NYPL RESEARCH LIBRARIES 3 3433 07604820 0 !ORNERS i I V* i\ *& r ----------------- - .* -, --- - ■ \ .<»\ IV '■ ^ - --------- |- * FOUR CORNERS CLIFFORD RAYMOND FOUR CORNERS BY CLIFFORD RAYMOND AUTHOR OF "ONE OF THREE," "THE MYSTERY OF HARTLEY HOUSE," "BORROWED LIVES," ETC. NEW XBJr YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 'I'M. the :\;:v.' YJOIIK 133288B E !'.•■ 1 i. COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY CLIFFORD RAYMOND PROPERTY OF THE NEW YORK SOCIETY LIBRARY PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA \" ） Niſ: | FOUR CORNERS ºn/ 3- s s | 3. døºff： （) FOUR CORNERS CHAPTER I THE SOUTHEAST EFFA PEPPER and Samuel Pepper had not spoken a word directly to each other, except once, in twenty years. They lived in the house they had entered as bride and groom forty years before. They had no children and were dependent upon each other, but if they declared wants or intentions to each other they spoke to the cat. There were now, as there were when they started housekeeping, beehives under the green gage plums in the back yard. There also were damson plums, cherries, grapes and peaches. The back yard was of nearly two acres with two gardens and many bushes. In one garden Effa grew pinks and poppies, geraniums and pansies. In the other she raised vegetables. Habit was the law of Effa's life, habit plus curi- osity. Gossip was the only art Effa knew. It was her decoration of life. Samuel Pepper had been blind for ten years. He was independent in the house because nothing ever was changed there. His rocking-chair always was, day by day, exactly in the same place by the west window of the sittingroom, ten feet from the hard 7 8 FOUR CORNERS coal burner and two feet from the table on which Effa kept the lamp and her mending and knitting. Samuel knew the position of every chair and table in the house. They were to-day where they had been for ten years and they would be there to-morrow and the next day and so on until Effa died or the house burned down. Samuel could walk through the rooms as inde- pendently as if he had his eyesight, but when he went into the garden it was a different matter. He said he never quite could get the hang of the garden. He would find himself, or be found, in the raspberries on the south side when he thought he was in the blackberries on the west side. Frequently he got lost in the bushes and shrubs and was in a hopeless condition. Effa would not herself rescue him but when it became necessary for some one to extricate him from the impenetrable forest into which he had plunged she would go to the kitchen porch and call across the fence "Amanda! Amanda! Father's lost in the yard again!" That would bring Mrs. Popp, her next door neigh- bor, to Samuel's assistance. He always protested that help was not necessary. "Just as soon as I found them lilac bushes," he would say, "I'd know the way to the pump and from the pump I can go anywhere." It did not excite any comment in the neighborhood that Effa and Samuel did not speak. Occasionally when a visitor showed interest in what might be mentioned of the eccentricities of the pair some one might find a matter of local pride in detailing the best known escapades of Effa and Samuel. The condition in which they found themselves was common rather than unusual. Marriage had formed FOUR CORNERS 9 a habit of life for them. They would have been lost without each other, and they hated each other at the same time. It was not a passionate active hate. It was a comfortable sustaining hate which gave them an interest in each other. It was common enough for husband and wife to have nothing but a vindictive interest in each other. Any number of the women had the instinct of the female spider. When they ceased bearing children or if they had no children they developed antipathies for the men. Habit, convention and form kept the man and woman together under one roof but it was not required that they have affection for each other. The marriage was one of instinct, impulse, con- venience and convention directed by propinquity and considered rationally from the viewpoint of a life's upkeep for both—one to provide the roof and the food, the other to keep the house clean and cook the meals. They did not become disillusioned. They never had illusions. Effa and Samuel had become eccentric in their attitude towards each other, having allowed a thor- oughly enjoyable period of irritation to develop into a habit. Their legend was confused. Probably neither Effa nor Samuel could have given an accurate version of it. It was so long ago. By one account Samuel, wearied by a recital of his shortcomings, had asked Effa to hold her gab. By another Effa, furious at Samuel's plaintive but continuing criticism of some sour cream in the breakfast coffee, had asked him to hold his. A week or two of silence followed. Effa and Samuel may have found in that silence a mode of living. It 10 FOUR CORNERS persisted, although at first there must have been in- conveniences in it. Once in the twenty years Effa had spoken directly to Samuel. They were regular church-goers. In going to church Samuel took Effa's arm. They did not speak but Effa conformed to Samuel's necessities and to public opinion. Occasionally, of a Sunday morning before the church bells rang for Sunday school she would see that Samuel had forgotten his days again and did not know it was Sunday. Then she would say to the cat: "Pound, ask father if he isn't going to get ready for church." They had gone to church on the occasion of this speaking. The minister, a very active and anxious young custodian of souls with a leaning towards the theatric and a desire for accomplishment, had de- cided to raise the church debt. Many a minister never survives that experience with an unbroken spirit. When the sermon was over Effa's apprehensions, which were acute, caught the significance of an im- pending event and she knew it would be unpleasant. The sermon had been short. That was indication, in itself, of something to come unexpectedly to the congregation. The minister introduced the subject of the church debt and the worshipers began to look serious. The minister then introduced a Mr. Livingston who, he said, had been very successful in extricating churches in other cities from financial embarrassments. Mr. Livingston was brisk and the directness of'his method was terrifying. After a short speech of dis- quieting enthusiasm and confidence—if Mr. Living- ston's confidence were justified the congregation's FOUR CORNERS 11 case was hopeless—he said that ushers would go from pew to pew and as the contributions were made the name and amount would be announced and he, in the pulpit, would repeat the name and amount. Effa then spoke to Samuel, the only time in twenty years. "We are going home," she said and she led him out. She was the only one in the congregation resolute enough to escape. The Peppers gave ten dollars a year to the church. Effa also gave a dollar and a half to home missions. She did not believe in foreign missions, she said, with so much need right at home. Samuel gave a dollar and a half to foreign missions because Effa did not believe in them. Souls in darkness needed the light, he said. The Peppers were agreed in one thing. They gave enough. Samuel's chair was at the West window but Effa's was across the room in the bay window where she had a view, directly across the street, of the home of the banker, A. Knowles, a view across the other street of the Trumbull residence and, on the other corner, of the strange home where the Puseys lived. FOUR CORNERS 13 two acres, within a fifteen foot brick wall. There was a small gate of iron between thick brick posts. If any one wanted entrance there was a bell at one of the posts. If it were rung some one might come to the gate. If no one came there was no entrance. Within there were marvelous gardens and walks and clumps of evergreens and part of the old grove of white oaks. The dowager may have come home to live a blighted life. She built the house and brought over an English gardener to do the work within the walls. Then she tired of it and went abroad. She had plenty of money and no responsi- bilities. Evidently it had been a relief to startle the townsfolk for a while but it was not a complete life for Sassy Howard even if she were a dowager. Mrs. Pepper said she had heard that Sassy was living in Monte Carlo, but that was because Effa never had heard, short of Hell, of any other place so bad, in her way of thinking and information, as Monte Carlo. There the Devil was incarnate and there she knew Sassy Howard must be. No one ever knew, in the town, why Sassy's life had been blighted or why, in consequence, she had wanted to build a wall to contain a distracted soul. Mrs. Pepper said she understood that Sassy's lover had killed her husband at Monte Carlo and after- wards had killed himself, but that again was merely Effa's imagination doing its best. Harmless Mr. Pusey had rented the place because it suited him and he liked it, and he fell heir to all its accumulations of suspicion, conjecture and distrust. Probably Mr. Pusey and his family could have FOUR CORNERS 15' Much as the children would have loved to prowl about an abandoned house, none had tried to climb the walls, but when they saw the gate open, an inex- plicable fact, they peered in curiously and timidly and then ran home to say that they had seen a man. The mothers were interested and many of them found some reason for walking by the Howard place within the following fifteen minutes. The gate was carelessly open. It was a regret which vexed Effa Pepper unremittingly for a month, and as an alter- nating current for two more that she had not been at home when this opportunity was offered. She would have gone in through the open gate, in the proclaimed spirit of a praiseworthy neighborhood re- sponsibility, to find out who the stranger was and why he was there. The other women did not have her daring, imagina- tion or enterprise and none went in, but some did see a tall, thin man, abstracted and not observing, come out, lock the gate, put the key in his pocket and walk away. He did not seem to think that he needed any explanation. He did not even seem to know that he was in a neighborhood except, as Mrs. Popp afterwards told Effa Pepper, he stopped for a while to look at the Knowles' house. He even went up the side street to look at it and crossed the street to stand with his back against the Howard wall and look up at the upper windows of the Knowles' resi- dence as if calculating how much of a view of the Howard garden might be obtained at such an angle from the windows. Then he went on his way, not paying any attention to anything else although the parade of matrons by the Howard gate was something conspicuous in the 16 FOUR CORNERS consciousness of the matrons themselves. He went on his way, unobserving, otherwise than for the Knowles' house incident, but much observed. Specu- lation reaped and threshed many crops for several days but there was nothing but chaff and no grain. That was all there was to it and by a fortnight dis- cussion had fully abated. Then it was revived. Four carpenters came, with the key to the gate. Several loads of lumber were hauled and the deserted place came to life with the sound of hammering and the voices of the workmen. Effa Pepper could make inquiries this time and she did, but persistence and genius for cross-examina- tion did her no good. He didn't know, the carpenter contractor said. They were making some repairs and alterations at the orders of Mrs. Clayton (Sassy Howard). Maybe it was for her. Maybe it was for a tenant. He didn't know. He hadn't asked. The principal alteration was the building of a small platform on the roof with steps and a railing down to a dormer window which opened upon a slope of the roof. He did not know what it was for. He had his plan and his orders. It looked silly to him and it was hard to build but it would not disfigure the house as much as he thought it might owing to the fact that the big chimney hid some of it and it was beyond the ridge of the roof. Some one wanted to get out of the dormer window, climb up the stairs and have a place to stand on the platform where there was, within the circle of the neighboring tree tops, a clear view of the sky. That was all he knew. The carpenters finally completed their work and 18 FOUR CORNERS the furniture drays came up. They wore outlandish clothing, with spots of color. They embraced con- vulsively when they could not make the furniture movers understand anything, after they had unlocked the gate at the driveway, but the drays were driven inside, unloaded and came out empty and the neigh- borhood had much to excite its curiosity and little to satisfy it. For nearly a week the house seemingly was occu- pied, although the foreigners were not seen. No light was to be seen at night. The walls did not allow many lights to be seen if all were lighted, but there was the oppressive sense in the community that people—even foreigners were in a fashion people— had moved into the weed grown desolation and had been absorbed in it. One day Effa Pepper saw that the foot walk gate again had been left unlocked and standing open and she went across the street again to find out what she could. She penetrated the gardens far enough to see that the weeds were disappearing and that the man was at work putting everything in shape. Then he saw her and came running towards her with so many gesticulations that she did not stop to meet him but went out by the gate again. The man closed and locked it. A few days later the neighborhood began to feel that something else had taken place in the house. It was difficult to say what until one day the tall, thin, abstracted man, who had been seen before, was seen again coming out of the gate. Later a brass plate was put up on the left hand post of the gate. It carried an inscription, as fol- lows: FOUR CORNERS 19 TIMOTHY PUSEY OCULIST AND OPTICIAN ASTRONOMICAL LENSES AND INSTRUMENTS BUSINESS CALL —THREE RINGS It was an old plate which Timothy had used before when he was grinding lenses and selling merchandise. There was a brass bell handle below the plate. That was the advent of the Puseys, and no one knew how they had come, unless at night, or how many or of what character they were. CHAPTER III THE SOUTHWEST THE Trumbulls' house was white with green shutters. It was built to three stories with many dormers and gables and had a tower room rising in the center above the third story. It had two large porches. The Trumbulls preferred lawn to garden. Their house sat a hundred feet back from the street and, with the exception of a peony bed at the right of the brick walk to the front door and a pansy bed close to the west wall, there was nothing on the front grounds but well-cut turf and a few trees. The Trumbulls had no fence. Their lawn started from the sidewalk, arose by a gentle terrace and spread on back of the house, ending at a trelliswork which concealed clothes yard and garden. There was a garden but a man worked it. The Trumbulls had no bucolic interests. The few trees which gave some shade to the lawn were noble ones and the place had a simple old-fashioned dignity of beauty and comfort. There was a great deal of wealth in the family, as wealth was estimated in the community. Sarah Spencer had money from her father when she mar- ried Henry Trumbull. He also had money and had made more. The Trumbulls did as they liked be- 20 FOUR CORNERS 21 cause their position was assured and they didn't care whether it was assured or not. Nothing could be done satisfactorily in the neigh- borhood and few important things in the town with- out the inclusion of one or more of the Trumbulls in the planning and management. Mr. Trumbull was a little gray man of whom the impressionable part of the neighborhood stood as much in awe as it did of A. Knowles, the banker. A. Knowles was in porte and being a person of im- portance, but the awe which Henry Trumbull in- spired was one arising from the knowledge that this quiet little gray man, always unobtrusive, on the street or in his home, was the genius of the Trumbull wealth, success and happiness. The qualities of the home were magnificent to the townspeople. Their source was seemingly so inade- quate for the dynamics required and yet in fact so completely competent. "I declare," said Amanda Popp to Effa Pepper, "I sometimes look at him going down the street and feel as if a mouse was the father of elephants," which was not exactly what she meant but it touched the periphery of her idea. Three ladies from the church, seeking contribu- tions to the organ fund, had thought to divide the Trumbulls for purposes of contribution. The cause being so worthy they hoped that Sarah Trumbull would think that she was contributing for the fam- ily and that Henry Trumbull would think that he was doing the family share. They were simple minded ladies and they were greatly astonished when Mr. Trumbull asked, as his first question: "How much did Mrs. Trumbull give?" 22 FOUR CORNERS In a flutter of guilty emotions they said she had given two hundred and fifty dollars. "I'll double it," said Henry, smiling, "just to main- tain my own importance." The ladies had called upon him at his office. Henry was a wagon manufacturer and his plant was a large one. The neighborhood had no idea that carrying the Trumbull home was a small thing. The wagon plant was the big thing and the three ladies seeing him in proper relation to his work found that, as he sat in his quiet office behind his mahogany desk, he seemed, to their amazed eyes, to grow and grow in bulk until he was the colossus able to bear all the great plant with its series of tall chimneys and he was the chief of this tribe of workmen. They subsequently spread their impressions to a number of ladies with enthusiastic declamation and ejaculation and in consequence the quiet little gray man, when seen on the street or on his lawn, was observed as something superhuman. Sarah Trumbull was intended by nature for the work of her life. That was to be the perfect wife Henry Trumbull wanted, the perfect companion and comfort he wanted, make his home just the home he wanted and be the mother of the large family he wanted. She was fair and of almost dowager plumpness. Henry thought that in a party dress she looked regal. He never went to parties but when she and her daughters came down from dressing they always went into the library where Henry, at the reading lamp, would look up, over his paper or book, and scrutinize them before they went to their carriage. It gratified Sarah that, much as Henry loved his daughters, his first look always was at her. If she FOUR CORNERS 23 had a new gown he always noticed it. If her hair were done in a new way he saw that. He always told her she was beautiful and she always knew that to him she was. That kept her emotionally young and happy. Henry's two elder sons, who also went to parties, would come down later. They drove cars. Their mother loved the dignity of a carriage with two horses. That belonged to her day. Sarah knew, as she left Henry sitting comfortably by the reading lamp, that he was contented. After they had gone his two small sons would come down in their pajamas and sit on the arms of his chair for a half hour before going to bed. Then Henry would read until he was sleepy. For two people who wanted a large family Henry and Sarah had been fortunate. Agnes, Beatrice and Elizabeth were their daughters. Their older sons were Norman and Conrad. Then there were the two younger ones, Bob and Jim. Bob was nearing long trousers and was in the Ivanhoe and Charlemagne era. Jim was in the Tom Sawyer, barefoot and sore toe age. Mr. Trumbull found Agnes the most satisfying. She was like her mother. Beatrice was the most perplexing. She was like nothing in his experience. Elizabeth, he thought, was the happiest although she was not as pretty as her sisters. Henry thought that she might gain beauty as her character, already indi- cated as fine, grew more mature. In Conrad he recognized himself again. Here was another little gray man who later would not go out to parties. Norman puzzled and interested him. He did not understand Beatrice and he did not under- stand Norman, but he had great respect for them - CHAPTER IV THE NORTHWEST THE Trumbull residence alone would have made this street intersection important. The resi- dence of A. Knowles, the banker, on the fourth of its four corners made it conspicuous. The Knowles residence was designed to be con- spicuous. Any one who knew Mrs. Knowles must always have thought of her as timid, frequently frightened and sometimes lost in it. She was lost in the house just as she was lost beside Mr. Knowles. He and the house each reduced her to insignificance. Either one would have done it. Together they obliterated her. She seemed to have lost her sense of direction in life, to be constantly turning unexpected corners and coming into strange corridors. Some people thought her pathetic, some thought her silly; some pitied her; many pitied A. Knowles. Mrs. Knowles seemed to have no explanation of herself and to find no excuse for herself. In the absence of a reason for herself she was becoming smaller, frailer, less incarnate, less purposeful every year. She was such a lady as smooths the silk of her dress over her knees and needs a hassock for her feet. If anything so assertive as happiness ever could be said to be hers, she may have been happy the two 26 28 FOUR CORNERS been a very proud family and thought and spoke a great deal of advantages. Old Simon himself had been given advantages by his father and he wanted his own son to have them. Effa did not know what benefits any one got from advantages or what any one would describe as ad- vantages. She knew they included going away to school and to college, and young Knowles had also gone abroad. It would have been violent nonsense in the case of any other than the Knowles family, but there was in the neighborhood and in the town such a tradition of respect for the Knowleses that whatever they did gained rationality because they did it. The residence of A. Knowles indicated what he intended his family to have. Mrs. Knowles was what his family was. Fresh from advantages, A. Knowles had come home and soon afterwards married Lulu Burton. Simon Knowles was living then. A. Knowles and his wife went to house-keeping in a cottage just west of Simon's home on the corner, but the neighborhood soon saw that the Knowles family was just begin- ning to make advantages count. The old house in which three generations of Knowles had lived was moved far back to the north. Simon and his wife continued to live in it and building operations were begun on the old site. The advantages of A. Knowles had given him some ideas of architecture but no idea of taste. What he wanted was magnificence and grandeur. Bigness was what he wanted. Expense was what he wanted. He wanted marble and granite, brass and copper, mahogany and ebony. Simon also wanted all this for his son and his FOUR CORNERS 29 son's children, and the architects gave it to them. Even during construction the place was a marvel to the neighborhood. Its vast and heavy materials had the Four Corners in a massive disorder for sev- eral years. The Four Corners thought the pyramids were being built. Every evening Simon Knowles and A. Knowles came to look at it and the children of the neighbor- hood, playing, after supper, in the sand, would scamper off.. Even they knew that it was not proper to intrude upon so solemn a thing as this visitation. On Sunday mornings Mrs. A. Knowles joined her husband and his father in the visitation which was made just before church time. Any one could see that she was frightened, even then, to look at this great structure taking shape gradually and to think that it was to be her home. In the cottage with a simple husband and simple babies Lulu Burton might have been happy and have kept her plump prettiness but she had married an importance and a pile and there were no babies. Old Mrs. Simon Knowles died before the house was finished and Old Simon died soon after his son had installed the timid Lulu in it. Lulu could not support the life. Effa Pepper said it was gospel that she really had been out of her mind for months, worn to nothing by contact with the house, and by contact with A. Knowles—lost and distracted and, worst of all, a Rachel mourning for children which had not been and were not to be. The house was, in reality, a mausoleum. It had been built for the Knowles family and there was no family. The son who would have received it from his father had not been born. It stood as an enormity testifying to Lulu Burton's 30 POUR CORNERS failure. Only one thing had been asked of her. She was to bear children, to become a mother, a Knowles mother, and she had failed. "I wonder if he thought she ought to fill that house," Effa Pepper said once. "No," said Amanda Popp, "one child would have filled it for him if the child had been his son." 32 FOUR CORNERS When she moved away and rented her house the neighborhood, eliminating the Trumbulls and A. Knowles, resented it. The feeling was that she had at last done the most inconsiderate thing she could haye thought of. Mrs. A. Knowles was the most disconsolate person in the neighborhood but no one knew that. No one ever knew what Mrs. Knowles' emotions might be. Lulu Burton, failure and nonentity, had been fasci- nated and thrilled by Sassy Howard. She had spent hours looking out of windows for a glimpse of the regal Sassy coming out in her carriage. Mrs. A. Knowles' deep, passionate thought was: "Oh, if I only had been a beautiful, wicked woman instead of this." She hoped Sassy was or had been wicked. That was her sanctuary of individualism, of rebellion and aspiration. It was her defiance, this terrible, secret, brave wish and she could carry it to church with her, and there was not a start or flicker of protest anywhere within her. Once, as the congregation was standing singing the doxology, as she was standing by A. Knowles in the Knowles' family pew, with A. Knowles still invested with the atmosphere of the offices of superintendent of Sunday school, with the peace of the sermon and service upon everybody and everything, she said it— almost in a whisper. Lulu Burton Knowles was a very weak, insipid and uninspiring woman but she had, for a time, in one purpose, a great strength of will. It was the will to have at least one child. She might have been a very poor and weak mother, even as she was a poor and weak woman, but she had a strong will on this one point. One cannot tell what she might have been as a mother. Her backbone FOUR CORNERS 33 might have turned to iron with a sense of final and triumphal accomplishment and she might have re- duced even Knowles to subjection. But she had no chance. Always—for her—the sense of futility, of useless-, ness. She was misfit, misformed, unfortunate, if not. cursed. Marriage was an irretrievable step. The town did not know anything of divorce. It was not thought of. Adultery was possible. Bigamy might be. But divorce was unthinkable. Lulu Burton Knowles might willingly have re- leased her husband to another woman—she was so ashamed of her own failure—but it never occurred to her—or even to him—that this was legally possible. If there had been a recognized convention of divorce a third of the families in the neighborhood might have been dissolved—would have been if in husband and wife there had been enough spirit to overcome inertia; sufficient will behind desire. Even Knowles, headstrong and stubbornly egotistic as he was, never had considered that even for a man of his wealth, there was a way of escape from this woman and a way to the legalized union with another. The community sentiment, even in his case, was more powerful than the law. The letter of the mar- riage sacrament was its spirit so far as the indissolu- bility of the union was concerned. That was because the community knew nothing of particular and selec- tive and abiding companionship in marriage but knew marriage merely conventionally. Young people got married because each sex wanted its complement and both man and woman needed a home. Once done it was not to be mended except by death. There was no understanding of mismating. It was all the same. FOUR CORNERS 35 nursery, a little bed, a carriage, all the little clothes needed—she made some of them herself—boots, wraps, blankets and even some toys. She was almost deliri- ous at times with happiness. She engaged a nurse for the first month. She read everything she could on the care of babies. When all was ready she had the nurse bring the child to the house and she prepared to give Knowles an astonish- ment which would enrich his life and make them both as happy as people were at the end of fairy tales. A. Knowles came home to his moment of wonder- ful awakening. Lulu had the baby in a basket in the living room. In a vicarious maternalism she was sitting beside the basket knitting little socks. The nurse sat quietly behind the curtains of a door to another room. The baby was asleep. The nurse was waiting and Lulu was palpitating but exquisitely happy and confident. 4 Knowles came home. He hung up his hat. He proceeded through the formula of his ordinary home coming. He then entered the living room, shook out the newspaper he had carried with him and sat down to read. Lulu did not say anything but continued to knit. Presently the baby stirred, raised its hands and gave a little cry. Knowles looked over the edge of his paper. "What was that?" he asked. "What was what, dear?" asked Mrs. Knowles, de- laying the revelation. "I thought I heard something," he said. "Isn't dinner late?" "I don't think so." "I think it is," he said looking at his watch, "five 36 FOUR CORNERS minutes late. Speak to them about it. I don't like it and it isn't necessary." He was wholly back behind his paper again and again the baby stirred restlessly and this time gave a real cry. Knowles dropped his paper and started up. For the first time he saw the basket and its occu- pant. He jumped to his feet with his eyes blazing. "What is that?" he asked. "A baby, for us," said Lulu, sacramentally. "A what!" he exclaimed. "A baby for us," she said, her aspect of confidence fading under a start of alarm. "Come look at it, Alfred." The blow to him was so severe that it chilled and steeled his astonishment. He stood ten feet away from the basket. "What is it doing here?" he asked. "I got it for us—to love and raise," said Lulu, all her confidence gone. Knowles stood quite still until he could talk with- out emotion. Then he said: "I will not wait for dinner. I will be gone for three hours. When I come back I shall expect to find this child removed." "Alfred!" Lulu cried, "won't you come look at him? I love him, Alfred! Come look at him!" Knowles was in the doorway. "I will come back in three hours," he said. "That will give you enough time." It was after this that Lulu Burton Knowles was thought to be crazy for a while in the big house. CHAPTER VI ACTIVELY and passively Timothy Pusey in his manner of life, in his appearance haa made himself a malignant mystery to the greater part of the neighborhood. Effa Pepper said it was scandalous, the heathen ways of the house across the street, with foreigners in it and a man who pretended to fit spectacles and had his office at home. "If he has a business," said Effa to Amanda Popp, "why doesn't he go downtown and run it? There's more in all this than we know." "We don't know anything," Amanda suggested. "That's just it," said Effa, "but that's not saying I can't find out." The brass plate on the gate post outraged the com- munity. Its last line was the final bit of artistry in Timothy's wholly unconscious offense against the community: "Business call—three rings." Did that not announce that the Pusey family de- sired the privilege of distinguishing between a busi- ness and a personal call? Effa Pepper tried the three rings soon after the plate had been put up. Timothy came to the gate and unbarred it, but seeing that his business visitor was Mrs. Pepper he stood smilingly but uncompromisingly in the way. 37 38 FOUR CORNERS He wore a long blue dressing gown and a red fez. "A positive heathen," Effa said afterwards. All she got was a glimpse of the gardens beyond Timothy's obstructing figure—flowers had been Sassy Howard's passion and already some one in the Pusey family was giving them loving care—but it was only a glimpse. The strange figure of Timothy almost completely filled the eye. "Good morning," he said, pleasantly, but in such a manner that Effa found it a peremptory demand to know her purpose. All of Effa's diplomacy and shrewdness failed her and she felt timid, which was a new sensation for her. "My eyes have been giving me some trouble of late," she said, "especially when I try to do drawn work, and I suppose my spectacles are wrong. You being here in the neighborhood I thought I'd come to you." "Your eyes are too sharp to need my attention," said Timothy still smiling, "or for me to want you to give me any." Then he closed and barred the gate. It was an unwise thing for Timothy to do unless the alternative of admitting Effa to the premises, for some reason not disclosed, were worse. Mr. Pusey thought it was. He already knew Effa and her associates, largely from knowing their kind, well enough to know that their attentions were dangerous. He accepted their enmity. "I was speechless," Effa told Mrs. Popp. She was indeed. She was so infuriated that her hands trembled and her bonnet shook on her head. Mr. Pusey might better have fallen among sav- ages. Innocent and amiable as he was he was inex- plicable and he was in a community in which each member, with a few exceptions to be noted, had little FOUR CORNERS 39 to do except consider his and her own virtues against a background of other people's shortcomings. Mr. Pusey and his family were behind the wall. "There is something hidden there," said Effa Pepper. "Of course they didn't build it," Mrs. Popp sug- gested. "Has any one ever seen Mrs. Pusey?" Effa in- quired. "No, they haven't," said Amanda. "There is a Mrs. Pusey," said Effa. "Both the butcher boy and the grocer boy say so. But no one ever has seen her." "How do you know it is Mrs. Pusey?" Amanda asked. "I've thought of that," said Effa. "That would be a terrible thing right in this neighborhood. We'd have to do something about it." Mr. Pusey was right as to the sharpness of Effa's eyes. They and her ears and her tongue were sharp but in this case they did not satisfy her. She sat in her bay window looking out between the lace cur- tains, and the high brick wall tormented her. People came to the Puseys' gate and pulled the bell three times—generally it was three times as Effa Pepper could tell by the motion of their elbows— but sometimes only once or twice. They interested her but they did not satisfy her. The dormer windows fascinated her. They might, if one looked sharp enough, reveal something, a woman's face framed in one of them. Ordinarily Mrs. Pepper spent pennies as other people might spend dollars, and probably all that need be said of her agitation regarding the dormer windows is that after the Puseys had been in Sassy 40 FOUR CORNERS Howard's house two months—during which time Mrs. Pusey had not been seen, Mrs. Pepper went down town to buy binoculars. She did not flinch when she learned they would cost twenty-five dollars. She had persuaded herself that it was her duty to find out what she could of the Puseys. It also was the most brilliant adventure in her art of living, the most decoration she ever had given her life. "Do you know a man named Pusey who has moved here?" she asked the dealer who sold her the glasses. "He's in a way in your line of business." "I know of him in a fashion," said the dealer. "He is one of the most distinguished amateur dis- coverers of comets and observers of variable stars. I have seen his notes in Popular Astronomy. There are several comets named after him. He is a very distinguished man, I believe, in his way. That's all I know about him." To Mrs. Pepper astronomy was astrology and a man who had a comet named after him might as well be riding it. The blue dressing robe and the red fez got new significance. Effa never had such an adventure in the clandestine as she had with the binoculars looking at the dormer windows between her own lace curtains. Samuel could not detect her. No one knew what she was doing. The secrecy of her experience was intoxi-, eating. CHAPTER VII WHEN the neighborhood had become sufficiently- interested in the mysteries, oddities and im- puted malignancies of the Puseys it did not so much resent their taking the place of Sassy Howard. They at least had the virtue of making comment and de- serving it. Mr. Pusey had not given much thought to the ani- mosities of the neighborhood. He knew how to pro- tect his privacy. He knew enough of human beings to know that he did not want Effa Pepper, Amanda Popp and their sisterhood within the walls of his garden or his house. He was glad he had a wall and that he could stand in his gateway and refuse entrance if he wanted to do so. He thought that if he went innocently and honestly about his business, the neighborhood would go more or less innocently and honestly about its business. He did not want to be disliked but he could not be gregarious. . He had a particular purpose in entering the neigh- borhood. It was one deeply rooted in him but* it was to be worked out quietly and when he had ac- complished what he wanted to accomplish he would go away. Any sane person, knowing his purpose, would have felt apprehension for him, but he did not have any apprehensions for himself. He had the courage and also the folly of justness and innocence. He could evolve a complex drama 41 42 FOUR CORNERS out of his simplicity. A simple person may be a very terrible tragedian in the very incompleteness of his thinking through to consequences and in the very intensity with which one idea may dominate him. Timothy Pusey did not know that when he shut the gate in Effa Pepper's face he started a real purpose to injure him. Effa needed activity. As an acid she wanted some- thing upon which to work. Timothy Pusey made himself that necessary something. Effa had found the weak spot in the Pusey metal instantly. There was—and there was not—a Mrs. Pusey. The neighborhood now understood that, when the family moved in, only the furniture and the servants had been seen. The servants were Italians, man and wife, gardener and cook. Mr. Pusey and whatever more there might be in the family had moved in at night. No woman ever was seen except the Italian cook and yet Mrs. Pepper knew another woman was in the house. She knew it from questioning the boys who occasionally made deliveries there. They had riot seen Mrs. Pusey but they had overheard references to her. She knew it from the promptings of her own conjectures and they told her that the reason Mr. Pusey wanted a house with walls, the reason he closed the gate and the reason the mysterious woman was not seen was be- cause he had come to a small town with an illicit arrangement. Effa's imagination was a curiously corrupted rudi- ment of a defeated physiology. It imagined vain things. By intimation, at first, she put the neighborhood scenting along this trail. It was done with art. It FOUR CORNERS 43 was by innuendo, suggestion and implication. It started imagination and conjecture. Susceptible virgins found, from parts of conversa- tion they inadvertently were permitted to overhear, that the gray walls of the Pusey place were turning purple. Matrons found that there was a thrill in their righteousness and that their fancy turned towards the walls as their holiness found them re- pulsive. Effa Pepper probably never did so painstaking a bit of work at any other time. She was covert and bold, implicatory and direct, suggestive and descrip- tive, a little bit too little and a great deal too much— until she had created a situation of which the sober minded citizens of the neighborhood, the heads of families and the pillars of the church found them- selves obliged to take a discreet and embarrassed cognizance. The feminine pressure upon them, growing from Effa Pepper's suggestion, was with the superficial purpose of correcting any obliquity of morals. The real purpose was to enjoy, if possible, a moral shock. It needed two months of Effa's time to produce a condition which demanded an overt act. All this time the Pusey household helped her by its reticences, its ambiguity and its mystery, its provo- cative silences and its sinister innocence. Effa finally triumphed and a church committee was selected to learn what was to be learned of the Pusey manner of life. The neighborhood went witch hunting. One eve- ning in October Mr. Pusey was in the garden when he heard two rings at his gate. CHAPTEE VIII TIMOTHY was resting, leaning forward on a spade. He had been cultivating the earth around the shrubbery preparing to mulch it with dead leaves. It was their first autumn in the garden which was now in the glory of its coloring of maple and oak. Timothy was about to go into the house and, as he stood looking about him at the pensive twilight beauty and becoming sensitive to the evening chill, he thought that, with a quiet night and a cloudless sky, the first frost would surely come and they probably had seen the last of their brave dahlias and cosmos. He was sorry for that. He humanized everything, animal or vegetable, if it were beautiful, or even droll, as is a mouse. His impulse was to get sack- ing and cover up as many flowers as possible. The thought of a dahlia with its queenly head erect wait- ing courageously but helplessly for the frost pained him. "Neurotic, neurotic," he said to himself of himself, and was about to go towards the house when he heard the two rings at the gate. He carried his spade with him as he went to see his callers. His costume would have caused Effa Pepper to have exclaimed, afterwards, to Amanda Popp, "My land, you ought to have seen what the man had on," but it would not have thrown her into fears of the black arts. It consisted of corduroy 44 FOUR CORNERS 45 trousers, very baggy to the boot tops, heavy boots, a blue flannel shirt and a Tam o' Shanter hat. At the gate Mr. Pusey found A. Knowles, Mr. Smiley and Joe King, all elders and indicating, by a peculiar rigidity of expression and fixity of eye, that they were laymen engaged in ecclesiastical duty at a week day moment when their ordinary custom was to be worldly. Mr. King was Mr. Knowles' assistant in the Sunday school and was esteemed for a faculty of adding to a solemn address just enough of the salt of wit to keep his auditors reminded comfortably that no mat- ter how devious their present or dubious their here- after they were all human after all. Irreverent young people emphasized Mr. King's first name in speaking it. Timothy Pusey looked at his visitors and, with hardly perceptible hesitation, opened the gate. "Will you come in, gentlemen?" he asked. The three elders looked at each other as if this invitation, to obtain which was the necessary pre- liminary of their mission, were wholly unexpected and required common deliberation. Then they sol- emnly bowed their heads and entered, Mr. Pusey standing by the open gate as they filed in. Mr. Smiley and Mr. King, sober men with a duty as they knew they had, found that virtue does not always seem to rest upon its own foundation. They began to wonder what they were doing there. They wondered even more what A. Knowles was doing there. They had been astonished when he expressed a willingness to be one of a committee of three to make a domiciliary call upon Timothy Pusey. Mr. Knowles was astonished at himself but he knew what had impelled him. He seemed, in a hard, 46 FOUR CORNERS cold aloofness to be unobservant when he was on the street but he was unusually alert in perception. A glance which did not even require the raising or the turning of the head gave him more details than the neighborhood generally got in one of its long frank stares. Mr. Pusey was not wholly a recluse. No one had seen Mrs. Pusey but Timothy occasionally was on the street. A. Knowles had seen him and he wanted to know where he had seen him before. A. Knowles was certain he had seen this new- comer before but the conviction was independent of any recollection of when or where. Mr. Pusey's face meant something to him and yet it meant nothing to him. At first the passive resistance which recollec- tion offered conviction was merely perplexing, but as A. Knowles' rolls of concepts unrolled in fruitless attempts to find the beginning of a record back to that face he progressed from perplexity to annoyance and irritation. He was impatient when he met obstacles and his curiosity became impelling. Therefore he astonished the elders by his willingness to be one of the committee upon a visit which might be very embarrassing. A. Knowles thought himself beyond embarrassment. That was something which he was accustomed to finding in other people. He never was embarrassed. Mr. Smiley and Mr. King had been willing to serve. It was not only a duty: it would be an experience. And they thought their errand would not get them further than the gate. When Mr. Pusey so promptly and pleasantly opened it they felt as if, spiritually, they had fallen in. They found that they did not have either their thoughts or words in order. Effa Pepper, sitting in her bay window, had seen FOUR CORNERS 47 the three strong men of the church stop at the gate and, with a pulse beat measurably quickened, she had waited until Timothy Pusey opened it. Then she sud- denly exclaimed: "As I live they are going in!" Old Samuel, sitting in his rocking chair by the west window through which still showed colors he could not see, apparently was doing the only thing he could do perfectly, sleeping; but he was only dozing and he heard Effa's exclamation and he heard her tem- pestuous rush to the kitchen on her way across the garden to Amanda Popp. Timothy Pusey led his callers towards a large door under a stone arch which carried outside stairs on each side of the floor above. "Shall we go in the library?" he asked. "There is a fire there. I made it because the night promises to be chilly." Few people in the neighborhood ever had been in the gardens or in the house. A growing uneasiness made Mr. Smiley and Mr. King too embarrassed to look about them. They had a confused picture of beauty they could not have appreciated if they really had seen it, and when later at night Mrs. Smiley and Mrs. King, palpitating with curiosity, asked eagerly, "What did it look like?" both Mr. Smiley and Mr. King said helplessly, "I don't know." Mrs. A. Knowles did not ask any questions because she never asked any questions of A. Knowles. He was not interested in Sassy Howard's house. He had one of his own. He was interested in Timothy Pusey. "I'll not light a lamp just yet," said Timothy Pusey, "unless you gentlemen think it is too dark. The fire in the grate makes a cozy light for this time of the evening. Find chairs by the fire. This great room 48 FOUR CORNERS for a library is wonderful and it seems as if it ought to be down here on the ground floor with the long windows looking out into the gardens. A bit damp for books though. We have to have a fire a great deal of the time except in very dry weather. But you often have to pay for something that is charming." A. Knowles sat in a great armchair at right angles to the fire. Back of him were deep shadows. The firelight illumined part of his strong, unsmiling face. The other two were seated in front of the fire. Mr. Pusey stood in the shadow. He had done his best to make his callers feel at ease. Apparently they had a mission. He was ready for them to speak. They evidently were not. He took up the burden again. "I have been much interested in your house, Mr. Knowles," he said. He was quite truthful—interested in trying to find, for his own satisfaction, a possible reason for it. "We built it years ago, my father and I," said A. Knowles. "We then expected there would be a family. We had reason to hope that there would be children, of course." "Children are what we build for and work for, of course," said Mr. Smiley, glad to say something, and instantly confused because he had said that in the presence of A. Knowles. Later, the confusion per- sisting into the night, he angrily justified himself with the thought that A. Knowles himself made the first reference. "Mrs. Pusey also is interested," Timothy continued. "She says that certain aspects of it as she can see it from her windows remind her of an Italian villa." "We don't see much of Mrs. Pusey," said Mr. King with a casual lightness which he hoped was as casual FOUR CORNERS 49 and light as he intended it to be. That was as close to the mission as the committee got. "No," said Mr. Pusey. "I'm afraid you have not seen anything of her and I am sure we are both sorry." Mr. Pusey then astonished the three by a frank- ness which seemed to come directly from a guileless nature. "Gentlemen," he said, "I appreciate how strange and even forbidding our appearance in the neighbor- hood may be. So I am going to say this because if there is any neighborhood request you have to make we want you to feel free to make it. Mrs. Pusey re- mains in seclusion on her doctor's orders. She has air and exercise in the garden but does not attempt any other activity. I am afraid I am more inclined to just what we have here than maybe I ought to be." Mr. Pusey smiled as if he deprecated an accusation he brought against himself. "But when the children are home they will find a place, we think, in the neighborhood. We hope so. It would not be good for them to lead exactly the lives their parents do." "You have children?" asked Mr. Knowles with the purpose of asking how many. "Don and Dorothy," said Mr. Pusey. "They are twins." If by this time the elders had a mission Mr. Smiley and Mr. King did not know what it was. The fire- light as it revealed the face of A. Knowles revealed that he did not care what the mission was, how it came out or how Mr. Smiley and Mr. King came out of it. He wanted Mr. Pusey to come out of the shad- ows. He wanted to see if he could make conviction and recollection meet. Mr. Smiley and Mr. King thought Mr. Pusey was SO FOUR CORNERS entitled to an explanation of their presence. Mr. Knowles habitually knew that his presence explained itself. "The fact is, Mr. Pusey," said Mr. King in an in- spiration which both Mr. Smiley and Mr. Knowles mistrusted, "I suppose we look a good deal like a committee." "I confess that is what I thought you were when I saw you at the gate," said Timothy Pusey, smiling again. "As we are," said A. Knowles, taking control from the uncertain and mistrusted Mr. King. "We will save your time and get to the point. The town is in urgent need of a new hospital. We are soliciting funds in this neighborhood. We have come to you. I can present the case to you or leave it to your own acumen." For the first time Smiley and King seemed to relax and be almost happy. "You are safe in leaving it to me," said Mr. Pusey. "I'll be as brief as you have been. If you have the entire neighborhood to see time will be valuable. My means are not very large, considering the demands upon them. Two children to educate, you know. If I said $100 would it be fair?" "Excellent," Mr. King exclaimed. Another inspira- tion had come to Mr. King. He was afraid Mr. Pusey might make it more. "Whatever you feel you can make it," said A. Knowles. "We'll say a hundred. I'll write a check now and then will have the matter complete. I'll light the read- ing lamp and then I'll write a check." The eyes of A. Knowles followed the movements of Timothy Pusey, who lighted the lamp and adjusted the wick for a FOUR CORNERS 51 moment. Then straightening up he looked at A. Knowles, now in full light. "Fve been wondering," he said, "if I have not met you before, somewhere and somehow. I was wonder- ing as I stood looking at you in the firelight." Mr. Knowles eyes gave an almost fierce denial. "I hardly think so," he said, his voice and his eyes in two separate moods. "Such a thing is always pos- sible." "And one is always liable to be mistaken," said Timothy Pusey, taking his check book from the table drawer and sitting down to write. "It was Milan that occurred to me. It was when we were in Italy. That's the connection of ideas. So I agree with you. I hardly think so. I know the association was with Milan." "You said we," Mr. Knowles suggested. "I meant Mrs. Pusey and I," said Timothy. "I was studying at the observatory. I met Mrs. Pusey in Milan. She had been studying music." As Mr. Pusey blotted the check, Mr. King and Mr. Smiley arose. Mr. Knowles did likewise. "I made it payable to you," said Timothy handing the check to Knowles. "Quite right. Thank you—and good night." Mr. Pusey showed his callers to the door. "Just lift the catch of the gate," he called after them. "I'll be out later to lock it." As the gate swung closed behind the three, A. Knowles said good night and walked across the street to his home. Smiley and King watched him go. "I consider him as much to blame as we were and decidedly less uncomfortable," said Smiley. "We have been fools," said King. "Now what about this hospital?" 52 FOUR CORNERS "Knowles will see that it is built and get all the credit for it." "And it will cost yon and me at least $100," said Mr. King. Fifteen minutes after Mr. Pusey's callers had de- parted his gate bell rang again. CHAPTER IX EFFA PEPPER, who had hurried through the garden gate to her neighbor Amanda Popp as soon as she saw the elders admitted within the walls by Timothy Pusey, had reached the point of saying for the tenth time that she had nothing on her con- science in the matter, that if she had anything to do with it she had acted as a Christian woman should. "As you know, Amanda, I merely expressed my doubts and my opinions. A person necessarily has doubts when there is supposed to be a wife and no wife is seen. There is a woman living in that house and if she is Mrs. Pusey why don't we see her? That is what I said and it is what I say now." "It is what we all said," Amanda added. "There was nothing personal in the matter," Effa continued. "If it had been Pontius Pilate or George Washington I would have acted in the same way. Right is right and wrong is wrong. People who do not stand up for the right, side with the wrong." "Besides, it's a very simple matter," Amanda Popp suggested. "The men simply go there to look about and to inquire. They can tell a Christian home when they see one." The ladies as they talked watched the Pusey wall. They did not have nearly as good a view as from Effa's bay window, none at all of the gate itself, but they could see whatever movement there was in or 53 FOUR CORNERS 55 King and yesterday when I sent Smith's boy over to her to borrow an extra wash boiler she told him to come back and say she was afraid it wasn't clean enough. I won't set foot in her house until she apolo- gizes." "That's a nuisance," said Amanda, "because we ought to know. You could go over to say that you never told Mrs. Kline what you did." Effa was tempted by this suggestion but her pride was stronger than her curiosity. "We'll have to wait until to-morrow and see Mrs. Smiley," she said. She crossed back through the garden, angry and disappointed. She entered the dark kitchen and lighted the kitchen lamp. Then she went into the sitting room and lighted the lamp there. She sat a while in her rocking-chair in the bay window looking at the Pusey gate in the flickering light of the corner light. She was nervously angry at the causes which tormented her curiosity. With an impatient gesture of disgust she got up and faced the west window by which she had left Samuel sitting. She had not looked at him when she lighted the lamp on the table. He was not in his chair. His bedroom was off the sitting room. She looked in there. He had not gone to bed. Neither of them went into the parlor frequently but she took a lamp and looked in there. The cat was out but she addressed the abstract idea of cat, calling loudly: "Pound, where's father?" If Samuel were within hearing he would reply: "Pound, tell her I'm on the kitchen porch"—or wherever he was. There was no answer. The situation was plain. The ornery old man had not been asleep but had 56 FOUR CORNERS taken advantage of her absence to go out in the garden again and was lost. She was angry enough to allow him to suffer the consequences—remain there all night if he were too stubborn to call for help—but, not car- ing what happened to him, she cared a great deal what the neighborhood said of her. She went to the kitchen door and shrieked across to Amanda Popp: "Amanda! Amanda! Father's lost in the garden again!" Mrs. Popp heard her and presently came out with a lantern. Amanda, usually, was amiable and good natured in this search but to-night she too was nerv- ously angry and disappointed and she in part blamed Effa's copper kettle and consequently Effa, and even Samuel was within the range of her displeasure. She said something about wishing that the old fool would get his fill of the garden for once and that it would serve him right if he were lost in it for a week, but she hunted, with the lantern, in all the places which generally might catch and detain Samuel and she called him. Effa stood on the kitchen porch and did not take any part in the search. She could see the lantern moving from bush to bush and covert to covert. Amanda came back to the porch by way of the grape arbor. "Fm beat," she said. "He isn't in the garden. I've hunted and called and hunted and called." "Maybe he tripped over something and fell and stunned himself," Effa said. "He'll do that some day." Her tone suggested that she would not care if he did—or had. "I'm certain he's not in the garden, dead or alive. FOUR CORNERS 57 I've been over that garden too many times not to know when he's in it and when he's not. He must be in the house." "He isn't in the house—unless he's in the cellar. Bring the lantern and we'll look there." Samuel was not in the cellar. "I'm beat," said Effa. "He must have gone out on the street and if we don't find him some neighbor will be finding him and bringing him home. That's the worst thing he could do to me in his peskiness." Effa did not give Samuel enough credit for in- spiration. He had done a much worse thing as the two ladies, standing by the bay window, at that moment perceived. Samuel came out of the Pusey gate on the arm of Timothy-Pusey. They came slowly across the street. Timothy Pusey was escorting Samuel home. Effa could not speak but Providence allowed her protective instincts to work. She blew out the lamp in the sitting room. She put Amanda's lantern in the bedroom and closed the door. She locked the side door, ran into the kitchen, blew out that light, locked the kitchen door and came back to Amanda whom she had left in the darkness. As the ladies watched, the two men came up the walk to the sitting-room porch. Samuel could be heard talking. "Is there a light lit?" the women heard him ask. "No, there isn't," said Timothy Pusey. "Then she isn't home yet and she won't know I'm gone. I'll just go in and sit down." "She doesn't leave you in a dark house, does she?" Mr. Pusey asked. "You know it doesn't make any difference to me," said Samuel. 58 POUR CORNERS "That's true. I hadn't thought of that. Maybe it's even safer. You won't knock a lighted lamp over." "I never knocked anything over in my life," said Samuel. "I can go anywhere. I went over to your house as clever as any one could even if he had six eyes." "The door's locked," said Mr. Pusey who had tried to open it. "Then she's been home and gone somewhere again," said Samuel. "I'll just set here on the porch and wait 'till she comes back. She may be over getting Mrs. Popp to hunt for me in the garden. They think I get lost in the garden. But I'll just set here and won't bother you any more and I'm certainly much obliged to you." "If you are sure it is all right for you to be alone." "Yes, it's all right. She'll be home pretty soon. I knew I could find my way over to you." Both Effa and Amanda, sitting in the dark, knew, from knowledge of Samuel's method of conversation with a person to whom he unexpectedly had an op- portunity to talk, that this was the second or third time he was going over the same ground. "I know a great many things they think I don't, I don't see anything but I hear a great deal and I think a great deal. I knew what those three men were doing at your gate. I knew they were there and when she went rushing over to Mrs. Popps I knew you had let them in. I knew it all grew out of her talk. I hate that kind of talk. It makes trouble and bad feelings and causes a lot of seriousness." "Yes, that's true," said Mr. Pusey who wanted to cease being the cause of Samuel's candor, who was reluctant to leave the old man, who did not want Effa FOUR CORNERS 61 Effa and Amanda had been standing quietly and silently. Mrs. Popp would go away quietly, when Samuel had disposed of himself, either in his chair or in his bedroom. When he spoke to the lady whom he could neither see nor hear, to a person he had no reason to believe or suspect was in the room, Effa and Amanda looked at each other with a start of real alarm. Was the old man uncanny? How did he know Mrs. Popp was there? He didn't. He had no idea she was there. He had an impulse to say something to some one after his adventure and its success. Mrs. Popp, in astonishment, said: "Good night, Mr. Pepper," and then departed, but she heard the old man chuckle as she went through the kitchen. In the morning the world did not seem awry to Effa, although she knew her friend Amanda would tell about the binoculars. Effa would have told if Amanda had been caught using them. Amanda also would tell of Samuel's visit to the Puseys. Amanda was a valuable budget of news for any family into whose home she might go in the next forty-eight hours. Effa wished she might talk to Samuel. There was a great deal she could say to him. She watched him as he ate his oatmeal. Samuel tried to be careful but he was not always successful in keeping cream out of his beard. An active loathing arose within Effa. She wondered if hitting him with something could proper- ly be considered as speaking to him. Then her mind turned to brighter things. They were sure to-day to have the account of the domiciliary visit, by chapter and verse. The Puseys probably had received notice to leave the neighborhood. Effa felt the glow and thrill of a crusader. 62 FOUR CORNERS Before she had her housework done Mrs. Popp came through the garden. Samuel, after breakfast, had gone out to sit on a bench under a plum tree. Near by were sun flowers and helianthus heavy with black seeds. Goldfinches fluttered from feast to feast. Chickadees, in for the winter, were in the trees, the October sun was gloriously warm and Samuel was happy. He was not unperceptive in his blindness and infirmities. He knew nearly all the bird notes and the outdoors swelled in song about him. He heard the garden gate open and called out: "Good morning, Mrs. Popp." She gave him good morning. He was the happier for this intimation of his little triumph of the night before. She still was conscious of discomfiture. When she was in the kitchen, Effa closed the door. "I think he's out of ear shot," she said, "but I'll never even trust him to be blind again." "I went over to Mrs. Smiley's this morning," said Amanda. "I knew you would," said Effa. Reproach was im- plied. "I had borrowed some coffee. I had to take it back." The defense was accepted for what it was worth, which was nothing. Minor emotions gave way to the powerful one of a devouring curiosity. Effa sat down and twisted her apron about her hands. It is doubtful if she would have moved just then if the house had caught fire. "I also went to the Kings'," Amanda continued, also sitting down comfortably. "You can nearly always borrow things from me," Effa suggested. "We keep pretty well stocked up." "I had promised Mrs. King my recipe for devil's food," said Mrs. Popp. FOUR CORNERS 63 "They wanted it for breakfast," said Mrs. Pepper. "It beats all," said her friend, unoffended, being satisfied with her own alertness. "I can't make head or tail of it. Mrs. Smiley and Mrs. King are just as much puzzled. They can't learn anything from their men folks, except that the men are mad. Mrs. Smiley says that Smiley looks just like he does when some one finds a mistake in a hardware bill and proves it on him." "What are they mad about?" "About going there. They say they have been made fools of and it's going to cost them money. There's talk of a new hospital. That's about all they did talk about at Pusey's. Mr. Pusey gave a hundred dollars down and Smiley says of course he and King can't do less. King says that that settles Mrs. King's trip east to her parents and she's mad. I don't know what they need a new hospital for but A. Knowles started the talk and they all got caught. Mrs. King says it would be a godsend to the neighborhood if Mrs. Pepper were blind and dumb." Mrs. Popp gave her friend that quotation with rel- ish. Effa's face at first was a revelation of confusion which gave way to anger and determination. So it was war. Well, she was a veteran and it was not the first time she had her back against the wall. First of all she would make Mrs. King wear that copper kettle as a bonnet. "A. Knowles is dreadfully mad, too," Amanda con- tinued. She was happy. The scandal had come from Effa, not from her. "It seems that Mrs. Pusey is an invalid—and there are two children." Mrs. Pepper said nothing. She was planning her campaign. Mrs. Popp smiled amiably. She had been 64 FOUR CORNERS disappointed at first but she had poisoned her friend's morning and life was enjoyable. "I must be running back now," she said. "I've got to put up some pickle. If you hear anything more come over." As she closed the kitchen door she outgeneraled Samuel by calling: "Good by, Mr. Pepper." Effa remained seated and continued to think. CHAPTER XI OCCASIONALLY Effa called on Mrs. A. Knowles. She did it to assert a relationship to the resi- dence, to maintain a connection with a place so con- spicuous in the neighborhood. It was in the neigh- borhood and Effa did not want it to grow in her imagination as something alien, aloof and forbidding. She tied herself to it by the occasional visits. After Amanda had gone back home and after Effa had thought for a time she decided to make one of these occasional calls. Mrs. Popp had not obtained any information of value from Mrs. Smiley and Mrs. King. Something had come of the domiciliary visit. The hospital idea was inexplicable. Mrs. Knowles seldom knew anything and less often seemed to care to know anything, but the situation demanded effort and nothing more promising was sug- gested just then. When Effa went to call on Mrs. Knowles she always took something of her own preserving or pickling. That always was the occasion of the occasional visit. Effa had talent for preserving and pickling. Three generations of housewives handling fruit and flesh were back of her own experience, useful to her by tradition and written recipe. There were few things from the pumpkin to the pig that she did not know how to store, put in jars, smoke or put in brine. It is a domestic art, passing as the 65 66 FOUR CORNERS domestic art of the spinning wheel and the loom has passed. Collectivism in great masses destroys the primitive tribal habits and they survive only in persons of extraordinary activity or eccentricity or isolation or independence or domestic artistry. Preserving and vegetable pickling will be the last to go. Flesh pickling and smoking have gone, with the wheel and the loom. Effa had a smoke house and brine vats. She had a profusion of fruits and berries in the garden. Every year she filled the cellar with fruits in jars, cider in kegs, carrots in sand, potatoes and cabbages in the bin. The parsnips were left to winter and have the fiber softened and the sugar enriched by freezing. These jovial associations with a jocund richness of nature, robust with the pig and cabbage, sweet and luscious with the strawberries and raspberries, tart with the damson plums, had not left an imprint on Effa's nature. She was employed in them as a marble cutter upon a statue in the conception of which he has had no part and in the meaning of which he has no interest. When Effa decided to pay Mrs. Knowles a visit she had then to select the occasion. If it had been a month later she would have selected her Christmas fruit cake which had been ripening for a month but which, at this time, must ripen for another month before it could be given as a present—Effa made few presents and made them from policy. If it had been a month earlier she would have selected her strawberry and pieplant jam, a delicious mixture of natural sweets in the composition of which she was an artist. It was an awkward season for gifts of a domestic FOUR CORNERS 67 art—too late for the natural fruits or early preserves —too early for the contributions which might happily be taken out of the cellar in January or February. Effa decided that a quart jar of her damson plums would be the most suitable occasion for her occasional visit and with it she went across the street. Familiarity never gave her a complete escape from the feeling of trepidation and discomfort which the Knowles residence imposed on her. It seemed to her so vast, towered above her, represented reachs of luxu- rious and alien inutility. What gave her confidence was the knowledge that after the effort of resolution had carried her up the walk to the door, had enabled her to ring the bell and face the maid, she would find in Mrs. A. Knowles a feeble and gratified lady so helpless in her futility that Effa would instantly know that she had the millions and that Mrs. A. Knowles was an infirm, pitiful pauper to whom she had carried a delicacy. Effa had a woman's sex candor of thought. She thought that A. Knowles ought to have had a wife of the brood mare type. Breeding was his necessity. He could not have been happy with a woman of intel- lect. Effa did not know what an intellect was but if some one had told her of women who had charm, mind, grace and beauty she would have said that such a woman would not have met the needs of the Knowles residence. She could have picked the woman. That woman would be capable of bearing the Knowles children and wearing the Knowles diamonds. If A. Knowles had his way both tasks would require strength. He did not have his way. He had Mrs. Knowles. She had borne no children. She wore merely a cameo on a chain around her neck. As soon as Effa got by 0 ."- NEW \w SOCIETY i ,;■'."..,. 68 FOUR CORNERS the door and the maid and saw Mrs. A. Knowles she was rid of her perturbation. Lulu Burton Knowles in her loneliness, in her fail- ure and hopelessness and incompetence, was glad to see any one. She was glad to see Effa. "Oh, I was in hope it was about time you were com- ing over," she said. "I have been intending to go to see you but you know there is so much to do and Mr. Knowles is so anxious that I attend to all the house and it is really so big for such a small family. It was nice of you to come." Mrs. Knowles led Effa into a bay window where there were geraniums, English ivy and two rocking- chairs. It was the lonesome lady's only comfortable spot downstairs. The windows looked out upon the corners. "I can't sit down, only for a minute," said Effa, sitting down to remain two hours if necessary. "I just came because I thought you might like a taste of the damson preserve. I made it tart like you like it." The ladies talked. Mrs. Knowles had no reticences, no strategy, no reserve, had nothing to get but a modi- fication or lifting of her lonesome unhappiness. Effa had purpose and determination. She was a trout fisher, not wading the stream, but casting from the bank, stepping lightly at the edge of the bog so as not by the jarring of the bank to alarm the trout. All the information she got was brief, a small catch for so much careful angling. "I don't know what they went over for," said Mrs. Knowles, smoothing her dress over her knees as was her tremulous habit, "but Mr. Knowles seemed quite disturbed of mind when he came home. He did not even take his crackers and milk. He always takes FOUR CORNERS 71 Beatrice Trumbull and Norman passed them on the street one early evening of a day which had been clear and cold. Don and Dorothy were interested in each other. Norman Trumbull observed that her cheeks in their wholesome, youthful flush had some suggestion, near the eyes, of the violet tints which were a subtle part of the winter twilight. Beatrice noticed that his complexion was an olive richness which she related to Italy. She had known a nice young Italian, with an American mother, whose flesh tints had just that alluring suggestion of oak leaves when they get bronze colors, a live bronze and yet not conspicuous. It seems to be dull at a distance and to gain vibrance on approach. "I almost spoke to them," said Beatrice to Norman. "It is outrageous that we shouldn't. They look very nice." Don and Dorothy did this service of conventional- izing their parents and went back to school. The neighborhood accepted the fact that real children had been in and out of the Pusey household, undoubtedly were a part of it and represented a normal life. When they had gone the house retained a sugges- tion of their normality. Mrs. Pusey remained in- visible and Mr. Pusey was seen only occasionally on the street or at the gate and nothing could fully di- vest the house itself of its atmosphere of the inex- plicable. When of a winter night the snow was tossed around the corner of its wall, drifting against it and in through the gate it seemed, with a light in its dormer windows visible and the other lights cut off from sight, to be extraordinarily chill and forbidding. Mrs. Trumbull had hesitated too long in uncer- 72 FOUR CORNERS tainty regarding an observed neighborhood practice to be able to follow an inclination to break down the strangeness of the Pusey family in the neighborhood. She had intended to call, not out of the curiosity, idle or malignant, which affected parts of the community, but in the observance of the social rule of recognizing a newcomer and making acquaintance. Mrs. Trumbull had feared that an application of this social rule was not desired by the Puseys. Her timidity was one of uncertainty regarding her new neighbors' preferences. She did not have the motives which impelled others to want to invade a preferred privacy. Then, with displeasure, she heard the rumors which pleased the neighborhood and she also gained the conviction that for good reasons Mr. and Mrs. Pusey desired to live in seclusion. That determined her. In perfect good nature she decided that so far as her family was concerned their privacy would be unquestioned. When she did admit that she might have been mistaken it was too late to act naturally. She could not make the little neigh- borhood call. Too much significance had collected about it, too many doubts as to its reception had arisen. Mrs. Trumbull passed it aside, along with the unkindly gossip which floated to her. She had missed, in a natural perplexity, the opportunity to do the natural thing as it would have been done by her to the natural newcomer in the neighborhood. One winter evening when the snow was flying about in a wind, comfortably for folk within warm walls, possibly uncomfortably for people long in the streets —the Trumbull family being seated most comfort- ably by the grate fire and by the reading lamps— Beatrice had gone to the windows to pull down the blinds. She loved the shut-in feeling but at the first FOUR CORNERS 73 window she looked across the street at the Pusey walls around the corner of which the snow was swirl- ing. "I've always been sorry we didn't speak to them, Norm," she said. The family group was in that after dinner lassitude of perfect comfort which approxi- mates stupor. Only the mother, always perceptive, heard Beatrice. "Didn't speak to whom?" she asked. "Just to the Pusey boy and girl," said Beatrice as she pulled down the blind and went to the next window. "It would have been a natural thing to do. They looked very nice and we passed them on the side- walk." "I saw them," said Mrs. Trumbull, "and I thought they were nice." "I hate gossip," said Beatrice. "Why?" asked Norman. "Don't be superior," said Beatrice. "You know why any healthy minded person dislikes to view another person through such a miasma." "What is a miasma?" Bob asked. He was playing with a toy stationary engine and trying to run a belt over two spools. Mr. Trumbull, deep and comfortable in his chair by the reading lamp, had looked up to take in all the factors of his satisfaction which appealed to his per- ceptions. "I think it means 'good night'," he said, " 'for every- body in the family under fifteen.'" "I suppose so," said Bob. "Almost everything seems to mean that to me." He put his engine away and went to kiss his father. "Good night, Bob," said Mr. Trumbull, and held the boy for just an instant. 74 FOUR CORNERS "I am not sure that gossip is so bad," said Norman. "It is a healthy corrective. It's an art. It's drama. It is song and tragedy—and a policeman." "It's terrible," said Beatrice. CHAPTER XIII THE small town had its graces. It had grace in spring when the old shrubbery put forth blos- soms and grace in early summer before neglected lawns began to show yellow. It had glorification in autumn and a serenity in winter which serene minds absorbed. Spring may have been, for most of the people, the greatest glory in the four squares of their year, Spring was hope. They had to entertain hope Autumn was serenity. Few ever had found serenity, They aged. It was a formula. Life was not an as tounding Niagara of creation and destruction, circu lar and spiral, rounding and upward. It was a slow walking of the plank. The neighborhood heard from time to time that one who had been within it, had reached the edge, tottered and had gone, with or without a splash. The line re- mained. The lost one might be, in the simple mysti- cism of the neighbors, engaged in the only adventure that could come to them which would justify their conceptions of themselves. Only the dead, by the faith of the living, could justify life. The dead at least were validating the grandilo- quence of life. They were immortal and swinging be- tween spheres. They had the harp and crown. On earth they had nothing and were nothing. The living, knowing this of themselves and believing this of the dead, nevertheless preferred to be stupidly alive rather than ecstatically dead. When they were per- 75 16 FOUR CORNERS ceptive they saw the line advancing and the fore- most disappearing, but it was a formula. When a person died it extinguished the person but it did not obliterate the egotism of the persons who lived to observe and maybe mourn. Spring was an emotional relief to people of such simple, contradictory creeds. They could believe in the, wonders of life after death and hate death in every instinct. They could despise the life in life with every belief and cling to it with every instinct. Their preference was for spring. It was young. Only a few loved autumn. It was mature and robust. Generally it was the young who liked it best. "I really dislike to see the leaves color," said Mrs. Trumbull. "I know they are beautiful but it is decay and it is the death of things I like. I do not want things I like to die. You cannot reconcile a woman and decay. They are inherent enemies." Beatrice and Norman sat with their mother on the front porch, sitting at the edge of the porch with their feet on the turf. "We'll have to put the screens up soon," said Nor- man. "A few more evenings like this and we'll have all the June bugs and midges out." "And mother," said Beatrice, "it isn't because we are afraid of looking old that we won't if we can help it be old. It's because when a woman loses her part in creation she is nothing." "Ever consider doing anything about Trixy, mother?" Norman asked. "She is beginning to think that candor is the only virtue and reticence the only vice." "I use nothing but reticence," said Beatrice. "I don't think she is abnormally candid," said the mother. "I wish she sometimes just wouldn't say 78 FOUR CORNERS "Here cornea the simplest thing in the world," Beat- rice exclaimed, "and isn't it awful! Agnes has gone riding." A young man turned from the street and came up the walk towards the porch. He was Chubby Yates, a plump, earnest diffident boy driven by a great pas- sion to do what nearly killed him each time he did it and to do it every time he thought he could. That divine torture was to call on Agnes Trumbull. Agnes, with her sweetness and kindness, could not hurt even a bore. She was years older than he and she had, as her mother knew, her own love affair with John Pritchard, which was ripening in the quiet devoted fashion in which the neighborhood romances of nice boys and girls did. Sarah Trumbull knew that some night Agnes would come to her and tell her that John Pritchard had asked her to marry him and that she had said she would. Young Yates was a hopeless adorer to whom Agnes was as nice as if he frequently were not the awkward third on the porch with her and John. She loved the quiet, perceptive way in which John accepted a con- dition which she knew he would have avoided. He never had any resentment. He never suggested that Agnes could find a way to avoid Chubby's calls. Both knew there was something fine in the boy's devotion. Agnes was really proud that it had been evoked by her and knew that another girl would get it later. John, serenely in love himself, was sympathetic and well disposed towards Chubby even if young Mr. Yates were a nuisance. Norman shared Beatrice's apprehensions as Chubby came up the walk. If Agnes were there she could and would take her caller aside and be nice to him and have him join any other callers who came to FOUR CORNERS 79 see her, but with her away it was a family disaster. Chubby had a box of candy in his hand. Beatrice arose to meet him. The Trumbull hospitality was all inclusive. Even Beatrice would be cordial and gracious to even Chubby. "Fm very sorry, Oscar," she said, "but Agnes has gone out riding with John Pritchard." "That's all right," said Chubby, in the simplicity of a great emotion, "I thought I'd call on you to- night." He held out the box of candy for Beatrice to take. He said good evening to Mrs. Trumbull and to Nor- man and sat down. He had nothing to say but he had come to call—and on Beatrice. Norman led his mother away. He excused her and himself to Beatrice and Chubby and took her away, leaving the appalled Beatrice and the much more ap- palled Mr. Yates on the porch. Elizabeth was reading in the living room when her mother and brother came in from the porch. Her dumpy little figure was as comfortable as a dumpy little figure could be in its most comfortable posture. "I had to come in, mother," said Norman. "Trixy has been so supercilious about Agnes and now Chubby has transferred his allegiance to her. Trix is just up against it and no escape." Sarah had her son by the arm. "It isn't right to laugh, Norman," she said. "The boy is terribly in earnest about a very earnest thing. He just has not found himself yet." "No, he's found Beatrice. I wonder how she will handle him." "Oscar Yates is a very fine boy," said Elizabeth, almost jumping at them in a sudden passion. "Bee needn't be so superior about it. He's center on the 80 FOUR CORNERS freshman team and he's terribly strong and nice. And people who call him Chubby are horrid." Sarah smiled at her youngest daughter. Elizabeth was chubby herself. "I think he is nice, too," she said, "and I think Oscar is a better name than Chubby, but when you are young you do get names and Oscar does not mind being called Chubby. He'll grow back into Oscar again." "He will," said Norman teasing, "although why any one should want to I don't know." "Your name is not so much," said the girl. "His is just as nice a name and he is just as nice as anything." "I think so too, Lizzie." "Please don't call me Lizzie." "All right, Bet." "Call me Elizabeth. I hate people to miscall peo- ple." "All right, Elizabeth.'* Norman sat down on the arm of her chair. "Don't patronize," she said. "I hate people who patronize." "I was just wondering why Oscar hadn't the sense to be calling on you." "He never did," said Elizabeth looking honestly at her brother. "I'll bet he's got that much sense in him, present- ly, if you want him to call on you. I'm going out for a walk, mother." He gave Elizabeth a shy little caress after the man- ner of an elder brother who was afraid he might break down some unemotional family conventions if he showed that he was fond of her. She clutched at the caressing hand. 82 FOUR CORNERS plexity of a city. Norman might have laughed quiet- ly at himself, and therefore at all the creation, at the edge of a Sahara camp fire, but he could not laugh at the myriads of a city. He knew why Xerxes wept when he saw his army. Xerxes had a moment of dis- illusionment in the folds of the purple. There were too many human beings and their numbers and their processes denied the purple to any of them. He was one of them. Norman was glad it was finally decided that he was not to study law. His father owned a farm at the outskirts of town. Norman had asked for it. His father was puzzled but the young man was insistent. Henry Trumbull did not understand—having for several years known that he would not understand Norman—and had said that the son might have it. Norman, as he walked down the street with all the wonderful odors of the spring night insistent upon him and with his own perversities of thought insistent within him, was glad that he was to try to be a farmer—not a real one, in work, he knew, but one who would try to live a satisfactory life and produce satisfactory results—even in the form of crops—on a half section of land. He was fitted for the equinoxes, he knew, not for the extremes. After a long walk, which produced a real glow of introspection, optimistic and dreaming, he turned back. He realized how fond he was of his sisters, particularly of Beatrice. He loved them all but Beatrice had an oddity which pleased him most. As he came back towards the house he heard the victrola. Chubby evidently was remaining desperate- ly and Beatrice was reduced to the phonograph. Norman walked to the corner, crossed the street FOUR CORNERS 83 and went on by the Pusey wall. He intended to walk only a block or two and then return to release Beatrice, as he knew he could. He was about to turn back when the song from Samson, "My Heart at Thy Sweet Voice," reached him from the victrola. In the distance the mechanism dropped from the sound, was elided and lost, and the rich tones, how- ever attenuated, were a part of the perfumed night. Norman, turning back, stopped to listen. He liked music so emotion charged. There was validity of ex- perience in it to him, he being young, inexperienced and hopeful. Emotion that could have such a voice seemed to him to belong in a world that could have blossoms and perfumes and idealized sex. Suddenly a real voice took the song. It came from within the Pusey walls, a contralto of depth, skilled use and passionate emotion. It seemed to him that it swelled all the air in its great rich volume and filled the night with its passion. Norman stood in astonishment and delight. The voice finished the song and then everything was quiet again. The record on the phonograph was fin- ished. The song from the garden was ended. CHAPTER XV NORMAN, as he waited for whatever else might complete the phenomenon, was startled by the dropping of a rope ladder at his feet. Two small figures were on the top of the wall. One came down the ladder. Norman clutched his brother Jim. "Catch the ladder," said the boy remaining on the wall, "I can drop." Norman knew that was Bob. The grapples of the ropes were tossed over and Bob dropped into Nor- man's arms. The boys were frightened. In spite of the fact that Norman had caught them in an escapade they seemed to be glad that they had found him. "A lady all in white," said Bob, "was out in the garden and she sang." "And Mr. Pusey came out and took her in," said Jim. "Oh, did you hear her?" Bob asked. "But you should have seen her. It scared us." "I think this is a case for mother," said Norman. "Don't you?" A case for mother was one of absolute silence with regard to everybody else and of absolute truthfulness to her. "Yes," said both boys, still scared. Norman took the two youngsters home. A mother's case had a well defined disciplinary procedure. It was one which demanded the full truth in explanation 84 FOUR CORNERS 85 and entire equity in expiation. Its success was en- tirely dependent upon its equity. Sarah did not allow any maternalistic egotism to deflect her judgment. She dealt fairly with the little boys. That was why they dealt fairly with her. She did not allow exasperation to interfere. It was not always so easy to keep her own impatience out of the case but she did fairly well, even when the boys were more than perplexing. A mother's case gave the culprits sanctuary and support if they gave it obedience and candor. As Norman took his small brothers through the living room, where Beatrice and Chubby were sitting, he was considerate of their sensitiveness. Norman knew that small boys had sensibilities. That had made him ex- emplary as an older brother. Bob and Jim had af- fection for him. The situation was a credit to Nor- man. He went to the foot of the stairs. "Skip up," he said. "Mother's in her room and I'll bet she's worried. You're out late. Skip along. It's a mother's case." He stood and smiled at the two little fellows as they went upstairs reluctantly. He understood them. Their embarrassment was not fear of punishment. It was fear of explanation. At the turn of the stairs they turned, in consterna- tion, to look at him. He winked at them and they both smiled. He loved the little boys but he thought, as he watched them disappear around the turn of the stairs, that they ought to have been his nephews and not his brothers. It was indelicate of parents, even of his own mother and father, to present young men, who were their sons, with mere children who also were their sons. Norman was morbid and knew 86 FOUR CORNERS it. He hated the necessities and even the beauties of sex. In a morbid mood he went back to the living room and glared at poor Chubby. Here was another torn cat . Chubby, with his real delicacy of emotion, wholly at large and blindly trying to find a clinging vine, would have fought Norman on the spot if he had known how feebly despicable he and his call on Beatrice then seemed to her brother. Chubby did not know but he found something so unpleasant in the entrance of Norman—and the threat of his continuance in the room—that he decided to go home. Beatrice knew that Norman had come in to rid her of Chubby and was grateful because he had done so. After Chubby had somehow fumbled and stumbled his way off the porch and down the walk Beatrice al- lowed her real tire to show in her face. "Thanks, Norman," she said. "I was counting on you. He is a nice boy but I could have screamed for release. Thanks for the release. Now I can go to bed." "There will be a fellow coming along and the release you'll want will be from me, not him," said Norman, sitting down as Beatrice started for the stairs. "No I won't," said Beatrice impatiently, knowing that she was part in truth and part in lie. "But you want him to come, don't you, Norman? That's only fair to me." "I hate all sex," said Norman. "I'm sick and tired of what it does for so-called human beings. I'm sick of the motive." "I wasn't talking about sex," said Beatrice, "I was talking about him." FOUR CORNERS 87 She went upstairs and Norman tried to read for a while. Presently his mother came down. "Jim and Bob say that you found them, Norman, when they came over the wall," she said. "They almost dropped on me," he replied. "I don't think that it was very dreadful and yet I'm terribly sorry," said his mother. "I think they realize now that they must never do it again and that they must never talk of what they did and saw." "They are straight and honest," said Norman. "If they told you they wouldn't they won't." "I think so," said his mother, wistfully. "I would be so hurt if they weren't straight. But I know they are. I have had an idea for some time that there is something extraordinary in Mr. Pusey's family." "So have I," said Norman. "I am beginning to think it is that girl Dorothy." "Every pretty girl is extraordinary—to your age," said his mother. "There is something unusual in the life of that family and it makes gossip and unhap- piness. I don't know what it is, but of course we must recognize the fact that there is something un- usual." "Why did they go over the wall?" Norman asked. "They have heard so much talk of the Puseys and of Mrs. Pusey who never was seen and they were de- termined to investigate. They made* a rope ladder with a grapple at one end and fhrew it up until the grapple caught. Then they climbed over. It seems to have taken their imagination. They sneaked about in the garden—yet I don't like the word sneak." "That's what they were' doing—they didn't know they were mean." "I don't like it," said his mother, "but. I don't want 88 ' FOUR CORNERS to give it too much importance. You would have done the same thing at their age." "I know it," said Norman. "And no one ever could be so fine and good as you, Norman." Norman looked at his mother in a start of aston- ishment. "I really believe you think that," he said. "Of course I do," said his mother, "You were my first child and are my eldest son." Norman arose, went to his mother's side, put his hand on her shoulder and said: "There are some beautiful things that we don't altogether understand." "I should think that a mother's appreciation of a fine son was understandable," said Sarah. "Well, after they got over, then what?" Norman asked, going back to his chair. "They began to get frightened because they were in a strange place. It must be a very strange place. All the boys said was that it was full of flowers and bushes. Then a woman in white came down the stairs, the outside stairs, and the boys hid. She walked around and they said she petted the flowers and smelled of them. Bob said he thought she kissed them. "She came close to them several times and they were very frightened. They said she was like a ghost. When she began to sing it was too much for them. They crept through the garden to their ladder." "And fell on top of me," said Norman. "I heard the song. It was wonderful." "What can be the matter with Mrs. Pusey?" "The poor lady," said Norman, "she's probably not what she ought to be mentally." FOUR CORNERS 89 "Do you suppose that is it, Norman?" "That would be the reasonable explanation. She is there. She is not seen. Mr. Pusey protects her. She comes out in the garden and sings at night." "I suppose that is the explanation/' said Sarah Trumbull. "How terribly sad for the children." CHAPTER XVI MB. PUSEY'S house was strange not only for what never was seen to come out of it—Mrs. Pusey—but for what was seen to enter it. He had a strange patronage. He fitted glasses for people in the town. He had managed to avoid the patronage of the people in the neighborhood. His avoidance of Effa was a keynote to his desire. Part of the neighborhood had reticence. Part of it got re- buttal. People came from out of town to pull the Pusey bell three times and many of them were persons the neighborhood recognized as distinguished. A person obviously was distinguished when he came in a car- riage or automobile. Occasionally some man or com- pany of men came wearing tall hats which, to the neighborhood, indicated them to be foreigners. Mr. Pusey's home did not need this touch of the esoteric. It aroused sufficient awe without added complexities and perplexities. Timothy's fame as an amateur astronomer began outside of the town. It went to many places abroad but it did not come near its focus. One evening in early June Timothy was in the gardens when the bell was rung three times. At times he dreaded to hear it ring because it meant distraction from a real interest to a duty. At times he was glad because it meant distraction from him- self. Sometimes he stood in his gardens in the evening 90 FOUR CORNERS 91 knowing that he was going, at dark, to the geniality of his books, and yet in the pause, feeling himself a melancholy alien without cause or purpose in the world. He was so affectionate that if there had been a woman, closely bound to him by experience and in hope, to press against his side, the isolation of the moment would have been theirs—and happy—and not his and lonely. This evening he was glad of an interruption and went to the gate. A lady was seated in a cab. The driver was standing by the gate. He had rung the bell. "There he is," said the lady to the driver. "Tell him to hold the gate open and you come and get your fare. Be back for me in an hour." She was very stout but as the driver opened the door she ran across the sidewalk quickly and through the gate. "Now lock it," she said to Timothy Pusey. "Are you sure you have the right place?" Mr. Pusey asked. "Are you Timothy Pusey the astronomer?" "My name is Pusey. I might as well say I am an astronomer." "This is the place," said the lady. "The driver said it was. If you don't mind, let's go where I can sit down. My name is Savoy—I'll tell you about it later —unless you know—I'm Madame Savoy—you may have seen. I advertise." "I haven't seen," said Timothy, "but you may ex- plain. We'll go in down stairs here." He lighted the lamp. "It's still a bit damp," he said, "and I like a fire. I'll light one." 92 FOUR CORNERS It had been laid. He lighted the papers* under the wood. "I'll be quite frank," said Madame Savoy. "I'm tired. May I have a drink? Have you anything to drink?" '/You mean water—or maybe tea?'r "No, I mean Bourbon or gin or rum. I'm not par- ticular. It's been a hard day for me and I ought not to have tried to come. It's been a hard trip—that sixty miles from the city on a slow train1—but I seemed possessed. So* I came." "I think there is some Bourbon," said Timothy. "I know there is sherry. I drink sherry." "Bourbon would be best but sherry would do. Any- thing to put some strength back in me. I'm done up. It's a comfortable room here." "I'm glad you like it," said Timothy. "I didn't mean to be just polite," said Mme. Savoy. "I said that because I feel it. It is a human room. I know a great deal about human beings. I have to. It's my business." "May I offer you some Bourbon?" said Timothy. "Now if I did not know a great deal about human beings I wouldn't have come to you in the first place and if I had come I wouldn't have asked for what I wanted, which was a drink of Bourbon—or rather two drinks of Bourbon. As an expert on human beings I say this is a fine room. 171 tell you why it is. It looks as if some one was thoroughly satisfied to be living in it. The last thing a human being is satisfied with is living. They show it." "What is your business?" Timothy asked. "With you or generally?" "Generally." "I am a commercial spiritualistic medium." FOUR CORNERS 93 "Oh, yes," said Timothy. "I know what you mean," said Mme. Savoy. "You almost had me card indexed and your instinct was right but it seemed so bizarre that your judgment wouldn't recognize it. Instinct is nearly always right." "Well, maybe you are an expert in human nature," said Timothy. "And if you are what do» you want of me?" "Mr. Pusey," said the lady, "I am getting confused in my own business. I came down to ask you if stars do have anything to do with human lives. Be- fore you answer, let me tell you why I ask. And why' I came down to ask you. Sometimes things happen in my business which astonish me. I think I know it. It capitalizes the credulity and cupidity and illusions of human beings and it succeeds as you succeed in getting information about your questioner and about what he most wants. Very seldom any one sees me until an application has. been made and the applicant run down. It is very difficult to see me, because sometimes it is not so easy to find out just who it is that wants to. If I have a complete re- port on an applicant I can give him a reading. But what astonishes me—I'm not altogether a fake." Mme. Savoy said it as if she were ashamed of her own duplicity in not being a virtuous and candid fraud. "I don't know whether I do things or just feel them but I have been puzzled and several times frightened. There is an astronomer client of mine. I'll not men* tion his name. It would be unprofessional. He wants tips on the stock market. You'd know him. He's really distinguished but distinction does not pay the butcher. I can make more in three days in my pro- 94 FOUR CORNERS fession than he can make in his in thirty. He comes to me for stock market tips." "That must amuse you," said Timothy. "Mr. Pusey," said the lady, "intelligence is only a small core in the brain. The rest of it is instinct and instinct is superstitious. He cannot help coming to me when he wants something very much. I like that man. I've made him some money. I am pretty good at buying myself. I keep pretty well posted and I have pretty good judgment. I gave him tips that I played myself. I paid his month's bills last month and bought his wife a fur coat . That man is a marvel with the stars but they won't feed him. I have been dreadfully puzzled. There are a lot of things I do not know anything about. I asked this professor— I was really perplexed—if there was anything at all in the mystic. "That stopped him. I could see that. He knew there wasn't but there he was in my studios relying on me as a mystic to give him a chance to make money. But as soon as I asked him a question which needed intelligence his instinct was to go back to his own intelligence. So he could not answer. His in- telligence said no and his action said yes. I asked him if stars had anything to do with human lives and he seemed perfectly miserable. Then he said that there were things that he did not try to under- stand. He said that all he did was to study double stars and that so far as he was concerned the uni- verse was only a material problem. Then he men- tioned you. He said that you would have both patience and intelligence. If I were not so silly I wouldn't have come "but there is more in me and my business than I pretend to believe. "When I began it I knew what it was. It was human FOUR CORNERS 95 credulity. But I seem to have waded out beyond my depth. It is more what I feel than what I have been able to do but I have done some things, under a strong feeling, which seemed to be remarkable." "What, as an instance?" Timothy asked. "I have suddenly felt myself honest as a means of communication between the spirit world and this and in that feeling I have given honest interpretations of psychic impulses, and they have been confirmed as honest and truthful by clients who could tell whether the message was intelligible and communicative or not. They thought the messages were startling and true. I felt that they were true. I thought I was thoroughly onto myself and here I am a professional medium with a great practice afraid that I am not a fraud. I was perfectly comfortable as a fraud. I was honest. We made our money on high priced readings. We never engaged in big criminal sucker plays of making a client put his money into stock which we put out to skin him. I was a comfortable fraud. I comforted people—just as a priest or a min- ister does. Now I am afraid I might not be a fraud and I am uncomfortable. It's really funny, don't you think?" Mme. Savoy laughed so gently and looked at Timo- thy in so much genial perplexity that his affection for her was complete. His conception of life was whim- sical and perplexed, honest and real, receptive and combative, wholesome and beautiful, neurotic and sick. If he had not so staunchly maintained his illusions he would have been killed by his perceptions. He was a wonderful realist and a successful idealist. "I don't know what to say to you, Mrs. Savoy." "Thank you for the 'Mrs.'," said Mme. Savoy, "but 96 FOUR CORNERS you should know how to complete it. My name is Singletree." "I believe we'll stick at Savoy and make it Madame. It's more colorful. Now what can I tell you? I am not competent to say yes or no to the mystic. You wanted to know whether astrology is valid. You don't care anything about tides and gravitation and the inclination of the ecliptic and the seasons and geologic periods. So I can say that for you the stars have nothing to do with it. Now my opinion is not worth much but you want it and so I'll tell you that I think you can keep on being a comfortable fraud and need not fear you are an uncomfortable reality. Suggestion, hallucination and coincidence, I think will explain every mystery which has puz- zled you. I wouldn't say I knew it but I think so. One cannot work at your business without getting autohypnosis and hallucination. I think, Madame Savoy, that you may consider yourself a comfortable fraud." "I hoped you'd say I wasn't," said Madame, "but I was afraid you might not say I was." "I think you are, a very good and comfortable one." "And the stars have nothing to do with it?" "No stars I know of." "It's a relief, in a way," said Mme. Savoy. "It would be a departure for me, at my time of life to try to be on the square. You know, Mr. Pusey, I did say two drinks of Bourbon. I'm a shameless old woman but I am a real judge of human nature. I know I can ask you for what I really want. I know you wouldn't want me to swear. Otherwise I would say that I get so damned tired dealing with human nature in its weaknesses that I could scream for gen- eral nervousness." FOUR CORNERS 97 "I don't blame you," said Timothy. "I get so damned tired sometimes looking at the stars, which have no weaknesses, that I could demolish life and ordain that everything must stop in inorganic evolu- tion." "I know what you mean, but not what you say," said the fat lady. "Here is the Bourbon," said Mr. Pusey. "You are extraordinarily nice. And you are sure the stars have nothing to do with it?" "My dear lady, I am only an imaginative amateur astronomer who thinks as he perceives. Professional astronomers do not think any more than a mechanic does. They are in overalls looking on the screws and nuts of a machine. They are nearly all orthodox Episcopalians except in Italy where they believe in the infallibility of the Pope. But as an imaginative, thinking amateur astronomer I must restore your sanity. You are a perfect fraud." "It's a relief, I think, to know it. I'm trained in it. I might be too old to change from old ways. But I did want to ask. Now there is another thing. Did you notice that I wanted to get in through your gate as quickly as possible?" ■ "Not particularly." "For a fat woman I was both secretive and active. I want to ask you another question. Who lives in that big heavily starched house across the street." "You must mean our banker, A. Knowles." "Is he a man of huge frame with beetling eye- brows?" "That fairly well describes him." "I passed him on the way. That man has been three times to see me. Once ten years ago; twice recently. 98 FOUIl CORNERS The first time he wanted to know if he would have children." Timothy Pusey leaned forward in his chair as if a spring had been touched to release a sudden action. "What did you tell him?" he asked. "I don't remember. Some formula. I suppose I said that in his case he might despair for a long time and then find an unexpected development. We do not deal with clients ordinarily in this fashion but I took him on a chance. My operatives have lost him all three times. We never have been able to find out who he was or where he lived. If we failed that way in all cases I'd be broke. To-night I passed him on the way. I have to have a memory for faces. I recog- nized him and saw him turn in that big house. I didn't want him to see me coming here." "The first time he asked you if he would have children?" "That was all. He was intense." "What about the other two times?" "They were purely commercial. Fd be sorry to have an account at his bank. He wants a medium's advice on speculation." "Madame Savoy," said Timothy Pusey, "may I offer you a glass of Bourbon? The stars may have nothing to do with human lives and nothing to say to you—but I have. I have something to say to you." Later he went to the gate with Madame Savoy. "I don't in the least understand," she said, "but I'll say just what you want me to, if you do want me to." "Thanks if you do," said Timothy. "You'll find it amusing—at least. And I'll be obliged to you. Good- night." CHAPTER XVII OCCASIONALLY Timothy Pusey would be seen coming out of the gate with a market basket, a large one which he carried on his right forearm. He was going to market. It was customary in the neigh- borhood and in the town to go to market but it was the women who went. The community had very fertile environs of truck gardens and farms and, production being wonderful, distribution had been made easy. Three times a week the farmers brought their produce to the town market. Mrs. Trumbull drove to market in her phaeton. She saw Mr. Pusey occasionally on his way, going or returning with his basket. Her sense of neighbor- hood congruities was so distressed by passing him without greeting that after several such experiences she decided not to have any more of them. The next time she met Timothy she said: "Good morning, Mr. Pusey," heartily and passed on. After that they always spoke and she liked the geniality of his smile and the graciousness of his bow. To Effa Pepper and others in the neighborhood his marketing was an eccentricity which was a revealing part of the mystery of the house. Every time Mr. Pusey came out with a market basket it was a re- minder that Mrs. Pusey did not come out at all. Probably it would have been too much for the equanimity of any community to have such a masque perplexing it constantly. *33888B 99 102 FOUR CORNERS charging guns. He suddenly became a reticent, dif- fident young man. Beatrice was serene. A young woman with a determination is profound. Timothy Pusey came to the gate. He was smiling with cordiality. "This is my sister, Beatrice," said Norman. "You are both so welcome," said Timothy, holding out his right hand to the girl and his left to the young man, "that I can't possibly tell you. We'll go right into the big room down stairs. Don and Dorothy are with their mother but they'll be down at once." Mr. Pusey led the way and Beatrice followed con- fidently but Norman felt that he was in the presence of legends as he walked from the gate to the door. Afterwards Norman found the evening almost com- monplace, very pleasant, interesting and even ab- sorbing but normal. He was in this house of mystery and there was no mystery about it. It was merely delightful and charming. The boy was fine, the girl was fascinating but they made their surroundings natural and normal. The room itself was fascinating, with so many lights and shadows, books, tables and deep chairs. Timothy had hesitated a moment before the fireplace after he had ushered the young folks in. "I always try to persuade myself that we need a fire, at least in the evening," he said. "Generally I succeed unless it's obviously too warm. What do you think of it now?" "I always like a fire," said Beatrice. "So do I. Let's take a chance. It's damp down here and heat is good for the books." He touched a lighted match to the paper and fire wood, already laid and then said: "Now I'll call the children." FOUR CORNERS 103 If Norman did not get any thrills he at least had a pleasant evening. Don was companionable; Dorothy undeniably handsome. Both were cordial, easy and talkative. Both were apparently pleased to make agreeable neighborhood acquaintances. Norman had not expected to find himself so much at ease so readily. He thought Don a fine sensible fellow and he found Dorothy charming. He was proud of his sister. She also was charming. Timothy in his kindly fashion looked in on them several times. He explained that he was keeping Mrs. Pusey com- pany upstairs but each time he looked in he suggested something for their pleasure. He brought in a great dish of strawberries with a cake and Dorothy served. He asked Dorothy to play. There was a piano in the library, a concert grand, and a piano upstairs, in Mrs. Pusey's room. Norman and Beatrice knew there was one up- stairs. The only untoward incident of the evening, if it were untoward, was when Dorothy, having been induced to play, had finished a Brahms waltz. There was a mere second of silence and before any one could say a word they heard the waltz being repeated on the piano upstairs. "That's mother," said Dorothy, when the playing above had stopped. "No one else can play or sing as she can." CHAPTER XVin IN youth's easy swearing of eternal friendship Don and Dorothy were brought into the Trumbull household. Mrs. Trumbull, whose fine sense of social equity had been disturbed by her equivocal attitude towards Mr. and Mrs. Pusey, found that the advent of the young Puseys was a real relief. Sarah Trumbull had a big, fine conscience. She was a healthy woman not at all perplexed by the moods of life if only she could go through with it honestly and in her sweet wholesomeness. Her per- plexity regarding the Puseys had dismayed her. Now it was relieved to her satisfaction. She realized with gratification that Mr. Pusey knew his son and daughter could come to her house with- out exposing him to any embarrassment. Mrs. Trum- bull would not make it awkward for him by trying to embrace the whole situation as a woman no less kindly but less perceptive might. Sarah accepted Don and Dorothy as prospects. She knew that Norman had been fascinated by an idea and that Dorothy represented that idea to him. She understood him probably less than any of her chil- dren but her instincts and intelligence enabled her to understand him well enough. He was introspective and candid but imaginative and romantic. Dorothy came to the Four Corners in a caravel from a far world with every condition enhancing the attrac- tiveness of her pretty self. Norman would fall in love with Dorothy. 104 106 FOUR CORNERS ferent ideas and customs, in which young fellows were cheating youth and apeing maturity with drink and cards, who were rude to hostesses at parties and sexual in their companionship with girls, but even the town had encountered only one discovered viola- tion of youthful sanctity. Beautiful Caroline Butler, after several noticeably wretched weeks in which she was almost tragically depressed and distracted, disappeared. A modest, nice young fellow, Roger Adams, also did. Their parents found them, later, dismayed, desperate, help- less but married. They had done what they could to save themselves. The parents established them in another town. Caroline—and Roger Adams! It startled but it did not destroy the theory of freedom and sanctity for youth. Don and Dorothy met other young people of the neighborhood and the town at the Trumbulls but it came to be understood that there was a peculiarity in their relations with the Trumbulls. Occasionally they were invited to parties elsewhere and went but they avoided going as often as it was possible. No other young people except the Trumbulls were in- vited to the Puseys. Don and Dorothy in a fashion had increased the mystery of the house. They had conventionalized their parents to the extent that they, being obviously nice and apparently normal, im- plied nice, normal parentage; but they had not made Mrs. Pusey visible and their presence in the neighbor- hood had not made the Pusey home a part of the neighborhood. Nearly all the young people had some direct con- nection with church activities. The small ones were sent to Sunday school. The older girls taught Sun- 108 FOUR CORNERS thing of ceremonious faith and of austere religion, but they never had seen the unction of the commonplace displayed in a routine which preceded the Sunday dinner as a matter of course and habit. Norman persuaded Don to go to Sunday school. His motive was ulterior. He hoped to bring Dorothy in through Don. Norman was an artist in many emotions. This one he would have called the St. Cecelia motif, an extraordinarily valid one in the life of a young man. He knew that in the atmosphere of the church a woman presents herself to her lover with a rare spiritual charm which does not divest her of the flesh but which produces, in a romantic youth, capable of comprehending the knightly vigil of purity, an exalta- tion worth experiencing again and again in the run of emotions. Through Don he hoped to be able to walk to church with Dorothy, to call for her of Sunday mornings, to share an umbrella of wet mornings, to see her in the church in the quiet poses of conformity to devotion. He was susceptible to that sensation and craved it. Don protested good naturedly, and mentioned his disinclination, but Norman robustly overrode him. "It's the custom," Norman said. "Conform. It won't hurt you. Eventually we'll make Dorothy go. It isn't an uninteresting habit. It has some value in life in a small community. I'll take you to Knowles' Bible Class first. Later, if I'm right, you'll find a place." Don yielded because Norman asked him. At Sunday school the following Sunday Norman presented him to A. Knowles. The hard face of that teacher of scripture had never seemed, to Norman, harder than at that moment . FOUR CORNERS 109 Norman wondered what had angered the man more than usual. Mrs, Knowles, when she was physically able, dis- tributed leaflets containing the lesson. The class of A. Knowles had assembled and was being seated. Mrs. Knowles came by with the leaflets and gave one to Don. Norman presented him to the timid lady who was fluttered in trying to say a few kindly words. A. Knowles stood motionless by the chair in which, while teaching, he sat. Don sat down in the first row, almost in front of A. Knowles, and was interested. The lesson was from the Old Testament. It was the story of Absolom. Don was interested because it was a story he never had been able to read without emotion. A. Knowles read it without a stir of emotion. Don, watching him, recalled that at Harvard the professor reading Iphigenia at Tauris had lost his daughter, a beautiful girl of eighteen, and that coming back to his class the day after the funeral, he found himself obliged to read of the sacrifice. Don knew that no Greek ever had been so read in America and he knew that it was only New England which kept either in- structor or class under control. A. Knowles read sternly and monotonously. "Ab- solom, O my son Absolom." Don was watching him. A. Knowles met his glance, just then, for an instant, seemed to resent scrutiny, looked over the heads of the men in the class and began a dreary, hard and dismal exposition. CHAPTER XIX THERE was an enlargement of Timothy Pusey's life as the result of the activities of Don and Dorothy. For the most part he still was seen as he answered the three rings at the gate or as he came out marketing or on business errands. Whenever the Trumbull young people saw him they spoke cordially and other young people who knew his son and daughter spoke, with a little timidity at first, being reassured by his hearty kindliness. He never seemed to identify any one other than Sarah Trumbull and Norman and Beatrice. Others who greeted him knew that he did not know who they were but they felt that he was glad to return the salutation and many remarked how pleasant his smile was. It always seemed to flash out of self-absorption. People were forced to believe that Timothy did not perceive much that was about him until his attention was called to it. Such abstraction was thought to be natural to an astronomer. The larger part of the neighborhood could not dissociate the idea of astron- omer from the picture of something scudding with the clouds across the face of the moon. In popular fancy Timothy the oculist and optician was lost in Timothy the strange moon man. Some of the small children were honestly afraid of him from what they had heard their parents say of him and many of the parents felt, when they saw him, that they were in the presence of a mystery not wholly salubrious. no FOUR CORNERS 111 Nevertheless there was an enlargement of Timothy's life through his children. It came naturally. He and Don, on the street, met Norman and his father. Mr. Pusey was introduced to Mr. Trumbull. Later they met, stopped and spoke. Frequently thereafter, as they met, they stopped and spoke. They found they had more than casual things to talk about. Henry Trumbull asked an intelligent question about sun spots. Again he showed an interest in dahlias. There were many recesses in Henry Trumbull's mind which he cultivated by himself. Timothy asked him in to see the Pusey gardens. The freedom and candor which Timothy used in throwing open the gates which shut out the world might have astonished the person to whom they were opened but it always was a person who was not aston- ished to whom they were opened—always a person of such character as accepted just what Timothy offered without looking beyond it or to either side of it. Timothy may have felt the need of some escapes from his isolation. He was glad of the opportunity to find a congenial associate in Henry Trumbull. Henry Trumbull was glad of the opportunity to trade theory and speculation, opinion and criticism with a man, unexpectedly found in the neighborhood, whose mind was not parochial. This was the first enlargement of Timothy's life. Frequently he went across the street to sit by Henry's reading lamp and often Henry went across the street to sit in one of Timothy's great chairs. Don told his father of the experience in A. Knowles* Bible class and Timothy listened with more interest than the incident justified. He astonished Don by saying that he would like to join him in the class. "I don't intend to go back," said Don. "I don't see FOUR CORNERS 113 "You don't mind my presuming on greater an- tiquity," he said. "I am older, you know. I don't want to be insolently so but I'd like to have the privi- leges of my years." "And make me ashamed of myself," said Don smil- ing. "No, just explain. Youth is very censorious, be- cause of the most precious thing it has, its high ideals. Life nibbles and nibbles at these ideals and youth resents it and becomes rebellious. Things are not as bad here as they seem, even if they do not measure up to young ideals. We have to live in this community and it would be foolish of us to live as critics of it." Don took his father to the Bible class of A. Knowles the following Sunday and observed as he introduced Timothy that the banker's expression was even less agreeable than usual. Don thought that in addition to Knowles' general conviction that he ought to be disagreeable he now found a special occasion for it. He had received Don as an interruption. He re- ceived Timothy as an affront. Timothy did not per- ceive this. Knowles seemed to be irate and to be con- trolling himself. The lesson was another savage Old Testament story. Knowles made it more savage. Don walked home with Beatrice after church, a few feet behind his father who walked with Norman and Dorothy. The pleasure of walking with Beatrice reconciled him to the Sunday services—attracted him to them—but he was determined to seek another nitch than that of A. Knowles' Bible class. He was astonished, later in the day, when he had a talk with his father to find that Timothy's insistence had increased. Don had been certain that his father's experience would have appealed successfully either to 114 FOUR CORNERS his humor or to his instinctive dislike of parochial savagery. It had not. "This is a valuable lesson," he said. "At college you studied the humanities and were subjected to liberalizing influences. That means freedom for your own mind but it isolates you. In this church atmos- phere you will learn—I was going to say the in- humanities^—but it isn't that. It's the limitation of mind. It is valuable for a young man to understand parochialism, particularly our own parochialism which isn't the parochialism of a peasantry, simple and superstitious, singing and dancing, but that of a democracy which operates most by prejudice and in- stinct when it thinks it operates most by thought. This is your chance to balance yourself for life. It is the chance to understand. If you attend the Bible class of Knowles' for six months, you will never ex- pect too much of people, you will never be thrown out of relation to facts, you will not resent facts, you will become a permanent liberal because your thought will be based on knowledge and acquaintance." "I am not only mentally uncomfortable and absurd there," said Don, "but I am physically uncomfortable. Knowles resents us. He resents me and he resented you." Don thought that his father's countenance showed a sudden flash of fierce gratification. "Do you think he does?" Timothy asked. He went to the mantel and fingered the little statue of Buddha, as he frequently did if he were perplexed. "That's an impression he may give because he does not under- stand a new element introduced in his class. A teacher is not always so certain of himself as he seems. But I am sure it will do him good." "You certainly are not going back?" FOUR CORNERS 115 "I think not. I may find another place. Norman and Beatrice both have asked me if I would not con- sider taking charge of a reorganization of the Sunday school library. It might have a great influence upon the imagination of the children but it is hopeless as it is. It is enough to sicken a small mind." 118 FOUR CORNERS and, as she had done before, when she first visited him, waited until the gate was opened and then ran across the sidewalk as fast as she could. "Be back in an hour," she said to the driver. Then she shook hands heartily with Timothy. "I tried to get in as quickly as I could," she said. "I certainly do not want that man Knowles to see me now—here. Maybe I did wrong to take a chance." "I do not believe there would be a mishap," said Timothy. "You probably do not receive your clients in a street gown and a bonnet. Come in the library." "I am heavily gorgeous, professionally," said Madame Savoy. "Strapping and inelegant—but I fill the eye and inspire the soul." "Come in and be seated," said Timothy. "I imagine Knowles would not recognize you if he came face to face with you." "I love this room," said Madame Savoy, seating her- self. "I wish it were cool enough for a fire." "So do I. Maybe, considering the books, it is a bit damp. I could put in a few small pieces." "Impossible! It's really warm. I'm uncomfortable now. I'm sorry." \ "So am I—but you're right." Upstairs the player at the piano was playing a Brahms waltz. Madame Savoy glanced upwards, listening. "That is lovely," she said. "Who plays?" "My wife," said Timothy. "How strange!" Madame Savoy exclaimed. "That she plays? She is exquisite at the piano but her voice is her talent." "No, I meant how strange my idea had been. I thought of you as unmarried. I can't be a psychic. I can't tell a married man from an old bachelor. I'd FOUR CORNERS 119 have said you were a celibate by determination and habit. I wish your wife would sing." That wish seemed to be transmitted directly to the obliging player. Just then she began to sing. Madame Savoy sat watching the ceiling. The song ended in something like a sob. The last phrase was repeated on the piano and then there was quiet above. Madame Savoy continued to look at the ceiling for several seconds. "A wonderful voice," she said. "The song hardly showed it, but a finer voice, I should say, than Schumann-Heink. Has your wife appeared profes- sionally?" "She was educated for the profession," said Timothy, "but—a physical breakdown. She never regained her health." "What was it she sang?" "A Russian cradle song." "A mother song—I knew that. Is she a mother?" "Don and Dorothy are twins." "And I, a psychic, took you for a wonderful old bachelor. You did not have to be an astronomer to know I was a fraud. If I did not have better luck than that in my readings I'd have to open a boarding house." "I am a mystic," said Timothy. "I'll prove it. Par- don me a moment." He went away and came back with a tray of glasses and two decanters, one of sherry and one of bourbon. Madame Savoy's eyes twinkled. "I am partial to an occasional drop," she said. "You have a fine taste in corn liquor." "It isn't mine. It's one of my friends. He sends it to me." "Did you ever stop to consider what this neighbor- 120 FOUR CORNERS hood would do to you if it were known that you had whisky in your house and served it to a disreputable old clairvoyant who made mysterious calls on you?" "I hadn't given it much thought," said Timothy. "I know these people, by type. They're good. They have lots of virtues. They are kind but in many ways the best of them are cruel. They are ready to torture a non-comformist." "I have met here some of the kindest people I ever knew," said Mr. Pusey. "A few, no doubt. I have in mind the normal product of the normal conditions. I know enough to know that it would be a pleasure to many to have you is resented in a community like this. It can't be humiliated, injured and driven out. A man like you helped but you must watch it. You must watch your friend Knowles. You are his enemy and he is yours." "I do not precisely admire a man of the Knowles type. His self-absorption and constraint may be a cruelty to others." "Now, Mr. Pusey, I do not know any secrets and I do not want to know any. Even my guesses I'll keep to myself, but let's deal honestly this far. You have a definite purpose against Knowles. He is uneasy. He has been to see me again. I told him what you asked me to tell him." "Did I ask it or merely suggest that it might inter- est him? What did you tell him?" "I followed your line exactly. I told him he was a man of trust and responsibility in a Christian com- munity, that he was a chosen leader in the church and expounded the Word. I told him that he felt more deeply the cry of David for Absolom than he allowed it to appear in his discourse. He is very abrupt in his questioning. He is ashamed to consult any one FOUR CORNERS 121 and yet something makes him consult me. He de- manded roughly to know what I meant, I closed the interview. No one raises his voice to me—profes- sionally. It would spoil the business. He will come back, of course, but in the meanwhile my operatives have been working on him. Now that we have his identity it is easy. I don't know how they lost him before but they did. If they did it often they would lose their jobs. Do you know a wealthy woman named Clayton?" "I know a Mrs. Clayton. She owns this house. I rent from her." "Is she in the city now?" "I believe she is for a while." "Knowles went from my studios to her apartments. I'll have a detailed report on all his city movements within a week. I'll give you a copy." The bell at the gate rang three times. "That's my driver," said Madame Savoy, arising. "Would your professional ethiC3 permit the unseen presence of an interested person sometime when you gave a reading or an interview?" Timothy asked as he walked out with her. "They will permit you to be present if Knowles is the client," said Madame Savoy. "Hold the gate open and I'll run for the cab." FOUR CORNERS 123 life. It is important in itself. It demands and justi- fies performance. It is necessary for a human being to arise and do because a routine of what he did yes- terday demands that he do it to-day and contemplate it as a duty to do it to-morrow. Knowles seemed to be a prelate in this temple. He spent four nights a week at home. Each of these four evenings he came home at six o'clock. Fre- quently the clock in the hallway struck six just as Knowles opened the door. He could not always be so precise. Sometimes it struck when he was at the front gate, sometimes as he was going upstairs. He went to his bedroom, washed, put on a brocaded velvet house coat and at 6:30 he was downstairs again. There was, in the neighborhood, more dignity of social usage and aristocratic habit represented in a brocaded velvet house coat than in a dinner coat. Dignity is a geographical pose. It changes with frontiers. In a great living room, which had a marble fire- place and a gas log, gilded chairs and cut glass candel- labra, Mrs. Knowles would be sitting. He would not speak to her—not from resentment of her or unkind- ness but because he had nothing to say to her and no reason to try to find anything to say. His habit was a chair of blue plush. A bronze read- ing lamp, with the figure of a Diana supporting the lamp, was beside the chair. Mrs. Knowles, by habit, sat in a blue plush chair, without a reading lamp. By Knowles' chair there was a small mahogany table which held a gold rimmed glass ash tray, a humidor for cigars and on which he found, when he came down- stairs, the country edition of his favorite city after- noon newspaper. He read ten minutes before dinner. Mrs. Knowles did not read. She sat looking at the gas log. When the maid came to the dining room 124 FOUR CORNERS door Mrs. Knowles arose from her blue plush chair. "It's ready, Alfred," she said. Mr. Knowles arose from his plush chair and both went into the dining room and sat under a great chandalier with glass pendants, and ate. Sometimes A. Knowles said'something about the food. Some- times he said the beef was too well done. Sometimes he said it was underdone. Sometimes he said he was tired of beef. Whatever he said revealed a failure to Mrs. Knowles. After dinner they returned to the plush chairs in the living room. Mr. Knowles smoked a cigar and read the papers. Mrs. Knowles sat a while and then, saying: "Good night, Alfred," went to bed. Sometimes Mr. Knowles said good night, sometimes he did not. When he had read the paper he drew a deck of cards from the desk at his side, pulled an extension board from the table, extending conveni- ently across his chair and played solitaire until 9:45 P. M. Then the maid brought him a glass of milk and a plate of crackers. When he had drunk the milk and eaten the crackers he also went to bed. That was habit four nights a week. Sunday there was church. Mrs. Knowles was a romanticist. She lived in what she did not have and with things she could not possess. No woman, not even Lulu Barton Knowles—at least few women and not Lulu Barton Knowles—could share life with a husband and be unresistingly out of his life. Sunday evening when Mr. and Mrs. Knowles walked to church she felt that she was closest to him. It was conventional for her to take his arm. She was devout. For her there must be something beyond experience, reached by faith, to justify experience. By not having children she had offended God and A. FOUR CORNERS 125 Knowles; but God at least would understand and somewhere, in a realm outside experience there was a place for a forgiven failure. She liked Sunday night best in winter when there had been a fall of snow, and when the church bells rang, as she and her husband walked, the pure sound of the clarity and charity of the night. Two nights a week Knowles was in the city, sixty miles away. When A. Knowles went to the city he took a train at one o'clock in the afternoon and he returned home at midnight. Knowles was a large man, very dark, black hair, black mustache. There were indications of great physical strength under the shoulders of his coat. His hands were large and his wrists were hairy. He was Esau in appearance but not in habit. Occasionally he talked to Mrs. Knowles. Generally their evenings together were in the routine described but not to the exclusion of all comment. Sometimes at dessert at dinner, Knowles would speak of a neigh- borhood interest. "I find," he said one evening, "that Mr. Pusey has been put in charge of the Sunday school library." "I had intended to speak to you of the Puseys," said Mrs. Knowles. "Did you know of this change?" A. Knowles asked. "What change do you mean, dear?" Mrs. Knowles asked. "Mr. Pusey has been put in charge of the library to revise it. I was not consulted. I am opposed to it. The Trumbulls have done it but I was not con- sulted. A revision of the library by Mr. Pusey would be dangerous. I regard him an immoral radical. The library, as arranged, is safe for the children. It is instructive and moral. Mr. Pusey would put fiction 126 FOUR CORNERS in it. It might spare some complications if you would let it be known, to any person who raises the question, that I shall oppose this change in the library." "Yes, dear," said Lulu Knowles. "I was going to speak to you of the Puseys." "You've said that." "Yes, I know, dear, I mean that for the party I want to invite the Pusey children." The Knowleses gave two parties a year. One was in midsummer, when the lawn could be used for lanterns, swings and the service of ice cream and cake. One was in the winter when there would be a stereopticon lecture on the Yellow Stone Park or the Grand Canyon and a collation of doughnuts and cider. When Mrs. Knowles said that she wanted to invite Don and Dorothy, Knowles' face almost purpled. He clutched the edge of the table and the knuckles of his hands whitened. "Is that necessary?" he asked. "They are in the neighborhood," said Mrs. Knowles. "We invite everybody, I'm sure. And I like that boy and girl." "Have you spoken to them?" "Oh, dear, no. I just see them on the street. I watch them and wish they were mine." A. Knowles knocked his chair over as he arose from the table. Mrs. Knowles was trembling. Little as she talked she knew she had talked too much. CHAPTER XXII TIMOTHY PUSEY made a careful selection of books for the new library. He knew the money for purchase would be limited unless Henry Trumbull were to be imposed upon out of reason. He would add two or three hundred dollars to the fund himself and not allow it to be known. The gift would be Henry's gift and he wanted to keep it within an expense of five hundred dollars for Trumbull. He felt at ease in providing for the boys but neglect- ful of the girls. He could appeal to the boys' desire for chivalric romance, to their love of achievement, their easily aroused affection for natural history, to their kinship with adventure and their inherent liking for mechanical sciences. It seemed to him to be an important thing. If he could get the boys to imitating Roland and Ivanhoe and interested in Newton and Marco Polo, he had done something for the future of the community in which he lived temporarily. He asked Dorothy and Beatrice what to do for the girls. "Girls don't read," said Beatrice. "The ones who really want to will read just what the boys read. The only thing I'd give them would be Louisa Alcott, and most of the boys will read 'Little Woman' and 'An Old Fashioned Girl' just as well as the girls." "What do you think, Dorothy?" Timothy Pusey asked. 127 128 FOUR CORNERS "I agree with Beatrice," she said. "Girls do not read until they are women. Then they do all the reading." Timothy submitted his list to Henry Trumbull who thought it excellent and the order was given. The two kindly men found great satisfaction in the new idea and in what they could do to promote it. Henry Trumbull had consulted, casually, members of his committee who, having no ideas, readily acqui- esced when one was proposed. Through these com- mittee members the neighborhood learned that a change was to be made in the library. To Effa Pepper it was a scandal. She was in need of one. She felt defeated by the Puseys. They had made headway against her. The outrageousness of their conditions was attaining an accepted common- place. A man who wore outlandish clothes and knew the stars and a woman who never was seen lived be- hind a wall and were accepted as the parents of two children who entered people's homes and even went to church. Effa felt that she must acknowedge herself a futility if the cure of this were beyond her. She had grown tired of steady watches with her binoculars. She used them occasionally but without satisfaction. If her house had been two stories higher she might have had a view of the garden and some recompense, but nothing came of looking at the wall, the gate and the dormer windows. She had not been wholly successful in making Mrs. King wear the copper kettle as a bonnet. No signal malevolence had been her achievement. She and Mrs. King did not speak to each other although occasion- ally they came together in the home of a neighbor. Effa had not been able to find the right thrust which would wound her enemy. FOUR CORNERS 129 She said many things which Mrs. Popp and other neighbors carried to Mrs. King but they brought back sayings of Mrs. King which were quite as good as hers. The situation was exasperating. Her blind and silent husband had been an irritation. Ever since he had found his way across the street to warn Timothy Pusey of her malignancy he had carried himself with an insufferable air of triumph. She had begun to fear him a little as well as hate him. He sat for hours in his chair by the west window or on the bench by the grape arbor or on the porch under the rambler roses, unseeing and silent and seemingly unconscious of what might go on about him, and yet Effa felt that she was under espionage. His passivity was his threat. She was stringing beans on the side porch when Amanda Popp came over to ask her if she knew of what Mr. Pusey was going to do to the Sunday school library. Effa felt that if she were not eddying out of the current she would have known. It made her desperate to feel so dependent. "Novels!" she exclaimed after Amanda had ex- plained. "I'd expect that of that immoral man but what are the people thinking about?" "I don't know," said Amanda. "The Trumbulls are backing him." Effa seldom attacked the Trumbulls. Their im- perviousness daunted her. She felt their moral superiority which was even kind and considerate of her and if she said an unkind word of them it seemed to her incisively retaliatory upon herself. If Effa had known how to say what she thought she would have said that the Trumbulls were so lati- tudinarian and kindly that any charlatan or rascal might impose on them for a time. 130 FOUR CORNERS "The Trumbulls are clever," she said—by clever she meant nice—"but they can make mistakes and it is a sin to put Godless reading like stories in the hands of young folks. It is against nature. I don't think the folks will like it when they find it out." "Maybe they wouldn't," said Amanda, "but if Henry Trumbull does a thing they are apt to think it is right." "A. Knowles won't think it is right," said Effa, scenting battle. "Maybe you're right." "The Puseys," said Effa, "are riding kind of soft for people who never have explained anything. I am not making any reflections on anybody but I need a lot of explaining before I understand a woman that I know lives and have never seen." "Don't the spyglasses do any good?" Mrs. Popp asked commiseratingly. She enjoyed Effa's bristling. "You would be glad enough if they did," said Effa. "I've been sorry you couldn't see into the garden," Mrs. Popp said. "You miss a good deal. Of course it isn't because you haven't tried. Don't think I blame you." Mrs. Pepper by a retort might have ruined an ad- vantageous neighborhood relationship. The two ladies were necessary to each other, however little they re- spected the necessities of their lives. They should not risk their happiness in a moment of ill humor. At this moment, when so useless a tragedy hung over them, they were saved. The town's most re- splendent livery carriage, drawn by two black horses and served by two men in what might be called a livery, stopped at Mr. Pusey's curb. A lady who might have been called a wonderful and sprightly dowager got out, accepting the arm of FOUR CORNERS 131 the second man who had alighted from the box. She carried a pontifical cane. She spoke to the man who had alighted to assist her. He went to ring Timothy Pusey's bell twice. She then spoke to the driver. Effa and Amanda stopped their quarrel. The remarkable old lady walked slowly across the side- walk and stood waiting at the gate. "It's Sassy Howard/' said Effa. CHAPTER XXIII WHEN Timothy Pusey, who had been in the gar- dens, came to the gate and saw who his caller was, he smiled and held out his hand. "You!" he exclaimed. "I'm glad. I knew you were in the city but I was not sure I'd see you." "Wouldn't you have come to see me?" Sassy asked. "Of course I should have if you had remained long enough in one place to be seen." They walked along towards the door. Sassy stopped, resting both hands on her cane, and looked about her at the gardens. Tony was at work spading in a patch near the south wall. Shrubbery partly hid him but he wore a red shirt and what was seen of him as his body moved in the rhythmed action was con- spicuous. "I am glad you like the place," said Sassy. "Where did you get your gardener?" "That's Tony. He's the sOn of a family we knew in Milan. He and his wife came over to us." "That's good. I have an affection for the gardens. I am glad you have." "Shall we sit out here?" Timothy asked. "There was one of my favorite places," said Sassy, pointing with her cane to a bench under a white oak. "It is also of mine," said Timothy. They walked slowly to it and sat down. "You always amuse me, Timothy," said Sassy, look- ing at him affectionately. 132 FOUR CORNERS 133 "I never understand why," he said. "You are so outrageous and so perfectly simple. Just look at yourself, now—velveteen trousers, a blue shirt, slippers, a Tarn o' Shanter and that loose end bow tie of red. Half the neighborhood, must think you are a devil. With those funny little wrinkles at your eyes I believe you are." She was holding her cane in both hands, the ferrule resting on the gravel. Timothy took one hand from its hold on the cane and enfolded it in both of his. "Look at Tony," he said. "A red shirt. Very simple people like colors. I do because I am like Tony— very simple. I like also to be comfortable. This is comfortable." "Think what I should have done to your comfort and your simplicity. You'd have thought you were traveling in the tail of a comet." "I always had an idea that would be pleasant." "I should have harassed and perplexed you," she said. "I want the garden and then the city, nobody and then many people. I get tired of everybody and want only myself, then I get tired of myself and want everybody." Timothy's whimsical smile at her was really a grin. "But wherever you were would always have been a garden," he said, "and if everybody had been there, there would have been only you/' "I'm very fond of you, Timothy." "I'm very fond of you, Sassy." "I do not believe there is a road I have traveled so much as that Devon lane with the church at the end." "I've walked it a good deal myself." "I never knew why I did not say yes." "I always did. You were right/' 134 FOUR CORNERS "How's your wife?" Sassy asked abruptly. "I think she is happy. She is beginning to sing more and differently. I used to be alarmed when she sang. There was terrible melancholy in it and soon afterward she would do something terrifying." "Not in malice?" "No, some terrible thing that would expose herself to danger. Her sweetness to others has been pathetic." "I warned you against taking this house." "I know you did but she never has been so happy as here. Every condition is gratifying to her." "I was not thinking of her. I was thinking of you and others. Your purpose is fantastic and dreadful. I am afraid of the consequences. I wonder that you are not." "I have never been able to see it that way, Sassy," said Timothy. "It is inconceivable to me that any of your fears could be realized. I am not doing any- thing. I am merely living here." "If you ever cause sorrow that will be torture to you, I am afraid for you." "I am not afraid," said Timothy. "I know you are not. You are so strangely cock sure. It is unlike you. To risk hurting others is unlike you. Even to want to punish any one is unlike you. Don't let me offend you, my friend, merely be- cause I do not understand you." "I hope I am a just man," said Timothy. "As a just man I feel that there must be a punishment and furthermore I feel that it is at work." "Well, well," said Sassy, "let's hope your justice and innocence do not do what my worldliness and wickedness fear they will. You are not exactly the man, Timothy, I'd select to look like a pagan god but when you talk of your justice your eyes almost FOUR CORNERS 135 frighten me. You are really a Calvinistic roundhead and I am a merciful but scandalous cavalier. I'm going to look inside the house for a minute. My carriage will be here soon." Timothy held out his hand to help her to arise from the garden seat. "All my joints are getting old and stiff," she said. "My knee was not a traitor. It was only a premoni- tion." "You walk sturdily," said Timothy, "and your beauty merely changes and could not fade." "Huhmp!" said Sassy, "my beauty never hurt any- one. How are the children?" "Well, happy and wonderful." "Made any friends?" "Yes, some, although I think the Trumbull young people across the way are their only intimates." "That is a fine family," said Sassy, "but I repeat my warnings against the rest of the neighborhood. Don't ever slip and get under their feet. They are remorseless, even if they don't know it." Timothy opened the door to the library. "This is all I want to see," she said. "I loved it. You have made it more lovable." "Take this big chair," Timothy urged. "I like it when there is a fire." "And you wonder if one wouldn't be nice now. No, it wouldn't, not even for a rheumatic old woman who likes a fire as much as you do." "Let me give you some tea." "No, no tea. Do you make it? I see your samovar." "Yes, there is the tea chest, excellent Russian tea." "Have you any idea what this neighborhood would think of a man who made tea—or of any one who 136 FOUR CORNERS made tea except in a pot on a cook stove? O Timothy, you poor orchid, you'll be stepped on." "Will you have some sherry?" "No sherry." "It would make Antonia's day for her, a day of months, if you would let her bring some Chianti and if you would thank her in Italian." "Not even to make a day of days for Antonia. I am restricted to one glass of sherry before dinner— I make it a goblet—and a pint of light white wine." Upstairs the piano gently sounded. "Can you tell anything of her moods from what she plays?" Sassy asked. "I used to think so," said Timothy, "but now I don't think I can. Bach or Schumann, Chopin or Mozart, Brahms or Chaminade—it all seems to come off the same bolt of goods." "What is that she is playing now?" "A Russian cradle song. She has played it a great deal of late." "How about the children and their mother?" "It is wonderfully natural because they are wonder- ful. They know she is wonderful—but different. She is just as they always can remember her. You see, she doesn't grow old. They have grown older but she hasn't." "Your neighbor came to see me the other day." "I know he did." "You do. Are you so distracted that you are fol- lowing him or having him followed?" "No, no. I just happened to learn that he had called on you. He goes occasionally to a spritualist and she came to me. Curious lady. She had been directed to me to find out whether she was a fraud, in toto. Stars, you know. She was afraid she wasn't a'fraud FOUR CORNERS 137 and almost about to be sad if she was. She saw Knowles as she drove up and recognized him as a man who had been to her and whom she never had identified. That's the way it came about. It's her business to know all she can of people. She had him followed. He went to see you." "Who was she?" "Her name is Singletree." "That is not the name of a medium." "Her name as a medium is Madame Savoy." "I know her. I have been to her." "You too! Now, what for?" "Possibly to learn what might happen to a fantastic friend of mine. No, simply because I am a curious old woman with a touch of superstition and a desire to explore everything. It was very amusing. She looked at me and laughed and said: 'What will you have to drink?' She had bourbon, I think. I broke my rules and had sherry. She was a magnificent Orient- alist in appearance but she simply would not perform. 'I couldn't do it for laughing,' she said. 'My dear, if I did not have any more sense than that I'd deserve to be broke.'" "She is a very sensible woman," said Timothy. "I hope you thanked her for the compliment, Sassy." "Compliment! To be told straightout that you are too old, sophisticated, hard, experienced and unro- mantic to be worked upon by a skilled and talented fraud and to have her form her judgment by glancing at you—well, if it was not complimentary it was amusing. But you do not know why Knowles came." "No, not that," said Timothy. "He came to demand that I as the owner of this property throw you out as an undesirable tenant. He demanded it for the neighborhood, for morality, de- 138 FOUR CORNERS cency and the good of the republic. He said that your presence introduced elements and factors which the people viewed with apprehension and distaste and that their scruples had a right to attention. You were to go out—as soon as it was legally possible to put you out." "Well," said Timothy. "I told him that the first time you failed to pay your rent I'd put you in the street but until then the neigh- bors could hunt up a pleasant location in Liberia. O, Timothy dear, what are you doing and what have you done to that man to send him so far out of his head?" "Why, Sassy, he is acting quite naturally. I haven't done anything to him—yet—much." "Doesn't he suspect anything?" "Yes, honestly, I think he does—and he can't be- lieve it." The bell at the gate rang. "That's my carriage, I think," said Sassy. "I'll walk out with you. And be cautious, Timothy. I ought really to throw you out. I ought never have allowed you to come. Be cautious. You are dealing with tremendous causes. Let your wise old friend tell you to fear the consequences. Look further than the justice you want. Think of the injustices you will hate. Don't ever make yourself hate yourself. Fear this neighborhood as you would a copperhead." She held out her hand appealingly. Timothy bowed and kissed it. She looked at him with an affection which was placid, but there was moisture in her eyes. At the gate she stopped suddenly. "What is that tapping the wall?" she asked. "Hear it?" FOUR CORNERS 139 Timothy unlatched the gate and Sassy looked quickly around the post, leaning forward with a quick, little, catlike movement. "It's an old man feeling his way with a cane," she said. "He's blind* Why, it's old Samuel Pepper!" "He's coming to see me, I imagine," said Timothy, stepping out on the sidewalk. FOUR CORNERS 141 "Yes, I know, Mr. Pepper," said Sassy. "I used to live here." Samuel had come to the gate. He took hold of the ironwork and seemed to need the. support to steady himself. "You are not Sassy Howard," he said with almost a quaver. "Yes, you are. I remember your voice now perfectly. This is bad." "Why is it bad?" Sassy asked, stepping towards him. "Will you shake hands with me?" "I'm glad to," said Samuel, holding out his hand. "Then why is it bad?" Sassy asked, shaking his hand. "That's what started her," said Samuel. "I didn't hear what they were talking about at first. I may have been asleep. They were out on the porch. What I did hear made me feel that,I must come over and see Mr. Pusey. And now you are here, Sassy Howard. So that's what started it," "Don't you think you'd like to come on into the garden?" Timothy suggested. "Yes, we must not stand on the sidewalk," said Samuel. "I must go," said Sassy. "My carriage is here. I am really glad to have seen you again, Mr. Pepper." "You had better come in too, just for a minute," said Samuel. "It may not be important but you can judge." Timothy observed that the old man really was agi- tated. "If you have time, he would like it," Timothy said to Sassy. "I have time, of course," said Sassy. "Wait," she said to her driver. They reentered the gardens. 142 FOUR CORNERS "Do you want to sit out here, Mr. Pepper, or would you prefer to go into the house?" Timothy asked. "I like outdoors because I can feel the air and hear sounds," said Samuel. "I'd like to bee your house inside if I could see but if I go in all I'll know is that the air is closer. I came on an errand and I don't want any one else except you two to hear it. So any- thing you like just so no one hears. I didn't expect, of course, to find Sassy Howard here, but if it's a Providence, I'm glad." "Let's sit on the bench under the elm," said Timothy. Sassy was glad he did not lead them back to the bench under the white oak. That had been, for a while, exclusively their own. A woman's exclusiveness re- pulses even such violations, even the exclusiveness of a candid woman. They sat down with Samuel between them. "Have you got a whippoorwill and a hoot owl over here?" he asked Timothy. "Yes," said Timothy. "I know where the owl had its nest." "You can't always make sure where they are from the sounds. I thought they were here but they're like the mourning dove in that. But I get things pretty good by ear." "Why did you want me to stay?" Sassy asked. "I'm a little bit confused now," said Samuel, "but I'll say this first. I hate the people of this place. They are mean. They don't know how mean they are. They ought to sit a week with a bandage over their eyes and see nothing and think. They don't think. My wife Effa, she's a mean one. She doesn't know any better. I like Mr. Pusey and I know just how hard a place he's in. These people around here are terrible. They FOUR CORNERS 143 scare me and they can't do anything to me. So if I can help Mr. Pusey any I'll do it." "Thank you, Mr. Pepper," said Timothy. "What I came over for was this," said Samuel. "My wife and Mrs. Popp were sitting on our porch and I was asleep. I must have been because I do not know how it all started but when I did hear what they were talking about I heard Effa, my wife, saying: 'Well, I think A. Knowles ought to know about it,' and I heard Amanda Popp say: 'I wouldn't be too brash about it. You got into a lot of trouble before and you're talking about pretty serious things.' "Effa said that your library scheme showed you were an immoral man and that no one ever had put anything past Sassy Howard." "Me!" Sassy exclaimed. "Yes," said Samuel. "That's why I asked you to stay because it will only be worse if I'm afraid to say what I heard. Amanda Popp seemed like she was scared but Effa said that her conscience was clear. "So they talked back and forth and Amanda really was trying to make Effa keep her mouth shut but Effa was bent. She was going to do something and Amanda tried to get her not to. She did get Effa to say that it was nothing to tell everybody, the way Effa generally tells things. But she was going to Knowles and tell him." "What was it, Mr. Pepper?" Timothy asked. "Well, what she has gone to tell Knowles is that she knows that Don and Dorothy are Sassy Howard's children and that's why you have this house." Neither Sassy nor Timothy said anything. Samuel evidently did not expect any comment. He continued his comment: "God, how I hate such meanness! I didn't know what to do but I'd have tried to come over CHAPTER XXV SAMUEL PEPPER had given a true impression of Amanda Popp's alarm. Effa's boldness in in- spired malice, attributing illegitimacy to two young people of the neighborhood, having as premises for her conclusions nothing but the strangeness of the Pusey household and the fact of Sassy Howard's call, made Amanda shrink. It frightened her. She was afraid for herself. She feared she would get entangled in complicity with Effa and find herself bearing some of the responsibility. She knew that such a slander would not be unchallenged. It could not, even insidiously, penetrate the neighborhood without there being a determined effort to trace it to its source. She might, in spite of prudence, be found at the origin of it along with Effa. Her quality of mischief was different from Effa's. It lacked organic malice. Effa was a hard and angu- lar woman. Amanda was broad and soft. Their dif- ference in physical attributes in a way indicated their difference otherwise. Amanda was not guilty of pre- meditated and planned malevolence. She did injury but it was because she enjoyed the method and not because she craved the effect. She was so earnest in trying to dissuade Effa from making full use of her inspiration that the latter at last professed to yield to prudence but reserved the right to communicate her new conjecture to A. Knowles and to do it at once. With the impatience of 146 FOUR CORNERS 147 a creative artist she could not endure delay. Amanda went home, still apprehensive. Effa put on her bon- net and went out. Samuel waited until he was free and found his way across the street to warn Mr. Pusey. He did not know whether Mrs. Popp would see him or not or whether, seeing him, she would guess why he had gone. Effa went to the bank. She had a savings account there and occasionally made small deposits. In doing so she never saw A. Knowles and did not expect to encounter him even by chance. She was in awe of few things and defiant of many but A. Knowles in his counting house was invested, for her, with powers and ceremonies wholly removed from her world and to be respected if not feared. Only a very strong incentive could have made her seek him in his room at the bank. As she went up the steps two men, standing by the entrance, were talking of Knowles and she stopped to hear what they said, making a pretense of counting some money in her purse. "He came out of his office the other day," said one, "like an iron poker trying to smile and grabbed me by the hand and said: 'How are the crops, John?' Before that if he saw me at all, which he mostly didn't, he'd nod like he was shaking a fly off his nose. I didn't know what had gotten into him so I just said the crops was about as they had been for ten years without his asking about them. "He's going to run for county treasurer, I tell you," said the other. "I know because he has asked Proutty of Beaver township if he'd be for him." "Wants the county funds in his bank. There ought to be a law against it. He's begun to get interested in my crops pretty late to get my vote." 148 FOUR CORNERS The men came down the steps. Effa snapped her purse shut and went on up. She had a piece of news and had proved again to her satisfaction that every opportunity, no matter what, should be used. She knew the receiving teller. She said she wanted to speak to Mr. Knowles. Ordinarily the man would have said A. Knowles was busy but he had observed the new social aspects of his employer and instead of assuming that Mrs. Pepper would not be admitted he assumed that she might. He told her to wait a moment and on coming back asked her to follow him. In doing so she passed into the precincts which always had been outside her world. Knowles concealed any pleasure he may have found in her visit. He was really imposing in a cold surli- ness, behind his mahogany table, with papers before him and a pen in his hand. His heavy, protruding eyebrows came towards each other as he frowned instead of smiled. Effa had re- spect for her surroundings but no trepidation. "Sit down, Mrs. Pepper," said Knowles. "What can I do for you?" "I don't know what you can do," said Effa. "I don't know that you will want to do anything but my conscience will be clear when I have told you. I object to the Pusey family living where they do and the way they do." "The Pusey family does not interest me," said Knowles. His frown tightened into a scowl. "It ought to," said Effa, "and maybe you will find that it does. You are superintendent of the Sunday school." "I know that." "Then you ought to be interested when a heathen FOUR CORNERS 149 like Pusey tries to put wicked dime novels in the church library for the children." "I don't need a lecture on my duty, Mrs. Pepper," said A. Knowles. "I am taking steps to stop that. I am probably as interested as you are." Effa's eyes lighted with gratitude as she received this confirmation of a hope. "That's good, so far," she said, "but I do not think the Puseys should stay in the neighborhood." "They are not the type of people we need. I'll admit that. At least I do not think so. But I cannot mend it so long as they do not violate the law." "Yes, you can," said Effa. "Drive them out. They are immoral." There was so much hate in Effa's voice that Knowles looked at her with a new interest. "Why do you say that?" he asked. "Did you ever know a family like that?" "No," he said. "Did you ever see Mrs. Pusey?" "No." "Do you know whose children those are?" Knowles had picked up a»glass. paper-weight. His fingers tightened on it. "The children of Mr. and Mrs. Pusey/' he said. "How do you know that?" "From Mr. Pusey, of course. From the fact that he is their father." Effa laughed. "If they want to say a thing you believe it. I'll tell you who those children are. They are the children of Sassy Howard." Knowles put his paper weight down and looked at her in amazement. "What proof have you of that?" he asked. 150 FOUR CORNERS "Never mind," she replied. "Drive them out of town." "Pd advise, and a lawyer would advise, that you do not repeat that statement generally unless you can support it." "You are the only person I have told and the only person I am going to tell. What are you going to do about it? You have responsibilities in this neighbor- hood." "I do not need to be reminded either of my duties or my responsibilities," said Knowles. "Maybe you don't," Effa in her bitterness was al- most irreverent, "but what are you going to do?" Knowles arose from his chair. Effa found that his arising exercised an attraction upon her. Without consciously willing it, she also arose. Likewise Knowles' movement towards the door carried her with it. He was opening the door as he replied. "The library matter is attended to. The other I will have investi- gated. If you can help I will let you know. Good day, Mrs. Pepper." CHAPTER XXVI THERE was so little that Henry Trumbull and A. Knowles had in common sympathy or liking that it was unusual for them to have anything to say to each other more than a brief salutation on the street. Henry, for that reason, was astonished when A. Knowles stopped him as he was passing the Knowles' residence. "I understand you are making some changes in the Sunday school library," said Knowles. "Yes," said Henry. "There was nothing in it the children wanted to read. We are putting in some books to attract them." "I am afraid I don't approve of it," said Knowles. "Why, it hadn't occurred to us to inquire whether you did or not. We assumed that you would. I hope you will." "I can't approve of it at all." "Naturally I am sorry," said Henry. "I think you are mistaken. We shall be sorry if you do not like what we do." "You say 'we.'" "Yes. The library committee." "The committee did not hold a meeting." "No. It didn't, that's true, but I took the matter up with each member and all agreed to make the changes. The money is privately furnished." "I will pass over the point that it might have been wise to consult me in the beginning. I am superin- 151 FOUR CORNERS 153 His impatience and distaste were strong, but he got them under control after reflection. There was his repugnance to a surrender in the face of a fight. He was not combative but he was resolute, and finally pride in his, enterprise and its purpose determined him. It was worth while, he thought, for the young people. A stimulation of good romantic reading would broaden their horizons. Henry's first concern was to find out whether his committee still stood behind him. There were six other members. Two coldly told him that their con- sent had been given without reflection and was with- drawn. Two warmly asserted that Knowles' inter- position had made a matter* to which they really had been indifferent one of importance to them. They would not stand for Knowles' dictation. Another member of the committee was evidently anxious not to forfeit Henry's respect but intended to do as Knowles wanted him to. The sixth wanted to support Henry and would if he could be upheld constantly in moral courage. Henry was pleased with the prospect. He thought he could control his committee and if the issue were carried further into the church organization he thought the manifest value of the idea must win in spite of the general prejudice, inertia and narrowness. Norman and Beatrice at first observed their father's predicament with amusement. It was so contrary to the wishes and foreign to the expectations of the quiet, kindly little gray man, so content in his own life and so smilingly satirical, never sardonic, in his contem- plation of other lives. He was suddenly in the thick of the most acrimonious of all conflicts, a church fight. At first Norman and Beatrice were amused, but then they got a four square view of Knowles as their FOUR CORNERS 155 within his limitations he was honest and candid. He had a purpose and he did not begin by indirection. "Are we alone?" he asked. They told him yes. "I would not want young people to hear. This is a dissension as deplorable as any could be and, Mr. and Mrs. Trumbull, I am frankly at your mercy. The ■ dilemmas of a clergyman are frequently hard. This is one of the worst. I do not need, perhaps, to say that I have come about the Sunday school library. In the first place, Mr. Trumbull"—Henry appreciated the impulse which kept the minister from calling him Brother Trumbull, in the suave ecclesiastical patter— "I will say that I understand your purpose and that personally I am not opposed to it. I read 'Ivanhoe' when I was a boy. I read the Deerf oot stories and the 'Last of the Mohicans' and 'Masterman Ready,' the 'Swiss Family Robinson' and even some of E. P. Roe. I believe I was the better for it. "You will understand that I am not speaking from personal prejudices. It is wholly a question of church necessities and the situation is just this. If you, Mr. Trumbull, put the library on its new basis, as you propose, Mr. Knowles will ask for a letter to another church and will transfer his membership. "He is, as you know, one of our chief sources of sup- port. You are another, Mr. Trumbull. We cannot afford to lose either of you. I am appealing to you because I regard you as a more liberal man than Mr. Knowles. I do not see any way to avert a real disaster to the church unless you are magnanimous enough to abandon a project which you are perfectly justified in advancing." "I'm licked, Mr. Stout," said Henry decisively. "Consider the matter dropped." 156 FOUR CORNERS "Aren't you deciding impulsively, Henry?" Sarah asked anxiously. "I was about to make the same inquiry," said Mr. Stout. "Now is that fair?" Henry asked. "Mr. Stout is absolutely right. Mrs. Trumbull knows he is. I recognize it. I admit it. I do as you want me to do. Is it fair to suggest that I am impulsive?" "I was merely afraid of an implication of bitter- ness," said Mr. Stout. "You see I am imposing on you to the limit of Christian charity." "Mr. Stout," said Henry, "I would be very false if I did not tell you that I am bitter. I think I never shall set foot in the church again. I do not believe that there could be any roof narrower than the canopy of the heavens which could cover both Knowles and me again. But that is entirely personal and I want you to understand that I fully appreciate the dilemma from your viewpoint. I know the situation as Knowles has forced it on you. Mrs. Trumbull is attached to the church. I confess I never have been. My only interest was to see her at her devotions. I know she will excuse me now. That is all there is to it." "It is all very unfortunate, Mr. Stout," said Sarah, "but I am afraid that Henry is right," "I wish I knew the right or wrong," said the min- ister. "Spiritually I detest expedients and like a straight fight for the right and I find that I always am temporizing, compromising and conciliating if not actually surrendering." He was dejected and arose to go. Henry shook hands with him. "You have my entire respect," he said. When Effa Pepper heard that Henry Trumbull had surrendered her eyes brightened and a savage smile FOUR CORNERS 157 made her thin lips tighten. One arrow had sunk in Timothy Pusey's side. Sarah Trumbull, with as much consideration as possible for the Rev. Mr. Stout, found an unescapable moral issue. The Trumbull family separated from the church. CHAPTER XXVII 1 EXPOSED you to this," Timothy Pusey said to Henry Trumbull when he learned what had hap- pened to the library plan and why. "Couldn't I have made it easier by withdrawing from it myself? My participation irritated Knowles and made his opposi- tion inevitable." "Don't have any feeling about that," said Henry. "I feel as if the episode has brought me out of an equivocal position and put me on firm ground. I had been compromising in latitudinarian fashion with things I morally detest. Now I have broken with them and am clear of them. It is salutary." Henry's nod to A. Knowles on the street was even shorter than Knowles' nod to him and Knowles knew that in winning a community victory he had suffered a moral defeat which was irretrievable. He found that Henry Trumbull by isolating himself really iso- lated the neighborhood. The essence of Henry Trumbull's character was such that if he withdrew from an undertaking he left the burden of explanation upon the persons continu- ing in it and they realized it. The Trumbulls were invited to the Knowles' sum- mer party but Sarah sent the regrets of the family. She was sorry to do so, for Mrs. Knowles' sake but it was impossible to do otherwise. Not the least person Knowles had hurt by living was Lulu Barton. Beatrice and Norman could not have been per- 158 160 FOUR CORNERS voices were arising from the Knowles' lawn and the young men were growing impatient for the girls to come downstairs, when a caller came up the walk. Elizabeth gave a little sigh of commiseration. "It's Oscar Yates," she said, "and Beatrice is going away with you. It's too bad." "He'll have to stay with you, Elizabeth," said Nor- man. "And if he only knew it there couldn't any- thing be nicer." Elizabeth went to the edge of the porch. 'Hullo, Oscar," she said. "Aren't you going to the party?" "No," said Oscar, halting at the porch steps in his customary embarrassment. "I wouldn't go." "Why not?" Elizabeth asked. "Well," said Chubby, with something vibrant back of his hesitation, "if you people wouldn't I wouldn't." "Good evening, Oscar," said Norman. "This is Don Pusey. You know him, of course." "Yes," said the boy. "I'm sorry, Oscar," said Elizabeth, "but Beatrice is going out driving with Dorothy and Don and Nor- man." "That's all right," said Chubby. "I came to call on you. Here's some candy." "Oscar," said Norman, getting up and walking to- wards him, "I congratulate you. Your good sense at last has picked out the nicest person in the Trumbull family." "Please, Norman," Elizabeth implored, "don't tease." "I am not teasing, Elizabeth. I mean it and Oscar knows it." "Come on in the house, Oscar," said Elizabeth. "We can sit out here when they're gone." 162 FOUR CORNERS anything they can do and do it better and if I can help I'll be so proud." "I'm proud," said Oscar, "because you want me to do it. I'm awfully proud, Eliza-beth." His voice grew thin and her name seemed to drift out slowly. "What is that?" he asked, in the same thin voice—■ an inquiry of astonishment. "What is what?" Elizabeth, who had been looking eagerly at his face, asked him. "That," he said, leaning forward in his chair and pointing towards the Pusey gate across the street. She looked where he pointed and both arose from their chairs. A woman, all in white, a gossamer, streaming white, was leaving the Pusey grounds. "Oh," Elizabeth exclaimed, "I wonder" "You wonder what?" Oscar felt little chills on his back, which he thought was strange. All he saw was a woman in white who had come out of the gate, but the white was webby, an airy filament, and the woman seemed to float away. "I wonder," said Elizabeth. "Do you suppose that could be Mrs. Pusey?" "I don't know," said Oscar. "She didn't look like any one I ever saw." "If itfs Mrs. Pusey I think we ought to do some- thing. She never goes out. I don't believe she is to go out." "I'll just go and ask her if she is Mrs. Pusey and if she is I'll bring her back." "She's going around the corner of the wall," said Elizabeth. "We'll follow and I'll try to think. We've 164 FOUR CORNERS would be exposed to many eyes and few of them would be sympathetic. The thought of Mrs. Pepper suggested the interest which would be taken in this phenomenon. It was tearing down the walls of the Pusey home. Elizabeth knew she must prevent it. The lady went slowly by the kitchen porch and on into the trees where there were many banks of shrub- bery. Elizabeth's distraction increased as the needs of the situation unfolded. She had to remain at the gate to direct Mr. Pusey and Oscar. Otherwise she could not hope for help from them. She had to fol- low Mrs. Pusey into the shrubbery. Otherwise she could not try to prevent the lady from reaching the lawn. She stepped back to the gate in hope that Mr. Pusey and Oscar were in sight. They were not but two little barefoot boys, who had been leaning against the pickets of the Knowles' fence, watching the party and listening to the music, were coming along the sidewalk. "Little boys," said Elizabeth, "do you know me?" "I know you," said one. "You are Elizabeth Trum- bull." "And you know Oscar Yates, don't you?" "Chubby Yates?" they said together shrilly as if asking who didn't know him. "Sure—yes'm." "Will you do something for me, please," the girl said quickly, "and I'll do something nice for you. Stay here at this gate and when you see Oscar Yates and Mr. Pusey come down the street, tell them that I have gone in here. Will you?" "Sure—yes'm," said one of the boys. "What's the matter?" asked the other one, stirred by her betrayed excitement. FOUR CORNERS 165 "Nothing at all," she said. "I'm just going in here and they won't know where I've gone." "All right, we'll tell them," said the other boy. Elizabeth walked away towards the shrubbery, slowly so as not to stimulate the curiosity of the boys. She hoped Oscar would bring Mr. Pusey quickly. The lady in white had gone on through the planta- tion of bushes and Elizabeth, even when she gained the shrubs, had an instant of fear. What if she had lost the object of her scrutiny at the most critical moment? She stepped quickly and softly, this way and that, looking down the lanes between the bushes —and saw a flash of gossamer white. Then her alarm increased. The lady was near the edge of the lawn, evidently attracted by the shrill voices, the laughter, the lights and the music. Eliz- abeth went towards her as quietly and quickly as she could. Somehow, for the sake of Mr. Pusey, for Don and Dorothy, for the sake of the poor lady her- self, she must stop her from emerging from the covert of the brush. The lady went very slowly. Elizabeth, stepping from one tree to another, was close to her. She had to sacrifice some precaution to preparation for sud- den restraining action. She could not imagine what the outcome of that would be. The lady did not seem intent on any plan. She held her head to one side and then to the other, daintily as a bird listening to the call of another. She moved as if delighted, Elizabeth, anxious as she was, thought, out of her romantic reading, of a hamadryad. Once a rich low sound, as if the be- ginning of a trill, also bird-like, came from her. She gently pushed aside branches to make a larger aperture through which she could look out upon the 166 FOUR CORNERS picture of the lighted lawn. Elizabeth took a posi- tion almost as close to the lawn as that the lady oc- cupied. She also, through the branches of the shrub- bery, could see groups of people. Suddenly a man, leisurely skirting the margin of groups, came to- wards them. She saw that it was Knowles. He either was bored by what he had to endure or he wanted a comprehensive view of his place, so alive with people. He came closer and closer until he stood just beyond the bush behind which the lady hid. All Elizabeth could do was hope that nothing would discover them to him. Knowles stood with his back to them. The lady reached out her hand, slowly, quietly and gracefully through the shrubbery until her fingers were poised almost over his shoulder and seemingly about to descend to touch it lightly. Elizabeth held her breath and clinched her hands. Knowles, satisfied with what he had of his view, moved slowly away, across the lawn. The lady brought her hand back abruptly, as if offended. She watched him as he took ten paces and then again gave the low bird-like call. He stopped, for just an in- stant, and then walked on. The lady was at the extreme edge of her adventure. She began to back slowly from the bushes, turned and walked deeper into the dark of the trees. Just then Elizabeth heard footsteps and saw Oscar and Mr. Pusey. She went quickly and quietly to them. She saw in a glance that Mr. Pusey was agi- tated. "There she is," she said pointing to the mist of white to one side. Mr. Pusey went towards the lady with- out saying anything. FOUR CORNERS 167 "Now we must go," Elizabeth said to Oscar. "We must go quickly." "Do you think we ought to?" Oscar asked in an excited whisper. "Yes," she said, taking him by the hand. "Right away before they see that we see any more." At the gate she found the two little boys. "I've got some candy and cake for you at home," she said, taking each boy by the hand. Oscar helped her urge them on and they were not allowed to re- fuse. They were blinking in the Trumbull dining room before they knew where they were and Eliza- beth was putting large pieces of cake on plates be- fore them. They went home with their hands full of candy. "Oscar," said Elizabeth, when they were seated on the porch again. "You were perfectly splendid.'/ "No I wasn't," said Oscar. "I didn't know how to do anything right. The gate was open. I just ran in and downstairs he was sitting, reading. I asked him if Mrs. Pusey had gone out and he looked as if he couldn't imagine what I was talking about. I said that some lady in white had gone out and that you had said he might want to know it. "He didn't seem to believe what I was saying. That's what took so long. He had to go upstairs and he called the two Italian servants. They were hunting in the gardens when he finally came along with me. He looked awfully worried when he did come." "Oscar," said Elizabeth, "we've got to do one more thing." "All right," said Oscar. "We've got to keep quiet about this. We won't tell a single soul." "All right," said Oscar. CHAPTER XXVIII TIMOTHY PUSEY put a padlock on the gate the next morning. Don and Dorothy each were given a key. When this new protection was observed in the neighborhood it was ascribed to a futile rage which might animate a pariah after such a rebuff as that involved in the library episode. Effa Pepper thought it revealed deep hurt and she was pleased. Timothy found opportunity to thank Elizabeth and to ask her to thank the young man. "Mr. Pusey," she said earnestly, "we are very glad if we helped at all, but really we don't know any- thing about it." She looked at him so seriously that he understood quite what she meant and exclaimed: "Bless your heart," and shook hands with her. A letter came from Madame Savoy the next day. She wrote that Knowles had an appointment with her that day a week, and if he wanted to carry out his plan of being present at the interview or reading she would be glad to see him at two o'clock of the afternoon. Knowles was to come at three. They would allow a widely sufficient margin against any disconcerting encounter or discovery. Timothy had reflected upon the request he had made. It was not a thing he could do. Eavesdropping for 168 FOUR CORNERS 169 any purpose, was out of his possibilities. He was astonished that he had considered it. Another plan had taken its place. He decided to see Madame Savoy that day, to go by the noon train and return in the late afternoon. Before he went to the train he took a record from the cabinet of Victrola discs and wrapped it up be- tween two pieces of cardboard. Madame Savoy's place almost precisely conformed to his ideas of what it would be. It was the most imposing old house in a street of old houses in which the city's gentility once had lived. Changing cur- rents of city development had driven the aristocracy out and brought in the boarding and rooming house- keeper. Shadows of old days seemed to lie on the houses. Madame Savoy's house not only was the most im- posing, but it had added significance because of its reticence. All but four of its window blinds were drawn, as was fitting in a clairvoyant's habitation. Timothy, as he rang the bell, was interested to ex- pect that until he reached Madame Savoy herself, he would go by the route of an ordinary prospect. He waited on the doorstep what he knew must be a cal- culated period. It was a period contrived to balance nicely with the caller's expectations of the mystic. The house, slumbering or pondering, with its closed eyelids, with its assertions of mystery and its intimations of reticence, seemed to be reluctant to admit the person at the door. When this nicely calculated period had ended, the door was opened and the obvious was reestablished. The first person seen was a mulatto maid, indubi- tably human and normal, in a black dress with a white apron and cap. The room into which Timothy 170 FOUR CORNERS was shown might have been the reception room of a successful and fashionable medical practitioner. Just as is the case in such a reception room there was the suggestion that beyond the room was the arcanum. The impressiveness of the unseen permeated what was to be seen. Timothy gave his name and explained to the maid that he was a friend of Madame. He then was con- ducted to another room which evidently was more nearly a frontier of the occult. It was carpeted in heavy plush into which the foot seemed to sink deeply. The room was heavily tapestried, dimly lighted and filled with the perfume of burning in- cense. The attendant here was a tall negro in purple robes and fez. He stood motionless in half light by a brass gong which was suspended from the ceiling by silken cords. After Timothy had been seated, after another cal- culated interval which allowed the impressive silence to assert itself, the negro struck the gong three times and through another door came another negro, like- wise garbed. Timothy saw that his card was going forward and he waited patiently until the processes of the house should have run their course. When his name reached Madame Savoy his initia- tion into professional mysteries stopped. She her- self came gustily into the room with silk robes flying about her in the briskness of her movements. "Well," she said, smiling and holding out her hand. "I am glad to see you but did I make a mistake in my letter or did you misread it? It was a week from to-day." "Yes," said Timothy. "I understood." "Come with me," said Madame Savoy. "We'll go where we can be comfortable and cheerful." FOUR CORNERS 171 She led the way into a hall and by several doors open but draped with heavy hangings. "The throne room," she said, with a satiric smile. "Quite 'orrible and shivery. All the conventional spook furniture. Make even a stock broker think he's passed over—but it stops here." She opened a door and Timothy stepped kito a large, cheery and sunny room. The contrast was that of a bright meadow to a tunnel. The woodwork was white, the hanging and coverings were of bright, dainty chintz and there were many books in shelves and on the tables. Three canaries hung in cages by the windows. These were the windows which Timothy had noticed from without were the only ones with raised blinds. Madame Savoy alone was bizarre. "I must look like sin to you in here," she said. "The other part takes a heavy make up." "I probably am interfering with your schedule," Timothy suggested. "It would not matter if you were. It does them good to wait. It prepares their souls." "I have decided, of course," said Timothy, "not to ask to be allowed to listen when Knowles is here." "You are welcome to if you want to. I wouldn't permit it to any one else, but if I know anything about people you wouldn't do it unless the reason were bigger than all your instincts, and I didn't think, even then, that you'd do it. You see I am right." "No, I can't do that." "Although you need not be afraid Knowles would expose his soul. He is a keg of nails. There's super- stition in him and credulity or he wouldn't come here, and there's a great deal of pressure on him some- where." 172 FOUR CORNERS "Do you know just what?" "Generally but not precisely. We have a fair record now of his city life. He is in the city two afternoons and nights each week. He has some of the habits of a good home town man going wild in town but he isn't that type. He is decorous and he does not lose any dignity. He is fond of a good din- ner and he likes wine with it, not too much. He travels by himself. His business is with stock brok- ers. I don't think his bank will stand investigation. He seems, to me, to have an instinct for believing himself either right or privileged and incapable of failure. My impression is that he is taking chances with laws and other people's money recklessly. He may come through but if he does he is one in a thousand. He is a very bitter man. He has failed somehow/' , "He interests me," said Timothy. "If I were a real psychic I would tell him to be- ware of a tall man with a kind smile who did not live more than a mile from him. I'm not asking questions. I'm not even guessing, although I am pretty good at it when I try." "You might tell him to beware of public moneys," Timothy suggested. "Why?" Madame Savoy asked. "It will be another thing to interest him in you. He wants to be our county treasurer." "Good Lord!" Madame Savoy exclaimed. "Can he get it?" "I don't know. Maybe not. Now the chief object of my visit—I'm taking too much of your time." "No indeed!" she said. Timothy unwrapped the parcel he had carried from FOUE CORNERS 173 home. "You have a phonograph. Can you use one in connection with a reading?" "Occasionally we do." "Then if you can, here is a record which you might have played for Knowles. It may cause him to take a less skeptical view of your suggestions." "What is it?" "Nothing extraordinary. Put it on for yourself any time." "I like to be thoroughly acquainted with any busi- ness I use." "It is very simple. I must go now. Thank you for giving me the time." He laid the record on a table. "I am afraid I'd have a task understanding you," said Madame Savoy as she went along the hall with him. "I'm very simple," said Timothy laughing. "Yes, they are so often the puzzles." In the room where the tall negro stood by the gong, Timothy stopped and said: "You have some powerful negroes as assistants." "Yes, we do not encourage disorder in the place." "You might have one nearby the music machine," said Timothy, "in case Knowles tried to break it. Good by—and thank you again." That day week in the late evening Mr. Pusey re- ceived a telegram from Madame Savoy: "He didn't break either the Victrola or the record but that was because Joe was too quick and too big for him." CHAPTER XXIX HENRY TRUMBULL was a self-consciously il- lusioned realist. What he knew was good was his family. He compelled himself to believe that other things were. He lived illusion but he knew reality and he could deal with it. He knew the town thoroughly. Years before he had thought it ought to be better. The gambling, vice, commercialized drunkenness, and sordid, subdued marginalia of corruption, hidden from the complacent righteousness of the town but nesting at its core, of- fended him. He had thought it was unnecessary for a town so seemingly decent and orthodox and conventional to be so polluted and corrupted. Later he learned that nearly all the small towns were. It seemed their nature to be. They wore black gloves and sang through their noses and kept their feet in the mud and would not look down to see where they were standing because that would interfere with a pious attitude. Henry, working realistically, had tried once to cor- rect this politically and his reform activities had curious consequences. The people he hoped to in- terest had been uninterested, except as they were of- fended. They took it ill of him that he should dis- turb their inertia and sense of virtue. They were al- most indignant. The politicians against whom his efforts were di- 174 FOUR CORNERS 175 rected found him so honest, wholesome and candid that they liked him. When Henry saw that if he kept on the only friends he would have would be the men he was fighting he smiled, quit and went back to his books. The reason the politicians liked him was because he was realistic and honest. They knew that if the com- munity had been realistic and honest they could not have existed. They liked Henry and this was a dis- tinct achievement of his character. If he had had a flaw they would have detested him. Political dis- honesty and vice has an essential honesty which it plays hard against hypocritical and prudish conven- tions and it wins. When Henry went back to his books with an ironic smile he was liked by the bosses of the town and he liked them. He had power with them. They trusted him. They knew he was on the square. They knew he would keep his word and that he meant what he said. It was one of Henry's highest amusements when he found that having lost his fight by appealing to the community's sense of decency and honesty, he could, if he wanted to, win many a point by merely going to the bosses and talking to them as a man to men. They really wanted the corrective influence of such an honest, fair dealing man as Henry because they knew that the inertia and hypocrisy of the mass which they despised might be pressed too hard. Then they would have the citizenry on their hands and they might be destroyed. They were bold, they wanted to be bold, they intended to be bold—but not too bold. Timothy asked Henry what he thought of Knowles seeking nomination as county treasurer. CHAPTER XXX DON and Dorothy had come home from the Trum- bull's one evening and had stopped in the library to talk with Timothy a while and say good night to him. He had spent the early part of the evening in Mrs. Pusey's room, until she was ready for bed. Then he had left her with Antonia and had gone down to what he thought of as the selfish, luxurious solitude of his own room. That solitude became more luxurious and, there- fore, he thought, more selfish, as the night deepened and grew more quiet, as his own house was composed in rest, as all the neighborhood settled in silence and in darkness with only such sounds as, in breaking the silence, would make it more significant—a dog barking at midnight, a cock crowing at two in the morning, a late passer-by whistling in the street. Then Timothy was luxurious, whether it were in winter with the timbers cracking in the cold, in spring with the rain of a thunderstorm hitting the windows, in summer with the odor of sweet clover carried in by the wind, or in autumn with falling acorns thumping on the porch roof. This evening Don said good night after a few moments' talk but Dorothy remained seated. "I'm going to stay a few minutes more, father," she said. "Not long. I know you're interested in some- thing I am interrupting." "You know you are not," said Timothy. "I wish 178 FOUR CORNERS 179 your interruptions were continuous—except that it would be so stupid for you." "Distracting for you," said Dorothy, smiling. "You like us but you see enough of us. I'm staying for a purpose. Father I want—we want—Norman and Beatrice to see mother. I know it would be all right." "Why?" Timothy asked. He made even this short word seem to contain a long and puzzled question. That indicated astonishment. He did not compre- hend. "I feel," said Dorothy, "and I know Donald does, that it would be wholesome. We have a mother—a wonderful one. We know she isn't—well. But we want people we know as well and like as well as we do the Trumbulls to see her, once at least, because even if they see she isn't well they will see that she is wonderful. I wouldn't want any one else to see her. They wouldn't be worthy of it, but I am getting to feel that it is something of a reflection on mother and on our love for her that no one ever should see her. Isn't it as if we hid her away because we didn't want her to be seen?" Timothy got up and walked to the fireplace, in which, it being autumn, he had his cherished fire. "I hadn't given it any thought, Dorothy," he said, slowly, still astonished. "We never have thought of any one but her. It seemed natural that we should shield her from everything because we thought she would be happier." "I know she would be happy," said Dorothy eagerly. "It would be only once and only for a few minutes and only for Norman and Beatrice, but then we'd feel that we were normal and not at all mysterious." "I had never considered the possibility of such an intimacy in the neighborhood," said Timothy, per- 180 FOUR CORNERS plexed and growing unhappy in his perplexity. "It seemed natural for you and Donald to want friends and to have them. I wanted you to have them. I have found it pleasant myself to be in touch with peo- ple. We have needed more isolation than a family does ordinarily and I have a liking for a great deal of it, but I never wanted it to be an unnatural con- dition in your life." Dorothy saw how perplexed he was but she had expected that. She did not anticipate an offhand agreement. She knew that the idea was unusual and that her father's instinct would rebel even if his amia- bility acquiesced. "There never has been anything unnatural, father," she said, "and that is why I want such good friends as Norman and Beatrice to have a glimpse of things just as we know and feel them to be. I do not care for the other people but we have been intimate with the Trumbulls and they have been wonderful and lovely to us. I cannot help feeling that our reticences are not nice to them. They do not think anything about it, I know. They accept us as we offer our- selves, but I do think, father, that a relationship has been established which itself asks a little more than we give." "I'm afraid we're getting into complications, Dorothy," said Timothy. "We must think first of your mother. We can't do something to please our- selves which will be bad for her." "I know," said Dorothy, "you know I wouldn't do anything that was, but this will not be. Let me man- age it and you'll agree with me." Timothy looked more perplexed and unhappy. "I always trust your judgment and defer to it, my dear, and I will now in spite of my doubts. I FOUR CORNERS 181 know the point you make isn't trivial and I hope you are right. Be very considerate, dear, and be sure to be right. If it seems important to you I'll not in- terpose my objections decisively." "Thanks, father," said Dorothy, arising to go. "If I were not so confident I wouldn't urge it but I know we'll all feel more satisfied and it has no harm in it." She kissed her father good night and went upstairs to her room. He remained standing by his fire, per- plexed, but the perplexity wholly concerned the ex- pediency of doing as she wanted to do. It did not occur to him that he had not at all penetrated her reason for wanting to do it. CHAPTER XXXI DOROTHY'S management of the permitted meet- ing at which Norman and Beatrice saw Mrs. Pusey was exquisitely simple. Norman and Beatrice had been invited to spend the evening with Don and Dorothy. This was not* an unusual but it was an infrequent event. There were many obvious reasons which made the Trumbull home a more natural place for the constant visiting, without suggesting that the Pusey home was inac- cessible or forbidding. Timothy was known to be engrossed with his read- ing and work and Mrs. Pusey was known to be an invalid, and young life, without finding the one home at all alien, found the other more alluring. The difference was substantial but not significant. It was accepted as something which was. When the Trumbull young people went to the Pusey house it did not seem as if it were an event, although it was. The young people, on such events, always loved to include Timothy in their company, if he could be persuaded and he, if he were persuaded, was delighted by it. Sometimes he played checkers or chess with Norman, who was a good chess player. Timothy had a genius for it. Dorothy having, affectionately dominated her father, did not give his trepidation much opportunity to work for a reconsideration. She asked Norman and Beatrice for the next evening. It was understood 182 FOUR CORNERS 183 that the Puseys could not have dinner parties. Mrs. Pusey's invalidism explained that, the invalidism which had a touch of mystery and which asked for a measure of kindly comprehension from well wishers. Timothy Pusey had enough guile and compre- hension of guile, little as it was in both facts, to know, when Dorothy told him to expect their friends, that her management of the disturbing prospect was pro- ceeding at once. He was unhappy and tried to con- ceal it at dinner. Norman and Beatrice came over soon after dinner. The four young people sat down in the library and talked. Dorothy presently went to the piano, Nor- man following her. She played, talking to him as she did. Then she stopped suddenly. "Beatrice," she said, "you play a while." "I'd much rather talk to Don," said Beatrice; "we have an argument." "I believe, then, I'll ask mother to come down and play," said Dorothy. "She's really wonderful. Would you like to hear her?" Timothy, in his nervousness, had been all over the house. He came into the library just in time to hear the question. Dorothy turned to him. "I think we'd love to hear mother play, don't you, father?" "Couldn't we ask her and have her play upstairs?" Timothy suggested. "I know she would rather come down," said Dorothy, arising. "I'll ask her." She went upstairs. Donald, who knew the tension, the unexpectedness, of the situation, met it by as- suming, for Norman and Beatrice, a posture of casual interest. Both appreciated, suddenly, what it had cost to do this and knew that it had been done for FOUR CORNERS 185 "Sit down here, mother," said Don, leading her to- wards a chair. "Yes," said the lady and smiled at her son. Then she looked at Timothy and smiled at him. "You are quite strong enough to come down, Nona?" Timothy asked, going to her side. "Yes," she said and held out her hand to him. He sat down on the arm of her chair. "Mother has been so well of late," said Dorothy setting down on the other arm of the chair. The lady took one of Dorothy's hands and said "yes." "We are so happy when she is well enough to play and sing," said Dorothy. "No one else can sing the way she can." The lady looked at Norman and smiled. Then she inclined her head a little to the left, as if there were a significance in the slight posturing, and laughed, a deep, fluted, musical laugh with her baby blue eyes twinkling above it. The emotional happiness of the laugh suggested to Norman the happiness which might envelop a cradle; and her blue eyes suggested the eyes which might be twinkling in the cradle. Then she looked inquisitively at Timothy with a gracefully jerky little bird-like movement of the head. "The children thought you might like to play," he said, "but I wonder if you do not like the piano up- stairs the best." "Yes," she said. "Don't you think, Dorothy," said Timothy, "that mother would like the piano upstairs the best, if she feels like playing?" "I think so," said Donald, interrupting. "I know mother has been delighted to see you because she often has asked about our friends." 186 FOUR CORNERS "Yes," said the lady. "I'll go upstairs with her," said Timothy, "and she'll play if she feels equal to it." Beatrice came towards the lady with a restrained gesture of affection, charming in its implications and reservations. "Please play for us," she said. "Yes," said the lady. In the doorway she smiled at them all, bowed a gracious little bow and went upstairs with Timothy. "Dorothy," said Beatrice softly, "she is beautiful. I never saw anything so beautiful." "Isn't she wonderful!" said Dorothy. "How would you like some toasted marshmallows? Dad's fire is just right." "Anything," said Norman, "but nothing to disturb the music, if we get it." For an hour the lady played Chopin and the young people downstairs did not have toasted marshmallows. "That was a brave thing for them to do," said Nor- man to Beatrice as they crossed the street later, "and I certainly appreciated it." 188 FOUR CORNERS "Norman," said Sarah, "I used to think I wanted my boys to take their mother's advice when they thought of marrying because I saw how easy it was for a young woman to make herself seem anything a young man wanted her to seem. I thought that elder women, being cruel to younger women, would be good advisers to young men. Now I must confess that I don't know anything about it." "I don't know that it is anything any one can know anything about," said Norman. "I don't know whether Dorothy would have me or not but I am thinking of her happiness. I think I should be be- yond redemption if I represented the failure of a woman's life." "If Conrad came to me with doubts," said Sarah, "I would tell him that his doubts were their own answer. I would tell him to wait until he not only had none himself but would resent my having any. I would expect love and marriage to take the normal, usual course with Conrad." Norman sat down on the arm of his mother's chair and put his finger in a dimple she had in her left cheek. It was a little gesture of affection he had carried through from babyhood. "And I'm not normal," he suggested. "Norman, my affection for you at times is almost an injustice to the other children. You will think things through where the others rely on instinct. That is why it is not strange to find you thinking of a girl you want to marry just as another man might be thinking of the house in which they expected to live." "I am trying to do justice to Dorothy in case she would be willing to take me," said Norman. "I am trying to appraise myself—not her. We are neither FOUR CORNERS 189 one of us exceptional people. Our prospect is not brilliant. It is, at its happiest, merely of normal placidity—comradeship, associations in common, chil- dren—I hope—always happier with each other than anywhere else. It is only a question whether I am the one who will mean all this to Dorothy." "Your own judgment is the only one that could be any good, Norman," said his mother, "except Dorothy's. She has been doing some thinking her- self." Two hours afterwards Beatrice came to her mother. "I think I'm going to accept Don Pusey if he asks me, mother," she said, "and I think he's going to ask me soon." Sarah had trained herself to expect these episodes but expectancy had not wholly prepared her. In her emotional moments of young maternalism she had considered the possibility, more likely the inevitabil- ity, of her daughters coming to her shyly to tell her that what had been so self-absorbing in her life was about to absorb them. And she always had thought of her sons as being a great deal less direct and candid than her daughters—probably more emotional and headstrong but certainly, in this phase of their lives, less intimate. She and her daughters might re- tire into cloister for prayer and counsel but her sons would be on their own. Here to-day within two hours she had had her first experiences and she nearly laughed at Beatrice. It was so different. "Do you know him very well, I mean really?" she asked. "How can any one know any one else?" her daugh- ter asked. "I think he is a wonder. He fascinates me. He is something of Italy and all of the United 190 FOUR CORNERS States. He is green olives and green persimmons. He's wonderful. He's quiet, mostly, but he knows so much. He has taste and culture and good nature. I do love him. I only wonder whether I'm going to be the woman for him. It is going to be marvelous to have him ask me. And I think I'll say 'yes.' Oh, I hope it's right." "Maybe you ought to kiss me," said Sarah. "I don't know just how to be a mother just now. Nor- man has been to me too." "I know," said Beatrice. "He's going to ask Dorothy to marry him. She is a lovely girl. She'll take him. He could have done better but he'll be happy. He'll never regret it and neither will she." "And you won't?" her mother asked. "Not if I say 'yes,'" said Beatrice. "That's an obligation not to regret it." "Just be as sure as you can, Beatrice," said her mother. Timothy Pusey had a letter from Sassy Howard that evening. "I wish I could have seen you again," she wrote, "but I have to be on my way. My dear friend, ex- cept for an occasional meeting, which I hope years may yet grant us, we have not much that we can hold in common or preserve in association. So I am much better on my way. I have told you that I am fear- ful for you. That fear grows. I do not believe that you can have thought all around your purpose. You are thinking in a straight line to one objective. I am afraid your purpose really radiates in many di- rections and that it may reach many objects. Here is just one of the many things which might occur to you. Dorothy is an attractive young woman. Donald is an attractive young man. They are among young CHAPTER XXXIII IT had gone into late September and the touch of autumn was in the air. This was the beginning of the time which Timothy Pusey chiefly enjoyed. It was the time of robustness and savor and optimism. It was harvest and fruitage time. The year was fluid again and in motion. There were, again, intimation, suggestions and portents. Timothy then loved to sit serenely in his garden in the warm sunlight and see that the juncoes and the hermit thrush had returned, to look at the leaves on the ash saplings as they turned wine color, to see the crimson starting into the maple leaves and to watch Tony as he threshed out beans, gathered grapes and took up early root crops. In the evening he could have his fire in his library. His work day was eccentric. Normality consistently shot through by oddity was Timothy's necessary rule. He did not know that he was unusual in his fez. He only knew that he liked the fez and he did not consider why he liked it. He knew he did. Some days he worked from morning until night, receiving people who needed examination and correction. He ground their lenses, mounting a great grindstone which he worked with pedals. Then, after dinner and after his pipe, he would go to the roof where he had a platform and his telescope and remain until mid- iright. He wrote his notes and observations for Popular 192 FOUR CORNERS 193 Astronomy. He was a valuable but not conspicuous instrument of astronomy. He had some investments which gave him a revenue. It was better to keep a normal of monthly earnings in addition, but it did not worry him to have several days go by without a busi- ness ring at the gate. Now when there were rings he had to unlock the padlock as well as throw back the bolt. It was autumn and Timothy was contented, with black birds flocking in the Lombardy poplars and the sycamores, vesper sparrows flitting in the fields and the first touch of the warbler migration beginning to flutter the seed weeds. The goldfinch was in the sun- flowers. Blind Samuel Pepper sat also in his garden in the warm hours of the day, sensitive to the barely per- ceptible motion of life about him and conscious of the human stir. These were the days when Effa was very busy. She had small boys picking the damson plums. She gathered bushels of ripe and green to- matoes—for butter and for pickles. She potted her bed geraniums and made quince jelly. She was an active bustle of enterprise and in her providence almost seemed benevolent. She seemed to be stocking the house for a gen- erous and genial winter. The good foods would con- note, in their quality and abundance, generous and genial people, but Effa did not lard any of her lean ribs with any new graciousness. She carried the rancor of her life into the beauty of the outdoors, her acidity to its lushness, her nar- rowness to its liberality. She was expert but un- sympathetic, and Samuel seldom was more irritating to her than he was when he sat outdoors on a bench with a look of happiness on his face because he was 194 FOUR CORNERS listening to a bird or found the sunlight warm or the wind sweet. There were days with soft autumn rains which left yellow and red maple leaves flattened on the brick walks, with winds which brought down the cotton- wood leaves; days which had sharp winds and gray skies. All the intimations of autumn came and the children of the neighborhood had stained hands from hulling nuts. The Puseys had lived more than a year quietly be- hind the walls of Sassy Howard's house. Timothy had not suffered any hurt. Mrs. Pusey had not been seen and their children walked the streets without re- proach. Effa reflected bitterly that she had not made much headway. FOUR CORNERS 197 with a cock crowing at two o'clock in the morning he was seemingly irresponsible in his living. These habits were lawless in a community which religiously and healthfully regarded night as a time of sleep. He was a splendid sensuary and at midnight revel- ing in delights of fleshly.and mental solitude as acute as the transports of any voluptuary. Don and Dorothy knew, coming in late, that they would find their father awake and at his happiest. He did not mind their intrusion. It was only momen- tary. This night—it was later than the usual hour— probably twelve o'clock—which was censorable for young people—only Dorothy came to the library. Donald went on upstairs to his bedroom. Timothy had been indulging himself in the luxury of reading. His real soul hated purposive work. When he was completely latitudinarian he read be- cause he wanted to read and he read what he wanted to read. It might be Thucydides or Dickens. He thought, this night as he looked at Dorothy that she was unusually vibrant. Youth was vibrant and Dorothy was young, young and, Timothy thought, as he looked at her, beautiful, but she was to his per- ception just then, ecstatic to a degree which showed above her normal control. "Donald went on upstairs," she said as she sat down. "He asked me to say good night." "I would have liked to see him," said Timothy. "I think he was tired," said Dorothy. "We had a long day. We went hickory nutting and sat up quite late after dinner. We got quite a lot of hickory nuts. They'll be nice this winter. Although I think I like butternuts and walnuts best. I think I get my fire- side pleasures from you, father." 198 FOUR CORNERS "Yes, possibly," said Timothy, "although your mother, when she was well, liked to sit on the floor, with her legs crossed, in front of the fire and look into the hot red." "Marriage is wonderful, isn't it, father?" Timothy blinked at her. "It's a great many things, Dorothy," he said, "some of which I'll not tell you. It's mostly what you ex- pect of it and bring to it, and the luck you have in it. In some cases it is wonderful; in others it is disgraceful." "I said Donald was tired," said Dorothy. "That wasn't truthful, quite. He's embarrassed." "Why?" Timothy asked. "Because, I think, he has asked Beatrice to marry him. I think he asked her to-day." Timothy got up from his chair slowly. "I think so," Dorothy continued. "I mean I know he did. He told me so. And Beatrice accepted him. But we expected that." Timothy was looking at his daughter as if he had expected nothing. "I think Norman wants to see you to-morrow," said Dorothy, "because I have accepted him. He asked me to-day. Father, it is wonderful!" She kissed him good night and went upstairs. 200 FOUR CORNERS The judged Timothy might have asked the judicial Timothy why the condemnatory intelligence spoke so late, but he realized that judgment comes after the act and does not anticipate it. What do you intend to do? the judicial Timothy continued. This was more disastrous. The culprit Timothy might blink at questions which were accusa- tions, but he could not merely blink at questions which were premonitions. What do you intend to do? Can you forbid these engagements? As much as Don and Dorothy love you will they heed you? Will you not be merely ir- rational and suddenly inconsiderate of their happi- ness? Would they be justified in surrendering to such an arbitrary, inexplicable despotism? The eyes of the judged Timothy confessed knowl- edge that the children would not submit. Then what do you intend to do? Tell them? Will you go to them and say, children, impossible? What have you done? Will you explain to these young people? No, said the eyes of the condemned Timothy. Then what? asked the judicial Timothy. Will you permit the marriages to take place and allow these young people to begin a life which may have de- structive percussions and repercussions? Will you allow your friends, your fine friends, Sarah and Henry Trumbull to live in ignorance of the conditions with which their children have allied themselves? Will you ever feel yourself as much as one-tenth the stature of a man if you do? If you tell Henry Trumbull, do you think the mar- riages will proceed? If they do proceed, will it be by open-eyed defiance from the young people? Will you tell Henry Trumbull or will you not? FOUR CORNERS 201 Here the judged Timothy had a flash of resolution against the judicial Timothy. He could not answer him but he could destroy him. With an effort of the will and a movement of the arm he could sweep the judge away from in front of him—out of his sight. Timothy could not reply, but his accuser and ques- tioner was himself and he could and did put that per- son aside for the time being. The person would re- turn, he knew, and return until the judged Timothy, or until events without Timothy, answered him but for moments or hours he could be put aside. Timothy then recalled how unresponsive he had been when Dorothy told him the great secret of her great happiness. She had kissed him. He was afraid he had not kissed her. This caused him a new twinge and he thought of going upstairs to her door and rapping lightly to see if she were awake. If she were he might enter her room and be more tender and loving in his response to her. Then he considered that in her own happy egotism she probably had not observed anything, one way or another, of his actions. He walked forth and back in the room, dreading the long night during which he would not be able to answer or to sleep. To his astonishment, to his chagrin—it hurt his conscience—he found that he was sleepy. He ought to have been wildly awake. He had forgotten that one element in the judged Timothy was apathy. His conscience—that alert enemy of all his deeds— could not keep him awake but it could keep him from going to bed. He fell asleep on the couch, with the fire burning low. CHAPTER XXXVI WHEN Timothy awoke he was astonished to find himself on the couch in the library. His sleep had been sound and it had expunged, for the moment, the events which had distressed him. For an in- stant he did not know why he should awake to find himself clothed and on a couch. Memory is cheated only for a minute. Then Timo- thy had all his distress back again. Recollec- tion comes as with the breaking of a dam—inundation —struggle—something to hold to—then renewed re- sistance after shock and the weary struggle resumed. Only Antonia was stirring in the house. Timothy asked her to give him coffee, eggs and toast for his breakfast and when he had it he asked her to say to the children that he had gone early into the country, for no reason—he merely had a notion for it—to say that—and to give them his love. He would see them before, at, or after dinner, he hoped. It would be ac- cording to their own arrangements. Occasionally Timothy realized the advantages of his kindly eccentricity. He was conscious that, with- out so intending, he gained a freedom by not being responsible to normality. Now he could have this day's freedom and the children would not think that he was behaving strangely. He knew he ought to be there when they came downstairs—to receive their happy and timid or exuberant approaches and to wish them happiness and give them his benediction. 202 204 FOUR CORNERS serious, terrible and destructive. He had to get other people out of it and he did not know how. By noon, going by quick stages and by easy stages, he had walked fourteen miles and had come to a wayside inn where a macadam road, also radiating from the town, crossed the dirt road. This good road served the trade of several towns and there was enough automobile travel to give a country innkeeper a good summer's profit out of chicken, fish and frog dinners. The inn was a low, pleasing frame structure at the cross roads under a clump of willows by a pond. Ducks and geese waddled about, chickens scratched in the dust of the dirt road and the wide porch of the house, with rocking-chairs, was inviting to a dusty and distressed man who began to know that he was Weary. It was a dull hour at the inn. Timothy sat on the porch, had some sandwiches and milk, talked with the landlord and interested him and then asked if he might rest, even if he dozed a moment, in a rocking- chair. The landlord, who would have wished him to remain awake and talk, said he could doze the day away. Timothy smiled his thanks, the more thank- ful because the considerate landlord then left him. For a while he was comfortable, with half closed eyes. He rocked gently. There were crickets in the fence corners, locusts in the trees. The hens clucked lazily. There was the warmth of perfect October, with its mists and hazes. Fields were yellow. There had been a touch of frost but it had not killed. Sweet peas still bloomed against the trellis of the porch. Timothy recalled a Saxon king who having ridden hard for his life, had made the sanctuary of a monas- FOUR CORNERS 207 "I wish you'd come, Mr. Pusey," said Norman. "I'm not as crazy about clubbing the hickory trees as these other fellows are. I'm older and, since yester- day, staffer. I want company and I'd like to sit and talk to you—if you will." It seemed to Timothy that his dilemma had hunted him out logically and justly. He had not wanted to run away from it. He had wanted to walk and think of it. Here it was, following him up in an auto- mobile. "If you want me," he said, "of course I'll come." When the young people had their lunch Timothy got in the car with them and they drove on two miles to some rolling wooded land where there were many hickories. They found stout clubs and began knock- ing the nuts from the trees. It was a sport which Timothy thoroughly enjoyed or would have if he had not been caught at short in- tervals by some variation of the thought that he was an ogre in the lives of these young people who were so happy in the present association. How he could disturb them he did not know. How he was to keep from disordering them he did not know. He was a masked enemy in their happiness. They should turn the clubs against him. "Don't strain in throwing, Mr. Pusey," Norman warned as he stepped aside to get from under a club falling from the tree. "I know. I found out this morning that I was not a baseball pitcher. Besides with Beatrice throwing it is a very dangerous neigh- borhood. Won't you come and sit down over here with me and we can watch the young athletes do the work?" "I am not afraid of Beatrice hitting me," said Time- 208 FOUR CORNERS thy, "but I think I'll hit myself if I do not quit. I seem to want to swing but to hold onto the club." They walked a hundred feet away to a broad rock embedded in the hillside and sat down. "Beatrice and I told our mother and father last night," said Norman, "and I know you would have been pleased to see how delighted they were. Of course they should be but it's fine that they were. Beatrice and I do not know that we can make you as happy as Dorothy and Don make our parents but we'll try. It really gave me a new glow to see how happy mother and father were." Timothy knew that he could not continue indefi- nitely to say nothing. Stammering would be worse than saying nothing and nothing was exactly what his distress had left him to say. He had to meet Norman straightforwardly and he could not. If he had been strong enough he would have said, with anguish and compassion: "I am sorry, Norman, desperately, miserably sorry, but it cannot be." There would be Norman's startled, pained exclamation of in- quiry. And what was the explanation? Timothy had none he could make. He was worse than Knowles whom he had punished. "Norman," he said, "I do not know another young man I could love so much or another girl I should want so much for Donald." "That gives another glow," said Norman. "I try to think with as much maturity as possible about all of it. That's not much, I know, but I can see Dorothy and me making a success out of life together. We are terribly good friends. In her presence I am serene, from the core out. My prospect is not bril- liant. I don't want it to be. Dorothy and I will be 212 FOUR CORNERS brought him that far and it was nearer tranquillity than he had hoped to come. For one thing—and this was a great relief although he did not seek it selfishly—his new policy must be one of waiting and not one of action. It was easier to wait than to act. The young people were to have dinner at the Trum- bull's. As Timothy got out at his gate, Dorothy called him to her and whispered to him: "I haven't given you a chance to say you are glad." He kissed her and that was sufficient reply for her. When he had come into the house he shaved, bathed and changed his linen. Then he went to his wife's room for a half hour before his dinner. Timothy knew that although she did not grieve if he were absent all day, as he had been, it added to her happiness when she saw him. It need be only for a few minutes but as he would come in she would smile and her pleasure was apparent. She would hold out her hand, he would raise it to his lips. She had various little childlike arts of coquetry. Sometimes she affected a long and engrossed period at the mirror of her toilet table, as if he were not there and as if she were preparing for him. Sometimes she played and, less frequently, sang. These were times when Timothy sat with his eyes closed. What he heard was reality. Mrs. Pusey could be real to the hearing when she played or sang. When he left she retained the pleasure he had given her by coming. This serenity enabled him to satisfy his idea and his affection without making long de- mands upon his time. If he went to her room from time to time, or even once, ceremoniously, she was happy. After his dinner, which Antonia served and which FOUR CORNERS 213 he had alone, he saw clearly that either he would go to see Henry Trumbull or Henry Trumbull would come to see him. Both knew the new relationship in which the two families stood to each other and it needed an acknowledgment on the part of the elders. Timothy knew Henry's delicacy was such that he would wait to receive his friend rather than go to him. He must go to Henry. Timothy's dilemma was full sized when he crossed the street. He simply did not know what to say to the Trumbulls. He could merely cling to his new resolution. The children alone were important. If they of all things were to each other the most important that was the most im- portant thing to consider. Timothy did not know what to say or do but he knew that he was no longer fate. "I suppose you feel as we do," said Henry, when they were seated in the library. "It has come at last. They are on the wing and we are of the former generation." "For both of mine I'll say I am proud of their judg- ment." "Sarah and I are delighted," said Henry. "Sarah has wept a little—but it was for herself." Timothy remained only a short while. He was too confused. By remaining and talking he was conniv- ing; he was consenting. His silence was damning him. He was giving himself the opportunity to be honest and destructive, and he could not be destruc- tive and therefore he could not be honest. The predicament was too terrible for him. At least he had made the needed visit. He went home and lighted his fire. One thought remained clear. The young people were the important people. CHAPTER XXXIX THE following day Timothy had no clearer ideas but he had his one determination. He thought he could go again to Henry Trumbull, relying wholly upon Henry's kindness and freedom from conventional cruelties and upon his genuineness of character, and tell him everything he ought to know with relation to the Puseys before there were marriages between the two families. He knew he could do that with such guaranties as Henry's character gave, and if he did it he would re- lieve himself of any responsibility and obligation which later, if he did not so do, might be a hard matter of conscience with him. It was, nevertheless, a betrayal. He no longer had the right to indulge his conscience or even consult his ideas of fairness to others. His compulsion was for the children. Under that compulsion Timothy Pusey, who had commanded fate, ceased to be a director, ceased to be even a free agent. He was thrown into the cur- rent, went over the dam and down the rapids. . If he could not talk to Henry Trumbull he could not talk to any one. If he could not talk to Henry Trumbull he could not do anything, He was helpless. He needed pleasant mechanical employment and did not want to walk again. Tony was transplanting bulbs and Timothy took a spade and helped him, working, easily, all day long, digging in the soft loam, 214 FOUR CORNERS 215 getting out the bulbs, separating and transplanting them, tulip, iris and peony roots and getting up the dahlias for wintering in sand in the cellar. Leaves had fallen thickly and they and the clumps of hazel, viburnum and wild roses were alive and a-twitter with warblers, sparrows and hermit thrush, migrating. In the sunlight Timothy was almost happy, his sub- jective world again getting connections with the ob- jective world. Illusion again rode fact and the fact was pleasing. In the evening, after dinner, Madame Savoy made her third visit to him. "I am getting the habit," she said as he let her in. The driver of the cab, as on the other occasions, had rung the bell, Madame Savoy had waited until Timothy had opened the gate and then had come in a rush out of the cab and across the sidewalk. "I do it better every time," she said, "which proves that even a fat* lady can move when she has to. It is all the more remarkable for me because a mystic is supposed to grow fatter and fatter on oriental cush- ions^—all except the snaky kind who are supposed to wriggle. I always did hate a snaky psychic. I sup- pose you'll think I envy their figures. In hot weather I do—and when I'm doing housework." Timothy made her comfortable in a chair and looked at her inquiringly, quizzically. "I will indeed," she said. "I've had a hard day. It's always a hard day if an excuse is needed. I do like a drop of bourbon, if it's not too small. I can't understand any one not liking one—not too many, just enough to make the clay remember that it can grow at least dandelions." She took her glass of bourbon. 216 FOUR CORNERS "I'm really a housewife," she said, "with a great sense of comfort and a liking for work. I do house- work because I like it. It's a relief. I like occasional- ly to think of humans as humans and not as loons. I'd just like to cook you a dinner some day. There are three or four things I'm hard to beat at and I say it who should because I know. And I'm not like the man who's a good bartender because he can draw a glass of beer and set the bottle out. "If I had been really honest I'd be in somebody's kitchen making ten dollars or so a week for myself, and making four or five people happy through their stomachs, but maybe it's better to be making some- thing more than ten dollars for me and making a lot of people happy through their souls. I don't know, I'm sure; but it was between cuisine and seance for me—and I'm cooking only privately." She laughed heartily and yet not loudly and Timo- thy felt that it was good for his soul to have her with him. "I've brought your record back," she said, giving him a flat parcel which she had carried. "I am some- times wise in what I do not want to know—and some- times unwise in what I do not know. That hurts the business. I'm a little bit afraid for you, my friend." "I don't think you need be," said Timothy, lying. "I hope not. I don't want to be. I've been acting in the dark and I want to stay there if I don't do any harm. I am rather good at guessing—so I purposely have not made any guesses. What I am afraid of is that you have not considered consequences, that is general consequences, whatever they might be. I know how it is with a man of strong purpose. He drives straight ahead. It gets results—but what re- sults?" FOUR CORNERS 217 "Your telegram intimated that Knowles was vio- lent when he heard the song," Timothy said. "Knowles is the most peculiar of many peculiar people who have come to me," said Madame Savoy. "I have never fathomed him. He is granite and iron and yet he comes to me. He does not believe any- thing or in anything and yet he asks me questions. He expects an answer and he knows he can't get it, and yet he comes and asks more and I believe I could seem to influence him less and in reality influence him more than Knowles knows. My judgment is that within his iron shell he has an emotional core which has been injured. It fights him and he fights it but it gets him. "When he heard the song he was dazed for just a second. Then he was furious. He is a very strong man but I had two big colored boys by the Victrola in the other room. There wasn't any struggle. They were just in his way. Then he came to his senses in another second and was back with me smiling the very disagreeable smile he has which I don't like at all. "That was all, but something had touched that emo- tional core harder than I ever had touched it before. That was that. You asked me to do it and I did it. I know nothing about it and I refuse to guess. You are the first person in many a year that I've been a perfectly honest woman with and for that reason I'm your friend, and as your friend I am afraid of Knowles." "Don't be," said Timothy smiling. "You're really guessing and badly." "I hope so," said Madame Savoy, "but here's what I really came down for. Knowles' bank is going busted—as certainly as anything I know. And for 218 FOUR CORNERS some reason or other he wants me to meet him in his office next Tuesday afternoon." "Why?" Timothy asked. "I said I did not know. It was a strange thing for me to consent but I did. He thinks the fee he offered settled it. It was curiosity." "But I can't imagine," Timothy said. "Neither can I. That's why I'm going. Now if I can have my other drink of bourbon and get out with- out being seen I'll be all right." CHAPTER XL IT needed less than twenty-four hours to acquaint the neighborhood that the young people were en- gaged. The girls told a few of their friends in their pride and happiness and the news was out. Effa Pepper learned it from Amanda Popp, which was an annoyance and aggravation. Effa felt that she must be getting into a backwater if it had come to this. It had been her province to inform Amanda, not only to give her deductions of which her mind was incapable, although to which it was receptive, but to give her facts. She was in the garden digging some late potatoes when Amanda came through the gate. Effa knew at once that there would be an annoyance. Amanda was too evidently charged with importance. She exuded it and tried to be casual. "Those are the late potatoes, aren't they?" she asked. Effa did not think that her friend's indirection made matters better. "Being late I suppose you might call them late," she said. "Of course I knew they were not the early rose," said Amanda. "We had a lot of trouble with the bugs." "So I heard you say at the time." "But we never had finer turnips." "Amanda, I know all about your garden." 219 224 FOUR CORNERS Timothy looking at Sassy as she stood at the foot of the stairs, she with her ever young eyes, her candor and honesty and fineness, did not say what magni- ficent things he thought she was but went to take the baggage from the patient cabman. "Of course you didn't see this coming," Sassy said after dinner when they were seated by the fire in the library. "I didn't have the heart to warn you definitely and specifically. It would not have done any good anyway." "I'm going to have Tony and Antonia give some service to-night," said Timothy. "I feel luxurious and Alexandrine." He went to the door and called: "Tony! Tony——I want you to mind the bell at the gate to-night—and I want Antonia to bring a bottle of sherry." A very wrinkled but very pleasant looking Italian woman brought in the wine, smiling at Sassy Howard. "And Tony will mind for rings at the gate if there are any," said Timothy. "There won't be, but if there are I don't want to go out." Antonia smiled again and Timothy poured two glasses of wine. "It's the dry sherry you like," he said. "You never should have had anything except your work, your fire and your sherry, Timothy," said Sassy. "By Providence and my own foolishness you escaped me and then with your life wide and peace- ful before you, you did this." "I think this brought me the greatest peace," said Timothy. "I seemed to be of service. It was selfish. It was a justification. Nona was so helpless—already crazy—and with her twins. No one could have done FOUR CORNERS 225 any differently. Why look at me as if I were an ab- normality?" "Of course you are not, Timothy. The first thought of any man seeing the abandoned Nona with her babies would have been to marry her. That's simple. That's the normal of the world." "But it was such a desperate case and that was such an easy solution. There was nothing I cared for—that I could have. And the life has been so rich. I've been in luck—with those two children treating me as if I were their father! Egregious selfishness." "I never understood Nona," said Sassy. "The ele- ments of a great passion were not there. How could she become helplessly infatuated with Knowles? I know she was. I simply don't understand why." "I don't pretend to understand the physics or the psychics of sex," said Timothy. "Maybe lonesome- ness—maybe his attraction—you know he is a stern- ly repressed strong man. I did not used to be, but I am now, sorry for him in a way—not sorry enough to relent. No, he did a terrible thing, calculatingly cruel, cruelly indifferent. He has been outlaw. I'll burn him at the stake." "How many others are you going to throw into the fire?" "I don't know, Sassy. I'm terribly worried." "I know you are. That's why I'm here. I think you'll have to tell the Trumbulls." "But I can't. I have no right." "I know you think you haven't. I think you not only have a right but a duty. I think it will come out all right. I think they are big enough. But it doesn't matter. You must tell." "But I've done all this. No one else is responsi- 226 FOUE CORNERS ble. No one else had a thing to do with it. Why should I tell? To save myself? To protect myself against conscience and scruples? I won't do it." "No, Timothy," said Sassy, "to protect others. If they can't stand for it without deceit, how will they stand for it if they have been deceived? You must tell Henry Trumbull. It will hurt him but he'll stand firm. If he does you are buttressed against all real evil. If he doesn't stand you will have now in a mild form what you might have later in a ter- rible form. The children will come clear. They'll have their own way but they will know what they are doing." The bell at the gate rang twice. Timothy half arose. "You told Tony to mind it," Sassy suggested. "So I did," said Timothy. "It was force of habit." "Meester Knowles," Tony, appearing in the door, announced. Sassy and Timothy looked at each other. "Show him in, Tony," said Timothy. Sassy went into the adjoining room. "I'm going to listen," she said as she disappeared. FOUR CORNERS 231 "Possibly that answers your question," Timothy concluded. "Completely," said Knowles. "It was an unneces- sary question. I had the answer before I asked it and I did not come to find out what you had done or were going to do but to tell you my plans." He was silent an instant and then continued: "I do not intend to remain subjected to this situa- tion. It is intolerable. I will not stand it. You may think I am unable to do anything. I wanted to correct that mistake. "Have you considered, for one thing, that I may rewrite my will to make a bequest to my children com- monly known as Donald and Dorothy Pusey, whom I hereby acknowledge to be my children born out of wedlock and to whom I desire to make such repar- ation as may be made at this time. I have considered this. It is one of the things I certainly shall do. You may have that certainty for them—that sometime in their life, probably after they have children and while you are alive they will face such a disclosure. "My only objection to it is that it is not speedy enough. I am considering going more directly to the point. You have traded upon my assumed respecta- bility. I have no respectability. I have nothing but disappointments. I do not care anything for the con- ventions and superstitions and beliefs of these people. They do not mean anything to me. I don't care any- thing about them. "What I mean is that I should have no scruples against filing a petition for the legal adoption of my two children, for their legitimatizing or recogni- tion or whatever may be the recourse of a father in the legal form." 232 FOUR CORNERS Knowles talked in a low tone and neither he nor Timothy moved. "I may not be able to convince you," Knowles con- tinued, "that nothing will prevent me from following whatever way I decide upon. You are not a frequent attendant at church. You may never have been at an experience meeting, where our members are sup- posed to reveal the soul and generally only expose the underwear. I may make a statement to the ex- perience meeting. "I have not made up my mind—except as to one thing. I will not endure present conditions. If you wish to avoid trouble you will go. If you want to have it you will stay." Knowles arose and stood looking at Timothy who remained seated and did not speak. "There is nothing more to be said," Knowles said, but still hesitated. "You probably think," Knowles continued, "that I shall be daunted by consequences. You will make a mistake. I do not care anything about conse- quences." He waited for Timothy to answer but Timothy said nothing. "I'll then assume you will not be sensible," said Knowles conclusively, turning to go, "and I shall act accordingly." "He has a crueler egotism even than I thought he had," said Timothy later to Sassy Howard. "What do you think he will do?" she asked. "Possibly everything he said and more, possibly nothing at all. He is moved wholly by egotism. He really stands alone in the world, praised and con- FOUR CORNERS 233 demned by himself for his actions as they affect him- self favorably or unfavorably." "Are you going away?" "No. That is impossible to consider." "You must consider everything," said Sassy. "You are in great danger. It's an enormity." "Do you blame me so very much, Sassy?" Timothy asked. "Can you tolerate that man going unpunished through life? It wasn't possible to think of that, was it?" "I am less concerned with that than with the chil- dren. We can have them thrown into the fire. That would outdo Knowles' cruelty." "I'll sleep over it, Sassy," said Timothy. "He never will do a thing which hurts himself." "Unless it is to escape something which hurts him even more. You have hurt him where his egotism is most profound. That may unbalance him. I am convinced you must, whatever else may be possible or necessary, do one of two things. You must either go away or you must tell Henry Trumbull." "I'll sleep over it," said Timothy. 238 FOUR CORNERS seemed to blurr. Her heart was palpitating and she felt physically uncomfortable. The afternoon was warm but nothing to make her gasp the way she did. In spite of discomforts she was urged on and she felt a thrill of exultant triumph as she neared her own gate. She took a look of satisfied malignance at the Pusey gate. Then that blurred and she held to her fence to steady a reeling world. It did partly steady and she went up her walk. Her vision was uncertain and she, instinctively, held both hands in front of her. An impulse told her she needed shelter and a place to lie down. She was groping her way with hands extended. At the |,orch she seemed to miss the low step. She fell across the porch in an agonizing spasm and groaned loudly. Blind Samuel sitting by his west window heard the sound of her fall and her groans. He went to the door. » "Who's that?" he asked. Only the deep groans and heavy breathing answered him. He came out cautiously, inquiring: "Who's here? What's the matter? Answer, can't you? Is anything wrong? It ain't you, Effa, is it?" It was the first time he had used his wife's name to her in twenty years. His blindness increased the alarm with which he heard the sounds. He knelt down and passed his hands over the pros- trate body. Then he arose and cried: "Amanda, Amanda, come here. There's something wrong with Effa." Amanda, luckily, was in her sitting room. She heard him and hurried across the lawn. FOUR CORNERS 241 "I'm going out for a walk," said A. Knowles. In the morning, after Knowles had gone, Mrs. Knowles looked out of her window for a long time at the Pepper house, watching the neighbors coming and going. Poor Effa was furnishing the drama she would have enjoyed. The women were useful, except that more came than were needed and remained when there were too many to be useful. They were kind hearted and hard, sympathetic and ironic, serviceable and condemnatory. Curiosity underlay helpfulness, criticism overhung condolence. They had nursed each other through childbirths and serious illness. They had flayed each other merci- lessly. They had been tender and vindictive, devoted and treacherous and now they looked at Effa and smiled—to think that she could not talk. Mrs. Knowles wanted very much to go to Effa but she waited, as the neighbors went in and out, until she thought she might have a quiet fifteen minutes or half hour. She was afraid of the confident, re- sourceful, assertive women. When she thought that they had gone back to their own house work she went across the street, feeling a great timidity and a miserable sense of responsibility. She found Samuel sitting in a cane rocking-chair on the porch where the Virginia creeper had colored. "I am Mrs. Knowles, Mr. Pepper," she said. "I came over to inquire about Mrs. Pepper. It's so dreadful. I saw her just yesterday and she seemed so well. It's a terrible thing." Samuel was comfortable. "Yes, it is hard on Effa," he said, "not being able to talk. Sit down, Mrs. Knowles. I think there's another chair there/' 242 FOUR CORNERS "You must feel dreadfully about it," said Lulu sit- ting down and smoothing the silk over her knees. "Everybody's been very clever to me," said Samuel. "I like company and it's nice to have people in the house you can talk to. I had a good supper last night and a good breakfast. Amanda Popp is going to take me over to her house for dinner. I am getting along fine." "But it's so dreadful about your wife," Lulu sug- gested faintly. "It is hard on her. She always did like to talk but maybe it's a providence, that she ought to know what it is to get along without a faculty. I have." "What does the doctor say?" Lulu asked. "He deesn't give out any hope at all," said Samuel, with pride. Mrs. Popp came out on the porch. She projected the ideas of usefulness, cheerfulness and neatness. "How do you do, Mrs. Knowles," she said, with a. delight which was ingratiating. "Won't you come in?" "Oh, no," Lulu said. "How is Mrs. Pepper?" "Well it's hard to say. She doesn't seem to be so very uncomfortable except that she breathes hard and her eyes are wide open. They kind of rove around sometimes. I think she's got something to say that she can't. She can't even move her hands. I can't imagine what she wants to say. She can hear. You can tell that by the expression in her eyes and I've asked her all sorts of questions. I thought maybe it was something about the house. I asked her if she wanted to see the minister but her eyes just get wilder all the time. So I'm beat." "It's terrible," said Lulu. FOUR CORNERS 243 "It's»pretty hard for her not to talk," said Samuel. "I doubt it may kill her." "I must go home," said Lulu tremulously. "If she can hear tell her I came and that I'm sorry." "Don't you want to see her?" Amanda asked. "Oh, I couldn't do that," said Lulu, frightened. Knowles, as he said he would, had seen the doctor. "It's impossible to tell about these people," the physician said. "They are of a hard stock. I some- times wonder that they ever die. They surmount the insurmountable. In my judgment this woman will not recover. I do not know how long she will live but she has had a disastrous stroke. It really ought to have been finis for her right then but she survived and probably will survive for some time. I do not believe she ever will speak or move her arms again. I think she is permanently paralyzed." "My wife was interested," said Knowles. "She has" known the woman and feels a sympathetic desire to- be useful." Knowles went to his office and closed the door in an unpleasant frame of mind. If that frenzied old gossip could have contained herself she "Would not have brought on such an attack. If she had been given only two hours more or an hour she would have done what Knowles wanted her to do. Then Pusey would soon have known that it was a question of extermination between the two of them. Knowles had suffered all he could stand. He was desperate and savage. Part of his life he had accepted fatherhood as the normal prospect and upon that pros- pect his egotism was founded. He would not have been indulgent to his children. Probably he would not have been tender. Possibly he would have beea 244 FOUR CORNERS unkind, sternly patriarchal, aloof and dictatorial, but he would have lived because of them. When this part of his life, this life of assumption of reasonable prospects, had passed, the following part had become one of sustained anguish of disappoint- ment. Knowles found himself dwindling. He was hollow and unimportant. He did not reach into the future. He stopped. He had struggled to assert his importance against this negation of himself but the struggle was unsuc- cessful. There were no substitutes for children. He had become reckless. He had misappropriated funds because he wanted to cheat as he had been cheated. He was lawless because he had been out- lawed. Then his own children had been brought to live under his eyes. As he discovered their identity his anger at first froze him. Then he blazed with resent- ment. He had no tenderness but there were times when he would have accepted every consequence to have owned them and to have had them. This was impossible. They would not have him. They would discard him. If they ever knew their story they would beat him. They would hate him. They never could be his children. Therefore he hated them. They were free agents in his torment. He had failed with Effa Pepper. He was glad there- fore that she was stricken, was only a third alive. He could try with another gossip but not so easily. This was Friday. He would wait until Tuesday, when Madame Savoy was to come to his office. 250 FOUR CORNERS "McLloyd, you're too wise a man to act in this fashion," said Knowles. "You know a bank is not a stagnant pool of money. It is a stream of currency." "Don't waste my time," McLloyd cried, rapping the desk with the head of his stick. There were danger signs in the flush of his face and the glare of his eyes. Knowles did not appear disturbed. He arose but he was self-controlled. "I will not have these actions," he said. "I will have my securities—now," said McLloyd. "You may have your securities a week from to-day." "Will you tell me why I cannot have them now?" McLloyd's voice had a new tone. It was not one of threat but of frightened, even suppliant, inquiry as if he were in fear and hoped the answer would reas- sure him. Knowles made a mistake in interpreting the mean- ing of this new tone. He thought that his stronger will had asserted itself and that the other man had succumbed. He thought he could now be frank. "You can have them in a week because that will enable me to make the arrangements necessary to give them to you." "You mean you have used them?" McLloyd asked. "In a perfectly sound and legitimate way. Now that you are reasonable it is possible to explain to you." "You have stolen them," said McLloyd, as if he could hardly believe what he said. "So you have stolen them." His hand tightened on the heavy stick. "So you are a thief. And I'm a beggar." To Madame Savoy he seemed suddenly to grow in bulk, as some animals in rage seem to do. He shouted. It was not a word—merely a roar—and he struck Knowles on the head with his stick. FOUR CORNERS 251 It was a terrible blow and Knowles dropped to the floor, his head hitting the desk as he fell. McLloyd, raising his stick again, moved around the desk as if to strike again. Madame Savoy threw her- self against him. Two men appeared in the doorway. McLloyd drew back, looked at the two men, walked towards them, with his head lowered, pushed by them and went out. FOUR CORNERS 253 If he revealed it he did so to sympathetic intelli- gence. He did not know what Henry's judgment would be but he knew what its quality would be. It would have comprehension and genuine kindness, the kindness of the heart and the mind. Timothy knew he had to act on some decision or he would be hopeless and it seemed to him that the time he had for action was shortening. Knowles was acting and he was gaining advantage, and even if he prepared his own ruin he was an active and not a passive agent. He went into the house and put on a corduroy coat. Then he came out, unlocked his gate and started across the street. He wished he could frame his in- troductory sentences. How could he approach this explanation which Henry Trumbull must find so amazing? If he could only be certain that he was on the right road he would feel a strengthening assur- ance. Even that comfort was not given. He could not be certain of anything. He was at the edge of the Trumbull lawn when Donald, coming from the direction of town, saw and hailed him. Timothy waited and Don came up rapidly. "Something happened down at Knowles' bank," he said. "I don't know just what but Knowles was killed. I happened to be there as the crowd gathered. He was hit over the temple with a walking stick by a man with whom he must have had a quarrel. I don't believe people out here know it yet. I thought you would want to know." "Knowles is dead?" Timothy asked. "It must have been a vicious blow," said Donald, "and just in the right place or the wrong place. I didn't learn much about it. I came along. I am 254 FOUR CORNERS sorry for Mrs. Knowles. She doesn't seem able to stand such shocks. I'm sorry for her." "I am too," said Timothy, who looked as if the shock had been something almost too much for him. "There was a woman in the office at the time, I understand," Don continued, "and the police were questioning her, but from what I heard it seems that she was there on a matter of business and the man who struck Knowles broke in. There are some rumors about the bank. Some people were already drawing their money out, when the cashier closed the bank." "He's dead, really dead?" Timothy asked. "Seems strange, doesn't it? Our own neighbor, gone in a second." "It does seem strange," said Timothy starting to recross the street to his gate. "I didn't mean to stop your call," said Donald, "but I thought you'd want to know." "I feel just a little unsettled," said Timothy. "HI go home. Suppose you go in and tell Mr. Trumbull." "I was going in to see Beatrice. Sorry if I've spoiled a visit, father." "Bless you, no. You haven't spoiled anything." Within an hour Madam Savoy called on him, as he thought she would. "The occasions on which I have asked you for bour- bon," she said, as she sat down by the fire which he had lighted, "were nothing to this. I shall want at least three. It is trying to see a man killed, even if you do not like him." "What was the motive?" Timothy asked. "You sat there and saw it all?" "Yes, I saw it—but I couldn't at first believe that rap over the head had killed. It wasn't intended to. I'll try to say that for the man when he comes to trial. FOUR CORNERS 255 The bank's gone, as you and I have known it would go. At least I've told you. I knew it and there was noth- ing to be done about it. This man had suspicions. I must say that Knowles was good. To the last he was trying to keep the man in the wrong. Up to the very second of that crack in the head he never faltered. But what I came to tell you was that before this thing happened all he explained was that he wanted me to witness a new will." "And no explanation of that?" Timothy asked. "Not a word—except to ask me to wait until his lawyer arrived. Then in rushed the murderous per- son." Timothy out of all his distress suddenly faced a free world. "You said three, I believe," he reminded her. "I did," she said, taking the second. When Sassy came home she could see the serenity of an accomplished fact in Timothy's expression. "You did tell," she said. "No," said Timothy. "I started to but I was stopped—by Don. Knowles is dead. He has been killed. Don told me. Knowles' bank is failing. A man he had defrauded killed him." "You are the ward of God, Timothy," said Sassy taking a long breath. "You are God's innocent. Now I can pack my bags and be gone in the morning, happy. You are delivered, Timothy, you are delivered." CHAPTER XLVII LIFE proceeds by such commonplaces of habit and instinct, form, convention and acceptance, by route, rule and optimistic expectancy, particularly in small, unexcited, inactive communities that it seems to be immutable and permanent. A person dropping off in dotage, having for a num- ber of years gradually ceased to exist, does not out- rage the formula but an exhibit of violence and ruth- lessness in change, in destruction, does. It presents a challenge which flutters the observers, interests them, horrifies them, makes them ecstatically uneasy and throws them back on the fundamental of their ex- istence, which is their egoistic belief that they are too important to be harmed and upon their religious be- lief that they are too important to perish. The death of Knowles and the subsequent ruin of his bank were catastrophic strokes of disillusionment. If he had died solvent and naturally it would have been merely the passing out of an important character prematurely. In the fashion in which he passed out there was a destructive blow at the structure of illusion. A great moralist had been proved immoral. A great rectitude was corrupt. A notable virtue was a vice. Was there, then, anything valid in the moral architecture? "Yes," each person told himself, at the comforting end of the inquiry. That validity was himself. There were so many financial losses caused by the 256 CHAPTER XLVIII THE NORTHWEST IT was found that Knowles had put the house in his wife's name. It was his largest intact asset and not his. Some of the losses caused by his failure were not destructive. People had lost savings. They had lost working capital. They were hurt, outraged and calamitously denunciatory but they could re- cover. Others had lost their means of subsistence. The neighborhood did not need a great deal of money. Life was not in the spinning-wheel and homespun era but it was governed by simplicity. The people owned their homes. They raised their vegetables. Four or five tons of anthracite gave heat for the win- ter. They had their own pumps. They ate their own fruit. The illuminating bill of a month nowadays would buy them oil for a year. Samuel and Effa Pepper had $5,000 in Knowles' bank. It brought them $150 a year. That was all they needed. They did not believe in even six per cent investments. They believed in savings. Samuel had a pension of $20 a month as a disabled civil war veteran, and they had all they needed, but with the $5,000 lost they were almost hopeless—or would have been if they could have realized their position. There were others in their situation who did per- ceive that a comfortable life had been turned sud- 259 FOUR CORNERS * 267 Beatrice realized that Norman was the artist and never would create. Donald would create and never be an artist. Timothy and Mrs. Pusey might go away and leave them the house. They might go away and leave the house to Timothy and Mrs. Pusey. In any fashion in which they might find a decision the house would be there. Henry and Sarah Trumbull admitted to each other that they would not have thought they could accept for Beatrice an arrangement so little outlined. They would have asked that the marriage await a settle- ment of Donald's life purposes—but they did not. Beatrice always had been the young princess of the family. They knew she would be both convincing and imperious—and they were convinced. Her de- cision was right. Sarah was almost reconciled to everything when her equilibrium, the precious balance so hardly re- covered, was nearly destroyed again. Oscar Yates came to her. "Mrs. Trumbull," he said, "Elizabeth and I have been talking a good deal and I've been wondering if you'd mind if I asked her to marry me." He was not embarrassed. He was all out of his self-consciousness. Sarah wanted to put him back instantly into short trousers. What helped her to stay on her feet was a flicker of humor. "I thought a man asked the girl's father," she said. Then Oscar did knock her over. "Oh, I'm not old enough to do that," he said, "but I could ask you. Elizabeth means a lot to me. She makes me see things in a big way and to want to do them in a big way. I've got four years of college after I get out of high school, but if Elizabeth would say that she would take me if I did what she wanted me FOUR CORNERS 269 "Agnes is all loveliness," said Beatrice. "She doesn't mind and it happens that I am the first mar- ried." The dress was brought out by Sarah, who in doing so tolerated in herself a half hour of half lights, memories so poignantly happy they were sad and some crying which was inexplicable to her sensible self. A human being is.an emotional fool, said Sarah, and remodeled the dress to the figure of Beatrice. "I asked father if I could have my mother's," said Dorothy, "but he said that she was married in a cloth gown and we didn't have it." FOUR CORNERS 273 faction that there could be no question as to his fire to-night. The late afternoon November air was nip- ping. He could have a crackling roaring fire, he could have a bottle of sherry and he could read as long as he wanted to, even until morning or until he fell asleep in his big comfortable chair. When he entered the library the fire was burning. A decanter of sherry and one of bourbon were on the table. Madame Savoy was sitting by the fire. "Tony let me in," she said. "He's a nice man and seems to have sense. I thought you'd like a fire: so I had him make it. I thought you'd want some sherry: so I had him bring it. I knew I wanted some bour- bon—and he brought that. I wanted to see you." "You'll stay to dinner," said Timothy. "I am having dinner in my new home," said Madame Savoy. "I'm Mrs. Singletree again. Madame Savoy died yesterday. I know you think I'm crazy but you won't when I cook your first dinner and many of them afterwards." "I didn't know you had moved in," said Timothy. "I didn't know you were going to use the house. I didn't know why you had bought it. It was all astonishing." "I know it was, but I'm not crazy. I'm sensible. I haven't moved in, yet. We are using the Knowles furniture until I can run the place down, catch it and tame it. It's a terrible thing, isn't it, that house? Well, I like a job and that's one. Meanwhile we'll get along." "We?" Timothy inquired. "Mrs. Knowles and I. You can't imagine I'd let that lady try to live by herself or with a lot of strangers? I want some one to care for and she already likes me. I have it all fixed up with her. She 278 FOUR CORNERS She knew Samuel was happy. She could hear the release of his conversation. She could feel the vibra- tions of his renewed life. He would sit of an evening and talk of her to Mrs. Hawk. He was spry and ac- tive, tongue free and-independent. She could hear the mumble of their voices at meal time in the kitchen and she knew they were eating her preserves and her eyes sought every corner of the room and every square inch of the ceiling for a sign that she might hope for a deliverance. Her satirical neighbors came but they talked to Samuel and he to them. Her paralysis had been his quickening. She knew that Knowles was dead. She knew that a strange woman, Mrs. Singletree, had bought the Rnowles' house. She knew that Mrs. Knowles was happy living with Mrs. Singletree. She knew that the Pusey children were married to the Trumbull children and had gone abroad. She heard that the Rev. Mr. Stout had implored Timothy Pusey to take charge of the reorganization of the church library and that Timothy had con- sented. She heard that the Trumbulls had gone back to the church. Amanda Popp in kindness sat an hour each day by her bedside and told her things. Some day Amanda would kill her. She could hear Amanda talking to Samuel. She could hear her promising him delica- cies—mince pies, baked, spiced apples, and things he particularly loved. She could hear Samuel's joyous voice. She knew he was young again and ecstatic. Pound, the old cat, would jump on her bed and look at her. Several times, having stared at her, he had hissed and spit