His Daughter First

X.

IT was natural for Dolly to lean. When her course was plain she went her way resolutely, but she was not one to grapple with uncertainties or hew a path through perplexities with instant decisions. She loved straight roads. At the crossways she faltered. Her natural instincts were so simple, and generally so true, that complexity of any kind took her by surprise. She was continually looking at life as it ought to be, and continually finding cause for indignation that it was otherwise. Her own had been so free from obstacles that when they presented themselves in an uncompromising form she recoiled. She had appealed to Paul, but he had not convinced her. Before taking any step she always wanted everything perfectly plain and clear, — as few things ever are. It was this longing for a straight road out of perplexity that impelled her to seek counsel, and she still felt that desire for companionship which leads the patient to surround himself with friends upon going to an operation he knows he must in the end face alone. If we could only take chloroform for difficult tasks and wake to find them done!

On the slightest provocation she would have unbosomed herself to Margaret, in the vague hope that Margaret would see some course she could not discern herself. But dear as Margaret was to her, she did not invite confidences of this sort. The more Dolly reflected on Paul’s advice to speak to Jack the less it commended itself to her. She felt that it was with Mabel she had to do, not with Jack; and while Paul was inspecting Cecil’s guns in the billiardroom, this thought took concrete form.

She was still bending over her desk when he came back, and the distress in her blue eyes as she looked up at him caused him to stoop and kiss her. He knew what she was thinking of.

“I wish I could help you, Dolly dear,” he said.

She folded the sheet on which she had been writing, and answered him with a smile.

“I am not going to take your advice, Paul; but what you said has suggested something which I think is better. I love Mr. Temple, — so much more than I thought.” Her voice was low, but her eyes bright with conviction. “I am going to see Mabel.”

“To see Mabel? ”

“Yes. If I cannot conquer her before I cannot expect to afterwards.”

Paul thought for a moment. The implication in Dolly’s “before” and “afterwards ” amused him.

“And if you do not conquer her? ”

“I shall, ” said Dolly. Decision had brought relief and the courage of action.

“Do you mean you are going to New York ? ”

“No, I shall ask her here.”

Paul inwardly approved of fighting battles on one’s own ground, but did not say so.

“Suppose she declines? ”

“I do not think she will,” replied Dolly slowly.

“Do you mean you have any reason for thinking so ? ”

“Only a woman’s reason. I want you to be very nice to her, Paul, and to forget what I have told you.”

“Of course I shall be nice to her, for your sake. But I should like to give her a good shaking. She deserves to be told how desperately mean and selfish she is, how utterly unwarranted and impertinent her interference has been, and made to realize what consequences it might have had, —and may have yet.”

“Then you approve of my plan?” Dolly said after a pause.

“ Why yes, I approve of it; I approve of anything except sitting still and being ridden over. As I told you last night, I should have gone straight to Jack, ” — Dolly shook her head, — “ but you are perhaps the best judge of that. You may be sure of one thing though, Dolly, — that I shall not see Jack Temple again without being tempted to tell him the whole story, and put him out of misery. You think it would pain him to know about Mabel. What’s that, against the happiness of knowing you love him! ”

“Misery? ” repeated Dolly.

“Well, I should call it misery to be told by the woman I loved that she did n’t care for me.”

“Would you, Paul? ”

“Certainly I should,” he said, going to the window and drumming on the pane impatiently.

Dolly looked at him as he stood with his back toward her and smiled inscrutably.

“Would you like to read my note? ” she asked at length.

Paul turned and took the folded sheet from her outstretched hand.

My dear Mabel (it began): I am inviting a few friends for the Christmas holidays to Cedar Hill. It would please me very much if you would be among them, with Miss Gaunt. My cousin Mr. Graham is with me now, and Margaret’s mother. I am not asking your father, for this is to be a young people’s party, and if there are any among your friends whom you would like me to invite, do give me the pleasure of adding them to my list.

Sincerely yours,
DOROTHY KENSETT.

“I don’t believe she will come, ” said Paul tersely.

“We shall see.”

“What do you propose to say to her? ” he asked, handing back the note.

“I don’t know yet — that is, I know what I shall say, but not how I shall say it.”

And then Mrs. Frazer came in with her solitaire and began to spread the cards on the large library table.

Mabel found Dolly’s note beside her plate at the breakfast-table. She was late, as she usually was on all occasions, being one of those who avail themselves of every day or minute of grace. She recognized the handwriting on the envelope at once with a secret flutter of excitement, — was it to be peace or war ? — and honored the pale blue missive from Cedar Hill by selecting it from among her other letters for first perusal. She read it through twice carefully, and decided that it was war. Its friendly tone did not deceive her an instant. Mrs. Kensett was not stupid, and could by no possibility have misunderstood her. She handed it carelessly to Helen, and asked her if she would like to go. Jack, who had finished his breakfast, was buried in the morning paper.

“It is very nice of Mrs. Kensett to invite us so soon again, ” said Mabel, who seemed to forget that Helen had not gone before.

“Very,” said Helen; and then, after a momentary hesitation, “Shall you go, Mabel?”

“Go? of course. We had great fun there the last time. Besides, I want to see the South African.”

Helen was bewildered and said nothing. She entirely disapproved of Mabel’s conduct, but she could not help a certain guilty admiration for her easy self-confidence in a matter which, had she herself dared the same interference, would have cost her endless tears and anxiety. She had encountered at the very outset Mabel’s air of indulgent superiority. At first it had amused her, but as the child grew into the woman it annoyed her. It was not a malicious or supercilious assumption, and so did not positively hurt, but it did often produce in her that disagreeable feeling of not being at her best. She had not resented it, chiefly because Mabel did not entertain the slightest idea of possible opposition, but the mere consciousness of Mabel’s stronger will embarrassed her when there was no other cause for embarrassment whatever.

“Papa,” remonstrated Mabel, “do put down your paper. Mrs. Kensett has asked Helen and me to a Christmas party at Cedar Hill. Here is her note. ”

Jack read it and said Mrs. Kensett was very kind. It was the same comment which Mabel herself had just made, but Helen observed that a faint smile of mingled amusement, pity, and scorn passed over Mabel’s face.

“I don’t like to leave you all alone, papa dear, ” Mabel said doubtfully.

“I would much rather have you go than not,” was his reply. “Would you,” thought Helen, “if you knew? ” “I shall take the opportunity to go down to the Island and see the Vixen. The skipper says she needs a lot of overhauling.”

“Whom would you ask Mrs. Kensett to invite, papa ? ”

“Oh, I leave that to you, as she did. ”

“Suggest some one, Helen,” said Mabel.

Helen thought for a moment. “There is Florence Wilson ” —

Mabel made a pout of decided disapproval.

“We can ask one man and one girl, don’t you think so, papa? There is plenty of room at Cedar Hill.”

“I should write Mrs. Kensett that in sending any names you are carrying out her own suggestion, but that ” —

“Certainly, certainly,” Mabel broke in.

“How about Spencer Willis? ” suggested Jack. “He’s a nice fellow.”

“I think he is horrid!” exclaimed Mabel.

Jack laughed. He did not mind how horrid she thought him. “Settle it among yourselves, then,” he said, “it is not my party. But I must be off.”

He stooped to kiss her before going. “Good-by, dear. Good-morning, Miss Gaunt.”

“I tell you whom we will ask,” said Mabel when the door was closed; “Mr. Heald and Constance Montrevel. She’s tremendously amusing with her little snub nose and French accent. Will you please write for me, Helen? No, on second thought, I wall write myself. It will be more polite. You are n’t eating any thing this morning, Helen. Pass me the rolls, please.”

No, Helen was not eating anything. She was feeling miserably. It was all very well when Mabel was a little girl to tamper with the Dresden clock and tease Lady Bess, but it was quite another thing, having reached years of discretion, to trifle so light-heartedly with serious things. Moreover, she had an appointment for that afternoon of which she had said nothing to Mabel. Why, she knew well. There was an exhibition at the Academy, and Mr. Heald had asked her to go with him. He had called Thursday, and Mabel, in her most capricious mood, had been alternately alluring and elusive. Sometimes she believed Mabel had no heart at all, and at others a chance word or generous mood reversed this estimate, and made her feel there was a very big heart slumbering under the surface and biding its time. Mabel’s treatment of Mr. Heald had mystified her. She had a good deal to say against him. That was not to the point, but rather that she talked of him at all. She always gave him the dances he asked for, and he had led the cotillion with her at the Wendells’. Now she had secured his invitation to Cedar Hill. At one time Helen had been sure Mabel cared for him, and this had caused her no little anxiety; for while there was nothing clandestine in their meetings, Mr. Heald was not then a caller at Gramercy Park nor a friend of Mr. Temple’s. Mabel had never given her any clue to her real feelings, and she had never dared to question her.

But this was not what made Helen miserable. Lately, and for the first time in all her relations with Mabel’s friends, Mr. Heald had in some indefinable way made her feel that he was looking at her over Mabel’s shoulder; that there was something between them, something no one knew, — what, she did not know herself, — but something, — something which made the one waltz she gave him more than all the dances he had on Mabel’s card, and sent her to bed after the Wendells’ ball with a fluttering joy in her heart which made her close her eyes to shut out what she did not dare to see. And when they were shut she had the most extravagant and improbable dreams, of independence and freedom from all the luxury that was not her own, of surprising the family in Boston with a tremendous piece of news, of turning the last page of the book of being nobody, of having something of her own, her very own, — and then her heart leaped and her eyes opened wide in the darkness, and she turned over on her pillow and tried to persuade herself that she was very silly.

With the morning light the dream moved a little farther into the background, but it was still there. She took a new interest in the most insignificant things, above all in herself, in the long hair she was brushing before the mirror, in the face looking back at her, beyond which, in the mirror’s depths, was the dream.

It was Monday. Mr. Heald had called Thursday. She had known he would, for she had heard him ask permission on the night of the opera. To Mr. Temple he had said “on your daughter, ” but that was not what the words meant to her. And he had asked her to meet him to-day at the Academy, and she had consented. She was pouring tea for Mabel, as she usually did. He had said nothing to her — indeed, she had avoided him — until he asked her for a cup of tea. But his presence, in the room even, made her nervous. She knew he was coming, just as a dozen others had come during the afternoon, — yet not as the others, — and her voice trembled when she asked him the conventional “Cream or lemon? " She did not remember now which it had been. He had put her quite at her ease, however, and they had talked about Boston, the new Public Library, and the Puvis de Chavannes frescoes, and so of the pictures at the Academy.

And then she had promised to go.

What troubled her now was that she had not said anything to Mabel. She was not obliged to consult her about her comings and goings, but she always had. Why not now ? She had the guilty conscience of concealment, and of stepping into Mabel’s place. Still she had kept silence. To admit any obligation to tell Mabel where she was going, that it would be more fair-minded, would be to admit a great deal more than she was prepared to. In the sunlight the dream had almost faded out of sight. Yet she was miserable. Objects which disappear in a glare of sun are not annihilated.

What did he mean by making automatons speak? All the significance of that sentence was in its tone, and his manner Thursday afternoon at the teatable had been quite natural and ordinary. The recollection of this was like a draft of cold air. But that lasted only a second. She knew, and she went to the Academy for the sheer joy of knowing more.

She dressed herself with unusual care. Mabel had told her that her hat with the black plumes was the most becoming one she had ever had; so she wore that, with a dress of soft dove gray, and a turquoise star set in diamonds Mr. Temple had given her Christmas. She did not look twenty-nine, and she did not feel so.

She told Mabel she was going out for a walk. They were going to a dance that evening, and Mabel was lying down.

“Remember the Bishop is coming to dinner to-night,” Mabel called out to her as she closed the door.

It was early and she walked through to Broadway to consume time, looking in at the shop windows. It seemed as if every one who looked at her knew where she was going. Turning into Twenty-third Street her heart began to beat. Then she told herself she was a little fool, and quickening her pace went up the steps, pushed, aside the green baize door, and went in.

The Exhibition had been open for some weeks, and there were but few persons present. No one whom she knew. She walked through the first room and turned into a side one. There was no one there except a little old, near-sighted man with his nose in the catalogue. She sat down on the circular seat in the centre of the room and waited. The thought that he might not come occurred to her, first as a relief, then, as the minutes went by, with a dull pain. There was a large picture on the opposite wall representing a procession in the streets of old Rome, — perhaps a general returning from Gaul or Parthia with his victorious legions, erect in his chariot behind four prancing horses, and preceded by slim young girls in floating draperies, dancing and strewing flowers The sunlight was so strong, the tones so clear, the atmosphere of joy and triumph and force so real, that it created a sort of illusion, making the room seem dingy, the streets she had just walked commonplace, and life sordid and mean. She had bought a catalogue in the vestibule, and she opened it in search of the explanation, when a voice behind her said: —

“Ah, here you are. What do you think of the pictures ? ”

“I have just come.”

“And I have been looking for you everywhere. ”

She had been startled after all, and her cheeks were hot with color. His eyes were full of admiration, and no wonder. There was something just short of beauty in her face, something charming and appealing, a perfect foil to Mabel’s imperiousness.

“ Have you ? I came directly here, and then this picture fascinated me. I was trying to find it in the catalogue.”

“ You have stumbled on the worst one in the whole collection.”

“The worst?” She looked up at him inquiringly.

“Not the worst painted, —I think it is the best, — but the worst ethically.”

He had thrown her off her guard and interested her.

“Ethically? ” she repeated.

“Yes, the triumph of brute force, the saturnalia of victory.”

“I like it. I don’t understand you.”

“No, you were not moralizing, you were feeling. ”

“Yes.”

“Listening to the songs of joy. Any kind of intense joy is uplifting.”

“Yes.”

“And it made modern humdrum New York, teas and dances and receptions, all the petty round, seem commonplace and shabby.”

“Yes, that is what I was thinking.”

“I don’t wonder. It is commonplace and tiresome.”

“I didn’t suppose you would think so, ” she said, looking up into his face again with interested sincerity.

He laughed. “Well, you must n’t tell. You are the only one who knows it.”

“But you do.”

“Decidedly. And so do you.”

“I hadn’t thought of it before,” she said, turning to the picture again.

“No one knows what one really thinks, or feels, till a picture, a something, — or a somebody, — comes to tell us. Then the curtain of the commonplace we have been staring at contentedly rolls up and the real play begins.”

Her eyes went back to his, smiling. “Oh, but that is the play, the illusion.”

“Aren’t illusions better than most realities ? ”

“No, —not real illusions.”

He laughed again. “You like best the illusions that turn out to be realities. So do I.”

She laughed too. “You are talking nonsense now,” she said.

“No, I was only asking you not to ring down the curtain. We shall be back in New York again soon enough.”

“Yes,” she said. “The Bishop is coming to dinner, and we are going out this evening.”

“To the Wendells’ ? ”

“Yes. It’s their last dance. They are going abroad.”

So am I. ”

“Are you? ” She started imperceptibly and looked up at him.

“To the Wendells’, not abroad. I wish I were.”

There was silence, and Helen, looking intently down the long Roman street, saw her dream advancing beyond the dancing feet and waving hands, the rods of the lictors and the soldiers’ helmets. And then something daring flashed upon her, and the silence pushed her on, and she took the leap.

“If teas and receptions and balls bore you ” —

“I didn’t say they bored me. I said they disgusted me.”

“It’s the same thing.”

“No, it’s not the same thing, it ’s more. But it’s true. They do. You were saying ” —

She had been going to retreat. His question brought her back.

“That I know of one ordeal before you of which you are ignorant.”

“Really? ”

She was laughing again now, looking at him over her muff.

“Yes. You are going to a house party at Mrs. Kensett’s.”

“How do you know?” he asked, surprised.

“Because I do.”

“I shall not be bored by that,” he said, “but I am surprised. I haven’t seen Mrs. Kensett for an age, since last summer in fact. I don’t know why she should invite me.”

“ I did n’t say she had, as you say, ” said Helen maliciously.

“I don’t understand you, as you say,” he retorted.

She had taken the plunge and there was no retreat now.

“Mrs. Kensett asked Mabel to send her the names of some people she would like to have invited, and she sent yours.”

She endeavored to speak unconcernedly, but the steadiness of her voice was a forced one, and the eyes above her muff were shining. She was frightened now, and felt her face growing hot. If she had expected to see his brighten with pleasure at the announcement of how Mabel had used her privilege she was mistaken. Before she knew what was happening he had seized her wrist and dragged the muff away from her face.

“Helen, you don’t think I care for ” —

She struggled to free herself and he let go.

“Helen — Helen ” —

The little old man in the corner coughed. He was looking on in amazement. She was hurrying from the room, down the stairs, which were full of people. She thought it was terror. It was the terror of sudden joy.

He caught her on the sidewalk. “Helen— Miss Gaunt ” —

“You had no right, ” she half sobbed, “please go ” —

“I will, when you have forgiven me.”

“Yes, I forgive you— but I hate you. ”

He stood still. She felt as if she had struck him a blow, and hurried on. She did not stop till she was within sight of the door, and when, breathless, as if still pursued, she took her latchkey from her pocket, she was hating herself more than him. The dream had come true, but she had not done what she expected to do when it came. She had played with fire, and it had scorched her. Yet she was glad, glad, glad.

XI.

As was expected, the Bishop came to dinner. Mabel and Helen were in evening dress. They were going to the Wendells’. Both were looking exceptionally lovely.

On her return from the Academy Helen had gone directly to her room, and had had an hour to think before Mabel opened her door to ask her what dress she was going to wear. Her mind was a tumult of conflicting thoughts. She had no sufficient reason to offer for not going to the Wendells’. She could invent no excuse which Mabel, who was bent upon going, would accept. She both dreaded and longed to go; dreaded to, because she did not wish her next meeting with Mr. Heald to take place in a crowded room where the inevitable explanations would have to be suppressed, — she was in no mood for conventional talk; dreaded to, because feeling might break through the barriers under Mabel’s observing eyes. But her longing was stronger than her dread. It was invincible, and she knew it to be so the while she argued. Fate was waiting for her, her own fate, and she could not keep away. For the first time in her orderly life she was excited and reckless. With a whole hour to think she had not been able to think at all, every reason conjured up by her oldfashioned ideas of propriety, by her natural timidity, by her fear of taking a false step, disappearing before the undercurrent of her desire. Her meeting with Mr. Heald had been far more decisive than she had expected, and after the first shock was over there came an ecstasy of exhilaration. She had made an overwhelming discovery. He did not care for Mabel. There was a corollary to this proposition which she hardly dared yet to put into words — he loved her, Helen.

The Bishop reflected during dinner on the Providence which in taking the wife had left this charming daughter to brighten a lonely fireside and had given this daughter so charming a friend and companion. He remarked to Jack, after the children as he termed them were gone, on the blessing of children in general. Jack said Mabel was a good girl; he had at times felt the responsibility of guiding one who had no mother; he would have known better how to manage a son, but he was satisfied. For he had observed that there were three dangerous periods in a business man’s career : when he began and knew nothing, a little later when he thought he knew everything, and when his sons came of age. He had at all events escaped the last.

The Bishop laughed over his wine at Jack’s escape from disaster, and then they adjourned to the library where plans and elevations were spread upon the table. Jack gave a polite attention to these details, but made no comment, not being as he said an expert in church architecture, and asked bluntly what the estimates called for.

The Bishop coughed and replied that he was gratified to be able to say that the necessary amount had been already subscribed, but that at the suggestion of Professor Fisher, a most excellent, sagacious man, it was proposed, in order to promote a closer connection between the church and the college, to establish a fund to be known as the Church Aid Foundation, to assist such worthy young men as were intending to enter the ministry; and that, as the money required for the church had been already provided, he wished to suggest that whatever amount Mr. Temple had felt disposed to contribute should be applied in this manner. He also explained that he had had some general conversation with Mrs. Kensett on the subject, and that he thought a word from her business manager and adviser would probably lead to good results.

“No,” said Jack decisively, “I can’t do that. I make it a rule in the management of other people’s property never to advise them how to give it away. My business is to care for it and increase it, if I can.”

“I can quite understand that,” replied the Bishop. On the other hand it was quite possible that Mrs. Kensett might ask his advice.

“That’s another thing,” said Jack. “I shall send you a check to-morrow for five thousand dollars, provided you can apply it to the church, and can divert an equal amount from what has been subscribed for that object to the Aid Fund. I am not in sympathy with wholesale aid of that kind on organized lines. Why not help the doctors or the lawyers ? When I find a good man who needs assistance I am willing to give him a lift ” —

“ That is precisely ” — began the Bishop.

“But I take his note,” continued Jack, “and make him pay it. Make education as good, as cheap, and as universal as possible, but don’t encourage a man to expect to get it for nothing. If you do, he will expect to get his living for nothing.”

The Bishop listened attentively.

“ Help individuals, not classes, ” Jack went on. “I don’t know why ministers should be coddled. You are suffering to-day from a system which has landed men in the pulpit who could n’t earn their salt in any other profession. The men you can bait with free tuition and half-price rates are not the men you want.”

The Bishop admitted it was very difficult to administer aid intelligently. He came back to the point however by remarking that he thought there would be no difficulty in obtaining the consent of some of the donors to a transfer of their gifts from the church to the Aid Fund.

“There is Mr. Heald, for example, who has given one thousand dollars, and who would doubtless have no objection. ”

“Mr. Heald? ” said Jack. “I did n’t know lie was fish for your net, Bishop.”

The Bishop felt called upon to explain. It was an excellent sign, he said, when the successful young men of the country showed so substantially their appreciation of the serious needs of the community and their own obligations to society.

Jack did not argue the question. He was willing to meet Mr. Heald in his own way and at his own time, but it irritated him thus to keep running up against a man of whose existence he had barely heard a week ago. He recognized, too, his duty to help the world along and up so far as he could, but he was glad that was not his sole business, as it was the Bishop’s. “I should have to wink at too many things, ” he thought, while the Bishop was explaining Mr. Heald’s contribution, “or else kick the whole kettle of fish over.”

After the Bishop had gone he picked up a book and settled himself to read. He was glad Mabel was having a good time. He was pleased that Mrs. Kensett should have been so kind to her. How good she was! His book was the personal narrative of a war correspondent with the English in Africa. Paul had sent it to him with his own marginal comments. He had been reading some time before he discovered he had not taken in a single word. He threw away his second cigar with the idea that he was smoking too much, and began again at the first page. It did not hold him long, for he soon found himself asking how old he was — he was born in ’48, — two, and fifty, and two — that made fifty-four, — not much time to lose, — to wait. He closed the book, and as he laid it on the mantel noticed that his temples were tinged with gray. Then he decided to look in at the Wendells’ and bring Mabel home.

The Wendell house was built around three sides of an open court separated from the street by an iron grille. A long line of carriages extended on either side of the gateway when Mabel and Helen arrived. A half-hundred people on the sidewalk without braved the cold to catch a fleeting glimpse of the toilettes as the carriage doors were opened under the porte-cochère. Above shone the brilliantly lighted windows of the ball-room, whence came the sound of music and the hum of voices to mingle with the rattle of wheels over the pavement and the shouts of policemen regulating the circulation.

The pillared hall was a garden of palms and flowering shrubs, and a continuous stream of guests from the dressing-rooms was ascending the broad stairway between garlands of smilax and roses wreathed along the white balustrades.

The dancing was in full swing, and Mabel had hardly exchanged a word with her hostess in the reception-room at the head of the stairs before she was claimed by her partner for the waltz just begun.

Contrary to her usual habit Helen accepted every partner who offered himself. Dancing had not occupied a prominent place in her academic training, and when she first began to go out with Mabel she had sacrificed the appetite which comes with eating to what she thought the inferiority of her social position demanded. But all this austerity and shyness had long since retired with the elliptic functions into the background. To-night, movement was a necessity to her. The fever of the dance matched her own. The partner for whom her eyes swept the room in the whirl of the waltz had not come, but not for an instant did the certainty of her expectation fail. He had said he was to be there.

The surprise of the evening was a minuet in costume and masks at midnight. At a quarter to twelve the music ceased. The size of the room limited the number of couples in the minuet, and the fortunate ones, selected by lottery, retired to the dressing-rooms. At twelve o’clock the card parties in the smoking-room had broken up, and those whom fortune had not favored filled the doors and lined the sides of the ballroom as spectators. Then, to the music of a march, the dancers entered, advancing from opposite doors, the ladies in pink, the gentlemen in black dominos. Each lady carried a black fan with ribbons to match the bow on the black domino of her partner. No one was to know who his partner was till the minuet was over, when all were to unmask and go in to supper.

A few moments of confusion and subdued laughter followed the entrance, while the black dominos were searching for the fan whose colors corresponded with their own. Then the stately music of the minuet began. Helen recognized it at once. It was the minuet of the first act of Hoffmann’s Tales. Should the automaton speak or keep silence?

Her partner had bowed to her, but had not spoken. For the first few measures not a word was uttered; then the voice for which she had been waiting said, —

“Is it New York, or Rome? ”

“ Rome, ” she whispered.

It was not possible to converse, only to exchange a word now and then, to answer a question after an interval of separation and waiting.

The mystery and protection of her mask gave her assurance. She had looked forward to possibly a few hurried words of explanation; an awkward meeting under observing eyes, or, worse still, a forced and embarrassing silence. She had felt that whatever the result of her first meeting with Mr. Heald might be, that first meeting must be a shock, a pain, a moment when things would be said which were not meant, or perhaps more would be meant than could be said. Her mask and domino were both a shield and a weapon. They hid the beating of hearts and the eloquence of eyes. She could be as near or as far as she pleased.

“ And everything is forgiven ? ”

'‘Forgiven — not forgotten.”

A murmur of approval greeted the termination of the first movement.

“ And the hate is gone ? ”

“No.”

“That is unjust ” —

Then the music recommenced.

“How does your bow happen to match my fan ? ”

“Which is stronger, hate or curiosity ? ”

“Curiosity, — now. ”

“I bribed a tiring-maiden. Am I forgiven that, too ? ”

The movement of the dance separated them. Then she was beside him again.

“You are in constant need of absolution.”

“I am content with my confessor.”

Another pause. Then —

“ Yes, I will forgive you — on one condition — in a moment we shall unmask ” —

“Yes.”

“ Promise me ” —

“Everything.”

“To forget, as I have forgiven, that we ” — her voice trembled and softened over the pronoun —“ were ever in Rome.”

“I cannot. One can promise to forgive, not to forget. It is not in our power. You have just said so yourself.”

“Till I remind you of it, then.”

There was a silence.

“ Quick ! we are almost through — it is my first request.”

“Y^es, I promise.”

The music ceased, the doors of the supper-room were thrown open, and there were exclamations of surprise and ripples of laughter.

“You! ” he exclaimed, as the masks fell. “I did not dream.”

“Nor I,” she said, slipping her hand through his arm. It held her fan, and he took it from her.

“How pretty! May I keep it? ”

“Why do you want it? ” she asked, forcing herself to speak indifferently.

“ It will be my — my passport to Rome. ”

“I did not know you were going abroad.”

“I did not know you were such a coquette.”

Then their eyes met, they both laughed, and went in with the throng to supper.

It was served at small tables and there was no further opportunity for confidences or mystery. The cotillion began immediately after, and Helen was claimed by her partner. Of Mr. Heald she saw no more. She was almost glad, although she was constantly looking for him. She was excited and talked at random. Nothing seemed worth talking about any more. She wanted to go home, to be alone, to think, and was relieved when Mabel signified her readiness to leave.

In the carriage Mabel’s high spirits jarred upon her. Her gayety seemed forced and frivolous. In the awakening of her own heart, and the sudden concentration of its feeling into a single channel, life had become serious as well as beautiful, and Mabel’s frivolity grew to such proportions that she almost despised her. As the carriage rolled on, after Jack had asked a few questions, Mabel lapsed into silence, — a silence which in Helen’s nervous and excited state seemed ominous. She essayed a beginning of conversation, but Mabel replied in monosyllables. Occupied with her own happiness, she had forgotten Mabel entirely; now, the old thought that Mabel had ćared for Mr. Heald came back again. She tried to remember why she had ever thought so. Mabel cared generally so much more for herself than for any one else, her moods were so contradictory and her remarks so often inconsequential and purposeless, that she really did not know why she had ever imagined such a thing. But with the silence had come a complete revulsion of feeling. Did Mr. Heald really care for her, Helen ? Amid the lights, the flowers, and the music, the banter in which they had indulged had been delicious to her. In the gloom of the carriage rattling over the stones it seemed unsubstantial. To him it might be all banter. She possessed nothing, she was nobody. Why should he love her ? She had asked the question before, once almost indifferently, as she might have asked a question affecting some third person. Now it made her heart beat with a dull pain. She was glad when the carriage stopped, glad when Mr. Temple had said goodnight, glad when Mabel’s door was shut. They usually had to talk such evenings over. To-night, when she pleaded fatigue and a headache, Mabel advised her to go to bed at once. She undressed quickly, and then, lying in the darkness and stillness, she went over every incident, repeated every sentence. And it was not the light words exchanged in the ball-room, when she was so happy, which were dearest, but that moment of surprise and anger when he had torn her hand from her face, and looked into her eyes with all for which she hungered in his own.

XII.

A succession of dull, stormy days had necessitated the postponement of the plans for a morning with the grouse. Then, too, Dolly had unexpectedly decided to go to New York for a day on matters incident to her projected house party. There were various orders to be given for supplies not to be found in Westford’s Doric Emporium, — supplies which required Dolly’s personal selection and supervision. And Margaret was going with her.

Mabel’s note of acceptance had been received and the invitations had been issued.

“It seems you were right, ” Paul said, as he read Mabel’s opening sentence, “At any rate she is no coward. And Heald, too! ” reading on, — “well, I should like to meet him.”

The evening before they started a letter came from Jack which ran as follows : —

DEAR PAUL, — Argonaut is quoted to-day at 45. Two thousand shares at 45 means $90,000. Deducting cost, one thousand shares at 25 and one thousand at 40, net profit, less commissions, $25,000.

If Mrs. Kensett’s chief concern is for her friend, she can turn over to said friend this profit, together with the $40,000 cost of original investment, and get her own $25,000 back whole.

A good four per cent bond can be had at about par, and four per cent on $05,000 is $2600. This would put her friend on a safe basis with an income of $2600, instead of $1400 as before the exchange of the three and one half per cent bonds for Argonaut.

I have as yet no information about the latter, but I should advise sale as above. Wire me if sale is decided, and send certificates by early mail for delivery.

Yours,
JOHN TEMPLE.

Paul took the letter at once to Dolly.

“ You ought to be thankful to get out of it as well as that. Certainly Miss Frazer cannot complain.”

Dolly thought wistfully of the prediction that the shares would go to one hundred and fifty, but her ambition to make money for Margaret had received a chill. She agreed without a word. The certificates were in the silver safe in the dining-room. She would go and explain it all to Margaret at once.

“It is n’t necessary to tell her all the profits are not hers, is it, Paul? ”

“A little while ago you were going to tell her all the losses were yours, ” said Paul, laughing. “You must settle that with your own conscience. Have Miss Frazer assign her stock to Jack. You can take it down with you.”

“No,” said Dolly, “I do not want to meet Mr. Temple —yet. We can send it by registered mail.”

“If Mrs. Frazer wouldn’t mind being alone for a day or two I would go down with you.”

“Do, do!” cried Dolly. “I had thought of it myself, but I did not suggest it for the same reason. After all, it will be for only two nights and a day. I will go and ask her.”

On inquiry Mrs. Frazer declared she would like nothing better than to be alone. She would call it a rainy day and catch up with her correspondence. So Paul wired Jack to sell, and the Waldorf for rooms.

They reached New York the evening of the Wendells’ ball. The following day Mrs. Kensett and Margaret were to be occupied with their purchases, and it was agreed that they should lunch out and all meet for dinner. Paul rose early. He had nothing in particular to do, but he wished to deliver the certificates at once and get them off his mind and hands. There were but few persons in the breakfast-room, and he found a vacant table at one of the Avenue windows. While eating his breakfast he became absorbed in the morning paper. There were rumors of peace negotiations which, if confirmed, would necessitate his return to London and South Africa.

On leaving the table after finishing his breakfast he overheard a gentleman inquiring at the desk for Mrs. Iiensett. The clerk informed him that Mrs. Kensett had not yet come down, whereupon he left a letter, asking that it be sent to her room at once. The stranger’s face struck Paul as one he had seen somewhere before, where he could not remember, but the incident made no particular impression upon him, and without thinking any more of it he started down town for Jack’s office.

The gentleman was Mr. Heald. He had left the Wendells’ that morning at one o’clock, immediately after supper, and had gone directly to his bachelor apartment at the Carleton. There were two letters on his writing-table, one bearing an Arizona postmark, the other that of Westford.

He opened the former, reading it through slowly and holding it afterwards a long time in his hand, plunged in thought. At last, laying it down with a shrug of the shoulders, he took up the second letter, — Dolly’s note of invitation to Cedar Hill. To this he wrote at once a brief reply as follows

MY DEAK MRS. KENSETT, — I have just received your invitation to come to Cedar Hill on the twenty-third instant, — an invitation which I accept with the greatest pleasure. It is most kind of you to include me among your friends, and I appreciate deeply the honor you do me. I have not had the pleasure of seeing you since we met at Lenox, and before I had read your note this morning I had intended to write you and to advise you, in the same spirit in which a year ago I suggested the purchase of the Argonaut shares, to sell them without delay. I shall ask you to treat this letter as confidential, and I shall, on seeing you, explain the reasons for this advice, as also for my not giving them here in detail.

With renewed thanks for your kind invitation,

I am, most sincerely yours,
REGINALD HEALD.

Then he sealed the letter, directed it, and went to bed, leaving orders to be called at seven.

At seven o’clock his man brought him his mail and coffee. In a morning paper he saw among the hotel arrivals the name of Mrs. Kensett at the Waldorf. He dressed with his usual care, put the letter to Mrs. Kensett in his pocket, and walked over to the hotel. Mrs. Kensett’s name was on the register, but the ladies, he was told, had not yet breakfasted. He hesitated a moment, finally decided not to wait, changed the address of the letter, asking that it be sent up to Mrs. Kensett’s room, and left immediately.

Paul found Jack at the office though it was barely nine o’clock when he sent in his card.

“Holloa! ” said Jack, “I did n’t expect to see you.”

Paul explained that he had had no idea of coming until he had received Jack’s letter. The statement was not literally exact, for while Jack’s letter had had its influence, the idea of accompanying Dolly had been conceived when he found Margaret was going with her. He did not, however, say anything to Jack about Dolly’s being in New York.

“I brought down the stock, ” he said, taking it from his inside pocket. “I suppose it is sold. You got my telegram ? ”

“Yes. As I wrote you, I had no reasons except prudential ones. I sent a man out to Arizona to investigate ” —

“You did? ” exclaimed Paul.

— “but when I saw the stock at forty-five I thought it better not to wait. You see, I am rather bound to look pretty carefully after Mrs. Kensett.” He smiled as he spoke and looked out of the window.

“Quite right. Dolly was a little fool.”

“We all do foolish things once in a while,” said Jack.

“It is n’t every one learns his lesson on a rising market, though, ” Paul replied. “What do you suppose possessed the man? ”

“Who, Heald? I don’t know. One is naturally suspicious of men who advise women to put money in such things. But it may be all right. What are you doing to-day? ”

“Nothing, till dinner. I have an engagement for this evening, and shall go back to-morrow unless there is something in this peace news. What do you think of it? ”

“I don’t believe a word of it. London doesn’t, either. The market always gets the first news.”

“Nor I,” said Paul. “Besides, I should have a cable if there was anything in it. But you are busy, and I won’t bother you.”

“Will you lunch with me?” asked Jack, as Paul turned to go.

“Of course I will.”

“ Well, to-day is Saturday and I lunch at home. I would rather like to have you meet Mabel.”

“Certainly, I should like to.”

“At one o’clock, then. I will telephone her you are coming. Goodby.”

When Paul was shown into the reception-room at Gramercy Park a young girl came forward to meet him who reminded him instantly of Gladys, or rather of what Gladys might have been at her age.

“This is Mr. Graham? I am Mabel. Papa has not come home yet. I believe he is never late at business appointments, but I cannot say as much for him at home. This is my friend, Miss Gaunt. Mr. Graham, Helen.”

There was something very winning and gracious in Mabel’s manner, and Paul thought she was not so bad as she painted herself.

“I suppose people talk to you about South Africa, ” she went on, “ till you are tired of the very sound of the name. I resolved, when papa told me you were coming, not to say a word about it.” “It isn’t a place many people are interested in, Miss Temple, aside from the war.”

“Oh, but I am interested in it,” cried Mabel, “only it sounds much the same as Patagonia, or Kamchatka. I don’t think I should like to live there. I don’t care for places which only have futures. I like best those that have a present. You can’t live on a future, can you ? ”

“Only those who have no satisfactory present need try to,” replied Paul. “I live a lot in the future.”

“Certainly. In one sense we all do. But you do not appear so very discontented.”

Helen, sitting in the window seat with her embroidery, smiled. Until she went to the Academy and found her new world she had always been very matter of fact, and it amused her now to see how quickly Mabel touched the personal note of conversation.

“No, I am not,” said Paul, “and I would not tell you so if I were. I am not fond of people who trail their personal grievances before the world. ”

“Aren’t they detestable! ” assented Mabel. “And yet,” she added, smiling at him with her violet eyes, “I hope you are not perfectly satisfied. I shall not like you if you are.”

Paul was determined not to like Mabel, and cared little whether she liked him or not. But like most men in whom women show an interest, her interest in him interested him in her. She changed the subject, however, immediately.

“You are staying at Cedar Hill, are you not, Mr. Graham? It is such a lovely spot, and Mrs. Kensett is such a lovely woman.”

“ Do you think so ? ” said Paul, looking at her.

“Indeed I do. Everybody does. There is no minority of opinion on that subject. You need not feel obliged to feign surprise just because you are her cousin,” she said, laughing back into his eyes; “or don’t you agree with me? ”

“Certainly I do. Dolly is one of the dearest women in the world. But not every one shows his liking in the same way.”

Helen held her breath. She was sure Paul knew. But Mabel was smiling.

“I show mine by going to Cedar Hill next week. Did you know that? ” she said, fastening a rosebud from the flowers on the table in her corsage.

“Yes. Mrs. Kensett told me.”

“Helen dear, will you please see if that is papa? Of course, she naturally would, ” she resumed carelessly, after Helen had gone. The smile had faded from her face, and a light came into her eyes. “Does she tell you everything? ”

“No,indeed,” said Paul,resolving to keep away from dangerous ground ; “ we have a lot of secrets we do not tell.”

“Have you? How do you manage to keep them? It ’s so hard to keep a secret if it’s worth telling.”

Paul was thinking it was very hard to keep one’s friends if one did not conceal one’s resentments, when Miss Gaunt came in with a telegram.

“It’s from papa,” said Mabel, tearing open the envelope and reading aloud: “‘Sorry. Detained. Don’t wait.’ How provoking! ” she exclaimed. “But you will not lose your luncheon, Mr. Graham; that is the most important thing, is n’t it? And we shall not lunch alone, Helen, which is more important still. Every one thinks himself the only one who asks for papa’s time and money, ” — she led the way into the dining-room, — “the result is, poor papa will have little of either left. There ought to be a society for the protection of — will you take this seat, Mr. Graham — of papas like mine. ”

“Would n’t you be the first to come under its operation? ” asked Paul.

“Oh, but I don’t count. Papa belongs to me, and I am his diversion.”

“Yes, but by and by, when you do as all young ladies do — what then ? ”

“You mean when I marry?” said Mabel, with a disdainful shrug of her pretty shoulders. " You talk like the Bishop, and you are not old enough for that — or does life in South Africa make one preternaturally old and serious ? ”

“I don’t need to be a bishop to make a prediction of that kind. I was only generalizing in the mildest and safest manner possible.”

Mabel laughed. “That is just what the Bishop is always doing. He ’s a dear good soul. He never singles you out, or makes you feel worse than other people. Do you know him, — Bishop Stearns, I mean? ”

“He was at Cedar Hill last week.” “And Mrs. Frazer is there, too, is n’t she? I have always wanted to meet her. Isn’t she very eccentric? She

has such a wonderful name — Laurinda! It sounds like a sword flashing from its scabbard — en garde ! ”

Paul was amused and fell in with her mood. “You will have the opportunity of exchanging opinions and crossing swords with her soon. I heard her say you were a spoiled child. ”

“Did she? Really! How interesting. Then you were forewarned. “What do you think now ? ”

“Oh, my opinion isn’t worth anything. I can’t give it on hearsay evidence.”

“Well” — her expressive face became earnest — “ you will have the occasion to observe me at Cedar Hill next week. I challenge you to tell me what you think then.” She was leaning forward with one elbow on the table, a half-serious, half-provoking light behind her lashes. “Ah, now you are beating a retreat. Please don’t. It will be so interesting. Papa is such a poor judge, and Helen — she never says what she really thinks of me.”

“Why, Mabel,” protested Helen.

“ Will you, will you ? ” she persisted, heedless of Helen’s protest; “not a polite, commonplace opinion, like the Bishop’s sermons, but a real, sober, serious ” —

' “I warn you, I shall be terribly blunt and outspoken.”

“Of course, otherwise it will be good for nothing. Then it’s agreed. The night before I leave Cedar Hill I shall hold you to your promise. And for once, ” she said, drawing herself up triumphantly, “we shall have the truth, the sweet, naked truth. I can bear anything, —you will have found that out in making up your opinion.”

“Mabel, ” said Helen, after Paul had gone, “I wish you would let me speak to you without being offended.”

They were in Mabel’s room upstairs, and Mabel was pinning on her hat before the mirror. She turned, with her hands still adjusting her hat, looking at Helen with an expression of benevolent curiosity. Helen was bending over her embroidery.

“Well, I am waiting.”

Helen looked up with a reassuring smile, as if she were propitiating an idol.

“I don’t mean to say anything that would hurt you in any way ” —

“Say it, say it, Helen. Don’t keep me in suspense so. When you have anything horrid to say you always begin in that way.”

“I don’t wish to say anything horrid,” protested Helen.

“Helen, you are as transparent as glass. Don’t you suppose I know when you disapprove of me? You were scolding me all through luncheon while I was talking to Mr. Graham.”

“No, I was not,” said Helen, asserting herself. “But I was thinking you were doing yourself an injustice. I don’t like to see you do that. It sometimes seems as if you were determined to prevent any one from — from ” —•

“From what? ”

“From being your friend.”

“In other words, I am unnatural, insincere, repellent ” —■

“Mabel! ” broke in Helen pleadingly. “ Be just. Did I say that ? Is n’t it just because you are none of these things that I dislike to see you appear ” —

“Then I do appear so, do I? ”

“Don’t question me so, Mabel. You put words into my mouth. I was simply saying that you sometimes assume a manner, a way of speaking, that wrongs you in the eyes of those who do not know you as I do.”

“Are you sure you know me? ”

Leaning back in her chair, Helen looked up into Mabel’s face. “I thought I did, ” she began, trying to smile and struggling with the beginning of tears. But the coldness in Mabel’s eyes changed her to stone. “I am sorry I spoke, ” she said. “ I was not trying to be profound. Perhaps neither of us knows the other. We certainly do not understand each other now.” It was on her lips to say: it makes a difference who tells you the truth, —but she restrained herself.

Mabel was drawing on her gloves. She was conscious of the sudden revulsion in Helen’s feelings, and her own softened. She often see-sawed with Helen in this way.

She stooped quickly to Helen’s hair and kissed it. “Forgive me, but don’t scold me. I am made as I am. If I am ever to change it will be by ” — she paused and laughed—“by something great, a crisis, a catastrophe, something volcanic — which is not likely. ” Helen went on with her embroidery in silence. “Are n’t you going to forgive me?” The continued silence reversed the current of her feeling again. “This is play. We may have something real to forgive some day.” She moved toward the door, buttoning her gloves. “Tell papa we entertained Mr. Graham as well as we could.” She was at the door now. “And Helen, Helen — look at me — love me a little, will you? ”

Helen started forward, disarmed. But the door had closed and Mabel was gone.

XIII.

Paul had left immediately after luncheon on the plea of important business. It did not appear to be very pressing, or to require his presence in any particular place, for he wandered in an aimless fashion out of the quiet of Gramercy Park into the roar of Broadway and up Fifth Avenue, looking into the shop windows with the eager but vacillating gaze of a Christmas shopper searching for he knows not what. Yet it was a very important business he had in hand. He wanted to give something to Margaret.

The idea had come to him that morning; it had haunted him all day, and could not be dislodged. He had said to himself twenty times that if he had a reason for giving Miss Frazer anything it was not one he could adduce. A gift to her could not mean what an ordinary gift means, and certainly the reason for such a gift did not exist; their acquaintance was too short for that. But he did not reason this out. It was not an ordinary gift. The only question was to find something she could accept. It was not a gift at all, but only a way of telling her what was not yet to be told in words.

The streets were filled with holiday throngs bent on similar errands, and windows glittered with every temptation. He elbowed his way through the crowds, conscious all the while that what he was seeking was not to be found in any shop window. It must be something personal, —personal to him, — and then he stopped on the curbing, lost in thought. A woman can give an old glove, a flower, but a man has nothing. There was a florist’s across the street, and he went over. The window was a garden in miniature, — flowering shrubs in rare old china pots, clusters of roses tied with broad ribbons, orchids of strange shapes, and bunches of violets of royal size. No, that wouldn’t do. It was all too rich, almost vulgar, as bad as diamonds. A wild flower from the hillside slope above Cedar Hill, that could lie between the leaves of a cherished book, was infinitely better. Yet he could not rid himself entirely of the idea of value. Nothing was too good for her. Did the whole world contain nothing which held what a woman gives with a worn glove or a faded flower?

And then he turned down the Avenue again, suddenly, with a quick, decided step, walking straight for the porch of the Fifth Avenue Hotel. He had taken a room there the night of his arrival, and had left in storage certain trunks and boxes for which he had no immediate use. From one of these he took a small package, and the important business was done.

It was five o’clock when he reached the Waldorf. Dolly had said they might be back for tea, but he was told by the elevator boy that the ladies had not yet come in. He went to his room, locked his door, and opened the package. It contained an oblong black box of teak-wood, dug out in rough uncouth fashion, like a log canoe. Within, wrapped in a yellow cloth, of coarse fibre but soft as silk, lay a long neckchain of blood-red carnelians, curiously cut in varying shapes, and separated by gold beads cut through in patterns intricate and delicate as lace.

He had bought it in Ceylon years ago — for nobody. That was the satisfying thought. On leaving for home he had put it in his trunk with a vague idea of giving it to Dolly, but that idea did not recur to trouble him now. What pleased him now was that it was a personal possession, and that he had not bought it for Margaret, but for Somebody — not Dolly either — who was found. He still had some doubts whether she would accept it, whether she would not think it too much, and to overcome as far as possible this objection he took out his card and wrote on the back: —

“Remember, the value of a friend’s gift lies in the giving.”

This done, he wrapped the chain carefully in its yellow cloth, laid it with the card in the teak-wood box, dressed for dinner, and began the long process of waiting. Christmas, which was only a few days off, had first presented itself as an excuse, but had been abandoned. Christmas had nothing to do with it.

It was only six o’clock. There were two whole hours yet before dinner, and time hung heavily on his hands. And then he was aware of his restlessness and impatience, and an old-time resolve came to him that if ever he loved a woman he would love her straightforwardly, honestly, manfully, without any nonsense; and he determined to banish Margaret from his mind and go down to the reading-room to see what the evening papers had to say about the peace rumors.

At a quarter to eight he had exhausted the evening news and was dividing the time between watching the clock and the people going in and out from the restaurant. He was beginning to grow cross over Dolly’s unconscionable delay when a hall-boy asked him if he was No. 33 and, on receiving an affirmative answer, announced that dinner was served in No. 20.

No. 20 was a pleasant parlor with very little of the hotel about it. Shaded candles were burning on the dinner-table as Paul entered, and numberless feminine belongings scattered about the room gave it a homelike appearance.

“We were both tired,” Dolly said, “and thought we would dine here, unless you are anxious to dine downstairs. ”

“You haven’t tired yourselves out, I hope, ” said Paul, looking at Dolly but speaking to Margaret.

“Oh no,” replied Dolly, “we have taken it very leisurely. When you know just what you want and just where to get it, it ’s very easy.”

Paul, remembering bis recent shopping experience, thought the converse of the proposition equally true.

And then with all a woman’s love for dainty things and joy in their possession, amid innumerable excursions from the table in search of proofs and exhibits, Dolly told the story of the day.

“You can smoke here, Paul,” she said, as the table was cleared away, “and, by the way, I want to show you a letter I received this morning. ”

She disappeared for a moment and then came in with Mr. Heald’s note in her hand.

“I absolutely forgot,” she said apologetically, “it is marked confidential. I saw it at the time, and then it passed entirely out of my head. It was very stupid of me. I shall tell you all about it some day.”

Feeling that she was not concerned in the conversation, Margaret had drawn her chair up to the fire and was cutting the leaves of a magazine.

“But I must answer it at once. You don’t mind, do you? My writing materials are in my room. It will take me only a minute.”

Margaret was still sitting before the fire. Her back was turned toward Paul, her head, bent forward over her book, outlined against the background of firelight. He saw the wisps of brown hair that could not be confined, from which he had brushed the snow and frozen sleet, — he had touched them once! — and there rose from his heart the certain knowledge that he wanted her, just wanted her, without any afterthought or forethought of what that meant. Whenever he had thought of marriage before, the subject had involved all sorts of prudential considerations. Could he afford it? Would it interfere with his work? What woman would accept his life in South Africa! Not one of these things occurred to him now. But something else did, something that had never crossed his mind before, — that he would be content to stand outside this woman’s door for all time if that was the condition she would impose. He did not stop to reflect that no woman had ever imposed such a condition, or could. His feeling was only the inseparable part of that reverence which is the dawn of all true human love.

The scratching of Dolly’s pen came from the adjoining room. He took the parcel from his pocket and went softly forward.

“Miss Frazer.” She turned, startled by his voice. “Long ago, before I knew you existed, I went shopping too, in Ceylon, for an unknown Somebody ”

— he put the black box in her hand — “I want you to keep this — will you ? ”

— her eyes turned from his to the strange-shaped box and back again to his in evident surprise— “don’t say no.”

“For me? ” she said, a little confused; “must I look at it? ”

“I suppose you must.”

She lifted the lid with trembling finger’s, looked up again with a shy wondering smile, and then back to the yellow wrapping, unfolding it slowly. She glanced at the chain, — a woman’s glance that takes in everything, — then read the card.

“O Mr. Graham!” She did not look up, and the chain had fallen into her lap, but she held the card in her closed hand.

“And we shall have our day with the grouse — before the crowd comes ? ”

“Yes,” she whispered, “if you wish it.”

“There!” cried Dolly, coming in with her letter, “now we can have a quiet talk. What have you done with your day, Paul ? ” She drew her chair up beside Margaret’s, whose magazine lay in her lap performing its new duty of guard and shield. But nothing of all that was talked over that evening had much interest for Paul, — a fact quite evident to Dolly, who began to feel sure that some day she could tell him she really had not written any letter at all, and that he would agree with her that it was quite right not to do certain things if people did not know you were not doing them.

XIV.

From Dolly’s point of view the day with the grouse had proved a great success ; that is to say, they had had a most delicious lunch before a blazing log fire in the sugar camp, and no one had been hurt. Driving out with Mrs. Frazer to meet the hunters she had asked her whether Paul was not becoming interested in Margaret, and had been disconcerted by the reply that Margaret had been sounded on that subject and had pronounced the idea ridiculous. She had received a second check when Margaret came down to dinner that evening wearing a wonderful chain of unusual and exquisite workmanship, which Dolly was imprudent enough to declare she had never seen before. “ Where were your eyes ? ” Margaret had said; and the quiet indifference of this answer had so effectually closed all the avenues of further inquiry that Dolly was almost persuaded she had seen it a hundred times.

The dogs had proved worthless, not having been shot over since Cecil’s death, and having meanwhile been spoiled by feminine society. They were wild beyond control, and vanished entirely after flushing the first bird, to reappear only at night with bleeding feet, fagged out with their all day’s run after rabbits in the swamps and ravines beyond what Mr. Pearson called the “ mount’ n. ”

Margaret had no appropriate costume except such as she had improvised, — a pair of Cecil’s brown leggings over high moccasin shoes, a short blue skirt and jacket with white flannel blouse; and a blue veil knotted under a soft hat to keep her hair from the spikes and twigs of the thickets. Dolly thought she had never seen her look so beautiful, and was still more of this opinion when Margaret came into the glow of the leaping fire, flushed with her tramp in the bracing air, — being so impressed that she could not resist kissing her and saying under her breath, “You dear, you are just lovely.”

Unable to beat off temptation, Mr. Pearson had “guessed he’d come along o’ Jim.” Between them they knew every bit of cover on the hillside and had hunted out a half-dozen stray birds, of which Paul had got three and Margaret two, — good results for a half day in late December. In default of the dogs’ aid, thrown on their own resources, they had been absorbed in their work. Oh, that breathless listening, waiting, watching, in the wood twilight, when one’s heartbeat is the only sound, — what is there like it!

“Can you whistle? ” Paul had asked when they started.

Margaret laughed. “I can try.”

“We may be out of sight of each other, you know.” And he had listened for that low call of hers through the woods more than for the whir of beating wings.

When her maid knocked that morning at her door an hour earlier than usual Margaret knew by that token that the day was fair, that the day he had asked for, the day she had given, was come. Not for a moment had she doubted that it would, and when the shutters were thrown open, and the bright sun streamed in, it was no surprise. How wonderful that such a day could be! like other days for all the rest of the world, yet created apart for her. She dressed herself as in a dream. Not that all was not real and sure, but too sweet and strange for anything but dreams. Her heart worked like her mind, straight and true, with the rectitude and certainty of nature. Love had risen in it as the sun in the sky, and there was no more night. Yet not since the chain had fallen fi*om her hands into her lap in the parlor of the Waldorf, and she had covered it from sight at Dolly’s approach, had she looked at it again. She had hurried it into its black box without a glance and hidden it away. For she had taken it as it had been given, not as a gift, but as a message, a summons, and she could not see it without seeing all she had given in return. The sun was warm and gladdening, it was sweet to stand in its light and feel its strength, but she could not look into its face yet. As she dressed she heard the dogs barking in the yard; and Jim was talking to Paul. He “reckoned the day was just made on purpose, — the birds would be on the edges in the sun, sartin.” And then at the last moment, after breakfast had been announced and her maid had gone, she went to the closet, took the black box from its dark corner under the contents of her secretest drawer, and unfastening her white flannel waist clasped the chain hurriedly about her neck.

All through breakfast while Dolly was enlarging upon the importance of meeting promptly at noon, explaining that luncheon would be ready at that hour, and cautioning her to be careful of her gun, she was living in another world, going to another rendezvous. All through the morning Jim’s presence at her elbow threw no doubt upon the issue of the day; and when the luncheon-table was cleared away, the horses unblanketed, and Paul asked her if she was too tired to walk home, with a beating heart she said unhesitatingly “No.”

Dolly wanted the guns put into the sleigh, but Paul objected; they might get a chance shot on the way home, — that was the reason for walking. Mr. Pearson “guessed there would n’t be no more shootin’ done unless they went clear over the ridge, and said if he was n’t wanted no longer, as he ’d got the chores to do, he ’d take a short cut ’cross lots.”

“Yer can’t miss yer way,” he said to Paul. “Jest foller the run down ter the pasture, and then the cart track out ter the road.” He watched the pair after the sleigh drove off with Dolly and Mrs. Frazer until they disappeared among the hemlocks, then turning to Jim he said, “Come along, Jim, they ain’t goin’ to git in no trouble.”

No man who is not an egoist, or worse, is ever sure of a woman’s love till she has told it with her own lips. Coining up in the train from New York, while Dolly was reading the latest novel, Margaret had told Paul something of her early life and of her memories of her mother. She had been speaking some time before she realized how little her natural reserve counted when talking with him. “I don’t know why I should tell you of these things, ” she said; “I never have, I never could, to any one.” “I don’t know why you should,” he replied, “so far as my being able to help you is concerned. But I should like to.” And conscious only of the help that comes from giving dear and long kept memories into trusted hands, she had said, “ You do — you do. ” On leaving the train at the little Westford station, while Dolly was superintending the transfer of numerous packages to the carriage, Margaret had dropped her glove, and he had stooped to pick it up. She had extended her hand to take it with a word of thanks ready. “No,” he had said, “I want to keep it.” “Not that old” — “ Yes, just that ” — And then Dolly came.

And still, walking by her side in the silence and solitude of the December woods, he was not sure. He only knew that he had something of hers, warm with the warmth and sweet with the breath of her body, which said to him, “You do, you do.”

“Do you know the people who are coming ? ”

“Not all, Dolly told me their names. There are several I do not know.”

“ You know Miss Temple, I suppose. ”

“Yes indeed, she has been here before. ”

“Do you like her? ”

“Most people do. She is very pretty.”

“ But do you ? ”

“You should not ask me such questions.”

“No, you are right. It was an impertinence. ”

“I did not mean that, but only that when one puts vague feelings into words they sound harsh. I do not like to speak ill of people.”

“I am sure you do not.”

The drainage of the snow-covered hills had gathered into a little brook which grew larger as they went on.

“We must cross here,” said Paul. “Let me have your gun. The stones are slippery.”

“No,” she replied. “Papa made it a rule whenever I went out with him that I must do my share of the work or stay at home.”

But he took it from her, carrying it over with his own. “Now come, ” and he held out his hand.

In a moment they had crossed to the other side, but he did not let go the hand in his. “Margaret ” — it was like a new name— “Margaret.” She felt herself drawn to him by strong arms, but they did not hurt, and she did not resist. “Margaret — dear ” — And then her life and soul went out on her lips to his.

“Don’t — dear,” she murmured.

“But tell me you do.”

She opened her eyes for one moment.

“Yes —I do.”

In that homeward walk, when the winter world took on such marvelous hues and so many common things became precious because they no longer belonged wholly to one’s self, it was decided that with the exception of Dolly and Mrs. Frazer no announcement should be made until after Dolly’s guests had gone. On returning home they found Dolly had driven over to Lemington with Mrs. Frazer to make calls, and there was no opportunity to see either alone until after dinner was over. Margaret would have spoken when Dolly questioned her about her chain, but the butler was announcing dinner. The moment was not an auspicious one.

Dolly always went up to the nursery after dinner to kiss Dorothy good-night, and after she had gone Mrs. Frazer had the satisfaction of knowing she was right. She refrained from all reference to her previously expressed views on the subject, but smiled so significantly when Margaret made her explanation that words were unnecessary.

“It all seems very strange,” Margaret said; “for when you spoke to me the other day I did not dream of it.”

“No, dear, I suppose not. Traps of this sort are very cunningly set, and we generally walk into them blindfolded. ”

Margaret made no reply. She was not disturbed by this point of view. Her happiness was too real. She hardly knew how the first few steps in her new world had been taken, but she knew they had been willing steps and that she was not blind.

“Have you told Dolly? ” asked her mother, as Paul came in with his cigar.

“No, I shall now; ” and she left the room hurriedly to go upstairs.

Through the half-open nursery door she saw Dolly sitting on the edge of Dorothy’s bed, and waited till the story which always preceded the last kiss was finished. Then Dolly came forward, her train in one hand, her lighted candle in the other.

“ What is it, Margaret ? ” she said softly, closing the door gently behind her.

Margaret’s arm went about her waist. “Come into your room,” she whispered; “I have something to tell you.”

Of all secrets love is the most difficult to guard, and before Margaret spoke Dolly knew. But with the instinctive feeling that the knowledge of any outside influence would be resented, that to claim any share in bringing about this happiness would mar it, she managed to wear a wonderful mask of surprise.

“Do you remember, Dolly, the first night he came, you said you did not expect me to like him ? ”

“Did I? ” said Dolly innocently, her eyes half full of tears.

“And I said I should not quarrel with any one you loved ? ”

“Yes, dear, I think I do remember.”

There was but one interpretation to put upon Dolly’s glistening eyes and subdued enthusiasm. “All her happiness is in the past, ” thought Margaret; “all mine in the future.” That Dolly was glad was unmistakable; but the note was not clear, and its tremor could come only from the memories which another’s joy stirs in our own hearts.

“I will come down presently,” she said, after they had talked together awhile. But she did not come down, and Mrs. Frazer, with some mumbled words which were not intelligible, left the drawing-room soon after Margaret’s return.

She went directly to Dolly’s door and knocked. On entering she saw at once that Dolly was embarrassed, like a child who being interrupted in the performance of some mischief pretends to be doing nothing at all. There was no light in the room but a candle, and Dolly was standing in the middle of the floor, holding it in her hand.

“Well? ” said Mrs. Frazer, seating herself on the old-fashioned sofa drawn up near the fireplace.

Dolly put the candle down on the dressing-table. “I was just coming down. Dorothy always pulls my hair about so. Were you surprised ? ” She took up her comb and was smoothing out her hair.

“Dolly.” The word was like a call to judgment, and Dolly turned at once. “ I have not come to talk to you of Margaret. We both knew all that ages ago. ”

“You have not come to talk about Margaret?” repeated Dolly, bewildered, her comb in mid-air. And then, as Mrs. Frazer maintained silence, “ What have you come to talk about ? ”

“You. Sit down.”

Dolly sat down in a daze, her back to the candle.

“You mustn’t be so astonished, dear. You were not deceived by Margaret. I am not deceived by you.”

“By me?” Dolly repeated again, leaning forward in the eagerness of her surprise, and then sinking back once more into the shadow. “By me? what do you mean, Laurinda? ”

“I mean that I am not stone blind. I am telling you what I told Margaret a few days ago. She was evasive, or obstinate. You are too sensible to be either.” Dolly made a gesture. “Don’t say you do not understand me. You do — perfectly. If you wish me to go away and say nothing more about it, I will. But if I am to be of any use to you ” —

Dolly was silent, staring at the carpet.

“I have known you and John Temple all your lives; ” Dolly did not start at the name; she knew it was coming. “I do not know what is the trouble between you, but I know there is some trouble. Will you tell me what it is ? ”

“There is no trouble,” said Dolly faintly.

“Well, if there is none, there will be, and it’s too bad. He has had enough trouble in his life. Do you wish me to drop the matter where it is ? ”

Dolly was recovering her self-control. “I would rather not have spoken of it, but since you have begun ” —

“I began because I wished to be of some service to you. You know I am not speaking from curiosity.” A deprecatory gesture was the only answer. “Whether you like it or not I saw there was something between you and John, something which was causing you both unhappiness. It is n’t money, I suppose? Of course not. A man may be very self-contained, but he cannot altogether hide his own feelings. He loves you, Dolly.”

“Yes, it’s true, but” —

“And you? ” persisted Mrs. Frazer.

Dolly made no reply.

“Your silence means only one thing. If you know that he loves you, then he has told you so; and if he has told you so, you must have answered him — what? I cannot understand.”

“I answered him no,” said Dolly in a low voice that startled her questioner by its energy and finality.

There were a few minutes of silence.

“I can only repeat that I do not comprehend it at all, ” resumed Mrs. Frazer at length, smoothing out the winkles of her dress with her lorgnette. She was not given to caresses, nor was she a person to whom one naturally offered them; but her voice was less abrupt than her words, and the sincerity and kindliness of her purpose made themselves felt. “ I do not assume to say that you are suited to each other. People have to find that out for themselves. But why, if you love each other, you should not make the trial I cannot imagine. Do you care to tell me? ”

“I should not have told you,” said Dolly with a resolute effort at steadiness. “ Indeed — I did not suppose — we hardly spoke to each other when he was here — that any one ” — She stopped before her voice broke.

“My dear,” said Mrs. Frazer gently, “I have not the least right in the world to intrude upon your privacy. But a third person sometimes sees more clearly than we do. I cannot bear to see you unhappy.”

“There is nothing you can do,” replied Dolly. She had wholly recovered herself. “It is something to be borne — for the present. Perhaps — in time ” —

“One has n’t any time to throw away at any age, —certainly not at yours. I shall not ask you what the obstacle is, and I shall not feel aggrieved if you do not confide it to me. But do you think one always knows one’s own affairs best ? It is a very plausible theory, but it is not true.”

“The obstacle between us is his own child, ” said Dolly desperately.

Mrs. Frazer looked up.

“Let me ask you one question. Does he know it? ”

Dolly shook her head.

“No. She wrote me a letter in the fall after her visit, — a very plain letter, in which she said — it is too humiliating to repeat —— I cannot.”

Mrs. Frazer seemed taken quite unawares, yet she said, “I might have known it. It is like Gladys’s child. But it is not like his.”

She remembered the imperiousness and willfulness of the mother, her quiet pursuit of her own way, her —

“ He worships her, ” said Dolly wearily.

“And you. He cares nothing for you? ” asked Mrs. Frazer, recalling her thought from Gladys.

“You forget that he does not know, and that I cannot tell him.”

“I admit that would be a difficult thing for you to do.”

“ For any one to do, ” said Dolly firmly.

“Yes, for any one.”

Apparently sobered by the information she had received, and at a loss for what to say, Mrs. Frazer went on playing with the chain of her lorgnette.

“You see,” said Dolly, rising and replacing the comb on her toilet-table, “there is nothing to be done.” She took up the candle and stood holding it in one hand. “We ought to go down. Margaret and Paul will think it very strange. ”

“Have you consulted Paul? ”

“Yes, I told Paul. Not because I expected it would do any good — I had to tell some one ” — Her voice began to waver again.

“Put your candle down, dear. They are not thinking of us downstairs. What reply did you make to Mabel’s letter? ”

“I asked her to make me a visit. She is coming next week.”

“With the purpose of speaking to her ? ”

Dolly put down the candle again and took the seat in the farther corner of the sofa.

“I could not let such a message pass unnoticed,” she said. “I am going to speak to Mabel myself. I will not have her for an enemy if I can help it — in any event.”

“An enemy! ” exclaimed Mrs. Frazer wrathfully. “She is no one’s enemy but her own. You mean you are going to conciliate her? ”

“You may put it so if you choose. It is worth the effort. I only want her to know me better. I have thought it all over, and there is nothing but my pride that stands in the way. I have put that aside. If I cannot lead her to see things differently before — by kindness — what could we do afterwards — by force ? Paul wished me to tell Mr. Temple. I know what that would mean, because I know what I should do in like circumstances myself. He would stand by me.”

Mrs. Frazer listened in silence.

“Would you let me try my hand with Mabel? ” she asked at length.

“I think that would hurt my pride still more,” said Dolly. “There are some. things we cannot delegate to others without losing our self-respect. I should be thankful to put it all into some one else’s hands if I could — so thankful! ”

“I do not think Mabel is a girl to be cajoled, ” Mrs. Frazer went on, pursuing her own thought.

“I do not intend to cajole her,” broke in Dolly indignantly.

“Well, conciliate then. She is not in the right, she is in the wrong — most decidedly in the wrong — a selfish girl to be brought to her senses. You are not the person to do that, to say to her the things that ought to be said. Her father might, for he has authority on his side, — if she has an ounce of love for him in her,—but not you. You will find your pride alive the moment you speak, and if not your pride, then your sense of injustice. She needs a good shaking. Let me think this over,” she said, getting up and stooping to Dolly’s hair with her lips. “We must make no mistakes.” There was something comforting in the plural pronoun. “Now bathe your face, dear, and come downstairs. I will go first and see what those two children are doing in their paradise.”

She took Dolly’s hand in hers, patting it reassuringly.

“Yes,” said Dolly, “I will come in a moment.” Then rising impulsively she followed the retreating figure to the door and kissed Mrs. Frazer’s cheek. “Thank you,” she said softly, “I am glad you spoke.”

Arthur Sherburne Hardy.

(To be continued.)