Van Cleve and His Friends

CHAPTER X

MRS. AND MISS JAMESON AT HOME

THAT date of the first of May, eighteen-ninety-eight, was to be a much more memorable one even than poor Lorrie, restlessly following her sweetheart on his journey, through all the wan watches of the night, dreamed. For, by dawn of the next day, when he and many another girl’s sweetheart, and hundreds of husbands and brothers besides, were long miles to the south, or already down there on the Gulf, there went blazing through the country the tidings of the battle in Manila harbor. The newspapers screamed jubilantly, and for once acceptably; a generation may not witness more than one such event. Old Glory flapped triumphantly from a thousand flag-staffs, fireworks roared and bonfires flamed. Remember the Maine! No danger, they’d remember it now fast enough! ‘I can’t help feeling sorry for poor old Spain!’ Bob Gilbert wrote from Tampa, to the touched amusement of the family; that was like Bob, they thought fondly, like his good-nature, his pliant humanity.

The young man was, for a while, very diligent about writing; Lorrie has a bundle of his war letters locked away in a drawer this minute. They have got to looking worn and dust-soiled in these ten years, and I suppose they are not written in a very high literary style, being merely the headlong scribbling, full of fun and nonsense and spirit, you might expect from Bob. It had been a toilsome trip, he wrote; everything disarranged or ‘congested’ by the army trains, nothing running anywhere on schedule time, all kinds of delays, eat whenever you got a chance, and sleep if you dared! Tampa, of course, was chockful; he was bunking with some other newspaper men in the office of the Daily Mail, corner of Twiggs Street (address him there). They slept on the floor. Tell Moms not to worry; he had a blanket, and there was a place where they could wash up, and it was too roasting hot for anybody to catch cold; his cough was almost gone. As for Florida — give him little old Ohio! The tropic scenery did n’t come up to specifications. For one thing, the palms were a fizzle. Instead of being a nice, tall, smooth, tapering trunk like a porch column, they were all swelled out in the middle like an Adam’s apple on a giraffe — ‘ I would n’t give one of our buckeyes for the whole outfit of palms in Florida! . . . Everything down here is Plant’s or Flagler’s; they own the State between them. You ought to see the Tampa Bay Hotel, the one Plant spent so many millions on. It looks like Aladdin’s Palace done in cake or butter or something, like the models of the World’s Fair buildings the chef at the Queen City Club made one New Year’s, don’t you remember, Lorrie? All the high chief muck-a-mucks are staying there, and have their offices and headquarters; I saw Lawton and Roosevelt together. . . .’

During succeeding days, the correspondence fell off; but that was only natural, considering the progress of the events which Robert had been detailed to watch. Even Lorrie’s other letters, which had been at first of a daily regularity, gradually ceased to come, although Lieutenant Cortwright must have had time to spare, for he had complained bitterly of the state of inaction in which the army was being kept, while the navy was ‘right on the job,’ and ‘something happening every day’; and he railed at the Administration, and prophesied disastrous failure for a campaign conducted with so notable a lack of spirit and ‘push.’ Lorrie thought with a kind of adoring and delighted terror how brave and reckless and altogether demigod-like her hero was.

It was her brother’s opinion, too, that the navy was getting all the best of it. ‘They landed some marines at a place on the coast somewhere, called Cienfuegos, and had a fight — don’t know how much of a one. It’s the talk here that the troops are to be embarked to-morrow — everybody perfectly crazy to go, of course, but only the regulars and the 70th New York, and perhaps some of ours to be taken. The censorship is something fierce; not half that goes on gets in the papers; he just blue-pencils it, you know. The Porter brought in another prize-ship this morning, I heard. That must make about the twentieth; I’ve lost count. Wish I was a midshipmite or a bo’sun tight, or a somebody with a cheerily, my lads, yo ho! This prize business is as easy as rolling off a log. Saw Cort again yesterday. Nothing doing in his regiment,’ Bob wrote, in one of the last letters they had from him.

Spring flowered abundantly; the noisy, joyous-fearful days went by with new wild reports for almost every hour of them. The State troops began to be more and more restless and aggrieved at Chattanooga and the other points of concentration. Nothing material seemed to be happening in Cuba. The Oregon arrived happily and joined the blockading squadron; more prizes were pounced upon and victoriously herded in. On the other hand, the Spanish men-of-war and the torpedo flotilla, about which such dire misgivings had been aroused in the beginning, vanished from the face of the waters! And ‘Quo Vadis hades Cadiz navies?’ blithely inquired the comic journalist, as much to the fore as ever. To the ordinary layman and non-combatant, the host of American gentlemen of letters, short-story writers, long-story writers, magazine contributors, and newspaper correspondents, appeared to be the strongest and most active force at this moment menacing Cuba.

Notwithstanding their presence and efforts, it was June before the location of the unlucky ‘Cadiz navies’ was ascertained to be the harbor of Santiago. Towards the end of the month Lorrie got a letter from her brother — the first in two or three weeks — written from Key West, in the wildest spirits. Bob had been cruising on one of the press boats, the Milton D. Bowers, right off the coast of Cuba — right among the Fleet! He had been too busy to write — sorry! — but tell Moms he had not yet been in the slightest danger, and was n’t likely to be unless he deliberately went after it, and you might trust little Percival not to do that. And he could n’t tell them where to address their letters, he had no idea where he might be within a few hours; better send to the Tampa address, as heretofore.

Lorrie read the letter to her mother, both of them smiling and interested and uneasy as they sat in the side porch in the summer morning under the honeysuckle vine, which was all fragrant and thick with bloom; and old Dingo spread out peaceably in the patch of sunlight at their feet, stirred and cocked up his good brown head and ears as she finished. ‘I believe he knows we were reading something from Bob,’said Lorrie. She spoke to the dog. ‘Yes, you’re right, it’s Bob’s letter. Look, Dingo, Bob’s letter!’

Dingo growled again amicably, and rose, wagging; and a shadow came across the plot of sunshine. Mrs. Gilbert gave a jump and exclamation; she was nervous these days, and the unexpected appearance of a visitor startled her unduly. ‘Why, Paula!’ she ejaculated the next moment; ‘where did you drop from? Why, we did n’t even know you were in town! Why, Paula! You came stealing up like a little ghost. When did you get back? Did you have a nice time?’

‘It was in the paper Sunday, Mother, did n’t you see it?’ cried Lorrie; and sprang up and would have kissed the other, but that Paula, who, after her sudden arrival had stood for a second quite motionless, staring abstractedly at both of them, now stooped or turned aside, and dropped down into the nearest chair, without making any movement to return the salute. Lorrie was still standing almost awkwardly, in her surprise. One might have said that the girl had intentionally evaded her. Paula was arrayed in her familiar style of over-ornamentation, the pale-blue fabric of her dress all but obscured by embroidery and cascading laces; through the sheer folds of the waist there was visible yet more embroidery, threaded with pink ribbons, delicately enticing. Her hat was a cloud of flowers, butterflies, rhinestone buckles, chiffon rosettes; she had correct white silk gloves, correct white canvas shoes; enough must have been spent on the toilette, one would have supposed, to make even Paula supremely happy, but she did not look happy. Her Dresdenchina face wore a fretful and tired expression, oddly out of place on it.

‘We got back Saturday; they did n’t get the right day in the paper,’ she said, in a wearily complaining voice; ‘and they said we’d been in Atlantic City ever since we left Palm Beach, and we had n’t at all. We were in Atlantic City, but we’ve been in New York for four weeks. I wish we had n’t come home. I did n’t want to come home. There is n’t anybody here I want to see. Is n’t it horrid and hot? Oh, I am so tired!’

Lorrie and her mother — of whose greeting and extended hand Miss Jameson had taken no notice — surveyed her in a momentary silence, each thinking the same thought with a certain compassion, namely, that the poor child had never been taught any manners, and not being clever or observant, or perhaps fine-natured enough, to acquire them of herself, the lack would show more and more as she got older. The pause, brief as it was, startled her self-consciousness.

‘What’s the matter? What are you both looking at me that way for? Don’t I look all right? Do I — don’t I — Is there anything the matter with me?’ she demanded sharply, darting a glance full of suspicion from one to the other, and straightened her figure with an effort; she had allowed herself to droop heavily in the Professor’s wide, rough, old splint-bottomed chair. And she began to make nervous, fluttering gestures about her hair and flowery hat and laces and ribbons. ‘Do tell me if I don’t look right anywhere!’ she entreated.

‘Your dress is all right, my dear; it’s so pretty we could n’t help staring at it, that’s all. And your hat is on straight, don’t worry!’ said Mrs. Gilbert, hastily, a good deal amused at this characteristic anxiety. ‘But you da look tired, Paula,’ she added, in a kind concern; ‘you must have been doing too much.'

‘Oh, no — that is, maybe I have, I guess — but I’ll — I’ll be all right in a little,’ Paula said, fingering her dress mechanically; ‘it’s only being tired that makes me look this way —’

‘Traveling around so much is really hard work,’ suggested Lorrie, sympathetically.

‘Yes, that’s it. I hate to look ugly, though. Do you think I’m getting fat?’ She turned her eyes to Lorrie, with so tragic an inquiry that the older girl, kind-hearted as she was, could hardly keep back her laugh; fat was the utter abhorrence, the abominable thing, the secret enemy and terror of the Jamesons, mother and daughter.

‘Why, no, Paula, you’re not a bit fatter,’ Lorrie made haste to assure her; ‘that is, just a little, maybe; you’re always nice and round and no bones showing, you know. But I think you’re thinner in the face, if anything.’ In fact, Paula’s small, regular features did look rather pinched, and she was unnaturally sallow.

‘I’m tired,’ she repeated, prodding at a crack in the porch floor with the ferule of her expensive lingerie parasol. ‘I did n’t want to come back to this old town, anyhow,’ said Paula, jabbing at the floor petulantly. She raised her head with an abrupt motion; her face suddenly flushed, all but her tightly drawn lips, which kept an unwholesome lead color. For the instant she was almost homely; it was startling. ‘Lorrie,’ she said, in a high, accusing tone. ‘I never knew you were engaged. I never knew until I got a copy of our paper and saw it in the “Jottings,” when we were in Atlantic City; I never knew. When did it happen? It did n’t say when it happened. Did it happen before I went away?’ She leaned forward; her eyes and her whole face burned.

‘Why — why — I — I don’t know — ’ stammered Lorrie, taken aback at the other’s fevered interest. ‘I don’t remember whether you were still at home or not.'

‘Well, anyhow, you know when it happened, I should hope. You know when he asked you,’ said Paula, with a violent impatience. Lorrie and her mother felt the same inward recoil; for the first time Paula seemed to them actually coarse. Her shrill voice was coarse; her eager, persistent curiosity was coarse. ‘When was it?’ she reiterated imperatively.

‘In — in the winter — it was some time in the winter,’ said Lorrie, at last, with difficulty.

‘Oh !’ Paula relapsed into the chair with a movement of her shoulder indicating open disbelief. ‘I don’t see why you don’t want to talk about it.’ And, after a second of angry silence, she burst out, vehemently reproachful, ‘Why did n’t you tell me, Lorrie? You knew you were going to be engaged to him. You knew you were going to say yes the minute he asked you. You knew he’d ask you; you had it all fixed up, you know you did. Why didn’t you tell me? I think you’re mean — you — you — it was n’t fair. You ought to have told me at the very first. I think you’re a mean old thing, Lorrie Gilbert —! ’

She choked off, her lips working, her eyes fastened on Lorrie with an unimaginable fierceness. It was plain to the other two women that Paula had brooded herself into a fury over this silly grievance, like the spoiled child she was; she might have been funny, but for the fact that there is always something a little dreadful about the anger of a fool.

‘I did n’t think you’d care so much, Paula,’ Lorrie said, kindly setting herself to appease the girl; ‘and besides, I did n’t tell anybody particularly, you know. It was announced so that everybody would know all at once —’

‘Is that your ring? Did he give you that?’ Paula interrupted hoarsely, thrusting her hand out suddenly and seizing the other’s.

‘Yes.’

Paula examined it closely for a minute. ‘I guess it’s a real diamond,’ she said at length, dropping the hand as unexpectedly as she had snatched it. All at once, she seemed to have forgotten her complaint; indeed, she was by nature too amiable or too indolent to keep herself in such a state of ferment for any length of time. ‘Has everybody gone away?’ she asked. ‘To that old war, I mean? Your brother went, did n’t he?’

‘Yes. Bob’s at Key West, now,’ said Lorrie in the vigorously cheerful style she always adopted in her mother’s presence.

‘ I heard Mr. Cortwright went, too,’ said Paula, working the parasol-tip around and around in a knot-hole, intently.

‘Yes. Campaigning seems to suit him. He’s been very well, and enjoying himself! ’ Lorrie’s mother answered this time; and now it was her turn to assume the artificial confidence. Neither of them was in the least deceived by it; but if mothers and daughters should cease to pract ice these gallant and tender hypocrisies, what would be the use of mothers and daughters, or of women at all?

‘ Do you know where he is, all the time?' Paula asked, worrying the knothole.

‘Why, of course. He’s at Tampa with the troops, unless they’ve been moved — and nobody knows what they are going to do from one hour to the next; but that was the last we heard.’

‘He — he writes to you, I suppose?’

‘To me?’ said Mrs. Gilbert, with a little indulgent smile; ‘I’m afraid, my dear child, I’m very much afraid he’s never given me a thought! But Lorrie has been getting a letter every day, strange to say! ’ She gave her daughter a look gull of affectionate mischief and fun. Lorrie colored faintly; she wished Phil would write every day.

‘Are you sure all your letters get to him? How do you address them?’ Paula said next.

‘Why, to his regiment, you know.’

’Well, I —I supposed so; I was n’t sure,’ Paula said. She abandoned the porch floor, laid the parasol across her lap, and began an equally automatic and earnest fidgeting with the bit of pompadour ribbon elaborately knotted on its handle.

‘Are you still getting ready to be married, Lorrie? Mr. Cortwright might get shot in a fight, you know,’ she said shrilly and distinctly; and looked up, as the other winced and paled, with an extraordinary watchful curiosity. About the speech and manner there was that childish brutality not unnatural to Paula; it repelled, partly because one felt the hopelessness of trying to illuminate her. A child might mature, might learn, but this girl, never! There went through Mrs. Gilbert’s mind, even in the midst of her distress and indignation, a weird fancy presenting Paula as one of the Psyches, the Undines, the lovely creatures without a soul that figure in countless oldworld legends. ‘She’s hardly responsible!’ thought the mother, with a kind of impatient pity.

‘Well, I —I try not to think about that,’ Lorrie said with an effort.

‘ I don’t see how you can help thinking about it — I’m sure I would. I would n’t know whether to go on with my clothes or not.’ She eyed Lorrie with a return of her morbid interest. ‘Don’t it make you feel awfully when you think of the times he’s kissed you? He did kiss you, did n’t he?’

Lorrie sat, turning white and red, incapable of a word; and it was Mrs. Gilbert who answered in a cold voice, stiffening to her very marrow, ‘Please don’t, Paula! It’s not necessary to talk about — about things like that.’

‘ I suppose not. It’s no use, anyhow,’ Paula assented dully. There was another silence. ‘I wish we had n’t come back!’ she burst out again. ‘I wish we’d stayed in Florida. Then we’d have been right near it — the war, you know — we’d have seen them all — all the soldiers and everything — we’d have seen — ’

Her face puckered together, she put up her hands with a frantic movement; the parasol slid down unheeded. Paula began to rock herself back and forth, and the other two women saw, to their fright and pain, that her slender shoulders were heaving violently; it was like seeing a bruised hummingbird in torments.

‘Mercy! Why, Paula —why, what is the matter? Don’t you feel well? Are you sick? What is it that hurts you? Tell me where it hurts! Don’t cry that way!’ cried out Mrs, Gilbert, all her anger dissolved in kindness; she ran to the girl with little soft, purring ejaculations, and took the pretty, trivial, bedizened figure into her maternal arms. ‘There now, there now! Tell me what’s the matter!’

‘Oh, I’m tired — I’m sick — oh, I wish we’d never come back!’ sobbed Paula, wildly.

Lorrie and her mother exchanged a glance above the flowered hat; for goodness’ sake! Crying and brokenhearted this way because she had n’t seen the army! both thought. But after all, that was just like poor Paula. They tried to comfort her with much the same means they might have employed had she been eight years old; and Paula sobbed on with long, shuddering gasps and moans like a child, sitting rigid between them, not yielding to their caresses.

‘I’ll go back with you — you’re not well enough to go by yourself that long, hot walk. I’ll just go along with you,’ Lorrie assured her, when they had got her somewhat quieted at last. They rescued the parasol, and straightened Paula’s frills, and dabbed her face and eyes with soothing cold water, and fetched the talcum powder and the smelling-salts, and, in short, performed all the hundred and one small offices women find necessary to such an occasion. ‘Maybe it would be better if you lay down a little while — don’t you think?’ they suggested kindly.

‘I c-can’t lie down in this d-dress,’ said Paula, pitifully; ‘it would spoil it. No, you don’t need to come, Lorrie. You don’t need to come with me. I can go by myself. I don’t want you to come!’ She spoke with hysterical entreaty, looking at the other with something like fear, almost as strong as aversion, in her blue eyes, that were ordinarily blank and beautiful as a mountain lake.

‘Oh, now, don’t be a goose!’ said Lorrie in good-natured and sensible command. ‘We can’t let you go off feeling this way. It’s no trouble; I have n’t got a thing to do. S-sh, now ! Don’t say another word. I’m going!’

Paula submitted as unexpectedly as she had rebelled, and dragged feebly down the steps, her arm interlocked with Lorrie’s, who walked beside, hatless, in the unconventional summer style of our suburbs, erect and firm, with all her chestnut-colored hair ruffling and shining in the sun. Lorrie was not a tall woman or of strong build, yet, in contrast to her companion, she produced a surprising effect of superiority; perhaps it was not wholly physical; one might have fancied that a greater dignity of spirit in her had magically become visible. Mrs. Gilbert herself, looking after them, wondered aloud. ‘Why, I did n’t realize Lorrie was so — so —' she mused, and turned and went back into the house without being able to find the proper adjective.

The two girls went on slowly and silently, the elder in a good deal of private anxiety, as she noted her charge’s color wane, and her hollow eyes, and the unwholesome moisture clinging around her taut lips. In fact, Paula’s strength barely held out for the journey, and it was with unmeasured relief that Lorrie at length beheld the sprawling, decorated façade of the hotel looming ahead of them. She got the other up the steps, helped by a porter who chanced to be passing, and grasped the situation. Mrs. Jameson, rather cross at being roused from her regular morning nap, which formed a part of the exercises in physical preservation and improvement about which she was always most systematic, came to the door of their room, in a flowing white negligé, embroidered with garlands of lilac, wistaria, and what-not, by some Gallic artist of the needle, with lilac-hued ribbons floating and intermingling with its flounces. Rich odors accompanied the lady; indeed, they gushed out of the darkened bedroom (which was littered with other ribbons, and wilted flowers, wrappingpapers, odd slippers, a bath towel or two, and a pair of pink brocade corsets draped over the back of a chair) in a volume Lorrie found almost suffocating; and Paula, who nevertheless must have been accustomed to this atmosphere, reeled against her companion.

' Well, I must say, Paula —’ her mother began, sharply; she checked herself at sight of the visitor. ‘Oh, Miss Gilbert! Do excuse my hair, please. I always put it up on kid curlers this way, you know. I don’t approve of curling-irons, they’re so bad for the hair —’

‘Let me get Paula to the lounge, please, Mrs. Jameson; she’s not feeling very well,’ Lorrie interrupted her ruthlessly; she had to push the surprised woman aside to enter.

‘ I ’d like a drink of water,’said Paula, in a vague, distant whisper.

Mrs. Jameson stood stupefied and entirely useless as Lorrie briskly, and largely by main strength, got her daughter to the sofa, opened her dress, threw up the window, ran and came back with a tumbler of ice-water and a fan —all in five seconds, and with an ease, noiselessness, and certainty of movement such as Mrs. Jameson had never witnessed in her life. ‘Why, why — what is it? What’s the matter with Paula?’ she repeated two or three times, trailing ineffectually up and down in Lorrie’s wake. She stopped by the sofa. ‘Are you sick, Paula?’

‘I’m afraid it’s this heat,’ said Lorrie, kneeling and fanning swiftly. ‘Just sip the water, Paula, just a little at a time. That’s right—yes, you can swallow it — see!—that’s right. It’s better for you a little at a time. Now lie down flat. No, let me take away the cushion, Mrs. Jameson; she’ll feel better with her head low.’

‘Is it the heat, Paula?’ asked her mother, helplessly. ‘Do you think it’s the heat? I don’t know what to do for a heat-stroke. What’s best, Miss Gilbert?’

‘I think she’d better have a doctor,’ said Lorrie; ‘there’s one in the hotel, is n’t there? I’ll get him —’ She was on her feet with the words.

‘No, no, I don’t want him, I don’t want any doctor!’ said Paula, faintly, struggling upright with wild eyes. She clutched desperately at Lorrie’s skirts. ‘I won’t have the doctor, Lorrie; I won’t, I won’t!’ She began a kind of weak screaming.

‘He’s old school—the one in the hotel is — and we’ve always been homœopathic — the medicine is so much easier to take —’ Mrs. Jameson explained feebly.

Lorrie looked at her, at the sick girl crying and writhing on the sofa, at the hot, untidy, perfumed room, with a sudden overmastering repugnance; the next instant she chided herself sternly for it.

‘I’ll get any other doctor you want, Mrs. Jameson.' she compelled herself to say with gentleness; ‘Paula must have somebody — you can see that for yourself/

‘Well, Doctor Booth —' Mrs. Jameson said, hesitating.

She was interrupted by Paula’s highpitched wailing. ‘No, don’t — oh, don’t — oh, please don’t!’ She beat the air with her hands. ‘I’ll tell — I’ll tell — oh, please —! ’

Lorrie sped down the hall — the hysterical screeches sinking to hysterical chokings and mutterings within the room behind her. She planned quickly. Doctor Booth’s office, fortunately, was only about half a dozen squares away; he could reach the hotel in a few minutes; but if he was not in, she would call up the next nearest — who would that be?—Doctor Livingston — he was ‘old school,’ but pooh! what difference did that make? It was getting on toward noon, not a very good hour to go in search of doctors. She debated whether she had not better take it on herself to telephone for a trained nurse, too, since it was plain that that foolish, scared woman in the lavender embroideries would be absolutely of no account in a sick-room, and Paula might be going to be seriously ill for some time. Lorrie associated Florida with malarial germs, and New York and Atlantic City with incautious eating and drinking; poor water — typhoid — overfatigue— all thealarmist reports of the day crowded into her mind. And then the sound of her own name, distractedly called, arrested her with her finger on the button to summon the elevator. ‘Miss Gilbert! Miss Gilbert! ’

Mrs. Jameson rushed up, gasping; her face was ash-color — the fine lines and crows’-feet in it showed mercilessly; but she had forgotten all about them, she forgot her kid curlers and her negligé, even with the elevator-man imminent in his cab. She ran and grasped the front of Lorrie’s white shirtwaist with trembling hands, on which all sorts of rings and jewels glittered keenly. ‘Don’t get the doctor!’ she managed to get out in a strangled whisper. ‘For God’s sake, don’t! That is, — if you could get one — no, no, don’t!’ She paused breathlessly, in a tortured indecision, terrible to see on her doll-featured face.

Lorrie stood, sorely perplexed, genuinely alarmed. ‘But, Mrs. Jameson —!’ she began to protest.

‘Is there a doctor here that nobody knows — that nobody ever has — that is n’t anybody’s doctor?’ demanded the older woman, holding her fiercely. ‘ If you did know of one —’

‘Why, no — how could I — why, what for — why —’ Lorrie was utterly bewildered.

‘No, no, don’t call anybody, then!’ reiterated Mrs. Jameson, releasing her. ’I don’t want anybody, do you hear? I won’t have anybody. I’m her mother, and I don’t want any doctor for her, and it’s none of your business, do you hear me? ’ she said with stifled violence. She thrust her face almost into Lorrie’s. ‘Don’t you dare—!’ All at once she became a beldame, a vulgar fury, a disheveled hag before whom the young woman shrank in some feeling not far from terror.

Lorrie went home, a little shaken by the morning’s experiences; very likely she was already somewhat overstrained by these recent trying weeks. ‘Mother,’ she said, gravely, as the two ladies sat down to their luncheon, I ’m afraid I’ve been doing that poor Mrs. Jameson an awful injustice all this while. She is very much fonder of Paula than I thought — just as fond as other mothers are of their children — just like you! Of course she did n’t act the way you would if I were suddenly taken sick, but she’s just as frightened and anxious. Why, do you know, when she finally did realize that Paula was sick, she — why, she was just like a crazy woman! ’

CHAPTER XI

IN WHICH WE PACK OUE VALISES

During all this time, the unimpressionable Mr. Kendrick worked along according to his habit, as has been recited, paying only a passing attention to the history-making in progress around him. Van himself was making, not history, but what was much better worth while, from his point of view, Money — yes, Money with a capital letter. The Good Apprentice prospered, for once, as all good apprentices should. He was shrewd, he was cool, he was just, he was unfathomably patient; and without question his whole heart was in the work. Mr. Kendrick had nowhere else to bestow it; so that steady and reliable organ beat, presumably, only for himself.

It is true he was very good to his family, indulging their whims as far as he was able, supplying their wants with the utmost liberality, and rarely inquiring how they disposed of the funds which he poured into that apparently bottomless hopper. ‘They’re mighty good women — all of ’em, even Uncle Stan; he’s about the same as a woman,’ Van used to reflect humorously; ‘good and kind, and I guess they’ve got as much sense as most women that are n’t nearly so nice, either, by jiminy!’ Saying which he would methodically file away their letters asking for money, or acknowledging the receipt of it, in the drawer be used for that purpose. In time there got to be a stack of these documents.

. . . ‘ Dearest Van: Your noble, generous, splendid check came this morning. You dear old fellow, I ’m so afraid you went without something yourself, to provide us. What would we not all give to take this burden off of you! But never mind, Van darling, some day it will all be made up to you, that is my devout belief.’

Van Cleve used to skim through this part with a highly irreverent inattention; he knew from experience that toward page three the ladies would finally come to the point, ‘get down to business”; that is, divulge the amount they wanted. He had all their letters tied up in packets, year by year, and labeled in his neat, square handwriting: ‘M. V. C. Lucas 5/1/98, $75. Answd. 5/22/98.’ ’E. Lucas 7/15/02, $50,’ and so on. ‘Don’t they ever write to you about anything but money?’ was once asked of him. ‘Oh, yes. But that’s the only important thing.’

Being now a bachelor at large upon the world, the young gentleman sometimes forsook his boarding-house of an evening and made a call, or recreated himself at the theatre or at the club, which he had recently found he was able to join; indeed, this last was probably his most favored resort, for, except with other men, Van had no great social gift. I fear Mr. Kendrick was not at all a ladies’ man. They appeared to him mostly as pretty, decorative creatures, sharing doubtless the funny and occasionally irritating forciblefeeblenesses of his own womankind. It was a matter of increasing wonder to him that any man should voluntarily elect to spend his life with one of them.

‘Well, it would n’t be all roses for any girl that had to live with me!’ he sometimes retorted upon himself, satirically honest. Van never admitted, even in this privacy, that there was always an exception lurking in the back of his mind. There was one girl — heigh-ho! He believed he could have lived with her and made her happy.

It was to her house that he went in the hot summer night of the day of Paula’s ill-starred visit there. Van Cleve, too, had had a letter from Bob, and found no difficulty in persuading himself that it would be a kindness to take it over for the family to read. So Mr. Kendrick left his fellow boarders on the porch, with their rocking-chairs and their fans, and journeyed over to Warwick Lane in the face of an ominous cloudbank all along the western horizon, intermittently streaked and splashed with lightning. Lorrie was sitting, as usual, on the Gilbert front steps, alone in the sultry dusk; all the front steps up and down the little suburban street were thus decorated at this hour, and you might hear the young people’s laughter, and a banjo twanging here and there; everybody had n’t gone to the war. As he came up the walk, Van, through a lamplit square of window, could perceive the Professor bending over a sheaf of writing— examination papers, very likely — and Mrs. Gilbert darning a stocking on the other side of the table; the two tired gray heads showed distinctly.

The family had also heard from Robert, Van Cleve learned, and his own news was of no later date. He and Lorrie agreed that the trip seemed to be doing Bob good, and he was getting a lot of fun out of it, anyhow; his letters were so happy. ‘I don’t believe it’s the — the sort of fun that will harm him, either, do you, Van ? ’ the girl asked earnestly. ‘Of course there’re all kinds of men in an army — a camp like that; but they must be most ly all right, or they could n’t stay in the army.’

‘They’re under pretty strict discipline — the regulars, that is, I believe,’ said Van Cleve, trying to be diplomatic. ‘Anyhow, it suits Bob better than anything he has ever tried. He was crazy to go, and it would n’t have done any good to have kept him at home.’

During and since the excitement, Lorrie and Van had tacitly agreed to forget their differences over Bob — to bury the hatchet. The old friendly confidence was restored; and if another person’s name would be forever cropping up, Van Cleve realized, with a twinge, that this was natural and inevitable. Her lover was constantly in Lorrie’s mind, and it was right and proper that he should be; then how could she help talking about him?

‘That’s what I tell Mother, but she can’t help worrying, you know,’ said Lorrie, answering his last speech. ‘I wish Bob could be more with — with Mr. Cortwright, but they don’t seem to have seen much of each other. The camp’s perfectly huge, they say, swarming with men. And then Philip

— Mr. Cortwright — must be on duty a great part of his time,’ the girl added, with a note of pride; ‘he said in one of his letters he would n’t have much chance to look after Bob.’

Van Cleve, who still kept to his ideas — doubtless unfair and prejudiced ones — about the benefit Robert might receive from an association with this gentleman, did not reply for a moment. Then he spoke, overlooking Mr. Cortwright. ‘ I suppose if we could be there at Tampa or Key West and see it, we’d laugh at the notion of finding or looking out for anybody. It must be an awful mix-up,’ he said wisely.

There was a pause while the thunder began to rumble overhead.

‘Do you suppose cannon sounds like that?’ Lorrie said.

‘Don’t know. I’ve a notion it’s shorter and boomier, somehow — not quite so much like a lot of empty hogsheads rolling downstairs,’ Van suggested. ‘Your mother was near some of the battlefields in the Civil War, was n’t she? She must know what sort of noise the guns make.’

‘Yes, but I don’t like to ask her. I think it pains her to be reminded of it.’

They glanced at the open window.

‘ How old your fat her and mother are beginning to look, Lorrie,’ Van said, involuntarily; the knowledge came to him with an unwelcome shock.

‘Do you think so?' she said, troubled; ‘they have n’t been well, either of them; and Bob’s never out of their minds for one instant, you know. It does seem as if we’d had so many upsetting things happen lately; and when people get older, they can’t stand them so well. Now, to-day Paula Jameson—’ Lorrie gave him some description of the girl’s seizure. ‘I hope it’s nothing serious, but it certainly was enough to frighten anybody to see it — it was so sudden,’ she concluded. ‘Mother’s been what, she calls “ as nervous as a witch” all day. I’m glad she did n’t have to have anything to do with Mrs. Jameson, anyhow. Van, it was awful! That poor thing was completely frightened out of what little sense she has —Is that somebody coming in?’

The visitor was Mrs. Jameson, walking fast. ‘ Gracious! Suppose she heard me! I hope I was n’t speaking very loud!’ Lorrie ejaculated inwardly, panic-struck; and greeted the other in a fluster that made Van Cleve smile in the dark.

‘Why — why — good evening, Mrs. Jameson. A — er — how is Paula?’ And then, as the girl’s mother came up and stood breathing hurriedly and excitedly, without a word, Lorrie added in quick alarm, ‘She’s not worse? She’s not going to be very sick? What is it? A — a fever? Not a fever, I hope?’

Mrs. Jameson spoke at last in a hasty, fluttering voice, catching herself and swallowing at every other word. ‘No, it’s not that — she’s better — that is, she — she’ll be better — I don’t know — Who’s that?’ she cried out shrilly, and darted a step forward, peering into the shadow where Van Cleve sat. ‘Is that your brother? Is that you, Bob Gilbert?’

‘Why no, Bob’s not home — he’s gone away — he’s with the troops down in Florida — did n’t Paula tell you?’ Lorrie explained, a good deal startled, as Van Cleve got to his feet and came into the light, himself somewhat surprised. Mrs. Jameson fell back unsteadily and stared at him. ‘It’s Mr. Kendrick, Van Cleve Kendrick, you know. Why, I was sure you knew Van Cleve,’ said Lorrie. ‘Paula knows him.’ And she asked again, unconvinced, ‘Is Paula better? Can’t I do something for her?’

‘Oh, I’ve met Miss Jameson lots of t imes — ’ Van was saying, a little embarrassed.

‘Oh, yes, yes — I — I beg your pardon, Mr. Kendrick, of course — I could n’t see who it was — I beg your pardon—’ Mrs. Jameson said in a manner that so laboriously parodied her accustomed artificial graces that the others observed it with a kind of incredulity. She put up a hand to her bare throat, as if to help the control of her voice. ‘I — I thought for a minute your brother might have come back, and — and I wanted to see him on business — a — a little business,’ she said to Lorrie.

‘I’m sorry Bob’s not home — ’ Lorrie stammered, confounded by this statement; ‘I can give you his last address, though, but we’re not sure where he’ll be—' she was going on to say, when Mrs. Jameson cut her short with a sudden wild ejaculation and gesture; she threw out both hands as if she rent and tore away some bond, resigned some struggle, with a need stronger than herself. ‘It don’t make any difference!' she said loud and harshly; ‘where’s his father? I want to see his father. Is he here?’

‘Father ?’ repeated Lorrie, blankly. The request was stranger, if that could be, than the first. Professor Gilbert had never met, had never even seen, Mrs. Jameson in his life; it was impossible to imagine their having a single interest in common, a single thought or feeling. ‘Father? Why yes, he’s here — he’s in the house. Do you want — I mean, shall I call him — I mean, won’t you come in?’

‘I want to see your father,’ said Mrs. Jameson again, vehemently. ‘Is that him in there? That gray-headed man? ’ She advanced into the full light, showing a face and figure in uncanny disorder; she had a black lace dress and black hat flung on anyhow; tag-ends of lavender ribbon and white edging stuck out inappropriately about the corsage; the plumes of her hat swept and bobbed and dipped over her big white neck and shoulders, that showed fleshily under the figured net draperies; and wisps of her red hair blew or hung stringily out of curl about her.

The two young people looked at her almost appalled; for terror and misery stared out of the woman’s eyes, and walked in this slattern finery, on those pinched, French-heeled slippers. ‘The poor thing has gone out of her head, sure enough! Paula must be going to die!’ both of them thought. For an instant they stood helpless, not knowing what to do or say.

‘ I want to see your father,’ said Mrs. Jameson, moving toward the door, still with that air of having thrown down all barriers. She turned quickly. ‘You’d better go away!' she said, her glance comprehending them both. ‘Why don’t you go away? I want to see him by himself.’

‘But Mrs. Jameson, Father can’t — he does n’t — he won’t know who you are — just wait a minute — only a minute, won’t you?’ Lorrie expostulated, trying to gather up her own wits, and to speak soothingly and with composure. ‘Had n’t you better sit down here, and — and let me get you something? You — you’re nervous, you know. Can’t you tell me what it is? Is it something about Paula? Tell me, won’t you?’

Mrs. Jameson shook off her hands. ‘Let me alone!’ she said savagely; and thrust them both aside and went into the house. Lorrie and Van Cleve hesitated behind her, each questioning the other’s face.

‘That’s just the way she was to-day when she found how sick poor Paula was!’ whispered the girl. Unconsciously she laid a hand on his arm. ‘Mercy, I’m glad you’re here, Van! What do you suppose is the matter? She acts as if she might do anything ! And yet she said something about Paula’s being better.’

‘Oh, she’s just frightened, I guess,’ said Van Cleve, reassuringly. Mrs. Jameson’s manner reminded him of his aunt’s when that lady reached a high pitch of excitement. ‘You’ll find there’s nothing much wrong,’ said the young man, wagging his head knowingly, as he followed her. The storm was rising noisily, clapping the doors, and sending the Professor’s papers scurrying all about the room. There came a dash of rain.

‘Lorrie! Van! Better run and close the windows!’ Mrs. Gilbert called out. She dropped her work and ran to the door. ‘Come in, children, both of you! Is there somebody else out there?

I thought I heard somebody — Mrs. Jameson! ’

The other shouldered past without heeding her. ‘Is that Bob Gilbert’s father? Are you his father?’ she demanded.

Professor Gilbert, who had been gathering sheets of foolscap from under the fender where they had blown and lodged, straightened up, smoothing them in his hands, and turned around. He pushed up his glasses and green shade to survey her amazedly.

‘My name is Gilbert, madam,’ he said, recovering; and made a little courteous, old-fashioned gesture of apology. ‘Er — who is it, if you please?’

‘It’s Mrs. Jameson, Sam — you know — Paula Jameson’s mother — you know Paula,’ Mrs. Gilbert interposed hastily. ‘My husband, Professor Gilbert, Mrs. Jameson,’ she added, conventionally, notwithstanding her surprise; she supposed that the other had run in for a refuge from the rain. And—‘Won’t you sit down?’ said the hospitable little lady, seeking to put the guest at her ease. Still Mrs. Jameson did not move or speak; and in the silence, Lorrie’s mother suddenly sensed impending calamity. ‘How is Paula? Is she — ? It’s not serious ? ’ she asked quickly. Her eyes searched the other mother’s face, and whatever she divined there, stark horror all at once laid hold of her. ‘Merciful Heaven, is n’t she going to — to get well? She—she’s not going to — to—•’ She could not finish.

Mrs. Jameson glanced at her impatiently. She made a movement toward the Professor, then checked herself, as it seemed unwillingly, and looked around on the others. ‘I said for all of you to go away.’ Then, as nobody moved immediately, in the common bewilderment, she threw out both hands again in a paroxysm of impotent anger. ‘My God, won’t anybody listen to me?’ she screamed out violently, and stamped the floor; ‘I know I’m acting queer — I know it as well as you do! But I’m not crazy — not yet, anyhow!’ And with this outburst she seemed on a sudden to repossess herself! It was as if some unimaginable flood of desperate emotion had deluged and devastated her soul and rushed on, leaving her to the ultimate calm — the calm of defeat. She went up to Professor Gilbert and spoke steadily. ‘I have come about your son. I mean the one that ’s called Bob. I want you to send for him to come back. He’s got to come back here! ’

‘Bob? You mean Bob?’ said the father, uncomprehendingly; 'you want him to come back? But madam, I — I don’t understand. What is the matter? Why —? ’

‘Because he’s ruined my girl — that’s why!’ said Mrs. Jameson; and as Professor Gilbert moved, with an inarticulate sound, she repeated the words.

There was a speechless moment. Outside the storm roared past and shook the four corners of the house; but for the people in the Gilbert sittingroom, silence engulfed the universe. Mrs. Jameson stood haggardly in the midst of them, her hand clutching at her throat; she was spent utterly and could feel and think no further. For that matter, thought was beyond the others, too; nobody was thinking; their minds stood still, clogged with formless protest. Van Cleve, who more than any one present had the habit of self-mastery, was the first to recognize that Mrs. Jameson was not insane; she was most tragically sane, and she believed herself to be telling the truth. It might be monstrous — it was monstrous — but it explained and justified her. After another chaotic instant, Lorrie came to the same realization; strangely enough, her first coherent thought in that flash of miserable illumination, was not of her brother, not of Bob’s guilt or innocence, but of Paula. Lorrie understood now; sick horror and pity surged over her.

Mrs. Gilbert spoke, grasping at her first definite idea; it was more like an impulse uttered than a thought. ‘My son never did that thing. Our Bob never did that,’ she said.

‘Will you send for him?’ said the other mother.

‘Mrs. Jameson,’ said the Professor, collecting himself; I — I cannot believe — I do not mean that I doubt you — I mean I — I —’ He stopped; then made another effort. ‘ I trust you will not misunderstand me — I trust you will bear with me when I say I can’t believe — I don’t believe my son would so wrong—’ He had to stop again.

‘Would Paula lie about it? What for?’ said Mrs. Jameson.

The rest looked at one another, groping for an answer. Suddenly Mrs. Gilbert became aware that her daughter and a young man were in the room — a young unmarried man and woman. ‘You ought n’t to be here, Lorrie — you and Van,’ she said distressfully.

Van Cleve obediently turned to the door, in a turmoil of shame and sympathy; but Bob’s father interposed quickly. ‘Van Cleve — Van! Don’t go! You’re Bob’s friend — don’t go!’

‘Oh, Mother, it does n’t make any difference — nothing makes any difference except whether this is true or not. That’s all that matters!’ said Lorrie. They looked at her. It was so. Nothing mattered but the truth. The kindly, well-meant screens and shams of daily intercourse were all abolished; there they stood, men and women, with their wretched knowledge, like people around a corpse.

‘Did she — did Paula tell you so?’ Mrs. Gilbert asked, unconsciously clenching her hands together. ‘Did she say it — it was Bob?’

‘Yes. I made her tell me. She did n’t want to, but I made her. Will you send for him?’

Mrs. Gilbert put out a hand blindly, and caught hold of a table and clung to it, trembling. It was that little old table with the decanter of peachbrandy, and the thing rocked over now, struck against the wall, and went smashing unregarded to the floor, and the heavy, gummy liquor splashed and ran down over the wall in a thick stream. That was like the stain on the family honor: it would never come off.

‘I cannot believe it,’ Professor Gilbert said again. ‘Bob has been wild — he has been wild, but he — he — ’ Torturing doubt appeared on his face; his eyes sought Van Cleve’s in unhappy appeal. ‘Van Cleve, you’ve always been his friend — you know him better than anybody — much better than I. I’ve never known how to — to do right with Bob,’ said the father, humbly. ‘Do you believe it?’

The young man hung his head; he, too, had been thinking that Bob was wild, was weak. ‘All that talk about never harming anybody but himself, what does that amount to? If a fellow lets go of himself one way, he’s bound to let go of himself other ways,’ he thought, gloomily. ‘But it he did do this, by God, I know it was n’t all Bob’s fault!’ Aloud, he could only say huskily, ‘Mr. Gilbert, I don’t want to believe it.’ The words sounded as hard as his hard face looked, yet they were uttered with real suffering.

‘Are you going to send for him? ’ said Mrs. Jameson.

There was another unhappy silence; they could hear the water rustling along the gutter and down-spout at the corner of the porch; the storm had come, and burst, and passed since they had been in this room, and not one of them had noticed it; and it was not yet ten minutes!

Mrs. Gilbert at last spoke, raising her head. ‘Bob shall come back, Mrs. Jameson,’she said, firmly and clearly. ‘He must come back. If he — if they have done wrong, it will be righted. Young people don’t always seem to know — they don’t mean to be wicked, they’re just foolish — ’

She paused, fighting for self-control; and before their mental vision there rose the picture of the pretty, little, soft, silly girl, the reckless, goodnatured, self-indulgent young man. It was sad, it was shameful; but was it so very strange, was it wholly their fault? ‘Why were n’t you taking better care of your daughter, woman?’ the one mother wanted to cry out. ‘And why did n’t you put better principles into your son, Ellen Gilbert?’ conscience inquired sternly. ‘It shall be made right — Bob shall make it right —* we want it as much as you do,’ Mrs. Gilbert began again. She turned to her husband with a fevered eagerness. ‘We’ll telegraph him—can’t we telegraph? I mean to-night — now — at once; can’t we?’

‘If—if we knew where he is,’ said the Professor, in helplessness. He took off the eye-shade and spectacles which he had been wearing all this while, and laid them down under the lamp with nervous and shaky movements; on a sudden, he seemed to have become an old man — old and infirm. ‘Let me think — I have to think a little,’ he said, brushing a hand across his eyes.

Lorrie went to her mother’s side, with an anxious look into her face, and picked up Mrs. Gilbert’s hand and began to stroke it gently. ‘Bob would n’t come anyhow for a telegram, Mother. How could you tell him what was the matter?’ she said quietly. ‘What could we say in a telegram, or even a letter? Never mind, Mother dear, one of us will go and find him and bring him home. Nevermind!’

‘I was thinking of that,’ said her father, with his drawn brows. ‘I — could I see you at the bank to-morrow, Van Cleve?’

‘No, no, you don’t need to. I have money — I have plenty of money — I can get more!’ Mrs. Jameson cried incoherently; her woman’s mind rushed forward to an understanding while Van Cleve was yet wondering what the Professor meant to do, or wanted at the bank. She snatched out an ornate purse of gilded and wrought leather, with chains and trinkets dangling from it, and tried to force it on him. ‘See, there’s plenty — take it all — take it! I’ve got more — I can get more — it’s my own money, you know. Don’t wait for any banks, or letters, or anything! You’ve got to get him here soon — please don’t wait!’ Suddenly her features quivered; she dropped all the money at his feet and shrank back, covering her face, and a heavy sob shook her.

The two men were inexpressibly touched by the sight, by the pitiful offering — and the two women, strange as it would seem, not at all. Yet they were both good, tender-hearted women. Lorrie stooped and painstakingly recovered the bills and silver and pennies that had scattered in every direction.

‘We don’t want this, Mrs. Jameson,’ she said coldly, returning it.

The other gazed at her, affrightedly, through her tears. ‘I did n’t m-mean any harm!’ Paula’s mother quavered. ‘I’m sorry to m-make trouble. I’m going to take Paula away somewhere, so nobody will know about it, but I c-could n’t help—’ She broke down again. Her brief flame of courage and resolution had burned out; she could only plead and whimper weakly now.

‘ If you could manage it with your bank people, Van? I don’t know much about business methods. I have never been obliged to — to raise money hurriedly before,’ said Professor Gilbert, in a pathetic anxiety; ‘my — my personal note —?’

‘That’s all right, Mr. Gilbert,’ Van Cleve said, inordinately relieved at the introduction of this safe, commonplace, familiar subject; he felt as if his feet were on solid ground at last. ‘I’ll get the money for you, any amount you say — I ’ll fix all that —’

’You can’t go, Father,’ Lorrie interrupted. ‘You can’t get away now. You’d have to explain —’

Her father’s glance turned to the examination papers. ‘I don’t know — ’ he murmured; ‘I could make an arrangement, I think —’

‘I will go,’ said Lorrie.

Her father and mother stared at her, startled. Mrs. Jameson, crumpled into a chair, ceased her moaning to gaze up at the girl in awed admiration and wonder. That a woman could speak or act with any sort of promptness, energy, or decision, coolly as if it was her habit, seemed to Paula’s mother something abnormal; she did not like Lorrie and was afraid of her, yet trusted her devoutly. It was Van Cleve who began to protest.

‘Why, Lorrie, you can’t do that! You can’t go running around trying to hunt up Bob. You have n’t any idea what sort of places you might — that is, he might — you don’t know what you ’re talking about. It’s no place for women — ’

‘How about the nurses?’ said Lorrie; ‘Miss Rodgers — you know; at Christ’s? — Miss Rodgers is going. She’s going this week. She spoke to me the other day about it, because she’d heard I had said I’d like to go with the Red Cross. I could go with her.’

‘You can’t! It’s insane— !’

‘Van’s right, Lorrie; you ought n’t to think of going,’ said Mrs. Gilbert, in alarm.

‘Mother, you know Bob would listen to me — he’d pay more attention to me than to anybody else. I can do more with Bob than anybody else — more than you or father —’

‘That’s true,’ said Professor Gilbert, with a kind of groan.

‘Lorrie, don’t talk that way — as if Bob had to be made!' said her mother, tremulously; ‘Bob will do right, as soon — as soon as he knows. I know he will. Bob’s not bad. He may have been wild — ever so many young men are — but he’s always done right in the end, or — or tried to. You know he has,’ said the poor mother, breaking down, at last, in her turn; ‘you ought n’t to talk that way about him — your own brother — and everybody’s so against him, anyhow —! ’

It was late when Van Cleve went out and called a carriage and put Mrs. Jameson into it to take her home — a silent and dreary journey, although the poor woman herself would probably have talked eagerly, in the relief and reaction of the moment, if she had had the slightest encouragement. ‘Do you think Miss — Miss Lorrie ought to go that way by herself? Do you think she really will, Mr. Kendrick?’ she asked him timidly. ‘I’d be afraid of my life. I don’t see how she dares. She’s very unusual, isn’t she?’ Mrs. Jameson added, remembering that she had heard something about the young man’s devotion in that quarter, and with some idea of making herself agreeable.

To her dismay, he scowled. ‘Miss Gilbert won’t be by herself,’ he said briefly.

‘ I know. That Miss Rodgers — that nurse, of course —’ said Mrs. Jameson, hastily, perturbed.

Van Cleve made no comment, glowering silently out of the carriage window at the night-scene of shining wet pavements, tracked with lights, and the hurrying trolley-cars with their soaked curtains pulled tight. After a while, Mrs. Jameson ventured again, even more nervously than before, —

‘Mr. Kendrick, you — you won’t tell anybody?’

‘Tell anybody?’ echoed Van Cleve, not understanding.

‘About us — about Paula — about this evening?’ faltered Mrs. Jameson, leaning forward and clutching at his knee, in her anxiety. ‘You won’t tell?’

‘No, I won’t tell,’ said the young man, recoiling throughout his whole being. What was the woman made of? Or what, in Heaven’s name, did she think he was made of?

‘I’m ever so much obliged. You’re doing a great deal for us. I’m awfully obliged,’ said Mrs. Jameson, weakly, conscious of a certain inadequacy about these phrases; but her pinchbeck vocabulary afforded nothing better. Van Cleve left her at her hotel, and paid the cabman, and went off home. He went upstairs to his boarding-house room, and got a travelingbag out of the closet.

(To be continued.)