THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 BY 
 
 OSE ELIZABETH CLEVELAND. 
 
 DETROIT, MICH.: 
 
 F. B. Dicker son & Co., 
 
 1886.
 
 COPYRIGHT : 
 F. B. DlCKERSCN & CO. 
 
 1886.
 
 The Long Run. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 RUFUS GROSBECK is writing a letter. A let 
 ter of great importance, you conclude, and one 
 concerning which he has fully made up his mind 
 for he writes with great energy, never stop 
 ping from first to last. You are not prepared, 
 therefore, to see the letter, when finished, 
 folded indeed, and enclosed in an envelope, 
 but thereafter thrown upon the table and left 
 there, unsealed und unaddressed, while, the 
 writer leaves the room. It is, perhaps, four 
 2 9 
 
 1618540
 
 10 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 hours before he re-enters, picks up the letter 
 still unsealed and unaddressed, and puts it in 
 his pocket. Then he buttons one button of his 
 rather ill-fitting frock coat, throws on his head 
 the hat that lies near, and walks out of the 
 house undoubtedly to mail the letter which, in- 
 his preoccupation with its matter, he has for 
 gotten. 
 
 If the latter be his intention, his inadvertence 
 continues alarmingly, for he walks swiftly past 
 the dingy country store, one corner of which 
 is appropriated to the mail department, past 
 the next store, equally dingy, past the row of 
 houses next, and down the hill which follows. 
 Here he is lost to the village and the village is 
 lost to him. His path stretches before him 
 into wide rural loneliness. Only across the 
 meadows, one, two, three, at his left, gleams the 
 white and green of a little manse, where dwell
 
 THE LONG RUN. II 
 
 the rector and his wife, one babe, one maid 
 and, just now, one visitor. 
 
 This visitor is well known among a large 
 and important circle in the city as Miss Long- 
 worth. She, individually, has done nothing to 
 make herself notorious except to be born and to 
 bear her name, which latter is the notoriety, it 
 being that of a wealthy and aristocratic family, 
 time out of mind. The men of this family 
 have always been stirring and influential citi 
 zens; the women languid and lovely ladies, as 
 becomes women of blue blood to be, and the 
 female Longworth> whom we are about to con 
 sider is no exception, thus far, to her line. In 
 fact, to any one's knowledge, she is exceptional 
 in no way whatever. She is now a woman in 
 the thirties and somewhat settled in her ways. 
 And one of these ways, since Mr. Brown, the 
 rector, has brought a wife to Stonewall, has
 
 12 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 been to make a visit every summer season to 
 Mrs. Brown. 
 
 These visits have come to be special events 
 to a small circle in the village of Stonewall. 
 From one and another reason, Miss Longworth 
 has made herself interesting to the parties com 
 posing this circle. She has always been inter 
 esting to Mrs. Rev. Brown. Long before her 
 marriage, Aggie Snowdon was devotedly in 
 terested in Miss Longworth; a matter not 
 inexplicable to even superficial observers, for 
 Miss Longworth was Miss Longworth, and 
 Aggie Snowdon was one of six daughters 
 of a minister's widow who was not an ex 
 ception, in point of this world's goods, to the 
 general run of minister's widows. Miss Long- 
 worth, although the only daughter of a doting 
 but despotic mother, herself a widow and 
 thoroughly Longworthized, insisted on liking 
 whom she pleased to like, and Aggie Snowdon
 
 THE LONG RUN. 13 
 
 was one of this selection. Aggie, for her part, 
 made no opposition of her own free will to this 
 predestination, and doted upon Miss Longworth 
 disproportionately, as was proper under the cir 
 cumstances. When she became Mrs. Brown, 
 she did not desist from this devotion, although 
 the fact that Mr. Brown did not fully enter into 
 her feelings on this subject, somewhat mitigated 
 its measure. On the other hand, Mr. Brown, 
 although the most spiritual of men, had a suffi 
 cient conception of certain considerations inher 
 ent in social relations, to reconcile him to the 
 position of third person in a temporary trio, and 
 induce him carefully to cultivate the friendship 
 and encourage the visits of Miss Longworth. 
 
 Outside of the manse, there were those to. 
 whom a visit from Miss Longworth was an 
 interesting event. It was comprehensible to the 
 least logical observer that a rosy young country 
 girl, like Sallie Slycomb or her sister, should ,
 
 14 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 be all stirred up in the anticipation and experi 
 ence of rides and picnics and teas with the 
 lovely lady who realized in her manners and 
 presence and exploits all their highest colored 
 dreams. As comprehensible was it that Far 
 mer Slycomb and his painstaking wife, both 
 consumed with parental ambition, should 
 much solicit the patronage for their daughters 
 of this very improving acquaintance. It was 
 an opening wedge in the future of the family. 
 For had not Miss Longworth already had Sal- 
 lie to visit her at her own home in the city, and 
 had not Sallie returned thence with a certain 
 delightful veneer of savoir faire over all her 
 rustic fibre, which reflected rose-wood lustre on 
 the whole family? Then again, in respect to 
 such personages as the Woolwiches poor, mis 
 erable Woolwiches as they were ! it was clear 
 as day how Miss Longworth's visits to Stone 
 wall were interesting to them. Thev looked
 
 THE LONG RUN. 15 
 
 hungrily forward to her coming, from the first 
 time that little rat-faced Steve had wheeled her 
 trunk from the station to the manse, and had 
 brought home thrice the money he had ever 
 before got for a like job, and had thereafter 
 been " noticed " by the great lady in her re 
 searches in Stonewall, even to the extent of a 
 visit to the Woolwich headquarters, which visit 
 resulted in a systematic plan for the ameliora 
 tion of the whole family after the best approved 
 methods of work among the parish poor of St. 
 John the Beloved's in the city. It belonged to 
 the lovely and languid Longworth ladies to be 
 benevolent. 
 
 Thus it will be seen that various persons in 
 Stonewall were much interested in Miss Long- 
 worth, and upon grounds comprehensible even 
 to that reader whose gift of observation is but 
 ordinary. There remains, however, one per 
 son to whom she is of the greatest interest
 
 1 6 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 at the moment of the letter-writing above 
 noticed, and it is of him and of his interest 
 that we must give some explanation, not trust 
 ing the reader of the most extraordinary 
 observation to infer the facts without our assis 
 tance.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 RUFUS GROSBECK had become interested in 
 Miss Longworth after a fashion vastly differing 
 from that of the Browns, the Slycombs, or the 
 miserable Woolwiches. His interest had been 
 circulating about the zero point until ten days 
 ago, although it is more than a year now since 
 Miss Longworth has been a periodical visitor 
 at Stonewall. This interest had been languidly 
 increasing up to within ten days, when it sud 
 denly rose to a degree which makes his inter-, 
 est, if ever, of interest to us. By us I mean 
 any Emeline Longworth or Rufus Grosbeck 
 
 who may live, and look upon these lines, and 
 3 17
 
 1 8 THE LONG R UN. 
 
 any others who for any reason may, like the 
 writer, feel an interest in either. 
 
 Grosbeck himself is thinking it all over now, 
 as, with the letter in his pocket, he is pacing 
 slowly up and down the leaf-strewn path. He 
 is shut into a kind of privacy by the hill behind 
 which hides the village, and by the distance and 
 slope in front leading to the manse. The in 
 creasing dusk helps this sense of privacy, for 
 the sun had set some time since. A sudden hot 
 flush has flooded the western sky and, rolling 
 up to the zenith, seems to peel away from the 
 sky its veil of ashy cloud-film, which curls and 
 falls off in thin evaporating strips. The stars 
 show dimly here and there, gaining distinctness 
 constantly. 
 
 Rufus Grosbeck walks quietly to and fro, 
 stopping every now and then, as a man will 
 whose attention is intensely subjective. He is 
 thinking over that letter and trying to come to
 
 THE LONG RUN. 19 
 
 a conclusion as to what he shall do with it. 
 For the reader is greatly mistaken if he persists 
 in the conviction that the letter written with 
 so much energy and certainty of movement 
 has, therefore, a settled destiny in the mind of 
 the writer. " I will get it out on paper any 
 way " he had said in the writing. And, on 
 reading it, for he had been reading it over, 
 he had said: "It is well said, (Byron's letter 
 to Miss Milbanke, the reasons alleged for its 
 sending and its fatal consequences, had just 
 then come to his mind) but it shall not go on 
 that account. It shall not go, unless that is the 
 thing to do ! " And this is what he is about 
 now, here in the dusky twilight. Trying to 
 see what is best, under the circumstances. 
 
 The circumstances are the rub. He is try 
 ing to see the circumstances to be something 
 different. Trying to pose himself in the midst 
 of them with a different effect. After all, this
 
 20 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 a -priori inference may not be accurate; and 
 he tries the a posteriori. That involves a re. 
 trospection. And so he paces back and forth, 
 and halts and starts again, there in the twilight, 
 but the obstinate circumstances stand still. It is 
 all a picture and he is in it; and, though he has 
 a critical perception of the faults in the arrange 
 ment of figure and drapery, he has no power 
 to rearrange them. Only three days ago, he 
 thinks, neither of them, figure nor drapery, 
 had an existence. Now they cling hard and 
 dry to an imperishable canvas ! 
 
 Well, then, since he can do nothing with the 
 last three days, he goes back of them and tries 
 to re-arrange the past, but here succeeds as ill. 
 The Circumstances still twit on facts and slide 
 in a jumbled panorama before his vision; he 
 is in them, but so confused and changeful in his 
 position that, like the elusive figure of a 
 dream, he can neither find nor lose himself at
 
 THE LONG RUN. 2 * 
 
 will. But he persists in his attempt. With 
 that trick which besets every man when Con 
 science draws all consciousness to the fiery 
 focus of one time, with its electric light of 
 Then and There, he is groping up and down 
 the lengthened radii, back and forth, inspecting 
 with a needless, fruitless nicety, trying to divert 
 the light from that focus and so dilute its inten 
 sity. 
 
 But Grosbeck's confusion in viewing the cir 
 cumstances of the past in which he and Miss 
 Longworth are central figures need not over 
 take us. He is studying them with a purpose 
 to eliminate their ethics as bearing upon himself 
 in his present situation. We are not subjected 
 to any such necessity, but may view them in 
 the role, pure and simple, of sight-seers. As . 
 such, we may look upon the scenes of his con 
 fused panorama, arranged in their proper rank
 
 22 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 and succession, as they slide before our eyes 
 with orderly distinctness. 
 
 Scene first of this panorama carries us 
 back one year and some months, to the sum 
 mer of Miss Longworth's advent to Stonewall. 
 The occasion is no less than that of the 
 annual church picnic, regular as the summer 
 solstice, which at this return is graced by the 
 presence of the guest of the rector's wife. 
 Perhaps, indeed, no occasion could be contrived 
 on which the graceful and gracious demeanor 
 of so fine a lady could find more generous 
 scope among the Brown and Slycomb constitu 
 ency, not omitting the miserable Woolwiches. 
 The moment at which we introduce ourselves 
 at this religious orgie is somewhat later 
 than the hour of collation. The generous 
 tables present now but the lacerated remains of 
 a prodigality of refreshment. All the Sunday 
 School children are filled to satiety; even the
 
 THE LONG RUN 2,3 
 
 miserable Woolwiches, if never before or after 
 in the revolving years, do now and here satisfy 
 their souls with the fatness of " frosted " cake 
 and lemonade. Fed to repletion are they, 
 one and all, and out of their nursery for the 
 time being, gathered lazily about the church 
 melodeon, which has been cautiously removed 
 to the grove for the purpose of accompanying 
 the rendition of " Gospel Hymns,' 1 after refresh 
 ments. Here presides Miss Sallie Slycourt, 
 with a gentle gentility suggestive of Miss 
 Longworth, much as her own copy for Sallie 
 paints in fresh, stout colors resembles the less 
 striking original. This her mother, and others 
 of the committee, seated on a hill near by, 
 where they enjoy a select repast, observe with 
 fondness. The compact figure of Mrs. Brown 
 has made successive circuits of the ground, 
 attended by the tall and slender stranger lady 
 who condescends to all, and in her low-toned
 
 24 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 affability wins golden opinions from all sorts of 
 people. 
 
 " There, Emmy, I believe I have slighted 
 nobody so far, have I ?" ejaculates Mrs. Brown, 
 standing with her friend aside for a moment. 
 Mrs. Brown feels the responsibility of her posi 
 tion as minister's wife. This is her first sum 
 mer in Stonewall, although the winter has 
 preceded it, and she feels a degree of anxiety 
 at this, her first really public performance. 
 
 "Although there was the Donation, Emmy," 
 she admits, " on the whole, perhaps that was 
 as much of a trial as this, only there were not 
 so many -outsiders, I believe. I do hope I shall 
 see everybody and say the right things to peo 
 ple! " Aggie's gospel is one of peace and good 
 will to all men. 
 
 "Oh, my! here comes Mr. Grosbeck," cries 
 she, presently, as an elderly lady and younger 
 man are seen to approach.
 
 THE LONG RUN 25 
 
 " Come, Emmy, I do want you to see Mrs. 
 Grosbeck so much!" 
 
 Aggie had told Emmy long ago, in making 
 her inventory of the parish, of " old Mrs. Gros 
 beck." 
 
 u She is the widow of the last rector but 
 one, and is so different from the Stonewall peo 
 ple, Emmy! " she had said. 
 
 " They are all good, of course, but Mrs. 
 Grosbeck is different, you know. I'm quite 
 afraid of her sometimes! And Mr. Grosbeck. 
 
 a- 
 
 he is her son, and so very talented and odd ! " 
 This latter item has not slipped Miss Long- 
 worth's mind when she is now brought face to 
 face with the Grosbecks, mother and son. 
 
 Old Mrs. Grosbeck is very affable, with the 
 something " different " to be seen at a glance. 
 Aggie is fascinated, as usual, not being afraid 
 this time, and the two fall into talk concerning 
 
 the position of minister's wife, which being 
 4
 
 2,6 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 very old to Mrs. Grosbeck and very new to 
 Mrs. Brown, furnishes a topic of inexhaustive 
 interest. The aged iady is not averse to giv 
 ing, nor the younger to asking, advice. And 
 so it came about that Miss Longworth and Mr. 
 <jrosbeck are left to entertain each other.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MR. GROSBECK is put upon his best behavior 
 by a swift compunction that comes as Aggie 
 presents him to " my friend, Miss Longworth." 
 It had been " my most intimate friend " when,, 
 three weeks before, she had invited him, coax- 
 ingly, to " call upon her very soon." This was 
 before Miss Longworth came, and while Aggie 
 was casting about for means to entertain her. 
 
 Miss Longworth had been in Stonewall now 
 nearly two weeks and Mr. Grosbeck had not 
 called. There was no particular reason for 
 this remissness, however, except that there 
 never was any particular reason why he should 
 
 27
 
 28 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 call anywhere, and he always shirked such a 
 duty as long as he could. He felt a little 
 abashed now, however, in view of the slight 
 put upon Mrs. Brown's invitation, and this feel 
 ing stimulated him to make what propitiation 
 the present occasion should afford him oppor 
 tunity for. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Grosbeck, I always forget every 
 thing when you are around," exclaimed Mrs. 
 Brown presently, as her eye wandered, during 
 the recital of a reminiscence of the older lady, 
 and she was suddenly brought to a sense of 
 what was due again by a look, thrown across 
 heads, from her husband yonder. This con 
 jugal reminder was perfectly intelligible to Mrs. 
 Brown, as she saw deputations from " the 
 denominations " filing in, in a friendly, after- 
 dinner way. Self-respect prevented the sects 
 from coming to the " Episcopal picnic " before 
 refreshments, because to go and "eat without
 
 THE LONG RUN. 29 
 
 taking anything " was much looked down upon 
 by Stonewall quality. 
 
 "Do make me go and speak to the Metho 
 dists and Baptists! I see them coming, and 
 there is Mr. Brown looking at me! Do come 
 with me, Mrs. Grosbeck, and see that I behave 
 myself." And, the ceremonious old lady gra 
 ciously assenting, Aggie added, in her girlish, 
 bubbling way " Mr. Grosbeck will take care 
 of you, Emmy!" To this Mr. Grosbeck replied 
 in a manner quite like her mother's, and yet not 
 like anybody at all: 
 
 "Miss Longworth will take care of me I 
 foresee, Mrs. Brown." 
 
 A smooth remark that, which might slip off 
 the tongue of any society man and leave no 
 remembrance of itself behind. It is, however, 
 an inexplicable fact that these trifling words of 
 Rufus Grosbeck 's echoed long after in the ears 
 of Emeline Longworth. Months after, when
 
 30 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 there were carefully considered words of Gros- 
 beck's in her mind, offered to her by him for 
 careful consideration, this trivial remark would 
 strike in among them and put them all to mo 
 mentary flight. The never-understood change 
 in his voice, his grave bow to the other ladies, 
 which seemed their dismissal, the humility of 
 the words, the authority of his manner, the 
 charm of a sense of custody which stole over 
 her or did she herself imagine all these things 
 and their effects into existence? and some 
 thing besides, probably the thing in it all which 
 escapes analysis, and which, if anything, was 
 everything, would all stand out vivid, novel, 
 captivating as then. Now to a fresh, rustic 
 girl like Sallie Slycomb, this sort of thing 
 might be impressive; but it seems an out 
 rageous irony on this world-worn lady that she 
 should be impressed so instantly by this country 
 gentleman's careless remark. Indeed, when
 
 THE LOAG RUN. 31 
 
 written as an influential fact, all this seems in- 
 incredible. But the influential facts of our lives 
 are rarely written. If it chance that we con 
 front them in some self-assertion of themselves, 
 we turn away from them and refuse to recog 
 nize them for what they are. For all that, 
 these trifles are the grappling, hooks which 
 catch and fix us in our ruts. Up to this mo 
 ment Miss Longworth had not been specially 
 interested in Mr. Grosbeck. Amused, perhaps 
 even curious, for his appearance, like that of 
 most men who live solitary and studious lives, 
 was incongruous, and Miss Longworth was not 
 blind to incongruities. His very best clothes 
 never relieved him from an air of seedy peculi 
 arity in dress, and his efforts at small talk were, 
 at best, but a counterfeit of conversation. His 
 attempts to pass the current coin of society 
 brought to that arbitrary exchange a medley 
 of trashy half-penny phrases mixed with rare
 
 32 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 obsolete oboli of unknown value. He had an 
 ambition to appear like other people when with 
 them, and to pass for a society man; and it hurt 
 his pride to experience defeat in this role. He 
 thought <a man of his parts should be able to go 
 into any society easily and admirably, without 
 wasting his time in it habitually; in short, he 
 wished to have the ability to appear at ease in 
 all situations, without being willing to accus 
 tom himself to all situations. 
 
 On this occasion Mr. Grosbeck had not 
 ceased to wag his tongue in the manner de 
 scribed, and Miss Longworth had become 
 somewhat confused and fatigued in conse 
 quence. It was Mr. Grosbeck 's own impres 
 sion that he had, so far, made an admirable fig 
 ure before this woman of the great world; but 
 he now saw, for he was not lacking in percep 
 tion, and, unfortunately, it was to be seen, that 
 she did not share his own impression concern-
 
 THE LONG RUN. 33 
 
 ing himself, and this aroused him and made 
 him desirous to prolong the interview. He 
 wished not to suffer the mortification which 
 would follow him in the sense of defeat, if their 
 interview were then terminated. He was not 
 interested in Miss Longworth. She seemed to 
 him feeble and fussy and without beauty, al 
 though agreeable enough to the senses of sight 
 and hearing. Her make-up was harmonious, 
 its effect pleasant, without being pleasing. Her 
 tones were even charming, but there was noth 
 ing in them to linger in the ear. There was 
 nothing about her to hold his attention, but this, 
 that he did not hold hers. At the instant of 
 discovery that he was boring her with what he 
 supposed was the most savory pabulum that 
 could be offered her, his curiosity was faintly 
 aroused to see what sort of talk would interest 
 her. There must be something to a person 
 who can be bored, he reflected, even though
 
 34 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 that person be that most transparent jelly-fish, 
 the frippery, fashionable fine lady who belongs 
 to the church and society. 
 
 At once, then, on being relieved of an audi 
 ence which always made him uneasy, and being 
 in secure tete-a-tete, he fell into a more natural 
 role. He became, in short, himself ; and, when 
 quite himself, he was always fascinating, if not 
 always agreeable.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 "Miss Longworth will take care of me, I 
 foresee, Mrs. Brown," said Grosbeck, turning 
 and bowing to that lady as she and his mother 
 moved away. Then, squaring himself before 
 Emeline, he demanded, "Well, Miss Long- 
 worth ; now that you have me on your hands, 
 what are you going to do with me? " 
 
 " I have not the least idea," confessed Eme 
 line sincerely. 
 
 "I thought so. Well, then, I have. But 
 you must come and sit down." And he led 
 the way to a little eminence where ferns waved 
 untrodden, and seated Emeline at the base of a 
 
 35
 
 3 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 beech tree, throwing himself down near her. 
 The artificial character he had assumed was 
 quite gone, and he had now, in manner and 
 attitude, the abandon of a boy. 
 
 " So you are really enjoying yourself here in 
 the country?" commenced he. 
 
 "Very much," returned Emeline briefly. 
 She was somewhat surprised to find herself 
 sequestered and settled in this way, seated on 
 the ground with her back against a beach tree. 
 It was not after the Longworth-lady style to 
 go off by themselves with strange men, and she 
 never was seen to sit with her back against 
 anything. But there seemed no help for it, 
 and her mother was not present. 
 
 "So you really enjoy yourself?" persisted 
 Grosbeck in a teasing tone. 
 
 " I did not say that, did I? Do not take me 
 for an egotist," replied Emeline uninterestedly. 
 
 "Why not? Everybody is, in one way or
 
 THE LONG RUN. 37 
 
 another. But what do you do, Miss Long- 
 worth? It has just occurred to me, and I am 
 devoured with curiosity to know how you get 
 through the days." His voice had changed. 
 He had thrown a certain seriousness into it. 
 
 "Ah, you have touched a sore spot there, 
 Mr. Grosbeck," answered Emeline, with a sud 
 den responsive earnestness. " That is the 
 worst thing about it; I do not see that I do 
 anything but gaze from hill tops and piazzas 
 on lovely landscapes. I am troubled about it 
 sometimes." From where they sat the loveli 
 est distant hills showed in summer steadfastness. 
 Shadows from the white clouds above swept 
 across them. The green of rolling meadows 
 and the glisten of water lay between. 
 
 "But is nothing being done to you, then?" 
 asked Grosbeck. " One who has eyes to see 
 ought never to look unchanged on those hills 
 yonder. Do not they do something to you?"
 
 3 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 "Do what?" asked Emeline with a little 
 sharpness of tone. 
 
 " Why, make you think and feel. ' Cultivate' 
 you," answered Grosbeck, with an accent of 
 slightly sarcastic quotation upon the last two 
 words. His opinions of the kind of cultivation 
 vaunted by these esthetic fine ladies was not 
 respectful. 
 
 Miss Longworth seemed not to have heard 
 his last words. She repeated the former: 
 
 " Think and feel ! Oh yes, no end of that. 
 But what does thinking amount to if one does 
 nothing about it? or feeling either! " 
 
 " But that is the way fine ladies live," sug 
 gested Grosbeck. He could not feel either se 
 rious or trifling. 
 
 " That does not ease my conscience!" replied 
 Emeline. 
 
 Grosbeck found nothing to say at once. 
 Presently he said kindly:
 
 THE LONG RUN. 39 
 
 " But you certainly cannot do any harm." 
 It occurred to him that this was very true, 
 as he studied the aspect of this gentle woman 
 sitting there so easily and stroking character- 
 lessly and gently the ferns which he had been 
 laying in her lap as they talked. He, like all 
 men of his nature and habits, had no concep 
 tion of the self-control and self-reserve that goes 
 to make up this aspect of characterlessness, the 
 pillow by which the woman of the world soft 
 ens all contact with others, and smothers her 
 self. 
 
 There was no estimate of her betrayed in 
 Grosbeck's words to Miss Longworth. If to 
 him harmlessness was a greater evil than ca 
 pacity to do harm, she had no right to infer 
 that as the meaning of his words. But she 
 winced under them as if there had been con 
 tempt in them. It was her self-contempt that
 
 40 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 hurt her. It was so certain to herself that she 
 was helpless and harmless! 
 
 " Not even that ! " The words escaped her. 
 She would not have dreamed that she could 
 have spoken so unguardedly to the acquaint 
 ance of an hour. She had no acquaintance to 
 whom she spoke so, and she never had had one. 
 But the swift-mood that had somehow, without 
 her will it seemed, overtaken her, left her no 
 leisure to analyze anything now, and the bitter 
 ness in her tone was an actual betrayal. 
 
 Could she never escape it this conscious 
 ness of being nobody-in-particular to herself or 
 to anybody else ! If she never could if things 
 were so immutable and inexorable that she 
 never could come to anything definite then it 
 was cruel that she could never forget it; that a 
 stranger must discover it so soon and thrust it 
 upon her recognition again! The inanity of 
 Longworth-dom had tortured her so long!
 
 THE LONG RUN. 4* 
 
 With all her slick, purring composure, soft 
 movements and slow, reposeful attitudes, she 
 maintained, under all, a feline vigil for any 
 means of escape. She knew there was a race 
 different from the tame people among whom 
 she was herded. She had seen people who 
 were some-bodies-in-particular, but no one of 
 them ever seemed to see her. People of energy 
 and purpose and career seemed to have nothing 
 to do with her. She has, again, to-day a sense 
 of being labelled "Not Wanted!" and put 
 away to be never wanted. This man, for all 
 the absurdity of it, makes her feel that some 
 how the Unusual is hovering around and con 
 trasting with her. But, spite of comparison,, 
 her antennae are ever groping for the wild, the 
 unhindered, the Free! In slumberous luxury 
 upon the Persian rug, she dreams of the jungle. 
 Grosbeck was about to reply to this too 
 
 much-meaning remark of Emeline's " Not 
 6
 
 4 2 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 even that! " "Why, that is a great deal to say, 
 Miss Longworth. It is no small matter to do 
 no harm in this world." He would have 
 spoken in the same soothing kindness of tone 
 which he had used in his last remark. But, 
 somehow, he did not speak at all. He was 
 silent for some moments. 
 
 It all flashed before him with the bitterness 
 of her tone in the words she used. He imag 
 ined he saw her as she was, the fine lady who 
 goes to the country and idles away her time in 
 insincere bucolics, lives her inane life out with 
 year after year of such alternation from idle 
 city winter to idle country summer to him 
 the most meaningless creature in the world. 
 Her content was ignoble, her complacency in 
 tolerable. But if she were ^contented ! that 
 was another thingi The possibilities of pathos 
 in such a woman's life had sometimes occurred 
 to him. And now there came over him a con-
 
 THE LONG RUN. 43 
 
 viction that here was such a woman feeble, 
 discontented, every way incapable, and realiz 
 ing it ! 
 
 After a while he said slowly and seriously: 
 
 " I see, Miss Longworth. But can nothing 
 be done about it ? " 
 
 He did not wait for her reply. She was not 
 ready. 
 
 "After all, each one of us is an individual,'' 
 he went on. He was trying to answer his own 
 question. Grosbeck was given to speculation 
 on all possible situations of man or woman, but 
 in his imagination of this one, he had never 
 been able to see his way out. He could not see 
 what could be done about it. If she had any 
 power to feel even! But pulseless, passionless, 
 spoiled with her advantages, prisoned by a 
 caste all the more inexorable in its demands that 
 (in our glorious republic) there is no name for it 
 he had never been able to see what such a
 
 44 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 woman (it would be so different with a man !) 
 could do about it. 
 
 "After all, each of us is an individual. Noth 
 ing can help that or hinder. 'In der Be- 
 schrankung zeigt sich erst der Meister? Our 
 limitations test us. It is what we amount to in 
 spite of them tha is the real thing. And no 
 one can touch }our own intrinsic life. You 
 have your secrets with God and Nature, like 
 the rest of us, and no one can violate their 
 sacredness." 
 
 "But one ought to do something in this 
 life," said Emeline, simply. 
 
 Another inscluble problem to Grosbeck! 
 After all, the demands for room that hands 
 should move ungloved and feet should step 
 unfettered was so unreasonably reasonable! 
 
 " There is a great deal of delusion about this 
 doing things," murmured Grosbeck. His voice 
 still had the tone of answer to an argument
 
 THE LONG RUN. 45 
 
 with himself. " You remember what Schiller 
 says ' Seek'st thou the Greatest, the Best? 
 The plant can teach it thee. What it does, not 
 willing, that do thou by willing!' We have 
 but to surrender ourselves to friendly elements. 
 All nature is for us. The sun can only bless; 
 the air only stimulate ; the earth has for us only 
 nourishment. Ours only is it to assimilate 
 these friendly elements. The fern there has no 
 power to resist all this conspiracy that makes 
 for its development. We have. That is the 
 worst and the best of it." 
 
 Emeline was wondering where the best of it 
 was for her. What friendly elements were 
 about her? The Longworth sun had never 
 seemed to do anything to her but shrivel her, 
 and she knew no other's ray. The Longworth 
 atmosphere, if stirred at all, was rippled only by 
 a Southern breeze which brought enervation in 
 its exotic perfumes. The Longworth soil had
 
 46 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 yielded all its phosphates to earlier scions, and 
 no revolutionizing plough-share furrowed re 
 newal. 
 
 " Yes, that must hold for us all," continued 
 Grosbeck presently. 'In der Beschrankung 
 zeigt sich erst der Meister, und das Gesetz 
 nur kann uns Freiheit geben." 1 Freedom in 
 the midst of our own bondage. Freedom out 
 of our bondage. We must forge our liberty 
 from our fetters themselves. You and I. 
 
 This in a tone of quiet assurance, his eyes 
 fixed on the hills yonder, blue and distant, 
 gleaming through the trees. 
 
 And more, a good deal more in the same 
 strain. Grosbeck was nothing if not didactic, 
 and at home anywhere except in the common 
 place.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Miss LONGWORTH had never before been 
 so preached to. Never before had her case 
 been formulated, and the subtle sympathy 
 which was inseparable from Grosbeck's tones 
 gave her a feeling of being understood, for 
 once. She exultingly felt a sense of having, at 
 last, been recognized as woman, in distinction 
 from a Longworth. She came away from her 
 first interview with Mr. Grosbeck, with a tri 
 umphant consciousness of having been discov 
 ered. 
 
 This, rather than that of having made a dis 
 covery; though the one involved the other. 
 
 47
 
 48 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 That the protesting, interior self had been seen, 
 necessitated one who could see it and who 
 would see it. The could and the 'would waged 
 war for precedence. That he could see her 
 real self beneath the Longworth strata argued 
 uncommon power and set him up among the 
 seers and demi-gods. The Goethe and the 
 Schiller he quoted seemed only his peers. Yet 
 he might have ability to do all this, and never 
 care to. Because he had done it, he must have 
 thought it worth while. He must have faith 
 in her, and interest in her. She remembered 
 Grosbeck's words, and they repeated them 
 selves constantly in her mind, but always they 
 were ended with the "You and I!" And 
 so a certain concreteness ran already through 
 this Unusual Abstract, and left a vague but 
 constant impression upon her mind, that be 
 tween her and this Olympian there was an un 
 derstanding, a kind of ethical tutoiment.
 
 THE LONG RUN. 49 
 
 Miss Longworth had never felt so much 
 enjoyment at a picnic. When Mrs. Brown 
 found her again and Mrs. Grosbeck claimed 
 the attention of her son home, never had this 
 very lovely stranger seemed so amiable to all, 
 never so radiant, so gently exuberant to Brown, 
 Slycomb and miserable Woolwich ilk, as now. 
 The remaining minutes of the picnic became 
 a fete under her management. Old and young 
 were alike captivated by her affectionate inter 
 est in them. Silent, horny-handed farmers and 
 brisk, critical farmeresses were, one and all, 
 stormed and captured by her soft sieges. She 
 emanated about her a shower of subdued scintil 
 lations in which everybody lit up. Aggie had 
 never seen her most intimate friend so irresistible 
 and was never so much so herself. The gaiety 
 spread over the whole crowd, and, at last, when 
 it was time, and past time, to conclude the 
 
 7
 
 5O THE LONG RUN. 
 
 games, in which everybody played, and to break 
 up the conversation, in which everybody talked, 
 nobody wanted to go home. Aggie was 
 delighted, and, conscious that she herself had 
 behaved becomingly, was disposed to ascribe 
 the bulk of the glory to Miss Longworth. 
 
 "You did the most to make it pleasant, 
 Emmy dear," she said. " You were so sweet!" 
 
 And Emmy was just so sweet in her denial 
 of having any part in that result. The Rev. 
 John Brown himself was heartily honest in his 
 acquiescence in his wife's claims for her friend 
 this time. 
 
 " Quite remarkable in her way, my dear, and 
 no mistake," he admitted, with the air of a 
 man who means to be fair, at all costs. 
 
 As for Miss Longworth herself, she was con 
 scious of her own exhilaration and its cause. 
 Her case was that of the man who shines in
 
 THE LONG RUN. S 1 
 
 society from the stimulus of champagne; the 
 shine is seen, the champagne may or may not 
 be seen. With Miss Lonworth her cham 
 
 
 pagne was her own secret
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 IT would be vain to deny that the elegant 
 Miss Longworth had great expectations of Mr. 
 Grosbeck. She, herself, would not have denied 
 it had the occasion of its admission been con 
 ceivable. 
 
 As a matter of fact, she had passed a more 
 nearly sleepless night after the picnic than ever 
 before in her life. A profound excitement 
 banished sleep. Her thought might have been 
 epitomized in the words There is, after all, 
 help for me. Her antennae seemed to have 
 suddenly come upon a crevice of escape from 
 
 52
 
 THE LONG RUN. 53 
 
 the depths of the Persian rug; who could tell 
 how that crevice might open, whither lead? 
 Her case was like that of the boy who cannot 
 sleep because when the night is past he is to 
 start on his journey, outward bound, into life. 
 It may be his start is only that of bundle-boy 
 in the great city store. No matter. It is a 
 start in the path of to him boundless pos 
 sibilities. Miss Longworth's average imagin 
 ation is scarcely up to that of the average boy. 
 But this night her imagination is rampant. 
 She certainly has got a start and that is not to 
 be the last of it. Then, too, she has a feeling 
 that this strange man has found out, or may, 
 if he will, find out all about her, and that is 
 enough to keep any woman awake nights. 
 
 Yes, Miss Longworth has expectations 
 because she has intentions. She does not, 
 indeed, think it would be the last if she, her-
 
 54 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 self, had no intentions, for she concludes at 
 once it is a matter of course he will have 
 them. She supposes that so lonely (he must 
 be lonely in such a place) a man as Mr. Gros- 
 beck will be glad to pursue her acquaintance, 
 and long avenues of usefulness to him rise up 
 before her in the future. The path of her 
 intentions fork that way also. But, aside from 
 any disposition of his, she means to follow him 
 up. An intense admiration of the being who, 
 as it seems to her, has so calmly explored her 
 soul, has taken possession of her. She deter 
 mines that he shall help her, because he can; 
 that he was presumably willing to do so, that 
 she was anxious that he should do so, were 
 asides. She intended to apprentice herself to 
 Mr. Grosbeck, and the articles of apprenticeship 
 unrolled themselves before her at great length. 
 The preliminary lines she reads clearly, but
 
 THE LONG RUN 55 
 
 tnose which follow become confused, and the 
 conclusion is blurred and wholly uncertain. 
 What is certain is that she intends to learn a 
 great deal from Mr. Grosbeck, and to com 
 mence right away. 
 
 All this does not seem at all unsuitable to 
 Miss Longworth. She is not a young thing, 
 smitten with love at first sight, that she shall 
 be frightened away from making any sign of 
 herself to the man who has bewitched her. It 
 Is no more unsuitable that she should be the 
 one to make advances to this remarkable 
 country gentleman, old and odd, than that she 
 should " take up " anybody else ; and Miss 
 Longworth, as we have seen, is given to 
 taking up individuals here and there, who 
 strike her fancy or enlist her benevolence. Of 
 course she knows what might be said by foolish 
 or ignorant people; but, even if this were so, it
 
 5 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 would not be unbecoming in her. At the bot 
 tom lay the blue blood. Long-worthiness stood 
 in any possible gap. On the whole, Miss Long- 
 worth looked forward to the next day with a 
 zest that was an era in her hitherto languid 
 life.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 Miss LONGWORTH looked forward ten next 
 days before she again talked with Mr. Gros- 
 beck. Then Mr. Grosbeck called with his 
 mother, who made the effort with extraordi 
 nary graciousness. Mrs. Grosbeck highly ap 
 proved the Longworths, whose antecedents 
 were familiar to her, though she made nothing 
 of that in her intercourse with them. She had 
 suggested several times that Rufus should call 
 to' see the ladies, for Mrs. Longworth had 
 now joined her daughter in the country, not as 
 Mrs. Brown's guest, however, but as boarder 
 in the comfortable home of a parishoner. 
 
 8 57
 
 5 8 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 " Emeline is so infatuated with your little 
 village, Mr. Grosbeck," she said, by way of 
 disclaiming any infatuation herself. " I really 
 could not induce her to join me at the moun 
 tains, so I was induced to finish the season 
 here ; and, indeed, I like it very well so quiet 
 and retired. Quite the ideal of pure country 
 life!" 
 
 It is a question if Grosbeck would have 
 called at all, unless compelled to escort his 
 mother. For he was entirely without inten 
 tions concerning Miss Longworth. She had 
 not, spite of her own convictions, interested 
 him. It was the old story. The discontented 
 fine lady was poor pastime for a student. He 
 hoped at the time he had said something 
 to her that she would remember with profit; 
 but he, himself, had forgotten what it was by 
 the next day, and the interview left on him 
 only an impression of dilettanteism on both
 
 THE LONG RUN. 59 
 
 sides. It was natural to him to preach, and 
 he was accustomed to being listened to in 
 silence. To him there was nothing unpre 
 cedented in the occasion which formed an era 
 
 for Miss Longworth. If the considerations 
 
 i 
 
 concerning her, or rather, her class, which 
 moved him to speak as he did at the time, 
 occurred to him at all again, they came back 
 diluted, and he had as little faith in the sincer 
 ity of her discontent with the narrowness of her 
 life and nature as he had in her ability to make 
 herself more room. The anticipation of a pos 
 sible repetition of this interview did not interest 
 him. 
 
 On this evening of the call, Mr. Grosbeck, in 
 his complacent and ill-fitting role of society 
 man, fell to Mrs. Longworth, his mother quite 
 monopolizing the daughter, who was most assid 
 uous in her attention. This arrangement, how 
 ever, gave no one vivid satisfaction, unless it
 
 60 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 might be Mrs. Grosbeck, who wished to inves 
 tigate Miss Longworth. As for Emeline her 
 self, when her callers left, she felt doubly dis 
 appointed. 
 
 Disappointment succeeded disappointment. 
 Emeline saw Mr. Grosbeck at church and in 
 the street, but he showed no sensitiveness in the 
 recognition of her. Any other meeting which 
 happened between them was in the presence of 
 others and there was never an approach to his 
 first tutoiment. Of course, however, she could 
 not refer to it, and it harmonized with her ideal 
 of him that he should be too delicate to do so; 
 for he must have felt that it was all very unus 
 ual. He would know, too, how sensitive she 
 would feel about her own admissions. In this 
 
 line of argument she explained away her sur- 
 
 * 
 prises and disappointments. 
 
 It was not until the day before that fixed for 
 her departure from Stonewall that Miss Long-
 
 THE LONG RUN. 6 1 
 
 worth met Mr. Grosbeck alone. She had gone, 
 this September afternoon, to the same grove 
 where the picnic had been held, and had sought 
 the same spot where her feelings had been so 
 excited weeks ago. She had a volume of Ten 
 nyson in her hands, but she was more occu 
 pied with her own thoughts than with his. It 
 had swept all over her again the misery of 
 being nobody-m-particular, the unimportance of 
 her life, the painful sense of being cramped and 
 smothered by the things for which she was 
 envied and admired. The future, full of even 
 ing drawing-rooms flashing with beautiful dress 
 and fine manners; of crowded city-church ser 
 vices, where colored glass and waxy flowers 
 and soft music and chanted litanies mixed 
 soothingly; of high-art operas and concerts and 
 receptions, it all looked blank and gray to her 
 vision ; and all the more so because t"ie vivid chi 
 aroscuro with which this idealized man had lit
 
 62 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 up new, satisfying scenes for her, had seemed 
 to fade away from her and her life. She had 
 hoped so strongly for help from this seer who 
 had so divined her ! Poor Emeline ! her 
 thoughts are very simple and very sad this 
 afternoon. 
 
 She is thinking of Grosbeck now, wondering 
 about him humbly. For it has humiliated her 
 that she must conclude, at last, that she has no 
 attraction for him. She thought he would see 
 how he could help her and would come for that 
 if nothing else. She feels herself feebler than 
 she ever did before. 
 
 It happens there is really no necessity that 
 this convenient phrase shall involve the idea of 
 chance it happens that Grosbeck himself is 
 wandering this very afternoon in this very 
 place, with no thought of Miss Longworth 
 however, or remembrance of the interview of 
 which this spot was the theatre. But in his
 
 THE LONG RUN. 63 
 
 wandering he wanders to this spot, and the 
 sight of her there does not displease or disturb 
 him. 
 
 His footstep behind her startles her, and she 
 turns and meets his approaching face. He 
 smiles and in a moment stands before her, hat 
 in hand. She was rising, but he lays his hand 
 on her shoulder and she keeps her seat. The 
 coincidence of it all and she does not know 
 what (it is years before she owns that it was 
 his hand upon her shoulder) sends a sudden 
 wave of color over her face, which she resents 
 helplessly. He notices this, the blush and the 
 resentment, and both occur to him for deduc 
 tions afterward. 
 
 "I am glad to see you again, Miss Long 
 worth," he commenced. " I had supposed your 
 allowance of time for Stonewall was ex 
 hausted." 
 
 It all fell in with the general pitch of mood
 
 64 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 in Emeline's mind that he should have thought 
 her gone. 
 
 " I go to-morrow," she said simply. 
 
 'When we met here a month ago or was 
 it longer? I thought we should see each other 
 often " said Grosbeck. " We seemed to know 
 each other very well, at once." 
 
 What could she reply to this singular man? 
 It was not the Longworth who was at a loss. 
 The Longworths were never at a loss. 
 
 She wished to ask him why they had not 
 met? It seemed unkind in him to have held 
 himself so aloof. Resentment was alive in 
 Emeline. 
 
 "Yes?" she said feebly. 
 
 "Why, yes," echoed he. "I wonder why 
 we have not met oftener; because it has 
 happened so? As if that accounted for any 
 thing! No, it was somebody's fault."
 
 THE LONG RUN. 5 
 
 "You do not care for society, Mr. Grosbeck," 
 suggested Emeline. 
 
 " Sometimes " said Grosbeck. " Now this 
 afternoon, for instance, I was wishing for com 
 pany. But in the main I am an unsocial crea 
 ture, I fear. You think so, I know." 
 
 Emeline laughed. The Longworth would 
 make no personal confessions. 
 
 " Of course, come to think of it, that is what 
 you must think, for if any one is to blame 
 because I have not seen more of you, it must 
 be Rufus Grosbeck. He is a bad fellow, Miss 
 Longworth; a person who makes no more of 
 a blunder than of a crime. Yet, somehow, he 
 always seems to stand in his own light. What 
 do you think of him anyhow?" He asked this 
 last in a tone of audacious curiosity. 
 
 "How can I think anything of so great a 
 stranger?" responded Emeline.
 
 66 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 " Of course " he is scrutinizing her closely 
 now (and she knows it), as he stands there 
 leaning against a tree, his hat in his hand and 
 his great Saxon face beaming down on her, 
 "I knew you did not think anything of me. 
 I am ground slowly, but exceeding small. But 
 I will have my revenge next summer. You 
 are coming again then, and I shall devote two 
 weeks to you, by the clock." 
 
 It was one of Emeline's fixed purposes to 
 come to Stonewall the next summer. But how 
 did he know that? No matter, she could not 
 be displeased at his quiet assumption of her 
 purposes. She brightened visibly and said 
 gaily: 
 
 " Then I shall certainly come for two weeks. 
 I have ho end of questions I want to ask you, 
 Mr. Grosbeck. I have not forgotten anything 
 you said." 
 
 She was falling into her normal place at his
 
 THE LONG RUN. 67 
 
 feet. The woman had escaped from the 
 Longworth. 
 
 'What did I say? But no matter. lean 
 tell when you ask your questions." 
 
 Grosbeck rather dreaded the subjectivity of 
 too minute a recitation to him of his own elo 
 quence. Of course this woman was morbid, 
 as all such women were. His tone set the date 
 for resumption of their introspections ahead one 
 year, very decidedly. He looked at her book 
 and, without pausing, said: 
 
 "What! Tennyson? I should have sup 
 posed Wordsworth instead." 
 
 " In looking on the happy Autumn fields?" 
 asked Emeline. 
 
 " There is but one goddess, and Wordsworth 
 is her prophet," returned Grosbeck. "You 
 are a panthiest, I presume, Miss Longsworth?" 
 
 " I do not think I am very clear about what 
 I am, Mr. Grosbeck. It flatters me to be
 
 68 THE LONG PUN. 
 
 called anything. But please do not catechise 
 me. You found me out so completely the first 
 day you saw me! I was never so communi 
 cative.' 
 
 " I do not remember that you said much. I 
 thought I preached, mostly,' 1 responded Gros- 
 beck, indifferently. 
 
 " I said a great deal too much for my own 
 peaceful recollection," replied Emeline, eagerly. 
 
 She was nearing the talk round to the 
 "Woman-question" again, and, in its very 
 worst shape, the Longworth-lady question. 
 Grosbeck tacked. 
 
 " Forget everything that is not pleasant to 
 remember, as I do," said he, quietly. And 
 then, "What were you reading?" 
 
 " Nothing in the book, I think," replied Em 
 eline. It was open at Elaine. 
 
 "Are you sorrier for Elaine or Launcelot? " 
 asked Grosbeck, idly, as he glanced at the
 
 THE LONG RUN. 69 
 
 open page. A faint curiosity sprang into his 
 question, however. What could such women 
 find in such poems? 
 
 ' I think I never compared my respective 
 sympathies for the two," said Emeline. 
 
 " I think it was a mistake to kill Elaine, 
 don't you?" persisted Grosbeck. 
 
 "Why so?" asked Emeline, with coldness. 
 
 "Sweet is true love though given in vain!" 
 quoted Grosbeck. 
 
 "And sweet is death which puts an end to 
 pain! " retorted Emeline. 
 
 Grosbeck glanced at her. Could this modu 
 lated woman know anything of love or pain? 
 It jarred on him to hear her speak so. Worse, 
 that he had spoken so to her. 
 
 " We are not so sure of that," said he pres 
 ently. But whatever is uncertain, of one thing 
 there is no doubt in heaven or earth that 
 Love conquers in the long" run"
 
 7 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 He said these words (as if he expected, or 
 had had, contradiction) with a vehement 
 emphasis. But how he came to say them he 
 could never tell. If ever one's Aai^wv put 
 words into one's mouth he certainly did then. 
 Grosbeck was conscious of no motive, or rele 
 vance in these words, but, on the contrary, a 
 strong sense of their absurd irrelevance came 
 over him as soon as they were uttered. He did 
 not know what would come next, and resolutely 
 closed his lips, switching the fallen leaves 
 viciously, and looking hard at the ground. 
 But danger of any further sentimentalities was 
 averted by the sudden and sure apparition of 
 Mrs. Longworth, who was perceived by Erne- 
 line to rise steadily over the intervening hills, 
 with sails set hither. 
 
 Mrs. Longworth did not care to be quite so 
 woodsy as her daughter, and generally permit 
 ted Emeline to have an hour or two the start
 
 THE LONG RUN. 7 1 
 
 of her in all afternoon rusticities. But she 
 had far too accurate ideas of being the right 
 thing in the right place to affect no bucolics. 
 3he made it a matter of principle to sally forth 
 under her leghorn hat and Japanese umbrella, 
 every afternoon, soon after her daughter. The 
 direction her daughter intended for the after 
 noon was always ascertained, and a time and 
 place of meeting arranged, the appointment 
 being as regular and religious between the two, 
 as the church covenant. 
 
 At the view of this embodiment of Long- 
 -vvorthism making steady strokes toward them 
 and directing keen glances thither, herself, in her 
 composed freshness and state looking a fair 
 rival of her daughter, a change came over 
 both. 
 
 " There comes mother!" said Emeline. She 
 could have spared her from her side a little 
 longer.
 
 7 2 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 " A timely deliverance for you, Miss Long- 
 worth," laughed Grosbeck. " I felt symptoms 
 of an approaching fit of verbosity again, and 
 this time I fear we'd have had esthetics rather 
 than ethics. 
 
 By this time Mrs. Longworth was in speak 
 ing distance and Grosbeck had wriggled, in 
 stinctively, into his dearly-loved role of society 
 man. Mrs. Longworth had a certain blankness 
 of visage as she recognized her daughter's com 
 panion, which Emeline knew well how to inter 
 pret. Between the two, Emeline's manner lost 
 something of that repose which stamps the 
 caste of Longworth. She had not yet wholly 
 recovered from the ignominy of her confusion 
 on meeting Grosbeck. It was something so 
 new to her to lose anything of her elegant self- 
 poise of manner, that her rage and resentment 
 were far above the average, now that a fresh 
 foolishness fell upon her under the eye of her
 
 THE LONG RUN. 73 
 
 mother. She was no coward, however, and 
 pride and courage restored her indifferent calm 
 and grace, and the three fell into a set of be 
 coming utterances. 
 
 After a sufficient amount of compliment to 
 nature and each other, Mrs. Longworth re 
 minded her daughter that it was nearly tea- 
 time. 
 
 " I got rather a late start this afternoon, you 
 know, Emeline," said she, with an idea that 
 Grosbeck might think her behind in enthusiasm 
 for the country. 
 
 Emeline was not aware that her mother's 
 tardiness was exceptional, but made no reply. 
 They started toward their boarding-place and 
 Grosbeck strolled with them, with an air of at 
 tention to Mrs. Longworth, who chiefly kept up 
 the conversation. As he swung the little gate 
 between the ladies and himself at the cottage, 
 
 Mrs. Longworth made him a formal and polite 
 10
 
 74 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 adieu, with a little less brevity than might have 
 characterized her had it not been the eve of their 
 departure from Stonewall. To this gracious- 
 ness Grosbeck bowed low and responded be 
 comingly. To Miss Longworth he held out 
 his hand and smiled. 
 
 "Next summer then!" he said; "Good-bye!" 
 And somehow the woman of society found 
 no word to say but simply " Good-bye."
 
 CHAPTER VII L 
 
 THE next summer came. In its last month 
 the Longworths appeared again in Stonewall. 
 
 " They are only coming for this month," ex 
 plained Mrs. Brown to Mrs. Grosbeck. " Miss 
 Longworth has taken the greatest fancy to this 
 country, you know. I think it is almost 
 strange, too. Of course, its very pretty, but 
 then Emmy (Mrs. Brown felt that her most 
 intimate friend might be familiarly named to 
 Mrs. Grosbeck) has seen so much nicer, you 
 know. Has been everywhere and seen so 
 much! But Emmy is crazy about the country,
 
 76 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 anyway. To tell the truth, Mrs. Grosbeck, I ex 
 pect /am at the bottom of it.'" 
 
 Aggie felt that it must strike Mrs. Grosbeck 
 as inconsistent with the grandeur of the Long- 
 worths to come from preference to so small and 
 inexpensive a place as Stonewall, a second sum 
 mer, in the character of tourists. She went on, 
 smilingly, to explain. 
 
 " You know, Mrs. Grosbeck, they are coming 
 to my house. I believe, actually, that it is 
 nothing but that which brings them. Emmy 
 does manage such things so! It will be a reg 
 ular fortune to me, for they ivill not come un 
 less they can feel comfortable, you know. So 
 I have had to let them make their own terms, 
 and I expect I shall grow rich on my boarders!" 
 and Aggie laughed merrily. " It is so funny, 
 you know. One's friends! But Emmy is very 
 downright and makes such fun of me for feel 
 
 ing it."
 
 THE LONG RUN. 77 
 
 Mrs. Brown was delighted with the arrange 
 ment. 
 
 " Emmy says I shall have a trip myself," she 
 bubbled on. " Of course, she understands our 
 circumstances. Oh, I couldn't begin to tell you 
 how much she does for us. She is so down 
 right and delicate, you know." 
 
 Mrs. Brown was not morbidly sensitive. 
 
 So the Longworths, mother and daughter, 
 came. Mrs. Longworth yielded to consid 
 erations based upon the Browns, as argument. 
 Mrs. Longworth greatly enjoyed being benevo 
 lent, and dispensations to such people as the 
 Browns had a finer flavor than any other, from 
 the fact of their being " friends " people of parts 
 really excellent and valuable. The character 
 of discreet and unostentatious Lady Bountiful 
 to these as compared with miserable Woolwich 
 or even well-to-do Slycomb constituents high- 
 caste beneficiaries seemed more to enhance
 
 7 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 the sublimity of the line, than benevolence on a 
 greater scale on lower planes. Then, too, she 
 personally enjoyed Mrs. Brown and her baby, 
 and she highly approved of Mr. Brown as a 
 sound and orthodox clergyman. But she made 
 no affectation of interest in Stonewall. It was 
 monotonous and she could not see what Erne- 
 line found so superior in the views. As for the 
 people Sallie Slycomb was well enough as a 
 pretty, buxom country girl, if Emeline must be 
 always taking up such persons; but, as a whole,, 
 they were certainly disagreeable. She did not 
 mention any other names. Probably she did 
 not remember any one else, as an individual. 
 On the whole, Mrs. Longworth had no hanker 
 ing for Stonewall as Stonewall. She could not, 
 and would not get into the way of going there 
 summers; and Emeline should not. So this 
 summer's arrangement was a compromise be 
 tween the two. They would spend this month
 
 THE LONG RUN. 79 
 
 of August, exactly so much and no more, in 
 Stonewall. 
 
 Stonewall was unchanged. In the manse, 
 the first installment towards posterity had 
 been made in the person of an infant son. 
 
 " If it had been a girl, Emmy, I should have 
 named it after you," wrote Mrs. Brown, loy 
 ally. " But, being a boy, I must name it John, 
 of course. The first boy has been John for 
 ever in Mr. Brown's family, you know?" John 
 Brown, as a patronymic had acquired a sud 
 den historic distinctness and distinction, to the 
 young mother, not inferior to that of Plantag- 
 enet. 
 
 In the special circle swept by Miss Long- 
 worth the previous summer, the objective points 
 were undisturbed; the Slycombs advancing, 
 the Woolwiches receding in prosperity, as was 
 consistent and inevitable. The Grosbecks,
 
 8o THE LONG RUN. 
 
 mother and son, were also in statu quo to all 
 outward appearance. 
 
 " I see those Longworths are here to-day," 
 said Mrs. Grosbeck to her son as they dined on 
 the first Sunday after the arrival of Mrs. 
 Brown's friends. 
 
 "Are they! " replied Rufus absently. 
 
 "Why, yes," replied his mother, with some 
 impatience. "What do you look at, Rufus? I 
 do not see how you could help seeing them." 
 
 Mrs. Grosbeck dislikes some of her son's hab 
 its. His abstraction at unsuitable times espec 
 ially annoys her. Not that a scholar like Ru 
 fus could be expected to have his mind taken 
 up with trifles. Of course, it is occupied with 
 his studies, as is proper. But Mrs. Grosbeck 
 .expects everybody about her to behave suita 
 bly to the circumstances of time and place, 
 
 and really Rufus carries his head in the clouds 
 
 i 
 
 altogether too much. It makes a bad impres-
 
 THE LONG RUN. 8 1 
 
 sion on people. But that was the Grosbeck of 
 it! The Grosbecks all had a streak of eccen 
 tricity. 
 
 " There were a good many people there," 
 suggested Rufus. " And you know we did not 
 stop. They are on the other side, too." 
 
 He was sensitive about this failing of his. It 
 stung his self-satisfaction as a man among men 
 and a performer in ordinary roles. He fought 
 against it with a wasted energy, for he could 
 not overcome it. The truth was, he had a 
 study of his own which crammed his conscious 
 ness. And, in the quiet and ease of Sunday 
 mornings as he sat a model listener, staring fix 
 edly at Mr. Brown, it had come to be his fate 
 to be the victim of no end of fresh and vigor 
 ous ideas. What things eluded him as he 
 sought them in his study came to him, un 
 sought, as he sat in the pew. It was like the 
 
 hebdomadal ailments of the farmers for which 
 11
 
 82 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 they must consult the doctor on their way to 
 and from church; or the famous feminine Sun 
 day headache. Often by the time service was 
 over, Grosbeck was thoroughly abstracted, 
 though vaguely conscious of this abstraction, and 
 eager to conceal it, and careful to notice every 
 body who would notice him. But years of this 
 going up and down the not so dim aisle of the 
 little church, and filing past the same people 
 every Sunday had hardened their hearts as 
 well as his: so that, in case his mother had 
 staid at home, he often came away unable to 
 stand any examination as to " who was at 
 church?" It had come to be rather a 
 sore point with him. It made him un 
 comfortable to realize that he looked some 
 times at people without seeing them. Now that 
 his mother spoke of it, he had an indistinct 
 remembrance of a tall slender lady, with a good 
 deal of agreeable drapery, somewhere among the
 
 THE LONG RUN. 83 
 
 people this morning, as a person often sees the 
 most noticeable figure on a crowded can 
 vas. Probably, that was Miss Longworth. 
 What a pity it had not occurred to him before! 
 Grosbeck's thoughts of this sort were mainly 
 after-thoughts lagging along too late for 
 presentation, always. 
 
 That Miss Longsworth! Yes, he recollects 
 all about her now; the picnic, the preaching, 
 and all. He wonders what is her hobby now 
 if it is still herself! She has forgotten him, pos 
 sibly. He must see about that. It is rather a 
 dry time with Mr. Grosbeck. He is tired of 
 study and feels an inclination to diversion. If 
 he did not think that she might fasten to him 
 inconveniently, he would call right away. But 
 such empty-headed, idle ladies are great burrs! 
 So she had come again, had she? Thus he 
 mused over his Sunday cold roast; and when 
 his mother said, presently:
 
 84 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 " They are very nice people, those Long- 
 worths. We must call upon them in a day or 
 two." 
 
 He only replied: 
 
 " I am at your service. 
 
 They called the latter part of the week. 
 Grosbeck perceived at once that he was not at 
 all forgotten. Miss Longworth frankly showed 
 her interested remembrance of him, but made 
 no allusion to any special previous meeting 
 with him, though there was a certain confiding- 
 ness in her manner, when talking with him 
 alone, which intimated something of the tutoi- 
 ment in which she still believed. He was so 
 exactly as she remembered him! 
 
 As for Grosbeck, he found Miss Longworth 
 very different from his remembrance of her, 
 and vastly improved. Perhaps this was partly 
 because his remembrance of her did not do her 
 justice. But that did not account for all the
 
 THE LONG RUN. 85 
 
 difference. Evidently there was some new 
 vitalizing influence upon her. Probably she 
 was engaged! His speculations took a very 
 short cut to this conclusion. Her circum 
 stances or her nature did not generate for her 
 any such metamorphosis outside of an affair of 
 the heart. To fall in love was the only chance 
 for her as it was for most women. Well, it 
 was worth while, for it made another woman 
 of her. Her elegant aimlessness was, some 
 how, much mitigated, and the general lack 
 lustre air about her was quite gone. He dis 
 covers that she is exceedingly good-looking. 
 After all, a thoroughbred city woman's get-up 
 is a comforting sight. The harmony of tone 
 and tints and attitude is very agreeable to see 
 and feel, for one does feel them. This is his 
 consciousness as he, silent himself, observes her 
 as she talks gracefully to his mother. It is 
 pleasant, after all, to see this fine lady and have
 
 86 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 her around, and more normal, he reflects, to 
 the Grosbeck blood than the society of Stone 
 wall commoners. He feels it in him to be 
 fairly entertained, occasionally, by Miss Long- 
 worth. 
 
 Under such auspices does Emeline begin her 
 second campaign, laying, thus promisingly, her 
 soft sieges to the heart of Rufus Grosbeck. 
 
 For why attempt to deceive the reader as to 
 the facts in the case? The effort could scarcely 
 end in self-deception of the writer as to its suc 
 cess. The only one at all in the dark, I fear, 
 in this matter is Grosbeck himself; and his only 
 but sufficient apology, were he now to be 
 suddenly made aware of the facts, would be 
 that this situation was entirely phenomenal in 
 his experience. It was the only one of its 
 kind, so far. Thus would he exonerate himself 
 from the charge of self-depreciation as cause to 
 this unambiguous effect. For Grosbeck was
 
 THE LONG RUN. 87 
 
 as far as any man has ever 'been who can 
 measure the distance from feeling himself 
 suited by any secondary role in the cast for a 
 love affair. It was more likely to be himself 
 than anybody else, he always decided, when 
 any woman favored at all adequately with his 
 acquaintance showed symptoms of the grand 
 passion. But this woman had not been so 
 favored, and, in her case, another man must 
 be encumbered by her tenacious affections. 
 Under the circumstances she was not to blame, 
 and her attractions suffered no disparagement. 
 With him it was to be seen and to conquer; 
 but if not seen his fatality of conquest suffered 
 no impeachment by another's, so that there 
 was no reason why he could not conscientiously 
 approve of Miss Longwor'th in the situation to 
 which he predicated her. * In his younger and 
 foolisher days he had never felt any great de 
 gree of interest in engaged girls. But he was
 
 o8 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 no longer a boy and she was not a girl, and 
 Mr. Grosbeck really found Miss Longworth 
 very agreeable company. There was no sense 
 of responsibility about anything now; he was 
 not bothered by any fear that she might remain 
 on his hands in some tedious way, after these 
 pleasant interviews were past. He could wake 
 her up all he liked and have no bill to pay for 
 his entertainment. 
 
 So these two talked and walked all these 
 glorious harvest days freely as boy and girl. 
 He had forgotten all about the contract for the 
 promised two weeks, and Miss Longworth had 
 made no allusion to it. She saw Grosbeck 
 nearly every day of her stay in Stonewall.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 AN unexpected event prolonged Miss Long- 
 worth's allotted month in Stonewall to nearly 
 two months. A sudden exigency in real estate 
 business brought a peremptory summons to Mrs. 
 Longworth from one of the male members of 
 the line, to present herself upon the field of 
 her own interests and stay around conveniently 
 if she would secure them from damage. This 
 field was extensive and left the elder lady little 
 room for other anxieties. She lost sight of any 
 maternal suspicions which might fill the nest of 
 leisurely incubation, and fled to the scene of 
 possible disaster, leaving Emeline to follow 
 
 12 89
 
 90 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 when affairs were more settled and she could 
 herself repair to her city mansion. 
 
 So it came about that Emeline's furlough 
 was extended to something over three weeks 
 into September, weeks that have gone golden 
 and noiseless like the others, and have now 
 come to a close. With her, as with so many 
 another, the whole of life is now but to wait be 
 fore a fallen curtain, whose rising shall reveal 
 the pathway of life's future; that impenetrable 
 curtain which we call to-morrow. 
 
 It was on this day the last one of Miss 
 Longworth's stay in Stonewall that the drama 
 fell which is unrolling its scenes to Grosbeck, 
 as he paces there in the twilight all the time 
 we have been telling our story up to this 
 point. This day has brought upon him those 
 swift and thronging consequences which must 
 account for the letter in his pocket, and for sev 
 eral other items foreseen or unforseen by the
 
 THE LONG RUN. 9 1 
 
 reader. As Grosbeck sees this last scene we 
 may see it; it will look the same to both. 
 
 And this is what is to be seen. Ferns wav 
 ing in a breeze that grows gentler as the after 
 noon wanes to sunset. Under foot, beds of 
 moss, grey and green, dappled with the russet 
 gold of fallen beech leaves and the scarlet of 
 vivid squawberries, woven and wound with 
 long lacings of ground pine and ground cedar. 
 Towering pines whose tapering tops seem to 
 surge with the sound of sea-surf against an in 
 visible shore, and tall, erect hemlocks with only 
 a stiff cap of green at the summit of black trunks. 
 A tawny squirrel glancing up and down and 
 athwart the fallen trees which are lying every 
 where, streaked with the sunshine and spotted 
 with lichens. A snowy rabbit erect upon its 
 haunches, with drooping forefeet and pink 
 pointed ears; a dusky woodchuck wriggling 
 along the ground farther off. The sun laying
 
 9 2 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 long bars of gold amid the greens, pathway 
 of that Presence which invests the scene and 
 steals a reverence upon the intruder. One 
 must be very pure and true who hears not here, 
 the mandate procul, O -procul este profani!" 
 And this was felt by the intruders in their re 
 spective fashions! The tall, willowy figure of 
 the lady bending over the ferns, taking one here 
 and there gently from the mould, stepping 
 lightly from mound to mound . The man lying 
 with uncovered head upon a log yonder, follow 
 ing her movements with an indolent pleasure 
 in his gaze that misses not an item in the make 
 up of the scene. Neither one is speaking. 
 Their intercourse has come to be that of old 
 friends who feel no need to keep up the conver 
 sation. Neither is jealous of the silence 
 or speech of the other. She has the tact 
 which chats or is silent to suit his mood. He 
 always does as he feels. If he talks she is de-
 
 THE LONG RUN. 93 
 
 lighted to listen. If he is silent she waits, but 
 never lets the silence become awkward or bur 
 densome. 
 
 To-day, however, the silence is full of some 
 thing, and she does not break it. It is some 
 thing between them not felt before. It may be 
 with her the consciousness she does not for a 
 moment lose that it is her last day in 
 Stonewall. At the same time she is confident 
 that this something is not to be broken by to 
 morrow. A sense of this as certain as herself, 
 
 as sure as life or death or God, and yet ! 
 
 That is as near as we may come to this very 
 gentle lady's line of thought, or, should we 
 say ? feeling! It has been thus with her a 
 a long time. She was waiting, her soul listen 
 ing. Her faith never faltered that the moment 
 would come when another's recognition of this 
 something would transmute it from subjective 
 to objective possession. This has not come, so
 
 94 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 far why shall it not come to-day? To-day 
 she could not chat easily in the silences that 
 fell between her and Grosbeck. For the first 
 time in her life she felt as though she knew 
 how it is that sound and sight are interchange 
 able. Mrs. Browning's line " and through the 
 word I think their happy smile is heard " came 
 to her mind. It seemed as if in this trance of 
 Nature, or of herself, she knew not which, sounds 
 could be seen. 
 
 "Wenn Alles schiveigt ! '" murmured Gros 
 beck finally. She turned. She had not caught 
 his words, but she started and stood like a 
 hemmed-in creature whose pursuit has ended. 
 Her own consciousness was so intense she could 
 not tell, in a moment after, if he had spoken 
 aloud or not. Presently she sat down. 
 
 "Im stillen Haine geli* ich oft zu lauschen 
 ivenn alles scli-weigt" repeated Grosbeck dream 
 ily. "To listen, Emeline, when all is still "
 
 THE LONG RUN. 95 
 
 That means something, doesn't it? It makes 
 me think of Mrs. Browning's angel's smile 
 being heard do you remember? " 
 
 It did not seem strange to Emeline that these 
 lines in her own mind should be in his. 
 
 " Yes," she said. 
 
 Something struck him. In his own oblique 
 fashion he pursued the thought. 
 
 " But Mrs. Browning and Goethe were not in 
 the same boat when they sailed into this fancy, 
 I suppose. Goethe was in love, you know. 
 That's what made him hear things that other 
 ears were deaf to. I suppose he could hear 
 one of Lili's smiles, just as Mrs. Browning did 
 the angel's. If one is in love I suppose a 
 sixth sense absorbs and embraces all the 
 others." 
 
 He paused a little, and then went on: 
 
 " That's a pretty thing of Goethe's, now, isn't 
 it ? How it runs in one's head ! '
 
 9 THE LONG RUN 
 
 "Ich denke dein ... ! " 
 
 He repeated the four verses in that strange 
 vibrating voice which carried the pain and the 
 passion of the words. He could never say 
 them any other way. 
 
 Emeline did not understand the meaning of 
 every word of Goethe's German, but she felt 
 the meaning of the poem as a whole. And how 
 coulcl it be but that it was meant for her ? 
 
 " Ich denke demf" The cadence of those 
 words, as her heart caught and held them, was 
 intolerably tender. Grosbeck had not looked 
 at her at all in their recital, but lay with face 
 upturned to the blue sky showing richly 
 through the golden foliage of beech leaves 
 over-head. But Emeline expected that gaze. 
 Any instant he might turn those eagle eyes 
 upon her. Any instant it might come! He 
 would see all she was helpless to prevent it. 
 What could she do and what did she care to
 
 THE LONG RUN. 97 
 
 do? What was it that she wished to conceal 
 from him? She knew that she had never 
 made any confession of her love to him that 
 could not have happened yet. But, oh, he 
 knew it, he knew it! In the long winter it 
 all seemed winter between parting and meeting 
 she had reasoned it all out so clear. Philos 
 ophy confirmed feeling. The nature of things 
 was on her side. And her logic was it not 
 that of the seers, Mrs. Browning and Tenny 
 son? spite of Elaine? Every principle of 
 right and wrong and retribution gave their 
 testimony on her side. Her part was only to 
 wait. Had he not, himself, epitomized it all, 
 hundreds of days ago, when he said, u Love 
 conquers in the long run?" If "the course of 
 true love never did run smooth," it was, after 
 all, only the short run that was troub ed. Love 
 conquered in the long run! Way back in 
 those days she thought that he who saw so 
 
 13
 
 9 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 soon all there was to see must know that 
 he had won her then, and she believed this 
 because she believed he loved her with a love 
 that commenced then. And he had said this for 
 her, to her, about her. It was all consistent 
 with her theory that he should not have spoken 
 yet. It was like love, like him. Words might 
 linger mere words. She had been glori 
 ously happy and blessed in this interval of time. 
 It had been with Emeline, we see, quite like 
 the probation period assigned to converts in 
 certain religious persuasions, before confession 
 is made, and union publicly cemented with the 
 church. It may be that an accurate analysis 
 .and comparison of mental exercises would re 
 veal an involution of the same faculties in the 
 one case as in the other, and put a similar strain 
 upon each. 
 
 In Emeline's case faith had been equal to the 
 strain, and, because equal, unconscious of it.
 
 THE LONG RUN. 99 
 
 Doubt had found no room for play in her mind. 
 Her thoughts had been busy with the numerous 
 progeny of faith. Very practical points had 
 been provided for, in her mind. She had 
 thought over everything, was prepared for all 
 the Longworth set could say, or do. She was 
 ready to encounter all argument and contra 
 diction and to reconcile all incongruities 
 and inequalities. For Emeline's love by no 
 means annihilated in her mind the sense of cer 
 tain clear incongruities and inequalities; she 
 had passed, some years before, the age at 
 which such inconsequence was possible. Nei 
 ther was her mind of that fibre that she could 
 dispose of such difficulties by handing them 
 bouyantly over to that vague agency whose 
 unkept promise it is that "these things 
 'will all come out right! " Not at all, for on the 
 contrary, Emeline's ingenuity had been well 
 exercised to meet future exigencies; and ner
 
 100 THE LONG RU<\~. 
 
 resolution had received a thorough military 
 education. Farther ahead, too, she had gone. 
 The woman in the hush of innermost con 
 sciousness she whispered to herself, the 'wife / 
 came out clear and finally disenthralled 
 from the Longworth, and, in the sphere of that 
 future, considered ways and means, matters 
 which she felt would and must be hers to man 
 age. The most homely details were familiar 
 to her love's frequent rehearsal of this future. 
 And yet and yet now that it was coming, 
 was here, she shrank and trembled ! It seemed 
 to her that she could not bear that he should 
 turn and look upon her. Everything stood 
 still. A lies schweigt! Yet It was everywhere. 
 The mosses throbbed with It. The beech 
 leaves melted their gold out dazzlingly under Its 
 radiance. The squawberries seemed sphered 
 and palpitating blood-drops. Everything lived, 
 but held its breath. She could never tell how 
 long the hush was.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 It was some time before Grosbeck spoke. 
 He reclined upon his log, with face still upturned, 
 looking full of comfort and confidence. The 
 comfort sensuous and nervous; the confidence 
 a kind of arrogance that often looked forth 
 from his eyes, and seemed to appreciate, as his 
 own, any pleasant possession toward which he 
 might stretch his hand. Emeline knew this 
 look and felt that in meeting his gaze now she 
 should encounter it. 
 
 Grosbeck's thoughts were not, however, in 
 that taut, golden line along which our pure, sim 
 ple Emeline conceived them. Yet, she was in 
 
 101
 
 102 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 them. As he lounged there he had before been 
 following her movements among the ferns and 
 mosses. Saturated with the sunshine, soothed 
 with peace and beauty of the scene, fitted there 
 to his log like a lichen, she had filled the mus 
 ing of his mind, and his speculations were of 
 her, just as a squirrel or rabbit, had either hap 
 pened to enter his idle sensorium, might have 
 sent him speculating on animal instinct or the 
 transmigration of souls. He noticed that she 
 was very quiet this afternoon, and there was 
 something about it! She was a graceful 
 woman, though over tall! Every woman 
 could not manage two or three superfluous 
 inches so well. Who was this man she was in 
 love with? Some genteel fellow or other, with 
 some catch or other that other genteel fellows 
 of her set did not have, by which she could 
 idealize and idolize him into extraordinary pro 
 portions for Grosbeck was conscious that
 
 THE L ONG R UN. 103 
 
 something out-of-the-common must be mixed 
 with the bait that would hook this fine lady. 
 Likely as not some clever preacher, possibly a 
 Methodist or Presbyterian, furnished with a 
 double bank of keys, one of which responded 
 to the touches of religion, art and ethics with 
 its treble tremolo, the other thrilling with am 
 biguous basso tones, evolved by the solicitations 
 of certain susceptibilities toward Longworth 
 loaves and fishes. The tune need not be actu 
 ally discordant. It was just such a fellow who 
 would wake up this sort of a woman. He 
 would come at her with sledge-hammers of 
 personal devotion, having already made her 
 malleable with blows of pulpit eloquence. If 
 he had not a passion for her he would have a 
 passion for hers. If he did not love the 
 woman he would love the Longworth. 
 
 At first that seemed unfair to Emeline, but, 
 after all, it perhaps was an even thing. She
 
 104 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 got the good of it, just the same, and the man 
 would, too. If deceived at all, neither need ever 
 be undeceived. A fine lady of this type was 
 too selfish to have an enthusiasm which did not 
 involve herself; too limited to have it for a pur 
 suit or an idea ; for anything but a person. It 
 was only could be only the directest influ 
 ence that could develop purpose or passion in a 
 .nature so filtered of energy. It must be a man 
 full of strong red blood who could vitalize her 
 bluish serum. Well, he hoped it was a good 
 man whom Emeline was going to marry. She 
 deserved a good man. She was a good woman. 
 It was in this strain, ( " Oh, lago, the pity of 
 it ! ") that Grosbeck mused, and became 
 interested in his speculations. After all, could 
 such a woman love ? That long hand, drawing 
 the fern so gently from the mould, without 
 bruising a frond or breaking a stem, 
 could it clutch anything! What sort of a grip
 
 THE LONG RUN. IO 5 
 
 could it give! Could the blue blood ever turn 
 to red and throw off its feebleness? If Emeline 
 had been sitting near he would have pursued 
 his studies experimentally. No considerations 
 of breeding or humanity would have embar 
 rassed his mood for vivisection. But she 
 seemed interested in getting the nicest ferns 
 and was moving here and there; so he let her 
 alone. She is, of course, thinking of her 
 lover, he says to himself. That is the under 
 current of everything now. Probably in that 
 careful selection of ferns she was adjusting 
 them mentally upon the walls of her boudoir 
 and drawing-room that was to be. That was 
 what made her so still; by the way, how 
 still it was! He turned himself and looked up 
 through the gold leaf of the beeches. To lie 
 and look heavenward in a forest is to banish 
 common-place speculation. The Presence in 
 the temple is felt. It fell upon Grosbeck from 
 
 14
 
 IO6 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 the luminous leaves, and cleared his counte 
 nance of all save worshipful reverie. Some 
 where in its train those words of Goethe's 
 came, and he murmured them aloud: "Wenn 
 A lies schiueigt!" Presently the whole poem 
 came, as we have seen, and something in the 
 last verse, perhaps or the consciousness that 
 Miss Longworth was quietly sitting near him 
 listening, brought her and his speculations 
 concerning her back to his mind. 
 
 " Pshaw! Why cannot a person keep still? " 
 he said, rising and shaking himself. " It is all 
 over now this full silence. The goddess, like 
 the squirrels, will not bear the human babble. 
 If we would enter into her holy of holies we 
 must ' listen when all is still.' ' 
 
 "Why don't you say something, Emeline? " 
 he added, in a moment, with a sudden irrita 
 tion in his voice. All at once the silence 
 between them jarred upon him instead of har-
 
 THE LONG RUN. 1 07 
 
 monizing with his mood. He turned and 
 looked at her. 
 
 She had not heard his words, only his voice, 
 and had felt his gaze. She only realized that 
 the moment had come when he should see. It 
 seemed to her as if her love was bare beneath 
 his eyes, and a swift wave of shame such a 
 proud shame ! toppled over everything else 
 and bore her down under it. Lower and 
 lower the proud head fell, the woman striving 
 with and overcoming the Longworth. All 
 her consciousness was filled with whirring 
 wheels; nothing clear but his voice, his eye. 
 
 " You needn't mind if you can't talk of any 
 thing but that fellow you are in love with, 
 Emeline. I know all about that, and I'm wil 
 ling to be cut out and talk about him if you 
 won't talk about anything else." 
 
 With these words for an opening wedge, 
 Grosbeck meant to pry into the phenomena
 
 IO8 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 of Miss Longworth's passion and satisfy his 
 curiosity concerning it. But his self-rehearsal 
 left him speechless when the curtain rose. 
 
 What was this? It came upon him, the 
 sight of this proud lady so distressfully con 
 fused, like the sight of her in some sudden 
 danger, only that then he would have sprung to 
 her side to rescue her. But now he is paralyzed 
 in his place, and, without realizing that he 
 speaks, cries out: 
 
 "Why, Emeline!" 
 
 Only those two words. In a moment more 
 he turned, for men have instinct if not intui 
 tion of these matters. Perhaps, too, it was 
 resistance to a counter impulse that put him 
 some paces away, and employed him with sud 
 den energy in freeing from its tree trunk a 
 fine fungus he had observed while lying in his 
 listless mood, meaning to get it for her when he 
 rose. He was a long time about it, but
 
 THE LONG RUN. 109 
 
 finally he laid it in her lap, standing behind 
 her. 
 
 " That's a good shape for a bracket, is it 
 not? " he asked practically; and then, without 
 waiting for an answer, added: "We must go 
 home, Emeline; you will take cold there; see, 
 the sun is setting! " 
 
 His voice was unspeakably indulgent and 
 kind, but she said nothing, and gave no other 
 sign of having heard him than by rising and 
 following him as he, without looking at her, 
 strode on before. The hanging branches and 
 underbrush made his excuse for this, but he 
 did not hold them now, for her to pass, as he 
 had in entering the woods. 
 
 When they came into the meadows he fell 
 back at her side, but did not at once speak or 
 look at her. If he said anything, it must be 
 anything but comment or curiosity concerning 
 her mood; and, somehow he was not ready to
 
 1 10 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 affect the irrelevant and common-place. In 
 fact, a singular excitement was gaining upon 
 him. He had been trying to analyze this thing 
 with all the logic he could summon at the 
 moment's notice, but found himself bewildered 
 beyond precedent. One instant he called him 
 self a fool for the sudden suspicion that he was 
 the man Emeline loved; for what possible proof 
 had he of it? What but a baseless fancy bred 
 of his egotism was it which had struck this 
 conceit into his mind. True, her confusion 
 was unaccountable otherwise, but that was 
 to say that he could not account for it. Per 
 haps, after all, he did not understand her so 
 well as he had supposed. And then into his 
 reasoning would suddenly fly feeling, a presen 
 timent perhaps, but tenacious and self-asserting 
 as a bat in one's hair. And it would alternate 
 the man's reason against his instinct. The 
 alternation made him curious, and curiosity ran
 
 THE LONG RUN. Ill 
 
 up to the boiling point. It was absurd, this 
 situation. He must understand. She must 
 understand. Why did she say nothing? It 
 was the first time the established camaraderie 
 between these two had been embarrassed. 
 And then it rushed over him with a flood of 
 novel pathos: What if she did love him? 
 What would it be to evolve the woman that 
 "was so smothered, and to watch the leading of 
 the eivig iiueibliche? The query kindled some 
 thing in him. He felt the magnetism of this 
 conjectural passion at his side and many wave 
 lets of emotion played upon him as he walked. 
 The sun had set when they had emerged 
 from the woods, and by the time the path 
 where we had seen him pacing alone was 
 reached, the early September twilight had set 
 in. A few paces more and they had reached, 
 still silent, the little bridge that arched above
 
 112 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 the little stream running fast away below. 
 Grosbeck halted. 
 
 "Listen, Emeline !" he said. 
 
 He closed his eyes to listen. It was a trick 
 of his. The brook spelled out its vocal cipher 
 in his ears, catching up into its hieroglyph all 
 the mystery in his mind. In a moment more 
 he would think of the right thing to say. 
 
 But before this moment came Emeline looked 
 at this man she loved. A desperate will arose 
 in the woman, that was not to be denied. 
 
 As if he had been touched, he opened his 
 eyes to meet hers. As if those long, narrow 
 hands, filled with ferns, had drawn him with 
 irresistible power, he bent toward her. In an 
 instant that happened which he would, an hour 
 ago, have deemed as impossible to occur as for 
 the sun to whirl into the earth his lips rested 
 and lingered upon hers. 
 
 "Do you love me, Emeline?" he said.
 
 THE LONG R UN. 1 1 3 
 
 Her voice sounded out clear and solemn, as 
 if before the marriage altar and a world of 
 Longworths. "I do. 1 ' 
 
 She stood erect and noble, her face transfig 
 ured. To Grosbeck's imagination her form 
 seemed to expand and grow colossal, like a 
 goddess. Unspeakable tenderness seemed to 
 well up and overflow her, till her aspect was 
 glorious and awful. 
 
 What had befallen Emeline in the wood be 
 fell Grosbeck now. Confronting this transfig 
 ured woman he instantly realized their mutual 
 relations. A chasm deep and broad opened 
 between him and the woman he had just kissed. 
 Standing still so near that her dress brushed 
 his hand, he felt immeasurably distant. In 
 such supreme moments consciousness does not 
 detail the items of the situation separately and 
 in succession. They rise like a panorama of 
 the whole, grouped and in proper relation be- 
 
 15
 
 114 THE LONG RUN 
 
 fore the vision. Every circumstance from the 
 meeting at the picnic, more than a year ago, in 
 which any significant word or look had passed 
 between them, stood out as clear in its meas 
 ure of contribution toward the present as did 
 the deed and words of the minute past. What 
 of retrospect happens to a drowning man, hap 
 pened then to Grosbeck. The pain, the pity, 
 the pathos, and as potential an item in that 
 retrospect the vague pledge of its conse 
 quences with a terrible sense of self-intrication, 
 overwhelmed him. How long all this lasted 
 he could not have told, but he heard the man's 
 voice which broke the spell it seemed another 
 man who spoke saying, "Good night, !" 
 and her slow answering, "Good night, dear, 
 good night!" 
 
 And Emeline walked the little path to the 
 rectory gate, alone.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The next morning Grosbeck appeared at his 
 tete-d-tete breakfast with his mother, exhibit 
 ing every sign, to her practiced eye, of an ap 
 proaching hunt. She was not surprised there 
 fore, when, on rising from the table, he said: 
 "I saw some partridges in the woods the other 
 day, mother, and I'm going for them to-day." 
 
 But she was surprised when, early in the 
 afternoon, she saw him striding across the 
 meadows homeward, and heard his study-door 
 close almost immediately after the street door. 
 
 It is here and now where we first saw him 
 writing the letter which lies in his pocket as 
 
 115
 
 1 1 6 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 he has been pacing there in the twilight where 
 we left him. We have seen what he sees, and, 
 in the time it has taken us to do this, he should 
 surely have come to some decision and finished 
 his meditations. 
 
 Well, he certainly is not where we left him. 
 Neither do we come upon him at any point in the 
 path between this and the little white gate of 
 the rectory. He may be, doubtless he is, 
 within the modest manse settling his affairs in 
 person; indeed, he must be there, for the lady 
 leaves to-morrow. In this case we shall not 
 dare to intrude, but will go back and spy 
 about his study for any hints that may further 
 our acquaintance with Mr. Grosbeck, and con 
 tribute toward our opinions as to his future. 
 
 But, alas! here in his study is the man him 
 self, and he seems to have come to no decision, 
 after all. If so, it is not clear to us what possible 
 relevance his present occupation has to this con-
 
 THE LONG RUN. 1 1 7 
 
 elusion. He is writing again rapidly but not 
 uninterruptedly. He stops constantly, casting 
 sharp looks upon the manuscript leaves lying 
 ludibria ventis all about his cave, and 
 peering now and then into the French and 
 German as well as English volumes that are 
 piled around. These books bear titles that 
 show them to be works on the science of geol 
 ogy, and are useful to him in the paper he is 
 preparing to prove that the firmament as used 
 in the Scriptures means, beyond a question, the 
 crust of the original earth. He has decided to 
 do nothing else until this argument is com 
 pleted; and that may take him some weeks. 
 Afterwards, if need be, he will review this 
 other affair. 
 
 The letter lies where he has irritably thrown 
 it on coming in. His mood is not one of self- 
 satisfaction; for he has not at all succeeded in 
 clearing his mind as to what is "best to do,
 
 1 1 8 THE LONG R UN. 
 
 under the circumstances" He has groped 
 about there in the circumstances until the sit 
 uation, from being sublime, has sunk to the 
 ridiculous, almost. Nothing seems so absurd 
 and disgusting to him as hopeless perplexity. 
 He has a great pride in seeing and then doing. 
 He believes, with Goethe, that with regard to 
 most of the affairs of life, it is "but to perceive 
 and then to perform." But this time he cannot 
 add with his German master, "it is very easy." 
 Perhaps you and I are already suspecting, 
 reader, that the difficulty lies in the fact that 
 the most influential item of this perplexity 
 of Grosbeck's is one which he will not 
 admit to be present. Of course, if this be the 
 case, he can never arrive at a solution. Char 
 acteristically he throws the whole subject aside 
 with the letter, though that he intends to put 
 away after a while. 
 
 " It will keep," he says. And he thinks "so
 
 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 will she and I. It is f oolisher to keep tink 
 ering at this muddle, than to leave it alone 
 until I see things more clearly." And he turns 
 his back, bends his head over his table and 
 goes on with his manuscript. 
 
 And now, if ever, we may look into this 
 unfriended epistle and judge for ourselves con 
 cerning its adaptation to the situation. Read, 
 then, for it is our last chance ! 
 
 " Emeline, my friend, I have to seek your for 
 giveness. I have done you a wrong, a griev 
 ous wrong, for which a hot shame burns my 
 cheek no less than blasphemy against your 
 womanhood. It is this which I have to ask 
 you to forgive, ask you if you can forget; 
 though I know not what will ever wipe 'it from 
 my consciousness. 
 
 " I seek in vain for self-justification. Is it, 
 then, a matter to dwell so heavily in memory, 
 that some tender words should be said in sep 
 arating, that friends should kiss in parting? 
 
 U A11 the same, the memory comes back to me
 
 120 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 freighted with a mill-stone's weight. The 
 weakness of your majesty is pain to me. You 
 stand so helpless, Emeline. On a sudden there 
 has come upon you so pitiful a pillage of all 
 your reticence, your self-containedness, your 
 dignity of disguise. You stand so uncovered, 
 Emeline. All at once, from your slender 
 hands has fallen mercilessly the power to droop 
 so gracefully aside. Your face, always so har 
 monized to the mild emotions of good society, 
 has lost its veil and confronts me in the divine 
 distortion of its infinite passion Das eivig 
 Weibliche ! 
 
 " I ought never to have seen this sight. Never 
 to have evolved it by the swift impulse which 
 flung my arms about you and laid my lips on 
 yours though I swear to you, Emeline, that 
 I knew not what I did !. My sin is that of one 
 who, with no worship in his soul, invades the 
 innermost of the tabernacle, only to see with 
 his eyes its hushed and sacred splendor, to pil 
 lage with his hands its celestial treasure. Such 
 is my folly, Emeline ! Above all soft words of 
 sophistry excusing, reducing, echoes the scream 
 of conscience Fool! Fool!
 
 THE LONG RUN. I 2 I 
 
 "You love me, Emeline! I have not sought 
 to win your love in our past pleasant friend 
 ship. I had not consciously lifted a finger to 
 beckon you to me. I had not cared to. 
 
 " Now I do care. I have lifted a finger to 
 beckon and to grasp. I have seen the great 
 sun of your never before sun-filled soul, rising 
 under my eyes, welling out its billows of radi 
 ance. I have caught a glimpse of what your 
 nature's landscape, emerging for its twilight, 
 would unroll to my "vision, and a greedy, es 
 thetic passion leaps toward it. I would explore 
 that landscape. 
 
 " I do not love you, Emeline, but you love me ! 
 An old, too-familiar passion of research and 
 acquisition kindles beneath your beams. It 
 would never rest until it had hunted you to 
 your last cover and captured you there ! and, 
 before God and all the witnesses in the back 
 ground, I will not move an inch! 
 
 " Let the past suffice ! 
 
 " I take your long hands, Emeline, and fold 
 
 them over your heart. They must be its 
 
 shield. Go your way, and let me go mine! 
 
 What need has been subserved, we shall, per- 
 
 16
 
 122 THE LONG J? UN. 
 
 haps, some day know and acknowledge with 
 satisfaction. For the present, we can have no 
 more to do with each other. Yet, sometime 
 and somewhere, if we walk along the same 
 lines, we must meet! 
 
 " You do not admit of any pity. I do, and I 
 think you will not withhold it. 
 
 "Good bye, then, Emeline! The cadence of 
 your "Good night, dear! good night!" will 
 never get so far back in any corridor of time 
 but I shall hear its echo. And I say now, 
 good-bye. It is the only good thing I can 
 say."
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Common sense, practical people will consider 
 that, with the brave epistle above, our story 
 must have reached its conclusion; one "lame 
 and impotent," perhaps, yet, necessarily, the 
 end. For, collecting from its jargon that small 
 gist which we can comprehend, it would seem 
 tolerably clear that our modern Elaine is most 
 thoroughly jilted. We are now prepared for 
 the barge and the burial, with such modifica 
 tions of its pomp and circumstance as must be 
 admitted in the case of an Elaine Longworth. 
 Also, we shall expect a suitable disposition of 
 Mr. Launcelot Grosbeck, who will, doubtless
 
 124 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 continue to muse by the water-courses of 
 Stonewall, it not being feasible to retire to 
 a more forsaken mere for the purpose of re 
 maining ignorant that he should die a holy 
 man. Such would be our just and reasonable 
 expectations. 
 
 But the master who manages this panoramic 
 performance, and such like, seems not to regard 
 the unities of the piece, as such unities are con 
 cerned in its denouement; for while we are 
 supposing that we have seen the last of this 
 show, and are gathering ourselves up for an 
 exodus, he slides in another scene and compels 
 our attention to fasten itself thereon. 
 
 Sunrise here, in place of sunset, and cold 
 December instead of September! 
 
 Rufus Grosbeck stands this morning at his 
 study window looking forth a somewhat un 
 wonted situation in which to find this gentle 
 man at this hour of the day. It happens thus
 
 THE LONG RUN, 125 
 
 occasionally, however, as he is irregular in his 
 rise and set, especially the latter. 
 
 He is unprepared for the scene that meets 
 his gaze. For three days and nights a sullen 
 east wind dashing frozen rain against his win 
 dow, has alternated with a wild west wind that 
 whirled snow in clouds before it. It was so 
 last night and now ! 
 
 A powder of the finest, freshest snow covers 
 all scars and removes all traces of conflict. It 
 threads each deep green needle of the Norway 
 pines yonder, with its flaxen filament. It fluffs 
 the outlines of the garden flower-beds and lays 
 its ermine soft upon the sleeping pansies. It 
 coils a white rope to the rounds of the ladder 
 leaning against the woodshed's roof. It rolls 
 off in foamy wave after wave on the meadow 
 yonder. It climbs the hill and stretches away, 
 whitening the dark brows of the aged hemlock, 
 that sentinel between sky and earth in the
 
 126 THE LONG RUN, 
 
 picket line of the horizon. But this way, in 
 the east, the scarlet sun is bursting through 
 this line, and rose-petal vapors are puffing up 
 the sky, drifting and curling away to the west. 
 Now the rose-heart of the sun has turned to 
 yellow, and is raying everywhere its molten 
 splendor, tinting with gold the embroidery of 
 frost upon the window panes, laying golden 
 bands upon the snow, unfurling golden banners 
 off on meadow and on hill. Such a morning, this, 
 as makes a man oblivious of a wretched, sleep 
 less night, oblivious of a defeated past. The 
 most brow-beaten of fortune feels that he can 
 go forth to battle again to-day. 
 
 One would expect a man of Rufus Gros- 
 beck's temperament to be enraptured with 
 this scene; and, as he turns quickly from 
 its contemplation and seats himself on his 
 table, taking pen in hand, we are satisfied that 
 he has received an afflatus and will turn out
 
 THE LONG RUN, 
 
 something congenial to his poetic mood, and 
 ours. The circumstance that, as he turns, he 
 looks at his watch, seems somewhat inconson 
 ant with a fine phrensy. Its vicious snap jars 
 upon our senses inharmonious with expected 
 tuneful numbers, but we forget that as he 
 dashes away at the poem. 
 
 It must be brief, though the god tears with 
 greatest rage ; for in a minute he lays down his 
 pen. Neither should we have expected that 
 this effusion would be addressed to his 
 mother. We had not looked for such filial 
 passion, and had not supposed that old Mrs. 
 Grosbeck would be warmed up to sunrise son 
 nets at breakfast of a winter morning, before 
 the mercury had come to something. Such, 
 however, seems the direction of this inspira 
 tion, for Mr. Grosbeck now steps from his 
 study with this slip of paper in his hand, and, 
 entering the dining room where a Teutonic
 
 128 THE LONG RUN. , 
 
 maid, not yet thawed to much energy of move 
 ment, is stepping solidly around in preparation 
 of the breakfast table, lays it on his mother's 
 plate and goes out again. Nearly an hour 
 later as the fine old lady sits over her toast 
 and coffee, she reads as follows: 
 
 " I have decided to go to town to-day, 
 Mother, and take the early train. I shall, 
 probably, return to-morrow evening. 
 
 RUFUS." 
 
 The old lady lays down the slip with equa 
 nimity and proceeds to her smoking cup. Rufus 
 had said a day or two before that he was 
 about ready to visit his publisher. There is 
 nothing remarkable in his going except its 
 early hour. She is glad he has so fine a day. 
 
 The evening is worthy of the morning. 
 The western horizon gapes with crimson 
 wounds that drop their heavy ichor on city 
 spires and dome, and redden city windows
 
 THE LONG RUN. 1 29 
 
 where the golden sun beats through; 
 wounds that are not staunched till Venus, 
 throbbing great and tender, rises to bind them 
 up with love. Ready in the zenith waits the 
 jealous little moon, lighting up to some pur 
 pose, now that her mighty rival has gone by. 
 The city scintillates. A jargon of sleigh- 
 bells and merry voices fill the air. Elegant 
 looking gentlemen hurry along the streets, and 
 enter and alight from splendid equipages 
 Handsome homes hint their warmth and 
 splendor through broad windows. At the 
 door of one of these residences stands a gentle 
 man we have seen before; not, it must be con 
 fessed, especially noticeable for elegance, 
 though he has a certain carriage that pre 
 serves him from insignificance. As he enters 
 the hall, murmuring his inquiries to the ser 
 vant, another gentleman passes out: not, evi 
 dently, the acquaintance Grosbeck seeks 
 
 17
 
 13 THE LONG RUN 
 
 here, for he looks at the incomer with the quick, 
 shrewd glance of the busy city man, who 
 knows everybody in town, and sees you to be 
 a stranger in the city. He hears, however, the 
 question Grosbeck asks, and seeing the card 
 intrusted to the servant, bows courteously 
 as he passes out. 
 
 Grosbeck enters and is shown into the draw 
 ing-room, which is quite unoccupied, it being 
 an unusual hour for calls. The city dinner is 
 but just over, and positions for the evening are 
 not yet taken. All this is very agreeable to 
 Grosbeck, who wishes to see but one inmate of 
 this house, and to see her alone. He cannot 
 conceive a spur that would bring out the paces 
 of a society man this evening.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The sable Mercury wings his way aloft, bear 
 ing to the goddess the pasteboard in his hand, 
 which her maid transmits, having cast an 
 oblique look upon the name, as is her wont in 
 all such transmissions; for the lady is in her 
 boudoir, and the maid is dressing her hair 
 for the evening. A less oblique glance would 
 do, if obliquity were not her necessity, to 
 reveal to the French girl at the lady's back 
 that lady's agitation as reflected from the mir 
 ror before her, at the receipt of this card. A 
 sudden pallor falls upon her face. 
 
 "Be quick, Toinette, and put my hair back 
 
 131
 
 1 3 2 7VZE LONG R UN. 
 
 for this dress. I will not change it this even 
 ing. I shall not go out." 
 
 But to our troubled Emeline the maid's nim 
 ble fingers seem, one instant, to drag insuffer 
 ably, as she would have flown into her visitor's 
 presence; the next instant, to fly intolerably as 
 she trembled at the thought of meeting him. 
 She knows now that her long and strange per 
 plexity is to have an end. 
 
 A pitifully agitated woman it is who de 
 scends the staircase finally in her dinner dress, 
 stopping once, one hand upon her heart, the 
 other clutching at the railing for support. But 
 the lady who finally enters the drawing-room 
 is no less, no other than Miss Longworth, with 
 the Longworth aspect never so distinct. Gros- 
 beck himself does not look unkingly. He feels 
 at home in the atmosphere of this house and 
 suitably surrounded. The mellow luxury of 
 the beautiful apartment, with its nameless tone
 
 THE LONG R UN. 133 
 
 and tint, carry into his nerves a subtle soothing 
 and stimulus. He fits as comfortably to the 
 elegant chair, into whose phish depths he sinks, 
 as he did to the lichened log in the forest. 
 The subdued glow of chandelier serves him for 
 that September sun, and a similar, yet differing 
 mood steals over him. The same half-sensu 
 ous, yet brighter, smile plays over his broad 
 fair face, and seems to radiate from his tossing, 
 yellow hair. His nervousness has vanished and 
 his eyes betray the same self-confidence in his 
 thought, and a greater arrogance. He is so 
 sure it is all as he has planned it. 
 
 In such a frame did the entrance of Miss 
 Longworth find him. His spirits had risen to 
 a pitch of positive playfulness. He shrank 
 away as far as possible from the door by which 
 he expected she would enter, meaning to enjoy 
 the searching of her eyes before she found him,
 
 134 THE LONG R UN. 
 
 and to spring upon her from ambuscade, as it 
 were, capturing her by a coup des bras. 
 
 In pursuance of this playful strategy he did 
 not confront Miss Longworth until she stood 
 beneath the full radiance of the chandelier. 
 She had advanced to the center of the room 
 and there stood. Grosbeck had started impet 
 uously forward, but stopped. He had a sud 
 den sensation as of a blow in the face, and cer 
 tainly no real blow could have left stronger cir 
 cumstantial evidence of itself thereon. His 
 face the poor gentleman ! was sadly 
 streaked, red where the lashing fingers fell, 
 white in the space between. Let none, hence 
 forth, argue to him that Fate does not mete 
 out even retributions. Emeline, huddled and 
 crimsoned in the forest, was never so sorry a 
 figure as he. 
 
 What does he see which so transforms him 
 from his kingly, confident mood, to this abject
 
 THE LONG RUN. 135 
 
 confusion? The tender lady whose love had 
 slain all her maiden reticence and overflowed 
 in red tides all the barriers of her will, in the 
 forests ; the towering torrent of confession 
 from eyes at last unveiled, and welling forth 
 fathomless yearning toward him, as she stood 
 transfigured and divine upon the bridge; the 
 gracious pleasant comrade of all the days be 
 fore; it was from these images that Gros- 
 beck had evolved in the merrily bubbling cru 
 cible of his imagination and but a moment be 
 fore had so beheld the form of her he would 
 confront. And now not one fibre of all this 
 material went toward the making up of this 
 woman la grande dame sans merci before 
 whom he cowered. He could not identify a 
 single item in this figure, nor lay a finger 
 anywhere upon his own. 
 
 " Why, how do you do ! Mr. Grosbeck ! " 
 That voice, too! Grosebeck's petrifaction
 
 136 THE LONG RUN 
 
 took on an extra layer at the sound. He had 
 forgotten all tones of Miss Longworth's voice 
 except the tones of the last words he had heard 
 her speak. For this much of that remarkable 
 letter we have read was quite true. He had 
 not lost the cadence of her slow Good-night, 
 dear, Good-night! with their solemn joy and 
 meaning of no more Good-night, never Good 
 bye! But this voice which now saluted him, 
 he had surely never heard. Even in those first 
 days when he had played society-man, she had 
 never spoken so. This was the merest fine- 
 lady tone to her indifferent evening caller 
 coldly cordial, with a freedom which said most 
 clearly thus far and no farther. 
 
 Grosbeck could only falter feebly, "Miss 
 Longworth! " 
 
 Then Emeline knew she had it all her own 
 way. She had never imagined this man save 
 in towering mastery of himself and everybody
 
 THE LONG R UN. 137 
 
 else. It was thus that she devotedly idealized 
 him, and she would have recoiled loyally from 
 any suggestion of him in his present plight, 
 crouching at bay, streaked red and white, his 
 fluent tongue tied in pitiful embarrassment. 
 But love had revealed to her many things and, 
 in this moment, it shows her one more. 
 
 Miss Longworth was not reckoned and did 
 not acknowledge herself to be impulsive, but 
 just now her impulse was of the maddest sort. 
 What, then, kept her from rushing to the side 
 of this poor blusher, flinging her arms around 
 his neck and crying out the words were 
 fairly shouting themselves in her ears "Love 
 has conquered, Rufus! It tuas true it is 
 true true, true! Love conquers in the long 
 run!" Why? Let him or her answer who can. 
 
 With just enough softening of her polished 
 notes as would most certainly convey to him 
 
 the fact that she saw and pitied his confusion, 
 18
 
 138 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 and attributed it to his unfamiliarity with such 
 society, or society, in any proper sense at all, 
 she said, as she sank with the best form pre 
 scribed by her set, into a luxurious chair. 
 
 " I am very glad to see you. Are you in 
 town for the season? " 
 
 "I came to-day," said Grosbeck, faintly. 
 
 "Indeed! How very kind to call so soon!" 
 {She should not have expected so -prompt a call. 
 In fact it 'was not the thing, ivas indeed, rus 
 tic^) adding, 
 
 " Is Mrs. Grosbeck with you ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Oh, then, you will not remain long, I 
 fear." (Of course you ivill not on that 
 account I can afford to be very indulgent of 
 your queer ness this time!} 
 
 It was the parenthesis which sounded in 
 Grosbeck 's ear. 
 
 " I came on an errand, " said he.
 
 THE L ONG RUN 139 
 
 The lady laughed lightly. This country 
 gentleman's speech had no polite reserves. 
 One less sensitive than Grosbeck could not 
 have missed this meaning, as she said pleas 
 antly : 
 
 " Of course ! I do not dream that you came 
 for anything else! Your friends are grateful 
 though that business brings you sometimes." 
 
 This state of things could not last. The least 
 valorous worm will turn finally from under foot. 
 Grosbeck had been slowly wriggling himself 
 free from this dainty heel all this time, and 
 was, at length, quite ready to rear. He rose 
 and stood before her. Emeline quailed; but 
 that he did not see. He spoke slowly and dis 
 tinctly, and his face was quite pale. 
 
 "My errand was with you, Miss Long- 
 worth ! I had expected a different result : but 
 I had I see now, no right to forecast a con 
 clusion."
 
 14 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 (Emeline is holding out desperately. She 
 will not yield a hair's breadth until she must. 
 The besieged of Calais . are nothing to her.) 
 
 Grosbeck had come to his fullest stature, 
 and stood there, every inch a king. He goes 
 on in words he had never dreamed of using as 
 applied to himself. He speaks with dignity, a 
 strange pain vibrating through his words. 
 
 "I have learned a new thing, slowly and 
 very surely, Miss Longworth. I could not 
 rest until I had told you. It seemed right, 
 necessary, that you should know it. It is 
 strange, when you come to know it, how 
 exactly even the balances are held by Fate." 
 
 His voice took on the old musing strain, as 
 if he did not believe what he was saying. It 
 sounded as it had in his first conversation with 
 her, which grew to be an argument with him 
 self. In fact it was rushing over him as he 
 spoke; with a bitter sense of #;zevenness of
 
 THE LONG RUN. 1 4 1 
 
 balance, and zV/equality of lot, how a woman 
 not this one but another as in a dream or 
 a play read long ago, had made a confession 
 similar to that he had to make in words such 
 as he should use yet not the same at all. 
 Suddenly all that was but seeming, and no 
 offset to this reality. Fate did not hold even 
 balances if this were true and nothing could 
 ever be so true, he thought ! 
 
 During his pause Emeline has risen, quite 
 his match now, as she, pale too, and very dig 
 nified, stands unflinching. 
 
 " I do not understand you, Mr. Grosbeck," 
 she said, haughtily. 
 
 "You must understand me. My errand to 
 town was to ask you to be my wife. But now 
 I have only to say to you good-bye." 
 
 Emeline held out yet, though every re-in- 
 forcement was wholly hopeless, every munition 
 had failed. Perhaps he pitied her after all 
 he, who must know it all!
 
 I4 2 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 "Mr. Grosbeck!" she called. 
 
 He turned back and stood where he was. 
 He had reached the door. 
 
 Her eyes searched him. Her voice was that 
 of one who has right and authority. She said, 
 "Do you love me?" 
 
 Was it a voice, hers, or the gurgling of the 
 little swift, impassioned brook? Was the sud 
 den dimness that of blurred vision, or the twi 
 light of the sweet September evening? Was 
 the softness beneath his feet that of the Axmin- 
 ster carpet, or the thickness of the fallen 
 leaves upon the little bridge! Was it her 
 hands that drew him, or his that drew her? 
 What matter, so that his lips again rested on 
 hers, so that he was sure, now, what man it 
 was who spoke, and who echoed her words of 
 that September evening, those words of solemn 
 joy and certainty, "I do!" 
 
 But it was long before either said, Good 
 night!
 
 EPILOGUE. 
 
 The panorama is now over, the last scene 
 slid past our eyes; and yet this old-fashioned 
 and persistent showman, whose chief point it 
 is innocent of Goethe's dictum that a work of 
 art must never have a moral that his show is 
 a moral show, detains us yet a moment longer 
 to point that moral in a bit of epilogue. 
 Doubtless this is a supernumerary office to my 
 select circle of readers, whose discernment 
 must have anticipated the haec fabula docet of 
 this, which is, however, no fable. But, as I 
 am not responsible for the panorama, so am I 
 not for the epilogue, which he who runs may 
 read, or forbear to read. 
 
 143
 
 144 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 The recital of this epilogue is intrusted to 
 none other than Mr. Rufus Grosbeck himself, 
 who presents it in person, as follows: 
 
 STONEWALL, Jan. i. 
 
 "Happy New Year, Emeline! I can make 
 you this greeting as who can make it to anoth 
 er? For I know it is neiv and I know it is 
 happy." .... 
 
 (It is the exceedingly confidential character 
 of the elision which induces Mr. Grosbeck to 
 conceal from us its contents not at all consid 
 eration for our feelings which we, in misplaced 
 gratitude, may assign to him.) 
 
 "If to love you, Emeline, be 
 a liberal education, I shall be the best edu 
 cated man alive, for that future learning, the first 
 installment of which I am receiving now, has 
 been preceded by an education not less liberal, 
 in being loved by you. Let none hereafter
 
 THE LONG RUN. 1 45 
 
 teach that the course of true love never did 
 run smooth. That is true only of the short 
 run, Emeline! never of the long run! 
 
 "And here, partly to amuse you or to instruct 
 you, and partly because it is yours and must 
 not be withheld, I enclose this old letter, how 
 old you will see, and understand it all, as I do 
 now. I did not when it was written. 
 
 " I believe I shall throw up my fossils and 
 their history, and write a book (you may sug 
 gest it would not be unhistoric of a fossil with 
 which you have to do !) to prove that all those 
 fellows were fools who have believed and 
 taught the eternal predestination of man and 
 wife in the ideal marriage. It is all Free Will, 
 Emeline, under and let no Calvinist claim 
 me, in my enunciation of the doctrine the 
 mighty grace of Love. You have loved me 
 with an everlasting love, and I, all unelecting, 
 have yielded to its grace and been drawn with 
 the cords of love and found my fate. But, 
 
 19
 
 THE LONG RUN. 
 
 halloo! what is this Free Will, or Necessity? 
 Faith, I cannot tell. I'll go back to my fossils 
 and prove that the firmament tuas the crust of 
 the earth; for I am sure of only two things; 
 that the very ground I tread has become to me 
 as Heaven's floor; and that Love al-ways con 
 quers in the Long Run ! ' 
 
 THE END.
 
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