The Old Corner Book 
 Store, Inc. 
 
 Boston, 
 
 Mass.
 
 THE BLACK DROP
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS 
 ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED 
 
 LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. 
 
 TORONTO
 
 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 BY 
 
 ALICE BROWN 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 THE PRISONER," "BROMLEY NEIGHBORHOOD," ETC. 
 
 ||0tit 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1919 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1919, 
 BY ALICE BROWN. 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1919. 
 
 Nortoooli 
 
 J. S. Gushing Co. Berwick & Smith Co. 
 Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
 
 THE BLACK DROP
 
 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 SINCE the war has knocked out from under us the foun 
 dations of old conformities, it is difficult to decide whether 
 to write the story of those men and women who walk the 
 pages of that reality called fiction before 1914 or after. 
 For they would be found, if they are malleable enough to 
 be worth writing about at all, distinctly different people 
 before and after that date. This story is about the 
 Tracys, and the Tracys, when the world fell apart and 
 tried to weld itself together again, were not the Tracys 
 who were acted on by the catastrophe and the welding 
 process. They often looked back, individuals of the fam 
 ily, at their old selves of a few years agone and felt, in a 
 dazed groping, that such Tracys weren t recognizable by 
 present standards. Then they had been at ease in a secure 
 prosperity, living delightfully at Grasslands, their inher 
 ited estate on the Massachusetts coast, and able to spend 
 an occasional month in New York or Boston, or the more 
 aggressive springs in Florida. Norris, the father of the 
 family, who wrote novels much respected by the intellectual 
 upper class and compiled textbooks that brought in an 
 absurd income for the amount of live interest he put into 
 them, was sagging a little toward the least picturesque at 
 titude of middle life. He had not done what youth had 
 led him to believe he might do. He had neither tapped the 
 B 1
 
 2 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 Muses fount nor held a mirror up to nature with any 
 distinctive brilliancy, and at times he felt this bitterly. 
 But the bitterness came less and less frequently, as he went 
 further into the doldrums of physical moderation, and he 
 realized, with a wry humor of acquiescence, that some day 
 it would cease to come at all. Then he would be old, and 
 in that he would again acquiesce until the tide of life 
 ebbed and ebbed, still gently and inexorably, and he would 
 be dead. But he knew all the great calls upon him, whether 
 he had answered them adequately or not, had pretty well 
 ceased. He had worked and loved. There was the end 
 of it. Whatever life, the deceptive taskmistress who is 
 always offering lures for her own hidden ends, might want 
 done now, she would thrust into younger hands. 
 
 In October, 1916, the family moved up to Boston and 
 they had been there a week before Charles, the eldest son, 
 married and living within an easy walking mile, had come 
 to see them. Charles had bought the house at the West 
 End and offered it to them rent free, reminding them they 
 had not left Grasslands in two years, and it was time they 
 did. It wasn t going to do the Allies any good, he said, 
 for them to stay down there, economising and stewing 
 about things that weren t their business anyway, only to 
 make bandages and send stuff over to France. We d got 
 to go on living, whatever happened to France. Business 
 as usual was the only sane slogan, and if we lived up to 
 that we should find ourselves in a position to help the Allies 
 out when the infernal muddle was cleared up. If we 
 didn t, we should be as deep in the soup as they were now. 
 His father listened to him, opened his mouth, shut it again, 
 was glad John, the other son, wasn t there to hear, since 
 he was only too ready to get up a scrap with Charles 
 (which really didn t do any good in the end because
 
 THE BLACK DROP 3 
 
 Charles wasn t to be moved by scrapping) and said mildly 
 Charles might be right about a winter in town and they d 
 think it over. And it proved on consultation that 
 Emily, his wife, agreed with him, though it would have 
 taken all the domestic gods in conclave to decide 
 whether she did this of her own free will or because she 
 thought he wanted it. Norris refused his son s gift of 
 the lease because, when he had known anything actual 
 about Charles s affairs, they were always in a precarious 
 state of flux ; and so Charles compromised on a nom 
 inal rental. And when the family, after a fleeting glimpse 
 at the house by Norris and his younger son, John, had 
 come up with the servants, whose faithfulness took back 
 to an elder time, they found it of a rare perfection. It 
 was an old house " on the hill " with a view of the Charles 
 and an oblique pathway for the eye to green trees ; and 
 within, though it was undeniably shabby, this was the 
 shabbiness of age and homely living. It looked as if it 
 had suffered nothing from time, but simply coincided in 
 the kindly use human beings had given it. It didn t seem 
 like a house the Tracys had hired, but one they had inher 
 ited and of which they knew the backward steps from 
 age to youth. It had all the concomitants of beauty in a 
 building of the right period: shutters, wainscoting, open 
 fireplaces of a dulled and mellowed brick and generous 
 hearths. It was fittingly provided with beautiful furni 
 ture of an antique type, and the general harmony of the 
 whole thing, like " the marriage of true minds," enabled 
 them to settle with an amazing lack of difficulty. 
 
 Why had they come up from Grasslands where Norris 
 had been so snugly fitted in for his entire lifetime, writing 
 his schoolbooks which earned him money and his novels 
 which didn t, that his neighbors would have said you
 
 4 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 couldn t pry him out for more than a flitting, here or 
 there? Why, except that Charles had urged them to it? 
 Norris, after he forgot Charles was urging, gave him 
 self plausible reason for it. John, the second son curt 
 name for a handsome blonde youth with a dashing profile 
 line and a limp that kept him from robust pursuits was 
 on fire with eagerness to do something tremendous for the 
 war, and there was nothing he could do adequate to his 
 desires. He, like his father, had a knack at words. 
 They d got to serve him for weapons since the limp and the 
 recurrent pain of it held him down and was going to hold 
 him, he was told, all his mortal days. He began writing, 
 fiery things, advisory, beseeching things, and got them in 
 wherever he could, sometimes as letters only. And while 
 he fumed at the war, his father grew gray over it and said 
 one night to his wife in the moon-lighted splendor of their 
 room at Grasslands a chamber of care now, since 
 Europe was on fire, dear shrines destroyed, dear heart of 
 England aching: 
 
 " Emily, what if we should move up to town? " 
 You could hardly ever tell what Emily was thinking. 
 She had lived that effective masquerade of woman s ser 
 vice to men and houses for over thirty years now, and 
 Norris knew he didn t easily find out what she wanted done 
 only what she thought best should be done. And now, 
 in their moon-lighted seclusion, he was at once aware he 
 had taken the wrong time and setting to interrogate her. 
 He couldn t even see her face, smooth, sympathetic mask as 
 it was of her yieldingness and earnest foresight for the 
 family good. The moonlight had blotted her out, as ef 
 fectually as darkness. There she was, her hair a shadow 
 and her face an outline merely, drowned on her pillow. 
 But after all, he told himself, if he had put the question
 
 THE BLACK DROP 5 
 
 by day, and tried to strike out some spark of her personal 
 will or liking, he wouldn t have succeeded. She answered 
 him at once: 
 
 " You mean on account of John? " 
 
 Now he hadn t at all meant on account of John, but he 
 seized upon it as a more or less valid pretext. 
 
 " Don t you think yourself," he said, " John would make 
 better headway if he could be in town, chum in with other 
 fellows and perhaps get a job on a paper? " 
 
 " Yes," she said. " It isn t quite the same, living down 
 here and going up every week." 
 
 They said no more that night. He judged it best to let 
 her think it over ; and besides he was so enamored of giving 
 a simple reason for a complex motive that he wanted to 
 think that over, too. He had his own private sense of 
 humor that nobody, except his father perhaps, a man 
 really old and crippled by gout, ever tapped. What was 
 the reason he wanted to move away from Grasslands? 
 Was it because Charles had suggested it, had made the 
 practical detail of it easy and set the pace of their prep 
 aration? Not at all, he would have said. The truth was 
 that the family pretty well had forgotten which among 
 them had really suggested it. That was the way with 
 Charles s projects. He never hurled them at you with an 
 impact that knocked you down and a directness that told 
 you the path they came. He was the cleverest of propa 
 gandists. You might be reading a book that set you the 
 recipe for getting your own dear wishes, and Charles would 
 come noiselessly up and slip another bit of paper over the 
 printed page, and smile at you when you frowned and re 
 minded him you were reading. And you always went back 
 to the slip of paper, and you always found it contained 
 something Charles wanted you to do, to the exclusion of
 
 6 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 what you had determined on doing yourself. And the 
 artful beauty of it was that, after he had persuaded you 
 to do it, he always dropped out of the matter, so that you 
 were left with the saving certainty that you had made your 
 decision unaided and in accordance with intimate reasons 
 nobody could possibly have furnished you. 
 
 Norris Tracy, well as he knew the elusive art of Charles, 
 had fallen back upon his own reasons for getting away, 
 and they were sufficiently cogent. He wanted, at this 
 time of the world s agony, the nearness of his kind. The 
 war had first roused him, then lashed and beaten him ; he 
 was sore all over. The accustomed comforts of a careless 
 life, which he, like his neighbors, had once lived as if the hell 
 of poverty and the heh 1 of terror beyond their borders 
 were non-existent, were dreadful to him and bread was 
 bitter in his mouth. And like thousands in America in 
 those first years of the war when there was nothing but 
 palliatives to offer a world in flames, bandages and money 
 and words better than no offering at all, yet terrible in 
 their inefficacy he was going wild over his own inaction. 
 And the great spaces of the country, even the faithful 
 stars at night, reproached him with a beauty he could not 
 attain unto because he and his countrymen were living in 
 the little house of world-poverty instead of the chosen halls 
 of a rich abnegation. And as it is when a forest fire drives 
 all the beasts of the wild together in a headlong rush for 
 life, hereditary foe with foe, herded in a common danger, 
 he felt, in this conflagration of the world, he must join the 
 stampede. But Emily, he thought, wouldn t suspect that. 
 Let her judge the case on the merits of an apparent reason. 
 
 Next morning after breakfast he went up to his father s 
 room, where the old man, living in a state of ironic patience 
 toward death and life also, would have risen early to sit in
 
 THE BLACK DROP 7 
 
 stark misery, a rug spread over his gouty legs. There he 
 was at his table, the beautiful old man, his fine thin face 
 touched with a patent scorn as if he expected the world 
 and all its humbler men to be his servitors, and yet was 
 scornful, Norris knew, only of his gout and the pains that 
 were never going to make him wince outwardly. He was 
 holding the morning paper before him in his fine white 
 hands and even the hands, Norris knew, his father hated 
 because they had grown delicate from disuse and age. 
 This was a man who had loved the life of the body and the 
 growing things of earth. He had been the able manager 
 of a mill and made his money from it, and set out the 
 orchards of Grasslands and grafted the trees. And now 
 he was waiting in a proud immobility, like the Roman sena 
 tors in their ivory chairs, for the coming of the foe only 
 the enemy he awaited was death, and the forerunner of 
 death was already at his muscles, stiffening them with 
 beastly pains, and these, too, he defied. He laid down his 
 paper, as Norris came in, and took off his glasses, holding 
 them in one hand and gesticulating with them in an uncon- 
 sidered way. The two were alike, yet unlike, father and 
 son, Norris with the same fine line of nose and brow, 
 though he was neutral in his coloring and his father s white 
 hair had once been black. Norris began abruptly, not by 
 asking how his father was, for that was tacitly discour 
 aged, but with his question : 
 
 " Father, what should you say to taking a house in 
 Boston and moving up there, the whole push? " 
 
 Grandsir for he was called so ordinarily in the house 
 - did not hesitate a second. 
 
 " Yes," said he, " you ve hit it. For God s sake, do it and 
 do it now. We shall all go crazy down here watching for 
 the papers and balancing Washington and Germany and
 
 8 
 
 trying to say the things we don t believe because it s for 
 the country s stability. Yes, take a house. If it s on a 
 car line so much the better. Let s have some noise. Let s 
 see people going by. Norris, last night there was a great 
 blue star blue as steel and fire it was that stared at 
 me through that window, and if I hadn t been so stiff I d 
 have got out of bed and taken a shot at it." 
 
 " I know that star," said Norris. He knew his father, 
 too. His father didn t have to translate himself for him. 
 " It s been saying some queer things." 
 
 " They ve no business to stare in at the window," said 
 the old man, " and say such things to us when we can t 
 shoulder a musket and go. Yes, you take a house, Norris. 
 What does Emily say? " 
 
 Norris smiled at him in a knowing silence. He and his 
 father never exchanged any confidences about Emily, but 
 he fancied grandsir knew well enough how she paced 
 soberly along over the domestic surface of things. And as 
 he sat looking at his father the resemblance between them 
 and the difference would have been vivid to a keen ob 
 server. Norris had as fine a face perhaps and the line of 
 profile was almost exactly the same. But there was no 
 scorn in it he had not yet been called on to give up his 
 activities and seat himself in the ivory chair only a 
 wistful, tender sort of look not often seen in men without 
 an alloy of weakness. And he was wearied now, wearied 
 almost to the death of all unreasoning hopes and 
 certainties. 
 
 " She thinks," he said, it ll be good for John." 
 
 "Oh," said the old man, "John. Well, John could 
 keep on going up, I suppose, without moving the whole 
 family. He could get himself some sort of a roosting 
 place."
 
 THE BLACK DROP 9 
 
 " Yes," said Norris, with a kindly concession to Emily s 
 point of view, " only that s the way it strikes her." 
 
 The old man looked at him with the slightest smile that 
 Norris, with some surprise, thought rather satirical ; but 
 he didn t speak. And Norris couldn t ask him what it 
 meant. It was a point of honor not to ask grandsir any 
 thing personal, now he had such miseries to combat. But 
 we may know, through the omniscience of the onlooker, 
 that grandsir was really thinking there were things about 
 Emily that Norris, clever as he was with his unpopular 
 novels and his productive schoolbooks, didn t know at all. 
 
 Later in the day Emily came in to ask grandsir if she 
 might put a plant in his window because he got the first 
 sun. She never asked him if he wanted this or that 
 or how he felt, and now while she disposed the plant with 
 an anxious care, as if one inch to the right or left would 
 affect its well-being, he gazed at her with an amused but 
 wholly affectionate smile. She was a slender woman of 
 quick movements, a thin face that somehow suggested an 
 admirable bony structure underneath, and sanguine col 
 ored hair parted and put back smoothly, but so thick and 
 with such a life in it that you felt it couldn t be governed 
 entirely by masterly hands or the most determined pins. 
 Her expression that is difficult to qualify. It was in 
 terrogative and yet of itself dumb. You felt she wanted to 
 know a great many things about life, but, for reasons of 
 her own, had found it wise to tell nothing. She was not 
 secretive ; only the wisdom of events had not been made 
 plain to her, and she couldn t express her own conclusions 
 until she knew more about the whole business of being than 
 she was likely to find out by asking. And besides, she 
 couldn t ask ; even a question might upset the balance of 
 issues in the domestic world. When she had disposed the
 
 10 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 plant to an exacting ideal, she turned and paused an in 
 stant looking at grandsir with her slight wavering smile 
 that was little more than a tremulous change in the con 
 tour of the mouth. She wasn t going to challenge any 
 emotion you hadn t been predisposed to, only she did want 
 you to see she felt gently toward you. Grandsir often saw 
 she had these instants of unobtrusive waiting after she had 
 finished a task in his room ; they were meant to give him a 
 chance to speak more fully to her. 
 
 " Well," said he, " I judge you think it s better for 
 Norris to move in town for the winter." 
 
 She knew perfectly well that Norris must have said she 
 thought it better for John. That was all he could tell, 
 for it was all he knew. But grandsir had pierced the sur 
 face of the apparent the accepted to the truth within 
 her. He always did that, and there was no sense in com 
 bating him, because indubitably he knew. And she did not 
 want to sift and perhaps smother his knowledge. This room 
 was the one clear spot in the house where she could answer 
 yes and no without regard to the expediency of things. 
 
 " Yes," she said. " He s taking the war pretty hard." 
 
 " What s Charles say about it? " 
 
 " Oh," said Emily, " he wants us to do it wants it 
 ever so much, I judged." 
 
 " Why does he? " 
 
 " I don t know." 
 
 She stood there folding a little green leaf over and over, 
 gazing at it absorbedly as if her interest lay in the fold 
 ing. Then she recalled herself, looked up at grandsir 
 with an actual smile now, a brightness that always warmed 
 him in a pronounced implication of good feeling between 
 them, and went away about her tasks. 
 
 And now the Tracys were settled in the new house,
 
 THE BLACK DROP 11 
 
 grandsir in an upper room, according, as he said, to the 
 ironies of life, whereby it is decreed that they who have no 
 legs shall be given stairs to climb. Norris remonstrated 
 strongly : if father were on the second floor he would, said 
 Norris, be so much nearer them all. But Emily didn t 
 consider that for an instant. Even while he proved his 
 point, she was making grandsir s bed up there where he 
 wanted it to be. He didn t like contiguity to that intri 
 cate turmoil which is called life. He wanted to dwell 
 in a circle of stillness with his past and the approaching 
 phantom of the future, no more mysterious. And when it 
 had been a week and Charles, the eldest son, hadn t come 
 and Helen his wife didn t even telephone, Charles ap 
 peared, on an early evening, announcing that he had been 
 in Washington and just got back. His mother, hearing 
 his voice, left the dinner table and went into the hall to 
 meet him, and there, before taking off his coat, he envel 
 oped her in a hug and asked : 
 
 " How s everybody ? " 
 
 Perhaps she didn t really answer, for he never waited 
 for answers and this she knew ; and at the same moment he 
 had taken her arm and was convoying her back to the 
 dining-room. And there he sat down at a corner of the 
 table and said Yes, he would have coffee. He was off 
 his feed a little lately. He d dropped about fifteen pounds, 
 worry, he guessed. And then he laughed his infectious 
 laugh. Norris looked up at him with the mildly ques 
 tioning glance he always gave him after absence, when he 
 had time to forget just how Charles looked. Charles 
 " took back " to a seventeenth century ancestor who was 
 sallow and lean with a heavy brow and small eyes and an 
 obstinate chin. Norris had a portrait, atrociously 
 painted, of that ancestor, and whenever he saw it for it
 
 12 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 hung in the shadows of a dark hall at Grasslands and 
 the family, with relief unspoken, had left it behind them 
 he thought how appropriate the face would be for a witch- 
 burning, man-hanging judge; and sometimes when 
 Charles s face came on him suddenly he wondered whether 
 Charles also wasn t of the type of an obstinate bully who 
 needed only opportunity to do strange deeds to the lives 
 of men. For Charles had other subtile devices than those 
 which served him in family diplomacy. He was always 
 piping the ground to carry his purposes a long, long way. 
 You saw nothing on the surface ; but when something hap 
 pened, irrationally to his advantage, you could follow back 
 the underground communication and satisfy yourself that 
 it wasn t blind fortune which had showered him with a 
 new prosperity. It was Charles himself. Once Norris had 
 broken out to his father and disclosed his total failure to 
 reconcile the inner deficiencies of Charles with his unfail 
 ing mastery over the means of life. 
 
 " That s easy," grandsir had said. " Charles is a 
 politician." 
 
 He could talk, and so clever was he in the ways of the 
 politician that he could even get people to talk for him. 
 Now he sat drinking his coffee and asking questions to 
 which he expected no answer because he wasn t going to 
 give the time for them and nobody attempted any. 
 They knew Charles. Did they like the house? Best house 
 of the period in Boston. This, they were aware, wasn t so, 
 for there were many houses as faithful and far prouder ; 
 but it didn t pay to bring him down to exactitudes. You 
 could keep qualifying what he said, in your own mind, as 
 he went on, and that was far easier than rousing flat dis 
 claimers. There they were, the four, father and mother 
 and two sons, three of them on the same plane of temperate
 
 THE BLACK DROP 13 
 
 assertion and Charles the rank outsider. Norris, when he 
 got space, replied in a pleasant moderation. Yes, they 
 liked the house enormously. They felt already at home. 
 Father did, too. He was dining upstairs. No, his gout 
 wasn t any better, though it was difficult to tell. He per 
 sisted in making a joke of it. But it presently became 
 apparent that Charles was uneasy. Through the fusillade 
 of his questioning he seemed to be keeping them all under 
 a glancing inspection. Emily saw that. She wondered 
 what he wanted to know. And presently he turned to his 
 brother who was eating apples steadily he had a plate 
 of them at hand and was devouring them with a regular 
 placidity only equalled by his interest in them and 
 asked : 
 
 " Any idea what you re going to do ? "
 
 II 
 
 JOHN was just finishing the trisecting of a Mclntosh 
 Red. He cut it laterally and ate the resultant wheels 
 with a grave precision. 
 
 " Do ? " said he. " What do you mean do? " 
 
 " Why," said Charles, " I s pose you re going to get into 
 some sort of newspaper work now you re up here for 
 good." 
 
 " I ve been up here most of the time right along," said 
 John. " It s the family that s here for good." 
 
 He always had a period, for which he couldn t account, 
 when he and Charles met after absence, of getting used to 
 him. It wasn t that Charles offensively did the elder 
 brother act; but they were so fundamentally different in 
 everything that John felt a distinct shock at being shaken 
 up in the family bag again with this temperamentally 
 foreign stranger who yet had indubitable rights of familiar 
 speech toward him. Now Emily rose from the table and 
 they followed her to the sitting-room where a fire of maple 
 wood, abundant and gaily bright, was mulling in the 
 big fireplace. 
 
 " Bet you brought up a van of wood with you," said 
 Charles, as if it were a sentimental folly, yet pardonable, 
 and his mother said they had. 
 
 They sat down before the compelling blaze that offered 
 all sorts of urgently conciliatory things about the unity 
 and warmth of family life, and Charles and his father lit 
 
 14
 
 THE BLACK DROP 15 
 
 up, and John, who had brought more apples in his pocket, 
 bit and munched reflectively. But Charles hadn t done 
 with him. 
 
 " That s a queer crowd you run with," he said, between 
 puffs. 
 
 John wasn t disconcerted. 
 
 " Lame ducks," he said. " That what you mean? How 
 do you know I run with em? " 
 
 " Because you re all harping on the same note. I can t 
 take up a paper but I find some of you." 
 
 " We are pitching into things, if that s what you mean," 
 said John, biting his apple. 
 
 He had made it a rule that Charles should never dis 
 turb him. It had become a point of pride ever since a 
 disgraceful day, at least ten years ago, when he had been 
 so sick with anger at what he felt was a beastliness of 
 Charles that it had made him tremulous and lost him his 
 voice. For one horrible instant he had thought he was 
 going to cry ; but at that point Charles had laughed, and 
 it saved him. Thenceforth, in these fraternal onsets, no 
 diplomat had ever been more resolved on an unmoved ex 
 terior. The two brothers had each a diplomacy of his 
 own, John s as innocent as the protective coloring in the 
 insect world. 
 
 "What do you mean by lame ducks?" Charles was 
 asking now. 
 
 " Oh," said John, tossing his core into the fire with a 
 finality that said you couldn t possibly tempt him to eat 
 an eighth apple, " we are, you know. I m lame, Finch can t 
 see an inch before his nose, Brennan s on the verge of T. 
 B. and has to be sent off and buried in a camp twenty-four 
 hours after lie runs away and comes back to life, and 
 Bailey s got a queer heart. Besides, he s a skeleton. We
 
 16 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 can t any of us go over to France and pitch in. All we can 
 do is to stay here and talk." 
 
 The moderation of his voice held to the last word. Not 
 even for the luxury of indulging dear indignations would 
 he betray himself to Charles. And he did hate talk that 
 was not the foil of the gallant deed. 
 
 " You talk too much," said Charles. 
 
 " Oh, come now," said Norris peacefully, " they re 
 doing some mighty good work. That poem of John s in 
 the Eagle it s as good as any of those English fellows 
 have done except Owen Seaman, that is. He s the boy 
 for me, inexhaustible, turning the trick every time, and 
 with a laugh, how can he do it? with a laugh." 
 
 " That s all right," said Charles. " But England s at 
 war. She s in it. We re not. And John and his gang are 
 simply whipping up militarism. It s outrageous." 
 
 John sat perfectly still, only, his mother saw, as she 
 stole a look at him, the color had mounted to his face and 
 dyed it to his hair. She wasn t afraid he would respond 
 intemperately. Long ago she had fathomed his diplo 
 matic determination and she read, like a page in a familiar 
 tongue, the meaning of the surging blood. He was think 
 ing rather well of himself and his lame ducks if Charles 
 could say they had the influence to warrant irritation. It 
 was Norris who found himself goaded into speech. 
 
 " But, good God ! " he said. " What other decent thing 
 is there for a man to do ? " 
 
 " Oh, well ! well ! " said Charles. He got up and kicked 
 a log into place, the wrong place, Emily, who was ex 
 pert with logs, uncomplainingly noted and then sat 
 down again, as if by that act the discussion closed. 
 
 " How is Helen ? " his mother asked him, which was her 
 contribution to general amity.
 
 THE BLACK DROP 17 
 
 Immediately he fell into the gloom indicated by cor 
 rugated eyebrows and a long drawn breath. He had 
 finished his cigar, and now plunged his hands deep in his 
 pockets and pushed back his chair so that he could attain 
 the greater ease of stretching his legs out straight toward 
 the fire. 
 
 " That s it," said he, " that s really what I came round 
 for except to say howdy," he concluded, with a tardy 
 recognition of family claims. 
 
 " She s all right, isn t she? " Emily asked quickly. 
 
 " Oh, yes, she s all right, health s all right. But the fact 
 is, things haven t been going well." 
 
 "Money?" asked Norris. "If it s that, you ought 
 never to have jumped in and bought this house." 
 
 " Don t you worry," said Charles. He smiled on them 
 with the air of one who had nothing to learn from older 
 heads which had presumably lost some sapience while his 
 own was steadily gaining. " I never was so well fixed in 
 my life, never saw so much ahead of me. But Helen 
 well, the fact is, she s discontented." 
 
 " Maybe she wants a little trip," said Emily. " Why 
 didn t you take her to Washington? " 
 
 " Washington nothing," said Charles violently. " No, 
 and I didn t ask her. I d known mighty well what answer 
 I d got if I had. She s contrary as the devil. No, mother, 
 I can t put it any other way. She s discontented, that s 
 the root of it, discontented." 
 
 "With you?" John asked like a fool, he instantly 
 told himself. For he was bent on being a sport, and, if he 
 had determined not to let his brother ruffle him to omit 
 all counter ruffling. But this was so pat, so inevitable, it 
 slipped out and he sat up, alert, in surprise at the response 
 it brought.
 
 18 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " Well," said Charles, pushing his hands further into 
 his pockets and stretching his legs to such length that he 
 seemed to be lying flat in his chair, " that s the long and 
 short of it. With me." 
 
 Then there was the silence of a shocked moment during 
 which the wedded mind of two of the hearers sought 
 about and waved the antennas of supposition in a vague 
 search for the cause of Helen s discontent. Charles him 
 self was enough, each thought in that arcanum where the 
 perceptive faculties carry on a perpetual tribunal ; but 
 Charles was no different in the main from what he had been 
 five years before when he was irresistibly in love with 
 Helen and had rushed her into being in love with him. He 
 was only " more so," as to the turbulent activities of his 
 life. If Helen could admit him then to the sanctities of 
 marriage, why couldn t she endure his permanent foothold 
 there? She could hardly think worse of Charles the 
 surface of him each ruthless mind was saying, than the 
 family did ; and the family hadn t thrown him over. Why 
 should Helen be disturbing social balances with her dis 
 contents ? 
 
 " Mother," said Charles, " I wish you d talk to her." 
 
 " If she gives me an opening," said Emily. " If she 
 doesn t, I couldn t possibly. I shouldn t know what to 
 say." 
 
 " Why don t you tell the whole business ? " said Norris 
 testily. " That is, if it s anything you can tell. And I 
 gather it is, or you wouldn t have begun on it." 
 
 " Oh, it ll come out. Don t you worry," said Charles 
 gloomily. " You ll see it in the headlines, if she can t be 
 choked off somehow. She s going to file proceedings for 
 divorce." 
 
 " What ! " the word leaped from Norris s lips with the 
 force of a cry.
 
 THE BLACK DROP 19 
 
 Emily said nothing. She sat looking into the fire, but 
 John saw her hand tighten on the arm of her chair. As 
 for him, such a sense of shame came over him as he had 
 never recognized. He loved Helen, in a timid way. He 
 thought of her as a beautiful person who had inexplicably 
 been chained up in a dreadful castle which was, no doubt, 
 the castle of his brother s delight. But what had it been 
 for her? And now the quick sense of shame told him she 
 was escaping from the castle, but, to get through the 
 window, she had to do it naked, as it were, to the eyes of 
 men. Her name and all the intimacies of her life had to be 
 on wagging tongues, and his sorrow for her was tinctured 
 with the bitterness of youth. 
 
 " Then," Norris concluded remorselessly, " you ve given 
 her cause." 
 
 " She s as wrong-headed as the devil," said Charles 
 peevishly. " You never saw a woman so changed. You 
 wouldn t know her. I shouldn t if I ever saw her." 
 
 "If you ever saw her?" repeated Emily. "Why, 
 where is she? " 
 
 " She s left my bed and board." And now they did read 
 in him, not anger alone, but an extreme of mortification. 
 " She s round the corner here, half way up the hill, she and 
 her sister Jessie." 
 
 " Is Jessie here? " Emily asked, stupidly, she thought at 
 once, for he had told her. 
 
 Yes. Jessie d gone to France. She s always been a dis 
 grace, ever since that aunt died she lived with in New York. 
 Acted as if a girl of twenty could go bumming round the 
 country like a man. She went on a paper first, you know, 
 that woman s paper. But when the war begun she threw 
 that up and went over to France. You couldn t stop her. 
 I don t know what she did, relief work, some sort."
 
 20 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " I never knew whether Helen upheld her in that," said 
 Norris. 
 
 " I don t know myself. I never brought it up with 
 Helen. I thought if Jessie was choked off there the al 
 ternative might be her coming to live with us, and I d had 
 enough of that the first three months we were married. 
 They ve been sly as the devil, she and Helen, both of them. 
 I didn t know anything was going on till Helen called me 
 into the library one day and read the riot act, and then off 
 she goes to a hotel, in New York somewhere, up state. 
 And by the time I d located her, Jessie was back from 
 France and they d taken the apartment I spoke of and 
 that s all there was to it. Helen had simply told the ser 
 vants some yarn of being called away and beat it." 
 
 John broke into a little laugh, instantly suppressed. 
 It was Charles s last verb, so curiously inept as applied to 
 Helen. 
 
 " Didn t you try to see her? " Emily inquired. 
 
 Her tone was absolutely colorless, but John, glancing at 
 her, thought mother was moved at last. 
 
 " See her? " Charles almost bellowed, in a sudden out 
 burst of rage that told its own story. He was really, they 
 were silently agreeing, feeling it very deeply. " Of course 
 I did. I went round there the morning she moved in." 
 
 " Well," Emily asked, " what did she say? " 
 
 " Wouldn t see me. Sent word by Jessie she d said all 
 she d got to say." 
 
 " Well," said Emily absently her actual mind seemed 
 to be with the two sisters in the apartment round the cor 
 ner " that must have been hard for Jessie." 
 
 " Hard for Jessie? I d make it hard for Jessie. Why 
 didn t she stay where she was put, and not come here 
 worming herself in between husband and wife ? "
 
 THE BLACK DROP 21 
 
 " Well? " said Norris. It evidently meant, " What did 
 you do then? " 
 
 " I had to communicate with her through Jessie, like a 
 damned criminal," said Charles, in no assumed disgust. 
 " But I managed to get them to say she wouldn t do any 
 thing definite, you know till I got back. I was due 
 in Washington next day, and I represented to em they d 
 no business to spring a thing like that on me take an 
 unfair advantage 
 
 " So she hasn t actually done anything yet," said Emily. 
 " I mean, taken any steps except leaving you? " 
 
 " No, she hasn t taken any legal steps, if that s what 
 you mean. That is, I assume so. And that s where you 
 come in. You ve got to talk to her. You ve got to get 
 her to quash the whole thing." 
 
 " Now look here," said Norris, " you re not going to 
 bring your mother into this business. I won t have it, 
 Charles. I tell you plainly I won t have it." 
 
 " Helen sets her life by you," said Charles, ignoring his 
 father and using the homely old country phrase that moved 
 his mother, it gave him, for the instant, such sincerity. 
 " If she ll listen to anybody, she ll listen to you. I don t 
 know as there s anybody else she d listen to, except that 
 damned mischief-making Jessie and she s on her side." 
 
 Emily did not speak, and John, against his resolution, 
 came out bluntly : 
 
 " How do you know which side mother s on, or which side 
 she ll be on after she sees Helen? " 
 
 " I ll tell you which side she s got to be on," said Charles. 
 His face had darkened under the scowl it wore when events 
 didn t go to suit him and he was angrily determined to 
 make them. " She s got to be on my side. So have all of 
 you. If you won t because it ll be the devil and all to see
 
 22 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 your names in the headlines and have reporters butting in 
 morning, noon and night, you ll do it because it s my 
 gamble." 
 
 " What s your gamble? " his father asked. 
 
 " I m onto something big, that s all," said Charles. He 
 looked a man of power as he spoke, not merely of a physi 
 cal force, but darkly bent on what had got to yield. " It ll 
 bring me into prominence it ll make me. That s it. 
 I shall be made." 
 
 " Money? " asked his father quietly. 
 
 " Money, yes. And more than money. Whichever way 
 the country goes and she can t go into war, and you d 
 better stop harping on that string, John, if you know 
 what s good for all of us if I play my cards decently, 
 I m made." 
 
 " Yes," said Norris, still quietly, " that s the point 
 play them decently." 
 
 " Oh, I don t mean that," said Charles, in an angry re 
 buttal. " I mean if I watch out I m sure to come into 
 something big." 
 
 " An appointment ? " inquired his father. 
 
 " Call it anything you like. And if I ve got to figure in 
 a divorce trial, I m done for." 
 
 John quoted Shakespeare under his breath : " Not to 
 leave undone, but keep unknown. 
 
 " What ? " Charles inquired irritably. 
 
 John did not respond. He got up and threw on 
 another log. 
 
 " I can t," said Charles, floundering a little, " I can t 
 have attention called to me, not in that way. Everything s 
 above-board, in my career, so far as the rest of the world 
 knows, and it s to be left so. Mother, you ve got to talk 
 to Helen."
 
 THE BLACK DROP 23 
 
 " I want to see Helen," said his mother, with the neu 
 trality that often maddened him. " Has she a telephone? " 
 
 " Yes. It s in her sister s name. So s the apartment, 
 I suppose. They were mighty clever about it all, I can 
 tell you." 
 
 " Oh," said his mother, " Jessie Lisle. Pretty name, 
 isn t it? I always thought Helen s name was so pretty 
 when you were engaged to her. You remember that first 
 time you brought her home." 
 
 Charles got up with such sudden force that his chair 
 seemed to resent it and ran away backward on indignant 
 legs. 
 
 " I remember most things that have happened to me," 
 he said. " It s a damned sell, life is. Do you think I 
 ought to go up and see grandsir? " 
 
 "No. Oh, no," said Emily hastily. "He ll be busy 
 with his reading." 
 
 Charles went into the hall, put on his coat and came back 
 again, holding his hat and stick. 
 
 " You ll tell him, I s pose," he remarked, looking at the 
 fire and frowning. 
 
 Emily, noting his beautiful hands, the one that held his 
 hat and the other his stick and gloves, thought, with a 
 throb of mother pain, how wonderful they had always been 
 to her, an Index, she tried to believe, of the son she meant 
 him to be. 
 
 " Yes," said Norris. " Of course we shall tell father." 
 
 " Helen s fond of him," Charles offered, this rather 
 hesitatingly and so for a moment making himself more 
 appealing to the collective family mind than through his 
 sledge-hammer strokes. " He might be able to do some 
 thing with her. It appears to me," he ended, in a bitter 
 ness that seemed to hold a mortification they had never
 
 24 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 seen in him, " Helen s inclined to be fond of the whole 
 family except me." 
 
 With that he was gone, and they heard him shut the 
 door violently with a muttered repudiation of doors in 
 general because the chain swung out and got in his way. 
 After he had been with them there was always a curious 
 break in tension of the atmosphere. If he had been what 
 his mother called good and Charles s good was no less 
 than charming they with difficulty avoided looking at 
 one another in thanksgiving over what they had received. 
 It was, by contrast with what he might have been, in 
 credible. And sometimes he was not good ; and then his 
 departure left them shaken to the inmost nerve. For there 
 was really, John was convinced, though his mother would 
 never let him enlarge on it, a devil in Charles. 
 
 Emily stood there staring at the fire, and Norris looked 
 at her as if in reminder that he d like to have her speak and 
 interpret unto him. 
 
 " Well," said he, " was that the reason he was so anxious 
 for us to come up here for the winter and why he settled on 
 this house round the corner from Helen? " 
 
 " Oh," said Emily deprecatingly, " we were anxious 
 enough to come." 
 
 " You ve got yourself into it," said Norris, fuming. 
 " That is, he got you into it. You going to tele 
 phone? " 
 
 " Why, of course," said his wife, with a look of perfect 
 clarity. She seemed to jump the near-by ditch of discom 
 fort and find herself safely on the ground of their old 
 relations with the fugitive wife. " Of course I shouldn t 
 come up here and not try to see Helen." 
 
 " You haven t tried," said Norris feebly, as if that were 
 the issue.
 
 THE BLACK DROP 25 
 
 " Well," said she conclusively, " I think we must try 
 now." 
 
 She didn t say she had telephoned her son s house the 
 day after their arrival and, having been told Mrs. Tracy 
 was away indefinitely, gave up, because her guessing 
 faculties warned her of something queer afoot. 
 
 " Come," said Norris, " let s go and tell father." 
 
 They turned like children running to call the higher in 
 telligences to interpret unto them and went upstairs, John, 
 though he had meant to be out that evening, rounding up 
 his lame ducks, following on behind.
 
 Ill 
 
 GRANDSIR was sitting at his big table facing the door, 
 and within the tract of soft illumination from the drop- 
 light were large sheets of paper over which his pencil 
 hovered. A frown, not of perplexity but of extreme in 
 terest, brought his fine brows together. He was debating 
 whether he could allow himself to yield to his foolish pas 
 sion for early apples, of which Grasslands had already 
 such abundance that, although the neighbors were called 
 in to pick and gather, the fragrance of fallen fruit, the 
 cricket s quota, filled the air. Or should he smother his 
 temptation to make the present venture one of personal 
 delight and set out the winter dependables that denied the 
 eye something of immediate fruition? But hearing steps 
 he put down his pencil and laid the papers away. The 
 smile born out of the sagacity of age a smile of a sa 
 tiric quality yet courteously patient came over his face. 
 He suspected the family of leaving their exigent pur 
 suits to come up and keep him company, whereas he might 
 be the better entertained without them. But Emily s 
 face at once gave his conjectures another directing push, 
 and his smile faded. The least anxiety on Emily s brow 
 was enough to recall him to the temporal affairs he had, 
 for the most part, stepped out of with a dignified finality 
 and in ample time to avoid the tread of a younger gener 
 ation on his heels. 
 
 "Writing, father?" asked Norris unnecessarily, and 
 
 26
 
 THE BLACK DROP 27 
 
 John went at once to the fireplace and laid the sticks 
 together. 
 
 " What is it? " asked grandsir, as they ceased their 
 slight activities of pulling chairs into range of his table 
 and disposing themselves. " Oh, I see ! Charles was 
 here." 
 
 " He asked if he might come up," Norris began, and his 
 father raised his eyebrows slightly. 
 
 " No, of course not," he said to Emily, as if he knew 
 who was responsible for sparing him the duty visit, " you 
 were quite right. Helen come with him? " 
 
 " No," Emily returned, and now she looked directly at 
 him and said by her glance or he imagined she said 
 " If you and I could only talk this thing out ! " Emily 
 often seemed to be implying that, and yet they never did 
 foregather for secret conclaves. It was only that she was 
 apparently begging that form of solace and counsel, and 
 he had a distinct belief that even in the wordless appeal 
 there lay the assurance that she was relying on him. 
 
 " The fact is," Norris came in, and absolutely by way of 
 helping Emily out from what he felt was a hateful position 
 for her she was sorry for Charles, sorry for Helen, and 
 she was the last person to enter upon illicit topics with that 
 timorous yet fearful joy not unknown to women 
 " Charles is in a hole. They ve had some trouble, he and 
 Helen. That s the way I understand it." 
 
 Grandsir avoided looking at Emily now. He didn t 
 want to surprise her confidence and guess out of her what 
 she may not have intended for him all in one piece. He 
 kept his eyes on Norris, gravely, with a certain sternness 
 even, as if he were probing him as a form of legal inquiry 
 on which he or somebody had got to pass judgment. 
 
 " Well," said he, " what s the matter? "
 
 28 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 In the second that Norris didn t answer John had time 
 to feel they were drifting into a mawkish avoidance of the 
 situation as it was, and he broke bluntly in : 
 " Helen s left him." 
 
 Both his father and mother turned to him as if they had 
 suffered a sort of shock, and grandsir smiled, almost im 
 perceptibly, it is true, but in a way that betrayed his own 
 inward appreciation, even if it scarcely moved the muscles 
 of his lips. Neither Norris nor his wife could have told 
 why they shrank momentarily from John s in 
 cursion. It wasn t that they wanted to preserve a fiction 
 of his innocence of social ironies and lapses, but rather, 
 perhaps, because he and Charles inevitably wore two as 
 pects to them : the incredibly grown-up one and the van 
 ished innocence of the child. Emily, indeed, could fall 
 back any time into a dreamy recurrence of that bygone 
 period when she guided the two boys at their prayers and 
 arithmetic; and it was, when inevitably waking from such 
 returns to the past, and she found herself confronted by 
 her men children that she felt herself momentarily a 
 stranger to them. Grandsir was looking at John now in 
 a responsive interest, as if he were the witness just 
 sworn in. 
 
 " Oh," said he, " found him out, has she? " 
 " Yes," said John directly, " no doubt of it." 
 " Now what do you mean by that? " Norris demanded 
 fractiously. He knew perfectly well what they meant, but 
 he was answering out of his defensive position as father of 
 the family. The family tradition must be preserved, even 
 if it were, in this case, only a family fiction, and he had got 
 to manage it to the extent of a false partisanship of 
 Charles. " He s exactly what he always was. Helen knew 
 what he was "
 
 THE BLACK DROP 29 
 
 " Oh, no, she didn t," said grandsir. " She was in love 
 with him." 
 
 " Well," said Norris hardily, knowing he lied and should 
 presently be brought to book, " same thing." 
 
 " Now, Norris," said grandsir, " what s the use of your 
 writing novels if you can say a thing like that? It proves 
 you don t know any more about life and the glamour of it 
 when nature i got her paw on you than a baby two days 
 old. You know it isn t so. You know how Charles looked 
 to Helen when she first got acquainted with him. That 
 brutality of his seemed to her the most astounding com 
 bination of god and tiger she d ever met. And when she 
 found things in him the other things, the ones we know 
 she thought he adored her and she could make him over. 
 Now, what s she left him for? Is it another woman? " 
 
 " Yes," said John, before the other two could speak, and 
 again they looked at him amazedly. 
 
 " He tell you? " grandsir inquired. 
 
 " No," said Emily, " no. John, he didn t tell us any 
 thing of the sort." 
 
 " What are you saying such a thing as that for? " 
 Norris inquired of his son. 
 
 " I ve seen them together," said John. Now he spoke 
 sullenly. He didn t want to turn informer, but the thought 
 of Helen in her flight from the ogre s castle set his nerves 
 to quivering and he saw Charles galloping after her, seiz 
 ing her, it might be, by the hair of the head, and dragging 
 her back to her dungeon and straw. That must be pre 
 vented. The family must get their eye on her, see whither 
 the flight was leading, and be assembled to surround her 
 in a guarding cohort. 
 
 " Where did you see her, John? " his mother was asking 
 quietly.
 
 30 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " I ve seen em a lot," said John, with a young stolidity. 
 He was in for it now, and he resolved he wouldn t play the 
 boy and damage Helen s cause either by the intemperance 
 of his defence or by its weakness. " At the theatre, walk 
 ing together, driving. She s got a car." 
 
 "Who is she?" grandsir asked, but John understood 
 he meant, " Is she inside the conventions where Helen livei 
 and your mother and the other women whose names we se 
 curely use? " 
 
 " She does newspaper work, of a sort," he answered. 
 " Some of our fellows know her." 
 
 "Our fellows?" grandsir asked. "Your fellows?" 
 
 " The fellows I know," said John. " Writing, one sort 
 or another, fellows like me. It s easy enough to know her. 
 She s a great sport. Went to a stag dinner the other 
 night, all journalists. They d sent for her at the last 
 minute because she d got a scoop and they wanted to tell 
 her what a trump she was." 
 
 " Did you go? " asked Emily. 
 
 " No," said he. 
 
 " Why not? " Norris inquired. 
 
 For an instant he didn t answer. He was exceedingly 
 anxious not to pose as a chivalrous defender of any sort, 
 especially before his father and mother; but there was 
 indeed only one reason and he had to give it. 
 
 "Well," said he, "I couldn t. Anyway I thought I 
 couldn t. I d seen her with Charles, and it didn t well, 
 it didn t seem as if I could. There s Helen, you know." 
 
 His mother turned to him with a look he loved and was 
 proud of and knew he should treasure in some dim, un- 
 searched corner of his heart. And yet he wished she 
 wouldn t look at him like that, with such a horrible excess 
 of bare emotion. He didn t want anybody to, even if it
 
 THE BLACK DROP 31 
 
 were Helen he was defending. John s own unspoken life 
 was a thing of hidden pains and sweetness. He couldn t 
 admit anybody to it, except grandsir now and then, and 
 even that was all implication, a glance, a shared certainty 
 that, since they were both men, one at the end of the way 
 and the other its beginning, they knew some according 
 secrets of the road. 
 
 " What s her name? " Norris inquired, out of a strong 
 repugnance at asking. Desirable as it was to know, he 
 hated to hear John turning in evidence. 
 
 " Mrs. Davenport," said John promptly and yet a little 
 distastefully, as if the name itself held unspoken impli 
 cations. 
 
 " A widow? " asked his mother. 
 
 " I don t know," said John. Perhaps he wanted now to 
 throw the whole thing by. He had opened his bag of 
 tawdry accumulations, and he might be supposed to be so 
 tired of carrying them to this very end that he was glad 
 to cast the empty bag itself away. " It s thought not. 
 Anyway there s no Davenport in sight. She s on her own. 
 She s got plenty of money, and she spends it." 
 
 Norris was frowning blackly. For a startled instant 
 Emily thought he, too, like Charles, took back to the dead 
 and gone Tracy of the lowering brow. Charles, or John 
 who was witness against Charles, seemed to have roused 
 undesirable family characteristics that might have been 
 considered in the light of retributive ghosts. 
 
 "Where s Helen?" grandsir asked, turning now to 
 Emily. She was evidently the one to know. 
 
 " Round the corner here," she answered hurriedly, as 
 if Helen had to be summoned. " She s with Jessie, and the 
 telephone s in Jessie s name." 
 
 " I should speak to her at once and ask them to come
 
 32 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 over here," said grandsir. " Charles has just been in, so 
 you re pretty sure he won t come back. You go, Emily. 
 Invite them to come over." 
 
 Emily started obediently, and John called after her, 
 in a voice of surprising eagerness and depth of anticipa 
 tion after the dull level of his testimony : 
 
 " Tell her I ll go over and get em." 
 
 While Emily was away, grandsir sat thoughtfully tap 
 ping one nervous yet still capable hand on the table, 
 musing, it seemed to the other two, on matters afar from 
 them. Yet it must be about this upheaval which concerned 
 them equally, and Norris felt there might be things that 
 could be said before Emily got back. Not that she was a 
 prude : she might ignore the shameful facts of life, but she 
 wouldn t wince over them; yet he did feel an indignant 
 pity of her, a sense of outrage in the unhappy complica 
 tions of her son s life. But John didn t wait to consider 
 what it would be well to say. He simply burst out : 
 
 " Grandsir, isn t Charles a beast? " 
 
 " John ! " exclaimed his father with what was, after all, 
 but a perfunctory sternness. He still felt the actual 
 presence of his wife in the room, and it seemed to him she 
 mustn t, in these male crudities, be doubly hurt. But 
 grandsir answered and, though absently, at once: 
 
 " Yes, John, yes. To be sure he s a beast." 
 
 " You seem to be taking it all for granted," said Norris. 
 " You haven t even heard what Helen has to say for her 
 self, but you re determined Charles 
 
 There he paused, for he, too, was condemning Charles. 
 Only he was sick in the very recesses of his soul, not so 
 much over Charles as that sacred entity, the family, which 
 had seemed to him, against reason as it might apply to 
 other families, to cohere with the tenacity of the earth
 
 THE BLACK DROP 33 
 
 itself. And now its atoms, because one had been loosened, 
 chipped out by the savage blade of mischance, were shaken 
 into a miserable insecurity. Norris had never known how 
 solid the realities of his life had seemed to him until the 
 tiger of time call it the beast of destiny, call it 
 retribution for old sins, or what you will but at any rate 
 it had teeth and claws had fallen upon his mortal de 
 lusions and shaken them to bits. 
 
 They sat there, the three generations, grandsir musing 
 in an apparent tranquillity common to his years, Norris 
 still frowningly as if he, who had begotten Charles, must 
 be held responsible for him, and John in a high state of 
 excitement looking from one to the other, at moments, al 
 most furtively though there was nothing ignoble in the 
 seeking glance but as if he wished, he so terribly wished, 
 he could get inside their hidden cells and find out what 
 they really thought about things not Charles alone but 
 life. John dwelt a great deal on the ordered, illusive, 
 scintillant progress of emotions he called life, but he 
 couldn t ask anybody to tell him the proven solutions he 
 thought they ought to have found: certainly not an older 
 man. And one reason he couldn t was that it seemed to 
 him the older men hadn t any real solutions to offer ; they 
 had just relinquished things at various stages, one series 
 of hopes here, one equally pungent set of fears there. 
 They eased themselves, as they sailed, by throwing out the 
 most precious freight, spices, silks and gems from Sam- 
 arcands of the soul, and the ballast they kept to trim ship 
 was the same old sand they had scooped up at the island 
 where the sorcerers live who tell you the silks and spices 
 aren t really worth anything after all and you d better fill 
 the hold with something that has weight, at least. John 
 thought he could tell the older men a few things that would
 
 34 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 make them sit up, not matters of experience but of his 
 inner certainties, because, when you were young, you 
 simply saw. You knew. What you wanted was for the 
 older men to tell you whether they knew, too ; if they did, 
 you could have thrilling communion together. But they 
 either didn t know or they wouldn t speak, and that was 
 why there had to be a compact of secrecy between you 
 an honorable silence. 
 
 John sometimes had his doubts whether grandsir was so 
 absorbed in the things of age that he didn t remember the 
 things of youth, too. He doubted it again now, stealing 
 another glance at him which grandsir, this time, met. 
 The figure of the old man was very still, even to that finger 
 on the table, but in his eyes there was a light, so keen, so 
 piercingly directed to the very centre of conjecture that 
 John s heart beat responsively and choked him. " I see," 
 the glance said. " I hear. I m right on deck, one of the 
 captains of this little pageant. You needn t obey me, if 
 you don t want to. You are a captain, too, you know. But 
 our ships ll speak each other when they re passing on this 
 lambent, heaving sea." It was so real to John that a self 
 in grandsir had really called to a self in him that he half 
 rose from his chair and the red came into his face. In an 
 other instant he thought he must actually have spoken, 
 said something foolish perhaps, in his mad desire to probe 
 the mystery ; but his father roused from his own especial 
 musing and asked : 
 
 " What is it, John? What s the matter? " 
 
 " Nothing," said John shamefacedly, and went to poke 
 the fire. 
 
 He wouldn t look at grandsir. He thought he should see 
 in those eyes another sort of message, a smiling one that 
 said, " We know." And yet he couldn t demand it and
 
 THE BLACK DROP 35 
 
 perhaps be disappointed, he was so terribly desirous of 
 having it there. But he was conscious of a great wave of 
 happiness, of thrilling nerve and rushing blood. Life 
 what he called life seemed to him almost too rapturous 
 to be borne. 
 
 And now Emily came back, with her sewing this time. 
 She brought her basket and set it on grandsir s table, took 
 her thimble from it and began absently slipping it on and 
 off. She stood there, doing this like a rite of patience, 
 and grandsir, who knew why she often took to sewing, 
 realized she dreaded the approaching interview extremely. 
 
 " Are they coming? " Norris asked. 
 
 " Oh, yes," said she, " they re coming." 
 
 John got out of his chair, but she turned to him 
 decisively. 
 
 " You re not to go over after them. Helen said no." 
 
 So John subsided, though unwillingly. He thought 
 mother might have arranged it so that he could show 
 Helen where he stood. A few minutes more they waited, 
 and then Emily said: 
 
 " I told Susan to send them up here." 
 
 Norris looked uncertainly at his father. He often had 
 kindly projects of saving father anxieties father had no 
 idea of sparing himself. Emily caught the look, and re 
 plied to it before he had time to speak. 
 
 " Oh, she wouldn t be satisfied for a minute unless she 
 saw grandsir the first thing. Besides " And as she 
 looked at grandsir with her slight smile, he knew, and so 
 this time did the others, that she felt they were entirely 
 incapable of dealing with the situation without him. 
 
 And then came the ring below and footsteps on the 
 stairs : but no other sound. Helen and her sister were 
 not talking. They came as silently as leaders of a pro 
 cessional at some solemn scene,
 
 IV 
 
 EMILY was at the door to meet them, and she and Helen 
 kissed ; but Jessie, whom the family knew but slightly, 
 came last with a little upward glance of deprecation. 
 Were they prepared to accept her, the glance seemed to 
 ask. Helen went on into the room, directly to grandsir, 
 who got on his feet to receive her. And Jessie, again mak 
 ing herself of secondary importance, went through the 
 necessary forms of greeting with John and his father. The 
 two young women brought a sudden disturbance into the 
 room, a quickening of the pace. They were so fine and 
 comely in a wonderful way, Helen tall, most delicately 
 made, with pale skin, blue-grey eyes and soft black 
 hair, and Jessie strikingly like her, only with a slight 
 added fulness of the cheeks and figure, a color that was 
 ready to spring and a deeper blue of the eyes. Helen 
 looked like the dreams of the poets. She was of those 
 women who suggest ineffable things which may be in the 
 woman or may not, but are at least an imperious call to 
 the unsatisfied in others. They are to each man the 
 embodiment of his own dream, dreams he may not know 
 he ever had. But Jessie, slightly shorter, definite in her 
 movements and her voice, was the earthly counterpart 
 to Helen s impalpable suggestiveness. John, looking 
 from one to the other in a new recognition of Jessie s 
 likeness, yet her difference, felt the overwhelming delight- 
 fulness of them both in a way that made him stammer 
 
 36
 
 THE BLACK DROP 87 
 
 when she told him he and she were of the same craft. 
 He knew it ; but at that instant he seemed too awkward 
 even to hold a pen. And while the others were talking, 
 after Jessie had been presented to grandsir and had 
 greeted him with a pretty deference, not too pronounced, 
 he was wondering, as he always wondered when he was with 
 her, over the eternal challenge innocence itself of 
 Helen s face. It was as if the design of the face had been 
 completely finished on a faultless plan, and then skilful 
 fingers had gone to work at it again with the utmost 
 delicacy of touch and had manipulated it into a slight 
 irregularity you couldn t possibly define. This was a 
 suggestion of mystery, a pregnant hint of the unknown, 
 so that, once having seen it, you returned to it again and 
 again. What did it mean, that slight droop of the lids, 
 the tiny upward curl at the right-hand corner of the 
 mouth, the dimple that bewilderingly came and then dis 
 appeared capriciously? If you were plain man or 
 woman you dwelt upon it in an irritated, fascinated won 
 der ; if you were of a musing turn of mind, you felt it must 
 mean something extraordinary, and lost yourself follow 
 ing it back to a princess dimly dreamed of, a sorceress of 
 old Nile. When she came in, the face bore the slightest 
 hints of a tragedy resolutely suppressed. She hadn t 
 indeed known how they would receive her ; but now she was 
 laughing while grandsir chaffed her, as he often did, about 
 her looks, which he adored. And when she laughed, her 
 long curled lashes and the dimple that appeared from 
 somewhere made the challenge of her face one of another 
 sort and still irresistible. 
 
 " Your sister s the girl for my money," he said. " She 
 looks just what she is, good as apples and straight as a 
 string ; but you, you hussy ! you re a million things before
 
 38 
 
 anybody can have you taken up for sorcery. What do you 
 do it for? " 
 
 Jessie glanced up with a questioning look straight at 
 him, when he began; but being no fool she concluded this 
 was a negative form of the homage Helen was accustomed 
 to. She turned her attention to John, while Norris and his 
 wife drew a little nearer the table and joined the talk with 
 the two others : but never about Charles or the upheaval 
 in the family. John was making sure of that. One ear 
 was inclined toward them while he and Jessie talked. 
 
 " What paper are you on? " she asked him. 
 
 " I m not on a paper," said John. " I m on my own 
 pitching into the war." 
 
 " Pitching into the war? you haven t turned pacifist? " 
 
 " Lord, no ! what makes you think that ? " 
 
 " I knew you weren t in the beginning." She had a curt, 
 clipped, almost a boyish habit of speech. " How could I 
 know but you d gone bad? You said pitching into the 
 war." 
 
 " I mean pitching into us America the way she s 
 taking it. We re carrying on a sort of propaganda, a 
 few of us " 
 
 " You wrote the dialect poems, didn t you? " 
 
 He was pleased beyond measure. There had been floods 
 of commendation, and always the support of his effer 
 vescing colleagues, but this girl was not of Boston ; she 
 was of New York and later, France. 
 
 " How d you know? " he stammered. 
 
 "Why, bless you! they were signed, weren t they? 
 They re mighty good. How many have you done? " 
 
 "Eleven." 
 
 " I ve seen five. Yes, they re all right. You keep on. 
 If you re epigrammatic enough and uncouth enough you
 
 THE BLACK DROP 39 
 
 can make em stick. And when you ve hit the popular mind 
 you ll get into the popular memory, and the thing s done." 
 
 " So you think the pen s mightier than the sword? " 
 
 " Sometimes," she returned. " Not always in war 
 time," and they looked at each other and laughed. 
 
 He was becoming exhilarated over a girl who could talk 
 his language and praise him, too. But she snapped him 
 off that issue. 
 
 " Can you see the moon from that hall window? the 
 window we passed coming upstairs? " 
 
 " I don t know," said John. " Want to come and look? " 
 
 " Yes, thank you, I do." 
 
 She got up with such promptitude that they were out of 
 the room before the others noticed their going. But at the 
 hall window, John searching the heavens innocently for 
 astronomical data, she said, with the directness of a savage 
 predetermination : 
 
 " Now what attitude are they going to take? " 
 
 "They?" 
 
 He came back from the heavens and stared stupidly. 
 
 " Yes. About Helen and Charles." 
 
 " I can tell you what stand I m going to take," said 
 John. " I adore Helen." 
 
 " You don t have to adore her," said Jessie coldly. " It 
 isn t a question of adoring her and standing by her for 
 that. It s a question of what you think whether she s 
 justified, whether she s right." 
 
 " Of course she s right," said John. 
 
 " You haven t heard her side." 
 
 " No. But Charles is a beast." 
 
 She ignored that, but he saw she wasn t going to 
 qualify it. 
 
 " Has he been here? " she continued.
 
 40 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " Yes. He was here to-night." 
 
 "What did he say?" 
 
 " About her? Nothing much. A word or two." 
 
 " His side of it, of course." 
 
 " Charles wouldn t see there was any other side. But 
 in point of fact all he said was that she s threatened him 
 with divorce." 
 
 " Helen adores your mother," said she, in a tone falter- 
 ingly warmer than any he had expected from her. Evi 
 dently she wasn t daring to put the straight question as to 
 his mother s attitude. She wasn t risking it, it meant so 
 much to her. 
 
 " I don t know," said John, " what mother ll say 
 finally. She didn t say much to-night." And it dawned 
 on him that he had been too tremendously excited over the 
 stand he meant to take himself to pay much attention to 
 the way these older people were tending. 
 
 And now some cooling of the first rash temperature of 
 her resolution chilled the girl and she wilted perceptibly 
 from her outspokenness. Perhaps it came over her that 
 this was an odd interview, they two getting nearer and 
 nearer the hateful state of things wherein Charles was 
 mutually agreed to be a beast and Helen his prey. 
 
 " You see," she said, in a rather small and faltering 
 voice, " I ve come back here to stand by Helen, take her 
 through it, you know. She didn t send for me. I gave up 
 my job in France and just came. And I do so want to 
 know where Charles s family is going to stand. It seems 
 as if I d got to know." 
 
 And again he was ready with the hot assurance: 
 
 " I can tell you where I am, all right. I adore her." 
 
 Now this seemed to him, as he made it, and to Jessie, as 
 she heard it, more than the intemperate vaporing of youth
 
 THE BLACK DROP 41 
 
 spreading its largess abroad. John felt, with a beating 
 pulse, that he had told the big secret that lay in the mid 
 most centre of his heart: that nothing could ever be so 
 beautiful, so mysterious, and so unapproachably divine as 
 Helen. Her spell upon him had been laid when she came 
 first to the house, the inexplicably secured treasure of 
 Charles, and this was when John had been little more than 
 sixteen. In her sweetness she had kissed him at her 
 going away, when she was penetrated with gratitude at 
 all Charles s people for accepting her but he looked so 
 appalled by the wonder of it that she never did it again. 
 At the moment he saw her he had begun to grow up. He 
 wrote verses to her and said them over in secret. For a 
 time even Charles shared in that glamour, because it seemed 
 impossible that Charles should be nothing more than a 
 lithe animal, setting his hoof on the delicate flowers of life, 
 if he could lure this bewildering creature to him and bind 
 her with a spell. And now, under the stimulus of her 
 escape from Charles, the last reason why he should not 
 give free inward rein to his romantic passion seemed to 
 have vanished ; and here was Jessie who also adored her 
 and would understand. But she, too, had caught in the 
 declaration the precise value he put into it. She spoke 
 with a coldness that threw him back on himself, and he 
 hated her and his own rashness in giving himself away to 
 her. 
 
 " I haven t much use for people s adoring Helen," she 
 said. " It s chiefly because her eyes droop and her mouth 
 turns up at the corner. It s a liberty. A good many 
 people take it, but it s a liberty all the same." 
 
 " I tell you I m going to stand by her," said John 
 hotly. "Is that a liberty?" 
 
 " It s of no importance whatever," said Jessie, turning
 
 42 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 away from the moonless window. " I was asking about 
 your father and mother. You re only a kid." 
 
 This didn t actually hurt because it was not, in his 
 estimation, true. But he had to answer it. 
 
 " I can tell you my age, if you d like to know it," he 
 said, with a scrupulous incisiveness. " I was twenty-one 
 last August. To a woman of your age " 
 
 What he had intended to add, he could not possibly 
 have told. If he could goad her into resenting something, 
 however fantastic, the game was, at least briefly, in his 
 hand. And he had scored. At the door of grandsir s 
 room she stopped and came back a step. 
 
 " I am just twenty," she said haughtily. " As it hap 
 pens, my birthday was yesterday. If you don t believe it. 
 you can ask Helen." 
 
 And she turned about to go in, John, behind her, for 
 getting his late anger and rejoicing exceedingly. For he 
 had got the best of her. He had made her angry. Jessie, 
 as the others saw her now, looked so high-headed and still 
 resentful that Helen wondered what John could have told 
 her. Was it something to the detriment of her hold on 
 these dear people she loved with all her heart? And she 
 was never to find out, partly because Jessie herself did not 
 fully understand. She had been living under a strain on 
 this difficult road of seeing Helen through ; she had longed 
 exceedingly for the coming of the family : for if they were 
 to stand by Helen the strain would be eased incalculably. 
 But here was this cocky younger brother who seemed, with 
 his vaporings of adoration for Helen, to be clouding the 
 issue between her and the others who were the only ones to 
 count. Norris was the first to look up at them, and their 
 air of heightened tension escaped his unexpectant eyes. 
 
 "Well, children, where ve you been?" he asked, and
 
 THE BLACK DROP 43 
 
 it was John who answered. This was indeed out of the 
 goodness of his heart, because he couldn t go back to the 
 ostensible purpose of their withdrawal and say they d 
 been to look at the moon. 
 
 " I wanted to show Miss Lisle my marbles," he said 
 guilelessly. 
 
 " Your marbles ? " repeated his father. " What do you 
 mean by your marbles? " 
 
 " My marbles," said John pleasantly, " and my railroad 
 train. Kids of my age have marbles and railroad trains." 
 
 But Emily, who knew her son s face like a book in her 
 native tongue, and grandsir who could read the human 
 language of Jessie s scarlet cheek and raging eyes, knew 
 no return to the toys of childhood could have raised such 
 signals there. 
 
 Immediately on their coming in, Helen had risen, and 
 Norris said: 
 
 " I m going round with you. If John ll let me," he 
 added, smiling at his son whose boy worship of Helen was 
 one of the open secrets the family protected and approved. 
 " If he won t, we ll both go." 
 
 But Helen went up to him and laid a hand on his arm 
 and looked at him so that he was at once persuaded. 
 
 " Please ! " she said. " Really, dear, I mean it. Jess 
 and I ve been talking about it, and we ve decided we d 
 rather go about alone just now anyway. Please!" 
 
 The end of it was that nobody went with them, every 
 one being convinced of her meaning what she said, for 
 reasons she had, whether mistakenly but certainly with 
 seriousness, thought out, and all but grandsir followed on 
 to see them out of the door and off the steps. It was like 
 a country departure and farewell, a chorusing of good- 
 nights. But Helen, gaily as she played her part in it, did
 
 44 , THE BLACK DROP 
 
 give one look along the street before she turned down the 
 hill. What if she saw Charles, that shape which had once 
 held the sum of virile mastery, coming toward her, to take 
 her by the arm and push her along beside him to his ogre s 
 castle? 
 
 John let his father and mother get inside the door again 
 and then slipped past them and went pelting over the 
 stairs. He meant to see grandsir before they got up there 
 with their qualifyings and explainings, to find out just 
 what had happened. Grandsir was not at his table now. 
 He had made his way to the hearth, coaxed up the fire and 
 sat there leaning back in a great chair, the picture of sad 
 weariness. But he looked up and nodded at John, as if to 
 assure him he wasn t too tired for any gay challenging 
 youth might put, and John didn t pause in the attack. 
 
 " What did they say to her? " he burst out. " Mother 
 and father? " 
 
 " Nothing," said grandsir, " that is, of any importance. 
 Nothing about Charles." 
 
 " Well, what did you say? " 
 
 " Nothing. Your mother asked Helen if the dress she 
 was wearing was blue or black and how old Jessie was 
 
 " Hang Jessie ! " John broke in. 
 
 " Oh, yes, Jessie ll be hanged fast enough if she keeps on 
 looking the way she did when you came in together." 
 
 " Now did you ever see an uglier looking girl I mean, 
 ill-tempered, hateful," said John, though he could hardly 
 stop for Jessie, he was so bent on leaping back to Helen. 
 "Who d ever think she was Helen s sister? They re no 
 more alike 
 
 " Why, no," said grandsir, smiling at him in the tired, 
 patient way that showed he d had about all of youth he 
 could stand until his old body stopped aching. " Jessie s
 
 THE BLACK DROP 45 
 
 all right. She may not burn the topless towers of 
 Ilium " 
 
 " You say that because Helen s named Helen," said 
 John, yet longing to hear more, to invoke unmeasured 
 praise of Helen and the justifying of his own inward 
 love. 
 
 " But," said grandsir drawing one leg up and laying 
 a commiserating hand on it, " Jessie s sound as apples." 
 
 "Didn t anybody say a word?" John persisted for 
 he heard his father and mother talking and knew there was 
 scant time " not about Charles or what they re going 
 to do?" 
 
 " Not a word." 
 
 " Then," said John, " how are they going to know 
 whether the family means to stand by em? " 
 
 " I guess they know," said grandsir. " Seems to me 
 we all behaved " here a cruel twinge tore him and he 
 added mildly " pretty much as usual." 
 
 Norris did not come up again, but Emily did, bringing 
 his good night. He meant to work a while before going 
 to bed. 
 
 " Mother," said John, " didn t you say anything to 
 Helen not a word to show her how we stand? " 
 
 " No," said Emily. But she smiled slightly at grandsir, 
 and he knew she had seen him write a couple of words on a 
 slip of paper and lay it before Helen when she came to look 
 over his shoulder at the tree catalogues. " Come to 
 morrow," the paper read ; Emily could not know this, 
 but she was aware that it was fully arranged for Helen to 
 come back again and sit down with grandsir to a consid 
 eration of what? 
 
 " But she may not come again," said John. " She may 
 not feel at liberty to."
 
 46 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " Oh, yes," said his mother placidly, " I guess they ll 
 come." 
 
 Then Allan Lloyd was summoned from his little upstairs 
 room to help grandsir to bed. He was a Grasslands boy 
 who was grandsir s attendant on the daily road of diffi 
 culty where even the bravest may no longer walk alone.
 
 NORBIS went off to his own room, where only a few of the 
 necessary pieces of furniture for studious pursuits had 
 been moved in to give him an immediate workshop. The 
 result was an austerity of beauty of the sort always to be 
 found in a simplicity of the antique. A mullioned window 
 of three parts looked toward the north and outside it to 
 night the constellations were set in an order he knew, 
 though he was aware, if he went to trace their divine 
 remembered beauty, he should find the city brightness had 
 dimmed them out. But he did not go. The stars that 
 august majesty which had been too much for him in Grass 
 lands, before he fled away from it to the nearness of men 
 were not what he wanted to reconcile him to life and the 
 cruel jolts upon its road. He sat down at the big table 
 and, though he knew he should not write, laid out paper 
 before him and even absently took his pen. He was of 
 those who, writing by profession, have the compelling habit 
 of it, and who can think their best and talk their best with 
 a pen in hand, who are too often tongue-tied in the or 
 dinary intercourse of life, but establish some mysterious 
 rapport between themselves and things worldly and beyond 
 through the medium of their two familiars, pen and paper. 
 He had had a great many vigils with pen and paper in these 
 last years of a sort he thought he couldn t share with his 
 wife or even his father, though his father, having gone the 
 same road of middle age, might be supposed to know some 
 of the things he was feeling. 
 
 47
 
 48 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 Up to the beginning of the war, Norris, as we have seen, 
 had gone a pleasant enough path, quite aware he hadn t 
 fulfilled old promises or touched the outer rim even of that 
 globe of hope which had flown before him like a bubble 
 radiant in the sun of all things. He had meant to cause 
 his name to be remembered ; but it wasn t going to be save 
 in a meagre paragraph in biographical lists and on the 
 backs of books nobody was likely, save from dim parochial 
 reasons, to take down from the shelves. And then the war 
 came, and he found himself drawn into the gigantic circle 
 of life as a whole. In comparison with that, what were 
 the tiny literary strivings of one New England man? Al 
 so, he found he didn t care about himself any more, his in 
 dividual life and death. He did care passionately for the 
 preservation of certain invisible divinities of belief there 
 hadn t seemed to be any need of talking about before this 
 great winnowing began, the beating of the wings of destiny. 
 And he was now in that most pathetic zone of earthly life 
 when a man can still agonize over the fortune of events he 
 is powerless to sway. He was inexplicably inert, too, as 
 to the pen, and felt an ingenuous admiration of John 
 who could write by the ream, who could work off his indig 
 nations on paper, and who hit the heart of the matter sur 
 prisingly well. Old men for counsel, he thought wonder- 
 ingly. But old men hadn t always the courage to counsel. 
 They may have lost the rash valor that ought to stand be 
 hind the word, or the word is void. They are blocked by 
 a multitude of foes bred by their own reverses, memories of 
 quests undertaken in vain, small timidities, anxious bal 
 ancing of good and ill. Yet he wasn t old. Men older 
 than he were fighting in France and offering heroic counsel 
 to America to fight also. Only he had heard the lutan- 
 ist. That phrase in the Dunsany play had hit him in the
 
 THE BLACK DROP 49 
 
 centre, at first reading, and it stayed with him. The 
 Queen had harped on this omen, you heard the lutanist 
 when death was coming; wistful, tremulous, you heard and 
 shrank and waited. Norris knew that differing people, 
 varying temperaments, heard him at fated periods in their 
 lives. The note might come to the young with a shock, and 
 halt them in their dance. It might come to the old with a 
 crescendo of mournful melody. Had his father heard it? 
 When he was sitting there regnant above his disabilities, 
 was he hearing the pipe from the mountains of desire or 
 dread, nearer and more near? Yet his father never spoke 
 of death. The middle-aged heard it but he was not 
 sure he would have caught the plaintive note so soon, 
 since his body was not warning him, if the purpose of his 
 life, the writing of books, had not failed him. 
 
 For Norris knew, as his publishers patiently knew, that 
 nobody, in a large manner of speaking, read his books. 
 It was one of the disheartening things about it all that the 
 text-books brought him in their surprising income, and the 
 novels, they that were he, himself, the documents of his life 
 as he lived it, nobody really wanted. He had thought 
 about it for years, at first with resentment because he 
 was talking and nobody would hear. Then when war came, 
 with its clangor of reproach and accusation and its big 
 books unrolled where the debit and credit of nations and 
 individuals stood red as blood, he began to suspect himself 
 instead of the world. This was a time when, mysteriously, 
 every man had to show what was in him. A man responded 
 to great challenges, or he skulked, he stood up valiantly 
 and told the truth without fear, or he lied ; yet, if he lied 
 he knew he was condemned. So clear was the air of this 
 great time that you found yourself measured up with im 
 perishable values, even if you turned your back on them. 
 
 B
 
 50 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 But you knew they were there. And Norris now began to 
 suspect he had not reached the heart of man because he was 
 not true enough. Not all who did reach it were true ; they 
 might be the mountebanks of the written word, they might 
 be the soporific after the day. But the high task he had 
 thought himself embarked on must be founded on the rock 
 that is the support of human life. Hitherto literature had 
 been his sweet solace, after the dinginess of things, his 
 other house he went into from the clangor of the streets. 
 And because it was another house, though far more won 
 derful, perhaps he had elaborated and so betrayed its 
 language. It was not the plain man s manual. He had 
 translated it into another medium which is known as litera 
 ture, and what should the plain man care for that? 
 
 His door was open, and he heard his wife passing and 
 knew she would not turn her head, much less speak to him, 
 because, when he was at work, she held herself apart and 
 left him to his task. And this was right, even if the task 
 had been of a less delicate texture ; but to-night it irritated 
 him, because it seemed to fit in with his own past attitude. 
 Why should he be regarded with some special sanctity 
 because he was sitting here fitting words together? He 
 ought to be of such robust mind that great verse and prose 
 went surging and trampling through his head and spoke 
 so loudly the domestic voices couldn t jar their sequence. 
 
 " Emily ! " he called and she came in. 
 
 Seeing her in the dim light beyond the circle of his read 
 ing lamp he thought, with a recognition that seldom moved 
 him now, he was so used to her, how beautiful she was, in 
 a sequestered way, how fine and noble. She was so near to 
 him in every process of their life together that he seldom 
 got her far enough removed to look at her dispassionately. 
 He had, indeed, ceased thinking about her. Need he think
 
 THE BLACK DROP 51 
 
 about his right hand, except as it might fail to serve him 
 with its accustomed adroitness, or as it needed kindness 
 because it was cramped and cold? 
 
 " Emily," said he, " have you read all my books? " 
 
 " No," said she, " not the text-books all of them." 
 
 " No, no, the novels. Have you read them? " 
 
 " Yes," she said, looking at him with her direct, ques 
 tioning sincerity. 
 
 " The last one? " 
 
 " I haven t finished it." 
 
 " Where did you leave off? " 
 
 The color came into her face, a tinge and then a 
 surge of red. Norris seeing it, laughed softly. He knew 
 he was putting her in a tight place, but he wasn t going to 
 help her out of it. 
 
 " I think " said she, and then she paused. 
 
 " Come, come, " said he, with a brusqueness she knew 
 was feigned, " I don t mean paragraphs and pages. I 
 mean the story. Take the hero. I suppose we ve got to 
 keep on saying hero, even if we re not swashbuckling. 
 What was he doing? " 
 
 " I think " said Emily again. 
 
 It can t be denied the novelist was disconcerted ; still, he 
 was plainly enjoying it. Norris always did, in a mildly 
 grim way, relish his own discomfiture. He was wont to 
 say about some of the ironic things that had happened to 
 him : " It s a joke on me." 
 
 " The amount of it is," he said, " you couldn t tell where 
 you were, to save you. And I ll bet you knew that would 
 be so and you ve got a bookmark in. " 
 
 " Why, yes, " said Emily, plucking up spirit now there 
 was a chance for practical rebuttal, " I always use a book 
 mark."
 
 52 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " Don t you see, " said Norris, " that if the story d been 
 absorbing enough you couldn t have left it five months 
 with the book-mark in? You d have whirled over the 
 pages you remembered and hit the one line you hadn t 
 read." 
 
 " I always use a book-mark," said Emily again, obsti 
 nately. " I don t have much time to read. You know 
 that, Norris." 
 
 " Ah," said Norris, " but if the story was what it ought 
 to be, you couldn t help reading. You d leave the plough 
 share in the mould and the needle in my shirt to prick me 
 with. (O Emily, that I could once, only just once be 
 stabbed by such a needle!) You d hide the story under 
 cushions for fear somebody d get it away from you. That s 
 the way we used to read books, Emily some books. Now 
 " he hurled it at her " what s the matter with 
 mine? " 
 
 And to his amazement he got an answer. 
 
 " You write," said Emily, " about the insides of people." 
 
 Norris was so amazed that he realized, with the same 
 suddenness, how little he had expected a rebuff. 
 
 " But," he said, " what is there about people except their 
 insides? " 
 
 " There isn t," said Emily timidly, and yet also as if she 
 had her own argument intact, " much story." 
 
 " Story ! " said Norris. 
 
 The progress of the human soul through this world, its 
 epic griefs and ironies, isn t that, he thought, story? 
 
 " I know," said Emily hastily, " there are lots of people 
 that want to know exactly how the characters feel, but the 
 general run, Norris, want to know what they do." 
 
 " I thought," said Norris humbly, " I made them do 
 things. I try."
 
 THE BLACK DROP 53 
 
 " Yes," said she, " they do. But it s almost all inside 
 them. And you tell it beautifully, Norris, beautifully. 
 But you tell it like poetry. And John said the other day, 
 life was it wasn t about books he said it - but I over 
 heard him saying it to that poor Mr. Brennan he said 
 life is " 
 
 " Well, " shouted Norris, so that she jumped slightly in 
 her chair " what is life, according to John? " 
 
 " Brass tacks," said Emily faintly. 
 
 It seemed to her horrible to bring such objects into the 
 workroom where Norris wrought his beautiful prose ; but 
 he had challenged her. And now she drew a breath of 
 relief and smiled a little, for he had burst into a great 
 laugh. 
 
 " So that," said he, " is life according to John." 
 
 With that, she saw, he was going to end their literary 
 conversation, and she felt deeply relieved. But he was 
 putting it away to think over by himself. He might find, 
 he generously owned, that he was much indebted to her 
 and John. 
 
 " We didn t get far with Helen, did we? " he remarked, 
 and Emily rose to go, feeling again the imminence of high 
 tasks in this dedicated room. 
 
 " Did you mean to? " she asked. 
 
 " No, I don t s pose I did. Not definitely. But after 
 what Charles said - well, what are you going to do about 
 it anyway? " 
 
 " About asking her to stay with him? " 
 
 " Yes, yes," he said impatiently, when she paused, " it s 
 a devil of a coil I know. But how are we ever going to get 
 her side of it? You didn t even ask her to come again." 
 
 " I gave her a key," said Emily. 
 
 "Gave her a key? When?"
 
 54 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " There at the door, when you and Jessie were talking 
 about the river. I gave her a key and told her that was 
 so she could come in any time, without ringing." 
 
 Norris smiled broadly at her. He had wanted to take 
 a stand without being judicial about it, and he was dis 
 tinctly relieved. 
 
 " Well," said he, " I guess you ve cast your vote all 
 right." 
 
 But when the family took itself to bed it was, in its 
 various ways, exceedingly perplexed over Helen. She was 
 herself, yet different, a little farther retired into that inner 
 retreat of hers where nobody had a certainty of penetrat 
 ing, or, if he had in a moment of his own need or her gra- 
 ciousness, no confidence in ever entering again. And this 
 was not because she gave a sense of wilful seclusion: only 
 perhaps that her beauty was of the nature of a thrilling 
 promise that only unimagined courts of the spirit could 
 fulfil. For the last year or two she had seemed different 
 to the family. Emily, lying there staring into the dark 
 and perfectly conscious that her husband was staring out 
 also and interrogating the same spirits of night, could 
 not quite remember when it began, or at least if it 
 had been long since she noticed it. But she had tried 
 to tell herself, when she first fancied Helen was growing 
 stiller, a deeper shade of thought upon her, that this 
 was because she was traveling away from girlhood, 
 contentedly perhaps but still leaving behind her the rain 
 bow confusion of the first of things. And once a little 
 quick word she dropped made Emily suspect she had 
 wanted children, and Charles, Emily knew, deliberately 
 hated them. If the word did mean it, Helen never let 
 fall another ; but Emily was glad of that once, to account 
 normally for the veiled gravity of her look. And still the
 
 THE BLACK DROP 55 
 
 look was there, sadder, more baffling, almost conscious of 
 itself at last, as if it recognized there was something it 
 must not tell. And no wonder, Emily thought, blushing 
 hot with shame there in the darkness, if John were right 
 and another woman had driven her from her home.
 
 VI 
 
 IT was the next evening about half an hour after dinner 
 that the hall door opened softly and somebody slipped in. 
 Emily, who was in the dining-room, glanced up from her 
 housewifely absorption of arranging silver in the side 
 board drawer, and saw a cloaked figure going up the stairs. 
 Helen, she knew, and, remembering John was off to his 
 gang and Norris for a run on the embankment, she was 
 glad. Helen and grandsir could count on uninterrupted 
 talk. 
 
 When Helen reached grandsir s door she found it closed ; 
 but a slip of paper with " Helen " written on it faced her 
 from an upper panel. This was a device of grandsir s, in 
 frequently used but often enough to keep it in observance. 
 When he wanted one of the family only, he indicated it, 
 and the rejected turned, unhurt, away. Helen tapped and, 
 on his response, went in. There he was, sitting at his writ 
 ing table, and he had so scrupulously rested for this inter 
 view that he had an emanating radiance of well-being 
 that, old man as he was, lent his frail distinction a most 
 unexpected charm. Helen dropped her muff and came to 
 him in a swift, lovely approach, all eagerness. 
 
 " Well, my girl," said he, " here s your chair." 
 
 It was close by his, so that, sitting obliquely toward the 
 table, they faced each other. He took her hands and held 
 them a minute, and Helen met the interrogation of his 
 look. They both smiled, indeed, as if they said : "What- 
 
 56
 
 THE BLACK DROP 57 
 
 ever spectres rise from the slain of family warfare, it 
 sha n t make any difference to us." Grandsir began: 
 
 " Charles has been here. You knew, of course." 
 
 " No," she said, " I didn t really know. That is, no 
 body s told me." 
 
 " Well, you d have guessed it." 
 
 " I wasn t sure he d got back. So he s come. And that s 
 why everybody seemed so prepared for me." 
 
 " What do you mean by prepared? " 
 
 " You know," said Helen, smiling at him. " They didn t 
 ask a question. Wasn t it darling of them? " 
 
 " Are you going to tell me," said grandsir, " what you 
 left him for? " 
 
 She sat looking down at her hands, gently freed now 
 from his, and smoothing the long gloves on her knee. But 
 he didn t follow her gaze. He studied her face instead, and 
 it hurt him to see the color come slowly into it and dye it 
 to a deep unhappy crimson. He knew what that blush 
 meant. It was not the misery of a woman compelled to 
 speak of things that break the ordered beauty of the social 
 world. Helen had no gauche timidities. It was suffering 
 of a deeper sort. Then suddenly she looked up at him 
 and he was startled by the sadness of her clear long-lashed 
 eyes, the stern, though soft, sincerity of them. 
 
 " Do we need," she asked, " to go into that? " 
 
 " No, " said he. " Only I want to be your advocate. I 
 want to be able to say, * I understand. I know the whole 
 business and you can take it from me the blame is not 
 hers. " 
 
 She smiled at him with a quick radiance that again 
 moved him. He couldn t get used to Helen. None of them 
 ever could. She was change itself over that deep unvary 
 ing reticence, like light and shadows on the sea.
 
 58 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " Ask me," she said. " Ask me questions." 
 
 " Well," said he, plunging because that was the only 
 course, " you think he s doing things that are in bad 
 taste, we ll say? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 She sat with her eyes immovably holding his, as if she 
 had to ensure that response also as well as the communion 
 of the lips. 
 
 " You ve heard he s trotting around with a a Mrs. 
 Davenport." 
 
 That really startled her. 
 
 " How did you know? " she countered. " He didn t tell 
 you." 
 
 " No. But he did tell his father and mother you had left 
 him, and John said afterward he d seen Charles running 
 round with a newspaper woman named Davenport. So 
 it s natural to conclude " 
 
 There he left it, passed it over to her, indeed, seeming to 
 imply it was up to her to do something with it. Helen s 
 brows were drawn together now in the tense line of concen 
 tration. She took a leisurely long time to make her an 
 swer. 
 
 "I don t think," she said then, "that Mrs. Daven 
 port is altogether my reason. You can call her my 
 excuse." 
 
 " Ah ! " said grandfather. His delicate face flushed 
 with the excitement of finding she was as brave and finely 
 rash as he had known her. Always he had told himself, 
 Helen would want to escape from Charles. The moment 
 would come with her first discovery of the real Charles. 
 But her nature, the integrity of it, would hold her to her 
 promise so long as her husband kept his. And now he had 
 given her the excuse and she was going.
 
 THE BLACK DROP 59 
 
 " You don t " he began and then blundered into what 
 seemed to him a silly ending " you don t love him." 
 
 Helen, still with her eyes on his, as if he were the 
 defendant and she the prosecutor, put her question : 
 
 " Now, what is love? " 
 
 A certain kind of person could have asked that question 
 of grandsir and he would have laughed and put the mawk 
 ish foolery by with some foolery of his own. But this was 
 Helen. She was the stillest of human creatures, locked up 
 in her house of emotions, and she meant stark earnest. 
 
 "Charles s love?" said he. "Well, it s something I 
 shouldn t have picked out, in the open market, for a girl 
 like you." 
 
 She hardly seemed to hear him. The question, indeed, 
 might have been one she put to herself, having adventured 
 it many times without finding an answer, and being, in a 
 way, obliged to keep on with it until somebody should in 
 vest her with clear knowledge and absolve her from the 
 necessity of further dwelling on it. 
 
 " I can understand," she said, " how I could have been 
 fascinated. I saw in him everything everything that 
 makes a man worth living and dying for. But how could I 
 stop being fascinated and then see in him nothing except 
 other kinds of things ! It isn t what women do, you see. 
 They are supposed to go on hoping and believing even 
 when there s nothing to hope for or believe in But if I 
 don t believe in him, I simply don t love him. Just now I 
 feel as as alien to him as if he were a stranger that 
 had broken into the house and tied my hands and I d got 
 to sit there in the chair where he tied me, seeing him walk 
 round the room and well, just that." 
 
 Grandfather had one despair which accounted for the 
 personal mishaps of life and one belief that seemed to
 
 60 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 remedy them. Domestic relations, he believed, were chief 
 ly obliquities. They continued often, in a miserable bond 
 age, because all domestic life is a sacrifice to expediency. 
 But now here was Helen leaving her husband because she 
 plainly hated him and daring to say so without excuse. 
 He began to have hope of the institution of the family. 
 
 " Well," said he, " what are you going to do? " 
 
 " I ve done it," said Helen, " the worst of it. I ve left 
 him." 
 
 " But he thinks you re going to enter suit for a divorce." 
 
 " Yes," said she, " I suppose he does. I threatened him, 
 in a way, and he thought I meant that. But there s 
 something else it s the thing I don t tell you that is at 
 the bottom of it all. And I can t tell you. I simply 
 can t." 
 
 " So it isn t Mrs. Davenport? " 
 
 " Ostensibly. But it s as I told you. She s not my rea 
 son. She s my excuse." 
 
 " Ah," said grandfather, " you re showing beyond a 
 doubt how far away from him you are. If you loved him, 
 she d be your reason." 
 
 " I don t believe I do love him," said Helen quietly. " I 
 told you." 
 
 All the first vivid radiance of her face had gone. She 
 looked haggard and inexpressibly wearied. Her unhap- 
 piness the trouble he had foreseen for her began, to 
 his mind, to stretch its roots down and down so far that 
 he saw no possibility of pulling up the poison tree. This 
 was his surprise. He had called her here to map out her 
 course perhaps, certainly to clear the air that hung about 
 her relation to the household and assure her it would be 
 kept undimmed. But they hadn t even touched on the real 
 matter. Her recoil from Charles the inevitable revul-
 
 THE BLACK DROP 61 
 
 sion he had looked for to bring about this very parting 
 was a simple matter compared with the unknown causes 
 festering down there below. 
 
 " Now do you need to be mysterious? " he said gently. 
 The show of kindness was all he dared offer her. 
 
 " I must," she said. 
 
 " You re quite sure? there are things you can t tell me? " 
 
 " I can t tell you yet, anyway." 
 
 " Does Jessie know? " 
 
 " No. Jessie knows really nothing. She s been a dear 
 about it." 
 
 " Well, hang it all ! " said grandsir, in a manner mark 
 edly boyish in a person over seventy, " I wish I knew ! Is it 
 money? I wouldn t trust him, if he saw a chance to 
 shave a corner." 
 
 Helen laughed and her dimple came out. 
 
 " Aren t you the inquisitive one? " said she. " But I 
 can t tell you. No, I ve left Charles. That s all there is 
 to be said about it. And whether I accuse him to the 
 law, I mean And there she caught herself up as if she 
 were startled at having gone so far. 
 
 But in the main she was so controlled that you would 
 have thought the publicity of the courts meant nothing to 
 her. For a minute grandsir thought so. He concluded 
 she hadn t pictured the hue and cry following on a scan 
 dal, and that her innocence ought to be enlightened before 
 she went irrevocably on. But suddenly her face broke up 
 and shivered into a misery that showed him he was the one 
 to be informed. 
 
 " That s why," she said, in a low, passionate tone, " I m 
 sorry you ve all come up here. It would have been easier 
 to bear it down there at Grasslands. The reporters would 
 have gone down, of course, but you could have shut the
 
 62 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 door against them. Here it s going to be torture for you 
 all. For Mr. Tracy " though she loved him extraordi 
 narily, still she wasn t calling Norris father. She had odd 
 little reservations " He ll be dragged into notoriety, 
 and his books, his dear books ! and he s the one to suffer 
 most, isn t he? I heard you say once his soul is on the out 
 side. Now isn t it? Isn t his soul on the outside? Can t 
 you hurt it frightfully ? " 
 
 The directness of her appeal made it seem as if having 
 the soul on the outside were a physical fact, and he looked 
 at her, much troubled, wishing she would either tell him 
 all or that he had not persuaded her to tell him anything. 
 
 " Helen," said he, " whatever the miserable thing is, it s 
 quite clear to me you ought not to try bearing it alone." 
 
 She stopped smoothing her gloves now she had pulled 
 them out into a soft stringiness not beneficial to gloves 
 and she rose and stood looking at him thoughtfully. 
 
 " No," said she, " I can t say more than I have. If I 
 were sure of the right thing to do, I might." 
 
 " Oh, then you re not altogether sure? " 
 
 " Not of that. Now ! " Her manner brightened with 
 the return to a sane topic untouched by mystery. " Am I 
 to come here? " 
 
 " What did Emily tell you? " 
 
 " Well," said Helen, her dimple coming out again, " she 
 gave me this key." 
 
 " That seems decisive enough." 
 
 " So I thought. I couldn t give up mother easily." 
 Here was another little oddity in her. She had always, 
 though she established no verbal intimacy of names with 
 the rest, called Emily mother. And she did say grandsir 
 because, as she had once exasperated Charles by declaring, 
 he was her most intimate friend.
 
 THE BLACK DROP 63 
 
 " You may meet Charles, of course," he began, and, at 
 his tentative pause, she continued, with an unconscious 
 dignity : 
 
 " I am not afraid of meeting Charles." 
 
 " And perhaps," said grandsir, " that s another reason 
 why Emily gave you a key. If you find Charles, you can 
 always keep right on up here and you ll find me and my 
 legs swearing at each other." 
 
 Helen had picked up her muff. She came back to him 
 now with what, it was plain to see, was real solicitude 
 though she had left it until so late. 
 
 " How are your darling legs? " she asked. 
 
 " My infernal legs," said grandsir, " my condemned 
 and everlastingly to be consigned to perdition legs are as 
 outrageous and altogether devilish as I ve seen em in the 
 course of my experience with em. They re a joke, a 
 farce. They won t walk. They just hang on to me like 
 tassels and ache ache like the deuce." 
 
 " I don t think it s a joke," said Helen softly. " I think 
 it s a tragedy." 
 
 She came nearer and bent down and kissed him. Grand- 
 sir loved her so absurdly, as he knew, so entirely unlike a 
 fatherly person of seventy-odd, that he was ridiculously 
 moved by the kiss, and didn t feel sure whether he gave it 
 back again. Soft, fragrant lips of her! how could God 
 make such flowers of life and, apparently in ignorance of 
 what He had brought about, lend them for ever so short a 
 time to the possession of Charles? Grandsir had always 
 kept quite clearly in mind the sort of excellence which 
 should have been the lover of Helen. 
 
 "O my dear ! my dear ! " he said, as she turned away. 
 And she came back to him. 
 
 "What is it, dear? " she asked. " Something I could 
 do?"
 
 64 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 He didn t like usually to have people offering to do 
 things for him in that solicitous way. It meant, he 
 thought, either his age or his infirmity. But Helen, offer 
 ing service, was different. It was a grace, a charm 
 well, it was the consummate perfection that was Helen. 
 
 " No," said he, " it s nothing. It s only you, you know. 
 I don t care about my legs, my dear, if they make you so 
 kind to me. I d rather sit here tied, if it beguiles you into 
 kissing me, than get em back if it meant they d walk 
 me away from you." 
 
 So Helen laughed and went and he listened for the last 
 faint sound of her on the stairs, and when it had ceased 
 he sighed over youth and age the youth he wouldn t 
 have back again if he could get it for the asking and the 
 age that was his and whether of value or not he didn t 
 know, it was so menacingly near to him and got out his 
 orchard plans. The memory of the kiss he kept to taste 
 over again in his wakeful night when the past stood be 
 nignly at his bedside with the future, like a hooded Fate, 
 beside her. 
 
 Helen, in the lower hall, stopped an instant to listen. 
 The dining-room door was closed now and there were voices 
 and a shout of laughter. She longed to go in. She loved 
 small gaieties, and the laughter John s laugh, she knew 
 - told her of what nature this was. She felt daring in the 
 measure of the dulness where she and Jessie daily found 
 themselves. She would go in.
 
 VII 
 
 Helen knew John was in there with some of the gang 
 Charles talked about with a distaste touched by anxiety. 
 Charles despised the gang; yet strangely she felt that he 
 was in some degree afraid of it, and was ashamed of 
 being afraid, they were so young and untried. They 
 had something Charles himself couldn t bound and govern, 
 something that filled him with an uneasy sense of his own 
 limitations. He did indeed despise them, but they were 
 so unfailingly clever, so capable of adapting their facile 
 brains to the language of the market-place, that he saw 
 danger of their actually removing a brick or two from the 
 proud edifice of fortune he was trying so hard to raise. 
 They were so absurdly active and out of all measure 
 frothing over in this time of war, so outspoken in praise 
 and condemnation, and they had no hesitation in taking 
 any means of getting themselves into evidence. They 
 would besiege a yellow journal with verses so outrageous, 
 so funny, that the yellow journal couldn t for its life help 
 printing them. They got sums of money, Charles didn t 
 know where when he spit out his wrath to Helen he 
 said " God knew " where and printed pamphlets and 
 circulated them, and always they stayed on the hither side 
 of libel. Their " it is said s " and their " if s " were mas 
 terly. They were boys, according to Charles, but they were 
 the cleverest boys in town. And Helen, who did love a gay 
 voice and the quips of youth, longed now to go in and 
 catch up a crisp trifle or two to carry home to Jessie. 
 F 65
 
 66 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 More, she was trying with all her mind to understand 
 Charles s activities, and any hand might open a door to 
 them. So she opened this actual door and went in. 
 
 There was confusion at the moment, a big laugh from 
 the four young men and Norris whom they had flatteringly 
 begged to join them. Emily sat by the window, sewing. 
 Seeing her, Helen felt an immediate calming of her hesi 
 tancies. If Emily were there, it wasn t in any sense a secret 
 session. They couldn t be " plotting their deviltries," as 
 Charles said, to any mysteriously dark extent. And in the 
 instant of standing there she took in the picture of them: 
 John by the mantle, lounging a little as he often did, for 
 momentary ease ; Finch, with his heavy irregular pink face 
 and light blue eyes and shock of blond hair and the 
 spectacles that alone brought him the knowledge of the 
 world " a foot before him " ; Brennan, thin, dark, aquiline, 
 with the quick double note of a cough that sometimes 
 punctuated his talk, and Bailey, with his delicate frame, 
 the blue eyes and pink cheeks of a girl. Yet it was Bailey 
 who had the most deadly designs on the evil that walks 
 abroad, and specified its antidotes with unique profanities. 
 At once they saw her and each was on his feet, while John 
 came forward to present them to her. He did it with a 
 ceremonious precision. This, his manner said, was an 
 occasion. 
 
 " I know you already," said Helen, putting out her 
 hand to one after another, with her special yet uncon- 
 sidered grace. " There ought to be a fifth. Where is 
 he?" 
 
 " Come here, Helen," said Emily. Norris had placed 
 another chair in the window. " They re crazy boys. 
 They need us here to keep their feet on the ground." 
 
 So Helen went and sat with her in the window, and the
 
 THE BLACK DROP 67 
 
 boys they were not really boys, we know, but their 
 rash valor kept them this side of manhood they stared 
 at her when they dared, and blushed and sat straighter and 
 each one wished he knew how he looked when he d come in 
 like this with his hair like a crow s nest and his hands all 
 over with the dust of books. They looked at her, too, 
 in awe, for they knew all about Charles s advertising him 
 self with Mrs. Davenport, and it was in their eyes a 
 superhuman feat for this girlish creature to walk calmly 
 abroad with her furs and her feathers and such a smile 
 as if she knew nothing about it or, knowing, was too proud 
 to abate one jot of dignity. 
 
 "Where is he?" she insisted, really for the purpose of 
 getting into touch, saying something to draw them nearer. 
 "What was his name the one I saw? I met him once 
 with John. Oh, I know. Niles. John said he was one 
 of you." 
 
 " Not now," said John. " Niles is dead." 
 " We killed him," said Bailey. " He was a pacifist." 
 " Oh, I see," said Helen. "~Does he stay dead? " 
 " Only to us," said Finch. " He walks, like the other 
 ghosts, and writes on walls that our days are numbered 
 and finished because we believe in fight." 
 
 " And you write more things on the wall? " 
 " No," said Brennan, " we don t draw attention to him. 
 Niles is a good enough fellow. We had to kill him, but 
 when it s all over and the world s decent again we shall dig 
 him up and dust him off and see if he s fit to keep." 
 
 " He ll have to answer a good many questions first," 
 said John. " He ll have to recant and eat enough of his 
 words to choke him. And then I won t play with him. 
 No, by George, I won t. The one thing I don t forgive 
 him is his grouch on England."
 
 68 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " Let him grouch," said Norris. " England doesn t 
 mind." 
 
 " But, dad, it means something now," said John, with 
 conviction, " to have even one of us putting a knife into 
 her and keeping up the old fool grudge. Don t you see 
 what an awful time it is when all of us all the medi 
 ocrities have got a chance to speak? And the level of 
 intelligence is so low all the other mediocrities listen to us 
 and we persuade yes, we do, father, we actually 
 persuade fellows walking on two feet and they ve got 
 a vote, mind you ! and that s why I d gag Niles, if I 
 could. I d sand-bag him in a dark alley." 
 
 " Free speech," said Norris. He was in a bad place, 
 he thought. He mustn t tell these young birds how callow 
 they were. It was salutary for them to know it, if they 
 could manage it of their own intuition, but he must never 
 clip their audacious wings. They were like their brethren 
 flying in France, only these were looping the loop of the 
 passionate spiritual life. They weren t in danger of a 
 fall to death, like .the fliers in France, yet still, as he 
 looked at them and heard them, he thought there was some 
 thing splendid in their fervency. " You d better get down 
 to business," he suggested. He wanted to know just how 
 far they meant to go while he was here to moderate and 
 qualify. 
 
 " Well," said John, " we d got as far as the money. I m 
 dead sure of that. Enough for six months at least. 
 We re to send out pamphlets, written without fear or 
 favor. They re not simply to pitch into the Potsdam 
 gang. They re to pitch into our own gangs when they 
 don t run straight 
 
 " Oh," said Norris, with a benevolent resignation, "you ll 
 end in jail."
 
 THE BLACK DROP 69 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Tracy, do you think so? do you actually?" 
 Bailey implored him. " That s the thing we pray for. 
 Oh, to be jugged ! Oh, to be pillowed in straw ! " 
 
 " What then? " inquired Norris. " The ladies recipe, 
 hunger strike? " 
 
 " No, sir," said Brennan, "not on your life. But when 
 we get out fulminations thunder and lightnings. 
 The young martyrs les jeunes! my God! why won t 
 they notice us ! " He had forgotten about Helen and her 
 beauty and struck his hand on the table. They had all 
 forgotten Helen, indeed, all but John, and he glanced at her 
 to see if she knew how to take this living earnestness of 
 youth. John knew how to take it, even in himself. On one 
 side of him he was calm. That side always looked on and 
 told him how intemperate he was and what a fool to topple 
 over. It told him he and his mates were needed for they 
 were clever, they knew to tell America day and night 
 she must prepare for war, to silence those voices that for 
 bade her preparing, and tell her calmly. But no matter 
 how temperate he set out to be, the bombast came in 
 too, and even that he recognized as a part of youth and 
 so of a certain value. His blood couldn t run so swiftly 
 to his brain if the heart wasn t sending it. Helen, John 
 saw, was listening earnestly. She was perhaps overrating 
 the potency of their youth. He liked it, though. He 
 didn t feel bound to qualify it. Norris was speaking. 
 
 " Where d you get your money ? " 
 
 " Aha ! " said John!! " That s telling." 
 
 " He ll have to tell if anybody does," said Bailey, who 
 didn t care where money came from if you could print with 
 it. " He s the only one that knows." 
 
 And it was apparent that none of them questioned John s 
 mastery over the mysterious fund if they only got a little
 
 70 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 room for it, here at the West End, if it would run to that. 
 And in the thick of the discussion John slipped out and 
 ran headlong upstairs to grandsir who was on his couch 
 now, flouting his pain and remembering Helen. The slip 
 on the door had fluttered down and was lying on the sill. 
 
 " Grandsir," said John, " dad s asked who gave us the 
 money." 
 
 " Well, you didn t tell him, did you? " inquired grandsir. 
 
 " No. I asked him was his grandmother a monkey." 
 
 " That s right," said grandsir. " Be firm and tactful. 
 No, he d think I was going to have less for apple trees and 
 folderol." 
 
 " But are you, grandsir? " asked John, smitten. 
 
 "Am I what?" 
 
 " Going to have less for apple trees too much less, I 
 mean? " 
 
 " No," said grandsir. " Besides, the apple trees are 
 only makeshifts. I get more fun out of your deviltries. 
 And I was thinking last night I guessed I could put in a 
 hundred or so more without going broke." 
 
 John told him he was a sport, the commendation grand- 
 sir liked most, and went off again to his committee, who 
 were still talking fast and all together, about the cost of 
 printing, the distribution of pamphlets, the question 
 whether the papers would quote them. And in a lull, while 
 Norris told them what he thought for they did really 
 respect his viewpoint a voice came in from the hall, the 
 voice of Charles. Everybody started, everybody but 
 Helen ; and the ones who hadn t time to get themselves in 
 hand looked at her: one glance of inquiry that instantly 
 withdrew itself. Emily got up and laid her sewing hastily 
 aside. 
 
 "I ll go," said she.
 
 THE BLACK DROP 71 
 
 " I m going, mother," said Helen, with a perfect as 
 sumption of having come to make a social call and ter 
 minating it unhurried. " Good-by." 
 
 The boys rose, with a little tumult of feet and chairs. 
 She was smiling round the circle. Each of them felt she 
 had tossed him a special glance of a rarely selected value. 
 Then she went, and they heard the outer door immediately 
 close. It was impossible not to conclude she had met 
 Charles face to face, and, whether they had spoken or not, 
 that their greeting had been brief. And Charles himself, 
 when he came in, confirmed the probability. He was red 
 arid his brow was lowering. 
 
 " I should like to be told," he was pelting on, in the im 
 petus of a sentence begun as he opened the door and choked 
 off as abruptly when he saw the family was not alone. 
 Emily had resumed her seat by the window and was taking 
 up her work. 
 
 " Come over here, Charles," she said. " Here s a chair." 
 
 But Charles, in the moment of recognition, had changed. 
 His frown smoothed out. He smiled, actually smiled 
 broadly with a radiance of white teeth. John hadn t seen 
 him in that holiday humor for a long time, because, when 
 Charles came to see the family, he wasn t usually trying to 
 persuade them to do something but telling them what he 
 had done or the things he had endured from a fool world. 
 Suddenly, like a flash turned on a picture shrouded in dark 
 ness, John saw the Charles he had forgotten, the one who 
 had charmed Helen into forgetting he was an ogre at 
 points and no doubt was charming Mrs. Davenport now. 
 Charles pulled up a chair and his father moved along to 
 bring him to the table. 
 
 " Going to let us smoke, mother?" he inquired, bringing 
 out his pipe.
 
 72 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " Yes," said Emily. " Besides, I m going away. No, 
 no," she added, when the boys began protesting, "not for 
 that. I like smoke, really. I ought to have gone before, 
 but I love to hear you boys." 
 
 Meantime she was gathering up her work and now she 
 went, Bailey opening the door. Bailey couldn t remember 
 any women-folk of his own with anything but wondering 
 endurance. Emily Tracy seemed to him of nature s best. 
 Now Charles, having lighted his pipe, turned to Finch with 
 the same winning smile, the implication of good fellowship, 
 that was giving John a succession of surprises. 
 
 " I wanted to come on you," said Charles. " You ve 
 been lampooning me." 
 
 Finch s small eyes looked smaller and his red face redder. 
 The powerful hand lying on the table unconsciously drew 
 itself together into a fist, not for use, but indicating his 
 unacknowledged state of mind. 
 
 " No," said he, " I wrote a character sketch of you. 
 That s not lampooning." 
 
 " How did it go ? " asked Charles pleasantly. 
 
 He drew forth his pocketbook and extracted from it a 
 clipping slowly and with an air of private enjoyment, as if 
 the process might in itself intimidate or exasperate some 
 body. He began reading, this also with a meaning delib 
 eration. 
 
 " He has just one object : to boost Charles Tracy. He 
 is virtually a pacifist, because he doesn t want to see Amer 
 ica in the war. And the reason he doesn t want to see 
 America in the war is that certain big interests of his own 
 can only be carried out if America is at peace. : He looked 
 down the clipping to the end, smiling a little, not in an 
 amusement insulting to its quality but with an almost gen 
 ial interest. " No," he said tolerantly, " I won t read it
 
 THE BLACK DROP 73 
 
 all. Do you know it, father? Yes, I thought so." He 
 returned it to his pocket. " But," he said, with a pat 
 ently ingenuous appeal to them to be as old as he was, as 
 soon as possible, and as wise, though, so inconsiderable 
 were they that he, at least, shouldn t take the trouble of 
 correcting them, even for their good, " I suppose you chaps 
 know you re laying yourselves open to about fifteen libel 
 suits a day, the way you re going on." 
 
 " We re agreeable," said Bailey. His pink cheeks 
 glowed. His eye-glasses fell off, and left his face absurdly 
 young. " Get us into court and cross-examine us and 
 won t they hear a few things they don t expect? Oh, no ! " 
 
 " Yes," said Brennan. He had been looking at Charles 
 with open hostility. He was feeling under the weather to 
 day in a fashion that told him he would be banished again 
 shortly to salutary airs and the country life he loathed. 
 " By God ! if you think we say all we ve got to say " 
 
 Charles turned to him with the quick beginning of a 
 frown, instantly obliterated. Brennan was disgusting 
 to him. He hated the very hint of physical weakness or 
 omen. The world, he thought, is a place where you want 
 to live while you live. You ve got to leave it sometime. 
 What s the use of reminding yourself of that inevitable 
 and most obnoxious end? There ought to be a law to 
 keep lame ducks shut up out of sight of normal folk. But 
 he was instantly the conciliatory Charles again. 
 
 " I wish," he said, " you fellows would come and dine 
 with me to-night, say, at my house." 
 
 John threw him a glance frankly and insultingly sur 
 prised. 
 
 " Oli, come, Charles," he said, " we don t want to be fed." 
 
 " Won t anybody come? " asked Charles, looking round 
 the circle. " I d like to compare notes. Hang it ! if a
 
 74 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 fellow you ve lampooned as you have me wants to sit down 
 and talk things over, you ought to be willing to indulge 
 him." 
 
 But they were shy of him ; they were hostile. And they 
 didn t even do him the grace to invent the most trivial ex 
 cuse. It was simply an atmosphere of negation. Brennan 
 got up from his seat and instantly the others rose also, 
 with the air of relief incident to being shown a way out 
 which they hadn t the address to find themselves. They 
 mumbled a good-by to Norris, and John followed them, so 
 that, in a minute more, the door had closed on them and 
 Charles, now bereft of smiles, was left with his father. 
 
 Charles smoked heavily, in an absorbed brooding, and 
 Norris, who seemed to himself in for it with no Emily to 
 protect him, also began smoking, with a patient, whimsical 
 look of intending to do his best. Suddenly Charles turned 
 upon him. 
 
 " Well," said he. And then as Norris did not answer 
 that tacit invitation, " What the devil was she here for? " 
 
 " Who? " Norris inquired mildly. " Your mother? " 
 
 " Helen. You didn t ask her here to meet those idiots? " 
 
 " Oh, no," said Norris easity. " She came, that was all. 
 It just happened. The idiots were already here." 
 
 " What did they come for? anything special? " 
 
 " Oh, no. They drop in, you know, to see John." 
 
 " Of all the asses Charles began. And then he 
 threw the asses overboard and turned to the real matter 
 in hand. " What does Helen say? " 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 " Nothing? She hasn t talked to you? " 
 
 " Not a word." 
 
 " This the first time she s been in? " 
 
 " No, she s been in before."
 
 THE BLACK DROP 75 
 
 "What d she say then?" 
 
 "Oh, nothing of importance. Jessie was with her. 
 They talked about their housekeeping a little with your 
 mother, chiefly. I was contented to sit and look at them. 
 Lovely creatures ! " 
 
 " Helen s all right enough," said Charles, still brooding. 
 " Jessie s a fool." 
 
 "Oh, no, she isn t," said Norris conclusively. " Jessie s 
 far from being a fool." 
 
 "Now do you mean to tell me mother didn t open up the 
 subject with Helen? " 
 
 "The subject of you?" 
 
 " Yes. Didn t either you or mother ask Helen point 
 blank whether she hadn t realized she d got to come back 
 tome?" 
 
 Norris took out his pipe and laid it down. He was re 
 pudiating even that small assuaging influence. He wanted 
 to be even-minded and unmoved. 
 
 " Charles," said he, " your mother won t do that. I 
 sha n t do it. If you ve offended Helen given her cause 
 
 we d rather she d leave you than not. In fact 
 Norris paused a moment, his strong distaste for Charles, 
 by his very amazement at it, making him dumb. How 
 could a father, his novel-writing habit of analysis chal 
 lenged him to tell, how could a father feel for a son the con 
 demnation he felt for Charles? He was inwardly per 
 suaded Emily felt it, too, only that he could never go into, 
 even in his nethermost mind, it was so palpably shocking 
 to suspect a mother of spiritually repudiating the son of 
 her body. " In fact," he continued, determined, out of 
 sheer bravado, to finish, " Helen s always been a plaguy 
 sight too good for you. And now if you ve given her 
 cause Norris suddenly got on his feet, and ended
 
 76 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 with a disgust he hadn t for a moment meant intemperately 
 to show. " Damn it," he said and the " it " was added 
 because he suddenly had a rushing sense that he was going 
 to damn Charles himself " I m ashamed of you." 
 
 Charles, too, got up and they stood there looking at each 
 other, Norris with a sense of exultation he hadn t felt 
 since the war began, since brooding on that limitation in 
 the lives of men beyond which the old and physically weak 
 have had to lament their inability to strike great blows and 
 die deaths of anguish. Charles didn t answer. His face 
 was black and ugly, and his father thought he was refrain 
 ing because the things he had to say were blacker still. 
 He turned and walked out of the room, and to his mother, 
 waiting for him in the hall, he did not speak. Emily came 
 on into the room where her husband still stood. 
 
 "Have you had any trouble? " she asked quickly, yet 
 with her perfect quiet. 
 
 Norris recalled himself. 
 
 " Trouble? " said he. Then he laughed a little. The 
 novelist s habit told him this was, judged by the standards 
 of the inner life, a good deal of trouble. He had virtu 
 ally damned Charles who was his son and he couldn t re 
 gret it. 
 
 " Well," said he, " it depends on what you call trouble. 
 I told him we were standing by Helen." 
 
 " Yes," said Emily. She was absently brushing 
 Charles s tobacco ash from the table. " Of course. 
 That s what we ve got to do."
 
 VIII 
 
 THE world may never have been so prolific in dreams as 
 since the great war began. Fat, lush products, some of 
 these dreams were, sprung from the miasma of hate and 
 lust of power, and others sheltering trees, of the beauty of 
 young men s sacrifice. There were the dreams of John and 
 his gang. For them, as for the men dying in Europe, it 
 was a young man s war. These four had, in the tumul 
 tuous beginning, taken themselves off to Canada, in a 
 mad longing to enlist. What they could have expect 
 ed, considering their most tragic limitations, they did 
 not allow themselves to guess. But they went. It was 
 in as unthinking a rush as if they had seen the first 
 Hun murdering the first baby in Belgium. These were 
 headlong lads, ready, before the great call came, to run 
 and stumble and rejoice on the road of youth, never count 
 ing costs, always with the gleam before them and the 
 pitfalls covered at their feet. Now, who should stay them? 
 But Canada did stay them, with a kind precision. Finch 
 had hardly thought, if he put his glasses in his pocket 
 and went stumbling in, whether his myopic eyes would be 
 held against him, and Brennan, convinced he had breath 
 enough to curse the Hun, scarcely thought his unservice 
 able lung would prove his undoing, and Bailey, who felt 
 the strength of ten, was furious at the flaws they found in 
 him. And John, who had hated his lameness chiefly from 
 its hostility toward brave sports, wouldn t admit it should 
 cut him off from fighting. What was the use of a trench 
 
 77
 
 78 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 if a lame man couldn t die in it? But there they were, 
 insufficient, done for. They came back wilted, soured 
 temporarily, before anybody knew they had gone. But 
 they instantly came to life, assembled their scattered 
 forces and considered. What could they do now? Could 
 John fly? A cunningly devised gantlet of tests proved to 
 him he could not. But as it became apparent that all 
 the forces of evil were to lull the United States to a false 
 security, they determined they would, having equal rights 
 with prevailing pedagogy, set up for little schoolmasters. 
 If they had no blood to give the world, they would give 
 their brains. They would discard the highbrow literature 
 they had been pursuing, throw it overboard, not worth 
 keeping even for ballast, and be so impudent and so funny 
 that nobody could afford not to read them. They didn t 
 like this compromise of theirs. Youth doesn t want to 
 spend itself in talk when it is straining to throw its whole 
 bodily weight into the scale of deeds. They had a whole 
 some scorn of talk at this time, but it was their chosen and 
 only activity to wallow in, to wipe out the insidious trail 
 of false persuasion and high-sounding platitude. 
 
 These were not the onl\ r dreams the war engendered. 
 Charles and men like him also had their dreams. Charles 
 had always assumed that he was to live fatly, that he was 
 to walk dashingly along, setting his foot on impudent 
 obstacles, to an unimagined goal of superb authority. He 
 never really thought about the goal ; his eyes were on the 
 daily accquisitions that were taking him there. But now, 
 when the curtain was rung up on the war, it disclosed the 
 intimate scene which was to be his part therein. Suddenly 
 there was born anew in him the lust for power. Why 
 shouldn t he succeed, as well as another man, and succeed 
 supremely? In this time of great shifting action, pan-
 
 THE BLACK DROP 79 
 
 orama of the world s colossal values which were to bring 
 whole nations into a blaze of splendor and cast down others 
 to unimaginable depths, would not one man rather than 
 another have the right to feel that his star, too, might blaze? 
 Charles s dream was concrete ; it had solid edges. And 
 no wonder, for he had been offered definite bribes. He 
 had no doubt that Germany was to triumph over her 
 enemies he called them, in the inner circle where the 
 bribes were offered him, her enemies, as if they had long 
 been conspiring against her, and referred always to the 
 war that had been forced upon her. His reason told 
 him she would be triumphant ; persuasive lips also told 
 him plainly what he was to get for working toward the 
 coming triumph and, in all circumstances, holding his 
 tongue. It is a little difficult to see how those lips, though 
 smeared with guile, could have persuaded Charles so read 
 ily. Perhaps they half cajoled, half threatened; for he 
 had shady paths in his life, overgrown now, he thought, 
 with kind oblivion. He didn t want Helen to hear there 
 ever were such paths, and even a month before the begin- 
 ing of the war he considered Helen his, so literally that 
 it would have been unthinkable disaster to be removed 
 from her even to the point of trivial differences. The 
 clever brains were following out an old German formula 
 for setting up a spy in the business : to find out something 
 damnatory in the spy s own life and hold it over him 
 until you have made him take up the trade himself : a 
 spiritual blackmail. 
 
 And why did the clever intelligences want Charles so 
 much? How had they singled him out in his quiet eastern 
 city? It was the nemesis of a dirty trick he had done in 
 the market, a couple of years before, when some scores of 
 his countrymen had got bitten, so that they, who also knew
 
 80 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 Charles s nimble ways, admired while they damned him, 
 and he got put on neat card catalogues that had been 
 making for a long time in view of this coming of the 
 Teuton wrath. No fry was too small for that card 
 catalogue ; and indeed Charles wasn t small fry at all. 
 He was a marked man, recognized in sections far removed 
 from his, as the sort of merchandise that, in any wreck, 
 was bound to float. Men, when they were done by him, 
 cursed him, but grinned sometimes as they did it, the 
 job had been so neat, and he so impeccably on the side 
 of legal uprightness and virtue. His father was wont to 
 exclaim to himself, in despairing admiration, " Where the 
 devil did he get that tongue? " And he knew. Charles 
 had, like himself, the knack of words, only they not only 
 flowed off the pen point but into the mould of fluent speech. 
 Norris felt as if he had rashly given it to him, and when 
 Charles persuaded somebody s dollars into his own pocket, 
 Norris fought the shame of being somehow responsible. 
 And now Charles, to-night, shortly after his father had 
 sent him away damned, came out of his own house and 
 stood a minute thinking, while he tapped his stick on the 
 pavement. He had started with a fully determined 
 purpose of going to see Helen, of besieging her in the 
 apartment which was her refuge, of arguing, of snatching 
 her up bodily on the wings of persuasion and carrying her 
 away from Jessie who, he persisted in telling himself, 
 was the most dangerous enemy he had. He was inexo 
 rably determined that Helen should not take herself away 
 from him. However he regarded her, she was necessary 
 to the outer blamelessness of his private life. But his 
 determination cooled in the night air and the solitude of 
 the streets. He felt suddenly lonesome and old, he who 
 had not yet reached the middle years. He wouldn t go to
 
 THE BLACK DROP 81 
 
 her. He couldn t carry it through, and failure would be 
 disastrous, worse than if he had attempted nothing. And 
 with a man s mad rush of haste toward the woman who has 
 always sympathized while she charmed and never blamed 
 or bullied, he turned about and walked over to Mrs. 
 Davenport s, the quiet subdued street where she had her 
 big apartment over a shop. There she lived alone, a little 
 maid coming in by day. There one and another whistled 
 up her speaking tube and the door usually clicked for them ; 
 there midnight and long past midnight meetings went on 
 where the matters preserved in the card catalogues were 
 discussed, and pieces of human destiny were fitted together 
 with fine precision. He whistled up the tube and gave his 
 name. She was there, and when he went up the wide 
 staircase that had once been magnificent but now echoed 
 nakedly to his tread, he prayed his little gods she would 
 be alone. And again his thoughts flew back to Helen. 
 Did he love her still, or why was he so horribly disquieted 
 in his solitary state without her? He could not have told. 
 He only knew he was furious with her, and at the same time 
 nervously shaken because she had gone. 
 
 He heard the opening of the door. Elsa he hadn t 
 the least belief that this was really her name usually 
 delayed until he rang ; but now she was standing at the sill 
 waiting for him, a slender, not very tall creature, with 
 bright gold hair, ivory skin, and a dress of yellow satin, 
 heavy with embroidery, that gave him a feeling of her being 
 unreal, gold all through perhaps, a bizarre and wonderful 
 toy made to beguile the forlornness of a man s life. As 
 he came upon her, a bright gold fairy in her strange 
 perfection, his need of her or of something golden and 
 not forlorn like his own miserable house struck him 
 with a pang, and he put his arms about her and drew her 
 G
 
 82 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 to him roughly. She was not, fairy as she seemed, to be 
 astonished by any move in the game of folly ; but she had 
 subtile ways of indicating a surprised reluctance. Did 
 she love him? He had never been able, after he had left 
 her, to assure himself by any evidence that stood the test 
 of memory. Now she was not blushing or showing a 
 heart s beat of confusion. One thing lay always between 
 them, however rushingly the tide of destiny was hurling 
 them toward each other: her knowledge of the determina 
 tion in his angry mind to drag his wife back to him. Yet 
 they had never spoken of this. Only the woman, through 
 some sensitiveness of her mercurial mind, was aware of 
 it, and he felt in her the force of her ironic comment. 
 
 " Please ! " she said, in a quick little whisper, and some 
 how was outside the rough encircling he didn t quite 
 see how. She did everything with a swift grace and clever 
 ness ; and he was made to feel at once that however he 
 might stretch his mind to ultimate and practical avowals, 
 they were not to be now. So they went in together and 
 she took his hat and stick and then gave them back to him 
 in a pretty, intimate 1 way and showed him where he was to 
 put them. It was his place. When he came and she 
 wasn t there she said a dozen beguiling things in the 
 course of a minute to show him it was his place. And 
 while they still stood and he had put out his hand for hers, 
 because the pretty palm of it he must have if her lips were 
 not to be besieged in this first minute, a falsetto cry and 
 a chuckle came from the next room, and the voice of the cry 
 called mockingly : 
 
 " O law ! law ! what a fuss ! " 
 
 Elsa laughed and took away her hand. Impossible 
 to be gracefully amorous with a parrot jeering at you 
 in the next room.
 
 THE BLACK DROP 83 
 
 " I believe that bird is the devil," said Charles, who had 
 a memory of kindred interruptions accurately timed. 
 " Why can t you throw a black thing over his cage 
 if you won t throttle him? " 
 
 " Poor Polly ! " said Elsa, " my only company after 
 you re gone. You ought to be grateful to poor Polly." 
 
 So they sat down together, he in the most comfortable 
 of chairs a man could wish, and he lighted up. 
 
 Then the whole thing came over him, the vision of his 
 lost home still etched upon his mind and this present 
 paradise he shared with a dozen others, for all he knew, 
 and he asked bitterly: 
 
 " Now what am I going to get out of it all? " 
 
 It was one of her strangenesses that she never went 
 straight to crucial points. There were obliquities in her 
 reassurances, always in the straightest and most irre 
 proachable of words. And so she fascinated the more and 
 drew him on the faster. If she had said to him : " In five 
 years, after all the great downfalls, you and I are going 
 to live together with unlimited money and power among the 
 conquerors," he might have laughed at her. Instead she 
 told him he was to be rewarded, and looked at him. And 
 now as she told him so again, in one form or another, 
 and he knew what Teuton tongue had assured her of it, 
 he was suddenly engulfed in a wave of jealous hatred. 
 
 " Look here," he said, " what s he been to you? " 
 
 She sat up straight in her chair. Her nostrils di 
 lated as if she felt scorn was it of him or the other 
 man? and her long golden lashes were two shining lines. 
 
 " You re not to ask me those things," she said. 
 
 But now he was suddenly drunk with anger against her 
 and the chamber of mystery that closed her in. 
 
 "What s he been to you? I ve got to know." But
 
 84 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 she continued looking at him, and he saw she would not 
 answer. The terrible inaccessibility of women some 
 women came over him and inspired him with a sickness 
 of rage. Helen was inaccessible in her silences. This 
 woman in what? " If you won t tell me that," he said, 
 " what is he to you now? Now, I say. Tell me that. It s 
 only decent." 
 
 Then she did answer. 
 
 " Nothing," clearly, though disdainfully, as it might be 
 of him, and he said : 
 
 " Then come over here and kiss me." 
 
 And she came. She left her chair and went over to him 
 like a fairy child and gave him a kiss of Circe. But she 
 went back to her seat again with such an indefinable air 
 of old weariness that, though he rose to follow her, he 
 dropped back into his own place. 
 
 " Now," she said. He had never heard her voice keyed 
 to such resonant force. " We can talk." 
 
 Something was accomplished, she had paid him a little 
 on account, and they could talk. But he wouldn t talk 
 about Helen. He never had tolerated a word about her 
 yet. There were unconscious inhibitions, perhaps fruit 
 of the Tracy tree from which he seemed to be such an alien 
 offshoot. Proprieties, they were, accepted moral stand 
 ards that made a part of his personal self-importance. 
 
 " You are," she said, " to buy out the Republican 
 Voice." 
 
 He was taken completely by surprise. 
 
 " They won t sell," he objected. " They d laugh at me. 
 They re as old as Boston." 
 
 " They will sell," she said. " They re on their last legs. 
 Don t you remember that young nephew business? He 
 was no good. He drew a salary and spent it on chorus
 
 THE BLACK DROP 85 
 
 girls. You remember the libel suit he got the paper into 
 and how the old subscribers dropped off? They couldn t 
 countenance it. And the Voice managed to pull through. 
 But now they re in mud they can t draw their legs out of. 
 We ve bought up their notes and we re worrying them. 
 Oh, they ll sell." 
 
 " Then what? " he asked. 
 
 " You re to see Marshall to-morrow. He s the head of 
 the clan. It was his nephew that landed them in the soup. 
 You re to meet every objection. The policy of the paper 
 - you ll continue that. They re said to have cast-iron 
 ideas of what Boston owes them and they owe Boston. 
 And then " she dropped her air of rounded finality and 
 smiled at him " then I ll tell you what comes next." 
 
 He was unused to being led. He wanted to follow, at 
 least ostensibly, his own road. 
 
 " I suppose," he suggested ironically, " I m to be told 
 what I am to pay." 
 
 " Precisely. What you are to offer and what you are 
 finally to pay. You are to open an account in another 
 bank not your present one and money will be trans 
 ferred there from New York." 
 
 "Directly?" 
 
 " No. It will have made a good many journeys before 
 it gets to you. But you needn t be afraid. These people 
 here aren t going to investigate anything at least not 
 till it s too late." 
 
 " Here? Boston? They won t investigate? " 
 
 " Boston America. Nothing doing." She smiled, 
 scornfully, but as if she didn t blame anybody for criminal 
 negligence. She had gone very far on the road where 
 every man is for himself. But he had a question to ask 
 her. It affected his standing in his inner mind. Why was
 
 86 
 
 he passed over to her to be instructed? Had he got to be 
 charmed and wheedled by a woman? Couldn t they talk 
 to him man to man, offer their bribes and let him answer 
 in cold blood? 
 
 " Why," said he, " does all this come through you? 
 Don t they trust me yet? God knows, I ve done enough 
 for em." 
 
 She looked at him a moment with merry eyes. She 
 didn t have to consider an instant. She knew the answer 
 and why he asked for it. 
 
 " Dear man," she said, " you re difficult." 
 
 The implication pleased him. 
 
 "Why am I?" His self-importance, tickled, felt mo 
 mentarily like self-respect. 
 
 " You re so positive. You know exactly what you mean 
 to say and do. If you turned them down and left the 
 whole thing in the air, where would they be then? I saw 
 that. I said to them, I ll do it. " 
 
 "Why did you?" 
 
 He knew she was humoring him, definitely and with a 
 purpose of her own, but he liked the resultant warmth 
 between them and he couldn t blame her for having played 
 upon him. A politician himself, should he not accept 
 expediency in another? 
 
 " Because," she said, " I knew you." 
 
 " Oh, come," he threw in clumsily, " that s no reason." 
 
 Where was the wile of his clever tongue? With her 
 the knack of it was quite lost as it had been with Helen 
 for the last year, at least. Yet there was a difference. 
 To Helen he was curt and even savage because he was 
 aware he no longer pleased and his vanity was sore. This 
 woman he tremulously desired to please too much. She 
 left her chair and came over to him and drew another to
 
 THE BLACK DROP 87 
 
 his knee. Then she sat facing him so near that he could 
 feel the warmth of her breath, and her eyes, the trans 
 parent veined beauty of them, were like jewels seen 
 near by. 
 
 " I knew," she said, " I could make you understand this 
 isn t merely buying a paper. It s a step to where we re 
 going, up up we don t want to say how high." She 
 laughed. " We mustn t get dizzy. And they ve been square 
 with you. It isn t payment for what you ve done already. 
 The tip I gave you a year ago well, you realized some 
 thing out of that, now didn t you? " 
 
 He nodded at her. He couldn t speak. She seemed to 
 be drawing him, his will, his hope of some sort of angry 
 bliss with her, into that locked seclusion of her actual 
 intent he never yet had entered. 
 
 " We are going," she said, and she beat out the words 
 softly with one small hand upon his that lay upon his knee, 
 " we are, you and I, to be rich. What you cleaned up a 
 year ago is nothing nothing. We re to be powerful, to 
 be famous. And I said I was the one to tell you that 
 because I speak your language." 
 
 " Do you," he asked thickly, forgetting his sharp misery 
 over her mental inaccessibility. " By God ! I believe you 
 do." 
 
 And suddenly she had left him, in her noiseless way, and 
 was standing against the background of the green silk 
 curtains. For an instant he felt light-headed and fancied 
 Helen was there, too. He never quite forgot Helen. 
 Either she was there as a torment or as an enemy because 
 she had walked away from him. And Elsa was telling him 
 to go. She was tired, she said. Standing there, grasping 
 the curtain with one hand like an actress come out to take 
 applause or like an artless child, according as you in-
 
 88 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 terpreted she looked appealing, wan. He got up and 
 went to her. 
 
 " No," she said, " I m tired. Don t you realize 
 though we do speak the same language oh, yes, we do ! 
 it s no small thing to keep up with a man like you? To 
 try to make you do things ! Yes, I did try. It s absurd, 
 a small person like me. But I do so want you to come 
 into this newspaper deal, to keep on being one of us. 
 I can t " she looked away from him now as if she 
 actually must not trust her eyes to the encounter, " I 
 can t go on without you." 
 
 There was silence for what seemed to him a long time. 
 He could hear her little ornate clock ticking like a hurry 
 ing heart. " Come," the little clock seemed to be calling 
 to him, " hurry ! hurry ! Here s the prize we re running 
 for, and if you don t enter for it somebody ll be before you 
 and snatch it up." 
 
 Then he did speak. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " I m with you. Tell em yes." 
 
 And, feeling the will of her pushing him to go, he got 
 his hat and coat and was returning to her. But she came 
 into the hall, and though pale, she looked to him relieved. 
 He might reasonably have built greedy hopes on his own 
 contributory part in her relief, but a black suspicion 
 suddenly settled on him, out of nowhere, and he asked her : 
 
 " Is anybody coming here to-night ? " 
 
 Her brows went up a little in deprecation, though not. 
 rebuke. 
 
 " No," she said, " not a soul." But she added guile 
 lessly, "are you going to her?" 
 
 " Who ? " he asked, frowning. He had drawn it on him 
 self. If he had the right to jealous question, hadn t 
 she the same?
 
 THE BLACK DROP 89 
 
 " Your wife," she answered quietly, and for a moment 
 he looked at her, wondering what fiend it was in women 
 that kept them perversely lashing you when you thought 
 you were making a good pace on plain ground. But he 
 had to answer. 
 
 " No," he said, " I m not." 
 
 He opened the door and was in the hall, and she put 
 out a hand from what now seemed again her safe seclusion. 
 
 " Then " she said. And he took her hand and kissed 
 it. Again she had him. But he went and paced up and 
 down for over an hour, watching the house, and before she 
 drew her curtain she saw him and smiled and this was 
 not the smile that would have drawn men to her in the 
 piquing thought of ancient sorceries.
 
 IX 
 
 EVERY forenoon Norris worked for the French Wounded, 
 and every afternoon, with what freshness he had left, he 
 wrote on his new novel. If he didn t keep on at his petty 
 task while the great deeds far off were doing, he felt he 
 should go under. Yet who wanted his novel when it was 
 done? He knew precisely the recipe to suit the public. 
 Could he write an adventure story? He wished he could, 
 but it was beyond him. What was more to be desired, 
 in these times of clamor, than a story to take the mind 
 out of the horrible and heroic present equally com 
 pounded, this day of dread and splendor into the tracts, 
 even the gins and pitfalls, under the sun of gay romance? 
 But he actually couldn t do it. When he tried to vault 
 into the saddle of robust invention, he came down with a 
 bump. His evil genius of the inner criticism, that goblin 
 who withholds a man from doing his best because it laughs 
 at him and tells him the world, too, will laugh, was never 
 absent from his elbow. And if the world couldn t have 
 its adventure story Norris knew precisely what it did 
 want. It wanted a warming sentiment, a tale that would 
 take it out of this disquieting time and lull it with some of 
 the fallacies that clog the muscles and arrest the blood and 
 assert God is going to do something ultimately, even if 
 man does nothing. It wanted to be snatched out of the 
 encampment of suspense, of anguish where he and men 
 like him were suffering some of the most horrible pangs 
 of the war because they could do, it seemed, nothing ap 
 preciable for it. They were sweating blood, but that was 
 
 90
 
 THE BLACK DROP 91 
 
 nothing compared with the cataract they longed to pour 
 into the sacrificial torrent. 
 
 It had not done him much good to come up here and live 
 nearer his kind, and now he thought, with scorn of himself, 
 that he didn t want it to abate one jot of his suffering. 
 It was the only decency, while his brothers were being 
 slaughtered Over There, to think nothing and dream of 
 nothing but war. Everything less was defection from 
 them whose blood was availing, as his could not. He won 
 dered what his wife thought about it all. She said little 
 unless she was interrogated; she did her daily tasks with 
 a precision that had always made her housekeeping a love 
 liness and a charm, and after that folded compresses and 
 knit with a swift intentness. She sat with committees and 
 took orders faithfully. Very ready she was to talk about 
 her house affairs or a walk into the sunset, or even about 
 the concert for Emily had a nice sense of values and 
 was no purveyor of small things but of the tragedy that 
 was welding her own life into new shapes she had no word 
 to say. And his father what was his father thinking 
 about the war, Norris wondered, sitting there in his en 
 forced seclusion, whimsical, profane, according as his af 
 fliction allowed him to meet the world? He knew how his 
 father stood as to the great issue ; but did his father actu 
 ally suffer? Or had he got into that zone of calm where 
 all may not be for the best in the best of all possible worlds, 
 but is for the best in a universe compounded of enormous 
 distances ? He didn t know. And one night as he sat 
 at his table pretending to write on the new novel and mark 
 ing time, whipping up impetus by letting himself go in a 
 sea of platitude, John came up the stairs. He knew his 
 irregular step far below, but he could not think John was 
 coming up to see him because of that unformulated rule
 
 92 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 of the house that when he was at work he was not be inter 
 rupted. John came on and, not even pausing for permis 
 sion, walked in at the open door. Norris at once laid 
 down his pen. There was trouble in John s face, the frown 
 ing consideration of a worry not yet fully understood. 
 
 " Did you know," be began, and, regardless of his 
 father s littered desk and the pen still wet in his hand, 
 threw himself into a chair at the other side of the table, 
 " did you know Charles had bought the Republican 
 Voice? " 
 
 " Charles ? " repeated his father. Now he carefully 
 wiped his pen and laid it down in a definitive way that said 
 " I sha n t need you again to-night." " Bought the Voice? 
 He couldn t have. Where d he get his money? " 
 
 " Where he got it to buy this house, I suppose, if it s 
 no worse," said John, as if it were an accusation, and he 
 was passionately throwing it at his father who happened to 
 be there to receive it and because he couldn t get at Charles. 
 "Where d he get that?" 
 
 " Why, he told us," said Norris. " He told me, at least. 
 In the market." 
 
 " Yes. He had a tip. Where d he get it? " demanded 
 John inexorably. 
 
 " Now look here," said his father irritably, " you 
 mustn t get Charles on your nerves and conclude he s gone 
 to the bad because he s well, not exactly your kind." 
 This he said the more captiously because he, too, was won 
 dering how Charles really did get his money, and banging 
 himself for his own sad doubts of him. 
 
 " Oh, all right," said John. "I ve nothing to say 
 yet about the way he made his money. He s bought the 
 Voice, that s all." 
 
 " How d you know it? " asked Norris, in much interest.
 
 THE BLACK DROP 93 
 
 " It s out to-day. The Voice ll announce it to-morrow. 
 And it s going to say the policy of the paper remains un 
 changed. Now what do you think of that? " 
 
 "Well, won t it?" 
 
 " Under Charles? Why, ask yourself, father. Charles 
 is peace at any price. You know that. And you 
 know what the Voice has stood for ever since the war 
 begun." 
 
 " Well," said Norris, " I wish Charles would come in. 
 I d like to hear what he s got to say." 
 
 " He ll say enough," said John. " He s got hold of 
 Brennan already. Finch, too, and Bailey, but Brennan s 
 the big loss. His cartoons carry." 
 
 "Got hold of Brennan?" 
 
 " Yes. Don t you remember the day Charles met them 
 here, Brennan and Finch and Bailey, and he asked us all 
 to dinner? " 
 
 " Yes. You wouldn t go." 
 
 " He must have had some such scheme in his mind, and 
 now he s approached Brennan alone and asked him to do 
 cartoons for the paper and hypnotised him, some under 
 ground way, and Brennan s agreed to do it. Asked him 
 to bring in Finch and Bailey and he did that, too." 
 
 " Brennan needn t stay with him any longer than he 
 likes." 
 
 " Ah, but he s signed an agreement. So ve they all. 
 They re to give the Voice all their work, and I bet you 
 Charles is at liberty to throw out what he pleases." 
 
 " He won t throw it out," said Norris. " Brennan s too 
 valuable to go into the discard. And if he s to be paid 
 anything considerable 
 
 " Oh, he gets big money," said John, looking off into the 
 distance through the wall opposite he had these ways of
 
 94 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 losing himself in unseen reaches of the mind " Brennan 
 never earned so much in his whole life as Charles is going 
 to give him for one month. I don t mean that was what 
 tempted him. And I shouldn t say tempted. Charles 
 simply explained the policy of the paper and Brennan con 
 cluded it was all right." 
 
 " Well, and isn t it all right? " Norris asked, against his 
 own convictions. 
 
 " You know Charles, father. So do I. What else do 
 we know ? " 
 
 " But," said Norris, " what about your scheme, that 
 famous scheme you had, the unknown anonymous backer, 
 the little room here at the West End and showers of 
 propaganda? " 
 
 " That," said John bitterly? " is another thing that goes 
 into the discard. Unless I take it over and carry it my 
 self." 
 
 " But those boys were as keen about it as you were." 
 
 " Oh, yes, but Charles got them, don t you see? he simply 
 got them. He rushed them, as I understand. He made 
 them believe something or other you know Charles can 
 make you believe black is white until you ve proved it a few 
 times and found it isn t and they signed on." 
 
 " Now what did he really make them believe? " 
 
 " Larger sphere of usefulness, some such rot. And 
 made them feel mighty lucky to get in on the ground floor. 
 Told them, for instance, I was coming in, too." 
 
 Norris sat for a moment also staring through the wall 
 into invisible distances. 
 
 " John," said he then, "you go down and telephone 
 Charles. Ask him to run over. Tell him I want to see 
 him." 
 
 John got up in haste as if he thought something might
 
 THE BLACK DROP 95 
 
 now be doing. He was not often so anxious to summon 
 Charles. 
 
 " And mind," his father called after him, "you re not 
 to get into any trouble. I won t have you boys scrapping 
 the way you did the other day." 
 
 John possibly did not hear. At any rate, there was no 
 answer, and his father thought, with a rueful amusement, 
 how tenuous the thread of paternal influence wears with 
 time. He sat there and waited for Charles to appear or 
 for John to come back and tell him the message didn t go 
 through. And then he heard the front door and his two 
 sons in a brief remark as they came up the stairs. Charles 
 appeared first, and he was as beautiful a spectacle as a 
 personable man can present in his evening clothes and with 
 something appropriately anticipatory in his manner, as 
 if the dress had been donned, not in the ordinary habit of 
 conventional life, but for an eagerly awaited event. See 
 ing his face, Norris jumped first at the inference that 
 Helen had taken him back. Then, knowing Helen also, he 
 dismissed that and reasoned that Charles had something 
 of his own advantage in view, and was on the road to it. 
 Charles took the seat John had vacated and John found 
 one in the background where, his father thought, he could 
 glower unnoted. Norris began at once. 
 
 " Charles, they tell me you ve bought the Voice." 
 
 Charles was unused to sharing his business confidences 
 with the family, but now he looked at his father expansively. 
 There was no limit, his smile seemed to say, to what he was 
 prepared to tell. 
 
 " And I m editor in chief," he announced. " I m awfully 
 keen on it, too." 
 
 " Have you discharged Brice? " John inquired from his 
 corner. " Brice is the present editor, father."
 
 96 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " Oh, Brice wouldn t fit in," said Charles. " We want 
 new blood." 
 
 " Well, you ve got it now you ve got Brennan," said 
 John, " if you give him a free hand." 
 
 " Oh, he ll have a free hand," said Charles. " You d have 
 a free hand, too, if you d come in." 
 
 " I ? " said John. " Not on your life. I believe in all 
 the things you don t. The things you re standing for I 
 hate with all my soul." 
 
 " Now come," said Charles, giving his father the slight 
 est possible smile indicating the extent to which they both 
 understood the intemperate mind of youth, " what do you 
 know about the things I believe in ? " 
 
 " I know better what you don t believe in," said John. 
 " You don t believe in preparing for war. You d have us 
 sit down and twiddle our thumbs while Germany licks us 
 over before she swallows us. You believe in different 
 brands of peace I don t know which is the worse peace 
 at any price, peace twiddled over and negotiated. And it 
 isn t because you re pro-German or pro-anything but pro- 
 Charles." 
 
 " O Lord ! " breathed Norris. 
 
 He wished he had let Charles go his own way. Here 
 they were again, scrapping. But Charles was not going to 
 scrap. He looked unmoved, except that he smiled toler 
 antly in a manner of again reminding his father to con 
 sider the intemperate mind of youth, the while it mildly 
 censured John. 
 
 " Oh, come, John," he said, " cut it out. You re too 
 clever to believe a man has got to keep on being what he s 
 been once. Circumstances have changed. I don t believe 
 in conscription. I don t want to fight. War is " 
 
 " Don t tell me war is hell," interrupted John. " I can t
 
 THE BLACK DROP 97 
 
 bear it once more. You pin that up among your editorial 
 don ts . Dad and I are pretty parochial, but even we ve 
 heard it several times already." 
 
 Charles went on. 
 
 " I begin to see we ve got to be prepared. Possibly 
 we shall have to fight. Now you can t ask any more of me 
 than to acknowledge I ve been wrong. And I m going to 
 carry on the Voice precisely on its old lines. Won t that 
 satisfy you? " 
 
 " It would," said John, " if I believed it." 
 
 " Oh, come," said Charles, with an unblemished good 
 nature, " you re the most ill-conditioned cub I ever saw. 
 Don t you call it discouraging, father? I meet him the 
 best I know how, and he tells me I lie. I think it speaks 
 well for me not to give him a biff." 
 
 John got up, and, with a studied offensiveness of silence, 
 went out of the room. Again Charles turned to his 
 father. 
 
 " I ll tell you what," he said, in an apparent spontaneity 
 his father informed himself he had to accept it wasn t 
 decent not to " it makes me sore as thunder to have all 
 of you down on me." 
 
 Norris, out of the instinctive working of family decency, 
 was about to deny half-heartedly that the family was 
 down on him. But this matter of the paper he couldn t 
 talk out. Charles seemed to have a specious side of his 
 own ; but then he always did have. Norris countered on 
 another issue where he knew his ground more nearly. 
 
 " Have you seen Helen ? " 
 
 And this time Charles didn t frown and glower as he 
 had that first night. It was impossible to move his expan 
 sive calm. 
 
 " How could I ? " he asked. " She won t see me. How
 
 98 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 can I square things with her if she won t give me a 
 chance? " 
 
 " Going anywhere to-night? " asked his father. 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Then why not telephone her and ask if you mayn t go 
 over and fetch her here for a little talk? " 
 
 This Norris said against his preconceived intent ; but he 
 had a wobbly consciousness that if Charles really did mean 
 well even so suddenly and after every reason to believe 
 he didn t he must be given a chance. But Charles 
 wasn t ready to close on such an offer. 
 
 " Not to-night," he said. " I m not up to it." 
 
 This was in the face of his look of radiant expectancy, 
 and his father immediately knew he was going to some 
 desired end. 
 
 " Well," said he, " I won t keep you." 
 
 Charles got up, and, having taken a step, turned back 
 again. 
 
 " I wish," he said, " you d get some sense into John s 
 head." 
 
 " What kind of sense? John seems to me moderately 
 clever in his work, he is." 
 
 " He s infernally clever. They all are. That s why I 
 want em on the Voice. I m prepared to spend any amount 
 on em." 
 
 Norris wasn t going into that. He knew John would 
 snatch at it if only he might accept his brother s good faith. 
 But he couldn t. Nobody could, in the family, where they 
 had known him from the beginnings of his desires and his 
 tortuous ways of coming at them. So Charles went away 
 to Mrs. Davenport where she already sat awaiting him with 
 two men of a shaven countenance and mean, shrewd, 
 mouths, who had come on from New York to see him. And
 
 THE BLACK DROP 99 
 
 that evening he had full instructions, which came to him in 
 the form of tactful requisitions, and money passed between 
 them. 
 
 Norris sat for a long time thinking about him. What 
 if he could write out the soul of Charles ? Would the pub 
 lic, which craved the warmth and light and foolish ragtime 
 of a childish day, respect it as realism, and take the trouble 
 to probe it with him? He thought not. Charles s soul, 
 difficult as it would be to paint, in all its glares and shad 
 ows sinister, some of them would be an absorbing 
 thing to tackle. It was the soul of the politician, and Nor 
 ris had begun to reflect seriously on the soul of the politi 
 cian, as on the soul of the tyrant. He was be 
 ginning to understand them and he saw that the pol 
 itician, in the secondary and debased form of the word, is a 
 criminal of a low type. He is a man who has ceased asking 
 himself, " Is this right or is it wrong? " He is a man who 
 acts because he has weighed the end in view and what con 
 tributes to it and the end is always his own advance 
 ment. His vision is oblique. He sees, not the world in its 
 sane reality as it looks to honest eyes, but as it is translated 
 into the game. And this was Charles, who could be all 
 things to all men because all men were the instruments of 
 his power. No, clearly nobody would want to read about 
 the petty chicanery of Charles s soul. But dwelling on 
 him he began thinking of Helen, also, who had been caught 
 in the wizardry of his son s persuasion and had, with a 
 silent decisiveness amazing in its force and calmness, 
 thrown it off. Did he want Charles to go to her, to 
 threaten or persuade? Assuredly not. He began to fear 
 Charles was already there, besieging her door with soft 
 assurances that would harden if she let him in, and he went 
 down to the telephone and called her up.
 
 100 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 "You all right?" he asked her, "Helen of the topless 
 towers?" 
 
 " All right," came her voice. " Jessie and I are folding 
 compresses." 
 
 So he said good-night. When he was going back to his 
 room Emily appeared and called up the stairs to him: 
 
 " He won t go there. I m sure he won t. 
 
 Norris went on to his room, smiling. He was never 
 iritated by Emily s uncanny habit of reading his mind, 
 chiefly because she usually read in silence and seemed to 
 draw no conclusions. But did she draw conclusions and 
 softly act upon them? Grandsir, smiling in a reticence 
 of his own, thought she did.
 
 X 
 
 ONE of the compensating details in this apartment Jessie 
 had taken was that it had fireplaces of an ancient build. 
 Before the fire in the sitting-room, a table between them, 
 sat the two sisters, working absorbedly and saying little. 
 Jessie was in blue and Helen in white soft house dresses 
 that clothed their fresh beauties fittingly, and gave the 
 mind to think on delicate morning lovelinesses, the convol 
 vulus or the rose. They were moderately content to 
 night, in the surroundings they had made for themselves, 
 because, for some reason, they were not at the extreme 
 tension they felt ordinarily in these strange times. It 
 was of no use for Helen to say she was not afraid of 
 her husband. She was apprehensive, that he would 
 come, that there would be the violence of reproach and 
 persuasion, and that, having once entered these rooms, 
 he could never be made to go without some huge outcry 
 and misery. For Jessie, too, he was always imminent. 
 When Helen came back from the telephone where she 
 had answered Norris, she was smiling in a moved, tender 
 way. 
 
 " Dear things, all of them," she said. " Aren t they 
 good to me ? If they weren t " 
 
 "Have you talked to them? " Jessie ventured. 
 
 She hadn t been talked to herself. It was getting hard 
 to wait, to realize Charles might be upon them at any mo 
 ment and she would have to fight him off unintelligently, 
 
 101
 
 102 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 knowing he had lost Helen and yet not how he had lost her. 
 Jessie was impatient of veils. She repudiated the assump 
 tion that, because she was younger than Helen and un 
 married, she was to be shielded from the knowledge of evil. 
 Women were in the thick of it now, young women. You 
 couldn t save them altogether from the blows and abra 
 sions of life. Why try to deny them knowledge of the 
 terrible game? 
 
 " I talked a little to grandsir," said Helen. She was 
 folding absorbedly. " The time I went alone." 
 
 Then they folded in silence, and Jessie, not asking, 
 wished Helen would talk to her. Yet it was a magnificent 
 point of honor not to ask. She wanted especially to show 
 her sister how loyal she was to her, beyond reason, with 
 no argument from fact. And Helen had seen the moment 
 nearing when she must, in common fairness, give Jessie the 
 key to some of the perplexities they would have to meet to 
 gether. Because Jessie, having come, was not going away 
 again. She had sacrificed tremendously in coming. She 
 had rushed to her work in France over towering difficulties, 
 trodden them down, cast them behind her in a rage of de 
 termination, and then, having heard the call of Helen s 
 need, she had turned her back on France. It was a big 
 thing, her sacrifice, and a silent one. 
 
 " I suppose," said Helen, " you think it s time I said 
 something." 
 
 " Not unless you want to," Jessie answered readily. 
 " It s only the question wh ether I should be of more use to 
 you- 
 
 Helen leaned back in her chair, arms stretched out 
 straight and her delicate, eloquent hands, fitted to an ac 
 curacy of motion, on the work table. Suddenly she looked 
 pathetically tired, her face paler and blue shadows under
 
 THE BLACK DROP 103 
 
 her eyes. Jessie glanced up at her and was smitten with 
 the wholesale self-reproach of love. 
 
 " Don t do it, Nell," she said. " I don t care about be 
 ing told. Go and lie down and I ll read to you." 
 
 " I don t want to lie down," said Helen, " and I don t 
 want to be read to. I d like to tell you things, but I can t. 
 I m trying to behave myself, but sometimes I m afraid I 
 sha n t keep it up. I want to be exactly as you ve all 
 known me ; but there are minutes when I m so wild that s 
 the only word I can think of wild inside me somehow, 
 that I m afraid I shall break out and do queer things. 
 You know, those things they do on the stage aren t so 
 queer, after all: breaking down uncontrollably, the things 
 we watch from the audience and tell whether we think 
 they re done well or not, and look to see what the critics 
 say next morning. But those things are life, and they re 
 just as normal as eating your dinner, if you allow your 
 self to get to a certain point. And I m afraid I m getting 
 there." 
 
 She spoke with emphasis, yet it was perfectly controlled, 
 and Jessie, who was frightened to the last inner fibre for 
 her, was alarmed the more by that. But she did not in 
 terrogate her even by a glance. She went on folding, with 
 painstaking care, though she was seeing her work dimly 
 and could not be sure her fingers might not tremble pres 
 ently. 
 
 " I don t believe," she said quietly, " it s a good thing 
 to keep such a terrible hold on ourselves. Maybe it s 
 better to let yourself go. Talk it out. If you can t with 
 me, why not grandsir or Mrs. Tracy? " 
 
 " Oh, no," said Helen quickly. " Not that. At least, 
 not yet. I couldn t." 
 
 "You re too loyal, Nell."
 
 104 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " I m not loyal," said Helen violently. " You can t 
 imagine how different I am from what I thought I was. 
 I m entirely different from what you think." 
 
 Jessie went on folding. 
 
 " I wish," she said at length, " we could use our com 
 mon sense. Somebody said, you know, if we all used com 
 mon sense there d be no tragedies." 
 
 " There are tragedies," said Helen. " You can t keep 
 them off by wearing a veil and saying you won t look at 
 them." 
 
 But now she seemed to get back her composure. The 
 runaway horse, Jessie saw, was coming under the curb. 
 Helen even laughed a little. 
 
 " I m on edge," she said, and she began her folding. 
 " I ve got to keep busier, that s all." 
 
 " You ve got to go back to France with me," said Jessie 
 quietly. " There we shouldn t have time to think." 
 
 Helen said nothing, and Jessie s mind inevitably leaped 
 to other daring moments when she had urged her to sit 
 down and definitely plan for France. And always Helen 
 had put her off, and once told her explicitly and violently 
 that it was impossible until she had settled things here. 
 What things? Jessie asked her, and again she was dumb. 
 An exasperating creature, but dear beyond belief. 
 
 That night Jessie, on the alert for the smallest sound to 
 tell her Helen was also awake and quivering under the lash 
 that flicked her, thought back to the Helen of other years, 
 a creature of such sweet household ways that you wanted 
 to enthrone her at your hearth, and such little tricks of 
 genius that you wondered whether she might not have done 
 one or another thing in the arts supremely well. She had 
 an easy cleverness with the pen and brush, she caught at 
 languages in a careless mastery, speaking them, not so
 
 THE BLACK DROP 105 
 
 much with an impeccable correctness as a fluidity and 
 spirit that delighted the native born. And all this wealth 
 of sheer intellectual and intuitive ease had been poured in 
 to the cup she lifted daily for Charles to drink. He had 
 somehow or was it her love for him? quenched these 
 tricksy activities, the gay adaptabilities that made her such 
 a comrade, such a playfellow. Had he indeed quenched 
 them, or did she, out of generous thrift, keep her fine vin 
 tage sealed from the world outside the marital tent and 
 only broach it when my lord would be amused and called 
 upon his handmaid? Jessie thought not, as to this last. 
 Charles, she thought, with all his subtleties of intelligence 
 in the game of moving men, was a stupid person. No, 
 Helen had been extinguished like a candle by the cap of 
 his dull wits. And now what was she? Outwardly the 
 same in looks, a little older but not much, smiling with a 
 less fitful radiance but no less sweetly, and yet changed. 
 Something had come upon her, apprehension, the shadow 
 of an inward brooding. Jessie was troubled. Her own 
 task of standing by Helen loomed very large.
 
 XI 
 
 IF Jessie could have been more tender of Helen, more 
 secretly watchful over her comfort, this hesitating half 
 confidence would have made her so. And though it was no 
 real disclosure, she was grateful for it and traced over 
 and over in memory the blurred edges of it. Its impli 
 cations might have fitted one of half a dozen guesses. At 
 least, Helen had shut herself up in this retreat her neces 
 sities had chosen, to think out her riddle, the big riddle, 
 whatever it was, that had made her throw over the house 
 hold gods and fly from the ruin of them. Were the gods 
 really broken in their overturn, or might they sometime 
 be lifted by tender, perhaps remorseful hands, and set up 
 again? Jessie forbade herself to wish. Nevertheless, at 
 instants of savage condemnation of Charles who, in what 
 ever fashion, had surely brought about the overturn, she 
 still longed for the moment when Helen should make her 
 decision, swift, irrevocable, and they two could run away 
 from it all, to France. Jessie was every day more madly 
 anxious to get back. In the hidden house of her mind 
 where Helen was never allowed to come now, lest the un 
 easiness there disquiet her, she was always weaving plans 
 for their escape, her hands ready at the wires to pull. 
 But meantime there must be the stillest tranquillity in this 
 present refuge, Helen s purpose must crystallize without 
 a jar. Sometimes when Jessie sat with her at their deft 
 folding and counting, she had quick, wild impulses to sweep 
 the board of this orderly service and break out with the 
 
 106
 
 THE BLACK DROP 107 
 
 things she had seen, things that were going on now with a 
 horribly increased momentum because the ocean of blood 
 had risen higher and the rocks of defense were more and 
 more submerged, to beg Helen to throw her own personal 
 grief, whatever it was, into the abyss of unconsidered 
 things and come with her to help. But she would look at 
 her then, the pale remoteness of her, the something inac 
 cessible in her isolation, and decide again that it really was 
 a guarded shrine. Perhaps Helen had no right to keep 
 one woman, or two women, indeed, out of France ; but when 
 your eyes met hers, you felt she had, from some inner task, 
 she was brooding on, an unassailable claim to her im 
 munity. 
 
 One morning Jessie left her at the table and went off out 
 of doors to do errands, she said. But it was really be 
 cause energies were seething in her that could not be put 
 into gauze, however fervently folded. Her feet had to be 
 carrying her somewhere and tire themselves into patience, 
 since they couldn t be allowed to bear her off to France. 
 Helen, left alone, went on with her work at the table. She 
 knew precisely how Jessie felt, and her own feet were beg 
 ging for at least a trot across the Common, since she 
 couldn t let them go to France, couldn t let them run up 
 the street to that house which had once been her home. 
 Was it her home still? Should she have fulfilled the old 
 wifely ideal and stood by, or had she a right to this inter 
 val of isolation to think out the question that would have 
 been decided by a woman of more impetuous judgment in 
 the moment when the gods crashed down? Helen often 
 thought how it would have been decided in a play, the 
 threads of uncertainty tied up in a third act and gently 
 extricated and woven into the web of destiny in the fourth. 
 In the play it could all have been determined in a cry a
 
 108 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " line " the one the actress would have relied on for her 
 big effect. Impossible to get any help from Jessie, any more 
 than from the family, because Jessie was so obstinately set 
 against Charles. Her impetuous mind was probably now 
 racing after him, accusing him, spinning webs of conjec 
 ture, fitting piece to piece in the puzzle she thought she 
 held, since their talk, actually in her hands. She would 
 be more than ready to run him down and throttle him with 
 impulsive retribution, and Helen would neither counte 
 nance the vengeful pursuit nor could she forbid it as once 
 she would have done when she was so identified with him 
 that defence was a vital duty as natural as the body s 
 rallying to its own preservation. The effort of sifting 
 what she could tell from what was to be withheld had ex 
 hausted her. She hardly knew where she stood, neither 
 wholly false nor " falsely true." 
 
 To her, this morning after Jessie had gone out, came 
 the maid, announcing: 
 
 " Mrs. Davenport." 
 
 The surprise of the name was complete, the shock so 
 sharp that she stopped folding and looked up in a helpless 
 query. An undercurrent of feeling told her she had 
 brought this on herself by even accepting the woman s 
 name from grandsir. They had conjured her up. So 
 unconsciously had she identified her with Charles that she 
 had a foolish apprehension the woman had come to tell her 
 something had happened to him. The name held 
 such unknown import that it was itself a challenge, and 
 after her moment of staring, while the maid, in a simple 
 wonder, stared back at her, she said quietly : 
 
 " Ask her to come in." 
 
 Immediately, it seemed, Mrs. Davenport was there, al 
 most before Helen could rise to meet her. And as Helen
 
 THE BLACK DROP 109 
 
 saw her now for the first time, she was not the exotic crea 
 ture a wronged wife might have predicted, but an exquis 
 itely complete figure in a dress suited to the morning, her 
 face dwelling demurely behind the propriety of a veil per 
 fectly put on, and the expression of it grave, open and 
 slightly interrogatory. 
 
 " It s so good of you to see me," she said, in a direct 
 manner and, though it was not ingratiating, almost, Helen 
 thought, with a grim humor, as if she had something to sell. 
 But Helen had no answer to this, certainly no disclaimer, 
 only a courteous indication of the chair she had just left, 
 turning it about from the work-table. Elsa seated her 
 self and Helen took the chair opposite and sat, with 
 hands in her lap, in an attitude of that unconscious, even 
 sumptuous, grace and elegance the woman of a good height 
 and a loose slenderness adopts without effort. Elsa, see 
 ing her for the first time at close hand, had a slightly 
 bitter, yet humorous, recognition of Helen s equipment. 
 Although she had long ceased to cry for the moon of un 
 attainable graces, she remarked inwardly that the woman 
 with a length of limb always has the best of it. Then she 
 addressed herself to her errand, speaking concisely, so 
 berly and with a restraint which was in itself beguiling. 
 
 " I ve come to tell you something. But it must not be 
 repeated." 
 
 Helen sat still, looking at her. She couldn t promise 
 that. She couldn t promise anything to a woman who 
 had so little right to ask it. And the next thing Mrs. 
 Davenport said was inconceivable in its directness : 
 
 " You are not living with your husband." 
 
 It was a statement, not a question, and Helen sat and 
 looked at her. It seemed to her of the highest importance 
 that she should say nothing, that she should not offer,
 
 110 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 by the quiver of an eyelash, a response to a statement 
 so preposterously personal. But to Elsa it was appar 
 ently a matter of no importance that she had not been 
 answered. She continued, with a direct and grave com 
 posure, an implication of having every reason to speak 
 and therefore the right to do it. 
 
 " The thing I m going to tell you is about myself. And 
 you mustn t repeat it, even to your sister. If I told you 
 what none of my friends know yet She paused, and 
 
 her yellow-brown eyes fixed themselves on Helen s with an 
 imperiousness that said : " A.ttend to me. Attend. It is 
 of the gravest consequence that you should listen, for you 
 as well as for me." 
 
 And Helen felt, with a sickness of strained inner emotion, 
 that she had got to attend. Something demanded it. 
 Was it real, an actual necessity, or was it the woman s in 
 sistence and her gold-brown eyes? 
 
 " If I told you," said Elsa, " that I am working for the 
 Department of Justice, would you talk with me then? " 
 
 " Department of Justice? " 
 
 "Secret service, if you like. Then would you talk?" 
 
 " I am listening," said Helen. 
 
 Her heart was choking her. Strange possibilities swam 
 into sight, things that belonged on another plane from this 
 where she and the woman confronted each other. She felt 
 something new and menacing in the air, something that 
 threatened her. What did the woman know about her or, 
 having the confidence of Charles, what did she guess? 
 Elsa smiled at her, in a frank amusement. 
 
 "You listen," she said, "but you don t mean to speak. 
 You re not going to tell me anything. But I m being 
 square with you. I m not trying to lead you on, like the 
 detectives in the books. I m introducing myself and
 
 THE BLACK DROP 111 
 
 trusting you not to give me away. And now I m going to 
 ask you a plain question. Why did you leave your hus 
 band? " 
 
 Helen might, if she could have anticipated this inter 
 view, have seen herself repelling the question with haughti 
 ness, possibly with some of the words vivid in accepted 
 formulas. Unwarrantable ! insolent ! these were two of the 
 words. But she was not inclined to use them or their like. 
 She sat stiller, if that could be, and looked at her visitor 
 in a grave consideration. She had no idea she should an 
 swer. But as the seconds beat on into minutes she found 
 that, for some reason, she had to. Perhaps it seemed that 
 Mrs. Davenport also was going to sit there immovable, the 
 gold-brown eyes fixed on hers, to an interminable limit of 
 nervous tension, until they were interrupted, it might be 
 possibly until Jessie came home. 
 
 " I can t tell you that," she heard herself answering. 
 
 And Mrs. Davenport, with her impregnable air of con 
 tinuing a conversation not in the least eccentric, went on: 
 
 " Tell me then : did you leave him for any reason con 
 nected with his public activities? Did you suspect 
 him? " 
 
 This was what the woman meant then. She mistrusted 
 Charles and had come to Charles s wife to discover what 
 she also knew. It was incredible ; but Helen could not feel 
 it was impossible, for the strangest things had taken on the 
 garb of probability since she had been separated from 
 Charles. And something had to be said. She rose from 
 her chair, and stood waiting, while Elsa thought how 
 beautiful she was, and how irresistible a woman of that 
 noble type could be if she would learn all the rules of all 
 the games. But she only smiled at Helen, a little humor 
 ous, quizzical smile.
 
 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " I know," she said. " That means I m dismissed. I 
 don t want to be. Give me a minute more. Tell me, do 
 you know anything about your Charles the government 
 needs to use? If you re a patriotic lady, you ll speak 
 up." 
 
 But Helen stood still and said nothing. Her hand, 
 her left hand, on the back of the chair, did not tremble, and 
 Elsa, looking for that sign of disquietude, noted that it 
 still wore its wedding ring. At least, whatever the impli 
 cation, she had retained that token of allegiance. Elsa 
 rose now, outwardly rueful but still good-humored to the 
 last degree. 
 
 " I m sorry," she said. " It s really necessary for me to 
 know something about him. It ll save him trouble, too. 
 You see you ve kicked up an awful row. It s known you ve 
 left him. The next question is why? He s said to be 
 faithful to you. Therefore, again, why? If there s no 
 woman in the case, there must be something. And the 
 question is then, is he crooked? Does his wife know it? 
 Is that why she cut? And then I m put on to shadow him, 
 as they say, and I have to see a great deal more of him 
 than I want to or than he may want me to and that 
 kicks up another scandal. * Mrs. Davenport, the news 
 paper woman, running round with Charles Tracy. So 
 that s why his wife s left him ! My dear ! how hard for the 
 family. " 
 
 Helen made a little movement of the hand, as if to beg 
 her not to bring in the dear family. And Elsa understood 
 it so. 
 
 " Oh," she said, " we can t let up on the family. 
 They ve got to be hauled out of their precious old seclusion 
 to answer questions about him. I hear they ve come and 
 brought their dear, nice country ways with them. Can t
 
 THE BLACK DROP 113 
 
 you save them? Why won t you tell me what you 
 know?" 
 
 Helen felt she could answer with a decent composure 
 now. 
 
 " I haven t anything," she said, " to tell you." 
 
 She heard her voice coming from far away in that com 
 monplace which was, she knew, the only response this meas- 
 sure of impudence deserved. But curiously, though she 
 knew it was impudence, she was not indignant. There was 
 something about the self-possessed little figure before her 
 which challenged honesty. It was so good-humored, so 
 admiring, so frankly bent on business. How could she op 
 pose it with the heroics it might meet with smiling? 
 
 " Another thing," said Elsa. " You re forcing me, you 
 know. You ll rush me into your husband s company. I 
 shall have to see him as often as he ll let me, and I shall have 
 to charm him all he ll let me. You don t believe I can; 
 but I can. I ve got the old bag of tricks, and though he 
 sees they re tricks, he can t resist them. Some men can t. 
 They d rather have things made after a pattern than what 
 you ve got yourself that kind of a heavenly mystic 
 charm. They adore it, but it scares them, too." 
 
 Helen did not for an instant suspect her of throwing out 
 a bait for confidence of any sort. She only felt pro 
 foundly lost because they seemed to be standing with an 
 abyss between them, calling across it, the abyss of the sad 
 ness of the world. 
 
 " It s a pity," Elsa was saying. 
 
 "What s a pity?" Helen asked, out of her dream of 
 the world s age of misery. 
 
 " It s a pity it isn t plain sailing, so you and I could 
 know each other and you d be nice to me. I like you a 
 great deal better than I ever could him. He s charming,
 
 114 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 when he wants to be, but he s no sense of humor. You 
 found that out, too. And you re packed and crammed 
 with humor, in spite of your shyness. So is your sister." 
 
 Helen must have looked a question, for Elsa continued : 
 
 " Yes, I ve seen her. I ve seen you both a lot. I sat 
 beside you once in a car and heard all your talk. It wasn t 
 about anything in particular. You felt cheerful and you had 
 the sillies. I admired you tremendously that you could, 
 after you d left your Charles. I knew exactly the sort 
 you were. Now I m going. Do let me come again." 
 
 This last she said with an air of sudden bright impul 
 siveness irresistible in its charm. And Helen, to her own 
 amazed incredulity? would have liked her to come again. 
 Still she did not answer. She felt some hand, propriety s 
 gloved hand it must have been, holding her back. And she 
 fancied, with some impatience at herself, that if she were 
 clever, if she had any initiative, any imagination, she would 
 not have needed the cold hand to admonish her. She would 
 have known some quick, warm act, to govern the situation 
 and turn it to human use. Elsa was at the door now, and 
 still smiling back at her. 
 
 " I m not in the least the sort of person you think," she 
 said. " I m a fraud, of course, but it s only because I m a 
 business woman and business calls for fraud. I don t par 
 ticularly enjoy it. What I d like best would be to live in 
 the country and keep bees. And I don t love your Charles 
 yet. He s got a nasty temper. But if you drive me 
 to it I shall have to make him love me in his way and 
 I can return it somehow." She had opened the door. She 
 was outside. And she turned with another of those pi 
 quant smiles. " I ll show you the kind of fraud I am. I m 
 not married, and my name isn t Davenport and it isn t 
 Elsa. It s really Henrietta. Good-by. I wish you d let
 
 THE BLACK DROP 115 
 
 me come again. That nice sister of yours would let me, 
 just to be a sport. Well, no matter. It s no use, I sup 
 pose." 
 
 Now she was really gone. Helen heard the click of her 
 smart shoes on the stairs, and she hesitated before shutting 
 the door upon her. Why? she could not possibly under 
 stand. Was the woman so charming? And yet Helen 
 was not easily charmed. And when she had shut the door 
 she went quickly back into the sitting-room and looked 
 out of the window in time to see Elsa walking down the 
 street, a man beside her. And the man was Charles. So 
 that was it, she thought, with an instant revulsion to bitter 
 ness and the welling sense of outrage. He had sent the 
 woman, with the intent of spying and he had been waiting 
 for her below. She went back to her work, wounded in the in 
 nermost heart of her. Like all wronged women she felt, not 
 merely the simple passion of primal jealousy, the revul 
 sion to outrage because she believed her own had been taken 
 from her, but affronted pride in that her home had been 
 invaded. She worked very hard, that day, at her folding. 
 Her hands trembled and several times she stopped and 
 wrung them together to get the blood into them and give 
 the muscles an impatient wrench. 
 
 But Elsa had not expected to find Charles. Indeed her 
 heart gave a little admonitory tap, and beat out its warn 
 ing, " Now you ve got to explain." And he didn t delay 
 his demand for elucidation. There was no surprised inter 
 est at the sight of her. He was too concerned to see her 
 coming out of Helen s door. 
 
 " What were you there for? " he asked, at once. " You 
 don t know anybody there." 
 
 Elsa drew her veil down a little more smoothly over her 
 chin, smiling up at him.
 
 116 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " No," she said. " I don t know anybody. I thought 
 there might be an apartment to let." 
 
 " And was there? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " If there had been, you couldn t have taken it." 
 
 " Why? " she asked pleasantly. 
 
 But he had no visible reason. It was hardly possible to 
 say : " Because my wife lives there." He had still the 
 greatest repugnance even to the mention of Helen s name 
 to her. And she saw that, and smiled over it. After all, 
 she thought, a man does keep the savagely protecting 
 attitude toward his wife. It is because she is his property. 
 What threatens her, threatens him. 
 
 " Besides," he said, taking another tack, "you don t 
 want to move, do you? " 
 
 " It s a very lonesome house," she said. " There are 
 too many offices. When everybody s gone at night I feel 
 spooky." 
 
 " Well," said he, " anyway don t move down this way. 
 And don t move anywhere in a hurry. We ll talk it over 
 together and see what we can do." 
 
 Elsa noted the cosy plural and smiled a little behind her 
 veil. With one stride he had bridged the practical abyss. 
 And then it seemed, as they walked, the trumpets of the air 
 called up one after another of the family who were not 
 expected to see them together, who indeed must not see 
 them. First, Charles was to be observed taking off his hat 
 to his mother, in a few minutes saluting his father and 
 again, incredibly, John. And when he had walked with 
 Elsa to the newspaper office where he was to leave her, he 
 was scowling in the unrestrained abandon of his younger 
 days. Elsa looked up in his face and smiled. She grinned 
 like a mischievous boy. Said she:
 
 THE BLACK DROP 117 
 
 " It was funny, wasn t it? " 
 
 "What was funny?" inquired Charles. 
 
 He had no idea she knew his people. He hadn t any 
 conception of the number of things she knew, of the pains 
 taking instinct that prompted her to find them out lest 
 she need them, or the accuracy with which she had stored 
 them away. She was one who kept her facts mentally on 
 file. 
 
 " Meeting them," she said, " one after the other." But 
 before he could inquire where she d seen them, she had set 
 his mind spinning down another groove. " How do you 
 think the Voice is going? Not sentimental enough, I m 
 afraid. Some of them have said so already. Pile it on a 
 little more. Be abstract love, mercy, meek inheriting 
 the earth that kind of tiling. They won t know what 
 you mean the old women of both sexes but that s no 
 matter. They ll like it all the better." 
 
 But Elsa, that night, smiling again over the spectacle 
 of the family, seriatim, saluting her and Charles together, 
 also went back ruefully to the disastrous scene with Helen. 
 It had failed, she was obliged to own, the audacious project 
 she had hit upon in a moment of impatience at the slow 
 moving of things. The interview was to lend her a field 
 for action, wherein little directing pushes were to be given 
 obscure events. Helen was to be convinced of her hus 
 band s unbroken loyalty and at the same time wholesomely 
 shocked into realizing that, although no siren had as yet 
 acquired inalienable rights to him, he was in danger. It 
 seemed to her the logic of the emotions that wifely virtue, 
 though offended, must here rush in to save. Elsa was, as 
 she had said, a business woman, and keen on the scent of 
 what was likely to detract from Charles s value to his own 
 ers. It was desirable from every point of view that his
 
 118 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 domestic life should be unassailable. And here, in a way, 
 she blamed herself. She ought never to have been seen 
 with him at all ; but when he was first selected by those 
 higher powers there had been need of haste, and she hurried 
 with the rest. He had been made to feel the rush and 
 sweep of her cool ardor, alluring, standing off, beckoning yet 
 denying when he came. And so specious was he known to 
 be that they had never felt quite sure of him until he was 
 doubly bound to her over and above the cause. He might 
 break his bargain, if advantage called him to another 
 quarter ; but it would take a more heroic Samson than 
 Charles Tracy to struggle from the woman s mesh. 
 
 Elsa had, besides, an uneasy suspicion that Helen might 
 know something of his underground activities. Of that, 
 through her implied accusation, she meant to assure her 
 self. It hardly mattered, she thought, reading the fair 
 page of Helen s look, what one said to her. She would 
 keep the confidence of her enemy, as of her friend. And 
 working as Elsa was with Charles, responsible for him as 
 she had been made by the powers who had given him over 
 into her hands, she simply had to know. So she had set 
 her trap and Helen had not even nibbled. Innocence, it 
 seemed, bore braver arms than guile.
 
 XII 
 
 WHO were they to whom the Voice was to be adapted? 
 Simply the People, humanity in the rough, the People 
 bearing votes in their multitudinous hands. They were 
 to be confirmed in knowledge of their own strength and 
 to be delicately instructed, by implication, in the effective 
 using of it. They were to be reminded that not only was 
 the vote theirs by unassailable right, but the option of 
 quitting the responsible job of keeping the world alive or, 
 if it seemed good to them in a moment of political revolt, 
 of smashing the orderly structure built up, though imper 
 fectly, by the past. This last form of power was a 
 bludgeon of a weapon, an actual, almost a visible force. 
 No skill or subtlety was required for the use of it, as the 
 People were tacitly informed. It was simply something 
 very big and hard, and they were expected, if not to 
 crack heads with it, when the looked-for moment came, to 
 obstruct. It was scarcely possible to estimate the poten 
 cies that were theirs. When the ship of state got going 
 grandly, the wind of their breath of power could blow 
 icebergs down from the frozen regions of the mind, and 
 the icebergs would grind up against the good ship and 
 beat her off her course. The People were not to be in 
 cited to strangle the activities of public life by direct and 
 raucous speech. They were played upon by the forces 
 that are mighty to pull down, to the end that they might 
 learn how, in their turn, to smash and shatter, and they 
 were to be taught a language, the language of love which 
 
 110
 
 120 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 meant, at this time, " Love thyself." And the com 
 mandment, " Thou shalt not kill," meant also, at this 
 period of the world, " Thou shalt not kill Germans." 
 
 When Charles had left Elsa, he went on and up the steps 
 to the editorial rooms of the Voice. He had a delightful 
 little den, not more than twelve feet square, with an old- 
 fashioned desk and two chairs, and on the wall a portrait 
 of Abraham Lincoln and members of his cabinet. This 
 hadn t been the office when the old regime was in residence. 
 That was a grimy room with every implement of up-to- 
 date journalism flung about it in the orderly confusion 
 a professional man loves, and, the only sign of an avenue 
 of escape from what the wires were bringing in, a set of 
 O. Henry over the desk. The former editor never had 
 time to read his O. Henry. He kept another set at home, 
 and this he did doze over when he got to bed, at all hours. 
 But by day, when the wires throbbed too hard and his 
 ears beat with weariness and his nerves screamed out to be 
 let alone and not played upon any more by the devil s 
 tattoo of things happened, he would look up at the O. 
 Henrys, and their covers soothed him, and he would go 
 back to work. But now that the Voice was by no means 
 what it had been, save that it swore it was keeping to 
 the old policy, and even the editorial cubby-holes of offices 
 were shifted, this one, presided over by O. Henry, became 
 the outer vestibule to Charles s own. Here contributors 
 waited until he summoned them, or they were told he 
 couldn t, after all, see them to-day. A girl under a pre 
 posterous yellow cowlick, if that might be considered the 
 name for it, sat at a desk, a telephone before her, and she 
 spoke into the next room with a solicitous air which made 
 the other end of the wire seem a thousand miles away. 
 But Charles, on the other side of the partition, answered
 
 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 in his own person what she put as an anxious appeal to 
 an unseen mediary. 
 
 " Is Mr. Tracy there? Oh! Could you hunt him up? 
 Look in the composing room. Mr. Brennan is here." 
 
 This was what she said one morning, and when Charles 
 replied immediately that Brennan was to come in, she 
 turned to him with her professional smile and said Mr. 
 Tracy had that minute got back. Through that door, 
 yes. And Brennan opened it, frowning a little because he 
 didn t half know whether he liked his job, and went in, his 
 cartoons in his hand. It was an exceedingly urbane and 
 welcoming Charles he found, aggressively smooth and 
 fitted with irreproachable clothes. If Charles had been 
 in a lower stratum of life he would have worn cravats a 
 thought too pronounced and, it may be, used scented soap. 
 As it was, he gave an impression of sartorial care that 
 overbore any sense you might feel of his having a mind 
 or a possible soul, and Brennan regarded him with a dull 
 distaste that sprang from his own low physical state. 
 Brennan s cough was troubling him a little more than for 
 a week and he saw in himself other symptoms of imminent 
 banishment. He felt jaded, fagged, at odds with life 
 that took so much out of you and put nothing in. He 
 was irritable, too, and had been telling himself, while he 
 walked along on his way to the Voice, that he hated the 
 whole damned show and he d take himself out of it if it 
 wasn t for the war. Even a cripple had got to stand 
 by till that was over, if it was thirty years, if only to 
 knife incompetence and trickery. And had he and the 
 other fellows really played John a shabby trick? He 
 wasn t sure. Charles s perfection of attire seemed to him 
 wearisome, if not disgusting; but when Charles had shaken 
 hands with him, a hearty clasp, and pointed to the chair
 
 122 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 at the end of the desk, Brennan, seated, his package on 
 his knees, thought the fellow probably meant well, after 
 all. 
 
 " Now ! " said Charles, as if they had each accomplished 
 a long journey, traveling to each other, and were happily 
 met at last, "what have you got there? Are they for 
 me? " 
 
 " Why, yes," said Brennan sulkily, out of the last shades 
 of his irritation. " I suppose they re for you. You ve 
 bought me, haven t you? " 
 
 Charles laughed a little, indulgently, but didn t deny 
 he had. And he took the three cartoons and began to 
 study them, pursing his lips and whistling noiselessly. 
 Brennan waited, not looking at him. The cartoons would 
 be rejected, he knew. Some unformulated distrust of 
 Charles, some echo of John s outspoken anger and despair 
 that he had sold himself, were working in him and he was 
 taken aback when Charles laid the cardboard down on 
 the desk before him and said, with the utmost warmth : 
 
 " Brennan, they re great ! " 
 
 Brennan did look at him then, and met his direct glance, 
 his whole air breathing such wholesale commendation that 
 it seemed like a warm wind enveloping him and changing 
 his arid judgments of the man into something almost trem 
 ulously grateful and apologetic 
 
 " They ll do, will they? " he managed. 
 
 " Do ! My dear boy, they re ripping." 
 
 " I s pose they ought to be used at once," said Brennan. 
 " The only point of a cartoon is to have it in the nick of 
 time." 
 
 That Charles apparently didn t hear. He was exam 
 ining the topmost drawing again, with a thoughtful yet 
 smiling admiration. It was the Kangaroo and the Lion
 
 THE BLACK DROP 123 
 
 and the Cock, drilling amazing spirit Brennan had put 
 into his creatures and the American Eagle, tail feath 
 ers drooping, picked up corn outside the fence. And 
 that was the word Charles used. 
 
 " Amazing ! " he said, " perfectly amazing the meaning 
 you put into a line." 
 
 Brennan got up, and his cough hacked at him. 
 Charles, too, rose and laid the cartoons on the desk. 
 
 " Brennan," said he, and paused. It sounded as if there 
 were something he impulsively wanted to say, and, for 
 some reason, couldn t allow himself the rash indulgence. 
 Brennan thought he probably wanted the cartoons altered. 
 He was used enough to that. An editor often had some 
 fool idea of his own he expected to graft on a finished piece 
 of work. And Charles was looking at him apologetically 
 and beginning, when the cough ceased : " What I d like, you 
 know why don t you go into the country for a month 
 and get rid of that beastly cold? " 
 
 Brennan, for an instant, stood and stared at him. No 
 body talked to him about his cough, nobody but the doctor 
 who had to sail into him at intervals because Brennan 
 treated his disease as you might oppose a hated enemy. 
 He ignored it, he yielded to it when he had to or go under ; 
 but who knew what it was to him at night or in the flat 
 middle of the days when he couldn t work and found his 
 tools receding from him to a dim distance, though they 
 lay before him on the table? The doctor dared every 
 thing and swore at him roundly, because he had a right 
 to ; but none of Brennan s friends seemed even to hear 
 his cough. Now Charles was looking at him in so 
 warm a fellowship, so impulsive an understanding of what 
 the enemy must be, that Brennan suddenly felt his knees 
 weak under him. Was he, he thought, going to cry?
 
 124 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " Go away," said Charles. " Take a lot of time and 
 a lot of money. I ll advance it. Anything you say. 
 Your cartoons are good for it. And don t come back till 
 you re on your pins again. Send me your stuff. Or don t 
 send it. You ll be worth twice what you are to-day if 
 you break off short and then pitch into it again." 
 
 " No," said Brennan slowly, " I sha n t go away. I 
 don t need to not yet. And I don t want any money." 
 
 But he went off down the stairs feeling warmed, 
 strengthened, alert with a brave excitement. Charles 
 could always make you feel twice the man you were, if he 
 took the trouble. Now, at his desk, he looked attentively 
 yet absently at the cartoons. They were all to the point 
 that America was out of the war to her own undoing, and 
 that she should be in it. They preached haste, haste. 
 Presently he leaned back in his chair, leaving them on the 
 desk, and thought, but not of cartoons or the greedy maw 
 of his paper. He thought of Helen. He seemed to have 
 gone a long way from her since they had had their last 
 words together, and chiefly because he was doing the things 
 she would not countenance. For the last years, while 
 he had been so tremendously in love with her, he had felt 
 her gentle, mute commands. There were things Helen, in 
 his way of putting it to himself, wouldn t stand for, and 
 for a long period of time, he didn t do them. This was 
 while she imaged the unattainable beauty which is a mad 
 ness to the lover who sees how ineffable it is and yet does 
 not possess it in its inner perfection, never has possessed 
 it, and knows within himself he never can. Charles didn t 
 really care about the inner perfections of Helen: only he 
 was convinced they were there and he wanted them. The 
 way she talked to his father and grandfather ! he had 
 caught her at it. Foolish things they rambled on about, and
 
 THE BLACK DROP 125 
 
 laughed consumedly at what was of no consequence at all, 
 chiefly what didn t exist. With him his wife was sweetly 
 shy and silent, often adorably expansive for Charles 
 was a wonderful lover but yet with none of that foolish 
 banter he so despised and coveted. Was she afraid of 
 him? Sometimes he liked to think she was. It gave him 
 an uplifting sense of power, and he loved to reassure her. 
 But when he did that, Helen smiled and he felt uneasy. 
 What the devil did women mean anyway by putting on an 
 air of mystery, of perversity, just to add to their own 
 charm? And then he would think back over the days of 
 their life together, the sweet security of it, and relent 
 toward her: for no woman was ever a more perfect com 
 panion in the beaten ways. She demanded nothing, she 
 gave generously. The trouble was, he thought this morn 
 ing, as he settled back in his chair, frowning over the per 
 verse coil of things, she probably had no sense of humor. 
 She laughed with the rest of the family over childish things 
 because that was the only kind that pleased her and they, 
 being fond of her, helped it along. But as to her connec 
 tion with him, one of the biggest grudges he had against 
 her now was that she had been solemn of late indulgent, 
 insultingly so but solemn. 
 
 And then the telephone rang and the voice from the next 
 room told him Mr. Bailey was there. He recalled himself 
 from the uneven ground of woman s perversity, shuffled 
 the cartoons together and thrust them into a lower drawer. 
 Any one seeing them go in there, with an unregarding haste 
 and roughness, would have known they were not soon to 
 come out again. Bailey opened the door and put in a 
 small, shy foot. There he hung a moment, blushing, if 
 his pink cheeks could be pinker. The boys used to say 
 enviously and profanely to Bailey that this feigned shy-
 
 126 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 ness was an asset. He was as coy as a girl. He looked 
 as if butter wouldn t melt. But that was only until he d 
 got out of his protagonist everything he wanted of him. 
 Then butter did melt and he swore picturesquely, kicked 
 up his heels and was off; or he stayed and made you ac 
 quainted with the real Bailey. To this banter Bailey 
 never returned more than the assurance : " But I really 
 am shy." Perhaps Charles had studied him, perhaps he 
 knew him by intuition. At any rate, he received him as 
 one man of the world talking to another. Bailey took a 
 chair and tucked his feet under it in his stereotyped man 
 ner. No, he wouldn t smoke. Didn t smoke. Didn t be 
 lieve in it, in fact. Sound mind in a sound body, he sug 
 gested. Charles only laughed and left the tobacco near 
 him. He d seen Bailey enveloped in a cloud, puffing fa 
 mously. What his game was now he didn t know, but 
 Charles had a game of his own. 
 
 "Brought me some stuff?" he asked. 
 
 Bailey was regarding him with eyes of clearest can 
 dor. 
 
 " I didn t know what you wanted," he said. " I 
 dropped in for a tip." 
 
 "Why, your verse, of course. That s our contract." 
 
 " On the same lines ? " 
 
 " Precisely." 
 
 " Same as I ve been doing? " 
 
 " Yes. It s corking." 
 
 Bailey almost imperceptibly smacked his lips. He had 
 his own unassailable opinion of his work. He didn t well 
 see how it could be better. But he wanted some things 
 more clearly understood. He had been virtually hypno 
 tised that day when he and Charles made their bargain, 
 and he had begun to wonder whether Charles always had
 
 THE BLACK DROP 127 
 
 that effect when he wanted anything very much. You 
 ran toward him as eagerly as you sometimes afterward 
 wanted to run away. 
 
 " But you know," said he, determined now to get every 
 thing clear, " you know how I ve been pitching into things : 
 thrones, principalities, powers, rotten parties. Sure you 
 want me to keep on, same old way? I want to, mind you. 
 I d rather do it than eat. In fact, I do it better than I 
 do anything else." 
 
 Charles was looking at him indulgently, and as if he 
 found him exceedingly interesting to meet, as if it were 
 impossible not to agree with him, and again Bailey had 
 that eager sensation of wanting to go forward, almost 
 anywhere, if Charles led. But he thought it was only his 
 own dream he wanted to pursue. 
 
 " Do it," said Charles, " pitch in all you want to. Give 
 it to em, hot. I sha n t trip you up. Though I would 
 suggest now, I don t know how you ll take this a 
 little, a very little caution." 
 
 Bailey s pink face turned sulky. 
 
 " Don t like it," he said. " Head over heels, slap-dash, 
 that s the only way I can fight. Snatch up a plough 
 share or a pruning hook, if you can t find your pen. And 
 my stuff is fighting, you understand. It s the only sort 
 I can do. Literature can go well, literature can go to 
 hell till this war is over. Till then I don t mean to write 
 a word that isn t meant to persuade some man some 
 tens and hundreds of men to think right and vote right 
 and fight right." 
 
 Somehow Bailey didn t look rosy and fair-skinned when 
 he said that. You forgot his long lashes, and the way he 
 had drawn up his foot under the chair. He looked very 
 stiff and hard, the soldier look, stiff from training and
 
 128 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 hard because he knows what medicine is the only remedy 
 for certain ills. 
 
 " You mustn t ask me to write anything that isn t prop 
 aganda," he went on, " for I won t do it. That s flat. I 
 won t write at all." 
 
 "Oh," said Charles, at once, and with, it seemed, only 
 a concerned benevolence, " you must write and you must 
 write for me. Our contract holds us horribly tight, you 
 see. Because if you don t write for me, you can t for 
 anybody. And you must write. You re too valuable 
 to lose." 
 
 " Say," said Bailey, growing pink again, and grinning 
 at the clever thought he d had, " I believe I ought to have 
 bound you tighter in that contract. Why, you re only tied 
 to the extent of paying me for my exclusive output. Now 
 I swear I believe you ought to have been tied up to print 
 a certain number of my things a week. You ve bought 
 em, but how do I know you ll print em? " 
 
 He laughed, like the shrewd chap he had begun to feel 
 himself, and Charles laughed, too, louder and longer than 
 he did. There was a duet of laughter, quite like a stage 
 gust of two who know a joke and egg each other on. 
 Charles stopped first, and came down to an indulgent 
 staccato. 
 
 " Well," he said, " there s one proof I shall print you. 
 I tried hard enough to get your stuff, now didn t I? " 
 
 So that Bailey was absurdly satisfied, and got up to go. 
 
 " Then," said he, "I m to stir up a little brimstone in 
 a pail and set her afire." 
 
 " You re miles behind," said Charles. " Brimstone? 
 Your stuff s like some of the latest scientific fizz-bangs 
 the boches are using. They d like to get hold of you and 
 set you going. But after all see here, Bailey, I be-
 
 THE BLACK DROP 129 
 
 lieve you could get a bigger pull if you went a little mild 
 at first. Now you want to drive America into the war. 
 Why can t you do some idyllic stuff about America at 
 peace? That first, you know. Then show it s a false 
 peace, a lying security. See? And go at it again, ham 
 mer and tongs, war ! war ! " 
 
 Bailey stood looking at him from under frowning brows. 
 The pink again had faded from his face. He looked like 
 youth grown old in wisdom. Yet not suspicion : he had no 
 doubts of Charles. He spoke seriously, as if he admon 
 ished Charles, recalled him. 
 
 " No, Mr. Tracy," he said. " That s compounding 
 with villainy. I can t do that. I can t waste a word on 
 idyllic pictures. I m not prophesying or if I am, it s 
 not any holy city I see. I d rather be a baby Isaiah, fore 
 telling the ruin to come, and calling on us, if we don t re 
 pent no, calling on the rocks to hide us." 
 
 He meant it tremendously, more amazingly so than 
 Charles had ever seen anybody mean anything except 
 Helen when she owned her love for him. And perhaps it 
 was really amazing because it was this physically ineffec 
 tive creature who spoke, who couldn t defend his country 
 with the strength of his hands but was giving her every 
 thing he had the power of his brain and his will and the 
 pangs of his sick heart. For an instant Charles, who 
 liked to answer every man according to his own type of 
 desire, felt about for something stately old Testament 
 stuff, he thought, to throw back, but all he could manage 
 was : 
 
 " Of course, do as you like, do it your own way. That ll 
 suit me." 
 
 " It ll have to suit you," said Bailey, and as he went 
 out he knew his hand on the door-knob trembled and he 
 hated himself, knowing Charles would see it, too.
 
 XIII 
 
 CHARLES made a long day at the office, getting his hand 
 on the machinery, shutting off power here and dropping 
 a little oil in there. He gave some time to initiating a 
 new man, because one of the old staff had been discharged, 
 for a sophistical reason. The others were going to be dis 
 charged as sophistical reasons accumulated. Only this they 
 did not yet suspect. Charles had come in with such a breeze 
 of banners blowing, such a warm and even too ingenuous 
 appreciation of everybody, as it seemed, that the first 
 apprehension of changed conditions was effectually lulled. 
 He looked, indeed, incredibly too " easy." But every 
 body buttressed up the daily task with an added diligence, 
 momentary, perhaps, but natural under the first breath 
 ings of relief, and was strengthened anew with the cer 
 tainty that the policy of the paper was to remain un 
 changed. And who could support an unchanged policy 
 so unerringly as the old staff? Charles had been trying 
 for a week to get hold of Finch, whom also he had bought 
 for his exclusive output, and Finch wasn t to be found. 
 There were traditions that he lived in a shanty out of 
 town and raised ducks and that even the R. F. D. dropped 
 his mail down a woodchuck s hole. But at the end of the 
 day came in two of Finch s brief, biting editorials, the work 
 Charles had bought him for. Charles read them, swore at 
 them, tore them in two and dropped them in the basket. 
 He had not acquired Finch to write editorials assailing 
 sloth in high places. He had meant to get a mollifying 
 influence on him before he put pen to paper. Finch s 
 
 130
 
 THE BLACK DROP 131 
 
 mission was to exalt the arts of peace, to deplore a 
 shadow of militarism, for whatever cause, creeping over 
 America s bright dream. This was, it is to be remembered, 
 the early winter of 1916. No need, except for the histo 
 rian, of recalling those days now, except as we ponder their 
 admonition and as they affected the lives of men. Every 
 body was being moulded by them, in one way or another, 
 whether they knew it or not. But of the big events 
 America came up against, like the late presidential election 
 and the attitude of Washington toward the world, it is 
 not necessary to speak here. The men and women of this 
 story were breathing with the time, like other men and 
 women, hurt by it, briefly encouraged and then bruised 
 again. For they were a part of the world, and the world 
 was at war. 
 
 Charles, that day, went home dog-tired. He was 
 fractious to the breaking point, and there was no one to 
 turn to for understanding or soft words. Mrs. Daven 
 port was in New York, to meet the chief of her department 
 of propaganda. Charles could not bring himself to go 
 round to see the family. He felt their guarded antago 
 nism, had felt it at once, as soon as he told them his wife 
 had left him. They were, he knew, standing by Helen. 
 When he got home to his irreproachable house there was 
 another provocative to irritation in Cross, the perfect 
 indoor man, who had served him for a couple of years and 
 never more like a beneficent shadow than since Helen had 
 gone ; but Cross was, he furiously felt, inside that 
 unpenetrated silence where the souls of butlers hold integ 
 rity, also standing by Helen. He ate his dinner with 
 the evening paper before him, and got furious with it 
 because it crumpled up and played tricks with his wine 
 glass and plate. Finally the whole offensiveness of the
 
 132 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 world seemed to pass into the paper, and he swore at it 
 and threw it on the floor. And when Cross picked it up, 
 and restored it to a paper s normal placidity and proffered 
 it again, with an unsympathetic neutrality, he swore at 
 him, too, and had some ado to keep from striking the paper 
 from his hand. 
 
 But he finished his dinner without interest and then went 
 off to the library, leaving the paper behind him. He sat 
 down by the fire, stretched his legs out and began to smoke 
 with a luxurious assumption that he was making himself 
 extraordinarily comfortable. Yet, as he smoked, he saw 
 that the very perfection of the house and its service, 
 instead of making Helen s absence more tolerable, had 
 embittered it tenfold. If he had found the dust and ashes 
 that were on his head, over his dignity, his reputation 
 among men, also over the entire suface of the tangible 
 desert she had left behind her, he thought he need not have 
 been so furious with her. He had once gone with his 
 mother to the house of a farmer near Grasslands, where 
 the wife had died and the farmer was trying to get along 
 alone. He never forgot the forlorn aspect of the place: 
 the plants unwatered and drooping, the last meal left in 
 disarray on the table, ashes on the hearth and dust dulling 
 everything. Charles wasn t sympathetic over the tawdry 
 scene. He only thought how like the dickens old Phinney s 
 place looked, and now, as he sat in the dustless luxuriance 
 of his own silent room, the picture of it recurred to him and 
 he decided old Phinney s case was better than his own. 
 For at least he could damn the dust, and Charles had only 
 Helen to damn. His anger kept rising in him, tide upon 
 tide, until at last it seemed to him it had to have an outlet 
 or it would return upon him and submerge his heart. 
 He got up and went to the telephone and called Helen s
 
 THE BLACK DROP 133 
 
 number. He had no plan. He was going to call her up, 
 that was all. While he waited, his brain suddenly grew 
 composed, alert in its working, and his anger seemed to 
 go. What should he say, he wondered, if it were Jessie 
 who came? Well, he could simply hang up the receiver 
 and give it up, give up what he meant to do, though even 
 at this last instant he hardly knew what that was. His 
 mind might know, that little cocksure person sitting with 
 in. He didn t. But it was Helen who answered. Her 
 perfect voice with the little lift in it came with such a 
 shock of nearness that he felt as if she had touched his 
 hand. Then he spoke and his voice was not his own. 
 It was his father s. The little cocksure person within 
 was managing that. 
 
 " That you, Helen of the Topless Towers? " He had 
 heard his father banter her with that when they whipped 
 up their old foolish gaieties together. She laughed, and 
 he knew she was taken in. But the laugh, the unchanged 
 laugh, seemed to him the cruellest thing he had ever heard. 
 She was laughing, and she had abandoned him to the 
 horrible desert of his dustless and irreproachable solitude. 
 
 " Yes, dear," said she. " How are the other dears? " 
 
 " Put on your hat and run over," said he. " Father 
 wants to see you." 
 
 " Yes, in just a minute, when Jessie comes back. John s 
 taken her for a spin round the Common. They re going 
 to run. I told them they d be arrested." 
 
 " You come along," said Charles. " We don t want 
 Jessie. It s a joke. Leave her a note and come." 
 
 " All right," said Helen. 
 
 He hung up the receiver and went back to his chair and 
 sat there, leaning forward, his hands between his knees. 
 He felt sick, and the sweat stood on his forehead. But
 
 134 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 while he sat there Helen, he knew, would be putting on 
 her hat, and he got up and went into the hah 1 as softly 
 as he could, not to notify Cross who, with his ever 
 lasting officiousness, was always on the alert, took his 
 hat and coat and hurried out. He walked very fast up 
 the hill to Helen s number and past it, and when he 
 had come to the corner above, halted to watch. For 
 several minutes he stayed there, and the blood in him 
 began to cool and his courage to ebb downward. He 
 had stayed too long in his chair, hating her. She had 
 escaped him and gone. And just as he was thinking 
 some of them would come home with her and he might as 
 well give up all hope for that night, she came out, turned 
 to give a look up and down the street, and then went on, 
 with her individual beauty of haste. He was cool again 
 now and started on behind her, with long strides and as 
 noiselessly as he could. Once he felt she was going to stop 
 it was only the extreme apprehension of his nerves 
 and he turned back and walked the other way. But in 
 a minute he looked and found she was going on, and now she 
 was nearly at the corner. If she turned that he must lose 
 her, for he could never halt her in the brighter light. 
 When he came up beside her he walked with her a step or 
 two without speaking and she looked up at him. There 
 was the least perceptible break in her pace, but she was 
 keeping on and he knew he had to be very quick in his 
 force or his persuasion. 
 
 " Helen ! " he said. 
 
 She made no answer. 
 
 " Helen, you re coming home with me." 
 
 The little cocksure person up in his brain had tossed him 
 that. It was a phrase he and Helen both remembered, 
 from the old time when they had been so passionately
 
 THE BLACK DROP 135 
 
 wrapped in each other that once, midway in a journey 
 when she was to leave him, to visit her own people, he had 
 said to her, at the last minute : " Helen, you re coming 
 home with me." And she had yielded, in delight at yield 
 ing and the manner of it, his loving roughness, her glory 
 in submission, and they had said the phrase many a time 
 to each other after, to emphasize by a word the misery of 
 parting. What did it mean to her now? He waited an 
 instant, and then, as she didn t speak, didn t move her 
 face toward him, and, as they came to the corner, turned 
 to go her way, he knew. She had not forgotten the old 
 password. She was repudiating it. And if she didn t 
 heed that, there was no persuasion for it, only violence. 
 He put his arm about her and swept her from her course. 
 The whole slight strength of her was against him. They 
 were not struggling, but he was half carrying, half drag 
 ging her, and at last he felt mastery and its wild delight. 
 Nobody was in the street, and he was sure now of what he 
 was to do. More and more she resisted him, and now so 
 heavily that he wondered if she could be fainting; but he 
 put his other hand under her chin and turned her face up 
 to him. She had closed her eyes. For an instant he had 
 a mad impulse to kiss the white, immobile face, to kiss it 
 brutally, reminding her he had the right. But after 
 all, he didn t want to kiss her. He was, he realised at the 
 instant, insanely angry with her, and, fainting or not, 
 she had to go with him. 
 
 Helen was not fainting. She was strung up to the 
 tension that meets tremendous onslaughts on the will. 
 And this place where she found herself this danger, she 
 believed it was something she had foreseen and terribly 
 imagined. For the moment had to come, she had told her 
 self, when she would meet Charles and find him angry with
 
 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 her. And the insanity of his anger she knew, though its 
 fury had always passed her by. Helen, like other women 
 through the war, had been learning a new commandment: 
 " Thou shalt not be afraid." She had been looking over 
 to Europe and marveling at what other women, assaulted 
 by the hideous grotesquerie of evil, were enduring, at the 
 dogged patience of their meeting that grim destiny, 
 and she had determined that nothing should ever make her 
 flinch. Nothing, if she were attacked, should lead her to 
 take refuge amid the complaining chorus of physical 
 frailty. In her measure she would stand up to things as 
 the world was standing. She would fight her weight. But 
 she was, at this instant, powerless in his hands, horribly 
 afraid, and she was thinking as tumultuously as Charles. 
 Fears came to her so fast that it seemed as if they pelted 
 like hail. At one of the turnings he paused slightly, and 
 she wondered whether he would take her down to the 
 embankment where he could talk to her in a greater 
 solitude, or whether he would hurry her over the railing 
 and leave her there to drown. She could swim, but she 
 also thought, with a grim sort of detachment, how heavy 
 her coat was, how impossible it would be to get it off in. 
 the water and then, like one in delirium, dwelling on 
 suggested trivialities, she remembered how many hooks 
 there were on the dress she wore, and thought how hostile 
 all confining things are when you come to be killed. 
 
 He was carrying her on, and when they had passed two 
 more corners she knew she was not to drown. She was, 
 exactly in the words of the remembered phrase, going home 
 with him. There was relief in that, and yet she was not 
 sure there might not be something else at the end of the 
 quick journey to make her the more afraid. He took her 
 up the steps, and she was not resisting now with every inch.
 
 THE BLACK DROP 137 
 
 of her. Something in her resolution had dulled. She was 
 saving herself for the next step, the unknown. When he 
 put his key in the door she did break away and run, and 
 got half a dozen paces before he caught her. But he was 
 there instantly and she shrank, thinking he would strike 
 her down and carry her in helpless, because it was less 
 trouble. 
 
 Charles had no idea of striking her. He was trium 
 phantly sure of her now, and he threw his arm again about 
 her and swept her on and up the steps, in a swift rush 
 because now nothing remained but to get it over, and he 
 opened the door and freed her, standing beside her in the 
 hall and smiling. And facing her, cap in hand, was Cross, 
 who knew Charles went out and was about to follow on 
 some errand of his own, but, hearing the door close, had 
 hurried in from the back regions to see who came. He 
 had been devoted to Helen and he stood stark at the sight 
 of her. His thin face suffused and he looked, Charles in 
 his triumph thought, as if he might break down and sob. 
 Charles wondered why Cross hadn t sobbed a little over 
 him. It was Cross who broke the bounds of decorum and 
 spoke, but only the one word: 
 
 " Madam ! " 
 
 Helen, instantly recalled to the sanities of life by the 
 mere sight of him, made a little gesture toward the door, 
 and Cross understood. He opened the door, she stepped 
 out and he followed her, and Charles called after him, 
 an angry, hoarse bark, like a dog. 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Cross respectfully. But he closed the 
 door. 
 
 Helen was walking fast and he went on behind her. 
 She had given him only that one glance and he could not 
 he sure she would speak to him again. Did she even
 
 138 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 know he was there? Helen had indeed forgotten him, 
 forgotten Charles and the present moment. Memories 
 were overwhelming her. She had stood there in the hall 
 an instant only before Cross opened the door for her, 
 but it had been long enough for one look at the wide 
 staircase, the old clock at the turn of the landing, and 
 in the library at the left her own portrait smiling at her 
 from the wall. Another slightest token of her strange 
 ness in the dear lost spot was the pile of visiting cards. 
 These were the last ripples of social favor likely to rise 
 for her again. They, too, if she did not soon take her 
 accredited place in that little world, would cease. To 
 night she was like a poor ghost revisiting the scenes of 
 mortal rites and obligations. How soon would it be 
 before she was indeed forgotten? 
 
 Now her steps drooped and her breath came feebly. 
 She stopped, aware, as she must have been all along, 
 of Cross. He came up beside her and Helen, not speaking, 
 put her hand through his arm, and Cross was proud. 
 They went on together, and at the corner before her own 
 block she stopped. 
 
 " Thank you," she said. " Now you may go back." 
 " Madam ! " said Cross, from his anxious heart. 
 " No," said Helen. " It s only a step. And thank you." 
 At her own door, she looked. Cross was still there. He 
 was, in the old country phrase, seeing her home. When 
 the door closed behind her, he went back and found what 
 he expected : Charles, in the library, waiting to call him in 
 and get his notice. Charles was not in the towering rage 
 Cross had pictured that minute before the encounter. 
 He was coldly contemptuous and framed the man s dis 
 missal decorously, and Cross received it with the " Very 
 good, sir," of an unvarying professional respect. Then
 
 THE BLACK DROP 139 
 
 he went up to put his things together for he was to go 
 at once and left Charles standing there before Helen s 
 picture, looking up, in what seemed an unmoved interest, 
 at its wraith-like innocence. But Charles really had a 
 choking in his throat and a burning of the eyelids. He 
 could not have told what he was feeling, whether he loved 
 her or whether he hated her. He had an unwilling 
 admiration for her because she had taken him by surprise 
 and had defeated him. And then the inner welling of his 
 emotion went down, and he swore aloud, in a normal anger, 
 and at the same moment Cross, flinging his belongings 
 together in what had been his orderly room, but was now 
 a wild chaos of trouser-legs and shirt-sleeves, also swore. 
 Each was the natural man in his revolt against conditions, 
 and very much alike they were, in spite of the No Man s 
 Land between them. 
 
 Helen went upstairs with her usual light steadiness and 
 into her own room where she put her things away. Jessie 
 was calling her from the sitting-room and she went in, 
 able, she had no doubt, to account for herself easily. 
 Jessie was on the sofa, her hair disordered from the 
 vehemence of her butting about for hollows in the pillow, 
 a book face down beside her. She was a picture of sweetest 
 youth in disarray. Helen, who was orderly in the measure 
 Jessie was not, went forward, and picked up the book, 
 smoothed it as if to make up for ill-treatment, and put 
 it on the table. Then she sat down in her low chair and 
 began to tremble, and this went on until her teeth chattered 
 and she was a piteous sight. Jessie sprang up and went to 
 her. First she hugged her, in her impetuous puppy way, 
 and then she ran into the dining-room and threw open the 
 sideboard for a cordial of some sort, and on to Helen s 
 room and came back with lavender salts.
 
 140 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " Not a drop of liquor in this house," she said. " To 
 morrow morning you ll order some or I ll see. O darlin 
 dear, what is it? " 
 
 Helen smiled at her ineffectually and bit her lips and 
 tried all the shifts the poor body has at call when it is 
 shamefully shaken, and by and by the trembling stopped 
 and she drew a long breath again. But she was still cold, 
 and Jessie brought a fur coat and wrapped her in it, and 
 sat at her feet and looked up at her. 
 
 "What is it, darlin dear?" she said again. "Tell 
 Jessie." 
 
 But Helen shook her head. 
 
 " You wrote you were going over to the house," said 
 Jessie. " Didn t you go? " 
 
 Again Helen shook her head. 
 
 "Why not? Did anybody bother you? Did you get 
 frightened? " 
 
 " Yes," said Helen. " I got frightened." 
 
 " You sha n t go out alone," said Jessie. " But 
 oughtn t I to telephone them and tell why you didn t 
 come? " 
 
 " No," said Helen, and later, when Jessie proposed it 
 again, she got fractious over it and asked to be let alone, 
 and then was sorry. But that night, after they had both 
 tried hard to sleep, Jessie got up and went in to her and 
 knelt by the bed and laid her cheek to Helen s hand, put 
 out to welcome her. 
 
 "What was it, dear?" she asked her. "You trouble 
 me when you don t tell." 
 
 " I got frightened, that was all," said Helen. " Run 
 back, dear. You ll be cold." But as Jessie was going, 
 she called after her, " To-morrow we ll have a chain put on 
 the door."
 
 XIV 
 
 ON the following night, John sat with grandsir before 
 the fire up in grandsir s room. A little dinner was 
 going on downstairs, some of Norris s old friends of pen 
 and ink, and John, who was never sanguine of being 
 amused by oldsters who talked down to him, dined out, 
 coming up later to steal a half-hour s solitude with grand- 
 sir whom he found rather better than usual, and, as 
 it always happened when his enemy intermitted hostilities, 
 ready for life and the call of things. Grandsir had just 
 walked across the floor happy excursion to one who was 
 customarily petrified in a chair and had returned to the 
 fire, and there John found him and also stretched his legs 
 to the blaze. When John had grandsir to himself at 
 moments of care-free intercourse like this, he was, he 
 admitted frankly, made. Besides, he had something to tell. 
 
 " Grandsir," said he, feeling very shy. 
 
 " What is it, old boy?" asked grandsir, stretching one 
 foot further in a luxurious testing. 
 
 " I m going," said John, " to make you a munificent 
 offer. I told Allan I should." 
 
 "My Allan Lloyd?" 
 
 " Yes. He can t tell you. Says you ll think he wants 
 to do it. And he doesn t want to. He s got to, that s 
 all." 
 
 " He s going to leave me," said grandsir quietly, draw- 
 
 141
 
 142 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 ing his foot up to the point where it was likelier to be safe. 
 He couldn t risk another pang just then. 
 
 " He s learning to drive," said John, speaking fast to 
 get the emotional part of it over. For he was afraid he 
 should have to persuade and show grandsir how tremen 
 dously he wanted something of his own, something that 
 might not seem to be as selfish as it really was. 
 
 " You see Allan wants to get into the ambulance corps 
 and over to France as soon as they ll let him. And, 
 grandsir ! Now wait don t speak think it over I 
 want to apply for the place. I m crazy to have you take 
 me on." 
 
 Grandsir could not speak at once, and the two didn t 
 look at each other. But when he did speak John heard 
 the difference in his voice it had warmed up, John 
 thought and he saw grandsir had liked it. 
 
 " Peel off my clothes and chuck me into my bath and 
 put me on my tummy in your lap, like a decrepit old baby, 
 to be dried off? " said grandsir. " And then get me into 
 my crib and give me my bottle in the middle of the night 
 and say There! there! when I have a legs-ache? You 
 don t know, old man, what you d have to go through." 
 
 " Oh, but I d love it," said John. He was speaking out 
 because grandsir was meeting him so charmingly, wasn t 
 batting him over the head and telling him he d be no good 
 anyway. " I d just adore it. I don t know anything I d 
 like better. And I d be as mum as a fish when your legs 
 ached. I d laugh, though. You re awful funny, grandsir. 
 when they ache and you swear at em. I don t believe 
 anybody s ever told you that, but you are funny as 
 frogs." 
 
 " No," said grandsir mildly, " I don t believe I actually 
 knew how funny I am on such occasions. Well, we ll
 
 THE BLACK DROP 143 
 
 see what we ll do. Anyhow we ll send Allan off all right 
 on his adventure. But I guess we can find another nurse 
 for the old baby that isn t so valuable as you are. You 
 know, John, you ve got more or less of a brain." 
 
 " Oh, what s that matter? What s the odds, so long 
 as you can t do a thing with your legs and arms and eyes 
 when that s what they want now. You know, a while ago 
 I got it into my head I could learn to fly." 
 
 " You can t," said grandsir, in a finality that did not 
 seem to be a question, but an answer of itself. 
 
 " No, I was turned down. Evidently there s something 
 about me that prevents my standing on my head or even 
 running an ambulance. I call it rotten luck." 
 
 " You ll be stronger as you grow older," said grandsir. 
 " I ve always felt that." 
 
 " Thunder ! but I want to be stronger now," said John. 
 "It s now they want us. There s Charles he s tough 
 as a horse. But would he go over to France? Not if 
 you blew him out of a gun. No, sir. He ll stay right 
 here and make money." 
 
 " Charles goes the pace, though. If he doesn t look 
 sharp he ll break down. Charles drinks." 
 
 " Oh, I don t believe he kicks over the traces, once in 
 an age. He takes his glass now and then, but that s only 
 to buck him up for the scariest of his deals." 
 
 " Nevertheless," said grandsir, " he s going a pretty 
 pace. He lives a kind of melodrama, you see, a sort of 
 detective play it takes it out of you like the deuce. 
 He s keyed up all the time. We re a nervous lot, we 
 Tracy s. If it hadn t been for apple trees, I should have 
 come out worse than I have." 
 
 " Now I wonder," said John admiringly, " just how 
 you know so much about what s going on. You sit up
 
 144 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 here and make charts of orchards, and you find out more 
 than all the rest of us put together. I bet there s one 
 thing you don t know." 
 
 " No takers," said grandsir. " I bet there s ten. What 
 is it?" 
 
 " I bet you don t know what Charles has done to the 
 Voice." 
 
 "What has he?" 
 
 " You know its old policy was to be continued. And 
 you remember what a decent paper it was. Well, Charles 
 has turned it into an old maid s tea-party." 
 
 " He ll knock his circulation galley-west." 
 
 " Oh, no, he won t. The pacifists are all taking it, and 
 the pro-Germans are licking it up like cream. Don t you 
 see how he s cracking up a tranquil America and pitching 
 into the civilisations of the world, and preaching the 
 gospel of persuasion? And how he s taking the heart 
 right out of us. 
 
 " Not you, John," said grandsir. " He hasn t taken 
 the heart out of you." 
 
 " No, by jinks ! But he d like to mighty well, only he 
 knows I m on to him. But don t you see what he s doing? 
 He s holding us back. He s preaching delay, and he s 
 doing it with such horrid cleverness you can t put your 
 finger on him." 
 
 "Well," said grandsir, "you think he hesitated 
 for John to fill in the pause. 
 
 " He s pro-German. That s what I think." 
 
 " Oh, I can t believe that. He s no reason to scavenge 
 for Germany." 
 
 " She s bought him, that s all. Charles has just as 
 surely been bought as any of their spies." 
 
 "What about your Brennan? What about Bailey?
 
 THE BLACK DROP 145 
 
 Their work s red-hot, as bad as yours. Charles wouldn t 
 have bought them for the paper if he meant to tone 
 it down." 
 
 " How many cartoons of Brennan s has he published? 
 How much of Finch s stuff or Bailey s? Well, how much? 
 Not a line. They must have been handing in stuff right 
 along. That was the bargain. Charles has simply 
 chucked it." 
 
 " Why don t you ask them about it ask em what he 
 says? " 
 
 " Ask em? " said John. " I wouldn t be found dead 
 with em. They knew perfectly well what Charles is and 
 they let him go and buy em in the open market. Or 
 anyway, if they didn t know, they were bally fools and 
 that s just as bad. It s criminal." 
 
 " Oh, they mightn t have found anything against him. 
 You know yourself what a charmer Charles is when he 
 wants anything." 
 
 " Now, grandsir, don t you go to whitewashing Charles, 
 same as father does, just to keep the family together. 
 Say, grandsir, ain t the family a funny bunch ? As a firm, I 
 mean, a working proposition. When one of em queers the 
 pitch and still keeps up a big bluff to make things go, you ve 
 got to pretend you re taken in by it. Rotten, I call it." 
 
 " Families are peculiar," said grandsir. " I ve often 
 thought that. But I dare say the thing couldn t go on 
 any other way." 
 
 " There s Charles now ; Charles is an outlaw. He s 
 no more like the rest of us than if a German stork had 
 brought him over and dropped him down the chimney. 
 And we all know it, but not one of us ll tell the truth 
 about him. Except me. I will. Even Helen won t. 
 She leaves him, but she d be sand-bagged before she d tell
 
 146 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 us what she left him for. Hold on ! Somebody s coming. 
 It s a swish. I bet it s Helen herself." 
 
 He got up and went to the door, and grandsir, too, got 
 up, proudly conscious of being found standing on his 
 feet and also smiling at himself for the childishness of it. 
 But it was not Helen. It was Jessie, serious, her brows 
 knitted, and coming in hesitatingly as if not quite sure 
 whether she ought to be there at all. Indeed, she was so 
 different from her usual gay self that John asked at 
 once what was the matter and grandsir listened with an 
 intent concern. Something, they thought at once, had 
 happened to Helen. 
 
 " I suppose I oughtn t to have come in this way," she 
 said. She took the chair grandsir indicated and threw 
 back her fur with a definitive air that seemed to say she 
 was here to talk something over and must stay until it was 
 done. " I mean, I stole Helen s key. I didn t ring. Was 
 Helen here last night? " 
 
 " Not up here," said grandsir, taking his chair again 
 and glad to get it. " I didn t hear she came at all." 
 
 " Why, no," said John, " mother d have said so." 
 
 Then Jessie told the story of Helen s coming home: 
 first of her own coming and finding Helen s note, saying 
 she was going over to the house because Mr. Tracy had 
 telephoned and asking Jessie not to come. And then 
 of her terror and the state she had been in all day, 
 apprehensive, quiet, watching from the window. 
 
 " I ve come out now to mail a letter," said Jessie. 
 " That s what I told her. But I went into the kitchen and 
 asked Hannah to be sure she doesn t see anybody while 
 I m gone. Mr. Tracy, what frightened her last night? 
 What could have frightened her, and what s kept her 
 frightened all day? "
 
 THE BLACK DROP 147 
 
 " Ask her," said grandsir. 
 
 "Ask her! I should think I did ask her. But ask 
 Helen ! All she says is to tell me not to remind her of 
 it. And I said, But Helen, you were frightened. And 
 then she said, Yes, I was frightened. And she looked 
 frightened again." 
 
 " That proves it," said John. 
 
 He was standing beside her, his hands in his pockets, 
 and from time to time he took quick little walks to the 
 window, as if he couldn t be controlled. 
 
 " Proves what? " asked Jessie. 
 
 " Proves what did it. It was Charles. Helen isn t 
 obstinate ordinarily. It s only about Charles. Now, 
 since she s left him, she s dumb as a fish." 
 
 Jessie turned to grandsir, flushed all over her young 
 face. 
 
 " I wish you d find out, Mr. Tracy," she said. " You 
 can do it, perhaps nobody else. How am I going to 
 take care of her if I don t know what I ve got to save her 
 from? And if she s frightened it isn t like Helen, you 
 see. It s awful." She got up and put on her fur again, 
 quickly, as if all she could do was done and there was no 
 time for deliberation. " I must go." 
 
 " I ll go with you," said John. " My hat s in the 
 hall." 
 
 He ran down and grandsir put out his hand to Jessie, 
 and, when she gave him hers, held it for a minute and 
 patted it with the other delicate palm. 
 
 " Sorry," he said. " Sorry, my dear." 
 
 She nodded at him and smiled, but he saw even gay 
 Jessie was shaken enough to cry a little if she hadn t 
 thought it silly. And then she, too, went and found John 
 downstairs waiting for her. They slipped out quietly,
 
 148 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 hearing the voice of the diners in an animated disorder, 
 and John said : 
 
 " I left you with grandsir on purpose. I thought you d 
 want to see him alone. Everybody does when they re 
 in a hole." 
 
 " Yes," said Jessie. " If he d only ask her, find out and 
 tell me. What is it? What frightened her? " 
 
 She stopped short and turned to look at him as if she 
 could drag something out of him the sooner. 
 
 " Charles, I tell you," said John. 
 
 And they went on. 
 
 " How could he frighten her? He wouldn t ? " She 
 stopped. 
 
 " Lay hands on her? " said John violently. " Strike 
 her? I don t know. I don t know anything about 
 Charles except one thing. He s yellow, all through, 
 yellow." 
 
 He could hear her catch her breath at that and told 
 himself he loved her for taking such passionate care of 
 Helen. She didn t seem now like that rather brusque, 
 boyish person she had been that first night, but another 
 self of Helen, strangely like her and yet different, 
 subservient to her beauties, born to guard them. They 
 had turned the corner, and she stopped. 
 
 " See that man up there," she said. " Just above my 
 number. He was there when I came out, walking up and 
 down. Could it be ? " 
 
 "Charles? Come on. We ll see if it is." 
 
 " No," said Jessie. " I d rather be alone. If he sees 
 you coming, he ll go along." 
 
 "Let him. I ll follow him. If it s Charles, if he s 
 waiting for Helen 
 
 " Then come behind me," said Jessie, " quite a little way
 
 THE BLACK DROP 149 
 
 behind. I ll look straight at him. I want to know. And 
 if he saw you and made off you couldn t 
 
 " I couldn t sprint," said John bitterly, " with a game 
 leg. Right. Go ahead." 
 
 She went on up the hill and the man turned as she 
 approached him and walked slowly in advance of her. But 
 Jessie quickened her steps, almost running lightly, and 
 passed him. She seemed about to turn a corner, wheeled 
 and came back facing him, looking at him squarely. It 
 wasn t Charles, quite evidently, but there was something 
 familiar about the pale face under the electric light, 
 the large nose and square chin. Jessie walked up to 
 him. 
 
 " You ve been hanging about our door," she said. 
 " What are you doing it for? Why, it s Cross! " 
 
 Cross took off his hat and stood holding it, with a sort 
 of sad dignity. 
 
 " Yes, Miss Jessie," he said, in his old tone of humble 
 propriety. " Can I do anything for you? " 
 
 John came up and also halted, not speaking. 
 
 " But," said Jessie " John, this is Cross, you know." 
 
 " Oh, yes," said John. " I know Cross. You were 
 watching the house. What for? " 
 
 " I saw Mrs. Tracy out alone last night," said Cross, 
 with an unshattered dignity. " It didn t seem to me quite 
 safe. If anybody spoke to her, it might be a little awk 
 ward. So, as I ve time on my hands, I thought I d hang 
 about in case madam was out alone, and perhaps I could 
 overlook her, as you might say, and make sure she wasn t 
 annoyed." 
 
 " Was she annoyed last night? " asked John. " Where 
 was she when you saw her? " 
 
 " Oh," said Cross easily, " just walking up the hill the
 
 150 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 same as Miss Jessie here. But it struck me it would be 
 safer to hang about a little and make sure." 
 
 " You re a good soul, Cross," said Jessie. " But what 
 do you mean about having time on your hands? Aren t 
 you on duty this evening? " 
 
 " No, miss," said Cross, " I am not with Mr. Tracy at 
 present." 
 
 "Oh, ho!" said John. "How long since?" 
 
 " Not very long," said Cross. " And having a little 
 time on my hands good night, Miss Jessie. Good night, 
 sir." 
 
 " We ll look out for her, Cross," Jessie called after him, 
 as he turned away up the hill. " She sha n t go out alone." 
 
 " Thank you, miss," said Cross, and took on a quicker 
 gait. 
 
 " Funny," said John, as they walked their few steps 
 back to Jessie s door. " What s Charles want to get rid of 
 him for? He s the incarnation of British pomp. Charles 
 can t have set up a private detective bureau, can he? 
 Cross, I mean, Cross shadowing Helen. And being dis 
 missed a put-up job? He can t be in Charles s pay? " 
 
 " Cross? " said Jessie. " Heavens, no! Where s your 
 psychology? Cross has stepped straight out of Trollope. 
 If he s lost his job he ll go back there again. You ll find 
 him to-morrow in one of the volumes at the Athenaeum."
 
 XV 
 
 NORRIS, sitting up in his work-room, was reading the 
 Voice. John had brought him in a file, dating from the 
 day Charles began to run it, and he was going through it 
 with the accurate painstaking of the man used to print. 
 And when he had finished and brought it up to the present 
 day, he leaned back in his chair and thought wonderingly 
 over the power of the written word. And it seemed to him 
 most glorious and also most pernicious. For here was 
 Charles wielding a tremendous force and apparently all 
 for good, and Norris was sure it wasn t for good but, 
 whether intentionally or not, for evil. Men of mind and 
 decency were pushing the administration toward war, and 
 Charles was, without one word for which he could be held 
 accountable, holding back. How was he doing it? He 
 was dwelling on the enormous influence of an America at 
 peace, with her powers untrammeled for developing her 
 resources. He was bidding her husband her resources 
 for the big drain there would be on them when the war was 
 over. She would be needed then to rebuild her sister na 
 tions. Perhaps sending supplies to Europe now merely 
 kept weakened nations staggering on in the fight, when it 
 was to their own destruction they were going. Could they 
 be saved before it was too late? Would nothing be left 
 of beautiful France before the awful might of Germany? 
 Would the terrible monster paralyze even more mighty 
 England? For Germany was mighty. She had nourished 
 herself on blood, she was like the dragons of old, only per- 
 
 151
 
 152 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 haps she could not be slain. Perhaps the only campaign 
 against her was a campaign of education, of enlighten 
 ment. She had trained her children to hate. If the 
 abominable slaughter would cease, could we persuade them 
 to understand, to love? 
 
 Norris smiled a little, grimly, as he went on. You would 
 have thought Charles was a sucking dove of peace and 
 irrational hope and all the softer virtues. Charles laid 
 great stress on the might of Germany. What was the 
 use, he asked, in many forms, of making a useless struggle 
 against a power which had eaten and drunk and slept war 
 for half a century? Why not ignore the old madnesses 
 and learn whether Germany also could be civilized by the 
 only methods that were permanent, ploughshares and 
 pruning hooks put to their legitimate use? Charles saw 
 a roseate America sitting up in the clouds counseling her 
 sister states, and able to hold her dizzy height not because 
 she had won a stage apotheosis through the triumph of 
 virtuous deeds, but had been blown sky-high by the blast 
 of words. And Norris began to see anew what a terrible 
 power lies in the printed word. He had always regarded 
 his own profession as something that concerned himself 
 alone. His aptitude for words was something to have fun 
 with, he might have said in his lightest moments, some 
 thing to earn your living from, if you were clever enough, 
 but really a tricksy companion, by the hearth to-day, to 
 morrow off into the open. But as there had been no time 
 like this time of war, so it had brought out values obscured 
 by the dust of every day. Here were the newspapers giv 
 ing the people the one chance of being heard, and at the 
 same time pushing on the laggards in power to the only 
 logical outcome of Germany s insolence. They were the 
 only weapon the people had left, and in the main they were
 
 THE BLACK DROP 153 
 
 sane and valiant and he thanked God for them. But here 
 was another sort of newspaper, and behind it was Charles 
 who also had the right of free speech, so long as he made it 
 innocent enough to avoid condemnation. And Charles, 
 Norris knew in his soul, was not straight. But the reading 
 world didn t know that. He could sit hidden behind the 
 obscurity of the editorial cloud and direct his printing 
 presses to spread poison broadcast, and the poison was 
 sweet to the taste, and what should the world know? 
 
 And while he thought, John came to his door, hesitating 
 lest father should be at work, and yet curious to find out 
 what he thought of the Voice. Norris threw down the 
 copy in hand to the pile on the floor and nodded at him, 
 and John came in and leaned on the mantel and waited for 
 his father to speak. Yet Norris seemed to make his shot 
 rather wide of the mark. 
 
 " I sometimes wish," he said, " printing never d been in 
 vented." 
 
 "Pretty bad, isn t it?" John inquired dispassionately. 
 
 " Yes, mighty bad for anybody that sees through it. 
 And that s the devil of it. Not one in ten will see. The 
 old ladies men and women will think it s great stuff. 
 Why, I ve had proof of that in the last three days. You 
 know I went to read for that benefit. Some of em came 
 up and congratulated me on what Charles was doing for 
 the Voice. They said he had vision." 
 
 " Vision ! " said John. " Charles ! vision nothing ! " 
 
 Then Norris, like his father, remembered the gang and 
 also that he hadn t found a trace of them in the file. 
 
 " I thought he d bought them," he said. " That s what 
 you were rowing about." 
 
 " He has bought em," said John. " And I begin to see 
 his hand."
 
 154 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " He has their entire output. If it s to the detriment 
 of Germany he s going to hold it up not publish it, you 
 see. That chokes em off everywhere." 
 
 Norris, in an irrepressible uneasiness, confronted his 
 son. The deep red that ran into his face looked like 
 anger. But John wasn t quelled. He knew if it were 
 anger there was also a mixture of sharp alarm in it, ap 
 prehension, and for his other son. But Norris got hold 
 of himself, turned away and took refuge in the act of the 
 embarrassed natural man and kicked the fire. 
 
 " Well," he said when he turned back, with an effort at 
 ease, " perhaps you ll tell me how a man with a reasonable 
 head for business Charles is pretty keen how he can 
 bring himself to squander the salary of three men in order 
 to throw away their work with it." 
 
 " Charles may not have to stint himself," said John. 
 " Presumably he s got backers." 
 
 "Who are they?" 
 
 " I don t know. But whoever they are, they represent 
 Germany." 
 
 " John ! " Norris threw it at him in an exaggerated 
 protest, to recall him to the magnitude of what he implied. 
 
 " I know it," said John obstinately. " You think it s 
 awful to be bought up by Germany and more awful because 
 it s one of us. But fellows are being bought up every 
 day. Some of em know it and some of em don t. Charles 
 knows it." 
 
 Norris turned back to the fire. He said nothing, and 
 John, swept by one of the waves that took him off his feet, 
 when he wondered why the world couldn t be different and 
 be quick about it, found an indignant question tumbling 
 from him :
 
 THE BLACK DROP 155 
 
 "Dad, what s the matter with families anyway?" 
 
 "Matter?" Norris turned, relieved at least that some 
 thing impersonal could draw them away from Charles un 
 til he had time to think things over. "With families? " 
 
 " It s a kind of bluff," said John, fretting himself by 
 formulating. " Everybody s pretending everybody s bet 
 ter than he is, so as to make him better. Nobody ll say 
 exactly what he thinks for fear of hurting something. I 
 don t know that we are so afraid of hurting one another. 
 We re afraid of hurting the great family god that s set 
 up in the midst of us tumbling him down and cracking 
 him. Now we all know exactly how Charles is likely to 
 act in a given situation, and yet we never assume he d act 
 so. When he comes in, we butter him all over, if he s good, 
 and when he isn t we re sort of bruised and get over it the 
 best way we can." 
 
 " Well," said Norris, " what would you recommend ? " 
 
 He spoke with a grave interest, and John saw he wasn t 
 being chaffed and answered at once : 
 
 " I should treat him like an outlaw. He is one. He 
 doesn t care a hang for any known rule that holds the 
 whole blooming show together, and when he wants to break 
 one he does. And we never act as if he d done it. We 
 say, Come in and take a chair. : 
 
 "Well, what should we say? No, I mean it. I want 
 your point of view." 
 
 "We should say: s Oh, come off. You ve just been 
 mixed up in a dirty deal in the market. You smell of it. 
 Get out. Come back when you ve thrown your loot into 
 the Charles and had a Turkish bath. Or, this is what 
 I d say: You ve sold yourself to Germany, haven t you? 
 Go give yourself up to the D. of J. or we ll do it for 
 you. "
 
 156 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 "What s the D. of J.? " 
 
 " Department of Justice." 
 
 "Heroic methods," said Norris. But he didn t say it 
 satirically. " You ve evidently cast me for the role of 
 the Roman father." 
 
 " I told grandsir I didn t believe in families," said John, 
 and then stopped. He wasn t going to repeat any one of 
 grandsir s replies and have it discussed openly in family 
 council afterward and perhaps get back to grandsir s ears. 
 He had an inside track, he felt ; that last time he had gone 
 further, an inch or two, into grandsir s inner mind, and 
 he wasn t going to lose his chance by sharing it. But he 
 had got his father s attention now. 
 
 " You did," said Norris. " Now what did grandsir say ? " 
 
 " That s telling," remarked John. 
 
 " Oh, come ! but wait a bit. Here s your mother. See 
 what she says about families." Emily was passing on one 
 of her noiseless trips about the house. " Emily ! " 
 
 She came to the door and stood there, inquiring, sweet, 
 in her readiness for any appeal from her men children. 
 John, looking at her, was struck, as he was a dozen 
 times a day, in his impetuous fashion, with the beauty 
 of her. 
 
 " Say, mum," he asked, " what makes you look like a 
 madonna ? " 
 
 " It s her blue dress," said Norris practically, " and the 
 white top and sleeves. There ! that s family candor. 
 How do you like it ? Emily, John s been telling me he has 
 a new idea. He says families don t tell each other the 
 truth." 
 
 "Don t they?" asked Emily, frowning a little as she 
 noted a finger mark on the door and charged herself to 
 remember it. "Maybe not."
 
 THE BLACK DROP 157 
 
 " He says," Norris continued, "we ought to keep jump 
 ing on each other for our faults little ones like my get 
 ting ashes round and when we ve done anything really 
 bad, have in the police." 
 
 Emily was turning away. She realized this was one of 
 the times when the family was talking nonsense, and she had 
 things to do. But she usually had a word in readiness. 
 
 " John ll know," said she, " when he s married." 
 
 " Aha ! that s the answer," said Norris. He felt at once 
 lightened and relieved. " I knew there was an answer, but 
 I didn t know what page twas on. That s it. You ll 
 know when you re married." 
 
 " Married ! " John threw out, in the scorn of the untram- 
 meled. 
 
 But Emily was calling from the floor below: 
 
 " Here s Charles. He s coming up." 
 
 And John, in the moment before Charles appeared, had 
 time to think here was another example of the family per 
 fidy in making things go. Charles had kissed mother, 
 he was sure, and she hadn t told him to wait and explain 
 his behavior in the Voice before he could be permitted 
 filial privileges. John was as old as youth in his clever 
 ness, but young as youth in his rebellions. And here was 
 Charles, fresh, smiling, ready to be responsive to the family 
 tradition, and Norris grinned at himself ruefully for his 
 sneaking relief that Charles was luckily in a good frame of 
 mind. There wouldn t be any bone to worry. But he 
 hadn t reckoned on John, who, for mischief s sake at least, 
 was going to be as good as his implied word. 
 
 " Well, Charles," said he, on his way to the door, to 
 make instant exit when his bolt was sped, " you ve been 
 going the pace, haven t you? Insulting Helen and getting 
 yourself bought by Germany."
 
 158 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 He walked quietly out, but even at the moment he was 
 sorry he had elected to go, he did so want to see how 
 Charles looked. But Norris was seeing how he looked and 
 he was appalled. For the instant his own heart fell with 
 a thump, it was so horribly certain the shot had told. 
 Charles, coming in with the fresh color of his walk upon 
 him, was white as yellow-white paper. He stood there 
 looking down at his feet, his lips put tight together as if he 
 had to have some slight physical stimulus of holding him 
 self firm. They stood there a full minute, Norris staring 
 at him, unwillingly, but because it seemed a necessity to 
 inform himself of everything possible about his son. 
 Then, as Charles threw off the cloud, laughed shortly and 
 sat down, Norris, spurred, he felt angrily, by John s in 
 visible influence, asked him : 
 
 " What does he mean by saying you ve annoyed Helen? " 
 
 " Haven t the faintest idea," said Charles, now return 
 ing his father s glance with an open one. "What s he 
 said to you? " 
 
 " Nothing about Helen." 
 
 " Well," said Charles, " if he knows anything about 
 Helen s present frame of mind, I wish he d tell me. I 
 don t." 
 
 " Charles," said Norris, bursting into what he felt might 
 be considered his duty and hating it all tremendously, 
 " what s this about the Voice? " 
 
 " What about it? Something John s been getting up? " 
 
 " I ve looked the paper over myself. I don t He 
 paused. What should he say? The Voice was irre 
 proachable and the best of women declared Charles had 
 vision. 
 
 " Don t like it ? Well, I won t say I ve managed to get 
 precisely the right note yet. But I shall."
 
 THE BLACK DROP 159 
 
 " I don t find anything of Bailey s or Finch s or Bren- 
 nan s." 
 
 " Oh, they ll come later. I had a lot of stuff to work 
 off. Some of the old staff. I don t mean to keep em on, 
 but I ve got to give em time to look round a little. Only 
 decent, you know." 
 
 Yes, it was only decent. Everything looked so simple, 
 so above-board, when Charles presented it to you. Norris 
 didn t, in his soul, trust him in the least when he had a 
 reason for dodging; but it is difficult to suspect a man in 
 a particular instance when he comes to you with shining 
 morning face, even if the face does grow yellow under in 
 sult and only regains the shine after a delay. 
 
 " I suppose John s been stuffing you," said Charles 
 wearily. "John s a kid. He reads fairy tales and 
 fastens em on me. I wish he wouldn t. It makes me 
 tired. But I can t go into that. Fact is, I came round 
 to ask you if you d give me the key to Grasslands." 
 
 " Grasslands? " Norris was immensely surprised. 
 
 " Yes. I m going to ask you to hand the place over to 
 me this winter and keep mum about it to mother, John 
 and grandsir. The whole push. I d like to be able to run 
 down there when I feel like it, and I don t want any living 
 soul but you to know why. Fact is, I m not very fit." 
 
 "What s the matter, Charies?" asked Norris. "Wor 
 ried?" 
 
 " Yes. I m infernally worried about Helen. She won t 
 come back to me, she won t see me, and it s wearing on me 
 like the devil. I can t sleep, that s the truth of it, and I 
 want to keep Grasslands open, put in a man and a woman, 
 and have it so I can run down any time I like and see if I 
 can get a night s rest." 
 
 "Seen a doctor?"
 
 160 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "What dhesay?" 
 
 " Says I m evidently done up worry business 
 worry, he assumes. I haven t told him. He prescribes 
 the country." 
 
 " Of course you can have Grasslands," said Norris. 
 " But you d better let me tell your mother." 
 
 " That s precisely what I can t stand. I m on edge. 
 Don t you see I m on edge? " 
 
 Norris understood perfectly. He had been on edge 
 himself more than once when he couldn t bear the touch of 
 human sympathy. Except Emily s: but that amounted 
 to no more than a silent knowledge of his plight. 
 
 "You know," he ventured, "your mother s different." 
 
 " I know she s different," said Charles. " But you take 
 it from me I ve got to work this out alone. I ve a man 
 and woman in mind." 
 
 " Who are they anybody down there? " 
 
 "No. Somebody I picked up through my new butler. 
 Cross is gone." 
 
 " Cross ! What d he go for? " 
 
 " Oh, I don t know. Cross hasn t been the same lately. 
 But he s gone. Glad he has. He got on my nerves, too." 
 
 " Well," said Norris. He felt vaguely disconcerted over 
 the going of Cross. " Of course you can have Grasslands. 
 Mind if I run down with you sometime when you re go 
 ing? " 
 
 "That s it," said Charles. He looked harassed. "I 
 want to go by my lone. Run down in the car after dark, 
 if the snow holds off. I want to feel it s a jumping-off 
 place, and when I m there I haven t got to exert myself 
 for anybody." 
 
 " Of course," said Norris, rather unreasonably hurt
 
 THE BLACK DROP 161 
 
 though he thought he understood so perfectly. " I won t 
 go down. Sure you ve got a reliable man and woman?" 
 
 " Oh, sure." 
 
 " What s their name? " 
 
 " Weiss." 
 
 "Not German?" 
 
 " Oh, the name s German, but they ve lived here a gen 
 eration or so." 
 
 "Where d you get em?" Norris persisted, moved by 
 he hardly knew what solicitude. 
 
 " A man at the club, I ve forgotten who. But their ref 
 erences are absolutely all right. New York people. Want 
 to give me the key now? " 
 
 Norris got up and went to his desk with a certain slow 
 thoughtfulness of motion. There was absolutely no rea 
 son why Charles, in his need, should not have the key of 
 Grasslands which was as sacred to him, as a family hearth 
 stone, Norris thought, as to the rest of them. Yet he had a 
 curious disinclination to giving it up. 
 
 " There it is," he said. " This one s the barn, this the 
 garage. You ll have to have the water turned on, you 
 know, and for Heaven s sake look out for the pipes." 
 
 Charles thrust the keys into his pocket and nodded 
 assent. 
 
 "And mind you don t say a word, dad," he adjured his 
 father. " That s really the whole point. If it wasn t for 
 that I might as well go to a hotel." 
 
 " No," said Norris, " I won t. But I d much rather, 
 you understand at least, your mother. She never d 
 disturb you." 
 
 " They d be coming down," said Charles, now at the 
 door. " John would. All his crowd. Then the fat 
 really would be in the fire. Bye." 
 
 M
 
 XVI 
 
 JOHN was as often with Helen and Jessie as he could 
 artfully manage. Though Helen had begun by keeping 
 to herself, not implicating the family, even by asking 
 counsel, she gave that up, in large measure, because they 
 were persistent in cordiality and Jessie so eager to re 
 spond. John had not had so much fun in a long time. He 
 could run about with Jessie, agree with her professionally, 
 fight her as high spirits bade, and bitterest compensa 
 tion for his own absence from the field draw her on to 
 talk about France, that harsh adventure of hers, bearing 
 her youth to the perilous outskirts of war ; and always 
 he could count on a little of Helen, perhaps a long even 
 ing of her or at least a minute for a commonplace yet 
 memorable word. Jessie, practically subservient to Helen, 
 was nevertheless, she said, in all relations frankly jealous 
 of her. She was brazen in her protest, to the amused tol 
 erance of Helen, that her sister wasn t really so remark 
 able. She wasn t the trouble maker of old Troy, though 
 there seemed to be an impression to that effect. She was 
 no more than a sound, sensible, rather sweet yes, very 
 sweet person whose eyelids fell in an unexpected way 
 and whose mouth had tricks at the corners. Helen hardly 
 listened. She went on with what she was doing, gravely 
 absorbed, often absurdly so in some most inconsiderable 
 task, and when the light hail of chaff did fall persistently 
 enough, waked out of her absorption and threw in the com 
 ment of a word, " Goose ! " it might be, or " Silly BiUy ! " 
 
 162
 
 THE BLACK DROP 163 
 
 And the word itself, as may be seen, was likely to be of a 
 most ordinary nature, such as anybody can fish out of 
 common talk ; but from her it had the value of piquant 
 repartee. Jessie, in this interval before the relief, un 
 speakably desired, of going back to France, was living 
 up to her last limit of self-control. She must not be curi 
 ous, she must not worry Helen. She must simply give 
 Helen the warmth and softness of her breast and wings 
 until the eggs of decision were duly hatched. Yet there 
 was a turbulent happiness in it all. She had Helen to 
 herself and John to fight with, only she did sometimes 
 wonder, in her own humble mind, why he couldn t like her 
 at least a little when he liked Helen so much. She did 
 frankly delight in him, and when he was forgetful of her, 
 sometimes brusque and unregarding, it hurt. Like other 
 tomboys, Jessie did not wholly enjoy being treated cav 
 alierly. In her heart she was aching with compassion for 
 him because he was lame, and that, now there was such 
 need of man s muscle and fitness, made him, she knew, 
 "ugly." 
 
 One night shortly after John s talk with his father, he 
 rang and found the sisters at their table, rather washed 
 out and dull, he thought, both of them. It was not inap 
 propriate to Helen. Everything became her, pallor or 
 brightness. Jessie, he concluded, had better get back 
 her shine ; that is, if she cared about such things. He 
 rather thought she didn t. Helen went on folding com 
 presses, and Jessie got up to bring forward a chair a little, 
 enough to give a look of welcome. " Poor boy ! " she was 
 thinking. " Dear boy ! I wonder if he s aching." For 
 John also was not at his best. Only his trouble was of 
 the mind. Behind Helen s shoulder he held up a card to 
 Jessie. He had written on it, " I want to see her alone."
 
 164 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 Jessie s rush of compassion ceased. It might have spurted 
 up in a geyser and frozen in falling back on her, she felt 
 so chilled. 
 
 " Well, you won t," she said viciously, and sat down 
 again to her folding. 
 
 "Won t what?" Helen asked. 
 
 " Smoke," said Jessie. " You don t want him to either." 
 
 "Smoke?" said Helen. "Of course he can smoke. 
 Was that really it? Why, you re a rude little girl. See, 
 John, matches on that tray." 
 
 John seated himself by the hearth and scorned even to 
 look at Jessie, who was nothing, his grown-up manhood 
 told him, but a tomboy anyway. And since she was 
 blocking him, he would ignore her and speak out. 
 
 "Helen, are you afraid of Charles?" 
 
 And saying it, he realized he was mortally afraid. He 
 couldn t look at her. He took the tongs and clattered 
 them nervously over a stick, and the noise helped him out a 
 little, though Jessie twitched and said crossly : 
 
 " Don t ! " 
 
 Helen had let her hands fall and rest on the cloth she 
 was folding. She looked down at them and seemed to 
 think. But she wasn t going to resent the question. John, 
 glancing round at her now, saw that and choked with 
 gratitude. 
 
 " No," she said at length, as if in grave consideration, 
 " I don t believe I am." 
 
 John put down the tongs and thrust his hands into his 
 pockets because they were trembling and that little devil of a 
 Jessie would, he told himself, be sure to see it. And now 
 he knew he was in for it and must go on. 
 
 "Hasn t something happened, Helen?" he insisted, 
 though timidly. " Didn t you meet him one night when
 
 THE BLACK DROP 165 
 
 you were coming over to the house? Didn t you get a 
 scare? " 
 
 " I did see him," said Helen, still speaking slowly, be 
 cause she had made up her mind not to admit any of them 
 into the obscure recesses of her relations to Charles. 
 "And I was disturbed. But that was natural, John. 
 Don t think about it." 
 
 "Did he speak to you?" John persisted. Now he was 
 not trembling. He felt sure of himself and his right as 
 male inquisitor. 
 
 " Yes," said Helen. " He spoke to me." 
 
 "What did he say?" 
 
 " He wanted me to go home with him." And then, as 
 the remembrance of the persuasion he had used, that pass 
 word to the old-time fondnesses, came back to her, her 
 face flushed to its deepest rose and she glanced at John 
 imploringly, as if begging him to say no more. But 
 the flush angered him. She looked divinely tender, and 
 he thought how unjust it was that Charles should have 
 had the power to call that transfiguring glow to her face, 
 should have had it and thrown it away. 
 
 " You were frightened," he said doggedly. " And Cross 
 knew it, cr he wouldn t have said what he did." 
 
 The rose of tenderness had paled. She looked at him, 
 alarmed. 
 
 "What has Cross been saying?" 
 
 " We found him outside here the other night," said 
 Jessie, "when we came home." She was deep in the in 
 terest of the moment now ; there were things Jessie, too, 
 wanted to be assured of. " He said he was hanging round 
 in case you came out. To see that nothing happened to 
 you. He said you oughtn t to go out alone." 
 
 "Oh, he mustn t do that," said Helen. "Charles
 
 166 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 wants him there, most evenings, anyway. He ll be dis 
 charged." 
 
 " Oh, he s been discharged all right," said John. 
 " That is, he s left." 
 
 "Left? Left the house? Left Charles? Oh, that s 
 very dangerous. Cross knows a great deal. He must. 
 Far more than I do." 
 
 John felt the force of this admission like a blow. He 
 was like the seeker who, on the track of one bit of fact, 
 finds another far more astounding. 
 
 " Helen," he said, " what do you know about Charles 
 what in particular? There s something. It s what made 
 you leave him." 
 
 And then he remembered that it was, according to his 
 own certainty, Mrs. Davenport who had made her leave 
 him, and he stopped, most miserable. Helen looked from 
 one to the other, in a wretched questioning. Jessie an 
 swered it. 
 
 " No," she said. " I haven t been talking you over in 
 any way you wouldn t like. Not one of us, not a word." 
 
 " Then," said John, " Jessie knows. You ve told her 
 what you wouldn t tell us. Helen, don t you think you 
 ought to tell us? grandsir and father and me anyway. 
 Grandsir d know what to do and I could do it. Bet your 
 life I would." 
 
 Helen was reassured. John evidently knew nothing. It 
 was Ins sweetness to her, his chivalry, that made him speak. 
 
 " John," she said, " you re a dear." And now the ten 
 derness, though without that rosy, ineffable quality, was 
 his. " But I can t talk, even to grandsir. And there s 
 nothing to do, John, not yet. Just you let me sit here 
 and fold and think and who knows but I shall get 
 somewhere? "
 
 THE BLACK DROP 167 
 
 " Anyhow it s not fair," said John. " That s what 
 grandsir and I said the other night, and then I repeated 
 it to father and he didn t deny it. Families are the deuce. 
 They re founded on lies and they thrive on em." 
 
 "Actually?" asked Helen, her eyes dancing at him. 
 " How are they founded on lies? " 
 
 " In the first place, they begin with lies. Men and 
 women go crazy and talk poetry and send flowers 
 and sit in the moonlight, and oh, I don t know. 1$ 
 doesn t last, that s all. It won t wash." Yet as he 
 growled it out, he knew, in that deepest part of him that 
 was only lighted up at night when you could smell the 
 flowers and hear the music, that his love for Helen, if he 
 had been permitted to cherish a love beyond clumsy 
 brotherly service, would not need washing. It was per 
 ennially cleansed by the dews of heaven. " And then the 
 family goes right on lying. You ve got something against 
 Charles, something awful. And if you d out with it and 
 tell us the men of the family, I mean He was 
 pointedly ignoring Jessie. Good for her, he thought, if 
 Helen had already told her things she was keeping from 
 the rest of them. " If you d let us in, we could do some- 
 tiling, and Charles would find himself up against it and 
 high time, too." 
 
 Helen had recovered her mobile calm. She was folding 
 her compresses and smiling a little over them. 
 
 " I wonder," she suggested, " what your mother would 
 say to that idea of family diplomacy." 
 
 " Oh, mother ! " he exploded. " Father dragged her in." 
 
 "What did she say?" 
 
 "What d you expect her to say? Mother s. the worst 
 of the lot. She won t lie, but she ll play the hose on us 
 when we ve got into the mud and make believe she s washed
 
 168 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 us off, and then she ll burn Bengal lights and start rosy 
 glows so we can keep on looking like little angels." 
 
 "Yes, but what did she say?" Helen insisted, in a de 
 mure mischief. " Tell me, or I ll ask her." 
 
 "Oh, she said," he wasn t going to refuse a dare 
 " wait till I m married." 
 
 " Quite right," said Helen placidly. " Mother s always 
 right." 
 
 But at that moment John happened to look at Jessie, 
 and he saw that her face was suddenly crimsoned with as 
 sweet a flush as Helen s own. Only he suspected that 
 flush in Jessie. It must mean something hostile to him. 
 
 " Well, I could, you know," he said darkly to her. " I 
 could marry if I wanted to. You needn t look like that." 
 
 And Jessie took the challenge, lifted her head and gave 
 him one of her defiant stares. But her eyes were differ 
 ent, he was curious to see. They were suffused and beau 
 tiful, and he had his first minute of wondering if she wasn t 
 pretty after all. Not like Helen, only with a curious 
 identity of charm. She was an earthly Helen, and the 
 real Helen belonged among the stars. But Jessie was 
 flinging back his dare. 
 
 " Yes, do," she said, " straight off. Only don t ask 
 her in that voice, or you won t get her." 
 
 " And don t fight any more," said Helen. " You are 
 like those figures that come out of the barometer. Only 
 you don t appear one at a time. You dart out together 
 and run at each other and begin to squabble." 
 
 " The barometer s out of order," said Jessie sadly. 
 "That s all." 
 
 John got up to go. He felt defeated in his purpose, 
 and the only thing now seemed to be a word with grandsir 
 and presenting some of these half-cock conjectures to him.
 
 THE BLACK DROP 169 
 
 Jessie put away her work in the quick orderly fashion 
 she had for it because it was " business," and Helen, fol 
 lowing more slowly, looked up and saw her then at the 
 window. Several times Helen glanced up and found her 
 immovable, and when she had laid away her own work she 
 went to the window and put an arm about Jessie and they 
 talked of the city lights. Presently Helen said: 
 
 " But I wish you were married." 
 
 " Do you ? " asked Jessie. " After " 
 
 " Yes," Helen broke in. " After anything. Babies ! 
 I wish we both had babies, Jess." 
 
 " Yes," said Jessie, " so do I." 
 
 And when they turned back into the room Helen saw her 
 lashes were bright with tears.
 
 XVII 
 
 JOHN let himself in and went softly upstairs. His 
 father s door might be open and he didn t propose being 
 called upon and losing a minute he might have with grand- 
 sir. Allan Lloyd had now gone and John had not been 
 allowed to take his place. A silent, deft young fellow had 
 been brought in by the doctor, who had heard of him as 
 studying intermittently, according as he got money, 
 with a " crazy manipulator named Landis." But the 
 boy, being strong and friendly, was a find for grandsir. 
 And John, now that the routine of service had been once 
 interrupted, boldly pushed in and did things himself, with 
 such anxious care that grandsir was profoundly touched 
 and would never have him rebuffed. John thought he 
 knew a lot more about grandsir than the rest of the fam 
 ily, for he had dared penetrate the forbidden area and 
 " found the old dear on his back," naked of that mantle 
 of ironic endurance he had wrapped about himself : a won 
 der of fortitude, eaten up by torments and smiling at his 
 plight. Was there a subtle bond between them because 
 they both knew the curtailment of activities and the stab 
 of pain? At least, neither acknowledged it. They were 
 living the same gay masquerade, turning from their demon 
 and letting him rage by himself, so far as human stoicism 
 could. 
 
 There was a light in Norris s room, and John still be- 
 
 170
 
 THE BLACK DROP 171 
 
 lieved he could slip past unnoted; but at the instant of 
 reaching the stair-head he heard a voice on the silence 
 within. It was the voice of Charles and he halted to lis 
 ten. Everything Charles said just now was likely to be 
 significant. 
 
 " Oh, cut it out, all that rent business. I told you to 
 take the house and use it, told you so in the beginning." 
 
 " I know," said Norris. " But I d rather go through 
 the form. Here s your check, boy." 
 
 Then John understood his father was offering it in pay 
 ment of the rent of this which was Charles s house. 
 
 " Besides," Norris went on, the little indulgent twist of 
 humor in his voice, " you insisted on its being only nominal, 
 so it doesn t matter much either way." 
 
 " Except," said Charles, " you ll have to let me do the 
 same. For Grasslands. See? " 
 
 " No," said his father. " That s quite another thing. 
 Grasslands belongs to us all. Been down lately? " 
 
 They had the sound of settling to their talk. 
 
 " Yes," said Charles, " once." 
 
 "Sleep better there?" 
 
 " Yes. Can t tell you what a difference it made." 
 
 " Got your man and woman in? " 
 
 " Oh, yes. Soon as we had our talk. And by the 
 way " Charles became impressive. This, John saw, 
 was important. " I m going down Wednesday for the 
 night. Don t let any of em bolt in on me, will you? " 
 
 "Any of em?" 
 
 "The family mother, John John especially." 
 
 " Why, no, I told you I wouldn t," said Norris. " Told 
 you so in the first place. Nobody s any idea of going." 
 
 John turned and retreated down the stairs. He had 
 doubts of getting past to grandsir s room unheard. More
 
 172 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 than that, he wasn t sure he wanted to present grandsir 
 with the floating particles of surmise he had collected at 
 Helen s. He thought it might be better, on reflection, to 
 mull over them himself. And when, from the library, he 
 heard Charles go out at the front door, he was tempted to 
 run up and say to his father : " What does it mean about 
 his going to Grasslands? Yes, I listened. Of course I did. 
 What s Charles up to? " But he abandoned this, too, and 
 decided that if Charles didn t want him at Grasslands on 
 Wednesday night, there he would be. It was all poppycock 
 about not sleeping. Charles looked perfectly fit, though 
 any mole but father could see he was drinking too much. 
 Who was going down to Grasslands with him? Mrs. 
 Davenport? If it was that sort of ignominy, somebody 
 ought to know, somebody who would dare lift the veil of 
 family dignity and let the law look at what was underneath, 
 so that Helen could go undisturbed about the streets. 
 
 This was on Monday. On Tuesday John hung about 
 the house to see whether Charles would come again. There 
 might be more about Grasslands, and John was solidly 
 " on the job." Charles did not come, and so he watched 
 his father. Was Norris worried, thoughtful, as if he, too, 
 knew the unusual was in the wind? But Norris, though 
 grave as he was ordinarily through this time of stress, 
 seemed unmoved, and John concluded that, whatever 
 Charles had set on foot at Grasslands, his father was with 
 him. There was " nothing doing," which indicated that 
 Charles had been clever and there would be scope for every 
 thing doing later. 
 
 Something before half-past seven, on Wednesday, John 
 left the house, and took the train at eight-fifteen. It had 
 been a clear, cold day and the moon came up in splendor. 
 The moon was important. It made some difference in
 
 THE BLACK DROP 173 
 
 choosing whether to drive up from the station, little more 
 than a quarter of a mile, or walk by the path through the 
 woods and across the dry brook. It was going to be a gor 
 geous night, John told himself, snatching at the familiar 
 water-indented stretches running past the car window. He 
 was slightly exhilarated and boyishly expectant, as he 
 always found himself on the road to Grasslands. He 
 loved the place, and had liked staying in town far less than 
 those other winters when he had done it for days at a time 
 with Grasslands open, warm and waiting. He was slow in 
 leaving the train, because Charles also might be on it, and 
 when he did get off, went down to the farther end of the 
 platform, avoiding the waiting baggage man and taxi- 
 driver, and struck off into the road. He would walk, he 
 decided, and he would not take the field path. There was 
 no wind, and the air sprung keen, with an edge, but sweet. 
 Making stout use of his stick, he set off at a good pace, 
 though he did find, half-way perhaps, that his leg and 
 back were not in their best condition and might, if tried 
 too recklessly, let him in for a pain he had characterized, 
 once for all, when he first passed it over to the doctor, to 
 be dealt with, as " the devil." But he was presently, 
 without misadventure, going up the driveway to his 
 father s house, and here, rounding the last curve, he 
 stopped, mentally greeting the big, rambling structure, 
 and loving it. He could even forget Charles, the house 
 so brimmed his imagination, sitting there in a calm ampli 
 tude, the leaf-traceried moonlight dripping over its white- 
 pillared porch and quivering shadows from the embower 
 ing rowan tree lying thick upon the roof. John leaned 
 on his stick and looked, and it was all so intimate and dear 
 that he ignored for a moment the story told by the lights 
 in the front rooms of the lower floor and in one room above.
 
 174 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 So Charles was there. And why was he there and who 
 was with him? For he was not the man to go off on a 
 solitary quest for sleep. 
 
 John went forward and up the steps. All the shades 
 were drawn, but he could see the lines of light at the sides. 
 He got out his key and fitted it in the lock, and, recalled 
 now to a keen sense of possibilities, found himself warm 
 with anticipation. What was he to find? Charles, be 
 yond a doubt, and Charles, interrupted, spied upon, in 
 dubitably furious. But that rather added to the moment s 
 piquancy. He was not afraid of Charles. He opened 
 the door softly and went in, and immediately a voice rose 
 as if to lose no time in giving him the clue to what he was 
 to find, Charles s voice, strictly courteous, yet irritated 
 as Charles was when he did not believe himself to be in 
 every sense master of the situation. 
 
 "Speak English, Captain Pfaff, will you? All you 
 chaps know as much English as I do, and I haven t 
 enough German to count in." 
 
 " Pardon ! " was the instant reply from four or five male 
 voices, and then a roughish one with a pronounced accent 
 replied : 
 
 "I was saying you would find all the papers in the 
 dispatch bag. Mine I have here. My instructions are to 
 return at once. My crew is already assembled and waiting 
 for me. I understand I am to be taken to the little town 
 what do you call it? It is a short walk from there." 
 
 " My car will take you down," said Charles. " My man 
 will drive you. He s all right. And you ll be off to-night." 
 
 " In the early morning," said the voice. " Morgen 
 Stunde, you know the proverb." 
 
 And there were choruses of " Ja, Ja," and again " Par 
 don," probably in the direction of Charles, and one pains-
 
 THE BLACK DROP 175 
 
 taking voice explained pedantically, no doubt for his en 
 lightenment : 
 
 " It means, The morning hour has gold in its mouth. 
 
 " Well, Captain Pfaff ," said Charles, now in his voice of 
 high good humor, " we wish you luck. We ll have in some 
 fizz and toast you. Fair winds above and friendly cur 
 rents below, no collisions with mermaids, no running up 
 against a whale, no salt water Lorelei. By George! you 
 fellows have got the sand. I m reasonably cool-headed 
 myself, but under water not me ! " 
 
 " I am a Prussian," said the voice, with a strong rolling 
 of the " r." " We are Germans all." 
 
 There was a scattering chorus of applause. But on 
 that a new voice came out with a piercing clearness : 
 
 " There s a cold draft here." 
 
 " Shut the door," Charles interrupted. " We ought to 
 have shut it anyway. Can t be too careful." 
 
 But the voice went on, in what was evidently a sharp 
 ness of discovery and alarm : 
 
 " No ! no ! it s that outside door. Some one has opened 
 it. Some one is in the hall." 
 
 John, at that, shut the outside door with a distinct 
 hang, and went forward to the library. At the sound of 
 the door, there had been also a confusion of chairs hastily 
 pushed back and feet upon the floor, and John, looking 
 in at them, with what he hoped was a cheerful self-posses 
 sion, saw men standing about the library table, all looking 
 at him in most evident anger and alarm. Charles alone 
 was not in any sense taken aback. He was merely furious. 
 John knew that blackness of the brow and braced himself. 
 But he didn t waste time in meeting and defying it. 
 Charles he could see any day. He must take in the rest 
 of the scene, learn the faces of the other men, photograph
 
 176 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 them on his memory. They were all of the Teuton type, 
 pink-skinned and yellow-haired, and the one with the worn, 
 seasoned face, with the bag before him on the table, was, 
 he was sure, Captain Pfaff. Yes, and another he abso 
 lutely knew. This was a naturalized American citizen, a 
 German who had for months been protesting, perhaps with 
 too great ardor, his adherence to the ideals of democracy. 
 He was a tall, thick man of a ruddy countenance and flow 
 ing beard, and now he looked indubitably scared, and John 
 exulted. He thought for an instant of calling to him: 
 "How d ye do, professor? I ve just read the report of 
 your lecture on The American Ideal." And there was 
 another man, noticeable for the sheer worry of his look. 
 He was a sanguine fellow with a short, disorderly red 
 beard, an irregular, twitching mouth and enormous ears. 
 The mouth twitched as he confronted John and the fore 
 head, too, drew into lines and his eyelids snapped. His 
 was decidedly, after Captain Pfaff s, the most provocative 
 face there, and that from its extremity of apprehension. 
 The other three might have been business or professional 
 men, but they all wore a like look of concentration and 
 perhaps anxiety. This John s eyes told him in an instant, 
 for almost at once Charles had spoken, slowly, concisely, 
 not raising his voice : 
 
 "What the devil do you want?" 
 
 " My Elizabethan Dramatists," said John pleasantly 
 and without hesitation. "Going to have some eats? If 
 you are, I ll stay." 
 
 " No," said Charles, blacker by a shade, and also pro 
 foundly puzzled. He didn t know what to make of John, 
 he didn t know what to do with him, and John, seeing it, 
 could have whooped for joy. It was a species of triumph 
 over old Charles who was so clever, and he felt the swag-
 
 THE BLACK DROP 177 
 
 gering importance of finding himself clever, too. "No, 
 we re not here to eat. I m trying to arrange some sort of 
 service for getting reliable news out of Germany whether 
 she s starving, that sort of thing. If she is, that means 
 more to the Allies than any victory of arms." 
 
 A murmur of assent ran round the table. But, John 
 saw, they were watching him all except Captain Pfaff, 
 whose eyes never left the leather bag before him on the 
 table and watching him unpleasantly. 
 
 " I ll run up and get my books," said he, with a nod to 
 Charles. " Then I shall have to cut. I may get the next 
 train in town." 
 
 He left his stick leaning against the end of the settle by 
 the library door and did go upstairs and into his own 
 room at the back of the landing. There he paused a mo 
 ment in the dark, found his breath was coming faster than 
 it need, after a run upstairs, and asked himself ironically 
 if he was afraid of those Johnnies down there, afraid of 
 Charles? He rather thought not. But they were un 
 pleasant, those fellows, Charles most of all. Crooks, all 
 of them. He had no more than a literary acquaintance 
 with crooks and found he was pleasurably excited, on the 
 whole, and ready to learn more. He hadn t done any good 
 by bursting in on them, possibly only harm by putting 
 them on their guard and making them crookeder ; at least 
 he had come on Charles s hidden nest and the only thing 
 to do now was to go away with the little germ of con 
 jecture he had filched and see if he could quicken it. In 
 the minute or two while he debated these things, he stood 
 still in the dark. Either he hadn t thought of switching 
 on the light, which afterward seemed to him incredible, 
 there in his own room when it was always his first act on 
 entering, or it was tinglingly appropriate to the occasion 
 
 N
 
 178 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 to lurk in blackness, listening to his own breath and think 
 ing thoughts of Charles. But now, when it struck him 
 he had been there long enough, he turned to his book-case, 
 made a random clutch at some books, went out of the room 
 with two of them, and down the stairs. Captain Pfaff, 
 his bag before him on the wooden settle, was jerking on 
 his short, thick coat. He did not look up, but at the in 
 stant of John s reaching the foot of the stairs there came 
 a call from the library: 
 
 " Captain Pfaff ! one moment." 
 
 The captain stepped to the library door leaving his bag 
 behind him on the settle. John slid his books under the 
 settle, took his stick noiselessly from the end of it, seized 
 Captain Pfaff s bag in the same hand, opened the door 
 softly and shut it behind him, and went down the steps, 
 stumbling in his haste. He skirted the front of the house 
 and made for the orchard at the right, for the field path 
 was beyond. There were lights in the garage he had to 
 pass, and outside it two big touring cars. Whether men 
 were hanging about here he could not see, but he fancied, 
 stopping for an instant, he caught a sound of low-toned 
 talk. Even if there were loiterers, it seemed hardly prob 
 able they would get wind of him, as he walked cautiously 
 on the soft brown grass at the edge of the drive ; also he 
 covered the ground at his best, which was not inconsider 
 able for, though his back had begun to growl at him, he 
 had a good stride. Presently, in the orchard, he did halt 
 to listen, and at that moment heard the starting of a car. 
 It did not, he was certain, stop at the house, but went 
 directly along the drive and out to the road. This seemed 
 to indicate that Charles had assumed he would go by the 
 road and had taken a car to follow him. As soon as they 
 found he had not chosen the road and they would prove
 
 THE BLACK DROP 179 
 
 that in short order Charles would know where to go. 
 The field path he would think of that instantly, and 
 he would come striding fast on foot. The danger of de 
 lay admonished John, and he plunged along through the 
 orchard and felt briefly more secure, for now he was in 
 the shadow of the woods. The moon was shining through 
 those drifts of cloud where the upper winds were moving, 
 and he could see in the patches of her revealing the stones 
 and the trunks he had known all his life, as familiar to 
 him as his own hand. Charles would know where to track 
 him. To Charles also these were beaten paths. Undeni 
 ably he did feel a creep of panic over that : Charles in 
 chase, Charles in the brutality of rage. John worshipped 
 courage before every virtue, because he knew the wincings 
 inevitable to a man who is not physically fit, who dreads 
 the anguish of a brutal stroke, but at the touch of fear he 
 stepped into the woods and stood there, breathing hard. 
 Cover for an instant he must have, the shadow of the dear 
 trees he knew, and safety from that betraying, imperson 
 ally cruel jade of a moon. And as his breath stilled and 
 his courage rose, he thought there was some one near him 
 in the wood. A stumble, the snapping of twigs under a 
 man s foot, then silence; if some one was there it was be 
 hind him, the orchard way. Had he been followed ? If he 
 was to be overtaken, it was more to be dreaded in what 
 had, a moment before, seemed a safe obscurity. 
 
 He stumbled out into the path again and ran. Was 
 he still followed? Now he was not sure. On the little 
 stone causeway that crossed the brook he stopped again to 
 listen, and the moment his feet touched it he knew what he 
 was to do. The stone itself gave him a hint, a friendly 
 invitation. This was the old play place, the "hidey- 
 holc " for boyish treasures. He stepped down to the edge
 
 180 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 of the brook and, with no debating of that mental sugges 
 tion, thrust the bag into the space under the bridge, 
 stepped up the bank again and went slowly on. He con 
 tinued to walk slowly, not looking round, and his mind 
 was calm. Let them come now, if they chose. The bag 
 was safe. 
 
 As he went on toward the station, his mood shifted, 
 and instead of feeling the necessity of stealing Captain 
 Pfaff s bag he recognized the immense absurdity of it. 
 What if he did distrust Charles profoundly? What if 
 six men in the library at Grasslands were indubitably 
 Germans? Had he any right in reason to pick up a bag 
 that didn t belong to him and " beat it " like the criminal 
 he was? He got very merry over it, all by himself, and by 
 the time he reached the station and walked into its circle 
 of light, he was in a pleasant frame of mind. No one 
 but the baggage master was there, and he had a few 
 neighborly words with him, giving, on request, an itemized 
 assurance of the health of all the Tracys. The train pulled 
 in on time and he mounted his car, but stood on the 
 platform to the last that, if Charles should come, they 
 could encounter in a decent privacy. But though Charles 
 did not appear, the professorial author of the American 
 Ideal did, and near that last minute. He was running and 
 would have made his objective easily if he had taken the 
 car nearest him ; but seeing John in possession of the 
 last platform of all, he changed his course for that. The 
 train was moving, and John had time to think, "Fall if 
 you like, you fool, and break your precious neck I 
 won t help you," when the idealist surged up the steps and 
 did come down on his knees at the top, and John dropped 
 his stick and dragged him up. But the stick was gone and 
 John said, " O the devil ! " while the idealist dusted his own 
 knees and demanded violently :
 
 THE BLACK DROP 181 
 
 "Where is it?" 
 
 " Overboard," said John, making his way in, and with 
 difficulty, for lurking pain had begun to remind him: 
 "Forgotten me, have you? I ll show you." The ideal 
 ist was at his elbow, supporting him, and he jerked his 
 arm away. "Let me alone, can t you?" he inquired, but 
 the idealist continued to put his demand, with guttural 
 passion: 
 
 "Where is it? Where is it, I ask you? " 
 
 John had reached a seat where a mountain of a man 
 slept, and wedged himself in beside him. He was not going 
 to run the risk of seeking the whole seat further on 
 and sharing it with his tormentor. But the fellow clung 
 to his job. He stood in the aisle and again bent over 
 him. 
 
 "Where is it?" he hammered on. "Where is it?" 
 
 "My stick?" said John, at last. "I hope old Jerry 
 there at the station s picked it up. If not, I suppose the 
 Portland train ll run over it." 
 
 " I do not mean your stick," said the idealist, with a 
 reproachful bitterness. " You know I do not mean your 
 stick. And where," he continued in an augmented out 
 burst over a new and illuminative thought, " where are 
 your books? You came, you said, to get books. It was 
 a pretext. Where are they?" 
 
 "My books?" repeated John vaguely, clutching at an 
 answer and finding none plausible enough. And then his 
 leg twinged and his back replied according to a perfect 
 system of agonized communication, and he ended : " You 
 go And he told the idealist precisely where to go. 
 
 " It does not matter," said the man inexorably. " You 
 may answer or not as you like. I shall not leave you." 
 
 Nor would lie leave him, even though the conductor
 
 182 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 suggested that there were " seats up front," and when they 
 pulled into the station at Boston and John got up among 
 the last because the pain was slashing now like knives 
 and the possibility of being jostled made an added anguish, 
 still the idealist was there, and, with an apparent concern, 
 offering an arm. John looked at him this time ; he didn t 
 speak, and the man involuntarily fell back from the mes 
 sage in the white face and eyes shooting fury. But he kept 
 behind until John had made his slow way to the taxi 
 stand, and then he did come forward, saying doggedly : 
 
 " I shall drive with you." 
 
 John was just setting foot on the running board, but he 
 withdrew it and faced his man. 
 
 " See here," said he. " If you are going with me, we 
 won t take a taxi. I ll telephone the police and we ll 
 order a patrol wagon. It s up to you." 
 
 The idealist, glowering, did fall back, and John crawled 
 in and was driven home. And as he went, trying to 
 brace himself against the jolts, he thought, with some 
 bitter amusement still left, that the idealist could swear to 
 Charles that his hands were empty. He had not been 
 carrying a bag. And suddenly he bethought him of the 
 books he had brought down from his room ; they might 
 have been Elizabethan Dramatists or they might not. He 
 did not know. Whatever they were, he hadn t them now, 
 nor could he possibly remember at what point he had got 
 rid of them. The pain was bad enough for that.
 
 XVIII 
 
 THE next morning Emily, on her early trips about the 
 house, found John s door slightly open and looked in. 
 At the same moment he called to her, and she knew what 
 had come to him, and, with a soft, inarticulate sound of 
 mother trouble, she went to him. John, his forehead tied 
 into a knot, was flat among the pillows. 
 
 "Oh, why didn t you call me in the night?" she said. 
 She always blamed herself for not knowing if her dears had 
 gone under. " When did it begin? " 
 
 " Last night," John said. " On the way home." 
 
 " And you got to bed the best way you could." But 
 Emily was not one really to lament. "I think you d 
 better have your breakfast before I telephone the doctor." 
 
 " Don t start him up," said John. " He d only give 
 me tablets and I ve got two or three of em left. They re 
 somewhere round my bureau. You find em." 
 
 Emily looked, privately resolving she would have an 
 extra prescription and keep it where she could lay hands 
 on it. For she knew, and loved him for the boyish folly 
 of it, that when an attack was over and John had rushed 
 back to his ordinary activities he forgot his enemy would 
 return. She did find the little box in a sea of shirt studs 
 and cravats and, after he had gulped a tablet, smoothed 
 him out a little, though he did so hate to be touched, the 
 pain had such a way of resenting interference. 
 
 " Send me Erastus," he called after her, when she went 
 
 183
 
 184 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 away. " Soon as grandsir s got through with him. 
 Funny name! Let him bring my tray. Don t you come 
 up again. I m all right." 
 
 He was always all right, she reflected, with that hurt 
 misery she had over him, as she went downstairs. You 
 couldn t do anything for him, at these times of downfall, 
 to show him what you felt. All he wanted was to be let 
 alone, to lie submerged in his pillowed misery until he could 
 come to the surface again and put on a brighter armor of 
 bravado. Presently Erastus appeared, a round-faced, 
 pink-cheeked colossus with a snub nose and inquiringly 
 honest eyes. He didn t bring the tray. Mrs. Tracy 
 thought he might do some things first, lift her son, it might 
 be, and smooth up the bed. 
 
 " I m terrible strong," Erastus volunteered. He did do 
 a few muscular, gentle services, and then stood looking 
 down at John with something like entreaty and yearning 
 in his gaze. 
 
 "Funny, isn t it?" John inquired, glancing up at him, 
 not offended, not ironical, but indifferently aware that 
 there ought to be a community of amusement between them 
 over a long hungry fellow laid by the heels and cast, like 
 a foolish horse. 
 
 " No, I don t think it s funny," said Erastus gravely. 
 " I think it s awful." 
 
 This savored of pity, and John involuntarily frowned. 
 
 " Well, don t look like that about it," he recommended. 
 " What are you looking like that for anyway? You 
 needn t cry." 
 
 Erastus passed over this. He was not going to cry, but 
 he was perfectly willing to, if he could bring about a cure, 
 
 " You ought," said he, " to see Doctor Landis." 
 
 "Who s Doctor Landis?" John inquired.
 
 THE BLACK DROP 185 
 
 " He s the doctor I m taking lessons of. It isn t only 
 that he knows about the skeleton he s studied it and 
 he can draw it right off with two hands, one hand one side, 
 one hand t other, same as they say Doctor Richardson 
 used to but it s as if he could look right into your body 
 and see what s the matter." 
 
 " Oh, get out," said John. 
 
 Erastus quietly and earnestly got out ; but when he had 
 reached the door John, repenting, since he had been kind 
 and his hands were wonderful, called to him: 
 
 "What s your other name?" 
 
 Erastus turned and said quietly : 
 
 " Triphammer." Then, from habit, he answered the 
 derision he was accustomed to when Triphammer burst 
 upon a world unprepared. " It s funny, ain t it? Father 
 said it was a French name once : I mean, the French was 
 something like it. I don t mind. It s a pretty good name 
 for a manipulator. Calls attention." Then he went up 
 stairs to grandsir. 
 
 John lay envying him. He had bone and muscle and 
 flesh in the perfect proportion, and, though on so big 
 a scale, he moved with ease and lightness. At that 
 moment John admired nobody more than Erastus Trip 
 hammer. Presently his mother came with a tray and sat 
 and fed him, so that he need not by the slightest move 
 ment wake the pain. It was hard for Emily to be 
 altogether sorry when men fell into her hands to be com 
 forted. The mother in her would passionately have 
 desired to bear the pangs for them ; but a savage, natural 
 woman also in her slyly knew it had a horrid glee in getting 
 them where she could offer herself up in sacrifice for their 
 better care. 
 
 " Father s coming up to see you," she said, when he had
 
 186 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 finished and closed his eyes with an ostentatious intent of 
 getting rid of her. 
 
 " No," said John, " don t you let him. Not for an hour 
 or so. I want to sleep." 
 
 " If you can sleep ! " said Emily. " I m thankful, dear, 
 you can. I ll tell him. He ll be thankful, too." 
 
 She went out softly and John, his eyes shut to outer 
 things, bade his mind go back to last night. He traversed 
 every step of the way from the moment he stood at the 
 library door and looked at Charles and his guests to his 
 thrusting the bag under the bridge. There he left it and, 
 turning back, went over the whole tiling again. For the 
 first time in his life, he was concerned for Charles. So 
 natural was it, too, so normally did his misgivings rise 
 from the events of the night that he didn t even wonder at 
 them. That was the way it struck him. That was the 
 way it was. He had been perfectly sure that Charles was 
 about some shabby piece of business whether in connec 
 tion with outward affairs, at least where Helen was con 
 cerned but now that he had the strongest guess-work 
 to support the tale brought him by his eyes and ears, 
 now that he was practically assured of the bigness of the 
 crime and the peaks of honor it sought to foul, he was 
 afraid : and for Charles. He had often wanted Charles to 
 be tried at the family tribunal and given sentence, told 
 he was indubitably an outlaw. But here he was indeed an 
 outlaw and John was shrinking for him, smitten by an 
 apprehension and remorse Charles would never feel, as if, 
 being a part of that body corporate, the family, the 
 family had sinned with him and must recover itself, repent 
 and make amends. All this he did not think with definite- 
 ness. But he did lie there and ache mentally as well as 
 physically, and it was, strangely, for Charles who had 
 chosen the dark way.
 
 THE BLACK DROP 187 
 
 Then there was a step on the stairs and he knew it was 
 his father and was relieved because he had thought these 
 things long enough. The door came open and some one 
 walked in, and it was Charles. John, looking up at him, 
 his pupils widened into black by the shock of seeing him 
 there in his morning freshness, had an instant s throb of 
 wonder about what would happen next. Charles, he knew, 
 would question him, assault him with every known violence, 
 to make him give up the secret of the night before. He 
 might even lay hands on him those fine, exquisitely kept 
 hands and drag the pain back into his half-deadened 
 leg and spine, and John, who had made up his mind in the 
 minute of this first shock, determined, with a dull obsti 
 nacy, that his own only weapon was silence. Whatever 
 Charles asked him he would not speak. Also, in the 
 shrinking inward depths of him, he would not even will 
 his father to come or Erastus Triphammer, before Charles 
 laid hold on him. This was a great moment for courage. 
 Charles had never looked more unquestionably the fine 
 type of the physical man. There seemed to be a great 
 deal of him, yet in a different way from Erastus Trip 
 hammer s breadth and brawn. He had not taken off his 
 overcoat, and the soft perfection of it became him. He 
 stood at the bedside and looked down on his brother and 
 John, to his amazement, saw that he did not appear to be 
 angry at all. And John kept his eyes, the pupils of them 
 black as ink now, the more immovably on Charles, for he 
 was the more afraid. 
 
 " Mum told me I could come up," Charles began, smiling. 
 It was Charles at his pleasantest. " If I didn t stay long. 
 She said you d been laid by the heels. It s an infernal 
 shame." 
 
 Still John only looked at him and didn t speak. What 
 did Charles want? The amount of energy it must have
 
 188 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 taken to put on that sympathetic serenity, which looked 
 more than skin deep, was great enough to have forged 
 weapons of war. Why was Charles throwing so much 
 force and fine work into his diplomacy? 
 
 " Never you mind," he continued. " It ll go as it 
 came. Always does, as I remember. You ll be on your 
 feet in a day or two. And when you are on your feet 
 do you see Brennan or Finch or Bailey?" 
 
 " No," said John. He found, in a swift mental search, 
 no reason why he shouldn t let up so far as to diverge 
 to something sufficiently far away from last night. 
 " I haven t set eyes on em since they went over to 
 you." 
 
 The last he could hardly be expected to deny himself, 
 yet he wished instantly he had kept his mouth shut. 
 There was bitterness in the words, and with Charles he 
 must forego even that. " Don t get mad," he was always 
 bidding himself when Charles began upon him for every 
 thing between them seemed an onset, a beginning 
 " Don t let him say you re a kid." But Charles answered 
 him with a perfectly open candor, as if he didn t see he had 
 in any sense got a rise out of him. 
 
 " They re absurd. I don t know what to do with them. 
 You see, I m paying them perfectly corking prices for 
 their stuff, and they re not doing anything I can use. And 
 when I don t use it they turn round and imply it s my 
 fault." 
 
 "What sort of stuff?" John asked. 
 
 "Violent red flags " 
 
 " Oh, no, it s not," said John, " if you mean socialism. 
 They ve been fighting socialism, tooth and nail. They 
 haven t gone over to that." 
 
 " No, no," said Charles, qualifying. " I meant red
 
 THE BLACK DROP 189 
 
 rags, I suppose. Attacking, pitching in, hammer and 
 tongs. People aren t led that way. The only way to lead 
 em is to persuade." 
 
 John said nothing. But he was slightly soothed in 
 his raw sense of the boys defection. They had at least 
 the sand not to follow Charles s lead. And at that 
 fortunate moment his mother came up the stairs and 
 looked doubtfully in. She didn t want John harried when 
 he was on his back ; but the feel of the atmosphere slightly 
 reassured her. Still she hardly liked the black intensity 
 of his eyes. But Charles turned to her with the same frank 
 confidence in finding himself quite right in his attack. 
 For it was an attack. John, now that the first impact 
 of it was over, knew that perfectly. 
 
 " Mum," said Charles, " what do you think is going to 
 happen to me? " 
 
 She didn t know. 
 
 " I m going to speak this afternoon before the Women s 
 Something-or-other, peace ladies, whatever they are. 
 They asked me. Wouldn t hear to anything but the 
 editor of the Voice coming and telling em how the big 
 scrap over there can be scrapped." 
 
 " Well ! " said Emily. She didn t look reassuringly 
 proud, but Charles knew how the family was fulminating 
 going up in smoke, he said over America s laxity, 
 and he didn t expect anything else. 
 
 " So I m going," he said. " It ll be a great thing for the 
 Voice. Lift the circulation tremendously. Bye, John. 
 Tell your gang to let me knock some sense into their heads, 
 when you get a chance." 
 
 Smiling to the last, he went and even whistled a little 
 on the stairs. John saw last night was to be ignored. 
 They were each to show a competitive unconcern. Emily
 
 190 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 was standing by him, about to ask him if he wouldn t have 
 the doctor now, but he shook his head, frowning; he had 
 other matters to adjust. 
 
 "Mum," said he, "do you think I could see Jessie?" 
 "Of course you can see Jessie. Shall I telephone?" 
 This was Emily. She gave you exactly what you 
 wanted, and didn t fuss you with offering more. John, as 
 she knew, adored Helen, but she wasn t suggesting, " And 
 Helen too? " to run his cup over the brim. If he asked 
 for Jessie, Jessie alone he should have. 
 
 " If Helen comes to the phone don t let her think I 
 want them both," said John, divining her reticence. " Tell 
 her it s Jessie. It s professional. It s business." 
 
 So Emily went at once to the telephone and presently 
 reported that Jessie was at home, and within twenty 
 minutes Jessie herself entered the room as unconcerned 
 as if she were used to being summoned by young men laid 
 low. She had hurried, and her cheeks were bright. Her 
 short fur coat was flying back disclosing the perfec 
 tion of her white silk waist, and John decided incidentally 
 that, although she wasn t within a mile of Helen, she was 
 pretty oh, very pretty. She slipped off the coat and 
 sat down composedly by the bed. She didn t ask about 
 his pain, and he saw she wasn t going to. Jessie was, 
 he thought, a mighty good fellow. He began at once and 
 told her about last night, about his going down to Grass 
 lands and the disaster of his coming home. She listened 
 in silence, but intently, and he was sure every word bit. 
 He ended by saying he couldn t take this to his father or 
 his mother, because nobody could guess what, in their 
 absurd loyalty to the family tradition, they d do. One 
 thing they were pretty sure to do, and that was to 
 approach Charles, the very thing that mustn t be thought
 
 THE BLACK DROP 191 
 
 of for a moment. He couldn t tell Helen because it would 
 upset her like the deuce and no good come of it. He could 
 tell precisely and only Jessie, and she must swear herself 
 black and blue to keep his confidence. 
 
 " Of course," said she thoughtfully. Her mind seemed 
 to be off on tracks of its own. " No, it never would do 
 to let Charles in for trouble now. You ve got to give him 
 rope. I ve not much doubt he ll hang himself. Anyway, 
 the thing is to lie low and see." 
 
 " Now this one thing has got to be done," said John. 
 He was ignoring his pain. The effect of the little tablet 
 was wearing off and the fiend knew and was creeping back ; 
 but he could, briefly, disregard it. He could sit above 
 it and plan out his task which seemed to him rather a big 
 one, a tragic one, if the first steps were really as serious 
 as they had seemed. " We ve got to get that bag out 
 from under the bridge, and I know of just one person 
 to do it." 
 
 Jessie looked eagerly hopeful and held her breath. But 
 he was not going to say what she tremulously wished he 
 might. Was hers the high emprise? 
 
 " There s just one person and that s Cross, supposing 
 you re right about him, that is, and he s to be trusted and 
 all that. And I ve come to the conclusion he is." 
 
 "But where is he?" she asked, putting aside her imper 
 tinent feminine ambitions for the moment, because the 
 thing you wanted badly enough could always be plunged 
 for in the end. " We don t know where he is." 
 
 " No, but I ll bet you Helen does." 
 
 "Am I to tell Helen?" 
 
 "No, no. Just tell her I want to see Cross. Then you 
 send him to me. Get a messenger, if you can t do it by 
 phone. I don t want you mixed up in this any more
 
 192 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 than I do Helen. I won t have it. But send Cross to 
 me." 
 
 " I don t believe Helen would know." 
 
 " She would. Don t you remember how foolish she 
 always was about the servants -lovely, it was and 
 knew where their fathers and mothers lived and sent em 
 things at Christmas? And if Cross had a relation this 
 side of the water she d know it, and that s the clue for you 
 to follow. I ve got to have that bag." 
 
 " Of course," said Jessie, again thoughtfully. Then 
 she giggled. " Wouldn t it be funny," she said, " if it was 
 only the Herr Captain s hair brushes and clean hanky?" 
 
 " It isn t," said John. " It just isn t, that s all." 
 
 She got up and took her coat. 
 
 " Yes," she said, still following out her thoughts, " you 
 could trust Cross." 
 
 " I d bet on Cross. And particularly now Charles has 
 turned him down. There s been some kick-up there we 
 don t know. Charles never would have got rid of him 
 for no cause. He s too valuable." 
 
 " If I can t find him at once," said Jessie, " shall I send 
 you word? Or just keep on trying? " 
 
 " Keep on trying. Only it s got to be done. The 
 weather may change, too. It s softening up, don t you 
 see? and if there should be a pouring rain it might start 
 the brook, and wet the blamed thing through, and then 
 where d we be? Last night the bed of the stream was as 
 dry as my hand ; but you know how it comes rattling down 
 in a big rain. You remember it, don t you?" 
 
 " Tell me where it is," said Jessie, sitting again, in spite 
 of the impatience in his face. " Just while I button my 
 coat. If you were going into the path from the station, 
 how would you go ? "
 
 THE BLACK DROP 193 
 
 " You turn in to that little street where the shoe shop 
 is, and go over a bridge, and there s a kind of a swampy 
 place and beyond that the woods begin. My idea would 
 be to have Cross go on to the next station, Deal s Crossing 
 the milk station, it s only a mile, and a train stops there 
 twice a day in case anybody was watching at the station 
 itself. Then he could walk back and ask for the shoe shop, 
 do you see ? and go by it to the swamp and the path. 
 And I should say he d better have a bag of his own, a good- 
 sized grip, and slip the other bag into that, in case they re 
 on the lookout for it. Or he could slit the thing with his 
 knife and take out what s in it." 
 
 " Or open it ! If it s hair brushes, it wouldn t be 
 locked." 
 
 " It is locked," said John. " I tried it before I chucked 
 it under, while I was in the woods. I thought if they were 
 papers I could put em in my pocket and throw the bag 
 away. Yes, the thing was locked. You see if Cross gets 
 the papers out, he can chuck the bag back under the 
 culvert. Only he must be mighty sure it is empty." 
 
 She rose. Slow as she had been, her coat was buttoned, 
 and she found no other pretext. 
 
 " All right," said she. 
 
 " Jessie," he called. She was at the door now, but she 
 stopped and looked back, ready, at a word, to stay. 
 " You re a great sport," said John, rather shyly for him. 
 " I m awfully obliged."
 
 XIX 
 
 JESSIE went at once to the public telephone at the corner 
 of the street and rang up Helen. She might not be back, 
 she told her, before dark. It was business, an assignment. 
 A job? Yes, truly, a job. And would Helen please 
 promise not to go out, at least not after dark, and when 
 Jessie came home they d have an exciting trot together, 
 back and forth in front of the house, and she should 
 rather think that was enough to satisfy anybody. Then 
 she telephoned the station, and finding there was a train 
 shortly for Deal s Crossing, took a taxi and told her man 
 to hurry. She had not for a moment meant to waste 
 time hunting up Cross. And not only did she agree with 
 John that the Herr Captain s hair brushes must be re 
 trieved, but she was warm with the interest of this common 
 place, rather humorous little errand. Inconsiderable as 
 it was, it gained in gravity since it was to be done for the 
 assuaging of John. 
 
 On the way down she formulated what she was to do : 
 the simplest task, it seemed. Only she had forgotten to 
 provide herself with means of concealing her booty after 
 she got it, a negligible fault: for, if she once got the 
 bag of the Herr Captain, she was quite sure of hang 
 ing to it. A sweet day, she told herself, as she sped out 
 into the country, oh, a sweet day ! The weather was 
 softening, as John had said, and the first stages of the 
 change were beautiful in the extreme. The air was not 
 
 194
 
 THE BLACK DROP 195 
 
 of the wintry clearness it had been but yesterday. An 
 almost impalpable thickening, a hint of blue, hung upon 
 the marshes and softened their brown ineffably. When 
 Jessie got out at Deal s and took the road familiarly 
 known as the Milky Way she was in gay spirits, and 
 while she walked the mile through swampy growth the 
 sense of anticipation stayed with her and made her step 
 light and her heart free. The way was easy. There, 
 not far from the station, was the shoe shop and the 
 beginning of low ground. She walked rapidly now 
 and presently found the small trees thickening into an 
 older growth and at her left, the path. There were a 
 good many oaks in the Tracy wood and the mahogany 
 brown leaves were whispering. Three or four clumps 
 of white birches showed beyond a screen of hemlock, and 
 she thought how enchanting a spot it would be in the 
 spring. And when she had followed the gentle curves of 
 the path for perhaps five minutes, she rounded a more 
 abrupt bend and saw the dry bed of the alder-fringed 
 brook and over it the stone bridge. 
 
 Jessie was enormously excited, and liked the feel of it. 
 She was ready to whip up her enthusiasm a little more, 
 if that might be, it made the heart beat so delightfully. 
 At the bridge she stopped and looked about her. She 
 meant to be very cautious, very like a seasoned agent of 
 the force. Was the Herr Captain perhaps watching her 
 from the woods, like a pirate over his doubloons, ready 
 to fight for his hair brushes, presumably by scaring her 
 to death? There was no sound except the rustling of the 
 oaks and the whirr of the little brown birds that spend 
 their winters capriciously winging about in flocks, settling 
 and sweeping on again. She knelt at the side of the bridge 
 and put in her hand. Then she got down lower to look.
 
 196 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 There was nothing there. A few dried wisps of some 
 water plant brushed her cheek. She gazed stupidly at 
 the groundwork of stones embedded in the sandy earth. 
 But she could see from one side of the space to the other, 
 and again she told herself the bag was gone. She got up 
 and dusted the dried grasses from her knees, and knew that 
 the lovely brown day had darkened and the sense of 
 anticipation dropped like a stone. 
 
 What could she do now? Should she regard the quest 
 as ended, go back and tell John she had carried it out 
 otherwise than he had planned and that had been the 
 disastrous end? She walked along, hoping against 
 certainty to find another bridge, and presently found 
 herself at the edge of the woods and the rising ground of 
 the orchard. Here, losing the brook, she turned about 
 and went back, and, because she could not bear to leave the 
 smiling day behind her, diverged at the right and went into 
 the woods. Here things were amply beautiful ; there was 
 delight in the woods if she hadn t before her the grave 
 task of again meeting John. At her feet were checker- 
 berries and ground pine and she threw off her disappoint 
 ment and began to gather. And while she was wandering 
 within a small range she heard voices and stood still, 
 giving up her green activities, to listen. She was, at this 
 point, enormously amused. The Herr Captain, she 
 judged, had come back for his brushes as Captain Kidd 
 returns for buried gold. One voice was a woman s, and 
 presently she saw them, a man and a woman, walking 
 together in a direction parallel to the path, each with head 
 bent, quite evidently searching, scanning every step of the 
 ground, putting aside a branch here and there, and some 
 times retracing a step to go over the ground again. The 
 woman, we may know, was Elsa Davenport. Jessie stood
 
 THE BLACK DROP 197 
 
 as still as the trees and watched them. The man was a 
 sanguine fellow with a red beard and a twitching mouth. 
 The woman Jessie felt a woman s pang as she noted the 
 perfection of her clothes, plain to the point of severity 
 but in the same degree exquisite. The two spoke now and 
 then, in tones not unnaturally low, and when they had 
 turned again and were retracing their way, the woman 
 stopped, threw up her head as a wild animal sniffs the air 
 and listened. Yet Jessie was sure it was not to any 
 sound from her, not the crackling of a twig or a breath too 
 full. The pretty young woman, she thought for now she 
 had had time to decide she was either pretty or something 
 more significant was being warned by that super-sense 
 mankind has of unseen presences. And the next instant 
 Elsa moved the fraction of an inch necessary to see 
 Jessie, looked at her and broke into laughter, an excel 
 lently considered laugh of the sort women are taught for 
 the stage. The man started. He even jumped aside as if, 
 Jessie thought, the laugh had been a warning of something 
 venomous in the path. And he, too, looked at Jessie. 
 He stood still, but the woman moved directly forward, 
 speaking as she came. And her vibrant voice was signifi 
 cant, like her face. 
 
 " You ve found it," she called, " and we ve been hunting 
 half an hour." 
 
 " Oh, no, I haven t," Jessie was on the point of answer 
 ing stupidly, her mind full of the Herr Captain s bag. 
 But she did stop herself in time and answered : " Found 
 what? Something you have lost? " 
 
 Elsa came on, picking her way among roots and gnarls, 
 and the man immovably waited. 
 
 " Why," said Elsa, " ground pine. I ve been hunting 
 and hunting and this man kindly offered to show me some.
 
 198 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 But not a speck. You needn t wait," she called back to 
 him. " There s a lot right here." 
 
 And while she stooped, tearing up the evergreen gar 
 lands, he seemed to vanish, he went so softly and so fast. 
 But it was not in the direction Jessie had come. He must, 
 she thought, be going through the orchard to the house. 
 Then Jessie, amply burdened herself, gathered for Elsa, 
 who talked here and there, with a pleasant ease, about the 
 day and the fun of being out in the winter woods and the 
 silliness of houses and the ills they entailed. Jessie was 
 fascinated, in a way, though not attracted. But Elsa 
 did add a distinct charm to the enterprise that had 
 seemed to end so badly, was really ending badly, in spite 
 of gay companionship. 
 
 "And laurel, too," said Jessie, "there, just where you 
 were walking." 
 
 She went over to it, and stood for an instant saluting 
 its green immortality. Then, like a whispered hint, a 
 hand laid on her arm bidding her remember, something 
 said to her : " Just here they were walking. It is covered 
 with ground pine. They didn t want it after all. They 
 were looking for something else." Whether the silent 
 whisper had been heard by the other woman, too, at the 
 same instant she could not guess, but Elsa called to her: 
 
 " Good-bye. I have to go this way." 
 
 And she did go, though not by the path, but through the 
 woods, as the man had gone. Jessie stood still, her eyes 
 following the slight figure winding in and out among the 
 trees. She came slowly into the path, and went along 
 the way she had come. At the station she sat on a bench 
 outside, her green trophies on her knees, waiting for 
 the train, and presently a car came up and the lady of 
 the woods alighted, said a word to the chauffeur and
 
 THE BLACK DROP 199 
 
 dismissed him. He drove away, and she crossed the plat 
 form at the front of the station within a yard of Jessie, 
 and went in to the ticket office. She could hardly have 
 helped seeing the solitary figure with its lapful of green. 
 Yet she did not apparently look, she did not speak, and 
 after a minute or two, when Jessie took the train, she 
 saw her getting into the car in front of her. And she 
 carried no green garlands from the wood. Jessie felt 
 bruised and miserable. Had they seen how stupid she was 
 and somehow taken advantage of her dulness? They had, 
 she thought, " played it on her." But who were they and 
 what was it they had played?
 
 XX 
 
 NORRIS was doing a strange thing. While the family 
 thought of him as writing on his novel for there was 
 always a novel going he was writing out the character 
 of Charles, partly as he knew it from acquaintance, partly 
 as he had begun to guess at it. He was one of those who, 
 accustomed to the illuminative use of the pen, can hardly 
 think without it, and often smiled in remembering a seam 
 stress of his father s early days who would enter upon no 
 sartorial problem until she had put on her thimble. Norris 
 took the Voice now and read it, every word, and he was 
 puzzled and afraid: afraid for Charles who was so 
 mysteriously clever in getting the suffrages of the crowd. 
 How did Charles know where to strike the underlying 
 desires of base men, like a diviner with his rod, and how was 
 he skilful enough to wrap his propaganda in such phrases 
 that, as they followed, they strutted and grew wiser in 
 their own conceit. They weren t ashamed of being de 
 tected in conspiracy against the world. They said : " Lo ! 
 here is a man who sees us as we are and the just rewards 
 we are bent on, rewards we hardly dreamed we could have. 
 We never knew there were such golden apples in the world 
 as these he is going to shake down, or, if we did know it, 
 we thought they were the spoils of greater opportunity. 
 He promises us a new heaven and a new earth, and both 
 we shall inherit, we, plain men who expected no more 
 than to see the idle rich ride by to more colossal 
 fortune." There were other sorts who believed in Charles, 
 the pure in heart and correspondingly vague of mind, 
 
 200
 
 THE BLACK DROP 201 
 
 who could swear by a word so long as it was a good word 
 like love, justice, peace, and eat and drink the word and 
 look up raptly to see it printed in the heavens while their 
 feet stumbled along the disordered ways of earth. 
 Charles, counting these two sorts of disciples, the sinner 
 and the saint, was getting an enormous following. He 
 was asked to speak at clubs, and though nobody had known 
 he had any rhetorical gift, he talked of love and peace and 
 was acceptable. 
 
 Norris read the Voice with a determination to clear its 
 paths from the tangle of words and chart out its policy. 
 He did get some definite general tendencies. Charles was 
 continuing as he had begun. He still omitted no oppor 
 tunity to call attention to America s lofty ideal of a stable 
 peace, even though the rest of the world were cracking into 
 chaos. He still compared the clear air of western progress 
 with the foul winds that beat across Europe, blowing up 
 war. He drew glowing pictures of what America could 
 do for this same sodden Europe when, after her debauch 
 of blood, she had to be reconstructed and admonished by 
 her sister across the ocean. Always the implication ran, 
 America is too noble to dip her clean hand in blood. Do 
 not go to war. He drew an affrighted picture of the evil 
 might of Germany. Therefore, again, since she was all 
 but omnipotent, do not go to war. He sorrowed over 
 England s lamentable arrogance, her tyranny on the seas, 
 and indicated, still sorrowfully, that America could never 
 ally herself with policies of that complexion. Therefore, 
 so far as being her ally on the seas and in the trenches 
 is concerned, do not go to war. Charles was, in short, 
 putting sand in the works, and so cleverly that while he 
 slipped it in he seemed to be oiling up and keeping the 
 wheels going.
 
 202 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 Now here was a man Norris had let loose on the world, 
 and the man was not creating it anew that future genera 
 tions might call it good. He was undermining it, bur 
 rowing in it, piping it with the vitriol of evil communica 
 tions, and all, though thus far mysteriously, to the ad 
 vancement of himself. His father thought him over and 
 over, as if he had been a boy of ten who had got into dirty 
 ways, and wondered what to do with him. And as he 
 had done repeatedly, in the days of the very young Charles, 
 he called in Emily. He went to the head of the stairs 
 and shouted for her and she came, hurrying. 
 
 "Doing anything? " he asked and received her where he 
 stood, took her hand and smoothed it as he led her into 
 his room. " I mustn t bellow like that if it s going to start 
 you up and make you scatter like a mother hen. But I 
 have to bellow, you know, when I need you." He put her 
 into the chair by the fire and then shut the door and 
 took the twin chair which he drew near enough, Emily 
 saw, to touch her hand while he should break something 
 to her. By this she knew he was quite sentimental. He 
 was going to tell her something that made him sorry 
 for her. 
 
 " You re not worried? " she said, " about John? He s 
 better this morning and fretting to get up ; but it bothered 
 me so he promised not to." 
 
 " No," said Norris, " I m not worried about John. I m 
 worried about Charles." 
 
 Then he did put his hand on hers where she had left 
 it conveniently on the arm of the chair, to save him trouble, 
 and she knew they both had to be sorry. 
 
 " Charles, you see," said Norris, wobbling a little be 
 cause he really didn t know how to begin, " Charles is 
 behaving badly." And that sounded so sickly that he
 
 THE BLACK DROP 203 
 
 immediately amended it. " The plain truth is, he s act 
 ing like the devil." 
 
 The soft hand under his did not stir by an involuntary 
 quiver. He wondered if Emily knew it knew more than 
 he did or how she always managed to keep her calm. 
 
 " What is he doing? " she asked, and her voice also was 
 unmoved. 
 
 " He s running his paper you know he bought the 
 Voice? " 
 
 " Oh, yes. I knew that." 
 
 " Well, he s running it in a way to run us all into the 
 ground, if we don t understand and discount it and see 
 it s propaganda." 
 
 " Is it propaganda ? " asked Emily. 
 
 " Yes, of the deadliest sort. Emily, Charles isn t 
 straight. He never has been, he never will be She 
 
 made a little murmur here and he knew it was the mother 
 in her, passionately asserting itself, against experience 
 and reason, to cry, he would be straight, he might. The 
 future was his anyway, the mother heart declared. 
 
 " We ve covered it up," Norris went on, inexorable even 
 to the irresponsible spirit in him, too, that bade him let 
 the boy alone. He d grow out of it. Boys did grow. 
 " We ve taken every incident by itself, ever since he was 
 little. We ve said, Charles hasn t done the straight thing 
 this time, but this time doesn t count. It s like our using 
 palliatives for John s lameness. We deaden the pain for 
 him and keep him in bed, and that s the best we know. 
 But if we found a heroic remedy, a thing that would cure 
 him for good and all, why, we d use it, wouldn t we? no mat 
 ter how much it cost us, no matter what it cost him." 
 
 Here she interrupted him, but at a tangent that pulled 
 him away from Charles. It wasn t artifice. He had
 
 204 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 touched a spring of eager credulity and hope and she 
 couldn t keep it down. 
 
 " Norris, sometimes I wonder about John, you know 
 this young Triphammer says his doctor can see into 
 the very tissues themselves 
 
 " So can the X-ray," said Norris compassionately. 
 " But I m talking about Charles. In the past, up to 
 about now, Charles s being crooked didn t seem to matter 
 much except to us all of us, and Helen but now he s 
 got a following. He s a leader, Emily. He s got the 
 pacifists and the pro-Germans and the Anglophobes and 
 labor oh, he s got labor. You ought to see the way 
 he fats em up." 
 
 " I know," said Emily, in a low tone. " I read it." 
 
 " Do you read the Voice? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Well, doesn t it mean just that what I ve been tell 
 ing you? Or doesn t it? " 
 
 " It seemed to me," said Emily slowly, " some of it a 
 good deal of it beautiful." 
 
 " That s it. But did it seem true? Did it have any gran 
 ite in it something you could build on or was it all 
 hot air? Vapor, you know, prett}^ colored and ah 1 that? " 
 
 " I don t care about it," said Emily bravely. " It isn t 
 what you and grandsir say, and John. But of course 
 Charles may see things differently." 
 
 " He does see them differently," said Norris. There 
 was a grimness in his air and she looked at him from an 
 appealing deprecation. " I haven t the least idea Charles 
 cares a hang which way the country goes, or whether 
 England and France are run over and devoured, so long 
 as he comes out on top. He s advancing himself, don t 
 you see? He s making the people lift him on their shoul-
 
 THE BLACK DROP 205 
 
 ders and carry him somewhere. He s of the type that 
 get carried because they crawl up to men s shoulders and 
 hang on and you have to take em along. And the worst 
 of it is, you take them where they like and they can make 
 you think it s somewhere you want to go." 
 
 He had forgotten to keep that comforting hand on 
 Emily s and she withdrew hers and clasped it upon the 
 other in her lap. He hated his job worse than he had 
 ever hated one. In the first place, Norris frankly dis 
 liked to talk, except in his careless, chaffing way. He 
 was stingy of his best thoughts, though that was 
 only because he was a lazy fellow. He liked to keep them 
 by him as a collector keeps his gems and, when he was 
 alone, take them out and luxuriate in the depth and shine 
 of them. But he had resolved to meet this issue squarely, 
 and it was John who had made him. He meant to put 
 the family idea to the test. 
 
 " I ve been thinking of this from something John said," 
 he began, and Emily interrupted him : 
 
 " Oh, I wish John liked him better." 
 
 " Liked Charles ? He likes him well enough, better n 
 Charles deserves. But that wasn t what I meant. Don t 
 vou know what John was saying that day about fam 
 ilies and how they hedge and beat the devil round the stump 
 and get so used to whitewashing one another they re like 
 graven images sitting up and grinning at their own un 
 reality? No, no, I know he didn t say that, but 
 
 "You get carried away," said Emily. "You re so 
 clever. That s the trouble with writing books. Say it 
 so I can understand it, dear." 
 
 This was a slap and he stared at her before he laughed 
 in perfect admiration of the innocence of her while she 
 gave it.
 
 206 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " Hereafter," he said, " I m going to dedicate my stuff 
 to you. To my wife, my sternest critic. No, but 
 Emily, child, be good. See what a hole we re in. We re 
 all in the pit together, and it looks as if it s up to you 
 and me to drag us out. You see, you and I called Charles 
 out of the unknown. That s the devil of it. We re re 
 sponsible. We didn t know what we were getting, but we 
 beckoned and he came. Just he came, Charles and no 
 body else. We invited him here. He s ours." 
 
 He was putting her through an anguished minute, and 
 yet there was some assuaging in it, too. A great many of 
 these minutes she had had in her life, enough to count 
 up to a little life of their own, and she had borne them in 
 her heart, wondering what she had done or left undone. 
 Was it a prenatal curse that made Charles what he 
 was, an outlaw from his birth: always repudiating the 
 accepted laws and following base expedients of persuasion, 
 of delicate craft that seemed to promise his reigning su 
 preme in that kingdom he was making, where he never 
 could see he was alone? And yet, except for other out 
 laws of varying degree, he was alone and out of that had 
 sprung her sharpest agonies. And now Norris was, if 
 not suffering the same pangs, recognizing them as some 
 thing unspeakable, and she was briefly comforted. So the 
 patient draws an easier breath when the doctor tells him 
 his disease has been classified long ago, even if it may 
 not be cured. Others have charted the dread way. 
 
 " I don t see," she said falteringly, " how we could have 
 done more for Charles or done better." 
 
 " I don t either. But whatever it was, it s been no use. 
 He s swept on, like a disease. And now, you see, he doesn t 
 threaten us. He threatens the country. He threatens 
 the world."
 
 THE BLACK DROP 207 
 
 " Oh," said Emily, plucking up heart because he leaped 
 so far in a breath, " Charles hasn t such an influence as all 
 that." 
 
 " Emily, do you realize how many thousand readers 
 Charles reaches every morning? Do you realize it s like 
 his waking up all those men and whispering to them : Let 
 me tell you what I ve found out since yesterday ? And if 
 he tells them what s happening round them and what s 
 happening on the other side of the water, and doctors it 
 a little so their opinions are formed before they know 
 they ve got any don t you see what power he has?" 
 
 " Yes, but there are the other papers 
 
 " We re not talking about the other papers. We re 
 talking about Charles, because he s our Charles and be 
 cause we conspired to get him here out of our ancestral 
 past, wherever that was. Charles may be the cave man 
 that started your dear old father on the track of life. He 
 may be me somewhere back there where I sloughed off one 
 of my skins. Anyway, he s our Charles and we ve got to 
 do something." 
 
 " You make it horrible," she said. " So big, so black ! 
 You make me feel lost 
 
 " Don t be lost, dear," said Norris. He took her hand 
 from its despairing grip on the other and kept it. 
 " You re right here and you re a game old girl. Think 
 how game you were when you had your babies and I cried 
 like a seal. Now, so far as I see, Charles has got to be 
 born again and we re the ones to help him through." 
 
 " I can t see," said Emily desperately, " why it may not 
 be he really does believe the things he s saying. A lot of 
 other people believe them. Look at his following. You 
 say yourself he s got a following." 
 
 " He doesn t believe the things," said Norris briefly,
 
 208 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " simply because he doesn t. Charles is a politician right 
 through. He s yellow." 
 
 " Oh! " she cried, but Norris hated his job so beyond 
 measure now that he was determined he d finish it up. 
 
 " And when you say politician in a derogatory sense, 
 same as I ve used it against Charles, what do you mean? 
 You mean, when the man does anything you don t accept 
 it as an isolated act. You try to see what he s going to 
 get by it. And you can t measure its effect until you do 
 see." 
 
 " Oh," she cried, " I don t think that s fair." 
 
 "To call him a politician? Why not? " 
 
 " I don t think it s fair to them. Think what a lot of 
 perfectly splendid men are in politics 
 
 " Well," said Norris, " then if we re going to quarrel 
 with the word and I own it has its other meaning I ll 
 change it. I ll say he is a crook." 
 
 She made no answer, but now he did feel her hand under 
 his tighten itself and he understood. He had given her 
 son an evil name. She would remember that. 
 
 " Now," said Norris, proceeding with his discomfiting 
 task, "what are we going to do? " 
 
 " It never has done any good," said she, " to talk to 
 Charles." 
 
 " Never. And we sha n t have any better luck now. 
 Only, are we going to stand up to it and, when the thing 
 comes out, stand up to Charles? For it s got to come 
 out. It s bound to." 
 
 " You talk," said Emily desperately, " as if there were 
 something definite, something more than his saying things 
 in the paper." 
 
 " There is," said Norris. " The amount of it is, Charles 
 wouldn t say those things if he wasn t paid."
 
 THE BLACK DROP 209 
 
 " Paid? Who s paying him? " 
 
 " Germany." 
 
 " Oh, no, no ! " She got out of her chair and stood look 
 ing at him. She was trembling violently. " No ! no ! " 
 she said again and then bit her lip to silence, because she 
 was dazed into feeling she must go on foolishly and wildly 
 saying no. 
 
 She turned away and went blindly toward the door, and 
 Norris got up and followed her. He put his arm about 
 her and held her there. 
 
 "My dear," he said, "don t take it like that. I 
 shouldn t have told you. But he s yours, too, you know." 
 
 " Yes," said Emily, " he is mine." She said it as if 
 she merely agreed with him ; but some passionate mother 
 spring in her had been touched, and for the instant she 
 could have cried out that he was hers alone. She turned 
 her wet face to him and tried to make him see she didn t 
 blame him. Fathers, the dearest of them, couldn t know. 
 " It s only," she said, " it s only some of it a sur 
 prise." 
 
 And then she slid away from his arm and hurried out, 
 downstairs, he knew, to some hiding of her own. 
 
 Norris stood there and thought. He hated himself. 
 He wondered if he could have done differently. Then he 
 went up to see his father.
 
 XXI 
 
 GRANDSIB, exquisitely turned out by Erastus, who si 
 lently fostered his fastidiousness in personal detail, was 
 at his table, not even pretending to use his pencil on or 
 chards yet to be, but leaning back and regarding Erastus 
 who stood, miserably failing to meet his eyes. 
 
 " Now, you know," grandsir was saying mildly, " I m 
 too old a dog to have my skeleton taken apart and put 
 together again. This boy thinks," he continued to Norris, 
 now coming in, " that he s got a wizard up his sleeve. 
 (Probably hasn t a diploma to his name !) Anyhow he pulls 
 folks apart and sticks em together again, and Erastus 
 wants me to let him meddle with me." 
 
 " I only thought," began Erastus, but got no further 
 because grandsir raised his hand and pointed. 
 
 " You re a good boy," said he, " but crazy crazy as 
 a loon. You go now, and don t come back till the baby s 
 bedtime. I shall go by seven." 
 
 Erastus went sorrowfully, and grandsir turned to his 
 son and bade him sit down. 
 
 "He s a good lad," he said. "Almost makes me cry, 
 he s so hurt because I m falling apart here and there. I 
 don t think I strike him as being in any sense a valuable 
 old gentleman. It s because he s crazy about the human 
 body and the way it s put together." 
 
 "What is this doctor he s so gone over?" Norris in 
 quired. "Osteopath?" 
 
 " Yes, and Bones I don t call him Erastus except be- 
 
 210
 
 THE BLACK DROP 211 
 
 fore company I call him Bones he thinks his doctor 
 is God s understudy. God made and Landis patches up 
 after Him. Norris, it s a funny thing to be old." 
 
 Norris gave him a quick, inquiring glance. Was his 
 father really, the look said, going to break that silence 
 which had lain over the twilight land he had been living 
 in, these meagre years, with such dignity and unspoken 
 acquiescence? 
 
 " Even your ears feel queer," said grandsir. " They ve 
 tightened up somehow. Your voice doesn t sound in em 
 as it used to. And going downstairs it s an adventure. 
 I ve been thinking of it for an hour. I want to go down 
 and see John now he can t get up here, and I swear I 
 dread it so I m afraid." 
 
 " You look awfully fit," Norris ventured, and immedi 
 ately he saw the veil of reticence renewed upon his father s 
 eyes. He had, in his fumbling compassion, met grand- 
 sir with one of the commonplaces intended, in the family, 
 to make things go, and grandsir had repented his impulsive 
 candor. 
 
 " Well ! well ! " said he, " I dare say I shall get down 
 sometime in the course of the forenoon. You seen John? " 
 
 " No. I ve been giving Emily a bad quarter of an hour. 
 Wish I hadn t. It s never any good. I told her Charles 
 was going to the devil, and asked her what we could do 
 about it." 
 
 " Charles has gone to the devil," said grandsir. " He 
 went some time ago. What particular devil did you refer 
 to?" 
 
 " Well, John, you know, thinks he s been bought for 
 propaganda. Thinks he s in the pay of Germany." 
 
 Grandsir nodded, and Norris, impatient at finding him 
 so unmoved, ended irritably :
 
 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " You don t seem surprised. Has John been at you? " 
 
 " No, it isn t John," said grandsir slowly, " it s Charles. 
 He couldn t surprise me." 
 
 " Well, what do you know about all this? " 
 
 " Nothing, except the way he s carrying on in the 
 Voice. What does John know? " 
 
 " Nothing but the Voice. Oh, yes, and he thinks 
 because Charles has bought up Brennan and Finch and 
 Bailey and isn t using any of their stuff, he did it to keep 
 them from placing it anywhere else. They ve been red 
 hot, you know." 
 
 " Sizzling. So s John. Do you know anything about 
 that woman that s been trotting round with Charles? " 
 
 " No. Never saw her. Don t want to." 
 
 " Well, what about Charles anyway? What have you 
 done ? What you going to do ? " 
 
 Norris was not prepared with any answer to that. At 
 least, if he had known in advance that the question was 
 to be put to him, he would have owned himself stumped. 
 But as if his tongue moved in obedience to some inner 
 witness he hadn t called and now didn t even recognize, he 
 answered : 
 
 " Look for proof against him. And, if there is proof, 
 doesn t that mean giving him up to justice? " 
 
 He looked, in his surprise over himself, at grandsir, to 
 see how this was taken, and their eyes met and held. 
 Grandsir was the first to speak. 
 
 " I see," he said. Then he offered, tentatively, " Roman 
 father? " 
 
 " Don t chaff," said Norris quickly. 
 
 " No, no. I m only thinking you re in for something 
 big and queer. For you can t question him, or you ll 
 only put him on his guard and make him more dangerous
 
 THE BLACK DROP 213 
 
 because more underhand. And if you re going to give 
 him over to the law well, I don t know." 
 
 " Father," said Norris, in a bitter outburst, " he can t 
 do these things. I can t let him. He s my son." 
 
 " No," said grandsir, " no. But I suppose I was think 
 ing of Emily and Helen." 
 
 " I m thinking of Emily, too," said Norris hotly. 
 " Don t you suppose I m thinking of Emily? But here s 
 my son and he s doing his best to undermine every damned 
 thing the few decent-minded people are standing for. And 
 he s got that disproportionate influence everybody has 
 who can get into print. It s horrible, father, this power 
 of the printed word. It s criminal." 
 
 " Yes," said grandsir thoughtfully, " though it s benefi 
 cent, too, sometimes." 
 
 Norris stared before him, yet hardly conscious of what 
 he saw. 
 
 " You re not with me," he said. " If we had the evi 
 dence here on that table, you wouldn t use it. It s be 
 cause Charles belongs to us. He s our family. And the 
 family s defensive. It s got so used to hanging together 
 it will hang against the law." 
 
 Grandsir didn t answer him for a long minute. He sat 
 looking down at the table where his fingers were drumming 
 a noiseless call. Or was it a tattoo of mourning for dead 
 hopes? He knew he had disappointed Norris profoundly. 
 Grandsir was quite aware of his position in the family. 
 He knew and wondered, because he retained a mildly 
 ironic estimate of his own value how they looked to him 
 for the wisdom they were doubtful of finding among them 
 selves. Often he played up to their expectations with a 
 didactic gravity which was as funny to him, tottering, as 
 lie believed, on the brink of his own predestined abyss, as
 
 214 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 it was admirable to them. But he realized again to-day 
 that they knew nothing about the intermittent paralysis 
 of growing old. It came in waves, and every wave was 
 higher. With the ninth wave he would be engulfed. 
 There were weeks when his former self sat composed and 
 did its beneficent tasks, which he was careful not to recog 
 nize at their true value as fictions to fill up the time, and 
 then, without warning, just as the hopeful self within him 
 had begun to wonder if there mightn t after all be an 
 elixir, if, by taking thought, you couldn t stay the moving 
 finger, another wave was upon him and he was scrambling 
 breathless up the sand, alive still, but a little more clearly 
 cognizant of perils underfoot. And this was the day 
 after a wave. " I understand the Roman father business," 
 he could have said. " It s magnificent. It s even better 
 than that. It s simple decency. But it s possible at the 
 age of fathers only, not grandfathers. As for me, I can t 
 go with you to your sacrifice. I ve had enough of looking 
 on at tears." 
 
 Norris rose from his chair. 
 
 " Well," he said, " after all, we ve nothing, as yet, to 
 act on : nothing but the evidence of the Voice." 
 
 " If you see John," said grandsir, " tell him I ll come 
 down by and by, if he likes." 
 
 But Norris didn t go in to see John. As he got to the 
 room, a small procession was filing in, Brennan, Bailey 
 and Finch, who had met Jessie in the street and been 
 told, with a persuasive picturesqueness, how John was 
 laid by the heels. That decided them on a resolution 
 of long debate : that they would not be dropped. They 
 would be spoken to, or they d speak to him, even if they 
 had sold themselves to the Voice, which wasn t, after 
 all, criminal : only asinine, as the sequel proved. And if
 
 THE BLACK DROP 215 
 
 there was a way into a thing, wasn t there also a way out? 
 Emily had asked John if they could come up and he had 
 hesitated a sulky minute. He had missed them tremen 
 dously. He did want them back. But this he neither 
 hinted to Emily or himself. Yes, he said, they could come. 
 
 Bailey appeared first and made his propitiatory on 
 slaught : 
 
 " Well, old son ! Now don t talk. We don t want to 
 hear anything about it. You needn t tell us we plumped 
 into the soup when we took on your Charles. But don t 
 you worry. He s got nothing on us." 
 
 " He isn t publishing you," said John. " And I m glad 
 of it. Serves you right." 
 
 Brennan, who had the usual flat package under his arm, 
 laid it on the foot of the bed, untied it and took out a 
 drawing. This he prepared to display at the indicated 
 moment. 
 
 " You re right," he said. " He isn t publishing us. 
 And we ve struck." 
 
 " You can t strike. You re under contract to furnish 
 him something every week." 
 
 " We re doing it," said Brennan, " and we re going to 
 keep on doing it until he gets so mighty sick of the contract 
 he ll be the first to tear it up. Go ahead, Finch." 
 
 Finch came up and ranged himself by Brennan. They 
 hadn t sat down. Somehow, in their dogged, grouped 
 persistency in explaining themselves, they were funny to 
 John, and yet he felt a choking over them, too. They 
 were good chaps, and he and they had had some of their 
 prettiest sprints together. 
 
 "We re doing a series," said Finch. "Brennan does 
 the cartoon, T do a fable and Bailey writes a pome." 
 
 " It s called," said Bailey, who had now sat down on the
 
 216 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 corner of John s work-table and was swinging his feet, 
 " The Man without a Country. " 
 
 " Oh, rot ! " said John. " Don t pinch things that have 
 been done once. That was A Number One then. What 
 do you want to muddle it up for now? That s never any 
 good." 
 
 "Oh, no," said Bailey, enjoying himself. "It isn t 
 E. E. Kale s. We ve swiped the title, that s all. This 
 is ours. Go ahead, Finch." 
 
 " It s simply," said Finch, " the story of your Charles. 
 He s the man without a country. We ve thought up all 
 the lurid things he d do if he thought of em, and strung 
 em together and given him the leading role, doing em. 
 I see him putting that into his paper. Go ahead, Bren- 
 nan. Exhibit A." 
 
 Brennan set the cartoon up before John, and John 
 looked and began to laugh, and the laugh shook him and 
 momentarily hurt. This was Guido Reni s Aurora, and 
 Charles was the flying figure bringing in the daAvn. Noth 
 ing could have been funnier than the flying Charles, every 
 significant line of his face knocked slightly out of plumb 
 to make a leering Charles, a Charles whose torch belched 
 smoke and lurid flame and went up in words, words of 
 the most divine significance, all which Charles had lately 
 been using in the Voice. The sparks from the torch fell, 
 and tiny cities were ignited by them, and, if you looked 
 closely, you saw the cities were marked Belgium, France, 
 but never Germany. The second cartoon showed Charles 
 grinning like a cave man, brutalized, unkempt, placing the 
 bomb at a munition shop. Here John did protest, the 
 power of it was so terrible, the accusation so tremendous. 
 
 " But see here, fellows, you re going some. He is play 
 ing tricks with the paper, but this this
 
 THE BLACK DROP 217 
 
 Bailey slid off the table and joined the two at the foot of 
 the bed. 
 
 " Oh, but that s it," he cried. " Don t you see, we ve 
 got together all the stock things and fastened em on him? 
 Make him as mad as ten devils. If we d got any evidence, 
 don t you see, we d do something different. We d give 
 it in to the D. of J. But this is just to make him bust his 
 b iler and fire us. Go ahead, Brennie." 
 
 Brennan slipped in the next, and at this John did gasp 
 and wonder. It was Charles in pilot s togs, out in a 
 raging sea, receiving mail from a submarine. And the 
 mail sacks were marked plainly " Propaganda." 
 
 "You know," said John, "you know And there 
 he stopped. He couldn t tell them this was coming too 
 near home, nor what he had gathered from the evidence of 
 his own eyes that night at Grasslands. They had hit the 
 truth square in the centre. Charles was receiving mail 
 or secret communications of some sort. Should they be 
 allowed to accuse him, warn him, indeed, and put him on his 
 guard in advance of John s confirming his few facts? 
 " See here," he said, " I don t believe I d go into this." 
 
 "Oh, but you let us read you our stuff," said Bailey, 
 cheerful as a bird that sings perpetual April. " Go ahead, 
 Finch. I ll come up after the barrage." 
 
 Finch ran through his short fables explicatory of the 
 cartoons, and then Bailey read his verse, enchanted with 
 it himself, and breaking off after a stanza to look up like 
 de Pachman at the piano and call : 
 
 "Get it, Tracy? Ain t it a cracker-jack?" 
 
 And John did get it all and was, he said to Finch after 
 ward, bowled over by the cleverness of it, so that he ven 
 tured not a word further to recall them to safer sanities. 
 Finch s fables bit like vitriol and seared with fire. Bail-
 
 218 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 ey s verse went on, wave after wave, in a riotous aban 
 don. His metres were absurd but persuasive, and his 
 rhymes were lawless commander and propaganda, peri 
 scope and merry hope stuff ground out to fit a fleeting 
 moment and yet ground in a mill of such perfect action 
 that you couldn t stop to have the produce packed in cartons 
 but scooped it up in your hands, as it ran from the hopper, 
 and choked yourself with it, laughing as you gorged. 
 When they had finished, they stood looking at John, like 
 dogs that had done their tricks. Their faces were a little like 
 dog faces then, with the lifted eyebrow of inquiry, almost, 
 you would have said, the cocked ear of hopeful doubt. 
 
 " Oh, get along with you," said John. " You know what 
 kind of stuff it is. It s clever as the devil. I can t say 
 anything to you. Use it and be hanged." 
 
 So they packed up the fruits of their excellent invention 
 and went away, after John had proposed they should meet 
 in Bailey s room as soon as he was out again, and look 
 the landscape over. And presently Erastus came in with 
 a letter. It had been brought by messenger. It was from 
 Jessie and was brief. She told him she had herself gone 
 to Grasslands and had found nothing. She didn t report 
 the man and woman who had also been hunting, and not 
 for ground pine. Jessie couldn t quite bring herself to 
 that, in advance of knowing whether John was suffering 
 intolerably. She thought she might defer it until she 
 knew. John lay holding the letter crushed in his hand, 
 surprised, sorry, more disappointed than he could have 
 believed. But the surprise was a part of that. It hadn t 
 occurred to him as possible the bag might not be there. 
 The experience of a whole boyhood bore him out in the 
 certainty that a thing put into the old hidey-hole simply 
 waited until you came for it, or until the rain fell and the
 
 THE BLACK DROP 219 
 
 brook rose and carried it away, usually in pulp. And 
 there had been no rain. At that moment he moved, im 
 patient of his state, and it occurred to him, as it comes 
 to the ear when a continuous maddening noise has ceased, 
 that the pain had gone. And then he saw that Erastus 
 had slipped in and was noiselessly placing his shoes before 
 a chair, as if he expected John to sit there and put them on. 
 " Bones," said John, who had lost no time in adopting 
 grandsir s name for him, " I m going to get up. The dev 
 ilish thing has stopped." 
 
 "Yes," said Bones, unmoved. With his accomplished 
 career in view when he would occupy a position as good 
 as the best, he never said " sir." " I thought maybe. 
 You ve been laughing." 
 
 John had thrown off the clothes and set his foot gin 
 gerly to the floor. He was slow in trusting it. But he left 
 it there and turned to stare at Erastus. 
 
 " Laughing? What s that got to do with it? " 
 Bones spoke respectfully yet with firmness : 
 " It snapped in. I could tell by the look of your face. 
 Now if you d let me make an appointment with Doctor 
 Landis "
 
 XXII 
 
 WHEN Jessie, perplexed over the outcome of her after 
 noon at Grasslands, got home with a fragrant disorder of 
 ground pine in her hand, she found Helen at the door of 
 the apartment, waiting for her, and saw at once that 
 she was a thought outside her usual calm. She received 
 Jessie in a flutter of welcome, exclaimed over the wood 
 trophies and began to dispose them about the rooms, and 
 when Jessie came back, after taking off her things, fell on 
 her with more solicitude, to persuade her to the fire. 
 Jessie said she wasn t cold; the afternoon warmth had 
 lasted even after the sun went down. But Helen, regard 
 less of that, offered her fire again and assured her dinner 
 would be ready presently ; and now Jessie did look at her 
 with the arched eyebrow of quizzical protest. 
 
 " Very nice, Nell," she said, " very flattering. But un 
 expected! Just why do I find myself so popular?" 
 
 Helen laughed a little, though she kept on looking 
 wistful. 
 
 " I can t help it," she said. " I worried." 
 
 "Why, I telephoned you." 
 
 " I know it, but you didn t say where you were going. 
 Where did you go ? " 
 
 " Secrets," said Jessie, with a studied ease. " Into the 
 country, that s all. I m going to write it up, the woods 
 in winter, that kind of thing." 
 
 "Who sent you? Couldn t you have taken me? And 
 you found these lovely things. I believe if I went into the 
 woods I should get down and roll." 
 
 220
 
 THE BLACK DROP 221 
 
 " You shall, the next pleasant day. But you needn t 
 worry about me when I m overdue. You simply mustn t. 
 I ve gone about alone for ages, you know, and as for Over 
 There " 
 
 Helen stopped her, and was very sweet but decisive. It 
 wasn t good for Jessie to be perpetually thinking about 
 Over There. She must relax from the ardor of that terri 
 ble task and get the benefit of absence. Then, when the 
 moment came, they would both go, and there would be no 
 more rest for either of them. 
 
 They went out to dinner, and had it cosily, and then 
 came back to the flickering after-glow of the unnecessary 
 fire, and Jessie was about to get out the work-table when 
 Helen stopped her. 
 
 " Not to-night," she said. " I want to talk." 
 
 They took low chairs by the fire, and Helen threw on a 
 couple of sticks. It might respond ungraciously by mak 
 ing them too hot, but she had to have its company in her 
 task. 
 
 "Jess," she said, "want to turn out the lights?" 
 
 Jessie did it. Something, she knew, was coming. She 
 went back to her chair, folded her hands and sat still, her 
 eyes on the fire. She had never ceased wishing Helen 
 would tell her some of the things that might make their 
 queer life simpler, the things about Charles. And now 
 she was sure it was coming and she was afraid lest they 
 should be harder to deal with than she thought. 
 
 " I ve seen, within a day or two," said Helen, " that 
 you d got to understand something about my leaving him. 
 I ve dragged you home from France 
 
 " No," said Jessie, in a hurry to reassure her. " You 
 never dreamt of my coming. Maybe you didn t really 
 want me at first. I came, that s all."
 
 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " I do want you," said Helen. " I want you awfully. 
 But I don t intend to let you in for things you aren t pre 
 pared for. Now Charles had been doing things he 
 shouldn t, things he couldn t tell me. And when I found 
 them out, I did things I couldn t tell him." 
 
 Jessie turned and, in the half light, sat staring at her. 
 For that instant, she did not go beyond the first circle 
 of suspicion. When there is marital division, you look 
 for diverted love, diverted by whom, toward whom? Two 
 tears ran down her cheeks, big splashing drops she disre 
 garded, in her woeful stare at Helen, who now looked up 
 at her from the hand she had been absently contemplating, 
 where her wedding ring shone securely. 
 
 " Why, you little dear," she said, " you think I mean 
 what do you think I mean? That he danced away from 
 me with somebody else, and then I danced away from him? 
 Heavens, Jess ! there are other kinds of things that come 
 between people." 
 
 Jessie couldn t speak. And she could hardly bear it, 
 she thought, if she was to be told anything tawdry had 
 come within measurable distance of touching Helen. 
 
 " Charles," Helen went on, her voice hardened in the 
 measure of her difficulty in forcing it into this confession, 
 "has been doing horrible things. He s been a traitor." 
 
 Jessie was completely surprised. 
 
 "How could he be?" she asked. "We re not at war." 
 
 " Oh, I don t know whether it s what you call treason," 
 said Helen, in a wearied impatience, as if she herself had 
 tried to place it accurately and failed. " But he s been 
 doing secret things to help Germany. It may not be 
 treason, exactly. As you say, we re not at war. But 
 he s been doing them." 
 
 " What things, Helen ? What sort of things ? "
 
 THE BLACK DROP 223 
 
 " Well, some of them were connected with propaganda. 
 There were secret meetings." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "At our house his house." 
 
 She was not making a very clear story of it, and realized 
 it, and caught herself back to the beginning as she had 
 many times imagined herself telling it. 
 
 " The first that happened was that he fitted up the 
 billiard room for what he called a study. The billiard 
 table was taken out, and another big one put in, a sort of 
 library table, and a safe, with a bookcase in front of it. 
 And I discovered, after a while, that he didn t want me up 
 there. You know we began by telling each other well, 
 pretty much everything. At least I thought it was every 
 thing." 
 
 " Awful spoons you were," said Jessie frankly. " I 
 was mad as hops when I found you let him read my letters." 
 
 " One day, when he was gone, I went up there, and I 
 found the door locked. I don t know what I wanted. To 
 see the room, I guess. I was always prowling round. I 
 loved the house, you know. And when he came home I 
 laughed at him and he was touchy he d never been that, 
 to me and he told me it was all connected with business, 
 and I shouldn t understand and mustn t bother him, and 
 I wasn t to tell even the family about the bookcase and 
 the safe. It was a perfectly commonplace thing, he said, 
 for a man to have a safe in his house, and he put the book 
 case there not to spoil the look of the room. I wasn t 
 hurt ; I only thought it was funny, and I made up my 
 mind I d do something ridiculous to let him see I could 
 get into rooms if I liked. I d leave something there like 
 a play, you know. There s always a glove or a lady s 
 handkerchief to prove things. I knew I could get the key.
 
 224 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 Charles is an awfully careless person. He can t help 
 leaving things round." 
 
 "Did anybody else go up there? anybody but him?" 
 
 " Yes, five or six men, at least once, sometimes twice a 
 week. They came in in perfect silence. Charles himself 
 would let them in. The nights they were to come, he d 
 give Cross an evening off." 
 
 " Did you see them? " 
 
 " No. He asked me to stay in the library and shut the 
 door. He laughed about that, and said they had a big 
 business deal on and he d given his word nobody should 
 know who they were, not even I. He said the deal s going 
 through depended absolutely on secrecy. Otherwise the 
 newspapers might get hold of it. One of the men, he said, 
 was an old stager who d suffered so much from publicity 
 that he wondered he didn t wear a veil." 
 
 "And you shut yourself up? you didn t look?" 
 
 " Of course I didn t look. It seemed to me perfectly 
 reasonable. Interesting, too, funny the man with a 
 veil. Besides, I didn t care. Do you remember Charles 
 and I used to telegraph each other in cipher? " 
 
 " Don t I ! " said Jessie. " I never saw telegrams of 
 that length. You let me read them once or twice, and I 
 was furious because they were all about Indian pudding 
 and sweet pickle and I don t know what, and I was per 
 fectly sure there was something underneath. But the day 
 I cried you told me it was a cipher, and hugged me, and 
 you never plagued me with them again. I used to be 
 awfully jealous, Nell." 
 
 " I was a beast," said Helen. " There s nothing so 
 selfish as a girl in love. Well, I wrote a letter to Charles, 
 in cipher. It was in rhyme, just one page of it. And it 
 jeered at him for thinking he could have a Bluebeard s
 
 THE BLACK DROP 225 
 
 cave and lock a woman out. And I kept it where I could 
 lay my hand on it in an instant and waited for a chance 
 to get hold of the key. And one day he came home dead 
 tired and threw his clothes every which way in his room, 
 as he always did when he was in a hurry, and went in to 
 have a bath. And I slipped into his room and took hrs 
 keys and flew up to the billiard room. And then things 
 began to be queer. They ve been queer ever since." 
 
 She stopped a moment, as if at a threshold she dreaded 
 tremendously to cross, and Jessie held her breath, much 
 afraid she would not go on. But she did go on. 
 
 " I unlocked the door and went in. The room struck 
 me with a kind of chill though it was warm and a 
 sense of gloom. Yet it wasn t a gloomy room. He had 
 bought some handsome rugs and really beautiful hangings. 
 And one interesting thing about it was that, though I 
 had furnished the rest of the house as I liked and he d 
 always praised my taste a lot, he hadn t even asked my 
 opinion about this. I was to be kept out, in every sense. 
 But maybe the reason I thought it gloomy was that it was 
 so dusty dust on the table, on the floor, windows thick 
 with it ; and it came over me that even the servants hadn t 
 been allowed to go in. I d set a cleaning day for the room 
 and reminded him to be sure to let Cross have the key ; but 
 apparently he never had. The big table had chairs about 
 it, and at one end was a writing-pad and pen and ink and 
 some papers scattered about. And one thing more, the 
 only one that meant anything to me and made me laugh 
 to myself and think Charles had expected to play some sort 
 of joke on me, the kind I was playing on him a little 
 worn book." 
 
 "What sort of a book?" 
 
 Again Helen had not wanted to go on. 
 q
 
 226 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " It was the book that had the key of our cipher written 
 out fully, and he used to carry it in his pocket because, 
 though he s so terribly clever in most things, he s slow 
 about others. I could read the cipher like lightning, but 
 he had to pick it out. Well, that, I thought, would be 
 a better joke than mine. I d slip my verses inside the 
 code and let him find them there. And I went round the 
 table to do it, and found a sheet of paper lying on the pad. 
 It was a letter in typewriting I forgot to say there was 
 a typewriter in the room and the letter was in cipher 
 not about sweet pickles, as you said, but other things 
 just as queer and it gave definite instructions for blow 
 ing up a munitions factory, and told what the men were 
 to have and how the money was to be divided among the 
 gang." 
 
 " I don t believe it," said Jessie loudly. 
 
 She had said she hated Charles, but this was beyond all 
 credulity. He was a brute, but he was a man of decencies 
 of birth and affiliation, and a man whose hand she had 
 actually touched. 
 
 Helen wasted no time over her disclaimers. 
 
 " That," she said, " was what I ve called in my mind 
 the turning point. That was the minute when I began 
 to be treacherous myself. Yes, I ve been as underhand 
 as he has, in another way. Of course if I d been really 
 playing fair, I shouldn t have read the letter. But don t 
 you know the feeling you have toward the person you ve 
 trusted absolutely, the person you re you re one with? 
 They tell you there s something you mustn t see, and you 
 don t look, but you know there s no real reason why you 
 shouldn t. I can t explain. I m not excusing it. I did 
 read the letter. And everything was different. It s like 
 being hit on the head. You are benumbed. I suppose I
 
 THE BLACK DROP 227 
 
 stood there a minute. It seemed a long time forever. 
 Then something came awake in me, and told me the letter 
 mustn t go. He could write another, of course, but that 
 letter mustn t go. So I took it up and crumpled it in my 
 hand, and got out of the room and shut the door. And I 
 put the keys back before he had finished his bath." 
 
 " What did you do with the letter? burn it? " 
 
 " Not then. Afterward I did. I wrote another, to 
 warn the munitions plant." 
 
 " Anonymous? " 
 
 " Yes. I told them the date fixed, and that if no at 
 tempt was made then they were not to think it had been 
 given up." 
 
 " Did you typewrite it? " 
 
 " No. I didn t know how, even if I d had a machine. I 
 did it in my printing hand. You know I do two or three 
 kinds of print." 
 
 "What did you say to Charles? how did you meet, I 
 mean? " 
 
 " We didn t meet until night. I scrawled a note to 
 him and told him I d got to go out and couldn t wait to 
 see him after his bath. Hoped he d try for a nap. And 
 that night at dinner I fancy I was much as usual. Either 
 I was or he was too busy with his own affairs to notice." 
 
 " Do you suppose he missed the letter? " 
 
 " He must have. But he knows he s careless. He may 
 have written another there were two mistakes in this 
 and thought he d destroyed it. The other may have 
 gone." 
 
 "And didn t you say anything, Helen? not anything? 
 You acted as if things were just the same? " 
 
 Here was an implied reproach and Helen could have 
 owned it merited.
 
 228 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " I didn t say anything. Not then. And I tried to 
 be as nearly the same as I could. I did tell him I was 
 rather fagged and not quite up to things. But at the 
 end of three days he came down from the billiard room 
 with a sealed letter in his hand and into my room 
 where I was dressing for dinner. We were going out. 
 He stopped and talked to me, the letter in his hand, 
 and I saw it hadn t been addressed. I didn t know whether 
 to tell him or not. I thought, if he were sure of mailing it 
 without the address, it would be all right. It was probably 
 something hideous and unlawful, and it simply wouldn t 
 get there. But he did see it, just as he was going into 
 his own room, and said, " Damn ! " and hesitated a minute 
 and glanced at my little desk, and then, I could see, 
 remembered he wanted the address typewritten and that he 
 was in a hurry. Anyway he said to me, Address this, 
 will you, in your printing hand? So I took the letter and 
 sat down at my desk and he gave me the address, calling 
 it out from his room : for I told him he d got to hurry." 
 
 "Who was it to?" 
 
 " McClancy and Hull, Chicago. It was the name the 
 first letter was written to. And I d gathered from the 
 first that the firm name was a blind. It was really one 
 man." 
 
 " And you addressed it." 
 
 " Yes. And I took it downstairs, with two letters of my 
 own, and told Cross to post them at once. And I didn t 
 go back upstairs till I d watched him from the window and 
 seen him drop them into the box." 
 
 " You addressed it," said Jessie, " without a word? " 
 
 " I addressed it. But not to McClancy and Hull. I 
 addressed it to myself. And next morning it was delivered 
 to me in the mail."
 
 THE BLACK DROP 229 
 
 Jessie sat staring at her, though now Helen s face was 
 but a white oval in the dusk, for the fire had gone out. 
 
 " What if he d asked to see it? " 
 
 " He did ask. I went back upstairs and he called, * Have 
 you done it? I said Yes. And he said, Printing 
 hand? Bring it here and let s look at it. And I said, 
 Oh, I ve given it to Cross with mine. And he said, O 
 the devil ! And then, * Well, all right. " 
 
 " And it came in the morning? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And it ah 1 went off as smooth as silk? " 
 
 " Perfectly. I took care to be in the hall when the 
 letters came. I carried mine upstairs to my room and 
 left them in a drawer while I went down to breakfast." 
 
 "Was he at breakfast?" 
 
 " Yes. I poured his coffee and we talked about my 
 running down to Grasslands to spend a week. I could 
 see he wanted me to go." 
 
 " How d you feel?" Jessie pursued. "Now, Helen, 
 how d you really feel? " 
 
 " Excited," said Helen, without hesitation. " I didn t 
 feel anything else not a thing about deceiving him. I 
 don t believe you do until you begin to get punished. 
 You haven t time, in the first place, you re so busy cover 
 ing up your tracks. And it does something to you, too. 
 I can t explain it. If you ve always told the truth and 
 kept the rules and then you begin suddenly to lie and smash 
 everything to pieces, it s as if something else had been 
 required of you, something you d never thought you could 
 do. And you re different. I suppose it s the way any 
 criminal feels. He s outside the law, but he s somewhere, 
 just the same. There s standing ground under his feet." 
 
 But though Jessie was curious about this, too, she
 
 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 wasn t going to lose time over it now for fear Helen should 
 cease her story, and that, it seemed to her, she could not 
 bear. 
 
 " What was in the letter? " she pursued. " You opened 
 it?" 
 
 " I could hardly wait. I was afraid, too. I knew it 
 would confirm the other, and I d got to have it over, know 
 the worst. Yet I thought if it was the worst, it ought to 
 kill me. I ran upstairs the minute he had gone and 
 opened it. And it was the same sort of instructions in 
 the same cipher to blow up another factory. There was 
 a good deal of detail. I won t go into that. Most of it 
 I didn t understand." 
 
 "What did you do?" 
 
 " I burned the letter. But I didn t dare write the firm. 
 The date set was too near. I went down to the North 
 Station and telegraphed the munitions plant. I tried to 
 make up something the operator wouldn t understand. 
 It was, * Next chapter ready about blowing up the works. 
 Plot can be defeated by extra vigilance.
 
 XXIII 
 
 "WHAT then?" Jessie breathed. "What d you do 
 then?" 
 
 " I got panic. I was afraid this came on me sud 
 denly afraid the operator would guess what I meant 
 and call a policeman. I was so panicky I thought maybe 
 I wasn t going to be able to walk away from the window. 
 But I was. And I took a carriage to the South Station 
 and a train a little way out, and came back to town by 
 trolley. But I was in terror all the way, and for days I 
 expected a ring at the door and the police asking for 
 me." 
 
 " Was the plant blown up ? " 
 
 " No. I kept watching for it in the papers. It never 
 came." 
 
 " And you didn t speak to Charles, and you didn t tell 
 anybody the family, I mean ? " 
 
 " No. I didn t speak to Charles. Not then. I hadn t 
 made up my mind how to do it; there didn t seem to be 
 any way that wouldn t do more harm than good, put him 
 on his guard, you know, without actually stopping it. 
 And I couldn t go to the family. John would probably 
 kill him, and grandsir dear grandsir ! he d die of 
 shame." 
 
 " But Helen," said Jessie, " haven t you realized that if 
 you didn t do anything it would all go on? Plants 
 would keep on being blown up and why, it seems as if 
 you d be responsible." 
 
 " Yes, I thought of that finally," said Helen. " I was 
 
 231
 
 232 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 pretty stupid. But I did what I could, there. About 
 the time of this last letter it was the next day, in fact 
 a foreign letter came for him. He often had them. I d 
 never bothered about them. His business hadn t interested 
 me. But this had a Dutch postmark. I took it upstairs 
 and steamed it over my alcohol lamp." 
 
 " Steamed it? What for? " 
 
 " Why, to open it." 
 
 " How d you know how? " 
 
 " Oh, I ve always known," said Helen. " I ve often 
 done it when I ve changed my mind about a letter and been 
 too stingy to lose the stamp. Well, it was in English, but 
 it was dated Berlin. And it praised him for something 
 he d been doing and told him the New York bank he was to 
 look to for money. And it gave him three names of 
 Germans naturalized in this country whose orders he was 
 to take." 
 
 " Did you destroy that? " 
 
 " Yes, and I wrote another, as short as I could make 
 it, in the same hand and put it in the same envelope and 
 sealed it up again and left it on the hall table. And he 
 found it there." 
 
 "What dyousay?" 
 
 " I told him he was to do nothing whatever, no matter 
 what any German- American agent told him, until he heard 
 from Berlin again." 
 
 " By George ! " said Jessie. " I don t know whether I 
 think you re a dead game sport or whether you scare me 
 blue. And this was in plain English, not cipher? " 
 
 " Yes, it was in cipher. I forgot to say that." 
 
 " How could you read it? It wasn t yours." 
 
 " Yes, it was his old cipher and mine. Queer wasn t it, 
 to find it coming from Berlin? I fancied Charles had
 
 THE BLACK DROP 233 
 
 wanted it used because, as I told you, he s never been very 
 clever about that sort of thing and he d try to keep on 
 using the one he d learned." 
 
 " About the letter," said Jessie. " I ll tell you where 
 you ll fall down there. The stationery. There ll be a 
 watermark. There always is, and somebody ll see it s 
 forged." 
 
 " No," said Helen, " I wrote it on some paper I brought 
 away from the Kaiserhof, in Berlin. I did that two or 
 three times when we were abroad : didn t have time to 
 write a letter home, and took along a sheet of the hotel 
 paper to date it from the place I was talking about. I 
 thought anybody, even an official person, might easily 
 go into a hotel and send a note from there, even such an 
 important one." 
 
 " But you left him," said Jessie. " You didn t stay to 
 keep your eye on him. How do you know what s gone on 
 since? " 
 
 " About my going away said Helen, and then 
 stopped. She was now profoundly troubled, though she 
 had thought the problem of her own responsibility and her 
 guilt in avoiding it over and over, until it was now only 
 a wearisome question, not settled, never likely to be. 
 
 " The fact is," she went on, " I ve never been able to 
 think whether I ought to have gone or not. I simply don t 
 know. But this was what I did. I made up my mind I d 
 got to have it out with him. I took it in the daytime, 
 one day after lunch. I told him I d found out something 
 dreadful about him. And the minute I said it, I saw 
 it was all true." 
 
 " But you knew it was true." 
 
 " Oh, I know I did. But don t you see? I suppose in 
 the bottom of my mind was a hope he d somehow explain.
 
 234 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 He d laugh and tell me how it all was, and I should wake 
 up and know it was a dream. Those dreams, you know, 
 where the one you love doesn t love you any more, and you 
 wake and he s there and you put out your hand and 
 touch his." 
 
 " And is he the one you love most now? " Jessie wanted 
 to ask. "Do you still?" 
 
 But that she knew she must not ask. 
 
 " He looked," Helen went on, and paused for a simile, 
 " he looked like death. Not angry. I ve seen him angry, 
 though not with me then. But he looked somehow done 
 for. And then he said, yes, I ve got to tell you this, 
 too he said: Who told you about her? 
 
 "About whom?" 
 
 " I didn t know. I was as puzzled as you are now, and 
 I sat and looked at him. And he said, If anybody s told 
 you about Mrs. Davenport, it s a lie. And I did go to 
 New York with her, but it was on business, and if anybody 
 has told you - and he stopped there, and I sat and 
 looked at him." 
 
 " But, good gracious ! " Jessie said. " Heaven knows 
 I m not anxious to stand up for Charles ; but men and 
 women are trotting about together everywhere now 
 war work and all. The world s changed, Helen. We are 
 in business up to the hilt. And to say a man can t Oh, 
 I m afraid you ve been foolish. I m afraid you ve done 
 what you ll wish you hadn t." 
 
 " I should have thought that, too," said Helen, " but 
 then he got angry. And he said things about her. And 
 one thing yes, I will tell you that a degraded thing, 
 * What you don t know doesn t hurt you. And that I d 
 been wrong to find it out and had myself to thank. And 
 that he d never loved me better than at that minute."
 
 THE BLACK DROP 235 
 
 " Just what did he mean by that ? " 
 
 " I suppose," said Helen quietly, " he meant that if 
 I d accept the situation he d be very grateful to me and we 
 could go on pleasantly compromising and being com 
 promised." 
 
 " Don t," said Jessie involuntarily. " You sound so 
 hard." 
 
 " Do I? well I don t feel very soft. I hardened at that 
 minute. I could feel myself doing it. I froze, and I 
 haven t got thawed out since. You must remember, Jess, 
 I m not the same person I was before things happened 
 to Charles and me. I ve opened letters and spied on 
 my husband and cheated and lied. Oh, no, I m not the 
 same person at all." 
 
 " O dearest," said Jessie, " what could you have done 
 but what you did? " 
 
 " I don t know what I could have done. The things 
 came on me, one after another, and I met them as they 
 came. I don t know what I ve done to help or hinder, 
 whether I ve done right or wrong. And I don t know what 
 it s all done to me." 
 
 " But," Jessie asserted, " you don t care about him 
 any more. I see that." 
 
 Helen winced. She had travelled far since the days 
 when love seemed to her an ecstasy, a recognized madness 
 of loyalty, a light playing upon that responsive creature 
 and making him divinely hers. She didn t know now 
 whether she still believed there could ever be that sort of 
 creature, so transfigured. She did know that a hard, 
 heroic fibre in her had been ready to respond to marriage 
 as she had found it, if only an honorable relation could 
 have been sustained. After the first, she hadn t demanded 
 rose leaves and rainbows. She had learned that wasn t
 
 236 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 marriage. Marriage was a substantial compact where 
 you were to stand as the man s best friend, his partner in 
 the big business of life. Your happiness was negligible: 
 what you had ignorantly, out of the bewilderment of youth, 
 named happiness. The belief in that had been the con 
 spiracy of all the flutes and birds of dawn, calling to lure 
 you out of your isolation into the terrible work of carrying 
 on the world. Well, that was all right. She was up to 
 the big challenge, if only and then she looked at Jessie 
 with a quick, intent scrutiny, trying to see her as she was, 
 a woman moulded a little by hard work and tremendously 
 by the appetite for life that is made for work, and 
 wondered how far it was well to thrust on her the secrets 
 of destiny which might well have been intended by the 
 sibyls of fate for Helen to keep in her own hands, muse on, 
 decide upon. After all, they were her secrets. Mightn t 
 it be the only decency to let Jessie, unwarned that romance 
 could fade into insecurity like this, face her own life, the 
 stronger for being unprepared, and perhaps encounter no 
 such mystery? But Jessie was looking at her through 
 the dusk, repeating inexorably : 
 
 " You don t care about him." 
 
 And here Helen could only fumble. 
 
 " I shouldn t have left him for that." 
 
 " You wouldn t? " Jessie demanded, in her confident 
 young voice. " I would. Live with a man you don t 
 care about? That s degrading." 
 
 It was degrading, Helen knew, put as an abstract issue, 
 and only to be decided by the heart in one way. But 
 you didn t make actual decisions in an instant of mental 
 realization, the clear-cut decisive no that shuts the door 
 upon married fealty. Before you shut the door, you have 
 looked about carefully into all the corners of the house and
 
 THE BLACK DROP 237 
 
 decided whether it can be made livable. If a man isn t the 
 man you thought him, you have still perhaps the hope 
 that there is to be built up between you some working 
 basis of life together which will contribute more to life 
 in general than your rushing out of the house and bang 
 ing the door. 
 
 " I mean," she said, " if I had changed and he hadn t, 
 or if he had changed and not 
 
 " You mean," said Jessie, " you could have stood his 
 getting tired of you, but you couldn t stand Mrs. Daven 
 port." 
 
 " I suppose I mean just that." 
 
 Now something came back to Jessie and made her catch 
 her breath in a new, sudden shock of amazement. 
 
 " Why," said she, " I d forgotten the German business. 
 This thing knocked it out of my head. You began to talk 
 to him about that and he thought you meant Mrs. Daven 
 port and gave himself away. And didn t you ever talk 
 about it at all ? " 
 
 " Never. I left the house and went to a hotel and later 
 to New York and then you came home. And here we are." 
 
 " And Charles doesn t know he s been found out? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " But, Helen," said Jessie, " it s pretty serious. 
 Because he s going on with it. Of course he is, now there s 
 nobody to hinder. And isn t it up to you 
 
 " I know," said Helen. " It is, and if I don t speak I m 
 guilty, just as he is. That s what grandsir said about the 
 United States, you know : that by not going into the war 
 she s guilty, with Germany, of the millions of dead. I 
 thought of myself when he said that. I thought, Charles 
 is a traitor and if I don t give him up, I m a traitor, too." 
 
 Jessie thought of the bag and her flippant suggestion
 
 238 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 about the Herr Captain s hair brushes, and was humble. 
 John had been right. But she couldn t stop to pull out 
 that thread from the tangled web of Helen s misery. 
 
 " Seems as if I ve got to know," she said, " just why you 
 stopped where you did. There was the awful proof in 
 your hands and you just locked it up and said nothing. 
 I suppose it was because it was Charles." 
 
 " Yes," said Helen, " I suppose it was." 
 
 " Then you do care about him." 
 
 The blood came into Helen s face. She felt it there 
 and was glad the dusk was between them and Jessie could 
 not see it and read into it a story that might or might not 
 be true. It flooded her to suffusion, and under the fatal 
 surge of it she seemed to herself drowned in shame. She 
 kept her eyes fixed on Jessie s though she could not see how 
 steadily they dwelt on her with their inquiring innocence; 
 she dared not relinquish her bravado. But she had to 
 answer that last question. 
 
 " How can I tell you," she said, " whether I ve stopped 
 caring about him? How can I know myself ? In one way 
 he s only a strange man I ve known so well I can t know 
 him any more. But a good deal is lived through in five 
 years. If you ve married a man, Jess, he s different to 
 you." 
 
 " Well," said Jessie, " are you going to save him at 
 the expense of hundreds of other people ? " 
 
 " Am I trying to save him? " asked Helen passionately. 
 " I don t know. Or am I trying to save the family the 
 disgrace of it? I don t know. I only know I m in a net 
 and I can t break out." 
 
 " Tell them," said Jessie. " Tell grandsir first." 
 
 " I went over there to do it, two days ago, and he was 
 worse than usual, and when I was on the stairs I heard him
 
 THE BLACK DROP 239 
 
 groan just once. O Lord ! he said. It was awful. 
 And when I went in, he was as nice and as funny as ever, 
 and said his legs were behaving like the deuce, but he 
 shouldn t know what to do without them. And I couldn t 
 tell him about Charles. How could I? " 
 
 "Well, anyway you ve told me, and you re an old dear. 
 It s pretty bad bad as it can be but I can stand it 
 better, now I know." 
 
 " I had to tell you," said Helen, " because, the other 
 night, I saw him." 
 
 "Not here?" 
 
 " No, in the street." 
 
 " The night you came home frightened? " 
 
 " Yes. And he wants me to go back to him. He won t 
 spare any pains to get me back. And I thought if things 
 got to be queer or anything strange happened, you 
 ought to have something to go on, be prepared. I know, 
 of course, it s horrible for you a girl " 
 
 " Get that right out of your mind," said Jessie quietly. 
 " This talk of preserving the ignorance of girls is simply rot. 
 I ve learned more about life in the last two years than our 
 mothers ever knew, and since the world is made that way 
 it s the best thing that could happen. You can t blow 
 a nice iridescent bubble round me, for I sha n t stay in it, 
 that s all. And I ve worked in France."
 
 XXIV 
 
 IF the Tracy family was in a state of judicial activity 
 over Charles, hauling him up before the bar of their 
 individual minds and debating what should be done with 
 him, he also was on edge. John s appearance at Grass 
 lands had been a blow straight from the shoulder of 
 malicious fate, and his walking off with the Herr Captain s 
 bag as provocative as it was alarming. The Herr Captain 
 had sailed, according to schedule. There were imperative 
 reasons. He had been provided with duplicates of the 
 lost papers, though certain important signatures had to 
 be forgone, for lack of time. But Charles, seeing with 
 his mind s eye the incriminating documents fluttering over 
 the world like leaves from the book of destiny, his destiny 
 which was so terribly isolated because he had wilfully cut 
 it off from the fortunes of mankind, was wild with anxiety 
 to recover them. It had been almost beyond his power of 
 will to keep himself in hand when John lay in bed, that 
 day, under his glance. But this self-control of the per 
 fect diplomat he had long ago set himself to attain, 
 was, he believed, as exquisite a weapon as man has 
 learned to forge. Never, in crucial tests, to betray 
 his anger, his uneasiness, his fear, unless, in some last 
 instance, he had to intimidate, to crush: that was his 
 formula of mastery. He had tested it over and over again. 
 It often disarmed, and it always bewildered. He was 
 having abundant scope now for seeing it in action. The 
 boys, Brennan, Finch and Bailey, were trying him like 
 fiends, or malevolent sprites told off by the grave gods 
 
 240
 
 THE BLACK DROP 241 
 
 of circumstance for his undoing. But he was meeting them 
 imperturbably. The instant he detected their antagonism 
 in action, he was ready for them, urbane, impenetrable, 
 either so thick-skinned or so elusive that they could not, 
 he was sure, have guessed whether any of their shots 
 told. But those things cost, especially to a man of his 
 extremely delicate poise, incident to quick rages, who, when 
 the world denied him, had one unvarying impulse : to kick 
 back at it. 
 
 On the evening of the day Jessie had seen Mrs. Daven 
 port at Grasslands, he went to Elsa s, having previously 
 telephoned to ask if she were alone. He found her in a 
 gold-colored dress like a mist of sunset, her cheeks burnt 
 red. The day in the country had soaked her in sun and 
 freedom. She carried the air of it in her breath and the 
 light of it in her eyes. Charles nodded, put away his 
 hat and stick and took the chair she indicated with an 
 intimate cosiness of welcome. However tempestuously he 
 longed to touch that glowing cheek, he knew better than to 
 snatch. A kiss was something to be waited for. She 
 sat down opposite him and smiled. 
 
 " What are you laughing at? " he asked, for the moment 
 almost resentful of her beauties and the merciless appeal 
 they carried. He thought she might have seen how undone 
 he was over his anxieties. 
 
 " Dear me ! " said Elsa, apostrophizing the parrot, who 
 also remarked, " Dear me ! dear me ! " and continued, 
 "What a fuss!" 
 
 " I d like " said Charles and stopped, remembering, 
 though late, that Elsa was not one of the family and he 
 couldn t be entirely himself with her. 
 
 The parrot, with a ready, gleeful optimism, completed 
 the sentence for him : " I d like to wring that bird s neck."
 
 242 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 Elsa, in a fit of laughter, got up and opened the cage 
 door, and invited the creature, who sidled toward her with 
 a complication of steps. 
 
 " Don t let the devilish thing bite you," Charles 
 recommended. 
 
 But Elsa still offered her hand, and the parrot perched 
 on it and was carried out of the room, chuckling on the 
 way : " O law ! law ! what a fuss." 
 
 When she came back, Charles did unwillingly smile. 
 
 " It occurs to me," he said, " he s heard that remark a 
 good many times." 
 
 " Wringing his neck? " said Elsa. " Oh, yes, over and 
 over. Polly s never had many friends among mine." 
 
 Charles felt the purpose that had brought him here 
 break suddenly, as if his jealousy shivered it with a fist. 
 
 " Elsa," said he, " this room must have heard a good 
 many strange things since you ve been in it." 
 
 " Oh, yes," she said. She had brought out her knitting 
 and unrolled the yarn. But first she spread a fine white 
 handkerchief in her lap. She was exquisitely careful of 
 her clothes. " Enough to hang us all." 
 
 " Enough to hang you, if I got hold of them. I don t 
 mean state secrets. I mean yours. Who came here before 
 I began to come? " 
 
 She knit out her needle and then looked up at him. 
 The flush of the air and the sun was going out of her 
 cheeks and she knew it by the coldness at her heart, the 
 drop to the old dead feeling that nothing was worth all 
 this frenzy of planning and holding on. But she did 
 gallantly smile at him. 
 
 " I wish," she said, " you were a nice boy and wanted 
 to make me comfy. No, sit still and let me tell you what 
 I did down there."
 
 THE BLACK DROP 243 
 
 "Any luck?" 
 
 He took out his cigarette case and his hand was trem 
 bling. 
 
 " No, not about the bag. It wasn t there." 
 
 " There? you didn t go all over the woods." 
 
 " Yes, we did pretty much." 
 
 " We? " 
 
 " Herr Adler helped me." 
 
 " Has he been out of the house, running the risk of 
 being seen? " 
 
 " Now wait," said Elsa, " and let me tell you the whole 
 story. I got there at ten. I gave him the money and 
 made him write down the directions. He isn t to take 
 a scrap of paper of any sort except the two French 
 letters thanking him for what he sent for relief work. 
 And he is to wait, no matter how long, till the car comes." 
 
 " You re sure the letters were all right? " 
 
 " Sure. I can do that foreign hand perfectly. Then 
 I told him I was going into the woods to look for the bag 
 your little brother threw away, and the poor man was so 
 sick of the house I let him come, too." 
 
 " Well," said Charles, " I suppose you didn t see any 
 body." 
 
 " Not a soul," said Elsa. It would be quite impossible, she 
 knew, to tell him the whole story, in the mood he was in 
 to-night. If she had seen Jessie and spoken to her, then 
 Jessie had seen Adler, and a new trail of uncertainty was 
 started. And Adler, glad enough to do it, since he d no 
 business out of the house, had promised to be silent. 
 
 " He hadn t shaved his beard? " 
 
 " No, oh no. Of course he hasn t shaved it. Wasn t 
 he there to let it grow? " 
 
 " Well, he doesn t seem to have been any too keen about
 
 244 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 obeying orders. You think he understands he s to stay 
 with the Maine colony, if we can get him down there, 
 anyway till he s taken off? " 
 
 " Sure of it. Have you seen your brother? " 
 
 " Yes, I ve seen him. He s in bed. Hurt his leg or 
 back or something, that night, and good enough for 
 him." 
 
 " What did you say to him? " 
 
 " Nothing. Oh, yes, I did. I said it was a shame about 
 his lameness, or something of the sort." 
 
 " You didn t ask him what the dickens he d done with 
 the bag? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Ignored it." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " You thought it was better? " 
 
 " I ve set a man to watch him, as soon as he goes out 
 of the house," said Charles, frowning. He didn t like the 
 idea of that, though he had done it. After all, John was 
 the family. It was a part of his arrogance to keep the 
 family on impregnable foundations even while he battered 
 at them. " If he has it, he won t get away with it without 
 our knowing it." 
 
 "Are you worried? " she ventured. 
 
 " Worried as the devil," he owned. " It s a pretty 
 serious business." 
 
 " Sometimes I think there wasn t any bag," said Elsa. 
 " It s ridiculous. The captain sets it down in the hall, 
 and hears John on the stairs. And when he turns round 
 the bag has gone and John has gone, and you conclude 
 they ve gone together." 
 
 " Naturally," said Charles, with a grim conciseness. 
 " We ve every reason to believe so,"
 
 THE BLACK DROP 245 
 
 " And then that ridiculous professor sees John at the 
 station 
 
 "Why ridiculous?" 
 
 " Oh, he s so precisely like the stage German, thick 
 headed, and sentimental, like a lady poetess 
 
 "Sentimental?" 
 
 " Oh, no, no, not over me, Othello. But all of a mush, 
 don t you know? A kind of temperamental fat. And soft ! 
 Singing melting songs and swilling beer oh, I loathe 
 the creatures." 
 
 " Softly, my lady," said Charles, still grimly. " Don t 
 forget you re in up to your neck, if you do loathe em, 
 and you re spending their money rather freely." 
 
 " He sees John at the station, and John is without a 
 bag; but at the same time hasn t any books, which does 
 seem to indicate he didn t come down for them, after all. 
 And there s no bag in the path, no bag in the woods as 
 near the path as he d have had time to go, no bag any 
 where. Charles, I believe he didn t take it out of the 
 house. Don t you know that settle in the hall? I saw 
 it to-day. Doesn t the seat lift up? Didn t he lift it 
 like lightning and chuck the thing in there? " 
 
 " I looked there myself," said Charles. " There were 
 two books under it, but not his Dramatists. No. He 
 hid it somewhere in the woods. And he couldn t go down 
 to get it himself, and if it isn t there now he sent somebody 
 else." 
 
 " Oh," said Elsa softly, " so he did. That was it then, 
 was it?" 
 
 " And the most likely person for him to send was one 
 of those three fools of his I ve got working for me on the 
 Voice, though I ve reason to know he threw them over 
 because he was out with them for doing it."
 
 246 THE -BLACK DROP 
 
 " Yes," said Elsa. " I see. They would have been 
 likely persons." 
 
 While they talked she was knitting fast, without inter 
 mission. Whatever she did was done in that quick com 
 plete way, and her knitting for the Belgians, she told 
 Charles, with a demure smile, was her one great interest. 
 
 " Now," said Charles suddenly, " play to me." 
 
 She put down her work and, after a look at him, 
 her brows earnest, her eyes thoughtful, went to the 
 piano. The look asked if he wanted anything, if he 
 could possibly be more comfortable than he was, and 
 Charles understood it so and liked it. 
 
 " Yes," he said, answering it while she was settling 
 herself on the piano-chair, " there s one thing. You could 
 come over here and kiss me." 
 
 She had turned slightly to hear, but she only gave a 
 little gay smile and tossed the kiss from her finger-tips. 
 And then she did begin. Elsa had had the early part of 
 her life abroad. She went there to study the piano, and 
 she had meant to come dutifully back to teach. But she 
 had not come, and the trustee of her small moneys com 
 mended her for staying over there where she could live 
 well on an income that would hardly have bought her 
 chiffons at home. In a sober trip on the regulation routes 
 of travel, he went to see her in Germany, and he was as 
 tonished to find she was not living cheaply at all. How 
 did she manage it, he asked her, and she told him she proved 
 to have rather a genius for getting along. And she liked 
 the German ways? and the German people? No, Elsa 
 said, without hesitation, she hated the German people. 
 They were pigs. But she was very comfortable, and she 
 should come home again and make a start sometime. And 
 in 1913 she did come and went into journalism.
 
 THE BLACK DROP 247 
 
 Her music was the unplumbed part of her. Whether 
 it disclosed a self ordinarily hidden, whether it merely 
 woke every fibre in her to an intensity of physical life, who 
 could say? But Elsa, playing, was like a golden ball, 
 tossed from hand to hand of the Muses, in bright summer 
 air. It was, this game of the Muses with her, of a 
 brilliancy that transcended mere technique. Charles 
 hardly knew he loved her until he heard her play. He 
 craved music, craved it like a drug. It was the emotional 
 luxury that quickened his sensibilities, though all he could 
 say of it was that he liked it because it helped him think. 
 Sometimes he was hardly conscious of it, as it went thrill 
 ing over his head, like thunderous waves in a storm while 
 he sat in the quiet of his sea palace underneath, in the 
 scheming which was his nearest approach to creative 
 power. But it was not only Elsa s playing he craved. 
 It was the change the playing made in her. When she had 
 finished, she was burned red with the fire of life, taut as 
 a bow, and her little cynicisms and evasions were gone. 
 To-night she began with Debussy, but he interrupted her 
 after an uneasy interval. 
 
 " Stop playing that devilish stuff," he called to her. 
 " It s like rain into a tin pan." 
 
 And then she played Wagner to him and perhaps 
 it was only out of perversity that she had not begun with 
 it and Charles gave himself up to the monstrous pagan 
 individualism and let it sweep him on and on, knowing she 
 was being swept with him and that it would take her to 
 that boundary where she let herself loose, like a bacchante 
 on the hills. Elsa knew it, too. She was half wearied 
 of the boundary, half abhorrent of it, but she went on reck 
 lessly riding her bare-backed horse of savagery to leap it 
 at last and speed up the burning slope. The evening
 
 248 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 waned and she stopped playing and called again over her 
 shoulder : 
 
 " More? " He did not answer and she left the piano 
 and went to him and knelt beside him, her cheek on his. 
 " Asleep? " she asked, and still he did not answer, but put 
 his arms about her and held her there. And when he 
 turned to meet her lips, he found she was crying, a sudden 
 splash of tears that wet his face. 
 
 " Good God ! " he said, and released her, to sit up and 
 draw her up beside him. " You re crying." 
 
 It was the most disconcerting thing that had ever hap 
 pened in his space of knowing her. She was hard as a 
 frozen world with a heart of fire, and the fire itself was 
 not beneficent, like the blaze on the hearth. It would 
 burn you to the bone, and the piquing delight of it was 
 to see how near you could come to being burned and yet 
 escape. And here she was crying like any other woman, 
 sickened over little fears and hurts. But he was not to be 
 called on for his arts of comforting, of which he had a 
 rich variety. She slipped away from him and went to the 
 window and stood there looking down at the lights and 
 swallowing her strange grief. Charles got up and went 
 to her and put his arm about her, with some certainty of 
 being rebuffed. But, to his amazement, she turned to 
 him and stood there leaning on him. 
 
 " What was it? " he asked her tenderly. " What is it, 
 dear? " 
 
 She could not tell. She was a little fagged perhaps, 
 the woman s modern equivalent for the old headache. But 
 the bitterness of her soul was rising as she spoke. She 
 could taste it in her mouth. The feel of the country air 
 was with her, not only on her cheeks but in her mind, and 
 the brave clear look in Jessie s face hurt her like an accu-
 
 THE BLACK DROP 249 
 
 sation. She was not so much tired of tortuous ways and 
 tawdry alliances as of the certainty that she was com 
 mitted to them. She had chosen to live in this house of 
 life, and now the door was closed on her and she not 
 only failed to see herself going bravely out into the cold 
 clear air, but she knew the air itself was too bracing for 
 her. A moment like this had not come for years. It 
 might not come again for years, and as she stood there 
 leaning against the man whose heart the physical heart 
 of him was beating for her, she hoped, with a sick 
 revulsion, it might never come again. And he was making 
 himself very comforting. 
 
 " I ll be good to you, dear," he said to her more than 
 once. " I ll be good to you." 
 
 When Charles went away from the house, in that dull 
 interval of the night when human vitality is low, he saw, 
 in the quick glance he cast up and down the street, a man 
 standing near the curb. Charles stopped, putting on a 
 glove and at the same time gazing at him squarely. He 
 made a queer figure there under the light, and his having 
 chosen that particular spot seemed to indicate his willing 
 ness to be seen: a slender figure of more than medium 
 height, in a cape, not a coat, and with a pointed beard. 
 He wore spectacles, and he was looking, not at Charles, but 
 at the house. Charles, after another glance, went on, 
 forbidding himself to look back, but he was vaguely dis 
 quieted by the position of the man, his stare at the house, 
 the queerness of his clothes and especially his hat. It was 
 an impossible hat, and woke some vague, teasing recollec 
 tion. Where had he seen that hat? As he went on, de 
 ciding he might permit himself a backward glance, at 
 least at the corner, he saw a man advancing, met him un 
 der the next street lamp, glanced at him and stopped
 
 250 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 with a sense of shock. For it was the same man, the same 
 beard, the same cloak, the impossible hat. How had he 
 come there, walking leisurely up the street? He couldn t 
 have gone by on the other side, however lightly he might 
 have run, for Charles himself was hurrying. This time 
 Charles did pause, with a word on the tip of his tongue, 
 but the other, not looking at him, quickened his pace and 
 passed. And Charles before turning the corner, looked 
 back, and the street was empty. The figure had disap 
 peared. Charles was not a man to be unreasonably 
 alarmed, but he was a man to be angry if circumstances 
 mocked at him. And all the conditions of his life were 
 strange just now. He was running with a crowd of de 
 voted criminals devoted to a fatherland which was the 
 big parent criminal and he was never surprised at find 
 ing they were watched nor that he in turn might be. If 
 anything looked queer, these were times for understanding 
 exactly what the queerness meant. While he was debat 
 ing the present riddle, and almost concluding his eyes had 
 played him false, he got to his own house, and there under 
 the light, not ten feet from his door, stood the same man, 
 cloak, pointed beard and impossible hat. And now Charles 
 did stop, perhaps a dozen paces from him, and said em 
 phatically : 
 
 "Well, I ll be damned!" 
 
 The stranger must have heard the challenging voice, 
 though he gave no sign of hearing. He moved away ; but 
 Charles walked after him, and was aware that the other 
 quickened his steps and lengthened his stride until he was 
 practically on the run. Suddenly he wheeled, ran back to 
 him with an incredible lightness, touched him on the arm, 
 said " Tag ! " in a high, thin voice and ran on, ran wildly, 
 Charles thought, as he stood stupidly watching him. And
 
 THE BLACK DROP 251 
 
 he continued to run with unabated speed, until, two blocks 
 at least up the street, he must have turned a corner, for 
 he disappeared. 
 
 Charles went up his own steps, took out his key and let 
 himself in. And now he knew where he had seen that im 
 possible hat. It was on the stage. An Irishman 
 had worn it, in some old-fashioned play of a conventional 
 type. But what the deuce did this man mean by wearing 
 it here?
 
 XXV 
 
 THAT Charles had been actually shaken by the vision 
 of his absurd pursuer, showed him chiefly that he was, as 
 he would have said " jumpy," not by any means fit. And 
 though he had asked his father for the use of Grasslands 
 because he was not sleeping well, he hadn t actually 
 thought anything about the quality of his sleeping. But 
 now, his attention called to himself, he found he was 
 scarcely sleeping at all. He had too many irons in the 
 fire not to find himself worn in tending them. His mys 
 terious follower he had no difficulty in placing. By that 
 last fantastic action the fellow had placed himself. He 
 was crazy, that was all, a madman. And the chances 
 were that he would exercise his fantastic activities 
 elsewhere until he was scooped up and taken off to the 
 retreat from which he had escaped. 
 
 But there Charles found himself mistaken. When he 
 came out of his house next morning there was the fellow 
 on the opposite side of the street, standing still and look 
 ing across at the house, precisely as he had stood in front 
 of Elsa s house the night before. It was a bright day 
 and he was easily recognizable from the outline of his 
 eccentric clothes. Charles most literally could not be 
 lieve his eyes, but he made straight across the street to 
 confirm them, and the instant he stepped down from the 
 curb the fellow, with the ease and buoyancy of last night, 
 skipped lightly away, skipped literally, for he would take 
 
 252
 
 THE BLACK DROP 253 
 
 a run of a few steps and then break into a fantastic hop 
 or two. But he covered ground amazingly, and Charles, 
 walking like a decently athletic citizen, fell behind inevi 
 tably. Should he break into a run? Two or three well 
 set up men like himself were walking down town, and he saw 
 them turn, one after another, and look back at the fan 
 tastic figure dancing past. None of them were men he 
 knew, and he couldn t quite stop them to compare im 
 pressions of the mountebank who, in spite of their casual 
 wonder, seemed of more importance to him than anybody. 
 He kept on at his own rapid pace which was, after all, 
 ineffectual, for the fellow, putting on speed, rounded a 
 corner and was lost. Then Charles turned about 
 and continued his way down town; but he did, in spite 
 of himself, stop more than once to look behind him. The 
 rest of the adventure was, he concluded afterward, when 
 he had reached his office and passed the blonde guardian 
 at the telephone, to the seclusion of his own den, incredible. 
 For as he neared an alley on Washington Street, the figure 
 bounded out, touched him on the arm, said " Tag ! " and 
 vanished into a department store. And Charles s luck 
 was not with him, for there was no policeman in sight 
 and though passers-by must have seen, only two or three 
 turned to look, and one man laughed out, with a sudden 
 burst like a yelp, as if he were too astonished to manage 
 a tone of voice. It was absurd, but, as he went up the 
 stairs, Charles did feel a crawling of the spine. There 
 was nothing alarming about the matter; it was simply 
 queer. Yet he was living so near the line of demarcation 
 between things ordinary and the dangers attendant on a 
 man outside the law, that the merely queer bore, even by 
 daylight, a disproportioned significance. He could not 
 afford to pass it by, though he could not, unless unseen,
 
 254 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 stop to investigate it. His lifelong policy had been to 
 offend no man, to call no attention to his own grievances, 
 to preserve an unbroken benevolence toward all. As he 
 passed through the outer room the blonde-haired chate 
 laine looked up with her best smile and waited for the 
 good-morning he accorded her with an ornamental fringe 
 of solicitude about the temperature of the room. Then, 
 having assured himself of her comfort, he gave orders that 
 no one should be admitted until Brennan, Finch and Bailey 
 had come and gone and went on to his room, leaving her 
 in an upper heaven of renewed devotion. 
 
 He found his room of the right temperature, and took 
 off his coat with a feeling of relief at having attained a 
 seclusion secure from damned lunatics. And as he turned 
 to his chair, there on the desk, in an elaborate scrolled 
 frame, was the photograph of the lunatic, confronting him. 
 Charles for a moment stood stiff as a dog, pointing, before 
 he took the thing up to regard it closely. So impossible 
 had the whole business seemed that he felt a mild surprise 
 in finding the framed picture palpable to the touch. He 
 stood and looked at it: a spectacled, much lined face with 
 a pointed beard under the shade of the absurd hat. The 
 whole thing was faithful to his vision. The cloak was 
 there, the long thin legs encased in trousers not unlike the 
 trousers of the present date. But the upper half of the 
 creature was queer beyond expression, and actually rather 
 alarming. For he was scowling fearfully, and in one 
 hand he held a pistol so enormous, so palpably of the past, 
 that Charles would never have known what period to give 
 it. Suddenly he woke to the impudence of somebody 
 within his own walls, strode to the door and pounced upon 
 her of the blonde thatch. Not such the perfection of a 
 gentleman who had passed her five minutes since, after
 
 THE BLACK DROP 255 
 
 that memorable solicitude about temperature and the ac 
 cessibility of her desk to a draft. Charles looked threat 
 ening and not to be withstood. He was all employer now, 
 the employer who means business and nothing else. He 
 spoke: 
 
 " Who put this on my desk? " 
 
 She looked from his altered face to the picture in his 
 hand, and it would have been impossible to doubt the sin 
 cerity of her surprise. 
 
 " For goodness sake! " said she. " Isn t that fierce? " 
 " Who," Charles repeated, "put that on my desk? " 
 She sobered, telling herself inwardly it was up to her. 
 " Honest, Mr. Tracy," she said, " I don t know." 
 " Have you been in my room this morning? " 
 " No, Mr. Tracy. Freddie came in here with the mail 
 and I asked him if he d dusted and he said he had. I 
 suppose I ought to have gone in, but there was a lot of 
 things left over from last night, and I just didn t." 
 " Call up Fred." 
 
 Fred was the boy, and he came, indifferently cheerful, 
 for Charles s benevolence had been stretched to include 
 him. But his unenquiring face at once took on the reti 
 cence of caution learned in offices where favor is found to 
 be capricious, and he stood frowning a little in his effort 
 to meet the situation ; but when Charles put his question he 
 answered readily enough. Yes, he d seen the picture. It 
 was there when he went in to dust. Noticed it because it 
 was so funny. No, sir, he didn t put it on the desk. 
 Didn t touch it. Never touched the desk. Told not to. 
 No, sir, didn t know a thing about it. So he was dismissed, 
 and while Charles stood there, absently regarding the 
 chatelaine, but really wondering what the deuce the whole 
 thing meant, Bailey appeared and Charles, greeting him
 
 256 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 curtly, at once took him into the inner room. He set the 
 picture down again on his desk, because there seemed noth 
 ing else to do with it, and asked Bailey abruptly, really 
 to cover the absurdity of his having the thing in his hand : 
 
 "What should you call that? " 
 
 Bailey was in fine form, pink, smiling, radiating good 
 cheer. 
 
 "That?" he said. "The piccy? Funny devil. 
 What s he up to?" 
 
 " I mean," said Charles, floundering, " where d you 
 place him? What s his period?" 
 
 " What is he, anyway? " Bailey inquired, with a cheer 
 ful interest. "Fancy dress? amateur theatricals? or a 
 lunatic out on a bum? " 
 
 " That s it," said Charles, shutting his lips on his own 
 foolish sense of the importance of the thing. " Fancy 
 dress." 
 
 He dismissed the lunatic for the moment, and took his 
 chair. 
 
 " Sit down, Bailey," said he. " Where are the others." 
 
 Bailey sat, and continued to emanate radiance. 
 
 " They couldn t come," he said. " Infernally busy, 
 both of em. I m the representative." 
 
 " I don t like that," said Charles. " I wanted you all 
 together." 
 
 " Well, you see," said Bailey, " they ve both got some 
 corking ideas, this morning, and you couldn t pry em out 
 of their holes. Now my head was as empty as a bag." 
 Charles glanced at him suspiciously, the word had come 
 to mean so much. But Bailey was free from any hidden 
 intent. " I thought you and I could have a powwow, and 
 then to-night, when they ve worked off steam, I could pass 
 over the whole thing to them."
 
 THE BLACK DROP 257 
 
 " Well," said Charles, " the amount of it is, something s 
 the matter and I don t know exactly how to put it." 
 
 " Oh, come," said Bailey, " you not know ! You re 
 the lucidest thing out. Fire away." 
 
 " The fact is," said Charles, hesitating with a true 
 sense of the value of the pause, " there s a lot of propa 
 ganda going on." 
 
 " German? " inquired Bailey, with innocence. " Pro- 
 German? " He was always cutting in with things cal 
 culated to draw Charles s keenest interrogation and with a 
 countenance so blank, so innocent of guile, there was 
 nothing for the inquisitor to do but look away again. 
 
 " No," said Charles, " not pro-German. But anti- 
 American, if I may put it so : a propaganda that militates 
 against America s best interests, ignoring her traditions, 
 you know, pushing her into war." 
 
 " Oh," said Bailey lightly, " pushing us into war ! " 
 
 " Yes. There is evidently an organized campaign. 
 Fliers are scattered in all conceivable places. Stuff is 
 sent in to papers. I know the firm that prints it and I ve 
 even been down there and put a question or two. But 
 they won t give away the game. In fact, the fellow I 
 saw simply wouldn t say anything: stood there and 
 grinned." 
 
 " Grinned ! " said Bailey. " What a fool thing to do." 
 He grinned himself broadly, for Charles was, at the mo 
 ment, not looking at him. His eyes were bent on the tips 
 of his beautiful fingers, of which he was justly proud. 
 " But," Bailey ventured, " it may be un-American and 
 immoral and all that, but I don t see there s anything you 
 can do about it." 
 
 " The queerest part of it I haven t gone into," said 
 Charles. " The cleverest of the stuff is precisely like
 
 258 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 what you and Finch used to do before you signed on with 
 me. And it has been suggested to me that you are doing 
 it." 
 
 " It has? " responded Bailey, in a curious voice, light 
 of cadence and yet, it might be thought, perversely threat 
 ening. " Well, what do you think about it? " 
 
 " I? " said Charles, in an outburst of generous ardor, 
 " I don t have to think. I know. I know I am, by the 
 terms of our agreement, entitled to your entire output." 
 
 " Yes," said Bailey. " Right you are." 
 
 " But," said Charles, " it s devilish uncomfortable, all 
 the same, to have the thing rammed down my throat a 
 dozen times a day. This is what the fellows say : I 
 thought you d got Finch and Bailey. But I see they re 
 doing a lot on their own. 
 
 " You could down em best by using our stuff ," said 
 Bailey lightly. " I only suggest, you know." 
 
 " My dear boy, I m going to, as soon as the public mind 
 is ready for it. You re hot stuff, you know, you fellows. 
 But it s the deuce and all to see your work Finch s 
 fables, your verse cropping up every week in those 
 impudent fliers they re sending out." 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 " I tell you I don t know. All I know is it shows your 
 hand, only it s better." 
 
 "Better," cried Bailey, off his guard. "No, I ll be 
 hanged if it s better." 
 
 Charles, smiling a little, saw his trap had snapped some 
 thing. They weren t in it, after all, or Bailey would 
 never have been so piqued. Bailey, too, instantly felt 
 himself grazed. He became at once courteous, even cere 
 monious. 
 
 " I can only say, Mr. Tracy," he said, " that we have
 
 THE BLACK DROP 259 
 
 kept strictly to our agreement. I have, and I can an 
 swer for Brennan and Finch. And if there is anything in 
 an implied good faith, anything more than the letter of 
 the bond, I think we should have cause to be better satisfied 
 if you had done us the honor of using the stuff you bought. 
 I m afraid I must run along. Can I see the clock from 
 here? " He got up, and went to the window. " By 
 George ! " he cried, " there s our friend now." 
 
 " What friend? " inquired Charles absently. He was 
 wondering whether Bailey had anything to tell him and how 
 he could get at it. Bailey, in spite of his verse, was, he 
 believed, a simple soul, too childish in his attack on real 
 ities to illuminate them by any of the lightning insight 
 of his rhymes. 
 
 " That Johnnie in the picture, cloak, hat and all. Pis 
 tol? I don t see the pistol. No, I s pose he wouldn t rig 
 up in that be arrested if he did. Though in the pic 
 ture you couldn t call it a concealed weapon, now could 
 you? " 
 
 Charles wheeled round to the window, got up, and looked 
 down. There he was on the opposite side of the street, 
 immovable, staring at the window of the Voice. Bailey 
 seemed electrified by the eccentricity of the event. 
 
 " I m going to run him down," said he. " Watch me." 
 
 He plunged out of the room, pell mell, and Charles, 
 standing at the window, presently saw the figure below 
 start, turn, step out into the street and dash away. And 
 Bailey, light of leg, was dashing after him. The crowd 
 turned to look, and then went on again, and Charles could 
 see that some were smiling. He stood there thinking with 
 interest that although they seemed about the same height 
 and suppleness, he d bet on Bailey, when he was aware that 
 the chatelaine had opened the door and advanced a pace.
 
 260 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " Mr. Tracy," said she, " I ve thought what it is. It s 
 that Harvard club. It s the Dickey. A stunt, you 
 know." 
 
 His brow cleared. 
 
 " Why, yes," said he, " of course it is. Why didn t I 
 think of that?" 
 
 In about twenty minutes his telephone rang and he found 
 Bailey at the line. 
 
 " See here," said Bailey, dramatically panting, " I m 
 done with that Johnnie. What do you think he did? He 
 led me a chase up to the Common and down the Beacon 
 mall and ran over every bench on the way. And at the 
 foot of Beacon Street he jumped into a taxi and was off. 
 And he stood up and waved his hat to me." 
 
 Charles laughed. 
 
 " That s all right," he said. " It s the Dickey." 
 
 "Don t you believe it," said Bailey. "That s no 
 Dickey. It s something else that begins with a D." 
 
 And when Charles went home that night and was tagged 
 from a doorway on Washington Street by a swiftly mov 
 ing figure in the cloak and hat, saw the same figure wav 
 ing to him from a slow-moving taxi near the Athenaeum, 
 a vehicle that at once put on speed and disappeared down 
 Somerset Street, and when, nearly at his own door, he saw 
 the same figure descending his steps, he did not think it 
 was the Dickey. But he would give it one more day to 
 be the Dickey before he also sprinted and made a serious 
 business of running it down. So he walked along at a 
 good pace, wondering if a sudden burst would catch the 
 fellow, when the figure paused, seemed suddenly to become 
 aware of him, threw him a kiss from both hands and ran 
 lightly up the street. And if it was the Dickey, thought 
 Charles, why was he the one selected for its pranks?
 
 XXVI 
 
 JOHN, now on his feet, telephoned Jessie and asked her 
 to go to walk. Would she mind being at the foot of her 
 stairs in ten minutes because he wasn t quite fit again and 
 didn t trust himself to come up? He went limping out, 
 not noticing the man across the street who seemed equally 
 not to notice him, but did, as John walked away, lounge 
 indifferently after, and he found Jessie at her steps, a 
 sweet person in her fur jacket and audacious little hat, 
 and, he could see with half an eye, looking anxious. At 
 that he frowned. What was she anxious about? Was she 
 going to take up the family cry and tell him he ought to 
 be in bed? But Jessie made no delicate feints over his 
 imprudence nor did she congratulate him on recovery. 
 With the admirable sense that was Jessie, she had resolved 
 thenceforth neither to commiserate him on his misfortune 
 nor ignore it. Though indeed it had got to be recognized, 
 turned out for, like a hole in the road, even though some 
 body had put up a sign-board. But there wasn t going to 
 be any false delicacy about a thing which wasn t a dis 
 grace, only a heavy handicap for gallant youth. 
 
 " I don t want to walk," she said at once, conceding this 
 much of diplomacy to his weakness, " but I ve got lots to 
 say. Let s go to the Athenaeum, into one of those upper 
 galleries. There s a room nobody s ever in, and if some 
 body is we can go away again." 
 
 He was very willing, and they walked slowly up the hill, 
 
 261
 
 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 Jessie making the pace. She began at once her task of 
 confession. 
 
 " I didn t tell you all there was about my going to Grass 
 lands." 
 
 " You didn t? " demanded John. " Why didn t you? " 
 
 " Because," said Jessie, " you were having such an awful 
 time." 
 
 " If that isn t like a girl ! " 
 
 He stopped a moment, pretending he wanted to look 
 at her and censure her the more brusquely, but really 
 because he felt a misery of pain. That was one of his 
 tricks. He would often stop to laugh or fulminate, 
 and no companion ever guessed it was because the leg 
 stopped of itself. But Jessie knew. She faced him, and 
 laughed delightfully. 
 
 " Let s stand right here," she said, " and fight it out. 
 I won t stir till I ve had my say. The fact is, what I 
 didn t tell you had nothing whatever to do with the matter 
 in hand. At least, not very much." 
 
 There, at the end, she had perceptibly weakened. He 
 was ready to go on and she saw it and made the move. 
 
 "Well," said John impatiently, "what was it? what 
 didn t you tell me? " 
 
 " Oh, dear ! " she said unwillingly, debating whether he 
 could bear to lose his temper best in the open or in the 
 Athenasum where he would have to conform to sacred still 
 nesses. " After I had looked for the bag and found it 
 wasn t there, I saw a woman and a man." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 " In the woods." 
 
 " What doing? " 
 
 " Looking for something. Searching." 
 
 " Near you? "
 
 THE BLACK DROP 263 
 
 "Yes. I was pulling up ground pine, and the woman 
 saw me and she called out that that s what she was looking 
 for." 
 
 " Oh ! " said John. " Very likely. There s a lot of it 
 there. Shall we go in ? " 
 
 They were at the Athenaeum door, and they did go in 
 and took the elevator up to one of those spaces which 
 were, as Jessie had predicted, empty. 
 
 " Come into this alcove," said she, "where we can see 
 if anybody comes. Then we can hush up. I don t sup 
 pose anybody s any real right to talk, even up here. I 
 know it makes me mad as fury." 
 
 They found chairs by the window, and she went on at 
 once and finished her tale of the man and the woman hunt 
 ing for ground pine. 
 
 " And," she said, at the end, " they weren t hunting for 
 it. That s the joke." 
 
 " How do you know they weren t? " 
 
 " Because I went over where they d been, and there was 
 a lot right there at their feet." 
 
 John felt his tepid interest suddenly boiling. 
 
 " How d they look? " he asked, and she described Elsa, 
 while he stared at her in a fixed intensity. " Yes," said 
 he quietly, when she had finished and a very good de 
 scription it was " you needn t say any more. I ve got 
 her. That s Mrs. Davenport." 
 
 " Mrs. Davenport ! Do you know about her? " 
 
 " Don t you know? " 
 
 This he was glad to ask. He had been wondering how 
 much Helen told her. Nothing vital, he fancied, for she 
 only said : 
 
 " Whoe-ver she is, she knows how to wear her clothes." 
 
 "Well! well!" he spurred her, "the man? Who was 
 he?"
 
 264 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " I don t know who he was. But he had a red beard and 
 a wry face and big ears. They were so big his hat sat on 
 them." 
 
 " Now, who," said John to himself, " who the mischief 
 could that be? For he was there that night. Only I 
 didn t think of him then as any more important than the 
 rest." 
 
 " And," said Jessie, " when I found they weren t look 
 ing for ground pine, I began to believe it wasn t the Herr 
 Captain s hair brushes only in the bag. For they were 
 hunting, just as I d been. They d been hunting for the 
 bag." 
 
 They sat in silence a moment, John staring out of the 
 window and Jessie taking the opportunity of stealing a 
 look at him and very much liking his face when it was still. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " they were hunting for the bag. 
 That s something, in a way, because it proves that, who- 
 ever s got it, it wasn t Charles." 
 
 " You thought you heard somebody behind you in the 
 woods. Mustn t it have been he? " 
 
 " Probably. But I thought then whoever it was was 
 one of the set I saw in the house. If it wasn t, who was 
 it?" 
 
 Then they sat and looked at each other. Jessie had a 
 theory or two of the practical thing to do now, but she 
 was timid before him. It disturbed her exceedingly some 
 times to think how hard she tried to please him and how 
 difficult it was. 
 
 " I can tell you one thing," she said. " The bag is 
 gone from where you put it. And if anybody took it away 
 from there and hid it in the woods, the two I saw are pretty 
 sure to have found it, if it was to be found. Anyway* 
 jf it was in that section where I was."
 
 THE BLACK DROP 265 
 
 " The woods don t run far," said John. " There aren t 
 more than two acres. The mowing s beyond." 
 
 " I should advise your sending somebody down," said 
 Jessie. " Me, for preference." 
 
 " Not on your life," said he. " You d no business to 
 go in the first place." 
 
 " Well, there are your three nice friends. Why not 
 send one of them? Mr. Bailey! he s terribly clever." 
 
 " Yes," said John, thoughtfully, " Bailey d go in a 
 minute. And if Charles found it out and picked a quar 
 rel with him, so much the better." 
 
 " Shall we go along? " she asked. "I ve told all I ve 
 got to tell. Besides we can t talk any more. Here s a 
 lady novelist." 
 
 So they went down again, and when they stepped out 
 into the street John halted and Jessie glanced at him. 
 Little fine lines had come about his eyes and mouth. She 
 knew what called them there and instantly felt herself on 
 her own ground and not afraid of him. 
 
 " I ll leave you here," she said, " after you ve got your 
 carriage." 
 
 John turned to her with a sudden imploring that showed 
 her how he looked when he was a little boy, and the knowl 
 edge moved her as mother hearts are moved. She signalled 
 to a cab opposite and it swung out and drew up for them. 
 
 " Wait one minute," said she. " I shall have to run back 
 for something. You get in and wait." She disappeared 
 into the Athenaeum, returning shortly. " I wanted to look 
 up an address. It s that Landis you and grand- 
 sir are always making fun of. I thought, now the horrid 
 thing s come on again, you might like to go there at once. 
 Shall I tell the man?" 
 
 She hadn t really any hope, for all her bravado. But
 
 266 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 John was answering quietly, holding himself still, speak 
 ing the more gently because his nerves were screaming: 
 
 " Yes, you tell him, please." 
 
 That afternoon he came back to his father s house look 
 ing, his mother thought, as if he had been through some 
 strange, exalting trial. It was the look of pain that leaves 
 the body burned to the ash of life, but, as a fire, has gone. 
 
 " Don t speak, mum," he said to her, at once. " Don t 
 talk about it. But I ve been to Bones s doctor and he 
 laid his hand on me isn t that the way it goes ? and 
 mother, it s exquisite not to ache." 
 
 Emily stood with her hands shut at her sides. She did 
 not dare touch him. In the aloofness of his relief there 
 was something majestic: he was like one who had been 
 through such terrible fields of anguish that he knew what 
 others did not and must be regarded as we might think of 
 the dead, if they returned. 
 
 " John," said she then, " are you cured? " 
 
 It broke the spell between them. 
 
 " Lord, no, mother," he said. "I ve got to go to him 
 twice a week for the rest of my life for all I know. But 
 cured? I m not in pain. And he says well, I won t 
 tell you what he says. You re such a duckie about hoping 
 you d hope too much." 
 
 This was all they said, and John was amused to think, 
 days after, that he hadn t said anything to Bones at all. 
 But he d catch Bones watching him, as one would critically 
 watch a horse, he thought, to see what his action was, and 
 whether he d better be sent straight back to the vet. 
 Bones, too, looked exaltedly happy, and John pondered 
 over him a good deal, beginning to see how rich a thing it 
 is to be gifted with a passion for the perfecting of the 
 ways of life.
 
 THE BLACK DROP 267 
 
 That night when John, rather tired with it all, but still 
 not in pain, went early to his room, he stopped at his 
 father s door. There was one thing out of the confusion 
 of facts he had about Charles that he intended to give over 
 into his father s hands. Norris, his forehead fretted by 
 the perplexity of his task, looked up from the paper where 
 he thought he was still writing out the study of Charles, 
 though really he was only pondering miserably. He woke 
 straight up from it to John s presence, for Emily had 
 told him about John ; he couldn t quite believe it and 
 yet, he thought, if it gave the boy a moment s hope ! 
 
 " Glad you came, John," he said. " I wanted to see 
 you and tell you your mother says " There, struck 
 by the tired pallor of the boy s face he stopped, reflecting 
 that fathers weren t always supposed to butt in headlong 
 on confidences intended perhaps for mothers alone. 
 
 " I wanted to say," said John awkwardly, since he 
 couldn t tell all he knew, " that Charles isn t alone at 
 Grasslands." 
 
 " How d you know he was at Grasslands at all? " asked 
 his father, looking at him sharply. Perhaps he was 
 reaching out at some community of confidence between 
 his son and himself, about this other son who evaded him 
 actually and also in that inner life he had tried to set 
 forth on paper. Could John help him understand? 
 
 " I went down there," said John. " I had an errand. 
 And I found Charles there. He had some fellows with 
 him." 
 
 " Yes," said his father. " He s told me about it. The 
 thing happened quite naturally. The men wanted to talk 
 witli him about a better cable service, and they followed 
 him down there. He hadn t meant to call a business meet 
 ing, but he had to, I could quite see."
 
 268 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " Oh ! " said John. " Well, I can, too." 
 
 He went on to his room where he expected Bailey, sum 
 moned by messenger as soon as he got home. And by the 
 time he had his fire going the Tracys so loved fires 
 that they were perpetually turning off central heat to 
 build a little blaze Bailey came, fresh as the morning 
 and so vivid in his zest of life that you d have called him 
 the morning itself. The two long-legged fellows stretched 
 themselves in chairs and John at once gave Bailey a work 
 ing version of what he wanted. He and Charles, he told 
 Bailey, were manoeuvring for possession of a bag. 
 At present neither of them had it and it had got to be 
 found. John had had it temporarily and hidden it under 
 the bridge at Grasslands ; and then he told how it hadn t 
 stayed under the bridge, and how worse than useless it 
 was for him to look for it, first because he couldn t trust 
 his leg just now and again because, it being an issue be 
 tween him and Charles, Charles mustn t know he was 
 looking. The woods near the bridge had got to be 
 searched. Would Bailey undertake the quest? And 
 would he also undertake to find out who was staying at 
 Grasslands, or whether there was anybody? Here was 
 John s key. He might go in, if he liked. And couldn t 
 he telephone Charles and make an appointment with him 
 for Brennan or Finch to talk over their stuff, and, if 
 Charles made it, seize that time to fly down to Grasslands ? 
 
 " Sure," said Bailey. " The rape of the bag ! But 
 who do you think it is staying in the house? " 
 
 " I don t know." 
 
 " And what ll I do if I find em? " 
 
 " Nothing. Report to me." 
 
 " If the bag wasn t where you left it, what makes you 
 think it s anywhere else in the woods ? "
 
 THE BLACK DROP 269 
 
 " Because somebody working for Charles that I know 
 was seen searching the woods. And I assume 
 - you ve got to assume something one of his gang hid 
 it and forgot where." 
 
 Bailey nodded. He was " on " he assured John, though 
 how far on such a slippery plane of conjecture John 
 couldn t guess. Then Bailey looked suddenly serious and 
 remarked : 
 
 " Your Charles is a queer Dick." 
 
 " Yes," said John dryly. " You re on there. What 
 now?" 
 
 "Well, you know our Man without a Country series? 
 We ve been piling it in on him, hot as we could turn it out, 
 every instalment worse than the last, deadly insults every 
 one of em: Charles Tracy betraying his country in all 
 the stock ways. I thought before this we should have had 
 a row to be heard down the harbor and out at sea wire 
 lessed to Deutschland. And of course we hoped he d 
 turn us out, neck and crop. But what do you think? He 
 accepts the work. He smiles urbanely, says, Bully ! rip 
 ping ! and pats us on the back." 
 
 John nodded. 
 
 " Yes," said he, " that s Charles. He won t quarrel 
 with you. He ll ignore everything you want him to see, 
 and if the time comes when he doesn t need you he ll quietly 
 slice your heads off." 
 
 " Need us ! " echoed Bailey. " He can t be in any great 
 need of stuff he puts an extinguisher on, like a bedroom 
 candle." 
 
 " Of course," said John, "that s what he wanted you 
 for. He knew he couldn t get out of you the sort of 
 work he d use, but he could stop your activities everywhere 
 else."
 
 270 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 This, deeply as John distrusted his brother, bitterly as 
 he felt his renegade tactics, it hurt him to say. The 
 family again, he thought angrily. Because Charles was 
 the family he shrank, out of the fierce pride of it all, to 
 admit even a friend to his disgrace. John still failed to 
 understand families. 
 
 Bailey, grown grave, sat for a moment looking at the 
 fire. 
 
 " I suppose," he said, at last, " that s about it. He did 
 us, that s all. But he thinks he s got one on us. What 
 do you s pose he sent for me for? sent for us all three, but I 
 went, to represent the firm. He s seen the fliers going out 
 from somewhere in Boston and recognized the style. And 
 he charges Finch and me with writing the things in defiance 
 of our contracts." 
 
 " Oh," said John, " I didn t think of that." 
 
 " I told him, not guilty," said Bailey. " I guess he 
 believed me. But I didn t tell him there was only one man 
 clever enough to pull it off. Though John, old boy, you ll 
 bust yourself doing your work and ours too." 
 
 " What else was left me," John inquired bluntly, " when 
 you got into this mess that simply means your work is can 
 celled, done, down and out for at least three years, which 
 may be the period of the war? " 
 
 Bailey sat still, staring into the fire. He didn t look 
 now as if he saw young April in every bush. 
 
 " Well," he said, " we made our throw and we lost. 
 Sometimes I think I ll repudiate the contract, tear the 
 thing up and tell him I m on my own again." 
 
 " No," said John viciously, " what is written is written. 
 No scraps of paper in ours. Besides, you re not likely to 
 scare him into tearing up the duplicates." 
 
 Bailey was sunken in gloom, at once irradiated.
 
 THE BLACK DROP 271 
 
 " Nothing s final," he swaggered. " It wouldn t be be 
 yond belief for us to make him scrap us, in fear of worse. 
 Meantime, old boy 
 
 " Meantime," said John, " I ll keep on copying you 
 simply because you re the cleverest things I know. Rot 
 ten luck I can t copy Brennan, too. But you and Finch 
 I can, and by the time you come back to the open market 
 again you ll find I ve got it away from you." 
 
 He met Bailey s grin with a like one of his own, both 
 boyish, ardent, full of braggadocio and enormous admira 
 tion for the youngness of it all.
 
 XXVII 
 
 LATE the next afternoon Bailey went down to Grass 
 lands. He had not thought it well to consult John about 
 the time of going, having his own ideas of that and seeing 
 no necessity for inviting argument. If he was to find out 
 who was in the house, it could be done better after dark. 
 He couldn t imagine himself walking up to it by daylight, 
 overlooked from the windows, perhaps letting himself 
 in with John s key and stumbling at once over the inmates 
 he had come down to spot. And how could he, whatever 
 the time of day, find out who was there without a good 
 amount of dangerous audacity? That evening there was, 
 at least, no danger of Charles s appearing. Finch had 
 seen to that. He had asked for an appointment to talk 
 over the policy of the Voice an impudence Charles him 
 self couldn t help staring at, because he knew, by this time, 
 the three had no smallest idea of following anything but 
 their own mad will and Charles had set the hour imme 
 diately after dinner. Bailey knew he could spend the 
 night at the workmen s boarding-house which called itself 
 a tavern and begin his search of the woods in the early 
 morning. So he set out, with a moderate degree of as 
 surance, on the whole rather anticipatory and pleased. 
 Leaving the station, he took the wood path which he knew 
 perfectly from other days not so long ago, down there 
 with John. But you would not, if you had followed him, 
 have recognised Bailey when he emerged from the path and 
 crossed the orchard to the house. You would have seen a 
 
 272
 
 THE BLACK DROP 273 
 
 slim man in a cloak with a queer hat and spectacles and a 
 pointed beard. And the reason he stopped in the woods 
 and donned the disguise he had brought along in his bag, 
 was that he simply couldn t resist one more move in the 
 foolish game he had invented for the bewilderment of 
 Charles. 
 
 Suppose he came on somebody at the house, conspirator 
 or caretaker; that person would meet the amazing total of 
 him in his strange habiliments, which would be of no remote 
 consequence, except as it might be reported afterward. He 
 and his fellows had got to speed up on Charles, who was to 
 be followed and confronted and haunted until his nerve was 
 broken or he got irresponsibly " mad ": foolish, but hav 
 ing for the gang the merit of being the best they could de 
 vise. They had the agreeable certainty that there were 
 unmentionable events crowding the background of 
 Charles s life, and that, in consequence, he couldn t bear 
 watching. Also, if he were watched persistently, you 
 would inevitably find out things valuable enough to be 
 traded for other things of value. Bailey had stopped at the 
 little bridge and thrust under his bag. He would come 
 back for it after he had done his errand at the house, 
 and he thought what a shame it was he had nothing in 
 sulting to leave there for good, in case it occurred to 
 Charles also that it had been the old hidey-hole. He 
 crossed the orchard, passed the garage, which was dark, 
 and approached the house, where he noted a light at the 
 back and also from an upper window. The front hall 
 also showed light in its traceried fan over the door; and 
 he went up the steps, opened the door with John s key and 
 stepped in. The house was entirely still. Neither of 
 the front rooms was lighted, and he stood a moment grin 
 ning at his own fantastic figure in the great mirror at
 
 274 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 the left. He went upstairs, opened the door of John s 
 room, found it dark and closed the door again. There 
 he halted a moment, hearing a step in the front room at 
 the right of the hall, and suddenly he started, with a gen 
 uine shiver, for a tenor voice broke into a snatch of song. 
 The house was so still that he found himself immediately 
 credulous of everything sinister and strange. Even the 
 song sounded to him baleful in its sweetness and he had to 
 stand there and conquer his distrust of the spot he had 
 perhaps foolishly penetrated. In an instant more he 
 remembered this was to be gay adventure and tiptoed 
 along the corridor, grimacing dramatically, tapped at 
 the door and threw it open. A man stood facing him, 
 hands in his pockets, evidently having just risen from the 
 table where his book still lay; his pipe, tobacco jar and 
 glass with bottle and siphon, bore testimony to a leisure 
 hour. The man, Bailey saw through his spectacles, had 
 red, disordered hair, a red beard and a twisted mouth. He 
 had also enormous ears, apparent even through the thatch 
 of hair. In the instant of the door s opening, he made a 
 spring to one side, every line in his face intensifying, in a 
 queer way, so that he seemed all wry apprehension ; im 
 mediately he controlled himself and stood fixed. But his 
 hands, out of his pockets now, were clenched and quivering. 
 Bailey burst into a laugh, and the situation tickled him 
 so that the laugh rang true. 
 
 " Don t shoot," said he. " I ve come from Tracy. He 
 sent me down here at a venture adding recklessly, 
 " to get the bag." 
 
 The man still trembled. It was not alone his hands : 
 the tremor had crept over him, and he was silent for a 
 moment, getting himself under, his racing blood, his quiv 
 ering nerves. Then he asked a perfunctory question:
 
 THE BLACK DROP 275 
 
 " What bag? " 
 
 " Oh, come," said Bailey. " You know. The lost bag. 
 Take me? " 
 
 " No," said the man. 
 
 Yet he was quieting. Only it was evident that, from cau 
 tion, he had decided to be dumb. 
 
 " You don t believe he sent me," said Bailey. " See 
 here, I ll prove it to you. You know Tracy s number? " 
 
 He made no answer, yet it was evident he did. 
 
 " I ll call him up." 
 
 Bailey went to the telephone on a table in the corner, 
 asked for toll operator and gave his long distance call, 
 "to talk to Mr. Tracy." In the interval of waiting, he 
 kept up a rain of confirmatory remarks to his vis-a-vis, 
 who had, it appeared, got back his nerve and was facing 
 him steadily. 
 
 " I tell you," said Bailey, " this is uncommon discour 
 aging for Tracy. He sends me down here to get the bag 
 with instructions for you, too and you won t even tell 
 me whether you re the Johnnie I m after. Hullo." The 
 bell had rung. "Mr. Tracy? Mr. Charles Tracy? 
 Well, I m here. According to instructions. Yes. 
 Found him all right. What am I Repeat that, please. 
 What am I wearing? Why, same old togs. My cape, 
 my spectacles, my altogether eccentric and admirable hat. 
 Same as I wore in the picture on your desk. See? Oh, 
 no ! Tut ! tut ! May I not suggest that profanity is 
 forbidden? You ll be cut off. Now your man here won t 
 accept my credentials. Won t recognize me. What? 
 you ll be down yourself? By motor? Straight off? 
 Right away? ( right away admirable American lan 
 guage," lie commented, turning to the man behind him,) 
 and then speaking again into the transmitter, while
 
 276 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 Charles not having uttered a word, since the first " Hullo " 
 and a solitary imprecation, was listening, Bailey gleefully 
 thought, so hard you could hear his ear drums beating 
 their own tattoo. " You re coming down, you say? by 
 car? " 
 
 Then, irrepressibly, it seemed, the man behind him spoke, 
 the words leaping out as if they had been in leash there, 
 waiting for their chance: 
 
 " Am I to be ready ? He comes himself to take me ? " 
 
 Bailey hung up the receiver and turned to regard him, 
 from a new enlightenment. It had simply seemed to him 
 that Charles, being told his tormentor was down here, 
 would undoubtedly take the wings of gasoline and fly down 
 to probe this last impudence to its depths. But appar 
 ently he had unwittingly caught another bird in the snare 
 set for his own pastime. So his queer acquaintance was ex 
 pected to be ready ; he trusted Bailey at last, or he 
 wouldn t have said it. But a change came over the in 
 tense, wry face. The man drew back. He had repented 
 his half betrayal, and he spoke now with violence : 
 
 " You do not suppose I have not seen that you wear a 
 disguise? Your hair is a wig, your beard He 
 
 spread his hands to indicate the absurdity of its palpable 
 falseness, its utter futility as a self-respecting beard. " And 
 your spectacles would you have me believe those are 
 lenses? No, they also are a disguise." 
 
 " My dear boy," said Bailey, without an instant s hesi 
 tation, " you are perfectly right. It is a disguise, except 
 for the specs those lenses are dead honest and a pretty 
 penny they cost me and the disguise is for you." 
 
 " For me? I will not have it. It is absurd. I have 
 let my beard grow, I have let my hair. But this ! this ! " 
 He paused, unable to express his utter contempt. " Why,
 
 THE BLACK DROP 277 
 
 you are what you call a laughing stock. You would bring 
 attention to yourself in any place." 
 
 "Right you are," said Bailey. "It is a rotten make 
 up. I wondered what made Tracy so stuck on it." 
 
 " But he could not be stuck. He is an able man, Mr. 
 Tracy, and he has planned things extraordinarily well, 
 because so simply, do you see? " 
 
 Again he spread his hands to indicate his disdain of a 
 masquerade so meretricious. 
 
 " Well," said Bailey carelessly, " maybe you re right. 
 Anyhow, that s what he said. Now if he s coming down 
 here, he s well on his way and you d better get your duds 
 together." 
 
 " I am ready," said the other. He took his pipe from 
 the table and put it in his pocket. " I have but to find my 
 coat and hat." 
 
 "All right," said Bailey. 
 
 He rose from the chair by the telephone and made his way 
 to the door. This was after a lingering look at the tray 
 on the table; but there was one glass only and he was 
 afraid, if he forced the issue of hospitality, the other 
 might ring for a second, and who would bring it? Per 
 haps a stalwart flunkey who might not be so credulous. 
 
 "Where are you going?" 
 
 "I thought I d just stroll down the drive," said Bailey, 
 " through the shrubbery. See? In case anybody s 
 hanging round. But I ll be back here when Tracy comes. 
 You be ready down in the hall. Just inside the door." 
 
 " Just inside," said the other grimly. " I do not step 
 outside that door until I hear Mr. Tracy s voice. And I 
 shall be armed, you understand." 
 
 " The deuce you will," Bailey thought, with a whimsi 
 cal recognition of his own luck. " If you were armed
 
 278 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 while you sat here drinking your grog and singing about 
 German mill wheels, little Ned Bailey might have a hole 
 through him or at least been held up till Tracy came." 
 But he was now at the door and turned back for a word. 
 " Don t disturb anybody else." 
 
 "Anybody else?" 
 
 Did the fellow still regard him with suspicion, or did he 
 not? was it the ordinary expression of the wry face? 
 
 Bailey made a vague gesture toward the back of the 
 house. 
 
 " Servants hall," he said. " You know. Don t call 
 anybody. Just be ready and we ll slide the gang plank 
 on." 
 
 Then he went, running down the stairs, not too hastily, 
 he hoped, and out at the front door, pausing a moment on 
 the steps and looking down into the dark shrubbery. 
 Bailey had had few adventures which were of the body and 
 not the nimble mind. He hardly knew, from the feeling of 
 them, how mad enterprises of the body were to be con 
 ducted. He cherished an idea that if one were up to them 
 there would be nothing quite so glorious in the world ; 
 but he had unhappily no asset for the glad rough and 
 tumble of virile youth, nothing but length and lightness of 
 leg. The shrubbery, with its dark softnesses of shadow, 
 did look sinister. With a queer German duck in hiding 
 there inside, who knew what flocks of equally suspicious 
 ducks might be flying up the drive to the same sanctuary? 
 What fun it all was ! He ran down the steps and made 
 long strides along the drive. At the turning, just when 
 the gate was wide before him, with the crackle of no more 
 than one step on the gravel something big was upon him, 
 something strong, like a band of iron, enveloped him, a 
 body so unyielding that it semed as gigantic as the night
 
 THE BLACK DROP 279 
 
 was against his body and a hand was over his mouth. 
 And Bailey could only think that, after all, his mouth must 
 be the most sensitive feature of his loquacious person, for 
 he was conscious of a rueful wish that the creature 
 would take off that beastly paw and, since there was no 
 use in struggling, let him swear. However, there wasn t 
 time for mental pleasantries ; they were plunging along 
 the drive, through the gateway and down the road, and 
 now they stopped and Bailey blinked, for this was a car, 
 and at their coming the lights flashed on. " Here we go ! " 
 he thought. " Hurrah ! " Another man was standing be 
 side the car; a third was at the wheel. Not a word was 
 spoken until, as the one who had Bailey and the other 
 who seemed ready to receive him were about to bundle 
 him into the car, the third demanded : 
 
 " What the devil s he got on? " 
 
 " Disguised," said the first. " That s how I knew." 
 
 " Disguised nothin . He s come out o the movies." 
 
 They flashed a light on him, and he stood there, a man 
 on each side of him, and free now, for since there were two 
 of them they doubtless knew, if he tried to escape, he 
 wouldn t have a chance. He felt the shame of that. He 
 was so crumpled they despised him. 
 
 " Peel him," said the man who had waited for them, 
 " and let s have a look at him. I don t want to elope with 
 the wrong girl." 
 
 With what seemed one motion the others did peel him, 
 hat, wig, whiskers, spectacles, and then they flashed the 
 light on him again, and his captor was the one to speak. 
 And such amazement was in his voice that it amounted to 
 awe, - awe and a something Bailey put down in his de 
 lighted mind as respectful horror. 
 
 " Mr. Bailey ! " said he, and that was all.
 
 280 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 And now Bailey, who had been smiling at them sunnily, 
 found his tongue. The respect and horror had put him 
 back into that lightsome ease of mind where he ordi 
 narily sojourned. 
 
 " Mr. Bailey, as you say," he returned, with his own 
 jaunty self-sufficiency. " And may I not, sir, request a 
 look at your visiting card? May I not also be permitted 
 here in the dread vast and middle of the night on this 
 lonesome road beset with dread to share with you the 
 chestnut that although your face is unknown to me your 
 manner is familiar? " 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Bailey, you know my face," said the other, 
 from what sounded like extreme depression. " Not so 
 well as I know yours, but I expect you know it." 
 
 He handed Bailey the flash-light and took off his hat. 
 Bailey directed the light to him and had his turn of sur 
 prise and disbelief. 
 
 " Cross ! by all that s holy." 
 
 Cross stood there, an authoritative figure, yet trans 
 formed from what must have been his assertive bearing 
 of the moment before to the completest deference. Bailey 
 took delight in the reflection that, in the exact fashion 
 of helping a guest on with his overcoat, Cross would 
 now, in a minute, offer to help him on with his whiskers 
 and wig. The other man, who had looked on in silence, 
 spoke now disgustedly. 
 
 "Well," he said, "you have made a mess of it, ain t 
 
 you?" 
 
 He stepped into the car and sat down as if personally 
 he abandoned all responsibility and interest. Bailey was 
 quite himself. He raised a gleeful finger. 
 
 " Tut ! tut ! " said he. " Naughty, naughty ! Lying in 
 shrubberies, coiled to spring, falling on innocent masquer-
 
 THE BLACK DROP 281 
 
 aders and sand-bagging them and placing large, service 
 able hands, better made to pass decanters and squirt the 
 cooling siphon, over mouths made to carol as gleefully as 
 the innocent birds of dawn. That s free verse, Cross, only 
 you can t tell till you see it printed. Cross, I am griev 
 ing over you. I weep for you, the walrus said." 
 
 Cross had recovered himself. He had quelled the in 
 cipient butler in him and stood erect, man to newspaper 
 man. 
 
 "That s all right, Mr. Bailey," said he. "But I d 
 like to know what you re down here for anyway. And in 
 that rig." 
 
 Bailey had a mild desire to try him, to see if he could 
 summon back the butler again, by insidious appeal. 
 
 " Help me on with my rig, Cross," said he. " My wig, 
 I should say. I don t believe we can manage the whiskers, 
 do you? No? I ll tuck em in my pocket. Now my 
 spectacles. I was accused to-night of having plain glass 
 in em, but that s a libel. Thank you." 
 
 Cross had mechanically and deftly aided him in redec 
 orating himself, and now the other spoke with some impa 
 tience from the car : 
 
 " Come, come ! we can t stay here all night, gassin ." 
 
 " Indeed you can t," said Bailey, suddenly alert to 
 the chances of the hour. " Tracy s on his way down 
 here." 
 
 " In a car? " 
 
 Cross was alert enough now. The butler had popped 
 inside the sentry box. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " What for? " 
 
 " Oh, I can t tell you," said Bailey. " It s too long. 
 Only there s a queer Johnnie inside the house there "
 
 282 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " You been in? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 " Tracy John gave me his key and sent me down 
 to do an errand. And I found this Johnnie inside there 
 alone 
 
 "Red whiskers?" said Cross. "Twisted mouth? big 
 ears ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Know who he is? " 
 
 " No. Except he s a Teuton and got an excellent tenor 
 voice." 
 
 " He s a big chemist and he s been making cultures for 
 a veterinary disease they re going to spring on us, and his 
 name s Adler. And we re hanging round here to kidnap 
 him and turn him over." 
 
 " Don t tell me, Cross," said Bailey, in almost unbeliev 
 able delight, " that you re a secret service man." 
 
 " No, I m not," said Cross curtly. " I m an English 
 man and I m too old to join. I m doing a job here and 
 there when I can ; but I know more about Charles Tracy 
 than anybody does but his Maker. Queer things have 
 been going on down here, Mr. Bailey. The family don t 
 know it, I expect, except Mr. John. And he don t know 
 all." 
 
 " These gentlemen," said Bailey, still in his ecstasy, 
 " these gentlemen in the car arc government officials, 
 minions of the law, their pockets full of warrants, and they 
 are here to arrest our friend inside? " 
 
 " They re friends of mine, so to speak," said Cross. 
 " We re doing it something the same way. We get the 
 man and turn him over to the government, that s all." 
 
 " But why not turn your information over first," said
 
 283 
 
 Bailey, " and let the government get him? Much simpler, 
 Cross. Unless you want the fun of it. I quite understand 
 that." 
 
 Cross lowered his voice. 
 
 " I was coming to that," he said. " Because I don t 
 want Charles Tracy taken not yet." 
 
 "Why not? Need more evidence? " 
 
 " No," said Cross, " but there s madam." 
 
 " But madam isn t living with him." 
 
 " I m not going into that, sir. Nor whether madam will 
 stay away now she s got away or whether she won t. 
 But a friend of mine in the service tells me Miss Jessie 
 has applied for passports for herself and madam. And 
 when madam has gone, then I turn Mr. Tracy over." 
 
 " But Lord, Cross ! if you want that fellow in there," 
 said Bailey, suddenly alert to his own joyous share in 
 the quest, " I can hand him to you. I made up a yarn 
 about Tracy s coming down to get him, and he s there in 
 the hall waiting, like a ripe apple, and you can pick him 
 off the hat tree." 
 
 " I can t get into the hall," said Cross, in a suddenly 
 stimulated interest. " Can you get him out? " 
 
 " No. He half thinks I m what I told him, but he 
 won t quite eat out of my hand. I can let you in all right. 
 Lord, if I hadn t forgot I ve got a key. Come on in with 
 the car. That s what he s waiting for." 
 
 Cross did not answer ; the other man opened the door 
 of the car and signed Bailey to enter. He did and the 
 car started, Cross on the running board, and they were 
 driven noiselessly up the drive and stopped at the front 
 door. There Cross stepped off, went up the steps and 
 placed himself in shadow in the corner of the porch. 
 The other followed him and they stood together. Upon
 
 284 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 this Bailey fitted the key in the door and stepped 
 in, whistling softly, prepared with an ingenuous facial 
 vacuity to meet his man. But the hall was empty, and 
 he did feel momentarily dashed and not so clever as he 
 had the instant before : not nearly so clever nor important 
 either. But almost at once a voice came from the head 
 of the stairs. 
 
 " I am here. I am armed. And I shall not come down 
 until I know that is Mr. Tracy s car." 
 
 " Of course it s Tracy s car," said Bailey cheerfully. 
 "Don t be an ass. But before you do come down, go 
 back into- that room and turn off the light." 
 
 ** There is no occasion for turning off the light," said 
 Adler, and Bailey was encouraged to suspect his teeth 
 were chattering. Chemistry and the evolving of deadly 
 bacilli were not, perhaps, conducive to personal courage, 
 even if one were, as Adler had announced, armed. 
 
 " Then I will," said he, running up the stairs. " Oh, 
 put down your gun. If you make a hole in me you ll have 
 to settle with Tracy for messing up his stairs." 
 
 He reached the man, elbowed past him, scarcely looking 
 at him, and turned, as if to the room at the right. But 
 judging that the fellow, in his surprise, might not continue 
 to cover him, he whirled, sprang back, struck up Adler s 
 hand and held it, and they clinched, Bailey unscientifically, 
 without a notion how you took your adversary yet hang 
 ing on like death and giving one strident yell for Cross. 
 And Cross came, he and the other man, three stairs at a 
 bound, and between them Adler was dragged struggling 
 down the stairs. Bailey plunged after them, conscious of 
 a confused scuffle at the foot, wherein a woman, stalwart 
 beyond belief, appeared from nowhere and took part, 
 and that she cried aloud for Fritz, who never came at
 
 THE BLACK DROP 285 
 
 all, and that he himself had to push her back into the 
 hall by main strength after the others had gone out and 
 that he held the door against her. The two packed 
 Adler into the car and Cross called back to Bailey : 
 
 " Coming, sir? " 
 
 " No," said Bailey. " Hold on. Give me your town 
 address." 
 
 Cross threw it at him in two words, street and number, 
 and the car started. That instant Bailey relinquished 
 his hold on the door and ran like a cat round the side of 
 the house, past the garage and into the orchard. And 
 now lie knew he was at last afraid ; but it was of the woman 
 who was outside now and yelling like a banshee for Fritz. 
 Though he had taken the wood path so many times, it 
 was not familiar to his foot in the dark, but he turned on 
 his flash-light and ran by fits and starts, stopping to 
 verify his way and dashing on again. Thus he came to the 
 little bridge, took out his bag, thrust into it his hat, 
 wig, whiskers and cape, put on the soft cap he had in his 
 pocket and went on to the station. He was in doubt of 
 what he should find there. Would it be Charles arrived 
 from town and, having heard the tale of abduction, hot 
 on his trail, would it be the woman shrieking for Fritz, 
 or would it be Fritz himself? But the station, wrapped 
 in darkness except for its one light, was shrouded in 
 silence, too, and Bailey hung about outside until his train 
 came in and then, the only one to take it, got on and sat 
 down to think things over. Seriously now: there was no 
 laughter left in it. For Charles Tracy was guilty of 
 harboring an alien enemy the law was hunting, and John, 
 though he was his brother, must be told. Bailey couldn t 
 stay down here as he had meant to, to search the woods by 
 daylight for hypothetical bags. John must be told at 
 once.
 
 XXVIII 
 
 BAILEY did not fly to John with his batch of news. 
 He went instead, in the early morning, to Cross, found him 
 in a lodging in a West End street, what Bailey called 
 " grummy," but rigidly self-respecting, and Cross himself 
 in bed. .He was full of shocked apology at being found 
 in that relaxation, but Bailey took a chair and told him 
 to hush up, since men must sleep, all save heroes like 
 himself. He d lain awake all the night he found left to 
 him, thinking out the miserable business at Grasslands. 
 
 " And, Cross," he said, " you ve got to hand in your 
 evidence. That s flat." 
 Cross looked obstinate. 
 
 " I met you fair and square, Mr. Bailey," said he, 
 " man to man. I told you what I was doing, and I trusted 
 you to keep mum. I don t recall whether everything I 
 said to you was confidential, but I took it for granted 
 you d use your judgment and act fair. If you force my 
 hand, you ain t acting fair. No, you ain t." 
 
 Cross, at this time, was a curious compound of the 
 deferent and the masterful. But it wasn t necessary to 
 be deferent with Bailey, who had little regard for the class 
 obliquities of life, and who could, without feigning, meet 
 him man to man. 
 
 " Now see here," said he, " your perspective s all wrong. 
 Charles Tracy s a criminal. And you ve got him. It s 
 up to you to do something. It isn t as if he d seen the 
 error of his ways, cried on your bosom and sworn he d 
 
 286
 
 THE BLACK DROP 287 
 
 stop harboring germ fiends and sworn to me he d cut 
 out propaganda in his paper. He s going right on, and 
 you re the man to trip him up. And you won t do it." 
 
 Cross answered from his heart, but with a lamentable 
 lack of logic : 
 
 " I want madam to go to France." 
 
 " Madam s nothing to do with it," said Bailey. 
 " Here s Charles Tracy, and Charles Tracy s a traitor. 
 What are you going to do about it? " 
 
 Cross thought, a long five minutes. He was sitting 
 up in bed, as more respectful, and a sun ray struck upon 
 his unshaven cheek and disordered hair and gave Bailey 
 a momentary gleeful thought that, if he d seen a butler 
 in undress before, he should never have contemplated 
 with anguish the possibility of using the wrong fork. At 
 length Cross turned upon him a distraught and saddened 
 face. 
 
 "I ll tell you what, Mr. Bailey," he said, "I ll go 
 round and see Mr. Tracy Mr. Charles s father, I mean 
 and tell him the whole business." 
 
 " What good s that going to do ? " inquired Bailey 
 inexorably. " You ll only get the family by the ears, and 
 ten chances to one some of em ll make a passionate appeal 
 to the erring son and Master Charlcs ll say it s all poppy 
 cock and kick up his heels and off he ll go, and you ve 
 lost him." 
 
 But Cross was meeting his gaze, eye to eye. And he 
 spoke with an immovable obstinacy. 
 
 " I can ask Mr. Tracy to see to madam s going abroad." 
 
 Bailey pleaded with him, reasoned, swore at him, and 
 then got up and clapped him on his pyjamaed back and 
 told him he was a great old sport. 
 
 " Well," he said, " if you re going to see Mr. Tracy,
 
 288 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 when will you go? I ought to be handing in a report to 
 John, you understand, and I can t do it till I know what 
 you ve done." 
 
 " To-night," Cross told him. He would go that night. 
 
 So Bailey left him. 
 
 That night Cross, having assured himself that Charles 
 had gone to Mrs. Davenport s, went round to the West 
 End house and asked to see Mr. Tracy. He did not send 
 up his name. It was a message, he told the maid at the 
 door, most important. Norris was in his study, the 
 evening paper before him, staring in a daze at the printed 
 words, and thinking about Charles. And when Cross 
 appeared and stopped just inside the doorway, he looked 
 at him for a puzzled moment, debating where he had seen 
 him before. There was in Cross an inexplicable difference 
 from the Cross Norris Tracy had known. It could not 
 be said that his old humility had gone, but he was still re 
 garding the individual as man to man. 
 
 "Ah," said Norris, "Cross. A message, you said?" 
 
 He couldn t remember what Charles had told him about 
 dismissing Cross, whether he had said anything definite. 
 There must have been dissatisfaction somewhere. So he 
 looked at him and waited. 
 
 " May I shut the door, Mr. Tracy ? " asked Cross, 
 with deference and yet an implication that he was going 
 to shut it anyway. 
 
 Tracy nodded, and when it had been done and they 
 were again facing each other, now in a privacy implying 
 something of importance, he asked : 
 
 "Well, what is it?" 
 
 " I should like to mention," said Cross, " in the begin 
 ning, that my errand is confidential." 
 
 Norris said nothing and again waited.
 
 THE BLACK DROP 289 
 
 " The amount of it is," went on Cross, with no embar 
 rassment but a perfection of concise matter of fact state 
 ment it would have been hard to challenge, " Mr. Charles, 
 sir, is being watched." 
 
 Norris gave the slightest perceptible start; it was a 
 movement of the foot only, but in reality it seemed to him 
 his heart leaped out of its place, and that he must gasp 
 before he got his breath normally again. Cross appeared 
 to understand he wasn t to be helped out, and went on, 
 as if he had an everyday matter to state, yet impressively, 
 too : 
 
 " Mr. Charles is doing German propaganda work. He 
 has harbored an alien wanted by the government, one of 
 a gang conspiring against the allies and the States, too, 
 Mr. Tracy, I give you my word." 
 
 Norris got up from his chair, pushing it violently to 
 one side, and walked to the window, and there he stood, his 
 back to Cross, staring out at the lights in the house 
 opposite and conscious of the iron band about his forehead 
 and the thickness of his breath. A girl came to the 
 window opposite and presently another girl joined her and 
 put an arm about her and they waltzed back into the room 
 to the pounding of a piano. The little picture etched itself 
 on his memory, so that whenever afterward he thought 
 of his son s downfall, he saw two girls waltzing and heard 
 a trumpery tune. Then, at last, because he had to meet 
 the blow in exactly the way it was dealt him and no other, 
 he turned back into the room, walked to the table and 
 stood there, one hand finding the support of the pile of 
 books at the end, and faced round upon Cross who had not 
 stirred from the spot he had occupied when he first 
 came in. 
 
 " You want," said Norris, " to have him warned."
 
 290 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " No, sir," said Cross imperturbably. " I want you to 
 tell madam that it is time for her to go abroad. I want 
 you to see she goes." 
 
 There was such authority in his voice, such certainty 
 of having weighed the situation and hit upon a conclusion 
 quite aside from any suggestion of controlling it, that 
 Norris made the only reply commensurately indicated: 
 
 " Sit down." 
 
 Cross sat and Norris took his own chair and bade him 
 curtly, but with kindness, because it was apparent that 
 Cross didn t like his job: 
 
 " Go ahead. Tell me what you know and where you 
 found it out." 
 
 Then Cross, not picturesquely but quite as if he told 
 the story of any errand he had been sent to do, gave the 
 brief history of Adler, a chemist who had been watched 
 for a long time by government experts and who, just at 
 the moment when the case was clear against him and he 
 was wanted, could not be found. Cross knew why, for this 
 same man had been in Charles Tracy s house here in town 
 over and over, while Cross was still in service there ; he 
 had met the gentlemen who had their secret meetings in 
 Charles s billiard room. 
 
 " How do you know there were meetings ? " asked Norris 
 abruptly, hating these ways of vulgar espionage but 
 seeing the slough must be penetrated to the firmer land 
 beyond, if indeed there were any land firm enough, in these 
 days, for him to set his foot on. 
 
 " I had been present, sir," said Cross, " several times." 
 
 "Present? how present?" 
 
 "There is a little attic room there, sir, that Mr. Charles 
 closed up as soon as he began to use the billiard room for 
 meetings. He took in some of the wall space when he
 
 THE BLACK DROP 291 
 
 built in his safe. It used to be a servant s room. Every 
 time Mr. Charles had a meeting he gave me an evening out, 
 and I would come back again, after half an hour or so, 
 and go up to the little room. It had a dormer. I used 
 to get out of that the roof sloped some three feet to 
 the gutter there and lie along the slope with my feet 
 in the gutter and my ear to the window of the billiard 
 room." 
 
 Norris regarded him, his length, his sinewy height, and 
 said: 
 
 " You couldn t. A man like you can t lie along roofs 
 and gutters." 
 
 " It was a" bit awkward sometimes," said Cross simply. 
 " It was hardly dangerous. I d had the gutters ree n- 
 forced." 
 
 " Besides," objected Norris, as if, in fighting these 
 details, he might make out some sort of a case for Charles, 
 " you couldn t have heard if you did." 
 
 " That window was never shut entirely," said Cross. 
 " I managed that every night before they came." 
 
 "You had keys?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " To that room and the next? " 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Tracy." 
 
 " Where d you get them ? My son didn t give them to 
 you." 
 
 " I have a large acquaintance," said Cross. " And 
 while I was with Mr. Charles, it was easy for me to admit 
 workmen to the house." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Norris, catching at the implied admission, 
 " You have a large acquaintance among workmen. I 
 suppose you re a socialist." 
 
 " No, Mr. Tracy," said Cross, " I m not a socialist.
 
 292 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 But I am an Englishman Lincolnshire, sir and when 
 ever I ve seen there was German work going on over here 
 I ve tried to nail it, that s all. I began to suspect Mr. 
 Charles first because he had the billiard room made over 
 and kept the key of it and forbade madam to go in 
 
 " He forbade her? " 
 
 " Yes, sir. I heard him." 
 
 " You must have done a deal of listening." 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Cross, unmoved. " I was listening most 
 of the time when I could do it without the other servants 
 knowing." 
 
 " And with the end in view of sometime giving up Mr. 
 Charles?" 
 
 " That s got to come, Mr. Tracy," said Cross, with 
 finality. " Either I ve got to do it or somebody else will. 
 They re not onto him yet, in spite of his paper. It s too 
 clever for em. But they will be. He ll make a misstep. 
 They always do. And there s enough now to hang him." 
 
 " Go on," said Norris. " This Adler. You say he s 
 been taken." 
 
 " Yes, sir. Last night." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "At Grasslands." 
 
 Now Norris was really roused. His house, his own, 
 the dearly loved, was being used for the workshop of 
 these evil forces. 
 
 " Take care," said he. " I don t believe that, you 
 know." 
 
 " I ve been at Grasslands quite a bit lately, sir," said 
 Cross, undisturbed. " There are three of us that have 
 gone in together on this thing, and we ve put in all our time 
 with Mr. Charles." 
 
 " Why? " asked Norris. " Why, in God s name? "
 
 THE BLACK DROP 293 
 
 " Because, Mr. Tracy, he looks to us quite the most 
 dangerous agent about here." 
 
 Norris took that gallantly. Cross wasn t going to 
 spare him, he saw, and neither did he want to be spared. 
 This was, after all, his job, not in any degree that of the 
 man before him. 
 
 " Are you giving all your time to it? " he asked, 
 regardless of his own pangs and pressing on into the 
 brush of dark possibilities. 
 
 " At present, yes, sir." 
 
 "Who stakes you?" 
 
 " I do, sir. I ve laid up quite a bit, and I don t see 
 anything better I could do with it than turn it in. 
 Blighty, they call her, you know, sir. Curious name, isn t 
 it?" 
 
 The next question Norris meant logically to ask him, 
 he knew he must, wherever the path of honor led him, refuse 
 to utter : 
 
 " I suppose you ve come to me for money ; you expect 
 to be paid for holding your tongue? " 
 
 If he had wanted to ask it, if the money had been 
 lying there, a pile of dirty metal to buy off his son s name, 
 he could not have asked the question. For Cross was 
 telling the truth. His motives were as solid and clearly 
 outlined in this fog of treachery as an ivory tower with 
 lights. 
 
 " Go ahead," he bade him. " You say Adler was down 
 there. What then?" 
 
 " We took him, sir, that s all," said Cross. " We have 
 some friends in the service, and we turned him over. He ll 
 be tried in due course." 
 
 " And you ll give evidence that he was taken at my 
 country house."
 
 294 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " No, sir, I don t think they ll go into that. Our car 
 took him well on towards the turnpike where another car 
 was standing 
 
 " By arrangement? " 
 
 " Yes, sir. He was transferred from our car to the 
 other, and the evidence is that our car then got away." 
 
 " Also arranged? " 
 
 " We got away, sir," said Cross. " That s all. That s 
 all the prisoner himself will know. And he won t mention 
 Grasslands or Mr. Charles. The fatherland s too dear 
 to him. Mr. Charles is valuable." 
 
 " Well," said Norris, " well? " 
 
 "Then," said Cross, hesitating slightly, as if he 
 had kept back his most conclusive facts and hated to 
 submit them, " I ve some papers here, Mr. Tracy, that 
 I d like to leave with you." 
 
 " More evidence? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Where d you get em? " 
 
 " They were intended for a submarine commander to 
 carry back to Germany. The commander was at Grass 
 lands to get them and to bring another batch. The other 
 batch we haven t got. We couldn t get it. But these 
 were in a bag which was evidently taken from the captain 
 before he left your house. And I was hanging round the 
 house that night and I got them from the man that 
 took it." 
 
 "Who was he?" 
 
 " I didn t see him clearly," said Cross, a perfection of 
 smooth veracity in his tone. There was to be no mention 
 of John in this or of Bailey. He didn t propose compli 
 cating matters to unknown ends. " He ran down through 
 your orchard and into your woods "
 
 THE BLACK DROP 295 
 
 " The wood path to the station? " 
 
 " Yes, sir. I followed him. He stopped and put the 
 bag under that little bridge by the alders." 
 
 " Good Lord ! " said Norris, ineptly as he felt, the 
 moment he had said it, " where the cardinals grow ! " 
 
 " I waited till he d gone on, and then I took it out, 
 cut it open, put the papers in my pockets and hid the bag 
 again. That was in a patch of cedars on the way across 
 to the western division. I didn t take the train at your 
 station, do you see, sir? I went across country quite a bit. 
 And next day I came back by car and got the bag. I 
 felt as if I d got to have it all, as I found it." 
 
 "Where is it?" 
 
 " At home, sir, in my lodgings." 
 
 " And you say you have the papers for me? " 
 
 " Copies of them, sir. I had copies taken at once, so 
 I could put the papers themselves where they wouldn t 
 be come on if anything happened to me." 
 
 " If anything did happen to you, what would become of 
 them?" 
 
 " I d rather you didn t ask me that, sir." 
 
 " In other words, you won t tell." 
 
 But Cross was taking from his pocket legal size envel 
 opes that Norris afterward found to hold typewritten 
 sheets of thin paper. There was a vast amount of material 
 in them. 
 
 " And these," said Norris, " you propose leaving with 
 me? For what purpose? " 
 
 " I want you to see, sir," said Cross earnestly, " to see 
 for yourself just what the evidence is against Mr. Charles. 
 You ll find others are implicated, too. And when you see 
 it, you ll understand something has got to happen. It 
 may happen soon. And I want you to send madam 
 abroad."
 
 296 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 Norris frowned, not in irritation at this meddling with 
 madam, even to her advantage, but with an intentness on 
 the problem. It was still impossible to resent what Cross 
 had said. He was simply a man entirely in earnest who 
 was doing his job as he must. 
 
 " You want to save her," he said, " the disturbance 
 of this the the disgrace. Is that it?" 
 
 " Madam is different," said Cross, with an irrele 
 vance that seemed to them both to cover everything. 
 " Different from anybody." 
 
 " Very well," said Norris. " I ll look these over at once. 
 When can you come for them? or shall I send them to you? 
 Or " 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Cross. " You might keep them. You 
 see, I have the first drafts." 
 
 He got up and, instead of turning to the door, went to 
 the window, approaching it at the side where he was 
 screened by the heavy curtain. 
 
 "What is it? " asked Norris. 
 
 Cross turned about and came back to the door. 
 
 " Nothing, sir, as it happens. There s a fellow been 
 hanging round here for some days. I waited a good bit 
 before I came to-night, but some one went out of your door 
 and he followed him." 
 
 " Somebody hanging round my house? " said Norris. 
 " Impossible/ What for?" 
 
 "It just happens so," said Cross. "A good many 
 people are being shadowed now." 
 
 " Some of your fellows, do you mean? " 
 
 " No, sir. Oh, no. I should say Mr. Charles." 
 
 " My son watching this house ! Absurd ! And who do 
 you say went out? Who was it the fellow followed? " 
 
 " Mr. John, sir."
 
 THE BLACK DROP 297 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 Cross had nothing to offer here. But to cover the 
 necessity of answering something, he did remark dis 
 creetly : 
 
 " I couldn t say, sir," and took his leave, Norris star 
 ing after him and inwardly fuming with an uneasy 
 curiosity. 
 
 But he hadn t time to waste on that now. He went 
 back to his table, took up the orderly sheaf of papers 
 Cross had left him and began to read. And as he read, 
 incredulous, angry with the very sound of words that 
 seemed to prove something that could not possibly be 
 susceptible of proof, scornful even of such treason touch 
 ing one of his blood, he knew in his leaden heart that every 
 word was true. And the others implicated, the names 
 he knew and the world knew what madness stalked 
 abroad upon the earth, what rottenness was at her heart 
 that these malformed souls could be born of her, live upon 
 her surface and draw breath from her sun-laden air? 
 Of these, he told himself he need not think. His son s 
 degeneracy was enough for him to grapple with. Yet, 
 turn aside as he might, he knew the whole earth was 
 poisoned for him by the evil heart of man. At the end, 
 he gathered up the papers and mechanically put them 
 in order again, fitting corners with an aimless care, 
 and sat holding them in his shaking hands. And then he 
 realized he had not been silent. He had groaned, he had 
 called upon God, and his mind sprang back across the 
 bright love-lighted chasm of the years to the dark moments 
 when he had been waiting to hear his sons were born and 
 his wife had gone through her travail to the first resting 
 place beyond. Then he must have groaned, for he could 
 hear himself in that terrible note of a man s lament. And
 
 298 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 as he laid the papers down, he saw before him the essay he 
 had been writing on Charles s character. " The Poli 
 tician," he had called it, and it read like an abstract study. 
 It had not seemed to touch his son at all. But it was his 
 son, moving through its every page. And through his 
 own art, which had not carried him far in swaying men, 
 he had learned the better to understand his son. So well, 
 indeed, that the papers Cross had brought him caused him 
 no real surprise. They but confirmed what he already 
 knew, not as to facts indeed but what he had learned of the 
 inner possibilities of his son s malign will. Suddenly he 
 hated the papers in his hand and threw them on the table 
 and, urged by his extremity of grief, rose and went up the 
 stairs to his father s room. And there he found grandsir 
 sitting, not at the table with his perfunctory occupations 
 before him, but at the fireplace, his chair turned so that 
 he obliquely faced the door. And so haggard did he look, 
 so old, so wild with apprehension, that Norris, who had 
 never seen his calm thus broken, forgot his own distress 
 and asked: 
 
 " What is it, father? What s the matter? " 
 
 The old man s mood seemed to break and leave him some 
 relief from its intensity. He drew a breath and said : 
 
 " I rather thought you d come." 
 
 " But what is it? " Norris brought a chair and sat 
 down near him. "Who s been up here? anybody been 
 disturbing you? " 
 
 Grandsir shook his head. 
 
 " Nothing real, my boy," he said, " nothing solid. But 
 there are strange things round this house to-night." 
 
 Norris, clairvoyant in the intensity of his own feeling, 
 knew what he meant. They were not actual things that 
 were peopling the house, not stealthy steps and hostile
 
 THE BLACK DROP 299 
 
 faces, but fears, regrets, aching lamentations, the waking 
 ghosts of family life, the genius of the race, lamenting that 
 one among them should have been false to universal bonds. 
 
 " I know what it is, father," said he, tranquillizing his 
 voice for his father s sake and also finding it easier to 
 bear his own apprehensions now another was standing 
 up with him against the ghost. " It s Charles. We re 
 all worried about him. We re so afraid of what he s doing 
 and what s going to happen to him that our fears are 
 stalking round the house." 
 
 Then, as he met the sad response in his father s face, 
 he realized for the first time that grandsir was an old man : 
 older than his years. The war, besides killing youth in 
 its hideous ways at the front, was stamping out age 
 because age had its own foes within the citadel and must 
 meet a double menace. Yet this old man was not terrified 
 in any sense of apprehension. He merely looked woefully 
 tired of it all. 
 
 " I have made up my mind, Norris," he said, " that 
 it s a losing battle." 
 
 " You mean the war? " Norris ventured. Yet he knew 
 his father did not mean the war. 
 
 " No. I mean the fight life in the dark here, life 
 for you, life for Charles 
 
 " That s it," said Norris, as he paused. " What are 
 we going to do about Charles ? " 
 
 " Do you realize," said grandsir, striking the arm of the 
 chair with his delicate hand in what looked like an impotent 
 anger, " that he is the spirit of evil in this house and 
 that he dominates us all ? " 
 
 No, no," said Norris. But it was a perfunctory denial. 
 " How does he dominate us? " 
 
 " It has always been so. You and Emily have agonized
 
 300 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 over him and prayed and besought him. And when he s 
 good, you re so glad you conciliate him and let him lead 
 you. You ve let John grow up anyhow compared with 
 Charles. And yet John is a straight, clean fellow and 
 Charles has a black drop." 
 
 " Father," said Norris, beside himself with apprehension 
 for his father as well as his son, " what makes you say 
 these things? What do you know? " 
 
 " Nothing," said the old man, " except what I gather 
 from his paper. And that s of no consequence really, 
 compared with the other things that walk in here at night 
 and show me their naked faces. Good God, Norris ! do 
 you think there s nothing in being old and lying here with 
 the ghosts of all the Tracys walking in and out when you 
 can t sleep? If there s a doom on one of us, don t you 
 suppose we can get wind of it by listening out into the 
 midnight? There are more wirelesses than the kinds that 
 zip and buzz." 
 
 The very air about Norris seemed to be thrilling with 
 strange intelligences, their wings suffocating him, keying 
 him to a horrible suspense. He tried to beat them off, 
 to bring his nerves down to a plane where he could calm 
 his father also. 
 
 " Well," he said, " we needn t think of it to-night." 
 
 " We ve got to think of it every day and night," said 
 his father, " till we ve made our decision. And I ve made 
 mine. I made it just before you came in. If one of us 
 is a traitor yes, if it s Emily s son and yours and 
 Helen s husband - he s got to be given over to be tried 
 and punished. He s got to be tripped up, tied, bound, 
 anything to stop him. One man can t be allowed to stand 
 in the way of other innocent men. He s got a black drop, 
 and God knows where it comes from. But it s there, and
 
 THE BLACK DROP 301 
 
 we Tracys are bound to see it doesn t spread, even if it 
 brings us to the shedding of blood." 
 
 He did not look shaken now nor old. He looked like a 
 slight, it is true, delicate, but indestructible intelligence, 
 transmitting the will of his kin. But Norris hardly saw 
 how he was to be brought down from these heights, to 
 rest and the comfort of the night. There was a sound at 
 the door, Erastus Triphammer, rosy, wholesome, inter 
 rogative, in a solicitous way, as if he felt the storm in the 
 air and wondered if he could lead somebody to shelter. 
 Grandsir, too, saw him, stared at him an instant, 
 hardly recognizing him within the boundaries of his 
 flaming vision, and broke into a crowing laugh. 
 
 " Bones ! " he said, " good boy, Bones ! he s come to put 
 me to bed. Good night, Norris. The ghosts have gone. 
 Didn t you hear them scuttling, when he came?" 
 
 Norris got up and stood for a minute, his hand on the 
 back of his father s chair, while they looked at each other 
 whimsically, and grandsir with a humor that eased the 
 band about his son s heart. Meantime Bones was going 
 about, setting the room to rights, and Norris felt a rush 
 of gratitude to him for being so wholesome and so kind, 
 like the good earth. 
 
 " Good night," he said and grandsir answered almost 
 jovially. 
 
 But as Norris went down the stairs, he told himself he 
 had got his orders. Whatever was to be done about 
 Charles, it should be without recourse to grandsir. The 
 frail old body could not join in this passionate weaving 
 of the family destiny. It might select the pattern, but it 
 couldn t throw the shuttle any more. He passed his own 
 room and went on to the lower hall, and there he met his 
 wife, entering the front door. She wore an evening cloak
 
 302 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 and a piece of lace over her head, and her face was sunken 
 into grief of the patient, acquiescent type. We know that 
 look. It belongs to all time. The Mother of Sorrows 
 wears it. Norris was alarmed by it, angry in a measure, 
 too. Must he meet with anticipatory tragedy at every 
 point, from the top of the house down? But he was 
 chiefly concerned at seeing her come in from the night 
 where he had been told a mystery of surveillance lay over 
 the house. He took her cloak, touched her hand and found 
 it cold. 
 
 "Emily, child, where have you been? " he scolded her. 
 " You mustn t go running out alone. Why didn t you 
 call me? " 
 
 She did not answer, but went into the sitting-room, where 
 he followed her. There she sat down before the fire, and 
 he threw a log on the smouldering coals and made them 
 blaze. She put her hand to the warmth and then, as if 
 it gave her heart to speak, said, in a dull voice : 
 
 " I have been to see Charles." 
 
 " To see Charles? Where? At his house? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "What for? Why didn t you telephone him to come 
 round? " 
 
 " I got frightened," said Emily. 
 
 "About him?" 
 
 " Yes. There was something in the house to-night that 
 frightened me a feeling, you know, as if things were 
 going to happen. And I knew it was Charles." 
 
 " I wish," said Norris gently, drawing up a chair and 
 taking her cold hand, to stroke it, " when you get scared 
 you d feel like calling me." 
 
 " I couldn t," she said. " I knew it would worry you. 
 I couldn t even call grandsir. He d have been frightened, 
 too. Besides, it was about Charles."
 
 THE BLACK DROP 303 
 
 And suddenly both of them had a vision and each 
 knew the other had it of the time when Charles had been 
 ailing in babyhood and Emily had taken him off with her 
 to sleep, because Norris mustn t lose his rest. He was at 
 work on a novel he knew which one it was and the 
 novel had fallen flat somehow, and here was the son Emily 
 had soothed in his small miseries, and the son was not only 
 a family shame but a menace of the nation, too. Norris 
 felt the futility of it all, of what we seek to do and what is 
 mysteriously denied. Yet within him a voice kept crying, 
 even though it was shaken by the sight of these mother s 
 tears, " Lift up the gates. Put your weak shoulders un 
 der and lift, with all the millions of men that are lifting, 
 that the king of glory of plain truth, plain honor, may 
 come in." 
 
 But now he had to comfort Emily. 
 
 "Well," he said, "you found Charles? you found him 
 all right? " 
 
 She shuddered. 
 . " He was upstairs," she said. 
 
 " In the billiard room? " 
 
 " Yes. How did you know? A man came to the door, 
 a peculiar man, Norris, not like Cross, not not well 
 trained in any way, do you see? He had the air of want 
 ing to keep me out. But I said I was Charles s mother, 
 and where was he? for he d said at first Mr. Tracy was 
 engaged. He was very doubtful, and I stepped in. Then 
 lie spoke up to him. There is a telephone in the hall. 
 There never used to be. And Charles came down." 
 
 She stopped here and Norris had to remind her to go on. 
 
 "Well?" he said. "He was glad to see you, wasn t 
 he? Unusual for you to run round there. I don t be 
 lieve you ve been since we came up."
 
 304 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " He was excited," said Emily. " I can t find any other 
 word for it. Annoyed." 
 
 "With you?" 
 
 " Yes, in a way. That is, he explained he couldn t ask 
 me to sit down, because he d a business meeting up in the 
 billiard room: some men he couldn t get together at any 
 other time." 
 
 " Yes," said Norris, " quite natural. Of course he 
 didn t want wandering ladies dropping in on high finance. 
 You ought to have asked me, dear. I could have told 
 you it was no time to go." 
 
 But Emily wasn t listening. She was retracing the 
 paths of her talk with Charles. 
 
 " He didn t ask me to sit down 
 
 " Couldn t, dear. He d got his meeting up there." 
 
 " I know, I know. He put his arm round me and got 
 me to the door, and then I couldn t bear it and I said, O 
 Charles, I m afraid your paper is all wrong. You ve got 
 hold of the wrong end of everything, and you break my 
 heart. * She looked at him with her clear sad eyes, as 
 if craving his forgiveness there. " I had to say that. 
 I ve never begged and prayed Charles. But I felt, if he 
 was saying the wrong things and influencing people the 
 wrong way, I d tell him it was only fair, I thought 
 just how he breaks my heart." 
 
 " Well, what d he say?" 
 
 " He laughed and said my heart shouldn t be broken 
 if he could help it, and he d get rid of the paper, if I liked. 
 But he opened the door and put me out, and I was stand 
 ing there on the step. And I heard him call the man, 
 and his voice was raised and I knew he was swearing at him 
 for letting me in." 
 
 " Left you on the steps, did he? " said Norris, forgetting
 
 THE BLACK DROP 305 
 
 for the minute he had told her Charles couldn t desert his 
 business meeting. " He might at least have come round 
 with you." 
 
 " Norris," said his wife, " I m frightened. What are 
 we going to do? " 
 
 " The first thing for you to do," said Norris, with de 
 cision, " is to get into hot water and then go to bed. Your 
 hand is like a frog. And don t grizzle about it, Emily. 
 Don t worry. He s told you he ll get rid of the paper. 
 Anyhow, don t think about it to-night." 
 
 She was not convinced. He could not instil any hope 
 fulness into her, but she did let him coax her up to bed and 
 gradually got to listening while he talked to her about 
 small commonplace things. And when she had relaxed 
 a little, in grateful love to him, he left her and went down 
 stairs again. The circle was narrowing about him. 
 Grandsir was not to fight out the issue with him. And 
 now, after that one first look at her sorrowing face, he 
 saw Emily also must be exempt. She was not to be al 
 lowed to remember her son came to his penalty while she 
 bore the knowledge of it and did not save him. Now he 
 waited for John. Could his son stand with him within 
 that awful circle of decision where he was preparing his 
 verdict against Charles?
 
 XXIX 
 
 JOHN was late in coming. He had been to Bailey be 
 cause Bailey had not come to him and had heard the story 
 of Adler s kidnapping. And he was not only so tired when 
 he came in but so absorbed in thinking back over the path 
 Bailey had led him that he would have liked to ignore his 
 father s voice from the sitting-room. Norris sat before 
 the fire waiting, no book or paper in his hand, and with 
 the purpose of an interview so evident in his attitude that 
 John threw his weariness aside and resolved to make the 
 time his own. For he had things to say. He made no 
 introduction to his purpose. 
 
 " Wait a minute," he said, " till I get an apple. I told 
 Maggie to leave a dish outside the dining-room window." 
 
 He disappeared and was presently back with a basket 
 of red beauties. 
 
 " It s no good cooling an apple in an ice-box," he said, 
 with an oracular gravity, selecting carefully and setting 
 the basket beside him on the floor. " Outside air s the thing. 
 Have one? " 
 
 No, Norris wouldn t have one. But while he was con 
 sidering his way to John s confidence, John plunged in 
 and took the talk into his own hands. 
 
 " I ve been over to Bailey s." 
 
 "Ah? Finch and Brennan there, I s pose." 
 
 "No. That is, they were, but we turned em out. 
 Bailey d got things to say. He s been down to Grass 
 lands." 
 
 306
 
 THE BLACK DROP 307 
 
 " Ah ! " Another contingent down at Grasslands, Nor- 
 ris thought. It struck him events were making rather 
 free with Grasslands. But he was refusing to commit 
 himself. The moment John came into the room, he knew, 
 struck by the beauty of his worn young face a beauty 
 of high resolve it was, too that he was not going to bring 
 any puzzle of dread decision into the appealing sensitive 
 ness of that face. " Enough to hang him." That phrase 
 kept beating through his brain. If Charles had earned 
 the penalty of being hanged, John wasn t the one to push 
 him to the scaffold and remember thereafter that he was, 
 in a measure however slight, his brother s slayer. 
 
 " You see," said John, " I went down there myself 
 Wednesday because I overheard Charles telling you he was 
 going and wanted the rest of us kept off the premises. I 
 knew what that meant: he was up to something. I went 
 down there and I found out." Thereupon he told the 
 story of the secret conclave in the library and of his own 
 theft of the bag and its after disappearance. " Of course," 
 he said, " if there was a chap following me, he saw me chuck 
 it under the bridge and he was the one that took it out." 
 
 "Who was he? " Norris asked. 
 
 " Don t know." 
 
 "Who do you think?" 
 
 " Haven t an idea. One of Charles s gang. That s 
 natural to suppose. Next day I sent somebody down." 
 No word of Jessie here. John, lawless enough in his 
 own person, did cherish certain rigors imbibed from Tracy 
 manuals, and applied them to other people, chiefly girls. 
 Jessie was a great sport, but she shouldn t be mixed up 
 with amateur spying, bless her ! " And I should think 
 Charles had it safely back again, except that Mrs. Daven 
 port and, I should say from the description, a chap named
 
 308 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 Adler, were hunting round there, too. And what could 
 they be hunting for but that one thing? Now you listen 
 to what Bailey found out." 
 
 He told Bailey s story succinctly, through the kidnap 
 ping of Adler, and Norris listened without comment. But 
 all the time there ran through his mind an undercurrent 
 of resolve that John should know no more than he did now. 
 John stopped, went on with his apple and waited for his 
 father to speak. Here came a new bewilderment, for 
 Norris apparently felt no surprise. 
 
 He merely said : 
 
 "We ll let this end here, you understand. You won t 
 go to your mother with it, nor grandsir? " 
 
 John threw his core into the fire and stared after it. 
 His hand mechanically sought the basket at his side, but 
 he sat holding the apple selected, turning it over and over. 
 
 " No," he said, " not mum. Of course not. But 
 grandsir I always expect grandsir to tell me what to 
 do." 
 
 " Not in this case, John," said his father. Another 
 surprise this. Norris had exacted no rigid obedience from 
 his sons. His fatherhood had been a comfortable old coat 
 worn with negligent ease. " This is my business." 
 
 " Well, I ll be hanged ! " said John, staring at him. 
 " But," he reasoned boyishly, " it was only through me 
 Bailey found it out." 
 
 " Do you want the job of getting your brother into 
 trouble? " his father inquired, seeking the only way he 
 knew to throw him off the scent. " Is that it? " 
 
 John did not answer. The color slowly suffused his 
 face and his eyes grew hot. At length he did speak, and 
 with a gentleness that touched Norris greatly. 
 
 " Father, I don t hate Charles."
 
 THE BLACK DROP 309 
 
 It was, Norris knew, a great confession, the equivalent 
 of many things. " Charles is one of us," it meant. " I 
 want to save him. I want to save us all. But if any 
 body s going to stand up to this job of getting him into 
 the trouble he deserves, I m ready to be the one." 
 
 " I know," said Norris. " I know all about it. I only 
 mean you ve got to give the thing into my hands and leave 
 it there. Oh, hang it all, John! I ask you to. You ll 
 let me if I ask you? " 
 
 " All right," said John. He got up, leaving his apples 
 there on the floor. The look of his forlornness touched 
 his father immeasurably. John had come to him with 
 the evidence that had staggered his own reason, and he was 
 simply being told to go away and be a little boy again and 
 keep his meddling small fingers out of great affairs. " I 
 only told you," he said, " because I thought you ought to 
 know what Charles wanted Grasslands for. Besides 
 well, I thought you were the one to know." 
 
 " I am the one to know," said Norris. He rose and 
 hoped for a minute he could put his arm over the 
 strong young shoulders, but somehow didn t dare. 
 They couldn t blubber over each other, two men grown, 
 and pledge their fealty. So he ended lamely : " I m in a 
 devil of a hole about all this, John. You let me crawl out 
 the best way I can. And if you can give me a hand, I ll 
 tell you. Honest I will." 
 
 " All right," said John again, though not more cheer 
 fully, and went off to bed. 
 
 Norris stayed a miserable half hour by the fire, wish 
 ing he had any of the emotional reliefs of more pliant 
 human nature before him and cursing the shyness of the 
 male animal which wouldn t let him call out to the other, 
 equally suffering and equally shy. John, he knew, was off
 
 310 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 up there by himself in the pathetic loneliness of youth 
 denied the sympathy of age. But the one conclusion of 
 it was, he knew, as he covered the fire, that he was indubi 
 tably alone in his circle of decision. He went over it all 
 again. Neither grandsir nor Emily could be admitted there, 
 and he had learned, with an added conviction after the sight 
 of John s wistful face, that he must be kept even farther 
 off than they. Age had a shorter time to suffer. Youth 
 was setting out on the long, long road. 
 
 The next morning he went over to Helen s, and found 
 her and Jessie at their task. They were delighted to see 
 him, also surprised, for he had never called upon them 
 here. They got up and fussed about him with much solici 
 tude, and when they were seated he found himself greatly 
 touched by their pleasure in him. Helen was quite flushed 
 with it. " Nice girls ! " he thought. " Dear, pretty 
 girls ! " and he was going indirectly to thrust them out 
 into the stress of the world s dire extremity. He meant to 
 give no reason for their going. Only they must go. 
 
 " Keep on working," he said to them. " I can talk 
 better if you re not looking at me." 
 
 So they settled to their deft-handed task and he watched 
 the white fingers flying, with an attention he hoped would 
 keep his eyes from any too pronounced interrogation of 
 their faces, to confuse or make him stumble. 
 
 "The fact is," he said, "I ve come to hurry you girls 
 off. Jessie s on pins to go to France. I want you both 
 to go. I want you to go as soon as you can break up 
 here." 
 
 The white hands paused over their work. He was 
 aware of that, but he would not lift his eyes to theirs. 
 Jessie had drawn a quick breath. She was with him, he 
 knew. She had been pushing everybody mentally, for a
 
 THE BLACK DROP 311 
 
 long space, to clear the way to France. But Helen asked 
 an instant question: 
 
 " Why do you want us to go ? " 
 
 " It s a very unsatisfactory state of things here," said 
 Norris, presenting the argument as he had arranged it. 
 " Disheartening for you, and unnecessarily so. You want 
 to go. You both want it. Why not go now? " 
 
 Then Helen gave him a challenge that brought his eyes 
 to her face. 
 
 "What is it?" she asked. "What have you found 
 out? " 
 
 Their eyes met and held. He was dominated by the 
 force and brilliancy of her look. She knew there was 
 something underneath and she was determined on dragging 
 it out. But he wasn t going to be forced by this dear 
 creature to her own undoing. He would keep his prede 
 termined way. Still meeting her eyes, he answered dog 
 gedly : 
 
 " It s an impossible situation for you here. You ve 
 left Charles, but you re likely to meet him any hour in the 
 day. You have your common friends. You don t explain. 
 Oh, of course, I know you can t. But it s deuced awk 
 ward just the same. The whole thing s impossible. 
 You re too near. And with everybody going to France, 
 you ve every reason for going, too. It s a way out." 
 
 " Daddy," said Helen, " dear daddy, you ve got to tell 
 me." (Was the siren calling him that, he thought ruefully, 
 for added invincible persuasion?) " What have you 
 found out about him? " 
 
 " Well," said Norris, " I don t want to go into this busi 
 ness of the newspaper woman." He was resolved to keep 
 it on that basis, but he found himself flinching, though he 
 met her gaze. Indeed, it seemed to him now he had to meet
 
 312 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 it. " In fact, I know no more about that than you do, 
 probably not so much. Only it s uncomfortable. It s 
 it s impossible. And the best thing you girls can do is 
 to get away." 
 
 She wasn t going to release him from the appealingness 
 of her eyes or the challenge of her will. 
 
 " Just what," she asked, " have you found out? " 
 
 Then, because he felt his defences crumbling and knew, 
 though he had meant to save her, that she had as much 
 right as he to the knowledge of what might befall his son, 
 he said plainly : 
 
 " Helen, I d rather you wouldn t ask me. And if you 
 do, I m not sure I shall tell you. But I will tell you this 
 much. Charles is pro-German. Whether he s paid for 
 it or not, I don t know. And he s likely to be found out. 
 And if he is found out, I d rather you and Jessie were away." 
 
 She got up from the table and walked once back and 
 forth through the room. Then she sat down again, at a 
 nearness to Norris that let him see the clear wells of her 
 eyes, the threads of dark color in them so cunningly en 
 hancing their rich beauty, and said to him : 
 
 " You think you d surprise me, shock me, kill me per 
 haps, if you told me what you know. Whatever it is, I 
 could surprise you more." 
 
 Then, with no self-explanatory comment and an unde- 
 viating directness, she went over her own discovery of 
 Charles s activities. It was all very quickly done, when 
 you consider the content of it, she told it so tersely, ran 
 with such swift, clean paces to her point. And this was 
 not surprising, for she had thought of it unbrokenly in 
 every minute of leisure her mind had ; indeed, even when her 
 outward attention was elsewhere, a deep undercurrent beat 
 on preoccupied with this damning evidence. Norris never
 
 THE BLACK DROP 313 
 
 ceased looking at her, because her eyes were on his, com 
 manding, insisting that he take in what she brought him, 
 fit it into his own testimony and let them decide together 
 what fabric they could make of it. At the end she fal 
 tered, as if breath failed her. But it would not have failed, 
 he knew, if there had been more to say. She could key her 
 self up to any task and remain at the point of tension until 
 it should be done. 
 
 " That s all," she said faintly. " That is really all." 
 
 Meantime Jessie, not looking up, sat folding compresses 
 without a false motion of her weaving hands. Only her 
 cheeks were scarlet, and Norris, glancing at her now, won 
 dered whether it was with compassion for Helen or anger 
 against Charles and so perhaps distaste for all the Tracys. 
 As for him, he was entirely at a loss for anything to say. 
 No palliatives here, no hollow consolations. She would, 
 he read in every line of her tense figure, choose with him the 
 Roman way. He got up, took her hand, kissed it and then 
 sat down again. 
 
 " Well, Helen," he said, at length, " doesn t it make you 
 the more prepared for what I ve suggested? If this 
 comes out and it s bound to, you know we can t 
 shield him ; we mustn t. If he is accused and arrested, 
 you d better be as far off as possible. I wish I could send 
 his mother away from every sight and sound of it. But 
 I can t. She ll have to meet it when it comes. And she ll 
 bear it, too. Only I wish she could be saved. But you 
 can, my dear. You can be saved. Now here are Jessie 
 and I trying to do it. You let us save you, Helen." 
 
 " Yes," said Jessie, a breathless word. She stopped 
 folding now and leaned forward, looking at Helen across 
 the table, all passionate pleading. " It s the way, Nell, 
 the only way."
 
 314 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 Helen smiled a little sadly, regretfully for them, because 
 they must be disappointed. 
 
 " No," she said. " I can t do it. If he s going 
 to be disgraced and punished I must go back to 
 him." 
 
 "Go back to him!" 
 
 They both echoed it in sharp interrogation, Norris 
 with amazement and Jessie in complete rebuttal. But 
 Helen, whose tension seemed to relax as theirs tightened, 
 answered in a perfectly matter of fact calm: 
 
 " I must certainly go back. That is, if he s got this to 
 go through." 
 
 Jessie spoke hotly from the keenness of her disappoint 
 ment: 
 
 "Perhaps he won t want you to go back. There s 
 Mrs. Davenport. We d better not forget that." 
 
 Then, as she had said it, she realized the cruelty of it 
 and flushed the deeper at what she named inwardly her own 
 brutality. But Helen did not blench. How should Jessie 
 know how far was this drear journey from the old 
 time dancing on the lighted path of love, how far from for 
 giveness, from justice how immeasurably far? But if 
 he had got to accept the supreme suffering of his life in 
 the nemesis that was stalking him, he would need com 
 pany in the dark way, the touch of the hand that had been 
 used to serving him, the eyes that saw all his waywardness 
 now but saw it without anger. 
 
 "I think," she said, " I am sure I should have to 
 go back." 
 
 It was Norris who also saw she would be constrained 
 to, and he came to it through two channels of knowledge 
 which reenforced each other and made the solid image, 
 as the eyes bring vision to the brain. Through Emily,
 
 THE BLACK DROP 315 
 
 first, he understood it, because this, he knew, was exactly 
 what Emily would have done if he had cast her off and 
 again needed her supremely. Emily would be there. And 
 again from another angle he saw it, because he was accus 
 tomed to considering the souls of men and setting them 
 down for other men to read about. How foolish he had 
 been to think he could move a woman from her sworn de 
 votion. 
 
 " I don t think, dear," he said, trying to be fatherly 
 in counsel and wishing tremendously for grandsir to take 
 the case, " I d make up my mind about that just yet. As 
 Jessie says, there is a complication. And it may 
 not be a very serious complication that is, not big emo 
 tions, you know, not noble nor even very much to be turned 
 out for but you might find yourself up against some 
 thing pretty tawdry. And that would hurt you dis 
 proportionately to the good you d do and we don t want 
 you to go through any such thing as that, Jessie and I 
 don t. Do we, Jessie? " 
 
 Jessie shook her head, voicelessly troubled, and Norris, 
 feeling miserably that he hadn t been adequate, that a part 
 had been set him in a turbulent drama and he had boggled 
 it, got up to go. 
 
 " At least," he said, " you won t make any move till I 
 tell you well, till I tell you there s a crisis ? " 
 
 " You mean," said Helen clearly, " when Charles is to 
 be arrested you ll tell me." 
 
 He hesitated. 
 
 " Yes," he said then, seeing it would be impossible to put 
 her off except to some impetuous action of her own, " I ll 
 tell you. At least, I think I will." 
 
 " And she ll go to him," said Jessie, out of her irre 
 pressible aversion to the whole thing. " Helen, you ll
 
 316 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 mix yourself up in a scandal, and what will be the good, 
 to him or anybody? " 
 
 Helen had risen and stood facing them ; in every motion 
 and every line of argument they were ranged against her, 
 yet somehow, Jessie felt hotly, she had put them in the 
 wrong. Their rash sympathy had not brought them 
 nearer. It was setting them further away. The bond 
 was tightening that still held her in the sworn fealty of 
 family life. Now she spoke with a dignity they found 
 not so much admonitory as inherent in the gravity of her 
 task: 
 
 " If men are coming into his house to take him away, 
 they mustn t find him alone. I must be there with him." 
 
 Jessie, pushed away out of the sacred circle where hus 
 band and wife stood in that mystery of a defensive tie, 
 flamed up in jealous anger and again said what she would 
 not: 
 
 "And Mrs. Davenport? What if they find her there, 
 too?" 
 
 " She will have to go," said Helen quietly. " Or she 
 can stay : for that I can t control. But I shall be there 
 too." 
 
 All the powers of righteous law might have been behind 
 her, upholding the sanctities of the home her husband had 
 defiled. Norris was abashed before her. 
 
 " Well, my dear," he said, and felt he said it weakly, 
 " don t do anything rash. And remember this is between 
 us three. That I insist on." 
 
 He got out of the apartment and went down the stairs 
 feeling not like a Roman father but an ineffectual person 
 who had tried to do a delicate job and muddled it irre 
 trievably. As he went along the street a man behind 
 overtook him and fell into step. It was Cross. Norris
 
 THE BLACK DROP 317 
 
 looked around, gave him a nod and asked, he was afraid un 
 graciously, for he didn t want to encounter any other 
 aspect of the puzzle until he had got back the self-respect 
 lost by his ineptitude : 
 
 " Well ? Anything more ? " 
 
 " I ve been waiting for you," Cross replied. " I want 
 to know what madam says." 
 
 There was no serving man s deference about him now. 
 He was on a job, though of his own appointing, and he 
 spoke and acted with the decision fitted to it. Norris 
 gave a brief moment to wonder that he could admit him to 
 discussion of his son s most intimate affairs. Yet he felt 
 no distaste for Cross. They both seemed to be in a mis 
 erable coil together, and Cross was the honest man who 
 was as likely to help them all out as tie the tangle tighter. 
 Social barriers had fallen, as they were falling in the ranks 
 that fought Over There. In the forest fire, hereditary 
 foes were taking together to the stream. 
 
 "Waiting for me?" said Norris. " Am I being shadowed, 
 too? " He said it humorously, as he felt, though grimly. 
 
 " I knew you d go to see madam this morning," said 
 Cross simply. "How about France?" 
 
 Norris laughed, a little outburst of perfunctory amuse 
 ment over his accounting to Cross for family decisions. 
 
 "Go? She won t," said he succinctly. "Moreover 
 she asked me what was likely to happen, proved to me she 
 knew as much about her husband s activities as I did, and 
 says if he gets into trouble she ll go back to him and 
 see him through." 
 
 " No ! " shouted Cross, so explosively that a woman, 
 passing them, looked round at him. But he at once re 
 covered himself. " Then," he said, " he mustn t get into 
 trouble not yet."
 
 318 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 He stopped abruptly, touched his hat, and went his way. 
 
 Helen left alone with her sister, turned to Jessie in a 
 soft tenderness because she understood the girl s tempestu 
 ous mind. 
 
 " Jessie," she said, as if she begged forgiveness, " O 
 Jess ! " 
 
 Jessie s anger had gone, but the hurt of it was not. She 
 began to cry, and Helen, who had not seen her so undone 
 for years, was beside herself with alarm and misery. She 
 knelt by her, put her arms about the rocking figure and 
 solaced herself with inarticulate sounds of comfort. And 
 Jessie, though full of her own grief, was remorseful, too. 
 
 " I behaved dreadfully," she said, at last, when her sobs 
 had come down to rending breaths. " But how can you, 
 Nell, oh, how can you? how can you think of such a 
 thing? " 
 
 Helen spoke once only in answer to this. Indeed it 
 hardly seemed to her wise, even in her pity, to speak at all, 
 because she must maintain her point. 
 
 "You don t quite see, Jess. When you re married, 
 you ll understand." 
 
 Jessie s sobs ceased at the strange reminiscent shock of 
 it. That was, she thought, what John s mother had said to 
 him. She put it away in her mind, to think over. 
 
 " But not yet, Nell, not yet," she aUowed herself to say. 
 " Don t even think of it yet."
 
 XXX 
 
 THAT afternoon, just as the dusk was falling and the 
 lights blooming out in it like gay encouraging signals to 
 say another sort of day had begun, John, crossing the 
 Common, met Helen, walking fast. He was much pleased. 
 She would let him turn about with her and they would 
 walk together, only that pace of hers would have to be 
 slackened for his infirmity. But she gave him a look, a 
 call, a wave of the hand a wave of dismissal and fare 
 well, he felt it to be and she was past him and flying on. 
 Something in her face, too, was tragic like that hurrying 
 pace. He went along slowly, thinking her over, the mean 
 ing of her look and, because he must know, rang the bell of 
 her apartment to be told Jessie was at home. And here 
 the tragedy was duplicated, so far as what was Helen 
 could be repeated in Jessie. She was by the window, 
 apparently watching the lights. It was a little ceremo 
 nial of twilight she and Helen loved. She did not turn as 
 he came in, and he went to her, asking bluffly when he was 
 half across the room: 
 
 "What s the matter with her? I ve just met her. Jessie, 
 she s down and out." 
 
 He had reached her by the window, and now she turned 
 to him and through the dusk he saw her pale, stained face. 
 She had been crying again, Jessie who aimed at being so 
 game she never cried. Her face gave him a double be 
 wilderment, but for that instant he thought only of Helen. 
 
 319
 
 320 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 "Where s she going anyway?" he pursued, "after 
 dark, too. You said she shouldn t go out alone." 
 
 " Getting the air, she told me," said Jessie bitterly. 
 " And running away from me. I wanted to go with her. 
 She wouldn t let me. She s got to have a minute to get 
 hold of herself." 
 
 " She didn t say that, not that way? " 
 
 " No, she s too sweet. But unhappy ! O John, un 
 happy ! I ve been a beast." 
 
 " Rubbish," said John. " You two don t scrap." 
 
 " No. But she told me what she was going to do and 
 I flared up. I m a firebrand you know. If you didn t 
 know it, I ll tell you now." 
 
 "What about?" 
 
 "She said, if he got into trouble 
 
 "He? Charles?" 
 
 " Yes. If he s disgraced she ll go back to him." 
 
 "By God! she sha n t," cried John, and heard himself 
 shout it without knowing what he said. And Jessie stand 
 ing there piteous before him, and looking up at him as if 
 she believed he could really bring about what would keep 
 more tears from her lovely cheeks, he suddenly ceased think 
 ing of Helen and thought of her. He put out his hand 
 and touched her shoulder timidly, and then was frightened 
 at the warmth of her skin under the soft lace. 
 
 " Don t," he said. " Don t cry." 
 
 " No," said Jessie, " I won t cry." 
 
 But she looked at him so miserably obedient and humble 
 in her certainty of having done everything wrong that she 
 went to his heart, and opened the door there and shut it 
 after her and made it breathless from the warmth and 
 sweetness of her. He put out both hands now and drew 
 her toward him, and their cheeks touched and they stood
 
 THE BLACK DROP 321 
 
 there silent, afraid and wildly happy. Then John said 
 her name and turned her face to him and they kissed, and 
 when she would have left him he caught her back, and in 
 stead of telling her what he felt about their mingled fear 
 and rapture, asked it in a question instead : 
 
 " Jessie, do you suppose we are in love? " 
 
 She didn t answer, but he felt her trembling and, with a 
 queer sharp pang he hadn t been prepared for, said to her, 
 in words that came of themselves and that he would never 
 have chosen, so childish were they: 
 
 "Have you been in love before?" 
 
 " No," said Jessie. " Not ever. But," she added jeal 
 ously, " you have. There s Helen." 
 
 "Helen?" 
 
 " You think she s the most beautiful ever. You said 
 so." 
 
 " I love you," said John, for sufficient answer, " nobody 
 but you." And having said it, half against his will, he 
 felt a strange acquiescence, as if something tremendous in 
 his life were over for good. " Helen? " he said again 
 vaguely. Helen, in her perfections, seemed as far away as 
 the stars, beautiful like them and yet remote, and this 
 adoration in his arms was his, the warmth of the sun, 
 the shadow from its too fervent heat, sweet sleep in unison 
 of breath, the earth that blessed and fed and beckoned you 
 to its bosom for the last sleep of all. Helen would always 
 be beauty unattainable and rare, but a little blurred now 
 because they had together unwittingly pushed her so far 
 away. " We must be awfully good to Helen," he said. 
 
 " Good to her ! good to Helen ! That s what we re for." 
 
 " She ll be lonesome," said John, " when we re married 
 unless we see to it." 
 
 She gave a little start at that. But it wasn t surprise.
 
 322 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 The truth is that she had got quite used to seeing herself 
 married to John. 
 
 "We sha n t be lonesome any more," said John. It 
 suddenly seemed to him he had been a wandering light 
 without her, and she asked him, laughing a little, tenderly, 
 to make it banter: 
 
 " But you haven t been lonesome. You ve had them all, 
 your father and mother and grandsir 
 
 "It s different," said John. "They ve forgotten - 
 this. All but grandsir. I don t believe he forgets. Any 
 how, we re not alone any more. We re a crowd." 
 
 " She mustn t go back to him," said Jessie. " We 
 mustn t let her. And yet," she added, with a sudden access 
 of blinding knowledge, " I should want to go back to you." 
 
 There was a good deal of this, strophe and answer of 
 lyric love, and every word of it so significant that each put 
 it down with the sharp stylus of remembrance for "the 
 sessions of sweet silent thought," if ever they should be 
 briefly separated. Or perhaps it was only the woman 
 who meant to think back to it again. The man had no 
 such tender thrift. He was all for squandering. Yet 
 John had also the strangest sharp sensation of having come 
 a long road, with Jessie at the end. And there was, 
 beside the long road feeling, a sudden sense of stability, 
 of waiting for things to come to pass. It was all differ 
 ent, the earth as he had grown used to looking on it. The 
 tree was thinking down to its root, not forgetful of the 
 old commerce with birds and wafting airs, but conscious of 
 a deeper clutch in earth, of having to stay just here and 
 shelter something. John found himself tremulously feeling 
 along the chain of life, reaching his hand back to his father 
 and grandsir and at the same time holding Jessie to him 
 in the appointed bond. Was this the family? he didn t
 
 THE BLACK DROP 323 
 
 ask himself that, but assuredly these were breathless recog 
 nitions he was meeting for the first time. 
 
 " That was the reason," he said tumultuously, " wasn t 
 it? the reason we hated each other so at first. It s the 
 same thing, in degree, anyway love head on and crash 
 ing down on you. No wonder you re so scared and shocked 
 it makes you mad." 
 
 Jessie did not answer this. She had never hated him. 
 
 " I ll tell you," he said, " I haven t told anybody else 
 I see now why I didn t it had to be you I m bet 
 ting on Landis. I believe in him, same as Bones does. 
 And if I m not going to be lame, I shall be a decent enough 
 fellow to marry. Besides, if the war lasts, don t you see 
 I might get into it ? " 
 
 Then they heard Helen s key and he said : 
 
 " I m going to tell her. We must tell them all, Helen 
 first and then grandsir." 
 
 " No," she said, this as Helen was opening the outer 
 door, "you mustn t. Don t you see? not while she s 
 so sorry. She s lonesome. And we re a crowd." 
 
 The figure was an ecstasy. She saw them, John and her 
 self, flying along, attended by all the laughing nymphs and 
 graces, the dancing hours, life, life in abundance. Helen 
 came in presently and found them in the dusk and excitedly 
 glad, it seemed, to see her. She turned on the light and 
 found the two faces full of an eager, tremulous emotion 
 she had no difficulty in translating. They had been talk 
 ing of her, she knew, and were planning how to be kind. 
 And some of her misery fell away from her, and she gave 
 Jessie s heart a lift by showing she had got hold of herself 
 and meant to be the old Helen again.
 
 XXXI 
 
 AND now, what of Charles? while, to this little group 
 with its eyes, for one reason or another, focused upon him, 
 he loomed black and sinister because his deeds were evil, 
 was he monstrous to himself? Did he see that he was 
 stumbling about in the underworld and long, even though 
 briefly, to escape and visit the clear air and sun? Not at 
 all. He felt very much the same except, as he would have 
 said, he was not quite fit. He was still drinking heavily, 
 and his nerves were not of the sort to stand it. But a man 
 who had his worries would have been of a titanic strength 
 to abjure all artificial bracers in a life of what had become 
 little less than a daily emergency. For he had worries 
 from which not even Elsa could save him, and she was, he 
 gave her credit, a trump, going with him step by step, 
 warning him here and at another point buttressing him 
 against the effects of his own tremors. While the loss of 
 Captain Pfaff s papers had at first angered him chiefly 
 through John s inexplicable connection with it, later it 
 had clutched him in the grasp of a great anxiety. He 
 might lie down at night with the worry drugged by some 
 specific or other, but, when he woke, there it was under the 
 coverlet with him, clawing at his heart. Always it was 
 ready for him in that baleful moment between three and 
 four when the body, feeling its mortality, is weak before 
 the foe. He had lost the pride of self-control and carried 
 his fear to Elsa like a child, and she fought it for him with 
 such clear logic and indomitable will that he began to look 
 upon her not only as his delight but the guardian of his 
 peace. 
 
 324
 
 THE BLACK DROP 325 
 
 One evening and this was before the arrest of Adler 
 he went to her in a state of tremor that terrified the 
 inmost heart of him. Was he going to have nerves at 
 last, he asked himself, the sort he had seen in some fellows 
 who had, in varying ways, done for themselves? He let 
 himself in he had a key to the apartment now and 
 felt at once a lull of momentary safety to hear the piano 
 thundering out a noble flood of triumphant processionals 
 to some sort of victory and what victory but his ? 
 Elsa came to him and gave herself to him passionately. 
 He knew she would when he heard that emotional torrent 
 from the keys, and he blessed the long dead wizards who 
 moved her as he could not and turned her over to him for 
 his comforting, they who needed comforting no more. 
 And he led her to the window-seat, the lights low, his arms 
 about her while he told her in a broken sentence how much 
 he feared. 
 
 " But don t you realize," she said, " it s your own 
 brother that stole it? Do you think he d inform on you? 
 Not he. He s a nice hot-headed lad, but as conven 
 tional as the rest of you. He won t give up a Tracy, for 
 he knows what it means a Federal prison, at the least." 
 
 Charles shook his head over the soft hair that touched 
 his shoulder. 
 
 " You re forgetting, too," he said. " John didn t have 
 the bag. He was seen at the station without it. And he 
 went back to Boston without it. For some unaccount 
 able reason he lost it or he threw it away." 
 
 " He couldn t have lost it and he wouldn t have thrown 
 it away. He hid it somewhere and got it afterward. He 
 knows that patch of woods as nobody else does. You 
 told me so yourself." 
 
 But this, as she said it, she did not believe. To her
 
 526 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 also, the loss of the thing was a threatening mystery. 
 Only, at this point, it was chiefly of importance that her 
 man should keep his nerve. If he lost that, he was 
 doomed, and she had the insight to see that the very force 
 and charm of him were the effect of a make-up which, if 
 it got jangled in this delicate business of playing the 
 devil, might leave him stripped and shivering in a world 
 he could no longer beguile nor fight. 
 
 " But concede it," she said, stroking his hand, the beau 
 tiful hand his mother loved. " Suppose it s turned over to 
 the Department, what then? Are you the only one im 
 plicated?" 
 
 " No," said Charles, taking momentary heart again, 
 in a violence of self- justification. " By God, I m not ! " 
 
 " I should say not. Think who is implicated. Run 
 over the names in those papers. If you ve forgotten, let 
 me tell you." 
 
 She began, but he stopped her in so sharp a haste 
 that she laughed and told him his nerves were getting the 
 better of him. He was all on edge. Why shouldn t she 
 name those names? Nobody could hear. 
 
 " No matter whether they can or not," he reminded her 
 violently. " Don t repeat them, that s all." 
 
 " Well," said she, " I won t. But if you re hauled up, 
 a few others are going to be, you know, and some very 
 pretty edifices are going to totter. You won t go down 
 alone, which means you won t go down at all." 
 
 He took heart and was ashamed of his apprehension. 
 But whenever they talked on these things, it always 
 came to this : his need of her. She was, he told her, his 
 right hand. For now he had begun to forget Helen. 
 
 Elsa left him and brought her little chair near him, and, 
 moved by the oneness of their aims and her soft sympathy,
 
 327 
 
 he told her for the first time how he had been dogged by 
 the grotesque follower in the cape and hat, and how the 
 most disquieting part of it was the speed with which the 
 creature got about from place to place. For he would 
 see him at one street corner and, going on, meet him at 
 another, and the fellow could not possibly have had time 
 to get there. She was enormously interested. 
 
 " But what do you do ? " she asked. 
 
 "Nothing. Walk along." 
 
 " Why don t you nab him and hand him over? " 
 
 " That s it. Even if I nabbed him I couldn t have, 
 so far how do I dare to hand him over when I don t 
 know what he s seen, what he knows? " 
 
 " Of course." She was grave again. " Stupid of 
 me. I was nodding that time. But he may be just dotty. 
 I don t quite see why it upsets you so." 
 
 " He isn t dotty," said Charles. " There s a purpose 
 in it. And it doesn t upset me, in a way. That is, I m 
 not afraid of any personal violence. Only its queer. 
 It s something deliberately planned. And when we re do 
 ing the things we are, don t you see we ve got to look 
 pretty sharp if there s anything different afoot?" 
 
 "Yes," said Elsa thoughtfully. "Yes." Her air 
 quickened with the piquing interest of it. " Do you sup 
 pose," she said, "he s out here now?" She rose, pressed 
 close against the darkened window and looked down. 
 " No, there is no one there." 
 
 " Elsa," he said, when she came back to him, " have you 
 ever thought what we re going to do if something is sprung 
 on us? if we have to get out in a hurry? " 
 
 " No," she said lightly. But she had. She had even 
 considered, as she sat there looking at his shadowy bulk 
 in the dark, if, through expediency, through the loyalty
 
 328 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 of partners in crime, she would take him with her. Not 
 for love ; she had known love, but the spring of it had died 
 in her soft youth. But if she was to live, she had to sac 
 rifice something for the manner of her living, perhaps pay 
 heavily. And, remote as she seemed from any yearning 
 for human ties, she did find it an ill thing to live alone. 
 In that moment she made up her mind he might, in 
 certain circumstances, go with her. 
 
 "What should you say," she began slowly, " to a job in 
 Mexico? " 
 
 " Mexico? " he repeated. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " You ve thought of it then? you realize we may have 
 to get out of here? " 
 
 "I know things are going to happen mighty fast, from 
 now on. Don t you? " 
 
 He knew it, but he did not answer her. 
 
 " War is to be declared in the spring." 
 
 " Yes," he confirmed her, " it s got to come." 
 
 " And of course, if nothing happens to shake us up, we 
 stay right here on the job. Obstruction, that s what the 
 Voice U stand for, crying up Germany, crying down the 
 chances of the Allies. And ours for by that time it ll 
 mean our chances, too. And there ll be some nice little 
 scientific jobs on hand. We ve got to trip up the army, 
 somehow. If not by keeping em downhearted, then by dis 
 ease and worse." 
 
 At that moment he thought he saw Helen before him in 
 a light not a bright light, but something soft, sufficient 
 to disclose her and she stood in front of the other wo 
 man and blotted her out. It is difficult to tell just how this 
 similitude appeared to him. It was not of the opacity of 
 mortal things nor was it a blazing vision, but it was gently
 
 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 revealing, and it was Helen. He drew his breath sharply, 
 almost like a cry, and Elsa came to him and laid her hand 
 on his shoulder. And as she came the wraith of the other 
 woman was gone, in some way he could not follow, and 
 left him staring at the dusk where, it seemed now, she 
 could not have been. 
 
 "What is it?" Elsa was asking. 
 
 He put up his hand and lifted hers from his shoulder. 
 
 " Don t," he said, " don t." 
 
 So she left him and sat down opposite and waited, and 
 the first sign that he had got hold of himself again was that 
 he gave a little moved laugh. 
 
 " Queer," he said, " queer. I don t believe I am very 
 fit." 
 
 " You re jumpy," said she. " I m not sure but a job 
 out of the country would be the best thing for you." 
 
 But he wanted to ask her something that had not, until 
 the wraith of Helen appeared in the room, ever occurred 
 to him. 
 
 " Elsa," he said, " you re different from any other wo 
 man I ever saw." 
 
 She laughed, whole-heartedly it seemed, yet that might 
 have been the adroitness of it. 
 
 " I should hope I did seem different," she said. " You ve 
 led me to suppose so." 
 
 He went on, not so much to her as absorbed in the puzzle 
 of it. 
 
 "What you said just now, about the men, about disease, 
 you know I can t imagine a woman s saying a thing 
 like that and not appearing to care." 
 
 " You know about those things. You know I know. 
 They re commonplaces to us both." She was trying so 
 to keep the desperate hardness of her purpose out of her
 
 330 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 voice that one might have said she spoke without thought, 
 carelessly. " We ve been over these things together. Why, 
 man, that s what we re doing. It s what we re hired to do. " 
 
 " But," he repeated stupidly, " you don t seem to care." 
 
 Now she did laugh with unfeigned mirth. 
 
 " That is," she said, " you want me to play the old 
 game, keep on doing the things, but lament over them 
 and be womanly while I do it. You d like to believe I 
 don t half realize the value of it all." 
 
 " I don t say that. Only you re different." 
 
 "Well? " she said. She got up and stood in front of 
 him, so close that he imagined he breathed in the warmth 
 of her body and guessed at its trembling. " If I wasn t 
 different, could I do it? If I hadn t shed a good many 
 skins, should I be what I am? " 
 
 He cried out with delight in her and caught her to him. 
 And she stayed, to persuade him by the warmth and frag 
 rance of her. The picture she had, by one stroke, painted 
 for him caught his fancy : the sinuous guile and evil of 
 the world, shedding its skin to emerge more shining and 
 more bright. His brain leaped to the fancy and threw 
 him words, half remembered, to bedeck it, " That running 
 brook of horror on the ground " who had said that or 
 something like it? But it was not horror to him, this 
 vision of the snake of evil. It was the more enchanting 
 in that it had escaped from bounds of dull virtues and 
 denials, and slipped across the earth of Eden to coil in 
 the inmost heart of man. 
 
 " A snake ! " he cried. " That s what you are. Darl 
 ing " and there he paused because more words came rush 
 ing, and he remembered what had been said of all snake- 
 women of all time - " serpent of old Nile." 
 
 She laughed. Yet underneath her laughter, she knew
 
 THE BLACK DROP 331 
 
 she was not the strange exotic devil his senses found her, 
 and that her passion of the moment was as premeditated 
 as her plans. But at all costs he must be kept. How 
 ever he had to hesitate or interrogate, whatever witch s 
 broth of passion he might demand from her, he must not 
 escape. Too much depended on him, his nerve, his calm 
 ness of discretion. At points, indeed, he was stupid. 
 She had found it out. They had all discovered it in a 
 measure, but too late, or they might not have trusted 
 him entirely. But now he was inside the black circle, and 
 there he must stay. He sat musing on her and the picture 
 she had given him. Now he could account for her, the 
 guile, the coldness and the weaving charm. She was not 
 pure woman. She belonged to the other world of those 
 who bewitched and held and poisoned, too, perhaps, under 
 whose gliding length the herbs of ruth lay withered, against 
 whom the gardens of life are defended, yet who reign there 
 unseen. She was craft and power and swiftness, and 
 if there was venom under her fangs it would never 
 be for him. He was not even apprehensive now, though 
 there was still the loss of the papers and the foolish men 
 ace of his grotesque follower. For whatever happened, 
 the snake could glide by unseen ways and she would take 
 him with her. 
 
 When he went home that night, he was not dogged, and 
 that also steadied him. But on the way suddenly the 
 strangeness of that vision of Helen came to him, as if the 
 cold air brought her, and he walked past his door and on 
 to hers and stood opposite, on the other side of the street, 
 and looked up at its dark windows. He hardly knew why 
 he did it. He most assuredly did not want the windows 
 bright for him. The little snake which was Elsa was 
 coiled up in what he would have called his heart. Only
 
 332 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 the vision of Helen had been so unaccountable. 
 But he dismissed it and went back home, and slept that 
 night securely, with a curiously pleased sense of safety 
 and possession now that he could think of the little snake. 
 Helen, in her bed, was not sleeping. She had gone there 
 early because the strange things of her later life had come 
 upon her as they did sometimes, in a dark, flying cloud, 
 and she could not bear even Jessie s company. And there 
 she had lain, hour after hour, calling upon her husband, 
 whether his soul she did not know, but the inner, invisible 
 part of him, as God saw it, beseeching him to leave the 
 ways of darkness and return.
 
 XXXII 
 
 CHARLES was having respite from the pranks of his 
 grotesque follower because Bailey, Finch and Brennan 
 were simply too busy on another tack: enthusiastically 
 busy, too, for they believed they had attained their end. 
 And the result of their work reached him in a big package, 
 due at this time. Charles came in it was three days 
 after Adler had been spirited away from Grasslands and 
 he had heard no word of it received the package from 
 the blonde chatelaine with the smile she loved while she hope 
 fully wondered if it were hers alone and went on to his 
 room. His letters were on the desk, awaiting him, a neat 
 pile with a telegram on top. He took off his hat and coat and 
 opened the telegram, to stare, mutter a bewildered curse 
 or two and stare again. It was from New York, from the 
 Fritz he had left in charge at Grasslands, and it told him 
 in guarded language that, since the gentleman staying at 
 the house had disappeared, they two, the man and wife, 
 had not felt easy and had left. The gentleman had dis 
 appeared : he sat with the paper in his hand dwelling on 
 these four words. His man and woman had run away 
 consistently enough, for they had just been paid. They 
 were of no importance. But the gentleman had dis 
 appeared. He knew what that meant, the only thing it 
 could mean. Adler had been taken and taken from Grass 
 lands. Where did that leave him? He tore the telegram 
 into bits, threw them into the basket and sat there holding 
 down his quivering nerves. Slighter terrors stabbed at 
 
 333
 
 334 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 him beside the greater one. The telegram, for instance : 
 fools, to have sent that when they could have written him 
 as well. Or they could have telephoned at once and he 
 would have gone down to hear the evil tale. 
 
 Mechanically he tore open the package before him 
 because the sanity of composure lay in doing something, 
 and at the first cartoon, with its accompanying inscrip 
 tion, he did blench with something like horror. For this, 
 he found, in the instant of turning them over, was another 
 continued series, and it was, in verse, an epic story of 
 the kidnapping of Adler. The artists had laid themselves 
 out with a gaiety of resolve which had resulted in something 
 so spirited, so audacious, that Charles, the newspaper 
 instinct triumphing, for a moment, over his sick soul, saw 
 the money value of the thing, and cursed them anew because 
 he could not use it. There was Adler in the security of the 
 room at Grasslands, with his pipe and his glass, and there 
 was Adler leaving the door of Grasslands and the kid 
 nappers ready to force him into the car. And one of them 
 was Charles s follower in the cloak and hat. The other 
 two were masked. That, Brennan concluded, added to 
 their mystery. The face of Adler himself was half averted 
 because Brennan, never having seen him, had to rely on 
 Bailey for descriptive data ; but the wry mouth was un 
 mistakable and the enormous ear escaping from the shock 
 of hair. There was the transfer of the prisoner from one 
 car to another, on a lonely road, and his delivery to a 
 frowning building where uniformed officials received him. 
 Brennan had had to draw on fancy here, but the scene was 
 right enough. It told the story. But what entirely 
 floored Charles, like a blow in the face, was the figure in 
 the cape and hat. So they had hatched up that job, 
 the young devils. And Bailey, in his galloping verse,
 
 THE BLACK DROP 335 
 
 told their story gaily. The three sleuths, he called them ; 
 and in another cartoon Brennan had drawn them standing 
 in a line, grinning, and in another filing into a photog 
 rapher s, each in his cape and hat. This last was 
 labelled The Composite. So that was the photograph, 
 still standing on his desk. It was a childish sort of farce, 
 and he had let it move him. He brought his hand down 
 on the pile of papers with a force that hurt it and left 
 them undented. That was it, he thought, a symbol of the 
 disproportioned waste and general devilishness of life. 
 He had squandered his nerve on these three fools who in 
 turn spent their talent and their energies in playing about 
 like mountebanks, to whom the world itself, that gigantic 
 market-place and battlefield, was itself a playground. 
 And he had been moved by them. He had trembled lest the 
 childish machinery they had set whirling about him was 
 something to stretch out a claw and draw him in, or that 
 a broken band from it would fly and strike him. He had 
 been a fool. And yet had he? Wasn t the grotesque 
 intent of them merely the index of a purpose? Were they 
 like the Fool of the Fool s Revenge, playing the mounte 
 bank for desperate design? And mustn t he perhaps fear 
 them the more, instead of less, in that their scheme looked 
 light as air? for it might well be the air that fans a flame 
 to fury. For here was the last cartoon of all : a galley, 
 the oars idle, and in it the three in their fantastic garb 
 and over them the explanatory legend, Kipling s " Will 
 vou never let us go? " Charles himself was the potentate, 
 his robes heavy with embroidery, his crown a circlet rayed 
 with gems. He was looking down upon them so arro 
 gantly you actually heard the question issuing from his 
 haughty mouth: "You threaten me?" From the lips 
 of the cockiest, most impudent of them, flew the answer:
 
 336 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 "Yes. Who was hiding Adler? " This figure was a 
 masterpiece. Brennan, in an amazing line or two, had 
 done Bailey to the life. 
 
 That was it: they were threatening him, bidding him 
 take heed, since they knew this one, at least, of his activi 
 ties. They had, by some chance, ill-starred for him, 
 picked up a crucial fact. It was in their possession, to 
 be sold or given away; but first of all to be offered him 
 to buy their freedom. And while he was staring that 
 certainty in the face the blonde chatelaine asked from the 
 next room if Mr. Tracy were there. Mr. Bailey was 
 calling. Charles answered on the instant: 
 
 " Mr. Tracy is not here at the moment. Ask Mr. 
 Bailey to wait while we look him up." 
 
 He gathered the cartoons and verse together and made 
 them into a neat bundle, stopping only to swear at the 
 knotted tape, throw it away and tie them up with string. 
 Then he slipped the package under his letters, laid the 
 pile on the top of his desk and called up the next room. 
 Mr. Tracy had been found and Mr. Bailey might come in. 
 And when Bailey opened the door, Charles was whistling 
 in a musical undertone and reaching for his letters. These 
 he proceeded to open as they talked. 
 
 "Hullo," said he, with the utmost cheerfulness. "I 
 hoped you d be in. Got me some stuff? " 
 
 Bailey, when he stepped into the room, had looked 
 highly excited. He knew it by the feelings within him and 
 could not, hard as he pressed himself, assume a more 
 specious calm. His pink cheeks were red and his mouth 
 wore an interrogatorv smile. " Queer state of things, 
 isn t it? " This was what his look said. " Well, we ve got 
 to talk it out together, and it ll be queerer when we re 
 through." But when he found Charles glancing at him
 
 THE BLACK DROP 337 
 
 so casually and so kindly, and opening letters with a 
 rapid hand, he did feel suddenly crestfallen, and looked 
 that also, giving Charles a quick satisfaction because it 
 assured him of being, momentarily at least, on top. 
 
 " No," said Bailey, fumbling with the doubt of the situa 
 tion. " The fact is, I left our stuff last night after you 
 had gone." 
 
 " Odd," said Charles. " I haven t seen it." 
 
 " That s it," said Bailey, still more depressed. For 
 if Charles had not read their argument, then the play 
 could not be played out as he had planned. He couldn t 
 spring the climax of the third act because the necessary 
 elucidations hadn t led up to it. " That s it, on the top 
 of your desk." 
 
 He ventured to pull it forward to assure himself also. 
 But at the moment of touching it, his face changed. The 
 old imps, veiled for a moment, were again dancing in his 
 eyes. He was approaching his third act after all. 
 
 " Ah, to be sure," said Charles. " Well, I won t stop 
 to open them now. They re up to the same standard, 
 I ve no doubt. You always are, you fellows. How do 
 you manage it? Strike twelve every time?" 
 
 " Spectacular of us," said Bailey, with a grin. " No 
 way to tell folks the time of day though. And that s 
 really what we re after. That s what I m after now, Mr. 
 Tracy. We want to make a new deal. Begin over, 
 strike one." 
 
 Charles was meeting him in sympathetic interest. 
 Almost, if Bailey had not known how inevitably the steps 
 were leading to that third act and he was ringing up 
 the curtain now he would have thought Charles was 
 the most ingenuous and the kindliest of men. 
 
 "The fact is," he said, and this was the predestined
 
 338 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 entrance upon the third act. After this there would be 
 no returning " we want to tear up our contracts with 
 you and make a new deal." 
 
 " You? " said Charles, painfully surprised, it seemed. 
 "All of you?" 
 
 " Yes. Brennan and Finch, too. I m spokesman. I 
 don t know why. They always put their dirty work on 
 me. Yes, we want to tear up our contracts and get out. 
 We ve no reason to give. We just want to, that s all." 
 
 "No reason?" asked Charles, still sympathetically, and 
 evidently looking chiefly at their side. " And why the 
 deuce do you want to do a thing you ve no reason for? " 
 
 " That s it," said Bailey airily. " I suppose we re queer 
 Dicks ; but that s the way we are. Erratic, you know. 
 Temperament. We just want to slip out of this thing 
 and work on our own. Of course if our stuff suited you 
 we d love to submit it : but not regularly, not as a matter 
 of necessity." 
 
 Charles had been looking at him in pained and benevo 
 lent interest. Now he turned his eyes upon his desk and 
 sat drumming noiselessly with one hand and apparently 
 thinking hard. Bailey, in reporting the interview to the 
 others, confessed he never had felt more equably suspended 
 in the air between the beetling heights of two alternatives. 
 On the one side was the green height of freedom, if Charles 
 could incredibly be persuaded to let them go. On the 
 other loomed the steely cliff of denial, and between lay the 
 unplumbed abyss of Charles s rage. Over this the exceed 
 ingly tenuous cord of Charles s fictitious composure held 
 him, and if it broke, in what cranny would his bones be 
 found bleaching by Finch and Brennan when they came 
 to hunt him up? And after all he wasn t sure Charles 
 had seen the explanatory cartoons. He had only guessed
 
 THE BLACK DROP 339 
 
 it, and the way might not have been prepared. But 
 Charles looked suddenly up with his flashing smile, that 
 sudden lighting of his face which was always unexpected 
 enough to make you catch your breath, it had such beauty. 
 
 " Bailey," he said, " I m going to be square with you. 
 I m awfully sorry. I m I m hurt, if that isn t too soft 
 a way to put it. I thought we should work in together 
 and go on working and but no matter. Of course, if 
 you want to go you must." 
 
 Bailey said afterward to the boys that Charles was 
 so convincing he wondered, for the instant, whether they 
 did want to go, whether Adler s abduction and the apos 
 tasy of the Voice were not idle dreams he had fished out 
 of his own silly fancy. He had to hold on to himself, he 
 said. He had to put wax in his ears to shut out the 
 persuasions of the siren Charles. Brennan made a big 
 drawing of it, as they listened, Charles sitting on a rock, 
 doing the siren act, fitted out with harp and floating 
 tresses and the sea waves dashing at his feet. But Bailey 
 did shut up his mind and pass this moment chiefly, after 
 the first glance at such ingenuous kindliness, by not look 
 ing at Charles. He plunged into his pocket and produced 
 the contracts. 
 
 " Here they are," said he, in breathless dread of himself, 
 " the three of them. I m commissioned, with your leave, to 
 tear em up." 
 
 " Hm ! hm ! " Charles hummed, not unmusically, to him 
 self, as if, though the decisive word had been uttered, he 
 were still sadly thoughtful. He went to the safe, opened 
 it, sought a moment, again considering, put his hand on 
 a packet of papers, withdrew three and came back with them 
 to the desk. He spread them out, face uppermost, one 
 upon the other.
 
 340 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " There you are," he said. 
 
 Bailey now could hardly believe in his good luck. 
 
 " Shall I tear up these? " he asked. 
 
 Charles gave the ones on his desk a little flip toward him. 
 
 " All of them," he said, still regretfully. " The whole 
 business, if that s what you want." 
 
 And though his forbearance and courtesy were somehow 
 making Bailey ashamed of himself and inclined to get 
 angry, in self-defense, because he was ashamed, he fell 
 upon the papers and tore right and left. When they were 
 in inconsiderable pieces, he scooped up what had fallen on 
 the desk and carried them in his hands to the basket, and 
 nothing was left. 
 
 "There, by George!" said he. "Mr. Tracy, I m 
 awfully obliged to you." He could hardly help saying 
 instead : " It s awfully decent of you." He had to keep 
 reminding himself : " But he is pro-German and we ve 
 caught him and pushed him and bullied him and he can t 
 help himself." 
 
 Yet such is the force of a faultless behavior that he knew 
 Charles was, to all seeming, coming out on top. 
 
 " I want you to be suited," said Charles bluffly. 
 "Heavens, man! you don t suppose I d keep you if you 
 don t choose to stay? " 
 
 He held out his hand. 
 
 But Bailey, suddenly looking in his eyes, saw something 
 there, something his own eye told him to match up Avith 
 the specious words, if he really was going to understand 
 Charles. And this was, he told the boys, that Charles was 
 really " mad as ten devils." So he ignored the hand 
 which, in the light of that glance, suddenly looked to him 
 the hand of one who was not an honest man, and went away 
 without a word.
 
 THE BLACK DROP 341 
 
 Charles stood perfectly still until Bailey had had time 
 to cross the outer office ; then he drew a quick breath, and 
 then another. It was not as if he were inviting them, 
 but the breaths had him in their power and were shaking 
 him. He stepped to the side of the room where there was 
 a moderately heavy chair, lifted it and threw it so that it 
 met its doom against the wall and lay shattered, one leg 
 gone. Then he returned to his desk, and was absorbedly 
 busy when the chatelaine knocked and entered. She was 
 interrogative and wild-eyed. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Mr. Tracy," she said. " You 
 haven t hurt yourself? " 
 
 " No," said Charles pleasantly. " What made you think 
 I had?" 
 
 " I heard a noise," said she, and ended blankly, " Why, 
 just look at that chair! " 
 
 " It fell," said Charles, still pleasantly. " No, there 
 wasn t any noise, not in here. Probably in the street." 
 
 That night, when Bailey, Finch and Brennan were 
 celebrating their new freedom over the excellent rarebit 
 Bailey served in his attic room, and the rejoicings were 
 not loud but almost prayerfully subdued, life seemed a 
 thing of such grotesque complexity, Brennan remembered. 
 
 " But you said," he remarked, " Tracy told you he 
 hadn t opened our stuff and then you knew he had." 
 
 " I saw the string," said Bailey. " Mine was a nice 
 green tape and that was all in a mess in the basket. I 
 saw it. And he d tied em up again with rough manila, 
 and there was a bit of that in the basket, too." 
 
 " But it might not have been he," said Finch. " It 
 might have been that peroxide Peri at the gate." 
 
 " Yes," said Bailey modestly. " Only it wasn t, that s 
 all."
 
 JOHN, in spite of the looming anxiety which was Charles 
 and the unbelievable disaster of Helen s going back to him, 
 found himself night and day traveling a new road where 
 Jessie was the only other wayfarer. The most curious 
 thing had happened to them in their stumbling into this 
 lonely, superlatively lovely road. It seemed like a road 
 other people had known, each once upon a time, and then 
 had lost either because they didn t stay wise enough to 
 keep it or never had guessed, when they had it, how lucky 
 they were and also how easy it was to miss a guidepost 
 here and there. It was entirely different from every other 
 road. The sun upon it was brighter and the shade more 
 delicately green. The leaves trembled, in a wonderful way, 
 and the fruits that dangled low for comfort and high for 
 daring, were all honeyed fragrance and melting to the taste. 
 John and Jessie had entered on the entrancing pastime 
 of going on and on, and were certain to go on forever, 
 because they knew exactly how lucky they were ; they had 
 been clever enough to detect at once the greatest beauty 
 about the road, which was that it had no end. And its 
 name was love. 
 
 When John could intermit wondering about Jessie, he 
 wondered about himself. He recognized himself, in this 
 glass of his reflections, as different. Every step on the 
 road took him forward into a new solicitude, a new author 
 ity. He had become potentially the head of a family, 
 and light, full flood, seemed to be pouring in on him. 
 
 342
 
 THE BLACK DROP 343 
 
 The first thing he did by way of confirming this freedom 
 of his bondage, was to disobey Jessie, with an unquestion 
 ing assumption that he knew what was best for them, as 
 travellers on the enchanted road, and go in to tell grand- 
 sir all about it. He chose the early evening when grandsir 
 was less likely to be tired, and because it was news not so 
 well suited to the light of day. The stars were in it, and 
 dusk and sunset clouds and all the mysteries, and night 
 herself: for when you came to mysteries, she was the 
 mother of them. By day, John had learned, you were 
 likely to be misled by your own conceit ; but when you 
 looked up at the stars or the veil that covered them, 
 you caught just an echo of the song the morning stars 
 sang together and you might croak a note or two yourself. 
 John was looking now with the poet s eye, and his mother, 
 noting the exalted brilliance of his face, thought back to 
 the hope Doctor Landis had given him and concluded, in 
 one of her tender remorses, that perhaps none of them, 
 well as they thought they knew it, had ever really entered 
 into John s feeling about his infirmity. 
 
 This evening he found grandsir reading at his table. 
 
 " One of dad s books ! " John remarked, in extreme sur 
 prise, when grandsir had closed it and told him to sit 
 down. " Grandsir, you don t read em all, do you? " 
 
 " Why, yes," said grandsir. He rose and, helping him 
 self a part of the way by one hand on the table, came 
 round to the fire. " Of course I do." 
 
 " Well, you know," said John, with the frankness of 
 his daytime manner, " they re rotten books." 
 
 Grandsir couldn t afford to answer that. He had no 
 particular claim, he thought, on the intellectual life. 
 There were a few things he did know, these not as a critic 
 but, he quoted, by the light of natur . He contented him-
 
 344 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 self now with a quotation Norris was fond of using at 
 exigencies when middle-age found itself at a discount: 
 
 " O gentle boy with smooth white brow, 
 I would I were cocksure as thou ! 
 
 " Oh, that s all right," said John, who had heard it 
 before. " My brow ain t so very smooth and it ain t so 
 very white not so you d notice it but they are rotten 
 books, and don t you forget it." 
 
 " Well," said grandsir, " I suppose there are fashions 
 in books. These may not suit your particular period. 
 You don t need to read em. But when you re as old as 
 I am, maybe you ll like to run em over and find out for 
 youself just what sort of a chap your father was. Maybe 
 you will. I don t know." 
 
 " You see," said John, still in his capacity of critic, 
 " they re sort of mid-Victorian." 
 
 " It wasn t a bad thing to be mid- Victorian," said grand- 
 sir tolerantly. But. what was he tolerant of, mid-Victo- 
 rianism or John? 
 
 " No ! oh, no ! There were some mighty fine old duffers 
 along there; but just now they seem terrible thin." 
 
 " I suppose," said grandsir, " the reason I read em is 
 chiefly because I want to understand my son s mind. I like 
 to get inside it and see it work. It shows me what sort 
 of a son I ve got." 
 
 " Oh, dad s all right," said John, his own mind giving a 
 flirt now and flying off to Jessie. " Only, that s just it. 
 He gets his characters out of his mind. They re all dad 
 himself, one way or another, dad as a father, as a grand 
 father, as a college girl, a plumber, a teetotaler. They 
 don t rise and walk, grandsir. They just plain don t. 
 And they re as much you and me as they are dad.
 
 THE BLACK DROP 345 
 
 Don t you know we three talk alike and think alike? We 
 are alike. And so are dad s characters. They re a kind 
 of a Tracy exhibit." 
 
 " I ve got something in my desk I should like to show 
 you." Grandsir spoke with deliberation, as if he were 
 debating on the wisdom of what he felt moved to do. " It s 
 something your father s been at work on lately, not, you ll 
 see, for publication, but because he s been having a good 
 many worries, and I have an idea he thought he could work 
 out of em better if he put certain things down on paper. 
 You needn t tell him I showed it to you. The only reason 
 he brought it to me was because we d both been fretting 
 over the same thing. Maybe he thought it might help 
 me a little, too. You go to my right hand little drawer 
 there. It s on top." 
 
 John went to the drawer and came back with a thickish 
 manuscript. 
 
 " Read it," said grandsir. " Run through it now and 
 I ll shut my eyes and think about it. I know it pretty 
 well by heart. Then, when you ve finished, you can tell 
 me what you think. If you hear your father coming, just 
 chuck it back in the drawer. I have an idea he d feel a 
 little shy with you, more n he would with me, anyway. 
 You see I m not intellectual." 
 
 " The Politician," said John. 
 
 Then he began to run over it to himself, in his quick habit 
 of taking in a page at a gulp, the practised reader s way. 
 Grandsir appeared to fall into what he called a sog, and 
 John felt himself entirely alone with the paper. But 
 presently so vividly did the thing impress him that he 
 wondered if it were the sequence of words he was absorbed 
 in or his father himself. And suddenly he felt young and 
 foolish and, as it were, bereft, in the certainty that he
 
 346 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 had never known his father at all. When he came to the 
 last page he drew a deep breath and, as if he had been 
 waiting for it, grandsir s eyes came open with a blink. 
 
 " Look here," said John, " this is perfectly ripping, 
 you know. I didn t think he had it in him." 
 
 " Just put it back in the drawer," said grandsir, " in 
 case he comes in." 
 
 When John went back with it, he stood there, rereading 
 a page or two ; but he finally laid it in and shut the drawer 
 upon it. 
 
 " Well," said grandsir, when he came back to the fire 
 and grandsir was rather maliciously pleased to see 
 how pale John looked, with brilliant eyes, as if he had been 
 startled out of his carelessness and his calm " measures 
 up to the modern standard all right? " 
 
 " Oh, it s ripping," said John again. " It s one of the 
 great papers on public events, the kind big men used to 
 write, and professors tell us to read and mostly we don t." 
 
 " Not especially mid-Victorian? " 
 
 " O grandsir," said John, " don t you tell me I m a 
 chump. English like that and straight thinking like that 
 isn t then or now. It just belongs to all time, and you 
 know it does. You think I m more or less of a fool and 
 you re trying to get a rise out of me." 
 
 " No," said grandsir, " not that. I never ve tried to do 
 any moral kindergartening with you. Besides, you re a 
 man now like the rest of us. But I ve been thinking a 
 good deal about your father lately, and I rather wanted 
 you to think about him, too. You see, John, since the war 
 begun, your father s seemed to me what I call the best sort 
 of an American." 
 
 John nodded. He would not let himself speak thougli 
 he felt the words flooding, he was so afraid grandsir would
 
 THE BLACK DROP 347 
 
 stop. But grandsir was absorbed now in saying at least 
 a little of what he had to say and there was a great 
 deal of it, more than was likely ever to be said and he 
 went on. 
 
 " You see your father s had the life of most any pros 
 perous American. I made money enough for all of you 
 and I guess there s enough to last till the proletariat comes 
 in and chops off your heads. The heads of your children, 
 rather. I put it about then." 
 
 John gave a start in his chair and looked up at grand- 
 sir, the red flooding his face. His children ! did grandsir 
 know about Jessie? No, grandsir was only finding a 
 figure of speech, and was going on, absorbed in his manner 
 of putting it. 
 
 " So your father could write just the way he wanted 
 to. If he d been poorer, maybe he could have written 
 better. I don t know. That s for you clever heads to 
 find out. And your father expected to grow old like me 
 only let s hope he wouldn t have stiffened up in this 
 devilish way and perhaps go abroad again and then 
 settle down in the chimney corner and read books, and 
 be kind of sorry he hadn t written better ones of his own, 
 but not care so much about it after all because I guess 
 life shows you in the end it isn t any more important 
 to write books than it is to do some other things and 
 then the war came. John, you must see how the war s 
 changed things." 
 
 John nodded, but in his heart he remorsefully knew he 
 had not suspected it had changed things for father, who 
 was too old to do anything of consequence and, like the old, 
 accepted it and didn t think about it. 
 
 " If your father had been twenty years younger," said 
 grandsir, " he d have been in it ; or, being as old as he is
 
 348 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 now, if he d lived any sort of public life politics, you 
 know he d be in it now, hammer and tongs. That s 
 what I call the American of it. There are hundreds of 
 mild sort of men like your father that, when such a call 
 comes, just rise and act. And if the call comes for him, 
 he ll rise and act, too, and you won t know him, John. 
 And then ll be your time to stand by him and realize what 
 kind of a chap your father is." 
 
 John was staring at him now from under frowning 
 brows, and he asked: 
 
 " You mean something, grandsir. What are you tell 
 ing me all this for, if you don t mean something by it? 
 What s he going to do ? " 
 
 " I want you," said grandsir again, " to understand 
 what sort of a man your father is. He s head of the fam 
 ily, and if anything comes up to throw us on our beam 
 ends, we ve got to let him stay at the helm and take our 
 orders from him. That s all." 
 
 That, John knew, from old experience, was the limit of 
 what he should get out of him. But as he sat there, some 
 queer intelligence began to come alive in him, a sentiency 
 that crept along his body, like apprehension, and ended 
 in his brain. And there it told him something that turned 
 him sick with a spiritual nausea, a revolt against the in 
 credible thing his mind had just presented to him. It had 
 been, the minute before, a point of honor not to interro 
 gate grandsir further, after the finality of those last words. 
 But the question came rushing from his lips because it was 
 so horrible a visitant within him he could not entertain it 
 further. 
 
 " Grandsir, did he mean Charles ? The Politician is 
 it Charles?" 
 
 Grandsir sat a moment in silence. Then he shifted
 
 THE BLACK DROP 349 
 
 himself carefully in his chair and answered, with a set 
 indifference : 
 
 " The question never came up between us. I didn t ask 
 him." 
 
 " And," John wondered if he wanted to add, " you 
 should have copied our reticence and not have asked me." 
 
 But John felt he could not endure within him the burn 
 ing of those doubts. He had to push on. 
 
 "It sounds to me I didn t think of it when I read it, 
 but that s because it s so abstract it s like a big stu 
 dent s thinking out things in his study, Milton s prose, you 
 know, Edmund Burke it sounds like the things I believe 
 about Charles. Only I couldn t have put em so." 
 
 " You ve said a good deal yourself about Charles, one 
 time and another," said grandsir, with a sad humor. 
 
 " Yes, I ve ripped out things. But I haven t said em 
 like this. I shouldn t know how." 
 
 " No," said grandsir, reaching, although he was the 
 last to know it, the topmost peak of criticism. " That s 
 because writing like this comes out of living, and your 
 father has lived that way." 
 
 " But what s he going to do with it? " John pursued, 
 branching off. " If it s Charles, what s he going to 
 do?" 
 
 " Burn it, I should think," said grandsir. " Though 
 he hasn t said so." 
 
 " Burn it? not on your life. I tell you it s great prose." 
 
 "But if it s Charles, could he bear to do anything else? 
 Yes, it s got to be burned in the end, that is, .if it s 
 Charles." 
 
 " What d hc write it for then? " 
 
 " He didn t tell me," said grandsir. " But I should 
 guess a man that had the habit of writing might feel, if
 
 350 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 he was up against something big and awful, too he 
 might take that way of clarifying his mind." 
 
 " Grandsir," said John, " is dad up against something 
 big? and is it Charles? " 
 
 " You mustn t ask me," said grandsir. " And you 
 mustn t ask him. Only, you stand by. That s what you 
 and I ve got to do, you because you re young and I be 
 cause I m old." 
 
 John sat, aghast, looking into the fire, the warm reality 
 of Jessie chased, for the moment, out of his mind. 
 
 " I d like," he said, " to read one paragraph again, the 
 one about his being an outlaw." 
 
 " Yes," said grandsir, " read it. You might read it to 
 me." 
 
 " He is, " the paragraph ran, " an outlaw from his 
 kind, because he has repudiated the laws whereby his kind 
 has risen from ravening slaughter to the rights of men. 
 He does not share in the honorable give and take of com 
 mon life, the plain rules humanity has brought with it, 
 step by toiling step, out of primeval slime. He takes, and 
 offers no just equivalent. He preys upon the world. 
 And, being an outlaw, he is like all his type in that he shifts 
 his hiding places. He is in one covert of vantage to-day 
 and another to-morrow. You cannot track him down on 
 the moors of violence because, by the time you have wind 
 of him there, he had taken himself to the woods of sophis 
 try. Thread the woods after him, to persuade him back 
 to the tents of men, and he is away upon the high road to 
 the devil, assaulting a child for a penny and bribing a beg 
 gar for his vote. He is the enemy of man, and the just 
 consensus of mankind has decreed that enemies of man 
 kind shall die. " 
 
 " That isn t the best paragraph," said John, " the
 
 THE BLACK DROP 351 
 
 style of it, I mean. But it s the one that sounds like 
 Charles." 
 
 Grandsir seemed to have sunk into a sort of waking doze. 
 It was these withdrawals that sometimes brought John up 
 with a jerk and made him tell himself that perhaps, in the 
 end, grandsir would have to give up to being old. 
 
 " But you," grandsir was saying murmurously, " you 
 remember." 
 
 "Remember what, grandsir?" John asked, in the still 
 est voice, not to jar him into a wakefulness he might be 
 trying to escape. But grandsir did come broad awake. 
 
 " Remember? " he repeated. " Was that what I was 
 saying? Well, remember for one thing it s all a mystery, 
 a complete mystery. You can t fathom it. You can t 
 break the darkness with a star. Who said that? was it 
 your father? But even if you ve got the star on the job, 
 you don t know what the star itself means. There s only 
 one thing we know for certain and that is, you must 
 be as decent as you can and in the way other decent fellows 
 have marked out for you." 
 
 John had an instant s revulsion here. He couldn t help 
 feeling this solemn talk was more or less like a funeral 
 march while Jessie and he were flying along with the loves 
 and graces on their springtime road. He was hearing 
 the bugles of war and the flute of Pan in pure accord, and 
 grandsir was bringing in an undertone of muffled drums. 
 
 " Everything s queer now," he grumbled. " Every 
 body s so awful solemn." 
 
 " Well," said grandsir, brightening up, " there s no 
 more occasion for being solemn than there has been for the 
 last twenty years or so. We ought to have been solemn 
 all through, when things were brewing. But now the 
 thing s come to a head and drenched the world oh, I
 
 352 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 guess you re rather solemn yourself, old man, about the 
 way things are going. When you put your pen to paper, 
 you send my temperature down into my boots." 
 
 John conceded the general murkiness because he had 
 to, but it wasn t blotting out that light over the 
 upland plain where the enchanted road ran and the fly 
 ing hours kept tryst with him. Bones came in, and sud 
 denly realizing how tired grandsir was and how he turned 
 to Bones with an evident relief, John left him and went 
 down to his own room, meeting Finch, who had just been 
 admitted and was sent up there by Emily : she liked the 
 boys to have free access to the house. It was on the land 
 ing of John s floor they met, and he was at once caught 
 by Finch s face, its red suffused with a deeper flush, his 
 eyes sharp with excitement behind his spectacles. 
 
 "What s up?" inquired John. It must, he knew, have 
 been the wildly unexpected so to move him. 
 
 " Come on into your room," said Finch, getting in be 
 fore him. "No, don t turn on the light. Come here to 
 the window. Do you see that chap down there knocking 
 out his pipe? He s shadowing you." 
 
 " Me? " said John, entirely taken aback. " What for? " 
 
 " Search me. You ask Bailey. Anj how it s so. Now 
 you watch and see what happens to him." 
 
 They stood there perhaps five minutes. In that time 
 the fellow walked up the street a little way, came briskly 
 back, dropped something and stooped to pick it up, these 
 being the fussy activities of a man clumsily killing time. 
 And while he stood there, a fantastic figure in a cloak and 
 queerest hat ran lightly round the corner, dropped a 
 large package at his feet, with such accuracy that it lay 
 against his legs, tapped him on the shoulder and ran as 
 lightly away. He came now, this grotesque figure, across
 
 THE BLACK DROP 353 
 
 the street, and up the Tracy steps, and immediately the 
 door bell sounded. 
 
 "What the deuce John began, but Finch inter 
 rupted him, his voice bubbling with a laugh. 
 
 " Watch him," he said. " Just watch him. O Lord ! 
 I do hope he carries it away. That s the trouble with our 
 larks. If they don t turn out just so they re damned 
 foolishness." 
 
 The fellow did carry it away. First he stepped back 
 and, failing its support against his legs, it fell flat before 
 him. He stirred it with his foot, picked it up, examined 
 it closely, stood a moment in evident hesitation and then 
 made off with it at a sturdy pace. John was about put 
 ting his question again, but there was a hoot of laughter 
 behind him, and Finch remarked: 
 
 " Now we could do with a little light," and turned 
 it on. 
 
 There was Bailey, his hat still on and again hooting, 
 the laugh as funny as his hat. 
 
 " If I haven t scared your darling mother into forbid 
 ding me the house, it s because she s too used to us to be 
 scared at anything. First the maid lets me in and hollers, 
 and your mother appears from somewhere. And does 
 she holler? Not she. She says, John s in his room. 
 You can go right up. I didn t take off my hat. I wanted 
 her to see me in my beauty. John, if you haven t a 
 brandy bottle in the bed, like Becky, give me something 
 out of the faucet. I have this night lighted such a candle 
 in Boston you ll see." 
 
 He threw himself in a chair and stuck his legs out 
 and now, taking his hat off, was, with his disordered wig, 
 so funny a sight that John also sat because he felt wild 
 laughter coming upon him and was undone. Finch 
 
 2A
 
 354 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 laughed, too, but he had not only seen the dress before but 
 worn one like it. 
 
 " He took it, didn t he? " asked Finch. " Walked right 
 off with it like a little lamb with a tuft of grass. Would 
 you believe he d have been such a fool? Weren t you 
 surprised? " 
 
 " I believe you," said Bailey. " I expected him to 
 throw back the lapel of his coat and show me a badge 
 as big as a full moon and then nab me. So I just 
 squawked * Tag ! and got out." 
 
 " But what what spluttered John, " what s on 
 anyway, and if it s any such fool thing as it looks, why 
 didn t you let me in?" 
 
 " Why," said Bailey, adopting the fairy tale tone, "you 
 must know and once upon a time Brennan and Finch 
 and I hired us three costumes precisely alike, so that, being 
 three, we could appear in three places almost at once and 
 give a dizzying impression of there being but one of us 
 with supernatural powers of locomotion. And we ve 
 pla3 r ed our little game and won, hands down, and being about 
 to return our costumes to the Semitic gentleman who 
 loaned them to us, we thought we could afford to keep one 
 back and send it to a friend. We thought, all things con 
 sidered, we d get enough out of it to pay us. So we does 
 it up in a nice box and labels it large and plain and leans 
 it up against this Johnnie s legs to carry back to the one 
 as hires him. Of course there were chances he d leave it 
 right there on the pavement, and walk off, and little Ned 
 Bailey d be like the other little boys that drop an April 
 Fool in the thoroughfare and have to sneak back and pick 
 it up themselves. But it all came out slick as a pin, and if 
 there isn t balm in Gilead I don t know what there is there 
 and Gilead s the prize vacuum of history."
 
 THE BLACK DROP 355 
 
 " But who is the one as hires him? " inquired John. 
 
 " The one," said Bailey modestly, " the box was ad 
 dressed to." 
 
 "And who s that?" 
 
 " Mr. Charles Tracy. It s a kind of a souvenir, old 
 boy, for we re greatly indebted to your Charles, and we 
 wanted to do the handsome thing by him, give him a testi 
 monial, a loving cup or a sunburst or an antique wig and 
 hat." 
 
 " What s he done for you? " inquired John. 
 
 But he spoke with some inward apprehension. His talk 
 with grandsir had made him sensitive to the atmosphere 
 about Charles. 
 
 " Oh," said Bailey, airily, " he s simply met us and he 
 is ours. He s given us back our contracts and they re 
 torn into forty million pieces ; and now, old son, we re ready 
 to pitch in and do some of the things we planned before 
 we fell into the hands of the excellent Charles." 
 
 "He let you break your contracts? " said John slowly. 
 He was too awed by this development in the direction of 
 Charles to give his mind at once to its relief over getting 
 his men back again out of bondage. " What made him? 
 There s something in the background you don t know 
 or haven t told." 
 
 "What made him?" said Bailey. "I made him. I 
 asked him, that s all, and he said yes. Your Charles has 
 his points." 
 
 That was all he would say. He owned they had harried 
 Charles, worried him, no doubt, by the constant attention 
 of their buffoonery ; but of the probable criminal activities 
 of Charles he had nothing to say. Bailey devoted 
 a modest prean to the way his recreant heart had 
 behaved in this pursuit of Charles. He had run all over
 
 356 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 the city, he said, like greased lightning. He had laughed 
 himself faint. And however his heart had liked it, he was 
 more and more convinced it was in the right place. Pos 
 sibly he might enter for the next Marathon and, if he sur 
 vived that, see if he could get Over There on the strength 
 of it. Brennan came in presently and they sat down to 
 one of their old conclaves and had a great time planning 
 propaganda. John had, he told in some detail, done their 
 work, too, while they had been serving out their sentence. 
 And there was money to come. The mysterious donor was 
 good for some hundreds more. Also this came from 
 Bailey who was as forgiving as the sun except in the matter 
 of base politicians and Germans there was a certainty 
 that Niles had seen the light and was crawling back to 
 them. 
 
 " And you," said Bailey to John, " you ve done it, old 
 man. He says he could stand anybody s arguments and 
 sit up all night and answer em, and match em, text for 
 text. But he can t stand anybody s being as clever as 
 you re being, and he s got to pitch in with us and be clever, 
 too. For he says you can t be clever about pacifism. 
 There s something in it that turns your brains to nutmegs 
 and your style to water, and by George ! won t there 
 be a team of us ! "
 
 XXXIV 
 
 NORRIS lived now with a consciousness of Helen at his 
 elbow. She was begging him to keep her in mind. Once 
 by a note she did it, again, in a veiled way, by telephone. 
 His unwilling and tentative promise she quietly asserted 
 she considered binding. He must do nothing without 
 telling her. 
 
 "What is it you are going to do?" Emily asked him 
 once when he came away from the telephone. " Why 
 don t you do it if she wants you to? " 
 
 Norris smiled a little sardonically over that, and won 
 dered what Emily would say if she realized what it was 
 Helen was urging him to do. Something about France, 
 he told her, lying boldly. He could not remember a 
 time when he had lied to her. She was so fair-minded and 
 tolerant, you really didn t have to lie. 
 
 " The girls," he said, " both of them, want to go." 
 
 But instead of feeling himself on the road to a heroic 
 task, he was chiefly irritated, wishing he could pack off 
 the whole family to the other side of the globe until he 
 found out what was to become of Charles, to whom, ac 
 cording to every tenet of family affection, he owed pro 
 tection, not hostility. He thought he could have lived 
 through the thing very well if the family was at least 
 as diametrically distant as China. Cross, too, why 
 must he be driven beyond endurance by meeting Cross in 
 the street, as if the fellow had his eye on him, had his eye 
 on all the Tracys to make sure they were doing no harm 
 
 357
 
 358 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 to Blighty? They never exchanged a word. Cross 
 touched his hat most respectfully and Norris responded, 
 every time more and more sulkily, but feeling, with an 
 added irritation, that Cross understood the sulkiness, too, 
 and would never lay it up against him. Norris slept very 
 little now. He lay awake arranging interviews with 
 Charles, wherein absurdly he found himself setting forth 
 to his son, in an oratorical fashion, the duty of a man to 
 the state, and sometimes even quoting to him whole para 
 graphs from his paper on the Politician. He concluded 
 from this that he must sleep more, in this desultory mus 
 ing, than he thought, and these were half waking dreams, 
 because the man didn t live who could quote from an ora 
 torical paper to a son he meant to hang. Step by step 
 with his hatred of the whole job marched the determination 
 to break his implied word to Helen. Let her blame him, 
 let her even give him up, if her anger against him went 
 so far. He wasn t going to let her in for partnership in 
 the hideous thing. Sometimes when he woke in the morn 
 ing after his wretched night he would take himself to task 
 for having done nothing. " While I hesitate and balance 
 good and bad," he would cry to that inward halting ser 
 vitor of his, which was his will, " Charles is doing things. 
 And they are undoubtedly all bad. He is tripping up 
 good that evil may ride over it to the pit. He is slaying 
 the innocent, and I am standing aside while they are slain. 
 America, by staying out of the war, has killed her millions 
 on the field. I, too, am killing through default, because I 
 am staying out." And again he would feel that some day 
 there would come a gigantic wave and bear him along 
 with it and toss him down at Charles s door. 
 
 After one day of actual peace because he had made up his 
 mind that the thing was too terrible to be expected of him,
 
 THE BLACK DROP 359 
 
 he knew, without any previous screwing up of resolution, 
 that the time had come. He put on his coat to go out 
 and, hearing Emily in the dining-room, went through 
 to her where she was humming a little song and laying out 
 some napery in a way that hurt him inexpressibly, it 
 made her a picture of such sweet untroubled uses. He 
 went up to her and stopped her humming and she glanced 
 at him with a smile. 
 
 " Going out? " she asked. " I d like a breath. Want 
 me to go? " 
 
 He almost caught at that, but he knew it was of no use. 
 There was no reprieve now. The time had come. 
 
 " Can t," he said. " I heard John in his room. Call 
 him and ask him to take you up the embankment. 
 Emily ! " 
 
 She had gone on with her work and she stopped, her 
 hands hovering, and looked at him. The intent expres 
 sion came into her face, the one that said she was on guard. 
 
 " Norris," she said, "what s wrong? " 
 
 Then he saw he was making a mistake and called on him 
 self to buck up and, if he couldn t spare himself, at least 
 spare her. 
 
 " Nothing, old girl," he said. " Only I m sort of senti 
 mental over you to-night. Give me a kiss." 
 
 She gave it and went with him to the outer door as if, 
 he thought, she were seeing him off on a difficult errand, 
 and he wondered how she would receive him when he came 
 back, if he had to tell her he had slain her son. But, after 
 all, would he come back? Might he not have to stick to 
 Charles until the decisive thing he meant to demand of 
 him was done? Might it not involve more than this night, 
 and shouldn t he have gone prepared for indefinite absence? 
 It would be difficult now to sneak his dressing bag away
 
 360 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 from under Emily s eyes, and anyway things could be 
 bought, and if they couldn t it would mean he was too 
 desperately on the job to use them. As for giving Emily 
 specious reasons, it would be more effective to do that by 
 telephone, if he really found himself detained. Face to 
 face with her, he felt the hopelessness of evading that 
 clear gaze. 
 
 Emily was not, this time, so easily assuaged. When he 
 had left her, she stood a moment in the hall thinking of 
 him as he had been lately, as he was when Helen telephoned 
 him and he had put her lightly off, but after it had seemed 
 strangely shaken. She went to the telephone, called up 
 Helen and put her question. 
 
 " Your daddy s out of sorts, Helen. Do you know any 
 thing about it? " 
 
 "Out of sorts?" asked Helen, and her voice thrilled 
 with a quick alarm she was not, at that first minute, able 
 to suppress. "He s not ill? " 
 
 " No, worried, upset. He s just gone out as if he were 
 going to jump off the embankment. Helen, do you 
 know anything about this? If you do, you must tell me. 
 I m really troubled, really, Helen. Do you see? " 
 
 Helen, she immediately knew, was deceiving her. For 
 she only said : 
 
 " Don t you worry, dear. I fancy I know about it, and 
 it s quite all right. And, mother, I m going to send Jessie 
 round to you. In the morning. Good-by." 
 
 Send Jessie round? what should Emily want with Jessie 
 because her husband was on edge? 
 
 Norris went on to Charles s house, and on the way he 
 was not apparently thinking at all. The thinking had 
 been done. He only noted the aspect of the night and con 
 cluded what breeze there was appeared to be west. He
 
 THE BLACK DROP 361 
 
 made a great point of that, stopping to hold up his hand 
 and test it, as if the way of the wind could help or hinder 
 him. Reaching the house, he gave himself no time to 
 change his mind, but went up the steps and rang the bell. 
 The door was at once opened by Charles himself, hat in 
 hand. He looked greatly surprised and, his father plainly 
 saw, questioning. Was the look apprehensive? was it 
 threatening? 
 
 " Going out? " asked Norris. He stepped inside, put 
 his hand on the door above Charles s, still on the knob, 
 and closed it. " Come back in, Charles. I want to see 
 you." 
 
 Norris took off his great coat and deposited it, with his 
 hat, on the hall table. He turned toward the library and 
 fronted there the smiling picture of Helen. That he 
 wished he need not have seen. It brought a little catch 
 in his throat. He made a mental note not to look at it 
 again, and went on into the room. Charles took a step 
 after him, but an indeterminate one, as if he could not 
 possibly, even with the best will in the world and with every 
 argument on the side of a gracious hospitality, accept his 
 father s presence. He laughed a little, apologetically. 
 
 " I can t, dad," he said. " Awfully sorry, but I ve 
 an appointment and I m late for it now." 
 
 " You ll have to give it up," said Norris, his tone as 
 conclusive as the words. He pulled a chair directly un 
 der Helen s picture and seated himself. Whatever re 
 minders the picture might be sending forth, in the still 
 argument of its appealing grace, whatever pleas to re 
 member the past, to save, if it might be, the poor menaced 
 future, it should be directed to Charles. As for himself, 
 he could not bear it and go on. Charles stood for a mo 
 ment looking at him, debating, with tight lips and frown-
 
 362 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 ing brow. Then his face broke up into the beautiful 
 smile his father knew and was startled to see though 
 he also sadly knew it was a weapon from Charles s ar 
 mory and went back into the hall to pull off his coat. 
 
 " All right," he said. " But I must telephone." 
 
 His father heard him. He got the number at once. 
 
 " That you? " he asked. "I was. Just starting. It s 
 impossible. You understand? Do you understand? 
 No. Possibly not to-night. Do you understand? Yes. 
 That matter we talked over this afternoon. Do you un 
 derstand? Say it yourself and I ll tell you yes or no." 
 And, after a pause, " Yes, that s it, in the main. That s 
 near enough." 
 
 He came back to his father, seated himself, and was at. 
 once all courteous attention. 
 
 " What is it, dad? " he asked solicitously. " Anything 
 wrong? " 
 
 Norris felt no excitement now, only a tightening of the 
 fibres of life within him, the strange secret forces that hold 
 the body to its tasks. And he knew Charles was as tense 
 as he. Charles had his cowardices. The man of hidden 
 ways must have them. But at this moment his father 
 felt, with a thrill of relief, Charles was not afraid ; he had 
 been able to gather himself up for combat, and there would 
 be no shame to be remembered in that each had not fought 
 as hard as he knew how. He began. 
 
 " The papers have come into my hands." 
 
 " Papers ? " Charles repeated, with a sufficient amount 
 of interest, not enough to be confirmatory nor too little 
 for cordiality. 
 
 " The papers you were sending back to Germany. We 
 won t waste time talking them over. You know what s in 
 them. I know them by heart. They are, if the govern-
 
 THE BLACK DROP 363 
 
 ment does its duty " here he paused, because the words 
 of Cross that had stayed by him waking and sleeping, 
 ever since he heard them, rose to his lips and insisted on 
 finding way " they re enough to hang you." 
 
 He was looking straight at Charles and saw him sicken. 
 Charles s gaze did not deflect by a hair s breadth from his, 
 and he made no movement, even of the hands. But his 
 face turned slowly to an ivory white. For a moment he 
 did not speak. Then he said, and in a tone marked by 
 merely a casual curiosity; 
 
 " John turn them over to you? " 
 
 " No. John knows nothing about my having them. 
 He had the bag for a few minutes, I understand, but not 
 long enough for him to get any idea of what it contained. 
 We ll leave John out of this. He has nothing whatever 
 to do with it. The thing is between you and me." 
 
 " Nothing whatever to do with it," repeated Charles 
 curiously. Yet he was perhaps not curious about John. 
 He may have been giving himself time to conjecture what 
 was to be required of him, and how he could reply. " But 
 do tell me, dad, just how " 
 
 " No," said Norris. " I sha n t tell you anything. I 
 merely tell you I have the papers. The manner of their 
 coming into my hands isn t your business." 
 
 " And you ve really got them," repeated Charles. 
 "Got em here?" 
 
 " To be precise, I have copies of them." 
 
 " Where are the originals ? " 
 
 A quick look leaped into his eyes, one his father had 
 prayed he might not see there, the look of desperate fear. 
 
 " The originals," said Norris, " are in the hands of 
 another man who is waiting to use them until I ve had a 
 chance at you."
 
 364 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 Now something less than a shiver passed over Charles, 
 over his hands and his eyes like a fleeting wind. 
 
 " He s giving me a chance," he said, "to get away ? " 
 
 " No," said Norris, " you won t get away. He s giv 
 ing me a chance to warn you to give yourself up." 
 
 Charles threw back his head and laughed at the surprise 
 of it. 
 
 " Give myself up ! " he repeated. " Do you know what 
 that means? " 
 
 " Yes," said Norris, " I know." 
 
 And the words of Cross clanged, like a warning bell, 
 through his mind. 
 
 " By God, you don t ! or you wouldn t sit there like a 
 judge on the bench and talk about giving myself up. It 
 means exactly as much to you as it does to me, let me tell 
 you to you, to mother, to Helen. If you do for me 
 you ve done for yourself for all of you. Your books, 
 your sanctified New England reputation, they ll all go 
 by the board. Don t you know they will? " 
 
 " Charles," said his father, " I ve thought this over 
 and over, too long perhaps. But I thought I had the 
 right perhaps I hadn t to the one little decency of 
 seeing you give yourself up, not of being dragged out of 
 your house like a common criminal as you are." 
 
 "You said you d read the papers," said Charles. He 
 was scowling heavily now, and his pale face had darkened 
 with the mounting blood of rage. " I suppose you know 
 then I m not the only one implicated." 
 
 " They re all being watched," said his father. " They 
 won t get away." 
 
 " But I m the only one to have the privilege of giving 
 myself up." 
 
 " Yes. Considering who they are, it didn t seem to me
 
 THE BLACK DROP 365 
 
 the Government owed them any particular exemption or 
 that I owed them anything. And whether I ve a right 
 to give you a chance to come out of it a little less despi 
 cable than the rest of em I don t know. Anyway, I ve 
 taken it." 
 
 " You say they re being watched. Am I being 
 watched? " 
 
 " Yes," said Norris. Then he added, in a tone of ex 
 treme gentleness, " I m watching you." 
 
 Perhaps the gentleness was admonitory. Perhaps it 
 was unconsciously meant to remind Charles of old days 
 when one was little and needed care and the other was 
 giving it. But Charles laughed. 
 
 " You needn t laugh," said Norris quietly. " I m not 
 an old man, Charles. I m not over weight. I m in rather 
 good condition, when it comes to that. I ve got the full 
 use of my legs. Also my fists. And I sha n t leave you." 
 
 " Well, now," said Charles, conversationally, " just 
 what do you propose? " 
 
 " I propose that you and I talk this thing over a little 
 more fully though not much and that we go out to 
 gether and you give yourself up." 
 
 " Dear me ! " said Charles humorously. " The whole 
 thing is so foreign to the family traditions that I don t be 
 lieve I should know where to go. I assume it means spend 
 ing the rest of the night in jail. What ll mother say? " 
 
 Norris did not answer. 
 
 " If that s the programme," Charles continued, " I cer 
 tainly don t propose to hurry it. I most decidedly don t 
 want to finish the night in a stone jug. Now, how about 
 bail?" 
 
 " No," said Norris. " I shouldn t furnish it. Not in 
 any circumstances. You ll give yourself up and you ll
 
 366 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 take your own chances exactly as other criminals do. 
 But here his voice broke slightly, and Charles was 
 quick to note it " I shall be with you, you know, every 
 inch of the way. I ve got things arranged to leave home 
 and go wherever you are sent, and to tell your mother in 
 the quickest possible order where I ve gone." 
 
 " Father," said Charles chaffingly, " are you sure you 
 haven t got a revolver in your pocket? That s another 
 dodge, you know, blow the top of my head off? How s 
 that suit you? " 
 
 " I thought of that," said Norris unmoved, " but I 
 concluded it went with my novel writing traditions and 
 I d get down to brass tacks. I was told, not long ago, 
 that that s what life is brass tacks. No, I simply ex 
 pect you to do the plain, decent thing the only one decent 
 thing there is left and take the consequences." 
 
 They sat in silence for a moment, and then Charles 
 broke out in the most complete revulsion, the frankest 
 possible surrender. 
 
 "Well, dad, you re a great old sport and you ve got me. 
 It s no use to pretend you haven t. But give me a minute, 
 dad. Let me see if I can t convince you I m not every bit 
 as bad as I seem." 
 
 " I don t believe you could convince me," said Norris 
 soberly. He felt the weariness now of what his task had 
 cost him and passed a hand slowly across his eyes. " We 
 needn t go into it any deeper. You re not obliged to 
 tell me things. I simply shouldn t believe you if you did." 
 
 " But see here," said Charles boyishly, " you ve got to 
 give me a chance: not to get back, you know, but to get 
 back with you. That s all I ask now. So you can tell 
 mum, you know, mum and Helen. And you d like to re 
 member it yourself. This is an awful stunt you re doing.
 
 THE BLACK DROP 367 
 
 Don t you s pose I know it is? After it s all over, you ll 
 want something you can hang on to. For I can tell you 
 what ll happen. You ll simply go all to pieces." 
 
 Hearing the frank boyish voice pleading with him, Nor- 
 ris could at last have broken into the old cry of father 
 hood : " Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my 
 son, my son." But his face remained unmoved and he did 
 not answer, while Charles went on : 
 
 " It s all true. Every blessed thing you ve said is 
 right, dead right. The only point where you re not right 
 is that you don t know all this stopped weeks ago, stopped 
 altogether. I d had those fellows here up to that time. 
 I d done over the billiard room, for a safe meeting place. 
 Did you know that? " 
 
 " Yes," said Norris, " I knew it." 
 
 " You did? " said Charles admiringly. " Aren t you 
 the old fox ! Do you know, dad, I m rather afraid of you. 
 If I d been as afraid when I was eighteen, you might have 
 made something of me. Now I m going to tell you what 
 happened. I had a safe put into the billiard room and a 
 switchboard here in the house so we could speak all over 
 the place if anything happened. But that was all months 
 ago, and now you just come up with me and see whether 
 it looks like a conspirator s den." 
 
 He rose, in alert invitation. 
 
 " I don t care anything about the billiard room," said 
 Norris. But he did get up, for he had a sudden idea 
 that Charles was about to escape him. And he gave 
 himself a quick inward admonition to remember that, 
 though an old boy, he could sprint and he could spar. 
 On the stairs Charles turned and looked down upon him, 
 and this was the look and the tone of Charles when he was 
 not having his own way.
 
 368 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " If you know so much," he said, " I suppose you know 
 that damned mountebank sent me his fool clothes for an 
 added insult." 
 
 But Norris looked up at him so obviously bewildered 
 that Charles s face cleared and he said grudgingly : 
 
 " Oh, well, it s evident you don t," and went on. 
 
 The billiard room was at the top of the last flight of 
 stairs. The door stood open and Charles stepped in and 
 turned on the light. Norris also went in and looked 
 about him. The room was in a perfection of order empha 
 sizing its bareness to the point of desolation. Not a pen 
 or inkstand was on the big table and not even a scrap of 
 paper in the basket. The chairs were set in attitudes of 
 stiff conventional usage about the room. 
 
 " The typewriter," said Charles, " has gone down to my 
 office at the Voice. The safe The door of the safe 
 
 was open and he swung it wider. " Actually, dad, the 
 conspirators have simply cut stick and gone, repented of 
 their ways and left no trace behind. Yes, that book-case 
 it s out here because, when we were using the safe, the 
 book-case stood in front of it. I must have it moved 
 back against the wall." 
 
 " Well," said Norris, with a glance about him, his mind 
 really on Cross, aided by gutters, doing impossible feats 
 from the next room, " I can see you ve cleaned up your 
 traces here. That s all, isn t it? We may as well go 
 down." 
 
 " Yes," said Charles, turning to the door. 
 
 Like a shadow he slipped through and shut it behind 
 him. And Norris, the instant too late, heard the lock 
 click and knew his agonies had been fruitless and he was 
 done.
 
 XXXV 
 
 CHARLES ran down the stairs, but at the head of the 
 last flight he stopped short at a voice from the back of 
 the hall. It was intermittently scolding and, in terms un 
 intelligible to him, invoking Elsa, who stood there, with 
 the cage at her feet, as its beloved treasure and heart s 
 dearest and other melting epithets indigenous to German 
 poetry. Polly was in great form to-night. The short 
 spin in a taxi had evidently joggled his brain cells to a 
 surprising activity of linguistic chaos. Charles came on 
 instantly after he had recognized the voice, devoting an 
 adjective or two to Polly on the way, and Elsa left the cage 
 on the floor and hurried forward to meet him. She had 
 on her street dress and was pulling off her gloves. Her 
 face was set in an extreme intentness and his eyes met hers 
 with the same look. 
 
 "What is it?" she asked. 
 
 " Did you call the meeting off? " he returned. 
 
 " Yes, the instant you telephoned. Who s here? " 
 
 " How did you get in? " 
 
 Their questions were meeting with scant space for an 
 swers. 
 
 " By the back way. The way we said. Who was 
 here? " 
 
 " My father." 
 
 " Your father? has he gone? " 
 
 He preceded her into the room where Elsa was conscious 
 of Helen s picture looking down on them, and threw him 
 self into a chair. The courtesies of life were forgotten 
 2e 369
 
 370 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 between them now. Elsa did not sit. She was too taut 
 with her anxieties. 
 
 " Well? well? " she prompted, standing before him and 
 drawing her gloves through straining hands. " Has 
 he gone? I heard voices. If he s not gone, where is he? " 
 
 Charles told her curtly what his father had come to say 
 and where his father was now. She listened in silence, 
 her eyes upon him so intently that they seemed to be im 
 placable inquisitors dragging out of him what he had to 
 say, as if he spoke because they bade him and not through 
 his own will. She walked away from him and turned back. 
 
 "There isn t," she said, "you told me yesterday, a 
 scrap of evidence in this house." 
 
 He was looking at her in a steady intensity like her own. 
 Elsa came near liking him then. He was not going to 
 flinch, she saw, now at the last, and she adored courage. 
 What if this empty husk of a man, having the one great 
 est quality still left in him, were her makeshift of a man 
 after all, something left her from the flotsam time was 
 throwing up to clog her feet? 
 
 " No," he said, " not a scrap of evidence. The servants 
 are gone, as we decided. That fellow and his wife come 
 in by day to put the house in order." 
 
 " Then," said she, " what are we waiting for? " 
 
 " Nothing if you re ready. Got your things 
 packed? " 
 
 " Yes. Sophie comes in by the day, you know. She s 
 paid ahead. If she comes to-morrow and finds the apart 
 ment empty, she s simply to go away again." 
 
 " And the Voice? " 
 
 " That s all right. You re to telephone Schmidt - 
 Smith we d better remember that even between ourselves 
 and he ll take it on to-morrow without any fuss, and the
 
 THE BLACK DROP 371 
 
 next issue ll be a red hot one clamoring for war. Tele 
 phone him now. Then get a taxi and we ll go round to 
 my house and pick up my things." 
 
 Charles got up to go to the telephone and stopped, 
 laughing out savagely to himself. He was thinking Bren- 
 nan s old cartoon would go into that number of the paper, 
 the one of the cock and the lion and the kangaroo drilling 
 for war and the United States greedily picking up corn. 
 He had laid it out for such an issue, with some of Bailey s 
 militant verse and Finch s prose. 
 
 " What is it? " she asked. "What are you laughing 
 at? " 
 
 But he stood listening. 
 
 " Hark ! " he said. For there was the sound of a key in 
 the lock of the outer door. " Hark ! " he said again under 
 his breath, and Helen came in. 
 
 She looked a little pale and rather serious, but was in 
 no sense excited. So composed was she that one might 
 have said she expected to find Elsa there and that the 
 scene was set precisely as she had known it would be. She 
 wore a long coat, and this she took off at once and dropped 
 it on a chair. At that moment the parrot, disturbed by 
 the cold breeze from the opening of the door, called from 
 the hall : 
 
 " Law ! law ! what a fuss." 
 
 Curiously enough Charles and Elsa, who were both 
 used to the creature, started at that, but Helen gave no 
 sign of having heard. Her breeding was so complete, 
 Charles sardonically thought, with an unwilling admira 
 tion, that she was ignoring the devil in the bird with an 
 undiminished ease. 
 
 " I ve been waiting for your father to come out," said 
 Helen, about to seat herself, and then, with the air of
 
 372 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 dispensing hospitality, pausing to indicate a chair to 
 Elsa, who, however, did not obey the gracious hand. 
 
 " Waiting? " said Charles. 
 
 " Just across the street. I didn t want to come in un 
 til he d gone." 
 
 " So you knew he was here? " Charles demanded, a 
 thick frown settling on his face. 
 
 " I knew he was coming sometime, but not to-night. 
 To-night I just guessed it. Where is your father? " 
 
 " He s gone," said Charles. " He went the back way." 
 
 "The back way?" She bent her brows upon him. 
 She was plainly puzzled. " Why should your father go 
 out the back way? " 
 
 " Because," said Charles, " if you must know, I d been 
 telling him some of the things that have been going on 
 here I suppose you know what I mean?" 
 
 " Yes," said Helen, " I know." 
 
 " I took him over the house and showed him some of 
 our precautions in case there was a raid. And when I 
 got him down to the back yard and let him see how easy it 
 was to make a get-away he said, being there, he d go along, 
 not come back through the house again. That s all." 
 
 " Charles," said Helen, " what does your father want 
 you to do? " 
 
 For a moment or two there was silence in the room, and 
 Charles, looking down at the floor, was conscious that the 
 eyes of the two women were fixed upon him, Elsa s in an 
 inexorable calm, bidding him remember, count every heart 
 beat because the fortunes of them both hung upon this one 
 minute. And Helen, he knew from his last glance at her, 
 looked strangely like the vision he had seen in Elsa s room. 
 That did momentarily disturb him. He was afraid he 
 was going to lose composure. He must not, he thought,
 
 THE BLACK DROP 373 
 
 get jumpy. But his mind was made up. He shot a 
 swift look into the eyes of Elsa. If it didn t put her wise, 
 he told himself, she was less clever than he thought. Then 
 he turned to Helen with his beautiful smile. 
 
 " My dearest," he said, " dad asks me to give myself 
 up." 
 
 " Yes," said Helen breathlessly, " I knew he would. And 
 you re going to do it." 
 
 " Yes," said Charles, " I m going to do it. That s what 
 we were talking about when you came in. Mrs. Daven 
 port has been a sort of secretary of the gang I ve got my 
 self in with, and we were taking account of stock. She 
 hasn t been concerned in it, you understand, but she s 
 found them out and she s found me out. She knows so 
 little of the whole business that there s no doubt of her 
 going scot free. And that s what you d want, by Jove ! 
 a woman like you, Helen. You d want another woman 
 to go free." 
 
 Helen looked at Elsa and remembered the day Elsa had 
 told her she was in the Service and on Charles s track. 
 Was it true? If it was true, was it possible the woman 
 had led him to his undoing? and what if she had? by what 
 ever steps he had come before the seat of judgment, he was 
 there, and the way seemed no more important than any 
 other inevitable path to the grave of hope and happiness. 
 Elsa was a long distance outside her mind already ; but 
 now she thrust her on to farthest space and turned to 
 Charles as if he and she were alone in the house together, 
 in the world. 
 
 " And," said Charles, paraphrasing the old password, 
 " Helen, you ve come home to me." 
 
 " Yes," she said, the tears now on her lashes, " I ve 
 come home."
 
 374 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 Nothing of the old fondness would she deny him if it 
 would make him the stronger for his task. If they were 
 to live together, the knowledge of his alien nature 
 would stand between them, bidding her shudder at 
 the touch of his hand, the sound of his voice. But what 
 solace he needed for this unguessed trial she would give 
 him generously. Now he was saying, and in the voice 
 that searched always at the inmost heart of her: 
 
 " I m going to ask you not to stay. Not now, at least. 
 Mrs. Davenport," he interpolated, in a concise authority, 
 " you d better be making out the pay schedule of the re 
 porters on the Voice." 
 
 So Elsa went to the desk in the rear of the room, drew a 
 sheet of paper before her and did perfunctory things with 
 a pen, not looking up. Charles continued, always in his 
 voice of blessing: 
 
 " Helen, you ve got to understand. I can t bear to have 
 you with me now, to remind me of what I ve had, make 
 me realize what I ve lost. You don t want to weaken me, 
 do you? You want to put backbone into me? " 
 
 " Yes," said Helen, " I want you to be strong." 
 
 " Then you ll do exactly what I ask you now. You 
 don t want me to break down and blubber, do you? No! 
 Then this is what you do. You go straight home again 
 and wait till morning. Father s coming back here at 
 half past eight. You come, too, and we ll all three go out 
 together, and when you ve left me he ll take you home 
 again." 
 
 " You re not willing," she hesitated, " to have me go 
 up to my room and wait there? You needn t think of me. 
 I wouldn t speak to you. I sha n t go to bed, wherever I 
 am. Let me stay, Charles. Let me be near." 
 
 " Do you think I could bear it? " he asked, in a moving
 
 THE BLACK DROP 375 
 
 voice. " In this house with everything to remind us 
 Helen, go back there and come to me in the morning and 
 I ll bless you as long as I live." 
 
 " Very well," she said. 
 
 She got up and he helped her on with her coat. She 
 looked once into his face and wished his mother could see 
 him. The former things had passed away. He was 
 clarified, trembling with earnestness, with what might well 
 be consecration to his awful task. 
 
 " Mrs. Davenport will help me through with my ac 
 counts," he said, smiling now. " That s a matter of half 
 an hour or so. Then she ll go. Maybe she ll take a 
 train out of town. I fancy she d better not be round here 
 for a while. And Helen " He was holding her hand 
 and leading her to the door. The touch of his hand was 
 like ice, and her compassion welled again for him 
 " Helen, don t telephone the house. I m horribly afraid of 
 mother s getting hold of this." 
 
 " But she ll have to, in the end," Helen said, stopping in 
 the hall to look at him and consider this. 
 
 " Yes, after it s over, when the thing s done, decently, 
 you know, in order, and she s got something to hang on to, 
 think I had some courage at the last. And don t answer 
 any telephone calls to-night. Don t let Jessie." 
 
 " But," said Helen, " something might happen. It 
 might be you." 
 
 " Nothing is going to happen till to-morrow morning. 
 And then you ll be here and dad ll be with you. Promise, 
 dear." 
 
 " Yes," said she. " I promise." 
 
 Now he was with her on the step outside. A man stood 
 on the pavement across the street, but as Charles glanced 
 at him he lounged along.
 
 376 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " You re sure you don t mind being out alone? " Charles 
 asked her, going with her down the steps. 
 
 " No," said she. " I don t mind. Good night." 
 
 And though he could not see her face, he knew the tears 
 had flooded it. 
 
 " I ll watch you," he called after her, in a voice of such 
 good cheer that she wondered, letting her sobs come now 
 because he could not hear them, if he really understood 
 how terrible his future had to be. She was amazed at his 
 high courage, and so proud of him. 
 
 But Charles did not watch her, except intermittently. 
 He regarded the man on the other side of the street who 
 was walking briskly in the direction Helen went, but as if 
 he had a purpose now, and minding it, and in so definite a 
 way there seemed nothing to fear from him, and he shut 
 the door and hurried back into the room where Elsa was 
 standing in the middle of the floor. She had drawn on 
 her gloves and held a letter, sealed and stamped. 
 
 " Telephone for the taxi," he said, " for God s sake. 
 And while it s coming, telephone Schmidt about the Voice. 
 I ll get my bag." 
 
 He ran noiselessly up the stairs and, with no delay, ap 
 peared again. Elsa had switched off the light in the 
 library. But before she did it she stood for a long 
 minute and looked up at Helen s smiling face. " Too 
 bad ! " she said aloud. Then recognition of the unreason 
 ing cruelty of life pressed upon her with such weight, 
 that the words were not enough, and she added, " Too 
 damned bad." It was not so much that she was sorry for 
 Helen or sorry for herself, as that a sense of the deface 
 ment of things came upon her, the travesty that lay in evil. 
 It was the revulsion brought by country stillnesses or 
 whispering woods, and her soul lamented for a moment
 
 THE BLACK DROP 377 
 
 over the courts of light it had left behind. Charles found 
 her standing in the hall, and suddenly remembered what 
 it was grotesque to him he should have forgotten. 
 
 " Good Lord! " he said, " what s to be done about him? 
 He s up there in the billiard room." 
 
 She gave the letter in her hand a little flourish. 
 
 " I ve seen to that," she said. " We ll mail it at the 
 station." 
 
 "What is it? Who s it to?" 
 
 " Your Helen. I ve told her he s here and she ll let him 
 out. And I ve left her Polly." 
 
 " That damned bird? " exploded Charles. " I won t 
 have it running him into decent people s houses, talk 
 ing German all over the place. There s the taxi. You go 
 on out and I ll fix him." 
 
 " No," said Elsa, " you go out. Polly isn t going to 
 have his neck wrung to-night." 
 
 Nor would she leave the house until Charles had taken 
 his bag and gone forth, cursing under his breath. Then 
 she went to Polly, lifted his cage to the hall table out of 
 the draft, put in her finger and " scratched a poll." 
 
 " Good-bye, old dear," she said. " Chances are you 
 never ll see your Henrietta any more." 
 
 And as the door closed behind her she heard the parrot 
 invoking her again as his beloved treasure and then, as if in 
 derision of all the sentimentalism of the human heart, 
 chuckling, " O law ! law ! what a fuss ! "
 
 XXXVI 
 
 WHEN Norris heard the click of the lock he stood there 
 a moment, smiling a little and thinking, after his old hu 
 morous habit: "It s a joke on me." Then he put his 
 hands in his pockets, walked back and forth through the 
 room and finally drew a chair to the table and sat down. 
 Why he had to sit at the table he did not reason ; but when 
 he was there he knew. It was that he might set his elbows 
 on it and lean his head in his hands. Sitting there, he did 
 some of the bitterest, most ironic thinking of his life. 
 At first he thought how this interview with Charles had 
 looked to him in anticipation, how tragic an import it had 
 borne, and how he had even, at moments of rushing emo 
 tion over his son, believed he might break his own habit of 
 New England calm, the thin ice of whimsy and indifference 
 that glassed the actual depths of him, and surge into sup 
 plication and entreaty. He smiled again, remembering 
 how he had once even foreseen himself making a dramatic 
 appeal involving the old sword hanging over the fire 
 place at Grasslands and adjuring Charles to be true to 
 the traditions of his race. But the interview had passed 
 off like the realistic first act of a modern comedy, though 
 nothing had been built up in it toward the climax of the 
 play. Simply he had been decoyed into a room and this, 
 too, was a little like the stage, because it was one of the 
 hoariest expedients and the lock clicked on him. 
 And all because he had, even in the slightest measure, 
 trusted Charles to behave like other men, and had omitted 
 for an instant to carry out his part in the drama of cat 
 
 378
 
 THE BLACK DROP 379 
 
 and mouse. He would have said, if he had foreseen this 
 moment, that his heart would have been bitter within him 
 because this was only an intensifying of the failure at 
 tendant on his whole life. But it was not so. He took 
 it like the soldier who, having enlisted, must meet the 
 fortunes of war, kill if he can, be killed if he must. He had 
 simply made the choice of giving up his son to justice 
 because no sacrifice was too great for national safety and 
 his own honor, and his son had snatched the sacrifice from 
 the altar and given it to the dogs. For Charles was un 
 questionably on his way to concealment and somehow the 
 continued service of things evil. 
 
 Sitting there, Norris became more and more conscious 
 of the gods : for there seemed now more than the One God 
 who permits these lesser ones to be, but holds Himself 
 afar off both from them and from us, in His clemency and 
 the immovableness of His just wrath. There is the god 
 which is justice and the god which is love and he found 
 no weakness of tolerance in the swift feet of this last god 
 and there is, greatest of all, the god which is the 
 human will. And he saw that there is nothing greater 
 than the will of man when it wills good and nothing so 
 swift on the road leading down to the pit as the soul that 
 wills evil. What is that great fire which is made by the 
 perpetual feeding of things evil? What is it warming? 
 what light is it going, in the end, to bring? And then, 
 leaving the communion of the lesser gods, he worshipped 
 the One God in his heart and sat up resolute and calm. 
 
 He looked about the room as if he had slept and come 
 awake, and as his eyes ran over the windows and their 
 heavy curtains, he remembered Cross and how he had done 
 his acrobatic feat of listening, and it occurred to him he 
 was not too heavy a man to do a little fine work himself
 
 380 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 by the aid of gutters. Could he get out of this last 
 window at the right and crawl in at the dormer of the 
 little room which had been Cross s egress? He distinctly 
 remembered seeing the door of the little room, as 
 he and Charles came up the stairs, and it was open. He 
 had thought of Cross, at the time. He got up and went to 
 the right hand window, drew the curtains aside, threw up 
 the window and looked out. There was the dormer at his 
 right. There was the trusty gutter three feet below and 
 the incline to it was gentle. Instantly he decided not to 
 spend the night in the billiard room. He was pleasingly 
 excited at the thought of an unconventional exit. Some 
 how he seemed to be vindicating himself slightly if, after 
 the foolishness of being locked up, he could show the plain 
 sense of getting out. He put his leg over the sill, holding 
 to the sash above him, and then drew out the other leg 
 and tested the gutter with one foot. But he had no real 
 doubt of it. He remembered Cross s quiet asseveration 
 that it had been reenf orced. He edged his way along with 
 out difficulty, reached the dormer, put his right hand on 
 the side to support himself and, with his left, pushed at the 
 window. It was locked. Had he anything to break the 
 glass, anything but his bare fist? Nothing, it seemed, but 
 the pencil in his pocket. He got it out and smashed 
 through the middle pane, and, with the ill-will of things 
 mechanical, the pencil made only an ineffectual hole. He 
 shut his eyes, with a thought of splinters, and stabbed at 
 it again and again, to the sound of falling glass. " What s 
 that? " he heard from a window somewhere below him. 
 Another window was put up. So he thrust his hand 
 through the jagged aperture, unlocked the window, threw 
 it up, drew himself in and closed it again. He went out 
 into the dark hall, found the banisters and groped his
 
 THE BLACK DROP 381 
 
 way down. For the entire hall was dark from top to 
 bottom, and when he found the button on the ground floor 
 and turned on the light a voice commented angrily : " O 
 law ! law ! what a fuss ! " 
 
 Then he heard a key in the lock of the front door and, 
 so natural is it for human nature to believe, for one instant 
 he thought Charles had repented and come back. The 
 door opened and a man stepped in. It was Cross. Norris 
 was in that instant of assault by the warmer emotions so 
 taken aback that his face must have changed, in some 
 manner, for Cross said reassuringly : 
 
 " It s all right, sir. It s only me. Why, sir," he 
 added, with a quick dart at his old helpfulness, " you ve 
 cut your hand. I ll run up to Mr. Charles s room and 
 get a handkerchief and tie it up." 
 
 Norris stood there in a sick indifference while Cross ran 
 up the stairs and came back with bandages and pins 
 not Charles s handkerchiefs after all, but a roll of dress 
 ings from Helen s medicine closet. 
 
 " If you ll just come back here to the pantry where I 
 can sponge it off," he said, and Norris followed him and 
 stood in silence while Cross worked deftly, encasing the 
 hand in a bandage absolutely professional. And while he 
 worked, he talked. 
 
 " You see, sir, I knew you came in here early in the 
 evening and I didn t see you go out again. So I concluded 
 you were here still. And I thought I d better drop in and 
 make sure. I ve got a key, you know." 
 
 " Mr. Charles has gone," said Norris, in a voice that 
 sounded indifferent and remote. 
 
 He wondered if it was the sight of the blood that was 
 making him sick, and then concluded this was only the 
 sickness of life.
 
 382 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Cross cheerfully. " I saw them off." 
 
 " Saw them off? Saw who off? " 
 
 He felt himself coming awake again. 
 
 " Mr. Charles, sir, and Mrs. Davenport." 
 
 " Saw them off where? " 
 
 " From the South Station. Turn your hand a little 
 this way, sir. Yes, that s right. Yes, sir. You see I ve 
 been outside here most of the evening. I saw you come 
 in. Oh, yes, I told you that. I saw madam come and 
 go away again 
 
 " Helen? " repeated Norris thickly to himself. Had 
 Helen then, in spite of him, been in it? 
 
 " I went up the street a little way to see she got home 
 all right," said Cross, apparently more absorbed in per 
 suading the bandage round the thumb than in the telling of 
 his tale. " I d hardly come back when a taxi drove up and 
 Mr. Charles and Mrs. Davenport came out and got in. 
 I had a car of my own round the corner here. So we 
 followed them, my man and I, over to Mrs. Davenport s, 
 where they got her luggage. I shouldn t have said that sort 
 of a lady could travel with so little luggage, sir. Amazing ! 
 and I went with them to the South Station and hung round 
 there till they took their train. Yes, sir, they re gone, 
 sir, quite gone." 
 
 He spoke, Norris idly thought, as if they might have 
 been expected to go by instalments and that it was an 
 inexpressible mercy they had gone intact, " quite gone." 
 
 "But where?" he asked stupidly, "where have they 
 gone? " 
 
 " New York, sir. After that I couldn t say. There, 
 sir, I think we might consider that finished." 
 
 He cleared up the traces of his work, always deftly and 
 in haste, and Norris stood and watched him absently.
 
 THE BLACK DROP 383 
 
 Finally he asked the question that was struggling from 
 the confusion of his tired mind. 
 
 " But, Cross, you said he was by far the most dangerous 
 of the men working against the war, you implied you 
 said Here he stopped. 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Cross briskly. " I did mean to have 
 him hauled up. But then, sir, there s madam. When I 
 think of madam and don t you think yourself, sir, it s 
 just as well to feel he s getting off to New York, even if 
 it is with the lady, sir oh, I don t stand for the lady, 
 sir, any more than you do, sir I think of madam there. 
 But what must be, must. And it isn t beyond belief, sir, 
 Mr. Charles has got his warning and he ll go and sin no 
 more." 
 
 Cross uttered this last with quite a flourish, as if he felt 
 a scriptural phrase might be expected to clinch his argu 
 ment. But he did not tell Norris, nor did he ever tell him, 
 that the man whom he referred to so meagrely as his 
 man, waiting in the car for him, had also gone to New 
 York, and that, on arriving, Charles and Mrs. Davenport 
 would walk into his custody. And furthermore Cross 
 knew that if all went well, if justice worked according to 
 the stern formula just men expected of her, nothing would 
 be heard of the two for a long time. They would be 
 swallowed up, put, in some fashion, where they could do no 
 harm to the foundations of organized life, and Norris 
 Tracy need not remember he had conspired against his 
 son. For, so far as Norris was concerned, the whole 
 issue would be blurred by circumstance. Cross, being at 
 this time the only one who knew with what a weariness 
 of will Norris Tracy had hung to the task of rendering 
 his son harmless to the state, was the one who was bent 
 on protecting him from his own remorses.
 
 384 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " Now, sir," said he briskly, " I ve got to clean up things 
 a little. Why, sir, you really did lose quite an amount, 
 and we don t want blood stains on the stairs. Nobody 
 knows who ll be in here next. Yes, sir, if you please, just 
 sit down there in the hall chair. I ll turn on this light 
 and make it a little more cheerful, sir." 
 
 The light flashing out in the library seemed to Norris 
 to have rushed in for the one purpose of summoning 
 Helen s face from the dark, and perhaps to Cross, also, 
 for he paused an instant and looked up at it before turn 
 ing to his task upstairs. And as Norris saw his face 
 the instant after, he felt it would not have been surprising 
 if the man had crossed himself. So Norris sat there and 
 looked at Helen and also regarded life which was her back 
 ground, and soon Cross appeared, after his brisk activi 
 ties, sought about for Norris s coat and hat and helped 
 him on with them and they turned to go. And the parrot, 
 waked again, yelled irascibly : " Henrietta ! Henri 
 etta," in his oratorical exactness making two words 
 of it. 
 
 Norris paused. 
 
 " Whose bird is that? " he inquired. " They never had 
 a parrot, to my knowledge." 
 
 " No, sir," said Cross, so pleasantly explanatory that 
 it almost seemed he commiserated Charles for not being 
 fortunate enough to possess so rare a treasure, " I m quite 
 sure it wasn t Mr. Charles s. In fact, I know it wasn t." 
 
 " Well," said Norris, still hesitating, " it s got to be 
 looked after, I suppose. Hadn t I better take the infernal 
 thing home with me? " 
 
 It was Polly s dark destiny to inspire the same senti 
 ments everywhere, to evoke according adjectives : from all 
 save one, his Henrietta.
 
 THE BLACK DROP 385 
 
 " I should think it would be a most excellent plan," 
 said Cross. " Especially as we don t know who ll be in 
 here next. One moment, sir. They re very delicate, I 
 believe, very susceptible to cold." 
 
 He disappeared into the next room and came back with 
 a heavy travelling rug, and in this he enveloped Polly s 
 cage. Then he turned off the lights and, carrying Polly 
 with a steady hand, ran down the steps after Norris and 
 walked on with him. They said good-night, at Norris s 
 door, and there halted an instant, each with thoughts 
 that met and hesitated and actually could not be spoken. 
 Cross was full of commiseration and Norris of gratitude 
 for it. But what could be said? Norris put out his hand 
 and Cross took it and as quickly let it go. 
 
 " Good night, sir," he said again. 
 
 Norris let himself in, and his first glance at the lighted 
 front room gave him Emily sitting there, very comfortable, 
 it seemed, with a book. She evidently meant to give the 
 impression of being simply too cosy to go to bed. He put 
 down the cage on the floor and walked in to her. She 
 looked up with a sort of absent-minded surprise, as if she 
 had not expected him so soon. But that, he knew, was the 
 art of it. She was not going to nag him by the shadow of 
 an implication it was for him she waited. At this later 
 day of his own greater needs, he was beginning to find her 
 out. But he had his minute of exasperation. It was when 
 he saw that the book she laid down on the sofa beside her 
 and with no mark in it at all was one of his. He 
 picked it up, and threw it, with a careful aim, to the very 
 end of the next room. 
 
 " Emily," said he, " you are a pearl among women, but 
 if you ask me how I ve cut my hand and why I ve come 
 home with a parrot in the middle of the night, I ll cram you 
 2c
 
 386 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 into a burlap bag and chuck you into the Bosphorus. 
 And see how you ll like that." 
 
 Emily was gazing at him in what seemed merely a con 
 ventional interest. 
 
 "Where is the parrot? " she inquired. 
 
 " Out there in the hall, done up in a rug." 
 
 " Don t you think," said she, " I d better put him in the 
 dining room? It s warmer there." 
 
 She went into the hall, took off the rug, noting mentally 
 that it had Helen s initials embroidered in the corner, 
 spoke cheerfully and quite professionally to Polly, and 
 carried him off into the dining room. There she wasted no 
 time over him, but came back, told Norris there were 
 sandwiches and beer out there on the table, and said she d 
 leave him now and run up to bed. And he must be sure 
 to turn off. So they had no words or domestic queer- 
 nesses ; only Norris, who slept a sleep fathoms deep, con 
 cluded in the morning, from her look, that she hadn t 
 slept at all. Had she? he asked her. 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Emily, the keeper of her own ways, 
 " I guess so." 
 
 After the three had finished their late breakfast, they 
 lingered at the table while Norris concluded a tale he had 
 embarked on midway in the meal when he became rather 
 acutely conscious of John s interest in his bandaged hand. 
 He knew he had got to account for the hand and for the 
 parrot, or suffer to the end of time the intermittent 
 heckling of John who, in the ways of domestic serenity, 
 was not his mother s son. In the parrot John was taking 
 a fearful joy, quite unable to let Polly alone, clucking 
 at him, adjuring him to speak, getting up to thrust a 
 coaxing finger through the bars and prudently withdraw 
 ing it. For Polly lost no time in sidling toward it with
 
 THE BLACK DROP 387 
 
 so vicious an eye and such fell purpose in it as John 
 found he had not the nerve to meet. Polly, in his day, 
 had seen all sorts of men and had concluded that there was 
 nothing to this human brood, except, indeed, his Henrietta. 
 
 Norris amazed himself by the sense of exhilaration he 
 could pump up, this morning. He had meant to do a deed 
 of justice that would cost him all his earthly peace, and 
 he had failed. Was he glad he had failed? No, for he 
 could scarcely face the misery of believing Charles was 
 still at large, poisoning the good earth under the slime of 
 treachery and ill-will. His physical uplift, he thought, 
 was due solely to the memory of having climbed out of 
 a window, broken another window and escaped ignomin 
 ious confinement. Not only must he account to John 
 for the queerness of last night, but he did wish he might 
 deflect Emily a little from her own particular track 
 of surmise : for he had no doubt she saw Charles, through 
 those extraordinary lenses of hers, directed on the family 
 obliquities, as clearly as he did. So he branched out into 
 the story of the parrot, and presently found he was taking 
 an artistic satisfaction in it. There was a sailor con 
 nected with it. He had met the sailor on the way to the 
 club, and the sailor had invited him down to his ship, 
 a fruit steamer, twice torpedoed, in from the Azores, and 
 they d had supper on board. 
 
 "What d you drink?" inquired John, his gaze glued 
 to Polly s cage where, as if bent on unholy fascination, 
 the creature clawed and sidled. 
 
 " Mead," said Norris mildly. " That was with the 
 first course. Then there was poppy and mandragora. 
 But that didn t begin to get in its work till I got home. 
 And the sailor his name was five-fingered Jack drank 
 like a fish "
 
 388 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 " I thought," said Emily innocently, " we all had five 
 fingers. Don t we count the thumb? " 
 
 "Yes," said Norris, "that was the queer part of it. 
 I gathered he d been living with a tribe that had an even 
 number on each hand." 
 
 Then he told how he and the sailor swore blood brother 
 hood, and he gave the sailor a nickel for a pocket piece, 
 and the sailor gave him the parrot, and then got quarrel 
 some and tried to chuck him through a port-hole, and, in 
 the scrimmage, of course they both caught up anything 
 they could find, tumblers and knives and warming-pans 
 and that was how he cut his hand 
 
 " See here, dad," said John, tearing his delighted gaze 
 from Polly long enough to regard his father shrewdly, 
 because this was so very thin a bluff he suspected some 
 thing under it, " you must have come home well pickled 
 and you haven t got over it yet. D you see him, mum, 
 last night? " 
 
 " Yes," said Emily, with composure. " I happened to 
 be up." 
 
 " How d he look? " 
 
 " Much as usual," said Emily. " I believe I d better 
 go round to that shop where they have parrots and ask 
 what they feed them on." 
 
 " Well," said John, " if I turned in such an Odyssey of 
 a new Arabian Night you d say I d been on a particularly 
 complicated and highly colored bat. Hullo ! there she 
 is." 
 
 "Who?" asked Emily. 
 
 " Jessie, of course." 
 
 John was out of his chair and stood an instant to listen, 
 the color flooding his face. 
 
 " It s Helen," said Norris, also getting up and chilled to
 
 THE BLACK DROP 389 
 
 the heart. No poor dribble of nonsense was going to serve 
 him now. 
 
 They came in, Helen haggard in spite of the freshness 
 of the outdoor air, and Jessie reflecting her. Helen was 
 grief itself. Its marks were about her mouth and eyes, 
 and Jessie s face wore an anxiety deepened into fright. 
 Helen did not stop for a look at Emily or for one perfunc 
 tory word of greeting. She went straight to Norris and 
 he put out both hands to her. But she did not give him 
 hers. It was not, it could be seen, because she was repuls 
 ing him, but because she simply did not see they needed to 
 greet each other in any way. Hardly did she take him 
 in at all, except as the one figure wherein lay hope of her 
 enlightenment. 
 
 " He is gone," she said. 
 
 " Yes," said Norris. " He went last night." 
 
 Now Emily got up and came to Norris, standing a little 
 behind him and watching Helen. John drew Jessie back 
 a step from Helen s side, so that he could get her hand in 
 his, and remind her that, though love might be dead before 
 them, here in their two hands they were keeping it 
 alive. Jessie caught her breath, and he could feel her 
 trembling. 
 
 " He asked me," Helen went on, " to go home last night 
 and come to him this morning. And I went. And the 
 house was empty. Even that parrot in the hall " 
 
 Here Polly, less bird than wanton spirit, John learned 
 suddenly, shrieked from the cage, " Henri etta ! " and 
 Helen started, gave a quick " oh " of repugnance and went 
 on : 
 
 " I searched all over the house. There was nobody 
 there. Then I went home. And there was a letter. It 
 had come while I was gone."
 
 390 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 She thrust it at him and Norris read the two lines in 
 silence. 
 
 " She wants you to let me out," he said. " Well, I got 
 out myself. And she asks you to take the parrot. And 
 the parrot s here." 
 
 " I want to know," Helen went on steadily, " this one 
 thing. Was he taken away from there or did he go? " 
 
 " He went," said Norris gravely. Again he had the 
 sense of being lifted and borne along on a great wave of 
 obligation: to tell these things, to tell them quietly, and 
 to carry his family with him into some calm beyond the 
 storm. He turned to his wife and took her hand in his. 
 So he stood, holding it as John held Jessie s ; and Helen, 
 not from any lack in their deep love for her, but because 
 that other love had failed her, was alone. 
 
 " Emily," he said, " we re talking about Charles. He 
 has done things against the law. I told you that before. 
 Helen and I both knew he was likely to be arrested. But 
 he has not been arrested. He has got away." 
 
 Emily s hand in his gave a sudden start, as if a hand 
 might have a heart of its own and leap to quickened 
 beating; but she said, with a calmness that amazed him, 
 even from her : 
 
 " You d rather have him punished." 
 
 "Would you? " Norris asked her, because it seemed as 
 if the question in return might hurt her less. 
 
 Emily hesitated a moment. Then she answered : 
 
 " Yes, Norris. If you think he must be punished, I 
 think so, too." 
 
 Helen, in this moment, was waiting to lay her last 
 doubt. 
 
 " Father " she was using that word now " did he 
 go alone? "
 
 THE BLACK DROP 391 
 
 " No," said Norris, not hesitating. " She went with 
 him." 
 
 " Then," said Helen, " I can forgive you for not telling 
 me you were going to him last night." 
 
 She snatched up the two hands, Norris s with Emily s 
 in its clasp, kissed them both and held them a moment in 
 her own. Then she dropped them and ran out of the 
 room, and they heard her footsteps flying up the stairs. 
 There was a breath of easement from them all. 
 
 " She s gone up to grandsir," Norris said, and Emily 
 gave a little inarticulate sound of assent. 
 
 " Mother," said John, in a tone he tried to soften into 
 some likeness to his own voice, it sounded so thick and 
 strange, " here s Jessie. Jessie and I can t you say 
 something to Jessie, mother? " 
 
 But while Emily, who needed no more than that, left 
 Norris and came forward to draw Jessie up to her, John 
 dropped Jessie s hand and threw himself into a chair at 
 the table, pushed back his cup and plate, laid his arms on 
 the table and dropped his head upon them. 
 
 " Oh, damn Charles Tracy ! " he cried, in that strangled 
 voice. " Damn him ! damn him ! " 
 
 And now, he savagely knew, he was, not in anger but 
 from something the family only could mysteriously under 
 stand, crying over Charles. 
 
 Grandsir was in bed, his breakfast tray on the table 
 beside him, the morning paper littered over the coverlet. 
 He was listening. In the whiteness of his bed, he looked 
 older and more delicate than in daytime dress. But the 
 frail fabric of his being did not call upon the eye for pity. 
 It cried aloud that this dissolving mortality was, through 
 its very weakness, proving itself the spirit s friend ; for 
 when its ruin should be accomplished, then the grateful
 
 392 THE BLACK DROP 
 
 v 
 
 spirit could wing forth. Helen, in her one blinded glance at 
 him thought she had never seen anything so triumphantly 
 strong and stern and glorious as grandsir s face. Yet it 
 was not now she thought it: only gathered up the look of 
 it as one might snatch a leaf in running, and find out 
 afterward its healing grace. Now she felt only her haste 
 to get to him. She sank on her knees by the bedside and 
 put her cheek against his hand. 
 
 " Has he gone? " grandsir asked her, in the firm, curt 
 tone of a man at his best. 
 
 " Yes." said Helen. " How did you know? " 
 
 " I knew it last night," said grandsir. " You can say 
 I dreamt it, if you like. Helen, he s death. He belongs 
 to the things that rot and mix with the earth and sink 
 away: and queer enough it is, but out of their rotting 
 maybe something blooms at last. You be the thing that 
 blooms, Helen. You re life, just as he is death. Promise 
 me you ll be the thing that blooms." 
 
 " Yes," said she faintly, clinging to his hand and feeling 
 as if she had the very tree of life upholding her. And 
 then again she asked the old question, younger than none 
 since Pilate s: " Grandsir, wh.at is love? " 
 
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 Cloth, i2mo, $1.50 
 
 " The Flying Teuton is the best short story that has come out of this war 
 as yet in either English or American magazines. Accepting the old legend 
 of the Flying Dutchman, Miss Brown has imagined it reembodied in a 
 modern setting, and out of the ironies of this situation a most dramatic 
 story results, with a sure and true message for the American people. 
 
 "It is in my opinion one of the five best short stories of the year. 1 
 
 Edward J. O Brian, in The Bookman. 
 
 "There is no American novelist doing better work these days than is 
 Alice Brown." Pittsburgh Post. 
 
 Alice Brown has forged ahead until she stands with the best and greatest. 
 She is very daring; she defies all prejudices, but she is simply delightful." 
 Chicago Post. 
 
 "As a writer of delicately turned stories Alice Brown has few equals." 
 The Bellman. 
 
 Children of Earth 
 
 Cloth, i2mv, $1.25 
 
 This is the ten thousand dollar American prize play. From thousands 
 of manuscripts submitted to Mr. Ames of the Little Theater, Miss Brown s 
 was chosen as being the most notable, both in theme and characterization. 
 Miss Brown has a large following as novelist and short story writer, and 
 her play exhibits those rare qualities of writing and those keen analyses of 
 human motives which have given her eminence in other forms of literature. 
 
 "A page from the truly native life of the nation, magnificently written." 
 New York Tribune. 
 
 "Ranks with the best achievements of the American theater." Boston 
 Transcript. 
 
 "Apple-trees and larkspur and lilacs in bloom, shimmering gowns and 
 rose-trimmed bonnets of an older time, sap mounting and everything break 
 ing bounds because of springtime and love in New England, all this adds 
 charm to the graceful manner in which Miss Alice Brown has presented her 
 theme in the play, Children of Earth. " The Dial. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 The Prisoner 
 
 Cloth, i2mo, $1.50 
 
 This novel of Alice Brown s is one of her most ambitious, and the most 
 important of her contributions to literature. " The Prisoner " is a man re 
 leased from a term of penal servitude, returned to the world, to his father, 
 wife and sisters. His relations with them, as well as theirs to each other 
 are subjects to which the author devotes her keen insight, her ability to 
 analyze mental states and to present to her readers subtle complexities of 
 thought and of motive. She writes with a charm of manner quite her own, 
 easily and clearly, with a wealth of atmosphere and an absorbing interest 
 of plot that carry the reader through to the end of the book. 
 
 The Road to Castaly 
 
 Cloth, ismo, $1.50 
 
 Readers of " Children of Earth, "and of many other of Miss Brown s books 
 for that matter, must have seen many an evidence about them of the really 
 natural poet. Some years ago, furthermore, she published a little collec 
 tion of verse which was warmly received by the critics, and which served to 
 intensify the desire for more. This volume, then, will be welcome to Miss 
 Brown s admirers, and to literature lovers generally. It contains the earlier 
 poems referred to, which were, as a matter of fact, also issued under the 
 title of " The Road to Castaly," and much new material as well the poet s 
 latest and most mature work. 
 
 "A fine book for the home library this, because responsive to so many 
 moods, attuned to such varied fancies. Here is true poetry, neither aca 
 demic nor sensational, narrow-gauged, scattering nor morbid ; here, on the 
 contrary, is work fine and sweet and delightful, from inspiring message to 
 finish and fitting mode." Chicago Herald. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 My Love and I 
 
 Decorated Cloth, ismo, $1.50 
 
 " My Love and I takes rank with the best work of the best modern English 
 and American novelists. . . . The book, which originally appeared under 
 the nom de plume of Martin Redfield, is now reissued with its real author s 
 name on the title page." Indianapolis News. 
 
 "... a compelling story, one that is full of dignity and truth and that 
 subtly calls forth and displays the nobilities of human nature that respond 
 to suffering." Argonaut. 
 
 "It is a powerful story, powerful in purpose and in method." Christian 
 Work. 
 
 "A book of care, tenderness, deep pathos, and wise understanding of the 
 human heart." The Bookman. 
 
 Bromley Neighborhood 
 
 i2mo, $1.50 
 
 It is as the novelist of New England that Alice Brown has won the hearts 
 of thousands of readers. Few writers have been able to portray with the 
 sympathy and the understanding that are hers the sturdy folk "way down 
 east" or to picture so truly the environment in which they have lived. 
 
 Particularly, Bromley Neighborhood has to do with the Neales, the hard, 
 unflinching head of the house; Mary, his wife, who in her long life with 
 him revolts only once at the law which he lays down, and their two sons 
 Ben, likeable but weak, and Hugh, a bit of a visionary, but guided by 
 high ideals, a thorough man. Of equal importance in the little drama that 
 is worked out is Ellen, daughter of a neighbor, who shuns men s society, to 
 whom the word love is almost repulsive, but to whom love comes in a moment 
 and forever. These are some of the characters in Bromley Neighborhood 
 around whom Miss Brown has written a most engaging romance. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New Tork
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 Robin Hood s Barn 
 
 Decorated Cloth, Illustrated, ismo, $1.35 
 
 "... abounds in quiet humor and wholesome idealism, and is dramatic 
 with the tenseness of human heart throbs. It is very enjoyable to read 
 interesting, original, wholesome." Boston Times. 
 
 ". . .a psychological romance which moves interestingly and strongly 
 from start to finish." Springfield Republican. 
 
 "A tale of buoyant optimism." Boston Transcript. 
 
 "The author has displayed much quaint humor, skill in character draw 
 ing, and dramatic force." Christian Advocate. 
 
 The Secret of the Clan A Story for Girls 
 
 Illustrated, Cloth, i2mo, $1.50 
 
 "Alice Brown has written a decidedly original story of girl life in The 
 Secret of the Clan, for it is perhaps the first time that any one has recognized 
 that side of healthy girl character which delights in making believe on a 
 large scale." Town Talk, San Francisco. 
 
 "It is a bright story delightfully told." Chicago News. 
 
 "A story with unfailing vivacity and much literary charm." Pittsburgh 
 Post. 
 
 "The author shows an unfailing understanding of the heart of girlhood." 
 Christian Advocate. 
 
 "It is fine and sweet, and a good tale as well Alice Brown may be 
 trusted for that." The Independent. 
 
 "A charming story of children and for children though grown-ups in 
 numbers will read and enjoy it, too." Boston Times. 
 
 "A fresh, wholesome story for younger girls." Baltimore News. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York
 
 A 000 049 492 2