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Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mathode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 WICtOCOTY nSOUJTKm TBT CHA>T (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2) l£ U£ , LEI ta il^^H u Hi. N^ lil u bs |2.0 ll _^ /■APPLIED IM/lGE ^^ )653 East Main Street "•.JS Rochester, New York 1*609 US, •-^ (?'6) *a2 - OJOO - Phone ^S (^'6) 288 - 5989 - Fox j fnc HIGH HFART -■■•■ fflW 7- -^, -9 / ■I'VE BEEN THINKING A GOOD DEAL DURING THE PAST FEW WEEKS OR YOUR LAW OF TaGHT " n THE HIGH HEART BY BASIL KING ADTHOK OF THE INNER SHRINE, THE LIFTED VEIL. Eic. ILLUSTRATED GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS * NEW VO^K PablUhed bjr A»,.a,.».„, wi,|, H.,p„ » B,„i,; f^^S3SU/ 259015 1^ Hna Run £°Wli|lit, wi». br HMper & Bndm Printed In the United Sutee of Ameiic. PnblMied September, m; THE HIGH HEART CHAPTER I I COULD not have lived in the Brokenshire circle for nearly a year without lecognizing the fact that in the eyes of his family J. Howard, as he was commonly called by the world, was the Great Dispenser; but my first inti- mation that he meant to act in that capacity towaid me camef'&om Larry Strangways, on a bright July morning dining the summer of 1913, when we were at Newport. I was crossing the lawn, going toward the sea, with little Gladys Rossiter, to whom I acted as companion in the hours when she was out of the nursery, with a specific duty to speak French. Larry Strangwajrs was tutor to th" Rossiter boy, and in our relative positions we were bound to exercise toward each other a good deal of discretion. We fraternized with constraint. We fraternized because — well, chiefly because we couldn't help it. In the mock- ing flare of his eye, which contradicted the assumed young gravity of his manner, I read an opinion of the Rossiter household and of the Brokenshire family in general similar to my own. That would have been enough for mutual comprehension had there been no instinctive sympathies between us; but there were. Allowing for the fact that we were of different nationalities, we had the same kind of THE HIGH HEART IT^^'J" T"; '^' '^« ^""^ °f *^ language- Z^ the same kind of aims in life. Neither of m ^' ganfed the position in the Rossiter establish^-nf whSmT'^'^- ^^*^°«y^asthecontinentt,3 wluch more or «s consciously I had been traveling fo7fl^ w s« years, without having actuaUy descried a r^ t S^en'ZSL' "^^ '^'^^ - «"'' St wS had t^ pkce be^een myself and Mrs. Rossiter after I S I had met Mrs. Rossiter, who was J. Howard B«,t«, n^ understood why she should have taken a hm^ for bHck man^oTltd Wn^^S^mriifTwlth^g^^J conservatories and lawns running down to t^H, br^k-harbor which we call the Non W L Ljf fi^: to our recent bereavement and financial crash, which had ^rlZ-'^l f *^ twenty-four years of comfortTiat ^ proportionately ^^teful. It was partly grati;.? ^" THE HIGH HEART partly a natural love of children, and partly a special affection for the exquisite thing herself, that drew me to htUe Gladys Rossiter, to playing with her on the lawns and rowing her on the Arm. and-as I had been for thre^ or four years at school in Paris-dropping into a habit of hsping French to her. As the child liked me the mother left tax more and more to my care, gaming thus the greater scope for her innocuous flirtations. It was toward the end of the summer that Mrs. Rossiter began to sigh, " I don't know how I shaU ever tear Gladys away from you." and, "I do wish you were coming witix us. I wi^ it in a way myself, since I was rather at a loss astowhattodo. I had never expected to have to earn a living; I had expected to get married. My two elder astCTs, Louise and Victoria, had married easfly enough the one m the Navy, the other in the Army; but with me ^t- ors seemed to lag. They came and saw— but they never went far enough for conquest. I couldn't understand it I was not stupid; I was not ugly; and I was generally spoken of as having „xarm. But there was the fact that I was twenty. four, with scarcely a penny, and drawing- nearer and nearer to the end of my expedients. I was not without some social experience, having kept house in a generous way for my widowed father, till his death some two years before th = summer when I met Mrs. Rossiter, brought with it our financial collapse. If he hadn't left a lot of old bodks-Ccnadiana, the pamphlets were called— and rare first editions of all kinds, which I took over to London and sold at Sothbey's, I shouldn't have had enough on which to dress. This business being settled, I stayed M long as I decently could with Louise at Southsea and Victoria at Gibraltar; but no man asked me to marry him 3 R I THE HIGH HEART Axring the course of either visit. Had there been a sisn of any such posMWUty the sisters would have put them- selves out to keep me; but as nothing warranted them in domg so they let me go. An unde and aunt having offered to give me shelter for a time at Halifax, there was nothing left for It but to go back and renew the search for my for- tunes m my native town. When, therefore, Mrs. Rossiter, in her pretty, helpless way said to me one day. "Why shouldn't you come ^th me, dear Mi^ Adare?" I jumped inwardly at the oppor- tumty though I aniled and replied in an offhand mZ^. un, that would have to be discussed." Mrs Rossiter admitted the truth'of this observation somewhat pensively. I know now that I took her uo with too much promptitude. "Yes, of course," she returned, absenuy. and the subject was dropped. It was taken up again, however, and our bargain made On Mrs. Rossiter's part it was made astutely, not in the matter of money, but in the way in which she shifted me from the position of a friend into that of a retainer It WM done with the most perfect tact, but it was done I had no complaint to make. What she wanted was a nura- ery governMs. My own first preoccupations were food and shelter for which I should not be dependent on my kin We .ame to the incident I am about to relate very gradu- ally ; but when we did come to it I had no difficulty in see- ing that It had been in the back of Mrs. Rossiter's mind from the first. It had been the cause of that second thought on the day when I had taken her up too readily She began by telling me about her father. Beyond the lact that some man who seemed to be speciaUy weU in- tormed would occasionaUy say with awe. " She's J. Howard 4 THE HIGH HEART BrolceiuhiK's daughter," I knew nothing whatever about him. But I began to see him now as the central sun round whom all the Brokenshires revolved. They revolved round him, not ••o much from adoration or even from natural afiCection as from some tremendous rotary force to which there was no resistance. Up to this time I had heard no more of American life than American life had heard of me. The great country south of our border was scarcely on my map. The Halifax in whirJi I was bom and grew up was not the bustling Canadian port, dependent on its hinterland, it is to-day; it was an outpost of England, with its face always turned to the Atlantic and the east. My own face had been turned the same way. My home had been literally a jumping-ofi place, in that when we left it we never expected to go in any but the one direction. I had known Ameri- cans when they came into our midst as summer visitors, but only in the way one knows the stars which dawn and fade and leave no trace of their passage on actual happen- ings. In the course of Mrs. Rossiter's confidences I began to see a vast cosmogony beyond my own personal sun, with J. Howard Brokenshire as the pivot of the new universe. With a curious little shock of surprise I discovered that there could be otjier solar ssrstems besides the one to which I was accustomed, and that Canada was not the whole of North America. It was like looking through a telescope which Mrs. Rossiter held to my eye, a telescope through which I saw the nebular evidence of an immense society, wealthy, confused, more intellectual than our own, but more provincial too, perhaps; more isolated, more timid, more conservative, less instinct with the great throb of national and international impulse which all of us feel who 5 THE HIGH HEART ■entea the opportunities not merely of a T ;t,„ 7 ^ St«>ley, b^t of a Galileo or a ^L!!.'^""^'""' " » 1 learned that Mrs. Rossiter's mother had h*«, . w that her father's secc^fLLS^lt^n^Tri^f J" family. Not that there had b^^^^ dj^^" ^' ^»f; -1 -H 7= very pretty ... but 1 often-wonder^ 6 THE HIGH HEART I was helping her to pack— that is, I was hdping the maid while Mrs. Rossiter directed. Just at that minute, however, she was standing up, shaking out the folds of an evening dress. She se«aned to peep at me round its gar- nishings as she said, apropos of nothing: "There's my brother Hugh. He's the youngest of us all— just twenty-six. He has no occupation as yet— he's just studying languages and things. My father wants him to go into diplomacy." As I caught her eye there was a smile in it, but a special kind of smile. It was the smile to go with the sensible, kindly, coaxing inflection with which she said, " You'U leave him alone, won't you?" I took the dress out of her hand to carry it to the maid in the next room. " Leave him alone— how ?" She flushed to a lovely pink. "Oh, you know what I mean. I don't have to explain." "You mean that in my position in the household it will be for me to — ^ta keep out of his way?" II It's you who put it like that, dear Miss Adaie— " "But it's the way you want me to put it?" "Well, if I admit that it is?" "Then I don't think I care for the place." "What?" I stated my position more simply. "If I'm to have nothing to do with your brother, Mrs Rossiter, I don't Iraat to go." In the audacity of this response she saw something that amused her, for, snatching the dress from my hand, she ran with it into the next room, laug.iing. During the following winter in New York and the eariy summer of the next year in Newport I saw a good deal of Mr. Hugh Brokenshire, but never with any violent restrio- ' 7 THE HIGH HEART «« on the part of Mn. R«wter. I «y violent wJfi. ana that was from Larry Strani?wav« Tf „» "^ " °"> tion he had overh«^inST«J J o °'^'*^ Fortified by this acquittal I went An m„ ™» andcoineinmvdirprt,n„ ^"^ «»»«« across the lawn give him the authorization but something in the wIvTn message or command t« ,11 u ^^'' "^^ ^ * ne to avoid ham while prudence, as I have hinted gave l>«n the same mdic^tion to keep at a distance S»^ 8 THE HIGH HEART Lucidly be didn't live in the houie, but in lodgings in the town. We hardly ever met face to face, and then only under the eye of Mrs. Roanter when each of us mar- shaled a pupil to lunch or to tea. As the collie at his heels and the wire-haired terrier at OUTS made a bee-line for each other the children kept them company, which gave us space for those few minutes of privacy the occasion apparently demanded. Though he lifted his hat formally, and did his best to preserve the decorum of our official situations, the prank in his eye flung out that signal to which I could never do anything but respond. " I've a message for you, Miss Adare." I managed to stammer out the word "Indeed?" I couldn't be surprised, and yet I could hardly stand erect from fear. He glanced at the children to make sure they were out of earshot. "It's from the great man himself— indirectly." I was so near to collapse that I could only say, " Indeed?" again, though I rallied sufficiently to add, "I didn't know he was aware of my existence." . "Apparently he wasn't — ^but he is now. He desires you — ^I give you the verb as Spellman, the secretary, passed it on to me— he desires you to be in the breakfast loggia here at three this aftemoori." I could barely squeak the words out : "Does he mean that he's coming to see me?" "That, it seems, isn't necessary for you to know. Your business is to be there. There's quite a subtle point in the limitation. Being there, you'll see what will happen next It isn't good for you to be told too much at a time." My spirit began to revive. 9 THE HIGH HEART W« lervant. I'm Mr.. Rowter-g. If h. -W c< ». why doe«,-t he ^yZ> tZ^ "I'm nr want! Ml her?" But he's not God." "Oh, as to that— -well vou'll «>. •• tt j j . !i?ht laugh. "Wl^TS'S^ J^rit I dc^f^ '^'^ '^ it s all about?" y™ w that I doa t know what "Oh, I bet you do." I Ss'°^tSr"™'^" "^''* "P '"^"t it." .. ^ P'ttMK on my mettle. "N?T.' '"T^' I *«'a't be alone." "fiin^S^ be made to feel alone." l^Uhi itr.^^ "^ ^ ^«-« beforehand, I ''Yes?" he jogged. "Even so-what?" -«2t is^-^fl^^r. -- "-t i:« -t afraid of him toUy., «»«cted, Ifflnotafraidofhimfundamen- °^me. "No. lS.S:^^7^-=-»«J to approve why not." ""*^y°^i are. out I wonder a little the islets that ^JZe^tS^l^""' ""' "" *° end r decided to speak ^b^T^.^ *' ^"'°"- ^^ the I-Jatlast. "bS^rr^tai^SJ^f^"^^-" SToii mean him?" ^^ -L'"lZ.'^';;^*Jl"*° .«"«•> Br^kenshir.. "KI ' '^''^' ^^ » '»«'«te's thinking, "it's only THE HIGH HEART M the greater includes the len, or u the univenal indudes everything. He whittled under his breath. " Does that mean anything ? Or is it just big talk i"' Half shy and half ashamed of going on with what I hart to say, I was obliged to smile ruefully. " It's big talk because it's a big principle. I don't know how to manage it with anything small. " I tried to explain further, knowing that my dark skin flushed to a kind of dahlia-red while I was doing so. " I don't know whether I've read it— or whether I heard it— or whether I've just evolved it— but I seem to have got hold of— of— don't laug^ too hard, please— of the secret of success." "Good for youl I hope you're not going to be stinry with it." "No; I'll tell you— partly because I want to talk about it to some one, and just at present there's no one else " "Thanks!" "The secret of success, as I reason it out, must be some- thing that will protect a weak person against a strong one— me, for instance, against J. Howard Brokenshire— and work everything out all right. There," I cried, " I've said the word." "You've said a number. Which is the one?" Anxiety not to seem either young or didactic or a prig made my tone apologetic. "There'-i such a thing as Right, written with a capital. If I persist in doing Right-^till with a capital— then nothing but right can come of it." "Oh, can't it!" " I know it sounds like a platitude — " "No, it doesn't," he interrupted, rudely, "because a platitude is something obviously true; and this isn't." THE HIGH HEART I thought it must be." Suppose you do right I felt some relief. "Oh, isn't it? Then I'm glad. "You won't go on thinking it and somebody else does wrong?" "Then I should be willing to back my way against his. Don t you s^? That's the point. Thlt'stLI^S tdtog you about. Right works; wx«:g doesn'tT^ Inat s all very fine—" wJrf wm J"^ ^ ^"^ '''' *'• ^'Sht is-whaf 8 the wonJ Wilham James put into the dictionaiy?" He suggested pragmatism. "That's it. Right is pragmatic, which I suppose is the --thmg, as practical. Wrong must be imj^.^, fit Jiiftr^^l\^ *°° confidently on that in dealing with the great J. Howard." ^^^ hil!t!.!i°'f"^^''^''°"'*- It's where I'm to have S^ttL^Tv^- «''^doesw«>ngwhileIdorighT way, then 1 11 get him on the hip." •'^ How do you know he's going to do wrong?" ..„:°° *• ^ °^^^y ^"^^ it- If he does right-"- He U get you on the hip." to the other. That's not m common sense. If he doi n«h theal shall be saf^whichever way I have to takeT Dontyousee? That's whe« the succeL comes fa aTw J Tbill^J"^''-'^^^°*^^^y- Please dS ^^Z ^ 't "''^* "• ^- ^^"^ ^ th« tin-pot style-but one must express oneself somehow. I'm not ^d. because I feel as if I'd got something tha woS W about me hke a magic cloak. Of couri for yT^a man-a magic cloak may .ot be necessaiy; but I^ THE HIGH HEART you that for a girl like me, out in the world on her own — '* He, too, sobered down from his cha£5ng mood. "But in this case what is going to be Right— written with a capital?" I had just time to reply, "Oh, that I shall have to see!" when the children and dogs came scampering up and our conversation was over. On returning from my walk with Gladys I informed Mrs. Rossiter of the order I had received. I could see her dis- tressed look in the mirror before which she sat doing some- thing to her hair. "Oh, dear!" she sighed, "it's just what I was afraid of. Now I suppose he'll want you to leave." "That is, he'll want you to send me away." "It's the same thing," she said, fretfully, and sat with hands lying idly in her lap. She stared out of the window. It was a large bow win- dow, with a window-seat cushioned in flowered chintz. Couch, curtains, and easy-chairs reproduced this En- want- ed Garden effect, forming a paradisiacal background for her intensely modem and somewhat neurotic prettiness. I had seen her sit by the half-hour like this, gazing over the shrubberies, lawns, and waves, with a jreaming in her eyes like that of some twentieth-century Blessed Damozel. It was her unhappy hour of the day. Between getting up at nine or ten and descending languidly to limch, life was always a great load to her. It pressed on one too weak to bear its weight and yet too conscientious to throw it off, though, as a matter of fact, this melancholy was only the reaction of her nerves from the mild excitements of the night before. I was generally with her during some por- tion of this forenoon time, reading her notes and answering 13 I Ptdi THE HIGH HEART them, spealmig for her at the telephone, or keeping her «mpany and hstening to her confidences while ste nibbled wittout appetite at a bit of toast and sipped her tea To put matters on the common footing I said- •Is there wiything you'd like me to do, Mrs. Rossiter?" ttrough half^losed hps, as if mere speech was more tha.^ she was equal to: "And just when we were getting on so weU-and the way Gladys adores you— " ^ ^ '" "And the way I adore Gladys." "Oh, well, you don't spoil the chUd. like lUt Miss ra._ps. I suppose It's your sensible EngHsh bringing "Not English." I interrupted. "Canadian then. It's ahnost the same thing." She went on without transition of tone: "Mr. Millinger was ttqr wouldn t keep putting him next to me. It makes everythmg look so pointed-especiaUy with Hany Scott glowermg at me from the other end of the table. He haidly spoke to Daisy Burke, whom he'd taken in I must say she was a fright. And Mr. MilUnger so impru- JrlL ""."^l ^"^^ ^' J^ ^ h^ Bo^P when he comes down rom New Yorker notice something." Thaie was the shghtest dropping of the soft fluting vdce as she continued: "I've never pretended to love Jim Rossi- ter more than any man I've ever seen. That was one of papas matches. He's a bom match-maker, you know just as he s a bora everything else. I suppose you didn't think of that. But since I am Jim's wif^' M I was the confidante of what she called her affairs- a rtle for which I was qualified by residence in British gamson towns-I interposed diplomaticaUy, "But so long 14 THE HIGH HEART as Mr. Millinger hasn't said anything, not any mote than Mr. Scott — " "Oh, if I were to allow men to say things, where should I be? You can go far with a man without letting him come to that. It's something I should think you'd have known— with your sensible bringing up— and the heaps of men you had there in HaUf ax— and I suppose at Southsea and Gibraltar, too." It was with a hint of L Ipless com- plaint that she added, "Y- 1 remember that I asked you to leave him alone, now don't you?" "Oh, I remember— quite. And suppose I did— and he didn't leave me alone?" "Of course there's that, though it won't have any efifect on papa. You are unusual, you know. Only one man in five hundred would notice it ; but there always is that man. It's what I was afraid of about Hugh from the first. You're different— and it's the sort of thing he'd see." "Different from, what?" I asked, with natural curiosity. Her reply was indirect. "Oh, well, we Americans have specialized too much on the girl. You're not half as good-looking as plenty of other girls in Newport, and when it comes to dress—" "Oh, I'm not in their class, I know." "No; it's what you seem not to know. You aren't in their class— but it doesn't seem to matter. If it does matter, it's rather to your advantage." "I'm afraid I don't see that." "No, you wouldn't. You're not sufficiently subtle. You're really not subtle at aU, in the way an American girl would be." She picked up the thread she had dropped. "The fact is we've specialized so much on the girl that our girls are too aware of themselves to be wholly human. They're like things wound up to talk well and dress weU IS THE HIGH HEART and exhibit themselves to advantage and calculate their effects-and lack character. We've developed the very highKt thing in exquisite girl^nechanic^-a work of art thathaseveiythingbutasoul." She turned half round to whoe I stood respectfully, my hands resting on the bade of an easy-chair. She was lovely and pathetic and judicial all at once. "The difference about you is that you seem to spring right up out of the soU where you're standing-^ust like an English country house. You be- long to your background. Our girls don't. They're too beautiful for their background, too expensive, too pre duced. Take any group of girls here in Newport-they're no more m place in this down-at-the-heel old town than a flock of parrakeets in a New England wood. It's really inartistic, though we don't know" it. You're more of a woman and less of a lovely figurine. But that won't apped to papa. He likes figurines. Most American men do. Hugh is an exception, and I was afraid he'd see m^ just what I've seen myself. But it won't go down ''Ji it goes down with Hugh—" I began, meekly. Papa IS a bom match-maker, which I don't suppose you know. He made my match and he made Jack's Oh '^I'trr''^- ^^t"^^ ""'""^ ^ ^y- ^^ I «>PPOse Hugh Ti^ '." **"' '°"^ ™"" ^ '^ted to speak, but she tmkled gently on : " Papa has his designs for him, which I T4 ^.^f^J^^ y°" ^* °"«'- He means him to marry I.-: iy Cissie Boscobel. She's Lord Goldborough's daugh- tar, and papa and he are very intimate. Papa knew him when we hved in England before grandpapa died. Papa has done thmgs for him in the American money-market and when we re in England he does things for us. Two or three of our men have married earls' daughters during the 16 THE HIGH HEART last few years, aad it hasn't turned out so badly. PapB doesn't want not to be in the swim." "Does" — I couldn't pronounce Hugh's name again — "does your brother know of Mr. Brokenshire's inten- tions?" "Yes. I told him so. I told him when I began to see that he was noticing you." "And may I ask what he said?" "It would be no use telling you that, because, whatever he said, he'd have to do as papa told him in the end." "But suppose he doesn't?" "You can't suppose he doesn't. He wiH. That's all that can be a. id about it." She turned fully round on me, gazing at me with the largest and sweetest and tenderest eyes. "As for you, dear Miss Adare," she murmured, sympathetically, "when papa comes to see you this after- noon, as apparently he means to do, he'll grind you to powder. If there's anything smaller than powder he'll grind you to that. After he's gone we sha'n't be able to find you. You'll be dust." CHAPTER n hm ' * the breakfast loggia. nP^D™"! f ^""^ ^"^"^ ^^^ ^^ S^"* l<»>«»d toward f>±l, w^"^""- The s<>caUed breakfast logSwas tWn out from the dining-room in the directi^rf fte sea. Here the family and their guests could gather on waro evenm^, and in fine weather eat in the open air Paved with red tJes, it was furnished with a long oak table ornately carved, and some heavy old oak chairs that might have anne from a monastery. Steamer chain and widker e^-chau^ were scattered on the grass outside. On the left the loggia was screened from the neighboring property UA ^ °f/ambler roses that now ran the gamut rf shades from cnmson to sea-shell pink, while on the right it Zr"^f .u ^r" °^ ^ ^° **"^ supporting the ^°^l^^l^^J':'^^^ehi^^otaowers. The house Itself had been built piecemeal, and was now a low, ram- bhng succession of pavilions or ccrps de logis, to which a sen« o^ rose-colored awnings gave the only unifying Just now it was a house deserted by every one but the servants and myself . Mrs. Rossiter, having gone out to ^^l f^ ""^ "°* *° "**--• "Teven the ^^ ^iT ^* ""^ *° ^"^^ J^ Biokenshire, on the preteirt of playing with her baby, but reaUy to be out i8 I THE HIGH HEART oftheway. Prom Hugh I had had no sign of life smce the previous afternoon. As to whether his father was comin;! as his enemy, his master, or his interpreter I could do nothuig but conjecture. But as far as I could I kept myself from conjecturing, holding my fa'^ties in suspense. I had enough to do in assurmg myself that I was not afraid— fundamentaUy SuperfidaUy I was terrified. I should have been terrified had the great man but passed me in the hall and cast a look at me. He had passed me in the hall on occasions, but as he had never cast the look I had escaped. He had struck me then as a master of that art of seeing without seeing which I had hitherto thought of as feminine. Even when he stopped and spoke to Gladys he seemed not to know that I occupied the ground I stood on. I cannot say I enjoyed this treatment. I was accustomed to being seen. Moreover, I had Uved with people who were courteou- to inferiors, however cavalier with equals. The great J. Howard was neither courteous nor cavalier toward me, for the reason that where I was he apparently saw nothing butavacuimi. Out to the loggia I took my work-basket and some sew- ing. Having no idea from which of the several approaches my visitor would come on me, I drew up one of the heavy aim-chairs and sat facing toward the sea. With the basket on the table beside me and my sewing in my hands I felt indefinably more mistress of myself. It was a still afternoon and hot, with scarcely a sound but the pounding of the surf on the ledges at the foot of the lawn. Though the sky was blue overhead, a dark low bank rose out of the horizon, foretelling a chjmge of wind with fog. In the air the languorous scent of roaes and honeysuckle mingled with the acrid tang o€ the ocewi. 19 THE HIGH HEART I feh •rtraordinanly desolate. Not since hearing what the lawyer had told me on the afternoon of my father's funeral had I seemed so entirely alone. The fact that for nearly twenty-four hours Hugh had got no word to me threw me back upon myself. "You'll be made to fed alone," Mr. Strangways had said in the morning; and I was. I didn't blame Hugh. I had purposely left the matter in such a way that there was nothing he could say or do till after his father had spoken. He was probably waiting impatiently; I had, indeed, no doubt about that; but the fact remained that I, a girl, a stranger, in a certain sense a foreigner, was to make the best of my situation without help. J. Howard Brokershire could grind me to powder — when he had gone away I should be dust. "If I do right, nothing but right can come of it." The maxim was my only comfort. By sheer force Ot repeating it I got strength to thread my needle and go on with my seam, till on the stroke of three the dread per- sonage appeared. I saw htm from the minute he mounted the steps that led up from the Clifi Walk to Mr. Rossiter's lawn. He was accompanied by Mrs. Brokenshire, while a pair of grey- hounds followed them. Having reached the lawn, they crossed it diagonally toward the loggia. Because of the heat and the up-hill nature of the way, they advanced slowly, which gave me leisure to observe. Mrs. Brokenshire's presence had almost caused my heart to stop beating. I cotild imagine no motive for her coming but one I refused to accept. If the mission was to be un- friendly, she surely would have stayed away; but that it ccrAd be other than unfriendly was beyond my strength to hope. I had never seen her before except in glimpses or at a 20 THE HIGH HEART distance. I noticed now that ihewu a little thing, loddng the smaller for the stalwart siz>foot-two beside which she walked. She was in white and carried a white parasol. I saw that her face was one of the most beautiful in features and finish I had ever looked into. Each trait was quite amazingly perfect. The oval was perfect; the coloring vras perfect; mouth and nose and forehead might have been made to a measured scale. The finger of personified Art could have drawn nothing more exquisite than the arch of the eyebrows, or more delicately fringed than the lids. It might have been a doll's face, or the face for the cover of an American magazine, had it not been saved by some- thing I hadn't the time to analyze, though I was later to know what it was. As for him, he was as perfect in his way as she in hers. When I say that he wore white shoes, white-duck trousers, a navy-blue jacket, and a yachting-cap I give no idea of the something noble in his personality. He might have been one of the more ornamental Italian princes of im- memorial lineage. A Jove with a Vandyke beard one could have called him, and if you add to that the concep- tion of Jovo ti-j Thtmderer, Jove with the look that could strike a man dead, perhaps the description would be as good as any. He was straight and held his head high. He walked with a firm setting of his feet that impressed you with the fact that some one jf importance was coming. It is not my purpose to speak of this man from the point of view of the ordinary member of the public. Of that 1 know next to nothing. I was dimly aware that his wealth and his business interests made him something of a public character; but apart from having heard him mentioned as a financier I could hardly have told what his profession was. So, too, with questions of morals. I have been THE HIGH HEART pn^t when, by hinU rather than actual words, he was faitroduced a»a profligate and a hypocrite; and I have also known people of good judgment who upheld him both as man and as dtiren. On this subject no opinion of mine .rouJd be worth giving. I have always relegated the mat- ter into that limbo of disputed facts with which I have nothing to do. I write of him only as I saw him in daily Me, or at least in direct intercoune, and with that my tMtimony must end. Other people have been curious with regard to those aspects of his character on which I «n throw no light. To me he became interesting chiefly berause he was one of those men who from a kind of ntave audacity, perhaps an unthinking audacity, don't hesitate to play the part of the Almighty. When they drew near enough to the loggia I stood up, my sewmg in my hand. The two greyhounds, who had outdistanced them, came sniffing to the threshold and stared at me. I felt myself an object to be stared at ttough I had taken pains with my appearance and knew that I was neat. Neatness, I may say in passing, is my strong point. Where many other girls can stand expen- ^ (^-essing I am at my best when meticulously tidy TTie shape of my head makes the simplest styles of doing the hair the most distinguished. My figure lends itself to country clothes and the tailor-made. In evening dress I can wear the cheapest and flimsiest thing, so long as it is dependent only on its lines. I was satisfied, therefore, mth the way I looked, and when I say I felt myself an object to be stared at I speak only of my consciousness of isolation. I pose. "I— I mean to accept him." Tha* was an instant of stillness 6m ng which or-o could hear the poundmg of the sea. y^T *^* ™^ ^^ 5^ ''ant me to i«se ywir "No, Mr. Btokenshire. I have no price. If it means anything at all that has to do with you, it's to tell you that _I m mistress of my acts and that I consider your son —he s twenty-six— to be master of his." Thete was a continuation of the stiUness. His voice when he spoke was the gentlest sound I had ever heard in the way of human utterance. If it were not for the situation It could have been considered kind- "Anything at aU that has to do with me.? You seem to attach no importance to the fact that Hugh is my son " 1 do not know how words came to me. They seemed to flow from my Hps independently of thought. "I attach importance only to the fact that he's a man Men who are never anything but their father's sons aren't "And yet a father has some rights." "Yes, sir; some. He has the right to follow whei* his grown-up children lead. He hasn't the right to lead and require his grown-up children to follow " He shifted his ground. 'Tm obliged to you for your opinion, but at present it's not to the point-" I broke in breathlessly: "Pardon me, sir; it's exactly to the point. Im a woman; Hugh's a man. We're-we're m tove with each other; it's aU we have to be concerned "Not quite; you've got to be concemed-with me » Which is what I deny." »7 THE HIGH HEART "Oh, denial won't do you any good. I didn't come to hear your denials, or your afiBimations, either. I've oone to tell you what to do." "But if I know that already?" "That's quite possible— if you mean to play your game as doubtless you've played it before. I only want to warn you — " I looked toward Mrs. Brokenshire for help, but her eyes were fixed on the floor, on which she was drawing what seemed like a design with the tip of her parasol. The greyhounds were stretched at her feet. I could do nothing but speak for myself, which I did with a cahnness that surprised me. "Mr. Brokenshire," I interrupted, "you are a man and I'm a woman. What's more, you're a strong man, while I'm a woman with no protection at all. I ask you —do you think you're playing a man's part in insulting me?" His tone grew kind ahnost to affection. "My dear young lady, you misunderstand me. Insult couldn't be fiu1;her from my thoughts. I'm speaking entirely for your own sake. You're young; you're very pretty; I won't say you've no knowledge of the world because I see you have — " "I've a good deal of knowledge of the world." "Only not such knowledge as would warrant you in pitting yoturself against me." "But I don't. If you'd leave me alone — " "Let us keep to what we're taUdag of. I'm sorry for you; I really am. You're at the beginning of what might euphemistically— do you know the meaning of the I word?— be called a career. I should like to save you from I it; that's all. It's why I'm speaking to you very plainly 38 THE HIGH HEART every fami'y of thJlT Pf°**™*°«' believe me. Nearly ^d young women of-what ^To^ZZlT' T' young women who mean to do the^t Zt ^ '^^•~ selve^let us put it in that way-" ^ ^ ^°' '^- I m a gentleman's daughter " r k,„i • He smiled "nt, , , ^ ^^^ol^e m, weakly. N...iste.LX^--£'-£men.daug^^. in cilTda^'^ "^ *^ ^°" "-* -^ father was a iudge ;;The detail doesn't interest me." ^o, but It interests mo t+ • equal to-" '^'^ ««• I* g>ves me a sense of being ;;K you please! We'll not go into that " let me tell^ Xol J..^'"" ^ ^^ «"^'' ^ou -st th:itT;srrLde^r-«"u". "Dear young lady." he broke h>, soothingly, "you're taUang wildly. You're speaking of things y^/toow nothmgabout^ Le* us get back to what we began with. My son has offered to marry you—" "He didn't offer to many me. He asked me-he b^ged me— to marry him." '"Ths way of putting it is of no importance." 'Ah, but it is." "I mean that, however he expressed it— however vou express it— the result must be the same." I nerved myself to look at him steadily. "I mean to acc^t him. When he asked me yesterday I said I wouldn t give him either a Yes or a No till I knew what ^u^_ his family thought of it. But now that I do ■'You're determined to try the impossible." It won't be the impossible till he tells me so." He seemed for a second or two to study me. "Suppose I ao^ted you as what you say you are-^ a young woman of good antecedents and honorable characte Would you still persist in the effort to foree yourself on a famdy that didn't want you?" y^-^seu on I confess that in the language Mr. Strangways acd I had used m the morning, he had me here "on the hip " To iorce m;.self on a family that didn't want me wo-jid nannally have been the last of my desires. But I -ras 31 II !^ THE HIGH HEART fitting nm for something that went beyond my de«w»- ^^ laiger-^miething national, as I conceived of r^taonahty-something human-though I couldn't have d^LS '"^' " "^ ' '^'^'^' °^y ^ '^ "I couldn't stop to consider a family. My object wodd be to marry the man who loved m^l^d whtTl "So that you'd face the humiliation—" r,J- '"'f^'^ ^ humffiation. because it would have ^tto^^ to do wxth me. It would pass into another "It wouldn't be another sphere to him." ' I should tave to let him take care of that. It's all I can manage to look out for myself—" TWe seemed to be some admiration in his tone. Which you seem marvelously weU fitted to do " Thank you." "In fact it;s one of the ways in which you betray yourself. An innocent girl— " ^ I strained forward in my chair. "Wouldn't it be fair for you to teU me what you mean by the word innocent?" I mean a girl who has no special ax to grind—" _ I could hear my foot tapping on the floor, but I was to mdignant to restrain myself. "Even that figure of speech leaves too much to the imagination." ^^ He studied me again. "You're very sharp " ■Don't I ne«d to be," I demanded, "with an enemy of your acumen?" •' "But I'm not your enemy. It's what you don't seem ^J^\- "^J"" ^"'°'^- ^'^ *^« f ^^ y<« out of a Mtuation that would kiU you if you got into it " I thmk I laughed. "Isn't death preferable to dis- 3» It's a But I THE HIGH HEART honor?" I saw my mistake in the quickness with which Mrs. Brokenshire looked up. "There are more kinds of dishonor than one," I explained, loftUy, "and to me the blackest would be in allowing you to (^ictate to me." "My dear young woman, I dictate to men—" "Oh, to men!" "I see! You presume on your womanhood, common American expedient, and a cheap one. don't stop for that." "You may not stop for womanhood, Mr. Brokenshire; but neither does womanhood stop for you." He rose with an air of weary patience. "I'm afraid we sha'n't gain a-iytuing by talking further--" "I'm afraid not." I, too, rose, advancing to the table. We confronted each other across it, while one of the dogs came nosing to his master's hand. I had barely the strength to gasp on: "We've had our talk and you see where I am. I ask nothing but the exercise of human Uberty— and the measure of respect I conceive to be due to every one. Surely you, an American, a representative of what America is supposed to stand for, can't think of it as too much." "If America is supposed to stand for your marrying my son — " "America stands, so I've been told by Americans, for the reasonable freedom of the individual. If Hugh wants to marry me — " II Hugh will marry the woman I approve of." "Then that apparently is what we must put to the test." I was now so near to tears that I suppose he saw an openmg to his own advantage. Coming round the table, he stood looking down at me with that expression which 33 THE HIGH HEART I«m^describe as sympathetic. With aU the dammt- that about hmx which left you with a lingering suspicion ^t he might be right. It was the man who 3*^ nght who was presently sitting easily on the edge rf tto table, so that his face was on a levd with m^^S saymg m a kindly voice: ' "Now look here! Let's be reasonable. I don't want Sfn^LuJh-"^- ^'"-^^^^^^w the whole "I'm not," I declared, hotly. "That's generous; but I'm speaking of myself I'm my^r ;ri*^^ -"""'^ "-^ - Hugh,Sse h'e^ my son. I U absolve you, if you like, because you're a stranger and a girl, and consider you a victim-'^ 1 m not a victim," I insisted. "I'm only a human bemg. askmg for a human being's rights " w£SS^:l?f^°^'-- "^^'^^^^ Who knows ;;i do That is." I corrected, "I know my own." nw„ • ,?/^°^' One always knows one's own. One's own nghts are ev«ything one can get. Now you St get Hugh; but you can get five thousand dolla,^ 1^.3 a lo of money. There are men all over the United States ^d cut off a hand for it. You won't haveTol'S: W You orfy need to be a good, sensible little girl and i2l V -f *"P' ^' '^"^^^ I ^^ yieldingfLr^e tapped his side pocket as he went on speaking "it My work was lying on the table a few inches away 34 THE HIGH HEART Leaning forwaid deliberately I put it into the basket, which I tucked under my arm. I looked at M^^. Broken- shire, who was leaning forward and looking at me. I inclined my head with a slight salutation, to which she did not respond, and turned away. Of bin; I took no notice. "So it's war." . I was half-way to the dining-room when I heard him say that. As I paused to look back he was still sitting sidcwise on the edge of the table, s\singing a leg and staring after me. "No, sir," I said, quietly. "It takes two to fight, and I should never think of being one." "You know, of course, that I shall have no mercy on you." "No, sir; I don't." "Then you can know it now. I'm sorry for you; but I can't afford to spare you. Bigger things than you have come in my way — and have been blasted." Mrs. Erokenshire made a quick little movement be- hind his back. It told me nothing I ui, icrstood then, though I was able to interpret it later. I could only say, in a voice that shook with the shaking of my whole body: "You couldn't blast me, sir, because — ^because — " "Yes? Because— what? I should like to know." There was a robin hopping on the lawn outside and I pointed to it. "You couldn't blast a Uttie bird like that with a bombshell." "Oh, birds have been shot." Yes, sir ; with a fowling-piece ; but not with a howitzer. The one is too big; the other is too small." I was about to drop him a little courtesy when I saw hin? wink. It was a grotesque, amusing wink that quiv- 35 THE HIGH HEART wed and twirtedtai it finaUy dosed the left ey. M he ^"z:^. "^"^ "- ^^ ^^ -<^^ ^^ I made my courtesy the deeper, bending my head and lowermg my eyes so as to spare him the knowledge that CHAPTER III " ITE attacked my cotmtiy. I think I could fotpva 1 1 him everything but that." It was an hour after Mr. and Mrs. Brokenshire had left me. I was half crying by this time— that is, half crying in the way one cries from rage, and yet laughing nervously, in flashes, at the same time. From the weak- ness of sheer excitement I had dropped to one of the steps leading down to the Cliff Walk, while Larry Strang- ways leaned on the stone post. I had met him there as I was going out and he was coming toward the house. We couldn't but stop to exchange a word, especially with his knowledge of the situation. He took what I had to say with the light, gleaming, non-committal smile whicli he brought to bear on everything. I was glad of tiiat because it kept him detached. I didn't want him any nearer to me than he was. "Attacked your country? Do you mean England?" "No; Canada. England is my grandmother; but Canada's my mother. He said you all despised her," "Oh no, we don't. He was trying to put something over on you." "Your 'No, we don't' lacks conviction; but I don't mind you. I shouldn't mind him if I hadn't seen so much of it." "So much of what?" THE HIGH HEART "Being looked down upon geographically. Of all the yrm of being proud," I declared, indignantly, "that wmtA depends on your merely accidental position with regard to land and water strikes me as the most poor- spmted. I can't imagine any one dragging himself down to It who had another rag of a reason for self-respect. As a matter of fact. I don't beUeve any one ever does The people I've heard express themselves on the subject--weU JTl give you an illustration: There was a woman at Gib- raltat— a major's wife, a big, red-faced woman. Her name was Arbuthnot-her father was a dean or something —a big. red-faced woman, with one of those screechy twangy English voices that cut you like a saw— you know there are some-a good many-and they don't know it. Well, she was saying something sneering about Canadians I was sittmg opposite— it was at a dinner-party— and so I leaned across the table and asked her why she didn't like them. She said coloiuals were such dreadful fonn. I held her with my eye "-I showed him how— " and made myself small and demure as I said, 'But. dear lady how clev«- of you! Who would ever have supposed that you d know that?' My sister Vic pitched into me about It after we got home. She said the Arbuthnot person didn t understand what I meant-nor any one else at the table, they're so awfully thick-sWnned-and that it's better to let them alone. But that's the kind of person who — He tried to comfort me. "They'll come round in time. One of these days England will see what she owes to her colonists and do them justice." "Never!" I declared, vehemently. "It will be al- ways the same-till we knock the Empire to pieces. Thentheyllresoectus. Look at the Boer War. Didn't 38 THE HIGH HEART our m« sacrifice everything to go out that long distanca —and win battles— and lay down their lives-only to hav« the English say afterward-especiaUy the anny people— that they were more trouble than they wer« worth? It wiU be always the same. When we've given our last penny and shed our last drop of blood theyH still teU us we've been nothing but a nuisance. You may live to see it and remember that I said so. If when Shakespeare wrote that it's sharper than a serpent's tooth to have a thankless child he'd gone on to add that It's the very dickens to have a picturesque, self- satisfied old grandmother who thinks her children's chil- dren should give her everything and take kicks instead of ha'pence for their pay, he'd have been up to date. Mmd you, we don't object to giving our last penny and shedding our last drop of blood; we only hate being abused and sneered at for doing it." I wanned to my subject as I dabbed fiereely at my eyes. 1 11 teU you what the typical John Bull is like. He's like those men— big, flabby men they generally are— who'll be brutes to you so long as you're dvil to them, but wiU dmib down the minute you begin to hit back. Look at the way they treat you Americans! They can't do enough for you— because you snap your fingers in their faces and •how them you don't care a hang about them. They come over here, and give you lectures, and marry your- girls, and pocket your money, and adopt your bad form, as delightful originality— and respect you. Now that earls' daughters are beginning to cast an eye on your milhonaire»-Mrs. Rossiter told me that— they won't leave you a rag to your back. But with us who've been faithful and loyal they're all the other way. I can hardly tdl you the small pin-pricking indignities to which my * 39 THE HIGH HEART £?!wM,^ ^"^ ^ '«t'J«^ f°r being Canadians. And theyU never change. It wiU never be^^ZT 2" It 3^ ^"^ our bodies to be burned, as the Bible ^H f u ^ °*'^'' '^ othemise-not tiU we imitate you a^^st^^^th^n^thefa.. r^ you W how S^.'^ He stm smiled, with an aloofness in which there was a a'TuetM^^^- "^^-^'^-tbatyouw^rch" "I'm not a rebel. I'm loyal to the King. That is Im loyal to the great Anglc^Saxon ideal of wwS tS as any other, especially as he's already there. The En^ 1^ are only partly Anglo^on. 'LorandNo^" «>d Dane are they '-^dn't Temiyson say thatr^^ S-T.^ '°c '^''' ^°^^' ^d ^ ^°t that^ Dane Zfl lot that's Scotch and Irish and rag-tag in thZ But ^t:" r,f ""^ "^^ ^ Anglo!lxo1 ide^r'so to bloods-and just as we shall be ourselves. It's lil^ Z^w'^'fC '*■' "^' ^^ ^ *^« Christian r^i^s the thing that saves, and I'm loyal to that Myt^„ -sed to say that it's the fact that EngUsh ^d S^ and Austohans are aU devoted to the same prin^S ^olds us together as an Empire, and not the subs^^S ^di^ant lan,k to a Parhament sitting at Wes^^ And so It IS. We don't always like each other; but t^t WM sick." I ihall hoin>v»r h. S.j •» r ''^"*> ""e° «» deril 40 THE HIGH HEART doesn't natter. What does matter is that we should betray the fact that we don't like each other to outsiders —and so give them a handle against us." "You mean that J. Howard should be m a position to s^with the EngUsh in looking down on you as a Cana. "Yes, and that the English should give him that posi- tion. He's an American and an enemy— every Ameri- ^ IS an enemy to England o« fond. Oh yes, he is! You needn't deny it ! It's something fundamental, deep- er down than anything you understand. Even tho^e cf you who like England are hostile to her at heart and would be glad to see her in trouble. So, I say, he's an American and M enemy, and yet they hand me, their child and their fnend, over to him to be trampled on. He's had oppor- tumties of judging how Canadians are regarded in Eng- ird, he says-and he assures me it's nothing to be proud of. Ihat's It. I've had opportunities too— and I have to admit that he's right. Don't you see? That's what rarages me. As far as their liking us and our not liking them is concerned, why, it's all in the family. So long as It's kept in the family it's like the pick that Louise and Vic have always had on me. I'm the youngest and the plainest—" "Oh, you're the plainest, are you? What on earth are they like?" "They're quite good-looking, and they're awfully chic. But that's m parentheses. What I mean is that they're always hectoring me because I'm not attractive—" "Really?" "I'm not fishing for c^ «°d gone some paces into the fog that had begun to blow in when he cauWto m^ Waitammute. I've something to tell you." I turned, without going back. "I'm — I'm leaving." ^wa^^amazed that I retraced a step or two toward His smile underwent a change. It grew frozen and steely mstead of being bright with a continuous play 44 THE HIGH HEART suggesting summer lightning, which had been its usual quality. "My time is up at the end of the month-and I've asked Mr. Rossiter not to ejcpect me to go on." I was looking for something of the sort sooner or later, I but now that it had come I saw how lonely I should be. _ "Oh! Where are you going? Have you got anything m particular?" ''I|m going as secretary to Stacy Grainger." "I've some connection with that name," I said, absent- ly, 'though I can't remember what it is." "You've probably heard of him. He's a good deal in the pubhc eye." "Have you known him long?" I asked, for the sake of speakmg, though I was only thinking of myself _ "Never knew him at all." He came nearer' to me. I ve a confession to make, though it won't be of interest to you. All the while I've been here, playing with Uttle Broke Rossiter, I've been-don't laugh— I've been con- tributing to the press— wot qui whs parlet" "What about?" "On, politics and finance and foreign policy and public thmgs m general. Always had a taste that way. Now It seems that something I wrote for the Promdence Express -people read it a good deal— has attracted the attention of the great Stacy. Yes, te's great, too-J. Howard's big rival for—" I began to recall something I had heard. "Wasn't tiiere a story about him and Mr. Brokenshiie and Mrs Brokeushire?" "That's the man. Well, he's noticed my stuff and written to the editor— and to me, and I'm to go to him." 45 THE HIGH HEART IwM Still thinking Of myself and the loss of h^s^ a"^- I hope he's going to pay you weU." Oh, for me It will be wealth " fir^Uon'fsC^??''''^^*^*- ''-^^^ He nodded confidently. "I hope so " the' ^n^ t e"^ *" """^ '^"^^ ''^ ^ ^P«^ - -c^s^o:!?^*'^^'^' ^•'•^- If I laughed a little it was to conceal my discomfort at this abrupt approach to the intimate •"*="'»*<« ** " v™ "tf*^^ T7 ^"^ "^^ °^*'" I ^d. apologetically. You see my father was one of those poSTw Canadians who rather overdo the thinVS S ^ should have been Victoria, because' V^^ !?ZT ^"\*^«D"^°fArgyUwasrSJr 2 Sfi^Vf r^.°^** *° ^^^-^^ ^«1 mothei^-and so the first of us had to be Louise. He couldn't begin on the queens tdl there was a second one. That's poc^^ wkle I^-I know you'll shout-I'm Ale^ li th«e'd be^ a fourth she'd have been a Mai^^poor mother died and the series stopped." ^ He shook hands rather gravely. "Then I shall think of you as Alexandra." ^^ ^^ "If ywi are going to think of me at all," I managed to ^y. with a httle^^. ..put me down « A^TlSt? what I've always been called." ' ii CHAPTER IV T WAS glad of the fog. It was cool and refreshing; it 1 was also concealing. I could tramp along under its protection with Uttle or no fear of being seen. Wearing tweeds, thick boots, and a felt hat, I was prepared for wet, and as a Canadian girl I was used to open air in al' weath^. The few stragglers generally to be seen on the ChflE Walk having rushed to their houses for shelter I had the rocks and the breakers, the honeysuckle and the patches of dog-roses, to myself. In the back of my nund I was fortified, too, by the knowledge that damp- ness curls my hair into pretty Uttle tendrils, so that if I did meet any one I should be looking at my best. The path is like no other in the world. I have often WMidered why the American writer-up of picturesque bits didnt make more of it. Trouville has its Plage, and Bnghton Its King's Road, and Nice its Promenade des Anglais, but in no other kingdom of leisure that I know anything about will you find the combination of quaUties wild and subdued, that mark this ocean-front of Um island of Aquidneck. Neither will you easily come else- where so near to a sense of the primitive human struggle ^ the crude social dash, of the war of the rights of man— Fisherman's Rights, as this coast historicaUy knows them — agamst encroachment, privilege, and seclusion. As you crunch the gravel, and press the well-rolled tuif, and 47 THE HIGH HEART miff the scent of the white and red clover and Queen Anne's lace that fringe the precipice leaning over the sea, you feel in the air those elements of conflict that make drama. In clinging to the edge of the cliff, in twisting round every curve of the shore line, in running up hill and down dale, under crags and over them, the path is, of course, not the only one of its kind. You will find the same thing anywhere on the south coast oi England or the north coast of Prance. But in the sum of human interest it sucks into the three miles of its course I can think of nothing else that resembles it. As guaranteeing the rights of the fisherman it is, so I believe, inalienable public property. The fisherman can walk on it, sit on it, fish from it, right into eternity. So much he has secured from the past history of colony and state; but he has done it at the cost of making himself off ensive to the gen- tlemra whose lawns he hems as a seamstress hems a skirt. It is a hem like a serpent, with a serpent's sinuosity and grace, but also with a serpent's hatefutaess to those who can do nothing but accept it as a fact. Since, as a fact, it cannot be abolished it has to be put up with; and since it has to be put up with the means must needs be found to deal with it effectively. Effectively it has been dealt with. Money, skill, and imagination have been spent on it, to adorn it, or disguise it, or sink it out of sight. The architect, the landscape gardener, and the engineer have aU been called into counsel. On Fisherman's Rights the smile and the frown are exercised by turns, each with its phase of ingenuity. Along one stretch of a htindied yards bland recognition borders the way with roses or spans the miniature chasms with decorative bridges; along the next shuddering refinement grows a hedge or 48 THE HIGH HEART digi a trendi behind ^riiich the obtnudve wayf anr may psM unseen. But shuddering refinement and bland recognition alike withdraw into thanselves as far as broad lawns and lofty terraces permit them to retke, leaving to the owner erf Fisherman's Rights the enjoy- ment of ocher and umber rocks and sea and sky and grain- fields yellowing on far headlands. It gave me the nearest thing to glee I ever felt in New- port. It was bracing and open and free. It suggested comparisons with scrambles along Nova-Scotian shores or tramps on the moors in Scotland. I often hated the fine weather; it was oppressive; it was strangling. But a day like this, with its whifis of wild wind and its handfuls of salt slashing against eyes and mouth and nostrils, was not only exhilarating, it was glorious. I was glad, too. that the prim villas and pretentious chateaux, inost of than out of proportion to any scale of housekeeping of which America is capable, could only be descried like castles in a dream through the swirling, diaphanous drift. I could be alone to rage and fume— or fly onward with a speed that was in itself a relief. I could be alone till, on climbing the slope of a shorn and wind-swept bluff, I saw a squaie-shouldeied figure looming on the crest. It was no more than a deepening of the texture- of the fog, but I knew its Hnes. Skimming up the ascent with a little ay, I was in Hugh's anns, my head on his burly breast. I think it was his burliness that made the most definite appeal to me. He was so sturdy and strong, and I was so small and desolate. From the beginning, when he first used to come near me, I felt his presence, as the Bible says, like the shadow of a rode in a thirsty land. That was in my early homesick time, before 1 had seized the 49 r' ,:B THE HIGH HEART new way o£ living and the new national point of view. The £act, too, that, a* I expresied it to myself, I wai in the Mcond cabin when I had always been accustcmed to the first, inspired a diaoomfort for which unwittingly I sought consolation. Nobody thought of me as other than Mrs. Kostiter's retainer, but this one kindly ^mi , I noticed his kindliness ahnost before I noticed him, just as, I think, he noticed my loneliness ahnost before he noticed me. He opened doors for me when I went in or out; he served me with things if he happened to be there at tea; he dropped into a chair beside me when I was the only member of a group whom no one spoke to. If Gladys was of the company I was of it too, with a nominal footing but a virtual exclusion. The men in the Rossiter ciicle were of the four hundred and ninety-nine to whom I wasn't attractive; the women were all civil — from a distance. Occasionally some nice old lady would ask me where I came fitom and if I liked my work, or talk to me of new educational methods in a way which, with my bringing up, was to me as so much Greek; but I never got any other sign of friendliness. Only this short, stoddly built young fellow, with the small, bhie eyes, ever recognized me as a human being with the aver- age yearning for human intercourse. During the winter in New York he never went further than that. I remembered Mrs. Rossiter's recommenda- tion and "let him alone." I knew how to do it. He was not the first man I had ever had to deal with, even if no one had asked me to marry him. 1 a spted his small, kindly acts with that shade of discretion which defined the distance between us. As far as I could observe, he Wmself had no disposition to cross the lines I set— not till we moved to Newport. THE HIGH HEART There wai a fortnight between our gfuag then and hi* —a fortnight which seemed to worit a change in him. The Hugh Brokenshire I met on one of my first rambles along the cliffs was not the Hugh Bn>kenahii« I had last seen in Fifth Avenue. Perhaps I was not the same my- self. In the new surroundings I had missed him— a little. I will not say that his absence had meant an aching void to me; but where I had had a friend, now I had none— •ince I was unable to count Lany Strangways. Had it not been for this solitude I should have been less receptive to his comings when he suddenly began to pursue me. Pnisuit is the only word I can use. I found him every- where, quiet, deliberate, persistent. If he had been ten or even five yeara older I could have taken his advances without uneasiness. But he was only twenty-six and a dependent. He had no work; apart from his allowance from his father he had no means. And yet when, on the day before my chronicle begins, he stole upon me as I sat in a sheltered nook below the cliffs to which I was fond of retreating when I had time— when he stole upon me there, and kissed me and kissed me and kissed me, I couldn't help confessing that I loved him. I must leave to some woman who has had to fend for herself the task of telling what it means when a man comes to offer her his heart and his protection. It goes without saying that it means more to her than to the sheltered woman, for it means things different and more wtmderftj. It is the expected unexpected come to pass; it is the impossible achieved. It is not only success; it is success with an aureole of glory. I suppose I must be parasitical by nature, for I never have conceived of life as other than dependent on some man who would love me and take care of me. Evenwhen THE HIGH HEART no wch man ^>pMred and I wai forced oat to Mm my bread, I looked t^ion the need as temporary only. In the lonelieat of timet at Mrs. Rossiter's, at periods when I didn't see a man for weeks, the hero never seemed farther away than just behind the scenes. I confess to minutes when I thought he tarried unnecessarily long; I ccofesa to terrified questionings as to what would h^>pen were he never to come at all; I confess to solitary watches of the night in company with fears and tears; but I cannot confess to anything more than a low burning cf that lamp of hope which never went out entirely. When, therefore, Hugh Brokenshire offered me what he had to offer me I felt for a few minutes— ten, fifteen, twenty perhaps— that sense of the fruition of the being which I am sure comes to us but rarely in this life, and perhaps is a foretaste of eternity. I was like a creatui« that has long been struggling up to some higher state — and has reached it. I am ashamed to say, too, that my first consciousness came in pictttres to which the dear young man himself was only incidental. Two scenes in particular that far ten years past had been only a little below the threshold of my consciousness came out boldly, like developed photographs. I was the center of both. In one I saw a dainty little dining-room, where the table was laid. The danwsk was beautiful; the silver rich; the glasses crys- talline. Wearing an inexpensive but eirtremely chic little gown, I was seating the guests. The other picture was more dim, but only in the sense that the room was de- lidously darkened. It had white furnishings, a little white cot, and toys. In its very center was a bassinet, and I was leaning over it, wearing a delicate lace peignoir. Ought I to blush to say that while Hugh stammered THE HIGH HEART Ottt U. ImpMdoned dadMEtion. I wm «emg the« two UblMux tmer^ag from the sute of only h»lf-admowl- edgeddreaaa into real poMibUity? I dare say. I merely affinn that it waa M. Since the dominant craving of my nature wai to have a home and a baby, I saw the baby and the home before I could realize a husband or a father or bnng my mind to the definite proposals faltered by poor Hugh. ' But I did bring my mind to them, with the result of whidi I have ahtsady given a sufficient indication. Even in admitting that I loved him I thrust and parried and postponed. The whole idea was too big for me to grapple wth on the spur of a sudden moment. I suggested his talking the matter over with his father chiefly to gain time. But to rest in his arms had only a subordinate connec- tion with the great issue I had to face. It was a joy in Itself. It was a pledge of the future, even if I were never to take anything but the pledge. After my shifts and •taiggles and anxieties I could fed the satisfaction of knowmg it was in my power to let them aU roU off. If I were never to do it, if I were to go bade to my unoer- tamties, this minute would mitigate the trial in advance I might fight for existence during all the rest of my life and yet I should still have the bliss of remembering that some one was willing to fight for me. He rdeased me at last, since there might be people in Newport as indifferent to weather as ourselves. "What happened?" he asked then, with an eagerness which almost choked the question in its utterance "Was it awful?" I was too nearly hysterical to enter on anything like S3 THE HIGH HEART a. recital. "It might have been worse," I half laughed and half sobbed, trying to recover my breath and drv my eyes. ^ His spirit secuted to leap at the answer. "Do you mean to say you got concessions &om him— or anythine like that?" j"""^ ^ I couldn't help clinging to the edge of his raincoat Did you expect me to?" "I didn't know but what, when he saw you—" "Oh, but he didn't see me. That was part of the difficulty. He looked where I was-but he didn't find anjrthing there." He laughed, with a hint of disappointment. "I know what you mean; bat you mustn't be smpiised He'll see you yet." He clasped me again. "I didn't see you at first, httle girl; I swear I didn't. You're like that A fellow must look at you twice before he knows that you're there; but when he begins to take notice—" I struggled out of his embrace, while he continued: "It's the same with all the great things--with pictures and mountains and cathedrals, and so on. Often thought about it when we ve been abroad. See something once and pass it by Next tame you look at it a Httle. Third time it b«ins to grow on you. Fourth time you've found a wonder. You re a wonder, little Ahx, do you know it?" "Oh no, I'm not. I must warn you, Hugh darling, that I m very prosaic and practical and ordinary. You mustn't put me or. a pedestal—" "Put you on a pedestal? You were bom on a pedestal Ywi re the woman I've seen in hopes and dreams—" We began to walk on, coming to a little hollow that *W»ed near enough to the shore to allow of our acram- Mmg over the rocks to where we could git down among 54 THE HIGH HEART tw' r^'7' ^^ here below the thickest h.n ^ the fog hae, I could see him in a wav tw ^ ^l °* impossible on the bluff ^^ "" * ^y *»»* had been -i"" m" '^°^1'* "^ °^y - the handsome-ugly a statement I could^SfTfZ".^ « "^^ °^ ^°^' ^:s portrait rCaSj^ Hu^sf ". ^"*"'- not iU-formed so much asl^weS St^!r^^ '^ to each other becom,-„»Tt, ^* °* proportion st^ at the same fine ^gl as Sl^S's "^ "^^^ nud-couise to a knoh- ti,« . T^ ^ *' 'Ranged m long, but hS-way t'itfdeSi!;^^ "^"^^ *° he upward, making Vh^ST^^ ^\^ "°*'°" t° ««ve naustaclleSld^.t'jSm^tl^^ T'^' *^ have been apphed wiaTc^r », • ^^'^ ^*^ "^^ht lip turned ouS S a SS^ft^t^ *?*= *^* ^"''^ in a little faU 1^,^^ th. 2.^"^ *** ^^^^ °^« lovably good-;aS *'°'' ^^<^ "^^Z thfSrSraSSnS^ ^^«- -^ ^-Pe- being twentv- s« and a man "the dear boy went on earnestly '^^a Sfv^^ *• «"" *^ I ought to quit being a S^i ^t bemuse he tells me tc^^ else he ^-t ttoiS I found the opportunity for which I had been looking A^nghisjmpassioned rhapsody. TTxe^eSx T^e Goldboroughs gave me that kind of chiU about ^L^ which the mist imparted to the hands and face 57 THE HIGH HEART "You know them an very wdl," I said, wben I ioaai an opening in which I could speak. "Oh yes." he admitted, indifferently. "Known them all my life. Father represented Meek & Brokenshire in England till my grandfather died. Goldborough used to be an impecunious chap, land poor, till he and father b^iaa to pull together. Father's been able to give him tips on the market, and he's given father^ Well, dad's always had a taste for English swells. Never coidd stand the Continental kind— gilt gingerbread he's called 'em— and so, well, you can see." I admitted that I could see, going on to ask what the Goldborough family consisted of. There was Lord Leatherhead, the eldest son; then there were two younger sons, one in the army and one preparing for the Church; and there were three girls. "Any of the daughters married?" I ventured, timidly. There was nothing forced in the indifference with which he made his explanations. Laura was married to a banker named Bell; Janet, he thought he had heard, was engaged to a chap in the Inverness Rangers; Cecilia— Cissie they usuaUy called hei>-was to the best of his knowledge stifl wholly free, but the best of his knowledge did not go far. I pumped up my courage again. " Is she-tuoe?" "Oh, nice enough." He reaUy didn't know nmdi about her. She was generally away at school when he had been at Goldborough Castle. When she was there he hadn't seen more than a long-legged, gawky girl, rather good at tennis, with red hair hanging down her back. Satisfied with these replies, I went on to tell him of my interview witii his father an hour or two before. Of this he seized on ooe point with some ecstasy S8 THE HIGH HEART So you told hiin you'd take mel Oh, Alix-roAl" Jl« «cWt«» was a sigh of reUef as weU iTS^pt- «*. I could) smile at it because it was so tovSiT^ ^rrr;a?S"", " "^ ^"^ - ag^ i^^ freed my^ however. I said, with a show of finrmess- rj2f:^^?:^:„^.-^^-'^= •"'tit-snot What sailiTto^SLi"^'"^"'^**"^*^-' But if you "I'm still not obUged to accept you-to^y." But If you mean to accept me at all— " •'BSwjr Brokenshiie-" Which I do." I mterposed. defiantly. it hC^f y°^^ enter into his game as he enters into Sc^" "*, ^'^"f'^^lf^^ doing the big ron^- W T^'u * """"^^^ * P"* P'J ^ho has nothing but herself as guaranty. That your great-grandfather was a general and one of the— what did you caU them?- Pightmg Adares of the County Cork would mean no more tohun than if you said you were descended from the Lacedffimonmns and the dragon's teeth. As far as ttat goes, you might as well be an immigrant girl fi«m Sw«ien; you might as well be a cook. He's stooping to p^ uphrs diamond from the mire, instead of buying it from a jeweler's window. Very well, then, you must let him stoop. You mustn't try to underestimate his con- 66 THE HIGH HEART dwceoiJon. You mtutn't ten him you wm once in a jeweler's windonr, and only fell into the mire by chance—" "Becau«e," I imiled, "the nure U where I belong, until I'm taken out of it." "We belong." he itated, judicially, "where the w ,1 puts us. If we're wiae we'll stay there— till we can ? i..f ; Ihe world's own temu for getting out." C3IAPTER V T COME at last to Hugh's defiance of his father. It took 1 place not only without my incitement, but without my knowledge. No one could have been more sick with mis- givmg than I when I learned that the boy had left his father's house and gone to a hotel. If I was to blame at aU It was in mentioning from time to time his condition ctt dependence. "You haven't the right to defy your father's wishes " Isaid to him, "so long as you're Uving on his money. What It comes to is that he pays you to do as he tells you. If you don't do as he tells you, you're not eamine your allowance honestly." The point of view was new to him. "But if I was making a living of my own.'" "Ah, that would be different." "You'd marrj' me then?" I considered this. "It would still have to depend." I was obliged to say at last. "Depend on what?" "On the degree to which you made yourself your own master." "I should be my own master if I earned a good income " I admitted this. "Very well," he declared, with decision. "IshaUeam 68 THE HIGH HEART I didn't question his power to do that I had heard so much of the American man's ability to make money that I took it for granted, as I did a bird's capacity for ffight. As far as Hugh was concerned, it seemed to me more a matter of intention than of opportunity. I reasoned that if he made up his mind to be independent, independent he would be. It would rest with liim. It was not of the future I was thinking so much as of the present; and in the present I was chiefly dodging his plea that we settle the matter by taking the law into our own hands. "It - on't be as bad as you think," he kept urging. "Father would be sure to come round to jrou if you were my wife. He never quarrels with the accomplished fact. That's been part of the secret of his success. He'll fight a thing as long as he can; but when it's carried over his head no one knows better than he how to make the best of it." "But, Hugh, I don't want to have him make the bcac of it that way— at least, so long as you're not your own master." One day at the Casino he pointed out Libby Jaynes to me. I was there in charge of the children, and he managed to slip over from the tennis he was playing for a word: "There she is— that girl with the orange-silk sweater." The pjint of his remark was that Libby J,?ynes was one of a group of half a dozen people, and was apparently received at Newport like anybody else. The men were m flannels; the women in the short skirts and easy atti- tudes developed by a sporting life. The silk sweater in Its brilliant hues was to the Casino grounds as the parrot to BraaKan woods. Libby Jaynes wasn't pretty; her 69 THE HIGH HEART lips were too widely parted and her teeth too big- b«rt her figure was adapted to the costume of the day. md her Ti^ I ^T^^ P"""^^- She wore both with a decided due. She was the orange spot where thei« was another of purple and another of pink and another of t^T^'^'^- -^^^ as I could see no one remem- bered that she had ever rubbed men's finger-nails in the barbers room of a hotel, and she certainly betrayed no rf^^f ^*7^'''^t Hugh begged me to observe. If I liked I could within a year be a member of this privi- teged troop instead of an outsider looking on. " You'd be just as good as she is," he declared with a n^vet^ I couldn t help taking with a smile. I was about to say. " But I don't feel inferior to her as It IS, when I recalled the queer look of increduUty he had given me on the beach. And then one morning I heard he had quarreled with tos father. It was Hugh who told me first, but Mrs Rossiter gave me all the details within an hour afterward" Aa^^^,^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^ * dimier-party in honoi^ of old Mrs. Bilhng which liad gone off with some success. The guests havmg left, the family ha. gathered in Mil- dred s sittmg-room to give the invalid an account of the entertainment. It was one of those domestic reunions on wnioh the household god insisted from time to time so that his wife should seem to have that support froiti j^-^:s children which both he and she knew she didn't have ine Jack Brokenshires were there, and Hugh, and Ethel Rossiter. It was exactly the scene for a tragi-comedy, and had the kind of settmg theatrical producers liked i>efore the ^aTu'TTI "^^ *^' °°^ °^ allegorical simplicity. Mildred had the best comer room up-stairs, though like 70 THE HIGH HEART the rest of the house, her surroundings suffered from her fathers taste for the Italianate and over-rich. Heavy dark cabinets, heavy dark chairs, gilt candelabra, and splendidly brocaded stuffs threw the girl's wan face and weak figure into prominence. I think she often sighed for pretty papers and cretonnes, for Sevres and colored I pnats, but she took her tapestries and old masters and majohca as decreed by a power slie couldn't question When everything was done for her comfort the poor thing had nothing to do for herself. The room had the further resemblance to a scene on the stage smce, as I was given to understand, no one felt the reahty of the friendliness enacted. To aU J How- ard's children it was odious that he should worship a woman who was younger than Mildred and very Uttle older than Ethel. They had loved their mother, who had beenpUin. They resented the fact that their father had got hold of her money for himself, had made her un- happy, and had forgotten her. That he should have be- come infatuated with a girl who was their own con- temporary would have been a humiliation to them in any case; but when the story of his fight for her became pubhc property, when it was the joke of the Stock Ex- c-iange and the subject of leading articles in the press they cou^d only hold their heads high and cairy the situa- tion with bravado. It was a proof of hi. grip on New iork that he could put Editha Billing where he wished to see her, and find no authority, social or financial, bold enough to question him; it was equally a proof of his dominance in his family that neither son nor daughter owild treat his new wife with anything but deference, bhe was the maUresse en tttre to whom even the princes and prmcesses had to bow ^ 71 !ii: THE HIGH HEART They wm bowing on this evening by treating old Mrs. !r, , .^ ^^ "^^^^ °f the favorite she could reason- ably ckm this homage, and no one refused it buTZr Hugh. He turned his back on it. MildredT S S^ .1 *° ^ '^'"^ °^ ^hat he caUed a flatted riSIT]'';.'^*"'^'"'''^- That went on in the S nchly hghted room behind him. where the otheHTt about, pretending to be gay. Then the match went into the gunpowder all at once. T Wn !S^ r*^ ^}^ ^^^ ^^°^e has been pleasant," a farewell to Hugh. He's sailing on—" ^^Hugh merely said over his shoulder. "No, father; I'm raS: °°' ^ ^ he had not been inter- "He's sailing on — " "No, father; I'm not." h;I!!r Z"^ °T° **^^^ ^ ""Sh's tone any mote than in his parent's. I gathered from Mrs. Rossit«- that dlp^ phem^ would be struck dead. Mentally they stood off, too, lie the choms in an opera, to see the great tragedy acted to the end without interference of thek^. H Brokenshire, who was fingering an extinct cigar, twid^^ eaned forward m exatement. Mrs. Brokenshire affected to he^ nothing and arranged her five rows of pearls Mrs. BUhng, wh«n Mrs. Rossiter described as a S^ with lace on her head and diamonds round her shrunken '.f^fS'-'i THE HIGH HEART neck, looked from one to another through her lorgnette, which she fixed at last on her son-in-law. Ethel Rossiter kept herself detached. Knowing that Hugh had been riding for a fall, she expected him now to come his cropper. It caused some surprise to the lookers-on that Mr. Brokenshire should merely press the electric bell. "Tell Mr. SpeUman to come here," he said, quietly, to the foot- man who answered his ring. Mr. SpeUman appeared, a smooth-shaven man of in- definite age, with dark shadows in the face, and cadaver- ous. His master instructed him with a word or two. There was silence during the minute that followed the man's withdrawal, a silence ominous with expectation. When SpeUman had returned and handed a long envelope to his employer and withdrawn again, the suspended action was renewed. Hugh, who was playing in seeming unconcern with the tassel of MUdred's dressing-gown, had given no attention to the small drama going on behind him. "Hugh, here's father," Mildred whispered. Her white face was drawn; she was fond of Hugh; she seemed to scent the catastrophe. Hugh continued to play with the tassel without glancing upward. It was not J. Howard's practice to raise his voice or to speak with emphasis except when the occasion de- manded it. He was very gentle now as his hand slipped over Hugh's shoulder. "Hugh, here's your ticket and your letter of credit. I asked SpeUman to see to them when he was in New York." The young man barely turned his head. "Thank you, father; but I don't want them. I can't go over— because I'm going to marry Miss Adare." 73 THE HIGH HEART Billing, turning h^ W, JT^ F^ "^ ^'^^ Mn. veiope tail Hugh continued to play with the t..ll^^ . P°; "'•^e Howard Biokenshire w/ ^L^l^ ^' ;ng stepped back a pace or two helid^hf^:. "*''" "What did you say, Hughr ^"^ '^'* ^°"'*' The answer was quite distinct "T «.m t to marry Miss Adare" "^"^ I was going "Who's that?" «^T"e™er'1:J'v'T"''f«-- She's Ethel's nur.- •■ Sn ''"' ^ ?.°"^''* *''^' ^^ °^ ^d done with " Oh, are you? Well, so am I Thp r«Mi i. expecting you for the iwelfT-- ^"^'^''^""^hs «"> ■'^e Goldboroughs can go to—" 74 THE HIGH HEART an Idea he would have retired gracefully, waiting for a [ °«»« movement opportunity, had it not been for old Mrs. BiUing's lorgnette. It will perhaps, not interrupt my narrative too much If I say here that of all the important women he knew he wasmosta&aidofher. She had coached him when he was ' th^T Vu" "^^ '^ ^ estabUshed young woman of the world She must then have had a certain Uauti du dtabte and tliat nameless thing which men find excitine 1^ u'^r "t" °^ '^'°^' °^^ ^^^ «^ fight wMe she holds the stakes, and I can believe it. Her history was said to be full of dramatic episodes, though I nev«r knew what they were. Even at sixty, which was the age at whicli I saw her, she had that kind of presence which chaUenges and dares. She was ugly and hook- nosed and withered; but she couldn't be overlooked To me she suggested that Madame Poisson who so ca:^ ftiUy prepared her daughter to become the Marquise de P^padour. Stacy Grainger, I believe, was the Louis XV. of her earlier plans, though, like a bom strategist, she changed her methods when reasons arose for doing so I shall return to this later in my story. At present I only want to say that I do not beUeve that Mr. Brokenshire would have pushed things to an issue that night had her lorgnette not been there to provoke him "Has it occurred to you, Hugh." he asked, in his soft- . est ton^. on reaching a stand before the chimney which was filled with dwarfed potted palms, "that I pay you an allowance of six thousand doUars a year?" Hugh continued to play with the tassel of Mildred's gown. Yes father; and as a Socialist I don't think it ngflt. I ve been coming to the decision that—" 75 ill THE HIGH HEART -IX-TdTp J1L^r JT «« Sod."* ««■ d^ir a,d leave pTMaS. ,' ti"*^ ^"^ *«^ » Mildred whispered: "Oh. Hi i," k- h^ds in-hll'^"^^-/ hunched podtion!^ ful to the company ^ ^""'^ ««* ""Pect- «^*r^°rd:::s^s^:"'-<^«^.-i«^^ S^T"- °^ ^'^^ ^•"<^ air £r^,^- shaV^^aStofS^^L^?' °^-- ^*^-. t— I Hugh, yota: expression 'sha'n't k« 1 1 not in the vocabul^th wwl V^ ^l^le to obey' i, "But Jf o ;« 4.1. wnicn i m familiar." But It s m the one with which I am " It in your memory You'Ilftn^ mi. '^- ^ io Sx for it." ^^ ^°""fi«dyou'Uhavealotatuse ?6 ' THE HIGH HEART "Don't be anpertinent" "I'm not impertinent. I'm itating a fact. I ask every one here to remember that name—" "We needn't bring any one else into this foolish busi- ness. Its between you and me. Even so, I wish to have no argument." "Nor I." "Then in that case we undf itand each other. You'll oe with the Goldboroughs for tne twelfth—" Hugh spoke very distinctly: "Father-rm-not— going." fai the silence that foUowed one could hear the tickine « the mantelpiece clock. "Then may I ask where you are going?" Hugh raised himself from his sprawling attitude, hold- mghis bulky young figure erect. "I'm going to earn a &>me one, perhaps old Mrs. Billing, laughed. The father contmued to ^ with great if dangerous courtesy, at ^t?" ' interesting. And may I ask "At what I can find." "That's more interesting stiU. Earning a Hving in New York >s like the proverbial looking for the n^e m ttie haystack. The needle is there, but it take^" Very good eyesight to detect it. All right, dad. I shall be on the job." "Good! And when do you propose to begin?" It had not been Hugh's intention to begin at any time m particular, but, thus chaUenged, he said, boldly, "To- morrow. «JT!h*,!' excellent. But why put it off so long? I should thmk you'd start out-to-night." 77 THE HIGH HEART r>e "Citing ^^, ^ *^, rf *^.r** ** .t did justice to a sporting Eon 2 T^.h^fl'^ '^^ *•» story on the fonoJi!^ "•■"auon. As Hugh told me S,"^^ throwing the words'^rSaST^' ;;A11 right father. Since you wish it-" defy your wishes dad I ™f t^ °bhqaely. " I don't aftwenty-^*trii^„/^^^--theright asaman yourself God—" '"'°^^e. If you wouldn't make The handsome hand went im "w .« that, if you please^ rH* ^^1 .^* " "°* *^ about n>atter ^y S^' liZr1^''°l°^ "^"^^ «» iathesituationTwhichw'^ ^°"^''* that if I were be-gettiag b^y S^m^f ^^ ^'^ ^'ourself, I should he had the power to ^.e ^7^.-^7'^^ ^ father, aU the same "He Ir^ ?*°^ ""^"y- Where each of tr^aonS slrSu^l °" *"•' ^^ Passion of hoiror-that is ^thT),l appropnate ex- lady Billing, who S L^lf^ 1^'''^**°" °^ ^''^ °Jd nodded app«,vdof To mu'lspX'*^c!S, *° ^ ^^'^• one," Hugh continued «C,n "^^^ °"°^ ""^ht, every the door. '=°°*'°"^' «^My. and made his way tow^ 78 THE HIGH HEART Hughl Hughiel You're not going away like that'" Hereteaced his steps to the couch, where he stooped. pr«»sedhui8u.ters thin fingers, and kissed her. Indobjt so he was able to whisper: ^ <;h!!i?^'* ^°^' ^""^ ''""• Going to be all right. Shall be a man now. See you soon again." Having raised himself, he nodded once more. "Good night every one." "'I5"W Mrs. Rossiter said that he was so much like a young fellow gmng to his execution that she couldn't respond by a word. ^ Hugh tiben marched up to his father and held out his hand. Good mght, dad. We needn't have any ill- feelmg even if we don't agree." But the Great Dispenser didn't see him. An imposin-r figure standing with his hands behind his back, he kept his fingers clasped. Looking thixmgh his son as if he ^^ more than air. he remarked to the company in "I don't think I've ever seen Daisy Burke appear ^^^xx'^^ ^'^ *°-'^«'^*- S^«'^ "s^y «> badly where Mrs. Brokenshir^-whom Ethel Rossiter described as a rigid, exquisite thing staring off into vacancy-sat on a man upright chair. "What do you think, darling?" tw*?^"^^ ^^ *•"* ^"^y *^"g *° "^y to the hint that had thus been given them, and doing their best to discuss the merits and demerits of Daisy Burke, as he stood m the big, square hall outside, wondering where he should seek shelter. MICTOCOrY >I$01UTI0N TiST CHA«T (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No 2) 128 L2J ■ 3.2 — „„ I™ 12.2 13.6 n^H ^ 1^ 1.8 K^l^i^ ^ -APPLIED IIVHGE In ^^ 1653 Easi Main StrMi ^■S Rochesler. Ne* York 14609 uS* ■.^^ ('16) 482 - 0300 - Phone ^S (716) 288 - 5989 - Fa» CHAPTER VI ■ryHAT Hugh did in the end was simple. Finding » » the footman who was accustomed to valet him he oJ^toed han to bring a supply of hnen and some suit^ to a certam hotel early on the following morning. He then P"i°°/ ^i"* "^^W'a* ^d a cap and left the house. ITie first few steps from the door he closed behind him gave him, so he told me next day, the strangest feeUng he f^,,^T,?^^'^- ^« ^^ consciously v^ta^g forth mto hfe without any of his usual supports. What ttose supports had been he had never realized tiU then He had always been stayed by some one else's authority and buoyed all round by plenty of money. Now he felt todiange the sunile as he changed it himself, as if he had been thrown out of the nest before having leamt to fly. As he walked resolutely down the dark driveway toward Ochre Point Avenue he was mentaUy hovering and balancmg and trembling, with a tendency to flop There was no longer a downy bed behind him; no longer ^ vTu* ^^ *° ^^^ him his daily woim. Tie outlpping her voice and glancmg about her, afraid she might be overheard. "It's as rf God hmiself had become the slave of some silly hu! man woman just because she had a pretty face." The sentence not only betrayed the B^-kenshire attitude of mind tow^d J Howard, but sent a chill down my back! Having finished my notes and addressed them I rose to return to Gladys; but there was still an unanswered ques- sld^^heZr"- ^-^«^'*-«^<^SforaminuteV "Then you don't want me to go away?" ^Jhe arched her lovely eyebrows. "Go away? What "Because of the danger of my marrying Hugh." thft " ^""^ ^ ^**^' ^^- "°^' '^"^'^ °° danger of "But there is." I insisted. "He's asked me a number rf tmes to go with him to the nearest clergyman, and settle the question once for all." ^nZ^^ ^°" 1°"'* '^° '*■ There you are! What father doesnt want doesn't happen; and what he does -^ does. That's all there is to be said " CHAPTER VII AS a matter of fact, that was all Mrs. Rossiter and I i\ did say. I was so relieved at not being thrown out of house and home on the instant that I went back to Gladys and her lisping in French almost cheerily. You will think me pusillanimous — and I was. I didn't want to go to Mrs. Applegate and the Home for Working- Girls. As far as food and shelter were concerned I liked them well enough where I was. I liked Mrs. Rossiter too. I should be sorry to give the impression that she was superdlious or unkind. She was neither the one nor the other. If she betrayed little sentiment or sympathy toward me, it was because of admitting me into that fenjinine freemasonry in which the emotional is not called for. I might suffer while she remained indifferent; I might be killed on the spot while she wouldn't shed a tear; and yet there was a heartless, good-natured, Uve- and-let-live detachment about her which left me with nothing but good-will. Then, too, I knew that when I married Hugh she woula do nothing of her own free will against me. She would not brave her father's decree, but she wouldn't be in- tolerant; she might think Hugh had been a fool, but when she could do so surreptitiously she would invite him and me to diimer. As this was a kind of recognition in advance, I could not be otherwise than grateful. 97 jj^ I THE HIGH HEART It made waiting for Hugh the easier. I calculated that if he entered into some sort of partnership with his cousin Ancbew Brew-I didn't in the least know what-we nught be married within a month or two. At furthest it nught be about the time when Mrs. Rossiter renuved to New York, which would make it October or November I could then slip quietly back to Halifax, be quietly mar- ned, and quietly settle with Hugh in Boston. In the mean time I was glad not to be disturbed. I spent, therefore, a pleasant morning with my pupil and ate a pleasant lunch, watching from the gable win- dow of the school-room the great people assemble in the breakfast loggia m honor of the Marquise de Pompadour's mother. I am not sure that old Madame Poisson ever vent to court; but if she did I know the courtiers must have shown her just such deference as that which Mrs. Rossiter's guests exhibited to this withered old lady with the hooked nose and the lorgnette. I was curious about the whole entertainment. It was not the only one of the kind I had seen from a distance smce coming to Mrs. Rossiter, and I couldn't help com- parisons with the same kind of thing as done in the ways with which I was familiar. Here it was less a luncheon thaix It was an exquisite thing on the stage, rehearsed to the last point. In England, in Canada, luncheon would bs something of a friendly haphazard, primarily for the sake of getting food, secondly as a means to a scrambling, jjlly sort of social intercourse, and hardly at all a cere^ momal. Here the ceremouial came first. Hostess and guests seemed alike to be taking part in a rite of seeing and bemg seen. The food, which was probably exceUent, "^^ as laugh. She only gasped out that long "Ha-a!" which io6 THE HIGH HEART procUims the sporting interest, of which both Hugh and Ethel Rossiter had told me in the morning. Mr. Brokenshire seemed to brace himself, leanine for- ward, with his elbow on the table and his cigar between the fingere of his raised right hand. His eyes were bent on me-fine eyes they were!-as if in kinay amuse- ment. ' """°^ "My good girl," he said, in his most pitying voice "I wdi I could tell you how sorry for you I am. Neither Of these dreams can possibly come true—" My blood being up, I interrupted with some force. Then m that case, Mr. Brokenshire, you can be quite ^ m your mind, for I should never marry your son " Haymg made this statement, I foUowed it up by saying Smce that is understood. I presume there's no objert m my staying any longer." I was half rising when his hand went u^; t. "« "Wait. We'll tell you when to go. You haven't yet got my point. Perhaps I haven't made it clear. I'm not mterested in your hopes — " "No. sir; of course not; nor I in yours." "1 haven't inquired as to that— but we'll let it pass. We re both apparently interested in my son." I gave a little bow of assent. ' I said I wished to make an appeal to you." I made another little bow of assent. "It's on his behalf. You could do him a great kind- ness. You could make him understand— I gather that he s under your influence to some degree; you're a clever ^1, I can see that— but you could make him understand that m fancying he'll marry you he's starting out on a task m which there's no hope whatever " "But there is." 107 THE HIGH HEART T^^^\J^?^'^ ^"^ ^""^ conditions that wiU never be luinilea. "What makes you say that?" "My knowledge of the world." "Oh, but would you call that knowledge of the world?" I was swept along by the force of an inner indignation which had b.-come reckless. "Knowledge of the world," Ihumedon, unpUes knowledge of the human heart, and you ve none of that at all." I could see him flush My good girl, we're here to speak of you, not of "Surely we're here to speak of us both, since at any mmute I choose I can marry your son. If I don't niany hmi it's because I don't choose; but when I do choose — Again the hand went up. "Yes. of course; but that's not what we want specially to hear. Let us assume as you say, that you can marry my son at any time you choose. You don't choose, for the reason that you're astute enough to see that your last state would be woim than the first. To enter a family that would disown you at once — ' I kept down my tone, though I couldn't master my excit«nent. "That's not my reason. If I don't ma J him It s precisely because I have the power. There are peopl^wards they are at heart, as a nil^who be- cause they have the power use it to be insolent, especially to those who are weaker. I'm not one of those. There's a noblesse oblige that compels one in spite of everything In deahng with an elderly man, who I suppose loves h^ «m, and with a lady who's been so kind to me as Mra Kossiter — " io8 THE HIGH HEART There's no "You've been hired, and you're paid, special call for gratitude." y.h^^^!^ ^ ^"^ P^^ '^° ^^ 't; »«t that isn't 'vhat I speaally want to say." ;;;n^t you spedaUy want to say apparently i^" lh£ I m not afraid of you, sir; I'm not afraid of yo^fanuly or your money or your position or anvthii or any one you can control. If I don't many Hugh J?s for the reason that I've given, and for noS. As W as he s dependent on your money I shall not many him m ^_come and beg me to do it^-aad that I shall atpect to^fi^'""''^- "T^*-'tai you've brought us I could barely pipe, but I stood to my guns. "If you hke the expression, sii-yes. I shall not many Hueh- ^te>g as you support him-^iU I've brought you to your If I expected the heavens to fall at this I was disao- pomted. M J. Howard did was to lean on L^ to^ arfMrs.BUhngandtalktoherprivatdy. Mrs. Rossi^ g^p and went to her father, entering also into a whis- P^ coUoquy. Once or twic* he glanced backward to h^ wrfe, but she was now gazing sidewise in the direction of the house and over the lines of flowers that edged the terraces. ^ T ^""^f ■/°^'^ ^ S°°« •'^ to her seat, and J^ Howard had r^sed himself from his conversation with Mrs BiUmg, he began again to address me tranquilly fnr i r^ y?" "nigtt have sympathized with my hopes for Hugh and have helped to convince him how uselS lus plans for a maniage between him and you must be " I answered with decision: "No; I can't do that." log THE HIGH HEART "I should have appreciated it — " "That I can quite understand." "And some day have shown you that I'm actine for your good." ^ "Oh, sir," I cried, "whatever else you do, you'U let my good be my own aflFair, will you not?" I thought 1 heard Mrs. Billing say, "Brava!" ' At any rate, she tapped her fingers together as if in applause. I b««an to feel in a more lenient spirit toward her. "I'm quite willing to do that," my opponent Si i in a moderate, long-sufiering tone, "now that I see that you refuse to take Hugh's good into consideration. So long ^.y^ «n««rage him in his present madness—" "I'm not doing that." He took no notice of the interruption. "—I'm obUged to regard him as nothing to me." ['That must be between you and your son." "It is. I'm only asking you to note that you— ruin "No, no," I began to protest, but he sUenced me with a movement of his hand. "I'm not a haid man naturally," he went on, in his tranquil voice, "but I have to be obeyed." "Why?" I demanded. "Why should you be obeyed more than any one else?" "Because I mean to be. That must be enough—" _ 'But It isn't," I insisted. "I've no intention of obey- mc you—" ■■ He broke in with some haste: "Oh, there's no question of you, my dear young lady. I've nothing to do with you I m speaking of my son. He must obey me, or take the consequences. And the consequences will last as long as he hves. I'm not one to speak rashly, or to speak twice, no THE HIGH HEART So that's what I'm putting to you. Do you think-do you honestly think-that you're improving your position by rummg a man who sooner or latei-^ooner rather than later— wiU lay his ruin at your door and loathe you? Come now! You're a clever girl. The case is by no means beyond you. Think, and think straight." 'I am thinking, sir. I'm thinking so straight that I see right through you. My father used to say—" "No reminiscence, please." "Very well, then; we'll let the reminiscence go. But you re thinking of committing a crime, a crime against Hugh, a cnme against yourself, a crime against love every kind of love-and that's the worst crime of all- and you haven't the moral courage to shoulder the guilt yourself; you're trying to shuffle it oflE on me." " My good woman — " But nothing could silence me now. I leaned forward, mth hands clasped in my lap, and merely looked at him. My voice was low, but I spoke rapidly: "You're talking to bewilder me, to throw dust in my eyes, to snare me into taking the blame for what you're domg of your own free act. It's a kind of reasoning whidi some girls would be caught by, but I'm not one of than U Hugh IS ruined in the sense you mean, it's his father who will rum him-but even that is not the worst. What's worst, what's dastardly, what's not merely unwort:hy of a man like you but unworthy of any man-of anything that caUs itself a mal^is that you, with all your r^ sources of every '-ind, should try to foist your responsi- bilities OflE on a woman who has no resources whatever That I shouldn't have believed of any of your sex— if it liadn't happened to myself." But my eloquence left him as unmoved as before. He THE HIGH HEART whispered with Mrs. Billing. The old lady was animated. maJcmg beats and lunges with her lorgnette. "So that what it comes to," he said to me at last, lifting himself up and speaking in a tired voice, "is that you really mean to pit yourself against me. " " No, sir; but that you mean to pit yourself against me " Soinething compeUed me to add: "And I can teU you no-.v that you 11 be beaten in the end." Perhaps he didn't hear me, for he rose and, stooping, car- ned cm his discussion with Mrs. Billing. There was a lono penod m which no one paid any further attention to my presence; m fact, no one paid any attention to me any more. To my last words I expected some retort, but none came. Ethel Rossiter joined her father at the end of the table, and when Mrs. Billing also rose the conversation went on d tr