
CHAPTER I.


The engine bellowed its way up the slanting, winding valley. Grey crags,
and trees with roots fastened cleverly to the steeps looked down at the
struggles of the black monster.

When the train finally released its passengers they burst forth with the
enthusiasm of escaping convicts. A great bustle ensued on the platform
of the little mountain station. The idlers and philosophers from the
village were present to examine the consignment of people from the city.
These latter, loaded with bundles and children, thronged at the stage
drivers. The stage drivers thronged at the people from the city.

Hawker, with his clothes case, his paint-box, his easel, climbed
awkwardly down the steps of the car. The easel swung uncontrolled and
knocked against the head of a little boy who was disembarking backward
with fine caution. "Hello, little man," said Hawker, "did it hurt?" The
child regarded him in silence and with sudden interest, as if Hawker had
called his attention to a phenomenon. The young painter was politely
waiting until the little boy should conclude his examination, but a
voice behind him cried, "Roger, go on down!" A nursemaid was conducting
a little girl where she would probably be struck by the other end of the
easel. The boy resumed his cautious descent.

The stage drivers made such great noise as a collection that as
individuals their identities were lost. With a highly important air, as
a man proud of being so busy, the baggageman of the train was thundering
trunks at the other employees on the platform. Hawker, prowling through
the crowd, heard a voice near his shoulder say, "Do you know where is
the stage for Hemlock Inn?" Hawker turned and found a young woman
regarding him. A wave of astonishment whirled into his hair, and he
turned his eyes quickly for fear that she would think that he had
looked at her. He said, "Yes, certainly, I think I can find it." At the
same time he was crying to himself: "Wouldn't I like to paint her,
though! What a glance--oh, murder! The--the--the distance in her eyes!"

He went fiercely from one driver to another. That obdurate stage for
Hemlock Inn must appear at once. Finally he perceived a man who grinned
expectantly at him. "Oh," said Hawker, "you drive the stage for Hemlock
Inn?" The man admitted it. Hawker said, "Here is the stage." The young
woman smiled.

The driver inserted Hawker and his luggage far into the end of the
vehicle. He sat there, crooked forward so that his eyes should see the
first coming of the girl into the frame of light at the other end of the
stage. Presently she appeared there. She was bringing the little boy,
the little girl, the nursemaid, and another young woman, who was at once
to be known as the mother of the two children. The girl indicated the
stage with a small gesture of triumph. When they were all seated
uncomfortably in the huge covered vehicle the little boy gave Hawker a
glance of recognition. "It hurted then, but it's all right now," he
informed him cheerfully.

"Did it?" replied Hawker. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, I didn't mind it much," continued the little boy, swinging his
long, red-leather leggings bravely to and fro. "I don't cry when I'm
hurt, anyhow." He cast a meaning look at his tiny sister, whose soft
lips set defensively.

The driver climbed into his seat, and after a scrutiny of the group in
the gloom of the stage he chirped to his horses. They began a slow and
thoughtful trotting. Dust streamed out behind the vehicle. In front, the
green hills were still and serene in the evening air. A beam of gold
struck them aslant, and on the sky was lemon and pink information of the
sun's sinking. The driver knew many people along the road, and from time
to time he conversed with them in yells.

The two children were opposite Hawker. They sat very correctly mucilaged
to their seats, but their large eyes were always upon Hawker, calmly
valuing him.

"Do you think it nice to be in the country? I do," said the boy.

"I like it very well," answered Hawker.

"I shall go fishing, and hunting, and everything. Maybe I shall shoot a
bears."

"I hope you may."

"Did you ever shoot a bears?"

"No."

"Well, I didn't, too, but maybe I will. Mister Hollanden, he said he'd
look around for one. Where I live----"

"Roger," interrupted the mother from her seat at Hawker's side, "perhaps
every one is not interested in your conversation." The boy seemed
embarrassed at this interruption, for he leaned back in silence with an
apologetic look at Hawker. Presently the stage began to climb the hills,
and the two children were obliged to take grip upon the cushions for
fear of being precipitated upon the nursemaid.

Fate had arranged it so that Hawker could not observe the girl with
the--the--the distance in her eyes without leaning forward and
discovering to her his interest. Secretly and impiously he wriggled in
his seat, and as the bumping stage swung its passengers this way and
that way, he obtained fleeting glances of a cheek, an arm, or a
shoulder.

The driver's conversation tone to his passengers was also a yell. "Train
was an hour late t'night," he said, addressing the interior. "It'll be
nine o'clock before we git t' th' inn, an' it'll be perty dark
travellin'."

Hawker waited decently, but at last he said, "Will it?"

"Yes. No moon." He turned to face Hawker, and roared, "You're ol' Jim
Hawker's son, hain't yeh?"

"Yes."

"I thort I'd seen yeh b'fore. Live in the city now, don't yeh?"

"Yes."

"Want t' git off at th' cross-road?"

"Yes."

"Come up fer a little stay doorin' th' summer?"

"Yes."

"On'y charge yeh a quarter if yeh git off at cross-road. Useter charge
'em fifty cents, but I ses t' th' ol' man. 'Tain't no use. Goldern 'em,
they'll walk ruther'n put up fifty cents.' Yep. On'y a quarter."

In the shadows Hawker's expression seemed assassinlike. He glanced
furtively down the stage. She was apparently deep in talk with the
mother of the children.




CHAPTER II.


When Hawker pushed at the old gate, it hesitated because of a broken
hinge. A dog barked with loud ferocity and came headlong over the grass.

"Hello, Stanley, old man!" cried Hawker. The ardour for battle was
instantly smitten from the dog, and his barking swallowed in a gurgle of
delight. He was a large orange and white setter, and he partly expressed
his emotion by twisting his body into a fantastic curve and then dancing
over the ground with his head and his tail very near to each other. He
gave vent to little sobs in a wild attempt to vocally describe his
gladness. "Well, 'e was a dreat dod," said Hawker, and the setter,
overwhelmed, contorted himself wonderfully.

There were lights in the kitchen, and at the first barking of the dog
the door had been thrown open. Hawker saw his two sisters shading their
eyes and peering down the yellow stream. Presently they shouted, "Here
he is!" They flung themselves out and upon him. "Why, Will! why, Will!"
they panted.

"We're awful glad to see you!" In a whirlwind of ejaculation and
unanswerable interrogation they grappled the clothes case, the
paint-box, the easel, and dragged him toward the house.

He saw his old mother seated in a rocking-chair by the table. She had
laid aside her paper and was adjusting her glasses as she scanned the
darkness. "Hello, mother!" cried Hawker, as he entered. His eyes were
bright. The old mother reached her arms to his neck. She murmured soft
and half-articulate words. Meanwhile the dog writhed from one to
another. He raised his muzzle high to express his delight. He was always
fully convinced that he was taking a principal part in this ceremony of
welcome and that everybody was heeding him.

"Have you had your supper?" asked the old mother as soon as she
recovered herself. The girls clamoured sentences at him. "Pa's out in
the barn, Will. What made you so late? He said maybe he'd go up to the
cross-roads to see if he could see the stage. Maybe he's gone. What
made you so late? And, oh, we got a new buggy!"

The old mother repeated anxiously, "Have you had your supper?"

"No," said Hawker, "but----"

The three women sprang to their feet. "Well, we'll git you something
right away." They bustled about the kitchen and dove from time to time
into the cellar. They called to each other in happy voices.

Steps sounded on the line of stones that led from the door toward the
barn, and a shout came from the darkness. "Well, William, home again,
hey?" Hawker's grey father came stamping genially into the room. "I
thought maybe you got lost. I was comin' to hunt you," he said,
grinning, as they stood with gripped hands. "What made you so late?"

While Hawker confronted the supper the family sat about and contemplated
him with shining eyes. His sisters noted his tie and propounded some
questions concerning it. His mother watched to make sure that he should
consume a notable quantity of the preserved cherries. "He used to be so
fond of 'em when he was little," she said.

"Oh, Will," cried the younger sister, "do you remember Lil' Johnson?
Yeh? She's married. Married las' June."

"Is the boy's room all ready, mother?" asked the father.

"We fixed it this mornin'," she said.

"And do you remember Jeff Decker?" shouted the elder sister. "Well, he's
dead. Yep. Drowned, pickerel fishin'--poor feller!"

"Well, how are you gitting along, William?" asked the father. "Sell many
pictures?"

"An occasional one."

"Saw your illustrations in the May number of Perkinson's." The old man
paused for a moment, and then added, quite weakly, "Pretty good."

"How's everything about the place?"

"Oh, just about the same--'bout the same. The colt run away with me last
week, but didn't break nothin', though. I was scared, because I had out
the new buggy--we got a new buggy--but it didn't break nothin'. I'm
goin' to sell the oxen in the fall; I don't want to winter 'em. And then
in the spring I'll get a good hoss team. I rented th' back five-acre to
John Westfall. I had more'n I could handle with only one hired hand.
Times is pickin' up a little, but not much--not much."

"And we got a new school-teacher," said one of the girls.

"Will, you never noticed my new rocker," said the old mother, pointing.
"I set it right where I thought you'd see it, and you never took no
notice. Ain't it nice? Father bought it at Monticello for my birthday. I
thought you'd notice it first thing."

When Hawker had retired for the night, he raised a sash and sat by the
window smoking. The odour of the woods and the fields came sweetly to
his nostrils. The crickets chanted their hymn of the night. On the black
brow of the mountain he could see two long rows of twinkling dots which
marked the position of Hemlock Inn.




CHAPTER III.


Hawker had a writing friend named Hollanden. In New York Hollanden had
announced his resolution to spend the summer at Hemlock Inn. "I don't
like to see the world progressing," he had said; "I shall go to Sullivan
County for a time."

In the morning Hawker took his painting equipment, and after
manoeuvring in the fields until he had proved to himself that he had
no desire to go toward the inn, he went toward it. The time was only
nine o'clock, and he knew that he could not hope to see Hollanden before
eleven, as it was only through rumour that Hollanden was aware that
there was a sunrise and an early morning.

Hawker encamped in front of some fields of vivid yellow stubble on which
trees made olive shadows, and which was overhung by a china-blue sky and
sundry little white clouds. He fiddled away perfunctorily at it. A
spectator would have believed, probably, that he was sketching the
pines on the hill where shone the red porches of Hemlock Inn.

Finally, a white-flannel young man walked into the landscape. Hawker
waved a brush. "Hi, Hollie, get out of the colour-scheme!"

At this cry the white-flannel young man looked down at his feet
apprehensively. Finally he came forward grinning. "Why, hello, Hawker,
old boy! Glad to find you here." He perched on a boulder and began to
study Hawker's canvas and the vivid yellow stubble with the olive
shadows. He wheeled his eyes from one to the other. "Say, Hawker," he
said suddenly, "why don't you marry Miss Fanhall?"

Hawker had a brush in his mouth, but he took it quickly out, and said,
"Marry Miss Fanhall? Who the devil is Miss Fanhall?"

Hollanden clasped both hands about his knee and looked thoughtfully
away. "Oh, she's a girl."

"She is?" said Hawker.

"Yes. She came to the inn last night with her sister-in-law and a small
tribe of young Fanhalls. There's six of them, I think."

"Two," said Hawker, "a boy and a girl."

"How do you--oh, you must have come up with them. Of course. Why, then
you saw her."

"Was that her?" asked Hawker listlessly.

"Was that her?" cried Hollanden, with indignation. "Was that her?"

"Oh!" said Hawker.

Hollanden mused again. "She's got lots of money," he said. "Loads of it.
And I think she would be fool enough to have sympathy for you in your
work. They are a tremendously wealthy crowd, although they treat it
simply. It would be a good thing for you. I believe--yes, I am sure she
could be fool enough to have sympathy for you in your work. And now, if
you weren't such a hopeless chump----"

"Oh, shut up, Hollie," said the painter.

For a time Hollanden did as he was bid, but at last he talked again.
"Can't think why they came up here. Must be her sister-in-law's health.
Something like that. She----"

"Great heavens," said Hawker, "you speak of nothing else!"

"Well, you saw her, didn't you?" demanded Hollanden. "What can you
expect, then, from a man of my sense? You--you old stick--you----"

"It was quite dark," protested the painter.

"Quite dark," repeated Hollanden, in a wrathful voice. "What if it was?"

"Well, that is bound to make a difference in a man's opinion, you know."

"No, it isn't. It was light down at the railroad station, anyhow. If you
had any sand--thunder, but I did get up early this morning! Say, do you
play tennis?"

"After a fashion," said Hawker. "Why?"

"Oh, nothing," replied Hollanden sadly. "Only they are wearing me out at
the game. I had to get up and play before breakfast this morning with
the Worcester girls, and there is a lot more mad players who will be
down on me before long. It's a terrible thing to be a tennis player."

"Why, you used to put yourself out so little for people," remarked
Hawker.

"Yes, but up there"--Hollanden jerked his thumb in the direction of the
inn--"they think I'm so amiable."

"Well, I'll come up and help you out."

"Do," Hollanden laughed; "you and Miss Fanhall can team it against the
littlest Worcester girl and me." He regarded the landscape and
meditated. Hawker struggled for a grip on the thought of the stubble.

"That colour of hair and eyes always knocks me kerplunk," observed
Hollanden softly.

Hawker looked up irascibly. "What colour hair and eyes?" he demanded. "I
believe you're crazy."

"What colour hair and eyes?" repeated Hollanden, with a savage gesture.
"You've got no more appreciation than a post."

"They are good enough for me," muttered Hawker, turning again to his
work. He scowled first at the canvas and then at the stubble. "Seems to
me you had best take care of yourself, instead of planning for me," he
said.

"Me!" cried Hollanden. "Me! Take care of myself! My boy, I've got a past
of sorrow and gloom. I----"

"You're nothing but a kid," said Hawker, glaring at the other man.

"Oh, of course," said Hollanden, wagging his head with midnight wisdom.
"Oh, of course."

"Well, Hollie," said Hawker, with sudden affability, "I didn't mean to
be unpleasant, but then you are rather ridiculous, you know, sitting up
there and howling about the colour of hair and eyes."

"I'm not ridiculous."

"Yes, you are, you know, Hollie."

The writer waved his hand despairingly. "And you rode in the train with
her, and in the stage."

"I didn't see her in the train," said Hawker.

"Oh, then you saw her in the stage. Ha-ha, you old thief! I sat up here,
and you sat down there and lied." He jumped from his perch and
belaboured Hawker's shoulders.

"Stop that!" said the painter.

"Oh, you old thief, you lied to me! You lied---- Hold on--bless my life,
here she comes now!"




CHAPTER IV.


One day Hollanden said: "There are forty-two people at Hemlock Inn, I
think. Fifteen are middle-aged ladies of the most aggressive
respectability. They have come here for no discernible purpose save to
get where they can see people and be displeased at them. They sit in a
large group on that porch and take measurements of character as
importantly as if they constituted the jury of heaven. When I arrived at
Hemlock Inn I at once cast my eye searchingly about me. Perceiving this
assemblage, I cried, 'There they are!' Barely waiting to change my
clothes, I made for this formidable body and endeavoured to conciliate
it. Almost every day I sit down among them and lie like a machine.
Privately I believe they should be hanged, but publicly I glisten with
admiration. Do you know, there is one of 'em who I know has not moved
from the inn in eight days, and this morning I said to her, 'These long
walks in the clear mountain air are doing you a world of good.' And I
keep continually saying, 'Your frankness is so charming!' Because of the
great law of universal balance, I know that this illustrious corps will
believe good of themselves with exactly the same readiness that they
will believe ill of others. So I ply them with it. In consequence, the
worst they ever say of me is, 'Isn't that Mr. Hollanden a peculiar man?'
And you know, my boy, that's not so bad for a literary person." After
some thought he added: "Good people, too. Good wives, good mothers, and
everything of that kind, you know. But conservative, very conservative.
Hate anything radical. Can not endure it. Were that way themselves once,
you know. They hit the mark, too, sometimes. Such general volleyings
can't fail to hit everything. May the devil fly away with them!"

Hawker regarded the group nervously, and at last propounded a great
question: "Say, I wonder where they all are recruited? When you come to
think that almost every summer hotel----"

"Certainly," said Hollanden, "almost every summer hotel. I've studied
the question, and have nearly established the fact that almost every
summer hotel is furnished with a full corps of----"

"To be sure," said Hawker; "and if you search for them in the winter,
you can find barely a sign of them, until you examine the boarding
houses, and then you observe----"

"Certainly," said Hollanden, "of course. By the way," he added, "you
haven't got any obviously loose screws in your character, have you?"

"No," said Hawker, after consideration, "only general poverty--that's
all."

"Of course, of course," said Hollanden. "But that's bad. They'll get on
to you, sure. Particularly since you come up here to see Miss Fanhall so
much."

Hawker glinted his eyes at his friend. "You've got a deuced open way of
speaking," he observed.

"Deuced open, is it?" cried Hollanden. "It isn't near so open as your
devotion to Miss Fanhall, which is as plain as a red petticoat hung on a
hedge."

Hawker's face gloomed, and he said, "Well, it might be plain to you, you
infernal cat, but that doesn't prove that all those old hens can see
it."

"I tell you that if they look twice at you they can't fail to see it.
And it's bad, too. Very bad. What's the matter with you? Haven't you
ever been in love before?"

"None of your business," replied Hawker.

Hollanden thought upon this point for a time. "Well," he admitted
finally, "that's true in a general way, but I hate to see you managing
your affairs so stupidly."

Rage flamed into Hawker's face, and he cried passionately, "I tell you
it is none of your business!" He suddenly confronted the other man.

Hollanden surveyed this outburst with a critical eye, and then slapped
his knee with emphasis. "You certainly have got it--a million times
worse than I thought. Why, you--you--you're heels over head."

"What if I am?" said Hawker, with a gesture of defiance and despair.

Hollanden saw a dramatic situation in the distance, and with a bright
smile he studied it. "Say," he exclaimed, "suppose she should not go to
the picnic to-morrow? She said this morning she did not know if she
could go. Somebody was expected from New York, I think. Wouldn't it
break you up, though! Eh?"

"You're so dev'lish clever!" said Hawker, with sullen irony.

Hollanden was still regarding the distant dramatic situation. "And
rivals, too! The woods must be crowded with them. A girl like that, you
know. And then all that money! Say, your rivals must number enough to
make a brigade of militia. Imagine them swarming around! But then it
doesn't matter so much," he went on cheerfully; "you've got a good play
there. You must appreciate them to her--you understand?--appreciate them
kindly, like a man in a watch-tower. You must laugh at them only about
once a week, and then very tolerantly--you understand?--and kindly,
and--and appreciatively."

"You're a colossal ass, Hollie!" said Hawker. "You----"

"Yes, yes, I know," replied the other peacefully; "a colossal ass. Of
course." After looking into the distance again, he murmured: "I'm
worried about that picnic. I wish I knew she was going. By heavens, as a
matter of fact, she must be made to go!"

"What have you got to do with it?" cried the painter, in another sudden
outburst.

"There! there!" said Hollanden, waving his hand. "You fool! Only a
spectator, I assure you."

Hawker seemed overcome then with a deep dislike of himself. "Oh, well,
you know, Hollie, this sort of thing----" He broke off and gazed at the
trees. "This sort of thing---- It----"

"How?" asked Hollanden.

"Confound you for a meddling, gabbling idiot!" cried Hawker suddenly.

Hollanden replied, "What did you do with that violet she dropped at the
side of the tennis court yesterday?"




CHAPTER V.


Mrs. Fanhall, with the two children, the Worcester girls, and Hollanden,
clambered down the rocky path. Miss Fanhall and Hawker had remained on
top of the ledge. Hollanden showed much zeal in conducting his
contingent to the foot of the falls. Through the trees they could see
the cataract, a great shimmering white thing, booming and thundering
until all the leaves gently shuddered.

"I wonder where Miss Fanhall and Mr. Hawker have gone?" said the younger
Miss Worcester. "I wonder where they've gone?"

"Millicent," said Hollander, looking at her fondly, "you always had such
great thought for others."

"Well, I wonder where they've gone?"

At the foot of the falls, where the mist arose in silver clouds and the
green water swept into the pool, Miss Worcester, the elder, seated on
the moss, exclaimed, "Oh, Mr. Hollanden, what makes all literary men so
peculiar?"

"And all that just because I said that I could have made better
digestive organs than Providence, if it is true that he made mine,"
replied Hollanden, with reproach. "Here, Roger," he cried, as he dragged
the child away from the brink, "don't fall in there, or you won't be the
full-back at Yale in 1907, as you have planned. I'm sure I don't know
how to answer you, Miss Worcester. I've inquired of innumerable literary
men, and none of 'em know. I may say I have chased that problem for
years. I might give you my personal history, and see if that would throw
any light on the subject." He looked about him with chin high until his
glance had noted the two vague figures at the top of the cliff. "I might
give you my personal history----"

Mrs. Fanhall looked at him curiously, and the elder Worcester girl
cried, "Oh, do!"

After another scanning of the figures at the top of the cliff, Hollanden
established himself in an oratorical pose on a great weather-beaten
stone. "Well--you must understand--I started my career--my career, you
understand--with a determination to be a prophet, and, although I have
ended in being an acrobat, a trained bear of the magazines, and a
juggler of comic paragraphs, there was once carved upon my lips a smile
which made many people detest me, for it hung before them like a banshee
whenever they tried to be satisfied with themselves. I was informed from
time to time that I was making no great holes in the universal plan, and
I came to know that one person in every two thousand of the people I saw
had heard of me, and that four out of five of these had forgotten it.
And then one in every two of those who remembered that they had heard of
me regarded the fact that I wrote as a great impertinence. I admitted
these things, and in defence merely builded a maxim that stated that
each wise man in this world is concealed amid some twenty thousand
fools. If you have eyes for mathematics, this conclusion should interest
you. Meanwhile I created a gigantic dignity, and when men saw this
dignity and heard that I was a literary man they respected me. I
concluded that the simple campaign of existence for me was to delude
the populace, or as much of it as would look at me. I did. I do. And now
I can make myself quite happy concocting sneers about it. Others may do
as they please, but as for me," he concluded ferociously, "I shall never
disclose to anybody that an acrobat, a trained bear of the magazines, a
juggler of comic paragraphs, is not a priceless pearl of art and
philosophy."

"I don't believe a word of it is true," said Miss Worcester.

"What do you expect of autobiography?" demanded Hollanden, with
asperity.

"Well, anyhow, Hollie," exclaimed the younger sister, "you didn't
explain a thing about how literary men came to be so peculiar, and
that's what you started out to do, you know."

"Well," said Hollanden crossly, "you must never expect a man to do what
he starts to do, Millicent. And besides," he went on, with the gleam of
a sudden idea in his eyes, "literary men are not peculiar, anyhow."

The elder Worcester girl looked angrily at him. "Indeed? Not you, of
course, but the others."

"They are all asses," said Hollanden genially.

The elder Worcester girl reflected. "I believe you try to make us think
and then just tangle us up purposely!"

The younger Worcester girl reflected. "You are an absurd old thing, you
know, Hollie!"

Hollanden climbed offendedly from the great weather-beaten stone. "Well,
I shall go and see that the men have not spilled the luncheon while
breaking their necks over these rocks. Would you like to have it spread
here, Mrs. Fanhall? Never mind consulting the girls. I assure you I
shall spend a great deal of energy and temper in bullying them into
doing just as they please. Why, when I was in Brussels----"

"Oh, come now, Hollie, you never were in Brussels, you know," said the
younger Worcester girl.

"What of that, Millicent?" demanded Hollanden. "This is autobiography."

"Well, I don't care, Hollie. You tell such whoppers."

With a gesture of despair he again started away; whereupon the
Worcester girls shouted in chorus, "Oh, I say, Hollie, come back! Don't
be angry. We didn't mean to tease you, Hollie--really, we didn't!"

"Well, if you didn't," said Hollanden, "why did you----"

The elder Worcester girl was gazing fixedly at the top of the cliff.
"Oh, there they are! I wonder why they don't come down?"




CHAPTER VI.


Stanley, the setter, walked to the edge of the precipice and, looking
over at the falls, wagged his tail in friendly greeting. He was braced
warily, so that if this howling white animal should reach up a hand for
him he could flee in time.

The girl stared dreamily at the red-stained crags that projected from
the pines of the hill across the stream. Hawker lazily aimed bits of
moss at the oblivious dog and missed him.

"It must be fine to have something to think of beyond just living," said
the girl to the crags.

"I suppose you mean art?" said Hawker.

"Yes, of course. It must be finer, at any rate, than the ordinary
thing."

He mused for a time. "Yes. It is--it must be," he said. "But then--I'd
rather just lie here."

The girl seemed aggrieved. "Oh, no, you wouldn't. You couldn't stop.
It's dreadful to talk like that, isn't it? I always thought that
painters were----"

"Of course. They should be. Maybe they are. I don't know. Sometimes I
am. But not to-day."

"Well, I should think you ought to be so much more contented than just
ordinary people. Now, I----"

"You!" he cried--"you are not 'just ordinary people.'"

"Well, but when I try to recall what I have thought about in my life, I
can't remember, you know. That's what I mean."

"You shouldn't talk that way," he told her.

"But why do you insist that life should be so highly absorbing for me?"

"You have everything you wish for," he answered, in a voice of deep
gloom.

"Certainly not. I am a woman."

"But----"

"A woman, to have everything she wishes for, would have to be
Providence. There are some things that are not in the world."

"Well, what are they?" he asked of her.

"That's just it," she said, nodding her head, "no one knows. That's
what makes the trouble."

"Well, you are very unreasonable."

"What?"

"You are very unreasonable. If I were you--an heiress----"

The girl flushed and turned upon him angrily.

"Well!" he glowered back at her. "You are, you know. You can't deny it."

She looked at the red-stained crags. At last she said, "You seemed
really contemptuous."

"Well, I assure you that I do not feel contemptuous. On the contrary, I
am filled with admiration. Thank Heaven, I am a man of the world.
Whenever I meet heiresses I always have the deepest admiration." As he
said this he wore a brave hang-dog expression. The girl surveyed him
coldly from his chin to his eyebrows. "You have a handsome audacity,
too."

He lay back in the long grass and contemplated the clouds.

"You should have been a Chinese soldier of fortune," she said.

He threw another little clod at Stanley and struck him on the head.

"You are the most scientifically unbearable person in the world," she
said.

Stanley came back to see his master and to assure himself that the clump
on the head was not intended as a sign of serious displeasure. Hawker
took the dog's long ears and tried to tie them into a knot.

"And I don't see why you so delight in making people detest you," she
continued.

Having failed to make a knot of the dog's ears, Hawker leaned back and
surveyed his failure admiringly. "Well, I don't," he said.

"You do."

"No, I don't."

"Yes, you do. You just say the most terrible things as if you positively
enjoyed saying them."

"Well, what did I say, now? What did I say?"

"Why, you said that you always had the most extraordinary admiration for
heiresses whenever you met them."

"Well, what's wrong with that sentiment?" he said. "You can't find
fault with that!"

"It is utterly detestable."

"Not at all," he answered sullenly. "I consider it a tribute--a graceful
tribute."

Miss Fanhall arose and went forward to the edge of the cliff. She became
absorbed in the falls. Far below her a bough of a hemlock drooped to the
water, and each swirling, mad wave caught it and made it nod--nod--nod.
Her back was half turned toward Hawker.

After a time Stanley, the dog, discovered some ants scurrying in the
moss, and he at once began to watch them and wag his tail.

"Isn't it curious," observed Hawker, "how an animal as large as a dog
will sometimes be so entertained by the very smallest things?"

Stanley pawed gently at the moss, and then thrust his head forward to
see what the ants did under the circumstances.

"In the hunting season," continued Hawker, having waited a moment, "this
dog knows nothing on earth but his master and the partridges. He is lost
to all other sound and movement. He moves through the woods like a
steel machine. And when he scents the bird--ah, it is beautiful!
Shouldn't you like to see him then?"

Some of the ants had perhaps made war-like motions, and Stanley was
pretending that this was a reason for excitement. He reared aback, and
made grumbling noises in his throat.

After another pause Hawker went on: "And now see the precious old fool!
He is deeply interested in the movements of the little ants, and as
childish and ridiculous over them as if they were highly
important.--There, you old blockhead, let them alone!"

Stanley could not be induced to end his investigations, and he told his
master that the ants were the most thrilling and dramatic animals of his
experience.

"Oh, by the way," said Hawker at last, as his glance caught upon the
crags across the river, "did you ever hear the legend of those rocks
yonder? Over there where I am pointing? Where I'm pointing? Did you ever
hear it? What? Yes? No? Well, I shall tell it to you." He settled
comfortably in the long grass.




CHAPTER VII.


"Once upon a time there was a beautiful Indian maiden, of course. And
she was, of course, beloved by a youth from another tribe who was very
handsome and stalwart and a mighty hunter, of course. But the maiden's
father was, of course, a stern old chief, and when the question of his
daughter's marriage came up, he, of course, declared that the maiden
should be wedded only to a warrior of her tribe. And, of course, when
the young man heard this he said that in such case he would, of course,
fling himself headlong from that crag. The old chief was, of course,
obdurate, and, of course, the youth did, of course, as he had said. And,
of course, the maiden wept." After Hawker had waited for some time, he
said with severity, "You seem to have no great appreciation of
folklore."

The girl suddenly bent her head. "Listen," she said, "they're calling.
Don't you hear Hollie's voice?"

They went to another place, and, looking down over the shimmering
tree-tops, they saw Hollanden waving his arms. "It's luncheon," said
Hawker. "Look how frantic he is!"

The path required that Hawker should assist the girl very often. His
eyes shone at her whenever he held forth his hand to help her down a
blessed steep place. She seemed rather pensive. The route to luncheon
was very long. Suddenly he took a seat on an old tree, and said: "Oh, I
don't know why it is, whenever I'm with you, I--I have no wits, nor good
nature, nor anything. It's the worst luck!"

He had left her standing on a boulder, where she was provisionally
helpless. "Hurry!" she said; "they're waiting for us."

Stanley, the setter, had been sliding down cautiously behind them. He
now stood wagging his tail and waiting for the way to be cleared.

Hawker leaned his head on his hand and pondered dejectedly. "It's the
worst luck!"

"Hurry!" she said; "they're waiting for us."

At luncheon the girl was for the most part silent. Hawker was
superhumanly amiable. Somehow he gained the impression that they all
quite fancied him, and it followed that being clever was very easy.
Hollanden listened, and approved him with a benign countenance.

There was a little boat fastened to the willows at the edge of the black
pool. After the spread, Hollanden navigated various parties around to
where they could hear the great hollow roar of the falls beating against
the sheer rocks. Stanley swam after sticks at the request of little
Roger.

Once Hollanden succeeded in making the others so engrossed in being
amused that Hawker and Miss Fanhall were left alone staring at the white
bubbles that floated solemnly on the black water. After Hawker had
stared at them a sufficient time, he said, "Well, you are an heiress,
you know."

In return she chose to smile radiantly. Turning toward him, she said,
"If you will be good now--always--perhaps I'll forgive you."

They drove home in the sombre shadows of the hills, with Stanley padding
along under the wagon. The Worcester girls tried to induce Hollanden to
sing, and in consequence there was quarrelling until the blinking lights
of the inn appeared above them as if a great lantern hung there.

Hollanden conveyed his friend some distance on the way home from the inn
to the farm. "Good time at the picnic?" said the writer.

"Yes."

"Picnics are mainly places where the jam gets on the dead leaves, and
from thence to your trousers. But this was a good little picnic." He
glanced at Hawker. "But you don't look as if you had such a swell time."

Hawker waved his hand tragically. "Yes--no--I don't know."

"What's wrong with you?" asked Hollanden.

"I tell you what it is, Hollie," said the painter darkly, "whenever I'm
with that girl I'm such a blockhead. I'm not so stupid, Hollie. You know
I'm not. But when I'm with her I can't be clever to save my life."

Hollanden pulled contentedly at his pipe. "Maybe she don't notice it."

"Notice it!" muttered Hawker, scornfully; "of course she notices it. In
conversation with her, I tell you, I am as interesting as an iron dog."
His voice changed as he cried, "I don't know why it is. I don't know why
it is."

Blowing a huge cloud of smoke into the air, Hollanden studied it
thoughtfully. "Hits some fellows that way," he said. "And, of course, it
must be deuced annoying. Strange thing, but now, under those
circumstances, I'm very glib. Very glib, I assure you."

"I don't care what you are," answered Hawker. "All those confounded
affairs of yours--they were not----"

"No," said Hollanden, stolidly puffing, "of course not. I understand
that. But, look here, Billie," he added, with sudden brightness, "maybe
you are not a blockhead, after all. You are on the inside, you know, and
you can't see from there. Besides, you can't tell what a woman will
think. You can't tell what a woman will think."

"No," said Hawker, grimly, "and you suppose that is my only chance?"

"Oh, don't be such a chump!" said Hollanden, in a tone of vast
exasperation.

They strode for some time in silence. The mystic pines swaying over the
narrow road made talk sibilantly to the wind. Stanley, the setter, took
it upon himself to discover some menacing presence in the woods. He
walked on his toes and with his eyes glinting sideways. He swore half
under his breath.

"And work, too," burst out Hawker, at last. "I came up here this season
to work, and I haven't done a thing that ought not be shot at."

"Don't you find that your love sets fire to your genius?" asked
Hollanden gravely.

"No, I'm hanged if I do."

Hollanden sighed then with an air of relief. "I was afraid that a
popular impression was true," he said, "but it's all right. You would
rather sit still and moon, wouldn't you?"

"Moon--blast you! I couldn't moon to save my life."

"Oh, well, I didn't mean moon exactly."




CHAPTER VIII.


The blue night of the lake was embroidered with black tree forms. Silver
drops sprinkled from the lifted oars. Somewhere in the gloom of the
shore there was a dog, who from time to time raised his sad voice to the
stars.

"But still, the life of the studios----" began the girl.

Hawker scoffed. "There were six of us. Mainly we smoked. Sometimes we
played hearts and at other times poker--on credit, you know--credit. And
when we had the materials and got something to do, we worked. Did you
ever see these beautiful red and green designs that surround the common
tomato can?"

"Yes."

"Well," he said proudly, "I have made them. Whenever you come upon
tomatoes, remember that they might once have been encompassed in my
design. When first I came back from Paris I began to paint, but nobody
wanted me to paint. Later, I got into green corn and asparagus----"

"Truly?"

"Yes, indeed. It is true."

"But still, the life of the studios----"

"There were six of us. Fate ordained that only one in the crowd could
have money at one time. The other five lived off him and despised
themselves. We despised ourselves five times as long as we had
admiration."

"And was this just because you had no money?"

"It was because we had no money in New York," said Hawker.

"Well, after a while something happened----"

"Oh, no, it didn't. Something impended always, but it never happened."

"In a case like that one's own people must be such a blessing. The
sympathy----"

"One's own people!" said Hawker.

"Yes," she said, "one's own people and more intimate friends. The
appreciation----"

"'The appreciation!'" said Hawker. "Yes, indeed!"

He seemed so ill-tempered that she became silent. The boat floated
through the shadows of the trees and out to where the water was like a
blue crystal. The dog on the shore thrashed about in the reeds and waded
in the shallows, mourning his unhappy state in an occasional cry. Hawker
stood up and sternly shouted. Thereafter silence was among the reeds.
The moon slipped sharply through the little clouds.

The girl said, "I liked that last picture of yours."

"What?"

"At the last exhibition, you know, you had that one with the cows--and
things--in the snow--and--and a haystack."

"Yes," he said, "of course. Did you like it, really? I thought it about
my best. And you really remembered it? Oh," he cried, "Hollanden perhaps
recalled it to you."

"Why, no," she said. "I remembered it, of course."

"Well, what made you remember it?" he demanded, as if he had cause to be
indignant.

"Why--I just remembered it because--I liked it, and because--well, the
people with me said--said it was about the best thing in the exhibit,
and they talked about it a good deal. And then I remember that Hollie
had spoken of you, and then I--I----"

"Never mind," he said. After a moment, he added, "The confounded picture
was no good, anyhow!"

The girl started. "What makes you speak so of it? It was good. Of
course, I don't know--I can't talk about pictures, but," she said in
distress, "everybody said it was fine."

"It wasn't any good," he persisted, with dogged shakes of the head.

From off in the darkness they heard the sound of Hollanden's oars
splashing in the water. Sometimes there was squealing by the Worcester
girls, and at other times loud arguments on points of navigation.

"Oh," said the girl suddenly, "Mr. Oglethorpe is coming to-morrow!"

"Mr. Oglethorpe?" said Hawker. "Is he?"

"Yes." She gazed off at the water.

"He's an old friend of ours. He is always so good, and Roger and little
Helen simply adore him. He was my brother's chum in college, and they
were quite inseparable until Herbert's death. He always brings me
violets. But I know you will like him."

"I shall expect to," said Hawker.

"I'm so glad he is coming. What time does that morning stage get here?"

"About eleven," said Hawker.

"He wrote that he would come then. I hope he won't disappoint us."

"Undoubtedly he will be here," said Hawker.

The wind swept from the ridge top, where some great bare pines stood in
the moonlight. A loon called in its strange, unearthly note from the
lakeshore. As Hawker turned the boat toward the dock, the flashing rays
from the boat fell upon the head of the girl in the rear seat, and he
rowed very slowly.

The girl was looking away somewhere with a mystic, shining glance. She
leaned her chin in her hand. Hawker, facing her, merely paddled
subconsciously. He seemed greatly impressed and expectant.

At last she spoke very slowly. "I wish I knew Mr. Oglethorpe was not
going to disappoint us."

Hawker said, "Why, no, I imagine not."

"Well, he is a trifle uncertain in matters of time. The children--and
all of us--shall be anxious. I know you will like him."




CHAPTER IX.


"Eh?" said Hollanden. "Oglethorpe? Oglethorpe? Why, he's that friend of
the Fanhalls! Yes, of course, I know him! Deuced good fellow, too! What
about him?"

"Oh, nothing, only he's coming here to-morrow," answered Hawker. "What
kind of a fellow did you say he was?"

"Deuced good fellow! What are you so---- Say, by the nine mad
blacksmiths of Donawhiroo, he's your rival! Why, of course! Glory, but I
must be thick-headed to-night!"

Hawker said, "Where's your tobacco?"

"Yonder, in that jar. Got a pipe?"

"Yes. How do you know he's my rival?"

"Know it? Why, hasn't he been---- Say, this is getting thrilling!"
Hollanden sprang to his feet and, filling a pipe, flung himself into the
chair and began to rock himself madly to and fro. He puffed clouds of
smoke.

Hawker stood with his face in shadow. At last he said, in tones of deep
weariness, "Well, I think I'd better be going home and turning in."

"Hold on!" Hollanden exclaimed, turning his eyes from a prolonged stare
at the ceiling, "don't go yet! Why, man, this is just the time when----
Say, who would ever think of Jem Oglethorpe's turning up to harrie you!
Just at this time, too!"

"Oh," cried Hawker suddenly, filled with rage, "you remind me of an
accursed duffer! Why can't you tell me something about the man, instead
of sitting there and gibbering those crazy things at the ceiling?"

"By the piper----"

"Oh, shut up! Tell me something about Oglethorpe, can't you? I want to
hear about him. Quit all that other business!"

"Why, Jem Oglethorpe, he--why, say, he's one of the best fellows going.
If he were only an ass! If he were only an ass, now, you could feel easy
in your mind. But he isn't. No, indeed. Why, blast him, there isn't a
man that knows him who doesn't like Jem Oglethorpe! Excepting the
chumps!"

The window of the little room was open, and the voices of the pines
could be heard as they sang of their long sorrow. Hawker pulled a chair
close and stared out into the darkness. The people on the porch of the
inn were frequently calling, "Good-night! Good-night!"

Hawker said, "And of course he's got train loads of money?"

"You bet he has! He can pave streets with it. Lordie, but this is a
situation!"

A heavy scowl settled upon Hawker's brow, and he kicked at the dressing
case. "Say, Hollie, look here! Sometimes I think you regard me as a bug
and like to see me wriggle. But----"

"Oh, don't be a fool!" said Hollanden, glaring through the smoke. "Under
the circumstances, you are privileged to rave and ramp around like a
wounded lunatic, but for heaven's sake don't swoop down on me like that!
Especially when I'm--when I'm doing all I can for you."

"Doing all you can for me! Nobody asked you to. You talk as if I were an
infant."

"There! That's right! Blaze up like a fire balloon just because I said
that, will you? A man in your condition--why, confound you, you are an
infant!"

Hawker seemed again overwhelmed in a great dislike of himself. "Oh,
well, of course, Hollie, it----" He waved his hand. "A man feels
like--like----"

"Certainly he does," said Hollanden. "That's all right, old man."

"And look now, Hollie, here's this Oglethorpe----"

"May the devil fly away with him!"

"Well, here he is, coming along when I thought maybe--after a while, you
know--I might stand some show. And you are acquainted with him, so give
me a line on him."

"Well, I should advise you to----"

"Blow your advice! I want to hear about Oglethorpe."

"Well, in the first place, he is a rattling good fellow, as I told you
before, and this is what makes it so----"

"Oh, hang what it makes it! Go on."

"He is a rattling good fellow and he has stacks of money. Of course, in
this case his having money doesn't affect the situation much. Miss
Fanhall----"

"Say, can you keep to the thread of the story, you infernal literary
man!"

"Well, he's popular. He don't talk money--ever. And if he's wicked, he's
not sufficiently proud of it to be perpetually describing his sins. And
then he is not so hideously brilliant, either. That's great credit to a
man in these days. And then he--well, take it altogether, I should say
Jem Oglethorpe was a smashing good fellow."

"I wonder how long he is going to stay?" murmured Hawker.

During this conversation his pipe had often died out. It was out at this
time. He lit another match. Hollanden had watched the fingers of his
friend as the match was scratched. "You're nervous, Billie," he said.

Hawker straightened in his chair. "No, I'm not."

"I saw your fingers tremble when you lit that match."

"Oh, you lie!"

Hollanden mused again. "He's popular with women, too," he said
ultimately; "and often a woman will like a man and hunt his scalp just
because she knows other women like him and want his scalp."

"Yes, but not----"

"Hold on! You were going to say that she was not like other women,
weren't you?"

"Not exactly that, but----"

"Well, we will have all that understood."

After a period of silence Hawker said, "I must be going."

As the painter walked toward the door Hollanden cried to him: "Heavens!
Of all pictures of a weary pilgrim!" His voice was very compassionate.

Hawker wheeled, and an oath spun through the smoke clouds.




CHAPTER X.


"Where's Mr. Hawker this morning?" asked the younger Miss Worcester. "I
thought he was coming up to play tennis?"

"I don't know. Confound him! I don't see why he didn't come," said
Hollanden, looking across the shining valley. He frowned questioningly
at the landscape. "I wonder where in the mischief he is?"

The Worcester girls began also to stare at the great gleaming stretch of
green and gold. "Didn't he tell you he was coming?" they demanded.

"He didn't say a word about it," answered Hollanden. "I supposed, of
course, he was coming. We will have to postpone the _mêlée_."

Later he met Miss Fanhall. "You look as if you were going for a walk?"

"I am," she said, swinging her parasol. "To meet the stage. Have you
seen Mr. Hawker to-day?"

"No," he said. "He is not coming up this morning. He is in a great fret
about that field of stubble, and I suppose he is down there sketching
the life out of it. These artists--they take such a fiendish interest in
their work. I dare say we won't see much of him until he has finished
it. Where did you say you were going to walk?"

"To meet the stage."

"Oh, well, I won't have to play tennis for an hour, and if you
insist----"

"Of course."

As they strolled slowly in the shade of the trees Hollanden began,
"Isn't that Hawker an ill-bred old thing?"

"No, he is not." Then after a time she said, "Why?"

"Oh, he gets so absorbed in a beastly smudge of paint that I really
suppose he cares nothing for anything else in the world. Men who are
really artists--I don't believe they are capable of deep human
affections. So much of them is occupied by art. There's not much left
over, you see."

"I don't believe it at all," she exclaimed.

"You don't, eh?" cried Hollanden scornfully. "Well, let me tell you,
young woman, there is a great deal of truth in it. Now, there's
Hawker--as good a fellow as ever lived, too, in a way, and yet he's an
artist. Why, look how he treats--look how he treats that poor setter
dog!"

"Why, he's as kind to him as he can be," she declared.

"And I tell you he is not!" cried Hollanden.

"He is, Hollie. You--you are unspeakable when you get in these moods."

"There--that's just you in an argument. I'm not in a mood at all. Now,
look--the dog loves him with simple, unquestioning devotion that fairly
brings tears to one's eyes----"

"Yes," she said.

"And he--why, he's as cold and stern----"

"He isn't. He isn't, Holly. You are awf'ly unfair."

"No, I'm not. I am simply a liberal observer. And Hawker, with his
people, too," he went on darkly; "you can't tell--you don't know
anything about it--but I tell you that what I have seen proves my
assertion that the artistic mind has no space left for the human
affections. And as for the dog----"

"I thought you were his friend, Hollie?"

"Whose?"

"No, not the dog's. And yet you--really, Hollie, there is something
unnatural in you. You are so stupidly keen in looking at people that you
do not possess common loyalty to your friends. It is because you are a
writer, I suppose. That has to explain so many things. Some of your
traits are very disagreeable."

"There! there!" plaintively cried Hollanden. "This is only about the
treatment of a dog, mind you. Goodness, what an oration!"

"It wasn't about the treatment of a dog. It was about your treatment of
your friends."

"Well," he said sagely, "it only goes to show that there is nothing
impersonal in the mind of a woman. I undertook to discuss broadly----

"Oh, Hollie!"

"At any rate, it was rather below you to do such scoffing at me."

"Well, I didn't mean--not all of it, Hollie."

"Well, I didn't mean what I said about the dog and all that, either."

"You didn't?" She turned toward him, large-eyed.

"No. Not a single word of it."

"Well, what did you say it for, then?" she demanded indignantly.

"I said it," answered Hollanden placidly, "just to tease you." He looked
abstractedly up to the trees.

Presently she said slowly, "Just to tease me?"

At this time Hollanden wore an unmistakable air of having a desire to
turn up his coat collar. "Oh, come now----" he began nervously.

"George Hollanden," said the voice at his shoulder, "you are not only
disagreeable, but you are hopelessly ridiculous. I--I wish you would
never speak to me again!"

"Oh, come now, Grace, don't--don't---- Look! There's the stage coming,
isn't it?"

"No, the stage is not coming. I wish--I wish you were at the bottom of
the sea, George Hollanden. And--and Mr. Hawker, too. There!"

"Oh, bless my soul! And all about an infernal dog," wailed Hollanden.
"Look! Honest, now, there's the stage. See it? See it?"

"It isn't there at all," she said.

Gradually he seemed to recover his courage. "What made you so
tremendously angry? I don't see why."

After consideration, she said decisively, "Well, because."

"That's why I teased you," he rejoined.

"Well, because--because----"

"Go on," he told her finally. "You are doing very well." He waited
patiently.

"Well," she said, "it is dreadful to defend somebody so--so excitedly,
and then have it turned out just a tease. I don't know what he would
think."

"Who would think?"

"Why--he."

"What could he think? Now, what could he think? Why," said Hollanden,
waxing eloquent, "he couldn't under any circumstances think--think
anything at all. Now, could he?"

She made no reply.

"Could he?"

She was apparently reflecting.

"Under any circumstances," persisted Hollanden, "he couldn't think
anything at all. Now, could he?"

"No," she said.

"Well, why are you angry at me, then?"




CHAPTER XI.


"John," said the old mother, from the profound mufflings of the pillow
and quilts.

"What?" said the old man. He was tugging at his right boot, and his tone
was very irascible.

"I think William's changed a good deal."

"Well, what if he has?" replied the father, in another burst of
ill-temper. He was then tugging at his left boot.

"Yes, I'm afraid he's changed a good deal," said the muffled voice from
the bed. "He's got a good many fine friends, now, John--folks what put
on a good many airs; and he don't care for his home like he did."

"Oh, well, I don't guess he's changed very much," said the old man
cheerfully. He was now free of both boots.

She raised herself on an elbow and looked out with a troubled face.
"John, I think he likes that girl."

"What girl?" said he.

"What girl? Why, that awful handsome girl you see around--of course."

"Do you think he likes 'er?"

"I'm afraid so--I'm afraid so," murmured the mother mournfully.

"Oh, well," said the old man, without alarm, or grief, or pleasure in
his tone.

He turned the lamp's wick very low and carried the lamp to the head of
the stairs, where he perched it on the step. When he returned he said,
"She's mighty good-look-in'!"

"Well, that ain't everything," she snapped. "How do we know she ain't
proud, and selfish, and--everything?"

"How do you know she is?" returned the old man.

"And she may just be leading him on."

"Do him good, then," said he, with impregnable serenity. "Next time
he'll know better."

"Well, I'm worried about it," she said, as she sank back on the pillow
again. "I think William's changed a good deal. He don't seem to care
about--us--like he did."

"Oh, go to sleep!" said the father drowsily.

She was silent for a time, and then she said, "John?"

"What?"

"Do you think I better speak to him about that girl?"

"No."

She grew silent again, but at last she demanded, "Why not?"

"'Cause it's none of your business. Go to sleep, will you?" And
presently he did, but the old mother lay blinking wild-eyed into the
darkness.

In the morning Hawker did not appear at the early breakfast, eaten when
the blue glow of dawn shed its ghostly lights upon the valley. The old
mother placed various dishes on the back part of the stove. At ten
o'clock he came downstairs. His mother was sweeping busily in the
parlour at the time, but she saw him and ran to the back part of the
stove. She slid the various dishes on to the table. "Did you oversleep?"
she asked.

"Yes. I don't feel very well this morning," he said. He pulled his chair
close to the table and sat there staring.

She renewed her sweeping in the parlour. When she returned he sat still
staring undeviatingly at nothing.

"Why don't you eat your breakfast?" she said anxiously.

"I tell you, mother, I don't feel very well this morning," he answered
quite sharply.

"Well," she said meekly, "drink some coffee and you'll feel better."

Afterward he took his painting machinery and left the house. His younger
sister was at the well. She looked at him with a little smile and a
little sneer. "Going up to the inn this morning?" she said.

"I don't see how that concerns you, Mary?" he rejoined, with dignity.

"Oh, my!" she said airily.

"But since you are so interested, I don't mind telling you that I'm not
going up to the inn this morning."

His sister fixed him with her eye. "She ain't mad at you, is she, Will?"

"I don't know what you mean, Mary." He glared hatefully at her and
strode away.

Stanley saw him going through the fields and leaped a fence jubilantly
in pursuit. In a wood the light sifted through the foliage and burned
with a peculiar reddish lustre on the masses of dead leaves. He frowned
at it for a while from different points. Presently he erected his easel
and began to paint. After a a time he threw down his brush and swore.
Stanley, who had been solemnly staring at the scene as if he too was
sketching it, looked up in surprise.

In wandering aimlessly through the fields and the forest Hawker once
found himself near the road to Hemlock Inn. He shied away from it
quickly as if it were a great snake.

While most of the family were at supper, Mary, the younger sister, came
charging breathlessly into the kitchen. "Ma--sister," she cried, "I know
why--why Will didn't go to the inn to-day. There's another fellow come.
Another fellow."

"Who? Where? What do you mean?" exclaimed her mother and her sister.

"Why, another fellow up at the inn," she shouted, triumphant in her
information. "Another fellow come up on the stage this morning. And she
went out driving with him this afternoon."

"Well," exclaimed her mother and her sister.

"Yep. And he's an awful good-looking fellow, too. And she--oh, my--she
looked as if she thought the world and all of him."

"Well," exclaimed her mother and her sister again.

"Sho!" said the old man. "You wimen leave William alone and quit your
gabbling."

The three women made a combined assault upon him. "Well, we ain't
a-hurting him, are we, pa? You needn't be so snifty. I guess we ain't
a-hurting him much."

"Well," said the old man. And to this argument he added, "Sho!"

They kept him out of the subsequent consultations.




CHAPTER XII.


The next day, as little Roger was going toward the tennis court, a large
orange and white setter ran effusively from around the corner of the inn
and greeted him. Miss Fanhall, the Worcester girls, Hollanden, and
Oglethorpe faced to the front like soldiers. Hollanden cried, "Why,
Billie Hawker must be coming!" Hawker at that moment appeared, coming
toward them with a smile which was not overconfident.

Little Roger went off to perform some festivities of his own on the
brown carpet under a clump of pines. The dog, to join him, felt obliged
to circle widely about the tennis court. He was much afraid of this
tennis court, with its tiny round things that sometimes hit him. When
near it he usually slunk along at a little sheep trot and with an eye of
wariness upon it.

At her first opportunity the younger Worcester girl said, "You didn't
come up yesterday, Mr. Hawker."

Hollanden seemed to think that Miss Fanhall turned her head as if she
wished to hear the explanation of the painter's absence, so he engaged
her in swift and fierce conversation.

"No," said Hawker. "I was resolved to finish a sketch of a stubble field
which I began a good many days ago. You see, I was going to do such a
great lot of work this summer, and I've done hardly a thing. I really
ought to compel myself to do some, you know."

"There," said Hollanden, with a victorious nod, "just what I told you!"

"You didn't tell us anything of the kind," retorted the Worcester girls
with one voice.

A middle-aged woman came upon the porch of the inn, and after scanning
for a moment the group at the tennis court she hurriedly withdrew.
Presently she appeared again, accompanied by five more middle-aged
women. "You see," she said to the others, "it is as I said. He has come
back."

The five surveyed the group at the tennis court, and then said: "So he
has. I knew he would. Well, I declare! Did you ever?" Their voices were
pitched at low keys and they moved with care, but their smiles were
broad and full of a strange glee.

"I wonder how he feels," said one in subtle ecstasy.

Another laughed. "You know how you would feel, my dear, if you were him
and saw yourself suddenly cut out by a man who was so hopelessly
superior to you. Why, Oglethorpe's a thousand times better looking. And
then think of his wealth and social position!"

One whispered dramatically, "They say he never came up here at all
yesterday."

Another replied: "No more he did. That's what we've been talking about.
Stayed down at the farm all day, poor fellow!"

"Do you really think she cares for Oglethorpe?"

"Care for him? Why, of course she does. Why, when they came up the path
yesterday morning I never saw a girl's face so bright. I asked my
husband how much of the Chambers Street Bank stock Oglethorpe owned, and
he said that if Oglethorpe took his money out there wouldn't be enough
left to buy a pie."

The youngest woman in the corps said: "Well, I don't care. I think it is
too bad. I don't see anything so much in that Mr. Oglethorpe."

The others at once patronized her. "Oh, you don't, my dear? Well, let me
tell you that bank stock waves in the air like a banner. You would see
it if you were her."

"Well, she don't have to care for his money."

"Oh, no, of course she don't have to. But they are just the ones that
do, my dear. They are just the ones that do."

"Well, it's a shame."

"Oh, of course it's a shame."

The woman who had assembled the corps said to one at her side: "Oh, the
commonest kind of people, my dear, the commonest kind. The father is a
regular farmer, you know. He drives oxen. Such language! You can really
hear him miles away bellowing at those oxen. And the girls are shy,
half-wild things--oh, you have no idea! I saw one of them yesterday when
we were out driving. She dodged as we came along, for I suppose she was
ashamed of her frock, poor child! And the mother--well, I wish you
could see her! A little, old, dried-up thing. We saw her carrying a pail
of water from the well, and, oh, she bent and staggered dreadfully, poor
thing!"

"And the gate to their front yard, it has a broken hinge, you know. Of
course, that's an awful bad sign. When people let their front gate hang
on one hinge you know what that means."

After gazing again at the group at the court, the youngest member of the
corps said, "Well, he's a good tennis player anyhow."

The others smiled indulgently. "Oh, yes, my dear, he's a good tennis
player."




CHAPTER XIII.


One day Hollanden said, in greeting, to Hawker, "Well, he's gone."

"Who?" asked Hawker.

"Why, Oglethorpe, of course. Who did you think I meant?"

"How did I know?" said Hawker angrily.

"Well," retorted Hollanden, "your chief interest was in his movements, I
thought."

"Why, of course not, hang you! Why should I be interested in his
movements?"

"Well, you weren't, then. Does that suit you?"

After a period of silence Hawker asked, "What did he--what made him go?"

"Who?"

"Why--Oglethorpe."

"How was I to know you meant him? Well, he went because some important
business affairs in New York demanded it, he said; but he is coming
back again in a week. They had rather a late interview on the porch last
evening."

"Indeed," said Hawker stiffly.

"Yes, and he went away this morning looking particularly elated. Aren't
you glad?"

"I don't see how it concerns me," said Hawker, with still greater
stiffness.

In a walk to the lake that afternoon Hawker and Miss Fanhall found
themselves side by side and silent. The girl contemplated the distant
purple hills as if Hawker were not at her side and silent. Hawker
frowned at the roadway. Stanley, the setter, scouted the fields in a
genial gallop.

At last the girl turned to him. "Seems to me," she said, "seems to me
you are dreadfully quiet this afternoon."

"I am thinking about my wretched field of stubble," he answered, still
frowning.

Her parasol swung about until the girl was looking up at his inscrutable
profile. "Is it, then, so important that you haven't time to talk to
me?" she asked with an air of what might have been timidity.

A smile swept the scowl from his face. "No, indeed," he said, instantly;
"nothing is so important as that."

She seemed aggrieved then. "Hum--you didn't look so," she told him.

"Well, I didn't mean to look any other way," he said contritely. "You
know what a bear I am sometimes. Hollanden says it is a fixed scowl from
trying to see uproarious pinks, yellows, and blues."

A little brook, a brawling, ruffianly little brook, swaggered from side
to side down the glade, swirling in white leaps over the great dark
rocks and shouting challenge to the hillsides. Hollanden and the
Worcester girls had halted in a place of ferns and wet moss. Their
voices could be heard quarrelling above the clamour of the stream.
Stanley, the setter, had sousled himself in a pool and then gone and
rolled in the dust of the road. He blissfully lolled there, with his
coat now resembling an old door mat.

"Don't you think Jem is a wonderfully good fellow?" said the girl to the
painter.

"Why, yes, of course," said Hawker.

"Well, he is," she retorted, suddenly defensive.

"Of course," he repeated loudly.

She said, "Well, I don't think you like him as well as I like him."

"Certainly not," said Hawker.

"You don't?" She looked at him in a kind of astonishment.

"Certainly not," said Hawker again, and very irritably. "How in the wide
world do you expect me to like him as well as you like him?"

"I don't mean as well," she explained.

"Oh!" said Hawker.

"But I mean you don't like him the way I do at all--the way I expected
you to like him. I thought men of a certain pattern always fancied their
kind of men wherever they met them, don't you know? And I was so sure
you and Jem would be friends."

"Oh!" cried Hawker. Presently he added, "But he isn't my kind of a man
at all."

"He is. Jem is one of the best fellows in the world."

Again Hawker cried "Oh!"

They paused and looked down at the brook. Stanley sprawled panting in
the dust and watched them. Hawker leaned against a hemlock. He sighed
and frowned, and then finally coughed with great resolution. "I suppose,
of course, that I am unjust to him. I care for you myself, you
understand, and so it becomes----"

He paused for a moment because he heard a rustling of her skirts as if
she had moved suddenly. Then he continued: "And so it becomes difficult
for me to be fair to him. I am not able to see him with a true eye." He
bitterly addressed the trees on the opposite side of the glen. "Oh, I
care for you, of course. You might have expected it." He turned from the
trees and strode toward the roadway. The uninformed and disreputable
Stanley arose and wagged his tail.

As if the girl had cried out at a calamity, Hawker said again, "Well,
you might have expected it."




CHAPTER XIV.


At the lake, Hollanden went pickerel fishing, lost his hook in a gaunt,
gray stump, and earned much distinction by his skill in discovering
words to express his emotion without resorting to the list ordinarily
used in such cases. The younger Miss Worcester ruined a new pair of
boots, and Stanley sat on the bank and howled the song of the forsaken.
At the conclusion of the festivities Hollanden said, "Billie, you ought
to take the boat back."

"Why had I? You borrowed it."

"Well, I borrowed it and it was a lot of trouble, and now you ought to
take it back."

Ultimately Hawker said, "Oh, let's both go!"

On this journey Hawker made a long speech to his friend, and at the end
of it he exclaimed: "And now do you think she cares so much for
Oglethorpe? Why, she as good as told me that he was only a very great
friend."

Hollanden wagged his head dubiously. "What a woman says doesn't amount
to shucks. It's the way she says it--that's what counts. Besides," he
cried in a brilliant afterthought, "she wouldn't tell you, anyhow, you
fool!"

"You're an encouraging brute," said Hawker, with a rueful grin.

Later the Worcester girls seized upon Hollanden and piled him high with
ferns and mosses. They dragged the long gray lichens from the chins of
venerable pines, and ran with them to Hollanden, and dashed them into
his arms. "Oh, hurry up, Hollie!" they cried, because with his great
load he frequently fell behind them in the march. He once positively
refused to carry these things another step. Some distance farther on the
road he positively refused to carry this old truck another step. When
almost to the inn he positively refused to carry this senseless rubbish
another step. The Worcester girls had such vivid contempt for his
expressed unwillingness that they neglected to tell him of any
appreciation they might have had for his noble struggle.

As Hawker and Miss Fanhall proceeded slowly they heard a voice ringing
through the foliage: "Whoa! Haw! Git-ap, blast you! Haw! Haw, drat your
hides! Will you haw? Git-ap! Gee! Whoa!"

Hawker said, "The others are a good ways ahead. Hadn't we better hurry a
little?"

The girl obediently mended her pace.

"Whoa! haw! git-ap!" shouted the voice in the distance. "Git over there,
Red, git over! Gee! Git-ap!" And these cries pursued the man and the
maid.

At last Hawker said, "That's my father."

"Where?" she asked, looking bewildered.

"Back there, driving those oxen."

The voice shouted: "Whoa! Git-ap! Gee! Red, git over there now, will
you? I'll trim the shin off'n you in a minute. Whoa! Haw! Haw! Whoa!
Git-ap!"

Hawker repeated, "Yes, that's my father."

"Oh, is it?" she said. "Let's wait for him."

"All right," said Hawker sullenly.

Presently a team of oxen waddled into view around the curve of the road.
They swung their heads slowly from side to side, bent under the yoke,
and looked out at the world with their great eyes, in which was a mystic
note of their humble, submissive, toilsome lives. An old wagon creaked
after them, and erect upon it was the tall and tattered figure of the
farmer swinging his whip and yelling: "Whoa! Haw there! Git-ap!" The
lash flicked and flew over the broad backs of the animals.

"Hello, father!" said Hawker.

"Whoa! Back! Whoa! Why, hello, William, what you doing here?"

"Oh, just taking a walk. Miss Fanhall, this is my father. Father----"

"How d' you do?" The old man balanced himself with care and then raised
his straw hat from his head with a quick gesture and with what was
perhaps a slightly apologetic air, as if he feared that he was rather
over-doing the ceremonial part.

The girl later became very intent upon the oxen. "Aren't they nice old
things?" she said, as she stood looking into the faces of the team.
"But what makes their eyes so very sad?"

"I dunno," said the old man.

She was apparently unable to resist a desire to pat the nose of the
nearest ox, and for that purpose she stretched forth a cautious hand.
But the ox moved restlessly at the moment and the girl put her hand
apprehensively behind herself and backed away. The old man on the wagon
grinned. "They won't hurt you," he told her.

"They won't bite, will they?" she asked, casting a glance of inquiry at
the old man and then turning her eyes again upon the fascinating
animals.

"No," said the old man, still grinning, "just as gentle as kittens."

She approached them circuitously. "Sure?" she said.

"Sure," replied the old man. He climbed from the wagon and came to the
heads of the oxen. With him as an ally, she finally succeeded in patting
the nose of the nearest ox. "Aren't they solemn, kind old fellows? Don't
you get to think a great deal of them?"

"Well, they're kind of aggravating beasts sometimes," he said. "But
they're a good yoke--a good yoke. They can haul with anything in this
region."

"It doesn't make them so terribly tired, does it?" she said hopefully.
"They are such strong animals."

"No-o-o," he said. "I dunno. I never thought much about it."

With their heads close together they became so absorbed in their
conversation that they seemed to forget the painter. He sat on a log and
watched them.

Ultimately the girl said, "Won't you give us a ride?"

"Sure," said the old man. "Come on, and I'll help you up." He assisted
her very painstakingly to the old board that usually served him as a
seat, and he clambered to a place beside her. "Come on, William," he
called. The painter climbed into the wagon and stood behind his father,
putting his hand on the old man's shoulder to preserve his balance.

"Which is the near ox?" asked the girl with a serious frown.

"Git-ap! Haw! That one there," said the old man.

"And this one is the off ox?"

"Yep."

"Well, suppose you sat here where I do; would this one be the near ox
and that one the off ox, then?"

"Nope. Be just same."

"Then the near ox isn't always the nearest one to a person, at all? That
ox there is always the near ox?"

"Yep, always. 'Cause when you drive 'em a-foot you always walk on the
left side."

"Well, I never knew that before."

After studying them in silence for a while, she said, "Do you think they
are happy?"

"I dunno," said the old man. "I never thought." As the wagon creaked on
they gravely discussed this problem, contemplating profoundly the backs
of the animals. Hawker gazed in silence at the meditating two before
him. Under the wagon Stanley, the setter, walked slowly, wagging his
tail in placid contentment and ruminating upon his experiences.

At last the old man said cheerfully, "Shall I take you around by the
inn?"

Hawker started and seemed to wince at the question. Perhaps he was about
to interrupt, but the girl cried: "Oh, will you? Take us right to the
door? Oh, that will be awfully good of you!"

"Why," began Hawker, "you don't want--you don't want to ride to the inn
on an--on an ox wagon, do you?"

"Why, of course I do," she retorted, directing a withering glance at
him.

"Well----" he protested.

"Let 'er be, William," interrupted the old man. "Let 'er do what she
wants to. I guess everybody in th' world ain't even got an ox wagon to
ride in. Have they?"

"No, indeed," she returned, while withering Hawker again.

"Gee! Gee! Whoa! Haw! Git-ap! Haw! Whoa! Back!"

After these two attacks Hawker became silent.

"Gee! Gee! Gee there, blast--s'cuse me. Gee! Whoa! Git-ap!"

All the boarders of the inn were upon its porches waiting for the dinner
gong. There was a surge toward the railing as a middle-aged woman passed
the word along her middle-aged friends that Miss Fanhall, accompanied
by Mr. Hawker, had arrived on the ox cart of Mr. Hawker's father.

"Whoa! Ha! Git-ap!" said the old man in more subdued tones. "Whoa there,
Red! Whoa, now! Wh-o-a!"

Hawker helped the girl to alight, and she paused for a moment conversing
with the old man about the oxen. Then she ran smiling up the steps to
meet the Worcester girls.

"Oh, such a lovely time! Those dear old oxen--you should have been with
us!"




CHAPTER XV.


"Oh, Miss Fanhall!"

"What is it, Mrs. Truscot?"

"That was a great prank of yours last night, my dear. We all enjoyed the
joke so much."

"Prank?"

"Yes, your riding on the ox cart with that old farmer and that young Mr.
What's-his-name, you know. We all thought it delicious. Ah, my dear,
after all--don't be offended--if we had your people's wealth and
position we might do that sort of unconventional thing, too; but, ah, my
dear, we can't, we can't! Isn't the young painter a charming man?"

Out on the porch Hollanden was haranguing his friends. He heard a step
and glanced over his shoulder to see who was about to interrupt him. He
suddenly ceased his oration, and said, "Hello! what's the matter with
Grace?" The heads turned promptly.

As the girl came toward them it could be seen that her cheeks were very
pink and her eyes were flashing general wrath and defiance.

The Worcester girls burst into eager interrogation. "Oh, nothing!" she
replied at first, but later she added in an undertone, "That wretched
Mrs. Truscot----"

"What did she say?" whispered the younger Worcester girl.

"Why, she said--oh, nothing!"

Both Hollanden and Hawker were industriously reflecting.

Later in the morning Hawker said privately to the girl, "I know what
Mrs. Truscot talked to you about."

She turned upon him belligerently. "You do?"

"Yes," he answered with meekness. "It was undoubtedly some reference to
your ride upon the ox wagon."

She hesitated a moment, and then said, "Well?"

With still greater meekness he said, "I am very sorry."

"Are you, indeed?" she inquired loftily. "Sorry for what? Sorry that I
rode upon your father's ox wagon, or sorry that Mrs. Truscot was rude
to me about it?"

"Well, in some ways it was my fault."

"Was it? I suppose you intend to apologize for your father's owning an
ox wagon, don't you?"

"No, but----"

"Well, I am going to ride in the ox wagon whenever I choose. Your
father, I know, will always be glad to have me. And if it so shocks you,
there is not the slightest necessity of your coming with us."

They glowered at each other, and he said, "You have twisted the question
with the usual ability of your sex."

She pondered as if seeking some particularly destructive retort. She
ended by saying bluntly, "Did you know that we were going home next
week?"

A flush came suddenly to his face. "No. Going home? Who? You?"

"Why, of course." And then with an indolent air she continued, "I meant
to have told you before this, but somehow it quite escaped me."

He stammered, "Are--are you, honestly?"

She nodded. "Why, of course. Can't stay here forever, you know."

They were then silent for a long time.

At last Hawker said, "Do you remember what I told you yesterday?"

"No. What was it?"

He cried indignantly, "You know very well what I told you!"

"I do not."

"No," he sneered, "of course not! You never take the trouble to remember
such things. Of course not! Of course not!"

"You are a very ridiculous person," she vouchsafed, after eying him
coldly.

He arose abruptly. "I believe I am. By heavens, I believe I am!" he
cried in a fury.

She laughed. "You are more ridiculous now than I have yet seen you."

After a pause he said magnificently, "Well, Miss Fanhall, you will
doubtless find Mr. Hollanden's conversation to have a much greater
interest than that of such a ridiculous person."

Hollanden approached them with the blithesome step of an untroubled man.
"Hello, you two people, why don't you--oh--ahem! Hold on, Billie, where
are you going?"

"I----" began Hawker.

"Oh, Hollie," cried the girl impetuously, "do tell me how to do that
slam thing, you know. I've tried it so often, but I don't believe I hold
my racket right. And you do it so beautifully."

"Oh, that," said Hollanden. "It's not so very difficult. I'll show it to
you. You don't want to know this minute, do you?"

"Yes," she answered.

"Well, come over to the court, then. Come ahead, Billie!"

"No," said Hawker, without looking at his friend, "I can't this morning,
Hollie. I've got to go to work. Good-bye!" He comprehended them both in
a swift bow and stalked away.

Hollanden turned quickly to the girl. "What was the matter with Billie?
What was he grinding his teeth for? What was the matter with him?"

"Why, nothing--was there?" she asked in surprise.

"Why, he was grinding his teeth until he sounded like a stone crusher,"
said Hollanden in a severe tone. "What was the matter with him?"

"How should I know?" she retorted.

"You've been saying something to him."

"I! I didn't say a thing."

"Yes, you did."

"Hollie, don't be absurd."

Hollanden debated with himself for a time, and then observed, "Oh, well,
I always said he was an ugly-tempered fellow----"

The girl flashed him a little glance.

"And now I am sure of it--as ugly-tempered a fellow as ever lived."

"I believe you," said the girl. Then she added: "All men are. I declare,
I think you to be the most incomprehensible creatures. One never knows
what to expect of you. And you explode and go into rages and make
yourselves utterly detestable over the most trivial matters and at the
most unexpected times. You are all mad, I think."

"I!" cried Hollanden wildly. "What in the mischief have I done?"




CHAPTER XVI.


"Look here," said Hollanden, at length, "I thought you were so
wonderfully anxious to learn that stroke?"

"Well, I am," she said.

"Come on, then." As they walked toward the tennis court he seemed to be
plunged into mournful thought. In his eyes was a singular expression,
which perhaps denoted the woe of the optimist pushed suddenly from its
height. He sighed. "Oh, well, I suppose all women, even the best of
them, are that way."

"What way?" she said.

"My dear child," he answered, in a benevolent manner, "you have
disappointed me, because I have discovered that you resemble the rest of
your sex."

"Ah!" she remarked, maintaining a noncommittal attitude.

"Yes," continued Hollanden, with a sad but kindly smile, "even you,
Grace, were not above fooling with the affections of a poor country
swain, until he don't know his ear from the tooth he had pulled two
years ago."

She laughed. "He would be furious if he heard you call him a country
swain."

"Who would?" said Hollanden.

"Why, the country swain, of course," she rejoined.

Hollanden seemed plunged in mournful reflection again. "Well, it's a
shame, Grace, anyhow," he observed, wagging his head dolefully. "It's a
howling, wicked shame."

"Hollie, you have no brains at all," she said, "despite your opinion."

"No," he replied ironically, "not a bit."

"Well, you haven't, you know, Hollie."

"At any rate," he said in an angry voice, "I have some comprehension and
sympathy for the feelings of others."

"Have you?" she asked. "How do you mean, Hollie? Do you mean you have
feeling for them in their various sorrows? Or do you mean that you
understand their minds?"

Hollanden ponderously began, "There have been people who have not
questioned my ability to----"

"Oh, then, you mean that you both feel for them in their sorrows and
comprehend the machinery of their minds. Well, let me tell you that in
regard to the last thing you are wrong. You know nothing of anyone's
mind. You know less about human nature than anybody I have met."

Hollanden looked at her in artless astonishment. He said, "Now, I wonder
what made you say that?" This interrogation did not seem to be addressed
to her, but was evidently a statement to himself of a problem. He
meditated for some moments. Eventually he said, "I suppose you mean that
I do not understand you?"

"Why do you suppose I mean that?"

"That's what a person usually means when he--or she--charges another
with not understanding the entire world."

"Well, at any rate, it is not what I mean at all," she said. "I mean
that you habitually blunder about other people's affairs, in the belief,
I imagine, that you are a great philanthropist, when you are only making
an extraordinary exhibition of yourself."

"The dev----" began Hollanden. Afterward he said, "Now, I wonder what
in blue thunder you mean this time?"

"Mean this time? My meaning is very plain, Hollie. I supposed the words
were clear enough."

"Yes," he said thoughtfully, "your words were clear enough, but then you
were of course referring back to some event, or series of events, in
which I had the singular ill fortune to displease you. Maybe you don't
know yourself, and spoke only from the emotion generated by the event,
or series of events, in which, as I have said, I had the singular ill
fortune to displease you."

"How awf'ly clever!" she said.

"But I can't recall the event, or series of events, at all," he
continued, musing with a scholarly air and disregarding her mockery. "I
can't remember a thing about it. To be sure, it might have been that
time when----"

"I think it very stupid of you to hunt for a meaning when I believe I
made everything so perfectly clear," she said wrathfully.

"Well, you yourself might not be aware of what you really meant," he
answered sagely. "Women often do that sort of thing, you know. Women
often speak from motives which, if brought face to face with them, they
wouldn't be able to distinguish from any other thing which they had
never before seen."

"Hollie, if there is a disgusting person in the world it is he who
pretends to know so much concerning a woman's mind."

"Well, that's because they who know, or pretend to know, so much about a
woman's mind are invariably satirical, you understand," said Hollanden
cheerfully.

A dog ran frantically across the lawn, his nose high in the air and his
countenance expressing vast perturbation and alarm. "Why, Billie forgot
to whistle for his dog when he started for home," said Hollanden. "Come
here, old man! Well, 'e was a nice dog!" The girl also gave invitation,
but the setter would not heed them. He spun wildly about the lawn until
he seemed to strike his master's trail, and then, with his nose near to
the ground, went down the road at an eager gallop. They stood and
watched him.

"Stanley's a nice dog," said Hollanden.

"Indeed he is!" replied the girl fervently.

Presently Hollanden remarked: "Well, don't let's fight any more,
particularly since we can't decide what we're fighting about. I can't
discover the reason, and you don't know it, so----"

"I do know it. I told you very plainly."

"Well, all right. Now, this is the way to work that slam: You give the
ball a sort of a lift--see!--underhanded and with your arm crooked and
stiff. Here, you smash this other ball into the net. Hi! Look out! If
you hit it that way you'll knock it over the hotel. Let the ball drop
nearer to the ground. Oh, heavens, not on the ground! Well, it's hard to
do it from the serve, anyhow. I'll go over to the other court and bat
you some easy ones."

Afterward, when they were going toward the inn, the girl suddenly began
to laugh.

"What are you giggling at?" said Hollanden.

"I was thinking how furious he would be if he heard you call him a
country swain," she rejoined.

"Who?" asked Hollanden.




CHAPTER XVII.


Oglethorpe contended that the men who made the most money from books
were the best authors. Hollanden contended that they were the worst.
Oglethorpe said that such a question should be left to the people.
Hollanden said that the people habitually made wrong decisions on
questions that were left to them. "That is the most odiously
aristocratic belief," said Oglethorpe.

"No," said Hollanden, "I like the people. But, considered generally,
they are a collection of ingenious blockheads."

"But they read your books," said Oglethorpe, grinning.

"That is through a mistake," replied Hollanden.

As the discussion grew in size it incited the close attention of the
Worcester girls, but Miss Fanhall did not seem to hear it. Hawker, too,
was staring into the darkness with a gloomy and preoccupied air.

"Are you sorry that this is your last evening at Hemlock Inn?" said the
painter at last, in a low tone.

"Why, yes--certainly," said the girl.

Under the sloping porch of the inn the vague orange light from the
parlours drifted to the black wall of the night.

"I shall miss you," said the painter.

"Oh, I dare say," said the girl.

Hollanden was lecturing at length and wonderfully. In the mystic spaces
of the night the pines could be heard in their weird monotone, as they
softly smote branch and branch, as if moving in some solemn and
sorrowful dance.

"This has been quite the most delightful summer of my experience," said
the painter.

"I have found it very pleasant," said the girl.

From time to time Hawker glanced furtively at Oglethorpe, Hollanden, and
the Worcester girl. This glance expressed no desire for their
well-being.

"I shall miss you," he said to the girl again. His manner was rather
desperate. She made no reply, and, after leaning toward her, he subsided
with an air of defeat.

Eventually he remarked: "It will be very lonely here again. I dare say I
shall return to New York myself in a few weeks."

"I hope you will call," she said.

"I shall be delighted," he answered stiffly, and with a dissatisfied
look at her.

"Oh, Mr. Hawker," cried the younger Worcester girl, suddenly emerging
from the cloud of argument which Hollanden and Oglethorpe kept in the
air, "won't it be sad to lose Grace? Indeed, I don't know what we shall
do. Sha'n't we miss her dreadfully?"

"Yes," said Hawker, "we shall of course miss her dreadfully."

"Yes, won't it be frightful?" said the elder Worcester girl. "I can't
imagine what we will do without her. And Hollie is only going to spend
ten more days. Oh, dear! mamma, I believe, will insist on staying the
entire summer. It was papa's orders, you know, and I really think she is
going to obey them. He said he wanted her to have one period of rest at
any rate. She is such a busy woman in town, you know."

"Here," said Hollanden, wheeling to them suddenly, "you all look as if
you were badgering Hawker, and he looks badgered. What are you saying to
him?"

"Why," answered the younger Worcester girl, "we were only saying to him
how lonely it would be without Grace."

"Oh!" said Hollanden.

As the evening grew old, the mother of the Worcester girls joined the
group. This was a sign that the girls were not to long delay the
vanishing time. She sat almost upon the edge of her chair, as if she
expected to be called upon at any moment to arise and bow "Good-night,"
and she repaid Hollanden's eloquent attention with the placid and
absent-minded smiles of the chaperon who waits.

Once the younger Worcester girl shrugged her shoulders and turned to
say, "Mamma, you make me nervous!" Her mother merely smiled in a still
more placid and absent-minded manner.

Oglethorpe arose to drag his chair nearer to the railing, and when he
stood the Worcester mother moved and looked around expectantly, but
Oglethorpe took seat again. Hawker kept an anxious eye upon her.

Presently Miss Fanhall arose.

"Why, you are not going in already, are you?" said Hawker and Hollanden
and Oglethorpe. The Worcester mother moved toward the door followed by
her daughters, who were protesting in muffled tones. Hollanden pitched
violently upon Oglethorpe. "Well, at any rate----" he said. He picked
the thread of a past argument with great agility.

Hawker said to the girl, "I--I--I shall miss you dreadfully."

She turned to look at him and smiled. "Shall you?" she said in a low
voice.

"Yes," he said. Thereafter he stood before her awkwardly and in silence.
She scrutinized the boards of the floor. Suddenly she drew a violet from
a cluster of them upon her gown and thrust it out to him as she turned
toward the approaching Oglethorpe.

"Good-night, Mr. Hawker," said the latter. "I am very glad to have met
you, I'm sure. Hope to see you in town. Good-night."

He stood near when the girl said to Hawker: "Good-bye. You have given us
such a charming summer. We shall be delighted to see you in town. You
must come some time when the children can see you, too. Good-bye."

"Good-bye," replied Hawker, eagerly and feverishly, trying to interpret
the inscrutable feminine face before him. "I shall come at my first
opportunity."

"Good-bye."

"Good-bye."

Down at the farmhouse, in the black quiet of the night, a dog lay curled
on the door-mat. Of a sudden the tail of this dog began to thump, thump,
on the boards. It began as a lazy movement, but it passed into a state
of gentle enthusiasm, and then into one of curiously loud and joyful
celebration. At last the gate clicked. The dog uncurled, and went to the
edge of the steps to greet his master. He gave adoring, tremulous
welcome with his clear eyes shining in the darkness. "Well, Stan, old
boy," said Hawker, stooping to stroke the dog's head. After his master
had entered the house the dog went forward and sniffed at something
that lay on the top step. Apparently it did not interest him greatly,
for he returned in a moment to the door-mat.

But he was again obliged to uncurl himself, for his master came out of
the house with a lighted lamp and made search of the door-mat, the
steps, and the walk, swearing meanwhile in an undertone. The dog wagged
his tail and sleepily watched this ceremony. When his master had again
entered the house the dog went forward and sniffed at the top step, but
the thing that had lain there was gone.




CHAPTER XVIII.


It was evident at breakfast that Hawker's sisters had achieved
information. "What's the matter with you this morning?" asked one. "You
look as if you hadn't slep' well."

"There is nothing the matter with me," he rejoined, looking glumly at
his plate.

"Well, you look kind of broke up."

"How I look is of no consequence. I tell you there is nothing the matter
with me."

"Oh!" said his sister. She exchanged meaning glances with the other
feminine members of the family. Presently the other sister observed, "I
heard she was going home to-day."

"Who?" said Hawker, with a challenge in his tone.

"Why, that New York girl--Miss What's-her-name," replied the sister,
with an undaunted smile.

"Did you, indeed? Well, perhaps she is."

"Oh, you don't know for sure, I s'pose."

Hawker arose from the table, and, taking his hat, went away.

"Mary!" said the mother, in the sepulchral tone of belated but
conscientious reproof.

"Well, I don't care. He needn't be so grand. I didn't go to tease him. I
don't care."

"Well, you ought to care," said the old man suddenly. "There's no sense
in you wimen folks pestering the boy all the time. Let him alone with
his own business, can't you?"

"Well, ain't we leaving him alone?"

"No, you ain't--'cept when he ain't here. I don't wonder the boy grabs
his hat and skips out when you git to going."

"Well, what did we say to him now? Tell us what we said to him that was
so dreadful."

"Aw, thunder an' lightnin'!" cried the old man with a sudden great
snarl. They seemed to know by this ejaculation that he had emerged in an
instant from that place where man endures, and they ended the
discussion. The old man continued his breakfast.

During his walk that morning Hawker visited a certain cascade, a
certain lake, and some roads, paths, groves, nooks. Later in the day he
made a sketch, choosing an hour when the atmosphere was of a dark blue,
like powder smoke in the shade of trees, and the western sky was burning
in strips of red. He painted with a wild face, like a man who is
killing.

After supper he and his father strolled under the apple boughs in the
orchard and smoked. Once he gestured wearily. "Oh, I guess I'll go back
to New York in a few days."

"Um," replied his father calmly. "All right, William."

Several days later Hawker accosted his father in the barnyard. "I
suppose you think sometimes I don't care so much about you and the folks
and the old place any more; but I do."

"Um," said the old man. "When you goin'?"

"Where?" asked Hawker, flushing.

"Back to New York."

"Why--I hadn't thought much about---- Oh, next week, I guess."

"Well, do as you like, William. You know how glad me an' mother and the
girls are to have you come home with us whenever you can come. You know
that. But you must do as you think best, and if you ought to go back to
New York now, William, why--do as you think best."

"Well, my work----" said Hawker.

From time to time the mother made wondering speech to the sisters. "How
much nicer William is now! He's just as good as he can be. There for a
while he was so cross and out of sorts. I don't see what could have come
over him. But now he's just as good as he can be."

Hollanden told him, "Come up to the inn more, you fool."

"I was up there yesterday."

"Yesterday! What of that? I've seen the time when the farm couldn't hold
you for two hours during the day."

"Go to blazes!"

"Millicent got a letter from Grace Fanhall the other day."

"That so?"

"Yes, she did. Grace wrote---- Say, does that shadow look pure purple
to you?"

"Certainly it does, or I wouldn't paint it so, duffer. What did she
write?"

"Well, if that shadow is pure purple my eyes are liars. It looks a kind
of slate colour to me. Lord! if what you fellows say in your pictures is
true, the whole earth must be blazing and burning and glowing and----"

Hawker went into a rage. "Oh, you don't know anything about colour,
Hollie. For heaven's sake, shut up, or I'll smash you with the easel."

"Well, I was going to tell you what Grace wrote in her letter. She
said----"

"Go on."

"Gimme time, can't you? She said that town was stupid, and that she
wished she was back at Hemlock Inn."

"Oh! Is that all?"

"Is that all? I wonder what you expected? Well, and she asked to be
recalled to you."

"Yes? Thanks."

"And that's all. 'Gad, for such a devoted man as you were, your
enthusiasm and interest is stupendous."

       *       *       *       *       *

The father said to the mother, "Well, William's going back to New York
next week."

"Is he? Why, he ain't said nothing to me about it."

"Well, he is, anyhow."

"I declare! What do you s'pose he's going back before September for,
John?"

"How do I know?"

"Well, it's funny, John. I bet--I bet he's going back so's he can see
that girl."

"He says it's his work."




CHAPTER XIX.


Wrinkles had been peering into the little dry-goods box that acted as a
cupboard. "There are only two eggs and half a loaf of bread left," he
announced brutally.

"Heavens!" said Warwickson from where he lay smoking on the bed. He
spoke in a dismal voice. This tone, it is said, had earned him his
popular name of Great Grief.

From different points of the compass Wrinkles looked at the little
cupboard with a tremendous scowl, as if he intended thus to frighten the
eggs into becoming more than two, and the bread into becoming a loaf.
"Plague take it!" he exclaimed.

"Oh, shut up, Wrinkles!" said Grief from the bed.

Wrinkles sat down with an air austere and virtuous. "Well, what are we
going to do?" he demanded of the others.

Grief, after swearing, said: "There, that's right! Now you're happy.
The holy office of the inquisition! Blast your buttons, Wrinkles, you
always try to keep us from starving peacefully! It is two hours before
dinner, anyhow, and----"

"Well, but what are you going to do?" persisted Wrinkles.

Pennoyer, with his head afar down, had been busily scratching at a
pen-and-ink drawing. He looked up from his board to utter a plaintive
optimism. "The Monthly Amazement will pay me to-morrow. They ought to.
I've waited over three months now. I'm going down there to-morrow, and
perhaps I'll get it."

His friends listened with airs of tolerance. "Oh, no doubt, Penny, old
man." But at last Wrinkles giggled pityingly. Over on the bed Grief
croaked deep down in his throat. Nothing was said for a long time
thereafter.

The crash of the New York streets came faintly to this room.

Occasionally one could hear the tramp of feet in the intricate corridors
of the begrimed building which squatted, slumbering, and old, between
two exalted commercial structures which would have had to bend afar
down to perceive it. The northward march of the city's progress had
happened not to overturn this aged structure, and it huddled there, lost
and forgotten, while the cloud-veering towers strode on.

Meanwhile the first shadows of dusk came in at the blurred windows of
the room. Pennoyer threw down his pen and tossed his drawing over on the
wonderful heap of stuff that hid the table. "It's too dark to work." He
lit a pipe and walked about, stretching his shoulders like a man whose
labour was valuable.

When the dusk came fully the youths grew apparently sad. The solemnity
of the gloom seemed to make them ponder. "Light the gas, Wrinkles," said
Grief fretfully.

The flood of orange light showed clearly the dull walls lined with
sketches, the tousled bed in one corner, the masses of boxes and trunks
in another, a little dead stove, and the wonderful table. Moreover,
there were wine-coloured draperies flung in some places, and on a shelf,
high up, there were plaster casts, with dust in the creases. A long
stove-pipe wandered off in the wrong direction and then turned
impulsively toward a hole in the wall. There were some elaborate cobwebs
on the ceiling.

"Well, let's eat," said Grief.

"Eat," said Wrinkles, with a jeer; "I told you there was only two eggs
and a little bread left. How are we going to eat?"

Again brought face to face with this problem, and at the hour for
dinner, Pennoyer and Grief thought profoundly. "Thunder and turf!" Grief
finally announced as the result of his deliberations.

"Well, if Billie Hawker was only home----" began Pennoyer.

"But he isn't," objected Wrinkles, "and that settles that."

Grief and Pennoyer thought more. Ultimately Grief said, "Oh, well, let's
eat what we've got." The others at once agreed to this suggestion, as if
it had been in their minds.

Later there came a quick step in the passage and a confident little
thunder upon the door. Wrinkles arranging the tin pail on the gas stove,
Pennoyer engaged in slicing the bread, and Great Grief affixing the
rubber tube to the gas stove, yelled, "Come in!"

The door opened, and Miss Florinda O'Connor, the model, dashed into the
room like a gale of obstreperous autumn leaves.

"Why, hello, Splutter!" they cried.

"Oh, boys, I've come to dine with you."

It was like a squall striking a fleet of yachts.

Grief spoke first. "Yes, you have?" he said incredulously.

"Why, certainly I have. What's the matter?"

They grinned. "Well, old lady," responded Grief, "you've hit us at the
wrong time. We are, in fact, all out of everything. No dinner, to
mention, and, what's more, we haven't got a sou."

"What? Again?" cried Florinda.

"Yes, again. You'd better dine home to-night."

"But I'll--I'll stake you," said the girl eagerly. "Oh, you poor old
idiots! It's a shame! Say, I'll stake you."

"Certainly not," said Pennoyer sternly.

"What are you talking about, Splutter?" demanded Wrinkles in an angry
voice.

"No, that won't go down," said Grief, in a resolute yet wistful tone.

Florinda divested herself of her hat, jacket, and gloves, and put them
where she pleased. "Got coffee, haven't you? Well, I'm not going to stir
a step. You're a fine lot of birds!" she added bitterly, "You've all
pulled me out of a whole lot of scrape--oh, any number of times--and now
you're broke, you go acting like a set of dudes."

Great Grief had fixed the coffee to boil on the gas stove, but he had to
watch it closely, for the rubber tube was short, and a chair was
balanced on a trunk, and two bundles of kindling was balanced on the
chair, and the gas stove was balanced on the kindling. Coffee-making was
here accounted a feat.

Pennoyer dropped a piece of bread to the floor. "There! I'll have to go
shy one."

Wrinkles sat playing serenades on his guitar and staring with a frown at
the table, as if he was applying some strange method of clearing it of
its litter.

Florinda assaulted Great Grief. "Here, that's not the way to make
coffee!"

"What ain't?"

"Why, the way you're making it. You want to take----" She explained some
way to him which he couldn't understand.

"For heaven's sake, Wrinkles, tackle that table! Don't sit there like a
music box," said Pennoyer, grappling the eggs and starting for the gas
stove.

Later, as they sat around the board, Wrinkles said with satisfaction,
"Well, the coffee's good, anyhow."

"'Tis good," said Florinda, "but it isn't made right. I'll show you how,
Penny. You first----"

"Oh, dry up, Splutter," said Grief. "Here, take an egg."

"I don't like eggs," said Florinda.

"Take an egg," said the three hosts menacingly.

"I tell you I don't like eggs."

"Take--an--egg!" they said again.

"Oh, well," said Florinda, "I'll take one, then; but you needn't act
like such a set of dudes--and, oh, maybe you didn't have much lunch. I
had such a daisy lunch! Up at Pontiac's studio. He's got a lovely
studio."

The three looked to be oppressed. Grief said sullenly, "I saw some of
his things over in Stencil's gallery, and they're rotten."

"Yes--rotten," said Pennoyer.

"Rotten," said Grief.

"Oh, well," retorted Florinda, "if a man has a swell studio and
dresses--oh, sort of like a Willie, you know, you fellows sit here like
owls in a cave and say rotten--rotten--rotten. You're away off.
Pontiac's landscapes----"

"Landscapes be blowed! Put any of his work alongside of Billie Hawker's
and see how it looks."

"Oh, well, Billie Hawker's," said Florinda. "Oh, well."

At the mention of Hawker's name they had all turned to scan her face.




CHAPTER XX.


"He wrote that he was coming home this week," said Pennoyer.

"Did he?" asked Florinda indifferently.

"Yes. Aren't you glad?"

They were still watching her face.

"Yes, of course I'm glad. Why shouldn't I be glad?" cried the girl with
defiance.

They grinned.

"Oh, certainly. Billie Hawker is a good fellow, Splutter. You have a
particular right to be glad."

"You people make me tired," Florinda retorted. "Billie Hawker doesn't
give a rap about me, and he never tried to make out that he did."

"No," said Grief. "But that isn't saying that you don't care a rap about
Billie Hawker. Ah, Florinda!"

It seemed that the girl's throat suffered a slight contraction. "Well,
and what if I do?" she demanded finally.

"Have a cigarette?" answered Grief.

Florinda took a cigarette, lit it, and, perching herself on a divan,
which was secretly a coal box, she smoked fiercely.

"What if I do?" she again demanded. "It's better than liking one of you
dubs, anyhow."

"Oh, Splutter, you poor little outspoken kid!" said Wrinkle in a sad
voice.

Grief searched among the pipes until he found the best one. "Yes,
Splutter, don't you know that when you are so frank you defy every law
of your sex, and wild eyes will take your trail?"

"Oh, you talk through your hat," replied Florinda. "Billie don't care
whether I like him or whether I don't. And if he should hear me now, he
wouldn't be glad or give a hang, either way. I know that." The girl
paused and looked at the row of plaster casts. "Still, you needn't be
throwing it at me all the time."

"We didn't," said Wrinkles indignantly. "You threw it at yourself."

"Well," continued Florinda, "it's better than liking one of you dubs,
anyhow. He makes money and----"

"There," said Grief, "now you've hit it! Bedad, you've reached a point
in eulogy where if you move again you will have to go backward."

"Of course I don't care anything about a fellow's having money----"

"No, indeed you don't, Splutter," said Pennoyer.

"But then, you know what I mean. A fellow isn't a man and doesn't stand
up straight unless he has some money. And Billie Hawker makes enough so
that you feel that nobody could walk over him, don't you know? And there
isn't anything jay about him, either. He's a thoroughbred, don't you
know?"

After reflection, Pennoyer said, "It's pretty hard on the rest of us,
Splutter."

"Well, of course I like him, but--but----"

"What?" said Pennoyer.

"I don't know," said Florinda.

Purple Sanderson lived in this room, but he usually dined out. At a
certain time in his life, before he came to be a great artist, he had
learned the gas-fitter's trade, and when his opinions were not identical
with the opinions of the art managers of the greater number of New York
publications he went to see a friend who was a plumber, and the opinions
of this man he was thereafter said to respect. He frequented a very neat
restaurant on Twenty-third Street. It was known that on Saturday nights
Wrinkles, Grief, and Pennoyer frequently quarreled with him.

As Florinda ceased speaking Purple entered. "Hello, there, Splutter!" As
he was neatly hanging up his coat, he said to the others, "Well, the
rent will be due in four days."

"Will it?" asked Pennoyer, astounded.

"Certainly it will," responded Purple, with the air of a superior
financial man.

"My soul!" said Wrinkles.

"Oh, shut up, Purple!" said Grief. "You make me weary, coming around
here with your chin about rent. I was just getting happy."

"Well, how are we going to pay it? That's the point," said Sanderson.

Wrinkles sank deeper in his chair and played despondently on his
guitar. Grief cast a look of rage at Sanderson, and then stared at the
wall. Pennoyer said, "Well, we might borrow it from Billie Hawker."

Florinda laughed then.

"Oh," continued Pennoyer hastily, "if those Amazement people pay me when
they said they would I'll have the money."

"So you will," said Grief. "You will have money to burn. Did the
Amazement people ever pay you when they said they would? You are
wonderfully important all of a sudden, it seems to me. You talk like an
artist."

Wrinkles, too, smiled at Pennoyer. "The Eminent Magazine people wanted
Penny to hire models and make a try for them, too. It would only cost
him a stack of blues. By the time he has invested all his money he
hasn't got, and the rent is three weeks overdue, he will be able to tell
the landlord to wait seven months until the Monday morning after the day
of publication. Go ahead, Penny."

After a period of silence, Sanderson, in an obstinate manner, said,
"Well, what's to be done? The rent has got to be paid."

Wrinkles played more sad music. Grief frowned deeper. Pennoyer was
evidently searching his mind for a plan.

Florinda took the cigarette from between her lips that she might grin
with greater freedom.

"We might throw Purple out," said Grief, with an inspired air. "That
would stop all this discussion."

"You!" said Sanderson furiously. "You can't keep serious a minute. If
you didn't have us to take care of you, you wouldn't even know when they
threw you out into the street."

"Wouldn't I?" said Grief.

"Well, look here," interposed Florinda, "I'm going home unless you can
be more interesting. I am dead sorry about the rent, but I can't help
it, and----"

"Here! Sit down! Hold on, Splutter!" they shouted. Grief turned to
Sanderson: "Purple, you shut up!"

Florinda curled again on the divan and lit another cigarette. The talk
waged about the names of other and more successful painters, whose work
they usually pronounced "rotten."




CHAPTER XXI.


Pennoyer, coming home one morning with two gigantic cakes to accompany
the coffee at the breakfast in the den, saw a young man bounce from a
horse car. He gave a shout. "Hello, there, Billie! Hello!"

"Hello, Penny!" said Hawker. "What are you doing out so early?" It was
somewhat after nine o'clock.

"Out to get breakfast," said Pennoyer, waving the cakes. "Have a good
time, old man?"

"Great."

"Do much work?"

"No. Not so much. How are all the people?"

"Oh, pretty good. Come in and see us eat breakfast," said Pennoyer,
throwing open the door of the den. Wrinkles, in his shirt, was making
coffee. Grief sat in a chair trying to loosen the grasp of sleep. "Why,
Billie Hawker, b'ginger!" they cried.

"How's the wolf, boys? At the door yet?"

"'At the door yet?' He's halfway up the back stairs, and coming fast. He
and the landlord will be here to-morrow. 'Mr. Landlord, allow me to
present Mr. F. Wolf, of Hunger, N. J. Mr. Wolf--Mr. Landlord.'"

"Bad as that?" said Hawker.

"You bet it is! Easy Street is somewhere in heaven, for all we know.
Have some breakfast?--coffee and cake, I mean."

"No, thanks, boys. Had breakfast."

Wrinkles added to the shirt, Grief aroused himself, and Pennoyer brought
the coffee. Cheerfully throwing some drawings from the table to the
floor, they thus made room for the breakfast, and grouped themselves
with beaming smiles at the board.

"Well, Billie, come back to the old gang again, eh? How did the country
seem? Do much work?"

"Not very much. A few things. How's everybody?"

"Splutter was in last night. Looking out of sight. Seemed glad to hear
that you were coming back soon."

"Did she? Penny, did anybody call wanting me to do a ten-thousand-dollar
portrait for them?"

"No. That frame-maker, though, was here with a bill. I told him----"

Afterward Hawker crossed the corridor and threw open the door of his own
large studio. The great skylight, far above his head, shed its clear
rays upon a scene which appeared to indicate that some one had very
recently ceased work here and started for the country. A distant closet
door was open, and the interior showed the effects of a sudden pillage.

There was an unfinished "Girl in Apple Orchard" upon the tall Dutch
easel, and sketches and studies were thick upon the floor. Hawker took a
pipe and filled it from his friend the tan and gold jar. He cast himself
into a chair and, taking an envelope from his pocket, emptied two
violets from it to the palm of his hand and stared long at them. Upon
the walls of the studio various labours of his life, in heavy gilt
frames, contemplated him and the violets.

At last Pennoyer burst impetuously in upon him. "Hi, Billie! come over
and---- What's the matter?"

Hawker had hastily placed the violets in the envelope and hurried it to
his pocket. "Nothing," he answered.

"Why, I thought--" said Pennoyer, "I thought you looked rather rattled.
Didn't you have--I thought I saw something in your hand."

"Nothing, I tell you!" cried Hawker.

"Er--oh, I beg your pardon," said Pennoyer. "Why, I was going to tell
you that Splutter is over in our place, and she wants to see you."

"Wants to see me? What for?" demanded Hawker. "Why don't she come over
here, then?"

"I'm sure I don't know," replied Pennoyer. "She sent me to call you."

"Well, do you think I'm going to---- Oh, well, I suppose she wants to be
unpleasant, and knows she loses a certain mental position if she comes
over here, but if she meets me in your place she can be as infernally
disagreeable as she---- That's it, I'll bet."

When they entered the den Florinda was gazing from the window. Her back
was toward the door.

At last she turned to them, holding herself very straight. "Well, Billie
Hawker," she said grimly, "you don't seem very glad to see a fellow."

"Why, heavens, did you think I was going to turn somersaults in the
air?"

"Well, you didn't come out when you heard me pass your door," said
Florinda, with gloomy resentment.

Hawker appeared to be ruffled and vexed. "Oh, great Scott!" he said,
making a gesture of despair.

Florinda returned to the window. In the ensuing conversation she took no
part, save when there was an opportunity to harry some speech of
Hawker's, which she did in short contemptuous sentences. Hawker made no
reply save to glare in her direction. At last he said, "Well, I must go
over and do some work." Florinda did not turn from the window. "Well,
so-long, boys," said Hawker, "I'll see you later."

As the door slammed Pennoyer apologetically said, "Billie is a trifle
off his feed this morning."

"What about?" asked Grief.

"I don't know; but when I went to call him he was sitting deep in his
chair staring at some----" He looked at Florinda and became silent.

"Staring at what?" asked Florinda, turning then from the window.

Pennoyer seemed embarrassed. "Why, I don't know--nothing, I guess--I
couldn't see very well. I was only fooling."

Florinda scanned his face suspiciously. "Staring at what?" she demanded
imperatively.

"Nothing, I tell you!" shouted Pennoyer.

Florinda looked at him, and wavered and debated. Presently she said,
softly: "Ah, go on, Penny. Tell me."

"It wasn't anything at all, I say!" cried Pennoyer stoutly. "I was only
giving you a jolly. Sit down, Splutter, and hit a cigarette."

She obeyed, but she continued to cast the dubious eye at Pennoyer. Once
she said to him privately: "Go on, Penny, tell me. I know it was
something from the way you are acting."

"Oh, let up, Splutter, for heaven's sake!"

"Tell me," beseeched Florinda.

"No."

"Tell me."

"No."

"Pl-e-a-se tell me."

"No."

"Oh, go on."

"No."

"Ah, what makes you so mean, Penny? You know I'd tell you, if it was the
other way about."

"But it's none of my business, Splutter. I can't tell you something
which is Billie Hawker's private affair. If I did I would be a chump."

"But I'll never say you told me. Go on."

"No."

"Pl-e-a-se tell me."

"No."




CHAPTER XXII.


When Florinda had gone, Grief said, "Well, what was it?" Wrinkles looked
curiously from his drawing-board.

Pennoyer lit his pipe and held it at the side of his mouth in the manner
of a deliberate man. At last he said, "It was two violets."

"You don't say!" ejaculated Wrinkles.

"Well, I'm hanged!" cried Grief. "Holding them in his hand and moping
over them, eh?"

"Yes," responded Pennoyer. "Rather that way."

"Well, I'm hanged!" said both Grief and Wrinkles. They grinned in a
pleased, urchin-like manner. "Say, who do you suppose she is? Somebody
he met this summer, no doubt. Would you ever think old Billie would get
into that sort of a thing? Well, I'll be gol-durned!"

Ultimately Wrinkles said, "Well, it's his own business." This was spoken
in a tone of duty.

"Of course it's his own business," retorted Grief. "But who would ever
think----" Again they grinned.

When Hawker entered the den some minutes later he might have noticed
something unusual in the general demeanour. "Say, Grief, will you loan
me your---- What's up?" he asked.

For answer they grinned at each other, and then grinned at him.

"You look like a lot of Chessy cats," he told them.

They grinned on.

Apparently feeling unable to deal with these phenomena, he went at last
to the door. "Well, this is a fine exhibition," he said, standing with
his hand on the knob and regarding them. "Won election bets? Some good
old auntie just died? Found something new to pawn? No? Well, I can't
stand this. You resemble those fish they discover at deep sea.
Good-bye!"

As he opened the door they cried out: "Hold on, Billie! Billie, look
here! Say, who is she?"

"What?"

"Who is she?"

"Who is who?"

They laughed and nodded. "Why, you know. She. Don't you understand?
She."

"You talk like a lot of crazy men," said Hawker. "I don't know what you
mean."

"Oh, you don't, eh? You don't? Oh, no! How about those violets you were
moping over this morning? Eh, old man! Oh, no, you don't know what we
mean! Oh, no! How about those violets, eh? How about 'em?"

Hawker, with flushed and wrathful face, looked at Pennoyer. "Penny----"
But Grief and Wrinkles roared an interruption. "Oh, ho, Mr. Hawker! so
it's true, is it? It's true. You are a nice bird, you are. Well, you old
rascal! Durn your picture!"

Hawker, menacing them once with his eyes, went away. They sat cackling.

At noon, when he met Wrinkles in the corridor, he said: "Hey, Wrinkles,
come here for a minute, will you? Say, old man, I--I----"

"What?" said Wrinkles.

"Well, you know, I--I--of course, every man is likely to make an
accursed idiot of himself once in a while, and I----"

"And you what?" asked Wrinkles.

"Well, we are a kind of a band of hoodlums, you know, and I'm just
enough idiot to feel that I don't care to hear--don't care to
hear--well, her name used, you know."

"Bless your heart," replied Wrinkles, "we haven't used her name. We
don't know her name. How could we use it?"

"Well, I know," said Hawker. "But you understand what I mean, Wrinkles."

"Yes, I understand what you mean," said Wrinkles, with dignity. "I don't
suppose you are any worse of a stuff than common. Still, I didn't know
that we were such outlaws."

"Of course, I have overdone the thing," responded Hawker hastily.
"But--you ought to understand how I mean it, Wrinkles."

After Wrinkles had thought for a time, he said: "Well, I guess I do.
All right. That goes."

Upon entering the den, Wrinkles said, "You fellows have got to quit
guying Billie, do you hear?"

"We?" cried Grief. "We've got to quit? What do you do?"

"Well, I quit too."

Pennoyer said: "Ah, ha! Billie has been jumping on you."

"No, he didn't," maintained Wrinkles; "but he let me know it was--well,
rather a--rather a--sacred subject." Wrinkles blushed when the others
snickered.

In the afternoon, as Hawker was going slowly down the stairs, he was
almost impaled upon the feather of a hat which, upon the head of a lithe
and rather slight girl, charged up at him through the gloom.

"Hello, Splutter!" he cried. "You are in a hurry."

"That you, Billie?" said the girl, peering, for the hallways of this old
building remained always in a dungeonlike darkness.

"Yes, it is. Where are you going at such a headlong gait?"

"Up to see the boys. I've got a bottle of wine and some--some pickles,
you know. I'm going to make them let me dine with them to-night. Coming
back, Billie?"

"Why, no, I don't expect to."

He moved then accidentally in front of the light that sifted through the
dull, gray panes of a little window.

"Oh, cracky!" cried the girl; "how fine you are, Billie! Going to a
coronation?"

"No," said Hawker, looking seriously over his collar and down at his
clothes. "Fact is--er--well, I've got to make a call."

"A call--bless us! And are you really going to wear those gray gloves
you're holding there, Billie? Say, wait until you get around the corner.
They won't stand 'em on this street."

"Oh, well," said Hawker, depreciating the gloves--"oh, well."

The girl looked up at him. "Who you going to call on?"

"Oh," said Hawker, "a friend."

"Must be somebody most extraordinary, you look so dreadfully correct.
Come back, Billie, won't you? Come back and dine with us."

"Why, I--I don't believe I can."

"Oh, come on! It's fun when we all dine together. Won't you, Billie?"

"Well, I----"

"Oh, don't be so stupid!" The girl stamped her foot and flashed her eyes
at him angrily.

"Well, I'll see--I will if I can--I can't tell----" He left her rather
precipitately.

Hawker eventually appeared at a certain austere house where he rang the
bell with quite nervous fingers.

But she was not at home. As he went down the steps his eyes were as
those of a man whose fortunes have tumbled upon him. As he walked down
the street he wore in some subtle way the air of a man who has been
grievously wronged. When he rounded the corner, his lips were set
strangely, as if he were a man seeking revenge.




CHAPTER XXIII.


"It's just right," said Grief.

"It isn't quite cool enough," said Wrinkles.

"Well, I guess I know the proper temperature for claret."

"Well, I guess you don't. If it was buttermilk, now, you would know, but
you can't tell anything about claret."

Florinda ultimately decided the question. "It isn't quite cool enough,"
she said, laying her hand on the bottle. "Put it on the window ledge,
Grief."

"Hum! Splutter, I thought you knew more than----"

"Oh, shut up!" interposed the busy Pennoyer from a remote corner. "Who
is going after the potato salad? That's what I want to know. Who is
going?"

"Wrinkles," said Grief.

"Grief," said Wrinkles.

"There," said Pennoyer, coming forward and scanning a late work with an
eye of satisfaction. "There's the three glasses and the little tumbler;
and then, Grief, you will have to drink out of a mug."

"I'll be double-dyed black if I will!" cried Grief. "I wouldn't drink
claret out of a mug to save my soul from being pinched!"

"You duffer, you talk like a bloomin' British chump on whom the sun
never sets! What do you want?"

"Well, there's enough without that--what's the matter with you? Three
glasses and the little tumbler."

"Yes, but if Billie Hawker comes----"

"Well, let him drink out of the mug, then. He----"

"No, he won't," said Florinda suddenly. "I'll take the mug myself."

"All right, Splutter," rejoined Grief meekly. "I'll keep the mug. But,
still, I don't see why Billie Hawker----"

"I shall take the mug," reiterated Florinda firmly.

"But I don't see why----"

"Let her alone, Grief," said Wrinkles. "She has decided that it is
heroic. You can't move her now."

"Well, who is going for the potato salad?" cried Pennoyer again. "That's
what I want to know."

"Wrinkles," said Grief.

"Grief," said Wrinkles.

"Do you know," remarked Florinda, raising her head from where she had
been toiling over the _spaghetti_, "I don't care so much for Billie
Hawker as I did once?" Her sleeves were rolled above the elbows of her
wonderful arms, and she turned from the stove and poised a fork as if
she had been smitten at her task with this inspiration.

There was a short silence, and then Wrinkles said politely, "No."

"No," continued Florinda, "I really don't believe I do." She suddenly
started. "Listen! Isn't that him coming now?"

The dull trample of a step could be heard in some distant corridor, but
it died slowly to silence.

"I thought that might be him," she said, turning to the _spaghetti_
again.

"I hope the old Indian comes," said Pennoyer, "but I don't believe he
will. Seems to me he must be going to see----"

"Who?" asked Florinda.

"Well, you know, Hollanden and he usually dine together when they are
both in town."

Florinda looked at Pennoyer. "I know, Penny. You must have thought I was
remarkably clever not to understand all your blundering. But I don't
care so much. Really I don't."

"Of course not," assented Pennoyer.

"Really I don't."

"Of course not."

"Listen!" exclaimed Grief, who was near the door. "There he comes now."
Somebody approached, whistling an air from "Traviata," which rang loud
and clear, and low and muffled, as the whistler wound among the
intricate hallways. This air was as much a part of Hawker as his coat.
The _spaghetti_ had arrived at a critical stage. Florinda gave it her
complete attention.

When Hawker opened the door he ceased whistling and said gruffly,
"Hello!"

"Just the man!" said Grief. "Go after the potato salad, will you,
Billie? There's a good boy! Wrinkles has refused."

"He can't carry the salad with those gloves," interrupted Florinda,
raising her eyes from her work and contemplating them with displeasure.

"Hang the gloves!" cried Hawker, dragging them from his hands and
hurling them at the divan. "What's the matter with you, Splutter?"

Pennoyer said, "My, what a temper you are in, Billie!"

"I am," replied Hawker. "I feel like an Apache. Where do you get this
accursed potato salad?"

"In Second Avenue. You know where. At the old place."

"No, I don't!" snapped Hawker.

"Why----"

"Here," said Florinda, "I'll go." She had already rolled down her
sleeves and was arraying herself in her hat and jacket.

"No, you won't," said Hawker, filled with wrath. "I'll go myself."

"We can both go, Billie, if you are so bent," replied the girl in a
conciliatory voice.

"Well, come on, then. What are you standing there for?"

When these two had departed, Wrinkles said: "Lordie! What's wrong with
Billie?"

"He's been discussing art with some pot-boiler," said Grief, speaking
as if this was the final condition of human misery.

"No, sir," said Pennoyer. "It's something connected with the now
celebrated violets."

Out in the corridor Florinda said, "What--what makes you so ugly,
Billie?"

"Why, I am not ugly, am I?"

"Yes, you are--ugly as anything."

Probably he saw a grievance in her eyes, for he said, "Well, I don't
want to be ugly." His tone seemed tender. The halls were intensely dark,
and the girl placed her hand on his arm. As they rounded a turn in the
stairs a straying lock of her hair brushed against his temple. "Oh!"
said Florinda, in a low voice.

"We'll get some more claret," observed Hawker musingly. "And some cognac
for the coffee. And some cigarettes. Do you think of anything more,
Splutter?"

As they came from the shop of the illustrious purveyors of potato salad
in Second Avenue, Florinda cried anxiously, "Here, Billie, you let me
carry that!"

"What infernal nonsense!" said Hawker, flushing. "Certainly not!"

"Well," protested Florinda, "it might soil your gloves somehow."

"In heaven's name, what if it does? Say, young woman, do you think I am
one of these cholly boys?"

"No, Billie; but then, you know----"

"Well, if you don't take me for some kind of a Willie, give us peace on
this blasted glove business!"

"I didn't mean----"

"Well, you've been intimating that I've got the only pair of gray gloves
in the universe, but you are wrong. There are several pairs, and these
need not be preserved as unique in history."

"They're not gray. They're----"

"They are gray! I suppose your distinguished ancestors in Ireland did
not educate their families in the matter of gloves, and so you are not
expected to----"

"Billie!"

"You are not expected to believe that people wear gloves only in cold
weather, and then you expect to see mittens."

On the stairs, in the darkness, he suddenly exclaimed, "Here, look out,
or you'll fall!" He reached for her arm, but she evaded him. Later he
said again: "Look out, girl! What makes you stumble around so? Here,
give me the bottle of wine. I can carry it all right. There--now can you
manage?"




CHAPTER XXIV.


"Penny," said Grief, looking across the table at his friend, "if a man
thinks a heap of two violets, how much would he think of a thousand
violets?"

"Two into a thousand goes five hundred times, you fool!" said Pennoyer.
"I would answer your question if it were not upon a forbidden subject."

In the distance Wrinkles and Florinda were making Welsh rarebits.

"Hold your tongues!" said Hawker. "Barbarians!"

"Grief," said Pennoyer, "if a man loves a woman better than the whole
universe, how much does he love the whole universe?"

"Gawd knows," said Grief piously. "Although it ill befits me to answer
your question."

Wrinkles and Florinda came with the Welsh rarebits, very triumphant.
"There," said Florinda, "soon as these are finished I must go home. It
is after eleven o'clock.--Pour the ale, Grief."

At a later time, Purple Sanderson entered from the world. He hung up his
hat and cast a look of proper financial dissatisfaction at the remnants
of the feast. "Who has been----"

"Before you breathe, Purple, you graceless scum, let me tell you that we
will stand no reference to the two violets here," said Pennoyer.

"What the----"

"Oh, that's all right, Purple," said Grief, "but you were going to say
something about the two violets, right then. Weren't you, now, you old
bat?"

Sanderson grinned expectantly. "What's the row?" said he.

"No row at all," they told him. "Just an agreement to keep you from
chattering obstinately about the two violets."

"What two violets?"

"Have a rarebit, Purple," advised Wrinkles, "and never mind those
maniacs."

"Well, what is this business about two violets?"

"Oh, it's just some dream. They gibber at anything."

"I think I know," said Florinda, nodding. "It is something that concerns
Billie Hawker."

Grief and Pennoyer scoffed, and Wrinkles said: "You know nothing about
it, Splutter. It doesn't concern Billie Hawker at all."

"Well, then, what is he looking sideways for?" cried Florinda.

Wrinkles reached for his guitar, and played a serenade, "The silver moon
is shining----"

"Dry up!" said Pennoyer.

Then Florinda cried again, "What does he look sideways for?"

Pennoyer and Grief giggled at the imperturbable Hawker, who destroyed
rarebit in silence.

"It's you, is it, Billie?" said Sanderson. "You are in this two-violet
business?"

"I don't know what they're talking about," replied Hawker.

"Don't you, honestly?" asked Florinda.

"Well, only a little."

"There!" said Florinda, nodding again. "I knew he was in it."

"He isn't in it at all," said Pennoyer and Grief.

Later, when the cigarettes had become exhausted, Hawker volunteered to
go after a further supply, and as he arose, a question seemed to come to
the edge of Florinda's lips and pend there. The moment that the door was
closed upon him she demanded, "What is that about the two violets?"

"Nothing at all," answered Pennoyer, apparently much aggrieved. He sat
back with an air of being a fortress of reticence.

"Oh, go on--tell me! Penny, I think you are very mean.--Grief, you tell
me!"

  "The silver moon is shining;
    Oh, come, my love, to me!
  My heart----"

"Be still, Wrinkles, will you?--What was it, Grief? Oh, go ahead and
tell me!"

"What do you want to know for?" cried Grief, vastly exasperated. "You've
got more blamed curiosity---- It isn't anything at all, I keep saying to
you."

"Well, I know it is," said Florinda sullenly, "or you would tell me."

When Hawker brought the cigarettes, Florinda smoked one, and then
announced, "Well, I must go now."

"Who is going to take you home, Splutter?"

"Oh, anyone," replied Florinda.

"I tell you what," said Grief, "we'll throw some poker hands, and the
one who wins will have the distinguished honour of conveying Miss
Splutter to her home and mother."

Pennoyer and Wrinkles speedily routed the dishes to one end of the
table. Grief's fingers spun the halves of a pack of cards together with
the pleased eagerness of a good player. The faces grew solemn with the
gambling solemnity. "Now, you Indians," said Grief, dealing, "a draw,
you understand, and then a show-down."

Florinda leaned forward in her chair until it was poised on two legs.
The cards of Purple Sanderson and of Hawker were faced toward her.
Sanderson was gravely regarding two pair--aces and queens. Hawker
scanned a little pair of sevens. "They draw, don't they?" she said to
Grief.

"Certainly," said Grief. "How many, Wrink?"

"Four," replied Wrinkles, plaintively.

"Gimme three," said Pennoyer.

"Gimme one," said Sanderson.

"Gimme three," said Hawker. When he picked up his hand again Florinda's
chair was tilted perilously. She saw another seven added to the little
pair. Sanderson's draw had not assisted him.

"Same to the dealer," said Grief. "What you got, Wrink?"

"Nothing," said Wrinkles, exhibiting it face upward on the table.
"Good-bye, Florinda."

"Well, I've got two small pair," ventured Pennoyer hopefully. "Beat
'em?"

"No good," said Sanderson. "Two pair--aces up."

"No good," said Hawker. "Three sevens."

"Beats me," said Grief. "Billie, you are the fortunate man. Heaven guide
you in Third Avenue!"

Florinda had gone to the window. "Who won?" she asked, wheeling about
carelessly.

"Billie Hawker."

"What! Did he?" she said in surprise.

"Never mind, Splutter. I'll win sometime," said Pennoyer. "Me too,"
cried Grief. "Good night, old girl!" said Wrinkles. They crowded in the
doorway. "Hold on to Billie. Remember the two steps going up," Pennoyer
called intelligently into the Stygian blackness. "Can you see all
right?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Florinda lived in a flat with fire-escapes written all over the front of
it. The street in front was being repaired. It had been said by imbecile
residents of the vicinity that the paving was never allowed to remain
down for a sufficient time to be invalided by the tramping millions, but
that it was kept perpetually stacked in little mountains through the
unceasing vigilance of a virtuous and heroic city government, which
insisted that everything should be repaired. The alderman for the
district had sometimes asked indignantly of his fellow-members why this
street had not been repaired, and they, aroused, had at once ordered it
to be repaired. Moreover, shopkeepers, whose stables were adjacent,
placed trucks and other vehicles strategically in the darkness. Into
this tangled midnight Hawker conducted Florinda. The great avenue behind
them was no more than a level stream of yellow light, and the distant
merry bells might have been boats floating down it. Grim loneliness hung
over the uncouth shapes in the street which was being repaired.

"Billie," said the girl suddenly, "what makes you so mean to me?"

A peaceful citizen emerged from behind a pile of _débris_, but he might
not have been a peaceful citizen, so the girl clung to Hawker.

"Why, I'm not mean to you, am I?"

"Yes," she answered. As they stood on the steps of the flat of
innumerable fire-escapes she slowly turned and looked up at him. Her
face was of a strange pallour in this darkness, and her eyes were as
when the moon shines in a lake of the hills.

He returned her glance. "Florinda!" he cried, as if enlightened, and
gulping suddenly at something in his throat. The girl studied the steps
and moved from side to side, as do the guilty ones in country
schoolhouses. Then she went slowly into the flat.

There was a little red lamp hanging on a pile of stones to warn people
that the street was being repaired.




CHAPTER XXV.


"I'll get my check from the Gamin on Saturday," said Grief. "They bought
that string of comics."

"Well, then, we'll arrange the present funds to last until Saturday
noon," said Wrinkles. "That gives us quite a lot. We can have a _table
d'hôte_ on Friday night."

However, the cashier of the Gamin office looked under his respectable
brass wiring and said: "Very sorry, Mr.--er--Warwickson, but our pay-day
is Monday. Come around any time after ten."

"Oh, it doesn't matter," said Grief.

When he plunged into the den his visage flamed with rage. "Don't get my
check until Monday morning, any time after ten!" he yelled, and flung a
portfolio of mottled green into the danger zone of the casts.

"Thunder!" said Pennoyer, sinking at once into a profound despair

"Monday morning, any time after ten," murmured Wrinkles, in astonishment
and sorrow.

While Grief marched to and fro threatening the furniture, Pennoyer and
Wrinkles allowed their under jaws to fall, and remained as men smitten
between the eyes by the god of calamity.

"Singular thing!" muttered Pennoyer at last. "You get so frightfully
hungry as soon as you learn that there are no more meals coming."

"Oh, well----" said Wrinkles. He took up his guitar.

  Oh, some folks say dat a niggah won' steal,
    'Way down yondeh in d' cohn'-fiel';
  But Ah caught two in my cohn'-fiel',
    Way down yondeh in d' cohn'-fiel'.

"Oh, let up!" said Grief, as if unwilling to be moved from his despair.

"Oh, let up!" said Pennoyer, as if he disliked the voice and the ballad.

In his studio, Hawker sat braced nervously forward on a little stool
before his tall Dutch easel. Three sketches lay on the floor near him,
and he glared at them constantly while painting at the large canvas on
the easel.

He seemed engaged in some kind of a duel. His hair dishevelled, his eyes
gleaming, he was in a deadly scuffle. In the sketches was the landscape
of heavy blue, as if seen through powder-smoke, and all the skies burned
red. There was in these notes a sinister quality of hopelessness,
eloquent of a defeat, as if the scene represented the last hour on a
field of disastrous battle. Hawker seemed attacking with this picture
something fair and beautiful of his own life, a possession of his mind,
and he did it fiercely, mercilessly, formidably. His arm moved with the
energy of a strange wrath. He might have been thrusting with a sword.

There was a knock at the door. "Come in." Pennoyer entered sheepishly.
"Well?" cried Hawker, with an echo of savagery in his voice. He turned
from the canvas precisely as one might emerge from a fight. "Oh!" he
said, perceiving Pennoyer. The glow in his eyes slowly changed. "What is
it, Penny?"

"Billie," said Pennoyer, "Grief was to get his check to-day, but they
put him off until Monday, and so, you know--er--well----"

"Oh!" said Hawker again.

When Pennoyer had gone Hawker sat motionless before his work. He stared
at the canvas in a meditation so profound that it was probably
unconscious of itself.

The light from above his head slanted more and more toward the east.

Once he arose and lighted a pipe. He returned to the easel and stood
staring with his hands in his pockets. He moved like one in a sleep.
Suddenly the gleam shot into his eyes again. He dropped to the stool and
grabbed a brush. At the end of a certain long, tumultuous period he
clinched his pipe more firmly in his teeth and puffed strongly. The
thought might have occurred to him that it was not alight, for he looked
at it with a vague, questioning glance. There came another knock at the
door. "Go to the devil!" he shouted, without turning his head.

Hollanden crossed the corridor then to the den.

"Hi, there, Hollie! Hello, boy! Just the fellow we want to see. Come
in--sit down--hit a pipe. Say, who was the girl Billie Hawker went mad
over this summer?"

"Blazes!" said Hollanden, recovering slowly from this onslaught.
"Who--what--how did you Indians find it out?"

"Oh, we tumbled!" they cried in delight, "we tumbled."

"There!" said Hollanden, reproaching himself. "And I thought you were
such a lot of blockheads."

"Oh, we tumbled!" they cried again in their ecstasy. "But who is she?
That's the point."

"Well, she was a girl."

"Yes, go on."

"A New York girl."

"Yes."

"A perfectly stunning New York girl."

"Yes. Go ahead."

"A perfectly stunning New York girl of a very wealthy and rather
old-fashioned family."

"Well, I'll be shot! You don't mean it! She is practically seated on top
of the Matterhorn. Poor old Billie!"

"Not at all," said Hollanden composedly.

It was a common habit of Purple Sanderson to call attention at night to
the resemblance of the den to some little ward in a hospital. Upon this
night, when Sanderson and Grief were buried in slumber, Pennoyer moved
restlessly. "Wrink!" he called softly into the darkness in the direction
of the divan which was secretly a coal-box.

"What?" said Wrinkles in a surly voice. His mind had evidently been
caught at the threshold of sleep.

"Do you think Florinda cares much for Billie Hawker?"

Wrinkles fretted through some oaths. "How in thunder do I know?" The
divan creaked as he turned his face to the wall.

"Well----" muttered Pennoyer.




CHAPTER XXVI.


The harmony of summer sunlight on leaf and blade of green was not known
to the two windows, which looked forth at an obviously endless building
of brownstone about which there was the poetry of a prison. Inside,
great folds of lace swept down in orderly cascades, as water trained to
fall mathematically. The colossal chandelier, gleaming like a Siamese
headdress, caught the subtle flashes from unknown places.

Hawker heard a step and the soft swishing of a woman's dress. He turned
toward the door swiftly, with a certain dramatic impulsiveness. But when
she entered the room he said, "How delighted I am to see you again!"

She had said, "Why, Mr. Hawker, it was so charming in you to come!"

It did not appear that Hawker's tongue could wag to his purpose. The
girl seemed in her mind to be frantically shuffling her pack of social
receipts and finding none of them made to meet this situation. Finally,
Hawker said that he thought Hearts at War was a very good play.

"Did you?" she said in surprise. "I thought it much like the others."

"Well, so did I," he cried hastily--"the same figures moving around in
the mud of modern confusion. I really didn't intend to say that I liked
it. Fact is, meeting you rather moved me out of my mental track."

"Mental track?" she said. "I didn't know clever people had mental
tracks. I thought it was a privilege of the theologians."

"Who told you I was clever?" he demanded.

"Why," she said, opening her eyes wider, "nobody."

Hawker smiled and looked upon her with gratitude. "Of course, nobody.
There couldn't be such an idiot. I am sure you should be astonished to
learn that I believed such an imbecile existed. But----"

"Oh!" she said.

"But I think you might have spoken less bluntly."

"Well," she said, after wavering for a time, "you are clever, aren't
you?"

"Certainly," he answered reassuringly.

"Well, then?" she retorted, with triumph in her tone. And this
interrogation was apparently to her the final victorious argument.

At his discomfiture Hawker grinned.

"You haven't asked news of Stanley," he said. "Why don't you ask news of
Stanley?"

"Oh! and how was he?"

"The last I saw of him he stood down at the end of the pasture--the
pasture, you know--wagging his tail in blissful anticipation of an
invitation to come with me, and when it finally dawned upon him that he
was not to receive it, he turned and went back toward the house 'like a
man suddenly stricken with age,' as the story-tellers eloquently say.
Poor old dog!"

"And you left him?" she said reproachfully. Then she asked, "Do you
remember how he amused you playing with the ants at the falls?"

"No."

"Why, he did. He pawed at the moss, and you sat there laughing. I
remember it distinctly."

"You remember distinctly? Why, I thought--well, your back was turned,
you know. Your gaze was fixed upon something before you, and you were
utterly lost to the rest of the world. You could not have known if
Stanley pawed the moss and I laughed. So, you see, you are mistaken. As
a matter of fact, I utterly deny that Stanley pawed the moss or that I
laughed, or that any ants appeared at the falls at all."

"I have always said that you should have been a Chinese soldier of
fortune," she observed musingly. "Your daring and ingenuity would be
prized by the Chinese."

"There are innumerable tobacco jars in China," he said, measuring the
advantages. "Moreover, there is no perspective. You don't have to walk
two miles to see a friend. No. He is always there near you, so that you
can't move a chair without hitting your distant friend. You----"

"Did Hollie remain as attentive as ever to the Worcester girls?"

"Yes, of course, as attentive as ever. He dragged me into all manner of
tennis games----"

"Why, I thought you loved to play tennis?"

"Oh, well," said Hawker, "I did until you left."

"My sister has gone to the park with the children. I know she will be
vexed when she finds that you have called."

Ultimately Hawker said, "Do you remember our ride behind my father's
oxen?"

"No," she answered; "I had forgotten it completely. Did we ride behind
your father's oxen?"

After a moment he said: "That remark would be prized by the Chinese. We
did. And you most graciously professed to enjoy it, which earned my deep
gratitude and admiration. For no one knows better than I," he added
meekly, "that it is no great comfort or pleasure to ride behind my
father's oxen."

She smiled retrospectively. "Do you remember how the people on the porch
hurried to the railing?"




CHAPTER XXVII.


Near the door the stout proprietress sat intrenched behind the cash-box
in a Parisian manner. She looked with practical amiability at her
guests, who dined noisily and with great fire, discussing momentous
problems furiously, making wide, maniacal gestures through the cigarette
smoke. Meanwhile the little handful of waiters ran to and fro wildly.
Imperious and importunate cries rang at them from all directions.
"Gustave! Adolphe!" Their faces expressed a settled despair. They
answered calls, commands, oaths in a semi-distraction, fleeting among
the tables as if pursued by some dodging animal. Their breaths came in
gasps. If they had been convict labourers they could not have surveyed
their positions with countenances of more unspeakable injury. Withal,
they carried incredible masses of dishes and threaded their ways with
skill. They served people with such speed and violence that it often
resembled a personal assault. They struck two blows at a table and left
there a knife and fork. Then came the viands in a volley. The clatter of
this business was loud and bewilderingly rapid, like the gallop of a
thousand horses.

In a remote corner a band of mandolins and guitars played the long,
sweeping, mad melody of a Spanish waltz. It seemed to go tingling to the
hearts of many of the diners. Their eyes glittered with enthusiasm, with
abandon, with deviltry. They swung their heads from side to side in
rhythmic movement. High in air curled the smoke from the innumerable
cigarettes. The long, black claret bottles were in clusters upon the
tables. At an end of the hall two men with maudlin grins sang the waltz
uproariously, but always a trifle belated.

An unsteady person, leaning back in his chair to murmur swift
compliments to a woman at another table, suddenly sprawled out upon the
floor. He scrambled to his feet, and, turning to the escort of the
woman, heatedly blamed him for the accident. They exchanged a series of
tense, bitter insults, which spatted back and forth between them like
pellets. People arose from their chairs and stretched their necks. The
musicians stood in a body, their faces turned with expressions of keen
excitement toward this quarrel, but their fingers still twinkling over
their instruments, sending into the middle of this turmoil the
passionate, mad, Spanish music. The proprietor of the place came in
agitation and plunged headlong into the argument, where he thereafter
appeared as a frantic creature harried to the point of insanity, for
they buried him at once in long, vociferous threats, explanations,
charges, every form of declamation known to their voices. The music, the
noise of the galloping horses, the voices of the brawlers, gave the
whole thing the quality of war.

There were two men in the _café_ who seemed to be tranquil. Hollanden
carefully stacked one lump of sugar upon another in the middle of his
saucer and poured cognac over them. He touched a match to the cognac and
the blue and yellow flames eddied in the saucer. "I wonder what those
two fools are bellowing at?" he said, turning about irritably.

"Hanged if I know!" muttered Hawker in reply. "This place makes me
weary, anyhow. Hear the blooming din!"

"What's the matter?" said Hollanden. "You used to say this was the one
natural, the one truly Bohemian, resort in the city. You swore by it."

"Well, I don't like it so much any more."

"Ho!" cried Hollanden, "you're getting correct--that's it exactly. You
will become one of these intensely---- Look, Billie, the little one is
going to punch him!"

"No, he isn't. They never do," said Hawker morosely. "Why did you bring
me here to-night, Hollie?"

"I? I bring you? Good heavens, I came as a concession to you! What are
you talking about?--Hi! the little one is going to punch him, sure!"

He gave the scene his undivided attention for a moment; then he turned
again: "You will become correct. I know you will. I have been watching.
You are about to achieve a respectability that will make a stone saint
blush for himself. What's the matter with you? You act as if you thought
falling in love with a girl was a most extraordinary circumstance.--I
wish they would put those people out.--Of course I know that you----
There! The little one has swiped at him at last!"

After a time he resumed his oration. "Of course, I know that you are not
reformed in the matter of this uproar and this remarkable consumption of
bad wine. It is not that. It is a fact that there are indications that
some other citizen was fortunate enough to possess your napkin before
you; and, moreover, you are sure that you would hate to be caught by
your correct friends with any such _consommé_ in front of you as we had
to-night. You have got an eye suddenly for all kinds of gilt. You are in
the way of becoming a most unbearable person.--Oh, look! the little one
and the proprietor are having it now.--You are in the way of becoming a
most unbearable person. Presently many of your friends will not be fine
enough.--In heaven's name, why don't they throw him out? Are you going
to howl and gesticulate there all night?"

"Well," said Hawker, "a man would be a fool if he did like this dinner."

"Certainly. But what an immaterial part in the glory of this joint is
the dinner! Who cares about dinner? No one comes here to eat; that's
what you always claimed.--Well, there, at last they are throwing him
out. I hope he lands on his head.--Really, you know, Billie, it is such
a fine thing being in love that one is sure to be detestable to the rest
of the world, and that is the reason they created a proverb to the other
effect. You want to look out."

"You talk like a blasted old granny!" said Hawker. "Haven't changed at
all. This place is all right, only----"

"You are gone," interrupted Hollanden in a sad voice. "It is very
plain--you are gone."




CHAPTER XXVIII.


The proprietor of the place, having pushed to the street the little man,
who may have been the most vehement, came again and resumed the
discussion with the remainder of the men of war. Many of these had
volunteered, and they were very enduring.

"Yes, you are gone," said Hollanden, with the sobriety of graves in his
voice. "You are gone.--Hi!" he cried, "there is Lucian Pontiac.--Hi,
Pontiac! Sit down here."

A man with a tangle of hair, and with that about his mouth which showed
that he had spent many years in manufacturing a proper modesty with
which to bear his greatness, came toward them, smiling.

"Hello, Pontiac!" said Hollanden. "Here's another great painter. Do you
know Mr. Hawker?--Mr. William Hawker--Mr. Pontiac."

"Mr. Hawker--delighted," said Pontiac. "Although I have not known you
personally, I can assure you that I have long been a great admirer of
your abilities."

The proprietor of the place and the men of war had at length agreed to
come to an amicable understanding. They drank liquors, while each
firmly, but now silently, upheld his dignity.

"Charming place," said Pontiac. "So thoroughly Parisian in spirit. And
from time to time, Mr. Hawker, I use one of your models. Must say she
has the best arm and wrist in the universe. Stunning figure--stunning!"

"You mean Florinda?" said Hawker.

"Yes, that's the name. Very fine girl. Lunches with me from time to time
and chatters so volubly. That's how I learned you posed her
occasionally. If the models didn't gossip we would never know what
painters were addicted to profanity. Now that old Thorndike--he told me
you swore like a drill-sergeant if the model winked a finger at the
critical time. Very fine girl, Florinda. And honest, too--honest as the
devil. Very curious thing. Of course honesty among the girl models is
very common, very common--quite universal thing, you know--but then it
always strikes me as being very curious, very curious. I've been much
attracted by your girl Florinda."

"My girl?" said Hawker.

"Well, she always speaks of you in a proprietary way, you know. And then
she considers that she owes you some kind of obedience and allegiance
and devotion. I remember last week I said to her: 'You can go now. Come
again Friday.' But she said: 'I don't think I can come on Friday. Billie
Hawker is home now, and he may want me then.' Said I: 'The devil take
Billie Hawker! He hasn't engaged you for Friday, has he? Well, then, I
engage you now.' But she shook her head. No, she couldn't come on
Friday. Billie Hawker was home, and he might want her any day. 'Well,
then,' said I, 'you have my permission to do as you please, since you
are resolved upon it anyway. Go to your Billie Hawker.' Did you need her
on Friday?"

"No," said Hawker.

"Well, then, the minx, I shall scold her. Stunning figure--stunning! It
was only last week that old Charley Master said to me mournfully:
'There are no more good models. Great Scott! not a one.' 'You're 'way
off, my boy,' I said; 'there is one good model,' and then I named your
girl. I mean the girl who claims to be yours."

"Poor little beggar!" said Hollanden.

"Who?" said Pontiac.

"Florinda," answered Hollanden. "I suppose----"

Pontiac interrupted. "Oh, of course, it is too bad. Everything is too
bad. My dear sir, nothing is so much to be regretted as the universe.
But this Florinda is such a sturdy young soul! The world is against her,
but, bless your heart, she is equal to the battle. She is strong in the
manner of a little child. Why, you don't know her. She----"

"I know her very well."

"Well, perhaps you do, but for my part I think you don't appreciate her
formidable character and stunning figure--stunning!"

"Damn it!" said Hawker to his coffee cup, which he had accidentally
overturned.

"Well," resumed Pontiac, "she is a stunning model, and I think, Mr.
Hawker, you are to be envied."

"Eh?" said Hawker.

"I wish I could inspire my models with such obedience and devotion. Then
I would not be obliged to rail at them for being late, and have to
badger them for not showing up at all. She has a beautiful
figure--beautiful."




CHAPTER XXIX.


When Hawker went again to the house of the great window he looked first
at the colossal chandelier, and, perceiving that it had not moved, he
smiled in a certain friendly and familiar way.

"It must be a fine thing," said the girl dreamily. "I always feel
envious of that sort of life."

"What sort of life?"

"Why--I don't know exactly; but there must be a great deal of freedom
about it. I went to a studio tea once, and----"

"A studio tea! Merciful heavens---- Go on."

"Yes, a studio tea. Don't you like them? To be sure, we didn't know
whether the man could paint very well, and I suppose you think it is an
imposition for anyone who is not a great painter to give a tea."

"Go on."

"Well, he had the dearest little Japanese servants, and some of the cups
came from Algiers, and some from Turkey, and some from---- What's the
matter?"

"Go on. I'm not interrupting you."

"Well, that's all; excepting that everything was charming in colour, and
I thought what a lazy, beautiful life the man must lead, lounging in
such a studio, smoking monogrammed cigarettes, and remarking how badly
all the other men painted."

"Very fascinating. But----"

"Oh! you are going to ask if he could draw. I'm sure I don't know, but
the tea that he gave was charming."

"I was on the verge of telling you something about artist life, but if
you have seen a lot of draperies and drunk from a cup of Algiers, you
know all about it."

"You, then, were going to make it something very terrible, and tell how
young painters struggled, and all that."

"No, not exactly. But listen: I suppose there is an aristocracy who,
whether they paint well or paint ill, certainly do give charming teas,
as you say, and all other kinds of charming affairs too; but when I
hear people talk as if that was the whole life, it makes my hair rise,
you know, because I am sure that as they get to know me better and
better they will see how I fall short of that kind of an existence, and
I shall probably take a great tumble in their estimation. They might
even conclude that I can not paint, which would be very unfair, because
I can paint, you know."

"Well, proceed to arrange my point of view, so that you sha'n't tumble
in my estimation when I discover that you don't lounge in a studio,
smoke monogrammed cigarettes, and remark how badly the other men paint."

"That's it. That's precisely what I wish to do."

"Begin."

"Well, in the first place----"

"In the first place--what?"

"Well, I started to study when I was very poor, you understand. Look
here! I'm telling you these things because I want you to know, somehow.
It isn't that I'm not ashamed of it. Well, I began very poor, and I--as
a matter of fact--I--well, I earned myself over half the money for my
studying, and the other half I bullied and badgered and beat out of my
poor old dad. I worked pretty hard in Paris, and I returned here
expecting to become a great painter at once. I didn't, though. In fact,
I had my worst moments then. It lasted for some years. Of course, the
faith and endurance of my father were by this time worn to a
shadow--this time, when I needed him the most. However, things got a
little better and a little better, until I found that by working quite
hard I could make what was to me a fair income. That's where I am now,
too."

"Why are you so ashamed of this story?"

"The poverty."

"Poverty isn't anything to be ashamed of."

"Great heavens! Have you the temerity to get off that old nonsensical
remark? Poverty is everything to be ashamed of. Did you ever see a
person not ashamed of his poverty? Certainly not. Of course, when a man
gets very rich he will brag so loudly of the poverty of his youth that
one would never suppose that he was once ashamed of it. But he was."

"Well, anyhow, you shouldn't be ashamed of the story you have just told
me."

"Why not? Do you refuse to allow me the great right of being like other
men?"

"I think it was--brave, you know."

"Brave? Nonsense! Those things are not brave. Impression to that effect
created by the men who have been through the mill for the greater glory
of the men who have been through the mill."

"I don't like to hear you talk that way. It sounds wicked, you know."

"Well, it certainly wasn't heroic. I can remember distinctly that there
was not one heroic moment."

"No, but it was--it was----"

"It was what?"

"Well, somehow I like it, you know."




CHAPTER XXX.


"There's three of them," said Grief in a hoarse whisper.

"Four, I tell you!" said Wrinkles in a low, excited tone.

"Four," breathed Pennoyer with decision.

They held fierce pantomimic argument. From the corridor came sounds of
rustling dresses and rapid feminine conversation.

Grief had kept his ear to the panel of the door. His hand was stretched
back, warning the others to silence. Presently he turned his head and
whispered, "Three."

"Four," whispered Pennoyer and Wrinkles.

"Hollie is there, too," whispered Grief. "Billie is unlocking the door.
Now they're going in. Hear them cry out, 'Oh, isn't it lovely!' Jinks!"
He began a noiseless dance about the room. "Jinks! Don't I wish I had a
big studio and a little reputation! Wouldn't I have my swell friends
come to see me, and wouldn't I entertain 'em!" He adopted a descriptive
manner, and with his forefinger indicated various spaces of the wall.
"Here is a little thing I did in Brittany. Peasant woman in sabots. This
brown spot here is the peasant woman, and those two white things are the
sabots. Peasant woman in sabots, don't you see? Women in Brittany, of
course, all wear sabots, you understand. Convenience of the painters. I
see you are looking at that little thing I did in Morocco. Ah, you
admire it? Well, not so bad--not so bad. Arab smoking pipe, squatting in
doorway. This long streak here is the pipe. Clever, you say? Oh, thanks!
You are too kind. Well, all Arabs do that, you know. Sole occupation.
Convenience of the painters. Now, this little thing here I did in
Venice. Grand Canal, you know. Gondolier leaning on his oar. Convenience
of the painters. Oh, yes, American subjects are well enough, but hard to
find, you know--hard to find. Morocco, Venice, Brittany, Holland--all
oblige with colour, you know--quaint form--all that. We are so hideously
modern over here; and, besides, nobody has painted us much. How the
devil can I paint America when nobody has done it before me? My dear
sir, are you aware that that would be originality? Good heavens! we are
not æsthetic, you understand. Oh, yes, some good mind comes along and
understands a thing and does it, and after that it is æsthetic. Yes, of
course, but then--well---- Now, here is a little Holland thing of mine;
it----"

The others had evidently not been heeding him. "Shut up!" said Wrinkles
suddenly. "Listen!" Grief paused his harangue and they sat in silence,
their lips apart, their eyes from time to time exchanging eloquent
messages. A dulled melodious babble came from Hawker's studio.

At length Pennoyer murmured wistfully, "I would like to see her."

Wrinkles started noiselessly to his feet. "Well, I tell you she's a
peach. I was going up the steps, you know, with a loaf of bread under my
arm, when I chanced to look up the street and saw Billie and Hollanden
coming with four of them."

"Three," said Grief.

"Four; and I tell you I scattered. One of the two with Billie was a
peach--a peach."

"O, Lord!" groaned the others enviously. "Billie's in luck."

"How do you know?" said Wrinkles. "Billie is a blamed good fellow, but
that doesn't say she will care for him--more likely that she won't."

They sat again in silence, grinning, and listening to the murmur of
voices.

There came the sound of a step in the hallway. It ceased at a point
opposite the door of Hawker's studio. Presently it was heard again.
Florinda entered the den. "Hello!" she cried, "who is over in Billie's
place? I was just going to knock----"

They motioned at her violently. "Sh!" they whispered. Their countenances
were very impressive.

"What's the matter with you fellows?" asked Florinda in her ordinary
tone; whereupon they made gestures of still greater wildness. "S-s-sh!"

Florinda lowered her voice properly. "Who is over there?"

"Some swells," they whispered.

Florinda bent her head. Presently she gave a little start. "Who is over
there?" Her voice became a tone of deep awe. "She?"

Wrinkles and Grief exchanged a swift glance. Pennoyer said gruffly, "Who
do you mean?"

"Why," said Florinda, "you know. She. The--the girl that Billie likes."

Pennoyer hesitated for a moment and then said wrathfully: "Of course she
is! Who do you suppose?"

"Oh!" said Florinda. She took a seat upon the divan, which was privately
a coal-box, and unbuttoned her jacket at the throat. "Is she--is
she--very handsome, Wrink?"

Wrinkles replied stoutly, "No."

Grief said: "Let's make a sneak down the hall to the little unoccupied
room at the front of the building and look from the window there. When
they go out we can pipe 'em off."

"Come on!" they exclaimed, accepting this plan with glee.

Wrinkles opened the door and seemed about to glide away, when he
suddenly turned and shook his head. "It's dead wrong," he said,
ashamed.

"Oh, go on!" eagerly whispered the others. Presently they stole
pattering down the corridor, grinning, exclaiming, and cautioning each
other.

At the window Pennoyer said: "Now, for heaven's sake, don't let them see
you!--Be careful, Grief, you'll tumble.--Don't lean on me that way,
Wrink; think I'm a barn door? Here they come. Keep back. Don't let them
see you."

"O-o-oh!" said Grief. "Talk about a peach! Well, I should say so."

Florinda's fingers tore at Wrinkle's coat sleeve. "Wrink, Wrink, is that
her? Is that her? On the left of Billie? Is that her, Wrink?"

"What? Yes. Stop punching me! Yes, I tell you! That's her. Are you
deaf?"




CHAPTER XXXI.


In the evening Pennoyer conducted Florinda to the flat of many
fire-escapes. After a period of silent tramping through the great golden
avenue and the street that was being repaired, she said, "Penny, you are
very good to me."

"Why?" said Pennoyer.

"Oh, because you are. You--you are very good to me, Penny."

"Well, I guess I'm not killing myself."

"There isn't many fellows like you."

"No?"

"No. There isn't many fellows like you, Penny. I tell you 'most
everything, and you just listen, and don't argue with me and tell me I'm
a fool, because you know that it--because you know that it can't be
helped, anyhow."

"Oh, nonsense, you kid! Almost anybody would be glad to----"

"Penny, do you think she is very beautiful?" Florinda's voice had a
singular quality of awe in it.

"Well," replied Pennoyer, "I don't know."

"Yes, you do, Penny. Go ahead and tell me."

"Well----"

"Go ahead."

"Well, she is rather handsome, you know."

"Yes," said Florinda, dejectedly, "I suppose she is." After a time she
cleared her throat and remarked indifferently, "I suppose Billie cares a
lot for her?"

"Oh, I imagine that he does--in a way."

"Why, of course he does," insisted Florinda. "What do you mean by 'in a
way'? You know very well that Billie thinks his eyes of her."

"No, I don't."

"Yes, you do. You know you do. You are talking in that way just to brace
me up. You know you are."

"No, I'm not."

"Penny," said Florinda thankfully, "what makes you so good to me?"

"Oh, I guess I'm not so astonishingly good to you. Don't be silly."

"But you are good to me, Penny. You don't make fun of me the way--the
way the other boys would. You are just as good as you can be.--But you
do think she is beautiful, don't you?"

"They wouldn't make fun of you," said Pennoyer.

"But do you think she is beautiful?"

"Look here, Splutter, let up on that, will you? You keep harping on one
string all the time. Don't bother me!"

"But, honest now, Penny, you do think she is beautiful?"

"Well, then, confound it--no! no! no!"

"Oh, yes, you do, Penny. Go ahead now. Don't deny it just because you
are talking to me. Own up, now, Penny. You do think she is beautiful?"

"Well," said Pennoyer, in a dull roar of irritation, "do you?"

Florinda walked in silence, her eyes upon the yellow flashes which
lights sent to the pavement. In the end she said, "Yes."

"Yes, what?" asked Pennoyer sharply.

"Yes, she--yes, she is--beautiful."

"Well, then?" cried Pennoyer, abruptly closing the discussion.

Florinda announced something as a fact. "Billie thinks his eyes of her."

"How do you know he does?"

"Don't scold at me, Penny. You--you----"

"I'm not scolding at you. There! What a goose you are, Splutter! Don't,
for heaven's sake, go to whimpering on the street! I didn't say anything
to make you feel that way. Come, pull yourself together."

"I'm not whimpering."

"No, of course not; but then you look as if you were on the edge of it.
What a little idiot!"




CHAPTER XXXII.


When the snow fell upon the clashing life of the city, the exiled
stones, beaten by myriad strange feet, were told of the dark, silent
forests where the flakes swept through the hemlocks and swished softly
against the boulders.

In his studio Hawker smoked a pipe, clasping his knee with thoughtful,
interlocked fingers. He was gazing sourly at his finished picture. Once
he started to his feet with a cry of vexation. Looking back over his
shoulder, he swore an insult into the face of the picture. He paced to
and fro, smoking belligerently and from time to time eying it. The
helpless thing remained upon the easel, facing him.

Hollanden entered and stopped abruptly at sight of the great scowl.
"What's wrong now?" he said.

Hawker gestured at the picture. "That dunce of a thing. It makes me
tired. It isn't worth a hang. Blame it!"

"What?" Hollanden strode forward and stood before the painting with legs
apart, in a properly critical manner. "What? Why, you said it was your
best thing."

"Aw!" said Hawker, waving his arms, "it's no good! I abominate it! I
didn't get what I wanted, I tell you. I didn't get what I wanted. That?"
he shouted, pointing thrust-way at it--"that? It's vile! Aw! it makes me
weary."

"You're in a nice state," said Hollanden, turning to take a critical
view of the painter. "What has got into you now? I swear, you are more
kinds of a chump!"

Hawker crooned dismally: "I can't paint! I can't paint for a damn! I'm
no good. What in thunder was I invented for, anyhow, Hollie?"

"You're a fool," said Hollanden. "I hope to die if I ever saw such a
complete idiot! You give me a pain. Just because she don't----"

"It isn't that. She has nothing to do with it, although I know well
enough--I know well enough----"

"What?"

"I know well enough she doesn't care a hang for me. It isn't that. It is
because--it is because I can't paint. Look at that thing over there!
Remember the thought and energy I---- Damn the thing!"

"Why, did you have a row with her?" asked Hollanden, perplexed. "I
didn't know----"

"No, of course you didn't know," cried Hawker, sneering; "because I had
no row. It isn't that, I tell you. But I know well enough"--he shook his
fist vaguely--"that she don't care an old tomato can for me. Why should
she?" he demanded with a curious defiance. "In the name of Heaven, why
should she?"

"I don't know," said Hollanden; "I don't know, I'm sure. But, then,
women have no social logic. This is the great blessing of the world.
There is only one thing which is superior to the multiplicity of social
forms, and that is a woman's mind--a young woman's mind. Oh, of course,
sometimes they are logical, but let a woman be so once, and she will
repent of it to the end of her days. The safety of the world's balance
lies in woman's illogical mind. I think----"

"Go to blazes!" said Hawker. "I don't care what you think. I am sure of
one thing, and that is that she doesn't care a hang for me!"

"I think," Hollanden continued, "that society is doing very well in its
work of bravely lawing away at Nature; but there is one immovable
thing--a woman's illogical mind. That is our safety. Thank Heaven,
it----"

"Go to blazes!" said Hawker again.




CHAPTER XXXIII.


As Hawker again entered the room of the great windows he glanced in
sidelong bitterness at the chandelier. When he was seated he looked at
it in open defiance and hatred.

Men in the street were shovelling at the snow. The noise of their
instruments scraping on the stones came plainly to Hawker's ears in a
harsh chorus, and this sound at this time was perhaps to him a
_miserere_.

"I came to tell you," he began, "I came to tell you that perhaps I am
going away."

"Going away!" she cried. "Where?"

"Well, I don't know--quite. You see, I am rather indefinite as yet. I
thought of going for the winter somewhere in the Southern States. I am
decided merely this much, you know--I am going somewhere. But I don't
know where. 'Way off, anyhow."

"We shall be very sorry to lose you," she remarked. "We----"

"And I thought," he continued, "that I would come and say 'adios' now
for fear that I might leave very suddenly. I do that sometimes. I'm
afraid you will forget me very soon, but I want to tell you that----"

"Why," said the girl in some surprise, "you speak as if you were going
away for all time. You surely do not mean to utterly desert New York?"

"I think you misunderstand me," he said. "I give this important air to
my farewell to you because to me it is a very important event. Perhaps
you recollect that once I told you that I cared for you. Well, I still
care for you, and so I can only go away somewhere--some place 'way
off--where--where---- See?"

"New York is a very large place," she observed.

"Yes, New York is a very large---- How good of you to remind me! But
then you don't understand. You can't understand. I know I can find no
place where I will cease to remember you, but then I can find some place
where I can cease to remember in a way that I am myself. I shall never
try to forget you. Those two violets, you know--one I found near the
tennis court and the other you gave me, you remember--I shall take them
with me."

"Here," said the girl, tugging at her gown for a moment--"Here! Here's a
third one." She thrust a violet toward him.

"If you were not so serenely insolent," said Hawker, "I would think that
you felt sorry for me. I don't wish you to feel sorry for me. And I
don't wish to be melodramatic. I know it is all commonplace enough, and
I didn't mean to act like a tenor. Please don't pity me."

"I don't," she replied. She gave the violet a little fling.

Hawker lifted his head suddenly and glowered at her. "No, you don't," he
at last said slowly, "you don't. Moreover, there is no reason why you
should take the trouble. But----"

He paused when the girl leaned and peered over the arm of her chair
precisely in the manner of a child at the brink of a fountain. "There's
my violet on the floor," she said. "You treated it quite
contemptuously, didn't you?"

"Yes."

Together they stared at the violet. Finally he stooped and took it in
his fingers. "I feel as if this third one was pelted at me, but I shall
keep it. You are rather a cruel person, but, Heaven guard us! that only
fastens a man's love the more upon a woman."

She laughed. "That is not a very good thing to tell a woman."

"No," he said gravely, "it is not, but then I fancy that somebody may
have told you previously."

She stared at him, and then said, "I think you are revenged for my
serene insolence."

"Great heavens, what an armour!" he cried. "I suppose, after all, I did
feel a trifle like a tenor when I first came here, but you have chilled
it all out of me. Let's talk upon indifferent topics." But he started
abruptly to his feet. "No," he said, "let us not talk upon indifferent
topics. I am not brave, I assure you, and it--it might be too much for
me." He held out his hand. "Good-bye."

"You are going?"

"Yes, I am going. Really I didn't think how it would bore you for me to
come around here and croak in this fashion."

"And you are not coming back for a long, long time?"

"Not for a long, long time." He mimicked her tone. "I have the three
violets now, you know, and you must remember that I took the third one
even when you flung it at my head. That will remind you how submissive I
was in my devotion. When you recall the two others it will remind you of
what a fool I was. Dare say you won't miss three violets."

"No," she said.

"Particularly the one you flung at my head. That violet was certainly
freely--given."

"I didn't fling it at your head." She pondered for a time with her eyes
upon the floor. Then she murmured, "No more freely--given than the one I
gave you that night--that night at the inn."

"So very good of you to tell me so!"

Her eyes were still upon the floor.

"Do you know," said Hawker, "it is very hard to go away and leave an
impression in your mind that I am a fool? That is very hard. Now, you
do think I am a fool, don't you?"

She remained silent. Once she lifted her eyes and gave him a swift look
with much indignation in it.

"Now you are enraged. Well, what have I done?"

It seemed that some tumult was in her mind, for she cried out to him at
last in sudden tearfulness: "Oh, do go! Go! Please! I want you to go!"

Under this swift change Hawker appeared as a man struck from the sky. He
sprang to his feet, took two steps forward, and spoke a word which was
an explosion of delight and amazement. He said, "What?"

With heroic effort she slowly raised her eyes until, alight with anger,
defiance, unhappiness, they met his eyes.

Later, she told him that he was perfectly ridiculous.

