 CHAPTER I The difficulty was, in the first place, one of date—not the date of a month or a year, of a generation or a century. Had Thorley Masterman find himself in love with Rosie Faye in 1760, or even in 1860, there would have been little to adjust, and nothing to gain say. In 1860 the Fays were still as good as the Thorleys, and almost as good as the Mastermans. Going back as far as 1760, the Fays might have been considered better than the Thorleys, had the village acknowledged standards of comparison, while there were no Mastermans at all. That is, in 1760 the Mastermans still kept their status as yeoman, clergyman, and country doctors among the hills of Derbyshire, untroubled as yet by that spirit of unrest for conscience sake which had urged the Fays and the Thorleys out of the flat farmlands of East Anglia 130 years before. During the intervening period the flat farmlands remained only as an equalizing symbol. Thorleys, Fays, Willoughbys, and Brands worked for one another with the community of interests developed in a beehive, and intermarried. If from the process of intermarriage the Fays were, on the whole, excluded, the discrimination lay in some obscure instinct for affinity of which no one at the time was able to forecast the significance. But by 1910 there was a difference. The difference apparent when out of the flat farmlands seismic explosion had thrown up a range of mountain peaks. For the expansion of the country which the middle nineteenth century had wrought, the Thorleys, Mastermans, Willoughbys, and Brands had been on the alert with eyes watchful and calculations timed. The Fays, on the other hand, had gone with a round of seed-time and harvest, contented, and almost somnolent, awakening to find that the ages had been giving them the chances that would never come again. It was across the wreck of those chances, and across some other obstacles besides, that Thorleys, Masterman, for the first time since childhood, looked into the grey-green eyes of Rosie Faye, and got the thrill of their wide-open earnest beauty. He was then not far from thirty years of age, having studied at a great American university in Paris, Berlin, and Vienna, and obtained other sorts of knowledge of mankind. He knew Rosie Faye in this secondary grown-up phase of their acquaintance as the daughter of his first patient, and he had obtained his first patient through the kindly intervention of Uncle Sim. From February to November 1910 his shingle had hung in one of the two streets of the village without attracting a patient at all. He had already begun to feel his position at trial, when his half-brother's daily jest turned it into a humiliation. "'Must be serious matter, Thor,' Claude would say, to be responsible for so many valuable lives.' Mr. Leonard Willoughby, his father's partner in the old banking-and-broken house of too-good a Masterman, enjoyed the same sort of chaff. "'Looking pale, Thor, must be working too hard.' Never mind, though Mrs. Willoughby would encourage him. When I'm ill you shall get me, but then I'm never ill.' At such minutes her daughter Lois could only smile sympathetically and talk hurriedly of something else. As he had meant since boyhood to marry Lois Willoughby when the moment of a marriage came, Thor counted this tactfulness in her favour. Nevertheless he was puzzled. Having disregarded his future possession of money and prepared himself for a useful career with all the thoroughness he could command, nobody seemed to want him. It was not that the village was over-provided with doctors. Everyone admitted that it wasn't. Otherwise he would not have settled in his native place. The village had been really a township with a scattered population, except on the Forre estate which was practically part of a great New England city where there were rows of suburban streets. It was quite insufficiently served by Dr. Noonan at one end and Dr. Hill at the other, for Uncle Sim and the old village could scarcely be said to count. No, the opening was good enough. The trouble lay, apparently, in Thorly Mastman himself. Making all allowances for the fact that a young physician must wait patiently and win his possession by good degrees, he had reason to feel chagrined. He grew ashamed to pass the little house in the old village which he had fitted up as an office. He grew ashamed to go out in his runabout. The runabout had been worse than an extravagance, since on the ground that it would take him to his patients the more quickly he had felt justified in borrowing its price. The most useful purpose it served now was to bring Mr. Willoughby home from town when unfit to come by himself. Otherwise its owner hated taking it out of the garage, especially if Claude were in sight. Claude had envied him the runabout at first, but soon found a way to work his feeling off. Anybody dying, old chap? he would ask with a curl of his handsome lip. Hope you'll get to him in time. It was one of the runabouts, however, in the early part of a November afternoon, that the young doctor met his Uncle Sim. Hello, Thor! the latter called. Where are you off to? I was looking for you. Thor brought the machine to a sand-sill. Uncle Sim threw a long, thin leg over his mare's back and was on the ground. Ah, dear, ah, ah, good old girl! He liked to believe that the tall bay was spirited. Standing beside Thor's runabout, he held the reins loosely in his left hand, while the right arm was thrown caressingly over Delia's neck. The outward and visible sign of his eccentricity was in his difference from everyone else. In a community, one might say a country, in which each man did his utmost to look like every other man, the fact that Simian Masterman was willing to look like no one but himself, was sufficient to prove him, in the language of his neighbours, a little off. It was sometimes said that he suggested Don Quioti. He was so tall, so gaunt and so eager-eyed, and, except that there was no melancholy in his face, perhaps he did. Got a job for you! The old man's voice was nasal and harsh, without being disagreeable. Grown sensitive, Thor was on his guard. Not one of your gods that had given away with a pound of tea, he said suspiciously. I don't know about that pound of tea, but he's given away. Giving it away, because I can't deal with it myself. Call for someone with more ingenuity, so I've told him about you. Thor laughed. Don't wonder you're willing to give it up, Uncle Sim. Your wonder's still less when you've seen the patient. By the way, it's Faye's wife. Remember old Faye, don't you? The young man nodded. He used to be at Grandpa Thorley's gardener. Has the greenhouses on Father's land north of the pond. Some sort of row going on between him and Father now. What's she got? It's not what she's got, poor woman, it's what she hasn't got. That's what's the matter with her. I'm afraid it's a variety of symptoms I've never heard of. No, but you'll hear of it soon. Woa, Delia! Steady! Good girl! If you can treat it, you'll be the most distinguished specialist in the country. Woa, Delia! I'm giving you the chance to begin. Thor wondered what was at the back of the old fellow's mind. There was generally something in what he had to say, if you could think it out. Since you've diagnosed the case, Uncle Sim, he began, craftily. Can't I give you a tip for the treatment? No, I can't, and it wouldn't do any good if I did, because you won't take my medicine. Perhaps I could make her. The old man laughed harshly. You! That's good. Why, you'd be the first to make game of it yourself. He had his left foot in the stirrup and his right leg over Delia's back, before Thor could formulate another question. As, with head thrown back, he continued his amused chuckling, that was about him, in spite of his sixty years, a something irresponsible and debonair that would have pleased Franz Hals, or Simon de Vos. Within ten minutes Thor was knocking at the door of a small house with a mansard roof, situated in what had once been the apple orchard of a farm. All but a sparse half dozen of the trees had given place to lines of hot houses, through the glass of which he could see oblongs of vivid green. He was simply occupied with the fact of paying his first visit to his first patient, as scarcely to notice that the girl who opened the door was pretty. He almost ignored her. How do you do, Miss Faye? I'm Dr. Thorley Masterman. I believe your mother would like to see me. May I go to her at once?" He was in the narrow hallway and at the foot of the stairs, when she said, You can go right up, but perhaps I ought to tell you that she's not well, she's not very sick. He looked at her inquiringly, getting the first faint impression of her beauty. What's the matter then? That's what we don't know. After a second's hesitation she added, Perhaps it's melancholy. Another second passed before she said, We've had a good deal of trouble. The tone touched him. Her way of holding her head, rather meekly, rather proudly, sufficiently averted to give him the curve of the cheek, touched him, too. What kind of trouble? Oh, every kind. But she'll tell you about it herself. It's all she'll talk about. That's why we can't do anything for her. And I don't believe you can. I'd better see. Following her directions, given from the foot of the stairs, he entered a barely furnished bedroom of which two sides lead inward, to correspond to the mansard-grading of the roof. One window looked out on the greenhouses, another towards Thorley's pond. Beside the former, in a high, upholstered armchair, sat a tall woman, fully dressed in black, with a patchwork quilt of many colours across her knees. In spite of grey hair, selected dishevelled and wild grey eyes, she was a handsome woman who on a larger scale made him think of the girl downstairs. How do you do, Mrs. Fay? He began, feeling the burden of the situation to be on himself. I'm Dr. Thor. I know who you are. The woman said, ungraciously, if you hadn't been a master, when I shouldn't have sent for you. He took a small chair, drawing it up, sight her. I know you've been treated by my Uncle Sim. He's a fool, tries to heal a broken heart by feeding it on rainbows. Four smiled. That's like him. And yet rainbows have been known to heal a broken heart before now. They won't heal mine. What I want is done on the solid earth." There was a kind of desperate pleading in her face as she added, Why can't I have it? That depends on what it is. If it's health, it's better than health. He smiled. I've always heard that health is pretty good as things go. It's good enough. But there's something better, and that's patience. If you've got patience, you can do without health. I don't think you're much in need of a doctor, Mrs. Fay. He laughed. I am, she declared savagely. I am, because I ain't got either of them. And if I had, I'd give them both for something else. She held him with her wild grey eyes as she said. I'd give them both for money. Money's better than patience and better than health. If I had money, I shouldn't care how sick I was or how unhappy. If I had money, my son wouldn't be in jail. Though startled, he knew that, like a confessor, he must show no sign of surprise. He remembered now that there had been a boy in the Fay family two or three years younger than himself. I didn't know, he began, sympathetically. You didn't know, because we're not even talked about. If your brother was in jail for stealing money, it's the first thing the town would tattle off. But you've been back from your travels for a year or more, and you ain't even heard that our mat is doing three years at Colcord. But you'd rather people didn't hear it, wouldn't you? I'd rather that they'd care whether I'm alive or dead, she said fiercely. I've lived all my life in this village and my ancestors before me. Fay's family has done the same, but were pushed aside and forgotten. It's as much as ever if someone will tell you that Jasper Fay raises lettuce in the winter and cucumbers in spring and a few flowers all year round and can't pay his rent. I don't believe you've heard that much, have you?" He dodged the subject by asking the usual professional questions and giving some elementary professional advice. I'm afraid, Mrs. Fay, you're taking a discouraged view of life, he went on, by way of doing his duty. She sat still more erect in her armchair, her eyes flashing. If you'd seen yourself driven to the wall for more than thirty years, and if when you got to the wall you were crushed against it and crushed again, wouldn't you take a discouraged view of life? I've lived on bread and water or pretty newt ever since I was married, and what's come of it? Well, worse off than we ever were. Fay's put everything he could scrape together into this bit of land, and now your father is chili-shelling-ing again about renewing the lease. Oh, so that's it. That's it, but it's only some of it. Look out there. All Fay's sweat and blood and all of mine is in those greenhouses and that ground. It's everything we've got to live on, and God knows what kind of a living it is. Your father has never given us more than a three-year lease, and every three years he's raised the rent on us. He's had us in his power from the first. Oh, he's crafty getting us to rent the land from him instead of buying it, and Fay that soft that he believed him to be his friend. He's had us in his power from the first, and he's never spared us. No wonder he's rich. And you're coming in for that faulty money, too. I know what your grandfather faulty's will was. Going to get it when you're thirty. Must be pretty nigh on that now, ain't ya? To humour her, four named the date in the following February when he should reach the age fixed by his grandfather for entering on the inheritance. What did I tell you? I remember your grandfather as plain as plain. Big, hard-faced man he was, something like you. My folks could remember him when he hawked garden trucks to back doors in the city. Nothing but a farmer's son he was, just like the rest of us, and he died rich. Only difference between the faulies and the Fay's was that the faulies held onto their land and the Fay's didn't. Neither did my folks, the Grimes's. If we'd been crafty and hadn't sold till the city was creeping down our chimneys like the faulies and the brands, we should be as rich as them. Cut your father out of his will, good and hard, your grandfather did, and now it all come to you. Why, there was a time when the faulies hired out to my folks, and so did the Willoughbys, and now... She threw the quilt from off her knees and spread her hands outward. Oh, I'm sick of it! I've spent my life watching everyone else go up and me and mine go down, and I'm sick of it! I'm not sick any other way. No, I didn't think you are, he said gently. But that's bad enough, isn't it? If I had a fever or a cold, you would give me something to take it away. But what can you do for the state of mind I'm in? He answered slowly, I can't do much just yet, though I can do a little. But by and by, perhaps, when I know more exactly what the trouble is, you can't know better than I can tell you now. It's just this, that's all I can do to keep from stealing down to Thorley's pond when no one's looking and throwing myself in. What do you think of that? I think you won't do it, he smiled, but I wouldn't play with the idea if I were you. Look here, she cried, seizing him by the arm and pulling him out of his chair. Look out of that window! He followed the pointing of her finger to a high bluff covered with oaks to which the withered brown foliage still clung, though other trees were bare. That's Duck Rock. Well, there's a spot there where the water's thirty foot deep. What do you think of that? He moved back from the window, but remained standing. I think that it doesn't matter to you and me whether it's thirty foot deep or sixty or a hundred. It matters to me, in thirty foot of water I go down like a stone and then it'd be all over. What do you think of that? Nothing but sleep. Her eyes held him again. You don't believe there'd be anything after it but sleep, do you? He dodged that question too. But you do. I was brought up on Orthodox congregational, but what's the good? All I've ever got out of it was rainbows. What I've wanted is solid. I've wanted to do something and be something and have something and not be pushed back and trampled out of sight of people who used to hire out to my folks and could treat me like dirt today just because they've got the money. Why haven't I got it too? I'm fit for it. I had good schooling. Release her thoroughly, your own mother, that is, and me went to school together. Your father ran away with her and she died when you were born. We went to school to old Mrs. Brand, aunt to Bessie Brand, that's now Bessie Willoughby, and holds her head so high. Poor as church mice there was in those days. But then everyone was poor. We was all pulled together and happy. And I was summer poor and summer rich and there's upper classes and lower classes and everything's got uneven and I'm sick of it. The calmer excitement he talked to her with the inspiration of young earnestness, getting his reward in an attention accorded perhaps for the very reason that the earnestness was young. I think I must run off now, he finished, when he thought I was slightly comforted, but I'll send you something I want you to take at once. You'll take a tablespoonful in half a glass of water." The rebellious spirit revived, though less bitterly, and it'll do me as much good as a dose of your uncle's rainbows. What I want is what I shall never get, or sleep. Well, you'll get sleep, he said, smiling and holding out his hand. You'll sleep to-night, and I'll come again to-morrow. He was at the door when she called out. Do you know what our Matt got his three years for? It was for stealing money from Matt's grocery store where he was book-caper. And do you know what made him steal it? It was to help us pay the rent the last time your father raised it. I bet he's done worse than that twenty times a year, but he's driving round in automobiles on my poor boys in Colcord. End of Chapter 1 Chapter 2 of The Side of the Angels by Basil King This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Calling by Simon Evers. Chapter 2 On going downstairs, Thor looked about him for Rosie Faye. She was nowhere to be seen, and the house was cheerless. He could imagine that to an ambitious woman circumscribed by its dreary deepness, duck-rock with its thirty feet of water might be a welcome change. Continuing his search when he went outside, he gazed round what was left of the old orchard. He remembered Faye, a slim fellow with a gentle, dreamy face and starry eyes. He'd seen him occasionally during the past eighteen years, though rarely. As a matter of fact, Faye's greenhouses lay on that part of the shore of Thorley's pond, most out of the way of the pedestrian. Only of late had new roads wormed themselves up the steep northern bank of the pond, bringing from the city well-to-do country-loving souls who desired space and sunshine. It was a satisfaction to Thor's father, Archie Masterman, that only the best type of suburban residence was going up among these silven glades, and that the property was justifying his foresight as an investor. The young man could understand that it should be so, for the spot was picturesque. Shelter from the north by a range of wooded hills, it was like a great green cup held out to the sunshine. The region was favourable, therefore, to the raising of early garden-truck. Whenever the frost was out of the ground, oblongs of green things growing in straight lines gave a special freshness to the landscape. While from any of the knolls over which the township clambered, clusters of greenhouses glinted like distant sheets of water. One had to get them in contrast to the sparkling blue eye of Thorley's pond to perceive that they were not tiny lakes. With so pleasing a view, hemmed in by the haze of the city towards the south, and a hint of the Atlantic south of that, there was every reason why Faye's plot of land should appreciate in value. On these grounds it became comprehensible to Thor that his father might raise the rent and still not be an instrument of oppression. It was concerning to him to perceive this. It helped to allay certain uncomfortable suspicions that had risen in his mind since coming home and which were not easy to dispel. He caught sight at last of Rose's dull green frock in the one hot house in which there were flowers. Through the glass roof he could see the red discs of poinsettias and the crimson or white of azaleas coming into bloom. The other two houses sheltered long, level rectangles of tender green representing lettuce in different stages of the crop. A bow-legged Italian was closing the skylights that had been opened for the milder part of the day. Another Italian replaced the covers on hot beds that might have contained violence. From the high furnace chimney a plume of yellow-brown smoke floated heavily on the windless air. The place looked undermanned and forlorn. On opening the door he was met by the sweet warm odour of damp earth and green things growing and blossoming. Pausing in her work the girl looks down the half-length of the greenhouse as a hint for him to advance. He went toward her between feathery banks of grey-green carnations on which the long oval compact buds were loosening their sheaths to display the dawn pink within. Half-covered up by a corsapron or pinafore she stood at a high table like a counter against a background of poinsettias. We don't go in for flowers really, she explained to him after he'd given her certain directions concerning her mother. It would be better we didn't try to raise them at all. Thor, whose ear was sensitive, noticed that her voice was pleasant to listen to and her speech marked by a simple, unaffected refinement. He lingered because he was interested in her work. He found a kind of fascination in watching her as she took a moist red flower-pot from one end of the table threw in a handful or two of earth from the heap at the other end and then a root that looked like a cluster of yellow crescent-shaped onions then a little more earth after which she turned to place the flower-pot as one of the row on the floor behind her. There was something rhythmic in her movements. Each detail took the same amount of action and time. She might have been working to music. Her left hand made precise to the same gesture with each flower-pot she took from the line in which they lay telescopes together. Her right hand described the same graceful curve with every impatient, petulant handful of earth. Why do you raise them then? He asked for the sake of saying something. She answered wearily, Oh, it's Father. He can't make up his mind what to do or rather he makes up his mind both ways at once. Because some people make a good thing out of raising flowers he thinks he'll do that. And because others do a big business in gardener stuff he thinks he'll do that. And so he falls between two stools. I see. It's no use being a market gardener as she went on disdainfully tossing the earth into another pot unless you're a big market gardener. It's no use being a florist unless you're a big florist. Everything has to be big nowadays to make it pay. And the trouble with Father is he does so many things small. He sees big, she analysed continuing her work, so big that he goes all to pieces when he tries to carry his ideas out. And you think that if he concentrated his forces on raising garden stuff? She explained further. People had to have lettuce and radishes and carrots and cucumbers whatever happened, whereas flowers were a luxury. Whenever money was scarce they didn't buy them. If it were not for weddings and funerals and Christmas and Easter they wouldn't buy them at all. Then too they were expensive to raise and difficult. You couldn't do it by casting a little seed into the ground. Every azalea was imported from Belgium. They were imported from Japan. True, the carnations were grown from slips, but Viennese knew the trouble they gave. Those of which he was looking, and which had the innocent air of a springing and blooming of their own accord, had been through no less than four tedious processes since the slips were taken in the preceding February. First they'd been planted in sand for the root to strike, then transferred to flats or shallow wooden boxes, then bedded out in the garden and put into the house. If you would only consider the labour involved in all that to say nothing of the incessant of watching and watering and keeping the house at the proper temperature by night and by day, well, he could see for himself. He did see for himself. He said to her absently because he was noting the fact that her serious earnest eyes were of the peculiar shade which, when seen in eyes, is called green. He was still absently that he added, and you have to work pretty hard. She shrugged her shoulders. Oh, I don't mind that. Anything to live. What are you doing there? There was an exasperated note in her voice as she applied. Oh, these are the Easter lilies. We have to begin on them now. And do you do them all? I do when there's no one else. Father's men keep leaving. She'd flung him a look. He would have thought to defyant if he hadn't found it frank. I don't blame them half the time they're not paid. I see, so that you fill in. Do you like it? Would you like doing what isn't of any use? What will never be of any use? Would you like to be always running as hard as you can just to fall out of the race? He tried to smile. I shouldn't like it for long. Well, there's that, she said, as though he'd suggested a form of consolation. It won't be for long. It can't be. Father won't be able to go on like this. He decided to take the bull by the horns. Is that because my father doesn't want to renew the lease? She shrugged her shoulders again. Oh, no, not particularly. It's that and everything else. He felt it's the part of tact to make signs of going, uttering a few parting injunctions with regard to the mother, as he did so. And I wouldn't leave her too much alone, he advised. She could easily slip out without attracting anyone's attention. Tell your father, I said so. I suppose he's not in the house. He's off somewhere trying to engage a knight, Farman. He ignored this information to emphasise his counsels. It's most important that while she's in this state of mind someone should be with her. And if we knew of anything she'd especially like, she continued to work industriously. The things she'd like best in this world won't do her any good when it happens. She threw in a bar with impetuous vehemence. It's to have Matt out of jail. He'll be out in a course of a few months, but he'll be a jailbird. We must try to help him live that down. She turned her great greenish eyes on him again, with that look which struck him as both frank and pitiful. That's one of the things people in our position can't do. It's the first thing Mother herself will think of when she sees Matt hanging about the house, for he'll never get a job. He can help your father. He can be the Night Farman. She shrugged her shoulders with fatalistic movement he was beginning to recognise. Father won't need a Night Farman by that time. He could only say, all the same, your mother must be watched. She can't be allowed to throw herself from dark rock now, can she? I don't say aloud, but if she did, well, what then? She'd be out of it. That would be something. Admitting that it would be something for her, what would it be for your father and you? She relaxed the energy of her hands. He had time to notice them. It hurt him to see anything so shapely, coarsened with hard work. Wouldn't it be that much? She asked, reaching her conclusion. If she were out of it, it would be a gain all round. Never having heard a human being speak like this, he was shocked. But everything can't be so black. There must be something somewhere. She glanced up at him obliquely. Months afterward he recalled the look. Her tone when she spoke seemed to be throwing him a challenge, as well as making an admission. Well, there is one thing. He spoke triumphantly. Ah, there is one thing then. Yes, but it may not happen. Well, lots of things may not happen. We just have to hope they will. We have to live by. There was a lovely solemnity about her. And even if it did happen, so many people would be opposed to it that I'm not sure it would do any good after all. Ah, but we won't think of the people who would be opposed to it. We should have to, because the sweet fixity of her gaze gave him an odd thrill, because you'd be the one. He laughed as he held out his hand to say goodbye. Don't be too sure, in any case it won't matter about me. She declined to take his hand on the ground that her own was soiled with loam, but she mystified him slightly when she said, It will matter about you, and if a thing ever happens I want you to remember that I told you so. I can't play fair, but I play as fair as I can. End of Chapter 2 Chapter 3 of The Side of the Angels by Basil King This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Simon Evers. Chapter 3 Four was deaf to these enigmaticic words in the excitement of perceiving that the girl had beauty. The discovery gave him a new sort of pleasure as he turned his runabout toward the town. Beauty had not hitherto been a condition to which he attached great value. If anything, he had held it in some scorn. Now, for the first time in his emotional life he was stirred by a girl's mere prettiness, a quite unusual prettiness it had to be omitted, a slightly haggard prettiness perhaps, a prettiness a little worn by work, a little coarsened by wind and weather, a prettiness too desperate for youth and too tragic for cockatry, but for those very reasons doubtless all the more haunting. He was obliged to remind himself that it was nothing to him, but he was swerved from the intention to marry Lois Willoughby as soon as he made a start in practice and come into the money he was to get at thirty. But he could see it was the sort of thing by which other men might be affected and came to a mental standstill there. Driving on to the city he went straight to his father's office in Commonwealth Row. It was already after four o'clock, and except for two young men sorting checks and putting away ledgers, the cage-like divisions of the banking department were empty. One of the men was whistling. The other was calling in a loud, gay voice, Say, Chiva, what about to-night? Signs that the enforced decorum of the day was passed. Claude was in the outer office reserved for customers. He wore his overcoat, hat, and gloves, a stick hung from his left arm by its crooked handle. The ticker was silent, but a portion of the tape fluttered between his gloved fingers. Then his back was toward the door. He recognised his half-brother's step with that mixture of envy and irritation, which Thor's presence always stirred in him. He was not without fraternal affection, especially when Thor was away. When he was at home it was difficult for Claude not to resent the elder's superiority. Claude called it superiority for want of a better word, though he meant no more than a combination of advantages he himself would have enjoyed. He meant Thor's prospective money, his good spirits, his good temper, and good health. Claude had not good health, which excused in his judgment his lack of good spirits and good temper. Neither had Claude any money beyond the fifteen hundred dollars a year he earned in his father's office. He was in the habit of saying to himself, and in confidence to his friends, that it was damned hard luck that he should be compelled to live on a pittance like that, when Thor, within a few months, would come into a good thirty thousand a year. It was some consolation that Thor was what his brother called an ugly beast, sallow and lantern-jawed, with a long, narrow head that looked as if it had been sat on. The eyes were not bad. That had to be admitted. They were as friendly as a welcoming light. But the mouth was so big and aggressive that even the moustache that Thor was trying to grow couldn't subdue its boldness. As for the nose and chin they looked, according to Claude's account, as if they had been created soft and subjected to a system of grotesque elongation before hardening. Claude could the more safely make a game of his brother's looks, seeing that he himself was notably handsome, with traits as regular as if they had been carved, and a profile so exact that it was frequently exposed in photographer's windows to the envy of gentlemen gazers. While Thor had once tried to mitigate his features by a beard that had been unsuccessful and had now disappeared, Claude wouldn't disfigure himself by a hair. He was as clean-shaven as a marble Apollo, and not less neatly limbed. Gone, Claude raised his eyes just long enough to utter the world, Thor came to an abrupt stop. Club? Suppose so. He added, without raising his head, wish to God the drunken sort would stay there. He continued, while still apparently reading the tape in his hand. Father wishes it too. Thor was not altogether taken by surprise. Ever since his return from Europe a year earlier, he had wondered how his father's patience could hold out. He took it that there was a reason for it, a reason he had once expressed to Claude. Father can't wish it, he can't afford to. Claude lifted his handsome, rather insolent face. Why not? For the simple reason that he's got his money. Much you know about it. Lim Willoughby hasn't enough money left in two good amassments to take him on a trip to Europe. Thor backed towards the receiving teller's wicket, where he rested the tips of his elbows on the counter. He was visibly perturbed. What's become of it, then? Don't ask me, all I know is what I'm telling you. Did father say so himself? What is so many words? But I know it. He tossed the tape from him and began to smooth his gloves. Father means to ship him. Ship him? He can't do that. Can't? I should like to know why not. Because he can't, that's why, because he has... Yes, cough it up. Speak if you have something up your sleeve. Thor reflected as to the wisdom of saying more. Well, I have, he admitted. It's something I remember from the time we were kids. We were too young to notice, but I noticed and I haven't forgotten. Father can't ship Lem Willoughby without being sure he has enough to live on. He decided to speak out, if for no other reason, than that of securing Claude's cooperation. Father persuaded Mr. Willoughby to put Mrs. Willoughby's money into the business when he didn't want to. Ha! Shucks! Claude exclaimed contemptuously. He did, Thor insisted. He was back in 1892, in Paris, that first time they took us abroad. You were only nine, and I was twelve. I heard them. I was hanging round one evening in that little hotel we stayed at, in the rooted Riverley. The hotel do musts are, wasn't it? The Willoughbys had been living in Paris for five or six years, and Father got them to come home. I heard him ask Mother to talk it up with Mrs. Willoughby. Mother said she didn't want to, but Father got round to him. She agreed to try. She said too that Bessie might be willing, because then it had already begun to take too much, and it would brace him up if he got work to do. Work! Claude sniffed him. Father knew he couldn't work, knew he'd tried all sorts of things. First to be an artist, then to write, then to get into the consular service, and the Lord knows what. It wasn't his work that Father was after. It was just when the too-good estate withdrew old Mr. Too-Good's money, and Father had to have more capital. Well, then Willoughby didn't have any. No, but his wife had. He came to the same thing. Suppose she must have had between three and four hundred thousand from old man Brand. I remember hearing Father say to Mother that Len was making ducks and drakes of it as fast as he could, and that it might as well help the firm of too-good a masterman as to go to the deuce. Can still hear Father feeding the poor fool with bluff about the great banker he'd make, and how it was the dead loss of a fortune to have a seat on the stock exchange years before? Lord sniffed again. You'd better carry your load to Father himself. I will have, I have to. Before Lord had found a rejoinder, Thor went on, chained those subjects abruptly, so as not to be led into being indiscreet. Say, Lord, do you remember Faye, the gardener? Lord was still smoothing his gloves, but he stopped, with the thumb and fingers of his right hand grasping the middle finger of the left. More than ever his features suggested a marble stoniness. No. Oh, but you must. Used to be Grandpa Thor's gardener. Has the greenhouses on Father's land north of the pond? Lord recovered himself slightly. Well, what about him? He did see his wife, patient of Uncle Sims, turn her on to me, having the deuce of a time. Lord recovered himself still more. He looked at his brother curiously. Well, what's he got to do with me? Nothing directly. Well, then indirectly? Lord asked, defiantly. Only this, that it has to do with both of us, since it concerns Father. Lord was by this time master of himself. Look here, Thor, are you getting a bee in your bonnet about Father? Oh, good Lord, no. But Father's immersed in business. He can't be expected to know how all the details of his policy work out. He's not young any longer, and he isn't in touch with modern social and economic ideas. Oh, stow the modern social and economic ideas and let's get to business. What's up with this family of—what do you call them? With his feet planted firmly apart. Lord swung his stick eerily back and forth across the front of his person, though he listened with apparent attention. You know, Thor, as a matter of fact, he explained, when the letter had finished his account, that the kindest thing Father could do for Faye is to let him peter out. Faye thinks that Father and the lease of the obstacles he's up against, when in reality it's the whole thing. Oh, so you do know about it? Lord saw his mistake and write it himself quickly. Yes, now that you speak of it, I do it. It comes back to me. I've heard Father mention it. And what did Father say? That's what I'm telling you. The lease isn't the chief factory in Faye's troubles. It isn't really a factor at all. Poor old Faye has a dunderhead. That's where it is in a nutshell. Never could make a living. Never will. Remember him? Vaguely, I haven't seen him for years. Well, when you do see him, you'll understand. Nice old chap has ever lived. Only impractical, dreamy. Gentle as a sheep and no more capable of running that big expensive plant than a motherly old you. That's where the trouble is. When Father's clothes down on him and edged him out, quietly you understand it'll be the best thing that ever happened to them all. Four reflected, I see that you know more about it than you thought. You know all about it. Again, Claude caught himself up shifting his position adroitly. Oh, no, I don't. I'm just what I've heard Father say. When you spoke of it at first, the name slipped my memory. Four reverted to the original theme. The Sons in Jail. Did you know that? But Claude was again on his guard. Oh, so there's a son. Son about your age. Matt, his name is. Surely you must recall him. Used to pick peas with us when fade let us do it. Claude shook his head silently. And there's a girl. Claude's stick hung limply before him. His face and figure resumed their stony immobility. How is that? Plain? No, pretty. Very pretty. Very unusually pretty. Come to think of it, I wouldn't mind saying. Yes, I will say it. She's the prettiest girl I've ever seen. The eyes of the two brothers met. Bar none. A smile on Claude's lips might have passed for an expression of brotherly chaff. Go eat, old chap. Seems smitten. It isn't that. Nothing of the sort at all. I speak of her only because I'm sorry for her. Brunt of whole things come on her. Well, what do you propose that we should do? I haven't got as far as proposing. Haven't thought the thing out at all. But I think we ought to do something, you and I. We can't do anything without Father. And Father won't. He simply won't. They'll have to go. Good things too, that's what I say. Get them all on a basis on which they can manage. They'll find a job with one of the other growers. Yes, but what's to become of the girl? Claude stared with a kind of bravado. How the devil do I know? She'll do the best she can, I suppose. Going to a shop. Lots of girls going to shops. Four stared at his brother with mild curiosity. You're a queer fellow, Claude. A minute ago you couldn't remember Faye's name. Now you've got his whole business at your finger's ends. But Claude repeated his explanation. Godfather's business at my finger's ends. If that's what you mean. In such big affairs, chapped like Faye only a detail. I couldn't recall him at first, but once I caught onto him. By moving away toward the inner office where Chuva was stood at work, Claude intimated that, as far as he was concerned, the conversation was ended. Faye returned to his runabout. Say, Claude! Cheever called. Coming to see the champion tonight, ain't ya? Counting on ya. Claude laid a friendly hand on Cheever's arm. He liked to be on easy terms with his father's clarks. Awfully sorry, Billy, but he must excuse me. Fact is that damnful brother of mine has been putting his finger in my pie. Gotta do something to get it out, and do it quick. Awfully sorry, but you can't be free. End of Chapter 3. Chapter 4. Beside his favourite window at the club. Commanding the movement of the street and the bare trees of the park. Lynn Willoughby had got together the essentials to a pleasant hour. They consisted of the French and English illustrated papers, two or three excellent Havana's, a bottle of Scotch whisky, and a siphon of aerated water. On the table beside him there was also an empty glass that had contained a cocktail. It was the consoling moment of the day. After the strain of a nine o'clock breakfast and the rush to the city before eleven, after the hours of purposeless hanging about the office of too good a masterman where he could see he wasn't wanted, he find it restful to retire into his own corner and sink drowsily into his cups. He did sink into them drowsily, and yet through well-marked phases of excitement. He knew those phases now. He could tell in advance how each stage would pass into another. There was, first, the comfort of the big chair and the friendly covers of l'astroçon and the graphic. He didn't care to talk. He liked to be left alone. When he came from the office he was generally dispirited. Masterman's queer, contemptuous manner was enough to discourage any one. He was sure, too, that Claude and Billy Cheever ridiculed his big, fat figure behind his back. But once he sank into the deep red leather armchair, he was safe. It was ridiculous that a man of his age should come to recognize the advantages of such a refuge, but he laid it to the charge of a mean and spiteful world. The world did not cease to be mean and spiteful till after he had had his cocktail. It was wonderful the change that took place then, not suddenly, but with a sweet, slow, cheering inner transformation. It was a surging, a glowing, a mellowing. It was like the readjustment of the eyes of the soul. It was seeing the world as generous, kindly. It was growing generous and kindly himself, with a happy conviction that more remained to be got out of life than he had ever rung from it. Still, it was something to be a rich banker. Everyone couldn't be that. Archie Masterman had certainly possessed a quick eye when he singled out Len Willoughby as the man who could put the firm of too good a masterman on its feet. Three hundred thousand dollars of Bessie's money had gone into the business in 1892, just in time to profit by the panic of 1893. Lord, how they had bought! Guilted stocks for next for nothing, and how they had sold a few years later. Len never knew how much money they made. He supposed Archie didn't, either. There were years when the stock exchange had been like a wheat-field, yielding thirty-fold and sixty-fold and a hundred-fold for every seed they had sown. He never attempted to keep a tally on what came in. It was sufficient to know that there was always plenty to take out. Besides, it had been an understanding from the first that Archie was to do the drudgery. Len liked this because it left him free—free for summers in Europe and winters in Egypt or at Palm Beach. By degrees, reminiscence tended towards somnolence. And yet it couldn't be said that Len slept. He kept sufficiently awake to put out his hand from time to time and seize the tumbler. He could even brew himself another glass. If a brother clubman strolled near enough to say, Hello, Len, or Hello, Willoughby, he could respond with a dull, Hello, Tom, or Hello, Jones. But he spoke as out of a depth. He spoke with some of that weariness of being called back to life, which Rembrandt depicts on the face of Lazarus rising from the tomb. It was delicious to sink away from the prosaic and the balsam, to be so fully awake that he could follow the movement of the street and the hopping of the sparrows and the trees, and yet be, as it were, removed, enchanted, seeing and hearing and thinking and even drinking through the medium of a soothing, slumbrous spell. He could hardly ever be said that he went beyond this point. Though there were occasions on which he miscalculated his efforts, they could generally be explained as accidental. Above all, they didn't rise from an appetite for drink. The phrase was one he was fond of. He often used it in condemning a vice of which he disapproved. He used it on this particular afternoon when four mastermen, who come to drive him homeward in his runabout, were sitting in the opposite armchair, waiting to make the start. There's one thing about me, Thor. Never had an appetite for drink. Not to say drink, thing I despise. If I was all wrong about me, then I must go into him. I think I take too much. Rot! That's what it is. Badly rot! You know that, Thor, don't you? Have I ever drank something I despise? Thor considered the moment one to be made use of. Has father been saying anything about it? Nobody looks it. I suppose I don't know what he means. See, he's doubly all father does. I never even think from the way he treats me that I was a disgrace to the firm. I'd like to know what that firm be without me. Thor tried to frame his next question discreetly. I hope there's no suggestion of the firms doing without you, Mr. Willoughby. To this Len gave but an indirect reply. There'll be one soon if your father doesn't mind himself. I'll retire and take my money out. Will he be then? Thor felt his way. You've taken out a good deal already, haven't you? Not any more than belonged to me. You can bet your boots on that. No, not any more than belonged to you, of course. I was only thinking that with the splendid house you've built, and its upkeep, and your general expenses, which are pretty heavy, aren't they? Not any more than belonged to me, Thor. You can bet your boots on that. The repetition was made drowsily. The big head of bushy white hair, with its correlative of bushy white beard, swayed with the slow movement that ended in a jerk. It was obvious that the warnings and admonitions to which Thor had been leading up were not for that day. They were useless, even when, a half hour later, the movement of the runabout and the keen air of the highlands as they approached the village roused the big creature to a maudlin cursing of his luck. On nearing the house, the delicate part of the task which of late Thor had taken almost daily on himself became imminent. It was to get his charge into the house, up to his room, and stretched on a couch, without having been seen by Lewis. Thor had once caught her carrying out this duty unaided. She had evidently called for her father in her mother's limousine, and as Thor passed down the village street she was helping the staggering, ungainly figure toward the door. The next day Thor took his runabout from the garage and went on the errand himself. He was also more ingenious than she in finding a way by which the sorry object could be smuggled indoors. The carriage entrance of the house was too near the street. That it should be so was a trial to Mrs. Willoughby, who would have preferred a house standing in grounds, but there never had been any help for it. When money came in it had been Len's desire to buy back a portion of the old Willoughby farm and build a mansion on what might reasonably be called his ancestral estate. Of this property there was nothing in the market, but a snip along County Street. Although he was satisfied with the sight as enabling him to display his prosperity to everyone who passed up and down, his wife regretted the absence of a dignified approach. By avoiding County Street when he came out from town and following a road that scrambled over the low hillside till it made a juncture with Willoughby's lane, by descending that ancient cow-path and bringing Len to the privacy of his side-door, Thor endeavoured to keep his father's partner from becoming an object of public scandal. He took this trouble not because he bothered about public scandal in itself, but in order to protect Lois Willoughby. So far his methods have been successful. They failed today only because Lois herself was at the side-door. With a pair of garden-shears in her loved hands she was trimming the leafless vine that grew over the pillars of the portico. Thor could see, as she turned round, that she braced herself to meet the moment's humiliation. Speaking on the instance he drew up at the steps. So good of you to bring Papa out from town, I'm sure he enjoyed the drive. Her hand was on the lever that opened the door of the machine. Poor Papa, you look done up. I dare see her not well. Be careful now," she continued, as he'd lumbered heavily to his feet. That's a long step there. Take my hand. I know you must be as tired as can be." Dog-tired, the father complained as he lured himself courtlessly. Dog's life, that's what I lead. No thanks for it either. Damn! The implication was necessary because he missed his footing and came down with a jerk. Can't you see I'm giddy out?" he groaned previously, saying right in my way. Better leave him to me, thought whispered. I know just what to do with him. One of the advantages of being a doctor. Willoughby had mind enough to touch up this suggestion. Doctors, what I want, hang it all. Sick of the dog. Don't know what'll happen to me some day. Her eggs fit a split. Never had appetite for drink. There's one good thing about me. Lois was still standing near the portico when Thor had assisted his charge to his room, stretched him on a couch, covered him with a rug, left him in a heavy sleep, and crept down the stairs again. He did not escape his eye, quickened by the minutes he'd spent with Rosie Faye, that Lois lacked colour. For the first time in his life he acutely observed the difference between a plain woman and a pretty one. Oh, Thor! she began as soon as he came out. I don't know how to thank you for your kindness to Papa. How is it to go on? Where is it to end? Oh, Thor, you're a doctor. Tell me what you think. Is there anything I can do?" His kind, searching eyes as he stood with one hand on the steering wheel, rested on her silently. After all, she was twenty-seven and must take her portion of life's responsibilities. Besides, whatever she might have to bear, he meant to share with her. She should not be obliged, like Rosie Faye, for instance, to carry her load alone. And yet she didn't look as if she would shirk her part. With that tall, erect figure, delicate and outlined but strong with the freedom of an open-air life, that proud head which was nevertheless carried meekly, and that straightforward gaze, she gave the impression of being ready to meet anything. The face might be irregular, lacking in many of the tender prettinesses as natural to other girls, even at twenty-seven, as flowers to a field, but no one could deny its force of character. I'll tell you something you could do," he said at last. You could see, or try to see, that he doesn't spend too much. A slight pause marked his hesitation before adding that no one spends too much. You mean Mamar and me?" He smiled faintly. I mean whoever does the spending, but your father most of all, because I'm afraid he's rather reckless. He spent a good deal during the last twelve or fifteen years, hasn't he? She was very quick. More than he had a right to spend? Well, more than my father, he felt it safe to say. But he had more than your father to spend, hadn't he? Do you know that for a certainty? I only know it from Popeye himself. But oh, for what is it? Why are you asking?" He ignored these questions to say. Couldn't your mother tell us? After all, it was her money, wasn't it? She shook her head. Oh, Mamar wouldn't know. If you're any doubt about it, why don't you ask Mr. Masterman? He could tell you better than any one. Besides, Mamar isn't in. He spoke with a touch of scorn. I suppose she's in town. The Tony voked on Lois's part a little smile. They'd had battles on the subject before. That's just where she is. That's just where she always is. Oh, no, not always. Sometimes she stays at home. But she's there pretty often, I admit. She has to make calls, partly because I won't, when I can help it. He spoke approvingly. You at any rate don't fritter away your time like other women. It depends on what other women you meet. I fritter away my time like some women, even though it isn't like the women who make calls. I play golf, for instance, and tennis. I even ride. All the same you don't like the silly thing called society any more than I do. There was daylight enough to show him the blaze of bravado in her eyes. Her way of holding her head had a certain daring. The daring of one too frank, perhaps too proud, to shrink at truth. Oh, I don't know. I dare say I should have liked society well enough if society had liked me. But it didn't. As Mama says, I wasn't a success. To compel him to view her in all her lack of charm, she added, with a persistent smile. You know that, don't you?" He did know it, though he could hardly say so. He'd heard Claude Descant on the subject many a time in the years when Lowe's family were still putting in a timid appearance and dances. Claude was interested in everything that had to do with girls, from their clothes to their complexions. Can't make it out, he would say at breakfast after a party. Dances well, dresses well, doesn't take. That isn't afraid of her. Everybody's shy of a girl who isn't popular. Has enough devil. A girl ought to have some devil-ang-it-all. Dancing with her myself. Three times a year. Have it left on my hands an hour at a time. Ferro can't afford that. Think we have no chivalry. Come to dance with yourself, old chap. You'd be a godsend to the girls and the dump. Four dancing days were over before Lowe's years had begun. But you can imagine what they had been to her. He could look back over the four or five years that separated her from the ordeal and still see her in the dump. Tall, timid, furtively watching the young men with those swimming brown orbs of hers, wondering whether or not she should have a partner. Hearts sore under her finery, often driving homeward in the weary early hours with tears streaming down her cheeks. He knew as much about it as if he had been with her. He suffered for her retrospectively. He did it to a degree that made his long face sorrowful. The sorrow caused Lowe's some impatience. For mercy's sake, Thor, don't look at me like that. It isn't as bad as you seem to think. I don't mind it. But I do," he declared with indignation, only to feel that he was slowly colouring. He coloured because the statement brought him with immeasurable distance of a declaration which he meant to make, but for which he was not ready. She seemed to divine his embarrassment, speaking with forced lightness. Please don't waste your sympathy on me. If any one's to be pitted, it's mama. I'm such a disappointment to her. Let's talk of something else. Where have you been today? What have you been doing?" He was not blind to her tact, counting it to her credit for the future, and asked abruptly if she knew Faye, the gardener. Faye the gardener, she echoed, I know who he is. She went more directed to the point of saying, I know his daughter. Well, she's having a hard time. Is she? I think she might. His face grew keener. How do you know that? Oh, I don't know. She's that sort. At least I should judge she was that sort from the little I've seen of her. How much have you seen of her? Almost nothing. But as little as it was, it impressed itself on my mind. I went to see her once at Mr. Whitney's suggestion. Whitney? He's the rector at St. John's, isn't he? What did he do with her? She doesn't belong to his church? No, he's explained. It was when we established the branch of the girls' friendly society at St. John's. Mr. Whitney thought she might care to join it. And did she? No, quite the other way. When I went to ask her, she resented it. She had an idea I was patronising her. That's a difficulty in approaching girls like that. He looked at her with a challenging expression. Girls like what? I suppose I mean girls who have much money, or who've worked. He still challenged her, his head thrown back. They probably don't consider themselves inferior to you for that reason. It wouldn't be American if they did. And it wouldn't be American if I did. And I don't. They only make me feel so, because they feel it's so strong with themselves. That's what's not American. And it is not my part, but on theirs. They force their sentiment back on me. They make me patronising whether I will or know. And were you patronising when you went to see Miss Faye? To conceal the slightly irritated attentiveness with which she waited for her reply, he began to light his motor-lamps. Condescension toward Rosie Faye suddenly struck him as offensive, no matter from whom it came. I'm sure I don't know, she replied indifferently. There was something about her that disconcerted me. She's as good as we are, he declared, snapping the little door of one of the lanterns. I don't deny that. A generation or two ago we were all farming people together. The Willoughbys and the Brands and the Thorlys and the Fais were on an equal footing. They worked for one another and intermarried. The progress of the country has taken some of us and hurled us up, wanted to see others of us and smashed us down. But we should try to get over that when it comes to human intercourse. That's what I was doing when I asked her to join our friendly society. The juice you were. I know your friendly societies. Keep those who are down, down. Help the humble to be humbler by making them obsequious. You know nothing at all about it," she declared with spirit, and tried to make things better. You're content to spin theories while we put something into practice. He snapped the door of the second lamp with a little bang. Put something into practice with the result that people resented. With the result that Rosie Faye resented it. But she's not a fair example. She's proud and rebellious and intense. I never saw anyone just like her. You probably never saw anyone who had to be like her because they've had their luck. Look here, Lewis," he said with sudden urnuses. I want you to be a friend to that girl." She opened her eyes in mild surprise at his intensity. There's nothing I should like better if I knew how. But you do know how. It's easy enough. Treat her as you would a girl in your own class. Elsie Darling, for instance. It's not so simple as that. When Elsie Darling came back after five or six years abroad, Mama and I drove into town and called on her. She wasn't in, and we left our cards. Later we invited her to lunch or to dinner. I should be perfectly willing to go through the same formalities with Miss Faye, only she'd think it queer. It wouldn't be queer. It would be queer because she hasn't got, what shall I say, she hasn't got the social machinery for that kind of ceremoniousness. The machinery means the method of approach, and with people who have to live as she does, it's the method of approach that presents the difficulty. It's not as easy as it looks. Very well, then, let us admit that it is hard. The harder it is, the more it's the job for you. There was an illuminating quality in her smile that's toned for lack of beauty. Oh, have you put it that way? I do put it that way, he did learn, with an earnestness toned down by what was almost wistfulness. There are so many things in which I want help, Lois, and you're the one to help me." She held out her hand with characteristic frankness. I'll do anything I can, Thor. Just tell me what you want me to do when you want me to do it, and I'll try. Oh, there be a lot of things in which we shall have to pull together, he said, as he held her hand. I want you to remember, if any trouble ever comes, that—he hesitated for a word that wouldn't say too much for the moment— that I'll be there. Thank you, Thor. That's a great comfort." She withdrew her hand quietly. Quietly, too, she assured him, as she moved towards the steps, that she would not fail to force herself again on Rosie Faye. And about that other matter, the one you spoke of first, you'll tell me more by and by, won't you? After her capacity for ringing true, his conscientiousness prompted him to let her see that she could feel quite sure of him. I'll tell you anything I can find out, and one of these days, Lois, I must—I must say a lot more. She mounted a step or two without turning away from him. Oh, well, she said lightly, as though dismissing a topic of no importance. There'll be plenty of time. But her smile was a happy one, so happy that he who smiled rarely smiled back at her from the roundabout. He could scarcely be expected to know as yet that his pleasure was not in any happiness of hers, but in the help she might bring to a little creature whose image had haunted him all the afternoon. A little creature whose desperate, flower-like face looked up at him from a background of poinsettias. CHAPTER V On coming to the table that evening, Claude begged his mother to excuse him for not having dressed for dinner on the ground that he had an engagement with Billy Cheever. Mrs. Masterman pardoned him with the gracious inclination of the head that made her diamond earrings sparkle. No one in the room could be unaware that she disapproved of Claude's informality. Not only did it shock her personal delicacy to dine with men who concealed their shirt-buzzums under the waist-coach they had worn all day, but it contravened the aims by which during her entire married life she did endeavour to elevate the society around her. She herself was one to whom the refinements were as native as foliage to a tree. It's all right, Claude dear, but you do know that I like you to dress for the evening, don't you? Without waiting for the young son to speak, she continued graciously to the elder, and you, Taw, what have you been doing with yourself today? Her polite inclusion of her stepson was meant to start her men, as she called them, in the kind of conversation in which men were most at ease, that which concerned themselves. Thaw replied, while consuming his soup in the manner acquired in Parisian and Viennese restaurants frequented by young men. Got a patient. Hastily, Claude introduced a subject of his own. What again see the champion father, heard it awfully good, begins with a prize-fight. But the father's attention was given to Thaw. Who have you picked up? Faye's wife, Faye the gardener. Indeed, have to whistle for your fee. Oh, I know that. Thaw, please, Mrs. Mastman-Baked, don't eat so fast. If you know it already, the father continued, I do think you'd have tried to squeak out of it. He said, know it already, and tried to squeak, into a difficulty with the letter R which gave an appealing childlike quality to his speech. If you start him by taking patience, who are not going to pay? Claude sought another diversion. What does it matter to Thaw, in three months' time, be able to pay sick people for coming to him, what? That's not the point, Mastman explained. A doctor has no right to pauper-wise people. He said, pauper-wise people, any more than any one else. Oh, as to that, Thaw said, forcing himself to eat slowly and sit straight in the style commended by his stepmother. He won't need a dot to pauperise poor Faye. Ah, quite right there, his father agreed. He's done it himself. Thaw considered at the moment a favourable one for making his appeal. Claude and I have been talking him over. Whatever we have, Claude exclaimed indignantly. What's that? Mastman's handsome face, which, after his day's work, was likely to be grey and lifeless, grew sharply interrogative. Time had chiseled it to an incisiveness not incongruous with a lingering air of youth. His hair, moustache and imperial, were but touched with grey. His figure was still lithe and spare. It was the custom to save him that he looked but the brother of his two strapping sons. Claude emphasised his annoyance. Talking him over? I like that. You've blown to the office just as I'm ready to come home and begin cross-questioning me about father's affairs. I tell you, I don't know anything about them. If you call that talking them over, well, you're welcome to your own use of terms. The head of the house busied himself in carving the joint which had been placed before him. If you want information, Thaw, ask me. I don't want information, father, and I don't think Claude is fair in saying I cross-questioned him. I only said that I thought he and I ought to do what we could to get you to renew Faye's lease. How did you? That I can save you the trouble because I'm not going to. The declaration was so definite that it left Thaw with nothing to say. Poor old Faye has worked pretty hard, hasn't he? He vented at last. Possibly. So have I. But with the difference that you've been prosperous and he hasn't. Marsman laughed good-naturally. Well, which is the difference between me and a good many other people? You don't blame me for that. It's not a question of blaming any one, father. I only suppose that among Americans it was the correct thing for the lucky ones to come to the aid of the less fortunate. Take it that I'm doing that for Faye when I get him out of an impossible situation. Force, mild riftly. When you get him out of the frying-pan into the fire. Well, Claude Challenge, coming to his father's aid. Far's no worse than the frying-pan and maybe a little better. I've seen the girl, his Marsman contributed to the discussion. She's been in the greenhouse when I've gone to buy flowers. I must say she didn't strike me very favourably. The two brothers exchanged glances without knowing why. She seemed to me so much, so very much, above her station. What is her station? Thor asked, bridling. Her station's the same as ours, isn't it? The father was amused. The same as what? Surely all much of a muchness. Most of us were farmers and market gardeners up to forty or fifty years ago. I've heard, he went on utilising the information he had received that afternoon, that to the Thorleys it used to hire out to the Faye's. Oh, the Thorleys! Mrs. Marsman smiled. The Marsman's didn't, Archie said gently. You won't forget that, my boy. Whatever you may be on, on any other side, you come from a line of gentlemen on mine. Your grandfather, Marsman, was one of the best-known old school physicians in this part of the country. His father before him was a Church of England clergyman in Derbyshire, who migrated to America because he'd become a Unitarian. That's what I idealist. Lots of him in those days, time of Napoleon and Sotheon, Coleridge and all that, thought that because America was a so-called republic or a so-called democracy, he'd find people living for one another, and they were just looking out for number one, like everyone else. Your uncle, Sim, takes after him. Died of a broken heart, I believe, because he didn't find the world made over new. But you see the sort of well-born, high-minded stock you sprang from. Thor lifted his big frame to an erect position, throwing back his head. I don't care a fig for what I sprang from, father. I don't even care much for what I am. It strikes me as far more important to see that our old friends and neighbours, who are just as good as we are, don't have to go under when we can keep them up. Yes, when we can, Thor's father said with unperturbed gentleness, but very often we can't. In a world where everyone is swimming for his own dear life, those who can't swim have got a drown. But everyone is not swimming for his own dear life. Most of us are safe on shore. You and I are, for example. And when we are, it seems to me the least we can do is to fling a life preserver to the poor chaps who are throwing up their hands and sinking. Mrs. Masterman rallied her stepson indulgently. Oh, Thor, how ridiculous you are! How you talk! Claude patted his mother's hand. He was still trying to turn attention from forbearing too directly on the phase. Don't listen to him, Mumphie. Beastly socialists, that's what he is. Divide up all the money in the world so that everybody will have 30 seds, and then tell him to go ahead and live regardless. That'll be his way of doing things. But his father was more just. Oh, no, it wouldn't. Thor's no fool. Has some excellent ideas. Little exaggerated preps. That'll cure itself in time. Good fall, too. He turned affectionately to his older son. Rather see you that way, my boy, than with an empty head. Thor fell silent, from a sense of the futility of talking. End of chapter 5 Chapter 6 At the moment when Claude was excusing himself, begging to be allowed to run away so as not to keep Billy Cheever waiting, Rosie Faye was noticing with relief that her mother was asleep at last. Thor's sedative had taken effect in what the girl considered the nick of time. Having smoothed the pillow, adjusted the patchwork quilt, and placed the small kerosene hand-lamp on a chair at the foot of the bed so as to shade it from the sleeper's eyes, she slipped downstairs. She wore a long, rough coat. Over her hair she had flung a scarf of some gauzy green stuff that heightened her colour. The lamp-light, or some inner flame of her own, drew opalescent gleams from her grey greenish eyes as she descended. She was no longer the desperate, petulant little Rosie of the afternoon. Her face was at glow with an eager life. The difference was that between a blossom wilting for lack of water and the same flower fed by rain. In the tiny living-room at the foot of the stairs, her father was eating the supper she'd laid out for him. It was a humble supper, spread on the end of a table covered with a cheap cotton cloth of a red-and-sky blue mixture. Jasper Faye, in his shirt sleeves, munched his cold-meat and sipped his tea while he entertained himself with a book propped against a loaf of bread. Another small kerosene hand-lamp threw its light on the printed page and loom in his mild, clear-cut, clean-shaven face. She's asleep, Rosie whispered from the doorway. If she wakes while I'm gone you must give her the second dose. I've lifted on the wash-stand. The man lifted his starry blue eyes. Are you going out? I'm only going for a little while. Couldn't you've gone earlier? How could I when I had supper to get, and everything? He looked uneasy. I don't like you to be running round these dark roads, my dear. You've been doing it a good deal lately. Where did you go? Why, Father, what nonsense! Here I am, cooped up all day. He sighed. Very well, my dear. I know you haven't much pleasure. But things will be different soon, I hope. The new knight Farman seems a good man, and I expect we'll do better now. He'll be here at ten. Were you going far? She answered promptly. Only to Polly Wilson's. She wants me to. Polly turned over in her mind the various interests on which Polly Wilson might desire to consult her. She wants me to see her new dress. Very well, my dear. But I hope after this evening you'll be able to do your errand in the daytime. You know how it was with Matt. If he hadn't gone roaming the streets at night. Rosie came close to the table. Her face was resolute. Father, I'm not Matt. I know what I'm doing. She added, with increased determination, I'm acting for the best. He was mildly surprised. Acting for the best and going to see Polly Wilson's new dress. She ignored this. I'm twenty-three, Father. I've got to follow my own judgment. If I have a chance, I must use it. What sort of a chance, my dear? There's nothing to hope for here, she went on cruelly, except for what I can do myself. Mother's no good, and Matt's worse than if he was dead. I wish to God he would die before he comes out. And you know what you are, Father. I do the best I can, my dear, he said humbly. I know you do, but we can all see what that is. Everybody else is going ahead, but us. Oh no, they're not, my dear. There are lots that fall behind as bad as we do, and worse. She shook her head fiercely. No, not worse. They couldn't. And whatever's to be done, I've got to do it. If I don't, or if I can't, well, we might as well give up. So you mustn't try to stop me, Father. I know what I'm doing. It's for your sake, and everybody's sake, as much as for my own. He dropped his eyes to his book, in seeming admission that he had no tenable ground on which to meet her in a conflict of wills. Very well, my dear, he sighed. If you're going to Polly Wilson's, you'd better be off. You'll be home by ten, won't you? I must go then to share the new farm and his way about the place. Outside it was a windy night, but not a cold one. Shreds of dark clouds scutted across the face of a three-quarters moon, giving it the appearance of traveling through the sky at an incredible rate of speed. In the south wind there was the Tang of Ocean Salt, mingled with the sweeter scents of woodland and withered garden nearer home. There was a crackling of boughs in the old apple trees, and from the ridge behind the house came the deep, soft, murmurous sowing of pines. If Rosie lingered on the doorstep, it was not because she was afraid of the night sound or of the dark. She was restrained from it by a sense of terror of what she was about to do. It was not a new terror. She felt it on every occasion when she went forth to keep this trist. As she had already said to her father, she knew what she was doing. She was neither so young nor so inexperienced as to be unaware of the element of danger that waited on her steps. No one could have told her better than she could have told herself that the voice of wise counsel would have bitten her stay at home. But if she was not afraid of the night, neither would she resolute before the undertaking. Being forewarned, she was forearmed. Being forearmed, she could run the risks. Running the risks, she could enjoy the excitement and find solace in the romance. For it was romance. Romance of the sort she had dreamed of and planned for and got herself ready to be equal to, if ever it should come. Somehow she had always known it would come. She could hardly go back to the time when she did not have this premonition of a lover who would appear like a prince in a fairy tale and lift her out of her lower state. And he had come. He had come late on an afternoon in the preceding summer when she was picking wild raspberries in the wood above Duck Rock. It was a lonely spot in which she could reasonably have expected to be undisturbed. She was picking the berries fast and deftly because the fruit-man who passed in the morning would give her a dollar for her harvest. Was it the dollar or was it the sweet, wandering summer air? Was it the mingled perfumes of vine and fruit and soft loam loosened as she crept among the brambles? Or was it the shimmer of the waning sunlight or the whir of the wings of birds? Or the native hermit thrush in some still depth of the woodland ever so far away? Or was it only because she was young and invincibly happy at times in spite of a sore heart that she sang to herself as her nimble fingers secured the juicy, delicate red things and dropped them into the pan? He came, like pan or a fawn or any other woodland thing, with no sound of his approach, not even that of open pipes. When she raised her eyes he was standing in a patch of bracken. She had been stooping together the fruit that clustered on a long, low, spiny stem. The words on her lips had been, at least be pity to me, show, live, love, we may now be. But her voice trailed away faintly on the last syllable. From looking up he was before her. He wore white flannels and a Panama hat of which the brim was roguishly pulled down in front to shade his eyes. He was smiling unabashed, and yet with a friendliness that made it impossible for her to take offence. Isn't it rosy? He asked without moving from where he stood in the patch of trampled bracken. I'm clawed, don't you remember me? A delphic nymph who'd been addressed by Apollo in the seclusion of some sacred grove could hardly have felt more joyous or more dumb. Rosy Faye did not know in what kind of words to answer that listening being who had spoken to her with this fine familiarity. Later, in the silence of the night, she blushed with shame to think of the figure she must have cut, standing specious before him, the pan of red raspberries in her hands, her raspberry-red lips apart in amazement, and her eyes gleaming and wide with awe. She remained vague as to what she answered in the end. It was confusedly to the effect that, though she remembered him well enough, she supposed that he had long forgotten one so insignificant as herself. Presently he was beside her, dropping raspberries into her pan, while they laughed together as in those early days when they picked peas by her father's permission in Grandpa Folly's garden. Their second meeting was accidental. If it was accidental that each had come to the same spot at the same hour on the following day in the hope of finding the other. The third meeting was also on the same spot, but by appointment, in secret, and at night. Claude had been careful to impress on her the disaster that would ensue if their romance were discovered. But Rosy Faye knew what she was doing. She repeated that statement often to herself. Had she really been a delphic nymph or even a young lady of the best society, she might have given herself without reserve to the rapture of her idyll. But her circumstances were peculiar. Rosy was obliged to be practical, to look ahead. Her fairy prince was not only a romantic dream in her dreary life, but an agency to be utilised. The least self-seeking of drowning-maids might expect the hero on the bank to pull her out of the water. The very fact that she recognised in Claude a tendency to dally with her on the brink instead of landing her in a place of safety compelled her to be the more astute. But she was not so astute as to be inaccessible to the sense of terror that exhaled her every time she went to meet him. It was the fright of one accustomed to walk on earth when seized and born into the air. Claude's voice over the telephone, as she'd heard it that afternoon, was like the call to adventures at once enthralling and appalling, in which she found it hard to keep her head. She kept it only by saying to herself, I know what I'm doing, I know what I'm doing. My father is ruined, my brother is in jail. But I love this man, and he loves me. If he marries me— But Rosy's thoughts broke off abruptly there. They broke off because they reached a point beyond which imagination would not carry her. If he marries me— The supposition led her where all was blurred and rosy at and golden, like the mists around the happy isles. Rosy could not forecast the conditions that would be hers as the wife of Claude Masterman. She only knew that she would be transported into an atmosphere of money, and money she'd learned by sore experience to be the sovereign palliative of care. Love was much to poor Rosy, but relief from anxiety was more. It had to be so, since both love and light are secondary blessings to the tired creature whose first need is rest. It was for rest that Claude Masterman stood primarily in her mind. He was a fairy-prince, of course. He was a lover who might have satisfied any girl's aspirations. But before everything else he was a hero and a saviour, a being in whose vast potentialities, both social and financial, she could find refuge and lie down at last. It needed but this bright thought to brace her. She'd clasped her hands to her breast. She'd lifted her eyes to the swimming moon. She drew deep breaths of the sweet, strong air. She appealed to all the supporting forces she knew anything about. A minute later she was speeding through the darkness. End of Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Between the greenhouses, of which the glass gleamed dimly in the moonlight, Rosie followed a path that struggled down the slope of her father's land to the new boulevard round the pond. The boulevard here swept inland about to the base of Duck Rock in order to leave that wooded bluff and invulnet feature of the landscape. So invulnet had it been that during the months since Rosie had picked wild raspberries in its boscage the park commissioners had seized on it as a spot to be subdued by winding paths and restful benches. To make it the more civilized and inviting they placed one of the arc lamps that now garlanded the circuit of the pond just where it would guide the feet of lovers into the alluring shade. Rosie was glad of this friendly light before engaging on the rough path up the bluff under the skeleton-like trees. But she was not afraid. She was any nervous, and the light gave her confidence. But tonight, as she emerged on the broad boulevard from the weedy outskirts of her father's garden, the chatter of horse-hoofs startled her into drawing back. She would have got herself all together out of sight had there be anything at hand in the nature of a shrub high enough to conceal her. As it was she could only shrink to the extreme edge of the roadside, hoping that the rider, whoever he was, would pass without seeing her. This he might have done had not the baymaire Delia unaccustomed to the sight of young ladies roaming alone at night thought it the part of propriety to shy. Whoa, Delia, whoa! What's the matter? Steady, old girl, steady! There was a flash of the quick penetrating eyes around the circle made by the arc light. Why, hello, Rosie. But myself, look scared as a stray kitten. Where are you going? Rosie could only reply that she wasn't going anywhere. She was just out. Well, it's a fine night. Everybody seems to be out. Just met Claude. The girl was unable to repress the startle. Oh! Then she bit her tongue at the self-betrayal. Uncle Sim laughed merrily. No wonder you're frightened, pretty girl like you. Devil of a fellow, if Claude thinks he is. Suppose you don't know him. Ah, well, that would make any difference to him if he was to run across you. I'll tell you what, you come along with me. Chuckling to himself, he slipped from Delia's back, preparing to leave the mayor and accompany the girl on foot. We'll go round by the old village and up to the schoolhouse lane. Walk will do you good. You'll sleep better after it. Come along now and tell me about your mother as we go. Did my nephew Thor come to see her? What did he give her? Did she take it? Did he make her sleep? But Rosie shrank away from him with the eyes of a terrified animal. Oh, oh, no, Dr. Marsman, please, I don't want to take that long walk. I'll go back up the path of the way I came. I just ran out to... He looked at her with suspicious kindness. Will you promise me you'll go back the way you came? Yes, yes, I will. And that's all right. It's awfully dangerous road, Rosie. Tramps and everything. But if you'll go straight back up the path, he watched her while she retreated. Good night, he called. Good night, came her voice from halfway up the garden. She was obliged to wait in the shadow of an outlying hot-house till the sound of delious hoofs clattering off towards the old village died away on the night. She crept back again, cautiously. Cautiously, too, she stirled across the boulevard and into the wood. Once there she flew up the path with the frantic eagerness of her hair. She was afraid Claude might have come and gone. She was afraid of the instant with old Sim. What did he mean? Did he mean anything? If he betrayed Claude at home would he keep the latter from meeting her? She had no great confidence in Claude's ability to withstand authority. She had no great confidence in anything, not even in his love or in her own. The love was true enough. It was ardently, desperately true. Would it bear the strain that could so easily be put upon it? She felt of her swept up by an immense longing to be sure. She had so many subjects to think of and to dread that she forgot to be frightened as she sped up the bluff. It was only on reaching the summit and discovering that Claude wasn't there that she was seized by fear. There was a bench beside her a round bench circling the trunk of an oak tree, and she sank upon it. The crunching of footsteps told her someone was coming up the slope. In all probability it was Claude, but it might be a stranger or even an animal. The crunching continued, measured, slow. She would have fled if there had been any way of fleeing without encountering the object of her alarm. The regular beats of the footsteps growing heavier and nearer through the darkness rendered her almost hysterical. When at last Claude's figure emerged into the moonlight his erect slenderness defined against the sky, she threw herself sobbing into his arms. It was not the least of Claude's attractions that he was so tender with women swept by crises of emotion. Where Thor would have stood helpless or prescribed a mild sedative Claude pressed the agitated creature to his breast and let her weep. When her sobs had subsided to a converse of clinging to him without tears he explained his delay in arriving by his meeting with Uncle Sim. They proceeded on the bench by this time, his arms about her, her face close to his. All for news that he is making a poor pry, can't keep anything from him, scars a country night and day like the peddler's horseman of Sleepy Hollow. Never know when he'll meet him. I met him too, really said, getting some control of her voice. The deuce you did, did he speak to you? Did he say anything about me? He said he'd seen you. Is that all? In a way the possible disadvantages of saying too much. Coming to the conclusion that you better tell him more. No, it isn't quite all. He seemed to warn me against you. Oh, the devil! In his start he loosened his embrace but grasped her to him again. What's he up to now? Do you think he's up to anything? What else did he say? Tell me all you can think of. She narrated the brief incident. Will it make any difference to us? She ventured to ask. It'll make a difference to us if he blabbers to father, of course. What sort of difference, Claude? What sort of difference does it make when there's the devil to pay? She clasped him to her the more closely. Does that mean that we shouldn't be able to see each other any more? A question being beyond him. Claude smothered it under a selection of those fond epithets in which his vocabulary was large. In the very process of enjoying them, Rosie was rallying her strength. She said to him, if you could enjoy them, Rosie was rallying her strength. She was still clasping him as she withdrew her head slightly, looking up at him through the moonlight. Claude, I want to ask you something. With his hand on the knot of her hair he pressed her face once more against his. Yes, yes, darling, ask me anything. Yes, yes, yes. She broke in on his purring with the words, Are we engaged? The purring ceased. Without relaxation, his embrace, he remained passive, like a man listening. What makes you ask me that? It's what people generally are when they're like us, isn't it? Brushing his lips over the velvet of her cheeks, he began to purr again. No one was ever like us, darling. No one ever will be. Don't worry your little head with what doesn't matter. But it does matter to me. I don't care. But it does matter to me, Claude. I want to know where I am. Where you are, dairy. You're here with me. Isn't that enough? It's enough for now, Claude, but I don't want it's enough for now all we've got to think of. No, Claude, dearest. A girl isn't like a man. Oh yes, she is when she loves. And you love me, don't you, dairy? You love me just a little. Say you love me just a little, very little. Oh, Claude, my darling, my darling, you know I love you. You've all I've got in the world. And you all I've got, my little Rosie. Nothing else counts when I'm with you. But when you're not with me, Claude, what then? What am I to think when you're away from me? What am I to be? Be just as you are. Be just as you've always been since the day I first saw you. Yes, yes, Claude, but you don't understand. If anyone would find out that I came here to meet you like this no one must find out, dear. We must keep that mum. But if they did, Claude, it wouldn't matter to you at all. Wouldn't it, though? Father, make it a matter, I can tell you. Yes, but you wouldn't be disgraced. I should be. Don't you see? No one would ever believe. Oh, what does it matter what anyone believes? Let them all go hang. We can't let them all go hang. You can't let your father go hang, and I can't let mine. Do you know what my father would do to me if he knew where I am now? He'd kill me. Oh, rot, Rosie! No, no, Claude, I'm telling you the truth. He's that sort. He wouldn't think it, but he is. He's one of those mild dreamy men who, when they're enraged, which isn't often, don't know where to stop. If he thought I'd done wrong, he'd put a knife into me, just like that. She struck her clenched hand against his heart. When Matt was arrested, he tore himself from her suddenly. The sensitive part of him had been touched. Oh, Lord, Rosie, don't let's go into that. I hate that business. I'd try to forget it. No one can forget it who remembers me. Oh, yes they can. I can, when you don't drag it up. What's the use, Rosie? Why not be happy for the few hours every now and then that we can get it together? I've got into you. He changes his tone. You hurt me, Rosie. You hurt me. You talk as if you didn't trust me. You seem to have suspicions to be making schemes. Oh, Lord, for God's sake! Rosie too was touched on the quick, perhaps by some truth in the accusation. He kissed her ardently. I know, dear, I know. I know it's all right that you don't mean anything. Kiss me. Tell me you won't do it any more that you won't hurt the man who adores you. What does anything else matter? You and I are everything there is in the world. Then let us talk when we've got each other. Rosie gave it up for the present at any rate. She began to perceive dimly that they had different conceptions of love. For her, love was engagement and marriage with the material concomitance of the two states implied. But for Claude, love was something else, it was something she didn't understand, except that it was indifferent to the orderly procession by which her own ambitions climbed. He loved her, of that she was, sure. But he loved her for her face, her mouth, her eyes, her hair, the colour of her skin, her rough and little hands, her live little body. Of nothing else in her was he able to take cognizance. Her hard life and her heart-breaking struggles and emotions he hadn't the eyes to see. He was aware of them, of course, but he could detach her from them. He could detach her from them for the minute she spent with him. But he could see her go back to them and make no attempt to follow her in sympathy. But he loved her beauty. There was that palliating fact. After all, Rosie was a woman and here was the supreme tribute to her womanhood. It was not everything, and yet it was the thing enchanting. It was the kind of tribute any woman in the world would have put before social rescue or moral elevation, and Rosie was like the rest. She could be lulled by Claude's endearments as a child is lulled by a cradle-song. With this music in her ears doubts were stilled and misgivings quieted and ambitions overruled. Returned to the world of care and calculation followed any on Claude's words uttered just as they were parting. And you'd better be on your guard against thaw. So long as he's going to your house you mustn't give anything away. End of chapter 7