THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 Other Works by Mr. Bonn Byrne. 
 
 Stories Without Women 
 
 Rivers of Damascus 
 
 The Golden Goat 
 
 The Power of the Dog 
 
 Destiny Bay 
 
 Crusade 
 
 Brother Saul 
 
 Hangman's House 
 
 Blind Raftery, and His Wife 
 
 HiLARIA 
 
 Changeling 
 The Foolish Matrons 
 Messer Marco Polo 
 An Untitled Story 
 Ireland, the Rock Whence I was 
 Hewn
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 And other Stories 
 
 BY 
 
 DONN BYRNE 
 
 LONDON 
 SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & CO. LTD.
 
 
 MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY PURNBLL AND SONS 
 PAULTON (somerset AND LONDON
 
 RE VEIL 
 
 Behold! This world I made with many an elf, 
 With gnomes and little people of the hills, 
 With shadow kings and dukes and margravines. 
 With men-at-arms, with knights in panoply; 
 And all within my little empery — 
 My costly tournaments; my gallant scenes; 
 My hills of yellow furze; my little rills 
 That tinkled like a mass-bell; and my hives 
 Of honey bees; my owls that hoot o' night; 
 My cardinals, my bishops, and my priests, 
 My bannerets, my bugles, and my drums. 
 All of these fade, and mark you I myself 
 Am fading, like the moon when morning 
 comes . . . 
 
 BONN BYRNE 
 
 Smart Set 
 New York 191 5
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 FAGB 
 
 I. 
 
 Sargasso Sea .... 
 
 I 
 
 II. 
 
 "0, Snowy-Breasted Pearl " 
 
 6i 
 
 III. 
 
 Triangle . . . . , 
 
 91 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Honourable of The Earth 
 
 . 123 
 
 V. 
 
 A Brevity on Page Three 
 
 165 
 
 VI. 
 
 Mrs. Alexander Tyson: Towards a 
 
 
 
 Memoir . . . . . . 
 
 184 
 
 VII. 
 
 A Marriage Has Been Arranged 
 
 209 
 
 /III. 
 
 A Woman of The Shee 
 
 . 225 
 
 IX. 
 
 An Infringement of The Decalogue 
 
 250 
 
 X. 
 
 What Became of Margot Gilholme 
 
 . 278 
 
 XI. 
 
 Beulah Land .... 
 
 293 
 
 XII. 
 
 The Wife of the Red-Haired Man 
 
 . 318 
 
 vu
 
 SARGASSO SEA. 
 
 Westward from the Azores and northward from 
 the Canaries, Sargasso Sea lies — "the port of missing 
 ships" — a vast expanse of green islets and islands 
 and continents. Weed shows green like emeralds 
 and rises out of the water like the grass of a meadow 
 trailing to the wind. It might be a newborn con- 
 tinent, or an old, forgotten one, so far does it stretch 
 and so lonely is it. Brendan, the Irish saint and 
 mariner, on his way westward searching for Paradise, 
 returned after ploughing for one day through it. 
 "A barren place it seemed to him," the folk stories 
 say — "without music, without company, without 
 wrestling and mellow ale; a prison for lost souls." 
 
 And this vast meadow of green weed — beneath 
 which lost Atlantis sleeps — was, according to old 
 Punic writers, a great trap set by malign gods jealous 
 of the explorations of men. They spoke of it as 
 drawing the ships of the African mariners into it 
 as by a magnet. Even great galleys, with two banks 
 of oars, could do nothing against it. The men 
 strained and tottered and died at their posts. The 
 galleys lay lifeless and silent, like an old captain's 
 fancy on his green lawn. And then, at first little 
 by little and then faster and faster, great trailing 
 weeds crept over it with the tortuous motions of 
 snakes. They spun themselves into a web and
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 covered the vessel from high carved prow to low 
 round stern until nothing remained except a mon- 
 strous mound on which a stray albatross might 
 alight. 
 
 Weeds rose high and implacable until by sheer 
 weight they drove the ship down inch on inch and 
 deck on deck; until prow and spars and masts were 
 thrust beneath the waters and it wafted downward 
 through the layers of the ocean as a dead leaf flutters 
 from a tree ; until it rested among the spires of the 
 lost city. And again the weed became as smooth 
 as a carpet and as green as a great layer of emeralds. 
 And the sun played on it with a seductive iridescent 
 shimmer. And the trap was opened again. — Author's 
 Note.
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 The little stocky Scotch captain looked at the lean 
 six-footer sitting at his desk and laughed. 
 
 "We were coming along fine," he grinned, "ship- 
 shape and Bristol fashion, southerly winds and a 
 calm sea, when, just off' Hatteras, it lammed into us. 
 It was the navigator's watch in the morning and 
 the sleet came in like fog. It hit us right and left 
 and centre, the worst thing I'd seen in twenty years. 
 But, man alive ! she just punched into it and lifted 
 to it, and sparred like a boxer, while I was hanging 
 on in the pilot house wondering whether they were 
 going to collect my life insurance." 
 
 Martin looked at the Scotchman with a wistful 
 sort of smile, 
 
 "And you're off in the morning?" he said. 
 
 "Off to Barrancas, up the Orinoco. Touch at 
 St. Kitts and Trinidad; after Barrancas, down to 
 the Plate; up to Santiago — and then to San Fran- 
 cisco; then back." 
 
 Martin looked through his window to where the 
 East River flowed southward to the harbour like 
 a piece of silver ribbon. Again he smiled his smile, 
 which was half humour and half regret. 
 
 "I wish I was going with you," he said. 
 
 The little Scotchman glanced at him quizzically. 
 
 "Ah, go on!" he said. "You're joking. You're 
 too comfortable here to want to go sailing again." 
 
 "I'd like to go, though," Martin repeated. 
 
 3
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 "You'll never go to sea again." The Scotchman 
 shook his head. "You'll stay on making money 
 until you're a millionaire. You'll never see Sandy 
 Hook from your own bridge again, or shoot the 
 sun and fight with the mate over it. Your last 
 light's raised, Edward." 
 
 Two years ago Captain Edward Martin used to 
 complain that a ship's bridge was too small for those 
 long legs of his. He wanted to get ashore, he 
 said, and stretch them. But now that they were 
 on shore they were more cramped than ever, and he 
 longed for a flying bridge again, where he could 
 brace them to the pitch and roll. 
 
 But, even after two years, you could never have 
 mistaken Edward Martin for anything but a seaman. 
 He walked with that steady, slow and slightly rolling 
 step that years of balancing to a heaving deck had 
 made natural. His gray eyes were deep-set and 
 furrowed, with drooping lids — the eyes of a man 
 who is accustomed to looking forward into colourless 
 distances. He stood upright, with chest thrown 
 well forward, as one will after continuous breasting 
 to the head winds of three oceans. Apart from 
 that, he might have been a professional wrestler, 
 so heavily set were chest and shoulders on a bull 
 neck. His face was as brown as that of an Indian, 
 and the closely cropped fair hair and eyebrows, 
 bleached by the sun, stood out like splashes of 
 white against the tan. 
 
 You would hardly have called him a handsome 
 man; his jaw was too uglily powerful for that, his 
 eyes too intense, and there was that little flattening 
 and dent to the nose, and a deep scar under the
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 right eye which the swing of a treacherous boom 
 had inflicted early in his sailing days. And his 
 voice was too sonorous and somewhat loud; and 
 his hands were too big and tanned and freckled ; and 
 his eyes were too piercing and straight for the comfort 
 of any man who was not sincere from the heart up. 
 
 It was Nellie Martin who first gave him the 
 sobriquet of the Arctic Bear, in allusion to that 
 almost snowlike growth of hair on him and to his 
 huge, powerful look. But apart from those terrific 
 shoulders and compact, lithe legs and arms, the 
 things that stood out most about him were his spotless 
 physical cleanliness, as though he had been holy- 
 stoned and swabbed, and that dawnlike smile of 
 his, which broke at the corners of the large, firm 
 mouth and rose to the deep furrows of the eyes, 
 and seemed to show itself in his ears and chin with 
 its all-embracing, comradely happy glow. 
 
 They talk about him in every part of the world — 
 able-bodied seaman and quartermaster, and master 
 mariner — in every place where shipmen gather: in 
 the cafes of the Plate; in seamen's homes in New 
 York and Liverpool; in spotless Nipponese tea 
 houses; and on drowsy Pacific beaches. The 
 Arctic Bear they call him, giving him that love name 
 of his wife's. For every profession there is a man 
 on a pinnacle — not the greatest or the most efficient, 
 but the most appealing. 
 
 And little by little to the merchant service Captain 
 Edward Martin became the man each man would 
 like to be. There was about him the flavour of 
 romance and valour. He was a Viking, a man 
 from the North, coming down, laughing, to battle
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 with the sea. And the stories they told about him 
 were not the great exploits of his career, but the 
 characteristic sidelights that appealed to their strong, 
 sane taste. There was little said of the occasion 
 when, off the treacherous Horn, he had rescued 
 the crew of the Portuguese barque, the Joanna Vaz, 
 icebergs crashing about him with a noise like 
 artillery, and a white frosting fog covering every- 
 thing like the mist from a witches' caldron. 
 
 Nor do they speak of the time when he carried 
 the Maid of Perth a. hundred miles across the 
 Caribbean, with a sprung section, to beach her at 
 St. Thomas, riding her as a skilful horseman would 
 tend a foundering mount, bringing her along by 
 masterly navigation and sheer strength of will. 
 
 But they tell of the blustering March day when, 
 beating up from Trinidad, off the Bermudas, a 
 negro quartermaster fell overboard. Martin was 
 over the taffrail of the boat deck like a harpoon 
 from a gun. The crew saw him crashing through 
 the oily roll like a power boat. They saw him 
 grabbing at the whirling black figure as an entomol- 
 ogist makes passes at a fluttering butterfly. Waves 
 rose and fell, and showed and shut off the scene in 
 queer dramatic flashes. At last they saw Martin 
 catch an arm, catch the neck, encircle the body. 
 They looked on horrified as the quartermaster 
 fought despairingly for a stranglehold while the 
 captain slowly throttled him into unconsciousness. 
 They watched Martin hold on to the sailor for 
 twenty minutes until a rescue boat reached him. 
 
 "Wring that fool out and put him in his bunk," 
 he said quietly when they came aboard. He changed 
 
 6
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 his clothes and took his place on the bridge. Next 
 day, after docking at Newport News, he gave an 
 order to the mate. 
 
 "All men on deck who can't swim!" he directed. 
 
 And in that raw March blast, with cold rain 
 falling, he taught them for three days. He had them 
 thrown in and dragged out. With a cold, firm eye 
 he stood on the hurricane deck, whistle in hand, 
 and drilled them until they could keep afloat. And 
 none held any rancour. 
 
 You may not hear this story — for there are seamen 
 who do not know it — but wherever you speak of 
 Edward Martin they will remember December, 
 1900, when Martin, then first mate in steam, wrestled 
 Abdul Yussuf, the Anatolian, at a theatre in Liver- 
 pool. Hosea Judd, a quartermaster on Martin's 
 ship and a well-known New England wrestler, took 
 up the Anatolian's challenge that he would throw any 
 man in the world. In the stage box sat Martin 
 and his friends. It ended very shortly. A few 
 minutes' desultory spar and the Turkish giant 
 wrapped himself about the New England sailor 
 like a python and crushed him slowly to the ground. 
 It was a marvellous exhibition of strength. It was 
 a clean-cut victory. They led the quartermaster 
 away, dazed and shaking from the crushing force 
 of the champion's great limbs. But Abdul Yussuf 
 made a mistake. He laughed. 
 
 Martin's friends never knew exactly how it 
 happened, but a moment later Martin was on the 
 stage, rather white, very firm, with his great jaw 
 set. He wasn't insanely angry. His pride had 
 been touched. Attendants led him to a dressing-
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 room and he reappeared in snug-fitting red tights. 
 And as the packed music hall looked at his sleek, 
 rippling muscles, at his tremendous barrel of chest 
 and trunks of upper arms, and at the slender, cleanly 
 muscled legs, they gasped; and Abdul Yussuf's 
 face lost its smile. 
 
 They touched hands perfunctorily. The referee 
 stepped between, a grotesque figure in evening 
 dress beside the brown Oriental giant in the blue 
 tights and the white Occidental athlete in the red. 
 Overhead a lamp threw its sinister greenish flare. 
 The house became a still, breathless thing, for it 
 had sensed a real contest. Performers left their 
 dressing-rooms to stand in the wings and gape. 
 
 They sparred for a hold for a minute, breaking 
 ground, retreating, advancing, circling, making quick 
 unexpected movements, like dogs at play. Their 
 feet pattered on the padded mat with a strange, 
 eerie rhythm. 
 
 Once the Turkish wrestler caught the seaman's 
 shoulders for an instant, but Martin shook him off 
 as a big dog might a little one. Once Martin slipped 
 his arm about the Turk's great neck and held it 
 there, with a chancery hold that was like a vice; 
 but the crafty, mat-w4se veteran slipped from it with 
 a deft heave of shoulder. They fell to the mat 
 together and pawed at each other like cats striking. 
 They stood up again. Suddenly Yussuf made a 
 deliberately false move. He raised his guard, feinting 
 to a head hold on Martin. The sailor dodged and 
 plunged in. 
 
 There was a brown flash and pirouette as the 
 Turk slipped away from him. Martin came down 
 
 8
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 on hands and knees. Yussuf sprang forward like a 
 panther. His hands flashed underneath Martin's 
 arms, slipped about the neck, and caught. It was 
 a full Nelson. 
 
 "That's the end!" the house said pityingly. 
 
 For that had been the end of the elder Zbyszko; 
 and of Melesinoff, the Russian Bear; and of Marielos, 
 who was called the Terrible Greek. Yussuf would 
 hold a man helpless like that, his great forearms 
 leaning on the neck, until he became weak. A quick 
 twist after that and Yussuf 's opponent would be on his 
 back. It was a pity, they said — the fine white sailor! 
 
 But they did not turn to go out. There would be 
 an exhibition of gameness worth seeing, they judged. 
 They watched Yussuf kneeling sidewise by Martin, 
 exerting every ounce of his two hundred pounds of 
 clean bone and sinew to the hold. 
 
 Suddenly Martin gave a gigantic heave. There 
 were two sharp cracks, as of wood breaking, which 
 the first row of the stalls heard. The Turkish wrestler 
 rolled backward to the footlights. Martin stood up 
 and advanced with whitened face to the centre of 
 the mat. His right arm hung limp. A vast torrent 
 of cheers broke in the hall like the thunder of a 
 great waterfall. It made the walls of the house 
 tremble and vibrated the bass drum. The referee 
 stood forward and looked at Martin's shoulder. 
 He raised his hand. 
 
 "Match discontinued!" he announced in a wild, 
 enthusiastic yell, "Martin smashed his shoulder 
 and collar bone in breaking Yussuf's full Nelson." 
 
 For a long time at sea they will tell of that won- 
 derful night in Liverpool — of the roaring audience; 
 
 9
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 of the wild cheering at the docks. He didn't beat 
 Abdul Yussuf — no man on earth has done that — 
 but he smashed through the great Anatolian's 
 most deadly hold, even though he did break his 
 own bones like matchwood. That is the sort of thing 
 that seamen like. 
 
 And as the little Scotch captain looked about 
 the office, with its soft green carpet and its shining 
 mahogany desk and letter file — at the shaded electric 
 lamp and the glass-encased maps on the wall — he 
 wondered to himself how a man who had done 
 the things that Edward Martin had done could 
 ever be content to spend his days cooped up like 
 a guinea pig in a hutch. Did he never feel homesick 
 for a heaving bridge and a smashing nor'wester? 
 Did he never want to get the salt tang of the sea 
 and hear the cry from bows or crow's nest, and the 
 clang of the ship's bell? 
 
 He shook his head and rose to go. 
 
 "Well, I'm glad to have seen you, Edward," he 
 said, "and to hear everything's well with you." 
 
 "And I'm glad to have seen you," Martin replied 
 heartily. "I'm always glad to see you, and to hear 
 of you, and know how you're doing." 
 
 And as he went off a queer, deserted feeling came 
 over Martin. One by one they were dropping away 
 — the old craftsmen of his guild; and in spite of 
 everything the days were becoming lonely. 
 
 lO
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 II 
 
 I can understand, as I sit here and think about 
 it, how Edward Martin failed. In another day and 
 another country he would have succeeded beyond 
 all doubt. He had strength; he had brains. He saw 
 the colourful romance of commerce. There was in 
 him the stuff of Marco Polo ; of the merchant princes 
 of Tyre who brought diamonds from Africa to 
 trade for tapestries in Ispahan; of the Phoenician 
 traffickers who carried ivory and peacocks into 
 England and brought back honest tin from the 
 Cornish mines. And he had done this. 
 
 He knew ports in Persia where many a choice 
 shipment of turquoises could be picked up. In 
 Java he could bargain for sugar cane and coffee. 
 He knew where in the West Indies sponges could 
 be got at least cost ; where in China the best-flavoured 
 tea was. Even in Iceland he could find friends who 
 would direct him to where he could secure eider- 
 down. 
 
 The thing appealed to him. He had something 
 of the explorer's spirit and something of the hunter's. 
 Commerce, other things being equal, would be a 
 sort of sport to him, as fishing is to one man and 
 football to another. He was keen enough to see 
 opportunities and seize them. And everybody was 
 a friend of his, as much for his straight, unbending 
 sense of justice and honour as for his huge bulk 
 and huge personality and winning smile. 
 
 And it was his sense of the romance of commerce 
 that led Martin to resign his post with the Frith 
 
 II
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 Line and to buy, out of his savings— with many 
 mortgages, it is true— the City of Boston, that 
 serviceable two-thousand-ton tramp, in which he 
 beat about for rare cargoes round the world, bringing 
 home copra from the South Seas and singing birds 
 from the Canaries, Madeira wines and Bornese 
 spices. He accepted commissions to take supplies 
 to Madagascar; to bring cargoes of pine from 
 Bergen. And old John Ryan, whose days as broker 
 extended back to the time when he sold the tea 
 and coffee that were brought home in clipper ships 
 out of the East, made the sales for him, got the 
 orders, attended to insurance, port dues, pilot fees 
 — was, in short, the office force of a one-ship line. 
 
 It was in Buenos Aires, in the Sportsman Cafe, 
 that Martin met Becker, the greatest commercial 
 gambler of his day. Old John Ryan had auctioned 
 his last cargo, and they had sent him back to Ireland, 
 to sleep in the country he had been unable to see 
 for sixty years. Martin had heard of it only the 
 day before. 
 
 "I don't know what I'll do!" he told Becker. 
 "Do?" the promoter rasped in that truculent 
 voice of his. His slate-gray eyes half closed in con- 
 tempt. He took a vicious hold of the cigar between 
 his teeth. "Do? There's nothing to do but go on 
 and make a million. Make two! Have as much as 
 you want." 
 
 "What do you mean?" Martin asked in astonish- 
 ment ; he looked at the promoter as though the man 
 had suddenly gone mad. 
 
 "Look a-here!" Becker leaned forward with his 
 jaw thrust out. "You have been picking up these 
 
 12
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 cargoes and putting it all over the regular guys in 
 the trade. You know the stuff; you know where to 
 get it; you know who's got it. You made a good 
 thing out of it up to now, piking along as you 
 did." 
 
 "Piking?" Martin laughed. 
 
 "Yeh; piking. That's what I said. There's a 
 millionaire made once every twenty years. You got 
 it coming to you. Go out and take it up." 
 
 "Yes; but how?" 
 
 The man's manifest contempt had stung Martin. 
 He wanted him to outline his idea; and then he 
 would show him how little he knew of the sea, and 
 seamen and sea trade. 
 
 "Why don't you think, man?" Becker snarled 
 with his wry grin. "You've got a ship now and 
 are making money. If you had three you'd have 
 three times as much. You know the game. Charter a 
 couple more and stay at home and direct the business. 
 Hire four. Somebody'll trust you. If you can't pay 
 for them give your note. Sit tight and draw to your 
 hand. Take a chance. Once in a while you'll lose, 
 but three times in four you win. Go to it!" 
 
 "But they wouldn't trust me!" Martin said 
 weakly. 
 
 The gambler was rising from the table. He leaned 
 forward. 
 
 "Listen to me," he said earnestly: "a square guy's 
 word's as good as a million in the bank. I'd lend 
 you money on that proposition myself." 
 
 What appealed to Edward Martin about the idea 
 were the factors of power and sport in it ; the romantic 
 glamour of it. And, because he knew nothing of 
 
 13
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 affairs, he saw himself sitting in an eyrie among 
 the skyscraper crags, moving ships to and fro as 
 a chess player moves pawns, discovering an oppor- 
 tunity here and an opportunity there, and sending 
 his men to make the most of it. The battle against 
 commerce attracted him as much as the battle 
 against the sea. If what Becker had said about the 
 credit was true it could be started. And if that first 
 proposition was demonstrated to be true, why 
 shouldn't its logical deductions be true likewise? 
 
 And suddenly, as it had taken a million men 
 before him, the glamour of New York caught him 
 as by hypnosis. He saw in fancy, as he beat out to 
 sea from the Plate northward, the vision of the 
 city rise before him: a dim, misty haze of great 
 buildings, like an enchanted island described by 
 Scheherazade, spire and dome and minaret, white 
 and mauve and gold, breaking in the spring dawn; 
 the huge bulk of the Statue of Liberty looming up 
 before it, massive and brazen, like some petrified 
 giantess set there to guard it against hostile Armadas ; 
 and the great clanging noises that rang through it, 
 like the noises of a Titan's smithy. Power and 
 energy radiated from it like an electric storm. To 
 be in it ! To be of it ! The idea had power over him 
 as a magnet has power over iron. 
 
 And then he allowed his thoughts to wander from 
 the clanging clamour of battle to a sweeter and 
 equally seductive prospect. He thought of the ship- 
 owners and brokers he knew, and of their riches 
 and luxury; their purring cars; their homes in the 
 white palaces in upper Manhattan. Nellie would 
 enjoy it. He saw Nellie every moment. He saw 
 
 14
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 her in this city again, and this wealth, as a queen 
 enjoying her inheritance. 
 
 "And if there's any woman ever deserved it," 
 he said to himself as he leaned back in his chart 
 room — "if there's ever a woman, it's she! And 
 by heaven, she'll have it!" 
 
 Ill 
 
 If I ever meet a man who does not believe in a 
 future world I shall introduce him to Helen Martin. 
 Life throbs through that small, muscular body as 
 blood throbs through an artery; it radiates from 
 her finger tips like electricity from the terminals of 
 a Leyden jar. And when I think of that small frame 
 lying sometime inert and lifeless! The force that 
 sets it throbbing and quick, where would it go? 
 
 There are few people who could describe Helen 
 Martin, because her physical contours seem not to 
 matter at all. What matters it that this hundred 
 pounds' weight of humanity is nothing but a human 
 dynamo? Rob her of that life and you have got a 
 small woman, a very small woman, with colourful 
 gray eyes; black, sleek hair, and not too much of it, 
 parted on the side and brought to a cluster of inky 
 curls, like grapes, above the back of her neck; thirty- 
 six sound and serviceable teeth; a clean-cut profile 
 with a low, broad brow; a nose that tilted imper- 
 tinently; a mouth half open with eagerness; a proud 
 toss to the chin — not much, when all is said, but 
 the force and vigour of it seemed a miracle. It 
 showed in the defiance of her eyes ; in the laugh on 
 her lips; in her rapid, hurrying stride; in her chai- 
 ns
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 lenging bearing. It showed when people turned to 
 look at her wherever she went. They called that 
 magnetism, trying to put in a figure of kinetic ions 
 what was the living formula of life. 
 
 I like to think of the day he met her and how. 
 He was in New York on one of his very short stays, 
 walking early in the morning through Central Park. 
 On one of the narrow bridle paths he saw a sixteen- 
 hand bay thundering along. The dramatic contrast 
 of the small black figure on the huge gelding startled 
 him. Suddenly an auto let its siren blare agonizingly 
 along the Speedway, a harsh, rising snarl like that 
 of an infuriated dog. The bay stopped in its stride 
 and pivoted about on its hind legs. 
 
 "She'll be killed!" Martin gasped. 
 
 He flashed across the half acre of brown grass 
 between him and the bridle path like a beagle after 
 a hare. He took the iron railing like a hurdle sprinter. 
 Up the path the bay started like a bullet from a 
 gun. Martin ran forward as though in a race with 
 it. The gelding's hoofs thundered like the pitapat 
 of big drums. The great head and foaming mouth 
 drew up to him. He caught at the bridle suddenly 
 with a quick, catlike movement of hand, and dragged 
 at it, fearing all the time that under his weight and 
 pull the thing would break. Gravel spurted up be- 
 neath his feet and the horse's hoofs like water from 
 a spring. Suddenly the bay stopped. Martin turned 
 round to the rider, and his face fell. 
 
 The rider was looking at him in angry wonder. 
 Her black eyebrows were raised in an angle. Her 
 eyes frowned at him. Her slender chin was set, 
 
 " What on earth is wrong with you ? " she demanded, 
 
 i6
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 and her tones wakened Martin like an icy shower. 
 "Are you mad?" 
 
 He faltered with embarrassment. He thought he 
 was doing a humane action — saving a woman from 
 death, it might be. And as he looked he noticed 
 her easy seat, lying back in the saddle as in an arm- 
 chair, heels down, hands gripping the horse like a 
 vice, elbows well in. All he had done, for all his 
 good intentions, was to interrupt a young amazon 
 on her morning gallop. 
 
 "I don't know," he said. "I don't know. I'm 
 afraid I made a fool of myself." 
 
 He looked up at her again, and he saw that the 
 anger had left her face and a sort of humorous 
 gravity had replaced it. He felt he ought to say 
 something and fumbled for words. 
 
 "My name " he stumbled. 
 
 And he fished a card from his pocket and handed 
 it to her. She thrust it into her glove calmly. There 
 was a twinkle in her eye. 
 
 "Thank you," she said; "and thank you, too, for 
 your good intentions. Good morning." 
 
 She brought her crop down lightly on the bay's 
 flanks and was off with a drumming of hoofs. 
 
 "I made an ass of myself," Martin told himself 
 again and again, and tried to put the thing from 
 his mind; but there remained with him, to haunt 
 him all the time, a mental photograph of a fiery 
 young woman of twenty-two on top of a gigantic 
 bay horse, in black riding habit and bowler hat. 
 
 Three days later he got a note inviting him to 
 her father's house to tea. He put on his best shore 
 clothes. He had been a little put about to find that 
 
 17
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 the woman he had proposed rescuing was the 
 daughter of Alan Wingate, the coffee man; and he 
 had felt out of ease at sight of the big brownstone 
 house in Park Avenue, with its fine grilled doorway, 
 and portraits of the Alan Wingates of six generations 
 staring mellowly from the walls. 
 
 "Here," he said optimistically, "is where I make 
 an ass of myself again." 
 
 And he was not sure that he didn't, and many 
 times at that; for all that afternoon, until the violet 
 incandescent lamps began to radiate in the streets, 
 she led him to talk about himself, and his life and 
 his voyages. 
 
 I like, also, to think of how they were married. 
 He had gone on courting her when in the city, and 
 writing to her when at sea, in his blundering, lumber- 
 ing way. It might have been merely a flirtation 
 to her, so happy did she seem about it, and so much 
 did she enjoy teasing him, except for the occasional 
 lyrical flashes of trust and passion on her part that 
 could be nothing else but love. 
 
 "We'd better see about getting married," he 
 remarked casually on one of those rare afternoons 
 on Fifth Avenue. "I think I'll talk to your father." 
 "We'd better think " She laughed— a ricochet- 
 ing burst of low melody, as from some wind instru- 
 ment. 
 
 "Yes," he went on seriously; "I think I'll see 
 
 your father." 
 
 He went in to Alan Wingate in a truculent way, 
 expecting a stern and angry resistance. The gray 
 old coffee man looked at him questioningly over 
 his half-moon spectacles. 
 
 i8
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 "I want to marry your daughter," Martin said. 
 
 "And why shouldn't you?" Wingate asked. 
 "If she will have you! The only objection is that 
 she has no money. I'm on the verge of bankruptcy 
 and I have only enough for myself." 
 
 And that was the end of obstacles. 
 
 The sailors liked the happy, care-free way of 
 Martin's bride. They liked her habit of taking a 
 liner down to Buenos Aires, to meet him on the 
 dock when he had finished beating down the East 
 Coast. They liked her going to Marseilles to receive 
 him when he had come up from Calcutta, through 
 the Red Sea. 
 
 The sailors liked to see that small, trim lady 
 standing on a pierhead waiting for them as the 
 freighter was manoeuvred, with tinkling bells and 
 throbbing engines and hoarse shouts from bridge 
 to stern, into her appointed dock. And there were 
 things lacking in the treatment of ambassadors on 
 ocean liners that were accorded to Nellie Martin. 
 
 And if they liked the same things and had the 
 same virtues, the same joyful outlook on life, the 
 same frank sincerity and sense of honour, they 
 had the same fault — she perhaps in a greater degree. 
 They had an enthusiasm that flamed like lambent 
 fire; an enthusiasm that was given always to fine 
 ideals. There was nothing judicial about their 
 outlook on life. They were either all for a thing or 
 all against it. Consequently when Martin came 
 back, with his imagination thumping like an engine 
 over the suggestion of the promoter, Becker, and 
 unfolded the scheme to her, she jumped at it as 
 a cat jumps for a mouse. 
 
 19
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 "And you'll be at home all the time then!" she 
 said joyfully. "And we'll be rich!" 
 
 "Yes," he said, more restrainedly ; "we'll be 
 pretty well off." 
 
 "And we'll have one of those big gray limousines," 
 she went on, "that go gliding along with flowers 
 in them, and a box at the opera, and a place in the 
 country — and we'll have everybody we know 
 down!" 
 
 And after two years they were, as Martin put 
 it, pretty well off. They had nothing like his wife's 
 dream of luxury, but they had attained a wholesome 
 material prosperity. He found Becker's statement 
 to be true, that a good name is as potent, if not 
 more so — than a heavy bank balance. He found, at 
 least for the first year, that everybody was ready 
 to help him — enthusiastic in the launching of a 
 new commercial adventure, savouring its risks and 
 glories vicariously. It was not hard to charter 
 vessels and to get commissions, though bottoms were 
 scarce, especially as the war went on. 
 
 And for a while it was a great adventure to be 
 on dry land and to do business on it — as great an 
 adventure as a landsman's first long voyage to sea. 
 It was something past belief to lie for more than 
 two weeks in a comfortable bed instead of in a 
 cramped cabin, and to sleep continuously without 
 the interruption of being called on the bridge to 
 combat a typhoon in the China Sea, or a tornado 
 in the Caribbean, or to outstrategy the crushing, 
 treacherous swell of Biscay Bay. 
 
 And New York, too, was an adventure by itself 
 — the colour on Fifth Avenue; the rush and hustle 
 
 20
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 of Broadway; the queer, quiet squares here and 
 there, like an archipelago of green islands in a gray 
 waste; the brooding, deserted look of the avenues 
 to the extreme east and west; the green street cars, 
 like exotic beetles ; the thundering gallop of elevated 
 trains ; the thrill of the Subway, like some dangerous 
 catchpenny in an amusement park; the people 
 flashing past, tight-lipped, keen, efficient, doing 
 something every minute; and, above all, that sense 
 of growing, of the metropolis spreading and towering 
 like a wonderful plant; the nervous crash and rattle 
 of monster drills ; the scream of cranes ; dull detona- 
 tions of dynamite; iron girders clanging, joint by 
 joint; the sputter of arc lights as men worked past 
 midnight to the morning, raising at every street 
 corner a tower higher than the one the sons of Noe 
 built on a plain in the land of Sennaar. 
 
 "Ah, there is life here," Martin would say to 
 himself in that first year, "and progress here; and 
 the sea is monotonous and never changes." 
 
 IV 
 
 And for two years Martin believed in New York 
 as the mammoth canvas he had painted, with the 
 calm faith in which a devotee accepts a dogma. He 
 had succeeded. The vague unrest and desire for 
 action that swept over him at times, his irritability, 
 he took as defects in his own character and disciplined 
 himself accordingly. The luxury Nellie Martin 
 had spoken of was now in part hers, with the 
 comfortable apartment on Seventy-ninth Street 
 and the big eight-cylinder car. She had been a 
 
 21
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 good prophet, he thought, as he walked up and 
 down his drawing-room after dinner. Suddenly 
 Nellie, sitting strumming the piano, turned to him 
 with a gasp. 
 
 "Why, Ned, you're nervous!" she said. 
 
 He stopped in his stride. 
 
 "Nervous!" he laughed. "I haven't any nerves." 
 
 "Oh, yes, you have!" she shot back at him. 
 "And you've been going on like this for weeks, 
 prowling up and down like a hyena in a cage, 
 and snapping your fingers. You ought to see a 
 doctor." 
 
 "I don't want a doctor," he said irritably. 
 
 But the thing rankled. He remembered what a 
 White Star man had said to him when they were 
 talking of New York. 
 
 "It's the most wonderful city in the world!" 
 Martin had exclaimed. "In London they dawdle 
 and in South America they laze. Here it's all hustle 
 and go." 
 
 "Here it's all hysteria and nerves," the";, White 
 Star man had countered. "They make five spas- 
 modic jumps while a sane man would take two long 
 strides. Oh, wait and see! In a year or so you'll 
 be nervous yourself. You'll be buzzing like an 
 electric wire." 
 
 And he was already nervous. He thought, with 
 a feeling of disgust, of the men who had to drink 
 to steady themselves; of the men who had to go 
 to sanitoria ; of the men who collapsed at their desks. 
 It worried him. 
 
 And on top of this came the incident of the man 
 in Cedar Street, a pale, thin man, with a colourless 
 
 22
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 face and long fingers, and the eyes of a beaten dog. 
 His clothes were shabby, and he looked up and 
 down the street with a queer, hunted look. Martin 
 stopped by his side. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," Martin said. "Is there 
 anything wrong? Can I do something for you?" 
 
 " Can you do something for me ? " the man queried. 
 "You can do something for me. You can stake me 
 to a square meal." 
 
 "Let's go in here," Martin nodded quickly. 
 
 He sat and smoked while the other ate ravenously. 
 He waited, a little embarrassed. He wanted to know 
 whether he could help out. 
 
 "What is wrong?" he asked kindly. 
 
 "Oh, nothing new!" the man answered. "Only 
 a bum who tried to make a fortune. There's lots 
 of us." 
 
 "But there's no need to get discouraged," Martin 
 argued. "There's always opportunity." 
 
 "I'm afraid you're a bit green to this city," was 
 the faintly sneering criticism, "For one rich man 
 there's a hundred bums — like me. For one million- 
 aire there's a thousand down-and-outers." He 
 waved away the offer of a drink. "I had a little 
 money once myself; but it went." He paused for 
 a minute. "You get a little and you think you're 
 all right, and then all at once you're left in the 
 lurch." He smiled bitterly. "Where are the 
 millionaires of a few years ago?" 
 
 Martin thought for a minute. Ancient magnetic 
 names flashed through his mind. Yes; where were 
 they? 
 
 The man rose to go. He reached for his hat. 
 
 23
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 "Isn't there some way I can help you?" Martin 
 asked. "Tell me. With work? With money?" 
 
 "I'm afraid I've tried too often to start again," 
 he replied; "and the name of money sickens me. 
 There's lots of us, I tell you, down on the Battery, 
 up in Madison Square, in the breadline — old 
 millionaires there too. We're played out and haven't 
 got the nerve to die. Thanks for the meal, and I 
 hope you'll get past all right." 
 
 He left. The encounter struck Martin with a 
 sense of fright. That was another thing he couldn't 
 forget. 
 
 And little by little these minor causes, incidents, 
 worries, culminated in a depression that hung over 
 him like a cloud. He found himself brooding time 
 and time again over the thought of the sea, reliving 
 old experiences and sailing old routes. A great 
 nostalgia for it came on him and for the dangers 
 of it that he knew — not like those of his present 
 medium, which were hidden and sinister. When 
 he was not doing that he was recapitulating in his 
 mind the things that the poor down-and-outer had 
 told him and fearing secondhand terrors. What if 
 fortune should go back on him? One ship of his 
 was loading in Greenland with oil, and another in 
 Santos with coffee; and his own old boat, the City 
 of Boston, was coming up from the Argentine with 
 hides. 
 
 What if something should happen to any or to 
 all of them? It would nearly ruin him, on so close 
 a margin was he operating. And he would be as 
 one of those mushroom rich men, springing up in 
 one night, and next day being trampled in the 
 
 24
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 gutter. Or, if that didn't happen, would he become 
 a vague, amorphous thing, plethoric with money, 
 and everything worth living for lost? And again he 
 would think of the sea and hear the chime of waves. 
 
 Another canker ate him : he was becoming lonely. 
 In this new life his wife had become a little parted 
 from him. She had met new people and was interested 
 in them, and it seemed rare for them to be alone 
 now. The men they were beginning to know were 
 men whose jargon of money and trade Martin spoke 
 falteringly, and they knew little of the sea and its 
 great traditions. The women of the set looked on 
 him as a sort of curiosity, with his great frame and 
 old reputation. He wished he were back on the sea, 
 where she, and she alone, would be waiting for him, 
 radiant and happy, on the pier, and clear to his 
 eyes as the stars he steered by. But that was over! 
 
 But in those old days, empty as his wife's life was, it 
 was wholesome. She had held herself aloof from 
 this hectic rush of amusement because her husband 
 was not with her. She had occupied herself with the 
 old and tried friends of his family and hers, gentle 
 Old World people who had mapped out life clearly 
 for themselves, and who followed their course as 
 undeviatingly as a quartermaster follows the compass. 
 She had been coming to him, her mind filled with 
 the thought of him, her heart singing at the prospect 
 of the meeting. 
 
 It had come on her gradually — this change; this 
 widening of vacuous interests. It had come with the 
 stealthiness and silence of a cat. There had first been 
 her new home, which she was so proud to show ta 
 her old friends and her new. And the old ones, a 
 
 B 25
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 little disconcerted by the sight of the new luxury and 
 modernity, fell away little by little in their visits; 
 and the new ones grew more in intimacy and number. 
 
 There had been calls to pay back, and new engage- 
 ments made at them. In a month, it seemed, she 
 was in the middle of the vortex, as a coracle spins 
 about the rim of the maelstrom — at a lunch here ; at 
 a tea there ; bringing him to dine with people he had 
 hardly met and whom she expected him to like 
 immediately; at a theatre; at a lecture; on Fifth 
 Avenue; at a dance; at a bazaar; playing bridge. 
 At first it had been merely an exciting prospect to 
 dip into activities like this. Then it had become a 
 duty. Then a habit. She did not seem to have an 
 hour unoccupied — and she was doing nothing. 
 
 That was not life, he said to himself as he looked 
 on in amazement. Life was not amusement. Life 
 was not a thing to be frittered away. " No ! by God ! " 
 he swore ; and he crashed fist into palm with a sound 
 like a gun exploding. Life was — life; a sweet, sane, 
 strong thing, regular as the moon's rising and the 
 setting of suns, clear as air, healthy as rain, strong 
 as a great gale; not a thing of electric light in the 
 daytime, of looking into shop windows, of hysterical 
 music and fetid rooms. No! 
 
 But what could he do about it.? He could not 
 argue with his wife, for she would defeat him with 
 her woman's wit — the weapon that had defeated 
 Samson, who was the strongest man in Israel. There 
 was nothing else to do, except to send his fist crashing 
 into her jaw and carry her away. And one didn't 
 do that sort of thing to a woman. 
 
 He was sitting one evening, with a paper in his 
 
 26
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 hand, looking out from the window of his apartment 
 down on Madison Avenue. It was a warm May 
 night, and an indefinable glamour from somewhere 
 outside the city had stolen in. He turned to the 
 column of shipping news and read down it. No 
 boat he knew had come in that day. In the second 
 part he started. " S. S. Drake sailed for Cape Town," 
 he read. The Drake with Johnnie Cope on board; 
 and he had never come to the office! 
 
 The thing cut him to the heart like a surgeon's 
 lancet. Why, what could it mean? They were all 
 deserting him — all the old comrades! A tale had 
 gone round that he was engrossed in money-making; 
 that he no longer wanted to see the old friends he 
 had made and kept at sea. They looked at him 
 askance, as they looked at other brokers and bankers 
 and business men — people whose ideals and lives they 
 could not understand. A great sense of loneliness 
 swept over him. 
 
 Very calmly Martin sat in his office and read the 
 two marconigrams that told him of his ruin. He sat 
 crouched forward, elbows on knees, jaw out, brow 
 corrugated, and watched the panorama of the harbour 
 stretch before him in the afternoon haze. Occasionally 
 he glanced at the messages: 
 
 ^^ Martha Washington ashore off Orkneys. Crew- 
 safe. — Kenton." 
 
 That was the vessel bringing oil from Greenland. 
 There was no hope for that, he knew. He could
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 imagine the low, lean oiler being pounded to shreds 
 on the crags and needles of the bleak Scotch coast. 
 
 "Thank God they're all safe!" he muttered. 
 
 He could see the oil calming the waves, except 
 for the tremendous roll and sickening after-tow, and 
 the battle of the crew to reach shore. He took the 
 second message from behind the first: 
 
 "Rammed in fog by Caldwell liner. Settling. 
 Revenue cutter standing by. No chance salvage. 
 McCready." 
 
 And this was the Pasquale Gomez coming up from 
 Santos with coffee. She was gone, too, the good old 
 Clyde-built hussy that had withstood shoal and 
 storm — to be smashed in a fog off the Gulf Stream ! 
 And all hands were safe, with the cutter standing by. 
 There could be no blame on the captains, he knew; 
 Kenton and McCready were as careful men as any 
 in the merchant service. 
 
 He was looking blindly through the window, 
 thinking of the battles both his men must have had 
 before they gave up hope and abandoned their ships, 
 when the sights and life of the harbour began to 
 impress themselves on his mind as sunlight impresses 
 itself on a sensitive plate. 
 
 A line of railroad cars on lighters passed under 
 Brooklyn Bridge like a child's toy gone adrift; a 
 Gloucester schooner, with economically patched 
 sails, made her way upstream attached to a fussy tug ; 
 six or seven ferryboats edged their way from shore 
 to shore, their dirty brown bulks showing, as it 
 were, on a bias; a Booth liner edged backward from 
 
 28
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 her pier; little patches of white cloud puffed from 
 the tug's funnels and a faint black layer of smoke 
 hung round everything; and then suddenly a Cunard 
 boat swept round the Battery out to sea, running 
 like a greyhound, hoot-hooting impatiently at every- 
 thing before her, her funnels sloping backward, her 
 lines running fine and free, as from a painter's brush. 
 
 Martin could imagine her course out to sea, with 
 the mechanism of long experience — the skimming 
 through the Narrows; the halt to drop the pilot; 
 the monotonous ringing on Scotland Lightship. 
 Suddenly he straightened up. 
 
 "That finishes it!" he said; and he walked out 
 of his office. 
 
 He went uptown; and as he went his mind ran 
 on his affairs, and he docketed, ledgered and balanced 
 roughly. He was only partially covered by insur- 
 ance, and, except from the majority ownership in 
 his own old boat, lying unloading at its Brooklyn 
 pier, he was ruined. There were a few thousands 
 in the bank and he could raise enough to start him 
 again as he used to be — his own master on his own 
 vessel, beating up and down the world on his own 
 affairs. 
 
 A great sense of relief came over him. Subcon- 
 sciously again he could hear the farewell tolling of 
 the lightship and the first crash of the Atlantic 
 against his bows. He had been ashamed, too, sitting 
 there in his office, of having Kenton and McCready 
 standing on their bridges, tight-lipped and grim, 
 and fighting with life and soul for his property and 
 his men, while he was grubbing at a desk — grub- 
 bing for money! 
 
 29
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 'No more of that, thank God!" said he. 
 
 His wife rose as he swung into that small drawing- 
 room, to whose roof he nearly towered. She threw 
 down the periodical in her hand and faced him 
 with an instinctive look of fear. 
 
 "Ned!" she cried out. "Is anything wrong.?" 
 
 She walked forward until he faced her. He looked 
 at her straight between the eyes. There was a wry 
 smile to his mouth. 
 
 "Nothing serious," he snapped. "The Martha 
 Washington was lost off the Orkneys and the Pasquale 
 Gomez was run down in a fog." 
 
 " Oh, God ! " she said in a strained whisper. "And 
 everybody.?" 
 
 "And everybody saved ! " He laughed uproariously. 
 "I've lost nothing but money." He threw himself 
 down on a sofa and threw his arm out. "But I've 
 lost all of that," he added. 
 
 "Oh, poor Ned!" she said quickly, and slipped 
 down beside him. Her arm went round his neck 
 with a quick, hooking motion, and she held him 
 close for a moment silently. "Oh, poor Ned!" 
 
 "So it's rolling down to Rio again for me, old 
 girl," he said; and he smiled. "And you'll come 
 and meet me " 
 
 "Listen!" she remonstrated with a sort of fierce- 
 ness. " Don't talk about it." 
 
 "But I will!" he continued. "The old City of 
 Boston's at her dock and I'm off again. And it'll 
 take me only a week to get fitted out and away; 
 and you " 
 
 "Listen, Ned!" she whipped in again. "Don't 
 be a fool! Listen to sense." 
 
 30
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 He turned round on her with a grin. He liked 
 that flashing, impatient way of hers. He Hked to 
 see her face flame into enthusiasm; eyes glinting 
 like lamps; mouth parted; hair quivering as though 
 it breathed ; her short, staccato gesture with the left 
 hand, like the downward flick of a cat's paw. She 
 caught the sleeve of his coat. 
 
 "You've got to fight it through," she shot at him, 
 with her little jaw lifting. "You've got to fight it 
 and win ! " 
 
 "I will," he answered with his roaring laugh. 
 "I'm going to take that old boat out and come 
 home " 
 
 "Not with the boat, Ned." She shook her head. 
 "Here, in New York, at the game." 
 
 "I won't!" He snapped his teeth. "I can't." 
 
 "You will and you can!" She rose in her enthu- 
 siasm. Her breath came panting. "You were 
 making a name for yourself, and a fortune. What 
 you did before you can do again. There's not a 
 man in the city as much trusted as you are, and 
 everybody will help, Ned, man, you've got to!" 
 
 "Even if I can," he growled, "I don't want to. 
 I'm sick of it. I want the sea." He shoved forward 
 his immense, powerful hands. "I want something 
 to do," he said again. "This is no man's job." 
 
 "Listen, Ned!" She bent over him. "When you 
 were on a ship you were only a master mariner — 
 one human being in five oceans. Here in New York 
 you are one of the coming men in the trade. In 
 ten years the steamers of the Martin Line will be 
 on every sea and in every port. That's a man's job, 
 Ned. A big man's job!" 
 
 31
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 He faltered a moment before answering. Her 
 quick shifting attack had taken him by surprise. 
 His eyes narrowed and his chin grew rugged as he 
 thought that over. 
 
 "Yes," he said; "it is a man's job — a big man's 
 job." He rose. "But it's not mine." 
 
 He walked toward the window. Suddenly he 
 swung about. 
 
 "Listen!" he said fiercely. "I'm through. I'm 
 fighting a game I don't know. I'm trying to make 
 a fortune in a rat pit — jumping for it like a terrier 
 dog. There's no luck to it. I'm through!" 
 
 She said nothing. She stood slim and erect, like 
 a statue on a pedestal. Her calm eyes rested on his 
 hot ones with a steady, unwavering glance. 
 
 "I'm trying to make money overnight — a life's 
 work. It can't be done. I'm a seaman, captain of 
 steam and sail; and I'm going back to it. And 
 you'll go back to the old friends and the old 
 interests. Get your things ready, Nellie. This is 
 the end." 
 
 He turned toward her with a half smile. A tender- 
 ness dawned in his eyes. She cut it short with a 
 deft, sharp stab. 
 
 "I've listened to you, Ned," she began calmly. 
 "Now listen to me! You're not going back. If 
 you've had enough of the land I've had enough of 
 the sea." 
 
 "What.?" he broke in dumbfoundedly. 
 
 "Enough, Ned!" she went on. "For two years 
 I've let you go out of the harbour with always the 
 fear of never seeing you again. I've waited for you, 
 and watched and prayed for you. I've gone round 
 
 32
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 lonely and I've gone round sad. When you were 
 at home everything was happy, but when you were 
 away it was drab. And now -" 
 
 "I'm sorry, Nellie," he said. "A man has to 
 follow his road and a woman must stick to her 
 man." 
 
 "It's selfish!" she snapped fiercely. " Drabness, 
 drabness, drabness! Never a dance; hardly a friend; 
 no colour; no life. Now I'm enjoying myself " 
 
 "You're wasting yourself, my girl," he said 
 gently. "There's nothing to it at all. You're too 
 good for this. It's as empty as a soap bubble." 
 
 "I don't care," she answered. "I won't go back 
 to it." 
 
 "You will!" he thundered. 
 
 There was a tense, sharp silence in the room, 
 except for their rapid breathing; and then suddenly 
 she drooped as if she had been struck by a hot 
 wind. She leaned on the mantel, turning away to 
 hide the little mist of tears in her eyes. 
 
 "Ah, Ned!" she choked softly. "You're going, 
 and everything's going; and the little home " 
 
 He looked at her as she stood there, a drooping, 
 shining figure against the marble mantel. He saw 
 the soft twinkle of her hair and sensed the softness 
 of her skin, like a rose leaf. She looked more cared 
 for, more beautifully groomed, than in the old days 
 two years before. That frock she wore too — she 
 never could afford it then; or the trim, flexible 
 pumps; or the glimpse of expensive silk at her 
 ankles. 
 
 And the room itself, the square room with the 
 soft Chinese carpet, the bright landscapes on the 
 
 33
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 walls, the little peach-blow vase that Li Hu, of 
 Macao, had made six hundred years before; against 
 the wall an ancient Norman vestment holder, 
 carrying on its heavy shelves a dozen curiosities in 
 silver, gold and bronze. Through glass doors he 
 could see the dining-room, a bright, sunlit place 
 with its array of shining silver and delicate linen. 
 All this was art and comfort and luxury, and she 
 was in the midst of it, owning it, happy! 
 
 "We were so happy, mannie dear!" she sobbed. 
 
 Ah, she was! And the change would turn all 
 this topsy-turvy; would strip her of her expensive 
 clothes; would take her away from the luxuries in 
 which she queened it now. "And she queened it 
 so well," Martin said to himself with a sense of 
 pride. Her objections to going back to the old life 
 were not selfish, he knew ; were not for fear of losing 
 comfort and her home, but because she could not 
 see it any other way. It was true, he knew, that 
 he could come back, as the phrase was. Was he 
 fair to her? 
 
 "Do go ahead, Ned!" she pleaded. "Don't give 
 up!" 
 
 He looked at her again, a part and piece of the 
 room about her; a gentle, soft thing that seemed 
 herself to be the composition of a supreme artist. 
 
 "I won't then," he answered her suddenly, and 
 swung out of the room. 
 
 He went into his own austere one, clean as a 
 sailor's, simple as a monk's. The moment he had 
 closed the door he knew he had done wrong. He 
 thought, with a great sense of pity, how tragic it 
 was that the being he loved most in all the world 
 
 34
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 should hang the greatest gyve on him in this prison 
 of his. 
 
 "Even that!" he muttered bitterly. "Even that!" 
 
 A great gust of rage smote him like a nor'easter 
 sweeping southward from the Pole. 
 
 He went to the window in two swift strides and 
 swung it open. Outside he could see New York, 
 stretched, street on street and avenue on avenue 
 like some ancient, undecipherable maze. Dingily 
 everything rose — temple and shop and dwelling, 
 factory and railroad. In the distance the Metropolitan 
 Tower rose gloomily erect. The din of the streets 
 came to him like an insult. He glared out, teeth 
 stripped and shoulders heaving, like a berserker 
 warrior in a gin. 
 
 He caught at the jambs of the window; and he 
 felt, as he stood there, that with one great heave 
 of his shoulders he could split the vast apartment 
 house in twain, as Samson wrenched plinth from 
 pillar in the alien temple. Enraged, he spat out 
 on the street. He raised his fist and shook it. 
 
 "Hell blast you, root and stock!" he swore 
 savagely; and then, all suddenly, he turned wearily 
 away. r-.^j^r: 
 
 They will tell you — the wise city people — that 
 all this is an old wives' tale, a bogy created by 
 morbid seamen, like that monstrous serpent of 
 which Bishop Pontoppidan tells. And they will 
 point out to you in conclusion that Sir John Murray 
 — in 1 9 10, was it not? — investigated the sea in the 
 Michael Sars and found nothing but a stretch of 
 
 35
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 weeds. They will laugh at the idea of anything 
 sinister or malevolent there. But admit the evidence 
 of Patrick Burk, master of the steamship Connaught 
 Ranger, now somewhere off the Horn. He told it 
 to me on his bridge one Mediterranean night, when 
 the sea was like a queen's cloak, and a great saffron 
 moon rose over Africa: 
 
 " I was second mate then in the barque The Kerry 
 Gow — that was in '83, before you were born, my 
 lad — coming up from the Gold Coast in ballast, 
 when we drifted into it. It was a June morning, and 
 the breeze fell and the sails were licking from jib 
 to mizzenmast. We drifted into it, I say; but I 
 could have sworn that something pulled us along 
 like a hawser to the bows. It came round green and 
 moving, like a horde of morays, and the sun seemed 
 sort of yellow and the air unhealthy. And we still 
 went into it; and no breeze blew. We were in it 
 half an acre, it might be, when together we all 
 jumped for the boats, and overboard, chopped our 
 way out, and lay off for three days until a Greek 
 boat took us up. We never saw The Kerry Gow 
 again. But, thank God, we got out of it!" 
 
 He was very silent for a time, thinking that over, 
 shaking his head as he leaned across the rail. The 
 bell in the pilot house rang eight and the bell in 
 the bows answered, and the lookout's cry came 
 clear and comforting: "Eight bells and all's well!" 
 
 "And all's ^well!" repeated Burk, slowly and 
 thankfully. 
 
 "And all's well!" said I in a frightened whisper. 
 — Author's Note. 
 
 36
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 Edward Martin stood among the ruins of his 
 business and looked about him in a sort of daze as 
 a man might return to a house that had been reduced 
 to blackened wood and white ashes by fire; and 
 he considered in himself how best to build again. 
 The manifest thing was to get money, and this he 
 started out to do blithely. He put his case squarely 
 and bluntly, as a sailor should, showing that his 
 loss was not due to lack of ability or to carelessness, 
 but to that vague, undefinable thing called the Act 
 of God, against which neither foresight nor strength 
 prevails. 
 
 And some men grew cold at his approach, feeling 
 and fearing that disaster had a back fire like an 
 unexploded bomb, and that the safe policy was not 
 to touch him or his affairs. This type cut him to 
 the quick, for in his sailor's training no man let 
 go by unheeded another's cry for help, and the 
 thing was inexplicable to him. The second type 
 filled him with a deep loathing, as the sight of some 
 slimy thing might. Of the second type was Lewis, 
 the insurance man, to whom he went. He found 
 Lewis sitting in his office in a dim half-light, the 
 faded sun playing unhealthily upon his bald head 
 and giving a sinister depth to his sunken, colourless 
 eyes. The insurance broker rose at sight of him. 
 
 "Hello, captain!" he hailed hollowly, and held 
 out a flabby hand as Martin sat down. "That was 
 fine work!" he said slowly, an unhealthy smile on 
 his face. He pulled out a box of cigars. "Have 
 one?" he offered. "Crews of both ships saved? 
 Very fine ! Young Reynolds placed the insurance 
 for you." He smiled again. " I wonder how much?" 
 
 37
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 "Not enough to cover by a long chalk," Martin 
 replied grimly. 
 
 The broker lowered his chin on his chest. His 
 mouth broke into a wide grin. His eyes smiled 
 coyly from under the brows. There was something 
 theatrical about his smile; something studied. It 
 was like the simper of a sneak girl accusing another 
 of flirting. The palm of one hand closed lovingly 
 over the knuckles of the other. 
 
 "So they all say," he tittered. "So they all say." 
 
 Martin was lighting the cigar. Something in the 
 man's tone grated on him and he looked up to see 
 the suspiciously grinning face. He brought his 
 match slowly down from the tip of his cigar, threw 
 it away, threw the cigar away, pushed the chair 
 backward with a rasp, and stood up. His massive 
 jaw shot out. His eyes flashed suddenly as if an 
 electric current had been turned on and a spark 
 was flicking between terminals. His fists closed until 
 they were like the heads of giant sledges. 
 
 "What do you mean.''" he bellowed suddenly. 
 His voice thundered out with a roar like that of an 
 enraged bull. It exploded within the walls of the 
 office like heavy gunnery. It made the clerks and 
 stenographers in the outer offices spring to their 
 feet with white faces. "What do you mean.''" 
 
 "Why " the broker began in scared tones. 
 
 His hands trembled. 
 
 "Say it!" Martin thundered. "Say it, and I'll 
 sling you through the window into the street." 
 
 He picked up his hat and gloves and turned to 
 walk out of the office. At the door he paused. He 
 eyed the broker with hotly contemptuous eyes. 
 
 38
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 "You filthy dog!" he said calmly, and went out. 
 
 At his bank he received the first part of his help. 
 Reagan, the vice-president, a dapper, clean-featured, 
 red-haired man of forty, listened to him, all the 
 time boring at him with a gray eye, cold as ice and 
 piercing as a knife. It was the eye with which a 
 judge regards a criminal, when trying to get at the 
 truth. It was the eye with which an expert examines 
 a jewel, hunting for the flaw he fears to find. Its 
 cold, unfriendly light cut at Martin like a whip. 
 Under it his words grew more staccato, his tone 
 resentful, his own eyes angry. He finished quickly 
 and tilted his jaw. 
 
 "That's all!" he snapped. "Well?" 
 
 Reagan reached for a piece of paper, his eye as 
 cold as before. 
 
 "We can't invest all you ask," he said calmly; 
 "but I think I can promise half — on a series of 
 renewal notes." 
 
 "Half's no use to me," Martin broke in. "I want 
 it all. And this is the only place I know where to 
 get it." 
 
 ■ ." Half 's all we can do on that," Reagan replied; 
 "but I can make a suggestion. There's a man called 
 Bonner who might help you out on the rest. I'll 
 give you a note. But I warn you he'll want your 
 eye-teeth." 
 
 "If he wants them and I want his money," Martin 
 said, "I'll have to hand them over." 
 
 The banker began writing. A thin, experienced 
 smile cracked his face. 
 
 "I suppose you will," he said, and went on 
 making his large, round characters. " It's a hard 
 
 39
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 game," he continued. "If you've got money you 
 break even. If you're lending money you've got a 
 stranglehold on your man." The lines from his 
 nose to the corners of his mouth deepened and he 
 shook his head. "But if you're borrowing money 
 you've got a faint chance for life, and you've got 
 to make the most of it." 
 
 "And you may go down," Martin nodded. 
 
 "And you may go up," the banker smiled. "It's 
 the one man in a thousand who goes up to the sky 
 that makes us all hang on." 
 
 He left the bank with a feeling of elation. It 
 hadn't been so hard after all. And this man Bonner? 
 Well, the vice-president seemed to think there would 
 be no difficulty. But it came on him gradually, 
 with a sense of chill, that once more he was putting 
 himself under a yoke of responsibility. It would 
 be years before he should be free again. There 
 would be a chain about him that would keep him 
 tied to office and desk until everything was settled 
 up, and meantime something might happen again 
 — another Act of God! Another inexplicable caprice 
 of the sea ! 
 
 It was late when everything was settled that 
 night, and Nellie, his wife, he knew, would be out; 
 so he stopped at a restaurant on Park Avenue for 
 dinner. As he was passing out — through the bar as 
 it happened — someone hailed him. At the counter 
 he saw Dorgan, a lawyer he had met downtown. 
 He stopped for an instant. 
 
 "What's the good word, cap?" Dorgan hailed 
 blithely. 
 
 Martin stood still for an instant, smiling. He 
 
 40
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 didn't like the man, but he didn't want to rush in. 
 If the insurance broker's eye was leering, and the 
 banker's cold, Dorgan's was repellently wise. It 
 gave the impression that the man knew everything 
 that was unsavoury and crooked and evil. His face 
 was lean and long and regular; black, carefully 
 groomed hair; blue shaved jowl; his movements 
 quick and nervous. He was a tall, lithe man, and 
 he kept his hands in his side pockets. 
 
 " Been round trying to get money," Martin 
 smiled. 
 
 "You're not wise, cap," Dorgan grinned cynically. 
 "You're not wise." 
 
 "What do you mean.?" 
 
 "You don't make easy money nowadays," Dorgan 
 shook his head. "There's nothing to hard work 
 and little pay. You've got to beat the other man 
 to the punch and soak him where he doesn't expect 
 it." 
 
 "I'm afraid^ I don't understand you," Martin 
 said, puzzled. 
 
 "All the topnotchers make their cash in deals," 
 Dorgan explained. "They don't sell things for a 
 profit or on a commission. I was talking to Rob 
 Brown, from Yonkers, to-day. That guy's worth 
 half a million to-day! Say, do you know how he 
 started out? I'll tell you." He paused for an instant 
 to order a drink. 
 
 "That guy," he continued, tapping Martin on 
 the shoulder, "that guy got a couple of snow- 
 shovelling contracts from the city. What did he 
 know about shovelling? Nothing. He bid and got 
 them — good fat ones. He snooped round until he 
 
 41
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 found a bunch of guineas with carts and men, and 
 turned them in when the big falls came. Two 
 thousand dollars — ^ten hours' work! He's a darned 
 smart fellow, is Brown ! " 
 
 "I see," commented Martin very coldly. 
 
 "Now do you see? I'll tell you something else: 
 That guy got hold of a publisher with a Life of 
 Washington that wouldn't sell. Five volumes at a 
 dollar; he got them. What does he do? He rounds 
 up a gang of poor muts at the Mills Hotel, Number 
 Seven. He sends them out in the suburbs to offer 
 the set and three magnificent rosebushes for five 
 bones. Fall? Do they fall? They do. He turns up 
 with three slips in flowerpots ; tells the women they'll 
 grow. Say, that guy found four thousand suckers 
 in thirty days. Set, one dollar; rosebushes, eighteen 
 cents; man's commission, fifty cents. Brains! That 
 guy's got brains ! " 
 
 "I'm afraid you misunderstand me," Martin 
 started out. "I want to earn money — not to steal 
 it." 
 
 And he walked into Thirty-fourth Street with his 
 new enthusiasm dead, stillborn in his eyes. 
 
 VII 
 
 It was hard for Martin to conceal his aversion 
 for the man Bonner from the instant the money 
 lender entered the office. There seemed to be com- 
 pounded in him a mixture of furtiveness and fear, 
 and at the same time a sense of cruelty that was 
 like a malevolent emanation. He was a tall man 
 and thin; and his face, with its fine aquiline cast, 
 
 42
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 its high brow and delicate chin, might have been 
 that of a great jurist had it not been for the twisted 
 thin mouth and the cringing gray eyes. 
 
 Martin looked a little curiously at the silk hat, 
 which was dirty and ruffled; at the morning clothes, 
 ill fitting and unpressed; at the straight silver- 
 headed cane, and gloves. He glanced at the curious 
 pallor in the man's face, and somehow the thought 
 came to him that this man spent his days making 
 money from people who hated him, and his nights 
 dissipating it with men who despised him. He felt 
 Bonner's eye take him in with an air of possession; 
 of gormandize, as it were — the eye of an executioner 
 regarding a criminal with morbid pleasure. 
 
 "Sit down, Mr. Bonner," he said shortly and 
 sharply. "My business with you is this: I want 
 thirty thousand dollars on the security of my boat 
 — the City of Boston — my business, goodwill, and 
 anything else I've got." 
 
 They sat down together, on opposite sides of the 
 desk. Quickly Martin put his case, a bit truculently, 
 because he did not like the man. His jaw was shot 
 forward, his eyes half closed. He drummed on his 
 desk with his long, blunt fingers. Bonner made 
 laboured entries in a small notebook. At last he 
 looked up and smiled — a smile meant to be ingra- 
 tiating, but which showed as cold and base and thin 
 as the man's self. 
 
 "It will cost a lot of money," Bonner said. 
 
 "How much money?" Martin snapped back, like 
 a counter to a boxer's lead. 
 
 "It will cost you seventy-five hundred for the 
 year." 
 
 43
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 "Seventy " Martin nearly leaped from his 
 
 chair. "Damn it! That's usury. That's twenty- 
 five per cent." 
 
 "Money's dear," the lender chuckled. "Money's 
 the dearest thing to buy on earth." 
 
 They examined the value of business and good- 
 will; they went into specifications and inspection 
 reports of the City of Boston ; they went over bills 
 receivable from importers, and ship insurance to 
 be paid for the loss of the boats off Scotland and 
 in the Gulf Stream. 
 
 "And your life insurance?" Bonner smiled again, 
 "You carry a life insurance?" 
 
 "I carry a life insurance for sixty thousand 
 dollars," he answered; "but what has that got to 
 do with it?" 
 
 "We'll need a mortgage on that too." 
 
 Bonner's smile became something evilly droll, as 
 though he had thought of some mysterious joke. 
 
 "But, in heaven's name, why?" 
 
 "Because," Bonner took up again, "if everything 
 went wrong, and your ship sank, and you were 
 ruined, you might commit suicide. Do you see?" 
 
 "I see," Martin agreed grimly. 
 
 He was silent for an instant, because he was not 
 half sure he would not stop the proceedings then 
 and there and kick the man out of the office. 
 
 "And the things in your home too," Bonner 
 purred on; he resembled nothing so much now as 
 a medieval devil applying refined torture to a sinner. 
 "I want a mortgage on that too." 
 
 "You want that too!" Martin's tone was one of 
 cold disgust. "What do you want that for?" 
 
 44
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 "Because, if anything went wrong" — Bonner 
 smiled again — "your wife might say they belonged 
 to her. Women are more dishonest than men." 
 
 Martin rose from his chair, breathing hard. A 
 sudden rush of blood roared to his head like the 
 sound of a cataract. The veins on his temples 
 swelled; his great bull neck pushed against the sides 
 of his collar; his nostrils twitched like those of a 
 fine horse; his mouth twisted and his eyes suddenly 
 became wild, savage things. Bonner rose hastily 
 and crept to the wall. 
 
 "Only a little joke, captain," he cried; "only a 
 little joke ! " 
 
 The muscles on Martin's shoulders and arms 
 stiffened until they became an arch of living steel. 
 His hands reached out for something to catch. 
 Bonner shrank back and his face became dirty 
 white. 
 
 "You wouldn't kill me, captain!" he whined. 
 "You wouldn't kill me for a little joke!" 
 
 "No; I wouldn't kill you," Martin said half 
 consciously. "I couldn't kill you. You're a little 
 man. I wish I could!" 
 
 A great spasm of fury shook him like a torrent 
 of sobs, and the muscles were aching with a fierce, 
 painful ache to do something. His hands came in 
 contact with the sides of the great flat-top desk. 
 He caught on it grimly. Suddenly his shoulders 
 went back in a vast, spasmodic heave. The great 
 mahogany mass rose as if it were matchwood. He 
 brought it high in the air for an instant and then 
 smashed it, with all his strength, on the floor. It 
 crashed into pieces with a splintering boom. 
 
 45
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 "The end of all this filth!" he snarled between 
 his teeth. 
 
 Two clerks swung open the door and entered 
 the room. They looked aghast at Martin, standing 
 there silent and raging. They looked at Bonner, 
 crouching against the wall, beads of sweat on his 
 ashen forehead and his silk hat caught to his breast. 
 Martin pointed out the money lender to them with 
 a quivering forefinger. 
 
 "Take that jackal," he said, "take that jackal and 
 kick it into the street!" 
 
 And suddenly he strode out of the office, with 
 his head high and his face flaming. 
 
 VIII 
 
 He walked up Broadway like that, hat jammed 
 hard on his head, shoulders back, arms swinging, 
 dividing the crowd as the bow of a liner cuts through 
 water. Near Fulton Street a blank and ugly space 
 in the wall confronted him, and he saw in the gap 
 of the building a deep pit, with giant derricks 
 whining and rattling, engines in convulsive spasms, 
 blue, dirty figures running to and fro, and above 
 everything he heard the insistent cry of the drill, 
 a metallic whirring like that of a monstrous dragon- 
 fly, which somehow for a moment suggested a 
 burst of cacophonous tittering. The sight once 
 before had thrilled him. It had seemed like the 
 pulsing of life through the city's arteries ; but to-day 
 he saw only an ineff"ectual movement in it, a con- 
 vulsion, as of a man stricken by some implacable 
 disease. 
 
 46
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 "It changes all the time," he thought contemp- 
 tuously; "and the sea is calm and eternal!" 
 
 He turned to the right intuitively and swung 
 down Maiden Lane, past the shops of the jewellers, 
 past the snapping current of Nassau Street, and 
 followed the trail toward the docks. Block by block 
 the way changed. It lost the clean, efficient look 
 of the business section with its neat windows and 
 garnished streets. At Pearl Street it became dingy 
 and barren, like some No Man's Land; and gradually 
 from then it took on colour and warmth. 
 
 Here were shops that somehow made his heart 
 glow — queer groceries with jars of olives arid rosaries 
 of figs in the window; with dulse from Ireland and 
 pungent Southern fruits. A little farther on a 
 uniform-tailor's shop caught his eye, with dummies 
 dressed in blue and gold, and white drill with black 
 epaulets. And here, high in the air, was the sign 
 of a tattoo artist. And here a junk shop for sailors, 
 piled high inside and out with a million useless, 
 childish things — ^tin whistles, chessboards, skins of 
 alligators, a silk hat, a Masonic sword. The pro- 
 prietor within sat in the middle with a smile on his 
 little, shrewd face, as if the wonderful assortment 
 tickled his humour. Martin suddenly felt that all 
 his passion had gone. 
 
 He turned into South Street and looked toward 
 the Battery. As far as he could see the barn-like 
 piers crowded low on his left and the houses huddled 
 to his right like a crowd jammed against the ropes 
 of an enclosure — junk shop, tobacconist, barber, 
 saloons, ship agencies and marine supplies. The 
 tangy odour of the docks crept into his nostrils like 
 
 47
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 a spice, a faint mixture of salt water and tarred 
 rope. A sailor passed him carrying a macaw in a 
 huge cage, and the motley population of the port 
 eddied about like a carnival — square-headed Scan- 
 dinavians, erect, and every man a gentleman; stolid 
 Germans; laughing negroes; here and there a Greek 
 and a Turk; swarthy lascars in white duck; a pig- 
 tailed Chinaman; a Spaniard, rolling a cigarette as 
 he passed, with long, tawny fingers; gnarled sailor- 
 men from Gloucester and Newport News. Along 
 the street great drays, drawn by Percherons, creaked 
 by, whose drivers demanded way of one another 
 with loud, truculent curses. And about him, to his 
 left, were the bows of ships, hawsered to the moor- 
 ing bits of the docks like horses in a manger — white, 
 broad boats from the tropics, and sloppy Greek 
 liners; a neat Danish boat, small as a torpedo-boat 
 destroyer, which looked as if it could never cross 
 the Atlantic; a great red Argentine boat, ungainly 
 and out of place, like an overgrown child; here and 
 there a coastwise vessel, high in the bow and low 
 amidships; and farther on a great schooner, with a 
 tarnished feminine figurehead in gilt, which had 
 come from Marseilles, 
 
 He paused at a corner, looking at all this, drinking 
 it in like a draft of pure air, when a babel of sounds 
 from a saloon caught his ear — a crash and clatter, 
 and the sound of disputation and the sound of 
 laughter— and as he looked round for an instant the 
 sight of a beggar, with an accordion, seated by the 
 side door, held his eye. He could see by the man's 
 red, salted face that he was an old seaman, with a 
 pair of humorous blue eyes and a gap-toothed grin. 
 
 48
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 A grimy mechanic's cap hung sidewise on his face 
 and a tin cup by his side advertised his calhng. 
 He gave his shoulders a shake and drew the accordion 
 out in a long moan. Martin looked on in hypnotized 
 wonder, like a small child. 
 
 The accordion broke into a quivering, lilting 
 prelude. The player put his head back and closed 
 his eyes. His shoulders moved to the time. He 
 broke suddenly into a low, throaty barytone: 
 
 ^' As I was a-passing down Paradise Street — 
 Wey ! Hey ! Blow the man down ! — 
 As I was a-passing down Paradise Street — 
 
 Give me some time till I blow the man down!'^ 
 
 Martin started as though somebody had struck 
 him a blow. He clenched his hands to keep still. 
 The old halyards chantey swung on, with its rolling 
 gait, like a man moving along a heaving deck, and 
 its quick, staccato rises. 
 
 Suddenly, as if a mighty formula of magic had 
 been uttered, the scene faded about him and another 
 scene came to him, taking form and action on the 
 medium of his brain like a biograph picture on a 
 screen. He felt suddenly that it was twenty years 
 before and he was on a bridge for the first time as 
 second mate in sail. Very distinctly he could hear 
 the water at the bow and the welter of the tread 
 behind ; the tune of the chanteyman at the halyards ; 
 the squeal of the running shrouds. And below him 
 he could see the crew bending to the halyards, and 
 before him the blue line of sea, and behind him 
 the gray line of the land. 
 
 49
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 "^ strapping young woman I chanced for to meet — 
 Wey ! Hey ! Blow the man down ! 
 A strapping young woman I chanced for to meet; 
 Give me some time till I blow the man down ! " 
 
 All of New York — all of two and more restless 
 years — swept out of his mind as a troubled dream 
 passes when a sleeper wakes. Gone were the futile 
 months of labour — the hurrying, merciless rush ; the 
 grinding strain of nerve and cell; the dull routine. 
 Gone was the prison-like office; the puny efforts 
 with pen and ledger ; the scheming ; the rebuffs ; 
 the touch of unworthy men and things, like pitch 
 which defiles a man. His ears were filled with the 
 faint mewing of sea-gulls, and his eyes saw blue 
 combers breaking in whorling curves and creamy 
 foam. 
 
 " This strapping young woman, she says unto me — ■ 
 Wey! Hey! Blow the man down! 
 This strapping young woman, she says unto me : 
 Give me some time till I blow the man down ! " 
 
 Before his mind Romance took shape and form 
 and colour. He saw himself bound for ancient ports 
 and marvellous countries — America behind him, 
 humming like a beehive, and before him the green 
 translucence of Brazil, or the flashing beauty of 
 islands in the Caribbean; Africa, lush and mys- 
 terious ; the Levant, with its lyric splendour ; or 
 China, looming up, powerful, malignant, com- 
 pelling, like a strange, yellow giant; the calm of 
 
 50
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 the sea in springtime, with an albatross fanning 
 its great wings near the bow, porpoises playing in 
 the distance, and a strange sail showing on the 
 horizon like a fine etching; and after that the epic 
 nights when they fought the sea like armed war- 
 riors, lurching, rolling, slipping and winning. 
 
 Ah ! There was life to that — not like being chained 
 to a desk and doing everything by rote and rule, 
 like a convict in a prison yard ! And the tang of 
 danger in everything, which was the salt to food ! 
 
 Clearly, insistently, he heard the sea calling him, 
 like Gabriel calling from the clouds through a 
 trumpet of brass — the creaking of blocks ; the pulsing 
 of engines; the lick of the wash at the bow and 
 sides. He would go back to it again joyously. 
 
 And here an aching pain stabbed him. What of 
 his wife.'' What would she say? And again the 
 futility of arguing with her came to him with a 
 great weariness. He could do nothing there, he 
 thought; and he could not remain on. The place 
 was stifling him. It was all right for her — she found 
 life, or what she called life, here — but his place 
 was the sea, the thing he had been born and brought 
 up to, and whose spell had been in his blood for 
 generations. There was nothing to do but to cut off and 
 leave her to follow on as she was doing. He would 
 arrange everything for her and would see to it that 
 she should never want for money. The profits of 
 cruises should go to her; but for him the cruise 
 and the work alone. That was enough. That was 
 his destiny. He wouldn't argue or tell her at all, 
 for the thought of a violent quarrel with her whom 
 he had loved so long and so strongly was a prospect 
 
 SI
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 more repelling than death — than even the life he 
 was leaving. 
 
 A great loneliness came over him. It was as if 
 he were lowering her weighted coffin over the side 
 of a ship ; and the thought of what they had been 
 to each other in the old days enveloped him with 
 a great poignancy; and New York was the cause 
 of it — its beginning and its end. 
 
 "Ah, God! The pity of it!" he murmured. 
 
 He straightened his back suddenly. If it was, it 
 must be done. At any rate, after the first shock she 
 would be happy. She would have her new friends, her 
 new pursuits, and money to cultivate and follow them. 
 But for him there was work to do, no matter how his 
 heart felt ; a course to steer and a ship to bring from 
 port to port. He threw his head back and a great feeling 
 of safety and comfort came to him, in spite of every- 
 thing- the feeling that he had taken a right decision. 
 
 With a quick swing Martin turned into a garish 
 tobacconist's store and crushed himself into a tele- 
 phone booth. His clerk answered him at the other 
 end of the wire. 
 
 " Get hold of Captain Enright," Martin ordered, 
 "and tell him he's getting three months' leave. I'll 
 take out the City of Bosto7i this trip myself." 
 
 The chanteyman was droning out his last verse 
 when Martin came out. He sang, with a world of 
 experienced wisdom in his battered face: 
 
 " Ohy never take heed of what young women say — 
 Wey ! Hey ! Blow the man down I 
 Oh never take heed of what young women say ! 
 Give me some time till I blow the man down ! " 
 
 52
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 That was true, Martin said with sudden savageness. 
 Once she had told him nothing could part them. 
 Well, she had said she lived for nothing but 
 him. And now any futile business, any hollow 
 amusement, caught her as by a lariat. He brought 
 himself up on the bit suddenly. That was enough ! 
 
 The accordion gave its last asthmatic gasp. Martin 
 reached to his vest pocket and brought out a yellow- 
 backed bill. He dropped it into the man's cup. 
 The chanteyman picked it up and looked hard at him. 
 
 "What's this for?" he asked. 
 
 "A sort of pilot's fee," Martin replied with a little 
 bitter smile. 
 
 The chanteyman gazed at him keenly. His eyes 
 caught the decision in Martin's face, the tense set 
 of shoulders and jaw. 
 
 "So you're down the tide and over the bar, 
 captain?" he said quietly. "A fine breeze and a 
 good voyage to you ! Sheet your mizzen royals home, 
 and—" 
 
 But Martin was striding back up the street, his 
 shoulders thrown back, and the thought of the sea 
 before him like a great burning cloud. 
 
 IX 
 
 They moved out into the river imperceptibly, with 
 a mere ripple at the bow. The engine signals began 
 their purring jangle — dead slow; slow; half speed. 
 Forward, the first mate bellowed fierce, rapid orders 
 to the men along the pier; aft, the second stood, 
 watchful as a falcon. On the bridge, beside Martin, 
 the third, a mere boy, looked on with the experienced 
 
 53
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 air of a commodore. Behind, in the pilot house, the 
 quartermaster handled the wheel with deft, gentle 
 hands. Snug to the cathead the anchor dripped. The 
 blue peter fluttered jauntily at the mast head. They 
 warped about the pier into the East River and slid 
 under the giant trellis of Brooklyn Bridge. 
 
 "We're clear!" Martin said to himself, and his 
 heart stopped its rapid, trip-hammer thumping. 
 
 All the while, at the dock, he was afraid, as a 
 criminal might be afraid, of something happening at 
 the last moment to prevent him from taking his ship 
 out. New York might put out some giant hand and 
 pull him from the deck with the sinister enjoyment 
 of a cat with a mouse. But he was off at last, with a 
 cargo of machinery for the cornfields of the Argentine, 
 and he should not see land again until they raised 
 Bahia — thirteen long days. 
 
 It might have been yesterday that he was standing 
 on his bridge in his blue and brass, and his jaunty 
 seaman's cap set jauntily on the flaxen hair. Every 
 action, every thought, came back to him so clearly 
 that it seemed impossible to believe that it was more 
 than two years since he had stood there and threaded 
 his way through the harbour's traffic. He would 
 have sung aloud for sheer happiness if it had not 
 been for the soreness of his heart within, the feeling 
 that he had left some integral part of him back in 
 the city whose buildings were slipping past like 
 barges. 
 
 They had passed the Battery now and the roads 
 lay before them, straight and narrow to the sea. 
 Ten-thirty, his watch said. In an hour and a half 
 she would know that he had left her. And it gave 
 
 54
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 him a fierce jarring ache to think of the distraught 
 pain with which she would receive the news. 
 
 With clear distinctness he remembered the evening, 
 three days before, when he had gone home, his 
 intention fixed. There had been guests at dinner 
 — a man and his wife and a little Belgian girl. After 
 dinner they were all to have gone to the opera, 
 but earlier in the day Martin had telephoned that 
 after dinner he had some work to do, and that they 
 should go without him. He had said very little 
 during the meal. His heart, it had seemed, was 
 breathless. As they rose, his wife looked at him 
 hard — very hard. 
 
 "I don't think I'll go out to-night," she said. 
 
 "Of course you'll go," he urged. He turned to 
 her friends. "You've got to take her along," he said, 
 smiling. " I'm going to turn the house into an office. 
 Run along with you." 
 
 But she stood at the door for an instant, with her 
 eyes trained on him like guns, silent, with brows 
 furrowed. And for the first time in his life he had 
 shifted under her gaze. 
 
 And for the last two days she had done that often, 
 looking at him intently in queer moments. And 
 several times she had turned to him and called his 
 name: 
 
 "Ned!" she had uttered in a serious tone. 
 
 "What is it, Nellie?" he had answered. 
 
 "Oh, nothing!" 
 
 She put it off after a moment's silence, and had 
 given, when he pressed it, some ridiculous explanation. 
 
 Governor's Island slipped by, a long, barren spit 
 of gravel and mud, with its neat houses at the head 
 
 55
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 of it, and the squat round brown arsenal, like a 
 Chinaman's cap. They made their way through the 
 maze of steamers lying at anchor in the bay — Italian, 
 Danish, Russian, Irish, Australian. A Staten Island 
 ferryboat passed them, with a string band playing. 
 
 To leeward the coast line of New Jersey showed 
 up in a pale green line. He thought, as he watched 
 it, of the hardest thing of all — of his farewell to her 
 that morning. He had said he must go downtown 
 early — at eight. Breakfast over, he started. 
 
 "Good-bye, Nellie!" he said, and kissed her 
 cheerily. 
 
 And he hung on and did not go. 
 
 "Hurry up!" she had urged. "You must get 
 out." 
 
 "Listen!" he said again. "Nellie, good-bye!" 
 
 " Oh, Ned ! " she had laughed. " I've got a frightful 
 lot to do this morning. Hurry along; there's a good 
 man." 
 
 And she had pushed him smilingly through the 
 doorway and shut the door on him. And he had 
 gone off disconsolate. That was his good-bye. And 
 she was too busy — that morning of mornings ! 
 
 They slowed down at the cable crossing in the 
 Narrows and swung past the green, cunningly con- 
 cealed ports. To starboard Coney Island showed in 
 a faint white smudge, and Sandy Hook curled round 
 before them like the blade of a scythe. 
 
 Well, he had done his best, he told himself. She 
 wouldn't want for money or comfort. He had 
 settled up all his affairs and had put all, except a 
 working balance for the ship, in the bank to her 
 credit. All that was left of his venture for fortune 
 
 56
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 was an old clerk in an old office building — a one-man, 
 one-ship line again! And at twelve to-day the clerk 
 would send her the note he had prepared. 
 
 " I couldn't stand New York," he had written, "and 
 you wouldn't leave it; so I am going back to sea. 
 I am sorry, Nellie " 
 
 So she would want a letter written, straight to 
 the point; no sentiment! And he told the clerk to 
 keep in touch with her, surreptitiously, and be ready 
 to step in if she were in any trouble. She would 
 be getting the letter now. 
 
 He turned to the third officer mechanically. 
 
 " Sou'west by west!" he ordered. 
 
 And he listened while it was being passed to the 
 quartermaster, and repeated back. He pulled back 
 the telegraph lever to Full Speed Ahead! 
 
 The strong salt wind poured against him as out 
 of a machine, and as he filled his lungs with it he 
 wondered how he could ever have lived in the 
 stifling city air! It seemed impossible that he, a 
 ship's master, could ever have consented to live 
 cooped up like an animal in a mephitic cage. He 
 remembered the old Board of Trade official with 
 whom he had gone through the formalities incident 
 to returning to his old work, a small, gnarled man, 
 with spectacles, sixty years old. 
 
 "So you're going back to the sea?" he smiled. 
 
 "I am," Martin nodded. 
 
 " You ought never to have left it," was the comment 
 of the official. 
 
 And it was so true that he couldn't find it in him 
 to resent the uncalled-for criticism. No; he ought 
 never to have left it! 
 
 c 57
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 There had, also, for the last days, been working 
 in his superstitious sailor's mind the vague idea that 
 it was not by chance he was back here. The loss 
 of those ships! Might not the sea— that powerful, 
 unseen personality — have done this for his good? 
 He might never have gone back had it not been for 
 that. It had been no stray caprice. But a disciplinary 
 measure to save him from dying of inanition and 
 comfort. The sea! That was a thing one never 
 understood. 
 
 "I don't know," he muttered. "I don't know." 
 
 Eight bells struck — noon. She was reading his 
 letter now. The melancholy, eternal bell of Scotland 
 Lightship began tolling in the distance, and he 
 thought, as the first swing of the Atlantic lifted them, 
 of the way her heart was being pierced. He let his 
 head fall on his chest and his hands clenched the 
 rail viciously. She would be standing in her drawing- 
 room, reading the note with terrible, dry eyes, her 
 hand pressed against her bosom, her face white, 
 and her lips gray, and a little moan coming out of 
 them like a trickle of blood. 
 
 The first officer swung up the steps briskly. He 
 turned to Martin, 
 
 "I've got a stowaway," he reported. 
 
 "A stowaway!" Martin repeated dully. 
 
 "A stowaway!" he said again. Suddenly the old 
 rage of captains against the parasites of ships flared 
 up like a fire. "Bring him up!" he roared. "Bring 
 him up here immediately!" 
 
 Quietly and meekly, and with a smile on her face, 
 his wife climbed to the bridge. Her eyes were 
 dancing with amused devilment. 
 
 58
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 " It's hardly fair of the mate to call me a stowaway, 
 Ned," she smiled — "considering he stowed me away 
 himself." 
 
 Martin was standing petrified, as it were; breath- 
 less; something pounding an unintelligible message 
 in his head, like a wireless hindered by static. His 
 heart thumped with great, resounding strokes. 
 
 "I'm going to Bahia with you," she went on 
 calmly; "then I'm taking a boat to Buenos Aires, 
 I'll be there waiting on the dock when you come in. 
 I hadn't much time to discuss plans since Tuesday. 
 I've been busy selling furniture, jewels, dresses — 
 and a motor car." 
 
 He continued to look at her in dumb amazement. 
 He examined her as if he were uncertain she was there. 
 His eye took in slowly her trim rough tweed, her 
 mellow tan shoes, the little hat with its rakish tilt — 
 just as she used to be. 
 
 Martin tried hard to calm the beating of his heart, 
 which seemed about to burst into a great pa;an of 
 joy. She leaned across the rail and the breeze rippled 
 the tendrils of hair about her ears. 
 
 "It's good to feel the sea again!" She threw her 
 head back joyously. 
 
 "But you said," Martin managed to get out 
 slowly — "but you said you were too happy to come 
 away 1 " 
 
 She turned round and looked at him with that 
 merry, elusive nymph's look in her eyes, which had 
 always seemed to him like the point of a swordsman's 
 rapier, a rapid, flashing thing, past which he could 
 not get and which had always made her, for him, 
 the most interesting problem in the world. 
 
 59
 
 SARGASSO SEA 
 
 She pursed her lips and began whistling. And 
 again he heard the old halyards chant with its ripple 
 and roll. Softly she began to sing it: 
 
 * ' Blow the 7nan down ! 
 Oh never give heed to what young women say ! 
 Give me some time till I " 
 
 He made a quick dive for her; but smartly she 
 eluded him, sprang to the deck and disappeared 
 amidships. 
 
 And as he stood there, waiting to pass Scotland 
 Lightship — when he could leave his bridge and go 
 and find her — an ineffable feeling of joy and freedom 
 encircled him. And he heard, high above the lapping 
 of waves and the sonorous tone of the lightship's 
 bell, the eternal mystic chantey a man hears only 
 once or twice in a lifetime — the mighty harmony 
 that plays between the fixed and wandering stars. 
 
 60
 
 II 
 
 O, SNOWY-BREASTED PEARL" 
 
 It is one of the minor canons of writing that no 
 story or poem should be written about an author, and 
 I remember examining this once, and finding there 
 were good and urgent reasons for it, but what they 
 were I seem to have forgotten. Moreover, it doesn't 
 matter very much, for when I tell the history of 
 Desmond Fitzjohn I am not writing about the poet 
 and dramatist we all have in our minds, I am writing 
 the love story of a poor young man. 
 
 As far as the poet and dramatist goes, let us touch 
 on that now and have it done with. About eight 
 years ago there appeared in the periodicals poems 
 at the end of stories and articles accredited to 
 Desmond Fitzjohn. They were very good poems. 
 They dealt mainly with the glory of ancient chivalric 
 figures or voiced a nostalgia for Ireland. 
 
 Where most Irish verse is melodious and facile, 
 following the school of Thomas Moore, these had 
 power and a rugged grandeur. It wasn't merely 
 the playing of a rhymester with a great figure — the 
 poet really admired and felt for Mary, the Queen of 
 Scots, and Cromwell, the Lord Protector. Nor were 
 the nostalgic pieces the usual whine of the professed 
 Irish poet for Ireland and his old mother, bleating 
 in the comfort of a New York hotel for the black 
 
 6i
 
 "O, SNOWY-BREASTED PEARL" 
 
 bog water and the little roads. This man was hungry 
 for the yellow of the gorse. The dry tinkle of the 
 wind-swept heather was louder in his ear drums than 
 the roar of the elevated train. There was a poet 
 who meant what he said. 
 
 And then the director of a review published five 
 pages of The Old Age of Porfirio Diaz, and there 
 was gladness through the land. A new poet had been 
 born. 
 
 Yet we heard nothing of him, who he was, where 
 he lived, what was his nationality. Irish, English, 
 or Pole — English and Poles have a curious and refresh- 
 ing nostalgia for Ireland — and then came the play 
 Appasswnata, and its conventional Italian back- 
 ground, its fires writhing with drama, and the poor, 
 harassed woman with the vital, throbbing speech. 
 There was one person more surprised by the enormous 
 success than the author, and that was the producer. 
 
 "Lis'en, kid, they ain't no credit coming to me," 
 the producer will tell you, and he will roll a cigar 
 from side to side of his wide mouth and rub a chin 
 that has not been shaved for three days. "It's this 
 way. They been putting up a holler about the shows 
 I been putting on, see? They been saying, why 
 don't I put on something good, see? Something 
 highbrow. So I says, I'll give them some highbrow 
 punishment, see? So I feeds them this, see? And 
 they eat it up and holler for more. I thought it would 
 flop in a week. It all comes to this," he adds despon- 
 dently; "we don't none of us ever know nothing." 
 
 When the play was assured of success they exca- 
 vated the author and found him to be a young 
 Irishman with curling black hair and gray eyes, a 
 62
 
 "O, SNOWY-BREASTED PEARL" 
 
 face that would have been pretty but for the hard 
 lines of suffering in it. Where the newspaper men 
 expected to find "one of the boys," a reporter who 
 had made a lucky hit, they found a very self-possessed 
 young man who was unquestionably a gentleman, 
 whose name was Desmond Fitzhugh Fitzjohn, with 
 a genealogy extending back to the days of the 
 Conqueror — whose university had been gray Trinity 
 of Dublin. An old Norman- Irish family of Wexford, 
 he confessed smilingly, who had fallen upon evil 
 days. Land purchase, taxation, God knows what had 
 impoverished them. Yes, they had a castle, an old 
 Norman stronghold in the Wexford hills. Did he 
 expect to go back there ? Yes, one day, possibly soon. 
 He was very polite, very smiling, but there was a 
 reserve past which they could not go, and they 
 decided it was aristocratic hauteur of the less offensive 
 kind. 
 
 But if they got little camaraderie from him they 
 got an immense amount of material, and they wrote 
 of the Norman-Irish side in an extremely flamboyant 
 way. The castle in Wexford, now crumbling with 
 romantic decay, was featured strongly, and in a little 
 while there arose a legend about him of aristocracy 
 coming once more into letters, and mention was 
 made of Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Philip Sidney, Lord 
 Byron. A middle western journal referred reverently 
 to the author of Appassionata as the Earl of Wexford. 
 
 All about him was the atmosphere of Irish nobility. 
 His apartment in Madison Avenue had in it the flavour 
 of ancient Irish, ancient Norman days, old carved 
 chests, the gold and rose of mass vestments; the 
 prints on the walls, old hunting days, and the assem- 
 
 63
 
 "O, SNOWY-BREASTED PEARL" 
 
 bly of the Irish parliament in the period of Castlereagh. 
 There was a heraldic device, there two old portraits. 
 Out of the squalor of a boarding house he had 
 come to this magnificence. It was very like the 
 restoration of an exiled king. There the old body 
 servant, not Irish but Scotch. There the serried 
 ranks of books. There himself in the morning in 
 turf-smelling tweeds; in the evening in black and 
 white. Appassionata had brought him all this. 
 
 He had not in himself in any way changed from 
 the days of his poverty. Old friends of boarding 
 houses grudged him nothing. They had always 
 known of his pedigree, and they had always been 
 aware of his innate decency and chivalry. And they 
 will tell stories about him of how he would share 
 his last cent, or rather not share it but give it. Also 
 they will speak of his own peculiarity, of how any 
 story of ill treatment of children made him tremble 
 and all but cry; in point of fact, once or twice 
 actually cry. And he would never go near the meanest 
 parts of the city for the reason that the sight of 
 cold and ill-cared for children affected him so 
 much. 
 
 There is a very interesting light on his character 
 that Margot Kennedy, the actress, gives. Margot 
 was, and possibly is still, a fine actress, but she has 
 dropped out of sight, not having been on Broadway 
 for some time. She is a fine woman, she has a big, 
 warm heart, but she has one failing: she is addicted 
 to continual and deplorably thorough love afl^airs. 
 She claims, as the greatest matter to her credit, 
 that she turned Desmond's genius toward the stage 
 when they were living in the same boarding house off 
 
 64
 
 "O, SNOWY-BREASTED PEARL" 
 
 Broadway, "If it weren't for me, I think, there 
 would be no Appassionata and no Lafayette.^^ 
 
 "Was he your sweetie, dearie?" a woman friend 
 might ask, and not without a foundation of probability. 
 
 "He was not," Margot would answer with em- 
 phasis. "My God, dearie, but you've a rotten mind! 
 Desmond's the nicest kid and decentest gentleman 
 it's ever been my fortune to meet. I'd as soon 
 think of making love to a monk. Not that he isn't 
 
 a man, every inch of him, but just " That's 
 
 that! 
 
 He was liked by his old friends, liked by critics, 
 and in the new circle in which he found himself he 
 was liked, too. Now that he had fame and money 
 his old friends were shy with him, as old friends are. 
 And newer ties were calling him, that New York 
 that had leisure and culture and money. The houses 
 of bankers and great merchants beckoned, hunted, 
 found. The years of walking back streets were made 
 up for by saddle horses in the park. The cold and 
 hungry winters of New York Destiny paid for by 
 the soft Florida airs. And there were dancing and 
 music. This success was not a whit less than 
 Byron's in its way, considering the different age, the 
 different competition. 
 
 He was very modest through it all. Success had 
 not turned his head. When they wanted to know 
 about poetic drama he told them of Ireland. He told 
 them of an Ireland they had never suspected before, 
 of an Ireland before Cromwell came, when the 
 Normans were more Irish than the Irish themselves. 
 Of titles beside which the newer earls and barons 
 
 6S
 
 "O, SNOWY-BREASTED PEARL" 
 
 and dukes were the veriest labels of shops ; the Four 
 Knights of Ireland, the Black Knight, the White 
 Knight, the Knight of Kerry, and the Knight of 
 Glyn; and sonorous family titles, the Macgillicuddy 
 of the Reeks, the O'Donoghue of the Glens, the 
 O'Conor Don; bugle calls of a changing chivalry, 
 the Ulster King at Arms, the Athlone Poursuivant. 
 And he told them of a little colony in Wexford, a 
 townland of peasants, where the dialect was half 
 Norman-French, He spoke of his mother's people, 
 the Fitzhughs, each with the strange Christian 
 names, Gillese, Foulke, Bertran, Piers, and of the 
 first of his race in Ireland, Sieur John Fitzjohn, 
 Front de Boeuf, he was called. Bull's Head, and so 
 big was he that only an eighteen hand horse could 
 carry him. 
 
 All loved him, advised him, but his old friends 
 were afraid of him a little, thinking that all this 
 adulation, this playing among the rich, would 
 atrophy his genius. And then came Lafayette. 
 
 " Because I have dreamed that an ancient deed may yet 
 Make old men's eyes grow moist, and the blood of the 
 
 young men dance, 
 I call to your mind to-night how great Lafayette, 
 Quitted the perfumed corridors of France 
 For the most frigid, gaunt, American wilderness -" 
 
 From the crash of the spoken prologue, until the 
 end, the house was spellbound: great pictures and 
 the sweep of verse, the mincing nobles of France 
 and Marie Antoinette, the poor, poor queen; the 
 cloaked, grim figure of Washington at Valley Forge; 
 
 66
 
 "O, SNOWY-BREASTED PEARL" 
 
 the shrill pipes of Boston — eh, how long ago! how 
 long ago! 
 
 In the midst of all the adulation and all the publicity 
 he decided to return to Ireland. Perhaps he was 
 afraid of this fame. Perhaps he wanted to think. 
 Perhaps some picture remained in his subconscious 
 mind that called him back. Perhaps it was just the 
 terrible homesickness of the mountainy people that 
 spares none, gentle or simple, so that a day comes 
 when they must see the native mountains, or die. 
 Perhaps — at any rate, he decided to go back. 
 
 And people painted scenes in their imagination of 
 the return of Desmond Fitzhugh Fitzjohn to his 
 family-home, the ivy-covered machicolated towers 
 throwing squat black shadows on the green Irish turf. 
 The great wolf hound he spoke of galloping to meet 
 him down the gravelled drive. Old grizzled servants 
 thanking God for the return of the young master 
 over the seven bitter seas. And somewhere a piper 
 piping a little burst of dance music in greeting, 
 horses neighing a welcome from their paddocks. And 
 a mother out of an old aristocratic romance putting 
 out slender patrician hands to him: "Desmond, my 
 son!" 
 
 And they said : How easy for him to write romance, 
 having been cradled in that sweet setting; how natural 
 for him to see drama from the turrets of the towers 
 around which Irish kerns and Norman nobles fought ! 
 What women could he draw, but great, noble women, 
 seeing the mother he told us of? How could his 
 men be but gigantic from the stature of his family, 
 and how could his songs not be musical when he 
 
 67
 
 "O, SNOWY-BREASTED PEARL" 
 
 has been hush-a-byed to the music of silver Irish 
 pipes and his verse not be proud and swelhng with 
 the baying of the wolf hounds in his ears ? 
 
 And they said : At any rate, who grudges it to him ? 
 Is there any on whom success better sits? And they 
 said: Come back to us, Desmond. Don't stay too 
 long dreaming by the Irish rivers and the Irish hills. 
 Come back to us. 
 
 II 
 
 The truth was that his father had been one of the 
 under-gardeners at Perrottscourt until he had been 
 discharged for habitual drunkenness, while his mother 
 was known the length and breadth of the barony 
 for her bitter and evil tongue. His father's name 
 was Johnson, his mother's name MacHugh, and he 
 had been christened Dennis. 
 
 Put back his memory as far as it can on its infantile 
 path and the pictures in his mind will be of a wet 
 and dark cabin on the Wexford hills, of heavy 
 footsteps that were dreaded because the feet that 
 could hardly find the doorstep were dreadfully agile 
 at driving a kick at a small boy of seven. Ask him 
 for his first memory of his mother and he will tell 
 you it was a beating he received from her for having 
 let fall an egg. Go further and you will hear of the 
 egregious drunkenness of both, when they fought 
 horrible battles against each other, while the poor 
 child cowered whimpering with terror in a corner. 
 
 He was sent to school grudgingly because the law 
 demanded it, and once there he plunged with a 
 passion into books, as being some sort of escape 
 from the life at home. And the old schoolmaster 
 
 68
 
 "O, SNOWY-BREASTED PEARL" 
 
 spoke to the older priest of the new marvel and 
 prodigy he had seen in his old age. 
 
 "All my life I have dreamed," the old master said, 
 "of having some pupil who could one day be a great 
 man, and I have nearly come to sixty years and 
 disappointment, and I think I have a great poet and 
 I cannot believe it." 
 
 "And Sarah said," the old priest murmured, "shall 
 I of a surety bear a child, which am old ? Is anything 
 too hard for the Lord ? " 
 
 "It is Johnson's son, little Denny." 
 
 "Ah! That's bad. But he shall have his chance. 
 He shall have his chance." 
 
 The drunken gardener and his bitter wife had no 
 desire to see their son educated. Keeping him at 
 school meant only keeping him from work, and 
 keeping him from work meant less money for whisky 
 and porter and idleness. It is a terrible thing, but 
 in parts of Ireland a child is looked upon as no less 
 of a chattel than a calf or donkey. The interference 
 of the old white-headed priest with the threadbare, 
 greenish coat roused the drunkard to foaming rage. 
 He vented his anger in the usual manner, which was 
 to deal the boy a buffet that sent him hurtling across 
 the room. The old priest became majestic with anger. 
 
 "I have never cursed a man in my life " he drew 
 himself up to all his gaunt height — "but if you hit 
 this little child again I shall call upon the Lord Jesus 
 Christ to strike you dead where you stand." 
 
 So he was permitted to stay at school, though at 
 home he suffered for it. He was never allowed to 
 forget that he should have been working, and every 
 poor mouthful of poor food he ate was given him 
 
 69
 
 ''O, SNOWY-BREASTED PEARL" 
 
 with the reminder that he was not entitled to it. 
 Clothes he had next to none, nor any shoes, and in 
 winter the Irish rain is very cold and in summer 
 the road is treacherous with sharp gravel and thorns. 
 But still he plodded his two miles to school every 
 day and two miles back. 
 
 At home he was made to do all the work of the 
 house that his mother was too lazy to do, and the 
 only respite from it he had was when Father Patrick 
 would call around and take him out on walks and, 
 mounted on his hobby of old history, tell him of the 
 days when the heavy Normans held sway in the land, 
 how with the knights and archers and men-at-arms 
 they had penetrated from Waterford to Newry, and 
 he told of Perrottscourt, where the Perrotts still were, 
 and of its founder, Sir John Perrott, illegitimate son 
 of the eighth Henry and brother of Queen Elizabeth, 
 for whom he was viceroy of Ireland, and who later 
 beheaded him. And of the great men of that day 
 Fiach McHugh O 'Byrne, captain of Clan Ronal, 
 and the Brown Geraldine and Fitzsimon, who held 
 Carlo w for her majesty. 
 
 And one day he took him into the garden of 
 Perrottscourt, out of which his father had been kicked, 
 and there in the rose garden they met a little girl. 
 
 " It's little Miss Nora," Father Patrick smiled. 
 " Let you come here now, Nora Noreen." 
 
 Even at twelve her eyes and hair were beautiful, 
 bluish, gray, smudgy eyes, and long fair hair that 
 was like scutched flax, silky and so silver as to seem 
 nearly colourless, except when the sun caught it in 
 a blaze of wonder. 
 70
 
 "O, SNOWY-BREASTED PEARL" 
 
 "Do you know this little lad now? It's a little 
 neighbour of yours, Nora Noreen, and a grand lad 
 entirely." 
 
 "A friend of yours, Father Patrick?" 
 
 "O, sure, he's nearly the best friend I have. He's 
 going to be a great poet when he grows up." 
 
 "Are you?" said the little girl, "I'm glad." 
 
 "You might so have him up and talk to him," the 
 old priest urged. "Sure 'tis lonely he is." 
 
 "I wish you could come," she said, "you'd like 
 it here. I'd like to show you the peacocks and the 
 swans on the lake. And the Shetland pony, you can 
 ride him. And see if you can find your way in the 
 old maze. You will come, won't you?" 
 
 All little Dennis replied was to break into tears. 
 
 But he was made to shake hands and say he would 
 come. Old Father Patrick watched the sweet little 
 lady and the ragged barefoot boy. There were tears 
 in his faded old eyes. 
 
 "Little children," he quoted to himself, "keep 
 yourselves from idols. Amen." 
 
 At the Johnson cabin the news of the invitation 
 to visit Noreen at Perrottscourt was received by his 
 father with yells of rage. The idea that a son of his 
 should visit a place he had been thrown out of! 
 
 "By the Yerra God!" he swore, "'tis how I'd 
 rather see you dead on this floor than moseying 
 around with them kind. God's curse upon their 
 breed, seed and generation. And if I ever get sign 
 or sight of you, or even learn word of you going 
 inside them gates, I'll strangle the life out of you, 
 you dirty little jackeen. Them Perrotts is the curse 
 of Ireland, and mark me ! but I'll live to see the day," 
 
 71
 
 "O, SNOWY-BREASTED PEARL" 
 
 the gift of prophecy came to him, "when they'll be 
 turned out like rats, and with my own two feet I'll 
 be leaping on the grand pianna!" 
 
 He only saw Noreen once after that, when he 
 was at the university, but the vision of her as he 
 saw her in the gardens always remained. It was 
 sixteen years later in New York that he wrote "Rose 
 of the World," when he asks pardon of all trees and 
 flowers for not noticing them because of an enchant- 
 ment put in his blood by 
 
 " . . .a rose I have seen 
 In all its white and mystical loveliness 
 And I but a boy of barely fourteen. ..." 
 
 At seventeen his schooling was over, and gray 
 Trinity, the dour-looking, kindly hearted foster- 
 mother of Irish genius, received him — there are 
 always scholarships there for the poverty-ridden 
 genius. Old Father Patrick's hair was a little whiter, 
 if that were possible, his coat certainly greener, but 
 his courage was fine as ever. 
 
 "I don't know what the Bishop will say at all, at 
 all," he pondered. "He's a roaring politician, and 
 he's out to wipe Trinity off the face of the earth. 
 It's maybe silence me he will, or get them in Rome 
 to send me to Glasgow or Belfast — God between 
 me and all harm! No matter! I'll offend my 
 Bishop and take my chance with God. Go up to 
 Dublin now, and don't be too proud to put this 
 in your pocket. 'Tis my son you are, Kjieel down 
 now for my blessing. My little child, remember, 
 religion is this : To visit the fatherless and widows 
 
 72
 
 "O, SNOWY-BREASTED PEARL" 
 
 in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted 
 from the world. . . ." 
 
 Ill 
 
 And now he was in the college that had sheltered 
 Goldsmith in his poverty, and sought to be kind 
 to the savage Swift. And here were the streets 
 where Stern had toddled as a child, none thinking 
 that beneath that curly poll were Tristram Shandy 
 and the Sentimental Journey, and hither had come 
 Shelley on his wedding journey and here were born 
 the beloved Moore and poor, tragic Wilde. The 
 winds around the old pillars of the old Parliament 
 house whispered a soft poetry. The horses clopped 
 rhythm . 
 
 In his three years there he saw Nora Perrott 
 once. She had come up to see a football match, and 
 recognized him in his sizar's gown. 
 
 "Mr. Johnson!" And there was a tall, gloriously 
 slim, gloriously sweet girl looking at him with violet 
 eyes. 
 
 "You never came to see the swans, why?" 
 
 He was embarrassed, awkward. 
 
 "I never could quite come." 
 
 She must have understood. She turned away an 
 instant. 
 
 "Are you happy here?" 
 
 "Tremendously happy, sometimes, nearly all the 
 time." 
 
 "I'm so very glad. Please believe me, won't you? 
 I'm very glad." 
 
 "Yes, miss." 
 
 73
 
 "O, SNOWY-BREASTED PEARL" 
 
 A few words, and a handshake and she went away, 
 but her heart was sore. The "Yes, miss," with its 
 servantish sound hurt her. The poor lad, he was 
 like a bird with crippled wings. They had been so 
 cruel to him, she had heard. There was something 
 haunting about his eyes. As for him, he was dazed 
 ^ her— a man who had seen a miracle. His heart, 
 his throat seemed bursting. He was so moved he 
 could make no song. 
 
 Came also a day when his father, the notable 
 iacobin, arrived. Into the elder Johnson's sodden 
 skull there had seeped the idea that more money 
 than he was getting could be dragged from the son. 
 He pushed past the porter with an oath. 
 
 '• Hell blast you, you dirty informer, let an honest 
 
 man by." 
 
 The cool, cloistered atmosphere for some reason 
 drove the man to fury. The sense of security, the 
 ease, the gravelled walks, the trim lawns, made him 
 feel 'here was no place for him. And if it was no 
 place for him, by God! it was no place for a son of 
 his. By ill luck he caught sight of Dennis walking 
 in the distance. 
 
 " Come here, you jackeen. Come here, damn you, 
 do you hear me, come here!" 
 
 He caught the lad by the arm. Men came running 
 up from all directions. 
 
 "Who is this?" they were asking. "What is he 
 doing here? What does he want?" 
 
 "You want to know who I am, eh? Well, I'll 
 .tell you. I'm this pup's father. Do you know now? 
 And I've got to slave and work, while he lives in 
 luxury, eh? By God, I'll show him." 
 
 •74
 
 <( 
 
 O, SNOWY-BREASTED PEARL" 
 
 And with a savage smack on the side of the head 
 he knocked the boy down. 
 
 He was pitched out, as he had been pitched out 
 of Perrottscourt, as he had been pitched out of 
 drinking houses innumerable, A large Irish police- 
 man caught him on the rebound in College Green, 
 questioned him, laid forceful hands upon him and 
 he was seen no more that month. 
 
 Before the day was over, young Johnson had 
 sold all his books, all his assets, his cap and gown 
 even, and there sailed from the port of Queenstown 
 next day, in the steerage of a slow liner, one Desmond 
 Fitzhugh Fitzjohn, who astonished an usually 
 imperturbable official by giving his occupation as 
 poet. The official was wiser in his generation than 
 the Child of Light. He entered him as "journalist." 
 
 IV 
 
 A dozen years had changed Dublin about as much 
 as a dozen hours would change another city. There 
 were still the wide streets, the wide squares, the 
 omnipresent trees. Seagulls whining over the chief 
 streets, and matronly Anna Liffey flowing sedately to 
 the sea. People going to races and people going to 
 revolutions. Men playing golf and men playing 
 treason. Surly Trinity frowning at the House of 
 Parliament, and the statue of Thomas Moore with 
 its finger raised in conventional ecstasy, and the 
 statue of William of Orange with his head high in 
 conventional triumph. 
 
 Who Desmond Fitzjohn was, Dublin did not know. 
 For Ireland gives only such time to literature as can 
 
 75
 
 "O, SNOWY-BREASTED PEARL" 
 
 be spared from politics, with the result that they are 
 usually a little behind the times. They are discovering 
 Longfellow now, and are rather upset at that daring 
 modern novel The Scarlet Letter. However, on 
 the mailboats from England he had met people in 
 the smokeroom, and because he looked clean and 
 intelligent and had been in America he was invited 
 to dinner with a broad hospitality. To old Georgian 
 houses in Merrion and Fitzwilliam square, where 
 remained the grandeur of an elder day when Ireland 
 had peers and parliament. Priceless furniture and 
 silver and glass. The conversations were begun with 
 a certain formula by the principal guests. 
 
 "In my opinion the country is going to the dogs." 
 To which the answer was: 
 
 "The more I live, and the more I see, the more 
 I am convinced that the Irish people have a great 
 destiny before them." 
 
 "Behind them, you mean. You've been listening 
 to that old blatherskite, John Redmo-nd." 
 
 "I'd rather listen to him than to that dirty mur- 
 derer. Sir Edward Carson." 
 
 "In my opinion, a little more murder and a little 
 less oratory would be a grand thing for the country." 
 
 "O, I'm with you there. I'm with you there. 
 Within reason, of course, within reason." 
 
 And then turning to Desmond they would ask: 
 
 "Tell us now, Mr. Fitzjohn, and tell us the truth, 
 and don't be afraid of hurting our feelings, what 
 does America really think of us?" The only answer 
 to which was a very wide gesture, which might mean 
 a lot or mean nothing, but seemed to satisfy them. 
 
 "O, 'tis a great country." 
 
 76
 
 "O, SNOWY-BREASTED PEARL" 
 
 "O, I tell you what, we're a great people." 
 And one evening at a dinner party he met her. 
 There stepped forward to him a shining presence, 
 hair that was more silver than gold, violet, eager eyes, 
 a woman slim and nearly as tall as himself, 
 
 "You know me," her voice was fine and vital. 
 "I am Nora Perrott." 
 
 "Yes," he said, "I know you. Miss Perrott," 
 "Nora Perrott," she corrected him, "You never 
 came to see the swans." 
 
 "I couldn't," he told her, "My father would 
 have beaten me." 
 "Yes, I know." 
 
 Was there a mist in the eyes, he wondered, or was 
 it just warm understanding,? O, the sweet, firm face, 
 the little nose, the arched mouth that was like red 
 velvet. The slow, understanding smile, that was 
 like music. All the beauty he sensed in her from 
 head to foot, the perfect woman, the silver woman. 
 He saw her hands — they were so slim, the skin was 
 like rich Chinese silk, and vital, so very vital. 
 
 "How do you remember after all these years? I 
 have only spoken to you twice." 
 
 "From the first time I saw you with Father 
 Patrick — poor Father Patrick! — I have remembered 
 you. There seemed to be a meaning about you, like 
 a story in a book, and isn't it a story, Desmond — I 
 call you Desmond, because we were children in the 
 same place— the little boy of the Wexford hills who 
 became a great man in a little space? " 
 "A great man, Nora?" 
 
 "O, yes, a great man, I know. I know all about 
 you, Desmond, or nearly all. When you went to 
 
 77
 
 "O, SNOWY-BREASTED PEARL" 
 
 Dublin you were like setting out on a great journey, 
 and I thought all was well with you. All life was 
 so peaceful, so humdrum, and you were the only 
 person setting out on adventure. I met you in 
 Dublin and you seemed so well. You were happy, 
 too, you said." 
 
 " I remember — I couldn't speak well." 
 
 "And then you disappeared and everybody said 
 you had died. The little champion from the Wexford 
 hills — it seemed such a pity the adventure ended. 
 Do you know, I cried. Do you mind my telling you 
 this?" 
 
 "Do I mind! Good God, do I mind! I always 
 felt none cared a tinker's curse." 
 
 "Well, I did. And then one day somewhere I saw 
 a poem, under the name, Desmond Fitzjohn, and the 
 poem was the boy of the Wexford mountains. And 
 I knew you were well." 
 
 "I never thought any one knew of me." 
 
 " If you had come to see the swans, Desmond, you 
 would have felt it. What a pity we didn't know each 
 other better." 
 
 "You are forgetting," he said, "the long way 
 between the houses. And when you have been beaten 
 as a child, the fear is terrible. You were never 
 beaten, Nora." 
 
 "You can speak of it now, can you? O, Desmond, 
 you have become a great man." 
 
 They were like two children who had grown up 
 dumb, and knew each other by warm telepathy, and 
 
 78
 
 "O, SNOWY-BREASTED PEARL" 
 
 had received together at one moment the gift of 
 golden, musical speech. They were as two people 
 who had lived together with a high wall between 
 them, and knew each other's intimacies, but had 
 never seen the lineaments of the face, and now the 
 high wall had crumbled and they saw each other, 
 fairer than rainbows. 
 
 She had come up from Wexford for a few days. 
 It was now Thursday. On Sunday she must go 
 back. 
 
 "I am like some one," she said, "who went out 
 to pick a few twigs on the mountainside, and came 
 upon the Burning Bush." 
 
 "And where shall I see you, Nora?" 
 
 "You will see me all these days, Desmond, if you 
 wish to. We were children together." 
 
 The sun now rose on those magical days, dancing 
 in the morning, as though each morning were Easter. 
 Softness of Irish summer, and adventure of meeting 
 her in the morning. In the evenings she was a stately, 
 understanding woman. In the day, hatted and gloved, 
 violet eyes and small, eager nose, she was like an elf 
 or some ironical fairy. She bloomed with the day; 
 in the evening, wistful, very beautiful. And when 
 he left her for the morning her violet eyes were like 
 violet stars. 
 
 She would hear of everything that had happened 
 to him since he left, of all the struggles in America. 
 When he told her of walking the cold, cruel streets, 
 her eyes filled with tears. 
 
 "O, Desmond, my dear!" 
 
 And her lips parted and her eyes shone when he 
 told her of Lafayette. 
 
 79
 
 "O, SNOWY-BREASTED PEARL" 
 
 "Little champion from the hills of Wexford!" she 
 said. 
 
 And he told her of the women he had met in 
 America. On this she examined him with meticulous 
 detail. 
 
 "Tell me of Margot Kennedy," she said. 
 
 And he told her of the big-hearted woman who 
 was always falling in love, and who had persuaded 
 him to write Appassionata. 
 
 " Did she fall in love with you, Desmond? " 
 
 "No, Nora. She was only a very good friend." 
 
 She wrinkled her very small nose. 
 
 "Still and all, I don't think I'd like her. And 
 so you never married, Desmond?" 
 
 "No, Nora." 
 
 "Nor fell in love over there?" 
 
 "No, Nora." 
 
 "And then to whom is Snowy-Breasted Pearl 
 written ? " 
 
 "That?" 
 
 "Yes, that!" 
 
 " How shall I state your beauty? " (she quoted). 
 
 " These harsh English words 
 Are alien to your image. And only the golden bees 
 Will understand my Gaelic. They and the Irish birds 
 And the hurt, whimpering waves of the Irish seas. 
 There comes to my heart the chord of an ancient writer. 
 Who sang of a silver girl, 
 In days when the air of the world was lighter, 
 {When kings' daughters danced upon a green lawn 
 And there were more apples on the trees) 
 A Ferla an Vrolle Vaun ! 
 O, Snowy- Breasted Pearl! 
 80
 
 '*0, SNOWY-BREASTED PEARL" 
 
 "To whom is that, Desmond? To whom is that? 
 And who is your Snowy- Breasted Pearl ? " 
 
 "Do you really want to know?" 
 
 "Yes, Desmond, else I wouldn't ask you. May I 
 know ? " 
 
 "You said you had always been thinking of me. 
 I have always been thinking about you, Nora." 
 
 "Then Snowy-Breasted Pearl is to me? O, 
 Desmond ! " A clouding blush came over her sweet 
 face. "You wrote it because we had been children 
 together." 
 
 "Yes, Nora. Because," he hesitated, "because we 
 had been children together." 
 
 As suddenly as speech had come, speech departed. 
 They had been as unconscious as children until now, 
 happy as birds. They had been dancing about the 
 Burning Bush, and out of the depths of it had spoken 
 the slow accent of God. There was no cloud, no 
 fear, but only a mystery, a hush. . . . And neither 
 could say anything then, nor all day. And yet each 
 knew the other knew. Through Dublin they wan- 
 dered, with the convention between them that 
 nothing had happened, nothing been said. The sun 
 shone on the Liffey, the mountains drowsed, the 
 seagulls breasted the high air. Veils lifted from the 
 face of the ancient city, the veil of fighting, the veil 
 of tragedy, and through the transparency of the third 
 veil there were visible the tenuous figures of old 
 Dublin spirits — Tristram and the Irish princess, 
 Iseult, and savage Swift, and secret Stella; and Sir 
 Edward Fitzgerald, who is sleeping, and Pamela, who 
 fled far from the tragic land . . . 
 
 8i
 
 "O, SNOWY-BREASTED PEARL" 
 
 They bade each other good-bye clumsily at the 
 station. 
 
 "Desmond, I'll write to you. I'll write you when 
 I get home — to-morrow I'll write — no, to-night." 
 
 "Yes, Nora." 
 
 "Desmond, were you thinking of coming to 
 Wexford?" 
 
 "No, Nora, I was not. I was afraid." 
 
 "You were right. Don't come, Desmond. You'd 
 be hurt. Desmond, I'll write you to-night." 
 
 They looked at each other tragically. They each 
 wanted to kiss the other. They didn't know how. 
 So ignorant, so maladroit. A green flag waved. A 
 whistle blew. The train moved. And then suddenly, 
 
 "O, Desmond!" 
 
 But it was too late. All he could do was gaze after 
 her. All she could do was gaze through the window. 
 Ignorant, maladroit. And in a minute she was gone. 
 
 VI 
 
 He had said he would not go to Wexford. But 
 Dublin was like a box that had held something and 
 was empty now. It was a lamp that had gone out. 
 It had no more meaning. Useless. So next day 
 he said: 
 
 "I'll go down this afternoon." 
 
 "And ?" 
 
 "I'll go down and come back." 
 
 "And what'll you do?" 
 
 "I'll look at Perrottscourt from the road and 
 come back." 
 
 "And what good will that do you?" 
 
 82
 
 "O, SNOWY-BREASTED PEARL" 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 "It will only make it worse." 
 
 "I'll go, all the same." 
 
 Past the hills, past the sleeping towns, past the 
 sea the train went, past shoulders of heather and 
 stretches of green turf. And the nearer he came, 
 the more a dread and melancholy came on him. 
 
 "Go back," he warned himself. "Get out at the 
 next station and go back." 
 
 "I won't," he said, stubbornly. 
 
 At Perrottscourt nothing had changed. The same 
 beds of geraniums, the same road, the same dust 
 even. Every tree he knew, every stone. The little 
 sleeping village, the greenish church, the old school- 
 house. The bakeshop, the creeper-covered post- 
 office. The three places, "licensed to sell whisky, 
 wine and beer for consumption on the premises," 
 each of them hated in his heart, because in the old 
 days out of them, staggering, had come his father 
 with the heavy hand and the ready boot. And 
 here was a thatched cabin; his heart stood still for 
 a minute; there was a gaunt, slatternly woman 
 hanging over the half-door, chatting to a neighbour. 
 
 "Well, now, Mrs. Johnson, I'll warrant you told 
 her what she was." 
 
 "Indeed, Mrs. Moloney, I did so. I said: 'And 
 who are you, might I ask.? Aren't you the woman,' 
 says I, 'that has seven children and never a marriage 
 line.? Isn't it " Steal-the-Hens " they call you,' says 
 I. 'Go along,' says I, 'you tinkers' biddy'." 
 
 Good God! Good God! His knees were weak, 
 his brow wet. Well, safely past, thank God. Why 
 did he come? Why? Why? 
 
 8S
 
 "O, SNOWY-BREASTED PEARL" 
 
 Now a great ivy-covered wall, and arose the gates 
 of Perrottscourt, tall wrought iron. He looked at 
 them, stupefied. Queer, he hadn't remembered they 
 were so tall, so high, so strong. And she was back 
 of those gates, and outside of them his mother, and 
 somewhere in the village saloon, his father, spending 
 the money Desmond allowed them in whisky and 
 porter "to be consumed on the premises." 
 
 He turned away. He would visit the green grave- 
 yard where Father Patrick slept, and slink off. 
 
 "Desmond, Desmond!" 
 
 Out of the wicket gate by the great high ones she 
 had run, bareheaded. 
 
 "O, Desmond, why did you come? I'm so glad 
 you came." 
 
 "I saw you from the drive, Desmond, and I 
 couldn't believe my eyes." 
 
 "Are you crying, foolish boy!" 
 
 "Desmond, come in and see the swans ..." 
 
 VII 
 
 They came to the rose garden where they had 
 met sixteen years before. The turf was emerald, 
 the gravelled walks yellow as gold, the rose bushes 
 stretched in lines like soldiers. There blew so soft 
 a perfume on the air that one could almost see it 
 take shape like dancing butterflies. And everywhere 
 were the golden bees. 
 
 "Do you remember me, Nora?" 
 
 "I can only see your head, Desmond, a dark head 
 and gray eyes. Your head was low and sunburned 
 then, and now it is high and there is gray in the 
 
 84
 
 "O, SNOWY-BREASTED PEARL" 
 
 dark locks, for all you are so young still, but your 
 eyes, your gray eyes, are the same." 
 
 "And you are the little fairy princess become a 
 queen, Nora." 
 
 "No, Desmond, I am just an ordinary girl, whom 
 you like very much, perhaps, and see with your 
 poet's eyes. Don't treat me like a queen or a fairy 
 princess, Desmond. Come, Desmond, the swans 
 have been waiting for sixteen years." 
 
 Their bills were black, their heads high, their 
 white swelling bodies were like leaves of some 
 gigantic flower. In the water one could see 
 their grotesque black feet. They paddled stately 
 as an armada. Seven white swans on the dark 
 lake. 
 
 "They are wild, did you know, Desmond? When 
 autumn comes they go, and they come in the spring. 
 They have never yet missed a year." 
 
 "Desmond!" 
 
 "Yes, Nora." 
 
 "You are not going to stay — in the village?" 
 
 "No, Nora." 
 
 "Better not, Desmond. Listen, Desmond, I can 
 have you driven over to catch the mail train at 
 Ballynorman. It passes at ten." 
 
 "I'd better go now." 
 
 "You must stay to dinner. There is nobody but 
 myself and my two uncles — my mother is dead, 
 Desmond, did you know? She died three years ago. 
 I knew she couldn't outlive my father long. So 
 there will be nobody there to bother you. And 
 Desmond!" 
 
 "Yes, Nora." 
 
 85
 
 "O, SNOWY-BREASTED PEARL" 
 
 "I started writing you a letter last night, and I 
 finished it this morning. I will give it to you to 
 read on your way home." 
 
 "Nora, what does it say? Give it to me now." 
 "0 no, Desmond, not now." She was blushing. 
 *'Come, I want you to see the old maze." 
 
 VIII 
 
 At dinner the two uncles rather embarrassed 
 him. They had come home from the fair at Gorey, 
 and met him cordially. Nora had introduced him 
 as Desmond Fitzjohn, the great poet, whom she 
 had met in Dublin. One uncle, Robert, was a 
 great red man with a red beard. He had squat, cruel 
 hands. The other, Simon, was short and dark, 
 with gleaming black hair and a gleaming black eye. 
 Simon had been a colonel in the Indian army. He 
 was typically a horseman and a soldier. In the 
 dining-room was a painting of Robert in a gray 
 covert coat, and a gray high hat, with his red beard 
 spread like a banner. Simon had a soft purring 
 drawl in speech. The voice of Robert was a booming 
 cruelty. Desmond was afraid of these men. 
 
 The great dining-room was antique with shadows. 
 An immense fireplace where logs burned even in 
 June. Old, malevolent portraits who regarded him 
 ironically, with here and there the face of some 
 sweet smiling woman. He sat on Nora's right hand. 
 In front of him sat the drawling Simon. Opposite 
 Nora great red Robert. They were each splashes 
 of colour, broad red beard and sleek black head. 
 White cylinders of wax with golden flames. The 
 
 86
 
 "O, SNOWY-BREASTED PEARL" 
 
 round-faced, pippin-faced butler. And Nora, slender 
 as a flower, her happy eyes, her silken hands. 
 
 "We had a boy here," Simon drawled, "who 
 went to America and made quite a reputation. 
 Son of a tenant, eh, Robert ? " 
 
 "Tenant be damned!" the red one exploded. 
 "Son of an under-gardener here. I had to kick him 
 off the place. Found him sleeping his liquor off in 
 the maze , begad ! " 
 
 "Johnson, I think his name was. Do you remember, 
 Robert?" 
 
 "Do I remember? Every time I pass him he 
 swears at me, and if he doesn't his wife does. She's 
 going to have me crucified when the revolution 
 comes, she says. Begad, 'twas him we nearly killed 
 in the dog-cart." 
 
 "The drunk coming out of Conolly's?" 
 
 "And that was his wife that ran and threw stones 
 after us, and called me an old red fox." 
 
 "Did you ever hear of their lad in America, 
 Mr. Fitzjohn?" 
 
 The room was swimming around him. He had 
 an impression of Nora's white, tense face. She 
 couldn't speak. The red Robert looked at him in 
 surprise, looked at him very keenly. Gave a guffaw 
 of laughter. 
 
 "Oho!" 
 
 The brow of Simon frowned in wonder. The 
 gleaming black eyes went from Robert to Nora, from 
 Nora to Desmond. Came a wry smile. 
 
 " Oho ! " roared Robert, " Mr. Fitzjohn ! " 
 
 In an agony of panic, Desmond rose, overturning 
 his chair, staggering. He oriented himself for an 
 
 87
 
 "O, SNOWY-BREASTED PEARL" 
 
 instant, burst from the room, burst through the 
 hall, burst out into the night. His feet crunched 
 on the drive. He ran out through the gates to the 
 road. The moon was rising. Somewhere a curlew 
 called. And the leaves of the trees soughed with the 
 soughing of summer. But he had no eyes, no ears. 
 He ran on in panic. And as he ran, he gave little 
 cries, like a hurt animal. 
 
 The road settled down on its long jog to Bally- 
 norman. The moon rose higher, cleared the hills. 
 There loomed up the dim, blue profile of mountains. 
 The trees whispered. There was the scent of the 
 hawthorn, and not yet had the primroses vanished 
 from the hills. And westward were the minute 
 pale stars. Such a night. Such a heavy heart. And 
 if it had been on any other occasion he would have 
 heard the little pipers in the tinkling heather. And 
 he could easily have believed that the sounds the 
 leaves made were the marching of the leprechauns, 
 the green-clad minute pixies of the Irish hills. They 
 were shod with silver, they had green caps. But 
 to-night all the fairies were dead. . . . He settled 
 himself for the six more miles of the road. 
 
 There was the swinging trail of a horse behind 
 him. The light whir of wheels, the lamps of a dog- 
 cart. As it came nearer he moved toward the 
 hedge to let it pass. His face was white and strained 
 in the glare of the lamps. He wanted it to go on. 
 He didn't need a lift. 
 
 "O, Desmond! Is it you, Desmond, my dear?" 
 
 The horse was reined in. She sprang from the 
 
 dog- cart to the road. She was different. She was 
 
 88
 
 "O, SNOWY-BREASTED PEARL" 
 
 dressed in tweeds. She had a Httle brown hat with 
 a feather in it. 
 
 "Desmond, were you going away for ever without 
 ever seeing me again ? " 
 
 "I'm awfully sorry, Nora, for to-night." His 
 face twisted into a gallant grin. "I'm sorry for 
 letting you in for it. I shouldn't have come down." 
 
 "O, Desmond!" she cried, "I'm sorry you were 
 hurt. Those swine — all the awful swine of that 
 place, your swine and my swine! O, Desmond, my 
 dear!" 
 
 "Hush, Nora, it's all right." She cried against 
 his shoulder. She trembled as she lay there. She 
 stood back and arranged her hat. 
 
 "Listen, Desmond," she said. "Don't look at 
 me, please, for a moment. Do you want to marry 
 me?" 
 
 "Nora!" 
 
 "Do you mean yes, Desmond? Say yes, if you 
 mean it." 
 
 "Yes, Nora." 
 
 "Don't look at me yet, Desmond, please. Will 
 you marry me at once, just right away?" 
 
 "T can't speak — I just can't speak." 
 
 "I think you mean yes, Desmond. Listen, my 
 dear, I'm not going back, either. I've got a bag in 
 the cart, and money with me if we need it. Desmond, 
 we'll go to town to-night, and catch the boat for 
 abroad in the morning, and you can get a special 
 license somewhere — from the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, I think, or some one. Will you do that, 
 Desmond, please. If you don't like me when we're 
 married, you can send me away." 
 
 D 89
 
 "O, SNOWY-BREASTED PEARL" 
 
 "Are you sure, Nora, are you sure you want to?" 
 
 "Yes, Desmond, very sure. And, Desmond, we'd 
 better get up and drive off now, because we mustn't 
 miss the train. And, Desmond!" 
 
 "Yes, Nora, yes?" 
 
 "You'd better kiss me, Desmond. You've never 
 kissed me. And we've known each other since we 
 were little children. Maybe you wouldn't like me 
 at all, Desmond. You'd better kiss me." 
 
 "Hush!" he warned her. "Listen." Above the 
 tinkle of the heather he had heard the note of a 
 little piper piping and from the moonlit trees came 
 the rustle of the light feet of leprechauns. 
 
 90
 
 Ill 
 
 TRIANGLE 
 
 On first sight you might find it hard to place 
 Detective Thomas Denihan, you might not think 
 of him as a police officer at all. But you could not 
 imagine him as a head waiter, say, or owner of 
 a garage. You could fit him into no particular 
 background. A stalwart man of forty-five with 
 hard blue eyes — physical condition not as good as 
 a professional athlete, but better than the average 
 man's. He had black hair. His hands were powerful 
 and hairy, but without the callouses of labour. 
 His clothes were usually of blue serge with a black 
 bowler hat. His shoes were normal. His jaw was 
 powerful but not truculent. He was about five 
 feet ten in height and weighed somewhere near one 
 hundred and ninety pounds. The only thing 
 peculiar about him were his eyes. They had the 
 trained inscrutability of a gambler's, but where a 
 gambler's eyes are defensive, his were ready to attack. 
 There is a subtle difference I cannot express in words. 
 
 There was no street in New York where Detective 
 Thomas Denihan could not walk unnoticed if he 
 wished. He was an invisible man in this respect, 
 that he was so like any other man you would pay 
 no attention to him. He might be along in the 
 street, and if you were questioned later you would 
 say, "Yes, I — I think there was a man in the street, 
 some man, just." 
 
 91
 
 TRIANGLE 
 
 But let him stop you for a minute, though you 
 were the most innocent person in the world, and 
 drop his hard eyes on you, and you wouldn't say, 
 "You've made a mistake, I'm afraid." You would 
 say, "What is this? What does this man want, 
 mean?" It would stop you short as a stone wall. 
 There was power and will. Immense power, and 
 implacable will. For the first time in your life 
 probably you recognized the terror of the law. . . . 
 And you were sorry for poor devils who had broken 
 into silk lofts, and harassed bank clerks who had 
 falsified accounts. You were sorry with an acute 
 personal shock. You thought: poor devils, they 
 could not get away . , . ! 
 
 You would recognize him as a detective, when 
 you were so told, but from himself you would not 
 recognise his background. We on the hither side 
 of the law have grotesque ideas of the actions and 
 reflexes of those without the pale. Centuries of 
 inhibitions have given us a romantic slant towards 
 the criminal. Our murderer of women is a quaint 
 Bluebeard. Our highwayman is Robin Hood. Our 
 man killer is haunted by the ghost of his victim. 
 Our robber buries his treasures in fear. Corres- 
 pondingly our detective has his colour: the nose of 
 a bloodhound, the reasoning faculty of a Pascal, 
 the bravery of some hero of a book. Also do we 
 make of him one who follows the criminal, out- 
 raged by the offence against public morals. 
 
 So we have imagined unto ourselves an underworld, 
 much as we have imagined fairies, gnomes, black 
 
 92
 
 TRIANGLE 
 
 magicians. We have imagined a simplicity of evil, 
 which, if true, could soon be conquered. We have 
 imagined a series of black splashes against a wall 
 of cream, and our duty is to clean them, and the 
 world will be well. But it is much more complex. 
 Have you seen settlement workers go down to the 
 underworld and come back soon, their hearts broken 
 — or remain there, their faces taking on an immense 
 spiritual strength? They set out thinking, as you 
 do, that the problem was a simple equation, and 
 they found it to be an egregious calculus. Very 
 complicated. Very unsimple. . . . Let us see it 
 through the eyes of Detective Thomas Denihan. 
 
 For him, as he walked through the streets of 
 New York, men and women, and children, were 
 not human beings. They were potentialities of 
 evil. He never thought of them as having warm 
 feelings, a love of husband and children, a love for 
 mother, a delight in a secure home. He never 
 thought of them as singly radiating beneficence. 
 Were you to take the finest, prettiest woman in New 
 York, and say to him : Ponder over her, what would 
 arise in his mind would not be a picture of her in 
 happy wifehood, or sacred as a mother, or strangely 
 calm and beautiful in her November days. He would 
 think of her in her future days and after marriage, 
 falling for some guy, as his phrase was, and back 
 of that were possibilities of blackmail, burglary, 
 murder even. Or she might be bitten with the 
 fever of card games, and, that growing on her, 
 become dissatisfied with the tameness of card games 
 
 93
 
 TRIANGLE 
 
 at home, and be introduced to the surreptitious 
 apartment, where roulette wheels click, and private 
 telephones bring results of races. Or in the ordinary 
 business of life her nerves might become worn, and 
 she might indulge in harmless seeming specifics 
 that bring one to the gray land of drug addiction 
 by minute steps. . . , Point out to him an honest 
 young bank clerk, and he would think: Some day 
 some guy may show him a wad of jack he's won 
 on a lucky long shot. And this kid thinks it's fun 
 and plays safe little bets. And then one day some 
 wise cracker gives him an inside tip, and he takes 
 a chance and whether he wins or loses he's a gone 
 guy. ... Or show him a young couple of New 
 York starting out in life, and his thoughts would 
 run thus: This kid'll work, but the girl will get 
 lonely after a while, and some gay fellow'll come 
 and take her round to dances, and the kid will get 
 good and sore. And some day he'll go over to 
 Newark — see! — and buy him a gun, and he knocks 
 the pair for a goal. . . . And then we comes and 
 gets him. . . . The motivation of crime, the 
 extenuating factors, he did not report. They weren't 
 his business. That was up to a judge and jury. All 
 his job was to tap a man on a shoulder and say: 
 Listen, kid, you got to come along with me. 
 
 All New York for him was composed of criminals, 
 virtual or potential, and rich men. He had a strange 
 theory that any man with over a million dollars 
 was a crook. It was not so much a theory as a con- 
 viction. If you were to argue with him, he would 
 keep repeating: Well, how did he get it. Tell me, 
 how did he get it? And as higher mathematics, 
 
 94
 
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 economics were beyond him, he could not be con- 
 vinced. On the rare occasions when a man of financial 
 standing absconded, there would be a glint of 
 triumph in the blue eyes. "Didn't I tell you? 
 What did I say? Didn't I tell you? " 
 
 Of the city that is good he knew nothing. Itself 
 was only a background against which the forces of 
 evil played their drama. Of homes where illegality 
 did not exist he only knew those of his fellow- 
 policemen, plain clothes or harness men. And to 
 his mind they did not belong to the city. These 
 people and their families were a caste apart, as 
 players are, or folk of the circus. . , . And their 
 conversation ranged about civic politics, or the cost 
 of uniforms, and sooner or later came to crime. The 
 wives of these men had a seal of secrecy, as it were,, 
 upon them, and even their children were marked. 
 Other children seldom played with them, being 
 overcome with awe. 
 
 But of New York where illegality is current there 
 was nothing Denihan did not know. Hardly a 
 pawnbroker in the city but was in close touch with 
 him, for it is the business of the detective to watch 
 the outlet of gain, nearly all crimes being gainful. 
 He knew also the saloons where crooks gather in a 
 back-room. He knew the women who cherished 
 outlaws like themselves. At each great boxing 
 match in Manhattan, as the crowds passed through 
 the turnstiles, somewhere near at hand was Denihan. 
 And when that most innocuous seeming of all 
 things, the six-day bike-race was in progress, you 
 would be sure Denihan was prowling around, for 
 the six-day bike-race has some strange attraction 
 
 95
 
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 for the underworld. ... Lap after lap they watch 
 the circling riders in a dull maze. . . . And there you 
 would always find Denihan stalking, his head filled 
 with portraits of men wanted for murder, wanted for 
 burglary, wanted for this, wanted for that. ... He 
 was always alert, was Denihan. He was counted one of 
 the dozen best detectives in the world. 
 
 Now here is where, according to the technique 
 of authorship, I should cite an example or so of 
 the cleverness of Denihan. I ought to make him 
 vivid to you by a trick of the trade, as the phrase 
 is, . . . show his paces as one shows the paces of 
 a horse. But any policeman could tell it more 
 truthfully than L Any writer of melodrama could 
 make it vivid, if untruthful. The parlour magic of 
 my profession is very hollow to me. . . . So 
 
 You must see him a stocky, clean-shaven man. 
 Black hair under a citizen's hat, his blue eyes, blue 
 and cold as ice, never friendly, not inimical. You 
 must sense his unhurried stride. You must under- 
 stand him being in a gathering, and hardly visible. 
 He was there. You wouldn't know he was there. 
 But he was there. . . . Wait! Have you ever seen 
 a pair of handcuffs? They are not a weapon. They 
 are not offensive or defensive. But they are a fact. 
 And they are very visible. Cold, heavy, incredibly 
 strong. They chill you. You rarely see them. They 
 are produced in need. There they lie, cold, chilling, 
 gray. They have not the cogency of a revolver. 
 They do not threaten as a blackjack does. There 
 they lie, a seemingly dead arabesque of steel. And 
 click-click! Detective Thomas Denihan! 
 
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 I consider it one of the most inhuman traits of 
 Detective Thomas Denihan that though unmarried, 
 and having no relatives about whom he cared a 
 tinker's curse, he elected to live alone, in a house 
 of his own. I don't know if he ever had any love 
 for a woman, but if he had, it must have been very 
 long ago. He never considered marriage — for this 
 reason: he had seen so many women of the under- 
 world, their intense, brief loyalty, and then their 
 men went to jail, and perhaps from loneliness, 
 perhaps from the urge of necessity, they took up 
 with new partners and sooner or later contracted 
 another underworld union. ... So they seemed 
 to him fickle, untrustworthy. And ordinary women 
 were to him as strange as a foreigner is to us. There 
 is a subtle barrier. . . . 
 
 As for his living alone, and not in a boarding 
 house, he had an undefined feeling. He didn't 
 want to mingle with people, to have them know 
 him. Also, they were a little afraid of him. . . . 
 In a small way, the feeling that drove him to solitude 
 was the feeling that makes incognito the English 
 hangman, or the French Monsieur de Paris, who 
 operates the guillotine. I can't imagine either of 
 these last living in a benevolent home with warm 
 people. I see them in a small dwelling apart on the 
 edges of the town, near a railroad station, perhaps. . . . 
 
 So Detective Thomas Denihan lived in the 
 lower part of a two-family house he owned in 
 Flatbush, on one of those avenues named after 
 letters of the alphabet, and near the junction called 
 romantically King's Highway. The tenants of the 
 upper apartment he rarely saw. They were a clerk 
 
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 in some department of the city works, and his fat 
 wife. Once a month they left their rent in the mail- 
 box. . . . He had only one servant, an ancient 
 woman who kept the house clean and got his break- 
 fast. She was continually mumbling about the 
 County Kilkenny, in Ireland, and her false teeth 
 were defective, so he seldom heard her. He replied 
 to her : Teh ! and : Leave it there ! 
 
 In the morning, after breakfast, he would go out, 
 have his shoes shined carefully at the Greek boot- 
 black's, choose four cigars carefully at the corner 
 tobacconist's, buy a morning newspaper, get into 
 the second last car of the elevator, and report for 
 duty in Manhattan. In the evening, coming home, 
 he would remove his shoes with a grunt, and pulling 
 on a pair of carpet slippers rummage in the ice-box 
 for a bottle of beer, and for the roast beef sandwich 
 old Mary O'Brien had made ready for him, and 
 sitting down to them he would read carefully an 
 evening newspaper. And then after a while he would 
 get up and go to his bedroom, take off his coat, 
 wind his watch, put shield, gun and handcuffs 
 to one side, undress, folding his clothes carefully, 
 put on an old-fashioned nightshirt and go to bed. 
 After a few shakes, a grunt, or two, a punch at the 
 pillow, he would be asleep. . . . 
 
 Now to all of us a certain distinct entity will 
 symbolize our abstraction. To this author a certain 
 critic will stand for all criticism. Ask your average 
 man to think of a race-horse and he will think: 
 Man o' War or Flying Fox. To boxing followers 
 
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 the chiaroscuro of the ring, the clang of the gong, 
 the waving towels are brought to mind, or bring 
 to mind the name of poor Joe Gans, or of the 
 mighty John L. Sullivan, or of Mr. Benny Leonard 
 of our own day. It is something like the reflex 
 word one gives back to psycho-analysts when they 
 spring a word at you. 
 
 To Detective Thomas Denihan all crime was 
 symbolized by the Royter Gonof. The Royter 
 Gonof was in crime what Denihan's self was in 
 detection of crime. • . . 
 
 At police headquarters anywhere you will find 
 the record of crimes imputed to the Royter Gonof, 
 crimes which it is difficult to prove but in which, 
 according to conviction and belief, the Royter 
 Gonof was implicated. The Royter Gonof, which 
 is Yiddish jargon for the Red Thief, began his 
 career on the New York East side, robbing, holding 
 up, small Jewish stores. He is, I regret to' admit, 
 of Irish ancestry, and his name possibly is McCarthy, 
 or Kelly or Kavanagh. However 
 
 There is a hiatus between his robbing pushcarts 
 and his organization of gangs to do it for him. 
 There was a brief plunge in business, theatrical, I 
 take it. . . . And suddenly the Royter Gonof 
 blossomed out as one of America's greatest confidence 
 men. 
 
 His appearance, from all I hear, is magnificent. 
 Consider six feet of bone and muscle, one hundred 
 and ninety pounds of sheer strength. Consider an 
 open, trust-inspiring Irish face. A great boxer, a 
 great actor was lost in the Royter Gonof. Consider 
 that waving chestnut hair, those gray eyes. Con- 
 
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 sider his dress, up to the minute, and not flashy 
 enough to arouse suspicion. Were he a thin man one 
 might have steered clear of him, but who would ever 
 associate crime with a bulky, robust man ? Oh, solidity. 
 And so he went up and down the country playing 
 on his assumption that all men are fools, and ninety- 
 five per cent of them essentially dishonest. And 
 I wonder can you blame him. When the Royter 
 Gonof has been rotting in jail for years, men will 
 be leaving for Barcelona to get the fortune of the 
 Spanish prisoner. Solid farmers of the Middle 
 West will enter into a dishonest combine to cheat 
 a pool-room by the supposed tapping of a wire. 
 And automobile manufacturers will thrust thousands 
 into the hands of artists like the Royter Gonof to 
 avoid the publicity of having been at a private 
 ring-fight where one of the boxers was supposedly 
 killed. And amateurs will insist they are shrewd 
 enough to play cards for high stakes with professional 
 sharps. This will always go on until men respect 
 the law that prohibits them. One day they shall: 
 one day hens will swim. . . . There will always 
 be crooks, and fools to be fleeced. . . . But there 
 will be few crooks like the Royter Gonof. . . . 
 Few will figure any more that passion existed in 
 the brain under that red head, where was a surgeon's 
 cool patience. And they will not be deceived by 
 the hearty bluffness that concealed contempt. . . . 
 They were a well-matched pair — Denihan and the 
 Royter Gonof. But Denihan was the better man. 
 Denihan won. 
 
 I should like to have seen that comedy in New 
 York with the stake for one man's liberty and a 
 
 ICG
 
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 supposed fool's money. And Denihan posing as a 
 saloon keeper of Larchmont, lately having sold out. 
 And the Royter Gonof, the bluff sportsman, familiar 
 of the race-tracks and enemy of the pool-rooms, 
 who knew a good thing and how to pull a trick. 
 ... A dissatisfied employee of the telegraph 
 service who would hold back the result of a race, 
 and give them the information so they could bet 
 a sure thing. . . . And the pretty lady who 
 toiled to get Denihan's heart. . . . And the bell 
 boys and the taxi-cab drivers planted to assure 
 Denihan that: "Mr. Schuyler. He's a prince!" 
 And the marked money passing. And the sudden 
 clicking of handcuffs, and other detectives appearing 
 as in a conjuring trick. And after a moment's puzzle- 
 ment, the gray eyes of the Royter Gonof being 
 levelled at Denihan. . . . And the extraordinary 
 mellow laugh. . . . 
 
 "You poor flat-footed copper, you don't think 
 you've got me." 
 
 "I'll say I have!" 
 
 And it looked so in the Tombs. It looked so in 
 New York when the judge passed sentence on 
 him. Then Denihan left him. And at Grand 
 Central when he was being brought to Sing Sing, 
 there appeared six of New York's toughest. . . . 
 And right in public came the cracking of automatics. 
 . . . And two dead men on the cold floor. . . . 
 And the whisking of the Royter Gonof to the 
 waiting car. . . . While the onlookers wondered 
 when the movie would be released, and searched 
 the galleries with their eyes for the grinding 
 camera. . . . 
 
 lOI
 
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 With the escape of the Royter Gonof, there arose 
 in Denihan a terrific burst of passion. He had 
 worked so long, so cunningly. . . . Technically 
 all success was his, but materially he had lost some- 
 thing immense. To have put the Royter Gonof 
 behind bars . . . and he blamed himself, he 
 blamed the whole force passionately, though he 
 knew there was no blame to be attached to anyone. 
 . . . The Royter Gonof had escaped. That was 
 all. And it was up to Denihan to get him again. 
 The boiling salt of his passion crystallized into cold, 
 gray intent. . . . 
 
 "The next time I'll put him behind bars myself," 
 he promised. There would be no hitch. And now 
 there was a newer zest to it. The Royter Gonof 
 was wanted for complicity in murder. Everywhere 
 was his portrait: "Wanted for murder." And his 
 aliases: alias Ernest Forbes-Jones, alias Brooklyn 
 Red, alias Fordney Schuyler, alias this, alias that. 
 
 There was also now a knowledge in police circles 
 that the Royter Gonof was more than an extremely 
 capable confidence man. "The King of the Con. 
 Men " as some newspaper phrased it. He was a 
 bad guy. It wasn't a matter of tapping him on 
 the shoulder and say: Hey, fello', the Chief wants 
 to see you. It was take your life in your hands, for 
 the Royter Gonof, having openly brought about 
 two murders, would not stick at a half-dozen. But 
 they weren't worried. Denihan could handle him. 
 And that Denihan would one day get him was 
 never in doubt. "When Denihan gets the Royter 
 Gonof . . . " they would say, with as much 
 certitude as "When Spring comes. . . ." 
 
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 Now it would seem an easy thing to go out and 
 get a man wanted for murder, a big, red-headed 
 man, in the City of New York. And people are 
 for ever blaming the police for not solving the 
 riddle put up to them. But one rarely lays one's 
 hand on a man in flagrant deliction. One has to 
 find out who did it first. And, then, how to get 
 him. Granted the first, the second is no easy task. 
 People are traced by stable property and stable 
 emotion. And criminals' property is very fluid. 
 One usually catches them by their emotions. A 
 father, a mother, a wife they love. . . . And then 
 one must be on the watch all the time. One listens 
 for rumours. And only one rumour out of many 
 has a scintilla of truth. And when that is traced 
 to the source it is usually too late. Also criminals 
 die as others do, and there is no publicity to their 
 burial. An unknown passes out in a hop-joint. A 
 careless look from a coroner, and he is thrown in 
 the potter's field. And the police who want the man 
 seldom know that Sergeant Death, as we Gaels 
 call him, has executed a prior warrant. They go 
 on looking. And if he is still alive, it is hard. For 
 everything helps the criminal. They develop the 
 mystery of intuition. And the crowd through which 
 they glide hampers pursuit by the policeman. 
 There is needed patience, infinite patience. They 
 wait for the infinitesimal slip. And sometimes the 
 slip passes unnoticed. 
 
 But all this, notwithstanding, Denihan knew he 
 would one day get the Royter Gonof. . . . 
 
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 It seemed to him, looking forward, that the 
 putting of the Gonof behind bars would mark a 
 point in his career from which he would spring to 
 immense things. What exactly, he did not know 
 — he might open a detective bureau of his own. 
 He might somehow transfer to the Federal Service. 
 To be Commissioner of Police in his native city of 
 New York was not outside the bounds of possibility. 
 All this after the Royter Gonof was safely behind 
 bars. Also there was a tinge of personal vanity in 
 the matter, for the Red One had sent him a note: 
 " Somewhere in Yonkers " it was addressed from, and 
 it suggested he stick to the dips of Fourteenth Street, 
 or get a job as a horse detective — all of which was 
 clumsy and boyish sarcasm but got under Denihan's 
 skin. He smiled grimly and thought, "Wait!" 
 
 It became so much of an obsession to him that 
 he would dream day-dreams of the Royter Gonof 
 and the day he would catch him. On Fifth Avenue, 
 perhaps, the Gonof might be walking, and Denihan 
 would smile and come up beside him: "Ain't you 
 and me got a date, fellow? Put out them lunch- 
 hooks. Co' 'on!" Or he might trail him to a hotel, 
 and wake him up, like some dreadful nightmare. 
 Sooner or later he would get him. At headquarters 
 there was always veiled allusion to the chase of the 
 Royter Gonof. 
 
 "Well, how're they coming, copper?" 
 
 "Oh, all right." 
 
 "Hear anything about this Royter guy now?" 
 
 "I'll get him." 
 
 "I'll say you will. They say this bird's a tough 
 guy. Shoots an' everything." 
 
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 "Vail right!" 
 
 "I guess we ain't so tender ourselves, hey, 
 copper ? " 
 
 "V all right!" 
 
 There is a period in the career of a great man, a 
 point rather, when he ceases to be a practitioner 
 of a thing, and becomes the thing itself. He more 
 than fades into his background. He becomes part 
 of the background. The financier is one day master 
 of money, and at a later day money itself. The 
 artist becomes art. The clerk routine. They have 
 lost human attributes. They are absolute. And the 
 world fades from them. The exceeding greenness 
 of fields, the fun of a circus, the patter of boxers' 
 feet on a springy floor. Pleasures are deliberate, 
 sought for. Spontaneity dies. It is a very terrible, 
 tragic thing. I think this is what old theologians 
 meant when they spoke of a man losing his soul. . . . 
 
 And also in this phenomenon I can see what the 
 theologians call Providence. Before this ghostly 
 transfusion of humanity into the absolute takes 
 place there is always a chance for a man to anchor 
 himself in the warm human world where people 
 are hurt and cry and are sympathized with, where 
 joy comes and friends are glad, where we will not 
 be blind to the infinitv of stars. ... A man falls 
 in love, I mean, or a child is born, a child of curls 
 and laughter, and once more the sun dances of an 
 Easter morning. . . . There is always the chance 
 for a man. It always happens. Jeer at, sneer at, 
 flout coincidence as much as you like. It exists. 
 
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 The theatrical deus ex machina is a crude symbol 
 of a subtle fact. Have things never happened at 
 just the right time ? Think back. Just a minute. 
 Think! Forget this bank book; that debt. Haven't 
 
 you ever known in your own life Ah, I thought 
 
 so! 
 
 There was no chance of his marrying. Denihan 
 was not that sort of man. Nor would he ever adven- 
 ture in the kingdom of little feet. Yet before Denihan 
 ceased being a policeman and became police, 
 salvation arrived to him ... I present Lorna 
 Doone ! 
 
 She saw him coming down the concrete steps of 
 the alphabetical station near King's Highway. She 
 was a small black pup, very scared, very lonely. 
 Everybody had passed her by, and it was near 
 twelve o'clock, and a cold night in it. And she 
 must have liked the looks of the portly man coming 
 down the concrete steps. She wagged her tail. She 
 stood in his way. He stopped and looked at the 
 moving stern. The brown eyes pleaded. 
 
 "Why 'n't you home?" he stooped and patted 
 her. "What you doing out so late?" She moved 
 closer. 
 
 "Huh?" He said as he stood up. "Run on 
 home ! " And he started to walk off. A half a 
 block later, he knew she was following him. He 
 turned. 
 
 "Run on home! What you following after me 
 for?" 
 
 She came closer, her tail wagging slowly. She 
 
 io6
 
 TRIANGLE 
 
 opened her mouth as Aberdeens do, showing her 
 teeth ingratiatingly. 
 
 "What you trying to do, bite me?" 
 
 She pulled her only trick: sitting on her haunches, 
 her forepaws in the air, her mouth strained to an 
 open grin. 
 
 "For God's sake!" said Denihan. "I guess you 
 got no place to go. I guess you're lost." 
 
 Dogs were foreign to Denihan. That is his heart 
 had never known them. He could never know the 
 pride barbers have in French bulls. And the police 
 dog seemed to him an over-rated animal, as indeed it 
 is. And the bloodhounds which are sent occasionally 
 on the track of murderers were "hick stuff." Also, 
 their loud baying was against the twenty-one cardinal 
 points of detection. And the toy dogs of venal 
 woman were to him mosquitoes. This lonely terrier 
 on the edge of Flatbush was the first dog that had 
 appealed to anything human in him. 
 
 "Yeh, I guess you're lost," he said. "You better 
 go wit' me." 
 
 There was a precinct station a block away. A 
 great gaunt place. He picked the pup up under 
 his arm, and moved towards it. He went in, his 
 footsteps making a heavy echo in the flagged hall. 
 The lieutenant on duty rose up in respect. 
 
 "Anybody lost a dog?" 
 
 "No, Sergeant. Not that we heard." 
 
 "I found a dog. I thought someone might 'a 
 telephoned in." 
 
 Under his arm suddenly the dog began to tremble. 
 The gauntness of the room, the hollow echo, all 
 summed up to terrify her. 
 
 107
 
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 "No, nobody telephoned in." 
 
 "Well, I found this pup. It had ought to have a 
 license or something." 
 
 "Ain't it got a tag.? On its neck?" 
 
 "No, it ain't got no tag." 
 
 "Well, leave it here anyway. Sergeant, and we'll 
 take care of it." 
 
 "Yeh, I might as well, I guess." He turned to 
 the pup. "I'm going to leave you here. You'll be 
 all right here." 
 
 But she was frightened, terribly frightened. . . . 
 Her eyes pleaded. . . . She thrust forward her 
 muzzle, and suddenly licked his face. . . . 
 
 " I guess I'll take her home. She don't look satisfied 
 to stay here." 
 
 " She'll only be a nuisance. Sergeant." 
 
 "No, I'll take her home, I guess. Le' me know if 
 anyone telephones." 
 
 He let himself into the house, snapped the lights 
 on, and put the pup on the floor. 
 
 "Well, are you satisfied now?" 
 
 She wagged her tail. 
 
 He went to the ice box, and got his sandwich and 
 beer, . . . He paused, 
 
 "Maybe you're hungry? Maybe you'll like 
 something to eat?" 
 
 He thought a moment and got a tin pan, and filled 
 it with milk, as he would for a cat. It struck him, 
 though, that a dog needed more substance, and 
 fishing around the kitchen he came on a package 
 of zwiebacks. He broke them into the milk. 
 
 "Eat, hearty!" 
 
 As he fixed up to go to bed he was bothered a 
 
 io8
 
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 moment. "I guess you ought to go in the cellar," 
 he figured. "But they ain't no bed fo' you down 
 there." The pup trotted ahead of him into his 
 own room. "Well, I guess you can't do much 
 harm," he said. He put her solemnly on a couch 
 while he undressed. "You'll be all right there," he 
 said, and he went quietly asleep. 
 
 When he awoke next morning he found her 
 standing by his bed, wagging her tail. 
 
 "For God's sakes!" he mused. "For God's 
 sakes ! " 
 
 Old Mary O'Brien leaped in the air when the 
 pup followed him into the dining-room. 
 
 "What is this at all, at all?" her mumbling rose to 
 a querulous squeak. 
 
 "That," said Denihan. "That's a dog!" 
 
 He vouchsafed no more information until he was 
 leaving. He patted the dog on the head. 
 
 "If anyone calls from the police precinct for the 
 dog, well — well, tell them to call me up. D'ats all." 
 
 At headquarters he sought out John Leidner 
 who was the possessor of many blue ribbons for 
 Airedales, breeding and selling some of the best 
 pups in the States. 
 
 "Hey, John," he asked. "What do you do about 
 a dog?" 
 
 "What do you mean: what do you do about a 
 dog?" 
 
 "How do you keep a dog? What do you give 
 him to eat?" 
 
 " Give him anyt'i'g, d'ey eat anyt'in'." 
 
 109
 
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 "Anytm', hey?" 
 
 "Anyt'in' but potatoes. Don't give 'im no 
 potatoes." 
 
 "No potatoes, hey?" 
 
 "No potatoes. Anyt'in' but potatoes. And don't 
 give it no fish. D'e bones stick in t'eir t'roats." 
 
 "No potatoes and no fish, hey?" 
 
 "Anyt'in' but potatoes an' fish. And don't give 
 it no chicken bones." 
 
 "No chicken bones, hey?" 
 
 "Yeh, an' give it plenty t' eat. One good meal 
 a day." 
 
 "'s'at all?" 
 
 "'At's all. And give it plenty of water. It'll be 
 fine. Say, Tom, what kind o' dog is t'is you got?" 
 
 "Ah, a li'l' black dog." 
 
 " 't'ain't a poodle? You know, one o' t'em black 
 poodles?" 
 
 "No, 't ain't a poodle." 
 
 " 't' ain't a cocker spaniel, hey? Floppy ears, an' 
 everyt'in'." 
 
 " 's got small ears." 
 
 "'T ain't one o' t'em Scotch terriers. One o' t'em 
 — ^you know " 
 
 "No! I don' know." 
 
 "Was you ever in a gin-mill?" 
 
 " Sure I was in a gin-mill." 
 
 "Well. I know you was in a gin-mill, but t'is: 
 d'e's a picture of Scotch whisky in a gin-mill, wit' 
 two dogs — t'em's Scotch terriers." 
 "I ain't took no notice." 
 
 "Well, t'ey's a gin-mill on T'irty-seventh Street 
 has them." 
 
 no
 
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 "T'irty-seventh, hey?" 
 
 " T'irty-seventh and sixth." 
 
 "Sixth, hey. . . . Well, much obliged, 
 John." 
 
 "Oh, t'at's not'in' . . . Say, Tom, ever hear 
 any'tin' about: you know — the Red Guy?" 
 
 "I'll get him." 
 
 "I'll say you will, boy. We're for you. . . .** 
 
 He rang up the ancient Mary O'Brien. She came 
 to the 'phone all a-flutter. 
 
 "This is Denihan, you know. Denihan, the man 
 you work for. Say, about that dog — you know, the 
 dog. Don't give him no potatoes. And no fish — 
 fish — I said fish, what swims, what you eat on 
 Friday. And no chicken bones. You know: chickens. 
 None o' them bones. . . . Anybody call up about 
 him? No. All right. Ring oflF. Goo'bye." 
 
 "Guess it must o' dropped out o' some car," 
 Denihan surmised the case of the dog. 
 
 In the saloon on Thirty-seventh Street Denihan 
 stood opposite his glass of buttermilk. He watched 
 the picture of the Scotties. 
 
 "That's him," he decided. 
 
 The accent of a Scottish golf professional at his 
 native ritual of drinking whisky commanded Denihan 's 
 attention. He edged nearer. 
 
 "There's a good dog?" he hazarded. 
 
 "Best dog in the world," the garrulous Scot 
 burred. "Barring the Scottish deer-hound the 
 Scottish terrier is the greatest dog alive." 
 
 "Will you have some'hin'?" said Denihan. 
 
 Ill
 
 TRIANGLE 
 
 H'l 
 
 Oh, I don't mind. Maybe I will. A wee bit 
 whisky." 
 
 "So you say them's a good dog." 
 
 "Well, if you want to know, mister ?" and 
 
 the Scot told an egregious story of the dog possessed 
 by his cousin Mungo of MacMungo of St. Mungo's 
 — a story my Gaelic ancestry inhibits me from 
 re-telling, but suffice to say that it exampled a 
 sagacity rivalling the elephant! 
 
 " And as for fighters — och, I could tell you stories ! " 
 
 "Will you have another little ?" 
 
 "Och, I don't mind, a drop o' whisky. Well, I 
 had another cousin, Donald MacDonald of Donald- 
 ston, and another man in this town had a bull pup. 
 . . ." In a righteous cause the Scottish terrier had 
 the ferocity of a sabre-toothed tiger. "But they're 
 aye a gentle dog," he went on. And under the 
 stimulus of a third treat he gave the impression that 
 the thirteen children of his cousin married to Farrell 
 MacFarlane were raised through the efforts of a 
 conscientious working terrier. 
 
 "So them's a good dog, hey?" 
 
 "You might say, mister!" 
 
 Denihan turned to go, but the praise of his dog 
 had warmed his heart to such an extent that he 
 ventured advice to the golf professional. 
 
 "Y' ought to lay off o' that stuff. That ain't no 
 good. Y' ought to leave that alone." 
 
 But the Scot had a theory of his own. 
 
 "Och, away wi' you, man. You're soft. That's 
 the greatest thing in the world, that. It hardens 
 the gut. ..." 
 
 112
 
 TRIANGLE 
 
 None ever turned up to claim the pup, so after 
 a while he accounted it his own. He had talked to 
 another friend of his about the disposition of the 
 dog. 
 
 "What do you do wit' a dog?" 
 
 "What do you mean: what do you wit' a dog?" 
 
 "A dog you found, w'at do you do wit' it?" 
 
 "If they ain't no owner found, you can keep it, 
 or you can send it to the Bide-a-wee Home." 
 
 "What's t'e Bide-a-wee Home?" 
 
 "A place where t'ey keep los' dogs, and if a guy 
 wants a dog he sends t'ere, and he gets it for not'in' 
 . . . So as t'e Chinks don't get him. ..." 
 
 "T'e Chinks?" 
 
 And Detective Thomas Denihan was regaled 
 with some of the mysteries of Chinese chop suey — 
 which may or may not be true, but gives room for 
 thought. 
 
 "I guess I'll keep the mutt." 
 
 With more gusto than, and as much importance 
 as, if he were taking out a marriage permit, he got a 
 license for the dog. He put the tag around its 
 neck with a sort of ceremonial awe. 
 
 "Now, you're my dog, see. You're my dog." 
 
 And she wagged her tail, and showed her teeth 
 in her grotesque grin, and her eyes were filled with 
 recognition. 
 
 "You're my hound, see." 
 
 A small boy who sold a weekly periodical was 
 commandeered by him. 
 
 "Boy, wan' o' make some money?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Wan' a job?" 
 
 113
 
 TRIANGLE 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Take this hound for exercise an hour a day 
 every week," 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " 's wort' two dollars a week," Denihan expanded. 
 " But you got to be careful. You got to take him 
 where he won't be run over by cars, or anything. You 
 got to be careful of him." 
 
 "It ain't a him. It's a she." 
 
 "For God's sake." 
 
 "Yeh, it's a she. Didn't you know it was a 
 she?" 
 
 "No. For God's sake." 
 
 "What do you call her?" 
 
 "What's her name, hey? Well, her name is 
 
 Her name is a good Scotch name. Her name is 
 Lorna Doone. Yep, that's her name." He leaned 
 down and patted her. "How do you like that? Ain't 
 that a good one? Lorna Doone, that's your name." 
 
 His life had become surprisingly complete now. 
 For some particular reason it was a pleasure to 
 come home. Home was no longer a place to sleep. 
 As he came along the numerical streets of evenings 
 she would be at the door scratching to get at him. 
 She would jump clumsily at his knees. She would 
 gambol like a young lamb. And great games would 
 go on between them. He would affect not to notice 
 her when eating in the morning, while she sat 
 waiting for a lump of sugar. Also his main dietary 
 at breakfast became chops or liver, and he would 
 give her a bone or a little edge of liver, and her ears 
 
 114
 
 TRIANGLE 
 
 would stand up and her eyes sparkle. Every morning 
 he took a dignified but affectionate farewell of her 
 in the porch. 
 
 "Well, so long, old lady!" 
 
 On his days off, which before now he would 
 usually spend on a sofa or hammock, reading and 
 smoking cigars, he took her out for long walks, 
 down to Brighton Beach or Coney Island. And 
 many a policeman would smile in surprise to see 
 hard-boiled Denihan and his little ward. Once or 
 twice an innocent patrolman mentioned the wonder 
 that he didn't have a bull or at least an Airedale, 
 and drew upon himself a disquisition upon the 
 origin, habits, ferocity and loyalty of the Scottish 
 terrier rather boring to hear. 
 
 All the dammed up affection in Denihan's heart 
 turned to the little dog. And it didn't evince itself 
 in sloppy way, but with a grotesque dignity. He 
 was dignified even when giving her a bath in the 
 big tub. 
 
 And on her part she loved him, and she began 
 to take on some of his characteristics as dogs do, 
 his dignity, his alertness, his aloofness. It is a very 
 strange thing how a dog comes to resemble its 
 owner. Is there some occult current between them? 
 What is it? Why don't we know? We can make a 
 great organ play electrically from a piece of pierced 
 paper. We have television, talkies, wireless. And 
 yet we can't tell how the grass grows green. Or 
 how a dog loves us. Or why a horse will be gentle 
 towards one stranger, and savage towards the next. 
 It is very dispiriting, however. . . . 
 
 Once Denihan burst out: "If I ever found a 
 
 "5
 
 TRIANGLE 
 
 woman like that," and he pointed to Lorna Doone, 
 I'd marry her." 
 
 (( T' 
 
 And yet if you noticed him in the street, which 
 you hardly would on account of his low visibility — 
 if you came to recognize him, let us say, you would 
 still get the cold clink of handcuffs. There he was, 
 the gray invisible man, the symbol of the cold sword 
 of the law. His eyes blue as ice, and as cold. His 
 brain crammed with pictures of this one and that 
 one, wanted for this thing and that thing. He has 
 seen you a thousand times, if you pass through 
 Pennsylvania or Grand Central. He has seen you a 
 hundred times if you go to boxing matches. He 
 has seen you a dozen times if you are patron of the 
 six-day bike race. And if you occasionally go to a 
 burlesque show — of course not ! I beg your pardon ! 
 But Denihan has seen you, ticked you off, and never 
 given you a second look: unless you are a big man 
 with gray eyes and red hair. . . . 
 
 There is a great French poet visiting New York 
 — a man with gray eyes and a great red beard. He 
 is like a minor Irish king. "Y'a de bougres tres 
 curieux dans ce pays-ci, mon cher Donn. Par 
 exemple figurez-vous " — and he tells a story of a 
 squat black man who has followed him, rushing up to 
 shake hands suddenly, tapping him on the shoulder, 
 asking for a match, and ending bytweaking his whiskers. 
 The poet called a policeman, but the policeman only 
 laughed. "J'ai fini par lui lancer une claque a la 
 figure. Non, je n'ai pas reussi." I should like to have 
 seen Denihan side-step that slap on the cheek. . . . 
 
 ii6
 
 TRIANGLE 
 
 The influence of the small warm thing at home 
 did not detract from his steely desire to get his 
 man. He thought with two parts of his head. One 
 went to the little dog. And one was for the great 
 murderer and confidence man. Early in the morning 
 the dog went out of the foreground, and there entered 
 the possible Royter Gonof . And the day being done 
 then Royter Gonof was shelved as the possibility, 
 and Denihan came home to the warm welcome of the 
 little black dog. 
 
 Occasionally he would talk to her as he smoked 
 his cigar. 
 
 "I thought I had him to-day," he would observe, 
 "but it was another guy. Anyways I can wait. The 
 longer I wait, the carelesser he gets, see!" 
 
 The little Aberdeen wagged her tail and showed 
 her teeth. She didn't see but she quite agreed. 
 
 "I'll get him yet." 
 
 She got her forefeet on the edge of the sofa, 
 swinging her tail emphatically. Sure he would get 
 him. He'd get anybody in the world. 
 
 She gave a light spring and was in his lap. He 
 shifted his paper so as not to disturb her. Ancient 
 Mary O'Brien, coming into the room to dust, per- 
 mitted herself to criticize. 
 
 "Anybody would think that was your wife," she 
 cackled in shrill humour. 
 
 "Hey?" 
 
 "Anybody would think that was your wife. 
 Tee-hee. Tee-hee." 
 
 "Listen, woman. They ain't no wife can come up 
 to this dog." 
 
 "We'll get him," he soliloquized. "And then 
 
 117
 
 TRIANGLE 
 
 And then " He wasn't quite sure, but somehow 
 
 an age of milk and honey would date from that 
 epoch — for him and for the little dog. 
 
 Then suddenly the bomb burst at headquarters. 
 The chief sent for him. 
 
 "The Gonof is in London," he announced. "Go 
 and bring him in." 
 
 "I'll bring him in." 
 
 "And listen, Denihan, remember this. When the 
 Gonof is got he goes to the chair, on account of that 
 scrap in Grand Central. Nothing can save him. 
 And he knows it." 
 
 "I'll bring him." 
 
 "The Gonof can take every chance in the world, 
 and you can take none. He's as bad off as he can 
 be, so killing another copper don't mean anything 
 in his young life. See. You can start on the first 
 boat." 
 
 "Just a minute, chief." 
 
 "What's troubling you?" 
 
 "Oh, not'in'. I just. Oh, not'in' at all. ..." 
 
 At the steamship offices, he came to the point 
 abruptly. 
 
 "What do I do about a dog?" 
 
 "How do you mean?" 
 
 "Bringing my dog wit' me?" 
 
 "You've got to get a permit from the Board of 
 Agriculture in London to bring a dog into England." 
 
 "That's bunk." 
 
 "We can't take a dog aboard until you have it." 
 
 "How long does it take to get one?" 
 
 ii8
 
 TRIANGLE 
 
 "About three weeks; maybe five." 
 
 "I'll see the British Consul. He'll gi' me one." 
 
 "I don't think he can." 
 
 " Sure, he can." 
 
 The British representative he approached vi^ith 
 dignified secrecy. 
 
 He told of his plans ; got some information about 
 Scotland Yard, which he had already, but to which 
 he listened with a show of interest. Suddenly he 
 sprang his request. 
 
 "Now about my little dog. ... I want to bring 
 my little dog wit' me. That's all right, ain't it?" 
 
 "I'm afraid you can't unless you've got a permit." 
 
 "Couldn't you fix that up for me?" 
 
 "You've got to get it from London." 
 
 "Oh, go on, you can fix that up for me." 
 
 "Sorry!" 
 
 " Now, wait 'til I tell you. This little dog, see. I 
 picks her up, and it ain't got a friend in the world 
 but me. Honest to God, I could tell you stories 
 about that dog. You ought to hear her cry when 
 anyt'in' keeps me from home. Honest to God, 
 she'd break her heart. You don't know this dog." 
 
 "I'm sorry. Sergeant, but the law is very strict. 
 We're fearfully afraid of rabies." 
 
 "But this dog ain't got no rabies, or not'in'. She's 
 only a little black dog." 
 
 "Yes, I know, but " 
 
 "Do me a favour now. Couldn't you? A personal 
 favour ? " 
 
 "I'm dreadfully sorry. Sergeant." 
 
 "I'd be under big obligation to you, if you could 
 only do me that personal favour. Supposing these 
 
 119
 
 TRIANGLE 
 
 Scotland Yard guys got stuck about somet'in' in 
 New York. I'd help them. Away out of my work 
 and everyt'in', I'd help them. Gee, there's not'm' 
 I wouldn't do for them. Just le' me brmg along 
 
 my little black dog." u j, u ^ » 
 
 "You'll only be away for six weeks. Hardly that. 
 "Yeh, but you don't know this dog. Honest to 
 God you got no idea. I tell you somet'in' this is 
 a little female dog, you know, and twice a year we 
 got to coop her up. I send her to the vet's, that s 
 what I do. Honest to God, it's a shame. She just 
 trembles and pines. I go to see her twice a day 
 when she's there— but even at that she pines. See 
 And when she comes back she's thin as a rail. And 
 she ain't herself for weeks. She ain't got nobody 
 but me, see. And if I was away she'd be dead in 
 a week. See? There's no way of telling her it s all 
 right: I'd be back. She'd think I was gone for good. 
 She'd think I'd laid down on her. See? Sure you 
 can fix it up. Just one little black dog." 
 
 "Sorry, Sergeant, really sorry. Jt's the law. 
 "You can't do anyt'in' for me? " 
 "You know yourself, as an officer of the law, 
 that it must be regarded." 
 
 "Well, that's a bum law," said Denihan.^^ 
 "Yeh," he said outside on the pavement. "That's 
 a bum kw. T' hell wit' a law as bum as that." 
 " T' hell wit' all of vou," he said. 
 He went slowly back to headquarters. Made his 
 way to the Chief's office. 
 
 "I been thinking. Commissioner, maybe you d 
 better send somebody else over for Red." 
 "What!" 
 
 120
 
 TRIANGLE 
 
 "You better send somebody else." 
 
 "I thought you always wanted to get this man, 
 Denihan." 
 
 "Yeh, but " 
 
 "Listen, Denihan, let two of you go! How about 
 it?" 
 
 "Oh, it ain't that." The detective's face flushed 
 at the implication of fear. "It's just this, Chief. I 
 get sick on a boat. I get sicker 'n a dog. When I 
 was going down to Florida last year, I got awful 
 sick. I wouldn't ha' minded if the boat had gone 
 down, I was that sick. Yeh, you better send some- 
 body else." 
 
 "And yet, Denihan" — the Commissioner's eye 
 was cold — "once you used to be on river patrol. 
 You didn't get sick then." 
 
 "No. This seems to have come over me later 
 in life." 
 
 "Think it over, Denihan." 
 
 "Honest to God, Chief. I'd rather turn in my 
 shield than go on a boat. If I could go by train 
 now " 
 
 "Very well. Send in young McCarthy as you 
 go out." 
 
 "What do you say," he lifted the pup to his 
 lap, "what do you say we go to the country and 
 live, hey?" 
 
 "And we take old Mary O'Brien wit' us to cook. 
 She comes from the country in Ireland, Dublin or 
 Belfast or some place." 
 
 "And we take a place near the water, hey? Where 
 
 « 121
 
 TRIANGLE 
 
 you and I can go fishing, hey? I wonder if you 
 can swim, or maybe it's only them water spaniels 
 can swim. Maybe we can teach you to swim." 
 
 "And maybe you want to raise a family, hey? 
 I don't know but maybe you'd like a family. Well, 
 we'll see." 
 
 "We'll sell this house to that sap upstairs and 
 go out into the country, hey? You and me, hey? 
 And we'll take old Mary O'Brien." 
 
 "And maybe we get us a real estate business or 
 somet'in'. Or a garage or somet'in'." 
 
 "What do you say, hey? Are you on?" 
 
 "All right, let's go. ..." 
 
 122
 
 IV 
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 The great house on Madison Avenue is gone, 
 and the great clanging ironworks and the seven 
 motor cars. 
 
 If you want to see old John Harbord again you 
 will have to go to the sleepy New Jersey village 
 where he was born. There is a modest house there, 
 a quiet tradesman's house, on the poplar-dotted 
 road, and John Harbord comes out of it twice a 
 day to go to the village to get his newspapers. The 
 village people look out of their windows as he passes 
 with his high head and square workman's shoulders, 
 his plume of iron-gray hair and his banneret of 
 iron-gray beard, and they wonder to themselves 
 whether he is merely a gigantic fool, or whether he 
 is a sly knave concealing past crimes in one huge, 
 generous action. People are suspicious of great men. 
 The lions of Rome fed on the flower of Christendom, 
 and Christ was crucified. 
 
 If you want to know, too, of the Princess Sobieski, 
 I can also tell you. You will find her in one of those 
 drab, God-forsaken pensions in Brussels, on the 
 Rue Seychelles, if I remember aright. She has 
 little children now, and their titles cannot mend 
 a hole in their shoes or buy them holiday bonnets 
 for Easter. She waits up of nights for her prince 
 
 123
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 to return from the gaming tables. She has the air 
 of having swindled someone, of a person found out 
 in a peculiarly mean crime. 
 
 I sometimes have a fancy of the spirit of John 
 Sobieski, King of the Poles, roaming up and dov^^n 
 the world and to and fro in it. I see him stride 
 into the drab rooms in the Rue Seychelles, with 
 his swinging fighter's step, and I picture him look- 
 ing at that descendant of his who bears his name. 
 His fine, royal lip curls contemptuously and his 
 stabbing brown eyes snap. It is not a pleasant 
 vision, and to off"set it I imagine him greeting John 
 Harbord. I see his face light with understanding 
 and his head nod in appreciation, for he sees before 
 him a man who, like himself, did greatness because 
 of the greatness that was within him. 
 
 The turmoil of the ironworks beat its way into 
 the office of the plant with the noisy truculence of 
 a storm. There was the hurried tattoo of a great 
 drill driving into block iron. There was the rattle 
 of monster chains in derricks. A forem^an with 
 throat and lungs of brass yelled imperative instruc- 
 tions in a seemingly enigmatic language, and a 
 volley of straining grunts, of yo-hos, of fierce hisses 
 answered him like an off-stage chorus, or like the 
 crew of a barquentine hauling in the mainsail to 
 the boatswain's frenzied encouragement. 
 
 The Bishop of Utica leaned backward in his 
 chair. Disappointment showed in his chiselled 
 face. 
 
 124
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 "But the Moros, dear Mr. Harbord — that is not 
 indiscriminate charity. It is a national duty." 
 
 The ironmaster brought his fist on the desk with 
 a whack of finality. 
 
 "I don't care," his hoarse voice rasped out. "I 
 don't believe in giving anybody any money; I 
 believe in letting them work for it. In the second 
 place, here is my town of one hundred thousand 
 people. I'll attend to that. Everybody in the town 
 is dependent on me and on my works. Anything I 
 have to give goes to them. Let every other employer 
 in every other town do what I do, and there'll be 
 no need for charity." 
 
 He swung about in his swivel chair, and his 
 deep-marked, coarse-skinned face confronted the 
 high-bred, well-groomed features of the primate 
 with a look of challenge. And as the bishop looked 
 at him the thought came into his head, as it came 
 into every man's head, that John Harbord was a 
 living challenge to battle. His hand, as it lay on 
 the desk leaf, was an index to him. It was thick, 
 stub-like, square; in the wrinkles and folds of the 
 knuckles one could see traces of the days when he 
 had worked with his fingers instead of with his 
 head and will, in the form of a delicate pattern of 
 grime, like the tracing of an ivy leaf, that no soap 
 could ever erase. You saw it as the hand of a man 
 who could hold the reins of government firmly. 
 And when you looked at his face it was there as 
 you would imagine it to be — iron-gray, like the 
 products of his works, tested, dependable, unbreak- 
 able. Eyes that were slits of gray light; nose cut 
 with a master blow of a creator's chisel; eyebrows 
 
 I2S
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 that were brushes of iron-gray hair; mouth grim 
 and restrained; cock's plume and jutting bannerol 
 of iron-gray wire for hair and beard. 
 
 Forty-five years before, when he was twelve, he 
 began his battle as engineer's helper in the great 
 ironworks of which he was now master and owner. 
 He was fifty-seven now, and he could never tell 
 on what day his hardened arteries would carry him 
 off. But he still knew his way about a furnace, 
 and he could still take his trick at a rolling mill, 
 he boasted. And he was prouder of that than of 
 the ten millions at which his rating stood in Brad- 
 street's. Many men are born to gold and silver, 
 but few are born to iron, and he was one of those, 
 he claimed with grim satisfaction — he was the 
 ironmaster, the master of iron. 
 
 And the bishop, as he sat watching him, saw on 
 the screen of his mind the whole legendary cycle 
 of this man take form and colour. For he was already 
 a legend. He remembered the story of the first 
 and only strike at the works. A labour agitator 
 from New York had come down to Leonardsville 
 with flaming words and flaming promises. He 
 tempted the men and they fell. They had no 
 grievances. What brought them out was a fit of 
 mob temperament. They dropped the slicers at 
 the furnaces. The levers of the derricks were let 
 go. The rolling mills stopped with a purr. A silence 
 fell over the works. The men trooped towards the 
 gate with a clatter of feet. 
 
 A squat, burly figure with a black beard turning 
 grizzled was locking the gates with elaborate care. 
 He kept his back to the mob and finished his work 
 
 126
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 slowly and carefully, like a watchman doing rounds. 
 There was a deliberation to the thing that was deadly. 
 
 "Rush him, men!" the labour man yelled. He 
 took a quick stride forward. 
 
 The figure turned about slowly, deliberately, as 
 before. The men saw the jutting beard and metal 
 features of the ironmaster. He fumbled in his hip 
 pocket and brought out a huge revolver. He levelled 
 it at the strike maker. 
 
 "Come over here," he said quietly. 
 
 He tossed the agitator the key. 
 
 "Open that gate and get out of here," he ordered, 
 "before I blow your head off." 
 
 The strike maker opened his lips and shut them 
 quickly. The black, white-faced mass of mechanics 
 and mechanics' helpers, furnace men, slicers, 
 engineers and navvies stood silent in the greasy 
 jumpers and caps. The only sound was that of the 
 hammer of the pistol rising to full cock, like a snapping 
 of fingers. 
 
 "I'm going to shoot," said the ironmaster. 
 
 The gate clattered and clanged as the strike maker 
 hurried through it. He stopped outside. 
 
 "If you're not out of sight in ten seconds I'll 
 kill you," the ironmaster continued evenly. "If I 
 ever see you again I'll kill you. Get on." He turned 
 about to the men. 
 
 "I won't say anything," he said angrily, "except 
 this: You're the biggest collection of damned fools 
 I ever saw together in one place. Get back to your 
 work." 
 
 He walked back towards his office. As he sat down 
 on his chair again the sound of the busy plant struck 
 
 127
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 his ear. The derrick swung its chain upward in a 
 whining clatter. Furnaces roared like the wind in 
 valleys. Iron clanged like faulty bells. 
 
 And then there was that other episode that Dobbs, 
 the thin, ascetic vicar, had told him— the episode 
 at the death-bed of Anne Harbord, his wise, placid 
 wife. That was twenty years ago. 
 
 Harbord had sat with her in the wide, bright 
 bedroom on Madison Avenue for three nights and 
 for three days, until the doctors saw that even his 
 iron strength was groaning. The end came suddenly. 
 There was a little whimper from the bed, and a 
 panic-stricken white hand grasped at the ironmaster's 
 
 huge paw. 
 
 "Good-bye, Anne," he said quietly. "Good-bye, 
 old sweetheart. There's nothing to be afraid of. 
 It's as pleasant over there as it is here and you'll 
 get as square a deal. And I'll be over to you as soon 
 as I can get away." 
 
 Good theology, the bishop thought, the theology 
 of an honest man! 
 
 He was no conservative, was John Harbord. He 
 believed in progress. When a new machine was 
 invented he put it in his shop. He kept himself 
 abreast of his time in science and politics. He had 
 not, like many others of his pattern, a deep trust 
 in democracy and a contempt for all institutions 
 outside America. He had ideals for the conduct^ of 
 his business. He believed in efficiency, in making 
 as much money honestly as one could. But he 
 leavened it all with a strain of chivalry that sounded 
 to some like the dribble of a schoolboy socialist. He 
 believed in work, not for the sake of work alone, 
 
 128
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 not for the sake of money, but for something that 
 he saw dimly like the shadow of the Grail. He wanted 
 all labour to be strictly for the good of mankind, for 
 the good of his country, for the good of himself. 
 
 I think it was because Anne Harbord died he 
 began reading, for the great house seemed to go all 
 of a sudden cold and lonely for lack of her placid 
 presence. And Edna was either at school or in 
 Europe, or dancing or week-ending in company of 
 the hired chaperon. He tackled his reading as he 
 tackled life — he wanted the big things, the muscular 
 things. Economics he read to give him insight into 
 the nation and the individual. History, for it became 
 under his train a vast colourful canvas — a processional 
 of kings and queens, of gallant warriors, of potent 
 cardinals, of shrewd statesmen. There must have 
 been a great strain of chivalry in him. In the times 
 of which he read, the days of tall lances and pawing 
 chargers, he would have been one of those sturdy 
 captains of yeomen who won the knight's gilt spurs 
 on the field of battle and rose eventually to dukedoms 
 and to be kings' confidants. 
 
 And then an idea came to him with the force of 
 an obsession. With the high chivalry and nobility 
 of Europe, with the honest efficiency of America, 
 why could not a race of merchant princes be bred 
 that would make the name of America, of the Anglo- 
 Saxon race, lustrous in the history of the world? 
 The infusion of the straight, clean blood of the 
 people into the veins of European nobility would 
 rejuvenate it as rain rejuvenates a sun-parched 
 plant. The ideals of the great families, their sense 
 of honour, their keen perception of what a gentleman 
 
 129
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 may and may not do, would cure America of its 
 commercialism, as it were, by the serums of culture 
 and of antiquity. 
 
 Of course few would agree to this, he said to 
 himself, few would immediately; but after there 
 were a few examples of it opinion would change. 
 It needed only a start. He was old, older than most 
 men of his age, for gigantic labours and work at 
 white heat had burned him out. If anyone were 
 to carry out his plan it must be Edna — and she 
 must do it before he died. If Edna had been different 
 he might have gone in peace, leaving his plans to 
 her for fulfilment with an easy mind. Bertha 
 Krupp had carried on her father's work, but Edna 
 was not a Bertha Krupp. And so he had arranged 
 it — or rather Providence had arranged it for him. 
 
 The bishop rose. He was not very disappointed, 
 for though he had got nothing he had expected 
 little. He had known Harbord's views, and it was 
 only his faith in miracles that had prompted him 
 to ask the ironmaster to subscribe money for the 
 conversion of the Moros. 
 
 "But I have a mind, John Harbord," he said, 
 "after your refusing to help my work, to refuse to 
 marry your daughter." 
 
 "Oh, you won't do that," the ironmaster laughed. 
 
 "Why not.?" the bishop asked. 
 
 "Because," Harbord replied, "in the first place 
 you promised to do it, and you'll hardly break your 
 word; and in the second, if you did I should have 
 you kidnapped and brought to the church, bound, 
 gagged and manacled. People don't go back on 
 what they say to me and get away with it." 
 
 130
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 II 
 
 Whatever Edna had inherited from her father 
 of his tenacity, of his iron quality of will and soul ; 
 whatever from her mother of her placid wisdom, 
 of her calm strength — all that had been nullified, 
 neutralized, as it were, by the efforts of governesses, 
 by boarding schools in Europe, by foolish com- 
 panionship, by pinchbeck ambitions. 
 
 Under a thirty seconds' scrutiny she passed the 
 test favourably. She had something of her father's 
 features, irregular, compelling. Her eyebrows were 
 heavy cords of black hair. A faint down covered 
 her upper lip. Her nose was large, her brow small. 
 The slight tinge of purple in her lips suggested 
 her bountiful flow of blood. Her chin seemed 
 determined. But the more you looked, the less 
 you discovered in her. She lacked a motif, a climax. 
 She was an arch with the keystone missing. She 
 was destined to drift along, not to cut into life as 
 her father had, 
 
 "I'll tell you what's wrong with Edna Harbord," 
 said a friend of her father once. He thought of 
 her father as a great cannon bombarding the world, 
 "She's a misfire." 
 
 Everything that her father had not, that her 
 mother had not, was hers to take advantage of — 
 education, luxury, associations. If her mother had 
 been there to guide her something might have 
 been done — but she, poor lady, was dead when 
 Edna was seven. All the ironmaster could do was 
 to throw at her back the weapon of his wealth. 
 
 131
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 That obtained everything for her — governesses, 
 schools, friends. But all they taught her was to 
 run to form; to have a slim-ankled, expensively 
 stockinged foot; to have a sleek, expensively hatted 
 head; to chatter small talk; to appreciate musical 
 comedy; to run a motor car; to drink, with expres- 
 sions of dismay and a pretty modesty, an occasional 
 cocktail. She was well dressed, because she could 
 not be otherwise. That helped her none. She was 
 ugly. That handicapped her where it was a question 
 of love. At twenty-seven she was unmarried. If 
 she had had one-half of her mother's comeliness, 
 if she had had one-fourth of her father's will and 
 magnetism, she would have been married eight 
 years before. She had been too well chaperoned 
 to have seen much of European men, so her 
 wealth, her future wealth, did not get very much 
 chance to exercise its attractions. And in America 
 fortune hunters, contrary to general assumption, 
 are rare. 
 
 She had no great thrills in the present; no great 
 pleasures. She took as little cognizance of the 
 mighty things at work about her as a plant might, 
 or a well-fed cat. They were part of the scheme, 
 and she was part of it, and what was there to admire 
 or to see? She had no doubts of the future and 
 no confidence in it. In a word, she was content. 
 She was mentally purblind. 
 
 "Very nicely indeed, thank you," she invariably 
 answered when she was asked how she was feeling, 
 or whether she liked the sunset, or how her car 
 was acting. Her words were the motto, the key, 
 the criticism of her colourless life and soul. 
 
 132
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 She knew that her father planned a mighty future- 
 for her, that she was to be wedded to a great man,, 
 and the thought pleased her. She felt a mild thrill 
 at the idea of being countess or duchess or princess, 
 somebody, but the man who was to come had no 
 more life for her than the stock prince of a Hans 
 Andersen tale. 
 
 So when Jean, Prince Sobieski, after a month's 
 acquaintance informed her that he had her father's 
 permission to ask her to marry him, she realized 
 that the moment for which she had been prepared 
 was present, and with a timidity that in another 
 woman would have cloaked modesty or passion or 
 affection, but in her denoted only embarrassment 
 and awkwardness, she accepted him. 
 
 "Yes," she said awkwardly, and she nearly added 
 "sir." 
 
 The Almanach de Gotha will tell you that his 
 full name is Jean Armand Dieudonne Marie Joseph, 
 Prince Sobieski; that he was born in Paris on the 
 thirteenth of January, i8 — ; that he is the son of 
 Casimir-Marc, Prince Sobieski. Its august pages 
 now shelter the name of Edna May Harbord, who 
 was born in Trenton in i8 — . The marriage entry 
 strikes you with a sense of shock. 
 
 If you have ever seen a picture of John III,. 
 King of Poland, you have a fair idea of what Jean, 
 Prince Sobieski, looked like. They have both the 
 same lean thinness, the same hatchet face with 
 the deep-sunken brown eyes, nose like a Gascon's, 
 mouth restrained at the corners, tumbling chestnut 
 hair, jutting chin. They both impress you as sword 
 blades. If you put pictures of both of them side
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 by side you will see a subtle difference. Generations 
 of alliances with the princesses of Hapsburg have 
 given the prince a shrewd, calculating look; the 
 blood of the heiresses of Napoleon's nobility has 
 taken away the spark of the Sobieski fire. You will 
 notice a difference between the concentration of 
 the king whose cares were the affairs of his kingdom, 
 and the conception of the prince whose worries 
 were his own depleted coffers and his pressing debts. 
 It would have made very little matter to him 
 financially if Jean, Prince Sobieski, had let the 
 roulette wheel and the race track and the gambling 
 table alone; for the Sobieski coffers were well-nigh 
 empty at any rate. There is but one virtue to cards: 
 They give the necessary thrill, the sense of tactical 
 skill and providential interference, the glory of the 
 risking of life and death, to the man who, other 
 things being equal, would be manoeuvring with 
 armies in the battlefield or riding a dynasty to 
 prosperity or downfall. The same dashing fire that 
 had sent John, King of Poland, to do battle with 
 the Turks at Vienna was driving his descendant 
 to the risk of rouge et notr, of vingt-et-un, of blooded 
 horses mounted by diminutive jockeys. And the 
 worst of it was that Sobieski was one of those gamblers 
 who seem born to lose, against whom Fate plays 
 an implacable hand. 
 
 There came the inevitable day when Rennenberg, 
 the smiling little banker of Budapest, refused to 
 give cash for Sobieski promises. There was nothing 
 further to mortgage, nothing further to sell. 
 
 " The time has come, my prince," he said cynically, 
 ^'for you to get married." 
 
 '34
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 "I'm afraid it has," said Sobieski simply. 
 
 It sounds very bad to those of us whose ancestors 
 had not the misfortune to be kings. But, after 
 all, marriage is a question of limitations. A white 
 man may not marry any woman not of his own 
 colour. A Hohenzollern must mate with a Bourbon 
 or other ranking equally high, or a Hapsburg with 
 a Romanoff. An impoverished prince must marry 
 the daughter of a wealthy commoner. To people 
 brought up within these limitations the matter is 
 perfectly simple. There is nothing narrow or bigoted 
 or selfish in it. 
 
 "I suppose you will go to America," said the 
 banker. 
 
 "I suppose I had better," Sobieski nodded. He 
 was cursing Fate, for there was a little Magyar 
 countess, a brown, gypsy-like, light-hearted woman — 
 If things had only been different! 
 
 "You had better start out immediately," said 
 Rennenberg. "You can have five thousand francs 
 a week until the marriage day. " 
 
 So Jean, Prince Sobieski, came to America. He 
 came ostensibly to shoot bear, and he proceeded 
 to the Rockies, where he got some rather good 
 pelts. There are certain conventions to be followed 
 in hunting a fortune, exactly as there are in hunting 
 a fox. Of the number of women eligible for his 
 title he selected Edna Harbord, because in the 
 first place she seemed as if she would not be very 
 self-assertive in the bond of matrimony, and in 
 the second place, queerly enough, because her 
 father attracted him. 
 
 "A fine old chap," Sobieski admitted. "The last 
 
 135
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 man on earth I thought a title would dazzle. But 
 you never can tell." 
 
 From the first he had captured old Harbord's 
 imagination. To the ironmaster he was the flesh- 
 and-blood embodiment of his great dream. There 
 was something royal about Sobieski. Someone said 
 that the moment he entered a room you knew he 
 was a prince. The trace of confidence in his walk 
 as if he were one of those to whom the earth was 
 subject; the high courtesy; the soft inflection of 
 voice that denoted generations of noble ancestry; 
 the quiet challenge of his brown eyes; all this, as 
 it were, hall-marked his metal in the eyes of John 
 Harbord. 
 
 And his name ! His lineage ! There came to the 
 ironmaster's eyes a vision of John HI routing the 
 Cossack hordes from the plains of Little Poland ; 
 the Turks flying from Bessarabia; the election in 
 Cracow, with a hundred thousand throats choosing 
 Sobieski as their king; the old age devoted to state- 
 craft and to the patronage of science and letters. 
 
 That was royalty, said old John Harbord. 
 That was the royalty that America would one 
 day see. 
 
 In Edna Harbord this imposing presence conjured 
 up no visions, recalled no memories. She felt a 
 sense of great awe before him, and not a little fear. 
 She felt, as much as her small soul could feel, a 
 sense of oppression and unreality when Sobieski 
 slipped a ring on her finger. 
 
 They sat together, the old ironmaster and his 
 daughter, on the night the engagement was arranged. 
 They were dreaming, both of them — she of the 
 
 136
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 respect her old friends would have for her when 
 she was Princess Sobieski ; he of a long line of mighty 
 magnate princes with shoulders broad enough to 
 carry the responsibilities of the world. A shadow 
 flicked suddenly across his brow. 
 
 "Are you in love with him, Edna?" Harbord 
 asked. 
 
 "Of course I am, father," she answered. She 
 had not felt the slightest desire to throw both arms 
 about him or to press her lips to his, or any joy 
 at the prospect of having him for herself as her very 
 own. But she understood that all people in love 
 with each other married, and by some process of 
 reasoning she arrived at the conclusion that all 
 people to be married were in love. That was all 
 she knew about it. 
 
 And these two, the ruined gamester and the 
 spineless woman, these were the two whom the 
 master of iron had chosen to fulfil the dream he 
 had evolved from reading in books. , 
 
 III 
 
 They had followed the ironmaster up so many 
 turns of the circular iron stairway that Sobieski and 
 Edna Harbord were becoming dizzy. They stepped 
 out on the roof. It was warm and dark, and they 
 had the sensation of being balanced in mid air, 
 looking down on the world. 
 
 "Here we are," said the ironmaster. His voice 
 was grave. 
 
 From where they stood — on the edge of space, 
 as it were — they could see the town and ironworks, 
 
 137
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 in a huddle of lights, parallelograms, squares, 
 triangles, mapped out like a gigantic fireworks in 
 white and yellow. Streets flowed like rivers. It 
 had a sense of ugliness, of life, of an ant hill. The 
 light showed like an unsightly stain through the black. 
 When they raised their heads they saw the stars 
 vaguely through the yellow haze that hung 
 about the town. The ironworks itself seemed like 
 a thing apart, something grotesque, majestic. At 
 regular intervals a sheet of red flame, from the gas 
 exhaust, punched into the blackness and threw a 
 Satanic glare over the blackened building. There 
 was a hoarse roar from it, as from some aroused 
 animal. Below in the yard, furnaces shot out arrows 
 and javelins of dancing lights and showed the 
 hunched figures of men rushing to and fro. 
 
 "All this," said the ironmaster slowly, "belongs 
 to me or is dependent on me. It will be dependent 
 on you." 
 
 A feeling of awe came over Sobieski as he stood 
 there. The great wall of the plant, the tall chimneys 
 like watch towers, the flinching red lights and the 
 deep-blue shadows, the occasional figures scurrying 
 through the yards, impressed him with a sense of 
 power. It was as though this was a queer under- 
 world kingdom, a kingdom of smoke and metal 
 and flame, over which the shadow in the shadows 
 of the roof ruled like a Pluto. 
 
 "And though it all is dependent on me," the old 
 man said — he was choosing his words with care, 
 as if pronouncing a defence for himself or a policy 
 for the future — "although the profits come to 
 me, I never take it that the men are working for 
 
 138
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 me, but for themselves, and I for the men. I am 
 more their servant than they are mine." 
 
 The flash of the gas exhaust illumined his face. 
 Sobieski saw it was turned upward. He thought 
 vaguely of one of the Assyrian priest kings at prayer 
 with the flame of his sacrifice rising behind him. 
 From below, the tang of molten iron plunged into 
 water rose like a barbaric incense. 
 
 "If one of my workmen is ailing I take care of 
 him until he can work again. If hard times come 
 my men do not suffer. They give me honest work 
 and I give them honest treatment. Of all the men 
 in this place my responsibilities are heaviest. Do 
 you understand me ? " 
 
 "I think I do, sir," said Sobieski. 
 
 "Do you, Edna?" 
 
 "Yes, father." The answer came glibly. 
 
 "To mete out justice according to the power 
 that has been given you ; to care for the weak ; to 
 work; to know the country, and to serve all man- 
 kind. That is what a man must do." 
 
 The great Nasmyth hammers below began clanking 
 with steady, vibrating strokes. Derricks purred 
 hoarsely. Engines puffed and spluttered. It seemed 
 to Sobieski that after every sentence of the iron- 
 master the mighty machinery seemed to crash out 
 a response, as though to a versicle. 
 
 "I built this works, layer by layer, with the 
 labour of my head and hand. It's been my own 
 kingdom on earth. I am going to leave it soon." 
 He paused for a minute. "And you are going to 
 carry it on." 
 
 Below in the darkness a group of men placed 
 
 139
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 an anvil outside a door. A piece of flaming iron 
 was held on it by pincers. A smith stripped to 
 the waist, took up his hammers and began battering 
 it with swinging, grunting strokes. There was a 
 coruscation of sparks. 
 
 "I want the work I started carried on. I want 
 ore to be smelted and iron to be forged here in 
 your life and in the life of your children. Will 
 you carry it on ? " 
 
 A vague fear began to trouble Sobieski. It was 
 as though he were in the hands of enemies who 
 were putting his soul to the test, ringing it to see 
 whether it was true metal or metal that was false, 
 striking with hammer strokes, forging it to another 
 design. He wanted to get away. 
 
 "Promise me," the ironmaster asked solemnly. 
 It was as though he were an ecclesiastic putting the 
 vows of a sacrament. 
 "I will," said Sobieski. 
 
 The girl edged closer towards him. In the dim 
 blackness her white frock showed like a ghost. 
 Sobieski did not feel her presence as he felt that of 
 the old man. There was something cogent, some- 
 thing driving, in the ironmaster. Even his daughter 
 seemed afraid of him. 
 
 "I want you to run this business as I have done 
 it, for the people, for the country, for the sake of 
 work, and not for money merely. Will you do 
 that ? Promise me ! " 
 
 "I will," Sobieski replied. 
 
 "Will you take care of every one of those dependent 
 on you ? Will you see that every man has a square 
 deal? Remember that the kingdom of the future 
 
 140
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 is the big business plant. Will you look after your 
 kingdom, take care of it, broaden it, pass it on to 
 your sons after you ? And they to their sons ? 
 Will you promise me ? " 
 
 "I will." 
 
 "And you too, Edna? Promise me too." 
 
 "I promise, father." 
 
 The old man turned away. He was silent. 
 
 "I am satisfied," he said. "When I die it 
 will still go on. It will be a monument and an 
 example." 
 
 The three of them looked out on the yellow 
 town. A splash of moonlight showed on the horizon 
 and there was a mist rising, white, mysterious, in 
 the distance. The noises of the great works became 
 silent gradually, as the men turned to go home. 
 Sobieski felt the girl coming closer to him, as if 
 she were seeking the protection that marriage 
 promised her against the solemnity of the abdication 
 she was witnessing. Sobieski felt there were tears 
 in the ironmaster's eyes. 
 
 "I am going below," said Harbord abruptly. 
 "Wait here a little while and think." 
 
 A sort of patronizing pity made the Pole stretch 
 his hand out and touch the girl's shoulder. She 
 came closer to him. They looked into the night 
 with awe. 
 
 "It's so ugly!" she broke out petulantly. "And 
 so drab!" 
 
 "You are going off to Europe with me on Saturday 
 little dove," he said, "and you won't see this for 
 a year." And little by little, as he talked to her, 
 she forgot the deep shadows and the red flames 
 
 141
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 and the yellow pattern of the lights of the town, 
 and before her eyes there rose the sweep of the 
 Bois de Boulogne, with the great arch in the distance ; 
 the clear, hard blue of the Riviera, and the vari- 
 coloured race track at Deauville, with the silk- 
 jacketed jockeys flashing by towards the judges' 
 stand. 
 
 IV 
 
 And so for one year life moved for them in a 
 highly coloured carnival, and Edna, Princess Sobieski, 
 bathed in the prismatic shower like a naiad in a 
 waterfall. 
 
 Marriage, after the first shock of novelty, became 
 for her the same placid thing that her maidenly 
 life had been. It was as though she had changed 
 trains at a junction, and, in her new direction, was 
 accompanied by more expensive and more elegant 
 friends, moved through a more picturesque and 
 mellow country, and was to have a fellow traveller 
 for the whole journey who by the grace of God 
 was a prince of the earth, and who graciously per- 
 mitted her to call him "Jean." She began to care 
 for him automatically — as though marriage had 
 hypnotized her. There is a natural hypothesis 
 that one loves one's husband. Her affection, love 
 — whatever it was — for Sobieski was the result of 
 auto-suggestion. Another factor was that Sobieski 
 never gave her the least cause for regret, for grumbling, 
 for hatred. He was naturally courteous, naturally 
 chivalrous towards all women. Edna Harbord, the 
 ironmaster's daughter, may have had no dignity, 
 no standing, but the Princess Sobieski had^^* 
 
 142
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 officio, so to speak — and he was the first to accord 
 it to her. 
 
 Apart from this, as a common-sense proceeding 
 why should one maltreat the goose that was to lay 
 golden eggs? — going to, for as yet there was hardly 
 the glimmer of the metal in the princely barnyard. 
 Those matters were to be arranged when they 
 returned from the honeymoon, so old John Harbord 
 had said. Sobieski trusted him. It is only fair to 
 Sobieski to say that his chivalrous attitude towards 
 his American wife did not arise from her prospective 
 millions. That much, at least, for the blood of kings. 
 
 They went to Paris. They went to Warsaw, 
 which is the most lifelike miniature of Paris ever 
 painted. They went to Cracow, and visited the 
 estates that once boasted of a Sobieski for a master 
 — a broad, undulating plain like a map, with two 
 high plateaus of oak trees, great dots of blue-green; 
 a river zigzagging crazily through it, like a lizard 
 making for cover; two dun villages like birds' nests. 
 
 "And you are going to reign over this soon," 
 Sobieski said to her; "you are going to be the lady 
 of the great house, the little mother of the people." 
 And he watched her carefully through his shrewd 
 gambler's eyes. 
 
 "Oh, how wonderful!" she enthused. 
 
 For a moment she thought of- the drab ironworks 
 across the water, the red flame and blue shadows 
 of it, the tang of hissing iron. She remembered the 
 high, solemn moment on the parapet of the works; 
 but she flicked it out of her mind as one flicks away 
 an impertinent fly. And Sobieski, seeing all this, 
 smiled. 
 
 H3
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 At Paris they met Bugnot de Bounode, the Gascon 
 journalist with the green cat's eyes and the cat's 
 moustache. 
 
 "America," he began viciously, "is like a grocer's 
 warehouse, since you ask me what I think." She 
 had not, but Sobieski, the cunning devil, had. 
 "Tin cans to be sold for tin money. Gray, deserted, 
 morose, an indefinably evil smell. Hysteria of work. 
 Hysteria of amusement. Bad form. Very bad 
 form ! " 
 
 He paused and looked about him. Sobieski 
 grinned. 
 
 " I will take New York, for example. It looks as 
 if it had been flung together by a jerry-builder. 
 Oh yes, there are exceptional houses, I admit. But 
 in the main. Built higher. There's more money in 
 it. Everything suggests money, suggests shopkeeping. 
 Even the names of the streets. Fifth Avenue — fifty 
 dollars. Forty-second Street — forty-two cents. Bad 
 form! Very bad form!" 
 
 He smiled his slow, Gascon smile, which people 
 who knew him distrusted more than his acid, 
 stabbing tongue. 
 
 "Even your superlative grace and charm, my 
 princess" — he chuckled inwardly — "much guilt 
 though it may remove, cannot cover up the sordid, 
 shameful ugliness of it." 
 
 Sobieski rose and stood beside his wife. 
 
 "We are taking her away, mon ami" he said 
 blandly, "and there w411 be nothing left to redeem it," 
 
 And, little by little, Edna, Princess Sobieski, 
 began to react to a sensation of shame. Everybody 
 seemed to say or to hint, the same thing, or to keep 
 
 144
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 silent with a friendly tolerance that suggested more 
 than the most biting words. She had once seen the 
 workmen at the iron plant paid off on a Saturday- 
 morning — a crew of blue-jumpered, grease-marked, 
 hard-faced athletes taking piles of green bills and 
 dirty silver through a window in a shabby wooden 
 box. She considered it interesting at the time. 
 There was a feeling of pride in the idea of handing 
 out their bread and butter to those grim, iron-bodied 
 men; but now she remembered it with a feeling of 
 shocked shame, with a sense of ignobility, as though 
 she had been connected with the keeping of a 
 pawnshop or the sale of second-hand rags. 
 
 In the attitude of everyone she met she sensed a 
 covert insult. The European pauper, it seemed to 
 her, looked on her wealth as a social leprosy. The 
 huckster's loin, they seemed to sneer! And she 
 took it all with a shamed head. She might have 
 turned on them and told of the epics of great manu- 
 facturers. She might have told them of her own 
 father, who was the servant of his people, whose 
 ideals were the ideals of a great poet, whose actions 
 were the actions of a good king. She might have 
 told them of the solemn vow on the parapet of the 
 ironworks. She might, if she had been a strong 
 woman, if she had been in soul her father's daughter, 
 have reduced them to shamed silence, to a humming 
 admiration. Ah yes, but if she had been in soul 
 her father's daughter, if she had had his iron in her 
 eye, they would never have spoken to her as they 
 did. And Sobieski would never have smiled. 
 
 October had come round again. The red moon 
 was rising. Already they were about to return to 
 
 145
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 New York. The year's honeymoon, for which 
 Harbord had paid royally, was at an end. The iron- 
 master wanted them home. From the balcony of 
 their hotel they could see Paris like a vast lyric 
 poem, a thing of silver and faint blue, 
 
 "The old Sobieski house on the Rue de Ponthieu," 
 Sobieski said easily — "they will sell it to us, Edna. 
 I want you to have a look at it to-morrow." 
 
 "But, Jean " she said. She flushed with 
 
 embarrassment. 
 
 "Yes?" He waited. 
 
 "A house here; and the castle at Cracow! You 
 remember father wanted us to live over in New 
 York. He doesn't want us away from the works." 
 
 "I think we can attend to that," Sobieski laughed 
 confidently. He threw his cigarette into the street. 
 He watched it as it fell in a straight red line. 
 
 "Your father, Edna," he continued, "is a trifle 
 old-fashioned and doesn't understand these things. 
 He's a fine old chap, best in the world, but his 
 horizon is limited. We must make him see, you 
 and I, that all that's out of the question." 
 
 He paused for a moment and watched her 
 surreptitiously. She drank in his words with her 
 eyes fixed hypnotically on the laughing streets 
 below. 
 
 "There are my people in Poland to whom we 
 owe a duty," he said, "and we've got our duty to 
 society here also." 
 
 "Yes," she nodded. "Of course," she added in 
 a second. 
 
 "We have got to make him understand, and 
 you've got to help me do it, Edna." 
 
 146
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 He threw his hand out in one of his occasional 
 wide gestures. 
 
 "This is the place to live. You can't live by the 
 works. It would be like living in a shop." 
 
 "That's right," she agreed. 
 
 "You'll help me explain to him, Edna? You 
 understand ? " 
 
 "Of course I will," she said. "The idea was 
 ridiculous. We'll make him see that." 
 
 There is a personality of towns as well as a 
 personality of people. There are towns that are 
 vacuous; towns that are alert; towns that are prim; 
 towns that are lazy. Perhaps it is only that the spirit 
 of the population filtrates into the stone and mortar 
 as it does into their own bone and muscle. Perhaps 
 it is something else. The Romans had a "genius 
 of the place " to explain it. At any rate, Leonardsville 
 is strong, dependable, serious. You see that in the 
 quiet strength of the houses, in the firmly paved 
 streets. There is nothing pinchbeck about it, nothing 
 frivolous. It has an object in life. The stores go 
 in for no meretricious advertising. The dwellings 
 are mellow. There is the right admixture of shadow 
 to light. There is no space wasted. There is no 
 crowding. Where trees are wanted trees grow. 
 But you can give it no name suggestive of its model 
 quality. It stands for no cheap label. It is Leonards- 
 ville. 
 
 At one end of it — in the south, to be exact — the 
 ironworks stands out like a fortress, a fortress that 
 
 147
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 is continually in action, for from the dun buildings 
 surrounded by the great walls there is the flash and 
 roar of exhausts, the throbbing of mammoth hammers, 
 the vague thunder of furnaces. You pass from the 
 roadway, which is full of ruts, into a courtyard, 
 elaborately cobbled and scrupulously clean, through 
 a huge iron gate. Here and there are piles of nuts 
 and bolts, like ammunition stacked against an 
 attack; iron casks of water; an occasional anvil; 
 parts of engines laid in the court on their way to or 
 from the foundry. 
 
 Three times a week John Harbord came to the 
 works — Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The 
 other days he spent in New York, visiting occasionally 
 at the Church Street office. When it was fine he 
 came in his car, for he enjoyed the fresh air pouring 
 into his face on his hour-and-a-half drive. With a 
 quick, firm step he jumped down and went into his 
 office. You might have taken him for a man in his 
 prime if you had not noticed the shell-like arteries 
 on his hands. 
 
 He swung into the little office in the rolling mill, 
 wished everyone "Good morning" with a curtness 
 that no one misunderstood, and rang his bell for 
 the reports. 
 
 But on this Monday morning he was not curt, he 
 was expansive. Miss Ertle, the calm, finely built 
 woman of forty who was his secretary and who knew 
 as much about steel as an artillery officer, permitted 
 herself the luxury of smiling as he came in. Brennan, 
 the square-faced assistant manager, relaxed the 
 tenseness of his customary frown. 
 
 "Ah, the desk has come!" said the ironmaster. 
 
 148
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 In the cluttered, dingy brown office, which years 
 of use had worn to a faint brown, the great shining 
 mahogany table, glass-topped, and the swivel chair 
 struck a note that jarred. It was an opulent, a royal 
 piece of furniture, worthy even of the augustness 
 of the Sobieski name. The ironmaster examined it 
 with attentive care, as though it were a piece of 
 complicated machinery. He passed his hand 
 appreciatively over the glass. 
 
 "He ought to be able to work well there — eh, 
 Brennan? Eh, Miss Ertle?" 
 
 Brennan smiled in answer, the smile of the master 
 mechanic who accepts no statement until it has 
 been proved, a doubting, reserved smile; Miss 
 Ertle a little sadly, the smile of a woman of forty 
 who understands all the pathos and disappointment 
 of this world. 
 
 John Harbord could hardly tear himself away 
 from the desk. He sat down in the chair and looked 
 out through the two windows in front of it on the 
 stretch of green meadow^s in the distance. He 
 looked at the pillar of wall that divided the windows 
 from each other with an expression of regret. He 
 had brought, from a dealer whom he had instructed 
 to search for it, a steel engraving of the third John, 
 King of the Poles. He would have liked to hang it 
 in that place for Sobieski to look at, and to be, as 
 it were, inflamed by. But he judged — and quite 
 rightly, too — that it would be something out of 
 place. He had a great, innate sense of delicacy, 
 had old John Harbord. That portrait would have 
 thrilled his romantic soul. He rose with a laugh, 
 a little shamefaced. 
 
 149
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 "That'll be all right," he said curtly. 
 
 Brennan swung round on his chair. One look at 
 Brennan and you knew what he was. He had a 
 square, determined jaw ; black, gimlet eyes; the hard 
 face of a mathematician; the two perpendicular 
 furrows betw^een the eyebrows that denote con- 
 centrated thought. You could see immediately that 
 he was a workman who was also a college graduate. 
 The experience in his eyes placed him in the late 
 thirties. He was afraid of no man and expected no 
 man to be afraid of him. 
 
 "When is he coming to work ? " Brennan demanded 
 in his direct, metallic manner. 
 
 "We mustn't rush him to it too quickly," Harbord 
 smiled. "They'll be home to-morrow. We'll make 
 a start in about a week." 
 
 "You want me to coach him up in the work?" 
 
 "We'll do it together, Will. You'll have to do 
 most of it — I'm getting too old and I want to rest." 
 The ironmaster drew a sheaf of letters towards him 
 and Miss Ertle took out her pencil and stenographer's 
 pad. Brennan still looked at the ironmaster, with 
 the furrows in his forehead standing out like ridges. 
 
 "I'll coach him all right," Brennan snapped, 
 "only — " He swung about to his desk. 
 
 "Only what?" Harbord asked. 
 
 "Oh, nothing," Brennan answered. 
 
 The ironmaster chuckled. 
 
 "You'll have to look out for your laurels, Will," 
 he laughed. 
 
 They both looked at him, the assistant manager 
 and the secretary, with a little sadness in their eyes, 
 the fear of disappointments and disillusions from 
 
 150
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 which even their loyahy and affection could not shield 
 him. They had each understood John Harbord's 
 idea, and they had each turned it over in their minds 
 night after night and day after day, viewing it from 
 all angles. The glamour of romance and high 
 purpose had not blinded their eyes. They found no 
 virtue in his plan — Brennan, because he distrusted 
 theories and knew iron and men; Miss Ertle, because 
 she was a woman of forty, and accordingly wise. 
 
 VI 
 
 It cut Sobieski's heart a little to see the delight 
 of the ironmaster on their return. He knew what 
 was in John Harbord's mind, and he shrank from 
 smashing the man's illusions — Sobieski was not a 
 bad soul at bottom, and he knew how it would hurt. 
 It is cruel enough to take something away from a 
 child, but it is infinitely more cruel to take it from 
 an old man whose days are numbered. In Sobieski's 
 hard philosophy it was every man for himself. He 
 believed that the old man's ideals were, to say the 
 least, quixotically foolish. It was the fault of his 
 surroundings. And, besides, it would be quite 
 possible, he felt, to arrange a sort of compromise 
 for the present. He wanted to get back to Europe 
 quickly, he wanted to spend the winter in Paris, 
 and this stay in New York was an irksome experience 
 to him. To Edna it was a rough waking hour between 
 golden dreams. Sobieski had decided to wait 
 patiently a little while, but every hour he became 
 more and more eager to bring the matter to a definite 
 conclusion. 
 
 151
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 They had been home four days now — a flurry of 
 calls, shopping, engagements, theatre had occupied 
 them until now, but the rush had become too much 
 for Edna— she expected her child to be born in 
 January — and they had stayed at home that Thurs- 
 day evening. It was the first time since their arrival 
 that they had had a chance to discuss things with 
 the ironmaster. They sat together in the warmly 
 lighted drawing-room, a miracle of interior decoration 
 in mellow gold and rose, which old John Harbord 
 had spoiled by filling with the things he liked : with 
 pictures in live colour, steel engravings of his favourite 
 heroes, huge cushioned armchairs, books scattered 
 everywhere, an address presented to him by the 
 men. 
 
 These things jarred Edna. They had made her 
 mother, who had more taste than she, supremely 
 happy. 
 
 John Harbord settled himself in his easy chair 
 and watched the yellow flame play over the log in 
 the grate. He was happy — one glance at his face 
 would show that. Edna sat at the piano, picking out 
 with difficulty an air from a current comedy. Sobieski 
 moved uneasily about the room, taking up books, 
 putting them down, looking at engravings. There 
 was a restless fire in his brown eyes and in the toss 
 of his tawny hair. His elaborate, angular evening 
 clothes stood out in sharp contrast to the baggy 
 dinner jacket and black tie of the ironmaster. 
 
 "We've got a desk for you down there already," 
 Harbord broke in irrelevantly. He was permitting 
 a flash of his own thoughts to escape him uncon- 
 sciously. Sobieski stiffened. Edna stopped playing
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 and looked at him. The moment had come. Sobieski 
 leaned forward and picked up a book. 
 
 "That's awfully good of you," he observed. "It'll 
 be a good thing to have when I run down occasion- 
 ally." 
 
 The ironmaster laughed. 
 
 "You are not going to run down occasionally. 
 You are going to work there every day. I'm going 
 to start you next Monday." 
 
 Sobieski's detached interest showed in his face. 
 Underneath his carefully tailored clothes his body 
 was rigid and tense. 
 
 "That's hardly possible," he said. "We'll be 
 leaving for Europe in November." 
 
 The ironmaster stood up. His face was set in 
 serious lines. 
 
 "I understood," he began, "that you were going 
 to handle the works after I was gone, on the lines I 
 laid down to you." 
 
 "That's ridiculous, father," Edna broke in. "You 
 can't expect " 
 
 She stopped suddenly. She felt as she often felt 
 when an electric storm was coming up on the horizon, 
 a sense of fear, an agitation, a suspense waiting for 
 the vast atmospheric masses to crash together and 
 lightning to cleave downward. Sobieski was speaking ; 
 his voice was as suave as when passing a compliment. 
 
 "Of course, I understand it," he was saying; "but 
 I can't be expected to look after the details. Managers 
 can do that. In a broad sense " 
 
 "I expect you to look after everything," Harbord 
 thundered. A shadow, like a liquid stain, was passing 
 over his face. His eyes shot beams of steel light. 
 
 F 153
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 "I expect you to work for your living like everyone 
 else in the plant," 
 
 The time had come, Sobieski thought, to be direct 
 and forceful, to show himself master of the situation. 
 
 "That's out of the question," he snapped curtly. 
 
 John Harbord looked at him for a long minute. 
 The expression of forcefulness passed from his face, 
 and in place of it there came the look of a man who 
 is trying to grasp something, trying to understand. 
 Then suddenly, so suddenly and unexpectedly that 
 his daughter and Sobieski took a step forward as if 
 they feared collapse, he went weak. His knees 
 trembled and his eyes became blank, and little drops 
 of perspiration stood out on his head. He reached 
 for the back of a chair. 
 
 "I'm all right," he said shortly. 
 
 Sobieski walked towards him. His tone was 
 conciliating. 
 
 "And then, mon beau-pere" he said easily, "there's 
 Edna's child. We want him to be born in Poland, or 
 in the old family house in Paris whose foundations 
 are on Polish earth. We must go over. He can't be 
 born anywhere else. He's a Sobieski." 
 
 "He's not a Harbord," said the ironmaster. 
 
 They were all silent for a moment. 
 
 "Now, don't you see?" Sobieski made a little 
 appealing gesture with his hands, as though he were 
 advocating common sense. Edna broke in. 
 
 "Don't you see, father?" she seconded. 
 
 The ironmaster nodded weakly, 
 
 "Yes, I see," he said. 
 
 He walked towards the door slowly. They made 
 no effort to stop him. They both sensed that he 
 
 154
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 had been hit hard and had best be left alone. Halfway 
 to the hall he stopped. 
 
 "I suppose you'll be wanting some money," he 
 observed. 
 
 Sobieski winced and walked toward the fire. He 
 did not want to talk about it. The old man, he felt, 
 should be more tactful. He said nothing. 
 
 "I see," the ironmaster repeated. He left the room. 
 
 He made his way upstairs to the big, comfortable 
 bedroom that had been Anne Harbord's and his, 
 and he sat down, trying to understand what had 
 happened. It seemed to him that the cold, wintry 
 gale of fate was blowing and he standing naked and 
 defenceless before it, when before he had been 
 enjoying the odorous warmth of a spring day. They 
 had gone back on him. They had committed the 
 unspeakable evil of treachery. His whole life he had 
 given over to a work, and now, with quitting time 
 at hand, he saw it gone for nothing. The temple 
 he had reared to his high god they were for using 
 as a house of revels. And he was old and could not 
 build again. He understood Sobieski now. One 
 glint of the Pole's eyes had told him as much as 
 though he had seen a weapon. The Pole had no 
 sympathies with his ideals, no understanding, no 
 intention of carrying them out. He had given his 
 prince's blood for the plebeian's money, and now he 
 wanted the consummation of the bargain. But the 
 ironmaster had been no party to it; he had seen 
 things differently. There was no moral obligation 
 on him to pay. 
 
 He looked at the matter again, because he wanted 
 to do justice to everybody as well as to himself and 
 
 155
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 his people. Sobieski wanted his son to be born a 
 Pole. He could understand that. But was it true? 
 And he decided bitterly it was not. It was merely 
 an argument, brazen in its injustice, for John Harbord 
 wanted Edna's son to be born in the Harbord house 
 under the glamour of the Harbord dream. Why, he 
 reflected bitterly, he would even have to buy the 
 Pole's house for the child to be born in ! They 
 wanted his money, his property, he knew now — this 
 Pole, who had no claim on it beyond marrying his 
 daughter, and this daughter, who had inherited 
 nothing of him or of Anne Harbord. They wanted 
 to take it away, to spend it in Paris, in Warsaw, in 
 Baden-Baden — anywhere except in the place it was 
 made. They had no right to it. What of the people 
 by whose panting lungs and tired muscles it had been 
 made, for whom John Harbord felt he held it in 
 trust ? What of them ? he asked fiercely. What of 
 them ? Suddenly, with a great throb of poignancy, 
 he realized how old he was, and how helpless. What 
 could he do against them ? Should he go back to the 
 drawing-room and plead? That would not do, he 
 decided, willing though he was to sacrifice his dignity 
 for his dream. He had seen that determined glint in 
 Sobieski's eyes and he knew nothing was of use 
 against it. He could threaten, and browbeat, and 
 possibly reduce them to terms; but after he was 
 dead, what was to hold them back then ? The thought 
 of Edna filled him with a spasm of rage, and he 
 cursed her violently, forgetting himself for the 
 moment. She had committed the unpardonable sin. 
 She had done parricide. It was no use pleading with 
 them, threatening them, coercing them. That was 
 
 156
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 no good, he said over and over again hopelessly. 
 That was no good. No. No good at all. 
 
 Down in the drawing-room Sobieski leaned on 
 the mantel and gazed into the fire. 
 
 "It hit the old gentleman hard," he said, and he 
 was sorry for him. "It hit him hard. But I never 
 thought he would give in so quickly." 
 
 VII 
 
 They had heard nothing of the ironmaster for a 
 week when Sobieski got a brief message to bring 
 his wife to the works on Saturday at noon. They 
 knew he was at his club in the evenings and in the 
 daytime at the Leonardsville plant, but Sobieski was 
 becoming worried. He was afraid he would have to 
 search for him and reopen the issue again ; but the 
 message reassured them. It was typical of the old 
 man to request them to come to the ironworks. He 
 felt more at home there than in his house on Madison 
 Avenue, certainly more so than in the shining office 
 on Church Street. Perhaps, Sobieski thought, he 
 was going to argue with him again, to try to persuade 
 his son-in-law to follow his plans, as he had done 
 once before solemnly in the shadow of the plant. 
 More likely he was going to hand over everything 
 to Edna — it would be there he would like to transact 
 such business. 
 
 "I wish he wouldn't drag us down there every 
 time he feels like it," Edna was grumbling. A hard 
 frost had been out and the hoar still lay in minute 
 crystals along the countryside. The tires of the car 
 crunched as they ground into the road. 
 
 157
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 "That's all right," Sobieski said lightly. He could 
 afford to meet a few of the old man's whims. He 
 whistled lightly as they spun along. 
 
 They drew up before the great gate of the court- 
 yard and Sobieski saw with surprise that it was full 
 of workmen. They milled like cattle in the small 
 inclosure. They watched Sobieski and Edna Harbord 
 with independent stares as they made their way 
 through the yard, but they paid little attention to 
 the pair, for they were talking, arguing excitedly, 
 making free gestures. Their voices rose like the hum 
 of a mill. Their dark, grimy features and muscled 
 shoulders suggested that all the concentrated mental 
 and physical strength of the town was gathered there. 
 From their jumpers came the heavy tang of oil and 
 the hard taste of metal. What were they doing there, 
 Sobieski asked himself suddenly, when they should 
 have been working? Their presence disturbed him. 
 It disturbed his wife too. 
 
 "Jean!" she said suddenly. "He's dead!" 
 
 Sobieski's heart gave a jump. The old man had 
 killed himself — he had killed himself because his 
 child and her husband had betrayed him. Sobieski 
 tore the office door open with a hand that shook. 
 No, he was wrong, thank God! John Harbord was 
 there. But was everything all right? 
 
 The long table that was to have been his desk 
 had been shifted to the centre of the floor, and about 
 it sat several people, as though it were a directors' 
 meeting. At its head was John Harbord, proud, 
 exultant, it seemed, a faint red flush on his cheeks 
 showing up dramatically against the silvering black 
 of his hair and beard. Beside him sat Brennan, the 
 
 158
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 grim assistant manager of the works, and a little 
 farther down Miss Ertle sat, busy with a paper 
 covered with the hooks and angles of shorthand. 
 There were other men there, workmen of the expert 
 type, with the light of inspiration playing over their 
 sharp features, and others, manifestly executives by 
 their heavy jowls and grave eyes. Opposite each 
 other, towards the end, Sobieski saw the brown 
 Vandyke and eagle nose of a famous surgeon and 
 the chiselled features of the Bishop of Utica. The 
 quick hum of the workmen's conversation outside 
 came to them like the buzz of a power house. 
 
 "Come here, Edna," Harbord said. 
 
 He raised a packet of papers. He was ignoring 
 Sobieski, The pair of them advanced to the bottom 
 of the table, and stood there, feeling like prisoners 
 before a bar of justice. As he looked at the men 
 present Sobieski saw that they were labouring under 
 some form of emotion. Their eyes were glistening 
 and their hands fidgeted. Occasionally they raised 
 their heads, and a sort of dumb admiration passed 
 over their faces as they looked at John Harbord. 
 Sobieski tried to concentrate his thoughts, to under- 
 stand what the scene meant, but the hum outside, now 
 broken often by an unrestrained cheer, distracted him. 
 
 "Here is your money, Edna," Harbord was saying 
 evenly — "bonds, mortgages and shares — eighteen 
 thousand dollars, money your mother had saved and 
 had earned by investment. It will bring you in 
 about twenty dollars a week — and you can't realize 
 on the capital. That is all." 
 
 She looked at the papers in a dumb, blind sort of 
 way. It was evident she did not understand. Sobieski 
 
 159
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 would have to ask for an explanation. He felt hot 
 with the shame of it all. Harbord was looking at 
 him keenly. He felt the eyes of the physician and 
 the ecclesiastic inject acid into his skin. 
 
 "But I don't understand," he said. "My wife 
 doesn't understand." 
 
 "That is all the money she has in the world," 
 Harbord explained; "twenty dollars a week. I am 
 giving it to her." 
 
 "But this is ridiculous," Sobieski snapped. 
 
 He turned away. 
 
 "Why all the comedy?" 
 
 His teeth bit his lips. He was savage at what 
 he thought to be light, melodramatic revenge of the 
 ironmaster, the shaming of him before these strangers. 
 
 "There are many women in this town, Sobieski," 
 the ironmaster replied, "who handle large families on 
 less. Edna is no better than they are. At any rate 
 she has all she can get from me. I have none to give." 
 
 The bishop looked at Harbord with his eyes 
 pursed. The manager was grave. The secretary 
 looked up with moist and shining eyes. The doctor 
 smiled grimly in his beard. But there was purpose 
 beneath all their looks. Had it not been for the 
 dingy office, with its glaring lithographed calendars, 
 its dog-eared reference books, its chipped yellow 
 furniture, its iron copying press, the group at the 
 table might have been statesmen in a capital founding 
 a new dynasty. 
 
 Sobieski looked through the window at the 
 silvered countryside without. It seemed cold and 
 forbidding, grim, relentless, an enemy that gives and 
 expects no quarter. Sobieski blazed into sudden 
 
 1 60
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 passion. His wife looked at him with a face that had 
 gone white as lime. 
 
 "You are mad!" he stormed. "You are raving!" 
 
 The physician raised his eyes. They were slightly 
 amused. They gave Sobieski the sense of cold 
 insult. 
 
 "You can do nothing on that score, young man," 
 he said cynically. "He is sane, quite sane." 
 
 Outside the hum of the workmen rose to a clamour. 
 
 " Bring him out ! " they were shouting. " Old John ! 
 We want Old John!" 
 
 Harbord rose. He put his hands on the table. 
 He leaned forward. 
 
 "Jean," he said solemnly, "I offered you every- 
 thing. You have had your chance. You lost it." 
 
 His brows knit together. His jaw tightened. 
 
 "One year ago I told you what I wanted you and 
 Edna to do. I wanted you to take care of my people. 
 I wanted someone to look after them when I was 
 gone. You promised me you would. You refused 
 a week ago." 
 
 The humming outside rose and fell in great sound 
 waves that resembled the incoming of a spring tide. 
 At times the ticking of the old yellow clock on the 
 wall was distinct. Again sound buffeted the windows 
 and doors like a high wind. 
 
 Above it all the voice of the ironmaster rose high 
 and distinct, with the clear ring of fine metal: 
 
 "You want money. I have no money. The money 
 I had was by virtue of my position. I had the use 
 of it. So would you have had. But it belongs to 
 neither of us. Providence and the work of the men 
 below put it in my hands. It was there to care for 
 
 i6i
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 them if times became bad — ^to give them work if 
 there was no work." 
 
 Somebody without was addressing the men in 
 brazen accents that seemed like the bass to the old 
 man's tones. The crowd roared like near thunder. 
 
 " But you would have taken it and spent it on fine 
 houses and on fast horses. You would have spent 
 it abroad. There was no warmth in your heart for 
 my people, no understanding." 
 
 He paused for a moment. 
 
 "I gave it back to them," he concluded simply. 
 
 "You gave it back?" 
 
 Sobieski looked dazed. It was as if Harbord had 
 announced himself as saviour of the world. The 
 listeners at the table were like carven figures. 
 
 " I gave it to them to build hospitals for themselves, 
 to build libraries, to give college scholarships to their 
 sons, to manage themselves under the trustees. They 
 will get higher wages — not much, but enough for 
 more happiness and comfort. They at least will not 
 misuse it. They know how hard it is to get." 
 
 A foreman mechanic slipped through the door. 
 He fumbled with his cap. 
 
 "The men want you, Mr. Harbord," he spoke. 
 "They want to thank you. You can hear them 
 calling." 
 
 There was a vast tramping of feet outside in the 
 yard. 
 
 " Speech ! " they were shouting. " Speech ! Speech 
 from Old Iron ! " 
 
 "I'll be out in a minute, Cameron," he answered. 
 
 "That's all," he finished simply. He took his 
 hat, brushed it carefully and prepared to go out. 
 
 162
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 "I am going to say good-bye to my people," he 
 told them; "and then I am going to rest until my 
 time's here." 
 
 A great sense of shame and degradation swept 
 over Sobieski as he stood there. It seemed to him 
 that before all these people, before the whole world, 
 he had been stripped to the leanness of his soul. He 
 had been shown forth as selfish, as treacherous, as 
 base. 
 
 To-morrow the news would go sweeping through 
 the capitals of Europe that the plebeian ironmaster 
 had disinherited his princely son-in-law. What would 
 people think? he asked. They would probably 
 think right. 
 
 A new flush mounted to his cheeks, and he looked 
 at Edna Harbord's white face with unseeing eyes. 
 The ironmaster passed by. She took a step 
 forward. 
 
 "Father!" she gasped. 
 
 The ironmaster swung about to her. His face 
 grew pale. 
 
 "Ah, Edna," he said slowly, "if you had called 
 on your father for help when they were betraying 
 him, it would be different to-day." 
 
 He left the room. The others sat about the table 
 as if turned to stone. Suddenly the bishop rose. 
 He murmured something. Sobieski thought he was 
 condoling with him. 
 
 "What did you say?" he asked, looking sharply 
 at the bishop. 
 
 The bishop's eyes were like ice. His voice cut. 
 
 "I was quoting of Tyre," he said. His voice rang 
 out true and proud: ,"Of 'Tyre, the crowning city, 
 
 163
 
 THE HONOURABLE OF THE EARTH 
 
 whose merchants are princes, whose traffickers are 
 the honourable of the earth'." 
 
 A vast explosion of voices told them that the 
 ironmaster had stepped out among his people. They 
 swung out in a rushing current of sound, billowing, 
 swelling, rising as a pillar, like some mighty organ 
 playing a Gloria. 
 
 164
 
 V 
 
 A BREVITY ON PAGE THREE 
 
 The tall rewrite man with the dainty manner and 
 the horn-rimmed spectacles strode from the tele- 
 phone booth to the cluttered city desk. 
 
 "O'Hagan, over in Brooklyn," he reported 
 tersely. "Story of an Italian suicide in the East 
 River. Assistant in a wineshop." 
 
 The fat city editor thought for an instant. 
 
 "Nothing to it?" he asked. 
 
 "Nothing to it," the rewrite man grimaced 
 contemptuously. 
 
 " Oh, well. Stick it in the Brevities, on page three." 
 
 In spite of his fear of his brother and of his brother's 
 surliness; in spite of his being in a strange country; 
 in spite of the lowness of his wages — of the whole 
 three months he had spent assisting his brother in 
 the wineshop on Columbia Street there had hardly 
 been a moment in which he had not been supremely 
 happy. 
 
 Northward Columbia Street rambles from the 
 Erie Basin towards Brooklyn Bridge, a strange, 
 unkempt street, a sailors' highway. Grotesque shops 
 dot its walls from terminal to terminal — mariners' 
 outfitters, their windows piled high with rubber 
 
 165
 
 A BREVITY ON PAGE THREE 
 
 boots and shirts and sheath knives ; queer delicatessen 
 stores with loads of unheard of delicacies in their 
 windows, dried fish from Iceland, sticky Turkish 
 sweetmeats, onions beaded on strings; photographers, 
 with models of full rigged ships in their windows; 
 a cigar store with the battered figurehead of some 
 forgotten windjammer nailed to the wall in lieu of 
 an Indian, Up and down the street go the motley 
 population of the ships — Norwegians; tanned sus- 
 picious Lascars, jabbering in a weird tongue; small, 
 timid Portuguese sailors; laughing negroes from 
 Norfolk schooners; Chinamen, with their slant eyes; 
 a queer polyglot highway it is and a dull and drab 
 one, whose only light spot is the shop called "Feretti 
 —Wines." 
 
 He stood at the door and looked up and down the 
 street. A passing stevedore hailed him. 
 
 "Hello, Pete; where's your brother to-day?" 
 
 Pietro's teeth flashed smilingly. His eyes glimmered 
 recognition. 
 
 "He's down at the Booth Pier," he answered in 
 his halting English. 
 
 "He ought to take a jump off it some day," the 
 stevedore growled, " before somebody pushes him in." 
 
 There are many men hated on Columbia Street. 
 There is, for example, Ed Shuhmann, the sly saloon 
 keeper, who can wheedle their money from the 
 sailors with the adroitness of a pickpocket. There is 
 "Spooner" Jones, the slave-driving pier superin- 
 tendent of the Gallagher and Burton line. There is 
 the policeman Flannagan, who is free with nightstick 
 and blackjack. There is good and solid reason for 
 hating these men — they have earned it, but there is 
 
 1 66
 
 A BREVITY ON PAGE THREE 
 
 no concrete cause for hating Vicenzo Feretti, owner 
 of " Feretti — Wines." He is just one of those persons 
 against whom one takes an intense dislike and keeps 
 it until one's dying day. 
 
 "I don't know what's wrong with that guinea," 
 Riordan, the fat patrolman of the beat, would say to 
 himself. "He's never done anything. His shop's on 
 the level. But nobody likes him, and I don't care 
 for him myself." 
 
 He still has his wineshop on Columbia Street, 
 has Vicenzo Feretti, and he is little changed since 
 the days when Pietro, his short, round-faced, smiling 
 brother helped him pour out Chianti for customers, or 
 wrap up bottles of sherry and port and potent liquors 
 for home consumption, as the technical phrase is. 
 Tall, spare, yellow in the face, with prominent 
 cheekbones and a flowing moustache, black as ink, 
 his eyes still regard you with that suspicious, alert 
 and menacing look that is like a challenge. A man 
 in whose debt I should not care to be, or by whom I 
 should not care to be caught in the commission of 
 crime. A merciless and selfish man and a miser to 
 his finger tips. 
 
 "I wonder why people go into his place, if they 
 don't like him," Riordan used to philosophize. 
 
 Riordan had time for philosophy, being a patrol- 
 man on beat, but had little ability for arriving at 
 conclusions, having few brains, no matter how his 
 heart is. A clean and cosy place was Feretti 's, with 
 its sawdust on the floor; its red stove; its shelves 
 lined with bottles; its little cashier's grill. A place 
 where the solid burgesses of Columbia Street like 
 to foregather for a glass of wine, a chat, and a game 
 
 167
 
 A BREVITY ON PAGE THREE 
 
 of cards; in preference to the sailors' boozing kens 
 of the neighbourhood, riotous with liquor and 
 hoarse chanties, and where sheath knives flash too 
 often. And it was more than cosy and clean when 
 Vicenzo Feretti, seeing his clients grow and multiply, 
 wrote home to Naples for his brother Pietro to come 
 out and assist him. When Pietro came the wineshop 
 took on an air of cheer and cordiality. 
 
 "You will have your room and board and three 
 dollars a week — a big salary. ..." Vicenzo had 
 written. 
 
 By now Pietro knew the truth as to the largeness 
 of the salary, but he enjoyed his new place. There 
 was a sense of hospitality to the work that pleased 
 him, and he enjoyed making friends and putting 
 an occasional word in the conversation. In daytime, 
 when custom was slack, he loved to stand at the 
 door and watch the passing current of sailormen 
 and stevedores up and down the street, and to 
 exchange a phrase with friends and acquaintances. 
 His smile would beam out like sunrise. In his voice 
 there would be a happy little chuckle. 
 
 " He's the regular little Happy Kid, Pete is,'* 
 the Columbia Street folks would say. "One good 
 little scout." And into their faces, as they thought 
 of him, there would steal a pleasant smile of remem- 
 brance, such as comes into the eyes at the memory 
 of happy days past, or the prospect of pleasant 
 things to come. 
 
 II 
 
 In Leghorn he had been happy, in spite of the 
 things wrong at home. There was his father, a 
 
 1 68
 
 A BREVITY ON PAGE THREE 
 
 grim old Garibaldian, truculent, savage; his mother, 
 an evil, envious woman, with her eternal Calabrian 
 sneer; and before he had gone to America, there 
 had been Vicenzo, saturnine, suspicious, miserly, 
 self-centred. Pietro, in that family, seemed like 
 a sun bursting through clouds. In the house Pietro 
 was subdued, but in the hat factory, where he plaited 
 straw hats for a pittance, he was the merriest of 
 the workmen. As he walked through the streets 
 the children playing on the church steps used to 
 hail him with high-pitched voices. 
 
 " Btion giorno, Pietro. Ohe\ buon giorno." 
 
 " Biion giorno, bambini" he would cry back. 
 
 Even the old men basking in the sun, immobile, 
 waiting for death, had a word for him as he passed 
 by. And the brown-faced Livornian women smiled 
 innocently and merrily towards him. 
 
 "He has not an enemy in the world," all would 
 say of him. "The friend of everyone!" 
 
 He had great pride in that phrase, the friend of 
 everyone. It seemed a great distinction, greater 
 than the honours of kings. He felt as though he 
 wanted to embrace the whole world in his arms, 
 to feel that at the sight of him dour men would 
 lose their grimness and sad women smile once more. 
 And when the letter from Brooklyn came, it was 
 this feeling that he wanted to embark on a new 
 continent, to greet everyone with a smile and to 
 be so greeted by them that consoled him for 
 leaving his friends in Leghorn. The fellow work- 
 men of the hat factory gathered about him as he 
 went. 
 
 "But aren't you afraid, Pietro?" they suggested. 
 
 169
 
 A BREVITY ON PAGE THREE 
 
 "Won't you feel lost? Ecco, 2l large country: gun- 
 men; thieves; Indians; Irishmen, Ebbene!" 
 
 ''Ma che," he smiled. "None hurts anyone but 
 who hurts them. None meddles with me. Ecco I 
 I am the friend of everyone." 
 
 And in that dour and straggling street, where 
 things are done that never see the light of day, 
 where theft is a common thing, and men brawl 
 to the death, where the sandbagger still works, and 
 where deadly sleep-compelling drops are still slipped 
 into the liquors of sailor folk, even there Pietro 
 Feretti found he had not an enemy in the world. 
 There was, for example, Benjamin Sulsberg, who, 
 it was whispered, aided by a sniff of cocaine, a 
 taxicab, and an automatic pistol, would kill any 
 man in New York for a ten dollar bill. He always 
 nodded a curt greeting to the little Italian as he 
 passed by, relaxing his ever-vigilant eyes for an 
 instant in order to smile. 
 
 There was Riordan, policeman of the beat, who 
 would stop to bandy words. Riordan was the 
 humorist of the precinct. 
 
 "Look here, Pete," he would state with mock 
 solemnity, "you ain't looking so well. Sort of down 
 in the mouth, sallow and joyless. No fun in life 
 for you. You ought to see a doctor." 
 
 **See a doctor!" Pietro would explode with 
 laughter. And Riordan would pass along chuckling. 
 
 There was even Ed Shuhmann, he with the evil 
 reputation and the evil saloon, taciturn, sullen — 
 even he melted under the smile of the Livornian. 
 
 " How is it by you, kid ? " he would inquire. " How 
 do you like Brooklyn?" 
 
 170
 
 A BREVITY ON PAGE THREE 
 
 "Fine place; sure," Pietro would answer. "Like 
 it. Nice place." 
 
 "I've seen worse," Shuhmann would nod as he 
 went along. And so Ed had. He had seen Sing Sing. 
 
 But one person did not respond to Pietro's smiling 
 affability, and that was Vicenzo, the elder Feretti. 
 Perhaps it was the difference of fifteen years in their 
 ages — Vicenzo was forty now. Partly it was the 
 grimness of the man's character. Certainly his 
 miserliness helped, too. 
 
 "You're my brother, ecco ! Very good!" he was 
 never tired of telling the younger man. "I treat 
 you all right. I give you nice place, fine wages. Eh? 
 Everything fine." 
 
 Pietro would nod his response. 
 
 "But listen to me," — Vicenzo 's face would grow 
 harder than ever, his eyes cold, his lips contracted — 
 "You not treat me right; you let my money go 
 wrong ; you take one cent from the till — one cent, see ; 
 you go to jail. My brother? No matter. I treat you 
 like I treat a burglar. Jail!" 
 
 And with that he would make a downward turn 
 of his thumb, more cruelly decisive even than his 
 words. 
 
 Ill 
 
 If this story should reach the eyes of John Fitz- 
 gerald, heavyweight boxer, known to ringmen as 
 the "Gowanus Cyclone," it will clear up a mystery 
 which has puzzled him not a little. In the ring 
 Fitzgerald — if he will pardon my saying so — is a fair 
 third rater; he might be in the first rank if he had 
 skill combined with his courage and build. In 
 
 171
 
 A BREVITY ON PAGE THREE 
 
 appearance the Cyclone is not prepossessing. Tall 
 and bulky, square in the head, his face has been 
 marred by a hundred fights. His ears are battered 
 and his nose broken. He has the hard, vigilant eye 
 of the professional heavyweight. The knuckles of 
 his gigantic hands are distorted and swollen. And 
 when he smiles there is something cynical and 
 lowering about his features, though he does not mean 
 it, that gives one the impression he is about to land 
 viciously with both fists. 
 
 Perhaps it was the admiration of the timid for the 
 strong, perhaps it was vainglory in his friendship 
 with a boxer, but I prefer to think it was the sheer 
 emanation of his goodwill towards all men that drew 
 Pietro Feretti towards him who is called the " Gowanus 
 Cyclone." At any rate, it was that drew the Gowanus 
 Cyclone towards Pietro. Fitzgerald was ranging his 
 airy way down Columbia Street when the smile of 
 the little Italian stopped him in mid-course. 
 
 "Well, who have we got here?" the Cyclone 
 roared. "Little Sunshine: If it ain't, you can slap 
 me in the chops." 
 
 Pietro smiled more brilliantly than ever. The 
 sinister smile might have scared him, but the tone 
 of voice presaged nothing but friendship. 
 
 "You're all right, fellow," Fitzgerald told him. 
 "Take it from me, buddy, you're all right." 
 
 And so it had gone on from day to day. There 
 was always a smile and a word from Fitzgerald for 
 the wine dealer and always a smile and a word back. 
 
 Came a day when Fitzgerald stopped before his 
 friend. He put his hand in his hip pocket and 
 brought out a piece of cardboard. 
 
 172
 
 A BREVITY ON PAGE THREE 
 
 " Come up to-night and see me fight, kid," he 
 invited. "It'll be some bout, believe me." 
 
 So, dressed in his gala garments, such as he w^ore 
 on Sunday or on the feast day of a saint, Pietro 
 Feretti left his accustomed Columbia Street to 
 explore the strange fastnesses of East New York — 
 a weird, unknown place of apartment houses and 
 clean shops, of sturdy children playing in the streets, 
 of complacent matrons sitting placidly in the sun, 
 of guttural Hebrew jargon and of keen-eyed Hebrew 
 men. Strange were all these things to Pietro Feretti, 
 and stranger still the sporting club, with its ring, 
 blue beneath the arc lamp, its wooden benches and 
 blaring band. 
 
 He had been late leaving the store and he arrived 
 the moment Fitzgerald climbed into the ring, followed 
 by another as big as he. Pietro shuddered a little 
 at the sight of the huge figures, naked except for 
 the fighting shorts, the shoes and inadequate brown 
 gloves. 
 
 The clang of a gong and the Cyclone sprang in, 
 his face twisted in its malignant smile. There was 
 the thud of the Cyclone's right fist to the jaw and 
 the crash of his opponent's fall to the canvas. Pietro 
 Feretti's face went white. There was a peculiar 
 sensation of gooseflesh at the back of his neck and 
 on his scalp, and of terrified nausea at the pit of 
 his stomach. He stole out and home, running like 
 a frightened hare. 
 
 The next day Fitzgerald passed by. Pietro's smile 
 came only with an effort. His teeth flashed with 
 their customary dazzle, but in his eyes there was 
 deadly fear. 
 
 173
 
 A BREVITY ON PAGE THREE 
 
 "How did you like the fight, kid?" the boxer 
 inquired. 
 
 "Fine," the little Italian forced himself to answer. 
 "A great stuff." 
 
 "That was only an appetizer to me," the Cyclone 
 commented grandiosely. "You ought to see me up 
 against live ones. I kill them dead and I drink 
 their blood." 
 
 The fear of the man grew on him. It bothered 
 him until the smile became an anaemic, drawn 
 thing. He would dodge into the store at the sight 
 of the hulking figure, fearing to even speak to him, 
 lest by some chance remark he would draw on 
 himself that Berserker and deadly rage. The patrons 
 of the wineshop remarked his changed mood. 
 
 "Ebbetie, what is wrong, Pietro?" they would 
 chaff him. "Why no smile? Has your girl gone 
 back on you ? That is nothing. A girl ! Ma che ! " 
 
 "It's nothing." Pietro smiled sickly. "Yes, my 
 girl!" 
 
 Add to his fear the incident with Patrolman 
 Riordan, the humorist of the precinct, who stopped 
 before the store. 
 
 "And I thought you were a nice sort of fellow," 
 Riordan spoke solemnly, "and now I find you're a 
 tough guy ! " 
 
 "Ma che?'' the Livornian babbled, "M« che?'' 
 
 "Hanging around with the Cyclone!" he reproved 
 sternly. "Some day I'll be running you both in 
 for murder, that's what I'll be doing." He moved 
 haughtily on. 
 
 And his brother, too, had noticed it. 
 
 "You look!" the fierce-browed elder warned. 
 
 174
 
 A BREVITY ON PAGE THREE 
 
 "You talk to that loafer, that bum, that thug. Some 
 day he ask for money. You got no money. You 
 give him my money " 
 
 "But no " 
 
 "But yes!" Vicenzo mimicked. His voice changed 
 to a snarl. "And if anything is wrong with my 
 money; you know what I said. You know, don't 
 you ? I said jail ! " 
 
 IV 
 
 He had finished strewing the fresh sawdust on 
 the floor, placing the chair, polishing the counter. 
 By some devious way the sun had stolen into Columbia 
 Street, like a stranger who had lost his direction, 
 and the straight morning beam of it fell into the store 
 through door and window. As he polished the glasses 
 for an instant he broke into song: 
 
 *' Ma '?iatu sole 
 Cchin beV chine 
 O sole mio ! Sta ^n frotif a te — " 
 
 He had not seen Fitzgerald for a week now, and 
 the fear of the fighter was passing from him. He had 
 done the right thing, that was the idea. There was 
 something the church says about the occasion of 
 sin. Of course there was no occasion of sin, but 
 there was occasion of danger. Avoid it. That was 
 the idea. Ecco ! 
 
 "O sol\ sole mio! Sta " 
 
 He looked up for an instant towards the beam of 
 sunlight and he saw with a shock of terror that 
 
 175
 
 A BREVITY ON PAGE THREE 
 
 coming through the doorway was the Cyclone. He 
 walked towards the counter directly. He leaned 
 over and caught the assistant by the lapel of the 
 coat. , 
 
 "Say, fellow," he began brusquely. "You're a 
 friend of mine, ain't you?" 
 
 "Sure!" Pietro managed a smile. "Friend of 
 everyone." 
 
 "Well, then, slip us a ten-spot. Will you?" 
 
 "A ten-spot?" There was a dry feeling to the 
 top of the Livornian's palate; a quivering to his 
 scalp. 
 
 "Ain't you got it?" Fitzgerald asked anxiously. 
 His brows creased in anxiety until seemingly they 
 threatened like thunder. 
 
 "Sure, I got it!" Pietro answered quickly. He 
 had it — all he had in the world. He had intended 
 spending it for presents to friends in Leghorn, not 
 so much for sheer friendship as a pardonable desire 
 to impress them with his wealth and importance in 
 the new world. He fished it out in frayed one dollar 
 bills. He passed it across the counter to Fitzgerald. 
 The boxer pouched it rapidly and moved out. 
 
 "You're all right, fellow," he stopped to shoot 
 across his shoulder. "And listen. This is all right, 
 too. Get me ?" 
 
 But Pietro Feretti wasn't listening. A cold sweat 
 had broken out at the back of his collar, and his 
 brain was whirling like a gyroscope. It was not 
 the ten dollars, it was the action. He put down the 
 glass shakily on the counter and sank faintly on the 
 chair. If he hadn't had the money, what would have 
 happened ? He would be lying as inert and senseless 
 
 176
 
 A BREVITY ON PAGE THREE 
 
 now as the man he saw Fitzgerald knock out at the 
 boxing match that night — worse than that even, 
 perhaps dead. The thought appalled him. He got 
 terribly faint for a minute and had to cling on 
 to the edge of the counter. If he hadn't had the 
 money 
 
 Very distraught and very nervous he served the 
 customers of the wineshop that evening. He would 
 start when a patron pushed his chair back; jump, 
 when, at an animated sentence, a man would thump 
 his fist upon the table. 
 
 "What's got you, Pete?" someone asked him, 
 "you been seeing the ghost of Carlson, the Swedish 
 sailor that was murdered next door, or of the man 
 that got throttled last night down at Ed Shuhmann's ? " 
 
 "Or maybe," another suggested, "one of those 
 gunmen or tough guys has been holding him up?" 
 And they both laughed. 
 
 But they received no answering smile from him. 
 Pallidly he collected glasses and brought them 
 behind the counter to be filled again, and at each 
 visit back he would see in imagination the huge 
 bulk of Fitzgerald leaning across the counter, the 
 thunderous frown on his brow, the set jaw. . . . 
 
 Riordan, the jolly cop, passed him next morning 
 as he was taking the shutters down. 
 
 "So that friend of yours, the Cyclone, hasn't 
 killed you yet ? " the patrolman said in surprise. 
 
 "Ugh!" gasped the wineshop assistant. 
 
 "Oh, I don't suppose he'd kill you," Riordan 
 corrected himself. "He'd probably only maim you 
 for life." 
 
 "What for?" Pietro babbled. "What for?" 
 
 177
 
 A BREVITY ON PAGE THREE 
 
 "Oh, the Cyclone's all right if you treat him 
 right. He's a nice fellow. Only if he asks you for 
 any money give it to him. He may come in and 
 tell you * Give me a hundred dollars or I'll twist 
 your arms out.' Take my advice, if you want your 
 arms, come through." 
 
 The patrolman was enjoying the consternation on 
 the Livornian's face. It spurred him to further 
 efforts. 
 
 "Sure, Fitz is all right, only the way he holds 
 up people. There hasn't been a robbery around here 
 for years that Fitz hasn't put through. Ask him 
 yourself. He'll tell you." 
 
 "But you — but the police " 
 
 "Say, kid," Riordan turned on him reprovingly, 
 "don't you ever read the papers? Don't you know 
 that the police stand in with all these burglars and 
 dips ? How do you think us cops could live unless 
 we got our whack out of it? Oh, get wise. Get 
 wise." And he strolled on with that utter impassivity 
 of countenance of his, which was the chief element 
 of his humour. 
 
 He got down the shutters at last — how he did not 
 know, for that indefinable faintness had come over 
 him again. He staggered into the shop and leaned 
 heavily on the counter. Yes, he understood now. 
 Vaguely he had heard of the blackmail waged on the 
 shopkeeper by the thug. And he knew himself from 
 the chatter of the shop, the terrible things that happen 
 in the Italian Colony, of the raids of "Tiger" 
 Patello ; of the Black Hand men ; of the even more 
 fearful Mafioti, who exact tribute with knife and 
 dynamite, who rob and kidnap, who kill and maim. 
 
 178
 
 A BREVITY ON PAGE THREE 
 
 His brother came down the stairs, sleepy, angry 
 as always. His voice cut like a whip. 
 
 " Get to work," he directed. "What are you loafing 
 for .'' Good-for-nothing ! Calabrian ! " 
 
 He had had a vague idea of appealing to his brother 
 for help to conquer this terrible situation. But he 
 knew now, seeing him, how useless that appeal 
 would be. A laugh, a torrent of abuse, a " Che majiV 
 "What is it to me?" would be all the help he 
 would receive. 
 
 He went about the day's work mechanically at the 
 order of his brother, responding to the sharp tone 
 as a slave might respond to a whip. Men came in 
 and out for a glass of wine or a bottle to take away, 
 or to arrange for the refreshments at a wedding or a 
 funeral, but they all seemed wrapped up in their own 
 business and took no notice of him. He had some 
 way expected that a customer or a friend would 
 notice his fear and pallor, question him about it, and 
 devise a means to cope with this vampire, who would 
 bleed him to the whiteness of a corpse. But none did. 
 
 "What is it to them?" he asked bitterly. 
 
 And even the policemen were in league against 
 him. 
 
 Tears would come into his eyes and a little soft 
 sob rise in his throat as he thought of Leghorn; of 
 the laughing days in the factory ; of the old men sitting 
 in the sun, effervescing gently into death; of the old 
 women in the quiet autumn of their lives; of the 
 young women springing with the sap of youth, and 
 the little brown children on the cobble stones. All 
 had a smile for him. There everyone was his friend. 
 And from that Paradise of charity he had wandered 
 
 179
 
 A BREVITY ON PAGE THREE 
 
 into a bystreet filled with the evil things of life, where 
 he was a thrush pursued by gerfalcons, or a rabbit 
 with the beagles behind him, slaver-mouthed and 
 eager. . . . He, the friend of every man ! 
 
 At two in the afternoon Fitzgerald crashed in, 
 savage and threatening. At the door he left an 
 undersized man in a sweater with a bag. He walked 
 across swiftly to the counter. Pietro looked to the 
 right and to the left wildly, like a trapped animal. 
 
 "Kid," the Cyclone announced, "I been getting 
 a raw deal." His savage jaw shot out and his eyes 
 gleamed vindictively. 
 
 "Look here," he shot out, "it's too bad, but you 
 got to spiel with forty bucks." 
 
 "Forty! Forty! Forty!" the Italian nearly 
 screamed. 
 
 The Cyclone hardly heard him. He drew his great 
 bulk up. He raised his arm. His gigantic shoulder 
 muscles bulged beneath his coat. 
 
 "I'm going to kill a guy in Philadelphia to-night," 
 he announced. His right hook swished through the 
 air like a flail. "One punch and he'll be dead to the 
 world." 
 
 There was money in the till, plenty of it, Pietro 
 knew. A hundred or more lay there to pay a wine 
 bill of the wholesale men. Breathlessly he took out 
 forty with trembling fingers. 
 
 "Now listen to me, Pete," the fighter said, "I'll 
 be back on Monday. I'd be here to-morrow only 
 you won't be open. Monday, see." He was gone. 
 
 For hours he could hardly realize what he had 
 done. He only knew that his legs felt like lead, and 
 there was a sensation as if some broad-bladed weapon 
 
 1 80
 
 A BREVITY ON PAGE THREE 
 
 had been pressed downward into his vitals. His 
 brother had gone out to attend to some real estate 
 business in Harlem and at every step that crossed 
 the door he started guiltily, and turned faint. So 
 the matter was solved. It was not to be death or 
 maiming at the hands of the fighter. It was to be 
 jail instigated by his brother, his brother who stood 
 in, as he boasted, with the politicians of the district. 
 It would be ten or twenty years of cell-life, of breaking 
 stones, of punishment and indignities. And if his 
 brother did not discover the theft until Monday, 
 there would be on Monday, the thug returning with 
 his insatiable demands. To whom could he go? 
 The police .'' The police ! Bah ! The brigands ! 
 
 At seven his brother returned. The dull, murky 
 October evening had set in, and the oil lamps were 
 lighted. A few customers sat about a table, a flask 
 of Chianti between them. Vicenzo walked straight 
 towards the till. Pietro stopped him. 
 
 "I feel ill," he babbled, "I go to a drug store." 
 
 He walked to the door quickly, and once outside 
 he broke toward the right in a steady run. A little 
 mist was swirling before his eyes, and he knew he 
 was crying, for great tears were moistening his cheeks 
 and little whining sobs broke from his throat. Half- 
 way toward the bridge he knocked into Ed Shuhmann 
 and ran swiftly on. 
 
 "Somebody's been feeding that kid liquor," Ed 
 growled. "They hadn't ought to. I'm going to 
 talk to him." 
 
 He ran on swiftly, expecting every instant to hear 
 the hue and cry behind him. Near State Street he 
 broke into a walk, for in the swiftness of the pace 
 
 i8i
 
 A BREVITY ON PAGE THREE 
 
 his wind had broken. And now his tears became 
 more apparent, his sobs louder. Riordan, the 
 policeman, had come in for night duty, and he 
 caught a glimpse of the broken figure as it crept 
 
 by. 
 
 "I wonder if that brother of his has been putting 
 anything over on Pete?" he thought. "By God! if 
 he has, I'll knock his block off!" 
 
 Pietro had come to Montague Street now. Above 
 him to the right great houses reared like castles on a 
 cliff. To the left of him the black chasm of the East 
 River ran. He cut down the wharf like a hare on the 
 turn. 
 
 "The friend of every man!" he choked. 
 
 He made his way down the wooden wharf, his feet 
 pattering hollowly, like the rolling of a drum. He 
 ran along whimpering in a frenzy. At the end he 
 stopped. The river raced by with the speed of the 
 outgoing tide. In front of him, across the way. New 
 York flashed in a chaos of electric lights. He stood 
 for a moment. Tears flooded his cheeks. 
 
 ''Ah, Dio mior' he sobbed. "The cold, hard 
 place!" 
 
 A current of cold air seemed to strike him as he 
 jumped, and the noise his plunge made was hollow, 
 like the plunge of a round stone. As he came up 
 again, gasping, he felt the undertow grip him 
 viciously about the legs. He opened his mouth to 
 scream, but a wave slapped him in the face and it 
 turned his shout into a high shrill whimper, like the 
 yelp of a rabbit when the beagles have caught it on 
 the turn. The undertow jerked him downward, and 
 he went with a vain beating of hands. 
 
 182
 
 A BREVITY ON PAGE THREE 
 
 On Monday morning the Cyclone strode into the 
 wineshop with the air of a conqueror. He looked 
 about him. There was only Vicenzo behind the 
 counter. 
 
 "Come here, you!" he commanded. "Where's 
 that kid brother of yours ? " 
 
 Vicenzo looked at him saturninely. 
 
 "He's drowned," he stated succinctly. "You'll 
 find him in the Morgue." He moved quickly down 
 the store. 
 
 It took a full minute for the information to sink 
 into the fighter's brain. He looked dazed. 
 
 "The poor little guinea!" he murmured. "The 
 poor little guinea!" 
 
 A little mist of tears crept into his hardened eyes. 
 His shoulders bowed. 
 
 "And me owing him this!" he said to himself. 
 
 And opening his hand he regarded dully the fifty 
 dollar bill lying in it, crumpled, like a crushed yellow 
 rose. 
 
 183
 
 VI 
 
 MRS. ALEXANDER TYSON: TOWARDS A 
 
 MEMOIR 
 
 Mrs. Alexander Tyson must have been all of 
 seventy years old, but it would have been hard to guess 
 at her age. All who knew her agreed in calling her a 
 remarkable woman, meaning that her personality was 
 a very strong one, without saying whether it was a 
 force for good or for evil. And in no way was she 
 more remarkable than in appearance. 
 
 At seventy you would have thought a woman 
 should be frail — a little wisp of body with white 
 hair, with transparent hands and an air of sweet 
 gentleness. Mrs. Alexander Tyson was robust, 
 fattish, and hard of body. And by some sort of 
 physical phenomenon, her hair that had once been 
 reddish brown, had not become white, but a sort 
 of dead gold. The only sign of physical decay in 
 her was that her eyesight was very bad, but then it 
 had never been good, even as a girl. She would 
 not, however, admit it at any time, refusing, in her 
 obstinate way, to wear glasses, to acknowledge ever 
 that her eyes were not as good as those of anybody 
 else. They were of a China blue, and made you 
 very uncomfortable when they looked at you, seem- 
 ing to disestablish immediately any contact between 
 you, a young person, and herself, a very remarkable 
 woman. 
 
 184
 
 MRS. ALEXANDER TYSON 
 
 Though she was a fattish woman, yet there was 
 never about her that air of generous warmth one 
 associates with plump femininity. The bulky well- 
 defined figure had something queer about it. She 
 was like one of those hardy, bloated plants which 
 spring up in a garden without any reason for their 
 existence. Or one might have thought that within 
 her all the sap had frozen, and freezing had expanded, 
 as water expands, forcing outwards her body in 
 harsh curves. 
 
 If you were told she was a woman of fifty you 
 would not have liked her and not hesitated to say 
 so, but being told she was seventy years old, you said 
 she was a very remarkable woman. 
 
 All this is the stranger because there exist portraits 
 of her of one half a century ago. Smiling, very 
 sweet portraits, the plumpish face, the glorious hair 
 like a copper-coloured bush, the strange and childish 
 blue eyes, and if you were asked to see the girl of 
 that likeness as a very old woman you would have 
 imagined a sweet, kindly old lady, full of under- 
 standing, very nice to little children and dogs, who 
 would find it very difficult to be hard about anything 
 or anybody — and not at all such a remarkable woman 
 as Mrs. Alexander Tyson. 
 
 Now had come the autumn of Southern New 
 England, a strange, nostalgic atmosphere of blue 
 mists, the tang of burning leaves, the glossy crows, 
 late autumn flowers marching bravely in the rear- 
 guard of summer. A little coldness was in the Fall 
 air, and soon the cider mills would be turning. For 
 
 G 185
 
 MRS. ALEXANDER TYSON 
 
 all these Mrs. Alexander Tyson cared little, for 
 Nature was nothing to her. She liked things to be 
 right, the drive well blue-stoned, the grass cropped, 
 and the flowers tended, so that they should not 
 become raggedy. 
 
 When autumn comes, old women grow pensive. 
 It is a season that is very sib to them. The quietness 
 of woods, the slumbering flowers, all seem to say: 
 ** Peace! Peace! The unquiet of spring is done, and 
 hot, cruel summer, the great passionate storm, and 
 furnace-like days, and now comes our time, slumber! 
 slumber ! " And in the clear, chill air they see so clearly. 
 So sweet a perspective comes to them. . . . They 
 fold sweet old hands on ancient laps. The hills are 
 brown, the leaves of the hills are brown, everywhere 
 are the brown eyes of God. 
 
 But Mrs. Alexander Tyson was not pensive this 
 sweet autumn morning. On her fattish face was a 
 look of dignified triumph. Nothing vindictive, but 
 vindication. She liked things to be right, and here 
 at last was a thing that had been bothering her for 
 fifty years, set at last to rights. 
 
 The local clergyman had been to see her the 
 evening before and told her that her old friend — 
 her friend of fifty years before, her enemy since — 
 Nan Lockwood was dying. 
 
 "And she wants to see you, Mrs. Tyson. She 
 wishes to be friends before she passes over to the 
 great majority." 
 
 "Friends, I'm afraid, is impossible." 
 
 "She is dying, Mrs. Tyson, and she wishes to see 
 you. You can't refuse. She wishes you to forgive 
 her for whatever she did to offend you." 
 
 1 86
 
 MRS. ALEXANDER TYSON 
 
 "To forgive her?" 
 
 "Yes, she said that, to forgive her." 
 
 "And she is dying? " 
 
 "Yes, Mrs. Tyson. There is no doubt. She is 
 bound for that bourne from which no traveller 
 returns." 
 
 "Then I will see her." 
 
 "Oh, God will reward you, Mrs. Tyson." 
 
 "He has rewarded me." 
 
 All afternoon, all night she was cheerful. She was 
 like some parched land on which a gentle rain was 
 falling. For all that she was peaceful she did not 
 sleep. The sweet night noises came to her: silken 
 rustle of the dried leaves, barking of foxes, chirrup 
 of crickets, the distant whistle of a train. Next door to 
 her her grand-daughter, "Sunny" Tyson, tossed list- 
 lessly in her troubled rest. "Poor child! Poor child!" 
 Mrs. Tyson thought. She was immensely fond of 
 Sunny. "Perhaps soon there will be news for her," 
 she smiled mysteriously. 
 
 In the grand-daughter of twenty she could see 
 herself of fifty years before, the copper-coloured hair, 
 the plumpish face, and dimpling smile. Sunny had 
 hazel eyes — that was the only difference. But looking 
 at the girl, she sensed how sweet she herself was 
 half a century ago, before Nan Lockwood, her dearest 
 friend, had shown herself to be such a traitor, such 
 a sly, bad woman — fifty years ago. 
 
 She often thought bitterly how wonderful the 
 Lockwood family had seemed to her as a girl. Old 
 General Lockwood, Nan's father, who had fought 
 Indians in the days before the War, and Alfred who 
 had lost an arm in the War, at the Wilderness it was, 
 
 187
 
 MRS. ALEXANDER TYSON 
 
 and Jim, the black sheep of the family, who had 
 killed a man in a duel and was in hiding until he 
 got to France. She remembered the only time she 
 had ever seen Jim, and how his picture remained 
 with her, tall and slight and dark, with piercing black 
 eyes, and the swaggering carriage of him. And the 
 pleasant air of vice he had — you knew in his eyes 
 that he was a gambler. Right away, in her girlish 
 fashion, she had fallen in love with Jim. But Jim 
 was not for her. He was already married, to some 
 French heiress of New Orleans, some strain of old 
 world aristocracy. And it was over her he was later 
 to kill a man. 
 
 It was probably because he was like Jim that she 
 became engaged to Albert Jennings, who wanted to 
 be a poet after the manner of Mr. Poe. Tall and 
 slim and dark, and with the same air of dissipation, 
 though where Jim's dissipation was of a gentlemanly 
 aristocratic sort, that of Albert Jennings was a 
 sinister thing. He was a morbid drinker, and she 
 probably consented to marry him from the vanity 
 that she could reform him, that and because he looked 
 like Jim Lockwood and because he was the most 
 important person visiting around New Canaan that 
 year. 
 
 Very probably she could have made a decent 
 citizen of him, and a good man. The summer he 
 spent in New Canaan he never touched liquor. He 
 seemed very happy, and published a lot of poetry 
 in Mr. Greeley's newspaper. He enjoyed simple 
 things like sailing on the sound, and barn dances, 
 and long rides. Everybody called him Lucy Knapp's 
 poet. A very pleasant summer that — 1870, or was 
 
 188
 
 MRS. ALEXANDER TYSON 
 
 it '71 ? — what with all the talk about Jim Lockwood, 
 and whether he would escape or not ? And where 
 he was, in New Orleans or New York? And her own 
 engagement to Albert, and the very nice letter Mr. 
 William Cullen Bryant wrote to Albert over some 
 poem he had printed of his — everyone seemed excited 
 over that, though she couldn't very well understand 
 what everyone was making such a fuss over. And 
 all thought her a lucky girl to have Albert, now 
 that he seemed so reasonable, so sensible. All except 
 Nan 
 
 She remembered that Nan had thrown doubts on 
 the wisdom of the marriage. "If, after it's over, 
 Lucy dear, after the first flush of love, he begins 
 again, it would be terrible for you. I wish I could 
 
 be sure. I wish " Oh, the sly, bad woman ! And 
 
 only two nights later, she had caught Nan and 
 Albert together, kissing. Not quite caught, but seen 
 them. 
 
 She remembered the soft August night, the great 
 full moon there was. Among her own relations in 
 her home there had been talk of Jim Lockwood — 
 some one of the countryside had seen him in New 
 York, right under the nose of the officers. It had 
 thrilled her to think of the risks he took, and wonder 
 would he get away safe ? If he hadn't married that 
 
 Creole lady All through the night the old 
 
 grandfather clock wheezed and clanged, and when 
 it was after midnight, finding she could not sleep, 
 
 she decided to walk out a little in the full moon 
 
 She often wondered since did some occult influence 
 
 send her out? So wrapping a cloak around her 
 
 she left the house quickly and wandered down the 
 
 189
 
 MRS. ALEXANDER TYSON 
 
 white road. She must have walked a quartet mile 
 until she came nearly to the gate of the Lockwood 
 house, and there she saw Nan. 
 
 And there she saw Nan and Albert Jennings. 
 
 He was kissing her good-bye. There was no doubt 
 it was he — the tall, slim, black man. And it nearly 
 one o'clock and all the world asleep for hours ! In 
 the dead of night, alone ! Her knees were weak with 
 vicarious shame. Sly Nan, who counselled her 
 against this marriage. Cunning Albert, who was 
 supposed to be in New York with his literary friends, 
 Mr. Greeley and Mr. Bryant. He had probably gone 
 no farther than Stamford. 
 
 She wondered for a minute if she should disclose 
 herself, but the fear they would think she was spying 
 on them held her. She wouldn't give them that 
 satisfaction. And then they went; Albert slinking, 
 careful, fearful of being discovered, like the sly 
 thing he was. And Nan, the bad woman, crying in 
 her handkerchief. 
 
 She had always been a person of decision even as 
 a young girl, so when she returned she wrote a 
 vicious, frigid letter to Albert telling him it no 
 longer amused her to be engaged to him, and coun- 
 selling him to get back to the gutter whence he had 
 arisen. Which advice he took, seemingly, for the 
 only thing she ever heard of him again was that, 
 after a prolonged debauch, he had thrown himself 
 despondently in the East River, and was drowned. 
 Somehow, Lucy thought, it was a judgment of 
 Providence. 
 
 Nan she cut dead next day, nor would ever have 
 anything to say to her, or meet her, or go any place 
 
 190
 
 MRS. ALEXANDER TYSON 
 
 she might meet her. Friends were excited, per- 
 turbed. Wanted to know why, but Lucy would 
 give no reason. She could only tell the truth, and 
 that she found would put her in a ridiculous position. 
 Nan Lockwood had stolen Lucy Knapp's poet 1 Oh, 
 no! Nan, hypocritical little beast, tried often to see, 
 wrote letters which Lucy never answered. Sly, bad 
 woman, you would think she knew nothing of what 
 happened from her letters. But Lucy never flinched 
 from her duty. They never spoke again. 
 
 And from perturbation in the countryside it 
 became a wonder, and from a wonder, a fact, which 
 people accepted, never uniting the two together. At 
 times, as on their marriages, Lucy's to Mr. Tyson 
 and Nan's to Mr. Judd, their old friendship was 
 remembered. 
 
 "Lucy and Nan were great friends once, but they 
 never speak any more." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Oh, goodness knows. Some dress, or some 
 party, or something the other said." 
 
 " What became of that poet that Lucy was engaged 
 to?" 
 
 "Oh, he was no good. He went on a drinking 
 bout while he was still engaged to her, and flung 
 himself in the river." 
 
 "She was as well rid of him?" 
 
 "The Lord was good to her there!" 
 
 "What became of Nan's brother, Jim, who killed 
 a man in a duel?" 
 
 "Oh, he escaped to France." 
 
 "Living in Paris?" 
 
 "Paris, or Monte Carlo." 
 
 191
 
 MRS. ALEXANDER TYSON 
 
 "Guess he wishes he could come back here!" 
 "Guess he does." 
 
 With ridiculously mechanical regularity years 
 went by, popped around a corner, mimicked like 
 marionettes, slowly faded into an inexorable 
 recessional. About the time Nan Lockwood married 
 young Judd, a little before, to be exact, Lucy Knapp 
 married Mr. Alexander Tyson, an elderly, pompous 
 man, most of whose money had been made in con- 
 tracts during the Civil War, a man not easy to get 
 on with, but a most notable catch for a young girl. 
 And if one were to judge by the measure of the 
 world's success, Mrs. Alexander Tyson, who had 
 everything, was immensely superior to Nan Judd, 
 who had nothing but a little worried smile and a 
 husband who adored her. In a few more years the 
 possessions of each were augmented, for there was 
 born to her and Mr. Alexander Tyson, a not unhealthy 
 boy, while children rained down on the Judds, as 
 though the stork of nursery mythology was the 
 familiar spirit of the house. As they grew up, they 
 were rather ugly, rather quiet, very likable, very 
 ambitious children, something like the old General. 
 
 More years, Mr. Alexander Tyson grew old and 
 querulous, and Master Alexander Tyson grew up 
 disliked by the young people of the neighbourhood, 
 and Mrs. Alexander Tyson became more beautiful 
 than ever — her blue eyes, her creamy skin, her 
 copper-coloured hair. Politics changed. The 
 countryside changed — and people said the world was 
 going to the dogs. And old General Lockwood died, 
 
 192
 
 MRS. ALEXANDER TYSON 
 
 leaving nothing but the echo of the trumpets of 
 chivalry. And Jim Lockwood, in Paris, prospered 
 in good repute. And in course of nature, Mr. 
 Alexander Tyson died, full of years and reproaches. 
 
 She would have been a very happy woman now, 
 would Mrs. Alexander Tyson, with her riches, her 
 sparkling widowhood, and her rather handsome, 
 spoiled boy, had it not been for the memory of the 
 wrong done her so many years ago, and that the 
 doer went still around, a source of constant irritation 
 to her. About Nan Judd's eyes now, for all she 
 was a year younger than the widow, were little 
 shadows, and gray hairs would soon appear among 
 the black locks, making her no longer pretty, but 
 beautiful. And her mouth would have become gentle 
 and there was sweetness in her eyes. And nowhere 
 had she any enemy but in Mrs. Alexander Tyson. 
 
 Whenever Nan's name was brought up there was 
 praise spoken of her, so that the youngish widow's 
 throat choked with irritation. Whenever she passed 
 Nan Judd walking in the road as she drove furiously, 
 silently by, the look of quiet beauty on her face 
 infuriated her, and a desire arose in Lucy to stop and 
 say terrible, vile things, unmasking Nan for what 
 she was, a hypocritical, sly woman. Her own face 
 was becoming, had become hard, she knew from her 
 glass. And Nan's grew sweeter, though hardship 
 was apparent in it. "A whited sepulchre, a vile 
 whited sepulchre!" Lucy knew her. 
 
 And how she imposed on the countryside. It was 
 a torture to Lucy to hear her extolled for this and 
 
 the other virtue, when she knew, when she knew 
 
 And her own lips were sealed about that particular 
 
 193
 
 MRS. ALEXANDER TYSON 
 
 affair. But she could always work in a sneer about 
 Nan's poverty, about her pathetic attempts to keep 
 up appearances, and that satisfied her a little. When 
 Nan seemed a little prosperous she suggested that it 
 was money from Jim in Paris; Jim, who couldn't 
 show his face in the States again, because he had killed 
 a man. And by innuendo she turned the very fair 
 fight in which Jim stood up into a sort of assassination 
 for sordid reasons. Even the old dear General did 
 not escape the lash of her tongue, for she insisted that 
 his honours had come to him very easily, and that he 
 would have been a very small person indeed compared 
 to giants like General Ulysses Grant. General, huuh? 
 
 So that, after a while, people ceased to mention the 
 name of Lockwood in her hearing. And this was 
 worse than open support to Alexander Tyson's 
 widow, for it showed her there was confronting her 
 a phalanx of public opinion. The utter injustice of 
 it. Herself, she who had been wronged, was held to be 
 in the wrong, and the wrong-doer had a very sweet 
 image in all minds. 
 
 It became so bad, so much of an obsession, that 
 she recognised a danger to herself, and she prayed 
 that a just Deity would remove Nan Lockwood that 
 was from the earth, so that she could get a little 
 peace. Why should she be irritated all the time? If 
 Nan would only die 
 
 But she mustn't die, she mustn't die, before she 
 confessed her wrong. Before she stood starkly face 
 to face with Lucy and admitted she had been a sly, 
 bad woman, hypocritical, vile, thief of Lucy's love, 
 thief of public opinion, thief of peace. 
 
 No, God mustn't let Nan die before she had wept 
 
 194
 
 MRS. ALEXANDER TYSON 
 
 for forgiveness at Lucy's knee, and admitted her guilt. 
 No, Nan mustn't die until then. That was due to Lucy. 
 
 And now, on more than a dozen occasions, the 
 thunder of the Milky Way had found a faint echo 
 in the tinkle of New Year's bells. And the head 
 of Nan had become a fantasy in black and silver. 
 And her eldest son. Jack, had married youthfully 
 and improvidently and very gallantly a little girl 
 from Greenwich, and had himself a son, if one can 
 call anything of three months' age by so potent a 
 name. And Mrs. Alexander Tyson was brilliant and 
 hard. And a new Alexander Tyson reigned. The 
 mouth and chin of the rather handsome boy had 
 turned out disappointingly, to be kind, and the 
 lower part of his face was hidden now, for all his 
 early twenties, by a beard. The beard was well 
 trimmed, and fascinating in a way for this reason, 
 that although his hair was dark, darker than his 
 mother's, his beard was of a sandyish colour, a not 
 pleasing red. His dress was black, of an extremely 
 conventional cut. Also he wore a black overcoat 
 when he could, and the only hat that met his approval 
 was a black derby. In fine, he looked forty-three, 
 although only twenty-three, and there was nothing 
 in his eyes to belie his appearance. He had a place of 
 business in Wall Street stocks and bonds, where Nan's 
 son Jack also worked, but with this difference, that 
 where Jack did business in twenties and fifties of dollars' 
 worth, Mr. Alexander Tyson dealt in thousands. 
 Though they lived in the same place, they were not 
 friends. They were not enemies, but not friends. 
 
 195
 
 MRS. ALEXANDER TYSON 
 
 "Oh, hello! Tyson! " — very casually. 
 
 "How do you do, Judd! " — very frigidly. 
 
 When Jack married and his little son was born 
 the cool unfriendship of Alexander Tyson changed to 
 vicious enmity. It was thought later that the girl 
 from Greenwich whom Jack married was at the 
 bottom of the trouble ; that Tyson himself had eyed 
 her with favour. It was also thought that some 
 boyhood's slight had rankled in the more important 
 man. Neither of these was a true explanation. The 
 truth was that all his childhood Alexander Tyson had 
 been immersed by his mother in an atmosphere of 
 hatred for Nan Lockwood and all that was hers, and 
 loving his mother as hard children love hard mothers, 
 he had not asked the rights or wrongs of it. The 
 Judd family was a family for him to hate, and he 
 hated it with the cold, methodical hatred that suited 
 him. Also, he said nothing of it, which suited him 
 too, and he bided his time, which suited him 
 best. 
 
 It is improbable that he ever angled for Judd, but 
 finding him, in the way of business, in a position 
 where he could hurt him , he drew him a little farther 
 on, drew him a little too far 
 
 Judd must have discovered what was up, and 
 mentioned something of it at his mother's house, for 
 from Nan Lockwood that was, Mrs. Alexander Tyson 
 received the first letter she had had from her in over 
 twenty years: 
 
 "Lucy, for the sake of the time when we were 
 girls and friends, don't let your son ruin my boy 
 Jack. Please, please, Lucy. — Nan." 
 
 196
 
 MRS. ALEXANDER TYSON 
 
 Mrs. Alexander Tyson swam in a sea of content- 
 ment. Nan was hurt, hurt to death. It was the first 
 time she had ever known a Lockwood to plead for 
 mercy. Perhaps it was the little grandchild that had 
 weakened proud Nan. 
 
 And yet — not one thing in that letter to acknowledge 
 the wrong done so long ago. Sly, cunning Nan! If 
 she had only asked her for forgiveness! Said some- 
 thing! But no! Well — Mrs. Alexander Tyson wrote: 
 
 "Mrs. Alexander Tyson regrets she cannot see 
 her way to interfere in the matter mentioned by 
 Mrs. Judd, as she has always held that the sphere 
 of business is for men only." 
 
 Accordingly her son Alexander smashed Judd, not 
 leaving him a penny. Nan's son took it in a most 
 amazing manner, laughing when people sympathized 
 with him, and evidently holding little resentment 
 against Alexander. 
 
 "I couldn't have been much of a business man to 
 be caught that way, so I'm as well out." 
 
 "It was a dog's trick. Jack." 
 
 "Not a bit. If it hadn't been Tyson, it would have 
 been someone else." 
 
 So, gathering his wife, the pretty girl from 
 Greenwich, and the small midget of a son, he set 
 out for California, It must have been very hard on 
 him to leave the countryside where he was born, but 
 it was hardest of all on Nan, who had a sweet passion 
 for the little grandchild. She had always loved babies, 
 and the baby of her first baby son was so precious 
 to her. And when she would see him again he would 
 
 197
 
 MRS. ALEXANDER TYSON 
 
 be a shy boy and not the little baby she had 
 known. 
 
 Nan cried, Mrs. Alexander Tyson heard, and 
 was very lonely, very hurt. Well, it was her own 
 fault, Mrs. Tyson said. If she had only acknowledged 
 her guilt, been sincerely penitent, Jack need not have 
 gone, and she could have had her grandchild still. 
 Still, in spite of her grandmaternity, a sly, bad woman. 
 She understood Nan, knew her feelings and thoughts, 
 better now after more than a score of years of enmity, 
 than when they were girls together, gracious and 
 loving. They were closer now than they had ever 
 been, for each to the other was a figure of heroic 
 proportions, throwing everything else into dispropor- 
 tion. Though they never saw each other, never spoke, 
 yet they were with each other all the day, in cold 
 silence and heated thought. She could understand 
 how Nan felt, Mrs. Tyson moralized, because the 
 consciousness of guilt lasts — always. And she 
 thanked God she had nothing to reproach herself 
 with. After all, it was much better to feel a wronged 
 person, than to feel guilty of wrong-doing, as Nan 
 must feel, as she had made her feel. . . . 
 
 Ten years later Jim Lockwood died, and was 
 brought home from Paris, to lie with his father the 
 old General. And a strange thing — the countryside 
 turned out for him, forgetting, or if they did remem- 
 ber, condoning the fact that he was a refugee from 
 the laws of his country. State officials, judges, even 
 a representative of the French Government was there, 
 and Mrs. Alexander Tyson, feeling in some occult 
 
 198
 
 MRS. ALEXANDER TYSON 
 
 way tremendously moved, shaken terribly, would 
 have liked to be there, but the cold, calm face of 
 Jim's sister, Nan, arose before her and prevented 
 her. It occurred to her that she might have been 
 married to Jim but for the Creole lady, for whose 
 sake he had fought and been exiled. It was a great 
 ceremony, the laying to sleep of Jim. 
 
 And when, five years after that, Alexander Tyson 
 and the wife he had married, died in a railroad 
 accident, leaving behind him the child, "Sunny," 
 hardly anyone came to the funeral. A bleak, empty, 
 unimportant pageant. 
 
 When he died she was sorry, but not distraught. 
 He had been a good son — that was all. He had been 
 very loyal to her in the matter of the Judds, but he 
 was the sort of person one admires, but is never fond 
 of. He was never a little child begotten in her body, 
 her own, but nearly always a man, a full entity. She 
 could never dominate him. When she attempted 
 that he simply retired in the dark recesses of himself 
 and was silently impregnable. Behind the mask of 
 his sandy, well-kept beard, his mind hid like a spider. 
 And his black eyes were hard and brilliant, so that 
 there was nothing to be learnt from them. She 
 always pictured him as he stood talking to her, or 
 rather listening to her outside the house, his hard 
 black eyes, his sandy beard, his bowler hat, his black 
 conventional overcoat, his rolled umbrella. He had 
 always been a dutiful son — and very loyal to her in 
 the matter of the Judds, but they had never been 
 sweethearts. They had been allies. ... It was 
 known that his wife was passing unhappy. 
 
 With his marriage though, his potentialities in the 
 
 199
 
 MRS. ALEXANDER TYSON 
 
 feud against Nan ceased, and with his death he was 
 missed by her as some cumbersome piece of old time 
 furniture would always be missed, as one might say: 
 "At the wall there used to stand grandfather's side- 
 board." And as against the wall there would always 
 be a void that could not be filled by a modern thing, 
 so there would also be a void in her life. . . . But 
 worse might have happened. Nan might have died, 
 and if Nan had died unrepentant, as a fact if she died 
 at all now, all reason for the being of Mrs. Alexander 
 Tyson would have passed. To her the dying of Nan 
 would be as to human people the dying of God. Life 
 there would be none. Unthinkable! 
 
 She could not love, she could not dominate 
 Alexander, but the daughter whom he left, " Sunny," 
 she could both dominate and love. She cherished 
 the child because it seemed to her that the child was 
 herself in later 'teens. The same hair, the same face, 
 the same smile, and though her eyes were hazel 
 instead of china blue, some gestures, certain postures, 
 particular preference for things, were so much Mrs. 
 Alexander Tyson's own at Sunny's age! And she all 
 but took an oath that here was one whose life would not 
 be blighted as hers had been by a woman's treachery. 
 
 As the girl grew up she gave in more and more to 
 the domination of the elderly lady. There was never 
 any clash, any conflict, but more and more she was 
 shaped and guided under Mrs. Alexander Tyson's 
 manipulation. So much always was the idea of the 
 elder woman with her that the thought always in 
 her mind was: "What would granny think of this ?" 
 " What would granny do under these circumstances ? " 
 To defy her grandmother, to take a contrary course 
 
 200
 
 MRS. ALEXANDER TYSON 
 
 to that which her grandmother would approve, would 
 seem to her blasphemy. 
 
 The conversation between these two, or rather the 
 talk to which the girl would listen, was remarkable 
 in that it was always of love. And to hear Mrs. 
 Alexander Tyson discourse on love you would have 
 imagined her to be an old romantic spinster, such 
 strange ancient concepts did she have. You would 
 never have thought, from her conversation, that she 
 had been married and had borne children. Her idea 
 of a lover was a young, adventurous sort of person, 
 a little wild, not quite respectable, whom a young 
 and devoted wife would tame into a state of domestic 
 welfare. The lineaments of this hypothetical lover 
 were strangely like those of Jim Lockwood. The 
 wild youth, the romantic gestures, the man killed in 
 a duel — but then Jim Lockwood had married a 
 Creole lady instead of taking to wife a New England 
 girl who would have led him to reputable citizenship. 
 And that was his mistake ! 
 
 Also, she was never tired of telling the girl to 
 beware of making friends with women, for her best 
 friend would betray her. And she told her in a vague 
 way, and by her very vagueness making a viciously 
 evil thing of it, of how she had been wronged in her 
 girlhood by her best friend. 
 
 "Your father, my dear, knew of it, and when an 
 opportunity offered, he resented the wrong done me. 
 He never forgave Nan Lockwood or Nan Lockwood 's 
 children. He was a good son." 
 
 "Poor granny! poor granny!" And Bunny's eyes 
 would fill with tears. "Your life spoiled. How 
 terrible!" 
 
 201
 
 MRS. ALEXANDER TYSON 
 
 A few years later, Nan's grandson, Lockwood Judd, 
 came to visit her. It was the little boy who was 
 brought to California in his infancy, and was now 
 grown to be a fine man, and a rich one, having 
 inherited his grand-uncle Jim's money — not only his 
 money, but his looks, being so much like him that 
 Mrs. Alexander Tyson, coming on him in the road 
 unawares, was startled nearly to faintness, so great 
 was the resemblance. The black hair, tall straight 
 figure, the little swagger, the smile that men liked 
 as much as women. The ghost of Jim? And then 
 she remembered hearing that Jack Judd's son was 
 staying with his grandmother. Jack Judd's son. That 
 name conveyed nothing to her of this figure out of 
 ancient dreams. 
 
 All summer he stayed there, and Sunny must 
 have met and danced with him a dozen times before 
 he was spoken of in the Tyson house. The queries 
 of Mrs. Alexander Tyson about him were guarded, 
 though eager, but Sunny's replies were meagreness 
 itself. The girl showed a disposition not to discuss 
 him, and the elderly woman thought that it was tact 
 on the girl's part not to speak much of the grandson 
 of the woman who had so wronged her grandmother, 
 and the son of the man whom her father had ruined. 
 It was sort of agreed that he didn't exist, that his 
 appearance counted no more than that of any other 
 visitor. So Sunny all through the summer continued 
 meeting him and dancing with him — what else could 
 she do, the old lady thought ? 
 
 The old lady thought also : what a pity that Nan 
 had shown herself to be such a sly, bad woman, 
 such an impenitent woman, too. For seeing herself 
 
 202
 
 MRS. ALEXANDER TYSON 
 
 in the girl and seeing Jim in the boy, it all seemed to 
 her that here were two people exactly suited to each 
 other. If Sunny were to marry, as Sunny must, here 
 was a lover out of dreams for her, and she was a 
 bride to dream of, with her auburn hair, her hazel 
 eyes, her smart disposition. And they both had 
 money, Lockwood his Uncle Jim's, and Sunny the 
 fortune of her father and her grandfather. If his 
 grandmother had been a decent woman, how 
 desirable a match it would have been. 
 
 And for all she thought about it so much she experi- 
 enced a shock to the depth of her being when Sunny 
 came to her at summer's end. 
 
 "Granny!" In her face were love and fear. 
 
 "Yes, Sunny." 
 
 "Granny, would you be very angry if I told you 
 something ? " 
 
 "Have I ever been angry with you. Sunny?" 
 
 "No, granny, but " 
 
 "But what. Sunny?" 
 
 "Granny," her voice sank to an awed whisper, 
 "I love a man and he loves me and we want to get 
 married." 
 
 "Who is it?" 
 
 "Granny!" 
 
 "I say: who is it?" There was no doubt in her 
 mind; she knew. 
 
 "It is Lockwood Judd, granny." 
 
 The old woman was silent. Her china blue eyes 
 were dull and cold. 
 
 "Oh, granny," the girl pleaded, "all you are 
 thinking of happened so long ago. So long ago, 
 granny, so long ago." 
 
 203
 
 MRS. ALEXANDER TYSON 
 
 "I think," the old lady said slowly — she had to 
 speak slowly, such venomous waves of passion 
 rolled within her, "I think I would rather see you 
 dead than married to one of that evil breed." 
 
 "Granny, granny, it wasn't Locky's fault, or 
 mine. And so long ago, granny, so long ago." 
 
 "If you want to marry him. Sunny, do so. Marry 
 the grandchild of the woman who did me the greatest 
 injury that could be done. Marry the son of your 
 father's worst enemy. But never come near me 
 again. When you do. Sunny, you will leave me 
 alone in my old age, the old age of a spoiled life, 
 but I will never see you again." 
 
 "Granny, granny!" 
 
 "You are a free woman, Sunny, you can choose." 
 
 The girl watched for a full minute, accusingly. 
 Great tears sprang from under her eyelids, hovered 
 on the lashes, ran down her face. Her mouth 
 quivered piteously. Her throat convulsed. No more 
 piteous, more stricken figure was since time began. 
 But Mrs. Alexander Tyson was a remarkable woman. 
 Her china blue eyes never moved. It was the stricken 
 girl who turned away. 
 
 And a few days later, Sunny 's face was drawn and 
 white, and her eyes burnt out with weeping, and 
 Lockwood Judd had gone away. 
 
 It was a very queer thing but in spite of her 
 harshness the old woman was torn in agony for the 
 young girl. Her heart was set on this marriage, 
 and she could have vicariously enjoyed the trans- 
 ports of the young couple, lived again in the young 
 girl, as the thought was, but lived more fully than 
 she had lived in her own life. She wanted to be the 
 
 204
 
 MRS. ALEXANDER TYSON 
 
 girl's confidante, her friend, her adviser, but when 
 the child pleaded, some terrible possession, as of an 
 evil spirit, arose in her, and spoke harshly for her, 
 bitterly, implacably. She knew the evil spirit could 
 be laid away by one thing: Nan's acknowledgment 
 of guilt. 
 
 She had thought, too, that the forbidding of the 
 match would have brought her ancient enemy to 
 bay. She had all but expected a visit from Nan, 
 who would have said: "Lucy, I am sorry for what 
 happened long ago. I was a bad woman, a treacherous, 
 evil woman, but don't, on account of my sin, keep 
 these two young people apart. They love each other." 
 And Mrs. Alexander Tyson was not the one to refuse 
 forgiveness, even though she could never forget. She 
 would have said : " Very well. Nan, you have poisoned 
 my life. You brought ruin on your son. But if you 
 are sorry I am content. The young people can get 
 married. I w411 not stand in their way. I hope I am 
 sufficiently a lady to be magnanimous." But no ! 
 Nan had never come. She had been afraid. She 
 hadn't been straight enough to come and acknowledge 
 her sin. 
 
 She felt a great sorrow for Sunny, whose happiness 
 Nan was blighting by her ancient sin. The girl was 
 silent, white-faced. And on the one occasion Mrs. 
 Alexander Tyson had attempted consolation the 
 effect had been disastrous. Moved by the girl's 
 drooping spirits, she had ventured disdain. 
 
 "Never mind, Sunny. Remember there are as 
 good fish in the sea as ever were caught." 
 
 With a low moan the girl had broken from the 
 room, and had stumbled blindly away, hitting things 
 
 205
 
 MRS. ALEXANDER TYSON 
 
 in her piteous flight, and her wild, tearing sobbing 
 came in little gusts for days. 
 
 She determined to take her away for the winter 
 and spring and summer, the Carolines, Florida and 
 Maine. But nothing seemed to do her any good, and 
 in the Fall she brought her back to New Canaan. 
 The girl's listlessness frightened her, and she called 
 in a medical man to prescribe a tonic. 
 
 "What is precisely the matter with the child?" 
 she asked. 
 
 "She is dying of a broken heart." 
 
 "Oh, nonsense. People don't die of broken 
 hearts." 
 
 "What I mean is this: she has no desire to live. 
 Her vitality is evaporating, so that a small accident, 
 a shock, a cold, would carry her off. That is, unless 
 she gets what her heart is set on." 
 
 "Nonsense, man, nonsense. What she needs is a 
 good tonic." 
 
 Nevertheless Mrs. Alexander Tyson was frightened. 
 And she called it nothing short of providence when 
 she heard that Nan, dying, had asked her to call 
 and vouchsafe forgiveness. . . . 
 
 It seemed to her that she had been cheated when 
 she saw the little frail lady resting on a couch with 
 great heaps of cushions, and looking westward to 
 where the sun was going down. She had robbed 
 death of vulgarity and sordidness, and was dying as 
 a gentlewoman should, without fuss or fear. . . . 
 The big, buxom nurse gave a flick to the cushions, 
 and left the room. . . . 
 
 206
 
 MRS. ALEXANDER TYSON 
 
 "I thought you were dying, Nan." 
 
 "I am, Lucy, To-night, or to-morrow night, when 
 the sun goes down." 
 
 "Aren't you afraid. Nan?" 
 
 "No, why should I be?" 
 
 Mrs. Alexander Tyson felt baffled, felt vulgar, 
 felt out of place. There was not the scene as she had 
 anticipated it, a moaning, tossing figure pleading for 
 forgiveness and fearing hell-fire. Was there a trick in 
 it ? She watched the dying woman with narrowed eyes. 
 
 "You are looking very well, Lucy." 
 
 "Yes, I am very robust." 
 
 "You are a remarkable woman." 
 
 There was another pause, very uncomfortable for 
 Mrs. Tyson. 
 
 "And how is little Sunny? Is she well? Is she 
 happy ? " 
 
 "Quite well. Quite happy," Mrs. Tyson felt 
 forced to say. Ah, now they were getting down to 
 facts. Now she was on firm ground. "And Lock- 
 wood, your grandson, how is he?" 
 
 "Poor Lockwood," Nan sighed. "He has left on 
 an expedition to the South Pole." 
 
 "Will he be coming back soon?" 
 
 "Not for many years." 
 
 Years ! Years ! The thought strengthened her. 
 Poor Sunny! She would never see him, never live 
 so long. Oh, well, Mrs. Tyson had done her best, 
 her very best — but poor Sunny ! 
 
 "Lucy," Nan was saying, "would you please tell 
 me : what did you have against me these many, many 
 years — these fifty years and more. Why did you 
 persecute me ? " 
 
 207
 
 MRS. ALEXANDER TYSON 
 
 So cool, so calm, even in the face of death! How 
 could she ? Mrs. Alexander Tyson was trembling 
 with an access of nervous anger. 
 
 "Do you remember one night you said good-bye 
 to someone.'' It was very late, after midnight." 
 
 "Just before we ceased to be friends, just the night 
 before," she prompted Nan's memory. 
 
 "And you were kissing him, and you were crying 
 as he went away — a bright moonlight night." 
 
 "Ah, yes. I remember, I remember." 
 
 "Who was it. Nan?" Mrs. Alexander asked with 
 cool, cruel triumph. 
 
 The dying woman turned from the window and 
 looked at her in surprise. 
 
 "My brother Jim," she said. "Why?" 
 
 While the shock was still on her, there arose before 
 her china blue eyes a rush of ghosts — the dead poet ; 
 her all but barren marriage; young Judd and his 
 wife going into exile ; and Sunny with her despairing, 
 stricken eyes ; and young Lockwood trudging blindly 
 towards the icy Pole; and the ghosts of fifty vacuous, 
 withered years, like gaunt stripped trees. . . . 
 
 She pulled her jangled faculties together. 
 
 "I'm afraid I can't believe you. Nan," said Mrs. 
 Alexander Tyson. 
 
 208
 
 VII 
 
 A MARRIAGE HAS BEEN ARRANGED 
 
 All through the first round and the second, and 
 halfway through the third now, the ItaUan challenger 
 had watched the champion's eyes, trying to discover 
 what was behind them — hatred or contempt or 
 what ? But he could make nothing of those glinting 
 steel specks. He had often watched Mac Sherry 
 fight from MacSherry's corner and he had always 
 seemed to the challenger a new personality when he 
 went into the ring, a strange, reasoning motor power 
 behind a hitting engine of whalebone and steel. 
 
 Angelo shifted to the right as the champion lunged 
 forward. Mechanically he shot out his left hand and 
 his right. They careened about the ring. Something 
 struck the Italian's ribs like a battering-ram. The 
 challenger snapped home a counter to the ear. The 
 referee hopped about like an excited dog. He clapped 
 his hands. 
 
 "Come on! Come! Come on, now! Break, boys! 
 Break ! Come on ! Make it snappy ! Come on ! " 
 
 The men drew apart and returned to their swift, 
 economical sparring. The gong crashed the end of 
 the round. Seconds poured into the ring like pirates 
 into a captured ship. ... 
 
 All the club was clapping like rifle fire. Angelo 
 paid no attention to it. The current from the flapping 
 
 209
 
 A MARRIAGE HAS BEEN ARRANGED 
 
 towel poured over his body in a gusty breeze. A 
 sponge pressed against the back of his neck made 
 him shiver. He was faintly cognizant of his manager's 
 whisper : 
 
 "You're doing fine, kid. You're all right." 
 
 Angelo's eyes were in MacSherry's corner. All the 
 MacSherrys were there : the middleweight champion 
 lying easily against the ring-post ; old Pat MacSherry, 
 who had been heavyweight champion in his day, a 
 great bulwark of a man who seemed more like a 
 benevolent clergyman than a heavyweight fighter; 
 Alec, who was near the top of the present big-gun 
 ranks, a lanky, sandy-haired man with enormous 
 hands — the "Monaghan Murderer," he was called; 
 Tom, the lightweight who had nearly finished the 
 Jew boy champion at Providence; and Baby Joe, 
 who was all of sixteen, and had as pretty a left hook 
 as ever you saw. "The fighting MacSherrys," they 
 were named, and a magazine had printed their 
 pictures — all of them, including Ma MacSherry, who, 
 it was said, could box as well in her day as any man, 
 and Kate! And Kate! 
 
 "Ge' up!" The chair was plucked from beneath 
 him. The gong crashed. He was in the ring centre 
 again. A cautious spar, a rhythmical shuffling of 
 feet on the resined canvas, and the referee eager 
 as a dog. There was a smile in Jim MacSherry's 
 eyes. 
 
 "Nice little place they got here, Angle," he 
 observed casually. "Heh! Nice li'l club." His left 
 hand followed that up like a stone from a catapult, 
 and the challenger felt his whole body rock, from 
 the cheek-bone, where the blow had struck, to his 
 
 210
 
 A MARRIAGE HAS BEEN ARRANGED 
 
 very heels. The right crashed over his heart. He 
 gasped and began fighting savagely, blindly. A clinch, 
 and the referee was forcing them apart. 
 
 "Come on, boys! Break! Break! Have a heart! 
 Break!" 
 
 They were sparring again, with Jim smiling. 
 "And a nice crowd o' people they got, tool" 
 
 Angelo beat him at his own game. The challenger's 
 hands smashed home. One — two! Jim stood back 
 with an appreciative grin. 
 
 "You guinea pup ! " He spoke quietly. " I'm going 
 to murder you for that ! " 
 
 A plunging rush and savage in-fighting. The ropes 
 creaked like straining cordage. There was the pit! 
 pat! smack! of gloves. Red weals showed on their 
 bodies. Swiftly Angelo brought his right hand up in 
 a jarring uppercut. The champion held on like grim 
 death. The sedate club had half risen from its seats, 
 and was breathing fast with excitement. The 
 bell . . . 
 
 "Gee, kid!" Angelo's manager had been hoarse 
 with excitement. "I thought you had him!" 
 
 The challenger sank into his chair. Thank God 
 he didn't have him! Thank God Jim MacSherry 
 didn't go under then! He would never see Kate 
 again ! Never again ! 
 
 From Jim's corner old MacSherry watched the 
 Italian middleweight with a sudden respect in his 
 eyes. 
 
 Angelo had been told that at the moment of 
 drowning a man's whole life would flit before his 
 
 211
 
 A MARRIAGE HAS BEEN ARRANGED 
 
 eyes, as on a cinema screen. He could never believe 
 that. There wasn't time enough, he said. But now 
 before his own eyes, in his corner waiting for the 
 seventh round, there unrolled before his brain every 
 scene of his meeting and knowing Kate MacSherry, 
 Jim's sister, sister and daughter of the world's 
 champion fighters. 
 
 He had met her when he was engaged as sparring 
 partner to Jim, when Jim was training for his bout 
 with Dane Smith, the Australian wonder. A fine 
 muscular girl, proud of her father and her fighting 
 brothers, she had the calm white face of a man, and 
 tawny eyes and tawny hair — the colouring, one 
 thought immediately, of a leopardess, though there 
 was nothing of the leopardess in her, except when 
 one spoke slightingly of her father or her brothers, 
 which was very seldom. It had occurred once or 
 twice at the expensive school to which her father sent 
 her, when the daughter of a crooked English bucket- 
 shop keeper and the daughter of an Oriental pawn- 
 broker had sneered at her father, whom a President 
 delighted to honour. They will both, I warrant, 
 remember that day. 
 
 Angelo will never forget a detail of that morning 
 he met her. He wandered into the MacSherrys' in 
 their big house at Port Chester, and he discovered 
 Kate, flushed, trying to plant some Holland bulbs, her 
 face of a New England nun set in lines of depression, 
 and she was swearing most delectably. 
 
 "Scusi!" Angelo took the spade. He smiled at 
 the idea of her slender foot driving it through the 
 earth. 
 
 212
 
 A MARRIAGE HAS BEEN ARRANGED 
 
 "What do you know about it?" 
 
 "Know all about it," Angelo smiled. "My father 
 gardener." 
 
 " Gosh ding it ! " Kate nodded at his firm hand as 
 he patted the trench into subjection. "This bird 
 does." 
 
 Because he was the laughing type of Italian, always 
 grinning, always singing, and because he was different 
 from the majority of sparring partners — he did not 
 have a thirst to be quenched only in saloons, nor had 
 he a following of the lowest type of courtesans — the 
 MacSherrys, those princes of the ring, gave him the 
 freedom of the house, and permitted him the society 
 of Kate. They seemed amused when Kate tried to 
 learn Italian songs — " Torna a Sorrento," and " O sole 
 mio." Jim would joke him about it when sparring: 
 
 "As a fighter, Angie, you're a great opera singer," 
 and then, ham ! would come Jim's stunning right hook 
 to the point. 
 
 There was another occasion Angelo would never 
 forget, and that was when he drubbed Corporal Sims, 
 the English welter, who had cajoled Tom, the Mac- 
 Sherry lightweight, into a match at catchweights. 
 The Birmingham boxer entered the ring twelve 
 pounds heavier than Kate's brother, and Tom had 
 no show from the first bell. The MacSherrys brooded 
 over that defeat. 
 
 "'Tisn't as if it were on the square," old Pat 
 complained; "but to jockey the lad into a match he 
 had no chance of winning " 
 
 "It was a damned shame!" Kate broke out. 
 
 "Where in hell do you learn language like that?" 
 old Pat roared. " One more like that out of your little 
 
 213
 
 A MARRIAGE HAS BEEN ARRANGED 
 
 trap, and back to the convent for you. I don't know 
 where you hear it. It's not here." 
 
 " Just-a wait !" Angelo was brooding, too. " Just-a 
 lets Sims-a wait ! " 
 
 He met Sims in a match in New Haven, and for 
 twelve rounds — so they tell me; I wasn't there — 
 he outboxed, outgamed, outgeneralled the touted 
 visitor. He could have landed a knock-out in any 
 round. That would only have ended the bout. But 
 he ended Sims' career in America by that deadly 
 exhibition. It was after that fight they dubbed him 
 the sporting nomme-de- guerre under which the Police 
 Gazette and journals of that manner love to extol 
 him — Angelo Vetriolo, "The Calabrian Cobra." 
 
 Lanky Alec, the heavyweight champion's bugbear, 
 was in Angelo 's corner that night, and Baby Joe, and 
 after the fight they had insisted on bringing him 
 home with them. The news had reached the 
 MacSherry home by telephone that Tom had been 
 avenged. You can figure the scene yourself: Pat, the 
 old ring wizard, reading a paper by the fire, and Ma 
 MacSherry sitting opposite him, sedate and dignified, 
 as a mother of four great sons and a bonny daughter 
 should be; and Kate, tawny-headed, tawny-eyed, 
 sitting strumming at the piano, striking the keys 
 harder than the best pianists do. 
 
 They stand in the door of the sitting-room. Alec 
 and Baby Joe and Angelo with them, a deprecating, 
 shy smile on his face, his cap rumpled in his right 
 hand. 
 
 With a sound that was between a whoop and a 
 gurgle of delight, Kate had sprung from the piano. 
 
 214
 
 A MARRIAGE HAS BEEN ARRANGED 
 
 She rushed across the room. She threw both arms 
 about Angelo, and hugged him most delectably. She 
 placed a resonant kiss on either cheek. It was then 
 that Angelo broke down and cried. 
 
 "He hollered like a kid," Baby Joe informs me. 
 "He just breaks up and blubbers. What do you 
 know about that! Italians," he is convinced, "are 
 a queer bunch!" 
 
 Not queer, I ought to tell him ; just rather human 1 
 But he is too young. Those tears decided old Pat 
 Mac Sherry. Next day he had Angelo brought to 
 him. 
 
 "I'm sending you down to New Orleans," he told 
 the Italian middleweight, "to some old friends of 
 mine. They'll see you get a good chance. What 
 about it?" 
 
 "Maybe you t'ink I love him," observed Angelo 
 cryptically. 
 
 "I don't think. I'm sure. Go on, now. You'll 
 get over it in a month." 
 
 Every dog is entitled to one bite, says a popular 
 legal concept, and no more. Angelo was entitled to 
 one kiss, and old Pat was going to take good care 
 that Angelo would get no more. This white rosebud 
 of the MacSherry stock was not for an unknown 
 Italian sparring partner. Angelo received some 
 kisses, nevertheless, that he kept silent about. 
 
 It was on the eve of his departure for Louisiana, 
 and he had come to say good-bye. Ma MacSherry, 
 a little more generous than Pat, sent them both into 
 the garden. It was unfair to them both that the 
 summer moon was shining, for the moon has a fatal 
 
 215
 
 A MARRIAGE HAS BEEN ARRANGED 
 
 effect on both Irish and Italian. It melts the Gael 
 and fires the Latin. 
 
 Angelo burst into song: 
 
 " Ve^ che sorte m'e toccata! 
 Star sepolto in questa fossa ! 
 Son ridotto pelle ed ossa ; 
 Ne morro dal dispiacer ! " 
 
 "He sing," Angelo translated, "what a hard 
 thing-a happen ! He buried in this-a dunge ; he 
 nothing but skin and the bone ; he won't get out any 
 more. Just-a like me." 
 
 So she kissed him once, twice, and three times. 
 " So as it won't be so hard on him to go," she said, 
 to make it right with her conscience. "So as he will 
 come back to you, you mean," her conscience told 
 her flatly. 
 
 For eighteen months he had seen nothing of her 
 nor heard from her even. The time had been spent 
 in a businesslike manner, as the record book will show. 
 There we find a list of fifteen fights, with their 
 results tagged to them: Kid Such-and-Such, 12 rds. 
 K.O.; Battling So-and-So, 3 rds. K.O. ; Cyclone 
 What's-His-Name, i rd. K.O.; with a few wins on 
 points and wins on fouls thrown in for variety. 
 
 To-night was the first time, too, he had met the 
 MacSherrys since his trip South. He had parted 
 with them a practically unknown middleweight; 
 he had come back a challenger for Jim's crown. 
 There had been no hard feeling against him. They 
 had all come over to his corner with a smile and a 
 handshake. 
 
 216
 
 A MARRIAGE HAS BEEN ARRANGED 
 
 "Hello, Angle! How's the boy?" 
 
 They had none of them looked at his bandages. All 
 the family were sportsmen. But Angelo was abashed. 
 He hadn't wanted to fight Jim. It was just the chance 
 of the ring. And he couldn't talk to them much, he 
 was so overwhelmed. Least of all could he ask about 
 Kate. The question wouldn't come. 
 
 He had never for a moment forgotten her. He 
 remembered every word of hers, every feature, every 
 changing expression. Her one flaw, he remembered 
 too, and he loved it. She had hands that were nearly 
 as large as a man's — the Mac Sherry hand — but they 
 were long and white and very beautiful. 
 
 The seconds filed out of the ring with a rattle of 
 buckets and bottles. The manager leaned against 
 Angelo, ready to pluck away the stool. 
 
 "Look out. Angle. He's after you ! " 
 
 Gong-ng-ng ! 
 
 The members of the club wakened out of their 
 after-dinner lethargy to watch the match with glinting 
 eyes. They had come to see MacSherry, the champion, 
 hand out one of his famous lacings to the presump- 
 tuous challenger, who as yet had not been seen in 
 New York, at least since his days as a preliminary 
 fighter. They had contracted the habit of watching 
 Jim fight five slashing rounds and then drop his man 
 with a neat hook to the jaw. But the present bout 
 promised more. 
 
 Underneath the big arc lamp, the boxers seemed 
 like animated statuary, each muscle and sinew 
 standing out in chiaroscuro as though cast in plaster. 
 The blond, stocky Irishman moved about freely with 
 
 H 217
 
 A MARRIAGE HAS BEEN ARRANGED 
 
 his slashing spar, crouched Hke a hunting animal about 
 to spring, his left hand feinting, flashing like the tongue 
 of a snake, his right drawn like a taut bowstring. 
 The challenger in front of him hardly moved, 
 except for his flickering feet. He stood erect, swarthy 
 and poised, his left arm turned, the glove resting 
 carelessly, so it seemed, on his left flank, his right 
 hand low, and the glove moving up and down, up 
 and down, like the regular ticking of a clock. There 
 was something tremendously businesslike about him, 
 as there was something tremendously panther-like 
 about the champion. 
 
 The audience was a motley one and spelled money. 
 There were bankers there, captains of industry, 
 brokers from Wall Street — fleshy, massaged men who 
 sought a change of thrills after their tape and ticker, 
 and by whom the possibility of watching a champion 
 pass out was no more to be missed than the thrill 
 of a killing on the Exchange. There were races of 
 the Nearer Orient there, paunchy, shifty-eyed men, 
 eager to shed blood vicariously and vicariously give 
 pain. There were old men there — septuagenarians 
 and octogenarians who should have been at home 
 plotting the careers of grandchildren rather than here 
 acting indecorously the part of the young blood. 
 There were crooks there— keen-faced strategists who 
 were more dangerous with a pack of cards than a 
 highwayman with a musket, and more merciless. 
 And there were actors here, aping the manners of 
 the great world, eager to have a virile tale to rehearse 
 to their easy conquests. Only once in a thousand 
 faces could you see the amateur athlete, footballer or 
 
 2i8
 
 A MARRIAGE HAS BEEN ARRANGED 
 
 wrestler, boxer or golfer, the men with the clean 
 brown faces and the hooded eyes. . . . 
 
 Over the ring the greenish arc lamp sputtered and 
 hissed like the macabre thing it seemed. In the ring 
 the combatants shifted and sprang in silently, hitting, 
 dodging, blocking like strange , malevolent marionettes . 
 About them the referee trotted, clapping his hands, 
 emitting his eternal cry. "Break! Break away! 
 Break!" like the call of some raucous Arctic bird. 
 There was a weird minor shuffle as the shoes moved 
 over the canvas floor. There was a queer creak as 
 the boxers reeled against the ropes. There was the 
 sharp crack of the gloves against bone, the thud of 
 it against flesh, the grunt as the boxer countered 
 to the lead. There was the brazen, imperative gong. 
 
 For two rounds now the truth had dawned on 
 Angelo, and to him it was something like a miracle, 
 that he could beat Jim. It made him somewhat aghast. 
 
 In a rally, in the ninth, he had sunk his right hand 
 to the heart, and he felt the champion give, shoulders 
 and knees, and cling, like a smitten thing. It had 
 only been a matter of ten seconds, but had Jim been 
 on the floor, instead of holding in the clinch, the 
 championship would have passed from him. It was 
 amazing to Angelo to find how often he was beating 
 MacSherry to the punch, and how little the cham- 
 pion's blows were hurting him. Jim was jabbing now, 
 snappy blows that looked well from the ringside ; but 
 there wasn't the power of the plunging lead with all 
 the weight behind it. Angelo was amazed. 
 
 But Angelo was forgetting how he had improved 
 in the eighteen months, and he forgot also that Jim 
 was twenty-nine years old, holder of the title for six 
 
 219
 
 A MARRIAGE HAS BEEN ARRANGED 
 
 years — only a young man as yet, but as a boxer, old. 
 "Listen, you got him! You got him! Kid, you 
 got him!" Angelo's manager was frantic. 
 
 Angelo said nothing. What could he say? There 
 was one person on earth Angelo did not want to 
 get and that was Jim MacSherry. He knew that 
 outside in the street, muffled up in the big car, Kate 
 was sitting, hearing bulletins as rounds ended. He 
 could see her now, in his imagination, were the news 
 to come that her brother was being beaten. Her face 
 would set into grimness, and her hands would crisp, 
 and her tawny eyes would flash, and in the flashing 
 of them there would be wintry tears. . . . She was 
 there in the street, he knew. He felt her presence 
 tingle through him. 
 
 His manager had disappeared for an instant. He 
 was still jubilant when he came back, but a bit 
 strained. 
 
 "Everything I got is on you, kid," he whispered. 
 "Don't throw me down." 
 
 "Oh, Je'!" Angelo breathed. 
 
 Through the ropes he caught sight of Pammori, 
 the Italian banker, signing a cheque and handing it 
 to a man. Another man, a fat man in tweeds, was 
 likewise handing over a cheque to cover Pammori's. 
 
 " Do you get that. Angle ? Do you get that ? You 
 got to win, kid. Every guinea in town's got his jack on 
 you." 
 
 "Oh, Je'!" 
 
 The timekeeper rapped on the ring. "Seconds 
 out ! " He raised the hammer of the gong, looking 
 at his watch. "Twelfth round!" he announced. 
 
 220
 
 A MARRIAGE HAS BEEN ARRANGED 
 
 " Get him, Angie ! " The manager pleaded. " Don't 
 throw me down." 
 
 "Oh, Je'!" Angelo was near crying. 
 The bell rang. 
 
 A rapid, flashing spar and a flurry of gloves, snap- 
 ping lefts to the head ducked, blocked, and countered. 
 A moment's savage in-fighting. Angelo felt the cham- 
 pion's rapid dub-a-dub, like a tattoo, against his ribs 
 like the battering of small hammers. Mechanically 
 he drove home his right to the heart and felt Mac- 
 Sherry sag. The champion clinched. 
 
 "Break away! Break! Break away!" the referee 
 chanted like a frog of Aristophanes. 
 
 They fell apart. The champion rushed again, his 
 left hand driving for the jaw. Angelo steadied him 
 with a hook to the chin. The short, savage drives 
 to ribs and stomach had been sapping MacSherry's 
 strength. No longer the left hand snapped like a 
 catapult, nor had the right that trip-hammer smash 
 that took the crown from Paddy Jackson, who was 
 called "The Bearcat," and humbled the pride of 
 England, and dropped the New Zealand Ghost in 
 his tracks like a felled steer. The ringside felt ring 
 history in the air and leaned forward breathlessly. 
 The bankers dropped their studied lethargy, and into 
 the eyes of the merchants had come a glint. Comment 
 passed like the faintest thunder. And still the 
 champion plunged in. 
 
 "Get him, Angelo! Get him!" his seconds 
 whispered through the ropes. 
 
 But Angelo didn't want to get him. He would 
 have been content to let the fight go on its regular 
 
 221
 
 A MARRIAGE HAS BEEN ARRANGED 
 
 length, knowing that unless a knockout was registered, 
 the referee would not take away the title from Jim. 
 He wished Jim had still the old smash in his right, so 
 that he might stun and drop him. He didn't care. He 
 thought only of Kate. 
 
 Still there was lead and counter, jab, hook, and 
 swift uppercut, the thud of blows and the shuffle of 
 feet. And Kate, Angelo knew, was below, her hands 
 crisped, her eyes flashing. 
 
 "Break away!" 
 
 She would never be anything to him but the 
 memory of great softness in a summer garden, and 
 kisses that made one disbelieve in a cold, ecclesiastic 
 heaven. She was above him, remote as a remote star, 
 but there was a memory he would have treasured all 
 his days. How could he now, knowing that in her 
 heart would be hatred of him ? 
 
 "Come on, boys! Come on!" the referee urged. 
 
 There was no use letting up. Jim hadn't the punch 
 to send over a knockout. And he was weakening all 
 the time. As they whirled towards the ropes in an 
 instant of in-fighting Angelo caught sight of his 
 manager's jubilant face, and the smile on the lips 
 of Pammori, the banker. 
 
 "Oh, Je'!" 
 
 He could quit cold, of course, but the MacSherrys 
 would hate him more for that than for beating Jim. 
 They did not take charity. 
 
 A long-range battle of left hands and the champion 
 rushed: a stinging uppercut and he was limp in 
 Angelo 's arms. 
 
 "Oh, Je'! I'm sorry, Jim. Oh, Je'!" 
 
 222
 
 A MARRIAGE HAS BEEN ARRANGED 
 
 " 'T's a' right, Angie. Y' ain't got me yet!" 
 
 The referee was tearing them apart. 
 
 "Break! Break! Break!" 
 
 Jim was smiling. For an instant Angelo thought 
 he was all right. He lashed out with right and left. 
 He saw the champion's knees waver and his hands 
 drop to his sides. His smile had been only the smile 
 of the losing sportsman. Angelo felt suddenly 
 petrified. All about the ring the club thundered. 
 Angelo looked appealingly at the referee. He 
 couldn't hit Jim. 
 
 "Go on!" the referee commanded. The audience 
 roared like great surf. He could hear Jim: "Come 
 on! Finish it, Angie!" 
 
 With something like a sob Angelo stepped in; 
 spread his feet apart; jigged with his left hand an 
 instant; let his right go. 
 
 The manager had sent the seconds out of the 
 dressing-rooms. He faced the new champion. 
 
 "For God's sake, what's eating you? You're 
 pining like a sick cow. Will you brace up ? He must 
 have hit your bean so hard in one of the early rounds 
 that he knocked your brains out." Then : " For God's 
 sake keep out!" he roared as someone knocked at 
 the door. 
 
 Jim MacSherry came in. Alec followed. Then 
 Tom. Then Pa MacSherry. Then Baby Joe. Then 
 — Angelo stood in a sort of panic — then Kate, Kate 
 in furs and hat, as he had never seen her before; 
 and there were tears in her eyes and a smile on 
 her face. Jim stepped up. 
 
 "Well, Angelo, old kid! Well, you did it!" 
 
 223
 
 A MARRIAGE HAS BEEN ARRANGED 
 
 "Oh, Jim! I'm sorry!" 
 
 "What're you sorry for? Forget it!" 
 
 "I'm sorry!" He turned to Kate. "I'm sorry!" 
 And for the second time in his life he began to cry. 
 
 Baby Joe cackled. "Look at that guy! What do 
 you know about that? Just like the night he licked 
 Sims " 
 
 "You let him alone, Joe MacSherry ! " Kate had 
 stepped forward and put her arm about Angelo. 
 "You let him alone, or you'll have to do with me." 
 
 "We'll have another fight. Angle?" Jim asked. 
 "You'll give me another chance." 
 
 "He'll give you as many as you want," Kate 
 answered. "And he'll do the same to you again, 
 Jim." 
 
 Old Pat MacSherry smiled. What did it matter? 
 It was all in the family. 
 
 224
 
 VIII 
 A WOMAN OF THE SHEE 
 
 For a quarter of an hour — for an hour it seemed 
 to the fox-hunting rector — the old noblewoman with 
 the Norman face and the white hair had been standing 
 motionless by the sundial. Rigid as a statue she 
 appeared, her mouth compressed, her head high, her 
 eyes half closed. Only the quick, tumultuous heaving 
 of her bosom gave evidence of life. Round her the 
 rose garden bloomed like the setting of a child's 
 romance. Great butterflies winged their ways about, 
 and from the hives down the pathway came the busy 
 clamour of the bees. From southward the wind was 
 bringing the scent of the orchards, and on the right 
 the river swept past like a band of silver. Slieve 
 Gullion rose, sheer and blue, westward, with the 
 eagles above its crest microscopic, like small insects. 
 She saw nothing of it. She seemed to be in a state 
 of coma. 
 
 "Ay! We all come to it some day!" Kilbane, the 
 ruddy, burly, gray-haired rector, said in his grating 
 North-of-Ireland speech. He knew that this woman 
 needed no religious platitude to help her, and he 
 could find nothing else to say. "Ay! Lady Fitzjohn, 
 it's the one thing we can't avoid!" 
 
 He reached over and took the cablegram from her 
 fingers. He read over the large, typed letters of the 
 
 225
 
 A WOMAN OF THE SHEE 
 
 New York dispatch for the third time. "Bertrand 
 died of pneumonia on Tuesday," it said. "Was 
 buried to-day. Condolences." So it ran brutally; 
 followed the signature of the family lawyer's 
 correspondent. That was all. 
 
 She turned towards the rector for an instant and 
 the look of pain in her proud eyes made him wince. 
 
 "My son's dead, old friend," she said. "I've seen 
 father and mother and husband die, and I knew all 
 was well with them. I could bear it all if I only 
 knew " 
 
 "If you only knew what?" Kilbane shot at her in 
 his gruff Scots manner. 
 
 " If I only knew he had died in honour — in no 
 disgrace." 
 
 "Disgrace! What disgrace?" the rector blustered. 
 "The lad was a bit wild, but there was not an ounce 
 of harm in him. For the dear's sake " 
 
 She looked at him steadily again, and for an instant 
 he wilted, but he blustered again: 
 
 "Not an ounce. No! Not an ounce! You'll hear 
 all about it. There'll be a letter following. You're 
 all nerves, Lady Kate. It's all imagination." 
 
 "I haven't heard her.'" The old woman's voice 
 dropped to a whisper and her pale face became paler 
 still. It became a queer, clay-like gray. A scared look 
 came into her eyes. Her fingers worked nervously 
 about the gnomon edge of the dial. " She hasn't cried 
 yet." 
 
 She said the last words in a frightened hoarseness. 
 The rector's ruddy colour ebbed a trifle. 
 
 " Indeed and upon my word I'm ashamed of you ! " 
 he told her. "Upon my word I am! To believe in 
 
 226
 
 A WOMAN OF THE SHEE 
 
 an old wife's tale like that! It's overwrought you are. 
 I'll have Doctor Knight come up " 
 
 "She keened for his father and she keened for 
 his grandfather. You know it." 
 
 "I know nothing about it," Kilbane argued 
 manfully, but his face was still pale. " I know nothing 
 about it and I don't believe it. It's sheer nonsense ! " 
 
 She turned away with a little, pathetic smile on 
 her mouth and shook her head wistfully. For a 
 moment the garden had seemed motionless and 
 soundless. The great ilex trees had ceased their 
 soughing, and the faint thunder of the pigeons and 
 the droning of the bees had ceased. Life about them 
 seemed to have stopped in its course for an instant 
 as at some potent formula of magic. 
 
 "Down by the river she keened. With my own 
 ears I heard her and with my own eyes I saw her. I 
 saw her both times!" 
 
 "Imagination!" the rector stoutly contended. "It 
 was all imagination. You were overwrought, as you 
 are now!" 
 
 She laid her hand on his sleeve lightly. 
 
 " Old friend, it was good of you to come," she said. 
 "But leave me to myself now. Go! Go, I beg of 
 you. Go!" 
 
 He looked at her searchingly for a moment, and 
 turned and walked down the gravelled path. He 
 stopped and wheeled about. 
 
 "I wish I could say something to you," he blurted 
 out finally. "I wish to God I could!" 
 
 He mounted his cob that the stable boy was holding 
 for him and rode slowly down the drive, the reins 
 slack on its neck. At the lodge gate he shook his head. 
 
 227
 
 A WOMAN OF THE SHEE 
 
 "She'll never hear the banshee cry for Bertrand," 
 he muttered to himself. "She'll never cry for him. 
 A bad lot he was. God forgive me for speaking ill of 
 the dead ! There was no good in him ! " 
 
 II 
 
 You will not read much in history of these Fitzjohns 
 of the Fews, for history has too much to do to deal 
 with kings and queens, with the movements of battles 
 and with politics, with fates of kingdoms and with 
 changes of dynasty, to spare time for knights banneret. 
 In the records of the Heralds' College you may read 
 of their coming to Ulster with Strongbow's men and 
 of their remaining there, on the lands they conquered 
 from the Irish tribes. The records will tell you of 
 the clean, unbroken descent of them from Fulke 
 Fitzjohn, of the Norman foray, to Michael, of the 
 name to-day. 
 
 In some of the old Celtic historians you will find 
 more about them. Your Celtic historian has little 
 liking for dates but a great appreciation of personality. 
 "A gallant strain," they admit; "a great pity they 
 came among the English." There are choice stories 
 of their chivalry; the tale, for instance, of Sir Bohun 
 Fitzjohn, who, beleaguering Antrim, gave orders that 
 the garrison should be allowed provisions, "deeming 
 it a shame to starve pretty fighters." There is the 
 story of another Fulke of the line, who dived into 
 the water at the Yellow Ford to rescue an opponent. 
 And lastly there is the story of Giles Fitzjohn, who 
 was known as the Good, and O'Donnell's daughter. 
 
 The Book of the Three Scribes is wordy as to this 
 
 228
 
 A WOMAN OF THE SHEE 
 
 exploit, flowery, imaginative. Pruning it generously 
 one learns that one Malcolm Campbell, Cromwellian 
 governor of Dundalk, had taken to him to wife, 
 without bell, book or candle, the daughter of O'Don- 
 nell Roe of the Hills, a princess in her own right, as 
 the ancient dynasties of Ulster went. He had seized 
 her in a raid on the O'Donnell country, in which her 
 father and her five brothers had been killed. North- 
 ward from Louth the tale stole. The flying Irish 
 gnashed their teeth in impotent rage. The newer 
 Scots planters shrugged their shoulders and called 
 the man a dog. The Normans glowered and their 
 fingers itched at their belts. But none of them moved 
 except Giles Fitzjohn. He gathered his people 
 together. 
 
 "Come!" he told them from the saddle. "We go 
 to Dundalk." 
 
 With an infinity of detail, with rhetoric and with 
 figure of speech the three scribes narrate the entry 
 into the Louth city, the pinning of Malcolm Campbell 
 to the wall by a long Norman blade, as an entomolo- 
 gist fixes a butterfly in its case; the bringing of 
 O'Donnell's daughter to the Fews; and the death of 
 her from shame and grief and madness within ten 
 days. 
 
 "And it is said," the three pious monks go on, 
 "that at the death of any member of the Fitzjohns 
 of the Fews who has upheld the chivalry of the name, 
 which is a great chivalry, as may be seen . . . the 
 shade of O'Donnell's daughter appears and keens for 
 them, crying out in the night time ; though this we are 
 not prepared to believe, it being against doctrine, as 
 the Abbot Geoffrey of Clonmacnoise says " 
 
 229
 
 A WOMAN OF THE SHEE 
 
 No matter what the three pious scribes of Oriel 
 believed, the legend was dogma to the countryside 
 of the Fews. In that great pit of country ranged 
 about by mountains, bordered by the sea, for all 
 their religion some are more than halfway pagans 
 still. Church doctrine may be church doctrine, but 
 deep in their hearts they know that by moonlight in 
 the silver woods the little people of the hills play 
 their bagpipes; and that behind the yellow gorse on 
 the mountains the leprechauns hammer the fairy 
 shoes, and collect their wages for their crocks of gold. 
 They believe that once a year the Naked Hangman 
 strides across the mountain tops, gibbet under arm, 
 summoning evil men to untimely ends. They believe 
 in the Black Dog, who pads along the roadside with 
 a gust of cold wind. They hear the rumble of the 
 Phantom Coach, A small matter, then, for them to 
 be certain of the banshee who mourns that a Fitzjohn, 
 a clean and gallant gentleman, is no more. 
 
 "Ah, sure; what's the use of denying it?" the 
 countryside answers you wearily. "Time and time 
 again she has been seen; and the cry coming out of 
 her mouth that would make the hot heart within cold, 
 as if dead fingers were on it." 
 
 And not only did the countryside believe it, but 
 somehow there was a feeling among the Fitzjohns 
 that it was true. They spoke of it proudly as they 
 spoke of the armour and the bannerols they had of 
 dead knights of their line, as of the Saracen's sword 
 which Gaston Fitzjohn had brought from the 
 Crusades. True, they bantered a little about it, and 
 smiled as they told the story. But, nevertheless, there 
 was a feeling there — a half pride, a half fear. 
 
 230
 
 A WOMAN OF THE SHEE 
 
 She was getting old now, was Lady Katherine. 
 She could be an old woman when none was near to 
 see her proud head held high and her eyes snap with 
 their former vigour. And as she went in from the 
 garden to the great house which had grown up about 
 the foundations of the ancient Norman stronghold, 
 she was walking not through sunshine and June 
 flowers and the busy toil of bees but through a gray 
 shadowland of old fancies and new fears. Twice she 
 thought she had seen this thing. It might have been 
 a mist from the river and the far-off cry of a rabbit that 
 a weasel had trapped, when her father-in-law died; 
 or it might have been a pillar-like formation in the 
 snowstorm and the howling of the wind among the 
 trees, on the night they laid away Sir Ulick, her 
 husband, his neck broken on the hunting field. These 
 things she might concede at any other time than 
 now. 
 
 "Bertrandl Bertrand! My boy! How was it?" 
 she sobbed to herself gently. 
 
 Her son could be dead, and she could stand that, 
 meeting the blow unflinchingly as a gentlewoman 
 should, mourning to herself but bending to the decree. 
 But there was something in her stronger than affection 
 even. It was the sense of pride and chivalry. A great 
 name she bore and a great name was her own before 
 she married. And somehow she felt that death itself 
 was an incident. It was the spirit and circumstance 
 of it that mattered. She wanted her menfolk to go 
 before their last tribunal with clean hands and in a 
 clean way, like gentlemen. But Bertrand! If any- 
 thing were wrong they would not tell her. And the 
 only thing there was for her to know by was this 
 
 231
 
 A WOMAN OF THE SHEE 
 
 figment of old legend, this winter night's tale by a 
 country fire. 
 
 "If I only knew," she moaned; "if I could only 
 be sure." 
 
 Ill 
 
 After a line of noble and chivalrous gentlemen 
 Bertrand Fitzjohn came — came suddenly, dramatic- 
 ally, as a violent thunderstorm may follow clear June 
 weather. They welcomed him, christened him, 
 sent him to school, taught him by precept and 
 example the noble ideals of the house; but even at 
 fifteen they noticed something was wrong. 
 
 "There's something too cunning, too sophisticated 
 in his eye," Kilbane, who was tutoring him during 
 the summer, would muse. "He seems a stranger 
 among his kind, like a cat among a pack of foxhounds." 
 
 Then came the first instance, in his second year at 
 Trinity. There must have been a thousand minor 
 things before that, but none had told of them and the 
 family had not noticed it. One might as well look 
 for signs of petty thieving in a bishop. He was 
 suspected of being the agent of a ring of bookmakers 
 in their attempt to have a horse pulled at the Curragh 
 races. They could never get the entry of old Lord 
 Boyne's stables, but Fitzjohn could. The matter 
 leaked out. Old Sir Ulick Fitzjohn, as square a 
 sportsman as ever topped a six-foot ditch, was furious, 
 then disgusted, then coldly horrified. 
 
 "What's this? What's this, Bertrand? Do you 
 know what they're saying ? " 
 
 "About the Boyne horse?" Bertrand answered 
 easily. "It's a lie." 
 
 232
 
 A WOMAN OF THE SHEE 
 
 For an instant the old baronet's heart leaped with 
 joy, but an instant later it dropped again — lower than 
 before. He knew intuitively, and sensed from his 
 son's manner, from the lack of fury in it, that the 
 report was true. He left without a word. 
 
 The report was savagely beaten down. There was 
 no evidence to prove it — no concrete evidence. And, 
 after all, it was ridiculous on the face of it that a 
 Fitzjohn of the Fews should do such a thing. 
 
 Followed the second instance, of which there was 
 no doubt in the minds of a group of men, though 
 they kept it strictly among themselves. The occasion 
 was a soccer match between Wales and Trinity. 
 Fitzjohn lounged in the Trinity goal, his great length, 
 his long arms, his cat-like quickness making him the 
 best amateur goalkeeper in Ireland. The score 
 stood three goals to three and two minutes to go. 
 Fitzjohn seemed uneasy between his posts, moved 
 about nervously as a leopard. Suddenly the Welsh 
 forwards got the ball and raced down the field in a 
 last desperate effort to send in a deciding shot. 
 Evans, the red-headed centre, had sneaked through 
 the half backs, fooled the full backs, and was within 
 eight yards of the goal. The spectators were shouting 
 with a sound as of crashing surf on a lee shore. 
 McNamara, the giant Trinity full, launched himself 
 on the little Welshman like a rock from an arbalest. 
 
 "Shoot, man, shoot!" the Welsh team were 
 screaming. For an instant Evans shuffled in his run 
 and balanced himself. The leather left his toe low 
 and swift, like a teed golf ball. 
 
 Fitzjohn could have stopped that ball — could have 
 stopped it easily. He caught it deftly between his 
 
 233
 
 A WOMAN OF THE SHEE 
 
 arms and bent chest, fumbled with it, dropped it. 
 It trickled into the net. The referee's whistle cut 
 the air like a whip. A gasp of horror and consternation 
 went up from the spectators. Wales had won. 
 
 They condoled with him in Dublin on his ill luck 
 until a drunken bookmaker in a Sackville Street saloon 
 told how Fitzjohn had bet heavily against his own team. 
 
 A few days later Burke- Keough, captain of the 
 team, and McNamara, the giant full back, called on 
 Fitzjohn in his rooms. Burke- Keough was white, 
 McNamara was purple with rage. 
 
 "If you're not out of this in twenty-four hours," 
 Burke-Keough said — "stand back, McNamara, and 
 keep your hands clean — if you're not out of here 
 your name will be a byword and a scandal throughout 
 Ireland." 
 
 Whatever explanation he gave old Sir Ulick of his 
 leaving Trinity is not on record. It is a fact, though, 
 that the story came to the old baronet's ears. He 
 said no word to Bertrand. Dazed and stricken, he 
 spoke to Fowler, the family solicitor. 
 
 "God bless my soul, Sir Ulick," the red-faced old 
 solicitor said, his eyes peering about his beribboned 
 glasses — "God bless my soul, but you know little 
 of the world ! When you were a young man yourself 
 you were interested in a little racing and a little cards 
 and a bottle of port. But you were different. You 
 were hail-fellow-well-met. Your son is different. 
 He is high and mighty, contemptuous of everyone. 
 ' You be damned ! Who are you ? ' And naturally he 
 made enemies. There's where these reports come 
 from. Unfortunate, very unfortunate. But ridiculous, 
 utterly so. God bless my soul, utterly so ! " 
 
 234
 
 A WOMAN OF THE SHEE 
 
 "It may be so," Sir Ulick thought it over. "Yes, 
 it may so be." 
 
 It might so have been, but it wasn't. At a shooting 
 party of Ross of Bladensburg's, two miles from home, 
 card play grew high. At two in the morning the 
 colonel's English guests were losing with remarkable 
 steadiness; and with a steadiness that was equally 
 remarkable Bertrand was winning their banknotes 
 and gold. A look of uneasiness came into the colonel's 
 grizzled face. He watched Fitzjohn from the corner 
 of his eye. Suspicion changed into certainty. He 
 became cold and furious. He threw his cards on the 
 table and stood up. He looked straight at Bertrand. 
 
 "I don't think I care to play any more," he 
 said. 
 
 The other men followed his eyes and his meaning. 
 They, too, looked at Bertrand, but with white, shocked 
 faces. Bertrand rose to his full lean height. A quiet, 
 sardonic smile played about the aquiline Norman 
 features. 
 
 "I don't think I care to play any more either," he 
 drawled with splendid effrontery. He swept his 
 winnings into his pocket and looked at the faces 
 about him. "It's getting rather chilly to-night, so 
 I think I'll be going. Good night, gentlemen. John, 
 my hat and coat; and will you have the dog-cart 
 brought round to the door ? " 
 
 By next morning Ross of Bladensburg's letter was 
 round to Sir Ulick. The old baronet found his son 
 trying trout casts on the river. 
 
 "You — you — you " he stuttered in rage. "You 
 
 dog! Not content with ruining the name in Dublin 
 you ruin it here at home. At home here ! My God 
 
 235
 
 A WOMAN OF THE SHEE 
 
 — where it has been high and honoured for over 
 seven centuries. You dog! You dog!" The old 
 man w^as shaking as with ague. His face was white. 
 His eyes were bloodshot. "The filthiest swine in a 
 sty would not do it. The lowest thief in all Ireland 
 would not do it. You cut-throat! You gallows 
 bird ! " Bertrand had wound his line up and was 
 listening, expressionless. He might have been an 
 amateur of drama savouring a theatrical situation. 
 
 "Is that all, sir?" he asked calmly. 
 
 " Go ! " the old man stormed. " Go, before I forget 
 myself and lay my riding crop across your shoulders. 
 Out ! Out of my sight ! " 
 
 "I think I'd better," the son said. Calmly he 
 walked across to the house. Carefully he laid the 
 trout rod away. Casually he picked up his hat and 
 strolled down the drive — and that was the last the 
 Fews ever saw of Bertrand Fitzjohn. 
 
 There were some reasons to account for this 
 dishonourable work of Bertrand 's, though they were 
 not entirely sufficient. Desperate, chancy betting on 
 the races ; hysterical gaming with cards ; wild carousals, 
 too, reminiscent in a way of the days of the old Hell 
 Fire Club in Dublin. There were vastly uglier things 
 also which I will not set down — there is a Great 
 Tribunal before which one day I must account for 
 these writings of mine. But all of this is not enough, 
 it seems to me. You cannot explain it, but there are 
 examples enough. There are the riding masters 
 scattered over the world, once officers in crack 
 cavalry regiments, cashiered because they played 
 cards too well. There is the pathelic colony in 
 Morocco — all gone the way of broken men. 
 
 236
 
 A WOMAN OF THE SHEE 
 
 And though the Fews, and the sturdy old Norman 
 family who ruled it, never again saw Bertrand Fitz- 
 john, faint rumours came to them of his activities. 
 Old Sir Ulick heard the story of his ivory poaching 
 in Portuguese East Africa. John, his brother, attache 
 at Constantinople, heard how he won ten thousand 
 dollars from a tourist in Athens, and how, when the 
 man discovered the cheating, Bertrand forced an 
 apology at gun point, and calmly and logically 
 pocketed the money. There were rumours, too, of 
 shady transactions in emeralds in Colombia. 
 
 Shamelessly frank, audaciously cynical, he made 
 no secret of his name or lineage. He characterized 
 his ancestors as boors, little better than the peasants 
 they governed. His father he was bitter against as 
 gall. His brother John, the diplomat, he described 
 as stamping passports for round-trip, cut-rate 
 trippers. Of Michael, a rising statesman, he said that 
 his mentality was so undeveloped that it lay between 
 putting him in a lunatic asylum or the House of 
 Commons — and for family reasons the House was 
 chosen. But some peculiar quirk of affection or some 
 dim background of chivalry kept sacred to him the 
 name of that proud woman of the Burkes, high in 
 lineage as he and his, who had borne him. On that 
 subject he brooked no pleasantry. He was once 
 giving a lurid description of the family to a munitions 
 broker at a New York club. 
 
 "And your mother?" the fat little, self-satisfied 
 man asked. 
 
 The smile did not leave Fitzjohn's face, but he 
 tensed like a leopard about to spring. 
 
 "I beg your pardon. What did you say?" 
 
 237
 
 A WOMAN OF THE SHEE 
 
 "Oh, nothing. Nothing. Nothing." The mun- 
 itions man was white and pasty and his throat had 
 gone queerly cracked and dry. 
 
 "I thought you made some remark," Fitzjohn 
 resumed in his normal tone. Those few words, that 
 glint of eye, that faint snarl had taught more than 
 the munitions man the limit to which Bertrand was 
 willing to discuss the shortcomings of the family tree. 
 
 And so, tall, commanding, lithe, curly-haired, hook- 
 nosed, utterly evil, unbelievably dishonourable, 
 Bertrand Fitzjohn went up and down the world, as 
 the prayer says, for the ruin of souls. And in due 
 time he met and married Fania Olinoff, whose real 
 name was Fanny Olsen, and who was called the 
 Pearl of Wallabout Bay. 
 
 IV 
 
 A very tall woman she is described to me — a very 
 tall woman, tall as a tall man, splendidly proportioned, 
 flaxen-haired, blue-eyed, with features as regular as 
 a sculptured Amazon's. From afar she looked like 
 a Norse goddess, but when you came near her you 
 could see that her blue eyes were as hard as a gun- 
 man's, ice and steel mixed; and that there was 
 something hard about her mouth, hard and sulky, as 
 on that of a man who is fighting a bitter, unjust fight. 
 
 "She has got the calculating eye of a pawnbroker 
 and the disposition of an ill-trained dog," De 
 Morganheim, the Russian, once said of her. 
 
 "And what would you have, dear sir," his com- 
 panion replied, "if you had experienced the times 
 she has?" 
 
 238
 
 A WOMAN OF THE SHEE 
 
 It was only when she gave way to that glorious, 
 untrained, silver voice of hers, great in volume as a 
 sweeping wind, pure as Christmas snow on trees, 
 melodious as a great bell, that the harshness went 
 from her eyes and the sullen quality from her mouth. 
 At times, singing, she seemed transported. Her eyes 
 dilated or were moist with tears. Then, stopping, 
 came the transformation. 
 
 It was in Panama City, at the cabaret called 
 El Jardin, that Fitzjohn met Fania Olinoff. He had 
 come up from Valparaiso, after a somewhat lucrative 
 trip, and had seized the opportunity in Panama to 
 educate some Panamanians in the more advanced 
 planes of cards. His tuition fee had been rather 
 high, and the Panamanians were dissatisfied. A 
 couple of ugly-looking half-castes had trailed him 
 all evening. He may have been aware of this, but 
 he did not show it. Fania Olinoff, her turn over, 
 came to his table. He rose and bowed. 
 
 "Cut it out!" she said abruptly. "I don't want 
 any of that. I want to tell you there's a bunch laying 
 for you, and you'd better get back to Ancon as quick 
 as you can." 
 
 "Laying for me, are they?" he laughed. "The 
 nasty beggars! Nice of you to tell me. Why?" 
 
 It had been the third time he visited the cabaret. 
 He had been there the two preceding nights, and 
 her eye had been taken by the cool, lazy indifference 
 of him, the grand Norman manner, the dangerous 
 glint of his eye. She was accustomed to being ogled, 
 offered drinks, treated with a sort of cynical admira- 
 tion. But his eyes had gone lazily over her as though 
 she had never existed. And for some indefinable 
 
 239
 
 A WOMAN OF THE SHEE 
 
 reason on the first night she had looked forward 
 interestedly to his coming the second, and on the 
 second eagerly to the third. She had been made love 
 to by men, ill-treated by them — but to be ignored 
 was a new experience. He had risen up lazily. 
 
 "Those two blighters behind?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes. Those two," she answered. 
 
 "Excuse me a minute." He strolled down the 
 room and stopped in front of the table. 
 
 "Gentlemen," he began lazily, "I am told you are 
 laying to kill me. You have probably got a revolver 
 and a knife each." Suddenly that tensing of his, 
 like a leopard's; that snarl, like a leopard's, too; 
 that magnetic, merciless glint of eye. "Hand them 
 over ! Do you hear me ? Hand them over ! " 
 
 There was a few seconds' hesitation — five it might 
 have been. Then slowly, reluctantly, the weapons 
 were put on the table. 
 
 "Now, get out!" 
 
 He went back to his seat, where opposite him Fania 
 Olinoff was sitting, white as the bleached wall beside 
 her. He sat down again. 
 
 "Nice of you to tell me," he repeated to her. 
 
 He left her with a courtly bow, and through the 
 remainder of that evening and through all that 
 night she could not get the image or the thought of 
 him out of her mind. Minutes passed like hours 
 until the next evening. Towards nine he lounged in. 
 There was a quizzical smile on his face. Without 
 any ado she went straight to his table. 
 
 "You look pleased," she said. 
 
 "I am," he told her. "My father's dead." 
 
 Those cold eyes of hers studied him up and down. 
 
 240
 
 A WOMAN OF THE SHEE 
 
 He took a cablegram from his pocket and tossed it 
 over to her. 
 
 Sir Ulick died Sunday. Come home. — John. 
 
 "I came round" — he was smiling — "to ask you to 
 marry me," 
 
 "What do you mean?" she asked, on her guard 
 instantly. 
 
 His smile broke into a laugh. 
 
 "I mean what I say: bell, book and candles; 
 orange blossom and a champagne breakfast." 
 
 "But why?" 
 
 "There is a custom in the family," he explained, 
 "that when one succeeds to the baronetcy one gets 
 married. Nothing like keeping up the old customs. 
 You're the first passable woman I've met since I 
 heard the news, so I've asked you. I've got an idea 
 that a singer from a fifth-rate cabaret would make a 
 splendid Lady Fitzjohn. Well ? " 
 
 She waited for a minute before answering, and for 
 the first time in her life, perhaps, her face was 
 suffused with blushes. 
 
 "I will," she answered huskily. 
 
 And so they were married. And the papers carried 
 an account to the effect that Fania Olinotf, the Pearl 
 of Wallabout Bay, had married Sir Bertrand Fitzjohn 
 of the Fews, in the province of Ulster, Ireland. 
 
 And so they were married. But whether they lived 
 happily, from their personalities, from their lives, 
 from their minds, it is hard to draw a conclusion. 
 
 From London they ranged Europe and Asia as far 
 as Vladivostok. Alaska knew them, and New Orleans. 
 
 241
 
 A WOMAN OF THE SHEE 
 
 They were remembered from Punta Arenas to 
 Cartagena. Cairo remembers them, and Capetown 
 too. They came as nobles ; they left as thieves and 
 cheats. 
 
 He used to treat her with a fair amount of decency, 
 except when the black moods were on him. At those 
 times his contempt for her was terrible. 
 
 "This," he would so occasionally introduce her 
 into a company as shady, or nearly so, as they were 
 themselves, " is Lady Fitzjohn. Her maiden name was 
 Fania Olinoff. Her real name is Fanny Olsen, 
 daughter of a Swedish longshoreman and a Danish 
 washerwoman." 
 
 Once she rebelled. She looked him square in the 
 eye. 
 
 "There's no need to introduce my husband," she 
 said. "You all know him for the biggest gambler, 
 crook and gallows cheat unhanged." 
 
 "Good girl!" he chuckled. But he let her alone 
 after that. 
 
 That queer little trick of hers, that everybody 
 knows, of singing to herself in a strange, natural, 
 spontaneous burst of melody, wordless, without 
 marked rhythm, composing to herself as she sang, now 
 gray and desolate when she was sad, now triumphant 
 when her heart was light — that irritated him badly. 
 
 "For heaven's sake, Fanny, stop it!" he would 
 break in. "If you want to do that sort of thing get 
 out on the fence at night." 
 
 But when times were hard, and when that peculiar 
 Nemesis that dogs the heels of all unrighteous men 
 had caught him unawares, leaving them without 
 money, he was glad of her voice. 
 
 242
 
 A WOMAN OF THE SHEE 
 
 "Better get out and sing, Fanny," he would tell 
 her. "We need the fare to the next town." 
 
 The money he took as a matter of course. There 
 was no word of thanks or consideration for her. But 
 she never questioned him. It was her pride to do 
 anjthing for him. It was her pride to be always 
 thinking of him. She had picked up from his con- 
 versation here and there queer fragments of the 
 history of his race — the story of the woman of the 
 shee, for example, and of how it keened for all 
 Fitzjohns dead in honour. And somehow she guessed 
 shrewdly that the one person he held any respect 
 for on this or any other planet was his mother. Once, 
 when that dark, periodical insanity was on him, she 
 made a halting suggestion. 
 
 "Bertrand," she asked, "wouldn't you like to go 
 home and see your mother ? Don't mind leaving 
 me." 
 
 " Keep my mother's name off your lips ! " he blazed 
 at her. "And I'll leave you any moment I please." 
 
 Such was life with him, but she was satisfied. She 
 loved him, and from one incident she believed he 
 had something akin to love for her. That one incident 
 was something she cherished in secret, in silence, all 
 her days with him. That was a day in Shanghai 
 when he discovered her tight-lipped and blazing 
 with anger in a hotel lobby. 
 
 "What's wrong, Fanny?" he asked her carelessly. 
 
 She was glaring down the corridor. 
 
 "Swine!" she muttered. "Filthy beast!" 
 
 "Who is it? Where?" he asked, with that drop 
 in his voice that portended danger. 
 
 "I don't know who he is " — she was biting her lips. 
 
 243
 
 A WOMAN OF THE SHEE 
 
 She pointed to a horse-faced Spaniard loping off in 
 the distance. "There he goes!" 
 
 "Then there goes a dead man," said Fitzjohn 
 quietly. 
 
 And that night he made good his word. 
 
 They had rushed him to the Flower Hospital from 
 the door of the Plaza, where the squat, bulky man in 
 the gray racer had aimed at him, shot at him, and 
 dropped him like a punctured balloon. He had been 
 waiting for a taxi after dinner, and Fania was on his 
 arm, when the thing happened. It might have been 
 an emissary of the Five Companies who did it, for 
 the score of the companies against him was heavy 
 and serious. It might have been an agent of the 
 Macedonian revolutionists, whose plans he had sold 
 to the Sublime Port. It might have been one of a 
 dozen people and interests. It didn't matter much. 
 There was one fact clear and that was enough: 
 Bertrand Fitzjohn was done. 
 
 He tossed and moaned from side to side of the 
 neat white cot, occasionally coughing harshly, a foam 
 at his lips. Over the bed his wife hovered — white, 
 thin-lipped, tragic — too tragic for tears. Delirium 
 had set in, and words came from his lips in an 
 incoherent jumble. 
 
 "... Never keen for me," he was moaning; 
 "never for me. . . . Too rotten! Too rotten 
 through and through ! She'll be watching for it, poor 
 old . . . never keen for me. ..." 
 
 In spite of the terror and sorrow in her face every 
 nerve of his wife's was taut to catch his words, to 
 catch his meaning. 
 
 244
 
 A WOMAN OF THE SHEE 
 
 "First of the line the banshee hasn't cried for. . . ." 
 Again that horrible cough. "Mother . . . dis- 
 appointed. . . . She'll be listening. . . . Poor old 
 mother ! . . . " 
 
 His wife caught at his hand and shook it in frenzy. 
 
 " Listen to me, Bertrand ! " she was crying. " Listen 
 to me! Can I do anything? Bertrand, before you 
 die, for God's sake! Can I do anything?" 
 
 "No banshee for me!" he was murmuring 
 again. "Poor old lady!" 
 
 A horrible fit of coughing took him. For an 
 instant his eyes opened and caught hers. A faint, 
 game smile passed over his face. Another racking 
 cough, and he lay still. 
 
 "Tell me, Bertrand, for God's sake !" she pleaded. 
 
 The doctor laid a hand on her shoulder. 
 
 "It's all over, Mrs. Fitzjohn," he said gently. 
 
 She rose up without a word. Not a sigh, not a 
 sob, not a tear; but her face was white and more 
 like stone than the face of the poor thing on the bed. 
 She turned to the doctor. 
 
 "His name is not B. Fitzjohn. He is Sir Bertrand 
 Fitzjohn. Would you telephone to an attorney's firm 
 called Fowler & Russell? They will take charge of 
 everything." 
 
 "Very good. Lady Fitzjohn." 
 
 She looked at her husband for a long minute, 
 granite, immobile as ever. 
 
 "I am not Lady Fitzjohn," she told the doctor. 
 "I am only — only a friend." 
 
 "Oh, I see," said the doctor coldly. 
 
 Then suddenly she walked out of the room, quietly, 
 firmly, her shoulders straight, her head high, her 
 
 245
 
 A WOMAN OF THE SHEE 
 
 tragic face proud, like some queen descending for ever 
 the steps of her rightful throne. 
 
 From where she sat in the moonlight on the great 
 stone portico she could see the garden cut into a 
 sharp chiaroscuro of shadow and light; the rose- 
 bushes faint like pale, shapeless vapours; the 
 flower beds dim like water. Before her the meadow 
 downs rolled forward like billows. On her left the 
 river slid by in a long ribbon of silver, shot here 
 and there by moonbeams as silk might be watered. 
 Past that was the little deserted graveyard where the 
 yew trees murmured, and past that again the white 
 stretch of road that wound toward Dundalk like 
 some strange, long serpent. She sat immobile as a 
 carven image, her face haggard, her eyes fixed. 
 
 "My boy! My boy!" her lips would shape them- 
 selves to say, though no sound came from them. 
 Bran, the great Irish wolfhound, padded up to her 
 and thrust his cold nose against her hanging palm. 
 
 It was late now, past eleven, and the sounds of 
 the great house had ceased. A group of boys passed 
 away in the distance, a mouth organ making time to 
 their marching feet. 
 
 The faint sounds of the night were silent for a 
 moment, or seemed so, and then high in the air, 
 clear like silver, faint like distant violins, a low 
 throbbing of song began. There was no form to it, 
 no words — a faint, rippling minor that seemed more 
 breathed than sung. The wolfhound stiffened like 
 a pointer. She felt his great muscles tense beside her. 
 
 246
 
 A WOMAN OF THE SHEE 
 
 "What is it, Bran?" she asked. 
 
 From beyond the river the voice gathered in 
 strength and volume. Beyond the river it was — that 
 was certain ; in the little graveyard where the yew 
 trees murmured. Long, swinging notes came through 
 the moonlight like the high notes of a pipe's chanter 
 and faded off delicately like the fading off of a pipe's 
 drone. The notes came over like leaves blown along 
 a wind and seemed to drift about the white-haired 
 old lady like leaves falling. The wolfhound trembled 
 beneath her hand. She caught her gold-headed cane 
 and stood up, shaking. 
 
 The slow ululation ceased, as a prologue might 
 cease, and slowly into the singing voice came the 
 keen note of wailing. Melody ran through the air 
 as if sobbed out — the low notes seemed like moans, 
 rising slowly to high piercing ones that were like 
 arrows aimed against heaven. The song shrilled 
 hysterically upward for spaces and then quavered 
 downward in passionate abandon. Queer whines of 
 distress came from the wolfhound. The old lady 
 pressed her hands to her bosom. "Oh, God o' me!" 
 she panted. 
 
 The high, abandoned keening ceased gradually like 
 the last sustained note of fiddles, and little by little 
 into the voice came a measured note of triumph and 
 rejoicing, slow, powerful, magnificent. Note followed 
 note, full, sonorous, triumphant, clearly cadenced, 
 like the marching of a victorious army into a fallen 
 citadel. It rang across the river like the song of 
 Miriam after the passage of the Red Sea, 
 
 The old lady stumbled forward to the parapet. 
 Her throat moved convulsively. Her hands clutched 
 
 247
 
 A WOMAN OF THE SHEE 
 
 the low coping. The great hunting dog followed in 
 panic. 
 
 A cloud swept across the bleached disk of the moon, 
 a faint yellowish cloud with tattered edges. As trange, 
 eerie dusk swept over the landscape. High and 
 strong the voice still rose, telling in its clear cadenced 
 notes of victories won and ends achieved, of great 
 men fallen on the field of honour, of high ideals 
 fulfilled, of deaths noble as noble lives. It rang 
 out proudly as the trumpets of heralds proclaiming 
 champions ; joyously as a celestial chorus welcoming 
 a cleansed soul. 
 
 The cloud passed from the moon and again were 
 the white, sharply defined lines of light and shadow. 
 She shook like a sick person in ague. Queer cold 
 shivers ran along the back of her neck, and the skin 
 of her face pricked as with frost. Across the river 
 against the background of the yew trees a tall white 
 figure was standing, dim, unearthly, terrible, its 
 arms outstretched toward the great house, its song 
 ringing out clearly over the countryside. The 
 wolfhound began to howl in terror. 
 
 " The woman of the shee ! " she cried aloud. " The 
 banshee! Oh, thank God! Thank God!" 
 
 She dropped on her knees in prayer, and hid her 
 face in her hands. And as she raised her face 
 again, wet with tears, in thankfulness, she heard 
 the song fade off, like the faint sound of drums 
 and bugles of men marching afar off, and saw the 
 white thing glide away swiftly from the river brink, 
 across the little meadow, and fade softly into the 
 shadow of the little graveyard, where the yew trees 
 murmured. 
 
 248
 
 A WOMAN OF THE SHEE 
 
 The fast-trotting hack that belonged to Tim Connor 
 drew up at the door of the Dundalk Arms. Pat, the 
 old porter, strolled across to the sidewalk. 
 
 "So you left her to the train, Tim?" 
 
 "I left her to the train. I did so. And the tears 
 running down her face, the like of rain in the month 
 of March." 
 
 "A queer woman," Pat philosophized. "A queer 
 woman, and in my opinion no better than she ought 
 to be. A loose character, I'd go so far as saying. 
 Do you know what she did ? " He leaned on the seat 
 of the side car and looked upward. "Last night 
 after she came she hired that automobile of Jer' 
 Murphy's and drove it herself down the Fews road, 
 so she did. All dressed up in white, so she was, with 
 a big cloak. She didn't come back until two in the 
 morning, and her crying like a child of two." 
 
 "Up to Captain O'Neill's she probably was. But 
 begor and begob, she got nicely sold, for the captain's 
 in Norway fishing. That's why she was crying, the 
 streel! A loose character. You're right, Pat, there!" 
 
 The porter looked up and down the street non- 
 chalantly. He felt for his cutty pipe, struck a match 
 on the leg of his trousers and began lighting it. 
 
 "Did you hear," he said between puffs — "did you 
 hear that the banshee was crying last night for 
 Sir Bertrand Fitzjohn, him that's dead in America?" 
 
 "I did indeed!" Tim turned round. "And was 
 there any reason the banshee shouldn't cry for him ? 
 A wee bit wild he was, maybe — a wee bit wild. Oh, 
 but as straight as a sapling, and the heart of gold I " 
 
 249
 
 IX 
 AN INFRINGEMENT OF THE DECALOGUE 
 
 When Bertrand Lacy, gambler, wastrel, and black- 
 guard generally, deserted his wife. Nan, aged eighteen, 
 and his son, Norman, aged three weeks, in New 
 York, there was no limit to the pity people extended 
 to her. 
 
 "And he left her without a cent in the world!" 
 they whispered in the boarding-house. "He even 
 pawned her jewellery ! " 
 
 "Of course she will go back to her people in 
 Ireland," the wiseacres decided for her. "She has 
 them to fall back on." 
 
 But here the wise erred. She had not them to 
 fall back on. When Bertrand Lacy came to Galway, 
 hardly over a year before, and when he and Nan 
 Burke-Keogh had met, had liked each other, had 
 fallen in love with each other, and had courted, they 
 had done everything surreptitously. From New York 
 had Lacy come, according to himself, in a haze of 
 glory. His business in New York was vague and his 
 pedigree vaguer. The man knew horses. He knew 
 the points of flat and steeplechase racing, of hunting, 
 of harriers. These things he might have picked up 
 about racecourses and about dog-shows, to be sure, 
 but the impression he gave was that he had been 
 accustomed to them as a sportsman, not as a 
 hanger-on. 
 
 250
 
 INFRINGEMENT OF THE DECALOGUE 
 
 At Baldoyle he had met some of the newer 
 generation of gentiHty, honest tradesfolk who should 
 have been harvesting the fruits of commerce in 
 place of squandering it on a sport they could neither 
 afford nor understand. His knowledge of horses 
 stood him in good stead. It provided him with a 
 comfortable sum for summer expenses, some intro- 
 ductions, and an invitation to spend a month in 
 Galway. 
 
 "We'll show you sport the like of which you 
 never saw in America when we get you after the 
 harriers," his host, a wealthy brewer, told him. 
 And so Lacy went. 
 
 In Dublin it would have been impossible for 
 him to have met, without a proper investigation 
 of his antecedents, Nan, daughter of Sir Michael 
 Burke- Keogh, that fierce old fox-hunter with the 
 most terrible temper in Ireland. But Galway is 
 a sleepy city, basking like a kitten in the sun, with 
 boats drowsing along the stone quays, and strange, 
 silent country people coming in from the purple 
 Connaught hills. Life is empty there, and social 
 barriers are not strictly kept. At the hunt Lacy 
 met her, and later at the houses around, where he 
 had secured a casual entry. Her father he never met, 
 nor wished to meet. The old man's bushy eyebrows 
 and granite eyes beneath, as he saw them in the 
 distance, warned him that here was an examiner who 
 could probe like a lancet. 
 
 The very surreptitiousness of it all captured her, 
 as well as his appearance and his potent way with 
 women. Not a tall man, by any means, but stocky 
 and well-built ; a clear face with waving, ruddy hair
 
 INFRINGEMENT OF THE DECALOGUE 
 
 and chestnut eyes ; a cleft chin and a voice that was 
 soothing like music — and there was an eternal, 
 quizzing smile on his face that hinted at superior 
 knowledge of the world, of women, of life. 
 
 I think he must have been very much in love 
 with her, or taken with her, as the case might be 
 better put. She was a very small and lithe woman, 
 with quick, incisive gestures. Her hair was misty 
 black, and her eyes were nearly too large for her face, 
 and very gray. Her nose and nostrils had the clean 
 cut of race. Her mouth might have been cut by a 
 sculptor's scalpel, so well shaped and firm it seemed, 
 and she was only seventeen. She was a very beautiful 
 woman then, was Nan Burke-Keogh of Galway, and 
 she is now, twenty-three years later, and she will 
 be until the day she dies. 
 
 They met. They rode and boated together. They 
 danced together at the hunt balls. He swept her off 
 her feet by the impetuousness of his love-making. 
 
 "I love you, Nan, little Nan," he told her. They 
 were on the terrace of the club, and from where 
 they stood they could see the glistening Atlantic 
 waves shimmering under the harvest moon. The 
 dancers within were waltzing rhythmically, a delicate 
 kaleidoscope of frocks and uniforms and red hunting- 
 coats. The band breathed out a dreamy waltz of 
 Strauss, and mingling with the rippling music came 
 the languorous murmur of the waves. 
 
 "Little Nan, will you come away with me to 
 America? Will you marry me, and fly over? Will 
 you, little Nan?" 
 
 "What will father say?" she was fearful. 
 
 "Listen, little Nan," he pressed eagerly. "We 
 
 252
 
 INFRINGEMENT OF THE DECALOGUE 
 
 won't tell him until everything is over. Let's not 
 have a wedding with a crowd at church. Let's go 
 off. I want to sweep you away. I want to carry you 
 off in my arms, right here, right now. ..." 
 
 "But father," she hesitated. 
 
 "Your father will come around!" he told her. 
 "Don't fear. Come, little Nan, little Nan!" 
 
 She thought for an instant, and by some measure 
 of intuition she knew that her father would never 
 give his consent to her marriage with this man; and 
 that if she loved him, and wanted him, she must 
 listen to his wooing now. 
 
 "My father will never come around," she said 
 simply. She swept about to him, and her hands 
 went out. "But I will come with you and follow 
 you to the end of the world. And you will be good 
 to me, and take care of me, won't you, Bertrand, 
 won't you ? " 
 
 "I will take care of you and cherish you until the 
 end of the world ! " 
 
 "Then I will come," she decided. 
 
 That very night she came, and on the morrow 
 they were married in Dublin, and on the next day 
 were flying towards America. There was not much 
 reason to fly, however, for Sir Michael Burke-Keogh 
 had no intention of following them. He contented 
 himself with a terrible outburst of temper, in which 
 he cursed her solemnly by bell, book, and candle; 
 disinherited her; erased her name from the family 
 records. Then his mouth closed for ever into a grim, 
 thin line. When a priest came to inform him of the 
 marriage, he turned on the father with a roar as of 
 a maddened bull. 
 
 253
 
 INFRINGEMENT OF THE DECALOGUE 
 
 "My daughter married!" he shouted. "My 
 daughter ! If you mean the slut who ran away with 
 somebody's cast-off groom, let me tell you, sir, that 
 she is no daughter of mine. No woman of our house 
 has ever done a thing like that before, and when she 
 does, she is dead !" 
 
 Little by little she came to understand the manner 
 of man she had married and, loyal heart that she was, 
 might have condoned his way of livelihood had he 
 kept up his love for her. Imperceptibly it waned 
 until it was no longer there. They travelled about 
 the race-tracks of the South and West for nearly a 
 year. Luck deserted him, and he grew irritable. They 
 were in New York when their son was about to be 
 born, and at their lowest ebb for money. 
 
 "Cable to your father, Nan," was his eternal plea. 
 "If he knows, he'll be glad to help you out." 
 
 He reasoned, he cajoled, he threatened, and about 
 this time her lips began to curl into a faint sneer as 
 she heard him whine. She could have borne much 
 in him, his dissoluteness, his dishonesty even; but 
 one thing she could not bear, and that was the appeal, 
 the whine, the cowardice of him. 
 
 Their son was born, and as he lay in her arms a 
 few days after, the father made an attempt to bluster. 
 
 "Now, look here, Nan!" he told her. "You've 
 got to be sensible. You'll send that cable. Tell him 
 he has a grandson. That will soften him." 
 
 She said nothing. She looked at him searchingly, 
 probingly, with her great, blue-lined eyes standing 
 out in her wan, white face like dead stars. At last 
 he saw the futility of it. He paced about the 
 room. 
 
 254
 
 INFRINGEMENT OF THE DECALOGUE 
 
 "Curse you!" he raved. "If it hadn't been for 
 you, I'd have never been in this mess. If I hadn't 
 married you, I'd have been having a good time now, 
 instead of being broke in this dump." He paced 
 about more and suddenly he quailed before the glance 
 in the haggard, shadowy eyes. "What are you looking 
 at me like that for ? " he ended weakly. "Take your 
 eyes off me ? " 
 
 A fortnight after that he left her. He had gone 
 out in the morning, and returned about eleven — two 
 hours later. He walked into the dingy room, care- 
 lessly humming a tune, but there was something 
 tense and nervous about him. He glanced at 
 her, and he glanced at the child sleeping on the 
 bed 
 
 " I think I'll drop around to the corner for a couple 
 of minutes before lunch," he hazarded. He opened 
 the bureau drawer and extracted the last few dollars 
 from it. "Ahum! Yes! I think I'll drop around." 
 And he sauntered out. 
 
 And that was the last Nan saw of Bertrand Lacy, 
 living or dead. 
 
 Her heart was broken. It had been broken long 
 before this, although she had said nothing. But if 
 her heart was broken, her spirit wasn't. It was as 
 vital in her at that moment as it had been in any of 
 the Burke- Keoghs who had sailed out of Galway into 
 Spain, resilient as whalebone, strong as steel. 
 
 She sat and she thought for a while in that grim 
 and sordid room, with the child sleeping peacefully 
 on the bed ; and her brain operated as clearly then 
 as it has ever operated since, clearer than it had ever 
 
 255
 
 INFRINGEMENT OF THE DECALOGUE 
 
 done before. Here she was, an abandoned wife, with 
 a child not a month old, with not a cent of money, 
 and with little that was pawnable. What was she to 
 do ? She couldn't go back to her father — he would 
 have her whipped from the gates. And what was 
 more, she wouldn't, if she could, for she had made 
 her own bed and she would lie on it! Below, the 
 people of the house might extend her charity, but 
 she suspected shrewdly how impatient and over- 
 bearing charity can be. Besides, she would have none 
 of it were it the kindest thing in the world. 
 
 She put her coat on with quick decision. She put 
 her hat on. She requested a fellow-lodger — a hard- 
 faced little circus woman whose heart belied the 
 aggressive glint in her eyes — to mind the baby until 
 she returned. 
 
 "I'll be a half-hour at most," she said, and she 
 went down the dingy brownstone steps with her 
 head high, as a queen might descend the steps of 
 a throne. 
 
 There was a great department-store about the 
 corner, and she swept into it. Because she was a lady, 
 and because she had that firm, commanding way of 
 the Burke- Keoghs, when she asked to see the 
 manager she was led to him. A kindly, shrewd-eyed, 
 hook-nosed, fleshy man, he took in every detail 
 about her, from the well-worn but well-brushed suit 
 to the proud tilt of her head and the firm command 
 in her eyes. He noticed too, in an impersonal way, 
 how beautiful she was, even with her features as 
 wan and haggard as they now were. 
 
 "What can I do for you, madam?" he asked 
 courteously. 
 
 256
 
 INFRINGEMENT OF THE DECALOGUE 
 
 "You can give me something to do," she told 
 him. "I want work." 
 
 "Yes," he said, without apparent surprise. "Is 
 there any particular thing you could do?" 
 
 "I know a great deal about lace," she answered. 
 "I was once told I knew more about it than any 
 person in Europe." 
 
 Which was true, large as it sounds. As far back 
 as Nan Burke- Keogh's mind could go, she could 
 remember her mother's pride in it, and how the dear 
 dead lady tried to instil a love into her for the filmy, 
 web-like fabrics. At the convent in Malines, the 
 sisters had encouraged her in the study of it. When 
 other children were deep in the delights of innocuous 
 love stories, she was following with an appreciative 
 eye the stars and circles, the whorls, the lunes, the 
 bars, the arabesques of laces done by the delicate 
 fingers of dead noblewomen, and the fresh products 
 of patient peasants. Those were Nan's two accom- 
 plishments — her knowledge of laces and her horse- 
 manship. 
 
 "Would you mind telling me?" she was asked, 
 "why you want to work." 
 
 "A very private matter," she answered proudly, 
 "and because I have to." 
 
 He sent for a silent, dapper man, who talked to 
 her of work, questioning her minutely, without 
 seeming to do so, about what she knew. The fleshy 
 manager rose. 
 
 "I think we might arrange something," he decided. 
 
 This is not the chronicle of Nan Lacy's success 
 in the business world. I know nothing about business 
 and I care less. I am not interested in the various 
 
 257
 
 INFRINGEMENT OF THE DECALOGUE 
 
 steps by which she rose from a twenty-dollar-a-week 
 position to a salary of fifteen thousand a year. It 
 suffices me that she did so. She rose to danger like 
 a thing of race, and smashed all obstacles aside, like 
 a blooded hunter at the touch of the spur. 
 
 And this was not the only obstacle in her way. 
 There was the question of Norman Lacy, aged one 
 month. What was to become of him, now that she 
 was earning her own living ? She could not keep 
 him by her. In that one electric day of clear thought 
 she accomplished everything. She found a pair of 
 ladies in Sheepshead Bay who were delighted to take 
 care of him, for a nominal board bill, so empty their 
 lives were. For two years she lived out there with 
 him, looking after him at night, and leaving him in 
 the morning to come in to her business. At the 
 age of two he began to show signs of wilfulness that 
 filled the old ladies' hearts with dread, much as they 
 loved him. 
 
 * ' God grant he won't be a heart-sore to her when 
 he grows up ! " they prayed fervently. 
 
 There came the time later when her rise had been 
 such as to warrant the leasing of an apartment and 
 the hire of cook and nurse. At five the qualities he 
 had shown at two had strengthened and diversified. 
 He seemed full of ebullient, uncontrollable spirits 
 that nearly always resulted in mischief. He was ready 
 with fists and feet. He had a mania for breaking things. 
 
 "It's little comfort he'll be to his mother," the 
 cook thought. She had come to know by some means 
 or other the tragic story of the marriage. "She'll 
 have as much trouble with him as she had with her 
 husband." 
 
 358
 
 INFRINGEMENT OF THE DECALOGUE 
 
 She was twenty-five now, and yet, except for the 
 quietness of her eyes that should have been spark- 
 ling with laughter, she seemed little older than the 
 day she had left Galway. The colour had never gone 
 from her cheeks, and she took an honest, womanly 
 pride in her beauty, though the thought of another 
 husband had never entered her mind — and moreover, 
 there was always the possibility of the first turning 
 up again, and claiming her. If he did, her eyes 
 glinted with sudden savageness, she would thrash 
 him with her riding-crop until he screamed for 
 mercy, and she would cast him out into the street, 
 like the most unfaithful of mongrel dogs ! 
 
 So, unmindful of any man, save the first, and for 
 him she had nothing but the utmost loathing, she 
 went her way, sufficient unto herself. She took care 
 of her beauty, and took care of her health. She could 
 ride now that the yoke of want had been raised from 
 her neck, and Saturday afternoon and Sunday would 
 see her whirling through Westchester country on a 
 great hunter, like an Amazon going into battle. She 
 walked through the streets with her head high, her 
 shoulders straight, her stride swinging and rhythmic. 
 And there was no man she knew who did not admire 
 her, and there were many who loved her, but there 
 were none who dared speak to her of it because of 
 that aloof and magnificently chaste expression of her 
 eyes. 
 
 "My Lord!" Bahr, the advertising manager used 
 to mutter to himself. "To think that that woman was 
 married, and had a child by a scoundrel! She looks 
 like one of Diana's attendants, like Diana herself, 
 begad ! " 
 
 259
 
 INFRINGEMENT OF THE DECALOGUE 
 
 She understood the boy, and she feh, in a queer, 
 intuitive way, that the boy understood her. There 
 were very few demonstrations of affection between 
 them, but there was a bond, a sort of friendliness, a 
 manner of comradeship. Those about her did not 
 understand this. At eight he was sent to a military 
 school South. He shook hands with her in a manly 
 way, and blushed when she stooped to kiss him. 
 Then he was off. 
 
 "And not a tear in his eye!" a woman friend 
 thought to herself. "The hard-hearted little beast! 
 She need never depend on him when she grows old." 
 
 And so years slipped onward. For her they went 
 by like one mellow day after another, sunset verging 
 into sunrise, and the sands of the hour-glass rippling 
 silverly until the sun dropped again. More intent 
 still she became on her work, until there was nothing 
 of space left in her time which was not taken up by 
 business, and her riding and swimming, and the 
 reading of letters from and reports of her boy at 
 school. 
 
 From an educational point of view these reports 
 were not very encouraging. "He is the sturdiest 
 lad in the school," so they went, "honest and 
 honourable, but nearly beyond control. His know- 
 ledge of books is disgraceful. The only interest he 
 has is athletics. A great pity!" they ended, but she 
 only smiled. 
 
 He would come home at the end of the year laden 
 with athletic trophies, with cups and medals. These 
 he distributed about the apartment. He never 
 formally gave them to her, or mentioned them, but 
 she knew they were for her. 
 
 260
 
 INFRINGEMENT OF THE DECALOGUE 
 
 At eighteen she broached to him the subject of 
 college. He shook his head. 
 
 "I'm not keen on it," he said casually. "I've been 
 casting about for something to do. A man I know 
 has a place down in Ecuador — a sort of mine or 
 something. Thought I'd like to have a go at that." 
 
 She looked at him a little wistfully, but she smiled. 
 So he was a man now, eager for adventure and life ! 
 How like his father he looked in feature, she thought. 
 The same rippling chestnut hair; the light-brown 
 eyes; the straight nose; the clefted chin. There the 
 resemblance ceased. Where his father had been 
 short and stocky, with small, delicate hands, the son 
 was well over six feet, with hands that seemed 
 gigantic, broadened and hardened by glove contests, 
 by hockey stick and polo mallet. Other people were 
 shocked by his prowess in the amateur ring — it was 
 said he could knock an opponent out with the ease 
 of a professional heavyweight, but somehow she was 
 glad. There were other things of his father's he did 
 not inherit. He had not his father's uneasy eyes ; 
 he had not his father's flow of speech and musical 
 voice. His speech was casual; his voice rough. 
 
 "If you think that's the best thing," she told him, 
 "then go." 
 
 He did think so, and he went. But the fortune at 
 the end of the rainbow did not reveal itself to him. 
 For four years he tramped up and down the world, 
 returning home at intervals of six months — except for 
 fifteen months in Africa — and bringing with him 
 sufficient money to tide him over a month at home 
 and to pay his fare overseas again. He had never any 
 luck in his ventures. Once it was the mine in Ecuador, 
 
 261
 
 INFRINGEMENT OF THE DECALOGUE 
 
 and once a banana plantation partnership in Colombia, 
 and once a game-capturing expedition in the Congo, 
 but none of them came to anything, yet he never 
 complained. He would come back with weird 
 presents for his mother ; spears and arrows from the 
 Congo ; a compressed human head from the waters 
 of the Maranon ; fifty aigret feathers from Colombia 
 — he was arrested for attempting to smuggle these in, 
 and it took the combined influence of fifty million 
 dollars' worth of money to have him released on the 
 ground that he was a harmless lunatic. Once he 
 drove home in a taxi with a bawling macaw under 
 one arm, while a small cheetah barked and snarled 
 at the end of a leash. There were tears in his mother's 
 eyes when it was explained to him that an apart- 
 ment was no place for them and that they would 
 have to be sent to the Zoological Gardens. She 
 knew the trouble he had in bringing them to her, 
 and the happiness he experienced in making her 
 presents. 
 
 And every time he returned she watched him with 
 continuously growing pride. He was only twenty- 
 two now, but he had broadened and filled, and he 
 might have been thirty, so self-reliant he seemed, 
 and so firm and challenging was his eye. His face 
 was tanned to the colour of leather, and the huge 
 hands had become clubs of brown sinew and muscle. 
 She would have been furious had she heard the 
 strictures of the friends to whom she introduced him 
 so proudly. 
 
 "It's a shame," they said, "the way she works 
 year in and out, while he rambles around the world 
 like a rolling-stone. Why doesn't he make a home 
 
 262
 
 INFRINGEMENT OF THE DECALOGUE 
 
 for her, and take her away from that wretched busi- 
 ness ? " 
 
 When they stood side by side they seemed like 
 sister and brother. It would have been impossible 
 for any one not aware of the facts to suppose them 
 mother and son. She was forty now, and she looked 
 not a day over thirty years old. Her black, massy 
 hair shone as brightly as ever, and she was as lissom 
 as she had ever been. The only difference was a 
 certain maturity to her frame, and that look of 
 patience and understanding in her great gray eyes. A 
 miracle it was how little she had changed since the 
 time she had fled to America with Bertrand Lacy. 
 
 **I can't understand how that woman does it!" 
 Bahr, the advertising man, would complain. "I 
 can't remember her different since the day she came 
 to us. And here I am, old and bald and gray since." 
 
 Even the marriage with Lacy, the terrible year 
 spent with him, had faded from her memory until 
 it had taken on the proportions of some ancient, 
 tragic romance she had read in a book. At first the 
 thought of it had cut her to the heart, like a whip 
 laid on a raw wound ; then it had become a thing to 
 wince at; then a painful memory that could be put 
 aside, as a thing may be pushed out of the way into 
 a drawer ; then a dim, remote thing like an unhappy 
 fairy-tale remembered from childhood. 
 
 She had been getting a little lonely of late, and 
 after she passed her fortieth birthday, a week before, 
 she had begun wondering what life would be like 
 ten, or even twenty years from now. She would cry 
 a little in the evenings, for she knew she could not 
 work for ever, and she knew too that she could not 
 
 363
 
 INFRINGEMENT OF THE DECALOGUE 
 
 expect her harum-scarum son to settle down, and 
 marry, and have grandchildren she could unload her 
 heart upon in her old age. He was not that kind, 
 she knew. As soon think of changing a gerfalcon 
 into a twittering pigeon, or a leopard into a house- 
 cat. She did not blame him. Had she been a man 
 she would have had exactly the same vision of life as 
 he — a restless, roving one. There was no place for 
 her to return to in Ireland — the entail of the estate 
 was broken and the property had descended to a 
 nephew. She had friends in New York, to be sure, 
 but to impose on a friendship the burden of a restless, 
 homeless woman of middle age was something she, 
 with her sportsmanlike blood, could not do. For 
 the first time in her life her seemingly indomitable 
 courage failed her. It was then she met John Hunter 
 — Colonel John Hunter — and she fell in love with 
 him, and he with her. 
 
 It came on her in that sudden explosion with 
 which all great things occur. It came like a soothing 
 smother of rain on the arid land of her life — for, 
 courageous as she had been, her life was arid, in 
 spite of work, in spite of the sorry makeshifts of 
 amusement and exercise. She had surmounted a 
 great mountain, only to find that at its summit there 
 was no welcoming asylum for her fall of life, but only 
 an icy and lonely peak, where cold winds blew 
 eternally. 
 
 She was a big woman now, a power in business 
 circles, but she had never forgotten the hobbies of 
 her girlhood. She could still lift a hunter over a 
 six-foot-six-inch gate, and she still thrilled to the 
 intricacies of fine lace. An exhibition of Philippine 
 
 264
 
 INFRINGEMENT OF THE DECALOGUE 
 
 industries was held somewhere on Forty-second 
 Street and she went there to see the lace that had 
 been brought over. She asked some technical ques- 
 tions of the little mestiza attendant. The girl, at a 
 loss, appealed to a great bent pillar of a man, who 
 was selecting carefully some cigars. 
 
 "My name is Hunter, John Hunter," he ex- 
 plained embarrassedly. "If there's any way I can 
 help." 
 
 And in this wise she met Colonel John Hunter — 
 General now, of the Philippine Scouts. A gigantic 
 frame of man, lean nearly to the point of emaciation; 
 a great, sweeping line of jaw, with an embarrassedly 
 smiling mouth ; grizzled at the temples ; great-nosed ; 
 with black eyes that seemed to pierce and to smile 
 good-naturedly at the same time, and a tremendous 
 embarrassment. 
 
 He has a long and honourable record, has John 
 Hunter; in Cuba, in Porto Rico and the Philippines. 
 He is very deadly in warfare and very kindly in 
 peace, but the most marked characteristic about him 
 was his shyness where women were concerned. He 
 could never find anything to say to them, and he 
 fidgeted so much in their company that they were as 
 glad to be rid of him as he to get away. He was 
 forty-five now, and unmarried, though it was not for 
 lack of women who would have been glad to be wife 
 to him had he been interested in them or had they 
 been able to interest him. 
 
 "He's the decentest soul alive," they would sum 
 him up wistfully, "but he's absolutely impossible," 
 they were forced to concede. 
 
 There is a chemical affinity, which we can prove 
 
 265
 
 INFRINGEMENT OF THE DECALOGUE 
 
 meticulously by the action of acids on salts, of gases 
 on molten metal; by quantitative and qualitative 
 analyses that leave no whit of doubt. There is a 
 spiritual affinity, too, which we cannot prove, but 
 which is evidenced by such occurrences as John 
 Hunter, shyest of men, babbling over tea at the Ritz 
 to Nan Lacy, most guarded of women, whom he 
 had met a bare half-hour before — and she as con- 
 versationally enthusiastic as he. It was evidenced by 
 her parting from him blushingly, having made an 
 appointment to ride with him in the Park next 
 morning ; and by the cock of his head and the swing 
 of his stride as he walked up the Avenue, and by 
 the lightest expression of his heart he had experienced 
 since he had received his first command. They rode 
 together next morning and had lunch. They met 
 the next day. A week whirled by in a vortex, and 
 the end naturally came. 
 
 It came in at the most unromantic of places at 
 the most unromantic of times. It came while sitting 
 on a bench in Central Park on a Saturday afternoon. 
 Beside them horses clumped painfully along the 
 bridle paths, their mouths sawed by clumsy riders. 
 Nearby, motors snarled past with a raucous barking 
 of horns. A few urchins chased each other loudly 
 about. Hunter moved his head away. 
 
 "There's something I wanted to say," he an- 
 nounced haltingly. He stopped for a few instants. 
 "There's something I wanted to say, and I don't 
 know how to put it. I had it all worked out a while 
 ago." 
 
 He stopped again, and said nothing. He glared 
 at the ground fixedly. 
 
 266
 
 INFRINGEMENT OF THE DECALOGUE 
 
 "You see," he went on lamely, "I've never been 
 married. ..." 
 
 He felt a wild panic then, as if he wanted to rise 
 up and flee away. He summoned up enough courage 
 to look at her face, to see if she were shocked, in- 
 sulted, hurt. She was smiling at him tenderly, and 
 her eyes were full of tears. 
 
 There was no wild embrace in the middle of the 
 public park. There was no torrent of love-making. 
 He simply put his hand and took hers, and patted 
 it gently. Thus they were affianced. 
 
 She was very much in love. It tingled in every 
 nerve of her body and filled every crevice of her 
 brain, and set her spirit singing tunefully. There is 
 the love of the early youth, that is like young Spring, 
 a thing of perfume and flowers, of great bursts of 
 sunshine and of sudden squalls of rain, a turbulent 
 uncertain thing. There is the love of maturer years, 
 torrid and outrageous, heavy with thunderclouds 
 like a July storm, and with lightning that stabs like 
 spears. And there is the one that Nan Lacy was 
 experiencing now: the mellowness of complete 
 maturity, like a day of late summer, golden and 
 mellow, full of life and serenity, flushing into delicate 
 mauve tones. A rare and gracious thing it is, and a 
 wonderful light shines from the faces of those who 
 have it, like the shekinah of the Tabernacle, the glory 
 of the Lord. She was happy now, utterly happy. 
 No longer would she look in terror toward the barren 
 years. There was a goodly stretch of life and health 
 before them both, and then they would drift imper- 
 ceptibly into the quietness of age, as on the breast 
 of a singing river. It seemed impossible too, 
 
 267
 
 INFRINGEMENT OF THE DECALOGUE 
 
 grotesquely impossible, that, after all these years of 
 pounding on a merciless sea, she should make port 
 at last, a port of fairy dreams, a land of rest and 
 comfort and love and quietness, a thing she had been 
 longing for now more than twenty years, and which 
 had been withheld from her until she could savour 
 it fully. 
 
 There were two fears before her : one was the 
 husband unheard from for twenty-two years. She 
 was certain he was dead, but it seemed wrong to con- 
 tract a marriage with another man while there was 
 this uncertainty. 
 
 "I know he's dead!" she told Hunter, "but 
 somehow I— — " 
 
 "I understand," the soldier told her. "You don't 
 feel a widow. At any rate he's legally dead, and 
 you're free. We can get out the legal papers." 
 
 So that was settled. But something that dis- 
 turbed her more was the attitude her son might 
 adopt to the marriage. She felt toward him as she 
 might have felt toward a parent whose consent she 
 was uncertain of, a great shyness, a modesty, a sort 
 of unreasonable fear. Very timidly in a dimmed 
 light, she told him about it. He listened to her, and 
 when he raised his face, he saw her features glowing, 
 and the minute, gem-like dimness in her eyes. He 
 went over and, putting his arm about her, kissed her 
 silently, unadroitly. Then he straightened up, and 
 his voice was gruff, as though he were ashamed of 
 giving way. 
 
 " I think I'll take a little stroll," he said. 
 
 She smiled to herself, for she knew well where he 
 was going on his stroll. He was going out to call on 
 
 a68
 
 INFRINGEMENT OF THE DECALOGUE 
 
 Colonel Hunter, and to size him up, as the lad's 
 saying was. It warmed her heart to feel that she had 
 him looking after her, even in that undemonstrative, 
 casual way of his. She went singing about the apart- 
 ment until he returned, stopping at times to try 
 and guess what he would say when he returned. 
 A couple of words. That would be all. Something 
 like, "It's all right!" or "Go ahead!" 
 
 When he came in his face was puzzled, and a 
 certain line of disgust ran across his features. She 
 started up in fear. 
 
 "What is it, Norman!" she cried. "What's 
 wrong ? " 
 
 "Nothing," he said, "I was thinking of the Gold 
 Coast. A Galla there wanted to sell me a diamond 
 stolen from the Kimberley mines. Big as the 
 Kohinoor! Offered him six hundred bones for it, 
 but he wanted a thousand and I hadn't got it. And 
 if I had just belted him one on the jaw I could have 
 got it for nothing. I wish to heaven I had ! It would 
 have made a corking wedding present for you ! " 
 
 He looked across the dingy table in the back room 
 of the saloon at the gray-haired, furtive man in front 
 of him. Detail by detail he went over the man's 
 appearance, the livid skin and manner of speaking 
 with half-closed lips, which denoted the man had 
 known jails; the furtive, cowardly, and overwise 
 look in the eyes, that told of evil learned and done ; 
 the shabby but well-brushed clothes, the last stand 
 of the old dandy. 
 
 "So you're dad!" he said acidly. 
 
 "Yes, I'm your dad," the old man agreed nervously. 
 
 269
 
 INFRINGEMENT OF THE DECALOGUE 
 
 "So you thought you'd look us up, dad," the son 
 went on. "Why didn't you do it before?" 
 
 "I thought you were all dead," Bertrand Lacy 
 explained nervously. "It was only when I saw that 
 article about your mother in the paper — how success- 
 ful she had been, and how she was going to marry 
 this colonel — that I knew she was alive. I found out 
 where she was from the people in New York, and I 
 came on." 
 
 They had come down for a few weeks to a little 
 New England watering-place. Nan Lacy and John 
 Hunter, and Norman came also with them, by way 
 of a chaperon. They had not been married yet, and 
 they were not to be for a month. This was not to 
 be a hole-in-the-corner affair like her first venture, 
 Hunter had decided in his generous way. She was 
 to have everything she missed then, and more — a 
 reverend cleric and a crowded church, an organ 
 reverberating through the chancel, ushers in dress- 
 uniform. She blushed a little at this, and was embar- 
 rassed by it, but the maiden that was in the heart 
 of her looked forward to it joyously. 
 
 And so her son, who was more at home in any 
 other line of endeavour, found himself in the profes- 
 sion of chaperon. To his credit or discredit, as the 
 case may be, he was lax in the performance of his 
 duties, leaving them severely alone while they went 
 riding or walking. It was due to this that he had been 
 in the hotel when the furtive man was making inquiries 
 about his mother. He discovered him trying to 
 extract some information from the porter of the hotel. 
 Some intuitive sense of danger warned him. 
 
 "Mrs. Lacy is out," he went forward and told him, 
 
 270
 
 INFRINGEMENT OF THE DECALOGUE 
 
 "but I am Norman Lacy, her son, and if there is 
 anything I can do for you " 
 
 He had steered the furtive man into a quiet saloon, 
 and had listened expressionless to the information 
 that his companion was his own father, 
 
 "And now that you are back to us," the son went 
 on warily, "this wedding is off?" 
 
 "I don't know," the father sparred. He looked 
 sideways at the boy. " It seems a pity ! " 
 
 "Come through!" The son had dropped his 
 caustic manner and his voice grated with menace. 
 "That's enough. What do you want?" 
 
 "I've got my rights," the father laughed. 
 
 "You've got no rights," the son retorted hotly. 
 "You're legally dead." 
 
 The elder Lacy smiled. Of all the subtle weapons 
 that Satan had placed in his hand the subtlest of 
 all was his understanding of women. He might be 
 legally dead. He might be a scoundrel and a black- 
 guard. But he knew that Nan Lacy would marry no 
 man if she were confronted with her first husband. 
 He knew that to marry Hunter, and he about, would 
 appear to her a monstrous immodesty, a thing that she 
 would shrink from as the blackest of mortal sins. 
 Even her own high sense of chastity he would turn 
 against her as a weapon. He knew women well. And 
 the son glimpsed something of the danger in which 
 his mother's happiness stood from that mocking 
 smile. 
 
 "Well?" he snapped. "What is it? What do you 
 want ? Money ? " 
 
 The older man was on sure ground now. His 
 nervousness had worn off. The only fear he had had 
 
 271
 
 INFRINGEMENT OF THE DECALOGUE 
 
 was of the preliminary introduction, of his being 
 laughed at as an impostor, of not being recognized. 
 
 "Yes, you pup!" he answered boldly. "That's 
 what I want, and that's what I'm going to get, and 
 get quick. And I want a lot of it. I want five 
 thousand." 
 
 "I haven't got it," the son answered. "It's out 
 of the question." 
 
 "If you haven't got it, your mother has, and you 
 can get it from her, or you and her new friend can 
 fix it up between you. I don't care what you do. But 
 I'm going to get it." 
 
 The son rose in a passion of fury, but his four 
 years in the jungle had taught him something. It 
 had taught him the value of cunning as well as the 
 value of strength. To strike the man now would be 
 as dangerous as to strike a fanged snake. He was 
 beaten from the outset. That was definite. 
 
 "I'll give you until to-morrow at this hour," the 
 father dictated, "and if it isn't fixed— then blooey! 
 Understand ? Now go home and have a family party. 
 Regards from Pop ! " 
 
 The son rose and went off". At the door he turned. 
 
 " Until to-morrow ! " he said quietly, "and if, in the 
 meantime, you dare speak to my mother, or to Colonel 
 Hunter, then God help you ! That's all ! " 
 
 It occurred to him throughout the day a couple of 
 times with a sense of ridiculousness that in all his 
 life he had never thought as much as in those ten 
 hours. What could he do, he asked himself in panic? 
 Should he go to the colonel and tell him everything ? 
 The man would understand. That was a last resort. 
 He had friends in New York, rich men, men he had 
 
 272
 
 INFRINGEMENT OF THE DECALOGUE 
 
 met abroad, who might help. Might, he repeated to 
 himself. What could he do ? He would give his right 
 hand, his right eye, his life even, to preserve that look 
 of happiness on his mother's face. 
 
 He had been lax in his duties as chaperon until now, 
 but to-day he never let them out of his sight for an 
 instant. He had a vague dread that his mother should 
 meet the man in the street, or that the father himself, 
 in his impatience to make a killing, should disclose 
 himself to Hunter. From noon until ten at night he 
 thrust himself upon them. Even when, at that hour, 
 they decided to stroll down the pier, he insisted upon 
 walking along with them. 
 
 They walked down the street and on to the deserted 
 quay. There was the cold quality of a May night in 
 the air, and no moon. Outside the circles of light 
 cast by the dim street lamps was a purple darkness 
 like velvet, like some sort of opaque liquid through 
 which one walked. They passed a garish picture- 
 house, with its posters of black and red. They skirted 
 a shipbuilding yard, the white population of whose 
 slips were invisible in the dark. Their feet struck 
 hollowly on the wooden logs of the pier, and they 
 passed along slowly through the black air toward the 
 violet nimbus of the great incandescent light in the 
 middle of the pier. To the right of them the harbour 
 lay, the minute lights of the opposite shore mirrored 
 faintly on its surface. To the right of them a great 
 wooded country rose, and there was a faint shush to 
 the boughs of the trees as a quiet and unseen wind 
 moved them. The tide was emptying out of the 
 harbour into the ocean with the strength and rapidity 
 of water flowing through a funnel. It swished past the 
 
 273
 
 INFRINGEMENT OF THE DECALOGUE 
 
 supports of the pier and gurgled faintly in minute 
 whirlpools. 
 
 The colonel and Nan Lacy stopped under the 
 bluish shower of incandescent light and gazed 
 silently across the dark space. The son looked 
 vacantly over the waters in accord with them. He 
 was standing lazily, his hands in his pockets, when 
 he stiffened into attention suddenly, like a bird-dog 
 pointing. His ear had caught the shuffle of careful foot- 
 steps, and as he threw his head around to catch a 
 glimpse of the passer-by, he saw a furtive, rapid figure 
 slip into the shadows past them. 
 
 "Hum!" he said to himself. He had recognized 
 his father. So the man was stalking them. He was 
 afraid, perhaps, that the son would have bundled the 
 party off to some other place and have the wedding 
 celebrated before he could act. He was taking no 
 chances on that. He was as much on guard as his son 
 was. 
 
 The boy turned to his mother. 
 "I think I'll stroll to the end of the dock," he said. 
 "Be careful," she warned him, "be careful, 
 Norman. It is pitch dark." 
 
 "Oh, I'll be all right," he laughed. He made his 
 way down the pier surefootedly through the darkness 
 until he came to the crouching figure in the 
 shadows. 
 
 "I want to have that thing out," he whispered. 
 "Come along with me." 
 
 He walked along until they came to the end of the 
 pier, picking out his steps with the certainty of a cat 
 in the dark. His father followed him hahingly. He 
 stopped at the edge and turned on the man. 
 
 274
 
 INFRINGEMENT OF THE DECALOGUE 
 
 "So you've been following them about all day!" 
 he sneered. "Probably telling your business to every- 
 body too ! " 
 
 "No such fool," his father laughed. "Nobody 
 knows my business and nobody knows I'm following 
 you around. Well, did you get that money?" 
 
 "I didn't get that money," the boy told him, "and 
 what's more, I'm not going to get it. Now, listen to 
 me. Your game's up. There's nothing you can get 
 out of us. You're lucky you're not in jail for black- 
 mail. One word to you; you'd better clear." 
 
 There was an instant's silence. The faint, invisible 
 wind continued to rustle tree branches in a harmon- 
 ious, swinging minor, and the outgoing tide swirled 
 against the pier supports and choked in the little 
 whirlpools. There was an unpleasant, dangerous laugh 
 from the elder man, a laugh that came out of nowhere 
 seemingly, and that had in it something of a dog's 
 snarl. 
 
 " So that's the lay, eh ? " he sneered. "Well, you've 
 got something coming to all of you. I'll give you 
 scandal if you like. I'll put the lid on this little party." 
 
 The boy could sense his arm stretched vaguely out. 
 A note of invidious rage crept into the man's hoarse 
 whisper. 
 
 "Here I am. There's my wife, up there — " 
 he was pointing to the figures beneath the arc light — 
 "snuggling into another man's side, and planning to 
 marry him, the shameless " 
 
 "You had better clear," the son warned. 
 
 "Clear!" Again the laugh came. " I'm going right 
 up there and take a hand in the game. I'm going to 
 get my rights." 
 
 275
 
 INFRINGEMENT OF THE DECALOGUE 
 
 "I'll give you a chance," the son said grimly. 
 "Will you get out and stay out?" 
 
 "I'll show them," the father was getting bitter. 
 "I'll have my rights." 
 
 "Once again: Will you keep out?" 
 
 The father had come around in front of the son, 
 between him and the water. He looked at the boy. 
 Dimly, from looking at each other, they could see 
 each other's features in the pitch dark. 
 
 "No!" he said. "I'm going to face them. I'll 
 have my rights. I want justice!" 
 
 "Justice!" his son repeated. 
 
 "Yes, justice!" 
 
 "Very well," the boy said calmly. He balanced 
 himself easily on his feet, and pushed out his left 
 arm as a range finder. He drew back his sledge- 
 hammer right hand. " God forgive you," he muttered, 
 and he drove it home. 
 
 He heard the dull, thudding crack as it reached 
 the jaw, and the heavy splash that followed it. He 
 stood alone on the pierhead for a minute, listening 
 for other sounds, but all that came to his ears was 
 the restless movement of the pine trees, and the 
 rush of hurrying water. 
 
 He turned and sauntered up the pier easily. His 
 mother was looking for him anxiously. 
 
 "I was afraid," she said. "I heard a splash." 
 
 "It wasn't I," he laughed. "Probably some fish or 
 other." 
 
 He stood and looked at the pair of them. 
 
 "Listen," he said quizzically. "I've been playing 
 chaperon all day, and I'm a bit tired of it. I'm going 
 off to shoot a game of pool. Good night." 
 
 276
 
 INFRINGEMENT OF THE DECALOGUE 
 
 His mother's eyes sparkled with pride as she 
 watched his loose, swinging stride, and Hunter's 
 dimmed a little as he watched her. "She cares so 
 much for him," the soldier thought. " I wonder does 
 he appreciate it ? " 
 
 277
 
 WHAT BECAME OF MARGOT GILHOLME? 
 
 Because never a Sunday had passed in his incum- 
 bency of the rectorship in which she had not been at 
 service; because she had been invaluable, in her 
 quiet way, in the organization of church social affairs, 
 bridge parties, rummage sales, afternoon teas, what 
 not; because everybody liked her, including himself; 
 and lastly, and unreasonably, because he felt that 
 her request was her right, the rector hated to refuse 
 Mrs. Eraser the letter of introduction to the governor 
 of the State of New York. 
 
 She sat opposite him in the chill reception-room 
 of the little rectory, a smiling, self-contained figure 
 — sixty years old if a day, her face wrinkled like a 
 ripe apple of the smaller kind, rosy; with two brown 
 eyes glowing out of it dramatically, but repressed, as 
 all of her was. Her mouth was small and still well- 
 coloured. Her tiny hands were folded demurely in 
 her lap. Her microscopic feet peered like mice from 
 the edge of her black dress. A small hat hid her 
 plentiful gray hair. 
 
 "Just a note of introduction. Dr. Crosby," she 
 repeated with her dogged persistence. "Just so he 
 will see me — that's all." 
 
 "But the governor's time is taken up, every 
 minute," the rector argued kindly. "He is not even 
 
 278
 
 WHAT BECAME OF MARGOT GILHOLME? 
 
 like other governors. The greatest man in America. 
 There is nothing you can have to say to him, dear 
 
 Mrs. Eraser. Now, tell it to me " 
 
 "I must see the governor," the old lady insisted. 
 "Just a line," she pleaded. 
 
 It was all very strange, Crosby thought, and it 
 sounded a little as if she were out of her mind, but 
 there was nothing to indicate that. The little millinery 
 store on the main street of Patchogue, with models 
 as chic as those in any New York establishment, was 
 run with efficiency. Her dress, her manner, her 
 speech were the same as ever in the twelve years 
 he had known her, repressed, refined, but studiously 
 avoiding the drawing of attention in any way. There 
 was nothing out of the way about her except this 
 crazy desire to have an interview with Stephen 
 Godyn, the Governor of New York. 
 
 "Does your daughter, Jean, know of this, Mrs. 
 Eraser?" the rector asked. 
 
 Mrs. Eraser's big daughter, with the ugly, attractive 
 face, and the level Scot's common sense and the strong 
 Scot's religion, was a person Crosby admired. There 
 was no room for crazy notions in that girl's head. 
 
 "She does not, Dr. Crosby," the widow answered, 
 in a voice whose charm no plenitude of years could 
 destroy, nor studious cultivation disguise — a voice 
 that seemed to sing as it spoke. 
 
 She had always been a puzzle to the ascetic rector. 
 She was out of place somehow, with that dignity, 
 with those looks she had always repressed. He had 
 known her for twelve years, and for eighteen before 
 
 279
 
 WHAT BECAME OF MARGOT GILHOLME? 
 
 that she had been in Patchogue, keeping a little 
 millinery store, and fighting often against heavy 
 adversity. There were many who remembered her 
 when she had come there thirty years ago — a self- 
 contained woman with a baby on her arm, hardly 
 three months old. She vouchsafed no news of herself, 
 no news of her husband, strange though her position 
 was. She was too good, too honest, the villagers had 
 decided, to be a wanton woman. There was too 
 much dignity, too much fearlessness in her face for 
 a betrayed girl. The wife of some wastrel of good 
 family, who had suddenly cut loose from him and had 
 come to America to fashion for herself a new way of 
 life. She neither affirmed their belief nor denied it. 
 They received her good-naturedly, and gratefully 
 she accepted the reception. 
 
 And now after thirty years of repression, after 
 thirty years of sanity, she had burst out with the 
 absurd request for an interview with Stephen Godyn, 
 whom scores of million peoples regarded as little less 
 than a new Evangelist of democracy, for all his 
 wealth and his patrician blood. Crosby, the ascetic 
 cleric, one of the Governor's most fervent admirers, 
 an old acquaintance and by way of being a friend of 
 the great man's, could not have been more surprised 
 had she demanded an interview with the Archangel 
 Michael. 
 
 What could she have to say, this aged, ladylike, 
 repressed old resident, who owned a little millinery 
 shop, run by herself and her daughter, to the governor 
 of the Empire State, to the next President — barring 
 the cogent politics of death — to the man the world 
 
 280
 
 WHAT BECAME OF MARGOT GILHOLME? 
 
 looked to for the shaping of a new destiny for the 
 continent? And yet, in her voice, in her eyes, in 
 her manner, there was something that said that this 
 request was not a vain thing though his reason told 
 him it must be so. 
 
 He reached for pen and paper. "Well, then, Mrs. 
 Eraser," he acceded. "But for a small trades- 
 woman," he grumbled to himself, "to see Stephen 
 Godyn " 
 
 Stephen Godyn is dead now, and there is nothing 
 my pen can write to add to the eulogies of the great 
 men who have spoken of him. Young or old, gentle 
 or simple, who is there can forget that great bulk of 
 a man, like a great statue, fair-haired, blue-eyed, 
 with his heavy, patrician features. A man who knew 
 nothing of his family could easily have placed him 
 as a descendant of one of the lords of the soil who 
 held their patents in New Netherlands. A rich man, 
 a great statesman, with a heart for the poor. 
 
 A liar could never have faced him, nor a traitor. 
 There was an uncanny feeling that he saw through 
 flesh and bone to the ant-like workings of the human 
 brain. He had been proven time and time again 
 before he was elected to the governorship of the 
 State. All his life had been spent in public service. 
 As clerk in the Embassy at London, as assistant in 
 the State Department in Washington, he knew more 
 of the secret history of his day than is good for the 
 ordinary man to know. He knew of the weaknesses 
 of kings, and why wars are started and by whom, 
 and he understood the accent of the thunderous thing 
 called the voice of the people — a gift given few. A 
 
 281 
 
 K
 
 WHAT BECAME OF MARGOT GILHOLME? 
 
 great man, God rest him! A great man and a very 
 gallant gentleman. 
 
 The day had been a hard one, and Stephen Godyn 
 was sitting, taking his ease before dinner, in his study 
 at the house in Albany, reading with the gusto of a 
 boy. The Lives and Bloody Exploits of the Most Hated 
 Pirates was on his knees before him and he was 
 enjoying an interchange of courtesies between 
 Captain Sillanny and Captain Baer of Boston. 
 Randall, his dapper young secretary, came knocking in. 
 
 "Sorry to disturb you, sir, but there's a woman 
 here will see you. She has a letter of introduction 
 from a rector in Patchogue, Long Island." 
 
 "The good Crosby," Godyn smiled. 
 
 "She won't say what her business is," Randall 
 went on. "I asked her if it were a personal matter, 
 and she said not; if it were a matter of State, and she 
 was uncertain. Dr. Crosby's letter is very vague. 
 She hardly seems a crank, sir." 
 
 "I'll see her," Godyn decided. 
 
 You might have known from Randall's face that 
 it was against his inclination to allow her in. Godyn 
 was a hard-worked man, and such leisure as he could 
 snatch should not be at the mercy of cranks. But, 
 still and all, there was an air of deference about him 
 to the old woman's dignity, 
 
 "Thank you, Randall." Godyn had risen with the 
 eternal courtesy he showed to the poor and the old. 
 
 He looked at the demure figure before him and 
 fingered the rector's introduction. 
 "Mrs. Eraser?" 
 
 282
 
 WHAT BECAME OF MARGOT GILHOLME? 
 
 "Margaret Eraser," went the fleeting voice of the 
 old lady, "Margot Gilholme, that was the 'Heather 
 Belle.'" 
 
 "The Heather " Godyn was at a loss. And yet 
 
 the name Margot Gilholme was familiar to him. 
 Where? When? In what connection, now? "The 
 'Heather '." 
 
 "Margot Gilholme, the 'Heather Belle.'" There 
 was a subdued light in the old lady's eyes, and in her 
 voice a subdued note of pride, like far-off 
 bugles. 
 
 A few seconds' groping while the old lady still 
 smiled, and suddenly, like the inspiration that solves 
 a puzzle, the allusion came to him, and left him 
 nearly gasping. Margot Gilholme ! In England a 
 name as well known once as poor Anna Held's was 
 here. The " Heather Belle," a nom de theatre affection- 
 ately bestowed by a sentimental public as inspiring 
 in its less exalted plane as that of the "Swedish 
 Nightingale." 
 
 "Sit down, Mrs. Eraser." 
 
 He pulled a chair for her. And as he did this 
 simple, courteous service there ran through his head 
 the pageantry of a great time; he had never known 
 her, but when he was in England ten years later at 
 the Embassy he had heard older men speak of her, 
 and wonder what had become of her. He could see 
 her as she must have been then, in a flash of thought, 
 a beautiful woman surrounded by admirers : princes ; 
 magnificent guardsmen; foreign royalties; country 
 squires, patrons of the Fancy and the race-course — 
 a full-blooded, riotous assembly. 
 
 "People wondered what became of you." 
 
 283
 
 WHAT BECAME OF MARGOT GILHOLME? 
 
 "I have been on Long Island for thirty years." 
 
 As he carried on the desuhory, wandering con- 
 versation the shadowy remembrances in his mind 
 took substance and line and colour, and he recollected 
 hearing of her work in the music halls, her Scotch 
 ballads, haunting, nostalgic rhythms, where she trod 
 bravely to the footlights in Highland tartan, singing 
 the old Jacobite melodies: "Cope sent a message 
 frae Dunbar," and "Over the wave with Charlie!" 
 "How things have changed since then!" thought 
 Godyn in platitude. 
 
 "All that time in Patchogue ? " 
 
 "Myself and my daughter, Jean." 
 
 But that had been a small part of her career, Godyn 
 remembered, and he thought of the great men whose 
 names had been coupled with hers in light and brief 
 loves. There had been the Grand Duke Vassili, who 
 had built her a castle in Little Russia; and a Balkan 
 royalty. There had been a Prime Minister of England, 
 dear to the late prim little queen. There had been an 
 American, a titan of the financial world, in the good 
 days when a million dollars gave rights to the title. 
 There had been this one and that one— a full score. 
 This prim little woman, with the subdued voice and 
 the luxuriant gray hair, who had a daughter in 
 Patchogue. 
 
 "And now what can I do for you, Mrs. Eraser?" 
 asked Stephen Godyn. 
 
 "My daughter Jean is going to get married next 
 month to a young lawyer in New York— John 
 Atkinson his name is— and I should like her to have 
 
 284
 
 WHAT BECAME OF MARGOT GILHOLME? 
 
 a good wedding. She should have things to bring to 
 a house — linen and the like — and business has not 
 been good for a long while, so " 
 
 "I shall be only too glad to help," the Governor 
 said. There was a little shadow on his face — not that 
 of disappointment, but a sort of puzzled expression as 
 though he could not understand why she came to him. 
 
 "It is not charity I am asking," the old lady said, 
 "but, in a manner of speaking, my rights." 
 
 Stephen Godyn looked at her blankly. Was it 
 possible, after all, that his visitor was merely an old 
 woman with delusions ? He had not asked her for 
 proof of her statements, for to his mind, which could 
 see clearly, her voice, her air, the crumbling fabric 
 of old-time beauty which must have led men as the 
 pillar of fire led the Israelites, all these were evident. 
 Yet this statement. 
 
 "Because you are, as it were, the leader of the 
 people — the hope as a paper said, and prophet of 
 new democracy — I came to you. I once did some- 
 thing big for the common people." 
 
 Stephen Godyn said nothing. He turned and 
 waited for her to explain. 
 
 "Your Excellency has heard of Colin Eraser — Colin 
 Eraser of Dundee ? " 
 
 Through the Governor's mind there flickered 
 again the panoramic memory of bygone days, but 
 this time there was no trouble in placing a great name. 
 
 "Not Eraser, the member of Parliament who was 
 called the Uncrowned King of Scotland ? " 
 
 "My good friend and the father of Jean," she said 
 simply. 
 
 285
 
 WHAT BECAME OF MARGOT GILHOLME? 
 
 "He was killed," Godyn recalled. 
 
 "He was shot in his rooms in London," Mrs. 
 Eraser amplified. 
 
 " One of the great London mysteries. The murderer 
 was never discovered." 
 
 The old lady called Mrs. Eraser grew a little 
 white as this was mentioned ; her fingers crisped, her 
 voice faltered. She winced, as a soldier might wince 
 at the probing of an old wound. 
 
 "I want to tell Your Excellency about Colin 
 Eraser," she said. "I came back from Russia in 
 '86, I was there on a visit," she explained pathetically. 
 And Stephen Godyn knew it was to the affair with 
 the Grand Duke Vassili she was referring. 
 
 "I met him at the Derby." 
 
 "Your Excellency must have seen pictures of Colin 
 Eraser, a huge man, fit to handle any crowd. Great 
 size to him, and a huge red beard ; he was little over 
 forty. His eyes were big and glazing. And I was 
 considered very good-looking." 
 
 Stephen Godyn could well believe that — that 
 wrinkled, ruddy face, it might once have been 
 smooth and transparent as fine silk, the pressed lips 
 full and darkish-red like strawberries. Her gray hair 
 must have once trailed behind her, a mantle magni- 
 ficent enough for a queen. Her hands and feet were 
 like those of the little women whom Gulliver knew 
 in Lilliput. 
 
 " Colin Eraser looked at me, and I looked at Colin 
 Eraser, and we both thought, as we saw each other: 
 'Here stands Destiny.' 
 
 "In the summer of '86, Your Excellency may have 
 
 286
 
 WHAT BECAME OF MARGOT GILHOLME? 
 
 heard, Colin Eraser was not popular outside of 
 Scotland. He was too arrogant, too sure of himself. 
 He had hit landed property very hard, in his agitation 
 about crofters' rights, and that speech of his " — her 
 eyes glinted proudly — "about the eviction of Highland 
 tenantry to make deer forests for English brewers, 
 Burke never equalled that! No! He was not liked, 
 Colin Eraser ! He was too big, too dangerous ! 
 
 "They only saw him — ^the public did^high on a 
 pinnacle, great as a king; but I saw him differently, I 
 did!" She shook her head. "He was as human as 
 anyone. He could be as nervous as a girl and as 
 heartbroken. Many's the time he has cried on this 
 bosom of mine, the great, big, red-blooded man I He 
 had a hard life of it, Your Excellency. His wife, 
 you must know, was a poor madwoman, in a private 
 place in Surrey — no fault of his. A big man must 
 have someone to lean on, as a little man must. And 
 Colin Eraser had me. 
 
 "I loved Colin Eraser; I did so," she told Stephen 
 Godyn; "and Colin Eraser loved me. I had no kith 
 or kin ever to worry about, and I was brought up 
 careless-like, the child of strolling players; so it 
 didn't matter when I went to the house Colin Eraser 
 got me — a little place in St. John's Wood. And I 
 was proud to be loved by him. And Colin Eraser 
 was proud of me, too. He made no secret of it. So 
 big a man was Colin Eraser " — she raised her eyes 
 to Stephen Godyn— "that it didn't matter. What 
 would have killed the career of another man was 
 merely incidental in him. He was like the king — 
 above ordinary law. 
 
 287
 
 WHAT BECAME OF MARGOT GILHOLME? 
 
 "And for two years I lived there very happy with 
 Colin Eraser. I had my house — the prettiest house 
 in London. I had a little carriage with two ponies 
 and a tiger to jump from the back seat and run to 
 their heads when I stopped. I rode in the Row 
 regardless of any eyes, looked at, envied by all, for 
 I was loved by Colin Eraser," she told Stephen 
 Godyn proudly; "and Colin was the greatest man in 
 the land. 
 
 "And for two years Colin Eraser and I lived very 
 happily there ; and one day I told him that he was 
 going to have a baby, and Colin was happy at that, 
 for you see, Your Excellency, Colin knew he was 
 the only one I loved, and that the others meant 
 nothing, but the fault of my upbringing, being the 
 child of strolling players." Stephen Godyn nodded 
 his wise, leonine head. " Life for me began only when 
 I met Colin Eraser. 
 
 "And all this time Colin Eraser grew bigger. He 
 could have been anything in the land except King; 
 and that there might be a higher one in the land than 
 him irked Colin Eraser. Every man has his faults, 
 the great men included, if Your Excellency will pardon 
 me ; and Colin's fault was ambition. 
 
 "There is one man in English history who was 
 higher than a king : Warwick, who made and broke 
 kings. And God forgive Colin, but his ambition rose 
 as high as Warwick's duty. Smooth-shaven, tricky 
 men— foreigners mainly, Erench and Italian — kept 
 coming to see Colin, and it was a long time before I 
 knew what was afoot ; but, when I understood it, my 
 heart sank in me. In Scotland where the Highland 
 
 288
 
 WHAT BECAME OF MARGOT GILHOLME? 
 
 people are, and in Ireland among the old gentry, and 
 in Wales parts, too, and in England, there are a host 
 whose traditions are bound up in old days when the 
 Stuarts were kings in England. 
 
 "There is more to this than meets the eye, as Your 
 Excellency can well see. The Stuarts left are the 
 royalty of Bavaria, and behind a sentimental uprising 
 there would be great force of arms — a dangerous 
 affair, when you look into it. And I saw into it, be- 
 cause, for reasons, I knew something of State affairs." 
 
 Here her manner became strained and Stephen 
 Godyn lowered his head sympathetically, for she 
 was speaking of those great intimates of hers before 
 Colin Eraser came. 
 
 "But the poor, exalted gentry never saw inside of 
 the scheme. They thought only of the cavaliers, of 
 white roses, of new glorious days. And there was as 
 I said, a host of them — all through the Highlands of 
 Scotland, in Edinburgh even, through the Kingdom 
 of Fife ; north among the people who talk the Gadhlig, 
 and through the islands on the coast. And in England 
 there was many a thousand involved, for the thing 
 looked feasible. In Ireland there was a great many; 
 they have fled overseas since on account of it, for 
 in Ireland there is always a traitor, to sell names. 
 There was O'Hanlon Roe, and the Master of the 
 Rosses, and the Earl of Glenties, and Sir Firdarragh 
 Campbell — very honest gentlemen, all of them, very 
 noble ; they cared nothing for their lives. 
 
 "The scheme went ahead, and grew fast. It is 
 strange how revolutions come up unnoticed. They 
 
 2S9
 
 WHAT BECAME OF MARGOT GILHOLME? 
 
 rise and burst in a day, like a storm. These men had 
 plans laid for ships of war to slip from the Continent 
 and hammer England unexpectedly. There was to 
 be a landing in Scotland as there was in '45 and a 
 march on London. There were Highland regiments 
 disaffected, only too ready to march out, pipes skirling 
 under the ancient banner. In Ireland the Fenians 
 were powerful, though still in hiding after '67. The 
 canny Welsh were ready to jump, if they saw it to 
 their profit. And there was great money spent, and 
 cogent figures shown. And Colin Eraser was the 
 mainspring of the movement. He was to be the new 
 Warwick, the new General Monk. 
 
 "I heard of it. I knew of it. I spoke to Colin. 
 
 "'Are you daft, Colin Eraser?' I said. 
 
 "'You'll mind your own affairs, lassie,' he told me 
 sharply. 
 
 "This was the one thing he never spoke to me 
 about, knowing I'd be against it, no matter what he 
 could say. Oh, it would have been so ridiculous, 
 Your Excellency, if it hadn't been so sinister. Right 
 or wrong, I couldn't see the force of it. All I could 
 see was destruction and turmoil, the foreigner 
 hammering at England with sea-guns ; the decent 
 Highland clansmen in bloody heaps ; the misguided 
 nobles killed or hanged for traitors, and the bonny 
 Irish gentlemen. That was all I could see, Your 
 Excellency, and that was enough." 
 
 Stephen Godyn nodded slowly. 
 
 " I wondered when it was coming, and what could be 
 done, but I heard nothing until one day Colin came to 
 see me. He was going back to his chambers in town. 
 
 290
 
 WHAT BECAME OF MARGOT GILHOLME? 
 
 "'What are you smiling for, man Colin ? ' I asked. 
 
 "'Because to-night I'm going to decide when 
 history's to be made.' 
 
 "'It'll be bad history, Colin!' 
 
 " ' Good or bad,' quo' he, ' it'll be my word'll make it.' 
 
 " I worried when he had gone. If Colin had believed 
 in what he was doing, heart and soul, I should have 
 been with him in it. But it was his ambition, and 
 it was nowise right. It might be a success, I thought, 
 and there would still be this blood wasted, and the 
 stranger, I knew, would be inside our gates. And if 
 it were not a success, there would be Colin, a traitor 
 to the King, His Crown and Majesty, to be shot up 
 against a wall, some gray morning. 
 
 " I don't know what got inside of me, but I followed 
 him, without telling a soul, to his flat in London, and 
 I went in with my own key. There was no one but 
 himself — his man had gone out for something. Colin 
 was at a table, writing. It must have had to do with 
 the rising, what he was writing about, for his big 
 pistol was on the table beside him, so," she explained 
 to Stephen Godyn, "if anyone interrupted the secret, 
 he would have been a killed man. 
 
 "He turned to me, surprised. 'What is it, lassie ?' 
 he asked. 
 
 "'The men mustn't go out, Colin,' I told him. 
 'They mustn't go out.' 
 
 "'You will mind your own affair,' he roared. It 
 was the first time he had spoken harshly to me. 
 
 "'It must not take place,' I told him. 
 
 "He stood up, the fine big man, like a giant; I 
 remember him well. His great red beard bristling, 
 
 291
 
 WHAT BECAME OF MARGOT GILHOLME? 
 
 and his eyes were flashing, fine to see. I loved him 
 very much," she said to Stephen Godyn, "and under 
 my heart his baby was moving. 
 
 "'It will take place,' he said, and I knew neither 
 Heaven nor Hell would move him. 
 
 "I picked up the pistol that was lying on the desk. 
 'It will not take place, man Colin,' said I, and I shot 
 him between the eyes." 
 
 The bridegroom and the bride had left among 
 acclamations, and the wedding guests were going off 
 in threes and twos. Doctor Crosby, the ascetic cele- 
 brant of the ritual, shook hands with Mrs. Eraser. 
 
 "A fine young man ! And a very happy couple they 
 make," he unbent. He glanced with a feeling of faint 
 disapproval at the profusion of the wedding breakfast, 
 the decorations, what not. "I do think it rather 
 foolish of you to have lavished money on the ceremony 
 as you have." It was merely his good heart, of course, 
 but the man was tactless. " For a suburban milliner's 
 daughter . . ." 
 
 292
 
 XI 
 BEULAH LAND 
 
 He dropped the newspaper from his hands, and, 
 with his jaw thrust forward and a dim haze over his 
 eyes, he gazed into the glowing coal fire in the im- 
 mense drawing-room. So Zion had arisen at last ! 
 Zion, the incomparable city! Zion, the hope and 
 home of millions! Out of the tearful dreams of 
 centuries, the stones of the Temple were taking sub- 
 stance as by strange magic. 
 
 Zion was here ! 
 
 He took the paper up again, and the mist passed 
 from his eyes as he read of the rout of the Ottoman 
 armies before the smiling, sedate Allenby, and of the 
 proposal of the British to found, in the ancient soil, 
 a free Hebrew state, such as had obtained there 
 before the Babylonians and the swarthy, arrogant 
 Romans had been sent to smite his people for their 
 sins. His eyes blazed as he thought of the Moslem 
 hordes reeling back. 
 
 And there were Jews with General Allenby, too 
 — fighting for their ancient patrimony. 
 
 And Zion had arisen ! 
 
 "'I will bring them again also out of the land of 
 Egypt, and gather them out of Assyria,' " he quoted 
 the Promise, "'and I will bring them into the land of 
 Gilead and Lebanon.' " 
 
 You might have taken Sassoon for an Arab or an 
 
 293
 
 BEULAH LAND 
 
 Afghan as he sat there in front of the fire, what with 
 his high cheek-bones, his fiery black eyes, and the 
 swarthy, sun-tanned tint he never lost. 
 
 His stocky, muscular figure, too — that seemed to be 
 more fitting for a cavalryman or a wrestler than for 
 the intrepid financier who, with Rothschild, and 
 Garetti, of Italy, and Carcassonne, of France, had 
 held the reins of plunging international credit while 
 the world weltered in battle. Everyone who saw him 
 for the first time was surprised. 
 
 "I didn't think " they would begin embarras- 
 
 sedly, and then stop, a little flushed. 
 
 Sassoon would smile wryly. 
 
 "You expected to find a patriarchal beard, a vul- 
 ture's nose, mean eyes," he would think, "hands 
 twitching for money — such, you thought, would be 
 the Jewish banker." But he said nothing, not from a 
 sense of cowardice but from dignity. 
 
 "I thought" — they would cover up their embar- 
 rassment — "you were an older man." 
 
 "I am fifty." 
 
 "You look thirty-five." 
 
 His wife, Miriam, seated at the huge piano, not 
 playing but dreaming, and occasionally stealing 
 a glance at Sassoon — her you would have known for 
 a Jewess immediately. Even at thirty-six, she was a 
 slim woman, and had not lost the beauty of her early 
 years. The blackness of her hair, black as blue, the 
 smouldering fire in her eyes, her swarthy, passionate 
 colouring — she was unmistakably racial as her name- 
 sake, Miriam, sister of Moses, who danced to timbrels 
 after the crossing of the Red Sea. 
 
 "Sassoon," she called, "what are you thinking 
 
 294
 
 BEULAH LAND 
 
 of?" She had watched him gaze into the fire long 
 enough. 
 
 "'Our hope has not yet gone,'" he quoted the 
 refrain from the song "Ha-Tikwah," '"the old hope 
 to return to the land of our fathers, to the city where 
 David lived.' We're going back." He stood up 
 quickly, and, walking over to her, he took her by the 
 arms. "We're going back, Miriam, right away, to 
 the city where David lived ! " 
 
 His eyes were sparkling with his dream, but hers 
 were troubled. She had no child, nor could she ever 
 have one. All she had was Sassoon—her husband, 
 her lover. And she wanted to be sure that he would be 
 happy, that the things he did should be the right things. 
 
 II 
 
 From his earliest childhood, in Lisbon, he had 
 been saturated in the dream of Zion. His mother, a 
 proud Mendoza, and his father, the gentle little 
 banker with the pathetic eyes and the long beard, 
 lived innerly that fierce, intensive racial life which 
 the families had hoarded since the days of the Inqui- 
 sition, when death was not the portion of a Jew, but 
 indignity, torture, degradation — death in life. 
 
 With the glowing enmity of generations, they both 
 told young Peter Sassoon of their people's suffering. 
 
 He could remember his mother, tall and slim, and 
 straight like a drawn sword, her face glowing with 
 spiritual flame, recounting the sufferings of his people, 
 and then standing up proudly, with tears dimming 
 her great black eyes, while she chanted the " Zionide " 
 of Judah Ha- Levi: 
 
 295
 
 BEULAH LAND 
 
 " Zion, wilt thou not send a greeting to thy captives, 
 Who greet thee as the remnant of thy flocks ? 
 From east to west, from north to south, a greeting ; 
 From far and near take thou on all sides I 
 A greeting sends the captive of desire, who sheds his 
 
 tears 
 Like dew on Hermon ; would they might fall on thy 
 hills!'' 
 
 And so, hour by hour, day by day, month by 
 month, there arose in his mind the fabric of the 
 ancient country. In long, graceful lines and in definite 
 colours, now restrained, now violent and dramatic, 
 he could see Jerusalem, the delectable city. He could 
 see the great Temple which Solomon builded on the 
 site of the threshing-floor of Oman, the Jebusite. 
 Now against its crumbling ruins, old men beat their 
 heads. "O God, the heathen are come into thine 
 inheritance!" they cry. "They have laid Jerusalem 
 on heaps. We are become a reproach to our neigh- 
 bours, a scorn and derision to them that are round 
 about us. How long, Lord .'' Wilt thou be angry 
 for ever ? Shall thy jealousy burn like fire ? " He could 
 see the tomb of David, with its terraces and olive 
 trees bathed in sunshine. In his mind he could 
 see the oaks of Mamre, where Abraham pitched his 
 tent. All that was theirs ! Zion, which was now a 
 captive, one day would belong to his people again. 
 So went the promise of the Lord. 
 
 He might have remained all his life in Lisbon, 
 dreaming fiercely, as his mother dreamed, and help- 
 ing his father in the bank, had not the old man died 
 unexpectedly one Sabbath in the synagogue. He sat 
 
 296
 
 BEULAH LAND 
 
 down suddenly, put his hand to his ht^rt, gasped, 
 looked wildly up to the balcony where his -wife was, 
 and collapsed from heart disease. And his sort rent 
 his garments, as the custom is, and said kaddish for 
 him, and he was laid away to rest. 
 
 I don't know how it is these people of the East 
 love. There is an intensity to it that we Westerns, 
 with our complex, diverse interests, can never 
 attain. They become bound to each other with 
 clamps of tempered steel, become the perfect unity 
 that all love is. When one part dies, the other dies 
 also. So, three weeks later, the wife of old Sassoon, 
 who was a Mendoza, died quietly in her chair with a 
 look of expectancy on her face, as though she had 
 heard her name called. And for her, too, her son 
 rent his garments and said kaddish, and she was laid 
 by the side of her husband in the House of Peace. 
 
 He might have remained in Lisbon, might Peter 
 Sassoon, and have become the greatest financier 
 Portugal had ever seen. He might have gone to Paris 
 or Madrid or any of the European capitals, and there 
 made a name as big as it is in our country to-day. 
 But the tragedy of his people lay in dark stains, and 
 hidden, fetid prison-chambers in each one of them, 
 and he would have none of them. 
 
 "I will go to Palestine," he said. And then his eye 
 flashed proudly. "I will not go to Palestine until 
 Palestine is free." 
 
 But there was somewhere else he might go, and his 
 heart leaped at the thought of it. Already through 
 the narrow Ghettos of Europe, the word ran that 
 overseas was a great country where all men were free. 
 From the Pale of Russia, where the moujiks were 
 
 297
 
 BEULAH LAND 
 
 craving blood ; from Budapest, where the Jews went 
 by fearfiilly in their clumsy gaberdines ; from Spain 
 the haughty, and Portugal the proud, Israel was mak- 
 ing a last exodus to a new world. There the huckster 
 in the street had his chance, and the manufacturer 
 put up his purring looms, and in the colleges the 
 brilliant youth of Israel matched brains against the 
 pick of the virgin continent. Even in the fertile New 
 England states, the Jews had reverted to their original 
 calling, and tilled the land, as they once did, twenty 
 years ago, by Nazareth and Galilee. There, too, 
 
 would he go and abide with his people 
 
 "Until Zion come " he murmured. 
 
 Ill 
 
 It was Schuyler who gave young Sassoon his 
 chance — Schuyler, the greatest of the bankers, as 
 sinister-looking — what with his drooping black mous- 
 tache, his black eyes, his black cigar — as any pirate 
 of the days of Kidd — three times saviour of his 
 country, a picker of men. To him Sassoon went 
 fearlessly, and Schuyler, in five minutes, sent him 
 to be trained for charge of the foreign credits. 
 
 "Why in blazes," asked one of Schuyler's friends, 
 did you give that Jewish boy such a chance ? " 
 
 "Wait and see," Schuyler smiled. 
 
 There is a belief abroad that Schuyler never made 
 a mistake. Of course he made mistakes, time and 
 time again ; but he made no mistake in picking Peter 
 Sassoon. Little by little the grip of new fingers 
 could be felt in national finance, not a nervous, 
 grasping grip, but a firm, steady hand. 
 
 298 
 
 ((
 
 BEULAH LAND 
 
 "That's Schuyler's man, Sassoon " the shrewd 
 bankers nodded. 
 
 They recognized quickly the reasons why Schuyler 
 had picked him. They saw his genius, when, reach- 
 ing out, he picked up and took charge of a South 
 American republic rich in ore and nitrates, and, 
 saving it from ruin, started it on a strict business 
 schedule, with himself running everything from 
 president to police, and running it well. 
 
 "But aren't you afraid," he was asked, "of a 
 revolution taking place and all your holdings being 
 confiscated ? " 
 
 "I am afraid of nothing," Sassoon replied quietly, 
 without any boastfulness, merely stating a fact. 
 
 This intrepid financial genius, this fearlessness, 
 would have been enough to make his name, but 
 added to that was his impeccable honesty. In the 
 open game of finance he was ruthless against an 
 opponent who dared and offered to fight him for 
 supremacy, always according to rule, and recognized 
 fair play. But his fingers were never soiled with any 
 shady transaction. He never hired a corporation 
 lawyer to help him evade the law of the land. He 
 never plundered the weak. 
 
 "I have heard," drawled Calhoun, the senator 
 from Georgia, a notorious Judeophobe, "that every- 
 one is entitled to his pet Jew. I know of no pet Jews 
 but I know of one honest one — Peter Sassoon." 
 
 That did not please Sassoon. Praise for himself 
 meant nothing, but condemnation of his people 
 enraged him. But what was to be done about it ? 
 Nothing ! Until Zion come 
 
 To his people, the fearless Spanol Jew seemed a 
 
 299
 
 BEULAH LAND 
 
 redeemer. In no activity of theirs was he missing. 
 Into those palatial offices of his on Broad Street, 
 New York, anyone of his religion was admitted, 
 from the East Side schnorrer and the pedlar to the 
 great merchant and the legislator. And time that 
 was worth thousands of dollars to him was spent 
 freely in assisting them in their troubles, giving them 
 counsel, laying out plans. He lent them money 
 freely, knowing every cent of it would be returned. 
 
 " I tell it you, Mr. Sassoon," a little Galician, whom 
 he had pulled from the edge of bankruptcy, broke in 
 on him in voluble, sing-song Yiddish. "When I 
 leave Galicia, I think it this country the greatest 
 chance in the world. I think it the money come 
 easily here, pavolye ! But I got to work, and I'm 
 happy working. We're all happy working and making 
 money, but bad times come, and it is hard and we 
 get discouraged. Until you came there was nobody 
 to help us. But you came and — gewahlt it is like 
 heaven ! " 
 
 "Here is it all right," said Peter Sassoon, "until 
 Zion come " 
 
 "To me" — the little Galiz threw his hands out 
 proudly— "to me, it is Zion here!" 
 
 IV 
 
 He was thirty-five years old and already an 
 international figure when he met Miriam Mendel, 
 daughter of the old patriarch who had come out of 
 Kiev to America and was acknowledged to be the 
 greatest furrier in the world. Up in the North, 
 farther than the Hudson Bay men go, his agents 
 
 300
 
 BEULAH LAND 
 
 travel for the pelts of silver foxes. At the fair of 
 Nijni Novgorod they are known, and at Leipzig, at 
 the great March Messe. Shrewd men, those agents of 
 his, none shrewder in the world, and their nod of 
 the head is as good as their bond. 
 
 If Peter Sassoon had not happened along, I don't 
 believe Jacob Mendel would have given Miriam to 
 another man. For Miriam was all he had, and he 
 knew the worth of that one daughter. The spirit 
 that was in Jacob Mendel was placid and great and 
 very deep, like the sea, but the spirit of his daughter 
 was black and white-topped, and aglow with great 
 passions, like a mountain lake. And she was very 
 beautiful. 
 
 "She looks like Jael," the elder Miss Brown, of 
 the Misses Browns' School for Young Ladies, said, 
 when Miriam was brought to her, "or like Jephthah's 
 daughter." 
 
 The elder Miss Brown, for all her lack of knowledge 
 of worldly things, was in a measure right. Miriam 
 was a maid of Israel, a maid out of old-time, when 
 the Jewish women followed the hosting through the 
 desert, led by the burning cloud. She stood out 
 among that pretty aggregation of bankers' daughters 
 like a flame. 
 
 She went through Vassar and she came to New 
 York, and she was, in due course, offered for marriage 
 at dances and lunches and afternoon teas. There 
 were a host of bidders, for, even without the Mendel 
 millions, she had fire enough and beauty enough to 
 electrify the most placid of men. But she would have 
 none of them. 
 
 "For whom are you waiting then, for whom?" 
 
 301
 
 BEULAH LAND 
 
 little Klotz, the department-store man, gesticulated 
 in hysterical anger. He usually got what he wanted, 
 did little Klotz. 
 
 "I am waiting for my man," she told him quietly. 
 
 The dapper little trader went to her father, "to 
 talk reason," as he put it. 
 
 "Why don't she take me?" he demanded hotly. 
 "Amn't I wealthy enough, and healthy enough? 
 Amn't I as good-looking as anyone else she will get ? 
 She wants her man ? Well, I'm her man, as much as 
 anyone else is." 
 
 Old Jacob Mendel looked him up and down for a 
 minute, much as though he were examining a pelt. 
 He grimaced, as he would grimace if a pelt were 
 rotten. 
 
 " You're not," he said calmly. And there the matter 
 ended. 
 
 It was at a dance at Sherry's that Miriam met Peter 
 Sassoon. It was seldom he came to dances, but to 
 this he came, because it would have hurt some friends 
 had he not appeared ; and, for all his strength and 
 vigour, he would hurt nobody's feelings. He swung 
 into the room, a lunging, muscular figure, who would 
 have been more at home on a horse in the desert 
 than dancing a waltz in a ball-room. On his round 
 of introductions he stopped at Miriam Mendel. 
 Something in the girl's high head and shining eyes 
 arrested him. 
 
 "I suppose I should ask you to dance, but I dance 
 very badly," he said bluntly. 
 
 She laid her hand on his arm. 
 
 "You needn't." She was every bit as direct as he. 
 "I should like to talk to you, Peter Sassoon," 
 
 303
 
 BEULAH LAND 
 
 They talked very little that night, and very little 
 afterward, but their eyes just looked at one another 
 with a strange question in them. They looked 
 probingly ; they looked warily, and then, suddenly, 
 they grew clear, as though all questions were answered, 
 and they knew they had come together to stay. 
 
 They met several times after that, and between 
 them there still existed that dramatic, eloquent 
 silence, broken only by amenities of conversation. 
 The day came when Sassoon took her left hand in his 
 two brown ones. 
 
 "Will you marry me, Miriam," he said bluntly — 
 he knew no other way — ' ' and stay by me always ? 
 Because I love you." 
 
 "I will," she said, and her eyes were shining, 
 "because I love you, too, Peter Sassoon." 
 
 They spoke very little even after that. It seemed 
 to both of them that the physical coverings of their 
 spirits were laid entirely aside. The mechanics of 
 speech were no longer there — tongue, palate, lips 
 or teeth. Together their hearts were singing the 
 immense diapason of the stars. "'I sleep, but my 
 heart waketh '" — the Song of Songs, which is 
 Solomon's, clashed in her heart like cymbals — "'it is 
 the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying. Open 
 to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled ; 
 for my head is filled with dew,'" "'Thou hast 
 ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse'" — in 
 Sassoon's mind the glorious love-song answered — 
 " 'thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, 
 with one chain of thy neck. . . . How much better 
 is thy love than wine ! ' " 
 
 He went to her father proudly. 
 
 303
 
 BEULAH LAND 
 
 "I am in love with your daughter, Jacob Mendel," 
 he said, "and she is with me." 
 
 "I am very glad, Sassoon." The fur king hesitated 
 not one moment. 
 
 And so they were married, and he took her to live 
 in the great house he had bought for them in West- 
 chester, a place of hills and valleys and gaunt, splen- 
 did rocks, such as might be about the Jordan or 
 Kedron stream. And in the distance they could 
 see the Sound, placid as the sea called Galilee, dotted 
 here and there with a sail, and ruffled at times by 
 the wind into microscopic hills and ridges. And in 
 the evenings he would go with her into the old- 
 fashioned garden in the dusk, and, sitting by her 
 there, he would tell her of his dreams and of his 
 youth. And, as the dusk gathered into night, she — 
 hardly visible, very sentient — would put out her 
 hand and catch his, and as his throbbing voice went 
 on, by a soft pressure now, by a hard one then, she 
 would signify that her soul was drinking in every 
 word. 
 
 "Not in my time, Miriam, nor in your time will 
 Zion come. But one day " 
 
 And little by little under the soft influence of his 
 caring for his wife Miriam, the harsh drama of Sas- 
 soon's vision of Zion blurred into pale, delicate out- 
 lines. Gone for a time was the splendour of the 
 Temple and the troubled waters of Bethesda Pool, 
 and in its place there rose in his mind a vision of 
 Magdala, the village whence his family came. A wide 
 valley, it was described, between two pleasant hills, 
 and tall, feathery trees about the cliffs. Bees hummed 
 going to and from their hives in the rocks, and the 
 
 304
 
 BEULAH LAND 
 
 sun shot the little watercourse with iridescence. 
 Butterflies and dragonflies hovered above the an- 
 emones and squills, and in the foreground of all, in 
 her white robe, with her black eyes and her dark, 
 commanding face, was Miriam, a Jewish maid 
 
 And so, married, they lived happily but for one 
 thing : the promise to Abraham was not fulfilled in 
 Sassoon, and Miriam had no child. It would have 
 come to her as the crowning moment in her love, 
 but there had to be some bitter disappointment, she 
 felt, for all that she was getting. Sassoon knew, and 
 enveloped her with tenderness for it. It hurt him, 
 too. 
 
 Everywhere together they went, except for the 
 occasions of his business. Through fifteen years she 
 walked proudly as a queen, glad to be wife to a man 
 like Sassoon, proud to be admitted to his thoughts, 
 to be near the soul of him. Every moment proud of 
 him. Every moment fearful lest something should 
 happen to him — not a mere physical reality but 
 something that might hurt or destroy his bigness, 
 or turn him aside from the great, right things. She 
 had no child, you see — she had nothing but Sassoon. 
 
 He spoke continually of his vision of a new Zion 
 to the rabbis he knew, and they grew sympathetic 
 toward his fervour, and quoted for him texts from 
 Jeremiah, and Lamentations, and Joel to prove that 
 it should come, and from Uriah and Amos. But 
 their vision was a dull thing of dry Talmudic books, 
 and they obscured it with strange interpretations, 
 
 305
 
 BEULAH LAND 
 
 and hazy corollaries. And that did not satisfy 
 Sassoon. 
 
 He spoke of it once to a young artist of some 
 talent, a slim Jewish boy, and told him, in a moment 
 of enthusiasm, how he would like to go back to David's 
 city. 
 
 "Say, brother," the boy's voice cackled; "you 
 don't know nothing about it. I've been there. I 
 was on a tour over the world when I married my 
 girl. Listen, friend : There ain't nothing there — 
 just stone, stones and sand. You don't want to go 
 there. Why don't you go down to Lakewood?" 
 
 "And they call you an artist!" Sassoon sneered 
 inwardly. Outwardly, his face flushed, and his 
 mouth crept into a thin, straight line. 
 
 He had been invited — a great compliment — to a 
 little dinner at an Irish club by five or six of New 
 York greatest Irishmen. It had passed off, talking 
 of city and state and national politics and of the 
 reconstruction work after the war. That, too, passed, 
 and the old men began talking of bygone times in 
 Ireland and of the great struggles in New York when 
 the Tiger padded Fourteenth Street with soft, 
 treacherous steps. 
 
 "Give us one of the old songs, Tim," someone 
 asked. 
 
 A red-faced, white-haired judge of the Supreme 
 Court shook his head. 
 
 "No more," he refused laughingly; "those days 
 are by." 
 
 "*By,' be damned!" There wai the clanging 
 protest of glasses on the table. The old judge 
 laughed and rose. 
 
 306
 
 BEULAH LAND 
 
 "Well then: 
 
 ' The French are on the sea, 
 
 Says the Shan Van Vocht. 
 The Frefich are on the sea, 
 
 Says the Shan Van Vocht. 
 The French are on the sea, 
 They'll he here by break of day ; 
 And the Orange will decay. 
 
 Says the Shan Van Vocht.' " 
 
 The old rebel song rang through the club, and, as 
 the verses went on, Sassoon told himself here was a 
 race he would never understand. The old judge he 
 knew for one of the greatest supporters of the Allied 
 cause during the war. He had advocated hanging in 
 the public square all the lurking spies in America. 
 He had publicly wept when Ireland refused to line 
 up to her duty in civilization. And yet, here he was, 
 singing a rebel song ! 
 
 ** ' And will Ireland then he free ? 
 
 Says the Shan Van Vocht. 
 And will Ireland then he free ? 
 
 Says the Van Shan Vocht. 
 Yes ; Ireland will be free. 
 From the centre to the sea ; 
 And hurrah for liberty. 
 Says the Shan Van Vocht.' " 
 
 He turned to the judge when the song was over. 
 "When Ireland is free," Sassoon said, "you expect 
 to go back ? " 
 
 307
 
 BEULAH LAND 
 
 "I do not," Judge Ryan answered. "My place is 
 here." 
 
 "It seems to mean so much to your people, and 
 you say they will not go back. What is the use, then, 
 of all these feelings, all these songs ? " 
 
 The white-haired old jurist laid his hand on Sas- 
 soon's knee. He smiled. 
 
 "Here is the use, Sassoon," he said cryptically: 
 "Your young men shall see visions, and your old men 
 shall dream dreams." 
 
 VI 
 
 It was four in the morning now, and it had been 
 dawn since then, a faint, mauve dawn of June, and 
 still Sassoon was walking about the city. To-day was 
 the great day — the day when the miracle would be 
 proven. To-day he sailed for Zion, David's city, 
 which, according to the Promise, had arisen from the 
 dead, and on whose hills and valleys, whose flat 
 roofs and bellying minarets, the sun of freedom 
 shone, as it shone in the days of the magnificence 
 of Solomon, the king. 
 
 He had wound up his business at the bank that 
 day, selling his various holdings and converting them 
 into securities which he could bring with him to 
 Palestine. And to his associates he had said good- 
 bye. He saw a lack of enthusiasm in their voices. 
 Behind their eyes was a disappointed, hard look. 
 Kemp, of the United Oil Company, had suddenly 
 blazed into a sort of anger. 
 
 " If I were to tell you what I think " the hawk- 
 faced Yankee snapped. 
 
 308
 
 BEULAH LAND 
 
 "What is wrong, Kemp?" Sassoon was surprised. 
 
 "Oh, nothing!" Kemp barked, and bade him 
 good-bye unceremoniously. 
 
 At his house, too, on Madison Avenue, matters 
 were not right. In the eyes of his wife Miriam, 
 trouble lurked like a pale ghost. He had wanted 
 to sell everything, and to take with them just a few 
 dear things. 
 
 "No, Sassoon," she protested; "you can leave 
 that to your friends, who will do it — when we go." 
 
 And he had taken passage for both of them from 
 New York to Southampton, across France to Mar- 
 seilles, to Port Said, to Jaffa. And to-day, at noon, 
 they sailed. As yet, eight hours 
 
 He had telephoned he would not be home to 
 dinner and had spent the afternoon going about 
 places where his people were, the lowest and poorest 
 of them. Up Second Avenue he had come — the 
 deep, dark gulch where the elevator rumbles like 
 sudden thunder. Every stone, every house had a call 
 to him. Here was a Hebrew bank he had, ten years 
 ago, saved from ruin ; there a squat synagogue, 
 whither he had gone to pray for the soul of an old 
 friend. All about swarmed his people, hustling, 
 grimy, dramatic, talking in voluble, guttural Yiddish. 
 The old-clothes men came and went, drooping under 
 their burdens. He shook his head at the pawn-shops 
 with their Medici device of the golden spheres — one 
 traffic he liked not at all ; there was too much misery 
 in it. He stopped outside a Jewish saloon where two 
 men within were sipping golden plum brandy. 
 
 '' Lacheim!" went one's salutation. 
 
 " Sholem! " came the response. 
 
 309
 
 BEULAH LAND 
 
 Over there, to the right, was a moving-picture 
 theatre, the garish posters lettered in Hebraic script. 
 Next door, a restaurant with a white-enamelled Yid- 
 dish motto on its window^upright, sweeping majus- 
 cules with unexpected angles, dots, and dashes. 
 
 As he passed a street on his way north, he remem- 
 bered that to the left on the Bowery was the theatre 
 where Tomashefsky's voice resounded in sweeping 
 Jewish diction as he depicted the drama of his 
 people — the release from Egypt, the fall of Jericho, 
 the building of the Temple. 
 
 Hour to hour went by, and still he wandered 
 about, savouring, as one savours old memories, 
 the nearness and greatness of his people in this alien 
 land. He dropped into the little cafes where the young 
 Jewish poets sat playing chess, and the older men 
 stood by, watching pawn and queen move, and bishop 
 and king. Everywhere there was an ovation for him. 
 
 "Mr. Sassoon!" The place was cleared for him. 
 It was as though Haroun-al-Raschid were passing by 
 night through Bagdad's streets. 
 
 "To-morrow," he told them, "to-morrow, I leave 
 forZion!" 
 
 "And when do you come back, Mr. Sassoon?" 
 an old man asked. 
 
 "I will never come back," Sassoon said. "In 
 David's city I stay." 
 
 The young poets applauded violently. The elder 
 men looked grave. There was one who cried. 
 
 And so from place to place and from street to 
 street Sassoon went, storing in his heart the memory 
 of the city and the country which had meant so much 
 to his people. 
 
 310
 
 BEULAH LAND 
 
 Here, up in the Bronx, around Simpson Street, 
 they gathered, a hill of busy, thriving ants. On every 
 second apartment was a doctor's name, or the name 
 of a dentist with a familiar racial ring. Out of the 
 East they had come, and out of Europe, where they 
 were oppressed, and here they had found welcome 
 and a chance to use their brains and science. They 
 had thrived and prospered and were living in peace 
 and respect by the side of the other factors that made 
 up the formula of a free country. 
 
 Dawn broke in the air, and to him it was a shock, 
 for he had no idea time had passed so rapidly. He 
 turned to find a taxi-cab. A big Irish policeman was 
 appealed to for help. The officer looked at him 
 keenly. 
 
 "You're Mr. Sassoon, the banker," he said. "I 
 seen your picture in the papers many a time. Hey, 
 Jim!" he shouted across to a garage. "If I'm not 
 making too free," he went on, "I see in the papers 
 that you're going to leave us." 
 
 "I am," Sassoon smiled. 
 
 "A great pity that!" The policeman shook his 
 head. "The country needs you." 
 
 He opened the door of the cab. He turned to the 
 chauffeur. 
 
 "Take Mr. Sassoon home, Jim," he directed, "and 
 take him home quick and safe, or I'll have the skin 
 off your bones." 
 
 "Thanks, Officer," Sassoon laughed; "and good- 
 bye!" 
 
 The policeman took off his cap as he shook hands. 
 
 "God be good to you, Mr. Sassoon!" he said 
 simply. "You were good to the poor." 
 
 3"
 
 BEULAH LAND 
 
 He would not lie down, Sassoon decided. Me 
 would turn in under a shower and wait for Miriam's 
 rising. It was too big a day to sleep. He hoped 
 Miriam was sleeping well, for the start on the voyage 
 would be fatiguing. 
 
 But Miriam was not sleeping. She was sitting 
 awake, dry-eyed, tense, troubled. There was some- 
 thing wrong, she knew. It was the first time she had 
 the opportunity to help him, and help him she 
 would, if anything could help him. His greatness, 
 his fineness — those were the things that mattered, 
 and which she did not want to see warped or wrongly 
 directed. She had no child. She had nothing but 
 Sassoon 
 
 VII 
 
 He expected to slip in unnoticed, but she met him 
 at the door, firm-faced, with shadows under her fine 
 eyes and inside them a great, controlled agony. He 
 was too exalted to notice anything. 
 
 "There is someone wants to see you, Sassoon," she 
 said. 
 
 "At this hour?" 
 
 "The little woman from the corner news-stand." 
 
 He went into the morning-room, and sitting on the 
 edge of a chair, fearfully, was a little Polish woman of 
 the people. He remembered somehow having seen 
 her before. She rose up, breathing hard. 
 
 "Mr. Sassoon," — she broke into singing Yiddish, 
 with a note of hysteria — "I hear it you go away. 
 And what will become of us, Mr. Sassoon ; what will 
 become of us ? " Sassoon looked at her in astonish- 
 ment. He got no opportunity to speak. She went 
 
 312
 
 , BEULAH LAND 
 
 on: **I got it a little money in your bank, all I got 
 in the world. I want it to send my boy to college, 
 so that he be a doctor. All the time I say, 'When 
 he grows up I go to Mr. Sassoon, and I ask him 
 what I should do.' And when he grows up now, I 
 cannot go to Mr. Sassoon. And none of us can go 
 to Mr. Sassoon. Because Mr. Sassoon will be gone 
 away. Gewahlt! What shall we do? Who will take 
 care of us, now that Mr. Sassoon is gone ? " 
 
 Miriam went over and touched her hand. 
 
 "Sit down, mother, and wait a little. Sassoon" — 
 she turned to her husband — "come upstairs ; I want 
 to speak to you." 
 
 She led the way to his big study on the upper 
 floor, the dim room with the great windows and the 
 balcony. He closed the door after them. She turned 
 to him. Her hands fell to her side. 
 
 " Sassoon," she quavered. " I will not go with you." 
 
 He looked at her blankly. 
 
 "I will not go with you, Sassoon." Her hands 
 clinched like steel bands. "Because it is not right, 
 I will not go." 
 
 "Miriam" — his voice was very gentle— "I do not 
 understand you. What is not right?" 
 
 "Sassoon" — her voice rose and fell in nervous, 
 musical surges, like the quavering of a violin, and 
 there were sobs behind it, and tears — "Sassoon, 
 when things got too bad in Russia, when the pogro- 
 metzky were running through the streets screaming 
 for Jewish blood, when all through the Caucasus a 
 Jew was never free from danger and insult — through 
 Germany, through Bulgaria — they came here. If 
 you had asked my father, Jacob Mendel, who is 
 
 i 313
 
 BEULAH LAND 
 
 dead, he would have told you stories that would have 
 made your blood cold and your skin like the skin of a 
 goose. But you never looked for facts, Sassoon. 
 You wanted dreams." 
 
 ^ She moved nearer him. She put her hand up. 
 W "Wait, Sassoon! They came here, and they were 
 happy and they got their chance. And you came to 
 them. And you cared for them and you taught them. 
 You were never tired imploring them to understand 
 and feel the duties of a new citizenship, to show all 
 the world what the Jew is. When the war broke 
 out, it was you who went about, sending your own 
 people into battle. There were times you saved this 
 country from financial ruin. You leave it now. It 
 is not right, Sassoon." 
 
 Through the faint shadows of dawn, the slim, 
 sword-like figure of her, the burning eyes, the set face, 
 the white, dramatic hands showed dimly, like some 
 oracle in a temple of old Greece. 
 
 "Listen, Sassoon" — her voice set suddenly — "I 
 was at lunch down-town on Tuesday, and sitting near 
 me were two women. They were talking about you. 
 ' He's going to Palestine,' one of them said. And then 
 the other — 'He's made his money,' she laughed, 'and 
 now he's going off with it.' And the first one laughed, 
 too. 'It's the way of the Yid,' she sneered. Wince, 
 Sassoon, wince ! ' The way of the Yid ! ' " 
 
 Erect and motionless, he listened to her. His face 
 had become furrowed granite, and his frame carved 
 stone. 
 
 "Oh, Sassoon" — she had dropped to her knees, 
 and down her cheeks tears suddenly appeared like 
 dew — "you want the bridal land, the land of Beulah ! 
 
 314
 
 BEULAH LAND 
 
 Why, here is Beulah Land ! Oh, Sassoon, blind one, 
 cannot you see ? Not even in Palestine is Zion ; but 
 when we are dead — there is David's city!" 
 
 The lines in his face softened and his eyes grew 
 dim. 
 
 Miriam stood up. 
 
 *'I love you, Sassoon!" Her voice had developed 
 a deep crooning. "I love you as no woman ever 
 could. If you were poor and broken, I would sell 
 the hair off my head for you. If you are in trouble, 
 I am in trouble, too. If you were dead, I, too, should 
 die. But by the High One, Sassoon, if you go, you 
 go alone. For you are not doing a right thing." Her 
 voice rose suddenly like a bugle. "You are deserting 
 the place that made you and that you helped make." 
 
 She moved to the door suddenly, and, opening it, 
 passed out. She turned for a minute with all the 
 agony of her eyes focused on him. 
 
 "Oh, Sassoon," she pleaded, "dream greater than 
 Zion's walls ! " 
 
 He walked towards the windows in a daze, as a 
 sleeper might who had been roughly awakened and 
 is not yet quite conscious, and, opening them, he 
 stepped out on the balcony. Eastward, the sun had 
 now come up a little along the horizon and, strug- 
 gling with massive gray-and- white cloud banks, was 
 seeking to break through, here and there in red 
 splotches, here and there in long, white, spear-like 
 rays. Below, over the street, milk-carts rattled. A 
 few blocks away came the booming of the elevated 
 on Third Avenue. 
 
 But Sassoon was seeing none of these things. 
 Through his mind there was running still the itinerary 
 
 315
 
 BEULAH LAND 
 
 of the day before — the narrow, crowded gulches of 
 Second Avenue, with their struggling, happy mer- 
 chants ; the little, dingy synagogues ; the queer 
 restaurants where his people ate their food in peace. 
 
 "In peace ! " he thought aloud. " In happiness and 
 peace ! " 
 
 For so many years had the thought of Zion been 
 in his mind that it continually obtruded itself on his 
 thoughts, like a presuming person. But his wife's 
 words came to his mind, and again a mist crept over 
 his eyes. 
 
 "David's city! When we are dead " 
 
 It was as though some formula of white magic had 
 been uttered, for as he stood there clutching the 
 balustrade, the pathetic stones of the Temple hushed 
 their voices, and into his mind there came joyously, 
 on tramping feet, a vision of his people coming out 
 of bondage into the Free Land. 
 
 All through New York they were, all through 
 America, working against ancient prejudices, over- 
 coming them, beating them down. There was no 
 question of conquest, none of rapacity. They came 
 joyously, out of their fetid Ghettoes, to breathe pure 
 air. 
 
 He threw his head high in exaltation, and his eye 
 caught a glimpse of a cloud above him, a white 
 cirrus that the dawn-wind was blowing about, and 
 as he watched it, it took form suddenly into the six- 
 pointed star of David. He dropped his eyes as though 
 before a miracle. 
 
 "Beulah Land!" 
 
 He turned suddenly, joyously, for in his heart 
 there were cymbals clashing and the thrumming of 
 
 316
 
 BEULAH LAND 
 
 harps, to go downstairs to Miriam. She was waiting 
 for him, he knew. But he did not know she was on 
 her knees, praying as she had never prayed before. 
 If he went, she had decided, he must go without her, 
 and if he went without her, she should surely die. 
 For he was all the world to her. She had no child. 
 She had nothing but Sassoon 
 
 317
 
 XII 
 
 THE WIFE OF THE RED-HAIRED MAN 
 
 The faint and varied night-noises of Columbus 
 Avenue filtered into the sitting-room of the tiny flat 
 like inquisitive intruders. There would come, at 
 first, the faint grinding of a street-car and the clang 
 of its bell. Automobiles would purr noisily like 
 gigantic cats ; then unexpectedly their horns would 
 bark viciously like the barkings of dogs. A belated 
 dray would creak by. And then, as a climax, the 
 rhythmic galloping of the elevated, which shook the 
 panes in the window and the pictures on the wall 
 and gave to the table and the gas-lamp upon it a faint 
 vibration. 
 
 The old woman had dropped her knitting on to 
 her lap and was looking a trifle nervously at the 
 clear-cut young judge sitting before her. 
 
 "Yes, Patrick?" 
 
 "It's this way, Mother," Judge Campbell con- 
 tinued. "There's no guarantee of my being here 
 from one day to another. With the new campaign 
 coming on, I shall be away for months at a time. 
 There's a possibility of my being sent to France on 
 a diplomatic mission. And then. Mother, where 
 would you be ? " 
 
 "But Patrick, there's John. You're forgetting 
 John."
 
 WIFE OF THE RED-HAIRED MAN 
 
 "Oh, John!" The Judge gave a faint scowl of 
 impatience. 
 
 "Now, Patrick, I don't want you to be saying a 
 word against your brother." 
 
 The Judge leaned forward intently. In his well-cut 
 morning clothes and glistening collar, he seemed 
 queerly out of place in the worn and homelike flat. 
 One could trace in his waving black hair and gray 
 eyes and subtly chiselled judicial face the relationship 
 between him and the white-haired old lady. But 
 there was something that differentiated them. He 
 suggested the popular reformer, the fashionable jurist, 
 the political rhetorician ; but about her, in spite of 
 her thirty-five years in America, there still hung like 
 a vague perfume the purple colour of the Antrim 
 hills, the strong, salt breeze of the Irish channel, the 
 grace-notes of pipers, the heathery incense of the 
 peat. Nothing had changed her — nor could have 
 changed her from what she was, the daughter of a 
 strong farmer, peasant of the peasantry. 
 
 "But, Mother, I'm not saying a word against John ; 
 but we've got to face facts. John is absolutely 
 irresponsible. How many positions has he thrown 
 up within the last two years ? He was assistant 
 engineer on the Moravia. He threw that up to go 
 on a wild-goose chase after a gold-mine in British 
 Guiana. He comes back from there and works two 
 months in New York ; then heigh-ho ! he leaves with 
 a disreputable ruffian to start a line of river-boats 
 up the Magdalena. How long do you think he will 
 stick to this place with the steel corporation .'' " 
 His voice had risen unconsciously. "Well, I can 
 tell you— — " 
 
 319
 
 WIFE OF THE RED-HAIRED MAN 
 
 "Now, Patrick, now — " she admonished gently; 
 but there was an undercurrent of firmness in her 
 voice. 
 
 "Listen, Mother," he continued. "If you'd only 
 do as I ask you, if you'd only let them take care of 
 you at that little home on Staten Island, my mind 
 would be at rest for good and all. You saw the place. 
 You'll have the prettiest and best room in it. You 
 can see all your friends. You'll be as much at home 
 there as in this dingy hole. And it won't be as 
 though it were charity. You've got your nine thousand 
 dollars. That will make you independent. Think of 
 it, Mother: you alone here, a woman of fifty-eight, 
 with nobody except John, the irresponsible John, to 
 take care of you. You don't know how it harasses me." 
 
 She looked around the little sitting-room. 
 
 "It's hard. That's what it is," she said. "It's very 
 hard." 
 
 From the worn red cloth that covered the table, 
 to the photographs on the wall, all meant home to 
 her — the green carpet, the gas-lamp with the mica 
 shade, the whatnot by the window corner, filled with 
 the accumulation of years — a sea-shell, a framed 
 photograph of Patrick in his municipal magistrate's 
 gown, a microscopic reproduction of the White 
 House in which one day her son Patrick might be, 
 a hundred other things meaningless to anybody but 
 her. On the walls were a picture of Martin Luther, 
 kindly and shrewd ; Robert Emmet, gallant in his 
 green uniform and ruffles ; Patrick, with his law- 
 diploma, in his pale face sternness and ambition ; 
 John, the bluff, tanned John in the brass buttons of 
 a second assistant engineer. She would not have 
 
 320
 
 WIFE OF THE RED-HAIRED MAN 
 
 those in the old ladies' home. The room would be 
 spick and span, sparsely furnished and hideously 
 austere. 
 
 " Oh, it's hard," she repeated. " It's hard, surely ! " 
 
 The clatter and din of the avenue without had been 
 intermittently advancing and retiring into the room 
 like the wash of a tide. The elevated clattered by, 
 helter-skelter, on its way to Ninety-third Street ; and 
 as it died off into the distance, a comparative quiet 
 ensued. Faintly up the stairs of the apartment-house 
 came a rich baritone singing softly : 
 
 " / knew, my first love, 
 
 There'd be but one house between you and me, 
 And I knew it would fifid 
 
 Yourself coaxing my child on your knee.'* 
 
 The old Irish love-song came throbbing through 
 the door, now rich and low, now tender and high, 
 now rippling into a current of grace-notes. The old 
 lady smiled with an expansion of muscles that gave 
 the impression of sudden light. The Judge grimaced. 
 
 " Over the tide 
 
 Sure I leaped with the leap of a swan — " 
 
 "That's John!" the mother said. "I'll see if his 
 dinner's ready." 
 
 The door opened noisily, and the verse ended in 
 a swinging note of triumph : 
 
 " Till I came to the side 
 
 Of the Wife of the Red- Haired Man." 
 
 321
 
 WIFE OF THE RED-HAIRED MAN 
 
 He stood in the door for an instant, a careless smile 
 about his mouth: six feet if an inch, two hundred 
 pounds if an ounce, gray-eyed, full-faced, nose 
 straight as a Greek's, mouth small as a woman's, and 
 his dark-red hair rippling back from his forehead like 
 water fanned by a wind. Then he strode across the 
 room and kissed his mother. 
 
 "And how's Mother Machree?" he asked. 
 
 " Oh, sure, I'm fine, John," she answered, but there 
 was a hint of nervousness in her tones. For the first 
 time he seemed to become conscious of his brother's 
 presence. He straightened himself and looked his 
 brother between the eyes. 
 
 "So you've been at it again!" All the bantering 
 note had gone from his voice. 
 
 "I've been telling Mother some common-sense 
 facts," the jurist answered with dignity. "My 
 
 conscience 
 
 Ah, you and your common-sense and your 
 
 conscience!" John snapped disgustedly. "Let them 
 
 trouble you yourself and don't come around bothering 
 
 anybody else with them. You make me sick ! " 
 
 The Judge shrugged his shoulders and rose to go. 
 
 It has been thirty years now since Moyra Campbell 
 came to New York, accompanying Peter Campbell, 
 that roystering devil-may-care, red-haired husband 
 of hers, who was good for nothing but roving. In 
 those old days in Antrim they had called her the 
 Star of Cushendun ; and her father, old Joseph 
 Taggart, canny, wealthy as farmers' wealth goes, 
 fanatically religious, had planned for her a marriage 
 which would have taken her out of her station and 
 
 322
 
 WIFE OF THE RED-HAIRED MAN 
 
 made her comfortable and respected, and envied too, 
 for the rest of her Hfe. A bishop's brother had seen 
 her, a member of Parliament, and he was stricken 
 by her looks as a man is stricken by fever ; and perhaps, 
 too, he was a little stricken by Taggart's strong-box. 
 
 "You to be in London," her father had said, 
 drawing on his pipe and dreaming exultantly, "and to 
 be talking to the great ones of the land, the dukes and 
 barons and the nobles and peers. Oh, aye, and there's 
 no vanity to it, for you'll be married to a bishop's 
 brother. A great day for me to see — a great day, surely." 
 
 It seemed as if this were to be an assured thing, for 
 the betrothal was carried out. But there was another 
 factor to be considered, of which old Joseph Taggart 
 was unaware, and that was Red Peter Campbell. 
 There had been a few love-passages between her and 
 the roystering ne'er-do-well of the barony, but they 
 had been harmless, half sincere, such as had occurred 
 between him and nearly every girl of Cushendun. 
 One day Campbell would be at home, and the next 
 he would be travelling off to Spain on some absurd 
 mercantile venture, from which he would return 
 laughing and penniless. Once he enlisted in the 
 navy and nothing was heard of him for three years, 
 and then he returned, laughing and red-haired as ever. 
 
 "But I never thought you were at all taken up 
 with the sea, Peter?" a neighbour ventured. 
 
 " Oh, it's not the sea I care for, but to be seeing the 
 world, and not to be living here, the like of a rabbit 
 in a hutch," he answered. 
 
 There were four things which puzzled the Psalmist, 
 and one of them was the way of a man with a maid. 
 And the enigma of Israel of old obtains to-day. For 
 
 323
 
 WIFE OF THE RED-HAIRED MAN 
 
 some impalpable reason the betrothal of Moyra 
 Taggart fixed determination in Campbell's erratic 
 soul, as a magnifying-glass will focus the rays of 
 sunlight. He haunted her. He made love to her 
 night and day. The end came on a moonlit night, 
 returning from a dance in Cushendall. 
 
 " Oh, a great thing for you it'll be," he sneered, "to 
 be over in London. A great thing, surely! The wee 
 golden singing-bird of Cushendun in a wilderness of 
 parrots ! And the sun will rise, and the sun will go 
 down, and one day will be as gray as another. And 
 the bishop's brother will come in at night, and there'll 
 be dry talk of politics and problems of High Church 
 and of Low Church, maybe, instead of whispering of 
 love, and great kissing!" 
 
 She was shaking in the moonlight now, and a little 
 mist of tears had gathered in her eyes. 
 
 "But if you'd come with me," he went on, "it 
 would not be the like of a prisoner in a house you'd 
 be, but life before you, and your own share of it — 
 the dancing or the crying, and the sorrow or the joy. 
 And me always beside you, looking at those gray 
 eyes of yours, that are like a spring day-breaking; 
 or that black hair of yours, the like of a queen's cloak ; 
 or your warm, white skin, like Chinese silk; or your 
 slender hands — your wee, slender hands." 
 
 He put his arms about her shoulders and began 
 crooning gently: 
 
 " 'Tis what they say, 
 
 The little heel fits well in a shoe. 
 ^Tis what they say. 
 
 The little mouth kisses well, too. 
 
 324
 
 WIFE OF THE RED-HAIRED MAN 
 
 ' Tis what they say, 
 
 My days are under mourning and ban, 
 Until love blooms in your heart 
 
 And you're the Wife of the Red-Haired 
 Man." 
 
 To the intense mortification of Joseph Taggart, 
 farmer, of Cushendun, County Antrim, and to the 
 red fury of James Ryan, Esquire, M.P., of London 
 and Bangor, and to the disgust of a right reverend 
 bishop, Moyra Taggart ran away with and married 
 and went to America in the company of Peter Camp- 
 bell, acknowledged by all as the most worthless and 
 lovable wastrel in the whole North of Ireland ; and 
 her name was spoken in whispers and with a sort of 
 shamed envy by the young women of the barony, 
 and it was mentioned with disgust by the righteous 
 of the neighbourhood, and under her father's roof- 
 tree it was not heard at all. 
 
 And for three years in America, Peter Campbell 
 prospered occasionally and more often did not. 
 There were times, indeed, when a very real and 
 frightening poverty laid its hand upon him. But 
 through it all with a great perverted conscientious- 
 ness, he caroused, sang and enjoyed himself hugely. 
 
 "You ought to leave him, if he doesn't change his 
 habits," came the eternal stereotyped advice from the 
 eternal stereotyped meddler. 
 
 "Thank you very much," Moyra would reply with 
 dignity, "but that is a matter between my man and 
 myself." And within her she would think: "It's 
 just the way of him, and if you'd change that you'd 
 change everything."
 
 WIFE OF THE RED-HAIRED MAN 
 
 But in those three years he loved her magnificently, 
 and she him. And the poverty and the hardship and 
 the coming of the two children when the purse was 
 empty she looked upon as nothing compared to the 
 great thing that lay between them. One touch of his 
 hand, and a kiss, and all was forgotten. The dreary, 
 dreary days were wiped from her memory as by magic 
 when he would enter singing : 
 
 " There was the tree in the garden 
 
 Whose blossoms did tremble and shake. 
 I used to lay my hand on its bark, 
 
 And Fd think that my young heart would 
 break. 
 
 One thought alone 
 
 In my mind for a year had been rife — 
 One little kiss from her tnouth, 
 
 Who now is the Red-Haired Man's Wife ! " 
 
 And then suddenly, in his carousals, in his joyous, 
 careless, happy-go-lucky life, pneumonia stole up 
 behind him and struck him between the shoulder- 
 blades. And the great shoulders and barrel of 
 chest and lithe, muscular arms grew stiff, and the 
 genial smile froze from his lips, and silence came over 
 the golden voice of him, and he died. 
 
 About this time, too, died Joseph Taggart, Moyra's 
 father, in Ireland ; and with that spirit of fair play 
 which, however cankered over, is at the hearts of all 
 northern Irish, he decided to include her in the division 
 of his property. A very little came to her, something 
 
 326
 
 WIFE OF THE RED-HAIRED MAN 
 
 over a thousand dollars, but to the poor girl, grieved 
 and broken-hearted, with two children, one not knee- 
 high, the other still a little thing in a crib, it seemed 
 like the functioning of Providence. With a decision 
 of spirit that was nothing short of heroism, she started 
 a little shop, tobacco and papers and other small 
 things ; and all the friends of Campbell — these were 
 very many, for if her husband could not make money, 
 he could always make friends — stood by her loyally. 
 There was the one particular case of John Hanlon, 
 who for years came twenty blocks to buy his pipes 
 and papers and tobacco from Peter's widow. 
 
 Care has little chance to brood like a gray cloud on 
 those whose hands are busy from morning until 
 night. In her struggle for existence, with her two 
 small children to tend also, she had little opportunity 
 to sit and mourn her loss. It was just as well; for 
 otherwise, poor girl! she would certainly have gone 
 mad. But not for one instant did the picture of that 
 mighty, careless figure of her husband leave her 
 memory. 
 
 There is somehow in that strain of Celts who abide 
 in the Scottish Highlands and people the eastern sea- 
 board of Ulster, a sense of religion that amounts at 
 times to a mania. A queer race of men and women, 
 they, with the second sight among them ! The next 
 world is as close to them as the next town. And now 
 with Peter Campbell dead and the faint susurrus of 
 his love-making hushed for ever, there awoke in his 
 wife Moyra, that sense which she had always had 
 but which had been dulled for these years by the 
 proximity of the intimate things of life. In that faith 
 of hers^that terrible faith which the Covenanters 
 
 327
 
 WIFE OF THE RED-HAIRED MAN 
 
 had brought with fire and sword into the Scottish 
 Highlands and the adjacent Irish coast — everything 
 was stated with the exactitude of science. The line 
 between venial and mortal offences, which merited 
 hell-fire, was drawn as firmly as a geometrical line. 
 And when she remembered that rollicking, carousing 
 husband of hers, her heart sank. 
 
 "There was no evil to him," she would say to 
 herself, "but, ah, the dear heart — the poor dear 
 
 heart " she would end incoherently. What she 
 
 meant was that Peter Campbell, though his heart was 
 as clean of evil as a swan's down of black, did none of 
 those things which merit grace. A roysterer, a singer, 
 a lover, thinking as little of breaking a man's head off 
 as of filling his pipe, she trembled for what he might 
 suffer. " Every idle word that man shall speak," went 
 the terrible dogma, "he shall render an accounting 
 of on the Day of Judgment." And oh, the idle words 
 and the idle deeds and the idle singing for which 
 the Red-Haired Man might have to undergo suffering 
 in the next world ! 
 
 Her sons grew up : Patrick, the elder, ascetic, tall, 
 given overmuch to studies ; John, the younger, rol- 
 licking, red-haired, like his father — " The living image 
 of his dad, God rest him!" an old crony said. "I'd 
 know him out of Peter Campbell in a crowd of ten 
 thousand men ! " The small business prospered to 
 such extent that both of them received the best 
 schooling they possibly could. The schooling was not 
 much use to the younger ; at sixteen he had entered a 
 foundry with the intention of becoming an engineer. 
 But one day a tutor had come from the school and 
 told her that Patrick, he believed, had the makings of 
 
 328
 
 WIFE OF THE RED-HAIRED MAN 
 
 a great lawyer in him. He would go far, as far as the 
 judge's bench, certainly, as far as the mayor's seat — 
 as far, perhaps, as the White House. 
 
 "The poor soul outside in the winds of space!" 
 she thought with that queer superstition of hers. 
 " Sure, the One on high will not be hard on him, and 
 the son He brought into the world preaching right- 
 eousness and administering justice, and an example to 
 the land." 
 
 Time passed with those rapid, shuffling steps that 
 are like a thief's, and John went his way through the 
 world, burly, red-haired, laughing, like his father, or 
 stayed at home, treating her with that warm affection 
 that was more like a lover's than a son's, singing to 
 her the songs his father loved, and recalling in every 
 step, in every movement, in every smile, Peter Camp- 
 bell of Antrim, who was known as the Red-Haired 
 Man. Something tugged at her heart-strings every 
 time she saw John, and a great warmth went from 
 her to him, like the warmth of a turf- fire. 
 
 But a certain awe which increased with the years 
 grew up in her before Patrick the lawyer. He seemed 
 to live on a plane apart, sifting the wheat and chaff of 
 evidence, rendering decisions, terrible, unearthly as 
 the blind goddess of the sword and scales. An awe, a 
 reverence, would come over her as she saw him, robed 
 in black, walk up to the judge's bench. 
 
 "His Honour the Court!" the attendant's voice 
 would ring out like an acolyte's at a religious festival, 
 and the massed throng would rise, an intangible 
 feeling of dread sweeping through the ranks. 
 
 There would be a quick nod to the prosecutor, and 
 the machinery of the law which ground inexorably 
 
 329
 
 WIFE OF THE RED-HAIRED MAN 
 
 would start with ominous rattle. Calm, unruffled, 
 apart, she would watch her son as he sat there weigh- 
 ing and judging. 
 
 "The case for the People rests !" 
 
 The snapping mongrels who protect the guerrillas 
 of the world would then begin their tortuous explana- 
 tions, their devious, shifting, tricky defence. The 
 gray eye of her son would probe through their evasions 
 like a lancet through the gangrene of wounds. Strong, 
 like a tower, he stood between these and society, 
 protecting it like an armed guard. 
 
 " Have you anything to say for yourself ? " he would 
 demand of the prisoner, his gray eyes piercing, his 
 face set in a mask. At that instant he appeared like 
 the ghostly judge who, her Irish legends told her, 
 sits at the head of every dead man and asks the naked 
 soul for its accounting of life. Ah, poor Peter Camp- 
 bell, what had he to say for himself, who loved only 
 the sweet companionship of friends, the lighted 
 bars, the tussle of the football field, the love-making 
 in the evenings? Ah, poor Peter Campbell! 
 
 " Life has no use for such as you," he once told an 
 old cracksman in sentencing him. " The hard struggle 
 of righteousness you took no accounting of. You 
 pampered yourself. You did what you pleased. In 
 the end you stand charged with manslaughter. The 
 killing of this policeman was an incident. Your real 
 crime has been your outlook — your selfish outlook, 
 the pampering of yourself. You are of no use to the 
 world. I cannot sentence you to death — but I can 
 and hereby do sentence you to prison for the rest of 
 your natural days." 
 
 Every day of these years, every moment, nearly, her 
 
 330
 
 WIFE OF THE RED-HAIRED MAN 
 
 awe of and obedience to her son became a work of 
 grace. At his request she gave up the little store where 
 she had worked so happily, where her hands were busy 
 and her mind occupied. 
 
 "What did you do that for?" John had asked her 
 on his return from taking a freighter to Norway and 
 back. 
 
 "It wasn't nice for Patrick," she explained path- 
 etically. "I don't think he liked it." 
 
 Something that sounded suspiciously like "Damn 
 Patrick!" exploded from his brother's lips, but she 
 let it pass. 
 
 There were also one or two occasions when, utterly 
 against her feeling, on Patrick's advice, she had let 
 John get out of some nasty scrapes by himself, where 
 she could have helped him with money. There was 
 also a sort of feeling in her mind that Patrick would 
 not care to have his father's picture in the^.sitting- 
 room ; so she removed it to her own little bedroom. 
 And now, at his representations, she was leaving this 
 little home of hers, a home sanctified by years of 
 abode, where every little trifle, every rent in the 
 carpet, every minute stain on the wall testified to 
 cherished inhabitation. She was leaving this to 
 live in a bare, austere room, surrounded by cold 
 paid attendants. 
 
 "A hard thing," she nearly wept. "A hard thing 
 surely ! " 
 
 But she never questioned his decision, or the wis- 
 dom of his advice. To her he had become somehow 
 the avenging angel of God, a vice-regent of Provi- 
 dence, as infallible in his own way as the goddess of 
 justice herself. And obediently she submitted to his 
 
 331
 
 WIFE OF THE RED-HAIRED MAN 
 
 decrees, believing by some queer mental process that 
 this submission would earn grace for the spirit of her 
 husband, the husband of her who had been the Wife 
 of the Red-Haired Man. 
 
 For days now, the loading of the great munition- 
 freighter had been going on in a fever of hustle. 
 Derricks whined and clanged and chattered with a 
 rattling of chains. Up the gangways the huge, 
 lumbering longshoremen trundled their laden barrows 
 with the precision of automata, just so much distance 
 between them, just so many seconds to accomplish 
 a given route, unload and return again. Past the pier 
 beyond the bows of the gray behemoth the sunlit 
 harbour was alive with craft as a hummock might be 
 with ants. Behind them the brown dinginess of 
 Brooklyn Heights slumbered as an ancient gray 
 house-dog might slumber, dying slowly in the sun. 
 
 In the bows Jones, the burly, hairy, red-faced mate 
 from Cardiff, was superintending the stowage. 
 
 "Hurry, you knock-kneed, lousy land-crabs, 
 hurry ! " he was bawling with that megaphone voice 
 of his. "You diseased, consumptive runts, you're as 
 slow as the grace of God at a hangman's funeral." 
 He fixed his eye on the big Spaniard at the forward 
 derrick. "Stand by faster at that derrick, you warp- 
 hooved, spiggotty alley-rabbit! Do you hear me? 
 Blast you ! Do you hear ? " 
 
 On the dock Campbell, efficient, unflurried, was 
 overseeing the work with the calm strategy of a 
 field-marshal. Because he had the knack of getting 
 the most out of workmen, and because they obeyed 
 him unquestioningly and stood by him loyally, the 
 
 332
 
 WIFE OF THE RED-HAIRED MAN 
 
 big steel firm, now feverishly turning out munitions, 
 had detailed him as their pier-superintendent. 
 
 "Come, men, make it snappy!" was all he needed 
 to say, but it accomplished more than the frenzied 
 jeremiads of the Welsh mate. 
 
 The mate leaned over the port bow. 
 
 "Hi! You red-headed Mick!" he shouted at 
 Campbell, 
 
 Campbell swung around as if struck in the face. 
 
 "Do you hear me?" the mate began bawling. 
 "Ease off rushing that stuff up. What do you think 
 you're doing, rushing for beer to one of your Irish 
 saloons ? You greasy mechanic ! " 
 
 The pier-superintendent raised his hand. The 
 hurrying longshoremen stopped dead in their shuffling 
 rush. The derricks ceased whining. A dramatic 
 silence fell over the dock. Campbell walked forward 
 until he was directly under the mate. 
 
 "I've just had about enough of this from you," he 
 said quietly. 
 
 The mate opened his mouth to bawl again, caught 
 the look in Campbell's eye, hesitated, left his lips 
 open, closed them again. 
 
 "Another word from you," Campbell went on, 
 "just one word, and I'll kill you. Mark me ! I'll 
 murder you in cold blood ! " 
 
 The mate's face turned slowly from beefy red to 
 ashen gray. He left the rail and walked to the star- 
 board side. A man laughed contemptuously some- 
 where, and another followed. The mate's face 
 flushed to a shamed scarlet. 
 
 "Go ahead!" Campbell directed. And again, as 
 by magic, was the quick shuffle of the longshoremen, 
 
 333
 
 WIFE OF THE RED-HAIRED MAN 
 
 the whine and clatter of the derricks, the fever of 
 activity ; but the bawling voice of the mate was 
 silent, as though some deep-toned instrument had 
 suddenly ceased playing in an orchestra. 
 
 The feud between Campbell and the mate had been 
 of standing since the freighter had arrived in port. 
 On the first evening he had met the officer in Montagu 
 Street, a little the worse off for liquor. The seaman 
 was walking behind a thin, white-faced little girl — a 
 stenographer perhaps, and delayed on her way home 
 from work. He could hear the mate's raucous voice 
 attune itself ingratiatingly. 
 
 "Don't be so stand-offish, dearie. Can't you say 
 a word to me ? " 
 
 The mate had laid his hand on the girl's flinching 
 shoulder. Simultaneously Campbell's grip had 
 caught him on the collar. The mate had been whirled 
 around. The little stenographer had fled down a 
 by-street. 
 
 "You miserable hound !" Campbell had growled at 
 him. " For two pins I'd bash your face in." But he'd 
 contented himself with contemptuously throwing the 
 man away from him, and walked on. 
 
 A few days later at the foot of the gangway the 
 officer had bumped into him with set purpose. A 
 quick trip of the young superintendent's foot, and the 
 mate was sprawling along the dock. With mock 
 apprehension he had assisted the man to his feet and 
 had insisted on dusting off his uniform. 
 
 "Now, isn't it a shame," he had bantered, "the 
 way they put things where a man can trip over them 1 
 And your nice blue uniform all dusty, too 1 It's 
 criminal. That's what it is 1 " 
 
 334
 
 WIFE OF THE RED-HAIRED MAN 
 
 The sailors and the stevedores had not seen the 
 bump, but they had seen the tripping and heard the 
 banter. The mate was in no way a popular figure 
 among them ; so their laughter had been loud and 
 merry. And in Evans' red-rimmed eyes as he walked 
 away, had been the look of a sullen, angered, vicious 
 dog. 
 
 "The man's a bully and a coward," was Campbell's 
 contemptuous assay of him. 
 
 The day's work had been finished, and the long- 
 shoremen and sailors had knocked off. The variegated 
 lights of the river dotted the harbour like quaint 
 flowers, red and green and white, scattered about 
 pellmell, with here and there a ferryboat's linear 
 illuminations like a gardener's fancy on a green lawn. 
 Overhead the October stars seemed to crackle like 
 fireworks. Campbell jumped off the car and made his 
 way across Park Place to the Sixth Avenue Elevated. 
 At Broadway he put his hand in his pocket for his 
 watch. 
 
 " Might have time to take the old lady to a theatre," 
 he thought. 
 
 His watch was not there. With a groan of disgust 
 he remembered he must have left it on shipboard. 
 The squat Newcastle captain was passing a week's 
 holiday with his wife and children in Virginia ; 
 so Campbell was using his cabin to clean up 
 in after the day's grime. It was there he must have 
 left it. 
 
 "Got to go back," he decided. The watch, an 
 ornate gold one, was a present from his mother on 
 the occasion of his first billet as a marine engineer. 
 He would rather lose an eye than lose that watch. 
 
 335
 
 WIFE OF THE RED-HAIRED MAN 
 
 "All those wharf-rats they're making sailors of 
 now ! " he muttered. Across the bridge he went again, 
 and down Columbia Street. He passed the armed 
 guards at the pier gate and flew up the gangway. 
 In the violet glare of the dark arc-lamps he could see 
 the night watchman talking to the sentry. He looked 
 about the ship for sign of an anchor watch. The ship 
 was deserted. 
 
 "Lazy sons of guns!" he muttered. 
 
 He nipped up to the boat-deck, and as he passed 
 from port to starboard, he noticed a light in the 
 mate's cabin. He passed it by and turned into the 
 captain's. He switched the light up in the bathroom. 
 Yes, his watch was there. He put it into his pocket 
 and turned to go. 
 
 " Oh, Holland is a wondrous place, and 
 In it grows much green/' 
 
 he carolled. 
 
 " A wild inhabitation for 
 My young love to be in." 
 
 He slammed the door noisily, and as he went out 
 on deck, the sight of New York alight held him for 
 an instant. There was the long line of wharf-lamps, 
 like strange blue flowers. There was the mysterious 
 green of a shipping-office. Here the Singer Building 
 rose up like some Gothic cathedral. There the 
 morgue-like dome of the World Building showed 
 strange and squat, and beside it rose the magnificence 
 of the Woolworth edifice, like the palace Aladdin 
 builded by the aid of the jinn for the King of China's 
 daughter. 
 
 336
 
 WIFE OF THE RED-HAIRED MAN 
 
 " There the sugar-cane grows plentiful 
 And fruit on every tree^' 
 
 he continued gently. He leaned over the rail. 
 
 Something warned him swiftly, with the sudden 
 rapidity of a wireless-flash, that danger was about. 
 He dropped on his knees like a wrestler ducking. 
 Something swished viciously overhead. He pivoted 
 on his hands and knees and stood up. Before him 
 the mate stood futilely, a heavy monkey-wrench in 
 his hand. In the half-gloom the officer's face was set 
 in livid hate, and now there came an admixture of 
 pallid fear. 
 
 Campbell swore through his teeth. His left fist 
 shot out like a bullet to Evans' temple. His right 
 hooked over to the jaw like a hammer. There was 
 a faint splash as the wrench dropped overboard. 
 There was a dull, heavy one as the mate crashed over 
 the rail and followed the wrench. 
 
 For a minute Campbell stood glaring at the spot 
 where the man had disappeared, his eyes flashing 
 mad anger, the muscles of his face twitching, his 
 nostrils dilated. Then he became very white and 
 trembling, and on his brow a cold perspiration broke 
 out, as on the brow of a fevered man. 
 
 All night long, now, they had sat in the tiny living- 
 room of the Columbus Avenue apartment. Dawn was 
 breaking gently in the east, and the light of a new day 
 was creeping into the room with a gray, metallic sheen 
 that suggested tin. The light of the gas was turning 
 to a faint, sickly yellow. Life was returning to the 
 
 337
 
 WIFE OF THE RED-HAIRED MAN 
 
 city in faint, spasmodic leaps ; the pattering of feet 
 on the pavement, the more rapid whir and gallop of 
 the train, the clatter of carts over the stones, hoarse 
 voices raised occasionally on the sidewalks. 
 
 But the man and the woman in the room were not 
 paying any attention to these things. Campbell was 
 sitting with his head between his hands, his face cut 
 into lines as by a sculptor's chisel and hammer. His 
 mother sat upright, her hands clasped loosely in her 
 lap, on her face the unquestioning bravery that had 
 carried her through poverty and desolation and 
 suffering and had brought her, seemingly, until now, 
 into a safe anchorage where she might await tranquilly 
 the pilot who would bring her over the last mysterious 
 bar to the golden harbour of souls. 
 
 For the twentieth time they were reviewing the 
 accident. 
 
 " If only the wrench hadn't fallen overboard ! " she 
 sighed. 
 
 " I dived for it, after I dived for him, but there was 
 no chance. The mud at the pier is ten foot deep, and 
 soft. There would be no chance." 
 
 "No chance," she repeated dully. 
 
 "I slipped over the side " He repeated the 
 
 story for the fifteenth time. It was as though the 
 whole thing had become unreality to him and he 
 were telling the story to himself insistently, as 
 though to convince himself it was true. "I slipped 
 over the side from the saloon-deck and dived about 
 for him, but the tide was running out, and the under- 
 tow must have caught him." A dull, insistent mono- 
 tony crept into his voice. "The watchman was look- 
 ing around to find out what the splash was. I told 
 
 338
 
 WIFE OF THE RED-HAIRED MAN 
 
 him it was me; I had tripped and fallen overboard. 
 They'll kill me for it. They'll send me to the chair. 
 Oh, Mammy ! They'll send me to the chair ! " 
 
 " But dear, they can't ! " she insisted, though in her 
 eyes there was terror. 
 
 "But they can, Mammy dear! Look! Everyone 
 knew there was blood between us. They heard me 
 say I would murder him, even though I meant noth- 
 ing. They saw me trip him up. They'll find the 
 body and they'll know I was on the boat when he 
 disappeared. There's no chance!" 
 
 "But they can't! But they can't!" 
 
 "There's a Kerr Line boat leaving for the Plata 
 to-day, and McMinstry's the chief. I'll tell him all 
 about it, and he'll see me through to Buenos Aires. 
 That's what I'll do ; Mammy dear, if we only could 
 go off together, and start somewhere again ! " 
 
 " Have you got any money, dear ? " she asked him. 
 
 "I've got a hundred," he said. "I haven't been 
 saving much," he added with a sort of shamed 
 apology. 
 
 " And why should you be saving ? " she asked. She 
 smiled a little to herself. " Don't worry about that." 
 
 She rose and looked at the gray dawn coming in. 
 Her eyes rested on the clock. It was five now. 
 
 "You'd better have a bit to eat," she suggested. 
 "Just a wee bite." He shook his head. 
 
 "I'll be going out for a few minutes," she told 
 him. " Don't worry, Johnny. Will you be all right 
 here until I come back ? " 
 
 She slipped down Amsterdam Avenue quickly. 
 She knew Patrick would be up at half-past six and 
 
 339
 
 WIFE OF THE RED-HAIRED MAN 
 
 that she could catch him before he went down to the 
 courts. Between them, she knew, they could save 
 John — save him, she felt with a touch of horror, 
 from another dawn such as this when the dreadful 
 side door of a prison would open and the terrible 
 procession would start for the terrible chair. She 
 panted slightly as she walked to the elevated. A 
 little mist gathered in her eyes as she heard the robins 
 twitter amid the ivy of a church. To think that birds 
 should sing on such a day as this ! 
 
 She got off at Fifty-ninth Street and made her 
 way toward Madison Avenue, where Patrick lived in 
 bachelor quarters. Already he was up and at work 
 with a secretary. The pale, keen, judicial face showed 
 stern and uncompromising in the white light of the 
 morning. He strode up and down the little sitting- 
 room in dressing-gown and slippers, volleying direc- 
 tions to the secretary : 
 
 "See that an editorial is written on the vice case 
 in the afternoon papers. I'll give the man the limit. 
 It'll produce a good impression for the city adminis- 
 tration. . . . There's the case of Olsen — ten years. 
 And those two boys to Elmira " 
 
 "But the number of letters asking for parole " 
 
 the secretary suggested. 
 
 "I'll take no chances. I'll send them up." 
 
 He turned around to his mother with a look of 
 impatience. He caught the tense look on her face, 
 and sent the secretary away. 
 
 "Patrick," she faltered out, "John has killed a 
 man." 
 
 For a few instants he was silent. His face hardened. 
 
 "I knew it," he said bitterly. 
 
 340
 
 WIFE OF THE RED-HAIRED MAN 
 
 "You knew it?" 
 
 "I knew something like this would happen one 
 day or another." 
 
 She told him of every detail of the occurrence. He 
 listened non-committally. 
 
 " We must get the boy out of the country, Patrick," 
 she finished. "We must get him away." 
 
 "No!" The Judge's teeth clicked. His mouth set 
 hard. "He must give himself up to the police. He 
 must make a clean breast of it." 
 
 "But, Patrick, it was an accident." 
 
 "He must give himself up." 
 
 "They will kill him, Patrick. There's no evidence 
 to help him. Oh, Patrick ! My son, your brother- " 
 
 "The law permits of no injustice," the Judge said. 
 "And if a man kill a man, he must suffer." 
 
 "Patrick!" 
 
 "I've got to see the city chamberlain before court 
 on a campaign matter, and I've got some very impor- 
 tant things at court. But I'll adjourn early. At two 
 o'clock I'll be at the house, and John and I will go 
 down together, and he will give himself up." 
 
 "Patrick ! " she pleaded. His answer came harshly, 
 like the cut of a whip. 
 
 "No!" 
 
 She turned without a word and left the room. The 
 secretary went back. As she stood by the elevator 
 waiting for it to come up, she could still hear his 
 quick, incisive tones : 
 
 " — a record of convictions in which the administra- 
 tion may well take pride." 
 
 She went home in a daze, trembling, shaking with 
 
 34i
 
 WIFE OF THE RED-HAIRED MAN 
 
 a horrible fear. As she climbed up the steps of the 
 apartment-house, she stopped two or three times 
 and let queer little sobs escape her. At the door of the 
 flat, she paused to compose her features. She walked 
 in, John was packing things into a grip. 
 
 "My poor boy!" she said. She put her hand up 
 to his waving chestnut hair and stroked it. " My poor 
 boy, you'll have to give yourself up." 
 
 He looked at her with an amazed horror in his 
 eyes. 
 
 "Patrick says " she began. 
 
 " You told Patrick ! " His eyes grew wider and more 
 terror-stricken. "You told Patrick!" He became 
 suddenly very white. He retreated until he was 
 against the wall. "Ah, Mammy!" came from his 
 lips in a shuddering moan, "Ah, Mammy! I'm a 
 dead man ! " 
 
 He walked along, a forbidding figure in judicial 
 black, with a quick, rapid step. His face had hard- 
 ened to the consistency of granite. He turned out of 
 Central Park West into a side-street. He swung into 
 Columbus Avenue. At the door of the apartment- 
 house he nearly collided with his mother. She was 
 coming from the direction of Broadway, where the 
 subway is. 
 
 *'Come, Mother, we've got no time," he told her 
 in that decisive voice of his. "John and I will go 
 right down, and then I'm coming back to bring you 
 over to Staten Island. I'll take care of everything." 
 
 She stood straight before him without an effort 
 to move. In her face was a decision equal to his own. 
 
 "You'll not be taking John down," she said, "for 
 
 342
 
 WIFE OF THE RED-HAIRED MAN 
 
 John left the country two hours ago. I helped him to 
 do it, and I saw him off." 
 
 He was looking at her as though he didn't understand . 
 
 "And you'll be taking me to no home, for John 
 is going to buy a home for us where he'll be. And I'll 
 follow him when it's safe ; and my place will be with 
 him night and day." 
 
 The Judge's white face grew purple with anger. 
 
 "How dared you?" he exploded. "How dared 
 you?" 
 
 She moved closer to him and looked him fixedly 
 in the eyes. There was somehow a great spirit of 
 dignity about her that abashed him. 
 
 "You may be a minister of justice," she said 
 quietly, "but you're a son of mine, and I'll hear 
 no words like that from you." She turned and left 
 him and walked up the stairs. 
 
 She passed through the little parlour to her bed- 
 room, and as she sat down weakly in her chair, a queer 
 uneasiness and a queer terror came over her. She 
 felt now that the break with this son of hers, and her 
 disobedience toward him who was an agent of right- 
 eousness, might withdraw grace from him who was 
 already awaiting the Day of Judgment. It seemed 
 to her somehow that the consequences of the break 
 would recoil on this poor prisoner in a ghostly jail. 
 She sang quaveringly : 
 
 " For years I have lain 
 
 In a prison shackled atid hound^ 
 Bolts on my arms, 
 
 Atid a thousatid locks frowning around." 
 
 343
 
 WIFE OF THE RED-HAIRED MAN 
 
 She raised her eyes, that were tear-drenched now, 
 to the faded crayon portrait on the wall, as though to 
 implore forgiveness. She gave a quick start and half 
 rose in her chair. It may have been the fancy of a 
 woman who was growing old and lonely, or it may 
 have been the excitement and the strain of the night 
 that were telling on her, but it appeared to her that 
 the dim picture was aglow with glory. And somehow 
 they seemed spirit arms that were once great bars of 
 sinew and muscles ; and that to her heart, voiceless, 
 a voice was speaking that had once whispered to her 
 from the fall of evening to the dawn of day. And it 
 was telling her that she had done right and well. 
 
 "But over the tide," she faltered, "but over the 
 tide " 
 
 She rose in the chair with a mighty exaltation in 
 her face, and all at once the beloved song came from 
 her lips, full, resonant, exultant : 
 
 " But over the tide 
 
 He leaped with the leap of a szvan, 
 Till he stood by the side 
 
 Of the Wife of the Red- Haired Man I " 
 
 344
 
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