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Laa diagrammas suivants illustrant la mtthoda. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 mUOCOn RESOLUTION liST CHART (ANSI and ISO "ST CHART No. 2) 1.0 1^1^ m 1.1 I »^ 11^ ^ /APPLIED IM/^GE In ^S^: 1GS3 East Main Street ^g Rochester. Na* york t*609 uSA r-^ (716) «B2- 0300 -Phone =^ (?16) 288 - 5989 - Fa. If "IHi i::;g| St?' !f 1" I, "^ iTiyf :^ i' * * ^ * 1 i 1 •« I' ■if- s 1 '-'M **, »«' 1 » 1^ I 4 4l.> ■s;'r* ^' si' r" " r / THE THREAD OF FLAME Books BT BASIL KING THE T HREAD OF FLAME GOING WEST THE CITY OF COMKADES ABRAHAM'S BOSOM THE LIFTED VEIL tat SIDE OF THE ANQEU THE LETTER OP THE CONTRACT THE WAV HOME THE WILD OUVE THE INNER SHRINE THE STREET CALLED STRAIGHT LET NO MAN PUl ASUNDER IN THE GARDEN OP CHARITY THE STEPS or HONOR THE HIGH HEART HAKFEB * BROTHERS. NEW YORK EluauiUB 1817 "r\h, as for cheering people up — I don't know ... A v_/ woman wants more than anything else in the world to feel that she's needed; and when she discovers she isn't — " THE THREAD OF FLAME By BASIL KING "iw ctiT or comADxs" "goimo wm'* "TBS nnnK ratoiB" xtc ^' IlHstratti Harper 6lf Brothers Publisheri New York and London 1 '- 1^1 '< 2!iB0i7 The Thsbad op flau Copmghl. io,o, by Harcr ft Brotken Printed in the United Sutea of AnSS Publiillcd AujMt. 1930 ILLUSTRATIONS "Oh. as for cheering people uf^l don't know ■ . .A woman wants more than anythine else m the world to feel that she's needed and when she discovers she isn't—" She tumed on me with a new flash in her blue eyes. "Ix^khere! Tell me honest, now. Are you a swell crook-^r ain't you'" Suppose I say that-that I ain't." "Say, fad I she responded, coldly, "talk like yourself, will you.'... If ^j^,.„J\^ swell crook I can't make you out" . All these minutes she had been observing me. .'^^^^.''"^''^'^-'■.''''ed cry as the re: suit. Uh. Billy. IS this you?" . ' ''l!'d'^wr.°i""f %"'' ""'''" "'•- vio' was here this afternoon?" FrontiapiKt . Facing p. 120 298 THE THREAD OF FLAME W CHAPTER I [THOUT opening my eyes I guessed that it must be between five and six in the morning. I was snuggled into something narrow. On moving my knee abruptly it came into contact with an upright board. At the same time the end of my bed rose upward, so that my feet were higher than my head. Then the other end rose, and my head was higher than my feet. A slow, gentle roll threw my knee once more against the board, though another slow, gentle roll swung me back to my former position. Far away there was a rhythmic throbbing, like the beating of a pulse. I knew I was on shipboard, and for the moment It was all I knew. Not quite awake and not quite asleep, I waited as one waits in any strange bed, in any strange place, for the waking mind to reconnect itself with the happenings overnight. Sure of this speedy re-estabhshment, I dozed again. On awaking the second time I was still at a loss for the reason for my being at sea. I had left a port; 3 THE THREAD OF FLAME I was going to a port; and I didn't know the name of either. I might have been on any ocean, sailing to any quarter of the globe. How long I had been on the way, and how far I had still to go, were details that danced away from me whenever I tried to seize them. I retained a knowledge of conti- nents and coimtries; but as soon as I made the attempt to see myself in any of them my mind recoiled from the effort with a kind of sick dislike. Nothing but a dull hint came to me on actually opening my eyes. An infiltration of gray light through the door, which was hooked ajar, revealed a mere slit in space, with every peg and comer utilized. A quiet breathing from the berth above my head told me that I shared the cabin with some one else. On the wall opposite, above a flat red couch ^iled with ^mall articles of travel, two complete sets of clothing swung outward, or from side to side like pendulums, according to the movement of the ship. I closed my eyes again. It was clearly a cabin of the cheaper and less comfortable order, calling up a faintly disagreeable surprise. It was from that that I drew my inference. I Judged that whoever I was I had traveled before, and in more luxurious conditions. Through the partly open door, beyond which there must have been an open porthole, came puffs of salt wind and the swish and roar of the ocean. Vainly I sought indications as to the point of the compass toward which we were headed. Imagination adapted itself instantly to any direc- 4 THE THREAD OF FLAME tion it was asked to take. In this inside cabin there was from! ' suggestion U„... ,„.„. I.IU the diiference between east and west. Because 1 was not specially alarmed I did my best to doze agam. Dozing seemed to me, indeed, the wisest course, for the reason that during the Ireedom of subconsciousness in sleep the missins connection was the more likely to be restored. It would be restored of course. I was physically well. I knew that by my general sensations. Young, vigorous, and with plenty of money, a mere lapse of memory was a joke. Of being young and vigorous a touch on my body was enough to give me the assurance. The assumption of having plenty of monev was more subtle. It was a habit of mind rather than any- thing more convincing. Certainly there was nothing to prove it in this cabin, which might easily have been second-class, nor yet in the stuff of my pajamas, which was thick and coarse I noticed now, as 1 turned in my bunk, that it rasped my skin unpleasantly. With no effort of the memory I could see myself elegantly clad in silk mght-clothmg fastened with silk frogs; and yet when I asked myself when and where that had been no answer was accorded me. I may have slept an hour when I waked again !• rom the sounds in the cabin I drew the con- clusion that my overhead companion had got up. Before looking at him I tested my memory for some such recollection as men sharing the same cabin have of their first meeting. But I had none. 5 THE THREAD OF FLAME Farther back than that waking between five and six o|clock I couldn't think. It was like trying to think back to the years preceding one's birth; one's personality dissolved into darkness. When I opened my eyes there was a man stand- ing in the dim gray light with his back to me. Broad, muscular shoulders showed through the undershirt which was all he wore in addition to his trousers, of which the braces hung down the back. The dark hair was the hair of youth, and in a comer of the glass I caught the reflection of a chin vhich in spite of the lather I also knew to be young. Waiting till he had finis'aed shaving and had splashed his face in the basin, I said, with a questioning intonation: "Hello?" Tummg slowly, he lowered the towel from his dripping face, holding it out like a propitiatory offiering. He responded then with the slow ea*- phasis of surprise. "Hel-lo, old scout! So you've waked up at last! Thought you meant to sleep the trip out." "Have I been asleep long?" "Only since you came on aboard." It was on my tongue to ask. When was that? but a sudden prompting of discretion bade me seek another way. "You don't mean to say I've slept more than — more than" — I drew a bow at a venture — "more than twenty-four hours?" He made the reckoning as he rubbed his shin- ing face with the towel. 6 THE THREAD OF FLAME "Let me see! This is Friday. We came on board late Tuesday night. When John-M'rie, our bedroom steward, brought me dow i to the cabin about half past nine you were already in your bunk doing the opium act. John-M'rie passed it up that you were a Frenchman, because you'd spoken French to him; but now I see you're just an American like myself." So! I was an American but I could speak French. I could speak French sufficiently well for one ''"renchman to mistake me for another. I stowed this data away, noting that if I had lost some of the power of memory the faculty of reasoning was unimpaired. Weighing my questions so as to get the maxi- mum of information with the minimum of be- trayal, I waited before hazarding anything else till he had finished polishing a face which had the handsome ugliness of a pug. "When do you think," was my next diplo- marie venture, "that we shall get in?" "Oh, hang!" The exclamation was caused by finding himself pawing at the foot of my berth in h -. search for the towel-rack. "Wednesday morning with good luck," he went on, feeling along the wall till he touched a kind of rod, behind which he tucked the towel. "With bad weather we'll not pick up the Nantucket Lightship before Thursday night. The old bucket's supposed to do it in eight days; but you know what that means these times." I didn't ki.ow, since these times did not dis- 7 THE THREAD OF FLAME tinguish themselves in my mind from any other times. But the Nantucket Lightship was a ref- erence I understood. We were sailing for New York. As an American I was therefore on my way home, though no spot on the continent put forth a special claim on me. I made brief experi- ments m various directions: New York, Wash- ington, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Denver, Seattle. Nothing responded. The hills of New England, the mountains of California, the levees of Louisiana were alike easy for me to recall; but I was as detached from them as a spirit from another world. These ideas floated— I choose the phrase as expressive of something more nebulous than active thinking— these ideas floated across my brain as I watched the boy rinse his tooth-brush, replace the tumbler, and feel along the wall for the flannel shirt hanging on a peg. He turned to me then with the twinkling, doggy look I was beginning to notice as a trait. "Say, you'd eat a whale, wouldn't you? Haven t had a meal since Tuesday night, and now It's Friday. Any one would think you were up in the Ypres region before the eats got on to the time-table. Pretty good grub on board this old French tub, if you holler loud enough." While he went on to suggest a menu for my breakfast I end avored to deal with the new hints he had thrown out. He had spoken of Ypres. He had referred to short rations. I remembered that there was a war. Whether it was over, or 8 THE THREAD OF FLAME had been and perhaps that th'^'re st I was a wa? ing personal to myself entered Jntn *U ^^' to it. till some smaS'AkctK^^^" in "^**' Dni,kw„„| I.n', ,!,„ rt. Ja„rf.„( I 9 I I ill THE THREAD OF FLAME can't look sidewise at anything that isn't water before the other guys begin to kid me all over the lot. Many a time I would drink water— and don t want anything but water to drink— and 1 11 be hanged if I don't feel ashamed to have them see me doing it— and me with that name! What do you know about that?'' As I was too gravely preoccupied to tell him what I knew about that, he began once more his cunous pawing along the wall, till he seized a cap which he pulled down on his head. "Oh, hang!" he muttered then. "That's yours." This, too, was information, enabling me to as- sume that the clothing which hung on the same hook was mme also. I looked at it with some mterest, but also with a renewed feeling of dis- comfort. It was the sort of suit in which I found It difficult to see myself. Of a smooth gray twill, sleek and provincial, there was that about it which suggested the rural beau. Having momentarily lost his orientation, the boy clawed in the air again, touching first this object and then that, fingering it, considering it, locating It, till once more he got his bearings. AH this he did with a slowness and caution that forced on me the recognition of the fact, which I might have perceived before, that he was blind. Nothing betrayed it but his motions. The starry eyes were apparently uninjured. Only, when you knew his infirmity, you noticed that the starriness was like that of an electric lamp, 10 I THE THREAD OF FLAME su„set.^all fro. outside, and due to .oth."gt "Say, there's one man on board who'U be elad asTtheV"' h-,. though that 2Sed mt as by the hope of getting sidelights on myself ,,Do you travel with a doctor?" ^ Came over with him just before the war T was his stenog. NameofAverill Be^nT'.ni TsSleT TelfT ^"Vr'-^r- '''^' -" sine my b eakfasT ff '" '*''°"* ''r "'"^^ ^'^^ had my oreaktast. Off now to send in John-M'rie CHAPTER II BEFORE getting up to make the invest*.' gations on which I was so keen I waited to be rid of Jean-Marie. He came in presently — small, black, wiry, not particularly clean, and with an oily smell, but full of an ingratiating kindness. When I had trumped up an explanation of my abnormally long sleep I set him to separating my hand-luggage from my cabin-mate's, nominally for the sake of convenience, but really that I might know which was mine. The minute he had left with my order for breakfast I sprang from my bunk. I searched first the pockets of my clothes. There was noth- ing in them but a handkerchief, a few French coins, and a card giving the number of a cabin, the number of a seat at a table in the dining- saloon, and the name of Mr. Jasper Soames. It was a name that to me meant nothing. Refer- ring it to my inner self, nothing vibrated, noth- ing rang. It was like crying to clink a piece of money on wool or cork or some other unrespon- sive material. My clothing itself was what I had guessed from the inspection made from my berth. It 12 THE THREAD OF FLAME suggested having been bought ready to wear, a suggestion borne out by the label of what was ulrchf^T *"* tP='«'"«nt store, the Bon Marche, at Tours My cap had the same label, and my hard felt hat no maker's name at all I began on the bags which Jean-Marie had segregated as my property. There were two, a hand-bat; '"d a su.t-case, neither of them tagged brushes^handkerchiefs, all of the cheaper varf^ ties. Where there was anything to indicate the place at which they had been purchased it was always the Bon Marche at Tours I oZ^A f"""""!',' ^^t^ '"'' unlocked, and which Ifl^? '^" ''/"«!,"« *?" '^^ ^'^^' ^ «"le linen. liZ ii"^*' °f underclothing, a small supply of socks, collars, and other such necessities, all more or less new, some of them still unworn, but with not so much as an initial to give a c ue to the tirwVh^%"T'^ "!r='"'' ^ "="1^ '^- ^bserla! uon with a fnghtened inward laugh-that a ma., running away from detection for a crime would nt himself out in just this way Having repacked the bags, I stood at a loss, in the sense that for the first time I felt stunned thnn^TTTK'^'\P™'"'''"« ^° ^^ "-"^e ''eric IS than I had thought it possible for it to become Ihere were so many things to think of that I couldn t see them all before me at a glance Standing m the middle of the narrow floor, steadying myself by a hand on the edge of Drink! '3 II ! THE THREAD OF FLAME y.ater's bunk, I suddenly caught my reflection in the glass. It was a new line to follow up. A look into my own eyes would reforge those hnks with myself that had trembled away. I went closer, staring at the man who now con- ironted me. It is an odd experience to gaze at yourself and see a stranger; but that is what happened to me now The face that gazed back at me was one which as far as I could tell, I had never seen in my Me I had seen faces like it, hundreds of them, but neve, precisely this face. It was the typical face of the brown-eyed, brown-haired Anglo-Saxon, lean, leathery, and tanned; but tt,?n"T "°,'?°;;^«=°""ect it with my intimate self than I could Drinkwater's face, or Jean-Marie's. It was that of a man who might have been thirty-two, but who possibly looked older I mean by that that there was a haggardness in It which seemed to come of experience rather than trom time. Had you passed this face in the street you would have said that it was that of a tall, good-looking young fellow with a brown mustache, but you would have added that the eyes had the queer, far-away luminosity of eyes that have "seen things." They would have re- minded you of Dnnkwater's eyes-not that they were like them, but only because of their fixed the^E" ''""^''' that have passed away from My next thought was of money. So far I had found nothing but the few odd coins in mv H THE THREAD OF FLAME l^iTJ ""** *•"* r''*'' P'"="'y °f " somewhere I took as a matter of course. I know now by ex- perience that people in the habit of having money led by d^erent 'senses." In the one case it is a sense of hmitation; in the other of liberty. It a bind '''^"rt •'^*"^^" '^' -"V" o a blind man and those of one who can see-a tactful feehng of ever, step in contrast with^e duced h"*"' '"'* ^°- i^ =»" '^' detractions in! duced by poverty and wealth it is one that appeab to me now as the most signfficant Merely to do without things, or merely tf possess' things. IS matter of little importance A ma / which h?^"' "°* i" '^' '•'""''^"'^^ °f ^l'- ^h'^g which he possesseth. we are told on high author- ity; but It does consist in his state of mind. To be always m a state of mfnd in which restriction IS instmctiye is like always creeping as a baby and never learning to walk. *^ ^ "" ^ °^^} But as far as money went I was free. I had never been without it. I had no conception of a life m which I couldn't spend as much as I probably had a letter of credit somewhere, if I could only put my hand on it. On arrivii^g i„ New York I should of course have access to^my bank-account. ■' It occurred to me to look under my pillow, and there, sure enough, was a little leather purse J.fh '\Tu '=°"""°" '"tie purse was secondary to the fact that it was filled. Sitting on the ed^ THE THREAD OF FLAME of the couch, I opened it with fingers that shook with my excitement. It contained three five- hundred-franc notes, two for a hundred, some hundred and fifty in gold, and a little silver, nearly four hundred dollars in all. I seemed to know that roughly it was the kind of sum I generally carried on my person when abroad. After a hasty scrubbing up I crept back into bed, and wdted for Jean-Marie to bring my breakfast. It was my first thoi-ght that I must not let him see that anything was wrong. I must let no one see that. The reason 1 had given him for my extraordinary sleep, that of having long suffered from insomnia and being relieved by the sea air, would have to pass, too, with Drinkwater's friend the doctor, should he come to see me. No one, no one, must suspect that for so much as an hour the sense of my identity had escaped me. The shame I felt at that— a shame I have since learned to be common to most victims of the same mis- hap—was overwhelming. Rather than confess it I could own to nearly anything in the nature of a crime. But it was no one's business but my own. I comforted myself with that reflection amid much that I found disturbing. What I chiefly found disturbing was my gen- eral environment. I couldn't understand this narrow cabin, these provincial foreign clothes. While I was sorry for Drinkwater's blindness, I disliked the closeness of contact with one I re- i6 THE THREAD OF FLAME garded as my inferior. I am not saying that I took this situation seriously. I knew I could extncate myself from it on arriving in New York The element in it that troubled me was my in- abihty to account for it. What had I been doing that I should find myself in conditions so dis- tasteful.? Why should I have wanted to oMiter- ate my traces? It was obvious that I had done It, and that I had done it with deliberation. Be- Ni^*" °^/" the world. I had made myself Nobody, and for that I must have had a motive. « tV,Vk'"°"''V''"u^°."''' '°"f^°« ">« »'' soon as 1 had become Somebody again f That I should have lost the sense of my identity was bad enough m Itself; but that I should reappear in a role that was not my own, and with a name I was sure 1 had never borne, was at once terrifying and grotesque. * 3 CHAPTER III IT occurred to me that I could escape some of my embarrassment by asking Drinkwater to stop his friend the doctor from looking in on me; but before I had time to formulate this plan, and while I was sitting up crosslegged in my berth, eatmg from the tray which Jean-Marie had laid on my knees, there was a sharp rap on the door. As I could do nothing but say, "Come in," the doctor was before me. "Good!" he said, quietly, without greeting or self-introduction. "Best thing you could be doing." The lack of formality nettled me. I objected to his assumption of a right to force himself in uninvited. I said, frigidly: "I shall be out on deck pres- ently. If you want to see me, perhaps it would be easier there." "Oh, this is all right." He made himself com- fortable in a corner of the couch, propping his body against the rolling of the ship with a forti- fication of bags. "Glad you're able to get up and dress. I'm Doctor Averill." To give him to understand that I was not com- i8 I THE THREAD OF FLAME municative I took this information in silence My coldness apparently did not impress him, ani rSedteTt" '^'••^"'"^ "'"-"- - --• ures manners, clothing, were mere accidents. He struck you as being wise, though with a measure of sympathy in his wisdom. ^ Smali^ budd the dome of his forehead would ha" cov- ered a man of twice h.s stature. A small, dark mustache was no more consciously a po nt of to a rock. When he took off his cap his baldness though more extensive than you would have exl fo,?v fi " ""•" who couldn't have been older than forty-five, was the finishing-touch of the staid. "Yes""* "^ "" '°"^ "'"P-" "Making up for lost time?" "Exactly." "Been at the front?" I J„'er,rl'-fV"''.,°'".A.'l"""'°" I was afraid of. I knew that .f I sa.d, "Yes," I should have to give details, and so I said, "No." "Look as if you had been " "Do I?" '•Often leaves some sort of hang-over—" was?tthe«y'°^''=*^'"'"^"-'l'— I He tried another avenue of approach. " Drink- water told me you were a Fi .nchman." 19 Ir THE THREAD OF FLAME nZ'd!"'^™ *° •""' '^- » ™"='k« of our •'But you speak the language." les, I speak it. "Have you lived much in France?" Oh, on and off." "Had a position over there?" It seemed to be my turn to ask a question T shot him a quick jflance "Wk . question. 1 do you mean?" ^ ^" ""^ of position "Oh, I didn't know but what you might have been m a shop or an office-" ""«« "ave T u J '?°'"'f '•''«= *•'«•' It was a surprise to m. I had thought he might mention thTEmbasTv Must have found it useful to speak FrenrK so well, especially at a time like this » '"'^ lit/! ?j''^ T' S° '"^° the war a fellow hke you could make himself handy in a bt of We were therefore not in the war. I was dad to add that to my list of facts. "I shouW tfv » tVrhLV^^''"^^''^-''^--'^--^-^^^^^ "Wonder you weren't tempted to pitch in as 20 THE THREAD OF FLAME ihl"? ■ ^ '"l "'^T ^°""« Americans did-chaps who found themselves over there." "I wasn't one of them." as mr«2r"'^ u "'•""T-''' ^'"^ °^" ^^^ me as my stenographer in the spring of that year- and when the thing broke out—" "He went?" "Yes, he went." "nu^ ^'^"'t.get much good from it." "h, I don t know about that. Depends— Sfows-"""" "''" "^ "'^="' ''y «°<"1 You noijJ^'ii"! T^^u" ^^''."'="' ''"* I ^°"'t think he Sta«r" ' "'^^"^^ " •'^•"« «=•--'« -th " You fellows—" he began again. .^, S'"l^ ?"l^ P'"""? °""''^'= t''« ''°°' warned us that Dnnkwater. having finished his break- fast, was feeling his way in. orTi'^.ff T '^T'^j ''' ''■" ^°y P""''''! the door '«»/ . """llhled across the threshold. Lrl^r If "Ji '" Pt«ty good condition, wkh " H '"■"^^" ''" " ''^^" '"=>'^i"g =«w=«y r.;~, "^/° ''='^"' ""« the cabin had ri^. « r°"^'' ^°' 7°. T" °" '■""t at the same time. See you on deck by and by," he added I waited till he was out of earshot. "Who is he, anyhow?" 21 THE THREAD OF FLAME In giving me a summary of Averill's hi^r.^ tky h,m m „m«t m,h Boyd ASu^Th. those odd freak.! of LlT ^ l^^; ^y °"e of Franci. r, r heredity which neither Sir 22 THE THREAD OF LAME S'sam*" ''" ^""ocratic, and Miss Blair says M^ Rr*^^ " till 1 found something more presentable. The steward, with comic compassion stealing into his eye as he studied me, said that of course it was possible to have monsieur's trunks brought ud if monsieur would give him the checks or receipts, which would doubtless be in monsieur's pockets But a search revealed nothing. The bags and" fact that I had come on board without other be- longings than those on the couch almost betrayed me to the little man watching me so wistfully. I was obliged to invent a story of hurried war-time traveling m order to get him out. My predicament was growing more absurd. 1 sat down on the couch and considered it. It would have been easy to become excited, frantic, frenzied with my ridiculous inability. Putting my hands to my head, I could have torn it asun- i"J:1 7T ^'°'",?"^ atrophied brain the secret It guarded so mahciously. "None of that I" I warned myself; and my hands came down. Whatever I did I must do coolly. So not long the deck °°" ^ '*"^''* myself to All at once I began to find something like con- solation. The wild beauty of sky and water beat m on me like love. I must have traveled often enough before, so that it was not new to me. but it was all the mor« comforting for that THE THREAD OF FLAME I had come back to an old, old friendship-the fnendship of wind and color and scudding clouds and gUnting honzons and the mad squadrons of the horses of Neptune shaking their foamy manes. Amid the raging tempests of cloud there were tranquil islands of a blue such as was never unfolded by a flower. In the long, sweep- ing hollows of the waves one's eye could catch all the hues in pigeons' necks. Before a billow broke It climbed to a tip of that sea-water green more inefl^able than any of the greens of |rass, jades, or emeralds. From eveiy crest, and in In?'".^ T ^"'" ^h '^'P'' '^^'' "^ ^« plowed along, the foam trailed into shreds that seemed aett and exquisite than ours. _ Not many men and women love beauty for Its own sake. Not many see it. To most of us It is only an adjunct to comfort or pride It springs from the purse, or at best from the in- care for it. The hidden man of the heart has no capacity to value the cloud or the bit of jewel- weed. Ihese things meet no need in him: they inspire no ecstasy. The cloud dissolves aiid the bit of jewel-weed goes back to earth; and the Ih^^^Af^ has externalized God in one of the mynad forms of His appeal to us. Only here H^. tT T '°"8 "?*«'7?'?. i« there one to whom Lne and color and mvisible forces like the wind are significant and sacred, and as essential as food 26 THE THREAD OF FLAME fn"!!""''' ^l"""' *? T "°^ *''«• somewhere lneZ_L\ ' l'''"'^ ''^'^ ''^" *•>« dominating ener©r-that beauty was the thread of flame which, .f I kept steadily hold of it. would leTd me back whence I came. CHAPTER IV FROM the spectacle of sea and sky I turned away at last, only because my senses could take in no more. Then I saw beauty in another form. A prl was advancing down the deck who em- bodied the evanescence of the cloud and the grace of the bit of jewel-weed in a way I could never convey to ycu. You must see me as standing near the stem of the boat, and the long, clean line of the deck, with an irregular fringe of people m deck-chairs, as empty except for this slender, solitary figure. The rise and fall of the ship were a little hke those of a bough in the wind, while she was the bird on it. She advanced serenely, sedately, her hands jaunrily in the pockets of an ulster, which was gray, with cuffs and collar of sage-green. A sage-green tam-o'-shanter was fastened to a mass of the living fair hair which, for want of a better term, we call golden. Her av^reness of herself almost amounted to in- difference; and as she passed under the row of onlookers' eyes she seemed to fling out a chal- lenge which was not defiant, but good-natured. Not defiant but good-natured was the gaze she 18 THE THREAD OF FLAME S« as";* w',' '• ^r"' •""'""S in self^onscious- l^LI II •" ^^P'^t'^n- A child might have looked at you in this way, or a dog. or any other being not afraid of you. Of a blu^ which could overhead, her eyes never wavered in their lone calm regard till they were turned on me obi 3 back a^d?'' ^ l^' '^}^ "°'' however.'K rn^nA '" ^''"''""^ ^^^ *"'' "^ ^^e promenade, she Th1nkin/o?r'" ""'' r"* "p ^''^ °^''- ^^-y rK^n T ^ {^" "'"''^y ^^ => v"wn seen by chance. I was the more surprised when she entered the dming-saloon, helping my friend Drinkwater I had purposely got to my place before any one else, so as to avoid the awkwardness of arri W unknown among people who already have^^df one another's acquaintance. Moreover, the Table ner alkwed me to take notes on all who came in Not that I was mterested in my fellow-passe^gers defcnT^K ^r " ■ "'•" °f '^y self-defense. S defense, the keepmg anyone from suspecting the mischance that had befallen me. seeme^to^me! Sg outXr^s"" '"°" """""^"^ ^''^ «"'»- AM^U^t"^'^ u'"^^' ^=*^"g already become difficult, those who entered were few in nuX and as pe jple are always at their worst aTsea Among the first to pass my table was Boyd Aver! .11 who gave me a friendly nod. After him came a girl of perhaps twenty-five, grave, sensible, and 29 THE THREAD OF FLAME so mdifferent to appearances that I put her down as his sister. Last of all was she whom Drink- water had summed up as "one of the prettiest." She was; yet not in the way in which the vision on the deck had been the same. The vision on the deck had had no more self-consciousness than the bit of jewel-weed. This richly colored beauty, with eyes so long and almond-shaped that they were almost Mongohan, was self-con- scious m the grain— luxurious, expensive, and languorous. My table companions began to gather, turning my attention chiefly on myself. I had traveled enough to know the chief steward as a discrimi- nating judge of human nature. Those who came asking for seats at table he sized up in a flash, associating hke with like, and rarely making a mistake. On journeys of which no record re- mained with me I had often admired this classi- fying instinct, doubtless because any discrimi- nation It may have contained was complimentary to myself. To-day I had occasion to find it otherwise. On coming on board I must have followed the routine of other voyages. Before turning into my bunk for my long sleep I had apparently asked to be assigned a seat at table, and given the name of Jasper Soames. Guided by his in- tuitive social flair, the chief steward had adju- dicated me to a side table in a comer, where to- day my first companion was a lady's maid. The second was a young man whom I had no difliculty 30 THE THREAD OF Fi^AME Zt^^^V" '■ •'"•"^f "■•' ^f*«^ ^hom Drink, water and the vision of the deck cam. l,"i ness ,s not refused, but postS ^"''"•^''■ ta-d^tetS™*!'* ^^''"P " "ne end of the .ng into sets was due, thereforefto the chTef s^ewl 31 THE THREAD OF FLAME ard, and not to any sense of affinity or rejection among ourselves. After a few polite generalities as to the run and other sea-going topics the conversation broke into dialogues — Mr. Fin*\ would experience the same bewilderment. What had I done that such a situation could have come about? What had I been ? How long was my knowledge of myself to depend on a group of shattered brnin cells.' I had not followed the conversation of Mr. Drinkwater and Miss Blair, even though I might have overheard it; but suddenly the lady glanced up with a clear, straightforward look from her myosotis eyes. "Mr. Soames, have you ever lived in Boston?" The husky, veiled voice was of that bantering quality for which the French word gouailleur is the only descriptive term. In Paris it would have been called une voix de Montmartre, and as an expression of New York it might best be ascribed to Third Avenue. It was jolly, free-and-easy, common, and sympathetic, all at once. My instinct for self-defense urgsd me to say, "No," and I said it promptly. 3a THE THREAD OF FLAME "Or Denver?" I said, "No," again, and for the same reason. I couldn't be pinned down to details. If I said, "Yes," I should be asked when and where and how, and be driven to invention. "Were you ever in Salt Lake City?" A memoiy of a big gray building, with the Angel Moroni on the top of it, of broad, straight streets, of distant mountains, of a desert twisted and suffering, of a lake that at sunset glowed with the colors old artists burned into enamels — a mem- ory of all this came to me, and I said, "Yes," I said it falteringly, wondering if it would com- mit me to anything. It committed me to nothing, so far as I could see, but a glance of Miss Blair's heaven-colored eyes toward her friend, as though I had corroborated something she had said. She had forgotten for the moment that Drinkwater was blind, so that of this significant look I alone got the benefit. What it meant I, of course, didn't know; I could only see it meant something. The 'obvious thing for it to mean was that Miss Blair laiew more about me than I knew myself. While it was difficult to believe that, it nevertheless remained as part of the general experience of life which had not escap^ me, that one rarely went among any large number of people without finding some one who knew who one was. That had happened to me many a time, especially on steamers, though I could no longer fix the occasions. I decided to cultivate Miss Blair and, if possible, get a clue from her. 3 33 CHAPTER V THAT which, in my condition, irked me more than anything was the impossibility of being by myself. The steamer was a small one, with all the passengers of one class. Those who now crossed the Atlantic were doing it as best they could; and to be thrown pell-mell into a second-rate ship like the Auvergne was better, in the opinion of most people, than not to cross at all. It was a matter of eight or ten days of physical discomfort, with home at the other end. I knew now that the month was September, and the equinox not far away. It was mild for the time of year, and, though the weather was rough, it was not dirty. With the winds shifting quickly from west to northwest and back again, the clouds were distant and dry, lifting from time to time for bursts of stormy sunshine. For me it was a pageant. I could forget myself in its contemplation. It was the vast, and I was only the infinitesimal; it was the ever-varying eternal, and I was the sheerest offspring of time, whose affairs were of no moment. Nevertheless, I had pressing instant needs, or needs that would become pressing as soon as we 34 THE THREAD OF FLAME reach«l New York. Between now and then there were five or s.x days during which I might r^ ifTdidnW°t''f; l!'''^ ^'' '''"P^'l «"'' b" 1 should be unable to get money; I should be unable to go home. I should be lost. Unless some one found me I should have to earn a Uvine 1° ""^ 1 ^^rf ',''"•' ">"" *>« something I could do and I didn't know that I could do anything Of all forms of exasperation, this began to be the most maddenmg. I must have had a pro- fession; and yet there was no profession I could thmk of from which I didn't draw back with the peculiar sick recoil I felt the minute I approached whatever was personal to myself. In this there were elements contradictory to each other I I /h^Si?''^^ k'"' "'"" *° ^^''' """^y I needed I should have been content to drift into the un- known without regret. tn ?K ' ^^"a V =* '^"JT^ ^^*" ''"«• It attached to the word home. On that word the door had not been so completely shut that a glimmer didn t leak through. I knew I had a home. I longed for it without knowing what I longed for. I could see myself arriving in New York, fulfilling turTh '°"^ "-""""r-^nd going somewhere^ But I didnt know where. Of some ruptured bram cell enough remained to tell me that on the American continent a spot belonged to me; but .t to Id me no more than the fact that the spot had love m it. I could feel the love and not dis- 3S THE THREAD OF FLAME cem the object. As to whether I had father or mother or wife or child I knew no more than I knew the same facts of the captain of the ship. Out of this darkness there came only a vision of flaming eyes which might mean anything or nothing. I was unable to pursue this line of thought because Miss Blair came strolling by with the same nonchalant air with which she had passed me before lunch. I can hardly say she stopped; rather she commanded, and swept me along. "Don't you want to take a walk, Mr. Soames? You'd better do it now, because we'll be rolling scuppers under by and by." For making her acquaintance it was too good an opportunity to miss. In spite of my inability to play up to her gay cheerfulness I found myself strolling along beside her. I may say at once that I never met a hu- man being with whom I was more instantly on terms of confidence. The sketch of her life which she gave me without a second's hesita- tion came in response to my remark that from her questions to me at table I judged her to have traveled. "I was bom on the road, and I suppose I shall never get off it. My father and mother had got hitched to a theatrical troupe on tour." A distaste acquired as a little girl on tour had kept her from trying her fortunes on the boards. She had an idea that her father was acting still, though after his divorce from her mother they 36 THE THREAD OF FLAME had lost sight of him. Her mother had died six years previously, since which time she had looked after herself, with some ups and downs of ex- penence. She had been a dressmaker, a milliner, and a model, with no more liking for any of these professions than she had for the theatrical In winding up this brief narrative she astounded me with the statement: •'And now I'm going to be an adventuress." A what? I stopped in the middle of the deck to stare at her. She repeated the obnoxious noun, continuing to walk on. * ."5"* } bought you were a stenographer." Av JS" %r^ °^ 'i- I''".<>««ving poor Miss Avenll. She s my dupe. I make use of people m that way— and throw them aside." "But doing the work for Doctor Averill in the mean time. "Oh, that's just a pretext." "A pretext for what?" "For being an adventuress. Goodness knows what evil I shaU do in that family before I get out of It. * "What do you mean by that?" "Oh, well, you'll see. If yoti're bom baleful- well, youve just got to be baleful; that's all. Uid you ever hear of an adventuress who didn't wreck homes? I said I Iiad not much experience with advent- uresses, and didn't quite know the point of their occupation. S7 THE THREAD OF FLAME "Well, you stay around where I am and you'll see." "Have you wrecked many homes up to the present ?" I ventured to inquire. "This is the first one I ever had a chance at. I only decided to be an adventuress about the time when Miss Averill came along." That, it seemed, had been at the Settlement, to which Miss Blair had retired after some trying situations as a model. Stenography being taught at the Settlement, she had taken it up on hearing of several authenticated cases of girls who had gone into offices and married millionaires. The discouraging side presented itself later in the many more cases of girls who had not been so success- ful. It was in this interval of depression on the part of Miss Blair that Mildred Averill had ap- peared at the Settlement with all sorts of anxious plans about doing good. "If she wants to do good to any one, let her do it to me," Miss Blair had said to her intimates. "I'm all ready to be adopted by any old maid that's got the wad." That, she explained to me, was not the language she habitually used. It was mete pleasantry between girls, and not up to the standard of a really high-class adventuress. Moreover, Miss Averill was not an old maid, seeing she was but twenty-five, though she got herself up like forty. All the same. Miss Averill having come on the scene and having taken a fancy to Miss Blair, Miss Blair had decided to use Miss Averill for her own malignant purposes. 38 THE THREAD OF FLAME For by this time the seeming stenographer had chosen her career. A sufficient course of readine had made ,t clear that of all the women in the world the adventuress had the best of it. She went to the smartest dressmakers; she stayed at the dearest hotels; her jewels and furs rivaled those of duchesses; her life was the perpetual third act of a play. Furthermore, Miss Blair had yet to hear of an adventuress who didn't end in money, marnage, and respectability. Havmg been so frank about herself, I could hardly be surpnsed when she became equally so about me. As the wind rose she slipped I!!,?/ P™*««^«*1 angle, where 1 had no choice but to follow her. She began her attack after propping herself m the comer, her hands hunched P"'^''"*' ""* •»" P««y shoulders "You're a funny man. Do you know it?" 1 hough mwardly aghast, I strove to conceal "•y af "tK>n. " Funny in what way ?" Oh, every way. Any one would think—" What would any one think.?" I insisted, nervously, when she paused. ''Oh, well I I sha'n't say." ''Because you're afraid to hurt my feelings?" I m a good sort— especially among people of our own class. For the others"-she shrugged her shoulders charmingly-" I'm an anardhist and a socialist and all that. I don't care who I An2 r^^J '^ they're ,"P. But when people are down already— I'm— I'm a friend." 39 THE THREAD OF FLAME As there was a measure of invitation in these words I nerved myself to approach the personal. Are you fnend enough to tell me why you thought you had seen me in Salt Lake City?" She nodded. "Sure; because I did think so— there — or somewhere." ''Then you couldn't swear to the place?" I couldn't swear to the place; but I could to you. I never forget a face if I give it the twice- over. The once-over— well, then I may. But It 1 ve studied a man— the least little bit— I've got him for the rest of my life." "But why should you have studied me— as- suming that it was me?" ''Assuming that that water's the ocean, I study It because there's nothing else to look at. We were opposite each other at two tables in a restaurant." "Was there nobody there but just you and mer "Yes, there was a lady." My heart gave a thump. "At your table or at mine? ''At yours." "Did she"— I was aware of the foolish word- ing of the question without being able to put it in any other way— "did she have large dark eyes?" Not in the back of her head, which was all 1 saw of her. Once more I expressed myself stupidly. " Did fWri?'^ y*»" ^^""^ 't was— my wife-or just a fl THE THREAD OF FLAME She burst out laughing. "How could I tell? You speak as if you didn't know. You're cer- tainly the queerest kid—" ^ J «ied to recover my lost ground. " I do know, '•pen what are you asking me for?" Because you sef-m to have watched nle— " ^ I didn t watch you " she denied, indignantly. T M "L 7°" .""^ ''='^'' y°"' n«^« ^th you. 1 couldn t help seemg a guy that was right under •ny «yes, could I? Besides which— " Yes? Besides which-?" I insisted. 5>he brought the words out with an air of chaf- fing embarrassment. "Well, you weren't got up as you are now. Do you know it?" As I reddened and stammered somet'iing about the war, she laid her hand on my arm soothingly. Ther« now! There now! That's all right never give any one away. You can see for yourself that I can't have knocked about the world hke I ve done without running up against this sort of thing a good many time*—" ^ What sort of thing?" "Oh, well, if you don't know I needn't tell you. But I m your fnend, kid. That's all I want you to know. It's why I told you about myself. I wanted you to see that we're all in the same boat, harry Dnnkwater's your friend, too. He likes you. You stick by us and we'll stick by you and see the thing through." It was on my lips to say, "What thing?" but she rattled on again. 4« THE THREAD OF FLAME ^ "Only you can't wear tl t sort of clothes and get away with It, kid. Do you know it? Another feUow nMght, but you simply can't. It shows you up at the first glance. The i.ight you came on board you might just as well have marched in canying a blue silk banner. For Heaven's sake. If you ve got anything else in your kit go and put It on. "^ ''I haven't." "Haven't? What on earth have you done with all the swell things you must have had? Burned em?" The question was so direct, and the good-will behmd it so evident, that I felt I must give an answer. "Sold them." . "^* i**^ ** *''"' ^^^ y°"? What do you know? Poor little kid! Funny, isn't it? A woman can carry that sort of thing off nine times out often; but a fat-head of a man — " She kept the sentence suspended while gazing over my shoulder. The Kps remained parted as m uttenng the last word. I was about to turn to see what so entranced her, when she said, in a tone of awe or joy, I was not sure which: "There's that poor little blind boy coming down the deck all by himself. You'll excuse me, won't you, if I run and help him?" So she ran. CHAPTER VI BEYOND this point I had made no progress when we landed in New York. I still knew myself as Jasper Soames. Miss Blair still sus- pected that I was running away from justice. 1 hat I was ninnmg away from justice I suspected myself, smce how could I do otherwise? AU the way up the Bay I waited for that tap on my shoulder which I could almost have welcomed tor the reason that it would relieve me of some ot my embarrassments. Those embarrassments had grown more en- tangling throughout the last days of the voyage The very good-wiU of the people about me b- creased the comphcations in which I was finding myself involved. Every one asked a different set of questions, the answers I gave being not al- ways compatible with each other. I didn't ex- actly he; I only replied wildly-trying to guard my secret till I could walk off the boat and dis- appear from the ken of these kindly folk who did nothing but wish me well. I accomplished this feat, 1 am bound to con- fess, with little credit; but credit was not my object. All I asked was the privilege of being alone, with leisure to take stock of my small 43 THE THREAD OF FLAME assets and reckon up the possibilities before me iJ LT'" •""**'''''« [hat a man such as I was could be lost on the threshold of his home I needed all the faculties that remained to me in order to Ku^d! '"'^* '"'' """'"" ^y ""^^^ ^ «»'''» So alone I found myself, though not without aXamed. *° "^ "^ '"*''"'' ^ ^"* '=^*" *''*» It was Miss Blair who scared me into them l-ommg up to me on deck, during the last after- noon on board, she said, casually: "Going to stay awhile in New York?" It was a renewal of the everlasting catechism, so 1 said, curtly: ' "I dare say." "Oh, don't be huffy! Looking for a job?" Later, perhaps; not at once." In her smile, as her ey e caught mine, there was a visible significance. "You'll be a good kid wont you.? Youll-you'll "-eep on thVlevel?" 1 made a big effort on my own part, so as to see how she would take it. "If I'm „ot nabbed going up the Bay." "Oh, you won't be. It can't be as-as bad as all that Even if it was-" She left tWs "*^'"*'"^ *■ ""^ *° «""«' " ^'''l*' she went on. wnere do you expect to stay?" I was about to name one of New York's ex- pensive hotels when it occurred to me that she Clf u " ,°" • ''"'«^'"8 " *•>« announcement. She would take it as a joke. I realized then that 44 THE THREAD OF FLAME , WeU then, ,f you're looking for a place-" «3^'? t say that I'm that." ^ Or if you should be, I've given Harry Drink water a very good address." ^ ^" m. lllf/r'^ a. rooming-house, she explained to for tha? InA '"'Jt ^?^' '^' '»°'« conventnt bor& ""!'"*'» /»« of good cafes in the neigh- AJfon?„ ^^\*°" "^ °f ""^ "« particular Alfonso was the name of the restaurateur^ where one could get a very good dinner ^;: wme for seventy-five cents, ^d an ad;,rte breakfast for forty. Moreover, Miss Blai? had long known the lady who kept the roominSouse to be, and any one whom she, Lydia Blair sent witl^her recommendation would find thTplace ' I was terrified. I didn't mean to go to this well fiftrS M*"«', "r^' f" wen"7n S" fifth Street; I only had visions of being wafted there agamst my will. So much had hap^ned was'J^aid'^^tr'l'i"" .'"" consulted^? was atraid of the kmdhest of intentions. When at dmner that evening Miss Mulberry apolorized fnrthet- "'''* °J- ^''- ~""^'''' toward meXr- ng the tnp ascnb.ng it to a peculiarity of hers m never making gentlemen friends till sure they were gentlemen, ^'>'* "«•— • ■ ^"^^ ' offering me her 4S permanent THE THREAD OF FLAME address, I resolved that after that meal none of the whole group should catch another glimpse of me. For this reason I escaped to my cabin directly after dinner, packed my humble belongings, and went to bed. When, toward eleven, Drinkwater canie down, putting the question, as he stumbled in. Sleep, Jasper?" I replied with a faint snore. For the la;rt two or three days he had been scat- termg Jaspers throughout his sentences, and I only didn't ask him to give up the practice be- cause of knowing that with men of his class familiarity is a habit. Besides, it would be all over in a few days, so that I might as well take It patiently. And yet I was sorry that it had to be so, for something had made me like him. During the days of the equinoctial bad weather it had fallen to me to steer him about the staggering ship, and one IS naturally drawn to anything helpless. Then, too, of all the men to whom I ever lent a hand he was the most demonstrative. He had a boy[s way of pawing you, of sprawling over you, of giving your hand little twitches, or affectionate squeezes to your arm. There was no liberty he wouldn't take; but wher he took them they didnt seem to be liberties. If I betrayed a hint of annoyance he would pat me on any part of my person he happened to touch, with some such soothing words as: "There, there, poor 'ittle Jasper! Let him come to his muwerums and have his 'ittle crv " 46 f I THE THREAD OF FLAME people in Ls c ass iTJZT^' ^'^*^*'' ^^at courtesy than tho^b'^be tH"*'"* *" ''"'^ to it. True, he was hKnTl u'^ •''"*' "«e**" relatively easy. It was app.aci^5;Itri:d^^lV™^^^^^^^^^ f™lt,~T"*'1 herself with disquieting kS XeYmtrd^ecT-h^^^^^^^^^^^^ I £d\er^e«iLr sTr "C^hth^-a' cil I h^W^ k ! "'¥ ^^ •>" '"to coun- cil 1 helped her to choose between a Herati and THE THREAD OF FLAME the AyeriUs again, and Drinkwater must be given to ^demand that he, too, was an incident. My dear fellow, there are no pretenses. We sunply met on board ship, and because of youi^ your accident I'm seeing you to your door. Ihat s all. It doesn't constitute friendship." • • J r. " *'*^*'" ^"^ *>•* unexpected re- jomder. "I m not that kind at all. When a fel- low s white with me, he's white. I'm not going to be ashamed of him. If you ever want any one to hold the sponge for you, Jasper^" I »fPe«ed stupidly, "Hold the sponge?" Go bail for you— do anything. I couldn't go bail for you on my own, of course; but I could hustle round and get some one to do it Lydia Blair knows a lot of people— and there's the doctor. Say, Jasper, I'm your friend, and 1 m going to stand by the contract." The taxi lumbered on again, while I was de- batmg with myself as to what to say next, or whether or not to say anything. One thing was dcaiv that no matter what fate awaited me I couldnt have Drinkwater holding the sponge for me, nor could I appear in court, or anywhere else, with a man of his class as my backer. We were lurching into Broadway when he grasped me suddenly by the arm, to say: Look here, Jasper! To show what I think of you I m going to make you listen to that se- cret. I— I wasn't expecting any one to meet me. There s no one to meet me. Do you get that? " THE THREAD OF FLAME I said that 1 1 , but found 1 liar . - 1 nothine I ^situation. "Oh, but there is, though. I've got— I've eot no fnends-not so much as a father or a mother I never d.d have. I was-I was left in a bask« on a door-step-twenty-three years ago-and brought up ,n an orphans' home in Texas There you ve got .t straightl I've passed you up tE one and only dope on Harry Drinl^ater, and any p.y that's afraid he can't be my frieS'wfth- out weanng a dress-suit to breakfast—" It was so delicate a method of telling me that I was as good as he was that it seem^ best to let the subject of our future relations drop. Thev the plan that had already begun to dawn in me. CHAPTER VII MISS GOLDIE FLOWERDEW. for that was the name on our note of introduction, was at home, but kept us waiting in a room where I made my first* study of a rooming-house. It was another indication of what I had not been in my P*^. I'*'^ ^*'" " rooming-house was new to me. This particular room must in the 'sixties have been the parlor of some prim and prosperous fanuly. It was long, narrow, dark, with dark carpets, and dark coverings to the chairs. Dark pictures hui;g on dark walls, and dark objets d'art adorned a terrifying chimneypiece in black mar- ble. Foldmg-doors shut us off from a back room that was probably darker still; and through the interstices of the shrunken woodwork we could hear a vague rustling. The rustling gave place to a measured step, which finally proceeded from the room and sounded along the hall, as if taken to the rhythm of a stone march like that in "Don Giovanni," when the statue of the Commander comes down from its pedestal. My companion and I in- stinctively stood up, divining the approach of a Presence. 54 THE THREAD OF ELAME . TTie Presence was soon on the threshold, doinir justice to the epithet. The statue of the Com- mander, dressed in the twentieth-century style of sweet smeen and crowned by a shock of bleached hair of tempestuous wave, would have looked hke Miss Goldie Flowerdew as she stood before us majestically, fingering our note of introduction. "So she's not coming," was her only observa- tion dehvered in a voice so deep that, like Mrs. Siddons's "Will it wash?" it startled. Did you expect her?" I ventured to say. ♦k M*?" '''I'f' '"''" ^^^ »8=»»n- "Which is tne blmd one? Drinkwater moved forward. She, too, moved faa to fac°"^* «>» the room and scanning him ."You don't look so awfiil blind." No, but I am— for the present." For the present? Does that mean that you expect to regam your sight?" 'The doctors say that it may come back as suddenly as it went." "And suppose it don't?" "Oh, well, I've got along without it for the^ past SIX months, so I suppose I can do it for the next sixty years I've given it a good try, and m some ways I like it." j> '^ "You do, do you?" ''Yes. lady." "Then," she declared, in her tragic voice, "I like you. SS. if:l THE THREAD OF FLAME He flushed Uke a girl flushes, though his grin was his own specialty. r^.'^^y", ''* ''*8an, in confidential glee, "Miss Blair said you would — " "Tell Lydia Blair that she's at liberty to be- stow her affections when and as she chooses; but beg her to be kind enough to allow me to dispose of mine. You'd like to see her room." She was turning to begin her stone march tow- ard the stairs, but Drinkwater held her back, bay, lady, is it— is it her room?" Certainlyj it's the one she's always had when she s been with me, and which she reserved by letter four weeks ago. I was to expect her as soon as the steamer docked." "S'*' *''*"~" ^^^ ^°y tegan to stanuner. Wonsense, my good man! Don't be foolish. Mie s gone elsewhere and the room is to let. If she hadn't sent me some one I would have charged her a week's rent; but now that she's got me a tenant she's at liberty to go where she likes. She knows I'd rather have men than women at any time of day." "Oh, but if it's her room, and she's given it up for me—" "It isn't her room; it's mine. I can let it to any one I please. She knows of a dozen places in the city that she'll like just as well as this, so don t think sjie'll be on the street. Come alone; 1 ve no time to waste." "Better go," I whispered, taking him by the arm, so that the procession started. S6 THE THREAD OF FLAME .Tml II '"«*5""'en"l black-walnut haf-and- umbrella stand was visible chiefly because of the fnT "^^"''^"r ^; '^^^ fl'^" -"« Pointed m the darkest shade of brown, in keenine with the massjve body of the staircase. U^'^^hf sS cTr^'et'etn^"*''* k'""' "" ' ""^ of d4 crim^^L A hush of solemnity lay over everythine Clearly M.ss Flowerdew's roomers were off "«; the day, and the place left to her and the litde The long, steep stairs curved toward the top to an upper hall darker than that below, be^aus^ the one window was in ground glass with a bord« of red and blue. Deep crimson was again the dommatuig color, broken only by the doofs wh ch may have been mahogany. All doors were dosed except the one nearest the top of the stairs r^"\M°?*' '^"- ^'^ Flowerdew Jush"d h open, bidding us follow her. We were on the spot which above all others m the world Lydia Blair called home Mien the exquisite bit of jewel-weed drifted past me r.rthl\ t^ of the ^«r^f«. this haven w« in the background of her memory Through the gloom two iron beds, covered with coarse white counterpanes, sagged in the out- 57 THE THREAD OF FLAME . lines of their mattresses, as beds do after a great many people have slept in them. A low wicker armchair sagged m the seat as armchairs do after a great many people have sat in them. A peat many people had passed through this room, wearing ,t down, wearing it out; and yet there was a woman in the world whose soul leaped toward ,t as the hearth of her affections. Because It was architecturally dark a paper of oKve-green arabesques on an olive-green background had been glued on the walk to make it darker sSl; hm™ %'Kt°°''\^"'^ =»" of the darkest topITo say!*' '^"^'^ "^^''^ *° *•'«' »'»« h-'K" has her own covers, and when she puts alt7Xr ••"" '^'''^'^'^^' """'^ « -k- "Say. isn't it grand !" Drinkwater cried, look- ing round with his sightless eyes. It s grand for the money," Miss Flowerdew v^fr:'' ., ^t'' "°* '^'^ Waldorf-Astoria! w yet IS It what I was used to when on the «age- but .t s clean'^-^hich it was-«and only re"^^ m,! '^'*Tn.''r' '^'".''' •>««• Come, young man, and I'll show you how to find you^ way.'^ Miss Flowerdew may have been on the stage, but she ought to have been a nurse. Not ev^n Lydia Blair couU take hold of a helpless n^an Driik4« tenderness of strength. Holding Dnnkwater by the hand, she showed him how 58 THE THREAD OF FLAME to find the conveniences of thJ. n.«. — • • out the fact that th, K„k ***• Porting Thetan'wLlrrrir'" ^^ ^ -""ef not a man. I've had JfaTe r ''°"""' *"'""*= " natty you'd ha;:i;^olX^,';:^*7 - -" and and I Bot rid of Vm vm/^ " female ones— wheth« to put h"b JI?'" " ?"•" *'"^*"'* ^o^ in the washrsin'^h^T eTa2s%rSt " rJy-s-.:ss^^^^^^^^^ £«»--S'^rhSrKt£ asii,s«lr;;rivS''"^i^a" '^r ^^«"« Blair," she conrim.«i fc'.* ' ''^ f^^er, Byron Tn£\^,T^^^ *i;p^^"a"a^thS.^iotC starred in 'SrWa^/of'sb -"J'" ^''? 'T'^.^ charming head ^tTn«,fil ^ ""rned the chignon, wh"e I^L F^wIT""'"*^*"'' ^y « reminiscence "I IuIT'i^'T T*''"'*'^ •>" THE THREAD OF FLAME aame part so long. Easy work and money, but you get the mannerisms fixed on you. I was a good utility woman up to that time; but when I came back to Broadway I was Lady Somberly. I never could get rid of her, and so ... 1 11 show you some of my notices and photographs — no, not to-day; but when you come round to see your friend — that is" — she looked inquir- ingly — "that is, if you don't mean to use the other bed." This being the hint I needed, I took it. With the briefest of farewells I was out on the pave- ment with my bags in my hands, walking east- ward without a goal. Once more I had to stifle my concern as to Drinkwater. I saw him, when Miss Flowerdew would have gone down-stairs, sitring alone in his darkness, with nothing to do. His trunk, the unpacking of which would give him some occupation, would not arrive until evening; and in the mean time he would have no one but him- self for company. He couldn't go out; it would be all he could do to feel his way to the bath- loom and back, though even that small excursion would be a break in his monotony. . . . But I took these thoughts and choked them. It was preposterous that I should hold myself responsible for the comfort of a boy met by chance on a steamer. Had I taken him in charge from affection or philanthropy it would have been all very well; but I had no philanthropic promptings, and, while I Uked him, I was far 60 THE THREAD OF FLAME I^^^i^J^ Jh" wavenng sympathy as affection. I was Sony for hin, of course; but others must take care of h.m. I should have aU I could do in taking cate of myself. wI°{7S^"''a °u' ^"^^y Poti^ir^g at fir« the way 1 took, and then consciously looking for a hotel. As to that. I had definuely made Ip my t^^ u°V '^ '° ""y °f ^''°«' »>«ter known, though the names of several remained inTy memory, till I had properly clothed mysSf Though m a measure I had grown used to my a passer-by went up in amused surprise. Ynrt f TT Tr^^y ?"°"8h that I knew New York and that I knew it tolerably well; and 2 most as quickly I learned that I knew t not as a resident but from the point of view of the self ahjrays coming and always going. From what direction I had come and in what^direaTon I turned on lea^ng still were mysteries. But the conviction of having no abiding tie with this city was as strong as that of the spectator in a ttrpby "^ "° Pennanent connection with to^tTn'i'' '"*^*« ]>?*«' « last, I made bold to go m, finding myself m a lobby of imitation onyx and an atmosphere heavy ^th Tobac^ IhlT f'" '''".^">' "'"'" *''«= *yes of some three or four colored boys who didn't offer to assist me with my bags, and applied for a room 6i THE THREAD OF FLAME A courteous young man of Slavic nationality te- gretted that they were "full up." I marched out agam. Repeating this experience at another and another, I was saved from doing it at a fourth by a uniformed darky porter, who, as I was about to go up the steps, shook his head, at the same time sketching in the air an oval which 1 took to be a zero. I didn't go in, but 1 was oddly disconcerted. It had never occurred to me till then that hotels had a choice in guests, just as guests had a choice in hotels. I had always supposed that a man who could pay could com- mand a welcome anywhere; but here I was, with nearly four hundred dollars in my pockets, un- able to find a lodging because something strange in my clothes, or my eyes, or in my general demeanjr, or m all together, stamped me as unusual. 'Who's that freak?" I heard one bell-boy ask another, and the term seemed to brand me. The day was muggy. After the keen sea air It was breathless. When I could walk no longer I stagjgered into a humble eating-house that seemed to be half underground. There was no one there but two waitresses, one of whom, wear- ing her hair a la madone, came forward as I closed the door. She did not, however, come forward so quickly but that I heard her say to her com- panion, "Well, of all the nuts— I" The ob- servation, though breathlessly suspended there, made me shy about ordering my repast. 63 ill! THE THREAD OF FLAME good And wh«n it came I couldn't eat It was _ 1 enoudi, _„„„ changed my French In '" '"'? ^'"•^^ ' ''^^'^ heranamaLgTp'' """'^ °" '^"'' '"'l V-= strJvetocaTa1,T"°" \'^ ~'"* *" "« -»>;'. I Reaching fiiaXay I drift^" '"? ''P*"*'- cameononeXh^We«!h1?L''°"'''^?^'* «" i 5-wear clothing wSrStr St rt m the neighborhood. On en^rT/ tK '^""'^ porium I adoDtwl , « entenng the vast em- shrinking as 7S shmnT "'""*'• , ?^° '°»8«' factofnfymisfortlj™^,,::^*^? \t"« *° *l" htgh";.^-^^-^"w^Ti^ltJj',^„-^ iu^^^ttif/,::^^^^^^^^ ^i^ri.r^ror^rSi"^'? best I could do without coming back to pJ,* country m a French uniform Now T *^ * THE THREAD OF FLAME I had, too, another inspiration. It occurred to me that I might startle myself into finding the way home. Calling a taxi, I drove boldly with my bags to the Grand Centr?.', rerminal, trusting to the inner voice to tell me the place for which to buy my ticket. With half the instinct of a horse my feet might take the road to the stable of their own accord. I recognized the station and all its ways — the red-capped colored men, the white-capped white ones, the subterranean shops, the gaunt marble spaces. I recognized the windows at which I must have taken tickets hundreds of times, and played my comedy by walking up first to one and then to another, waiting for the inner voice to give me a dp. I found nothing but blank si- lence. The world was all before me where 'o choose — only Providence was not my guide, d if Providence was my guide. His thread of flame was not visible. I suppose that in that station that afternoon I was like any other man intending to take a train. At least I could say that. So pleased was I with myself that more than once during the two hours of ny test I went into the station lavatory just for the sake of seeing myself in the glass. It was a long glass, capable of reflecting some dozen men at a, time, and I was as like the rest as one elephant is like another. Oh, that relief I Oh, that joy I Not to be a freak or a nut made up for the moment for my sense of home- lessness. THE THREAD OF FLAME When tired of listening for a call that didnV "gain 1 was take aU the other people doinir th« ttburr •?'" "ril^ f°' » *^ to any of the suburbs. I might have had a family ex- c^t^ome V"T\ The obvious refli^fon spot, and yet behind me was a historv^»? w,uld have startled any one of them ^ H were unstoried human s^ to me; and yet bi^ I ^Jd °i *'•"" *^"* '"y " <'"'"» of which *^j '^ "^l* "o more than I could see of III world of hght beyond the speck I calkd a star Was there a Providence for me or thlt other grayed, homeless^dog^^rgt^^^^^^^^ faces before me, faces of tired women, faces of despondent men, young faces hardened, old faces stupefied, all faces stamped with the allon' soddenness of man, I asked if anywhere M universe love could be holding upThe":m"pst Like millions of others who have ast«J ♦!,.•. q«est.on,IfeltthatIhadmyttouElefort^i "5i-*°r\"***''" inspiration. As it warnowTh^' ™dd.e of the afternoon, the folly of exSThet from the mner voice became apparent. I mu« resort to some other expedient, and the "ew sureestion was a simple one. for rr*""* "^ •"«' •" '''« parcel-office, I made for the nearest great hotel. The hall wirf? £ OS THE THREAD OF FLAME colossal fiimishings was familiar from the mo- ment of my entry. The same ever so slightly overdressed ladies might have been mincing up and down as on the occasion of my last visit there; the same knots of men might have begun to gather; the same orchestra might have been jig- ging the same tunes; if only the same men were warded ™^''* ^""^ "^ ingenuity re- "I wonder if there are any letters for me here? II not staymg in the house; but I thought—" Name? ^?T?n Vi*^' "' K^^P^^' "I'll see, Mr. Smith," or, 1 11 find out, Mr. Jones," as often happens when a man has been a well-known guest. Nevertheless, it was a spot where strangers from other places congregated, and I knew that in the lobbies of hotels one often met old mends. Inughtmeetoneofmine. Better still, one of mine might meet me. At any minute I might feel a clap on the shoulder, while some one shouted, "HeUo, old Brown 1" or, "Why. i"V,»^'& Robinson! What'll we have to "T • ,^^^ I'ad been familiar salutations and might become so again. So I walked up and down. I was sorry I had neither stick nor gloves, but promised to supply the lack at once. In the mean time I could thrust my hands into my pockets and look like a gen- tleman at ease because he is at home. Having enjoyed this sport for an hour or more, I went out to make my purchases. 66 THE THREAD OF FLAME letter r;'„tcn%ST'=' ^^ ='^^"«"- "Nan,;?" In each I f°AA "T '"'P""'*' "Nevermind I don't Slher** \^^''' after all » T„ L t . *™'^* *^^ l>e any. intJ "•"''' ^ P»"''e'J "P and down and f tire ::j't? ™/r * '"^™' only »„« f„, ,0 6„ ^|, ,f ,^=^|J '^^rj dX °H *' "•" '" ^ ™« ". bS 1- But in the mean time I was tired and lonelv There were two or three things I mieht do "Ki of which I had premised to mvrerivl . 67 THE THREAD OF FLAME As to carrying out this program, I had but one prudential misgiving. It might cost more money than It would be wise for me to spend. My visit to the purveyor of clothing in the afternoon had not only Lghtened my purse, but considerably opened my eyes. Where I had had nearly four hundred dollars I had now nearly three. With very slight extravagance, according to the stand- ards of New York, it wouid come down to nearly two, and then to nearly one, and then to . . . Hut I shuddered at that, and stopped thinking. Having stopped thinking along one set of lines. 1 presently found myself off on another. I saw Harry Dnnkwater sitting in the dark as I was sitting in the hall of a hotel. That is, he was Idle and I was idle. He was eating his heart out as I was eating out mine. It occurred to me that I might go back to Ihirty-fifth Street and take him out to dinner Alfonso, recommended by Miss Blair, might be no more successful as a host than the lady with tresses d lamadone who had given me my lunch; but we could try. At any rate, the boy wouldn't be alone on this first evening in New York, and would feel that some one cared for him. XT^^A**"*" something else in me revolted. No! Nol A thousand times nol I had cut loose trom these people and should stay loose. On saying good-by to Drinkwater that morning I had disappeared without a trace. For any one who tried to follow me now I should be the needle m a haystack. What good could come of my 68 THE THREAD OF FLAME going back of my own accord and putting my. self on a level to which I did not belong? Like many Americans, I was no believer in the equality of men. For men as a whole I had no respect, and in none but the smallest group had I any confidence. Looking at the faces as they passed me in the hall, I saw only those of brutes— and these were mostly people who had had what we call advantages. As for those who had not had advantages I disliked them in contact and distrusted them in principle. I described my- self not only as a snob, but as an aristocrat. I had worked it out that to be well educated and well-to-do was the normal. To be poor and ill educated was abnormal. Those who suffered from lack of means or refinement did so because of some flaw in themselves or their inheritance. They were the plague of the world. They cre- ated all the world's problems and bred most of Its diseases. From the beginning of time they had been a source of disturbance to better men and would be to the end of it. * It was the irony of ironies, then, that I should have become a member of a group that included a lady's maid, a chauffeur, and two stenogra- phers, and been hailed as one of them. The lady's maid and the chauffeur I could, of course, dismiss from my mind; but the two stenogra- phers had seemingly sworn such a friendship for me that nothing but force would cut me free from It. Very well, then; I should use force if it was needed; but it wouldn't be needed. All I had 69 THE THREAD OF FLAME to do was to refrain from going to take Drinfc. water out to dmner, and they would never know Where I was. WjJhi ITu '' r" ^^'''''.''^'ieve it. I went. Within half an hour I was knocking at his bed- room door and hearing his cheery "Come in." Why I did this I cannot tell you. It was neither from loneliness, nor kind-heartedness, nor a sense of duty. The feet that wouldn't take the horse to the stable took him back to that cnmson room...g-house. and that is all I can sav Dnnkwater was sitting in the dark, which was Z^t .'*" ''"*' u^' *"' P"8 Krin gave an added Illumination to the room. "Say, that's the darnedest! I knew you'd come, in spite of the old lady swearing you wouldn t. I'd given you half an hour yet? and here you are, twenty-five minutes ahead of time " ITie reception annoyed me. It was bad enouah to have come; but it was worse to have been expected. "How have you been getting on?" I asked, in order to relieve my first anxiety "Oh, fine!" ^ "Haven't you been— dull?" ||Lord, no!" I'What have you had to do?" "Oh, enjoy myself— feeling my way about the fnT'fi. i ,?" f "" ^"'"J ^«> «««'. ""d out into the hall, and up and down stairs just as easily as you can. It's a cinch." ' 70 THE.THREAD OF FLAME "Wl Til'!?"' ""r'''"« °'"Miss Blair?" .K 'AC f ''!*'' "P »'^"* »" hour ago to sav shed found the swellest place-in Forty.fim a SnI r** "•*•''"' '^"' **>«'* 'served for a month and more, just to—" it ^?h'hi' "S,*^'' """u".™*^ 80 down and have It with her. She s not half a bad sort, when vou come to know her. I've atUA K-, ♦ ^ to dinner with .e at^^^fonttT.aTS l^ZyA""'' '"""-"'"' "°- ^- "" i"^» ''No; I've come to take you out." . 5>ay. Jasper! Do you think I'm always no. K^r? A- •" ™."""8 to dinner with me." on^: "*"' '''" '^'"*' ^ ^•*'''«'' "• ^I'ing "What made you think I was coming this evenmg -because, you know. I didn't mean to " sort''\L'tTali."'"'^ ^°" " '"^ "• Y-'- *•>« So within another half-hour I found myself at Alfonso s. on Drinkwater's left, with S tte n-XTrr ^"'c^ ^''^'^ ^*^"'*'' --"-how now ?h,. K °' ^''iStatue of the Commander, now that she wore a hngerie hat and a blouse of the kmd which I believe is called peek-a-bo^ She was well known at Alfonso's, however Tr authority .ecuring us a table in 'a comeT'^ith 71 THE THREAD OF FLAME social attentiofl, from head and .ubordinate Waitresses. How shall I tell you of Alfonso's? Like the f^Ton T' " ""V ^°' *"* " "«^ *«=•''' "«»«- or?hlT* 1 "^^ '!''t* ^'^ ™8''^ "" the home of the homeless and the ho„. less were numerous TjLhT lI'^L^"'*/. ' """y' they were r^i ru ^' *^°'' "f ^^ "nick upon the fia when they offered up an ox. The perfume !£r"LT"!:*'" *"?. °^'^^' f*^' »nd over and above both the smeU of a healthy, promiscuous. perspiring humanity, washed and unwashed, in «"'ve hurthng together, hilarious and hun^ The food was excellent; the wine as good as W TlT °"tT" '" ^"""' the service^^id; 1h,A '^ " masterpiece of organization. 1 had eaten many a dmner for which I paid ten Sh V " wouldn't have compared that Miss Fbwerdew. whose eye commended the change m my appearance, should ask me what 1 had been doing through the day. 1 didn't as you will understand, find it necessary to go into details; but I told her of my unsuccessf^ attempts to find a room. "iccessiui AveSSf ?"°" "^ '*** ""*'' Barcelona, in Fourth I told her I had not. "TTien do so." Fumbling in her bag, she found a card and pencil. "Take that," she commanded. 7* THE THREAD OF FLAME ,n=n''l '^^ J*^^'>'"y a friend of yours?" I asked inanely, after I had thar! sd her ' Mr. CWki^** ted tM"V''V"* '''f°« CHAPTER VIII AFTER a delicious night I woke in a room XJL which gave the same shock to my fastidi- ousness as the first glimpse of my cabin on board ship. I woke cheerfully, however, knowing that I was in New York and that not many days could pass before some happy chance encounter would give me the due of which I was in search. Cheerfully I dressed and breakfasted; cheerfully I sat down in the dingy hall to scan the morn- ing's news. It was the first paper I had opened since land- ing. It was the first I had looked at since . . . I had no recollection of when I had read a newspaper last. It must have been long ago; so long ago that the history of my immediate time had lapsed into formlessness, like that of the ancient world. I knew there was a world; I knew there were countries and governments; I knew, as I have said, that there was a war. Of the causes of that war I retained about the same degree of information as of the origin of the Wars of the Roses. Bewilderment was my first reaction now; the second was amazement. Reading the papers with no preparation from the day before, or from the day before that — with no preparation at all 74 THE THREAD OF FLAME dus were m Franr* r,».j- • S . • "'"- French in the ^hn.T 'f "I B^'P"-". the iJ tT '^'^ 1'''^, " ""^« *^"°^''» dummy at 7S I MICROCOPY RESOLUTION TEST CHART {ANSI ond ISO TEST CHART No. 2) 1^ |££ 12.0 t 1.8 11^ n u 1 1 '^ly^i^ A APPLIED HVMGE Inc ^i 1653 Easi Mom Slrset THE THREAD OF FLAME Wondering what she could mean, and whether or not the longed-for clue might not be at hand, I suffered myself to be led by the arm to the door of the hotel. At first I saw nothing but a large and hand- some touring-car drawn up against the curb. Then I saw Drinkwater snuggled in a comer — and then a brown veil. I couldn't help crossing the pavement, since Lydia did the same, and the brown veil seemed to expect me. "Miss Blair thought you might like a drive, Mr. Soames, so we came round to see if we could find you." "Come on in, Jasper," Drinkwater urged; "the water's fine." "Come on. Don't be silly," Miss Blair in- sisted, as I began to make excuses. Before I knew what I was doing I had stum- bled into the seat opposite Miss Averill. She sat in the right-hand corner, Drinkwater in the left, Miss Blair between the two. I occupied one of the small folding armchairs, going back- ward. In another minute we were on our way through one of the cross-streets to Fifth Avenue. Having grasped the situation, I was annoyed. Miss Averill was taking the less fortunate of her acquaintance for an airing. Though I could do justice to her kindliness, I resented being forced again into a position from which I was trying to struggle out. Then I saw something that diverted my atten- tion even from my wrongs. The pavements in 76 THE THREAD OF FLAME mh Avenue were thronged with a slowly mov- mg crowd of men and women, but mostly men LookinT r TT' \ «' '^'^ impossTble Lookmg closely, I saw that they were all of the nations which people like myself are apt to con! sider most alien to the average American Of true Caucasian blood there was harX a "ireak among them Dark, stunted, oddly hatted and yet hosti e, they poured up and up and ud rsfietof ■""""' '' ""i'"^ f-"- --"- tam-side mto a great stream. For the oedest rian ofU'tZm' ^^l^--^»''- was^^faTinch' ot toot room These surgmg multitudes monopo- h2ed everythmg. From Fourteenth Street to Sle^bnTti '"'"' ' '^•"'"'^^ «f more X a mile along the most extravagantly showy thor- oughfare m the world, these Jo deZe te^ IrtcT'T '°°^ ?''^°'"^« possession. driS trade by the sheer weight of numbers. U)od heavens! What's up?" I cried in amazement. • '" nh^!!' ^""'"'i'' T**? ^'•^ ''""''tJess used to the phenomenon^ looked mildly surprised. "It'sSl'lrV tr^' ^^^ ^'•y'" she smiled, and work F.-''"'l°"^ ^''^>' ^""^^ fr""" ^hops and S the air.'" ^'^ ^•'^■"^^"'' ^° ^ ^''^ "^'''^ ''But is it like this every day?" Sure It is!" laughed Miss Blair. "Did vou never see the Avenue before?" ^ 77 r«i I '« THE THREAD OF FLAME "I've never seen this before. I'm sure they didn't do it a few years ago." Miss Averill agreed to this. It was a new manifestation, due to the changes this part of New York had undergone in recent years. " But how do the p3ople get in and out of the shops ?" Miss Blair explained that they couldn't, which was the reason why so many businesses ..ere being driven up-tovn. There was an hour in the day when e /thing was at a stand- still. "And if during that hour this inflammable stuff were to be set ablaze — " Miss Averill's comment did not make the situ- ation better. "Oh, the same thing goes on in every city in the country, only you don't see it. New York is unfortunate in having only one street. Any other street is just a byway. Here the whole city, for every purpose of its life, has to pour Itself into Fifth Avenue, so that if any- thing is going on you get it there." We did not continue the subject, for none of us really wanted to talk of it. In its way it went beyond whatever we were prepared to say. It was disquieting, it might be menacing. We preferred to watch, to study, to wonder, as, in the press of vehicles, we slowly made our way between these banks of outlandish faces, every one of which was like a slumbering fire. If our American civilization were ever to be blown vi- olently from one basis to another, as I had some- 78 THE THREAD OF FLAME times thought might happen, the social TNT was concentrated here. But we were scon in the Park. Soon after that we were runnmg along the river-bank. Soon alter that we came to an inn by a stream in a dimple of a dell and here Miss AveriU had ordered lunch by telephone. It was a nice little lunch, in a sort of rude pavilion that simulated eatmg m the open air. I noticed that all the arrangements had been made with as much fore- sight as if we had been people of distinct' ^ bo 1 began to examine my hostess w ,e attention than I had ever given her, coming to the conclusion that she belonged to the new vari- ety of rich American whom I had somewhere had occasion to observe. Sensible and sympathetic were the iirst words you applied to her, and you could see she was of the type to seek nothing for herself. Brown was her color, as it so often is that of self-renouncing characters-the brown of woodland brooks in her eyes, the brown of nuts in her hair, and all about her an air of conscientiousness that left no place for coquetry. ^ Conscientiousness was her aura, and among the shades of conscientiousness thatinspendingmoney thfihT" ^"'- KV' '^'^ ^he had ^studied the whole question of financial inequality from books, and as much as she could from observa- hTd nr^Kl*" u"'?h*K''"* "'^ °f her income had probably held her back from marriage and dictated her occupations. It had drawn her to 79 THE THREAD OF FLAME to keeolTf ^'"''"■:='^^^d. The more she trild to keep me from seeing it the more she betrayed buT?„ inn '^"u'^'' °'-«'^"'^^^' °' ^"y trick of obr couMr:;'"""""^ "'^''^'^ -'>' --d-readi°„i getW , be the .adVblhJrii;: "~" ^°- 1 m g ad of a word alone with you because-" Apparently she could get no farther Jn^hffT- It didn t come from me." ^ it's notr''' "''"" ''"''' °" "^ f""'''^^- "And "No, it's not." Oh, then— " Her tone was sliehtlv that nf disappomtment. '8""y tnat ot 80 THE THREAD OF FLAME ••Did you want it to be?" I smiled. was-"""' "' ''" "^ ''"^^^ ^''""ght it "Fm sure I don't know why-*xcept for the t^tluH' ''"' "? ^^^ ^''°« "'8'' ^d non have to sell them, can't one?" Jin" "°* ''■"'"''' ''""'* of knowledge, except among connoisseurs and artists—" '^ Oh, Weill" Hn^^f*"^ uTm' ■''°"8ht if you were in that his-at the head of one of the big carpet estab- hshments m New York—" "It's awfully kind of him," I broke in as she I n^d'ej iVr/^;r ^'^ ^« ¥ carri:dr''a"d if It^. wi li ^ u^^ "• ''"-''"* I 'Jon't need it. It-It wouldn t be any good to me. I thank him &-" '•=" ""--'y— d you. t<^ m1« She looked at the ground, her long black lashes almost restmg on her cheek. Not in the shghtest. I'm extremely grateful If I required heip there's nobody-" ^^ '''''"'• ^ You don't live in New York?" Im gomg to stay here for-for the present." But not— not to work?" That I shall have to see." things.""'""" ^°"*'' ^""^ writer^r one of those aro',^"' ^'"^ "°' ,»ny of those things," I said, gravely; and at that we laughed 6 8i ^li CHAPTER IX W^t^ ^■'"'\^° ^"^ "^"'^ >■" time for me ^^ .■'«8in the parade of the hotel, rit vast assembhes from four i^ 1„ ™^" i"*** noon began to strike ml LA ''"'^'y ''^"- ^therin^gs l7af ;S;feaT£r£^ citfme:^: InteE^sTva^SThaf ^''- not pun>oseIe«« Tn k«.i, L ^^™"y that was ment of Stal tom^' n-onotonous incite 82 THE THREAD OF FLAME lay in a hint of barbaric shamelessness. Bar- baric shamelessness marked the huge shaven faces of most of the men and the kilts of most of the women. I mention these details only to pomt out that to me, after my mysterious ab- sence, they indicated a socially new America. It was the fourth afternoon when, drifting with the crowd through a corridor lined with tables at which small parties were having tea, I felt the long-expected tap on my shoulder. In the interval too brief to reckon before tum- mg round two possibilities were clear in my mind. The unknown crime from which I was running away might have found me out— or some friend had come to my deliverance. Either event would be welcome, for even if it were arrest I should learn my name and history. "Hello, old chap! Come and have some tea." I was disappointed. It was only Boyd Averill. Behind him his wife and sister were" seated at one of the little tables. It was the sort of in- vitation one couldn't refuse, especially as they saw I was strolling without purpose. It was Mrs. Averill who talked, in the bored voix trainanU of one who has everjrthing the world can give, except what she wants most. I had seen before that she was a beautiful woman, but never so plainly as now— a woman all soft- ness and dimpling curves, with the same sug- gestions of the honeyed and melting and fatigued in her glances that you got from the inflection of her sentences. 83 I THE THREAD OF FLAME given at this unusual dmeoilh'*^''",: ^' ^^'^ iwown singer who wl, n«!- u ^^" ''^ =« ^ell- on her way' to W^ ^r wft? ^ew York fo Jng S'^Aven^tCh' "tt ^-^^ '"- my tea. ^* *° ''"^ I should have "No, the Hugo Wolff." «Wn ^...,, 'irthlfthT'S"*"^^^'^"*-- his'^^es't^^rSe"'^'^ ^'-es, Averill kept other." ' ^^'^^ "^ ">"*•«= « one time and J^! "Abroad?" "S.'^3''road-and here." "fT^Nf specially here?" said: "venu s brown eyes as she I THE THREAD OF FLAME "You seem to have moved about a good deal." "Oh yes. I wanted — ^I wanted to see what was happening." "And you saw it' ' Averill asked me that, his gaze still fixed on me thoughtfully. "Enough for the present." There was a pause of some seconds during which I could hear the unuttered question of all thre.i, "Why don't you tell us who you are?" It was a kindly question, with nothing but sym- pathy behind it. It was, in fact, a tacit oflFer of friendship, if I would only take it up. More plainly than they could have expressed them- selves in words, it said: "We like you. We are ready to be your friends. Or.ly give us the least little bit of encouragement. Link yourself up with something we know. Don't be such a mystery, because mystery breeds suspicion." When I let it go by Mildred Averill began to talk somewhat at random. She didn't want that significant silence to be repeated. I had had my chance and I hadn't taken it. Very well, my reasons would bo; respected, but I couldn't keep people from wondering. That was what I knew she was saying, though her actual words referred to our expedition of a few days pre- viously. And of th^> she spoke "vith an intonation that associated me with herself. Sh'- and I had taken two nice young people of the working- 8S THE THREAD OF FLAME classes for an outin<» Tj* -. l out a hint that as New YorL in I c .^ cording to changes in herL^^r^^^^^^^ in the person observine her W^^» *.nanges of monochrome. When you looked at hll f OO -•H THE THREAD OF FLAME what they symbolized, but this much at least you would have known — that the gold was the gold of fire, all the more dangerous, perhaps, be- cause it was banked down. That in this company, with its batteries of tacit inquiry turned on me all the while I took my tea, I was uneasy will go without saying, and so I took the earliest possible opportunity to get up and slip away. I did not slip away, however, before Mrs. Averill had asked me to lunch on the following Sunday, and I had been forced into accepting the invitation. I had been forced because she wouldn't take no for an answer. She wanted to talk about music; she wanted to sing to me; in r-jality, as I guessed then, and soon came to V • )w, she was deter- mined to wring from me, . .^ of sheer curiosity, the facts I wouldn't confide of my own accord. But having accepted the invitation, I saw that there were advantages in doing so. O > back in the current to which I belonged, I sho I have more chances of the recognition for which I was working. The social life of any country runs in streams like those we see pictured on isothermal charts. The same kind of people move in the same kind of medium from north to south, and from east to west. If you know one man there you will soon know another, till you have a chain of acquaintances, all socially similar, right across the continent. That I had such a chain I didn't doubt for an instant; my only diflSculty was to get in touch with it. As soon as I did that each 87 THE THREAD OF FLAME name would bring up a kindred name, till I found myself swimming in my native channel, wherever It was, like a fish in the Gulf Stream, whether off the coast of Norway or off that of Mexico. So I came to the conclusion that I had done right in ceding tc Mrs. Averill's insistence, though it occurred to me on second thoughts that I should need another suit of clothes. That I had wag well enough for knockabout purposes, especially when carried off with some amount of bluff; but the poverty of its origin would become too evident if worn on all occasions. I had seen at the emporium that by spending more money and putting on only a slightly en- hanced swagger I could make a much better ap- pearance in the eyes of those who didn't examine me too closely. I decided that the gain would warrant the extravagance. Within ten days of my landing, therefore, my nearly four hundred dollars had come down to nearly two, though I had the consolation of know- mg that my chances of soon getting at my bank- account were better. At any minute now my promenades in the hotels might be rewarded, while conversation with the Averills would sooner or later bring up names with which I should have associations. It was disconcerring then, on the following Sunday, to be received with some constraint. It was the more disconcerting in that the coldness came from Averill himself. He strolled into the hall while I was putting down my hat and 88 THE THREAD OF FLAME sdck, shaking hands with the pecuUar listlessness of a man who disapproves of what is happen- ing. As hitherto I had found him interested Md cordial, I couldn't help being struck by the change. "You see how we are," he observed, pointing to an open packing-case. "Not up to the point ot ^having guests; but Mrs. Averill— " _ "Mrs. Averill was too kind to me to think of mconveniences to herself." j-^t",",* f.T* "P *° *''« library, will you, and rU tell her you're here." It was a way of getting rid of me till his wife could come and assume her own responsibilities. So long a time had passed since I had seen the uitenor of an American house of this order that I took notes as I made my way up-stairs. Out of the unsuspected resources of my being came the capaaty to do it. Most people on entering a house see nothing but its size. A background more or less elaborately furnished may be in their niinds, but they have not the knowledge to enable them to seize details. The careful arrangement of taste is all one to them with some nondescript, haphazard jumble. In this dwelling, in one of the streets off Fifth Avenue, on the eastern side of Central Park, I found the typical home of the average wealthy American. Money had been spent on it, but with a kmd of helplessness. Helplessness had designed the house, as it had planned, or hadn't planned, the street outside. THE THREAD OF FLAME A square hall contained a few monumental pieces of furniture because they were monumen- tal. A dining-room behind it was full of high- backed Italian chairs because they were high- backed and Italian. The stairs were built as they were because the architect had not been able to avoid a dark spot in the middle of the house and the stairs filled it. On the floor above a glacial drawing-room in white and gold, with the furniture still in bags, ran the width of the back of the house, while across the front was the library into which I was shown, spacious, cheerful, with plenty of books, magazines, and easy-chairs. In the way of pictures there were but two — modem portraits of a man and a woman, whom I had no difficulty in setting down as the father and mother of Averill. Of the mother I knew noth- ing except that she had been a school-teacher; of the father Miss Blair had given me the de- tailed history as told in Men Who Have Made New Jersey. Hubbard Averill was the son of a shoemaker in Elizabeth. On leaving school at fifteen he had the choice of going into a grocery store as clerk or as office-boy into a bank^ He chose the bank. Ten years later he was teller. Five years after that he was cashier. Five years after that he had the same position in a bank of importance in Jersey City. Five years after that he was recognized as one of the able young financiers in the neighborhood of New York. Before he was fifty his name was honored by 90 THE THREAD OF FLAME those who count in Wall Street. It was the his- tory of most of the successful American bankers I had ever heard of. There was no packing-case in the hbraiy, but a number of objects recently unpacked stood round about on tables, waiting to be disposed of. There was a little Irish glass, with much old porcelam and pottery, both Chinese and Euro- pcM. I had not the time to appraise the things with the eye before Miss Averill slipped in. She wore a hat, and, dressed in what I sup- pose was tan-colored linens, she seemed just to have come in from the street. "My sister will be down in a minute. She's generally late on Sunday. I've been good and have been to church." We sat down together on a window-seat, with some self-consciousness on both sides. I noticed again that, though her hair was brown, her eye- brows and long curving lashes were black, strik- ing the same discreet yet obscurely dangerous note as the rest of her personality. In the topaz of her eyes there were little specks of gold like those in her chain of amber beads. After a little introduccory talk she began telling me of the help Miss Blair was giving Drinkwater. She had begun to teach him what she called "big stenography." Shorthand and the touch system were included in it, as well as the knack of trans- cribing from the dictaphone. Boyd had bought a machine on purpose for them to practise with, looking forward to the day when Harry should 91 THE THREAD OF FLAME resume his old job connected with laboratory work. "And what's to become of Miss Blair?" My companion lowered her fine lashes, speak- ing with the seeming shyness that was her charm. "I'm thinking of asking her to come and live with me. You see, if I take a house of my own I shall need some one; and she suits me. She understands the kind of people I Uke to work among — " "Oh, then you're not going to keep on living here." "I've lived with my brother and sister ever since my father died; but one comes to a time when one needs a home of one's own. Don't you think so?" "Oh, of course!" "A man — Uke you, for instance — can be so free; but a woman has to live within exact limi- tations. The only way she can get any liberty at all is within her own home. Not that my brother and sister aren't angelic to me. They are, of course; but you know what I mean." The glance that stole under her lashes was half daring and half apologetic. "It must be won- derful to do as one likes — to experiment with diiferent sorts of life — and get to know things at first hand." So that was her summing up concerning me. I was one of those modems with so keen a thirst for life that I was testing it at all its springs. She didn't know my ultimate intention, but she 9* n. THE THREAD OF FLAME could sympathize with my methods and admire my courage and thoroughness. Almost in so many words she said if she had not been timid and hedged in by conventions it was what she would have liked herself. Before any one came to disturb us there seeped through her conversation, too, the reason of Avenll's coldness. They had discussed me a good deal, and while he had nothing to accuse me of, he considered that the burden of the proof of my mnocence lay with me. I might be all nght— and then I might not be. So long as there was any question as to my probity I was a per- son to watch with readiness to help, but not one to ask to luncheon. He would not have in- vited me to te-; a few days before, and had al- lowed me to pass and repass before ceding to his wife's persistence. He had consequently been the more annoyed when she carried her cu- riosity to the point of bringing me there that day. Miss Averill did not, of course, say these things; die would have been amazed to know that I in- ferred them. I shouldn't have inferred them had I not seen her brother and partially read his mmd But my hostess came trailing in — ^the verb IS the only one I can find to express her grace- fully lymphatic movements — and I was obliged to submit to a welcome which was overempha- sized for the benefit of the husband who entered behind her. "We're really not equipped for having any 93 !l« THE THREAD OF FLAME one come to us," she apologized. "We're scarcely unpacked. We're going to move from this house anyhow when we can find another. It's so poky. If we're to entertain again—" She turned to her sister: "Mildred dear, couldn't some one have cleared these things away?" Waving her hand toward the array of potteries and porcelains, she continued to me: "One buys such a lot during two or three years abroad, doesn't one? I'm sure Mrs. Soames must feel the way I do, that she doesn't know where to put the things when she's got them home." I knew the reason for the reference which others were as quick to catch as I, and, in the idiom of the moment, tried to "side-step" it by saying: "That'aid, casually: "Oh no! One doesn't have to own things just because one admires them." "But you say yourself that you've picked them up — " As she had nearly caught me here I was obliged to wriggle out. "Oh, to give away — and that kind of thing." 96 THE THREAD OF FLAME Averill's eyes were resting on me thought- fully. "Sell?" "No; I've never sold anything like that." „ "^''*. ^''"'* ^^^ use." Mrs. Averill asked, of canng about things when you can't have thenif I should hate it." "Only that there's nothing you can't have." "Do you hear that, Boyd?" I caught the im- pulse of the purring, velvety thing to vary the monotony of hfe by scratching. "Mr. Soames says there's nothing I can't have. Much he knows, doesn't he?" "There's noth'ig you can't have— within reason, dear." "Ah, but I don't want things within reason. I want them out of reason. I want to be like Mr. Soames— free— free— " i.'v°" '""'^ *** ^^^^ ""^ ^ " married woman." You can when you have a vocation, can't you, Mr. Soames? I suppose Mr. Soames is a married man— and look at him." She hurried beyond this point, to add: "And look at Sydna, whom we heard the other afternoon! She's a married woman and her husband lives in London. He lets her sing. He lets her travel. He leads his life and lets her . . . Mr. Soames, what do you fhink?" I said, tactfully, "I shall be able to judge better when you've sung to me." Miss Averill, taking up the thread of the con- versation here, we got through the rest of the luncheon without treading in difficult places, ' 97 THE THREAD OF FLAME and presently I was alone with Averill, who was passing the cigars. The constraint which had partially lifted dur- ing the conversation at luncheon fell again with the departure of the ladies. I had mystified them more than ever; and mystery does not make for easy give and take in hospitality. To Averill himself his hospitality was sacred. To entertain at his own board a man with no cre- dentials but those which an adventurer might present was the source of a discomfort that amounted to unhappiness. He couldn't conceal it; he didn't care to conceal it. While fulfilling all that courtesy required of a host, he was willing to let me see it. I saw it, and could say nothing, since he might easily be right; and an adventurer I might be. As, with his back to the open doorway into the hall, he sat down with his own cigar, I felt that he was saying to himself, "I wish to God you were not in this house!" I myself was responding silently by wishing the same thing. It was the obvious minute at which to tell him everything. I saw that as plainly as you do. Had I made a clean breast of it I should have become one of the most interesting cases of his experience. Such instances of shell-shock were just beginning to be talked about. The term was finding its way into the newspapers and garnishing common speech. Though I knew of no connection between my misfortunes and the Great War, I could have made shift to furnish 98 THE THREAD CF FLAME «aSr'°" "" ^"'^ ""- •"'- --« ••« During a pause in our stilted speech I screwed myself up to the point. "There-rsomething-" But his attention was distract-d for the mo- ment, and when it came back o me I could"^ ^Tu'^"'- ^°' ^ ^""•°n had to be my refuge. If had married, and when, and where. I moke Zi ""/"'.P^='«^ th" sprang not from eager- ^uldtt^riss:^ ^-^'^"^ ^"^ ^^^ -p^^ "No." ^M-.1"TT ''"'^ '*"'^er followed so swiftly on Mildred AveriU's arrival on the thrTho d that sje caught them both. Little spa7ks if gold shone in the brown pools of her eyes, and her smile took on a new shade of vitaUty 99 THE THREAD OF FLAME "Boyd, Lulu wants you to bring your cigars up-stairs. The coffee is there, and she'd like to talk to Mr. Soames about the old Chinese things before she begins to sing." He jumped to his feet. He was not less con- strained, but some of his uneasiness had passed. I could read what was in his mind. If the worst came to the worst I was at least a single man; and the worst might not come to the worst. There might be ways of getting rid of me before his sister ... He led the way up-stairs. I followed with Miss Averill, saying I have forgotten what. I have forgotten it because, as we crossed the low- ceiled hall with its monumental bits of furni- ture, two glean.ing eyes stood over me like senti- nels in the air. CHAPTER X W^I"i^ =>„ fortnight my nearly two hun- dred dollars had come down to nearly c' 1? J ^''l' '" *P"' °^ '^y self-denials. n,v i^ffi*'"?•' ^f'^!"^ t° ">*• I tnew that by my difficulties in beginning to practise them i^S «^°"°"»« a? "aying at the Barcelona in- readv^,^' more luxurious hotel, or as buying ready-made clothes instead of waiting for the custom-made. I do not speak of as self-denials! since they were no more than concessions to a temporary lack of cash. But the first time I tT fi^^'^^r'^'"" °" ''"« ^«g insteadof ,.wo; the first time I suppressed the e^s aitogether- the first time I lunched on a cuf of chocotte l^AA*" "" ^°TT' *¥ *"' "'"<' I '^ent without when th^ *"' •' °^fy tind-these were occasions When the saving of pennies struck me as akin to humiliation I had formed no habits to prepare jne for it. The possibility that it might comfnue began at last to frighten me. For none of my artful methods had been suc- cessful. I frequented the hotels; I hung about the entrances to theaters; I tramped the streets tiU a new pair of boots became a necessity; but lOI THE THREAD OF FLAME no one ever hailed me as an old acquaintance. Once only, standing in the doorway of a great restaurant, did I recognize a face; but it was that of Lydia Blair, dining with a man. He was a big, round-backed, silver-haired man, with an air of opulence which suggested that Miss Blair might be taking the career of adventuress more seriously than I had supposed. Whether or not she saw me I couldn't tell, for, to avoid embarrassment both for herself and me, I with- drew to another stamping-ground. What the young lady chose to do with herself was no affair of mine. Since a pretty girl of facile temper- ament would have evident opportunities, it was not for me to interfere with her. Had she be- longed to my own rank in life I might have been shocked or sorry; but every one knew that a beautiful working-girl . . . As to my own rank in life a sense of going under false pretenses added to my anxieties, though it was through no fault of my own. Miss Averill persisted in giving me the role of romantic seeker for the hard facts of existence. She did it only by assumption; but she did it. "There's nothing like seeing for oneself, is there? It's feeling for oneself, too, which is more important. I'm so terribly cut off from it all. I'm like a bird in a cage trying to help those whose nests are being robbed." This was said during the second of the excur- sions for which Miss Blair captured me from the lobby of the Barcelona. Her procedure was ex- 102 THE THREAD OF FLAME actly the same as on the first occasion, except that she came about the middle of the aftemooh. Nothing but an unusual chance found me sitting there, idle but preoccupied, as I meditated on my situation while smoking a cigar. My first im- pulse to refuse Miss Averill's invitation point- blank was counteracted by the thought of escape trom that daily promenade up and down the halls aL irkionll *° ''*' disheartening Of this the novelty had passed. The ex- pectations that during the first week or two had made each minute a living thing had simmered away in a sense of futility. No old friend having recognized me yet, I was working round to the conviction that no old friend ever would. If I kept up the tramp it was because I could see nothing else to do. But on this particc.ar afternoon for the first time I revolted. The effect was physical, in that my feet seemed to be too heavy to be dragged along They were refusing their job, while my mind was planning it. Thus in the end I found myself sharing the outing given nominally for the blind boyf but really planned from a complication of motives whichtoMissAverillwereobscure. Itdidnothelp to make them clearer that her wistful, unuttered appeals to me to solve the mystery surrounding ™JLPe"?na''ty passed by without result. The high bank of an autumn wood, the Hudson with a steamer headed southward, more autumn 103 THE THREAD OF FLAME I woods covering the hills beyond, a tea-basket, tea — ^this was the decoration. We had alighted from the motor somewhere in the neighborhood of Tarrytown. Tea being over. Miss Blair and Drinkwater, with chaiF and laughter, were clear- ing up the things and fitting them back into the basket. "She's very clever with him," Miss Averill explained, as she led the way to a fallen log, on which she seated herself, indicating that I might sit beside her. "She seizes on anything that will teach him the use of his fingers, and makes a game of it. He's very quick, too. The next time he'll be able to take the things out of the tea-bas- ket and put them back all by himself." So we had dropped into her favorite theme, the duty of helping the helpless. She was in brown, as usual, a brown-green, that might have been a Scotch or Irish homespun, which blended with the wine shades and russets all about us with the effect of protective colora- tion. The day was as still as death, so breathless that the leaves had scarcely the energy to fall. In the heavy, too-sweet scents there was sug- gestion and incitement — suggestion that chances were passing and incitement to seize them before they were gone. I wish there were words in which to convey the peculiar overtones in Miss Averill's compari- son of herself with a bird in a cage. There was goodness in them, and amusement, as well as something baffled and enraged. She had been 104 THE THREAD OF FLAME so subdued when I had seen her hitherto that 1 was hardly prepared for this half-smothered outburst of fierceness. ... "If you're like a bird in a cage," I said, "you're Uke the one that sings to the worker and cheers him up. Her pleasure was expressed not in a chanije of color or a dr. jping of the lids, but in a quiet suffusion that might most easily be described as atmospheric. "Oh, as for cheering people up— I don't know. 1 ve tned such a lot of it, only to find that they got along well enough without me. A woman wants more than anything else in the world to feel that she s needed; and when she discovers she isn t — The sense of my own apparent superfluity in me prompted me to say: "Oh, it isn't only women who discover that " Her glance traveled down the steep wooded 1 ? u-..'"'" ^''^ "^"■' *° '«« on the wine- colored hills on the other side. "Did you-Hlid you ever?"-she corrected hereelf quickly— "I mean— do men?" "Some men do. It's— it's possible." "Isn't it," she asked, tackling the subject in her sensible way, "primarily aquestion of money? If you have enough of it not to have to earn a living— and no particular duties— don't you find yourself edged out of the current of life ? After all, what the world wants is producers; and the minute one doesn't produce — " los THE THREAD OF FLAME "What do you mean by producers?" She reflected. "I suppose I mean all who contribute, either directly or indirectly, either mentally or physically, to the sum total of our needs in living. Wouldn't that cover it?" I admitted that it might. "And those who don't do that, who merely live on what others produce, seem to be excluded from the privilege of helpfubess." "I can't sec that. They help with their money." "Money can't help, except indirectly. It's the great mistake of our philanthropies to think it can. We make a great many mistakes; but we can make more in our philanthropies than any- where else. We've never taken the pains to study the psychology of help. We think money the panacea for every kind of need, when as a matter of fact it's only the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. If you haven't got the grace the sign rings fabe, like an imitation coin." 'Well, what is the grace?" "Oh, it's a good many things — a blend— of which, I suppose, the main ingredient is Ir.ve." She gave me a wistful half-smile, as she added: "Love is a very queer thing— I mean this kind of big love for — ^just for people. You can always tcU whether it's true or false; and the less sophis- ticated the people the more instinctively they know. If it's true they'll accept you; if it's only pumped up, they'll shut you out." io6 THE THREAD OF FLAME •Tm sure you ought to know." 1 do know. I've had a U* «f in being shut out." °' °^ expenence- "You?" "ThevlonV iT"'' .Drinkwater and Miss Blair. 1 hey don t let me in. In spite of all I trv to do for then, they're only polite to me Thev'H thT '''r/'"'' °^ *'''"«' b« I-'n aTfar Jutsldl their confidence-outside their hearts- as a brd of neTbu^dJ^"^'' •"-•^' ^^ ^-^^^^ Oh, easily enough! I'm not the realthine I never was-not at the Settlement-not now- not anywhere or at any time." "I can'r^r^-K ^?" ^^^,7^' '^^ ^«^' thing?" not V T' ^" ^ ','•• ^" ^ '^"°^ is that I'm not ,^. I m not working for them, but for m^ "For yourself— how.?" r«'ilf *" '" '," ^'"P*^ '■'«• When you've no real life you seek an artificial one. As everv one ^jects the artincial. you get reject^." That": se?" ^''"''l you call a real life-for your- . The fierceness with which she had been sneak A life in which there was something I was absolute y ob heed to dn T k -• ^ , y uuiigea to do. 1 begin to wonder f 107 THE THREAD OF FLAME parents know how much of the zest of living they're talcing aw;.y from their children by leav- ing them, as we say, well provided for. When there's nothing within reason you can't have and nothing within reason you can't do — ^well, then, you're out of the running." "Is that the way you look at yourself— as out of the running?" "That's the way I am." "And is there no means of getting into the running?" "There might be if I wasn't such a coward." "If you weren't such a coward what would you do?" "Oh, there are things. You've— you ve found them. I would do like you." "And do you know what I'm doing?" "I can guess." "And you guess — ^what?" "It's only a guess — of course." "But what is it?" She rose with a weary gesture. "What's the good of talking about it? A knight in disguise remains in disguise till he chooses to throw off his incognito." "And when he has thrown it off— what does he become then?" "He may become something '^Ise — but he's — he's none the less — a knight." We stood looking at each other, in one of those impulses of mutual frankness that are not without danger. io8 I THE THREAD OF FLAME thZ^'^ff k- "? '""' ? ''"'«''* ^ho-^ho couldn't throw off his incognito?" She shrugged her shoulders. "Then I sun- And what would Elsa thmk of that?" Seeing the implication in this indiscreet Ques- tion even before she did. I felt myself flu?h hotly I admired the more, therefore, the ease S which she carried the difficult moment off JS^'v. ing a few steps toward Drinkwater and Miss threw ° 7'' l^""'''^ up the tea-basketrshe threw over her shoulder: "If there was an Elsa I suppose she'd make up her mind when the time came." ^* her toT^:"'" """"^"^ '""^"^ "*•=" ^ "-'"^k "I wish I could speak plainly." ^^bhe stopped to glance up at me. "And can't vo,'!Y!'i\^°" *""" '? " «t"«ion which you felt you had to swing alone? You know you could get help; you know you could count on svrn pathy; but whenever you're impelled to ap3 for either something holds you back " ^ 1 never was in such a situation, but T can I felt obliged to grant the permission, trouble?'" "'*"" °^^^'' " «^"^""y "lied misfonune."'^ '"'"''' "'"''^^ " «^""^"^ "»«d 109 i l.'r THE THREAD OF FLAME "And I suppose 1 mustn't say so much as that 1 m Sony." "You could say that much," I smiled, "if you didn t say any more." She repeated the weary gesture of a few min- utes earher, a slight tossing outward of both Il,f^ '^^^ ' ^^^^ ^'^°P against the sides. "What a life!" As she began to move on once more I spoke as I walked beside her. "What's the matter with life?" Again she paused to confront me. In her eyes gold lights gleamed in the brown depths of the inses. "What sense is there in a civilization that cuts us all off from each other? We're ike prisoners m solitary confinement— you in one cell and Boyd m another and Lulu in another and I in an- other, and everybody else in his own or her own and no communication or exchange of help be- tween us. It's— it's monstrous." The half-choked passion of her words took me the more by surprise for the reason that she treated me as if the defects of our civilization were my fault. Joining Lydia Blair and taking her by the arm, she led the way back to the motor, while I was left to pilot Drinkwater, who carried the tea-basket. During the drive back to town our hostess scarcely spoke, and not once to me directly. CHAPTER XI a love-affair v^Ml be. vf/"'"'' '^'^ complication of a love-affair ThreateSTV"^""'^' •>« ^^at As far as that wentTir f ^ "° """"" «='«"• to think of k r^t loJu f '^''r"" °" '"y P«« water, excent ^ ,« T ^^^'^ ''*^'n 'or Drink- myself. '^ " '° ^" ''' " "Evolved danger to "sSr "liTt uT *''" i'"^'' ^''^ »°t suggest Mi.L^::n'See?nL?thTt ffaf*'"? ^^ analyze the wav T «,,!.. • • "^^ "o time to words, her iZlLrLr' -'"^ ' • ^^'8'""g her more than tCfciLtbe'"„r-"T' ^ "^ "<> at the feet of a woodTn m,n "''^""8 ^^ treasures figment, with^t ^^r' LT^ '^ =''"^ "--'' voSmi^ k viT*"' '" "^^"'"^^ - Mal- pe?o7:hr«;e on wht '^r.- I* -- the as- lonely ^neTl^t notV"''' '" ^''^^^'^ '"J' ill's reception of me on th'^'^T'" ^^^^ ^ver- -; I never l"1dXg:t'it"''^hfr''' '""'=''■ tWrnbeingin^hehouPamlS^ris^an: THE THREAD OF FL^vIE ious to ^t you out of it unlike any other form of humiliation. The very fact that he refrains from pointedly showing you the door only gives time for the ignominy to sink in. Nothing but the habit of doing certain things in a certain way carried me through those two hours and enabled me to tajce my departure without incivility. On going down the steps the sense that I had been kicked out was far more keen than if Averill had given way to the actual physical grossness. Some of this feeUng, I admit, was fanciful. It was due to the disturbed imagination natural to a man whose mental equipment has been put awry. Averill had been courteous throughout my visit. More than that, he was by nature kindly. An}rwhere but in his own house his atti- tude to me would have been cordial, and for any- thing I needed he would have backed me with more than his good-will. Nevertheless, that Sunday rankled as a poi- soned memory, and one from which I found it impossible wholly to dissociate any member of his family. Though I could blame Mrs. Averill a little, I could blame Miss Averill not at all; and yet she belonged to the household in which I had been made to feel an unwelcome guest. That in itself might give me a clue to her senti- ment toward me. As I went on with my dinner I came to the con- clusion that it did give me such a clue. I was the idiot Malvolio thinking himself beloved of Viola. Where there was nothing but a balked THE THREAD OF FLAME philanthropy I was looking for the tender heart. Ihe dictionary teemed with terms that appUed to such a situation, and I began to heap them on myself. ^ I heaped them on myself with a sense not of reUet, but of disappointment. That was the odd discovery I made, as much to my surprise as my chagnn. Falling in love with anybody was no part of my program. It was out of the question for obvious reasons. In addition to these I was m love with some one else. That is to say, I knew I had been in love; I knew that m the portion of my life that had be- come obscured there had been an emotional drama of which the consciousness remained. It remained as a dream remains when we remember the vividness and forget the facts— but it re- mamed. I could view my personality some- what as you view a countryside after a storm has passed over it. Without having witnessed the storm you can tell what it was from the havoc Jett behind. There was some such havoc m my- Just as I could look into the glass and see a face young, haggard, handsome, if I may use the word without vanity, that seemed not to be mine, so I could look into my heart and read the suttering of which I no longer perceived the causes. It was like looking at the scar of a wound re- ceived before you can remember. Your body must have bled from it, your nerves must have ached; even now it is numb or sensit-ve; but " 113 THE THREAD OF FLAME its history is lost to you. It was once the out- standing fact of your childish existence; and now all of which you are aware is something atro- phied, lacking, or that shrinks at; a touch. In just that way I knew that passion had once flashed through my Ufe, but had left me nothing but the memory of a memory. I could trace its path almost as easily as you can follow the track of a tornado through a town— by the wreckage 1 mean by the wreckage an emotional weariness, an emotional distress, an emotional distaste for emotion; but above eveiy thing else I mean a craving to begin the emotion all over again. I often wondered if some passional experience hadn t caused the shattering of the brain cells. 1 often wondered if the woman I hrd 'rved wr.s not dead. I wondered if I might not even have killed her. Was that the crime from which I was runnmg away? Were the Furies pursuing mef Was it to be my punishment to fall in love with another woman and suffer the second time because the first suffering had defeated its own ends in making me insensible? All through the evening thoughts of this kind, now and then with a half-feverish turn, ran through my mind, till by the time I went to bed love no longer seemed impossible. It was ap- palhng; and yet it had a fascination. So for the next few days I walked with a vision pure, unobtrusive, subdued, holy in its way which nevertheless broke into light and passion and flame that nobody but myself was probably 114 THE THREAD OF FLAME aware of. I abo gleaned from Lydia Blair, who had a journalistic facility in gathering personal facts, that Mildred AveriU's place in New York ..^L* "^ *'''"'' *° ^" opportunities, ihere are always girls like that," Miss Blair commented 'They've got all the chances in the world, and don t know how to make use of them, bhe s not a bad looker, not when you come to study her; and yet you couldn't show her off with the dressiest models in New York." n ! VT/''^ A° ^"^W^ ^^''^ ''*'°^"g off might not be Miss Avenll's ambition. And a good thing too, poor dear. If it was It would be the hmit. She sure has the sense to know what she can't do. That's something. Look here, Harry," she continued, sharply, "I told yo,, before that if you're jo.ng to take letters down from the dictaphone you've got to read them through to the end before you beein to transcnbe. Then you'll know where the cor- rections come in. Now you've got to go back and begin all over again. See here, my dear! It you think I m going to waste my perfectly good time giving you lessons that you don't listen to you ve got your nerve with you." It was one of my rare visits to Miss Flower- dew s dark front parlor, of which Drinkwater had the use, and I was making the call for a purpose. 1 knew there were certain afternoons when Miss Blair breezed in," as she expressed it, to give some special lesson to her pupil; and I had heard once or twice that on such occasions Miss Averill "5 ' THE THREAD OF FLAME too, had come to lend him her encouragement. Nommally she brought a cylinder from Xh K^""7\' ^° ^°?/ **'" '"»"* J*" brother sympathy. Seemg the boy in such good hands, and happy m h,s lot, I had the less compunction m leaymg h,m alone. I left him alone, as I have cmfM? ,"''*\"°^ *° l"' i' ^° «s«ntial to research. Miss Blair s expression was that the poor man never knew where he was at. Adoring h's calt'fo^r" ""^ "T ''t'P'"^'^ « »"" beck and call for the reason that he had long ago come to the knowledge that his wife didn^ fdore him Holding her only by humoring her whTms he &to"the°: "™^^''"« ""'' '^' "P^ "to Jo ■r^ »,-^. ?"*^^" "3g« again. ^ To Mildred Averill all this made little differ ence because she had none of the aims commo„T grouped as social. Miss Blair understood a,^ from her childhood she had been stud ous sfrious mng quietly with her elderly parents at mS town, and acquiring their elderly tastes "I l fierce the way old people hamper a girl" Lvdia commented "Just because they're your fath r K^'/lt^ '"i^^'^l^ =• "^''t to suck you was si^eel' " ,K ""t' A ^^ "'°'^'' ^^^ ^^en I tTon "Of' '"'''''I' •", ^ *°"^ °f commenda- tion. Of course you're lonely-like at times- 117 f THE THREAD OF FLAME but then you're free." Freedom to Mildred Ayenll, however, was all the same as being bound. She didn't know how to make use of liberty or give herself a good time. When her father died she stayed on with her mother at Morristown, and when the mother "punched the clock for the next life"— the figure was Miss Blair's— she simply joined her brother and sister-in-law in New York. After she went out of mourning she was sometimes seen at a concert or the opera with Mrs. AveriU. There was no more to her social life than that and an occasional dinner. Gray-blooded, I call it," Miss Blair threw in again, " and a sinful waste of good chances. Mv I ifl had them!" "Perhaps you can have them," I suggested, Harry Drinkwater having gone for a minute to his room. "Miss Averill told me one day that she thought of taking a house and asking you to hve with her." "Me? Do you see me playing second fiddle to a girl as sure bound to be an old maid .s I'm bound to be — " "An adventuress." "I'm bound to be an adventuress — if I like." "Oh, then there's a modification to your pro- gram. The last time we talked about it you were going to do it. Now it's only— if you uke." Her lovely blue eyes shot me a look of protest. You wouldn't want me to do it— if I didn't like. The worst of being an adventuress is the kind ii8 THE THREAD OF FLAME of guys you must adventure with. You don^t mean to thrust them down my throat." "Mm not urging you at all. I did hapDen She nodded. "I saw you. What were you do- "How ^ °" ^" ' i''^ =>* P'^«^ Hke that^ How do you know I don't" "Well, I don't know. That's just the trouble Sometimes I think you're a—" "ou^ie. "I'm a— what.?" knowit?''"' Y°" 8ive me the creeps. Do you "How?" ^J'Well, you saw that guy I was with at the ."Looked like a rich fathead." Yes; but you know he's a rich fathead He s as dear as a glass of water. You're like"- th^'miS k" ' ^-i'-7"you're Hke something if PO.W' qh' '"'^'f-^'^'^ •"ight be a dosf pt poison. She turned on me wth a new flash m her blue eyes. "Look here! Tell me honest now Are you a swell crook-^r ain^ySu" • ' Suppose I say that-that I ain't." i>ay, kid! she responded, coldly, "talk like yourself, will you?" She threw her hands apart pahns outward. "Well, if you're not a Si crook I can't make you out " Why do you keep hanging round Miss Aver- io gefb/S?.^'""'^- "^"^ '^ 3^- -P- "9 THE THREAD OF FLAME "What do you expect to get by asking me ?" Her reply was a kind of challenge. "The truth. Do you know it?" I felt uncomfortable. It was one of the rare occasions on which I had seen this flower-like face drop Its bantering mask and grow serious. The voix de Montmartre had deepened in tone and put me on the defensive. "I thought you told me on board ship that you looked on all people of Miss Averill's class as the prey of those in — in ours." "I don't care what I told you on board ship. You re to keep where you belong as far as she's concerned— or I'll give the whole bloomin' show away, as they say in English vawdville." "There again; it's what you said you wouldn't <■< , ^^''^ ^°"'*' ^^ ^y friend—" "I'll be your friend right up to there— but that s the high-water mark." «Tf •*''°"^''* ^^ permissible to change my front. If It comes to that, I've done no hanging round Miss Avenll on my own account. It's you who ve come for me to the Hotel Barcelona every time — " ' "Harry made me do that; but even so— well, you don't have to fall in the water just because you re standing on a wharf" "It doesn't hurt the water if you do. You can get soaked, and make yourself look ridicu- lous, but the beautiful blue sea doesn't mind." "You can make it splash something awful, and send npples all over the lot. Don't you be 120 S^'e'er Tdf Z t^ " "'" "=''\'" •>" '''"^ eyes. "Look or ain't you? ' ^'luZ^V'''- J^'' l^"" ^ ^^e" """k- ii 1 1 P'). THE THREAD OF FLAME too sure of not being dangerous. You wouldn't be everybody's choice — but you have that ro- mantic way — like a prince-guy off the level — and she not used to men — or having a lot of them around her all the time, like — " "Like you." "Like me," she accepted, composedly; "and so if I see anything that's not on the square I'U^ — I'll hand out the right dope about you without the least pity." "And when you hand out the right dope about me what will it be?" "You poor old kid, what do you think it will be? If you make people think you're a swell crook it's almost the same as being one." "But do I make people think I'm a swell crook?" "You make me." "What do I do to—" "It's not what you do, it's what you don't do — or what you don't say. Why don't you tell people who you are, or what your business is, or where you come from ? Everybody can hitch on to something in a world, but you don't seem to belong anywhere. If any one asks you a question it's always No I Not No I till you can tell what your answer will be beforehand. Surely there's a Yes somewhere in your life! If you always hide it you can't blame people for thinking there's something to be hidden." "And yet you'd be my friend." "Oh, I've been friends to worse than that. Ill THE THREAD OF FLAME I wasn't bom yesterday— not by a lot. All I say IS, Hands off little old Milly AveriU!' but tor the rest you can squeak along in your own way. 1 m a good sort. I don't interfere with any one. Drinkwater being on the threshold and the conversation having yielded me all I hoped to get, 1 made an excuse for going. Miss Averill had not appeared, and now I was glad of it Had she come I could not have met her under 1-ydia s cold eye without self-consciousness. It began to stnke me, too. that the best thing I could do was to step out from the circle of all their Uves and leave no clue behind me. CHAPTER XII IT was not a new reflection, as you know; and ot late It had been growing more insistent. 1 he truth IS that I needed to find work. My nearly one hundred dollars was melting away with unbehevable rapidity. Expenses being re- duced to a rule of thumb, I could count the days after which I shouldn't have a cent. Winter was coming. Already there were mornings with the nip of frost m them. I should require boots, clothes, warm things of all sorts. Food and shelter I couldn't do without. It was the incredible, the impossible. Neb- uchadnezzar driven from men and eating grass Uke an ox couldn't have been more surprised to see himself in such a state of want. Some- where, out of the memories that had not dis- appeared, I drew the recollection that to need boots and not be able to afford them had been my summary of an almost inhuman degree of poverty. I could remember trying to picture what It would be like to find myself in such a situation and not being able to do so. I had bought a new pair since coming to New York, and they were already wearing thin. 1*3 I THE THREAD OF FLAME It came to me again — it came to me constantly, of course— that I could save myself by going to some sympathetic person and telling him my tale. I rejected now the idea of making Boyd AveriU my confidant; but there were other possibilities. There were doctors, clergymen, poliLemen. As a matter of fact, people who suffered from am- nesia, an J who didn't know their names, generally applied to the police. In the end I opted for a clergyman as being the most human of these agencies. Vaguely I was aware that vaguely I belonged to a certain church. I had tested myself along the line of religion as well as along other lines, with the dis- covery til at the services of one church were fa- miliar, vMie those of others were not. From the press I learned that the Rev. Dr. Scattlethwaite, the head of a large and wealthy congregation, was perhaps the best known ex- ponent in New York of modem scientific benef- icence, and by attendance at one of his services I got the information that at fixed hours of every day he was in his ofiSce at his parish house foi the purpose of meeting those in trouble. It was a simple matter, therefore, to present myself, and be met on the threshold of his waiting-room by the young lady who acted as his secretary. She was a portly young lady, light on her feet, quick in her movements, dressed in black, with blond fluffy hair, and a great big welcoming smile. The reception was much the same as in any doctor's office, and I think she diagnosed my 11 ' THE THREAD OF FLAME complamt as the drug habit. Asking me to take a seat she assured me that Doctor Scattiethwaite would see me as soon as he was disengaged. When she had returned to her desk, where she seemed to make endless notes, I had leisure to look about me. Except for a large white wooden cross between two doors. It might have been a waiting-room in a hospital. Something in the atmosphere sug- gested people meeting agonies— or perhaps it was something m myself. As far as that went, there were no particular agonies in the long table strewn with illustrated papers and magazines, nor in the bookrack containing eight or ten well- thumbed novels. .Neither were agonies sug- gested by the Arundel print of the Resurrection on one bit of wall-space, nor by the large framed photograph of the Arch of Constantine on another. All the same there was that in the air which told one that no human being in the world would ever come into this room otherwise than agamst his will. And yet in that I may be wrong, considering how many people there are who enjoy the luxury of sorrow. I guessed, for example, that the well- dressed woman in mourning who sat diagonally opposite me was carrying her grief to every pastor m New York and refusing to be comforted by any. Another woman in mourning, rusty and cheap m her case, flanked by two vacant-eyed children, had evidently come to collect a portion ot the huge financial bill she was able to present IIS THE THREAD OF FLAME against fate. An extremely thin lady, with eyes preternaturally wide open, was perhaps a sufferer from insomnia, while the httle old man with broken boots and a long ted nose was plsdnly an ordinary " bum." These were my companions except that a beaming lady of fifty or so, dressed partly like a Salvation Army lassie and partly like a nun, and whom I took to be Doctor Scattlethwaite's deaconess en litre, bustled in and out for conferences with the fluffy-haired girl at the desk. I beguiled the waiting, which was long and tedious, by co-ordinating my tale so as to get the main points into salience. It was about ten in the morning when I arrived, and around half past ten the lady who had first claim on Doctor Scattlethwaite came out from her audience. She was young and might have been pretty if she hadn't been so hollow-eyed and walked with her handkerchief pressed closely to her Ups. I put her down as a case of nervous prostration. The lady with the inconsolable sorrow was next summoned by the secretary, and so one after another those who had preceded me went in to tal'e their turns. Mine came after the old "bum," when it was nearly twelve o'clock. The room was a kind of Ubrary. I retain an impression of books Uning the walls, a leather- covered lounge, one or two leather-covered easy- chairs, and a large flat-topped desk in the center of the floor-space. Behind the desk stood a short, square-shouldered man in a dark-gray 126 THE THREAD OF FLAME . ^^ y°"'ve come to me for advke as to tK- wise thmg for vou to An. " U^ ""« as to the 127 il ' I I THE THREAD OF FLAME "What would he do?" I ventured to question, "That would depend on whether or not you could pay for treatment. I presume, from what you've said of your funds giving out, that you couldn't." "No, I couldn't," I assented, reddemng. "Then he'd probably put you for observation into the free psychopathic ward at Mount Oli- vet-" "Is that an insane-asylum?" "We don't have insane-asylums nowadays; but in any case it isn't what you mean. It's a sanitarium for brain diseases — " "I shouldn't want to go to a place like that." "Then what would you suggest doing?" "I thought — " But I was not sure as to what I had thought. Hazily I had imagined some Christian detective agency hunting up my family, restoring my name, and giving me back my check-book. It was probably on the last detail that unconsciously to myself I was laying the most emphasis. "I thought," I stammered, after a sHght pause, "that— that you might be inclined to — to help me." "With money?" The question was so direct as to take me by surprise. "I didn't know exactly how—" "An average of about fifteen peopie come to see me every day," he said, in his calm, business- like voice, "and of the fifteen about five are men. And of the five men an average of four come, 128 THE THREAD OF FLAME with one plausible tale or other to d«. « out of me under false pretenses:" *" """'^ and his su^ave. '^t S^J^V^ "' jf,''- ^^'^ quietly, as I sank back into^Z'chaS "f^ ^ want you to see that with al^m.^ u '^"'^ telling me strange tales mv fi •"^".^''o come suspicion." ^ "^ ^"^ "»P"'«' niust be Indignation almost strangled me "AnA and-am I to understand that--S« it', picion— nowf" ™" "* s"s- But everythmg u explained." to mTne.^?" ""*f=»«-n-possibly; but haidly tor7i'o"your" "''''""'"°" ^""^'^ ^e satisfac to'iut'y^rirdeT&or SC ^'"' ''^i'"!!" be, able to offer some SSSS"^"" "^''^ ^y^lp^ hLrd^:^7mS? '"Xff ^ people I know would be as .„?, J V ""^ '^'^ are." * incredulous as you "I don't say that I'm incredulous- T'™ i " Biitrf ?°"'^ ^- -eT I ha've ," be ^ "I wish I cLd"[i?„rToVb« ?r-: ,• . - -any false yan,s on the^nriJ^fta^l THE THREAD OF FLAME manner, and disbelieved so many true ones on the same evidence, that I no longer trust my own judgment. But please don't be annoyed. If your mental condition is such as you describe, I'm proposing the most scientific treatment you can get in New York. In addition to that, I know that Doctor Glegg has had a number of such cases and has cured them." "You know that?" "Perhaps I ought to say that they've been cured while under his care. I think I've heard him say that as a matter of fact they've cured themselves. Without knowing much of the malady, I rather think it's one of those in which time restores the ruptured tissues, with the aid of mental rest." "If that's all—" "Oh, I don't say that it's all; but as far as I understand it's a large part of it. ^ But then I don't understand very much. That's why I'm suggesting—" "I could get mental rest of my cm accord if-" "Yes? If— what?" "If I could find out who— who I am. "And you've no clues at all?" I shook my head. "Have you heard no names that were famiUar to you—?" , . , T ij "Scores of them; but none with which I could connect myself." "And did you think I could find out for you 130 THE THREAD OF FLAME -hat you yourself have not been able to db- mi."'"'* ^"^ ''"* ''''« you nught have "What means could T h-,vt,f «„ r Tf graphs thrown ?„'reei^hat''^';:V.t^" I don't think there's any o^r wayT ^ *•""«• poL^ft^e^pSS^^^^^ seemed to magnify „,y„i,j;;„f' '"^^ they g^Mgotyoutopuf;::Ltfft£'DS« "In the free psychopathic warW «f - tanum for diseases ^ftheVab-^^fbe ItVed"" ence/° * ""*•" observation. Them's a difft- tell ^t GSTre'thfn' r" T"""'^ now." *^ ""^^ *'''" I"" telhng you "Oh yes, it would. It would t.ll u- b^t-KtS^^r--"^^^^ or not your sto^. is a t^e one." "^^''"ber ^^^o you don't believe me?" ibist: in"teiJ:'r ^°" °" *^« «-«th of »3I il I THE THREAD OF FLAME "But how could I convince you in a dozen interviews?" "You couldn't. Nothing would convince me but something in the way of outside proof — or Doctor Glegg's report." I rose, not as I did before, but slowly, and I hoped with dignity. "Then I see no reason, sir, for taking your time any longer — " He too rose, business-like, imperturable. "My dear young man, I must leave that to you. My time is entirely at your disposal and all my good-will." "Thanks." "And I'll go as far as to say this, that I think the probabilities are in your favor. I will even add that if I hadn't thought so in a hundred other cases, in which men whom I pitied — trusted — and aided — were making me a dupe — You see, I've been at this thing a good many years — " Managing somehow to bow myself out, I _^t into the air again. I attributed my wrath to the circumstances of not being taken at my word; but the real pang lay in the thought of being watched, as a type of mild lunatic and a pauper. CHAPTER I I HAD made this experiment as a concession to what you will consider common sense, iiver suice landmg in New York the idea that the natural thing to do was to make my situation known had haunted me. Well, I had made it known, much agamst the grain, with results such as 1 had partly expected. I had laid myself open to the semi-accusation of trumping up a cock-and-bull story to get money under false pretences. , ,^°."** ?"* "^""'^ •>«'? «ne but myselfl I had felt that from the first, and now I was confirmed ui the convicuon. It was useless either to com- plain or to rebel Certain things were to be done, and no choice remained with me but to do them m the heartiest way possible. I had the witto see that the heartier the waythemore likely! was to attain to the mental rest which was ap- parently a condition of my recovery. From this point of view work became even more pressing than before, and I searched my- self for thmgs that I could do. Of all my experiences this was the most baffling In the same way that I knew I had enjoyed a generous mcome I knew I had never been an »3S iff I'! THE THREAD OF FLAME idler. That is, I knew it by the habit of a habit. I had the habit of a habit of occupation. I got up each morning with a sense of things to do. Finding nothitig to be done, I felt thwarted, irri- tated, uneasy in the conscience. I must always have worked, even if pay had not been a matter of impotance. But what had I worked at? I had not been a doctor, nor a lawyer, nor a clergyman, nor a banker, nor a merchant, nor a manufacturer, nor a teacher, nor a journalist, nor a writer, nor a painter, nor an actor, nor a sculptor, nor a civil engineer. All this was easy to test by the things I didn't know and couldn't do. I could ride and drive and run a motor-car. I had played tennis and golf and taken an interest in yachting and aviation. I could not say that I had played polo, but I had looked on at matches, and had also frequented horse-races. These facts came to me not so much as memories, but as part of a general epuipment. But I could find no sense of a profession. . Throwii back on the occupations I can only class as nondescript, I began looking for a job. That is, I began to study the advertised lists of "Wants" in the hope of finding some one in search of the special line of aptitude implied by cultivation. I had some knowledge of books, of pictures, of t ipestries, of prints. Music was as familiar to me as to most people who have sat through a great many concerts, and I had followed such experiments as those of the Abbey 136 THE THREAD OF FLAME Sstlrw '^""'" '"•' "^i" HomJman's Man- Chester Players in connection with the stage Unfortunately, there was no clamor for these accomplishments in the press of New York and the neighboring cities, the end of a week's study finding me just where I began. For chauffeurs of my order of attainment there were none I thought of what Mildred AveriU had said du ing our last conversation: «u uuring anj'iC"" '"' '^''" ^^^ "^^'^^ *='"*» « producers; and the moment one doesn't produce-" said ^ "'m'^"" '•'T '>«==»'*« »» '"'d »>«:n re^l . • ^°']^ ''='"**'^ producers and was ready to give them work. It would also give them pay, after a fashion. One producer mSht get much and another little, but even^ one would get something. The secret of getting most e^- dentj. lay in p^ducing the thing moft reqdrel defineTr i *"*'' ^''f ^^^"'^ Averill had dehned the producer as he seemed to her- "I e«ror ;„^"" ?" ""^t ~«ribute, either di- callv to th '"'^' r^' "•^""">' *>' P^yoi- cauy, to the sum total of our needs in living " 1 here again, the more vital the need, the analyzed them were mostly elementary. The rnore elemental you were, the closer you lived to the stratum the world couldn't do without. I hat stratum was basic; it was Dedrock. Wher- ever you went you had to walk on it. and not on mountam-peaks or in the air. Ill ill I ili'i i THE THREAD OF FLAME I was not pleased with these deductions. It seemed to me a gross thing in life that salesmen and chauiFeurs should be more in demand than men who could tell you at a glance the difference between a Henri Deux and a Jacobean piece of furniture, or explain the weaves and designs of a Flemish tapestry as distinguished from a Gobe- lin or an Aubusson. I was eager to prove my qualifications for a place in life to be not without value. To have nothing to do was bad enough, but to be unfit to do anything was to be in a state of imbecility. So I made several attempts, of which one will serve as an instance of all. Walking in Fifth Avenue and attracted by the shop windows, I couldn't help being struck by New York's love of the antique. To me the antique was familiar. Boyd Averill had asked me if I hadn't sold it. I had said I hadn't — but why not? Beauty surely entered into the sum total of needs in living, and I had, moreover, often named it to myself as the thread of flame by which I should find my way. All the same, it required some effort to walk into any of these storehouses of the loot of castles and cathedrals and offer my services as judge and connoisseur. On the threshold of three I lost my courage and stepped back. It was only after stoppin^ before a fourth, the window severely simple with three ineffable moon-white jars set against a background of violet shot with black, that I reasoned myself into taking the step. It 138 THE THREAD OF FLAME p™"& cSi„"/^ f-;r:l ,x^^- ""' You wish — ?" shonU 1"°* <:«n«dered the words in which I here!" * ^^ ™Sht be of-of some use 139 !! T THE THREAD OF FLAME The faint smile faded, but the composutc re- mained as before. "Some— what?" "Use. I — I understand these things. That tea-service, now, it's Rockingham or Nantgarw, possibly Chelsea. The three moon-white jars in the window, two of them gourd-shaped — " "Did you want to look at them?" ||No," I blurted out, "to— to sell them." "Sell them? How do you mean? We mean to sell them ourselves." "But don't you ever — ever need — what shall I call it — an extra hand? Don't you ever have a place for that?" She grew nervous, and yet not so nervous as to lose the power of keeping me in play. "Oh yes! Certainly! An — an extra hand! I'll call Mr. Chessland. Mr. Chessland ! Please — please—come here. Lovely day, isn't it?" she continued, as a short, thick-set figure came waddling from the back of the premises. "We don't often have such lovely weather at this time of year, though sometimes we do — we do very often, don't we? You never can tell about weather, can you?" _ Mr. Chessland, who was more Armenian than his name, having come near enough to keep an eye on me, she fell back toward him, whispering something to which he replied only in panto- mime. Only in pantomime he replied to me, pursing his rosy, thick lips, and lifting his hands, palms outward, as in some form of Oriental sup- 140 THE THREAD OF FLAME plication, pushing me with repeated gestures back toward the door. I went back toward the door in obedience to the frightened little fat man s urge, since I was as terrified as he. Though 1 was out on the pavement again the door didn't close tiU I heard the giri ask, in an outburst of reliet: "Do you think he was nervy, or only off his It came to me slowly that a man in search of work IS somehow the object of suspicion. The whole world being so highly mechanized, it ad- nuts of no oose screw. The loose screw ob- viously hasn't fitted; and if it hasn't fitted in the place for which it was made it is unlikely to fit m another. Furthermore, a man is so impressionable that he quickly adopts of himself the view that others take of him. Going about from shop to shop, bnnging my simple guile to bear first on one smooth-spoken individual and then another, only in die end, in the phrase once used to me. to get the gate," I shrank in my own esrimarion. 1 he gate seemed all I was fit for. I began to see niyself as going out through an endless succession of gates, expelled by hands like Mr. Chessland's. but never welcomed within one. For a man who had instinctively the habit of rating him- self with the best, of picking and choosing his own company, of ignoring those who didn't suit him as if they had never existed, the revolution ot teelmg was curious. '♦I lil THE THREAD OF FLAME Then I discovered that one point of contact with organized society had been also removed. Early in £>ecember I went to look up Drink- water, whom I hadn't seen for a month. It was not friendliness that sent me; it was loneli- ness. Day after day had gone by, and except for the people to whom I applied for work I hadn't spoken to any one. True, I had been busy. In addition to look- ing for a job I had written articles for the press and had made strenuous efforts to secure a place as French teacher in a boys' school. This I think I should have got had I been actually French; but when the decision was made a native Frenchman had turned up and been given the preference. As for my articles, some of them were sent back to me, and of the rest I never heard. So I had been less lonely than I might have been, even if my occupations had brought me no success. In addition to that I had refrained from visit- ing the blind boy from a double motive: there was first the motive that was always present, that of not wishing to continue the acquaintance of people outside my class in life; then there was the reason that I was anxious now to avoid a possible chance meeting with Miss Averill. I could easily have been in love with her. There was no longer a question about that. It must be remembered that I was appallingly adrift— and she had been kind to me. I had been grotesque, suspected, despised— and she had been 142 THE THREAD OF FLAME lind to me. She had gone out of her way to be kind to me; she had been sisterly; she had been tender. Something that was of value in me which no one else had seen, she had seen and done justice to. In circumstances that made me a mystery to every one, myself included, she had had the courage to believe me a gentleman and to put me on a level with herself. As the days went by, and this recognition remained the sole mitigation of a lot that had grown in- fanitely bitterer than I ever supposed it could become, I felt that if I didn't love her I adored her. For this reason I had to avoid her; I had to take pains that she should not see me. Even if other circumstances had not made friendship between us hopeless, my impending social col- lapse must have had that effect. No good could ensue from our meering again; and so I kept away from places where a meeting could occur. But an afternoon came when some sort of human mtercourse became necessary to keep me from despair. It was the day when I lost my chance at the boys' school. It was also a day when three of my articles had fluttered back to me. It was also a day when I had made two pntlemanly appeals for employment, losing one because I couldn't write shorthand, and the other because the man in need of a secretary didn t want a high-brow. Drinkwater was, then, a last resort. He would welcome me; he would tell me of his good luck- he 143 THE THREAD OF FLAME would call me Jasper; he would make a fiiss over me that would have the warmth of a lighted fire. But at the door I was met by Miss Flower- dew s little colored maid with the information, given with darky idioms that I cannot repro- duce, that Mr. Drinkwater had gone to take his old position with Doctor Averill, and was living in his house. Miss Blair had also found a job, though the little maid couldn't tell me where. Miss Flowerdew knew, but, unfortunately, she was spending a week in Philadelphia, "where her folks was." I^^as a shock, but a shock with a thrill in it. If Dnnkwater had gone to Boyd Averill's, to Boyd Avenll's I ought to follow him. That which I had denied myself for one reason might, therefore, become unavoidable for another. I forgot that I had been planning to di«p Drink- water from the list of my acquaintances, for Dnnkwater in Boyd Averill's house had another value. He stood for a temptation. It was like wres- tling with a taste for drink or opium. At one minute I said I wouldn't go; at another I ad- mitted that I couldn't help myself. In the end I went. As I turned from Fifth Avenue my heart pounded and my legs shook. I knew I was doing wrong. I said I would do it just this once, and never any more. But I sinned in vain. The house was empty. In the window beside the door hung a black-and- white sign, "To Let." 144 B'- -n CHAPTER II IT would have been easy enough to find out where the Avenlls had moved to, but I didn't sight of them; it was best for them to lose sight of me. Now that the process had begun I de- cided to carry it to the utmost. like nITv^u'™",'" '''="? •'""8 lost in a city like New York, so long as it is to nobody's inter- est to find you. You have only to move round Ju?"t^ " '" '•V^^'*" ^""^ 8one a thousand the Barcelona without leaving an address I was lAA u- ^*" °^'"/ ""^ '"«=""«'• W follow me. 1 did this not of choice, but of necessity. In the matter of choice I should have preferred stay- ing where I was. Though it was a modest, un- cleanly place I had grown used .- it; and I Jrfl /""'''". ^"P*''*'*'"" •"*» the unknown. But I had come down to my last ten dollars, with no rehef ,n sight. A humbler abode was impera- n_''^*" to tide me over a few days. On the Odyssey of that afternoon I could write a good-sized volume. Steps that would have been simple to a working-man were difficult ^" I4S J'fl i THE THREAD OF FLAME to me, because I had never had to take them. Moreover, because the business was new to me I went at it in the least practical way. Instead of securing a bed in one place before giving it up in another, I followed the opposite method. Paying my bill at the Barcelona, I went out in the street with no definite direction before me. Rather, I had one definite direction, but that was only a first stage. I had spotted on my walks a dealer in old clothes to whom I carried the ridiculous suits I had brought with me from France. He was a Uttle old Polish Jew, dressed in queer, antiquated broadcloth, whose beard and tousled gray hair proclaimed him a sort of Nazarite. When I mentioned my errand he shook his head with an air of despair, lifting his hands to heaven somewhat in the manner of Mr. 'Chessland. "No, no! Open not," he exclaimed, as I laid the suit-case on the counter in order to display my wares. "Will the high-bom gentleman but look at all the good moneys spent on these beautiful garments, and no one buys my mer- chandise? Of what use more to purchase?" When I had opened the suit-case he cast one look at the contents, turning away dramatically to the other side of the reeking Jittle shop. A backward gesture of the hand cast my offerings behind him. "Pah I Those can I not sell. Take '^m .away." He came back, however, fingering first 146 THE THREAD OF FLAME fof^fin ■ ^^'t"' "' ••« *=ried. Kfting a bony forefinger and defying me to ask more "One^ Onel Onel No more but one!" I raised him to two. to three, and finally to five for each suat. In spite of his tragic appeals Ind^Lwd -r "^^""'^ ''•"'• '•^ --^ "'/hand ^ J!""" ^ "''"' °"* 1" *'''= pavement, with twenty dollars .„ my pocket, and so much liberty S action that I didn't know what to do. It was about three in the afternoon of a sullen Dec^m! ber day. and big flakes of snow had begun to f^I sSad h ^\'''V}y i" the senseThat my }^LT ''^^" hought for hot weather, and the of a ,Ln f ""'^ T.'^f ''='8S in the doorway of a shop for second-hand clothes, I moved on more or less at random. But one thought was clearly in mv mind I must find a house where the sign "Rrms" wm displayed in a window, and thefe I musT goln " . For the first half-hour I kept this purplse in view, walking slowly and turning my heTd now to one side of the street, now to the other, so « !nTn"%"? promising haven. A room being a^ll needed, any room within my price would do Havingnoexpenence I could have no choice. If I had choice It would have been for Miss Flower- thTci; l"V''" TL** l""^" *'"'"8ht me backbto the circle from which I was trying to slip out 147 m as THE THREAD OF FLAME ;„.?„» ^°*""\. I had imagined myself as walk- tha. in ^. I was k'^pj^d "^ft^.S a"^ out of houses through most of that affenKKm I saw women and conditions that almost sh^tl Th" fi^i '='"'' '' ^ ^="? '^ft '" humTnLturl^ virago An enormous creature, bigger if not taller than myself, and clad in a l^jseSk-flan^e Z't^^nflYf''-'^ t" ''"''^' ''heThalfeng"d me to find a fault wj^h the room I declined after havmg seen .t. "Better men than you W SrentT ^.V'^^: ^l^J ^ ^^o ""» fing who smiled in^^hlt^^^^^^^^^ hornbie .f .t had not been so sickeningly fmbecT dolh^l f '".^^P'Pn while she showed me the week. There were others of whom it is useless to attempt a catalogue further than to ay th« they left me appalled. When the lightTwere bemg ht I was still i„ the streets with my^o bags, and the snow falling faster ^ niJhr^lf ''°" *° ^>=''^ *° ^^« Barcelona for the Su« as Tocfrrfa!''""'^''^'' ^'^^^ ' -" ^ That morning I had read in a paper the ac count g,ven by a young CanadianXer of hS 148 THE THREAD OF FLAME hours he lay there in the darSet S^n^ *^° denng, and thinking of a l.Vf U ! ^' ^°"- from Basel where lav tLS' TT'y "°* *"" who had tried": 'Zkthif ;^:' ^""^ ''"-- prayed. His aceo.im f T °'"<^"'' waters, he As to that I h:,A „„» J . ' P"y«>g man. I" nidi, 1 nacJ not prayed in vear« T k j ^yr^aVltTl^'f ^ ''•^^^^^^^^^ HiroSTciS^-^-^-He°:^iSK So. although I didn't^pray. something passed THE THREAD OF FLAME through my mind that might have been prayer's equivalent. As far as I can transcribe it into the words which I did not use at the time it ran like this: "I know there is a God. I know that His will IS the supreme law for all of us. I know that that law is just and beneficent. It is not just and beneficent for me to be standing here in the snow and the slush, chilled, hungry, with wet teet, workless, and homeless. Consequently, this IS not His will. Consequently, I must give myself to discovering that will as the first prin- ople of safety. Whdn I have got into touch with that first pnnciple of safety I shaU find a home and work. Of this the immediate result was that I did not return to the Barcelona. Something like a voice the voice of another, told me that the thread of flame led onward. Onward I drifted, then, hardly noticing the way I went, hypnotized by the physical process of being on the mo/e- It was just on and on, through the slanting snow- tail, through the patches of blurred light, with feet soggy and heart soggier, a derelict amid these hundreds of vehicles, these thousands of pedestrians, all bound from somewhere to some- where, and knowing the road they were taking. 1 didnt know the road I was taking and in a sense I didi; : care. Having given up from sheer impotence the attempt to steer my ship, I was being borne along blindly. When I lifted my head to look about me again ISO THE THREAD OF FLAME I was in a part of New York not only new to me but almost refreshing to the eve jJl^ lu ^' was one of those oldishioned Wt'^ rl JL" where the streets hadn't yet learnt tCTh ^1 ^^Xopt^at^^^^^ to bear the name of MeetingSsT^G^^ There was no meeting-house in the neiSb^?'. hood now, and probably nothing green even b" spnng If „ was like the rest ff New S t would be dirty in winter and fetid b summer t r • •" '"°"«°»o"^ 8«>und p W tEp! town regions .ts quaintness relieved the per- ceptions to a degree which the thunder of the near-by Elevated couldn't do away^th W now all was blanketed in white, thro^h wWch H Woir *• '^^^'y ^' pedestrianTsSel J.S time with the qualifying phra^" for^ men. Rooms for gentlemen I The LitaT progress has not yet swept awav I^Za- together at a sharp angle, it was shaped like a sadiron or a ship's prow. The tip of trgroi^d floor was given over to a provision dealerf wWle m\ ■I THE THREAD OF FLAME a barber occupied the Lng slit in the rear. Be- tween the two shops a door on the level of the pavement of Theodora Place gave on a little inset flight of steps which led up to the actual entrance. The vestibule was shabby, but, moved by my ex- perience in the early part of the afternoon, I ob- served that it was clean. The woman who answered my ring was not only clean, but neatly dressed in what I sup- pose was a print stuff, and not only neatly dressed, but marked with a faded prettiness. What I chiefly noticed for the minute was a pair of those enormous doll-blue eyes on a level with the face, as the French say, a fluer de teU, which make the expression sweet and vacuous. In her case it was resignedly mournful, as if moumfulness was a part of her aim in life. A single gas-jet flickered behind her, showing part of a hallway in which the same walnut furniture must have stood for so many years that it was now groggy on its feet. To my question about a room she replied with a sweet, sad, "Won't you step in?" which was tantamount to a welcome. The floor of the hallway was covered with an oilcloth or linoleum which had once simulated a terra-cotta tiling, and was now but one re- move from dust. On a mud-brown wall a steel- engraving of a scow, with Age at the hebi, and Youth peering off at the bow, sagged at an angle which produced a cubist effect in its relation to the groggy-footed hat-rack. The doors on the left of the hall were closed; on the right a grace- 's* THE THREAD OF FLAME St o^ThL,'''**p^ ^y ' "" ^"•'"^ looking cIciVlT""*^ "^ 7'"^ •" *•'* »•»" one of the Saorth.r""'' ""*/ *«"'«' ''Oman, a replica of the first, except for being older, came prettv '£*'^,"«'"'ringly. She. J, was fSy sauSl™/' ' ""'' "°''™^"'' »'«=' too, was rn^TsT^'' ""• *«'' "- -«ly dressed' in a th:ssr:a"dt S^^mv r""" ^' The ladies withdre^ ToThe L7o?"hTs?air e^d^r « »"t"Pr^'' r ^"^"«- This fin ?heSe elder came back to where I stood on the door-mat We generally ask for references-" she beT^ "Vthfr " "'^.f^l'^^" appearance. ^'"' It that s essentia ," I broke in "I'm ,f, j notice and I liked the look of the house." AS It happened, the last was the most tactfi.l ^WsteTe? tr'^'' «°'"« ^-^ *''""- o my Hostesses. Something, too, in my voice and Jthi' \"'" °'- ''*'"'"'•" *•'« «W«r 'ady smiled Tefore bet""'M ■■ °^ ^'^^ ^° overcome Sny Detore being able to speak at all "Ti-'c „m fashioned of course, and hor^bly n the UnJ part of the aty nowadays; but my sisterly ! n ^ I THE THREAD OF FLAME love it. We've always lived here, and our dear father before us. He was Doctor Smith, quite a famous oculist in his day; you may have heard of him?" II I've heard the name," I admitted, politely. ' We've two good rooms vacant at present; but if you can't give references"— a wan smile deprecated the unladylike suggestion— "I'm afraid we should have to ask you for a week's rent in advance. I shouldn't speak of it if it was not our rule." When I had agreed to this she led the way over the frayed cocoanut matting of the stair- case to an upper hallway, also carpeted in pul- verized oilcloth. With one sister ahead of me, and the other shepherding me behind, I was ush- ered into a large prow-shaped room immediately over the provision dealer, and smelling faintly of raw meat. I could have borne the odor if the rent had not been six a week. "We've another room just over this," the spokeswoman informed me, "but it's only half this size." "If it's only half this rent—" "It's just half this rent." So, marshaled as before, I mounted another stairway in cocoanut matting to a slit of a room shaped like half a ship's prow, with its single window placed squintwise. As the smell of raw meat was less noticeable here, the squint of the window out into Meeting-House Green, and the rent so low, I made my bargain promptly. »S4 THE THREAD OF FLAME like a mJd^ln I T c I' '"'' "'" furnished tress covered with a cotton 1: "^"l""" uated cr«:het-work. A ..M. , '^, ,f '" "»- chair and a chest of ^ e ,/r^ u' ' dreaner than they mit'h i, ,vf\' ''^ ""*" the sick ught of the^;"^!"^*";: r^'^'z^f mantelpiece, which er.shrinr,;^ L,'h '^'^'"\ with a pieee of cretonne T; VStd'^n"* Strtru^;,?:,;;^^'^-"^^^^ £j;:^:3:tS:ro&£-p-f hoSs" s!"°" ""^ ''^ "=*" •''8'«'«-g to my on^ of shy pride, of a ki^d''7Lt2:d irstFul! to count th™ . ^ "^ conversation in order THE THREAD OF FLAME ha-' great sorrows. We try not to complain too much, but — " A long-dr?wn sigh with a quiver in it said the test, while I»irs. Leeming's eyes spilled tears with the readiness of a pair of fountain cups. To escape the emotional I returned to my' in- spection of the landscapes, at which I was des- tmed to gaze for another two years. "Are these studies of— of Italy?" I asked, for the sake of showing appreciation. Mrs. Leeming recovered herself sufficiently to be faintly indignant. "Oh no! I never copy. I work only from imagination. Landscapes just come to me and all different." Before they left me Miss Smith managed to convey a few of the principles on which they con- ducted their house. "We've three very refined gentlemen at pres- ent, two salesmen and a Turkish-bath attendant. One has to be so careful. We almost never take gentlemen who don't bring reference; but in your case, Mr. Soames— well, one can see." Her wan, suffering smile flickered up for a minute and died down. "There's a sort of free-masonry, isn t there? We have taken gentlemen on that, and they've never disappointed us." I hoped I should not disappoint them, either. Now, some young men— well, to put it plainly, if there's liquor we just have to ask them to look for another room. Tobacco, with gentle- men, one can't be too severe on. We overlook IS6 THE THREAD OF FLAME good enough tT eL r/*^ °"1' *''"^^*'* the fungi. dVodd;^ " !"^ ''"8'*= •=''»'r and « the Xr!]^S,TJ:C\ a "Tl the uttermost edee of th. f i t *'' reached rhe extreme mSy of thSdrin ' *^°"'' '^^ •t gave me a shelter from T '^S"" V'"« t*"" being hungry cold ^n? °t""' ^ ~"'ear wall'of dafk^^rlTiSs'thaT h "'^^''^ not on y my futur- K..» * hemmed m intoleraM^was thTsen eTf r"' ^•'^ ^ ^°'"«' blows of Fate I cou d "ke with Ze "''"^ '^' but, not to be able to "make ^^T" '""""""^• - to 4 kne^S h Slo'Vj! '"\''- against the counterDan7„f ' • ^ ""^ ''"'' fe CHAPTER III BUT in the end I found work, so why tell of the paroxysm of loneliness which shook me that night like a madness? Never before had I known anything like it, and nothing like it has seized me since. I must have remained on my knees for an hour or more, largely for the reason that there was nothing to get up for. Though I had had no dinner, I didn't want to eat, and what else was there to do? To eat and sleep, to sleep and eat, that apparently would bt my fate till my seventeen dollars gave out. If the miracle didn't happen before then — but th, miracle be- gan to happen not long after that, and this is how it came to pass: I got up and crept supperless to bed. There I slept with the merciful soundness of fatigue, wakened by the crashing past my window of an Elevated train to a keen sunny morning, with snow on the ground and the zest of new life. As I washed, I could hear my neighbor washing on the other side of the partition. The partition was, in fact, so thin that I had heard all his move- ments since he got out of bed. The making of one man's toilet taking about the same amount IS8 K^'YJa^r. THE THREAD OF FLAME of time as that of another man in similar con- ditions, we met at the doors of our « LrivJ TL\' T '""V"'^ 1° «° down-stairs '^"''" wh^Teniw^I rL'cU-eriL'"^- T fta.r, solemn black eyes, bushy black eyebrows ^o?;\"£r tSrce'^^^H^r atT« =' air of friendliness. Putting on the 'f"?"' voice which was not nat:far to te tfXh I could assume for a brief spurt, I said: aay, 1 wonder it you could advise a fellow whe^to get a breakfast? Only bree«/in ?a« r,i?*"T" T^H"«-P*°P'«' tf^re is always that camaradene I had already noticed in Drinkwater and Lydia Blair, and which springs from the knowledge that where there is'noth ng to li there IS nothmg to be afraid of While I cann^ «y that my companion viewed me with the sj^^ taneous recognition he would have accorded t. a man of his own class, he saw enough to warrant J»m in giving me his sympathy. The man of ZTu "r" ^°r °" »"' '"^^ -not granted de ceid-^bi^t"^ '^' r"*""* ^° which'heTas oescended, but even when an object of suspicion luck\":i r ^?°«i''^y- Between morau'S luck and sheer fortuitous calamity the line is not strictly drawn; and wherever there i need there is a free inclination to meet it 1 m on my way to my breakfast now," mv 159 ' T^iFWMmm^IMm THE THREAD OF FLAME neighbor said, after sizing me up with a second glance. "Why don't you come along? It's not much of a place to look at," he continued, as I followed him down-stairs, "but the grub isn't bad. Most of the places round here is punk." Within ten minutes' time I found myself in a little eating-place that must once have been the cellar kitchen of a dwelling-house, sitting at a bare deal table, opposite a man I had never seen till that morning. "Don't take bacon," he advised, when I had ordered bacon and eggs; "it 'II be punk. Take ham. Coffee '11 be punk, too. Better stick to tea." Having given me these counsels, he proceeded with those short and simple annals of his history which I had already found to be the usual form of self-introduction. An Englishman, a Cor- nishman, he had been twenty years in America. He was married and had a family, but preferred to live in New York while he maintained his household in Chicago. "Married life is punk," was his summing up. "Got the best Uttle wife in the state of Illinois, and three fine kids, a boy and two girls — but I couldn't come it." "Couldn't come what?" "Oh, the whole bloomin' business — toein' the line like, bein' home at night, and the least little smell of anythink on your breath — " A wave of his fork sketched a world of domes- tic embarrassment from which he had freed him- i6o i dL,.^ THE THREAD OF FLAME self only by a somber insouciance. A somber msouciance might be called his key-note. Out- wardly senous, ponderous, hard-working, and responsible, he was actually light-hearted and inconsequent. During the progress of the meal he recited the escapades of a Don Juan with the gravity of a Bunyan. Still with my good-mixer air I asked: York?""^ ^'^^ ^ ^^ "''*' ""^ *^" ^ ^°^ •" ^^^ "Everwork in a Turkish bath.?" He answered this question before I could do it myself. "Sure you didn t-not a chap of your cut. It isn't a bad sort of thing for a"-he hesitated, but de- eded to use the epithet-"for a-«entleman. l^ly a good class of people take Turkish baths Hardly ever get in with a rough lot. A few drunks, but what cf that.? Could have got you a place at the Gramercy if you'd ha' turned up last week; but a Swede has it now and it's too By the end of breakfast, however, he had made a suggestion. " Why don't you try the Intelligence ? They'll often get you a berth when everything else has stumped you. I said I was willing to try the Intelligence if I knew what it was, discovering it to be the Bu- reau of Domestic and Business Intelligence con- ducted by Miss Bryne. You presented yourself, gave your name and address, indicated your choice of work, told your qualifications for the i6i THE THREAD OF FLAME job, and Miss Bryne did the rest, taking as her commission a percentage of your first week's pay. "But I don't know any qualifications," I de- clared, with some confusion. "Oh, that's nothing. Say clerical work. That cov-rs a lot. Somethink '11 turn up." "But if they ask me if I can do certain things — ?" "Say you can do 'em. That's the way to pull it off. Look at me. Never was in a Turkish bath in my life till I went to an employment- office in Chicago. When the old girl in charge asked me if I had been, I said I'd been bom in one. Got the job right off, and watched what the other guys did till I'd learned the trick. There's always some nice chap that '11 show you the ropes. Geel The worst they can do is to bounce you. All employers is punk. Tieat 'em like punk and you'll get on." With a view to this procedure I was at the Bureau of Domestic and Business Intelligence by half past nine, entering, unfortunately, with the downcast air of the employer who is punk, instead of the perky self-assertion which I soon began to notice as the proper attitude of those in search of work. Miss Bryne's establishment occupied a floor in one of the older office-build- ings a little to the south of Washington Square. Having ascended in the lift, you found yourself, just inside the narrow doorway, face to face with a young lady seated at a desk, whose duty it was to ask the first questions and take the first 162 THE THREAD OF FLAME "Such as—?" loi^nTtT''"* "^' "''■'"'' ^y *« questioning look and the encouragu,g smile of the brighf J'u'"'~^'^ '"'P'"6 to find a job," I stammered "nu" t""" "tonishment. """»"«=««' find onel" ''"' * """P"^*^ '*"'« "°^- "To "Xr"' "''®*' *° '•"^ °ne-" Of— of what sort?" "Clerical work," I said, boldly, name' " '"' "** °^" ^" note-book. "Your "Jasper Soames." ''Age?" "Thirty-one." "Occupation?" "I've told you. Any kind of clerical work I suppose that that means writinE-^nd-r„H copymg-and that sort of thi„g,"2n't it1~'"' She glanced up from her writing. "Is that what you've done?" * "* I nodded. I'^V^^ j"'"'^ y**" »"y references?" I confessed my lack of «ferences, starii. that 163 i!i THE THREAD OF FLAME I had just come over from France, where I had worked with a firm whose name would not carry weight in America. "Wh:;t did they do— the firm?" I answered, wildly, "Carpets." Anoth voung lady was passing, tall, grace- ful, dirci i';uished, air de duchesse, carrying a note- book I id pencil. "Miss Gladfoot," my interlocutrice mur- mured, "won't you ask Miss Bryne to step here ?" Miss Bryne having stepped there, I found nyrself face to face with a competent woman of fifty or so, short, square, square-faced, and astute. She also had a pencil and note-book in her hand, and, seeing me, looked receptive, too, though re- maining practical and business-like. While the young lady at the desk explained me as far as she had been able to understand my object, delicacy urged me out of earshot. I had, therefore, not heard what passed when Miss Btyne came forward to take charge of the situ- ation. "What you are is a kind of educated handy- man. Wouldn't that be it ?" Delighted at this discriminating view of my capacities, I faltered that it would be. "Well, we don't often have a call for your kind of specialty, and yet we do have them some- times. There might be one to-day, and then again there mightn't be for another six months. Now you can cithf.t go in and wait on the chance, or you can leave your address and we'll 'phone 164 THE THREAD OF FLAME ai'sde^'^^ '''°"" *"- "P *''« we think to wait. ■'' P**** '""^ 80'ng m "Then come this way " melanchoVoYrs"de''rJ^f u^''"'''^'^ '»"'• the door, LlL^L^'ri ^- ^? '"' """" ce..Wwpf4^:CS^^^^^^^^^^ to look about me * ^'"^ '"'"'" '" ^hich I was obhged to note at once that rK. R men were seffri.«t»J f ?^P " "hich we six throng Gfyf a*?, ch.i" *''" P>^ ""<* '^''"V tone was So^whaTre^T *''^"°^•|^ '^^^ o'clock. Girls for th. ^ P*°P'^ "" =» /'«" lishly dressed sat in ,r"uP"" P'^^^ =»"«» "y armsofTemerouL.1, '■''•?• P''^^''"^'^ °" the seeming dSafrofdin'"'"'^ 'l~"'"s, in them tLreUn.Kl'^c'P"'* *''"'''''' ''^0"ght tween mTtVesS 11'/* *'." '? '•'ff^^ntiate be- detect ZfZT u J"?"""' ^ ^°°" J"med to etect the former by the.r careworn faces, shab! THE THREAD OF FLAME bier clothes, apologetic arrival, and ciestfallen departure. Now and then I caught a few broken phrases, of which the context and significance eluded me. "I told her that before I'd be after washin' all thim dishes I'd — " "Ah, thin, ye'll not shtay long in that plaace — " "Says I, 'You've got a crust, Mrs. Johnson, to ask me to shtay in when it's me night — ' " "With that I ups and walks away — " All this animation and repartee contrasted oddly with the low, cowed remarks of my com- panions in the coop, who ventured to exchange observations only at intervals. Where was your last? What did you get? How did you like your boss? Did you leave or was you fired ? Are you a single fella or a mar- ried fella ? Did you have long hours ? Wouldn't he give you your raise? Did he kick against the bo<»e? These were mere starters of talk that invariably died like seedlings in a wrong climate. Getting used to my mates, I made them out to be a gardener, a chauffeur, a teamster, a decayed English butler, and a negro boy who called him- self a ■•v;>iter. Talking about their bosses, their tone ori the whole was hostile without personal malevolence. That is to say, there was little or no enmity to individuals, though the tendency to curse the systems of civilized life was general. I think they would have agreed with my Cornish friend that "all employers is punk," and consid- ered their feelings sufficiently expressed at that. I66 THE THREAD OF FLAME But as I sat among them, day after day. I began, oddly enough, to orientate my viSto the.r point of view. They were, of course! „S away mto jobs withm three or four days; but five or s« or seven was about the daily averaw m our httle pen. They came, were cowed^were week I was called out m response to applicants for unusual grades of help, but my mILrZ to hireTTf *° overawe the ladies who wanud to hire, and I was remanded to my ceU. "She said she didn't want that kind of a man." "He wouldn t want to eat in the kitchen." were £e explanations given me by Miss Bryne. In vSn sT^r The'M "°"" '" ""^''"*=' - '-« f.! i J °^^^^ servants wouldn't get used to me, and so no more was to be said But I was getting used to the other servants That IS my point. Insensibly I was changing my whole social attitude It was like the d^ere^e in looking at the Grand Canon of Arizon^- briTof1h'Tl^'7°"Y'. T "P-"*! f™" he brink of the Colorado. Litt e by little I founH a7± oT" "^ r r' '"™ '"^^ ''°«- '''S all sorts of ranks above me. I didn't notice the change at once. For a time I thought I Si r«^ tamed my sense of obscured superiority. Z nved in the morning, heard from the ujs of the "S„''°""?. ^'^""r '^' '^''^ the'^famiSr Nothing yet," passed on to the pen. nodded to those who were assembled, some of whom I would 167 MiaoCOTY RtSOlUTION TEST CHART (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No, 2) ^ APPLIED INA^GE In ^B*^ '653 Coil Main Strati SS^jS RochMler, Na* York 1*609 uSA r^S (^'6) 482 - OMO - Phone ^S (^16) 2SB - 59S9 - Fa' ■s i THE THREAD OF FLAME have seen the day before, listened to their timid scraps of talk, which hardly ever varied from a few worn notes. At first I felt apart from them, above them, disdamful of their limitations. My impulse was to get away from them, as it had been to cut loose from Lydia Blair and Drinkwater. It was only on seeing them one by one called out of the pen, not to come back again, that I began to envy them. Sooner or later, every one went but me. I became a kind of friendly joke with them. "Some little sticker," was the phrase commonly applied to me. It was used in a double sense, one of which was not without commendation. "Ye cam't stick like wot you're doin', old son," a footman said to me one day, "without somethin' turnin' up, wot?" and from this I took a grim sort of encouragement. But all I mean is that by imperceptible degrees I felt myself one of them. After the first lady had turned me down, I began to adapt myself to their views of the employer. After the second lady had repeated the action of the first, I began to experience that feeling of dull hostility toward the class in which I had been born that marked all my companions in the coop. It was what I have already called it, hostility without personal malevolence — hostility to a system rather than to individuals. For a pittance barely sufficient to keep body and soul together, leaving no mar- gin for the higher or more beautiful things in life, we were expected to drudge like Roman slaves, i68 THE THREAD OF FLAME and not only feel no resentment, but be con- tented with the lot to which we were ordained. 1 he clearest thing in the world to all of us was that between us and those who would have us work for them some great humanizing element was lack.ng-an element which would have made .fe acceptable-and that so long as it was not there each one of us would, as a revolutionary bookkeeper put it, "go to bed with a grouch " lo me, as to them, the grouch was growing inti- mate — and so was hunger. By the end of a fortnight I was down to one meal a day, the breakfast I continued to take with Pelly, my Cornish friend, and over whS ne told me his most intimate experiences, with an absence of reserve to which conversation in the pen had accustomed me. Looking for some such return on my part, he was not only disappointed, but a httle mystified. I got his mental drfft however, when he asked me on one occasion if f had ever hit the pipe," and on another if I had ever been "sent away." Had these misfortunes happened to himself he would have told me trankly, and ,t would have made no difference in his sympathy for me had I confessed to them or to any other delinquency. What puzzled him was ihtl f T- '°"'^'"' *° "f''''"^' =» f°™ of reserve which to him was not only novel, but abnormal. Nevertheless, when through the thin partition I announced one morning that I wasn't going to breakfast, giving lack of appetite as a pleaT ne came solemnly into my room. 169 THE THREAD OF FLAME "See here, Soames; if a fiver'd be of any use to you — or ten — or anythink — " When I declined he did not insist further; but on my return that evening I found a five- dollar bill thrust under my door in an envelope. I didn't thank him when I heard him come in; I pretended to be asleep. As a matter of fact, I thought it hardly worth whil- -o say anything. It was highly possible that the next day would say all, - I had reached the point where it seemed o me the Gordian knot must be cut. One quick stroke of some sort — and Pelly would get his five dollars back untouched. A cup of chocolate had been all my food that day. Though I had still a few pennies, less than a dollar, it would probably be all my food on the next day. On the day after that my rent would be due, and I couldn't ask the two good women who had been kind to me for credit. What would be the use? A new week would bring me no more than the past weeks, so why not end it once and for all? Next morning, therefore, I gave Pelly back his bill, bluffing him by going out to our usual brerkfast, on which I spent all I had in the world but a nickel and a dime. I must get something to do that day, or else — _ Left alone, I tossed one of the two coins to de- cide whether or not I should go back to "the Intelligence." Going back had not been easy for the last few days, for I had noticed cold looks on the part of Miss Bryne and Miss Gladfoot, 170 THE THREAD OF FLAME with a tendency to take me for a hoodoo. Even "NothT^ "'^^' ""V^' ''"'' ^'^ ^•^^'^ed to sa^ f/r T l . P"' ==' *'"s ^as to be the last You must remember, Soames " she c^.M ;„ her business-like way, "that ^ ' t the o'nlv employment-office in New Yo W r • r^ we haven t been able to secure for you." 1 took the paper, thanked her, and went on ame toT ^t'' *''^-g-ficance of th"s act came to me. It was dismissal. It was nnt merely dismissal from a place, it was dismissa from the possibility of a dism ssal. To W a From'irwa^"'^' 1,^-^^'V"^ "' '^ ^^^^Zll ci^i:Vb:inXtrei\''"^^°^^ ^j^att^^^it^nLfw;^:::^^^"^^ chatty groups were forming all over the Jlace and ear y matrons looking for maids weretingSused first by one sp.nted damsel and then by^another murmVr°T^"' ''V^' "^"^' '°-' -termSnt WordT^'n^""'"''!'^ ."°^ ""'I '^^^ by ugly words, and now and then by oaths To me j^ «r:etTinX ^''^" /'^ ''"'" "^ activity in'^h streets m the ears of a man who is dying Recovermg from this state, which waf almost 171 THE THREAD OF FLAME that of coma, I began feeling for my hat. I had to go out. I had to find a way to do the only thing left for me to do. I had no idea of the means, and so must think them over. And just then I heard a young fellow speaking, with low gurgles of fun. He was at the end of the pen and was narrating an experience of the afternoon before. "It was a whale of a rolled-up rug that must have weighed five hunderd pounds. 'Carry that up-stairs,' says the Floater. 'Like hell I will,' says L He says, 'You'll carry that up or you'll get out o' here.' I says, ' Well, Creed and Creed ain't the only house to work for in New York.' 'You was damn glad to get here,' he says, mad- der 'n blazes. I says, 'Not half so damn glad as I'll be tc get somewhere else,' says I. 'You've had five men on this job in less than four weeks,' says I, 'and nc you'll have to get a sixth,' says I, 'if there's any one in the city fool enough to take it. Carryin' rugs that 'd break a man's back,' I says, 'is bad enough; but before I'd go on workin' under a blitherin' old son of a eun like you—' " I didn't wait to hear more. I knew the estab- lishment of Creed & Creed, not far away, in the lower part of Fifth Avenue. Many a time I had stopped to admire the great rugs hung in its windows as a bait to people living in palaces. Not twenty-four hours earlier a place had been vacated there, a hard place, a humble place, and it was possible, barely possible . . . 172 THE THREAD OF FLAME I r^n ^)^ "''1' '''^* ^'^ *° Washington Square I ran; I ran through Washington sfuare S anrher""'''''^''"""^- «^-»''>-^ nZ W another cause than speed, I paused, nominX to your"^ '' """ ^' P""''''^ f- •"« to be of use CHAPTER IV AS I recall the minute now my first thought XlL. was of my appearance. I had noticed for some time past that it was running down, and had regarded the change almost with satisfaction. The more out at elbow I became the less would be the difference between me and any other young fellow looking for employment. It hadn't escaped me that I grew shabby less with the honorable rough-and-tumble of a woi king-man than with the threadbare, poignant poverty of broken-down gentility; but I hoped that no one but myself would perceive that. I had thus grown careless of appearances, and during the past forty-eight hours more careless than I nad been tiitherto. Feeling myself a lamentable ob- ject, I had more or less dressed to suit the part. I knew instantly that it was this that had in- spired the words I had just listened to. I knew, too, that I must bluff. Wretched as I looked, I must carry the situation off, with however pitiful a bit of comedy. Turning, I lifted my hat, with what I could command of the old dignity of bearing. "How early you are!" I smiled bravely. "I «74 THE THREAD OF FLAME "I've' bellJ SrV' "^'■^'''"""^ ''-'^^hop. tions aside as irrdevant to 1 if'"^ '''T "P'^"^' now that we had ^er- Wh^ar' '^'l'" "^> oldhouse:3jJrretr-^. Ica.,edat.o„. -reTrcaT?u'rCe3s''r' ^Vl J^^^''^ in^fe^:^i'^;^"--''o-tep.ss- ^^^ There's never anything n,ore pressing than ;*Not for people hke you." with but invest/' "' "°*'''"e t° do inv2?" '^"'^ ^°" "^^ ^° ''^e your money to 7o wh^v" '"°"^' "'^^" ^''"^'^ "«'"ng else "S butXrTfs-^'fV" fT'"'- ^'^^^^ '-'^- ' jy „ "t tnere is-if you looJc at it in the right way. m ', s . ■ 1 til THE THREAD OF FLAME "I don't have to look at it any way." "Yes, you do, when it's — when it's only com- mon sense." "What's only common sense?" "My being — being useful to you." "Oh, but you're useful to me through — through your very kindness." "".'hat's not enough. Surely you — you see!" I could say quite truthfully that I didn't see. "But suppose," I continued, "that we don't talk of it." "Yes," she answered, fiercely, "and leave everything where we left it the last time. You see what's come of that." "I see what's come, of course; but I don't know that it's come of that." There were so few people in the neighborhood, and we were so plainly examining the Chinese rug, that we could talk together without attract- ing attention. "Oh, what kind of people are we?" she ex- claimed, tapping with one hand the book she held in the other. "Here I am with more money than I know what to do with; and here are you — " "With all the money I want." Her brown eyes swept me from head to foot. "That's not true," she insisted. "When I first knew you I thought — I thought you were just "xperimenting — " "And how do you know I'm not?" "I know it from what you said yourself — that last time." 176 THE THREAD OF FLAME "What did I say?" "That if it wasn't trouble it was misfortune." "Oh, *hu!" "Yes, .lat. Isn't it enough? And then I know it— Well, can't I see?" I tried to laugh this off. "Oh, I know I'm rather seedy-looking, but then — " "You're worse than seedy-looking; you're — • you're— tragic— to me. Oh, I know I haven't any rignt to say so; but that's what I complain of, that's what I rebel against, that we've got our conventions so stupidly organized that just because you're a man and I'm a woman I shouldn't be allowed to help yoa when I can." "You do help me, with your great sympathy." She brushed this iside. "That's no help. It doesn't feed and clothe you." I endeavored to smile. "That's very plain talk, isn't it?" "Of course it's plain talk, because it's a per- fectly plain situation. It isn't a new thing to me to see people who've been going without food. At the Settlement — " I still kept up the effort to smile. "If I'd been going without food there are a dozen places — " "Where they'd give you a meal, after they'd satisfied themselves that you hadn't been drink- ing. I know all about that. But would you go? vVould you rather drop dead of starvation first ? And what gocd would 't do you in the end, just one meal, or two meals, when everything else is lacking? It's the whole thing — " 12 177 THE THREAD OF FLAME "But how would you tackle that, the whole thing? It seems to me that if 1 can't do it my- self no one else — " "I'll tell you as straightforwardly as you ask the question. I should give you, lend you, as much money as you wanted, so that you should have time to reorganize your Kfe." "And suppose I couldn't, that I spent your money and was just where I was before?" "Then my conscience would be clear." "But your conscience must be clear in any case." "It isn't. When all you ask for is to help — " "But you can help other people — ^who need it more." "Oh, don't keep that up. I know what you need. I've told you already I've seen starvation before. Don't be offended ! And when it's you, some one we've all known, and Uked — Boyd liked you from the first." "But not from the last." "He thinks you're — you're strange, naturally. We all think so. I think so. But that doesn't make any difference when you don't get enough to '.Zt." "And suppose I turned out to be only an ad- venturer?" She shrugged her shoulders, after a habit she had. "That would be your responsibility. Don't you see? I'm not thinking so much about you as I am about myself. It's nothing to me what you are, not any more than what Lydia is, 178 THE THREAD OF TLAME or a dozen others I could name ro you. I think it highly probable that Lydia Blair will take the road we call going to the bad — " "Oh, surely not!" This invitation to digression she also swept aside. "She won't do it with her eyes shut, never fear! She'll know all about it, and take her own way because it's hers. Don't pity her If I were half so free—" "Well?" "Well, for one thing, you'd have another chance. If you didn't use it that would be your own affair." "Why do you peak of another chance? Do you think — ?" "Oh, don't ask me what I think. I take it for granted that — " "Yes? Please tell me. V ,.t is it that you take for granted?" "What good would it do for me to tell you?" ''It would do the good that I should know." "Well, then, I take it for granted, sbce you insist, that you've done something, somewhere — " "And still you'd lend me as much money as I asked for?" "What difference does it make to me? I want you to have another chance. I shouldn't want it if you didn't need it; and you wouldn't need it unless there was something wrong with you. There! Is that plain enough? But because there is something wrong with you I want to come in and help you put it right. I don't care 179 ! i ! i i III I' I li THE THREAD OF FLAME who you are or what you've done, so long as those are the facts." "But I'm obliged to care, don't you see? If I were to take advantage of your generosity—" "Tell me truthfully now. Would you do it if I were a man, a friend, who msisted on helpmg you to start again?" I tried to gain time. "It would depend on the motive." "Well assume the motive to be nothing but pure friendship, just the desire that you should have every opportunity to make good again, and nothing else. Absolutely nothing else! Do you understand? Would you take it from him then? Flease tell me as frankly as if—" ''I— I might." "And because I'm not a man but a woman, you can't." "It isn't the same thing." "Which is just what we women complain of, just what we fight against, the stupid conventions that force us into being useless in a world — " "Oh, but there are other ways of being useful." "No other way of being useful compensates for the one which seems to you paramount, above all others, and from which you are debarred." "But why should it? You and I never met till — " "You can't argue that way. You can't reason about the thing at all. I'm not reasoning, fur- ther than to say that— that I believe in you, in your power of— of coming back. That's the i8o THE THREAD OF FLAME phrase, isn't it? And as, apparently, I'm the only one in a position to go to your aid-" ^''^. **'^"' out her hands with a gesture she sometimes used which implied that aU had bLn . ij"u '"T*^* *."*' ^* compromised. That is I shy people who dash out of their shyness for some adventure too bold for the audacious sheT*! TJ:t " ^K^r'^-- ^"""^-^ .^to h'er mot^^ as soon as we had arrived at a temporary decision Je drove away leaving me stiu'^t a bsfa To whether or not I was Malvolio. Dumfounded and distressed by this unex- offer made m ,t, my thoughts began to run wild. It was m my power to live, to eat, to pay my way for a httle longer. Of the money at Ter disposa I need accept no more than a few ha^! dred dollars a tnfle to her, but to me everything in the world Even if it did me no moreXnf passmg good, ,t would do me that. If I had m the end to "get out." as I phrased it, I Jm l^^A ^ T ' L " "*'"*'''*' *'«"= ^''^n ^i'y enough,The dd one^tugged desperately at his, finally' i;^gt "Gr-r-r-rl" The growl was that of an irascible man too angiy to be articulate. If the thread of flar^ ever led me, .t was then. Without a minutes hesitation, I picked up the dropped en" of the n.^;f^E;e-a^n=t^^^^^^^ theltZt "^ ' f V" '""'''' °f th,m things." the big fellow was beginning. *^ * Is that the Floater?" I asV^A i„ ^ u • j undertone, as the littk ma'n tbbled dot'^he 183 !:i; THE THREAD OF FLAME steps and made his way toward us in the semi- darkness. "He sure is, and some damn light floater at tbit." Before I could analyze this reply the Floater himself stood in front of me. "Who are you?" he demanded, sharply, "Do you mean my name?" "I don't care a damn about your name. What business had you to pick up that rug?" "Only the business of wanting to help. I could see it wasn't a gentleman's job — and — and I — I thought you might take me on." He danced with indignation. "Take you on? Take you on? What do you mean by that?" "You see, sir, it was this way. I've just run up from the Intelligence where I heard a fellow gassing about" — I varied the story from that which I had heard at Miss Bryne's — "about •>«»§ lucked out of here." "Was he a gabby sort of a guy?" my big col- league inquired. "That would describe him exactly; and so I thought if I could reach here in time, before y ^u'd had a chance to get any one else — " "Chance to get any one else?" the little man snarled. "I can go out into the street and shovel 'em in by the cartload. Dirt, I call 'eml" "Yes, sir; but you haven't done it. That's all I mean. I thought if I got here first — " It was easy to size him up as a vain little terrier, 184 THE THREAD OF FLAME *Tf ^.■i^gi.'£,"st*;^^'^" You re quite right, sir. You'd see that when lots of other men wouldn't. As a matter „ff th.s job or -yother job would b:newtol'"i had some money-but the war's got me^tonci broke. I hved in France till just lately." fightiL'r '"'=' '" ^""«^^' ^^y -n't you ,. ^.V'T'"! ^}^ """^ ^'^'^ of inventing a tale as with Boyd Averill, I said, boldly: ^ I did fight till they discharged me Got a blow on the head, and wasn't any gTod aSr that I was with the French army bSe mv people hved over there. When I i,?^ut of7 there was no provision made for me, of course My father and mother had died mv f^t^It^ business had b,en smashed to ptces-'' "' ' What was he?" Luckily my imagination didn't fail me. An artist. He was just beginning to make a hit. I was to have been"— I «f...»K* <• l most credible possibility-«a„ arcS. 'T^': W', fi ! ili. Mi THE THREAD OF FLAME school for architects m Paris; but of course all that was knocked on the head when my father d.ed and so I sailed for New York " Haven't you got no relations here?" mLhtU ''^ '•*" ^y**'^ Bl^'f thought she atraid of the Mormon connotation. "My family used to live in-i„ California; hut they're aU scattered, and we'd been in Eu'rope for L^man^ ''Amur'cans should live in God's country-" ct, M . T' '^^^^ '°""'' °«- If we had. I shouldnt be asking for a job in order to g«' I meal I m down to that," I confessed, sho^ng him the nickel and the dime. ""owing :,t;!If *°°^ * "^""n'' "'■ ^^'^ *° "■«««« on the situ- ation, saymg, finally, with a little relenting in h"s "There's nine more rugs out in that lorry fiftrcent?' '^" ""* *'' '"^ *'"^™ ^ y-'" 8« If it was not the miracle, it was a sign and a vonder none die less. Fifty cents would tide in all, and It would be my own. I should not tivl'o'f !. " ^'■°™ ' ^°'"="'' ^J'^^'^^" the m^ tive of her generosity. It was that motive ha "w %T *"'"'''^- ^f '^ -- ^hat it mSht have been, if I was not a mere fatuous fool, then there was no hole so deep that I had better not ftide in It. no distance so great that I had better i86 THE THREAD OF FLAME he^r fn difc" '" =""' '"^- I* -"-'-J wound prefoable : " "" '"^'^ ~"« ^''^ would bj fol W SmTnrBrif f '"^t"? ^''^^*' I ~"Wn't but not un'kfndly ,tr """^'^ " -n-con^mittal aJn^ri^it^'^ctyTaHh^ t"^ ^l - you heard at Lizzie^ Thl.'T •^•''''yn '^''"P Su« I .oind her 'Xn Jtt^er'S' fS notion store down by Grime Street ,n!i J a.s she gives herse,?, ^rwrthe^ir it" ag in itl Come awn now. We'll •»« »!,. iT Bojfharas." ^ '"'^ ''' '^' ««'°« for the LTpful and it"" "°*^'»^«Iy good-natured, but « v.reea 1 learned m the course of that half hour, though it turned out to be little more rh.l" 187 SI ;. Ill ■M m 51 Ill I |i 'I 3 m I II III! THE THREAD OF FLAME peasants in the vale of Olympus could have re- counted of the gods on the mountain-top. To Bridget they were celestial, shadowy beings, seen as they passed in and out of the office, or (topped to look at some new consignment from the Far East; but he barely knew their names. The highest flight of his information was up to the Floater; beyond him he seemed to consider it useless to ascend. Of the gods on the summit, the Floater was the high priest, and in that capac- ity he, alone, was of moment to those on the lower plane. He administered the favors and meted out the punishments. "He's It," was Bridget's laconic phrase, and in the sentence, as far as he was concerned, or I was concerned, or any salesman or porter was concerned, Creed & Creed's was summed up. Of the Floater's anomalous position in the es- tablishment, the explanation commonly accepted by the porters, the "luggers" they called them- selves, was that he was in possession of dark secrets, which it would have been perilous to tempt him to divulge, concerning the firm's pros- perity. A mysterious blood-relationship with "Old Man Creed," who had founded the house some sixty years before, was also a current specu- lation. Certain it was that his connection with the business antedated that of any one among either partners or employees, a fact that gave him an authority which no one disputed and all subordinates feared. The job finished, Bridget and I sat on the pile, i88 THE THREAD OF FLAME basement. T^ :r7u:::ZtZZTn^' ^^ "t*."'" landing up and saying '^Ir-r'X.o whjch h. was susceptible. Ll^ .o/^; » I a2idturKf''%' °''1?'""8, sir. isn't there?" «Wk . " ^' =''^'*'" ^ '•=«' been paid. Wh« sit to you if there is?" 4™.^ ^°- *'"l^''«" I "^ome down again--" me "Tr"^ J'« where y'are," Bridget wrrned me. They re awful short-handed abovp Ti^J customers comin' in by the shovel^L TheyVe got to have four lueeers to null ♦»,.. » a- "cy ve ast ni Jr S^»<^y P"t.the skids under hSsel last night 1 could see how it 'd be to-dav U ™. a ^dsend to the little odd man when^u bleVl^ but he always wants ye to think he can bearth; game right out of his own hand." 189 l\ l! I THE THREAD OF FLAME Thus encouraged I stood my ground, and when the next load came I had the privilege of helping Bridget to handle it. By the end of the day I had not only earned a dollar and a half but had been ordered by the Floater to turn up again next morning. "Ye're all right now," Bridget said, com- placently. "Ye've got the job so long as ye can hould it down. I'll give ye the dope about that, and wan thing is always to trate him the way ye've trated him to-day. It's what he wants of us other guys, and we've not got the trick o' handin' it out. Men like us, that's used to a free counvry, don't pass up no soft talk to n^ one. What's your name?" I said it was Jasper Soames. "Sure that's a hell of a name," he commented, simply. "The byes 'd never get round the like o' that. Yer name '11 be Brogan. Brogan was what we called the guy that was here befoic Clancy, and it done very well. All right, then, Brogan. Ye'U have Clancy's locker; and momd ye don't punch the clock a minute later than siven in the momin', or that little ould divil '11 be dancin' round to fire ye." So Brogan I was at Messrs. Creed & Creed's all through the next two years. iip CHAPTER V And vet wh^n I ^ II 4 L ' *^°"'*' "<« forecast. she as"kU"fterVh3 5" ^ T'^ ''''°" y°"'" gratSr a^^ °"'^ ^ "^^ y^" *« ^ow how JOh. please don't. If I could have done ;;FortunateIy that wasn't needed." But ,f It should be needed in the future-" 191 ■ t.l< ! l!l '?■ THE THREAD OF FLAME "I hope it won't be." "But if it should be?" "Oh, then we'd—we'd see." "So that for now it's—" that note stole into her voice again, and with a wistful questioa in the intonation — "for now it's — it's good-by?" "Only for now." She seemed to grasp at something. "What do you mean by that?" "Oh, just that— ^at the future — " "I hate the future." It was one of her sudden outbursts, and the receiver was hung up. After all, this abrupt termination to an un- satisfactory mode of speech was the wisest method for us both. We couldn't go on sparring and there was nothing to do but spar. Knowing that I couldn't speak plainly she had ceased to expect me to do so, and yet . . . When I say that this was a relief to me, you must understand it only in the sense that my situation was too difficult to allow of my inviting further complications. Had I been free — but I wasn't free. The conviction that somewhere in the world I had permanent ties be^an to be as strong as the belief that at some time in my life love had been the dominating factor. There had been a woman. Lydia Blair had seen her. Her flaming eyes liaunted me from a darkness in whirh they were the only thing living. The fact that I couldn't construct the rest of the portrait no more permitted me to doubt the original than 192 THE THREAD OF FLAME you can doubt the »•'«».„. r . have seen a leaff^^r '^.**^» P'V« »'^" y" for now was the pn" k«e i 2^ ^ ?"" ^T'^ •n some simple. .Jen.^SlrttlT'^''8 me the atmosphere in which to r^lii"'*' «'''* It was opportunitv thJuf^' l ^ *** "°^ ^»t saidsoatXtr'^'AfeV *^''"''' ""* ''»^« necessity. thouS hard n^ ""' '*T»» ^^'y hard ucts of shelter and teTh-yj"-'' "^""^ P^*"'" meant peace Ih^A I u"''' " themselves and to it I am LH ^""'^ therefore, of a kind, and progr L: bacWarri/l r "^"" '^'' ^^^ which led to theSie '^"^ «press myself. lap^orl^^^te^ '-''."« o'^the bur- Ping the roHs oTtL^ consignment, strip. we.?wrapMi^Lt\^J,':P?'^l» ^'hich they ''weeping tLmwW, 'a Sr^*''l™e* ««' »nd that Vlaid Themin a"St"rf ^"^"'- ^^" to carrying them uj^staTs Wf P'"P^[«°'y «ans. Kirmanshahs,^";,* and r^' P°^^^ a superb lot of blue and^W P^ "°''^'' ^'^^ on the company's Wmst" Inta" ' ''''™''"-'' ine good-natured Peter RnVJ^l- i- . T^ Of ..i\„Tr£Ss"br.S '93 ;,ii THE THREAD OF FLAME IM i i i! thwarting of a strong ambition to "get on." Combining the broad features of the Lapp with Scandinavian hair and complexion, his expres- sion reminded you of a bright summer day over which a storm was begiiming to lower. The son of one large family and the father of another, he was at war with the world in which his earning capacity had come to have its limitations fixed at eighteen dollars a week. He was not conversational; he only grunted remarks out of a slow-moving bitterness of spirit. "What's the good of always layin' the pipe and never gettin' no oil along it ? That's what I want to know. Went to work when I was fourteen, and now I'm forty-two, and in exactly the same spot." "You're not in exactly the same spot," I said, "because you've got your wife and children." "And the money I've spent on that woman and them kids I" " But you're fond of them, aren't you ?" "No better wife no guy never had, and no nicer Uttle fam'ly." "Well, then, that's so much to the good. Those are assets, aren't they? They'll mean more to you than if you had money in the savings bank and didn't have them." "1 can't eddicate 'em proper, or send 'em to high-school, let alone college, or give 'em nothin' like what they ought to have. All I can leave 'em when I die is what my father left me, the right not to be able to get nowhere — and yet 194 THE THREAD OF FLAME tWs'!e&Wh" t "^ «"•'''"« ''^^' »^»y about this bein the best country for a working-man » Av^nu?*^ •''•" 'T''-^" ^"^ '•rifted int^o Rfth Avenue, jommg the throng of those who for si«v umbo. Lrnibo, I ask you to notice, is not hell- tlV f"/™™ P^adise. The diaionajy di' fines the word as a borderland, a place of remaim and .t was in both those sens^. I th!„k,Xt rfS shop and the factory struck the imaginadons of these churning minds. The shop and thefo«o^ formed a borderland, neither one thi^nof^ the^: "f ;.'" t P'r °^ -trfinTno^e volved t a ^'" ^^J" P'^y"'"' ««"int in- volyed m the necessity for working was implied the part of ^ man that soars, restraint of the in, pulse to seize the good things of life in a worW wl«re they seemed to be free. v.rc«"*'' ^ """i^^ understand little of the con- S-I ''S::^T^^"'^'''^P°'-h. Armenian, j^zecn— 1 knew they were talk ng of jobs and bosses m relation to politics and ?he big things =n!i^"u*'"' '""*?" ^■*'' ^bem guys at Albany :;;tUws-T" ^'^ ^'^^^ ''°"' -- -- DlaTnt" Tf *'"' ''"*'?T '^^ ^'^^ ^='s the com- plaint. It was one of the two main blends in the current of dissatisfaction. The other blend^was the conviction that if those who had the power d.dnt nght self-evident wrongs, the tronred i!'i i M '11 THE THREAD OF FLAME would someliow have to right themselves. There was no speechmaking, no stump oratory, after the manner of a Celtic or Anglo-Saxon crowd; all was smothered, sullen, burning, secretive, and intense. On our way back to the cavern the Finn re- marked: "No iTsiin doesn't mind work. He'd rather work than loaf, even if he was paid for loafin'. What he can't stick is not havin' room to grow in, bein' squeezed into undersize, like a Chinese woman's foot." After all, I reflected, this might be the real limbo, not only of the working-man, but of all the dissatisfied in all ranks throughout the world — the denials of the liberty to expand. Mildred Averill was rebelling against it in her way as much as the Finn in his, as much as any Jew or Pole or Italian in all the crowd surging back at that minute to the dens from which they had come out. Discontent was not confined to any one class or to any one set of needs. Custom, convention, and greed had clamped our energies round and round as with iron hoops, till all but the few among us had lost the right to grow. It wasn't a question of pay; it wasn't primarily a question of money at all, though the question of money was involved in it. More than anything else, it was one of a new orientation toward every- thing, with a shifring of basic principles. The first must become last and the last must become first — not in the detail of precedence but in that 196 ■" II THE THREAD OF FLAME which civilization hldlh^'t Cl^^T'Z ^"^ free a.r to which they w«e ,3' *^,^''*' »>~ad. between labor and capSl was a' J i^'V^'* tween tiind men. It was blnff t '^"*' ''*- by those on both sides wL ""r*'" '"^^^ the ax to the ^t S the f«e j^f "' V? P« so eloquent to me of th^ k!. t • *y"'''°' ^as buma^ element'rChuth a^fen ^'l^''- ^''^ the spirit of man as the Kin^ *^ ^^^ *^''^'"«' Chinese womanVfoJt ' ^'"P'rison of the a jS5rhatni51rhTto'rJl,Tr ^^^^^ •Jo'-ar and a dog, was as meek as a m '' '^^ T^''^^ ^^^^ no labor .«t inw my nut "l /'m"!.*' •'I^"'^ «« iob.as a regular tS^^B^t b ±? '^f'^'" begmnmg to understand K;1. t l """* ^ ''as called him a terrier "^".T'- ^l'"'*^*' ''"'•eady terrier's bark, but 'J"u^ *""•".''*' ^''^' ^«h a friendliness K^oup^VedT'^t ^""'^=*'"*"*»J t?il. True, he wagged it SZ'lf ' 7'^'^ ''« «ously, and with aTnd Lvf u'^^^^' ""8"" i^ow he was wagging"" It a^I 'V^ V? ''•''"'' he did wag it wafen'oih fofme "' *'' '^" ^''^ It was enough for us all tL man among the "luggers" wh^T.^"^^* "°* '^ «and him, nor among^the sa7esme„ " K ""'^"- came to understand "'"men either, as I --.uaretalkofX^^tL^SiK;'^;; THE THREAD OF FLAME Its '■' p « ■ if 'I ' i can put it into our talk and make it mane some- thin'. Wance I was at a circus where a monkey what looked like a little ould man talked his kind o' talk, and it made sinse. Well, that's like the Floater. He's like the monkey what can't talk nothin' but monkey-talk; but glory be to God! he manes the same thing as a man. Don't ye moind him, Brogan. When he talks his talk, you talk it to yerself in yer own talk, and ye'l.'. i,.ape yer timper and get everything straight." This kindly advice was given me by Denis Gal- livan, the oldest of the porters, and a sort of dean of our corps. Small, wiry, as strong as a horse, with a wizened, leathery face that looked as if it had been dried and tanned in a hot sunshine, there was a yearning in his blue-black eyes like that which some of the old Italian masters put into the eyes of saints. Denis, Bridget, and the Finn composed what I may call the permanent staiF, the two others, excluding myself, being in- variably restless chaps who, like Clancy, came for a few weeks and went off again. With the three workers named I made a fourth, henceforth helping to carry the responsibility of the house on my shoulders. It was a good place, with pleasant work. Two or three times I could have had promotion and a raise in pay, but I had reasons of my own for staying where I was. My duties being simple, I enjoyed the sheer physical exertion I was obHged to make. Arriv- ing about seven in the morning I helped to sweep 198 TOE THREAD OF FLAME nieht Tf ♦1,0. ""^""gs tiiat had lain out over- St' " -'^. """Vr s'ljj sixty feet Ions bvtM^V'^'j ."'"** ''^^e ^^een nity and 'ui« of alUh ^^^' .'"^ ^ "''''* *''« dig- rule, we were on the fl '"f^"'?^'*"' t^^t"- As a generally ^fterteiifor ^ "'""' '''''"8'' « ^" Duri,g[hathourof sptetrme"^ '^ '"""T^'' together at the farth?/ ? T P""«« ''""g tones the LSfp orJhe T' ^'"'^^^.'^e in low experiencesnrdltLg\V;t'a^''tr"''' join with us, but forX J2'' =°'''l--ndi"gly kept to the„;se^i. treatinethe''''" "'' "?'""«=" a higher point of vi^^ Si!, 'P^^°P''==' f'"" little more than Sr u^f^' "{^^V'^P^s did Fifth Avenue, cross t' th«V a"""" ,^«°'' '■^°'" we scarcely sawThe ' f^ °?''^>?' "'^'"^ ^^^^ at will betwee^us aL t^" ^ ^^e Floater moved freedom to be ^ 2n if"' ^-''^ =» ''"'« dog's the dZZ,::,^^ '' *"""•= '" ^''^ "'ble and rivti^f^xir Th:lr"^^ '^:?'''--'*'' ^^ - usiomers. l hey entered with diffidence 199 > m -r '^m ■m 'B THE THREAD OF FLAME confused by the subdued brilliance of the Persian and Chinese colors hanging on our Tvalls, by the wide empty spaces, and their own ignorance of what they came in search of. "There's not tin women in New York '11 know the difference betwane a Kirmanshah and an Anatolia," Denis said to me one day, "and it 'd make ye sorry for thim when they comes to fur- nishin'.^ Glory be to God, they'll walk in here knowin' no more than that they want rugs, and it's all wan to thim what ye puts before thim so .long as it's the color they like and it lays on the ground. If this wasn't the honestest house that the Lord ever made there'd be chatin' till we was all in danger o' hellfire." But in spite of this ignorance, we received our visitors courteously, a salesman going forward to meet all newcomers and conducting them to the row of reproduced Louis Seize cane-bottomed chairs placed for their convenience. Then it would be, "Bridget, bring that Khorassan— 3246, you know, that fine specimen." And Bridget would know, and call the Finn to help him lay it out. Or it would be, "Brogan, can you find the Meshed that came in yesterday — 2947? I think madam would like to see it." On this Denis and I would haul out the big carpet, stretch it at the lady's feet, listen to comments which, as Denis put it, had the value of a milliner's crit- icism of the make of a " floyin'-machine," and eventually carry it back to the pile whence we had taken it. I may say here that for customers we 200 THE THREAD OF FLAME ^i2;';=^;^:^-^e point ofW Sehn^L'^t fror:S«;^S;;;!'« -f ten a fuUv "n;j, ^enis asked, scorn- turned up whomTLwf ^^ '"'P'"- ^^ °»« no one eveT Zl^ ' J. "^u" »*=*l"=»intance; curiosity ^ *•* "* ^^ »" «W friend's r ' { I! ■L THE THREAD OF FLAME man requires. Little by little I accommodated myself to the outlook of my surroundings, and if I never thought exactly like my companions I found myself able to listen to their views com- placently. With all three of my more impor- tant co-workers — Denis, Bridget, and the Finn — my relations were cordial, a fact due largely to their courteous respect for my private history, into which none of them ever pried. Like Lydia, Drinkwater, and every one else, they took it for granted that there was something I wanted to hide, and allowed me to hide it. In this way I passed the end of the year 1916, the whole of 1917, and all of 1918 up to the begin- ning of December. Thou-'*', the country had in the mean time gone to war it made little differ- ence to us. Denis was too old to be drafted; Bridget and the Finn were exempted as fathers of large families; I was examined, and, for reasons I do not yet understand, rejected. I should have made a very good fighting man; but I think I was looked upon as of weak or uncertain men- tality. During all those months I courted the obscurity so easy to find. Between Creed & Creed's and my squint-eyed room with the fungi on the man- telpiece I went by what you might call the back ways, in order to risk no meeting with Mildred Averill or her family. Since they frequented the neighboring book store, one of the best known in New York, they might at some time see me going in or out, and so I kept to the direction of 202 THE THREAD OF FLAME afraid of. ^''*' "" ""^ e'se to be Toward th. gre„ ^caitna of life ilr„.. ' ™' that the universe was filled with a creat Will j }1 i:i H CHAPTER VI ■. »^ ON the morning of the eleventh of December, 1918, I had been in the basement helping to unpack a consignment just come in from India, as I had first done two years before. I had, there- fore, not known what passed on the floor above during the forenoon, and should have been little interested had I been there. What I needed to know the Floater told me when I appeared after lunch to take my shift on the main floor with Bridget and the Finn. "You're to go with the two lads down-stairs" — the two of our six porters who were always tran- sient — "to this number in East Seventy-sixth Street, and show the big Chinee antique, 4792, and the modem Chinee, 3628, to a lady that's stayin' there, and explain to her the diflperence between them. She'll take the new one if she thinks it's just as good, and you're to show her that it isn't. She's not the lady of the house. Her name is Mrs. Mountney, and she comes from Boston. She saw them both this morning, but said she couldn't judge till she'd viewed 'em private." it was not an unusual expedition, though it 204 THE THREAD OF FLAME ant free-masonry of caste hi; c? , ^""^ P'"*" with our burden^ we ZZ ^^^^ *° •"'' =' that Mrs. Mtzzi7dvz:^,^z:tfi:^' thiii^KtrtLtrotL''' '"" •".' ''-- «f f ' It THE THREAD OF FLAME the dining-room, I thought I saw a stocky figure grope its way with the kind of movement I had not seen since the last time I had met Drinkwater. A door opened and closed somewhere, and before we reached the music-room I heard the distant click of a typewriter. That I was nervous goes without sajring, but there were so many chances of my fear being groundless that I did my best to dismiss it. The music-room was simple, spacious, white-and-gold, admirably adapted not only to the purpose it served but to that which had brought us there. When our carpets were spread they made a mag- nificent gold spot in the center of a sumptuous emptiness. A few minutes later the nice little bit of fluff tripped in, justifying the deocription. She was one of those instances, of which we saw a good many among our customers, where a merciful providence had given a great deal of money to some one who would have been quite too insignifi- cant without it. A worn fairness of complexion was supplemented by cosmetics, and an inade- quate stock of very blond hair arranged in artistic disarray in order to make the most of it. To offset the laces and pearls of an elaborate negli- gee by a "democratic" manner, and so put poor working-men at their ease, she nodded to us in a friendly, offhand way, saying, briskly: " Now then ! Let's see I Which is the modem one and which is the antique? I can't tell; can you?" Looking at me archly, she changed her 206 THE THREAD OF FLAME tone to the chaflbg one which the French describe « blagu^ur. "But of course you'U^y yoTTa^ because that's your business. You've «tth^' marked with some sort of secret sign Jik^a c^T jurer wnh coins, so as to tell one fro^ he otW without my knowing it." «='«"" tne other, thf '.S* "'*" '•''?'. '•"' ''*«'" *° ™«"»« if I could of fact, I couldn't." "Couldn't — ^why?" What's that mean?" Exactly what it says." i hat you didn't know where to-?" sh-Srlorthf?"'- ""^'' »-^='«' - "Went dotty?" "If you like." onlTeru's W'?..^"^ "'•y— hy ''••On't some caZSarSapsVJbr *^ '"^'^^ -'^- '"nt-, J' jHat iSfl'asTkri: -^^ "" '"" himself, bit off the end Lt !."• *" " ^^ '°«^ «"«» carried himsetf as if Iv ,?*'** 'I'-^"** '" K'^"''^! wouldn't matter mucr 7P:°^^'""« <^.°"fidences knowing it to beTr«.-: j *"'^** *''"' ^^'^ ^^' and evfr^hing AH that t '"Z^'c^ '^'^^T one heshouldbebapo^iolfo •"'''* ^°' ^« **"« to Violet, in «se7h TsSfronr'^T"""* port before seeing me """« ^"^ ">- "You remember how I camp »« » 227 1^ I THE THREAD OF FLAME "Well, I didn't do it of my own accord. I — I loathed the idea. If we'd been in the war at the time of course I should have done anything \ could; but we were not in the war. As a matter of fact, if Vio had only let me wait I could have been of more use in my own par- ticular line." "You mean what we used to call the old-woman line." "If you choose to put it that way." "Didn't you put it in that way yourself?" "As a feeble joke, yes. But we'll let that pass. All I mean is that as head of the Department of Textiles in the Museum of Fine Arts I knew a lot of a subject that became of great importance when we went into the war; so that, if Vio had waited — " "Vio," he grinned, "was hke a bunch of other women who'd caught the fever of sacrifice, what ? When all their swell lady friends in England and France were giving up their dear ones, they didn't want not to be in the swim. Don't think I didn't go through it, old chap. Vio was simply crazy to give up a dear one. Before she'd got you she'd been after me. When Hilda Swain drove her two sons into being stokers in the navy, and killed one of them with the unaccustomed work, I thought Vio would go off her chump with a sense of her uselessness to a great cause. Those were days when to be Vio's dear one meant to go in danger of your life." A hundred memories crowded in on me. 228 THE THREAD OF FLAME that she wanted to get rid of me?" Hm answer struck me oddly. Not a bit of it, not then. Lord, no!" up ta W , ' q«««tions these words called up.^ takmg a mmute to think the situation wfth vS^n J- ri'*'^'*^/ «th" stormy scene married a m, '5 '''* ''"*' *'''= *''°"8ht she had marned a man and not a nenrous old lady." time^Uatr"' """ "^"^ *''" ^'^ '»^' '«" °f "Yes, but you weren't her husband; and you werenot desperately in love with her." ^ . Wten thought Vio was like one of those aueer m«ed cocktails that 'U set chaps off their n^t^ t'r^ Vhal" '"""^^ °f-h«ky neat anTne^:; . "TTiere's something in that," I aereed- "but Ihe^haH '': '•"' "' """='" whoseSempt i the harder to put up with. When she began there is to be said about it. You tell me that Vio wanted to sacrifice a dear one; and le did I was no more fit for the job I undertook than- till the"" "" ''°"" *''*^" ^"^ '^^^'^ «"ed JnJ^t^l'^ ''"°*^" ''''"8. Vio should have had more children, what?" litde^RoKr"' ^^l ''•*??'' ^=">* *•'«"'• When httle Bobby went she said she couldn't go through 229 * ii^'l THE THREAD OF FLAME it all a second time, and so — But I'm trying to tell you what happened." "Well, go on." I narrated my experiences in the Ambulance Corps in words that have been so often given in print that it is not worth while to repeat them. What has not so frequently been recorded, be- cause not every one has felt it to the same degree, is the racking of spirit, soul, and body by the un- relieved horror of the days and nights. I sup- pose I must own to being in regard to all this more delicately constituted than the majority of men. There were others like me, but they were rela- tively not numerous. Of them, too, we hear little, partly because not all of those who survived like to confess the weakness, and few survived. If it were possible to get at the facts I think it would be found that among those who sickened and died a large proportion were predisposed by sheer inability to go on living any longer in this world of men. I could give you the names of not a few in whom the soul was stricken before the body was. They were for the most part sensitively organized fellows, lovers of the beautiful, and they simply couldn't live. Officially their deaths are ascribed to pneumonia or to something else; but the real cause, while right on the surface, was beyond the doctor's diagnosis. I didn't sicken; and I didn't die; I wasn't even wounded. What happened was that at Bourg- la-Comtesse a shell came down in the midst of a 330 THE THREAD OF FLAME tashLln' t'' '^Jl'^^^^^e our limb, and washing up after a night in a stifling dugout and some time during the foUowing tw^ty-foii; hour, I j«:ove^ consciousness. lyingS Z beUy m the darkness, with my face burkd b Z damp grass of a meadow. Uke a dead man roL^ u*\" °' '"''*«'•' ™n«t« trying to «. construct the happenings that had puTm! ILZ ceotfor'rr"" ■"^^t'^hat I wasL,hur^. E^ cept for a beast munching not far away, no Uy^ thing seemed to be near me. On th^ kft thf Sk tTr"' U ^-^-'-Comtesse were bU^ iei dim^S''K'''"1^rr f™»* of -»« the «S« S vTr i''^' '•'!"' •'""King over No Man" l-and, Verey hghts, darting upward, and radi^Jt tionl,?/. Vr '• ' «-mLSat our st^* tion had halted at an abri a little to the west^ lorcea my chilled hmbs to cany me toward th- spot where some of my comrX mi^T^f ift But whether I mistook the way. or whether they had gone off leaving me for dead! I w^TZ able to explain to Wolf. I only knowTharf the only creature astir. Dead vifagesriad 231 ■I in H i & THE THREAD OF FLAME chateaux, dead farms, dead gardens, dead forests, dead lorries, dead tanks, dead horses, dead men, and a dead self, or a self that had only partially come back to life, were the features of diat lonely tramp through the darkness. With no other aim than a vague hope of join- ing up again with my section I plodded on till dawn. Though my watch had run down, and there was no change as yet in the light, I knew when dawn was approaching by a sleepy twitter in a hedge. Another twitter awoke a few yards farther on, and then another and another. Pres- ently the whole countryside was alive, not with song, but with that chimipy hymn to Light which always precedes the sunrise, and ceases before the sun has risen. Wandering away from the front, by instinct, not on purpose, I was now in a region relatively untouched by calamity, with grapes hard and green in the vineyards and poppies in the ripening wheat-fields. Between eight and nine I reached a village, where I breakfasted at a wine-shop, explaining myself as an American charged with a mission that was taking me across country. Stray sol- diers being common, I had no harder task than to profit by the sympathy accorded to my Brit- ish-seeming uniform. So I tramped on again, and on, always with a stupefied half-idea of find- ing my secdon, but with no real modve in my mind. If I had a real motive it was in a dull, blind, animal instinct to get away from the bru- tality in which I had been living for the past six «3* THE THREAD OF FUME >ng along the roads I imt f^^ ^ aimless dnft- Ipi THE THREAD OF FLAME began to seem to me a necessary task. Only by doing this could Billy Harrowby's ghost be laid, and the phantasms that walked with it dispelled. By the time I reached Tours the hallucination had assumed the form of a consecrated duty, and to it I applied myself as to some holy ceremonial rite. In narratmg this to Wolf some of the old vivid- ness came back to me. I saw myself again in- specting all the environs of Tours— Plessis-les- Tours, Marmoutiers, Laroche-sur-Loire, and as far away as the junction at St.-Pierre— -for suit- able spots in which to lay Billy Harrowby down and become my real self. In the end I selected a small stream, the Padrille I think it is called, which flows into the Loire a mile or two beyond Hessis. There is a spot there where the stream flows through a wood, and there is a spot on the stream's bank where wood is denser than it is elsewhere. Having selected this as the scene of Billy Har- rowby's exit, the rest of my plans became easy. For two or three days I busied myself with dis- creetly purchasing a new outfit. I remember that it was a point of honor with me not to be too spendthrift with Billy Harrowby's cash, seeing that for the man who was to survive, anything, however modest, would be enough. Further than separating myself from the unhappy ambulance- driver who had seen such dreadful things since arriving in France I had no ambitions. The purchases made, it was a simple matter to 334 I THE THREAD OF FLAME Neither soldier nor S^r °"r ?" *''« «»'"• people rejoicing in th^ „ "" V' "[ '«"e« to a though I can see casi^^ .? l "^ "P*' Soames, ••one it. Whe^ rbtamrnt''''^ ' *'"•"''' ''»-« self something I LS X « ■"'^ '° "" ""y- fron, the past thaf ^ the first b.t of wreckage The nan.e'^^rtt.e iT^a t""'' ''''^ ''°''' «^ associations had diwrDear^ ^' "^'=" ^h^n all its that had swept over me "^^ *''*' ''»^« pie^e;ts^^"rrr«t^?--«st.. deaux, and mv waiin^ ""T^^rd toward Bor- I have as yet o^^ly such frl^''"*' *^ ^'«-«'- one retains of dre'ims fef* "^'P^^O'V as o« is shadowy. rc'ertSn '^" '''"'* «»"<»« ^thout contexi^' NoTnefr, "•*'?"*• ^' « tial «.ough for me to be sureTr " *"''"'"- to a fact, ^ *"'* °' 't as pertaining I o^^'d'^e^:; r reTab" ^"^j""- -"« water shaving. "*"" '"<' saw Drink- "Funny, isn't it?" Wolf dad not make th« observation till some ( ill hi THE THREAD OF FLAME minutes after I had ceased. During the Interval of silence, as during the half-hour of my narrative, his gnn played on me like a searchlight. As I have already said, I didn't resent this because of knowing his smile to be a kind of nervous rictus of the hps which he was no longer able to control; and yet the silly comment nettled me. I' What's funny about it?" I asked, coldly. "Oh, nothing! Just— just the whole thing." ^ If you think the whole thing's funny—" "Oh no, not m that sense, not comic." I'Whatisitthen?" "Nothing— nothing! I was only wondering— " •II 1 ^'^"'* ''"'' *•"* ^^^^ Wolf was wondering till later. In the mean while I gave him a brief account of my doings in New York, leading up to the day when Alice Mountney had "discov- ered me. When I came to that he rose, eying mc^all over as he had done at first. "That's a queer kind of rig— " he began, with his everlasting joculanty. "It's the kind of rig I've been wearing," I re- T u II '^'^" "^^°^ enough for its purpose. I shall get something else as soon as I've had time to go to the tailor." "I'd go soon," was his only remark, as he left me to repeat to Vio what he could remember of my tale. to the Was CHAPTER VIII At a quarter to thr^ T ' *^" "remonialf the Common to the om/ """\^ *° ^"''^ «^oss HiU. It occurti » ?*'"" ''°"'* °n Beacon for the dead itl a « " i" ""^ '^^"'' •=""« •'^^'J till I set out on this e "and k'??"''? «'"• Not dead I had b«n I haS 1i' I "««l"«ood how I had been mrmed foAJT? '"'' ''""^*'' finished hergrie™nt;„/ °'^"*"' ^io had hfe- For anS^Vt '"T"" *« every-day templatingTnfa^^aL ■ !?;• "K^'^^' ^^oZ "idthatwhen^^,?:;,,,^'" ^'^'"'^y h^d them to stay de^- a„d/L " V •««" f"' Beacon Hill, as T dr™ ^" *'' '^^ " ^as. illustration of 'that i!r ""' '^ f "«=^ "•« as an which aU the inner stZT*' °^ '\' *»" °''»" °f myself. It was no lor^u'*'o™'' *° 1" within boyhood. iTwas^i*" '^^ ?f''^°" Hill of my year when I IVntlC ' T ^".^°" "'" "^ *"^ ent away. To those who had THE THREAD OF FLAME stayed on the spot and watched the transforma- tion taking place little difference might be appar- ent; but to me, with my newly awakened facul- ties, it was like coming back in autumn to a gar- den visited in spring. The historic State House had deployed a pair of huge white wings, to make room for which familiar landmarks round about it had for the most part disappeared. All down the slope toward the level land the Georgian and Early Victorian mansions were turning into shops and clubs. The old Soames house, with occa- sional panes of purple glass in otherwise normal windows, was flanked on one side by a bachelors' chambers and on the other by an antique-shop. One of the few old houses in Boston still in the hands of people connected with the original owners, it had been purchased by Vio's father from the heirs of his mother's family, while Vio's trustees had in their turn bought out Wolfs share in it. Four-square, red, with a fine white Doric portico over which a luxuriant wistaria trained, it suggested, as I approached it now, old furniture, old books, old pictures, old wines, old friendships, and all the easy, well-ordered life out of which we were called by the pistol-shot of Sarajevo. My nervousness in crossing the street and ring- ing the door-bell was augmented by that sense, from which I was never free, of being guilty of a stupidity so glaring as almost to amount to crime. No ex-convict returning from the penitentiary could have had a more hangdog conviction of 238 THE THREAD OF FLAME some door-mat. ]^f I S, J*^'' «» >'« hand- moments of waiting for ^an™^ '"''"='' '■" ^''^ ^« in noticing th!t the j- '° ""^ ™8 « and that nothing i^theaD^rri: ""''1^ P»'« was quite so spick and sn^S'^^,"'' '° *''« ''ouse th.s a solace only because^ « formerly. I call nearer me by makingS'lei sSr *1 ''"•?« ^'^ than she used to be of evervf M„ T '"•^'^ ""««« I noticed the same S "?''*«» ^he world. ^P^nedbyacheeryrngfcr^" '^^ ^°°' ^" plainly. -^ "' *^ompelhng me to speak TJ^aJJurdiSsTSf'' ^"*'""'^•" tizedinthe^Ssionslatr"" ""^* ''"™- the man's face. S«m/„ " r"*^'''^*'^ °^« on incredulity. apoCSwld o?"* ^°"°''«'' A? I ^as still too neafto PeX C """'?«*• '' M I THE THREAD OF FLAME shoulder. "Just tell Mrs. Harrowby I'm here. She'll find me in the library." It was purely to convince Boosey, that was his name, of my right to enter that I tossed my hat on the hat-rack peg and walked to the coat-closet with my overcoat. With the same air of author- ity I marched into the long, dim library, where my legs began to tremble under me and my head to swim. Perhaps because I had not yet had time to think of this room in particular, I experienced my first sensation of difficulty or unreality in get- ting back the old conceptions. It was not alone my head that swam, but the room. If you imag- ine yourself sailing through a fog and drawing an approaching ship out of the bank by sheer mental effort of your own, you will understand what I mean. In ordinary conditions you have only to watch the ship making itself more and more dis- tinct; in my case the ship did nothing. It was as if I had to build it plank by plank and sail by sail in order to see it at all. I could do this, even if I did it painfully. The room came into being, mistily, tremblingly, while my head ached with the effort. Taking a few steps here, there, gazing about me at haphazard, the remembered objects appeared one by one — the desks, the arm-chairs, the rows of books, the portraits, the fireplace, in which there was a slum- bering fire. Over the mantelpiece hung Zuloaga's portrait of Vio, which always raised discussion wherever it was exhibited. 240 THE THREAD OF FLAME I had reached this point at the enH «f »i, when a low stifled crv «m. fl «"^o» the room the fire. ^ "' ^"'"^ ^^'^ ^omer by "Oh, Billy, is this you?" that Vio was mv wifi- R..» r l • »JO. and «men,bered.St L" t I'gl"" "ir"v"« eJsrxrwL\'renr''"^''''*-- » it was nnr XT ■ *'*,"J«'"lous emot on, onii' ini..o* ptv^".— nr.^Ji's^ 241 THE THREAD OF FLAME What had been all over, finished and done with she had to begin again. And I had not come back to her as I had gone away. I had come back — entirely to the out- ward eye and somewhat in my heart — not as the smart young fellow of Lydia Blair's recollection, but as a working-man. The metamorphosis ren- dered me in some ways more akin to Boosey the butler than to my former self. I had acquired an art that made it possible for me to go into the servants' sitting-room and be at home in the company I should find there. The people in the front of the house had to some extent become to me as the Olympian gods at Creed & Creed's, exalted beings with whom I had little to do out- side the necessities of work and pay. This change in me was more than superficial; and whatever it was Vio saw it. For her the meeting was harder than for me; and for me it was like a backward revolution of the years. But after she had clung to me and cried a little, the tensity was broken. As, I analyze, now, I see the impulse that urged us into each other's arms as one of memory. For her, I was the man who had been, as she was the woman who had been, for me. She, however, had the help of pity, while I was humble and overawed. It was one of those moments when so many things begin again that it is hard to seize on any. The simplest being the easiest, she said, after hav- ing detached herself from me and got back some measure of her self-control : 243 this you?" " "y as the result: "Oh, Billy, is ■•v,i. THE THREAD OF FLAME th3" "^^^ ^" ^"^ ' ***^* ^" brought "The little I have i« at the hotel." Both question and answer came out absently while we looked at each other with a new kind of inspection. The first had been of the self within; now ,t was of the outer self. I should have shrunk from the way in which her eyes traveled over me had not my whole mind gone into the exammation I was making. Yes; she had changed, though I cannot say that It was in the way of looking older. Rather she had grown to resemble Zuloaga's portrait of her, which we had always considered too theatri- cal. Zuloaga had emphasized all her most start- Img traits— her slendemess, sinuousity, and fan- tastic grac^her immense black eyes, of which he alone of all the men who had painted her had caught the fire that had been compared to that ?i »r\%^^ opal— the long, narrow face that was like WolFs, except for being mysterious and baf- fling—the mouth, haunted by memories that might have survived from another incarnation, since there had been nothing in her present life to correspond to them. You could speak of her as bemg beautiful only in the sense of being strange, with an appeal less to the eye than to the unagination. More akin to fire than to flesh, she was closer to spirit than to fire. It might have been a perverse, tortured spirit, but it was far trom the merely animal. Discriminating people called It her salvation to have married a humdrum m Mil THE THREAD OF FLAME chap Gke me, since, with a man of more tempera- ment, she would have clashed too outrageously. High-handed and intense, she needed some one seemingly to yield to her caprices, correcting them under the guise of giving in. Like others of tempestuous nature, when she was gentle her gentleness was heavenly. She was gentle in that way now. "Sit down, Billy, and let me look at you. Why didn't you bring your things?" "I didn't know that you wanted me to do that, or that — that we were to — to begin again." "Of course we shall begin again. What made you think we shouldn't?" "I didn't think so. I simply didn't know." "Did Alice Mountney, or Wolf, tell you any- thing?" There was a curious significance in the tone, but I let it pass. "Only that you'd — ^you'd given me up." "What else could I do?" We were sitting half turned toward each other on one of the library sofas, and I seized both her hands. "But now that I'm back, Vio, are you— are you — glad?" Though she allowed her hands to remain in mine there was a flash of the black-opal fire. "It's not so simple as being glad, Billy. The word isn't relevant." "Relevant to what?" "I mean that you can't sum up such a situation 244 THE THREAD OF FLAME "But surely that comes first." we've «t*to*a;!krr"'^- ^heonly question we ye got to ask for the minute is what we're to ^1^^ ^ *^*'"«''* ^" ^»« settled-that you wanted me to come back." ^ «Z-'' •?**'«^,•''/^e w»y that getting up in the ^x:l^^ "« *"" ''-"•^ "» '- th' "I suppose one can only meet the duties of the day by go.ng on and seeing what they are '' tion .r ^'- ""** 'f"'i '•'" ""^ fi«t considera- Se"rid^'"**'"' .It d°«n't matter whether we re glad or sony. smce we mean to go on, or try to go on— anyhow." * ' Releasing her hands I dropped back into mv t'^l^sT" °^ '^' •°^'' -anniSTthe J^fS kl tures more at my ease, for the reason that her the arr.^^^*'^ '"'"'** '"'' ^" 'y^ *"">«<» 'o "I don't want you to go on, Vio, if—" I ye thought everything over," she declared .n her .mpenous way, "and made u , m^mS that ,t was the only thing for me to do."^ Ihen you had thought that— that oerhans you— you couldn't." '^^ pernaps She nodded slowly, without looking up. You d made othei^plans." ing of ;o^> "*" '° ""*='*' " ^'^•^ ^^ think- HS THE THREAD OF FLAME "Thinking of me — from what point ot view?" " From the point of view of — of what you've done." She glanced at me now, quickly, fur- tively, as if trying to spare me the pain of scru- tiny. "Oh, Billy, I'm so sorry foi^for ray share in it." "And what do you take your share to be?" "The share of responsibility. When I urged you to go — " "As it happened, I should have gone anyhow. When this country had entered the war I should have been under the same obligation as any other man." i "That would have been different. When our men were taken there was discrimination. Each was selected for what he was best fitted to do. A great deal of pains was given to that, and I can't tell you how I suffered when I saw that if I'd only left you alone you could have contributed the thmg you knew most about. That's why I feel, so strongly that, now you've come back — even in this sort of disguise — " "I'm not in disguise, Vio. The way you see me — The motion of her long, slender hand was partly of appeal and partly of dismissal. "I don't want to hear about that, Billy. If we're to begin again there are things we mustn't talk about. Since you've done this extraordi- nary thing, and I may be said to have driven you into it, I want to stand by you. Isn't that enough?" 346 THE THREAD OF FLAME gesture. "^ ' ^ ■»«>"»& commanding up the pr.si; I . - ; :„, ,^ ^'"8 to try to pwk you',. „j,riifcj;«:™°j!L"? "'»"""• »>»• Jou U have to see me lookine as I am fc,, few day, ytt, Vio. My kit doesn'f ^., ' u variety." ''^ *" * ***' ">« much "Oh, well— 1" "You'll fioj .L- . ^" *"* °'d house. "From that point of view, it will probably be 447 THE THREAD OF FLAME worse," I remarked, when about to pass from the hbrary into the hall. "The world isn't going back to what it was before the war. You can't -iop an avalanche once it has begun to slide." She watched me from where she stood before the fire, reproducing almost exactly the attitude of the fascinating woman overhead. "Does that mean that you've come back a revolutionist, Billy? as well as everything else?" "N-no; I haven't come back anything in par- ticular. I'm just like you and all the rest of the world, a snowflake 14 the avalanche. I suppose I shall go tumbling with the mass." A sense of something outlived came to me as I roamed through the house which Vio allowed me to visit by myself. After two years spent in a squint-eyed roMr. of which the only decoration was three painted tungi this mellow beauty stirred me to a vague irritation. It was not a real dwell- ing for real people in the real world as the real world had become. It was too rich and soft and long established in its place. Three or four gen- erations of Soameses and Torrances had stored Its rooms with tapestries, Portraits, old porce- lams, and mahoganies; and for America that is much. Over the landing where the staijway turned hung the famous Copley of Jasper Soames. For a good two minutes he and I faced each other in unspeakable communion. There was nothing be- tween us but this stairway acquaintance, formed during the three years Vio and I had lived to- 248 THE THREAD OF FLAME Si' ^2? ""''"" ''^ "^^ '•"'» «-Ped toned do^ by use ^A r*^*""*' .sufficiently shabby. ?hat^"a7tretrth«rcVl:rer'' ^^SyX'::;^7:S:oVrt-"-^'^^^ •night be said to have fulfill^.. ^ he old house and to be rearlv »« '"""'«<« its long mission, which it wa?,tp, '^ '"''^ "^ "^^ '«» °f anJ;.?ptTe7n.reTn,v'"h'K*"'" ^'^^ have be«>n o !» ^ * ""^ habitation would of paper to indfcaTthat I fa?'"'*' "."* " *"'? be called 1^''° "'^".hitherto faced what might THE THREAD OF FLAME to whatever was best in the small reahn. Amer- ican civilization, like that of the Italy of the Mid- dle Ages, being civic and not national, the boun- daries of Boston, with its suburbs and seaside resorts, had formed the limits of Vio's horizon. True, she had spent a good deal of time in Europe —but always as a Bostonian. She had made periodical visits to Newport, Bar Harbor, Palm Beach, and White Sulphur Springs — but always as a Bostonian. Once she had traveled as far on the American continent as California — but still as a Bostonian. Boston sufficed for Vio, seeing that it was big enough to give her variety, and swell enough to permit her to shine with little competition. Competition irked her, for the reason that she despised taking trouble. With the exception of a toilet exact to the last detail of refinement, her life was always at loose ends. She rarely answered letters; she rarely returned calk; she rever kept accounts; if she began a book she didn't finish it. Adoring little Bobby during the months of his brief life, she found the necessities of motherhood unbearable. That she was as a rule picturesquely unhappy was due to the fact of having nothing on which to whet her spiritual mettle. Like a motor working while the motor- car stands still, she churned herself into action that got nowhere as a result. But mw for the first time in her life she was face to face with a great, big personal problem. How big and great the problem was I didn't at 250 THE THREAD OF FLAME the time understand. All r i-n.,iJ rushing open the door betw«.n !,«, — mine I received acain^L ^ • '°°'" ^^ awesome priXe I h J ""?"«'«•> of almost our honeym^n I tn ^ "V"' '«""> f""" inthisr,Srnt\as^?l""^" l*^'" « my ease It was a SoamrJHT""''^' '"^^ '■«"«'«• m, she made return to m^ K^^^''-^ "• ^ «»"'«» more than I to rive her ZV ''" ^^K «> much P'£L^\Z rarh^ mTde .-^aS- The only abiding note of my personality had THE THREAD OF FLAME been my photograph at the head of Vio's bed. There was a photograph there now, but I saw that the frame was different. Mine had been in a silver frame; this was in red-brown leather. If it was still mine . . . But it was not mine. It was that of a colonel in an American uniform, wearing British and French decorations. Big, portly, handsome, bluff, with an empty left sleeve, he revealed him- self as a hero. He was a hero, while I . . . It occurred to me that death was not the only means of giving Vio her freedom, and that I ought to tell her so. To do that I was making my way down-stairs with the words framing themselves on my lips. "Vio," I meant to say, "if you don't want me back, if anything has happened to make it best for me to go away again forever, you've only to say the word and I'll do it." But while I was still descending she swept into the hall. Her movements were always rapid, with a careless, commanding ease. She was once more the Zuloaga woman all on ire within. "How long do you think it will be, Billy, before your tailor can make you look as you ought to?" I paused where I was, some three steps above her. "It may hardly be worth while to consider that, Vio—" "Oh, but it is," she interrupted. "If we're going to put this thing through we must do it with some dash. That's essential." "Why— why the dash?" 252 THE THREAD OF FLAME "Because there's no other way of doine it tinut Ir^ ^* ''''^' *•"" sentiment to con- tinue in her own way. "Alice Mountneyr is oTa?."^ ' "'« *'™ '-'^ --- 'S'To^r' My heart sank. "Is that necessary?" Dref«encr%"'f ""''"l"'^- ^* '*"'* » «»»«" of for m^r. f ■ ' ^" 'V''" «*^* " ^" be as hard !l r lm"*"^ """■* ^'^ '«ft me to divine her thought wh.le she added, firmly: "It has simjfy " What?" T'ch T "T ""H^' P^P'^ ^f''"'^- What.? I challenged, when she paused, not apparently from lack of words but from felr of ttSjlt^l7hr?'^^''^°'^^^'-"-^<>-f Her answer was made with the storm in the eyes that was always my warning of da^e h«r^n"'"''' "" ^T*^ '" ^™- I <'i«l"'t want to hi 7 "}?'*• ,^."*^«^'- ^''=«»- That part of it IS dosed. I've told you already that I accfpt he respons,b.hty, and I do. You mayn't think it but I have a conscience of a kind; and I know that .fit hadn't been for me you ;ouldn't havl TW ""I'",f' t"**^^ But there we are aga'n! There we shall always be if we allow ourselvfs To Sr W- Y°"«"'y»>-band. Billy; I'Zlnr ht\apTen:d-"'" ^"^^ '™'" ^''-' -''-- »S3 THE THREAD OF FLAME "We could get away from it, if you preferred,'* "What I prefer," she declared, with her old- time hauteur, "is what I'm asking you to do. If I didn't prefer it I shouldn't ask for it. Go back to the hotel and get your things. Go to the tailor and get more. Your room is waiting for you. It will be the next room to mine, just as before with only the door — " "The closed door, Vio?" ^ "Between us," she finished, ignoring my ques- tion. "If other things arrange themselves we can — ^we can reopen it — in time." So we left it, since it was useless to go on. That she should consider my mental lapse so terrible a disgrace was a surprise to me; but as I so con- sidered it myself I could not blame another for taking the same point of view. After all, a man should show a man's nerve. Thousands, mill- ions of men, had shown it to the limit and be- yond. I hadn't; that was all that could be said about it. How could Vio, how could any one else, regard me as other than abnormal? As she was making so brave an attempt to put all this behind her, it became my duty to help her. This I could do most easily by deflecting the conversation to the large family connection, as to which I was without news. She gave me this news as we stood at the foot of the stairway, or while I got ready to go out again. It was a relief to learn that none of my brothers or sisters was in Boston. George, who was older than myself, was on General Pershing's staflp, and aS4 THE THREAD OF FLAME and was ^mewhere ?„ F '""'■*=°'»'""'«Jer Cantley,roTad"l'Hfd'^J';iLTS """"^ hadn't shed a tear F^ °"^ '^^' "^ M»n» been f-;o&aroL'rSpo£V"v>r "'' najne the ^:Z:^^^\^^ -a the spint to live up to Vio d;HnV \- "*** course; but it was ?he infeiLe "^ *'^' °^ «n, and some were min- l . ^"^^ *^'° « •heir .™. .ndmrr E.™ WoTfSf 'V"'i CHAPTER IX GOING back to the hotel, I had my first pang of regret for having waked up on that mid- night at Bourg-la-Comtesse. It was the same reflection; the dead were so much wiser in stay- ing dead. I guessed that during the weeks when I was missing Vio had mourned for me with a grief into which a new element had come when my clothes were found on the bank of the Padrille. That was a mistake, that my clothes should be found there. A missing man should be traced to a prison or a hospital, or remain gloriously missing. He should have no interval of safety in which to go in bathing, a hundred miles from the spot on which he had last been seen alive, not even to be drowned. There was a mystery in that which might easily become a flaw in a sol- dier's record, and which to a woman as proud as Vio would be equivalent to dishonor. That there should be a question of the kind with regard to her own husband . . . So I began to do justice to the courage she dis- played. Rising to the occasion in a way I could only call magnificent, she sank herself, her opinions, and her plans — I called ti^em plans to i$6 THE THREAD OF FLAME And y« the more splendid her Mstuw th* made me Lie a man, once strong and active, r J duced to hvu^ on the doles of the^compSatr I could never be independent again; I STev^; agam have the mental freedom^f one ~ to whom there « nothmg unexplained. By a pr^«sTf bluff I might carry the thing off; but t^t^at I felt an unspeakable aversion It was n« Ihll f was unw^Uing to second Via; it wa'^^p^d^^ Havmg been guilty of the indiscretion of wS at Bourg-la-Comtesse. I began to re«et thTl«^i du 1 peaceful routine of cfeed & CrS^ '^ in J^ ".«*/*"«" that these things were sis dear they were there confused v Everv J^^^JL • JrS \^^L»^-- - ei5.7rToZS ouHntTrrc^lS ^'"^ ^ "='"'-'" «-<^'' Returning from the hotel with my suit-case and bag-the same with which I had iMTded fijom the^«.^,n^I heard a man's voice S drawmg-room up-stairs. The deep, soft Tones told rne it was not Wolfs ^'^^^"'^^y "''' ^* y°" «'='* to go right up s.r, Boosey mformed^me. relieving me d^ my IHE THREAD OF FLAME bags. "I 'ear as you was a prisoner In Germany, sir," he continued, while making his way to the coat-closet with my coat. "That's ^y I didn't know as it 'd be you when you come this afternoon. Nfight I ask, sir, if they throwed beer in your face, or anything like that?" With one foot on the stairs I kwked after the waddKng figure retreating down the hall. "Who told you that I was a prisoner?" "Mr. WolFs man, sir; but" — I am sure there was a veiled taunt in what followed — ^" but if you wasn't, sir, or if it's a secret — " I k>st the rest as he became engulfed in the closet, but I had heard enough. Wolf had taken his own way to protect the honor of the family. It was not easy to enter the drawing-room and face one of Vio's friends; but it was the sort of thing to which I must leam to steel myself. Moreover, it might be one of my own friends come to welcome me back. Vio had informed me that Wolf had taken steps to keep any men- tion of my "discovery" and return out of the papers; but we were too well known in Boston not to have the word passed privately. To any friend's welcome there would be unspoken re- serves; but that I must take for granted and become accustomed to. But, as it happened, it was not a friend of mine ; it was the colonel of the photograph, who had apparently dropped in for a cup of tea — and something more. What that something more might be I could only surmise from Vio's way of 258 THE THREAD OF FLAME wying, "Here*. Mr. Harrowby now." Thev had Kenungly ducuMed me. ith;,r^,rS been nece-aiy for them to discus, me. S2n 1?^^T L^H«J* t°w"d me. That my S dK,dd do th.. with a man who was a st^e^to ";« a d^vK"'"'"'." •*'•*'"''' ^ »"«='' that -17 vP *^" *"'*" ™ *«> <•">"• I drained it Jiw bi^rA "}' '^;!'' ^« "** which no one « R.n f " ' *" ^ w«ained on nerve: Billy; I want you to know Colonel Stroud He s just got back from France, and ha. Xn Rhineland. Our men are already reaching Mav- ence and Coblenz. and he has heard? ^.thw the President arrived this morning at Breit T supp,^.twdl be in the evening p'apis"'"- ^ iK) we were hunched m talk that couldn't hurt «lt d"n-°£rc:\s?s;rd^£ iti!!^Zl t'?*"^ ^'T ""^8ive and takeof banal- mes that dealt on the surface with the current cTi^rJ J'l "™f'tice was that Vio and h« colonel had been mtimate before he went to fnTn'ni ""*• -T '''" ^' ^« ''«'' with medals and only a nght arm. the friendship had taken Sat hTJ" ^'"^''/H.^h friendships^re liaSfe ^Ihin' ?"* °^ '•«= Strouds of the famous Stroud Valley m northern New York put hiS aj9 WCROCOfY RESdUIION TtST CHAm (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2) 1.0 If IS li^ \m 1 1.4 12.2 12.0 1.8 ^ dgpye g irv^GE In, =^^ 1653 Eost Main Slr«ct ^S: 7°'^*>«tef, Ne* York 1*609 USA r.^ ('16) «82 - 0300 - Phone ^L.S (^'6) 208- 59B9 - Fax THE THREAD OF FLAME the class with which people like ourselves made social alliances. When Vio, in the early days of her supposed widowhood, had met him at Palm Beach there was nothing to prevent their being sympathetic to each other. How far that sympa- thy had gone I could only conjecture; but it was easy to see it had gone pretty far. As to what did not come so directly to the sur- face, vague recollections began to form themselves in my mind. I seemed to remember the Stroud Valley Strouds as a family with a record. Of the type which in America most nearly resembles the English or Irish country gentleman, they made the marrying of heiresses and the spending of the money thus acquired almost a profession. Horsy, convivial, and good-looking, they carried them- selves with the cheery liveliness that acknowl- edges no account to be given to any one; and when they got into the divorce court, as they did somewhat often, women as well as men, they came out of it with aplomb. I seemed to recall a scandal that a few years before had diverted all the clubs. . . . But I couldn't be sure that this was the man, or of anything beyond the fact that the central figure of that romance had been a Stroud Valley Stroud. That this particular instance of the race had had a history was stamped all over him; but it was the kind of history which to a man of the world imparts fascination. It was easy to see that he had "done things" in many lines of life. A little the beau male of the French lady 260 THE THREAD OF FLAME novelist, and a little the Irish sporting squire, he was possibly too conscious of his looks and his power of killing ladies. A bronzed floridness, due partly to the open air and partly to good living, was thrown into striking relief by the silver hair and mustache not incompatible with relative youth. He couldn't have been much over forty. His reception to me was as perfect as if regu- lated by a protocol and rehearsed to the last Shade. 1 here was nothing in it I could complain ot-and yet there was everything. A gentleman Ignoring a disgraceful situation of which every one IS conscious would have carried himself with just this air of bland and courteous contempt. l-erhaps It was to react against this and to as- sert myself a little that I ventured once to cross swords with h.m. We had exhausted the move- ments of troops on the Rhine, the possible re- ception of the President in Paris, and he had given the Peace Conference six months in which to prepare the treaty for signature. "Then we shall see," he laughed, in his rich, velvety bass. He brought out the statement so emphatically that 1 was moved to ask: "What shall we see?" "What Mrs. Harrowby and I have been talking about, the end of all this rot as to the war havine created a new world." • '7t**'^P""'"e the cart before the horse, isn't itf I asked, maliciously. "The war didn't 261 THE THREAD OF FLAME create the new world; the new world created the war." Vio's exquisite eyebrows went up a shade. "Does that mean anything?" "Only that the volcano creates the explosion; not the explosion the volcano. Given all the repressions and suppressions and injustices, the eruption had to come." "The eruption had to come," the colone' de- clared, hotly," because the Germans planner .." "Oh, that was only a detail." "You might call the whole war only a detail—" "I do." "I don't get you," he said, stiffly, leaning for- ward to place an empty cup on the table in front of Vio. In her I read something surprised that didn't, however, disapprove of me. Thus encouraged, I went on. If I hadn't thought these things out in the monotonous, unoccupied hours at Creed & Creed's, my stunned brain would not have been master of them now. " I only meant that the war was but one of the forces, one of the innumerable forces, which the new world in the making — it isn't made yet by any means — has put into operation. If a house collapses it shatters all the windows; but you can't say that the shattering of the windows made the house collapse." I could see hy his stare he was literally minded. "But what — ^v'hat house is collapsing?" 262 THE THREAD OF FLAME "The house all round us, the house of this particular form of civilization. It's sliding down. It s been sliding down for years. You might say that It began to slide down as soon as it was put up, because it was wrongly constructed. A build- ing full of flaws begins to settle before they get the roof on, and though it may stand for years ^•■e ultimate crash is only a question of time. War came as soon as our building began to spUt; the building didn't begin to split because the war came. It was splitting anyhow." "That seems to me—" he sought for a suffi- ciently condemnatory word— "that seems to me sheer socialism." "Oh, I don't think it is. The Socialists wouldn t say so. It isn't anything in particular. It s just — ^just fact." "Only?" Vio smiled, with her delicate, pene- trating sarcasm. "Only," I echoed. "But as we belong to a world that doesn't like fact it isn't of much im- portance." Bewilderment brought a pained expression to the handsome, rather stupid, countenance. "What the— what on earth do you mean bv that?" ' "Only that we've a genius for dodging issues and shutting our eyes to what's straight before us. ''Do you mean the ruin straight before us?" "Not necessarily, Vio. The collapse of this particular form of civilization wouldn't mean ruin, 363 THE THREAD OF FLAME because we'd get a better form. I suppose it's coming into existence now." • "^j*'°"^ ^"°^ *'"'"* ^^^^'" *'^* colonel ob- jected. "As far as I see, things are pretty much the same as they've always been, and they're gettmg more so." "I suppose none of us sees more than we have our eyes open to. Things of the greatest im- portance to us happen, and we don't know that they're going on." "I hope that that kind of song and dance isn't going on — the breakdown of our civilization. It wasn't for that we gave 'em hell at Chateau- Thierry." "Oh, none of us knows what anything is for, except in the vaguest way. All we can do is to plod ahead and follow the thread of flame." "Follow the thread of what?" I was sufficiently master of myself to indulge in a mild laugh. "That's just an expression that's been in my mind during the time when I've been— been floundering about. Name I invented for— for a principle." In this, however, he was not interested. "Yes, but your collapsing house — " "It may not come down altogether. I'm neither a pre phet nor a prophet's son. All I can see is what 1 suppose everybody sees, that our civilization has been rotten. It couldn't hold together. It hadn't the cohesive strength. Per- haps I was wrong in saying that it was falling 264 THE THREAD OF FLAME .nst.nct toward perfecfion-" '" °"' ^^""^ for his mental dugout which hi K ''^/."^''ed ground of denial "T-?. u ^""°^«d 'n the "All tommyro-seeidrh ''■'";: f^'''" ='"'• any kind of danger! "" '^'^'''' ^'°'" But the main point to me was that T l„j • measure not onlv heM „, l ^ "^° '" = superior ground I had7.r\,''"* ^'^ °" *° menttK^Tpr^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ -''^- AnJ in Peptminfthl laTdr/rS^''- discoverv. As h>- ^,^„ j j . ^ ^ made a remembTred tiSg trbtl'of'Tisl""?-"^'"^ ' fore. It was the tin!? fu 1 " ^^^^ °"« be- ten. Mor^ver iS seelt fn' • ""'^ '°'«^- that had caused rnT. '•" <^""<="mstances Where and when Z h ""'' ". '" P='«''^"'«r- not at onceTeturn'to m7 Clt"'^ V'" ^^.l'' association was sinister ' ^""^ '''" ^^'^ wanfrsa" •'"^' ^'"^- '^''-'^ --thing I 26s THE THREAD OF FLAME She was still behind the tea-table, pensive rather than subdued, resolute rather than un- happy. "I liked your talking like that," she began at once, without looking up at me. "It's — ^it's the way we shall have to play the game." A box of cigarettes stood on the tea-table. I took one and struck a match, the usual stage- trick for gaining a little time. "What game do you mean?" I asked, when I had carefully blown out the match and deposited it in an ash-tray. "What game can I mean but — but that of your coming back?" "Oh, is that a game?" "Only in the sense of giving us something to play. We can't just — ^just live it." "Why can't we?" With a quick movement she was on her feet, flinging out her hands. "For all the reasons that I should think you'd see." She came and stood on the hearth-rug, confronting me. "Billy, I wonder if you have the faintest idea of what I'm doing for your sake ?" "I've more than the faintest idea, Vio. Some day, when we're able to talk more easily than we are as yet, I shall tell you how grateful I am. Just now I'm — I'm rather daztd. I have to get my bearings — " She, too, had taken a ciga>'ette, lighting it nervously, carelessly, puffing rapidly at the thing and moving about the room. 266 THE THREAD OF FLAME . "And there's another thing," she becan t,t Zr "^T' °^ ^''^ I washing to sav '^I don t mind your talking as you did iu« „ one as it'« j • i revolutionary ideas, just as thev H • ^-"^ "P "I don't kn«w *». • . ^y *^° ■" prisons" revoIuSnL^rdTas'virso^'"^""''^ ^«^'"« living in a rXSnl^J'Cld." »> '' "' °"^ °^ ^'wJSf^^.;--^^^, against. -nu T j"'" '"^' '" particular?" Isn't it' p"el ,; Tar^lf v'"^ ''''''=''" ^'''"^^^ aniong /our o[/Ss y^'u rha'eTL? "T' what's happened, moreihow sha^ Tpu'' it " rnore conservative, more like evel^bodTetT Vio, who's that man that just went out?" Jhe threw me a look from thi othe^L:"/ the / 267 THE THREAD OF FLAME "You heard. He's — ^where can you catch on ? He's Emmy Fairborough's brother." "Wasn't there — wasn't there a divorce?" "Emmy's? Yes; Lord Fairborough and she art divorced, but what difference does that make?" "I wasn't thinking of Lady Fairborough. I forgot she had been & Stroud. I meant — I meant him." "Oh, he ? Yes, I think he was." "Divorced?" "Yes, divorced. What of it?" "To whom had he been married?" "How should I know? It was to — to some low creature, an actress or something, the sort of thing men do when they're young and — and — " "And wild?" "Wild, if you like. Why are you asking?" But I was not sure of being ready to tell her, so many things had to be formulated first. To gain more time I lighted another cigarette, and she spoke while I was doing it. Holding her own cigarette delicately, as if examining its spark, she said, with a staccato intonation that empha- sized each word: "Billy, you remember what I said earlier this afternoon? I can go back to our past and try to pick it up. I can't go back to anything that comes after that past and — and before to-day. Do you understand? It's more than three years since they told me your section was blown to pieces at Bourg-la-Comtesse. Most of your com- 268 THE THREAD OF FLAME rades were found— and buried Yo„ « ">g; but missing with very littlA ' ""f'" weeks went by tL M^7op^t.nTd till tV' was none. Then cam*. thJ^ owmoied till there that time you ha"dr:i'a!i;;"^ *''"-^''" ^" "H^, ^/"PPo** that Wolf told you . " liste" o°Vu: .Sn:: r "r''" °'" - ^ -"-^^ about now I want to ° k" ^ T^""' *° ^P"t that, deep.- d Je^'^on ? ZttS I'it "'^. ="" you consent to bury—" ''° " ""'^^^ th«tXr ' ^'^'^'^ ''^- - yo^r side. Is "I shall ask no questions." Not even if I'm ready to answer them?" I sha^ll^^rtyoTnol^r'^t^"^"^-"^'^-^ •>- "So fh ,! k *° ^^'^ questions of me " silencl" " ''*""" "^ *''-« -" be a S> of retttraKyinS b'th^'ertT^ ^"='\'^" '^''^^ " Because oM k T^ *^* °" ""y shoulders. trying to help llu"^!.^" >:°"'- ^f«=. »nd I'm cause^becat/!" ^ " '"^'"^ to help you be- Her nearness, the scent of her nt- „„ »k e^STmLr"^'- ^"'^ «- were lik^^Cnot vir'^i:rpr:r:L*tU°atr '"rt''/-'^' She nodded. "'^'^-^''at I can thmk that?" 269 THE THREAD OF FLAME "That's part of it, of course. I don't forget it. But what I remember more is what I've told you already, that, whatever you did, I sent you to do it. Now, if there's expiation to be made, I come in for that as well as you." "So that we make it together?" "So that we make it together." Having already been bold I grew bolder. Lift- ing my hands to my shoulders I laid them on hers. "And will you — ^will you let me kiss you on that, Vio?" "Once," she consented; "but— but don't— don't touch me." PART III CHAPTER I SO we began what Viocallp/ltk • • what to me was no m„!. u ^''P'^'on. and to persuade our friend* ?U l''"" ^^^ ^^empt what they knew TW? ^^at they didn't know lations, could T; bit tr°'"^;"u« *° '^•''''' "ku- instant shot^ne tL" hf. ^^^''y "*^" for an fortable co3n« tu^ £f ''" "^ ='" ""~'»- somethJng like the Strouj Sb" '''' *° ''^ from the courts of bankwptcl or j"" "^'^^ be unaware of annhW^5!i ^- '''T*''"- To helped others to bfunairi f" **"' * ™'«J"« spirit, a high head a TfJlf f 'V""" ^ high through difficult sit.L- * ""' "^^d one "rife of tonnes '"""' '*«"'''«* of the the^S'y^t'gjLrE *'' """'".^ ^- ^'>« hear it. Nothim^^^I * °" '^*'' '^ we didn't fatuity bW tK^„::^ P°/f' e when Wolfs the clamor showerSs'f d^ '*!? ''™'" ^ wasn't that he told the truth t'!'^J°T- I* hes so easy of detection Ar »V''" •>*= ^o'^ tellthetruihasfaras hetn •' ^«"«nv <«d didn't know it she supph-ed Te'Lc-' ""^T '^' venuon. That thos/ c„ „ deficiency by in- jg mat those ro near us should be in THE THREAD OF FLAME conflict naturally called for comment, especially when Vio refused to let me speak. For the first few weeks I was too busily oc- cupied to think of what any one was saying, see- ing that the detaib I had to arrange were so un- usuaL Of the steps taken to become a living citizen again, and get back my property from my heirs, I give no account further than to say that they absorbed my attention. My standing in the community I was thus unable to compute till we were into the new year. By this time I had taken part m a number of family events on which I shall touch briefly. At Christmas we had gone to Washington to spend the festival with Minna and Tom Cantley. There we had met Ernestine, in one of the inter- vals of her flag-raising, and on the way back to Boston my brother Dan's ship had unexpectedly arrived in New York. A series of domestic gatherings had therefore taken place, at all of which Vio had worked heroically. As she had generally hitherto ignored my family's existence this graciousness was not without its effect. Where she did so much for my rehabilitation, those close to me in blood could hardly do less than follow her example. They followed it almost to the letter. That is to say, none of them asked me any questions, presumably wishing to spare both themselves and me embarrassment. Once or twice, when I attempted to speak of my experiences, the readi- est plunged in with some topic that would lead »74 THE THREAD OF FLAME was the delibeme « 'r ? °^ "^^'^ « =•" and quivering ?«r do V If '^'f "'» "^ do it willingly '•*' •*» •>« I couldn't in life, and take advantlrf^'^r^ =« "^ father had left me a -"I ^ ^' ' " ^^" """^ my services to Tt^u^^Z"^^"'"'''' '" 8'^« her to the heat? T^?„ u^l'"^' *''«:ked work, she said, not tha^n? '''° m'^J? =* "a"** When I pointed out that 1" °'^ ^''^'' ^ancy. turers in New eZLTa ^ "^ °^*''« manufac- with textiles7catf eo i?'"'.^**''' ''="' *» do that she didn't Si: U Hel'^V-''!^' "P^"' that I had done no worse S/n 1""^"."°^ '^" foretold and any one °irh. K *''^ ^'"^ "'^>'» Ernestine to doTr"^ ■ ^'"'* ^^P'"**'. me as she was ofty oVe*^"' ^»^. »" tolerant of Flag having becSw^ly^"* a flag, '^^e priestess, she couW tafk ofnoTh*^ '''*,'" ''•«'- nation had apparentiv Lf .'"•« *^'''^- The the cult of tErFlae should ilT '" °"^''' *hat established; and all othe^ *'''' """^ ^^'^ «de the circle of her confer'"'" ^"''^'^ ««- I had been dead and had? T""^ ^^'^ ^"^w H THE THREAD OF FLAME to Minna's canteen-work or Vio's clothes, I prof- ited by the generous nature of her exclusions. For Dan, when I met him, I hardly existed, but that might have been so in an" case, as we had never been really intimate. Recently he had been working with English naval officers and had taken on their manners and form of speech. "Hello, old dear. Top-hole to see you look- ing so fit. I say, where can I find a barber? Got a mane on me like a lion." That was our greeting, and the extent to which our confidences went. He sailed for Hampton Roads without a word as to my adventures. This he did, I am sure, in a spirit of kindness. They were all moved by the spirit of kindness, and the axiom of the less said the better. I confess that I was mystified by this forbearance, and a little hurt. Though I had been a fuol, I had not been a traitor; yet every one treated me as one. I should never have spoken of my two years of aberration of my own accord; yet when all avoided the subject, as if it opened the cup- board of the family dishonor, I resented the implication. It was Tom Cantley with whom I was most at ease, perhaps because he was not a blood relation. A big, genial, boresome fellow, he found me use- ful as a listener. His rambling accounts of the doings and shortcomings of the War Trade Board, and what he would have accomplished there if gVen a free hand, I pretended to follow, 276 THE THREAD OF FLAME because it left me free to pursue my own thoughts. As he never asked for comments on my part b«ng content when he could dribble out his o^', the plan worked well. ' tJ!ft ^" " ""f '^"'^ '"''** awakened me to the true meaning of my situation. That was on the anJ 7" ''^' Washington, in the station aT^^ metyThe at""^' "'^" ^°'" ^""^^'^ ^'«<*^ cI-ZT' "''^ 'T' '"''" ='•"'"* «'"''^? Boston clubs I mean I suppose you're a member of the Shawmut and the Beacon Hill just .s before you went away. No action has ever been taken in the matter as far as I've heard. But I wouldn^ press the pomt, .f I were you. not for a while yet! ivater . . . when everything blows over . we can . . . we can see." ' I nodded speechlessly. It was the most sig- mficant thin, that had been said to me yet. ^ Yes I assented, weakly. "When every, tnmg blows over we can see." What I saw at the minute was that if I at- tempted to resume my membership in either of my clubs the e would be opposition. My case was as grave as that; though why it should be 1 hadnt an adequate idea. Annoyed hitherto, I became deeply troubled and perplexed. Nevertheless, when we arrived in Boston agam it was to experience nothing but the same widespread kindness. True, it wf s largety f^m relatives or from friends of Vio's as admired h« i77 IfB THE THREAD OF FLAME pluck. The tragedy of her life being plain, tnose who appreciated it were eager to stand by her; and to stand by her meant courtesy to me. I could be invited to a dinner to which I went under my wife's Ijanner; but I couldn't be admitted to a dub where I should stand on my merit as a man. The distinction was galling. Equally so I found my position with regard to Colonel Stroud. He made himself our social protector, filling in what might be considered unoccupied ground and defending anything open to attack. He did this even in our house. With- out usurping my place as host, he fulfilled those rj*i^ a companion pei'orms for an inva- hd lady, passing the cigars and cigarettes after dmner, and seeing that our guests had their favonte liqueurs. Though our friends came nom- inaUy to lunch or dine with Vio and me, it seemed in effect to be with Vio and him. Every one knew, apparently, that he and she had been on the eve of a romantic act, which my coming back had frustrated. Something wa < due them, therfr. tore, in the way of compensation; and consid- ermg what I had done they ' ad the public sympathy. That my mind was chiefly on this situation, however, I cannot truthfully say. I thought of It more than incidentally, and yet not so much as to make it a sole preoccupation. More engross- ing than anything personal to myself was the plight of the world and the future immediately bef- re us. With the gathering of the Conference 178 THE THREAD OF FLAME world, of which one of the phases had been war was entenng on still another phase even more momentous. To the mere onLker. suppo^bg of man on a scale of spectacular magnificence. The January of the armistice will be remem- S/'.k" '"""*''• "'■ ''"'""•'= occurrences illus- tratuig the yearnings, passions, and fatalities of the human race with an almost theatrical vivid- ness. In ,ts very first days the old era sighed it- self out m the death of Theodore Ro^Jeve . dent was hailed as the herald of an epoch altJl gether new. Almost at the same moment, bloS was flowing m the streets of BerKn. worW^ ?on"of L? Tt"''^'^ of the month to the assasfin^ tton of Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg. The Ainencans .n Paris, having secured on one da^ antiofe ° f ''"^ ^°.^ .^''"f ^»8ue of Nations, the antiphon of opposition burst forth from Wash- ington on the next. Events like these, and they were many, were as geysers springing from a caldron in which the passions and ideals of mankind were seething rr but" ^;H ^^l ^7r^ """""y ""g*'^ thf eye, but if there had been no boiling sea they would not have spouted up. More than the fKun'd^m?^' ''' ""•""« -• -•^ ^•- I "- *79 THE THREAD OF FLAME That others didn't see it, or saw it as less ebull- ient, made no diiFerence to me, for the reason that I had been in its depths. Vio didn't see it; Wolf didn't see it; Stroud didn't see it. Of my family, only Tom Cantley had vague apprehen- sions of what he called "labor unrest"; but this he regarded as no more than a whirlpool in an ocean relatively smooth. In Boston generally, as probably throughout the Union, the issue was definite and concrete, expressing itself in the question as to whether America would back a league of nations or would not. That was the burning topic of debate; but to me it seemed like concentrating on the relative merits of a raft or ahfeboat when the ship is drifting on the rocks. That our whole system of labor, pleasure, religion, finance, and government was in process of trans- formation I had many reason- for believing; but I couldn't speak of that without being scouted as a Bolshevist, or laughed down as pessimistic. I mention these circumstances in order that you may see that nothing personal could be wholly absorbing. His exact social status means little to a man on the deck of a ship that any minute may go down. His chief concern is to save himself and his fellow-passengers, with nat- ural speculation as to the haven they will find when th j rescued have scrambled to the shore. Thus, during that month of January, I saw my- self as the vicdm of circumstances that mattered less than they might have done had we not been on the eve of well-nigh universal change. The 280 THE THREAD OF FLAME Dut even that was not pennanent. The thread of flame. I was convinced, had not led thus far without meaning to lead me farther stiH^df «^er tho" JT"'" '''•'* "«•>' •" "" faring dis- rrtK^"?!?''* °^ existence'^ might be7«ile cart":tlSd me"" "" »" "^P^^ »' ^^^ What did trouble me was VJn « ~1,^- Stroud. It troubled ni/thTLre^f^r'Sreason" that in proportion as the vapors cleared from ™^ lish me m Boston hadn't been successftd A, far as she could positively carry me. I went but I wafai::;?!"' T"1 ""' "'y^''- The mi I was alone. I was let alone, simply, courteouslv but unanimously dropped. It was thT^rt of general action it is useless to reason wiVh or Jght 281 * 11' I I I I" i THE THREAD OF FLAME against; and Vio saw it. There came a day when I drew the conclusion that she was giving up the struggle, and that the offer I had meant to make on the first afternoon of my return would be accepted if renewed. I was not sure; she was not communicative, and the signs were all too obscure to give me more than a vacillating sense of guidance. My general impression was that she didn't know the way she was taking, while Stroud was sure of it. As an adroit player of a game of which she didn't know the elementary principles, he was leading her on to a point at which she would have to acknowledge herself beaten. This, in the main, I could only stand by and watch, because I was under a cloud. It was a cbud that settled on me heavier and blacker as January passed and February . came in. The world-seething had its counterpart in the seeth- ing within myself. ITiere were days when my inner anguish was not less frenzied than that of Germany or Russia, in spite of my outward calm. I was still following Vio from house to house, with Stroud as our guide or showman; but the con- viction was growing that I must soon have done with it. Not a day nor an hour but seared my consciousness with the fact that he was the man whom Vio loved. "This is not a life," I began to tell myself, bitterly. It became my favorite comment. I made It when I got up in the morning, and when I went to bed at night. I made it when Vio and I en- gaged in polite conversation, and when she in- 282 THE THREAD OF FLAME Pelly, Bndget, and the Finn I had to!^h.Arl genume, the foundational; in lu^nrcai^f? had done work of which the usefuS wa^ „„ wise diminished by the bet »!,,♦ T \ "** cou.dhavedoneitIu«a:;",?lTyroim^:H" the fungi. on my eighteen dollars a week tT,^ a„j:l J"*^ appreciation of its value "ThS;'i^hou^ ^ytf rn?^^^^^^ dressed Boosey, with another nod toward me He and me were at school together Were^'^ wer" she continued, with her ench^tinrSe as I reached the lowest step. ^ ' versity!'" ^ """'^ *" «^P' "*''* «=''«'' °f »d- ,283 THE THREAD OF FLAME And a mighty good ichool, too, for a «port. Do you know it?' of— r But ^vdia," I began, "what in the _'Sh-hI Don't swear," was all she said. name — -- - — » "«» «ii Biie sain, as taking Booseys parcel she opened Vio's door. Ooing in softly she closed it behind her. Once more Boosey's expression dramatized my situation. That the master of the house in which he exerased hw functions— even such a master as I -should be called "kid" by a girl like Lydia created a social topsyturvydom defying all his principles. For perceptible seconds he stared m an astonishment mingled with disdain, after which he turned on his heel to tell the news in the kitchen. But I was too puzzled by Lydia's reappearance to tear myself away. What had she to do with Viof How did she get the right to go in and out of Vio s room with this matter-of-course authority? In a comer of the hall, beside the window look- ing over the Common, was an armchai.- in which Vio often sat when taking her breakfast up-stairs and glancing over her correspondence. I sank into It now, and waited. Sooner or later Lydia must come out again. This she did, some twenty minutes later, dainty and nonchalant. "Lydia," I cried, springing to my feet, "what in the name of Heaven are you doing here?" You see." 284 THE THREAD OF FLAME The parcel the had taken from Boomv wa. no- ^one revealing some three or £0^^.^^^ E}::^^t-rft^:^^ thatepX^oXi-ea^ my S'"' '""^ ^'"' '''"' «»^8 ^-to .ee " Sj "" *^ '''^ '*">«' » month perhaps " ..Did you know I was here?" '^ '^ * Why, sure. "J* *', ^* '^'i" brought you?" S>*ie glanced up sidewise from her work. w«l. one of those glances she aL„e could fll^^ "^ ^^^We«.youWgotanerve. Suppo^ I ^^j "WhTT^ '""j**." "^^""^ to find me?" Who do you think?" "Miss Averillf" "No; it wasn't Miss Averill As far » t of your family." ' * "* ™* "'O'O'n "ly that true?" ♦k't"'?' "'^ *'''""* "'* t™e. Did you want t« thmk she was pi„i„g ^wav?" ^ '''"* '° '.^rt' 1'^° '^'d t«" you?" ainc^Tve h°"'*^ ' •T'A,''"y '»'"' *° t«" me? Ever KuVL'rJlTut^JS''''/,- f ^^^ - ^'^^ on every pair." *""^"- ^ g« a commission *8S Jl THE THREAD OF FLAME "But it wasn't for the commission you came to see Mrs. Harrowby." "Well, what was it for then?" "That's what I want you to tell me." . "How much did you tell me when you dis- appeared from the Barcelona over two years ago?" "I told you as much as I could tell any one." "You didn't tell me your name was Har- rowby." "I didn't know it." She swung round from her work with the par- cel. "You didn'fr-what?" ^ I tapped my forehead. "Shell-shock. I'd— I'd forgotten who I was." A flip of her slender hand dismissed this ex- planation, as she resumed her task. "Ah, go on !" And yet she veered back again, with a dash of tears in her blue eyes. " Say, kid, I know all about it. You needn't try to put anything over on me. I know all about it, and I'm sorry for you. That's what I want to say. Do you remember how I used to tell you I was your friend, and that Harry Drinkwater was your friend, too? Well, we are— even now. There's something about you we both— we both kind o' took to. I don't know what it is, but it's there. It was there when I thought you might be a swell crook; and if I didn't mind that I don't mi"d— this. The only thing I'm thinking is that you're up against it awful thick; and so I told Dick Stroud that whoever shook 386 THE THREAD OF FLAME you the sad hand of farewefl I'd be on the spot as the ministenng angel." There were so many points here that I could only seize the one lying, as it were, on top. bo you— you know Dick Stroud?" bhe had gone on with her work again. Know him? Well, I should sayl" Have you known him long?" Known him ever since . . . Say, I'll tell lT.^fV- '''"• J' ^" "'^^^ ^« »« "«"« back on that ship together, and I was still doing the stenog act for Boydie Averill, before I got Harry back on the job again. Well, one d^ytkat^y floated in towed by little Lulu. He s'i.ret h"r F^^" ' *" "**''* *° ^ ^^""^ '»* ^*« " "'« **^'J' ^"- ^''*"" introduce him f you?" self »!rl *i ^T H' ^^f; "•* introduced him- self with a look I didn't need a second one before I'd read him like a headline. When I started to go home that evening he was waiting at the comer to take me in a taxi." IDidyoulet him?" ,.t ^'"* ' 'j- ''''"• ^.' ^'"' =• "'^«'- When he asked me to dinner at the BUtz I let him do that, n?;? J°." "iT ""• ^r'* y°" remember that nut? that s what you called him afterward " t;„ "u""! *" 1"*J *''" ^^*^^ "'»« of silver, dis- tinguished and sinister at once. "So that was he I" "That was Dick, sure thing!" You call him Dick?" 287 >5! mi THE THREAD OF FLAME "What else ^yould I call him when he wants me to? But that's giving him away." "Giving whom away?" Vio had come out of her room without our having heard her. In a tea-gown of black and gold she stood before us in an almost terrifying dignity. That is, it was almost terrifying to me, though Lydia was equal to the situation. Oh, madam, I didn't know you heard. Mr. Harrowby was just kidding me about Colonel Stroud." " Indeed !" Moving forward with the ?iir of an astonished queen, Vio seated herself in the arm- chair. " But why should Mr. Harrowby be— what was the word ? — kidding you about anything?" "Oh, we're old friends. Ain't we?" She turned to me for corroboration. "Very good old friends," I said, with some warmth. "Really! And you never told me." "Madam never asked me. She never asked me if I knew Colonel Stroud, either. How could I tell that she wanted to know?" "Oh, but I don't want to know. I'm only interested — "she looked toward me— "that you and — and this young lady should be so— so intimate." "I hope madam doesn't mind." "Let me see," Vio began to calculate. "It's about four or five weeks since Mrs. Mountney sent you to me." a88 THE THREAD OF FLAME seJ''i?,'!.^"T^''*"" '"•' *«« "»« to her. You Ina ri""' ' ^* =• ~'"™-'- - every pg ;;And so it was a good opportunity to-" lo improve myself. Yes, madam." ...What? I don't understand y 'i " »,u ^°\^^' madani, it's this way. I've onlv adventuress." '• ^ ™ an Vii^rpltef" """"^"^ ^* ^'''<='' I -r saw ;;0h you are!" was all she could find to say. Well, not exactly yet; but I'm going to be T tkl k • .i''? P" "e °n to this corset «unt t«ll you th.;." •"' "°™ I"' "^M lo go in to 18 THE THREAD OF FLAME "That's not what I want to hear. Tell me if — if your studies have taught you what you wanted to know." Having completed her package, Lydia stood in the attitude of a neat French maid in a play. "It's the model, madam. That's where the trouble is. An adventuress has got to be . . . well, just so. Did madam ever see Agnes Dunham as the Russian Countess in 'The Scarlet Sin'? Well, she's it, only she's too old. She must be thirty-five if she's a day. I don't know how many times I didn't go see her; but I couldn't be that old, and then she talked with a French accent, so that settled it. Colonel Stroud said that if I was ever going to do the diing there was only one woman in the world — •" "He took a professional interest in you, then?" "Oh, my, yes; professional and every other way. Still does. Awful kind he can be when he likes; but when he doesn't Hke! My!" I was sorry for Vio. With bloodless Kps and strained eyes she sat grasping the arms of her chair in the effort to keep her self-mastery. Had I loved her less I could have been glad of this minute, because it was giving me what might be called my revenge. But I loved her too much. It was clear to me, too, that I loved her more than I ever did. My return had been a shock to her, and she had made a strenuous effort to be game. She was game. She had not fallen short of the most sporting standard, except in matters over which she had no control. 2go THE THREAD OF FLAME "Stroud » always like that," I endeavored to smile, giving every one a helping hand. He maynt be the wisest old dog inth. world, but no one can say that he isn't kind and faithful " As It happened I had better have kept quiet I^n me.""'^*' '"'"*^' "^ ''" ^8" *"™"d "Has this girl been anything to you?" res, madam; a mother." In her endeavor to control herself Vio uttered '' "ni.?'*"^ ^^'I? ^^ 8irl up and down. mot?«r ^""'^ ^'""'S to be ... a not half so beautiful. Madam knows that any woman worth her salt is mother to any man dow^ on , his luck. I don't care who he is, or who she "Thank you for the information. I hope Mr '^i^^^AT'^'T^ y""' maternal care." wh.n ?i u'^l'"** ^^ ^'^''' "»''»"'• Just when I thought he was going to buck up he-he -twl Tdrati^''"*^''^'"""^ <•"«»• „ "il'l" ^•='«,?''^«- If you had come to me I could have told you that-that clearing out was his specialty. You might say he had% genius in J: y*"" „'"='«''* compelled to call it by another name." ^ «v^^/ '"* ""*'* ^'>^»rd her. ..„;?' ^° you mean anything by that?" What should I mean but— but the fact? 391 THE THREAD OF FLAME You're a mystery to me, Billy, just as you've evidently been to — to this young lady. At the very minute when we hope, as Ae so pictu- resquely puts it, that you're going to buck up, you— you clear out. You must have a marvel- ous eye for your opportunities in that respect. That's why I say it is like genius. No one who didn't have a genius for clearing out, still to call It that, could so neatly have seen his chance at Bourg-la-Comtesse I" "Viol" I don't know what I was about to do, because with my own shout ringing in my ears I became aware that Lydia had caught me by the arm "Oh, kid, please don't!" "Yes; let him." Vio's face was strained up- ward toward me, but otherwise she hadn't moved. "Men who run away from other men are always quick to strike women." My arm fell. I bent till my face was close to hers. "When did I ever run away?" Her hand was thrown out in the imperious gesture of dismissal I had seen two or three times already. "Please, Billy! We won't go into that. You 11— you'll spare me." "Vio, you believe thatt" She inclined her head slowly. "That I was a — a coward — a ifeserter?" She inclined her head again. "And that I—" the whole plan spread itself 292 THE THREAD OF FLAME out before im^-"that I pretended to coramJr suiade ,n order to cover up my tracks?" ^^uS'That^"' •"' '""^ "'•'"*'-'^- «f,il??' ' '""1"' Eveor one knows it. I've stood by you nght up to now. But «o«^-" she awav"* "„" ^t "f '»''J?«y fro-n which I backed hrre'^Tn.r'' *u" ^°" ? ''~"8ht this woman here, into my house, where I've been fighting your battles- Oh, Billy, what kind of f mn are you to have-^o have a wife like me?" "stfefe^r ■"""■"• ^'»" All nght, Vio. Since it's— since it's that wav and with all the other things—" ^' But I couldn't go any farther. There was another speechless passage of time, during whTch we could only stare at each other, regardless of the white and wde^yed spectator of the scene toii^Tif ''^"P*'?' I talked down the long hall toward the door of my own room. As I did so V^o said nothmg, but Lydia uttered a little broken "Oh, kid, / don't believe it; Harry Drinkwater doesn't believe it either. Nobody w^UbSe It when they've had a word with me " 1 ^"* ^''"'"'t thank her. I didn't so much as ook back. It was only by degrees that iTearned Kti^ttort^eXr''^^-^'' -•'-''- 293 THE THREAD OF FLAME I was packing in my room when Boosey brought me a letter. As letters had for so long been to me a thing of the past I took it with some cunosity, recognizing at once the hand of my inend Felly. Dea» Soames,— I suppose I ought to