 CHAPTER 8 Everything that was discreet and engaged to be married in Stanton's conservative makeup exploded suddenly into one utterly irresponsible speech. You little witch, he cried out, you little beauty, for heaven's sake, come over here and sit down in this chair where I can look at you, I want to talk to you. I, pirouetting once more before the mirror, she divided one fleet glance between admiration for herself and scorn for Stanton. Oh, yes, I felt perfectly sure that you'd insist upon having me pretty, she announced sternly, then courtesying low to the ground in mock humility she began to sing song mischievously. So Molly Molly made her a face, made it of rouge and made it of lace. Long as the rouge and the lace are fair, oh, Mr. Man, what do you care? You don't need any rouge or lace to make you pretty? Stanton fairly shouted in his vehemence. Anybody might have known that that lovely little mind of yours could only live in a… nonsense. The girl interrupted, almost temperishly. Then, with a quick impatient sort of gesture, she turned to the table and, picking up book after book, opened it and stared in it as though it had been a mirror. Oh, maybe my mind is pretty enough, she acknowledged reluctantly, but, likelier than not, my face is not becoming to me. Crossing slowly over to Stanton's side, she seated herself with much jingling, rainbow-colored, sandalwood-scented dignity in the chair that the doctor had just vacated. Poor dear, you've been pretty sick, haven't you? She mused gently. Justly then, she reached out and touched the soft, woolly cuff of his blanket-wrapper. Did you really like it? she asked. Stanton began to smile again. Did I really like it? he repeated joyously. Why, don't you know that if it hadn't been for you, I should have gone utterly mad these past few weeks? Don't you know that if it hadn't been for you, don't you know that if… A little overzealously, he clutched at the tinsel fringe and the oriental lady's fan. Don't you know… don't you know that I'm… engaged to be married? He finished weekly. The oriental lady shivered suddenly, as any lady might shiver on a November night in thin, silken clothes. Engaged to be married? she stammered. Oh yes, well, of course. Most men are. Really, unless you catch a man very young and keep him absolutely constantly by your side, you cannot hope to walk even into his friendship except across the heart of some other woman. Again she shivered and jingled a hundred merry little bangles. But why? she asked abruptly. Why if you're engaged to be married? Did you come and buy love letters of me? My love letters are distinctly for lonely people. She added severely. How dare you? How dare you go into the love letter business in the first place? Quizz stanton dryly, and when it comes to asking personal questions, how dare you send me printed slips in answer to my letters to you? Printed slips, mind you. How many men are you writing love letters to anyway? The oriental lady threw out her small hands deprecatingly. How many men? Only two, besides yourself. There's such a fad for nature study these days that almost everybody this year has ordered the gray plush squirrel series. But I'm doing one or two Japanese fairies for sick children, and a high school history class out in Omaha has ordered a weekly epistle from William of Orange. Hang the high school class out in Omaha, said stanton. It was the love letters that I was asking about. Oh yes, I forgot, murmured the oriental lady. Just two men besides yourself, I said, didn't I? Well, one of them is a live convict out in an Illinois prison. He's subscribed for a whole year for a fortnightly letter from a girl in Killarney who has got to be named Katie. He's a very, very old man, I think, but I don't even know his name because he's only a number now, 4632 or something like that, and I have to send all my letters over to Killarney to be mailed. Oh, he's awfully particular about that, and was pretty hard at first working up all the geography that he knew and I didn't. But pshaw, you're not interested in Killarney? And there's a New York boy down in Salon on a smelly old tea plantation. His people have dropped him, I guess, for some reason or other, so I'm just the girl from home to him, and I prattle to him every month or so by the things he used to care about. It's easy enough to work that up from the social columns in the New York papers, and twice I've been over to New York to get special details for him. Wants to find out if his mother was really as sick as the Sunday paper, said, and wants, yes, really, wants I butted into a tea his sister was giving, and wrote him, yes, wrote him all about how the moths were eating up the big moose head in his own front hall, and he sent an awfully funny nice letter thanks to the cereal-letter company. Yes, he did. And then there's a crippled French girl out in the Berkshires, who's utterly crazed, it seems, about the three musketeers, so I'm de-artignant to her, and it's dreadfully hard work in French, but I'm learning a lot out of that, there, don't tell me any more, cried Stanton. Then suddenly the pulses in his temples began to pound so hard and so loud that he could not seem to estimate at all just how loud he was speaking. Who are you, he insisted, who are you? Tell me instantly, I say, who are you anyway? The Oriental Lady jumped up in alarm. I'm no one at all to you, she said coolly, except just molly make-believe. Something in her tone seemed to fairly mad in Stanton. You shall tell me who you are, he cried. You shall, I say, you shall. Plunging forward he grabbed at her little bangled wrists and held them in a vise that sent the rheumatic pains shooting up his arms to add even further frenzy to his brain. Tell me who you are, he grinned. You shan't go out of here in 10,000 years till you've told me who you are. Frightened, infuriated, quivering with astonishment, the girl stood trying to wrench her little wrists out of his mighty grasp, stamping in perfectly impotent rage all the while with her soft sandaled, jingling feet. I won't tell you who I am, I won't, I won't. She swore and re-swore in a dozen different staccato accents. The whole daring passion of the Orient, the costume, and her seemed to have permeated every fiber of her small being. Then suddenly she drew in her breath in a long, quivering sigh, staring up into her face-stand and gave a little groan of dismay, and released her hands. Why, Molly, Molly, you're crying. He whispered, why, little girl, why? Backing slowly away from him, she made a desperate effort to smile through her tears. Well, you've spoiled everything, she said. Oh, no, not everything, argued Stanton helplessly from his chair, afraid to rise to his feet, afraid even to shuffle his slippers on the floor last. The slightest suspicion of vehemence on his part should hasten that steady backward retreat of hers towards the door. Already she had reacquired her cloak and overshoes and was groping out somewhat blindly for her veil in a frantic effort to avoid any possible chance of turning her back even for a second on so dangerous a person as himself. Yes, everything. Not at the small, grieved face. Yet the tragic snuffling little sob that accompanied the words only served to add a most entrancing, tip-nosed vivacity to the statements. Oh, of course I know, she added hastily. Oh, of course I know perfectly well that I ought not to have come along to your rooms like this. Madly she began to wind the pink veil round and round and round her cheeks like a bandage. Oh, of course I know perfectly well that it wasn't even remotely proper. But don't you think, don't you think that if you've always been awfully, awfully strict and particular with yourself about things all your life, that you might have risked, safely, just one little innocent, mischievous sort of a half hour, especially if it was the only possible way you could think of to square up everything and add just a little wee present besides? Because nothing, you know, that you can't afford to give ever seems exactly like giving a really truly present. It's got to hurt you somewhere to be a present. So my coming here this evening, this way, was altogether the bravest, scariest, unwise-est, most like a present-feeling thing that I could possibly think of to do for you. And even if you hadn't spoiled everything, I was going away tomorrow, just the same forever, and ever, and ever. Cautiously, she perched herself on the edge of a chair and thrust her narrow, gold-embroidered toes into the wide, blunt depths of her overshoes. Forever and ever, she insisted, almost gloatingly. Not forever and ever, protested Stanton visuously. You don't think for a moment do you that after all this wonderful, jolly friendship of ours, you're going to drop right out of sight as though the earth had opened? Even the little, quick forward lurch of his shoulders in the chair sent the girl scuttling to her feet again, one overshoe still in her hand. Just at the edge of the door-match, it turned and smiled at him mockingly. Really, it had been a long time since she had smiled. Surely you don't think that you'd be able to recognize me in my street clothes, do you? She asked bluntly. Stanton's answering smile was quite as mocking as hers. Why not? Didn't I have the pleasure of choosing your winter hat for you? Let me say it was brown with a pink rose, wasn't it? I should note among a million. With a little shrug of her shoulders, she leaned back against the door and stared at him suddenly out of her big red-brown eyes with singular intentness. Well, will you call it an equivalent to one week's subscription? She asked very gravely. Some long-sleeping devil of mischief awoke in Stanton's senses. Equivalent to one whole week's subscription, he repeated with mock incredulity, a whole week, seven days and nights. Oh no, no, no, I don't think you've given me yet more than about four days' worth to think about. Just about four days' worth, I should think. Pushing the pink veil further and further back from her features, with plainly quivering hands, the girl's whole soul seemed to blaze out at him suddenly and then winds back again. Then just as quickly, a droll little gleam of malice glinted in her eyes. Oh, all right then, she smiled. If you really think I've given you only four days and nights' worth of thoughts, here's something for the fifth day and night. Very casually, yet still very accurately, her right hand reached out to the knob of the door. To cancel my debt for the fifth day, she said, Do you really, honest engine, want to know who I am? I'll tell you, first you've seen me before. What? cried Stanton, plunging forward in his chair. Something in the girl's quick clutch of the door knob warned him quite distinctly to relax again into his cushions. Yes, she repeated triumphantly, and you've talked with me too, as often as twice, and moreover you've danced with me. Tossing her head with sudden-born daring, she reached up and snatched off her curly black wig, and shook down all around her such a great shining, utterly glorious mass of mahogany-coloured hair that Stanton's astonishment turned almost into faintness. What? he cried out. What! You say I've seen you before. Talked with you? Waltzed with you, perhaps? Never. I haven't. I tell you I haven't. I never saw that hair before. If I had, I shouldn't have forgotten it to my dying day. Why? With a little wail of despair she leaned back against the door. You don't even remember me now! She mourned, oh dear, dear, dear, and I thought you were so beautiful. Then, womanlike, her whole sympathy rushed to defend him from her own accusations. Oh, well, it was at a masquerade party. She acknowledged generously, and I suppose you go to a great many masquerades. Heaping up her hair like so much molten copper into the hood of her cloak and trying desperately to snare all the wild escaping tendrils with a softer mesh of her veil, she reached out a free hand at last and opened the door just to crack. And to give you something to think about for the sixth day and night, she resumed suddenly with the same strange little glint in her eyes. To give you something to think about the sixth day, I'll tell you that I really was hungry when I asked you for your toast. I haven't had anything to eat today, and before she could finish the sentence, Stanton had sprung from his chair and stood trying to reason out madly whether one single more stride would catch her or lose her. And as for something for you to think about the seventh day and night, she gasped hurriedly. Already the door had opened to her hand and her little figure stood silhouetted darkly against the bright yellow-lighted hallway. Here's something for you to think about for twenty-seven days and nights. Wildly, her little hands went clutching at the woodwork. I didn't know you were engaged to be married!" She cried out passionately. And I loved you! Loved you! Loved you! Then, in a flash, she was gone. End of Chapter 8. CHAPTER IX OF MOLLYMAKE BELIEVE. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. With absolute finality the big door banged behind her. A minute later the street door four flights down rang out in jarring reverberation. A minute after that it seemed as though every door in every house on the street slammed shrilly. Then the charred fire-log sagged down into the ashes with a sad puffing sigh. Then a whole row of books on a loosely-packed shelf toppled over on each other with soft chocose slabs. Crawling back into his Morris chair with every bone in his body aching like a magnetized wire skeleton charged with pain, Stanton collapsed again into his pillows and sat staring, staring into the dying fire. Nine o'clock rang out Dolly from the nearest church-spire. Ten o'clock, eleven o'clock, followed in turn with monotonous chiming insistency. Gradually the relaxing steam radiators began to grunt and grumble into a chill quietude. Gradually along the bare, bleak stretches of unrugged floor little cold droughts of air came creeping, exploringly, to his feet. And still he sat staring, staring into the fast, graying ashes. Oh, glory, glory, he said. Think what it would mean if all that wonderful imagination were turned loose upon just one fella, even if she didn't love you, think how she'd play the game. And if she did love you, oh, lordy, lordy, lordy. Towards midnight, to ease the melancholy smell of the dying lamp, he drew reluctantly forth from his deepest blanket-wrapper pocket the little knotted handkerchief that encased the still-treasured handful of fragrant fur balsam, and bending groaningly forward in his chair sifted the brittle, pungent needles into the face of the one glowing ember that survived. Instantly in a single dazzling flash of flame the tangible forest symbol vanished in intangible fragrance, but along the hollow of his hand, across the edge of his sleeve, up from the ragged pile of books and papers, out from the farthest, remotest corners of the room lurked the unutterable, undestroyable sweetness of all forests since the world was made. Almost with a sob in his throat, Stanton turned again to the box of letters on his table. By dawn the feverish, excited sleeplessness in his brain had driven him on and on to one last supremely fantastic impulse. Dear Cornelia, When I asked you to marry me you made me promise very solemnly at the time that if I ever changed my mind regarding you I would surely tell you, and I laughed at you, do you remember? But you were right, it seems, and I was wrong, for I believe that I have changed my mind. That is, I don't know how to express it exactly, but it has been made very, very plain to me lately that I do not, by any manner of means, love you as little as you need to be loved. In all sincerity, Carl. To which surprising communication Cornelia answered immediately, but the immediately involved a week's almost maddening interim. Dear Carl, neither mother nor I can make any sense whatsoever out of your note. By any possible chance was it meant to be a joke? You say you do not love me as little as I need to be loved. You mean as much, don't you? Carl, what do you mean? Laboriously with the full prospect of yet another week's agonizing strain and suspense Stanton wrote again to Cornelia, Dear Cornelia, no I meant as little as you need to be loved. I have no adequate explanation to make. I have no adequate apology to offer. I don't think anything. I don't hope anything. All I know is that I suddenly believe positively that our engagement is a mistake. Certainly I am neither giving you all that I am capable of giving you, nor yet receiving from you all that I am capable of receiving. Just this fact should decide a matter, I think. Carl. Cornelia did not wait to write an answer to this. She telegraphed instead. The message even in the telegraph operator's handwriting looked a little nervous. Do you mean that you are tired of it? She asked quite boldly. With miserable perplexity Stanton wired back, no I couldn't exactly say that I was tired of it. Cornelia's answer to that was fluttering his hands within twelve hours. Do you mean that there is someone else? The words fairly ticked themselves off the yellow page. It was twenty-four hours before Stanton made up his mind just what to reply. Then no I couldn't exactly say there is anybody else. He confessed wretchedly. Cornelia's mother answered this time. The telegram fairly rustled with sarcasm. You don't seem to be very sure about anything, said Cornelia's mother. Somehow these words brought the first cheerful smile to his lips. No, you're quite right. I'm not at all sure about anything. He wired almost gleefully in return, wiping his pen with delicious joy on the edge of the clean white bedspread. Then because it is really very dangerous for overwrought people to try to make any noise like laughter, a great choking bitter sob caught him up suddenly and sent his face burrowing down like a night-scared child into the safe, soft, feathery depths of his pillow, where, with his knuckles ground so hard into his eyes that all his tears were turned to stars, there came to him very, very slowly, so slowly in fact that it did not alarm him at all the strange electrifying vision of the one fact on earth that he was sure of, a little keen, luminous brown-eyed face with a look in it and a look for him only so help him God, such as he had never seen on the face of any other woman since the world was made. Was it possible? Was it really possible? Suddenly his whole heart seemed to irradiate light and color and music and sweet-smelling things. Oh, Molly, Molly, Molly, he shouted, I want you, I want you. In the strange lonesome days that followed, neither burly flesh and blood-doctor nor slim paper sweetheart tremed noisily over the threshold or slid thuddingly through the letter slide. No one apparently was ever coming to see stent and again unless actually compelled to do so. Even the laundry man seemed to have skipped his usual day and twice in succession the morning paper had most annoyingly failed to appear. Certainly neither the boldest private inquiry nor the most delicately worded public advertisement had proved able to discover the whereabouts of Molly Makebelieve much or less succeeded in bringing her back. But the doctor at least could be summoned by ordinary telephone and Cornelia and her mother would surely be moving north eventually, whether Stanton's last message hastened their movements or not. In subsequent experience it seemed to take two telephone messages to produce the doctor. A trifle coolly, a trifle distantly, more than a trifle disapprovingly, he appeared at last and stared dull at Stanton's astonishing, boot-encoded progress towards health. Always glad to serve you professionally, murmur the doctor with an undeniably definite accent on the word professionally. Oh, cut it out, quoted Stanton emphatically, what in creation are you so stuffy about? Well, really, growl the doctor, considering the deception you practiced on me. Considering nothing, shouted Stanton, on my word of honour I tell you I never consciously in all my life before ever, ever set eyes upon that wonderful little girl until that evening. I never knew that she even existed. I never knew, I tell you, I never knew anything. As limply as any stout man could sink into a chair, the doctor sank into the seat nearest him. Tell me instantly all about it, he gasped. There are only two things to tell, said Stanton quite blightly, and the first thing is what I've already stated, on my honour that the evening we speak of was actually and positively the first time I ever saw the girl, and the second thing is that equally upon my honour I do not intend to let it remain, the last time. But Cornelia, cried the doctor, what about Cornelia? Almost half the sparkle faded from Stanton's eyes. Cornelia and I have annulled our engagement, he said, very quietly. Then with more vehemence, oh, you old dry bones, don't you worry about Cornelia. I'll look out for Cornelia, Cornelia isn't going to get hurt. I tell you I've figured and reasoned it all out very, very carefully, and I can see now quite plainly that Cornelia never really loved me at all, else she wouldn't have dropped me off so accidentally through her fingers, why there never was even the ghost of a clutch in Cornelia's fingers. But you loved her, persists to the doctor scowlingly. It was hard just that second for Stanton to lift his troubled eyes to the doctor's face, but he did lift them, and he lifted them very squarely and steadily. Yes, I think I did love Cornelia, he acknowledged, frankly. The very first time that I saw her I said to myself, here is the end of my journey. But I seem to have found out suddenly that the mere fact of loving a woman does not necessarily prove her that much coveted journeys end. I don't know exactly how to express it, indeed I feel beastly clumsy about expressing it, but somehow it seems as though it were Cornelia herself who had proved herself perfectly amably, no journeys end after all, but only a waystation not equipped to receive any particular kind of a permanent guest. It isn't that I wanted any grand fixings, oh, can't you understand that I'm not finding any fault with Cornelia? There never was any slightest pretense about Cornelia. She never, never even in the first place made any possible effort to attract me. Can't you see that Cornelia looks to me today exactly the way that she looked to me in the first place? Very amazingly beautiful. But a traveller, you know, cannot daily indefinitely defeat his eyes on even the most wonderful view while all his precious lifelong companions, his whims, his hobbies, his cravings, his yearnings, are crouching starved and unwelcome outside the door. And I can't even flatter myself, he added rightly. I can't even flatter myself that my going is going to inconvenience Cornelia in the slightest, because I can't see that my coming has made even the remotest perceptible difference in her daily routine. Anyway, he finished more lightly. When you come right down to mating or homing or belonging or whatever you choose to call it, it seems to be written in the stars that plans or no plans, preference or no preferences, initiatives or no initiatives, we belong to those and to those only, hang it all, who happen to love us most. Jumping from his chair, the doctor snatched hold of Stanton's shoulder. Who happen to love us most? He repeated wildly. Love us? Us! For heaven's sake, who's loving you now? Utterly irrelevant, Lee stand and brushed him aside and began to rummage anxiously among the books on his table. Do you know much about Vermont? He asked suddenly. It's funny, but almost nobody seems to know anything about Vermont. It's a darn good state, too, and I can't imagine why all the geography is neglected so. Oddly his fingers seemed to catch in a half-open pamphlet, and he bent down casually to straighten out the page. Area in square miles, 9,565, he read aloud amusingly. Principal products, hay, oats, maple sugar. Suddenly he threw down the pamphlet and flung himself into the nearest chair and began to laugh. Maple sugar, he ejaculated. Maple sugar? Oh, glory! And I suppose there are some people who think that maple sugar is the sweetest thing that ever came out of Vermont. The doctor started to give him some fresh advice, but left him a bromide instead. End of chapter 9. Chapter 10 of Mollymake Believe. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Mollymake Believe by Eleanor Hallowell Abbott. Chapter 10. Though the ensuing interview with Cornelia and her mother began quite as coolly as the interview with the doctor, it did not happen to end even in hysterical laughter. It was just two days after the doctor's hurried exit that Stanton received a formal, starchy little note from Cornelia's mother notifying him of their return. Except for an experimental, somewhat wobbly need journey or two to the edge of the public garden, he had made no attempts as yet to resume any outdoor life. Yet for sundry personal reasons of his own, he did not feel over-anxious to postpone the necessary meeting. In the immediate emergency at hand, strong courage was infinitely more of an asset than strong knees. Filling his suitcase at once with all the explanatory evidence that he could carry, he proceeded on cab wheels to Cornelia's grimly dignified residence. The street lamps were just beginning to be lighted when he arrived. As the butler ushered him gravely into the beautiful drawing room, he realized, with a horrid sinking of the heart, that Cornelia and her mother were already sitting there waiting for him with a dreadful, tight-lipped expression on their faces, which seemed to suggest that though he was already fifteen minutes ahead of his appointment, they had been waiting for him there since early dawn. The drawing room itself was deliciously familiar to him, crimson-curtained, green-carpeted, shining with heavy gilt-picture frames and prismatic chandeliers. Often with posies and candies and theater tickets, he had strutted across that burst while magic threshold, and fairly lulled in the big, deep upholstered chairs while waiting for the silk-rustling advent of the ladies. But now, with his suitcase clutched in his hand, no Armenian peddler of ladies and ointments could have felt more grotesquely out of his element. Indulently, Cornelia's mother lifted her lawn yet and gazed at him skeptically from the spot just behind his left ear, where the barber had clipped him too short, to the edge of his right heel that the boot-black had neglected to polish. Apparently she did not even see the suitcase, but, "'Oh, are you living town?' she asked, icely. Only by the utmost tact on his part did he finally succeed. In establishing tete-a-tete relations with Cornelia herself, and even then, if the house had been a tower ten stories high, Cornelia's mother, rustling up the stairs, could not have swished her skirts any more definitely like a hissing snake. In absolute dumbness, Stanton and Cornelia sat listening until the hoared sound died away. Then and then only did Cornelia cross the room to Stanton's side and proffer him her hand. The hand was very cold, and the manner of offering it was very cold, but Stanton was quite man enough to realize that this special temperature was purely a matter of physical nervousness rather than of mental intention. Sleeping naturally into the most conventional groove either of word or deed, Cornelia eyed the suitcase inquisitively. "'What are you doing?' she asked thoughtlessly. "'Returning my presence?' "'You never gave me any presence,' said Stanton cheerfully. "'Why, didn't I?' murmured Cornelia slowly. Around her strained mouth a smile began to flicker faintly. "'Is that why you broke it off?' she asked flippantly. "'Yes, partly,' laughed Stanton. Then Cornelia laughed a little bit, too. After this Stanton lost no possible time in getting down to facts. Looking over from his chair, exactly after the manner of peddlers whom he had seen in other people's houses, he unbuckled the straps of his suitcase and turned the cover backward on the floor. Cornelia followed every movement of his hand with vaguely perplexed blue eyes. "'Surely,' said Stanton, this is the weirdest combination of circumstances that ever happened to a man and a girl, or rather I should say to a man and two girls. Not accustomed, as he now was to the general effect on himself of the whole unique adventure with the serial letter company, his heart could not help giving a little extra jump on this, the verge of the stunning revelation that he was about to make to Cornelia. "'Here,' he stammered, a tiny bit out of breath, "'here's a small thin tissue paper circular that you sent me from the serial letter company with your advice to subscribe, and there?' pointing earnestly to the teeming suitcase, "'there are the minor results of having taken your advice.' In Cornelia's face the well-groomed expression showed sudden signs of immediate disorganization. Snatching the circular out of his hand, she read it hurriedly, once, twice, three times. Then kneeling cautiously down on the floor with all the dignity that characterized every movement of her body, she began to poke here and there into the contents of the suitcase. "'The minor results,' she asked soberly. "'Why, yes,' said Stanton, "'there were several things I didn't have room to bring. There was a blanket wrapper, and there was a girl, and there was a Cornelia's blonde eyebrows lifted perceptibly. "'A girl, whom you didn't know at all, sent you a blanket wrapper?' she whispered. "'Yes,' smiled Stanton, "'you see, no girl whom I knew very well seemed to care a hang whether I froze to death or not.' "'Oh,' said Cornelia, very, very slowly. "'Oh!' Her eyes had a strange, new puzzled expression in them, like the expression of a person who was trying to look outward and think inward at the same time. "'But you mustn't be so critical and haughty about it all,' protested Stanton, "'when I'm really trying so hard to explain everything perfectly honestly to you, so that you'll understand exactly how it happened.' "'I should like very much to be able to understand exactly how it happened,' mused Cornelia.' "'Gingerly,' she approached in succession the roll of sample wallpaper, the maps, the timetables, the books, the little silver poringer, the intimate-looking scrap of unfinished fancy work. One by one Stanton explained them to her, visualizing by eager phrase or whimsical gesture the particular lonesome and susceptible conditions under which each gift had happened to arrive. At the great pile of letters Cornelia's hand faltered a trifle. "'How many did I write to you?' she asked, with real curiosity. "'Five thin ones and a postal card,' said Stanton, almost apologetically. Using the fattest-looking letter that she could find, Cornelia toyed with the envelope for a second. "'Would it be all right for me to read one?' she asked doubtfully. "'Why, yes,' said Stanton, "'I think you might read one.' After a few minutes she laid down the letter without any comment. "'Would it be all right for me to read another?' she questioned. "'Why, yes,' cried Stanton, "'let's read them all, let's read them together. Only, of course, we must read them in order.' Most tenderly he picked them up and sorted them out according to their dates. "'Of course,' he explained very earnestly, "'of course I wouldn't think of showing these letters to anyone ordinarily, but after all these particular letters represent only a mere business proposition, and certainly this particular situation must justify one in making extraordinary exceptions. One by one he perused the letters hastily and handed them over to Cornelia for her more careful inspection. No single associate detail of time or circumstance seemed to have eluded his astonishing memory. Letter by letter, page by page he annotated, that was the week you didn't write at all, or this was a stormy agonizing God forsaken night when I didn't care whether I lived or died, or it was just about that time you know that you snubbed me for being scared about your swimming stunt. Thus in the midst of her reading Cornelia looked up and faced him squarely. "'How could any girl write all that nonsense?' she gasped. It wasn't so much what Stanton answered as the expression in his eyes that really startled Cornelia. "'Nonsense,' he quoted deliberately, but I like it,' he said, "'it's exactly what I like. But I couldn't possibly have given you anything like that,' stammered Cornelia. "'No, I know you couldn't,' said Stanton very gently. For an instant Cornelia turned and stared a bit resentfully into his face. Then suddenly the very gentleness of his smile ignited a little answering smile on her lips. "'Oh, you mean,' she asked with unmistakable relief, "'Oh, you mean that really after all it wasn't your letter that jolted me but my temperament that jolted you?' "'Exactly,' said Stanton. Cornelia's whole somber face flamed suddenly into unmistakable radiance. "'Oh, that puts an entirely different light upon the matter,' she explained. "'Oh, now it doesn't hurt at all.' Rustling to her feet she began to smooth the scowly-looking wrinkles out of her skirt with long, even strokes of her bright, jeweled hands. "'I think I'm really beginning to understand,' she said pleasantly, and truly, absurd as it sounds to say it, "'I honestly believe that I'd care more for you this moment than I ever cared before, but,' glancing with acute dismay at the cluttered suitcase on the floor, "'But I wouldn't marry you now if we could live in the finest asylum in the land.' Shrugging his shoulders with mirthful appreciation, Stanton proceeded then and there to repack its treasures and end the interview. Just at the edge of the threshold Cornelia's voice called him back. "'Carle,' she protested, "'You are looking rather sick. I hope you are going straight home.' "'No, I'm not going straight home,' said Stanton bluntly, but here's hoping that the longest way around will prove even yet the very shortest possible route to the particular home that, as yet, doesn't even exist. I'm going hunting, Cornelia, hunting for Molly Make-Believe, and what's more, I'm going to find her if it takes me all the rest of my natural life.' CHAPTER X Driving downtown again, with every thought in his head, every plan, every purpose, hurtling round and around in absolute chaos, his roving eyes lit casually upon the huge sign of a detective bureau that loomed across the street. Why does a sheet with a sudden new determination that came to him, and trembling miserably with the very strength of the determination warring against the weakness and fatigue of his body, he dismissed his cab and went climbing up the first narrow, dingy stairway that seemed most liable to connect with the brain behind the signboard. It was almost bedtime before he came down the stairs again, yet I think her name is Meredith, and I think she's gone to Vermont, and she has the most wonderful head of mahogany-coloured hair that I ever saw in my life, where the only definite clues that he had been able to contribute to the cause. In the slow-legging week that followed, Stanton did not find himself at all pleased with the particular steps which he had apparently been obliged to take in order to ferret out Molly's real name and her real city address, but the actual audacity of the situation did not actually reach its climax until the gentle little quarry had been literally tracked to Vermont with the detectives fairly baying on her trail like the melodramatic bloodhounds that pursue Eliza across the ice. Red-headed party found at Woodstock, the valiant sleuth had wired with unusual delicacy and caution. Denied acquaintance, Boston everything, positively refuses interview, temper very bad, sure it's the party, the second message had come. The very next northward bound train found Stanton fretting the interminable hours away between Boston and Woodstock. Across the sparkling snow-smothered landscape, his straining eyes went plowing on to their unknown destination. Sometimes the engine pounded louder than his heart, sometimes he could not even seem to hear the grinding of the brakes above the dreadful throb-throb of his temples. Sometimes in horrid shuddering chills he huddled into his great fur coat and cursed the porter for having a disposition like a polar bear. Sometimes almost gasping for breath he went out and stood on the bleak rear platform of the last car and watched the pleasant ice-cold rails go speeding back to Boston. All along the journey little absolutely unnecessary villages kept bobbing up to impede the progress of the train. All along the journey innumerable little empty railroad stations, barren as bells rob of their own tongues, seemed to lie waiting, waiting for the noisy engine-tongue to clang them into temporary noise and life. Was his quest really almost at an end? Was it? Was it? A thousand vague apprehensions tortured through his mind, and then all of a sudden in the early brisk winter twilight Woodstock happened. Climbing out of the train, Stanton stood for a second, rubbing his eyes at the final abruptness and unreality of it all. Woodstock! What was it going to mean to him? Woodstock! Everybody else on the platform seemed to be accepting the astonishing geographical fact with perfect simplicity. Already along the edge of the platform the quaint, old-fashioned yellow stagecoaches set on runners were fast filling up with utterly serene passengers. A jog at his elbow made him turn quickly, and he found himself gazing into the detective's not ungenial face. Say, said the detective, were you going up to the hotel first? Well, you'd better not. You'd better not lose any time. She's leaving town in the morning. It was beyond human nature for the detective man not to nudge Stanton once in the ribs. Say, he grinned, you sure had better go easy and not send in your name or anything. His grin broadened, suddenly in a laugh. Say, he confided, once in a magazine I read something about a lady's pecanth animosity. That's her. And cute, oh my! Five minutes later Stanton found himself lolling back in the quaintest, brightest, most pumpkin-coloured coach of all gliding with almost magical smoothness through the snow-glazed streets of the little narrow valley town. The Meredith Homestead, the dry-red queried, oh yes, all right, but it's quite a journey. Don't get discouraged. A sense of discouragement regarding long journeys was just at that moment the most remote sensation in Stanton sensibilities. If the railroad journey had seemed unhappily drawn out, the sleigh ride reversed the emotion to the point of almost telescopic calamity. A stingy, transient vista of village lights, a brief narrow hill-border road that looked for all the world like the aisle of a toy shop, flanked on either side by high-reaching shelves where miniature house lights twinkled cunningly. A sudden stumble of hooves into a less-traveled snow-path, and then, absolutely unescapable, an old white-colonial house with its great solemn elm trees stretching out their long arms, protectingly all around and about it after the blessed habit of a hundred years. Nervous linear, almost reverently, Stanton went crunching up the snowy path to the door, knocked resonantly with a slim, much-worn old brass knocker, and was admitted promptly and hospitably by Mrs. Meredith herself, Molly's grandmother evidently and such a darling little grandmother, all like Molly, quick like Molly, even young like Molly she appeared to be. Simple, sincere, and oh, so comfortable, like the fine old mahogany furniture and the dull shining pewter, and the flickering fire-light that seemed to be everywhere. Good old stuff was Stanton's immediate silent comment on everything in sight. It was perfectly evident that the little old lady knew nothing whatsoever about Stanton, but it was equally evident that she suspected him of being neither a highwayman nor a book agent, and was really sincerely sorry that Molly had a headache and would be unable to see him. But I've come so far, persisted Stanton, all the way from Boston. Is she very ill? Has she been ill long? The little old lady's mind ignored the questions, but clung a trifle nervously to the word Boston. Boston? Her sweet voice quavered, Boston? Why, you look so nice. Although you're not that mysterious man who has been annoying Molly so dreadfully these past few days, I told her no good would ever come of her going to the city. Annoying Molly, cried Stanton, annoying my Molly? I? Why, it's to prevent anybody in the whole wide world from ever annoying her again about anything that I've come here now, he persisted rashly, and don't you see, you had a little misunderstanding, and into the little old lady's ivory cheek crept a small bright blush spot. Oh, you had a little misunderstanding? She repeated softly. A little quarrel. Oh, is that why Molly has been crying so much ever since she came home? Very gently she reached out her tiny blue-veined hand and turned Stanton's big body around so that the lamp-light smote him squarely on his face. Are you a good boy? She asked. Are you good enough for my little Molly? Impulsively Stanton grabbed her small hands and his big ones and raised them very tenderly to his lips. Oh, little Molly's little grandmother, he said, nobody in the face of this snow-covered earth is good enough for your Molly, but won't you give me a chance? Couldn't you please give me a chance? Now, this minute, is she so very ill? No, she's not so very ill, that is, she's not sick in bed, mused the old lady waveringly. She's well enough to be sitting up in her big chair in front of her open fire. Big chair, open fire, quizzed Stanton. Then, are there two chairs, he asked casually. Why, yes, answered the little grandmother in surprise. And a mantel pieced with a clock on it, he probed. The little grandmother's eyes opened wide and blew with astonishment. Yes, she said, but the clock hasn't gone for forty years. Oh, great, exclaimed Stanton, then won't you please, please, I tell you, it's a case of life or death, won't you please go right upstairs and sit down in that extra big chair and not say a word or anything but just wait till I come. And of course, he said, it wouldn't be good for you to run upstairs, but if he could hurry, just a little I should be so much obliged. As soon as he dared, he followed cautiously up the unfamiliar stairs and peered inquisitively through the illuminating crack of a loosely closed door. The grandmother, as he remembered her, was dressed in some funny sort of a dullish purple, but peeping out from the edge of one of the chairs he caught an unmistakable flutter of blue. Catching his breath, he tapped gently on the woodwork. Not the big winged arm of the chair, a wonderful bright aureole of hair showed suddenly. Come in, faltered Molly's perplexed voice. All muffled up in his great fur coat, he pushed the door wide open and entered boldly. It's only Carl, he said. Am I interrupting you? The really dreadful collapsed expression on Molly's face stent and did not appear to notice at all. He nearly walked over to the mantelpiece and leaning his elbows on the little cleared space in front of the clock, soaring fixedly at the timepiece which had not changed its quarter of three expression for forty years. It's almost half past seven, he announced pointedly, and I can stay till just eight o'clock. Only the little grandmother smiled. Almost immediately, it's twenty minutes of eight now, he announced severely. By how time flies, laughed the little grandmother. When he turned around again, the little grandmother had fled. But Molly did not laugh, as he himself had laughed on that faraway, dreamlike evening in his rooms. Instead of laughter, two great tears welled up in her eyes and glistened slowly down her flushing cheeks. What if this old clock hasn't moved a minute in forty years? Whispered stent and passionately, it's such a stingy little time to eight o'clock even if the hands never get there. Then turning suddenly to Molly, he held out his great strong arms to her. Oh, Molly, Molly! he cried out beseechingly. I love you, and I'm free to love you. Won't you please come to me? Sliding very cautiously out of a big, deep chair, Molly came walking hesitatingly towards him. Like a little wreath, miraculous that tinted with bronze and blue, she stopped and faced him piteously for a second. Then suddenly she made a little wild rush into his arms and burrowed her small frightened face in his shoulder. Oh, Carl, sweetheart! she cried. I can really love you now. Love you? Carl, love you? And not have to be just Molly make-believing anymore? End of Chapter 11. End of Molly Make-Believe