f; : 
 
 i $ 
 
 Burt 
 
Q" 
 
"Q" 
 
 BY 
 
 KATHARINE NEWLIN BURT 
 
 AUTHOR OF " THE BRANDING IRON," " THE RED LADY 
 "HIDDEN CREEK," AND "SNOW-BLIND" 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 pres Cambridge 
 1922 
 
COPYRIGHT, IQ22, BY KATHARINE NEWLIN HURT 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 grces 
 
 CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
 PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. 
 
TO 
 
 CALIFORNIA CAL 
 
 WHO I AM SURE 
 WILL NEVER READ IT 
 
 M271L9 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. A QUEER CUSTOMER . 3 
 
 II. SIR SYDNEY GRINSCOOMBE SUFFERS AN IN 
 SULT 15 
 
 III. CHIVALRY 27 
 
 IV. THE BEGINNING OF AN EDUCATION 35 
 V. A CROSSING OF SWORDS 43 
 
 VI. CONCERNING LOVES AND HATREDS 56 
 
 VII. THE STARS IN THEIR COURSES 67 
 
 VIII. THE LETTER F 78 
 
 IX. MORE ABOUT THE LETTER F 94 
 
 X. WANTED A LISTENER 107 
 
 XI. LAYER CAKE 116 
 
 XII. NEW WINE IN OLD BOTTLES 127 
 
 XIII. A GAME OF CHESS 142 
 
 XIV. DIPLOMACY 157 
 XV. A MESSAGE FROM THE MOON 169 
 
 XVI. WHIP HAND 185 
 
 XVII. GRINSCOOMBERY 196 
 
 XVIII. SOWING THE WIND 210 
 
 XIX. REAPING THE WHIRLWIND 221 
 
 XX. SANCTUARY 234 
 
 XXI. THE VOICE OF RUMOR 239 
 
viii Contents 
 
 XXII. Miss SELDA CALLS FOR HELP 248 
 
 XXIII. AT FOLLY INN 255 
 
 XXIV. JUSTICE 270 
 XXV. A HOLD-UP 279 
 
 XXVI. Miss SELDA S PRIDE 292 
 
 XXVII. OLD BOTTLES 
 
 XXVIII. A COPY-BOOK 
 
 XXIX. BESIDE STILL WATERS 307 
 
6 /^V ? > 
 
 Q 
 
"Q" 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A QUEER CUSTOMER 
 
 Miss MARIANA BENTON, very slim, very languid, 
 very much waved as to hair and very much mani 
 cured as to fingers, minding the desk at the River 
 Hotel, was twice aware of a gently spoken question 
 before she felt constrained to remove her gaze from 
 an object of stronger interest. 
 
 "When you get real weary, lady," the gentle voice 
 began a third time, and now there was a drawl in its 
 gentleness, "of gazing at the blond feller that runs 
 the buzz-box, I d sure be obliged if you d transfer a 
 little of your attention to me." 
 
 At this she did meaning to look the speaker over 
 at her leisure. But she stopped at his eyes. They 
 seemed to see all the little bones of her head and 
 all the little nerves that ran through the gray matter 
 and all the sensations and comments that were being 
 carried along these nerves; but, besides seeing all 
 these things, the eyes seemed at the same time to be 
 looking quite through to a point miles and broad 
 miles behind her, so that she was appallingly con 
 scious of the infinitesimal smallness of those afore- 
 
4 "Q" 
 
 mentioned bones and nerves and the utter insignifi 
 cance of their devices. For the rest the eyes were 
 very gray, very cool, very brilliant, and beyond all 
 Miss Benton s experience of eyes direct. 
 
 Quite involuntarily and before she was conscious of 
 meaning to speak at all, she found herself stammer 
 ing, "Oh, I beg pardon!" and it was the first time 
 in her capacity of clerk that she had ever made even 
 a gesture of apology. At the same time she blushed 
 and, dropping her confused gaze, she pushed the ho 
 tel register forward, dipped a pen into the ink-well 
 and handed the holder to the owner of the extraor 
 dinary eyes. He took it with a certain deliberateness. 
 The hand was brown and well-kept and muscular. It 
 laid hold of the pen and cramped itself awkwardly 
 about it. A sleek head with hair of a nondescript sun- 
 bleached brown and a pair of powerful shoulders bent 
 over the hand. With a royal disregard for lines, and 
 limitations, the stranger wrote wrote slow r ly , wrote 
 laboriously, wrote very large. Fascinated by the 
 great expenditure of force in his manipulation of the 
 spluttering pen, the girl followed the sprawling let 
 ters with her look 
 
 Q. T. Kinwydden 
 
 "Residence?" she murmured. 
 
 The pen hung for an instant in suspense. Then it 
 was laid carefully aside. 
 
 " If anybody asks you where I come from, lady, you 
 can tell em from * all over the West/ 
 
 Mariana jumped as the eyes were raised again. 
 
A Queer Customer 
 
 "I want a room and a bath, ma am," said Q. T. 
 Kinwydden. "Hot and cold water runnin out of a 
 tap and electric lights you can push on and off with 
 your trigger finger, savvy?" 
 
 The blond elevator boy had moved two or three 
 steps closer. He had prominent eyes, but at the mo 
 ment they were more than prominent. They bulged. 
 His jaw hung loose. 
 
 Mariana took down a key. "Room 90, Bill," she 
 said. "The gentleman s bag is over there by the 
 door." 
 
 "I ll pack my own stuff, thanks to you just the 
 same," said the new guest. He walked with his bag 
 into the elevator. During the ascent he shut his eyes 
 and clenched his hands; also, he murmured some 
 thing under his breath. 
 
 "What say?" asked the boy. 
 
 "Nothin it would do you any good to hear, son," 
 was the answer. 
 
 Bill disembarked on the fourth floor, his passenger 
 stepping out with a nervousness exaggerated, it would 
 seem, for his own private amusement. 
 
 "Does she stay there till you get back?" he asked, 
 eyeing the elevator as one eyes a fascinating enemy. 
 
 Bill gaped and nodded. 
 
 "It s sure wonderful." 
 
 The long hall was carpeted in worn and faded red, 
 the walls needed repapering, the woodwork needed re 
 painting. For that, Bill s uniform needed renovating, 
 and it would not have injured his blondness to shave 
 or to wash back of his ears. The door of Room 90 was 
 
6 "Q" 
 
 opened and a cubic square of stiffly furnished space 
 was offered to Q. T. Kinwydden s occupancy. 
 
 "Where s your baggage, sir?" inquired Bill. 
 
 The guest set down his bag in the middle of 
 the brown figured carpet and pointed at it. "Here, 
 sir, " said he. 
 
 "Your trunks, I mean, sir." 
 
 "I m agoin out to catch me up a trunk after 
 supper, sir. " He looked at Bill. "You waitin 
 for a tip, sir ?" 
 
 Bill blushed. 
 
 "All right, sir, you re sure agoin to capture one. 
 What s this? Two bits? Here you are, son for 
 your courage and energy in runnin the buzz-box." 
 
 Bill took the tip and went out. A novel sensation 
 of shame possessed him. He wished he had n t taken 
 the tip, but he could not understand the cause for so 
 inexplicable a wish. Bill rubbed his back hair, which 
 needed cutting, and went into the elevator. "Queer 
 customer," he said and sucked in his lips. 
 
 The customer did conduct himself queerly enough 
 in sober truth. He went quickly to the wall near the 
 door after Bill had closed it, and there he pressed 
 first a white button, then a black, studying mean 
 while with huge gravity and interest the alternating 
 effect on the globe in the ceiling. He did this about 
 fifty times. Then he sauntered into the bathroom and 
 turned the bathtub handle labeled "Hox." When a 
 cloud of steam rose he shook his head. 
 
 "Never fails!" he muttered. "It s sure wonder 
 ful." 
 
A Queer Customer 
 
 He left the water running and returned to the bed 
 room. He raised a green and shabby shade and 
 looked down on the main street of Sluypenkill. 
 There was a garage opposite. An automobile stood by 
 the curb. The street was lined with hideous square 
 buildings of frame and brick, small hardware, dry- 
 goods and stationers shops, a liberal sprinkling of sa 
 loons. Beyond, the roofs of the town climbed down 
 to the broad and bright expanse of the Hudson River 
 and up to the base of a round mountain disfigured by 
 a funicular railway. Across the river, there was a 
 larger and perhaps an uglier town bristling with fac 
 tory chimneys and church steeples. Q. T. Kinwydden 
 gazed for a long time at this prospect, ending with a 
 minute scrutiny of the nearest saloon, and began to 
 whistle to himself. 
 
 "It s a cross between Sugar City and Oily Corners 
 and no compliment to either," he said. He 
 dropped the shade and prepared himself for a 
 bath. 
 
 The hours for dinner were printed on a small card, 
 stuck into the mirror above the dressing-table. At 
 about the middle hour, Kinwydden appeared in the 
 lobby. He had walked down the stairs. He advanced 
 to the desk. 
 
 "Can you tell me, ma am," he asked, and this time 
 he had Mariana s prompt and complete attention, 
 " where s your handiest school?" 
 
 She repeated his last three words with noiseless mo 
 tions of her lips. 
 
 "School for learnm ?" he explained patiently. 
 
8 "Q 
 
 "The the public school is is just around the 
 corner, sir." 
 
 "That d be about it, I reckon. Say, who can I see 
 about the lessons you get there?" 
 
 "Why why " Mariana ran a pencil in and 
 out of her front waves, "see about lessons ? Why, 
 I guess yes, Miss Sherman would be the one. She s 
 teacher for the third grade. She lives here in the ho 
 tel. I ll introduce you to her after dinner. She and 
 Miss Winters sit over in the bay in the dining-room. 
 You 11 see them." 
 
 But when Q. T. Kinwydden came into the dining- 
 room and seated himself modestly and quickly at the 
 nearest empty table, he saw no one but the waitress 
 that advanced upon him a tall young waitress, 
 deep-bosomed and dark-eyed, as unconscious of her 
 beauty, it appeared, as a young tree, moving in her 
 black-and-white uniform, through a clatter of dishes 
 and orders, as though she were walking through 
 some fairy forest, enchanted and alone. A face sad 
 with a romantic sadness that cleared all its lines and 
 contours of vulgarity, subdued its vivid tints to a 
 veiled mysterious glamour of remoteness. 
 
 Q s experience of "biscuit-shooters" was intimate 
 and fairly extensive. They had played the leading 
 feminine roles in most of his contacts with civiliza 
 tion. To his mind this girl became the Queen of Bis 
 cuit-Shooters. And he spoke his mind. 
 
 "By God!" he said, "if you are n t the handsom 
 est, classiest woman I ever saw." 
 
 She blushed vividly and her face filled with charm 
 ing amusement. "Order, sir?" 
 
A Queer Customer 9 
 
 "Fetch me anything you like; I ll take it lyin 
 down." 
 
 She brought him a plate of cold thin tomato soup. 
 By that time he had discovered Miss Sherman and 
 Miss Winters dining together in the bay window of 
 the room. He carefully inspected them. They were 
 eating sadly and fastidiously. One was thin and 
 sweet and pale. She sat as though she had a back 
 ache, and the other was strong and ruddy with dim 
 ples and reddish curly hair. 
 
 "I d a knowed them for schoolmarms any 
 wheres," Kinwydden confided to the waitress. "Ain t 
 it funny how the work earmarks em all alike? " 
 
 The head waiter, a short squat man with a pim 
 pled and perspiring face, obviously disapproved of the 
 River Hotel s latest guest. He dodged about, polish 
 ing glasses angrily as though they were weapons in 
 his armory. 
 
 Kinwydden lingered over his meal until the school 
 teachers had finished theirs. As they passed his table, 
 he rippled quickly to his feet. 
 
 "Ma am," he said. 
 
 They both stopped and they both crimsoned. The 
 head waiter circled nearer, making little buzzing 
 sounds of vexation in his throat. 
 
 " Which of you is schoolmarm for the third grade? " 
 asked Kinwydden gently. His respect for them was 
 so great and so apparent that Miss Sherman recov 
 ered her self-possession and smiled. 
 
 "I am," she said. "Can I do anything for 
 you?" 
 
10 "Q" 
 
 "Yes, ma am. I m seeking information about 
 school learnin ." 
 
 Both ladies looked surprised. " Come into the sit 
 ting-room out here," said Miss Sherman. "You 
 come, too, please, Miss Winters. Now" as they 
 all three entered the stiff and varnished room - 
 "tell me just what you want to know." 
 
 Q. T. Kinwydden turned his extraordinary eyes 
 from one lady to the other. Miss Sherman was sud 
 denly conscious of a warm sensation of motherliness. 
 The young man stood gracefully, gravely, shyly, the 
 color deep in his bronze cheeks. 
 
 "Readin and writin and arithmetic," he said in 
 his gentlest voice. 
 
 He paused. Neither of his listeners spoke. 
 
 "Geography and History and Poetry and Litera- 
 choor " 
 
 "Languages alive and dead," he concluded. 
 
 Miss Sherman drew a long breath. Miss Winters 
 had walked rather quickly over to a window and 
 turned her face away. Miss Sherman took two steps 
 sideways and sat down. She motioned Q. T. Kinwyd 
 den to another chair and smiled at him. Her dimples 
 deepened. 
 
 "Now I think I understand," she said. "You have 
 
 a son " 
 
 " No, ma am. I m a bachelor. Must you be a mar 
 ried man to get in?" 
 
 "Oh Oh, no! You mean you really mean, 
 Mr. er " 
 
 "Kinwydden." 
 
A Queer Customer 11 
 
 er " 
 
 "Kinwydden. Q. T. Kinwydden." 
 
 "Mr. Kinwydden, you mean Yourself?" 
 
 "Yes, ma am." 
 
 "You mean you want to enter the public school to 
 study all those subjects?" 
 
 "Yes, ma am." He was leaning forward slightly, 
 his elbows on his knees, his eyes lifted anxiously to 
 her. "Ain t it possible?" he asked. 
 
 " W-why I don t know, Mr. er " 
 
 "Kinwydden. I sometimes wish it was easier my 
 self. It ain t rightly mine. It was wished onto me." 
 His smile was by far the most disarming movement 
 that Miss Sherman had ever seen on any human 
 countenance. It broke up the rather set and grim 
 gravity of his face, took a dozen hard years from 
 his age, and showed a pleasant row of white 
 and even teeth. It was like the laying by of a 
 piece of defensive armor, perhaps the lifting of a 
 visor. 
 
 "Well, Mr. Kinwydden, it might be possible. But 
 I really would n t advise it. I surmise you have not 
 been able to complete your education?" 
 
 "I have n t been able to begin it, ma am." 
 
 " Well, it seems to me better, if you can afford it, to 
 take private lessons from a teacher." 
 
 "Oh, I ain t af eared of the little boys," smiled 
 Kinwydden. 
 
 "No, that is n t what I mean. I think you d learn 
 better and quicker. You see, a mature mind gets 
 over the ground much faster " 
 
12 "Q" 
 
 "Mine won t, ma am. It ll be all slide rock and 
 down timber to me learnin ." 
 
 "But if it s going to be harder for you than for a 
 child, then even more advisable I should think it for 
 you to have a private tutor or" a sudden illu 
 mination brightened her kind and dimpled counte 
 nance. She turned to Miss Winters. "Oh, Grace," 
 she cried, "why not a pupil for Miss Grinscoombe?" 
 
 There was a sudden silence in the room. On Miss 
 Winters s part it was caused by her view of Kinwyd- 
 den s face, which had turned white. Before she spoke, 
 it blazed. 
 
 "Miss Heloise Grinscoombe?" he asked slowly. 
 
 There was a flurry of apology. "Oh, no, indeed. 
 Of course not! Indeed, no! Not Miss Heloise Grins 
 coombe. Not Miss Selda Grinscoombe s adopted 
 niece. Not the Miss Grinscoombe out at Grinscoombe 
 Manor. No. No. No. Hardly would she be looking 
 for a pupil." 
 
 "My mistake," said the inquirer. His glow had 
 left him and he had lowered his eyes. "I did n t know 
 there was two of em." 
 
 "But you know the Miss Grinscoombe?" Miss 
 Winters questioned curiously. 
 
 The extraordinary eyes kept themselves hidden 
 behind rather densely lashed lids. "Yes, ma am." 
 The voice was gentle enough to be almost a whisper. 
 
 There was a feeling in the room as of some emotion 
 beating powerfully against a solid wall. Miss Sher 
 man cleared her throat. 
 
 "This is quite another Miss Grinscoombe," she 
 
A Queer Customer 13 
 
 said, "though I believe she is distantly connected. 
 She is, however, exceedingly cultured, but very poor. 
 She is anxious to get a pupil. Lack of a diploma pre 
 vents her from getting a salaried position in " 
 "But look here, I want a teacher with one of them, 
 
 ma am." 
 
 "But, Mr. Kinwydden there, I have it now! 
 She knows a thousand times more than any diploma- 
 made teacher I have ever met. She is a real little 
 lady" 
 
 "Then she won t do." Q. T. Kinwydden brought 
 down a marble hard fist on a marble hard palm. "I 
 want a man. I want some one to scare me into 
 learnin . I want the quirt or somethin about 
 equally urgin savvy?" 
 
 Miss Sherman pleaded. "Won t you please go and 
 see Miss Grinscoombe first? I believe she ll be able 
 to keep you in order. Let me write her a note. And 
 I 11 tell you where she lives. It can t do any harm for 
 you to see her. She does need the money so!" 
 
 "But," grumbled the young man, "she don t need 
 the money near as bad as I need the learnin . Well, 
 ma am, if you say so, I ll go and give her a look over 
 and let her give me one. I reckon that will be 
 enough." He rose and looked at Miss Sherman and 
 smiled. "Ain t I big enough for the third grade?" 
 he asked her, winningly. 
 
 "Ah!" she smiled, "I wish you were small enough. 
 I think I d like to teach you. Come, Grace, I must 
 get through these papers before nine o clock." 
 
 "Good-night to you," he said. "And thanks. I ve 
 
14 "Q" 
 
 made you lots of trouble." But at the door she found 
 him close beside her. He laid a finger lightly on her arm. 
 
 "Where did you say she lived? I mean, Miss 
 Heloise?" 
 
 "I did n t say." Miss Sherman s tone was a trifle 
 sharper. 
 
 "The the Manners?" 
 
 "Oh, Grinscoombe Manor. It s five miles out of 
 town along the river road. But you understand 
 that is not the Miss Grinscoombe I was speaking of." 
 
 "Yes, ma am, I understand. North of the town?" 
 
 "Yes." She went decidedly away. 
 
 Up in her room she turned and opened the big eyes 
 of her astonishment upon her friend. 
 
 "Grace! Who and what is he?" 
 
 Grace was laughing heartily. "Oh, he has helped 
 my backache so! Louise!" 
 
 "But why did he question me so closely about 
 Miss Grinscoombe? It really worries me." 
 
 "Perhaps he knows her." 
 
 "Perhaps!" The tone was a masterpiece of school- 
 marm irony. 
 
 " And what a name Kinwydden! " 
 
 "It sounds Welsh." 
 
 "And what," cried the school-teacher in an ascend 
 ing key "and what do you suppose the Q. T. 
 stands for?" 
 
 "I can t imagine. He s a pleasant-looking man, 
 is n t he?" 
 
 "Pleasant!" cried the dimpled one; "he is the most 
 extravagantly handsome young man I ve ever seen 
 in all my life." 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 SIR SYDNEY GRINSCOOMBE SUFFERS AN INSULT 
 
 "HAND me a cigarette, won t you, Pom?" 
 
 The young man addressed a pale, small, curly 
 young man with light and prominent eyes rose 
 obediently from a rug before a dancing fire and chose 
 a cigarette from a silver box on a very solid mahogany 
 table. It was an old mahogany table and the box was 
 old silver. The light of the fire seemed to have sunk 
 deep into the surface of the polished wood and the 
 polished metal. 
 
 "Excuse me, Katrina," murmured the girl who had 
 made the request. She was drawing delicately at the 
 little white cylinder, to which Pom applied a match. 
 "I did n t mean to interrupt your story. Goon. I m 
 horribly shocked and Pom is blushing most becom- 
 ingly." 
 
 Katrina, who sat in a large chair on the other side 
 of the fire, was small and dark and sparkling. She was 
 dressed above the waist in a single fold of purple tulle 
 above which her young shoulders and arms were 
 startlingly marooned. The young man on the floor 
 beside her was toasting marshm allows with one hand. 
 With the other he caressed Katrina s silken ankle 
 where it was hidden by a length of floating tulle. 
 There were half a dozen other young people about the 
 hearth. They were sprawled against cushions and 
 propped against chairs. There was a good deal of 
 
16 "Q" 
 
 floating tulle about and several very pretty and well- 
 cared-for faces. The voices were at once eager and 
 ennuyes, the faces were all cool and composed, to hide 
 the natural quick gayety and animation which never 
 theless electrified the air. Only the young hostess, en 
 throned a trifle aloof from the group in a very soft 
 deep chair, was truly overshadowed by the cloud of 
 life. Her lips were sullen and her eyes heavy. But, 
 even under the cloud, she lay there along the length 
 of the lounging-chair like a shining crescent moon. 
 She was very fair and very smooth, her clinging dress 
 was of silver cloth. Her long narrow feet and ankles 
 were dressed in silver. There was a half -moon of bril 
 liants in her hair. She had a face of so fine and clear 
 and chiseled a perfection that it drew probing look 
 after look to satisfy an inevitable incredulity. The 
 lips were pink with long proud curves, the nose was a 
 trifle pinched, the eyes were narrow and serene, of a 
 clear, greenish gray, the brows just penciled in golden 
 brown; the hair, all sleek and trained and groomed, 
 fitted close about the small head like a dark golden 
 helmet. 
 
 Katrina went on with her story. The climax was 
 hailed by convulsive laughter. One of the youths 
 rolled on the floor. One of the girls leaned over to in 
 spect her marshmallow. This was to hide the shamed 
 crimson of her face. The young Diana in the long 
 chair did not laugh at all. Neither did she blush. She 
 lifted her eyelids and inspected the raconteuse. 
 
 "You re getting on, Katrina," she said. "Quite 
 soon you ll graduate into Mrs. Fayre s class." 
 
Sir Sydney Grinscoombe Suffers an Insult 17 
 
 "It s fun to make the boys blush," said Katrina. 
 "Look at Pom." 
 
 "I m not blushing," said that youth, who indeed 
 was as colorless as though he had been permanently 
 faded in a strong sun. "But I tell you what you 
 know Mrs. Fayre, now ! Don t go as far as that, 
 Katrina. She s a bit too strong." 
 
 "Of all the unblushing matrons!" said another 
 marshmallow-toaster of an age rather more advanced 
 than that of his companions. 
 
 Diana gave a little malicious ripple of laughter. 
 "I ve seen Mrs. Fayre blush," she said. 
 
 There rose a chorus of disbelief. 
 
 "Yes, really. It was out West last summer, when 
 we were on that hunting trip Tommy and Mrs. 
 Fayre and the Doones and I. We used to sit up all 
 hours by the camp-fire. It was splendid but Mrs. 
 Fayre used to spoil the beauty of the night by telling 
 her awful stories. The guides would sit and listen 
 with their eyes on the ground. One night, though, 
 one of them did speak. He d been lying with his chin 
 in his hands. He sat up and looked straight at Mrs. 
 Fayre. She began to giggle you know her way 
 and say, Isn t that funny? Isn t that funny? 
 and Kew just spoke up gravely and slowly, the way 
 those Westerners speak, with a sort of drag. You 
 must excuse me, lady, for not laughin any, but I 
 heard that story years ago in a cow-camp when I was 
 a boy. " Lelo Grinscoombe had given a remarkable 
 imitation of the drawl with its keen edge of irony that 
 left a cut across the silence. Katrina moved un 
 easily. 
 
18 "Q" 
 
 44 And she blushed?" 
 
 "Yes. She blushed all over her face and neck and 
 about five minutes later she slunk off to her tent and 
 went to bed." 
 
 "Served her damn right," said the older young 
 man. "That s what they need that sort." 
 
 "Was his name really Kew?" asked Katrina in a 
 rather meek voice. 
 
 "That s what they called him." Lelo had relapsed 
 into languor again. She blinked lazily at the smoke 
 of her expiring cigarette. 
 
 Then Pom dropped a marshmallow into the fire and 
 there was a flurry of rescue and reproach. In the 
 midst of it a young and rosy manservant stepped 
 softly into the room, came to Lelo s chair, and handed 
 her a slip of paper. 
 
 "A er gentleman to see you, miss. You 
 would be expecting him, he said. He had no card, 
 miss, and I could n t seem to catch his name. So he 
 wrote it down for you, miss." 
 
 Heloise Grinscoombe bent her golden helmet and 
 her crescent of brilliants over the paper. 
 
 "Q. T. Kinwydden," she read to herself and looked 
 up. The boredom and the sullenness had left her 
 face, which was quite radiant with surprise, amuse 
 ment, and a sort of fantastic dismay. 
 
 "Where is he, James?" 
 
 "In the South room, miss." 
 
 "Very well. I ll see him. Tell him I ll be there." 
 
 She stood up to a slim tall height. 
 
 "I ll be back in a minute," she said, smiling down 
 
Sir Sydney Grinscoombe Suffers an Insult 19 
 
 at the expectant faces. "Then I ll have something 
 amusing to tell you. As Mrs. Fayre would say 
 Is n t it funny? Is n t it funny? " 
 
 She moved slowly out from, the circle of fire glow 
 through the large dimness of the room and shut the 
 door. Curiosity was left to toast its marshmallows. 
 
 Facing Q. T. Kinwydden, where he stood waiting 
 in the South room, there hung on the wall above the 
 fireplace a portrait of Heloise Grinscoombe s great- 
 great and many greats-grandfather. The portrait was 
 well copied from the original in the London National 
 Gallery. The gentleman wore an enormous curled 
 and powdered wig, a lace cravat, a wine-colored coat, 
 and long ruffles over hands that rested on the golden 
 knob of a stick. Wedge-shaped and pale between the 
 masses of his wig, his face looked down a hand 
 some and unpleasant countenance. He had narrow 
 green-gray eyes, and sneering lips. There were lines 
 of dissipation and ill-humor about his mouth. The 
 brush that had painted him must have been dipped 
 into an understanding hatred. The sitter seemed to 
 know this and to be rather ironically amused. Kin- 
 wydden s observation, being quickly done with the 
 low-ceilinged room and its delicate old gilded and 
 brocaded furniture, centered on this portrait. Pres 
 ently he strode close and stared straight up into the 
 contemptuous eyes. 
 
 "You d d curly " he used a favorite Western 
 
 epithet, " I 11 be derned if you ain t a man! " A fan 
 tastic hatred possessed him. Deliberately he lifted 
 
20 "Q" 
 
 his fingers and snapped them close before the long and 
 delicate nose. "I ain t af eared of you," he said. 
 
 There was a light sound in the hall and Kinwydden 
 faced about and straightened. He crushed his soft 
 hat behind him in his hands. He was pale under the 
 eternal brown of his Western sun. Except for that, 
 no one would have guessed at the terrifying labor of 
 his pulses. In the slight grace of his surroundings he 
 looked especially tall and grim, stately, not unimpres 
 sive. The long gold-colored curtains parted and He- 
 loise came quickly toward him, holding out her hand. 
 
 "Why, Kew," she said in her light cool voice; 
 "this is the most delightful and thrilling surprise." 
 
 His hand closed like warm iron over hers. He 
 looked at her with no change in his mask. But, for a 
 moment, it was impossible for him to speak. He was 
 struck breathless by her beauty. He had never seen 
 her like this. She had looked in camp, in her riding- 
 breeches and flannel shirt, her hair a double lump of 
 gold on her neck, a much younger and less consider 
 able person. She had had a franker and more simple 
 air. Her beauty had been more native, more homely, 
 more of the woods. There had not been this long 
 grace of step and carriage. Now, his imagination 
 leaped to the memory of a bright new moon shining 
 above his camp-fire just silvering the tops of the firs. 
 
 She drew away her hand and he got back his voice 
 and his smile, both of them badly shaken. 
 
 "It had n t ought to surprise you any me bein 
 here," he said. "I meant what I told you." 
 
 Heloise sat down and he too, obeying her gesture, 
 
Sir Sydney Grinscoombe Suffers an Insult 21 
 
 drew up one of the gilded chairs. He kept his eyes 
 bravely upon her, but there was an air about him now 
 of a wary wild thing half -conscious of a trap. 
 
 "Do you suppose I remember everything you told 
 me out there in the hills! Oh, Kew" dropping 
 her determined and mocking lightness " was n t it 
 wonderful ! How I wish we were there now up in 
 the mountains by that stream the camp-fire 
 and the stars and the horses cropping!" 
 
 "I wish we was too," he said. His throat was con 
 tracted by the bitter intensity of his wish. Out there 
 he had been master, he had been dominant, the 
 leader, the one who knew. It had seemed natural 
 enough there, all that he felt. And to her it had evi 
 dently seemed not too unnatural. They were, after 
 all, as she had told him, man and woman. Kinwyd- 
 den braced himself. He must not give her one 
 glimpse of his profound misgivings. They could not 
 materially affect the iron of his resolve, but they 
 might disturb his forces woefully. 
 
 "Well, ma am," he said, and he smiled coolly 
 enough, "I have n t forgotten anything you said out 
 there. And that s the reason I have come trailin you 
 to Sluypenkill." 
 
 "It was sweet of you," she smiled. "You re on 
 your way ?" 
 
 "Nowheres. I m here. I ve made camp." 
 
 She lifted her eyebrows so that the crescent of bril 
 liants moved and glittered. "Made camp? Here?" 
 
 "Yes, ma am. At the River Hotel. I m agoin to 
 get that edication you told me was the only thing that 
 
22 "Q" 
 
 stood atween us you and me a man and a 
 
 woman." 
 
 Heloise moved slightly in her chair. She seemed, 
 from the look of her, to be selecting her answer as 
 carefully as though it had been an edged tool. Such 
 tools, however, have two edges. 
 
 "Kew," she said, " there is one thing I have not for 
 gotten. That is, that you saved my life." 
 
 He flushed deeply. "I don t think I quite like you 
 rememberin that just now," he said. 
 
 The quickness and shrewdness of his intuition 
 startled her. She had taken it for granted that all the 
 skill would be on her side in this game to which she 
 had in the idleness of a forest holiday lightly 
 challenged him, but to which he had bent his will 
 with a grimness that had begun now seriously to 
 frighten her. 
 
 "I could n t possibly forget it, Kew now or any 
 other time. Besides, I ve promised you my friend 
 ship." 
 
 "Yes, ma am. You did promise me your friend 
 ship. But that was quite a ways back. You have to 
 skip some to get back to that. Still, I m not askin 
 no more from you as yet, ma am." 
 
 She smiled, though her face was scarlet. " I m glad. 
 I should love to be your friend." 
 
 "But you have got to keep rememberin , Miss 
 Grinscoombe, that I am not pledged to that trail. 
 Somewhere, I turn off." 
 
 " It s good to hear you talk, Kew. It takes me back 
 to last October. So you re going to stay at the River 
 
Sir Sydney Grinscoombe Suffers an Insult 23 
 
 Hotel. Is n t it an impossible place? It looks so. And 
 who s going to give you your education? " She added 
 maliciously, "Besides me." 
 
 This brought from him a narrowed look and a 
 flush. "Yes, ma am. That s sure the truth. You ll 
 be givin me the biggest part of my edication." He 
 smiled grimly. "I can take a whole lot of punish 
 ment from you if it s agoin to help any." 
 
 "I am not making any promises but one of friend 
 ship," she warned him. 
 
 "I know that, Miss Grinscoombe. But, all the 
 same, I 11 be thankful for any help. It s all slide rock 
 and down timber to me this edication business." 
 
 "But why should I want to help you?" she asked. 
 It was as though she flicked him with a cruel little 
 whip. 
 
 He fixed upon her a hard and brilliant gaze. "Be 
 cause you kind of do," he drawled at his gentlest. 
 
 She blushed again faintly. It was true, she did 
 want to help him as an experiment? As a danger 
 ous game? Or for some deeper and more human rea 
 son? 
 
 "Very well," she admitted. "I do. I want to see 
 what you can make out of yourself. It s rather splen 
 did of you. You have everything against you, of 
 
 course." 
 
 He had turned his eyes to the portrait. "Say," he 
 asked her suddenly, "who is that feller with the 
 hair?" 
 
 "Sir Sydney Grinscoombe my great-great-great- 
 great-grandfather. 
 
24 "Q" 
 
 "Don t he look it, though? Don t he fancy him 
 self? Well, ma am" his eyes came back to her 
 without explanation of their excursion "if you ll 
 give me some trainin , I ll sure be grateful." 
 
 She considered him; her young smile was rather 
 mocking. "I wonder," she said, "if you d stand for 
 it." 
 
 He did not flinch, though the dread in his eyes 
 was perfectly apparent to her. 
 
 "Yes, ma am," he promised her and smiled a fine 
 grim little smile. 
 
 "Very well. The first suggestion I would make is 
 that you go to a good tailor and get some real clothes 
 and have the right kind of a hair-cut." 
 
 He was scarlet, but kept his eyes up bravely. "Yes, 
 ma am, I ll do that. And thank you kindly." 
 
 "You see, when I was in the West, I dressed for the 
 West. Now, you re in the East and " 
 
 " Yes ma am, I savvy. I had a notion these was 
 first-class. The man in the Chicago store told me so. 
 It was a classy -looking store too." 
 
 "They re awful. I ll give you the name of a 
 tailor," said Heloise gravely. "If you want to spend 
 the money? " 
 
 Yes, ma am. I m aimin to pay for my edica- 
 tion." 
 
 "Here endeth the first lesson," she smiled. The 
 quotation missed him completely, as he had never 
 seen the inside of a church. But he too smiled, and 
 valorously. 
 
 "Well, Miss Grinscoombe, didn t I take it lyin 
 down?" 
 
Sir Sydney Grinscoombe Suffers an Insult 25 
 
 " You did. You re a good sport. Now, Kew, listen. 
 I ve a party of friends in there waiting for me. Won t 
 you let me call you up and arrange for a nice quiet 
 friendly talk some time when I m free? I want 
 you" her eyes gleamed mirthfully "to meet my 
 aunt." 
 
 He said nothing. He had risen and was looking at 
 her fixedly. 
 
 "Oh," she said with quickness, "of course I d love 
 you to meet my friends. But this is a er a 
 sort of club. It would n t be any fun for you." 
 
 "I savvy. Well, good-night to you, Miss Grins 
 coombe." 
 
 A moment later, he was alone out in the damp 
 chilliness of the May night. He found his way down 
 the long straight poplar-shadowed driveway to the 
 stone gateposts and turned resolutely down the road 
 town wards. The lights gleamed from across the river 
 in a double row. A train rumbled below the steep 
 bank. Dogs were barking here and there. A motor 
 glared upon him and hummed into darkness again. 
 He walked fast, his head down, his hands tightened 
 into fists, his teeth clenched. 
 
 "It s agoin to hurt," he thought. "It s agoin to 
 hurt bad. But" he flung up his chin "by God! 
 I ll win. A woman and a man. A woman and a man. 
 
 She said so herself. You d curly ! " He was 
 
 speaking to the gentleman with the curled wig whose 
 face seemed to be painted in phosphorescence against 
 his eyelids. There was a cruel resemblance to He- 
 loise which Kinwydden refused to recognize. 
 
26 "Q" 
 
 Presently he relaxed, stopped to roll and light a 
 cigarette. With the familiar comforter between his 
 lips, he swung more lightly on his way. Now he was 
 smiling a little. 
 
 "You re a plumb fool, Q. T.," was his conclusion. 
 And he began to call himself quaint and quite horri 
 fying names. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 CHIVALRY 
 
 TRUE to her promise, Heloise sent her sartorial in 
 formation, and Q, in search of fashion, betook him 
 self after his chastening introduction to Sir Sydney, 
 to New York and walked, as unsuspecting a morsel as 
 possible, into its maw. First he was duly robbed by 
 Heloise s recommended tailor, barber, and haber 
 dasher; then, self-conscious and elated, secretly grin 
 ning at his own splendor, he strolled forth into the 
 quick-stepping Fifth Avenue crowd. He walked with 
 a cowboy s rhythmic step, and, as the man inside the 
 clothes radiated originality, he attracted more atten 
 tion than he guessed. Q liked New York. It stirred 
 and stimulated him. Shop-windows, women, motors, 
 towering cliffs of stone, the canyons that sent in their 
 streams of trucks and taxi-cabs and hurrying trav 
 elers to the great rivers of traffic every one of 
 these aspects hurried his blood. A man who loiters 
 and looks is a man who courts adventure. Q s tem 
 perament was naturally a lightning conductor. From 
 the revolving glass door of a large store there stepped 
 out a slim and tall lady in furs, a sumptuous lady, 
 white-faced and yellow-haired if the two waved spec 
 imens above her ears were to be trusted; as she trod 
 past Q, just glancing at him with monkey-brown 
 eyes, he saw a smartly dressed youth slide a hand into 
 the loop of her shopping-bag and so cleverly relieve 
 
28 "Q" 
 
 her of it that she did not so much as feel its absence. 
 The youth, however, was smitten by prompt justice 
 a bolt from the blue. He slid several yards along 
 the pavement, and Q, hardly breathing more rapidly, 
 relieved him of his booty and returned it to its owner. 
 
 There was a quick assembling of an appreciative 
 crowd, the thief was put into the hands of the law, 
 and Q, glowing with unexpected conspicuousness, 
 gave his odd name to the authorities, who made much 
 of its oddity, as did the crowd, and, turning to re 
 ceive his thanks from the furred lady, found that she 
 had gone. This hurt his feelings. But it ought to 
 have warned him past any danger of ensuing folly. 
 What happened next was so completely his own fault 
 that it could hardly be called a happening; emphati 
 cally New York was not to blame. 
 
 Q lunched at Delmonico s because, even in the re 
 motest West, that restaurant, in the mind of cowboy 
 and ranchman, still stands for all that can be im 
 agined of metropolitan fashion and gastronomical de 
 light. He placed himself on a chair that faced the en 
 trance door, as though he were waiting for a lunch 
 companion, and there he studied the rites of restau 
 rant procedure until, feeling mastery, he rose, checked 
 what should be checked, tipped who should be 
 tipped, and bought himself a small table not too near 
 the music and pleasantly near an open window. 
 There he studied first the menu, consulting gravely 
 with his waiter, then, less concernedly, his surround 
 ings. At the nearest table, with her back to him, sat 
 the sumptuous lady with furs and blonde hair. She 
 
Chivalry 29 
 
 was lunching with a man, better dressed even than Q 
 and less conscious of it. He seemed, in fact, to be 
 conscious of very little in his own personality and to 
 care not at all what impression he might be making 
 on the world at large. He did not look like a man who 
 probes any deeper than a mirror surface into his own 
 consciousness. He was, however, interested, in some 
 fashion, in the sumptuous lady. Q had no business to 
 listen to the conversation at this table, and, having 
 listened, he had less business to resent it. No one was 
 complaining of his own somewhat unusual manipula 
 tion of forks and spoons nor of his filial attitude to 
 ward the waiter. Nevertheless, Q listened. He felt 
 that Fate must have meant something by its mis 
 chievous trick of coincidence. 
 
 The man was talking. His glabrous, edgeless voice 
 flowed over the woman and Q began to feel that it 
 would cling to her. Q had heard plenty of vile con 
 versation, he had heard filthy epithets such as this 
 speaker would probably be incapable of imagining, but 
 he had never heard a man, sane, sober, decently clad, 
 so deliberately insult a delicately nurtured woman. She 
 sat very still; he could only see her back, except when, 
 by turning his head a fraction, he consulted a reflec 
 tion, but this told him that she was cool-featured, 
 slim, every detail of her perfectly chosen and ar 
 ranged. Her face had reddened lips, her hair was prob 
 ably doctored, but she was a gentlewoman, or what 
 in a democratic country passes for one; a married 
 woman, for her left hand resting on the table bore a 
 plain band smothered in a body-guard of jewels. She 
 
30 "Q" 
 
 listened to the man and gave no sign of anger, only 
 that Q saw her moisten her painted lips. 
 
 When he had seen this little betraying action more 
 than twice, and when, under a crescendo of sarcasm, 
 she flinched, Q found himself being unwillingly 
 dragged out of his seat. God knows, he did n t want 
 to make a scene, God knows he hated a row as any 
 peaceful cowboy hates it, God knows it was all none 
 of his business and the West hates a busybody, but 
 God knows, too, that no man with real blood in his 
 body could sit still and suffer a woman to be so 
 shamefully entreated. Besides, he had already res 
 cued her purse; was n t her pride of more importance 
 to her? 
 
 White with discomfort, Q presented himself before 
 the large-bodied, sleek-headed disturber of his peace. 
 
 "I m right sorry to butt in," he said, "but I can t 
 let a lady be spoken to thisaway in my hearing." 
 And, as the man clattered suddenly to his feet, Q 
 struck. 
 
 They were forcibly torn apart a few seconds later 
 by a mob of white-lipped waiters. Q, having satisfied 
 honor, was ready to defend his action and to explain 
 himself he had opened his mouth to do so when 
 all virtue was taken out of him by the object of his 
 chivalry. She stood, no whiter than before, her lips 
 as red, a queer, half-amused, half-disgusted smile in 
 her monkey -brown eyes. 
 
 "He simply for no reason in the world attacked my 
 husband," she said quite clearly and rather loud; "1 
 think he must be out of his mind." 
 
Chivalry 31 
 
 Q wilted. His defense died. He was, it would seem, 
 about to be placed under arrest. A policeman had 
 been summoned. It was an intensely uncomfortable 
 situation and the eyes of diverted, disgusted, and de 
 lighted lunchers glittered upon him unbearably. 
 
 Q s eyes turned from face to face, not beseechingly, 
 but with a puzzled sort of desperation. He wanted 
 pretty badly just then to see some of the boys. There 
 was Shorty, for instance Shorty would make quick 
 work of that head waiter. He was reminded of a cer 
 tain incident at the bar of Stony. That had been a 
 tight hole, if you like. He struggled for the philoso 
 phy of past experience. Well, he d spent more than 
 one night in the pen for riotous skylarking. It 
 would n t be so bad when he was once out of Del- 
 monico s. , 
 
 Seeking Shorty, or a reminder of him, he saw that a 
 face had emerged from the crowd, a face with some 
 sort of different and definite intention toward him. 
 It belonged to a slim, quick-moving young man of 
 assured bearing. He came to the head waiter and 
 touched his arm. 
 
 "I know this gentleman" it was the voice of a 
 man who takes quick control of an emergency 
 "and I will make myself responsible for him. I saw 
 what happened. I was sitting near both tables. It 
 was a misunderstanding or rather a misapprehen 
 sion" for a second his red-brown eyes gleamed 
 coldly at the furred lady "he thought the lady was 
 being insulted. It was, I may say, a natural misap 
 prehension. He won t give you any more trouble. I 
 can answer for that." 
 
32 "Q" 
 
 Q, white now and breathing rather fast, looked into 
 the man s eyes. They smiled, a shy, witty, restless 
 sort of smile, which the lips repeated, bearing out 
 their information. The rescuer, it would be imagined, 
 was clever, nervous, volcanic, and repressed. He had 
 now a fine color in a somewhat lined face which, Q 
 thought, but for the momentary excitement would 
 have been pale. The long fingers he had laid on Q s 
 arm, still gripped by a panting waiter, were sensitive, 
 nervous, skillful fingers, the whole body was finely and 
 tightly strung with intermittent limpnesses as though 
 its owner relaxed and then renewed an effort. His 
 thick and curly crop of red hair burned defiantly like 
 a protest of boyishness against the driven and con 
 trolled quality of the man. All this was not included 
 in Q s comment, which might briefly have been ex 
 pressed in one exclamation, "Here s a man!" Sud 
 denly he was glad, as though he had met up with 
 Shorty on the range. 
 
 Having smiled, the stranger went on with his de 
 fense. "His name is Cartwright, friend of mine from 
 the West. Let him off, won t you, Hartman? It s al 
 ways best not to stir up anything. Honestly, he ll 
 give you no more trouble. He s not used to New 
 York. The lady, naturally, does n t want to prose 
 cute. It might be awkward for her, when you 
 think" 
 
 "Naturally, she won t prosecute," her husband re 
 sponded gruffly, for her. She was now smiling, her 
 eyes were contemplating Q thoughtfully, apprecia 
 tive of his good looks. 
 
Chivalry 33 
 
 Two minutes later, Q found himself out of range of 
 that terrible circle of unsympathetic eyes, out on the 
 pavement in a sunlight that seemed to have more 
 of humanity, more of sympathy. He straightened 
 slowly and drew in a profound breath. 
 
 "Here s your taxi," said his companion. "Jump 
 in, Cartwright, and" here he lowered his voice to 
 a violent whisper "go to wherever you belong and, 
 for God s sake, don t try rescuing ladies. You re a 
 d fool, are n t you?" 
 
 "I sure feel like one," admitted Q reluctantly. 
 
 "Ladies don t need rescue, they don t want it, they 
 don t like it. If they let themselves be manhandled by 
 tongue or fist, you can jolly well believe that it s for 
 some good purpose of their own. Have you got 
 that?" 
 
 Q said, "Yes, sir," smiled, and fixed his amazing 
 eyes upon his admonisher. He was conscious of a 
 warm desire for confidence. The man was certainly 
 no older than he, but there was a fine sharp finish to 
 him that Q recognized as the work of a far more chis 
 eling experience, something that the rough, weather- 
 furrowed granite of his own personality would never 
 acquire. He wanted, with a certain bitterness, to 
 justify himself, to explain something of his dilemma. 
 The taxi began to whir away the minutes. His friend 
 was probably impatient to return to an interrupted 
 meal. 
 
 "There s gels," said Q defensively, "that needs 
 night-herdin till they re eighty. Look at Grandma 
 Sam her carryin s on. My snakes! Some day I ll 
 
34 "Q" 
 
 hev to tell you about that. And Ma Shippen s daugh 
 ter, kind of a storm center she was; there s a biscuit- 
 shooter where I m stayin now that reminds me of her 
 Loretta Shippen. Had n t it been for me ropin her 
 up and standin over her with a gun until her ma come 
 back, she d have went off with Dismal and she was 
 a good gel too ! Gels is desprit kind of critters, right 
 along until they die. Likely, that lady in there, if 
 she d a been rescued, soon enough, would have 
 gentled real nice. I reckon it s come too late. When 
 they once get to be strays that s sure the truth 
 you can t do nothin with them. And that s where I 
 made my mistake. I won t keep you, stranger." 
 
 It was not until the taxi-cab was halfway to the 
 station that Q realized miserably that he had never 
 thanked his friend, had not even learned his name. 
 He had said with reluctance, glancing back at a 
 hovering clerk, "Good-bye, Cartwright. I ll see you 
 later. I want to hear about Grandma Sam." And, 
 waving a hand, had gone back smiling into the res 
 taurant, his fiery head extinguished like a torch. Q 
 felt diminished and abashed, as much by his neglect 
 of a golden opportunity as by his misplaced chivalry. 
 He had failed in gratitude and he had failed to put his 
 brand on this new friend. And, he admitted, he was 
 very homesick for Shorty on this new range. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE BEGINNING OF AN EDUCATION 
 
 To Mary Grinscoombe that prospect of a pupil 
 meant so desperately much that all day, after she had 
 received Miss Sherman s note, her face was flushed 
 and her heart thumped at any ringing of the door 
 bell. After three days, her face lost its flush and her 
 pulses went back into their patient harness; so that 
 when she answered a certain ringing on a certain 
 Tuesday afternoon, it was with perfect nonchalance. 
 She looked up calmly into a grave brown face, and 
 then, under the brilliant eyes that saw through her, 
 she did regain the flush. 
 
 "You are Mr. Kinwydden?" 
 "Yes, ma am. Miss Sherman sent me." 
 The tiny narrow hall seemed to shrink and fade 
 about the tall bright-eyed visitor. He followed Mary 
 into the sitting-room. It was a working-man s little 
 house on a shabby side street of the town, and it was 
 a particularly shabby house. It needed paint and it 
 needed repairs. The tiny square parlor, however, was 
 not the parlor of a working-man, it was the book- 
 room of a scholar. Its walls were lined with books and 
 its big central table was loaded with them. On the 
 narrow mantel over a shallow fireplace stood two 
 great globes, celestial and terrestrial, and between 
 them ticked modestly a tiny clock. There was very 
 little else in the room except the chairs, flowers, and 
 two pairs of very fresh white curtains. 
 
36 "Q" 
 
 Mary sat down near one of the windows and Kin- 
 wydden placed himself before her. 
 
 "I d have come before," he said, "but I ve been to 
 New York to buy me some clothes." His tweed suit 
 was perfection, and his silk shirt and his tie. His hair 
 cut was also perfection. The immaculate get-up and 
 the natural grace of his manner and bearing rather 
 accentuated the imperfections of his speech. 
 
 "I am taking after an edication," he smiled, "and 
 they tell me you know more than a schoolmarm." 
 
 She laughed. "I have n t been able to get a posi 
 tion as schoolmarm, though I ve tried. But tell me 
 what you want to study, Mr. Kinwydden." 
 
 Q went gravely down the list, his unfaltering eyes 
 fixed on her. 
 
 "Readin and writin and arithmetic. Geography, 
 History, Poetry, and Literachoor. Languages alive 
 and dead." And this time he added, with a dazzling 
 and disarming smile, "And I don t keer if you throw 
 in the py-anna." 
 
 Mary drew in her breath and leaned back. "How 
 much do you know now?" she asked. 
 
 "Nothin ." 
 
 "Nothing at all?" 
 
 "No, ma am. I m the gol-derndest ignorantest 
 growed man in the U-nited States." 
 
 ""But you can read and write a little? You ve 
 been to school?" 
 
 "I ve never seed the inside of a school, ma am. 
 I ve learned myself to write my name and I ve 
 learned myself to read signs and such-like. Oh, I can 
 
The Beginning of an Education 37 
 
 make out to gather the sense of a letter. And I can 
 figger a bill of sale and weights and measures 
 weighin cattle and such " 
 
 "You are a cattle-man?" 
 
 "I was raised in a cow-camp," he said, "and t was 
 in a cow-camp I got my edication." 
 
 "And your parents never tried to send you to 
 school?" 
 
 "I never knowed my parents, ma am. The folks I 
 was left with licked me so I run away when I was 
 about a five-year-old. And I turned up in a cow- 
 camp where they kep me till I was pretty near 
 growed. I worked for that outfit. I have n t had no 
 time to get round to learnin , ma am, but now I have 
 the time and some money and I m plumb set on 
 learnin . I ll be a right willin scholard, ma am, if 
 you choose to take me on." 
 
 "I d love to," said Mary. 
 
 "Of course, I had ought to have a man. Or some 
 big fierce woman who would scare me." 
 
 "I think I 11 be able to scare you enough, perhaps," 
 said Mary. 
 
 He studied her. She had the brightness of a shaded 
 light, the quickness of water shadowed by an old 
 bridge. There were ripples that had never been 
 blown upon by the winds of happiness and freedom. 
 In a small dark face, her mouth was as sensitive as a 
 brave neglected child s. Her eyes were Irish eyes, 
 waggish and wistful, of a sweet bluish gray. Her 
 hair was dark and curly with threads of fire. She had 
 the Grinscoombe chin and her mother s black 
 
38 "Q" 
 
 straight eyebrows close above the eyes. When she 
 looked up, her eyelashes curled almost to touch these 
 brows. It gave her an arch expression, a very inno 
 cent, serious sort of archness. She was twenty-four 
 years old, but looked, at moments, for all the smoth 
 ered and shadowed quality, younger. Sometimes she 
 might have been ten years older. Kinwydden decided 
 that she was twenty-eight or twenty-nine. He had 
 conceived at once a huge respect for her. She had a 
 great deal of kindness, and of dignity. All this could 
 be read in her eyes and lips and smile, the carriage 
 of her small slight body and its movements, both im 
 pulsive and restrained. 
 
 "Do you think you can manage me?" he asked. 
 
 "I think so. If you want so much to learn that s 
 half the battle." 
 
 "Oh," he said, "I want to." He sighed, so oppres 
 sive was his desire. 
 
 "How much time can you give?" 
 
 "All the time you can give me." 
 
 "Every morning all morning long?" 
 
 "Yes, ma am." 
 
 "And you will prepare lessons for me?" 
 
 "Whatever you say, ma am, goes." 
 
 "My charge " Mary began, faltering. 
 
 "You re agoin to work hard," said Kinwydden 
 grimly. "Make it a sizable figure." 
 
 Driven by her necessity she named a sum that 
 seemed to her exorbitant. 
 
 "Why," he drawled, "that ain t a laborin man s 
 pay. You leave it to me, lady. I know better n you 
 
The Beginning of an Education 39 
 
 what sort of trail you re hittin . Make it twict that 
 and the lessons 11 come cheap." 
 
 "Thank you," she said. "You must try me first. 
 When shall we begin?" 
 
 Her face was radiant, though she tried to be sober, 
 and her voice sang. 
 
 "Right now, ma am." 
 
 It made her feel a trifle breathless, but she got him 
 placed with the table between herself and him and 
 she cleared a space and got out pencils and paper. 
 
 "To-day we ll find out just how much you do 
 know," she said. "And then I ll lay out a course for 
 you. First, write your name down there for me, 
 please." 
 
 He went through the laborious performance and 
 handed her the result. 
 
 " Q. T. Kinwydden. What does the Q. T. 
 stand for?" she asked with all her kindness. The 
 scrawled signature, the strong brown hand, the face, 
 the eyes, spoke aloud to her heart for its kindness. 
 
 "Stand for?" he repeated. 
 
 "Yes. The <Q means what?" 
 
 "Why, ma am, you ve got me millin round. Q. T. 
 is what it stands fer." 
 
 "Q. T.?" 
 
 "Q. T. KewTee." 
 
 "Not Mr. Kinwydden not Cutie ?" Her 
 face was scarlet. 
 
 "Yes, ma am." He smiled. "It does sound kind of 
 funny. But I m broke to it. That s what they called 
 me in the cow-camp when I was a kid. I was one of 
 
40 "Q" 
 
 these big-boned akkard kids. I could n t rightly 
 control my hands and feet. I was always fallin into 
 things and over things. That s why they named me 
 thataway. Say, there goes Cutie into the fryin - 
 pan, they d say. Or, Look at Cutie, puttin his foot 
 into my coffee-cup. Later, they got to callin me 
 Cute for short, and because I was cute with the 
 bosses kind of wise with broncs. And then it came 
 to be Quiet because I d a way of savin that word to 
 the bosses or when there was a row on Quiet! 
 Quiet! thataway. And when I got to signin my 
 name and drawin my pay, well, ma am, I did n t 
 know no other name but Cutie, and I knowed my 
 letters and I figured out that was the way to spell it. 
 Q. TV Ain t it right, ma am? None of the boys ever 
 said nothin ag in it." 
 
 Mary had dropped her wistful and waggish eyes. 
 Her sympathy was too quick, too sensitive, too easily 
 emotional. She knew it. 
 
 "That s not just the right way to spell Cutie, 
 Mr. Kinwydden," she said. "But Quiet begins 
 with a Q. I think," she told him, "you deserve a 
 better name." 
 
 "They call me Q all over the range out there," he 
 said, "and I ain t got no call to change it." 
 
 "Very well," she said, for his tone was proud. 
 "And the Kinwydden that sounds Welsh." 
 
 "It is. It was a Welshman that wished it on me. 
 He left it to me when he died. I come down from the 
 hills to his ranch onct. He was an awful free-hearted 
 old fellow. And I was took awful sick. Some kind of 
 
The Beginning of an Education 41 
 
 fever. Had n t it been for him, I d have sure died. 
 But he nursed me well. Every year I d travel down to 
 visit him. When he died he left me his little old ranch 
 and he asked me to keep his name for him. Q he 
 said to me, *I ain t never had no boy nor no folks. 
 And you ain t never had no father nor no folks. I 
 want you to kerry my name for me. That d make me 
 die easy in my mind. So I did." He was silent. She 
 saw the feeling hidden by his mask. Then it broke be 
 fore his smile. "It s sure a hard name, though, ain t 
 it, ma am? Times I ve had to plump spur myself into 
 keepin it. And it don t go right with Q, does it?" 
 
 "I don t know, I think I rather like it. Q. T. Kin- 
 wydden it s not a bit like other names." 
 
 And that was the difficulty, the great one, in the 
 way of Q. T. s education. He, as well as his name, was 
 too unusual, too interesting: to Mary s narrow and 
 smothered experience, altogether too thrilling. It was 
 easier to talk about what he did know than what he 
 did n t. Mary had a feeling that he knew so much. 
 
 Toward the end of this first lesson there drifted into 
 the room, rather as if a draft had blown him there, a 
 little oldish gentleman with a mass of books under his 
 arm. This gentleman was introduced by Mary as 
 " Papa." Her voice was tender, just touched by the 
 softness of a brogue, on the "papa." He made no 
 difficulty of the pupil s name. In fact, to those odd 
 syllables as to every syllable he spoke, he gave a 
 jewel-like cutting, quite beautifully new to Western 
 ears. Q. T. found himself fascinated by Mary s 
 father. He was such a fine little gentleman, greatly 
 
42 "Q" 
 
 damaged by some crumpling and discoloring proc 
 ess of one of life s acid solutions in which he had 
 very apparently been dipped. He had a sharp, long, 
 pointed nose, reddened at the end; he had lips clever, 
 sensitive, hurt, with quiet little humor pockets at 
 their drooping corners; he had beautiful visionary 
 eyes rimmed with red and continually watering; 
 his white thick hair sprang back like a crest tri 
 umphant over his downfall. It was by way of being 
 his panache. And his fine little old body was shaken 
 and rickety and rackety, but wore its shabby clothes 
 quite beautifully with an air. 
 
 "Say," Q. T. remarked after the small gentleman 
 had excused himself, tenderly to Mary, whimsically 
 to Kinwydden, and had left the room. "Your Pa he 
 sure favors that curly feller at Grinscoombe Man 
 ners" it was a long time before Q. T. got his mind 
 straight on the matter of the " Grinscoombe Man 
 ners " "only with the meanness took out of him." 
 
 At which pronouncement, Mary laughed quite im 
 moderately, as people laugh when suppressed bitter 
 ness is suddenly released by mirth. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 A CROSSING OF SWORDS 
 
 Miss SELDA GRINSCOOMBE, the Miss Grinscoombe, 
 lifted the lid of a silver kettle and looked to see if the 
 water were about to boil. It was, but she dropped in 
 a square of sugar to hasten the process. Then she 
 straightened a delicate tea-cup, and turned her eyes 
 toward her visitor. To all these trifling actions she 
 gave an air of cold importance. She was sitting op 
 posite Q. T. Kinwydden on the glass-enclosed ve 
 randa at Grinscoombe Manor. Her chair had a very 
 high and wide back of wicker a chair like a bird of 
 the peacock variety that had turned up a fan-shaped 
 tail behind Miss Grinscoombe s head. This back 
 ground accentuated the stiffness and haughtiness of 
 her carriage, the small head, its gray -black hair care 
 fully arranged, the long neck banded with velvet to 
 hide the little wrinkles under the chin. Her beauty of 
 color and texture had gone, but it had left a hard 
 handsomeness of bone. The disguises of youth had 
 gone too. It was impossible longer to conceal harsh 
 ness of temper, a tyrannical will, and a passionate 
 sort of selfishness. Miss Grinscoombe s head would 
 have been especially decorative on the end of a revo 
 lutionary pike. It looked rather as if it belonged 
 there. But in all the hardness and harshness of its 
 lines and its expression, there was a curious underly 
 ing weakness. The great, almost staring gray eyes 
 
44 "Q" 
 
 had a guarded look that seemed to brazen out a little 
 waver of timidity; the thin lips, fallen in a trifle be 
 tween chin and nose, set themselves, it might be im 
 agined, with a certain concealing effort; the hands 
 moved calmly and stiffly, but with a deliberate stiff 
 ness. One could not fancy Miss Selda tremulous, but 
 one could fancy that she had a secret fear of tremu- 
 lousness. She was a woman of sixty -five, but looked 
 not more than fifty. It was as though at a certain age 
 she had dried past any further possibility of deteriora 
 tion. For all her tasteful, stylish, and becoming 
 dress, there was something mummified about her. 
 
 She rested her long, distinguished hands on the 
 arms of her chair and her stone-colored eyes in the 
 narrow, stone-colored face made no secret of their 
 contemptuous liking. For she liked her visitor, liked 
 him the better because in his case there was no possi 
 ble necessity for concealing an abnormal sense of su 
 periority and a quite abnormal egotism. He was 
 there as her niece s protege entirely on her sufferance 
 and she desired him to feel this with completeness. 
 The only drawback to the situation was that so far he 
 did not seem to feel it. He sat there and sipped his 
 tea and murmured his polite "Yes, ma am," and "No, 
 ma am," and his eyes rested upon her with a brilliant 
 sort of tranquillity. The perfection of his clothes 
 made him startling; his vivid coloring, the straight 
 "column of his neck hitherto unbent by the yoke of 
 civilized collar and coat, the great hard strength of 
 his body, were startling, but, above all, his eyes. 
 When she met these eyes, Miss Selda had a sensation 
 of being shocked. 
 
A Crossing of Swords 45 
 
 If she could have looked into the brain behind the 
 eyes, she would have been even profoundly shocked, 
 for here in these eyes she was being really seen for the 
 first time. When her world looked at Miss Selda, it 
 saw the Miss Grinscoombe, heiress of the Grins- 
 coombe Mills and the Grinscoombe fortune. The 
 family had grown to its pride in England many cen 
 turies before Q s birth, and, transplanted to a new 
 soil, it had struck deep root and had exceedingly 
 flourished. In Old New York not yet entirely sub 
 merged and, of course, greatly more so in Sluy pen- 
 kill, which had grown up in the shadow of Grins 
 coombe Manor, Miss Grinscoombe stood for an idea 
 so deeply rooted and many -branched that it caused a 
 powerful obscuration on the mind of the observer. 
 There is this advantage in having known a few men 
 and women in a very raw intimacy, one knows the 
 bones of all men and women. Prejudice sits like a 
 distorting lens across the nose of Mr. Worldly Wise 
 man. He sees this button and that stripe, this arrange 
 ment of feature and that decoration, but the bones of 
 humanity are for the most part non-existent for him. 
 Q. T. sat and sipped his tea and his eyes contemplated 
 as through serene miles of clarity Miss Selda Grins- 
 coombe s bones. And they were the first eyes to take 
 cognizance of that secret waver that was hers. 
 
 Besides the sensation of shock, Miss Selda had a 
 further sensation of release. She found herself rather 
 more loquacious than was her habit. She was free to 
 indulge without caution, as she frequently rather care 
 fully indulged, a delicate impulse to cruelty. This 
 
46 "Q" 
 
 young man who did not belong to her world, who could 
 never belong to it, and yet for whom with a very de 
 finite purpose she had negligently let down the bars 
 that kept such young men in their Heaven-ordained 
 place, was fair game for her experiments. Slaves that 
 buried treasure and were effectually silenced by death 
 must have been as welcome an audience to the un 
 bending humors of their tyrant. Q was to be allowed 
 acquaintance with the treasure of Grinscoombe and 
 the end of his experience was to be the death of his 
 hope and his ambition this Miss Selda knew. She 
 considered it a wholesome lesson for the man. She 
 found him, in the meantime, therefore, amusing and 
 likable company. She hoped to see a great deal of 
 him. She told him so. 
 
 "I think," she said, "we shall enjoy our conversa 
 tions, Mr. Kinwydden." She spoke delicately and 
 carefully as though she were picking her way along a 
 dirty path on stones of impeccable purity. "And 
 I think you will enjoy meeting my niece s friends. 
 You did enjoy them, this afternoon ?" 
 
 When Q had arrived, there had been half a dozen of 
 Lelo s friends and he had met them and listened to 
 them and watched them, he had answered patiently 
 their questions and had been somewhat startled by 
 their intense amusement over his own rare comments. 
 
 "Yes, ma am," he said, and added with a queer 
 ironic flash, "not one half so much as they re agoin* 
 to enjoy me." 
 
 "Really?" Miss Selda indulged herself in the smile 
 of Sir Sydney Grinscoombe. 
 
A Crossing of Swords 47 
 
 "Yes, ma am. I m sure agoin* to get paid for all 
 the times I Ve laughed to myself over the plumb fool 
 ish ways of Eastern folks with hosses and in camp 
 and on the trail, got behind sagebrush and willow 
 clumps and laughed myself loco. Now it s their 
 turn." 
 
 "And you 11 find, my poor boy, that they won t get 
 behind anything to do their laughing. This genera 
 tion is not sensitive for itself or for its victims." 
 
 When she called him a "poor boy," Q blinked and 
 inwardly he was seized by an intense desire to laugh. 
 This old lady was pitying him! Pitying him Q! 
 Aloud he said inexpressively, "Ain t that the truth 
 now!" and his face was a gentle mask. 
 
 "The average New York debutante," pursued in 
 flexibly the "old lady" who had been unwise enough 
 to pity Q, "is a little vulgarian. Lelo is not. That is 
 the difference, which you, no doubt, are experienced 
 enough to observe. I have given her a cosmopolitan 
 education. She has been presented in more than one 
 European court" (through the mind of the listener 
 flashed a picture of some unimaginably stately cere 
 mony not unlike a heathen sacrifice). "She is fitted 
 to be the companion of statesmen, men of the great 
 world. She has tasted such companionship. I am so 
 glad" here Miss Selda extended her palm, her ges 
 ture of friendliness, in a light upward movement 
 "I am so glad, my dear Mr. Q" her eyes gleamed 
 at the queerness of her name for him "that you 
 have arrived at just this juncture. Lelo is bored. 
 And when one of us is bored ! " She lifted eyes and 
 
48 "Q" 
 
 hands to let them fall. "The variety of mischief and 
 danger the Grinscoombe impatience of boredom can 
 drive them to!" 
 
 "She ain t afraid of any danger there might be 
 in her lookin in my direction," was the cowboy s 
 shrewd inner comment; aloud he said, "Is that so?" 
 in a tone of profound commiseration for the Grins 
 coombe fashion of escaping boredom. 
 
 Miss Selda looked at him, suddenly aware that she 
 had been vastly more communicative than her visitor. 
 
 "What do you and Lelo find to talk about?" she 
 said. 
 
 Q set down his empty cup and rose. He was aware 
 of a great weariness, a great desire for solitude. "I 
 reckon you d say we talk about one of the best ways 
 of not gettin bored, ma am," he said; and added, 
 meeting her gray stare with a steely intentness, "I ll 
 be goin now and thank you kindly." 
 
 Their eyes remained for an instant fixed it was 
 like the crossing of blades and just for that instant 
 there was a curious resemblance between Miss Grins 
 coombe and her guest. 
 
 The interview left Q smarting, restless, and excited. 
 That night he could not sleep. He sat at his window, 
 listening to the grinding intermittent passage of the 
 trolley cars, the occasional hum of a motor, the 
 laughter of town lovers and the clapping of feet. The 
 coarse lace curtain sucked in and out behind his head. 
 Hour by hour he sat there, immobile as a savage, ex 
 cept, at almost rhythmic intervals, for the rolling and 
 lighting of a cigarette. In the corner saloon a Victor 
 
A Crossing of Swords 49 
 
 sang and laughed and screamed dance music like a 
 lunatic until, soon after midnight, a hand was clapped 
 across its mouth. Gradually the town yielded its 
 hoarse small clamors to the silence of night. There 
 were some roistering farewells in front of the saloon, 
 unsteady footsteps. Q thought that under his win 
 dow a girl s voice spoke with surprising gentleness, 
 just one word softly. A little tender touch of brogue 
 reminded him of his small schoolmarm. He had a 
 strong impulse of gratitude toward Mary Grins- 
 coombe who, of the three Grinscoombes he had 
 met, had been the only one to look at him, woman to 
 man an impulse that turned into a longing for her 
 help. It was almost the first time in his hard and 
 lonely life that such an impulse had been born in him. 
 Miss Selda s face had become a Sphinx in his path. 
 What was there in her mind against him? "She likes 
 me," he thought, "but she chooses to make me 
 winch "She likes me, but she means me to savvy 
 somethin somethin that 11 leave me with a scar. 
 God! I ll hev to fight her." His fist on the window- 
 sill tightened until his arm was iron to the shoulder. 
 "Fight her and fight the notion that s in her mind 
 and that s in her gel s mind too. I wisht I savvied 
 what it was 
 
 He tortured his brains for a name, for a vision of 
 that mysterious inimical idea. The unaccustomed ef 
 fort of such thought brought sweat to his forehead. 
 He had the feeling of exhaustion that the hunter ex 
 periences when, at the top of a desperate slope, he 
 stands gasping and drained of life to see the game 
 
50 "Q" . 
 
 dropping beyond sight and range over the next high- 
 headed hill. Q stood up from the tense position he 
 had held. He felt cramped and stifled, bitterly home 
 sick for the night wind of the range upon his face. He 
 was urgent for air and space and stars. He found his 
 way down through the sleeping hotel past the nod 
 ding night clerk at the desk and out into the silent 
 street. A thunder-cloud pulsing with faint lightning 
 was swallowing dim star by star above the silent 
 town. Q strode out in the direction farthest from 
 Grinscoombe Manor. He walked with a tireless pan 
 ther step until the houses were far behind him and the 
 scent of lawless spring rose up from the docile walled- 
 in fields. Thunder growled like a dog at his heels. 
 There lay a mist of cherry blossoms across the lane. 
 It was getting densely dark. Down below in an 
 abrupt gully, there flashed up at him the lights of a 
 tiny hamlet beside a rattling creek. He chose a steep 
 and sudden path, white as paint to his forest eyes, but 
 before he reached the bottom of the gully the storm 
 struck him, a May storm as mad as a Bacchante. It 
 lashed and beat him. He found shelter beneath some 
 groaning firs by a gate, which shrilled to and fro on a 
 damaged hinge. A few paces inside it a ramshackle 
 house danced in and out under the lightning, clinging 
 crazily to the steep side of the hill. A light burned 
 in one weeping and unshuttered window. As he 
 watched this blurred light, wondering if it might not 
 be more sensible to ask for shelter, the door opened 
 from inside, was shut with difficulty, and some small, 
 fluttering object scuttered down the path and, before 
 
A Crossing of Swords 51 
 
 he could distinguish what it was, blundered against 
 his legs. It gave forth a shrill, frightened cry, and Q 
 exclaimed, "Great snakes! A kid! What are you 
 doin out in this storm this time of night?" 
 
 The little girl s pale, pointed face glistened up at 
 him. Her little hand was at her throat. "Oh, mister, 
 how you scared me!" she wailed. 
 
 "What did they send you out for?" 
 
 The child s urgency overcame her fluttered nerves. 
 She panted, "I gotta get over to Sampson s house on 
 the hill to telephone for doctor. Kin you hold the 
 gate for me, please?" 
 
 "What doc? Who s sick?" 
 
 "My ma s took awful bad with her heart." The 
 little creature sobbed uncontrollably. "I think she s 
 agoin to die this time. And Pa, he s away on a drunk 
 and I gotta send for Dr. Sales." 
 
 "Sales, is it? Whereat?" 
 
 "Up to Sluypenkill." 
 
 "Your ma s name? Stringer? You cut back into 
 the house, gel. I ll get the doc. You say the tele 
 phone s at Sampson s up the hill a white house 
 white gateposts?" 
 
 "Yes, mister." 
 
 "Get back. You re wet through already." 
 
 She seemed to be blown back into the house, and 
 Q bent his supple strength against the storm and 
 fought through the streaming darkness, finding the 
 entrance presently, flanked by stiff pale ghosts. He 
 thundered presently at the door of the frame house. 
 It seemed a long time before his thunder brought an 
 
52 "Q" 
 
 opener. Bolts were deliberately withdrawn, a tall, 
 scrawny, bearded figure in a flannel nightshirt, show 
 ing flat feet and hairy legs, held up a kerosene lamp 
 and peered at Q. 
 
 "You Sampson?" 
 
 The man reluctantly admitted it and clawed at his 
 red beard with the fingers of suspicion. Q patiently 
 explained himself. Never before had he encountered 
 so unwilling an intelligence. It was a matter for im 
 mense consideration to Mr. Sampson whether or no 
 his telephone could be endangered by so informal and 
 unexpected a service. At last Q found himself ad 
 mitted. 
 
 "Will you look up Sales s number for me?" he 
 asked, flushing, " while I get the rain out of my eyes." 
 
 Sampson s suspicions returned in force, but, one 
 red-fringed eye on Q, he sought the number, found it, 
 and pronounced it, nasally. After interminable repe 
 titions of "Hullo," a voice other than Central s re 
 plied. It was a soft and heavy voice; it had evidently 
 been summoned from a soft and slumbrous body. It 
 was irritable. 
 
 "Hullo! Hullo! Yes, this is Dr. Sales. Who is it? 
 What do you want?" 
 
 "Say, doc, there s a woman named Stringer that s 
 took bad with her heart. I want you to come quick." 
 
 "Who is this, please?" 
 
 " It would n t do you no good to know, doc. I m a 
 stranger in these parts. But the woman is sure awful 
 sick." 
 
 "Mrs. Stringer, you say? At the Gully? You d get 
 
A Crossing of Swords 53 
 
 me out of my bed at this hour on a night like this for a 
 Gully case?" 
 
 " Say, doc, you better come." Q s voice had a stern 
 sort of incredulity. "I guess you didn t hear me 
 right. She s likely to die." 
 
 "The quicker that rabbit-warren gets thinned out, 
 the better," said the heavy voice; "it s a regular 
 breeding-place for disease." And the receiver clicked. 
 
 Q turned a white, bewildered face to Sampson. 
 
 "He s not agoin to come." 
 
 Sampson made a wry grimace. "Dr. Sales don t 
 trouble himself much over the Gully cases. No profit, 
 lots of work, and he hates work." 
 
 "Have you any woman that ll come back with me 
 to Mrs. Stringer and help?" 
 
 "Nope." The fingers were scratching again at the 
 beard. "I m alone to-night." 
 
 "Then coine yourself. We ve got to do what we 
 
 can." 
 
 "I ve got the rheumatiz and it s raining pitch 
 forks. I ll try to get down later." 
 
 Q turned and flung himself out of the house. He 
 had the gift of prompt and instinctive hatred, a gift 
 of which civilization has robbed the bewildered and 
 defrauded mind of humanity. His hatred for Dr. 
 Sales had the relentless patience of a loping wolf. 
 
 He found at Mrs. Stringer s the interior he had ex 
 pected. The smell of poverty, the same the world 
 over, familiarly assailed his nostrils. There was a 
 bare, chilly room, lighted by a single lamp. A little, 
 half-dressed boy sat up among dingy blankets on 
 
54 "Q" 
 
 the floor and cried dismally, the older child, who had 
 run against him, stood pinched with fear by the 
 side of the bed, where a dark-haired young woman 
 lay and looked up at him with pain-shadowed eyes 
 and blue, convulsed lips. 
 
 " Would n t he come? " she whispered, and, as he 
 shook his head, she nearly smiled. "I thought not! 
 O my God this pain!" 
 
 "Ain t there no other doc? Is there a drug-store 
 handy?" 
 
 "There ain t nothin at the Gully. If I don t git 
 help quick, it ll be no good." 
 
 Q peeled off his coat. "Well, ma am," he said, 
 "I ve lived in places where docs and drugs was 
 scarcer than they are here and where every man s got 
 to be a sort of doc, himself. I ve got some whiskey 
 with me; we kin light a fire. Say, we re agoin to pull 
 you through." 
 
 He brought into the room courage and hope and 
 courage and hope carried them all through the night 
 and up to the gates of death, and triumphantly 
 through them, for at dawn the woman died, silently, 
 patiently, hopefully, her pathetic head dropping back 
 against his shoulder. Q laid her down and smoothed 
 her covers. He stood looking at her face, already 
 rested from life. He was not unfamiliar with such 
 spectacles. The children were asleep, curled up like 
 two thin little kittens in a corner of the room. He sat 
 down to wait for the return of that "Pa" who had 
 "gone off on a drunk." A desolate home-coming it 
 would be in the still, rain-washed dawn. 
 
A Crossing of Swords 55 
 
 When the gate clicked, Q rose and let himself 
 quietly out on the small porch. A young, stoop- 
 shouldered, unshaven working-man with a dull and 
 beaten look, came slowly toward him, wavered to a 
 stop and looked up with already stricken eyes into 
 his face. 
 
 "Your wife was took very ill during the night," 
 said Q gently. The man was sober enough, though he 
 had been drinking; fumes of bad whiskey rose from 
 him through parted, working lips. "I happened to 
 come into your place during the storm and your little 
 gel come runnin out for the doctor. Doc would n t 
 come the storm was too bad so I done what I 
 could." He stepped down and put his arm heavily 
 across Stringer s shoulders. "It was n t no use, man. 
 She s dead." 
 
 At the sight of her, the widower, until then quite 
 still and dull, broke out into sobbing curses. 
 
 "He s a murderer, that Sales, and I ll get him, be 
 fore God I will him and his damned horspital where 
 they let a man die of blood-poisoning! Too bad a 
 storm! Wait till I get back to the Mills! Oh, 
 Hallie girl, I ll pay him out for this!" 
 
 Q laid his hand a minute on the man and looked 
 into his eyes, his own gathering gray light. 
 
 "Leave him to me, stranger," he said softly and 
 grimly. "You leave him to me. He s mine." 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 CONCERNING LOVES AND HATREDS 
 
 THE morning after the storm, Mary s pupil was late 
 for the first time. It was half -past eleven before she 
 opened the door in reply to the shattering peal that 
 was his usual announcement. 
 
 "Now I am going to scold you!" she said, and 
 there was really a fine crease of annoyance between 
 her brows. She was completely absorbed in the edu 
 cation of the "gol-derndest ignorantest growed white 
 man in the U-nited States," and she begrudged those 
 wasted ninety minutes. 
 
 "I m plumb ashamed of myself," said Q, and it was 
 the only excuse he gave. 
 
 "You have so very much to learn," sighed Mary 
 as they took their places on either side of the table, 
 "and so short a time to learn it in. You need every 
 second you can give to study. Now you have lost 
 nearly two hours!" 
 
 "You had ought to lick me, lady." 
 
 For the first time his schoolmarm failed to return 
 Q s smile, and this alarmed and distressed the West 
 erner more than anything she could have said. He 
 gave her a quick, scared look and fell to work with 
 overpowering seriousness. 
 
 In the middle of his reading-lesson, however (he 
 was engaged on page 18 of a primer and was spelling 
 out 
 
Concerning Loves and Hatreds 57 
 
 "Run, girls and boys. 
 Jump, boys and girls. 
 Run to the tree, boys. 
 Run to me, girls" 
 
 quite as if he meant every word of it, especially the 
 last sentence, which he delivered with an indescrib 
 ably laughable drawl), he interrupted himself to say, 
 
 "After I run away from the folks that treated me 
 so bad, I was n t never licked but once." 
 
 Mary, minded to reprove him, looked up to see a 
 white face and eyes that blazed quite through her. 
 
 Instantly she forgot everything except the spec 
 tacle. "When was that?" she asked in a very low 
 voice, holding herself as still as though she were afraid 
 of him. 
 
 "I was a boy of twelve or thereabouts. A big rich 
 feller come to the cow-camp. He was half boss of the 
 hull outfit. We boys was ridin the range on his pay, 
 but he did n t often come nigh the camps. This time 
 he happened in on his way to one of the main ranches 
 and he brung his boy. He was an awful plump kid, 
 dressed up stylish in store clothes. Well, sir, he wore 
 a kind of a strip-ed shirt with a stiff collar and he had 
 on a straw hat. A straw hat with a blue-and-white 
 strip-ed ribbon all about it. Yes, ma am, it sure had 
 that kind of ribbon. Fer-di-nand was his name. It 
 was my job to entertain him. I was real po-lite to 
 him, ma am. I sure was, till he called me a name. It 
 was a right nasty name, and I lighted into him. He 
 was bigger n me and not so soft as you d think to 
 look at him. He was about two years older. But I was 
 
58 "Q" 
 
 lickin him all right when he begun to holler, Popper! 
 Popper! like as if I d b en wattlin him. Well, sir, 
 Popper he came through the willows like a cow moose, 
 and he tuk me by what I called my collar and havin 
 his ridin -switch handy, he gave me the gol-derndest 
 lickin you ever need to think about. There were n t 
 any Popper round fer me to holler to, so I held my 
 tongue. All the while the Fer-di-nand kid stood by 
 kind of pipin , That s right, Popper, you better give 
 it to him. You teach him not to be so free with his 
 fists. " 
 
 Q s eyes came slowly back to the vision of Mary s 
 face. "Some day," he said, "I m agoin to find that 
 young feller and pay him back on that lickin and 
 some to spare." 
 
 There was a hard brown fist lying on the primer 
 and Mary impulsively put her hand over it. 
 
 "Don t be revengeful, Mr. Q," she said softly; 
 "you re too big a man to remember a thing like 
 that." 
 
 He started under her touch, looked down at the 
 hand and then at her again. Mary took the hand 
 away. 
 
 "I pay off what s owed," said Q grimly, "if that s 
 bein revengeful. I never have spoken about that 
 lickin before to any one. But I ain t never forgot it. 
 It kept me layin awake all that night. I don t hate 
 many folks. But I sure hate that Fer-di-nand kid. 
 And I m sure goin to pass on that lickin ." 
 
 "But you would n t know him if you saw him. 
 You were boys. Do you know his last name?" 
 
Concerning Loves and Hatreds 59 
 
 " Fadden," said Q. "He was brung up in the East 
 and he lives hereabouts. Fer-di-nand Fadden." 
 
 And, for an instant, Mary opened her blue-gray 
 eyes to a large and startled width. 
 
 "Hatin is queer/ Q went on slowly; and added 
 with apparent irrelevance, "I ve knowed some al 
 mighty fine docs, though." 
 
 Mary stared, then remembered abruptly that she 
 was a schoolmarm. 
 
 "I shall have to invent some sort of punishment 
 for you," she said. "You ve been talking for ten 
 minutes." 
 
 "You had n t ought to listen to me, ma am." 
 
 She colored at his tone. "After this, I won t. And 
 I Ve thought of a punishment. You must tell me all 
 over again what you ve just told me and you must 
 put it into perfect English." 
 
 "O, Gawd Almighty!" ejaculated Q, and spent an 
 other five minutes in abject apology for his oath. But 
 he had to tell his story again, painfully and perfectly. 
 And even the last sentence was remembered and 
 "served up cold," as Q expressed it. 
 
 "I have known," he had to say, "some very fine 
 doctors," and burst out laughing for the first time in 
 Mary s experience of him. 
 
 He left her, as usual, flushed and pleasantly ex 
 cited, feeling that the shadow had been lifted from 
 her day. She hung for a long time over the page of 
 his writing-lesson, a proverb, written down neatly in 
 her own straight letters at the top of the page and 
 painfully repeated in his big hand. Her face as it read 
 
60 "Q" 
 
 down the lines was more like the face of a youthful 
 mother than that of a schoolmarm. When she looked 
 up at the sound of the tiny clock striking modestly 
 between the globes, the shadow fell again. 
 
 And yet, those days of Mary s over which the 
 shadow lay were tranquil and serene enough. In the 
 morning she would prepare the breakfast, a coffee- 
 toast-and-marmalade meal, and then she would go 
 over the tiny house and make it shine this before 
 the appearance of her pupil. After lessons, there was 
 lunch to be cooked, which she brought on a tray to 
 her father s elbow, where he wrote at a desk in a dim 
 corner of the Grinscoombe Free Library half a block 
 away. In the afternoon, he came home and slept very 
 quietly and neatly in a chair. He worked a very little 
 with a gentle air of detachment in the vegetable gar 
 den. The working-man s house had a working-man s 
 back yard. And then, Mary would call him in to sup 
 per with that tender and anxious softening of her 
 voice which amounted almost to a brogue. So far, 
 certainly, the day would have been serene; Mary 
 would have mended and read and walked and pre 
 pared Q s lesson for to-morrow. At supper the little 
 father would be quietly gay and Mary almost fever 
 ishly so. She would entertain her father, her father 
 would entertain her; it was a dialogue well worth the 
 listening to, and not in the least like the usual family 
 mumble or clatter, rather pathetically unlike it. 
 Even after the meal, while she was washing up the 
 dishes, Mary would keep up her talk until it 
 would suddenly falter into silence. In the midst of 
 
Concerning Loves and Hatreds 61 
 
 her story or his sophism, the little father would have 
 tiptoed away, slunk out of his house, and down the 
 street like a quivering piece of twilight. 
 
 Then Mary, looking thirty years instead of twenty- 
 four, would move about the little lonely house, or try 
 to read or sit with her head in her hands until a late, 
 late hour, when she would stand up and, holding her 
 head high, would walk quickly down the side street 
 and along the main one. Her fingers would be cold 
 and her throat tight, but if, by an unlucky chance, 
 there were an acquaintance to be met, Mary would 
 smile and wave her hand pleasantly as though she 
 were going for a stroll. So to a certain brightly 
 lighted corner where from a swinging door stumbled 
 and wavered a helpless little figure, to whom Mary 
 went straight and took its arm and guided its zigzag 
 course toward home. Her cheeks burned and her 
 eyes smarted, but she had still the air of taking a 
 pleasant stroll with her "Papa" this for the ben 
 efit of that possible belated acquaintance who, if met 
 with, greeted Mary with lowered eyes and passed her 
 quickly by. The pity of the averted looks smote her 
 pride like a blow. 
 
 It was one night, not very long after that lesson in 
 which Mary had inflicted punishment, when Q. T. 
 Kinwydden, swinging with his lithe-hipped stride 
 along Main Street, bore down upon the pair. His 
 eyes, trained to observation and wise in such human 
 ities, read the tragedy and its heroism at a glance and 
 he too smiled and passed by. But in an instant he was 
 back again. He lifted his hat and took Mr. Grins- 
 coombe s arm. 
 
62 "Q" 
 
 "No use you lookin at me, ma am," he said, very 
 low, very grim, very gentle, "I m agoin to see you 
 through this." 
 
 He saw them to the porch of the little house and 
 up the steps and, because Mary here bade him a trem 
 ulous good-night, he did not see them any farther. 
 But he sat on the top step of the porch that needed 
 painting so badly and, with the ears of a forest beast, 
 he heard the dreadful stumbling up the stairs and 
 Mary s coaxing voice as she got her charge into bed 
 and, afterwards, her lagging step down the stairs. At 
 the foot she seemed to pause and soon there came the 
 pitiful low sound of her sobbing. 
 
 For five minutes Q sat and swore to himself with 
 eloquence; when he was not able to think of a fresh 
 oath, he stood up, opened the door, and, seeing 
 through the dimness, he took himself straight to 
 Mary huddled on the lowest step with her head down 
 on her knees. There was no room for him to sit be 
 side her on the narrow step, so he squatted on his 
 heels as cowboys squat on their high-heeled boots 
 about a round-up fire and put his hand over hers that 
 were cold and wet with tears. 
 
 "You ve got to let me in on this, ma am," he said; 
 " you ve got to let me in." 
 
 In the overwhelming darkness within and without, 
 his voice seemed to break down something in Mary s 
 heart. For the first time in her life, she let in upon her 
 trouble the warmth of human sympathy. She sobbed 
 her story to Q and her fingers clung to the kind warm 
 iron of his hand. 
 
Concerning Loves and Hatreds 63 
 
 "He is such a darling," she began, "and he is such a 
 fine man altogether. I love him so. You would n t 
 guess, Q dear " she had always called him Mr. 
 Kinwydden before "what a heart he has, nor 
 what a head for wit and learning and wisdom. He 
 has genius. It s the way those brutes have treated 
 him! The cowards! The devils! Oh, all because he 
 was so much finer and braver than any of them could 
 possibly understand. When he was a very young 
 man, not much more than a boy and living up there 
 at the house you visit, Q, Grinscoombe Manor, a 
 son of old Mr. Grinscoombe, an own brother of that 
 Miss Selda Grinscoombe, indeed, yes, Q, he is! - 
 he was just a sensitive, warm-hearted boy and he lost 
 his heart and his head over a pretty little Irish maid 
 servant. I really think she was the first creature that 
 ever showed a human interest and understanding to 
 ward him. She was very young herself then and - 
 and rash and generous. Q when he found the 
 wrong his passion had done her " Mary faltered* 
 "Do you understand?" 
 
 "I savvy, ma am; t was because of some such 
 wrong-doin s somewhere that my mother left me 
 with the folks that treated me so bad and that I 
 growed up without a name." 
 
 "Yes," cried Mary eagerly, "and it s just what my 
 father would n t do! He married the little Irish ser 
 vant girl and his family turned him out. Old Mr. 
 Grinscoombe never spoke to him again. He showered 
 everything on Francis, his other son, and when Fran 
 cis died, after a very creditable marriage and the 
 
64 "Q" 
 
 birth of a very creditable daughter, then he gave 
 everything to my Aunt Selda though I ve never 
 called her that to her face, mind you; and in his will 
 he left her everything, the money and the mills and 
 the old home my father loved, so. I don t know why 
 Papa never went away from here. He just stayed and 
 worked a little and wrote his wonderful book." Here 
 Mary straightened and Q felt her excited grip tighten 
 on his hand. "No one will ever read his wonderful 
 book," she said. "I ve sent it to lots of publishers. I 
 typed it all, myself pages and pages of it, and I ve 
 made fresh copies, but they won t read it. I know, be 
 cause I put a hair between the pages and it always 
 comes back not a bit disturbed. I think it must be be 
 cause of the first two chapters which are rather vague 
 and wandering; they don t catch your attention, 
 though I never dared to tell him so. But later on 
 
 - it s full of wit and humor and quaint and 
 it s very wise. Darling Papa! Do you know what his 
 name for himself was, Q? even when he was a little 
 boy, and does n t it show how those Grinscoombes" 
 
 - she ground out the hated name as though it had 
 not been her own "must have treated him! The 
 Earthworm, that s what he called himself. And he 
 called his book The Philosophy of an Earth 
 worm. When you get your education, you must read 
 it." 
 
 "Yes, ma am," said Q gently. 
 She was sitting up straight and the tears had 
 stopped. Now she drooped again. 
 
 "It was after my mother s death and, Q, the 
 
Concerning Loves and Hatreds 65 
 
 passion was love, the very best and most patient 
 love, and it was when he was so poor and my brother 
 was sick and we could n t pay Dr. Sales s bill, that 
 Papa began to to drink." She had never said this 
 of him before and it made her tremble to say it. "I 
 we tried so hard to keep him away. And then we d 
 take turns bringing him home until Harry would n t 
 let me do it any more. But Harry went to New York 
 to work and, afterwards, he came home very, very 
 ill. And died. . . 
 
 That was Mary s story. Q listened to it. Except 
 for the two answers she had called for, he made no 
 comments. After the story was told, he pushed 
 a beautiful clean white linen handkerchief marked 
 Q. T. K. by a very expensive linen merchant on 
 Fifth Avenue into Mary s lap and she laughed and 
 blew her nose. 
 
 No other man she had ever known or ever would 
 know, perhaps, could have comforted her so sanely 
 and so surely as did this queer pupil of hers. 
 
 "Say," he murmured reasonably, "lots of fellers 
 takes their drink and goes home on a crooked trail 
 and none the worse for it. He s sure a real gentleman. 
 But it ain t a lady s business rightly. You let me see 
 to it. I sure know the inside ways of a bar. Lady, 
 likely, if your Pa had a friend who would drink with 
 him, he d be hittin the home trail when that friend 
 kissed his glass good-night. I ain t averse to a drink 
 nights, seems more home-like to me, sort of. Will 
 you let me take up this claim, lady?" 
 
 She could only thank him; it was hope, a gleam 
 
66 "Q" 
 
 under the old bridge of her care. All the little shad- 
 do wed ripples brightened. 
 
 After he had left her, she kissed the handkerchief 
 marked Q. T. K. Also, she kept it. And she has 
 it yet. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE STARS IN THEIR COURSES 
 
 No step in Q s education was to prove itself so for 
 warding as the association which his promise to 
 Mary brought about between him and her father. 
 From two extremes of loneliness the minds of scholar 
 and cowboy drew quickly to a meeting-point. And 
 the friendship was fostered truly as many a more 
 historic one by the releasing influence of wine. It 
 was a key to unlock the beauty of Mr. Grinscoombe s 
 wisdom and the gentleness of Q s chivalry. He had 
 guessed right; a friend was Mr. Grinscoombe s need 
 rather than an intoxicant. In fact the sympathetic 
 listener was the more heady potion. 
 
 Q anticipated a difficulty in subtracting the little 
 tremulous, vague-eyed figure from its familiar corner 
 of the bar. 
 
 "I m agoin now, sir," he said that first night, 
 standing above the older man with so gentle an air of 
 deference that to the outcast Grinscoombe, unused 
 to any show of reverence, he had an incalculable force 
 for the restoration of self-respect, "I m agoin home, 
 and I was figurin that the trail d be less lonesome if 
 you was ready to quit too. Or are you plannin* to 
 linger?" 
 
 Half-automatically Henry Grinscoombe got to his 
 feet, buttoning his carefully worn and threadbare 
 coat with nervous fingers. There was a touch on his 
 
68 "Q" 
 
 arm. He looked down at his glass. The touch forbore 
 to urge, but it seemed to tingle with a need. He found 
 himself moving past a row of uninquiring backs out 
 into the purple splendor of the June night. 
 
 "Say," Q murmured, feeling a sort of reactionary 
 quiver in his companion, as though he felt an unbear 
 able reproach in the aspect of the night, "look at 
 them stars! What about getting into the meadows, 
 eh? for a sniff of the hay? Or would you be ready for 
 home?" 
 
 "You are proposing a walk with me, Mr. Kin wy ol 
 den?" 
 
 "If you d be carin to." It was half -wistful, 
 wholly honest, that deference of Q s. A memory of 
 his dead son afflicted the little shaken gentleman. He 
 put his hand on Q s arm. Their stroll took them 
 along a shadowy side street. Not five minutes later 
 the Earthworm found a listener, a most accomplished 
 holder of his tongue. The stars were the occasion, 
 seen through the gnarled branches of a locust tree. 
 "Scorpio," Mr. Grinscoombe greeted it, murmuring 
 as though to a friend, "Scorpio, with Antares like a 
 red jewel." 
 
 And he pointed with his slender stick, using the 
 support of Q s young iron arm. 
 
 Q lifted up his eyes and recognized a familiar of 
 lonely ranges. 
 
 "I did n t know it had a name," he said, "I d like 
 to savvy that. It always stands there to the south, 
 June nights. I ve saw it over Thunder Mountain." 
 
 "You don t know their names?" The little man, 
 
The Stars in their Courses 69 
 
 excited, moved his stick across the heavens, pointing 
 delicately world upon world, sun upon sun; the 
 wheeling obvious constellations of the north, the more 
 tender and mysterious southerners. He sought an or 
 chard hill-top, climbed a rock. Names and legends 
 began to whirl giddily in Q s head. He knew all at 
 once his vast insignificance in a spinning universe. 
 He had the mysterious comfort of unimportance. 
 They lay in the grass on their backs and from science 
 was born philosophy. The Earthworm discoursed 
 fascinatingly of Myths and Origins. His pure simplic 
 ity of speech had the serene directness of the stars. 
 Patterns of knowledge began to marshal themselves 
 in the retentive emptiness of the cowboy s igno 
 rance. An Historical Sense was born suddenly in him. 
 Never after that evening was he in any true sense of 
 the word an ignorant man. The races that had 
 watched those galleon constellations move, that had 
 fastened names to their glittering and haughty prows, 
 that had gravely fashioned shapes of bear and scor 
 pion and lyre, became and remained living and real to 
 him. When they turned back that night, Q, with the 
 poet, felt "chilly and grown old." His brain had 
 stretched itself more powerfully than Mr. Grins- 
 coombe s unaccustomed legs. Q left the little man at 
 his door, still flourishing cane and tongue, ready to 
 entertain disciples until dawn. There was a light in 
 Mary s window, and Q, looking up, thought he saw 
 her face looking down, all lighted from within, by re 
 lieved surprise. 
 
 He went back to Room 90, elated and abashed. He 
 
70 "Q" 
 
 could n t sleep. What there was in the world to know, 
 to believe, to ponder! What wisdom in the little old 
 shaky head with its triumphant silver crest! "And I 
 was thinkin I could help an old drunk me/" There 
 were depths of humility in that "me" which Q s 
 pride of a savage would never allow any one to dis 
 cern. He was very near to the awful realization of a 
 Universal God that night. He had an impulse to 
 prayer; perhaps he prayed. 
 
 After that, Mary s father showed an impatience 
 that had not a hint of shame for his evening visit to 
 the bar, but he waited not for a third and fourth po 
 tation, but for the tall, swinging figure that rarely 
 failed him. Q drank with and listened to the fre 
 quenters of the bar, and when he "kissed" his moder 
 ate glass "good-night," more eager than Q s prophecy 
 the little gentleman was ready to accompany him. 
 Sometimes they walked, sometimes they went up to 
 Q s room; sometimes they came back to Mary. And 
 always the old man talked and the young man lis 
 tened. It ended in Mr. Grinscoombe s reading aloud 
 chapters from his book of Earthworm Philosophy, for 
 which purpose Q was invited to supper. In the hard, 
 bare life that had been his, the utterly untended bat 
 tle of its childhood, the single-handed struggle of 
 its youth, there had been nothing like these gentle, 
 sheltered evenings; Mary sewing or reading, moths 
 knocking about the yellow-shaded lamp, Mr. Grins 
 coombe s quaint wit, Mary s humor-sparkles, their 
 kind laughter and teasing, the games they taught 
 him to play and played with him Sniff and Casino 
 
The Stars in their Courses 71 
 
 and Chess and Checkers; the books besides the 
 Great One that they read aloud: Mary s face be 
 gan to live comfortably in his heart and the quick, 
 sweet, tart little sayings and the waggish kindness of 
 her eyes and mouth came very close to his unused af 
 fection and soothed him when the lady of his longing 
 had dealt him wounds that would not heal for all his 
 determined self-respect. 
 
 It was after one of those woundings, a not alto 
 gether unintentional one, for the flames that attract 
 moths sometimes are fed with quite voluntary cru 
 elty, when Q gave Mary a glimpse into the purpose- 
 fulness of his Sluypenkill existence. 
 
 Heloise had a visitor, a New York broker, a wiry 
 and very animated gentleman, who out-talked the 
 glib insects of a July afternoon. It was one of Q s 
 afternoons, by promise, when the broker unexpect 
 edly appeared, but Heloise had thrown over the West 
 erner s plan for entertainment with scant apology. 
 
 "Mr. Van Wenden has come all the way from that 
 sweltering city, Q, so I must give him his reward. I m 
 going to take him into the garden and give him iced 
 tea. You may come, if you like. You 11 be interested 
 in what he says. I ll get him to talk Wall Street" 
 she teased Q with one of her cool, long-lidded looks. 
 "What do you know about Wall Street? That s part 
 of a man s education." 
 
 Q allowed himself an ironical exclamation. "A 
 feller can learn hold-up methods anywheres," he 
 drawled; "Wall Street ain t the one and only school 
 for em." 
 
72 "Q" 
 
 "I believe," she said, watching his expression 
 closely, "that you are jealous of Mr. Van Wenden, 
 
 Q." 
 
 At which he suddenly, and to her, surprisingly, for 
 she was well accustomed to his mask, burned fiery 
 red, neck and cheek and forehead under his eternal 
 tan. 
 
 "I ll bid you good-afternoon, Miss Grinscoombe," 
 he said, and left her feeling altogether abashed. 
 
 Q s eyes smarted dry under his lids and his throat 
 ached cruelly. " She was makin a mock of my feelin s 
 for her," he put it to himself; "makin a mock when 
 I haven t spoken to her in anyways but friendliness." 
 That was what hurt and dimmed his image of her 
 as a shining crescent moon above his camp-fire trees, 
 that, when he practiced day by day his iron self-con 
 trol, keeping to the plans he had laid down, studying, 
 how hard nobody knew, to be worthy of speaking to 
 her of his love, she, like some cheap town girl, could 
 twit him with as cheap a jealousy. Yes, he was jeal 
 ous, jealous of the air that touched her cheek, but it 
 was not for her to taunt him with one of the most 
 racking and inevitable of his pangs. Q had not even 
 yet begun to realize the overwhelming weight of con 
 vention that hung about Heloise Grinscoombe s 
 neck, could not think from what a conscious social 
 height she doled him out her small favors, could not 
 know that in admitting him at all into the Manor pre 
 cincts upon a footing of apparent equality with her 
 other friends, she was granting him in her own mind 
 so much that there was little margin left for smaller 
 
The Stars in their Courses 73 
 
 generosities. That he had, as Katrina expressed it, 
 "made a perfectly devastating hit," so that even 
 Mrs. Fayre was angling openly for him, had, of 
 course, its due value. Heloise amongst her circle en 
 joyed the pride of the bear-trainer. She was aware of 
 the silent, graceful beauty and the laughter-provok 
 ing originality of her savage, and vain of her power 
 over him; but she held her trainer s whip always 
 ready in her cruel right hand. This except when 
 at moments, under his eyes, all the insignificant trap 
 pings of her soul fell from it and she felt a deep mys 
 terious waver, a fluttering as though a fortress shook. 
 It was that profound confusion, visible more often 
 than she knew, that kept him a prisoner of hope. To 
 a man of his type and experience, the life he now led 
 was galling to every fiber. His hours of study ex 
 hausted him, his social experiences bewildered him. 
 He had always practiced self-control, it had been a 
 necessity of his existence, but a million little nerves 
 that had never been teased into consciousness were 
 now daily stung and twisted. Great space, great lone 
 liness, the rare and humorous speech of round-up and 
 range, the quaint nosing ways of pony-friends, the 
 snow-peaks, rose tipped, iron-gray, or purple as gob 
 lets filled with wine, the fairy aspen woods, twinkling 
 with round green leaves and flowers, the somber pine 
 trails hushed and haunted, the little sudden meadows 
 all warm and scented, where a startled bull-elk raised 
 his antlered head for a moment s noble hesitation be 
 fore he yielded to the trotting, unhurried necessity of 
 a retreat, the cottonwoods smoky or ablaze with au- 
 
74 "Q" 
 
 tumn, the wide gray-green plains noble as the sea 
 he would wake at night and gasp with a choked long 
 ing for such familiars. His ears would be clattering 
 with sharp, rapid, Eastern voices, his sensitive mem 
 ory pricked with the cold, inquisitive, pleasure-seek 
 ing countenance of Eastern folk. Hate and love, 
 which after all are lonely and noble in certain intensi 
 ties, kept him steady except at such moments of mis 
 ery as Heloise had dealt him that afternoon with her 
 flippant reference to jealousy. He had his revenge, 
 for Sir Sydney s descendant, self-revealed by Q s 
 flush and look, had smarted for her own vulgarity; 
 but he did n t know this and the knowledge would 
 hardly have been a comfort to him. In fact, he found 
 no comfort until he eased his heart a little by speech. 
 It was a cryptic speech enough one of his aphor 
 isms. 
 
 "Ain t it funny, though," he said, looking across 
 the table at his schoolmarm, who was threading a 
 needle deftly, leaning close to the lamp so that 
 threads of fire moved about her curly head, "that a 
 woman will say things that a man could n t abear to 
 think about himself . . . things that are so, but that 
 she ought not to let on that she had found them out." 
 
 Mary looked up from her needle. "I don t under 
 stand, Q, just what you mean." 
 
 "I mean, that a man can t abear hearin from a 
 woman that she has seed through him." 
 
 " Can t he, Q? No, that s true. He can t. I ve no 
 ticed that myself." She smiled. "I haven t seen 
 through you yet, have I?" 
 
The Stars in their Courses 75 
 
 The little father was lost in a volume; he was stand 
 ing in a peering attitude, candle in hand, at one of the 
 corner bookcases. He might well have been in Mars 
 as far as any intercourse with them was concerned. 
 Q gave him a quick glance. 
 
 "No, ma am," he said earnestly, "you re the most 
 comfortable lady I ever knowed, and common." 
 
 For an instant Mary was startled, then translated 
 the term into its correct Western usage and glowed. 
 
 "Thank you, Q. I like being that." 
 
 "Yes, ma am. You had ought to. Commonness is 
 awful scarce in Sluypenkill. There s folks that are 
 real low-down and there s an awful lot of re-fine- 
 ment, but mightly little commonness. Say, ain t 
 Mrs. Stopper s crowd re-fined, now?" 
 
 "Yes," Mary twinkled over her sewing, "they are 
 - frightfully. How do you get to know so many 
 people, Q?" 
 
 "I don t rightly savvy, ma am. Jest by holdin my 
 tongue, I figure. I m the only human in Sluypenkill 
 that ll do any listenin . Folks are clean loco tryin 
 to get a hearin . When I have got my edication I 
 ain t agoin to be half so popular." 
 
 "What woman was it that made the mistake of 
 seeing through you?" Mary asked. 
 
 He gave her no direct reply. 
 
 "Lots of folks," he said, "cries for the moon, but 
 almighty few s willin to work for it. 
 
 "I have found out somethin about an edication, 
 ma am," he went on and for the first time she saw 
 the strained look about his mouth that Heloise looked 
 
76 "Q" 
 
 at unseeingly so often "that it ain t to be had 
 rightly out of books. You are doin the very best you 
 can, ma am, but I reckon it s too late for me. The 
 kind of edication that counts atween a man and 
 woman is somethin different, and if I was to talk as 
 straight as a dictionary and knowed all the history 
 and geography there is and spoked languages and 
 played on the py-anny with all ten fingers like that 
 little feller that lets the ladies call him a poodle- 
 dog" this mysterious reference was to the curly 
 "Pom," who would have been surprised by it 
 "it would n t rightly help me any. When you come 
 right down to it, it s got to be somethin deeper than 
 that." 
 
 She saw his hand clench and his face lose its color. 
 There was real anguish in his eyes. Her heart swelled 
 to her throat. 
 
 "Dear Q," she said, "y u have it that deeper 
 thing." 
 
 He looked at her as though in the midst of his ap 
 parent composure he had lost the power of speech. 
 
 "You want your education" she asked softly 
 
 He nodded, and his eyes, after their strange and 
 beautiful fashion, deepened and opened inwardly, un 
 til she saw his heart. 
 
 "Ah, Q!" It was an exclamation most pitiful, 
 most understanding. It made him wince. He turned 
 away and sat looking ahead of him. She watched his 
 profile a bronze bas-relief against the lighter tint of 
 the wall. It would not quiver, but it seemed to 
 
The Stars in their Courses 77 
 
 sharpen. She searched her very soul for comfort and 
 encouragement for him. 
 
 "She she would have to be blind if she could n t 
 love you, Q." 
 
 He shook his head, still staring in front of him. 
 
 "Loving," said Mary, putting down her work and 
 holding it below the table edge with hands that 
 shook, "goes deeper than education, Q. It s a man 
 and woman thing, you know." 
 
 At that he turned to her as though she had kindled 
 a sudden torch. 
 
 "That s what she said once," he murmured; 
 "that s what I m holdin fast to." 
 
 Mary was, at heart, a mother, and that she had 
 found the medicine for his hurt comforted her own 
 rarely. Her spirit sang because now she knew how to 
 help him. Q, looking at her, saw a beauty that had 
 been altogether denied to his childhood, shining in her 
 small face. He had an impulse to kneel down and put 
 his head on her knees so that the comfort of her hands 
 might hover over him. The little room was filled with 
 an exquisite human silence. 
 
 Mr. Grinscoombe, looking up from his volume, con 
 templated them as through a telescope from Mars. 
 
CHAPTER VIH 
 
 THE LETTER F 
 
 WHEN a man is very deeply engaged in courtship and 
 when his courtship is attended with extraordinary dif 
 ficulties, even a little thing becomes a dragon in his 
 path. It was not long after the simultaneous begin 
 ning of his education and his determined effort to 
 guide Heloise back into the interrupted trail of their 
 Western intimacy, when a certain little habit of his 
 lady s began to be a torment to Q s nerves. With her 
 delicate forefinger, with a bit of a twig, with the tip 
 of a riding-switch, with an idle pencil, Heloise had a 
 fashion of aimlessly, absently making on any surface 
 the outline of a letter F. It would not always be F to 
 begin with ; perhaps it would only be a confused series 
 of hieroglyphics, but after she had been at it for a 
 while, there would begin to be the unmistakable for 
 mation of an F. There was nothing that she did 
 no slightest movement, no change of expression or of 
 manner which his eyes missed. He very rarely 
 made a personal comment, but at last, on a July day, 
 his painful curiosity as to the meaning of her preoccu 
 pation with that spectral capital F forced itself 
 through his reticence. 
 
 It was during one of their rides. Q s instinct, or 
 perhaps, his shrewd intelligence, had told him that 
 his best chance lay in re-creating as much as possible 
 the atmosphere of their first intercourse. Not long af- 
 
The Letter F 79 
 
 ter his arrival, when he had endured a few of Lelo s 
 parties at the Manor parties in the atmosphere of 
 which he, not realizing the electric power of his native 
 wit and controlled vitality, felt himself to dwindle, to 
 be forced outside the magic circle which, with her 
 Eastern friends, she drew about her like a spreading 
 robe he came up to the Manor on horseback, a 
 second horse on the lead. Unmistakably Western 
 ponies these, even to the high-horned saddles. 
 
 To Lelo s exclamations of pleasure and surprise, to 
 her questions, Q, busy with the stirrup fastenings, had 
 murmured vaguely something about the Sluypenkill 
 Livery Stable. 
 
 "Their mounts have improved vastly, then," she 
 had said. 
 
 " Well, ma am, these two was stuck off away out of 
 sight. Nobody s got any use for a real Westerner in 
 Sluypenkill." Lelo had answered the sudden smile 
 with which he had looked up after this small thrust 
 with one that had lost a great deal of its coldness. She 
 ran upstairs to pull out her Western riding-clothes 
 and came down looking once more so like the golden- 
 haired wild-rose boy of camp and trail that Q s blood 
 lifted from heart to cheek. He could have shouted 
 when he saw her eyes falter away from his. That was 
 one of the glorious moments that repaid him for 
 hours of patient pain. After that, they had ridden to 
 gether often. Miss Selda would come out to watch 
 them off. It was increasingly true that she enjoyed 
 her talks with Q, and that he, in spite of much secret 
 s< winching" under the skillful jabs in which her 
 
80 "Q" 
 
 tongue delighted, had developed a most curious pas 
 sionate interest concerning her. He watched her as a 
 supple cat watches for a mouse the little timid hid 
 ing mouse of her character, timid beyond the habit 
 even of mice. But Q s watchfulness had a more than 
 feline patience. 
 
 "You and Aunt Selda make me nervous," Heloise 
 had said once after she had watched one of their curi 
 ous interviews. "I don t know why but I feel that 
 something s going to explode some day." 
 
 "/ ain t agoin to do no explodin ," said Q, and 
 Miss Selda, oddly enough, had deeply blushed. 
 
 Not under Miss Selda s eye, nor for her experimen 
 tal kindlings, did Q explode. It was Lelo s little half- 
 conscious F that struck first fire from him. They 
 were sitting on that occasion in a tremulous thicket of 
 birch high up in one of the mountain meadows which 
 Q explored these old, old meadows in round- 
 headed hills so different from the sky-scraping, snow- 
 hollowed rocks of Wyoming. Through the thicket 
 dashed a slim white brook a naked truant, glitter 
 ing and shy. Lights from the water, shadows from 
 the leaves flickered about them, they were in a me 
 dium of restless murmur and motion, whispering, bab 
 bling, urgent, secret voices. They were more than usu 
 ally silent; with Q, as with most Westerners, there 
 was no necessity for speech. He lay at his length; 
 Heloise, having borrowed his knife, was whittling 
 awkwardly at a piece of stick. Her face was as tran 
 quil as a little girl s. Q watched the golden-brown 
 lashes throwing steady little lines of shadow under 
 
The Letter F 81 
 
 the long, half-hidden brightness of her eyes. Her 
 pink, slender lips were laid quietly together just 
 the hint of bitterness in their delicate corners. From 
 her face, his eyes wandered to her hands. They had 
 cut a smooth flat space on the round side of the stick. 
 As he watched, he saw, fascinated, that she had 
 begun to carve a letter F. The blood suddenly 
 drummed in his ears. He sat up all in one rippling 
 movement and bent close to her work. 
 
 "Why F?" he asked in a queer voice. 
 
 She did not look up or pause in her work, but spoke 
 rapidly with more passion than he had ever heard in 
 her level voice. "Because I hate the letter F! Be 
 cause I hate it!" Her pupils suddenly dilated and a 
 glow seemed to shine from somewhere deep within 
 her through the clearness of her face. " And because I 
 love it;" She looked at Q defiantly with those di 
 lated eyes and bent her mouth down as though she 
 meant to press it to her F. 
 
 His hand shot out. "Don t you ! " he cried sharply. 
 Her lips just brushed his intruding hand. She gave a 
 little angry cry. "Take your hand away!" she said, 
 and, thinking that the warning would be enough, she 
 cut at her stick a little above his fingers, meaning to 
 cut in under the initial. But her blade slipped and 
 drove deep into his wrist. 
 
 "Oh, oh, Q!" she cried in dazed repentance. "I 
 did n t really cut you, did I?" 
 
 He shook his head and wrapped his handkerchief 
 around the wound and, standing up, moved quickly 
 away from her. Presently he came back, leading the 
 
82 "Q" 
 
 two horses. "I reckon it s time for this party to be 
 over," he said heavily. His face was the color of pal 
 est bronze. 
 
 They rode across the mountain meadow and down 
 into the thicket through which Q crushed a random 
 trail until they plunged down an abrupt bank to the 
 road. Heloise, riding up, saw that even his lips were 
 white. He had put the injured hand into his coat 
 pocket, and she, glancing down, gave a little start 
 of dismay. The pocket was a pouchful of blood, 
 oozing red, which trickled slowly down against the 
 saddle flap. She pulled up her horse. "Q, you must 
 get to the doctor, quick!" He said nothing, but 
 looked at her with a strange deep look as though he 
 were trying to see into her heart and had not lis 
 tened to her speech. She spurred forward, and his 
 horse involuntarily quickened. So they galloped by 
 side lanes into the town. Lelo was half a length 
 ahead when she threw up her arm and pulled in 
 sharply, looking back at him with a face of vast 
 relief. 
 
 "There s Dr. Sales s electric," she said; "he s 
 visiting one of these little houses." 
 
 Q looked at her steadily for an instant, then turned 
 a slow ironic glance upon the shining motor and the 
 shabby house. 
 
 "Yes, ma am," he said, "we ll go in." He slipped 
 from his horse and Lelo, coming quickly to his side, 
 caught at his arm. 
 
 "Why, Q, dear, you can hardly stand!" 
 
 "I feel kind of f -funny like my legs was agoin to 
 
The Letter F 83 
 
 buck." However, when a small grave girl opened the 
 door to their ringing, he took off his hat with a sweep 
 ing Western gesture and performed the introduction 
 gallantly. 
 
 "Miss Mary Grinscoombe," he said, with one of his 
 sudden candid smiles, "meet Miss Heloise Grins 
 coombe," and he stood back and watched them 
 keenly. 
 
 For the two girls it was a moment of acute embar 
 rassment. Heloise was scarlet and Mary white, her 
 head up and Lelo s down. Mary spoke first, because 
 she had seen Q s face. 
 
 "You re hurt! "she said. 
 
 "It s a cut on his wrist. We we saw Dr. Sales s 
 car " Heloise stammered. 
 
 "Oh, I see. Please come in. Yes, he is here." 
 
 "Your father ain t I mean, is n t," Q corrected 
 himself with a scared look at his schoolmarm, "sick, 
 is he?" 
 
 "Oh, no. It s a social visit. Dr. Sales and I are 
 playing chess." She led them in, still with the proud 
 little lift of her chin, although her eyes were entirely 
 absorbent of anxiety. "Dr. Sales, please!" she said, 
 "my Q my scholar s here. He s hurt." 
 
 Dr. Sales, who was bending over a chess-board, 
 rose stupendously, looming up in the tiny room. He 
 was a wide, dusty-looking figure of a man, with so 
 large and soft an expanse of face and body that he 
 gave the impression of confined fluidity. His brown 
 smooth suit, made of a fine cloth better suited to a 
 woman, held swinging folds of fat at rest; the skin of 
 
84 "Q" 
 
 his face was like the surface of huddled cream loose 
 about a short nose and an easily moved mouth. His 
 small eyes were bright as little sparks between puffy 
 lids. He was, for all this softness and flabbiness, not 
 an unpleasant-looking man. He had an air of easy 
 good-humor, a soft, pliable, complaisant air and the 
 boyish expression given by curly hair. His smile 
 melted in and out of its creamy medium. His hands 
 moved softly about his person, now in pockets, now 
 across the broad waistcoat, now with stroking mo 
 tions along his knees large, tender hands, seeking 
 and sliding and undecided. They, and the temper 
 they expressed, had brought him, it would seem, 
 many easy rewards of search. His habitually satis 
 fied expression signaled success without much effort. 
 He looked, at this moment, however, like a huge ves 
 sel empty of every emotion but surprise. From Lelo 
 to Mary he turned the little spark-like eyes. 
 
 Q solved the immediate embarrassment of the oc 
 casion by falling at his full length in complete silence 
 to the floor. 
 
 "He s cut an artery and severed a tendon," was 
 Dr. Sales s verdict. "He ll have to be sewed up. 
 Fraction of an inch more n he d have lost the use of 
 his hand the nerve there: I d better take him to 
 the hospital." 
 
 Q s dense and cindery eyelashes half -lifted. There 
 was a little steely gleam thin as a knife-edge. He 
 spoke in a slow whisper. 
 
 "I would n t get dragged into that hospital, on a 
 rope," he said, and paused. There was a complete 
 
The Letter F 85 
 
 stillness in the room. "I ve went through it," con 
 tinued the same self-possessed whisper; "they have 
 told me the story of that feller the mill-hand, who 
 come down with blood-poisonin ." 
 
 Dr. Sales s face was blotched yellow and white. 
 
 "You fix me up here, doc," Q went on. He put out 
 a hand and took Lelo s hanging by her side. "I 11 lay 
 hold of Miss Grinscoombe here; if she don t go out of 
 the room, I guess I m safe." He said this with one of 
 his small grim smiles. Heloise stared at Dr. Sales. 
 The blotches were swallowed up by a sort of purple 
 surge. 
 
 " He s out of his head," said Heloise. " Can you do 
 it here, Dr. Sales?" 
 
 The doctor mumbled something about his "surgi 
 cal case, ready for the little DeLaneey boy," and left 
 the room. While he was gone, no one spoke. Heloise 
 gazed down at Q, who had closed his eyes. There 
 were bright spots of color in her cheeks. Mary said 
 hurriedly, "I ll get some water." 
 
 When she came back, Dr. Sales was preparing the 
 little room for an operation. 
 
 " You d get ether at the hospital, my friend," he said 
 dryly to his patient, "and here you won t. But I sup 
 pose an Indian like you prefers pain to the ordinary 
 civilized treatment, eh?" 
 
 "I won t howl any," said Q, and laid himself out on 
 the wicker lounge they had made ready for him. He 
 had let go of Lelo s hand. 
 
 "Don t you stay," he said. "It won t be pretty. 
 And I was talkin for doc s benefit when I said you d 
 
86 "Q" 
 
 hev to see me through. You gels step outside. I ll 
 holler when it s over." 
 
 Heloise went out to the little porch and Mary made 
 a pretense of following, but just outside of the sitting- 
 room door she stopped, where she was hidden from Q, 
 but where she could watch the doctor s movements. 
 Before the operation was well under way, she was 
 called in to help. It was a difficult piece of work and 
 took time. Q lay rigid, twice he relaxed silently into 
 unconsciousness. When it was over, he drew a deep 
 sigh. 
 
 "She can come in now," he said, and Mary s eyes 
 filled with tears, sudden, hot, inexplicable. She ran 
 out of the room and upstairs. In her bedroom she 
 locked her door as carefully as though some one had 
 been in dangerous pursuit, walked over to her bu 
 reau, and, resting on her hands, which held tightly to 
 the edge, she stared unseeingly into a face that she 
 might not have recognized. 
 
 "Oh, Mary," she said rapidly to that unseen image. 
 " Oh, Mary, please don t be a fool ! " Then she walked 
 over to her bed and lay there in a stillness as rigid as 
 Q s own. She was looking for the first time into the 
 eyes of young love and she found them stony and im 
 placable. 
 
 For a long time she looked, until she had conquered 
 the rebel in her heart. She stood up, stayed for a min 
 ute with hands pressed to her eyes, and went slowly 
 down the stairs. This time she passed the sitting- 
 room door without a glance and let herself out on the 
 porch. The whole house-front was in a glow of sun- 
 
The Letter F 87 
 
 set, and Mary stood in it with her eyes lifted above 
 the huddled house-roofs to the sky. Slowly the 
 sweetness of her young face conquered its bitterness. 
 Heloise, coming up behind her and just touching her 
 arm, was startled by the light of this small dark face 
 as it turned from the sunset to her. 
 
 " Oh, Mary " Heloise found the beginning difficult 
 "I feel that I must say something to you before I 
 leave. I don t know what you think of me. I m 
 afraid I ve been a shameful coward. Q thinks so. 
 But but it has been difficult. Aunt Selda " 
 
 Mary had returned from her moment of exaltation. 
 She began to tremble a little, as strong feeling always 
 made her tremble. 
 
 "I haven t been thinking of you or of me," she 
 said, the brogue thickening on her tongue. "It s not 
 myself at all that s been hurt, Heloise. And it s not 
 you that I ve been blaming all these years. These 
 hard things have n t been our fault, have they? 
 Yours and mine?" 
 
 Heloise s delicate clear face was on fire. "Oh, I 
 don t know," she said, trying to keep her woman-of- 
 the-world lightness. "Certainly not yours, Mary. 
 There was nothing for you to do. But, perhaps, I 
 if I had tried." 
 
 "Would your aunt have let you do anything? 
 What, in any case, was there for you to do?" And 
 Mary seemed more the woman of the world. 
 
 "But, Mary, she s our aunt;" 
 
 Mary, leaning against the railing, hands locked be 
 hind her, smiled faintly. "Ah, well!" she said, "I ve 
 
88 "Q" 
 
 had time to forget that. Yes, as you see, I am bitter 
 for Papa. It s been so many years for him. And 
 he loved that place that home. I think he even 
 loved his people. He has a far better heart than I 
 have, Heloise." 
 
 "I think," said Heloise, "that you probably have 
 the best heart in the world. Q tells me things about 
 you" 
 
 So sure was Mary of his loyalty that she smiled. 
 
 "Does he?" 
 
 Heloise looked shrewdly down at her. 
 
 "I wonder if you like him as much as I do?" she 
 asked. 
 
 To which the other girl replied softly with all her 
 waggish wistfulness of Irish eyes and voice, "Oh, I 
 hope not!" and started to go in. 
 
 Lelo caught her hand as she went by. "Mary, I m 
 going to try to be your friend! " 
 
 Mary was generous. "Thank you," she said with a 
 simplicity which, after all, was a complete expression 
 of her pride. 
 
 They went in together. 
 
 Dr. Sales s patient was sitting up on the wicker 
 lounge, his arm in a sling. A faint tinge of color had 
 returned to his face. He got to his feet as the girls 
 entered. 
 
 "I m agoin to be took home taked home, I 
 mean" this with a furious sudden flush, for he felt 
 that he had leapt from the frying-pan of one error 
 into the fire of another " by doc. Ain t that kind 
 of him? It ain t far to the River Hotel and I ve 
 
The Letter F 89 
 
 heard talk that he s a steady driver. Thank you 
 kindly, Miss Grinscoombe, for letting me use your 
 room. First off I have made it into a schoolhouse and 
 now I have made it into a hospital. Your father will 
 be coming soon. Would you please ask him if he d be 
 carin to come around to visit with me this evening. 
 I ll sure be lonesome without the use of my right 
 hand no copy to-morrow, ma am!" 
 
 "How am I to get home?" Heloise demanded with 
 a certain petulance. She found herself suddenly hurt 
 by the look of Q s eyes resting during his speech ten 
 derly and with an immense reverence on his little 
 teacher s face. 
 
 But the eyes at first did not change their direction. 
 "Doc s fixed it for you," he answered absently, "on 
 the telephone. Your aunt s sending a motor for 
 you and a feller from the stables is to come for the 
 bosses " Then he did turn fully toward her and 
 held out his left hand. 
 
 "I ain t done askin questions," he said grimly, 
 "about that letter of yours." 
 
 Her face flushed. " Oh, you won t get very far with 
 that my dear Q. That letter does n t mean very 
 much in my young life." She laughed her gay, cool, 
 little laugh. "I might just as easily take to making a 
 4 Q, " she said. 
 
 With that she left him, looking suddenly paler than 
 ever, and she went out and stood beside the motor 
 watching his slower departure. 
 
 The doctor s complexion was still blotchy. He said 
 good-bye to Mary rather sullenly and did not smile 
 
90 "Q" 
 
 even at Miss Selda Grinscoombe s more important 
 niece. He sat himself down heavily beside Q and 
 started his car with a jerk that made the patient 
 wince. 
 
 Almost before they had left the curb he began, 
 turning his great body sideways. " Now you will have 
 to account for yourself, Mr. Kinwydden," he said. 
 "I object to being tracked about this place by an ar 
 rant outsider like yourself. Sluypenkill is my place of 
 business as well as my home. I am a respected and 
 not unimportant citizen." His effort to be forceful 
 and awful shook his cheeks and the folds hammocked 
 in his waistcoat. "You will get yourself into very 
 serious trouble if you are not careful. I insist upon 
 some sort of explanation from you, and upon apol 
 ogy and a promise to desist from actionable annoy 
 ance. Do you understand me? " 
 
 Q s pale, quiet face met the doctor s little fiery eyes 
 with its imperturbability. After a minute, "Explain 
 yourself," spluttered the doctor. "Don t think that 
 I have n t heard of you of your prying visit to the 
 Mills Hospital, of your call upon the editor of Sluy 
 penkill News, of your general scandal- mongering 
 amongst my patients. Come, now, your hold-up 
 methods won t go down with me. Other people have 
 found me a difficult enemy. I ve run a couple of 
 youngsters out of this town " 
 
 "You don t say?" murmured Q, and the doctor 
 wished this information unspoken. He stumbled on. 
 
 "You ve got no job to lose, but you have your 
 interests here don t think I have n t seen that, 
 
The Letter F 91 
 
 presumptuous as such intentions may be on the part 
 of a nameless foundling from a cow-camp. And let 
 me tell you, your chance of visiting out at Grins- 
 coombe Manor is a slim chance if I register my vote 
 against you. Do you understand? You re there dis 
 tinctly on my sufferance, quite distinctly I mean" 
 he puffed under Q s unchanging look "I mean 
 as a family friend, as a family physician, my word has 
 weight." 
 
 "It had ought to have plenty of that," murmured 
 the Westerner sweetly and allowed his eye to run 
 down over the multiplied folds. 
 
 The motor took a corner rather carelessly and slid 
 with diminished speed along the main street. 
 
 "Hi, you, Q, what yo doin in that car?" called a 
 young workman in dingy overalls returning from the 
 mills with his lunchbox in his hand. 
 
 The doctor flushed. "You think," he began again 
 a trifle breathlessly, "that you have been clever at 
 picking up acquaintances. " I Ve noticed that, during 
 the month of your stay here, you Ve got to know all 
 the riff-raff of the place." The car stopped. "Here s 
 your hotel. Before you get out, I want that promise 
 and that apology." 
 
 "You ain t agoin to get em, doc," Q answered 
 gently. " I don t exactly savvy what you kin do about 
 it." 
 
 "I m going, for one thing, to cut short your social 
 career, as well as your education which will prob 
 ably hurt Miss Mary more than it will you " 
 
 "You ve got a drag with Miss Mary same s with 
 
92 "Q" 
 
 the old lady." Q said this as though he had made a 
 statement to himself. 
 
 The doctor was aware of a frightened contraction 
 of his nerves, but he ignored it. He managed, how 
 ever, a change of tone. 
 
 "You d rather have me for a friend than for an 
 enemy, would n t you, young man? " he asked. " Can 
 you have too many friends in this somewhat ambi 
 tious career you have chosen for yourself?" 
 
 Q s steady gaze had become a sort of torment, an 
 X-ray burning into the doctor s most sensitive and 
 secret nerve centers; cold and gray and terribly search 
 ing Sales wanted to put up his hands between him 
 self and it. 
 
 "Yes, sir," Q was speaking, "I sure need your 
 friendship. But it s a luxury I can t afford to treat 
 myself to. There s some things too dirty to handle. 
 I ll hev to ask you to keep on bein my enemy." 
 
 "I believe" Dr. Sales chose his words carefully, 
 hunting as though for a sharp and painful instrument 
 "that Miss Grinscoombe has some small use for 
 you at present, in her scheme for her niece. When 
 you have served her purpose, I shall see that your 
 intercourse with Grinscoombe Manor is at an end. 
 After all, the apology is unimportant. You may get 
 out." 
 
 Q climbed down slowly. He was weak from pain 
 and loss of blood, but his companion made not even a 
 gesture of assistance. On the pavement, Q turned 
 and looked steadily at Dr. Sales. The cool, brilliant 
 eyes gathered light. 
 
The Letter F 93 
 
 "Thanks," he said gravely as though he meant it, 
 and walked rapidly and with grace into the hotel. 
 
 That cryptic word of gratitude, as for some service 
 rendered, wormed itself uncomfortably deep into the 
 doctor s consciousness. He drove away with uncer 
 tainty at heart. He had said too much. His memory, 
 weighted by Q s silence and stung by his caustic and 
 amazing bit of knowledge, accused him of infantile 
 volubility. If only the fellow had been goaded into 
 angry speech, instead of silently, coolly collecting 
 some sort of information with those terrible gray 
 eyes! But, pshaw! the doctor reassured himself, his 
 uncertain hands sliding about the steering-wheel. 
 "I m safe; I m safe." The comfortable look of hud 
 dled cream came back slowly to his face. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 MORE ABOUT THE LETTER F 
 
 FERDINAND FADDEN, deep in a wide wicker chair, a 
 tall beaded glass at his elbow, gazed fixedly at Heloise 
 from under his heavy lids. With the hand not oc 
 cupied with his drink, he twisted the spiked end of a 
 tiny blond mustache. His eyes, large and very blue, 
 were contemplative, indolent and sultry, like the 
 August day. Outside the shadow of the Manor ve 
 randa, insect voices droned and swelled like rising and 
 falling waves, the sun gleamed across the molten 
 steel surface of the river above which the air quivered 
 like the air inside a furnace. 
 
 Ferdinand s body of an athlete glowed inside the 
 thin silk of his shirt, his face was burnt brick-red up 
 to a white line across his forehead just below the dense 
 straight border of his blond hair. There was a for 
 ward thrust to his mouth and jaw which gave him an 
 expression of insolent discontent; it needed all the 
 lazy serenity of eyes and brow and pose to counteract 
 the look. 
 
 "Your aunt," said Ferdinand, "does n t like me a 
 little bit. When I buzzed in to-day her face was about 
 as welcoming as a bank safe." 
 
 Heloise lay amongst cushions in a canvas swinging 
 lounge. She seemed oppressed by a heavy languor 
 ous excitement, her face was pale and her eyes strug 
 gled away from his, coming back continually with a 
 
More About the Letter F 95 
 
 fluttering uncertainty; it was as though she felt a 
 younger and more helpless Heloise; the artificial self- 
 possession of her usual little manner had left her 
 somewhat shy and without defense. Nevertheless, 
 she answered him daringly with an effort at her cool, 
 staccato laugh. 
 
 "She s afraid," said Lelo, "that I m going to lose 
 my head over you." Her voice was a trifle breath 
 less. 
 
 "I wish there was a chance of it!" he flung out 
 sulkily. "If Lucy had n t got me in for this blamed 
 yachting trip, so that I had to cut off and leave 
 you " he paused, for Lelo s cheeks had kindled and 
 there was a lift to her head which he recognized as a 
 danger signal. 
 
 "If you had n t ?" she angled for a further jus 
 tification of her anger. 
 
 "If I had n t had to leave you," he murmured with 
 a sudden gentleness as droning as the gentleness of 
 insect voices, " I might have had a peaceful summer 
 instead of the sort of hell I ve been put through 
 for these past two months. Don t be nasty to me 
 now, will you, Lelo? Something s changed you while 
 I ve been away. You were a whole lot sweeter to me 
 last winter last spring." 
 
 "I I you can t expect me to be sweet to a 
 deserter, Ferdy. You went off to be gay and left me 
 here in this dull hole to bore myself to death. Sluy- 
 penkill is not exactly a round of excitement for me 
 when you re away." 
 
 "You little flirt! How many hearts have you been 
 
96 "Q" 
 
 breaking in revenge for my desertion, eh? Deser 
 tion!" He echoed it ironically. He leaned forward, 
 resting the thrusting jaw on his two large handsome 
 hands; his eyes seemed to darken and thicken in color 
 like a thunderous sky. "You know just how much of 
 a desertion it was, Lelo! Why do you cut me like 
 that? It hurts confoundedly/ He wrinkled his brows 
 into two dents, a surprisingly boyish attempt at a 
 frown of injury. "Lucy- " he said, and paused, 
 then went on hurriedly in a lower tone "Well, it 
 is n t as if she deserved any consideration from me." 
 
 "I d rather you wouldn t talk about your wife, 
 Ferdinand." 
 
 He got up, walked to the edge of the veranda and 
 stretched his arms high over his head. "O Lord! " he 
 groaned; then, dropping his arms, he strode over to 
 her and stood looking down at her. Lelo lifted her 
 long, clear eyes and they were held by his. There 
 followed a heavy silence in which the fragrance of 
 clematis, of heliotrope, of mignonette, became as in 
 sistent as a chanted melody. A little moisture showed 
 in a bright line above Ferdinand s lower lids. He 
 caught at her hand. "You you beautiful!" he 
 choked over the exclamation, then went on quickly, 
 his rather heavy lips fumbling over the words. " You 11 
 come out to-night? About ten? There s a moon. If 
 you think your aunt will make a fuss, I ll stop out at 
 the gate. I won t toot for you. If you ll be prompt. 
 I can t stand waiting not for you! " 
 
 She nodded slowly, heard a sound, and stood up, 
 withdrawing her hand. He turned hastily to see what 
 she was looking at. 
 
More About the Letter F 97 
 
 "I want you," she said, "to meet my Western 
 friend, Mr. Kinwydden." The heavy, sultry, languor 
 ous excitement lifted from her face. 
 
 Q had come up the veranda steps and was advanc 
 ing toward them. 
 
 A sudden cold north wind blowing into a fever- 
 room could not have been more destructive to the 
 atmosphere of Ferdinand s love-making than was the 
 presence of the Westerner. He had never looked more 
 grim and cool. Four days of pain and imprisonment 
 and hard thinking in the hotel bedroom had thinned 
 his face and paled its bronze. To Mary he had once 
 said "Temper is a mighty bad thing to lose, but a 
 mighty fine thing to keep it settles your head like 
 egg-shells does coffee." If it could be confined to the 
 thinking rather than the feeling portion of the mind, 
 he had discovered, it acted as a powerful clarifier. 
 It seemed to burn up in cold fire the non-essential 
 observations. But his anger, though controlled, was 
 of a quite primitive intensity. By Dr. Sales he had 
 been called "a nameless foundling from a cow-camp "; 
 his ardent and humble hope had been flouted as laugh 
 able, insolent; the purpose to which he had bent the 
 steel fibers of his will had been named presumption; 
 he had been told that the lady of the Manor had some 
 "small use" for him and that when he had filled this 
 minor use, he was to suffer an ignominious turning- 
 out. He knew that this last was not an idle threat. 
 Better men, by Dr. Sales s own admission a boast 
 which Q had since taken pains to verify had been 
 run out of Sluypenkill for daring to criticize the lazy 
 
98 "Q" 
 
 and inefficient methods of its physician. Dr. Sales s 
 indolence and incapacity had grown through pro 
 tected years to almost criminal proportions, but for 
 some reason he was established above punishment. 
 Q, prowling about Number 90 or lying rigid on its 
 bed with his well hand clenched above his head, had 
 pondered over Dr. Sales, weighing and dissecting the 
 scraps of evidence incautiously dropped by the man 
 about himself, until a surprisingly clear, consistent, 
 and penetrative picture of his career had marshaled 
 itself in the cowboy s shrewdly observant intelligence. 
 He had won more than thinness and pallor from his 
 confinement. 
 
 "This is Ferdinand Fadden, Q," said Heloise, "an 
 old friend of mine your hand is n t well yet, is it? 
 Still in a sling." 
 
 "It s well enough for some things," said Q slowly; 
 there was a smile in the eyes he fixed upon Ferdinand, 
 a reminiscent sort of smile, "but I m not doing any 
 hand-shaking yet. Mr. Ferdinand Fadden will hev 
 to excuse me." 
 
 Fadden appraised him negligently. It was a puz 
 zling apparition; his eyes appealed to Heloise. 
 
 "Q was one of our guides out West last fall, Ferdy 
 on the hunting trip I took with Mrs. Fayre and 
 Tommy you know." 
 
 "U-m, I see." Fadden turned away from him as 
 though he had lost interest. "Well, I ll leave you to 
 your Western reminiscences." He took her hand, try 
 ing by a look to bring back the heat to her face and 
 eyes. But it had vanished past immediate recall. 
 
More About the Letter F 99 
 
 "To-night? " he moved his lips to make the word and, 
 as she nodded, he walked triumphantly away, pass 
 ing Q with a curt nod. 
 
 "I m going out there myself after big game one of 
 these days," he said, hanging on his heel. "Better 
 sign up with me while you re here, Q. How many 
 parties have you got out of Sluypenkill, eh?" 
 
 "Mr. Kinwydden is not here to sign up humting 
 parties, Ferdy." 
 
 "What the deuce-o, after big game himself, is he?" 
 Fadden lifted his eyebrows and glanced sardonically 
 back at Heloise. A queer, silent ripple seemed to 
 pass over Q s body from head to foot, though he said 
 nothing and did not even change his mask. 
 
 Said Heloise quickly, "He s a dead-sure shot!" 
 
 "Oh, you need n t try to frighten me. I ll be care 
 ful. I know my West. Father made his fortune in 
 cattle, you know, when there were fortunes to be 
 made at that particular game. He wanted me to be a 
 cowboy Jove! He did, Lelo! I ve visited cow- 
 camps, though you might n t think it eh, Q?" 
 
 The Westerner stood silent and expressionless. 
 
 "Visitin cow-camps," he said, drawling his words 
 a little, and Lelo found herself suddenly attacked by 
 mirth at Ferdinand s expense. The picture, surpris 
 ingly complete, Q s tone drew of that gentleman s so 
 cial ventures in the West compelled amusement. The 
 victim missed the impulse. He went away tingling 
 slightly as though his vanity, like a funny-bone, had 
 been numbed. 
 
 "Visitin cow-camps," repeated Q, taking the 
 
100 "Q" 
 
 chair Ferdinand had left. He seemed, all at once and 
 rather inexplicably, in the sweetest of gay good- 
 humors. 
 
 "Say, gel, give me one of those long drinks like the 
 one you gave Fer-dee-nand, will you? " 
 
 She granted this request and watched him, the 
 amusement still twinkling over her face. His meeting 
 with Fadden had touched, for some reason, a conver 
 sational spring, for he began to talk to her as he 
 talked sometimes when they were alone, out West 
 over a camp-fire or riding on a belated trail together 
 under the stars splendid heady talk, of adventure, 
 spicy as sage, tangy as mountain air, delightful with 
 unexpected traps of humor into which a listener 
 plunged with mirth-releasing suddenness. Lelo for 
 got the heat of the late afternoon and of a certain 
 emotion that both shamed and thrilled her. She sat 
 up childlike, with wide eyes and parted, smiling lips. 
 There was no further mention of Fadden until Miss 
 Selda appeared, gowned in delicate black lace, a 
 long, plumy fan hanging at the length of its chain at 
 her side. Q rose to greet her and received a smile and 
 the welcoming gesture of her upturned hand. 
 
 Her gray, stone-colored, slow eyes traveled search- 
 ingly about the veranda. 
 
 "So Ferdinand has gone and there is only one 
 young man to be asked to dinner. You ll stay, Q." 
 
 It was a command and he acquiesced. He was not 
 so talkative at dinner. Miss Grinscoombe s conde 
 scensions forbade the lifting of his visor; besides, he 
 was still careful concerning knives and forks and 
 
More AJ}Qut;th ijetW S " 101 
 
 table deportment; the waitress especially disturbed 
 his equanimity, or rather the necessity he was under 
 to exclude her from the conversation. He had made 
 the blunder of cordially including her at first, and 
 later smarted in bewilderment under Lelo s instruc 
 tions. After dinner, imprisoned in the South Parlor 
 under the eyes of Sir Sydney Grinscoombe, he was en 
 tirely mute, secretly observant of Lelo s increasing 
 restlessness. Miss Selda read aloud inflexibly from the 
 evening paper. She was not unaware herself of her 
 niece s Sittings and nervous fingerings of this object 
 and that. When the girl slipped out with an indistin 
 guishable murmur of excuse, Miss Selda folded her 
 newspaper and laid it quickly down across her knees, 
 clenching her hands about it. So she sat for five min 
 utes, stone still, staring as though at something she 
 unwillingly remembered. The long yellow curtains 
 were then parted, between which for an instant 
 Heloise s beauty glimmered. She was carrying a 
 crimson cloak across her arm. It streamed down 
 her white dress almost to the floor. Her golden 
 head was dark, brightly outlined] against the hall 
 light. Her eyes were distended, and spots of color 
 burned in her cheeks. 
 
 "I am going out for a little spin with Ferdy," she 
 said without defiance, but without deference a 
 neutral tone in curious contrast to her vivid and 
 excited look. Immediately she let the curtains fall 
 and ran out of the house. 
 
 Miss Selda lifted her head on its long throat and 
 set her lips together. Her eyes moved to Q and he 
 
102 :: "Q" 
 
 was aware of an appeal, proud, deep, unspoken. He 
 could see the band of velvet on her neck move as she 
 swallowed nervously. 
 
 "You got no call to be af eared of me, Miss Grins- 
 coombe," said Q gently. 
 
 It was perhaps the strangest speech ever addressed 
 to her, and her reception of it was no less strange. 
 She let it pass with a queer little shrinking movement 
 as though it had sped just above her shoulder like a 
 dart. She kept her eyes fixed upon him, and slowly 
 she lifted her hand to her mouth and laid it across her 
 lips; the quiver of them must be hidden, now that it 
 could no longer be controlled. She spoke behind the 
 hand indistinctly. 
 
 "I could not bear it for Heloise," she said mysteri 
 ously. And then: "You must help me with her 
 the man is bad through and through, dangerous, self 
 ish, passionate; he he excites her." She said it in 
 a manner absolutely different from her usual deliber 
 ate choice of impeccable syllables a manner of 
 groping helplessness, monotonous in tone. 
 
 Q was so white that she might have noticed it. 
 Perhaps she did, but his pain was no affair of hers. 
 The tyrant may torture the slave that sees his treas 
 ure, with impunity; the relief of a confidence is all the 
 necessity. 
 
 "You have influence with her," went on the queer 
 voice. Miss Selda dropped her hand. Her lips were 
 still twisted out of their usual composure. The hand 
 clenched itself on her knees and she leaned forward 
 slightly with the tense appearance of a traveler who is 
 
More About the Letter F 103 
 
 impelled by an inner urgency to tighten nerves and 
 muscles as though by so doing he could force the 
 vehicle to greater speed. 
 
 "You are a man and you are her lover. Your in 
 fluence over her just now is ten times stronger than 
 mine. You must hold her back from the dangers of 
 her own temperament. You don t realize those dan 
 gers how could you? But you must take my word 
 for them. Whatever you are you you love her 
 as I could wish her to be loved, as, in her wiser mo 
 ments, she wants to be loved. That kind of love ex 
 presses itself in service. This this horrible thing 
 began last winter. She was bored, disappointed 
 she expects too much of life. He has a certain charm. 
 He can make love. You can see that by looking at 
 him. Once, Q" she seemed to choose with white- 
 hot certainty the surest goad, the most stinging lash 
 to action "I saw those heavy lips of his on her 
 hand, and I saw in her face that it meant evil for her. 
 I ve been studying you, been watching your extraor 
 dinary power over her. She swings back to sanity, to 
 wholesome girlhood in your company as though you 
 were a sort of magnet. But he can pull her away from 
 you. He can appeal to her sympathies. He is mis 
 erably married to a woman who plays fast and loose 
 with his life and her own. He has bee*n fatally brought 
 up. The money of a parvenu crammed into his pockets 
 since his babyhood. His will has never been crossed. 
 He is as greedy as a spoiled child, as willful, as un 
 disciplined. He has n t an ideal or a standard or a 
 moral anchor in his soul. He s a highwayman. I wish 
 
104 "Q" 
 
 I could make you feel the danger he is to her ro 
 mantic, excitable as she is. I tell you, the way he 
 looks at her is an insult. He wants to possess her. He 
 wants to break her delicate pride to his own unbridled 
 will." 
 
 She stopped, breathless. In astonishing contrast 
 came Q s quiet, slow voice. 
 
 "Some of that is real bronc, Miss Grinscoombe, 
 and a whole lot of it is hokey-pokey. I mean to tell 
 you that you hev lost your head a little. She ain t 
 near so far gone as that you have pictured it and he 
 has still got the fear of God in his heart. I have seen 
 them together jest once and I knowed right off that 
 some of what you have been tellin is there. He is 
 makin love to her almighty hard, for all he s worth, 
 I reckon. And she " Q stopped abruptly, stood up 
 and walked across the room to stand beneath Sir 
 Sydney Grinscoombe, his back turned to Miss Selda, 
 staring unseeingly up into the wedge-like and con 
 temptuous face of the portrait. 
 
 "I can t quirt myself into talkin about her thata- 
 way," Q whispered. 
 
 After an instant he came back and stood beside 
 Miss Selda. 
 
 "Don t you worry," he said; "quit troubling your 
 heart about the gel. I figured from watchin you you 
 hev had a bad fright onct and it s left you sort of 
 head-shy." Miss Selda winced and the uncontrollable 
 tremble assailed her restored rigidity. "I savvy how 
 you feel. A hoss went over backwards with me onct 
 and hurt me bad and it made a plumb coward out of 
 
More About the Letter F 105 
 
 me about bein reared with. Let a hoss go back a lit 
 tle and my courage turns upside down inside of me." 
 
 "But you ll watch over her, Q?" 
 
 She was looking up at him as from a sinking ship. 
 He took the hand she held up and it was cold in his 
 grip. Q s steady and pitiful look respected her self- 
 revelation. He was still white from the quite sicken 
 ing pain her word pictures had given him, but for the 
 first time in her presence he made use of his candid 
 smile. It fell over her like the gleam of a knightly 
 sword. 
 
 "Yes, ma am," he said. 
 
 Curiously, as she received the assurance, she could 
 no longer meet his eyes. Hers fell; she drew her hand 
 away and a deep flush came over her face. 
 
 "She s plumb ashamed of herself for treatin me 
 like a human critter," Q interpreted it, "for showin* 
 herself to be a woman." 
 
 But his interpretation was not the right one. Shame 
 Miss Selda did feel, and a profound shaken astonish 
 ment at his perspicacity. But it was a shame vastly 
 mitigated by his unimportance. The feeling that 
 provoked the blush was, however, from a deeper 
 cause. That she had this feeling at all proved that 
 beneath the pride and selfishness and hardness of her 
 worldliness Q had touched one small soft spot that 
 might once have been the germ of compunction. 
 When he had gone she sat for a long time looking up 
 into Sir Sydney Grinscoombe s face. Her composure 
 was once more intact and there was a fine little tri 
 umphant smile about her lips. 
 
106 "Q" 
 
 "We are of one blood thou and I," answered 
 the small smile of Sydney Grinscoombe. 
 
 But Q could have no knowledge of that small grim 
 smile of hers; as he sped town wards through the night 
 filled with the deep white magic of a full summer 
 moon he was at once lashed and exultant. For all his 
 pain, he had taken, he thought, a stronghold and even 
 a powerful friend. The Sphinx in his path with its 
 stony, inimical idea had softened into flesh and blood. 
 She knew of his clean love and she approved it. She 
 had chosen him to be Lelo s defender and bid his suit 
 Godspeed. Her influence over her niece Q knew to be 
 incalculable, and he felt half-certain of ultimate vic 
 tory in spite of a burning anguish in his breast. Out 
 there, somewhere along the moonlit roads, Heloise was 
 speeding beside the man from whom it had become 
 his duty to protect her. And the man was, fantasti 
 cally enough, the very "Ferdinand kid" that had 
 procured him the one great humiliation of his life. 
 He felt now not the slightest desire to pass on the 
 thrashing; his feeling went unfathomably deeper than 
 any such childish futility of revenge. Ferdinand 
 Fadden he kept repeating the name meaning- 
 lessly, then was struck of a sudden still mind and 
 body, yes, and beating heart. The letter F Lelo s 
 face aglow, her lips bent to cover it he felt their 
 velvet touch again on his intruding hand. He went 
 on stumblingly, his eyes blinded by fear. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 WANTED A LISTENER 
 
 LONGMAN S School Arithmetic flew across Room 90, 
 came into violent contact with the mirror of Q s 
 dressing-table, and left a spidery fracture before fall 
 ing to the floor. There followed a pencil, a ball of 
 yellow paper, and after these came Q. Rumpled and 
 disheveled, with a phosphorescent eye he came, out 
 through the door and down the stairs like some me 
 teoric example of natural force, across the lobby, and, 
 hatless, hands in pockets, down the hotel steps to the 
 pavement, radiating July sun. There, for an instant, 
 he stood as though the force had momentarily need of 
 direction, and, catching sight of a stray jitney, he 
 made a gracefully desperate gesture a flinging up 
 of his right arm. It was as though a rope shot out, 
 sang through clear air, and settled itself about the 
 neck of the jitney-driver. He began to jerk and to 
 push with his feet. The motor buzzed, the car 
 backed, and turned and drifted to a stop in front 
 of Q. 
 
 Again rapt in space-devouring energy, Q threw 
 himself with tigerish suppleness into the back seat, 
 stretched out his legs, subsided on his spine, seemed 
 to cast down reins upon a pony s neck. 
 
 "Go somewhere like hell," he murmured sweetly. 
 
 The man, at work again on levers, looked back, 
 smiled with the superior manner of all mechanics, and 
 
108 "Q" 
 
 took his passenger up Main Street and away with 
 growing speed. 
 
 Q sat slightly swayed and shaken by motion, the 
 phosphorescent eyes fixed on -space. His lips moved. 
 
 "Invert and multiply," he said softly, "invert and 
 multiply oh, damn! " 
 
 Five minutes out of town, he climbed suddenly 
 around to the front seat and sat down beside the 
 driver. 
 
 "Distract my mind from its sufferin ," he said. 
 "Learn me how to run the car." 
 
 "What s your trouble?" the scornful professor of 
 speed demanded with a certain sympathy. Nearly 
 human he seemed for an instant, so strong was the 
 pressure of Q s need. 
 
 "My trouble, stranger, is something you outgrew 
 about ten years ago, kind of shed it off with your 
 short pants. Say, I d like to forget it. I 11 give you all 
 you need for learnin me to run this car." 
 
 Q focused his powerful attention on a simulta 
 neous use of foot and hand, eye and common sense 
 it was a combination of energies to which his life had 
 very excellently trained him; the mechanic conde 
 scended to applaud his maiden efforts and they trav 
 eled far along white, dusty roads, over which the 
 broad, weary foliage of July drooped lifelessly. Q s 
 self-respect, badly shaken by Mary s stern, unex 
 plained to her, alas! eternally unexplainable 
 command to "invert and multiply," gradually re 
 vived itself; hope returned, the whole large arc of his 
 ambition renewed itself in his sky. If he could master 
 
Wanted A Listener 109 
 
 the intricacies of this mysterious machine, surely he 
 was man enough to understand Heloise, even if frac 
 tions were a trifle more mysterious. This was not his 
 conscious reasoning, but, in the arduous distress of 
 his new existence, just such small encouragements 
 were necessary to his pride, even to his self-respect. 
 Sometimes the sickness of his discouragement weak 
 ened the very fibers of his will. 
 
 After two hours of mechanical absorption, Q looked 
 less meteoric and very much more cheerful. He al 
 lowed the mechanic, now a friend, to recapture the 
 place of control and relaxed beside him with a sigh of 
 accomplishment. 
 
 " Let s turn her up toward the mountain here. Can 
 she climb?" 
 
 "She sure can!" Proudly the owner of a Ford jit 
 ney, so illuminatingly feminine in its temperament, 
 put her through her paces. The crazy engine took the 
 stony lane in bounding jerks, energetic, nervous, ex 
 citable, missish, then, becoming matronly, hummed 
 and drew itself with an affectation of steadiness along 
 the graded ascent. It was a made road, but it had 
 been neglected. It led at last to an inn near the sum 
 mit of the hill a shabby, dilapidated inn once 
 painted white and green, now a dingy gray, shadowed 
 by cedar, oak, and mountain ash looking half-blind 
 and deaf and a little sly, perhaps, like some aged gos 
 sip that could tell things if it would. 
 
 "Say," Q asked, "can a man get a drink in there?" 
 
 "Sure can." 
 
 "Then let s drop our reins and go in, shall we? 
 
110 "Q" 
 
 Maybe we can stop for supper the sun s gettin 
 down and we can t make it back before the River 
 Hotel shuts up its biscuit-shootin ." 
 
 "All right with me," the mechanic agreed cheerily. 
 
 So they came into Folly Inn. It was a quaint 
 place; its square front hall received them into deep 
 dusk T low-ceiled, a wooden staircase leading up to 
 even deeper dusk above, a shadowy counter, chintz- 
 curtained windows, an array of copper and brass and 
 old pewter a fireplace evidently an inn that had 
 seen better days. The keeper came out from a corner 
 somewhere to do what he could to get them up a sup 
 per. "The old big dining-room was closed for lack 
 of custom, but there was li le supper room more 
 cheerful that parties sometimes reserved." It was 
 empty to-night he made a "specialty of fried 
 chicken and waffles and all fresh vegetables and fruit 
 in season." He was a small, dark, wrinkled, peer 
 ing man, who slipped about furniture with uncanny 
 sidling swiftness like a crab. He led them to a small 
 washroom from which Q first emerged. Over in a far 
 corner of the large dim room his keen, curious eyes 
 had noticed a stooping, bundled figure in an arm 
 chair, a figure that was incessantly engaged in tiny, 
 restless movements and whisperings. "My old 
 grandfather," said the man; "near a hundred he is 
 and a little out of his wits nobody listens to him 
 he talks to hisself like that all day and half the night. 
 I get him up like a bundle mornings, and set him 
 down in thet chair and there he sets and chatters to 
 hisself until I pick him up and put him to bed It s 
 
Wanted A Listener 111 
 
 near his bedtime now." Q strolled over to the "bun 
 dle" and received a surprisingly intelligent look from 
 eyes embedded in myriad wrinkles, so deep and nu 
 merous that the features were lost entirely, all but 
 these little searching eyes. The chatter, punctuated 
 by a queer, grieving, half-chanted "um-hum," went 
 on without interruption, not stopping even though 
 the chatterer acknowledged Q s presence by a nod 
 ding of its head. 
 
 fat little whiskery fellow he was um-hum 
 wore rings and rode horseback um-um and 
 did n t care what he rode seen him many s the 
 time a gallopin down the road fit to break his hunt 
 er s legs and they tell me how on a wager he rode 
 through the river tunnel to race the express and just 
 missed bein caught that was afore he lost his 
 second wife used to bring the dressmaker woman 
 here long afore he got his freedom to marry her his 
 third wife funny how a little whiskery feller like 
 him could git three fine young women to tie up to him 
 those day? we d have some queer parties at the 
 inn " 
 
 "It must have been a regular round-up them days," 
 said Q, and the old man was so delighted that he 
 straightened up and smacked with his toothless lips, 
 his eyes brightening intensely in their folds. 
 
 "Ah, sir, you say so! Many the stories I could tell, 
 but who s to listen? I set here and tell em over to 
 myself nobody cares now, nobody cares now. All 
 the old life of Sluypenkill dead and gone um-um 
 motors carry folks away to the cities no parties up 
 
112 "Q" 
 
 here now except once in a hundred months when 
 we get something vulgar but I can remember 
 things about the old families ; There was skeletons 
 that went stalking about our rooms : All ghosts now, 
 sir. You look like a gentleman yourself, but you 
 have n t got the twist of the tongue You favor old 
 Mr. DeLancey he was a fine young chap and his 
 sister, Miss Susan, pretty and sweet, pretty and sweet, 
 and her father would n t see her again, not after her 
 marriage Oh, they cared for their names, those 
 days. Um-hum. Other fathers might have had reason 
 to" 
 
 "Don t let yourself be bored by him, sir," sug 
 gested the sidling innkeeper, drawing near and not 
 troubling to lower his voice for the suggestion; "he 
 just runs on about the old days half of it he makes 
 up himself, I think I 11 have your supper ready in 
 about ten minutes. The other gentleman is waiting 
 for you " 
 
 "I ll be there in a minute " Q was really about 
 to move away when his attention was arrested by a 
 name which tumbled out of the old man s mouth on 
 a sort of chuckle. 
 
 "Dr. Sales um-hum that night I had the 
 neuralgia O Lordy, what a night not a wink of 
 sleep for poor me and the rain slidin down the roof 
 I could n t bear it, I just felt I had to get the doctor to 
 give me something at half-past two or maybe three 
 it was, and I wrapped my wife s flannel petticoat 
 about my face and lighted a candle to find my way to 
 Dr. Sales he was good-natured, yes, he was; they 
 
Wanted A Listener 113 
 
 talk about him now, but in those days when he had n t 
 no practice and just come out here and played the 
 piano to my daughters and sang well, he was good- 
 natured and that s all I ask um-hum you don t 
 get folks to listen to an old man now but I was n t 
 so old then, to be sure If it had n t been for the 
 neuralgia, though, I d never have seen the poor fright 
 ened thing come creeping along with her letter and 
 slipping it under Dr. Sales s door she not undressed 
 at that time of the morning a Grinscoombe, if you 
 please, crying along the hall and shaking and looking 
 about her like a scared rabbit me hiding against 
 the corner there upstairs I thought it was some 
 thing queer when she came in with Mr. Thayer 
 not the present one, you know very handsome 
 gentleman, very, beautiful big eyes slow-spoken 
 always spoke low to the ladies and kept looking into 
 their eyes many a time I ve seen him but she 
 kept herself wrapped up in a veil and would n t come 
 down to supper he looking as fierce as a panther 
 and I kept wondering what he was up to with a tall, 
 slim, dark-haired young woman when I knew his wife 
 
 she was a Van Dusen was a tiny blonde, but I 
 never would have thought Miss Selda Grinscoombe, 
 if it had n t been for my neuralgia and catching her 
 creeping along the hall with a letter to slip under Dr. 
 Sales s door yes, sir, he helped her to get away that 
 night back to her father and I never told what I saw 
 
 um-hum innkeepers and priests innkeepers 
 and priests: But now nobody will listen to me mum 
 bling and whispering on account of my teeth, and some- 
 
114 "Q" 
 
 how you remind me of the young gentlemen that used 
 to be here with their laughin and their drinkin and 
 the wrong kind of women and the right kind of 
 women, thinking, poor little dears, that they was doing 
 something kind of bold and gay like Miss Susan 
 with her livery-stable boy or little Mrs. Van Dusen 
 and her husband and her husband s cousin from 
 Boston" 
 
 Here Q moved away. 
 
 He felt guilty and bemused. He wondered if the 
 old, old fellow had really seen anything so strange as 
 Miss Selda Grinscoombe creeping along the upper 
 hall of this inn at three o clock of a rainy night so long 
 ago creeping and shaking and crying with a letter 
 in her hand It probably was n t his Miss Selda 
 Q had a swift recurrent mind picture of her cold face, 
 and with it a more vivid impression of that secret 
 waver, that controlled uncertainty that hid itself 
 beneath the stone and iron of her look. It was not 
 fair to the woman s pride that he should have stum 
 bled upon any such piteous upheaval of her youth. 
 Perhaps Q ate his chicken and waffles silently, 
 throwing out a humorous observation now and then 
 to keep his comrade entertained perhaps the hos 
 pital at the Mills had suffered from mismanagement, 
 perhaps Dr. Sales s ignorance had been allowed dis 
 astrous protection because of Miss Grinscoombe s 
 control of the Mills, of the hospital, of all Sluypen- 
 kill. Q s patient investigation, dictated by the tireless 
 wolfishness of his instantaneous hatred of William 
 Sales, had brought him again and again face to face 
 
Wanted A Listener 115 
 
 with the revelation that Sluypenkill lay in the hollow 
 of this gray-faced woman s narrow hands. A man 
 under her protection could afford laziness, could af 
 ford selfishness, could afford his pet vices. But it 
 was n t exactly fair to adopt this information and 
 the old man was scarcely to be trusted had n t his 
 son accused him of making up tales for his own amuse 
 ment? Suddenly Q, thinking of the "old lady" and 
 her "poor boy," laughed softly and maliciously over 
 his coffee-cup. 
 
 "What you got now?" demanded the mechanic, 
 ready for anything. 
 
 "I got queer tracks looks like a old lady s walk 
 ing backward down a hill," he said. "What s the 
 ammunition for that kind of game toast and 
 tea ? Or fried lady-fingers?" 
 
 "The whiskey you ve taken oughtn t have done 
 that to you," said the mechanic. "You Western fel 
 lows don t hold your drink." 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 LAYER CAKE 
 
 "I HAVE my faults," said Mrs. Stopper, stroking 
 down the brown-and-white foulard over her promi 
 nent bust, upon which she habitually seemed to sus 
 pect the persistence of a breakfast crumb; "nobody 
 knows that better than myself, but I am not a gossip. 
 I can t abide gossip. Indeed, I said to Mrs. Eggles 
 only yesterday when we were discussing the dreadful 
 trouble that has come upon poor Mrs. Huggs like a 
 judgment from Heaven, every one having expected a 
 catastrophe since she w T as blind long enough to cul 
 tivate the acquaintance of the Johnson woman, know 
 ing as she must have known that butter on a hot day 
 is no softer than that husband of hers, and I ve al 
 ways said that if a woman can t keep her husband she 
 deserves to lose him; meat is too strong food for a 
 weak stomach and a wife should temper the wind to 
 a shorn lamb!" 
 
 "Yes, ma am," said Q. T. Kinwydden. 
 
 He was a figure of discretion, seated in Mrs. Stop 
 per s parlor, sipping Mrs. Stopper s tea. The room 
 was arranged for a card party which preceded a read 
 ing from Sir Walter Scott, Mrs. Stopper being chair 
 man of a Scott Club. The members were due at four- 
 thirty and it was now four o clock. Q, having found 
 wandering and returned a yellow cat, named Sweetie, 
 very dear to Mrs. Stopper s heart, was being rewarded 
 by refreshments and moral observations. 
 
Layer Cake 117 
 
 "Yes, ma am," he said. 
 
 "So I said to her, * Gossip is one of the seven deadly 
 sins not that I meant to be irreverent, you under 
 stand, Mr. Kinwydden, because I was quite in earnest, 
 and Mrs. Huggs was the first to cast a stone when 
 Charles B. Starraway s daughter the dry-goods 
 store on the corner, you know, and such a nice man, 
 though he does n t quite belong, but he has such a 
 nice Van Dyke beard, which gives elegance, I always 
 think, to a man s appearance, no matter what his 
 figure she left for the movies and was seen with 
 practically nothing on, in a production entitled He 
 Killed the Thing He Loved, and her poor mother 
 being in the audience and not prepared for seeing 
 Susy like that, in public, fainted dead away and 
 how is your wrist now, Mr. Kinwydden? out of 
 the sling, I see." 
 
 "Just fine, thank you." 
 
 "Dr. Sales sewed it up for you, I suppose. Well, 
 he s very good, I dare say, and a pleasant-spoken 
 gentleman enough, and the best people call him in, 
 and I know that Miss Grinscoombe won t have any 
 other medical man, not if she was on her death-bed, 
 but I can t help it, I did like Dr. Ellison. It seemed 
 like he did more for my indigestion than Dr. Sales. 
 And I never could believe what they told of him and 
 the poor young man having to leave Sluypenkill be 
 cause of it and he in love with dear Mary Grins 
 coombe, though I don t think she d have had him, 
 though you never can tell, and Miss Grinscoombe not 
 countenancing him on the hospital staff and driving 
 
118 "Q" 
 
 around in person to his patients, breaking up his prac 
 tice with her own hands, you might say! Loyalty to 
 your friends is one thing and Dr. Sales has been her 
 friend, no doubt they do say there was a time 
 when, had n t it been for the pride of old Mr. Grins- 
 coombe, which even when you consider all he had 
 to be proud of, and I hope it s far from me not to 
 admit a just superiority was something sinful 
 now, where was I, Mr. Kinwydden?" 
 
 "I m afraid, ma am, I m off the trail. You was 
 speakin about doc s bein a friend to Miss Grins- 
 coombe, was n t you?" 
 
 "I presume likely. Had n t it been for Mr. Grins- 
 coombe s pride, doctor might have been more to Miss 
 Selda than a friend. He looked high in his love for a 
 widower, and, when he first came, a practitioner in a 
 very small way, for it was n t until the Manor took 
 him up that his practice began to amount to anything 
 and I hear now that it ain t safe for him to go 
 among the mill-hands all of which is something 
 before my day; I was about eighteen when doctor 
 first came to the place with his little boy and, any 
 way, whatever his own ambitions may have been, 
 and we can t be sure, for the secrets of his heart are 
 unknown, we are all purfickly sure he wanted Laurie 
 to match off with Miss Heloise that was purfickly 
 apparent to every layer of Sluypenkill society. And 
 Laurie and Miss Heloise were a pretty pair of friends, 
 too, and quite intimate. Sluypenkill society is like 
 a layer cake, don t you think, Mr. Kinwydden? As 
 Mary herself says her name for it, my dear 
 * Grinscoombery* on top " 
 
Layer Cake 119 
 
 Q was moved to laughter. "That s a mighty fittin 
 word for it, Mrs. Stopper. Grinscoombery it s 
 something I ve been seekin for Grinscoombery. " 
 
 Mrs. Stopper s little round face of a gossip shone 
 with pleasure. 
 
 " Grinscoombery s the icing," she went on, moved 
 by applause to an elaboration of her figure, "and 
 then comes we townspeople, good solid cake, and 
 below us is a little fillin in the shape of newcomers 
 not sufficiently recognized, then some more solid 
 stuff, small shopkeepers and what not, so on down to 
 the factory and domestic classes and they do say 
 that the factory " 
 
 "It s sure mixin to me," Q admitted, "keeps me 
 millin round." 
 
 "Yes," chuckled Mrs. Stopper, "but you ve come 
 along with a knife and cut a slice clean through from 
 icing to plate. Why, you ve got friends clear down to 
 the little yellow curs that hang around the saloon on 
 the corner. I saw you one afternoon, taking one of 
 the hotel waitresses Sophie to a movie matinee! 
 I call that democracy. But it won t do you any good 
 at the Manor, young man, take my word for that. 
 They won t understand it not Miss Grinscoombe 
 at all. You can t go riding with Miss Heloise one 
 day and calling on me the next and taking a waitress 
 to the movies on the third, and keep your social foot 
 ing in Sluypenkill . " 
 
 "When are you agoin to show me the door, 
 ma am?" asked Q, standing up and smiling at his 
 hostess. 
 
120 "Q" 
 
 "Well, you look out! What Grinscoombe Manor 
 says, goes. We townspeople don t run against Miss 
 Grinscoombe s decision, generally speaking." 
 
 "You got me plumb scairt, ma am!" 
 
 "Yes you d better be! And how goes the edu 
 cation?" 
 
 "Still uphill and down timber and slide rock " 
 
 "Oh, must you be going now?" 
 
 "I reckon I must." Q s eyes twinkled. "I got a 
 date with Sophie." 
 
 Mrs. Stopper s face showed genuine concern. She 
 came close to her tall visitor and put a plump hand on 
 his arm. "Now, Mr. Kinwydden, please don t be 
 foolish. Eastern ways are n t Western ways, as no 
 body knows better than myself, having an only daugh 
 ter married and living in the Dakotas, a wild prairie 
 place where she eats with the hired men, and as far as 
 I can make out, the poor child cooks for them, and 
 brought up delicate, as I took pains to teach her the 
 pianoforte and a real clever hand at bridge she was, 
 too. Sophie has done enough mischief already, as 
 doctor would be the first to tell you. Ah, well! I 11 not 
 tell you the story, for I can t give it at first hand and 
 I m not the one to gossip, but I wish you well, Mr. 
 Kinwydden, as all of us do in Sluypenkill, and thank 
 you kindly for bringin home Sweetie, he gives me 
 more trouble than a babe that animal so roving 
 in his disposition say, if I dared, I d christen him 
 -Mr. Huggs!" 
 
 And so on, down the hall and out of the door and 
 from the porch until, having passed through the gate, 
 
Layer Cake 
 
 Q passed out of the range of the plump voice, savor 
 ing its own sound on the agile tongue. 
 
 Q walked in thought, amused and quizzical. He 
 was revolving one of his aphorisms, "Talkin makes 
 things happen just as sure as happenings makes folks 
 talk. It s a plumb tangle." He further elucidated to 
 himself: "Seems like lives and feelin s gets tied up 
 together when they live too clost. Folks is like bosses 
 in a crowded corral, they fair trample on each other. 
 When you try to cut one out, if you ain t careful, 
 somebody s likely to get hurted pretty bad." 
 
 He went thoughtfully along the little maple-bor 
 dered street and turned down Main Street to the 
 hotel, where he passed through a vacant, shaded 
 dining-room, in which the usual intense activity of 
 fly-life was subdued to a dim, hazy murmur, through 
 swinging doors into the pantry. It was a bare, narrow 
 room and at its far end, near the single window, stood 
 Sophie, her hat hanging in her hand, her forehead 
 pressed against the pane. He stood for a minute look 
 ing at her, and the expression of his eyes was less 
 guarded than usual, and more masterful. With So 
 phie, as with few people in this Eastern world, he felt 
 entirely self-assured and dominant. She was, like 
 himself, unlettered, wild and direct. Her beauty was 
 in all its points passionate and primitive the wild 
 and startled eyes, the quick, soft motions of her lips, 
 her changeful color, the way she held her ripe and sup 
 ple body. Bone by bone she was one of the women he 
 knew. She was ready for the flight that begs pursuit, 
 the fiery struggle that demands capture. She waa 
 
Q 
 
 ignorant, lowly, unhappy, rebellious. His nerves 
 seemed to rest in the relaxation of a certain limited 
 but fundamental congeniality. 
 
 "Hullo," said Q. "Ain t you ready for that sody- 
 water yet?" 
 
 She turned about, ducked her head, put on her hat, 
 and moved, the brim low over face, in silence toward 
 him. 
 
 He bent to look closely at her and straightened. 
 " Say, you Sophie gel, what s wrong? You been cryin* 
 your eyes out!" 
 
 At that she stood still, put her hands over her face, 
 and sobbed childishly. 
 
 "It it is n t anything I can tell you about, sir." 
 
 "Quit callin me sir. I ve spoken to you about 
 that quite a lot now. You, gel, who s been treatin 
 you bad? I ll get him, savvy? Come along to the 
 sody-place and we ll mosy back into the ice-cream 
 parlor and get a table to ourselves. You re plumb 
 wore out dish- wrangling." 
 
 In the ice-cream parlor they found a fan-stirred 
 emptiness. He leaned across the little table and 
 touched her hand. She lifted her startled eyes, the 
 eyes of a wild bird, brilliantly black and darting. 
 
 "Q," she wailed softly, "it s been going on so long. 
 I m all wore out with it." 
 
 "Is that so?" It was so sympathetic a murmur, 
 and his eyes fixed upon her were so compelling in his 
 thin and handsome face, that her sorrow began to 
 tumble out of her. 
 
 "I can t abide the man," she said, "but Poppa and 
 
Layer Cake 123 
 
 he are always af tern me an I m that tired and heart 
 sick that I m about ready to give in. If he could have 
 had me the wrong way, he d have left off plaguing me 
 long ago. For half a season here I had to lock my door 
 against him night after night, and I think it s a shame 
 
 that I do for Poppa to stand by and encourage 
 him now to get me for his wife, Poppa knowing what 
 I suffered from him before his own wife died." 
 
 "Why, the old coyote," said Q, his mind conjuring 
 up the pimpled and perspiring face of the head waiter 
 whom he knew to be the father of Sophie. 
 
 "And he is an important gentleman and has means, 
 and if he sells out, he ll be downright wealthy, so 
 Poppa thinks it s a fine match for me, and I suppose 
 it is." 
 
 "Say, don t you tie up to any feller less n a Con 
 gressman, Sophie, don t you. Let your Pa rear. He 
 can t hurt you a little fat feller like him! " 
 
 Sophie unwillingly smiled. "I m real afraid of 
 Poppa," she said, "and when he sells out " 
 
 "What s he agoin to sell out of, anyways?" 
 
 "Why, the hotel!" 
 
 "You don t say! Why, the gol-derned old son of 
 the gol-derned old fool! You don t mean to tell me 
 that Benton, the feller that looks like a long drink of 
 warm milk, is plottin to make you his bride! Miss 
 Mariana s Pa? Say, ain t he the lively old outlaw! 
 Who s agoin to buy him out?" 
 
 "I don t know. He s had a bid from some New 
 York party, through his agent, some man named 
 Goldman, I think at least that s the agent s name 
 
 I m not sure." 
 
124 "Q" 
 
 "Some feller really wants to own the River Hotel! 
 Well, is that the truth! The world is sure full of 
 quaint fancies. Sell out his little old hotel and marry 
 you I d never hev guessed it from lookin at him 
 and settlin up his charges. Does Bill go with the 
 buzz-box?" 
 
 Sophie was back in the cloud of her trouble and 
 would no longer smile. 
 
 "I ve always held myself high," she said, "I have 
 that. And never kept company with any of the town 
 boys, not even carried on with the drummers, and 
 you know they re forever ogling and lovemaking. I 
 I Ve always kind of hoped " she stopped with a 
 wavering break in her voice. 
 
 "Sure," said Q. "Sure, you Ve hoped for a regular 
 feller." 
 
 "Yes and when you ve known one!" Beneath 
 the lowered inky lashes, her cheeks burned and 
 quivered; her ripe lips were pulled straight by pain. 
 
 "You can t quit thinkin of him I reckon that s 
 the truth, gel." 
 
 "And the more I try to make myself good enough 
 for him," the girl went on, moving with a beautiful 
 difficulty her pain-stretched lips, "studying and read 
 ing and practicing my writing so s he won t be 
 ashamed of my letters " 
 
 Poor Q was smitten by a likeness and the color rose 
 slowly to his face. 
 
 " Why, the more I can t abide the other fellows 
 that I could get for the smiling at them. There s no 
 use in talking to Poppa about Laurie, for he goes 
 
Layer Cake 125 
 
 right up in the air and, anyway, I promised Dr. 
 Sales " 
 
 "Dr. Sales?" 
 
 "Yes, sir. Laurie is Dr. Sales s son. Oh, it hap 
 pened once when Dr. Sales closed his house for the 
 summer and he sent Laurie to stop at the hotel for 
 his vacation. That s when it started. There never 
 was such a sweet kid, honest, Mr. Q, as that Laurie! " 
 Her face melted to the loveliness of memory. "Say, 
 that summer seems a hundred years ago. The good 
 times we had! I just laughed at Mr. Benton those 
 days, even though I had to lock my door to him. And 
 gee! he was fierce with jealousy. Afterwards, though, 
 in the fall, when Dr. Sales came home, it was awful ! 
 I ll never forget it. Dr. Sales came back and found 
 out about Laurie and me. You can t blame him for 
 taking on about it, because he wanted Laurie to har 
 ness up to Miss Heloise Grinscoombe think of 
 that! and then to find him clean out of his head 
 over me well, naturally it was hard and put him 
 back a whole lot. I was kind of sorry for him, myself, 
 and I guess he was fond of Laurie like Laurie was fond 
 of him. But, after he got his way with Laurie, I 
 could n t feel for him; he just worried the soul out 
 of the boy and sent him away, and and " the 
 darting, startled eyes widened and fixed. There was 
 a long silence. 
 
 "But he writes to you, ma am?" 
 
 She nodded. "Sometimes, yes. But not for a long 
 time now. And his letters have gotten different, kind 
 of colder like I guess" the torturing thought 
 
126 "Q" 
 
 worked out of her as a splinter works from a wound 
 "I guess, by now, he s got another girl." 
 
 "Where is this Laurie boy?" asked Q. 
 
 "In a place called West Lemmon, not so far away. 
 He s started in practice there and I guess he s doing 
 fine. He is awfully smart and taking and a good- 
 looker." 
 
 "What he needs," muttered Q, "is one of them 
 long stiff bones that goes down the middle of the 
 back." 
 
 "No," Sophie sighed, "he needs just to see 
 me. But I promised * 
 
 Her voice trailed oft into a, silence which lasted 
 them through the eating of their ice-cream and a 
 sober walk back to the hotel. 
 
 Sophie returned to the work and the bother of her 
 daily life, with its thundery, threatening shadows^ 
 and Q betook himself to a large leather chair in a cor 
 ner of the lobby, where he smoked a vast number of 
 cigarettes and stared at Mr. Benton behind the 
 wires of his little cage until that gentleman became so 
 nervously self-conscious that he was stricken with an 
 incessant tickling of the throat. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 NEW WINE IN OLD BOTTLES 
 
 "BEFORE we begin on lessons," said Q, "I ve got to 
 ask you to help me out with a letter I ve wrote." 
 
 His " schoolma am " shook her head at him. " I Ve 
 wrote! Q?" 
 
 Q gazed at her with the intent eyes of a searcher of 
 dictionary pages and at last produced the participle. 
 
 " I ve wri tten, ma am. Don t it sound dressy that- 
 away!" 
 
 She sighed and held out her hand across the table s 
 and he, standing opposite, fingered his paper for an 
 instant before relinquishing it. "Why did you sigh, 
 then, Miss Mary?" he asked her. 
 
 "Because, Q, I don t think you try very hard to 
 speak good English, and that is really the most im 
 portant part of all your education." 
 
 "Yes, ma am, I know it is, but it s got to come 
 gradual, else I ll be talkin like a kind of parrot in a 
 high hat I hev thought about that quite a lot, and 
 it kind of seemed to me that until I had got the sound 
 of talkin right in my head, it would be akkard like 
 for me to try to talk any different than I was raised to 
 talk." 
 
 "You certainly think straight, Q no matter how 
 you talk! I believe you re right: Let me see your 
 letter." 
 
 She brightened as she read it, for, however rebel- 
 
128 "Q" 
 
 lious his tongue, his pen had been surprisingly well 
 mastered. The sheet was covered with even lines of 
 a clear, strong writing, and even the spelling was no 
 disgrace to her. 
 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 I have heard from a friend of your skill as a doc and I d 
 like it if you d look after a wound that has been troubling 
 me some lately. It don t seem to heal right and I need the 
 use of my wrist. I am at the River Hotel and will pay you 
 for coming to give me a look-over. Thursday would suit me 
 fine at about three o clock in the afternoon if you can make 
 it. Kindly telephone me before nine in the morning if 1 
 would expect you. 
 
 Q. T. KlNWTDDEN 
 
 Mary, puzzled, looked up with her arch and wistful 
 eyes. 
 
 "But, Q does your wrist still bother you? I 
 thought it was quite well." 
 
 "I hev decided to give it a set-back," he answered 
 gravely. 
 
 "What do you mean? If there s really something 
 wrong why not call in Dr. Sales? Why have you 
 this prejudice against him? I ve known him all my 
 life nearly and he has been the best and kindest 
 friend to me. Who is this other doctor and where did 
 you hear of him?" 
 
 Q was folding his letter and through the intense 
 gravity of his face a little flea of some different ex 
 pression skipped in and out. 
 
 "You re up to some sort of deviltry," said Mary. 
 
 "Ain t it about time?" he demanded. 
 
 "Where is your envelope? Are you going to ad 
 dress it?" 
 
New Wine in Old Bottles 129 
 
 "My," said Q impersonally, "ain t cows and 
 women inquirin critters! I ve seed half a herd move 
 acrost a plain to look in at a hat some lady dude let 
 fall along a trail." 
 
 "Don t be nasty. I don t care in the least about 
 your doctor, but it hurts my feelings that you don t 
 trust Dr. Sales. You were dreadfully rude to him 
 about the hospital the day you were hurt. You must 
 not be ready to believe spiteful gossip. I know that 
 there has been a great deal of talk against Dr. Sales 
 even that a lawsuit was brought against him 
 Miss Grinscoombe had her lawyer from New York 
 and Dr. Sales was completely exonerated." 
 
 "Yes, ma am. How do you spell Laurie? 
 
 Mary started and her face changed from mildly 
 amused annoyance into the most concerned interest. 
 
 "L-a-u-r-i-e," she spelled, and watched him with 
 an anxious look. 
 
 Dr. Laurie Sales, 
 West Lemmon, 
 N.J. 
 
 wrote the careful pen in the strong lean fingers. 
 
 " Oh, Q! You don t you can t know what you re 
 doing." 
 
 He took out a stamp, put it in place, and slipped 
 the letter into his pocket. 
 
 "Now, I m all ready for lessons, ma am." 
 
 But her face was not ready for schoolma am im 
 personalities; it was all one flushed question. 
 
130 "Q" 
 
 "Q, Q, what are you up to? But it is n t like you to 
 mix up in things to to meddle." 
 
 "I m beginning to think that I m a regular old 
 maid," said Q. "It s town life that does it, and 
 hearin so much talk from women-folks." 
 
 "You are sending for Laurie Sales!" cried Mary 
 breathlessly; "and somehow you know that the River 
 Hotel is just the most fatal spot in the world for 
 Laurie. Look out, Q! You don t want to break his 
 father s heart!" 
 
 "I d not be carin ," he announced briefly. 
 
 "You re an unreasonable savage!" 
 
 Then with sternness she leaned over, pointing her 
 finger at him, "You must listen to me, Q, and you 
 must follow my advice. I know what I m talking 
 about. There are excellent reasons why Laurie should 
 not be brought to the River Hotel on any pretext 
 whatever." 
 
 "No, ma am. There is just one reason why he 
 should be brought there and that s Sophie! " 
 
 "Ah! So you do know!" 
 
 "Yes, ma am." 
 
 "Q, you are a silly sentimentalist!" 
 
 "Well, ma am, that sounds like bad talk, but you 
 don t scare me any ! " 
 
 "Because a pretty little waitress " 
 
 "She tops you by about two heads that Sophie 
 gel/ 
 
 Mary flushed. "I I you make me feel that 
 I ve been insufferably condescending." 
 
 "I never use rough talk to a lady. Likely you 
 
New Wine in Old Bottles 131 
 
 called her * little because you have forgot what a 
 big classy woman she is." 
 
 "Sophie must be trying to get hold of Laurie, and 
 she s using you to decoy him to the hotel." 
 
 "No, ma am, that ain t the truth, but even if it 
 was, why should n t the gel try to keep a holt on the 
 feller she loves?" 
 
 "But, Q Oh, you are a sentimentalist." 
 
 "That s twict you ve spurred me in the same 
 place." 
 
 "You must realize that Sophie is not the wife for 
 Laurie Sales. He is a gentleman, well-born, well- 
 bred, well-educated. She is a servant-girl, unedu 
 cated, socially his inferior. I know she is a beauty 
 and probably a very nice girl and would make some 
 nice man happy, but " 
 
 "Ain t Laurie a nice man?" asked Q. 
 
 In her excitement, her half -mechanical delivery of 
 one of the dogmas of her father s class, Mary did not 
 notice that the strained look had fallen about Q s 
 lips. 
 
 "Yes, yes. He s a charming boy, clever, good- 
 looking, bound to succeed, to go very far. He has 
 shown great good sense and courage. He has made a 
 splendid start. It would be wicked, cruel, to drag 
 him back to the wretchedness of that affair. It al 
 most broke his father s heart!" 
 
 "And what about the Sophie gel s heart, ma am?" 
 
 Mary got up and walked about the room. 
 
 "I am sorry for her. And I do blame Laurie. But 
 she is young. And she must see, herself, that a mar- 
 
132 "Q" 
 
 riage between her and Laurie would mean unhappi- 
 ness for both of them. Three years ago, she acted 
 splendidly." 
 
 "But, Miss Grinscoombe, and you must please ex 
 cuse me but I am plumb confused did n t your 
 Pa marry a girl - 
 
 Mary s face flamed and her eyes filled. "Yes," 
 she said shortly, "he did." She stood for a minute 
 stock-still in the middle of the little room staring at 
 Q through the quick, angry tears. " And in a sense 
 
 it ruined his life but it was a matter of his 
 honor. Mother was a very wonderful woman and 
 
 and oh, Q, how could you bring that up? " She 
 turned away and stood at one of the windows, her 
 hands clenched at her sides. 
 
 "I m ashamed of myself clear through, Miss Mary, 
 but I sure don t savvy. It seems to me a man ain t 
 worth his grub-stake if he can t choose his woman for 
 himself and stick by his choice. And, ma am" 
 something in his voice made her turn quickly to look 
 at him "y u told me once, yourself, that edication 
 and such things had n t ought to count, that lovin 
 was a man and woman matter." 
 
 There followed a stricken sort of silence. Mary 
 stood with her back to the window and her eyes on 
 the floor. Her hands were twisting together behind 
 her back. Her heart seemed to be suffering a punish 
 ment of muffled blows. 
 
 "So you don t want me to send that letter to Dr. 
 Laurie," Q said in his soft, even voice. "You don t 
 want me to give Sophie her chanct for happiness. 
 
New Wine in Old Bottles 133 
 
 Likely you don t know what the gel s been goin 
 through. It would take a heap of lovin to make up 
 to her what she has been put through since her Lau 
 rie feller quit." 
 
 "But, Q," Mary faltered, making a profile of her 
 self against the sunny window so that the fire of Au 
 gust shone about her curls, "there might be great 
 danger to her in bringing Laurie back. He is several 
 years older now, he is a man, and he will be harder 
 and perhaps less chivalrous. Maybe he still has this 
 feeling for her I don t know but I do know he 
 has a profession and a practice and he is ambitious in 
 a place particularly sensitive to birth is n t that a 
 pretty dangerous combination for Sophie? " 
 
 "I can see the truth of that," Q admitted, "but if 
 this feller is as no-account as all that comes to, then 
 Sophie will turn against him pronto. She has some 
 horse-sense and likely it would cure her if he tried 
 any trifiin of that nature. Sophie holds herself 
 high." 
 
 "And you are willing to take this responsibility on 
 your shoulders? Of bringing these two people to 
 gether?" 
 
 "You don t know what the gel is up against." 
 
 Mary came back slowly to her chair and rested her 
 hand on its back. All the color of excitement and an 
 ger had faded from her face, which wore its look of a 
 brave, ill-treated child. 
 
 "It would be better for all of us here, I think," she 
 said softly, shaking her head in a half-piteous fash 
 ion, "if you took yourself back to your West, Q. We 
 
134 "Q" 
 
 are not strong enough we old vessels for your 
 new wine. We can t think singly or feel straight. 
 There are too many entanglements, things come in 
 thicknesses " she sighed. "I m afraid I m not 
 very clear shall we do some work? It s nearly 
 twelve o clock." 
 
 "What about my letter?" he demanded. 
 
 She shrugged. "I wash my hands of it. I ve said 
 everything I can to dissuade you from sending it. I 
 shall be sorry if you do anything to hurt Dr. Sales or 
 Sophie or Laurie. But you are very sure of yourself, 
 it seems." 
 
 He gave her a queer quick glance and dropped his 
 eyes. 
 
 "I ain t anything like that," he said. He was pro 
 foundly hurt. 
 
 Lessons began in grim, unsmiling earnest and 
 ended in no lighter fashion. For the first time, Mary s 
 scholar went away without comfort and left her with 
 out cheer. 
 
 On his way to the hotel, Q mailed the letter, but 
 when the white envelope had dropped out of his 
 sight, he felt heavy of heart and burdened of con 
 science. 
 
 "I m hittin a dangerous trail," he confessed to 
 himself. "I m likely to strike quicksand at this 
 fordin ." 
 
 Perhaps it was the sense of guilty defiance that 
 gave him that afternoon a mood of recklessness. He 
 had the glittering eye and tight smile of a dare-devil 
 when at four o clock of the afternoon he presented 
 
New Wine in Old Bottles 135 
 
 himself by appointment in the gilded South Parlor at 
 the Manor. At first glance Heloise recognized that he 
 was not to be trifled with and the queer waver that 
 his stronger moods inspired began at once to trouble 
 her. Q was aware, but, instead of softening his humor, 
 the awareness seemed to flick it. This was their first 
 meeting since the night she had left him to go out 
 into the moon-magic with Ferdy Fadden. They were 
 both conscious of that episode; Lelo guiltily, he re 
 sentfully. 
 
 "I hev brought a nag that goes like she wanted to 
 get there first," said Q, "and the poor dern fool is 
 tied up to a machine they called at the stables a dog 
 cart. It looks like a real death-trap, but I reckon we 
 can make it. Want to come? " 
 
 "You re going to take me for a drive, Q? How de- 
 liciously absurd! Buggy-riding! Come on, I m ready 
 for anything." 
 
 "To-day, to-morrow, and yesterday." 
 
 "Why not? It s better to be ready for living, is n t 
 it? than to be behind the game. I like people with 
 pep, don t you?" 
 
 "Yes, ma am, that s why I chose this here lady- 
 hoss." His eyes narrowed at her as she climbed in, he 
 standing below with the reins in his hands. "What 
 are you all duded up for this afternoon?" 
 
 She was in fact beautifully gowned in pale green 
 with a wide hat under which her clear, cool beauty 
 wore a nymph-like purity. 
 
 "To fascinate you, of course!" 
 
 He smiled. "You think I m a plumb tenderfoot 
 on this sort of trail, don t you?" 
 
136 "Q" 
 
 He climbed in and the "lady-hoss" started down 
 the long straight drive with a bony, long-stepping vim 
 that threw Heloise back against the seat-strap and 
 evoked a small excited laugh. 
 
 "Very well if you want the whole truth I 
 was planning, after I had completely demolished you, 
 to get what was left of you to leave me at the Country 
 Club where I am to have tea with another victim." 
 
 "Mr. Fer-dee-nand Fadden," drawled Q. 
 
 "Don t you think he s a charming victim? I do." 
 
 Q guided his mare around the gatepost and headed 
 her north. 
 
 "She s got a concrete mouth," he muttered, "and 
 gutta-percha legs and her back is made of elastic and 
 she has a hard, hard heart"; then with hardly a 
 change of tone, he asked, "Ain t he a married man, 
 Heloise?" 
 
 To this informality of nomenclature, she had at 
 last persuaded him. 
 
 "Yes. What has that to do with it? How proper is 
 our Q! You have a lot to learn yet, my dear innocent, 
 Western friend ! Is n t Mrs. Fayre a married woman, 
 and don t tell me you have n t noticed her marked 
 attentions to you!" 
 
 Q s face flamed. "She s agoin to get the lesson of 
 her life, that lady, if she don t quit temptin me." 
 
 At which naively shocking statement Heloise 
 laughed until the dog-cart jerked her music to silence. 
 
 "This is a perfectly awful form of discipline 
 this dog-cart of yours, Q! What will you do to 
 poor Mrs. Fayre if she keeps on tempting you? 
 You re too dreadful." 
 
New Wine in Old Bottles 137 
 
 "Well, ma am, seems like she entertains the notion 
 that a man is a safe little pet animal, like some kind 
 of lapdog. Now I ain t anything like that. 1 m not a 
 quarter so safe. I m a real man-critter and likely as 
 not some day I ll hug her." 
 
 Heloise laughed again. "You ve never hugged 
 me!" she said. 
 
 He turned upon her so white and shocked a face 
 that she drew back from him. 
 
 "Q, I m sorry. Don t please look at me like that. 
 Don t be so angry. What did I say? I did n t mean 
 anything. I was just well, teasing you." 
 
 He turned away his eyes. "I reckon I have got a 
 whole lot to learn," he said presently between his 
 teeth, "but you ve got some to learn yet, girl, and 
 I d sure hate for you to get your learnin from Fad- 
 den him or any other married man of his kind. I 
 know more n you think. I ve seed a heap of ugly 
 things, likely I hev done some ugly things. There s 
 just two ends to that married game one way you 
 come out a knave, and the other way you come out a 
 fool. If you re a woman, you don t come out quite 
 clean" 
 
 Heloise burned face, neck, and brow burned 
 with pure anger. The insult of the phrase as one even 
 remotely to be applied to her was a whip to her su 
 periority. She bit at her slender pink lip and drew in 
 her breath. 
 
 "One must amuse one s self," she said with an af 
 fectation that made the bite of her words doubly keen 
 to the listener, "in this impossible place. One must 
 
138 "Q" 
 
 have some excitement. One must occasionally have 
 the society of a man of the world, or one gets out of 
 practice forgets how to behave." 
 
 He laughed. " You want excitement. Well, ma am, 
 so do I. There ain t enough danger in this place for 
 one, I figure it. Danger is what one s out lookin 
 for." 
 
 Before she knew even that he had moved, he was 
 out along the shaft. He flung up his arms with a wild 
 long cry he did something, she could n t see what. 
 The mare flung herself back, snorted, and gathered 
 her long bones together. Q was back in his seat, the 
 reins wrapped about his wrist, his body braced. He 
 looked at Heloise, his mask thrown down, his face 
 gleaming, young, reckless, hard like the faces of 
 men in far wild places. Heloise clung to the seat; her 
 hat was gone already, her hair streamed, they rocked 
 along the road at a speed that took her breath. It 
 seemed to her that the cart must fly to pieces; they 
 racketed down a hill, flew on one wheel about a turn, 
 flashed by a motor full of white and startled faces 
 which drew from Lelo half an hysterical laugh, they 
 swerved from a bridge, bolted down a bank, incred 
 ibly steep, splashed through a deep ford. In front was 
 a ledge that seemed to overhang. 
 
 "By God!" said Q. "She means to make it!" 
 
 She went at it like a lunatic, doubled herself, 
 jumped, caught at the earth with her feet. For a per 
 ilous moment they hung, then heaved and plunged 
 up to the roadside. The mare stopped and stood 
 shaking all over, in a lather of foam. 
 
. New Wine in Old Bottles 139 
 
 "Feelin better now, ain t one ?" demanded Q, 
 looking at his companion. 
 
 She too was shaking from head to foot and white 
 and wild. 
 
 "You were trying to kill me!" she panted, when 
 she could get her voice. "Take me home. I 11 never 
 forgive you." 
 
 "I thought you wanted some excitement. Playin 
 with death is a heap healthier and honester than some 
 other ways of get tin it." 
 
 He turned the mare and then regained the road 
 and began to trot soberly toward home. Heloise, 
 with shaking hands, arranged her hair. "I always 
 trusted you," she began, when she fancied she had it 
 in order it was really a one-sided tangle of ruffled 
 gold and she had a quite distracted and unaccustomed 
 look "but, as a guide, you are quite as untrained 
 as you are as a man of the world. I don t care for 
 savagery, or foolhardiness. I suppose you were angry 
 with me and wanted to give me a fright. You suc 
 ceeded perfectly. But I have lost most of my respect 
 for you. I knew that you lacked certain qualities of 
 finish and polish, things that come by birth and train 
 ing, but I did think that you had a fundamental man 
 liness and chivalry " 
 
 "Your color is comin back," said Q, "but chiefly 
 to your nose. Ain t that comical?" 
 
 She was silent, but the color suffused itself more 
 becomingly. 
 
 "Are you wan tin to meet Mr. Fer-dee-nand at the 
 Club?" 
 
140 "Q" 
 
 "I told you I wanted to go home," she snapped, 
 her temper running wild. 
 
 "Oh, I forgot your orders. You ain t lookin quite 
 in Fer-dee-nand s class just at present, but by the 
 time you re all curried up and brushed down again 
 it ll be too late for the Club, won t it? Say, there s 
 your hat on a bush alongside the road and I see 
 two cows leanin ag in a fence elbowin each other to 
 make out what in thunder the thing is. I wisht Miss 
 Mary could see that! If you ll hold the reins I ll col 
 lect it for you." 
 
 She held the reins and he was out and in again with 
 his lithe, linked movements. They drove for a while 
 in silence. The shadows were lengthening and the 
 katydids were at a frenzy of debate. When Q next 
 spoke he was sober enough. 
 
 " I was a plumb fool to put you into danger," he said, 
 "but I am often took that way with foolishness after 
 I hev had to be extry responsible for long spells. You 
 are right in all you hev told me and I ll be swearin 
 likely half the night over some of them cuts you have 
 given me. Maybe I deserved them, but this ain t no 
 pleasurin for me, this summer, lady, and you sure 
 had ought to be more careful sometimes." There had 
 begun to be a shake in his voice, and it affected her 
 oddly, with shame and fear and pain. "You hev got 
 the whip hand over me and you don t often spare to 
 use it. Was n t it for the times when you act like a 
 real live woman, when you look at me like you uset to 
 out there in the big places I d hev quit you quite 
 a long time back. But you keep me hopin and, by 
 God! that s what hurts most." 
 
New Wine in Old Bottles 141 
 
 He looked at her and she was perhaps unreasonably 
 startled to see that there were tears in his cool and 
 brilliant eyes. She found herself wondering if ever 
 before they had suffered the shame of that stinging 
 moisture. For an instant she almost understood. 
 
 She touched his arm with a quick finger, then bent 
 her face to both her hands. 
 
 "I am bad, Q, bad, cruel, wicked, selfish. Go away 
 from me; because I Ve been hurt myself, I 11 hurt you. 
 Go away." 
 
 He gave her no answer and, after a few minutes, 
 she pulled herself together and put on her hat. The 
 silence, white and hard on his part, white and soft on 
 hers, held them to the Manor steps. She slowly 
 mounted them, he standing at the foot. She crossed 
 the veranda and went as far as the door. There was a 
 sound of voices in the house. She hung there an in 
 stant, then suddenly came running back to Q. Her 
 face was the face of a frightened child, large-eyed, 
 intent. She stood close to him and caught his arm in 
 both hands, shaking it. 
 
 "Don t you go away! Don t you leave me! Q! I 
 need you dreadfully, most dreadfully!" She pressed 
 her fingers tight and fled, this time into the house and 
 up the stairs. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 A GAME OF CHESS 
 
 THERE is no life so selfish and indolent that it has not 
 woven into itself some strands of real emotion. In 
 the life of Dr. Sales, that amiable drifter before the 
 winds of opportunity, there were two such fibrous 
 webs. One held him, against much strain, to his son, 
 Laurie, and the other led him by a short-cut down 
 the hill and through a tiny shabby copse of beech and 
 maple trees, carved by the initials of school-children 
 and town lovers, across a rubbish-littered field to the 
 back door of Mary Grinscoombe s home. He liked to 
 come in through the kitchen garden and surprise 
 Mary at her work. He was preeminently, like all 
 indolent people, a man of habits. He had formed the 
 habit of playing for an hour or two with Mary when 
 that outcast descendant of Grinscoombery was an 
 arch and mirthful little girl. Mary s gurgling fits of 
 laughter, crinkled eyes, and fat doubled body had a 
 distinct fascination. Dr. Sales, when not responsible 
 for them, was fond of children, and children almost 
 invariably like large, selfish, easy-going people. He 
 thought of Mary still, he would have told you, as a 
 child. Her fascination of soft and very gleeful laugh 
 ter and of crinkled eyes had outlived the doubling-up 
 of an outgrown plumpness, and to them had been 
 added a rather pitiful charm of courage and sensitive 
 gratitude. Mary mothered Dr. Sales her heart was 
 
A Game of Chess 143 
 
 huge in this capacity she did his mending for him 
 and she played him at chess, the most strenuous men 
 tal habit of his life. Sluypenkill on the tongue of Mrs. 
 Stopper credited Dr. Sales with a disappointed pas 
 sion for Miss Selda; it credited him with an ambitious 
 desire for a match between his son and Heloise; it had 
 never credited him with a devotion for little Mary 
 Grinscoombe and with an acid-eating jealousy con 
 cerning her affections. Both were true. He had bit 
 terly hated the young Dr. Ellison who had courted 
 Mary, and, in spite of the good cause on which were 
 founded his dislike and dread of Q. T. Kinwydden, he 
 did not hate the young Westerner with full bitterness 
 until a certain afternoon when he saw Mary looking 
 up from her pupil s copy-book with an expression in 
 her eyes. Dr. Sales knew those eyes their waggery 
 and wistfulness; he knew their kindness as he knew 
 their quick warm wrath. He had never seen this ex 
 pression in them before, and, at sight of it, his heart 
 turned over painfully in his big body. He knew that 
 Mary was no longer his little pet; he understood why 
 he had exerted himself rather carefully in certain 
 quarters for a provision for her future, why he had 
 allowed her to believe him the benefactor of her father 
 and herself when he was really only the purveyor of 
 secret benefaction; he knew why he had so disliked 
 young Ellison, a feeling he had hitherto, in nearly 
 honest moments, put down to professional jealousy, 
 and, above all, he knew why he must drive Q at once 
 and forever out of her life. The man was dangerous. 
 The young man was very dangerous. Fine little beads 
 
144 "Q" 
 
 of perspiration came out on Dr. Sales s soft, easily 
 moved upper lip. 
 
 But not until a fortnight later did his painful pre 
 occupation move his sluggishness to action, and then, 
 with the good luck that mysteriously enough had 
 always directed his inertia, he chose the day of Mary s 
 first conflict with her pupil. Q had gone off to mail 
 his letter and Mary was angry. Her advice had been 
 ignored and her rebuke had obviously hurt for 
 both reasons, Mary, the obstinate and tender-hearted, 
 was enraged. Besides, she had suffered a self-revela 
 tion. For twenty-four years Mary had scorned Grins- 
 coombery; she had discovered during her talk with 
 Q that of this pride she was an integral part; that 
 amongst all its descendants, Grinscoombery had none 
 with so large a share as herself pride of culture, 
 pride of caste, pride of race. How else account for her 
 rebellion against the marriage between Laurie and 
 Sophie, "the little waitress"? Q s pounce upon 
 this instinctive diminutive of hers had been shrewd 
 enough. Mary writhed. Pride began its battle in her 
 heart. A man of no education, of no name, of no 
 traditions! She had stood with a muffled heart and 
 with averted eyes, on fire from brow to foot because 
 he, with that strained note in his voice, had repeated 
 to her word for word her own valorous encourage 
 ment. "You told me yourself that education had n t 
 ought to count, that lovin was a man and woman 
 matter " and, "Oh," poor Mary admitted, "it was. 
 It was." If he had loved her, would she, after all, 
 have allowed her unbridled heart its liberty? Would 
 
A Game of Chess 145 
 
 she not have stifled it and run away like Laurie 
 Sales? It was this troubled, proud, and self -torment 
 ing Mary that Dr. Sales found, sitting pale and va 
 cant in her tiny parlor, when he came in for his game 
 of chess and for another game in which he felt 
 himself a player with a handicap. 
 
 He got the board ready for her almost in silence 
 and began an absent pushing about of his pieces 
 which drew up a surprised glance from Mary. 
 
 "But, Dr. Sales, what s the matter with you to 
 day?" 
 
 He moved a pawn forward and took it back. His 
 big hand trembled. 
 
 "Mary " he began, and stopped, all the creamy 
 complacency of his big face crinkled and disturbed. 
 She felt a warning tremor run through her nerves. 
 It was as though a strange light fell into the littl? 
 room. Its familiarity vanished, the man in front of 
 her changed before her eyes. Comfortable and kindly 
 Dr. Sales, who had kept lemon drops for her in his 
 constricted waistcoat pocket she remembered a 
 hundred odd and disconnected things while he sat 
 there, dumbly staring after speaking her name. 
 
 "Tell me something," he said at last. "You think 
 of me as an old man, don t you?" 
 
 "Why, no only as an old friend." 
 
 "Ah un ancien ami!" he muttered. "It would 
 be easier if our word for such friendships was amiete, 
 easier to change it as it ought so often to be changed. 
 I I d like you to begin all over again, Mary." 
 
 "Begin what ?" She pushed away the chess- 
 
146 "Q" 
 
 board and moved back a little from the table. Her 
 face was pale. She was saying to herself and hat 
 ing herself for saying it: "Papa and I owe him hun 
 dreds of dollars. If it hadn t been for his help ! 
 If it had n t been for his help !" 
 
 "Begin all over again with me, my dear." He got 
 up and began moving about the room in his seeking, 
 undecided fashion, stopping sometimes by the man 
 tel, sometimes near her chair, his hands sliding over 
 his pockets, across his big stomach, fingering the big 
 gold chain. He talked gently and fluently, perhaps a 
 trifle bookishly, as people brought up in the Victorian 
 school still talk in moments of emotion. 
 
 "I ve been troubled about you, little Mary, and 
 it s by troubling that I ve found out the truth about 
 myself and you. I don t want you, please, my dear, 
 to say anything at all to me now; I want you, please, 
 my dear, to sit just where you are and as you are and 
 listen to me. And don t be frightened. I ve never 
 frightened you in my life and I m not going to begin 
 now. It s true I Ve been your friend and your father s 
 friend" 
 
 "Very, very true," she gasped, wondering why it 
 was a gasp instead of the quiet little assertion she had 
 intended it to be. 
 
 "And I mean, please God, to keep on being your 
 friend." 
 
 Her eyelids trembled with uncertainty. " What has 
 been troubling you about me?" she asked. 
 
 "You ve never been a silly girl, Mary, nor a senti 
 mental girl. You ve been sober and steady " 
 
A Game of Chess 147 
 
 "Like a work-horse," Mary yielded to her tart 
 sense of the ridiculous and twisted her mouth dis 
 tastefully over his adjective. 
 
 "Like a good woman," he said. "I I ve always 
 had confidence in you." 
 
 She was coloring. " What have I done to ? " 
 
 "Oh, you have n t lost this confidence, only I feel 
 I ought to warn you, that perhaps you do need a 
 warning " 
 
 "Dr. Sales," she cried out unexpectedly, "it s too 
 late ! " and scarlet engulfed the fine courage of her 
 face like a red fog of shame through which her eyes 
 shone up at him dauntlessly. 
 
 Dr. Sales stopped heavily and stood. The tiny 
 clock ticked. A child pelted with tap-tapping feet 
 beneath the window. Slowly Mary bent forward her 
 face and closed her lids, gripping fast with small work- 
 roughened hands the wicker arms of her chair. 
 
 "But it s no use, Dr. Sales; he doesn t care for 
 me that way at all." 
 
 " Mary ! Are you talking of of this Q? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Dr. Sales seemed to gather voice. "This rough 
 product of cow-camps illiterate, without an ounce 
 of culture or refinement ! But I thought you had good 
 sense." He laughed, his lips shaken. 
 
 Mary had lifted her chin; the red fog of her shame 
 had dropped back on her heart, leaving her white and 
 marked with purple under her eyes. 
 
 "I ought n t to care," she said, as though to her 
 self. "I ve called him most of those things myself." 
 
148 "Q" 
 
 "And you are telling me that you love this man? 
 I can t believe it, Mary ! " 
 
 4k lt s hopelessly and humiliatingly true. Nothing 
 would have dragged it out of me, Dr. Sales, but the 
 dread of what I fancied you were going to say." 
 
 Again he laughed. "Why, this young man will 
 have to be taken seriously. He is more dangerous 
 than I thought. And a cool hand ! Any young fellow 
 that strolls in from a cow-camp and juggles with the 
 hearts of three young women at once 
 
 "Dr. Sales!" 
 
 He went on breathlessly, "Miss Heloise Grins- 
 coombe and Miss Mary Grinscoombe and the 
 waitress at the River Hotel something of a record, 
 eh?" 
 
 Mary stood up. She had drawn her eyelids to 
 gether and peered at him now as though she had a 
 difficulty with her vision. 
 
 "I don t know you," she announced slowly, and 
 the strangeness of this remark made him step back. 
 She went over to a little battered desk. "Dr. Sales," 
 she said, "I have been earning a good deal of money 
 lately. I want to pay back some part of Papa s great 
 debt to you and mine." 
 
 While, shakily, she opened an unwilling drawer, 
 while she took out a small bundle of bills, while she 
 counted these, white-lipped, there came from William 
 Sales not a sound. He stood, ponderous, unexpres- 
 sive, blowing noiselessly in and out his flapping lips. 
 He took the bills from Mary s hands and she had the 
 courage to look him in the face as he took them. 
 
A Game of Chess 149 
 
 "So you re paying me off," he said. 
 
 "Everything," she cried out in a voice of extreme 
 suffering, "is just utterly unbearable. If it were n t so 
 childish and useless, I d wish I was dead." 
 
 Dr. Sales had put the money down on the table in 
 the center of the chess-board. He seemed calmer now 
 and, taking out a big crumpled white handkerchief, 
 he mopped his forehead and blew his nose. 
 
 "This is a very small part of your debt to me, Mary 
 Grinscoombe. How are you going to pay off the rest? " 
 
 "I don t know. But it will be paid. How did you 
 expect it to be paid?" 
 
 "It seems very strange to me, Mary, for us to be 
 talking like bitter, angry enemies. Does n t it seem 
 at least a little strange to you?" 
 
 "I told you I did n t know you. And I don t. 
 What you said about Heloise and me and Sophie just 
 tore my whole idea of you to shreds. It was so 
 vulgar and so untrue. I happen to know just how 
 untrue it is. In fact, I meant to give you a warning 
 about Sophie " 
 
 "A warning?" A man whose moral standing is 
 based on machinations is readily alarmed. Dr. Sales 
 now looked almost absurdly jout of countenance. He 
 sat down in the wicker chair which had permanently 
 bulged to cradle his proportions. 
 
 "But I don t think I ll give it to you, that is, more 
 fully than I ve already given it. I feel so uncertain of 
 all my cock-sure opinions to-day. Nothing would 
 surprise me." 
 
 "And yet you are so much surprised and so indig 
 nant to find out that I love you, Mary!" 
 
150 "Q" 
 
 "Oh, please go away!" she broke out tearfully. 
 " Oh please!" 
 
 And without waiting for him to yield to the request 
 or to rebel against it, she went away herself, upstairs 
 to her room with the speed of an escaping dryad. 
 
 Dr. Sales left the money on the table and went 
 over to Mary s desk. There he sat down and put his 
 elbows on the flap and pressed his two fat palms to 
 his throbbing temples. After a while he pulled a 
 sheet of paper toward him and began to write. He 
 represented himself to Mary, as we would any of us 
 probably represent ourselves to our desired, as a very 
 noble, self-sacrificing man. He wrote rather well, and 
 if his flowing pen indulged in shaded, flowery capitals, 
 it was the fault of the Victorian training. As he wrote, 
 the smooth calm returned to his face and his small 
 eyes reverted to complacency. Mary and her father 
 were really rather deeply in his debt by proxy. He 
 did not accentuate this fact in his letter, but it some 
 how slid in between the lines. Mary had confessed an 
 extremity of folly and humiliation to him he did 
 not refer to this either, but it was very vividly ex 
 pressed in what he left out. Mary knew something 
 about Q and Sophie against which Laurie s father 
 should be warned this again was triumphantly 
 avoided in the letter and triumphantly readable in it. 
 In fact, it was hard to imagine what Dr. Sales put 
 into the letter when he left out everything that he 
 wanted to say. But his whole career had been a tri 
 umph of innuendo. The general tenor of his letter 
 was like this: 
 
A Game of Chess 151 
 
 "My poor darling little Mary:" (much was ex 
 pressed, of course, by that "poor little," for Mary 
 must at once on reading it understand how she had 
 made herself so poor and little in the writer s judg 
 ment) . 
 
 " What an unfortunate, miserable hour we have just 
 spent in contrast to all the many lovely and tender 
 hours we have enjoyed together ever since I picked 
 you up from your first tumble I feel, my poor dear, 
 that I ve been picking you up ever since. But I want 
 you to forget all that. I know that when you are calm 
 again you will do me ample justice. You are my dear 
 little friend, you can t help being that, and just be 
 cause, extravagantly, I m asking you for more than 
 this dear friendship, you won t go back on your 
 loyalty, will you? I said things that have annoyed 
 and offended you. Forgive me even if you find out 
 that they re true. 
 
 "Mary, you know me probably better than any 
 one else in the world. Have I ever hurt you? Have I 
 ever done you the least unkindness? I d like now to 
 take you in my arms and comfort your poor heart. 
 Will you let me? Because it will be comforted. It s 
 such a true, good, loyal heart and so sensible. Don t 
 you know that? " (For several paragraphs Dr. Sales 
 told Mary pleasant truths about her heart and so got 
 round to telling her some about his own.) "I am a 
 man of very deep feeling, dear Mary, and you ve hurt 
 me horribly. But I can oh, so easily, forgive you 
 for that. Only I am going to stay away until you 
 send for me. I have put your poor little treasure 
 
152 "Q" 
 
 trove back into its drawer. I know > that you won t 
 wound me unbearably by taking it out again in my 
 presence. Don t I love your brave father, too? 
 Please try to remember my friendship for him. The 
 rest of the world has n t been as friendly, has it? " 
 
 This is enough to show the sort of letter Dr. Sales 
 wrote to Mary. He left it in her workbox, returned 
 her money to its drawer, and walked slowly away 
 through the kitchen garden. But he did not go back 
 by the short-cut to his house on the hill. He made a 
 circuit and went into the Grinscoombe Circulating 
 Library. In a corner up on the balcony, Henry Grins- 
 coombe s fine white head was outlined against an al- 
 coved window. Dr. Sales climbed ponderously up an 
 iron staircase and puffily approached him. The lit 
 tle man looked up from his world of contemplation 
 and smiled in rather a startled fashion. 
 
 "Why, William this is delightfully er un 
 usual! You ought to be at chess with Mary!" 
 
 Dr. Sales sat down on a spidery iron chair. He 
 spoke low, for it was a rule in the library not to speak 
 at all. However, as Henry was the only reader pres 
 ent, there was no particular indiscretion in his whisper. 
 
 "Mary and I have quarreled, Henry." 
 
 The little Grinscoombe fell back astonished from 
 his big volume and looked as troubled as a Martian 
 can look, when disturbed by earthly forces. 
 
 "Oh, my dear William! But you know how quick 
 tempered Mary is!" 
 
 "She has really hurt me. And I m worried about 
 her." 
 
A Game of Chess 153 
 
 "Worried about Mary?" The poor Martian had 
 now plunged into very deep currents of worldly trou 
 ble. He shut his finger into the volume and rested its 
 edge upon his sharp small knee. It was a huge tome. 
 His face peered anxiously above it. His nostrils un 
 consciously inhaled its familiar pleasant, leathery 
 smell. He would be glad to get back to it after so 
 wretched an interruption. Henry did not permit 
 himself to dislike William Sales, but, with permission 
 from a too masterly conscience, he could have dis 
 liked him very acidly. 
 
 "Mary has been foolish enough to fall in love." 
 
 "What are you saying, sir!" The sharp, clear 
 Grinscoombe voice was reminiscent of Miss Selda s. 
 It roused the lazy masterfulness of Sales s. 
 
 "Just an unpleasant truth. You have allowed little 
 Mary to mother you so long through all your adversi 
 ties that you Ve quite forgotten that she might need 
 a little fathering is n t that it?" 
 
 "I am not accustomed to being admonished as to 
 the way in which I conduct my privacy." 
 
 "Perhaps not. But plenty of people, if they had 
 the courage, would have very plentifully and fre 
 quently admonished you. In all honesty, Henry, you 
 have to admit that, as a father but I don t want 
 to quarrel with you." The bully was satisfied now 
 with the white, silent anguish of his victim. 
 
 Henry Grinscoombe was going through a process 
 which he called "clarification." He was being, as he 
 had always disastrously and gloriously succeeded in 
 being honest with himself. He went over, with a 
 
154 "Q" 
 
 student s painstaking thoroughness, his record as 
 Mary s father and put down an unexpectedly black 
 mark against it. Then, removing from his eyes the 
 hand that had shielded from observation his painful 
 self -interrogation, he spoke purely and gallantly. 
 
 "I have not done my duty by Mary. I accept this 
 from you, and I will act upon it. But I don t want to 
 sit here and listen to your judgments, which, on the 
 whole, have never been convincing, nor to any confi 
 dence which Mary has seen fit to give you. I will not 
 force her confidence, but I will try to make for her an 
 opportunity for asking my help if she feels the need 
 of it." 
 
 Grinscoombe had stood up, putting down his vol 
 ume, and now Sales rose with one of his usual ponder 
 ous, untidy motions. 
 
 "You ll do nothing of the sort, Henry!" and he 
 caught Mary s father by the arm in one of his soft, 
 undecided hands; "you ll listen to me now. She s in 
 love with her precious cowboy and I know him to be 
 an adventurer, the scum of the West. He s trying to 
 seduce Sophie and to trap Heloise Grinscoombe into 
 a marriage. What he is doing to Mary " 
 
 "Be silent, William!" and it might figuratively 
 be said that Henry Grinscoombe both towered and 
 thundered. "The young man is my friend. I know 
 him as though I had looked through a powerful lens 
 into his heart. Nothing you can concoct would shake 
 a fiber of my feeling for this young man. If Mary 
 loves him " 
 
 "You d give her to an ignorant, nameless " 
 
A Game of Chess 155 
 
 Up went Henry s hand in the commanding Grins- 
 coombe gesture. 
 
 " I give Mary to no man. She is not in my gift. To 
 me, ignorance or wisdom is a matter outside the 
 judgment of schools. The young man is not ignorant. 
 In no true sense of the word is he ignorant. If he is 
 nameless, remember that if I had lived by the dark 
 ness of your creed, William, my first child must have 
 been nameless. Your knowledge of this man is prej 
 udice, from the surface in. My knowledge of him is 
 from the soul out. It is not that which goeth into a 
 man that defileth him, William, but that which 
 cometh out, and from Q. Kinwydden, the man I 
 know, cometh no vile thing. Prodigal he may have 
 been, wayward and untamed he is, but liar and trai 
 tor and philanderer he is not We are making a dis 
 turbance in the library!" 
 
 The little gentleman had not, as a matter of fact, 
 raised his delicate voice, but the syllables were pierc 
 ing; over their vibrations, Sales s glabrous syllables 
 smothered down weightily 
 
 "I intend to marry Mary," he said. "You will not 
 work against me, Henry, when I remind you that " 
 
 "That I am in your debt?" Grinscoombe drew 
 himself up to his uttermost inch and his white pa 
 nache waved free. "It shall be paid, sir." He bowed. 
 "But never, let me assure you, in the person of my 
 daughter." A queer flash of humor, at once cynical 
 and sweet, broke up his face into frosty twinklings. 
 "My good William, you ve been watching the drama 
 too closely, haven t you? perhaps the drama of 
 
156 "Q" 
 
 the screen. I am told that the daughters of shadow- 
 land are frequently victimized in this fashion. The 
 father is forced into indebtedness, the daughter 
 pays." He laughed; he had a merry laugh, an echo of 
 Mary s the two laughters had grown into harmony 
 through the gay, sad, struggling, happy years. "Oh, 
 William!" he shook his head "I have always 
 been ashamed of my suspicions of your friendship. I 
 am sorry my intuition has been justified. There is no 
 virtue in your charity, Sales. It is a very bad debt. 
 It must be paid." 
 
 He looked down at a mass of finely scribbled man 
 uscript. He pinched together tight his face. His be 
 loved and unprofitable work ! and, bundling up 
 the papers under his arm, he went away from Sales as 
 though the big bulk of a man had become non-exist 
 ent to him. 
 
 But out on the street, Grinscoombe s flush faded. 
 He drooped. He came home to Mary, looking beaten, 
 humbled, and depressed. Nor did he, on that day, ut 
 ter one word of the painful and absorbing experience 
 to Mary. He watched her a great deal, closely, ten 
 derly, discerningly, and shaded his watching with a 
 tremulous, fine hand. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 DIPLOMACY 
 
 THE letter that Q had dropped into the post-box in 
 defiance of Mary s counsel bore fruit in action, as is 
 the mysterious fashion of such seed, and on a Thurs 
 day afternoon, Laurence Sales left his motor and 
 walked into the lobby of the River Hotel. He looked 
 and thought himself cool as chilled iron; memory it 
 self brought no quickness to his pulses; nevertheless, 
 his eyes threw an involuntary glance toward the din 
 ing-room, but Sophie, at the moment, was washing 
 dishes in her pantry and thinking him fifty miles or so 
 away. Mr. Benton lifted a sallowed face in his cage 
 and his lips fell apart. 
 
 "So you ve come back to Sluypenkill, Dr. Lau 
 rie," said he, employing a toothpick as he spoke and 
 pulling his lips into the semblance of an hotel-keeper s 
 smile. 
 
 "Only to see a patient" Laurie made no effort 
 to smile and spoke shortly. "A man with queer name 
 Kinwydden. I ve an appointment with him." 
 
 "What you don t say! Mr. Kinwydden but 
 he s not sick ! He came back this morning after a five 
 days absence, during which they tell me he worked 
 at the mills. Great character, Kinwydden! Queer 
 chap!" 
 
 "Will you find out if he can see me now?" 
 
 The answer reported presently by grinning Bill 
 
158 "Q" 
 
 was "Turn him loose," and Laurie was lifted to the 
 fourth floor. 
 
 At the door of Room 90 he knocked and, on being 
 told to enter in a voice that suggested patience, he 
 found himself facing a tall and bronzed young man 
 faultlessly dressed and very perfectly groomed, who, 
 at sight of him, turned a deep copper color and rip 
 pled out an oath. Laurie set down his bag and held 
 out his hand. 
 
 "Mr. Cartwright by all that s surprising!" he 
 said. 
 
 Q s face was regularly assaulted by shocks of red. 
 He was profoundly discomposed. Last of all people 
 had he expected to see in Laurence Sales the keen, 
 clever, red-headed young man that had rescued and 
 admonished him on the occasion of his uncomfort 
 able New York experience. The very apparent supe 
 riority of this admonisher, his shrewd humor sense, 
 his authority, his self-restraint, had impressed them 
 selves forcibly on the sensitive observation of Q. 
 Sophie s "Laurie boy" who needed "one of them 
 long bones down his back," whom he had been 
 minded to shake into manliness to thrash into a 
 decision favorable to romance, if necessary van 
 ished into a thin, thin mist. What face to present to 
 the man with humorous and impatient eyes Q could 
 not now decide. 
 
 " What s wrong with the wrist? You have n t been 
 rescuing any more ladies in distress, I hope?" 
 
 Q had stepped back and had sat down on the edge 
 of his bed. He was meditating soberly and swiftly if 
 
Diplomacy 159 
 
 it would be possible then and there to gash his wrist 
 convincingly with his pocket knife or to do some other 
 self -justify ing damage. Under Laurie s sardonic, danc 
 ing eyes he relinquished the idea. He decided to 
 hold his peace it was the method that had always 
 served him best so, in silence, he held out a strong 
 brown hand. Across the wrist ran a violent scar and 
 Laurie bent over it and felt about it with clever fin 
 gers. 
 
 "It s not inflamed nor swollen," he said. "Any 
 pain?" 
 
 "It s almighty difficult for me," said Q truthfully, 
 "to handle a pen." 
 
 "You mean you feel a stiffness in your fingers? 
 Flex them." 
 
 " What in thunder ?" 
 
 "Bend them." Q obeyed, his eyes lowered. The 
 strong, long fingers clenched and relaxed powerfully. 
 
 Laurie, impersonal and interested, felt carefully up 
 and down the muscles of the arm and made some 
 tests to which Q surrendered himself with Sphinx- 
 like gravity. 
 
 "Tell me the story of the wound," demanded the 
 baffled surgeon, sitting down in the chair opposite his 
 queer patient and looking at him with a bewildered 
 air. 
 
 Q slowly obeyed him. "A lady, "he said, had "knifed 
 him " by accident. She had meant to cut a stick 
 and she had cut his arm instead. It had been sewed 
 up by Dr. Sales any relation? A father? Is that 
 so? It had seemed to heal all right. _ Yes, it had sure 
 
160 "Q" 
 
 seemed to heal. If it was n t for the trouble guidin a 
 pen 
 
 Laurie rose impatiently, produced a tablet and pen 
 cil and presented them to Q. 
 
 "Here write something for me." 
 
 Q stared for a moment into space, then laboriously 
 fashioned a phrase. "I am reskuing a lady now," he 
 wrote, "I am reskuing a lady for you." 
 
 Room 90 was dangerously silent while Sales read 
 this message. He read it and looked up sharply. His 
 face revealed an unsuspected haggardness. 
 
 "Will you explain yourself?" he asked, and Q re 
 membered that red-headed people were apt to be vio 
 lent. 
 
 "I don t rightly know how I can," he said, speak 
 ing very quietly and rather soothingly, as to a restive 
 horse. "I ve been thinkin you was one of these fel 
 lers that needs to be yanked by the collar to get their 
 circulation goin ." 
 
 "So it was to yank me by the collar that you faked 
 an injured wrist, eh?" 
 
 Q continued evenly, with no attention to this com 
 ment: "But I see you ain t. So I reckon I ve been 
 makin a fool of myself again. And I d be pleased if 
 you d lope back to West Lemmon and leave me to 
 bury myself on the lone prairee unless you d be 
 carin* to tell me " He stopped and looked at Lau 
 rie with a certain wistfulness. " Out on the range," he 
 said, "I ve got a partner, Shorty by name some- 
 ways you favor him " 
 
 Laurie was conscious of a thrill, unusual and pro~ 
 
Diplomacy 161 
 
 found. He knew that such a man as the one before 
 him rarely laid himself so open to rebuff. 
 
 "What," asked Laurie slowly, "do you want to 
 know?" 
 
 Q spoke, without looking at him, very low. "Why 
 hev you quit writin letters to the Sophie gel?" 
 
 At that Laurie began to roam about the room, his 
 hands in his pockets, and his head bent. 
 
 "But, Kinwydden," he explained, in a tone com 
 posed of exasperation and patience, "it s the last 
 story on earth I could tell, or explain, to an outsider 
 especially to you . I suppose you know one side of 
 the story. I suppose that, living here, you have seen 
 Sophie, got to know her that she has told you 
 well" frowning down at him "she would. I can 
 see that ! You being what you are, a confidence 
 from her is pretty nearly inevitable. But I am not 
 Sophie, nor are my confidences very easily com 
 pelled." 
 
 Q said nothing and, as usual, his silence worked for 
 him. 
 
 "You are or were, a cowboy are n t you?" 
 rather unexpectedly, Laurie demanded. 
 
 " Yes, sir was and is at least, not now, I ain t." 
 
 In the midst of considerable confusion of heart and 
 mind, Laurie was constrained to smile. "Well, then, 
 did you love your work was it a career?" 
 
 "Hosses and cattle yes, sir. I liked the 
 round-ups and the ridin and the range " To his 
 own surprise Q s throat tightened on this speech, and 
 he stopped with dry lips. 
 
162 "Q" 
 
 "I don t believe," Laurie went on rapidly, "that 
 Sophie could tell you what my profession means to 
 me. Nor what my ambitions are, nor how profoundly 
 I ve felt that her future and her happiness would be 
 quite definitely endangered by It s queer enough 
 to find myself talking to you about it!" 
 
 "No, that ain t so queer. Or anyway, if it is, forget 
 it. Likely you don t know what she s been goin* 
 through since you quit her. Not havin a career her 
 self" for the life of him, Q could not keep the edged 
 drawl from his voice " you can t hardly call bis- 
 cuit-shootin a career, and bein a woman " with a 
 guileless air Q looked up. "Fancy her bein married 
 to Jonas Benton," he said. 
 
 Laurie stood with his head thrown back and 
 breathed hard. 
 
 After a turn or two he walked over to the window. 
 "It s been three years," he muttered; "hasn t she 
 forgotten yet?" 
 
 "In three years?" Q drawled. "Your Sophie gel? 
 Not in thirty will she forget." 
 
 He stared at Sales s back and Sales stared down 
 into the street. Into the silence came a muffled tread 
 and the faint clinking of ice, followed by a knock 
 ing at Q s door. He had told Sophie to bring him a 
 pitcher of iced lemonade at four o clock. Now, "I 
 am going to send her away," he said firmly, and 
 crossed the room. 
 
 But Laurie was ahead of him and, an instant later, 
 a tray crashed to the floor outside Q s door, Sophie 
 stood inside the closed room and Laurie had her in his 
 
Diplomacy 163 
 
 arms. Q walked to a window, clutched its sill and, 
 looking down into Main Street, wished himself in the 
 saloon. Back of him there was a quick-breathing 
 silence, until Sophie spoke. She said two words, 
 sobbing. "My heart." 
 
 It frightened Q, who faced about. He saw that hers 
 was a heart unbearably, swiftly enlarged by joy. Lau 
 rie s, however, was already shrunk by pain. He was 
 walking to and fro about the room, his red head bent, 
 his under lip bitten, his hands locked behind him so 
 that the knuckles were white. Lines had sprung into 
 visibility around his mouth. Sophie was watching 
 him; her beauty paled. 
 
 "I did n t know," she faltered. "It was n t any 
 doings of mine, Laurie." 
 
 "Of course not " He jerked this out. Then he 
 turned upon Q, his quick, restless eyes ablaze. 
 
 "Will you give us your room for five minutes, 
 please, master diplomat, while I try to put some bro 
 ken pieces together again? You might gather up 
 what s left of the pitcher it won t be half so hard 
 as what I ve got to do. Sophie" he went over to 
 her as Q hastened to the door "did n t you know 
 that I was engaged to be married? I wrote to you." 
 
 Her lips said "no," making a white, noiseless mo 
 tion. Q shut the door and found himself across the 
 hall, gripping the balustrade of the stair-well and 
 gazing blindly down at the white and chocolate 
 squares of the floor three flights below him. He could 
 hear the murmur of Laurie s voice. It went on after 
 the first sentences more evenly. Q was remembering 
 
164 "Q" 
 
 the branding of small calves. He had always hated 
 that hated the way their soft eyes rolled, trying to 
 find the lost protecting mother body there had 
 been something like that in Sophie s eyes. He gripped 
 the balustrade more tightly. Gradually he became 
 aware of Benton s head bending over his big memoran 
 dum book down in his cage, and his long, cadaverous 
 hand making cramped writing therein. Benton, long 
 and flabby and lukewarm, whose breath always re 
 minded Q of the exhalation of a steam radiator, 
 meant to marry Sophie. She would walk out of her 
 enchantment into Benton s slack and absorbent em 
 brace 
 
 "You are willing," Mary had asked, "to take the 
 responsibility of bringing these two people together? " 
 
 The voices in the room had altogether stopped. 
 Q s fancy summoned pictures. He saw Sophie crum 
 pled into a chair, Laurie stroking her cold hands, 
 murmuring out his meaningless remorse, his worse 
 than useless consolation. The picture was different 
 from the truth, for, though Sophie had thrown her 
 self down by his bed and had smothered her weeping 
 in her arms, Laurie was attempting no consolation, 
 expressing no remorse. He was sitting in Q s chair, 
 the width of the room away, his hands between his 
 knees, his eyes fixed upon the carpet. 
 
 After an interminable while, "Stop crying, my 
 dear," said Laurie, apparently to the carpet; "I see 
 now that it won t do." 
 
 He pulled a long and shaken breath, leaned slowly 
 back in his chair and began to fill his pipe. He was 
 
Diplomacy 165 
 
 thinking, it might be imagined, vividly. His brown, 
 nervous eyes were seeing consequences. This was 
 evidently a man at once intellectually cool and emo 
 tionally hot, an adventurer by instinct, a conserva 
 tive by conviction, romantic in feeling and cynic in 
 philosophy, a gifted and tormented being for whom 
 life would be forever thorned. The inertia of a father 
 who decided nothing until fate gave him some ignoble 
 lead, had left unused, perhaps, all this flame and 
 swiftness, all this unhurried steel decision, to afflict 
 the delicate organism of the son. Laurie had been 
 trapped, not only by circumstances but by his nature. 
 Now he was at work, one half fighting the other, try 
 ing to release his heart from the toils and at the same 
 time to clear his honor of an obligation. "I did n t 
 know until I heard your step outside the door, Sophie, 
 that these last three horrible years have just made no 
 difference at all. I Ve been deceiving myself." 
 
 "I knew." 
 
 She had lifted her head from her arms and, still 
 kneeling, was looking at him across the narrow white 
 counterpane. It was a beaten face, deep-eyed. Pain 
 had released every last secret of its beauty. 
 
 Laurie s brain looked at it through the tumult of 
 his blood. 
 
 "I d forgotten that I loved you." He laughed 
 softly. "Is n t that queer so Sophie to for 
 get?" 
 
 "I knew you d only to see me men are like 
 that!" 
 
 His face narrowed into keenness. 
 
166 "Q" 
 
 "Oh, no," she professed instantly, "it was n t my 
 plan. It was his Q s. I told him you 11 have to 
 forgive me for that, because I could n t help it. I had 
 to tell him what I d been going through. Laurie, he s 
 the only one I ve told. You don t know Q! These 
 three years have been awful long and hard for 
 me." 
 
 "I know." Laurie bit in under his lip, for she hurt 
 him. 
 
 "But you are going to marry some one else," So 
 phie faltered, touching the words with a voice that 
 shrank from them. 
 
 "No. That s what I m trying to tell you. I see 
 now that I can t. Sophie, we re back where we were 
 three years ago that s all. It s to do all over again, 
 only in the meantime, trying to free myself from you, 
 I ve hurt somebody else." 
 
 She stood up slowly. "I see. Poor Laurie!" 
 
 This bent him, a hand over his eyes. 
 
 "Don t! Don t you say that!" 
 
 She came around the bed, knelt beside him and put 
 her long arms about him. 
 
 "You are not to be unhappy you are not. Lau 
 rie," with a soft sudden little cry, "you are getting 
 gray!" 
 
 "Am I?" He laughed shakily, drawing himself 
 away. "I deserve to be. I d better go. I can t stand 
 much more of this." 
 
 She brightened as if fire had come close to her. 
 "Oh, no. Must you? Let me oh, please, Laurie, 
 let me just be near you for a little while. I won t 
 
Diplomacy 167 
 
 speak to you, I won t touch you, I won t even look at 
 you. I want to be near you. It rests me, I feel all the 
 time now so tired." 
 
 She was still kneeling beside his chair and she sank 
 back on her heels, and folded her hands and looked 
 up at him with a large, simple, childlike look, as 
 though her eyes fed upon him. 
 
 He smiled faintly and sat down, holding out his 
 arms. She crept into them and he held her like a 
 child, and presently their lips met. So they stayed 
 together, silent, in happiness and in pain; nothing 
 more exquisite in sensation, perhaps, than what life 
 gave then with its generous taloned hands. It was 
 Sophie that moved first. She was suddenly afraid. 
 They found themselves standing the room apart, 
 white-faced, fast-breathing. Laurie then walked 
 rapidly across the room, picking up his bag and hat, 
 and went out. He did not so much as look at her 
 again, and started blindly down the stairs. 
 
 It was no movement on Q s part that caught his 
 attention, perhaps it was only the intentness of the 
 Westerner s silence, but, half a flight down, Laurie 
 did look up and saw Q, gripping the balustrade above 
 him. 
 
 Laurie hesitated. Q s eyes said, "You are not 
 agoin to quit her, are you?" but, for the moment, 
 never guessing how their look would haunt and 
 fashion him to its desire, they only tightened his 
 resolve. He smiled coldly and faintly, nodded his 
 head and went rapidly down the steps. 
 
 Q wandered restlessly up and down the faded 
 
168 "Q" 
 
 scarlet hallway; its stuffiness oppressed his lungs and 
 spirit. He began to be afraid of Sophie s long silence 
 in his room. A slovenly maid went by and stared at 
 him wonderingly. A sleek, handsome, impudent- 
 eyed drummer passed him, whistling, gave him a 
 mocking scrutiny before he stepped into the elevator. 
 Q remembered that he had seen this young man 
 pursuing Sophie with an ingratiating address. "That 
 feller," Q commented automatically, "has a mean 
 mouth and a cold eye." Almost as automatically he 
 deduced a formula, "Some folks has to laugh mean, 
 thataway, so s to get even with God." 
 
 The elevator dropped out of sight with its uncon 
 scious victim of analysis and, a moment later, Sophie 
 stumbled out of the door of Room 90. She looked 
 broken and dulled; she crept out of sight, her steps 
 noiseless on the faded crimson carpet. 
 
 Q, who had brought this misery about and could 
 not understand its reason, quirted his heart with 
 indignation and outraged sympathies. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 A MESSAGE FROM THE MOON 
 
 THE morning after that August day on which Kin- 
 wydden had so signally failed to recommend himself 
 either to his school-mistress or to the mistress of his 
 heart, he had sat down and written a letter to Mary. 
 It was written in the dry, tight-strung weariness that 
 follows a sleepless night, for, true to his own predic 
 tion, the phrases Heloise had used to punish him for 
 the foolhardiness of his deliberately incited runaway, 
 had kept him tossing and swearing in a rumpled bed. 
 And yet, it was not so much the words that hurt as it 
 was their emphasis, the deliberate insolence of beloved 
 eyes and lips. He did not know how to name it, 
 but, free man that he was, he felt the insult of it in 
 every fiber of him. The aristocrat to the canaille 
 he would not have so worded the manner of her wrath, 
 but, when a man strikes with a whip rather than with 
 a fist, so does he smite as Heloise had smitten him, 
 and even from her justifiable anger, this was not what 
 his love deserved; it was surely not what his love de 
 served. 
 
 DEAR Miss MARY [Q had written that morning with ex 
 ceeding carefulness and very bitter gravity], I am going to 
 give you a holiday from teaching me and I am going to give 
 myself a holiday from A B C. I feel like I would go loco if 
 I did n t do some work with my hands. My case is like the 
 man with a weak head and a strong back. I am going down 
 to the Mills to learn something of the trade. A man can 
 
170 "Q" 
 
 never tell when such things are going to turn out useful to 
 him ; in the sort of life I lead I have put ray hand to a many 
 kinds of work and making carpets ought to come in useful 
 when the free land is all took up and built over with two- 
 story houses. I will bunk with a working-man who is a 
 friend of mine. He has made me a member of his club so I 
 won t be lonesome. Tell your father I will meet him eve 
 nings as per usual, and after five days I will be back at my 
 copy-book again and working out how many miles per day 
 the man walked that walked 117 miles in a week going one 
 mile more each day than he did the day before. It will be 
 Friday when I come back, for Thursday afternoon is when 
 Dr. Laurie Sales is coming up to see me here at the hotel. 
 Have you thought any about that Sophie girl? 
 
 Yours respectfully 
 
 Q. 
 
 For five days Q had kept himself at the Mills grind 
 ing out from his heart the memory of Heloise and fol 
 lowing the tracking impulse of his hatred. There was 
 much valuable information to be gathered concerning 
 William Sales s career in and about the Mills. Q 
 learned the history of the lawsuit that, thanks to Miss 
 Selda s skillful New York lawyer, failed; he learned 
 stories of the Hospital, and he ingratiated himself, by 
 means of an injured finger, with Dr. Sales s favorite 
 nurse, who was the head nurse and had held the posi 
 tion against all comers. For a few months, about 
 three years before, it appeared there had been an 
 upheaval at the Mills Hospital, under the brief intru 
 sion of young Dr. Ellison, but there had risen very 
 shortly the scandal that had been used against him by 
 Miss Selda and through which he had been forced to 
 leave the place. Q discovered there was a wide vari- 
 
A Message from the Moon 171 
 
 ety of opinion concerning the responsibility for this 
 particular scandal an operation that had failed. 
 These investigations had kept Q from thinking too 
 much about Heloise. He would not go to her again, 
 he swore, until she sent for him; his will had set itself 
 like iron to conquer hers all softness of feeling 
 seemed to have been lashed out of his heart. He had 
 eased it by a frank homesickness for Mary. It was 
 for her that he allowed himself to hunger. His missing 
 of her had become by the fifth day of exile a joyous 
 expectation. He was impatient to be reconciled to 
 her; he would not let her stay angry with him; he 
 would coax back the smile and the ruddy brightness 
 to her face. He remembered that after that last les 
 son she had looked pitifully white and tired. 
 
 By the time Q stood on the small shabby familiar 
 porch he was as happily excited as a boy. His eyes 
 were deep with their anticipation. When Mary 
 opened the door, it was all he could do not to catch 
 her up in his arms. He laughed to hide the intensity 
 of his delight. 
 
 "I ve come back, like the boy that plays hooky 
 kind of scared," he said. "What are you agoin to do 
 tome?" 
 
 "Nothing," said Mary. 
 
 She had smiled very faintly in response to the daz 
 zling illumination of his smile and was now leading 
 him listlessly along the little hall. 
 
 Q s heart took a sudden surprising downward 
 swoop. He dropped his books on the table and looked 
 down at her. 
 
172 "Q" 
 
 "You were right," he said quickly. "I want to tell 
 you before we get to work and, Miss Mary, I am 
 going to work awfully hard, you re sure going to be 
 pleased with me that you were right as to the 
 foolishness of meddling. I will never do it no more." 
 
 She looked at him steadily for the first time. "You 
 mean Laurie Sales and Sophie? Oh, I dare say you 
 are quite right about that. I thought it over after 
 wards. Happiness to get people their happiness 
 is almost a duty. It must be right to try for that." 
 
 She took her place opposite him, but she was no 
 longer the eager, candid little teacher. He would 
 hardly have known her. She sat, stooping a little; 
 looked away from him with veiled eyes. Even her hair 
 had lost some of its ruddy sparkle. 
 
 Q pressed his lips tight and, covertly observing her, 
 opened his book. He had been promoted to a simpli 
 fied edition of ^Esop s Fables and he began where he 
 had left off. 
 
 "The wind blew but the traveler only drew his 
 cloak closer about him " 
 
 "Miss Mary," he said sharply, "y u lk like you 
 had lost a friend." 
 
 At that she glanced over at him quickly. After a 
 second, "I have," she said. 
 
 " You don t mean " Q s voice was uncertain with 
 dread " that you have quit being a friend to me? " 
 
 "Oh, no!" Her color rose in a flood that ought to 
 have betrayed her to him, only that he was leagues 
 from the gateway to such understanding. 
 
 He breathed freely again. "But you ve lost 
 some other friend?" 
 
A Message from the Moon 173 
 
 She nodded and frowned a little. "Let s don t talk 
 about it, Q. I ve had an anxious time. Things have 
 been bothering me. I believe it s done me good al 
 ready to see you. You blow everything about like a 
 strong wind. Tell me like the cows, I m curious 
 was n t it a success, your plot for Sophie? " 
 
 "No, ma am not anything like that. I made a 
 fool of myself and it don t bear talkin of. To-day 
 Sophie looks about like you do only she s lost a 
 lover, which hits harder." 
 
 Mary smiled one of those complex smiles of hers 
 that twisted into one expression so many strands of 
 quick emotion. 
 
 "They met Laurie and Sophie?" 
 
 "Yes, ma am, in my room. But he has quit her 
 again. And I reckon this time it s for good and ever, 
 which makes it worse n it was for the poor gel. Hon 
 est, it scares me she looks so downed and desp rit 
 . . . sort of like an easy victim for any feller. Them 
 drummers hangin round. Whenever I think about 
 her I d like some one to take me out and beat me up. 
 I was almighty sure of myself, Miss Mary, like you 
 said I was, but now I ain t. I think it s likely I ll 
 never be so sure of myself again. Knowin bosses, 
 I hev discovered, ain t so much of a help in knowin* 
 people. Hosses hev got so much more sense. You can 
 figger on what they will be likely to do. I m plumb 
 discouraged with the things folks do. I reckon I d 
 better quit tryin to run the earth. It ain t rightly 
 my corral." 
 
 Mary was smiling, a doubtful brightness returning 
 
174 "Q" 
 
 to her face. "I don t know. Perhaps you d run it 
 rather well. Tell me about the Mills. Did you enjoy 
 making carpets?" 
 
 She fancied that his real motive had been to collect 
 some money and, because of the price he had paid for 
 his lessons, this distressed her. She was quite desper 
 ately bent, these days, upon collecting money herself, 
 but, on his account, she felt compunction. 
 
 "Yes, ma am. It s a right interesting process." 
 He described it to her, at some length, vividly, and 
 gave her a picture of his life that part of it discon 
 nected from his more serious pursuit. 
 
 "And they paid you well?" 
 
 "Fair wages of course my labor wasn t what 
 you d call skilled. Miss Grinscoombe don t pay so 
 high as some of the mill-owners. If she did she d get a 
 better type of workman and her carpets would n t 
 suffer none. I d like to talk it over with her, if she 
 was n t bound on the north, south, east, and west by 
 Dr. Sales." 
 
 "What are you saying, Q?" 
 
 "That s just a notion of mine, Miss Mary. He s a 
 dangerous sort of feller doc." 
 
 Mary was making absent hieroglyphics with her 
 pencil. She was frowning, and flushed. 
 
 "What makes you think anything so strange as 
 that?" 
 
 Q looked at her with all his keenness. He thought 
 a, minute before he spoke. " Last time we was talkin 
 of doc," he drawled, "you would n t hev swallowed 
 so easy-like what I said jest now. Since I was last 
 
A Message from the Moon 175 
 
 here, Miss Mary, you hev been findin doc out some, 
 have n t you? Ain t he maybe the friend you lost? 
 Was n t it me that begun to put you wise to him?" 
 
 Mary prudently answered only his last question. 
 "No you amazing creature, it was not." She con 
 sidered even this answer before she made it, still draw 
 ing little squares and circles, but looking him in the 
 face with the eyes of her perplexity. " You know what 
 it is to be bothered about money, don t you?" 
 
 "No, ma am. But I know right well what it is to 
 be bothered about no money. Though I can t say 
 it ever did bother me a lot not havin any. It 
 don t, you know, if you can work with your hands." 
 
 "It bothers me," said Mary, "dreadfully. And I 
 hate to think what a preposterous sum I m charging 
 you for this education of yours." 
 
 "That s a real word, Miss Mary pre-post-er-ous. 
 Let me put my brand on it, will you? It means " 
 
 "Out of all reason," Mary hazarded. 
 
 "Well, that ain t the truth. Anyways, even if it 
 was, I would n t let it give you any sufferin . I ve got 
 the price of my education laid by. Miss Mary, this is 
 the first time in my life I hev ever bothered about 
 money. It s the first time I ve ever had the chanct." 
 
 "How did you make the price of your education, 
 Q? Guiding?" 
 
 "No, ma am. It was wished onto me, like my 
 name." He lifted his eyes to her with a curious wist- 
 fulness. "Miss Mary," he said, "I am awful rich." 
 
 Mary wondered why her heart stood still. Then 
 she understood and was angry with herself. If Q were 
 
176 "Q" 
 
 really "awful rich," might not the towers and walls of 
 Grinscoombery, which she fancied impregnable to his 
 knight-errantry, be shaken before his lance? A great 
 fortune that would go far toward softening the 
 hardness of Miss Selda s opposition, of Heloise s 
 young worldliness. An ungrammatical millionaire 
 may be forgiven where an ungrammatical cowboy re 
 mains forever amongst the unforgivable. But how 
 could a generous heart sink at knowing that Q had a 
 chance of winning his desire? Mary convicted herself 
 and passed judgment. Then with a smile more win 
 ning than she could have imagined, she held out her 
 hand across the table to Q. 
 
 "My dear," she said, "I am so glad 9 
 
 His fingers fastened down over hers and enveloped 
 them in warmth and strength and comfort. 
 
 "It don t do me much good, Miss Mary, except to 
 make me hanker after the moon, which is the sort 
 of thing a man can t buy." 
 
 "Oh," she suggested, "can t he? " Then, seeing his 
 flush, she was ashamed. "Of course, in a sense, not," 
 she hurriedly amended, drawing away her hand, 
 "but, amongst people that have always had wealth 
 and can t imagine being without it, a fortune is bound 
 to count, Q." 
 
 He had leaned back in his chair and his face was 
 masked and rather pale. He had fixed his eyes upon 
 her in the through-gazing fashion that distinguished 
 them, and Mary felt that all her motives and impulses 
 were bitterly exposed. 
 
 "Please go on with your lessons, Q," she cried out 
 an instant later. 
 
A Message from the Moon 177 
 
 "Just a minute, ma am. You said you was both- 
 erin about money. If you was a right sensible young 
 woman, you would n t be doin any more of that." 
 
 "Why not?" Mary asked blankly, then colored hot 
 and high. 
 
 "When a partner of mine has a fortune, I don t 
 never do no botherin gel." 
 
 "Q you are simply absurd. Go on with your 
 lessons, please, or I ll give you a bad mark." 
 
 "To take home to Benton eh?" 
 
 "No to take home to Heloise. Is she interested 
 in your education, Q?" 
 
 In her effort to escape from her embarrassment, 
 Mary had taken the first conversational opening her 
 mind suggested to her, and dashed into a subject 
 which the delicacy of her sympathy had hitherto kept 
 sacred. 
 
 "Not so s you d notice it," returned Q dryly and 
 took up his book. 
 
 In the midst of his reading, the telephone bell rang 
 and Mary, answering it, turned to her pupil with one 
 of her waggish looks. "Some one to speak to you," 
 she said "a message from the moon." 
 
 He was white when he stood up and moved to the 
 instrument like a sleep-walker. In his ear came the 
 swift, imperious voice that had so injured him. 
 
 "Q can you come out this afternoon at four 
 o clock? it s important." 
 
 "Yes, ma am." 
 
 "Where have you been these days?" 
 
 "Laborin with my hands to ease my heart," said 
 Q, unsmiling. 
 
178 "Q" 
 
 "How queer. You ll come, then?" 
 
 " Yes, ma am." 
 
 "Surely?" 
 
 "Ain tltellin youso?" 
 
 "I don t know, Q, what may happen to me if you 
 don t come." 
 
 "Nothin is agoin to happen to you, then." 
 
 "Good-bye." 
 
 Her voice in all the brief sentences had been a trifle 
 breathless, abstracted. She was not flirting, nor tor 
 menting, nor laughing. She was afraid. He knew 
 that in all his nerves. He strode back to his lessons 
 and Mary felt that she was entirely forgotten. Her 
 pupil stumbled absently through arithmetic lesson 
 and history lesson and went away from her as though 
 the mind of Heloise had put some sort of enchant 
 ment on his steps. 
 
 Mary, when he had gone, walked about the room 
 in a dry-eyed misery of anger and hurt pride; hating 
 herself, and her life, and her love. When her little 
 father came, fifteen minutes later, he dropped his 
 books hastily on the nearest chair, came to her and 
 held out his arms. Mary crept close to him, put her 
 head on his shoulder, and wept. 
 
 They sat in the distended wicker chair, the little 
 father stroking her and murmuring comfort. At last 
 they spoke of Q and of Dr. Sales and of the debt. 
 Presently their hearts were greatly eased; they could 
 laugh at each other; they could even begin to make 
 plans. 
 
 "I ll have to try very determinedly, Mary, to turn 
 
A Message from the Moon 179 
 
 my pen to profit. I ought long ago to have made such 
 an effort." 
 
 Mary hid her pathetic smile. She knew so well that 
 his pen would prove as impotent a gold-digger as 
 could well be fashioned, but she gallantly supported 
 his determination and together they outlined a pos 
 sible series of articles on education, concerning the 
 ultimate success of which they managed to convince 
 themselves quite emphatically. Lunch-time was 
 completely forgotten and by the tea-hour they were 
 busy, brisk, soberly cheerful people Mary pour 
 ing tea with steadiness, though her eyes still showed 
 traces of her stormy weeping. 
 
 Out in the garden of Grinscoombe Manor, Heloise 
 too was pouring tea, iced tea from an enormous silver 
 pitcher. As she poured it the ice rattled because her 
 hand was shaking. A tiger cub is a fascinating pet, 
 subtle, beautiful, and astonishing. But as it grows 
 from cub -hood and its tiger nature strengthens in 
 throat and talons, the small f earf ulness that made it a 
 delight increases to something that is not a delight at 
 all. Excitement was a necessity to Lelo s restless and 
 unsatisfied temperament. Ferdinand, for the past 
 few months, had increasingly supplied her with the 
 stimulant. She had enjoyed playing with his impa 
 tience, holding out a morsel and snatching it away 
 again, letting her eyes promise what her hands and 
 lips withheld, playing, in fact, a game as old as sex, in 
 which the centuries have made women more and more 
 proficient, men more and more practiced to enjoy. 
 
180 "Q" 
 
 Given emotional leisure, and almost any woman may 
 become a Cleopatra and any man a Don Juan. The 
 old sex channels are worn so deep in consciousness, 
 deeper than any recent scribblings of religion, moral 
 ity, or wisdom, it requires only a slight diversion to 
 send the floods running deep and free. Heloise had 
 had leisure and a wound; she was dangerous. Ferdi 
 nand was the male counterpart of her condition. He 
 was vulnerable and impatient, thwarted, sufficiently 
 uncertain and sufficiently masterful. Heloise s dar 
 ing increased hand in hand with her alarm. So far she 
 had kept her balance, but lately it had been with in 
 creasing difficulty. The artificial supremacy of girl 
 hood was imperiled, because Ferdinand s imperious 
 passions, always his spoiled children, were growing 
 like the talons of the baby tiger. When she was safely 
 out of his sight, Heloise would laugh at her nerves, but 
 no sooner did his sultry blue eyes fall to devouring 
 her again than fear, excitement, weakness shook her. 
 After her failure to meet him at the club-house on the 
 afternoon of Q s deliberately excited runaway, Ferdi 
 nand had lost no time in flinging himself down before 
 his steering-wheel and eating up twelve miles of 
 heated concrete to demand from her an explanation. 
 He had been in the gold reception-room when He 
 loise had run upstairs had just, in fact, been giving 
 a message to the footman; and, seeing her hurry past 
 the door, he had begun to fume, to pull at his tiny 
 blond mustaches, and to prowl about the room like 
 some large, graceful, angry animal. Heloise had 
 taken time to rearrange her golden helmet. She knew 
 
A Message from the Moon 181 
 
 that he was down there fuming, and she began to be 
 nervous. She had presented to him, however, be 
 tween the long gold curtains, when he turned at the 
 sound of her coming, a figure of such cool green slim- 
 ness and snow-whiteness that a characteristic com 
 pliment had sprung past his anger to his lips. 
 
 "You look like a mint julep, Lelo hanged if you 
 don t some heavenly cool green fragrant drink in 
 a tall glass makes a man s throat tingle to look at 
 you!" Then, having her smile, he returned deliber 
 ately to his humor. "So you chose to keep me wait 
 ing this afternoon ! Was n t it four o clock that you 
 said you d be at the club? It s half-past six now " 
 Pie turned a sullen eye to the gold-faced clock below 
 Sir Sydney Grinscoombe. 
 
 "I ve been run away with in the interval," said 
 Heloise, "by a wild and woolly Westerner," and with 
 that, staggering her with its sudden fury, his temper 
 had broken. He had stormed, thick-voiced, pale- 
 lipped, about the fragile room, so used to reticence; 
 he had damned Q; he had told her his opinion of her 
 methods. "Damn cruel, teasing, selfish " Heloise, 
 all white, her narrowed eyes as green as her dress, had 
 pushed him away at the end, her two slim hands 
 planted against his chest, which, under its silken 
 shirt, had scorched her palms so that, that night, she 
 tried to rub the memory away against her cool bed- 
 linen. She did not know, she had told him, how he 
 had dared to come so close to her, to touch her 
 
 "I ve touched you before," he had stammered; 
 "better take your hands off me " And, plucking 
 
182 "Q" 
 
 them from him, he had crumpled them both pain 
 fully into one of his, had put his arm close about her, 
 had held the hands to his mouth. Heloise, for the 
 first time, had realized a man s bodily strength. For 
 a minute she could not so much as get breath into the 
 scant space he had left her in a hot, misty, whirling 
 world. She had gasped "Aunt Selda ! " and had found 
 herself free. Ferdinand was moving backwards away 
 from her; his eyes looked bruised. 
 
 "Next time," he had mumbled with his insolent, 
 clumsy lips, "I ll get some satisfaction from you, you 
 white witch!" 
 
 Heloise had sat weakly down in one of the small, 
 gilded chairs. Her wrists had felt emptied of blood. 
 It had been terrible, and exciting, more exciting than 
 Q s game with death. He was wrong it might be 
 more healthful and more honest, but as a galloping 
 incentive to quick breath there was no potency in it 
 to compare with this other game. Aunt Selda had 
 come in slowly; she had passed Ferdinand, it seemed, 
 in the hall. 
 
 "I hope you ve sent that man away for good, 
 Heloise," she had said. 
 
 "Gracious, no!" Heloise had laughed, looking com 
 posure from serene, dissembling young eyes, "he is 
 the delight of my life, Aunt Selda. He 11 be back soon 
 and I 11 teach him his lesson. I am getting to be a reg 
 ular lion-tamer." 
 
 Aunt Selda had looked at her, several phrases on 
 her tongue, but she had restrained it from pronounce 
 ment. Aunt Selda understood her niece. 
 
A Message from the Moon 183 
 
 Now, on the Friday afternoon, in the garden under 
 a striped canvas umbrella, a wicker table between her 
 and her visitor, Heloise found that she could not com 
 mand the shaking of her body. That morning, Fer 
 dinand had announced his coming for tea and had 
 "hung up." All day, Heloise had alternated between 
 self-assurance and cold fear. It was her cold fear that 
 had sent the S.O.S. to Q and spoiled his history lesson. 
 Afterwards, she had wished she had n t sent for him, 
 but not to the point of countermanding orders. No, 
 on the whole, she had told herself, as she led Ferdi 
 nand along a box-hedged path to the garden table, 
 she was glad that Q was on his way; he would by now 
 have left the hotel . . 
 
 "Sit down in that chair, Ferdy," she said, "and 
 keep there." She smiled at him with level eyes. 
 
 Ferdy obediently flung himself down in the ap 
 pointed place. He looked sullen and inert, as though 
 the heat of the day had taken some of the vigor out 
 of him. The tiger was dull; his eyes had a drugged, 
 sleepy expression. But Heloise s instinct set her to 
 shaking while she reassured herself. 
 
 "I hope you re going to apologize, Ferdy, for your 
 absurd exhibition last week. You are a spoiled child, 
 if ever there was one. Take this cup and drink it up 
 as the cross-patch rhyme says, then make me a 
 nice respectful little speech and maybe I ll forgive 
 you." 
 
 He took the tall glass silently in his big, white, 
 steady hand and, looking down at her hand, he 
 smiled slowly so that she could see the attractive line 
 of his even white teeth. 
 
184 "Q" 
 
 " What are you shaking for? " he asked her and sat, 
 staring down, and smiling. 
 
 Heloise leaned back and took up a work-bag she 
 had carried with her. She laughed. "Do you think 
 it s because I m afraid of you, Ferdy?" 
 
 "Well," he said, "you know I m mad about you, 
 don t you? And you know you ve spent the last six 
 months driving me mad, don t you? You know what 
 my wife does to me at home, don t you? And you 
 know what sort of man I am, don t you? I think 
 you Ve got some reason to be afraid of me un 
 less " 
 
 With that, slowly, ponderously, he looked up and 
 the smile gradually left his lips. They sat and stared 
 at each other, the thunder of quick pulses in their 
 ears. 
 
 "Unless ?" Heloise found herself saying. 
 
 Ferdinand s face changed violently and he got to 
 his feet. 
 
 "For God s sake," he said, "send that fool away!" 
 
 Heloise turned and could have heartily echoed his 
 curse. Q was coming along between the hedges, tall 
 and grim and graceful. She wished him a thousand 
 miles away. She knew now that to satisfy her craving 
 for experience, she must play out this Ferdy game to 
 the last dangerous move. Q s coming was a postpone 
 ment, perhaps a respite. She motioned soothingly to 
 Ferdy. 
 
 "I sent for him on purpose," she said, at which he 
 prowled back to his place and drained his glass at one 
 breathless draught. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 WHIP HAND 
 
 WHILE Ferdy drained his glass, Miss Selda Grins- 
 coombe, in the very large, well-ordered bedroom that 
 had been her father s and mother s, moved slowly 
 about, taking off her gloves and hat and changing 
 from black silk blouse and skirt to a sheer gown of 
 gray batiste. The room was closely shaded from the 
 outer heat and with a light breeze pouring steadily 
 through the Venetian shades, it was almost cool. The 
 old clean heavy chintz curtains, looped back, were 
 lavender in tint, as were the draperies of the enor 
 mous four-posted bed, the covering of the lounge, 
 and the cushions of the stiff mahogany chair. The 
 rugs were purplish blue. In the large mirrors, of which 
 there were several in the room, this dim gray-purple 
 space with its tall occupant made many mysterious, 
 ghostly reflections. Miss Selda, with her dark-gray 
 hair, her stone-gray face, and her mist-gray dress, 
 seemed far less solid than the huge bureaus and ward 
 robes. She swam about as a fish swims dimly in a 
 grotto among large rocks. 
 
 Having completed her toilet, she sat down before 
 the smaller of the two bureaus and fastened a brace 
 let on her narrow wrist. The tortoise-shell clock that 
 matched her brushes and boxes and trays signaled to 
 her with slender hands that it was five o clock. She 
 was tired. The early part of the afternoon had been 
 
186 "Q" 
 
 spent at a directors meeting down at the Mills, where 
 Miss Selda had been hard put to it in the defense of 
 Dr. Sales. The protests against his mismanagement 
 of the Mills Hospital had, it seemed, suddenly taken 
 upon themselves a new and startling life and vigor. 
 They had had weight and persistency. Not since the 
 lawyer she had engaged in his defense several years 
 before had so effectively cleared the physician had 
 there been any such courageous attack against him. 
 She was now told of proven mistakes, negligences 
 that could not be palliated nor overlooked. The work 
 men had sent in a formal demand for his removal, for 
 a thorough investigation of hospital conditions. Such 
 a removal would be, for anything she might do, a 
 death-blow to his practice in Sluypenkill. No influ 
 ence that Grinscoombery might bring to bear could 
 save Dr. Sales, once his ignorance and indolence had 
 been admitted by the directors and the board. Miss 
 Selda had said what she dared in Sales s defense, not 
 too much, not enough, probably, to prevent unpleas 
 ant developments. She thought now that she would 
 go downstairs and write a forceful letter to Mr. Gra 
 ham. She must, of course, do something. The old 
 lash of her necessity stung her fagged spirit dully. 
 She looked up from the fastening of her bracelet and 
 met in the mirror her own staring gray eyes. That 
 secret timidity of theirs revealed itself, and her heart 
 missed its beat. 
 
 "It s the face of a coward," Miss Selda made com 
 ment, and wondered for a minute if, after thirty-nine 
 long years of going softly, it might not be safe to fling 
 
Whip Hand 187 
 
 aside the old ugly precaution. She would like for the 
 rest of her life to draw free breath. 
 
 Instead, she must in a few minutes meet her tyrant, 
 the indolent, soft-tempered tyrant that, without so 
 much as a spoken threat, had enveloped her whole 
 life with a weight that she thought sometimes must 
 have dragged her down from even a semblance of self- 
 respect. Perhaps he had heard of the increased ill- 
 feeling at the Mills and was coming to prod her cham 
 pionship. Miss Selda, setting her lips together and 
 steadying her look, wished him dead. She was one of 
 the women who, in more adaptable days, would have 
 carried her poison in a ring. At the summons of a 
 maid, however, she stood up, drenched a handker 
 chief in pungent cologne, and went downstairs to 
 greet Sales in the drawing-room. 
 
 This was where Heloise and her friends had one 
 merry evening toasted marshmallows, a room at once 
 more informal and vastly more impressive than its 
 gilded neighbor across the hall. All its sober browns 
 and duns were now brightened by a broad afternoon 
 light pouring steadily through four long windows, 
 through which the lawn and river were visible in 
 bands of green and silver. The air was moted and 
 still; outside the locusts were in full-bodied, droning 
 song. Dr. Sales stood with his back to the flood of 
 light and looked to his Jiostess a solid mass edged with 
 fire. He said, the instant she came in, "I have come 
 on rather an unpleasant errand," and because this 
 was so unlike his usual indirectness and suavity, 
 Miss Selda felt dismay. 
 
188 "Q" 
 
 "Shall I ring for tea?" she asked doubtfully, and 
 he considered the refreshment for a full minute, blow 
 ing in and out his lips. 
 
 "I believe not, thank you, Selda." 
 
 Then they seated themselves, Miss Selda drawing 
 a curtain between her eyes and the hot light. 
 
 "Must you be unpleasant, William?" she asked 
 unsmilingly. "I ve had a very tiring meeting. All 
 sorts of disagreeables came up and I believe that, 
 even as the owner of the Mills, my personal influence 
 is not quite so strong as it used to be. William" 
 she looked straight at him and held herself very still 
 "you should try to mitigate the prejudice that exists 
 against you. I am not sure myself that you have been 
 either very efficient or dutiful in your management of 
 the Hospital. It is not fair to rely upon my favor to 
 palliate your neglect." 
 
 William s facial expression suffered a momentary 
 dissolution as though pins had been taken out of a 
 stretched piece of linen so that it went into flabbiness 
 and disarrangement. He spread it out again by some 
 inner reassurement. 
 
 "At least," he said, waiving her protest as though 
 it had no importance, and feeling along his thinly 
 trousered, dusty knees, "your influence in your own 
 household is as strong as ever, is n t it?" 
 
 "I hope so." She drew up her velvet-banded neck 
 and William smiled his easiest smile. 
 
 "Selda, I don t like Q. And I want to warn you 
 that I can t countenance his association with Hel- 
 
 oise." 
 
 
Whip Hand 189 
 
 Very faintly her grayness dyed itself. "You 
 can t countenance?" she said, each syllable a 
 stepping-stone across a very slough of deep disgust. 
 
 "Quite so. I can t and I won t. The young man 
 must be put quite where he belongs, which is emphat 
 ically not in the position of a favored suitor of Heloise. 
 What do you know about him, Selda?" 
 
 "Know about Q? But why should anything be 
 known about such a person?" 
 
 Sales nodded over his fingers now sliding about his 
 chin. 
 
 "I see. You simply let him by because you think 
 he does n t sufficiently matter is that it? But, 
 Selda, I want to tell you that in justice to your dig 
 nity, you can t allow him the freedom of your house. 
 He is making a laughing-stock of the Manor all 
 Sluypenkill is amused by this ignorant young ad 
 venturer, who is trying to seduce a hotel waitress and 
 at the same time trying to win Miss Heloise Grins- 
 coombe for his wife." 
 
 "What are you saying, William?" 
 
 "The truth. I have kept an eye on Q. T. Kinwyd- 
 den think of his name ! and an ear open concerning 
 him, too. He is neither a very safe nor a very nice 
 young man. Take my word for it, Selda. He is playing- 
 fast and loose with any woman silly enough to be ro 
 mantic over a handsome cowboy. I don t want Hel 
 oise and you to become a laughing-stock well, 
 more than that; it is n t safe for her to go about with 
 him. She has encouraged his conceit. When the time 
 comes, as of course it s bound to come, for her to ad- 
 
190 "Q" 
 
 minister a snubbing, she 11 get a shock. That sort of 
 experience with a man who is not a gentleman, whose 
 women have been the girls of dancing-halls and dingy 
 commercial hotels who " 
 
 "What do you want me to do, William?" Her 
 voice was like a trembling blade. "Of course I don t 
 accept a word of this!" 
 
 " Call him in here and send him to the right-about. 
 He has given Heloise one fright some people met 
 her driving with him, and they tell me she looked like 
 an angry ghost." 
 
 "But, William, you expect me to act upon an opin 
 ion which is emphatically not my own. You don t 
 know the confidence I have felt in him, the the " 
 
 "I don t want to know anything except just that I 
 am going to get my way in this matter. You may not 
 be able to support my interests at the Hospital, but I 
 do feel, at least, that here, where I am working only 
 for your interests, I do deserve the consideration of 
 being believed and yielded to. Heloise is being talked 
 about as Q s alternative pleasure with a town wait 
 ress, and he is quite capable of boasting in the corner 
 saloon of such exploits." 
 
 " You say call him in ?" 
 
 "He s in your garden at present with Heloise. 
 Can t he be sent for? Fadden is there, too." 
 
 Miss Selda s hands pressed each other. "Ferdi 
 nand Fadden?" 
 
 The doctor s bright, determined little eyes pricked 
 her. No, he had never spoken his threat; but now his 
 hand slipped, as though in absent-mindedness, into 
 
Whip Hand 191 
 
 pockets, and brought out a flat, thin pocket-book. 
 He poked his fingers here and there as though in 
 stinctively they sought for old faded papers. He re 
 turned it to his coat as Miss Selda, gray- white, 
 walked over to a bell. 
 
 "Please tell Mr. Kinwydden, Robert, that I want 
 to see him in the drawing-room. You ll find him in 
 the garden." She hesitated. "And tell Miss Heloise 
 I want to see her, too; that she will have to excuse 
 herself from Mr. Fadden. And now, William, since 
 you dictate this necessity, what am I to say?" 
 
 "Ah, I suppose I can safely leave that to you, Selda. 
 I am not disturbing myself on that account." 
 
 " You have brought no definite accusations. I have 
 received this young man. He has always conducted 
 himself quite beautifully. I like him." She smiled 
 curiously. "I m not sure that I don t love him." 
 
 "What nonsense, Selda! You are to forbid him 
 the house and Heloise!" 
 
 "Suppose she defies me." 
 
 "She will hardly do that." 
 
 "Come, William, you must really give me some 
 plausible excuse for being brutal to a guest." 
 
 "Tell him that, as a dutiful guardian, you have 
 investigated him, and don t like the results." 
 
 "In other words, I am to insult him with a lie." 
 
 "You were asking for help " he protested sul 
 lenly. 
 
 "I believe I can do better without it." 
 
 They were silent. Miss Selda s face sharpened into 
 its resemblance to a guillotined aristocrat. Presently 
 
192 "Q" 
 
 Heloise came in, followed by Q. Miss Selda, gripping 
 the arms of her chair, looked up at them both with 
 blank staring eyes. She had set the guard on waver 
 ing and self-betrayal, but she could not command her 
 blood, which had left her set mouth. Dr. Sales played 
 with his watch-chain, moved to the window, hummed 
 softly. 
 
 "Q," said Miss Selda steadily, as one recites a les 
 son, "I am sorry to be driven to a most uncomfortable 
 necessity." She paused. Heloise, who had dropped 
 into a chair, stirred quickly, glancing at Q. He stood 
 before Miss Selda, gently and shyly, a color in his 
 cheeks. His face did n t change, but he looked slowly 
 across the room at Dr. Sales s back, then slowly again 
 at Miss Selda, and his eyes hardened. 
 
 "You re agoin to tell me that you have heerd 
 something against me." 
 
 "No," she said. "I have heard nothing against 
 you. It is only that, after a great deal of difficult 
 thinking, I have got some advice, and I have come to 
 a conclusion. It might, after all, be easier for us both, 
 if Heloise went out " 
 
 At this Heloise rose quickly. " I 11 go back to 
 Ferdy," she said, and passed out of the room, witch- 
 like and swift. Q looked after her, then back at Miss 
 Selda. Now they were both pale. 
 
 "Did you call in doc because you thought mebbe 
 what you was agoin to hand to me would be too 
 much for my health?" drawled Q. 
 
 "Dr. Sales is my adviser, " she answered quickly 
 and proudly. She had now, helped by his scoring, 
 
Whip Hand 193 
 
 made up her mind to ruthlessness and had hardened 
 the one small spot of compunction that had been Q s 
 gift to her matured worldliness. After all, such would, 
 in any case, have been the end of Q s courtship 
 "We have consulted together on the advisability of 
 permitting your association with my niece. Of course, 
 you must understand that I made a considerable con 
 cession to you in the first place, because I realized 
 that the circumstances of your acquaintance with 
 her were decidedly out of the ordinary. But won t 
 you sit down?" 
 
 He did sit down and looked thoughtfully from her 
 to his folded hands. He seemed entirely cool and 
 armored. Neither of them, after this, glanced at 
 Sales, who, however, had turned about and was 
 frankly enjoying the spectacle of Q s humiliation. 
 
 Now that she had steeled herself to using the knife, 
 Miss Selda had determined to use it conclusively. 
 She stared at Q as she spoke, and her lips moved more 
 rapidly than usual. 
 
 "Now, without meaning to hurt you, I must con 
 fess that, in my opinion, Mr. Kinwydden, you have 
 taken an unfair advantage of my indulgence. I grave 
 you credit, perhaps, for a more acute perception and 
 greater delicacy than would be at all natural for any 
 one with your history." 
 
 "So I hev got a history!" Q murmured with unim 
 paired gentleness. 
 
 "I would be glad to hint, but I see that hinting 
 fails. I have tried to show you by inference where I 
 set the limits to your acquaintanceship with my niece, 
 
194 "Q" 
 
 but now I see that I must be brutally explicit. My 
 dear young friend, you are not frankly accept 
 able as a suitor for Heloise. She would be amused at 
 your pretensions if she could understand them as 
 I have slowly come to understand them. Your pur 
 pose in coming to the Manor, I am really forced to 
 believe, has been to win the affections of my niece. I 
 absolutely refuse to countenance such a purpose. 
 You are a man of no education, no family, no breed 
 ing, no fortune. It can only, if it goes on, lead you to 
 some far more painful experience than this one. It is 
 easier for you to hear this plain speaking from me 
 than to hear it eventually from her. My dear Q, al 
 ready you are making her and me the laughing-stock 
 of the place. I shall certainly not allow Heloise to be 
 talked of or laughed about. You have other friends, 
 more suitable, in the town, other far more accessible 
 sweethearts. There! I have certainly spoken plainly. 
 I have said, of course, a great deal more than enough. 
 It has been painful to me. I had to make the lesson 
 thorough and final. I am sure that you will never 
 transgress the unwritten laws of hospitality in just 
 this way again. You will probably go back to the 
 West a wiser and soberer young man. Keep to your 
 own kind, my dear Q; that s where your happiness 
 and comfort lie. And I do sincerely wish you all the 
 happiness in the world." She stopped for a moment, 
 the velvet band moved up and down as she swallowed 
 convulsively. She was remembering the smile he had 
 shed upon her when she had asked him for his help, 
 when she had admitted and approved his love for 
 
Whip Hand 195 
 
 Heloise. Astonishingly, in quite the same fashion he 
 now smiled at her. She hurried on. "I want now to 
 say good-bye and to tell you how sorry I am that our 
 delightful talks are over, that I won t see you again at 
 the Manor. I will explain all this to Heloise." 
 
 At the end of this speech, Q rose and, with no smile, 
 he spoke to Dr. Sales. 
 
 "You have the whip hand, doc," he said, bowed 
 gravely and was gone. 
 
 Startled by the cool abruptness of speech and act, 
 they stood and listened to his quick departing foot 
 steps down the hall, across the veranda, crunching 
 the gravel, silenced on the lawn. Then Dr. Sales, pale, 
 moved his eyes uneasily from the curtains Q s broad 
 shoulders had set swinging, to Miss Selda. She was 
 bent in her chair; her head had fallen so far forward 
 that he could see only her chin below the gray bands 
 of her hair. Her fingers clutched the arms of her 
 chair. They were like claws. From head to foot, she 
 trembled visibly. 
 
 It was the acme of her long humiliation. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 GRINSCOOMBERY 
 
 "WHAT did you do with Q?" Heloise s swift young 
 voice flashed almost visibly across the twilight dark 
 ness of the room where Miss Selda still sat. Sunset 
 had come and gone, the afterglow had risen from floor 
 to ceiling and had faded out as though under a fine 
 sifting of gray dust. The locust voices droned end 
 lessly. There began to be a faint rustle of tired leaves 
 as a breeze sprang up from the ruffled leaden river. 
 
 Lelo followed her first question with another, more 
 doubtfully keyed. "Are you still here, Aunt Selda?" 
 
 "I am still here. Don t light anything. It has been 
 so hot." 
 
 "Aunt Selda where is Q?" 
 
 "He has gone." 
 
 Heloise stood before her aunt, trying to see more 
 clearly the white, narrow oval of her face, which 
 looked like a pale mask with two black holes. 
 
 "I have sent him away for good for his own 
 good, probably. I told him that I did not consider 
 him an acceptable suitor for you, Heloise; that neither 
 his birth, education, nor history warranted any pre 
 tensions of that sort." 
 
 "Aunt Selda!" 
 
 The narrow hand on the thin arm was lifted like an 
 ivory hand on the end of a stick. "Don t raise your 
 voice, please! Did you intend to marry Q. T. Kin- 
 wydden, Heloise?" 
 
Grinscoombery 197 
 
 "But Aunt Selda this is so dramatic so 
 ridiculous. I I had no plans at all about Q. He is 
 my friend I I promised him my friendship." 
 
 "Was that what he wanted, Heloise?" 
 
 "Oh, I think so. Yes. You know what men are. 
 They want whatever they can get, of course. But Q! 
 I can t bear thinking what you must have done to 
 him. And always before you ve been so kind to him. 
 He must have thought you were his friend. Why, you 
 were you and he such great friends!" 
 
 "I don t form great friendships with such young 
 men, my dear. It is kinder to check Q now than later. 
 You won t see him again." 
 
 "I will. I must. I tell you, I promised him my 
 friendship." 
 
 Her face, with lips and cheeks vivid as though they 
 had been painted, grew out of the dusk to Miss Selda s 
 vision. The girl, so cool and languid and detached, 
 had been stung out of her indifference, dangerously 
 stung. 
 
 Miss Selda stirred uneasily in her high-backed 
 chair. 
 
 "You are rash in your promises of friendship, Hel 
 
 oise." 
 
 This recalled to Heloise Grinscoombe another 
 promise. "I think I am old enough to choose my own 
 friends, Aunt Selda. Other girls nowadays are not 
 kept under such minute control." She laughed an 
 grily. "Q says you have me whip-broke. I think he 
 means I m a coward; I am a coward." 
 
 "Never be that!" Miss Selda spoke sharply. 
 
198 "Q" 
 
 Heloise moved to one of the windows. The breeze 
 blew her sheer dress back against her body; the faint 
 lingering lights of the summer darkness just revealed 
 her, gold and white and green. 
 
 "I promised my friendship to my cousin, Mary 
 Grinscoombe," she said without turning, "but I have 
 been too much of a coward to keep my word." 
 
 Miss Selda stood up, walked to the wall, and 
 switched on the light. 
 
 "Where have you seen your cousin, Mary Grins 
 coombe?" There was no sign of weakness in her 
 voice and carriage now; she was very angry and very 
 formidable. Heloise turned and showed a face strained 
 with fright, and blinking, rebellious eyes. 
 
 "The day I cut Q s wrist I took him into a house 
 where Dr. Sales s car was standing. And it was my 
 Uncle Henry s house and Mary opened the door/ 
 The memory of that small proud person diverted 
 Lelo from her panic. "But you don t know Mary, 
 Aunt Selda she she s splendid!" 
 
 "She must be." 
 
 "Truly. You d love her. She s so intelligent, so 
 bred!" 
 
 Again, and more dryly, "She must be," said Miss 
 Selda. 
 
 Lelo s temper rose. It was a Grinscoombe temper, 
 a pampered one. 
 
 "Why should n t she be? She s your own brother s 
 daughter!" 
 
 "The daughter of a drunkard and the housemaid 
 he seduced." 
 
Grinscoombery 199 
 
 Heloise put her hands over her ears. She had never 
 been told Henry Grinscoombe s history. Seeing that 
 her aunt was speaking again, she took down her hands 
 and, going to a sofa, sat facing her with tight lips and 
 scarlet cheeks. So she listened to a cold, clear recital 
 of the events that preceded Henry s disinheritance. 
 
 "Have you ever seen your Uncle Henry? One such 
 sight ought to be enough." 
 
 "Y-yes. I have seen him. I think he s pathetic and 
 rather beautiful." 
 
 Miss Selda laughed. "Your cowboy has been mak 
 ing a sentimentalist out of you, my dear. It s just as 
 well I have dismissed him." 
 
 "/ have not dismissed him," said Heloise. 
 
 "I doubt if after what I said to him he will wait for 
 any further dismissals." 
 
 "Oh, Aunt Selda! What did you say to him?" 
 Heloise wailed. 
 
 "Enough, I think." 
 
 Heloise smote one slim palm with a slim fist. She 
 sat thinking and with an effort calmed herself. She 
 seemed to dismiss Q for the moment. 
 
 "I am not sentimental, Aunt Selda," she began 
 composedly enough. "You ought to know me better. 
 And I never cared a penny really about Mary, until 
 I met her. Now I can t help caring. It s a case for 
 common justice. I have everything and she has noth 
 ing. And yet she is as close a relation to you as I am. 
 And she s so much finer. Mary is well, there s 
 something great about her." 
 
 "So that you would like to play the Lady Bound- 
 
200 "Q" 
 
 ful to her, as well as to Q. You have a gift for con 
 descension, Lelo. I ve often noticed it." 
 
 The phrases stung the girl s tenderest vanities and 
 she moved quickly toward the door. "I am going to 
 see Mary now," she said. 
 
 "You don t suppose I shall allow you to take the 
 car for such a purpose!" 
 
 "Very well, I ll walk." 
 
 "Heloise!" The narrow hands were lifted and fell, 
 their gesture accompanied by an incredulous, exas 
 perated note of laughter. "Oh, go by all means! A 
 five-mile walk on a hot evening no dinner, a late and 
 lonely trip home! that should take some of the con 
 descension out of you. Your temper may carry you 
 as far as the gate. If it takes you any farther, it will 
 make a fool of you, and that is usually a beneficial ex 
 perience. You will find yourself involved in consider 
 able discomfort, and you will do Mary a very ill turn 
 with me." 
 
 "What do you mean? You have never done her a 
 good turn, have you? Never intended to do any 
 thing for her?" 
 
 "It is not your business, of course, my dear, but, in 
 justice to myself, I will tell you that at various times 
 I have lent my brother rather large sums through the 
 agency of Dr. Sales." 
 
 " You mean that Mary thinks he " 
 
 "Yes, that he has lent them." 
 
 -"How perfectly insufferable for her to be under 
 obligations to that man!" 
 
 Miss Selda flinched, and Heloise, snatching up a 
 
Grinscoombery 201 
 
 wide hat as she went, darted out into the dusk. An 
 ger gave a spurring vigor to her steps. What were 
 five miles to her trained young muscles ! In Aunt Sel- 
 da s youth, walking was an unaccustomed exertion, 
 but Aunt Selda did not belong to the swimming, golf- 
 and-tennis-playing, dancing generation with which 
 Heloise had been trained to compete. She walked 
 freely with a tall, lithe swing, and anger made her un 
 conscious of her speed. She was in revolution, a red 
 riot of revolution, and she gloried in her new sensa 
 tions. She would dine with her Uncle Henry, and she 
 would telephone to Q and see him at Mary s house. 
 She would do the free, fine, courageous thing. What 
 a pity she had n t thought of this before, and let Fer 
 dinand run her into town in his machine. And, with 
 the name, her feet faltered and her first speed slacked. 
 She thought of Ferdinand for half an hour without 
 pause, and the night, with its stars and its heat, the 
 dust of the roadside, the faint rushing of the river, be 
 came the sultry surging of his passion oppressive, 
 exciting, dangerous, impossible of clean fulfillment. 
 If Aunt Selda here Heloise smiled the small smile 
 of Sir Sydney Grinscoombe had guessed, she would 
 not so summarily have dismissed Q. The watch-dog 
 had been driven away just as the wolf gathered him 
 self to spring! Poor watch-dog! Or poor wolf! Or 
 perhaps poor little lamb ! Heloise laughed aloud at 
 her own rhetorical interpretations of her predicament. 
 She wondered what her arch-eyed cousin Mary would 
 think of all this confusion of feeling, the deep-down, 
 smothered, willfully ignored bitterness of a past 
 
202 "Q" 
 
 wound, the heat of a present temptation, the mysteri 
 ous waver of her heart toward Q, who, for all his grim 
 strength, was as clean as a mountain wind. The 
 chained, bewildered, struggling heart of the girl 
 stilled itself suddenly as though by mention of him 
 she had opened the heavy curtains of the night. Q, 
 tight-lipped, deep-eyed he had been hurt, and she 
 was to blame. She had trapped him. What could she 
 do with her bad heart? So tormented youth inter 
 preted the night to its own varying moods. 
 
 Mary, in the desperation of her discovery of him, 
 had told Dr. Sales that nothing could surprise her. It 
 was a rash challenge to topsy-turvydom. Life had 
 many surprises in store for Mary, many more over 
 whelming, none perhaps so unexpected, as that which 
 came to her threshold on that sultry Friday night. 
 She had finished clearing up her supper dishes, for 
 Heloise had fancied a dinner hour of half-past seven 
 when the reality was a supper at half -past six. Henry 
 Grinscoombe had wandered out into the night to 
 make an early rendezvous with Kinwydden. Mary 
 was alone. She was alone, and she was sitting on the 
 top step of her narrow stairs, because here, with the 
 door open below and a window open above, the little 
 house drew in breaths of night air, and Mary s curls 
 were pleasantly lifted about her ears. She wore the 
 thinnest of worn white frocks, carefully mended and 
 daintily laundered by her own capable fingers. She 
 told herself that she ought to be making out Q s pro 
 gramme for to-morrow. She told herself that if Grins- 
 coombery had not been Grinscoombery, she might be 
 
Grinscoombery 203 
 
 flowing through the dark in a big car, like Mr. Fad- 
 den s. She decided, tucking in her mouth corners, 
 that it would be more amazing to be loping across an 
 endless gray-green plain with Q. These dreams hurt, 
 but they were a sort of ecstasy. Mary s imagination 
 was as vivid as that of most repressed and thwarted 
 natures. She dissipated in visions. She leaned her 
 head against the balustrade, caught her knee in her 
 hand and half -closed her eyes. She felt the swing of 
 the horse, smelt sage adrift across her nostrils, heard 
 Q s companionable, brief laugh. He might put out 
 his hand, comradely, to crush hers, because they 
 were both so free and happy under the white light of a 
 big western moon. If only the beat of the ponies 
 hooves had not counted up figures. Two dollars 
 two thousand dollars, they hammered, that must be 
 paid to Dr. Sales. Or else two kisses, two thou 
 sand kisses. She jerked disgustedly back from a big 
 soft face and her head bumped against the railing. 
 Some one below her was murmuring, "Mary! 
 Mary!" She must have been asleep. 
 
 Mary stood up mechanically and came down the 
 stairs. Grinscoombery in the person of her tall cousin 
 stood in the doorway. Mary could not believe it un 
 til, lighting a gas-jet in the hall, she definitely made 
 out a white, tired, laughing face under a wide green 
 hat. 
 
 "Heloise! But you look so hot and tired!" 
 
 Heloise pulled off her hat and pushed back from 
 wet temples the clinging golden hair. 
 
 "I walked every step of the way to see you, Mary. 
 It s a revolution." 
 
204 "Q" 
 
 Mary led the way into her sitting-room, pulled 
 down the shades, and lit the lamp. Heloise flung her 
 self down in the wicker chair. 
 
 "What time is it?" she asked faintly. There were 
 no signs of that late dinner. 
 
 "Eight o clock or later. I ll get you some lemon 
 ade. Heloise, do you mean that you came to see me 
 against Miss Grinscoombe s wishes that you quar 
 reled with her on my account?" 
 
 "On your account and Q s." Heloise fingered her 
 hat confusedly and lifted eyes that were embarrassed 
 to Mary s gentle sternness. 
 
 "But I don t like it a bit!" 
 
 With this emphatic expression Mary went into her 
 kitchen to make the lemonade and Heloise dropped 
 back her head and closed her eyes, fanning herself 
 with her wide hat. It was not only weariness that 
 made her shut her eyes; it was distaste for her sur 
 roundings. To Heloise s spoiled senses, the working- 
 man s house, for all its neatness, was an offense. It 
 smelled of paint, it was close; the noises of the town, 
 grating trolley wheels, clapping footsteps, rough 
 voices, filled it. Heloise dreaded the appearance of an 
 inebriate uncle. Was it here that Q received his les 
 sons? His image suffered from the association. No, 
 she would not telephone to Q nor ask him to meet her 
 here. How could she have planned anything so un 
 dignified, so tasteless, so vulgar? A clandestine meet 
 ing in such a room as this, under the chaperonage of 
 such people. Already Heloise was beginning to taste 
 the sharp flavor of Aunt Selda s prophecy. The walk 
 
Grinscoombery 205 
 
 in heat and dust had taken the first fine flush of her 
 angry impulse from her, and she was now conscious 
 of cold discomfort. Her cousin in this stifling, shabby, 
 tiny room was the veriest stranger. The visit was cer 
 tainly a blunder in taste. She was feeling, true to 
 Aunt Selda s suggestion, like a fool. It would be im 
 possible to break through all the bitter years of es 
 trangement that lay between this cousin Mary and 
 the Manor and herself, and even if she did, would any 
 friendship between this girl and herself prosper? 
 
 "I owe you something a great deal stronger than 
 lemonade for making such an effort." Mary had come 
 in, and was setting a tray with pitcher and two 
 glasses on the table. Her presence, pretty and quiet 
 and proud, gave Heloise back a little of her courage. 
 Yes, Mary might be worth it, if only she could be 
 plucked out of her surroundings, out of her past. 
 
 For the moment, Heloise was completely at a loss 
 and sipped her lemonade in silence, affecting greater 
 weariness than she felt. 
 
 "Please tell me, Heloise, just why you came." 
 "Because I promised to try to be your friend." 
 "Yes." Mary s smile was a smile of spontaneous 
 brimming amusement. Her small face sparkled. It 
 was as though she had exclaimed, "What a funny 
 girl you are!" And Heloise felt mortifyingly like a 
 "funny girl." She made a desperate effort to win 
 back her sense of worldly superiority. She did not 
 recognize the Lady Bountiful spirit with which a 
 discerning aunt had discredited her. 
 
 "Mary, my dear, Q has often accused me of coward- 
 
206 "Q" 
 
 ice because of my neglect of you. Certainly you have 
 been most unjustly treated by Aunt Selda, and I 
 should like so much to make amends, if it s possible. 
 I ve thought about you always so much. Every Sun 
 day, for years and years, I Ve walked up the aisle at 
 church and passed you and wondered about you." 
 
 Mary blushed. So many unprofitable moments, 
 consecrated to worship, she had spent in bitter won 
 der over the callousness of that sister of her father 
 who bowed and knelt and murmured herself a "mis 
 erable sinner," and, "being in love and charity with 
 her neighbors, steadfastly purposing to lead a new 
 life," took wine and bread with lesser sinners; the 
 aunt who begged audibly to be delivered from pride, 
 vainglory, and hypocrisy. Mary now felt that her 
 inner comments on the lofty Miss Grinscoombe and 
 the lovely, aloof young cousin, exquisitely gowned, 
 must often have shouted themselves across the dim 
 little rustling church. 
 
 She said to Heloise, "You could n t have imagined 
 what a wicked, malicious little girl I was and am." 
 Then, before her cousin could speak, she hurried on, 
 flushed and proud. "You must n t feel any weight on 
 your conscience about me, Heloise; that is n t just. 
 None of the trouble has been your fault. You 
 could n t be expected to break through the Grins 
 coombe traditions, for I suppose, in a way, that is 
 what has stood between us. I ve had a name for it" 
 here she glanced half-apologetically, half-slyly, 
 a trifle hopefully, perhaps "Grinscoombery!" 
 
 Heloise opened her green eyes wide and looked po- 
 
Grinscoombery 207 
 
 litely dazed. "Grinscoombery !" The two girls 
 were silent, the word seemed to grow between them 
 a tangled hedge of misunderstandings, differences. 
 Heloise wrestled with her bewilderment and yes 
 her offense, and Mary, looking at her as above a mag 
 ically growing hedge, understood conclusively that 
 the splendid revolution was a failure. It hurt her 
 for Heloise. She wanted to console the gallant ad 
 venturer. "You have been so sweet," she sighed in 
 adequately, "I am so grateful to you. I don t want 
 you to quarrel with your aunt " 
 
 Heloise, still faintly bewildered, tried to brush away 
 that word, but all through the remainder of the inter 
 view the troubled preoccupation it had provoked 
 made her eyes sad and absent. 
 
 "I have had everything" she made a measured 
 confession "and you have had nothing. I re 
 minded Aunt Selda this evening that, after all, you 
 are as much her niece as I am. To do her justice 
 Mary for I did accuse her of downright cruelty and 
 neglect " 
 
 "To do her justice ?" Mary prompted. 
 
 "I suppose I am betraying a confidence but it is 
 only fair to us to Aunt Selda and me " 
 
 "Fair to Grinscoombery," thought Mary, but had 
 already learned to keep it a thought. 
 
 "To let you know what she told me. She told me, 
 Mary, that, through Dr. Sales, she had given your 
 father assistance more than once, to the amount of 
 several thousands, I imagine. She fancied you would 
 prefer to believe it came from Dr. Sales, and perhaps 
 
208 "Q" 
 
 she was right. I ve never liked Dr. Sales. I don t 
 quite know why. Perhaps because I think Aunt Selda 
 is far too submissive to him But, Mary, what is 
 the matter?" 
 
 "Nothing. I m just putting my hands over my 
 eyes. They feel a little weak." 
 
 Heloise rose uncertainly. 
 
 "Perhaps I d better go. You are tired. I won 
 der " She drifted toward the door. 
 
 Mary came quickly after her. She was now smil 
 ing. "I think you ve been splendid. I m honestly 
 grateful, Heloise; my friendship will not be worth any 
 sacrifice to you " 
 
 "Since I chose to be your friend !" Heloise 
 spoke proudly, but it was, nevertheless, a hollow atti 
 tude, a hollow speech. 
 
 "It s quite enough that you did choose." Mary 
 was firm. "The impulse that brought you here was 
 the desire to overcome what you like to call your 
 cowardice, to vindicate your courage to Q, to prove 
 your independence of your aunt, and to do me justice. 
 Well, Heloise, you ve done all this. And I want you 
 to let it be enough. It will always be to me a splendid 
 recollection. I like it. I do like it, yes, I do, in spite of 
 my ridiculous pride and temper. But you see, Heloise, 
 your friendship can t include Papa; mine can t in 
 clude your aunt. We can t be free in our intercourse. 
 Can you come here and visit me? Can I go out to the 
 Manor? It sail unfortunate, unnatural. This sounds 
 very cold and repellent, I m afraid. It s not your 
 fault, nor mine. It s" she drew a great breath, as 
 
Grinscoombery 209 
 
 though pulling the word up by its own weight 
 " it s Grinscoombery ! " 
 
 Heloise had put on her hat. Her face was cool and 
 smooth now, if a trifle pinched about the lips and 
 nostrils. She looked curiously like Aunt Selda. Her 
 eyes tried to meet Mary s, but slipped uncomfortably 
 through their uncompromising challenge. Mary sadly 
 enough put out her hand. 
 
 "Thank you so much. Good-night." 
 
 Heloise spoke uncertainly in a faint, sad voice. 
 "Good-bye," she said. It was a blank admission of 
 failure. Grinscoombery had definitely claimed her 
 for its own. " May I use your telephone? " she said, as 
 though to a stranger. "I think I shall get a taxi to 
 take me home." 
 
 As she stepped into the taxi, a thought of Q smote 
 Heloise and a sharp pain went through her body near 
 the region of her heart. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 SOWING THE WIND 
 
 IN the cold blood that followed the failure of her more 
 romantic impulses, Heloise decided that she would 
 take it for a sign that by Q s dismissal Fate meant 
 that she was to drink the heady potion Ferdinand 
 offered her as nearly to the dregs as safety might per 
 mit. Deliberately, therefore, she postponed her mes 
 sage of reassurance to Q until after her next meeting 
 with the more dangerous man. She could not know, 
 because she lacked imagination and had an untrained 
 sympathy, just what this intentional reservation of 
 loyalty would mean to Q himself. 
 
 He had suffered greatly at Miss Selda s hands; this 
 in spite of a shrewd comprehension of her act; but no 
 such suffering could equal the slow disillusionment his 
 heart endured as it waited in the bare, blazing hotel 
 bedroom all the long next day for a message that did 
 not come. He would not go to school that day, so 
 hungry w r as he for the reassurance, so certain was he 
 of his lady s loyalty. He did not come down to lunch. 
 At four o clock he came out of his room as nearly a 
 devil as can well be imagined. To this grim, white, 
 and dangerous devil, Sophie tremulously addressed 
 herself. 
 
 She had been coming along the red-carpeted, dingy 
 hall that looked like some long dragon s gullet, and 
 she had been hurrying, fixed eyes and a white face, 
 
Sowing the Wind 
 
 dressed for a journey and carrying a small bag in her 
 hand. When Q stalked from his door across her path 
 she, startled like a thief, stopped, flamed with some 
 change of blood, and came doubtfully close. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Q," she said. 
 
 He stopped and looked down at her with ice-gray 
 eyes, and, as she met them, her own widened in a 
 frightened fashion and she put a hand on his arm, 
 found it iron and trembled back. 
 
 "What s the matter? Are you angry with me? 
 What ve I done?" 
 
 He spoke roughly and thickly. "Nothing. Get on 
 with what you meant to tell me." 
 
 She twisted the beseeching, rejected hand into its 
 fellow; so strait was her own predicament that it 
 made her ignore his unaccustomed harshness. " I m 
 not going to stay here any more," she said, looking 
 from side to side. "I m scared, if I do, that I ll get 
 married to Jonas Ben ton. Now that there is n t any 
 hope at all" her beautiful long throat above the 
 shabby collar of a thin blue serge jacket moved as 
 she swallowed violently "well what s the use! 
 What s to keep my courage up, anyway, against those 
 two always plaguing and quarreling and threatening? 
 I m going away." 
 
 " Sure what s the use ! " he said. "Might as well 
 get out. Sluypenkill ain t the whole world. Good- 
 bye." 
 
 With a grim effort of his will he forced himself to 
 take her hand. It was very cold, and that fact faintly 
 reached his imagination. Her eyes clung to his as 
 
Q" 
 
 though they wished to tell him some desperate truth. 
 She said in a whisper, " Good-bye," a whisper that 
 acknowledged a faint hope of which his manner had 
 deprived her, then she went on along the hall, her 
 hand holding to the railing of the stair- well. She 
 moved very slowly now, though, before Q came out, 
 she had been walking in hot haste. 
 
 "I ve told them," she murmured, "that I was go 
 ing to shop." She started down the stairs. 
 
 Mechanically, Q came to the well and watched her. 
 The habit of sympathy cannot be broken hi an in 
 stant. His own mood of reckless deviltry, the beastli 
 ness of his smothered intentions, made her actions 
 readable to him. He was remembering in a cold, im 
 personal fashion that he had seen her at least twice 
 in close conversation with that smart, insolent, good- 
 looking drummer who got even with God by laughing 
 at his fellow-men. Q knew that drummer type re 
 markably well, its noise and insolence and tawdry. 
 soiled emotions, the towns of his West were infested 
 with loud-mouthed cheerfulness and whispering, sala 
 cious gallantries. Why would Sophie be hobnobbing 
 with that fellow? Because all women were cheats and 
 fools? Or because, being turned out of her heaven, 
 there was no place left for her hurt spirit but hell. 
 The man had a motor, too, or at least had the run 
 ning of one in the interests of his salesmanship. 
 It would mean for Sophie a quick getaway, a quick 
 and complete escape from her intolerable treadmill 
 of drudgery and persecution. A picture of Laurie s 
 sensitive face, keen, quick, and haunted eyes, boyish 
 
Sowing the Wind 213 
 
 crop of curly red hair, his struggling look, pierced 
 Q s hardness, and on that instant, as though his 
 thought called, Sophie, faltering down the steps, 
 lifted up her eyes to him once. Q sprang after her 
 down the stair, passed her and turned about, barring 
 her way. 
 
 "No, you don t, you Sophie gel," he ground out 
 softly through set teeth. "You go back and lock 
 yourself into your room while I go down and beat up 
 that smiling feller to a pulp." 
 
 Sophie, red as fire, cried out passionately, " Let me 
 by!" 
 
 "No, ma am. You go back." 
 
 She turned white. "You have nothing to say about 
 what I do. I ll go where I please, with any fellow I 
 please. Who cares? Let me get by!" Then, with a 
 look down and a triumphant, pale smile, "Father s 
 coming up. If you don t get out of my way, I ll 
 
 scream." 
 
 He, too, glanced down over the banister, and saw 
 that in fact Sophie s pimpled father was slowly mount 
 ing the flight just below. He, out of the line of vision, 
 had not as yet seen them on the stair. 
 
 As Q moved back from his swift inspection, Sophie 
 put her hand on him to thrust him aside, and it needed 
 only this touch to bring his devil of thwarted, wounded 
 will into violent action. He reverted rapidly to type. 
 The trammeling garments of civilization fell from his 
 spirit. So often life had brought him face to face with 
 the necessity for physical violence. While for months 
 now he had been tilting with windmills of vague, op- 
 
214 "Q" 
 
 posing forces, here was a concrete will pitted against 
 his. With one great gesture he caught Sophie up bod 
 ily, his arm across her mouth, pressing her head 
 against him, and ran back with her across the hall into 
 his own room. She was now fighting like a tigress, 
 both of them primitive, passionate, released. Holding 
 her with one hand, he sought in his closet, found his 
 rope of course he had brought it with him, for he 
 could not possibly have imagined a place where for so 
 long there would be no necessity for its many-sided 
 usefulness and, like an act of wizardry, with a turn 
 here and a jerk there, he bound Sophie with the max 
 imum of security and the minimum of discomfort into 
 his largest chair. During the few seconds that it took 
 him to perform this feat, he had kept hand or arm 
 across her mouth and, at the last, producing from his 
 pocket a beautiful large silk handkerchief, he made 
 of it a soft, effectual gag, and stood back. His face 
 gleamed, happy, masterful, triumphant. 
 
 "Now, you Sophie gel, you set there quiet and easy 
 till I come back. Nothin s going to hurt unless you 
 pull ag in the hitch. Then it will hurt plenty. It ain t 
 the first time I ve roped a gel for her own good. I 
 stood over Ma Shippen s daughter with a gun all of 
 eight hours, atalkin to her most of the time too, and 
 her swearin at me. I ain t agoin to do no talkin to 
 you. I m agoin to herd in another feller who can 
 talk better. Good-bye, gel. You re pretty comfort 
 able, ain t you?" 
 
 Her great, astonished, shining eyes made him 
 laugh. He bent down and kissed her head, then ran 
 
Sowing the Wind 
 
 quickly out of the room. She heard the key turn in 
 his lock. 
 
 So quietly and expeditiously had this deed of vio 
 lence been accomplished in Room 90 of the River Ho 
 tel that Q, stepping out into the hall, met Sophie s 
 father just arriving on the fourth floor. The head 
 waiter regarded him with stony disfavor, a prejudice 
 started the day of Q s arrival and since then busily 
 fostered by a jealous suspicion of the Westerner s un- 
 conventionalities, and his simultaneous attentions to 
 Grinscoombery and Sophie. Now he thrust out his 
 paunch and breathed fast as Q addressed him. 
 
 "Your daughter left a message for you," he lied 
 suavely. "She said she d gone out to buy up the 
 town and would n t be back until late no more 
 dish- washing for her until to-morrow savvy?" 
 
 He smiled at the fat, small man s helpless pertur 
 bation and went past him lightly and swiftly down 
 the three flights, across the lobby, past an unsuspect 
 ing Ben ton, and out on the pavement, where he 
 hailed his friend and instructor in the art of running 
 a Ford car. 
 
 <f I want you to spur your critter and get me to West 
 Lemmon on a high lope," he said, and the delighted 
 mechanic pushed and pulled and turned and bounded 
 away from Main Street on a blaze of dusty roadway 
 toward the west. 
 
 Q, jerking and swaying physically, thought steady 
 and straight, distracted from his own pain. He knew 
 that in this mission his tongue was his one available 
 weapon and, of all others, he most mistrusted it. He 
 
216 "Q" 
 
 was no talker silence had always been his tool. 
 But now he must at once and forever convince a man, 
 by words, of Sophie s need. It was heaven or hell for 
 Sophie, and only this one man could turn her back. 
 It was, at top speed, an hour s journey to West Lem- 
 mon. The dusty Ford poked its nose into the elm- 
 shaded, broad -street ed, pretty town at half -past five, 
 and Q, inquiring the way to Dr. Laurence Sales s of 
 fice, reached it a few minutes later and found that the 
 doctor was not at home. He would be back, however, 
 probably in half an hour. The assistant wondered 
 sympathetically if it were the thought of dying wife 
 or child at home that drove the tall, bright-eyed visi 
 tor to and fro across the floor of the waiting-room. 
 She ran out across the pavement and caught Laurie 
 by the arm as he stepped from his automobile. She 
 was usually a quiet, prim little soul, but Q s lightning 
 had struck her into vitality. "Oh, Dr. Sales, there s 
 a desperate man in there. He s been waiting for half 
 an hour. He s so grim and pale. He keeps muttering 
 to himself I think it s some sort of swearing. Do 
 hurry, please!" 
 
 Laurie looked startled, smiled and went in, being 
 hurried through the hall by the excited woman. He 
 dragged a jaded body and a dulled spirit into the of 
 fice, and opened his folding doors, conscious as he did 
 so that there was in him scant sympathy for a new 
 need. There came Q, to meet him, and drew him in 
 and shut the doors with his own hand. 
 
 "Sit down there," said Q, pointing the young doc 
 tor to his desk chair and standing over him, tense, 
 
Sowing the Wind 217 
 
 forceful, charged with urgent feeling. "You hev told 
 me before now that I ought to learn to mind my busi 
 ness. Twict I ve made a fool of myself afore you, and 
 I swore I would n t do it no more. Well, I won t. It 
 ain t no fool business of rescuing a lady that don t 
 want rescuing this time. It s a real, honest, desp rit 
 girl, and I hev left her shut up in a room lest she go 
 to the devil, and that s the truth, doc, on my honor." 
 
 Laurence stared up at him, tired eyes not yet sure 
 that they were not justified in warm amusement. 
 
 "There s a cold-eyed, thin-lipped devil of a sales 
 man back there at the River Hotel. A feller like him 
 back in Sugar City onct made love that s what the 
 
 dirty of a called it to a soft little gel, 
 
 a biscuit-shooter, and after he had quit her she quit 
 livin by the free use of a revolver ag in her throat. 
 She wrote a letter to her ma sayin as how she felt 
 too bad to go on livin because the way he d used her 
 had sort of cheapened everything, and life looked 
 dirty to her. Notice, it was n t what she d done that 
 was drivin her out of the world; she could have lived 
 that down; we d have helped her and the baby, if 
 there had been one; but it was the way he d used her. 
 Well, this feller at the River Hotel is the same sort. 
 He s a grand looker, fine clothes, neat face, pink lips, 
 big eyes, laughs a lot, finds folks funny. He s got a 
 machine. Sophie was on her way to him" here 
 Laurie stood up slowly and faced Q across the desk 
 "at about four o clock this afternoon. She had on 
 her best hat with a flower in it, and kind of a thin lit 
 tle blue suit, and her face was white as paper, and she 
 
218 "Q" 
 
 was carrying a little old bag in her hand. She run 
 ag in me and she told me good-bye. Listen now, 
 doc, this is the rest of what she told me. I m not 
 going to stay here any more. I m scared if I do that 
 I 11 get married to Jonas Ben ton. Now that there is n t 
 any hope at all " - it was extraordinary how Sophie s 
 very tone quivered in Q s low, drawling voice 
 " what s to keep my courage up against those two 
 she was speaking of her pa and Benton, the long, 
 pale old feller, that means to sell out his hotel and 
 marry her always plaguing and quarreling and 
 threatening her. So she told me good-bye and started 
 down the stairs, and it was right there I began 
 thinking about the drummer and you. You told 
 her you was going to marry another lady?" 
 
 Laurie, breathing quickly, said "no" fiercely. 
 
 Q s eyes gleamed. " She thought you was, I reckon. 
 She d fought about long enough, and she was hell 
 bent on going to her drummer. I got atween her and 
 her intentions and she tried to shove me out of the 
 way. Her pa was rising steady as cream from the 
 lower story, and she said she d holler, so I picked her 
 up and took her to a room, and there I Ve persuaded 
 her to wait. She don t just know what she s waitin 
 for, doc, but I was hopin it might be for you." 
 
 Laurie had sat down again. His hand on the desk 
 was fisted. He stared unseeingly at Q. In the past 
 fortnight Laurie, too, had been tilting with wind 
 mills. He had broken with a relentless damsel of 
 much social importance, and his world had been hurt 
 ing him, though not so sharply as hie heart, which had 
 
Sowing the Wind 219 
 
 twisted him powerfully back to his old love. He, too, 
 was tired of repression; the romanticist, the adven 
 turer, was on top; his spirit leaped to meet Q s chal 
 lenge. 
 
 "They tell me you re a first-rate doc," went on the 
 Westerner, as quietly as he had spoken from the first, 
 "and that you re ambitious in a place where the 
 folks think a lot of education and manners and such. 
 Well, sir, I know places where a doc is needed like you 
 need God in hell. And where a feller like you that 
 wants to make a big name and a pile of gold has only 
 to walk in and write a perscription, and where a 
 woman like Sophie would be a queen. Doc, there s a 
 city grown up like a mushroom overnight; it s an oil 
 city, and it s named Kinwydden, after my little old 
 ranch and me. I hev got some say about that city, 
 and it s full of my friends, and if I send a doc out 
 there with his wife, the men and women and children 
 in that place will throw up their hats into the air. 
 Say, they 11 mount horses and Ford cars to meet you 
 and lead you in percession to the finest house they can 
 pick out. They want a doc. West Lemmon don t 
 know how to want anything like they want you. I 
 knowed right away at first sight of you that you was 
 a real man, like I knowed Sophie was a real woman. 
 You sure like to be free to love the girl you want, and 
 to live the life you want, and to be a great man in 
 your own way with a free heart. Kind of way down 
 somewheres you want adventure, don t you? Quit 
 doctorin* a lot of nervous ladies and come out to my 
 city. You ll make a real name and a real fortune 
 
220 "Q" 
 
 there, Laurie, and by God, you 11 have a real woman 
 to help you do it. Can I take you back?" 
 
 "No, Q, you can t take me back, because I ve got 
 to operate on a case to-night. But you can take back 
 a letter from me to that * Sophie gel and look 
 here next week I m going West." 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 REAPING THE WHIRLWIND 
 
 THE "Sophie gel" stayed perforce where Q had left 
 her, and her astonished senses gradually composed 
 themselves. She had been snatched up out of her own 
 purposes as by a whirlwind, and constrained to an ob 
 jective contemplation which, in a few dizzied mo 
 ments, showed her the fairly volcanic abyss she had 
 escaped. Nights of tossing, aching sleeplessness, days 
 of relentless persecution, pain of heart and bitterness 
 of personal failure for she had believed that Lau 
 rie s love would need only a sight of hers for its re 
 newal such hours and such pangs and fears, tuned to 
 a monotony of work in kitchen and dining-room, had 
 jangled the girl out of her dreams, and it is precisely 
 when such habitual dreamers are so rudely waked 
 that they embrace prompt disaster. Her attempt to 
 educate herself, to reach up to Laurie, having 
 failed, all that was vulgar and commonplace in her 
 inheritance and circumstance threw her back vio 
 lently upon such consolation as the salesman s glib- 
 ness had to offer. Not good enough for Laurie, she 
 was at least good enough for the handsome Rupert 
 Seaman. The wife of a Benton would scarcely prove 
 a less damaged vessel than the adventuring heroine 
 of the drummer s romance. That enchanted forest of 
 which poor, exquisite Sophie with her startled eyes 
 was a born denizen, was no training-school for the 
 
222 "Q" 
 
 main street of Sluypenkill or for the lobby of the 
 River Hotel. When a prince had alighted at her door, 
 Sophie was ready : the prince having thrust her out of 
 fairy-land, she fell against a ragged and sordid reality 
 with all the violence of her rejection. 
 
 There is a theory abroad that goes by the precious 
 name of realism, and which dogmatically asserts, in 
 many diverse ways, that the mole on a lady s cheek is 
 more real than the dimple; that, to be honest, one 
 must pluck the wings from a butterfly and make notes 
 on its crawling powers; that marriage is a matter of 
 morning yawns rather than midnight kisses; that life 
 walks attentively beside the gutter and not along the 
 front of palaces; that, in short, a man s big toe is of 
 infinitely greater moment than his craving for beauty. 
 But surely, whatever chances and changes mortify 
 and afflict our physical lives, the life of our thought 
 may always be a journey of enchantment. If we work 
 in a department store and travel thereto in a subway, 
 clinging to a strap, nevertheless, we remain eternally 
 seekers of buried treasure; if we wash the baby s un 
 derclothes and make its bed, Mary, the Madonna, 
 must have done no less; yet what we remember is that 
 she "carried His sayings in her heart." Perhaps a 
 baby s first recognizing smile is melodrama, but it is 
 at least as real as his colic. All of which is to defend a 
 predilection. A realist would doubtless find greater 
 profit in watching Mrs. Huggs cleaning her doorstep 
 than in watching Mrs. Huggs weep with her broken 
 heart. She did both daily. And Sophie, washing dishes 
 and blowing tears from a reddened nose, would be 
 
Reaping the Whirlwind 223 
 
 more convincing than Sophie wandering in a land of 
 faerie " where no birds sing." To such realists, in fact, 
 the telling of a tale must forever remain a sheer ab 
 surdity, for what makes the chronicle of a Q or of a 
 Sophie significant is not the acquiescence in circum 
 stance, but the rebellion against it. When Q caught 
 Sophie in his arms and roped her to his chair, he was 
 acting more simply, naturally, and inevitably than 
 when he constrained himself to use Bill s services 
 with the "buzz-box." The ascent and descent in the 
 elevator remained always to him a romantic and as 
 tonishing adventure. He understood far more readily 
 what Sophie had been about to do and her reasons for 
 doing it than he understood Heloise s deliberate sip 
 ping of Ferdy s temptation while she held her rescuer 
 off until such time as the poison began to take danger 
 ous effect. The ways of mental experiment were to 
 him indeed bewildering, but physical adventure was 
 the very breath of his being. Following his instinct, 
 he would, in one riotous, satisfying week, have beaten 
 up Dr. Sales, mopped up the lobby floor with Benton, 
 held up Miss Selda for a fat purse for her brother and 
 niece, shot Ferdy through the head, married Laurie 
 to Sophie at the muzzle of a gun, and galloped off with 
 Heloise before him on his saddle. Of course, this is 
 what, in the course of a six months struggle, he was 
 trying to do. Condense his time limit to a week and 
 you will have the un trammeled man at work. But Q 
 was not a superman, and convention, the cold weight 
 of circumstance, had their ropes upon him. 
 
 Sophie was the first victim of his unleashed sin- 
 
224 "Q" 
 
 cerity. She sat, feeling in body the weight of his 
 hands, the constriction of his rope and scarf, and the 
 quick, laughing touch of his lips on her forehead, and 
 feeling in spirit a beatific release. Life had been taken 
 out of her hands, and she realized that she was pro 
 foundly tired, that her nerves were stretched almost 
 to the breaking point. Coercion was a rest. She re 
 laxed in the chair, leaned back her head, and, through 
 half-closed, still astonished eyes, wondered what was 
 to become of her. Q would go to Laurie, was on his 
 way. Would he rope him and carry him back and lay 
 him at her feet? She was seized with sobbing laughter 
 so that her breath shook against her bonds. Her heart 
 swelled, tears fell from her eyes. Q was her god. She 
 could have followed him to the world s end. She 
 would now have kissed his strong, gentle, constrain 
 ing hands. She was safe, silent, hid from persecution, 
 from passion, from ugly opportunity love s pris 
 oner, a prisoner of hope. Would Laurie come? Leave 
 that to Q! She looked at her shabby little leather 
 bag, caught up by the whirlwind that had caught her 
 and now rolled over on its side in a corner of the room, 
 and she wondered quiveringly how she could ever have 
 packed it for so mad a purpose To be lifted forcibly 
 and tied up was a marvelous clarifier, it would seem, 
 of one s imagination Here she, Sophie, sat safe, 
 sane, and clean, waiting for her love, when, by now, 
 left to her own will, she would be traveling through 
 the dust in Rupert Seaman s car, with his arm about 
 her and a sick, hot memory and dread of kisses. What 
 hardening of her imagination, what disassociation of 
 
Reaping the Whirlwind 
 
 her very personality had left her free to such inten 
 tions? Hupert, by now, had gone off, alone and angry, 
 to console himself with less uncertain adventures. 
 The sounds of the street rattled and hummed across 
 her dazed consciousness. Below her, Mariana Benton 
 stepped here and there from closet to bureau, getting 
 herself ready for her evening off. Now she had pulled 
 up a chair. She was probably preparing to curl 
 her bang. Sure enough, a scorched smell presently 
 drifted in at Q s window. Sophie waited, wishing that 
 she could get rid of her gag, which was beginning to 
 be very uncomfortable. She would not cry out now; 
 Q might have trusted her. She began to work with 
 her tongue and lips and jaw to loosen the scarf. My, 
 but he was clever at tying a person up ! 
 
 Mariana, below, went out of her room and banged 
 the door. She would be going out, thought Sophie, 
 with her young man, the drug-store clerk. Mariana 
 had always been shrewd and sensible and kind, even 
 to a prospective stepmother. She had a vast amount 
 of philosophy, that curled, manicured, indifferent 
 being. There would never be a folly in Mariana s life 
 nor a flight. Sophie watched Q s curtains trail 
 sluggishly in and out across the sill. The smell of 
 scorched hair persisted. Mariana must have all but 
 burnt off her bang. There followed upon the smell a 
 wisp of smoke; some blackened fragments drifted 
 across the open square of sky. Sophie straightened a 
 little in her chair and stared at the whirling black bits. 
 They looked like burnt lace, pieces of a lace curtain. 
 Another and denser scarf of smoke was sucked in at 
 
226 "Q" 
 
 the window. It had a certain heat. Something was 
 burning down below in Mariana s room, her curling- 
 iron heater attached to the gas-jet, left burning near 
 the window curtain on the bureau that was it 
 Mariana s curtains must be on fire. And Mariana had 
 gone out five minutes ago. Sophie thought dazedly 
 that she ought to give an alarm. 
 
 The alarm was given by a small boy in the street 
 who, five slow, queer minutes later, shrilled out, 
 "Fire! Fire!" That cry took a sharp stitch in So 
 phie s heart. The hotel was burning. Inside, along 
 the hall, she could hear running steps; outside, the 
 street began to hurry, to clatter, to hold an increas 
 ing panic of foot and voice. Just below her was the 
 heart of the fire and here above it she was tied and 
 gagged. She began to struggle and that, true to Q s 
 Warning, tightened the hitch. It hurt. But even if it 
 did hurt, hurt to agony, she must get free, must scream, 
 must attract help. She could n t just sit there, could 
 she? and be burned alive, while Laurie was on his way 
 to her? Oh, how the cords cut and seared like flame! 
 It would feel like that when the fire reached her. 
 There was a terrible tumult outside in the street; in 
 side, people were running about. They came to Ma 
 riana s room. The door w T as smashed in. There fol 
 lowed confused shouting; the smoke went up past her 
 window in big black clouds full of whirling sparks. 
 She could not fight Q s hitch now; it was cutting her 
 wrists to the bone and tightening horribly across her 
 chest and about her knees. But the gag had loosened. 
 In her hideous increasing panic she could not make 
 
Reaping the Whirlwind 
 
 out the cries and shouts, only she knew that the 
 clamor was growing. Yes, there was the frantic, 
 outrageous growing cry of the fire-engine. Here 
 the gag slipped and Sophie, flinging herself convul 
 sively back in her chair, shrieked and shrieked and 
 screamed aloud, " Oh, help ! Help! Help! Save me! 
 I ll be burned alive!" 
 
 By the time Benton and Sophie s father, with a 
 fireman s help, had broken open the door of her 
 prison, Sophie was entirely incapable of reassurance. 
 They untied her, while they swore, sick with anger 
 at what they saw, and she fought them with all her 
 strength. The fire, they told her, was out; it had been 
 nothing worse than a burning curtain; they begged 
 her to explain her plight. But she could neither un 
 derstand nor explain anything. She had to be held 
 down on Q s bed by her father and Bill, while Benton 
 ran for Dr. Sales. 
 
 After his deed of lingual valor, Q mounted his taxi- 
 cab and went back to Sluypenkill at top . speed. He 
 had a letter from Laurie in his pocket and his fancy 
 pleased itself with a vision of Sophie s reading face. 
 He compared the probable happy issue of his adven 
 ture with that other masterful beneficence concern 
 ing " Ma Shippen s daughter." "If I was only as good 
 at rescuing me from myself as I am at rescuing ladies 
 from theirselves, I d be a right successful feller," he 
 decided, and sadness steeped his face, his body relax 
 ing on the cushioned seat. That strong, confident 
 will of his tightened its grip on his aching heart. He 
 
228 "Q" 
 
 had been "hurt bad " by Heloise. She had "sure done 
 him in," but in spite of her, he would win out. He 
 would break her proud, high, cold, and willful heart 
 to his tenderness as he had gentled the mad-eyed 
 broncs to his control. There had been moments when 
 her eyes had been the eyes of girlhood, sweet, fright 
 ened, una wakened eyes; faltering and held by his. 
 He would believe those eyes even when the lips de 
 nied their loyalty. He made an effort of faith that 
 was almost physical, crudely he believed in a sort of 
 magic; defeat came only to those that believed in de 
 feat. There would probably be a message from Hel 
 oise waiting for him at the hotel, and he would have 
 suffered all day from an unnecessary pain. So impa 
 tient was he to get the message that he only noticed 
 without any impulse to inquiry that there was a 
 ragged remnant of a crowd about the front of the 
 River Hotel, small boys and dogs, still hopeful of a 
 renewal of the splendid chance of a conflagration, and 
 he sprang up the steps, through the glass doors, and 
 half across the lobby before he noticed Benton drawn 
 up near the foot of the stairs and obviously challeng 
 ing him. Then, with an abrupt hardening of nerves, 
 Q stopped, eyes narrowed, and face grim. The man 
 before him was changed with hatred, his sallow, oval 
 countenance worked, and malice possessed his lack 
 luster brown eyes. He came close to Q and whispered 
 into his face. 
 
 "You come upstairs with me and see what you ve 
 done before we turn you over to the authorities." 
 
 "Without a word Q followed him into the elevator, 
 
Reaping the Whirlwind 229 
 
 and was more startled by Bill s wild pallor and avoid 
 ing eye than by Benton s unaccustomed belligerence. 
 He allowed himself to be gripped by the arm in Ben- 
 ton s cadaverous hand and led to the door of Room 
 90. From inside came a monotonous sad murmur, 
 broken by little startled cries of protest. 
 
 "Her father s in there," said Benton, "and Dr. 
 Sales. He s been working over her, but we can t get 
 any sense out of her. She s clean out of her head." 
 He ground his teeth and spoke between them. "Per 
 haps you can explain." 
 
 Q stepped quickly into the room. 
 
 At his entrance, Sophie s father looked up from a 
 frightened contemplation of the girl, and Dr. Sales 
 rose from a chair near the bed. Benton locked the 
 door and placed himself against it. 
 
 Q moved to the foot of the bed and bent his eyes 
 upon Sophie. He was white and scared. 
 
 "What happened? " he asked in a nervous whisper. 
 
 Dr. Sales was spokesman. 
 
 "You would probably have got away with it, my 
 man," he said, "if there had n t been a fire in the ho 
 tel. The curtains of Miss Benton s room just below 
 this one caught fire. There was an alarm and your 
 victim, naturally fearing that she would be burned 
 to death, was frightened out of her wits. She had 
 managed to get rid of your ingenious gag and she 
 screamed for help. After a while her people here 
 located her cries and, with the help of a fireman, broke 
 down your door and found her in this terrible condi 
 tion. Her wrists as you see" he lifted one of 
 
30 "Q" 
 
 Sophie s hands "are cut almost to the bone; her 
 neck is raw where the rope burnt her. But of course 
 the worst result of your brutal handling is to her 
 nervous system, perhaps to her mind. We have n t 
 been able to get a sane word out of her. We insist 
 now, sir, upon a full accounting from you." 
 
 Q faltered to Sophie s side and bent over her. He 
 was shaking from head to foot; all his splendid com 
 posure and aplomb had left him. 
 
 "You Sophie gel," he urged and put his hand 
 beseechingly upon her. 
 
 She stared up at him from wild eyes and shrieked 
 out, "Don t let him hurt me!" He shrank back and 
 was further propelled by the head waiter, who, dart 
 ing round the bed, struck at him with two frenzied 
 fists. Q threw up his head. He had a dazed look. But 
 behind the brilliant pain and fright of his eyes, his 
 brain was working coolly now and carefully. He 
 must n t, of course, betray Sophie s attempted indis 
 cretion; he must n t tell about the drummer. There 
 was really no explanation he could give. She was in 
 no condition to read Laurie s letter, nor could he trust 
 any one of these three guardians of hers to read or 
 to deliver it. As usual, he had only the old familiar 
 weapon silence. Holding back gently with one 
 hand Sophie s infuriated father, and looking quickly 
 from one to the other of the two men, he drawled out 
 reasonably. 
 
 "I ain t blamin you at all, gentlemen. It s jest the 
 way I d feel myself. I hev sure made a fool of myself, 
 maybe worse. I can only tell you that it ain t any of 
 
Reaping the Whirlwind 231 
 
 it her doin s. It was a fool experiment of mine with 
 nothin bad back of it jest plumb childishness, but 
 you don t want to believe that, naturally. So I ain t 
 expectin you to. You keep your hands off n me, be 
 cause I don t want a row, and tell me what you want 
 me to do. Keep rememberin that, for the gel s sake, 
 you d better make as little excitement as possible. I 
 could n t feel badder n I do right now, if that helps 
 your feelin any, and I ll do anything you say." 
 
 "First," spluttered Ben ton, "you get out of my 
 hotel and don t show your dirty face here again." 
 
 "I thought you d sold your hotel, Mr. Benton." 
 
 "G d you! Don t talk back to me. Until the 
 new owner takes possession I m in charge here and 
 you walk out!" 
 
 "Yes, sir, and quite right. Next." And he turned 
 to Sophie s father. 
 
 The pimpled waiter was breathing short and hard. 
 "Damages," he snuffled, "that s all I gotter say. 
 Damages." He pointed to the girl, lying quiet now 
 under the effects of a narcotic. "You may of ruined 
 my gel for life. You gotter pay." 
 
 "Yes, sir. That s fair too. I ll pay. And now 
 doc!" 
 
 Here his calmness froze to something that was both 
 ice and iron. He drew closer to Sales. The big loose 
 figure held its ground and answered softly. 
 
 "I ll see you outside, Kinwydden. I believe it 
 would be altogether unwise for you to leave Sluypen- 
 kill at once. Some version of this story is bound to 
 get about the place. You see, the fireman helped to 
 break down the door. " 
 
232 "Q" 
 
 For the first time a fear of the consequences of this 
 escapade to himself and to his own plans smote Q and 
 flushed his whiteness. 
 
 "Sure. You d see to its gettin about in its best 
 clothes, would n t you, doc? " 
 
 He glanced once at Sophie and went out into the 
 hall, followed by Dr. Sales. They faced each other 
 in the hallway. 
 
 "I shall certainly see that the story reaches the 
 minds of any one here who might otherwise be in 
 clined to admit you to their acquaintance, Mr. Kin- 
 wydden." He paused, his hands sliding across his 
 waistcoat; his small, spark-like eyes snapped. "As I 
 once warned you, I have run two young men already 
 out of Sluypenkill." 
 
 Q seemed not to have heard him. "The the 
 Sophie gel will get all right?" he faltered, and 
 Dr. Sales, smiling faintly, turned the screw. 
 
 "If she does n t die in convulsions, she will recover 
 physically, but I doubt if she ever gets back her poor 
 disordered wits." 
 
 Q leaned against the wall, his hand over his eyes; 
 his forehead slowly was covered with fine small beads 
 of sweat. "O God, that ain t the truth, doc. I know 
 you hate me like a rattler, but I want you please to 
 let me off on that. It ain t the truth." 
 
 "As far as I know, it is the truth. Your methods 
 are a bit too rough for us here in Sluypenkill." 
 
 "I ain t agoin to put my trust in you," said Q. He 
 said it twice, like a prayer, a sort of litany. He felt 
 for Laurie s letter in his pocket and then moved 
 blindly toward the stairs. 
 
Reaping the Whirlwind 233 
 
 "It is entirely owing to our consideration for the 
 poor girl s good name, you understand, Kinwydden, 
 that we are allowing you freedom from physical re 
 straint. I hope you understand that you are not to be 
 allowed to remain any longer in this place." Sud 
 denly he became venomous. "We ve had enough of 
 you." 
 
 "I better not quit, had I, until we know how the 
 Sophie gel gets on?" 
 
 "Perhaps not. If she dies " 
 
 Silence. Q stood straight, like a soldier waiting for 
 execution. 
 
 "You may be wanted for manslaughter. Hush!" 
 for lightning had passed through the tall, lissome 
 figure " they re bringing the girl out of your room. 
 You will want to go back for your things." 
 
 The door of Room 90, in fact, had slowly opened, 
 and between them, the head waiter and Benton car 
 ried Sophie along the hall. Dr. Sales and Q stood to 
 see her pass, a peaceful, silent, broken figure. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 SANCTUARY 
 
 RUMOR S tongue quickly took up the tale. It hardly 
 needed Dr. Sales s liberal assistance, so fast it spread 
 through all the ranks of Sluypenkill society. Q, mov 
 ing over that very night to Mrs. Stopper with his bag 
 in his hand, was met at the door by a nervous, quickly 
 breathing woman who brushed away at an imaginary 
 crumb. "No, no, Mr. Kinwydden, indeed I can t let 
 out a room to you. I know I told you I had one and 
 I m real sorry, but it isn t possible. Not that I m 
 ready to think evil nor give any heed to scandal, but 
 that when .a story comes direct to you and did n t 
 I always say that it could n t be done not in civi 
 lized society, calling on Miss Heloise Grinscoombe at 
 the same time and all. It s really too bad. It will 
 bring Miss Selda s pride down to the dust and I m 
 not saying it won t be a wholesome lesson, but my 
 business is to support the columns of society, Mr. 
 Kinwydden, and kind as you were about Sweetie and 
 a pleasant visitor, I don t owe you any obligations 
 Oh, are you going like that without a word?" 
 
 Q paused on the step and looked back at the ex 
 cited little figure. The street lamp lighted it dimly 
 from in front and the electric bulb in the hall more 
 brilliantly from behind. It looked under the two 
 lights a solid small body enough, resisting radiance. 
 As Q looked, Sweetie bounced out of the house and 
 
Sanctuary 235 
 
 ran between his legs, came back to rub against them 
 and purred in an emphatic key. He picked it up and, 
 smiling, handed it to its owner. 
 
 "I don t know rightly what I can say, Mrs. Stop 
 per," he murmured, "except that I thank you for 
 your cake and tea parties." 
 
 "Then you can t explain any of it? Perhaps I could 
 take your story to Miss Grinscoombe." 
 
 "No. But thank you kindly. I was a plumb fool, 
 and I look like a plumb villain, and it can t be helped 
 not for the present. I 11 pack my stuff elsewhere " 
 
 he hesitated "or perhaps I can leave it here and 
 come back for it when I ve located a good camping- 
 ground." 
 
 "Why, Mr. Kinwydden, I don t know what to say 
 
 people seeing it there as they say actions 
 speak louder than words and it might lead to in 
 quiries or talk saying that I was renting a room to 
 you " 
 
 "I savvy. Good-night to you, ma am." 
 
 She came half-across her porch, frantically brush 
 ing at the imaginary crumb. "But I d be the first to 
 welcome you back if the clouds roll past, Mr. Kin 
 wydden," and doubtfully she added a "Good-bye." 
 
 "Oh, it ain t good-bye," he said from the gate, 
 which he had just reached. "It s just good-evening," 
 and he went swiftly down the street. 
 
 It was eleven o clock when he came to Mary Grins- 
 coombe s door. He was still carrying his bag and his 
 shoes were dusty. The door stood open and Q, set 
 ting down his burden, stepped in and came to the 
 
236 "Q" 
 
 threshold of the tiny sitting-room. Directly before 
 him, blocking his path, loomed Dr. Sales. 
 
 "I might a knowed," said Q, and turned to go. 
 
 Dr. Sales moved back across the room and dis 
 closed Mary rising with a flushed face and startled 
 eyes from her low chair beneath the lamp, and little 
 Mr. Grinscoombe peering above fitted finger-tips. 
 Q saw the small, familiar room suddenly through a 
 blur. He made out an instant later that Mary was 
 standing in front of him, holding out her hand. He 
 took it with a quick, wordless gasp. 
 
 Then Sales spoke. 
 
 "Mary! Mary!" he said, and clacked his tongue. 
 
 Mary turned from Q, keeping her hand upon his 
 arm, and threw the concentrated brightness of her 
 face upon Sales. 
 
 "You did n t really think Papa and I were going to 
 turn Q out, did you?" she asked, "because of the 
 story you Ve just been telling us? In the first place, 
 I d have to hear his side -of it; in the second place, I 
 don t turn away a friend when he s in trouble." 
 
 And "Good-night, William," said Henry Grins 
 coombe, speaking suddenly from Mars. 
 
 Q spent that night on the wicker lounge where he 
 had once endured an operation at the hand of Dr. 
 Sales. He spent the night as one spends one s blood, 
 drop by drop, a night of never-to-be-forgotten mis 
 ery, during the long, slow hours of which he thought 
 only of Sophie. He went over with terrible painstak 
 ing every detail of his dealings with her and cursed 
 their clumsiness, their brutal ineffectually. Hith- 
 
Sanctuary 237 
 
 erto, experience had taught Q perhaps a dangerous 
 degree of self-reliance. He had learned that in emer 
 gencies, the body, of instinct and promptly, does the 
 one safe and necessary thing, so, like most men of ac 
 tion, he had been early freed from imaginative fear of 
 events to come. Here in this more complicated world 
 his faith had failed to justify itself. Yielding to im 
 pulses, he had acted, blindly and foolishly; absurd or 
 fatal results had followed his actions. He had hurt 
 other people. Perhaps in truth he was now a mur 
 derer. He remembered a man he had shot out there, 
 shot him necessarily in self-defense. It had been bad, 
 but he had never sweated over it like this. An agony of 
 remorse and nervous dread tormented his nerves. He 
 sat up once or twice gasping like a little boy in a night 
 mare. If Sophie were dying now ! If she were 
 mad ! He clutched at the pocket containing Lau 
 rie s letter and, remembering his vision of her reading 
 face, he put his head down on his arms and wept. 
 Early daybreak, before Mary had stirred, brought a 
 letter to the door by the hand of a stray messenger. 
 It was addressed to Kinwydden in a flowery, shaded 
 hand. 
 
 You are hardened enough, I know, to be careless of most 
 consequences, but when it comes to bringing real disaster 
 upon the lives of people that have signally befriended you, 
 I can t help hoping, in spite of evidence to the contrary, 
 that this appeal may have some consequence. Your repu 
 tation in Sluypenkill having become overnight an evil smell 
 in the nostrils of the community, you may imagine what 
 an effect your presence in Mary Grinscoombe s house will 
 have upon her life and reputation. You can go back to the 
 
238 "Q" 
 
 West, but she must necessarily stay here. Believe me, you 
 are doing her terrible, irreparable injury. 
 
 SALES 
 
 Q hurried back from the door, which he had opened, 
 got hastily together the few articles he had scattered 
 about the sitting-room, sat down at Mary s table, and 
 wrote a few lines. 
 
 Thanks to you, ma am, and your father, I have passed a 
 comfortable night. N I will see you again when the clouds 
 roll by as Mrs. Stopper puts it. If I have made mistakes 
 in this writing, it is because I feel pretty bad about not see 
 ing you to tell you my story. I will come back and tell you 
 the whole truth. Don t you put no faith in doc. I am not 
 telling you good-bye. 
 
 Q. 
 
 This he folded and set up in a conspicuous place, 
 and, lifting his bag he went out into the wan and 
 empty street. And this time, wearily but with cer 
 tainty of a welcome, he turned his face toward the 
 Grinscoombe Mill. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE VOICE OF RUMOR 
 
 DR. SALES straddled below the portrait of Sir Sydney 
 Grinscoombe and visibly exulted. He swelled out 
 chest and stomach, blew up his cheeks, and let the 
 sparkle of victory snap from his eyes. His voice could 
 not constrain itself to soberness; its usual flowing sur 
 face was vivaciously rippled. 
 
 "I won t say I told you so, though I might! You 
 turned out your protege in the very nick of time, 
 Selda the very last nick if the figure will pass." 
 He chuckled happily. 
 
 Miss Selda s face looked as though it had forgotten 
 happiness. She held her stiff pose and her stony gaze 
 with a strained effort. There was no evidence in her 
 skin or lips of blood; some thin and acid fluid filled 
 her narrow veins. 
 
 "Then in some way since the day before yesterday 
 Q has justified your opinion of him?" There was a 
 note almost of anxiety in her impeccable, dry speech. 
 
 Sales struggled against a smile, managing to purse 
 his soft mouth judicially, the whole outer man a visi 
 ble medium for the antagonistic modelings of sincere 
 emotion and of hypocrisy. "He has indeed! A pity! 
 All that romance of the West. Heloise must be told." 
 
 "What must Heloise be told?" The girl s voice 
 announced her entrance, an ironical young voice and 
 a languid intrusion which took her only halfway to- 
 
240 "Q" 
 
 ward them, and left her poised for an immediate de 
 parture. What Sales told kept her there, however, 
 and flushed her pink from the lace collar of her gown 
 to the smooth dark gold of her hair. 
 
 "Q was run out of the River Hotel yesterday, and 
 every door in Sluypenkill is shut against him. I be 
 lieve" a chuckle broke past his control like an 
 escaping gnome "he has found a refuge with a 
 drunken mill-hand, a man you dismissed some time 
 ago by my advice, but who has since, for some reason 
 or another, been taken on again. " 
 
 " I took him back at Q s request. The man had lost 
 his wife and had a family. He stopped drinking. " 
 
 "Well well! To go on, Q doesn t dare run 
 away because he knows such a move would lead in 
 stantly to his arrest. " 
 
 "What are you talking about, Dr. Sales !" Heloise 
 cried out sharply. 
 
 "About a very serious scandal, my dear, not really 
 fit for your ears, but, unfortunately a necessary 
 warning. " 
 
 Heloise moved angrily. 
 
 "Last night, Q was put out of the hotel for an abom 
 inable attempt upon Sophie, a waitress. There was an 
 alarm of fire, the curtains in the room immediately 
 below Kinwydden s caught. There was a great deal 
 of confusion and alarm. In the midst of it, Benton 
 heard a persistent and terrified screaming for help. 
 He and the head waiter traced it to Q s room, which 
 they found locked on the outside. With the help of a 
 fireman they broke down the door and found Sophie 
 
The Voice of Rumor 241 
 
 roped, if you please, in the style of Western melo 
 drama to Q s biggest chair and gagged with his silk 
 handkerchief. She d managed to work her lips free 
 from the gag and was beside herself with fear. She 
 must have been pretty well man-handled, for she was 
 in dreadful shape, clothes torn, hair disheveled, wrists 
 cut to the bone, and out of her senses, hysterical. 
 They called me in, but we could n t get anything out 
 of her. Kinwydden, returning from some hurried 
 expedition he probably meant to take Sophie off 
 with him last night, perhaps he was out after a drug, 
 I wish we d searched him ! and knowing nothing of 
 the fire, walked calmly into Benton s clutches and was 
 brought face to face with his victim. I ve never seen 
 so abject and cringing a rogue as he looked all the 
 bravado turned to fear. He refused to explain. Of 
 course, they re trying to keep it quiet for the girl s 
 sake. They pitched him out of the hotel person 
 ally I think they ought then and there to have locked 
 him up, but Benton would n t have it. They thought 
 they could keep the whole story quiet, which of course 
 they can t. He ll probably try to sneak off. Well, 
 ladies a nice story, isn t it?" Somehow Sales 
 found himself unable to look at Heloise, a side glance 
 having showed her so white and still. "So much for 
 the romantic West!" 
 
 He managed to smile regretfully, but Miss Selda 
 could not return the smile. She had a broken look and 
 sat back in her chair. She was remembering Q s eyes. 
 
 "There must be some mistake. Sophie must ex 
 plain. Perhaps there s a good reason for his silence. 
 Is the girl better? Can she talk? " 
 
242 "Q !> 
 
 Sales flushed deeply and angrily. Her unexpected 
 defense irritated him. The spark-like eyes, however, 
 shifted with some uneasiness. "I am keeping her 
 under a narcotic at present. For a few minutes this 
 morning she was quite herself, but I could n t allow 
 her to talk. It would have been dangerous. Besides, 
 she offered no explanation; seemed rather dull and 
 desperate. Poor child! I m afraid, Selda" he 
 dropped his voice "that it was the sort of terrible 
 unspeakable experience that can never be described. 
 He s a savage brute." 
 
 "Perhaps," murmured Miss Selda, her hand across 
 her eyes, "he will marry her. Has she any family?" 
 
 "Yes, a father, the head waiter, a respectable old 
 fellow, quite heart-broken." 
 
 "Has he tried to do anything, I mean, to ar 
 range " 
 
 "Oh, they can t do anything until they ve heard 
 Sophie s story. But she won t marry Q; not a chance. 
 She shrinks at the mere mention of his name." 
 
 Silence followed, during which a maid delicately 
 intruded to place Miss Selda s mail in her hands and 
 then withdrew, her eyes betraying curiosity. Hel- 
 oise took advantage of this interruption to escape. 
 She was still white, but bore herself daintily, as 
 though she were a creature aloof from sordid reali 
 ties. 
 
 Miss Selda glanced absently down at the letters in 
 her hand and became at once electrified. She rapidly 
 tore open a dense white envelope. When she looked 
 up from this, it was with the smile of Sir Sydney 
 
The Voice of Rumor 243 
 
 Grinscoombe, She caressed the letter with long fin 
 gers; the stony self-possession had returned in force. 
 
 "You were quite right, William," she said. "I ad 
 mit it. It was foolish to imagine that the young man 
 had any intrinsic merit. One is too prone to fancy 
 that a rough stone must necessarily be a rough dia 
 mond. I suppose Heloise has had quite a miraculous 
 escape from some unpleasant day of reckoning. My 
 fault entirely ! I let down the bars for a reason 
 which, luckily, has now" again she stroked the 
 letter "ceased to exist." She smiled slightly. "He 
 was an amusing creature. He might have been use 
 ful. Perhaps he was." She dismissed him with a ges 
 ture and, rising, walked over to her desk and put her 
 letter very carefully away. Then, turning, "We can 
 all forget about him now, William. He was always, 
 for some reason I could n t quite fathom, a thorn in 
 your flesh. I wish Fate could remove some other 
 thorns as easily." 
 
 "From my flesh?" William rather uneasily re 
 plied, his hands at their seeking motions instantly. 
 
 "Yes." Miss Selda hesitated, standing with a hand 
 on her desk. She looked cruel. "I was going to send 
 for you this morning in any case, after church, 
 which I see we have both missed." 
 
 "You were going to send for me?" 
 
 "Yes, about an absurd, perhaps an alarming inci 
 dent. This paper I found lying on my floor this 
 morning. It had been weighted with a stone and 
 tossed in through my window. It has to do with 
 you." 
 
244 "Q" 
 
 She took a crumpled sheet from her dress and 
 handed it to him. Sales read and whitened. 
 
 We are going to get rid of William Sales [he read]. If you 
 don t chuck him from the hospital staff and publish your 
 reasons for doing so before next Monday at four, we are 
 going to take the law in our own hands. It will go hard with 
 Sales. He is, in the eyes of God, his own conscience, and 
 our judgment, a murderer. 
 
 This was signed, "Widower." 
 
 Sales read and stared at the bold round signature. 
 His indolent memory dimly bestirred itself. He fum 
 bled with his ghosts. "A widower?" Clinton s wife 
 who had died of lock-jaw in the ward they could 
 hardly get him for that. Nobody could know least 
 of all the slovenly head nurse he had retained in office 
 that he had n t properly sterilized his set of in 
 struments, taking a chance because it was late and he 
 was dining out. Perhaps it was the big Blain woman. 
 No, she had been a widow and her case would n t 
 have creditably borne inspection from surviving rela 
 tives. Stay! There had been a midnight call, on a 
 stormy night, last spring. Some woman at the Gully 
 a bad heart! He remembered now the voice of the 
 summoner. "It would n t do you no good to know 
 my name, doc; I m a stranger in these parts. But the 
 woman is took awful bad. Say, doc, you better 
 come." Why, that voice had been Q s. Sales had 
 never linked the disassociated incident the voice, 
 drawling, incredulous, urgent, through the wet night 
 now startled him vividly. Sales wondered why in 
 God s name he had n t tumbled out of his bed to obey 
 
The Voice of Rumor 245 
 
 that summons. He remembered that he had been 
 half-dead with sleep and he had said something about 
 a rabbit-warren, something outrageous. 
 
 "You re badly frightened, aren t you, William?" 
 
 Miss Selda s tone had a poniard s point. 
 
 "Of course not!" he exploded instantly. "What 
 nonsense! The fools %that write such letters are the 
 least fearful beings in the world. Cowards and liars ! " 
 His big face was blotched; he began to move about, 
 ponderously quivering. "But you ve got to do some 
 thing, Selda. On my word, you have" he was sud 
 denly a leering bully. He rolled his head at her. 
 "You don t allow such a letter to influence you, I 
 hope." This was a threat. 
 
 "You have brought such letters upon yourself, 
 William," she returned with a quivering courage. 
 "How can I protect you forever from yourself, your 
 indolence, your ignorance, your criminal neglect?" 
 
 He swelled, his big face copper-colored. "You 
 you you! What have n t you to fear? What can 
 hurt me as you can be hurt by me?" 
 
 At this she walked rapidly and stood beneath Sir 
 Sydney s portrait, her trembling hands clenched on 
 the edge of the mantel. It seemed almost as if she 
 looked to that old contemptuous symbol of Grins- 
 coombery for help. 
 
 "Oh, don t," she cried out pitifully, "don t dare to 
 speak like that. I I of course I ll do all I can. 
 You know it. All I can. What else have I done with 
 my life but use it for your ladder, your shield! It s 
 been long my life! Please get back to your own 
 
246 "Q" 
 
 house now, William. I want to feel again that this is 
 mine." 
 
 He laughed all shakenly and discordantly and fum 
 bled his way through the gold-colored curtains to the 
 front door. He was a very different figure from the 
 one that had rolled in triumphantly an hour before. 
 
 Miss Selda, beneath Sir Sydney s sneering portrait, 
 wept. She wept proudly, her body shaken against 
 stern repression. Gradually the stillness soothed her, 
 the sound of church bells, irregularly regular, shak 
 ing dim music across warm roofs, hay-fields, and 
 drowsy August woods. She became gradually aware 
 of footsteps in the house, across the floor above. That 
 must be Heloise. The poor girl was unhappy; the 
 steps had a driven and tormented sound, terribly 
 shocked by the disillusionment concerning Q. Poor, 
 wild, beautiful, distracted thing! Miss Selda drew 
 herself together and dried her eyes and cheeks. The 
 exquisite suffering of youth how she envied it ! 
 the adorable sweet pangs of hope and of despair, the 
 throbbing of blood like a savage, monotonous beating 
 of tom-toms, an inherited rhythm of desire. She was 
 wistful over her child, her one tenderness. Well, she 
 must let the girl fight for a brief while longer; how 
 splendidly the plot was working. What success! If 
 she had misshapen her own life, at least she had saved 
 Lelo s from deformity. And Q he had helped just 
 long enough. There was a certain irony in that. Civ 
 ilization could so easily bend simplicity to its pur 
 poses and then so lightly discard the instrument. 
 Poor Q! Poor boy! 
 
The Voice of Rumor 247 
 
 The telephone rang in the hall, a maid s feet 
 tapped and went upstairs with a message. Heloise s 
 restless pacing stopped. She was going slowly over to 
 her own telephone upstairs. Miss Selda waited. She 
 heard low, emphatic answers, a little reckless, stac 
 cato laugh. She recognized the tone as that appropri 
 ate to Ferdinand Fadden. What a nuisance! Miss 
 Selda suffered from a plebeian temptation to listen 
 over the downstairs telephone, a temptation which 
 the trained censor of her consciousness cut dead as 
 though he had not even recognized it. The conversa 
 tion upstairs was lasting an interminable while. 
 There was evidently some sort of argument. The 
 final sentence rang clear through an accidentally 
 opened door. "Of course, then, I ll come. That will 
 prove that I m not afraid of you. Good-bye." 
 
 Miss Selda started away from her attitude of tense 
 listening, seated herself at her desk, examined the 
 contents of the heavy envelope for an address, and be 
 gan to write brief, urgent sentences with the not 
 quite steady fingers of a need. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 MISS SELDA CALLS FOR HELP 
 
 Q HAD never heard of the "slings and arrows of out 
 rageous fortune," but he solved Hamlet s propounded 
 problem instantly, without any faltering of wits. 
 He took arms against his sea of troubles. First, he 
 decided, it was urgent to get Laurie Sales s letter to 
 Sophie at the earliest moment permitted by her re 
 covery, which, he assured himself, allowing for the 
 elder Sales s spite, must be a matter of a few hours 
 rest and care. A severe fright the girl had no doubt 
 suffered, and coming on top of a long strain and a vio 
 lent emotional reaction, it was enough to put her into 
 hysterics. But Sophie was a particularly healthy 
 woman and did not belong to the class whose nerves 
 had been indulged by fretful introspective idleness. 
 She would come quickly back to normal. But she 
 ought to get her letter. It would be an efficacious 
 remedy for the depressing cures enforced by Sales, 
 Ben ton, and her "Poppa." Q, in his factory-house 
 refuge, meditated the intervention of Mary Grins- 
 coombe, but, remembering her former disapproval of 
 his interference in the affairs of Laurie, he decided 
 against it. After all, he might just as well deliver the 
 confidential message himself. Benton and Company 
 could n t be forever on guard; it would take three or 
 four of them to throw him out. They "wouldn t 
 likely " call in the police. Miss Mariana had always 
 
Miss Selda Calls for Help 249 
 
 been his friend. Before he had come to an end of all 
 the excellent reasons for putting his plan into prac 
 tice, he found himself ascending the dingy steps of the 
 River Hotel. Five minutes before, Q s observation 
 had informed him that Ben ton had gone out, it was 
 the hour of the head waiter s necessary absorption in 
 dining-room duties, Sales had gone his rounds, and 
 was probably now taking a siesta in his inner office, 
 Miss Mariana would be at the desk, Bill in or near 
 the elevator. 
 
 Q ran up the steps and strolled across the lobby. 
 He said, "Good-mornin to you" pleasantly to Miss 
 Benton, and stepped into the elevator. 
 
 Bill wavered in the doorway, looking over his 
 shoulder for instructions, and was pulled in. Q 
 slammed the door. 
 
 "You lift me up to Sophie s floor, feller," he mur 
 mured gently, "afore I start shootinV 
 
 And the elevator slowly rose. Bill s expression was 
 beatific, though wan. Drama had come at last into 
 his life. 
 
 "Stop where you are until I come back savvy!" 
 
 Q, speaking grimly over his shoulder as he stepped 
 out, received a multiplied nod. 
 
 "What s her room?" 
 
 "Down the hall, Number 25," Bill breathed out, 
 his nostrils working like small bellows. 
 
 Q ran to this door and knocked. "You Sophie 
 gel," he said. 
 
 She cried out softly, and he came in, closing the 
 door behind him. She was propped up on her pil- 
 
250 "Q" 
 
 lows, all her dark hair spread about her and her eyes 
 alight. He stepped over to her. "You ain t scared of 
 me, gel?" and his voice shook. "You know I d a* 
 been drug by an outlaw bronc afore I d a done you 
 any hurt." 
 
 She nodded; instantly her eyes were hungry for the 
 letter in his hand. 
 
 "I d have told them," she said, "but they won t 
 listen. They say I mustn t talk. And" with a 
 deep rose-hearted blush of humiliation "it was so 
 awfully hard to explain about Rupert. I Ve been 
 sick over you, Q. I ve been furious about the way I 
 acted. I was scared to death because of the fire, but I 
 did n t mind what you did " She laughed uncer 
 tainly. "Somehow I can understand you, and you 
 were right. It was exactly what I needed. I came to 
 with a jump. Oh, Q, think where and what I d have 
 been by this time!" 
 
 "Quit talkin , dear. Look, I ve got a letter for 
 you." 
 
 He put it into her hands and turned to go. But at 
 the door he could n t resist looking back. She was 
 reading her letter, her face glowed, she had already 
 forgotten him. He went out, smiling. 
 
 Bill, very solemn now, took him down. 
 
 "Say," Bill hissed between the second and third 
 floors, "I m for you, bo, all right. I m wise to 
 Sophie and that drummer-boy. Give me a new job 
 and I ll split on her and quit." 
 
 Q s eyes widened for an instant. "You hold your 
 tongue, Bill," he said, grinning. "Stick by the buzz- 
 
Miss Selda Calls for Help 251 
 
 box. Likely you 11 get a raise higher than the sixth 
 floor. Tell em I stuck a six-shooter under your 
 floatih rib. They 11 believe it. Good-bye to you." 
 
 He bowed again to the rosy and blinking Mariana, 
 who had spent the interval in staring at the elevator 
 door, rejoicing in Q s good looks and dashing behav 
 ior, and wondering whether it was her duty to call 
 Sophie s father and ring for the police and so ran 
 out and down the steps. So much for the Sophie gel f 
 A vast weight had fallen from his heart. It left it free 
 to feel the keen ache of Heloise s desertion. Before he 
 reached his room under the flat, red-hot tin roof of his 
 refuge, he was white and his lips were drawn. He had 
 walked the dusty roads all afternoon trying to out 
 distance pain. How could he quirt himself into an ac 
 ceptance of defeat? He had sworn to Sir Sydney 
 Grinscoombe that he would win that girl. All her 
 beauty swam before his senses as he sat bowed on the 
 edge of his iron cot. The room was darkening, for it 
 was late evening, and against the dimness Q s weary 
 eyes painted the pictures of his desire. Presently he 
 closed them and fell back across the bed, throwing up 
 an arm over his face. He was down, but he was fight 
 ing, only, this time, it was himself. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Kinwydden," a child s nasal voice 
 whined at his door. "Oh, say, looka here, Mr. Kin 
 wydden, now, you re wanted at the telephone." 
 
 He came to his feet, startled, and felt his way to the 
 door. The room was very dark; the cloudy August 
 night seemed to clog all his senses. 
 
 "Where did you say, Kitty?" 
 
Q 
 
 "Downstairs in the hall, mister, right clost near 
 the door. The gas-jet s lighted you 11 see." 
 
 "Sure. I savvy. The telephone." 
 
 Q descended two narrow flights of uncarpeted stair 
 way and put a greasy receiver to his ear. The voice 
 sent a shock along his limbs. It was a quiet, even 
 voice, choosing its syllables precisely, but it was the 
 voice of panic. 
 
 "Is this you, Mr. Kinwydden? This is Miss Selda 
 Grinscoombe speaking. I found out from the Mills 
 foreman where you were. Mr. Kinwydden, you once 
 made me a promise." 
 
 "Yes, ma am," said Q. His voice was the counter 
 part in sound of chilled iron. Even across stretched 
 wires, the voice must have given warning, for Miss 
 Selda s tones hurried unevenly. 
 
 "Now you have a grievance against me, perhaps a 
 just one ?! 
 
 "No, ma am, I knowed you were n t responsible," 
 he said, and caused a short silence. 
 
 Then the hurrying voice began again; it was 
 frankly pleading. 
 
 "Q, I need your help, desperately. My child, my 
 little Heloise, is in terrible danger." 
 
 He waited; the gas-jet showed his unrelenting 
 mask. 
 
 "She has gone off with Fadden oh, I hoped it 
 was just for an evening spin, but it s worse. He has 
 dared her to risk herself. They they were bound 
 for an inn in the mountains," she gasped heavily, aud 
 ibly. "It s called Folly Inn. It is not a respectable 
 
Miss Selda Calls for Help 253 
 
 place, Q. It is absolutely secluded, remote, inacces 
 sible. Out there he will have her in his power, and I 
 happen to know that he is angry with her. I have 
 telephoned the inn, but they don t answer. Q, are 
 you listening to me?" she wailed; he could hear her 
 strike the telephone table with her clenched hand. 
 " Yes, ma am. I m hearing everything you say." 
 "It s now half-past twelve, and they re not back." 
 Q did not move an eyelash. Miss Selda, when she 
 next spoke, was weeping. 
 
 "Heloise would be here, if she could. I feel her ter 
 ror. I feel her crying for help for your help. Q, 
 whatever grievance you may have against me, she has 
 no part in. Heloise believes in you." 
 
 "I ll be at the inn in about forty minutes," said Q. 
 "I know where it lays. I can get a car here pretty 
 quick by means of a friend who has the running of his 
 own machine. I ll leave him here and speed the ani 
 mal myself. I learned how to stick it, more or less. 
 Quiet, lady, quiet! Good-night to you." 
 He hung up. 
 
 A road, once traveled by Q, was mapped indelibly 
 in his memory. He was very trail- wise. He could 
 have followed the wandering lanes to Folly Inn with 
 a blindfold over his face. This was nearly what he 
 had to do that night, for it was a night of solid dark 
 ness through which the Ford seemed to be jerking a 
 passage for itself. The owner of the car had given it 
 to him with reluctance; damages must be assured; he 
 expected the complete destruction of his means of 
 livelihood. In fact, a more desperate venture than 
 
254 "Q" 
 
 Q s that night could hardly be imagined. He knew 
 far less about the car than the average modern small 
 boy. He did erratic things. His course was alter 
 nately a crawl and a bound, and it was almost invari 
 ably serpentine. At regular intervals he stalled his 
 engine. He struggled up hills with his brake on and 
 plunged down them with it off. At last, by dint of 
 "giving the animal its head," and going at a shaken, 
 undiminished, breakneck speed, he solved most of his 
 problems, and went leaping like a madman through 
 the night. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 AT FOLLY INN 
 
 WHEN Heloise, witch-like and swift, had left Q to face 
 his punishment at the hands of Sales and Miss Grins- 
 coombe, she had meant to run back to her dangerous 
 game with Ferdy in the garden. This intention had 
 taken her rapidly down the steps, more deliberately 
 along the path between the high hedges, and had fal 
 tered suddenly at sight of Ferdinand himself. She 
 had paused just where he was visible around the cor 
 ner of her shelter. He was leaning meditatively for 
 ward, fishing for a cherry at the bottom of his tall, 
 narrow glass, and his teeth showed between his smil 
 ing lips. It was this smile that gave her heart a 
 wrathful twist and sent her presently tiptoeing back 
 between the hedges to the house. Let him sit there 
 and smile until his smile had time to fade into an as 
 tonished blankness. Why was he, after all, so sure of 
 her? He must fancy that, because she trembled, she 
 loved him ! No, that was not the name for the excite 
 ment he proffered her. She had learned to recognize, 
 at least, what it was not. In her room upstairs she 
 watched at her window, saw him fidget in his chair, 
 look up at the house, saw him move about. The sun 
 light faded from the gay canvas umbrella; he was a 
 white and solid figure in the dimness. She fancied 
 she heard the short oath with which he presently 
 jerked his big angry body away and flung it into his 
 
256 "Q" 
 
 limousine. He did not look up at the house. His 
 broad young shoulders were sullenly squared under 
 his thin coat. Heloise laughed between her fingers 
 like a naughty child. Lesson the first for Ferdinand! 
 And their next meeting would be, after this set-back, 
 thrilling and dangerous enough. She would be cool, 
 no more shaking; she was done with her shaking. 
 
 When, on the Sunday morning, the maid called her 
 to the telephone, and she heard his voice, she reined 
 in her nervous excitement with both the hands of her 
 will. Only a few minutes before, the watch-dog had 
 been utterly disqualified for office. Dr. Sales s story 
 of a waitress and a fire had stung the girl s Grins- 
 coombery to rage. Sluypenkill, perhaps New York, 
 would get hold of the story and drag her into it as Q s 
 alternate distraction. After all, why should she need 
 protection? She had always been able to take care of 
 herself. Ferdy had, of course, once narrowed her 
 world to the grip of his arms, and she had been able 
 hardly to draw in her breath, but at her first word he 
 had released her. 
 
 "Are you shaking this morning?" Ferdinand s 
 voice through the telephone fell suavely on her ear. 
 "I think I can hear your heart beat over the wires." 
 
 "It s your own heart, Ferdinand. I never felt less 
 like shaking in my life." 
 
 "What s given you back your nerve?" 
 
 "I never lost it." 
 
 "Then it was n t because your protector was called 
 off that you never came back Friday afternoon?" 
 
 "Of course not. Don t laugh. I insist upon your 
 
At Folly Inn 257 
 
 believing me, Ferdy. Why should I be afraid of 
 you?" 
 
 "Why, indeed?" he asked. 
 
 "Did you call me up to tease me about my lack of 
 nerve ? Because I have other and better ways of 
 spending a Sunday morning." 
 
 "On your knees, eh? I d like to see you before a 
 prie-dieu under a stained-glass window like some little 
 medieval saint. You d be pretty and convincing 
 almost. Heloise, my precious hypocrite, I don t be 
 lieve one word you say. You did n t come out to me 
 again because you were scared to death. Remember, 
 I saw your hands shake, and you told me you d sent 
 for Q. You re a short sport, Lelo." 
 
 "Ami? I d like to prove it." 
 
 "You can do that easily enough." There was a 
 pause here, filled with the quick humming of their 
 invisible medium. 
 
 "How?" she asked. She felt as she had often felt 
 on the hunting-field before the getaway. Her heart 
 had begun its smothered beating. 
 
 "By coming out and having supper with me to 
 morrow. Will you do that? I d like" here he was 
 humble and rather sweet "to prove to you that I 
 am a gentleman, Lelo." 
 
 "Where would we have supper you mean late 
 supper?" 
 
 "Oh, no say eight o clock, at an inn, a jolly lit 
 tle old quiet place I know of back in the mountains. 
 We ll have supper there and come back by moon 
 light." 
 
258 "Q" 
 
 "There won t be a moon, Ferdy." 
 
 "Damn the moon ! Then there 11 be stars if not, 
 there will be your pretty green eyes, Lelo. I ll be 
 have beautifully and so will you." 
 
 "Of course." 
 
 "And we ll swear friendship on the inn Bible in the 
 front parlor. It s like that. Well" he sighed and 
 managed to convey a sneer "you are nervy, are n t 
 you?" 
 
 "Oh, I m coming. I was just wondering about 
 Aunt Selda. She would n t like it a little bit." 
 
 "But you don t always consider that interesting 
 detriment to a good time so carefully." 
 
 "N-no." 
 
 "Honestly don t you trust me, Heloise?" 
 
 "I don t," said Heloise with a profound and genu 
 ine bitterness, "trust any one, least of all myself, 
 Ferdinand. I have pinned my faith on the honor and 
 sincerity of two men who have both quite conspic 
 uously failed me, and forgive me, please they 
 were quite certainly much more promising specimens 
 of chivalry than you are." 
 
 "Just shows how bad a hand you are at experimen 
 tal psychology. Are you coming to supper?" 
 
 " Of course I 11 come. That will prove that I m not 
 afraid of you." 
 
 "I ll be at the Manor at seven o clock sharp." 
 There was something hard, a quality of decision in his 
 voice that she had never heard in it before and that 
 kept her attention focused after he had hung up, as 
 he did immediately. Ferdy s voice was usually soft, 
 
At Folly Inn 259 
 
 either sweetly or sullenly. That last speech had a 
 business man s incisiveness, the tone of some one who 
 has put through a successful deal. 
 
 Heloise spent the interval of time in a sort of vigil 
 preparing for a final triumph over her tiger cub. One 
 must never show fear to these pet wild things. She 
 would be marble inside and ice outside, and withal 
 the pleasantest possible companion. She would be 
 both lion-tamer and woman of the world. She would 
 be Grinscoombery incarnate. How that foolish word 
 of Mary s adapted itself to her thoughts and filled 
 what must have been a need. Who was a Fadden up 
 start, when it came to that, to disturb the tranquil 
 lity of a Grinscoombe? She was great lady to her 
 finger-tips when she came down the steps to Ferdy s 
 car that Monday evening. 
 
 "What is the name of your inn, Ferdy, where you 
 think we can get supper?" she asked, just before she 
 stepped into the seat beside him. He had not yet 
 looked her in the face, but now he did, but with 
 opaque eyes. 
 
 "Folly Inn," he answered, and smiled. 
 
 She looked toward Aunt Selda, standing at a win 
 dow like a tall, austere medieval saint, disapproval in 
 carnate, and she was faintly startled to see a white, 
 distorted face move suddenly from her sight. At the 
 same instant Ferdy started his car and Heloise, look 
 ing back, could not decide whether or no Aunt Selda 
 had run out, unbelievably swift, upon the porch. 
 
 They talked very little on their leafy, dusky way to 
 Folly Inn. Ferdy seemed absorbed in nursing his car 
 
260 "Q" 
 
 along the rough hill roads. He was paler than usual 
 and had a look which Heloise described to herself as 
 44 swept and garnished." Had he really, perhaps, 
 driven out his pampered devil? Had her little lesson 
 of neglect really tamed him? The wicked girl was 
 conscious of a pang of disappointment. She felt flat. 
 Life was a tiresome and disappointing business at its 
 best or worst a shabby affair, unworthy of her 
 steel. True love had been timid and uncertain, chiv 
 alry had stained its shield, passion was a diluted 
 wine. The only possible solution was some cold com 
 promise with life such as Sir Sydney with his wedge- 
 like face must once have made and kept, too, cyni 
 cally, with that small, set smile. 
 
 The shabby inn received them into its shadows and 
 Heloise s youthful curiosity responded to the adven 
 ture. 
 
 "What a quaint place! Why have n t I ever heard 
 of it?" 
 
 The little smiling, sidling proprietor took her wrap 
 softly away and softly pocketed a fistful of something 
 which passed from Ferdinand s hand to his. He went 
 back to his counter and, when the two handsome 
 guests the only visitors were seated in their 
 small inner room at the daintily set round table, Der- 
 rek quietly made his preparations for an undisturbed 
 night. The dark young waiter had his instructions 
 for attendance, the cook knew what she was to serve, 
 there was nothing for Derrek to do save, smiling a lit 
 tle, to disconnect his telephone and to point out to 
 the waiter this small action, with a lifted eyebrow and 
 
At Folly Inn 261 
 
 a murmured word. The old man had been carted up 
 stairs to bed at sundown. Now Derrek locked up and 
 went up to his own room. He slept immediately 
 above the small company. 
 
 Heloise was charmed with her surroundings. It 
 was all quaint and smelt sweetly of roses and old 
 cleanliness and care. The floor was pleasantly un 
 even, a tiny fire snapped in the grate, for this room 
 had been damp, and up in the hills after sunset, the 
 night had a faint, insinuating chill in its suddenly 
 cooled sultriness. 
 
 Ferdy was a persuasive host. They drank to their 
 adventure in the cocktails he mixed. Heloise talked 
 amiably over their soup and their cutlets, their hot 
 biscuit and sweet corn, their ice-cream and apple 
 pie. They lingered interminably over coffee and 
 cheese and crackers. Ferdinand w r as an excellent lis 
 tener that evening, only he seemed to be listening to 
 the inn and to the night as closely as to her. 
 
 "I admit your nerve," he said, as she left the table 
 to sip from her small cup before the fire and the high, 
 narrow mantel shelf. "Haven t you ever really 
 heard of Folly Inn?" 
 
 He wandered round the table, now cleared, stop 
 ping for a second at the door before he joined her and 
 stood beside her across the uneven brick hearth. The 
 room was almost too warm with its closed shutters 
 and its fire. The mirror told Heloise that she was 
 brilliantly flushed; red and white and gold. She had 
 taken off her hat and wore the sheer black dress she 
 had chosen for its graceful dignity. It made her skin 
 a substance of electric fairness. 
 
262 "Q" 
 
 Ferdinand looked at her delicate bare forearm rest 
 ing along the mantel. 
 
 "No," she said, "I never heard it mentioned." 
 
 "It was once quite a famous little place. Some of 
 the rarest, choicest Hudson River scandals have been 
 hatched here." 
 
 "Scandals!" Her coffee-cup rattled as she set it 
 down. "Why, you said it was the sort of place where 
 there d be a Bible." 
 
 "As a matter of fact there is one, over on that 
 table. Do you want to hold it in your hands, Lelo?" 
 
 "Oh, no I don t feel the need of Bible support. 
 You ve never cooed so mildly, Ferdy." She affected a 
 delicate yawn. "You ve been almost boring 
 for once in your life." 
 
 "My wife tells me that for a large strong man, I m 
 fairly ineffectual." He was still looking down at the 
 arm and Lelo was aware of the unchanged direction of 
 his look and the slowly changing expression of his 
 face, from which a curtain like the curtain of a stage 
 was lifting gradually. 
 
 "She does say rather nasty things to you, does n t 
 she? Poor Ferdy!" 
 
 "Yes. After you didn t come back to the garden, I 
 
 went home in a bad humor. It was d d rude of 
 
 you, Lelo, to leave me there, and I had an unholy row 
 with Lucy. She told me she was at least more success 
 ful in her affairs than I seemed to be in mine. She 
 told me that you were making me look like a great fool 
 and act like one." 
 
 "Does she consider me one of your affairs, Fer- 
 
At Folly Inn 263 
 
 dinand?" Lelo examined her fingers to be certain 
 that they were entirely steady and not cold. 
 
 " Don t you?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Just no like that?" 
 
 "Just no like that!" 
 
 " I saw you on Saturday round the corner of that 
 hedge. You came back and looked me over and went 
 away and left me to sit there and cool my heels, 
 did n t you? You thought me the kind of puppy-dog 
 that puts up with that sort of kicking did n t 
 you?" 
 
 Heloise had a swift, revealing memory. "Seems 
 like she entertains the notion that a man is a safe lit 
 tle pet animal like some kind of a lapdog. I m not a 
 quarter so safe. Some day that lady is agoin to get 
 the lesson of her life if she don t quit temptin me " 
 It was n t possible, perhaps, that she, Heloise Grins- 
 coombe, had, in Q s terribly candid phrase, been 
 "tempting" Ferdy for the beguilement of her bitter, 
 disappointed tedium? Was it a dangerous game? 
 Could it be that a man was really not, when it came 
 to the final development, a safe plaything? Was this 
 sipping at passion the proper medicine for the restless 
 craving of an unsatisfied desire? Ferdy s physical 
 strength, the hot intemperance of his blood, his ob 
 vious desire for her, had been a stimulant, a distrac 
 tion. Perhaps she came to the decision suddenly 
 and completely she had better go home. 
 
 "It s been charming, Ferdy," she smiled and 
 moved around the table languidly. 
 
264 "Q" 
 
 "You re not going home yet?" he asked politely, 
 standing, however, still where he was. 
 
 " W-well, it must be very late. We ate like epicures 
 and I ve talked my head off. Aunt Selda will be get 
 ting very nervous about me." 
 
 He laughed shortly and inexplicably as she reached 
 the door. 
 
 "I can t open it," she said. 
 
 "Queer!" 
 
 " See if you can, Ferdy." 
 
 He tried obligingly and failed. 
 
 "There s something the matter with the catch." 
 
 "Urn-hum." 
 
 "Call the waiter." 
 
 "Oh, he goes back to his own wife and family after 
 hours." 
 
 "The proprietor, then." 
 
 "He s in bed. I heard him turn in about an hour 
 ago. He s snoring sound asleep by now. " 
 
 "Well, then, break open the door." 
 
 "Not on your life," said Ferdy roughly, and then 
 she turned and looked him over carefully. 
 
 "You are going," he said heavily, "to be punished 
 so you ll never forget it." 
 
 Heloise crimsoned. 
 
 "Punished? For what, please?" 
 
 "For making a fool of me, my dear." 
 
 "If you are a fool, Ferdinand, it was never of my 
 making." 
 
 "Are you afraid of me?" he asked. 
 
 He seemed to be swelling before her eyes. He 
 
At Folly Inn 265 
 
 looked very handsome, rather pale, his eyes thunder 
 ous and bright. 
 
 " Not in the least. I am amused." 
 
 "Good! Then come back and sit down before the 
 fire. I want to talk to you." 
 
 "Certainly." 
 
 She did sit down and stretched out her slenderly 
 slippered feet to the small glow. She rested her calm 
 hands on the painted wooden arms of her chair and 
 looked, not at Ferdinand, but down at the fire. You 
 must never show these fierce pets that you are afraid 
 of them. If Aunt Selda had known her whereabouts, 
 she would have been telephoning by now. Ferdinand 
 sat down, too, and folded his hands together. 
 
 " You see, Heloise, I knew you did n t really love 
 me a lot. You did find me rather well exciting, 
 did n t you?" 
 
 "Sometimes. I always thought you were a good 
 sort, that is, I always knew you were, Ferdy." In 
 spite of herself a little note of pleading had crept into 
 her cool, young, steady voice. 
 
 "Oh, I am a good sort, all right. And a good sport. 
 What did you think I was after?" 
 
 "You were after?" 
 
 "Yes. I don t waste my time, generally speaking." 
 
 "I thought that was the main business of your life, 
 Ferdy. Honestly I did." 
 
 "Well, you re wrong. I m a hunter." 
 
 "A hunter?" 
 
 " Um-hum like your Westerner after big game. 
 I ve a d d rotten married life, and I can t escape, 
 
266 "Q" 
 
 because Lucy does n t give me a loophole, and she 
 won t get rid of me as long as father s money holds 
 out you bet. Lucy is one grand little spender." 
 
 How insufferably vulgar he was! Lelo flagellated 
 her own tolerance of such a man. And she had so 
 much more rigorously kept Q in his place. Ah, Q! 
 Where are you? How could I ever have believed any 
 thing against you? If you tied up Sophie, it was for 
 some ridiculous chivalrous intention that Sluypenkill 
 could never, of course, interpret wisely. She would 
 write to Q. She would bring him to the Manor. 
 Those guarded eyes of his that sometimes opened to 
 show a deep, wild, gentle heart she was thirsty for 
 their coolness ! 
 
 "Excuse me, Ferdinand, I was n t listening. What 
 did you say then?" 
 
 "I said that you re a d d intelligent woman and 
 
 that you know me from A to Z, inside and out. You 
 knew I was n t a romantic cowboy or a gentlemanly 
 suitor. You knew I was hungry for every inch of 
 your beautiful body, that I wanted to kiss your lips so 
 that I could forget they were n t part of my own lips, 
 that I wanted to feel you under my hands " 
 
 "Hush! Hush!" She had stood up, freeing herself 
 from him, for he was on his knees and had wrapped 
 his arms about her slenderness. 
 
 "No, you can t run away. It s too late. You ve 
 got to give me something, Lelo, to-night, or I 11 never 
 let you go. Give me something, dear! Dear! Dear! 
 Why are n t you generous? Anything so beautiful 
 ought to be free as God s flowers! It never harms a 
 
At Folly Inn 267 
 
 woman to give it helps her beauty, it eases her 
 heart. Don t make a beast of me by struggling. 
 Come to me graciously ! You will be none the worse 
 for it " 
 
 The words and sentences were revealing, terrible 
 to her innocence, which, even with all her folly on her 
 head, all her half -knowledge, all her rashness, all her 
 near-experience, was, after all, so astonishing a thing 
 in contrast to Ferdinand s misunderstanding of it. 
 The little, breathless, wind-flower, wide-eyed girl that 
 lives, ignored and secret, in the breasts of so many 
 of these steel-armored, flippant young Bacchantes of 
 ball-room and motor-ride, now stood frozen with dis 
 may and heard the worst of love before she had ever 
 heard its best if there be in the confused torrent of 
 sex and spirit any best or worst, save in our warped 
 interpretations of them. Certainly, for Heloise, there 
 was a worst. With her training, with her background, 
 this experience was already a brand across her mind. 
 What it might be before she escaped can hardly bear 
 thinking of. And yet, how could Ferdinand have 
 looked through the affectation of a Cleopatra to the 
 little wide-eyed, wind-flower girl? Only such unbe- 
 wildered eyes as Q s, used to long distances, could 
 recognize her. Shy and sweet and wavering, she had 
 run out sometimes to look up at him. 
 
 Ferdinand, at her growing terror and rigidity, be 
 gan to be angry. He stood up, let her go, went roving 
 about the room, pleading and threatening, coming 
 closer to gather her persuasively against his heart, re 
 leasing her, at last dropping his mouth upon her neck. 
 
268 "Q" 
 
 "I m going to drink you down like wine," he said. 
 
 And she screamed piercingly, just as though talons 
 had been buried in her flesh. 
 
 Upstairs Derrek thrust his head under the covers 
 and cursed. "Now, that ain t what I took the money 
 for," he said. " Confound young Fadden ! I thought 
 she looked like a proud one. He s a nasty big ani 
 mal." But Derrek kept his covers wrapped close 
 about his ears, because the inn had very little custom 
 nowadays and Fadden s fist had held a bundle. 
 
 With the scream, Grinscoombery s pride fell, and 
 Heloise raved and wept and fought. She did n t hear 
 the crashing of a shutter, but she did know at last 
 that cold air blew upon her and that the tiger had 
 been plucked away. She heard Q say, "Yell for 
 your Popper now, Fer-dee-nand, like you did in the 
 cow-camp," and she saw a battle of young gods. 
 
 It was a terrible, beautiful spectacle, from which 
 she drew away to the farthest corner of the room, but 
 which she watched like one of those white, gold- 
 haired women of German forests, torn and disheveled, 
 her eyes phosphorescent, splendid, with fury and de 
 light. When Ferdinand lay, dead dragon under St. 
 George s foot, she crept forward and fell against Q. 
 
 "Please take me home," wailed the little girl who 
 would never again be a white wind-flower, for all Q s 
 timely rescue. She was burnt with kisses and with 
 gripping hands. 
 
 All through the dark, shaking, plunging journey, 
 neither Heloise nor Q spoke by a single breath. She 
 lay against him, silent, broken, sobbing at irregular 
 
At Folly Inn 269 
 
 intervals in big heart-broken sobs. He lifted her down 
 at the Manor door and she crept across its threshold, 
 and he, hearing low voices in the other room, drew 
 her quickly through the gold curtains and switched 
 on a light. The little room looked astonishingly prim 
 and gilt and undisturbed. Sir Sydney smiled. For a 
 minute Heloise drooped below him, then she came 
 two slow steps over to Q where he stood, somber, pit 
 iful, and white, his bruised face quivering. She put 
 her arms about his neck and tilted back her face, 
 which offered the reward of victory. 
 
 "If you think I am fit please kiss me, Q." 
 
 He shook. With a scared, pale look he put an arm 
 carefully about her and bent his lips. But she trem 
 bled to his kiss and clung, and slowly fired his blood. 
 She was, for the moment, his. 
 
 "What does it mean, Heloise your giving me 
 your lips? " 
 
 "It means anything you like, Q. You may have 
 everything, anything I can give you." 
 
 He kissed her again so gently that he did not hurt 
 her mouth, and he moved quietly away. 
 
 "I ll have to tell you good-night," he murmured; 
 then in front of the gold curtain he shot up to his 
 splendid height, his deep eyes lighted. He moved 
 them from Heloise to Sir Sydney Grinscoombe, and 
 he smiled. It was not his old smile, but it gleamed. 
 
 Heloise looked upon a disillusioned conqueror. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 JUSTICE 
 
 AT Q s command, "Quiet, lady, quiet!" Miss Selda 
 had faltered away from her telephone and, moving 
 back to her chair, had dropped into it and relaxed all 
 her trembling muscles. Since she had overheard, by a 
 mere chance, Ferdy s and Lelo s destination, she had 
 suffered indescribable torments of memory and of 
 alarm. There was a long battle with her pride which 
 set her calmly at the lonely dinner-table and took her 
 as calmly to an apparent reading of the newspapers, 
 which kept her chained to the rigidity of her usual 
 composure until midnight. Then, quite suddenly, 
 Miss Selda s self-control snapped. Thirty-nine years 
 ago at Folly Inn! To-night at Folly Inn! Her Hel- 
 oise! She went to her telephone and began a patient 
 searching through the night for Q. By the time his 
 voice came, hers was almost beyond her control. Not 
 until she had his reassurance did she understand what 
 the hours of suspense had done to her. She felt bone- 
 broken and nerve-stretched. She sat and let old age 
 coil round her like a snake. Let Lelo be brought back 
 safe and she would be old comfortably! 
 
 There was no ringing at the front door, which stood 
 open, but some one blundered heavily through it in a 
 blind, bat-like haste and pushed open the drawing- 
 room door upon her privacy. She turned her head 
 and saw William Sales white, puffy, disordered, 
 breathing fast. 
 
Justice 271 
 
 "Selda!" he whispered, coming over to her and 
 wiping sweat from his face repeatedly, first with one 
 hand, then with the other, "I hold you responsible for 
 this!" 
 
 She had pulled herself up straight in her deep chair 
 and was clutching its arms. 
 
 "You hold me responsible for what?" 
 
 44 They re after me. You ve got to keep them out." 
 
 Her relief was so great she thought he had come 
 with some terrible tidings of her niece that she 
 laughed. "Who are after you?" 
 
 "Those dogs from the Mills, sicked on me by that 
 Western devil of yours. Why did n t you do some 
 thing? You could have fired the lot. I tell you, 
 they re after me. I got a warning from a kid I Ve 
 given pennies to; came on a run. They re coming, 
 they re on their way " he quivered all over " with 
 a horsewhip ! " 
 
 "Coming here?" 
 
 "No, to my house. But they ll track me. He will. 
 He ll drag me out the bloodhound. He s been at 
 my heels since the first night. He ll get me." 
 
 "No, William, he s not with them. I know where 
 he is to-night. Be quiet, please. Sit down. You ve 
 been badly frightened. But I m sure it was a false 
 alarm. They won t come here for you" her teeth 
 slid against each other, then set "and if they do 
 come, I can manage them. They won t dare search 
 my house for you, I should hope. Sit down and keep 
 quiet, I say. I don t feel in the humor for a scene. I 11 
 get you some whiskey." 
 
272 "Q" 
 
 After he had drunk the whiskey, he collapsed and, 
 lying along the lounge, he panted like a dusty dog. 
 She moved about, ghostly and restless, listening to 
 the vague and distant noises of the night. They heard 
 the unbroken river-murmur, the occasional crescendo 
 and diminuendo of a passing train, at last the noisy 
 humming of a rapidly driven car. 
 
 "What s that?" he cried, coming up to a sitting 
 position and cowering against the cushions, clutching 
 at them with his hands. "It s coming in here, I tell 
 you!" 
 
 "Yes," she said. "Keep still. It s Heloise. She 
 has been out to a party." Then as there came a faint 
 murmur of Lelo s voice, Miss Selda s face grew calm 
 and its lines smoothed themselves out. She came over 
 to Sales, looked down at him and smiled at once 
 scornfully and indifferently. "Why don t you go up 
 stairs and get to bed? You are quite safe." 
 
 "Perhaps." He blew his lips in and out. "Well, 
 perhaps I am. Could it have been a false alarm? The 
 little rascal seemed scared himself. All his freckles 
 stood out, he was so pale. Well yes yes," he 
 murmured reassurance to himself as though his spirit 
 were a scared child, "I might as well go up and get 
 some sleep. But " on his way to the door he turned 
 and shook a finger at her "I hold you responsi 
 ble for my bodily safety, Selda." 
 
 She bent her head, smiling the Sir Sydney smile. 
 "I accept the responsibility, William it has been 
 the absurd and undignified punishment for my 
 mistake. Go upstairs. Physically you are safe 
 enough." 
 
Justice 273 
 
 Sales blundered out into the hall and found him 
 self face to face with Q. The young man bowed and 
 smiled. 
 
 "I ll run you home, doc," he said pleasantly. 
 
 Miss Selda had shrunk back from that meeting, 
 had closed the door upon it. She could not face Q, 
 whom, in Sales s presence, she had insulted and dis 
 missed, and who had responded to her call for help. 
 
 "I m spending the night here," Sales gasped out. 
 
 "No, sir. You aren t. You re coming back with 
 me. No use pulling back on the rope, doc. I was on 
 my way to you. The boys will get you if you don t 
 put your confidence in me. I was going to get round 
 to you earlier this evening, but I ve been delayed. 
 It s about two o clock, is n t it? We have three quar 
 ters of an hour, then, if we re quick." He stepped 
 close to Sales. "Get out, you big bully," he said ter 
 ribly, "and step into the Ford, or, by God, I ll thrash 
 you into a bigger jelly than God and your own lazi 
 ness has made." 
 
 Sales lifted up his voice to bleat for his patroness, 
 but his throat shut under Q s grasp. He was backed 
 slowly along the hall, across the veranda, and heaved 
 up, still by the neck, into the waiting Ford. Q 
 climbed to the wheel and they were off instantly at a 
 terrifying speed. 
 
 "I can t keep the critter going unless I give him 
 rein," Q explained equably. "Don t you shake your 
 self to pieces now, doc. Let the critter do the shaking 
 for you. I Ve took your case into my hands and I m 
 going to look after it good and plenty. You do like I 
 
274 "Q" 
 
 tell you to, and you won t get your lickin from the 
 boys much as you deserve it. 
 
 "Now, since we haven t got a whole lot of time, 
 you get up on the witness stand while I keep my hand 
 on the wheel, and you answer me a few questions. 
 Along about forty year ago, you was spending a 
 night at Folly Inn, was n t you? Now, look ahere, 
 you either speak out to me or you get your lickin 
 from the boys. Take your choice." 
 
 "Yes," muttered Sales. 
 
 "And that night, there come to the inn a young 
 lady and a man. You knowed who the young lady 
 was, and you begun to think it mighty queer for her 
 to be there in the company of a married man, did n t 
 you? Speak out so s I can hear above the critter s 
 breathing. He s broken- winded." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And along toward mornin that lady, who was 
 already scared and regretful of running away from 
 home and mother, came and slipped a letter under 
 your door, tellin you she had run away and was 
 scared and wanted to go back. Would you be kind 
 enough to take her? Is that so?" 
 
 Sales nodded, or the Ford bobbed his head for him. 
 
 "Likely she put a whole lot more into that letter. 
 She was scared silly and you was her last hope. Say, 
 doc, she trusted you. And so you took her home, got 
 her away quiet from the man, and helped her lie to 
 her pa. And you kept the letter and you kept her se 
 cret for her." 
 
 "Yes, sir, I did," Sales spoke almost roundly. 
 
Justice 275 
 
 "But, doc, what use did you make of that lucky 
 letter, eh? Say, you did n t use your secret ag in the 
 lady, did you? You did n t threaten that poor lady 
 with tellin her father or lettin Sluypenkill prick up 
 its ears or nothin of that nature, did you?" 
 
 "No, I did not," said Sales, almost as roundly. 
 
 "You liar!" murmured Q. "I reckon the 
 
 boys will have to have you, after all. You re too 
 dirty a pack for me to handle." 
 
 "Do you blame a man for furthering his career, for 
 letting a woman whom he had helped and saved and 
 shielded from disgrace, further it for him?" 
 
 Q made no answer. They were nearing Sales s door 
 and presently the doctor found himself, a steel hand 
 on his arm, led back into his own house, through a sit 
 ting-room to his office at the rear. There Q switched 
 on a light and looked at his watch. 
 
 "Not much time but enough," he said. "The 
 boys are on their way. Now, Sales" he pointed 
 the big, wan, shaken body to the patient s chair and 
 seated himself in the doctor s usual place behind his 
 desk "this is where you get a diagnosis of your 
 case. 
 
 "You re a liar and a coward and a dirty bully. 
 You re a blackmailer; you re dern near to bein a 
 murderer. All your smoothness and your smilin and 
 your slidin ain t agoin to help you any now. Your 
 career is reachin chapter last. Fork out that pre 
 cious document of yourn I mean, Miss Grins- 
 coombe s letter. It s in your waistcoat pocket in a 
 leather case; I ve seen you fingerin it when she was 
 gettin restive. Hurry up, man." 
 
276 "Q" 
 
 In the silence came a distant shuffling of feet. 
 The doctor pulled out the leather case numbly, and 
 numbly handed a closely written thin sheet to Q. He 
 glanced at it and put it into his pocket. Then he rose. 
 
 "Now," he said, "I m agoin to run you out of 
 town. Here. Put out that light. By God, they re on 
 their way." 
 
 He gripped his prisoner, locked the office door, and 
 with all haste and silence the two men, Sales shuffling 
 frantically ahead, got themselves along a passage, 
 through a close, clean kitchen, and out into a garden. 
 
 "Quit your shakin , man," Q muttered as they 
 plunged down a hill, through a brook and into a lane. 
 "I left a note for them on your desk, tellin them I 
 had took care of your case. I had to have them on 
 their way, to squeeze the truth out of you. Pressure. 
 Ah! Here s my hoss!" They were almost upon the 
 pony tied to a tree near the roadside, before Sales saw 
 it. He started back violently. 
 
 Q, whistling softly through his teeth, untied a rope 
 from the Western saddle. "I bought me a couple of 
 these here ponies soon after I come," he said; "I 
 knowed they d come in useful. You told me once, 
 doc, you d run a couple of youngsters out of Sluypen- 
 kill." 
 
 Sales, listening to sounds and seeing lights up there 
 in his house, breathed fast and audibly. 
 
 "Well, sir, I am agoin to run you out. Onct 
 four months ago I called you up to come see a 
 woman took sick with heart trouble." Here a rope 
 settled about Sales s body, his hands were pulled 
 
Justice 277 
 
 back of him and deftly fastened together at the 
 wrists. Q swung himself into the saddle. "You told 
 me it was too bad a night; you told me it was better 
 for them rabbits to die off. Well, sir, the woman died 
 all right. It ain t such a bad night now. There s no 
 rain. The dust is pretty thick when a pony kicks it 
 up. But, because you did n t drive along this road 
 that night, you re agoin to run yourself along it now. 
 Doc, you re agoin to run every step of the way to 
 the Gully. I ve got a short rope on you and I kin 
 keep you from droppin in your tracks. You ve made 
 Miss Grinscoombe eat dust; now tell me how you 
 like the taste of it yourself." 
 
 The pony started down the hill at a jog-trot. 
 
 Four miles of rough country road, four miles 
 through apple orchards and by fields under a clear 
 ing sky of stars that began to fade into dawn, four 
 miles of sweat and fear and anguish and dry, choking 
 dust. When Q reined in his pony at last, the doctor 
 dropped heavily to the earth. 
 
 Q dismounted, helped his victim to stand up, and 
 dusted him off carefully, putting a soft hat on his 
 head. 
 
 "You got to make a railway journey now," he said. 
 "I ll see your things get sent after you. You re not 
 comin back to Sluypenkill. I Ve put your case into 
 the hands of the mayor, the editor of the Daily 
 News, and the factory directors. They all know 
 enough of your history to jail you, or worse. I Ve got 
 the details about Mrs. Clinton and Mrs. Blain and 
 that feller that died of gangrene. Your pet nurse 
 
278 "Q" 
 
 down there, Mrs. Nallow, has gone back on you and 
 peached. We re sending her away in tears, a sadder, 
 wiser woman. There ain t no future for you here, doc. 
 You re on your own again. Well, I don t blame you 
 for not feelin conversational. Come on." 
 
 "I can t walk," choked William Sales. 
 
 "You gotta walk as far as the station yonder. 
 Come on. I ve got you." 
 
 They traveled slowly, the pony waiting with his 
 reins down, Western fashion, and went along the road 
 to a small station. Q dropped his burden like a dusty 
 sack on one of the benches, strolled over to the office, 
 and bought a ticket for a distant Middle- Western 
 town. 
 
 "The poor old fool is drunk, but harmless," he 
 said. "I ll put him on the train and he ll sleep like a 
 lamb. The conductor will tell him where to change." 
 
 The station-master grinned. He had never seen 
 Sluypenkill s leading physician, but, if he had, he 
 would not have recognized the collapsed, heavily 
 breathing man. The train came back, stopped at the 
 signal for a passenger. Sales was plucked from his 
 bench and heaved into a car. Q saw him propped in 
 an empty seat, murmured, "Good-bye; hit a new 
 trail, doc," and swung himself off as the train gath 
 ered its speed. 
 
 Sales with dull eyes stared out at the tall, still fig 
 ure on the platform. It stood there, graceful, tense, 
 and grim, to see him go. He was numbly glad that its 
 face looked pale and set. Good-bye to Sluypenkill, to 
 easy rewards, to security, to rest. Feebly he lifted his 
 big, tremulous fist and shook it against the window. 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 A HOLD-UP 
 
 WHEN he had climbed up to his small room, already 
 possessed through its one narrow window by sunrise, 
 Q did not carry himself like a conqueror. He looked, 
 rather, like a victim of the melee, white and dusty 
 and grim, with a set mouth and painful eyes. He 
 dropped down on the cot, too tired to think, and told 
 himself that he had won his girl. Before he had time 
 to analyze his emotions, a business for which he had 
 small aptitude, a sleep of entire exhaustion smothered 
 out even the first tremble of a thought. Only just as 
 he lost himself, the linked hands of the conscious and 
 the unconscious unwillingly disentwining, he endured 
 a strange experience. From the summit of attained 
 desire, he dropped into a terrible abyss of failure and 
 of loss. He knew that Heloise loved him she had 
 told him that she would give him anything, every 
 thing he wished, and she knew his wishes well but 
 in the knowledge there was only a bitter desolation, 
 as though the crescent moon had withered to black 
 ness in his hands. So dark and terrible was the sen 
 sation that, had he been less exhausted, it must have 
 driven him to the rescue of full consciousness; but, 
 before he could struggle away, blankness overtook 
 him and he slept profoundly. 
 
 At noon, bathed, brushed, and faultlessly attired, 
 he presented himself at Mary Grinscoombe s door. 
 
280 "Q" 
 
 It was open, and at the sound of his step she came 
 quickly out as though she had been expecting him. In 
 a dress of soft muslin petals, she looked like a small 
 white rose, a dainty, dewy, rain-beaten rose. Her 
 face had thinned, and this accentuated the beauty of 
 her Irish eyes and left her sensitive mouth almost too 
 expressive. She took him by both hands and looked 
 up at him. 
 
 "You foolish Q you ve worried me dreadfully! 
 What made you go away? I want that story of yours 
 badly you did n t imagine I thought Dr. Sales had 
 the right of it!" But, seeing the hawk glitter to his 
 eyes and the sharp triumph that lay along his lips, 
 she changed her expression swiftly. 
 
 " What s happened, Q?" 
 
 "I ve got my girl," he whispered, and she clutched 
 his hands tight before she dropped them. 
 
 "Come in. Tell me. You are wonderful!" 
 
 She seated herself with an unconscious air of state- 
 liness in her schoolmarm s place, her ruffled dainti 
 ness spreading out about her, her small hands folded 
 together on the table. She gazed up at him very 
 steadily under the arched eyebrows and up-curling 
 lashes. He stood opposite her, turning his soft hat in 
 his hand and looking slowly and wistfully about the 
 room. 
 
 "It wasn t my education that won her for me, 
 Miss Mary," he drawled; she could not fail to discern 
 his bitterness; "it was my fists." He looked down 
 at his hands and she, instinctively looking at them 
 too, saw torn knuckles and bruised fingers. "I reckon 
 
A Hold-up 281 
 
 the moon has got to be snatched at, Miss Mary, 
 rather than prayed to." 
 
 He smiled and dropped into his place, putting out 
 one of the strong and shapely damaged hands across 
 the table toward her. His face threw off its new mask 
 of victory, and sweetened color rushing into its 
 tanned pallor. 
 
 "Yes, ma am, and Sophie s got her Laurie-boy. 
 I ve done pretty near everything I set out to do, and 
 I m plumb near to bein satisfied with myself." 
 
 "You look," Mary shrewdly observed, "very much 
 farther from self-assurance than I ve ever seen you 
 look. Q, please tell me the story of your methods with 
 the Sophie gel. " 
 
 He did, gently and patiently, not letting her 
 startled "Ohs" disturb his drawling, half-ironic de 
 scription of the topsy-turvy melodrama. 
 
 "And now I m going to New York." 
 
 "What are you going to do in New York?" She sat 
 back as though pain made her unable any longer to 
 keep that dainty erectness of attitude. He flushed hot 
 and high. 
 
 "First, I m agoin to buy the finest, classiest ring 
 you need ever wish to see, and next I m agoin to take 
 your pa s book to visit with a publisher." 
 
 She forgot one pain for another, shaking her head 
 patiently. "It s just, dear Q, come back with one of 
 the horrid slips. We laugh, Papa and I, but it does 
 hurt. We need the money pretty badly worse than 
 I thought we did ! That is now it is even more a 
 matter of pride to pay it back than we ever thought 
 
4282 "Q" 
 
 it would be. Oh," she broke out suddenly, "if I could 
 only make a lot and a lot of money, if I could get 
 away! Sometimes I feel that for one breath of free 
 fresh air I d give my soul! Don t look at me that 
 way," she laughed shakily, and dropped her eyes to 
 her hand; "you have such eyes!" 
 
 They brooded over her and through her. "I was 
 thinking," he said slowly, "of free fresh air," and his 
 chest lifted on a struggling breath. 
 
 The tiny room contained their silence loyally, its 
 clock ticking the eternal consolation of going go 
 ing gone ! the two great globes, terrestrial and ce 
 lestial, gleamed like mysterious bubbles that could 
 vanish at a pin-prick into space. Mary at last strug 
 gled away from that silence. She went over to her 
 desk, gathered together a vast mass of manuscript, 
 put it into a clean brown envelope and brought it to 
 Q. "There," she said, smiling, "take it and find out 
 for yourself whether any publisher will ever read it 
 through!" 
 
 "One is agoin to read it." He rose and took the 
 bundle. "I ve got to get my train," he said soberly, 
 touched her fingers, and went out. 
 
 Another man would have written to his lady, or 
 seen her, or sent her a message. Q, used to enforced 
 absences and unbridgable distances, did not even 
 think of calling up Heloise on the telephone. He had 
 his own theory of how an accepted suitor should act; 
 a part of this theory was that an engaged man should 
 appear with a ring in his hand. 
 
 The clerk at Tiffany s began by being patient and 
 
A Hold-up 283 
 
 ended by being enthusiastic. Q s head almost touch 
 ing his over the counter, they examined jewel after 
 jewel, discussed setting upon setting. The final choice 
 was a pearl like a full moon with an arrowy sparkle of 
 sapphires and diamonds pointing about it. 
 
 "It looks," said Q meditatively, "like moonlight 
 and starlight layin in the holler of your hand, don t 
 it?" And the clerk, being, like many other clerks, an 
 imprisoned poet, forced himself to smile at the mag 
 nificent Westerner s poetry, though to do so he had to 
 grimace slightly. Sentiment bends often over the 
 Tiffany counters, the clerks are fairly accustomed to 
 it, but it usually disguises itself decently in slang or 
 banter or impersonal dignity; Q s poetry had stalked 
 forth unashamed. 
 
 He had put his purchase carefully into an inner 
 pocket, the same one that held the faded record of 
 Miss Selda s passionate blunder, and then, knitting 
 himself for battle, he sought out an address. 
 
 The atmosphere of a publishing house, still, spa 
 cious, leathery, chilled all his nerves. He stood at a 
 sort of barrier behind which gray, scholarly, old- 
 young, young-old people moved without haste on 
 various dignified errands, and at last he attracted 
 the attention of a bald-headed young scholar with 
 horn-rimmed spectacles. 
 
 "Say," murmured Q huskily, "I want to see your 
 boss." 
 
 The great goggles twinkled upon him. "You mean 
 Mr. Chiswick or Mr. Mortimer?" 
 
 "The top boss. I reckon that would be Mr. Chis- 
 \vick, would n t it?" * 
 
284 "Q" 
 
 "He s the senior partner," smiled Goggles pa 
 tiently. "Have you an appointment? Do you know 
 him personally?" 
 
 "No, sir. But I hev got to see him in one of them 
 glass cages where I hev located his name." 
 
 "I believe he s busy. Let me have your card." 
 
 "That s something my edication has n t got round 
 to yet. Let me write it down for you, stranger; it s a 
 right tricky name." 
 
 He wrote it in pencil, and with it the now frankly 
 grinning Goggles departed in the direction of the 
 glass cage. Q stood for fifteen minutes and sat for fif 
 teen more. He looked at tables loaded with books and 
 his heart sank. He felt for something heavy in his 
 pocket. At last Goggles reappeared. 
 
 "I m sorry, Mr. Kinwydden, but Mr. Chiswick is 
 very much occupied this afternoon. Perhaps I could 
 attend to your business." 
 
 "No, sir. I hev got to see the boss." 
 
 "I m very sorry." 
 
 "Don t waste your sorrow. I m agoin to wait." 
 
 Goggles s smile vanished and seemed to be trans 
 lated upward into a frown. 
 
 "It will be no use, Mr. Kinwydden. Mr. Chiswick 
 is definitely engaged." 
 
 "When does your shop close?" 
 
 "Mr. Chiswick will be leaving at about five-thirty 
 to-day." 
 
 Q looked at his watch. 
 
 "I ll wait," he said, and sat down to roll and light 
 a cigarette. Goggles, sarcastic and temporarily baf- 
 
A Hold-up 285 
 
 fled, withdrew behind tables to another glass cage, 
 presumably his own. Q waited. A typist not far away 
 smiled upon him and he dazzled her by his apprecia 
 tive return. Another clerk presently inquired his busi 
 ness, made a tentative effort to win into Mr. Chis- 
 wick s sanctuary, and came back to advise Mr. 
 er er to write down his business. Q patiently 
 repeated himself. 
 
 "I don t suffer any from waitin ," he explained 
 sweetly, and again the typist and he exchanged beau 
 tiful and more intimate smiles. 
 
 By the time the lights came on, Q had smoked his 
 tenth cigarette and began to roll his eleventh. The 
 typist suddenly and impulsively rose. She went over 
 to Chiswick s door and knocked smartly. There was 
 something chivalrous and dauntless in the carriage of 
 her head. She remained for a long time in the cage; Q 
 could see her shadow standing above some one and 
 swaying eloquently. When she came out, she came 
 swiftly on glad feet. They brought her through a 
 gate to Q, who rose and stepped on his eleventh ciga 
 rette. 
 
 "Mr. Chiswick will see you," she said. 
 
 "Say," said Q, drawing a breath, "I never seen a 
 woman I liked better at first sight!" And he fol 
 lowed her to the glass door. 
 
 Mr. Chiswick, when disclosed behind his desk, was 
 a square brown man, neither old nor young, with 
 slightly bare temples, nervous, dark eyes and a pleas 
 ant, though chary, smile. He leaned back in a swivel 
 chair and lifted weary lids. 
 
286 "Q" 
 
 "Since you must see me, Mr. Kinwydden," he said, 
 "please be as brief as possible. I ve had a busy after 
 noon/ 
 
 "Mine hasn t been as busy as I d hev liked it to 
 be," said Q. He stepped back to the door and locked 
 it, Chiswick starting violently in his chair, then 
 laid a bulky manuscript on the desk. After this he 
 straightened, drew an automatic from his right- 
 hand coat pocket, and leveled it at the astounded 
 publisher. 
 
 "Quiet! Quiet!" he said. "You read that there 
 writin from end to end and don t you quit readin it 
 until you come to page the last and don t you skip a 
 word." 
 
 Mr. Chiswick, staring at the maniac and breathing 
 fast, drew the manuscript over. "Yes, yes, of course, 
 with pleasure," he said soothingly. He moistened his 
 lips and began to read with jerky, upward glances be 
 hind which was evidently a brain searching for escape 
 or rescue. 
 
 "I believe," he murmured cautiously, almost sing 
 ing the words, "that we have had this manuscript be 
 fore, Mr. Kinwydden." 
 
 "You hev sure had it before, but you hev never 
 read it before. This time you re agoin to read it." 
 
 "I m afraid," murmured the publisher then, 
 glancing up and singing even more sweetly, "you are 
 surely not the author? " 
 
 "Do I look it?" drawled the highwayman, and 
 smiled. 
 
 For some reason that smile took the edge off Mr. 
 
A Hold-up 287 
 
 Chiswick s alarm. The man was either a maniac or a 
 practical joker of some obscure and extreme variety. 
 His best chance was to oblige the fellow and read this 
 impossible garbled stuff. With a mind rather more at 
 ease and less wandering eyes, Chiswick, making a 
 strong effort, focused his attention on the clearly 
 typed sheets. Page after page was thrown impa 
 tiently aside, then suddenly he leaned forward and his 
 face gleamed. So a desert traveler greets the fra 
 grance of fresh water under palms. Q slipped his au 
 tomatic into his pocket and stood at ease. The pub 
 lisher, glancing up, relaxed and read. The glass cage 
 with its brilliant green-shaded light, which threw a 
 white circle across the manuscript and the bent head, 
 seemed to be possessed by the delicate, authoritative 
 speech of Henry Grinscoombe. At last, Chiswick 
 looked up. "This is great stuff, "he said. "Mr. Kin- 
 wydden " then, seeing his safety, he jerked to his 
 feet, "I am going to hand you over to the police," he 
 ejaculated fiercely. 
 
 "The gun was n t loaded, sir," Q murmured. "Say, 
 be reasonable I wanted you to read that book ! " 
 
 Chiswick glared, and through the glare slowly 
 emerged a delighted sense of humor and a satisfied 
 desire for unusual experiences. He slowly reseated 
 himself. 
 
 "Your methods," he said, "are a little extreme, 
 are n t they? But I believe we are going to be grate 
 ful to you. We re going to thank you. Yes I 
 doubt if I should ever have read the thing, without 
 your prodding. There is an extraordinary change 
 
288 "Q" 
 
 which does not occur until about halfway through the 
 third chapter. Listen!" 
 
 Q listened wistfully. 
 
 "Great stuff, eh?" 
 
 "Ain t that the truth!" he murmured and looked 
 down. He had never been able to get the drift of the 
 Earthworm s philosophy. "You are agoin to make 
 a book of it, then?" 
 
 "If Mr. Mortimer agrees we are. Yes, I may 
 safely say that we positively will. But not because of 
 your automatic, Mr. Kinwydden." 
 
 "Oh, that was as harmless as a child, Mr. Chiswick. 
 You ll put that down in writin for me I mean, as 
 to makin a book." 
 
 "Yes. Here, I 11 call my stenographer. What s the 
 fellow s name Grinscoombe good old New York 
 name that eh?" 
 
 The stenographer took down the letter rapidly 
 a careful appreciation, an acceptance with one condi 
 tion that the author agree to throwing the mate 
 rial contained in the first three chapters into the form 
 of an introduction, that the book itself begin with 
 Chapter Four. 
 
 "That letter will go off as soon as I get Mr. Morti 
 mer s decision, and I ve no doubt of its being favor 
 able. And now, Mr. Kinwydden, we re past office 
 hours. If I decide not to hand you over to the police 
 will you have dinner with me? " 
 
 "You re a real man!" ejaculated Q; and added, 
 "And I m right sorry about that dinner. I d mighty 
 well like to come, but I Ve got to get back. I" he 
 
A Hold-up 289 
 
 felt the generous and plucky victim of his hold-up 
 must have a convincing excuse "I hev got to get a 
 new ring to a lady," he said. 
 
 Chi s wick found himself involved in elaborate con 
 gratulations. 
 
 An August moon and a breathless harvest night 
 the long Manor drive, straight and silver, barred by 
 its still poplar shadows at its end, the Manor door 
 open and golden as a human smile: through this fairy 
 blue enchantment of outdoors, its barrier shadows, 
 its eerie, bewildering lights, Q moved like a man con 
 scious of a spell. The ring lay like a magic token 
 against his heart. He had won through such shadow 
 barriers, he had been dazed by such uncertain lights, 
 he could hardly trust himself to believe in the golden 
 welcome up there at the journey s end. He leapt up 
 the steps and stopped, to get his breath, shaken by 
 emotion, by suspense; he remembered the chill May 
 night when he had left Heloise with a sharp dread in 
 his heart. He shut his eyes, thinking of victory. 
 
 Then he went in softly. The hall was still; a big 
 moth fluttered about a shaded light; the gold curtains 
 hung unmoved, like solid metal. In its silence it 
 seemed a hostile place. Q took out his ring, pushed 
 back the golden draperies with a conscious effort of 
 his will and stood within them, clutching them to 
 gether behind him with both hands, so that the jewel 
 cut into his palm. 
 
 Below Sir Sydney s portrait, Heloise had twisted 
 herself about in the arms of a tall man. They fell from 
 
290 "Q" 
 
 her, and she wavered like a white flame in a wind. 
 She was dressed in silver with the crescent of brilliants 
 in her hair. Q moved forward half a stride, and then 
 she spoke, quickly, never so surely, a little loudly, as 
 from a height. 
 
 "Where have you been, Q? I tried to get you yes 
 terday. Mr. Marston has just got back from Russia. 
 I want you to meet him." Her eye caught Q s and 
 held it steadily. "I have promised him to be his 
 wife." 
 
 Probably for the first time since his overgrown boy 
 hood, Q did a physically awkward thing. He dropped 
 his ring and it rolled over to Lelo s feet. Marston 
 bent quickly and picked it up. The magnificent jewel 
 glimmered on his palm. Heloise stared down at it 
 with parted, geranium-red lips. But Marston looked 
 from it to her. His fine-cut face quietly betrayed a 
 question. She could not gather her answer; all her 
 young self-possession left her; instinctively she looked 
 to Q for help. Marston, too, turned his eyes from her 
 to the man: they were rather deep-set eyes, uncom 
 promising. Q answered their challenge, but it was the 
 stark prayer in Lelo s face that shaped his speech. 
 
 "My mistake," he murmured, "not hers." He 
 took back the ring and, turning it in his fingers, 
 smiled imperturbably. "I reckon I m not used to 
 civilized ways," he said. "Nobody s to blame but the 
 folks that did n t give me my trainin . Mr. Marston, 
 I did Miss Grinscoombe a service and she thanked me 
 for it. She did n t do anything but thank me, but, 
 being a plumb fool and an ignorant man, I did n t 
 
A Hold-up 291 
 
 savvy. Instead of waiting for her explanations, I 
 took the bit in my mouth and bolted like a bronc. My 
 mistake. Miss Grinscoombe, will you take the ring 
 as an engagement present?" He took her hand 
 boldly and coolly in one of his, placed the ring in its 
 narrow and icy palm, and folded her long fingers 
 round it. "That s payment for my education," he 
 said "it has come cheap. I ll say good-bye and 
 wish you both happiness. I m agoin back West, 
 where I belong. I m plumb tired of makin a fool of 
 myself." 
 
 With that he smiled again, lifted his eyes once 
 somberly to Sir Sydney Grinscoombe, bowed and 
 went out. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 MISS SELDA S PRIDE 
 
 THE hall, outside of the gold curtains, seemed to be 
 full of white, dense mist. Q stood clutching the edge 
 of the table and moving a hand across his eyes pa 
 tiently to clear them. His heart and brain were loud 
 with jeering voices, pointing fingers, mocking laugh 
 ter. Sir Sydney s ghost raised a thin, lace-ruffled 
 hand from his gold-knobbed stick and struck him 
 across the face. Q started physically and made out 
 that it was not Sir Sydney s ghost, but Miss Selda, 
 smiling faintly and holding out her hand. She had not 
 struck him, but, at sight of her, his heart turned to 
 iron and he shut his teeth tight on an oath. 
 
 "Will you come in here with me, Q?" she asked. 
 "I want to talk to you." 
 
 He followed her, still with locked teeth and lips, 
 into the drawing-room, where she seated herself and 
 looked up. 
 
 The slave had buried the treasure, had eased her 
 heart of dangerous confidences, could now be de 
 livered over to his death. There was a sort of death 
 in her cold face. The mist cleared from his brain, 
 his eyes cleared, he looked down at her, and Grins- 
 coombery could not shield her from that look. 
 
 " I meant to tell this news to you myself," she said; 
 "I meant to spare you from any little shock it might 
 still be to you to see my niece and Fred Marston to- 
 
Miss Selda s Pride 293 
 
 gether, but you came in so quietly the door must 
 have been open I suppose they told you that 
 you met Fred " 
 
 A capital F danced before Q s eyes and illumi 
 nated his memory. 
 
 "Yes, ma am," he said, "I met Fred . . . t was 
 him you were saving her for all the while. Doc said 
 you had some small use for me in your plans for 
 your niece. I was to keep her safe from Fer-dee-nand, 
 to hold her mind steady, to amuse her safely until 
 Marston made up his mind to come back and get 
 her." 
 
 "You are very discerning, Q. Marston took the 
 risk last fall of appearing not to care for her, I imag 
 ine, because he wished first to assure himself of a fu 
 ture. Heloise could never marry a poor man you 
 must have known that, Q." 
 
 "Yes, ma am. I d a never asked her to think of 
 me if I had n t been so awful rich." 
 
 She jerked like a wired doll. "You rich!" 
 
 "Yes, ma am, rich enough to buy the full moon 
 out of the sky, like Miss Mary said I could. It was 
 oil I struck on my little old ranch " 
 
 Miss Selda was staring up at him with a certain 
 blankness in her look. 
 
 "I took a greater chance than I knew," she said. 
 " Why did n t you use your armory, Q? Why did n t 
 you tell me that? Why did n t you tell Heloise?" 
 
 He half-turned from her and leaned against the 
 mantel, a composed and graceful figure. 
 
 " There s a lot of things you 11 never savvy, ma am. 
 
294 "Q" 
 
 And no especial reason why you should. There s a 
 whole lot of difference in our raisin I was broke 
 one way, you and Heloise another way. We can t an 
 swer each other s questions rightly, ma am, and that 
 proves that it s not the learnin you can get from 
 books that counts. Onct in a while a woman is born 
 with an understanding heart " He paused, wis 
 dom breaking upon his brain. 
 
 "I can t ask you to forgive me, Q," she said. 
 
 And abruptly he was aware of her strong, re 
 strained emotion. It did not particularly soften him, 
 but it made him turn and look down at her patiently. 
 
 "Life hits harder than a woman," he said slowly; 
 "she had n t ought to strike first. I am right sorry for 
 you, lady." 
 
 She shrank from this; the waver uncontrollably as 
 sailed her look. 
 
 "If I could turn you out of my memory," she said 
 slowly, as though against her will, "if I could turn 
 you out of my heart Q I would." 
 
 "You knowed he was comin back for her," said Q; 
 "you knowed you was savin her for him. You 
 knowed I was helpin you to save her for him. You 
 hev used my love to to kill itself. That don t take 
 forgivin , lady, it takes somethin more. I will wish 
 you good-bye but first I hev to give you some 
 thing." 
 
 "To give me?" She looked up, startled. 
 
 He was taking a paper from his pocket and his face 
 was a mask of gentleness. " You can be as proud as 
 you like now, lady," he said. 
 
 She took the paper incredulously, stared down at it 
 
Miss Selda s Pride 295 
 
 as though it had been drenched in poison, and crum 
 pled it slowly in her two hands. She could not lift her 
 eyes; they were strangely weighted. She knew that 
 she was trembling from head to foot. 
 
 It was uncomfortable to feel that she could not 
 meet Q s eyes. 
 
 "Doc Sales has left the place," the gentle, fa 
 miliar voice was saying evenly, "and he won t come 
 back. I don t like to see folks scared. Will you be 
 easy now in your heart?" 
 
 She could not ask him to explain his miracle, she 
 could not dare to thank him for it; she could only 
 shake, and presently, with a terrible contraction of 
 her heart, tears came and fell . . . 
 
 Small she looked, and old, and pitiful. 
 
 He moved closer and rested his hand upon her. 
 
 "Don t you cry," he said, the iron gone from his 
 voice, "don t you cry. It s all right, lady. You don t 
 need to worry any " 
 
 She caught his hand, and pressed it to her lips. 
 She hid her face. 
 
 When she looked up, he was gone. The curtains 
 inside the door were swinging, his step rang firmly on 
 the road. Miss Selda could not have said what she 
 felt. Like any other woman, she had been under 
 stood, she had been served, she had been forgiven. 
 Her pride was rescued from its slavery, but she knew 
 that, remembering Q s eyes, she would never be very 
 proud again. Her own cruelty had cut her soul too 
 deep. She was ashamed and desolate. At last she 
 tore her letter into a hundred little pieces and burned 
 them on the hearth. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 OLD BOTTLES 
 
 To Q, the following morning, was forwarded, from 
 the River Hotel to his present quarters, a telegram. 
 He read it over an untasted breakfast in Stringer s 
 kitchen. It was from West Lemmon. 
 
 Come to me at once. Very urgent. 
 
 LAURENCE SALES 
 
 Later in the morning, he was admitted to Sales s 
 house, but, instead of being taken to the office he had 
 entered on his former visit, he was led into an up 
 stairs sitting-room, flanked by books, charmingly 
 furnished, with such pictures as made Q, even in his 
 mood of bitter disillusionment, focus an appreciative 
 attention : small pictures that opened out of doors 
 showing the very motion of sunlight on a moving tree 
 and fluttering white dress, the very slash of fluent 
 water about a purple, sun-flecked rock. There was a 
 mountain, too, white-capped, in a distance, beneath 
 some amazing tower of clouds. He turned from som 
 ber communion with the mountain at Laurie s en 
 trance, and was startled by the pallor of his face, set 
 tight as stone, under the close-cropped red hair. 
 
 Q started forward, holding out his hand, but Lau 
 rie made no move to take it, stood still, and looked 
 him between the eyes. 
 
 Instantly the Westerner was taut, ready, steeled. 
 
 "Yesterday, my father came to me here. He was 
 
Old Bottles 297 
 
 in a terrible condition, pulse all but gone; he told me 
 a story of incredible persecution. He had been driven 
 out of Sluypenkill, discredited, stripped of his liveli 
 hood and of his reputation. It seems to have been 
 your doings, Kinwydden. I am his son and I demand 
 an explanation/ 
 
 Q answered instantly without the slightest apparent 
 perturbation. 
 
 "I thought you must have knowed your father. I 
 figured that you d be about expectin somethin of 
 this nature. That s one reason why I wanted you to 
 make tracks for the West to get away from all 
 this. I did n t savvy it would hurt your feelin s 
 any- 
 
 "My own father?" 
 
 "Well, sir, fathers is something that I know very 
 little about. I never had one of my own and most of 
 the boys I ve traveled with shook their fathers off 
 soon and early. Anyway, you surely ain t responsi 
 ble for your father s doin s, and as for what I done 
 it was my duty. The fight was on between him 
 and me from the start. I warned him. He done what 
 he could to cross me he was as bent to run me out 
 and ruin my reputation and my career as I was to do 
 the same by him. He got pretty far on his way to 
 doin it, too. If you had felt yourself responsible for 
 him, Sales, you had ought to ve kep watch over him 
 and his doin s. Any time these past twelve years, he 
 might have been jailed or manhandled had n t 
 it been for a scared woman all his life he s been 
 shielded by a woman, he s been hidin behind her 
 skirts " 
 
298 "Q" 
 
 "Hush!" Laurie put up his hand and moved 
 white lips. "Don t speak so loud. He s dead!" 
 
 Q stood, unmoved. 
 
 "I consider you directly responsible for his death." 
 
 "If I am, I take the responsibility. He had ought 
 to have died." 
 
 Laurie sprang forward and caught the speaker by 
 the arm. 
 
 "By God! What do you mean?" 
 
 "I am sorry if you loved him, but the man to 
 my knowledge caused more than one death. If I had 
 left him to the Mill hands that night, he d have died 
 worse and quicker. I made him run where he once re 
 fused to drive to save a woman s life. She was a poor 
 young woman with children. She was took with a 
 heart attack. A stimulant, as you know, if it had got 
 to her in time, might have saved her. I called up doc 
 on the telephone. I explained the case. It was a bad 
 night, rainin hard, and he said Call me up on a 
 night like this for a case at the Gully? the quicker 
 that rabbit-warren dies off, the better 
 
 It was impossible not to recognize the speech it 
 seemed to be shaped in Sales s very throat. Laurie 
 turned away and put a hand to his eyes. 
 
 "And that s only one case, man. I could tell you a 
 half-dozen others. That was my introduction to your 
 father, and, when I left the phone and came back to 
 that woman and saw her die, I set my mind to track 
 ing him down and punishing him for his sins. If the 
 laws can t protect poor folks, if the laws is got 
 around by money or power, then the laws hev to be 
 
Old Bottles 299 
 
 enforced by free men. Ain t that the truth, Laurie? 
 Sluypenkill had been patient with your father too 
 long; it had been scared of the influence that worked 
 for him. It had been a mighty timid place. Ellison 
 tried to expose your father, and he was ruined. A 
 working-man tried to get justice against him, and 
 he was driven away. If I have been a harder judge 
 it s because I m a harder man. Doc Sales ain t the 
 first man I ve killed though I did n t set out to 
 kill him mind you ! and felt that I had done 
 God s work in killin . He died from the effects of 
 his own way of living. He died because he did n t 
 have the nerve or the grit to take his punishment. 
 It was n t in him to make a fresh start; he had 
 been pampered too long. A man can t afford to 
 make a pet of his own soul." 
 
 Young Sales had walked over to a window and was 
 standing, his hands clenched at his sides. Q listened 
 to his hard breathing, and his heart began to be dis 
 turbed. This was the man whose friendship he had 
 greatly coveted, whose good opinion he had over 
 whelmingly desired. The man was judging him, hat 
 ing him, about if he did no worse to throw him 
 out of his life. Q moved slowly back and forth across 
 the room, a storm gathered in his breast. 
 
 "It will be impossible for me to accept any service 
 from you now," said Laurie presently, without look 
 ing about. "Naturally I will leave my practice here. 
 I can t stay. The scandal about my father is bound to 
 grow and spread. Also, it will be impossible for me to 
 form any sort of association, any tie at all, with a man 
 
300 "Q" 
 
 who is directly responsible for his disgrace and death. 
 Mind, you have forced me to admit a wild sort of jus 
 tice in your proceedings, but the fact remains 
 that, whatever my father did or left undone, he is my 
 father. And he came to me in his trouble. And died 
 as a consequence of the treatment he received. Jus 
 tice is one thing, Q Kinwydden, and violence is quite 
 another. Your violence against a man almost twice 
 your age seems to me cowardly and unjustifiable. My 
 father" he choked a little "was helpless in your 
 hands. As helpless as Sophie when you tied her to 
 your chair and forced her to wait for you. That piece 
 of * knight-errantry is as incomprehensible to me as 
 this one. I find our standards of conduct unreconcil- 
 able. To me you seem a savage. If you are what the 
 West produces I confess I have no sympathy with 
 the West." 
 
 "Don t you judge the West by me," said Q quickly. 
 "I ain t no fair specimen. The West ain t responsible 
 fer me. I raised myself." Then, in an accent of real 
 despair, he added, "I wisht I could get you to under 
 stand." 
 
 Laurie faced about, lifted his head, and looked at 
 the speaker. The eyes of the man revealed him, his 
 honesty, his dignity, his strength. "How can a man 
 live except by his own knowledge, Laurie? I got my 
 knowledge from my life. I got my feelin of what is 
 right and wrong from watchin God s ways with men. 
 I can forgive a lot of things that likely would turn 
 you sick, but there s things I can t forgive, and when 
 I see them I ve got to fight them. And I ve got to 
 
Old Bottles 301 
 
 fight them in my own way, not yours nor any other 
 man s. If life has taught me to use my hands, is that 
 my fault? Doc sinned with his head if he d done 
 his deeds with his hands, he d have died long since. 
 Had n t it been for my tyin up your Sophie gel 
 where would she be now? Had n t it been for my run- 
 nin your father out, who might n t have suffered and 
 died on account of him? One woman I know has been 
 in hell for years. To my way of thinking, he was the 
 coward and the bully, and rough handling was what 
 he needed and deserved. I am likely a savage. But I 
 did n t hurt your Sophie gel. She understands. Per 
 haps she s a savage like me. Your father knew what 
 to expect from me. I saved him that night from a 
 horse- whipping. He was thankful to me. All the sav 
 ages ain t in the West. I don t usually waste words in 
 explaining myself, but you hev hurt me pretty bad 
 because I know that you are a real man. I kind of 
 wanted to name you friend. That can t be now, but 
 it can be that you will do me justice. Later, when you 
 have stopped grieving for your father s death, you 
 will see me clear. Until then, I better say good-bye." 
 
 He walked slowly toward the door, his head up. 
 
 "Wait a moment," Laurie said, and stood, hands 
 clasped behind him, looking Q steadily and quietly in 
 the eyes. Then he put out his hand. Q caught at it, 
 color flooded his face, he dropped his lids. There was 
 a quivering in his long, strong hand. 
 
 "Will you go out to my town with Sophie?" 
 asked the Westerner beseechingly. 
 
 Laurie said "yes," wrung the hand, and turned 
 away. 
 
302 "Q" 
 
 He sat for an hour after the Westerner had left, 
 and cleared his spirit, slowly, painfully, of many will 
 ful misconceptions. And his pride hurt him sorely 
 it had needed, it would seem, this ignorant, untamed 
 man to shape his life and love for him. It had needed 
 this same ruthless, natural man to tear the veil away 
 from his knowledge of his father. He had blinded 
 himself to the truth, he had kept himself from Sluy- 
 penkill was n t he, after all, responsible for that 
 wretched father s death? Would he not, after all 
 but for the savage be responsible for something 
 that would have been worse for Sophie than her 
 death? The new strong wine of action, of unhesitat 
 ing, open-eyed, uncomplicated force. Was there a 
 place for it in the civilized world? Probably not, but 
 when it broke loose did n t it sometimes break old 
 galling chains and free profound despairs? His life 
 would be the cleaner for Q s passionate interference. 
 Sluypenkill would be the cleaner. To see what was 
 right and to do it, instantly, without thought of self. 
 Yes Laurie smiled the smile of cynical civilization 
 and then be stoned to death by an uncompre 
 hending mob. Well he and Sophie would try the 
 West. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 , A COPY-BOOK 
 
 HALF unwillingly Q dragged himself back to Mary 
 Grinscoombe s door. It was hard to be beaten; it was 
 harder to admit defeat. And the little schoolmarm 
 had done so much to arm him for his battle. Only two 
 days ago he had come to her for applause; it was sore 
 to his pride to ask now for her consolation. And yet, 
 he wanted her badly, and he must surely tell her, and 
 say good-bye. 
 
 She did n t come to answer his ringing, so he let 
 himself in and looked for her in the parlor. At last, 
 there being no sound in the house, he sat down in his 
 old place. He stared at the pages of his copy-book 
 the last copy of all. It was a proverb she had chosen 
 for him "Still waters run deep." And he looked 
 along it idly, absorbed by the aching weariness which 
 had become his heart. He had not written very well; 
 the letters were all blurred. Some one must have 
 spilled water over them. The page was blistered here 
 and there; she had probably been fixing her flowers* 
 Funny ! She was usually so daintily sure about every 
 thing she did. Not until months later, alone on a 
 great plain under the stars, did the explanation of the 
 blurred letters and the blistered page flash upon Q. 
 It was then the kindling spark of a greater illumina 
 tion. Now, he pushed the book away with an impa 
 tient sigh. 
 
304 "Q" 
 
 Mary came into the kitchen. He had not the wish 
 to hasten her entrance, but when, in the course of her 
 small undertakings, she did appear, he came to his 
 feet and smiled. 
 
 She was all flushed and sparkling, radiant and re 
 leased. Her eyes kept a personal secret of unhap- 
 piness, but, for the rest, she had yielded utterly to 
 the first real joy of her life. She ran quickly over to 
 him. 
 
 "Oh, Q, whatever can I say to thank you! Yes. 
 The letter came. It went through and through us like 
 lightning! You know" she laughed "poor Papa 
 is so happy that he s had to be put to bed. He went 
 round and round the room like a bewildered moth. 
 He could n t he simply could n t believe it. No 
 you can t know what it will mean." 
 
 "I m sure glad." He drew a deep and very bitter 
 breath. "Then I hev done something even if it is n t 
 what I set out to do." 
 
 She stood, flushed, and began to puzzle over him. 
 He was changed. 
 
 "But, Q, you ve done everything!" 
 
 He held her eyes with his own smiling ones. She 
 could n t see into his heart. She had a sudden achey 
 feeling that no one perhaps would ever see into it 
 again. 
 
 "I have n t got my moon," he said. "She s slipped 
 through my fool fingers somehow. There was an 
 other fellow." 
 
 Mary was terribly, astonishingly white. 
 
 "Heloise!" 
 
A Copy-Book 305 
 
 "Yes. She is going to marry a real man, and I 
 reckon he s a real gentleman. He looks like he d 
 knowed readin and writin and arithmetic, history 
 and geography, languages alive and dead, from his 
 cradle up, Miss Mary. He sure does. And now I m 
 agoin to go back West where I belong. May I see 
 your father? I ve come to tell you a good-bye." 
 
 Upstairs, he of the white panache raised himself 
 quickly on his pillow at Q s entrance. The Grins- 
 coombe face, purged of pride and bitterness, spiritu 
 ally beautified, Sir Sydney transfigured, smiled, lips 
 and eyes and heart, at Q. And he felt that here at 
 least savagery had justified itself. The pistol and the 
 publisher had been the right conjunction of planets 
 for Henry s happiness. The Earthworm triumphed 
 visibly. 
 
 "Some day you ll read it, Q?" 
 
 "Yes, sir. I sure will." (And he did, too, under- 
 standingly, his education having gained an impetus 
 that no changes in his life could stop.) 
 
 "We ve had some great talks, great times, Q. 
 Don t think I did n t understand what you did for 
 me! I find it difficult to wish you a good-bye." 
 
 "I ll be looking at the stars above the range," said 
 Q huskily, "and saying their names that will spell 
 yours over to me often, sir." 
 
 There was something perilously fragile about the 
 little man in bed. He was like a delicate clear vessel 
 filled with some fluid exquisitely, dangerously vital. Q 
 was afraid. He left the room with a blindness of tears 
 across his eyes. 
 
306 "Q" 
 
 Down in the sitting-room, five minutes later, Mary 
 leaned against the window-sill heavily for such a 
 small and slender person, to watch Q down the path. 
 She could n t follow him to the door. She found that 
 her courage was all gone all dead. 
 
 Halfway to the gate, he started, as though he had 
 forgotten something. He looked back with a dazed, 
 groping air. Her heart stood still. Then he went on 
 slowly, and slowly swinging, lithe and young and 
 splendid, he passed away down the shabby, empty 
 little street. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 BESIDE STILL WATERS 
 
 Q WENT back to his West not the West of oil-fields 
 and mushroom cities, but to his own old West of 
 mountain and of range. There he drank deep of night 
 winds and rode far under noon skies and white stars, 
 breathing the aromatic dust of sage. He renewed ac 
 quaintance with slow-spoken, deep-eyed folk and 
 with his nosing pony, and he pondered patiently over 
 his experience. His education took, during these wide 
 autumn days, deep root. 
 
 While he rode and pondered, he founded his ranch 
 two thousand acres to be dedicated to the raising 
 of fine stock. Q spent his money with a cool, far- 
 sighted lavishness, so that, before snow came, he pos 
 sessed his land and had "builded him" his log house, 
 polished and fragrant without and within, like the 
 ark of the covenant. It was spring again before he 
 had furnished it, however, and in the furnishing he 
 showed the influence of Sluypenkill. It was not the 
 usual ranch interior; it was quiet and dim and rather 
 beautiful. Much of the richness was furnished by 
 long shelves of books. Mary helped him to choose his 
 library. They exchanged frequent letters in which he 
 was able better and better to articulate his soul. He 
 strode forth on the pages in big black writing, hu 
 morous, masculine, and dignified and he read Mary 
 in her funny, emphatic, crabbed pen-scratchings, so 
 
308 "Q" 
 
 quick, so mirthful, tart, and sensitive. It was May 
 when the last box of books arrived. He stood to ar 
 range them in his big, clean living-room, as yet un 
 curtained. Doors and windows stood open, and 
 through them poured fragrance of emerald-tipped 
 pines and sappy aspens, fragrance of winds from high 
 snows and lupine patches, and always the fresh 
 rattling of the creek beneath his window, the airy 
 crystalline chords of bird-singing, a wistful, aching 
 medley of sight and smell and sound which seemed 
 to be trying to repeat over and over an inexpressible 
 delight. Q paused in his arranging of the volumes 
 and stood with his eyes half -closed. He had never 
 so poignantly felt the spring before. He reached over 
 to the top of his shelves and opened Mary s letter, 
 which he had been saving to read at his leisure. 
 Suddenly, with spring in his throat, he could n t 
 wait. It was brief and unsteadily written. The little 
 father was dead. 
 
 I think happiness was too much for him, Q. He had never 
 in his life been happy only brave and patient. I am glad 
 he lived to see his book. Aunt Selda came to see him at the 
 last. After he had sent her some money she had lent him. 
 It seemed to hurt her terribly his death. She cried. I 
 am going away from this house. I can t bear it any more. 
 I 11 be teaching somewhere. 
 
 Q put down the letter. He looked pale and fierce. 
 He strode out, whistled to his grazing horse, swung 
 into the saddle, and turned toward space. All after 
 noon he rode, his hand resting for comfort on the 
 pony s neck, and, dark coming upon him far from 
 
Beside Still Waters 309 
 
 home, he picketed the animal and lay down before a 
 fire under the stars. Up there beyond them now the 
 little philosopher was free. Doubtless, thought Q, he 
 sat and discoursed quaint wisdom to the spirits of just 
 men. What did n t he know now? What did n t he 
 understand? the shakiness made steady, the wa 
 tery eyes clear, the lips healed of their patience, the 
 brave panache lifted into light. By the glow of the 
 campfire Q re-read Mary s letter. It was blistered 
 with tears. And that released and explained a mem 
 ory of the spattered copy-page. She must have been 
 crying over it crying over his lessons. Why in 
 the name of wonder? Why? 
 
 This small problem he pondered half the wakeful 
 night under those constellations Henry Grinscoombe 
 had named for him once in a July harvest-field. And, 
 before dawn, guided by the one small light, he slept 
 with an illuminated heart. 
 
 Miss Myrtle Clayton, very slim, very languid, very 
 much waved as to hair and very much manicured as 
 to fingers, minding the desk at the River Hotel, was 
 instantly aware of a gently spoken question and 
 lifted her head. 
 
 "Can I have Room 90 on the fourth floor, lady?" 
 
 She looked into the speaker s eyes and there her 
 observation stopped and stood quiet. Miss Myrtle 
 Clayton pushed forward the hotel register. 
 
 "Yes, sir," she said. "Room 90." 
 
 The stranger wrote his name, Q. T. Kinwydden, 
 and added an address. Then he turned to a blond ele- 
 
310 "Q" 
 
 vator boy, who dropped his jaw and dilated his prom 
 inent eyes. 
 
 "Hullo, Bill," said Q. They gripped each other by 
 the hand. 
 
 "Aren t you tired of your buzz-box yet? Have 
 they given you a raise? " 
 
 "Nope," grinned Bill, regretfully; "I m lucky to 
 hold down my job." 
 
 They mounted slowly, Bill swallowing some in 
 comprehensible obstacle under his collar. 
 
 "Want to go West?" asked Q. "I haven t any 
 buzz-box in my hotel, but, say, you can learn how to 
 chop wood. How d you like to roustabout for a 
 change of air and wages?" 
 
 The lift faltered, fell, caught itself together and 
 bounded upwards, bouncing to a stop at the fourth 
 floor. Q murmured something and stepped out pre 
 cipitately. "God!" he said, "things is just as dan 
 gerous in these parts as thej used to be." 
 
 Bill tumbled after him along a renovated hall. In 
 Room 90, also renovated, he began to stutter. 
 
 "S-say, mister, do you mean it?" 
 
 "I sure do. What you waitin for a tip?" 
 
 "Don t you dast give me one!" Bill shouted, and, 
 crimson in the face, he bolted, slamming the door 
 and reeling along the crimson hall, drunk with the 
 thought of change, of liberty, of unrestricted hero- 
 worship. 
 
 Q strolled over to the window and looked down 
 upon Main Street. It was unchanged still a cross 
 between Sugar City and Oil Corners, and no compli- 
 
Beside Still Waters 311 
 
 ment to either. Q bathed and dressed and ate his 
 dinner soberly a better dinner, served by a far 
 less striking waitress. Miss Sherman and Miss Win 
 ters were away. School had closed. It was already 
 June. 
 
 After dinner, the Westerner, with a white face and 
 brilliant eyes, strode down Main Street and turned 
 into a familiar lane. The beating of his heart dis 
 turbed him. He found it difficult to breathe. The 
 house was not closed, the door even stood open in its 
 old, informal fashion. Q got himself across its thresh 
 old and stood, dumb and breathless, in the doorway 
 of the tiny parlor. It was stripped of the familiar 
 things. Mary looked up from a trunk before which 
 she was kneeling on the floor, clapped her hands to 
 gether, and, falling back against her heels, spread 
 both those small, hard-working hands over a throb 
 bing, flaming face. 
 
 She was in black; very small and slim she looked 
 her hair sparkled ruddily. He came over and lifted 
 her up and, shaking uncontrollably, drew down her 
 hands. 
 
 "Miss Mary I have n t forgotten your copy 
 * Still waters run deep my pride and my will was 
 set wrong, but it was you my heart wanted from the 
 first. Only I m sure the gol-derndest ignorantest 
 growed man in the U-ni " 
 
 She looked up, flung both her arms about him, and, 
 shutting her eyes tight, she put her mouth quickly 
 against his. 
 
 And speaking stopped. 
 
312 "Q" 
 
 A little crescent moon above the still, high tops of 
 firs; below, a camp-fire glowing dimly, ponies crop 
 ping on a dewy hillside; up there a snow-peak dizzily 
 high . . . Q lay in his blankets and watched the cres 
 cent moon. A shining figure seemed to shape itself be 
 low it, dressed in silver it wore a small and scorn 
 ful smile. Q turned from it restlessly, rose on an elbow 
 and stretched out his right hand. It grasped another 
 hand, warm and small, and Mary, waking, sighed 
 contentedly and looked up like a child from her sleep. 
 
 "Mary," Q whispered, "I had to ask you some 
 thing. Was Sir Sydney Grinscoombe your great- 
 great-great-grandfather, too?" 
 
 "Yes, dear." Her fingers clung a little and she 
 smiled. 
 
 "Thank God for that!" said Q. 
 
 Triumph for an instant conquered the serene con 
 tentment of his face. 
 
 THE END 
 
YB 32280 
 
 M27119 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY