Mr. Smedley's Guest

THE Honorable B. Jerome Smedley was in a contented mood,—for him, to whom such moods came seldom. The great firm of Barlow Brothers & Co. had gone to the wall, drawing with it a score of lesser houses, and the business world had not yet recovered from the shock. Smedley’s bank had been advancing money to the firm for two years past, and the failure had resulted from his deliberate policy. That very morning, Barlow senior had accused him of ruining the house under the pretense of aiding it, and Smedley had smiled a self-depreciating smile, as though the honor were too great for his modest ability. He held mortgages covering every available asset of the firm, and already had perfected a plan for its reorganization under his own management. If it were not for the action of the leather trust, which had stiffened the price of hides materially, and the rumor of another disgraceful escapade on the part of his stepson, Mr. H. Stillwell Barker, Smedley believed he should have been quite happy. As it was, he was disposed to make the best of what he had, and for an hour or two, at least, to give himself up to the enjoyment of his present success.

He was seated at the dinner table, in company with his wife and stepdaughter, Miss Maude Barker, but so busy was he in mentally recounting the various steps in the reorganization of Barlow Brothers & Co. under the direction of the Smedley Improvement Co. that he hardly noticed the two ladies. They were going out for the evening, and as he and his wife had already had a difference of opinion over his declining to accompany them, the silence at the table was broken only by the subdued discussion between the mother and daughter of some detail in the latter’s costume.

Whether it was that Smedley had been out of his office and in the open air more than usual that day, or had been affected by the successful result of his labors in the direction of the Barlow Brothers & Co. assets, he had come to the dinner table with more than his customary appetite. It so frequently happened that he had little or no appetite that when the condition was reversed he indulged himself freely. He would have repudiated the assertion that he was not strong and hearty. He had commenced to grow somewhat rotund, and when obliged to walk up a flight of stairs he arrived at the top puffing and blowing badly. The gray hair had left the top of his head, and gathered around the sides and back, where it curled up in little waves to the height not covered by his hat. His face still had a hearty look, but the red in his cheeks seemed to be more mottled than formerly, and sometimes took on a purple hue. His wife had told him, on one occasion, when they had been discussing some family matter and his face had colored more fiercely than usual, that if he were not careful he would have apoplexy. His family physician, however, had assured him that it was only his liver, and had given him some medicine, which occasionally he took in a surreptitious manner, not wishing to attract his wife’s attention.

He leaned back in his chair now, and looked thoughtfully at the large, dark oil portrait of his wife’s father, the late Judge Stillwell, on the wall before him. The wife and daughter retired : the latter in silence ; the former with a remark that was intended to, and did, recall to his mind the entire course of her argument used to induce him to accompany them that evening. He said nothing. He had enjoyed his dinner, and he was in such a contented frame of mind that he did not wish to be forced into conversation. And he had learned long since that to answer certain remarks of his wife’s was to bring on discussions which frequently terminated by leaving him in an ill humor, and without affecting in the slightest degree the objects he had in view. So he sighed gently, and kept his eyes fixed steadily upon the countenance of his departed fatherin-law. When he was alone he called the butler, and sent him for a bottle of wine. It was not likely that Mrs. Smedley would return to the dining room, and, whether she did or not, he felt that he had fairly earned the right to enjoy the wine in peace. The successful result of the day’s work, the dinner he had eaten, and the fact that he would have several troublesome matters to take up and dispose of on the morrow united in convincing him that for the present he should permit himself an added pleasure. He was not going out that evening, and he would therefore remain where he was, and later, after the ladies of his household had departed, slip into the library, and finish the wine in the company of a cigar and a newspaper.

The wine came, and was sipped. The servant was dismissed, and again the large features of the deceased member of the state judiciary became the object of Smedley’s speculative gaze. He took his third glass of wine, settled a little more comfortably in his chair, and thought he heard the carriage drive up for his wife and daughter. He closed his eyes as he listened, and from the sound of the carriage wheels his mind traveled to other sounds and sights lying half hidden in the borderland of sleep, and then, still thinking busily, passed on into the darkness where dreams are born.

Ten minutes later he opened his eyes with a start, to find the butler standing before him with a card in his hand. He stared at the man for a moment, vainly trying to shake off the remnants of sleep and realize where he was. Then he freed himself, and as he did so gave the butler a suspicious glance, to discover whether the servant had seen that he was asleep. The butler’s face was unmoved, but as he delivered the card he looked a trifle embarrassed, and said : “ The gentlemun is at the door, sir.

'E insisted on comin’ to you at once. ’E said ’e was un ole friend, sir, quite one of the family, an’ ’twood be all right.”

Smedley glanced at the card and fumbled for his glasses, wondering, with his mind not yet fully cleared of the fog of sleep, how the butler had happened to make such an unusual departure from his routine. The man stepped over and brought the glasses out from under his master’s arm, where they had fallen during his brief nap. The act was done with the deferential tact of the well-trained servant, and Smedley was spared the slightest intimation that he was becoming stout and helpless. Before he could adjust the glasses the door opened, and he looked up. His guest had, indeed, followed closely upon the servant’s heels, and, giving Smedley but a moment in which to read his card, had entered the dining room in search of him.

Smedley gazed at the visitor with an expression which hardly concealed his open curiosity. The man was not tall, though his somewhat spare figure gave him that appearance. He was well preserved, and appeared to be a thoughtful, scholarly man, who had spent much of his life in the open air. Clearly not a laborer, he yet had about him something of the air of one accustomed to out-ofdoor work. But it was his face that most impressed Smedley. He was a good judge of character, and the face was one to attract attention from a person less skilled in reading men. It was a smooth, dark face, surmounted by a mass of iron-gray hair, — the face of a strong man, who had seen his full share of care and trouble ; but the lines about the mouth and eyes, and especially the eyes themselves, showed one who was at peace with himself and the world he lived in. All this Smedley felt rather than saw. What most impressed him was the striking resemblance the man bore to some one he had seen before. He felt that he must have known either this man or some one looking very much like him. The stranger smiled, his face lighting up with pleasure, and advanced with extended hand.

“ Of course you ’ll pardon me,” he said ; “ but I really could n’t bear to think of waiting to see you, so I came right in.”

His voice struck Smedley as familiar, and he decided that this was some one he had known and forgotten, a common occurrence in a life so varied and busy as his had been. He felt that it was too late to adjust his glasses and look at the card, so he put the best face he could upon the matter, and pushed back his chair. The butler assisted him, and he rose to his feet.

“ Yes,” he replied, shaking hands with the visitor, and noting that, though plainly dressed, he had the air and appearance of a person of no mean standing in his own world, “ I ’m glad you did n’t wait. I just stopped after dinner to take a little wine. My wife and daughter have gone out, I think ; so if you will come into the library, I can make you quite at home.”

He told the butler to bring another bottle of wine and some cigars, and, carelessly slipping the visitor’s card into his pocket, led the way into the other part of the house.

“ Do you know, I believe I should have recognized your face anywhere,” remarked Smedley, when they were seated. There was something very taking about his guest, and he warmed to him instinctively.

“ It’s hardly to be wondered at, I suppose,” answered the stranger, with the same winning smile. “ And I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you so comfortably situated here. It must be some compensation, I should think.”

Smedley thought this remark a trifle uncalled for. Still, his guest had the air of a Westerner, and was probably accustomed to unconventional forms of intercourse ; and then, plenty of people could imagine the cares and trials that Smedley’s large business interests imposed upon him. It did not follow that reference was being made to his wife and her children. Anyway, it was impossible to be offended with this frank, honest, pleasant gentleman, who seemed to know him so well.

“ Yes, it is,” said Smedley, glancing about the room with satisfaction. “ I took quite a little pleasure in arranging the house, though it was altered a good deal after my wife came to see it. I really enjoy my country place out at Shady Grove better. It’s an ideal retreat. I planned it before I was married for a sort of bachelor quarters ; but since Shady Grove has become a fashionable place, we — that is, ray wife and her daughter — spend considerable time there.”

Smedley was busily going over in his mind all the old acquaintances he thought he had forgotten, in an effort to identify the stranger. After his own apparent recognition he could not make up his mind to ask him his name, and the longer he delayed the more impossible the question became.

“ Do you know,” he remarked, by way of edging around toward something that would enlighten him, “ you remind me strongly of my brother.”

“ Your brother George, you mean ? ” inquired the other. “Will was too young when he died for me to resemble him much, I suppose. Yes, I think I do look like George. I think it’s hardly to be wondered at, being a — a relative, as I am.”

“ A relative ! ” said Smedley to himself, more puzzled than before.

“ When — when did you see George for the last time ? ” He asked, deciding to plunge after a clue.

“ Oh, I was with him when he died,” answered his companion. And Smedley, glancing up quickly, noticed his veteran’s bronze button. His brother had been killed at Gettysburg. The stranger’s face took on a tender look, as his eyes traveled back to the scene he spoke of. “ It was during the cannonading that preceded Pickett’s charge,” he said. “We were ordered up to strengthen the line that was meeting the attack, and it was then I found him. They had dragged him into a fence corner, and he was dying there, all alone, when I came upon him. I have always been thankful I was privileged to be there at that time. He recognized me, though he could n’t say much, and he died with his head on my knee.”

The speaker’s eyes moistened, and Smedley felt something stirring in his breast.

“You — you — I ’m very glad I ’ve had a chance to see you,” he said earnestly. “ I’m glad some one — you — were there. I used to have a sort of guilty feeling about my brother’s death. I’m glad to know, even after all these years, that he was n’t alone when he died. He was younger than I, you know, and always seemed to depend upon me, somehow ” — He checked himself. “ Let me see ; what regiment were you in ? ” he asked.

“ The Sixty-Ninth,” said the stranger.

“ Oh yes. Of course. My old regiment.” And Smedley stopped as he saw the blunder he had made. This, then, was an old comrade. “ You were promoted after I was transferred, were n’t you ? ” That certainly was a safe remark.

“Yes,” replied the other. “I was made a major after you secured that place in the Commissary Department, at Washington. You were transferred in ’62, I think. That was really where we parted.” (Smedley was trying to recall the majors of the Sixty-Ninth.) “You remember the colonel,” continued the guest, — “ old Plimmer ? He lost his leg on the first day at Gettysburg.”

“ And then you ” —

“ Yes, I had charge of the men after that. I stayed with them until the Wilderness.”

“ Were you with them when they made that great stand during the first day there,” asked Smedley, “ when they were all cut up ? ”

“ Yes,” answered the other quietly. “ I received a brevet for that; but my wound did n’t heal rapidly, and I could n’t get back again until it was all over.”

“ Then you must have known Furner,” remarked the host, still trying to discover the man’s identity without disclosing his own ignorance. “ Furner took my company after I left, and was in command of the regiment during the last campaign. He was in charge when they did that great fighting on the first day in the Wilderness.”

“ I was in command there,” said the stranger quietly. “ He took my place the next day, after I was wounded.”

Smedley knew well that Furner had been in command on that day. Only last fall he had heard Furner’s war record eulogized in a political campaign speech, with a detailed description of how Furner, and Furner alone, had rallied the remnant of the regiment, and held the entire rebel right wing in check. “ Saved the Union right there,” Furner’s advocate had declared. Smedley looked at his guest. The stranger’s face was as calm as a child’s. If the man was telling what was untrue, he was doing so in perfect innocence; there was no question as to that. Smedley was too keen a judge of men, and he already had too sympathetic a feeling for this man’s moods, to be deceived. The man was uttering what he felt to be the truth. And now the question came again, Who was this man ?

The guest continued to talk of the war days and the old regiment, and Smedley listened with a growing feeling of interest in him. He could not understand the influence this man exerted over him. It was something he had never experienced before. He felt that the stranger thoroughly understood him, and that in some degree he himself was in sympathy with his guest. The butler entered with the wine and cigars. The visitor declined the wine, but lighted a cigar.

“ Maybe you ’d prefer whiskey ? ” suggested Smedley, pausing as he filled his own glass. “ I always like port after dinner, myself. Oh, you don’t drink ? Strange, for an old soldier. Teetotaler, are you ? ”

“ It’s more a matter of taste with me,” answered the other quietly. “ Most people have an aversion for certain kinds of food and drink, you know, and I dislike liquor. And, of course,” he added, looking thoughtfully at Smedley as he sipped his wine, “there is, with some temperaments, the danger of excess.”

Smedley set down his glass. He was not offended at any insinuation the remark might contain. It was impossible to be offended with this man. But he remembered that his wife, with whom it was not impossible to be offended, had made much the same observation. He changed the subject.

“ What have you been doing since the war ? ” he asked. He was interested in this old friend, even though for the moment he did not know his name.

“ Oh, I have followed up the start you gave me,” said his guest. “You made a very good beginning; better, I have been inclined to think, than you or any one else guessed at the time. Just now I am at work on a new edition of my poems. I have n’t published anything in the way of a collection in ten or fifteen years. The last volume contained my earlier work, and some of the best of yours.”

“Eh! ” exclaimed Smedley, in surprise.

“ Yes,” continued the other, in the most natural manner. “ I included a number of your verses. My Lady’s Glove, The Old Bridge, and The Cloud were the best of them. You remember The Cloud? You wrote it during the summer of ’59, when you were out at the old farm. I consider it really one of the best in the collection. I have hardly surpassed it, I think, in the best of my own more mature work.”

Smedley gasped. A rush of old memories came over him, and he saw his youth again. He saw the old home, the old friends, and the old occupations, and remembered, for the first time in years, the crude, boyish verses he used to scribble in the idle days when home from college. His surprise that this man should have known of those youthful verses, and have used them in a book of his own, was lost in the greater surprise that any of them should have been deemed worthy of preservation.

“ You take little interest in poetry now, I fancy,” said the visitor, with a peculiar smile.

“ No-o,” answered Smedley slowly.

“ I find hardly any time for it. My daughter, Miss Barker, makes rather a fad of it. She admires the modern poets, — the dialect ones, you know. But I never see much in them, myself. Those that are n’t unintelligible seem to be using their lines to write editorials that could be done better by the newspapers.

I’m obliged to confess that I 'm not very familiar with your work.”

“ Yes, I suppose that is to be expected,” said the other; and Smedley tried* in vain to fathom the meaning of his peculiar smile.

“You find it pays?” he inquired. “ There’s money in it ? ”

“ I find it ‘ pays ’ me,” replied his companion, slightly emphasizing the last word. “ There would n’t be money enough in it for you ; but tastes differ.

As for that, it used to ‘ pay ’ me, as you call it, in the early days, when I had to work at something else to earn my bread. It is my life, you know, and one does n’t estimate his life by the number of dollars he gets for it.”

Smedley felt that he had been gently rebuked, and was silent, emptying his glass in an absent, preoceupied manner.

“ I declare,” said the visitor suddenly, “ I nearly forgot my wife. I told her I would come around here and get you to come over to the house. I’ve been so interested in visiting with you that it nearly slipped my mind. She is very anxious to see you.”

“ Oh, do you live here ? ” asked Smedley.

“We have been staying in town for some time past,” he answered. “ My publishers are here, and I found it more convenient to be near by while my book was being brought out. Our home is in Michigan. Don’t refuse,” he urged, as Smedley began to frame an apology. “ We shall hardly have another chance to be together. My wife is very anxious to see you again.”

Smedley hesitated. “Your wife was ” —

“ Oh, did n’t you know ? She was Mary Alden.”

“ Indeed,” exclaimed Smedley, his face lighting up, “ I should very much like to see her again ! Why, do you know,” with a little laugh, “ I think she came very near being my wife. I always thought that if I’d gone home, when I got that leave of absence in the summer of ’62, I should have married her, or at least have tried to. But I went to Washington instead, and spent most of the time in pulling wires for that place in the Commissary Department. I never saw her again. How long ago it seems! Has she changed much ? ”

“ Much less than you have,” said the stranger, rising to accompany him.

On the street Smedley returned to the subject. “ I heard in a roundabout way that she went West after the war, and died there. I had always supposed she never married.”

“ You did n’t return to the old home after the war? ” inquired his companion.

“No. I was pretty busy then. You see, I had left the service, and was getting contracts for government supplies. I had a good many irons in the fire, and could n’t get away. That was where I got my first start in a financial way, you know. We did n’t correspond very regularly during the last years of the war. I was traveling about quite a little, and so — finally we ceased writing.”

They walked on in silence.

“ She was quite my ideal of what a woman ought to be,” remarked Smedley, in a retrospective tone, half to himself.

“ She is mine still,” said his companion. “All that I am I owe to her.”

“ I don’t wonder at it,” replied Smedley earnestly. “ How time changes us! ” he added. “ Now at one time I thought I was in love with her. I dare say I did love her as much as a boy can love a girl. But I was an impulsive sort of a chap in those days.”

“ I think that was one thing that made her love you as she did.”

“ Did she love me ? ” inquired the old gentleman. “ Well, well, I never — that is, I did n’t really believe she thought much of me. Still, my going off to the war that way might have made her care for me more than”— He was silent, his mind busy with the pictures his words had conjured up out of the past.

“ Her family were rather inferior people,” said his companion, “ though they were self-respecting enough. They had no wealth or position, you know.”

“No, that’s so,” answered Smedley more briskly. “ And, of course, in those days I was hardly in a position to marry, anyway.” And they walked on in silence.

The house into which Smedley’s companion introduced him had been rented ready furnished, but it contained artistic touches that gave Smedley a higher opinion of the culture of its occupants. There was about it, also, a homelike air which he had never found in his own house. He was strangely moved when his companion’s wife came forward to greet him. The beautiful face of the girl he had known was gone, but in its place was the face of a mature woman who had grown beautiful through a life of loving service to her husband and children. The brown hair was getting a little gray about the temples, time had left loving marks on the face, and the laughter in the blue eyes had given place to a steadier, more thoughtful expression.

“I — I am very glad to meet you again,” said Smedley, taking her hand.

She smiled quite in her old way, yet with something so calm and restful about the greeting that Smedley guessed where her husband had acquired his notably peaceful manner.

“ I thought we might never meet,” she answered. “ It is indeed a great pleasure.”

She glanced from his face to that of her husband, and back again, as though comparing them. She sighed a little, and Smedley thought there was something of pity in the look she gave him.

“ You enjoy it,” she asked, — “ your present life ? ”

“ Oh yes,” replied Smedley, thinking of the affairs of Barlow Brothers &Co. “ It keeps me pretty busy, of course, and I don’t have much time for reading and that sort of thing,”— he cast his eyes over the array of books in the room, — “ but I find I don’t miss it so much as I used to suppose I should. One’s tastes change with time, I think.”

“ Yes, indeed,” she said, giving him that peculiar look again. “ And your home life,” she inquired, as they seated themselves, — “ that is pleasant ? ” How like her old way of questioning him !

“ Quite so,” he said a little stiffly. “ Of course, I am not at home much of the time, and my wife and her daughter go out a good deal. My stepson does — does not live at home. I don’t go into society much myself, though. I find I’m a little tired at the end of the day, and I usually stop at home or stay down at the club.”

She asked him about old friends whose names and faces he supposed he had forgotten, and she told him of many of whom he had lost track. Yes, she informed him, they had three children living. He must have heard of their son, who was winning a name as a lawyer in Chicago. One daughter was married, she told him, and the other, the youngest of the family, was with them. The lady had been looking over the proof sheets of the volume of poems her husband had mentioned, and they were scattered about on the table.

“ How do you like Bertram’s poems ? ” she asked.

Smedley knew in a vague way that Bertram was considered one of the leading American poets. He had heard his stepdaughter speak of him many times, and believed that his poems had been the subject of study by the members of her literary club. The question was quite like the stereotyped phrases he had heard in society. He himself had never read any of the man’s work, and was inclined to rate him with the other uninteresting writers of weak verse.

“ I really know little about his work,” he answered. “ My daughter professes to be quite fond of his poems, but, as I said, I have so little time for reading that I don’t pretend to keep up with current literature. I have to read the newspapers, but, aside from a magazine or two, that’s about all the reading I do.”

His careless tone seemed to hurt her, and he saw the same look of mingled regret and pity that she had given him before.

“ I dare say he’s better than many of them,” added Smedley, thinking his tone might have jarred on her finer feelings. “ I have really thought of getting a copy of his poems and looking them over. It’s so difficult to judge from hearsay.”

She turned to her husband. “ Why, he does n’t know,” she said ; and her look seemed one of regret, not that he was ignorant, but that he was content to remain so.

“ Mary was referring to me,” explained his host. “ I usually write under the name ‘ Bertram.’ But she was speaking of me by my own name, without thinking you were unfamiliar with it.”

“ Then you — you are the ‘ Bertram ’ we hear so much about ? ” asked Smedley, in astonishment.

“ Yes,” replied the other quietly. “ You always signed your verses and early letters 'Bertram,’ you know. I see you have dropped the first name, of late years. I kept up the custom, and have signed most of my later work in the same way.”

Smedley’s astonishment gave place to embarrassment at finding that his friend was “ the great Bertram,” as his daughter would say. Glancing toward the piano, he changed the subject by asking if his hostess still played. “Your playing used to have a great charm for me,” he remarked.

She smiled and shook her head. “ I have given that up,” she said. “ But I will have my daughter come and play for you. I think I heard her come in just now. I should like you to see her. Bertram thinks she looks much as I used to when we were young together.”

She stepped out, and returned in a few moments, followed by a young girl about eighteen years of age.

“ This is my daughter Mary, Mr. Smedley,” she said.

The old gentleman rose to his feet, and gazed at the girl with a strange look in his eyes. For a moment the years seemed to have rolled away, and there before him stood the girl he had known in his youth: the same waving brown hair and deep blue eyes, the same beautiful face and graceful young figure, and, more than all, the same familiar air ; the pose of the head and the expression in the eyes, the smile, the bow with which she greeted him, — all, all were the same. Smedley’s eyes moistened. He turned to her mother. “ She is very like you,” he said ; and then to the daughter, “ My dear, I am very happy to meet you.”

He kept his eyes upon her and followed her movement across the room; and later, when she had seated herself at the piano and commenced to play, he crossed over and turned the music for her. She seemed to know he would like old songs the best, and, taking up a wellworn, old-fashioned song book, which she explained had been her mother’s, she played and sang several of the gentle, sweet, old-time melodies that were linked in his mind with the days that were gone. The old songs, sung by a clear, youthful voice that he remembered so well, the sight of the old book whose pages he had so often turned before, and, more than all, the presence of the fresh young creature at his side made him feel for the time that he really was a boy again. He wiped his eyes quietly when he took his seat, and his voice broke a little as he tried to thank her for the music.

Then the three older people sat and talked of the past, and the girl, still seated at the piano, listened with interest, and occasionally, at the suggestion of her mother, played or sang a verse or two ; the music, to the ears of the guest, seeming to come directly out of the past. It was with genuine regret that he found himself obliged to leave. The peaceful air of the little family circle no less than the half-sad memories of the past had moved him more deeply than he had supposed possible. For two hours he had entirely forgotten his business and his family, and during all that time he had not once recalled the fact that he was ignorant of his host’s name. The poet insisted upon walking back with him.

“ I must see you again,” said Smedley to his hostess, pausing at the door as he took his leave. “ You must ” — he smothered the thought of possible opposition from his wife and daughter — “ you must come and see me at my home. I ’ll have my wife invite you to dinner.” He was ignorant of the way his wife would make this lady’s acquaintance, but a dinner always appealed to him.

“ Thank you very much,” answered his hostess. “ I’m afraid we cannot have that happiness. I do not suppose we shall meet again. This has been a great pleasure. I am so glad to have seen you, to have seen that you were — a — doing so well. I wish that we might see each other oftener, that we might — But there, we need not look at what is not and cannot be. Think only of this evening. I hope you will not forget it or forget us.”

“ I shall never forget you and your husband,” replied Smedley earnestly. “ But why ” —

“ I can explain that on the way back,” said the poet.

“ Good-night,” said Smedley to the lady, “ and, if I must say it now, goodby.” He took her hand and bent low over it in the courteous style of other days, and there were tears in his eyes when he turned away and joined his companion.

The poet did not speak at first, and Smedley felt better pleased with silence. After a time, as they walked on, his friend called attention to the moon, which swung high over the city streets, and seemed sailing through masses of golden cloud. “ Even here,” he said gently, “ where everything is so artificial, one can find the beauties of nature by simply looking up.” But Smedley’s mind was too busy with the events of the evening to heed what he said.

When they reached the house, his companion would have paused at the door, but Smedley urged him to step inside. Preceding him into the hall, he noticed that the dining-room door was ajar. He opened it and looked in. A single electric globe dimly lighted the apartment, and Smedley saw the halfemptied bottle on the table, at his plate. His chair was still pushed back from its place. Evidently, the servants had not been in the room since he left. He crossed over to the table, and laid his hand on the bottle.

“ It’s still cold,” he said, in some surprise. “ Won’t you have — Oh, I forgot. You don’t care for wine. Well, if you ’ll pardon me,” — he poured out a glass, — “I ’ll take a little myself. You see, I ’m so shut up in the office that I don’t get much exercise, and that was quite a walk. Really, I feel more tired than I thought.”

He seated himself in the chair, drew a long breath, and, resting his elbow on the table, held up the wineglass before his eye.

“I’m sorry you ’re to leave town so soon,” he remarked, sipping a little and setting the glass down. “ I want to see more of you. I’ve never enjoyed an evening so much in my life.”

“ It was like my wife to wish you not to forget us,” said his companion, standing near the door, ready to depart. “ But it seems to me you would do better not to take her too seriously. I think you would better forget us ; forget me, at any rate. You see, I could not but interfere with your business, and, though I don’t know the trend of your thoughts and ambitions, at the best I must exert on you what I might call a weakening influence. It seems that it must be so. At all events, don’t be led to vain regret. I can’t say there’s danger,” — he smiled modestly, — “ but, whatever may remain to you of our meeting, apply it to the future, not to the past. For the future, you know, is all we have. We ourselves are held by the past; we hold only the future. Good-night.”

“ Stop ! ” cried Smedley. “ Don’t go yet. I—I want to thank you. You have given me a great pleasure this evening. Leave me your address. I must not lose track of you. I must write to you. If we cannot meet again, we can ” —

“No,” responded the other, “ it will be impossible. It is better so, I think.” He approached the chair and held out his hand. “ Good-by.”

“ Good-by,” said Smedley, and then added : “ Do you know, I don’t remember your real name. I ” —

“ Ah ! ” exclaimed the guest. “ I thought once or twice you seemed hardly to understand. You have my card ? ” Smedley took it from his pocket, and felt for his glasses. Not finding them, he turned to his friend. “ You are ” — “ Bertram J. Smedley,” answered the poet quietly.

Smedley frowned, and looked at him with a puzzled expression. “ I don’t understand,” he said.

“ I am the man you might have been,” replied his companion.

“ No, no. No joking,” insisted Smedley. “ That would make you a myth. You are real. You are alive, you know.” He took a bit of the other’s coat sleeve between his thumb and finger, as though testing the quality of the cloth. “ That would be quite absurd,” he said.

“ It is true,” declared the visitor, retiring. “ Good-night.”

Smedley gazed after him, saw him pass out and close the door behind him, and sat looking at the door until he heard the outer hall door open and close. He felt dazed. He could not understand it. He glanced at the card in his hand. That, at all events, was real. He fumbled for his glasses again. Then the door opened, and, glancing up, he saw his wife enter. She was in evening dress, with an opera cloak over her shoulders.

“ You here still ! ” she said somewhat sharply. “ I should think you would be ashamed of yourself. This is too bad. I believe you have n’t stirred from that chair since dinner. I hope you have n’t drunk all the wine that’s gone from that bottle. You look as though you’d been asleep.”

“ I have had a caller,” explained Smedley. “ I have spent the evening with him.”

But his wife looked skeptical. “ In the dining room ? ” she inquired. “ Who was he ? ”

Smedley found his glasses and adjusted them. “ His name was ” — He glanced at the card and stopped. The name on the card was “ B. Jerome Smedley.”

E. S. Chamberlayne.