 CHAPTER VIII Dressed for going out, Mrs. Willoughby was buttoning her gloves, as she stood in the square hall hung with the temperatures of a late Gubernard period, and adorned with a cabinet in the style of mule flanked by two decorative regency chairs. Her gaze followed the action of her fingers, or wandered none then inquiringly up the stairway. Her broad, low figure, wide about the hips, tapered towards the feet in line, suggested of a spinning top. She was proud of her feet, which were small and shapely, and approved of her fashion in skirts, that permitted them to be displayed. Being less proud of her eyes, she also approved of a style of hat which allowed the low, sloping brim worn slant ways across the brows to conceal one of them. "'You're surely not going in that rag?' The protest was called forth by Lois's appearance in a walking costume on the stairs. "'But, Mamar, I'm not going at all. I told you so.' "'Told me so? What's the good of telling me so?' "'There have been loads of men there, simply loads. Goodness me. Lois, if you're ever going to know any men at all?' "'I know all the men I want to know.' "'You don't know all the men you want to know, and if you do, I shall be ashamed to say it.' "'The girl who's had all your advantages and doesn't make more show. What on earth are you doing that you don't want to come?' Lois hesitated, but she was too frank for concealments. "'I'm going to see a girl, for Masterman wants me to look after. He thinks I may be able to help her.' The mother subsided. "'Oh, well, if it's that,' she added, so as not to seem to hint too much. "'I always like you to do what you can toward uplift. I'll take you as far as the old village, if you're going that way.' There had been a time when such concessions at the mention of Thor, Masterman, would have irritated Lois more than any violence of opposition. But that time was passing. She could hardly complain if others saw what was daily becoming more patent to herself. She could complain of it the less, since she found it difficult to conceal her happiness. It was a happiness that softened the pangs of care and removed to a distance the conditions incidental to her father's habits and impenting financial ruin. Nevertheless, the conditions were there and had to be confronted. She made, in fact, a timid effort to confront them as she sat beside her mother in the abramely fitted limousine. "'Mother, what are we going to do about Papa?' Mrs. Willibour's indignant rising to the occasion could be felt like an electric wave. "'Do about him? Do about what?' "'About the way he is.' "'The way he is? What on earth are you talking about?' "'I mean, the way he comes home.' "'He comes home very tired, if that's what you're trying to say. Any man who works as they work him at that office?' "'Do you think it's work?' "'No, I don't think it's work. I call it slavery. It's enough to put a man in his grave. I've seen him come home so that he could hardly speak. And if you've done the same, you may know that he's simply tired enough to die.' Lose tried to come indirectly to her point by saying, "'Thor Masterman has been bringing him home lately.' "'Oh, well, I suppose Thor knows he doesn't lose anything by that move?' Lose ignored the remark to say, "'Thor seems worried.' The mother's alertness was that of a ruffled bellicose bird defending its mate. If Thor's worried about your father, he can spare himself the trouble. He can leave that to me. I'll take care of him. What he needs is rest. When everything is settled, I mean to take him away. Of course, we can't go this winter. If we could, we should go to Egypt, he and I. But we can't. We know that. We make the sacrifice.' These discreet illusions, too, Lose thought it best to let pass in silence. It wasn't altogether about Papa that Thor was worried. He seemed anxious about money. Bessie tossed her head. That may easily be. If your father takes our money out of the firm, as he threatens to do, the Masterman will be—well, I don't know where. The girl felt it right to go a step further. He seemed to hint—he didn't say it in so many words—that perhaps Papa wouldn't have so very much to take out. This was dismissed slightly. Then he doesn't know what he's talking about. Arch is frightfully close in these things, I must say. He's never let either of the boys know anything about the business. He won't even let me. But your father knows. If Thor thinks for a minute the money isn't nearly all ours, he may come in for a rude awakening. Reassured by this firmness of tone, Lose began to take heart. Getting out of the old village, she continued her way on foot, and found Rosie among the azaleas and poinsettias. Thor Masterman met her an hour later as she returned homeward. He knew where she had been as soon as he saw her turn the corner at which the road descends the hill, recognising with a curious pang her problemness in carrying out his errand. The pang was a surprise to him—the beginning of a series of revelations on the subject of himself. Her desire to please him never before this instant caused him anything but satisfaction. It had been but the response to his desire to please her. He'd not been blinded to the goal to which this mutual goodwill would lead them, but he had quite made up his mind that she would make him as good a wife as any one. As a preliminary date of marriage, he'd waived the possibility of falling ardently in love, coming at last to the conclusion that he was not susceptible to that passion. His longstanding intention to marry Lois Willoughby was based on the fact that besides being sympathetic to him, she was plain and lonely. If the motive hadn't taken full possession of his heart, it was because the state of being plain and lonely had never seemed to him the worst of calamities by any means. The worst of calamities, that for which no patience was sufficient, that for which there was no excuse, that which kings, presidents, emperors, parliaments, congresses, embassies, and armies should combine their energies to prevent, was to be poor. He was entirely of Mrs. Faye's opinion that with money ill health and unhappiness were details. You could bear them both. You could bear being lonely. You could bear being plain. Consequently, the menace that now threatened Lois Willoughby's fortunes strengthened her claim on him. But all at once he felt, as he saw her descend the hill, that the claim might make complications. Was it because she was plain? Curiously, he never attached importance to that fact before. But it blinded him now to her graceful courage, as well as to the way she had of holding her head with a noble, independent poise that made her a woman of distinction. She was smiling with an air at once intimate and triumphant. I think I've won the first encounter at any rate. In his wincing, there was a surprise of a man who, in a moment of expansion, had made a sacred confidence, only to find it crop up lightly in subsequent conversation. He was obliged to employ some self-control in order to say, with a man as sufficiently off hand, what happened? She told of making her approaches under the plea of buying potted plants. Her cold reception had given way before her persistent friendliness, while there had been complete capitulation on the tender of an invitation to County Street to T. The visit had been difficult to manage, but amusing, and a little pitiful. To the details that were difficult or pitiful, he could listen with calm, but he was inwardly indignant that Lois should find anything in her meeting with Rosie that lent itself to humour. He knew that humour. The Superior were fond of indulging in it at the expense of the less fortunate. Even Lois Willoughby had not escaped that taint of class, fearing to wound her by some impatient word. He made zeal in his round of duties the excuse for an abrupt good-bye. But zeal in his round of duties changed to zeal of another kind, as with set face and long swinging stride he hurried up the hill. The plant he had been maturing for the psychological treatment of Mrs. Fay, melted into eagerness to know how the poor little thing had taken Lois's advances. He was disappointed, therefore, that Rosie should receive him coldly. Within twenty-four hours his imagination had created between them something with the flavour of a friendship. He had been thinking of her so incessantly that it was disconcerting to perceive that apparently she had not been thinking of him at all. He was the doctor to her, and no more. She continued to direct Antonio, the Italian, who was openly a crate of closely packed azalea plants, while she discussed the effect of his sedative on her mother. Her manner was dry and businesslike. Her replies to his questions brief and to the point. But professional duty being done he endeavoured to raise the personal issue. What did you mean yesterday when you said that you couldn't play fair, but that you'd play as fair as you could? She turned from her contemplation of the stooping Antonio's back. Did I say that? He hardly heated the question and the pleasure he got from this glimpse of her green eyes. You've said that or something very much like it. His uncertainty gave her the chance to correct that which in the light of Claw's warning might prove to have been an indiscretion. I'm sure I can't imagine you must have misunderstood me. He pursued the topic not because he cared, but in order to make her look at him again. I didn't. Don't you remember? It was after you said that there was one thing that might happen. She was sure of her indiscretion now. He might even be setting a snare for her. Dr. Sim Masterman might have withdrawn from her mother's case in order to put the one brother on the other's tracks. If Claw was right in his suspicions there was reasonable ground for alarm. She said, with assumed indifference. Oh, that. That was nothing. Just a fancy. He still talked for the sake of talking, attaching no importance to her replies. Was it a fancy when you said that I would be one of the people opposed to it, if it happened? Well, yes, but you're only one among a lot. She shifted to Firmagrand. I wasn't thinking of you in particular or of anyone in particular. Were you thinking of anything in particular? The question threw her back on straight denial. No, not exactly. Just a fancy. But I shouldn't be opposed to it, whatever it is, if it was to your advantage. His persistence deepened her distrust. A man whom she had seen any once before would hardly display such an interest in her and her affairs unless he had a motive, especially when that man was a masterman. She took refuge in her task with his alias. No, no, not there at Tanty. Put them there like this. I'll show you. The necessity for giving Antonio practical demonstration taking her to the other side of the hot-house. Four felt himself obliged to go. He went with the greater regret since he had been unable to sound her on the subject of Lowe's Willoughbiz advances. Though her skill in alluding him heightened his respect. His disdain for the small arts of coquetry being as sincere as his scorn of snobbery, he counted it to her credit that she eluded him at all. There would be plenty of opportunities for speech with her. During them he hoped to win her confidence by degrees. In the bedroom upstairs, where the mother was again seated in her upholstered armchair with the quilt across her knees, he endeavoured to put into practice his idea of mental therapeutics. He began by speaking of Matt, using the terms that would most effectively challenge her attention. When he comes back, you know, we must make him forget that he's ever worn stripes. She liked him sternly. What would be the good if he's forgetting it? He'll have done it just the same. Son of us are done worse than that, and yet we didn't get into col-col for them. But that's what counts. You can do what you like as long as you ain't put in jail. Look at your father. So when he comes home, he interrupted craftily. She leaned forward, throwing the quilt from her knees. See here! she asked confidentially, How would you feel if you saw your son coming out of hell? How should I feel? I should be glad he was coming up instead of going down. You would too, wouldn't you? And now that he's coming up we must keep him up. That's the point. So many poor chaps that have been in his position feel that because they've once been done they've got to stay down. We must make him see that he's come back among friends, and you must tell us what to do. You must give your mind to it and think it out. He's your boy, so it's your duty to take the lead. Her cold eye rested on him as if she were giving his words consideration. Why don't you ask your father to take the lead? He's sent him to Colcald. They got no further than this during the hour he spent with her, seeing that Uncle Sim had been right in describing the case as one for ingenuity and something more. Questioning himself as to what this something more could be, he brought up the subject tentatively with Jasper Fay, whom he met on leaving the house. Four himself stood on the doorstep, while Fay, who wore gardening overalls, confronted him from the withered grass plot that ended in a leafless hedge of bridal veil. She's never been a religious woman at all, has she? They answered with a distant smile. She did go in for religion at one time, sir, but I guess she found it a slim diet. He got to seem to her like Thomas Collard's hungry lawn invited to a feast of chicken-weed. After that, she quit. I had an idea that you belonged to the First Church and were Dr. Hillary's pollutioners. Fay explained, Dr. Hillary married us, but we haven't troubled the Church much since. I never took any interest in the Christian religion to begin with. When I looked into it, I found it even more fallacious than I supposed. To come for this advanced position on the part of a simple market gardener, he added, I've been a good deal of a reader. Four spoke slowly and after meditation. It isn't so much a question of its being fallacious as of its capacity for producing results. Fay turned partially round towards the south, where a haze hung above the city. His tone was infused with a mild bitterness. Don't we see the results it can produce over there? That's right, too. Four was so much in sympathy with this point of view that he hardly knew how to go on. And yet some of us doctors are beginning to suspect that there may be a power in Christianity, a purely psychological power, you understand, that hasn't been used for what it's worth. Fay nodded. He'd been following this current of contemporary thought. Yes, Dr. Thor, so I hear. Just as I dare say you haven't found out all the uses of opium. Well, opium is good in its place, you know. I suppose so. He lifted his starry eyes with their mystic visionary rapture fully on the young physician. Yet I remember how George earlier prayed that when her troubles came she might get along without being drugged by that stuff, meaning the Christian religion, sir. And I guess I kind of like that me and mine should do the same. Thor dropped the subject and went his way. As far as he had opinions of his own, they would have been similar to Fay's, had he not, within a year or two, heard of sufficiently authenticated cases in which six spirits or disordered nerves had yielded to spiritual councils after the doctor had had no success. He had been so little impressed with these instances that he might not have allowed his speculations with regard to Mrs. Fay to go beyond the fleeting thought, only for the fact that on passing through the square he met Ruben Hillary. In general he was content to touch his hat to the old gentleman and go on. But today urged by an impulse too vague to take an accurate account of, he stopped with respectful greetings. I've just been to see an old parishioner of yours, sir," he said, when the preliminaries of neighbourly conversation received their due. Have you now, with the non-committal response, delivered with the north of the island intonation? Mrs. Fay, wife of Fay the gardener. I can't say she's ill, Thor went on, feeling his way, but she's mentally upset. He decided to plunge into the subject boldly, smiling with that mingling of frankness and perplexity which people found appealing because of its conscientiousness. And I've been wondering, Dot Hillary, if you couldn't help her. Have you now, and what would you be wanting me to do? Thor reflected as to the exact line to take, while the kindly eyes covered him with their shrewd, humorous twinkle. You see, Thor tried to explain, that if she could get the idea that there's any other stand to take towards trouble than that of kicking against it, she might be in a fair way to get better. At present she's like a prisoner who dashes his head against the stone wall, not seeing that there's a window by which he might make his escape. There was renewed twinkling in the merry eyes. But if there's a window, why don't you point it out to her? Fall grinned. Because, sir, I don't see it myself. Don't you then, and how do you know it's there? Thor continued to grin. To be frank with you, sir, I don't believe it is there. But if you can make her believe it is. That is, you want me to deceive the poor creature. Oh, no, sir, Thor protested. You wouldn't be deceiving her because you do believe it. So that I'd only be deceiving her to the extent that I'm deceiving myself. Too many for me. Thor laughed again, preparing to move on. I didn't know but that if you gave her what are called the consolations of religion, that's the right phrase, isn't it? There is such a phrase. But you can't give people the consolations of religion. They've got to find them for themselves. If they won't do that, there's no power in heaven or earth that can force consolation upon them. But religion undertakes to do something, doesn't it? The old man shook his head. Nothing, whatever. No more than air undertakes that you shall breathe it, or water that you shall drink it, or fire that you should warm yourself at its blaze. For amused. When he spoke, it was as if summing up the preceding remarks. So that you can't do anything, sir, for my friend Mrs. Faye? Nothing, whatever, my dear Thor, but help her to do something for herself. Very well, sir, would you try that? Sure, I'll try it. I'm too proud of the word of God to thrust it where it isn't wanted. Margarita's antiparacos, if you're letting enough for that. But when anyone asks for it as earnestly as you, me dear Thor, having one would he ask. Thor shook the old man's hand and thanked him. After which he hurried off to the garage to take out his runabout and bring Lose's father home from town. End of Chapter 8 Chapter 9 As November and December passed and the new year came in, small happenings began to remind Thorley Masterman that he was soon to inherit money. It was a fact which he himself could scarcely credit. Perhaps because he was not imaginative, the condition of being thirty years of age continued to seem remote even when he was within six weeks of that goal. He was first impressed with the rapidity of his approach to it on a morning when he came late to breakfast, finding at his plate a long envelope, bearing in its upper left-hand corner the request that at the event of non-delivery it should be returned to the office of Darling and Darling at 27 Commonwealth Row. At Lance, which he couldn't help reading, passed round the table as he took it up. It was not new to him that among the other members of the household, closely as they were united, there was a sense of vague injustice because he was coming into money, and they were not. The communication was brief, stating no more than the fact that in view of the transfer of the estate which would take place a few weeks later, Mr. William Darling, the sole trustee, would be glad to see the heir on a day in the near future, to submit to him the list of investments and other properties that were to make up his inheritance. Thor saw his grandfather's money so long a fairy prospect as likely to become a matter of solid cash. The change in his position would be considerable. As yet, however, his position remained that of a son in his father's family, and in obedience to what he knew was expected of him, he read the note aloud. Though there was an absence of comment, his stepmother, in passing him his talk to Merman caressingly, dear old Thor, dear old Thor, Claude mimicked, will soon be able to do everything he pleases. Mrs. Masterman smiled. It was her mission to conciliate. And what will that be? I know what it won't be, Claude said scornfully. It won't be anything to do with a pretty girl. Thor flushed. It was one of the minutes at which Claude's taunts gave him all he could do to contain himself. As far as his younger brother was concerned, he meant well by him. It would always be in his intention that his first use of Grandpa Thor's money should be in supplementing Claude's meagre personal resources and helping him to keep on his feet. He could be patient with him, too. Patient under all sorts of stinging jibes and double-edged compliments. Patient for weeks, for months. Patient right up to the minute when something touched him too keenly on the quick, and his roth broke out with the fury he knew to be dangerous. It was so dangerous as to make him afraid. Afraid for Claude, I'm more afraid for himself. There had been youthful quarrels between them from which he had come away pale with terror, not on what he had done, but on what he might have done had he not maintained some measure of self-control. The memory of such occasions kept him quiet now, though the irony of Claude's speech cut so much deeper than anyone could suspect. There won't be anything that has to do with a pretty girl. Good God! When he was beginning to feel his soul rent in the struggle between love and honour, it was like something sprung on him that had caught him unawares. There were days when the suffering was so keen that he wanted if there was no way of lawfully giving in. After all, he never asked Lois Willoughby to marry him. There had never been more between them than an unspoken intention in his mind, which had somehow communicated itself to hers. But that was not a pledge. If he were to marry someone else, she couldn't reproach him by so much as a syllable. It was not often that he was tempted to reason thus, but Claude's sarcasm brought up the question more squarely than it had ever raised itself before. It was exactly the sort of subject on which, had he concerned any one else, Thor would have turned for light to Lois herself. In being devoured from her councils, he felt strangely at a loss. What he said to himself that after all these years there was but one thing for him to do, he was curious as to the view other people might take of such a situation. It was because of this need, and with Claude's sneer ringing in his heart, that later in the day he sprang the question on dear love. Dear love was the derelict English butler whom Thor had picked out of the gutter and put in charge of his office that he might have another chance. He'd been summoned into his master's presence to explain the subsidence and the contents of a bottle of cognac that Thor kept at the office for emergency cases, and had neglected it to put under lock and key. That was a full bottle a month ago, thought it, Claude, holding the accusing object up to the night. Was it, sir? Dear love asked dismally. He stood in his habitual attitude, his arms crossed on his stomach, his hands thrust monk-like into his sleeves. And I've only taken one glass out of it, the day that young fellow fell off his bite ago. Dear love lied the bottle piteously. Haven't you, sir? Perhaps you took more out that day than you thought. But Thor broke him with what was really on his mind. Look here, dear love, what would you say to a man who is in love with one woman if he married another? Dear love was so astonished as to be for a minute at a loss for speech. What did I say to him, sir? I'd say, what did he do it for? If it was yes, dear love? For encouragement. If it was for what? Well, sir, if he got money with her, like, well, that'd be one thing. But if he didn't, if it was a case in which money didn't matter? Dear love shook his head. I never heard of no such case as that, sir. Thor grew interested in the sheerly human aspects of the subject. Romance was so novel to him that he wondered if everyone came under its spell at some time. If there was no exception, not even dear love. He leaned across his desk, his hands clasped upon it. Now, dear love, suppose it was your own case, and— Oh, me, sir, I'm no example to no one, not with Brightstone hanging on to me the way she does. I can't look friendly at so much as a kitten without Brightstone. Now, here's the situation, dear love, Thor interrupted, while the ex-butler listened his head judicially inclined to one side. Suppose a man, a patient of mine, let us say, meant to marry one young lady, and let us see it. And suppose later he fell very much in love with another young lady. He'd have to ease the first one off a bit, wouldn't he, sir? You think he ought to? I think he'd have to, sir, unless he wanted to be sued for breach. It's the question of duty I'm thinking of, dear love. And it is duty to marry the one he's in love with, sir. Doesn't the good book say, as I'm falling in love— dear love, blushed, becomingly—as I'm falling in love is the way God Almighty means to fertilize the earth with people? Doesn't the good book say that, sir? Perhaps it does. I believe it's the kind of primitive subject it's likely to take up. So that there's that to be thought of, sir. They say the children not born in love matches ain't always strong. He added, as he shuffled towards the door. We never had no little ones, Brightstone and me, only a very small one that died a few hours after it was born. Four was not convinced by this reasoning, but he was happier than before. Such expressions of opinion which would probably be endorsed by nine people out of ten assured him that he might follow the urging of his heart and yet not be a dastard. He fell on stronger ground, therefore, when he talked with Faye one afternoon in the following week. Suppose my father doesn't renew the lease. What would happen to you? Faye raised himself from the act of doing something to a head of lettuce which was unfolding its petals like a great green rose. His eyes had the visionary look that marked his inability to come down to the practical. Well, sir, I don't rightly know. But you've thought of it, haven't you? Not exactly thought of it. He said he wouldn't two or three times already and then changed his mind. Would it do you any good if he did? Aren't you fighting a losing battle anyhow? That's not wholly the way I judge, Dr. Thor. Neither the losing battle nor the winning one can be told from the balance sheet. The success or failure of a man's work is chiefly in himself. Thor studied this, gazing down the level of soft furniture to the end of the greenhouse in which they stood. I can see how that might be in one way, but it is the way I mostly think of, sir. Every man has his own habit of mind, hasn't he? I agree with the great Prophet Thomas Carlisle when he says—he brought out the words of the mild pomposity—when he says that a certain inarticulate self-consciousness dwells in us which only our works can render articulate. He speaks with the folly of the precepts Know Thyself till we've made it know what Thou canst work at. I can work at this, Dr. Thor. I couldn't work at anything else. I know that making both ends meet is an important part of it, of course. But to you it isn't the most important part of it. Ayes wandered to the other greenhouse, in which lettuce grew, to the hot house full of flowers, and out over the forcing beds of violets. No, Dr. Thor, not the most important part of it to me. I've created all this. I love it. It's my life. It's myself. And if—and if my father doesn't renew the lease? Then I shall be done for. It won't be just going bankrupt in the money-sense. It'll be everything else. Blasted. He's have joined dreamly. I don't know what would happen to me after that. I'd be—I'd be equal to committing crimes. Thor couldn't remember ever having seen tears on an elderly man's cheeks before. He took a turn down half the length of the greenhouse, and back again. Look here, Fay, he said in the tone of one making a resolution. Supposing my father would give me a lease of the place. You, Dr. Thor? Yes, me. Would you work it for me? Fay reflected long, while Thor watched the play of light and shadow over the mild, mobile face. It wouldn't be my own place any more, would it, sir? No, I suppose it wouldn't, not strictly. But it would be the next best thing. It would be better than— It would be better than being turned out. He reflected further. Was you thinking of taking over as an investment, sir? Not having considered this side of his idea, Thor sought for a natural, spontaneous answer, and was not long in finding one. I wanted to be identified with the village industries, because I'm going into politics. Who are you, sir? I didn't know you was that way inclined. I'm not, Thor explained, when they moved from the greenhouse into the yard. I only feel that we people of the old stock hang out of politics too much, that I ought to pitch in and make one more. So you get my idea, Fay. It'll give me standing upon a bit of property like this, even if it's only on lease. There was no need for further explanations. Fay consented, not cheerfully, but with a certain saddened, and yet grateful, resignation, of which the expression was cut short by a cheery ringing voice from the gateway. Hello, Mr. Fay. Hello, Dr. Thor. Stand with me. What are you thinking of? The response to this greeting came from both men simultaneously, each making it according to his capacity for heartiness. Hello, Jim. They emphasised the welcome by unconsciously advancing to meet the tall stalwart young Irishman of the third generation on American soil, who came toward them with a long loose limbs and swinging stride, inherited from an ancestry bred to tramping the hills of Connemara. A pair of twinkling eyes, and a mouth that was always on the point of breaking into a smile when it was not actually smiling, tempered the peasant shrewdness of a face that got further softening, and a touch of superiority from a carefully tended young moustache. Thor and Jim Breen have been on friendly terms ever since they were boys, but the case was not exceptional, since the latter was on similar terms with everyone in the village. From childhood upward he had been a local character, chiefly because of a breezy self-respect that was as free from self-consciousness as from self-importance. There was no one to whom he wasn't polite, but there had never been any one of whom he was afraid. Hello, Mr. Masterman. Hello, Dr. Hillary. Hello, Father Ryan. Hello, Dr. Sim. I've been his form of greeting ever since he had begun swaggering around the village with hide-up and face-alert at the age of five. No one had ever been found to resent this cheerful familiarity, not even Archie Masterman. As a man in whom friendliness was a primary instinct, Jim Breen never entered a trolley-car or turned a street corner without speaking or nodding to everyone he knew. Never did he visit a neighbouring town without calling on or calling up everyone he could claim as an acquaintance. He was always on hand for fires, for fights, for fallen horses, for first-aid in accidents, for ball-games, for the outings of boyscouts, and for village theatricals and dances. There were rumours that he was sometimes wild, but the wildness being confined to his incursions into the city, which generally took place after dark, it was not sufficiently in evidence to shock the home community. It was a matter of common knowledge that he used, in village phrase, to go with Rosie Faye, the breaking of the friendship being attributed by some of the well-informed to his reported wildness and by others to differences in religion. As Thor had been absent in Europe during this episode, and was without the native suspicion that would have connected the two names, he took Jim's arrival pleasantly. Having finished his bit of business, which concerned an order for Azalea's too large for his father to meet, and in which Mr. Faye might find it to his advantage to combine, Jim turned blindly towards Thor. Here about the term meeting Dr. Thor. What old Billy Taylor said about the new bridge? What do you think of that for nerve? Tell you what, there's some things in this town need clearing up. The statement bringing out Thor's own intention to run as a candidate for office of the next election, Jim expressed his interest in the vernacular of the hour. What do you know about that? Further discussion of politics ending in Jim's pledging his support to his boyhood's friend, Thor shook hands with an encouraging sense of being embarked on a public career, and went forward to visit his patient in the house. His steps were arrested, however, by hearing Jim say with casual light-heartedness. What was he anywhere about, Mr. Faye? The old man having nodded in the direction of the hot house, Jim advanced almost to the door, where Thor, on looking over his shoulder, saw him pause. He was a curious pause for one so self-confident as the young Irishman, a pause like that of a man grown suddenly doubtful, timid, distrustful. His hand was actually on the latch, when, to Thor's surprise, he wheeled away, returning to his team, with head bent and stride slackened thoughtfully. By the time he had mounted the wagon, however, and begun to tug at Maud, he was whistling the popular air of the moment, with no more than a subdued note in his gertie. End of Chapter 9 Chapter 10 of The Side of the Angels by Basil King This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by Simon Evers Chapter 10 But Thor was pleased with the idea that his father could scarcely refuse him the lease. He would, in fact, make it worth his while not to do so. Rosie Faye and those who belong to her might, therefore, feel solid ground beneath their feet, and go on working, and, if need were, suffering, without the intolerable dread of eviction. It would be a satisfaction to him to accomplish this much, whatever the dictates of honour might oblige him to forego. He felt, too, that he was getting his reward, when, after Jim's departure, Rosie nodded through the glass of the hot-house, giving him what might almost be taken for a smile. He forbore to go to her at once, keeping that pleasure for the end of his visit. After seeing his patient there were generally small directions to give the daughter which afforded pretext for lingering in her company. His patient was getting better, not through ministrations of his own, but through some mysterious influence exerted by Rube and Hillary. As a man of science and a skeptic, Thor was slightly impatient of this aid, even though he himself had invoked it. He was halfway up the stairs on his way to the bedroom in the Mansard Roof, when, on hearing a man's voice, he paused. The voice was saying, with the inflection in which there's no more than a hint of the Brogue, Now there's what we were talking of the last time I was here. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. He, believing God, believe also in me. There's the two great plagues of human existence, fear and trouble staggered for you at a blow. And you do believe in God now, don't you? Thor had turned to tiptoe down again, when he heard the words spoken in the rebellious tones with which he was familiar, modulated now to an odd submissiveness. I don't know whether I do or not. Isn't there something in the Bible about, Lord, I believe, help thou mine, I believe? There is, and it's a good way to begin. Thor was out in the yard before he could hear more. Standing for a minute in the windy sunshine, he wondered at the curious phenomenon presented by men in evident possession of their faculties, who relied for the dispersion of human care on means invisible and mystic. The fact that in this case he himself had appealed to the illusion rendered the working of it nonetheless astonishing. His own method for the dispersion of human care, and the project was dear to him, was by dollars and cents. It was, moreover, a method as to which there was no trouble improving the efficiency. He took up the subject of her mother with Rosie, who, with the help of Antonio, was rearranging the masses of azaleas, carnations, and poinsettias after the depletion of the Christmas sales. She's really better, isn't she? Rosie pushed a white azalea to the place on the stand that would best display its dome-like regularity. She seems to be. What do you think has helped her? She gave him a queer little side-long smile. You're the doctor, I should think you'd know. He adored those smiles, constrained, unwilling, distrustful smiles, the very, the occasional earnest looks that he got from her green eyes. But I don't know. It isn't anything I do for her. She banked two or three azaleas together, so that their shades of pink and pomegranate red might blend. I suppose it's Dr. Hillary. I know it's Dr. Hillary, but he isn't working by magic. If she's getting back her nerve, it isn't because he wishes it on her, as the boys say. Suspecting all his approaches, she confides herself to saying, I'm sure I don't know, speaking like a guilty witness under cross-examination. The aciduity of his visits, the persistency with which he tried to make her talk, kept her the more carefully on her guard against betraying anything unwarily. But to him the reserve was an added charm. He called it shyness, or coiness, or maidenly timidity, according to the circumstances that called it forth. But whatever it was, this apathy to his passionate dumb-show peaked him to a frenzy infused with an element of homage. Any other girl in her situation would have come half-way at least toward a man in his. His training, having rented him analytical of the physical side of things, he endeavored, more or less unsuccessfully, to account for the extraordinary transformation in himself, whereby every nerve at his body yearned and strained toward this hard, proud little creature who, too evidently, as yet at any rate, refused to take him into account. She made him feel like a man signaling in the dark, or speaking across a vacuum through which his voice couldn't carry, while he was conscious at the same time of searchings of heart of making the attempts to do either. He was beset by these scruples, when, after taking his run about from the garage in order to go to town, he met Lois Willoughby in the square. On the instant he remembered Adiolov's council of a few days earlier. He'd have to ease the first day of his visit to the church. He'd have to ease the first one off a bit. Whatever was to be his ultimate decision, the wisdom of this course was incontestable. As she paused, smiling, expecting him to stop, he lifted his hat and drove onward. Perhaps it was only his imagination of the court in her greats of velvety brown eyes, an expression of surprise and pain, but whether his sight was accurate or not, the memory of the moment, smote him. The process of easing the first one off would probably prove difficult. I shall have to explain to her that I was in a hurry, he said, to comfort himself as he flew onward to the town. The explanation would have been not untrue, since he was already overdue at his appointment with Mr. William Darling, his grandfather's executor. It was the second of the meetings arranged for giving him a general idea of the estate he was coming into. At the first he had gone over the lists of stocks, mortgages and bonds. Today, with a map of the city and the surrounding country spread out, partially on his desk and partially over Mr. Darling's knees as he tilted back in a revolving chair, Thor learned the location of certain bits of landed property, which his grandfather, twenty or thirty years before, had considered good investments. The astuteness of this ancestral foresight was illustrated by the fact that Thor was a richer man than he had supposed. While he possessed no enormous wealth, according to the newer standards of the day, he would have something between thirty and forty thousand dollars of yearly income. That, Mr. Darling explained with pride, had a very conservative rate of investment. You would easily have more, but if you take my advice, you'll not be in a hurry to look for more till you need it. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. You surely understand that. Thor was not sure that he did understand it. He was not sure, and yet he hesitated to ask for the elucidation of what was intended perhaps to remain cryptic. In a small chair drawn up beside Mr. Darling's revolving seat of authority, his elbow on his knee, his chin supported by his fist, he studied the map. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, the lawyer did learn again, either before or after the fact. This time an intention of some sort was so evident that Thor felt obliged to say, Do you mean anyone in particular, sir? The trustee threw the map from off his knees, and rising walked to the window. He was a small, neat, sharp-eyed man of fresh, frosty complexion, his exquisite clothes making him something of a dandy, on his manner of turning his head with quick little jerks and perks, reminded one of a bird. At the window he stood with his hands behind his back, looking over the jumble of nineteenth-century roofs, out of which an occasional skyscraper shot like a tire, to wear a fringe of masts and funnels edged to the bay. He spoke without turning round. I don't mean anyone in particular, unless there should be anyone in particular to mean. With this aracular explanation Thor was forced to be content, and as the purpose of the meeting seems to have been accomplished, he rose to take his leave. Mr. Darling was quick in shaking himself not only faithful as a trustee, but cordial as a man of the world. My wife would like you to come and see her, he said in shaking hands. She asked me to say to that she hopes you and your brother will come to the dance she's going to give to Elsie in the course of a month or two. You'll get your cards in time. Warmly expressing the pleasure this entertainment would give him, while knowing in his heart that he wouldn't attend it, the young man took his departure. But no later than that evening he began to perceive why the oracle had spoken. Claude, having excused himself from dressing for dinner on the ground of another mysterious engagement with Billy Cheever, and Mrs. Masterman having retired upstairs, Thor was alone in the library with his father. It was a mellow room in which the bindings of long rows of books, mostly purchased by grandpa Thorley in sets, an amourable white marble chimney-piece in a Georgian style, and a few English 18th-century prints added by Archie Masterman himself, disguised the heavy architectural tastes of the 60s. Grandpa Thorley had built the house of the clothes of the Civil War, the end of that struggle having found him, for reasons he was never eager to explain, a far richer man than its beginning. He had built the house not on his own old farm, which was already been absorbed into the suburban portion of the city, but on a 10-acre plot in County Street, which, with its rich bordering fields, its overarching elms, and its lofty sights, was revealing itself even then as the predestined quarter of the wealthy. So long as there had been no wealthy, County Street had been only a village highway, but the social developments following on the Civil War had required a faux-bolg Saint-Germain. In this house Mrs. Louisa Thorley had grown up and been wooed by Archie Masterman. It had been the wooing of a very plain girl by a good-looking lad, and had received a shock when Grandpa Thorley suspected other motives than love to account for the young man's ardour. As soon as he had been forbidden the house, Miss Thorley had no resource but to meet him in the city, on the 7th of March, 1880, and to go with him to a convenient parsonage. Thor was born on the 10th of February of the year following. Two days later the young mother died. Grandpa Thorley himself held out for another ten years, when his will revealed the fact that he had taken every precaution to keep Archie Masterman from profiting by a penny of the Thorley money. So strict were the provisions of this document, that on the father was thrown the entire cost of bringing up and educating Louisa Thorley's son. But Archie Masterman was patient. He took a lease of the Thorley house when Darling and Darling, as executors, put it in the market, and paid all the rent it was worth. Moreover, there had never been a moment in Thor's life when he had been made to feel that his maintenance was a burden unjustly thrown on one who could ill afford to bear it. For this consideration the son had been grateful ever since he knew its character, and was now eager to make due return. For the minute he was moving restlessly about the room, not knowing what to say. From the way in which his father, who was comfortably stretched in an armchair before the fire, dropped the evening paper to the floor when he puffed silently at his cigar, Thor knew that he expected to give some account of the interview between himself and the trustee that afternoon. Any father might reasonably look for such a confidence, while the conditions of affectionate intimacy in which the Masterman family lived made it a matter of course. The son was still marching up and down the room, smoking cigarettes rapidly and throwing the butts into the fire, when he competed his summary of the information received in his two meetings with the executor. The father had neither interrupted nor asked questions, but he spoke at last. What did you say was the approximate value of the whole estate? Thor told him. And of the income? Thor repeated that also. Criminal! Thor stopped dead for an instant, but resumed his march. He had stopped in surprise, but he went on again so as to give the impression of not having heard the last observation. It's criminal, a father explained with the repressed Ignatian, that money should bring in so trifling a return. He said it was very conservatively invested. It's damned idiotically invested. Such incompetence deserves an even stronger term. If my own money didn't earn more for me than that, well, I'm afraid you wouldn't have seen Vienna and Berlin. The remark gave Thor an opening. He was glad to seize. I know that, father. I know how much you've spent for me, and how generous you've always been, with Claude to provide for too. And now that I've had enough of my own, I want to repay you every don't hurt me, boy. You surely don't think I'd take compensation for bringing up my own son. It's not at least what I'm driving at. I simply mean that now that the whole thing is coming to your own hands, you'll probably want to do better with it than has been done here to Thor. Thor said nothing. There was a long silence before his father went on. Even if he didn't want me to have anything to do with it, I could put you in touch with people who would give you excellent advice. Thor paced softly, as ever afraid to make his footfalls hurt. Something with him seemed frozen, paralyzed. He was incapable of a response. Of course, the father continued gently with his engaging lisp. I quite understand you shouldn't want me to have anything to do with it. The new generation is often distrustful of the old. Thor beat his brains for something to say that would meet the courtesies of the occasion without committing him. But his whole being had grown dumb. He would have been less humiliated if his father had pleaded with him outright. Yet I haven't done so badly. Masterman continued, with pay-falls in his voice. I have very little to begin with. When I first went into old Two-Good's office, I have nothing at all. I made my way by thrift, foresight, and integrity. I think I could say as much as that. Your grandfather thought it was unjust to me. But I've never resented it, not by a syllable. It was a relief to Thor, to be able to say with some heartiness. I know that, Father. Not that I didn't have some difficult situations to face on account of it. When the Two-Good executives withdrew the old man's money, it would have gone harm with me if I hadn't been able to fall pause in his walk, waiting for what was coming. If I hadn't been able to command confidence in other directions, the Father finished quietly. Thor hastened to divert the conversation from his own affairs. Uh, Mr. Willoughby put his money in then, didn't he? That was one thing, Master McMitted coldly. Thor could speak the more daringly, because his march up and down kept him behind his father's back. And now I understand you think of dropping him. I shouldn't be dropping him. That's not the way to put it. He drops himself, automatically. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked a few times before he added. I can't go on supporting him. Do you mean that he's used up all the capital he put in? That's what it comes to. He's spent enormous sums. At times he's been near to crippling me. I can't keep it up. He's got to go. Besides the big drunken oath is at his grace to me. I can't afford to be associated with him any longer. Thor came round to the fireplace where he stood on the hearth-rug, his arm on the mantelpiece. But Father, what'll he do? Surely that's his own lookout. Bessie's got money still. I don't get all of it by any means. No, but if you've got most of it... Master was shot out of his seat. Take care, Thor. I object to your way of expressing yourself. It's offensive. I only mean, Father, that if Mr. Willoughby saved the business, he didn't do anything of that kind. Master went so sharply. No one knows better than he that I never wanted him at all, but Thor ventured to speak up. Didn't you tell Mother one night in Paris when we were there in 1892 that his money might as well come to you as go to the deuce? Mother said she hated business and didn't want to have anything to do with it. She hoped you'd let the Willoughbys and their Mother alone. Didn't that happen, Father? If Thor was expecting his father to blanch and betray a guilty mind, he was both disappointed and relieved. Possibly I have no recollection. I was looking for someone to enter the business. He wasn't my ideal, the Lord knows. Yet I might have said something about it, carelessly. Why do you ask? The son tried to infuse his words with a special intensity, as, looking straight into his father's eyes, he said, because I—I remember the way things happened at the time. Indeed. May I ask what your memories lead you to infer? They've clearly led you to infer something. During the seconds in which Father and Son scrutinized each other, Thor felt himself backing down with a sort of spiritual cowardice. He didn't want to accuse his father. He shrank from the knowledge that would have justified him in doing so. To express himself with as little stress as possible, he said, they lead me to infer that we've some moral responsibility toward Mr. Willoughby. Really? That's very interesting. Now I should have said that if I've ever had any, I'd richly worked it off. It was perhaps to glide away from the points already raised that he asked. Aren't you a little hasty in looking for moral responsibility? Let me see. Who was it the last time? Oh, Faye, wasn't it? Thor flushed, but he accepted the diversion. He even welcomed it. Such glimpses as he got of his father's mind appalled him. For the present, at any rate, he would force no issue that would verify his suspicions and compel him to act upon them. Better the doubt. Better to believe that Willoughby had been a spendthrift. He would have no difficulty as to that, had it not been for those dogging memories of the little hotel in the Ruto Rivoli. Besides, as he said to himself, he had his own axe to grind. He endeavoured therefore to take the reference to Faye jockously. That reminds me, he smiled, though the smile might have been a trifle nervous, that if you don't want to renew Faye's lease when it falls in, I wish you make it over to me. Disconcerted by the look of amazement, his words called up. He hastened to add, I take it on any terms you please, you've only got to name them. Masterman backed away to the large oblong library table stream with papers and magazines. He seemed to need it for support. His terms were those of a man amazed to the point of awe. What in the name of heaven do you want that for? Thor steadied his nerve by lighting a cigarette. To give me a footing in the village. I'm going into politics. Oh, lord! Thor hurried on. Yes, I know how you feel, but to me it seems a duty. Seems a what? The sun felt obliged to be apologetic. You see, father, so few men of the old American stock are going into politics nowadays. Well, why should they? The country has to be governed. Lots of fools to do that who are no good at anything else. Why should you dirty your hands with it? That isn't the way I look at it. It's the way you will look at it when you know a little more about it than you evidently do now. Of course, with your money you'll have a right to fritter away your time in anything you please. But as your father, I feel that I ought to give you a word of warning. You wouldn't be a masterman if you didn't need it, on that score. What score? The score of being caught by every humbugging socialistic scheme. I'm not a socialist father. Well, what are you? I thought you were. I'm not now. I've passed that phase. That's something to the good at a rate. With politics in this country as they are, and so many alien peoples to be licked into shape, it's no use looking for the state to undertake anything progressive for another two hundred years. Ha! On something more rapid firing. Want something immediate? And you found it? Only in the conviction that whatever's to be done must be done by the individual. I've no theories any longer. I've finished with them all. I'm driven back on the conclusion that if anything is to be accomplished in the way of social betterment, he must be by the man-to-man process in one's own small sphere. If we could get that put into practice on a considerable scale, we should do more than the state will be able to carry out for centuries to come. Put what into practice? The principle that no man shall let a friend or a neighbour suffer without relief when he can relieve him. Thor, you should have been God. I don't know anything about God, Father. But if I were to create a God, I should make that his first commandment. Masterman squirred himself in front of his son. So that's behind this scheme of yours for taking over Faye's lease. You're trying to trick me into doing what you know I won't do of my own accord. What could you do with the lease but make a present of it to old Faye? Politics be hanged. Come now, be frank with me! Fall through back his head. I can't be wholly frank with you, Father, but I'll be as frank as I can. I do want to help the poor old chap. You'd be sorry for him if you'd been seeing him as I have, but that was only one of my motives. Leaving politics out of the question, I have others, but I don't want to speak of them yet. Probably I shall never need to speak of them at all. Thor was willing that his father should say, It's the girl. But he contented himself with the curt statement. I'm sorry, Thor, but you can't have the lease. I'm going to sell the place. But Father, the young man cried, what's to become of Faye? Isn't that what you asked me just now about Lame Willoughby? Who do you think I am, Thor? Am I in this world to carry every lame dog on my back? It isn't a question of every lame dog but of an old tenant and an old friend. Toward whom I have what you've pleased to call a moral responsibility. Is that it? That's it, Father, put mildly. Well, I don't admit your moral responsibility, and what's more, I'm not going to bear it. Do you understand? Thor felt himself growing white, with the whiteness that attended one of his surging waves of wrath. He clenched his fists. He drew away. But he couldn't keep himself from saying, quietly, with a voice that shook because of his very efforts to keep it firm. All right, Father, if you don't bear it, I will. He was moving toward the door when Archie called after him, Thor, for God's sake, don't be a fool! He answered from the threshold over his shoulder. It's no use asking me not to do, as I've said, Father, because I can't help it. He was in the hall when he added. And if I could, I shouldn't try. End of chapter 10. Chapter 11 By the time his anger had cooled down, Thor regretted the words with which he had left his father's presence, and continued to regret them. They were braggart and useless. Whatever he might feel impelled to do, for either Leonard Willoughby or Jasper Faye, he could do better without announcing his intentions beforehand. He experienced a sense of guilt when, on the next day and for many days afterward, his father showed by his manner that he had been wounded. Lois Willoughby showed that she too had been wounded. The process of easing the first one off, besides affording him sidelights on a woman's heart, involved him in an erratic course of blowing hot and cold that defeated his own ends. When he blew cold, the chill was such that he blew hotter than ever to disperse it. He could see for himself that this seeming capriciousness made it difficult for Lois to preserve the equal tenor of her bearing, though she did her best. He had kept away from her for a week or more, and would have continued to do so longer, had he not been haunted by the look his imagination conjured up in her eyes. He knew its trouble, its bewilderment, its reflected heartache. I'm a damned cad," he said to himself, and whenever he worked himself up to that point, remorse couldn't send him quick enough to pay her a visit of atonement. He knew she was at home because he met one or two of the county street ladies coming away from the house. With knowing looks they told him he should find her. They did not, however, tell him that she had another visitor, whose voice he recognized while depositing his hat and an evacote on one of the region she chairs at the tapestry-square hall. Oh, don't go yet, Lois was saying. Here's Dr. Thor Masterman. He'll want to see you. But Rosie insisted on taking her departure, making polite excuses for the length of her call. She was deliciously pretty. He saw that at once on entering. Wearing the new winter suit for which she had pinched and saved, and a hat of the moment's fashion, she easily dazzled Thor, though Lois could perceive in details of material the cheapness that an American eyes is the most damning of all qualities. Rosie's face was bright with the flush of social triumph, for the county street ladies had been kind to her, and she'd had tea with all the ceremony of which she read in the accredited annals of Good Society. If she had not been wondering whether or not the county street ladies knew her brother was in jail, she could have suppressed all other courses for anxiety and given herself freely to the hour's bliss. But she would not be persuaded to remain, taking her leave with a full command of graceful niceties. Thor could hardly believe she was his fairy of the hot house. She was a princess, a marvel. Beats them all, he said, gleefully to himself, referring to the ladies of county street, and almost including Lois Willoughby. He did not quite include her. He perceived that he couldn't do so when, after having bowed roses to the door, he returned to take his seat in the drawing-room. There was a distinction about Lois, he admitted to himself, that neither prettiness nor fine clothes nor graceful niceties could rival. He wondered if she wasn't even more distinguished since this new something had come into her life. Was it joy or grief, which he himself had brought there? Her greeting to him was of precisely the same shade as all her greetings during the past two months. It was like something rehearsed and executed to perfection. When she had given him his tea and poured another cup for herself, they talked of Rosie. Do you know, she said an amusing tone, I think the poor little thing has really enjoyed being here this afternoon. Why shouldn't she? Yes, but why should she, apart from the very slight novelty of the thing, which to an American girl is no real novelty after all? I don't understand what it is she cares so much about. He weighed the question seriously. She finds a world of certain, what shall I say, of certain amenities to which she's equal. Anyone can see that, and which she hasn't got. That's something in itself to a girl with imagination. I think she's in love. Lois said suddenly. Four was startled. Oh, no, she isn't. She can't be. Who on earth could she be in love with? Oh, it's not with you. Don't be alarmed, Lois smiled. It was so like Thor to be shy of a pretty girl. He had been so ever since she could remember him. That's good, he managed to say. He regained control of himself, though he tingled all over. It would have to be with me or Dr. Hillary, where the only two men, except the Italians, whoever appear on the place. Oh, you don't know, Lois said pensively. Girls like that often have what they call, rather picturesquely, a fellow. Oh, don't! His cry was instantly followed by a nervous laugh. He felt obliged to explain. It's so funny to hear you talk like that, it doesn't go with your style. She took this pleasantly, and they spoke of other things. But Thor was eager to get away. A real visit of atonement had become impossible. That must be put off for another day, perhaps for ever. He wasn't sure. He couldn't tell. For the minute his head was in a whirl. He hardly knew what he was saying, except that his rejoiners to Lois's remarks were more or less at random. Vital questions were pounding through his brain and demanding an answer. Who knew but that with regard to Rosie he was right, and yet wrong? Women with their remarkable powers of divination didn't always hit the nail directly on the head. It might be the case with Lois now. She might be right in her surmise that Rosie was in love, and mistaken in those light and cruel words. Oh, not with you! He didn't suppose he was with him. And yet? And yet? He got away at last, and tall through the winter twilight toward the old apple orchard above the pond. He knew what he would say. Rosie, are you in love with any one? If so, for God's sake, tell me. What he would do when she answered him was matter outside his present capacity for thought. He had begun to snow. By the time he reached the house on the hill his shoulders were white. The necessity for shaking himself in the little entry gave the first pro's egg chill to his ardour. Rosie had returned and was preparing supper. The princess and Marvel had resolved herself again into the fairy of the hot house. Not the four-minded that. What disconcerted him was her dry little manner of surprise. She had not expected him. There was nothing in her mother's condition to demand his call. She herself was busy. She had come from the kitchen to answer the door. Her smell of cooking filled the house. No one of these details could have kept him from carrying out his purpose, but together they were unromantic. How could he adjure her to tell him for God's sake whether or not she was in love with any one when he saw she was afraid that something was burning on the stove? He could only stammer out excuses for having come. Inventing on the spot new and incoherent directions for the treatment of Mrs. Faye, he took himself away again, not without humiliation. Being in a savage mood as he stalked down the hill, he was working himself into a rage when an unexpected occurrence gave him other things to think of. At the foot of the hill, just below the slope of the square, was the terminus of the electric tram line from the city. In summer it was a pretty spot, well shaded by ornamental trees, with a small gothic church and its parsonage in the centre of a trimly kept lawn. It was prettier still as Thor Masterman approached it at the close of a winter's day, with the great soft flakes heeping their beauty on roof and shrub and roadway, the whole lit up with plenty of cheerful electricity, and no eye to behold it but his own. Because of this purity and solitude, a black spot was the more conspicuous, and because it was a moving black spot, it caught the onlookers' glance at once. It was a moving black spot, though it remained in one place. On the cement a seat that circled a copper beach-tree for the convenience of villagers waiting for the cars. It was extraordinary that it had one should choose this uninviting, snow-covered resting place, unless he couldn't do otherwise. The doctor in Thor was instantly alert, but before advancing many paces he had made his guess. Patients were beginning to take his time, were entering his afternoons less free, and so what might have been expected had happened. Mr. Willoughby had managed to come homeward by the electric car, but was unable to go any farther. Nevertheless Thor was startled as he crossed the roadway to hear a great choking sob. The big creature was huddled somehow on the seat, but with face and arms turned to the trunk of the tree against whose cold bark he wept. He wept shamelessly aloud with broken exclamations of which Oh my God! Oh my God! was all that Thor could hear distinctly. It's delirium this time, for sure, he said to himself, and he laid his hand on the great snow-heaped shoulder. He changed his mind on that score as soon as Mr. Willoughby was able to speak coherently. I'm heartbreak of Thor, haven't touched a thing to-day, scarcely, but I'm all in. More sobs followed. It was with difficulty that Thor could get the lumbering body on its feet. You mustn't stay here, Mr. Willoughby, you'll catch cold. Come along home with me. I don't want to go home, Thor. Got no home now. Ruined, that's where I am. Ruined. Your father's kicked me out. Oh, my money gone. Not a cent left in the world. Four dragged him onward. But you must come home just the same, Mr. Willoughby. You can't stay out here. The next car will be along in a minute, and everyone will see you. I don't care who sees me, Thor. I'm ruined. Father says I'll have to go. Got all the papers ready. Oh, my God, what'll Bessie say? As they stumbled forward through the snow, Thor tried to learn what had happened. Got all my money, and then kicked me out. Was the only explanation. Not a cent of the world. What'll Bessie say? Oh, what'll Bessie say? All her money. Hasn't got a hundred thousand dollars left out of the great biggest state. Make a way with myself. That's what I'll do. Oh, my God! My God! On arriving in front of the house, Thor saw lights in the drawing-room. Lose was probably still there. It was no more than a half hour since he'd left her, and other callers might have succeeded him. He tried to steer his charge round the corner towards the side entrance in Willoughby's lane. But Len grew quarrelous. I don't want to go in the side door. Go in the front door. Hang it all. Father can't tear me out of my own house, him fertile hound. The door opened, and Lose stood in the oblong of light. Oh, what is it? She cried, peering outward. Is it you, Thor? What's the matter? She'd be like a servant. Willoughby complained. As with Thor supporting him, he stumbled up the steps. I didn't want to go in the side door. Front door good enough for me. No confiding kitchen boy, if I am ruined. Look here, Lose. He rambled on when he got into the hall, and Thor was helping him to take off his overcoat. Look here, Lose. We haven't got a cent of the world. That's what we haven't got. Not a cent of the world. Actually, Marshal's got my money, and your money, and your mother's money, and the whole damn money of all of us. Keep me out now. No good to him any more. With some difficulty, Thor got him to his room, where he undressed him and put him to bed. On his return to the hall, he found Lose seated in one of the arm-chairs, her face pale. Oh, Thor, is that what you meant a few weeks ago? He did his best to explain the situation to her gently. I don't know just what's happened, but I'm afraid there's trouble ahead. She nodded. Yes, I've been expecting it, and now I suppose it's come. I shouldn't wonder if it had. But you must be brave, Lose, and not think matters worse than they are. Oh, I shan't do that, she said, with a hint of haughtiness at his solitude. Don't worry about me. I'm quite capable of bearing whatever's to be born. Please go on. If anything has happened, he said, speaking from where he stood in the middle of the floor, it's that Father wants to dissolve the partnership. I've been looking for that, so has Mama. And if they do dissolve the partnership, I'm afraid there'll be very little money coming to Mr. Willoughby. Whose fault would that be? Frankly, Lose, I don't know. It might be that of my Father, more of yours. And I shouldn't think you'd want to find out. He looked down at her curiously. Why do you say that? Shouldn't you? She seemed to shiver. Why should I? If the money's gone, it's gone. Whether my Father has squandered it, or your Father has— She rose and crossed the hall to the stairs, where, with a foot on the nose to the steps, she leaned on the pilaster of the balustrade. I don't want to know, she said, with energy. If the money's gone, they've shuffled it away between them. And I don't see that it would help either you or me to find out who's to blame. It was a minute of which Thor could easily have brought out the words which, for so many years, he had supposed he would one day speak to her. His pity was such that it would have been a luxury to tell her to throw all the material part of her care on him. If he could have said that much without saying more, he would have had no hesitation. But there was still a chance of the miracle happening with regard to Rosie Faye. Love was love and sweet. It was first love, and in its way it was young love. It was springtide love. The dew of the morning was on it, and the freshness of sunrise. It was hard to renounce it, even to go to the aid of one whose need of him was so desperate that to hide it she turned her face away. Instead of the words of cheer and rescue that were almost cushing to his lips, he said soberly, has your mother any idea of what's going on? She began pacing restlessly up and down. Oh, she's been worried for the last few weeks. She couldn't help knowing something. Papa's been dropping so many hints that she's been meaning to see your father. I suppose it will be very hard for her. She paused, confronting him. It will be at first, but she'll rise to it. She does that kind of thing. You don't know, mother. Very few people do. She simply adores Papa. It's pathetic. All this time that he's been so—so she won't recognise it. She won't admit for a second or let me admit it that he's anything but tired or ill. It's splendid, and yet there's something about it that almost breaks my heart. Mama has lots of pluck, you know. You mightn't think it. Oh, I know it. I'm glad you do. People in general see only one side of her, but it's not the only side. She has her weaknesses. I see that well enough. She's terribly a woman, and she can't grow old. But that's not criminal, is it? There's a great deal in her that's never been called on, and perhaps this trouble will bring it out. He spoke up baringly. It will bring out a great deal in you. She began again to pace up and down. Oh, me, I'm so useless. I've never been any help to anyone. Do you know at times laterly I've envied that little Rosie Faye? Why? Because she's got duties and responsibilities and struggles. She's got something more to do than dress and play tennis and make calls. There are people who depend on her. She's splendid, isn't she? She paused in her restless pacing. She might be. She is. Very nearly. Though he had taken the opportunity to get further away from the appeal of her distress, he felt a pang of humiliation in the promptness with which she followed his lead. But he couldn't go on with the discussion. It was too sickening. Every inflection of her voice implied that with her own need he had no longer anything to do, that it was all over, that she recognized the fact, that she was trying her upmost to let him off easily. That she should suspect the truth or connect the change with Rosie Faye he knew was out of the question. It was not the way in which her mind would work. If she had counted for the situation at all it would probably be on the ground that, when it came to the point, he'd found that he didn't care for her. The promises he had tacitly made and she had tacitly understood, she was ready to give back. He was quite alive to the fact that her generosity made his impotence the more pitiful. That he should stand tongue-tied and helpless before the woman whom he had allowed to think that she could count on him was galling not only to his manhood, but to all those primary instincts that sent into the aid of weakness. There was a minute in which it seemed to him that if he did not on the instant redeem his self-respect it would be lost to him for ever. After all he did care for her, in a way. There was no woman in the world toward whom he felt an equal degree of reverence. More than that there was no woman in the world whom he could admit so naturally to share his life whose life he himself could so naturally share. If Rosie were to marry him the whole process would be different. In that case there would be no sharing, there would be nothing but a wild gypsy joy. His delight would be to heap happiness upon her, content with her acceptance, and the very little which was all he could expect her to give him in return. With Lois Willoughby it would be equality, partnership, companionship, and a life of mutual comprehension and respect. That would be much, of course. It was what a few months ago he would have thought enough. It was plainly that with which he must manage to be satisfied. He was about to plunge in, to plunge in with one last backward look to the more exquisite joys he must leave behind, and tell her that his strength and loyalty were hers to dispose of as she would have when she herself unwittingly balked the impulse. It was still to hold open to him the way of escape that she continued to speak of Rosie. If she were to marry some nice fellow like Jim Breen, for instance, full-bounded, like who? She was too deeply preoccupied with her own emotions to notice his. He was attentive to her for a long time once. He cried out incredulously. Oh no, it couldn't be. She's too superior. I'm afraid the superiority is just the trouble. Though I don't know anything about it beyond the gossip one hears in the village. Anyone who goes to so many of the working people's houses as I do hears it all. He was still incredulous. And you've heard that? I've heard that poor Jim wanted to marry her, and she would look at him. It's a pity, I think. She'd be a great deal happier in marrying a man with the same kind of ways as herself, than she'd be with someone— I can only put it, she added with a rueful smile, in a way you don't like, Thor, than she'd be with someone of another station in life. His heart pounded so that he could hardly trust himself to speak with the necessary coolness. Is there any question of any one of another station in life? No, only that if she is in love—and, of course, I'm any guessing at it—I think it's very likely to be with someone of that kind. The statement, which was thrown out with gentle indifference, affected him so profoundly that had she again declared that it was not with him, he could have taken it with equanimity. With whom else could it be? It wasn't with Antonio, and it wasn't with Dr. Hillary. There was the choice. Were there any other rival he couldn't help knowing it? He'd sometimes suspected—no, it was hardly enough for suspicion. He'd sometimes hoped, but it had been hardly enough for hope. And yet sometimes, when she gave him that dim, side-long smile, or turned to him with the earnest, wide-open look in her greenish eyes, he thought that possibly—just possibly—he didn't know what answers he made to her further remarks. Her faint memory remained with him of talking incoherently against reason, against sentiment, against time. As, with her velvety regard resting upon him sadly, he swung on his overcoat, and hurried to take his leave. CHAPTER 12 He hurried because inwardly he was running away from the figure he had cut. Never had he supposed that in any one's time of need, to say nothing of hers, he could have proved so worthless. And he hurried because he knew a decision one way or the other had become imperative. And he hurried because his failure convinced him that so long as there was a possibility that Rosie cared for him secretly, he would never do anything for Lois Willoughby. Whatever his sentiment toward the woman friend of his youth, he was tied and bound by a stress of a love of which the call was primitive. He might be over abrupt, he might startle her, but at the worst he should escape from this unbearable state of inactivity. So he hurried. It had stopped snowing, the evening was now fair and cold. As it was nearly six o'clock his father would probably have come home. He would make him first an offer of new terms, and he would see Rosie afterward. His excitement was such that he knew he could neither eat nor sleep till the questions in his heart were answered. But on reaching his own gate he was surprised to see Mrs. Willoughby's motor turn in at the driveway and roll up to the door. It was not that there was anything strange in her paying his mother a call, but today the circumstances were unusual. Anything might happen. Anything might have happened already. On reaching the door he let himself in with misgiving. He recognised the visitor's voice at once, but there was a note in it that he had never heard before. It was a plaintive note, and rather childlike. Hoena, what's become of my money? His mother's inflections were as childlike as the others, and as full of distress. How do I know, Bessie? Why don't you call Archie? I have asked him. I have just come from there. I can't make out anything he says. He's been trying to tell me that we've spent it. Well, I know we haven't spent it. There were tears in his voice as she said. Well, I can't explain it, Bessie. I don't know anything about business. From where he stood with his hand on the knob as he closed the door behind him, four could see into the huge, old-fashioned, guilt-framed mirror over the chimney-piece in the drawing-room. The two women were standing, separated by a small table which supported an azalear in bloom. His stepmother, in a soft, trailing house-gown, her hands behind her back, seemed taller and slenderer than ever in contrast to Mrs. Willoughby's dumpiness, dwarfed as it was by an enormous muff and encumbering furs. The latter drew herself up indignantly. Her tone changed. You do know something about business, Ina? You know well enough about it to drag Len and me into what we never would have thought of doing if you and Archie hadn't— I? Why, Bessie, you must be crazy. I'm not crazy, though God knows it's enough to make me so. I remember everything as if it would happen this afternoon. There was a faint scintillation in the diamonds in Inard's brooch and earrings as she tossed her head. If you do that, you must recall that I was afraid of it from the first. Bessie was quick to detect the admission. Why? she demanded. If you were afraid of it, why were you afraid? You weren't afraid without seeing something to be afraid of. Mrs. Masterman nearly wept. I don't know anything about business at all, Bessie. Oh, don't tell me that! Bessie broke in fiercely. You knew enough about it to see that Archie wanted our money in 1892. But I hadn't anything to do with it. Hadn't anything to do with it, then who had? Who was it suggested to me that Len should go into business one evening in the hotel de Marson after dinner? Who was that? If I said anything at all, it was that I hated business and everything that I had to do with it. Oh, I can understand that well enough! Bessie exclaimed scornfully. You hated it because you saw already that your husband was going to ruin us. Come now, Inna, didn't you? Mrs. Masterman protested tearfully. I didn't know anything about it. I only wished that Archie would let you and your money alone, and I wished it still. Very well, then, Bessie cried, flinging her hands outward dramatically. Isn't that what I'm saying? You knew something. You knew it, and you let us go ahead. You not only let us go ahead, but you led us on. You could see already that Archie was spinning his web like a spider, and that he catch us as flies. Now, didn't you? Tell the truth, Inna. Wasn't it in your mind from the first? Long before it was in his. I'll say that for Archie, that I don't suppose he really meant to ruin us while you knew he would. That's the difference between a man and his wife. The man only drifts, but the wife sees years ahead what he's drifting to. You saw it, Inna! When his stepmother bowed her head to sob into her handkerchief, four ventured to enter the room. Neither the women noticed him. I must say, Inna, Bessie continued, that seems to be frightful. I don't know what you can be made of that you've lived cheerfully through these last eighteen years when you knew what was coming. If it had been coming to yourself, well, that might be born. But to stand by and watch for it to overtake someone else, someone who's always been your friend, someone you like, for I do believe you've liked me in your way and my way, that, I must say, is the limit. C'est pas le bon. Now, doesn't it? Mrs. Masterman struggled to speak, but her sobs prevented her. In a way, it's funny, Bessie continued philosophically, how bad a good woman can be. You're a good woman, Inna, of a kind, that is, you're good in as far as you're not bad, and I suppose that for a woman that's a very fair average. But I can tell you that there are sinners whom the world has skirted to the bone who haven't begun to do what you've done during these last eighteen years, who wouldn't have had the nerve for it. No, Inna, she continued with another sweeping gesture. Upon my soul, I don't know what you're made of. I almost think I've mired you. I couldn't have done it. I'd be hanged if I could. There are women who've committed murder and who haven't been as cool as you. They've committed murder and a frantic fit of passion that went as quick as it came and they swung for it or done time for it. But they never have had the pluck to sit and smile and wait for this minute as you've waited for it when you saw it from such a long way off. It was the crushed attitude in which his stepmother sank, weeping into a chair, the break of the spell by which Thor had been held paralysed. But before he could speak, best he turned and saw him. Oh, so it's you, Thor. Well, I wish you could have come a minute ago to hear what I've been saying. I've heard it, Mrs. Willoughby. Then I'm sure you must agree with me, or rather you would if you knew how things have been managed in Paris eighteen years ago. I've been trying to tell your dear stepmother that we've been mistaken in her. We haven't done her justice. We've fought her as just a sweet and gentle ladylike person when all the while she's been a heroine. She's been colossal, as Clytem Nestor was colossal, and Lady Macbeth. She beats them both. If I don't believe either of them could have watched the sword of Damocles take eighteen years to fall on a friend and not have had nervous prostration while she's as fresh as ever. He laid his hand on her arm. You'll come away now, won't you, Mrs. Willoughby? He begged. She adjusted her thirst hurriedly. All right, Thor. I'll come. I don't want to say one thing more. No, no, please. I will say it, she insisted as he led her from the room, because it'll do Inna good. It's just this, she threw back over her shoulder, that I forgive you, Inna. You're so magnificent that I can't nurse a grudge against you. When a woman has done what you've done, she may be punished by her own conscience, but not by me. I'm lost in admiration of the scale on which she carries out her crimes. By the time they were in the porch, with the door closed behind them, Mrs. Excitement subsided suddenly. Her voice became plaintive and childlike again, as she said wistfully. Oh, Thor, do you think it's all gone? That we can't get any of it back? I know we haven't spent it. We can't have spent it. Since Thor was Thor, there was only one thing for him to say. He needed no time to reflect or form resolutions. Whatever the cost to him, in whatever way, he could say nothing else. You'll get it all back, Mrs. Willoughby. Don't worry about it any more, just leave it to me. But Bessie was not convinced. I don't see how that's going to be. If your father says the money is gone, it is gone, whether we've spent it or not. Trust him. Nevertheless, she kissed him, saying, But I don't blame you, Thor. If there were two like you in the world, it would be too good a place to live in. And Leonard Lewis thinks the same. He got her into the motor and closed the door upon her. Standing on the doorstep, he watched it crawl down the avenue, like a great black beetle on the snow. As he passed the gateway, his father appeared, coming on foot from the electric car. End of Chapter 12 On re-entering the house, Thor waited for his father in the hall, finding the drawing room empty and inferring that his mother had gone upstairs, he decided to say nothing of the scene between her and Mrs. Willoughby. For the time being, his own needs demanded right of way. Nothing else could be attended to till they had received consideration. With that reflection something surged in him, surged and exalted. He was to be allowed to speak of his love at last. He was to be forced to confess it. If he was never to name it again, he would do so this once, getting some outlet for his passion. He both glowed and trembled. He both strained forward and recoiled. Already he felt drunk with a wine that roused the holier emotions as ardently as it filed the senses. He could scarcely take in the purport of his father's words, as the latter stamped the snow from his boots in the entry and said, As that poor woman been here, sorry for her, Thor, sorry for her from the bottom of my heart. The young man had no response to make. He was in a realm in which the reference had no meaning. Archie continued while hanging his hat and overcoat in the closet of the foot of the stairs. Possible to make her understand. Women like that can never see why they shouldn't eat their cake and have it too. Books open for inspection. What's one to do? When he emerged from the closet, Thor saw that his face was grey. He looked mortally tired and sad. He had been sad for some weeks past, sad and detached, ever since the night when he made his ineffectual bid for the care of Thor's prospective money. He betrayed no hint of resentment toward his son, nothing but this dignified lassitude, this reserved, hybrid, speechless expression of failure that smote Thor to the heart. But this evening he looked worn as well, worn and old, though brave and patient and able to command a weary, flickering smile. Well, I'm glad he's come. He'll be relieved to have it over. Seen it coming so long that it's been like a nightmare. I'll ever come to grieve myself, sure if I would. Father, could I speak to you for a few minutes? About this? No, not about this, about something else. Something rather important. There was a sudden gleam in the father's eyes which gave Thor a second pang. He had seen it once or twice already during these weeks of partial estrangement. It was the gleam of hope—of hope that Thor might have grown repentant. It had the sparkle of fire in it. When, seated in a busy attitude at the desk which held the centre of the library, he looked up expectantly at his son. Well, my boy! Thor remained standing. It's about that property of faeze, father. Oh, again? The light in the eyes went out with the suddenness of an electric lamp. I only wanted to say this, father. Thor hurried on, so as to get the interview over, that if you wanted to sell the place, I'll take it. I'll take it on your own terms. You can make them what you like. Archie leaned on the desk, pascing his hand over his brow. I'm sorry, Thor. I can't. Thor had the curious reminiscent sensation of being once more a little boy with some pleasure forbidden him. Oh, father, why? I want it awfully. So, I see. I don't see why you should, but— Well, I'll tell you. I want to protect fae, because— Masterman interrupted without looking up. And that's just what I don't want to do. I want to get rid of the lot. Rid of the lot? The expression was alarming. In his father's mind the issue, then, was personal. It was not any personal, but it was inclusive. It included Rosie. She was rated in the lot. Clearly the minute had come at which to speak plainly. If you wanted to get rid of them on my account, father, I may as well tell you, no, it's got nothing to do with you. He was still resting his forehead on his hand, looking downward at the blotting paper on his desk. It's Claude. Thor started back. Claude? What's he got to do with it? Well, I'd made up my mind whether to tell you or not, but— He doesn't even know them. Of course he knows who they are. Fae was Grandpa Thorley's— Masterman continued to speak wearyly. He may not know them all. It's motive enough for my action that he knows the girl. Oh, no, he doesn't. He better ask him. I have asked him. Then he better ask him again. But, father, she couldn't know him without my seeing it. I'm at the house nearly every day. The mother, you know. Apparently your eyes aren't sharp enough. You should take a lesson from your uncle, Sim. But, father, I don't understand. And I'll tell you, it seems that Claude has known this girl for the past four or five months. Oh, no, no, that's all wrong. It isn't three months since I talked to Claude about her. Claude didn't even remember they had a girl. He'd forgotten it. I know what I'm talking about, Thor. Don't contradict. Seems your uncle, Sim, has had his eye on them all along. Thor smote his side with his clenched fist. There's some mistake, father. It can't be. I wish there was a mistake, Thor, but there isn't. If I could afford it, I should send Claude abroad. Send him round the world. But I can't just now, with his mix-up in the business. There's no doubt, but that the girl is bad. Father! If Master would have been looking up, he would have seen the convulsion of pain on his son's face and got some inkling of his state of mind. As bad as they make him, he went on tranquilly. No, no, father, you mustn't say that. I can't help saying it, Thor. I know how you feel about Claude. You feel as I do myself. But you and I must take hold of him and save him. We must get rid of this girl. But she's not bad, father. Masterman raised himself and leaned back into his chair. He saw that Thor was white, with curious black streaks and shadows in his long, gaunt face. Oh, I know how you feel, he said again. Dussy monstrous that the thing should have happened to Claude. But after all, he's young, and with a little tact we can pull him out. I've said nothing to your mother, and don't mean to. Now you use alarming her needlessly. I'm not saying anything to Claude either, and you know the thing for four or five days. Don't want to make him restive or drive him to take the bit between his teeth. I, spirited young fellow Claude, is. Needs to be dealt with tactfully. Thing will be to cut away the ground beneath his feet without his knowing it, by getting rid of the girl. But I know Rosie Fay, father, and she's not. Now, my dear, Thor, what is it, girl, but bad, when she's willing to meet a man clandestically night after night? Oh, but she hasn't done it. And I tell you she has done it, ever since last summer, night after night. Why, Thor demanded hoarsely. In the woods above Duck Rock. Look here, the father suggested, struck with a good idea. The next time Claude says he has an engagement to go out with Billy Cheever, why don't you follow him? There was both outrage and authority in Thor's abrupt cry. Father! Oh, I know how you feel. You'd rather trust him. Well, I would myself. It's the plan I'm going on. Must be too hard on him, must be. Sympathetic steering is what he wants. Fortunately we're both men of the world and I can accept the situation with no purely tannical hypocrisies. He's not the first young fellow who's got into the clutches of a hussy. It was to keep himself from striking his father down that Thor got out of the room. For an instant he had seen red, and across the red the word patricide flashed in letters of far. It might have been a vision. It was frightening. Outside it was a night of dim, spirit-like radiance. The white of the earth and the violet of the sky were both spangled with lights. Low on the horizon the full moon was a glorious golden disc. The air was sweet and cold. As he struck down the avenue, of which the snow was broken only by his own and his father's footsteps and the wheels of Bessie's car, he bared his head to cool his forehead and the hot masses of his hair. He breathed hard. He was aching. His distress was like that of being roused from a weird appalling dream. He had not yet got control of his faculties. His guest knew why he had come out, except that he couldn't stay within. On nearing the street the buzzing of an electric car reminded him that Claude was probably coming home. Instinctively he turned his steps away from meeting him, tramping up the long, white, empty stretch of County Street. At Willoughby's Lane he turned up the hill, not for any particular purpose, because the tramping there would be a little harder. He needed exertion. It eased the dull ache of confused inward pain. In the Willoughby house there was no light, except in the hall and in Bessie's bedroom. Mother and daughter had doubtless taken refuge in the latter spot to discuss the disastrous turn of their fortunes. Ah, well, there would probably be nothing to keep him from going to their rescue now. Probably. He clung to the faint chance offered by the word. He didn't know the real circumstances, yet. Probably his father had been accurate in his statements, even there wrong in what he had inferred. Probably Claude and Rosie had met night after night, secretly, in the woods, in the dark. Probably. He stopped dead in his walk. He threw back his head and groaned to the violet sky. He pulled with both hands at his collar as though choking, secretly, in the woods, in the dark. It was awful, and yet it was entrancing. If Rosie had only come to meet him like that, in that mystery, in that seclusion, with that trust, with that surrender of herself, how can I blame Claude? It was his first formulated thought. He tramped on again. How could he blame Claude? Poor Claude! He had his difficulties. No one knew that better than Thor. And if Rosie loved the boy, below the ridge of the Longwooded Hill there was a road running parallel to County Street. He turned into that. But he began to perceive to what goal he was tending. He had taken this direction aimlessly, and yet it was as if his feet had acted of their own accord without the guiding impulse of the mind. From a long, straight stem, a banner of smoke floated heavy and luminous against the softer luminosity of the sky. He knew now where he was going, and what he had to do. But he paused at the gate when he got there, uncertain as to where at this hour he should find her. There was a faint light in the mother's room, but none elsewhere in the house. The moon was by this time high enough to throw a band of radiance across Thor's pond, and strike pale gleams from the glass of the hot-house roofs. It required some gazing to detect in Rosie's greenhouse the blurred glow of a lamp. He remembered that there was a desk near this spot at which she sometimes wrote. She was writing there now, perhaps to Claude. But he was not writing to Claude. She was making out bills. As bookkeeper to the establishment, as well as utility woman in general, it was the one hour in the day when she had leisure for the task. She raised her head to peer down the long, dim aisle of flowers on hearing him open the door. It's I, Rosie, he called to her as he passed between banks of carnations. Don't be afraid. She was not afraid, but she was excited. As a matter of fact, she was saying to herself, he's found out. It was what she had been expecting. She had long ago begun to see that his almost daily visits were not on her mother's account. He'd be coming less as a doctor than as a detective. Very well, if his detecting had been successful, so much the better. Since the battle had to be fought some time, it couldn't begin too soon. She remained seated, her right hand holding the pen, her left lying on the open pages of the ledger. He spoke before he had fully emerged into the glow of the lamp. Oh, Rosie, what's this about you and Claude? Her little face grew hard and defiant. She was not to be deceived by this wounded, unhappy tone. Well, what? She asked guardily, looking up at him. He stooped. His face was curiously convulsed. It frightened her. Do you love him? Instinctively she took an attitude of defence, rising and pushing back her chair to shield herself behind it. And what if I do? Then Rosie, you should have told me. Again the heartbroken cry seemed to her a bit of trickery to get her confidence. Told you? How could I tell you? What should I tell you for? How long have you loved him? Her face was set. The shifting opal lights in her eyes were the fars of her will. She would speak. She would hide nothing. Let the responsibility be on Claude. Her avowal was like that of a calamity or a crime. I've loved him ever since I knew him. And how long is that? It will be five months, the day after tomorrow. Tell me, Rosie, how did it come about? She was still defiant. She put it briefly. I was in the wood above Duck Rock. He came by. He spoke to me. And you loved him from the first? She nodded with the desperate little air he had long ago learned to recognise. Oh, Rosie, tell me this. Do you love him much? She was quite ready with her answer. It was as well the mastermen should know. I had to die for him. Would you, Rosie? And what about him? Her lip quivered. Oh, men are not so ready to die for love as women are. He leaned toward her, supporting himself with his hands on the desk. And you are ready, Rosie? You really would? She thought he looked wild. He terrified her. She shrank back into the dimness of her mind. Into the dimness of a mass of foliage. Oh, what do you mean? What are you asking me for? Why do you come here? Go away. I'll go presently, Rosie. You won't be sorry I've come. I only want you to tell me all about it. There are reasons why I want to know. Then why don't you ask him? She demanded passionately. He's your brother. Because I want you to tell me the story first. There was such tenderness in his voice that she grew reassured in spite of her alarm. What do you want me to say? I want you to say, first of all, that you know I'm your friend. You can't be my friend, she said suspiciously, unless you're Claude's friend too, and Claude wouldn't own to a friend who tried to part us. I don't want to part you, Rosie. I want to bring you together. The assertion was too much for credence. She was thrown back on the hypothesis of trickery. You? Yes, Rosie. Has Claude never told you that he's more to me than any one in the world except— He paused. He panted. He tried to keep it back, but it forced itself out in spite of his efforts. Except you. Once having said it, he repeated it. Except you, Rosie. Except you. Though he was still leaning to water across the desk, his head sank. There was silence between them. It was long before Rosie the light in her eyes concentrated to two brilliant penetrating points crept forward from the sheltering mass of foliage. She could hardly speak above a whisper. Except who? He lifted his head. She noticed subconsciously that his face was no longer wild, but haggard. He spoke gently. Except you, Rosie. You're most to me in the world. As she bent toward him, her mouth and eyes betrayed her horror at the irony of this discovery. She would rather never have known it than know it now. It was all she could do to gasp for one word. Me? I shouldn't have told you, he hurried on apologetically, but I couldn't help it. Besides, I want you to understand how utterly I'm your friend. I ask nothing more than to be allowed to help you and Claude in every way. She cried out, the thing was preposterous. You're going to do that now? I'm your big brother, Rosie. The big brother to both of you. That's what I shall be in future. And what I've said will be a dead secret between us, won't it? I shouldn't have told you, but I couldn't help it. It was stronger than me, Rosie. Those things sometimes are. But it's a secret now, dead and buried. It's as if it hadn't been said, isn't it? And if I should marry someone else? This was too much. It was like the world slipping from her at the minute she had it within her grasp. The horror was not only in her eyes and mouth, but in her voice. Are you going to marry someone else? I might have to, Rosie, for a lot of reasons. It might be my duty. And now that I can't marry you. She uttered a sort of wail. Ho! Don't be sorry for me, Rosie, dear. I can't stand it. I could stand it better if you're not sorry. But I am! she cried desperately. Then I must thank you. And it don't be. It will make me grieve the more for saying what I never should have said. But that's a secret between us, as I said before, isn't it? And if I do marry, she'll never find out, will she? That wouldn't do, would it, Rosie? His words struck her as passing all the bounds of practical common sense. They were so mad that she felt herself compelled to ask for more assurance. Are you in love with me? If the last syllable had been louder, it would have been a scream. Oh, Rosie, forgive me. I shouldn't have told you. It was weak. It was wrong. I only did it to show you how you could trust me. But I should have showed you that some other way. You'd already told me how it was between you and Lord, so it was treachery to him. But I never dreamed of trying to come between you. Believe me, I didn't. I swear to you, I only want— She broke in panting. She wouldn't have spoken crudely or abruptly if there had been any other way. But the chance was there. In another minute it might be too late. Yes, but when I said that about Claude— She didn't know how to go on. He encouraged her. Yes, Rosie. She wrung her hands. Oh, don't you see? When I said that about Claude, I didn't. I didn't know. He hastened to relieve her distress. You didn't know I cared for you? No. The word came out with another long wail. He looked at her curiously. But what's that got to do with it? Her eyes implored impitiously while she beat the palm of one hand against the back of the other. It was terrible that he couldn't see what she meant, and the moment slipping away. It wouldn't have made you love Claude any the less, would it? She had to say something. If she didn't, he would never understand. Not love, perhaps, but— The sudden coldness in his voice terrified her again, but differently. But what, Rosie? She cried out as if the words rent her. But Claude has no money. And I have. Is that it? It was no use to deny it. She nodded, dumbly. Besides, she counted on his possession of common sense, though his use of it was slow. He raised himself from his attitude of leaning on the desk. It was his turn to take shelter amid the dark foliage behind him. He couldn't bear to let the lamplight fall too fully on his face. Is it this, Rosie? He asked, with an air of bewilderment, that you'd marry me because I have the money. It seemed to Rosie that the question gave her reasonable cause for exasperation. She was almost sobbing as she said, Well, I can't marry Claude without money. He can't marry me. A ray was thrown into her little cell when she gasped in addition, And there's Father and Mother and Mat. False expression lost some of its bewilderment because it deepened to stern his. But Claude means to marry you, doesn't he? She cried out again with that strange effect of the words rending her. I don't know. He had a moment of wild fear less his father had been right after all. You don't know? Then what's your relation to each other? I don't know that either. Claude won't tell me. She crossed her hands on her bosom as she said desperately. I sometimes think he doesn't mean anything at all. The terror of the instant past. Oh, yes, he does, Rosie. I'll see to that. Do you mean that you'll make him marry me? He smiled pitifully. There'll be no making, Rosie. You leave it to me. He turned from her not merely because the last word had been spoken, But through fear less something might be breaking within himself. On regaining the white roadway, He thought he saw Jasper Fay in the shadow of the house. But he was too deeply stricken to speak to him. He went up the hill and farther from the village. It was not yet eight o'clock, But time had ceased to have measurement. He went up the hill to be alone in that solitude, Which was all that for the moment he could endure. He climbed higher than the houses and the snow-covered gardens. His back was toward the moon and the glow above the city. The prospect of reaching the summit Gave something for his strong body to strain forward to. The ridge, when he got to it, Was treedless, windswept and moonswept. It was a great white altar, victimless and bare. He felt devastated, weak. It was a relief, bodily and mental, To sink to his knees, to fall, to lie at his length. He pressed his hot face into the cool, concerning whiteness, As a man might let himself weep on a pillow. His arms were outstretched beyond his head. His fingers pierced beneath the snow Till they touched the tender, nestling mosses. All round him there was silveriness and silence, And overhead the moon. End of Chapter 13