred years ofhibiscus, " she told him. He gathered that she had been south. Shebrought him great pleasure, beat him with annoying frequency at sniff, and was more companionable than ever before. She had, he thought, forgotJames Polder; and he was careful to avoid the least reference to thelatter. Mariana was a sensible girl; birth once more had told. 

She was better looking than he had remembered her, more tranquil; adistinguished woman. It was incredible that a man approximately herequal had not appeared. Then, without warning--they were seated on theporch gazing through the tender green foliage of the willow at thevivid young wheat beyond--she said:

"Howat, I am certain that things are going badly with Jimmy. He wrote tome willingly in the winter, but twice since then he hasn't answered aletter. "

He suppressed a sharp, recurrent concern. "It's that Harriet, " he toldher, capitally diffident. "You are stupid to keep it up. What chancewould he have had answering her letters married to you?"

"This is different, " she replied confidently. He saw that he had beenwrong--nothing had changed, lessened. Howat swore silently. Thatdamnable episode might well spoil her entire existence. But he wiselyavoided argument, comment. A warm current of air, fragrant with appleblossoms, caught the ribbon-like smoke of his cigarette and dissipatedit. She smiled with half-closed eyes at the new flowering of earth. Herexpression grew serious, firm. "I think we'd better go out toHarrisburg, " she remarked, elaborately casual, "and see Jimmy forourselves. "

He protested vehemently, but--from experience in that quarter--with aconviction of futility. "She'll laugh at you, " he told Mariana. "Haven'tyou any proper pride?" She shook her head. 

"Not a scrap. It's just that quality in Jim that annoyed me, and spoiledeverything. I'd cook for them if it would do any good. " Irritationmastered him. "This is shameful, Mariana, " he declared. "Don't yourposition, your antecedents, stand for anything? If I had Jasper Pennyhere I would tell him what I thought of his confounded behaviour!" Herose, and walked the length of the porch and back. 

"The first part of next week?" she queried. "I won't go a mile, " hestated, in sheer bravado. "Then, " said Mariana, "I must do it alone. " Hemuttered a period in which the term hussy was solely audible. "Which ofus?" she asked, calmly. "Actually, " he exploded, "I feel sorry for thatHarriet. I sympathize with her. She got the precious James fair enough, and the decent thing for you is to keep away. "

"But I'm not decent either, " Mariana continued. "If you could know whatis in my head you'd recognize that. I seem to have no good qualities. Idon't want them, Howat, " her voice intensified; "I want Jim. "

He was completely silenced by this desire persisting in spite of everyestablished obstacle. It summoned an increasing response at the core ofhis being. Such an attitude was, more remotely, his own; but in him ithad been purely negative, an inhibition rather than a challenge; he hadkept out of life instead of actively defying it. In him the familyinheritance of blackness was subsiding with the rest. 

Howat maintained until the moment of their departure his protest, hisperverse community with Harriet Polder. "You'll find a happy house, " hepredicted, "and come home like a fool. I hope you do. It ought to helpmake you more reasonable. She will tell James to give you a comfortablechair, and apologize for not asking you to dinner. " She gazed throughthe car window without replying. He realized that he had never seenMariana more becomingly dressed--she wore a rough, silver-coloured suitwith a short jacket, a pale green straw hat, like the new willow leaves, across the blueness of her eyes, and an innumerably ruffled and flouncedwaist of thinnest batiste. A square, deep emerald hung from a platinumchain about her neck; and a hand, stripped of its thick white glove, showed an oppressive, prismatic glitter of diamonds. 

The morning was filled with dense, low, grey cloud, under which theriver on their left flowed without a glimmer of brightness. Howat wasaware of an increasing sulphurous pall, and suddenly the train waspassing an apparently endless confusion of great, corrugated iron sheds, rows of towering, smoking stacks, enormous, black cylinders, systems oftracks over which shrilling locomotives hauled carloads of broken slag, or bumped strings of trucks, with reckless energy, in and out of thegrimy interiors. The overpowering magnitude of the steel works--HowatPenny needed no assurance of its purpose--exceeded every preconception. 

Shut between the river and an abrupt hillside, where scattered dwellingsand sparse trees and ground were coated with a soft monotony ofrose-brown dust, the mills were jumbled in mile-long perspectives. Above the immediate noise of the train he could hear the sullen, blendedroar of an infinity of strident sounds--the screaming of whistles, achoked, drumming thunder, rushing blasts of air, the shattering impactof steel rails, raw steam, and a multitudinous clangour of metal andjolting wheels and connective power. He passed rusting mountainsstraddled by giant gantries, the towering lifts of mammoth cranes, banksof chalk-white stone, dizzy super-structures mounted by spasmodic skips. 

As the train proceeded with scarcely abated speed, and the vastoperation continued without a break, mill on mill, file after file ofstacks, Howat Penny's senses were crushed by the spectacle of suchincredible labour. Suddenly a column of fire, deep orange at the core, raying through paler yellow to a palpitating white brilliancy, shot upthrough the torn vapours, the massed and shuddering smoke, to theclouds, and was sharply withdrawn in a coppery smother pierced by arapid, lance-like thrust of steel-blue flame. 

These stupendous miles were, to-day, the furnaces and forges thatGilbert Penny had built and operated in the pastoral clearings of theProvince. Howat recalled the single, diminutive shed of Myrtle Forge, the slender stream, the wheel, its sole power; the solitary stack ofShadrach Furnace, recreated in his vision, opposed its insignificantbulk against the living greenery of overwhelming forests. Now theforests were gone, obliterated by the mills that had grown out ofGilbert's energy and determination, his pioneer courage. His spirit, theindomitable will of a handful of men, a small, isolated colony, hadswept forward in a resistless tide, multiplying invention, improvement, with success until, as Howat had seen, their flares reached to theclouds, their industry spread in iron cities. James Polder had a part inthis. Here, under the ringing walls of the steel mills, he got a freshcomprehension of the bitter, restless virility of the younger man. 

Out of the station Mariana furnished the driver of a public motor withJames Polder's address, and they twisted through congested streets, pastthe domed Capitol, rising from intense green sod, flanked by involvedgroups of sculpture, to a quieter reach lying parallel with the river. They discovered Polder's house occupying a corner, one of a short row ofyellow brick with a scrap of lawn bound by a low wall, and a porchcontinuous across the face of the dwellings. 

The door opened after a long interval, and a woman with bare arms and aspotted kitchen apron admitted them to an interior faintly permeatedwith the odours of cooking. There were redly varnished chairs, uprightpiano, a heavily framed saccharine print of loves and a flushed, sleeping divinity; a table scarred by burning cigarettes, holding ceriseknitting on needles one of which was broken, glasses with dregs of beer, a photograph in a tarnished silver frame of Harriet de Barry Polderwith undraped shoulders and an exploited dimple, and a copy of atechnical journal. A fretful, shrill barking rose at their heels; andHowat Penny swung his stick at a diminutive, silky white dog withmatted, pinkish eyes, obsessed by an impotent fury. 

An indolent voice drifted from above. "Cherette!" And a low, masculineprotest was audible. Mariana Jannan's face was inscrutable. The womancontinued audibly, "How can I--like this? You will have to see what itis. " A moment later James Polder, drawing on a coat, descended thestairs. He saw Mariana at once, and stood arrested with one foot on thefloor, and a hand clutching the rail. A sudden pallor invaded hiscountenance and Howat turned away, inspecting the print. But he couldnot close his hearing to the suppressed eagerness, the stammering joy, of Polder's surprise. 

"And you, too, " he said to the elder, with a crushing grip. Howatimmediately recognized that the other was marked by an obvious illhealth; his eyes were hung with shadows, like smudges of the iron dust, and his palm was hot and wet. "Harriet, " he called up the stair, "here'sMiss Jannan and Mr. Howat Penny to see us. " A complete silence above, then a sharp rustle, replied to his announcement. "Harriet will be rightdown, " he continued; "fixing herself up a little first. Have troublefinding us? Second Street is high for a foreman, but we're moving outagainst the future. "

The dog maintained a stridulous barking; and James Polder carried her, in an ecstasy of snarling ill-temper, out. "Cherette doesn't appreciatecallers, " he stated, with an expression that contradicted the mildnessof his words. His gaze, Howat thought, rested on Mariana with theintensity of a fanatic Arab at the apparition of Mohammed. And Marianasmiled back with a penetrating comprehension and sympathy. Theproceeding made Howat Penny extremely uncomfortable; it was--wasbarefaced. He hoped desperately that something more appropriately casualwould meet the appearance of Harriet. Mariana said:

"You haven't been well. " Polder replied that it was nothing. "I get anight shift, " he explained, "and I've never learned to sleep through theday. We're working under unusual pressure, too; inhuman contracts, success. " He smiled without gaiety. "You didn't answer my letter, " theoutrageous Mariana proceeded. Howat withered mentally at her cooldaring, and Polder, now flushed, avoided her gaze. The necessity ofanswer was bridged by the descent of his wife. Her face, as always, brightly coloured, was framed in an instinctively effective twist ofgold hair; and she wore an elaborately braided, white cloth skirt, amagenta georgette crêpe waist, with a deep, boyish collar, drawn tightlyacross her full, soft body. 

"Isn't it fierce, " she demanded cheerfully, "with Jim out as many nightsas he's in bed?" She produced a pasteboard package of popularcigarettes and offered them to Howat Penny and Mariana. "Sorry, I can'tsmoke any others, " she explained, striking a match. "I heard you sayinghe doesn't look right, " she addressed Mariana. "And it's certainly thetruth. Who would with what he does? I tell him our life is all broke up. One night stands used to get me, but they're a metropolitan run comparedwith this. Honest to God, " she told them good naturedly, "I'vethreatened to leave him already. I'd rather see him a property man withme on the road. "

"It must be a little wearing, " Mariana agreed; "but then, you know, yourhusband is a steel man. This is his life. " Howat Penny could see thecordiality ebbing from the other woman's countenance. Positively, Mariana ought to be ... "I can get that, " Harriet Polder informed her. "We are only hanging on till Jim's made superintendent. Then we'll beregular inhabitants. Any other small thing?" At the sharpening note ofher voice James Polder hurriedly proceeded with general facts. "You'llwant to see the Works, as much as I can show you. Hardly any of thepublic are let through now. It will interest you, sir, to see what thePenny iron trade has become. I can take you down this afternoon. Harrietwill find us some lunch. " The latter moved in a sensuous deliberation, followed by a thin, acidulous trail of smoke, into inner rooms. "When doyou have to go back?" Polder asked. 

"This evening, " Howat told him; "we just stopped to--"

"To see how you were, " Mariana interrupted him baldly, studying theyounger man with a concerned frown. "You ought to rest, you know, " shedecided. "That's possible, " he returned. "I thought of asking for acouple of weeks. I hurried back right after I was married. They arecoming to me. " She enigmatically regarded Howat Penny; he saw that shewas about to speak impetuously; but, to his great relief, she stopped. "It's been pretty hard on Harriet, " he said instead. "After the stageand audiences, and all that. " Mariana's expression was cold. Confoundher, why didn't she help the fellow! Howat Penny fidgeted with hisstick. What a stew Polder had gotten himself into. This was worse, even, than the marriage threatened. 

Lunch was a spasmodic affair of cutlets hardening in grease, blue boiledpotatoes, sandy spinach and blanched ragged bread. There was more beer;but Jim, his wife proceeded, liked whiskey and water with his meals. Theformer glanced uneasily at Mariana, tranquilly cutting up her cutlet. The diamonds on her narrow, delicate hand flashed, the emerald at herthroat was superb. Their surroundings were doubly depressing contrastedwith her fastidious dress and person. Before her composure HarrietPolder seemed over-florid; a woman of trite phrases, commonplace, theatrical attitudes and emotions. As lunch progressed the latterrelapsed into a sulky silence; she glanced surreptitiously at Mariana'sapparel; and consumed cigarettes with a straining assumption of easyindifference. 

Howat Penny was acutely uncomfortable, and Polder scowled at his plate. The whiskey and water shook in a tense, unsteady hand. He rose from thetable with a violent relief. He proposed almost immediately that they goover to the Works, and Mariana turned pleasantly to his wife. "Shall youget a hat?" The other hesitated, then asserted defiantly, "I've alwayssaid I wouldn't go into that rackety place, and I won't now. It's badenough to have it tramped back over things. " Mariana extended a hand. "Then good-bye, " she proceeded. "I think we won't get back here. We'retremendously obliged for the lunch. It has been interesting to see whereJim lives. " Harriet Polder's cheeks were darker than pink as they movedout to the sidewalk. "Jim, " she called, with an unmistakably proprietarysounding of the familiar diminution; "don't forget my cigarettes, and ahalf pound of liver for Cherette. "

XXXI

James Polder conducted them to the river, sweeping away in a wide curvebeneath solid grey stone bridges into a region of towering hills. Theyturned to the left, and, walking on a high embankment, passed blocks ofindividually pretentious dwellings, edifices of carved granite, alternating with the simpler brick faces of an older period. A narrow, whitely dusty sweep of green park was followed by a speedy degenerationof the riverside; the houses shrunk to rows of wood marked by the grimeof steel mills. Soon after they reached a forbidding fence; and, passinga watchman's inspection, entered into a clamorous region of sheds, tracks and confusing levels such as Howat Penny had viewed from thetrain. 

"I'm in the open hearth, " Polder told them, leading the way over anarrow boardwalk, still skirting the broad expanse of the river. "It's aprocess, really, but the whole mill is called after it. We make steelfrom iron scrap; that's our specialty in the Medial Works; and ourstuff's as good as the best. The bigger concerns mostly use pig. Turn inhere. " They were facing the towering end of an iron shed, and mounted asteep ascent to gain the upper entrance. The multiplication of noisesbeat in an increasing volume about Howat Penny. Below him a locomotivescreeched with a freight of slag; beyond was a heap of massive, brokenmoulds; and a train of small trucks held empty iron boxes beside anenormous bank of iron scrap dominated by a huge crane swinging acircular magnet that dispassionately picked up ton loads and bore themto the waiting cars. 

Inside he gazed through a long vista under a roof lost in tenebriousshadow. On one side were ranged the furnaces, a continuous bank of brickbound in iron; each furnace with five doors, closed with black slides inwhich a round opening emitted an intolerable, dazzling white glare. Butfew men, Howat thought, were visible in proportion to the magnitude ofthe work; deliberately engaged, with leather shields hanging from theirwrists and blue spectacles pushed up on their grimy brows. 

A crane advanced with the shrill racket of an electric gong, itsoperator caged in midair, and herculean grappling chains swinging. Agrinding truck, filling the width of floor, moved forward to where Howatstood. It was, Polder told him, the charging machine. An iron beamprojected opposite the furnace doors, and it was locked into one of thecharging boxes, filled with scrap metal, standing on the rails againstthe furnaces. A man behind him dragged forward a lever, the slide whichcovered a door rose ponderously on a blinding, incandescent core, andthe beam thrust forward into the blaze, turning round and round in theemptying of the box. It was withdrawn, the slide dropped, and themachine retreated, its complex movements controlled by a single engineerat crackling switches where the power leaped in points of light likeviolets. 

At another furnace, an opened door, where the heat poured out in aconstricting blast, workmen were shovelling in powdery white stone;moving up with their heads averted, and quickly retreating withshielding arms. "That's dolomite, " James Polder's explanations wentrapidly forward. "They are banking up the furnace. The other, in thebins, is ferro manganese. " He procured a pair of spectacles; and, with aprotected gaze, Howat looked into a furnace, an appalling space ofapparently bubbling milk over which played sheets of ignited gases. Theskin on his forehead shrivelled like scorching paper. 

"I particularly wanted you to see a heat tapped, " Polder told Mariana. "And they're making a test at number four. " They followed him to where asmall ladle of metal had been dipped out of a furnace. It was poured, with a red-gold shower of sparks, into a mould, then dropped in a troughof water. The miniature ingot, broken under the wide sweep of a sledge, was examined by a lean, grizzled workman--"the melter"--who nodded. "Wemust get back of the furnace, " Polder continued, indicating a narrowopening between brick walls through the unstopped chinks of whichseethed the scorifying blaze. 

Howat Penny stood at a railing, looking down into an apparent confusionof slag and cars, pits and gigantic ladles and upright moulds set uponcircular bases. A crane rumbled forward, grappled a hundred-ton ladle, afabulous iron pot, and petulantly deposited it under a channel extendingout from the base of the furnace where they had been stationed. Aworkman steadied himself below their level and picked with a long ironbar at a plugged opening. It was, James Polder went on, the mostdangerous moment of the process--"sometimes the furnace blows out. " Thelabour of tapping was prolonged until Howat was conscious of anoppressive tension. Workmen had gathered, waiting, in the pit. Moreappeared along the railing above. This was, he felt, the supreme, thedramatic, height of steel making. The men suddenly seemed puny, insignificant, before the stupendous, volcanic energy they had evoked. The tapping stopped. Polder commenced, "It will be rammed out from thefront--"

A stunning white flare filled the far roof with a dazzling illumination;and, in a dull explosion, a terrific billowing of heat, a cataract ofliquid steel burst out through lambent orange and blue flames. Itpoured, searing the vision, into the ladle, over which rosy cloudsaccumulated in a bank drifting through the great space of the shed. Nothing, Howat thought, could contain, control, the appalling expansion, the furious volume, of seething white metal. He was obliged to turnaway, blinded by sheets of complementary green hanging before his eyes. 

The uproar subsided, the flooding steel became bluer, a solid streamcurving into the black depths of the ladle. Vapours of green and sulphurand lilac shivered into the denser ruby smoke and rising silver spray. Polder called a warning into Mariana's ear, they drew back as a lump ofcoal was heaved up from the pit, into the ladle. A dull vermilion blazefollowed, and Howat Penny partly heard an explanation--"recarburizing. "He could now see the steel bubbling up to the rim of the container. Men, Polder said shortly, had fallen in.... Utterly unthinkable. With asudorific heat that drove them still farther back the slag boiling onthe steel flowed in a gold cascade over a great lip into a secondreceptacle below. That was soon filled, and gorgeous streams and poolswidened across the riven ground. The steel itself escaped in a milkyincandescence. "A wild heat, " James Polder told them, pleased. "Thebottom of a furnace may drop out. I was almost caught in the pit atCambria. " The crane chains swung forward, picked up the ladle of moltenmetal, and shifted it through the air to a position over a circulargroup of moulds. There, a valve opened, the steel poured into a centralpipe. "Bottom-filled, " Polder concluded, assisting Mariana over theprecarious flooring; "the metal rises into the ingot forms. "

They descended again, by the blackened brick, box-like office of thesuperintendent, to the level of the pit, retraced the way over theboardwalk. They passed a cavernous interior, filled with a continuouscrashing, where a great sheet of flushing steel was propelled over asystem of rollers through a black, dripping compression. "I can take youto the Senate, " James Polder told them, once more outside; "or theEngineers' Society. Dinner will be ready at the club. "

He conducted them into the serious interior of a large, solidlyconstructed dwelling that had been transformed into a club. The diningroom was already filling but they secured a small table against thewall. Across the floor ten or twelve men were gathered in a circle. Some, Howat thought, were surprisingly young for the evident authorityin their manner, pronouncements; others were grey, weatherworn, men withimmobile faces often lost, in the middle of a gay period, in a suddengravity of thought, silent calculation. He saw the smooth, deft hands ofdraughtsmen, and scarred, powerful hands that, like James Polder's, hadlaboured through apprenticeship in pit and mill shop. 

He recognized that Polder was more drawn than he had first observed. Hewas sapped by the crushing entity of the steel works, the enormous heatand energy and strain of the open hearth. If the younger did not lay offhe would, unquestionably, break. Nevertheless, Howat was totallyunprepared for the amazing suggestion quietly advanced by Mariana. "Jimmy, " she said, "couldn't you come to Shadrach for those two weeks?You'd find the quiet there wonderful. And any doctor will advise you toleave your family for a proper rest. I'm certain Howat would be as niceas possible. "

A sudden, patent longing leaped to James Polder's countenance. Actuallyhe stuttered with a surprised delight. Damn it, there was nothing forhim, Howat, to do but stare like a helpless idiot. He ought to saysomething, second Mariana's impudent invitation, at once. She ignoredhim, gazing intently at the younger man. He, too, meeting Mariana'seyes, had apparently totally forgot the unimportant presence of HowatPenny. And he had been married to his Harriet for a scant half year!Howat Penny thought mechanically of the Polders' depressing house, theodours of old cooking and cheap cigarettes, the feverish yapping of thesilky animal, Cherette, with matted, pinkish eyes. The precipitant, prideful, young fool! Why hadn't he held onto the merest memory, themost distant chance in the world, of Mariana, rather than fling himself, his injured self-opinion, into this stew?

"Don't say it can't be managed, " she persisted. "Anything may. It'sabsolutely necessary; you can get a prescription--two weeks of greenvalley and robins and country eggs. Howat will take your money from youat penny sniff, and I'll--I'll come out for dinner. "

"Harriet thought of going back to the family, " he replied; "but itmight--" he turned at last to Howat Penny. "Would you have me?" he askeddirectly. What, in thunder, choice of reply did he have? Howat couldn'tpoint out the shamelessness of such an arrangement. Harriet, it seemed, was not to be considered; just as if she were a merely disinterestedconnection. He issued a belated period to the effect that Shadrach wasspacious and Rudolph a capable attendant. It was, he saw, sufficient. "We can write, " said Mariana. She endeavoured to caress Howat's hand, but he indignantly frustrated her. 

"I'll have to get back to the hearth, " James Polder announcedregretfully. "It's been wonderful, " he told Mariana Jannan. Howatscraped his chair at the baldness of Polder's pleasure. "Your work istremendous, Jim, " she replied; "the only stirring thing I have everknown in a particularly silly world. But you mustn't let it run you, too, into steel rails. President Polder, " she smiled brilliantly at him. "Why not?" queried James, the sanguine, at once defiant, haggard andintense. 

XXXII

The following day Howat Penny was both weary and irritable. Marianadeclared, remorsefully, that she had selfishly dragged him away fromShadrach; and proposed countless trivial amends, which he fretfullyblocked. He had no intention of affording her such a ready escape from asense, he hoped, of error and responsibility. Before dinner, however, hefound himself walking with her over the deep green sod that reached tothe public road below. A mock orange hedge enclosed his lawn, boundingthe cross roads, the upper course leading to Myrtle Forge; and beyondthey passed, on the left, the collapsed stone walls and fallen shinglesof what, evidently, had been a small blacksmith's shed. Farther alongthey came to the sturdy shell of an old, single-room building, erected, perhaps, when Shadrach Furnace was new, with weeds climbing through therotten floor, and a fragment of steps, rising to the mouldering peak ofa loft, still clinging to a wall. 

Without definite purpose they turned from the public way into anovergrown path, banked with matted blackberry bushes, and were soonfacing the remains of the Furnace. It had been solidly constructed ofunmasoned stone, bound by iron rods, and its bulk was largely unaffectedby time. The hearth had fallen in, choked by luxuriant greenery; but theblank sides mounted to meet the walled path reaching out to its top fromthe abrupt hill against which it had been placed. Before it foundationscould still be traced; and above, a rectangle of windowless stone wallssurvived, roofless and desolate. An abandoned road turned up the hill, and they followed it to where they could gaze into the upper ruin andthe Furnace top below. Everywhere nature had marked or twisted aside cutstone and wood with its living greenery. Farther down a pathlike levelfollowed the side of the hill, ending abruptly in a walled fall, and aconfusion of broken beams, iron braces, and section of a large, wheel-like circumference. Out beyond were other crumbling remains of oldactivity--a stone span across the dried course of a water way, and awide bank, showing through a hardy vegetation the grey-browninequalities of slag. 

The stillness, broken only by the querulous melody of a robin, and abeginning, faint piping of frogs, was amazingly profound after theroaring energy of the Medial Works. The decay of Shadrach Furnace showedabsolute against the crashing miles of industry on the broad river. Abreath of honeysuckle lifted to Howat Penny; the sky was primrose. Mariana moved closer to him and took his arm. They said nothing. 

A warm light was spilling across the darkening grass from the lowerwindows of his dwelling, blurring in a dusk under the high leafage ofaged maples. The white roses were already in bud on the vine climbingthe lattices at his door, and Mariana fixed one in his buttonhole. "Howat, " she said, "it isn't as if you were doing it just for Jim, butfor a man, any man, really sick. I'll not even ask you to think of itfor me. He can sit on the porch and converse with your owls, and pokeabout over the hills. "

Howat considered the advisability of attempting to extract a promisefrom her that she would stay away from Shadrach if James Polder wasthere. He considered it--very momentarily. The possibility, he assertedto himself, was without any alleviating circumstance. What, in heaven'sname, would Charlotte think if, as it well might, the knowledge came toher that Mariana and a Polder--that name she never repeated--a marriedPolder without his wife, were poking over the hills together atShadrach? She would have him, Howat, examined for lunacy. Marianademanded too much. He told her this with the dessert. 

"It's only the commonest charity, " she repeated. Her attack rapidlyveered. "Howat, " she asked, "do you really dislike Jimmy?" Certainly, heasserted, he--he disapproved of him ... Altogether. A headstrong youngdonkey who had made a shocking mess of his life. He would have to makethe best of a bad affair for which no one was to blame but himself. "Itis terrific, " she agreed, almost cheerfully; and he had a vague sense ofhaving, somehow, delivered himself into her hands. "Perhaps somethingcan still be done, " she said, frowning, increasing the dangers of hisposition. He managed, by a stubborn silence, to check furtherconversation in that direction; hoping, vainly, that James Poldercouldn't come, that Harriet, sensibly, would insist on his accompanyingher, or that Byron would solemnly intervene. 

Mariana, later displaying a letter, dispelled his wishes. "It's beenarranged quite easily, " she told him. "Harriet will go home. I'd like tobe here when he arrives, but I can't. You'll be a dear, Howat, won'tyou?" she begged. "I'm certain James will give you no trouble. And dosend him to bed early. " At this he grew satirical, and she laughed in anunaccustomed, nervous manner that upset him surprisingly. Honduras droveher to the station the next morning; and, three days later, depositedJames Polder on the worn stone threshold under the climbing rose. 

After dinner the younger man faced him squarely across the apricot glowof the lamp in the middle room. "This is the third time I've come herewithout an invitation from you, " he said directly. "It was Mariana thislast. I shut my mouth on what I'd once have crammed down your throat, and came like any puppy. It wasn't on account of my health, there aremiles of quiet country; it wasn't--" he hesitated, then wenton--"altogether because of Mariana. I wanted to watch you closer; I wantto find out what you are like inside, so I might understand some--someother things better. I can get out if it's a rank failure. "

Howat issued a polite, general dissent. "Now, right there, " Polderstated; "you don't want me; you'd rather I was a thousand miles away, dead. Well--why don't you say so?" He had not the least conception of adecent reticence of address, Howat Penny thought, resentfully, at thediscomfort aroused by the young man's sharp attack. 

"Certain amenities, " he observed coldly, "have been accepted asdesirable, as obligations for--" he hesitated, casting about for aphrase that would not too conspicuously exclude James Polder. "Say it, "the latter burst out rudely, "gentlemen. And you all stand about withone thing to say and another in your head. "

"A degree of perception is always admirable, " Howat Penny instructedhim. "That's a nasty one, " Polder acknowledged; "but I got into itmyself. I can see that. " His hand, seared with labour, was pressed onthe table; and the elder realized that, since he had witnessed a heattapped, he was not so censorious of the broken nails, the lines ofindelible black. He caught James Polder's gaze, and turned from itsintense questioning. Young cheeks had no business to be so gaunt. Polder picked up the figurine in red clay, studied it with a troubledbrow, and replaced it with a gesture of hopelessness. "Possibly, " HowatPenny unexpectedly remarked, "possibly you find beauty in a piece ofopen hearth steel. "

"It's useful, " Polder declared; "it has a tensile strength. I know whatit will do. This, " he indicated the fragment of a grace razed overtwenty-three hundred years before, "is good for nothing that I see. "Now, Howat told himself, it was merely a question of tensile strength. His old enthusiasms, his passionate admiration for the operas ofChristopher Gluck, the enthusiasms and admirations of his kind, werebeing pushed aside for things of more obvious practicality. The veryterm that had distinguished his world, men of breeding, had beendiscarded. Individuals like James Polder, blunt of speech, contemptuous, labour scarred, were paramount to-day. 

His thoughts, he realized, were a part of the questioning thrust on himby the intrusion of Mariana's unfortunate affair into his old age. Shewas always dragging him to a perplexing spectacle for which he hadneither energy nor inclination. But he'd be damned if he would allow theimportunities of the young man beyond the table to complicate furtherhis difficulties, and he retired abruptly behind the _Saturday Review_. "You'd better get along up, " he said brusquely, after a little. 

Breakfast at an end, they settled into a not uncomfortable, mutualsilence. They smoked; James Polder unfolded newspapers which heneglected to read; Howat went through the periodicals with audibleexpressions of displeasure. He wondered when Mariana would appear. Mariana made a fool of him, that was evident; however, he would put hisfoot on any philandering about Shadrach. He could be as blunt as JamesPolder when the occasion demanded. After lunch the latter fell asleep inhis chair on the porch, pallidly insensible of the sparkling flood ofafternoon. Howat rose and went into the house. It was indecent to see acountenance so wearily unguarded, shorn of all protective aggression. Mariana walked in unannounced. 

"Why didn't you telephone for Honduras?" he complained. "Always someinfernal difference in what you do. " She frowned. "Suddenly, " sheadmitted, "I wasn't in a hurry to get here. I almost went back. Idiotic. "

"Sensible, it seems to me, " he commented. "That Polder is asleep on theporch. " She nodded, "Splendid. And you needn't try to look fierce. I cansee through you and out the back. " He lit a cigarette angrily. "Going tostay for the night?" he demanded. "Several, " she replied coolly. "Threecan play sniff. "

"Look here, Mariana, " he proclaimed, "I won't have any nonsense, do youunderstand?"

"We can keep a photograph of Harriet on the table. "

James Polder entered, and put a temporary end to his determined speech. When the former saw Mariana his shameless pleasure, Howat thought, wasbeyond credence. Positively neither of them paid any more attention tohim than they did to Rudolph. His irritation gave place to a deeperrealization that an impossible situation threatened. There was nothing, obviously, that he could do to-day; but he would speak seriously toMariana to-morrow; one or both of them would have to leave Shadrach. This determination took the present weight from his conscience; and, pottering about small concerns of his own, he ignored them comfortably. 

They appeared late, dirty and hot, for dinner; and it was eight o'clockbefore Mariana came down in a gown like a white-petalled flower. Shewore no rings, but about her throat was a necklace of old-fashioned seedpearls in loops and rosettes. "It's family, " she told them; "it belongedto Caroline Penny. And she married a Quaker, too; a David Forsythe. " Shestopped suddenly, and Howat Penny recalled the tradition that CarolinePenny, Gilbert's daughter, had appropriated her sister Myrtle's suitor. Mariana favoured him with a fleet glance, the quiver of a reprehensiblewink. He glared back at her choking with suppressed wrath. "I have awonderful idea for to-morrow, " she proceeded tranquilly; "we'll takelunch, and leave Honduras, and go to Myrtle Forge for the day. "

Her design was unfolded so rapidly, her directions to Rudolph soexplicit, that he had no opportunity to oppose his plan of sending heraway in the morning; and his impotence committed him to her suggestion. She could go in the evening almost as well. After dinner he rattled thedominoes significantly, but Mariana, smiling at him absently, wentthrough the room and out upon the porch. Polder, with an obscuresentence, followed her. A soft rain sounded on the porch roof; but therewas no wind; the night was warm. 

Howat glanced at his watch, after a period of restful ease, and saw thatit was past ten. He moved resolutely outside. Mariana was banked withcushions in the canvas swing, and Polder sat with his body extended, hishands clasped behind his head, in a gloomy revery. The night, apparently, had robbed her countenance of any bloom; more than once inthe past year Howat had seen her stamped with the premonitory scarringof time. Polder rose as he approached, and Mariana struggled upright. 

"Good night, " she said ungraciously, to them both, and flickered awaythrough the dark. James Polder was savagely biting his lips; his hands, the elder saw, were clenched. "Your wife, " Howat proceeded, "how isshe?" Polder gazed at him stonily, without reply. "I asked after yourwife, " Howat repeated irritably. "No, " the other at last said, "youreminded me of her. I suppose you are right. " He turned and walkedabruptly from the porch, into the slowly dropping rain. 

XXXIII

The road to Myrtle Forge mounted between rolling cultivated fields, thescattered, stone ruins of walls erected in the earliest iron days; and, after a pastoral course, came to the Forge dwelling, its shuttered bulkset in a tangle of bushes and rank grass. An ancient beech tree sweptthe ground with smooth, grey limbs, surrounded by long-accumulated deadleaves. James Polder shut off the motor by the low, stone wall thatsupported the lawn from the roadway; he crossed to the farm, where thehouse keys were kept, and Howat and Mariana moved slowly forward. Aporch, added, the former said, in Jasper Penny's time, extended at theleft; and they stood on the broken flooring and gazed down at afeatureless tangle once a garden and the gnarled remainder of a smallapple orchard beyond. 

Polder soon returned, and they proceeded to a door on the further side, where the kitchen angle partly enclosed a flagging of broad stones. Inside, the house, empty of furnishing, was a place of echoes muffled indust; the insidious, dank odours of corrupting wood and plaster; wallswith melancholy, superimposed, stripping papers; older, sombrelyblistered paint and panelled wainscoting varnished in an imitation, yellow graining. It was without a relic of past dignity. Mariana wasunable to discover a souvenir of the generations of Pennys that hadfilled the rooms with the stir of their living. Once more outside theysat on the stone threshold of an office-like structure back of the maindwelling and indulged in cigarettes. 

The disturbing tension of last night, Howat thought comfortably, hadvanished. Mariana was flippant, James Polder enveloped in indolent ease. "The Forge, " Howat Penny told them, "was below. " A path descended acrossa steep face of sparse grass; and, at the bottom, Polder's interestrevived. "It stood there, " he indicated a fallen shed beyond a masonedchannel, choked with the broken stones of its walls and tangledshrubbery. "You don't suppose a joke that size was the great Gilbert'splant. Here's the drop for the water power; yes, and the iron pinions ofthe overshot wheel. " He climbed down a precarious wall, and stoodperhaps twelve feet below them. Securing a rough bolt, he brought it upfor their inspection. "Look at that forging, " he cried; "after it haslain around for a century and a half. Like silk. Charcoal iron, and itwas hammered, too. Metal isn't half worked any more. We could turn thatinto steel at almost nothing a ton. " He showed them in the moulderingshed the foundation of the anvil, traced the probable shafting of thetrip hammer, marked the location of the hearths. "Three, " he decided;"and a cold trickle of air. A nigger pumping a bellows, probably. No, they could get that from the wheel, " he drew an explanatory diagram inthe blackened dust. 

With the lunch basket on the running board of the motor they ate sittingon the low boundary wall of the lawn. The heat increased through thelate May noon, and Howat remained while Mariana and James Polderwandered in the direction of the orchard. Finally the sun forced theformer to move; and he, too, proceeded in a desultory manner, enteringthe shade of a grove of old maples. The trees, their earliest redleafage already emerald, followed the dry channel cut back from CanaryCreek to the Forge, and he soon emerged at the broad, flashing course ofthe stream. A flat rock jutted into the hurrying water by an overthrowndam, its sun-heated expanse now in shadow; and he stayed, listening tothe gurgling flow. Far above him a hawk wheeled in ambient space; a millwhistle sounded remotely from Jaffa. 

The thought of Mariana hovered at the back of his lulled being; all hedesired, he told himself, was her complete happiness. He might even havebecome reconciled to James Polder. His first, unfavourable opinion ofthe latter, he realized, had been modified by--by time. He had judgedPolder solely in the light of an old standard. The fellow was painfullyhonest; good stuff there, iron ... The iron of the Pennys. But the otherstrain had betrayed him. A cursed shame. The material of the present, moulded, perhaps, into seemingly new forms, was always that of thepast. This Polder was Essie Scofield and Jasper ... Byron. He, HowatPenny, was Penny and Jannan and Penny--Daniel, James, Casimir, and Howatonce more, the older Howat who had married the widow of Felix Winscombe. Black again. He wondered what the blackness, not spent like his own, hadbrought the other. A headstrong, dark youth with the characteristicsloping eyebrows and slender, vigorous, carriage. The traditionalrebellious spirit had involved Jasper in disgrace; it had thinned hisown blood. 

Footfalls approached through the trees, and the others joined him. JamesPolder extended himself on the rock, and Mariana sat with her handsclasped about her slim knees. A silence intensified by the whisperingstream enveloped them. The hawk circled above, and Howat had anextraordinary sense of the familiarity of the bird hanging in limitlessspace, of the warm stone and water choking in a smooth eddy. He had, asa boy, fished there. But his brain momentarily swam with a poignant, unrecognizable emotion, different from the sensation of childhood. Herose, confused and giddy. With old age, he muttered. 

Mariana followed. "It's all over, " she announced, decisively. "We'lldrive back and leave to-day. " She sighed. "That's gone already, " JamesPolder showed her the sun slipping toward the western hills. She movedup to him, laid her hand on his arm. Howat Penny went ahead. He mustspeak to her after dinner. As the motor slowly gathered momentum heturned and looked back at the dark, pinkish dwelling in its tangle ofgrass and bushes run wild. Dusk appeared to have already gathered overit, although the sun still shone elsewhere in lengthening dusty goldbars; the wide-spread beech was sombre against blank shutters, thechimneys broken and cold. 

XXXIV

A letter for James Polder was at Shadrach, and he opened it immediately, glancing over its scrawled sheet. Howat saw a curious expressionoverspread the other's countenance. He called, "Mariana!" in a sharptone. She appeared from the foot of the steps. "Harriet never wenthome, " he told her; "this is from Pittsburgh. She's back on the stage. "A premonitory dread filled Howat Penny. Mariana stood quietly, her gazelifted to Polder. "She never went home, " he repeated; "but writes thatsuddenly she--she didn't want to, and couldn't stand Harrisburg anotherweek. She saw some one and had a part, that ought to be good, offered toher; and, so--"

"Is that all, Jim?"

"No, " he replied; "there is more, absolutely unjustified. I think I'dlike you to read it. It would be best. " Mariana took the letter, andfollowed its irregular course. "It's true enough, " she said quietly, atthe end. "But I don't in the least mind, Jim. She had a perfect right tosomething of the sort. That is--I'm not annoyed about what she says ofme, but it will upset you terribly. And it has been my fault, from thefirst. " He protested vehemently, but she stopped him with a gesture;then walked to the door opening on the porch; where, her head up, shestood gazing out into the serene, failing light. 

James Polder followed her, and Howat heard the screen softly close. Hewas about to light a cigarette, but, his hand shaking, he laid it on thetable. He put up his glass, without purpose, and then let it drop. Rudolph was placing the silver for dinner; old forks faintly marked witha crest that Isabel Howat had brought to her husband. A recurrence ofthe afternoon's sense of the continuity of all living flowed over him, whispering with old voices, old longing and sorrow and regret, mingleddim features, and the broken clasping of hands. He saw Mariana sweepingin a pale current--a remote, eternal passion winding through thetransient body of life. She smiled, her subdued, mocking gaietyinfinitely appealing, and vanished. 

They came in to dinner without changing the informal garb of the day. James Polder was silent, disturbed, but Mariana was serenelycommonplace. Her voice, clear and high, went unimportantly on; until, turning to Howat Penny, she said without the changing of a tone. "I wantJames to take me back to Harrisburg with him, but he won't. " Howatendeavoured to meet this insanity with the silence usually opposed toMariana's frequent wildness of statement. His knife scraped sharplyagainst a plate; but, in the main, he successfully preserved an unmovedcountenance. "Now that Harriet has surrendered Mm, " she persisted, "Idon't see why I can't be considered. It is the commonest sense--Jimcan't live alone, properly, in that house; I can't exist properlywithout him. You see, Howat, how reasonable it seems. " What he didperceive was that his attitude of inattention must be sharply deserted. 

"Your words, Mariana, " he said coldly, "'proper' and 'reasonable, ' inthe connection you have used them, would be ridiculous if they weren'tdisgraceful. I have been patient with a certain amount of rash talk, yes--and conduct, but this must be the end. I had intended to have youleave Shadrach this morning, then later. Either that or I'll be forcedto make my excuses to James Polder. " He glanced with a veiled anxiety atthe latter but could read nothing from the lowered, pinched countenance. 

"We could leave together if you are tired of us, " Mariana continued. "It's James, really, who is making all the trouble. He has some stupididea about nobility of conduct and my best good. But the real truth isthat he's afraid, for me, of course, and so he won't listen. "

"Won't you show her that it is impossible?" the younger man cried atHowat Penny. "I can't take advantage of her heavenly courage. Shedoesn't realize the weight of opinion. It would make--"

"Stuff, " she interrupted. "You'd make steel, and I would make anoccasional dessert. You must be told, Jimmy, that the afternoon callingyou have confused with life really isn't done any more. You have beenbrought up in rather a deadly way. You ought to be saved from yourself. I am a very mature person, and I am advising you calmly. "

The dinner had come to an end; a decanter, in old-fashioned blue andgold cutting, of brandy, a silver basket of oranges, the coffee cups andglasses, were all that remained; and James Polder played with the cutfruit, the half-full cordial glass before him. "I am going to bebrutally frank, Jimmy, " she said again. "You know that is a habit ofmine, too. You are a very brilliant young man, but you are notomnipotent--you require stiffening, like a collar. And I would be asplendid laundress for you. Harriet is a long shot too lenient. I mightnot be so comfortable to live with, but I'd be bracing. I'd have you inthat dirty little superintendent's box in no time. "

He made no reply; and, obviously tormented, automatically squeezed ahalf orange into his goblet. Then he took a sip of brandy. 

"Together, James, " Mariana asserted, "we would go up like a kite. Byyourself--forgive me--you haven't enough patience, enough balance; youwouldn't fly steadily. You might break all your sticks on the ground. "He moodily emptied what remained of his brandy into the goblet andorange juice, and pushed it impatiently away. "I'd rather do that, " heanswered, "than try to carry you with me on such a flight. "

Howat Penny was conscious of a diminution of his fears. He had entirelyunderrated James Polder; the latter was an immense sight steadier thanMariana. His thoughts strayed momentarily to Harriet, back again in herpublic orbit. He could imagine that she had found Harrisburg insuperablydull, the hours with only Cherette empty after the emotional debauchesof the plays elected by Vivian Blane. Yes, this young Polder would standadmirably firm. Mariana frowned at the cobalt smoke of her cigarette. "Iam in a very bad temper, " she told them. "No one for a minute thinks ofwhat my feeling may be. You are both entirely concerned with your ownnice sense of virtue. "

"Not at all, but of your future, " Howat Penny asserted. 

Her lower lip assumed the contempt of which it was pre-eminentlycapable. She made no immediate reply. James Polder's fingers absentlyclasped the goblet before him; he drew it toward his plate, tipped thethick liquid it contained. "Just what do you recommend me to do?"Mariana challenged Howat. "Go through with a lifeful of winters like thelast! Marry another Sam Lewis! I am not celebrated for reliability; itis only with Jimmy--" she broke off. Howat Penny recalled her callousexpression, photographed in Egyptian dress at a period ball, herdescription of the hard riding and reckless parties of the transplantedEnglish colonies in the south. 

Polder lifted the goblet to his lips, but set it back untasted. Howatlooked away from Mariana's scornful interrogation, unable to reply. Finally, "I am old, as you once reminded me, " he stated; "I'm out of mytime, don't understand, I can only remember, and remembering isn't anylonger of use. The men I knew, the kind, I hope, I was, would ruinthemselves a hundred times before compromising a woman. Polder appearsto understand that. And women I had the privilege of meeting sacrificedthemselves with a smile for what you dismiss as mere stupidity. Godknows which is right. They looked the loveliest of creatures then. Therewas a standard, we thought high.... Things a man couldn't do. But Idon't know--it seems so long ago. " He stopped to watch James Polder takea sip of the mixture in his hand. The latter tasted it slowly, and thenemptied the goblet. His face was blank, with eyes nearly closed. 

"I could carry Jimmy up in my hands, " Mariana said. "Don't, " she addedvaguely, as he squeezed out the remaining half of his orange and pouredfresh brandy into it. "It's curious, " he told her; "not at all bad. "

They moved out of the dining room, and Mariana and Polder continued tothe porch. Howat stood with a hand resting on the mahogany cigarettebox; he had the feeling of a man unexpectedly left by a train thunderinginto the distance. It would not stop, back, for him now; he was dropped. He sank relaxed into an accustomed chair; his brain surrendered itstroubling; the waking somnolence settled over him. He was conscious ofhis surrounding, recognized its actuality; yet, at the same time, itseemed immaterial, like the setting of a dream. He roused himself aftera little and smoked, nodding his head to emphasize the points of histhought. 

This Polder had shown the instinct of breeding; while Mariana was--justwhat she was he couldn't for the life of him determine. A hussy, hedecided temporarily. After all, his own time, when black and white hadbeen distinguishable, was best. Howat Penny relinquished, with a sigh, the effort to penetrate to-day; he was content to be left behind; out ofthe grinding rush, the dizzy speed, of progression. His day, when blackhad been black, was immeasurably superior; the women had been morecharming, the men erect, clothed in proper garb and pride. Where, now, could be seen such an audience as Dr. Damrosch had gathered for hisfirst season of German opera? Not, certainly, at the performance he hadheard with Mariana two, no--three, winters ago. A vulgarized performancein the spirit of a boulevard café. The whole present air, he toldhimself, was wrong. 

He looked at his watch, and was surprised to see that it was past ten. Not a sound came from the porch; and he determined to go outside, exercise the discretion which Mariana had cast to the winds. However, hedidn't stir; he could not summon the energy necessary for the combatingof their impetuous youth. He unfolded a paper, but it drooped on hisknees, slid, finally, to the floor. Then Mariana appeared, walkedswiftly, without a word, through the room, and vanished upstairs. Noteven a civil period at the end of the evening. After another, long waitJames Polder entered. The latter stood uneasily by the table, with afurrowed brow, a ridiculous, twitching mouth. 

Polder went out into the dining room; where, through the doorway, HowatPenny could see him hovering over the silver basket of oranges, placedupon the sideboard. "If you don't mind, " he called back, and there werea rattle of knives, a thin ring of glass. The light was dim beyond, andhe stood in the doorway with the brandy decanter and orange juice. Hedrained the mixture and leaned, absorbed, against the woodwork. "This isa hell of a world!" he exclaimed suddenly. "Everything worth having isfenced off. A woman won't understand. Does any one suppose that I don'twant Mariana! It's the responsibility. She's right--I am afraid of it. And she laughed at me. Nothing cowardly in her, " his voice deepened. 

"It is ignorance, " Howat stated. 

"I thought so, for a minute; you are wrong. She's had more experiencethan we'd get in a thousand years. The life she knows would fix that. She talked me into a tangled foolishness in five minutes; made me looklike a whiskered hypocrite. Nothing I said sounded real, and yet I mustbe right. Suppose Harriet should turn nasty, suppose--oh, a thousandthings. "

"It isn't arguable, " Howat Penny agreed. 

This afforded the other no consolation. "What is she to do?" hedemanded. "Mariana won't settle quietly against a wall. She told youthat. She's full of--of a sort of energy that must be at something. Mariana hasn't the anchor of most women--respectability. "

"Am I to gather that that is no longer considered admirable?" the elderinquired. "If you gather anything you are lucky, " Polder repliedgloomily. "I'm not sure about my own name. Good-night, " he disappearedabruptly. 

Above, Howat slowly made his preparations for retiring, infinitelyweary. Waking problems fell from him like a leaden weight into the seaof unconsciousness. He was relieved, at breakfast, to see Mariana comedown in a hat, with the jacket of her suit on an arm. He waited for herto indicate the train by which she was leaving, so that he could tellHonduras to have the motor ready; but she sat around in a draggingsilence. Polder walked up and down the room in which they were gathered. Howat wished he would stop his clattering movement. An expression ofill-nature deepened in Mariana; she looked her ugliest; and James Polderwas perceptibly fogged from a lack of sleep. Finally he said:

"Look here, we can't go on like this. " He stopped in front of Mariana, with a quivering face. She raised her eyebrows. "Come outside, " hebegged. "What's the use?" she replied; but, at the same time, she rose. "Don't get desperate, Howat, " she said over her shoulder. "Even I can'tdo any more; I can only take my shamelessness back to Andalusia. " Polderheld open the screen door; and as, without her jacket, she went out, Howat Penny had a final glimpse of the man bending at her side. Like twofish in a net, he thought ungraciously. He was worn out by theirinfernal flopping. With a determined movement of his shoulders, a fixingof his glass, he turned to the accumulation of his papers. 

Later he heard the changing gears of a motor. He thought for a momentthat it was Honduras at his own car; then he recognized the stroke of afar heavier engine. The powerful, ungraceful bulk of an English machinewas stopping at his door. Immediately after he distinguished theslightly harsh, dominating voice of Peter Provost. The latter entered, followed by Kingsfrere Jannan. Peter Provost, a member of the New Yorkfamily and connection of the Jannans, had, since the elder Jannan'sdeath, charge of the family's interest in the banking firm of Provost, Jannan and Provost. He occupied, Howat knew, a position of generaladvisor to Charlotte and her children. He was a large man who had neverlost the hardness of a famous university career in the football field, with a handsome, cold countenance and spiked, grey moustache. He shookhands with Howat Penny, and plunged directly into his present purpose. 

"Kingsfrere, " he said, "has heard some cheap stuff in the city, principally about that young Polder married last fall. Personally, Ilaughed at it, but Charlotte seemed upset. This Polder's wife, anactress, has left her husband, and gone back to the stage because--soByron asserted; you know Byron--Mariana had broken up their home. "

"Old Polder said just that, " Kingsfrere affirmed. "And that wasn'tall--he added that Mariana was out here with the fellow. "

Provost laughed. 

"Well, " Howat Penny replied, "James Polder is staying at Shadrach. Hewas asked here because his health was threatening. He had two weeksleave; and, although I wasn't really anxious, I said he might recuperatewith me. "

"And Mariana?" Provost inquired. 

"Came out day before yesterday, late; leaving this morning. "

Howat Penny was conscious of a growing anger. There was no reason forhis submitting to an interrogation by Peter Provost; he didn't have tojustify his actions, the selection of his guests; and he had nointention of explaining his attitude toward Mariana. But Provost, itbecame evident, had no inclination to be intrusive. It was, he made thatclear, wholly Charlotte. But Kingsfrere Jannan was increasinglyimpatient. "Where is Polder?" he demanded. Howat surveyed him withneither favour nor reply. Suddenly he understood the feeling of bothmen--they considered that he was too old to have any grip orcomprehension of life. They were quietly but obviously relegating him tothe back of the scene. His anger mounted; he was about to make a sharpreply, when he paused. There was a possibility that they were right; hewas, undoubtedly, old; and he had been unable to influence, turn, Mariana, in the slightest degree. He didn't approve of her present, head-strong course ... Only a few hours ago he had voluntarily, gladly, relinquished all effort to comprehend it. 

"Perhaps, " Provost suggested, "since we are here we'd better talk tohim. I suppose they're out about the place. You could send Rudolph. "Howat replied that he would find them himself. He wanted, now, toprepare James Polder for any incidental unpleasantness. The latter, heknew, had a hasty temper, a short store of patience. After all, he hadacted very well in a difficult situation. It had been Mariana. HowatPenny was aware of a growing sympathy for young Polder. His was a moreengaging person than Kingsfrere's pasty presence and sharp reputation atcards. He got his hat, and went out over the thick, smooth sod, into theslumberous, blue radiance of the early summer noon. 

He found Mariana and James Polder sitting on a bank by the Furnace. "Peter Provost's here with Kingsfrere, " he told them quietly. "They wantto see.... James, about some nonsense bantered around town. " Polderrose quickly, instantly antagonistic. "At the house?" he demanded, already moving away. Mariana stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "Don't pay any attention to what they may say, Jimmy, " she commanded. "It isn't Peter Provost's affair, and Kingsfrere in a fatherly pose is ascream. " They moved forward together. "I'll see them, " she addedcuttingly. 

"I will attend to this, " James Polder told her. "I don't want any womanexplaining my actions. They haven't a whisper on me. I'm glad enough ofan opportunity to talk to a man. "

"If you lose your temper--" Howat commenced, but Mariana impatientlyinterrupted him. "Why shouldn't Jim lose his temper?" she demanded. "Iwould. Personally, I'd be glad if he did, although it mightn't befortunate for Kingsfrere. He's a good deal of a dumpling. But I will befurious if you look guilty. Tell them we're mad about each other andthat I am waiting for the smallest encouragement to go with you. "

Howat Penny left Mariana at the door, and went in with Polder. Provostwas seated, with an open paper; Kingsfrere studying the photograph ofScalchi. "This, " said Howat generally, "is my guest, James Polder. "Peter Provost extended his square, powerful hand; but the other, Jannan, made no movement. "Well?" Polder demanded aggressively. Howat Pennyproceeded through the room to the porch, where he met Mariana. Theywalked to the further end and found chairs. "What makes me sick, "Mariana proceeded, "is the way men calmly take everything into their ownhands; as if women were still tied up, naughty bundles. Jim will haveall the fun, and he has only said 'no' in horrified tones. "

Again he could think of no adequate reply. He listened in vain for thesound of raised voices within. "What, in heaven's name, brought them?"Howat told her what he had heard. "I'm glad I did break up that messthey called a home, " she asserted. "It was rotten with stale beer andhalf pounds of liver for that disgusting animal!"

The heat increased in waves; a wagon passing on the road below wasenveloped in a cloud of dust. "I wish they'd hurry, " Mariana saidsharply. Howat Penny thought he heard Kingsfrere speaking in abruptperiods. Then a chair scraped, and Peter Provost's deliberate voicebecame audible. It was, however, impossible to distinguish his words;but suddenly Polder exclaimed, "Say something I can pound into you. "Mariana rose, her hands clenched. "Go back to your mouldy little life!"James Polder continued. "I'm not surprised Miss Jannan wants to get outof it. I am sorry I hesitated. It seemed to me I couldn't offer heranything good enough; but that was before I'd listened to you.... And ifyou in particular come worming about me again I'll smash your flatface. " The screen door was wrenched violently open, and James Polderstrode up to Mariana. "Suppose we get out of this slag pit, " he said, his chest labouring; "I can't breathe here. "

"I am ready, Jimmy, " she replied quietly; "perhaps Howat will look up atrain and let Honduras drive us to the station. " She laid her hand onhis arm. "Now we can forget them, " she said. They turned, and, together, vanished into the house. Howat Penny followed them slowly. He foundPeter Provost apparently undisturbed. "Nothing to be done, " the lattercommented. "I saw that immediately he turned up. Kingsfrere made a shorteffort, but it wasn't conspicuously successful; I imagine it ratherworse than failed. God knows what's getting into these young women, Howat--Eliza and the rest of 'em--it's a gamble they don't. All right, Kingsfrere. " Jannan lingered with a dark mutter, but the otherunceremoniously drove him into the waiting car. 

Mariana soon descended, with Polder carrying two bags. "One seven, "Howat told them. In the extraordinary situation he found nothingadequate to say. Mariana might have been going unremarkably to Charlotteand her home; she was absolutely contained. James Polder had a dazedexpression; without his companion, Howat thought, he would blunder intothe walls. He stood, holding the bags until told to put them down. Honduras was soon at the door. Mariana moved forward, and mechanicallyHowat Penny made his customary pretence of avoiding her kiss. The warmfragrance of her lips remained long after she had gone. 

A pervasive stillness settled upon Shadrach; outside the sunlight lay onthe hills in a thick, yellow veil; the cool interior held only thefamiliar crepitation of the old clock above. Now, he told himself, hecould read the papers peacefully; but he sat with empty hands. Marianahad gone. "Outrageous conduct, " he said aloud, without conviction. Hisvoice sounded thin, unfamiliar. His dreams of her continued superiorityto the commonplace, of her fine aloofness like the elevation of thestrains of _Orfeo_, had been utterly destroyed. He could not imagine agreater descent than the one which had overtaken her. As he rehearsedits details they seemed increasingly disgraceful. He could not forgiveJames Polder for his relapse, his shocking failure to maintain thestandards, the obligations, bred into himself, Howat Penny, by so manyyears, and by blood. It was that miserable old business of Jasper's oncemore, blighting the present, betraying Mariana. 

This wheeled in his brain throughout summer. He had, as he expected, noword from her. Charlotte, too, sent no line; he was isolated in theincreasing and waning heat, in a sea of greenery growing heavy and greywith dust, then swept by rain, and touched with the scarlet finality offrost. Rudolph lit again the hickory fires in the middle hearth; thedays shortened rapidly; sitting before the glow of the logs he couldsee, through a western window, the afternoon expiring in a sullen redflame. The leaves streamed sibilantly by the eaves and accumulated indry, russet heaps in angles and hollows; they burned in crackling fires, filling the air with a drifting haze rich with suggestion and memories. He saw the first snow on a leaden morning when the flexible and baldwhite covering, devoid of charm, held the significance of barrenness, death. All day this chilling similitude lingered in his mind. He walkedabout the house slowly, unpleasantly conscious of the striking of hisfeet on the wood floors. 

At Christmas a revival of spirit overtook him; a long letter came fromMariana, Bundy Provost sent him a tall silver tankard, with a lid, forhis night table. Howat, polishing his glass with a maroon bandanna, readMariana's letter in the yellow light of the lamp and burning logs. 

"I have been to see a new steel process, " she wrote; "the Duplex, withimmense tilting furnaces and the Bessemer blast. I know a great dealabout iron now; far more than a Howat Penny who should be an authority. Jim is frightfully busy, but lately he has been able to sleep after thenight shift, which makes it better for every one. He is one of the bestmen here, and that comes from the Works, and the reorganization isslowly but surely progressing, and we are progressing with it. I am nota particle lonely, with only one servant; really don't want another, and make a great deal more than desserts. You have no idea howabsorbing it is to have a lot of things that must be done. The dayssimply fade. You mustn't worry about me, Howat; I always hated politeaffairs and parties and people; even when I was young as possible I wasmore than anything else a Hell in the Corner. "

He smiled, recognizing an old flippant phrase, and let his hand dropwhile he recalled Mariana--turning to him to hook her gown, constructingannoying towers with the dominoes, reprehensible and amusing. He resumedreading:

"It would be wonderful if--no, it is wonderful! But Howat, I can tellonly you this, I wish oranges had never been invented. " He drew hismouth into a compressed line. James was drinking. He remembered when theother first made the concoction of orange juice and brandy; he saw himclearly, leaning in the doorway to the dining room, with the emptiedgoblet, and a curious, introspective expression on his mobilecountenance. "He ought to be hung!" he exclaimed sharply. The fellowshould see himself as a mat for Mariana's feet. But that wasn't life, herealized; existence seemed to become more and more heedless of theproprieties, of the simplest concessions to duty. He saw the world as aship which, admirably navigated a score or more years ago, had jammedits rudder. No one could predict what rocks the unmanageable spheremight be driving for. 

The significance born by that sentence robbed the remainder of theletter of pleasure. He read that Mariana had ordered the customary giftof cigarettes, and hoped they would last him longer than everybody knewthey would. The implied affection of all the paragraphs was visible inthe last words. He put the letter carefully away. The cigarettes weresufficient for a considerable time beyond customary. Something of hisappetite had gone; the periods of half wakeful slumber in his chair drewout through whole evenings. The actual world retreated; his memories, asbright as ever, became a little confused; the years, figures, mingledincongruously; famous arias were transposed to operas in which they hadnot been sung. 

Winter retreated, but the latter part of March and April were bitterlycold; no leaves appeared; the ground remained barren; he seldom got out. 

The albums of programmes were brought from their place on the lowshelves, but now, more than often, they were barely opened, scanned. Then, on an evening when belated snow was sifting through the cracks ofthe solid shutters, he came on an oblong package, wrapped in strongpaper. He opened it, in a momentary revival of interest, of life. It wasa tall ledger, bound in crumbling calf, with stained and wrinkledleaves. Howat had not seen it for twenty years, but he recalledimmediately that it was a forge book kept in Gilbert Penny's day; thenMyrtle Forge had been new, that other Howat alive. He opened itcarefully, powdered his knees with leather dust, and studied the fadedentries; what flourishing, pale violet initials, what rubicund lines andendings!

There were two handwritings, listing commonplace transactions nowinvested by time with an accumulated, poignant significance, one smoothand clerkly, the other abrupt, with heavy, impatient strokes. Youth, probably, held at an unwelcome task; and, more than likely, Howat ... October, in seventeen fifty. Years of virility, of struggle andconquest, of iron--iron, James Polder had shown him, still uncorrupted, better than the metal of to-day--and iron-like men. The ledger slippedto the floor, tearing the spongy leather and crumbling the sere leaves. He recovered it, dismayed at the damage wrought. A sheet apparently hadcome loose, and he bent forward with difficulty, a swimming head. Howatmade an attempt to find its place, when he discovered that it was not apart of the volume. It was, he saw, a note, obliterated by creases butwith some lines still legible, hurriedly scrawled, by a woman:

"You must be more careful ... Your mother. So hot-headed, Howat. I can'tdo what you ask. I have a headache now thinking about Felix and you andmyself. No one must find out. " What followed was lost, then came asignature that, with the aid of a reading glass, he barelydeciphered--"Ludowika. "

That was the name of the woman, a widow, Gilbert's son had married. Herfirst husband, Felix Winscombe, had died at Myrtle Forge during adiplomatic mission from England.... An old man with a young wife! Hisconfusion, slowly resolving into a comprehension of what the noteimplied, filled him with an increasing revolt. The earlier Howat, too, like Jasper, in the tangle of an intrigue--not a public scandal andshame, as had been the later, but no less offensive. In a flare of angerHowat Penny crumpled the paper and flung it into the fire. There itinstantly blackened, burst into flame and wavered, a shuddering cinder, up the chimney. He put the ledger, loosely wrapped in its covering, onthe table, and sat breathing rapidly, curiously disturbed. The oldfault, projected so unexpectedly out of the faithless burial of thepast, struck at him with the weight of a personal affront. 

The heat subsided in the hearth, with the nightly ebbing of steam in theradiator; the hickory, disintegrating into blocks, faded from cherry redto pulsating, and finally dead, ash. Lost in the bitterness of histhoughts he made no movement to replenish the fire. 

He wondered if the explored histories of other families would show suchscarring records as his own. Were there everywhere, back of each heart, puddles, sloughs, masked in the deceiving probity maintained for publicview? And now--Mariana! Yet, somehow, her affair did not appear as uglyas these others. Stated coldly, in conventional terms, it was littledifferent. Why, in plain words she had ... But Mariana evaded plainwords, her challenging courage forbade them. Here was more than could bearraigned, convicted, by a stereotyped judgment. Or perhaps this wasonly his affection for her, blinding him to the truth. 

The first Howat and Jasper, striking contemptuously across the barriersof social morals, lived in Mariana, alone with James Polder inillegitimate circumstance, and in himself--an old man without family, without the supporting memory of actual achievement; the negative decayof a negative existence. His mind, confronted by a painful complexity ofunanswerable problems, failed utterly. He was conscious of his impotencechilling his blood, deadening his nerves. Thin tears fell over hishollow cheeks; and he rose shakily, fiercely dragging at his bandanna. 

But he discovered that his hand was numb with cold. The fire lay blackand dead. The shrilling wind, ladened with snow, wrenched at theshutters. The room was bitter. He must get up to bed ... Warm blankets. A chill touched him with an icy breath. It overtook him midway on thestair, and he clung to the railing, appalled at its violence in hisfragile being. He got, finally, to his room, to the edge of his bed, where he sat waiting for the assault to subside. He wanted Rudolph, butthe effort to move to the door, call, appeared insuperable. The chillleft him; and blundering, hideously delayed, he wrapped himself in thebed covering. 

Not all the wool in the world, he thought, would be sufficient to drivethe cold from his body. He fell into a temporary exhaustion of sleep;but was waked later by sharp and oppressive pains in his chest, deepening when he breathed. The suffering must be mastered, and he laywith gripping hands, striving by force of will to overcome what hethought of as the brutal play of small, sharp knives. He conquered, itseemed; the pain grew less; but it had left an increasing difficulty inhis breathing; it was a labour to absorb sufficient air even for hissmall, aged demands. Sleep deserted him; and he waited through seemingyears for the delayed appearance of dawn. He had hoped that the new daywould be sunny, warm; it was overcast, he could see the snow drifted inthe lower window panes. 

Rudolph usually knocked at the door at half past eight; but, apparently, to-day he had forgot. Howat Penny's watch lay on the table, at his hand, yet it was far distant; he couldn't face the heavy effort of itsinspection. At last the man came in with his even morning greeting. Howat was so exhausted that he could make no reply; and Rudolph movedsilently to the bedside. His expression, for an instant, was deeplyconcerned. "I have a cold, or something of the sort, " the other said. Heraised his head, but sank back, with a thin, audible inspiration. "Itwould be best, sir, to have the doctor from Jaffa, " the servantsuggested. Howat, in the midst of protest, closed his eyes; the pain hadreturned. When he had again defeated it Rudolph was gone. 

The room blurred, lost its walls, became formless space; out of which, to his pleasurable surprise, he saw the carefully garbed figure ofColonel Mapleson walking toward him. He never forgot that tea rose!Confound him--probably another benefit for one of his indigent songbirds. As Howat was about to speak the Colonel disappeared. It wasScalchi, in street dress, a yellow fur about her throat, warm, seductive. He had sent the divine Page the bouquet in paper lace. Butshe too vanished. He heard the strains of an orchestra; lingering he hadmissed the overture, and it might be the first duet--with Geister insuperb voice. He was waiting for Mariana, that was it ... Always late. Then her hand was under his arm. But it was the doctor from Jaffa. 

Rudolph was at the foot of the bed, and the two men moved aside, conversed impolitely in hushed tones. I'm sick, he thought lucidly. Oneword reached him--oxygen. It all melted away again, into a black lakewith ghostly swans, a painted mouth and showering confetti; one of thesupreme waltzes that Johann Strauss alone could compose. Later a womanin a folded linen cap was seated beside him, a chimera. But she laidcool fingers on his Wrist, held a brownish, distasteful mixture to hislips. A draught of egg nog was better, although it wasn't as persuasiveas some he had had: Bundy Provost's, for example. 

Bundy was a galliard youth, but he was clear as ice underneath. Hewouldn't have let them put that thing over his, Howat's, face. He triedto turn aside, but a cap of darkness descended upon him. Afterward hisbreathing was easier. A blue iron tank was standing nearby, and thenurse was removing a rubber mask attached to a flexible tube. The latterled from a glass bottle, with a crystal pipe into the tank; the bottleheld water; and the water was troubled with subsiding, clear bubbles. More of the dark, unpleasant mixture, more egg nog. Why did they troubleand trouble him--already he was late getting to Irving Place. 

The opera, as he had feared, had commenced; and it was at once strangeand familiar. The chorus and orchestra were singing in a deep groundtone; the stage was set with a row of great, seething furnaces; glaringwhite bars of light cut through vaporous, yellow gases and showeredsteel sparks where coppery figures were labouring obscurely in a flamingheat that rolled out over the audience. There was a shrilling ofviolins, and then a deafening blare of brass, an appalling volume ofsound pouring out like boiling metal.... But here was Rudolph; theperformance was at an end; it was time to go home. 

"I took the liberty of searching for--for Miss Jannan's address, " theother told him. Well, and why not! "Mr. Provost and Mrs. Jannan are awayfor a week. " Howat hoped that Kingsfrere would not turn up with hisflat face. He was conscious of smiling at a memory the exact shape ofwhich escaped him--something humorous that had happened to the pastyyouth. A refreshing air came in at the open windows, and he struggledfor a full, satisfying breath. The relief of what he dimly recognized asoxygen followed. The nurse moved to the door and Mariana entered. 

"Howat, " she exclaimed, sitting beside him, "how silly of you! A coldnow with winter done. The snow is running away. And these soda-waterytanks. " He felt a warmth communicated by her actual presence. "It's justmy breathing, " he told her; "it gets stopped up. A damned nuisance! DidHonduras meet you?"

She assured him that she had been correctly received, and vanished toremove her hat. Mariana must not sit in here, with the windows open, hetold the nurse; but then, he added, it was no good giving Marianaadvice. She wouldn't listen to it, except to do the opposite. She cameback, in one of her eternal knitted things, this one like a ripe banana, and sat in the nurse's place. There was a great deal he wanted to know, in a few minutes, when he felt less oppressed. The night came swiftly, lit by his familiar lamps; Rudolph moved about in the orderlydisposition of fresh white laundry. A coat needed pressing. It would doto-morrow. The doctor hurt him with a little scraping stab at thebottom of his ear. 

"Mariana, " he at last made the effort of speech, questioning: "I havebeen bothered about your--your temporary arrangement. That Harriet, youknow ... Make trouble. "

"Why, Howat, " she replied, admirably detached; "you don't read theimportant sheets of the papers! Harriet has made a tremendous successwith what was supposed to be a small part. A New York manager hasengaged her in letters of fire, for an unthinkable amount. James and Isent her our obscure compliments, but we were virtuously rebuked by alegal gentleman. Harriet, it seems, is going to cast us off. "

Of all that she had said only the word obscure remained in his mind; andit roused in him an echo of his old, dogmatic pride. "Mariana, " hedemanded, "didn't the reorganization come about; isn't James Poldersuperintendent?"

She hesitated, then replied in a low, steady voice. "Yes, Howat, it did;but they didn't move Jim up. An older, they said steadier, man waschosen. " It was the oranges, he told himself, the oranges and brandy;the cursed young fool. "You must come away, Mariana, " he continued morefaintly; "fair trial, failure--something to yourself, our family. "

"Leave Jimmy because he wasn't made superintendent!" she replied in anabstracted impatience. Then, "I wonder about a smaller plant? Won't youunderstand, Howat, " she leaned softly over him; "I need Jim as badly ashe needs me; perhaps more. If I had any superior illusions they have allgone. I can't tell us apart. Of course, I'd like him to get on, butprincipally for himself. Jim, every bit of him, the drinking andtempers, and tenderness you would never suspect, is my--oxygen. I cansee that you want to know if I am happy; but I can't tell you, Howat. Perhaps that's the answer, and I am--I have a feeling of being a part ofsomething outside personal happiness, something that has tied Jim and metogether and gone on about a larger affair. You see, Howat, I wasn'tconsulted, " she added in a more familiar impudence; "whether I waspleased or not didn't appear to matter. In a position like that it'ssilly to talk about happiness as if it were like the thrill at yourfirst ball. "

He drifted away from her through the nebulous haze deepening about him. An occasional, objective buzzing penetrated to his removed place; butall the while he realized that he was getting farther and farther fromsuch interruptions of an effort to distinguish a vaguely familiar, veiled shape. He saw, at last, that it was Howat, a black Penny. It wasat once himself and that other Howat, yes, and Jasper. All threeunremarkably merged into one. And the acts of the first, a dark youngman with an erect, impatient carriage, a countenance and gaze ofvigorous scorn, accumulated in a later figure, hardly less upright, slender, but touched with grey--a man in the middle of life. He paidwith an anguished spirit for what had taken place; and at last an oldman lingered with empty hands, the husk of a passion that had burned outall vitality. 

Mariana, too, had been drawn into the wide implications of this mingledpast and present. But now, clearly, he recognized in her the meeting ofspirit and flesh that had been denied to him. That was life, he thought, that was happiness. In the absence of such consummation he had come tonothing. In Jasper, in Susan Brundon who had married him over late, thetwo had warred. 

Life took the spirit to itself, mysteriously; wove the gold thread intoits design of scarlet and earth and green, or else ... A hearth sooncold, the walls of a Furnace crumbled and broken, a ruin covered frommemory by growing leafage and grass throbbing with the song of robins, the shrilling of frogs in the meadow. 

The doctor and nurse, Rudolph and Mariana, moved about him in a far, lowstir. At times they approached on a lighter flood of oxygen. Marianawiped his lips--an immaterial red stain. But what was that confoundedopera the name of which he had forgot? It would be in his albums; in thefirst, probably. Downstairs. He had a sudden view of Mariana's face asshe returned with the volume. An expression of piercing concernoverwhelmed the reassuring smile she had for him. 

Howat understood at last, he was dying. An instinctive shudderingseized him; not in fear of the obliterating fact; but from a physicalrevulsion bred by his long years of delicate habit. 

Yet it wouldn't do to expose Mariana to the terrors; and, after a sharp, inward struggle, he said almost fretfully, "Further on. " She turned thepages slowly; but no one could read without a decent light. He moved hishead, in an infinity of labour, toward the clear, grey opening of thewindow, and saw a pattern of flying geese wavering across the tranquilsky. 

THE END