LIBRARY


L. C.
3503
TE 533,
F.5
| | a_2 ,


LIBRARY
UNIversity of
ORNIA
i


35 03.
TE 533,
F.E.
| | a_2








THE FIRST PERSON
SINGULAR
WILLIAM ROSE BENET


THE FIRST PERSON
SINGULAR
BY
WILLIAM ROSE BENET
NEW © YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY


copyRIGHT, 1922,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
Çſ)
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA


TO MY FRIEND
DMITRI





CONTENTS
CHAPter rage
I SUPPOSE WE HAVE LUNCH II
II RICHARD TERRILL SPEAKING I9
III THE PERSISTENCE OF JANE 25
IV MR. GARTNER GETS A LETTER 33
V TUPTON AND THE TEN 37
VI UNCLE ARTHUR THINKS NoTHING OF IT 45
VII BESSIE, SoLUs 5O
VIII “THE GIRL WHO WAS BURNED UP” 54
IX ORDEAL 70
X UNCLE ARTHUR SYMPATHIZES WITH
XERXES 9I
XI HELEN AND THE CHINA ANIMALS IOO
XII THE CHRISTIAN MARTYR of “THE Colos-
SEUM" II.3
XIII Ms. By ANON I25
XIV CoRYAT CAN'T REMEMBER I35
XV “I AM RICHARD TERRILL” I44
XVI TRAGIC INTERLUDE I55
XVII MR. DUFFITT IS QUITE MISTAKEN I58
XVIII BESSIE ENLIVENs BREAKFAST I66
XIX ADELA LOOKS EIGHTEEN I73
XX SIRENA UNDER SUSPICION I82
XXI. A QUIET EVENING I94
XXII WHO SHE MIGHT BE 2O3
XXIII IT CoMES To MISS CROME 2I4.
XXIV UNCLE ARTHUR's BoMBSHELL 22I
vii


viii
CONTENTS
chapter
XXV
XXVI
XXVII
XXVIII
XXIX
XXX
XXXI
XXXII
XXXIII
XXXIV
XXXV
XXXVI
CoRYAT IS INOPPORTUNE
A FERMENT OF MINDS
THE MISOGYNIST CALLs
A REVELATION AND A RESCUE
MISS ANN Cole AGAIN
SLADE FACES THE INCREDIBLE
ADELA THINKS IT OVER
Awaken ING
UNMISTAKABLY MRS. VENTRESS
THE PERPLEXITY OF BEING A CRowD
UNCLE ARTHUR's HouR
FINALLY, THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
PAGE
236
243
248
253
261
266
269
275
282
287
293
295


THE FIRST PERSON
SINGULAR


------ ----


THE FIRST PERSON
SINGULAR
CHAPTER I: SUPPOSE WE HAVE LUNCH
LORA SIBLEY stood just outside the bronze doors of
the north entrance to the New York Public Library,
drawing on her suede gloves. From the top of the marble
steps to Forty-second Street she surveyed the passersby
without any real apprehension of their existence. She was
slightly above the average height, rather slender. She wore,
if exactitude be demanded, a navy-blue tricotine and a smart
black hat, the latter nicely adjusted upon her dexterously
arranged brown hair. She had a straight nose and a pleas-
ing, quizzical mouth. Her eyebrows were pronouncedly
curved, giving her an expression of surprise even when she
was not particularly surprised. She had dark eyes.
But how many men can describe a woman? I shall dodge
hastily behind the useful phrase “unique charm”. Flora
had it. It was enhanced by an aloof, slightly astringent
manner, an innate shyness she had never quite conquered
from girlhood.
Flora was a “pop” novelist—but you wouldn't have known
it. In conversation you could not have connected her with
the lapses into mediocrity and sentimentality so frequent
in her books, with the facile literary compromises she had
made for so many years. You could only feel, if you hap-
pened to know who she was at a dinner or a reception, that
such dual personality bordered upon the incredible. In
conversation she could be witty, even brilliant. It was her
II


19 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
quotidian return to the typewriter, upon which she “dashed
off” both first drafts and revisions, that exerted the malign
influence. Then, from her flying fingers, spattered that
treacle of romance without which the mere bread and butter
of life is, to most of us, both stale and unprofitable. Most of
us were, after all, responsible for Flora.
By the courage and cleverness of her own brain she had
forged a weapon of style. After persistent unsuccess she
had also forged the tools to blunt and dull it. Finally she
had fashioned her literary self not in her own but in the
Public's image. Yet nobility persisted in her face, for she
was fundamentally a fighter, possessed of a natural spiritual
courage against odds. She had merely misapplied it.
Her maternal instinct was strong. She often pitied other
people to excruciation, quite sincerely. Her characters be-
came to her as the people she pitied. Then she could refuse
them nothing, money, children, countryhouses, candy-box
love-affairs, hairbreadth rescues, hummingbirds and roses.
It wasn't good for them. And any social criticism implied
in the works of this authoress was always smoothed over
with a large solution of faith, hope and charity. Some
problems necessitated laying it on pretty thick.
Flora was thirty-five. She had begun writing novels ten
years ago and had produced just exactly ten. She had made
a pot of money. O Flora! But I like Flora very much, in
spite of my natural brutality. You couldn't help it.
So she stood, half-smiling at her own thoughts, at the top
of marble steps to a tawdry newspaper-blown street. Any
man in love with her, as he looked at her, might have felt
his pulse accelerate. Her small pugnacious chin was tilted
upward.
Wherever she went, would not her thousand photo-
graphic likenesses follow her? But that was what gave her
the half-smile. She recalled some of them. She took such
an abominable picture. She remembered her own particular
gallery of them: Orphant Annie, The Pride of the Harem,
The Super-Clubwoman, Pride's Purge, Maybelle the Movie
- I -


SUPPOSE WE HAVE LUNCH 13
Star, Old Mother Hubbard, Vampirina. She herself had
bestowed the titles. No, they'd never in the world !
She grasped her small suede handbag with decision. Sun-
light and a breeze brought colour to her cheek. Her air was
distinguished. She was almost beautiful.
She was beautiful to a certain straw-hatted gentleman in
heather-mixture cheviot, pausing in his stride along the
opposite side of Forty-Second Street. He halted in front
of a window displaying a large oil portrait of an atrabilious
individual whose painted nose supported a pair of imita-
tion tortoiseshell eyeglasses. The eyeglasses were real. That
was what people said when they loitered in front of the win-
dow. But Richard Coryat's back was toward it.
He got himself immediately across the street between a
Dodge, a cross-town car and a brown and white taxi. He
met Flora as she descended to the pavement.
“I called last night, but 25
“O, I’m so sorry. A friend of mine was ill and leaving
town. (Well, Lucy had certainly been leaving town, in
a month, and she looked ill!) I should have called you up,
or left a message. I forgot. How are you?”
“Splendidly—now,” he couldn't help adding. “Which way
are you going? Mightn't we ?”
“Well, to tell the truth,” Flora smiled, “I’m sure I don't
know. I've just been looking up something in there.
I 33 *.
“Won't you lunch with me?”
“NO-I'm afraid that yes, suppose we do. Dutch.
I'm an independent person, you know, Mr. Coryat.”
After all, why not? She had been rather mean to him
probably. She could go back to her Gramercy Park apart-
ment or to the National Arts Club. But after all, why not?
He looked agreeable. He was interesting if too persistent.
They were at the corner. His fingers barely touched her el-
bow as they crossed Forty-Second Street. They walked
slowly up the Avenue.
“You got my note about ‘Golden Windfall’?”


14 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
Her eyes had turned toward him, her head was slightly
bent.
“Yes. I'm glad you agree with me. But I knew you'd
appreciate it.”
“Why ?”
“Why, because—oh, I don't know. It's your sort of a
book.”
“How about my own books?”
“Well, to make a horrible confession, I've been so busy
this last month getting settled I haven't had a chance to
read them yet. And you see I was away from America
for ten years. I’m frightfully ignorant about your work
really. But I certainly intend to remedy that.”
“Don’t l”
“Why not?”
“They're awful!”
“I refuse to believe it!” he laughed.
“They are, they're atrocious. I'm sick of them. It's your
fault though.”
“How P”
“Terrill's book. Don't you know that you and he are
responsible for a positively suicidal mood on the part of
this particular lady novelist?”
“Good Lord, what do you mean?”
“Oh, don't be scared,” she laughed, and then was grave.
“I simply mean I seem to have come to a turning-point.
“Golden Windfall' did it. Of course you couldn't know.
And you couldn't know that I opened Terrill's book with
a feeling of great superiority and a decided aversion to him.
But, it's curious, he has convinced me as no one else has
ever been able to convince me of the obligations of a talent.
“The artistic conscience'! (She laughed shortly—rather
harshly.) You see I had become pretty case-hardened, I
guess. And then, of course, I have made money. And
there's so much trifling and idling in the name of Art. So
much buncombe. But he got me.”
“But I know you're exaggerating—”


SUPPOSE WE HAVE LUNCH I5
Flora gave him a swift side-glance.
“No,” she almost snapped, with an expressionless face.
“It's worse than you think.”
He changed the topic to suggest a tea-room on West
Forty-sixth Street. Seated at a corner table near the win-
dow, they confided the appeasement of their hunger to an
entirely indifferent waitress. She returned in five minutes
having forgotten the order. “What was it you said?” They
told her all over again.
Flora opened her handbag and scrutinized its interior
intently, moving her face about with great seriousness. Rich-
ard Coryat realised, when she raised her eyes, that he had
been staring at her. He thought he had rarely seen such
a thoroughly honest gaze. Yet it was veiled to him. Her
own work must be infinitely better than she thought.
“Do you know,” said Flora, and then suddenly curtailed
her sentence. What she had been going to ask would never
do. She must escape him. Yes, even after his introducing
her to Terrill's book. He had become altogether too inter-
ested. She wished, in fact, to get rid of all of them, editors,
publishers, literary acquaintances. The thing to do was to
make a complete break. She would go back She as
suddenly smiled to herself at this persistent invasion of her
creative imagination.
The fish and salad having made its appearance, with rolls
and pots of tea, she listened to Coryat as he talked of Paris
and the Riviera. His voice was light, high, with a certain
harsh, hurt strain in it. He told some interesting stories.
He became animated as he talked, his greenish blue eyes
sparkled. His lean brown face with its deep but not promi-
nent jaw and somewhat broad and uptilted nose was at-
tractively homely. His light brown hair was thick, difficult
to part properly and inclined toward curliness. He had a
characteristic habit of tilting his head upward and back with
great suddenness. He betrayed nervousness by the restless
gestures of his hands. His ears were too large, his mouth
was broad and firm, half-hidden beneath a close-cropped
.


16 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
mustache that had come out sandy. He was not above the
average height and, in the street, save for the keenness of
his gaze, you might easily have passed him as the average
Iman.
“What do you intend to do now, Mr. Coryat?”
“Not foreign correspondence any more at any rate. I
don't really know. I'm tired of journalism. This inheri-
tance I told you about Of course I really intend to
write, but I don't know exactly what. There's a different
feel to things over here, on first reacquaintance at any rate.
Seems so much all Business. But then Europe's a ruin.
France is about the only real intellectual centre. But the
War's spoiled most things. I certainly got fed up on fracas—
as well as on discipline—in the Legion. Yet it seems to me
I hate worse the stupor I find over here—a stupor as to
ideas. Of course that sounds superior. I don't mean it
so. As a matter of fact I am getting back my old love for
New York, love like hatred. It certainly hasn't lost its
fascination, though it's changed. But socially and politically
and so on, doesn't the country seem dead to you ? Look at
this administration.” -
“Well, I admit we seem to care very little for personality
over here. At least now. It wasn't so, certainly. But in-
dustrialism has us, and moulds. Take our writers. Well,”
she smiled ruefully, “take me. I'm a grand example of the
American idea of success, in literature. You'd better go
home and read my books—if you can stand it.”
“Oh, come!” he said unbelievingly; “but if standardisation
is the cry to-day, as it certainly was in the War, I think just
the same that we're bound to swing out of it again. There
are a number of signs. Certainly order and system under
special privilege and convention are really figments of the
imagination—any real order, any real system—”
“You’re a Socialist, are you?”
“No. Not an anything-ist. Satisfactory social systems are
a problem. The point is, under any system, the attitude
of the people. I'm certainly not for the present amount of


SUPPOSE WE HAVE LUNCH 17
special privilege. Yet—there's personal liberty too. Maybe
the anarchists have, after all, the best doctrine for the indi-
vidual soul. Only I don't believe it. I believe in some sys-
tem. Not too much. Socialism might easily become as auto-
cratic as capitalism, in a different way. Here's what I
mean. The spirit in this country. I believe you're right
about the individual. Who wants another war? I certainly
don't. War is a rotten thing. I've seen it and I know. But
in a crisis like a great war there comes certainly a new spirit,
a solidarity. Something more than mere comfort and ease.
An ideal. Something burning. Now that that's left us 22
“Maybe it hasn't!”
“Yes, I think it has. The present lies with the individual.
If I'm purged of any jingoism I had, as well as of old-line
socialism—for I had both in a sense—I’m also against the
moulds of this present phase of industrialism. I'm for the
growth of the individual now as the only thing that will
resurrect us from the grave we've fallen into with our dead.
And I don’t mean the old Puritanical idea of character either.
I mean the life that makes itself felt by courage and pioneer-
ing, by thinking for itself—not by mob formulas.”
Like the opinions voiced in most casual conversation, his
own tripped and stumbled over each other. You could have
annihilated some of his easy summaries. Flora, like most
of us, picked out merely the phrases that applied to her own
immediate problem. She liked the eagerness in his eyes and
a certain suppressed scorn in his voice. Also, he seemed to
know the names of things.
“So you're an individualist?”
“H'm,” he drew his compressed lips inward. “I don't
know. At present we're all slaves to mechanism. Perhaps
more so because we’re a democracy, we're formularised. The
proper expression of personality—the characteristic differ-
ences between human beings—well, call it the first person
singular, in two senses, is what interests me most. Over
here I find types, not people. In Europe, and even—para-
doxically—in the war, despite all the regimenting of every-


18 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
thing, and the discipline—I found people. It was due, I
guess, to the crisis. Men and women revealed themselves.
Now, over here at least, they've crept back into convention.
There's more real life in Minetta Lane than all upper New
York. There's a type of business man, a type of society
woman, a type of flapper, yes, and a type of everything else.
You say there's a type of American novelist. There's the
suburb type and the city type. It may be silly of me—or it
may be a snap-judgment—but I want people, not types.”
“People,” murmured Flora Sibley. “Yes. Real people.
I want them too.”
A silence fell between them as he drew out a silver ciga-
rette case, chose a cigarette, and tapped it upon the table.


CHAPTER II: RICHARD TERRILL SPEAKING
M. CORYAT was interesting, yes. But the fact re-
mained that she wanted to escape him, to escape them
all. She sat at the window of her sitting-room looking out
over green, sunny Gramercy Park. The things she had lived
for seemed now particularly worthless. She had fulfilled
certain responsibilities, of course, paid certain debts. That
much was true, but e
Why had he happened to lend her that book? She didn't
know. But wasn't she glad after all? She knew she was.
However, the mental disgust returned. She could see her-
self as she must have looked at two of that last Sunday
morning, when she had finished the last page of “Golden
Windfall.” She could see herself getting up from the dav-
enport, walking slowly toward the open window, standing
staring out upon the mysteriously moonlit park. The mental
nausea. Good Heavens! Well, it was true. And it was
the test.
She had never heard of the writer before. Richard Ter-
rill. Richard Terrill. What in heaven's name was the mat-
ter with American publishers not to have heard of him?
Well, they would now. That was her first duty, to spread
knowledge of his book. He must be an Englishman. It was
an English book. How old was he, she wondered. How in
heaven's name had he managed to show her her very own
problem so keenly yet so kindly?
First emotional impressions did not live. But he had said
something living. The truth of it was burned in her heart.
Yet, on analysis, it was simple enough and something she
had seen all along. However, the words were now a part
of her, they had irrevocably changed her.
I9


20 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
The puppet procession began again to pass through the
clear light of what he had said. The puppets proceeded out
of the shadow, showed in the light for an instant with a
startling clarity of detail, sank again into the shadow. She
had been so proud of Sallie Pryor—at least leave her Sallie
Pryor' Sallie stood in that light with the jerky gestures of
a grimacing doll, leered, disappeared grotesquely. The light
was utterly pitiless.
Clarriby Null of “The Wiseacres”. Clarriby came creep-
ing avoidingly into the light—stood and blinked in it. The
light began to blacken his edges. It burst through. It con-
sumed him with little eating flames. He was a slight shower
of infinitesimal ashes.
Tortured, lugubrious shapes, pitifully processional. Bar-
ker Straik, George Phillips, little laughing Nelly Madox,
Jane Orgue, the Cranes, the-Busbees—all incredibly gal-
vanized painted pasteboard. Or floating ghosts that faded
piecemeal in the light. The words of their wraithlike voices
hummed about her. The lives of her puppets swept round
her like a sea—voices of age, of childhood, from the froth
and ferment of her brain. The skein of all their lives hung
on a hook in the blank wall of her mind. She had tugged
threads from it, knotted them into patterns, patterns that
also passed into that light and were consumed like a spider-
web under a burning-glass. It was too awful!
It was desperately unkind not even to leave her Sallie
Pryor. An enormous public had liked Sallie. One hun-
dred thousand copies of “The June Bug” had been printed.
Sallie had made her fortune. The light was cruel, unkind.
The man's book was hideous, untrue. The man was an
idiot, or simply an ineffectual angel. What he saw as art
was really a supersensitive and impossibly stern avoidance
of the compromises necessary in real life. Life was simple.
You needed distraction and money. You worked for money.
You made the most of your ability. The public would buy
certain things. You gave them that. No one who had not
come the hard, practical road to financial success could pos-


RICHARD TERRILL SPEAKING 21
sibly know how sweet it was to have fought your way, met
your obligations, gained once more ease, leisure, a bright
world of royalties, nice clothes, decorous applause. And
no one who had not been through ! Her indignant
thought paused.
But she had made her way, at least. She saw perfectly
clearly the road behind her. A girl's idealistic decision and
disastrous experiment; the escape; persistent brave effort;
the man, the woman who had helped her. The development
of a gift at first desperately meagre; the bleak interim;
finally—what the world knew as “success”. Suddenly, one
day, the grasp of the box-of-tricks, the formula. Labour-
ing over the dénouement of her tenth short story, she had
seen. She was perfectly conscious at the time;-she must
have been; yet, somehow, not at all conscious. She knew
that it was not her idea of good writing, of what she could
really do. But the desperation of her mind at the time
stifled the thought. And the formula had proved correct.
Read the reviews |
Then why had this book of Terrill's intruded to shatter
the dream? It was surely a beneficent dream enough. A
world of bright laughter, sound sermons, happy people,
wholesome moods. A beneficent dream that had cheered the
lives of thousands ! She smiled grimly. That phrase was
from the jacket of “Rosemary and Rue”. But wasn't it
true? It had. Always the happy ending. Always the
sweetmeats and bonbons tucked into the lavendered folds
of the story. Always the delight in life—or had it been
merely in “laying it on thick”? Had she grown to believe
it was life? She must have. It was accepted as life. It
was thoroughly wholesome and uplifting. Good heavens !
That girl had been so excruciatingly unhappy. Wistful,
hard-worked, hungry, romantic, sentimental,—then crushed.
Then so bravely trying to build up the fairy story that might
have come true. She had thought, at least, to make it come
true for others. Then how had she lost the substance for
the shadow P


22 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
A long accumulation of small scraps of advice and coun-
sel came to her, from many a successful writer, from many
a seasoned editor; advice to which she hungrily listened, ad-
vice that had finally crystallised itself into The Formula.
She remembered now beginnings in so different a vein. Two
pages of that third, often-rejected story for instance, “The
Barrier”. She closed her eyes to see the two figures in
those pages pass under that scathing light of Terrill's words.
Of all the characters her teeming thought had created those
two alone did not move like automata. Their small but
distinct voices rang true in her inner ear. She had finally
torn that story into strips, and from strips into fine frag-
ments.
That girl; the girl of those days, lean, suffering, puzzled,
embittered, in her frayed grey wrapper and tousled hair,
scribbling desperately in that back hall room of Mrs. Mur-
trie's, writing on the varnish-peeled wash hand-stand, the
big white crockery basin and pitcher (with their impossible
red-lily decoration) standing beside her upon the thread-
bare piece of carpet to which she had removed them. Oh
(suddenly), to have her back, that thin, passionate, intoler-
ably shy, madly battling girl of ten years ago!
Well, to work! That manuscript in the binder had to be
shipped off to Harvey Wick of “The Criterion”. She
rose from her cretonned chair, unlocked her desk, and spent
the next fifteen minutes or so correcting a few sentences.
Then she reached for the notebook she had tossed on the
table and worked steadily for half an hour “pointing up” the
reference to the Boxer outbreak. It was four o'clock when
she had finished, and she had invited Mr. Seelye to tea at
the National Arts at 4:30. He was connected with the Bo-
zarre Picture Corporation. The moving-picture rights of
“Rosemary and Rue” were under consideration. Flora Sib-
ley sighed, closed and locked her big desk, and called softly
for Marie.
* × ::


RICHARD TERRILL SPEAKING 23
Flora nibbled a butter-thin and listened to Mr. Irwin
Seelye. His face distinctly resembled a Regensburg cigar
sign. It had creamed lobster and “The Follies of 1920.”
written large all over it. Mr. Seelye inhaled his tea.
“They'll eat it!” pronounced Mr. Seelye. “See if they
don't. They'll eat it. Home and mother.” He beamed
gelatinously at her.
“The only trouble being,” said Flora sweetly, “that I’ve
chucked the whole business now, Mr. Seelye.”
“You mean the royalties? Well now I'll tell you 3.
“No, I mean I'm tired of the whole business. I’m going
away.”
“Oh! Oh, vacation. Course you're tired. Should think
so. 'Mount of work you turn out. But you needn't worry
'bout the picture till you get good and rested. We could go
right ahead with it. We'd have to do that anyway.”
“You don't understand me. I’ve just delivered my last
novel to Harvey Wick according to contract. I had to.
But I’m out of it now. I've decided not to sell any more
movie rights.”
“Well, what is your figure?”
“I must repeat that you misunderstand me, Mr. Seelye.
The rights to “Rosemary and Rue' simply aren't on the
market. I should have told you that at once—but you looked
tired and I wanted you to have some tea. Pardon me if I
haven't broken it especially gently.”
“Well, what d'you—why, but—but, Miss Sibley, you
really don't mean that?”
“I’m afraid I do. You see I’m just sickened suddenly—
of the whole thing.”
“But of what?”
“Of writing rot, of purveying rot, of stuffing the public
with rot. I’m through.”
The belligerent small chin was in evidence. Flora's eyes
stared straight ahead of her at nothing in particular.
“Well, now of course, Miss Sibley,” the tone was meant
to be pacifying. “You know really that there's no reason
2


24 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
at all for you to talk that way. Not the slightest. Look
how your work goes. Look how good it is. Haven't ‘I
just been telling you that the public'll-eat up “Rosemary and
Rue’?”
“Yes, that's the whole trouble. I believe they would.”
“But isn't this reasonable!” Flora suddenly sat up very
straight and looked at him with clear wideleyes. “Isn't this
reasonable. I have made all the money I want. That, as all
of us know is ‘the object in view'. Well, I've made enough.
But I've just come to see what I've made it by. We needn't
go into that. I'm through, that's all.”
“Sorry,” she said a few moments later, at the door of the
National Arts, to this rather dazed myrmidon of the pro-
ducers. “I see you don't quite understand it. Perhaps I’m
wrong. Only I don't think so. Good-bye!”
Mr. Irwin Seelye paused to light a fat cigar as he reached
Fourth Avenue. He tilted it toward the not-far-distant
Metropolitan Tower and looked vaguely up and down the
Street.
“Now I wonder,” he said to himself, “just what she is
holding out for Well,—she's bound to snap out of it.”
He began to walk slowly south on Fourth Avenue. He
continued to wonder.
Flora, meanwhile, returning to her apartment, called in
Marie. It was not on the matter of dinner. Later she held
several telephone conversations and made several appoint-
ments, one with her friend Phil Bruston of the Park Avenue
Bank. Fortunately he was not out of town. She experi-
enced a strange thrill in the thought that she was setting
wheels in motion. She knew now that she had finally de-
cided.


CHAPTER III: THE PERSISTENCE OF JANE
HREE weeks later, in his rooms on the opposite side
of Gramercy Park, Richard Coryat was filling a pipe
from a large glass humidor on the table in his sitting-room.
He had seen Flora several times lately. Now, it seemed,
she was gone. Still vivid before the lens of his thought
floated a likeness of her face. He liked smart black hats
and blue tricotine. He liked peculiarly-arched eyebrows. He
liked dark eyes. He liked His mouth drew down
lugubriously at the corners. He exhaled through his nose
sharply and shook his head. He shrugged. He went over
and relapsed deeply into the Chesterfield before the empty
fireplace. He sat puffing at a pipe he had forgotten to light.
His face sharpened as he sat in thought, his cheeks drew
gaunt. His left arm came up on the back of the Chester-
field, and his head leaned upon his left hand. His hand
kept smoothing back his hair with a softly grinding motion
of the heel of it upon his left temple. His teeth showed as
he bit the stem of his pipe again and again.
Flora—and Jane. He wondered what on earth Jane
could be doing now. He wondered for the ten thousand
two hundred and twenty-fifth time in eighteen years whether
he had acted like a cad. He didn’t see how he had. But
he wondered. That the ache should be so keen—still—at
times—what did that imply? Well then, the implication
was correct. He still loved her.
But was it that? A man's physical hunger was so treacher-
ous; and he had avoided women. Was it that? Could it
be that only? Was it the old possessiveness, that issue on
which they had broken? No. That wasn't true. It simply
wasn’t. He had learned that lesson.
25


26 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
Had he? And should he want to find her? He cer-
tainly wondered what she was doing.
She had dismissed him. He was young—what a kid he
was then, what an infant! What a goings-on he had made
within himself about his pride! What a horrible thing,
and what an incredibly childish thing it had been anyway!
How proud they both were ! As Lucifer. Lucifer had
brought the light. Lucifer matches. His pipe wasn't lit!
He felt along the table backing the couch for matches. The
tobacco seethed as it caught and he popped his lips with the
first exhalations.
Nineteen years ago he had been one of the most prom-
ising young newspapermen in New York. A year later, in
considerable bitterness of spirit, he had decided to leave the
United States altogether. He had.
He had gone first to South America on a fruit company
steamer. He had knocked around Rio and then sailed for
France. Journalistic facility, an ability to live through dis-
comforts and rough experiences, kept him on his feet. Also,
despite his sorrow, he possessed an intense interest in life.
He enjoyed new sights and new people. Once in France he
had gained a livelihood by writing for the Paris edition of
a Chicago paper. He applied himself to a work of fiction
and went to England. It found a publisher and actually
brought him some royalties. He lived in cheap lodgings and
made enough pickings from journalism to support mind and
body for several years. This whole period of his life, how-
ever, was somewhat depressing to remember. But his fasci-
nation with the human comedy had pulled him through. He
had made friends and acquaintances. He had returned to
France before the War, sporadically affluent, in general im-
pecunious. When the War broke out he had enlisted in the
Foreign Legion at the instance and for the companionship of
a friend. He had certainly seen action? He had been
wounded and had spent several months in a French hospital.
After the Armistice he had gone back to journalism. The
War had not improved his position. For all the rapid-fire


THE PERSISTENCE OF JANE 27
work he had turned out in fifteen years no literary reputa-
tion was his. His one novel was now completely forgotten.
He wondered to-day, rather dismally, how it had ever man-
aged to sell at all.
He had expected things of the War. A gallant end in ac-
tion. The nearest he got to it was being buried by a shell
in an abri. After that it seemed to him that anticlimax piled
upon anticlimax, until, after he recovered from his wound,
he was reduced to the position of a mere military clerk in
a Paris office. Once out of uniform he had begun to write
again, from his war experience and from various memories
of his intermittent wanderings before the war, in Spain,
in South America, in Algeria.
One morning he had experienced mental paralysis in the
news that his Aunt Clara Bowers of Pittsburgh had chosen
to remember him upon her deathbed to this end, that, “I give,
devise and bequeath to my nephew, Richard Ripston Coryat,
his heirs and assigns forever, one undivided half of the re-
mainder of my estate real and personal.” Aunt Clara had
died a wealthy old lady. It came to ten thousand a year,
that remainder. He had forgotten all about Aunt Clara.
Hadn't seen her since he was a freckled boy of ten who
used to greatly prize the pumpkin pie she was fond of mak-
ing. The only reason he could attribute in his own mind
for this startling bequest was a remark that floated back
through the shimmering mists of time, made by him in a
voice breaking, no, not with emotion,--with the advance of
young manhood: “Gee, Aunt Clara, I like your pies!”
It was the truth. And it was all he could remember. Out
of the conquered past unravishable financial relief born of
an early passion for pie. Superb irony. He hardly remem-
bered even what Aunt Clara had looked like, save that she
wore a silk shawl and was rather stout, and that her house
on a hill had two cast-iron dogs on the front lawn. Well,
God bless her anyway! He pinched himself a number of
times. It was, to him, one of the oddest things that could
possibly have happened. Which was, after all, a strange


28 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
belief to be cherished by one so familiar with the news of
the world in the daily press.
For a while after that it was difficult for him to take him-
self seriously. He strove hard enough, of course, to remem-
ber Aunt Clara and evoke some more fundamental reason
than pie for the bequest. He tried to imagine he had always
been her favourite nephew—that she had loved little boys—
that his father had been her favourite brother. He simply
couldn't remember. His mother had still been alive when
Aunt Clara was indulging her culinary propensities. His
father had followed her to the grave while Richard was a
senior in high school. Uncle Jim had taken him to live in
Brooklyn. Aunt Clara was never mentioned by Uncle Jim.
They were not related and did not like each other. Aunt
Clara had completely faded out of all recollection. She had
never written, certainly. Yet she had been “of sound and
disposing mind, and capable of executing a valid deed”.
There was no flaw in the disposition of her property. There
you were.
It irritated him in a manner he discovered to be petty, that
after a tragic love-affair and an ensuing life of rather
threadbare grimness, after a war hallucination that broke
down in absurd unheroic anticlimax, after days and weeks
and months he so well remembered in which he had seemed
the sport of destiny, he should suddenly be set upon his
feet with genuine opportunity after the manner of a short
story in the Saturday Evening Post. Had life then any
genuine sequence or dignity? But there it was. The gro-
tesque side of life was always poking its waggish face around
the corner of his mind whenever he became comfortable in
one of his dream selves; those dream selves we all fashion
of a high solitary grandeur.
No. Jane would have made her way. But why hadn't
he heard of it? She was going to write books. He knew
books. There were no books of hers on the market. But
then she had also begun to be interested in social conditions.
Perhaps she had “gone in" for that. He had inquired. She


THE PERSISTENCE OF JANE 29
had left the “Sphere”, oh, it must have been that next year.
Nobody knew down there where she was now. New city
editors, new managing editors had come and gone. Blakely
and Fitch, those two old timers, remembered, remembered
her and him. Remembered their engagement. He remem-
bered that one Spring. Benches in Washington Square.
Hansoms. Good God, there were hansoms then, not taxis'
Eighteen years ago. “The Black Cat”. Finzetti's. Well.
“The Cat” was still in evidence. Finzetti had gone back to
Italy before the War, he heard.
And Lord, how different prices were then, not to mention
wages. How could a girl like that live on twelve dollars a
week. But she did. And really they both had lived rather
royally, in spite of the boarding house. The basement din-
ing-room where that strange Mr. Quigley who worked in a
bank had put a bunch of violets at her place the day after
they had announced their engagement. The fuss of pleasure
old Mrs. Staples had made, the woman who looked exactly
like a head of lettuce, with her green flounces. How they
had laughed at that! What a string of intimately amused
little jokes they had had over the others. That person—
what was his name?—that man who had been a policeman.
The one they called between themselves The Habitual
Henchman. What in the devil was his name?
Well, who could possibly have imagined he wouldn't have
found anyone else after all, anyone to supplant those mem-
ories. In a certain light it was rather ridiculous. But then
. . . Miss Sibley now was certainly charming . . . But . . .
Jane often came in and sat on a chair in his living-room.
She had done that in Paris and in London too, in Rio and
at Cairo. She still had on the brown street dress in which
he had last seen her, and the hat so out of fashion nowadays.
She tortured a minute cambric handkerchief in small square
hands and her eyes were full of tears. She had brown hair
and brown eyes, like pools in a forest. He had once told
her that. She looked at him under level brows. Her chin
trembled but her lower lip was bitten white. She sat and


30 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
1ooked at him, without anger. Looked through him. He
had been a cad.
Of course you could always see the door-jamb or the
wall-corner, or whatever was hung upon or stood against the
wall, through the diaphaneity of Jane. She usually came
after midnight. Once she came in the afternoon on a street
in Pernambuco. That was a comparatively short time after
the break. She looked up at him and took his arm. That
was the hardest to bear. Walking in the sunlight, along
the white street, with the white houses glaring. With Jane
on his arm—a Jane no one else could see. She suddenly left
him, crossing a square . . .
No, all this money meant for him must be the opportunity
to do some really creative writing, the chance he had cov-
eted through years of time-serving. Could he ever do an-
other novel? Should he begin with—what? Some more
articles, till he got his hand in?
Another thing that perplexed him was his having gone
over to call on Flora Sibley that afternoon and his finding out
from the elevator-man at the desk that she had sublet her
apartment and vanished. He had talked to the sub-leasers.
They did not know her plans or where she had gone. A
Mr. Bruston was handling the matter for her. Coryat had
not seen her for a week. He had called up three days before
and had heard her voice. She had given him no intimation of
her intention. Oh, well, after all, why should she? Yet
her going seemed to leave a certain vacancy. He must read
that book of hers he had bought to-day at Brentano's. Her
books couldn't be as bad as she had intimated.
He settled himself under the standing lamp in a comfort-
able corner. He was in his brown dressing-gown. He began
to read “Rosemary and Rue”. The small cased clock ticked
upon the mantle across the room. The light from the lamp
lay in a golden pool about him. Outside the nearby window
vines dripped and the rain whispered softly.
The expression upon Richard Coryat's face grew more
and more pained. Twice he snorted, twice he sniffed, thrice


THE PERSISTENCE OF JANE 31
he stared up with harassed disbelief in his eyes. Finally
the book dropped from his hands. It was too unbelievable!
She couldn't have written it. A woman like that couldn't.
He closed the book and took it up in its picture jacket. The
cover design was that of a stalwart young man in khaki and
high-laced boots embracing a frail, blonde young woman
clad in some material that looked like window-curtain. The
young woman clung to him upon a rocky hilltop. The young
man's face was uplifted. The illustrator had evidently in-
tended to endue him with exaltation. He had succeeded in
making him look as if he were sniffing a smelter. Some-
thing was evidently burning. This impression was increased
by a conflagrate sunset behind the two figures.
Unfortunately the contents of the book was of a piece
with the cover.
She couldn't have written it.
She had. There was her name. Under it, God save the
mark, “Thirtieth Thousand”.
He opened the book and began to go through it again,
hastily, but with a careful scanning of pages. One halted
him. He settled himself to read. He read it and the two
following. The tension in his face relaxed. Then it came
again. He skipped several chapters. Again a page halted
him. Again he read.
A half hour passed. At the end of it, Coryat laid the
book down again with a sigh. Flashes—decided flashes—
amid a welter of absolutely inexcusable sentimentality. She
could write like that on the pages whose corners he had dog-
eared, and yet, she could write—all the rest!
He stared at nothing, and Jane grew out of the chair op-
posite. She sat demurely, hands quiet in her lap. They
were working at the diminutive handkerchief. Her eyes
were on him now. They were full of tears.
“Oh, Jane, Jane, Jane!”
He had not spoken the words, but it was exactly as if he
had spoken them. The room was full of words. Full of
her own low last word to him. “Good-bye!”


32 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
He wondered what she was doing.
She had built a new life by now. She did not need or
want him. She had fought through to some new happiness.
He was still a selfish fool. An incredibly selfish fool.
He wanted somebody. He was intolerably lonely.
He was a beastly idiot, a perfect infant. Strong, per-
haps, when the outlook was absolutely blank. Weak in the
hour of opportunity. This money. His writing.
He wanted Jane.
His loneliness illuminated his mind with a dry, harsh light
that showed it intolerably empty. Across the cracked and
broken tesserae of the floor of a ruined palace sparse thought
rustled like dry leaves. He had actually seen such a ruin
once. Near Ombos.
He sat up and looked around him. He felt weak in bone
and sinew. Outside his window the rain rustled. It had
probably suggested the rustling of those leaves.
Jane. Flora. Why had she left without a single word for
him? But why should she?
He would sleep like the dead to-night. He hoped he
would never wake up. After all, who was dependent upon
him?
“Oh, what did I do to you, Jane?”
He was in a nice state of mind indeed He was a pre-
posterous ass. He had better go to bed.
He would start the first of those articles to-morrow. To-
morrow he was to lunch with Lin Jessup at the Players. And
with an old acquaintance who had arranged the meeting at
Coryat's intimation. “The Coming Age”, after all, might
want what he wanted to write . . .


CHAPTER IV: MR. GARTNER GETS A LETTER
N a certain afternoon in May, Jake Gartner, post-
master of Tupton, Pennsylvania, came out of the yel-
low-painted brick building at the corner of Market and
Willow Streets and stood looking across at the platform of
the Railroad Station, where a seedy individual in a grey
sweater occupied himself with a painted tin chocolate and
gum machine that stood against the station building. He
had removed the front of the machine and was scooping
chinking handfuls of change into the pocket of his sweater.
He returned the front to its place, locked it with a click and
jingle of keys, and picked up the long container he had re-
moved for replenishment. He came across the street toward
Mr. Gartner.
“Been a hot day a'ready, ain't it Abe’” The gentleman
addressed as Abe jerked his head in reply and spat accu-
rately over his shoulder into the gutter. His agency for the
station candy machines gave him, over and above his com-
bination news room and billiard parlor, an importance in
his own eyes.
“Yeah. Any nooze?”
“Not much. Jase'll have a chance to get their place rented
for the Battells now though.”
“Who? Jase Duffit? Why?”
“Letter from a New York lady. Thinks she wants to
live here. Askin’ about proputty.”
“Thasso? That's a queer one. Thinka wantin' here when
yeh could live in N’York.”
“What I thought. We-el, I guess I’ll be gettin' home to
supper. Goin' home yerself?”
“Yeah. It's after seven aint it. That six o'clock train
33


MR. GARTNER GETS A LETTER 35
“Maid,” sniffed Mrs. Gartner. “Maid, indeed.” Which
latter ejaculation seemed strikingly inferential.
“Well,” she added, rising to clear away the plates and
bring back saucers for the apple-sauce, “Some has them,
I s'pose. New York must be a queer place. So full o'
these transients. But what's my lady think she's goin' to
do in Tupton, I wonder?”
“Do?” Mr. Gartner's tone expressed a mild surprise.
“Do? Nothing. Why should she? Live here.”
Mrs. Gartner vouchsafed a somewhat acrid smile in the
general direction of the knitted dining-room motto.
“She’ll find it dead. Dead enough.” She said between
mouthfuls of apple-sauce. “Guess she thinks she's comin'
here fer peace and quiet. Plenty o' that. An’ niggers.
Let's see the letter,” she added suddenly, a new acquisitive
note in her voice.
Her husband drew an envelope from his inner breast
pocket. “Careful of it,” he warned. “Gotta show it to
Jase.”
Mrs. Gartner's only reply to this was a rather embittered
stare which she meant to make dignified. She held the blue
notepaper somewhat away from her and read it with her
head turned slightly sideways and tilted. Her lips were
primly drawn together.
“I don't know as we want her in Tupton,” she remarked
as she finished deciphering. “It smells,” she added, sniffing.
“Vi’lets.”
“Well, what if it does? Jase wants to rent that house,
don't he? And you can see by the way she writes she's a
lady. (Mrs. Gartner interrupted at this point with another
sardonic sniff.) See what she says about a quiet spot 5 *
“Why don't she go to the mountains? Don't she know
it's hot as the hinges down here along in July?”
“Guess she don't. But what have you got against her,
Ag? You don't even know her. Here, gimme that letter
back l’”
Mrs. Gartner returned it with a somewhat contemptuous


36 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
flirt. “Adela Ventress,” was all she would add, “Ain’t it
a name!” Mr. Gartner ignored this cryptic addition.
“Guess I'll go over to Jase's right now,” he said, a trifle
importantly, after a second or two. His wife made no reply
but rose to clear away the dishes.
When Mr. Gartner returned an hour later he heard the
creak of his wife's rocking on the porch as he stooped to
unlatch the gate. A midge-infested arc-lamp on Willow
near the Livery Stable threw jigging shadows from the
young leafage of the trees. The lisp of his step as he came
up the walk stopped the rocking. His shoes thumped on
the steps. The other rocker, the one with the leather seat,
complained of his weight. A slow creaking, now duo-
toned began again.
“Jase say?” questioned Mrs. Gartner after a while in a
a low voice.
“Thinks the Battell place might suit her. He'll write her
to-morra.”
“Warm, aint it?” His wife's voice was almost wistful.
His own rocking stopped. Then, “Yeah,” he said. “It’s
a warm evening.” He began rocking again.
The minute, melodic sawing sound of an insect in the
grass proceeded intermittently. Down Monument Street
the Courthouse clock struck its faint half-hour chime.
Voices came indistinguishably from Elm Street.


CHAPTER V : TUPTON AND THE TEN
NCE round the curve behind Meldon Ridge, with the
Knob lifting into prominence above low rolling hills on
your right, before the iron forefoot of the swaying train
the land dipped into sunlight from the shadows between
high slopes. At the risk of a weeping eye, if you craned
from a clicked-up window on the right side of the train,
the silver cincture of the Passamint River glittered full into
view, and beyond it the red and white toy-box town set in
its nest of green.
But the first you really saw of Tupton was the Jail. The
further shore of the Passamint lifted an abrupt embank-
ment crowned by old Court Street, and on the other side of
old Court Street rose that high, brown, barred bastille.
Churlishly it faced inward toward the town, its back to the
r1Ver.
Nearer, as the train rumbled on the high trestled bridge,
the eye overlooked Courthouse Square down Monument
Street. Then, with a steady clanging from the engine's bell,
the train slowed past Wilder's farm and the Poplar Street
crossing, brazenly tolling its way through the heart of Tup-
ton and past a solid block of old-fashioned red brick resi-
dences, upright as prim old ladies in lace and mitts, the
cushioned stone stoops below their Corinthian-pilastered
doorways set back from a clean and wide brick walk.
But if you watched Tupton approach from a window on
the left-hand side of the train, no such portent as the Jail
suddenly stabbed you in the eye. Beyond the silver eddies
of the Passamint, there bending south and running west,
slept the green pastures and the red and cream buildings
of The Three Farms—Cripps', beyond the weeping wil-
37


38 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
lows on the river-bank, Sayres', with the flashing weather-
cock of a running horse, Wilder's furthest off; beyond them
all the dim roofs of residences on Popular and Sycamore.
Northwest also rose the Hill, the yellow roof of the Insti-
tute gleaming over the trees behind.the Axter Road; east
of it the Hyde place with its strange Gothic tower, between
them Judge Lindon's old mansion, white and sprawled. And
for backdrop of the scene the pale spires of smoke from
The Works still further north seemed phantom fingers
weaving a perspicuous curtain of faint lemon and violet, that
floated and veiled the further valley.
Thus the first two views of Tupton. The tracks of the
Meldon Valley Railroad cleft the town in two like a sword.
The first settlers of that part of Pennsylvania were Scotch-
Irish and German. The Scotch-Irish were bitterish Pres-
byterians. Isaiah Scott, Prothonotary of Meldon County,
had entertained greasy Tuscarora and Shawnee sachems at
dinner in the courthouse in Tupton's early years, dispensing
cider and wine. Wolves from the lower slopes of the Blue
Ridge had howled around the frontier town. As far back
as 1760 a worthy settler named Ephraiam Axter had re-
ceived by patent some three hundred acres that became
known as Quarry Hill. That part of the country was
found to be fairly rich in areas of iron ores and limestone.
This Axter had later purchased three ore banks in North
Mountain. He then took out a patent for some sixteen hun-
dred acres including the land between the ore banks. Such
was the rise of the present Meldon Iron Works that con-
stituted the largest industry near Tupton. Far back a
certain shrewd Adolphus Hyde had become sole owner.
Yet in spite of its iron works, Tupton had remained
fairly obscure, while the town of Barrack Falls further north
and the real shipping point for Hyde's manufactured iron
had grown into a cheap, blatant, noisy young metropolis.
Meanwhile the descendants of the original Scotch-Irish and
German families of Tupton, with a strong infusion of Eng-


TUPTON AND THE TEN 39
lish stock, had replenished the earth in conservatism and
strong provincial pride.
The town was small, the principal families traced back
to the Revolution. Southeast of the town was a negro set-
tlement in the region locally known as the Bottom. The
principal residence section was now on the Northwest side
of Market Street, along which ran the somewhat antiquated
rolling-stock of the Meldon Railroad. Here Poplar, Syca-
more and Ivy ran northwest from Market in parallel maple
and chestnut-shaded lines. Market was some ninety feet
wide, Poplar, Sycamore and Ivy at least sixty. Northeast
of The Old Residence Block on the opposite side of Market
was the Railroad Station. On this side of town Laurel
Street ran straight north from the stone-parapeted vehicle
bridge over the Passamint, to turn northeast across Oak,
Elm, and Willow at the intersection of Oak and Monument.
The large and ancient Presbyterian Church occupied a tree-
shaded green at this point. The lane to the Bottom mean-
dered off downhill from a point southeast of the church.
On both sides, between the old residence block and the sta-
tion, Market Street was lined with quite modern stores.
There were other stores along Monument and Laurel. There
was also a Memorial Library, and there was the historic
Tupton Institute, which had never had more than one hun-
dred pupils. The latter was a semi-colonial structure, with
a yellow roof and a monstrosity of a cupola. It looked
down upon the chief residence district of Tupton from the
lower slope of The Hill.
Within the last twenty-five years a change had gradually
come upon the town. Certain newer tradespeople had pros-
pered. The descendants of more ancient tradespeople looked
upon their inevitable advance in social standing with per-
plexity and suspicion. Manners had changed also, strange
opinions were often heard in certain quarters. Deference
to family and professional standing was felt to be going
by the board.
That, at least, was the undercurrent of much of the con-


40 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
versation in the Old Residence Block. The families of the
Old Residence Block were intimate with each other since
childhood. They comprised, on Market Street, the Brattles,
the Corneliuses, the Jeremiah Mixters, the Uttersons, the
Adolphus Frazees. In their high-stooped brick residences
they formed the thin red line of Tupton's defence, the front
line. Separated from them only by adjoining rear lawns,
trim garden paths, berry bushes and, in several instances,
a tall shady chestnut encircled near its base by a green
wooden seat, the six corresponding residences on Monu-
ment Street might have been called the second line. Flank-
ing these were the three houses facing Oak and the three
facing Larch, namely the Burleys, the Syles, the Reynolds;
the MacConliss's, the Vrooms, the Webbers. Against the
invasion of questionable taste, odd manners, unconvention-
ality, any new ideas, the old Residence Block presented a
compactness of resistance comparable, in a military sense,
only to that of the old-time British Square.
In the Old Residence Block life was primarily a matter
of ritual. It still proceeded with a leisurely decorum. It
acknowledged without unseemly question the pre-eminence of
its fathers’ gods. Whether this was manifested in the per-
petual asseveration of Mr. Utterson, the retired lawyer, that
“You will never change human nature, sir!” or in the ex-
asperation of Jeremiah Mixter with the successes of woman
suffrage; with Adolphus Frazee, the Railroad Official's
staunch Republicanism and implacable hatred of Woodrow
Wilson, with old General Brattle's passionate militarism or
Dr. John Cornelius's impending apoplexy at any mention of
a world-state, the governing principles remained the same.
True, the Monument Street phalanx was perhaps weak-
ened by the presence of the young Harry Persons and the
temperamental Rebecca Stone, but, after all, these younger
folk were saplings of the same soil, seeded from equally
venerable family trees. And they were insulated respec-
tively, to mix a metaphor, by the Miss Babbitts and the
Cravens, by Alexander Pennyfeather and Miss Sophia


TUPTON AND THE TEN 4T
Crome. Besides, Harry Persons was a trusted protégé of
Cephas Hyde, present lord of the Hill; the temperamental
Rebecca Stone's great-grandfather had raised the Meldon
Fencibles and his Revolutionary sword still hung in the hall.
“These young people under our wing,” as old General Brat-
tle had been heard to refer to them with leonine rumbling,
“are, after all,—ahem!—sound to the core.” They were
therefore generously permitted a somewhat lighter attitude
toward life, they were indulged in a few harmless heresies.
It did not even matter that Rebecca Stone was known
to peruse both Schopenhauer and Nietzche, and sometimes
quoted openly and without shame from Bernard Shaw.
True, at the very beginning of the war she had announced
herself a pacifist, thereby giving General Brattle one of the
shocks of his life, but she had shown her mettle eventually,
having probably made more Red Cross bandages than any
other woman in Tupton. True it irritated Adolphus Frazee
that she seemed, in spite of everything, still to admire Wil-
son; it rubbed Dr. John Cornelius decidedly the wrong
way that she would not admit the League of Nations to
be the abhorrent sham he considered it. Nevertheless, she
remained a Stone.
So the Ten of Tupton, despite immaterial inner dif-
ferences, stood foursquare to every changing wind of doc-
trine. Within their portièred drawing-rooms and behind
their bowed green and white wooden shutters they con-
served the aristocratic social principle. By their edict alone
all real amenities in intercourse with the other less fortu-
nate inhabitants of the town were fostered and perpetu-
ated. The smoke of their chimneys spiring bluely upward
through the hushed evening must have been a delicious in-
cense in the nostrils of the Most High.
They bowed the knee in two temples only, both gleaming
sepulchrally white from the triangular Green faced by the
houses on Monument Street. There the First Presbyterian
and the Protestant Episcopal churches stood side by side.
Between these two denominations there had existed feuds


42 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
of old. To-day, however, in face of the invasion of “these
tradespeople”, all differences had been buried. The old
residents were the principal pew-holders in both edifices,
the largest donators in both to the salary of minister and
rector and to the weekly collections, the staunch backbone of
customary observance. Hardly one Sunday of the year
saw any one of them missing from their ancient seats. To
the devout in Tupton, and there were many, this was a con-
tinual source of edification and self-congratulation. With
such a solid phalanx of respectability their rooted centre,
they need certainly never fear for the moral tone of their
town.
But there were also, alas, the outliers. Take Arthur Pol-
lock, for instance. While he held, unquestionably, the re-
gard of the first families and also came of old stock, he
resided on Sycamore Street. His Emporium was certainly
nothing against him. His fathers had founded it. As a
general store it was rooted in the memory of all the old
inhabitants. Pollock was also a Republican in sympathy,
though not what could ever satisfy the high principles of
Adolphus Frazee as a wholly loyal party man. He was too
subject to eccentric outbursts of irascibility against what he
denounced as “peculation” and “outrageous imbecility in
office”. This was applied principally, it must be admitted,
to officials in the State capitol.
But then Pollock was a thorn in the flesh of those who
sought to conserve that high tradition of manners dating
from the period of the Civil War. Pollock was sometimes
too outspoken, too brusque, too careless of the conventions.
Certain of his stories in mixed gatherings had been thought
in questionable taste. He lacked respect for a number of
criteria of conduct essentially sacred to the Ten. He had
upon occasion proved too rude and boisterous. This at
least was the opinion of the women who upheld the social
standards of the inner citadel, and their men, with a se-
cret somewhat lugubrious regard for Pollock, outwardly at
least concurred. At stag gatherings they greeted him more


TUPTON AND THE TEN 43
genially, but theirs after all was not the ball and sceptre
of social office.
And if Arthur Pollock was an outlier, how much more so
his brother-in-law, Dr. Charles Gedney. He was the recluse
of the town. He had married one of the Cripps girls, as
Martha, his late wife, was still referred to by some, an
odd, saturnine woman who had experienced, it seemed,
more than her share of family tragedy. She had not sought
to mingle with the elect of the town, and, to tell the truth,
after a few vague first advances, had not been sought after.
Before the death of Arthur Pollock's wife these two families
had kept a good deal to themselves. Twenty years ago the
Gedney's eldest daughter, Gertrude, had disappeared from
home and had never been heard from since. It had been the
nine-days' wonder of the time. -
To-day the relicts of both the House of Pollock and the
House of Gedney were still asked to the various Tupton
entertainments. They were not unkindly discussed by the
arbiters of taste. The men were greeted by their first names
by the men of the Ten. Dr. Gedney had, after all, been for
many years one of the bulwarks of the Institute whither the
few scions of the Ten had repaired for their earlier educa-
tion before departing for boarding-school or college. But
he and his wife had seemed to hide themselves away. After
his daughter's disappearance and his wife's later death his
younger growing adopted daughter came only gradually
within cognizance of the first families.
Then Bessie Cripps Gedney, orphaned child of Martha's
brother, had formed school friendships with young Betty
Cornelius and young Laura Brattle. Mrs. Brattle and Mrs.
Cornelius found her a well-behaved young person. They
politely permitted the friendship. It remained in both cases,
however, tinged with formality.
Aside from the outliers—and others who should be men-
tioned were the James Battells (whose home a Mrs. Ven-
tress from New York had just rented for the summer), not
to say Mrs. Ralph Harris the stoic of Sycamore Street, now


44 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
last remaining evidence of her scattered family, her boys
being prominent elsewhere in politics and industry—most
of the underlings and tradespeople lived on the wrong side
of town (in the Ten's opinion, at least,) infesting Ivy, Syca-
more, and Poplar Streets, where both Arthur Pollock and
Doctor Gedney happened to be so unfortunately situated.
Moreover, the new mercantile class whose invasion the Old
Residence Block so patricianly resisted, had, in many in-
stances, blossomed forth with pleasant brand-new houses set
in their own comfortable gardens. They had brought the
raucous Victrola and the ubiquitous Ford to Tupton. Their
young people formed their own chattering society. Some
of them chewed gum, most of them indulged in slang, many
of them forced their way into the hallowed Institute to re-
ceive their education.
They permeated the town like a not yet virulent pestilence.
They quickened its life with the cheap and noisy. Their
fathers made money and instituted new places of amuse-
ment, like turning the old Fair Grounds into a Midway Park,
like starting the Star Theatre, a moving-picture “palace” on
Willow Street, like proclaiming a new young people's tennis
club beyond Ivy Street. Was not the dignified if dilapidated
tan-bark court under the weeping willow trees in a corner
of the Institute Grounds enough in all conscience? These
young people in the summer buzzed about Tupton in white
flannel trousers, and striped sport skirts, in sport shirts,
sneakers, and georgette blouses, to the scandalisation by fits
of giggles and gawkish horseplay of the sedate older resi-
dents. They went often on unchaperoned picnics into the
country, and they danced eternally on their porches to the
most rackety music. They destroyed the evening hush of
the streets and their observance of the Sabbath was a dis-
grace—or rather, their lack of observance. So much, then,
for the patricians and the hoi polloi.


CHAPTER WI: UNCLE ARTHUR THINKS NOTH-
ING OF IT
I THINK nothing of it!” said Uncle Arthur Pollock
stoutly, rising slightly on his toes as he stood braced
before the empty fireplace. He thrust out his lower lip in
a way that made his chin recede. His sack suit (in much
need of pressing) was dark blue with the faintest thread of
red in it. It had been made to order. Uncle Arthur's clothes
had to be made to order. Across one of the gray corduroy
waistcoats he affected ran a heavy red-gold watch-chain.
He was huge. He had a scar that ran across his left
cheek from under the eye over to opposite the lobe of the
ear. He had large stick-out oyster-shaped ears that were
always fiery-red and gave an aggressive, attentive aspect to
his face. He had a wide mouth drooping at the corners.
His countenance was ruddy and round. His sandy hair was
thinned and fragile, yet stood up with remarkable wiriness
across the arc of his pate, from ear to ear. His mustache
was sandy, brief and irregular as if bitten. One eyebrow
was perpetually higher than the other and the eye under it
slightly bloodshot and strained. For Uncle Arthur was
astigmatic and would not admit it. He also would not wear
glasses. He thought nothing of them. That was his fa-
vourite expression.
You may be surprised and a bit perturbed by Uncle
Arthur. All I can say is that he did really have that effect
upon people. He wore his clothes baggilly, yet they were
never old clothes. He had partially retired from business,
but still kept a watchful eye on his famous store, a drygoods
store, the oldest and largest in Tupton. He had not got his
scar shooting wildebeeste or struggling with catamounts
45


46 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
on the brinks of terrific precipices. He had got it by falling
downstairs at the age of thirty-seven and hitting his face
on a brass stair-tread. It had cut his face open and he had
been in bed for two months. Partly shock and partly be-
cause Uncle Arthur was a person who liked to be petted
while he damned it. Nowadays he spent most of his time
thinking nothing of it and watching the hennery life of some
gamecocks he kept in a wired enclosure in his back-yard on
Poplar Street, though he paid a visit to the store every day
also. His house on Poplar Street was an enormous affair,
the oldest house in Tupton. It was full of glass cases of
stuffed things, birds, small animals, even reptiles—stuffed.
Cases of butterflies. That is, those were in the library and
drawing-room on the lower floor.
Dr. Gedney, who sat regarding his brother-in-law, was
a man of about fifty-five, Uncle Arthur's age. He was as
neat as wax. Black clothes, a black bow tie, very white linen,
a prominent nose long and earnest, and small, black eyes
that bored like gimlets. Pronounced chin and a high white
forehead. Black hair—a black mustache.
There was a pervasive eccentricity about Uncle Arthur
and a sort of sunset glow. His spasmodic irascibilty and
overwhelming scorn of most ideas hardly mitigated this
effect. They only made th sunset somewhat stormy. But
the black and white of Dr ley—for his countenance was
of a fine clear pallor accº ted by jetty mustache and
hair—conferred mo, rue ... ulness, if more astringency.
Where Uncle Arthur presence was pervasive but ambigu-
ous, Dr. Gedney's had the compactness and accentuation of
an exclamation point and the frosty stillness of a winter's
night. His lips were thinly chiselled—his teeth white
and regular—where Uncle Arthur's were extraordinarily
crooked and coloured like old ivory. Till he spoke you
would have taken Dr. Gedney for a man of infinite deter-
mination. When he did speak, however, his voice had the
still-born quality of the utterance of a very shy man who
talks little and only to his intimates. It rustled dry and un-
*


UNCLE ARTHUR THINKS NOTHING OF IT 47
certainly. His eyes changed when he spoke. They dimmed.
They dreamed. When roused, however, he became aston-
ishingly staccato.
“Now, Arthur,” said Dr. Gedney. “Don’t adopt that in-
sufferable attitude. There isn't the slightest reason to sup-
pose—.”
Uncle Arthur unexpectedly flirted a large blue and white
handkerchief from some bulge of his person and snorted
into it. His slightly bulbous nose became even redder.
&c. nothing of it!” said Uncle Arthur from behind his
handkerchief. “Positively nothing!”
Bessie had been watching all this from the ottoman in
front of a book-case on the opposite side of the room, the
book-case that had the big luggable books in it. She was
also looking at the illustrations of Le Sage's “Gil Blas”. She
would look and then watch. She wondered what Uncle
Arthur was “nothing”ing about this time. Her mind was
not on her elders... A thin sunbrowned child of sixteen,
black hair still tied behind with a dark blue ribbon. A cross-
barred blue gingham dress. Black stockings and sandals.
Large dark eyes with long lashes, elfishly bright. A slightly
uptilted nose, a short upper lip and a mouth the colour and
texture of a roseleaf. Very much the amusing child still,
in many ways, but with a minº of her own.
All that there were of the leys now—the Doctor and
Bessie—and Bessie was reº. 3 Cripos. Then there was
Annie, in the kitchen, cook, usemaiº and nurse of old.
“There isn't the slightest reason to suppose,” went on Dr.
Gedney, in his rustly voice, “that this Mrs. Ventress could
possibly be a bad influence upon anybody. The drawings
Bessie has shown me are excellent, I think, and she is most
interested. I think my plan an admirable one.” -
Bessie was not listening.
“At your age!” puffed Uncle Arthur, for answer. “Don’t
fool yourself, Charley !”
“Arthur,” said the Doctor in an even fainter voice than


UNCLE ARTHUR THINKS NOTHING OF IT 49
book-cluttered tables and its walls of glass-doored book-
cases, was mellowed with late light. Uncle Arthur, before
the empty fireplace, seemed a romantic, somewhat Falstaffian
figure.
“To-morrow,” he announced, “come round in the morn-
ing. They're in the brood coop. I must go. Charley, do
not be a fool. I’ve told you my reasons.”
He glared, yet with a certain benignancy, upon Dr. Ged-
ney. -
“Oh, it’s settled,” said the Doctor's wispy voice that so
belied his authoritative face. “But you'll see.”
“Well—great hippopotami!” ejaculated Uncle Arthur de-
spairingly, and departed with rolling gait from the room.
In the hall and before the hall-door slammed, Bessie heard
him conclude with superb abnegation,
“As for me—I utterly refuse to be a party to it. I repeat
that I think absolutely nothing of it—nothing whatever!”


BESSIE, SOLUS 51
At the top of Book IV an engraving of Gil Blas reclin-
ing on a couch and reading in a long-paged narrow book was,
to her mind, extremely well drawn. His face, with its sparse
square beard and aristocratic mustache, his romantic cam-
bric shirt with open collar and deep rolled-back cuffs, be-
came, as she gazed, the very face and habiliments of her
Ideal. The hands were well-treated, the left especially, in a
position that showed the draughtsman's knowledge of anat-
omy. On the other hand, how monstrously insipid was the
picture of the jade Laura on the page preceding ! What an
idiot mouth. If that were a coquette! She was so much
more convincing in the thumbnail panel, the various faces of
her “crowd of relations” so amusing. But living with the
seven deadly sins must, somehow, have been quite too
treacly. Gil Blas had surely exhibited his good sense by
revolting from it.
The pages of the book were rough and yellowed, and the
queer pictures seemed rooted in the text. In modern books
they were so detached, so unlike the people one imagined.
These seemed to fit better, even at their worst. How many
initial letters, tailpieces, thumbnail decorations and vignettes
there were ! That seemed the only way a book should be
illustrated—in some such apparently impromptu fashion.
The “go-to,” formal sort of pictures, were the worst; posy,
attitudinizing, simpering, losing all grace and motion of line,
hard and wooden. That sketch of the horrible face of the
crone Leonarda on page fifty-eight, just a bare outline, but
worth a hundred Spencerian-haired Lauras. That was it,
such drawing was like those flourishy eagles with sheaves of
arrows in their claws that went with advertisements of
courses in “expert penmanship.” Ugh ! How she hated
Spencerian handwriting!
Bessie suddenly raised her eyes from the page and won-
dered what Uncle Arthur's “reasons” had been. They must
have been divulged before her wraithlike entry into the liv-
ing room. She came even farther awake from the book
upon her knee and her fascination with its illustrations.


52 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
What was her father's plan? Was he going to do what she
asked ? She shoved the big leather-backed book into its
opening in the shelf and remained on her knees for a mo-
ment, thinking. Then she dusted her hands, scrambled up,
and went slimly into the hall, arms at sides, thin hands point-
ing slightly behind her. She tilted on her toes and peered.
There was no one in the rather dim hall. Her father had
gone into his study (which should have been the parlor) on
the other side of the newel-posted stair-foot. There he
would be refilling his pipe from the hammered brass bowl at
the large table. He would be doing it by the open window
that looked out on the side yard where the leaves of the
apple-tree glittered in the six o'clock sunlight.
The hall was dim and somewhat dingy. Bessie climbed
the stairs. Oh, that was it—of course! Uncle Arthur didn't
want Mrs. Ventress to teach her drawing. She wondered
again as to his “reasons”.
Bessie's room had a marble mantlepiece over a now empty
coal grate. The China Animals were its chief feature.
These were mainly an array of those fascinating families one
could procure some twenty years ago in small brown paste-
board boxes stuffed with cotton. They had been bequeathed
her by her cousin, Slade Breckinridge, an editor on the
Colosseum Magazine in New York. Slade's typhoid at the
age of six, when he had lost his curls and the gnome-like
voice of his emaciated convalescence had croaked at his
mother, “Pack boxes!”—was the primary association these
tiny purplish spaniels, bears and deer evoked. Bessie had
been told it many times by Aunt Sally. Then there was the
“gentle face” dog (first g hard, as in gutter). He had abided
with sundry chippings and regluings from the same precari-
ous past. There were the See, Hear and Speak-No-Evil
Monkeys, in their bright jackets, given her by Slade on his
return from that trip to San Francisco. There was Eunice,
the china cow, forever at grazing gaze with a slight cast in
her eye and one foreleg gone at the knee. Eunice had an
incision in her back. She was a bank. The Chinaness of the


BESSIE, SOLUS 53
Animals gleamed across Bessie's bedroom. Dimity curtains
fluttered at her window. The woolly brown hearthrug un-
der the black tin shield of the grate was often a seat more
favoured than either the cretonned wicker basket-chair or the
gray corduroy cushioned window-seat. She dove now for
the hearthrug and sat quiet upon it, in the dusk, under the
China Animals, nursing her knees.
She breathed a name all to herself, after a moment. Her
thoughts were in another house entirely. Her expression
was dreamy and benign. “Adela!” said Bessie. “Adela!”
And then, with enormous satisfaction, “I simply didn't know
there were such people!” There was a pleasant sympathetic
silence. Bessie cupped her chin in both palms. “She gives
you the impression,” pronounced the young pythoness sol-
emnly and finally, “of-of a great unhappy grandeur !”
But even by this last remark the China Animals seemed to
remain quite unimpressed.


CHAPTER VIII: “THE GIRL WHO WAS BURNED
UP”
R. GEDNEY did not practice medicine. He had been
an instructor at the Tupton Institute. Now he had re-
lapsed into doing nothing much, so far as Tupton could dis-
cover. He had written several school-books. He was now
engaged, it was rumoured, upon a history of Meldon County.
His father had been old Judge Gedney of the Circuit Court.
Dr. Gedney himself had a Litt.D. from a small New Eng-
land college.
His wife's death had driven a naturally recluse tempera-
ment even more in upon itself, that and the loss of his daugh-
ter. Yet there were those who let it be understood that they
considered him better off since his wife had died. “She was
certainly very peculiar,” Mrs. Harris, the stoic of Sycamore
Street, would often allow, folding stout, work-creased hands
in her ample lap. Mrs. Harris spoke little and was rarely
moved toward censure. She knew what she knew about life,
but she kept it mostly to herself. She irradiated benignancy.
Hers was a strong character that had endured much with-
out embitterment. But when she said that about Mrs. Ged-
ney, now fifteen years deceased, her eyes narrowed a little
and her mouth was firm.
Miss Sophia Crome, whose house was the last in the Old
Residence Block at the corner of Monument and Oak, was
of the opposite opinion. But then Miss Crome would doubt-
less have found the personality of John Calvin wholly
charming. She was a relic—was Miss Crome. At least, that
was what Uncle Arthur called her: “That relic!” He never
got any farther in his description. It was Miss Crome's
opinion that Mrs. Gedney had been “a most upright
54


“THE GIRL WHO WAS BURNED UP” 55
woman”. She said that with an unctuous pursing of dry
lips. Her steel spectacles glimmered like the eyes of a cat
as she said it.
As for Dr. Gedney, he rarely saw any neighbours. He
read, wrote, or pottered about his yard during the day.
He read with or without Bessie at home in the even-
ings. He and Bessie usually had dinner at the Pollocks'
once a week. Several times a week he and Uncle Arthur
would play checkers together, visiting each other's homes.
But most of his life was submerged in that other life af-
forded by books. He read chiefly philosophy and history
(pastimes unbewildering, even fascinating, to his retentive
memory and analytical mind). Contemporary affairs, the
affairs of the town of Tupton, made little impression upon
him. He poked his pipe full of rather rank tobacco, with
one long, lean forefinger, and went on reading.
Bessie went in and out of his house as she listed. He
usually knew why she was out—at school, at the gymnasium,
at the library, at the Brattles, at the Corneliuses. It was one
of those places. She was a dear child, dark and quiet and
quite fond of reading. With a head in the air of her own.
No need to worry about her. Arthur worried entirely too
much. Arthur was so fussy. Fussiness ran in that family.
Dr. Gedney smiled a sad, haunted smile. Ineffably silly of
Arthur, this last business. . . .
Bessie's father was sitting in a large leather chair by the
window. The seams of the back of it had burst and the
black horsehair stuffing was apparent. He arose now, in his
absent-minded way, and went over to his desk by the south
wall. After some fumbling he produced from a side-drawer
an oblong box of unpainted tin. There was more fumbling
with his key-ring, which he wore at the end of his watch-
chain instead of a watch. His watch he always carried
without fob or other attachment in his upper vest-pocket on
the right-hand side. That was typical. Yet he had not
broken the crystal once in ten years. That also was typical.
He was an unhandy man though. The key stuck in the lock


56 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
of the box and he made some pother getting it open. He
kept saying something softly under his breath. As a matter
of record the words were, “Oh, dear, oh, dear. . . .” They
were his habitual method of expression of his sense of minor
annoyances.
In the box, with some other papers, was a small packet
secured by a rubber band. Beside this band were traces of
another, dark vestiges of rubber. The packet had at one
time been put away for a long period. The paper in the
packet proved somewhat discoloured and faded as Dr. Ged-
ney unfolded it. He removed the outer sheet and spread
it out upon his knee. It was the first picture she had ever
drawn.
Three remarkable individuals could be distinguished in
the foreground. The hat of one floated in a detached man-
ner half an inch above its head. The arms and legs were
excessively spidery. The hands were equipped with at least
ten skeleton fingers arranged like rays. The faces of the
figures were noseless and their eyes and mouths were large
wobbly circles. This gave them an aspect of breathless sur-
prise. Their hair was a voluminous huddle of scratchy lines.
To their left a house half their height and even narrower
than any one bulging body blazed merrily with carmine
water-color flames. In the midst of it stood “The Girl Who
Was Burned Up”. She was twice as tall as the house and
bore a certain weird facial resemblance to a cat. Her writh-
ing mien expressed considerable discomfort. This effort at
art was entitled “The Flight of the Family”. The printing
necessary to display the slogan properly wandered all over
the bottom half of the large sheet of ruled tablet paper. The
printed letters were enormous and askew.
Dr Gedney had seated himself with the tin box in his lap.
He studied the picture without smiling. His eyes wandered
from it and came to rest on a large framed photograph in the
shadow of the southeast corner of the room. It had been
done by that man in Barrack Falls.
Gertrude had looked nothing like her. It was astonishing


“THE GIRL WHO WAS BURNED UP” 57.
-
that any mother and daughter could have so little resem-
bled each other. Martha had always taken a good photo-
graph. The querulous lines about the mouth had been
retouched away in the photograph. The hard glint in the
eyes was not apparent. The bearing of the sitter possessed
dignity. The thin aquiline nose alone gave indication in its
curve of nostril of that remorseless, accipitrine will. Yet
the mouth was smiling a little. The pose was placid. Mar-
tha's figure had always been rather graceful. Her head,
with its now absurdly out-of-date bonnet, was held high.
Her burnt-umber hair had its decided fluffiness. Her large
hands clutched each other in her lap. It was an example of
photography before the days of softening artistic shadows
and blurred outlines and backgrounds. Simply a likeness.
A very good likeness—in everything but the essentials of
character. A proud and resolute woman, you would have
said, but possessed also of wisdom and kindliness. That
was how most of them had seen her, he supposed. Yes, he
supposed so.
It was strange about Martha. Martha had always acted
from the first as if, if he had not actually ever been unfaith-
ful to her, he were, nevertheless, always upon the verge of
being so. This attitude was implicit. It had been conveyed
for many years by an accumulation of eyebrow-raisings,
acrid half-sentences, slight shrugs, impatient sighs, hours of
taciturn surveillance. It had been emphasized by furious
unexplained tearfulness that ceased as swiftly as it came,
typhoons of unreasonableness that whirled and passed.
Completely erased, so far as Martha was concerned, but not
from his own consciousness. Phenomena of woman nature.
These exhibitions did not occur, either, at those times when
all women are overwrought and strange to themselves.
They were not the result of illness or poor health. They
were simply habitual. In self-defense, Dr. Gedney had come
to disregard them entirely. He could never hope to unravel
the devious tangle of reasoning—or was it merely perverted
instinct—which precipitated them upon him. He had tried


58 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
to analyze in the earlier days, to explain Martha to herself.
A disastrous idea! Then he had tried to discover in himself
the faults and shortcomings that might account for Martha’s
suspicions. He had tried to remedy them. But he groped
in the dark.
Yet, in tender moments that constantly grew fewer, she
softened and became again some likeness of the girl he had
loved, standing under the peach-trees of her father's farm.
She was again, fleetingly, the kind-eyed person in whose
voice he could never have imagined that harsh querulousness,
in whose heart he would never have thought of suspecting
that self-consuming frenzy of jealousy. Here also was no
matter of spirit fighting body and agonising a delicately-
adjusted soul between two intense passions. Dr. Gedney
had always exercised punctilious consideration toward his
wife. Martha cared little for the pleasures of the mind.
She was a regular church-goer. She was regular in the
conventional duties of housekeeping. But from the first
moment she had entered their new home she had commenced
a frustrated brooding. She made few friends. In the early
days she had seemed ardent. He had loved her, certainly,
both with passion and devotion. But gradually she had re-
vealed herself in intimacy as what he came to privately call
“a secret woman.” She read little and soon lost interest in
his study and teaching, save as the means which procured
them their livelihood. She allowed its claims up to a cer-
tain point. But if, in scholarly absorption, he transgressed
the tacitly-understood time-limit of devotion to these mat-
ters by so much as fifteen minutes, there was always immi-
nence of hurricane. His natural absent-mindedness had
fought against him in this regard for years. He had striven
to conquer it. How faint the victory had been was shown
by the fact that after her death he had easily relapsed into his
old bookwormish habits. Yet that very absent-mindedness
had appeared to be one of his peculiar charms to her during
their courtship. It was an odd mismating.
It was not excitement or gaiety that she desired. At first


“THE GIRL WHO WAS BURNED UP” 59
he had actually proved more gregarious than she. But all
simple foregatherings became a strain. Afterward a mood
he had never understood settled upon her. She looked side-
wise at him with deep suspicion. She said cutting things
that misinterpreted and perverted his innermost thoughts.
Such misunderstanding at first aroused chill surprise, then
protest. Then came dumbness. How could he ever make
her see? There came also, with time, a mechanical deafness
to insinuation. An elaborate ritual of forgetting was formu-
lated. It served, finally. It was like repeating a cabalistic
sentence. Boiled down, it doubtless seems ridiculously
naive. Its sum and substance were the words, eternally re-
peated in his thought, “Pay no attention, pay no attention,
pay no attention!”
The pass to which he came increased his insulation from
intuitive contacts with actual life. His absentmindedness
had already begun, the instinct for self-preservation had
completed the process. Charles Gedney began to move
through life like a noctambulist. He also stood in the midst
of his married life like Abednego in the furnace. Sometimes
the heat of that irradiating jealousy might have shrivelled his
soul if he had not refused to be conscious of it. It took such
strange forms. He had even known it to obtain to a fav-
ourite chair of his, to a stray cat he had fed with milk and
kept in the house overnight, to a term's examination papers.
Yet she did not desire a passionate devotion. Not at all.
She simply doubted entirely and yet desired entire allegiance.
He had never been critical of her thought or action. Mildly
remonstrative on occasion, perhaps. But even such mild
remonstrances added fuel to the furnace. In one aspect it
was supremely pathetic, this coinstantaneous wretchedness,
and rage that his every thought could not be completely hers.
The many other women she imagined existed only in her
imagination. But that made them no less actual to her. And
a wildly passionate nature in bond to a narrow, fearful, un-
discriminating mind, fashioned brightly burning hell of her
peculiar temperament.


60 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
Gertrude had been born in a period of comparative peace,
though to outward appearances the Gedney household was
never otherwise. Gertrude had been loved hungrily by her
mother through her earliest years. She was more drawn
toward her father. A tragic triangular situation came into
being. First it was that her mother occupied the position of
slaving for Gertrude, while Gertrude besieged a somewhat
disturbed father with endearments. Some premonition told
Charles Gedney what might come of his too easy and natu-
ral manifestation of parental pleasure. But he came to think
that Gertrude had charms to soothe any breast, to obliterate
the strained strangeness of past years. Besides, she was too
entirely adorable and amusing in her attentions. He remem-
bered the very hour when he had seen his mistake—inevit-
able perhaps.
It was the story of “The Three Bears”. Gertrude had
come into his study uninvited and had sidled up to the desk
where he was correcting papers about five o'clock of a rainy
Sunday afternoon in the Fall. She stood by the side of the
desk with her large brown eyes and floppy curls. A flat
green book was clutched to her side.
“You will read,” she said in her amusingly solemn voice,
with its intonation unconsciously imitated from that of her
mother, “here.” Then she held the book up in front of her
face in an embarrassed manner. Then she laughed. Ger-
trude's early laughter could almost be said to crinkle her
hair. It filled the small face with delightful animation.
Suddenly she was beside him, clasping him round the arm
tightly and burying her curls in his sleeve. She looked up
again, mischievously, and began to climb upon his knee. He
gave over Latin exercises for the afternoon.
It was half through the story of “The Three Bears” that
Martha appeared in the doorway. Though not a particu-
larly thin woman she had a way of looking gaunt upon
occasion. She stood in the door Gertrude had left open and
regarded the two figures silhouetted against the sunset light
of the window. Gertrude was curled in her father's lap.


“THE GIRL WHO WAS BURNED UP” 61
His head was bent to read properly. It was almost time to
light the gas.
“Gertrude, you have disobeyed me,” said Martha in a
queer, repressed tone.
Gertrude looked up and brushed the brown curls back
from her face with a small hand. “Father's readin'!” she
said succinctly.
“Gertrude, you have disobeyed me,” repeated Martha in
that same strained tone. As Charles Gedney peered round
his small daughter's shoulder at his wife her eyes actually
seemed to him to gleam like a cat's in the gathering shadows
of the room. It was an impression he was a long time for-
getting. “I’m reading to her,” said the husband, his soul
suddenly shaken by a strange tremor that he did not like to
acknowledge.
“Gertrude, come here,” said Mrs. Gedney, as if unaware
of the intrusion of his remark.
For answer Gertrude clasped both arms about her father's
neck and he felt her whole small body quiver as she snuggled
farther into his arms.
“What is the matter, Martha P What is it? What is it,
Gertrude P” the confused man asked.
“I am speaking to Gertrude,” said his wife. She had
moved farther into the room. By the conflagration of the
sunset without, which now lit the room with weird brilliance,
he suddenly perceived the glittering tears in her eyes. But
her features were set in a strange inexorable mould.
“What is the matter?” he said again, uncomfortably.
“Won't you explain to me?” Gertrude's head burrowed
further into his waistcoat.
“I am speaking to Gertrude,” his wife repeated. “If she
does not choose to hear me—”
“But what has she done? What is it, Marthaf I was
just reading her a story. Surely—”
He had made a bad blunder. There was a hint, if only
a hint, of aggravation in his tone, but worse than that, there
was a hint of partnership in this difference, with Gertrude,


62 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
and a suspicion, unbearable to his wife, that he perceived an
emotion in her which she had never admitted to herself.
“Is—is this my child or yours?” The voice seemed
strained almost to breaking. It was not her ordinary voice.
“Gertrude,” this strange voice said again, and this time it
quavered with a note of hysteria, “Come here—at once!”
“Shan’t”, vouchsafed Gertrude muffled into her father's
watch pocket. But he was sure that only he had heard it.
Suddenly Martha Gedney's face broke into one of those
distortions that precede weeping. Her arms shook at her
sides. She controlled her features by a violent effort. She
turned. With a fierce rustle of her dress she left the room.
But not before she had directed at the two a glance the in-
tensity of which Dr. Gedney had never forgotten. Her
teeth had showed above her lower lip as her eyes blazed
green.
The instant her mother left the room, Gertrude's head had
bobbed up. With another shock, Dr. Gedney perceived that
she was laughing. His involuntary championship had been
for a child in terror. But Gertrude was gay.
“Nice Fa-ther,” she said in her rich drawl. “Poo-oor
Maw-ther,” she added astonishingly. She slipped hastily
from his arms and ran out of the room.
The next development had been that, on ascending the
stairs, Dr. Gedney had found Gertrude beating at her
Mother's locked door with soft calls to her within. There
was no response. The questions, and then the entreaties of
Dr. Gedney elecited no response either. Finally there came
a single harsh, “Go away!”
In misery of mind he gave Gertrude her supper and put
her to bed. In the same misery and growing fear of what
might—though it seemed a nightmarish impossibility—hap-
pen behind that locked door, he tried to eat his evening meal,
and cursed himself for his nerves. In the midst of the meal
he heard a footstep on the stair and his wife walked into the
room. Her hair showed no disorder, her eyes no trace of
tears, her face was composed though unsmiling. “You can


“THE GIRL WHO WAS BURNED UP” 63
i
help me to some of those scrambled eggs,” she remarked in
her peremptory manner, unfolding her napkin.
Neither then nor thereafter was the incident of her
father's reading to Gertrude alluded to between them. He
read to her afterwards, frequently. But from that moment
he perceived the change between mother and daughter.
Now it was the small person who had to sue for attention.
The indifference of her mother became a permanent silent
indictment. And often now the small cheeks burned from
the irradiation of the furnace. Nothing was said, everything
was implied. After repeated repulses of affection, Gertrude
lived through her most bitter moment of deep realisation.
The upshot of it all was that she ran away from home at
the age of sixteen, and Tupon had never seen her again.
There had been—after a merely formal relation for several
years—a most violent difference of opinion with her mother
as to the choice of a career. It was a scene Dr. Gedney had
come in upon about eight o'clock one July evening, after a
visit to the Pollocks—a scene he never sought to remember
and hustled from his thought as soon as it began to be
visualized. And Martha had accepted Gertrude's disap-
pearance far more stoically than anyone else in the town.
In fact, he had once or twice caught her smiling a strange
secret smile to herself. Some years later she had adopted
the orphan baby of her brother, George Cripps, whose wife
had died several years before he himself had been killed in a
railway accident just beyond Barrack Falls. Then, sud-
denly, after a brief illness, Martha herself had died with
stony decision.
xk >k x
Only a minute or two had elapsed since Dr. Gedney had
first taken up the drawing of “The Girl Who Was Burned
Up.” He roused himself with a sigh and replaced it in the
tin box. He replaced the tin box in the desk drawer. There
was Annie's step in the hall. The door squeaked its usual
Squeak as she gingerly opened it.
“Supper's ready, sir.”


64 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
“Thank you, Annie. Call Miss Bessie.”
But Bessie's own voice said from behind the portly,
kindly-faced figure,
“I’m all ready, father.”
They sat down in the pleasant dining-room to the blue and
white china and the jade bowl on the centerpiece wherein
Bessie had just arranged some nasturtiums from the border.
Bessie fidgeted a little upon her chair and then broke a raisin
bun.
“Uncle Arthur's funny, isn't he?” she ventured with an
absent-minded air.
“Eh P” said Doctor Gedney. “Funny ? Oh, yes. Arthur
is amusing. But irritating, sometimes,” he added.
“Why?” said Bessie, round-eyed.
“Why, Bess, I thought that was what you meant. You
said he was funny.”
“Oh, no, not that way. He doesn't irritate me at least.
But he's so—so pishing and pshawing.”
The corners of her father's eyes wrinkled with his smile.
“You find that amusing? It is, of course.”
“What were his reasons?”
“Reasons for what? Oh, but—why, when were you
listening? When did you come in?”
“Oh, Fa-ther,” Bessie laughed. “You are—you are ador-
able !”
“Adorable? How P”
“Why, I was there all the time. Just quietly. Don't you
know I’m always there—quietly?”
“Well I must say! Why, of course I don't know it. You
shouldn't do that, Bess. What did you hear?”
“Oh, Uncle Arthur pishing and pshawing. Why doesn't
he like Mrs. Ventress P”
The question came in a more serious tone. Dr. Gedney
regarded his younger daughter—for so she had become to
him—with surprised eyes.
“Well, it was about that, if you want to know. Of course,
Arthur 22


“THE GIRL WHO WAS BURNED UP” 65
“But I do know. He's the funniest thing about women,
don’t you think? He's so distrustful.”
Doctor Gedney looked at her without answering immedi-
ately. He remembered Arthur's wife. A faint ironic smile
tinged his lips. They were all in the same boat—human
beings.
“Arthur, I admit, is rather a misogynist,” he said.
“A what?” asked Bessie. “I suppose that means he hates
women. Well, he does.”
“Not hate them,” returned her father, helping himself to
another creamed potato. “I don't suppose he does trust
them, exactly. Well, his reasons were rather absurd in this
case, if you ask me.”
“I do. What were they?”
“He simply says we know nothing about Mrs. Ventress,
and that I haven't even seen her yet, and that, being a
stranger here, she may be anything or anybody, and that she
may be a bad influence for you—and—oh, Arthur is rather
annoying.”
“Amusing,” substituted Bessie. “How could he know”—
her eyes took on again that far-away expression. “How
could he poss-ibly know ” She left her sentence un-
finished.
“Know what?”
“My dear good angel father,” said his daughter, teetering
on her chair with some suppressed excitement and waving a
creamed potato on her fork as if she were conducting an
orchestra, “how could you know either?”
“What on earth do you mean, Bess? Do stop waving that
thing. What is it?”
“Mrs. Ventress,” intoned Bessie, her eyes sparkling with
amusement at her own solemnity of utterance, “is a mythical
woman.”
“What on earth ? Here, have a bun. What on earth
do you mean by that?”
“She is too lovely. I simply didn't know there were such


66 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
people. And, oh, Father, she can draw like a streak,” she
finished hurriedly.
“Yes, that's what you told me. But I must see her, I
suppose. If only to be able to answer Arthur more cate-
gorically. He never will. Catch him out of his museum or
his chicken yards. Yet he comes around and paints this
direful portrait 22
“My, and how she has improved that house already,” ex-
claimed his daughter, teetering still more before his anxious
eyes. “The loveliest blue curtains. Oh, she does look so
perfectly adorable in that big grey hat when she's weeding.
I don't know, I’m sure,” Bessie wondered, her eyes blissful
and her mouth full of chop, “why she should have taken such
a fancy to me!”
“Yes, I wonder,” returned Dr. Gedney, affectionately
ironical. “But you really don't know much about her,
Bessie, after all.”
“Plenty. She's true-blue. You can tell. And she's so
interesting. And there is,” his daughter's voice filled with
genuine gravity, “such a real affinity between us.”
“Oh, there is,” the Doctor's eyebrows lifted in an amazed
way and he laughed suddenly through his nose. “Oh, there
is—I must say—well, well is there really?” He recovered
his gravity. “Well, Bess, of course I shall have to look into
this—but, I dare say you're right, I dare say. Affinity.
Well, well. Remarkable. Affinity. Remarkable, I must
say.”
“It’s a perfectly good word,” said Bessie, “isn't it?”
“To be sure. Certainly. A perfectly good word. Affinity.
My soul. Yes, of course. A perfectly good word.”
It was easy enough to see, by the way he looked at her
and by the manner of his teasing, that Doctor Gedney quite
adored his adopted—and now his only—child. But after
sparkling, his eyes dimmed to dreaminess again. Again Ger-
trude came to him, but this time as the girl of sixteen, the
girl of twenty-one years ago. It was almost as if she, in-
stead of Bessie, were sitting on the opposite side of the table,


“THE GIRL WHO WAS BURNED UP” 67
lifting her knapkin. A slight, shadowy figure to be sure, with
braided brown hair, and eyes of a thoughtful brown as she
lifted them. She had grown up a silent and studious girl
who kept her thoughts to herself. She had read much with
her father in that household so overshadowed by her
mother's strangeness. Demonstrative at first, and flighty in
temperament, the growing aloofness and attitude of morose
disinterest in her mother had gradually changed her. Her
school life became her main interest. She moved about her
home intent only upon the books she was studying. Her
happiest hours seemed those in her father's study of an
evening, when he was outlining to her some epoch of history
or helping her with a Latin translation. Then her eyes
brightened in a way he loved, and her head tilted more and
more on one side in some animated discussion. She kindled
to a scene in history or to a beautiful line of verse with
charming exclamation and gesture. But at meals or in the
library living-room she was almost completely silent under
the continual sidewise scrutiny of her mother. What she
said then was neither inspired or delighted. She dealt in
practical things, ordinary bits of town news, mere requests
for things on the table, and departed as soon as possible to
her own room on the second floor, from which she would
descend later to her father's study.
Dr. Gedney usually sat alone for half an hour or so with
his wife after supper. Martha Gedney always had her knit-
ting. The long ivory needles clicked continually. Little was
said. There was always a certain amount of distrust in the
occasional glances Martha raised. She sat rehearsing in-
wardly all the things she could never forgive. The dreamy
scholar opposite searched his mind for the millionth time or
the ways of his offending. Upstairs for this half hour Ger-
trude was alone with her green-shaded lamp and her scat-
tered papers. She had come to love her own book-cluttered
room as a fortress into which she could retire from the at-
mosphere of the house.
The ticking click of the ivory needles, that long stern face


68 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
above them, eyelids dropped as the compressed lips counted.
“Spin, spin, Atropos, spin The intermittent glitter of
raised eyes and raised needles. Again the desolating dili-
gence of dark stitching.
Dr. Gedney would knock out his pipe carefully into the
proper receptacle and rise with an embarassed murmur to his
wife. He would cross the room and the hall, closing the
door of his study softly behind him. For another half hour
or so the three persons in their separate rooms were silent,
the two scholars immersed in their books, the third waiting
and thinking. With the sound of Gertrude's light step on
the stair, Martha Gedney would finally raise her bent head
and nod to herself slowly. The signification of a pythia who
sees the decree of unjust gods fulfilled. Dr. Gedney had
overseen it, without intending to—twice, from the hall.
The ticking click of the ivory needles, knitting time to
eternity, knitting his thought to a close-stitched web-work of
pain. The desolating diligence of that dark stitching. . .
forever and forever. . . .
“Oh, you funny father—do pay some attention!” It was
Bessie's voice. “You’re not eating your baked apple.”
“Why—oh, I’m sorry. What is it, Bess?”
“Are you going to call on Mrs. Ventress, and tell her—
or shall I? I'll see her to-morrow.”
“I—why no, I hadn't intended calling just yet. When
will you see her? After school?”
“Yes. I’m always passing her house then and she's usu-
ally in the garden. Shall I tell her I can take drawing les-
Sons?”
“Yes, I think so. Why, yes, I guess so. I must call on
her, of course. I suppose so. Why, yes, you can arrange it,
can't you, Bess?”
His absent-minded eyes hardly saw her.
“And Uncle Arthur didn't have any effect, did he?”
“Arthur? What? Oh, Arthur ! Oh, that! Oh, no, Ar-
thur is rather impetuous, you know. Gets these remarkable
ideas. I didn't really pay attention to him this afternoon.


“THE GIRL WHO WAS BURNED UP” 69
He means well, of course. He's very fond of you, Bess.
As long as you learn drawing. That's what you want, isn't
it? Well—so you really think Mrs. Ventress can help you?”
“Ch, you remarkable father! Was anyone ever so way off
in space. Why, you saw those drawings of hers. Don't you
remember?”
“Of course. Yes, of course. So I did. I told Arthur
about them, in fact. Didn't I? Well, you'll see her tomor-
row. Fix it up.”
He had finished his coffee and rose, a rapier-like figure
in black and white, despite his scholar's stoop. He smiled
benignly in the general direction of Bessie, and turned to-
ward the living-room.


CHAPTER IX: ORDEAL
HE Battell place stood at the intersection of the Axter
Road and the Farm Road beyond Wilder's. The Axter
Road, paralleling Tupton's Market Street, ran on past the
Battell place and more recently built bungalows or more pre-
tentious houses to the County line. It was unmacadamed,
but well kept, lined with tall and beautiful trees. The houses
were set back from it with lawns and low hedges.
Architecturally the Battell place had no claims to beauty.
It was gambrel-roofed with three projecting second story
windows in front that gave it an appearance somewhat snail-
eyed. A north wing had been tacked on which entirely de-
stroyed whatever original symmetry it may have had. A
porch projected to the west, a very pleasant place to spend
the morning sewing, but having nothing at all to do with
mass values. It was a wooden house, and therefore a myth-
ological sort of edifice in times like these. It had a de-
lightful small apple-orchard behind it, a high box hedge all
around, pleasant flower beds and a broad white gravel path
leading up to it. It had, I fear, a good deal of unnecessary
gimcrackery about its trimmings. It had originally—loath-
some thought—been painted maroon. Now it was white
with cream facings, and that helped a little. It was a stiff
and antique house with what seemed a pleasanter smile than
formerly.
Inside the staircase climbed too rigidly and turned too
abruptly, but time had given it the tone of old oak and its
carpet, its wall on the left, and the rear wall on the landing
repeated the pleasing blue of the hall. A short window-seat
had been built below the too-narrow window on the landing.
The effect was cramped but rather quaint. An atrocious
70


ORDEAL 71
chandelier had, however, been removed from the lower hall
ceiling. By squinting upward you could but barely mark the
slight scar it had left on the creamy surface.
Mrs. Ventress had done little “making over” of the house,
hers being such a short period of occupancy. But her eye
for harmonizing colour was excellent and she had improved
certain details.
To-day she stood near the hedge about her front lawn,
with clippers poised in her hand. On the other side of the
hedge and up the white, hot Axter Road, proceeded an
abundant coloured woman with a laundry basket on her
head. Her shuffling footsteps came nearer. She stopped
suddenly, put down the basket, and, with arms akimbo,
spoke over her shoulder:
“C'mon now, Jazz! C'mon, baby! Else ah gwine leave
yuh. Nobuddy ain' gwine huht yuh, Jazz. C'mon, baby.
Don’ ack so carntakerous.”
Mrs. Ventress, in her wide floppy hat, peered to see what
person had evoked this deluge of ejaculation. Some twenty
yards back on the white road she espied the cause of it. A
large black cat was sitting on the crown of the road washing
its paws with its tongue.
Suddenly it looked up, licked its whiskers in a sly fashion
and then came flexuously bounding toward the coloured
woman, tail held erect. Ten yards off it as suddenly stopped
again and resumed a sedentary paw-washing.
“C'mon now, Ja-azz,” complained the laundress with a
rich intonation, rolling the cat's name forth with unction.
“Yuh do beat Hell. C'mon, baby. Ain't no one gwine huht
yuh.”
She was aware of Mrs. Ventress's light laughter from
across the hedge. She faced it with a sudden sunrise grin
of domino teeth. “Ay-yah,” she chuckled wheezily, “ain't
dat cat a caution. Ah’ll say she is.” She stooped to resume
her burden, then straightened. “Youse Miss Ventress,
aincha. Raickon dis yoh landry. Wait, ah'll bring it in.”


72 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
“That's a very modern name you've got for your cat,”
said Adela from behind the hedge.
“Yas'm. Cat's name Jazzbell, out de Bible. Ise Mefdis
Pisk mahseff. Wait hyah, I'll tote dis up'n yoh po’ch. Well,
say, dat's some wash.”
The heavily laden wicker basket scraped on the boards
under the wistaria vine.
“You're Dinah White, aren't you?” Mrs. Ventress asked,
coming across the grass.
“Yas'm. Ise Dinah. Gotta lotta linen aincha” The
broad face beamed. “You wan't in, time I got it las' Mon-
day.”
“No, I had gone down street to get one or two things.”
“Yas'm. Rele nice maid dat Murree yoh got. Speaks
funny donshe?”
“She's French,” said Adela.
“Dasso? French? Dasso? Hey now, yoh Jazzbell, aincha
comin' long, tall?”
The cat so continually addressed lifted large expression-
less topaz eyes. Perceiving nothing of particular interest in
the white face and the black face lifted above the hedge, it
relapsed again to licking.
“You said you were-when you were talking about the cat
—that you were—I didn't quite catch it,” said Adela, smiling
quizzically at her.
“Wot I say? 'Bout her name out de Bible? Ise Mefdis
Pisk. Pasto Robutts circumjexted dat name.”
“You’re what?” asked Adela, her brows even more
wrinkled.
“Mefdis Pisk. Down tuh de Mefdis Pisk Chu'ch. Dat's
mah damnation. Ah goes reglah. Well now, Jazz, you'n
Ise bettuh be movin’ fo’ home.”
With an ample wave of her arm in farewell and an as-
surance that she would be “dis way t'morrah” to collect her
basket with more soiled linen, she swayed with a rolling gait
out of the front yard. She halted in the middle of the road
again with arms akimbo, regarding the cat.


ORDEAL 73
“My gawd, Jazz,” she ejaculated finally, “yoh is a trile on
mah patience. You suah is. Wuss dan wot dat Patch is you
is. Ah, clah >>
“Who's Patch?” Mrs. Ventress exhibited further interest.
“Patch? Oh, he's mah dawg. Rele name's Patcherotter.
Some artis’ tole me dat name. See, Patch's had a lotta dis-
tempah. Sump'n book 'bout it—same kinda case. All ah
know. He sho was one quaint an’ quizzical man, dat Mistah
Lanyon. He paint hyah all one summah. Kin to de Co'-
neliuses. . . . Well, Jazz,” Dinah suddenly bawled, “aincha
gwine come. C'mon, baby, Ise gwine way f'm hyah. Ise
gwine leave yuh. Cross mah heaht, ah is. Ise through.”
She turned with an indignant waddle. Her puffing form
diminished down the road. The black cat finally bestirred
itself. It ceased to polish its fur, looked around idly, got up
and stretched. Then suddenly it was away again after
Dinah, with light pantherine leaps, and its tail waving like a
plume.
Adela turned back toward the porch after an amused
assimilation of this episode. Her eyes and mouth were still
puckered as she bent over the laundry basket. Tupton was
certainly proving a town for character. She thought them
over as she propped open the screen door and began lifting
and carrying the laundered linen into the cool and high-
ceilinged hall that held the scent of heliotrope she had picked
from one of the flower-beds that morning. Marie would
carry the linen upstairs for her. As she went back and
forth she cast occasional glances into the two large rooms on
either side of the hall. In the northeast parlour there was
haircloth, of course, and that big framed steel-engraving of
“The Stag at Bay”. But, despite her own modern ideas of
interior decoration, it only seemed an added piquancy. Be-
sides, it was where one “received callers”. The southwest
parlour, opening upon the dining-room behind it was the room
she had chosen for actually living in. There she had re-
arranged the furniture and removed or rehung pictures to
excite Bessie's admiration. What an odd little girl, Bessie!


74 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
She and that Miss Crome had so far been the only visitors.
What a contrast !
Bessie had come in impulsively, yet shyly, peering about
her like a bird. The screen door had squeaked, and there
was Bessie. Adela had been discovered on her knees in the
southwest room beside a large trunk-suitcase containing,
among other impedimenta, an old portfolio. She looked up
and smiled. Bessie smiled. “Hello!” said Bessie. “I hope
you don't mind. I've come to see you.” Five minutes after
they were both sitting together on the floor, turning over the
drawings.
“But—my!—why didn't you keep it up?” asked the dark
child after a while, fixing adoring eyes upon the older
WOrnan.
“Well,” said Adela slowly, “oh, that's a long story. I got
turned off—took up something else. And now I'm sick of
that. This seems ” she held one drawing up at arm's
length and cocked her head on one side. “It really isn't so
bad, is it? You see, I haven't resurrected these for a long,
long time.”
“Bad?” said Bessie. “I should say not. Where did you
study?”
“I had a knack, as a girl. You'll let me see some of your
own things some time?”
“Oh, but mine are so awful! You won't want to.”
“Yes, but I do. Maybe I could help you. I'm just going
to take it up again for fun. Once—for a short while—I did
some regular work at it ” Mrs. Ventress's voice rather
trailed away.
“Oh, would you?” Bessie's eyes were sparkling. “There's
no really good course at the Institute. At least I think—and
Slade says he's sure I could make lots of money in adver-
tising.”
“Oh, that's your ambition? And who's Slade?”
“My cousin. He's an editor in New York. He really is
awfully clever. He writes poetry. And I do so want to do


76 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
“And then we'll draw. And you must bring your own
work to show me.”
Bessie departed as one walking in a trance, looking back-
ward and smiling. She waved joyfully from beyond the
high hedge. Her hair tossed and flopped as she started
briskly toward Poplar Street.
The visit of Miss Crome had been otherwise. Marie had
informed Adela, who was lying down one afternoon, that
a lady was in the parlour (the real northeast parlour it
proved). Entering the doorway, Adela had felt Marie to
be mistaken. This was not so much a lady as a ramrod.
Miss Sophia Crome sat stiffly upon the extreme edge of
the most uncomfortable hair-cloth upholstered chair, clutch-
ing tightly in her right hand the ivory handle of a faded
lavendar sunshade. Her nose seemed as sharp as an awl,
and her steel spectacles, supported by its bony ridge, seemed
to glitter with something beyond the ordinary properties of
steel and glass. Her dress was stiff gray poplin, high at
the neck and long in the sleeves. It gave the effect of
crackling fiercely as she shifted in her chair. Her lisle
thread gloves seemed permanently to clothe her discoverably
bony hands.
She looked up with bright eyes and compact creased jaws
that reminded Adela at once of the ebony-plastroned turtle
with which a passing black boy had frightened Marie the
day before. She bobbed at Adela a bonnet badly mismated
to her tightly slicked and knotted iron-gray hair. She sat
then with an entirely artificial smile, rubbing the fingers of
her gloved hands together, fidgeting in her seat, nodding
slightly as if to peculiarly satisfactory thoughts within
herself.
Adela seated herself opposite upon the small sofa, in her
gracefully lounging way. She smiled and attempted to be
affable.
“We are glad to greet a newcomer ” began Miss
Crome. She smiled, and Adela immediately distrusted her
entirely. Miss Crome hugged herself, bent forward a little,


ORDEAL 77
and began to put questions. She nodded at the replies. She
nodded and looked, with down-drawn upper lip, at the ceil-
ing. Immediately she discovered that Adela, though evi-
dently married, did not mention her husband. She nodded
at that. She nodded at the indefinite reply to her question
as to Adela's occupation in New York. To the general rea-
son for Adela's coming to Tupton, rest and change of scene,
she nodded still more briefly with eyes uplifted. She went
on nodding like a mandarin, till, from initial irritation, sup-
pressed laughter began to rise and fill the whole being of
her hostess, showing itself only in the added sparkle of her
eyes, which eyelids strove to veil. But, despite all subter-
fuge, once Miss Crome caught and understood that laugh-
ing light. She nodded at the discovery till the stiff feather
of her bonnet quivered vehemently.
Thereafter the inquisition ceased. Local history began.
The Corneliuses were a most estimable family. Mr. Cor-
nelius was a victim of hay-fever, a positive victim. He was
the town's oldest physician. Mrs. Cornelius was a godly
woman. She was also President of the Ladies Aid. The
Cornelius children were flighty. This evidently, but not
in the same sense as charity, covered a multitude of sins.
Dr. Gedney was a queer man. Miss Crome could not un-
derstand him. His wife had been most estimable—most
estimable. Mr. Pollock was the brother-in-law. His wife
was deceased. This particular calamity was mentioned as
with implication. Bessie and Gertrude were touched upon.
Very sad, that case. The Brattles kept a good deal to them-
selves. A very old family. The father, who held an inter-
est in the Meldon Ironworks, had been brevetted a General
in the Civil War. In line with the Brattles, the really old
residents of Tupton kept to themselves. Stores had ruined
Tupton. Tupton had a proud colonial history.
The families at the three different farms did not mingle
much with the people of the town. Never had. The Sayres
were recent. The Cripps were an old and peculiar family.
Mr. Whinnymuir was the undertaker, a god-fearing man.


78 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
Mr. Brixton was the sexton of the Presbyterian Church.
He lived next to Mr. Whinnymuir on Laurel Street. Miss
Crome supposed that Mrs. Ventress was a Presbyterian.
No? How strange! Dr. Amendis was the pastor of the
Presbyterian Church. He was indeed the Lord's right hand
and had seven children. Mrs. Ventress would doubtless
take an interest in the Ladies Aid of the Episcopal Church.
No? She was not an Episcopalian? Doubtless she was a
Methodist. It would be so strange to think that she was a
Unitarian! A Quaker? There were several Quakers in
Tupton. Surely not a Catholic?
Miss Crome was puzzled. No, but Mrs. Ventress must
be joking. She must have some real religion. An Agnos-
tic? Of what denomination was that a sect? Of none?
Surely—but that was being the same as an atheist! The
bonnet nodded violently. The jaws became still more
creased, the lips still more pursed. The spectacles flashed
in positive agitation. The ramrod began to quiver. The
eyes sought far corners for refuge and found none. Miss
Crome was standing. Her head was nodding like that of
one with an uncontrollable nervous affection. She really
must be going. She hoped Mrs. Ventress would call. She
had come to welcome her to Tupton. Agnostic—but, dear,
dear! Yes, a pretty house. Mr. and Mrs. Battell were
such estimable, god-fearing people. Estimable. So estim-
able. Moving stiffly to the door, it was most unfortunate that
at that very moment Miss Crome suddenly came face to
face with The Desecration. This was in the shape of a
small jade dish of Adela's set upon a pie-crust table belong-
ing to the Battells.
Marie had been requested to remove what reposed in it,
and had forgot. Miss Crome's eyes stared unbelievingly
as she glared at the half-smoked Melachrino which had long
since gone out and now presented but a blackened stump.
Miss Crome's eyes rolled heavenward and she sniffed an
imperceptible sniff. She said nothing, however. She
paused only an instant. She smiled in a glaringly arti-


ORDEAL 79
ficial way as she said good-bye at the door. She did not
repeat her invitation to call. She moved down the path like
a rigid automaton in bristling poplin. Turning toward Pop-
lin Street her acute, parrot-like profile swam along the top
of the hedge, austere and forbidding. Behind her the clouds
above the Hill were piled grey for rain. The sunlight of
the day had gone. In the porch Adela stood with finger
and thumb at her mouth, biting her lip. But when her hand
dropped she was seen to be smiling. Her laughter, the
moment that she entered the house, surprised Marie in the
upper hall. Marie was glad that this strange change of
scene seemed to be doing her mistress so much good.
Yes, there were characters in Tupton. Indubitably! Mr.
Gartner, for instance, at the Post Office, who had, ever since
her arrival, treated her with special consideration. A funny
little embarrassed man. Jason Duffit who was rather portly,
almost incoherent, and puffed. There was something pe-
culiar about his eyes. She did not quite like the look in
them. The tradespeople she had found inquisitive and ap-
praising, but pleasant and obliging upon the whole. By
now the town seemed to have accepted her. She had arrived
quietly and had been driven to her new home in the herdic
of Alexis White. He wore a faded and tattered porter's
cap and a permanent placating smile. He met all trains for
the Conestoga House and conveyed many old residents to
their destinations. A new and extremely intermittent trol-
ley system, running down one street only, hardly availed
for proper transportation to the station, though it was some-
times useful if one wished to get, between trains, to Barrack
Falls. Alexis White was as black and shiny as a shoe-
button. He was the husband of Dinah, and they lived in a
small house on the road to the Bottom, with the cat Jezebel,
the dog, Patch, and an odd assortment of piccaninnies.
Dinah always seemed to be vague about the exact number.
But the Bottom was so full of picanninies, and they mingled
so together, that this was, perhaps, excusable.


80 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
Adela finished removing and folding the laundry and
called to Marie. It was half-past three in the afternoon.
While the maid disposed of the linen, Mrs. Ventress pro-
ceeded about the mahogany dining-room table in a leisurely
manner, setting it for a simple supper. This was the eve-
ning of Bessie's coming, to which Dr. Gedney had assented.
She was glad Bessie was coming. She wondered certain
things about the child, wistfully, And, laying down a but-
terknife at Bessie's place, the old dull pain manifested itself
again, the perpetuated pain of lovely memory. If he had
only lived . . . Their home. She might have been setting
the table . . . Two deep lines came between her brows.
That was why there had never been any other, never
could be any other. A strange thing, but true. All that she
would have done for him . . . Oh, well, her temperament
was not to be sad. Suddenly she shrugged and snapped her
fingers. Then she stood perfectly quiet, rigidly erect. Her
face set. It looked ten years older. They had understood,
they two. They had understood. Life. That was all. Her
tenseness relaxed and she went on quietly setting the table.
× x xk
Miss Crome had been a self-appointed pursuivant. Miss
Crome considered herself the Eyes of Tupton. Half of
Tupton looked upon Miss Crome as a silly eccentric old
gossip, and half of it accepted her at her own valuation.
The half that accepted her were The Ten. Not so the hoi
polloi whose number increased and flourished. This also
was the half of Tupton that evinced only a passing interest
in the coming of Adela Ventress. They, in their own par-
lance had “sized her up” early. She was a “good-looker”
but quiet, retiring, “slow” (in some mysterious connota-
tion), and too old. They put her down immediately as a
“lady”. They supposed The Ten would take her up. But
she was not for them, though they had adopted an affable
enough attitude toward her with some covert admiration,
on the part of the girls, for the way she dressed. And that
she was “from New York” leant a certain glamour. They


ORDEAL 81
returned her courtesy with their own best courtesy, but she
was not one of them. They passed her by.
Of course, upon the part of the whole town there had
originally been much conjecture and gossip about the new-
comer. If she had appeared in an underslung French car,
with a theatrical rake to her hat, and evidences of over-
preparation in her complexion, the sprightlier element of
Tupton would have solidly been “for her”, no matter how the
Old Residence Block might have shivered with repulsion.
As it was, Adela repelled them somewhat by a cultivated
intonation and an aloofness from their festivities. When-
ever any of the “newer element” passed her gate afoot or
in somewhat rattling cars, she was perceived quietly weed-
ing, picking flowers, or reading upon the porch. Again,
they had several times met her walking alone, a book tucked
under her arm, a sunshade resting against her shoulder.
They had decided that she was partly a snob and partly
“queer”.
In the stores of the shopping block on Market Street you
would have heard only vague expressions of goodwill. If
Dinah White might speak for The Bottom, the impression
was that Adela was a “right stylish lady” and “she treats
yuh right”. Mrs. Gartner represented another stratum of
local opinion.
“Something funny about that New York lady of yours, I
think,” she told her husband, the possessive intimation being
mere domestic malice. “I hear nobody gets on with her
very well. She's too standoffish. About the only one seems
real friendly to her is that young Bessie Gedney. And an
older woman like that's not good for such a young girl.
They're together all the time. That Doctor Gedney don't
seem to have the sense he was born with. He never seems
to know whether he has a child or not. Those two are
thicker’n thieves. Wish she was my child. I’d put a stop
to it. It's got around she's teaching her drawing—”
“Who's teaching which?” interrupted Mr. Gartner, spear-
ing a fried potato at his supper.


82 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
“That Mrs. Ventress teaching Bessie of course. A child
like that. There's something wrong about it.”
“’Bout what? Drawin' pictures? Seems sort of foolish
but I can't say's I see any harm to it,” returned Mr. Gartner.
“Course not,” his spouse glared. “I mean such a friend-
ship. And this Mrs. Ventress never does go to church
either. Ain't been seen in one. And both the Presbyterian
and 'Piscopal ministers have called.”
“Well,” said Mr. Gartner liberally. “There's some don't
hold by religion »y
Mrs. Gartner bristled.
“”Tain't whether you hold by it or don't hold by it,” she
pronounced. “It’s goin' to church and keepin’ civilised.”
This way of putting it seemed final.
“Jase Duffit was sayin' somethin' to me like that,” an-
swered Mr. Gartner. “He’s real shocked at some things
that Miss Crome told him about Mrs. Ventress. B'lieve she
found her smokin' a cigarette. ‘We-el,' I told him, ‘there's
no 'countin' for tastes. Guess it won't more'n give her a
sore throat.”
“S'pose you'd like to see me smokin' a pipe?' his wife in-
terrogated acidly.
“We-el,” returned Mr. Gartner, “at that, my grandmam
done it. Remember as a boy seein’ her puff at a clay. It
looked rele perculiar.”
This anecdote had never yet failed to plunge Mrs. Gart-
ner into resentful and morose brooding. Her lips puckered
tightly. She answered nothing.
Mr. Gartner felt the silence. “Come, Ag,” he remarked
with a lugubrious smile. “Come out of it. I’m sorry. I
didn't mean nothin'. But I daresay that woman's all right,”
he added. “You know well as I how talk gits around.”
“After all,” he continued later, “Jase Duffitt rented her
the house and the Battells was satisfied. Jase even met that
New York feller come down to vouch fer her. An' I under-
stand she paid up in advance. But Jase is perculiar too.
He's always believin' stories, ever since I’ve known 'm. He's


ORDEAL 83
fidgety-like. And you know after all there's somethin' sly
about Jase, somethin' I never liked someway. Can't just
explain it. He's honest enough, I guess. But he listens too
much to that Miss Crome, an' her tongue wags at both ends.
Do you like that woman, Ag?”
“Miss Sophia Crome is a perfect lady's far's I’ve seen,”
said Mrs. Gartner, with asperity, rattling dishes in the sink.
“She may wag her tongue, but I’m sure she don't mean no
harm by it. She ain't standoffish and peculiar anyway.
She's rele neighbourly.” -
“Yes,” ruminated Mr. Gartner. “She's neighbourly, as
you call it, and then again she ain’t. That is, you might put
it, she's too nosey. She goes around too much spreading
gossip.”
“I ain’t,” was Mr. Gartner's last remark on that particular
subject that evening, “I ain't so keen fer that Sophia Crome.”
And, after all, Adela's relations with the tradespeople of
the town excited no criticism. She seemed to know how
to run her own house and she paid her bills. True, there
was some discussion of the occupation and whereabouts of
her husband. She was evidently not a widow. She was, as
evidently, a lady. A few ingenuously inquisitive souls who
had evinced an undue interest in her married state had re-
tired baffled, not by ambiguity or rudeness, but by a calm
and dexterous changing of the subject, with perfect good-
nature. Not possessing Mrs. Ventress's aplomb they with-
drew to mull over their own conjectures. It was believed,
however, that she and her husband had separated.
There was much conjecture in certain quarters. Two
people in the town never met now that they did not con-
jecture. Miss Crome already knew all that Jason Duffitt
could supply as to Mrs. Ventress's identity. It was not much,
save that she had been properly vouched for and had paid
for the house in advance. On the other hand Jason listened
with puffy interest to Miss Crome's weighing of probabili-
ties. Meanwhile a shadow like a dark dog lay asleep in the
June sunshine of Market Street, where daily the conversing


86 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
comfortable. Mrs. Frazee must be going. Couldn't Mrs.
Ventress come to dinner next Monday? So delighted to
have her. She would like her to see her new dahlias. Well,
good-bye—yes, yes, good-bye. . . .
Others from the Old Residence Block had called. The
Miss Babbitts had found her too girlish. “She is rather
pretty, but she seems too well aware of it. She swears too.
She said “Damn!' when her dress caught in the door. You
heard her, Clara !” Thus the elder Miss Babbitt, whose
idea of extreme frivolity was still a game of croquet on
their seemly back lawn. The Miss Babbitts were fifty and
fifty-two. They lived in the days of the Civil War. They
wore black for parents dead thirty years ago. They re-
sembled perambulating vegetables. They had vegetable
faces. The stouter Miss Babbitt looked like a potato, the
leaner like a carrot. Their entire lives had been spent in
provincial affluence and the parental domicile. Life was
something they had heard about, but they had not been in-
troduced.
“Hardly pretty, I should say,” the Potato Miss Babbitt
supplied. “Rather affected for a woman of her evident
age. But what seems rather sad is that she has so little
sense of humour. She did not smile once at that story of
Uncle Harry and Mrs. Mixter's horse. That is always the
test, to me.”
Mrs. Ventress had come to dinner at Mrs. Frazee's in
what seemed a very sheer black net. She seemed entirely
unconscious of her white neck and arms. Mrs. Frazee could
not be unconscious of them. It was apparent that neither
General Brattle nor young Harry Persons were uncon-
scious. It was grave that Adolphus seemed so Conscious.
It was unnecessary that Mrs. Ventress should have dressed
in that manner.
It went quite smoothly for a while. Mrs. Ventress was
perhaps too much engaged in conversation with the men on
her right and left. Conversation should be more general.
However, Mr. Mixter launched forth on the subject of


ORDEAL 87
women. It was as certain as fate. Mrs. Ventress spiritedly
did not concur. She was being satiric. She was making Mr.
Mixter listen. The whole table was listening.
Mr. Jeremiah Mixter was answering. He was annoyed.
Adolphus was plunging in. Adolphus always plunged so.
Mrs. Ventress was a bright defiance. Rebecca Stone, though
she could not get a word in, was looking at Mrs. Ventress
with a new interest, from the opposite side of the table. Mrs.
Ventress had shrugged very slightly and had resumed eating
her fish. She was talking to young Harry Persons on her
left.
General Brattle and Dr. John Cornelius had joined in
anathematising the world-state idea. Mrs. Ventress was
still talking to Harry Persons, about the theatre. The con-
versation anent the world-state crackled generally. Mrs.
Ventress had ventured the opinion that an international
court to adjudicate the claims of all nations, might, in spite
of present disappointments, lie among the possibilities of
future civilisation. Dr. John was sonorously quoting Sena-
tor Borah. Mrs. Ventress had said something flippant about
Senator Borah. Rebecca Stone laughed at it, and Mrs.
Ventress looked across the table, smiling at her. Finally,
it seemed that she was somehow teasing General Brattle
about Preparedness. General Brattle was gobbling like a
bubblyjock. He was being very crushing, saying, “But my
dear young lady !” Mrs. Ventress was being humour-
ous about her age. Mrs. Frazee sighed heavily. This would
never do. Really, really! She signalled her husband that
they were to rise.
Harry Persons said afterward that Mrs. Ventress was
an extraordinarily interesting woman. General Brattle had,
however, departed without saying good-night to her.
Adolphus was irritated. Jeremiah Mixter seemed for once
to have nothing to say. Next day the feminine element,
meeting at tea at the Miss Babbitts’ expressed in various
feminine fashion their distaste. There was something un-
womanly; there was a hard veneer, a sophistication; she had


88 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
told Mr. Burley a story, oh, no, not exactly improper, but
just a trifle too witty. She was a pretty little thing, but
Randolph Utterson had used the right word, “opinionated”;
she was faded looking and General Brattle, even though so
Conscious, had said she was tiresome; she moved in quite—
oh, quite—a different world, the Carrotish Miss Babbitt was
sure. Only Rebecca Stone, coming in late, with her air of
eye-glassed independence, absent-mindedly asked them all
what on earth they were all talking about and pronounced
Mrs. Ventress “an acquisition”. She, Rebecca, intended go-
ing to see her to-morrow. She, Mrs. Ventress, had read
“Candide”.
No one else present had read “Candide”. And anyway
that was exactly like Rebecca. There was a feeling that
she would not be at all good for Rebecca. She would “en-
courage” her.
Mrs. Ventress called upon Mrs. Frazee when Mrs. Fra-
zee was out. She did not leave a card. That seemed, well—
too casual. Mrs. Ventress was passing Jeremiah Mixter
on the street, with the Gedney girl, and did not see him.
Mrs. Ventress and the Gedney girl seemed too intimate.
Rebecca Stone had borrowed several books from Mrs. Vent-
ress. They were French novels. It was no secret now that
Mrs. Ventress smoked cigarettes. Caroline Utterson also
had heard her swear again. She did not go to church. She
rarely crossed Market Street. Rebecca Stone reported that
Mrs. Ventress was now reading Nietzche. Harry Persons
had met Mrs. Ventress by accident one afternoon—or was
it?—and had walked down Sycamore Street with her. Mrs.
Harry Persons declared herself not at all worried, but both
the Miss Babbitts felt outraged. Poor little Ethel !
There is no predicting the silliness of small communities—
and then, of course, there are innumerable instances large
and small beside that of Giordano Bruno who was burned
at the stake because he felt that Aristotle was, perhaps, too
provincially hasty in believing the earth to be the centre of
the universe.


ORDEAL 89
Adela took many long walks by herself past the farms
and through the fields near Tupton. Unwittingly by so
doing she broke unwritten law for one of her caste. She
was seen climbing over a rail fence. She was even, once,—
and this was regarded as a fiery portent—overlooked from
the passing car of Dr. John Cornelius, wading in the shal-
lows of the Passamint near the bridge beyond the Cripps
farm. True, the place chosen was secluded. If Dr. Cor-
nelius had not had carburetor trouble at that point . A
book lay open on the bank, beside a pair of small discarded
Oxfords. But really A married woman! By the way, you
know, she never mentions her husband l No, Mrs. Frazee
is absolutely certain he is not dead. Not dead—but wading !
There is some wildness there is something—. It was
agreed that There Was Something.
Meanwhile, except for her roaming and reading, (the
scandalous incident of the wading was the only occasion of
its kind, fortunately) the subject of all these almost daily
discussions continued to conduct her household and her daily
affairs in a competent, unobtrusive manner. At least she
had sealed to her Dinah White. At least the grocery boy
from Ratcliffe's confided to her the true facts about his
collection of snapping-turtles and his mastery of an out-
drop. At least Bessie Gedney continued to find her a won-
derful exemplar in the art of making things look like some-
thing in a few lines. At least the tradespeople with whom
she had to do began to look forward to her pleasant manner
and her smile and her pretty clothes as she entered their
stores from the morning glare of Market Street.
As to Tupton society, it is indubitable that Adela's des-
tiny was to fall between two stools. While the all-powerful
Ten certainly accepted her as a “lady”, they soon came to
look upon her askance. She seemed to them a potential in-
cendiary. She puzzled and irritated them by possession of
too much general information. She had an exasperating
way of questioning all statements made ex cathedra. And
that was the prerogative, unimpeached heretofore, of their


90 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
accepted leaders. That her manner in argument was charm-
ingly well-bred made it particularly hard to bear. Their
pet prejudices seemed to cause her more quiet amusement
than discomfiture. She had now withdrawn gracefully into
her own silence. She bowed agreeably to all of them upon
the street, but had quietly manoeuvred herself into the posi-
tion of remaining quite outside their influence. Finally, she
had committed the unpardonable sin of momentarily shak-
ing The Ten's confidence in themselves. Highly Abderitan
The natives of that section of Thrace were famed of old, as
you know, for a certain lack of intelligence. They could
not forgive her, so they tried to forget her. And as the
Other Half Rome had already adopted that attitude, for
other reasons, Adela found herself singularly alone in Tup-
ton, so far as local society was concerned. And this suited
her exactly. It was deeply restful.


CHAPTER X: UNCLE ARTHUR SYMPATHIZES
WITH XERXES
N the rear of Uncle Arthur's big back-yard was a chicken-
house about fourteen by twenty-four with shrubbery
against the fence to the north of it and a wired run extending
parallel to its westward facing front. Its ridgepole was
about seven feet from the ground, its roof covered with tar-
paper. In the run the game chickens strutted and pecked.
The black-breasted ones with their greyish-brown, salmon-
breasted hens; the red pyle cocks with orange hackle and
saddle, and their white hens; the orange-legged Cornish
Indians in bright brown and glossy green. They made a
fine showing.
“And what's the jet black one?” asked Bessie.
“Black Sumatra. You don't see so many round here.
There's the hen too—good layer and a good mother. I'll
bet that's a seven-pound hen. The blacks have heavier feath-
ers. But that red Game's the standard fowl. Those Indian
Games are the heaviest. There's a hen weighs eight and a
half. I cured that brown red Game hen, that dark one with
the lemon hackle—cured her of the roup. You can't if it's
advanced. That one over there, with the lemon colour
lacing.”
“How did you?”
“That!” Uncle Arthur turned around and pointed to the
cellar-door near which stood a red-banded silverly shining
kerosene oil can.
“Or rather I filled a sewing-machine can from it and got
the oil into her nose and beak. Then of course I put some
condition powder into her mash and aconite in her drinking
water. Looks pretty now, don't she?”
Bessie nodded.
9I


92 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
Uncle Arthur was meditatively full of his subject and
went on spasmodically.
“Of course these aren't what they call ‘pit fowl. They're
exhibition birds. Remember when I showed them at the
Meldon County Fair? Long leg and neck's what you want.
What you must have. Short-feathered saddle. Short
hackle. Pit fowl have lots of hackle. Notice these don't.
There's a duck-wing. Ain't that a beauty?”
He pointed out a golden male with straw-coloured neck
and saddle and a shining coppery back. A blue-black bar
striped each wing.
“Where's Ptolemy?” asked Bessie, peering.
“The one your father named? He's that Sumatra—with
the long tail. The one lifting his feet over there. Got three
spurs on his leg—see?”
“My, you know a lot about them, Uncle Arthur!”
“Oh, no. Very little. A hobby of mine. Old man must
have his hobby, you know. Want to see inside?”
He entered the small door in the west end and stood in
the four-foot alleyway on the north side of the building.
Bessie peered around at the nest-boxes, the platform-raised
roosts and the dust-box in the corner. It was smelly. The
feed-trough ran low near the floor in front and beyond her.
There was a water-dish at the end of the feed-trough. The
floor was boarded.
“What’s that box for?”
“Dust. Fowls get verminous in late fall and winter if
they can't get a dust-bath. Get it in the summer—but in
cold weather they're so cooped up. I’ll fill that from the
Axter Road. Good fine dust there.”
They returned outside and visited the several brood coops
set in another wired inclosure. The flaps of the coops were
up and yellow and brown puffballs cheeped up and down
behind a netting to the spasmodic clucking of their alert
mothers. Bessie indulged in many pointings, adorations,
exclamations. Uncle Arthur puffed at his pipe and went
over to examine a ripening pear-tree for scale.


UNCLE ARTHUR SYMPATHIZES 93
“So Slade's coming for the Fourth,” he remarked finally,
when he had satisfied himself that the spray-pump was not
needed just yet.
Bessie turned and came over to him.
“He'll get here to-morrow night, Won't it be nice to
see him P”
“Right you are, Bess. It will be nice. How long is he
going to stay?”
“Just till Monday. Over the Fourth. But he's promised,”
Bessie emphasized, “to come later for his vacation too.
Don't you like Slade, Uncle Arthur 2 I think he's fine, don't
you?”
Her relative cast a sidelong quizzical glance at her, re-
moved his grey cap and scratched the top of his head. His
astigmatic eye twinkled like a spark. “Yes,” he nodded
judgmatically. “I like Slade. Like him all right. He's a
nice boy. Don't understand some of his ideas. That stuff
he writes is way over my head. But I like Slade. He's got
a lot to learn, but he knows it. His mother used to
worry about him, but he seems doing well in this magazine
work. Haven't seen him, let's see, going on two years. He's
got good manners, that boy. He may amount to something.”
“But he isn't a boy, Uncle Arthur ! Why he's really
assistant editor of the Colosseum. And there's that book
of his poetry. He didn't have to pay for it being published,
you know. They 22
“Poetry—mm!” said Uncle Arthur, rolling his astigmatic
eye. “Well, you know, Bess, my taste runs to chickens. He
didn't have to pay for it—no. But neither did it pay him.
Fell pretty flat. He told me so himself. Well, it's his
hobby—only it seems to me hobbies are more in line for us
old fellows. Still, he's done well for himself.”
“But Uncle Arthur—you are—er—preposterous. Slade's
a real writer. He has the gift. Father thinks so. Don't
you see that what he writes is the really important thing—
not the magazine work? Don't you see that, you funny
old Uncle Arthur?”


94 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
In her Bessieish way she was doing what looked like a
few minuet steps in front of him. Her black hair was in a
tangle about her face and her black eyes were sparkling.
She tossed her hair back from her eyes with the aid of both
hands, and then stood gracefully slouching with a hand on
either hip, her head slightly cocked on one side.
Uncle Arthur was looking away over the top of the house.
“Eh! Oh, all right, Bess. Well, what's he going to bring
with him? Fire-crackers ?”
“Fire-crackers!” Bessie's lip curled with pleasing scorn.
“Though of course we'll have some fireworks in the orchard
that night. Uncle Arthur, you know we'll have fireworks
in the orchard?” she finished pleadingly, with a strangely
childish reversal of the semi-adult tone with which she had
begun.
“Oh, absolutely, Bess, we'll have fireworks,” Uncle Ar-
thur promised, his enormous girth slightly agitated by inner
laughter. “Slade'll make a fizzle of the pinwheels again,
though. Remember two years ago?”
“He won't!” she answered with spirit. “You know he
won't. You're teasing. And of course I suppose Adela
will be invited,” she added in a very dignified tone.
“Adela’’’ Uncle Arthur immediately frowned suspicion.
“Adela who P”
“Mrs. Ventress. She's my best friend now in Tupton
and she's the most adorable person and you know she has
been teaching me drawing and she would simply love the
fireworks I’m sure and she gets so little fun.”
The sentence streamed forth with a total lack of punc-
tuation. It was possessed of cumulative earnestness.
Uncle Arthur's frown had deepened. He bit his lip. The
grey cap had been replaced, much over his nose. He seemed
extremely interested in contemplating the ridgepole of his
house from several angles. His colour heightened and a
certain stubborn oaken quality seemed to creep into the bag-
giness of his clothes.
“Look here, Bess, I think nothing of it!” he said. “I–
§


UNCLE ARTHUR SYMPATHIZES 95
er—I’ve been meaning to speak to you for some time about
that. I—er—you know I don't like—I mean to say—”
his voice got thicker, preluding, as Bessie well knew, some
sort of outburst. Uncle Arthur could never express his
deepest emotions. His endeavours at tact always culmi-
nated in some explosive phrase which hardly clarified the
situation.
“Oh, Goliath,” he suddenly exclaimed. “It's—the trouble
is—well, what do any of us know about that woman, Bess.
I’ve been seriously worried. About you. You know Charley
—oh Mammonites —you know your father. It seems ut-
terly inexcusable of him. Why did he do it? Oh, great
leaping trout! I am inclined utterly to give it up!”
His agitation was apparent in the irascible bumbling of
his syllables and the vast shrugging of his shoulders. He
began to walk up and down with his hands behind his back.
Bessie had expected something of the kind. She stood
slowly scraping the toe of one low tan shoe into the dirt
around the root of an apple tree. Her hair flopped over her
eyes. She said nothing.
Uncle Arthur quickened the pace of his short walking to
and fro. He glanced at her ever and anon worriedly out
of the corner of his better eye. He crammed his cap more
fiercely upon his head. He bit upon his pipe.
Suddenly Bessie raised her head, shook back her hair
and laughed. He halted with pipe drooping from his lip,
in front of her.
“Oh, you great goose,” she said in the occasional ageless
feminine tone that always checkmated him. “What is the
matter? As if she could hurt me!”
“Well, it is that!” said her huge relative in a tone singu-
larly boyish and contrite for all his years. But he reverted
almost immediately to the more pompous.
“It's this, Bess. If Charley won't see it properly, why I
do. There's talk about it already in the town. It isn't good
for you to see so much of a so much older woman none of
us know hardly at all. It isn't good for any young girl,


96 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
these sudden great intimacies with older women—least of
all when no one knows anything about her. Now she may
be all right—she may be all right—(though Uncle Arthur's
eyes denied the possibility of it)—I’m not saying she isn't,”
he hastened on as he saw Bessie opening her mouth to reply.
“I ain't saying she isn't—she may be all right—” (he was
obviously stalling for another flow of ideas), “she may be,
but the fact is your father and I are your guardians and we
can't see you running into any harm—and—oh, Charley
wouldn't see the side of a barn until he ran into it—so I
have to take it upon myself, to take it upon myself Bess,
you simply oughtn't to see any more of that woman. It's
bad for you, and you must know it yourself, and the whole
town is talking!”
He ended with great vehemence, avoided his niece's di-
lating eyes and, removing his jammed cap with some diffi-
culty, again applied hands to his hair, which now stood up
in every direction across his pate like the ill-arranged halo
of some wild and preposterous saint.
Bessie's eyes grew wider and wider and her mouth opened
and shut. She began to teeter toe and heel and swing her
arms a little. A bon chat bon ratſ
“Uncle Arthur,” she said quite primly, “while appreciat-
ing your—your solicitation—but that's not the word I mean,
I must tell you that Mrs. Ventress is one of the finest
women I have ever met. And furthermore (how well that
word rolled off the tongue) and furrrthermore,” said Bessie
impressively, “I consider her in every way a perfectly fit
companion for me. And furrrthermore—after that—(Her
head was back and her mouth open to draw breath for a
crushing climax). “Furthermore, after that,” she repeated,
“if you think I care what the sneaky gossips of this town
like Miss Crome say about my most utterly and extremely
nice Adela, why I can tell you I simply don't care what that
Miss Crome or any other slithery gossip in this town says,
and it isn't true anyway—and if you don't let her come to


UNCLE ARTHUR SYMPATHIZES 97.
the fireworks, I mean Adela, which I know you wouldn't
really not do, you will most certainly break my heart.”
It was not so arresting a group of closing periods as she
had planned. It did not satisfy her. But she delivered it
in a most dignified manner. Any ambiguity could not be
mistaken by Uncle Arthur.
He remained planted before her like a solid oak. But
then he began to walk up and down again. He blew his
nose violently. The scar on his left cheek burned. He put
on an evidently artificial smile, as convincing to Bessie as
if he had suddenly attached to his chin a false purple beard.
He waved large hands.
“Now, Bess,” he said, “you know perfectly well I in-
tended no insult to your friend. I—she may be all right,
perfectly all right. I don't really think, though, that we
should invite her to the fireworks. And then do think of
Slade too, you know. (This was deep.) He won't want
to have strangers about I'm sure, just a family party. And
we'll have such a pleasant time. Don't spoil it. It-” sud-
denly the explosiveness returned. The mask dropped. The
incoherently incensed small-boy face purpled. “It ain't fair,
Bess. Who is this woman, anyhow 2 Great Hippopotami,
who is she? I'd like to know. Oh, holy dancing Zebra, it
does seem too bad, I must say—”
“Uncle Arthur,” his niece answered, standing straight and
speaking gravely, “I do believe you're jealous.”
“Jealous! Great painted Snails! Jealous? Of what?
Of that woman? Bess, can't you see that you really ought
not to go around there so much? You ought not to, I
should think, (aggrievedly) if only that it worries your poor
old uncle. I think absolutely nothing of it!”
Bessie stamped her small foot. “Stop it, Arthur. (It
had long been her custom to call him Arthur when she was
angry with him.) I won't have you saying ‘this woman',
‘this woman’, ‘this woman'. It's too silly. And you seem
to think me—” the voice melted all at once into a tone of
the most intense lassitude. “Oh, Arthur, you seem to think


98 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
me such a child. I’m not a child any more, I'm not, I’m not.
And you know it! You know perfectly well I can take
care of myself. You know perfectly well I'm fond of you
too, and still at the same time that I won't be bossed. Father
doesn't boss me—”
(At this point the enormous relative raised hands, but
not in piety, to heaven, and ejaculated a smothered “Char-
ley!”) “I won't be. I won't be. Now you know you'll be
polite and ask my dear, my adored, my beloved Adela to
the fireworks, and say no more about it!”
“I will if I don’t see her I will if I don’t see her 99
interrupted Uncle Arthur with wide waving of his hands.
“Oh, well, have it your own way! But I refuse to be a
party to it. I utterly refuse to be a party to it. You may
bring her if you like, and I will sit indoors among all the
vicious mosquitoes and suffer from my hay fever. What
does it matter. Infernal hinges of Erebus, what does it
matter! You always have your own way. I tell you it is
stark peril. But who am I then. Only your uncle. Why
should I be listened to? And I had looked forward so to
seeing Slade. Oh, well, I sympathize with Xerxes! Whips
and manacles! It is all too horrible!”
He waved his hands and heaved his girth in a Gargantaun
gesture of abandonment and stumped off toward the house,
his grey cap in his hand. Bessie recognised his complete
capitulation in the reference to Xerxes. Uncle Arthur al-
ways fell back upon the famous Persian's passion whenever
the last remnants of his inexpressiveness utterly failed. His
mortal despair in any given situation was inseparably con-
nected in his mind with that indignant monarch striving
to chasten the Hellespont. But who shall bridle the sea?
The sixteen-year-old child stood staring after him with
her head on one side. Her inner being was far more de-
lighted than depressed. She even did several more minuet
steps. She then started after him, in a half-skipping run,
had caught his arm before he had reached the steps of the


UNCLE ARTHUR SYMPATHIZES 99.
side-porch, and five minutes later they were bending together
over a case of stuffed birds in the parlour, with the utmost
affection and mutual interest. Mrs. Ventress was not al-
luded to again that afternoon.


CHAPTER XI: HELEN AND THE CHINA
ANIMALS
OP–pop-pop—BANG!—pop—pop-pop-pop!
The heavy breather on the bed flung one brown arm
across his chest. His body looked shapeless under the
wrinkled sheet, hunched up like a bundle. His open eyes
were rested by the white ceiling, but it was smotheringly
warm. With an effort of will he turned on his side and
picked up his watch from the chair.
6:30.
He sat up, his light hair in great disorder, his blue eyes
wild and staring. They calmed as he regarded the green
bureau, the lighter apple-green of the wall-paper, his clothes
in a heterogeneous huddle upon a chair, his collar and
necktie in disorder upon the bureau. The Glorious Fourth!
Pop—pop-pop Bang! Bang—pop pop.
Slade's lean brown hands went round his knees. His
chin lay for a moment upon them. He yawned enormously.
Too early for breakfast. Breakfast was at eight. When
had he better take his bath? Did Uncle Charles get up
early 2
He scrambled from bed and padded to the door, opened
it a crack, listened. The bathroom was across the hall. A
thin mosquitoish sound came from Dr. Gedney's room be-
yond it. Otherwise the house was quite quiet. Should he
run his bath? -
Too early. Might disturb them. He went back and sat
on his bed, scratching his head.
Rafe's voice, the voice of memory, sang clearly in his
inner ear.
IOO


HELEN AND THE CHINA ANIMALS 101
“Keep your head down—Alleymand 1
Keep your head down—Alleymand 1
Late last night, by the star-shell light,
We sa-aw you—we sa-a-aw you !
You were something—something wire
When we opened up with rapid-fire.
If you want to see your father
In the Fa—ther-land,
Keep your head down, Alleymand 1’’
Ground school at Columbus. Singing along the barrack
bunks at night, after lights out, promptly cut into by a
snarling yelp from the cadet in charge. Texas. Coughing
at Kelly Field. Coughing your heart out. The fine black
Texas dust. Stealing into the lavatory to choke off your
coughing that roused grumblings and pyrotechnic cursing,
and to smoke the fag that sometimes helped.
The War! Good heavens, how infinitely far away that
all was
The patriotism of The Colosseum. Maybe that was
the only reason they had taken him on after the War, even
though he had never got across, and the Armistice had found
him bored to tears at desk work in Washington. About ten
Lieutenants for every trivial job. Damn the War! How
terribly excited he had been—and to be stuck in the D.M.A.!
Well, he wanted to forget all that forever. Fizzle. Fail-
ure. Bunk. Such bunk! So much hideous bunk! Good
lord
Stagger, camber, angle of incidence, flying wires, landing
wires, joy-stick, elevators, “keep her nose on the hori-
zon”. . .
“Keep your head down, Alleymand. . . .”
Good fun though at Hicks—especially when they
thought their squadron was going to Mineola. The eternal
morning drone of the planes. “Con-tact!” The leather-
hooded figure in goggles peering over the coaming of the
cockpit. The mechanic revving-up, then dangerously but
dexterously swinging the prop. The roar of it, and the


102 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
rushing wind. The bus turned toward the field and let
go. The cold air in his face. The jouncing rush, tail up,
diminishing across the turf, blowing off the ground like a
feather, rising, rising . . . a droning speck in the clean,
clear blue of the Texas sky. . .
Gosh!
What an incredible other life it all seemed ! Rafe thought
so too. Rafe and he had long since talked themselves out
upon it all. Fed up. Forever. Completely. But some-
times it sang in the blood again.
Who is this woman Bess wants me to meet? Bess is
certainly getting darn pretty. Did I send that man's manu-
script back with my letter? Must have. No? Sure, I
must have. Didn't they ever know what was good, though?
Why the devil did Old T. B. turn down that poem of Jean
Doncett's P
Have to go around the Village more with Rafe. How
he loved it! Oh, well, when you're working in advertising.
A relief, maybe. But you ran into so many of the same
people in an editorial office. Mustn't get stodgy, though.
Wonder when I’d better manoeuvre for another raise?
Wasn’t it warm | Whezw! Must be hot in New York.
Always hot on the Fourth. Was that a tap? “Yes?”
“Slade, you can get your bath now.”
“Thanks, Bess. All right.”
>k >}: ::
Clothed in blue coat and white flannels, and considerably
cooler, he sat at breakfast with Bessie and his uncle.
“What are you two doing this morning?” asked the
Doctor.
“I’m going to take Slade over to see Adela,” Bessie said.
“Oh, Mrs. Ventress. Well—oh, all right. Not going
to stay there all morning though, are you?”
“Oh, no, that's just part of it. I’m going to take Slade
for a walk—if it isn’t too hot.”
“Thought Slade wanted to play tennis?’
“The Institute court is so bad this year 92


HELEN AND THE CHINA ANIMALS 103
“Oh, no, I really don't care at all about that,” interrupted
Slade. “Anything Bessie wants to do, Uncle Charles. You
aren't coming with us?”
“I think not. I’ve got some pottering about to do,” Dr.
Gedney always referred thus to his writing. “You two go.
You'll meet the famous Mrs. Ventress, Slade. Bessie's
told you about her?”
“Yes. Sounds nice. My, your drawing has improved,
Bess,” he added, turning to his cousin.
“Do you really think so? It's all her. But you hadn't
seen anything for some time, had you?”
“Not for two years. Why, you certainly ought to be
able to get work to do in New York.”
“Oh, Sladel Really?”
“Sure. I’m positive of it. But what do you think, Uncle
Charles? Would you let her go?”
“Well,” said Dr. Gedney, “Bessie's young yet—not
through school. Better let that rest a little while. But I
know she wants it. And I think she could do it. But we’d
better let it ” His voice trailed away into silence. It
always made him rather nervous to think of Bessie's leaving
him,
# >k ×
“There she is,” said Bessie, clutching Slade's arm and
pointing over the hedge. What he saw was principally a
hat and a grey dress. Mrs. Ventress was bending over a
small flower-bed of blue lobelia edged with white alyssum.
She had chamois gloves on, with holes for the knuckles.
She was doing something with a trowel.
“Oo-oo!” called Bessie softly.
Adela straightened and turned. Her wide grey hat and
the cool daintiness of her dress set off her pretty colour.
Her fair skin had gained a tanned warmth from walks and
working in the garden. Her smile was odd and delightful.
“Hello. Who have you there?”
“This is my cousin, Slade,” Bessie presented, as Mrs.
Ventress came toward them. Slade removed his straw hat


104 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
and shook hands over the hedge. He had a pleasant three-
cornered grin.
“Bessie's certainly been singing your praises,” he said.
“Has she? Well, we've had some nice times, haven't we,
Bessie? Won't you come in? Do you mind sitting on the
porch steps? I like it.”
Slade sat on the step below the two women.
“Isn't he nice?” asked Bessie, suddenly tousling his hair.
“Now Slade will hate me. He hates that.”
“Oh, I don't really believe so,” said Adela, amused.
Slade dug in the walk with a small stick. “You’ve cer-
tainly helped her a lot with her drawing,” he said seriously,
looking up. “I want her to come to New York and try her
luck after she graduates. By the way, you come from
there don't you?”
“Yes. I'm here resting. I was doing a little wor
“What kind of work?” -
“Oh, a little writing. I got tired of it. As I had a little
money, I decided to come here for a while.”
“Writing? What kind of thing?”
“Oh, nothing much,” said Mrs. Ventress. “Nothing you
ever read, I'm sure. Quite unimportant. Just a sort of
means of making a living. But I’ve stopped it. I don't
have to any more. I'm—in a way—trying to find myself.”
“How do you mean?”
“Oh, thinking of taking up something else and wonder-
ing what it is to be. Anyway, this is a vacation. So don't
let's talk about my “work’.” She smiled.
“I know she writes awfully well,” said Bessie with con-
viction, “and that she's hiding it from us. She won't tell
me a thing, Slade. She's the worst woman!”
She looked at Adela adoringly.
“I’m sure she does,” said Slade. “You’re coming over
to Uncle Arthur's this evening, aren't you?” he asked Mrs.
Ventress. “For the fireworks?”
“Why, Bessie has been kind enough to invite me. But
I haven't met your Uncle—as a matter of fact I haven't
3.2


HELEN AND THE CHINA ANIMALS 105
yx
even met your Uncle Charles yet—so I hardly know—
“Oh, yes, you are,” said Bessie. “That's all settled. This
afternoon there's a parade too, the firemen's, down Market
Street. But I don’t suppose you'd care to come with us?”
“Well, I'll tell you, you'd better leave me out of that. You
two go along. I'm an old and stodgy person. You'd bet-
ter, really. I don't care much for fanfare. Didn't they
start in early this morning with the fire-crackers though?
Of course you heard them?”
“They woke me up,” answered Slade. “I sleep very
lightly—they always do.”
As he looked at Adela he felt that he had never seen a
more charming face. How pretty and graceful she was,
and how young she looked. What was her story?
“Do you like New York?” he asked.
“I did, I used to. I don't know. I wanted to get away
from it. It's a fascinating city, of course—and I’ve oc-
casionally hated it as I’ve hated nothing else in the world.”
“Check,” said Slade. “So have I. Gets on all one's
nerves sometimes. Too many impressions to take in at once.
Three ring circus.’
“You’re on a magazine there, aren't you? I wonder if
you know ” But Adela caught herself up.
“Who P”
“Oh, nothing—just someone I used to know who was in
the publishing business. But that was long before your time
of course. Do you like it?” she added to change the
subject.
“Yes. It's good fun. I’ve learned a lot. I wanted to
write myself 22
“Slade does write,” interpolated Bessie. “Beautiful
poetry.”
“Oh no,” said Slade embarrassedly. “No, Bess. I brought
out one book. That was a year ago. But that teaches you
something.”
“I can see it sometime, can't I?” asked Adela.
“Why, yes,” said Slade, looking up again with the same


106 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
half-embarrassed, half-speculative expression in his eyes.
“If you want to. Do you write poetry?”
“Oh, no. But there are certain things I like. I might like
yours.”
“You wouldn't,” said Slade promptly, slightly gloomy.
“But I’m going on with it,” he added. He laughed rather
ruefully. “I can't seem to cure myself.”
“That's a good sign, I should think. But you're pretty
busy, aren't you, with the office?”
“Fairly. And of course it's congenial work. But after
all, it's all in myself if I ever amount to anything. I may
come to the point where I see I can't write. I haven't yet.
Meanwhile, as I said, I’m learning.”
“How do you like it here?” he asked a moment later.
“Very much. I’m not so sure the people like me y
“Oh, they do!” Bessie sprang to her defence against her
own suspicion.
“No, I'm not at all so sure they do. Perhaps I’ve kept
too much to myself. But after all, that's what I came down
here for. And I am getting a thorough rest. Oh, I love this
old garden. I love the quiet. I think I'll stand the hot
weather all right, too. It hasn't proved so very hot yet.
Well, you two will want to be running along. What time
am I expected at your Uncle's, Bessie?”
“Oh, Slade and I will call for you,” said Bessie. “About
eight o'clock.”
“Good. I’ll be ready.”
“There'll be some ice-cream!” (Bessie smiled at her own
childishness.)
“Better still ! Good-bye,” laughed Adela.
“Good-bye,” they smiled from the gate.
“Yes, she certainly is most attractive,” commented Slade
as they walked home. “Awfully nice. She has beautiful
eyes, hasn't she?”.
He seemed abstracted. Bessie ran into a eulogium of
Mrs. Ventress's many singular merits.
The afternoon proved hot and noisy. Standing on grocery
>


HELEN AND THE CHINA ANIMALS 107
boxes, Slade and Bessie watched for a little while the Fire-
men's parade. Then it bored them. A small hole was
burned in Bessie's dress by a youthful patriot's brown stick
of punk. The pervading gunpowdery smell was everywhere
in their nostrils, and the dust. Desultory popping and
crackling down Market Street continued through their light
supper. They stopped for Mrs. Ventress while the day was
still light. She awaited them all in white. She looked per-
fectly attired and dainty and cool. Slade noticed the rose-
leaf colour in her face. He did not realise that he was
staring.
“Oh, how lovely you look,” called the more articulate Bes-
sie, and ran up the steps to kiss her friend. They linked
arms. They proceeded toward Sycamore Street and Uncle
Arthur's.
It was dusk by the time they arrived. It was just the
family. Dr. Gedney and Uncle Arthur were already taking
a turn under the apple trees. Uncle Arthur was a white
blur in a panama suit, Dr. Gedney a blur, as to clothes, of
dark blue. The faces of both were indistinct in the shadowy
orchard. Slade began to light the Chinese lanterns that
lay telescoped upon the grass.
After the introduction of a slightly shy Adela, Uncle
Arthur turned to a wooden box in which reposed the pin-
wheels, flower-pots and Roman candles. Wicker chairs had
been set out. Dr. Gedney seated himself in the dim light
next to Mrs. Ventress with Bessie on his other side. The
Chinese lanterns swayed to a slight breeze and hung like
bizarre softly-glowing giant fruit from the glimmering
boughs. Slade set off some red fire and came distributing
sparklers.
Uncle Arthur attached a pinwheel and delivered himself
of several of his odd exclamations as it stuck and spent its
golden stream of fire upon the ground. Slade grinned.
Presently the company were busy with the Roman candles.
Mrs. Ventress even lighted a nigger-chaser which imper-
illed her silk stockings. Coloured fire burnt about them,


108 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
smokily and vividly. Outside the illumination made by the
fireworks the night upon the orchard was blue-black, sil-
vered by the faint moon.
Dr. Gedney was a shy man. He had exchanged a few
rather stereotyped remarks with Adela, always looking at
her sideways, not seeing her very well. Bessie had rattled
on at a great rate. Slade had been rather silent, absorbed
in their entertainment. So had Uncle Arthur. After the
fireworks faded they all seated themselves in the last glim-
mering of the lanterns. “Slade,” said Uncle Arthur, “the
ice-cream's on the back steps.” “I’ll help,” said Bessie,
jumping up. “And can't I?” asked Adela, rising. For
answer Bessie reached for her hand. She nodded apology
to the two men, who murmured something. Slade leading,
Adela and Bessie picked their way up a shadowy and crunchy
gravel path, and, in the light of the unshaded electric bulb
in the ceiling of the back porch, found the freezer.
Slade's first attempt to disinter the ice-cream from its
ice-pack was clumsy, and before he knew it a pair of firm
white arms had taken his task away. His own hands, at
the slight brushing touch, suddenly seemed enormous and
ungainly. The scent of Adela's hair was upon his senses
as she bent her head. She became very small, to be pro-
tected. He stepped quickly away from her. He stood re-
garding her as she knelt over the dasher, and began a prac-
tical skillful disinterment of the metal container of the
ice-cream.
“Sladel Don't let her do that! She's not strong enough.”
Bessie was at the top of the porch steps, entering the kitchen
for the cakes.
He came forward again, protesting, but Mrs. Ventress
waved him aside. She could do it. Give her a chance.
A miller moth fluttered and blundered about the electric
bulb above the porch steps. The nape of Adela's neck was
white, the dark bronze hair above it strayed in two crinkly
curls. Her white forearms tugged at the dasher.
Slade leaned forward and her face turned upward toward


HELEN AND THE CHINA ANIMALS 109
him. Her eyes danced. “Beautiful ice-cream!” she said
with mock awe. It came out really perfectly and was dis-
tributed to the plates Bessie had brought. Slade reached
over and purloined a piece of less salty ice from the freezer.
It bulged his cheek. He looked up at Bessie, now standing
with a plate in each hand. His light hair curled moistly
upon his forehead.
“With neatness and dispatch,” remarked Slade.
“Yes, but Adela did all the work,” said Bessie.
Slade was repentant. “I’m so sorry. You certainly
did,” he turned to Adela. She evidently wasn't listening.
She was standing on the lower step gazing out into the
dark orchard. Her profile caught the light. Her brows
seemed sombre.
“What?” she asked, turning toward him with the vague
expression of a person interrupted in reverie.
“I say you were so quick I'm afraid I wasn't much help.”
“What? Oh no! No indeed. But look, children!”
“What is it?”
“Just the moon!”
It had floated clear of silver-edged cloud, cloud that had
long dimmed it. It glowed as bright as a fire-balloon above
the massed mysterious shadow of the trees, round and buoy-
ant. The night sky was a deep plum-blue. Adela had
raised one arm, pointing toward it, her face lifted.
It lasted but an instant. Slade drew in his breath. His
face looked puzzled. But Bessie's eyes were quick. She was
glancing at him keenly. Meanwhile her friend had turned
perfectly naturally and picked up a plate. Slade secured
two. The next instant they were all on their way over
the wet grass, Indian file, rejoining Dr. Gedney and Uncle
Arthur.
In deep shadow they sat in a half-circle, eating ice-cream,
pistache and vanilla, aware of the bright moon through
black raggedly-silhouetted foliage. A silence held them,
broken only by the tink of spoon on plate and the scratch
of the match to Uncle Arthur's cigar.


110 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
Slade stood on the other side of Scamander under high
dark battlements. On the broad height of those battle-
ments a woman of silver walked in blue moonlight. In his
mouth was a taste of blood and tears. In his heart was a
murmuring of fire. The dark, blood-stained shadows of the
plain were beautiful, beautiful as the strictness of a sword
the metallic brilliance of the moon. Most beautiful the poise
and sway of the woman who walked between earth and
heaven, slowly and proudly.
A young, plantigrade, biped mammal—in trouble as usual.
Mrs. Ventress was laughing at him softly. “You are
a thousand miles away. Your uncle asked you something.”
Uncle Arthur was leaning forward. “Eh, Slade?”
“I beg your pardon, sir. I didn't hear you.”
“I was saying that the pinwheels were managed better
this Fourth.”
“Not the one I watched you with. How about that one?”
“Oh, well,” returned Uncle Arthur. “Aren't there excep-
tions to every rule?”
Both laughed. -
Uncle Arthur resumed his smoking. Slade was sitting
next to his Uncle Charles. Adela and Bessie on his other
side were talking together in low voices. The ice-cream was
finished. The sitters were blurred in shadow.
“Well,” said Dr. Gedney's voice, “I think we shall have
to go, Arthur. This has certainly been very pleasant. What
do you think, Bess?”
“Yes, we ought to,” said Bessie, rising, after a murmur
to Mrs. Ventress who answered it with an assenting mur-
mur. She rose also.
“I’m very glad to have met you,” Uncle Arthur was all
courtesy. “Bessie has told me—”
Bessie smiled to herself in the darkness. Slade moved
past her toward Mrs. Ventress.
“Have a nice time?” asked his cousin, peering for his
face.
“Great! Wasn't it? (Good-night, sir!) Yes, I cer-


HELEN AND THE CHINA ANIMALS 111
tainly did. Good night for a poem, isn't it. Something—”
He broke off. Dr. Gedney and Mrs. Ventress were ahead
of them. He could hear his uncle answering a question in
that shy, dry voice of his.
Of course she wasn't Trojan Helen at all. But what a
beautiful gesture! And how darned nice and naturall What
had her life been? Why had she looked so sad?
“Sladel” Bessie was lightly shaking his arm.
“Yeah—I’m sorry—what?”
“Don’t push me off the path like that, that's all. Here's
the gate.”
“I am sorry.”
“Thinking up your poem?”
“Uh—oh, no—I was just mooning, I guess. Isn't it a
nice night?”
Bessie did not answer immediately. Then she said in-
consequently.
“The moonlight's so bright on the road, I think I’ll dance.”
She was suddenly on ahead of them, running, twirling.
If she had not been so graceful you might have called it
capering. She skipped.
The Scythe hung low in the Eastern heaven, Regulus
its bright star near the earth. The sky coruscated with an
incrustation of stars. Up to them, up and up, glittered the
Dream, beatific, solitary as their light. . . .
Bessie was waiting for Slade and the other two at Mrs.
Ventress's gate. They were all mildly amused at her.
There was persiflage. Adela thanked them all and said good-
night. Bessie waved at her in an airy manner. Adela
flirted her hand and smiled. Bessie wove a saraband ahead
of the two men on the way home. Her father kept saying
absently, “No, do come back here!” Slade seemed absent-
minded. At the Gedney gate Bessie fell into step with
them. “Ooh, I'm tired. Wasn't it fun though.” She was
a little breathless. “I am tired. I’m going right up. Good-
night.” She had disappeared when they entered the small
hall.


114 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
write her. It referred to the ice-cream. It would amuse
her. He could see her smile and the way her eyebrows
went up even more. He could hear, faintly, her laughter.
He wondered, innocently enough, whether she wrote an
amusing letter. Sure to. . . .
>k >k >k
Bessie was singularly quiet when she came to Adela for
drawing on Tuesday. Teased gently as to her thoughts, she
assumed a far-away smile that held the faintest touch of
bitterness. She then favoured her older friend with a long
candid glance. She then burst into a typically Bessieish
fit of high spirits, and rattled off a lot of nonsense. But she
did not answer directly any questions. She turned them off
with the mischievousness of an elf. She was moody youth
personified. Once she actually seemed to be trying to pick
a slight quarrel with Adela over a discussion of illustrators.
But she left the house waving a gay farewell.
>k >k >k
Slade found the manuscripts piled up for him on his
desk at The Colosseum office. The mousy Associate Editor
hardly seemed aware of his absence or return. He was still
hunting in the rat's nest of his roll-top for the papers he
seemed always just on the point of finding—and never quite
did. He was scratching his head in the same way, behind the
ear; stalking into the office of the Editor-in-Chief to voice
opinions on current politics in the same resonant accents,
thence to return to the inextricable mixing of the papers
upon his desk.
Slade departed that evening for his room on Charles
Street in Greenwich Village, with a brief-case full of manu-
scripts he intended reading overnight.
>k >k
The offices of The Colosseum Publishing Company were
in a high building on the North side of Union Square,
directly below the offices of a prominent collar company and
above those of an Armenian Rug Firm. The gold-lettered
firm-names of all three emblazoned the rather dingy stone


CHRISTIAN MARTYR OF “THE COLOSSEUM" 115
structure and called to you from across the Square. The
rather cramped and rickety elevator, in which you ascended
in charge of a lean and seedy individual, was quite behind the
times so far as modern efficiency was concerned. It let you
out in a narrow hallway, confronted by a length of plate
glass behind which the accounting department fussed with
its ledgers and comptometers. On your left a glass-panelled
door opened upon an information desk and telephone switch-
board in close proximity to the Cashier's cage. The further
semicircular sweep of the enclosing counter held books dis-
played under glass. Beyond and behind it were various
desks, back of them all the offices of the officers of the Com-
pany. Passing around the enclosing counter and to the rear,
away from the tall south-facing windows on Union Square,
you turned to your left again into a dark high-ceilinged hall-
way. The first spacious and portièred door to your right
admitted you to the reception room of The Colosseum.
Magazine. It was all impressive, the thick carpets under
your feet made progress noiseless.
The offices were ancient, an antique legend haunted about
their shape, immaterial trumpets seemed softly to bruit an-
cient fame from the four dusty corners of that high-ceilinged
reception-room, so secretly placed in the very heart of this
aloof and eminent publishing organization that its one small
window, opening upon an air-shaft, was totally insufficient to
provide it with illumination. All day through, winter or
summer, a large shallow marble-white bowl hung upon four
bronze chains above the center of the room, suffused gold-
tinged reflected lighting, a subdued radiance inoffensive to
the hallowed walls hung with the choicest work of now-
eminent illustrators.
On your left, as you entered the doorway, stood a small
brown-corduroy-upholstered sofa, catacornered between the
door you had entered and the high wide entrance to the fur-
ther realms of the Art Department. Across the room,
directly in front of you, in limine of a further vista of large
apartments, stood two desks. The one on the left-hand, in


116 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
full view against the wall, was a wide typewriter desk with a
drop-light over it. The one on the opposite side of the
vaulted entrance to the editorial rooms was a high roll-top
tucked away in the corner by the air-shaft window and
backed by a green-curtained book-case. These flanked the
awe-inspiring vista of more soft-piled carpet under high ceil-
ings, with glimpses of two desks in the editorial rooms be-
yond—and of the tall south windows beside them that again
caught sight of the sky above the Square.
The atmosphere of the editorial rooms was a vatic silence,
broken only by occasional soft footsteps, whisperings, rust-
lings of papers, and undertoned by the hum of distant con-
versation. The penetrator into these mystic precincts was
bound to feel the unbidden awe steal over him.
At a flat-topped desk in the room beyond the reception-
room, Slade sat all day, reading or editing manuscripts.
Across the room sat Miss Peabody in her immaculate neat-
ness of dress, with her pleasantly sardonic smile. She sat
up very straight and read book manuscripts, while Slade
read for the magazine. She knew exactly how to manage
any man in the office. She had been known to remark that
any man was shamefully easy to manage. Few could equal
her sedate but withering scorn of the things she didn't like.
Also there was always a mischievous look in her eyes.
Slade liked her for these things, and for the fact that his
occasional outbursts, when manuscripts were turned down
that he had wanted accepted, and vice versa, appeared both
to amuse and please her. In a less childish and far more
effective way she often herself besieged the Powers that
Were. Her feeling for good writing was uncompromising
and intuitive. Both she and Slade frequently held con-
ferences of mutiny against some of the policies and pre-
dilections of the Editor and Associate Editor.
From nine in the morning till five in the evening, with an
hour off for lunch which was frequently stretched to an
hour and a half, Slade pored over the literary work of other
people and secretly wrote an occasional verse. He was not


CHRISTIAN MARTYR OF “THE COLOSSEUM" 117
especially gregarious at lunch-time. Sometimes he called up
Rafe who toiled in an advertising agency on 44th Street, and
they met at some half-way point for a meal together. Some-
times he went out with a group of other men in the office.
Sometimes he wandered alone over to Scheffel Hall on East
17th Street or up Broadway to Madison Square lunchrooms.
At five o'clock he left the office, usually to walk home,
though he quite as usually came to work in the morning via
the Sixth Avenue “L.”
>k >k >k
Upon this particular hot afternoon he turned south on
Broadway past Union Square, traversed 14th Street to Fifth
Avenue and proceeded down that thoroughfare toward the
Washington Square Arch, where the zone of high buildings
sacred to silks, stockings, cloaks and suits became a district
of lower buildings mixed with apartment houses and private
residences, and marked off by two historic churches.
Young Breckinridge was slightly above the average height,
fair of skin, blue-eyed, with close-cropped light brown hair.
His clothes were never sufficiently pressed. His neckties
displayed too great an affection for raw color. His fingers,
that were now occupied with pipe-bowl and brief-case, bore
stains of ink and nicotine. He was twenty-four. He had
been with the Colosseum for four years. He had, within
that time, risen from addressing envelopes and entering
manuscripts to first reader of all manuscripts submitted, at
a salary amounting to forty dollars a week. His features
had a certain healthy and agreeable ugliness, and he needed
to shave only every other day. His teeth were white and
regular, his grin frank and pleasant. His eyes were always
either absent-minded or amused. His temperament was
essentially easygoing, with spasms of red rebellion, against
everything, spasms that usually manifested themselves only
in his poetry.
He and Rafe lived in two rooms upon the top floor of a
tall, narrow, high-stooped brick house in the upper part of
Charles Street. The smaller room was Slade's. There was


118 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
just space enough in it for a bed, a bureau and a diminutive,
rickety-legged table. It had two doors, one at the head of
his bed, opening directly on the dingy, dark, narrow hall,
one near the window opening upon Rafe's larger room.
Rafe's wider bed was made up like a couch in the daytime,
with a worn imitation tapestry cover. Both rooms were lit
at night by tattered redly-glowing welsbachs. In an alcove
at the rear of Rafe's room was a washstand. At the front
of the room were two windows, with a large writing table
between, under the light. The street in the summer even-
ings was full of the wild din of all the children of the neigh-
borhood at play. Later, when the children went to bed, the
cats came out and started musical activities. The windows
across the street always showed stout women in kimonos or
bovine men in shirt-sleeves elbow-hunched upon the sills.
The house always smelt slightly of mould and cooking vege-
tables. On the floor below them lived a Village dramatist
who believed he was a Rosicrucian. In another cubby-hole
hall bedroom in the rear on their own floor slept a Princeton
man of their own ages who declaimed Homer in the original
Greek every morning while dressing. His name was Jerry
Callender, and he assisted in running the Book Review Sec-
tion of a large metropolitan newspaper. As he had a wide
circle of friends he was always out in the evenings. In the
mornings, when all three were up and hanging over the stair-
rail to see if the bathroom on the floor below was clear, they
mutually indulged in song, dance and badinage. The Rosi-
crucian had filed several claims that this disturbed his mystic
morning slumbers. But they were three against one.
This evening, when he had entered the dark first-floor
hallway, at about a quarter of six, and mounted creakingly
and with long-legged strides to the top and third floor, Slade
found Rafe sprawled out upon his couch bed, reading “The
Lake”, by George Moore.
“H'lo,” said Rafe.
“H'lo. You're early.”
“Yeah. They turned that account over to Lapham after


CHRISTIAN MARTYR OF “THE COLOSSEUM" 119
all. Know what I mean? Made me sore. I got that bank
stuff in shape to-day, but there wasn't much else to do. I
quit at half-past four. Old Pooley was out and you could
have fried eggs on his desk. Maybe that damned mouser
Mitchell will chalk it up against me, but I don't care. Old
Pooley likes my stuff and I don't soldier usually. . . . A-
a-a-a-a-h!” Rafe raised his long corded brown arms and
stretched with a grotesque yawn. “Why be a slave all your
life. Damn advertising. It's the greatest lot of bunk in the
world. But a man must live. Where you going to dinner?”
“I don't know. I’ve got some stuff to read to-night.”
Slade had divested himself of coat and shirt and stood in
a singlet lighting a cigarette in cupped hands. He threw the
burnt match in the general direction of the window.
“Here, quit that! Who keeps this room clean? Defilin’
house of refuge!”
“House of ill-fame,” returned Slade grinning, and knelt
upon the chest of the prostrate figure—whereupon the pros-
trate figure arose and wrestled with him.
But it was too warm. After a few seconds of grinning,
gasping gripping of each other, swaying back and forth in
unsuccessful attempts at a throw, they desisted. Rafe went
back to the wash-basin and began soaking his head with a
great splutter. Slade returned to his room, completely re-
moved all apparel and wrapped himself in a towel-material
dressing-gown. A moment later he was running a bath be-
low.
“Hey!” Rafe shouted down the stair-well, “want to go
over to Christine's P”
“Don’t care,” Slade yelled back. “Sure!”
Half an hour later they left the house together.
>k xk :k
Slade returned to his hall-bedroom at about ten o'clock.
He had broken away from a group who were going over to
the Blue Horse on Christopher Street. As he climbed the
stairs the tag-end of an economic argument between Bur-
wash, a Socialist, and Edgren, who upheld something called


120 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
the sovereignty of the Ultimate Consumer, still rang in his
earS.
“You mean to tell me,” it was Burwash on the aggressive,
“that for a hundred million people in close communication,
the social organization originally intended for about one-
sixth that number, loosely in touch, is suitable?”
“No, but—”
“If institutions don't accord with the facts of nature they
result in revolutionſ”
“Yes, but—”
“To-day we have substituted the—the turbine for the pad-
dle wheel, the telegraph and telephone for the ox-cart, and
yet—"
“But you don't get me, Bur. What's the purpose of an
industrial system anyway? To feed the ultimate consumer.
And right to-day the ultimate consumer has a certain
sovereignty over conditions as they are, if he knew how to
use it. They aren't organised, that's all. The drift is out
of productive and into negotiative occupations, and into an
accelerated accumulation of interest-bearing securities. The
shop-counter 33
“Oh, I know, now you're going into commercial credit.
But I tell you that doesn't touch the root of it.”
“And I say it does.”
“Property is robbery!”
“Very likely; but don't forget the rest of Prudhomme.
“Possession is liberty’ſ”
“And we mean to get it—
“But not in the right way. Over the shop-counter—
The argumentative voices died away in Slade's brain. He
entered his room and stood lighting the Welsbach while an
“L” train groaned raucously on a far curve. It was very hot
in the cubicle when the Welsbach was lit. A baby was crying
like a saw in the crowded house opposite. A cat was meow-
ling and rummaging in the garbage can. A kale and cabbage
smell insinuated itself via the hall door, but it was too hot to
close it. Slade opened his brief-case and took out some
y


CHRISTIAN MARTYR OF “THE COLOSSEUM’” 121
manuscripts. He removed his damp soft collar and un-
buttoned his collar button, turning the neck-band of his shirt
under all around the neck. He donned a pair of horn glasses
that made him look like an owl. He tilted his small chair
back against the wall next the door to Rafe's room, which
was open for coolness, and put his feet upon the table.
He stuffed and lit his Dunhill. With a sigh he began to
read typewritten pages. Several manuscripts in covers
stamped with the imprint of different agents he finally tossed
upon the bed. He flipped open a third, after removing it
from its envelope. It had evidently been sent in direct by
the writer. It was typed neatly, but the top sheet was newly
folded and stiff, while those beneath were far more worn
and pliable. The thing was called “The Crystal Castle.”
Slade's eyes travelled down the first two paragraphs with
only a gradually mitigating boredom. Then he began to
read intently.
There was no sound in the room for fifteen minutes, ex-
cept the occasional rustle of a page. Then the reader stirred,
sighed, tossed the manuscript upon the table and scrapingly
removed his feet therefrom. He arose and stood staring at
the five-thousand word story, which he had carefully read
through twice.
“Holy cat!” he muttered. “Holy cat!” He whistled
softly.
He entered Rafe's room and ran the cold tap in the alcove.
Reading under that Welsbach was warm work. He washed
his face and let the water run upon his wrists. He poured a
drink for himself in the glass he carefully rinsed. He re-
turned to the room and again stood over the table, looking
down at the manuscript and scratching his head. Then he
settled himself and read it through all over again.
Rafe came in at 12:30. Slade was just finishing the rest
of his stint. On the bed lay all the MSS. that had come home
in his brief-case. Four short stories, two articles, ten poems.
On the table reposed one lonely folded packet of typewriter-
paper.


I22 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
“Hey,” exclaimed Slade, as his room-mate stood in the
doorway, pretending to regard him with dour displeasure.
“For God’s sake read this l’’
Rafe lounged in.
“Rejecting 'em, eh? Sort of policy worse-oh of the Colos-
seum, what?”
“Oh, my God,” groaned Slade. “Have a heart, Rafe!”
His room-mate grinned rather sheepishly. He seated
himself on the bed without more ado, supporting his feet
upon the jutting brass handles of the bureau. He took the
manuscript Slade tossed him.
He began with his head on the pillow and the typewritten
sheets held on high. Rafe was a little far-sighted. He
ended with his feet on the floor and his head bent over the
story. After he had read the last word he sat staring at
the page.
Then, “Damn good, isn't it?” he said laconically, and
tossed the thing at Slade. “Damn good,” he said again as he
rose and stretched. “Certainly is. Who's it by ?”
“That's just what I don't know,” said Slade. “There
isn't hide or hair of an address on it. Not on the envelope.
Not on this. No envelope enclosed either. May have been.
I'll see when I go down to-morrow. But isn't it good? My
lord—where the fox-terrier stands up at the window. My
gosh! Why, it's a wonderful yarn—and so beautifully writ-
ten.” -
“Yep. Bet anything it's by a well-known man, though.
Probably the agent'll ask you five hundred for it, or a thou-
sand.”
“But it didn't come through an agent.”
“Didn't, eh? Well, it's by some well-known crab, any-
way. You can tell. Yeah, it's a story you ought to use.
Well, I shook that gas-bag Burwash finally. There was
dancing down in the Blue Horse. You ought to have come.”
“Not me. I stay at home and discover masterpieces.”
“Oh, you do, do you, my young friend. By the way, what
kind of a time did you have in Tupton?”


CHRISTIAN MARTYR OF “THE COLOSSEUM’’ 123
“Great. Met a wonderful person.”
“What's her name?”
“Not so fast, old leather-face! Not so fast! Don't culti-
vate that stage humour.”
“Well, what was it?”
Slade was standing in the doorway of Rafe's room emerg-
ing from the shirt that now lay across his arms.
“You ruffian!” was all he would answer. His grin was
large and bland.
“You’re too young, Slade,” said Rafe from the alcove.
foamily toothbrushing. His tousled head stuck out to scan
his room-mate. “You’re too pitifully young, kid. My
Gawd, you need me along all the time. Who have you fallen
for now P”
“Cut it,” said Slade. “I told you this was a wonderful
woman.”
He walked over to Rafe's bureau and stood before the
glass with one hand negligently upon his hip.
Rafe spluttered a laugh. “You did not. Wonderful per-
son was what you said. Oh, la la la! They all flop some
day!” -
“What the hell do you mean?” asked Slade with a great
pretense of wrath.
“Who? Me? My brand of light persiflage.”
“Well, you're a damned old fool, Rafe. You ought to
have seen her.”
“Sally is all I want to see,” returned Rafe. “Sally,” he
yelled suddenly, seizing a chair with which he began to pivot
about the room. “Sally, I adore you! God, you ought to
see that girl one-step !”
“Don’t be an ass,” said Slade. “You poor fish. I suppose
you actually think you're in love!”
With vast superiority he entered his own room, “doused”
(as he always expressed it) “the glim”, and, after throwing
the manuscripts in the general direction of the table, com-
posed himself for slumber.
“So she's a wonder, is she,” remarked Rafe in a loud con-


124 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
versational tone from his own couch, its gaudy cover now
sprawling on the floor. He sat up, grinning at the wall be-
tween his room and Slade's. Histrionically he raised one
hand to his ear to listen.
But there was no answer to his query, save a very bogus
S11Ore.


CHAPTER XIII: MS. BY ANON.
HE first thing Slade did next morning at the office was
to make a thorough search through all his papers for
one of those stamped, self-addressed envelopes usually in-
closed by contributors. It refused to turn up. His ques-
tioning resulted in nothing. After he had described to her
the nature of the manuscript, Miss Peabody became inter-
ested. Between them they had the editorial rooms ransacked.
No luck. Slade took the manuscript in to the Editor-in-
Chief, in one of the latter's spare moments unconferential,
and said what he thought of its excellence. He was so press-
ing that he actually left that notability reading it. Fifteen
minutes later the Chief emerged excitably from his sanctum
and came over to Slade's desk fluttering the typewritten
sheets. “Accepted, Breckinridge,” he called, in his voice so
singularly boyish when contrasted with his somewhat elderly
features. “This is excellent. I > y
“Hold on, sir,” said Slade. “We can’t find any trace of
who wrote it.” He explained in detail.
The Editor-in-Chief immediately had a second search in-
stituted which covered exactly the same ground as the first,
to the harassment of several underlings. It was, of course,
unsuccessful. Manuscripts coming to The Colosseum were
entered on cards upon their return or acceptance. For this
reason there was as yet no card for “The Crystal Castle”—
and no sign of a return envelope anywhere.
“Well, we shall just have to wait till the author comes in.
He's sure to. You hold it, Breckinridge. I might be able
to put a note at the end of the editorial section of the August
number about the author communicating with us to hear
something to his advantage. But no, we'd better wait—the
I25


126 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
author is sure to inquire, and, after all, there's no great
hurry. A fine piece of work, though"
The impeccably-dressed Art Editor stood at that moment
at the Chief's elbow. In his hand was a large drawing.
Hovering in the background, its creator waited to be intro-
duced, noting with some hidden amusement the dignified
eccentricity of appearance peculiar to the widely-known Bar-
rington Tudor Brush—“Old Toothbrush” or “Old T. B.”,
as he was flippantly referred to in many unconscionable
studios.
Brush was an editor of the old school, an essayist of al-
most overpowering urbanity, an executive of great moral
earnestness. To him the ancient routine of the Colosseum
was invested with a sacred character. It had been with the
greatest difficulty that Slade had finally prevailed upon him
to install a card-filing system in place of the previous un-
wieldy ledger-method of entering and keeping track of
manuscripts. The first assault upon this holy institution had
resulted merely in long impressive soliloquies in which the
immediate topic was expanded to the proportions of a
fatherly lecture upon Slade's evidently radical sympathies in
art, politics and sociology. Barrington Tudor Brush's face
was set like flint (he said) against the increasing Lawless-
ness of the present day. Lawlessness was a favourite word
upon his lip. Manners was another. He deprecated the de-
cline of Manners. Somehow the idea of a card-index system
at first filled his mind with earnest fears for the insidious
penetration of Goth and Vandal into the high and austere
citadel of the Colosseum.
It took a little time to work him round from this attitude.
It took a deal of diplomacy to keep him to the single point.
He had to be diverted from strayings-off into indictments of
Nietzche and irritated slaps at Socialism. With finger and
thumb tips pressed lightly together, leaning back in his
leather-cushioned swivel-chair, his heavy reddish-gray mus-
tache fluffed out at the calf-bound works of James Russell
Lowell that topped the high old-fashioned desk in the corner


** MS. BY ANON. 127
of his sanctum, he would round and polish his periods with
precise delight in the sound of his musically mellow voice.
Slade found this particularly hard to bear whenever he re-
ceived a summons to hastily review the merits of such manu-
scripts as he had reserved through the day as valuable
enough for the editorial eye. Coming in promptly and sit-
ting down promptly with a wire basket in your lap and brief
but descriptive comments well-formulated in your mind,
seemed to accomplish little.
“This article on the court of an Indian Maharajah,” Slade
might begin, “doesn't seem to me particularly well written,
and—” But the word India was enough. There would
follow a long and impressive discourse upon the Taj Mahal.
“Old T. B.” was interesting too. That was the deuce of
it. His memory held a brilliant accumulation of odd infor-
mation, splendid material with which to make essays allusive
and scholarly, encumbering mental lumber, however, so far
as the egress of prompt, time-saving decisions was con-
cerned. And yet the prime necessity of such decisions was
a point constantly stressed.
“Save me time, Breckinridge. Editorial time is valuable.
Give me that in a nutshell. Now—let’s have it!”
But, when he had it (Slade often thought) he didn't know
what to do with it.
“Well, I suppose I shall have to read all those myself.
Get Miss Paxton to put them in my brief-case. A dog's
life, Breckinridge, a dog's life. This multiplicity of manu-
scripts. No way that an editor can shift responsibility. Yes,
well, suppose you return those poems. Is that all?”
And Barrington Tudor Brush was a stickler for little
amenities in the office. “Always a good morning to every-
one,” he would enunciate distinctly. “We must always pre-
serve the greatest punctilio toward our feminine assistants.
The most complete courtesy in office relationships is indis-
pensable. Manners makyth man.”
Perhaps the next moment the official buzzer would rasp
frantically in outer limbo. “Oh, Lord,” Mrs. Swan would


128 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
moan, rising from her cluttered desk, “there he is again!”
He was a very nervous man, Barrington Brush. She
would find him searchingly wildly upon his editorial table.
“The shears, Mrs. Swan,” he would ejaculate. “This has
happened before. Someone is always taking my shears. .
The memorandum for Mr. Aquamarine. Where is that mem-
orandum ?”
He had his periods of jocularity. They showed him sud-
denly, incredibly boyish, erupting with classical quotation
and absent-minded chuckles.
He had a special small yellow pad upon which, day and
night, he scribbled important memoranda addressed hap-
hazard to any member of the office force upon any subject
that happened to occur to him. These oracular leaves in
pestilence-stricken multitudes fluttered about the ears of the
outer office every day. Their injunctions were, however,
completely forgotten as soon as written. Reference to them
afterward evoked only a wild-eyed stare and then a wholly
vague “Quite right, quite right!” Mrs. Swan had a private
collection of these memorabilia in a japanned tin box. She
took them out and read them over whenever she felt de-
pressed. She had ceased paying the slightest attention to
them some years before.
Brush was a man in his middle fifties, with nearsighted
blue eyes behind strong-lensed gold-rimmed glasses. He
was moon-faced, bald, and pink of complexion. He usually
came to the office in a cutaway, on special occasions in a
frock-coat. He was short, but held himself erect, and
walked with an absent-minded scuffing step. He was al-
ways cleanly shaved save for the predominant reddish-grey
mustache. He was much seen in quasi-literary society. He
was fundamentally highly benevolent, and drawled.
Slade had grown genuinely fond of him, despite his pe-
culiarities, rather because of them. Brush was rarely iras-
cible, though frequently plaintive. He strove to consider
and aid his subordinates. His editorial standards were of a
high integrity, if of a strict, old-fashioned classicism. Miss


MS. BY ANON. 129
Peabody, with her fine taste but far more open mind, had
proved a good influence upon him. She often had her own
way in spite of him. In the present instance, “The Crystal
Castle” had succeeded miraculously. Never before in
Slade's experience had a manuscript of his own unhesitating
choice been so quickly approved also by the editorial judg-
ment. And this in spite of the fact that there were several
passages in it Slade had feared
Now he took it over to Miss Peabody's desk and stood
holding it aloft as if in offering to the gods.
“A miracle,” he said quizzically. “Behold a miracle!”
“What?” She looked up with clever brown eyes and the
faint one-sided smile with which she always greeted her
friends.
“T. B. likes this and so do I. Awfully. Ever know us to
agree before?”
“Never. But I’ve been eavesdropping the loud editorial
‘Yea!' So it's good, is it?”
“I hope you'll think so. I tremble.”
“Well, this thing I’m reading is utterly atrocious. Be-
sides, the anonymity charms me. I'll read it right away.”
“Isn't it good!” she called across to him a moment or so
later.
“Isn’t it!” returned Slade. “Finished it?”
“Not yet. Wait a minute.”
When she had, she arose crisply and brought it over to
his desk.
“It’s darn good,” said Miss Peabody.
At that moment the telephone on Slade's desk rang
sharply.
He nodded and grinned at Miss Peabody as he disen-
tangled the receiver-cord.
“Hello. Yeah, this is Breckinridge. Oh, hello, Lin!”
“Yeah. Sure can. What time?”
“Who P”
“How do you spell it?”
“‘Y”—not ‘I’? Oh, I see. How quaint!”


130 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
“Sure I’d like to meet him. Sure, I’m supercilious. This
is the Colosseum, isn't it?”
“Twelve-thirty? Right. I’ll be there.”
“Yeah. G'-bye.”
× × ×
Slade entered the Players' an hour later. “Mr. Jessup,”
he said, as he gave his straw hat to the rubicund mulberry-
uniformed attendant. He looked down into the billiard room
where smoke drifted and ivory clicked, and up the short
stretch of stair to the main floor. Lin Jessup, thin, sallow-
faced, hawk-eyed, his height of brow exaggerated by the
fact that his sandy hair had receded from above his temples,
came gangling down the few brass-treaded steps and shook
his hand in a large loose grasp.
“Come up, fellow. I want you to meet this man Coryat.”
A little later they were seating themselves at a table on
the rear veranda, overlooking the inclosed court, having tra-
versed the main room with its big leather lounge and, pass-
ing between glass cases of thespian relics, the shadowy din-
ing-room where a few lunching groups gave them curious
casual glances.
Slade thought Coryat interesting looking. He liked his
lean brown face and the tilt of his nose. His green-blue eyes
seemed cognizant of everything. His sandy mustache gave
his face an indescribably foreign touch. Beside him Jessup
looked, as Slade put it to himself, “as yellow as a lemon”,
and his lanky, loose-jointed body unusually awkward. Cor-
yat sat up with nervous erectness, crumbling bread, Jessup
hunched over the table, head sunk between narrow shoulders,
chin stuck out.
“What'll you have, Coryat? I’ll have the cold consommé
and then the fish,” he said to the waiter.
“Coryat's been doing some articles for us,” Jessup ex-
plained. “We publish the first one next week. He thinks
the Colosseum might be interested in a couple on another
phase of the European situation. It's this—well, you ex-
plain, Coryat.”


MS. BY ANON. 131
Richard began to do so. All three proceeded with their
meal. In half an hour Slade was in possession of the whole
idea and had promised to take it up with Mr. Brush and
arrange to have Coryat come in and discuss it with him.
After their coffee they wandered back into the main room
and found seats on the big leather lounge that faced the
fireplace. Jessup was called away to the telephone.
He returned a moment later. “I’m sorry. I have to go
uptown. Don't you men hurry. Why don't you sit around
a while? Hate to rush off this way, but I’ve got to.”
“I’m sorry too. Maybe we will sit—for just a few
minutes,” said Slade. “So long. Thank you a lot, Lin.”
Coryat also made his adieus. “How did it come out?” asked
Slade, as they reseated themselves. He had been listening
to a war reminiscence. Coryat completed it.
“Yes, that was queer,” said Slade.
“Speaking of anonymity, though,” he went on, after a
second, “we’ve just had a case at the office. And I happen
to have the evidence—with me now.” His left hand went
inside his coat. “I brought it over, as a matter of fact,
thinking it would interest Lin. Then I got so interested in
what you were talking about Here it is. Careful of it
—we think it's valuable. A remarkable story. Came in the
other day without the slightest identification on it. We're
holding it until the author remembers that fact or gets tired
of waiting for us to return it, and comes in.”
“Mind if I look at it?” asked Coryat.
“Not at all. I’d like you to. By the way—but no, I sup-
pose that would be a bore. Only it is quite remarkable.”
“What? Want me to read it? Now?”
“Would you? I’d really like an outside opinion on it.
Sure it won't bore you?”
“Not a bit. Give me a minute or two.”
He took ten.
Slade sat and smoked.
“Well, I'll be jiggered,” remarked Coryat, softly.
“What?”


132 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
“Wait a minute. This is queer.”
He finished the story rapidly, muttering unintelligibly
every now and then.
He looked up and handed back the manuscript.
“I know the author,” said Coryat simply.
“You do? How do you? Who is it?”
“It’s a man named Terrill. He wrote only one book I
know of, ‘Golden Windfall'. It was published in England.
It's very rare. In my opinion he's an undiscovered genius.
I’ve tried to trace some facts about him, but I could find out
precious little. His book was brought out by a small Lon-
don firm that failed soon after. It got practically no notices.
I talked to several critics in London about him last year.
They'd never heard of him or of the book. I lent them the
book. One of them, old De Sayyes, got really interested.
He did some sleuthing. But one partner of the firm that
had brought out the book was dead and the other was
somewhere in Europe. None of those I interested could find
out anything definite. The first and only edition of the book
was small, and the remainders must be widely scattered. De
Sayyes said something about it in his page in The London
Weekly, but nothing has turned up yet. I'm hoping to get
someone over here interested. We think the author died
some years ago. At least, he's never appeared in literature
again. But this manuscript—why, the man had an ab-
solutely individual style. I could tell his fine Italian hand in
the dark. This seems to me unmistakable. I could show
you—if I had the book.”
“Thought you said you did have it?”
“Silly of me perhaps I lent my only copy to—to-a
friend of mine. I’ll have to wait till it's returned.”
“You’re sure—are you?”
“About who wrote this? Oh, I'm certain I couldn't mis-
take the style. It's as unmistakable as—as-Chesterton or
—or Thomas Carlyle.”
“Somebody imitating—but that doesn't seem reasonable


MS. BY ANON. 133
either, does it—with the writer absolutely unknown over
here.”
“Oh, Lord, no—” Coryat stopped. His mouth remained
slightly open, his brow wrinkled.
“What?”
Coryat's lips closed. “Oh, nothing.”
“No,” he said slowly. “I don't believe anyone could imi-
tate Terrill as well as that. Even if it were a good imitation
I think I'd know it. I’ve lived with his book too long. It's
sui generis. But I’ll swear he wrote this story. I'll swear
it. The point is—to find him.”
“Well this is certainly darned interesting,” said Slade.
“I’ll have to tell old T. B. But surely, if it is this man Ter-
rill, he'll eventually turn up for his manuscript. Now, look
here—will you give me his full name again and the name of
his book?”
“Richard Terrill,” began Coryat slowly, “Golden Wind-
fall—”
× >k ×
It was a number of days before Slade saw Richard again.
In the meanwhile, between cogitations about the mysterious
Richard Terrill, his thoughts recurred quite regularly to
Adela Ventress. He had only seen her twice, but he found
that he missed seeing her. There were amusing incidents
arising out of his daily editorial toil and nightly jaunts
around the Village with Rafe that he found he wanted to
share with her. There was the incident of the anarchist in
the crumpet-shop on Christopher Street, there was the in-
cident of Mr. Spofford, the Associate Editor's falling asleep
in his chair and sliding under his desk at three o'clock of a
rainy afternoon; there was the incident of the three small
boys and the baffled sandwich-man, which had amused him
one morning as he hurried up the northwest side of Union
Square; there was—above all—the incident of the Mysteri-
ous Manuscript. But there was no excuse for writing Mrs.
Ventress, at least no proper excuse that he could think of.


134 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
And, after all, why should he want to write to her? Oh, I
don’t know !
Slade had retailed to the impressed Barrington Tudor
Brush all that Richard Coryat had vouchsafed about the
author named Richard Terrill. Brush had called up several
rare book dealers and collectors of his acquaintance, and the
New York Public Library. The only thing he discovered
was, from the New York Public Library, after some research,
the name of the original publishers of the book—which Cor-
yat had already communicated to Slade. The New York
Public Library had no copy. Brush dictated several polite
and affable communications of generous proportions to emi-
nent literary friends in England. With properly dignified cir-
cumlocution he approached them for any possible knowledge
they might have of the book. These letters were duly typed,
signed and dispatched, after having been transferred by im-
print into the ancient blotter letter-books of the “Colos-
seum”, amid whose undecipherable tissue sheets it had
grown utterly impossible to find any given communication at
any given time in any such state of preservation as could
render it useful for reference.
As for the mysterious manuscript, it was locked in the
safe. Coryat kept the appointment Slade had made for him
with Barrington Tudor Brush. He emerged slightly pale be-
neath his tan, after a protracted interview. Nevertheless, he
was to submit a first article, and he had impressed the Edi-
tor-in-Chief with the potential value of his own work and
the indubitable value of that of Richard Terrill—whoever he
was. Not to speak of the interesting mystery of the latter.
Meanwhile, as has been noted, Mrs. Ventress recurred.
She remained like the memory of a familiar tune somewhere
in the back of Slade's brain. Once or twice, out of a blank
day-dreaming, a startlingly photographic image of her would
amaze his mind. Bending over the lobelia in her garden,
standing on the steps of Uncle Arthur's back porch pointing
at the moon. Slade began to plan another visit to Tupton.


CHAPTER XIV: CORYAT CAN’T REMEMBER
WEEK had passed when Coryat called Slade on the
'phone.
“Can't you have dinner with me tonight? You live down
in the Village, don't you? By the way, what luck about
Terrill—any?”
“Sure; that'll be fine,” Slade answered the first question.
“Terrill? No. The mysterious author hasn't turned up yet.
Still, you know, it hasn't been so long. How about Chris-
tine's 2 Ever been there? Let this be my party. I’ll see if
I can get my room-mate to come along, can I? Like you to
meet him. What time do you say?”
As certain exigencies of make-up would keep him late
that day at the office, he agreed to join Coryat at his Gram-
ercy Park apartment about 6:30. Meantime, he 'phoned
Rafe and found that “demon of advertising” had a date with
Sally Pasquale for dinner at The Black Cat. Sorry he
couldn't join them. Like to meet this fellow. What's his
name? Oh, yes, you told me. What are you up to? Going
to sleuth the author of the “Crystal Castle”? Hope you find
him. Ask him if he can write good copy for air brakes, if
you do. I can’t. Want to hear about the Swenson Axle?
No? Want to hear about Rubbitonya the Tony Talcum?
No? Well, well, well, what do you want to know, young
fella? After several normally gratuitous insults, exchanged
in genuine affection, Slade snicked the receiver back, grin-
ning.
About seven o'clock he piloted Coryat down MacDougall
Street and they climbed the steep, gloomy stairway, from the
equally gloomy doorway next the livery-stable theatre of the
Provincetown Players. The door above was opened on
I35


136 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
smoke and noisy chatter. The long tables nearest held ban-
tering groups of oddly assorted habitués of the Village.
“Momma” presided with her usual abundant good-nature.
You helped yourself to stew and bread-and-butter and cof-
fee. Slade spoke to several acquaintances. He procured
the necessary viands for Coryat and himself. Threading
their way through the intensely conversational diners, they
found a blue-painted table for two near the front of the
room, under posters of the Barbarian's Ball and Harry
Kemp's Minetta Lane Theatre. They began to eat and talk.
The conversation drifted to the unfair sex finally. It
usually does. Though Slade was some ten years younger
than Richard Coryat, they met upon fairly equal terms until
they touched this topic. Coryat was not the type desirous
of impressing people with his experiences in knocking
around the world. He simply retailed the most interesting
of them quite naturally, with amusing comment. Slade had
grown, through his magazine experience, to be a good lis-
tener. He was also well-read and well-informed. The
questions he asked, the interpolations he made, were to the
point. He too was interesting as well as interested. But he
brought up the subject of Mrs. Ventress rather naively.
“I met a remarkable woman on my vacation—Fourth of
July,” he said so seriously, digging his cigarette butt into
the china saucer of his cup, and frowning with such gravity
that Coryat had to check a twitch of the lips. “A remarkable
woman,” he repeated, raising his head and staring at the
opposite wall. In an older man the statement would have
been accepted with the proper serious interest usual between
acquaintances, but the thought and feeling working in Slade
suddenly showed through his eyes in worshipping youthful-
ness. As suddenly something appealing about it touched
Coryat and he kicked himself inwardly for his desire to
laugh. After all, he remembered Jane.
“Who was she?” he asked gravely enough.
“That's a mystery too—rather,” said Slade, still staring
at the wall. “No one in Tupton—this town where my


CORYAT CAN’T REMEMBER 137
Uncle lives—seems to know exactly who she is. She used
to live in New York. She's come out there for the sum-
mer—” -
Coryat's eyes roved from corner to corner of the low ceil-
ing in sudden thought.
“What's her name?” he asked.
Their eyes met.
“Why—why it's—she’s a Mrs. Ventress. I believe her full
name's Adela Ventress. You don't know her, do you?”
“No, not at all,” Coryat shook his head. “Never heard of
her.”
“Do you know anyone in Tupton? I didn't know you
did.”
“I don't. Just a thought. Go on.”
“There's some woman on his mind. That's certain,”
thought Slade. -
“Look here, don't think me impertinent, but you sound as
if you were—oh, well—never mind. Excuse me,” he said
aloud.
“As if I were—what?” Coryat had flushed a little. But
he was smiling.
“Oh, no. Only that's the second time.”
“Second time what? What do you mean?”
Still he was smiling.
“Oh, I was going to say second time you've been specu-
lating about somebody. But I’m sorry. None of my busi-
ness.”
Richard laughed, though his colour had slightly deepened.
“No I’m not. Well it is No, indeed I'm not.”
His laugh was just a trifle forced. It was he, now, who
looked boyish. But the man-of-the-world expression re-
turned almost immediately. With the colour a certain light
seemed to fade from his face.
“Always think I might know people. I’ve knocked around
so much. That's all. Go on.”
“Oh, well,” said Slade. “Nothing much.”
He too had withdrawn into his shell.


138 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
“Fine woman, that's all. She's teaching my young cousin
drawing. I was rather impressed by her.” This last with
the transparent disinterest affected by youth. “I’ve just been
wondering what her story could be, that's all. You know
how you meet—well, interesting people.”
Coryat guarded his voice. And then he too was thinking
of an interesting woman he had met—oh, very !
“I know,” he said. He thought of speaking of Flora; and
then he thought he wouldn't. Nice kid, Slade, but still
He was continually wondering these days where the deuce
Flora had gone. He had even inquired by telephone of her
publishers. If they knew they were not giving out her ad-
dress. They must know, but evidently had their instruc-
tions. He did not feel that he ought to pursue the matter.
“Very beautiful, though,” said Slade absently, and startled
him. The very words had been in his mind. It irritated
him too, slightly. Here he was mooning exactly like this
boy.
“Very beautiful,” murmured Slade to himself, sipping
his coffee. “Oh, well,” he looked up with an entirely charm-
ing expression. “The devil, aren't they?”
“What?—women?” returned Coryat, entirely disarmed,
highly amused. “Yes, my son, they're very likely to prove
SO 33
“Yes, I guess so,” contributed Slade with a certain non-
chalance. “But, by golly, I’ve got to see her again!”
He sat inhaling his Fatima. His smile was saved from
fatuousness by his youth. Coryat laughed openly now and
Slade joined him, a trifle ruefully. “Oh, well,” he remarked
detachedly, “you must think me an awful ass.”
“No,” returned Coryat, considering. “On the whole I
don’t. There have been times,” he added, with amusement
in his eyes and voice, “when I’ve felt that way myself.”
His face relapsed into seriousness. It seemed older. His
eyes strayed over the cutlery-clinking groups about them.
“We-el,” he said slowly, “you think I’m speculating about
somebody. I am. About several people, in fact. No, it's


CORY AT CAN’T REMEMBER 139
not you (he answered Slade's eyes). Some day I might tell
you my story. You say you wonder what your new friend's
is. Her name was—why, good Lord, just what did you say
her name was P”
To tell the truth he surprised himself quite as much as he
did Slade. A memory had suddenly clicked into place, in
the eerie way of memories. It seemed preposterous of him
to have forgotten that name.
“Gosh,” said Slade with round eyes, “That is funny of
you. It was Ventress. Adela Ventress.”
“How do you spell it?”
“Why, V-e-n-t-r-e-double-s, so far as I know.”
“Is it? Isn't it? Do you know, I don't really remember 1’’
Richard Coryat was undoubtedly looking queer.
“To-think—that I don't really remember,” he repeated,
his chin cupped in his hands. He sank his forehead for a
moment between them, his hands ruffling his hair.
“What do you mean? What is it? I’m all at sea, old man.
What's up?”
Slade was concerned. Coryat raised strange absent-look-
ing eyes, staring at him.
“No. I—can't—remember,” he said slowly, shaking his
head. “Ventress. Ventress. Was it that? Ventress. Ven-
tress.”
“I’m awfully sorry if I–” began Slade. Then, as sud-
denly as the fit had fallen, his companion resumed com-
posure.
“No. Oh, no! That's all right,” he stated, with a slight
tremor in his voice. “I was just trying to recall something—
it's that I once knew a name that I can't quite remember,
that must have been something like that. It's a long time
ago. It gets so mixed up. Good heavens, what a queer
life! No-of course, it couldn't have anything to do with
that. Nothing at all. It couldn't possibly have any connec-
tion.”
“I’m just thinking aloud. Don't think I'm crazy,” he
added, now with quite a normal smile, “It’s nothing I can ex-


140 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
plain, but there's nothing you need worry about. I’ve been
rather—oh, well—sorry! Shall we take in that Province-
town place?”
“Why, yes—let's,” returned Slade slowly. He was still
rather bewildered by Coryat's agitation, and his poetic
imagination was at work. Slade was an ingrained romantic.
He went down the room to pay “Momma”, while Coryat
followed.
“You certainly do make a fellow curious, though,” said
Slade, as they began descending the stairs together. “You
gave me a considerable start.”
His companion put his head back and expelled air from
his nostrils sharply with a slight but ironically mirthful
sound.
“Too bad. I suppose I must have. But after all, I haven't
had as strange a life as you might imagine from that. Still
” He shrugged decisively and changed the subject to a
discussion of Eugene O'Neill. Next door, without purchas-
ing season tickets, they managed to get seats for the several
one-act plays then running.
“Look here,” said Coryat, as they parted several hours
later at the 'bus terminus on the south side of the Square,
the writer of foreign articles having declared for a ride home
up the Avenue, “look here, don't think of me as a man of
mystery or anything like that. The man of mystery you
want is this man Terrill. Keep me informed if anything
turns up, won't you?”
“I certainly will,” said Slade. “I certainly will. No sign
so far. But I’m going to try to get another week-end at
Tupton sometime soon. I need a complete change, don't you
think,” he laughed, “from all these peculiar circumstances?”
Coryat smiled. “Well,” he said, “take care of yourself.”
“Oh,” said Slade, laughing again, “no fear, thank you.
You ought to see her though. She's a corker. I’ve talked
rather like an ass I'm afraid. Well. It's been a fine even-
ing. Thanks a lot for your company. We must do this
again.”


CHAPTER XV: “I AM RICHARD TERRILL”
IT was the next morning, Saturday, at 9:30, that a woman
stood hesitatingly on the threshold of the reception room
of The Colosseum. Her figure still showed lines of youth.
Her face was pale but attractive. She held her head erect,
as though confronting danger. Bright eyes, pleasant fea-
tures. Under her hat, a glint of bronze on soft hair. She
carried a black leather brief-case.
She came tentatively into the open, from between the long
dark-red portières. She glanced at the shut glass-panelled
door on her right, at the wide open doorway to the domain
of the Art Department on her left. She proceeded toward
the imitation-mahogany typewriter-desk under the green-
shaded, gold-nimbussing droplight. Behind the desk sat a
young woman with fluffy yellow hair, horn glasses, and a
white shirtwaist. She was typing cards.
She looked up and smiled pleasantly as the stranger stood
in front of her. “Yes?” she inquired.
“I—I should like to see one of the editors. I sent in a
manuscript some time ago—”
“Certainly. Won't you,” indicating, “just wait a moment.
Someone will see you 35
The visitor retired to the corduroy-upholstered sofa. The
yellow-haired girl finished typing in their proper columns
“6/3/20”, “S.B.”, “6/5/20” under the column headings
“REC’D”, “READER”, “RET”. The title of the ill-
fated manuscript and the name of the ill-starred author had
already been entered as “Beneath the Weeping Willow”—
Mignon Foley—Verse. -
The yellow-haired girl flipped her card from the ma-
chine. She arose and vouchsafed a languid remark about
I44


“I AM RICHARD TERRILL” 145
the weather to her companion in outer darkness, the square-
visaged kindly-looking elder woman behind the roll-top, who
was estimating costs on the August number and munching
a peppermint. She turned toward the awe-inspiring vista
of the editorial rooms and the woman sitting nervously
upright on the sofa saw her cross toward the left, inside.
“Somebody to see the editor. Will you see her, Miss Pea-
body? Mr. Breckinridge isn't here you know.”
“Yes, I know. Just a moment. One minute. I’ll be
there.”
The yellow-haired girl departed with this information.
Having delivered it, she sat down, inserted another card in
her Underwood and rattled off “His Proper Sphere”—
T. F. Zalinski—Fiction—
Miss Peabody advanced from the inner room. Her crisp
and cleanly presence had always reminded Slade of freshly-
cut sweet-peas. She usually wore a high jabot collar to her
handkerchief linen shirtwaists. Even in the present late
July heat they did not wilt. Miss Peabody's nose was promi-
nently acquiline, her smile delicately satiric. Her dark eyes
surveyed you with frank interest. Her dark-brown hair
was dexterously and attractively arranged, never straying.
She had a dash of New England and a Puckish strain often
overcoming much natural dignity. Her eye was keen for
character. All sorts of people interested her. She greeted
the woman on the couch with entire naturalness, and sat
down beside her. “I am the Dragon's assistant,” she said,
smiling with a gleam of white teeth. “What can I do?”
The woman on the brown corduroy sofa clasped and un-
clasped her hands. She looked up at Miss Peabody in-
tently, enlarging her eyes. She moistened her lips with a
minute pink tongue-tip. She reminded Miss Peabody, some-
how, of a stray kitten.
“I submitted a manuscript some weeks ago,” she said
softly. “I haven't heard. I wondered whether you could
tell me—”
“What was the title of it?”


146 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
“‘The-The Crystal Castle'. It just occurred to me this
morning that, in retyping my first page, I might have forgot
to put my name and address on it. You—you see, it's been
around so often before—though not lately—it got so shabby.
I—I didn't have an envelope at the time to enclose for re-
turn, but I inclosed stamps. Anyway, I am quite sure,” she
added, with a disheartened glance, “that—that it won't be
available; so I thought I’d come for it. Have you seen it?”
Miss Peabody had been scanning her face intently.
“Why, of course I’ve seen it,” she said slowly, her eyes
still trying to analyse the woman's character. She smiled
too, for she found much appeal in that face. “Of course
I've seen it. We all think it remarkably good. But there's
a point, you see. One of the Noted Sex,” she smiled femin-
istically, “has-has-well, did you submit it for somebody
else, perhaps, or did you write it?”
“I wrote it,” said the woman simply.
“Well, I'll tell you'l-do you mind waiting? Mr. Brush the
editor would like to see you about it, I’m sure. I know he
wants to accept it—if-well there are several points he would
like to talk over with you. Will you wait just a minute?”
“Oh–oh, surely,” murmured the other. Colour had come
back into her cheeks. Yet her eyes stared. “You think
there's really—he really likes it?”
Miss Peabody had risen. “Why of course,” she said. “It’s
a beautiful piece of work. But you know that!”
“Yes, of course I do know,” murmured the woman. “But
you know—most magazines—”
A few moments later she was entering the sanctum sanc-
foruM.
“A-ah, Miss, Miss—I am afraid I didn't quite catch your
name—aah, won't you sit down,” said Barrington Tudor
Brush, rising as Miss Peabody ushered the visitor in.
“I beg your pardon,” said Miss Peabody, “I completely
forgot to ask it?”
“Cole,” said the visitor. “Ann Cole.”
“Aah—er—I see. Well, won't you sit down, Miss Cole.


148 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
hands in intended affability. He pointed his ruddy chin
high and caressed his mustache with fervour. He brought
his feet down square upon the floor and leaned forward in
an earnestly confidential manner.
“Not at all, my dear lady, not at all,” said old T. B. “Not
for an instant did I intend any such implication. I only
heard that the man existed a short while ago. I merely de-
sired to know whether by any chance—”
A small but peculiarly grim smile came to Miss Cole's
face, a smile that did not part her lips. The pupils of her
eyes revealed secret mischief.
“Well, you see, Mr. Brush, I am Richard Terrill,” said the
lady, leaning forward also.
“My dear lady, why I think it astounding enough for you
to manifest acquaintance with the work of this writer, of
whom I heard only very recently through the friend of one
of my assistants. Aah—er—I believe he is the author of
but one book, and that an exceedingly rare volume. At all
events I have never chanced upon it myself and have so far
been unable to locate it in New York, though I have been
in touch with several of the rare book-dealers and book-
collectors. But really, my dear lady, it is a certainty in the
opinion of this friend of my assistant's, whose name I
need not divulge, that the author of that volume, and,
through extreme similarity of style, the author of this story
we hold, is one and the same person—and a man. Hence
you will see—”
It was rather tortuously presented, but Ann Cole saw.
“The book you refer to is ‘Golden Windfall’,” she said
with composure. “It was published in England five years
ago, Swain and Higgins, five hundred copies. I wrote it
under the name of Richard Terrill. I wrote the story you
have in your safe. I am Richard Terrill. There is no
other.”
She was emphatic.
“But my dear lady, are you sure?”


“I AM RICHARD TERRILL” 149
Once an idea was in his head, T. B. could be exasperating
about any effort to change it.
Miss Cole's voice trembled slightly. She bit her lip.
“Perfectly. Really, I ought to know.”
“But—aah—er—my dear Miss Cole, I have never seen
you before you know. I should be extremely glad to accept
you as the author of the story ” He turned to his desk
and possessed himself of the manuscript Miss Peabody had
forethoughtedly exhumed for him, “I haven't the slight-
est doubt—not the slightest doubt—” he waved at her as
he discovered the first glimmer of balefulness in her eyes.
“I haven't the slightest doubt that what you say is true.
I simply must have some means of identification. You
doubtless possess contracts, letters, all that. If you will be
so kind as to let me see—”
“I can prove it,” said Miss Cole. She said it calmly enough.
“Yes, that will be the best way. Yes. I am glad you like
the story. I think it is good myself. I will bring you the
proof–sufficient proof that I wrote both it and ‘Golden
Windfall’.”
She rose. Barrington Tudor Brush also rose. He bent
toward her from the waist. He extended his hand. Her
tight little nervous grip closed upon "his kindly but rather
flabby one. She was gone, quickly, decisively.
She left Barrington Tudor Brush rather at a loss. He
sat down in his round-backed chair again and stroked his
mustache. He blinked through his glasses. He did not
really believe that neat little person. He had already visual-
ised Richard Terrill. If Richard Terrill were still alive he
was short, ruddy, mustached, his heart and his manner
charmingly youthful. He bowed from the waist. He was
urbane and most certainly executive. . . . No, he could not
see Miss Ann Cole writing “The Crystal Castle”. Where
had she come from ? Who was she? True, she had known
all the details that he knew or that Coryat knew about
“Golden Windfall”. But then—there was the Library. They
had given him those bare facts. She might even be em-


I50 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
ployed at the Library. She might know in some way—.
Good Heavens, for all his urbanity and executiveness, he
had forgotten, completely forgotten to ascertain her ad-
dress! He bounced into the outer editorial room.
“Miss Peabody—aah—er—did you take Miss Cole's ad-
dress P”
“Why, no, Mr. Brush, I thought she had left it with you.”
“Has she gone? Can't you run after her to the elevator
or—or something. An oversight. We decidedly should
have taken her address. We know so little about her. I
don't really think, you know .”
But Miss Peabody, rising without appearance of haste,
had vanished through the reception-room into the hall. She
returned without haste but swiftly. “I’m sorry, Mr.
Brush—”
“Aah—well, well, never mind. You know I don't really
at all believe that young lady 32
“She stopped at my desk just a second,” said Miss Pea-
body, “and then she went out so quickly, saying she was
coming back on Monday 35
“I know. She is to bring some means of identification.
But really, Miss Peabody, I–though it's quite extraor-
dinary 32
He stood by Miss Peabody's desk for a moment or so,
while she deftly drew from him just exactly what Miss Cole
had said.
“No,” said Miss Peabody. “You know I am inclined to
believe that she really did write it.”
“But we really know nothing about her, and it would
seem too extraordinary—”
“Well, we'll know on Monday anyway,” said Miss Pea-
body briskly, adjusting her desk-light, since the sultry day
outside had darkened for storm, and dropping her eyes to
the pile of manuscript before her. Barrington Tudor Brush
wandered absent-mindedly back into his office.
× x: ×


152 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
menacing sound by far. She squeezed into a fissure between
two fat Jewesses, on the varnished wicker seat; gates
clashed, the train's first jerk set them all swaying.
Miss Ann Cole clutched her black brief-case and stared at
the Sealect car-card opposite, without seeing it. She en-
visaged also a gaudy parrot and did lip service to the legend,
“A Parrot can Say, “Just As Good’”. Shac. Fermillac.
Nujol. Mazola. Rinso. She shook her head slightly. She
compressed her lips. He must have known her. He must
have known.
“Eight Street!” emitted the conductor, between a yelp and
a groan.
As Miss Cole stepped out from under the hooded “L”
stairs, the first rain was falling. Scuttling was in demand.
She scuttled. When she had climbed the stairs to her dingy
room and removed her hat, whose protection by the news-
paper she carried had not been altogether complete, she shook
out her skirts and sank into the one easy-chair by the win-
dow. She stared out on red brick and dusty leafage pattered
upon by the soft surge of the rain. It increased. It hissed
in the court below. It filled the room with a cool earthy
smell. It descended steadily. Endless and grey. . . .
xk :: >k
Richard Coryat came briskly into the reception-room and
paused before the yellow-haired girl still typing cards. “Mr.
Breckinridge?” he asked.
“He’s gone for the week-end. I’m sorry,” said Miss Hud-
SO11.
“Maybe I could see Mr. Brush then. . . . Mr. Coryat,”
he supplied, as her mouth opened for a question.
He found the great T. B. looking somewhat distraught.
“Well, well, Mr. Coryat, yes, how are you. This is
really quite peculiar.”
Peculiar, ruminated Richard's subconscious, peculiar,
what was 2–-who?
But his conscious mind was listening attentively to the
great T. B.


“I AM RICHARD TERRILL” I53
“—came in here,” the great T. B. was saying, “and told
me she had written, not only the story we hold but Terrill's
book also. She has gone away again, to bring me identifica-
tion and proofs.”
“What?” You don’t mean it! A woman?” exclaimed
Coryat.
“Jane, Jane, Jane,—Jane had a lame tame crane,” his sub-
conscious mind murmured indistinctly, reviving a rhyme of
his Aunt Clara's that he had forgotten for years. “Aunt
Clara—Pie—Jane had—Jane had—”
“Coming in on Monday, eh?” Coryat's full consciousness
heard itself remark. “I hope you'll let me meet her?”
(“Jane had—Jane had—Jane had a lame tame crane.”)
“I should like you to be here certainly, if you can ar-
range it?”
“What time?”
“Well—aah—er—as to that, Miss—aah—er—Cole didn't
stipulate. But—er—”
“Well, let's see. Can you call me, Mr. Brush? It's Gram-
recy 7230. I wish you would, when she comes. I expect
to be in all day Monday, finishing that first article for you,
and I can hurry right over. This really interests me ex-
tremely.”
“Of course I am inclined utterly to disbelieve—” Mr.
Brush negated. He spread his hands. “But still, you
know, stranger things 32
“Exactly. It really would be quite surprising. Well, I
won't keep you from your work. I just dropped in to see
Breckinridge. He's away I understand?”
“He will be back on Tuesday.”
“Well, don't let me detain you. You surely will call me,
though, won't you? Quite remarkable, isn't it? But I sup-
pose you editors have many such experiences. And after all,
of course, this young lady may be an utter impostor.
Still Well, good afternoon. By the way, I'll be in
on Tuesday anyway, to deliver that first article.”


154 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
He bowed and smiled to Miss Peabody as he passed her
desk. Slade had introduced them originally.
“Is’nt it thur-rilling!” came the mock-awful voice of Miss
Peabody.
“Quite,” returned Coryat, halting. “Oh, quite. I intend
to be in at the death on Monday though. Couldn't possibly
forego it. You saw her, of course?”
“Yes, I talked to her. She really has considerable dis-
tinction. She seems somebody. I'm interested in her.
What's more, I believe she wrote that story.”
“Why P”
“Oh, I don't know. She looks it. She looks like a writer.
And her eyes—my bottom dollar she's absolutely honest.”
“Queer though—isn't it. Well, I must on. I repeat,
I’ll be in at the death.”
“No, not that phrase, Mr. Coryat. I’m standing up for
her.”
“Oh, but good Lord, so am I for that matter. Only I can't
believe she's really Richard Terrill. Well, till we meet
again.”
He nodded and smiled. Miss Peabody smiled, lifting her
satiric eyebrow.
As he pressed the elevator button his subconscious mind
became almost audible.
“Jane's crane was tame and lame, her crane was lame and
tame; Jane had—Jane had—”
“What the devil,” thought Coryat. “What the devil's
that from P Who the devil? What the devil? What?”
He found no answer.


CHAPTER XVI: TRAGIC INTERLUDE
HE grey rain fell. The woman had been sitting by the
window for half an hour. She withdrew her eyes
from the falling rain and looked at her leather-strapped
wrist watch. She raised her eyes to the rain again. She sat
quietly, chin on hand, watching the rain.
What proofs had she thought she had? Anyway, what
did that matter either? What did anything matter, now?
Dick indeed! Dick indeed! Oh, Dick! . . . Dick and
Jane . . .
Life assumed its true outline. Hard, grey, dull. The
softest thing in it was the whispering of the rain. Whisper-
ing, “Go to sleep! Go to sleep!”
It was impossible to imagine the energy that could even
arise and put a teakettle on the burner. Even that. Impos-
sible to imagine.
Dick indeed! After all this time. Dick indeed. After
all this time. After all that. What sorry nonsense!
What a perfect faculty for remembrance and recognition
she possessed, she thought bitterly.
But then, after all, he had changed so little. Had she
changed so much?
The exhaustion that couldn't rise to put on the kettle
could rise to stare in the mirror. Yes, she must have
changed a great deal. Dick and Jane. Bah! Horrible
ugly face. She ground her teeth at it. She clacked the
hanging mirror to the wall. Ugly lath. She turned it round
again.
Dick and Jane. . . . Good heavens, what a metronome!
Damn it! It was infuriating.
I55


156 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
She leaned against the mantle-shelf looking at the backs of
Bergson and Freud and Lytton Strachey. She meditated the
years. Well, why hadn't they changed him too? Why
hadn't they changed him?
She never kept letters. Besides, there had been a holo-
caust of them years back. She had discovered the loss of
that old contract two years ago. She had burdened herself
with no papers. Prove that she was Richard Terrill? Only
George Higgins was alive. She had not even kept that
postal from George Higgins dated at Palermo, received last
fall. And he had sent no forwarding address. Lord knows
where he was now. There had never been a deader failure
than that book, a greater disappointment. She could prob-
ably get in touch with a few people in England, by writing,
after weeks, maybe months. But, what in heaven's name did
it all matter now. .
It wasn't fair. It never had been fair. It never had been
fair. She was weak. She was snivelling. She shook the
angry tears out of her eyes.
She went back and ground her teeth and glared her
worst at the mirror. The metronome had stopped. What
was there to do. -
She hated him, she loathed him, she detested him Ha!
—ha! hal—think of letting him know. Just imagine it,
will you? Just picture it! Ha. Ha-ha. Dick and . . . .
Yes, of course, that was what all these last weeks had been
saying. It was a failure. Writing. Life. Talent? Yes,
she had had it. Heartbreak didn't break you. You learned
to write in it. Write well. It never broke you. It never
would break you. You would break yourself in two, some-
time, with your bare hands—like that—snap! But it would
never be heartbreak that broke you. No. O, indeed not!
Heartbreak 1 She sniffed contemptuously, her lower lip
bitten by her upper teeth. She straightened her shoulders
and turned away from the mantle, stood with drawn cheeks
and intolerably bright eyes, staring, wire-drawn, scornful.


CHAPTER XVII: MR. DUFFITT IS QUITE MIS-
TAKEN
R. JASON DUFFITT, brooding over Miss Sophia
Crome's conjectures, encountered disaster. Mrs.
Ventress had expressed acquiescence, at length, in reply to
his urgent request to show her some of the possible building
sites beyond the Axter Road. He had brushed aside with
a fat hand her assurances that she had no intention of buying
or building. “Do no harm,” he remarked. “Like to show
you.” One morning he turned up about ten o'clock. The
day was still fairly cool. After an exchange of politenesses
they started forth together.
As Mr. Gartner had remarked, there was something ob-
scurely unlikable about Jason Duffit. He had a secretive
nervous side. No one had ever known much about his
private life, except that he seemed a plethoric rather mum-
chance bachelor, employing a grey-haired negro woman from
the Bottom to cook his meals. His business in Coal and
Wood had always been conducted in an affable manner
enough. He seemed strictly honest. He had handled matters
of real estate in an acceptable manner. He was acquainted
with everybody in a breezy, offhand fashion, and friends
with none. That he seemed susceptible to feminine beauty
had been remarked, but no breath of scandal had touched
him. He went to church regularly of a Sunday, and his at-
titude in conducting business dealings was sufficiently dig-
nified. He was “good ole Jase” to many. His political opin-
ions were comfortably conservative.
Romance, however, is an odd mistress. Jason had no
mind, knew hardly anything about books. Nevertheless he
had once subscribed for a set of Court Memoirs that an
158


MR. DUFFITT IS QUITE MISTAKEN 159
itinerant book-agent offered him with certain remarks made
in a lowered voice. He had added to these, several bulky
volumes bound in bright red which he had purchased in a
second-hand store in Barrack Falls. These purchases he
had always kept dark. The books stood under glass and be-
hind curtains in a small locked book-case in his bedroom. Of
a summer evening he was accustomed to unlock that book-
case, to sit by a very hot lamp at the rear window of his
bedroom, with his stockinged feet upon the sill, and peruse
the pages with a constantly wetted thumb and an odd gloat-
ing. He read slowly, almost painfully, assimilating not at all
the historical or literary values of the volumes. Fascinating
court favourites and redolent amours were the things that
feasted his eyes.
There was, indeed, something Heliogabalan about the se-
cret imagination of Jason Duffitt. It was reflected in that
odd look in his eyes. Outwardly he was quite shamefacedly
moral, uprightly conservative; inwardly, how he would have
enjoyed the license of old Rome in her decline! It would
seem a pity that Jason had been born so far out of his proper
period.
Sophia Crome, with spinsterish if perfectly maidenly in-
sinuation about people of the town, fed his fancy. He had
always like Sophia for that reason. And then he never re-
garded Sophia as a woman. Hers was rather the tongue of
an extremely weak and diluted Aretino. She could, for
instance, never have blasted a reputation—she would, of
course, never have indulged in “language”—she merely never
ceased insinuating.
Her conjectures about the lady up at the Battell place
had, unfortunately, fed Jason's fancy too spicily. The side
of his mind affected by her gossip germinated a barbaric
illusion. Which was really too bad.
He and Mrs. Ventress took their way across a field under
the Hill on the upper slope of which the white portico
of the Institute gleamed in the morning sunshine.
“Yeah,” Duffitt was saying. “Good bit o' property that.


160 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
Bill Farrell'1 hang on to it too. Not thinkin' of buyin' here,
you say, Mrs. Ventress?”
“Why no, as I told you,” returned Adela.
“Do worse,” said Duffitt. “Goin' tºbe garden spot, some
day. Garden spot.”
“You know I’m just here for the summer,” said Adela.
“Though I like it here.”
“Do worse,” repeated Duffitt. “Do worse.”
The churring of the crickets was loud all around them as
they crossed the unploughed part of the field.
Suddenly the stout Duffitt stopped and began mopping his
brow. He shot a sidewise glance at the lady under the sun-
shade. She was, as he expressed it to himself, “easy to
look at.”
“Old style,” he assured himself, thinking aloud.
“What? I didn’t hear.”
“Thinkin'. So many women runnin' crazy these days.
Tearin’ round, yellin', votin'. Like the old style, m'self.
You—you look it.”
“Thank you. But that's amusing too.”
“Why? You know you're that kind.”
“You don't believe then in woman suffrage?”
“Humph. Say not. Jew?
It was not a question of race.
“Why certainly you don't believe there are more idiotic
women than there are men?”
“Huh P”
Mr. Duffitt seemed surprised.
“There are equally as many women who can use the bal-
lot with intelligence. And then we have quite as much
natural solidarity—with a little education.”
“Well,” said Mr. Duffitt sombrely. “Well,” He seemed
unable to get on. They were walking again and had come
to a tree at the other end of the meadow. There was a
humped spreading root of it that made a convenient seat.
As Duffitt halted once more, Mrs. Ventress sat down on
the root.


162 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
“O'course, Mrs. Ventress,” he remarked suddenly,
“There's them as does and them as don't.”
“Don’t believe in Bernard Shaw P But I don't believe
Shaw believes in free love. And then it all depends so much
upon the definition of course.”
She had really forgotten him. She was really thinking,
trying to think honestly. There was something pathetic
about him and he was puzzled. Puzzled by large abstrac-
tions.
“Well I—” Mr. Duffitt suddenly began to walk to and
fro. He looked at her swiftly askance several times. He
was visibly out of his element, but he was inordinately at-
tracted by her as he looked at her.
Finally he made a sort of swimming gesture with his
hands. Perhaps this restored him to his element, because
he began to speak again.
“Breaks up families,” quoth he, and puffed heavily upon
his cigar, regarding it ever and anon as if surprised that
it remained with him.
“Yet—” said Mrs. Ventress, trying to think it out, and
paused. Her chin was cupped in one hand, one elbow on her
knee. She gazed over the field. She made a charming
picture in her gardening hat.
Mr. Duffitt had never seen such a woman. He was per-
turbed but strangely and deeply thrilled by her. He hung
on to his cigar. He walked up and down.
“Free love,” Mr. Duffitt affirmed, “is a sin.”
“As I said,” returned Adela, “or as I meant to say, so
much depends upon your definition. When you think of
present conditions in marriage, things could hardly be worse.
You'll grant that?”
She looked at him, quite seriously.
“Know what you mean,” said Jason, meaning he thought
he did. “Your idea is P”
“I don't know,” said Adela simply, spreading her hands.
“You—?” said Mr. Duffitt, stopping and looking at
her, rather flushed.


164 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
again. Something that prevented him from speaking to her
again.
Suddenly he turned and began to walk with odd hitchi-
ness, as though he were not quite sober, across the ploughed
part of the field, stumbling among the clods. He made a
wavering course toward the far-off Axter Road. He di-
minished in the distance.
Mrs. Ventress came slowly from behind the tree. She
stood watching him. She raised her sunshade. She was
still astonished and shivering from the reaction from anger.
But her fear had been only momentary. She was actually
sorry for that diminishing lurching figure. He became, with
the distance, more and more grotesque.
“We-el ” said Mrs. Ventress to herself, in the abso-
lutely-giving-it-up manner.
“We-el,” said Mrs. Ventress. “Well, really!”
She began to pick her way across the grass, biting her lip
and raising her eyebrows at the sun-speckled leaves.
By the time she regained the Axter Road there remained
only a faint, incredulous disgust. An ordinary, apparently
mentally responsible person had suddenly turned into a par-
ticularly unpleasant kind of lunatic. The metamorphosis
had been scary—but not so much scary as Adela
wrinkled her small nose, shrugged nervously. How could
you possibly be angry, however, with a man so much like a
mountebank? Besides she was really sorry if she had hurt
his neck. The whole episode was entirely unreal. As she
clicked her front gate, she decided just to forget it. It was
both undignified and utterly absurd.
As she went upstairs she remembered Mr. Duffitt looking
into his hat as if to find an Easter egg. At that she sud-
denly stopped and laughed. The still house echoed her.
As for Jason, he hurried down the Farm Road. He was
beginning to realise just what a mammoth ass he had made
of himself. To his disordered mind she had been both
taunting and tempting him. The groove worn smooth in
his brain by much secret lascivious thinking had seemed to


MR. DUFFITT IS QUITE MISTAKEN 165
broaden and tilt like the bed of a torrent under a quicken-
ing current of delirious surmise. Now the colour of actual
grass, the colour of actual dust ached upon his sight. The
reality of the whitewashed fence he was passing, of the
Cripps' red barn showing distantly southward, panged his
senses. His ordinary caution and shrewdness ranted in his
brain like demons, “You fool!”
And about his heart, faint as a thin trickle of icy water,
ran a little cold fear. What impulse could possibly have led
him to affront a lady of evident position and importance in
New York, to whom he had rented the Battells' house?
Suppose this came out? What of the Battells? What would
the town say? How could he explain? What had possessed
him P
He became aware of the necessity of presenting an un-
ruffled front to Market Street. At the lower end of the
Farm Road he stopped his heavy padding, straightened his
tie, mopped his forehead, flicked his shoes with his bandanna
handkerchief. He adopted as nonchalant a manner as pos-
sible crossing the street. The rest of the day he sat closely
confined to his office, suffering the tortures of damned spir-
its. When he saw Mrs. Ventress in the distance, on the
station platform, a few days later, it disturbed him con-
siderably. When, still later, he learned that she was pre-
sumably going to Philadelphia for a couple of days, he be-
gan fearfully to speculate. He passed through a period of
being extremely scared. Out of fear comes hate. Hate is
anything but reasonable.


CHAPTER XVIII: BESSIE ENLIVENS BREAK-
FAST
N Saturday morning, the twenty-first of July, Slade sat
at breakfast with Dr. Gedney in the house on Poplar
Street. Bessie was not yet down. Annie set scrambled eggs
on toast before them and disposed their cups of coffee.
“Anything exciting been happening?” asked Slade.
“Arthur's worried about the store, but then he's always
worried about the store. After all, the store is one of our
institutions and likely to remain so. Then too he had a
black Sumatra die the other day.”
“Too bad. And your history?”
“Progressing. Still in the period of the Civil War.”
“What's Bess been doing?”
“Reading. Going around. Still taking drawing with Mrs.
Ventress. Determined to try her hand in New York once
she gets her last year finished at the Institute. Well, I
suppose that's the thing for her to do. Pretty quiet here
for a young girl. I get fearful of her leaving. Still, it's
always been my belief that—for good or bad—they must try
their own wings. Bessie's sensible. And she'd have you
there, of course, to turn to.”
“Surely would. I think you're broad-minded about it,
Uncle Charles. Most fathers 22
“Oh, well,—remember Gertrude. After all, you can't
keep them.”
They both fell silent. Slade remembered Gertrude. His
own mother had never forgiven Gertrude. He himself did
not quite understand it. His father thought that Gertrude
must have died. How and why she should so utterly have
disappeared 2 His father said it was her mother. His
I66


BESSIE ENLIVENS BREAKFAST 167
mother defended her mother. Uncle Charles never men-
tioned his wife.
It must have been a terrific thing for them at the time—
the Gedneys. To Slade it was largely hearsay at long dis-
tance, a story in which for a long time he had had no con-
cern. He had been a five-year-old when it happened. His
first real appreciation of it was some ten years later. Her
brother Charles was very dear to his mother. He found
her crying over a letter of his one morning when Slade came
home early from school. The story came out gradually as
a secret—a narration of old unhappy far-off things. Now
Uncle Charles could speak of Gertrude quite calmly, with-
out a quiver in his voice, though with a distinct hint of sad-
ness. The stream of days and hours had flowed on steadily
over the sunken and dulled brightness of those earlier years.
Their silver was drifted over with sand, though the immu-
table memory persisted under the settling silt of grief and
run and ripple of time, brighter and clearer in its occasional
resurrection than ever the reality had been, perhaps.
Slade had never known his Aunt Martha at all. Though
his mother loved her brother, strangely enough she had never
said a word against his wife. Slade's father really under-
stood Dr. Gedney far better, although he felt no particular
warmth toward him. Slade had heard him say frankly a
number of times that he had “never liked that woman”.
Slade's mother retorted that nevertheless “Charles was al-
ways so wrapped up in Gertrude. How could she leave him
that way?”
Then there were the usual speculations concerning what
could ever have happened to her. If not dead surely she
would have come back.
“Well, my dear, I don't pretend to understand it myself.”
Mr. Breckinridge would say. “But I must say I can't blame
her for wanting to get away from that woman—”
“What did you know of Marthaf You only saw her twice
in your life.”
“I know the type.”


168 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
“She was always very nice to us. She was devoted to
him.”
“You mean she never let go of him. That's true enough.”
“I don't know what you mean. Charles has always been
perfectly contented in Tupton. She made his life hers.”
“Too much so, I should say. She had no life of her own.
She was viciously jealous of Gertrude.”
“Why, George, how can you say such a thing? You have
absolutely nothing to go on.”
“I know, that's all. I know Charles. You don't.”
“Not know my own dear brother! Why I love him bet-
ter than anyone in the world!”
“Thanks,” said Mr. Breckinridge dryly. “Yes, I know
you love him; but you don't understand him.”
The argument was unacrimonious but endless.
It always broke off with his mother's final comprehensive
indictment of Gertrude's action, during which his father
would sit silently smoking. Was it because of his ingrained
perversity that his father always took the side of the chil-
dren against the parents when his mother took the side of
the parents against the children? Slade had known his
father take exactly the opposite position in arguments with
himself. But was it all perversity? No.
Once his father had said to him quietly, “There's a cer-
tain type of woman I’d run a thousand miles from; so why
blame Gertrude?” And once, to his mother, “It’s my be-
lief, you know, that Charles heard from her.”
“Why, George, you never said that before. When, pos-
sibly? And surely he would have told us. There is nothing
hidden about Charles.”
“Why should he have told us. I don't mean that he heard
immediately. But, after a while—after Martha's death, I
believe he did. And why should he have told us—anyone.
There's something hidden about every man—the things that
go deepest. Why should he have told?”
“Well I never thought of that possibility at all. I shall
certainly find occasion—


BESSIE ENLIVENS BREAKFAST 169
“My dear Sally, he wouldn't tell you. You would only
hurt him needlessly by a question. It's all over long ago
now. Let it rest. You love him, so let it rest.”
“Then why wouldn't the ungrateful girl have come back
to him, knowing how he loved her?”
“Pride perhaps. Complications. Who can tell? There's
a great deal of pride on both sides of that family. You
ought to know your brother's pride. And there's more to
any situation than meets the eye. Gertrude might have
though > y
“Well, I simply don't understand it!”
“Yes, it's hard to understand—life,” Slade had heard his
father say, musing. “Very hard sometimes.”
After getting to know his Uncle Charles Slade often
thought his father might have divined the truth. He could
not understand what went on under Uncle Charles' quiet ex-
terior. Now as he glanced at him across the breakfast table,
he thought what a mystery every single human being is to
every other, in spite of the deep fundamental likenesses.
A singular, silent man, his Uncle Charles. A wasted life
in many peoples’ opinion. An eccentric character. Probably
far more deeply emotional than he ever permitted to be
shown. A mind that seemed to enjoy losing itself in the
record of other times, without any strong desire for ac-
quaintance with his own. A dreamer, a solitary; yet with
no urgency upon him of a message to deliver. Taciturn
without moroseness, seeking always through books and never
finding. Contemplating. A man of few words and scarcely
any friends. A man with a peculiar innocence of outlook.
contented with simple things. A sensitive, half-paralysed
being stunned by certain early blows, after which the soul
had never regained full consciousness. All in the mind. Mys-
teriously secret. The riddle of temperament. Vaguely, in
such fashion, Slade saw his uncle as the latter masticated
and sipped coffee, sitting with that scholar's droop of
shoulders.
“Hello, Sladel” said Bessie brightly, coming quietly into


174 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
themselves or want anyone else to have one. When you see
a person whose religion does them some real good and helps
them to help other people, well I suppose that's all right.
But if you believe there's only one way of spiritual salvation
for the soul you ought to be able to see the point of view of
a Torquemada. I can see his point of view myself. Only
I don't agree with it. Oh, well, don't let me fill you up with
my heresies, Bess. But they're all so afraid of something,
afraid that if they don't do a thing some one particular way
something will happen to them. And that's so cowardly.
Well, nevertheless, I admire the bravery of Christ. He
turned his back on his enemies and wrote in the sand.”
Pastors had called on Dr. Gedney. He had been absent-
minded and vague and had never entered their churches.
Religious people regarded him simply as a harmless old
idiot and ceased to be concerned about his soul. Bessie was
a puzzle to them also, but she usually came to church. They
said among themselves that she was a nice good child and
that it was a Shame.
× × ×
A cool Sunday morning for late July. A sky of light
and tremulous blue. A garden vivid with patches and blots
of colour, pale blue, deep blue, velvet purple, shattering crim-
son, dull gold, licking tongues of Scarlet.
A lady in the garden. A lady alone. In a wide grey hat,
in a frock of figured blue-grey with an organdie collar, her
pretty feet and ankles trimly shod with grey. She moved
about her garden singing an old song, singing it softly.
“—And the bonny Earl o' Murray
O he might ha’ been a king !”
Daintily, dexterously she clipped flowers into her plaited
basket.
She was back in the garden under the apple-tree, a grace-
ful sun-misted figure in its shade. Her singing floated and
drifted faintly on the still morning air.


ADELA LOOKS EIGHTEEN 175
She bent over, straightened, turned, came picking her way
daintily toward the front of the house.
“Lang, lang may his lady
Look o'er the castle doun
Ere she see the Earl o' Murray
Come sounding through the toun l”
— “Good morning!”
She looked up, a little startled. Then she smiled. In
Mrs. Ventress's smile the ordinarily grave expression of her
face broke into one both merry and childlike. Smiling, she
suddenly seemed so much younger. It was in the way the
corners of her mouth went up and in the clear and innocent
amusement of her eyes. Though not much over the average
height, her slimness and her springlike dress gave her some-
what the appearance of a tall young girl.
“Hello!” she said frankly to Slade.
“I came past with Bessie. You didn't see us. She has to
run over to Uncle Arthur's a minute, but she'll be right
back. How are you? It's awfully nice to see you again.”
He extended his hand.
“It's nice to see you. How have you been?”
“Oh, very well, indeed. It's been hot, of course, in New
York. Still I’ve managed to worry through. You look nice
and cool this morning.”
“Yes, it's a lovely morning, isn't it? Do you like flowers?”
She extended the basket.
“My, they're beautiful,” said Slade, leaning over. “What
was that you were singing just now?” he asked, interested.
“Oh,” Mrs. Ventress laughed apologetically. “But I can't
sing. I was trying to sing that old ballad, ‘The Earl o'
Murray'.”
“Sing some more,” requested Slade forthrightly, and then,
at his abruptness, they both laughed a little together.
“But do,” said Slade. “Won't you?”
“Well, I'll try,” returned Mrs. Ventress. She was look-


ADELA LOOKS EIGHTEEN 177
He relit his pipe as steps scuffed behind him on the porch.
“Here it is. Now Slade, don't you think it's good?”
As Bessie bent over him her soft hair brushed his face,
her soft young cheek touched his. He examined the draw-
ing intently. It was excellent.
In it Mrs. Ventress was reclining in that long Chinese
wicker chair up on the porch. She was leaning on one elbow,
her face half-turned toward you. The grave contemplative
expression upon the face was perfect.
“Darn good,” said Slade finally. “Only I’ve seen you look
merrier—”
He twisted round to his left to look at Adela. Bessie re-
possessed herself of the drawing. Adela merely smiled and
went over to look at the drawing over Bessie's shoulder.
Her hand fell naturally upon that shoulder and stayed there.
Bessie was looking at the drawing with knitted brows. She
tilted it once. Now she looked up at Adela suddenly, with
dark eyes. “Shall I tear it up?” she asked.
“Tear it up? Most certainly not,” said Mrs. Ventress.
“Why on earth P”
“It isn't very nice,” Bessie replied, tossing it suddenly
upon a chair. “But you are,” she said, gripping her friend's
arms. “You are—you are, you are l’’
As swiftly she loosed them and looked at Slade. He felt
that it was a cold little look, cold and dark. He wondered
why. -
“It’s darn good, Bess,” he repeated. “Darn good.
Really.”
“Oh, I can do better,” remarked his cousin, her expression
bright again. “I will some day. Well, what shall we do?
Just sit and talk?”
“Well, I have a good story,” said Slade. “It’s called ‘The
Mysterious Manuscript’.”
“Oh, let's hear it,” returned Adela seating herself on the
foot of the long wicker chair and drawing Bessie down beside
her. Slade got up and sat down again nearer them, his back
against a porch pillar. He began to tell them the story of


178 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
“The Crystal Castle”. He arrived at the point of Coryat's
revelations.
“This man,” Slade went on, “is a friend of a friend of
mine in town. He's been doing some articles for The New
Age. An interesting chap. His name's Coryat. Well,
he—”
“What—Richard Coryat?” Mrs. Ventress asked suddenly.
“Why, yes? Do you know him?”
“I—I have some friends who do.”
The slip had been clumsy. She bit her lip.
Slade was surprised, puzzled. However, he recovered and
went on smoothly.
“Richard Coryat. Well, he said it was undoubtedly the
work of a man named Richard Terrill yy
Again Adela could not disguise a start. But, “Go on!”
she begged as Slade seemed about to stop.
No. He couldn't understand it. There was something
peculiar. He kept his eyes on hers. Hers turned aside to
seek Bessie's. Bessie was looking at her too, but only in a
vague way.
“Well, he said a man named Terrill who had written one
remarkable book, ‘Golden Windfall', must certainly be the
author of this story. Anyway, I had him in afterward to see
old T. B. He convinced old T. B.
“That's what they call the editor of The Colosseum.”
Bessie supplied.
“Unfortunately though, though he had had a copy of the
book—” Slade paused.
“Yes, go on,” said Adela, smiling naturally. “I’m inter-
ested.”
“Well, he had lent a copy to a friend. The friend had
gone out of town. I don't know who it was. Anyway, it's
been impossible as yet to get hold of a copy; and the author
of the manuscript hasn't shown up. But I do believe you've
read the book, or know Terrill, or something, Mrs. Ventress.
You look so queerly.”
“I? Did I?” she half-laughed. “Well, I’ll confess that


ADELA LOOKS EIGHTEEN 179
I have read the book. It's rare, but wonderful. It's all
this Mr. what was it? Coryat?—has said about it.”
“You’ve read it?” asked Bessie in joy. “Really?”
“Really. That's why I started, if I did start. Of course
I’ve heard of Mr.—Coryat as one of the admirers of
the book—through acquaintances, mutual acquaintances. I
know nothing of the author, Richard Terrill. But I don't
see how this manuscript you speak of, Mr. Breckinridge,
could possibly be by the same person. I thought he was sup-
posed to be an Englishman, and that he is supposed to have
died some years ago?”
“So Coryat said. But he's not sure now. He's not at
all sure. He says there are tricks of style and a general at-
mosphere that only Terrill could give it. Odd, isn't it?”
“And the writer of the manuscript hasn't come in at all?”
put in Bessie.
“Hadn't, up to the time I left. We have the manuscript
in the safe. All we can do is wait.”
Mrs. Ventress was silent.
“But look here, you haven't your copy here have you?”
asked Slade suddenly.
“I? Oh, why no. No, I'm sorry, I haven't it.”
“Well, that's too bad,” said Slade. “I would have bor-
rowed it, with your permission, to show to old T. B.”
“I think it's the most remarkable thing,” said Bessie. She
was looking at her friend with wondering eyes. She slipped
a hand in Mrs. Ventress's hand.
Adela began to say, “It is—most remarkable. I certainly
hope you find out the truth, but of course I believe myself
that Richard Terrill is dead.”
“In that case,” returned Slade, “it might be somebody
copying his work.”
“Oh, no, I really don't think anyone could copy him,” said
Adela hastily. She wanted to evince interest, but she wanted
to get off the subject of Terrill. It was thin ice.
What nice children they were, though, she thought, watch-
ing them pass out of her gate. They both waved. Slade had


180 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
not worn a hat and the sunlight struck a gleam from his hair
like that on old furbished brass. His ruddy, sunburned com-
plexion and well-cut features were refreshing and clean. He
walked with the elasticity of youth. His grey clothes, white
soft-collared shirt and grey and yellow tie became him. His
dark-haired cousin in her apple-green frock, with her vivid
colour and quick graceful gestures was a charming contrast.
Slade bent his head toward Bessie, to say something, and
they both laughed. What nice white teeth they both had
Adela smiled at herself. Was she growing into a sentimental
match-maker?
No. They were just nice children, both rather gloriously
immature. Bessie was, of course, in love with Slade. Slade
had his stupid side. All men had their stupid side. As for
her—oh, well! She had known one man at least One
—and so many others. It was pleasant to recline here in
the sunlight and the leaf-shadows, doing nothing. Marie
and the cook were inside seeing to small necessities. As for
her what had she accomplished down here so far? She
had rested. She had written a little. She flushed faintly
when she thought of it. She had intended to read a good
deal and expand her philosophy. As a matter of fact, she
had lazed. She must have been more tired than she thought.
Much more tired. Tired of the hectic artificiality of the
city, tired of the urgency to essentially unimportant industry,
tired of “L” and surface-car and Subway and the interfluc-
tuant masses of people surging in from nowhere and hurry-
ing nowhither. Tired of the eternal racket of the streets
and the unintermittent impact of ocular and auditory impres-
sions upon the quivering nerves. Here, there was silence
and the white road outside her hedge—a church-bell mel-
lowed by distance. Only a soothing if continuous insect
sound throbbing in the stillness like the sifting shifting of
fine sand shaken rapidly back and forth in a tube of thin
glass. The sunlight drowsed her. An occasional “pr-reep,
pr-reep” from some bird in the vines. The faint sound of
tinware in the kitchen. She relaxed and dreamed.


CHAPTER XX: SIRENA UNDER SUSPICION
ESSIE had an engagement for a walk with one of her
few girl friends that Sunday afternoon.
“Why don't you go over and see Adela P” she herself sug-
gested, when Doctor Gedney had retired to his study after
the mid-day dinner. Bessie had set herself a quixotic task.
Why she had done so she had not the slightest idea. But
in it she experienced a Scaevolan enjoyment. It seemed a
present need of her nature.
Slade felt awkward. “Maybe I will. I guess I'll take a
walk over toward the Institute anyway. Which way are
you girls going?”
“Oh, Jean wants me to go over with her to the Wilder
farm. The Wilder girl's sick and she's taking some things
over. I have to meet her at the corner up here. I'm sorry
to desert you this way, Slade; but wander over and see
Adela. She's nice. You'll have a good time.”
With a bright smile but an enigmatic glance, she was gone.
Well, he thought, why not?
Mrs. Ventress was not on her porch. He rang the bell.
Marie smiled and nodded at him and indicated the north-
east parlour. A moment later he saw Adela in the hall.
She caught sight of him.
“Gracious, what did Marie put you in there for You
look so very polite sitting up in that straight chair. Come
across the hall ! Where’s Bessie?”
“She's gone over to the Wilders' with a friend. She sug-
gested that I come over. I hope you weren't lying down. I
haven't disturbed you, have I?”
The southwest parlour was certainly much more attrac-
tive. The blue curtains, the grey-blue-figured rug, the few
I82


I84 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
could never have now, wanted someone who wasn’t there,
never could be . . . Mr. Coryat had been interested, doubt-
less. Doubtless. Mr. Coryat. O heavens no! Not for a
good deal.
But there was a childlike side to Adela, and she was quick
to pity.
Her tongue turned question and answer. They were talk-
ing about Gilda Varesi's acting in “The Jest”. They were
talking of modern poetry.
“Yes, I've read a good deal, off and on,” said Mrs. Vent-
ress. “Robinson interests me most. He seems to have most
to say.”
“Don’t you like Frost?”
“Oh, of course—one could do worse than be a swinger
of birches'. I adore it—and his philosophically reticent way
of presenting tragedy.”
“Lindsay?”
“Yes, certainly. “The Broncho that would not be broken
of dancing.’ Splendid! He's superb—an electrical person.”
“But then, of course,” confessed Mrs. Ventress, “I’m one
of those old-fashioned people—old-fashioned nowadays—
who still swear by and not at the Oxford Book.”
“O good!” exclaimed Slade. “So am I. The Scholar
Gips 22
“Yes, and further back, too,” returned Adela. “Don’t
forget Drayton or Skelton. -
“‘Near to the silver Trent
Sirena dwelleth—’”
She began to quote in the voice Slade remembered.
“‘She to pearl paragon
Turneth thy grave
y 22
He had found the name for her Sirena, of course. He
applauded himself inwardly.
“But you must be a poet too,” he said with shining eyes,
after a short appreciative silence following her quotation.


SIRENA UNDER SUSPICION 185
“No one who wasn't could repeat those things like that.”
Adela shook her head.
“I couldn't write a line of poetry to save my life,” she
said. “It’s been a relief, that's all—from, from other
things. You see my work, what writing I’ve ever done, has
been so entirely different. After all, I'm not sorry I did
it,” she added, a trifle defiantly, with a decisive motion of her
head, “but I’ve been rather ruined by it. Oh, well, let's talk
of your poetry. Can't you quote me some?”
“I—I don't think I will, if you don't mind, so soon after
Sirena,” said Slade. “I don't believe your writing has been
bad at all, though. What have you written? Why won't you
tell us?”
Adela shook her head again.
“It's really not worth talking about. Are you interested
in drawing, though, as Bessie is? I'd show you—”
“Oh, fine,” answered Slade. “Do. I’d like to see them
so much.”
The next half hour was spent over a portfolio. Mrs.
Ventress took a chair nearer him.
“This is something I could never do,” said Slade. “Where
did you study ?”
“Oh, I studied at one time, for several years,” replied
Mrs. Ventress vaguely.
“But this is the best,” she reached an arm across his and
shook one sheet out from between two others. A quiet,
heart-thudding paralysis stole over Slade.
“That's awfully good,” he said in a moment, rather breath-
lessly.
“Well, I did learn at one time a good many of the things
soft pencil can do; though I couldn't do anything as good
as that to-day. Still, I'm glad I’ve taken it up again. You
see, I could never have been a really good draughtsman—
or draughtswoman, whichever you say,” she ended, smiling,
closing the green and black board portfolio and tying up its
black strings. “That's all too evident. But I had consider-
able ambition at one time. Then—well, my life turned a


186 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
f
corner, and I got more interested in writing. But I'm glad
I did draw once, if only that it's some help now to your
cousin.”
“Well, I'll tell you, Bessie appreciates it. You've been
simply wonderful to her, Mrs. Ventress. I really think she
has a genuine gift. Don't you?”
“I do. And she's lovely. Remarkably fine and sensitive,”
said Adela, reseating herself in her original chair. “I hope
you'll help her all you can to get to New York and get a
chance. I shall. For I believe her father is very nice about
it and wants her to go, when she's ready?”
“Oh, yes, Uncle Charles is really a brick. Of course it's
rather sad for him too. You see—”
“Yes, I know. Bessie has told me.”
There was a short silence.
“Do smoke,” said Mrs. Ventress then. “I know you want
to. As a matter of fact, I do too. You wouldn't be shocked
if I did P”
“Certainly not!” said Slade. “Will you have one of
mine?”—as she turned to look about on the table.
“Oh, thank you! I will. Oh, Fatimas! I like them.”
He held the match. He lit his own.
“I’m not an addict,’ smiled Adela. “But do you see any
possible harm in women smoking?”
“Of course not,” said Slade. “Though it's funny. A
friend of mine has something to do with the Movies and he
told me that when they wanted to symbolise badness in a
woman, in a film, all they had to do was to make her light
a cigarette. Isn't that ridiculous? He said there was only
one way the audience would ever take it.”
Mrs. Ventress smiled. She held her cigarette the English
way, between forefinger and thumb. She held it daintily
away from her. Like most women she did not inhale.
“But you don't think I’m bad, do you?” she asked naively.
“Well, hardly,” rejoined Slade. He had never seen a per-
son more fascinating without meaning to be.


SIRENA UNDER SUSPICION 187
“Silly of me to say that,” said Adela, smiling at herself.
“I’m a child. I'm afraid I have a pretty silly mind.”
“I shouldn't say so,” returned Slade earnestly. “I think
you have one of the most remarkable minds I ever knew.
Really.”
He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and
regarding his cigarette with great intentness. His eyes were
morosely thoughtful.
“No, I haven't,” said Adela quickly, almost sharply. Her
heart was touched, though. She frowned. Inwardly she
was shaking herself energetically and roughly. “I really
have a very silly mind that I’m trying to turn into a better
one. O are you going?” for Slade was murmuring some-
thing and rising. “But won't you let me make you some
tea P”
Well, he was afraid that Why, yes, he would. It
was the pleasantest tea he had ever had. They talked of the
Theatre Guild and the situation in Ireland, of kings and cab-
bages—this last quite literally, for Mrs. Ventress had dis-
covered an interest in the vegetable garden on the Battell
place as well as in the flower-garden. She informed him
that the young Dante had auburn hair, and that the English
never shifted their forks from the left to the right hand,
that the Irish name of Patrick was principally in honour of
General Patrick Sarsfield of Limerick fame, not a tribute
to St. Patrick, that W. L. George's full first names were
Walter Leonard, and that, in her opinion, he did not under-
stand women; that Slade ought to see the Cellini cup in
the Metropolitan and that she shared his delight in Vermeer;
and all this as an entertaining and unscholastic by-product
of smooth and occasionally witty conversation. The quaint
reconditeness of her mind interested him immensely. She
could kindle with enthusiasm over paintings and books, she
could flash with a sudden anger at political tyranny, she
could laugh as delightedly as a child, she could suddenly
turn as grave as a nun. Through it all there was not the
slightest unnaturalness. And in some strange way that he


188 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
did not understand Bessie was always entering into the
conversation.
“I’m afraid you don't quite see how remarkable she is,”
said Adela. “It’s funny that I should seem to see it so much
more clearly. Why is it? Bessie is quite a little wonder.
She's going far. You watch her.”
It was in the middle of some remark like this, as they sat
near each other behind the wicker-trayed wheeled tea-table,
that the door-bell rang peremptorily from the hall. Marie
must have been out of the house, for it rang again, and then,
before Mrs. Ventress could rise, a black-dressed, close black-
bonneted figure stood opposite the door, peering first into
the northeast parlour. She turned almost immediately
and peered directly into the room in which they were sitting.
It was Miss Crome.
“Oh, I–I beg your pardon,” she murmured hastily and
recoiled in a positive flutter. Both Slade and Mrs. Ventress
had risen, the latter putting down her cigarette in the saucer
of her teacup.
“Oh, won't you come in, Miss Crome? This is Mr.
Breckinridge. Do come in and have some tea.”
“No-no, thank you,” stammered Miss Crome. “I—I was
just passing. I merely thought I would call. No. No, in-
deed, thank you. I must be going. I just stepped in—the
bell—no, I really must be going. I am so sorry. I did not
mean to intrude. I really did not. I am afraid that I must
be going.”
The words came from her rapidly, as she averted her
face. She had vanished from the doorway and was at the
gate by the time Mrs. Ventress had got into the hall. Her
black bonnet was bobbing rapidly along the box-hedge. She
seemed to accelerate her head and did not look back. Mrs.
Ventress stood in her doorway, with Slade just behind her.
Her face was puzzled and somewhat irritated.
“That is the most peculiar woman,” said Adela. “What
on earth! What on earth do you suppose was the matter
with her?”


SIRENA UNDER SUSPICION 189
“—the most remarkable thing I ever saw ” commented
Slade, well-intentioned, if somewhat inaccurate.
“Why do you suppose she wouldn't come in and have some
teaf” questioned Adela, looking at him blankly.
Slade shook his head. “I’m sure I don't know,” said he.
His forehead was a little flushed with rising anger. “Idiot!”
he muttered, his jaw setting. “I’m terribly sorry 32
“There's nothing to be sorry for,” said Mrs. Ventress
practically. “Only it annoys me to have that person act as
if she had discovered something improper about me. It's
rather idiotic. Come back and have some more tea. I sup-
pose she thought it perfectly awful to find me smoking a
cigarette on Sunday, in the company of a young and not
unattractive male.”
Slade flushed a little more. Then he laughed. Mrs.
Ventress laughed with him, genuinely.
“Come back and have some more tea,” she advised.
“Maybe Bessie will drop in after her walk. If I am being
very wicked this afternoon I might as well continue. Miss
Crome, after all, may as well be forgotten. She seems to
me rather more impertinent than pertinent.”
Adela had analysed Miss Crome's emotions exactly, ex-
cept that she had not credited her with the secret high
delight now almost stifling her heart with its intensity.
“Cigarettes—on Sunday” she hissed from between properly
pursed lips. Her small teeth gritted. “Cigarettes on Sun-
day! . . . And that young man!” she added, with a sig-
nificant balefulness in the thought of Slade's sex. “That
young man!” -
She hugged the truth to herself deliciously. She almost
staggered in her walk with the choiceness of her private
information. It so perfectly bore out—well, everything.
She was passing Mrs. Hoyle's large iron-fenced lawn. It
was four o'clock. Across the lawn she suddenly noted a
stout figure proceeding up Ivy Street. It turned the corner
of the fence into the Axter Road and came toward her.
She had thought it was Arthur Pollock, at first. Who


I90 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
could it be, though? It was certainly no one she knew.
It was a large man in a rather flashy grey-checked suit.
He had dove-coloured spats to his now dusty brown shoes.
He wore a round-crowned Panama. As he came nearer she
noted the gold pin in his peacock-green necktie, the seal
ring on the third finger of his left hand, the bright gold and
red cigar-band on the cigar he rolled in his mouth, the flicker
of his light cane. His face was ruddy, jowl and double
chin sufficiently evident. She was for slipping rapidly past
him, but he raised his hat and spoke to her.
“Pardon me, Madam,” he held the cigar with the hat.
“Lookin' for a Miss Ventress' place. Understand it's along
here. Could you direct me?”
He beamed upon her. He puffed from his walk, blowing
out his cheeks.
“Oh—why certainly, yes, you—you go right along—the
way you're going. You pass two streets, and it's the last
house, the corner lot, just before you reach the Farm Road.
Are—are you a friend of hers?”
“Friend? Oh, yes, say so, old friend,” he vouchsafed af-
fably. “Right up along here? Thanks. Much obliged.”
Miss Crome tried to incline her head with slow dignity.
She achieved a bob. At the corner she turned and, trepi-
datingly, found the gentleman looking back at her. She
hurried past the protecting corner of Mrs. Hoyle's house;
then slowed her steps, stopped, fluttered. Her hand went
up to her back hair. She retraced her steps slowly, cau-
tiously, gazing at the ground as if for something she had
lost. She peered past the corner of Mrs. Hoyle's house, ad-
vancing inch by inch, head down, eyes on the cinder foot-
path, looking for the imaginary lost hairpin.
Inch by inch. He wasn't there. She came boldly out
beyond Mrs. Hoyle's house and peered up the road. He
was trudging along steadily, swinging his cane. Miss
Crome's bosom boiled with excitement. What was hap-
pening? Outraged husband, discovered lover, her mind
leapt to this immediately, and yet, even to her it seemed


SIRENA UNDER SUSPICION 191.
a little improbable. Or, to put it more accurately, perhaps,
it seemed a little too good to be true. But what and who
and why? Her mind bristled with interrogation points.
She had advanced to the corner of the fence before she
knew it. He was not looking back. He was in his stride,
swinging along under the occasional maples, quite brandish-
ing his stick, though in a wholly insouciant fashion,-turn-
ing his head to look out over the fields, followed by a thin
wavering trail of cigar-smoke.
He had passed Sycamore, Poplar, diminishing in the dis-
tance. But the road took an almost imperceptible rise at
this point, enough to keep him in view. Miss Crome could
see where the Battell hedge began. She distinctly saw him
stop midway along it, disappear.
She would go back and call on the Rogers. They had the
next house to Mrs. Ventress's, separated on that side by a
screen of trees. But as she hesitated, she perceived another
distant figure coming down the Axter Road, a slimmer fig-
ure, straw-hatted, walking slowly. It passed the Rogers
as Miss Crome bristled back to the protection of Mrs.
Hoyle's house. It turned into Poplar Street and disap-
peared. That Mr. Breckinridge, of course, that young
man! What had happened? Miss Crome suddenly per-
ceived Mrs. Hoyle beckoning her from between the curtains
of a front window. The door opened and Mrs. Hoyle
came out on the porch.
“I saw you passing, and stopping, Sophia. Have you lost
something?” she called.
But the something Miss Crome was seeking she had no
intention of losing.
“Just a hairpin,' she replied. “I’ve got it though.”
“Come in and have a cup of tea,” said Mrs. Hoyle. At
the invitation Miss Crome almost bounced through the gate.
From the side window of the Hoyle parlour, by skillful
manoeuvering, she felt sure she could see the return of the
stout loudly-dressed man. Of course, he might go down
the Farm Road. That was really the quickest way back to


192 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
the Station. But she must take that chance. She wondered
where he had come from? While sipping her tea she in-
quired casually as to evening trains to the Junction.
“Why, so far as I know, Sophia, there's only the one
every Sunday evening,” returned Mrs. Hoyle. “That one
comes through here 'bout eight o'clock.”
“Of course. Of course,” said Miss Crome, nodding with
pursed lips. She was not going to spoil her secret until
she had acquired more evidence. This new development—.
There was plenty of time.
He would have to stay in town till eight o'clock. Would
he have supper with Mrs. Ventress? What could be his
errand? It was simply too exciting. Miss Crome's teacup
trembled in her hand till Mrs. Hoyle enquired whatever
was the matter with her. Miss Crome declared that there
was nothing—absolutely nothing. She had never felt better
in her life. Which was, to be sure, no less than the truth.
Slade had been taking his leave when the stout figure
swung in at the gate. He turned on the steps as the gate
clicked. He heard Adela's breath indrawn. He turned
again to find her staring with some perturbation at the
stranger. Slade lingered.
“Pardon me,” began the man. “How do
“Yes,” said Mrs. Ventress rather hurriedly to Slade.
“Yes, good-bye, good-bye, do come in again, Mr. Breckin-
ridge!”
It would undoubtedly be best for him to go. He took in
the bland stoutness of the stranger, and his slight leeri-
ness, with dislike. But he went out of the gate, after bid-
ding a formal good-bye. He glanced once over the hedge.
The stranger was ascending the porch steps. Slade heard,
“Well, how do, Miss 33
He walked off slowly, wondering.
He wondered considerably. Evidently not her husband.
In so many ways, what a remarkable afternoon! How much
was he in love with her? But who on earth was the stout
person? Oh, probably just someone he had never seen be-
2.9


SIRENA UNDER SUSPICION 193
fore, who lived in Tupton. But he didn't look like a Tupton
character | He bore unmistakable earmarks of the city.
Cheap though. What on earth had he to do with Mrs.
Ventress P
She was certainly one of the most attractive women he
had ever met. Was she still married? She was so fine,
so absolutely sincere, so pretty, so wise, so witty. But of
course she couldn't be interested in him in the slightest.
Being kind.
What on earth was that woman doing down by the Hoyle's
fence? It certainly had looked like Miss Crome.
As he approached the Gedney house, after turning into
Poplar, he saw Bessie coming up the street from the op-
posite direction. He waved to her. She moved through
the sun-speckled shadow of the tall horse-chestnut trees.
Slade was first at the gate and waited for her. She was
somewhat dusty and breathless.
“Find your friend all right? Have a nice walk?” he
smiled.
“Yes. Oo, I'm tired though. Have a nice time at
Adela’s P”
“Yes. I went over. She showed me some of her draw-
ings. She certainly is awfully nice.”
Bessie gave him a keen glance.
“She's a darling,” she said, though with a rather prim
mouth. She ran up the steps quickly, Slade following at
his leisure. He was still wondering about the stout gen-
tleman in the rather loud suit.


CHAPTER XXI: ON A QUIET EVENING
ASON DUFFITT was eating a late cold supper that
Pansie had left for him in the ice-box when his door-
bell rang. He had been nervous about all sounds lately,
and it was a queer hour for anyone to call on him. A figure
of stout proportions stood in the shadow of the vines of the
porch. -
“You don't remember me, I'll bet,” said the broad fig-
ure, having removed a round-crowned panama and applied
a coloured silk handkerchief to a beady brow. It extended
a pudgy, broad-fingered hand. “But I seen your name on
your office and asked round. Gotta take that eight-ten out
o' here. H’are ye, Jase, anyway. Remember me?”
Jason came out of the door, started to shake his head.
Then,
“Why, sure, sure, Podge. Sure I do. Gosh, I ain't seen
you fer five or six years, must be. Well, if this ain't funny.
Comical. How's the world been treatin' you anyway?
Come in I was jest gettin' m'self a snack. Have any-
thin’? (He slowly closed one eye.) No? Thanks, don't
mind if I do,” as he accepted a cigar. “Set down, Podge.
Well, man, you're lookin' fine. Gosh, if this ain't comicall”
The screen-door had flacked to behind them. Some ani-
mated conversation ensued.
Miss Crome's vigil, though she stayed at Mrs. Hoyle's
almost till dinner-time, had been totally unsuccessful. He
had stayed at Mrs. Ventress's to dinner. He would be tak-
ing that eight o'clock train after. Miss Crome bade her
hostess farewell, descended Ivy Street and crossed Market
to Oak. She got herself some supper about six-thirty and
had occasion to wander up past the Post-Office to the Sta-
I94


ON A QUIET EVENING 195
tion about three-quarters of an hour later. She wandered
back again in the cool of the evening, meeting several ladies
with whom she stopped to chatter for considerable periods.
Nearing Oak again she nearly ran into the individual of
her real search just turning out of it. To her surprise she
saw that he was walking with Jason Duffitt.
“How do, Miss Crome,” said the latter in passing. He
tipped his faded straw, and his companion lifted a panama
and nodded affably enough in recognition.
“Who's that female, Jase? She directed me up there
to—to Miss—er—Ventress 33
“Mrs. Ventress?” Duffitt almost halted. Then, with a
nervous look in his eyes, “That who you were callin' on?”
His companion remembered Adela's parting words. “I
am extremely sorry but I trust you to keep my secret.”
He had promised. Still, it riled him. It certainly did rile
him. He had hoped so—.
“Yeah,” he said uninformatively. “Know her?” His
eyes looked keenly at his companion, an old school friend.
“Sure,” said Duffitt, recovering somewhat from suspicion.
“Rented her that house. Comes from N’York. What do
you know about her?”
“She's all right. Guess you found that out before you
rented her the house didn't you?”
“Oh, sure. Good references. Perf’ly sat'sfactry. But
there's been a lotta talk about her. Money end's been all
reglar enough. But she's a queer one, sorta. People don't
like her. There's somethin' queer 33
“How's that?”
“Well, it ain't my place to say nothin', perhaps; but she's
got queer opinions, and who's her husband anyway, an’
where is he? I got talkin' to her one day. She's got queer
opinions.”
His secret fears as to the upshot of his recent assininity
had never materialised. Adela had made no sign. From
day to day he had breathed more freely and gone about
his business. Still, he felt that something was hovering


ON A QUIET EVENING 197
He had heavily climbed the steps and was waving from
the moving train. Duffitt stood and stared after its tail-
lights, as it clanged slowly up Market Street. So many
thoughts were working within him that he had forgotten
to wave back.
He met Miss Crome again opposite Elm Street. Miss
Crome seemed to be especially peripatetic this evening. His
eyes lit as they fell upon her. He stopped to talk.
“What d'ye know about that, Miss Crome?” he asked,
after a weighty exposition. He could not keep a note of
exultation out of his voice. “Fact though. This feller's
'n ole frien' o' mine. Said he wasn't at lib’ty to tell me why
he was down here. I know he's in some big corp'ration
up in New York, but he acted indef'nite. Wouldn't tell me
his business. Finally though he comes out with that, just as
he was gettin' on th’ train. Sounds mighty queer, don't it?
Ain't her rele name. Whaddya know about that anyway?”
Miss Crome's head swam that night as she tried to com-
pose herself for sleep. She felt that she was in the midst
of the most throbbing melodrama. She was a little fright-
ened, in fact, by some of the suspicions aroused in her
breast. Mr. Duffitt's friend had had supper at Mrs. Ven-
tress's. He had stayed there from four o'clock until nearly
half-past seven. What his errand had been no one knew.
He had conveyed the startling information that Mrs. Vent-
ress's apparent name was not her real name. What did his
acquaintance with her signify? And what of this young
Mr. Breckinridge she was most evidently trying to lead
astray? What of it all? What of it all indeed? Miss
Crome's head began to throb till she had to arise and hunt
for the squat blue bottle of bromo-seltzer.
xk >k >|<
Meanwhile Slade and his cousin Bessie had passed a quiet
evening. He was puzzled certainly by the later develop-
ments of his visit to Mrs. Ventress's, but he explained the
appearance of the stranger acceptably enough to himself by


ON A QUIET EVENING 199
things for him and amuse him. I do try. He would miss
me around the house. Of course he has enough to live on
the rest of his life, without his doing anything, but he just
shuts himself up all the time with his books and reads and
reads. That’s what he likes, I know, that's what makes
him happy. But he depends on me too. I can't think of
him as all alone in that house, even with Uncle Arthur so
near, all alone and missing me. He'd do it for me I know.
Oh, well, Slade, you have troubles of your own. After all,
I've got a lot to live yet; and father's not. I can help my-
self, he can't. I shouldn't yelp.”
“You’re not yelping,” said Slade. “I see. I understand.
I guess I never gave it much thought. I get selfish. But,
listen, Bess, it can be fixed up. I’m sure. It will all come
right.”
“Just how?”
She looked up at him with dark and brooding eyes.
“Gertrude took it—her happiness. Poor Gertrude. She
broke away. But I haven't Gertrude's excuse. You see I
know all about it. I—I’ve pieced it all together. I’ve drawn
it out of father bit by bit, though he firmly believes he's
never told me anything. I've done a lot of thinking about
Gertrude. I don’t blame her. Her mother was too much
for her—and too much for father too, for that matter.
And Gertrude must have been different from me—wilder.
O Slade, do you really think she ever found her happiness?”
He had never known his cousin in such a grave mood.
Usually there was merely affectionate bantering between
them. Bessie was not the kind that told her troubles. Now
her confidence in him touched him.
“I certainly hope so. I believe so,” he stammered.
“But you don't really, do you?” The dark eyes searched
his. Not a child but a woman was questioning him. “You
think—and I believe—I believe—she’s—dead.”
The last word was only breathed. They turned slowly and
re-entered Sycamore. Slade was still looking at the ground.
“Well, even if she were, Bessie,” he said finally and softly,


ON A QUIET EVENING 201
before her words rushed on in a voice low but perfectly
distinct.
“I found it. Two years ago. I came in for something
and found it on his desk. He had gone out and forgotten
to lock it up. I didn't know what it was. Then I guessed.
It was open. Out of the envelope. I knew it was Gertrude,
of course. It opened, ‘Dearest Father'. It was dated the
month after her mother's death—from England. I couldn't
go out of the room without knowing, then. I couldn't. I
couldnt. I read it all through.”
“Well, why shouldn't you?” asked Slade defensively. “I
don't see any harm in that. It hasn't hurt anybody, has it?”
Again her face turned to him. Her hand was on his arm.
“You don't think so, do you?” she said quickly, “and,
Slade,-you'll never tell?”
“I should say not,” he returned stoutly. “Nonsense. Of
course it's all right. Tell me, though, tell me—about—”
“Oh, she said she was so sorry. That she was very un-
happy. That she had been unhappy for a long time. That
it had been her pride. There must have been a big scene
of some kind, you know, shortly before she ran away—with
her mother. She sort of hinted too at something else. It
sounded as though she had been married, and been unhappy,
and they had separated. She told father how much she loved
him. She had never meant to hurt him. All about her
pride too, and that she had made up her mind she wasn't
going to come back beaten, if things went wrong with her,
or worry him with her troubles. Then she ended by saying
that he musn't worry about her now. She was all right, had
a good position, was doing some writing. She sent him all
the love she had for anyone, she said. She had just heard
of her mother's death. She knew about me. She explained
a lot about how it had been between her mother and her.
But there must have been a-a love-affair too. I don’t un-
derstand, though, certainly I’ve never heard from anybody
around here that there was anything like that. I think I
know all father knows, and he thinks nothing of the kind.


202 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
But I could read it in the letter, even if it wasn't written
out.”
“What—where did the letter come from, you say?”
“From England—London—she was evidently over there
as a sort of secretary-companion to a rich woman.”
“And he never told you?”
“No. Never. He must have worked it all out by him-
self and decided it was better not to. She told him where
to send an answer, if he wanted to. It wasn’t her real ad-
dress. I don’t know whether he ever did or not.”
“Strange. It's all very strange,” said Slade.
They had come opposite the Pollock house and Bessie's
last words had been in a very low voice. Slade nodded
only. But he slipped his arm through his cousin's and sud-
denly gripped her hand, withdrawing his own immediately.
Then they went up the steps together to the dim forms of
their two relatives on the porch above.


CHAPTER XXII: WHO SHE MIGHT BE
LADE took a morning train back on Monday as he had
to be in the city by evening. He and Bessie together
ran over a moment to allow him a formal good-bye to Adela.
They found her in her garden as usual. She did not refer
to her Sunday caller of the afternoon before. Nor did
Slade. She put in Bessie's hand a flower for Slade's button-
hole. Bessie walked back with him to the house and down
with him to the station.
As the train pulled out he waved to her and she waved
back at him with bright eyes. There was no badinage. He
sat looking straight ahead of him for several minutes as
the train clanged through the town. His interest in the dusty
plush back of the seat in front of him seemed enormous.
Between Tupton and the Pennsylvania Station in New
York, with time out for a change at the Junction, there was
plenty of opportunity for reflection. Slade extracted a
novel from his bag but let it lie unopened upon the maroon
seat. He rested his chin upon his hand and gazed out upon
the dipping and soaring telegraph wires combed through
their green glass insulators on the tall double-armed poles
that rose at him and flashed past by the wayside. Behind
them the country was sunny and green. But the heat of
the day was oppressive. He removed his coat and suffered
from sifting cinders that ticked against the wire netted open
space at the bottom of the window. He felt both grimy and
deliquescent.
Really, it was all darned interesting. The manuscript,
Terrill's mysterious book, Mrs. Ventress, Gertrude, Mrs.
Ventress's visitor, Coryat, Bessie . . . They mixed in his
mind to the rhythm of the train, the surging sound of it
203


204 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
mingled with the clicking of rail-joints and the creak and
clank of couplings. His head wagged against the maroon
back of the seat as he closed his eyes. . . .
Mrs. Ventress's face, in surprise, in alarm. No, not at
that loud-suited individual's greeting so much,-at his own
mention of Richard Coryat. No, she had supplied the
“Richard”. That's so. She knew him through acquaint-
ances. But still, but still. . . .
And—wasn’t there some confusion about the book?
Something queer about the whole thing. He didn't know
just what. Of course that man wasn't her husband 1 Cor-
yat? But how on earth could that be. Impossible.
Names. . .
He was conscious of a voice that penetrated to him over
the back of the seat ahead, of two nodding bonnets that had
not been there before. He did not recognise the two Miss
Babbitts, going to Philadelphia. They had fussily changed
their seats. But he was conscious of the voice because it
had just said “Mrs. Ventress” in a derogatory tone. “Aha,
aha, aha,” came the queerly mechanical laugh of the other
Miss Babbitt.
“. ... if you think it's just silly . . . for Sophia saw him
herself—”
“No, it's probably true,” the sister answered. “She's a
most peculiar woman and it's probably quite true. But who
could he have been P”
“No one knows. Except that he was rather loudly dressed
and was there practically all the afternoon, and stayed to
supper certainly. He left on the eight-ten.”
“He said it wasn't her real name?”
“So Jason Duffitt swore to Sophia. She's a thorough
minx in my opinion. And who knows anything about her.
Don't you think it was extremely rude of her the way she
called so casually on Mrs. Mixter, after she'd been to dinner
there? And then she goes mysteriously out of town for
several days—and then this strange man turns up. But


206 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
his exasperated thought he recalled Dr. Gedney's answer on
the way home from that Fourth of July affair, an answer
to some spontaneously enthusiastic remark of Slade's.
“Arthur is so absurd about her l’”
“But what does he say, Uncle Charles?”
“Oh, that he distrusts her. Maybe he changed his opinion
to-night. But you know, probably, how Arthur has been
about women, ever since Miriam's death. I was certainly
very pleasantly impressed by her this evening.”
“Does he mind Bessie and her being together so much?”
“Oh, yes. You know Bessie is Arthur's ewe-lamb. And
I believe there is some sort of talk in the town. But isn’t
there always. (Dr. Gedney's lip had curled.) Look at the
ridiculous, criminally ridiculous things that were said after
Gertrude—after Gertrude ran away. I simply paid no at-
tention. There's no nonsense about Bessie. She knows the
substance from the shadow. Mrs. Ventress came here with
excellent recommendations—or however you put it—from
New York. She has lived in a very quiet and dignified way.
Of course, there are some outrageous gossips in this town;
that Miss Crome, for instance—”
Slade wondered, remembering, whether either of the stiff
angular women on the seat ahead could be Sophia Crome.
Well, it was interesting at any rate. What a wonderful
companion bosh! Of what was he thinking. He knew
now. It had been completely evident to him in her dismis-
sal of him at the approach of that stout person—she didn't
really care, couldn't possibly—how could she? Why, but
she was married, wasn't she? He suddenly smiled very
wrily at his own goings-on. If he wasn't a blasted idiot!
She had been extremely nice to him and he had let himself
go, in a day-dream . . . When the stout person approached
she had hustled him off absent-mindedly . . . That was all
right, of course. But, equally of course, oh, what an ass
he had been But she was wonderful. He would always
admire her anyway. . . .
Bessie had never seen Gertrude. What a peculiar girl


WHO SHE MIGHT BE 207
Gertrude must have been, what an extremely peculiar
woman his Aunt Marthal What a tragedy when it all hap-
pened He wondered if there had been a love-affair for
Gertrude. He wondered. Was she still in London? Sup-
pose she were, by any chance, in New York. Suppose
under a changed name, if she had married, she were now
wealthy and famous. Suppose . . . by George!
Slade's eyes opened. His brow wrinkled. What did Mrs.
Ventress write? Suppose . . . Oh, what nonsense! What
a nut he was What an utter nut! His imagination again.
He was always spinning impossible stories about people.
Gertrude. Mrs. Ventress. What nonsense!
Nevertheless he wondered. . . .
xk xk ×
Upon his return to the office on Tuesday, Slade learned
all about the feminine claimant to authorship of the mys-
terious “Crystal Castle”. He also learned that she had not
put in an appearance on Monday. Not at all. Coryat had
come in and enquired for him, leaving his first article.
Toward the end of a crowded afternoon, Coryat's voice
floated into his ear blurred by the telephone-receiver.
“Hello! Have a good time? I left my first article with
your chief yesterday. Oh, he told you? Did that phantasmal
young woman turn up to-day? No? Isn't it damned
curious?”
“You know I believe you're all kidding me,” said Slade,
holding the 'phone in his lap and turning an eye on Miss
Peabody opposite. “There wasn't really any bright young
female, was there?”
“All I know is your Chief swore to me that there was,
and told me all she had said.”
“Ha!” said Miss Peabody with mock-acidity as she caught
Slade’s “Really?” “Ha! Corroboration, I see, corrobora-
tion ſ”
“Well,” laughed Slade into the mouthpiece, “I refuse to
believe it until I see her, that's all. It strikes me as entirely


208 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
too melodramatic. Oh, by the way, I have a startling bit
of news for you. . . .
“Yeah. Remember that friend of my cousin's I spoke
to you about? Yeah. Well, it seems she owns Terrill's
book and has read it. Honestly . . . No, I didn't; because
she said she had left her copy in town. She comes from here,
you know . . . What? No, neither did I, from what you
told me—but it seems there are three anyway, you, your
friend and my friend . . . Yes, you ought to. She's a most
charming person . . . Oh, she writes. I don't know. She
never will tell us just what she writes. She's rather mys-
terious about it . . . Dinner? Why—let's see—why, yes,
I guess I can make it. What time?”
So it happened that that evening Slade and Richard Coryat
again sat facing each other across a small table, this time
in the rear open dining-room of the Golden Eagle on Mac-
Dougall Street.
“Look here, who is this friend of your cousin's, this
Mrs. Ventress?” inquired Coryat directly. “You certainly
interested me a lot by what you said over the 'phone.”
“Mrs. Ventress? Why, I’ve told you all I know about
her, and that I think she's an exceptionally charming per-
son,” returned Slade, his eyes betraying fear of teasing.
“She's been awfully nice to my cousin. She evidently lives
here in the city mostly and writes. As I said over the 'phone,
we've never been able to find out just what she writes; and
she implies that she's given it up. She's taken to drawing
again—she really draws awfully well. She studied it some
years ago. Your guess is as good as mine. Only she's
evidently well-off and quite independent, possibly with a
husband somewhere, but I’ve never heard her speak of him,
or of her family. I don't know, I’m sure, whether her hus-
band is dead or—well, of course, she may be divorced. I
believe it's rather set opinion in the town against her that
she's never produced her husband. There's some mystery
there. She's a woman, I should say, of about thirty, maybe
older. She looks very young sometimes, though. (Coryat


WHO SHE MIGHT BE 209
repressed a smile.) She has a fine mind, knows good poetry,
told me all sorts of interesting things. I should think she
had travelled. Sounds like it. She's the kind of person
who would have been likely to pick up Terrill's book in Lon-
don and treasure it—distinctly the kind. She was certainly
enthusiastic about it. She knew your name, by the way.”
“Knew my name—how?”
“Through mutual acquaintances, she said. Knew of your
knowing about the book.”
“That's funny. I know so few people in New York. You
see I have been abroad such a long time. It might have
been someone in England—if she's been over there. But—”
“She didn't specify. It might.”
“That seems funny to me though—funny that I shouldn't
have heard the name. The name I was thinking of the other
night—”
He paused.
“I’m puzzled, and I'm interested in this,” he said again,
after a moment. “What does she look like? Tell me more
about her.”
“You do seem to think you know her,” laughed Slade.
“Well, she's about the average height. Looks tall some-
times. Brown hair, brown eyes, dresses charmingly. Oval
face—I don't know, did you ever try describing a woman?
Has nice eyes, is witty and quick. Gosh, it sounds like a
‘Situation Wanted’ in the Times tº
Coryat smiled.
“That certainly might describe a number of quite different
people at that. She looks successful, does she?”
“Well, she evidently has enough money and has not led
a particularly hard life, lately anyhow. Her writing doesn't
seem to have pleased her—”
“Oh, it doesn't,” said Coryat. “Then that wouldn't be—
but, by George, I wonder 32
“What do you wonder?”
“Sorry, Breckinridge. I always seem to be doing this.
But the fact is I speculate sometimes—oh, well! . . . Well,


212 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
Besides, again, this woman said she had written ‘Golden
Windfall’l”
“Well, my dear Breckinridge, we don't really know who
wrote ‘Golden Windfall'. Do wer”
“But, why, good heavens ! You mean to say—?”
“I don't mean to say anything. I'm just thinking. Prob-
ably I’m way off. But your friend is agitated when you
mention Terrill's book. You said she was. You know she
writes, but she's mysterious about it. She's away from Tup-
ton for several days, not back till very late Saturday night.
Well, if she left here on the eleven o’clock train she'd have
been in Tupton by eleven that night—that was the train you
took, wasn't it? And she could conceivably have come on to
New York, instead of stopping at Philadelphia. She has
plenty of money to indulge herself in such a trip, plenty of
time on her hands. This claimant was in The Colosseum
office only till about Io:15, according to what your Chief
told me. That gives her time to catch her train and—”
Slade was somewhat staggered.
“But she said she knew you?”
“Only through mutual acquaintances. Anyone may meet
an anonymous author sometime without knowing it. ‘Rich-
ard Terrill' may be an assumed name. I’ve never thought of
it before—I had a picture of the man so clearly in my mind—
but it may be. And all that I’m saying may be proved the
most utter nonsense, but—”
“But why didn't she turn up with her proofs? Why all
this concealment? I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I. I’m just guessing—maybe wildly—”
“You gentlemen feel in any need of inspiration this eve-
ning? Are you familiar with the psychological properties
of my soul candy? Ah, pardon me, I see you are en-
gaged ” It was Tiny Tim, bare-headed, with white
shirt and flowing black hair and tie. He passed with friend-
ship's offering in neat packages upon his tray. He stopped
at the next table and engaged in a philosophical dissertation


WHO SHE MIGHT BE 213
with a gentleman in cloaks and suits. The lady with the
gentleman kept up an uninterrupted giggle.
“Well,” said Slade, “you've certainly given me something
to think about. What do you say? Shall we go?”
As they paused before the counter-gate in the outer hall,
where the Frenchwoman in attendance procured their hats,
Coryat said,
“I will take advantage of your invitation if it still holds,
and go down with you when you go next. Meanwhile, well,
let us wait and find out.”
“All right,” said Slade. “You mean “don’t say anything
about it'. I won't. Of course, as you say, it may all be a
pipe-dream. It certainly has that appearance to me—and
yet Well, all I know is that Mrs. Ventress is as straight
as a string as well as being a remarkably interesting woman.
If by any wild possibility she were Richard Terrill, she's
given up attempting to convince old T. B. for some very
good reason.”
“Oh, I’m sure of that,” said Coryat hastily. “There's no
question of that. But then 33
As he walked home up Fourth Avenue later in the eve-
ning he wondered—he certainly wondered


CHAPTER XXIII: IT COMES TO MISS CROME
Two weeks passed, Miss Ann Cole had not reappeared
at The Colosseum office. “The Crystal Castle” still
reposed in the safe. Slade, busied with many manuscripts,
with foundry proofs and “signatures”, with constant callers,
luncheon engagements and dinner engagements, with Rafe's
affairs and the affairs of other friends, almost forgot Tup-
ton in the interim. Mrs. Ventress recurred occasionally.
Bessie entered his thoughts as often. He speculated a good
deal about the author of “The Crystal Castle”. He had come
greatly to discount Coryat's wild conjecture. But in his
peregrinations about the Village he often stopped and looked
after ladies with brown eyes and brown hair, even if the
latter were bobbed. Rafe began to rag him about it.
Bessie wrote him, a pleasant, friendly letter, informing
him that everything was much as he had left it in the small
town. She inveighed again in no uncertain terms against
Miss Crome and village gossip in general. She also sus-
pected Jason Duffitt of secretly running down Adela's repu-
tation. She was not so far mistaken.
They were much together these days, Jason and Miss
Crome. Jason would come over and sit on Miss Crome's
cushioned stone stoop of an evening, if he were passing by, -
and he usually was, somehow. On one of these evenings
Miss Crome hit upon a most remarkable elucidation of the
principal matter that had been perplexing them—an elucida-
tion Bessie had no cognizance of.
They were speaking of the name that was not Mrs. Vent-
ress's. Miss Crome had already spread broadcast insinua-
tion concerning cigarettes on Sunday, “that young Mr.
2I4


IT COMES TO MISS CROME 215.
Breckinridge”, and, as we have heard, the mysterious indi-
vidual in the loud suit. The Miss Babbitts had got hold,
of course, of the rumour about the name, but they were
still in Philadelphia, and that had gone no farther in the
town as yet, Miss Crome, seeing this, hoarded it; she en-
joined Mr. Duffitt to hoard it. She said she must “turn it
over in her mind”. Several days of turning it over pro-
duced—A Theory.
“It’s come back to me,” announced Miss Crome conspira-
torially one evening, in an awed voice. “It was before your
time here, Mr. Duffitt. But it's come back to me!”
“What has P”
“Well, it's this way. Did you ever hear of Gertrude
Gedney?”
“Yes, o'course. I know the story. She run away from
home about twenty years ago, didn't she? She never turned
up. Guess everyone's lived here at all knows about that.”
“Yes—and ” Miss Crome rocked back and forth, her
arms clasping each other in her lap. (She was a ferment
of excitement within) “I’ve got a theory!”
“What?”
“The name comes back to me now. He was a nephew of
Judge Lindon, up on the Hill—”
“Who Was P”
“Roger Ventress. That was his name. I'd take my oath
it was the same name. I’d swear to it. Besides, I’ve been
enquiring round. There're a few still remember. Mrs.
Hoyle thinks so. But Sally Barber's got the best memory
in this town and has lived here the longest; only she's old
and hasn't got out and around much. She says it was Vent-
ress. She says she thought it was funny when this woman
first came to live here. Only she doesn't talk much, does
Sally. You have to get it out of her. Judge Lindon, you
know, lived rather removed, up there on the Hill. Not many
even of the old residents knew him, and those not well. But
he had this nephew. People have forgotten. Roger Vent-
ress came to visit his uncle—we've pieced it out, Sally and


216 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
I—and was at the Institute dance at Gertrude Gedney's
Commencement. He stayed a week or so. Even Sally
Barber don't remember whether they saw much of each
other. But I remember now one evening he took her home
from a young people's party. Then he went away. That
would have been the end of June. About a week later
Gertrude disappeared. Some connected it up then, but the
idea died out. There was some talk about it—it all comes
back to me—but—well, you see, this happened—”
She lifted a skinny forefinger and became impressive.
“It was what made Judge Lindon move away, and it was
common talk at the time, but everybody's forgotten the name
now. Roger Ventress got a heat-stroke in that hot spell in
New York. The Judge left here to go to him, found him
in a New York hospital where he'd been taken after he fell
in the street. He lived only twenty-four hours. That much
was in our local paper and you can find it there. Ventress's
parents lived in New York. Judge Lindon, though, was very
fond of the young man, and the end of that summer the
Lindons moved away from Tupton. I'd forgotten about
them for a long time. Now I remember. And Sally Barber
filled out what I didn’t remember 22
“But lookee here—!” exclaimed the bewildered Mr.
Duffitt. “Yer past me, Miss Crome.”
“This Mrs. Ventress—why don't you see. She's Gertrude
Gedney come back. It seems to me plain as the nose on your
face. She thought, after all these years, that no one would
remember. She knew the Judge's family weren't here any
more. It's my belief she and that boy, Roger Ventress, got
married secretly as soon as she got to the city. It's my
belief she went right to New York and married him. Then
he died suddenly in the street that way and she got fright-
ened. Hid away somewhere. Afraid to go back, afraid to
let on where she was. After that, I don't know.”
“But wouldn't such a marriage have come out. Don't
seem reasonable, Miss Crome.”
“Why would it? If his parents had known they'd surely


IT COMES TO MISS CROME 217
have written Dr. Gedney. But I know—O I could tell!—he
didn't ever hear from them or through Judge Lindon. The
marriage was being kept quiet. Maybe,” ventured Miss
Crome recalling the movies, “maybe it was a mock-mar-
riage.”
“But why in time would she come back here with that
name—specially if it weren't her own?”
“Why,” asked Miss Crome dramatically, “is there sin
and shame in this world?”
Mr. Duffitt didn't know the answer to that.
“It was a secret marriage,” elaborated Miss Crome.
“After his death she may have fallen into sin and shame.
But she's come into a portion of this world's goods through
it. And she's come back here to flaunt it in our faces. I
don't believe there's one mite smitch of repentance in her
heart. But of course she's afraid to tell who she is to her
own people. She's still afraid. But—why, look at the way
she's taken up with Bessie Gedney, her own sister-by-adop-
tion. Isn’t it reasonable?”
She paused dramatically.
Mr. Duffitt scratched his head. He didn’t think it was.
Still, the sin and shame element appealed to his highly-
coloured imagination. He smoked and stared for several
minutes.
“It ain’t reasonable she’d a come back with that name.
Besides, what about what ‘Podge’ said about it not bein’ her
rele name?”
“Well, yes, there might be a point. But I say she'd think
everybody'd forgotten about that young man, it's all so long
ago. I nearly had, not about the Judge, but about his
nephew's name. Matter of fact, she's right. Who has
remembered? The town's changed. All these new people—
you can't keep up with them. But I think what your friend
was trying to say was that her real name was Gedney. It
is, it was, before she was married. Of that I’m sure. And
she couldn't give the Ventress name up because she had a
sentiment about it. She must have thought she was mightily


218 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
in love with that young man to run off to him that way.
Probably she's just taken it up again lately, didn't dare use
it after his death. But—everything's queer enough about
her—and I wouldn't put it past her!”
Jason said nothing, but he shook his head several times.
“No, Miss Crome,” he said. “You ain’t convinced me.
Her front name's this—now—A-deal-er.”
“Why, but of course she wouldn't give herself away by
using her real first name. She thinks we've all forgotten,
that's the whole point. And how that pleases her!”
“Yeah, but, Miss Crome, she's met Dr. Gedney an’ Mr.
Pollock. She was over to his house Fourth o' July. I
heard him say so.”
“Once—at night—outdoors. And you know he doesn't
trust her. As for Dr. Gedney, he doesn't hardly know what
Bessie looks like, he's so absent-minded. And after twenty
years. Why she'd have changed out of all recognition, Mr.
Duffitt.
But Mr. Duffitt still demurred. He shook his head a good
deal more.
“Well, all I ask you is to think it over,” said Miss Sophia
Crome. “There's no hurry. But listen to me. If it is
so—and I become surer of it every minute I breathe-it's
our duty, our sacred duty (she was positively quivering) to
see that the Gedneys know. You know and I know that
that woman up there is a bad influence upon this town, how-
ever you look at it. I’ll bet she's led a hard life. She's no
proper influence for Bessie Gedney either. With her Sun-
day cigarettes and her vampish ways and her strange vis-
itors! In my opinion she's a bad influence and a bad woman.
O, I know she's quiet—quiet is the worst kind. And look
at her opinions—is that being an honest, God-fearing
woman? No. No, Mr. Duffitt. It's our sacred duty to
get this to the Gedneys. You think it over.”
Mr. Duffitt did so, during the ensuing days. He came
gradually to believe Miss Crome must be right. She seemed
to have an answer for every objection. As for “sacred


IT COMES TO MISS CROME 219
duty”, but he was still highly nervous as to what Adela
might be plotting against him in secret. “Quiet is the worst
kind”! That phrase had a special meaning for him. And
wasn't letting the truth get about—merely the truth, under-
stand—an excellent way forever to forestall the chance of
her telling lies about him? She'd be sure to twist it all into
lies. The more he considered, in his dull, suspicious, timor-
ous mind, the more Mr. Duffitt was convinced.
One evening, several days later, he told Miss Crome so.
They discussed the best way for the news to be broken to
the town. They decided to disseminate it with caution.
They nobly waived the opportunity to crusade openly. They
felt no fear that, in the end, the father Gertrude had aban-
doned so cruelly would desire her continuing presence in
Tupton. The main thing was to get public opinion excited,
anyway. As for Uncle Arthur, they felt quite sure of him,
in his affection for Bessie and his well-known irascibility.
And he was, with Dr. Gedney, such an influence.
In the meantime, two weeks passed. One day Slade
'phoned Coryat from The Colosseum office.
“Oh, look here; I’m going to Tupton on Friday, to begin
my two weeks' vacation. It's all fixed. Want to come?
Love to have you.”
The answer was in the decided affirmative. But it was
on Thursday that Miss Crome began her devious campaign.
She began it by treating conjecture as fact. After all,
she was sure in her own mind. Why weaken the argument
for truth with Possiblys and Perhapses. Also, why not
tell a good story while you were about it. Therefore, in the
first breathing of her belief to Mrs. Mixter she referred
to a wholly reliable source of information she was in honour
bound not to reveal. After all, similar references had been
made by certain minor, and even major prophets of old—
at least they had stated the case in a generalisation. It all
depends upon one's assurance of divine afflatus. Miss Crome
had ever been a crusader, though a modest one. Her picture
of herself would not have been recognised as authentic, per-


CHAPTER XXIV: UNCLE ARTHUR'S BOMB-
SHELL
DR. GEDNEY was reading:
“—announced his hypothesis that it is an impossibility
to determine by physical experiment the velocity of the earth
relative to ether, moreover, that an immobile or rigid ether
is unthinkable, and that there is no such thing as absolute
velocity through space for any body, and that measured time
and space do not exist as independent and self-contained con-
cepts, but are always conditioned by the phenomena that they
are used to describe-’” -
Through it he heard the gruff voice of George Syle (the
only man who really interested him in Tupton) dilating upon
Emmanuel Kant's antinomies, and the penalty of reality.
There were always cigar ashes on Syle's vest. He never
made the slightest attempt to brush them off. But then he
was one of The Ten.
Dr. Gedney read:
“It is this phase of the Einstein theory that makes it ex-
pressible in terms of the fourth dimensional calculus of
Minkowski wherein the distinction between time and space
vanishes—”
True. What were space and time? What was anything?
Nothing. He heard the wheezy spasmodic laughter of Syle
as he descended suddenly to that old one—that very old
one: “What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never
mind.” Syle was growing very bald, and yet his coat collar
was always speckled with dandruff. That was, if not an
antinomy, a paradox.
22I


222 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
Dr. Gedney screwed up his eyes and regarded one thumb-
tack of his blotter with great intensity. His book lay on his
knees, between his hands that suddenly clutched and shook
the covers. No way to treat a book.
He was on a long journey, a long and burning journey,
through lisping wastes of sand, Sand, sand.
“As an Arab journeyeth through the sands of Ayaman—”
Quotations had a way of coming into his head like that.
You read and forgot. And then quotations came into your
head. Like confirmations, like warnings, like prophecies.
“And no live comfort near on either hand—”
“On either hand”? That couldn't be right. Yes. It must
be. Another quotation. They had all been through it, you
see. All been through it. Most, those poets.
No. They had not been through it. They only guessed.
Guessed right—but only guessed. If they had known—they
would not have been able to write. Would they?
Sand.
Arabs. The Arabian Nights. Burton.
His explication of native poronography. Quite horrible.
Interesting. After all—we were all like that—buried. Then
it shook the bars and rage. It consumed the sun.
Polygamy. Decidedly more to be said for it than—
But the Northern races were, after all, less occupied with
these matters. Thought they were, anyway. He differed
with Burton about frank nastiness being less harmful than
insidious allusiveness. Depended upon your psychological
makeup.
Hunger.
The mind went on. There was some salvation in the mind.
Passion was a weird thing. The satisfaction of passion was
a matter of so brief a period of time. Why then, when satis-
faction was out of the question, did it gradually take hold of
a major part of one's mental life till it strove and raged


UNCLE ARTHUR'S BOMB-SHELL 223
and wept and shook the pillars of the dusty world with
furred and ape-like strength? It was unconscionable.
It was disgusting.
“—wherein the distinction between space and time van-
ishes. The two become complementary and inseparable and
cannot exist independently >>
Dr. Gedney cleared his throat painfully,
«g and cannot exist independently any more than the
two components of a force can exist by themselves. They
are simply two aspects of a greater construct or entity.”
That “greater construct”? Every approach to the riddle
involved merely new phrasemongering. The riddle re-
mained. Why? Why this peculiar passion for irreconcil-
able mystery on the part of omnipotence? To what possible
end? Evolution? People did not evolve. They stopped at
a certain point and then began either to ossify or retrograde.
Back to childhood. Like Jeremiah Mixter on Child Labour.
Pterodactyl. What was that, said about the old Speaker of
the House? “If he had been present at the Creation he
would have been on the side of Chaos”? Ha!
About “as little children entering the kingdom of
heaven”. . .
At the last she had looked just like a little child.
Then—so stern. Noble. Somewhere else. Removed.
Alone. Forever?
Pain drove men mad. Madmen's raving. Silence an-
swered. Silence. Silence. Only silence. Forever?
Sphinxlike. Inscrutable. Not grief. Not happiness.
Understanding. Knowing. Knowing at last.
Afternoon sunlight had touched her hair. Fixed—entirely
impassive. Stillness, and flowers. The inscrutable. And
yet, in life If it were all worth anything
Some way—it must be.
Death, after all, was man's one moment of real nobility.
In some strange way, an accolade. To the worst as to the
best. The mockery vanished. A door opened. Come. .
Dr. Gedney heard the voices of some children in the street,


DNCLE ARTHUR'S BOMB-SHELL 227
face again. His eyes bulged as he endeavoured to speak
calmly.
“We must go back, Charles, go back to the day when
I first protested to you against allowing Bessie to take draw-
ing lessons with this—this Mrs. Ventress.”
“But I fail to see—” The whole subject of discussion
was becoming unreal to the Doctor. What was this utterly
absurd hypothesis he was listening to?
“Yes—that has been in it. I am convinced that has been
in it. And I don’t know what subtle machinations that
woman may have woven about her. I’ve always distrusted
that friendship. I’ve endeavoured to argue with Bessie.
I’ve endeavoured to make some impression upon your aloof-
ness. I have listened to all the ugly rumours 33
“But it seems to me you are mixing the whole ridiculous
matter up frightfully, Arthur. And just what ugly ru-
mours?”
“Last Sunday,” said Uncle Arthur weightily, “one to
whom I may only refer as an Individual arrived at our town
and called upon—upon Mrs. Ventress. He was there the
major portion of the afternoon and stayed to supper. This
they assert in various quarters. He left on the eight-ten
train Sunday night. He turned out to be an old school-
friend of Jason Duffitt's. Mr. Duffitt has corroborated Jere-
miah Mixter's statement that the man had remarked to him
personally that ‘Ventress' was not this lady's real name.
This individual was flashily dressed and employed by some
corporation in New York. Further than this he refused
to reveal his identity.”
“Still,—why that is mere hearsay!”
“Hearsay it may be,” returned the mountain in labour.
“Hearsay it may be. But it is believed. Further than that—
further than that you have been blind and deaf-yes, though
I share your sense of shock and outrage (which was not so
extremely apparent)—I must say it. You have been both
blind and deaf, Charles, to the spread of opinion in this town
against this friend of Bessie's. I repeat that I have kept


228 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
watch. I have heard again and again what was being said.
I have apprised myself (Uncle Arthur paused—he could
not help it—over the rotundity of the phrase), I have ap-
prised myself of of her reputation for secrecy and a certain
—what may, I feel, only be termed—looseness of living.
You are witness that I have spoken to you of this before,
many times' You have seen fit in each case to pooh-pooh
my warnings. I have seen Slade, our innocent nephew, be-
coming vitally interested in this woman. He spent the major
part of Sunday afternoon in her company—smoking ciga-
rettes—”
“I thought you just told me that this man you speak of
spent ‘the major part' (as you term it) 25
“That is neither here nor there. Slade was there for
several hours »y
“Well, really, Arthur, that is no secret. Bessie told me
herself she suggested his going over. As for the ciga-
Tettes 22
“But this woman was smoking with him, all afternoon.
She was seen smoking with him—”
Dr. Gedney could not check an exasperated snort.
“For heaven's sake, Arthur ! I may be remote from the
world's affairs, but I do know that many women smoke,
nowadays; especially in the larger cities. In England 92
“Possibly Possibly My views, as you know, are not
governed in these matters by the opinion of the herd; but it
was Sunday and Slade's stay was long. They were seen by
casual passersby sitting openly upon the front porch smok-
ing cigarettes. They were sitting very close together. She
is a much older woman. This naturally has made much dis-
agreeable talk. There has also been a great deal of talk
about her friendship with Bessie—a so much older woman.
Then this—this Individual, with his mysterious information.
Mrs. Ventress is known throughout the town for her pro-
nouncedly radical opinions and she makes friends with none.
True, she seemed pleasant enough and well-behaved at the
fireworks—I know that is what you are opening your mouth


UNCLE ARTHUR'S BOMB-SHELL 229
to say!—but remember that your instincts are blinded, often,
by chivalry. I, Charles, I am a sophisticated man of the
world! You have simply no conception of the talk that has
now got about. Mrs. Ventress is a common topic in the
Old Residence Block, as well as among those who matter
much less. I have been deeply and seriously concerned for
us all. This could not well go on. Then—this visit from
Jeremiah.”
He had proved a Jeremiah indeed. Uncle Arthur paused,
gulping.
“Then, this visit from Jeremiah,” he went on hastily as
Dr. Gedney snorted again. “This new and, to me as to you,
unbelievable tale concerning the identity of this—Mrs. Vent-
ress—with one, who, in spite of—who, in spite of, whose
memory will—what ever fools may think—always be dear
to us all I—!”
The trumpet sang truce in the shape of Uncle Arthur's
handkerchief applied to his nose. He shook his head vio-
lently and stamped one foot upon the floor. By an equally
violent effort he remained in his chair, tapping his foot and
clenching and unclenching his big fists upon his knees.
“Moreover,” he suddenly bawled (that is the only term
for it). “Moreover—when has she ever mentioned her
husband—tell me that! When has she ever explained the
absence of her husband? They are saying that—that—”
“Come, come, Arthur. I am not deaf, you know ! This
all sounds to me like the most unutterable— What are
they saying then?”
“It goes back even farther. Do not think that I wish to
recall a sorrow past and gone—.”
His brother-in-law certainly did exasperate Dr. Gedney.
As if the past had not gone permanently and indelibly
deeper with him than it could ever by any possibility have
gone with Arthur. Arthur knew practically nothing—sub-
stantially nothing at all—how could he ever possibly know?
“Go on!” Dr. Gedney's voice was very dry.
“This then. Do you remember a young man years ago,


230 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
a distant relative, a protegé of Judge Lindon's, who came
to this town for a week or so, about the time of about the
time of well, of that Commencement at the Institute years
ago. He called here once—did he not?—on Gertrude—”
“A young man? There were several young men. I don't
recall O, why, I believe I do recall that there was some
nephew of Judge Lindon's Gertrude once spoke of, but
only casually yy
“Do you remember his name?”
“I do not. Let me see. Something is coming back though.
Surely it was that nephew of Judge Lindon's who met with
an accident or something in New York. The Judge went on
to see him. He died in hospital there. That precipitated the
Lindons' moving away. But I don't recall the name.”
“Exactly. He was prostrated in the heat wave in New
York in the summer of 1900. The Lindons left here that
fall. I had completely forgotten the whole matter. In
fact, it seems that hardly anyone remembers the nephew
except Miss Barber on Sycamore Street. That old woman
remembers everything about this town. Ain't it strange
that you—who are writing a history 92
“But what are you driving at? I see no possible con-
nection.”
“You don't? Simply this. It is now asseverated that
the young man's name was Ventress, that —I must speak
openly, Charles; it is not that I desire any more than you
to revive the past—that Gertrude and he had some sort
of an understanding, that she joined him in New York, mar-
ried him, and then, after his sudden accident and death, in
panic disappeared again, neither desiring to come in con-
tact with his parents or Judge Lindon or have us know
anything about it. They are sure it was a secret marriage.
But all that we might pass by. However—it is asserted—
that now, after years of obscurity, she has come again to
Tupton—the name being the same > y
“Who made up this vicious cock-and-bull story? Who
concocted this cruel lie?”


UNCLE ARTHUR'S BOMB-SHELL 233
never referred again to Gertrude while she lived. Her atti-
tude drove me in upon myself. After her death, for a long
time, there were things we could not speak about—even you
and I. My pride ” Dr. Gedney looked stonily ahead
of him. “Well, so it is anyway. So it has been. Bessie
has sometimes been curious. I have always tried to assure
her of my belief in Gertrude's happiness though I could not
give her exact reasons. Lately I have several times intended
to tell her the whole truth, especially since Gertrude's last
letter to me in—last April. It was a buoyant letter. It
cheered me very much. She said she had money, friends,
easy employment and a fine outlook. She has never exactly
specified, gone into details, but I could see that everything
was well with her.
“But now—knowing all this—and knowing her nature—
do you see what a farrago of utter nonsense this is that you
have brought to me. As for Mrs. Ventress 52
Uncle Arthur was silent. He had been staring at his
brother-in-law without the ability to speak. He opened and
shut his mouth. Finally he brought out,
“Well—well—well, but Charle 3 y
“Yes?” enunciated Dr. Gedney crisply.
“This is an utter revelation, of course, an utter revela-
tion. And I do not understand why you But Charley.
But Mrs. Ventress too, Bessie says, has been a writer P”
“Arthur ! How can you be so purblind. In the first place,
even after all these years, to think that I would not recognise
my own daughter! And is it conceivable that Gertrude
would return to Tupton, after what I have told you, bearing
the name of this man she is supposed to have married 22
“Has she ever married ?”
“To judge from her letters, never.”
“She never said anything?”
“About this Ventress, you mean? Nothing.”
“Well—l”
“Why, would she make this friendship with Bessie under
my very eyes, when she loves me? Why, Arthur, we have


234 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
both seen her. Would I—” Do what he could his voice
trembled slightly. “Is it conceivable that I would not recog-
nise her? I looked at Mrs. Ventress that evening most par-
ticularly .”
“O,” he suddenly cried, rising abruptly, “this is vicious,
positively vicious! Whoever has fomented these lies, these
utter lies! It is the one way they could have stabbed me.
How they must hate me!”
Uncle Arthur was more than dismayed. As his brother-
in-law's burning eyes looked into his he saw that they glit-
tered with tears. He felt utterly unequal to the situation.
He suddenly wished that he had never been born. He never
would have thought—that Charley He never remem-
bered, since Martha's death, having felt such a miserable
intruder.
“Who Mrs. Ventress really is,” Dr. Gedney went on,
resuming control of his voice, “I have not the slightest idea.
If it is not her real name, there is something we must find
out. My own opinion is that all these rumours are of a
piece, a tissue of lies. Vicious scandal spread by half-witted
busybodies. I have trusted Bessie's instinct throughout and
I will most certainly not distrust it now till we have more
to go on. I can still see nothing whatever prima facie
against Mrs. Ventress. No, we do not know who her hus-
band is, nor whether she is divorced or widowed. From
what I have heard I gathered they had separated. I trust
Slade's instinct also.
“To return to—to Gertrude. It is just barely possible
that, after a strange life, if it had been unhappy, we would
not immediately recognise her. We have only seen her once.
It is barely possible; but to me it is thoroughly impossible
that I would not have known that night. But to even imag-
ine that Gertrude—I refuse to retain for an instant any
such nauseating suspicions. As for this trumped-up story,
it is thoroughly malicious 32
“We must immediately confront the perpetrators and dis-
perse it then,” cried Uncle Arthur, lumbering up.


UNCLE ARTHUR'S BOMB-SHELL 235
“No! No, I tell you. I will not have Gertrude's name
bandied about this town. Let it die, in our scorn. Lies die
of themselves.”
“But you have no conception of how far it has spread "
“Arthur ! My daughter's life is her own. To refute these
absurd allegations I should have to speak of her letters. That
I will never do. I have asked little of life. There is one
thing I intend to keep. I intend to keep the love between
my daughter and myself sacred. That is the very little to
which I claim the right, but I claim it absolutely. If you
ever so much as mention—”
Uncle Arthur's face wavered mountainously. The scar
burned on his face. He could only make vague elephantine
gestures.
“But we must find some way. This situation is perfectly
intolerable !”
“Yes. I agree. We must find some way. But not
through a secret which is mine and mine only. I will
never > *
“No. No. I know, Charles. But I intend to--”
“Arthur, if you arrive at any plan I exact your promise
that you will do or say nothing without first consulting me!”
“All right. But I intend to find out—”
“Arthur ! You know that your emotions easily run away
with you—that you are hasty and impulsive wº
“I know—I know—O great Xerxes—but this is utterly
intolerable. I mean to find out. I—I mean to go and see
Mrs. Ventress! I mean to find out who she really is "


CORYAT IS INOPPORTUNE 239
their eyes in the mirror behind the soda-fountain. She
caught them doing it. Not since the first few days of her
arrival in Tupton had so much interest been publicly evinced.
Mrs. Mixter was in the grocery. She hurried out to her
waiting car. She overlooked seeing Adela. Heads and
glances were turned away as Mrs. Ventress looked around.
It was confusing and a little frightening. Could it be? Yes,
of course, that was it. They had found out. But really—
after all
She could not keep the colour from coming into her face,
though she felt it pale again almost immediately. Well, what
of it. Her eyes narrowed. She met the nearest person's
gaze with a cold, abstract, measuring glance. It happened,
however, to be Rebecca Stone, who immediately came over
and spoke to her. As Rebecca seemed natural enough,
Adela's heart softened. But she did not understand. Why
did they all seem so avoiding—except Rebecca? That was
the peculiar part of it. You would have thought—
Rebecca seemed to be speaking needlessly loud, too. She
had an attitude of defiance about something. There was
more to this. What on earth was it? General Brattle en-
tered the store with a market-basket, shopping for his wife.
Adela took her package from the grocer who gazed at her
curiously. There was a smiling droop to one corner of his
mouth. He acted as if he were in a secret.
Suddenly Mrs. Ventress was overcome by a positive wave
of shyness. She turned to get out—get out of that store
and get home. Even if they had found out, there was some-
thing about it she couldn't understand. Of course, she might
have known it would come out; still Maybe they sus-
pected all sorts of things just because— Oh, that was it,
was it? She suddenly met the eyes of General Brattle.
He gave a very low bow. He turned away. He began
talking loudly to the clerk.
Adela paused an instant. Then she was in the street.
Rebecca was still beside her. Adela looked at her with


CORYAT IS INOPPORTUNE 241
trifle glassy. “I have had the pleasure of meeting Mrs.-
er—Ventress before.”
“Yes, I quite recall it now,” said Adela hurriedly. She
began to rattle on about something, about New York and
mutual acquaintances, all the while aware that General
Brattle had paused not two feet off, overhearing the entire
introduction, and that Rebecca Stone had slipped away to
the other side of the street and was walking slowly down it,
head bent in thought.
Several passersby, who seemed mere peering phantoms to
Adela, stared at the three now turning into the Farm Road.
Slade walked on her left, Coryat on her right. She was
perfectly furious with Richard Coryat.
A graven calm came upon her. She felt as though she
could exchange conspicuously inane remarks forever. She
was aware that she was talking rapidly and not particularly
well. If a bolt of lightning had at that moment reduced
Richard Coryat to ashes she would only have raised a wild,
hysterical shout of joy. Could it have been through him
that the town knew—
As she glanced at him balefully through the formal courte-
ousness of her last remark, she noted that he looked com-
paratively well and cheerful. It was an insult that he should
look so cheerful. Then she caught him covertly smiling.
Rage seethed within her.
It was too much altogether. What was the matter with
this morning? It had become a thoroughly perplexing un-
reality. The distance to her gate which now flashed into her
mind like an arbour entrance to Paradise, seemed enormous.
Her suede shoes were dusty. She had forgotten to raise her
parasol. She glanced at Slade and caught him looking at
her with bewilderment. Why should he be bewildered?
What casual, clumsy infants men were ! She hated him too.
She loathed both her escorts suddenly with all the intensity
of her sex.
She was finally nodding and smiling to them at her gate.
She was answering their request to call with an acquiescence


242 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
she immediately regretted. Again she fixed her eyes on.
Coryat's face.
They were going down the road toward Poplar Street.
Thank Heaven!
She was lying back in the Chinese wicker chair, fanning
herself with her handkerchief. But if her secret were dis-
covered anyway But was it discovered 2 The whole
morning had dismayed her. It had done something queer
to her nerves. What was it? Did they know, those people?
But they had behaved so queerly Even if they did
What on earth else did they know? What did they imagine?
.


244 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
“That's what they're all saying,” said the girl with the
bronze hair and orange hair-ribbon. “But, good grief, they
do believe it. They're talkin’ about nothing else. It seems
she ran away with this feller ."
“And she'd be libel to come back here with the same
name,” retorted the clerk, dipping glasses, his bare brown
arms plunged beneath the counter. It was satire.
“Well, I don't know about that,” retorted the bronze-
haired girl, swinging herself on her high stool by means of
a supporting hand against the marble slab. “She wanted to
give 'em the once-over. She's rich now, ain't she?”
“’Scuse me, Maybelle, yer crazy. She wouldn't be that
kind.”
“Well, buh-lieve me, now, I’ve heard things about this
Mrs. Ventress might prove she was any kind. I heard 32
But just what Maybelle had heard was interrupted by
Coryat's request for shaving-cream.
“I b'lieve she's this Gedney girl,” he heard Maybelle's
partner say, as he went out through the door. What on
earth had she meant by that? What was it all about?
Slade had heard nothing that morning. He had entered
no stores, and people always glanced at him curiously any-
way, his visits being rare in Tupton.
The minds of all of them were well enough occupied that
Saturday, the first of August.
So it was shel Coryat thought But now of course his
wild surmise was proved utterly absurd. Well, he would
preserve her secret. Yet, despite his best efforts, a small
suspicion persisted in whispering. It was all so very pe-
culiar.
The more Slade thought, the less he understood it. That
other man. Now Coryat. Was Coryat Was she-?
Coryat's search. Had she a husband? He must know, he
must know definitely.
The more Bessie thought, the less she made of certain
insinuations she had heard in the town. She only knew now
that Ventress was not Adela's real name. For Slade, if not


A FERMENT OF MINDS 245
for herself, though this was merely the pride of the martyr
—she must know.
The more Dr. Gedney thought, the less he knew how to
deal with the situation. Arthur was certain to do something
rash. Make it worse. There was no one less the silent
sleuth than Arthur. How had the absurd rigmarole started?
As for Uncle Arthur, he paced up and down, up and down
his cool parlour full of cases of stuffed birds and cabinets
of silicates, with grim lips tightened about his cigar. His
crooked teeth macerated it. His nimbus of hair stood out
every which way from his head. He stumped stertorously.
He was almost as cross-eyed as Ben Turpin with the effort
to think straight.
Meanwhile the town mumbled and murmured. Three-
fourths of it was sure on insufficient evidence that the Ged-
ney girl had come home. Mankind is an ingrained myth-
maker.
The young people went for a walk in the afternoon, not
in the direction of Mrs. Ventress's, if indeed we can in-
clude Coryat in the term “young people”. Dr. Gedney spent
the afternoon in his study and garden, trying to make up
his mind to go over and see Mrs. Ventress himself. He did
not want to see her.
Miss Crome was satisfied. She sat in her parlour like
the famous arachnid of nursery-rhyme. She fanned her-
self with a palm-leaf fan and waited the event.
Jason Duffitt was not satisfied. Too many were talking.
Miss Crome had been too hasty. He did not see the end.
He did not know exactly what he feared, but he feared.
It was very hot in the afternoon train that rumbled into
Tupton at three o'clock. The few arrivals were weary and
perspiring. The desk-clerk in the Conestoga House was
somnolent. He sat drowsing in a chair whose straw bottom
was broken and filled with old rubbed newspapers. His feet
were elevated to the ledge of the window. He finally re-
sponded to the woman who rapped on the desk. She looked
shabby and weary from the train. She wanted a room.


246 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
He drawled out information about rooms. An equally som-
nolent negro in a faded, stained blue uniform whose jacket
was open revealing a soiled and collarless shirt, leaned heav-
ily on the wire cable of the most ancient type of elevator,
which creaked and trembled in revolt, with the utmost de-
liberation, up to the next floor. The hall was thick-car-
peted with dusty and spotted crimson, even in this weather.
Silent as the grave. Down it they padded to a slatted door.
The negro clicked a large nickel-plated key in a scratched
lock and left the lady to the mercies of a broad, flimsily-
curtained window looking out on a drowsy dusty street
wherein the only object of interest was an aged horse in a
fly-net, hitched to a sagging surrey. The horse switched a
discouraged tail across bony flanks.
There were four articles of furniture in the room, gleam-
ing with cracked white paint. Viz: One large double bed,
one bureau, one tin wash-stand holding a white china basin
and pitcher figured with forget-me-nots, and one rocking-
chair with a bumper of stuffed lace tied to the top of its
back by soiled baby-blue ribbon. The Conestoga House had
once been the pride of the Valley.
The recent arrival sighed briefly. She was very tired.
She removed shirtwaist and skirt and bathed her face, neck
and arms with water from the china pitcher. She loosened
her hair. She had already drawn down the wrinkled green
blind, a spiderweb of white cracks. She lay down upon the
stuffy bed with the spread drawn over her knees. Her eyes
pricked with dust. The room was too hot and the sunlight
streamed past the edges of the blind in dusty bars. The ar-
rival lay staring. She would close her eyes only for fugi-
tive moments. Her white face lay immobile in the dark
pool of her hair. She was trying to rest. She felt utterly
exhausted.
:: × +
After supper Coryat explained to Slade that he thought
he ought to step over and just speak to Adela—a polite call.
Of course, in the Terrill matter, there was nothing to find


CHAPTER XXVII: THE MISOGYNIST CALLS
ORYAT sat with Adela in the chequer of vineleaf
shadows. Beyond the porch the fireflies winked inces-
santly.
“It has seemed a long time to me,” he said gravely. “How
have you been?”
“I thought I could find myself,” she replied. “I think
I have made a start.”
He was silent.
“Something you've written?” he asked then.
“Yes, something I’ve written.”
“Good. By the way, I suppose you haven't heard about
the claimant to authorship of ‘The Crystal Castle'—you
remember, that story Slade tells me he told you about, that
came into The Colosseum anonymously?”
“Why, no!” Adela turned toward him sharply. The next
instant she sat upright in her long chair. A large figure
had mounted the porch steps and stood bulking out some of
the moonlight.
“Mrs. Ventress?” a deep voice said courteously. “I am
Mr. Pollock. Oh, pardon me, I didn't see—” He re-
ferred to Richard.
“Oh, Mr. Coryat?” he said peering closer. “I-I met
you this morning. You—er—a fine night isn't it?”
“Yes,” returned Coryat, who had risen. “Er—Mrs. Ven-
tress turns out to be an old acquaintance. We were-”
“An old acquaintance—mm—indeed,” said Uncle Arthur.
“But I was just passing. I merely—I will go along.”
“Oh,” said Adela, wondering, wondering. “Won't you
sit down?”
248


THE MISOGYNIST CALLS 249
“Thank you, Mrs.-er—Ventress, the uh–the fact is
—well—”
“But perhaps I am in the way?” suggested Coryat quickly.
“I—suppose I—”
“Oh, no, no indeed, not at all,—I was just passing by.
I—” He seemed inscrutably vague.
“If there is anything particular,” offered Adela, “Mr. Cor-
yat will, I'm sure, excuse us a few moments. I wanted you
to look at my garden anyway Mr. Coryat. It's rather
pretty by moonlight.”
This last was said as he stood on the steps. Taking her
hint he descended. It left Uncle Arthur decidedly uncom-
fortable, but he lowered himself into a porch chair with
something like a groan. There seemed to be nothing else
to do.
“I—uh—really,” he began. “It is—uh—I don't know
exactly.” He produced the ever-present handkerchief and
applied it to his face.
“I can help you, perhaps,” said Adela in a low tone. Her
nerves had been enough played upon this day. She was
almost at the end of her patience.
“Don’t think I am unaware,” she hurried on tensely, “of
the gossip that has recently centred around my name in this
town, for very little reason, I must say. But in coming here
I suppose I let myself in for it. But I see your point before
you have made it, Mr. Pollock. It is doing Bessie harm,
whom I know you love, and our friendship must stop. That
is what you have come to say. Well, I will spare you the
trouble. Since my name is assumed 33
“Assumed?” gasped Uncle Arthur. “Then you admit it?”
He was leaning forward, trying to see her face.
“Why, certainly. I know now you all know it.”
“Assumed?” mumbled Uncle Arthur, groping. “But then
—you are—but who are you then?”
“Do you mean to say,” returned Mrs. Ventress with some
asperity, for her nerves had been sorely tried by the day's


250 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
experience, “do you mean to tell me that you don't really
know?”
She saw Uncle Arthur's face actually pale in the moon-
light.
“You will pardon me—ah—er—but I have been seriously
wrought up—seriously wrought up. I 23
His voice gave a queer quaver. He stopped and mopped
his brow. His staring eyes never left her face. She was
sorry for him.
“Are you then? Can it be—? But it is all so—so ex-
tremely difficult to say—”
Again he paused.
“But what is it, Mr. Pollock? You alarm me.”
She was also bending forward, her eyes wide as she looked
at him.
He gathered all his resources. He made the porch chair
tremble with his agitation. He evidently braced himself.
Then the question burst from him:
“Are you Gertrude?”
“What—what—you mean you have thought—that they
have thought—”
“No one would have thought it, but there has been an
insidious scandal spread by malicious miscreants. They
have spread the rumour that you But you seem to
have expected—to have know !" -
“Well, naturally, Mr. Pollock, I have known of-of your
niece, through Bessie. Naturally I have thought it all over.
But how can you have suspected ! How could it pos-
sibly be that I–’”
“Then why is your name “Mrs. Ventress'?” asked Uncle
Arthur, point-blank.
“But my name is not Gertrude!”
“No, but it is Mrs. Ventress.”
“Why—why, now you ask me, I’m sure I don't know. I
mean, I told you it was an assumed name. Quite assumed.
It just came into my head. And what has “Ventress' to do
with it?”


252 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
upon the upon— But there is this suspicion, spread
by God knows what abominable miscreants.”
“I see,” murmured Mrs. Ventress. Her imagination hov-
ered.
Suddenly a feeling of shame overcame her. Why had
she come here? Why had she followed her impulse? How
she had managed to hurt them all, somehow, even Bessie,
Bessie, of whom she was so genuinely fond. How could
she ever really explain? It would seem to them, wouldn't
it, like such witless cruelty?
She stood silent.
“Mr. Pollock,” she cried then impulsively. “Won't you
believe that I am telling you the truth, even if I can't tell
you the whole truth. Won't you believe that I am not—
not your niece. I am not. And I will explain. But—but
I can't just yet. Won't you trust me?”
“If I could understand that name—” Uncle Arthur
muttered in the shadow. “If I could understand that
name—”
“But I don't know where I got it!” cried Adela agitatedly.
Coryat's figure glimmered out of the garden. He came up
to the steps. The raised voices had made him return.
“Mr. Coryat,” she turned to him on impulse. “Please
come up here. You know who I am. Tell him! Tell him
the truth !”
It was absurd and impossible to hope to keep that a secret
any longer.


256 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
full second later, as he halted, brushing a hand over his
eyes, he heard a faint splash.
“Bess!” he cried, and before his mind could catch up, his
feet had started running.
His heart thumped as he ran. He heard Bessie's foot-
fall behind him and the swish of her skirt.
“What is it, Slade?”
He was at the parapet, leaning over.
“Dunno. It's—there's—”
In a flash he remembered from boyhood. The river was
deep under the bridge.
“Slade!” As he wrenched off his coat, poised in white
flannel trousers and white shirt, he heard her behind him.
His knees bent. His sneakers gripped the parapet. By the
moonlight he saw the blot moving in the water below.
It was a pretty dive. Slade had always been a pretty
swimmer.
It was the longest three seconds of Bessie's life.
His hand flashed up in the moonlight to reassure her.
He and whoever it was were struggling. She saw the heads
together, an arm up. They disappeared in a splatter of sil-
ver. They bobbed up again. Silver began to trail. Slade
was towing for the right bank.
Bessie was down through brush and brambles at the edge
of the road. Her foot turned on a sliding stone. She was
up again, her dress torn, panting. She was jumping ac-
curately from rubble to turf, stooping under a low-swung
branch, out by the water.
The dark heads moved in slowly, one dim blot. She
could hear Slade's laboured breathing. A gulp. He was
towing backward, swimming on his back. They were nearer.
Bessie, careless of white shoes, was splashing into the shal-
lows. -
Her arm was under the back of the limp wet thing. The
head rolled over, sagging in its soggy hair. Slade was
threshing to his knees, to his feet, his skin showed pink
through his soaked clinging shirt. Her dragging feet scored


A REVELATION AND A RESCUE 257.
the gravel, as they lifted her. Slade was standing over her,
moving her arms up and down, up and down. “Thank God,”
gasping, “there's a log.”
It was not needed. Horrible as some details seemed,
ghastly as the face was, the eyes finally opened, staring at
nothing. The teeth thinly rattled. “Ooo!” moaned Bessie.
“She's shivering,” said Slade. “She’s soaked.” He saw
his coat in Bessie's hand and, lifting the woman, got it around
her shoulders. “We must get her up to the house.”
There was a faint ripple of boards from the bridge above.
“Hey!” shouted Slade. “Hey! Got a car?”
“What?” yelled a voice back.
“Quick!” shouted Slade. “Come down here!”
“What is it?” A form appeared at the parapet.
“Woman tried to drown herself. Can you drive us?
Come down and help lift her, will you?”
“Sure. Wait a minute.”
It turned out to be young Wilder in the farm Ford. He
had a flask, too. The two young men staggered up the bank
with the inert but breathing woman. Bessie picked her way,
following.
The woman leaned helplessly against Slade's shoulder in
the Ford. Bessie chafed one hand and arm, clammy as wet
seaweed. The engine was running. The car jerked for-
ward. There was a rasp of gears.
“Yeah, better drive her right up to Dr. Gedney's,” said
Slade. The Wilder boy was excited, but he drove carefully.
The woman's eyelids fluttered and fluttered. Her breath
came fluttering.
y
:: #: ×
Dr. Gedney had been alone in his study, reading under
his green-shaded drop-light. Finally he had glanced up from
the volume of Voltaire's General History lying before him.
He had been renewing his acquaintance with Scanderbeg of
Albania. There was full moonlight in the side yard. The


A REVELATION AND A RESCUE 259
light of the Ford. It was drawn up in the gutter with throb-
bing engine.
By the time Uncle Arthur, Coryat and Mrs. Ventress ar-
rived on the spot, someone had been hurriedly carried up the
porch-steps by Slade and the Wilder boy. Bessie explained
to them breathlessly. Mrs. Ventress followed her into the
house and upstairs.
“Run around on Sycamore and ask Mrs. Harris if she'll
come over. Tell her it's an emergency. Tell her Arthur
Pollock is asking,” said Uncle Arthur to the somewhat dazed
driver of the car as he descended again from the upper floor.
“She’ll come. We'll need her. Then—I’ll be mightily grate-
ful—will you go for Dr. John?”
“My land,” said Mrs. Harris. Then “No need to explain.
Here; that's all right. Door didn't snap, that's all. I’m in.”
She paused for nothing, not even for her hat.
Dr. John Cornelius might not believe in the world state, but
he was at the Gedney house within fifteen minutes.
Mrs. Ventress was sitting by the bedside upstairs. She
had been displaying great practicality. Slade had insisted
that it be his room, properly the spare-room. Mrs. Harris
was moving about efficiently. Bessie hovered.
In the long living-room below the four men stepped about
awkwardly over each other's feet, gathered near the fire-
place. They conversed in low voices.
After some waiting, the stairs creaked. Dr. John Cor-
nelius said from the doorway, “She's all right. Exhausted,
that's all. Nothing's been found to identify her. She's been
conscious but too dazed to talk. A little out of her head too.
Let her sleep, that's all.”
Slade had immediately been bundled away to change. He
was now clothed dryly, though not altogether in his right
mind.
“My nephew, Doctor,” said Dr. Gedney. Dr. John shook
hands with Slade.
“Quick work,” he said dryly. “That lady owes you her
life, eh? (He winked.) No need to notify anyone Gedney.


258 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
twisted old apple-tree writhed dark, pooling shadow. Did
something move beneath it? He distinctly saw something
move. The window was open. He called, “Bessie!”
A form had detached itself, had made indistinctly across
the yard to the street. Somebody. He could not see accu-
rately. “Who is it?” he had called in his high mild voice.
Whoever it was had disappeared. He went out into the hall,
out on the porch. He went down the porch steps, down the
path to the gate. He had looked up and down Poplar Street.
Nobody. The branching elms were thick and shady down
Poplar Street. Perhaps that was why it was called Poplar
Street. There was a street lamp five yards off—beyond that,
thickening shadow. Could that be someone moving, far off?
Still. “Funny,” Dr. Gedney had mused.
“Some boy playing tricks,” Dr. Gedney had decided,
mounting the steps.
* × *:
Coryat had finished his explanation. Mrs. Ventress had
finished her addenda. Uncle Arthur was finished.
The rushing rattle of a car came up the Farm Road. It
slowed, slurred, rasped, rattled into the Axter Road. Coryat
turned on the steps. Adela stood distinct in the moonlight.
She heard a voice call something beyond the hedge, as the
car volleyed past, swaying in a rut. Had it been Bessie's
voice?
“What's that?” asked Uncle Arthur, lumbering up. Cor-
yat had run down to the gate. “They're turning into Pop-
lar. Someone called to us, didn't they?”
“I thought it sounded like Bessie,” answered Adela, be-
wildered.
“Let's—” began Coryat. But crises are felt, not talked
about. They were all three out of the gate and moving to-
ward the Poplar Street corner before they realised they had
acted at all. Looking from the corner they saw by the nearby
lamp a group of figures near the Gedney gate. The tail-


A REVELATION AND A RESCUE 259
light of the Ford. It was drawn up in the gutter with throb-
bing engine.
By the time Uncle Arthur, Coryat and Mrs. Ventress ar-
rived on the spot, someone had been hurriedly carried up the
porch-steps by Slade and the Wilder boy. Bessie explained
to them breathlessly. Mrs. Ventress followed her into the
house and upstairs.
“Run around on Sycamore and ask Mrs. Harris if she'll
come over. Tell her it's an emergency. Tell her Arthur
Pollock is asking,” said Uncle Arthur to the somewhat dazed
driver of the car as he descended again from the upper floor.
“She’ll come. We'll need her. Then—I’ll be mightily grate-
ful—will you go for Dr. John?”
“My land,” said Mrs. Harris. Then “No need to explain.
Here; that's all right. Door didn't snap, that's all. I'm in.”
She paused for nothing, not even for her hat.
Dr. John Cornelius might not believe in the world state, but
he was at the Gedney house within fifteen minutes.
Mrs. Ventress was sitting by the bedside upstairs. She
had been displaying great practicality. Slade had insisted
that it be his room, properly the spare-room. Mrs. Harris
was moving about efficiently. Bessie hovered.
In the long living-room below the four men stepped about
awkwardly over each other's feet, gathered near the fire-
place. They conversed in low voices.
After some waiting, the stairs creaked. Dr. John Cor-
nelius said from the doorway, “She's all right. Exhausted,
that's all. Nothing's been found to identify her. She's been
conscious but too dazed to talk. A little out of her head too.
Let her sleep, that's all.”
Slade had immediately been bundled away to change. He
was now clothed dryly, though not altogether in his right
mind.
“My nephew, Doctor,” said Dr. Gedney. Dr. John shook
hands with Slade.
“Quick work,” he said dryly. “That lady owes you her
life, eh? (He winked.) No need to notify anyone Gedney.


CHAPTER XXIX: MISS ANN COLE AGAIN
OU didn't see her?” Uncle Arthur turned to Dr. Ged-
ney.
“Just a bare glimpse. A white face. Closed eyes.”
“There's something fine about her face,” said Slade. “She
seems awfully frail, though. I hope the shoc yy
“Well, Dr. John seems to think it's all right,” returned
his bulky uncle.
“I know. But you can’t tell.”
“I suppose there's no use going up?” asked Dr. Gedney
nervously. “I—I don't think we should make Mrs. Ven-
tress—”
“I don't think she should have any worry about this,
either,’ said Slade quickly. “I’ll go up and see if I can't
persuade her—”
He went out of the door.
“You may set your mind at rest about one thing, Charles,”
said Uncle Arthur. “About Mrs. Ventress. Mr. Coryat
and I 22
They heard Slade's voice overhead. The shutting of a
door. The murmuring of voices. Uncle Arthur began to
explain what he meant.
“So you see,” he concluded, “we have all been under a
grave misapprehension. She still doesn't know how the
name—but really, I—er—er—I—somehow I feel as though
we owed her an apology.”
They heard a woman's step, and a heavier one, coming
downstairs.
“I’m taking Mrs. Ventress home,” said Slade in the door-
way.
“Good night, Doctor. She's sleeping quietly,” said Adela's
26I


262 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
own voice at Slade's shoulder. All three men moved for-
ward. Mrs. Ventress nodded and said good night. Dr.
Gedney accompanied her and Slade through the screen door
out onto the porch. Under the porch light she knew his eyes
upon her. She gazed back at him frankly, sadly, sympathis-
ing. He extended his hand.
“Good night, Mrs.-Mrs. Ventress,” said the Doctor rust-
lingly. “You have been extremely kind. I feel that we owe
you an apology—especially for the for these—for the atti-
tude of the town.”
Certainly one should never have distrusted her eyes. Well,
he had not.
“No,” she said slowly. “In some ways I have been at
fault, myself, I think. I can understand Mr. Pollock's agita-
tion, anyway. I feel—you know how I must feel about this
other—rumor—do you not?”
He bowed, courteously.
“I am so sorry,” she said gravely. She shook his hand.
“I should have known anyway,” he said to his brother-in-
law and Coryat, when he had returned to the living-room.
He shook his head slowly.
They were speculating on who the woman upstairs might
be, when there was a step outside on the porch.
“The constable?” wondered Uncle Arthur, with his usual
flair for the dramatic. But it was Mr. James White, pro-
prietor of the Conestoga House.
“How'r’ye, Doctor? Met Doctor Cornelius. Tells me you
got a woman here rescued from the river. My clerk tells
me there's a woman came in to-day on the three o'clock, got
a room, had supper at the hotel, went out soon after supper.
Stranger. Ain't back yet. It's—” he glanced at his watch.
All had completely forgotten the time. “It’s a quarter to
twelve. Course she may come in. He didn't know who she
was, had only a suitcase. Didn't explain herself though she
paid fer the room. He don't know where she went. I'm
going on home. Told the night clerk to watch out for her.
If she don't come in we'll give you a ring in the morning.


CHAPTER XXX: SLADE FACES THE INCREDI-
BLE
HE Doctor kissed his daughter and passed into his own
room. Bessie suddenly knuckled her forehead and flew
downstairs.
“Slade!” she called softly, outside the closed sitting-room
door. It opened wide.
“What is it, Bess? I'm making up the sofa here. I’m
going to sleep down here. I was going upstairs to see if I
could get my pajamas.”
Bessie had entered the living-room, where the light still
burned.
“Oh, Sladeſ” she cried almost tearfully. He had dragged
the sofa over nearer the largest window, which was wide
open and screened. He had left one sofa pillow on it. The
others remained on the floor where the sofa once had been.
“Oh, Slade, you're not going to sleep that way, you silly
goop!”
“Sure, why not?” he asked, running one hand through his
disordered hair. “I did think of a sheet—but we only had
blankets in the army!”
“You just wait a minute . . . you silly goop !” dimin-
uendoed her voice from the hall. She went lightly upstairs
and, in an incredibly short time, returned. She brought a
pair of neatly folded sheets and a pillow which she held in
her teeth as she shook it into a clean slip. He stepped for-
ward to help her, but in a moment she had the sofa meta-
morphosed into a bed. “There!” said Bessie, triumphantly.
“It's a darn shame of them to leave you to sleep down
here. Why didn't Mr. Coryat-P"
“Oh, but, Bess! He's a guest.”
266


268 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
Everything was changed? They couldn't be the same peo-
ple! How could they? How the deuce was it? He would
be afraid ever even to touch her again. She was so fragile,
so delicate, ethereal. . . . She was—inexpressible!
The young gentleman in love sat down by the window.
He sat there without stirring and without closing his eyes
until four o'clock in the morning. All this time he held an
unlit cigarette in his hand.


CHAPTER XXXI: 'ADELATHINKS IT OVER
RS. VENTRESS also sat by her window, her bedroom
window, till the small clock on her bureau thinly
chimed twice. She had almost begun to doubt her own
identity. As she had mounted to her room, heartily glad
for Slade and Bessie, her mind had flashed back to Coryat
and the point in their earlier conversation when they had
been interrupted by Uncle Arthur.
She knew now, from what he had said later, about this
Miss Ann Cole having called at The Colosseum. But she
wondered whether he could possibly have thought that she,
Adela, had—what?—had been that mysterious claimant of
the authorship of “The Crystal Castle”? He had been specu-
lating after she told him she had written something down
here. If he had dared to think But she dismissed the
idea. Still, Uncle Arthur had believed her, for some min-
utes, she was sure, to be Gertrude Gedney. And that was
what the town certainly believed, now. She wondered after
all just who she really was, as she put it to herself in intimate
amusement. She was most certainly not Adela Ventress!
Ah, that was indeed the mystery! A phrase from Coryat's
conversation floated strangely into her mind. “The proper
expression of personality—the first person singular.” And
again, “I want people—not types.” Well! Her lip curled.
She had expressed her personality, with a vengeance. Then
she had tried to run away from it—and people had dis-
trusted her. She had found them, the people—the real peo-
ple. People who distrusted her. People with the most child-
ish suspicions. Singular enough, certainly' Singular, the
whole situation!
No, that was too bitter. Dr. Gedney, Bessie, Slade, had
269


272 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
orandum of implicit tragedy had held her eye. Turning
many pages in a reverie she found herself again at the list
of heat prostrations for that memorable day in July. Her
eye had carelessly strayed down it. She remembered now—
why, she remembered that she had been attracted by an odd
name in it—a man's name, one that struck her mind with a
queer euphony. . . .
Could it be possible?
She believed—that—that was it! The name. Why, she
believed it had been “Roger Ventress”. Now she put her
hands to her head and concentrated. Deep lines came be-
tween her brows. She concentrated with all her power.
“Overcome at Wall and William Streets; Hudson Street,”
the accompanying text, from somewhere, floated back into
her consciousness. All the hospitals to which the sufferers
from heat collapse were taken were so listed.
So that was how she had unconsciously concocted that
name of hers'
The “Adela” though? Adela. Adela. She could not ac-
count for it. It must merely have been that same author's
feeling for names of a queer euphony. . . . She remembered
having used the name for two separate characters in several
of her novels. She had always rather fancied it.
Well, it was certainly a night for revelations!
She leaned her forehead against the window-frame, en-
veloped by the thick August darkness that flowed in upon
her, with the heavy scent of flowers and the tiny sawing
underhum of insects.
She felt the faint throb of a coming headache. She had
felt it that morning at the library, she remembered, after
having turned over all those pages. She had leaned back
uncomfortably and put her hands to her blurring eyes. Her
novelist's imagination had conjured up the picture of a slim
figure hurrying through hot fields to the squat brown build-
ing of a junction station. Gertrude Gedney, running away.
Why? Tupton. Gertrude Gedney. “She is of average
height, with brown hair and brown eyes.” How serviceable!


CHAPTER XXXII: AWAKENING
T was four hours later that the woman in Slade's room
upstairs stirred and sat up. Mrs. Harris sat humped in
the big rocker, snoring gently. The pale woman in the bed
felt wonderingly of her dark hair, so carefully and neatly
braided. She put one hand over her forehead. She looked
around the room rather wildly. She did not at all under-
stand. What was this room, where was this house, who was
this woman?
Mrs. Harris opened one eye. She blinked sleepily. Then
she gave a prodigious sigh.
“Awake, dearie?” asked Mrs. Harris. “Better go to sleep
again now. There!”
“Where am I ?”
“You’re safe, dearie. You're all right. It's so early yet.
You get your sleep out.”
“But—but—I don't—don't want sleep. I want—where
am I ?”
“Well, now, dearie, you know—something—er—hap-
pened.”
The woman in the bed stared at her. Slowly something
dawned in her eyes. On an indrawn breath, a desperate
shivering sobbing began to shake her. Her right hand
clenched, went to her mouth. She continued to stare at Mrs.
Harris and to sob convulsively.
“There, there,” said Mrs. Harris, stirred to her depths.
She was by the woman's side, her stout arm about the shaken
shoulders. “There, there, dearie. It's all right.”
“Oh–oh—oh–o-oh!” desperately sobbed the woman.
“Does it come back to you, dearie, -does it come back?
Well, don't you mind now, don't you mind!”
275


278 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
against the door-frame. Her eyes were tearful, her voice,
when she tried to speak, husky.
“Father, finish quickly; go in there. It's someone, some-
one. Oh, father—”
She grasped his arms and the towel and clung to them.
He was surprised, embarrassed, he paled.
“Listen, father. It's nothing terrible. Don't worry. Only
I'm so glad, so glad!”
She was crying in his arms, quivering, quivering all over.
“Bess, my darling, what is it? Tell me, tell me?”
“It's, it's, it's, oh, it's Gertrude, father, Gertrude come
home !”
× × ×
Slade sat up. Someone was rapping on the door.
“Ye-es?” sleepily.
“Slade ſ”
“Yes, yes indeed, one moment!”
He threw his wrapper around him.
“Slade, who do you think it is? Oh, Sladel”
He also was enveloped in an embrace. His head swam.
“Who is What? What? What?”
“Oh, Slade,” Bessie said, as quickly releasing him in a
wave of shyness, and standing away. “I couldn't help that.
I'm wild this morning—wild and happy. It isn't any of your
Miss Coles at all, you great silly! It isn't. You don't know.
You couldn't guess—”
“Angel, what are you talking about?”
“It's Gertrude, Gertrude, Gertrude! What do you think
of it? Just what do you?”
× iſ: ×
But of course, it was Miss Cole. It was, to be exact, Miss
Ann Cole of Jenison Place, New York City. It was there-
fore bound to be the lady who had called at The Colosseum
office. That had come out and been discussed before and


280 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
finally been soothed off. The other inhabitants of the house-
hold moved about on tiptoe. Annie in the kitchen was com-
pletely bewildered. She wondered how she had managed to
get through the dishes.
× Mk x
Bessie stayed at Mrs. Ventress's a full hour. She had
left Gertrude sleeping. Within that hour Adela had ex-
plained to her what she and Coryat had already made quite
clear to Uncle Arthur. There was also talk about Slade on
Bessie's part—and the truth came out. Over and above that
Bessie and Adela put their heads together about this Miss
Ann Cole complication. Bessie's opinion of Coryat in this
connection, with regard to his suspicion, if any, of Mrs.
Ventress, was that, if that were so, he was most certainly
insufferable. As to Gertrude—that was, of course, the news
Bessie had burst in with.
But one thing was evident, Gertrude, as Miss Ann Cole,
had told the editor of The Colosseum that she was also
Richard Terrill. Coryat, on the Gedney porch, racked his
brains over this until he simply gave it up. Uncle Arthur,
puffingly rocking beside him, had no interest in that side of
the situation; his mind was completely occupied with one
cataclysmic fact. “So Gertrude has come back!” he kept
repeating.
The proprietor of the Conestoga House found him dis-
trait, simply asseverating that it was Miss Cole, that the pa-
tient herself had admitted it, and that she would most cer-
tainly remain at Dr. Gedney's for the present. Her bag
could be sent up. (Dr. Gedney had not wanted the real
truth known just yet.)
× × ×
“I was going to be very angry with you,” said Mrs. Ven-
tress, frankly humorous, to Richard Coryat, when he ap-
peared about eleven, having been able to offer no distraction
to Uncle Arthur's incessant rocking and groaning, and hav-


286 THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR
come back to you to really help. . . . And of course—oh,
Father, you will know, anyway, how unhappy I have been!”
“I know, I know,” he said huskily. “My dear, dear child!”
“Well, that's it. Then I did get a magazine interested in
a story that had gone begging. But some one found out that
it was like ‘Golden Windfall'—that had been my novel—
how they knew it over here I can't imagine!—and so I
couldn't convince the editor I'd written it. You see, he
wanted proofs that I was Richard Terrill. And I hadn't any
real proofs—except a copy of the book—which was no proof
at all. . . . The firm failed long ago, and one of the original
publishers is dead, and one—I don't know where—and I
hadn't kept my contract or royalty statement. . . . There
was only one small royalty—ever. . . . And so they thought I
was a liar, and I didn't see any real way of convincing them
I wasn't . . . at least for a long while. . . . It was the
only thing I'd ever written under the name of Terrill,
‘Golden Windfall.” . . . Well. . . . So there it was. . . .
And then, of course, there was something else—something
else that—that—well, another thing that had hurt me awfully.
. . . So I thought I'd crawl back here. I even stole up to
the house, last night—before. . . . Oh, it was sentimental
and cowardly—but—I’ve been strange to myself for
months. Everything has just seemed . . . at an end. And
now you see the irony—of it all!”
Her voice died out. Her profile, with locked lips, was
white and grim. Her eyes stared brightly at the wall. It
scared Dr. Gedney, but it was a full moment before he could
speak. Then he began to reassure her slowly, calmly, quietly,
with infinite tenderness. Her eyes never left his face.
Fragmentarily Slade gathered the story after supper,
partly from Dr. Gedney's jerky remarks, partly from Bessie,
on the long walk they took out the Axter Road. Mrs. Ven-
tress had called in the afternoon, when Dr. Gedney was with
his daughter. Coryat gathered little from the Doctor that
evening. Uncle Arthur came over for a little while. The
three men sat and talked, mostly of other things.


THE PERPLEXITY OF BEING A CROWD 291
“Oh, you bet I do! Isn't something pretty real to us too?
Listen!”
They could hear the voices still murmuring on the floor
above. '
“What I’m really worrying about,” said Slade twinkling,
“is how this is going to hit Uncle Arthur. Honestly I don't
believe Uncle Arthur will be able to assimilate much more
of this without a stroke.”
When Coryat came down, looking dazed and yet strangely
smiling, Slade repeated this to him, after the first fitting re-
marks had been made. It was appreciated.
“I’m taking my bag down to the Conestoga House, as I'll
be staying on till Jane—uh, well,—I mean Gertrude, I sup-
pose—gets absolutely well.”
“But look here, Richard,” said Slade, “You don't mind
do you—since you—since it—”
“I wish you wouldn't refer to my fiancée as It,” returned
Richard.
Slade blushed. “Well, I mean—didn't Gertrude—well,
long ago—tell you anything about—about us—I mean, about
her—her family?”
Coryat shook his head.
“She told me—do you know?—of her marriage,” he said
in a low voice. “And she would have told me But she
only mentioned the man's name once to me, as I remember.
I told her not to tell me anything if it hurt her. But now
you see, that was the name I was trying to remember. She
was always Jane, to me—Jane Bartlett. But when you said
‘Mrs. Ventress', it worried me—it worried me. I couldn't
really remember, and yet I remembered dimly.”
Later, when the conversation took a lighter turn, Slade
took hold of Coryat's arm.
“Richard, don't—don't think I’m,--well, inopportunely
jocular; but I had forgotten the ‘Mrs. Ventress', and now—
she's going to change her name again. Do you see what I
mean. It really is extraordinary when you stop to think of


FINALLY, THE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR 297
never have guessed, would you, that I had written, so much
of—that l”
She touched the volume on Gertrude's lap lightly, with her
forefinger.
Gertrude laughed.
“But I’m not going to let you run down your work this
way. I’m sure there's a lot of remarkable writing in
this—”
Flora shook her head violently.
Gertrude went on.
“I knew your name of course. Who doesn't. But I cer-
tainly never thought I'd meet you. And now you say my
book had all this influence. It's very strange. And so you
sent the poor movie man away? I somehow feel rather
sorry for him.” -
“So did I. Poor Mr. Seelye. But imagine his ferreting
me out like that! He admitted he got the information
through a stenographer in the office of my publishers, a girl
he happened to know, who blabbed. Anyway, I gave him
some supper. It was rather pathetic the way he talked and
talked and tried to convince me.”
“Well, to think,” said Gertrude dreamily, “that I could
ever any help to anyone. Do you think,” naively, “that I'm
very bad, Flora?”
“I think you're perfectly wonderful!'
“I don't. I’m pretty bad. Pretty selfish. Pretty—oh,
but it is all right now. With Richard.”
Flora looked up and away. She did not answer. Not that
she was thinking of Coryat. She was thinking of Lawrence,
Ethel Aspern's brother. She was thinking. . . .
“Jane,” she said then. “You know I think ‘Jane’ really
suits you far better than “Gertrude' —Jane, I want to tell
you something. I've never—told it—”
“If you want to, Flora. You know you can trust me.”
“I know. Jane, you—you silly darling you ask me if
I think you're bad. You! Do you think I’m bad? That's






THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA CRUZ
This book is due on the last DATE stamped below.
100m-8,'65 (F6282s8)2373
Then ATNRLF