OCARDUS 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 GEORGE AGNEW 
 CHAMBERLAIN
 
 DE
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS
 
 JANICE
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE AGNEW CHAMBERLAIN 
 
 Author of "Home," "Through Stained Glass" 
 ILLUSTRATED BY W. T. BENDA 
 
 ji^jwWrv 
 viw^v< 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE CENTURY CO. 
 
 1916
 
 Copyright, 1916, by 
 GEOKGE AONEW CHAMBEBIAJS 
 
 Published February, 1916
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 JANICE Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAOE 
 
 JOAN 144 
 
 PAULINE 224 
 
 DORA 328 
 
 2128713
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 BOOK I
 
 Thus spake the God of Gifts, and slept, and saw not: 
 
 " To each child its moment of illusion, 
 
 Its day of honey cupped in young petals, 
 
 Its measure of bliss against the hour of bitterness, 
 
 To each child, childhood."
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 IN" the summer of 1902 James Bogardus, university 
 professor of Romance languages, stood in a crowd 
 on a New York pier and watched his son John, an in- 
 considerable individual in the flood of passengers, come 
 down the gangway of an arriving liner. 
 
 American crowds are monotonously uniform, and 
 this one was no exception save for the erect professor 
 himself. He was distinguished by a mustache and 
 pointed, iron-gray beard, a well-fitted frock coat, but- 
 toned down the front, a tightly rolled umbrella, and, 
 last and most remarkable, a glossy top hat. 
 
 Ever since Junior year at college had conferred on 
 him the right to sport a high hat, James Bogardus had 
 done so on every suitable occasion, guided no less by 
 a sense of independence and dignity than by the in- 
 stincts of all short men for anything that appears to 
 add a cubit to their stature. 
 
 However, in spite of his garb, perhaps by reason 
 of his manner of wearing it, no one could fail to mark 
 him for an American of the Americans, nor to bestow 
 in addition the flattering concession that he must be 
 a distinguished American. Less could be said in this
 
 4 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 regard for his son John, whose deliberate patience in 
 waiting till everybody who was in a hurry had pushed 
 down the gangway before him seemed to brand him 
 either a foreigner or, at the best, a thoroughly dena- 
 tured home product. 
 
 At this time John Bogardus was twenty years old 
 and looked at least twenty-four in his somber, oddly cut, 
 continental clothes. The straight-brimmed felt hat, 
 high waistcoat, close-fitting jacket, and the trousers that 
 were too wide just below the hips and too narrow just 
 above the long pointed shoes, seemed to imprison his 
 spirit as well as his body in a strait-jacket of pro- 
 priety. Just as Bogardus the elder dominated his 
 clothes, his son was dominated by his. 
 
 A keen-witted young lady on board had said that 
 when she first saw him without a hat it had given her 
 as much of a shock as catching any other man in his 
 undershirt, and James Bogardus had an allied sensation 
 when his son uncovered before him, disclosing a wavy 
 crop of dark hair that looked what it was : the shining 
 crown of youth. The professor gripped the boy's ex- 
 tended hand with both of his own and shook it so 
 heartily that he dropped his umbrella. John was quick 
 to pick it up for him. 
 
 " Now for 1 the customs people," said the professor, 
 in the despairing tones of every American face to face 
 with the collectors of tribute at his country's gates. 
 " I don't know why it is," he went on, " but I never 
 pass my baggage except to the accompaniment of shiv- 
 ers in the spine. You know you 've a right to every- 
 thing you saw go into your trunks, but you alwajs
 
 * JOHN BOGAKDUS 5 
 
 have a feeling that somebody may have slipped in 
 something while you weren't looking; a string of 
 pearls so famous that nobody could sell it but the real 
 owner, or or a dead body." 
 
 John laughed. " Don't worry," he said. " You 
 forget that I 've been running a gauntlet of customs 
 regularly for eight years in as many languages." 
 
 The professor stood back and watched with admira- 
 tion the ease and calm assurance with which his lei- 
 surely son passed all barriers. They were in a cab 
 and rolling away from the pier so quickly that John's 
 last words still hung in his mind. Sitting very erect 
 to save his glossy hat from a rub, his thin hands locked 
 over the handle of his umbrella, he glanced question- 
 ingly at his boy's profile. " Eight years is a long 
 time," he said, " but you 've accomplished more than 
 you could over here in seven times seven." 
 
 John scarcely heard his father. He was staring out 
 of the open cab window on the dead ugliness of New 
 York's west front. The city's East Side is unwashed, 
 ragged, sordid, but it teems with life. It is gay in 
 comparison with the decayed solitudes of the lower 
 western side streets that seem to take painfully long 
 strides toward the mighty artery of Broadway, pulsing 
 with the life blood of the city. 
 
 John was inevitably depressed by this first view of 
 the metropolis, so depressed that even the eventual 
 plunge through the maelstrom of Broadway into the 
 steadily flowing stream of Fifth Avenue did not quite 
 revive his spirits, never ebullient at the best. He was 
 silent and so was his father, sensitive to his boy's mood
 
 6 JOHN BOGAEDUS 
 
 and, though he would never have admitted it, some- 
 what abashed as well by the young man's grave poise. 
 
 This reunion meant much to James Bogardus. It 
 made him feel not only happy but boyish in his happi- 
 ness, and his silence, preposterous as it may seem, was 
 very much akin to the sulks of an urchin repressed by 
 the presence of an elder. A paradox is a paradox only 
 to those too lazy to look for an explanation. There was 
 really no mystery about John Bogardus nor were the 
 present relations between him and his father at all illog- 
 icaL Relations between personalities never are illog- 
 ical under the surface ; they depend ultimately on points 
 of contact. 
 
 Between John Bogardus and his father the points of 
 contact had been tampered with, arbitrarily thrown out 
 of circuit during many years. It happened in this 
 wise. James Bogardus had always looked upon himself 
 as a Tnfllcftatu-ft for a professor of Romance languages. 
 His university, which happened to be his alma mater 
 as well, considered him the best available, and keenly 
 aware of his own shortcomings he genuinely regretted 
 that an institution so powerful and so linked almost 
 from the inception of nationality with the intellectual 
 progress of the country, should be forced to avail itself 
 of makeshifts. 
 
 He wondered how many of his colleagues held their 
 chairs by an equal sufferance and gradually there sprang 
 up in him the ambition to prepare at least one exponent 
 of Romance languages who would never have to depend 
 on the subterfuges of a smattering of knowledge, but 
 could face inquiring minds with a reservoir filled to
 
 V JOHN BOGAEDUS 7 
 
 the brim from the live sources of the tongues that had 
 heralded the hirth of humanism and propagated the 
 Renaissance. 
 
 This amhition served him as a unique solace when 
 his wife, whom he had passionately adored, died and 
 left their only child, then twelve years of age, to his 
 sole care. Maternity has been studied again and 
 again in all its phases but laic literature is peculiarly 
 silent on the constituent elements of fathers in general. 
 An overflow of mother's love drowns everything else 
 including ambition, but ambition, at least for his male 
 offspring, is commonly the measure of a father's affec- 
 tion, especially in those cases where he happens to have 
 regarded his wife with the continuing adoration of a 
 faithful lover. 
 
 James Bogardus would have been genuinely shocked 
 had any one impugned the love he bore for his child by 
 measuring it with the cold rule of ambition, but had 
 his affection been even colored with the passion with 
 which he had worshiped the boy's mother it is doubt- 
 ful whether he could have taken him to Europe within 
 a few months of his mother's death and left him there 
 for eight years. To the professor, the mere fact that 
 he had crossed four times during the eight years to 
 spend his long holidays with his son would have seemed 
 ample refutation of any suggestion of neglect. 
 
 John Bogardus as a student had more than fulfilled 
 his father's most sanguine hopes. He had traveled 
 ahead of his schedule. Two years in Italy, two in 
 France, and one in Spain had given him a vernacular 
 facility which had been welded into a co-related whole
 
 8 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 in a course at Bonn, followed by a year divided between 
 Provence, Portugal, and a certain amount of general 
 though restricted travel. By the time he was twenty 
 he had absorbed the Eomance languages into his mental 
 system as naturally as humanity absorbs milk, and just 
 as naturally, and logically, he had grown away from his 
 father. 
 
 On this long-awaited day of reunion, the two were 
 far apart. A wall was between them. Neither father 
 nor son actually sensed it, but both walked, unknow- 
 ing, in its shadow. 
 
 The professor was restless and showed it by the time 
 the cab drew up at the portals of the quiet but re- 
 nowned hotel he patronized. " Here we are ! " he 
 cried, with an exploded sigh of relief, and busied him- 
 self with paying the cabman and giving orders as to 
 the disposal of the luggage. As they passed up the 
 lobby together his quick eyes noted the friendly but 
 amused glances cast on him and his son. He was at 
 no loss to read them. He had reason to know that his 
 fellow countrymen are intolerant of the slightest idio- 
 syncrasy of dress and that a Hindu who could walk 
 the streets of any European capital unmolested and 
 almost unremarked would probably be jeered out of 
 stolid countenance if he attempted to saunter along 
 Canal Street in his native garb, unless protected be- 
 fore and behind by the conventional boards of the sand- 
 wich-man. 
 
 Already uneasy, he found that the comfortless bed- 
 rooms and the much frequented lounges of the hotel 
 presented an unfriendly atmosphere for the long talks
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 9 
 
 he had looked forward to having with his son. He 
 decided to flee the city as quickly as possible and on the 
 morning after John's arrival, having carefully packed 
 away his own high hat and frock coat, he took his son 
 to a large establishment and outfitted him completely 
 with linen and ready-made clothes. 
 
 This morning held one moment that brought a 
 kindling to John's eyes and a warm glow to his cheeks. 
 He was standing arrayed in a new hat and the last suit 
 purchased when his father said, 
 
 " Why not keep those on ? They can send up your 
 old things." 
 
 John felt a strange and disproportionate thrill. 
 
 " May I ? " he said, flushing with sudden pleasure. 
 The color in his cheeks made him look, for the first 
 time since his arrival, as young as his years. It made 
 him look so young that the professor felt a twinge of 
 dismay, a twinge so slight that it passed practically un- 
 remarked. 
 
 John stepped out of the enormous building bravely 
 as though by assuming the regulation garb of those about 
 him he had suddenly become linked to the new life^ 
 which only yesterday he had looked upon as a distant 
 estate, hard of access. 
 
 But this feeling was not to last. James Bogardus 
 was too intent on learning at first hand the measure of 
 the glowing reports that had come to him in regard to 
 his son's unusual accomplishments to apply the least 
 penetration or attach the slightest importance to the 
 signs, faint as they were, that might have led him to an 
 understanding of the mental confusion that possessed
 
 10 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 the boy, assailed by the inevitable yearnings of one who 
 had too long dreamed of a final return to his native 
 
 land. 
 
 Instead of taking John to the neighborhood of their 
 old summer home, long since sold, where he could have 
 picked up the threads of family friendships and had the 
 chance to come back in spirit as well as in flesh, he 
 carried him off to the crowded solitudes of a lake re- 
 sort and purposely isolated him among strangers, thus 
 thrusting into the years all hopes of a genuine reunion. 
 
 John was a handsome lad, taller than his father and 
 darker. His hair was almost black, his eyes a rich 
 brown, and his cheeks had a smooth, un-American 
 tinge of olive as though the long years he had spent in 
 the south of Europe had marked him skin deep. His 
 frame was well set up but undeveloped by sports or 
 any exercise save walking. His father chided him for 
 not standing quite erect. 
 
 Father and son occupied two beds in the same room, 
 adjoining a little veranda of which they had the sole 
 use. Here they would sit for hours day after day and 
 talk. Toward evening or sometimes in the cool of the 
 early morning, they would go for long walks over the 
 hills or through the woods that skirted the lake. As 
 they walked they talked, and the talk always swung 
 on the single pivot of Neo-Latin and its variations. 
 
 They discussed the Italic, Gallic, and Iberian tongues 
 in all their relations, and the elder Bogardus impressed 
 upon the younger that this flourishing branch alone of 
 Average-Latin would be his care in a country given 
 over to utilitarianism even among its intellectuals. At
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 11 
 
 the start James Bogardus was didactic, soon he spoke as 
 to a confrere, but from the moment he drew his son into 
 a dissertation on the Germanic taint running solely 
 through the division his father had just specified, the 
 elder man became a pupil and, scholastically at least, 
 sat henceforth at the feet of the younger. 
 
 He gave a sigh of satisfaction as he realized how 
 far beyond his dreams his son had gone, and more than 
 once, his thoughts fixed on the assistant professorship 
 that had long been promised for the day of fulfilment, 
 he said to himself, " If only he were older ! If only 
 he were as old as he looked when he got off the ship ! " 
 
 Little did he guess that in these moments of his own 
 unvoiced aspirations, John's thoughts were equally 
 fixed not on a distant chair in Komance languages but 
 on chewing gum.
 
 CHAPTEK II 
 
 WHILE his tongue had been answering questions 
 and propounding theories almost automati- 
 cally, John's mind and his eyes had been busy with 
 lesser things. The popular lake resort was over- 
 crowded with youth. Boys in shirt-sleeves, in khaki, 
 in flannels, even in bathing suits, swarmed out to mani- 
 fold amusements. They swam, they canoed, they 
 played tennis, went camping and chewed gum. So did 
 the girls. 
 
 Brought up among youths who from the early day 
 they put on long trousers feel naked without a waist- 
 coat, this accepted variety and lack of clothing might 
 have appealed to John as the emblem of his native free- 
 dom, the open recall to an inherited democracy. But 
 it did not. It failed because it struck no chord of 
 memory in a boy whose New England summer garb in 
 distant days had been a shirt, open at the throat, a wide 
 straw hat, and knee-length pants above sunburned bare 
 legs. 
 
 But the rhythmic motion of young jaws here was 
 a thing he remembered. It swept across his heart- 
 strings not for itself but for the memories it conjured. 
 When his father sent him to buy a paper, his errand 
 done, he glanced at the big glass jar full of packets of 
 
 gum, started to speak, and then flushed and hurried 
 
 12
 
 13 
 
 out only to march back a moment later. The color still 
 in his cheeks, he said, a trifle louder than necessary, 
 " I would like a package of chewing gum, please." 
 
 " What flavor ? " asked the busy clerk. 
 
 For a second John paused, then memory spoke for 
 him. " Wintergreen." 
 
 On the way back to the hotel and their veranda he 
 opened the package and drew out a slip of gum. The 
 feel of its covering of soft powder, of the smooth gum 
 itself, its odor of wintergreen, were talisman and in- 
 cense to recollection. He popped the gum into his 
 mouth and chewed, his deep brown eyes fixed afar 
 on memories of barefoot days, of a swimming hole, of 
 apple, chestnut, and blackberry raids, of a raft on the 
 overflow in a meadow, or of the view from the top of 
 a smooth knoll, crowned with firs and carpeted with 
 slippery pine-needles. 
 
 As he approached his father he took the gum, al- 
 ready almost tasteless, from his mouth, and rolling it 
 into a wad pressed it under the lapel of his coat. All 
 his later instincts rose up in arms against this out- 
 rage to the dignity of his new clothes, but they were 
 powerless before the surge of memory reminding him 
 that just so did the boy of other years guard a com- 
 paratively new wad of gum through the long school 
 hours. 
 
 It is diificult for fathers to understand surreptitious 
 rebellion in their children. Years later, the years that 
 it almost always takes to bring regret, James Bo- 
 gardus's spirit was to call back to the spirit of his son, 
 " Why did n't you tell me that I was boring you to
 
 14 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 tears, that you were longing to chew gum, to finish 
 learning to swim, to crowd to the station at train time 
 with a lot of chattering boys and girls, to dance at night 
 and frivol away time in the day? I might not have 
 understood why you wanted these things but I would 
 have understood you. I would not have builded on 
 sand a house for disillusion." And the boy's spirit 
 was to reply, " Why in your turn did n't you blurt out 
 to your father before you the hidden things that are 
 never hidden to the eyes of love ? " 
 
 Once, when his father had fallen into a doze after 
 lunch, John stole softly from the veranda and went for 
 a walk by himself. He chose the embowered paths by 
 the lake side. At moments he walked rapidly, his head 
 held high, his arms swinging free. At other moments 
 he walked slowly, his head and his eyes fallen in 
 dreams. For quite half an hour he sat upon a mossy 
 log and then jumped up to throw stones at a squirrel, 
 only to feel the next instant a throb of thanksgiving 
 that he had n't hit the little chap. 
 
 On his way back he stood on a lonely, rocky point 
 that ran out into the lake and watched a catboat swoop 
 down upon him. His blood surged with the surge at 
 its foaming bow. On it came, courting disaster, laugh- 
 ing at it. Suddenly it jibed, the broad sail slatted, 
 went over with a slap and a creaking of stays, filled 
 and drew away. 
 
 John gasped as he saw the boat's sole occupant, a 
 bare-armed, bare-headed girl, sitting alone at the helm, 
 her loose hair blown before the wind. She caught the 
 look in his eyes, smiled, and more out of mischief than
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 15 
 
 impudence waved her hand at him as she headed her 
 little craft into the safe distance. 
 
 John stood for long and stared. To what far nook 
 of the wide lake was she hound? What lamplit room 
 would hold her to-night? On what paths would she 
 wander to-morrow ? The yearning of youth for youth 
 swelled in his bosom. He dreamed dreams. He saw 
 himself coming upon her in some shaded wood, speak- 
 ing to her, touching her hand. Then, with the fan- 
 tastic leaps of boyhood's imagination, he saw himself 
 saving her from disaster, from fire, a runaway, or ship- 
 wreck. 
 
 It was at this moment that his father found him. 
 " Where have you been, my boy ? I Ve been looking 
 for you for an hour." 
 
 " Oh, just for a walk," said John, as he turned to 
 leave his point of rock and his dreams. 
 
 A puzzled look came into his father's face. " But 
 why did n't you wake me ? You know I 'm always 
 ready for a walk with you." 
 
 " I did n't want to wake you. I thought the sleep 
 was doing you good," said John, coloring slightly at the 
 lie. 
 
 " Oh, I get enough sleep," said his father easily. 
 " Never worry about that. There are such loads of 
 things to talk about that I sometimes think we sleep 
 altogether too much at night, let alone day naps. 
 We 've talked over the past pretty thoroughly. We 
 know where we stand to-day. Now, the thing to do is 
 to settle the future." 
 
 " Yes, sir," said John.
 
 16 
 
 " Our holidays are drawing to a close," continued 
 the elder Bogardus, " and before we go into what you 're 
 going to do I want to sum up what you 've done. 
 You've learned more, much more, than I sent you to 
 learn. You Ve laid your foundations deep and well. 
 We need n't think any more about that. But you lack 
 two things: years and a degree." 
 
 "Yes, sir," said John. 
 
 " The degree will be easy for you," continued his 
 father, " but we '11 have to wait for the years. Some 
 men never move. They stay in one place mentally and 
 otherwise, grow old slowly, and stay old a long time. 
 Other men grow old quickly and stay young forever. 
 They are the travelers. I want you to be a traveler. 
 Now, no man has ever moved his body around the 
 world without moving his mind at the same time. To- 
 night I 'm going to tell you what I propose and then 
 you can tell me what you think of it." 
 
 " All right, sir," said John. 
 
 They had come upon the hotel and John paused to 
 watch the crowd of bathers. They dived from the 
 wharf, from boats, and from the float. Some swam 
 with long swirling strokes that shot them through the 
 water, others breasted the lake ripples heavily like 
 blunt-nosed ferry boats, still others skirted the shore as 
 though they felt safer where an extended toe would 
 touch bottom ; but, by hook or by crook, all swam. 
 
 " If you can't even swim what an ass you are to 
 dream of saving a girl from drowning." It was as 
 though a voice had spoken to John. With a quickened 
 step he walked after his father.
 
 y JOHIST BOGAEDUS IT 
 
 " Father," he said, " I think I 'd like to bathe." 
 
 " Would you ? " said the professor. " Well, why 
 not?" 
 
 John hesitated. " I 'd have to get a bathing-suit," 
 he said, smiling and coloring at the same time. 
 
 "Bless my soul," exclaimed the professor, thrusting 
 his hand into his trousers' pocket, " you 've got no 
 money ! There," he said, pressing a ten-dollar bill into 
 his son's hand, " that 's yours. There you are. Run 
 along." 
 
 As John hurried up the single business street of the 
 village his father stood and stared after him, vainly try- 
 ing to pin down a fleeting impression that just now he 
 had spoken to his boy as if he were a boy for the first 
 time since he had welcomed him back. 
 
 Half an hour later, feeling very naked in a close- 
 fitting bathing-suit, John walked out on the wharf, 
 paused for a moment, clenched his teeth, and plunged 
 into deep water. In the far-off days of the swimming 
 hole he had but barely reached the dog-paddling stage 
 of natation. That modicum of knowledge had fortu- 
 nately not forsaken him, so that when he arose splutter- 
 ing from the depths of the lake he could at least keep 
 afloat by whirling his arms and legs around like the 
 wings of a windmill gone mad. He produced a great 
 commotion in the water but the distance between him- 
 self and firm land remained alarmingly constant. 
 
 However, he would not let himself doubt or cry out 
 and despite the fact that he had swallowed more of the 
 lake than was good for him he turned with some spirit 
 on the strong swimmer who seized him by the hair and
 
 '18 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 with three powerful strokes towed him to shallow water. 
 
 " I suppose you meant well," said John as soon as 
 he could speak, " but I wish you had let me alone." 
 
 " Well, of all the cheek ! " said the tall stranger. 
 " D' you know you was goin' down when I grabbed 
 you?" 
 
 " I know that," said John, calmly, " but I could have 
 crawled in along the bottom." 
 
 The stranger laughed so heartily, his blue eyes 
 crinkled up so merrily at the corners, that John could 
 not help but laugh with him. 
 
 " Look here, son," said the tall man. " I 'd like to 
 learn you to swim. Come out with me in a boat to- 
 morrow morning at ten. One lesson will do it if nerve 
 counts as much as it used to and I guess it does. Will 
 ye come ? " 
 
 John nodded a quick assent. He said nothing but 
 his eyes spoke for him. That night he could hardly 
 tear his thoughts from the morrow to meet with cour- 
 tesy, let alone enthusiasm, the generous proposal of his 
 father. 
 
 " What I suggest is this," said James Bogardus. 
 " There are three thousand dollars left of the fund I 
 had determined to spend on your education. I pro- 
 pose to take out a letter of credit in your name for 
 that amount and to turn you loose without conditions 
 except, of course, that you are to pick up a European 
 degree while you 're away." 
 
 " Of course," said John. 
 
 " It does n't much matter where you take the degree," 
 continued his father. " Bonn, Heidelberg, Leipzig
 
 , JOHN BOGAEDUS 19 
 
 they all look equally well in a faculty register, and 
 that 's all you want the degree for. Make the money 
 last as long as you can and whether you come back soon 
 or late, come back as old as possible so that you won't 
 look like a child preaching in the temple and be accused 
 of presumption by the prophets and the blind." 
 
 James Bogardus paused for a moment and then, 
 vaguely disappointed, added, " Well, what do you 
 say?" 
 
 John brought himself to rise to the occasion with a 
 wrench. " I say that you are splendidly generous and 
 thoughtful," he answered. " I '11 I '11 try not to dis- 
 appoint you." 
 
 " And I can assure you," said his father, " you won't 
 have to try very hard, not after what you 've done al- 
 ready." 
 
 Sharp at ten o'clock the next morning John was at 
 the water side in his bathing-suit, having merely told 
 his father that he was going for a swim. Within five 
 minutes the tall stranger appeared with a boat and 
 picked him up. In silence and with the short choppy 
 stroke of a professional seaman he drove the boat out 
 into the lake and only at half a mile from shore rested 
 on his oars. 
 
 " Well, son," he said, " what 's your name ? " 
 
 John told him. 
 
 " An' I 'm Cap'n Ike Carr," said the stranger. 
 " Master of the schooner Alexandrine that 's havin' her 
 bottom scraped in between charters. Now as to swim- 
 min'. The greatest mistake you can make in learnin' 
 to swim is to make up your mind to try hard. Swim-
 
 20 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 min' is the gol-durnedest easiest form of loafin' ever 
 discovered by man." 
 
 " Is it ? " said John, doubtfully. 
 
 "What happened to you when you jumped into 
 deep water ? " continued the captain. " Your muscles 
 turned into pianner wires, did n't they ? All strainin' 
 like Billy-o an' gettin' nowheres." 
 
 John nodded. " That 's the way it was," he said 
 with a laugh. 
 
 "Well, that's all wrong," said Captain Ike. 
 " Swimmin' 's like lying on a feather bed only softer. 
 All you gotta do is jest to lie all sprawled out and 
 remember this: if there ain't a tight muscle in your 
 body you can't sink if you try. Now I 'm going over 
 the side and don't you jump after me. Just let your- 
 self into the water easy like and keep one hand on the 
 gun'ale." 
 
 Captain Ike shipped the oars and stood up. He was 
 not a young man, his temples were shot with gray, but 
 he still possessed the high tide of vigor that makes a 
 big man's lanky body a thing of joy to himself and to 
 others. John watched with envy the clean, long dive 
 from the stern of the boat and its exaggerated lolling 
 as, without making a single stroke, the bather shot to 
 the surface and lay there like a log for as long as he 
 could hold his breath. Then with a slow flap of an 
 arm and the crooking of a leg the body went into lan- 
 guid motion and gradually circled the boat. 
 
 " Come on," said the captain. 
 
 John let himself slowly into the water, keeping firm, 
 hold on the gunwale.
 
 * JOHN BOGAKDUS 21 
 
 " Draw yourself up a bit," said the captain. " Now 
 let yourself down till only your nose is showin'. Feel 
 the water take the weight ? " he asked, as John came 
 up. 
 
 " Yes," said John. 
 
 " Holdin' onto the gun' ale is bad for you," continued 
 the captain. " It keeps that arm pianner-wire. Jest 
 let yerself flop on your back and mind you don't tighten 
 nothin'." 
 
 John did as he was bidden. He felt the captain's 
 hand placed lightly under his head. He lay quite re- 
 laxed and let his arms float out from his sides. 
 
 Captain Ike drew one of the oars over the side into 
 the water and slipped it under John's head. Then he 
 withdrew his hand and paddled noiselessly away. He 
 swam around the boat and as he came across the bows 
 shouted, " Well, son, been asleep ? " 
 
 John started and turned his head. The oar slipped 
 from under it. For a moment panic threatened him, 
 then he fastened his mind on the lolling movements of 
 the captain rising from his dive. He pretended he 
 was the captain. He lay still and flopped his hands 
 lazily. The water did not drag him down; it buoyed 
 him up. 
 
 Captain Ike was as good as his word. By the end 
 of an hour John had not learned to swim, but he had 
 acquired what comes to the same thing in the end, the 
 belief that water could n't drown him.
 
 CHAPTEK III 
 
 TWO weeks later John stood on the deck of a 
 steamer bound for Hamburg and watched clouds 
 and distance play tricks with New York's sky line. 
 His mind was still in strange confusion. How was it 
 that after two short months in his native land he turned 
 his back on it almost without regret and faced a return 
 to Europe almost, if not quite, cheerfully? Were his 
 dreams of years so easy of fulfilment that it took but 
 a few days to quench their long desire? Had it been 
 quenched or had it died of thirst? 
 
 For all his acquired wisdom he was still too young 
 to see himself clearly, try as he might. Anybody's 
 mother could have told him, " Why, you poor boy, you 
 have n't been home at all ! You and your dad have 
 been traveling in your foreign countries all the time 
 and you 've been seeing America through a car window 
 and a telescope a century long." 
 
 It was true. Until he has revisited the concrete 
 scenes of his youth, until he has felt the shock of 
 finding the mansion in which he was born shrunk to 
 the proportions of a very modest village house and the 
 precipice in the barn, rafter to manger, down which 
 he tumbled and miraculously lived to tell the tale, re- 
 duced to the size of a safe jump for a hen with a 
 
 22
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 23 
 
 broken leg; until, the cold dew of dawn tickling his 
 ankles, he has picked a crisp early apple and bitten 
 into it or watched a straw-hatted urchin at the old 
 pool under the willow catch a sucker with a worm, a 
 bent pin, and a piece cut out of his father's best trawl- 
 line ; until his eyes have dimmed before these sights and 
 his heart swelled before a thousand lesser memories, no 
 man has returned to his native land. 
 
 John looked back on his two months and saw a ruck 
 of distant high lights that had kept their distance, all 
 but the kindly man who had clutched him and pulled 
 him by the hair into the reach of friendship. Of all 
 the boys and girls, women and men, that had scintil- 
 lated across his vision like pastels in a frieze, Captain 
 Ike alone stood out, alive, warm, clothed in flesh and 
 blood. 
 
 From such meager fare the boy returned to Europe 
 only to find that it too had lost its savor. He decided 
 to take his degree with as little trouble to himself as 
 possible and consequently passed by his old university 
 to Leipzig where his thesis on Romanic and the Renais- 
 sance, into which he managed to introduce a challenge 
 of three of the derivations of the supreme authority, 
 Diez, that pillar of Bonn, was accepted not only with 
 praise but with glee. 
 
 This matter off his mind, he wrote to his father from 
 a sense of filial duty and to Captain Ike on impulse. 
 Then, unable to decide what he would do next, he loafed 
 about the old university town and wondered why the 
 whole world seemed empty to his freedom. A postal 
 card from the captain suddenly changed his point of
 
 24: JOHN BOGAEDUS 
 
 view. It was short but potent as magic : " If you 
 have got nothing better to do meet me at Plymouth end 
 of April." 
 
 The end of April was still a month away but John 
 crossed at once from Calais to Dover with the idea of 
 killing time by walking the length of the south coast. 
 The highways and byways of the southern counties were 
 already held and holding all that came their way in 
 the thrall of spring. He wandered lazily and was con- 
 tent. He smiled back at the primroses gleaming from 
 a background of mud, and once, carried away, he waved 
 his arm full length in answer to the greeting of the 
 budding gorse on a warm, protected hillside. The 
 blood in his veins throbbed in unison with the rising 
 sap of a world in resurrection. When birds sang he 
 whistled a reply; he even mooed at lowing cows, and 
 stopped five minutes to rub the nose of a friendly pony 
 that had thrust his head over a hedge and whinnied 
 "Hello!" 
 
 One warm afternoon, still in the mood of the friendly 
 pony, the cows, the singing birds, and the joy of re- 
 viving things, he reached the town of Lewes and wan- 
 dered for an hour through its still streets, bounded by 
 close-cropped hedgerows and quaint neat houses, dream- 
 ing over their long, long past and breathing a spirit of 
 peace. 
 
 He had all but left the town behind when he came 
 upon a little place that caught the eye by its air of 
 incipient neglect. Its hedge and tiny lawn needed bar- 
 bering badly, there was a smudge of rot in the thick 
 thatched roof, a fallen rose-vine lifted up appealing
 
 y JOHN BOGARDTJS 25 
 
 shoots from the ground and cried aloud for a helping 
 hand. As John reached the wide arch in the hedge 
 over the front path, a scene, vivid as a scene in a play, 
 met his vision and arrested his steps. 
 
 The thatched roof of the cottage was prolonged into 
 a deep gable over the wide front door, forming a little 
 porch with two short benches on the sides. On one of 
 these benches sat a big-boned woman with a pair of 
 crutches. Her face was flabby and her clothes hung 
 loosely upon her, as though skin and clothes had been 
 made to fit a plump, broad, comfortable person that 
 had shrunk away from them. John could see tears 
 rolling slowly down her cheeks, following deep, new- 
 made furrows of pain. 
 
 On the other bench sat a child, eight or nine years 
 old, a girl, clutching at her breast with tightly clenched 
 little fists and gazing steadfastly, angrily, at a man who, 
 with his back to John, crouched toward her. The little 
 girl's dark hair was short, chopped off just above her 
 shoulders, and without being curly was full of rebel- 
 lious twists and waves. Rebellion was in her black 
 eyes, in her flushed cheeks, in her tiny firm chin. 
 
 " Will ye give it me, ye little spitfire ? " snarled the 
 man. 
 
 " No, Papa," said the child, in a voice choked not 
 with tears but with rage. 
 
 " Papa ! Hear her ! Papa ! " mimicked the man 
 drunkenly. 
 
 " No, Papa, no," repeated the child. 
 
 " You have n't a papa," jeered the man. " Hear 
 me ? You 're a stray, a changeling, you are. Eatin'
 
 26 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 charity food an' hoardin' up your gold." He reached 
 forward and clutched at her hands. 
 
 " No, Papa, no ! " cried the child. 
 
 The man caught her little clenched fists, forced them 
 open, and seized the golden sovereign they had been 
 guarding. It was attached to a thin chain that passed 
 around her neck. With a jerk he broke the chain and 
 doubling his fist tightly over the coin, turned with a 
 curse to stumble down the steps to the street. John 
 drew back and let him pass. He watched him stagger 
 down the road, tearing with his teeth at the ring welded 
 to the sovereign's edge. 
 
 From the stoop came the little voice, choked now 
 with unshed tears as well as with rage. " N-n-no, 
 Papa, n-n-no!" gasped the child, her hands still 
 clutched and quivering against her breast, her eyes 
 staring straight before her from a little face suddenly 
 gone white. Through all the scene the woman had sat 
 absolutely still, the tears coursing faster and faster 
 down her cheeks. 
 
 John's heart pounded in his chest. He started in 
 through the arch, paused, and then walked rapidly the 
 few steps to the porch. It was in his mind to tell the 
 little girl not to cry, but when he had drawn near he 
 was amazed to see that she was not crying, that her 
 eyes were quite dry. Only in her voice there were 
 tears as, paying no attention to him, she repeated again, 
 " N-n-no, n-n-no, no! " 
 
 "Oh, darling," gasped the woman, "please, don't. 
 Oh, please, don't." 
 
 With one foot on the low step of the porch John
 
 a JOHN BOGARDUS 27 
 
 leaned forward and held out a gold coin to the little 
 girl. She gave it one quick glance and with a curl 
 of her lip clenched her little fists the tighter against 
 her breast. All sovereigns are not alike to the heart 
 of a child. 
 
 " Young sir," said the woman, " don't think she 's 
 hard and thankless and unladylike. It 's not a sover- 
 eign that '11 heal the wound in her breast." 
 
 John picked the little girl up in his arms. She 
 struggled to be put down, not violently, but as though 
 she were very old and it bored her to be handled. He 
 only held her the closer and sitting down on the bench 
 took her on his knees, smoothed out her little smock, 
 and suddenly asked her if she had ever been bitten by 
 a dog. 
 
 Her thoughts were on the wing but that quick shot 
 brought them down. " No," she said and, after a 
 pause, " Have you ? " 
 
 " Yes," said John, and stopped. 
 
 " What did you do ? " asked the child. 
 
 " I bit him back," said John gravely. 
 
 " And what did he do then ? " asked the little girl. 
 
 " He was surprised," said John. 
 
 On that remark the two of them pondered solemnly 
 for a long time. It was the woman that broke the si- 
 lence as she saw the child relax her tense body and sink 
 softly against John's shoulder. " Oh, sir," she said, 
 " you do know 'em, the little ones." 
 
 John smiled and flushed with pleasure as he glanced 
 down at the child in his arms. " I ? " he said, 
 and laughed. Then he looked frankly at the woman.
 
 28 
 
 " This is the first time in all my life that I 've held 
 a kiddie in my lap. Won't you tell me about 
 her?" . 
 
 The woman had stopped crying but she still was 
 very still, and her stillness was flat like the stillness of 
 a sack of meal. " It was n't always like this," she said, 
 with a movement around of her eyes that was like a 
 gesture. " Our little place was the neatest of all once 
 and the dearest. Clean it was and healthy for flowers, 
 a happy place for a child. So Jim and me, we an- 
 swered a notice in the paper." 
 
 She paused, her wandering eyes coming to anchor 
 on the child that drowsed against John's shoulder. 
 " That was three year ago. A lady brought her. She 
 was a little mite then, five, six year old an' small for 
 her age, but she seemed like she was ten in her ways 
 and now that she is eight she seems more like twelve ; 
 so wise, so quiet, and never any trouble. The lady 
 said she'd send us two pounds a week for her keep 
 and that the girlie was to have always the best. 
 
 " For a long time she sent two pounds a week, then 
 she wrote a letter and said she could only send one 
 pound a week and the little girl must have second best 
 for a while. Then, 'most a year ago, she never sent 
 any more nor wrote, and we could n't write to her be- 
 cause we did n't know where. At first she had always 
 sent from London but afterwards when it was only one 
 pound she sent mostly from province towns, big towns 
 and then smaller ones, always different. 
 
 " It would never have mattered to Jim and me, her 
 not sending, if I had kept my old self. Strong, I was,
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 29 
 
 and broad ; a woman to work and to eat, too. My man, 
 Jim, he was strong, too, and steady, an' we both loved 
 Mother." 
 
 " Mother ? " said John, questioningly. 
 
 " Yes, the child," said the woman. " Janice is her 
 name, but Jim he was playful once an' he called 
 her Mother because she was so old in her ways. So we 
 always called her Mother. Then it happened, my fall, 
 an' I lost the use of my two legs. For a while Jim 
 kept up his cheer an' could n't praise the child enough 
 for the way she 'd try to help, crying like she did once 
 because she couldn't carry me in one day when it 
 rained." 
 
 The woman paused for a moment and tears, unheeded 
 as before, started crawling down her cheeks. " Then 
 came the drink." Her wet eyes fastened on John's 
 intent face. " Young sir, my man was a good man 
 once, but now, ever since the doctor said as I was this 
 way for always Days and days he 's been bullyin' 
 the child like you seen him. I remember when her 
 lady mother put the sovereign and the chain around her 
 neck, laughin' an' tellin' her that so long as ever she 
 kept it she 'd never be poor ! For days an' days he 's 
 been callin' her hard, hard names like you heard him, 
 an' some day he '11 he '11 strike her, an' then my heart 
 will break. Oh, he 's not my man now, he 's no more 
 my Jim." 
 
 The little girl, exhausted by the climax of that long, 
 losing struggle, had fallen asleep. John held her close, 
 very close, his eyes full of dreams. He began talking 
 to the woman, craftily at first and then boldly, as
 
 30 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 though he played for a stake he could better afford to 
 lose than to win. 
 
 " You can tell him," finished John, " that the lady 
 came while he was away drinking and that all she could 
 give you was ten pounds." 
 
 " No," said the woman. " I '11 not take ten pounds 
 from you and you with the child to do for. Two 
 pounds will keep Jim drunk for a fortnight and what 
 more need have I once little Mother is gone ? " 
 
 They woke the child and the woman talked to her. 
 The little girl turned grave eyes on John. " And you 
 will he my new papa ? " she asked. 
 
 " No, Mother," said John, smiling down at her. 
 " I '11 be just your boy the biggest doll a little mother 
 ever had." 
 
 Her face broke slowly to a smile, a strange smile that 
 seemed, almost consciously, to humor these grown-ups; 
 and their playful folly.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 JOHN" was not nervous by nature, but lie was very 
 nervous indeed at the moment of entering the train 
 for Brighton. On his back was his own knapsack, in 
 one hand he carried the little girl's absurdly little bun- 
 dle, and in the other he held her soft, clinging hand. 
 It seemed to him that the veriest passer-by could not 
 let that cortege escape without a question. 
 
 His fears soon died. During the short run to 
 Brighton no one entered their second-class compartment 
 and once the child and he were equally among strangers 
 he began to feel easier. People seldom noticed them 
 without smiling and some even made love to Janice, 
 but no one ever asked him whence they came or whither 
 they were bound, and all seemed to take it for granted 
 that he was her brother and her guardian to some near 
 destination. Even at Plymouth where he took modest 
 rooms in a house overlooking the harbor entrance no 
 one seemed to find the pair a puzzle or, if they did, 
 tried to solve it. 
 
 During the six days that passed before the Alex- 
 andrine, flying the Stars and Stripes, was towed in to 
 her anchorage, John had no pleasures and no moments 
 that Janice did not share. His own acquired age now 
 served him well. Women were not the mystery to him 
 
 that they are, almost invariably, to carefully bred 
 
 31
 
 32 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 American youths of his years. He held the European 
 point of view; that women differ from the rest of hu- 
 man beings only in that they are two shades more 
 human. Consequently, the little exigencies that might 
 have stumped any one of a million American males far 
 more advanced in years than he, found him unem- 
 barrassed and competent. 
 
 On passing for the first time from her own tiny 
 room to John's larger apartment and noting the big 
 double bed, Janice instantly demanded, with one of 
 those precocious flashes of jealousy so astonishing in 
 children, " Why does My Boy have two pillows ? " 
 
 And, after an infinitesimal pause, John had an- 
 swered, " I always have two when I can ; one for the 
 Brownies. They come and talk to me while I 'm asleep 
 and when I wake up I think I have been dreaming." 
 
 The last hard year at Lewes had taught Janice that 
 she could n't have everything for the asking, so she 
 at once set to work to collect the makings of an extra 
 pillow. Her sudden passion for shavings and old rags 
 puzzled John for a day or two, but when she asked him 
 if he thought she might have a needle for her very 
 own, his eyes were opened. Some men are generous 
 with money because they are too lazy to be generous with 
 time and trouble, but John was generous with himself. 
 He became Janice's assistant and errand boy, acting 
 at the same time for the board of health, and it took 
 them three days to make the pillow. 
 
 When John went down to meet the captain, Janice, 
 in a clean little smock, went with him. They were the 
 first thing the captain's eyes fell on as he climbed
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 33 
 
 ashore. " Hello, son," cried Captain Ike ; " picked up 
 a lady friend, have ye ? " 
 
 Greetings over, the captain suggested that Janice be 
 " stowed with her ma," so that they two could hustle 
 around and tend to business. 
 
 " She has n't any ma," said John ; " she 's mine at 
 present." 
 
 " Yourn ? " cried the captain, aghast. Then the 
 color mounted in his naturally florid cheeks. " When 
 I saw you, son, I thought you was going to go a voyage 
 with me." 
 
 John's heart sank. " So we are," he said, over a 
 lump in his throat. 
 
 Captain Ike heard that lump and it kept him from 
 disillusioning the boy on the spot. He agreed to have 
 dinner with John and Janice and they separated for 
 the longest day in John's life. 
 
 After quite a merry dinner whose gaiety was in no 
 little part due to the extraordinary poise of the young 
 hostess of eight, the party adjourned to John's rooms 
 for a conference. 
 
 " Captain Ike," said John, his heart in his voice, 
 " let me tell you how it was." 
 
 He described his walk from Dover, told him about 
 the feel of things, the primroses and the friendly pony, 
 and gave him a picture of the dreaming suburbs of the 
 town of Lewes. Then he sprang upon the captain the 
 scene through the arch in the neglected hedge as it 
 had been sprung upon himself. Through the rest of 
 the tale Janice sat very straight on the edge of her 
 chair, her legs hanging motionless, well up from the
 
 34 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 floor. Her face grew quite white and her chin trem- 
 bled. 
 
 Before John had finished the captain had begun 
 blowing his nose, shuffling his feet, and blinking his 
 eyes. " Son," he asked, " was that bucko-brute big- 
 ger 'n what you are ? " 
 
 " No," said John, " and he was drunk. It would 
 have been easy and done me good to thrash him, but 
 would it have done anybody else any good ? " 
 
 The captain nodded his head slowly as he pondered. 
 " Ever seen a bill of health," he asked at last, " and 
 what it wants to know about ' persons on board,' where 
 they come from, what you done with the cat you had 
 last port of call, an' how did the deckhand get that 
 bump behind the ear ? " 
 
 " No," said John, smiling, " but why should n't 
 Mother and I be just passengers ? " 
 
 " I 'm not saying," said the captain, " that the Alex- 
 andrine has never carried a passenger license, but it 'a 
 a long day from now to then when our clippers were 
 lookin' for a reckerd every time they put to sea. No, 
 you an' Mother, if you go at all, '11 have to show on 
 ship's papers under the headin', l Master's family.' " 
 
 " Hurray ! " cried John, and grabbing Janice's hands 
 danced around the room with her. She cast her slow 
 smile over her shoulder at the captain as though they 
 two knew what it was to have to humor the young. 
 
 " Where are we bound for ? " asked John. 
 
 " South Africa," said the captain. " It 's a long 
 voyage. What about her things ? " 
 
 Janice fetched all her wardrobe and laid it out piece
 
 y JOHN BOGARDUS 35 
 
 by tiny piece on John's bed. "H'm," said Captain 
 Ike, " with the bo's'n washin' the day things while 
 she 's asleep and the nighties in the mornin', they might 
 last two-three weeks, then they 'd be wore out. Son, 
 you 'n me '11 have to do some shoppin' to-morrer 
 mornin'." 
 
 Never did two full-grown males face a herculean 
 task with more courage and singleness of heart than 
 did these two. The debate as to whether they should 
 take samples or Janice herself as an ocular exhibit 
 of what they needed was settled promptly by the lady 
 in the case. She went ; and before they had been five 
 minutes in the shop she and the young woman behind 
 the counter had pushed the captain and his crew of one 
 off the bridge into the scuppers. The captain was re- 
 duced to the sole function of saying, " Six," every time 
 Janice said, " I '11 have one of these, if I may, thank 
 you." 
 
 John's life was to be one of rapid mutations, but 
 through all its vicissitudes he was to remember that 
 voyage, Plymouth to Durban, as a happy time, a time 
 not so much of growth as of well-being, long days when 
 time itself was not, banished from mind by an all- 
 pervading content. A single cloud, pointed out by 
 Captain Ike, hovered on his far horizon. " It 's all 
 very fine, but what are you going to do with her ? " 
 
 Before they had been out a week little Janice had 
 become Mother to the whole ship's company, 'fore and 
 abaft the mast, and to the ship's cat. She was not 
 into everything like a mischievous monkey, far from 
 it; but she moved through every domain with an in-
 
 36 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 congruous dignity that made her no less beloved and 
 brought horny-handed men with humbly offered tribute 
 to her feet. 
 
 Nothing surprised her, not even the full-rigged ship 
 in a bottle that it took the bo's'n four weeks to make, 
 but she showed such a calm and steadfast pride in all 
 her possessions that each succeeding day was an ac- 
 knowledgment added to her initial, " Thank you so 
 much." 
 
 It was no wind-jammer crew that manned the Alex- 
 andrine. Not to have sailed in her five voyages made 
 of a man a newcomer, subject to frequent snubs on all 
 matters pertaining to the personality not only of that 
 particular ship but of all the fast-diminishing clipper 
 fleet that sailed under the Old Man's name. There 
 were men aboard who had bred sons and launched them 
 into the world on earnings from the Alexandrine, and 
 other men, youngsters, whose fathers had handled her 
 sweat-polished wheel before them. Such a breed could 
 understand steadfastness. 
 
 As John watched the child winning hearts and hold- 
 ing them, he began to know how firmly his own was 
 coming to be held in the keeping of her two little hands 
 and to doubt the wisdom with which he had foreseen 
 and solved, even as far back as on the stoop of the 
 little house in Lewes, the problem that Captain Ike 
 now pressed to his attention. 
 
 What John had thought back there in Lewes was 
 that if a young man bound for the whole wide world 
 was worth his salt he could soon find a better and a 
 safer home for so winsome and unusual a child as
 
 y JOHN BOGAKDUS 37 
 
 Janice. Could James Bogardus have witnessed his 
 son's naive assumption of this monster responsibility he 
 would have revised his opinion that John was old for 
 his years and in doing so, he would only have set his 1 
 face toward further and repeated revisions. He was 
 at once too near and too far from his son to see that 
 the boy was as unequal in development as had been his 
 training. He was old in knowledge, young as morn- 
 ing in the things of the heart. 
 
 Durban was just beginning to draw a long breath 
 of prosperity. The effects of the depression and finan- 
 cial cyclone that had fallen upon the port immedi- 
 ately following the Boer War were already fading in 
 the light of a new dawn, and people were just real- 
 izing that most of those who had succeeded in stav- 
 ing off foundering could at last consider that they had 
 definitely weathered the storm. Here and there one 
 still came upon worried eyes and drawn faces, but for 
 the most part the inhabitants seemed to share the light- 
 heartedness of the ever-increasing troops of up-county 
 holiday-makers whose money flowed in just in time to 
 save the port from economic decomposition. 
 
 Peace fled the decks of the Alexandrine from the 
 moment she dropped anchor and John soon formed the 
 habit of leaving her in the early morning, taking Janice 
 with him, of course, to return only at the beckoning of 
 the ship's riding lights. Together the two wandered 
 about the town, seeking mild adventures among its 
 shops, its Indian quarter, on the beach, already show- 
 ing signs of becoming the Coney Island of South Af- 
 rica, and on the hills of the Berea, dotted with the
 
 38 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 well-kept villas of the local aristocracy an aristocracy 
 none the less solid for resting its foundations on pickled 
 herring and the yard-stick. 
 
 In the memory-gallery of more than one Durbanite 
 still hangs the picture of a handsome youth in rough 
 tweeds, sometimes leading by the hand and sometimes 
 carrying on his shoulder a black-eyed little girl that 
 might well have been his sister. The two were by no 
 means to be confused with the waning throngs of holi- 
 day makers. Against the background of ordinary trip- 
 pers they stood out peculiarly distinct, reminiscent of 
 the days when Durban was not a resort but a port, the 
 doubtful haven of ships, waifs, and strays. 
 
 It was the indigenous whose eyes were caught by the 
 young couple and who frequently spoke to them with 
 the freedom that flourishes in new countries and marks 
 the clan of the pioneer. The men were drawn by 
 Janice's quaint person, and most of the women said it 
 was Janice's quaint person that drew them even while 
 their too-friendly eyes passed over John approvingly. 
 
 South African femininity is a peculiar composition 
 whose major division is made up of equal parts of lan- 
 guor, sun, smiles, and flame, and finds its many recruits 
 among the women who do not struggle, the women who 
 are too soft and warm for the enduring clasp of tradi- 
 tion, who live by the senses alone and bask content in 
 the moral Nirvana of hot countries. But there is the 
 minority, who hold steadfastly to antecedent faiths, 
 whose inner life has withstood or transcended the test 
 of their surroundings, and who without becoming hard 
 have grown firm and yet continued lovable.
 
 it JOHN BOGAKDUS 39 
 
 It was fated that John should meet on the same day 
 a representative of each of these divisions of woman- 
 kind. The first was a tall dark woman with sleepy 
 eyes, languid until she was awakened, and then sud- 
 denly alive and vibrant. She had seen John and 
 Janice before. On the first occasion she had paused 
 and looked over her shoulder, on the second she walked 
 straight up to them and said in a low and pleasant 
 voice, " Oh, you little darling ! " Then, turning def- 
 initely to John, " What is her name ? " 
 
 In five minutes, without appearing in the least ab- 
 rupt, she had invited and carried them away to lunch. 
 The husband not appearing, they three found them- 
 selves alone in a well-appointed house that reflected its 
 mistress in its lazy lounges, soft cushions, and in its 
 tropical light subdued by carefully chosen shades, as 
 well as in its excellent French mirrors. 
 
 That Janice was to the lady merely a point of pur- 
 chase from which she intended to spring into John's 
 good graces soon became a self-evident fact which she 
 tried neither to gloss over nor to emphasize. With a 
 good-natured sweep of her eyes she occasionally brought 
 her little guest into the picture but never into the talk, 
 which after the first few moments she addressed to John 
 and to John alone. 
 
 After lunch she took them into an informal living- 
 room, placed Janice before a table and a picture-book, 
 and led John on from books to bibelots and scattered 
 photographs. When they walked she brushed against 
 him lightly and when they stood she came so near that 
 he could see the fast pulse in her throat, hear her dress
 
 40 
 
 move over the rise and fall of her bosom, and feel in 
 his own veins the reflected glow of the fire in hers. 
 
 " Would n't the little girl like to go out to play ? " 
 she asked casually. 
 
 The words brought John back to himself. He 
 glanced instinctively at Janice and saw that her quick 
 ears had heard. Her little body stiffened, her face 
 went white, and she gave the lady such a steady, seeing 
 look as only one woman can give another. So, at least, 
 it seemed to John, who in an instant was carried back 
 to their beginning of things and expected Janice's lips 
 to open to her first passionate cry of, " No, Papa, no ! " 
 the cry that had gone straight to his heart and stayed 
 there ever since. 
 
 " Not unless I go too," he said calmly, turning from 
 the lady with the quiet assurance of experience. 
 
 He left her puzzled and, striding across the room, 
 picked Janice up in his arms. She did not struggle to 
 be put down, for she had learned long since that this 
 was My Boy's sole gesture of protection and love.
 
 CHAPTEK V 
 
 JOHN refused the offer of the lady, who had turned 
 languid again, to have the trap set them down 
 anywhere they liked, and he and Janice started off for 
 a ramble along the crest of the long, low mountain. As 
 they were coming back, headed for the Point and the 
 Alexandrine, Janice ran a few paces ahead in pursuit 
 of a swirl of yellow butterflies. Out of a break in the 
 high hedge suddenly shot a carriage and pair and a 
 frightened Coolie coachman. John hurled himself for- 
 ward, clutched Janice by the skirt, and snatched her 
 back into the muddy ditch by the roadside. 
 
 At the same time the Coolie coachman dragged the 
 horses back on their haunches. The carriage, in which 
 a lady was rising to her feet, came to a stop. " How 
 often have I told you to be careful ? " she said to the 
 coachman, tensely. " How often ! " 
 
 " He was n't really driving fast," said John. " It 
 just happened." 
 
 Janice, always particularly neat in her person, was 
 looking down at her mud-stained smock with dismay. 
 Suddenly shame came over her, she blushed, and coming 
 close to John, hid her face against his rough coat. 
 He was surprised, for he had never seen her shy be- 
 fore. 
 
 But Janice was not shy. Only one woman in a 
 
 thousand could have read that gesture aright and the 
 
 41
 
 42 
 
 lady in the carriage happened to be one in a thousand. 
 As she stepped down she said to the coachman, " Don't 
 wait for me. Go and fetch your master." 
 
 Then she turned to Janice and said in a soft, friendly 
 voice, " Now, my dear, you can't possibly go home like 
 that, can you ? Come on up to the house and let 's see 
 what we can do." 
 
 Holding the lady's hand with one of her own and 
 John's with the other, Janice walked up the drive with 
 eyes fixed ahead lest they fall again on that very ugly 
 blot. She seemed almost glad to leave John alone on 
 the veranda and he had time to reflect that this lady 
 had not talked at him through Janice, had not, in fact, 
 talked at or to him at all. He liked her. 
 
 The house was very peaceful, the light in the rooms 
 opening on the veranda was subdued not by secretive 
 shades but by clambering vines and shadowing trees, 
 and there were dim recesses that waited for the pupil 
 of the eye to dilate to the tone of their friendly shad- 
 ows before they fully disclosed their charms. 
 
 When Janice came back to John, who had strolled 
 into a large living-room, she was on fire with excite- 
 ment. Her short hair, freshly combed and brushed, 
 looked as if it would break into long waves and undu- 
 lations if only it could reach far enough, her cheeks 
 were aglow, and her face and her hands exhaled a 
 faint fragrance of soap. But above and beyond all 
 these things she was dressed in a charming little white 
 frock. 
 
 So well did the pretty dress fit and become her that 
 John gave way to the feeling of wonder of one brought
 
 y' JOHN BOGAKDUS 43 
 
 face to face with magic. His glance passed to the lady 
 standing in the doorway, one hand resting on the door- 
 jamb and trembling, her lower lip, trembling a little 
 too, and her eyes, wide open and moist, looking at 
 Janice but staring far beyond, and he understood bet- 
 ter than any other tongues could have told him that 
 a memory dressed in a little white frock was playing 
 in the room. 
 
 In the wide front doorway appeared a big bob-tailed 
 sheep-dog, gray and white, pink tip of tongue hanging 
 pendent to a jet-black nose, kind eyes blinking under 
 forbidding brows, stocky legs absurdly woolly. He was 
 friendly, like the house. 
 
 " Oh ! " breathed Janice, standing very still and 
 staring. " Please, what is his name ? " 
 
 " Just Woolly," said the lady, and caught her 
 breath. 
 
 The dog gave vent to a single high note, startling 
 because unlike the bark of other dogs, it stood alone. 
 " He 's calling you," said the lady. 
 
 " Eeally ? " said Janice. She ran forward, laid her 
 hand tentatively on the dog's silky head, and the next 
 moment had her arms around his neck. He led her 
 away down the veranda. " Oh ! Just Woolly," they 
 heard her say ; " how very woolly you are ! " 
 
 Almost unconsciously the lady motioned John to a 
 chair and sat down herself. She did not try to talk, 
 but clasped her hands tightly in her lap and fixed her 
 eyes on them. John could see that she was striving 
 hard to get herself back to the point where she could 
 chatter of little things. The instinct that had let him
 
 44 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 see what he had seen led him to save her from talking 
 now. He began of himself to tell her about Janice, 
 how he had found her and taken her, the quaint things 
 she had said, the wonders of housewifery she had per- 
 formed on board the boat. 
 
 Soon the lady turned her thoughts from herself and 
 from the child that was only a memory, the whole of 
 memory, and Janice became flesh and blood in her own 
 right, the right that each one of us has to our own 
 tragedy, however little, and to our share of the pity of 
 great hearts. 
 
 At last she looked at John and really saw him for 
 the first time. " And, in the end, what are you going 
 to do with her ? " 
 
 Her voice was very low, but it was not because he 
 had not heard that John was so long in answering. 
 "I don't " he began. "I had thought " he be- 
 gan again. Then he turned his eyes' from her, clasped 
 his hands over his crossed knees and said, " When I 
 took her, of course I thought of that. I thought that 
 somewhere I must find a home, a much better home, 
 that wanted her." 
 
 When two people think of a solution to a problem 
 at the same time, if the problem is vital and the de- 
 cision momentous in its peculiar way to each of them, 
 they seldom talk about it. It was so now. The lady 
 flashed a look at John and then her eyes grew slowly 
 dreamy. He read her thoughts but turned from them 
 to his own and moved restlessly in his chair, looking 
 for Janice as though she had been too long out of his 
 sight.
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 45 
 
 A maid came into the room and laid Janice's little 
 smock, dry-cleaned and freshly ironed, on the back of 
 a chair. John gave a sigh of relief. " I think we 
 should be going," he said, and went out to look for 
 Janice. 
 
 When he brought her in, her eyes fell on the smock. 
 With her face very grave she backed up to the lady, 
 to have the borrowed dress unbuttoned. Then she 
 slipped it off herself and stood revealed in a straight 
 little underwaist with big flat buttons holding up undies 
 that puffed out just a little at her hips and drew in to 
 a narrow band of openwork and baby lace at her knees. 
 She was more than charming, she was adorable, and the 
 pale brown of her fresh bare limbs cried aloud for kisses. 
 
 Very carefully she folded the borrowed dress, laid 
 it on a chair, patted it smooth; then she turned from 
 it with the self-same sigh as that with which many 
 an older woman has turned from gazing on sapphires 
 and rubies, and put on the smock. 
 
 As he had done once before that day John stepped 
 quickly to her, picked her up and held her close, her 
 cheek pressed against his. He dared not meet the 
 lady's eyes when he said thank you and good-by. As 
 he hurried toward the gate, still carrying Janice, he 
 could feel her craning her neck to look back over her 
 shoulder and heard her say, " He is so very woolly." 
 
 John could not sleep that night. He paced the deck 
 for hours, sat for hours in Captain Ike's Bombay 
 chair, and then paced the deck again. The next after- 
 noon, the afternoon of the Alexandrine's last day in 
 port, without a word to captain or crew, he took Janice
 
 46 JOHN BOGAKDIJS 
 
 back to the friendly house and the friendly dog, and 
 left her to dry the tears of a woman only too eager to 
 clutch at the memory of happiness. 
 
 He had not been silent as they slowly climbed the 
 long hill, hand in hand, but he had spoken more of 
 the woolly dog than of the lady, and his words had 
 been cheerful and brave as cheerful words are when 
 they come from a heavy heart. But when it came to 
 saying just the three words he had saved for the last, 
 " Good-by, little Mother," he could not. He stooped 
 instead and pressed his trembling lips against her soft 
 mouth. She put her arms around his neck and patted 
 his head. 
 
 As he hurried from the house he heard her say pa- 
 tiently, almost wearily, " I know. You are to be my 
 new, new Mama." 
 
 It was late at night when John clambered aboard 
 the Alexandrine and went to his cabin, to stay there 
 through all the early morning noises of departure. 
 When at last he came on deck the Bluff was a mere 
 hump on the horizon. The captain had set the course 
 for the southern trades and the ship was standing out 
 for the long, long run to Melbourne. 
 
 It was a breezy blue morning over white water, and 
 Captain Ike as well as the men were alive and happy 
 and looked it. 
 
 " Hello, son ! " shouted the captain. " What 's got 
 inter you an' Mother this mornin' ? " 
 
 John drew him aside. He had a long explanation 
 ready, but all he said was, " I Ve done it. I found a 
 home for her."
 
 y JOHN BOGARDUS 4Y 
 
 " Done what ? " demanded Captain Ike, the color 
 rising in his cheeks. His loud tone and the way he 
 glanced around drew the mate and a couple of the deck 
 watch. 
 
 John set his teeth and faced them. " I 've left 
 Mother behind." 
 
 They stared at him wide-eyed and speechless. Cap- 
 tain Ike was angry, and when he was angry he followed 
 an invariable rule, invariable ever since he had knocked 
 a man down years ago and spent three terrible days 
 bringing him back to consciousness. He went to his 
 cabin and locked himself in. 
 
 The news spread rapidly over the ship and the men, 
 some of them half dressed, gathered in knots. The 
 bo's'n, brushing etiquette aside, clumped down the 
 after gangway and coming back a moment later re- 
 ported, " All her kit 's there, left behind like she was 
 a runaway an' a pauper. The bottle 's there, too ; the 
 one with the full-rigged ship in it as I made." 
 
 The men moved gradually away from where John 
 was standing, even the mate turned his back on him 
 and, discovering that the ship had fallen off half a 
 point, cursed the man at the wheel in full rolling oaths 
 that seemed to echo and bump along the decks which 
 through many weeks had been strangers to profanity. 
 
 There is no more bitter fate than to be sent to 
 Coventry by the entire company of a ship at sea. John 
 passed a terrible day. An eternity of silence oppressed 
 him and man and Nature seemed in league to crush 
 him utterly with the sheer weight of unbearable loneli- 
 ness. The reaching sails and the bowsprit, nodding,
 
 48 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 nodding across the interminable crested waves, repeated 
 again and again, long hour after long hour, " Alone, 
 alone." 
 
 He turned from the ship, stood against the after 
 rail, and gazed back along the wake, that symbol of the 
 past, so bright and clear near by, so quickly faded in 
 the distance and lost in the endless sea. He was 
 standing like that at night when Captain Ike came up 
 to him and laid a big hand on his shoulder. 
 
 " Come down an' have your supper, son." 
 
 John shook his head. 
 
 " Well, then," said the captain, " let 's have it out 
 now. I don't ask you why you done it. I ask you 
 why you done it that way? Not givin' none of us a 
 chanst to say good-by." 
 
 "I didn't say good-by myself," said John, thickly. 
 " It was all I could do to leave her and run. If I 'd 
 had to argue one word, pack her things, if you and the 
 men had all come forward saying good-by, each one 
 giving her something and pulling at her heart, trying 
 to tie a last string to it, where would she be right now ? 
 Here with a lot of men, each one so full of himself 
 that he 'd rather see a little girl kiddie playing house 
 in the sloppy scuppers of a ship than living in a fine 
 quiet home with a big-hearted woman and and a big 
 woolly dog. And you all stand around and tell each 
 other how you loved her and " 
 
 ' ll That 's all right, son," interrupted the captain 
 quickly, for John's voice was going shaky. " That 's 
 all I wanted and all the men will want jest to see 
 it your way. An' now, I do, son, I do. Only it was
 
 g i JOHN BOGAEDUS 49 
 
 so sudden, like a squall that hits you when you 're 
 looking the other way and takes you all aback. Now 
 you tell me the kind of place you found for little 
 Mother." And John did. 
 
 Captain Ike was right about the men. He had 
 them aft in odd groups and put them straight so that 
 in the end, far from being estranged, John found him.' 
 self what he had not been before, and what he nevei 
 would have become without the incident part and 
 parcel of the life and the history of the Alexandrine. 
 
 During the long, free run to Melbourne a vital 
 change of which he was quite unconscious came over 
 him. He made rough purchases from the slop-chest, 
 took his turn at the wheel and at the sheets, picked up 
 knowledge and muscle at the same time and the keen, 
 calm vision of men that stand hour after hour face to 
 face with unlimited space. The taste of salt was ever 
 on his lips, salt tanned his cheeks and sifted into his 
 very blood, making his final assignment to a regular 
 watch a thing as natural and suddenly familiar as a 
 newly charted rock. 
 
 At last they reached the port of Melbourne and the 
 moment they were free from the restraining influences 
 of discipline and the ship, Captain Ike gave John such 
 a slap on the shoulder as two months before would 
 have knocked him down. "Bogardus," he said, using 
 John's surname for the first and last time, and pausing 
 to let the significance of the appellation sink in, 
 " you 're a man this day."
 
 CHAPTEK VI 
 
 EVEN the friendliness of Durban, which had 
 seemed overwarm, paled before the flame of Mel- 
 bourne's too generous hospitality. In the six weeks of 
 the Alexandrine's delay John had not time to gain 
 a perspective, and unstayed by Janice's presence he 
 knocked about like a craft that has cast its moorings 
 in a crowded harbor and goes rollicking to the damage 
 and disfigurement of at least its paint. 
 
 Quickly satiated with too much rubbing of elbows he 
 welcomed sailing-day with unmixed joy. His mem- 
 ories of Melbourne were feverish to the verge of un- 
 pleasantness. He was not conscious of having been 
 defiled so much as he was depressed by the feeling that 
 he had been living on the dead level of the flesh, mov- 
 ing amidst a community, outwardly light-hearted, made 
 up of husbands as unconscious philanthropists and 
 wives as exponents of a new rendering of the old rule, 
 " live and let live." 
 
 It was good to forget the taste of saccharine things 
 in the tang of the salt sea, good to look out upon un- 
 broken and unblotted heavens and plow forward into 
 the great ocean that beyond any other material element 
 wipes out the past for man and gives him the sense 
 and the courage of a fresh-washed soul. During the 
 long voyage, three months with luck, Melbourne to 
 
 50
 
 v JOHN BOGAKDUS 51 
 
 Baltimore without a stop, he learned many things 
 that distance is the absence of speed, patience the mur- 
 der of desire, and that modest penny-ante with a dollar- 
 bet limit has powers to break the monumental monotony 
 of a thousand-mile slant of wind. 
 
 The long, reaching billows of the Indian Ocean were 
 child's play in comparison with the battling waves of 
 the North Atlantic through which the Alexandrine 
 fought on her last leg to her home port and it was with 
 a great deal of pride and no mental reservation that 
 Captain Ike wrote out John's discharge as an able 
 seaman. " There you are, son," he said ; " it 's the 
 humblest degree there is, but you can't buy it ner hold 
 it with money. Don't you never be ashamed of it." 
 
 With more than half his traveling fund still unex- 
 pended but with over two years of absence to his credit 
 John appeared before his father. James Bogardus did 
 not attempt to hide his astonishment at his son's devel- 
 opment. He had given Godspeed to a boy exceed- 
 ingly old for his years; he welcomed back a man, a 
 young man whose carriage without being quite soldierly 
 still suggested combat and the trained muscles of an 
 athlete. 
 
 " Travel," said the elder Bogardus, " wonderful 
 thing." His keen glance settled on his son and fol- 
 lowed him around while his mind gloated on the talks 
 they would have of distant countries and the sights he 
 would see through his son's eyes. But if John had been 
 an enigma before he started on his grand tour, he was 
 now a full-grown mystery. In three long sentences he 
 disposed of his entire two years' absence. The first
 
 52 JOHN BOGAEDUS 
 
 covered Leipzig and his degree; another, Captain Ike 
 and the Alexandrine; and the third sketched into the 
 picture Plymouth, Durban, and Melbourne, the only 
 considerable stops in the whole pilgrimage. 
 
 James Bogardus was dazed, his theory of travel de- 
 molished. He had had a low opinion of Captain Ike, 
 not low enough to lead him to interfere in any way with 
 the friendship John had struck up with him, but suffi- 
 ciently marked to make him wonder what intercourse 
 there could be between his son's highly developed mind 
 and the rough and ready mentality of the captain. 
 Eighteen months on a sailing vessel and a mere glimpse 
 of three of the most provincial ports in the world 
 seemed to the professor a most inadequate explanation 
 of his son's development. 
 
 He gave up the puzzle and fell back on the consola- 
 tion that from whatever cause the development had 
 come, it was a solid reality upon which one could build. 
 Within a month the arrangements of years were brought 
 to a triumphant termination and John was duly in- 
 stalled as assistant professor in Romance languages on 
 the understanding that his father would resign the full 
 professorship in his son's favor as soon as the university 
 authorities judged the younger Bogardus competent and 
 old enough to assume the larger responsibility. 
 
 James Bogardus would have felt dismay rather than 
 consolation could he have conceived a bird's-eye view 
 of John's chaotic mind at this juncture. The boy had 
 at no time felt a call to be a teacher of Romance lan- 
 guages or of anything else. He had grown into the 
 idea just as one grows, unthinking, into the bonds of
 
 JOHN BOGAEDUS 53 
 
 an inherited religion. To some natures such an im- 
 prisonment is a boon; to others, those who have sight 
 and are weak, it means galling wounds, but to the 
 world's fighters, it is but a call to arms and to revolt. 
 Though John did not yet know it, he was a fighter born. 
 The youth that was banished from his outward person 
 still reigned in his heart and dazed him. He assumed 
 the assistant professorship with apparent content but his 
 inner spirit took it as a young horse first takes the bit. 
 
 James Bogardus occupied one of those houses in light 
 brick and Colonial trimmings that look prim and fresh 
 at the same time, their precise formality softened by a 
 line of white here and there, by lush lawns in summer 
 time and by the gray lace of bare trees in winter. 
 Such a house in town almost always sports gay window- 
 boxes, but in the country shows its sense of the fitness 
 of things by facing a tumult of color with an even and 
 restraining severity. 
 
 Inside, it was built for comfort and took every ad- 
 vantage of modern science in sanitation, lighting, and 
 ventilation, at the same time lending itself easily to the 
 sensible modifications which James Bogardus had in- 
 stituted in anticipation of his son's return. On the 
 ground floor there was a spacious hall, a large, deep- 
 toned library, a sunny dining-room and a drawing- 
 room, converted into a bedroom, to which had been 
 added a bathroom. This, except for the hall and din- 
 ing-room, was the elder Bogardus's domain, leaving to 
 his son the entire second floor with the exception of the 
 servants' rooms at the back, which were separate and 
 served by their own stairway.
 
 54 
 
 The house was quite strange to John in spite of the 
 fact that his father had occupied it for many years, 
 and struck him as being somewhat new, inside and out ; 
 not repulsively new, but new with the newness of a 
 suit of clothes made by an excellent tailor. None the 
 less, he was pleased with it ; pleased above all with the 
 thoughtfulness his father had shown in providing for 
 their mutual privacy. 
 
 John did not enter upon his new duties without 
 many qualms, first and foremost of which was the fear 
 that he would have to teach Komance languages by day 
 and talk them eternally by night. Consequently he was 
 overjoyed to find that the professorial etiquette of the 
 university forbade talking shop out of school hours and 
 that the elder Bogardus stuck to the rule with a wisdom 
 born of much experience. 
 
 This one relief alone made John almost happy but 
 it came too suddenly; it broke the slender link in the 
 relations of father and son before any mutual interest 
 had had time to form into a substitute and left the two 
 quite friendly but inexplicably distant. Neither of 
 them knew why they were distant one from the other, 
 but they realized day by day that they were, and after 
 a first bewilderment gradually sank each into his own 
 sedentary rut. 
 
 The professor's eyes would occasionally follow his 
 son wistfully as John strode down the steps and away 
 toward the campus, his brow would pucker in a puz- 
 zled frown, but finally his face would light up, rather 
 deliberately, into a look of pride. He might be lonely 
 but he had the consolation of pride in his boy, the
 
 JOHN BOGAEDUS 55 
 
 wonder product of his loins and his thoughtful pre- 
 vision. 
 
 To John, amazingly restricted in his contacts with 
 American life, those first few weeks of teaching were 
 mentally crowded with impressions, deductions, and re- 
 adjustments. Without ever having heen side by side 
 with American youth he was suddenly brought face to 
 face with it in the worst possible conditions for a fair 
 understanding of the boyish, clean-shaven multitude. 
 He ran into a series of surprises. The first was the 
 discovery of the unbounded extent of ignorance hidden 
 behind the bright faces, the next the appreciation of 
 an equal extent of indifference, and the third a dis- 
 covery of his own sudden popularity. 
 
 The last item would have proved less of a mystery 
 could he have overheard the following conversation: 
 
 " Say, get your folks to write for a transfer to some- 
 thing in the Dago line, French, Spanish, or Italian. 
 Kid Bogardus is a holy cinch. It 's a shame to take the 
 money. Just sits there and gases and never bats an 
 eye when you recite, only looks dazed. He 's never 
 picked up his mark card, let alone used it." 
 
 John had the European idea of a university ; it never 
 entered his head that he was being paid to be a task- 
 master and he did not suspect that the presence of 
 any of his pupils was due to anything but a desire to 
 learn. He was not so much dismayed by the ignorance 
 he encountered as he was filled with pity for the youths 
 who faced so cheerfully so great a handicap. During 
 many a painful recitation he devoted himself to a de- 
 tached and philosophic study of the humanity at hand,
 
 56 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 pinning his faith to the didactic theory that in the 
 course of time the discordant mumblings of his pupils 
 would develop like a hudding flower into intelligible 
 phrases. 
 
 More than once he shamelessly day-dreamed. To 
 such moments came the creak of rigging, the slosh and 
 taste of salt water, the swaying surge of the Alex- 
 andrine, deified in memory into a live goddess, a Diana 
 of the waves, wandering in search of vast distances and 
 worlds, and conquering them. Or he would suddenly 
 wake to the soft voice of Janice crying, " Oh ! Just 
 Woolly ! you are so very woolly ! " 
 
 His classes in French were naturally the largest and 
 the most mixed, made up of youths who thought or 
 whose parents thought it was the thing to know French, 
 of others who had a bent for literature and wanted to 
 read French, and of still others who used the course as 
 a convenient padding to a tenuous curriculum. 
 
 His classes in Spanish were also well attended, owing 
 to the fact that the Spanish war and the prospective 
 permanent occupation of the Philippines and closer 
 relations with Cuba had given a boom to that long- 
 neglected language, but here the personnel was well- 
 defined and made up for the most part of shrewd- 
 minded youngsters who foresaw, or whose parents fore- 
 saw, the coming money-value of a knowledge of Span- 
 ish in the Western Hemisphere. These were the most 
 intelligent if not the most diligent of John's pupils, 
 but like his French students, their indolence was more 
 potent than their need. They believed in erudition 
 by absorption.
 
 57 
 
 X 
 
 The most diligent but by no means the most beloved, 
 was the small group that elected to be initiated into the 
 mysteries of Italian. It was made up of the genus 
 locally called " poler " and classified in a wider world 
 under the appellation of " highbrow." John looked 
 over the small assembly and comforted himself with 
 the thought that he would rather teach them Italian 
 than undertake to make a passable deckhand out of 
 the best of the lot. Together they struggled through 
 the sonorous Divina Commedia which became hence- 
 forth to John a monstrous comedy, robbed of divinity 
 for all time.
 
 CHAPTEK VII 
 
 WEEKS passed, months passed. The Bogard- 
 uses, father and son, plodded along like a well- 
 trained team of horses, each in his rut. Their joint 
 life began to look like a long, even cart-track with an 
 indefinite promise of convergence hovering always over 
 a distant horizon. James Bogardus had a number of 
 friends, John had made a few, and even these out- 
 siders seemed to play a game of Follow the Leader, the 
 former turning invariably into the library and the lat- 
 ter passing directly upstairs to John's private quarters. 
 
 Against this condition both father and son inwardly 
 rebelled. Each was possessed of an active personality, 
 of the magnetism that subconsciously creates an atmos- 
 phere of friendship wherever it goes and leaves its owner 
 bewildered on those rare occasions when it fails to work 
 automatically. But almost as a consequence of the 
 strength of their characters they were impotent to re- 
 solve their dilemma. Neither could bend toward the 
 other except by a conscious effort, an effort whose mere 
 inception would imply an unwarranted surrender of 
 independence. 
 
 James Bogardus could analyze almost anything in 
 others from a trifling individual motive to a national 
 emotion, but he could not analyze himself nor this mys- 
 terious son, so intimately of his fiber and of his life, 
 
 58
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 59 
 
 JJr 
 
 and yet so far removed. John did not trouble with 
 analysis. His internal youth, never divined by his 
 father behind the immutable calm of his exterior, 
 sensed a division of spirit and accepted it. His father 
 was a stranger ; he had always been a stranger. 
 
 There are certain nervous affections which strike 
 invariably at persons of grim character combined with 
 superactive imagination, holding them bedridden for 
 years only to be released suddenly by some violent 
 exterior shock. Of such invalids it is commonly said, 
 " There is nothing really the matter with him." So 
 it might be said of the Bogarduses there was nothing 
 really the matter with them; but they were powerless, 
 nevertheless, held in a thrall that awaited the adventi- 
 tious mercy of an exterior shock. The shock was on 
 the way. 
 
 On two evenings, widely separated, John had heard 
 the entry of several persons to the library from whence 
 muffled, indistinguishable sounds continued to reach 
 him until sleep and the small hours of the morning 
 had come to blot them out. John had thought little 
 and said nothing of the matter, though he had been con- 
 scious of an added pin-prick of loneliness on each occa- 
 sion. 
 
 To be alone is nothing; to feel alone is humanity's 
 maximum terror and the sole source of a universal fear 
 of death. The only misery of childhood that continues 
 unabated through all the years of life is the sinking 
 feeling that comes to him who thinks himself " left out." 
 This feeling came to John on the third evening of con- 
 tinued muffled sounds from the library. The double
 
 60 
 
 yet divided life that he and his father were living sud- 
 denly seemed monstrous to him. He paced up and 
 down his room, finally went to the top of the stairs 
 and with scarcely a pause descended to the library door. 
 This was not surrender; it was rebellion, attack. He 
 grasped the door knob firmly and turned it. The door 
 was locked. 
 
 A hot flush flamed in his cheeks as he rushed up 
 the stairs and quickly locked himself into his own 
 rooms. He was overwhelmed with shame. Had they 
 heard him? Was it altogether imagination that told 
 him there had been a sudden hush in the library? 
 Then came revulsion to still deeper shame. His father 
 had locked him out; not figuratively, but actually, de- 
 liberately. He looked at his own door and remembered 
 that it too was locked, locked for the first time. Well, 
 after all, wasn't this the logical end of any estrange- 
 ment? During his momentary embarrassment he had 
 lost every vestige of poise and become palpitatingly 
 young ; now he was suddenly old again, older than ever. 
 
 The next day was Saturday and John lingered in 
 bed until he heard his father leave the house ; then he 
 rose, dressed quickly and went for a long walk, lunched 
 at an inn and whiled away the whole afternoon on the 
 deserted towpath of the somnolent canal. He dreaded 
 coming back to dinner, but dinner was a meal one could 
 not skip without the formality of a previous announce- 
 ment. He reached his rooms without encountering any 
 one, bathed, dressed, and came down at the first faint 
 stroke of the gong. 
 
 He found his father waiting for him in the dining-
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 61 
 
 room and perceived at a glance that last night's turn- 
 ing of the library door knob had by no means passed 
 unremarked, for James Bogardus was very nervous and 
 his tones did not ring quite true to cordiality when he 
 said, " Ah, here you are at last." 
 
 " I suppose you forgot the president's reception," he 
 added more naturally as he saw that his best frock coat 
 and gray striped trousers had attracted and held John's 
 attention. 
 
 John nodded. " Forgot all about it," he murmured. 
 
 They sat down to a silent dinner, each making a 
 pretense of eating to give the other time to satisfy the 
 demands of normal appetite; but normal appetite has 
 a way of fleeing before emotion and both were glad 
 when the farce of a meal was over and the elder 
 Bogardus said, " Let us go to the library," in the tone 
 of an officer saying, " Fix bayonets ! " 
 
 Once in the library, Bogardus pere motioned his son 
 to a deep leathern chair and took his own position with 
 his back to the fireplace, empty of coals for spring was 
 already upon them. John felt that he had been put 
 at a disadvantage the moment he sounded the surpris- 
 ing depths of the chair into which he had been in- 
 veigled and started to rise but sank back again in defer- 
 ence to a gesture from his father. It struck him for 
 the first time in many days that his father occasionally 
 possessed a most pleasing presence. 
 
 With his hands clasped behind his back under his 
 coat-tails so that the frock coat, buttoned down the 
 front, was drawn sharply up from his slim hips, his 
 bright eyes and dark brows shining out against the soft
 
 62 JOHN BOGAEDTTS 
 
 gray of his hair and pointed beard, the elder Bogardus 
 deliberately teetered heel to toe and coughed like a 
 boy about to make a speech. John suddenly felt a 
 premonition that he was about to discover that his fa- 
 ther was human and slowly relaxed into the hospitable 
 chair. 
 
 " A-hem," said Bogardus Senior. " A-hem. I wish 
 to assure you that it has never been my intention, much 
 less my desire, to have any secrets from you and that 
 I am rejoiced at the chance for an explanation pro- 
 vided by last night's er incident." 
 
 " I 'm the one that ought to explain, I think," said 
 John, on an impulse of generosity. 
 
 " Not at all," said James Bogardus. " I should have 
 told you about the Five Club long ago. I meant to 
 tell you when you first arrived but the chance did n't 
 come ; it never seemed to come. Er I wish you 
 would ask me some questions." 
 
 "But I don't want to ask you questions," protested 
 John. " I 'm ashamed of myself. You have a meet- 
 ing of your club and I come like a busybody trying the 
 door. It was inexcusable and " 
 
 "I said I wished you would ask some questions," 
 interrupted the professor. "I still wish it." 
 
 John's lips broke into a quizzical smile. His father 
 had become younger, nearer, something that a son could 
 humor. " Well," he said, " what 's your club for ? " 
 
 " Poker," said James Bogardus. 
 
 " Poker ! " repeated John in a weak gasp as though 
 he had been butted below the belt. 
 
 " Poker," repeated his father, calmly, still teetering
 
 JOHN BOGAEDUS 63 
 
 from heel to toe, his bright eyes fixed gravely on his 
 son's face. 
 
 John let his head fall back and laughed as he had 
 seldom laughed before, but the elder Bogardus's face 
 remained immobile, almost unconcerned until John 
 drew out a handkerchief and started mopping his 
 eyes. 
 
 Then his father asked drily, " Were you laughing 
 at me or at Poker ? " 
 
 " No, sir," said John. " Neither. I was laughing 
 at myself. I 've been such a fool. I had a premoni- 
 tion that I was about to discover you were human but 
 it was such a small premonition " 
 
 His father smiled a slow smile. " I would n't have 
 minded your laughing at me," he said. " One should 
 never defend one's person except when a principle is 
 involved." 
 
 " Do you mean me to infer that you consider Poker 
 a principle ? " asked John, his face alight with pleasure 
 at the discovery that his father could talk something 
 besides Romance languages. 
 
 " It 's a principle with me," said James Bogardus^ 
 " and I '11 tell you why. The American, of late years, 
 has been losing his individuality at an astounding rate. 
 We built our greatness on the rock of religious toler- 
 ance and have since descended to the mud-pie level of 
 legislated morals. A majority told us what we must 
 believe and we deemed it monstrous and founded a 
 New World; now the same majority chucks us the 
 dead-letter sop of religious tolerance and we let it gorge 
 itself on intolerance in everything else." He suddenly
 
 64 
 
 stopped teetering. " By the way, this is a mighty big 
 subject. Have you any engagement?" 
 
 " I can't imagine an engagement," said John, " that 
 I would n't break to hear you make Puritan and Poker, 
 the calf and the young lion, lie down at peace together." 
 
 " Good," said his father. " We were speaking of 
 intolerance. During the last few years this country 
 has been trying to glue a triplet to the Decalogue. 
 There are States where it 's against the law to sell a 
 cigarette, more States where it 's against the law to 
 sell a drink, and a vast expanse of territory where every 
 time you say Poker ! above a cowardly whisper, people 
 jump as though you had rattled the latch on the trap- 
 door to perdition." 
 
 He drew one nervous hand from behind his back and 
 pointed the index finger at John. " Now don't be an 
 old woman and misunderstand me. I 'm not defending 
 the opium-tainted cigarette, the grog shop, or the gam- 
 bling hell. I merely say if you educate a man, breed 
 him, those things become harmless, but if you bring 
 him up under glass, untempted, you are bound to pro- 
 duce a bovine ideal soft, sleek flesh, obedient to the 
 prod, a sort of flat-minded, standardized national porker 
 that would cut his throat with his own fore feet if he 
 ever fell into anything deeper than a puddle and had 
 to swim." 
 
 John laughed aloud. He was still laughing at him- 
 self, joyfully calling himself a fool for having lived 
 long, silent solemn months beside a conversational gold 
 mine. 
 
 James Bogardus paid no attention to the interrup-
 
 tf JOHN BOGAEDUS 65 
 
 tion. " We have forgotten the very essence of the word 
 liberty. Liberty means nothing if it doesn't carry 
 with it the ennobling freedom of a choice. We talk 
 about a minority fighting the majority as though that 
 were the whole battle. But it isn't. The big battle 
 that has always been and that, please God, always will 
 be, is the fight for life of the individual against the 
 herd. It 's the old fight for a right to a choice. Let 
 me put the thing crudely: Every man should be as 
 free to take a drink as he is to commit murder." 
 
 "But " stammered John. 
 
 "But! But!" exclaimed his father. "You're 
 stubbing your toe against a mere breath of logic. The 
 absolutist that wants to remove all drink from his coun- 
 try to prevent the vulgar from getting drunk should not 
 hesitate to put every individual in solitary confinement 
 to prevent the horror of murder." 
 
 " And now do we come to Poker ? " asked John. 
 
 "Well, yes," said his father, "but not until Ellen 
 has brought us some sandwiches. Talking seems to 
 make me ravenous." 
 
 " It can't be talking," said John, smiling. " I 'm 
 starving too."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 WHEN they had eaten a surprising number of 
 sandwiches, washed down by a modest glass 
 each of the professor's best Madeira, he settled back in 
 a chair that was own brother to John's and resting his 
 elbows on its arms joined the tips of his fingers in the 
 most approved style for philosophic exposition. 
 
 " Draw Poker," he began, " is at once the most in- 
 dividual of all sciences and the epitome of American 
 character. I say science advertently, for the ingenuity 
 of man has invented no game more deliberately based 
 on a knowledge of mathematical and human values com- 
 bined. The man that calls it a gamble speaks from the 
 depths of ignorance and adds his voice to the persecu- 
 tion that has lowered the maximum test of intelligence 
 to the level of the stock exchange in the mind of an 
 undiscriminating public." 
 
 John chuckled aloud, but the professor, unmoved, 
 continued. " It is true that Poker attains flatulence 
 only on a diet of suckers and lambs but I contend that 
 the elimination, or rather, the evolution of what is com- 
 monly termed the ' easy mark/ is of distinct benefit to 
 the State and I venture to affirm that if the mere rudi- 
 ments of the game were taught in our primary schools, 
 New York would have a shorter bread-line on winter 
 evenings. I don't mean by that that the unfortunates 
 
 66
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 67 
 
 would rather play Poker than eat but that they would 
 never have reached the bread-line at all." 
 
 " How do you justify it ? " asked John. 
 
 " By this assertion," replied the professor, promptly. 
 " Poker is to the intellect what the roughest kind of 
 football is to the body. You will find the man who 
 knows Poker silent in adversity, calm under responsi- 
 bility, quick in emergency, and slow to purchase a gold 
 brick. Such an equipment, whatever his walk of life, 
 is n't apt to lead him to the bread-line." 
 
 John nodded and his smile began to waver. 
 
 " Poker," continued the professor, " is the essence 
 of individuality. Take Bridge as a contrast. When I 
 see a crowd sit down to a Bridge drive it reminds me 
 of a quadrille on roller skates. No matter how well 
 you can skate, you 're helpless. You raise your eyes 
 on high and pray for a partner that can skate too. And 
 that 's the way with Bridge. Even in a decent club 
 I 've had an idiot freeze my blood with the casual re- 
 marks, l Partner, I 've never read the book. Don't play 
 by it. Depend altogether on card-sense.' ' 
 
 The professor sat forward. " He does n't mean by 
 that that he has studied the conventions so that he can 
 recognize your play but reserves the right to break them 
 himself. No, sir. Nine times out of ten he means 
 that he 's too lazy to read the fundamental axioms of 
 the nicest of etiquettes and so sap-headed that he 'd 
 employ a bookkeeper that had never learned arithmetic. 
 He doesn't depend on card-sense but on cards, on a 
 string of honors that would win the rubber if they 
 were served up indiscriminately on a dumb-waiter.
 
 68 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 He 's the long and short of a gambler ; long on bull-luck, 
 short on intellect." 
 
 The professor nodded his head sadly. " And there 's 
 only one revenge, hard of access ; and that is to get him 
 to apply his principles to one short hour of quiet Draw. 
 But that 's by the way. There are two proofs," he con- 
 tinued, " that Poker is not a gamble but a psychological 
 science." 
 
 " Only two ? " asked John. 
 
 " I speak of elementals," said the professor ; " proofs 
 that anybody can understand. One is that the greatest 
 living authority on the game is a Scotchman and the 
 other is the fact that the sex line is as marked in Poker 
 as in a Quaker prayer-meeting. So intimately are hu- 
 man nature and logic linked in the game that it is 
 impossible to introduce even the best of woman players 
 without throwing the entire delicate scale of values out 
 of order. You can calculate odds but you can't calcu- 
 late woman. Woman is a gamble and she has no place 
 in Poker." 
 
 The professor stood up, thrust his hands in his pock- 
 ets, and jingled his keys; then he walked to a panel 
 in the bookcase, unlocked it, and slid back the door. 
 On one shelf were packs of cards, a case of chips, and 
 a bulky manuscript in disorder; on another a meager 
 line of books. " This," he said, running his nail along 
 the books, " is the sadly inadequate bibliography of 
 Poker, and this " laying his hand on the manuscript 
 " is my monograph on the game, which is to be pub- 
 lished posthumously out of regard for the feelings of 
 the local faculty."
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 69 
 
 "Do you know, sir," said John, smiling in spite of 
 the professor's gravity, "that I've gone around for 
 three years under the impression that the only thing 
 you could talk was Romance languages ? " 
 
 " Romance languages ! " repeated the professor, star- 
 ing vaguely at his son as though he had introduced 
 glaciers into a discussion on calorics. " Ah, yes. You 
 overestimated me. I can't talk Romance languages. 
 But Poker Look here." He drew out all the short 
 line of books and spread them on the table. " These," 
 he said, sorting out three, " are the every-day modern 
 authorities. Very valuable in that they serve to estab- 
 lish usage and even predict natural evolutionary tenden- 
 cies such as the long-delayed recognition of the initial 
 value of bob-tailed flushes and straights." 
 
 He picked up a thin manuscript, sheets bound in 
 parchment and covered with minute handwriting. 
 " But this," he continued, " has a value quite different, 
 quite. It is a description in the most liquid of classical 
 French of the Jeu de Bluff, in other words Poker with 
 a thirty-two card deck, and was bought by me person- 
 ally at the sale of the late Comte de Villacque's library. 
 I treasure it more than any other possession and pre- 
 dict that it will increase in value at the rate of an 
 authentic Goya." 
 
 He tapped a brochure done in brilliant yellow and 
 smiled. " A curiosity," he said. " The mad ideas of 
 a member of the Rio de Janeiro Club dos Diarios on 
 Poker with a thirty-two card deck and a right-bower, 
 right-bower being a Latin euphemism for joker. But 
 interesting, intensely interesting as illustrative of the
 
 70 
 
 tendency of all foreigners to increase the element of 
 gamble at the cost of science." 
 
 He waved his hand at the rest of the books. "A 
 hodge-podge of literature on Brag, Straight Poker, 
 Whisky Poker, Stud; in short, all the satellites that 
 twinkle round the radiant planet of Draw Poker. 
 Brag and Straight Poker are obsolete, Whisky Poker, 
 as its name implies, is a diversion for fuddled brains, 
 a sort of Blind Man's Buff, and Stud Well, I con- 
 cede to Stud its own peculiar sphere as a heaven-sent 
 relief to three kindred spirits cut off from the rest of 
 mankind. In fact, it has but a single feature that bars 
 it from being a worthy consort to Draw and that is the 
 frequency with which one finds himself in possession 
 of a certainty. That difficulty can be overcome by 
 burying the last as well as the first card. The game 
 then becomes an ideal pastime for cutthroats and mil- 
 lionaires." 
 
 He picked up the untidy bulky manuscript and 
 weighed it in his hand. " This, as I told you," he said, 
 " is my monograph. It treats of the satellites I 've 
 mentioned in the manner of a coup de grace, bending 
 all its constructive energies to the apotheosis of Draw 
 Poker, the establishment of its values, and the standard- 
 ization of its laws. It will be my monument, my badge 
 as an American and a true Son of the Eevolution, for 
 I have written it not only as a defense of the most 
 maligned of games but as a protest against the tyranny 
 of a bigoted majority. 
 
 ' You may not know it but while two clubs in Amer- 
 ica and one in England openly governed the codes of
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 71 
 
 Whist and to-day make the laws of Bridge, there is 
 not one club of any standing in the Anglo-Saxon world 
 that dares back with its authority the standardization 
 of Draw Poker. I have consequently tried to make my 
 exposition scholarly, so scholarly that I trust a com- 
 bination of American clubs will be shamed into holding 
 hands and publicly establishing the laws of this prince 
 of games for, wherever it immigrated from, it 's as 
 American as Yankee nutmegs or the Pilgrim Fathers." 
 
 John gave a sigh of satisfaction. " Got them to- 
 gether at last," he said. 
 
 His father nodded and continued. " We come now 
 to the ticklish question of stakes. It 's a question hard 
 to explain to the lay mind because the lay mind is gen- 
 erally too lazy for intricacies. Let 's jog it in the ribs 
 with a paradox. Poker is the only mortal three-sided 
 equation yet discovered. Theoretically, it is made up 
 of three equal parts, any one of which may be equal 
 to the other two at any given moment. These parts 
 are the money on the table, the cards you hold, and 
 The Man That 's Sitting Over You, a combination that 
 embraces the entire masculine branch of the mental 
 cosmos. Each of the three is vital, as vital as heart, 
 lungs, or liver. Have you ever felt suddenly hollow 
 when somebody said, ' We '11 play for love ' ? " 
 
 John nodded and grinned. 
 
 " Be glad of that hollow feeling," said his father. 
 " It comes from the instinct that tells you that no game 
 on earth which is founded on the laws of recurrence and 
 chance is ever accurately played except for money. 
 Money, a little more money than he thinks he can
 
 72 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 afford, is the only counterweight on earth that will hold 
 man's attention hour after hour and at the same time 
 rub his intellect to a razor edge. There's only one 
 game of chance that can properly be played for love 
 and that's love itself, a pastime with more pitfalls 
 to the square inch than has Poker to the calendar 
 year." 
 
 John sighed. 
 
 " Are you tired ? bored ? " asked his father. 
 
 "No," said John, emphatically. "Not tired and 
 not bored. Just a sigh of recueillement des esprits." 
 
 The professor bowed. "Well, I could go on for 
 hours, but somehow it 's too big a field for words. Like 
 every deep philosophy, Poker is a school of silence. 
 How can I describe in words the active meditation, the 
 concentration of thought, of insight as well as sight, 
 that I had to apply month after month to discover that 
 Professor Tremond had that fatal thing in Poker a 
 habit? When he was going to draw to two pair he 
 always laid his cards on the table, three on one side, 
 two on the other, called for one card, and then split 
 the two. Pardon me. Have you ever ? " 
 
 John nodded, smiling. "Penny-ante on the Alex- 
 andrine" 
 
 " A good beginning," said the professor. " A game 
 in which a dollar bet looks big to every one sitting in 
 is just as good Poker and often better than the variety 
 that blooms out in white chips at a hundred dollars 
 apiece. But to get back to Professor Tremond and his 
 habit. One calm, starry night I drew to three aces 
 and filled with a pair of treys. Tremond had made his
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 73 
 
 if 
 
 habitual draw to two pair and at the raise I knew that 
 he, too, had filled." 
 
 The professor's hand went up to smooth his pointed 
 heard. " That was a great moment, one of the mo- 
 ments you have to wait long for, even in Poker. At 
 first I felt a qualm, as though I were shamelessly bet- 
 ting on a royal flush. Then I reasoned it out that if 
 I held a certainty it was no gift of the gods but a re- 
 ward to untiring vigilance. Also, in the argot of the 
 game, Tremond owed me money." 
 
 The professor's eyes took on a far-away look. "I 
 knifed him for the limit. He knifed me back. It 
 became monotonous. I called him, out of pity, with 
 about the last hundred I had at the bank on account 
 current. Speaking again in the argot of the game, he 
 still owes me money. That was the spring I cabled 
 you I was n't coming over after all." 
 
 " What ! " gasped John. " You lost ? But " 
 
 " Exactly," remarked the professor, calmly. " But. 
 That 's the unfading glory of Poker. There 's always 
 a But. To speak accurately, the chances against a But 
 of some kind are exactly 649,739 to one." 
 
 " Then," said John, musingly, " Professor Tremond 
 must have broken his rule, held up threes and drawn 
 one to a kicker." 
 
 " No," said his father, solemnly, " he did n't break 
 his rule. He drew to two pair, all right two pair 
 of Icings, and and the card he discarded was an ace." 
 
 He paused until John's eyes lit up with comprehen- 
 sion of the importance of that valueless ace. " You 
 see," he went on reminiscently, " Tremond might have
 
 74 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 thought I 'd made a monkey draw to a three-card 
 straight flush, absolutely the only hand out against him. 
 But he wasn't backing that chance, good as it was. 
 What he backed was a little discovery of his own and 
 he milked it dry." 
 
 " What was it ? " asked John. 
 
 " Simply this," said his father, " he had discovered 
 that / had a habit a habit of looking for habits in 
 Poker." 
 
 He sat down and sank back into the big chair. 
 " Depths upon depths," he murmured. " Can any 
 other game on earth match the poignant illustration 
 I 've just put before you ? May you live to see our 
 country turn back from the flesh-pots and the chatter- 
 ing calls of Bridge to a game that leans on no spoken 
 word or partner's purse but holds you through the short 
 hours of the night enthralled by the silent eloquence 
 of the money on the table and the cards you hold. 
 Poor old Tremond! The Five Club never saw him 
 again but he was a sportsman. The last thing he said 
 was, ' Tell Professor Bogardus I feel mean dying like 
 this. It isn't playing the game."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 JOHN" dated one of his rebirths from that breath- 
 less evening in the library. It seemed to him as 
 though for years he had been walking round and round 
 his father, always at the same distance, always im- 
 pressed and depressed by an impregnable exterior that 
 invited and denied at the same time, only to stumble 
 at last and bump against the secret spring of a trick 
 door. He had walked in; for the first time he saw 
 his father from the inside. The things he found there, 
 things to love and things to laugh at, made him feel 
 like a child in a treasure house, continually rubbing his 
 lamp of Aladdin, continually astounded. 
 
 During all their leisure hours, he followed his fa- 
 ther around, gave him a new affection that kindled 
 affection, sounded him on every topic under the sun, 
 led him on to disclose qualities he had never before 
 possessed and, quite unconsciously, molded him; for 
 there is nothing that affects a man so vitally as the 
 belief in him, the faith and the overestimation of those 
 about him. In other words, a father can still be born 
 when he is about forty-eight years old. 
 
 The Bogarduses became inseparable. They took 
 long walks together, played golf together, and some- 
 times, late in the still, warm nights of spring, strolled 
 
 for hours on the silent campus, peopled for the elder not 
 
 75
 
 76 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 alone with his own memories but with the long string 
 of inherited memories that throng the campus of every 
 old college and make it when most deserted most full 
 of goodly company. 
 
 As James Bogardus initiated his son into mysteries, 
 lichen-stained and obscured by the fertile imagination 
 of a dozen generations, told him the worn but unwritten 
 tale of the Gardener's Daughter and, in a hushed hour, 
 the history of the single, hidden grave where a young 
 girl lies alone and unashamed amid the dwellings of 
 a thousand ever-changing men, he felt the thrill of 
 many another father who along those same old byways 
 has first met his boy face to face. He discovered his 
 son in no less measure than his son had discovered him, 
 and the discovery filled him with pangs, with regrets, 
 as though the wife he had so passionately loved had not 
 died indeed but had lived on beside him and he, self- 
 blinded and dull, had failed to see and feel her there. 
 
 In a few weeks he aged perceptibly but his age was 
 more lovable than his erect and independent manhood. 
 He began to love his boy as he had loved the boy's 
 mother and jealousy sprang up in him for the years 
 in his son's life that were a blank to him. He saw 
 them as a great sweep of smooth sand upon which his 
 finger had not written, a desert dotted with the dry 
 shells of dry reports on scholarship and deportment. 
 
 He was consumed by the deadly inquisitiveness that 
 goes hand in hand with all jealousy. He began to 
 probe and to try to relive the panorama of his boy's 
 life that he might, even at this late date, force himself 
 into the picture. He was not afraid, for he believed
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 77 
 
 that the future could hold no shock that would shake 
 him as had the sudden realization of his own long de- 
 tachment, no less cold and cruel for having been uncon- 
 scious. 
 
 The conversations in the library adopted a wider and 
 wider range. To John they were wholly satisfying but 
 in his father they awakened a yearning he could not 
 fathom. He strove to talk back through the years to 
 the child in his son but was met at the very door of 
 yesterday by an equal, and had to talk man to man. 
 It was a riddle he was soon to read. 
 
 They had been talking of women and so at one 
 did James Bogardus feel with his son that not till the 
 conversation was well under way and had settled into 
 the sure lines of accepted premises did his eyes fix 
 in sudden perception of how far their minds had drifted 
 on that troubled sea and together. What right had 
 he to talk to his son like this ? By what right did his 
 son understand him, did they understand each other? 
 
 His glance settled on John's keen face and stayed, 
 searching deeper and deeper for the revelation from 
 which he already began to shrink. The boy's combina- 
 tion of youth and assured age came suddenly nearer, 
 stood out in bold contrast. Youth sang a song in his 
 shining eyes, in the glow of his dusky cheeks, in the 
 squaring of his shoulders, but woven with the song, 
 holding it to earth, was a sober undertone, the flat minor 
 of knowledge. 
 
 " When I was your age," said James Bogardus, after 
 a long pause, " women were not yet a mystery to me. 
 An illusion is never a mystery. At your age I looked
 
 78 JOHN BOGARDTJS 
 
 on women as one blinded by light. Hair, flesh, legs 
 such terms would never have entered my descriptive 
 thoughts. Woman was not flesh and blood so much as 
 an essence of humanity, crowned with ambrosial locks, 
 a being whose movements were intoned to the measure 
 of vera incessu patuit dea. I could not imagine woman 
 as subjected to the rougher exigencies of nature. Such 
 facts as had been forced upon me were powerless to 
 crop the wings of my conception and for many a pulsing 
 day I believed that the faint scent of a tiny handker- 
 chief came from the tiny hands that held it, because I 
 wanted to believe it. But you you " 
 
 A slow flush had risen in John's cheeks as he lis- 
 tened. He fixed his eyes on his father's face and read 
 there the eager question held back, as are so many ques- 
 tions, by the fear of bald words. He waited but his 
 father did not go on. 
 
 " I skipped that part of life," said John at last. He 
 moved restlessly in his chair and his eyes wandered. 
 " Do you remember the Mansinis ? " 
 
 " What ? Who ? " said the professor, his mind striv- 
 ing to take the violent turn. " Mansinis ? Yes, I 've 
 got it now. They were the couple I left you with in 
 Florence. Taught you Italian." 
 
 John nodded. "Well," he said, "she was a bad 
 woman." 
 
 A long silence, like a curtain, fell on his words ; not 
 a dividing curtain but a curtain that cuts off the world 
 and makes intimacy absolute beyond mere nakedness, 
 the shrinking intimacy of raw flesh. The ticking of 
 the clock in the hall became first audible, then loud.
 
 y JOHN BOGARDUS 79 
 
 Silence surrendered to tiny sounds such as the infini- 
 tesimal crackling of drying wall-paper or the buzzing of 
 a fly's wings against glass. 
 
 " But Florence ! " said the elder Bogardus at last, 
 hoarsely. " Florence ! " He forced each word out. 
 " It is incredible. You were a boy, a mere child ! " 
 
 " I was a child when I went there," said John, sim- 
 ply, his eyes on the floor. When he raised them they 
 met such a sight as a few weeks ago would have been 
 unbelievable, incongruous, grotesque, but that to-night 
 seemed but a natural culmination, a logical consumma- 
 tion of all that had gone before. Two tears had sprung 
 from his father's eyes and were slowly crawling down 
 his cheeks. 
 
 Love, pity, self -recrimination, seethed through James 
 Bogardus's mind. His eyes, moist as they had not been 
 during ten long, unseeing years, stared at his son. He 
 clasped his hands to stop their trembling and then, 
 aware for the first time of the tears on his cheeks, he 
 sought hastily for a handkerchief. 
 
 " My boy," he said, trying to smile, " Good night. 
 Good night." 
 
 " Good night," said John, with quick understanding, 
 and hurried from the room. 
 
 It was still early, too early to go to bed. He left 
 the house and wandered across the town into the cam- 
 pus. The memory of his father's tears followed and 
 troubled him. Had he been right to tell? Could he 
 not have foreseen the wound, deep beyond healing, that 
 his words must leave ? He sat down on a bank, grassy 
 and soft with the first thick coat of spring, and thought
 
 80 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 it out. His eyes wandered around the shadowy campus 
 and over the multitudes of subdued lights that glowed 
 like sleepy eyes from bulky dormitories and left the 
 other buildings gloomy by contrast, plunged in dignified 
 slumber. 
 
 No, he had been neither right nor wrong ; he had had 
 no choice. From the moment that he and his father 
 discovered each other they had moved inevitably from 
 revelation to revelation until they passed from dark- 
 ness to ultimate light, and it would be cowardly to 
 cavil at the price. For himself, he was glad; glad at 
 the ending of mystery, at the passing of distance, con- 
 tent even with the tears that must have cost his father 
 much but that had washed away the last crumb of the 
 hateful wall that had stood between them. 
 
 He rose and wandered listlessly from scene to scene 
 which he thought had grown familiar but to-night, 
 without his father beside him to link present and past, 
 without his father's eyes through which to see, the si- 
 lent campus was strangely unpeopled, a vast emptiness 
 that echoed back an emptiness within him. He became 
 suddenly lonely. He was amazed, dismayed, that the 
 love he had awakened in his father, far from saving 
 him from feeling alone, had but opened his eyes to his 
 own enduring solitude. What place had he in these 
 walks, hallowed not by days but by years and genera- 
 tions to the hearts that loved and owned them ? 
 
 He choked on the thought that in will and in body 
 he had returned to his native land only to find him- 
 self no part of its vital fiber. Had he been cut off too 
 early from the parent stock, traveled too long a road
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 81 
 
 on the broad highway of life ever to come back to that 
 inner circle of familiar habit, communal morals and 
 treasured prejudices that bind each human being to a 
 single place and time, the place and time of his partic- 
 ular sources? 
 
 And women? For months women had not entered 
 his head, but now his thoughts turned back to Signora 
 Mansini, yesterday tucked so far into the past, to-day 
 so unforgetably near. From her they passed on in 
 long leaps to a French grisette, a Spanish singer of 
 provincial zarzuelas, a Portuguese landlady, to the lan- 
 guid woman in Durban, to a memory of Melbourne,, 
 and finally to the dull contrast of the friendly profes- 
 sors' wives that lived their placid lives under the shadow 
 of these placid walls never dreaming how small an in- 
 dex was their clustered constellation to the vast firma- 
 ment of the world of women. 
 
 Finally, he thought of his classes. What a bore they 
 had been during these last few days, what a farce from 
 the very beginning! He passed all his pupils in re- 
 view and ended by smiling ruefully at himself for he 
 felt as though half of him were the kindly Abraham 
 pleading for Sodom and Gomorrah and the other half 
 the angelic ambassador, kindly, too, but inexorably 
 just. 
 
 Was this to be his life, bound to a daily wheel, 
 not teaching wings to fly but watching for pin-feathers 
 to sprout? What about his own pinions? Could he 
 ever soar upon them here or would they raise him, at 
 best, only to hover in a wide prison like a captive bal- 
 loon?
 
 82 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 In the weeks that followed that confessional night 
 he found his father more tender, more thoughtful than 
 ever, but also possessed of a new shyness that followed 
 oddly on his old-time, straightforward independence. 
 He would sit alone by the hour and brood over his son, 
 not bitterly, but with the dazed wonder of the older 
 generation realizing for the first time the new. He 
 had no more questions to ask, and now when they were 
 together, knowing all, he was content to talk charm- 
 ingly of abstract things, happy when he saw the light 
 of interest in his son's eyes. 
 
 During these same weeks John was restless because 
 he was gradually coming to a momentous resolve. A 
 few months ago he had felt that he owed much not to 
 his father but to a stranger who happened to be his 
 father, and one had to be punctilious with debts to 
 strangers. But now all that was changed. He had 
 come to feel that he and his father owned their fund 
 of life in common and that what he owed, he owed to 
 himself. He was striving to determine just what was 
 that debt. 
 
 It was a ludicrous incident that brought him to the 
 climax of a final decision. On the last night of the 
 term he was delayed well beyond his dinner-hour, read- 
 ing over the written tests of his largest class. As he 
 walked past one of the big Sophomore eating clubs he 
 was struck by the unusual pandemonium going on in- 
 side, and a moment later was almost knocked off his 
 feet by an entire pie that sailed out of an open window 
 and landed squarely on his neck. 
 
 On a quick impulse he gathered it up into a soggy
 
 * JOHN" BOGARDUS 83 
 
 ball and hurled it back. It was a good shot. He could 
 see it splattering its way down the full length of a 
 long table and the roar of surprise and rage that an- 
 swered this sudden flank attack told him better than 
 words that the original assault upon himself had been 
 not only unintentional but unremarked. 
 
 John was filled with delight and was wishing he 
 could go in and join battle when an outraged face 
 appeared at the window. There was a shout and a 
 moment later the entire club was rushing for the doors, 
 John knew that he could not have been recognized in 
 the outdoor twilight. For a moment he hesitated, then, 
 with a grin, he took to his heels, pulling his soft hat 
 well down over his face as he ran straight up the main 
 street, bedlam at his back. 
 
 The crowd was growing like a rolling snowball and 
 gaining fast when he doubled into the lane that led to 
 his father's house. The multitude doubled, too, and 
 was just in time to see him calmly fitting his latchkey 
 to the door. First came wonder, then a deep, deep 
 silence and finally stealthy retreat punctuated here and 
 there by a chuckle or a phrase. 
 
 " Say, fellows, let 's keep this mum." 
 
 " Sure. So easy ! Not over a thousand saw us come 
 down the street ! " 
 
 " 7s it one on us ? Oh, no. Not at all ! "
 
 CHAPTEK X 
 
 WHEN, on the following morning, the last day of 
 the scholastic year, John met his French class 
 in unusual force, his pupils had every reason to expect 
 that he would follow an ancient custom and dismiss 
 them after a few words of formal farewell and an an- 
 nouncement of the date on which he expected to give 
 out the results of their final tests, but their attention was 
 immediately caught by the orderly pile of their exam- 
 ination papers, thickly interspersed with marked slips, 
 placed ready to hand on his desk. 
 
 For the first time in his pedagogic career John was 
 nervous. He Cached out jerkily toward the examina- 
 tion papers as though he were about to distribute them, 
 changed his mind, drew back his hand, braced his 
 shoulders, eyed the class searchingly as he had never 
 eyed it before, and began to speak. He spoke in 
 French, slowly, clearly, and at the end of the first sen- 
 tence paused and swept his glance from face to in- 
 dividual face. Everywhere his eyes were met by good- 
 natured but puzzled incomprehension. 
 
 His lips curved into a smile and then slowly straight- 
 ened. He began to speak again, still in French, but 
 now his eyes left off looking at his pupils and wan- 
 dered over their heads to the farther wall, to the open 
 windows, and sometimes to his own hands clasped on 
 the desk before him. His introduction was measured, 
 
 84
 
 tf JOHN BOGAKDTJS 85 
 
 almost ponderous, but once that was over he spoke rap- 
 idly, with the masterly unconcern for his audience of 
 the finished classroom lecturer. 
 
 He declared that it was his intention to envisage 
 the French language as a woman, to examine her pa- 
 ternity, play with her in the cradle, nurse her safely 
 past the danger of bowlegs, stand her on her own feet 
 and watch her learn to walk, define her flirtations and 
 assist at her marriage, bringing her finally to the 
 glorious maturity whose liquidity, tonal perception and 
 subtle finesse proclaimed her not only feminine to the 
 tips of her caressing fingers but queen to all the idioms 
 of the earth. 
 
 As he talked, for his own sole edification, he reveled 
 in asides of wit, in slurs, and in an occasional panegyric. 
 He dubbed the very name, francisca, the indelible Teu- 
 ton brand on the face of Gaul ; he emphasized the har- 
 monizing influence of all Gallic assimilation and ex- 
 pressed his doubts as to whether ecrevisses au naturel 
 could ever have attained their present price and con- 
 sumption in the restaurants of Paris under their orig- 
 inal barbarian patronymic. He referred to the eu- 
 phonious cJioucroute as a living example of this 
 tradition of harmony, a word whose unaided inherent 
 qualities carried its metamorphosis into the vegetable 
 kingdom and enabled man for the first time to think 
 of cabbage as a fragrance rather than a smell. 
 
 It is a pity that John could not have assisted as a 
 spectator at the comedy he was enacting. He and he 
 alone could have appreciated to the full the initial look 
 of puzzlement on his hearers' faces, changing gradually
 
 86 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 to wonder and finally to admiration as the conviction 
 stole upon the class that it was witnessing a sporting 
 event of no mean order. Watches were stealthily 
 drawn out and a dollar-pool was started as to how long 
 he could keep it up. The ignorant appealed to those 
 they deemed less ignorant as to what the lecture was 
 about, but once the class was satisfied that all sat in an 
 equal mental fog, whispering ceased and every man sat 
 spellbound and attentive, held by the charm of a sheer 
 tour de force, unintelligible in detail but easily visual- 
 ized in its general massive contour. 
 
 With his peroration John came back to his original 
 figure and pictured modern French as a matured woman 
 at the apex of her charms. His enthusiasm brought a 
 glow to his cheeks, his eyes flashed, and his words 
 mounted in a steady ascent to a sure climax. His ardor 
 was infectious. In the words of one of the students, 
 he put it across. When his voice descended in a cas- 
 cading fall to a final period the whole class burst out 
 into spontaneous applause. 
 
 After a short silence an accumulated sigh went up; 
 men stretched, and two lucky ones gathered in the 
 dollar-pool and divided it to an accompaniment of 
 shuffling feet. John reached out, picked up the pile 
 of examination papers, and passed it to a pupil for 
 distribution. 
 
 " Gentlemen," he said in English, " I have tried to 
 prepare you for a shock. You are all marked zero." 
 
 A gasping stillness fell on the room, followed almost 
 immediately by excited protests and then by remon- 
 strances.
 
 y JOHN BOGAKDUS 87 
 
 " You can't do it, sir." 
 
 " The Dean won't stand for it." 
 
 " I assure you, sir, it is n't done." 
 
 " Ask your own Old Man." 
 
 They were all friendly and all eager to save John 
 from himself. Jack Holson, for whom he had once had 
 a faint hope, stood up and assumed spokesmanship. 
 " Look here, sir. D' you know what '11 happen to you ? 
 You '11 get the sack. Just take back these papers and 
 grade them up a bit. We all know they 're rotten and 
 we all deserve flunking, but you 've got to shade it for 
 your own sake. It would be a good idea to let us draw 
 lots for three or four to pass. There 's many a prof 
 that 's felt like flunking a whole class, but they all stop 
 short of it because they know it simply won't go." 
 
 " That 's right, sir," said another solicitous voice. 
 " If you stick to it Johnnie Dugan '11 be the only mem- 
 ber of the faculty to see you off at the station." 
 
 John laughed with the rest of them at this reference 
 to the ancient campus police force and then passed his 
 smiling glance from one to another of the faces before 
 him. He was proud of these boys; he could see they 
 were all in earnest and thinking not at all of their own 
 plight but of his. With a thrill he realized that they 
 liked him. 
 
 " Fellows," he said, coloring at the friendly audacity 
 of the word, " I 'm sorry, but I '11 have to stand pat. 
 You see, if I did n't flunk the lot of you I could n't 
 consistently flunk myself and that 's what I Ve done. 
 There 's a duck's egg after all our names, mine in- 
 cluded, and it fits. When you grow up I don't want
 
 88 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 you drinking to my faint memory at reunions in milk 
 and water. I want you to remember this occasion as 
 a general knock-out where all parties concerned landed 
 outside the ropes. If we 've only been bumped hard 
 enough and keep thinking about it long enough perhaps 
 your sons will come here with a different idea of a 
 university and find a different kind of man to help it 
 grow. That 's all, except that I hope you '11 enjoy in- 
 dividually the continuation of the long holiday we 've 
 spent together." 
 
 " Yay ! Yay ! " yelled the class, all agrin. 
 
 Jack Holson sprang to his feet and raised his arms. 
 " Now, fellows," he shouted, " everybody up and give 
 a Tiger for Kid Bogardus ! " 
 
 When the last of the class filed out, the walls were 
 still reverberating the thunder of the staccato cheer that 
 John had more than once seen spur the college team to 
 superhuman effort and to victory. He felt a glow 
 within him as though, after all, his pedagogic year had 
 not gone quite for nothing. The shuffling of feet in 
 the hall paused, ceased, and gave way to a continued 
 murmuring. Presently Jack Holson came back. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir," he said, with a twinkle in 
 his eye, " but we 'd like to know if you 're going to 
 hand your other classes the same lemon. We're not 
 just curious, but we'd hate to spoil it for them by 
 yapping if if " 
 
 " I see," said John, with a grin. " Better keep mum 
 till after my Spanish session." 
 
 " What about the Poler Brigade ? " asked Holson. 
 
 John smiled at himself for recognizing at first hear-
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 89 
 
 tr 
 
 ing the popular nickname of his Italian class. " Oh," 
 he said, " I '11 pass that lot. You can't use the rod of 
 correction on people that would take it for a guillotine." 
 
 " No, I suppose not," said Holson, wistfully. 
 " Good-by, sir, and thank you." 
 
 That night the elder Bogardus invited his son into the 
 library immediately after dinner. For a moment John 
 thought his father had already heard of his drastic re- 
 volt and gave a sigh of relief. He had dreaded deal- 
 ing directly the blow to the professor's life-long ambi- 
 tion. But almost immediately he realized that the blow 
 was yet to fall. James Bogardus sat down calmly at 
 his big writing desk, leaned back in the swivel chair, and 
 placed his fingers tip to tip. " Can you guess what I 
 want to talk over ? " he asked. 
 
 " N-no," stammered John. 
 
 " My resignation," said the professor. " You will 
 remember " 
 
 " Father," interrupted John. " Forgive me, but 
 I Ve got something to tell you, something that comes 
 first, and and I don't know how to say it." 
 
 " Something that comes first ? " repeated the pro- 
 fessor, looking puzzled but courteously patient. 
 
 "I I 've beaten you to it," blurted out John. 
 
 " Beaten me to it ? " repeated the professor again, 
 his lip curling fastidiously at the phrase. " Beaten me 
 to what ? " 
 
 " To resignation," said John. " I resigned this 
 afternoon and there "s no shadow of a doubt as to its 
 being accepted." 
 
 The professor let his chair down slowly and gripped
 
 90 
 
 the edge of his desk. " You resigned ! " he exclaimed. 
 " What do you mean ? Why ? " He looked dazed. 
 
 John moved nervously in his chair; then raised his 
 eyes squarely to his father's face. " I don't know that 
 I can tell you/' he said, " or that you '11 understand even 
 if I do get it into words. I 've known for a long while 
 that I did n't want to teach Romance languages but I 
 did n't know till just lately that I could n't. It 's hard 
 for me to explain it. I did n't begin to see things clear 
 until that night I told you about the Mansini woman. 
 Up to then you had been a sort of stranger to whom I 
 owed money, life, my future. But that night " 
 
 " That night," interrupted the professor, the dazed 
 look passing from his eyes, " you saw what I saw, that 
 I was grossly, shamefully, in debt to you." 
 
 " No ! No ! " protested John, the tears starting to 
 his eyes. " I did not. It is n't true. What I felt 
 was that once we were no longer strangers, once we were 
 just father and son, there could n't be a question of debt 
 and that the cruelest thing I could do to you or to me 
 was to hide myself, dwarf .myself." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " asked the professor, wearily, 
 as though he would rather be alone to think things out. 
 
 " After I left you that night," said John, " I went out 
 on the campus. It was a lovely night, so warm and 
 smelling of spring. Everything was very still and I 
 wandered over all the paths we've followed so often 
 together and I felt alone, more alone than I 'd ever felt 
 before. I got to thinking about my work and I saw that 
 it was just a farce, a long farce that could only save 
 itself from banality by a climax."
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 91 
 
 if 
 
 " So you prepared the climax without talking it over 
 with me ? " asked the professor. 
 
 " I had to," said John. " It was only without you 
 that I could feel alone, could see myself, and this is 
 what I saw. That one can't really teach without being 
 planted." 
 
 " Planted ? " repeated the professor with raised eye- 
 brows. 
 
 John nodded his head emphatically. " Yes," he said. 
 " Planted in the world in which you labor, or in its tra- 
 ditions, or sympathies, or or in content. You 've 
 got to belong first and teach afterwards. I don't expect 
 you to understand that or how I came to feel it. It 's 
 even a bit vague to me but powerful just as the biggest 
 truths are vague and potent. Perhaps there 's some 
 place where I belong but it 's not here. I think that, 
 for a while, I belong to youth. I want to rough- 
 house." 
 
 " To what ? " cried the professor. 
 
 " Rough-house," said John, coloring, and told his 
 father about his outbreak of the night before when he 
 had hurled back the soggy pie. 
 
 The professor smiled and then sighed. " My boy," 
 he said wistfully, " could n't you have told me all this, 
 about not wanting to teach three years ago ? If you 'd 
 only said one word, even after you came back from 
 South Africa, I would have known you were n't ready. 
 I could have waited." 
 
 John shook his head. " ~No" he said and stopped. 
 His eyes met his father's and saw understanding dawn- 
 ing in them. " I could n't tell you, then," he finished,
 
 92 JOHN BOGAEDUS 
 
 and looked away. " I did n't know," he continued 
 quickly. " How could I know ? " 
 
 The professor sighed again, deeply, then picked up a 
 paper cutter and tapped the desk to steady his nerves. 
 " And yon 're sure you could n't have planted yourself 
 here, taken root if you 'd held out ? " 
 
 " I don't know," said John, doubtfully. " Perhaps, 
 if I could have afforded the price." 
 
 He would have had no doubts as to his ability to root 
 himself could he have witnessed the Faculty Song 
 parade going on at that moment on the campus and 
 heard a hundred lusty voices roaring out the doggerel 
 of a new verse. 
 
 " Here 's to Bogardus, we called him Kid, 
 We thought he was easy, so we did, 
 But now we know that we 're the marks, 
 He 's a Kid with teeth that bites and barks. 
 
 Hurrah! Hurrah! for sword and drum! 
 Here they come! Rub-a-da-dum ! 
 Looking as if they 'd been off on a bum, 
 The Faculty of the College, O! "
 
 CHAPTEK XI 
 
 JOHN left the room feeling exhausted and went 
 straight to bed. His father sat on for a quarter 
 of an hour plunged in thought. Finally, with a deep 
 sigh, he arose, picked up his hat, and went out of the 
 house, walking slowly toward the campus. He knew 
 so well the scene he was approaching that the first dis- 
 tant sound of voices singing in the night brought it all 
 before him, vividly near. 
 
 Old, old walls, ivy-colored, stately in associations, on 
 the steps at their feet a mass of youth, a glow of pipe 
 fire, and the flare now and then of a match lighting up a 
 blurred circle of young faces, tragic with the pain of 
 farewell. Before them, the glimmering of lights in 
 foliage, the soft depths of long shadows broken by 
 mounds of cushions on which reclined proud paternity 
 and youthful, sisterly beauty, decked in bright eyes, 
 glowing cheeks, dimity and chiffon. Here, there and 
 everywhere undergrads and overgrads sprawling on the 
 grass. 
 
 Never before had James Bogardus realized all that 
 that beloved open-air cathedral of Gothic elms had 
 meant to him. Now he understood what John had 
 striven so hard to make clear. To give true service one 
 must be planted, planted in traditions, in sympathy, or 
 content. It was a great truth, a vital truth. Then a 
 
 new thought came to overwhelm him and plunge him 
 
 93
 
 94: JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 deeper in his mood of despondency. In ^11, tjs ^ambi- 
 tion he had borne no gifts to his son. He had robbed 
 him, robbed him of the sources of life and happiness, 
 of a continuing abiding-place. 
 
 He was walking slowly, almost reluctantly, towards 
 the lights that were already gleaming near, when a voice 
 hailed him from a deep shadow, the voice of the very 
 man whom he was about to seek. 
 
 "Hello, Bogardus," called the Dean in low, pene- 
 trating tones, " I was just going to your place." 
 
 " Were you ? " said the professor, dully. It seemed 
 to him that the Dean spoke almost cheerfully ; he could 
 not have heard. 
 
 " Come," said the Dean, taking hold of the professor's 
 arm, "let's walk away from the noise. Where's 
 John?" 
 
 " Gone to bed," said the professor. 
 
 " Did he tell you ? " asked the Dean, and chuckled. 
 
 James Bogardus stopped in his tracks, trembling. 
 " He did," he said coldly. " Did it strike you as being 
 funny ? " 
 
 The Dean's grim mouth quirked into a smile. " Not 
 funny, exactly, but admirably humorous. I wish you 
 could have been in my place this afternoon. Several 
 of John's pupils came to me not in a body but singly, 
 spontaneously. I got the story from them, all but what 
 John talked about in French, and, of course, the fact 
 that not one of them understood a word of that is his 
 slight vindication for wholesale slaughter." 
 
 " You 're talking in English," said the professor, 
 " but I don't understand a word of what you 're saying."
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 95 
 
 " So," said the Dean, " he did not tell you after all." 
 
 " He merely said he 'd sent in his resignation," an- 
 swered the professor, " and that there was no chance it 
 would n't be accepted." 
 
 " Let me tell you the whole business," said the Dean 
 and proceeded to reconstruct John's comedy. He re- 
 peated, almost word for word, the little speech in 
 English with which John had ended up. " That was a 
 great and courageous utterance," he commented. " I 
 wish I 'd had the nerve to make that speech myself 
 twenty years ago. As the boys say, it got across. 
 Holson told me he had n't thought much about having 
 sons but that if I 'd arrange to keep John here he 'd 
 undertake to supply some youths with the new idea of 
 a university as rapidly as possible. He said he knew 
 the arrangement was in the nature of a bribe but that 
 bribes to colleges were in the spirit of the times. A 
 thoroughly impudent and attractive young man." 
 
 " What did you tell him ? " asked the professor, an 
 eager gleam in his smiling eyes. 
 
 " I told him I had n't seen John's letter yet, that it 
 was lying on my desk where John could come and take 
 it back unopened if he felt like it in the morning." 
 
 " You said that ? " cried James Bogardus. 
 
 " One moment," remarked the Dean, drily. " That 
 is n't all I said. I told Holson to gather in all the zero 
 papers and take them to you for re-marking, then I 
 talked to him about John. I showed him that the uni- 
 versity could afford to keep John but that I doubted if 
 he could afford to stay." 
 
 The Dean paused in his stride and gripped the pro-
 
 96 JOHN BOGAEDUS 
 
 fessor's arm. " Bogardus," he continued, " just think 
 a moment. A man does n't burn his bridges behind him 
 like that and then crawl back over a rickety friendly 
 plank. If he really wants to come back there 's only 
 one way and that is to breast the flood and swim back. 
 Take the word of a man that 's old even to you. Let 
 your boy go out and find himself, never mind where he 
 brings up. He 's a fighter and a fighter lives not by 
 bread alone but by battle." 
 
 James Bogardus, his heart wonderfully cheered, left 
 the Dean and walked home. He saw a light in John's 
 bedroom, went up, and knocked softly on the door. 
 
 " Come in ! " called John. 
 
 The professor walked in and found his son lying in 
 bed, an open book, face down, at his side. His eyes 
 were brilliantly feverish and looked across the room 
 anxiously as though they dreaded a renewal of hostil- 
 ities. 
 
 " Poor devil," said the professor, pleasantly, " I 
 know what it is to be tired out and lie in bed by the hour 
 trying to get your eyes to close." 
 
 The look of anxiety passed from John's face. 
 " You Ve hit the nail on the head," he said, smiling. 
 
 The professor thrust his hands in his pockets and 
 stood teetering from heel to toe. " I 've been out for a 
 walk. I feel fine." 
 
 The words and the dearest of all the professor's poses 
 were like a tonic to John. He looked into his father's 
 bright eyes, shining out from their distinguished frame 
 of dark eyebrows and soft gray hair and beard, and 
 grinned.
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 9? 
 
 " I see yon want to tell me about it," he said. " Sit 
 down and chat. I 'm not tired any more." 
 
 The professor perched himself on the edge of the bed. 
 " I ran into the Dean and we had a long talk. He told 
 me what happened in your classrooms to-day. He said 
 he had n't seen your resignation yet and that if you 
 wanted to in the morning you could go to him and get 
 your letter back unopened." 
 
 A quick frown came to John's face. 
 
 " Don't frown, please," said the professor, calmly. 
 " The Dean seemed to know you better than I did, for 
 he went on to say that after you 'd burned your bridges 
 behind you like that he could n't see you crawling back 
 over a rickety, friendly plank." 
 
 " Did he say that ? " exclaimed John, eagerly. 
 
 The professor nodded. " And a lot more. He said 
 he wished he 'd had the nerve to make your little speech, 
 the one in English, twenty years ago and the courage to 
 back it up. He said the university could afford to keep 
 you but he did n't think you could afford to stay." 
 
 John felt his whole body suffused with a glow of 
 well-being. He lay very still and knew that he would 
 Boon be drowsy. Suddenly, with his father still sitting 
 there slowly swinging one foot to and fro, John fell 
 sound asleep. He awoke to find the professor gone and 
 the early summer sun blazing in at the windows. For 
 a moment he lay quiet, collecting the thoughts that the 
 night had scattered, then he sprang out of bed, his 
 brain already seething with a dozen plans for the fu- 
 ture. 
 
 Generic man is still a vagabond at heart. The day
 
 98 JOHN BOGAEDUS 
 
 that sees him freed from the duties of a forced routine 
 has a sweetness all its own ; it is like a long lazy sigh that 
 lifts an unsensed burden and leaves one languidly con- 
 tent. On a common impulse the Bogarduses, father 
 and son, strolled into the library directly after break- 
 fast. It seemed strange to them to be there together 
 in the morning but it was a pleasant strangeness, part 
 and parcel of sudden freedom. 
 
 " I 've been worrying about you," said the professor, 
 nodding his head at John. " What are you going to 
 do ? I Ve trained you for just one thing and it hap- 
 pens that it 's a thing that don't suit you. That 's 
 largely my fault and I 'm willing to help you all I can, 
 but" 
 
 " But you know," interrupted John, smiling, " that 
 I could n't stand living on you indefinitely." 
 
 " Exactly," said the professor. " So we come back 
 to my question. What are you going to do ? How are 
 you going to make a living ? " 
 
 " Father," said John, still smiling, " I 've heard you 
 rail more than once at pragmatism, America's new prac- 
 tical philosophy. I agree with you that it 's a curse and 
 I grieve to tell you that you yourself are tainted. 
 You 're an unconscious pragmatist, the worst kind." 
 
 " Prove it," said the professor, bristling. 
 
 " Out of your own mouth," said John, laughing. 
 " Take any million American fathers and you '11 hear 
 them singing to themselves in chorus and to their sons, 
 ' How are you going to make a living ? ' Out of the 
 million I doubt if there's a baker's dozen that asks, 
 1 What are you going to do with your life ? ' How I 'm
 
 JOHN BOGAEDUS 99 
 
 going to make a living does n't interest me in the slight- 
 est." 
 
 The professor stared at his son. " You really mean 
 it ! " he exclaimed. "I I congratulate you." 
 
 " Do you remember the letter of credit you gave me ? " 
 said John. " You never asked me ahout it after I 
 came back. Well, it 's still good enough to take me 
 around the world a couple of times." 
 
 " Perhaps," said the professor, " if you work your 
 way on a wind-jammer." 
 
 "I wasn't working on the Alexandrine" said John, 
 gravely. " That 's just the point. I was living." 
 
 The professor pondered for a moment, then his face 
 lightened. " I believe you," he said. " I 've always 
 wondered how you grew so quickly to man size. Under 
 the circumstances," he continued after a pause, " I 'm 
 almost sorry your mother left you a little money. You 
 may keep going around the world indefinitely." 
 
 " How much ? " asked John. 
 
 " Five thousand dollars ten years ago ; must be about 
 eight now," said his father. " I suppose you think 
 you could live forever on that ? " 
 
 " Easily," said John with a light-hearted laugh. 
 
 James Bogardus's plans for the summer had not in- 
 cluded his son, consequently there was no great wrench 
 to their parting. He asked John which way he was 
 headed, but John scarcely knew. He said he was going 
 to New York to feel around. Only a couple of hours 
 ago a dozen plans had tripped over each other in his 
 mind ; now they were all a jumble and he felt vaguely 
 as though his thoughts were shackled by the little uni-
 
 100 JOHN BOGABDUS 
 
 versity town. He could not imagine it as a starting 
 place as did its thousand students. He was still pro- 
 fessor enough to see it in reverse, a quiet place where 
 roads end.
 
 BOOK II
 
 ... A crystal land of prisms; of shining facets and cutting 
 edges.
 
 CHAPTEK XII 
 
 NEW YORK held John for weeks before he 
 thought he saw it clearly. At first it dazed 
 him, but by the time his heels were sore from the hard 
 pavements, the island city began to take shape. It 
 seemed to him a monster octopus, gorging on a varied 
 humanity, each of its tentacles devoted to a special 
 brand. 
 
 West Street fed on the flotsam that to-day parodies 
 the name of mariner. Its back yard sucked in negroes 
 in a cloud, dark, almost menacing, so infinitely 
 was it divorced from the puffy white of cotton fields. 
 South Street and its byways breathed in denatured 
 Italy and further north indigestible Chinatown defied 
 assimilation and marched uncompromisingly with the 
 vast demesne of the unwashed and unshaven Yid, two 
 muddy confluent rivers that refused to mix. 
 
 Around the ancient banner of Brevoort the French 
 colony sat tight and held her skirts from contact with 
 less cleanly mobs, while from her side reached out the 
 mighty arm of the Avenue, feeding in an interminable 
 progression on the rich, the near-rich, Harlem, Yon- 
 kers and Greeley's young man, coming back like a 
 prodigal son from the West. 
 
 It took a stifling, hot morning in July to wake John 
 up to a sudden vision of truth. He saw that after all 
 
 he had n't seen clearly. New York was not an octopus 
 
 103
 
 104 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 but one of the elementary starting places of the earth, 
 so great a starting place that it was a place to come 
 back to as well, a sort of cycle of humanity in miniature. 
 
 From the window of his tiny hall-bedroom in a lower 
 West Side street he looked up through the iridescent 
 waves of the city's still heat and saw mile-high clouds 
 sailing inland. They were cool and white and lolled 
 lazily on a breeze that jumped the barrier of the city's 
 serrated battlements but vaguely promised to come to 
 earth far afield in the friendly open. 
 
 John made haste to wing that way himself. He 
 packed all his things and stored them, arranged with his 
 bank to send him currency of the smallest denomina- 
 tions on demand, filled his pockets with sandwiches and 
 took a car to the edge of the city. He laughed at his 
 own amazement on discovering that however one may 
 feel on lower Broadway, New York is not really a thou- 
 sand miles from the country. An hour on foot carried 
 him well out on the open road, Hudson's river on his 
 left, shimmering through trees; on his right, mounded 
 hills, pretentious homes, and occasional supercilious 
 blooded cattle in paddocks that felt their master's 
 money and feed. 
 
 Evening found him at Tarrytown. He was standing 
 in the old burying ground, looking down and laughing 
 at the quaint little church and the bridge beyond, where 
 Ichabod Crane had his immortal encounter with the 
 Headless Horseman, when a thunderstorm that had 
 been threatening for an hour suddenly broke in a deluge. 
 He looked around for the nearest cover and spied the 
 deep embrasure of the entrance to a vault. He crawled
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 105 
 
 in and with his back against the iron door looked out 
 upon the spectacle of the storm. 
 
 There are two equal measures of content, a cat having 
 her fur rubbed the right way and a man, sitting snug 
 and warm, watching a rainfall. John was more tired 
 than he knew and all the more glad of a rest. He ate 
 his last sandwich and suddenly dropped off to sleep. 
 When he awoke, stars were blinking in at him from a 
 clear sky and his feet felt almost frozen. He took off 
 his coat, wrapped it around his legs, and went to sleep 
 again to awake in the morning to a sharp hunger and 
 a vague feeling of disappointment at having passed 
 a dreamless night in such propitious surroundings. 
 Never again would he read with a thrill the tale of 
 Rip van Winkle. 
 
 He crawled out of his burrow, stretched till his bones 
 cracked, washed his face and head in water from a rain- 
 filled urn, and then turned and laughed aloud at the 
 morning sun. Down the slope and beyond a stone wall 
 he saw the white gleam of the highway under trees. 
 When he reached it he stood for a long moment, trying 
 to decide which way to turn. On one hand lay New 
 York, enticing, still teeming with unsolved riddles and 
 vague promises of some great adventure; on the other, 
 the placid country where cool breezes dropped to rest at 
 night. 
 
 Without definite volition, John turned away from the 
 city. It was the long reach of the road that drew him. 
 A funny thing is the open road. Almost every man has 
 hit it once in his life and the ones that never do, stifle 
 a long ache in their hearts. But as John plunged
 
 106 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 along, keeping step with the surge of the morning blood 
 in his veins, his mind was not absorbed by ponderings 
 as to whither his steps and his new freedom were taking 
 him it was entirely given up to a pre-vision of ham 
 and eggs. 
 
 During the days that followed he had long hours of 
 solitude during which he might have put the house of 
 his life in order had not his youth constantly stepped 
 between his two selves, the self trained to manhood and 
 erudition by Captain Ike and the professor, and the 
 self that was a young colt bolting with the bit between 
 his teeth. 
 
 Whenever he tried to lay sober plans for his future 
 something invariably turned up to send his thoughts 
 a-winging; a burst of meadow in bloom, freckled chil- 
 dren at play, new smells familiar by inheritance, leafy 
 alleys tunneled through the second-growth forests of 
 New England and murmuring eternally with the 
 purling song of some hidden brook. How could one 
 dwell on the future in the midst of a blessed present ? 
 
 But most distracting of all were two emotions that 
 frequently assailed him, utterly divergent in their 
 sources: the empty feeling in the hand that once had 
 held the soft little fingers of Janice through many a 
 jaunt; and the poignant aching that came to his heart 
 on those occasions when from some rise his gaze fell on 
 beckoning trees on the edge of vision silhouetted against 
 an evening sky. The sadness that he felt at memories 
 of Janice was simply explained. It was the longing we 
 all feel for some dear heart to share a thing of beauty. 
 He did not know why trees beckoning on a far horizon
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 107 
 
 filled his heart with yearning and brought a lump to his 
 throat for youth no less than old age answers blindly 
 the call of beyond. 
 
 Sleeping where night found him, living on the coun- 
 try, supplementing his slender purse by half a day's 
 work now and then, John waxed strong and lost track 
 of time until one morning a mere impulse of haste made 
 him jump a freight on a little railway that wandered 
 absent-mindedly down a valley. He made friends with 
 the crew who seemed ready to welcome any company, 
 but when the line came to a sudden end in a small man- 
 ufacturing town, he felt strangely depressed. 
 
 He had started out that morning in the very best of 
 spirits and now he realized that they had been sinking 
 for hours. As he puzzled over the reason he remem- 
 bered a saying of one of his first teachers, " No man can 
 look up and think of vile things." John smiled sud- 
 denly. " I have been traveling down a valley," he said 
 to himself. " I don't believe a man can travel down a 
 valley without a sinking of the heart." 
 
 He turned his face and his steps toward the hills. 
 All afternoon he climbed till the slanting rays of the 
 setting sun, falling in a long shaft of light between two 
 forested peaks, led his eyes to a far sheet of shimmering 
 water. He caught his breath with a jerk, half gasp, 
 half sigh. Is there anything more beautiful, he won- 
 dered, than blue water amid crowding wooded hills? 
 He climbed the bank at the roadside, settled comfort- 
 ably against the slanting trunk of a tree, and fastened 
 his eyes on that distant mirror of the quiet heavens. It 
 stilled him, made him drowsy, put him to sleep.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 BY noon of the next day John reached the lake, or, 
 at least, thought he had reached it. For a long 
 time the road skirted just within glimpses of the water, 
 winding along, damp and odorous beneath overhanging 
 trees, as though it were looking in vain for a way down 
 to the shore. Through little vistas that tunneled 
 through the foliage the lake would occasionally flash a 
 quick look, as suddenly veiled again. 
 
 John grew impatient. It seemed to him that the lake 
 was deliberately flirting with the road, and he was just 
 about to plunge his way down through the scrub when 
 the road made a sudden gesture to the right, as though it 
 said, " There you are," and then bent back and resumed 
 its wandering way. But John followed no longer; he 
 stood still and gazed down a hall in the woods that was 
 like the nave of a church. Straight, towering pines 
 held up a roof so thick that no underbrush grew beneath 
 it. From where he stood, to the very edge of the water 
 and the sunlight, stretched a glimmering brown carpet 
 of pine needles. 
 
 John started to run down the slope and immediately 
 regretted it. His feet could find no purchase on the 
 slippery floor, and rather than slide into mud, sharp 
 rocks, and water, he deliberately sat down with a ter- 
 rific bump and, digging in his heels, came to a slither- 
 ing stop. He laughed aloud at himself, only to feel 
 
 108
 
 , JOHN BOGARDUS 109 
 
 rebuked by the dignified silence that answered him. 
 There was not even an echo. 
 
 For a moment he sat still and looked around. Scat- 
 tered among the pines were gray-old wooden benches 
 and tables ; just before him, as though standing on stilts 
 in the water, was a ramshackle boathouse, and to one 
 side of that half a dozen small boats rode heavily at 
 anchor, weighted down by unbailed bilge water. Evi- 
 dently an old picnic ground, such as a countryside is 
 wont to use but once a year to celebrate the glorious 
 Fourth. 
 
 The door of the boathouse was ajar. John made his 
 way in along a rotten plank and found that half of 
 the single room was floored. Above the flooring were 
 shelves piled with neglected gear and a rack with oars. 
 The cool shadows of the place made him realize that he 
 himself was extremely hot and dusty. He took off his 
 clothes and slipped into the water. 
 
 It was like dropping into an ice-cooler. With chat- 
 tering teeth he swam quickly out into the sun. Soon 
 the feeling of chill left him ; he felt the blood beginning 
 to sing in his veins. The water swirled around his 
 limbs with a caress that carried recollection back and 
 back to before Melbourne, Durban, Captain Ike, and 
 even Europe, back to naked boyhood's swimming-hole. 
 He laughed and swallowed some of the cold lake water, 
 dog-paddled, pretended he was drowning, and proved in 
 various ways that he was young, young! 
 
 With that cry still ringing in his heart he turned to 
 swim back to the boathouse. As he drew near he was 
 conscious that a change had come to the landscape.
 
 110 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 The quiet, softly accentuated by faintly lapping water, 
 the deep nave of the pines, the sharp outlines of sun- 
 shine and shadow, were still there, but no longer spread 
 flat upon the world. Now they were drawn in upon a 
 single point of light, upon the slim white figure of a 
 girl who, standing anywhere, would become the center 
 of a picture. 
 
 John wondered if he had been noticed. He swam 
 stealthily under the boathouse and while still in the 
 water, softly closed the door. Then he climbed to the 
 half floor and dressed as rapidly as his wet skin and the 
 semi-darkness would let him. He opened the door 
 slowly and stepped out. The whole world was silent, 
 flat, empty. 
 
 Like one who wakes from a fascinating dream to find 
 his mind an impotent blank, John felt cheated. He 
 hurried ashore and up through the pines, peering right 
 and left in vain. There was no telltale swaying of 
 bushes, no track of small feet on the smooth carpet of 
 pine needles. In a semi-clearing he saw the pale green 
 of the leaves of berry bushes and, as he drew nearer, he 
 caught the glint of the sun on the fruit itself. He felt 
 suddenly hungry and for an hour ate blackberries by 
 the handful, his thoughts meantime running on the girl. 
 
 Had he really seen her ? What would he have done 
 if she had stayed? Spoken to her and frightened her 
 out of her wits? For the third time that day he 
 laughed at himself and then went back to the boathouse 
 and started to put it in order. 
 
 He sorted out the tangled gear, arranged the oars in 
 pairs, found a fishing line that was sound in parts and
 
 JOHN BOGAEDUS 111 
 
 two rusty hooks. He also unearthed a strip of carpet 
 and three moldy cushions that were as distantly allied 
 to some lake idyl as the stale smell of tobacco to a virgin 
 cigar. He carried them out and laid them in the sun to 
 air, then he drew in one of the boats, bailed it out, and, 
 having supplied himself with half a do/en grubs and 
 worms, went fishing. 
 
 By late afternoon he had caught three small perch and 
 an unwary black bass and was pulling slowly for the 
 boathouse, trying vainly to remember what Robinson 
 Crusoe had done for salt. As the boat ran its nose on 
 the shelving shore a voice remarked grimly, " Quarter 
 of a dollar, please." 
 
 John turned with a start and beheld a short figure of 
 large girth at the waist, a girth that diminished rapidly 
 up and down, so that the stranger gave the impression 
 of an egg stood on end. John's first impulse was to 
 jump ashore, push it over, and see it roll, but something 
 in the set of the grim face made him hesitate. How- 
 ever, he was still smiling at his fancy when he stepped 
 off the boat, his four fish strung on a bit of string. 
 
 " Don't you think you need a boatman ? " he asked 
 pleasantly. 
 
 " Don't need nothin'," snapped the stranger, " only 
 a quarter of a dollar." 
 
 " Lucky man," said John, digging out a quarter, to 
 the stranger's visible surprise, and handing it over. 
 
 " Did n't think you had it on ye," said the barrel-like 
 man, a little sheepishly. 
 
 " Who are you, anyway," asked John, " and how do 
 I know those boats are yours ? "
 
 112 JOHN BOGAEDUS 
 
 " I 'm Fanner Tupper," said the stranger, " an' 
 them 's my boats, all right. If ye don't credit it take 
 back your money an' I '11 hev ye 'rested. Long time 
 now sence I 've hed a chance to 'rest anybody." 
 
 " No, thanks," said John, smiling. " Would you like 
 some of my fish ? " 
 
 " Naw," said Mr. Tupper. " Don't eat 'em." 
 
 " I 'm sorry," said John, " because I was going to ask 
 you for some salt. I 've got to get some salt ! " 
 
 "Waal, why don't you buy some? You got legs 
 an' there 's the road." 
 
 John shook his head. " No money now," he said. 
 
 " You on the bum ? " asked the farmer. 
 
 John nodded. " And besides," he said, " I think I '11 
 stay here for a while and put your boats in shape. If 
 you '11 take a look into your dirty old boathouse per- 
 haps you '11 feel like giving me back that quarter." 
 
 " No money in the boats now," said the farmer, 
 gloomily. " You c'n play with 'em if you like. Come 
 on up to the house. I '11 give ye some salt." 
 
 Together they trudged up through the pines and 
 along the dusty road that John had refused to follow 
 farther, until they came to a lane that led to the right 
 and up to a large farmhouse squatted upon the top of a 
 mounded hill. The house overlooked the part of the 
 lake where John had been fishing. The farmer led the 
 way to the kitchen door and called out to some one 
 within, " Elizabeth, give this young feller a handful o' 
 salt." 
 
 With a jerk of his head for farewell he trudged off 
 in the direction of a big barn. John stood and waited,
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 113 
 
 feeling a slight thrill of anticipation. Would a slim 
 figure in white answer to the name of Elizabeth? A 
 large comely woman, aproned and wearing glasses, ap- 
 peared behind the screen door and stared at him. In 
 her left hand she carried a bit of a newspaper with a 
 small heap of salt on it. She opened the door half a 
 foot and held out the salt. " Goin' to catch birdies ? " 
 she asked solemnly. 
 
 John looked puzzled and dazed for a moment, then he 
 laughed suddenly. A small smile, too small for her 
 broad face, lit up the features of the woman, but quickly 
 passed, leaving her as solemn as before. " No," said 
 John. " Fish. I Ve caught some, now I want to cook 
 them." 
 
 " You hungry ? " asked the woman. 
 
 " Always ! " said John with a grin. 
 
 " You wait," said the woman and disappeared. A 
 moment later she came back and handed out to him a 
 half loaf of homemade bread and a small tin pail of 
 milk. " You bring back the pail." 
 
 With the salt wrapped up and stuck in his pocket, the 
 bread tucked under one arm, and the pail dangling from 
 his finger, John tipped his hat and turned to saunter 
 down the hill. He looked about him as he went and 
 saw that he was on no dilapidated farm. The barn, the 
 house, and the fields were as sleek as a well-groomed 
 horse, and in a hollow gleamed long beds of carefully 
 tended garden truck. 
 
 When he got back to the boathouse it took him well 
 into the twilight to clean his fish, broil them, and eat 
 them, accompanied by a large slice of the homemade
 
 114 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 bread and a long draft from the fresh milk in the pail. 
 Feeling absurdly content after the simple fare he sat 
 and smoked his pipe till he felt drowsy ; then he made a 
 bed in the boathouse of the strip of carpet and the 
 cushions, and without remembering that he had lain 
 down awoke to the surprising fact of an entirely new 
 morning sun shining through the cracks in the wall in 
 long dusty bars of gold. 
 
 He sprang up with a vague sense of a duty to be done, 
 but just at first he could not remember what it was. 
 Then his eyes fell on the pail of milk which he had 
 hung in the water to keep cool. That was it ; he must 
 return the pail. In great haste he picked some berries, 
 crushed them between two slices of bread, and washed 
 the sandwich down with what was left of the milk. 
 Then he scalded the pail with boiling water and washed 
 it with sand and ashes till it shone. Propping it, bot- 
 tom half up between two stones, he took a razor and a 
 bit of soap from his pocket and had his first shave in 
 three days, after which he stripped and bathed. 
 
 Feeling like a new man but still hungry, he walked 
 up to the farmhouse. Just as he was approaching the 
 kitchen door Farmer Tupper's voice hailed him from 
 the barnyard. " Hi, you ! Come here ! " 
 
 He put down the pail and hurried to where the tubby 
 farmer was sitting on the top rail of the yard fence, 
 glaring at a young Jersey cow that glared back and 
 made jerky motions with her horns, while she plowed 
 up the dung in the yard with her forefeet. Behind her 
 staggered an absurd, newborn calf on stilt-like, knock- 
 kneed legs.
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 115 
 
 " Does she think she 's a bull ? " asked John. 
 
 " Naw," said the farmer. " She thinks she 's the 
 first cow that ever had a calf. I want you should hold 
 her while I strip the milk from her." 
 
 " Thanks," said John, turn ing pale. " [Who 's going 
 to bell the cat 2 " 
 
 " What? " said Farmer Tupper. 
 
 " Who 's going to put the halter on her ? " explained 
 John. 
 
 " Halter ! " said the farmer, spitting at a passing 
 bumble-bee and hitting it. " It ain't a mule ; it 's a cow 
 an 7 a small cow at that. I ain't goin' to frighten the 
 life out o' her with ropes and things. Don't ye know 
 how to hold a cow ? " 
 
 " No" said John, promptly. 
 
 " Well, I '11 show ye ! " said Farmer Tupper with 
 sudden decision, and let his bulk down so lightly and 
 stepped so mincingly across the yard that John thought 
 to see him bounce into the air at any moment and stay 
 suspended, floating like a balloon. 
 
 The farmer approached the cow gently with soothing 
 words and then suddenly seized her horns, bumped up 
 against her shoulder, and twisted her neck around his 
 middle, all with astounding celerity. " There you 
 are ! " he puffed. " Come on, unless you want to do 
 the milkin'." 
 
 John drew near slowly. 
 
 " She won't bite ye," said the farmer, testily. 
 " Hold her jest so with her neck twisted around your 
 middle." 
 
 John took hold with a mighty grip and slipped into
 
 116 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 the farmer's place. Soon he found to his vast relief 
 that as long as he kept that twist in the cow's neck the 
 slightest pressure was enough to control her. Before he 
 knew it Farmer Tupper had stripped the udder and was 
 making for the fence. 
 
 "Better run when you let go of her," he remarked 
 over his shoulder.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 JOHN cleared the fence just before the cow reached 
 it and, a little breathless, joined Mr. Tupper, who 
 was walking toward the house. 
 
 "Puffin', are ye?" said the farmer. "That's the 
 worst o' you city fellers. Ye jest give one look at work 
 and it takes your breath away." 
 
 John had expected praise and the arraignment he got 
 instead, roused his ire. " You don't know what you 're 
 talking about," he said. " All the statistics are against 
 you. Any army drill sergeant can tell you that a 
 bunch of city clerks will make fresh farm hands look 
 like mush when it comes to endurance. I '11 I '11 bet 
 you a week's keep I can put it all over any farm 
 hand you Ve got." 
 
 Mr. Tupper gave him a side-glance. " I '11 bet ye 
 can't," he remarked grimly. 
 
 Elizabeth, or Mrs. Tupper, as John now learned her 
 to be, had picked up the tin pail which he had laid on 
 the kitchen step when he was called away to hold the 
 cow. As he and the farmer came up she was smelling 
 its inside with evident approval. " You c'n have some 
 more milk whenever you like, young feller," she said. 
 
 " He don't want his suckin' bottle to-day," remarked 
 Mr. Tupper. " He 's a farm hand." 
 
 He led John over the brow of the hill to a field where 
 
 three men were just starting to get in the first of the 
 
 117
 
 118 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 hay crop and put him to raking up after the wagon. 
 John took off his coat and fell to with a will, while Mr. 
 Tupper, chewing on a straw, loitered from one worker 
 to another and with a wink and a nod of his head re- 
 marked in a tone of great admiration, " Young city 
 feller!" 
 
 Raking up after the wagon is commonly called a boy's 
 job. Like many another task it J a a boy's job because 
 nobody but a slave under the whip can be made to stick 
 to it. It has but one advantage over the varied labors 
 of forking up the hay mows, packing the wagon, and 
 clucking " Gee-up " to the team, and that is its eventual 
 automatism. 
 
 For the first half hour John enjoyed the work and 
 the friendly jibes of his co-laborers; at the end of the 
 next half hour he began listening intently for the dinner 
 bell. He stole a quick glance at the cheap watch he 
 carried, thought it had stopped, found it had n't, and 
 decided it lied. Eight o'clock! and the sun was high 
 and blazing as it is supposed to do only in the most 
 realistic tales of the tropics ! 
 
 He caught a smile on the face of one of the farm 
 hands, saw a nodded signal go the rounds, and five 
 minutes later realized that he was being systematically 
 speeded up to his downfall. He gritted his teeth and 
 set to work again. Two could play at that game. 
 Within the hour he had the satisfaction of shouting, 
 " Move up, will you ? Or tell me how to rake ahead of 
 the wagon ! " 
 
 His voice was thick from dust, his eyes ached in their 
 sockets, and the band of his hat was a rim of fire, but
 
 JOHX BOGAKDUS 119 
 
 it 
 
 it was like a tonic to hear a grunt from Farmer Tupper 
 in the rear. " The young feller 'a right," he remarked. 
 " Even a hearse oughter keep ahead of the funeral." 
 
 The men laughed in nervous cackles, hut their dry 
 lips closed quickly and their faces grew set. Nobody, 
 not even Mr. Tupper, who rarely took a hand and had 
 been twice to the barley-water pail to everybody else's 
 once, looked as if he thought a joke was on. 
 
 John's first jibe was his last. When he had shouted 
 it his whole body was on the rack, the rake handle had 
 long since burst his blisters and was eating its way into 
 the raw flesh of his hands, and his head was throbbing 
 mercilessly under the blows of his pulse. Then, quite 
 suddenly, he passed the bourne of sensation. His will 
 fell asleep but he worked on in a trance, a nightmare of 
 labor that just went on and on under the impetus of 
 three hours of the same monotonous motion. 
 
 At long last the dinner bell clanged in the distance ; 
 the noon hour had come. The men did not immediately 
 throw down their forks. They held to them for a mo- 
 ment, making spasmodic movements in a desperate 
 effort to seem unconcerned. Then they drove them all 
 into a single mow, like arms stacked on the field of 
 battle. John, his limbs trembling as with the ague, laid 
 his rake beside the forks. One of the men on the wagon 
 reached down to grasp the reins. The horses, feeling 
 his movement, started for the barn. The wain creaked 
 under the heaviest and hardest packed load it had ever 
 carried. 
 
 " Come along up to dinner," said Mr. Tupper to 
 John. " We don't start agin f er an hour."
 
 120 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 With a desperate effort John smiled and said, " No, 
 thanks. I hardly feel hungry yet." Trying to keep 
 his legs from staggering, he made for the fence and the 
 road. He gave a gasp of relief when at last he plunged 
 into the cool shadow of the pines and snatched off his 
 hat. To his dismay the circle of fire was still there, 
 eating into his temples. Twice he felt his head to make 
 sure the band of the hat had not come out and stuck to 
 it. He stumbled into the boathouse and fell full length 
 on his strip of carpet. For half an hour he was deathly 
 sick. 
 
 When he was well enough to think he lay on his back 
 and murmured at intervals, " Beaten, by jiminy ! beaten 
 to a frazzle ! " 
 
 He was still awake, demanding of the gods if sleep 
 would ever again come to his burning eyeballs, when a 
 vision in white appeared in the doorway. He stared at 
 it, wondering if this was some new element of torture. 
 Then it spoke in a voice that was a little breathless but 
 musical even in its gasps. " They sent me down to 
 to tell you that you need n't come back this afternoon. 
 The men are done up. They all seem to to have the 
 the colic." 
 
 John laughed hoarsely, a laugh that sounded like the 
 opening of a rusty gate. The girl turned away, paused, 
 and came back into the frame of light. " It 's so so 
 dark in there I can't be sure but I think you 're fishing. 
 I'll I '11 tell them." 
 
 She was gone. John raised himself on one elbow 
 and craned his neck. He caught two glimpses of her, 
 swaying swiftly up through the pines toward the road.
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 121 
 
 if 
 
 Presently, with a smile twitching lazily at his lips, he 
 went to sleep. 
 
 Half an hour before sunset Mr. Tupper appeared in 
 person to verify report. True enough, he found John 
 fishing. 
 
 " What you been doin' all afternoon ? " he asked sus- 
 piciously. 
 
 " Oh," said John, " a lot of things. I Ve had a 
 swim and a nap and fished Just killing time." 
 Then, with much concern in his voice, he asked, " Are 
 the men feeling better, Mr. Tupper ? " 
 
 The farmer grunted noncommittally. " Hottest day 
 we 've had in years," he grumbled, and added gloomily, 
 " Reckon I got to feed ye for a week." 
 
 John nodded. " Do you want to back any farm hand 
 to eat more than I can ? " he asked cheerfully. 
 
 " No" said Mr. Tupper, " an' unless you 're fonder 'n 
 I am o' cold vittles you '11 come up to the house pretty 
 quick." 
 
 He turned and started up the slope. John moored 
 his boat and followed. He was longing to ask about the 
 vision in white but refrained. The call of the supper 
 bell met them when they were half way up the hill and 
 by the time they reached the kitchen door Mrs. Tupper 
 was saying the things that housewives invariably say 
 when man is two minutes late to a meal. " I declare, 
 them biscuits is nigh burnt to a cinder and " 
 
 John entered the room alone. His eyes, traveling 
 rapidly around, saw that two tables were set, one for a 
 possible six guests and the other for a possible four. 
 The five farm hands were gathered around the larger
 
 122 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 table and John noticed that Mrs. Tupper was watching 
 him a little nervously. With scarcely any hesitation he 
 took the one remaining chair at the big table and 
 grinned genially back at the sheepish grins with which 
 the three men who had been at the haying welcomed 
 him. 
 
 Mr. Tupper came in, moist and smelling of soap, and 
 beside him walked John's vision, a girl, fresh and young 
 and lissome but not quite as slim as he had dreamed her 
 to be. The two sat down at the smaller table, where 
 Mrs. Tupper joined them as soon as she had finished 
 piling food hot and food cold in enormous quantities 
 before the men and her husband. 
 
 As on John's previous first meals in farmhouses, 
 silence conversational silence reigned unbroken 
 until he ventured a remark that echoed back on itself 
 from the bare walls of the kitchen. No one seemed sur- 
 prised but nobody paid any heed. John opened his 
 mouth again and closed it. He knew that no frontal 
 attack can weld a split company. For a time he ate as 
 silent as the rest, his mind busy with trying to place 
 the girl. 
 
 She apparently belonged with her surroundings and 
 she obviously did n't. She was quite at home but there 
 was an air about her that made her seem foreign ; some- 
 thing in the way she was dressed, in the way she ate, 
 in the way, he remembered, that she talked. John stole 
 several glances at her and asked himself if she were 
 pretty. He decided that she was not and then she 
 smiled at nothing in particular and he decided that she 
 was. " Summer boarder," he was saying to himself,
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 123 
 
 tf 
 
 when one of the farm hands spoke to his neighbor in a 
 solemn, almost inaudible, mumble. 
 
 So that was the etiquette, thought John, and began 
 mumbling solemnly to the man next to him. He was 
 an old man. At first, John's attentions made him 
 nervous, so nervous that he stopped filling his mouth 
 chock full at every bite, for when people are nervous 
 they breathe so hard that the normal channel for get- 
 ting wind into the lungs falls below capacity. But soon 
 the old man's attention was arrested, then seized. He 
 forgot to be nervous; he almost forgot to eat. Pres- 
 ently he spluttered, stomped his feet, and suddenly burst 
 into a loud guffaw. He got up from the table and left 
 the room, his gray head wobbling from side to side. 
 John saw a sort of pained curiosity dawn in the faces 
 about him. Mrs. Tupper especially looked as though 
 she felt she had missed something. 
 
 " Funny old man," he said gravely to the company in 
 general. " Does he often act like that ? " 
 
 One by one, as they finished, the farm hands got up 
 and left the room. From somewhere outside floated 
 back a murmuring voice and a subsequent guffaw for 
 each new arrival. At last John sat alone at his table. 
 He was almost bursting with food but he continued to 
 eat steadily, his eyes fixed on his plate. He felt that 
 he was being watched. 
 
 Farmer Tupper had been picking his teeth for some 
 time. He removed the toothpick to say to his wife, 
 " Elizabeth, I owe this young feller a week's keep. 
 Better get in an extry barrel o' flour to-morrer an' we '11 
 hev to cut the skimmed milk off from the pigs for a
 
 124 JOHN BOGAEDUS 
 
 while. They c'n grub instead in the old orchard " 
 
 "Ain't you 'shamed! Mr. Tupper," interrupted 
 Elizabeth. " Jest because you 'n' your help be too puny 
 to eat solid enough to stand up to more 'n half a day's 
 work at a time you object to seein' a man staunchin' his 
 appetite. Go long outa here an' let him eat in peace." 
 
 " Call me in the mornin' early," remarked Mr. Tup- 
 per over his shoulder as he left the room, " I 'd like to 
 see him finish." 
 
 As the screen door slapped shut behind him, John 
 laid down his knife and the thickly buttered half of the 
 last hot biscuit. His twinkling eyes met the twinkling 
 eyes of Mrs. Tupper. They were friends. 
 
 " What was it you was tellin' old Ben to make him 
 bust out like that ? " she asked. 
 
 John looked at her and grinned. " If it was some- 
 thing I could tell you, he would n't have laughed, would 
 he?" 
 
 The twinkle left Mrs. Tupper's eyes. "Well," she 
 said severely, " all I c'n say is that sence you can't 
 behave with old hands like Ben you '11 hev to eat after 
 this with me 'n' Mr. Tupper." 
 
 " And ? " said John brazenly, looking straight at 
 the girl. 
 
 She flashed a look at him, turned pink to the tips of 
 her ears, and said, a little gaspingly, " I 'm I 'm 
 Joan. Joan Tupper."
 
 CHAPTEK XV 
 
 JOHN" knew better than to hang around the women 
 folk. He went out and joined the men for a 
 while, then, lighting a fresh pipe, said good night and 
 started down the hill. As he passed the front porch 
 he heard the rhythmic squeak of a rocking chair and out 
 of the corner of his eye caught a blur of white. 
 
 " Good night," he called, " Joan." 
 
 " G-good night," answered the girl. 
 
 It was a glorious evening. The afterglow of day 
 still clung to the sky in a wide-flung arch of dappled 
 pink as though it were striving to brand night itself 
 with the blush of dawn. John felt as though he were 
 walking on air ; he wanted to shout but the vast stillness 
 of the high-roofed world restrained him, almost rebuked 
 him for the impulse. In the midst of the nave of pines 
 he sat down and for an hour watched day die from the 
 heavens and the lake. 
 
 The next morning he slept late and by the time he had 
 washed his clothes and bathed while they dried, the 
 farmhouse breakfast hour was far past. He caught a 
 single fish, broiled it, and was sucking the last bone dry 
 when a feeling came over him that he was being 
 watched. He looked up to see Joan standing among 
 the pines, swinging an empty pail. 
 
 " Hello! " he cried. " Good morning! " 
 
 125
 
 126 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 " Good morning/' she called in answer, starting for- 
 ward with the swift, swaying motion that seemed to 
 him, like her talk, a bit gaspy. " Why why did n't 
 you come to breakfast ? " 
 
 " Sleeping," said John. 
 
 The girl nodded gravely. " Father said it was either 
 that or you were putting twenty miles between you and 
 the memory of work." 
 
 John laughed. " Did you come down for a bucket of 
 water ? " 
 
 " No," said the girl. " Berries." 
 
 " That 's a big pail," said John. " I '11 help you fill 
 it if you '11 lend it to me first." 
 
 " What for ? " asked Joan. 
 
 " I '11 show you," said John. He scoured the bottom 
 of the pail with sand and ashes and washed it clean, then 
 propped it up and with his back to the girl proceeded 
 to shave. 
 
 She sat down on a rock and watched him, at first in 
 silence, then, " I can see your face in the bottom of the 
 pail. It 's too funny. Now it looks like a toothache on 
 one side. Now it looks like vinegar or or choke- 
 cherries. Now now it looks as if you were hurting 
 yourself. Oh, don't, don't open your mouth like that. 
 It 's it 's the way old Ben used to play idiot and 
 and it frightens me ! " 
 
 John stopped shaving, laid his razor down carefully, 
 and picked up the pail. " Here you are," he said, turn- 
 ing to hold it out to the girl. " Please run along and 
 play out of sight." 
 
 Joan did not move. She was sitting with her knees
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 127 
 
 hugged in her arms. " Go on and finish," she said 
 calmly. " I won't any more. I was just doing it 
 because it 's su-supposed to be such a a splendid test. 
 I 've never had a chance before." 
 
 John grinned. " Well," he said, resuming opera- 
 tions, " you certainly got a rise. Why don't you try it 
 on your old man sometime ? " 
 
 " Father," said Joan, with faint emphasis, " goes 
 ten miles for a shave every Saturday afternoon. 
 Did n't you shave yesterday ? " 
 
 "Urn h'm," said John. 
 
 " I forgot," said Joan. " I must n't talk, not even 
 to ask you if you 're nearly finished." 
 
 " Awmst," said John, good-naturedly. 
 
 A moment later he rinsed the razor, wiped it on a 
 leaf, and dried it on his trousers. Then he put it away 
 in the boathouse with what was left of his soap, washed 
 his face free of suds, and got his hat. 
 
 " Now for the berries," he said as he came out again. 
 
 They walked side by side to the tangled clearing 
 where the berries grew thickest and for half an hour 
 scarcely spoke a word. These periods of silence do not 
 come to the exceptionally young through content, or 
 complete understanding, nor are they periods of mental 
 rest. As a matter of fact, they are a species of breath- 
 less conversation without words, silent talk punctuated 
 with side-glances, blushes, wandering smiles, an occa- 
 sional half sigh and ending, in this case, with a sudden 
 audible, "Ouch!" 
 
 " Oh, what 's the matter ? " cried John, setting down 
 the pail and pushing an intervening bramble aside.
 
 128 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 "I I 've pricked my finger," said Joan, holding 
 out her hand and lifting moist eyes to John's face which 
 was absurdly full of a really solemn concern. 
 
 " You poor child," he said, taking her hand in his 
 own and staring at the tiny drop of oozing blood. 
 
 His own hand trembled. He felt vaguely that he was 
 standing at an emotional verge, then, suddenly, he for- 
 got that he had been feeling very, very young. The 
 girl and her smooth little hand and the tiny drop of 
 blood became a man-sized problem. What place had 
 this delicate and grammatical combination in a cosmos 
 of barnyard, farmhouse, farm hands, and the coarse 
 fiber of the major Tuppers? 
 
 Still holding her hand, he picked up the pail, led her 
 out into the shade of the pines, and made her sit down 
 on a great flat stone near the lake. Then he took her 
 handkerchief, soaked it in water, and bathed away the 
 little drop of blood. 
 
 " Thank you," said Joan. " I was tired of picking 
 berries. Were n't you ? " 
 
 John stared at her, a puzzled look in his face, wonder- 
 ing if she meant him to laugh, but she stared back quite 
 gravely. 
 
 " Were n't you ? " she repeated. 
 
 John nodded his head. " I suppose I was," he said, 
 "only I hadn't time to realize it. I was so busy." 
 Then he smiled. " That sounds funny, does n't it ? 
 Well, I felt busy, anyhow ! " 
 
 " So did I," said Joan, and they both laughed. 
 
 From a spring near by John brought a bunch of cool 
 watercresses and spread it over the berries. Joan had
 
 JOHN BOGAEDUS 129 
 
 not pricked herself until the pail was nearly full. Then 
 he threw aside his coat and hat and stretched himself 
 full length beside her. " Now" he said, " tell me what 
 I want to know. Not why you are as sweet and flushed 
 as a briar rose but where you learned to talk, walk, and 
 keep your hands so small and smooth and " 
 
 " And clean ? " asked Joan, holding out fingers pink- 
 tipped and pink-nailed but splotched with blackberry 
 stains. 
 
 " Yes," said John, his eyes blind to the stains. 
 
 " You have n't been around very much, have you ? " 
 asked Joan. 
 
 " Well, not just around here," said John, smiling to 
 himself with sudden thoughts of the wide world. 
 
 " No," said the girl, " because if you had you 
 would n't think there was anything extraordinary about 
 me. Father and mother are like lots of old folks.- 
 They love me. I 've been away to school. Some day 
 I 'm to go to college." 
 
 John wondered if schools could really turn out Joans, 
 not singly by a fluke but in the gross. He realized that 
 though women had long been in his life he had never 
 yet had occasion to study a sizable American girl. It 
 seemed to him that the gods had brought an extraor- 
 dinarily fine specimen to his hand. Here was Joan, 
 probably a native child in every fiber of her body, 
 planted in that small section of New England which had 
 not yet been invaded by the alien element from the 
 north nor encroached upon by the swarming immigrant 
 hordes that even at that date had transformed the opera- 
 tive world of the coast towns. She was evolution in a
 
 130 JOHN BOGAEDUS 
 
 line unbroken by a graft. He gazed up at her until the 
 pink in her cheeks deepened and then, reproving him- 
 self for doing anything to make her shy under the micro- 
 scope, turned the talk on himself. 
 
 " Don't you want to ask about me ? " 
 
 " Why ? " said Joan. 
 
 " Well, I 'm rather out of the way for a tramp at 
 least, I thought I was." 
 
 " But you 're not a tramp," said Joan, promptly. 
 " Did you really think you were mysterious ? The 
 first time mother laid eyes on you she said, ' There 's 
 another o' them college boys that thinks he 's the first 
 that ever walked cross-lots from Poughkeepsie to Dan- 
 bury.' " 
 
 John laughed aloud. " And I thought your mother 
 had taken a liking to me ! " 
 
 " She has," said Joan. " She likes even tramps. 
 Mother likes almost everybody." 
 
 " Thanks," said John. Then his thoughts went back 
 to Joan and school and from there to girls' schools in 
 general. 
 
 " I went to a girls' school once for dinner," he said. 
 
 " You ? " cried Joan, her eyes dancing. " How 
 how did it end ? " 
 
 " I was only eight years old," said John, " but I Ve 
 never forgotten it. My mother took me. It 's the only 
 time I really remember my mother. I can see the lit- 
 tle hat she wore, her funny sleeves, and her face. She 
 was looking very young that day because at the school 
 there was an old lady that kept calling her ' Molly ' 
 and saying, ' So this is really your son, Molly, your
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 131 
 
 own boy ! ' And mother kept saying, yes, she was sure 
 of it. 
 
 " Then some of the girls came and took me away to 
 fuss over me. They were n't at all excited over mother. 
 It was a very old school and old girls came back to visit 
 often, but I remember they thought mother must be 
 somebody very important because there was a fine smell 
 of something roasting and it was n't the regular day for 
 roast beef. They got quite excited over that and one 
 girl clapped her hands, grabbed me, kissed me and said, 
 ' Oh, goodie ! ' 
 
 " Then, just as it was time for the dinner bell to ring, 
 there was a terrible cry from the kitchen and chatter- 
 ing voices and sobs and slamming doors and an awful 
 hubbub all through the big house. A very sad thing 
 had happened. While the cook was out getting fire- 
 wood Reginald had crawled into the oven and when she 
 came back she had slammed the door without noticing 
 him. The oven had warmed up slowly and Reginald 
 had peacefully been done to a turn. Reginald was the 
 school cat." 
 
 " Oh ! " cried Joan, her eyes suddenly wide, " how 
 how awful ! " 
 
 " Yes," said John, " it was a terrible thing to happen. 
 The girl that had kissed me and said ' goodie ' broke 
 down and sobbed out that she could never forgive her- 
 self for thinking Reginald was roast beef and that she 'd 
 never eat roast beef again. Everybody said they 
 could n't think of eating anything and mother led me 
 away to catch an earlier train. All the way to the sta- 
 tion she was saying, l Oh, oh, we must n't laugh, John,
 
 132 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 we simply must n't. It 's so sa-sad.' But she kept sort 
 of spluttering for a long time. I didn't have to try 
 not to laugh. I was mighty hungry." 
 
 Joan sprang to her feet. " Just like a horrid boy ! " 
 she cried. She turned from him with an impatient 
 gesture and he saw her shoulders trembling. " You 
 have told me a horrible story. I I don't like you ! " 
 
 Brushing the tears from her eyes with the back of 
 her hand she started swiftly up through the pines. 
 John snatched up the pail of berries and followed. 
 When he caught up with her he said, " I 'm awfully 
 sorry, Joan. I 'm sorry." 
 
 " Don't call me Joan," cried the girl. " You have 
 no right to call me Joan. You you did it last night." 
 
 " I know I did," said John. " It was very wrong. 
 But Joan is your name after all and it 's such a lovely 
 name, I just couldn't help saying it just to hear it. 
 If you really don't want me to call you by your own 
 name, I won't. I '11 call you Miss Tupper. Only 
 every time I do, I '11 have to shout because it will 
 make you seem so unfriendly and far away, Miss 
 Miss Tupper." 
 
 Joan gave him a swift side glance. " You 're not 
 not making fun of me ? " 
 
 " No," said John, fervently. 
 
 " Not making fun of my name ? " 
 
 " Why, no ! " cried John. 
 
 " Well, then," said the girl, " don't call me Joan too 
 loud."
 
 CHAPTEK XVI 
 
 ' T ^ THAT are you goin' to do this afternoon, young 
 V V feller ? " asked Mr. Tupper when the mid- 
 day meal was over. 
 
 " I don't know," said John. " Something to keep my 
 appetite down, out of fairness to you. I expect I '11 
 go fishing." 
 
 " I think I '11 go too," said Joan. 
 
 John's mind gave a hitch and paused, as one's mind 
 does when it has reason to expect a clash. But no clash 
 came. Mrs. Tupper did n't say, " Why, Joan ! " the 
 farm help scarcely noticed, and all Mr. Tupper said was, 
 " Elizabeth, better give him the alarm clock an' set 
 it fer half an hour to supper time." 
 
 That was a long lazy afternoon but John felt that if 
 he was n't learning something every minute, he was at 
 least trying to. He thought he was striving to make 
 out Joan but in reality he was only playing his old 
 unconscious game of making out himself, trying to fit 
 himself squarely in a round hole. Joan was something 
 new in his experience. She seemed foreign even to 
 the books he had read. He stared at her frankly and 
 watched her furtively, but she seemed to hold out no 
 clue to herself. She was so even, so complete, that 
 
 she offered no hand hold, and John likened himself to 
 
 133
 
 134 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 a small boy with a hickory nut and no stone in sight 
 to break it with. She puzzled him. 
 
 " You 've been to school a lot, have n't you ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " Almost always," said Joan. 
 
 " Well, then," said John, " define a puzzle." 
 
 " A puzzle ? " said the girl, puckering her brow. 
 
 " Yes," said John, " put a puzzle into words." 
 
 The girl shook her head lazily. " This is vacation 
 time. Mother doesn't allow me to work in summer." 
 
 "Well, that's something learned," said John. 
 " There is n't much she does n't allow you, is there ? " 
 
 The girl stared at him. " What what do you 
 mean ? " she asked. 
 
 Something in the innocence of her face reproached 
 him. He felt as though he had struck her. " Nothing, 
 nothing," he said hastily. " I '11 define a puzzle for you 
 myself. A puzzle is something that aggravates and 
 fascinates at the same time. It must do both or it is n't 
 a puzzle." 
 
 " I wonder why you keep thinking I 'm a puzzle," 
 said Joan. 
 
 " But I did n't say you were a puzzle," protested 
 John. 
 
 " Did n't you ? " asked Joan. She trailed her hand 
 in the water and then held it up and watched the drops 
 slip off her fingers. " Drops of water are beautiful," 
 she said drowsily. "I I always wish I could put 
 them on a chain a very thin chain." 
 
 With his strip of carpet and the cushions John had 
 made a couch for her in the stern of the boat. They
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 135 
 
 were trolling and as he rowed with quiet slow strokes of 
 the light oars he looked down on her. She was very 
 much in the picture. As on the first day he had seen 
 her, she was the picture. The rippling water, the shad- 
 ows on the lake, the swaying boat, the dark land, and 
 the enfolding sky seemed to center upon her small per- 
 son. 
 
 To-day, as always, she was dressed in white and her 
 head and arms were bare. He liked the way her brown 
 hair was fixed, parted with a swirl just to the left of 
 center and gathered in a thick roll at the back of her 
 neck. It seemed more than anything else to proclaim 
 her age, just halfway between child- and womanhood. 
 In her lap lay an old Leghorn hat, banded with a swath 
 of white tulle. With one hand she folded its broad 
 brim back and forth while her gray eyes, fixed intently 
 on the shining drops of water, gradually dimmed. 
 
 Suddenly, with the cuddling motion of a child, she 
 turned half on her side, drew her hands together under 
 her chin, and went to sleep. 
 
 John rowed on, more softly than ever. He guided 
 the boat through a sea of lily-pads and blooms into the 
 shade of overhanging trees. With one gunwale pressed 
 against the bank he drove the blade of an oar into the 
 mud on the further side and imprisoned the boat. Then 
 he lit his pipe and sat quite still, his eyes fixed on the 
 sleeping girl. He could see her red lips parting faintly 
 to each breath. Her folded hands and her arms, lying 
 across her bosom, rose and fell steadily but very softly, 
 and once in a while her free leg would give the slightest 
 twitch as though it alone remained awake and had half
 
 136 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 a mind to protest at her too intimate exposure. All 
 around, the white water lilies lifted erect petals as 
 though they were stretching their necks to look upon 
 her too. 
 
 Presently John turned his eyes away, and then his 
 whole body pivoted until he sat with his back to the girl. 
 A flush was in his olive cheeks. Feeling it there, he 
 grew angry and blew great puffs from his pipe as though 
 he strove to bury himself in a fog of smoke. His blood 
 raced in his veins and time kept step so that almost be- 
 fore he knew it long shadows were drawing across the 
 lake. He had filled and refilled his pipe automatically 
 till now it was so hot he could scarcely hold it. He 
 thrust it in his pocket and swung around, rocking the 
 boat violently. 
 
 The girl awoke with a start. Her eyelids fluttered, 
 closed, then fluttered wide, and she laughed. " Why," 
 she gasped. " I Ve been asleep." 
 
 John nodded, took in the lines, and got the boat under 
 way. With short strong strokes he drove it out beyond 
 the point of land that had sheltered them. Suddenly 
 a view opened to his eyes that he had never seen before. 
 The glimmering water stretched away and away as far 
 as the eye could reach. 
 
 John stopped rowing. " Well, I '11 be jiggered," he 
 said. " Look at that ! " 
 
 The girl turned and glanced over her shoulder. " At 
 what ? What do you see ? " 
 
 " Water ! " said John. " D' you know, I thought this 
 lake of yours was a fish pond, a sort of a long jump for 
 a grasshopper."
 
 y JOHN BOGARDUS 137 
 
 " Oh, no," said the girl. " It 's quite big." 
 
 "How big?" 
 
 " Miles." 
 
 John sighed contentedly. " I 'm happy," he said. 
 
 "Why? "asked the girl. 
 
 " Because I 've got something to do. I 'm going to 
 make a sail and step a mast in this boat and then " 
 He waved his hand at the reach of water. 
 
 " Oh," cried the girl, clapping her hands, " that '11 be 
 fine, just fine I When when can we go ? I Ve never 
 been once in a sailboat ! " 
 
 "Haven't you?" said John, pityingly. "Well, 
 don't get excited yet. It '11 take days and days. I Ve 
 got to get canvas and tools and ropes and things." 
 
 The girl looked disappointed, then her face bright- 
 ened. " Would a tarpaulin do ? One of the big ones 
 they use on the hay ? " 
 
 " It certainly would," said John, " but " 
 
 "But what?" 
 
 " Who 's going to knock your father on the head and 
 take it ? " 
 
 " I am," said Joan, promptly. " I '11 get everything ; 
 the canvas and the old flag pole we never use and all 
 the tools in the woodshed. Only, you mustn't say a 
 word. I '11 get something else, too. I '11 get credit for 
 making you work for your keep." 
 
 The next morning John awoke to the rattle of a 
 spring wagon backing down to his front door. He 
 peeped out and beheld the egg-like Mr. Tupper unload- 
 ing a long spar, a huge bundle of canvas and cords, and 
 a tool chest.
 
 138 JOHN BOGAKDTJS 
 
 He slipped on his coat and stepped out. " I appre- 
 ciate this, Mr. Tupper," he said. " Never thought 
 you 'd come down to drive me up to breakfast." 
 
 Mr. Tupper glared at him and then made a surpris- 
 ingly quick ascent to the driver's seat. Before John 
 knew what he was up to he had laid whip to the horses. 
 They snorted and plunged into a gallop. 
 
 John sprang forward, clutched the fast-receding tail- 
 board with one hand, and hung on for dear life. He 
 was swept off his feet, his heels slithered and bounced 
 over the pine-needle floor, but he would not let go. Mr. 
 Tupper gave the horses another clip to keep them going, 
 calmly climbed over the seat, and unhooked the tail- 
 board. Great was John's fall. 
 
 He got up, bruised and shaken, and dusted off his 
 clothes. For a moment he hesitated, then, smiling 
 grimly at the way he had been had, he walked slowly 
 after the disappearing wagon. Just around the bend of 
 the road he came upon it, waiting for him. As he 
 silently climbed aboard Mr. Tupper remarked, " You 
 be careful, young feller, how you josh a fat man. Fat 
 men is terrible sudden sometimes." 
 
 " You 're a wonder," said John, grinning. " But 
 I don't believe yet you can really jump. I think you 
 bounce." 
 
 At breakfast Joan ate little and watched each mouth- 
 ful that John took as though she were calculating how 
 long it would take him to swallow it. The moment he 
 finished she sprang to her feet and said, " Come on. 
 You do eat a lot." 
 
 John paused long enough to fill his pipe and then
 
 JOHN BOGABDUS 139 
 
 followed her toward the lake. When they arrived at 
 the boathouse she said, " Now look everything over. Is 
 there anything you need that is n't here, because if there 
 is I 'm going back to get it." 
 
 " No," said John. " Nothing missing." He took 
 off his coat, laid aside his pipe, and went to work. Two 
 days before he had looked upon Mr. Tupper as a fully 
 developed slave driver, but before he had labored an 
 hour under Joan's supervision he realized that, beside 
 her, Mr. Tupper was a mere infant in arms. It was 
 not that Joan was noisily urgent; quite the contrary. 
 She sat unnaturally still but her stillness was tense. It 
 was her face and her expression that did the driving. 
 Her eyes followed quickly every movement he made and 
 her expression changed with the rapidity of a kaleido- 
 scope from approval to scorn and from censure to open 
 exultation. When he paused only to stretch his aching 
 back, her eyes clouded ; and once, when he dared to reach 
 out a tentative hand toward his pipe, they blazed in such 
 consternation that he suddenly changed his mind and 
 scratched his head instead, as though that were all he 
 had started out to do. 
 
 His sigh of relief when a far-away clang warned them 
 of the dinner hour was so deep that it burst a button 
 from his shirt. He could not enjoy his dinner be- 
 cause he was too hot and tired to eat and Joan watched 
 him just as she had done at breakfast. When they got 
 back to the boathouse he walked inside and closed the 
 door after him. 
 
 " Wha what are you doing ? " called Joan. 
 
 " Going for a swim," called back John. He took his
 
 140 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 plunge in the shelter of the house, dressed slowly and 
 came out, his hair still dripping. He was feeling much 
 better for the bathe, but one glance at Joan wiped the 
 smile from his lips. She had been crying, she was still 
 crying, the slow tears coursing down her tense face. 
 
 John sprang ashore. " Joan," he cried, all contri- 
 tion. " Don't. Don't cry." 
 
 " You don't care," sobbed Joan. " I want to see the 
 boat finished so much, I ache. My head aches with 
 wishing, and you you don't care." 
 
 John's face set grimly. " I '11 show you," he said 
 and flew at his tools. All afternoon he worked in a 
 sort of dull frenzy but he did not let his haste disor- 
 ganize him. He drove his brain first of all and his 
 brain drove his hands, his straddled legs, and even his 
 teeth, into action. By evening he had accomplished 
 wonders and he and Joan were both too tired to talk 
 as they walked to the house for supper. Just before 
 they reached it he said, " Will you do me a favor ? " 
 
 " What is it ? " asked Joan. 
 
 " Promise me you won't come down to the boathouse 
 till four o'clock to-morrow afternoon." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Well," said John, smiling nervously, " I simply 
 can't stand the pace. Promise or I '11 " 
 
 "I promise," said Joan, hastily, and then turned 
 curious eyes on him. " You were going to say or you *d 
 quit. Don't don't even think of it." 
 
 At three o'clock the next afternoon John looked upon 
 his completed labor and saw that it was good ; no flimsy
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 141 
 
 contraption of lath and unbleached muslin but a rig 
 clumsily strong in every brace and stay, strong enough 
 to bury the little boat gunwale deep in half a breeze, or 
 sail her to the bottom in a blow.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 HE was enjoying a lazy pipe when a clear voice 
 hailed him from up among the pines, " 7s it four 
 o'clock yet ? " 
 
 " Two minutes to go," called John. 
 
 The girl came down the incline in swift, slithering 
 rushes. 
 
 " Look out ! " cried John in genuine alarm, spring- 
 ing to his feet. " You '11 slip." 
 
 She tripped on a root and shot into his arms. Even 
 as she freed herself she said breathlessly, " Is it really 
 finished? " 
 
 He nodded and for a moment they stood side by side 
 and stared at the sturdy craft that looked like a dilapi- 
 dated, dappled rocking horse crying aloud for two gal- 
 lons of paint. 
 
 " It 's beautiful," said Joan, with a sigh of content. 
 "I I'm ready." 
 
 John started to pick her up to put her on board, 
 but she sprang back with a shake of her head. She 
 turned from him, slipped off her shoes and stockings, 
 and waded out to the boat. He followed, helped her in, 
 and then rowed quickly beyond the lea of the pine 
 forest. When the breeze descended upon them in light 
 puffs he hurried forward, let down the centerboard, 
 ran up the big square sail, made taut the weather stays, 
 
 142
 
 JOHN BOGAEDUS 143 
 
 and with the sheet wrapped around one wrist worked 
 his way back to the tiller. The breeze freshened. He 
 took a turn over a thole-pin and drew the sheet tight. 
 The sail filled, the boat heeled to the wind and, a mo- 
 ment later, rushing water was purling in a mounting 
 wave from under her stern. 
 
 " Oh," gasped Joan. " Oh ! She was thrilled and 
 frightened. She did n't know whether to laugh or cry. 
 She looked at John's face and saw a light playing in 
 his eyes she had never seen before. A puff of wind 
 caught her big hat, tore it from her head, and soused 
 it into the lake fifty feet ahead. Now she knew which 
 she wanted to do. She threw her arms wide and 
 laughed aloud. 
 
 John's face was set. " Get ready to pick up your 
 hat," he said sharply; then he wore boat and the next 
 moment suddenly luffed. 
 
 Joan stared down. There was her hat just within 
 reach. She snatched it out of the water and even as 
 she did so the boat sprang forward again. She could 
 not know all the cunning of the touch that had brought 
 the craft to that sudden pause in its headlong flight, but 
 something told her that she need fear no more, that 
 John was master of wind and wave, and of this live 
 thing that he had made with his hands. 
 
 Almost before they knew it they were past the point 
 that had sheltered them two days before, and in three 
 long slants they put the narrows behind them and shot 
 out on a new sea with a far horizon. 
 
 " Jiminy ! " cried John. " Look at 'em." 
 
 Three immaculate little twenty-footers, that had
 
 144: JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 been beating their way toward the neck of water from 
 which John's boat was rushing, were in the act of wear- 
 ing as he spoke. 
 
 " Oh, are n't they pretty" said Joan. " They must 
 be from the Lake Grand." 
 
 " From the what ? " asked John. 
 
 " The Lake Grand Hotel, over there," said Joan with 
 a wave of her hand. " Miles." A burst of laughter 
 floated back to them from the boats ahead. Joan flushed 
 and turned to John. " Why did n't you tell me you 
 wanted paint white paint? I would have hated to 
 wait for it to dry but I could have waited if if you 'd 
 made me if you 'd told me they 'd laugh at us ! " 
 
 " Paint 's a fine thing," said John, " but it does n't 
 help a boat when it comes to sailing. You just wait, 
 wait ten minutes or half an hour, and you '11 forget all 
 about paint." He crowded the boat close into the wind 
 and held her there. The breeze across the wide water 
 grew in force with every foot they traveled. Soon 
 there were whitecaps and spray. The boat's bows 
 surged and lifted with a mighty swirl. A fleck of water 
 slapped Joan across the face and soaked her arm. 
 
 " Oh, I 'm getting wet ! " she gasped and then 
 laughed. Her blood was on fire. John saw it flaming 
 in her cheeks. He smiled at her and then, holding the 
 tiller between his knees, leaned over and lifted out two 
 floorboards. He jammed their ends under a thwart so 
 that they stuck far out over the weather gunwale. The 
 boat heeled and shipped water. 
 
 " Here," cried John. " Lie on one of these." 
 
 "I I 'm frightened," said Joan.
 
 JOAN
 
 * JOHN BOGAKDUS 145 
 
 " No, you 're not," said John, sharply. " Leave it 
 to me. I '11 tell you when to be frightened. Do as I 
 tell you." 
 
 Joan crawled across and sat on one of the boards. 
 
 " Higher," said John. " Get your weight over the 
 edge. Wait. I '11 show you." 
 
 With the loose end of the sheet he took a turn on the 
 tiller; then he slid out on the floorboard nearest him 
 as far as he could get and still keep his foot firmly braced 
 against the helm. 
 
 " I 'm frightened. I am frightened," cried Joan. 
 " I could never do that. You 're not in the boat at all ! " 
 
 Even while she spoke she slid herself up backwards 
 inch by inch until John called out, " That 's fine. See 
 how close we are together. You see, I just had to have 
 you up here with me so I could talk to you. Now take 
 a long breath and look around." 
 
 Joan did as she was told. Beneath her bulged the 
 slimy side of the little boat that seemed to be using 
 its keel for a fin. At its bows rose a frothy rollicking 
 comb, taking many a slap from the boat and slapping 
 back once in a while with long iridescent plumes of 
 spray. The close-drawn sail bulged out tremendously, 
 cupped the breeze, and swept it back over her. The 
 wind tore at her hair and loosened long strands that 
 streamed out like silken pennants. The lee gunwale 
 played a dangerous game of touch and go with the 
 brimming waters of the lake and in the bottom of the 
 boat the big Leghorn hat, soaking wet, occasionally 
 flopped one side of its brim like a stranded fish at the 
 last gasp.
 
 146 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 " Oh ! " cried Joan. " Oh ! " and clapped her hands. 
 
 " Don't do that," said John. " Hold tight to the seat. 
 This isn't a buckboard on four wheels." 
 
 " Why ! " cried Joan, " where are those pretty 
 boats?" 
 
 " You '11 see in a minute," said John. 
 
 Even as he spoke they blanketed the nearest of the 
 three yachts and shot past it. John's quick eye took 
 in the reefed mainsail, the slack sheet, and the look of 
 tamed consternation on the faces of the immaculate 
 crew. It also caught a combination of surprise and in- 
 dignation in the face of a single girl passenger, whose 
 lips were open as though getting ready to tell her es- 
 corts what she thought of them. 
 
 John smiled and then said in a clear, carrying voice, 
 " I do hope they 've brought their supper with them." 
 
 " Oh," said Joan, laughing softly. " They heard 
 you. I saw them hear you." 
 
 Then she turned her eyes on John. For a long time 
 he had not looked at her and she wondered why; soon 
 she saw the reason. Although sitting apparently still, 
 he was exceedingly busy. His eyes shot glances here 
 and there that were like flashes, but they kept to a steady 
 round. His face was eager but tense, as though intent 
 upon an infinite number of minute calculations based 
 upon that round of glances. Coatless and bareheaded, 
 with his shirt open at the throat, his right arm swelling 
 under the strain of the sheet and his extended right 
 foot playing firmly against the helm, his whole body 
 braced and balanced to a nicety, he presented a virile 
 and attractive picture. Joan studied the steady glow in
 
 JOHN BOGARDTJS 147 
 
 his olive cheeks and began to wonder if he were hand- 
 some. 
 
 For half an hour they sailed without a word, then 
 suddenly John glanced at the girl, a wholly impersonal 
 glance. " Get into the bottom of the boat, hold fast, 
 and keep your head down," he said sharply. " Quick ! " 
 
 Joan scrambled to obey. 
 
 "Will she, oh, will she jibe?" murmured John. 
 Crouching forward, he wrapped the sheet around his 
 left arm, then he leaped for the stern of the boat and, 
 jambing the tiller hard a-starboard with his knee, cast 
 the rope free from the thole. 
 
 The boat gave a sickening lurch and shipped enough 
 water to make Joan scream with fright. Almost im- 
 mediately it righted to a deafening slatting of the sail, 
 for a second the bows hovered as though in dire doubt, 
 and then gradually paid off to the wind. The sail filled 
 and went over with a slap and a bang. John let go 
 the tiller, braced his feet and hung to the sheet with both 
 hands. 
 
 " Ye gods ! " he chanted as the boat swept forward on 
 the tack, " will she jibe ! " 
 
 " Please " stuttered Joan, " p-please don't do it 
 again." Then her eyes were drawn to the shore, still 
 so close that it seemed to overhang them. " Why," she 
 cried, " you almost ran it into the woods ! " 
 
 " Don't call her ' it,' please," said John, shipping 
 the loose floorboards with his feet. " Say, d' you think 
 we can do it ? " 
 
 " Do what ? " asked Joan, climbing to a more com- 
 fortable and dignified position.
 
 148 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 " Make a ring around those rosies," said John with 
 a nod of his head toward the three yachts. 
 
 "I I don't know," said Joan. 
 
 " Neither do I," muttered John, " yet. But I '11 
 tell you all about it in an hour." 
 
 In half an hour they went around again and twenty 
 minutes later swept down on the enemy, so close that 
 Joan gasped. 
 
 " Say," called the youthful skipper of the nearest 
 yacht, a sheepish grin on his face and greed in his eyes, 
 " what boat 's that ? " 
 
 " The Joan, you landlubber," shouted John, grinning 
 back over his shoulder. 
 
 Soon after, they turned and ran for their home port. 
 During the long beat back to the boathouse John tried 
 out his boat in many ways and taught Joan many things 
 with an eye to making her into a crew. When they 
 came to anchor she waded ashore and put on her shoes 
 and stockings while he made all snug on board. The 
 sun was setting as he joined her, the supper hour far 
 past, but she was loath to leave. She stood shivering, 
 her wide eyes fastened on the boat which with its 
 big wing furled looked the very negation of life and 
 flight 
 
 " She 's mighty ugly," said John, " lut " 
 
 " It t-t-is n't ugly," chattered Joan. 
 
 " Is n't she ? " said John with a pleased smile. 
 " Well, let me tell you, and I know. She 's not a boat 
 at all ; she 's a race horse." 
 
 He picked up his coat and wrapped it around Joan's 
 wet shoulders, buttoning it under her chin. Once they
 
 y JOHN BOGAKDTJS 149 
 
 reached the road, they raced for the house and arrived 
 there quite warm and panting. 
 
 Mr. Tupper was pacing up and down in front of the 
 kitchen door, scowling and chewing on a straw. " Here 
 they be ! " he called and Mrs. Tupper appeared at his 
 back. 
 
 " Oh, mother ! " gasped Joan. 
 
 " There, there," said Mrs. Tupper. " No call to bust 
 yerself tellin' us all about it. We seen ye. Come in 
 an' eat your supper." 
 
 The moment Joan took off John's coat and displayed 
 her wet clothes John saw Mrs. Tupper exercise author- 
 ity for the first time. She said nothing; she merely 
 gripped the girl by the arm and rushed her up the 
 narrow stairs that led from the kitchen to the bedrooms 
 above. 
 
 As John was putting on his coat, Mr. Tupper entered 
 the kitchen and stood in a corner as still as a hogshead 
 except for his jaws and the wagging straw. It seemed 
 to John, who was feeling intensely uncomfortable, that 
 the scowl on Mr. Tupper's face was gradually deepen- 
 ing, but if there was a storm impending it suddenly 
 cleared as Joan, warmly dressed and her cheeks glowing 
 from a rubdown, reappeared, followed by her mother. 
 
 Mrs. Tupper turned her attention to John. " Be you 
 wet, too ? " 
 
 " Oh, no," said John, starting for the supper table 
 where Joan was already seating herself. 
 
 Mrs. Tupper adroitly slipped her hand under his 
 coat. " You never was whipped for lying, was yer ? 
 You oughter change yer things er take somethin'."
 
 150 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 " Thanks," said John. " I would n't mind a tot of 
 whisky or a glass of port." 
 
 Mr. Tupper fixed him with a stern glance. " Young 
 feller," he rumbled, " we don't hold by 'toxicatin' sper- 
 rits on this farm ner nary a store licker. You '11 take 
 some of Mrs. Tupper's peach brandy er you '11 take 
 nothin'." 
 
 John smiled and said, " Certainly, anything will do." 
 
 He grasped the generous wineglass held out to him 
 by Mrs. Tupper and in the innocence of his heart poured 
 its contents down his throat. The next instant he 
 choked and was gasping for breath. Confused images 
 of a knockout blow, a river of lava, and childhood's vi- 
 sions of hell whirled through his brain. Subconsciously 
 he heard Mrs. Tupper say in a loud solicitous whisper, 
 " Musta swallered it the wrong way."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 JOHN buried the brandy, more potent than any 
 ship's grog, under an enormous supper. As he 
 was finishing he heard Mrs. Tupper exclaim in a whis- 
 per, " Land sakes ! " and following her gaze and that of 
 Mr. Tupper, he saw an entrancing sight. Joan had 
 sunk deep in her chair and fallen fast asleep. 
 
 Something in the childishness of her pose drew mois- 
 ture to her parents' eyes. They tiptoed nearer and 
 hung over her, their weather-beaten faces breaking into 
 smiles that made them suddenly young. In a moment 
 John felt himself altogether forgotten. He rose and 
 slipped quietly toward the door. As he went he heard 
 Mrs. Tupper say, " Le 's see ef we c'n put her to bed 
 without rousin' her, like we used to." 
 
 John strode down the hill, his brow knitted in a puz- 
 zled frown. He was striving as usual to place Joan. 
 All his wanderings had given him no experience of a 
 dominant younger generation and it was no wonder that 
 Joan, following her own sweet will straight through the 
 decalogue of the European don'ts of a jeune fille and 
 coming out apparently unscathed, should throw his mind 
 into a hopeless maze. 
 
 Had he not been so taken up with puzzling over Joan 
 he might have found time and occasion for several 
 equally troubling speculations in regard to a certain 
 
 151
 
 152 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 Mr. John Bogardus who had been traveling very fast 
 these last few days. Speed is a fine thing in the air or 
 on the ground, but it is just as well to know where one is 
 going to end up. John was conscious of the wind on 
 his cheeks but he was n't even looking out ahead for a 
 hairpin turn or an air-pocket. 
 
 Back in the boathouse he was too sleepy to think 
 even of Joan, and without stopping to take off his damp 
 clothes he stretched out and slept the sleep of defiant 
 youth. He awoke late, breakfasted, ard, after going 
 through his toilet, sat down to wait for Joan. She did 
 not come. Presently he grew restless and made his way 
 to the house. It was deserted, the whole farm was de- 
 serted, save for old Ben, who sat on the steps of the 
 kitchen door with one ear cocked toward the range in- 
 side. 
 
 " What are you doing ? " asked John, bewildered. 
 
 " Watchin' the dinner," grunted Ben. 
 
 "Why," said John, " where 's Mrs. Tupper? 
 Where 's everybody ? " 
 
 " Gone where everybody is, excep' steady old men an' 
 young limbs o' Satan." 
 
 " To church ! " exclaimed John, promptly. " I 'd 
 forgotten all about what day it was ! " 
 
 He sat down beside Ben and the two smoked for an 
 hour in unbroken silence. At the end of the hour the 
 old man got up, went into the kitchen, stirred the fire, 
 sniffed into the oven, and moved over various pots and 
 pans. As he finished, a clatter of wheels was heard in 
 the distance. The spring wagon appeared, Mr. Tupper 
 driving with Mrs. Tupper beside him and three farm
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 153 
 
 hands packed into the back seat. Joan was not with 
 them. 
 
 Far behind and driving very slowly, perhaps to al- 
 low for the settling of the dust of the spring wagon, 
 came a light buggy drawn by a restive team of sorrel 
 horses. The sun glinted on the high lights of their 
 sweating flanks, on the gay red paint of the spokes of 
 the wheels, and on the gleaming polish of the buggy's 
 black body. In the narrow seat was a blur of white, 
 sitting very close to a pair of broad shoulders. As the 
 buggy slowly climbed the hill to the house John's heart 
 slowly climbed down and down. He wondered why. 
 
 With a flick of his whip Broad-shoulders sent his 
 horses plunging to the right-about and brought the buggy 
 with a grand flourish to a sudden stop, the off wheel 
 almost grazing the mounting block beside the driveway. 
 Joan, looking very sweet in a quite new big hat and a 
 fresh white frock, stepped lightly out. 
 
 " So-long, Harry," she said with a smile. 
 
 " So-long, Joan," answered the stranger, an extraor- 
 dinarily healthy, comely, and well-dressed young man. 
 Then, with a wave of his whip toward everybody, he 
 touched up his horses again and in a moment had 
 swirled down the hill and out of sight. 
 
 John looked at the group about him and, for the first 
 time since he had turned tramp, felt decidedly under- 
 dressed. Tupper, Mrs. Tupper, the farm hands, and 
 even old Ben who had slipped on a coat, to say nothing 
 of Joan who was just a little more of a glory than usual, 
 were clean and resplendent in their best store clothes. 
 Their stiff Sunday habit, the conscious weekly cleanli-
 
 154 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 ness of the men, and the hushed awe New England 
 women wear on the Sabbath day along with their best 
 lace mitts shut him out completely ,and gave him an 
 inkling of how a sinner ought to feel in the presence of 
 the righteous. 
 
 All through dinner he was depressed and ate in si- 
 lence. When they left the table he got a chance to 
 whisper to Joan, " What are you going to do this after- 
 noon ? " 
 
 " Going for a ride with Harry," she answered ab- 
 sently. 
 
 John plunged down the dusty road to the boathouse, 
 thinking of a lot of things he could do to kill time. He 
 could pick berries or sleep or bathe or go for a swim or 
 a sail by himself. He sat down under the pines and 
 wondered why he did n't feel like doing any of these de- 
 lightful things ; then he got up and languidly prepared 
 to fish. He was too indifferent to get out a boat and 
 consequently perched himself at the end of the boat- 
 house. 
 
 The first victim to his bait gave him a tug that almost 
 landed him in the water. He had a moment of pleas- 
 urable excitement, which came to an anticlimax when 
 he dragged out a slimy eel. He sighed as he crawled 
 ashore and put away his tackle. Even the fish in the 
 vicinity knew better than to bite on Sunday. 
 
 He did not bother to go to the house for supper nor 
 for breakfast the next morning; out of a sort of spite 
 he ate the eel instead. Just as he was finishing the last 
 of it Joan appeared, swinging a pail. 
 
 "I I thought you 'd like to shave this morning."
 
 4, JOHN BOGAEDUS 155 
 
 John nodded to her gravely; he was still feeling de- 
 pressed. As he took the pail, something rattled in the 
 bottom. He looked in and found a sizable piece of a 
 broken mirror. " For me ? " he asked with a grin. 
 
 Joan nodded. She sat down, clasped her hands nerv- 
 ously and said, " Oh, do hurry up." 
 
 But John did not hurry. He took the bit of mirror, 
 caught the sun on it, and started heliographing absent- 
 mindedly at a knothole in the boathouse wall. " I sup- 
 pose you want to go for a sail," he drawled. 
 
 " Yes, I do," answered Joan. 
 
 " Not much of a breeze this morning. More of a day 
 for a drive I should say." 
 
 Joan considered him gravely. " All right," she said 
 after a moment. " Hurry up and shave ; then we '11 go 
 to the barn and hitch up whatever is n't haying." 
 
 John stared at her, then tossed aside the looking- 
 glass and said impatiently, " Who 's Harry ? " 
 
 " Oh," said Joan, suddenly smiling. " Why did n't 
 you say so ? Harry 's just Harry a nice boy that 
 I 've always known and that 's always known me. Now, 
 do you feel better ? " 
 
 John grunted and prepared to shave. As he shaved 
 a breeze arose and began to dapple the lake with cat's- 
 paws. He felt the wind and out of the corner of his 
 eye saw it speckling across the water. His spirits 
 began to rise, his eyes shone with mischief. Without 
 stopping to wash the leavings of soap from his neck he 
 sprang to his feet, rushed at Joan, picked her up, and 
 started for the boat with a shout. 
 
 The girl turned suddenly pale. With all her strength
 
 156 JOHN BOGAKDTJS 
 
 she pushed him from her and struggled so that he had 
 to set her down with more expedition than grace. She 
 stumbled, caught herself, sprang on a rock, and turned 
 on him. 
 
 " How dare you ? How dare you pick me up ? " she 
 gasped, her eyes blazing. 
 
 John stood back and stared at her. " I 'm very sorry, 
 Joan," he said gravely. " I was simply going to put 
 you on the boat. I did n't dream I 'd make you angry." 
 
 Joan glared back at him for a moment ; then sat down 
 with her back to him and drew off her shoes and stock- 
 ings. " Go wash that soap off," she commanded. 
 
 Together they waded out to the Joan. Once they 
 were well under way they both forgot bygones and gave 
 themselves up to whole-souled joy in the glorious day, 
 the laughing water, and the sinuous swirling rush of 
 the boat. 
 
 They sailed far that morning, and gradually John 
 began to feel the scenery pressing in upon him as though 
 it were striving to link the present to some vague recol- 
 lection. Suddenly they shot past a point and his eyes 
 came up with a shock against a great building that 
 crowded down on the lake and seemed even to extend one 
 big toe over the water. " Why," he cried, " what 
 what 's that ? " 
 
 In his excitement he clutched the tiller toward him 
 and the Joan promptly luffed into the wind and was 
 taken all aback. Joan peered under the flapping sail. 
 " That ? " she said. " That 's the Lake Grand Hotel." 
 
 John stared all about him. Yes, there was the very 
 veranda upon which he and his father had spent so
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 157 
 
 many long hours, and there was the pier, looking like 
 the hotel's big toe, from which he had plunged, to be 
 rescued by good old Captain Ike. And the point back 
 there, the point they had just passed, that was where 
 he had stood alone and seen the bareheaded girl in the 
 catboat. He gave a great sigh. 
 
 " Why," said Joan, " what 's the matter ? Have n't 
 you ever seen a hotel before ? " 
 
 " Yes," said John, absently. " I 've seen it before." 
 He worked the tiller slowly to and fro until the boat 
 wore round to the wind. 
 
 " Every night they dance," said Joan, " and every 
 Saturday night they give a big dance." 
 
 " Do you dance ? " asked John, his attention caught 
 by a wistfulness in her voice that seemed to link her 
 to his thoughts of the lonely time he had once spent 
 at the hotel which had evidently changed its name dur- 
 ing the years that had intervened. 
 
 Joan nodded. " But I 've only danced with girls 
 except once." 
 
 " Why don't you go here ? " asked John. " Or don't 
 they let any one except guests ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Joan. " They 'd let me, only there 's 
 no one to go with. Harry took me once but he does n't 
 dance and we just sat and sat. It was awful" 
 
 " To-day 's Monday," said John. " Next Saturday 
 I '11 take you." 
 
 Joan glanced at him, started to laugh, and then 
 checked herself in amazement. Her tramp was actually 
 in earnest! He saw her eyes sweep over him, take in 
 his shirt, open at the throat, his tough but dilapidated
 
 158 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 trousers and his clumsy footwear, squashy from contin- 
 ued soakings. Her cheeks flushed as she turned her 
 eyes away and said, " I could n't I would n't I 
 I don't think I want to go very much after all." 
 
 " What you mean," said John, grinning, " is that you 
 would die of shame to be seen with me." 
 
 Joan gave his clothes another glance and tossed her 
 head. " It is n't you" she said defiantly. " I know 
 you 're clean as water." 
 
 " You listen to me," said John. " Take my advice 
 and be ready to go to the dance next Saturday night 
 if your mother will really let you." 
 
 " Why should n't she ? " asked Joan. " Did n't I tell 
 her we were going to sail under the first full moon for 
 luck ? If we stop a while to dance, what is that ? Do 
 you think a summer dance at the Lake Grand is a ball 
 with glad clothes and cotillion favors and and dia- 
 mond necklaces and chaperones ? " 
 
 " I 'm stupid," said John. " Next Saturday there 's 
 a full moon and we certainly can't sail under it till it 's 
 good and high. No boating to-morrow, by the way. 
 I 've got to work. I need money." 
 
 Joan's face had been slowly lighting up with antici- 
 pation, now it grew anxious. " Why," she said, " how 
 much do you think you can earn between this and Sat- 
 urday ? " 
 
 " I only want fifty cents," said John, and smiled at 
 the heavy cloud that suddenly settled in her eyes.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE next day John took his place in the fields 
 and worked with a will. After supper he went 
 to Mr. Tupper and asked for his pay. 
 
 " How much d 'ye think you 're going to get ? " 
 snapped the farmer. 
 
 " Fifty cents," said John, promptly. 
 
 " Hmph ! " grunted Mr. Tupper, handing over the 
 money. " Want to sign on for a month at the same 
 rate ? Yer grub only runs f er another two days, thank 
 gum." 
 
 " ~No, thanks," said John, biting the silver coin sus- 
 piciously. " This will last me for a long while." 
 
 The next morning he trudged to the nearest town 
 and sent two telegrams; one asking for money, and 
 another directing that a suitcase he had left ready- 
 packed be sent to him by express. On Friday he made 
 the trip again, found his money but no suitcase. He 
 waited all day and did various things to keep himself 
 from worrying, had his hair cut, ate more than was 
 good for him, and indulged in two packets of cigarettes 
 that seemed meager fare after weeks of pipe smoking. 
 
 That evening at supper he was so distrait that Joan 
 approached after the meal to give him a chance to con- 
 fide his troubles, but he only smiled at her and said, 
 " Don't forget. Full moon to-morrow." 
 
 159
 
 160 JOHN BOGAKDTJS 
 
 She watched him as he walked out, and frowned and 
 smiled at the same time. She frowned because these 
 last three days had puzzled her sorely, and she smiled 
 because she was beginning to feel thrills in prospect. 
 
 Outside, John ran into Mr. Tupper. " I think I 'd 
 like to be a summer-boarder for a while," he said. 
 " What is this ? A dollar house ? " 
 
 " Three-fifty a week," said Mr. Tupper, promptly, 
 reminiscent of days before the Lake Grand had cut out 
 its small competitors. 
 
 John paid for a week in advance and started down 
 the hill. Mr. Tupper stared at the money in his hand, 
 then at John's receding figure. " Hi ! " he shouted. 
 He waddled down to where John waited and returned 
 to him one of the dollar bills. " Three fifty 's board 
 and lodgin'," he grunted and turned on his heel. John 
 watched the evolution eagerly; he never gave up hopes 
 that some day Mr. Tupper would lose his balance and 
 roll into the lake before help could reach him. 
 
 The next day John was up early and walked to the 
 town before the sun grew hot. To his immense relief 
 his suitcase had come. He weighed it thoughtfully at 
 the end of his arm and looked long at a sign that read, 
 "O'Hanlon's Bait and Livery Stable." The word 
 bait had been partially obliterated, Mr. O'Hanlon hav- 
 ing evidently suffered from the misguided attentions of 
 prospective fishermen. 
 
 John hesitated long but finally decided to take no 
 curious, hired driver within hail of his peaceful lair. 
 Hot, dusty, and tired he reached the boathouse well 
 after the noon hour.
 
 JOHN BOGAEDUS 161 
 
 The sun had scarcely set when Joan came down 
 through the pines in her peculiar run, made up of swift 
 dashes and sudden pauses. John stood up to meet her. 
 She stopped stock still and stared at him, not in amaze- 
 ment but with a gaze that was half quick girlish pleas- 
 ure and half shrewd calculation. Then her cheeks 
 flushed and her eyes shone. " Am I am I all 
 right ? " she asked quite humbly. 
 
 John was standing well out from the trees in the full 
 light of the afterglow. He was dressed in a snowy 
 white Madras shirt, well-pressed, white flannel trousers, 
 held up by a belt, and patent leather pumps. He car- 
 ried a white flannel coat over his arm and wore black 
 silk socks in a day when silk socks were still caviar to 
 the multitude. It was when Joan drew near enough 
 to take in the silk socks that she grew humble. 
 
 " You ! " cried John. " Why, you 're always all 
 right. Come, see what I 've made." 
 
 He led her to where a little pier ran out far enough 
 to allow her to step on the Joan dry-shod. In the stern 
 of the boat he had spread a clean bath-towel to save 
 the freshness of her frock. 
 
 " You think of everything," said Joan as she settled 
 down with a sigh of content. 
 
 All the way to the hotel John humored the boat so 
 that not a drop of water splashed in. When he took 
 Joan's hand to help her out, it was hot and trembling 
 a little. He slipped on his coat, leaned over and looked 
 into her eyes ; she gave him a warm glance and laughed 
 a nervous little laugh. The dance was already in full 
 swing and as they went up the pier the music seemed
 
 162 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 to get into her feet and tangle them. She laid one 
 hand on John's arm. " Not not too fast," she said. 
 
 She was feeling all the thrills of a girl going to her 
 first big party, and anticipation was so sweet that she 
 did not wish to hurry. She walked with her head 
 hanging, her eyes fixed on her little feet, and dreamed 
 of how she and John would glide out to the music of a 
 waltz. As they entered the big room she threw back 
 her head and showed to an admiring world a face aglow 
 with youth and happiness. 
 
 Those were the days when the two-step and the 
 waltz jogged along together like a lonely married couple 
 of Malthusian tendencies, self-centered and self-satis- 
 fied. John had never two-stepped but he thought he 
 could waltz. As soon as they were on the floor he 
 turned to Joan, clicked his heels together, bowed and 
 clasped his right hand about her waist. With his left 
 he caught her right and extended it to the full length 
 of her arm. Holding her as far from him as possible 
 so that they formed an approximate equilateral tri- 
 angle, he began to whirl her around in the most ap- 
 proved Continental style, his eyes gazing approvingly 
 on her face, never before so lovely. 
 
 Poor Joan danced a few jerky steps before her brain 
 could readjust itself from dreamland. A bewildered 
 look came into her eyes as she wondered if this were 
 some heartless joke of John's ; then she saw the look of 
 concern dawning in his face and her beautiful house 
 of cards tumbled with a crash that echoed through the 
 room at least, she thought it did. The light died 
 from her eyes and her cheeks went white. By a com-
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 163 
 
 in on impulse they both stopped dancing and made their 
 crestfallen way to two chairs and sat down. 
 
 " Joan," said John, " what was the matter ? " 
 
 She did not answer, for her throat was full of sobs 
 that she was swallowing as fast as she could from 
 the bottom to keep the top one from coming out. Her 
 faintly rounded breasts were heaving desperately and 
 the blush of ridicule which is about three times as red 
 as the blush of shame had routed the pallor from her 
 cheeks. 
 
 But there was no ridicule. The throng of dancers 
 had been altogether too intent on its own affairs to see 
 the tumble of Joan's house of cards, much less hear it. 
 As she realized this small saving grace she sighed with 
 relief. 
 
 " Oh, Joan, what is the matter ? " said John. 
 
 She opened her lips to answer but laughed shortly 
 instead and closed them. Before he could press his 
 question the music stopped and couples started press- 
 ing for the doors. Joan and John caught the eye of a 
 youth, none other than the yacht skipper with whom 
 John had bandied words on the lake. With him was 
 the girl who had shared his discomfiture. 
 
 A moment later John looked up to find the two smil- 
 ing at him; he recognized them and grinned back. 
 They approached and the young man held out his hand. 
 " My name 's Marsten," he said, " and this is my sister, 
 Sally. Won't you introduce us ? " 
 
 " Certainly," said John, rising. " This is Miss 
 Joan Tupper and, I 'm John Bogardus. We sailed 
 over from Tupper's farm at the other end of the lake."
 
 164 JOHN BOGAKDTJS 
 
 " In the Joan, eh ? " said the young man with a 
 laugh. " You certainly put it all over us the other day. 
 When we first caught sight of her we thought she was 
 a joke. There was a joke hanging around, all right, 
 but we sort of misplaced it." 
 
 " It was her first day," said John. " I was just feei- 
 ing her out. She 's a race horse." 
 
 " Look here," said Marsten, " we are n't quite such 
 a bunch of landlubbers as you think. At first when we 
 saw you coming along like a plate edge-up walking a 
 tight rope, we thought you were just a common garden 
 fool that did n't know a boat could blow over, but long 
 before you were out of sight we knew you 'd have 
 wiped us if you 'd been sailing a bathtub." 
 
 John laughed and shook his head. " You 're 
 wrong," he said. " I tell you she 's a race horse ; by a 
 fluke, of course." 
 
 While they argued, Sally Marsten sat down beside 
 Joan and in five minutes had found out all about the 
 tragedy that was making her so sad. Sally looked up 
 at John speculatively. " Well," she said, " even if he 
 can't dance, he 's awfully good looking." 
 
 " Is he ? " said Joan, absently. 
 
 " Cheer up," said Sally. " You dance the next 
 waltz with Charlie that 's my brother and after 
 that " 
 
 The music of another waltz started and Marsten be- 
 gan to look around the room vaguely. 
 
 " Charlie," called his sister, " you 're engaged right 
 here for this dance."
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 165 
 
 " Of course," said Marsten, stepping towards Joan 
 with a smile. 
 
 She rose and a moment later all her dreams of this 
 longed-for night began to come true. Marsten's right 
 hand was spread high against her back, holding her 
 firmly to him. With his other hand he held her right 
 loosely against his shoulder. They glided away not as 
 two, severally executing a set figure, but as one one 
 with each other, one with the music, one with the very 
 spirit of the dance. Into Joan's face came back the 
 happy, eager glow and her eyes grew dreamy. 
 
 John stood and stared, first at Joan, then at every 
 other girl in the room. He had never seen girls held 
 like that before, not jeunes filles! Joan's cheek was 
 close to Marsten's shoulder, just grazing it, but there 
 were other girls that frankly pillowed their fluffy heads 
 on their partners' breasts and clung so closely that 
 there really seemed no reason why they should touch 
 their feet to the floor at all. 
 
 " Macabre I " muttered John. 
 
 " What did you say ? " asked Sally Marsten. 
 
 John turned around sharply. " I beg your pardon. 
 I My mind was just wandering. May I sit 
 down ? " 
 
 She made room for him and John tried to give her 
 all his attention, but his eyes were constantly being 
 drawn back to the dancers. He had reason to know 
 that he could dance like that himself; he had danced 
 like that, but with masked women, not babes. For 
 these girls were babes. He did them that justice as
 
 166 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 his eyes searched each face in vain for the open book 
 of knowledge. 
 
 He might have continued his observations till the 
 music stopped had he not seen a young man look with 
 consternation at the idle Miss Marsten and immediately 
 start tacking across the floor in desperate haste. John 
 turned to her. " You must forgive me but I 've been 
 getting my bearings. Would n't you like to finish 
 this?" 
 
 Mindful of Joan's tale of woe, Sally got up, groan- 
 ing inwardly as she offered the toes of her dainty slip- 
 pers to sacrifice, but the next moment she gasped with 
 amazement, wondered what had happened, and then 
 decided to give herself up to the joy of movement and 
 puzzle things out afterwards. 
 
 John was not one of those dancers who have to warm 
 up to their step. He swept his partner out across the 
 floor to the very throb of the music. Holding her close 
 he bore her through the maze of the crowded room so 
 securely that she felt free, as though they two had more 
 room than they needed. There were rushes and pauses 
 in his movement, but they were like the hieroglyphics 
 that hang on the notes in music, they fitted in. 
 
 Sally answered the last chord of the waltz with a 
 sigh from her heart. " Well," she said as they made 
 for their seats, " all I 've got to say is that you dance 
 as well as you sail a boat." 
 
 " Do I ? " said John, eagerly and started looking 
 around for Joan.
 
 CHAPTEE XX 
 
 A GREAT viveur once said that any man can sum 
 up his life by counting the sensations he has felt 
 on the fingers of one hand. Under the cynicism was 
 the kernel of truth that gives the sting to wit. As 
 long as John lived he would count his first real waltz 
 with Joan as one of the five great emotional surges of 
 his life. 
 
 During the moments that he had neglected Sally 
 Marsten to stare at the dancers, he had been looking 
 through French eyes and beheld a world of demi- 
 vierges, vestal virgins polluted by a too intimate public 
 gaze, fresh fruit keeping just its skin intact but busily 
 rubbing off the bloom. But his dance with Sally car- 
 ried him away, he was caught in the witchery of 
 rhythmic motion, and the rush of blood to the brain 
 that comes from any exhilarating movement raised him 
 above the level of sane speculations. 
 
 Whatever had been John's physical experience he 
 was by nature clean-minded, and in the fullness of his 
 youth and of his knowledge, both open to learn and 
 eager for illusions. As he took Joan in his arms his 
 tingling blood as well as his excited though puzzled 
 brain were held in control by the memory that it was 
 this same girl that had turned upon him in a rage be- 
 cause he had dared lay familiar hands upon her person. 
 
 167
 
 168 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 But there is a big difference between control and 
 subjection. Through all that waltz John held in his 
 emotions only as one holds in a team of blooded horses 
 that has had more oats than exercise and is in two 
 minds to bolt just for the fun of the thing. From time 
 to time he looked down at Joan's face so intimately 
 close, at her hair that held him within the short radius 
 of its faintly fragrant aura, and at her rounded eye- 
 lids, drooped down as though to curtain too palpitating 
 thoughts. 
 
 Gradually, with her warm body so trustingly sur- 
 rendered to his embrace, he felt a surge of tenderness 
 rise in him, a welling desire not to harm but to protect. 
 This impulse to protect was still strong in him when 
 he and Joan, promising to come again, said good-by 
 to the Marstens and boarded their little craft. Soon 
 they were running free before a quartering breeze and 
 John, steadying the tiller with his knee, was taking off 
 his coat. 
 
 " What are you going to do ? " asked Joan. 
 
 For answer he threw the coat around her shoulders 
 and tried to button it under her chin. 
 
 "'No, no," cried Joan. "You you take half." 
 
 He stared at her, somehow he did not want to laugh. 
 " Let me button it or it will be always blowing off," he 
 said. 
 
 " You '11 be cold," said Joan as he sat down. 
 
 " Not if you sit close to me." 
 
 "I I am sitting close," said Joan, laughing nerv- 
 ously and coming still nearer. 
 
 The breeze, swirling from the cupped sail, caught
 
 y JOHN BOGAEDUS 169 
 
 the free side of the coat and tossed it. John put his 
 arm around the girl as though to hold it down. He 
 felt her body tremble; her lips parted, but she said 
 nothing. 
 
 " Are you warm now ? " he asked. 
 
 She nodded her head. " Are you ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 For a long time they sailed in silence, their bodies 
 throbbing against each other; then, slowly but firmly, 
 John drew her close and closer to him. She looked up, 
 her eyes hazy. She was not frightened nor dismayed, 
 for the dream was sweet. Their faces were very near 
 together and John's was coming nearer. Their eyes 
 met and questioned; then Joan turned her head ab- 
 ruptly in denial. She pressed him gently from her. 
 
 Just then the luff of the sail slacked and there was 
 a warning flap. John twitched the helm and sent the 
 boat back on her course. Soon Joan settled into the 
 hollow of his shoulder again and so, with his arm 
 holding her to him and keeping her warm, they sailed 
 in silence under the full moon and brought up at last 
 in the shadow of the black reflected pines. 
 
 Any reasonable person would judge that the beat 
 of their pulse had long since calmed down; but such 
 was not the case. Take two young hearts, put them 
 close together, so close that they touch, and their ca- 
 pacity for beating at double quick time is unmeasur- 
 able on the dial of any clock. As John helped Joan 
 to the little wharf that he had made for her, her hand 
 trembled in his grasp with the same vibration that his 
 hand trembled over hers.
 
 170 JOHN BOGARDTJS 
 
 With nervous haste he anchored the boat and stowed 
 the sail, then he sprang on the wharf and stopped, his 
 eyes full of the picture before him, the same picture 
 that had welcomed him on his first day at the lake, 
 only softer, glorified by night. Joan stood just among 
 the pines and drew all things upon her. Moonlight, 
 lake and rock-bound shore, even the high protecting 
 pines, converged upon her so that she caught the eye 
 like a beam of light in a darkened room. 
 
 John walked slowly toward her, his lips smiling, 
 his eyes burning feverishly. Bathed in the light of 
 the moon she looked so still and cold, so eternally fixed, 
 it was as though he approached some phantom statue, 
 adored by forest and lake and night. But as he drew 
 near and caught the haze in her eyes, the quick rise and 
 fall of her bosom, and saw her lips parted by tremulous 
 breath, such a wave surged through his veins as carried 
 him plunging forward with outstretched arms, life 
 toward life, youth to youth. 
 
 Just before her he paused as on a heady verge. 
 Their eyes met. Her feet did not move but she her- 
 self swayed gently toward him as a long-stemmed flower 
 sways toward the light. He took her in his arms and 
 crushed her to him. She raised her face and her 
 hands, put her hands around his neck. Their lips met 
 in the ecstasy of a long, long kiss. Then a flush of 
 maiden shame suddenly flamed in her cheeks. She 
 dropped her head, pressed her face hard against his 
 shoulder, and sobbed. 
 
 He held her close, patted her back, and kissed her 
 hair, moist and tumbled by the wind but sweet and soft
 
 JOHN BOGAEBUS 171 
 
 to his lips. " Don't cry," he said. " You must n't 
 cry, Joan. It 's all right. I won't hurt you." 
 
 She stopped sobbing suddenly and looked up into his 
 face with questioning eyes. There was nothing there 
 but tenderness, a hot tenderness such as women love 
 best. She turned from him and with his arm about 
 her they walked slowly up through the pines and along 
 the sleepy, dusty road that seemed to give little puffs 
 of rage at being stirred and wakened at that unwonted 
 hour. A little way from the house Joan disengaged 
 herself and held up her lips for a childish, good night 
 kiss. 
 
 " Don't come any further, John," she whispered. 
 " And don't come up in the morning. I I '11 tell 
 them myself."
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 JOHN stood watching her till she reached the house 
 and she noticed it and was pleased. How black 
 would have been the ending of her day of joy could 
 she have known that he stood thus rooted to the spot, 
 even as an ox stays placed after being struck by light- 
 ning. For a moment he was too dazed to move, too 
 dazed to think. 
 
 As Joan disappeared from view he turned as though 
 he had been released and stumbled back down the road. 
 Never had he given marriage a thought ; it seemed now 
 as though for it alone he had no philosophy. Was it 
 thus that marriage came upon men, swooping down 
 when they were least upon their guard, drunk and 
 blinded for having sipped of the wine of the flesh ? 
 
 There are thousands of men to whom marriage is 
 such a natural consummation that they look back upon 
 it and class it along with those landmarks that stand in 
 their lives like even fence-posts in a row, the day they 
 had their first tooth pulled, the day they put on long 
 trousers, the day they had their hair cut by a real*bar- 
 ber, the awful, self-conscious day on which they joined 
 the church, and the day they got married. But these 
 men are almost invariably communal, they have lived 
 all their lives in a single circumambiency, perhaps have 
 
 had their eyes fixed on a single girl from childhood, 
 
 172
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 173 
 
 and, if they have n't, go meekly out to market the min- 
 ute their father says, " Time you was lookin' fer a wife, 
 ain't it ? " 
 
 There was nothing communal about John, and never 
 had he felt the lack of sustaining ties, of the bolstering 
 of convention and custom and habit, so sharply as he 
 felt it to-night. What had he done ? What will-o'-the- 
 wisp had he dashed after to find his feet thus suddenly 
 sunk and held in the morass of a staid world's standard 
 of honor? 
 
 " You are in honor bound to see it through," boomed 
 Platitude in his ears and he accepted the sentence with 
 the unquestioning fatalism of chivalrous youth, but he 
 could not keep his mind from fluttering wildly against 
 the bars of the cage nor stem the mounting fear in his 
 breast. Only now he had been free, free to go and come 
 as he willed, free as ever man was to seize life and mold 
 it in his own hands, to battle with it unshackled and 
 conquer or be conquered. 
 
 Now a burden was upon him, a soft and tender bur- 
 den. His face almost cleared as he thought back to 
 that glorious moment by the boathouse. How she had 
 clung to him, how her moist lips had risen hot to his kiss 
 and clung to his mouth! How warm had been the 
 pressure of her rounded, throbbing breasts, how lovable 
 her trust and surrender! And the waltz in which he 
 had first held her close. Could he ever forget its long- 
 drawn sweetness? Could life with her be like that? 
 
 As he reached the lake the freshening breeze struck 
 his brow with a cooling hand and called to him to forget 
 his woes and come out and romp with it. For a mo-
 
 1T4 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 ment he stood and thought of sleep for his tired body, 
 but his racing brain jeered at the mere thought of slum- 
 ber. He jumped into the boat, unfurled the sail, and 
 glided away from the shore. 
 
 Again he questioned, Could life with her be like 
 that? For answer the little waves slapped noisily at 
 the bows of the Joan, the peak of the sail bobbed up and 
 down in unceasing affirmation, but the lake, the moon- 
 light, the sentinel pines, and the embracing shores 
 pressed to his eyes like an empty frame, a frame that 
 once had held a picture. He tried to bring Joan back, 
 to fix her in this meaningless void and restore order 
 to chaos, but her magnetism was of too small a range 
 to bridge the short gap in distance and time that sepa- 
 rated her from him. 
 
 His mind turned to more material thoughts. Having 
 accepted his predicament, he tried to look forward and 
 discern the road he was to travel. Given a few thou- 
 sand dollars, a young girl, a young man, and a mar- 
 riage in the offing, what was to follow? Naturally 
 a house. But where ? He did not know. A few thou- 
 sand dollars may be a widow's cruse to a strong young 
 man, but to a strong young couple with the basic at- 
 tribute of a multiplication table, they too must mul- 
 tiply to keep step. What was he to do ? Go back and 
 teach? With the memory of freedom fresh upon him 
 he rebelled at the very thought. 
 
 And what of Joan ? What was she, this tender thing 
 that held him so fast, so inexorably, in her two small 
 hands? One day she had blazed out at him in anger 
 at his touch, the next she had willingly given herself
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 175 
 
 intimately not only to his arms but to the arms of half 
 a dozen strangers. The dance had gone to her head 
 as it had to his. He flushed and winced at the thought 
 of her ever again yielding herself indiscriminately to 
 the arms of any newcomer, conventionally heralded by 
 an introduction. Why should he wince? Was it a 
 sign that in truth he loved her ? 
 
 He pondered on that thought a long time. Perhaps 
 all men felt the fear that he was feeling on the eve of 
 marriage. Then his mind turned a corner. He re- 
 membered the fitting out of the Joan. Never before 
 had he worked like that. Why had he ? Suddenly he 
 knew. She had driven him, driven him as only a 
 woman can drive. As he looked ahead he could see 
 her driving him through the years, not with remon- 
 strances nor giving him of her courage, but with that 
 tensity that he felt vaguely was part of her fiber, part 
 of the tradition of the women of her race, whose am- 
 bition, long generations ago born in thrift, had evolved 
 a monster greed to match the monster hoarding achieve- 
 ments of their men. 
 
 To what herculean efforts might he not be driven by 
 that same play of locked hands, of a girl's face drawn 
 almost to age by concentration on the little thing de- 
 sired, of eyes that urged, commanded, and condemned 
 with all the variations of a whip in the hand of a mas- 
 ter and, when all else failed, of tears that bit like the 
 tip of the lash ! 
 
 The boat suddenly shipped green water over her 
 bows and a plume of spray soaked him from head to 
 foot. He laughed and stood up to the challenge.
 
 176 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 With the tiller held between his ankles he paid out the 
 sheet and raced the Joan down wind in long swirls till 
 the steadily growing waves threatened to poop her. 
 Crouching at her stern, he stared under the arching sail 
 and watched the dim line of a far shore coming toward 
 him rapidly like the shadow of a monster cloud. 
 
 An impulse came upon him to wreck the Joan, to 
 pile her up, smash her, on the rocky shore. He felt 
 himself yielding as though only thus could he give 
 vent to his rebellion, when suddenly a memory came 
 upon him a memory of the beetling billows of the 
 Western Ocean in storm. With that noble recollection 
 a calmness settled on his spirit. He measured this 
 little boat, these little waves, and the little thing they 
 had moved him to do, against the immensity of a mighty 
 sea, and in that moment he was sobered, exalted above 
 petty fears. With a swirl he brought the Joan up all 
 standing, whirled her on her heel, and stood back in 
 long tacks for the boathouse. 
 
 His troubles seemed to grow smaller, his fears lost 
 their poignancy, and he smiled indulgently at the con- 
 temptuous little waves about him. He was glad that 
 he had taken the measure of his cowardice, for now 
 he was beginning to feel that he could face whatever 
 life brought him with a steady mind. By a sheer effort 
 of his will he turned his thoughts to Joan, not to her 
 strength nor to her avidity, but to her weakness, her 
 tenderness, and most of all to that flash of maiden- 
 hood recoiling from his touch that stood out like a torch 
 amid the darkness of the things he did not know about 
 her but had dreaded.
 
 JOHN BOGAEDUS 
 
 The chill of dawn was in the air as he laid down on 
 his strip of carpet in the boathouse and covered him- 
 self with two dry coats from his bag. The calmness 
 that had come upon him acted like an opiate and he 
 slept soon and long. When he awoke the sun was high 
 in the heavens. For a moment he lay collecting his 
 thoughts, then the memory of all the night before had 
 brought swept over him. He remembered that Joan 
 had told him not to come to the house in the morning, 
 and smiled. What if instead she had told him to come 
 and he had overslept the hour ? 
 
 With a shrug at the high sun he bathed and made 
 his toilet with special care, ate a few biscuits, and 
 strolled out among the pines. Had Joan too slept late ? 
 It was comforting to think so. He sat down and 
 smoked, trying to make himself forget that his stom- 
 ach was in need of a great deal of something hot and 
 filling. He looked at his watch and saw that it was 
 almost ten o'clock. Ten o'clock at the farm was half 
 the day gone. He began to feel a manly impatience. 
 Then his wandering eyes fell on a spot of white on the 
 boathouse door. 
 
 The spot of white had never been there before; he 
 was sure of that. He looked at it lazily, wondering 
 what it was. Suddenly it fluttered; it was as though 
 it had beckoned to him. 
 
 He got up and walked toward it, slowly at first, then 
 faster, as he saw that it was the half of a half sheet 
 of paper pinned with a sliver of wood to a crack in the 
 door. He took it down and stared at the words, with- 
 out salutation or signature, that were written on it
 
 178 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 in pencil. " I am frightened. Something came over 
 me last night and now I am ashamed and afraid. 
 Please go away." 
 
 The words looked so even on paper, so round and im- 
 personal, that he could not imagine them as coming 
 from Joan. Not till he repeated them over aloud with 
 little gasping pauses, as she would have said them, did 
 they convince him. Then he stood for a long moment, 
 staring out over the lake. The bit of paper fluttered 
 from his fingers. Presently he stooped, picked it up, 
 and read it again. 
 
 To his amazement his first feeling was not one of 
 relief but of primordial desire. He turned and started 
 walking rapidly up through the pines. She was his; 
 he would prove that she was his. In his heart he felt 
 the assurance of conquest. Once she could hear his 
 voice, feel his arms about her again, she would forget 
 her shame and laugh at her fears. He would go to her 
 and show her. 
 
 Then he stopped suddenly and stood staring vacantly 
 before him, not at the pines nor the briar patch nor at 
 the dusty road beyond, but at a vision of Joan as she 
 had been during the boat-building, when her tender- 
 ness and all her appealing soft ways had hardened in 
 the crucible of a small desire till they held the cutting 
 edge of a diamond. 
 
 He turned and walked back toward the boathouse, at 
 first slowly but unconsciously hastening at every step. 
 Reaction had set in. He remembered the sea of fears 
 through which he had fought his way the night before 
 and now those fears suddenly came back again bigger
 
 JOHN BOGAEBTJS 179 
 
 than ever. He no longer likened them to the con- 
 temptible little waves of the lake; he did not stop to 
 liken them to anything, he was in too much of a hurry. 
 
 He rushed to the boathouse and started cramming his 
 things into the suitcase. When it was packed and 
 locked he stood before the door of the friendly little 
 shanty that had sheltered him so freely and so well and 
 asked himself whither he should go. 
 
 His few weeks on the road had taught him one tenet 
 of trampdom that a hobo with a bag is the most sus- 
 picious of individuals. He pictured himself tramp- 
 ing with a suitcase and smiled at the absurdity of it, 
 but his lips straightened quickly to another thought. 
 What if Joan should change her mind? What if he 
 should meet her as he started away and she should 
 come toward him with swift little rushes in her walk 
 and speech and repentance in her big gray eyes ? 
 
 He picked up a charred twig and printed beneath her 
 note, " I will send the boat back," fastened the slip of 
 paper to the boathouse door, tossed his suitcase into the 
 Joan, and a moment later set sail for the Lake Grand 
 Hotel.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 AS he sailed the full length of the lake he had 
 plenty of time to think. He studied the sudden 
 turn in his affairs and puzzled over the nature of Joan's 
 fright. Had he heen wrong in his judgment of her? 
 Which was the illusion, the Joan of the boat-making 
 or the Joan of the dance or the Joan that had blazed 
 out in anger when he picked her up? None. They 
 were all there gathering slowly to the final woman, but 
 the Joan that had blazed out in anger was the Joan of 
 that frightened little note. 
 
 He suffered a twinge of remorse, for a moment he 
 felt himself belittled, filled with regret for the evapo- 
 rated exaltation that on the night before had come to 
 him almost as a victory and that now he was finally 
 wiping out in flight. But the mood soon passed. 
 Life once more was a cup that brimmed with freedom, 
 and his lips longed for the draft as if the few hours 
 it had been withdrawn had been parching years. 
 
 The hotel threw him back as though into a fever, 
 for it was reminiscent of Joan. It held him to the 
 memory of her, drew his thoughts back along the way 
 he had come, and for a moment made him think of bar- 
 tering even freedom to hold her again in his arms and 
 feel his heart leap to the touch of hers. In panicky 
 
 haste he arranged with the wharfman about the boat, 
 
 180
 
 JOHN BOGAEDUS 181 
 
 saw the Marstens and told them he had been called 
 away, expressed his bag to New York, and, once more 
 in his travel-stained suit of rough tweed, set his face 
 toward the west. 
 
 As he took the road he felt very sad and lonely and 
 wondered if he could ever forget Joan. He did not 
 try to forget her. At night when he burrowed into a 
 haystack or stretched himself on the floor of a barn or 
 the equally unyielding surface of the bed of some vil- 
 lage Mansion Hotel, he would curl his own arm under 
 his neck, imagine that it was her hand that clasped him, 
 and fall asleep to dreams of her. 
 
 He had not yet learned that the law of physical mag- 
 netism knows no exception and limits men, women, 
 and polarized steel in exactly the same terms of dis- 
 tance and time. Consequently at the end of a bare 
 three weeks he was astonished upon composing him- 
 self one night for sleep to find that it was with difficulty 
 that he could visualize Joan. He remembered per- 
 fectly the color of her eyes and her hair and the size 
 of her feet and hands, but when he tried to reconstruct 
 her living image, summon her as a breathing and pal- 
 pitating personality, he had to struggle long and even 
 then was not quite sure that it was Joan and not any 
 other nice young girl that eventually came to his 
 dreams. 
 
 For some days he pondered on this discovery, 
 amounting almost to a shock, and then slipped so softly 
 beyond the furthest reach of Joan's magnetic radius 
 that he was forever unconscious of the moment when 
 she became a mere image in the past, something that
 
 182 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 could never be quite destroyed or forgotten but that 
 could be comfortably hung on the wall of memory or 
 pasted in its scrap book. 
 
 " To forget a woman," he had once read, " go away 
 from her. If she still haunts and troubles, go farther 
 away, for men are held not by women alone but by the 
 tendrils they put out to catch him who is near tears, 
 present joy and present suffering, children, loving care, 
 aura, and the little things that become great through 
 having been shared. In leaving a woman the railway 
 train should be avoided ; it is too quick, it dislocates the 
 double antidotes of magnetism, time, and distance, and 
 its effect is that of the extraction of a back tooth with- 
 out gas. The ideal way of leaving a woman is by walk- 
 ing." 
 
 John had forgotten the prescription. It awoke in 
 his memory only when he had hit by accident on the 
 cure. Now he watched it work with a lazy satisfaction. 
 New scenes came gradually to his view and gradually 
 dimmed the old, so that when on a day in late autumn 
 he stood upon an eminence and looked down upon a 
 toy land of milk and honey, of peaceful houses plumed 
 with smoky spirals, of gleaming water, rich loam, dark 
 blotches of vast orchards still in summer leaf, and un- 
 dulating carpets of paling vineyards, he saw not the 
 Geneseo Valley but a quite new world, a world whose 
 sudden beauty made him gasp and straightway im- 
 agine himself plunging to oblivion and content. 
 
 But it is only to the old that beauty spells content. 
 To the young and to explorers in general a thing of 
 beauty is but a clarion call. " What a joy to know that
 
 JOHN BOGAEDUS 183 
 
 the world holds this ! " cries the fresh heart and imme- 
 diately plunges on to the eternal question of the open 
 road, " I wonder, does it hold a still fairer jewel ? " 
 
 So John plunged not down but on, and by the com- 
 ing of winter found himself mixed up with the barb 
 wire entanglements of the Middle West. Snow and 
 ice in the open froze his vagrant soul and a mere glance 
 at the doss houses of the cities, filled to odorous reple- 
 tion with tramps driven in by the inclement weather, 
 terrified him and made him pay his fare and hasten 
 southward on wheels. 
 
 Temporarily short of cash, he decided to hibernate 
 like a bear, engaged himself as helper to a coal-miner, 
 and burrowed into the earth during three long, unin- 
 teresting months. The miners, subdued to a low and 
 common level, dulled in mind and face by their grimy 
 routine, seemed to him to crawl in and out to their 
 labors like some monster processional polypod, domes- 
 ticated and broken to the treadmill. At the first warm 
 breath of spring he gladly turned his back on them and 
 once more set his face westward. 
 
 With many pauses and two interludes, one on a cat- 
 tle ranch and the other at placer mining for gold, he 
 arrived at last on the Pacific coast, that haven of re- 
 tired magnates and missionaries, unretiring authors, re- 
 mittance men, health-seekers, real-estate agents, inten- 
 sive aliens, blatant Native Sons, guilded unions, and a 
 vast horde of quiet people intent on taking a long taste 
 of Heaven here below. 
 
 He drifted naturally into San Francisco, San Fran- 
 cisco being one of those world-places that you have to
 
 184 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 drift into before you can logically drift out to anywhere 
 else. The western metropolis was not itself in those 
 days; it was in a tantrum, a rage, of reconstruction. 
 Van Ness Avenue looked like an undetermined hybrid, 
 like a languorous reptile that had started to slough its 
 skin and stopped half way. Market Street was one din 
 of rivet-hammers and turmoil; and brick-layers, beg- 
 gars on horseback at a dollar and a half an hour, were 
 threatening to oust the cream of the Forty-niners from 
 Nob Hill. 
 
 On the whole it was not a restful place save for the 
 redeeming, peaceful sea. Blue water and untrammeled 
 distance always made John gasp for breath and his 
 heart swell. He made only a pretense of looking for 
 a shore job, coming back once and again to the water- 
 front where he could watch the varied craft, get the 
 smell of foreign lands, and speculate on the deep-sea 
 boats' personalities and histories. 
 
 He looked idly for the Alexandrine and was glad he 
 did not find her, for the warm Pacific slope had al- 
 ready laid its soft charm upon him and held without 
 binding him. " Go," it said continually, " but don't 
 go far." He joined the union and shipped as an able 
 seaman for short coast runs that ate up a year, mostly 
 in bringing down fragrant cargoes of redwood for trans- 
 shipment or the inland trade. For a month he be- 
 came a fruit picker and for another a wanderer with a 
 burro in the hills, a camper, not a tramp. 
 
 Then, on an evil day, he joined a little steamer bound 
 for Panama, Callao, and the run back. Straightway 
 he felt demeaned as though this pounding in a bee-line
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 185 
 
 to a destination in an atmosphere of grease, steam, and 
 soot were dragging him down from the high free plane 
 of the Alexandrine. He was happy only during his 
 watch at the wheel and even then got merely the atten- 
 uated sensations of a motorist driving a street-car on 
 undeviating tracks. At Callao he was reluctantly 
 granted shore-leave for a day, but three hours' wander- 
 ing about the filthy port sent him on board again, 
 anxious for morning and the hour of departure. 
 
 During the last three days of the voyage back to San 
 Francisco a lassitude fell on him that he could not shake 
 off. Once in port he turned over his kit to a boarding 
 house master but refused to follow himself. He felt 
 stifled and plunged forward eagerly as though just be- 
 yond he must find fresh air. A street-car stopped in 
 front of him. Feeling suddenly giddy he boarded it 
 and sat down. 
 
 His head ached violently and he stared out of the car 
 and clung desperately to the back of the seat in front 
 of him. Even in the open car, the air seemed stifling. 
 He climbed out and walked away, wandering finally 
 through a wide gate into what appeared to be a park, 
 and sat down on the first bench. " What has come over 
 me ? What has come over me ? " he repeated aloud as 
 he strove against a feeling of nausea. 
 
 A moment later he was aware of a gentleman with 
 a long beard just touched with gray and wearing a wide- 
 brimmed soft hat and a worn frock coat. The gentle- 
 man stopped before him, stared at him, and said with 
 an astounded air, " Bless my soul ! " He felt John's 
 pulse at the wrist and laid a hand that felt very cold
 
 186 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 against his brow; then he helped him to his feet; led 
 him out of the garden, and called a cab. As they drove 
 along the streets the jolting sent flashes of unendurable 
 pain through John's aching head and he groaned. The 
 stranger took his hand and held it. Every once in a 
 while he would say, " Bless my soul ! " absently, as 
 though his thoughts were very busy with other things 
 than words. 
 
 The cab turned away from the flat shore-front, 
 crawled up and up, inch by inch, along a narrow, 
 twisting street, and came to a stop at a gate that opened 
 on a long flight of steps. The gentleman talked pleas- 
 antly and pleadingly with the cabman, who reluctantly 
 left his horses and helped with John. At last they 
 came out upon a little lawn shaded by big trees, on the 
 farther side of which stood a large house with a wide, 
 open door. From the door a woman hurried out to 
 meet them. 
 
 " What is it, Paul ? " she asked anxiously. 
 
 The stranger stared at her with the naive look of 
 astonishment with which he had first cried, " Bless my 
 soul ! " to John. " Why," he said, " I found him like 
 this, terribly ill, and he was saying, ' What has come 
 over me ? What has come over me ? ' So so I 
 brought him home." 
 
 A look of fear flashed in the woman's eyes, then she 
 smiled and said, " Bring him in." 
 
 . John was aware of the cries of romping children, 
 suddenly hushed, of a darkened room, a soft bed and 
 gentle hands settling him comfortably against cool pil- 
 lows. Later came a doctor and soon after a sudden
 
 JOHN BOGAEDUS 187 
 
 com motion in the house, hurried, frightened whispers, 
 a flurry of opening and shutting drawers and closets, 
 then the soft voice of a mother calling good-by from the 
 window. " No, dears, you can't come in. I '11 kiss 
 you twice when you come back. Be good. Don't give 
 Mrs. Bartle any trouble and mind Pauline." After 
 that there was silence, the long silence of days and 
 nights on end that watches and helps in a fight for life. 
 
 Three weeks later John awoke one morning to find 
 the room flooded with light. He looked out at the blue 
 sky, at the green trees nodding to a cool sea breeze, 
 and with a memory of nightmare still upon him, 
 laughed in his heart and thanked God. The door 
 opened and a young man stepped in briskly. His quick, 
 sure movements seemed out of tune with his face, grave 
 and heavy until he smiled. 
 
 " Well, sir," he said, " how do you feel about it 
 now?" 
 
 " I feel all right," said John, eagerly. " Are you the 
 doctor ? " 
 
 The young man nodded. " Dr. McNeil." 
 
 " I want to thank you for pulling me through," said 
 John. " What was it ? " 
 
 "Me?" said the doctor. "I didn't pull you 
 through. Want to see what you look like ? " He 
 picked up a hand-mirror and held it before John's eyes. 
 
 John stared at the reflection in dismay, not at the 
 pallor nor at the gauntness of his face, nor at the shad- 
 ows under his eyes, but at the horrible scrubby beard 
 he had grown. " Bring me a razor, please," he said 
 suddenly and started to get out of bed.
 
 188 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 " Stop that," said the doctor, sharply. " We '11 have 
 a barber for you to-morrow, perhaps, or next day. 
 Look again just under your left temple." 
 
 John did as he was bidden. " Why," he said with a 
 smile, " I 've grown a dimple ! " Then the smile sud- 
 denly left his face and he stared questioningly at the 
 doctor. 
 
 " Just one dimple," said McNeil as he laid aside the 
 mirror. " If it had n't been for the nursing you got, 
 the nursing that pulled you through, it might have been 
 a thousand dimples." 
 
 John's lips formed slowly on a terrible word. 
 "Smallpox?" 
 
 The doctor nodded and smiled. " You 're in the 
 house of the Reverend Paul Adams Bradley, retired 
 missionary to the heathen, specializing now on any- 
 thing down and out, and of his wife Faith." 
 
 " What a splendid name for her," said John. 
 
 " Yes, is n't it ? " said the doctor. " Her name 
 wasn't Faith originally. He says he started calling 
 her that the day she promised to marry him and now 
 nobody knows what misnomer she got at the altar." 
 
 " I was thinking of the children," said John. " She 
 turned out her children, did n't she ? " 
 
 The doctor nodded. " They would n't let you be 
 carried to the hospital not after you 'd tumbled into 
 the Reverend Paul's arms that way. They believe in 
 guidance." 
 
 John nodded. He was feeling drowsy. " It 's a 
 great thing to be a doctor," he murmured. " You 
 know what the rest of us only learn by accident."
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 189 
 
 " What 's that ? " said the doctor, leaning over him. 
 
 John's eyes lit up for a moment. " That the meas- 
 ure of human courage has never yet quite been taken/' 
 he answered, and slept.
 
 BOOK III
 
 Here is amber. . .
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 A MORNING came when John was bathed, shaved, 
 slipped into one of the Reverend Paul's old-fash- 
 ioned night-gowns of snowy linen, and propped on a 
 mountain of pillows, to hold his first formal reception. 
 
 On this morning the Reverend Paul popped in for a 
 word or two, and twice Faith Bradley stopped for a 
 nod and a smile between household duties. These two 
 were long since familiar figures to John ; they were the 
 anchors to which, consciously and unconsciously, he 
 had moored his mind and ridden out a long storm on a 
 lea shore. He had put a mighty strain on them but 
 they had held as though bedded in rock. But presently 
 they two ushered in new faces, two little children of 
 six and seven with wide eyes and excited, parted lips, 
 each led by the hand by Pauline. 
 
 Pauline was tall and golden haired, with gray-blue 
 eyes that looked as if they could never falter. She 
 was only twenty-two but seemed unusually mature in 
 body and mind. She was not solemn but she was 
 grave; even her smile was grave, so that it added to 
 her dignity as well as softened it. 
 
 The Reverend Paul's eyes lingered on her. " This," 
 he said, " is Pauline, our first-born." He laid his 
 
 hands on the heads of the two restless children, a boy 
 
 193
 
 194 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 and a girl. " And these," he went on with the naive 
 look of astonishment he so often wore, " are a double- 
 barreled answer to prayer, sir. They came long after. 
 Tell your name," he said to the boy, patting his head. 
 
 " Ike," said the youngster, promptly. 
 
 The Reverend Paul looked thoughtful for a moment. 
 " Yes," he said mildly, " his name is Isaac. And you 
 tell yours, dear." 
 
 The little girl stuttered in her haste to comply and 
 the result was something that sounded like " Kwist- 
 een!" 
 
 Her father nodded his head. " That 's it," he said. 
 " Her name is Kitty." 
 
 " Christine, you mean, dear," said Mrs. Bradley. 
 
 " Bless my soul ! " said the Reverend Paul. " Did 
 I say Kitty? Well, I always do call her Kitty in the 
 morning. Now, young man," he went on, " it 's your 
 turn. What do you call yourself in the morning ? " 
 
 John felt that if he had been standing he would have 
 been swept off his feet. Was it possible that these peo- 
 ple, who already were part and parcel of his life, to 
 whom he already owed life and was going to owe more, 
 did not know his name? He stared at them all and 
 spoke like a child. " My name is John," he said. 
 
 Ike and Kitty repeated it gravely to each other as 
 though it settled finally a long disputed point. Pau- 
 line smiled and settled her eyes on John expectantly. 
 He looked steadily back at her and spoke to her alone 
 as if she had questioned him aloud, " John Bogardus." 
 He paused but she still watched him. " Able seaman," 
 he went on and paused again. " Formerly," he added
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 195 
 
 heavily, " assistant university professor of Eomance 
 languages." 
 
 Pauline's smile brightened. It was like a light shin- 
 ing in her face. " That was when you were young, 
 was n't it ? " 
 
 " No," said John, grinning suddenly, " that was be- 
 fore I was young." 
 
 " That 's enough, children," said Mrs. Bradley, and 
 bundled them out of the room, including the Reverend 
 Paul. She pulled her big work-basket that had stood in 
 that room for many a day near the bed, sat down fac- 
 ing John, and started darning a stocking. He saw 
 that her eyes were brown and soft with the glowing 
 penumbra of the near-sighted. For a long time she was 
 silently busy; then she looked up to see tears coursing 
 down John's thin cheeks. 
 
 She gave a little gasp, dropped her work, and laid 
 her hands on one of his. " What is the matter ? " she 
 asked, her eyes very close to his face. 
 
 John tried hard to smile. " Nothing," he said 
 weakly. " I was only trying to think of words with 
 which to thank you, but there 's something in me so 
 big that it can't come out in in words; it just drib- 
 bles out of my eyes." 
 
 " My boy," said Mrs. Bradley, " don't think of it 
 any more not that way. If things like you did n't 
 happen once in a while Paul and I would be broken- 
 hearted. What would one do in a world without sick- 
 ness and trouble and lonely hearts all looking for an 
 open door? How could one be happy if these things 
 that tie us all together were wiped out ? "
 
 196 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 The tears had dried on John's cheeks and his eyes 
 had a gleam of mischief in them when he said, " Better 
 look out. What about heaven ? " 
 
 Mrs. Bradley was grave for a moment. " Of 
 course," she said, " I don't know about heaven except 
 that it will surely be right." Then she smiled and her 
 eyes answered the gleam in his. " Shall we have a se- 
 cret together, just we two ? I '11 tell you. Feeling as 
 I do down here I 'm not really looking forward to 
 heaven. I 'm so afraid I '11 mope." They laughed 
 softly and became friends. 
 
 In the days that followed John was gradually handed 
 over to Pauline and the children. From little things 
 that they let slip he gathered that the Reverend Paul 
 and his wife, Faith, were taken up with a mountain of 
 neglected duties that had grown like a Jack's beanstalk 
 during the three weeks the two had been cut off from 
 their busy life. Even so, not a morning nor an after- 
 noon passed without his getting a glimpse of Faith and 
 hearing at least one " Bless my soul ! " from the Rev- 
 erend Paul, who seemed equally astounded by the least 
 mercies of God and by the occasional manifestations of 
 an active devil. When he was informed by Ike that 
 the gardener's lady pig had given birth to nine twins 
 his " Bless my soul ! " was own brother to the explosion 
 he made when later it was announced in awestruck 
 tones that the gentleman pig had destroyed his off- 
 spring. 
 
 A frequent visitor was Doctor McNeil, who alone 
 seemed to think that he had no proprietary rights over 
 John. He would go through much formality in en-
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 197 
 
 tering the room, knocking on the open door, and con- 
 sulting gravely in whispers with Ike and Christine as 
 to whether their patient was able to see him. Once, 
 when they were alone, John complained. " You 're not 
 like a doctor at all. You never feel my pulse or ask 
 me to stick out my tongue. You don't even take any 
 pride in me." 
 
 " Never keep a doctor longer than you need him," 
 said McNeil. " It 's depressing. I don't come here 
 as a doctor." 
 
 But of all the people that entered the room Pauline 
 stood out as one who took absolute possession. It was 
 as though she resented the white-hot courage of her 
 father and mother in battling alone with the virulent 
 scourge and wished to snatch her share of sacrifice in 
 long patient hours beside the wounded. John loved 
 her presence while she was in the room his eyes sel- 
 dom left her but nevertheless he felt himself belittled 
 in the knowledge that he owed her nearness entirely to 
 his illness. 
 
 She seemed protected from familiarity beyond any 
 human being he had ever met. He saw that to him 
 she felt herself a nurse a nurse to his body, to his 
 spirit, and to his mind when it got restive with whirling 
 in a circle. It seemed to him that she and he were two 
 magnetic poles cut off from each other by a suspended 
 current, and that that was why his mind whirled in a 
 short circle as every mind must till it finds the contact 
 that sends it on the long journey of an endless circuit. 
 
 Pauline read to him, talked to him, made him talk. 
 He told them about his friend. Captain Ike Carr, and
 
 198 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 rambled out long snatches of his life while Ike, feeling 
 important at sharing a name with such a big man as 
 the captain, perched on the edge of the bed, kicking his 
 heels, and Christine sat in Pauline's lap, sucking her 
 thumb and staring wide-eyed at nothing in particular 
 until her patience was exhausted. Then she would 
 suddenly clasp her hands together and say with an en- 
 trancingly pleading smile. " Once upon a time." 
 
 " Yes, yes," would shout Ike. " Once upon a time ! 
 Once upon a time ! " 
 
 John never failed to answer that cry. He would 
 take a child on each side of him, turn his eyes resolutely 
 away from Pauline, and begin, 
 
 " Once upon a time there was a little boy and a little 
 girl and they had a pony. When he was born his feet 
 were white and he had a white streak on his nose and 
 his mother was terrified because all her life she had 
 heard people say, 
 
 ' Four white feet and one white nose, 
 Chop off his head and give him to the crows.' 
 
 But before any one had time to see him she snatched 
 him up and dipped him in a dark closet that was so 
 dark that it was pitch-black and when she took him out 
 he was black as night all over, only blacker." 
 
 " Blacker than midnight ? " asked Ike. 
 
 "Yes," said John, "blacker than midnight. The 
 little girl's name was Tot because she was so very little 
 and the little boy's name was Pot because he was so 
 very round and fat. Tot and Pot thought of a lot of 
 names for the pony but finally they decided to call him 
 Snowball because he was so very black.
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 199 
 
 " Snowball was a wonderful pony. He could jump 
 as high as a house only higher, and he could stay in the 
 air just as long as Tot and Pot could hold their breath. 
 Sometimes he jumped twenty miles and sometimes five. 
 When he was on the ground he could gallop so fast that 
 Tot and Pot would be right back where they started 
 from before they knew they had gone." 
 
 " My ! " said Christine around the thumb in her 
 mouth. 
 
 " On wash days and baking days when mother was 
 really too busy to bother with children," continued 
 John, " Snowball would take Tot and Pot so far that 
 they saw lions and tigers and elephants and ant-eaters 
 and sea-serpents and fairies and dragons, but they 
 were n't afraid because Snowball could go so fast that 
 he almost had to stop for the wild beasts to see him at 
 all. Sometimes when he was thirsty he would stop 
 long enough to make a lion's mouth water and then 
 have a drink and run off before the lion had time to 
 grab him. 
 
 " When he did this Tot used to laugh and clap her 
 hands, but Pot used to whimper because he said the 
 lion always looked just at him when his mouth was 
 watering, and then Tot would laugh again and say, 
 ' That 's because you 're so round and fat, round and 
 fat ! ' This always made Pot very angry and he used 
 to pinch Tot and she could n't pinch him back because 
 his skin was filled so tight." 
 
 " He was a mean little boy," said Christine. 
 
 " Not very mean," said John. " Snowball had a 
 very long mane and a very long tail and a forelock that
 
 200 JOHN BOGAEDUS 
 
 hung way down in front of his eyes. When the chil- 
 dren quarreled he would shake his mane and his tail 
 and his forelock and say, e Some day you '11 be sorry.' 
 
 " All the wild beasts tried very hard to catch Snow- 
 ball on account of Pot being so fat but none of them 
 could run fast enough or jump high enough, and Snow- 
 ball used to laugh like a whinny every time they tried. 
 But there was a very old dragon that could n't run or 
 jump but he was very wise. He was so big that he 
 could swallow an elephant without taking a glass of 
 water to wash him down and he was so long that once 
 he met his own tail and ate it before he felt the terrible 
 pain and knew he was chewing on himself." 
 
 " Oh ! " cried Christine, her dreamy eyes suddenly 
 wide. "Oh!" 
 
 " He did n't mind really," proceeded John, calmly, 
 " because it was so seldom he saw his tail that he 
 scarcely missed it. 
 
 " This old dragon was very sly and always kept his 
 mouth open. He had often seen Snowball and the 
 children and every time he looked at Pot he sighed so 
 that the children thought it was a thunderstorm coming 
 and told Snowball to go home quickly. But one day 
 the dragon hid all of his long body in a very great for- 
 est and laid his mouth so that it looked like a great 
 arch over the roadway leading into the wood. He 
 knew that Snowball often came along that way. Then 
 the dragon shut his eyes so he would not see Pot and 
 sigh. 
 
 " Sure enough Snowball came galloping along, shak- 
 ing his forelock and his tail and his mane and saying,
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 201 
 
 ' Some day you '11 be sorry/ because Pot and Tot had 
 been quarreling disgracefully. And they were sorry 
 that very day because Snowball never saw that the 
 great arch was the dragon's mouth and so he galloped 
 straight in and the wicked old dragon shut his monster 
 jaws and they creaked so loud that the terrible screams 
 of Tot and Pot " 
 
 " ~No I No I " cried Christine, the ready tears 
 springing from her excited eyes. 
 
 "No!" yelled Ike. "No, John!" He pounded 
 the bed with his fists and emitted a howl that made 
 Christine's sobs pale to no sound at all. Even Pauline 
 moved one hand pleadingly. 
 
 John shook the two children. " Now don't be silly," 
 he said. " Did n't I tell you that Snowball was a 
 wonderful pony? Just you listen." The children 
 suddenly swallowed their tears. 
 
 " As I was saying," continued John, " the wicked 
 dragon shut his monster jaws and they creaked so loud 
 that the terrible screams of Tot and Pot were n't any 
 louder than two feathers in a bed. But what hap- 
 pened? The minute the dragon shut his mouth it be- 
 came so very dark inside that he simply could n't find 
 Snowball to swallow him because Snowball was as black 
 as night only blacker. So the dragon opened his mouth 
 just to let in a little light and quicker than a flash Snow- 
 ball galloped out and even stopped to kick the dragon 
 in each eye just to teach him a lesson." 
 
 "Gee!" said Ike. 
 
 " Goodie ! " said Christine and sighed. 
 
 " And then ? " cried Ike eagerly.
 
 202 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 " And then," said Pauline, giving John a smile that 
 brought her nearer to him than she had ever been be- 
 fore, " Tot and Pot did just what you 're going to do. 
 They went straight to bed."
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 THE next day John left his room for the veranda, 
 embowered in honeysuckle, a great climbing yel- 
 low rose, fuchsias and half a dozen flowering shrubs he 
 could not name, all jumbled together but apparently 
 happy. Through this curtain of leaf and bloom the 
 gardener had cut vistas like port-holes, that looked out 
 over the roofs of the city to the bay lying so far below 
 that it appeared continually still, holding in its grasp 
 dark emerald islands and little black spots of boats 
 set sometimes in tourmaline, sometimes in amethyst 
 and jade, sometimes in robin's-egg blue, dappled with 
 the clouds of heaven. 
 
 Here John spun his yarns of Tot and Pot by the 
 hour, talked with McNeil when he dropped in between 
 professional visits, smiled when the Reverend Paul 
 stopped to hear some bit of news and cry, " Bless my 
 soul ! " watched Pauline when occasion offered, and got 
 well so suddenly that he was dismayed. He had to 
 remonstrate with himself for not being ready to get 
 well or, in plainer words, for not wanting quite yet 
 to up anchor and leave that quiet haven. 
 
 But no one suggested by word or look that there was 
 any reason why he should go; quite the contrary. 
 When the evening came that he could join the family 
 
 203
 
 204 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 table for supper it was made a great occasion with 
 John as the guest of honor and Dr. McNeil as a sort of 
 guest in-attendance. 
 
 From the hour of that meal John felt himself on a 
 new footing of intimacy and directly subjected to in- 
 fluences whose strength lay in minute but constant 
 accumulations. The effect of the force of any family 
 circle on an intruder, whether it be for evil or good, 
 is never suddenly measured, but such were the special 
 conditions of John's upbringing that his entrance into 
 the full stream of the Bradleys' home life was more 
 in the nature of a plunge than of a gradual immersion. 
 
 When for the first time he got up from his knees 
 after evening family prayer, done in the good old 
 patriarchal style with gardener, servants, children, and 
 the strangers within the gates gathered together in a 
 homely homogeneity, his mind was promptly in a tur- 
 moil and he was conscious that he swam in a troubled 
 tide even though he did not know whither it bore him. 
 In the days that followed this feeling did not leave him 
 for the simple reason that his struggle was fundamen- 
 tal. 
 
 While the youths of his generation in American uni- 
 versities had but one rule of life and that a determina- 
 tion to do nothing that would queer their chance for a 
 fraternity or an upper-class club, John's student days 
 had been strangely tinged by patronizing prattle of 
 Auguste Comte and positivism; Spencer and the syn- 
 thetic philosophy with its ethical acrobatics, morality 
 trying to ride the essentially non-moral hobby-horse of 
 evolution; Haeckel and the materialists; and all the
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 205 
 
 school that stands for the chaos of orthodoxy splitting 
 itself wide open on the rock of science. 
 
 John had never had occasion to take sides. Onto- 
 logically he belonged to an epoch, to a generation that 
 sits at the gates, ponders, discusses, and tries to disen- 
 tangle the skein that led to conflict, and strike the bal- 
 ance of the battle in the calm of a metaphysical lull. 
 All religion to him was an abstract and he thought of 
 it in terms of phenomena. He was not intentionally 
 irreligious, certainly not agnostic; he was simply the 
 product of an atmosphere that was the direct negation 
 of everything that the Bradleys stood for. 
 
 There was one point about the Eeverend Paul that 
 commanded immediate respect. He belonged to an 
 old school that built its foundations broadly on the hu- 
 manities, to a stalwart church that has never juggled 
 its ministers direct from plow to pulpit. He had 
 climbed through university as well as theological school 
 before he considered himself fit to answer the call of 
 God and that he had studied to some purpose in those 
 far-off days was evidenced by the gummy and finger- 
 blurred state of his Hebrew Bible as well as by the worn 
 condition of his pocket Greek Testament. 
 
 While such learning is heavily discounted in the 
 fevered erudition market of to-day, it is nevertheless 
 true that it imparted to its adherents a rare polish like 
 the flower of time-weathered oak and made an appeal to 
 intellect quite apart from any considerations of creed. 
 On this ground of a foundation deeply laid, a single 
 subject well learned, John could meet the Keverend 
 Paul in immediate fellowship.
 
 206 JOHN BOGAKDTJS 
 
 More than once when he was passing the open door 
 of the study where sat the Reverend Paul before the 
 open Book, longing like a child at its lessons to be in- 
 terrupted, he would be arrested by a sharp cough and 
 as he paused the Reverend Paul would turn around 
 with a sigh, suddenly smile and say, " Why, come in. 
 Bless my soul ! How time flies, eh ? " 
 
 John was amused and drawn by this little comedy ; he 
 would enter the sanctum and playfully attack his host 
 and friend, so securely entrenched behind Bible, Testa- 
 ment, flat-topped desk, flowing beard and gold-rimmed 
 glasses pushed well up on a wrinkled forehead to give 
 the twinkle in his eyes free play. 
 
 From McNeil, John had learned various things about 
 the Bradleys and among others the main facts of the 
 Reverend Paul's life. His great ambition had been to 
 spend himself in the field of foreign missions, but his 
 health had broken down and he was doomed to live on 
 the Pacific coast or nowhere. Even here he had to be 
 constantly under the care of a watchful physician for 
 the missionary in him would not let him idle, and he 
 had established a nondescript night-school and meeting 
 place for all the rag and tag of humanity that was 
 left behind by more specialized philanthropies. This 
 school was a constant temptation to him to overwork. 
 He himself appeared to be constantly on the verge of 
 pauperism but that was only because the brother who 
 had left him money had known him well enough to tie 
 it up so that he could get it and give it away only in 
 dribbles. 
 
 John was quick to realize that the Reverend Paul
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 207 
 
 was starved for congenial fellowship and thirsty for tri- 
 fles of talk with a man of understanding, but he also 
 learned that his host was bent on shunning dialectics 
 as the devil shuns holy water. Many were John's at- 
 tempts to draw him into the morass of higher criticism, 
 to tangle him in sectarian logic, or get him to read 
 Genesis and look at the illustrative biological plates of 
 the History of Creation at the same time. All to no 
 avail. At such moments the Reverend Paul's eyes 
 would fix absently on the invisible and stay fixed till 
 John stopped to catch breath when they would suddenly 
 crinkle up at the corners and the Reverend Paul would 
 say, " Let me tell you a story." 
 
 It was on such an occasion that John approached a 
 subject that had been troubling him for some days 
 the matter of his board and lodging. He told the Rev- 
 erend Paul that he did not wish to go away till he had 
 somewhere to go to but that his conscience would n't let 
 him stay on unless he was allowed to pay his way. He 
 spoke of looking for work and, to relieve the moment of 
 any embarrassment, plunged into a rather enthusiastic 
 exposition of his theory that a man with two arms and a 
 heart in him could find work anywhere. 
 
 He need not have troubled for there was no embar- 
 rassment to relieve. The Reverend Paul smiled geni- 
 ally and said, " Certainly you may stay on any terms 
 you like. But, bless my soul, what an illusion! My 
 boy, there is no work in the world ; only service."
 
 CHAPTEK XXV 
 
 THE intimacy that was forming between John and 
 Pauline developed so gradually that it was 
 scarcely perceived before it was strong. At first John 
 saw in it a superficial resemblance to his friendship 
 with Joan Pauline seemed as free as Joan had been 
 to go and come, as fully mistress of herself, as unfet- 
 tered in her frank ignoring of conventions. But soon 
 he began to sense a difference. Pauline did not rule her 
 parents with a careless rod of iron ; she allowed herself 
 no unrestrained liberty ; she marched freely but along a 
 road that was straight as a bee-line and fenced uncom- 
 promisingly with the thick-set hedges of right and 
 wrong. 
 
 There was something fixed about Pauline; she was 
 no puzzle with a trick of alternating exasperation and 
 attraction. In the early days of his convalescence 
 John loved to lie back with seemingly closed eyes and 
 gaze upon her, conjuring in his mind some lovely image 
 to fit her. He was not satisfied until he hit upon the 
 comparison with the giant trees of the Californian 
 coast. She was like that, a product of centuries and a 
 century in herself. There was something infinite about 
 those trees, an air of everlasting life, of steadfast as- 
 piration, of perennial conquest, and an unswerving rec- 
 titude. Pauline was like that. To know it one did 
 not have to see her whole self, standing tall, firm, sure 
 
 206
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 209 
 
 and beautiful ; one had only to see her eyes that looked 
 as if they could not falter. 
 
 Unlike Joan's fleeting beauty, Pauline's was never 
 in question. It did not spring upon one with a sudden 
 shock of discovery such as that with which the passion- 
 flower leaps to meet the eye, but it stole in surely to the 
 first long gaze and nestled against the senses like a sin- 
 gle golden bloom gleaming in twilight. But it was not 
 soft. It glowed like amber, like amber it gave an illu- 
 sion of transparency, and like amber it defied any puny 
 flame to set it on fire. 
 
 At first John had felt baffled by Pauline's imper- 
 sonality and through idle pride had striven to pass its 
 guard, but he soon gave up striving. There was some- 
 thing about her that made all coquetry seem mean, that 
 not only held him back but gradually forced him to 
 the reverence of one who humbly worships from afar. 
 But, once he had turned his thoughts from her and from 
 himself, drawn Ike and Christine into his arms and 
 carried them through breathless journeys with Pot and 
 Tot, behold a miracle ! Pauline drew near in flesh and 
 in spirit and looked kindly upon him. John alone was 
 one thing; John with the children quite another. He 
 saw it and his reverence did not quite keep him from 
 profiting by the discovery. 
 
 Thus they traveled in merry company along the old 
 road of friendship until one evening Pauline sat alone 
 with him, near him in spirit, and was not afraid. She 
 was a girl of few words ; her life was one of movements 
 more than of phrases. She would send a glance of her 
 gray-blue eyes ahead, follow its lead with quick sure
 
 210 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 action, and say nothing. But to-night she spoke; not 
 of deep things, nor of great, but of the little familiar 
 things of the short day. How Christine, passing a 
 glass-paneled door, had suddenly stopped and kissed 
 herself with never a thought of vanity. How in the 
 garden that morning when she was picking flowers a 
 red rose that she was passing by had clutched her dress 
 with a thorn and made her look down. 
 
 John did not speak; he scarcely breathed lest he 
 frighten away this shy spirit of communion. He 
 thrilled to her low voice as he had thrilled only to Joan's 
 arms around him and lost himself in wonder at the 
 gifts in the hands of women. How cheap and how in- 
 finitely precious could two women make the same little 
 thing ! When first he dared a mere dream of Pauline's 
 arms around him his face flushed a deep red and his 
 hands trembled, but his thoughts of her, even her pres- 
 ence, never set him on fire. They controlled him; 
 struck him to his knees. 
 
 The next afternoon John sought out the Eeverend 
 Paul and said, " I think it 's time for me to start look- 
 ing for a job, a service, I mean." 
 
 The Reverend Paul assumed quite a new air. He 
 seemed not to have put aside his dreary absent-minded 
 ways so much as to have simply changed them as one 
 changes from holiday garb to working clothes. His 
 face lighted up with appreciation of the allusion. 
 "Ah," he said, " that 's the fine thing about service. 
 You don't have to look for it. It comes to you. Some- 
 times it jumps clean onto your back like a cat onto a 
 ball. You come with me to-night."
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 211 
 
 That evening they walked together down the long 
 flight of steps, down the steep narrow street, turned into 
 a rather mean quarter of the city, and soon came upon a 
 monstrous building set in the exact middle of a large 
 lot that boasted not a blade of grass. The building 
 was as practical as a barn and looked like one. It was 
 built of timber, stood four-square, a story and a half 
 high, and had a hipped roof so that the mezzofloor could 
 accommodate erect human beings of not over six feet 
 in height. It was unpainted and seemed to John by 
 far the ugliest edifice he had ever seen. 
 
 At the gate that opened into the yard the Reverend 
 Paul stood and gazed upon the hideous structure with 
 ecstatic pride. " We own the ground," he said with a 
 thrill in his voice ; " we own the building and some day, 
 sir, we '11 have the money to paint it ! " 
 
 He led John across the yard and into the building 
 whose ground floor was divided in the simplest possible 
 fashion into one big room and four smaller ones, all 
 filled with benches and the benches all filled with men 
 and youths of every conceivable origin and grade of 
 disreputableness. 
 
 He stopped in one room where much uncontrolled 
 babble was going on and turned to John. " Here you 
 are," he said, looking around with his air of suppressed 
 astonishment. " Bless my soul, how Providence fore- 
 sees our needs ! You are a trained teacher and here is 
 an entirely untrained class! You can teach them any- 
 thing you like," he went on absently. " I find that the 
 great thing is to keep them quiet." 
 
 John stared in dismay at the mess of humanity that
 
 212 JOHN BOGAEDUS 
 
 had been gathered in higgledy-piggledy from the streets 
 and looked it. He drew a long breath, thought hard 
 for a moment and then said, " Will you step outside for 
 a moment, sir ? " 
 
 As they passed out John was wondering how he could 
 best bribe his way out of the most unpleasant bit of 
 service ever brought to his consideration. Suddenly an 
 idea struck him and he grinned happily. " I Ve got a 
 surprise for you, sir," he said. " You 'd like very- 
 much to have this building painted, would n't you ? " 
 
 The Eeverend Paul gazed remorsefully at his cher- 
 ished schoolhouse, the monstrous apple of his eye, and 
 said sadly, " Ah, yes. We have that to look forward 
 to." 
 
 "Well," said John, "stop looking forward. I'll 
 buy the paint and I '11 paint it" 
 
 The Eeverend Paul looked dazed. "When?" he 
 asked, weakly. 
 
 " I '11 start to-morrow," said John. 
 
 A moment later his right hand was caught in a strong 
 grip and he looked up to see tears of gratitude gleaming 
 in the Eeverend Paul's eyes and mingling with a smile 
 that was like the light of a rainbow shining through a 
 shower. " My boy," he said, pumping John's hand 
 slowly up and down, "I I have no words " 
 
 John felt a lump rise in his throat. " For heaven's 
 sake, sir," he answered, " don't look like that to me. 
 What 's a little paint a little paint " He gave it 
 up, tried to grin, and hurried away. 
 
 Only a week before, he had wired for money. It 
 had come and with it on the next day he bought two
 
 JOHN" BOGAEDUS 213 
 
 ladders, brushes, a barrel of paint, sizing, turps, and all 
 the paraphernalia of a methodical bo's'n laying out sup- 
 plies for giving his ship a fresh coat. 
 
 When he reached the house, hot and pleasantly tired, 
 he found that to please the Reverend Paul as he had 
 done was the sure path to making himself beloved by 
 that most united household whose father and head was 
 exceptionally directly connected with the family heart. 
 Faith Bradley came nearer to him that night than she 
 had ever been and made him feel it. Pauline delib- 
 erately led him away to walk in a little circle under the 
 trees. 
 
 " By the way," said John to her, " I 've been puz- 
 zling over something." 
 
 "What?" said Pauline. 
 
 " I Ve found out that Dr. McNeil knew who I was 
 almost from the first day I came here. He made up 
 his mind I was a seaman and went the rounds till he 
 tracked me down. Did n't he tell you here ? " 
 
 " Yes, he did," said Pauline. 
 
 " Well, then," said John, " what about that day when 
 I was n't infectious any more and all you you chil- 
 dren were brought in and presented. Do you re- 
 member? And how your father asked me to tell my 
 name ? " 
 
 " Oh," said Pauline and laughed softly. " Why, 
 that 's just father, his test." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " asked John. 
 
 " Why, it 's this way," said Pauline. " Father says 
 it 's our duty always to beware of frauds so he invents 
 what he calls tests. He knows your name but you don't
 
 214 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 know that he knows it. So he asks you what it is and 
 if you say it right, then " 
 
 " Then what? " asked John. 
 
 " Then he trusts you forever," said Pauline and 
 smiled gravely as though her thoughts were playing 
 about the pranks of a child. 
 
 John stopped and looked at her quizzically. 
 " Does n't he often get left ? " he asked. 
 
 " Almost always," said Pauline. " But somehow, 
 he himself, he never changes."
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 JOHN had had many occasions to watch Dr. McNeil 
 and Pauline. How was it that these two had not 
 been drawn together, he wondered? The doctor was 
 young, not over thirty, and he had evidently long since 
 won his place in the hearts of the Bradleys taken as a 
 family, but between him and Pauline there was never 
 close contact. Not only did they not talk together, but 
 there was absent between them that intercourse of 
 glances, of casual appeal on opinions, of individual 
 consideration, that one expects to find between a young 
 man and a girl constantly thrown together. John re- 
 membered the wall of Pauline's impersonality that at 
 first had seemed to him impregnable, unscalable, but 
 could not believe that the doctor could pass years before 
 it without attempting its heights nor easily abandon the 
 assault once begun. 
 
 The painting of the schoolhouse was no child's play 
 and John had not undertaken the work with any illu- 
 sions as to its magnitude. Single-handed, he could not 
 hope to finish in less than a month. He was not in a 
 hurry to lose his excuse for staying with the Bradleys, 
 but he was eaten up with the desire of every good work- 
 man to reach the end of his task, to put on those finish- 
 ing touches which are the satisfying crown on labor 
 
 well done. 
 
 215
 
 216 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 In order that he might save time and a laborious 
 daily climb he began carrying his lunch with him in 
 the mornings, until Pauline came to him one day with 
 a puzzled look in her gray-blue eyes. " I don't under- 
 stand," she said, " why you work so hard. Dr. McNeil 
 says you 're not strong enough to drive yourself, and 
 besides, what 's the use of working so fast that you can't 
 enjoy it ? " 
 
 Dr. McNeil walked across to where they were talking. 
 " That 's quite right," he said, making no excuses for 
 having listened. " I 've been going to make a sugges- 
 tion. Come to my place for lunch. There 's no hill to 
 climb and most days I 'm alone." 
 
 John glanced at Pauline, but the doctor kept his eyes 
 unwaveringly on John with a sort of insistence that 
 seemed to plead and demand an answer at the same 
 time. 
 
 " Why not ? " said John. " I 'd be glad to." 
 
 He was never to forget the accumulated impression 
 of those lunch hours nor of the doctor's house. It was 
 a pretentious house for a bachelor, large, solid, stand- 
 ing in two acres of beautifully kept grounds, and struck 
 a note hard to fix in words, a tone half way between 
 affluence and opulency. This tone seemed to run like 
 a color-scheme through the doctor and all his belongings. 
 
 In spite of this general fitness of things the house 
 itself seemed eloquent of something missing. John 
 wondered vaguely what it could be. The air that hung 
 about the house was the same us that which occasionally 
 seemed to hang about McNeil, an air not of sadness ex- 
 actly, but of finality as though the house and its owner
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 217 
 
 had expected some one, waited, and at last given up 
 waiting. 
 
 McNeil was a finished host. In overalls or in mufti, 
 John never felt anything but at home at the solid square 
 table set for two that welcomed him daily with its snowy 
 white cloth and gleaming cutlery. It seemed to seize 
 on his senses and hold them without effort for a rest- 
 ful hour. 
 
 McNeil could talk. He was a rapid but desultory 
 reader, not of books for he seldom had the time for 
 them, but of all that transient literature which to-day 
 enables a busy man to keep step with the van of discov- 
 ery and thought. Like John, he was a modern, the by- 
 product of an age and an atmosphere, one of the vast 
 army who are avidly waiting for the new cosmos of the 
 mind to crystallize into a credo, who stand midway be- 
 tween the ethical norms of " I know," and " I believe." 
 
 In conversation his face would lose its habitual so- 
 lemnity, his eyes would light up, and he would speak 
 quickly and briefly, going straight to kernel or crux. 
 But when one day John drew him back from general 
 topics and suddenly presented the Bradleys for consid- 
 eration, a shadow like a cloud darkened his face for a 
 moment, only to clear as he spoke. " So," he said, 
 "you're trying to think out the Bradleys. Keep on 
 trying if you 're in a hurry, but when you give up, 
 come to me and I '11 show them to you through a clear 
 glass." 
 
 About the time the painting of the schoolhouse was 
 half done, an evening came when the children were in 
 bed, the Eeverend Paul, Faith Bradley, and the serv-
 
 218 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 ants gone to prayer-meeting or elsewhere, and Pauline 
 left with John to watch over the house. They sat in 
 silence on the veranda in the glow of half-light from the 
 open front door. 
 
 It was easy to be silent on that veranda, it was so 
 high, so free of the clatter of traffic and the sounds of 
 men. The lights of a great city builded upon hills 
 blinked up out of the depths of earth and from the 
 depths of the heavens that seemed almost as near, the 
 myriad stars blinked back. From such a point of van- 
 tage one could send one's thoughts easily up or down, 
 reaching like a searchlight across space. 
 
 But John's eyes did not seek earth and heaven so far 
 away. They settled on Pauline, played on her as 
 though they dared caresses upon which his hands would 
 never venture. She sat relaxed in her chair, her hands 
 lying along its arms, her head fallen slightly back, and 
 her eyes looking neither up nor down but wide open 
 with unfathomable thoughts. Where was she? John 
 wondered, for he could see that she was far away. He 
 did not flush nor turn his eyes as he had from Joan, 
 lying asleep, because here was no exposure, no subtle 
 attack on the senses. Absent or present in spirit, Pau- 
 line was protected. 
 
 Yet immobile, silent, she spoke to him, moved him 
 more deeply than had any mood of Joan's. The glim- 
 mering gold of her hair, the faint blush in her cheeks, 
 the creamy white of her throat where he could see the 
 beat of her pulse, all seemed to him to shine with the 
 subdued glow of light striving through amber and made
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 219 
 
 her adorable from afar to his eyes, infinitely desirable 
 to his heart. 
 
 Gradually he felt an aching arising within him, a 
 longing such as he had never known, to draw near to 
 her and draw her near to him. This throbbing in his 
 heart, this breathing in short gasps that hurt, were no 
 illusory will-o'-the-wisp dragging him into a morass of 
 fear. He knew it. He knew that with Pauline mar- 
 riage would have no terrors beyond the awe of rever- 
 ence, no thoughts or speculations of how and where to 
 live. To be with her would be life ; to serve her would 
 be to serve heaven and earth. Where she was, there 
 was a whole world, self-contained, infinite in its prom- 
 ise that love, once given and taken, would mount stead- 
 fastly to unmeasurable heights. 
 
 But how to waken her? How to reach her? His 
 heart sank with a premonition of failure. If only she 
 would give him one conscious glance, one faint pressure 
 of her hand, one little betraying sigh ! He watched her 
 with an intensity born of his desire. Now was the 
 time. How could he wait? His lips were so dry he 
 wet them lest they be impotent to speak at need. Fever 
 was in his hands and made them tremble so that he 
 clutched the arms of his chair to keep them still. 
 
 A voice, the Reverend Paul's voice, floated up to 
 them. Presently they heard the sound of feet climb- 
 ing the long flight of steps. Pauline came back to her- 
 self. " Is it possible it 's so late ? " she said. " I hear 
 them coming." 
 
 John sprang up so quickly that his chair rasped on
 
 220 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 the veranda floor. " Before they come," he said 
 thickly, " say good night while we 're alone." 
 
 Pauline's breath seemed to catch and pause. She 
 rose to her feet, held out her hand vaguely. He 
 clutched it. She could feel the fever in his hand; in 
 spite of its grip, it trembled. Her unfaltering eyes 
 suddenly fixed on his face in a conscious gaze. 
 
 " Say good night," he whispered hoarsely. 
 
 Her lips formed the word inaudibly. John dropped 
 her hand, turned his face from her, and hurried into 
 the house lest he betray his sudden exaltation. His 
 eyes glowed, his blood surged in his veins, his breath 
 came in long quivering sighs. She was awake, cried 
 his soul. He had said nothing, done nothing, only 
 asked her to say good night before they came the 
 others and she herself had suddenly awakened to find 
 her lips mute.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 TWO weeks passed and John was putting the finish- 
 ing touches to the schoolhouse before the busy 
 communal life of the Bradleys gave him another chance 
 to be alone with Pauline, but he did not count the days 
 as lost for during them he had seen her draw slowly out 
 of herself like a bud shy of the weather waiting only 
 for one more blaze of sunshine to warm it to bloom. 
 Where once she had been merely detached, now she was 
 pensive and ocasionally her eyes would brood over John 
 when she thought he was not looking, wander to Dr. 
 McNeil, and back again to John. 
 
 It was a drowsy Saturday afternoon that brought him 
 his opportunity. Ike and Christine had been carried 
 off to a children's party, Faith Bradley was taking a 
 nap, and the Reverend Paul was restlessly grinding out 
 a sermon. Pauline and John had been to the foot of 
 the long flight of steps to hand over the children to their 
 hostess, waiting there in her carriage. When they had 
 climbed the steps again, John led the way to a bench 
 under the trees. 
 
 " Do you mind sitting here for a little while ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 Something in the tone of his voice made Pauline 
 pause ; then she looked at him squarely and said, " No, 
 I don't mind." 
 
 He sat on the edge of the bench and leaned toward 
 
 221
 
 222 JOHN BOGARDTJS 
 
 her. " Do you remember the other night ? " he asked, 
 " the night that I asked you to say good night and you 
 could n't not out loud ? " 
 
 Pauline's eyes were fixed on the bay far below. 
 " Yes," she said. " I remember." 
 
 " We had sat the whole evening without saying a 
 word," went on John. " I don't know where you were. 
 You were out somewhere far away between the lights of 
 the city and the stars, so far that I thought nothing I 
 could do would bring you back. But I was there, all 
 of me was there, hovering around you, brushing your 
 cheeks with my thoughts, caressing your hair with my 
 eyes, longing just to touch my lips to your feet, my 
 whole self aching to come near to you, to stay near to 
 you for always." 
 
 Pauline's breath came fast, her lips parted, and she 
 turned her eyes, troubled with sudden questionings, 
 from the bay to his face. 
 
 John gripped his hands between his knees and looked 
 intently at her. " Shall I tell you that I '11 love you 
 forever ? Where 's the use in that ? I can't paint your 
 power in words. You alone know the depths of the 
 thing that's in you. All I know is what I feel and 
 what I believe, that if I were struck blind my eyes 
 would still live in the memory of your face, that if I 
 were suddenly deaf just my hand against your heart 
 would give me back all the music in the world." 
 
 Pauline raised her hand to her breast and pressed it 
 there as though to hide the beating of her heart. 
 " Don't," she said, with a catch of her breath. " Don't 
 go on not like that."
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 223 
 
 John felt his blood leap exultantly. He caught her 
 free hand and held it tightly. " Why should n't I go 
 on?" he said. "Go on? Why, Pauline, I haven't 
 begun. What have I said? Nothing. The things I 
 feel, how can I tell them ? Only in years, only in serv- 
 ing you, only He dropped his head and laid his 
 hot face in her hand. 
 
 For a moment she let her hand rest against his cheek ; 
 then she drew it softly away. " Sit up," she said. 
 " Sit close to me. I can't let you go on, not till I 've 
 told you where I stand." 
 
 John did as she bade him, but would not be content 
 to listen until he held both her hands in his. " Now," 
 he said, his face quivering but still exultant, " now tell 
 me." 
 
 " It 's a thing I don't know how to tell very well," 
 said Pauline. " Something I was never able to tell 
 mother and that she could never ask. It was when I 
 was just going to be married. It seems so long ago but 
 it was n't very long ago, only a year." 
 
 She paused and let her thoughts travel far back. 
 " He was a good man, a fine man ; he 's been a fine man 
 ever since I 've known him. Unhappy sometimes but 
 not afraid. He came to me like a great light and 
 showed me that I was a woman, not suddenly so that I 
 was frightened but slowly, like morning coming. And 
 when the thing happened and he saw that I could n't 
 tell mother, that mother's heart and mine were aching 
 because my tongue was tied, he went to her himself and 
 told her, because he is never afraid." 
 
 " What was this terrible thing ? " asked John, press-
 
 224 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 ing her hands, trying to bring back her thoughts to him- 
 self. 
 
 Pauline turned her troubled eyes on his face. They 
 steadied as they met his gaze. " It 's not so hard for 
 me to tell you as I thought it would be," she said, " be- 
 cause it 's right I should tell you. Before we were to 
 be married he brought me here, one afternoon just like 
 this, and told me that although he had never been mar- 
 ried he had a boy, a son. That was the thing and that 
 was the end for us." 
 
 For a moment the reaction threatened to be too much 
 for John. What he had expected he did not know but 
 he felt a sudden desire to smile as though at an anti- 
 climax, to laugh away Pauline's tragic note. He looked 
 into her face and suddenly all desire to smile left him. 
 He felt a vague disquiet that he could not quite place ; 
 she was so young, yet so austere ; so innocent of knowl- 
 edge, yet so uncurious, immutable. 
 
 " But Pauline," he almost stammered, trying to 
 smile. " You don't mean " 
 
 Her eyes were steadily fixed on his face. " Don't 
 mean what ? " she asked. 
 
 " You don't mean that if you loved a man and he 
 was honorable with you You don't mean that if a 
 man has ever had a woman in his life, a woman that 
 never counted You don't " He floundered to a 
 full stop. As he had spoken so had his color been ris- 
 ing in plunges to his cheeks. He wondered how he 
 could ever have felt like smiling at the tragedy in Pau- 
 line's voice. His face was drawn, his eyes feverish but
 
 PAULINE
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 225 
 
 not impelling, as though they feared to have his unfin- 
 ished question answered. 
 
 Pauline paid no heed to his words ; her gaze remained 
 fixed on his face, reading it as though it were a printed 
 page. Suddenly a tremor went through her whole 
 body; the gray blue of her eyes turned to steel. She 
 slowly drew her hands away from his grasp and 
 clenched them in her lap. " You, too," she said stead- 
 ily, coldly, as if something had gone dead within her. 
 
 John's heart sank lower and lower as he looked at 
 her; his limbs and his whole body felt a sudden chill 
 as though ice were running in his veins, but he forced 
 his lips to a crooked smile. " Pauline," he said, " you 
 don't mean, you cant mean, that you 'd let the dead acts 
 of a man's past cut him and you off from happi- 
 ness ? " 
 
 She was no longer looking at him. Her eyes were 
 fixed straight before her. " Our acts die with us, some- 
 times," she said ; " never before." 
 
 " And a thing like that, no matter how long ago or 
 how it happened," pleaded John; "no matter how 
 much you loved the man " 
 
 " However much I loved him," said Pauline, stead- 
 ily. 
 
 John leaned forward, his face tense and his eyes 
 glowing. " What about expiation ? " he said sharply. 
 " Is there no expiation for a thing like that ? " 
 
 Pauline turned her eyes on him for a mere glance, 
 her lip curled infinitesimally, she swallowed twice in 
 rapid succession, and caught her breath. Then she
 
 226 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 looked away. " Expiation ? " she said steadily. 
 " Yes, there is expiation." 
 
 " You mean," said John, hoarsely, an impotent rage 
 rising in him, " you mean there is atonement but no re- 
 ward?" 
 
 " None," said Pauline. " Not here." 
 
 Suddenly he sprang to his feet. " Stand up," he 
 commanded. " Look at me." 
 
 Pauline rose to her feet and looked steadily into his 
 eyes. " What is it ? " she asked patiently. 
 
 " This," said John, passionately. " Some day you 
 will meet a cad instead of a man and he will lie to you." 
 
 Pauline's unfaltering eyes held him firmly for a long 
 moment and a faint flush rose slowly to her pale 
 cheeks. " You are wrong," she said quietly. " You 
 know you are wrong. No man will ever lie to me." 
 
 Before her steady gaze his eyes fell. He turned and 
 stumbled toward the house, blind with rage and protest, 
 helpless and bruised as though he had come to grips 
 with Fate itself. The Reverend Paul called to him as 
 he passed the open door of the study but he did not heed. 
 He rushed to his room, closed the door, locked it, and 
 paced up and down, his fists pressed to his temples. 
 Then he threw himself full length, face down, on the 
 bed and tried to think; tried to be sane and trace his 
 utter despair and the sickening feeling of impotence 
 back along the years to its far-off ugly source, back to 
 his childhood and the Mansini woman. 
 
 What was it Pauline had said? Our acts die with 
 us sometimes, never before. The desire that still ached 
 within him cried out that it was a lie. But what if it
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 227 
 
 were true ? Where would the world be if people picked 
 out a little rock like that and built a whole life on it? 
 Justice without charity, an eye for an eye, and a tooth 
 for a tooth, love abased before even scales, lowered to 
 a level of trade and weight for weight. It could not be. 
 An hour passed. He got up and went to the window. 
 Already the whole catastrophe seemed impossible, like 
 the memory of a nightmare. He held aside the curtain 
 and looked out toward the bench beneath the trees. 
 Some one was sitting there. Pauline, alone, lovely as a 
 garden statue in twilight, immutable and cold as stone, 
 her hands clenched in her lap and her eyes fixed before 
 her.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 JOHN did not leave his room for the rest of the aft- 
 ernoon. He busied himself arranging his few 
 belongings so that he could pack them at a moment's 
 notice and on a slip of paper jotted down each little 
 thing that he had yet to do to leave his job of painting 
 absolutely complete. Since he had stared out of the 
 window at Pauline, sitting so still on the bench where 
 they had talked, a strange calmness had settled upon 
 him, not peace of spirit but the dead quiet of abandon- 
 ment. There was a fixity about that figure of a girl 
 that killed hope. 
 
 He felt an impulse to avoid the supper table but 
 quelled it and took his place promptly, his lips set in 
 a grim, straight line. His thoughts were fixed with 
 dread on the Sunday that was to follow, a long empty 
 day whose terrors could not be stilled by work. Well, 
 he would run away from it ; he would go and bury him- 
 self in McNeil's house, and make no excuses. Only 
 once during the meal did his eyes glance at Pauline. 
 She was no longer pensive; she was apparently serene 
 and wore that air of detachment that John had grown 
 to connect invariably with the presence of McNeil. 
 Was the same barrier raised now against himself ? If 
 so, then McNeil was the man who had crashed first on 
 the little rock { 
 
 228
 
 JOHN BOGAEDUS 229 
 
 Ee awoke from the speculations to which that thought 
 gave rise to find Mrs. Bradley's soft eyes fixed anx- 
 iously on his face. She leaned toward him as she did 
 toward any one to whom she spoke. " You are not 
 well/' she said. " Your holiday has n't rested you." 
 
 John forced himself to smile. "No," he said. 
 "Work's the cure for me. Wait till Monday. I'll 
 show you." 
 
 The next morning he left a note to say that he would 
 be out for the day and walked straight to the doctor's 
 house. McNeil was surprised to see him, and the 
 havoc that had been worked in John's face by the tur- 
 moil of the preceding afternoon and a sleepless night 
 made the doctor jump to the conclusion that his early 
 visitor came as patient and not as friend. 
 
 " Well, well," he said with a smile of professional 
 cheer, " come into the office and tell me all about it." 
 
 John shook his head. " No," he said grimly. 
 " There 's nothing wrong with the flesh this time. I 
 just want to hide myself, bury myself in your library 
 for the day. Do you mind ? " 
 
 " No," said McNeil, gravely. " You don't want to 
 talk ? " 
 
 John shook his head again. " Not just now," he 
 said. 
 
 But in the late afternoon when they were smoking 
 together on the tree-shaded veranda at the side of the 
 house, he gave the doctor an inkling of his trouble. 
 " McNeil," he said, " you 've been a mighty good friend 
 to me. I want you to know that I '11 never forget all 
 you 've done. To-morrow I finish my painting job.
 
 230 JOHN BOGARDTJS 
 
 After that will you take me in for a day or two ? Some- 
 thing 's gone wrong in my head and my heart at the 
 same time. I want to break away." He tried to smile 
 to pass off his flippant words but failed miserably. 
 
 McNeil was embarrassed as are most men before emo- 
 tion. " My dear fellow," 'he said, getting up and pre- 
 tending to fix his attention on something in the garden. 
 " Of course. I '11 do anything. But won't it make it 
 awkward for the Bradleys ? I know they 've done 
 nothing to make you feel unwelcome " 
 
 " Unwelcome ! " exclaimed John. 
 
 "I know," said McNeil. "Didn't I say I knew 
 they had n't. Well, never mind. Don't say another 
 word. I 'm not such a fool as not to know that there 
 are times when just to do one thing is so big that you 
 can't stop to think of the little things that are going to 
 happen along with it. And as for telling me all that ? s 
 in your heart You 're worrying about that, are n't 
 you? Well, don't. Light isn't always kind. Before 
 you start to tell me anything, I 'm going to show you 
 something; one of those chance discoveries that give 
 tongues to inanimate things." 
 
 He called a servant and spoke to him aside, then he 
 said to John, " Come with me." 
 
 They left the veranda, and walked in silence half 
 across the grounds. Suddenly McNeil stopped and 
 turned. " Look at the house," he said. 
 
 John was bewildered by the strange command but 
 obeyed. For a moment his eyes were aware of no 
 change, but as he stared he became puzzled and gradu- 
 ally amazed. The house appeared the same in every
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 231 
 
 detail as he had always known it but its whole air was 
 transformed and it seemed to breathe a harsh dis- 
 sonance. He searched long for the discordant note and 
 at last found it in the turret that rose high above one 
 corner of the large building. The windows of the 
 tower were unveiled, revealing its emptiness. The eye 
 passed through them unhindered and beyond to flat 
 squares of sky. 
 
 The open turret glared its emptiness to the whole 
 world. It was like a sore and a blemish, a shell of 
 ruin unconsecrated by grandeur, an eerie so bare that it 
 would repel the birds of the air. It made the whole 
 house seem mean, deserted, unloved, shallowly crying 
 out its troubles to any passer-by. 
 
 McNeil clapped his hands and immediately a hand 
 and an arm stretched out across the emptiness of the 
 turret and drew 1 one heavy curtain after another. 
 There was no longer a discordant note. The house re- 
 turned into itself, took on a sudden dignity of stead- 
 fast silence and containment. It became inscrutable, 
 neither joyful nor blatant of its woes. It seemed to 
 say, " Here I stand. Make of me what you will." 
 
 The two men stood long gazing at the sealed turret, 
 each busy with his own thoughts. It was John who 
 broke the silence. " You could never imagine a thing 
 like that," he said with a deep breath. " You have to 
 see it." 
 
 " Both," said McNeil, thoughtfully. " You have to 
 see it and imagine it. Until I happened by a fluke on 
 what you've just seen, I never knew the strength of 
 containment."
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 THE next day John carried his lunch with him but 
 did not stop work to eat it. By a little after four 
 in the afternoon he had put the last finishing touch to 
 a most creditable job. He gathered all his working 
 materials, the ladders, the empty barrels and paint pots, 
 the worn brushes and the seamanlike tackle with which 
 he had avoided the use of scaffolding, and stacked the 
 lot methodically in one corner of the schoolyard. With 
 a last look around he left the scene of his happy month 
 of labor and made his way to the Bradleys' house, 
 bathed, changed his clothes, and packed in readiness for 
 the morrow. Then he sought out the Eeverend Paul 
 and found him in his study, talking to his wife. 
 
 " Well," said John. " my job 's done and I 've no 
 longer got a right to saddle myself on you. I would 
 thank you for everything but I can't. I 've tried before 
 but there are n't any words " 
 
 " Bless my soul ! " interrupted the Eeverend Paul. 
 " Finished to-day, have you ? Splendid. Splendid. 
 Faith, tell Ike to try and find my hat. I really must 
 go down and look. For a week I Ve been shutting my 
 eyes every day so as to see the whole thing suddenly, 
 and yesterday I bumped into two children and, if you 
 can believe it, almost knocked them down." He looked 
 
 232
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 233 
 
 at his wife and John with his usual astonishment at 
 little things. 
 
 " Paul, dear," said Mrs. Bradley, " did you hear ? 
 Mr. Bogardus says he's going away, that he can't 
 saddle himself on us any longer." 
 
 " Nonsense ! " cried the Eeverend Paul. " Does he 
 think we 're tame donkeys that can't kick him off when 
 we 're tired of him ? Nonsense ! " He called to Pau- 
 line as she passed the open door. " Pauline, come here 
 and talk to this young man. He says he 's going away. 
 Think of something else for him to paint." 
 
 Pauline smiled, not at John but at her father. (t I 
 can't think of anything just now," she said. 
 
 " I have it," cried the Reverend Paul. " We '11 put 
 up a windmill. Ours is a splendid location for a wind- 
 mill." 
 
 " But, darling papa," said Pauline, " we don't need 
 a windmill. What would we do with a windmill ? " 
 
 " That 's true," said the Reverend Paul, frowning 
 and tapping his desk with his fingers. " I had n't 
 thought of that" 
 
 " Here 's your hat, dear," said Mrs. Bradley. 
 
 The Reverend Paul took the hat absently and put it 
 on. Before he could remember what he wanted it for, 
 Ike and Christine rushed in and attacked John in 
 massed formation. " Once upon a time ! " they cried 
 in chorus. " Please ! Please ! " 
 
 They led him out to a corner of the veranda and, be- 
 fore they had decided just where and how to settle 
 down, Pauline came out to them with a thick roll of 
 manuscript in her hand. She gave it to John. "If
 
 234 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 you ever need money," she said, " try these on some 
 publisher. It 's just your Pot and Tot stories. I 've 
 written them out almost in your own words." 
 
 John took the bundle and thrust it in his pocket. 
 " Thank you," he said, his voice thick with resentment 
 and futile protest. He turned from her and she was 
 about to leave them, when the children seized on her 
 skirts and dragged her to a seat between them on a 
 wicker lounge. " Now ! " they said to John, still in 
 chorus. 
 
 He sat down in a chair before them, a grim look 
 about his mouth and eyes. Outwardly he was tired 
 by the day's hard work, inwardly he was bruised and 
 sore, and, as though to touch him on the raw, the chil- 
 dren had drawn close to Pauline instead of nestling 
 down beside him as was their wont when Tot and Pot 
 were about to make an appearance. 
 
 " Once upon a time " said John and paused. 
 
 " There were a little boy and a little girl and their 
 names were Pot and Tot ! " chanted Ike and Christine. 
 
 " Exactly," said John. " This boy Pot was n't a 
 perfect little boy by any means. In the first place he 
 was fat, in the second place he was greedy, and in the 
 third place he used to pinch Tot because he knew she 
 could n't pinch back. Pot and Tot had a pony " 
 
 "And his name was Snowball because he was so 
 black ! " cried Christine and clapped her hands. 
 
 " Yes," said John, " that was his name, all right. 
 Snowball was a wonderful pony, but just because he 
 was so wonderful he had an awful quarrel with the 
 children. It all started from the day Pot made a but-
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 235 
 
 terfly net. When the net was made he ran after but- 
 terflies but he never caught one because he was so 
 fat he could n't run any faster than a steak-and-kidney 
 pudding. The butterflies simply laughed at him, called 
 him Fatty, and made him so angry that he turned pur- 
 ple and white in spots with rage." 
 
 " Poor Pot," said Christine. 
 
 " Poor Pot ? " continued John. " Wait till you hear 
 what he did. He climbed on Snowball, who was so 
 wonderful that he could jump as high as a house only 
 higher, and made him jump after the butterflies. 
 Every time Snowball jumped Pot caught a butterfly, 
 and pretty soon all the butterflies stopped laughing, I 
 can tell you, and never called him Fatty any more. 
 
 " At first Tot did n't want to catch butterflies because 
 when Pot caught them he did n't let them go again but 
 pinned each one with a long long pin into a board and 
 puffed his cheeks and his eyes out and called it a col- 
 lection. But one day a man with a head shaped like a 
 potato with a bad spot at one end and wearing thick 
 glasses came along and for just one little butterfly he 
 gave Pot a big quarter of a dollar. When Tot saw that 
 she forgot all about being sorry for the butterflies and 
 made herself a net and even took a penny from her 
 church money to buy some long pins." 
 
 "Oh!" cried Christine. 
 
 " Yes," said John. " It was naughty. It was so 
 naughty that it just shows you how naughty a little girl 
 can be. -All this made Snowball very sad, because he 
 loved the gentle butterflies. At last it just grew to be 
 too much for him, and though he knew he must do
 
 236 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 everything his masters told him to do he could n't jump 
 high any more because his heart was so heavy it simply 
 held him down and even almost broke his legs with its 
 weight." 
 
 " Gee ! " said Ike. " It musta been awful heavy." 
 
 " It was," said John. " It was even heavier than 
 Pot, and Pot was the fattest boy ever put into one skin. 
 The first time poor Snowball could n't jump when Pot 
 told him to, Pot got very angry and beat him. That 
 made Snowball's heart grow heavier than ever and his 
 legs could n't hold it up any longer so they just crumpled 
 and let Snowball down in the grass. ' Well/ he 
 thought, ' it 's all for the best because now the butter- 
 flies are safe.' 
 
 " But he was* wrong, for that very day the man with 
 a head like a potato with a bad spot at one end came 
 along and told Pot never mind about his lazy pony, be- 
 cause if he went into the woods and found the butter- 
 flies when they were young and sticky and had n't quite 
 learned to fly, he could walk right up to them and catch 
 them with his fingers. So every day Pot and Tot would 
 go out together and catch poor young butterflies that 
 were just beginning to dry their wings. They caught 
 so many that one day the king of the butterflies, an em- 
 peror moth, called a great meeting " 
 
 " Was there a queen, too ? " asked Christine. 
 
 " Yes, there was a queen," said John, " but she was 
 prostrated with grief. That was one of the reasons 
 the king called the meeting. When all the butterflies 
 were assembled it was a beautiful sight but very hard 
 to see, because they gathered just under the tops of the
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 237 
 
 highest trees. All was very quiet because even when 
 the whole multitude of butterflies talked at the same 
 time it did n't make any more noise than two feathers 
 in a bed. When the king shouted, l This meeting is 
 called to decide what to do about Pot and Tot ! ' the 
 proclamation had to be repeated a million times for all 
 the butterflies to hear." 
 
 "My! "said Ike. 
 
 " All the councilors of state," continued John, " the 
 king's chamberlains and nobles, the thousand ladies-in- 
 waiting and the ten-thousand ladies-of-the-wardrobe, the 
 knights, which we call moths, the fifty thousand heralds, 
 and all the princes and princesses of the many royal 
 families chattered a hundred thousand different things, 
 but all the young butterflies that could not fly and were 
 just hanging on the branches and trunks of the trees 
 said just one thing and they said it all together so that 
 it drowned out all the other things that everybody else 
 was saying." 
 
 " What did they say ? " asked Ike. 
 
 " This is what all the sticky young butterflies 
 shouted," said John. " They shouted, ' Kill Pot, kiU 
 Tot, kill Tot, kill Pot!'" 
 
 " They were angry," said Christine mildly. 
 
 " Very angry," said John. " And just when they 
 were angriest who should come into the wood but Pot 
 and Tot, and Pot looked up and when he saw the mil- 
 lions and millions of butterflies, his little round mouth 
 opened in wonder and his eyes stuck out from his round 
 cheeks with greed. This made one of the young but- 
 terflies so angry that he loosened his hold on the branch
 
 238 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 of a tree and hurled himself at Pot, screaming at the 
 top of his perfectly silent voice, ' Kill Pot, kill Tot, 
 kill Tot, kill Pot!' 
 
 " When the other young butterflies saw that, they 
 hurled themselves down, first just a few, then more and 
 more. Pot laughed with glee and told Tot to hold out 
 her apron. He caught butterflies so fast that he forgot 
 all about not breaking their wings, and started cram- 
 ming them in his pockets. But soon he stopped catch- 
 ing them. They no longer were coming in dozens and 
 baker's dozens, but in dozens and baker's dozens of 
 hundreds of thousands ! 
 
 " ' Pot,' screamed Tot, ' I 'm frightened ! ' 
 
 " ' Huh ! ' grunted Pot, ' whose afraid of butter- 
 flies ? ' He threw his arms around and beat off as many 
 as he could, but the very young ones were so sticky 
 they just hung to him like molasses. In spite of the 
 way he was fighting he began to turn pale and cold. 
 Then he knew he was frightened. ' Run, Tot, run ! ' 
 he shouted and Tot answered, ' Oh, Pot, I can't. They 
 are sticking to my arms and legs. They 're sticking to 
 me all over. Oh, Pb ' 
 
 " Suddenly her voice stopped. The butterflies had 
 filled her mouth. Just after that Pot saw her go down. 
 He fought on a little longer and then he too went down 
 squashing thousands of butterflies with his fat, round 
 body. But the thousands that he squashed were noth- 
 ing to the millions and millions that were left and that 
 piled on top of Pot and Tot in a mountain as big as a 
 house and of all the colors in the world. For some 
 time the mountain quivered and shook once in a while
 
 JOHN BOGAEDUS 239 
 
 but soon it was quite still and all through the air, under 
 the trees, on the trees, over the trees, wherever the eye 
 could reach, there was a great thick cloud of butterflies, 
 all singing one terrible song: 'Pot is dead, Tot is 
 dead ; Tot is dead, Pot is dead.' " 
 
 " But they were n't," said Ike. 
 
 " Of course they were n't," murmured Christine. 
 
 " Snowball heard the terrible song," continued John, 
 " and he was so terrified that he forgot all about his 
 heart being too heavy to carry and came flying like the 
 wind. He hurled himself at the great mountain of 
 butterflies and with his head and his tail and all his 
 four feet he scattered it right and left until at last he 
 had quite uncovered the two children, Pot lying so fat 
 and round and unnaturally pale and poor, poor little 
 Tot, just as white and as flat and as still as a wet sheet 
 of paper. Great tears rolled down from Snowball's 
 eyes for he saw that he had come too late." 
 
 Ike's and Christine's eyes were fastened on John's 
 mouth, waiting for him to go on. " Too late," 
 prompted Ike. 
 
 " Yes," said John. " He was too late. The butter- 
 flies were right. Pot and Tot had killed them; they 
 had killed Pot and Tot." 
 
 The children's eyes went wide with horror, they 
 stared unbelieving at John's set face. Christine was 
 the first to break. She caught her breath in a sharp 
 little gasp and then screamed, " No ! " so sharply, so 
 penetratingly, that the word shot through John's heart. 
 Ike pounded the side of the wicker seat. " No, John, 
 no ! " he yelled and suddenly burst into tears.
 
 240 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 Pauline, very pale, rose to her feet. The children 
 flung themselves at her, clutched at her blindly, buried 
 their faces against her skirt, and sobbed. " Change it," 
 she said to John. " Change it now, quickly." 
 
 John found himself standing, facing her. " I can't," 
 he said. " I won't." 
 
 " Why ? " said Pauline, amazement in her eyes. 
 
 " Justice," said John. " An eye for an eye, a tooth 
 for a tooth, a Pot for a butterfly " 
 
 " But children ! " biased Pauline. " You hurt chil- 
 dren ? " 
 
 " Let them learn now," said John, his feverish eyes 
 flashing. " Let them see justice trample on love while 
 they 're children. It won't hurt them hurt them so 
 later." He turned abruptly from her. 
 
 " Wait ! " cried Pauline. She leaned over and com- 
 forted the children. " There, there, darlings, it 's only 
 a story. Just keep thinking of that. It never really 
 happened." 
 
 She led them still sobbing toward the door just as 
 Mrs. Bradley hurried out to see what was the matter. 
 " Take them, mother, please take them," said Pauline 
 and turned back to John. For a long moment they 
 stood silent, searching each other's faces ; then Pauline 
 raised her hand to her breast and pressed it against her 
 throbbing heart. " What are you doing ? " she asked, 
 her low voice vibrating. " What are you trying to 
 do ? Don't you see can't you see " 
 
 " What ? " cried John, a sudden gleam in his eyes. 
 
 Pauline shook her head slowly from side to side. 
 " No, no," she said. " Can't you see ? If you per-
 
 JOHN BOGAEDUS 241 
 
 suade me, even if you could persuade me, who do you 
 think would profit? You or the man who first came 
 to me like like light in the morning ? " 
 
 There was a sudden flash of understanding in John's 
 eyes; then they went quite dead, his face turned pale, 
 and his shoulders dropped. He was dumb. With a 
 motion of his hand he turned from her and went to his 
 room. To his amazement, rage did not possess him. 
 Against all reason he found that he was not thinking 
 of himself; he was thinking with a sort of stunned 
 wonder, not of Pauline but of this thing that was greater 
 than Pauline. In that moment she loomed before him 
 in a new aspect. She did not govern nor was she gov- 
 erned; she was established. Even in defeat and in 
 abnegation she could surrender to no man but to justice.
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 JUST before the supper hour John stole from his 
 room and went to the door of the children's nur- 
 sery. He met Mrs. Bradley coming out. " Are they 
 asleep ? " he asked. 
 
 " No" she said, her mouth twitching and her eyes 
 avoiding him. " They would n't eat their supper and 
 I could n't make them say their prayers. I 've put 
 them to bed. They 're quiet but they 're still crying a 
 little. Could n't you ? " 
 
 " Of course I can," said John. " Please let me go 
 in." 
 
 He entered the room and closed the door softly be- 
 hind him. Ike and Christine lay with their backs 
 toward each other, curled up in two little twin beds. 
 They were both clinging to their pillows and crying 
 softly with spasmodic jerks as though the machinery 
 of tears had almost run down. 
 
 " Children ! " whispered John. 
 
 They looked up quickly, swallowing their sobs. 
 " What ? " said Ike, and Christine tried to speak but 
 only made a funny noise in her throat. 
 
 John put his finger on his lips and looked mys- 
 teriously over his shoulder. " Hush," he said. " If 
 I tell you a secret about Pot and Tot will you promise 
 
 never, never to tell never until to-morrow ? " 
 
 242
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 243 
 
 " Not mother ? " whispered Christine. 
 
 " Ner Pauline ? " asked Ike. 
 
 " Never till to-morrow," said John. 
 
 " I promise/' said Ike. Christine, her eyes very 
 wide, nodded her head. 
 
 John picked her up, sat down on the edge of Ike's 
 bed, and took her on one knee. Ike quickly clambered 
 to the other. John put his arms around their soft 
 warm bodies and drew them close, pressing their heads 
 against his face. Their cheeks were wet and they still 
 caught their breath occasionally in quivering sniffs. 
 
 " You know the terrible time Pot and Tot had with 
 the butterflies ? " began John. 
 
 Both children nodded their heads emphatically. 
 " Well," said John, " it all happened at night, one night 
 after a day when Pot and Tot had been very naughty. 
 They had killed one teeny weeny butterfly and they had 
 climbed into the pantry and eaten a lot of brown sugar. 
 Pot had eaten twenty-two lumps and Tot had eaten 
 seventeen. And so it just served them right when they 
 had that awful nightmare about being killed by butter- 
 flies." 
 
 " And they were n't really truly killed ? " asked 
 Christine hopefully. 
 
 " Of course not," said John. " A nightmare 
 frightens you terribly and makes you cry but it never 
 quite kills you. It only teaches you a lesson." 
 
 " Nightmares is bad dreams," said Ike, pensively. 
 
 Gradually the great and joyful fact that Pot and Tot 
 still lived soaked into the children's minds. Christine 
 gave a happy gasp and clasped her hands; Ike jumped
 
 244 JOHN BOGAEDUS 
 
 up and down on John's knee and chanted, " They jest 
 dreamed it ! They jest dreamed it ! " 
 
 John gripped the two little bodies firmly and began 
 slowly counting their ribs with searching, tickling 
 fingers. The children giggled and a moment later a 
 double shriek of treble laughter rang through the house. 
 
 At the supper table the Eeverend Paul, Faith Brad- 
 ley, and Pauline had been sitting for some time, pa- 
 tiently waiting for John to take his place. The Rev- 
 erend Paul had cast questioning glances at his wife's 
 troubled face, at Pauline's moist eyes and quivering 
 lips, and had caught the general depressing atmosphere. 
 He sat frowning and tapping the table with his fin- 
 gers. 
 
 At the double peal of laughter from the nursery the 
 cloud on his brow lifted and cleared before the women 
 folk had time to realize what was happening. His face 
 broke into a smile and then suddenly took on its look 
 of astonishment, his eyes filled with happy tears. He 
 hastily took off his blurred glasses, started polishing 
 them with his napkin, and cried, " Bless my soul ! " 
 
 John had appeared in the doorway of the dining- 
 room, bearing a child on each arm, pink feet just peep- 
 ing from below white but sadly crumpled nighties. " A 
 very hungry young lady," he said, " and a very hungry 
 young man." 
 
 " Oh, dear," said Mrs. Bradley, looking at the chil- 
 dren's excited eyes, " they '11 never go to sleep again ! " 
 
 " Oh, yes, they will," said John. " Just as soon as 
 you fill their hollow places. But not with lumps of 
 brown sugar."
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 245 
 
 " Shsh ! " cried Christine excitedly, putting one hand 
 over John's mouth. 
 
 He kissed her fingers as he dropped her into Pauline's 
 lap and then handed Ike over to his mother. 
 
 " What 's he been telling you, dear ? " asked Mrs. 
 Bradley. 
 
 Ike laughed excitedly. " Can't tell," he said. 
 " It 'a a secret. 
 
 " Can't tell never," said Christine ; " never till to- 
 morrow." 
 
 John got his full reward for bringing about that 
 happy scene when he said his almost wordless farewell 
 on the following morning. Whatever he himself had 
 suffered was robbed of harsh poignancy by the unveiled 
 love of the hearts that had welcomed him so warmly and 
 that now grieved so frankly over his departure. The 
 children cried and would not be comforted, Mrs. Brad- 
 ley kissed him ; the Reverend Paul put on his hat and 
 took it off several times absently and his eyes wandered 
 sadly around as though they tried in vain to find a 
 silver lining to the cloud that had settled on the house- 
 hold. He murmured " Bless my soul ! " once or twice 
 but with no enthusiasm. Pauline, above all, was kind. 
 She said nothing but she held John's hand long and let 
 him see two tears well in her eyes and crawl unheeded 
 down her cheeks. 
 
 In those tears he saw her strength, humbled, paying 
 tribute; her cold rectitude warming and belying itself 
 to the pain in her heart. They gave him a mute as- 
 surance that he had laid his touch on her innermost 
 self, that though he had not shaken he had moved her,
 
 246 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 that even in losing her he had won much, and that come 
 what might, her memory of him was woven too deep 
 into the woof of life ever to be cast out and quite for- 
 gotten. 
 
 John made his way to McNeil's house in a strange 
 mood. He did not know it, but in that hour the assur- 
 ance of his youth, face to face with life, began to wane. 
 For the first time he sensed, though vaguely, the duality 
 of a man's existence; the parallel planes, upon one of 
 which he floats, dreams, and aspires, and upon the other, 
 of which he actually walks, groping, stubbing his toes, 
 bumping his head, and bruising himself against the 
 concrete ordinations of a predestined course. 
 
 With the perception of this duality came a still 
 deeper understanding, a consciousness of that correla- 
 tion of the spirit and the flesh which holds behind its 
 veil the mystery of the will. However blindly a man's 
 will drives the spirit, however blindly it is driven by 
 material things, it still links his grosser to his finer self 
 in a single fate, holds plane to plane, welds the two into 
 the sum of being, and saves him from the dead ashes of 
 an absolute predestination. 
 
 John wrinkled his brow, striving to follow this double 
 road around the rock of fatalism, but wherever he sent 
 his thoughts they doubled back constantly to Pauline 
 and the new aspect on life that she had so suddenly pre- 
 sented to his view. As he looked back on her even 
 from that near distance in time and space she no longer 
 seemed to stand alone; she was molded into the life 
 about her and into the family group. To see her, to
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 247 
 
 understand her, one had to see the Reverend Paul, 
 Faith Bradley, and even Christine and Ike. 
 
 John remembered what McNeil had said to him. 
 " When you give up trying to think out the Bradleys, 
 come to me and I '11 show them to you through a clear 
 glass." He made up his mind to remind the doctor 
 of his promise. 
 
 " I 've been thinking hard on the Bradleys for 
 hours," he found occasion to say that night when the 
 two were sitting together on the veranda after dinner, 
 " and of what you said the other day." 
 
 McNeil studied the ash on his cigar and flicked it off. 
 " Well ? " he asked, after a long pause. 
 
 " I have n't got very far," said John, his brows puck- 
 ered. " I only know that to the heart they are all ten- 
 derness, warmth, lovingkindness ; and to the mind a 
 subtle contradiction of all that is soft and pliable. You 
 approach them without fear, they welcome you with the 
 graciousness of those who live only to give, but when 
 you would strike deep and move them you find you can 
 only clutch and cling. That frightens you. There 's 
 a terror about anything immutable, even if it 's an un- 
 merciful but righteous God. Anything that 's ab- 
 solutely unswerving, consistently just, strikes fear into 
 my heart " 
 
 " And into mine," interrupted McNeil. 
 
 " It it is n't right," finished John, weakly. 
 
 " It 's puzzling," said McNeil. He watched the glow 
 of his cigar in silence until it dimmed and turned gray 
 under the ash. " You 've gone a long way with the
 
 248 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 Bradleys," he continued, " but you 've gone only half 
 way." 
 
 He paused again and frowned. " A generation or 
 a couple of generations ago," he resumed, " the climax 
 of a young man's growth was generally marked by a re- 
 ligious upheaval in his insides. His great fight was 
 on the issue of belief and his relations to accepted creed. 
 He lived in a metaphysical atmosphere electrically 
 charged with doubt. I don't suppose the history of the 
 mind has witnessed any more poignant struggles than 
 took place and still take place on that battlefield. But 
 to-day things are different. Ethics in the sense of ten- 
 ets are no longer the main obsession of those who are 
 driven in the search for what is truth." 
 
 " I would have agreed with you a week ago," said 
 John. " But now " 
 
 " But now you 're puzzled," finished the doctor. 
 " You 've momentarily been snatched out of your nat- 
 ural environment. You 're confused because, for the 
 moment, you 've lost sight of the obsession of your own 
 generation." 
 
 " And what 's that ? " 
 
 " Well," said the doctor, " I should say that the ob- 
 session of to-day is humanity. I don't mean that 
 there 's anything new about 'humanism, but that it 's 
 only lately become a preoccupation, a life force, and 
 an atmosphere, the only atmosphere which you and I 
 can breathe with any comfort to the soul. And when 
 I say humanism I don't use the word as the assumed 
 label of a philosophy but in the broad sense that de- 
 scribes the age when we are trying to look at God
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 249 
 
 through man as opposed to the epoch when we looked at 
 man through a far-away God." 
 
 " And where do the Bradleys come in on all this ? " 
 asked John. 
 
 " I '11 show you," said McNeil. " Most of us think 
 of the elect as a unique division, but I don't. I 've 
 tried to puzzle it out and I 've come to see in the elect 
 a divided conglomeration, made up of those who are 
 purified by their own sin and suffering and of those 
 who are purified by the sins and the suffering of others." 
 
 He waited until he saw a gleam of understanding 
 dawn in John's eyes, then he went on. " Those two 
 elements can't mix but they are eternal complements. 
 They can't mingle but upon their inherent affinity rests 
 the fundamental doctrine of redemption, the beating, 
 life-giving heart of Christianity. The generations of 
 the one, our generation, yours and mine, comes and 
 goes ; the generation of the other is established, an ever- 
 lasting generation in whose continuance the hope of 
 the world abides. Its house is built solidly upon the 
 rock of the eternal verities, charity, faith, honor, jus- 
 tice, and mercy, but mercy without surrender. Only 
 the unsullied belong to it. The Bradleys are of it. 
 They are of those whose eyes are steadfastly fixed on a 
 vision."
 
 BOOK IV
 
 And he passed into a land where hypocrites die; a land of one 
 great word and of a single sound. Love's the word; the single 
 sound, the beating of human hearts.
 
 
 CHAPTEK XXXI 
 
 LIFE of to-day is so laid out in minutes, each with 
 a definite commercial value, that the average 
 American winces at a mere statement of time. What 
 true native son with his eyes fixed on a possible Presi- 
 dency or directorship can. face the front page of the 
 usual shipping articles ? " IT Is AGREED by the Mas- 
 ter and seamen, or mariners . . . for the duration of 
 the voyage ... or for a term of time not exceeding 
 24 calendar months." To this psychological pressure 
 alone might be ascribed the wholesale substitution of 
 native by alien crews on such of our sailing ships as 
 still cumber the seas. 
 
 John was a good seaman not only because he knew 
 his work and liked it, but because he loved the sea. 
 Twenty-four calendar months had no terrors for him 
 and good seamen being almost as rare in this mechanical 
 age as the ships that bred them, he was proportionately 
 appreciated. Quite naturally, he turned to the deep 
 sea and deep-sea boats to find a balm for his sore heart. 
 He wondered where was the Alexandrine and with a 
 vague idea of coming up with her, he shipped for a 
 long voyage. During the five years that followed he 
 joined only three vessels, called at only twelve ports, 
 and the five years, measured by events, were almost as 
 a single day. 
 
 But measured by growth they were not as a single 
 
 253
 
 254 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 day. Dr. McNeil's final gift had been Balfour's 
 " Foundations of Belief," the most bewildering, the 
 most tantalizing book John had ever read. None other 
 could have given such a twist to his continental philo- 
 sophic viewpoint; here he had the Anglo-Saxon mind 
 at its very keenest, standing with its back to the crum- 
 bling wall of orthodoxy and defending it with a rapier 
 wit gleaming through mist. 
 
 The book was like an appetizer to John. It did not 
 satisfy but it made him hungry. He started buying 
 everything the ports he put in at could supply in the 
 way of modern philosophies, and gradually felt his 
 soul befogged in the smoke of the great battlefield of 
 the mind : science taking issue with divine authority. 
 
 No single conversation ever crystallized the character 
 of a man, but there are many men who can look back 
 and see where the course of their lives veered endlessly 
 to the breath of half a dozen words. John's last serious 
 talk with McNeil did not culminate a period in his life 
 except in the sense that birth culminates nonentity. 
 It was not in itself formative, but it gave him a check, 
 bent him to a new course, and brought to his existence 
 a vague sense of definite direction. 
 
 The words to which he had listened that night, taken 
 by themselves, were a mere trifle; but taken in con- 
 junction with all that had immediately preceded them, 
 the emotions, the spiritual shock, and the awakening 
 that had come to him in catching a glimpse of a new 
 firmament through Pauline's steady eyes, they carried 
 a message of cumulative weight, gathering volume the 
 more he pondered.
 
 JOHN BOGAEDTJS 255 
 
 There was nothing spectacular or sudden about his 
 development from this crucial point. The ultimate 
 destination of any inner-man is sometimes measured by 
 a single act, but more often it must be stated in terms 
 of years, and John's was the commoner lot. His inner 
 self had been moved, shaken, started at a tangent, but 
 so gradual was the diversion of his course that a ret- 
 rospective of mere months would have deluded him 
 into the belief that the stranger who had been taken in 
 by the Bradleys was the same man that went forth 
 from them as a friend. 
 
 Where every day is alike, the years grow fast. John 
 was almost unconscious of time until he awoke to sud- 
 den realization. He had been like a man who throws 
 himself down at night, tired out, and the next moment 
 awakes to find the morning sun blazing in his face. 
 John looked back and found that he could count on the 
 fingers of one hand all the happenings of physical mo- 
 ment contained in five years : a flying visit to his father, 
 the blue, blue day a drunken officer piled the ship high 
 and dry on the coast of Cuba, the day he was called aft 
 and made second mate, and the agony of the moment 
 when he knocked a seaman off the poop, down the gang- 
 way, and into an open hatch, and was saved from man- 
 slaughter only by the conjunction of a miracle and a 
 loose cargo of grain. 
 
 To look back is to take stock. For the first time in 
 his life John took stock of himself. He was just over 
 thirty years old, old enough to look back and see the 
 boy he had been. He understood many things now 
 that had been hidden to his youth and to his father
 
 256 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 in his blindness. He could see the reason and the 
 mechanism of his revolt from the course his father had 
 laid out for him. It was the same reason that as a boy 
 he had picked upon as the obstacle to his being a teacher, 
 only now he saw in it an obstacle to life itself. He had 
 never been planted. Life had blown him hither and 
 thither like a bit of thistle-down. 
 
 To-day he felt that, like the thistle-down, he bore a 
 seed but that on each occasion that he had tried to settle 
 down and take root some vagrant wind had caught him 
 up and blown him on. Some men are born to be citi- 
 zens of the world, no city, no country, is large enough 
 to hold them but they do not dawdle away five years 
 on three vessels. John knew he was no citizen of the 
 world; he wondered if all his life he was to be a waif 
 of circumstance. 
 
 Of the events that stood out in the blank years, 
 the most significant was his promotion aft. That day 
 marked the beginning of the decline of his love for the 
 life of a mariner. He did not connect his change of 
 mood with the leaven that had been working in him 
 ever since he left San Francisco, but he gradually rea- 
 soned out his new stand. In a mechanical age, seamen 
 in the old sense of the word, even stokers, are an an- 
 achronism. There is no justification left for an indus- 
 try whose conditions once permitted and still demand 
 the occasional man-handling of men, for despite the 
 hedge of the modern law, every master and every crew 
 of a deep-sea sailing boat knows that the moment comes, 
 at least once to an officer, when he must hit and hit hard 
 or give up his job.
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 257 
 
 The first principle of John's philosophy of personal 
 freedom was that he should do no distasteful labor, and 
 bullying seamen, who under the tension of seventy days 
 at sea were as disorganized and unruly as tired chil- 
 dren, had become a decidedly distasteful task. Con- 
 sequently he made up his mind to ask for his discharge. 
 For a mariner he was absurdly well in funds. At the 
 last port of call he had received enclosed in a letter from 
 his father, with whom he had left the Pot and Tot 
 stories, a draft of such magnitude that it made him 
 ponder long on the distorted values the world puts on 
 the trifles of the mind. 
 
 For turning out of the fo'c's'le as an able seaman 
 night or day, in snow, rain, heat, or cold, standing his 
 watch at a heavy wheel in a sea-way, putting his back 
 into a pull, splicing hawsers till his hands bled, and 
 otherwise racking his whole strong body, he had drawn 
 thirty dollars a month; for sitting on a bench in the 
 shade spinning yarns to two tousle-headed children cud- 
 dled in his arms it seemed he could get thirty dollars 
 an hour. But it was very simple after -all. The work 
 of his hands was sold but once; a hundred thousand 
 consumers could stuff themselves on Pot and Tot at a 
 fraction of fifteen cents a meal. 
 
 He left the ship at Capetown and put up at a modest 
 hotel. In the reading room was an old copy of the 
 Maritime Register. He picked it up and began turn- 
 ing its pages aimlessly, his eyes wandering down the 
 columns and columns of names of ships at sea. His 
 glance hung on the name of the Alexandrine. "Alex- 
 andrine" he read, "(sc) Carr 928 Baltimore, April 12
 
 258 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 Pensacola & Durban & Melbourne & Baltimore." 
 He looked back five years to the day he had left 
 San Francisco with the vague intention of falling in 
 with the Alexandrine somewhere. Why had he never 
 thought of looking her up before? He had left it to 
 chance and chance had played him a trick. Here was 
 the Alexandrine turning up just when he had finished 
 with ships for good and all ! 
 
 He took passage on a steamer for Durban the next 
 day and felt a thrill when a week later they picked up 
 the Bluff light just before midnight. He was up by 
 dawn and, full of thoughts of the Alexandrine, of Cap- 
 tain Ike, and of little Janice, he leaned on the steam- 
 er's rail just under the bridge and watched eagerly for 
 the unfolding of a familiar and oft remembered scene. 
 
 Would he know Janice if he saw her? He counted 
 back through the years and got his second shock from* 
 time. Little Janice would be little no more ; she would 
 be a woman or almost a woman. Seventeen, eighteen 
 years old, he didn't know which, but in any case old 
 enough to have quite forgotten the man who had been 
 nurse to her for three months and young enough to 
 blush for it if she were reminded. 
 
 As his mind played around the memory of her, try- 
 ing to picture what sort of girl he would find, he was 
 conscious of a depression subduing his high spirits. 
 He looked about with suddenly opened eyes. The scene 
 was changed; the port had grown almost beyond recog- 
 nition. New sheds, new warehouses, and many new 
 hotels had sprung up in a variegated jumble of brick, 
 concrete, and painted iron roofing.
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 259 
 
 In the water before him crouched the hard masonry 
 of the double breakwater, enclosing a deep channeled 
 gut that led to a mighty wharf crowded with sheds 
 whose broad roofs were overtopped by the funnels of 
 great liners. Far, far up the bay the spars of a few 
 lonely sailing vessels stood like cobwebs against the sky, 
 like the cold gray limbs of bare trees in winter. John 
 heaved a sigh. In every port it was like that. A back- 
 yard anchorage for the clipper ships, a graveyard for 
 the Flying Dutchmen that haunt the scenes of an age 
 that knows them not. 
 
 On his right stretched the Beach, now buried in 
 macadam, masonry, restaurants, piers, scenic railways, 
 formal lawns, bathing booths, claptrap, paper bags, and 
 orange peels. It seemed to breathe and smell of 
 throngs of people, wet bathing clothes and babies. Had 
 its crowds quite swallowed the Janice who had sat above 
 it with him on lonely, wind-swept dunes and watched 
 untainted seas crash and break on the long line of its 
 shimmering sands ? He sighed for the phantom scenes 
 that live no longer save in the hearts that loved them ; 
 for cities and ports, like people, can't stretch out their 
 childhood days forever. 
 
 Feeling very glum he stepped ashore, but he clung 
 to the hope that Captain Ike and his ship had not yet 
 cleared and that the captain would cheer him up. A 
 boatman reassured him. A few minutes later he was 
 hailing the loafing mate of the Alexandrine. Yes, the 
 skipper was aboard. He clambered up and over the 
 rail. 
 
 " This way," said the mate.
 
 260 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 " Don't bother," said John. " No one has to give 
 me my bearings on this craft. I 've sailed in her." 
 
 He made his way aft and found Captain Ike asleep 
 in the same old Bombay chair in which John had once 
 passed a sleepless night. He did not wake the cap- 
 tain immediately. He stood and stared at him and 
 then at the ship. Captain Ike had gone very gray ; the 
 Alexandrine had gone gray. Even in sleep the cap- 
 tain's lined face gave little hope of cheer. John struck 
 the deck with his heel, gave the thump that to a skipper 
 is like a bugle call. 
 
 Captain Ike sprang erect in his chair. " Eh ! 
 What ? What 's the matter ? " he cried, passing his 
 hand over his eyes. Then he flushed with the annoy- 
 ance of any one suddenly aroused and got slowly to his 
 feet. He stared long at John. His face slowly lit 
 up. " Well, son," he said, " how are ye ? " 
 
 They sat down for a long talk and John soon found 
 that his premonition had been correct. Captain Ike 
 was full and overflowing with worries. Low freights, 
 short charters, defection of the true seaman breed, the 
 high repair accounts that go with inefficient crews, and 
 a dozen other woes proved that he had realized the fact 
 that he and his ship belonged to the world's army of 
 supernumeraries, due for retirement without a pension. 
 
 But John's presence acted on him like a stimulant. 
 His eyes twinkled and wrinkled at the corners and his 
 shoulders tried to straighten. " You Ve jest got time 
 to get your kit, sign on, and climb aboard," he said, 
 slapping John on the shoulder. " We 're towing out 
 on the next tide."
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 261 
 
 John shook his head. " Not this time," he said. 
 
 " Ner any other time, eh ? " said Captain Ike, sud- 
 denly gloomy again and as subdued as though he had 
 quite lost the art of insistence. 
 
 " You see, Captain," said John, " I 've just this 
 morning blown in. I want to go up there on the hill." 
 He nodded his head toward the Berea. 
 
 " No use," said Captain Ike. " I tried to find her 
 two voyages ago. She an' the folks you left her with 
 cleared out in the smash-up after the war. Hard times 
 they had here an' no mistake. Guess they couldn't 
 weather the gale." 
 
 He spoke listlessly and when John got up to say good- 
 by he let him go without another word about joining the 
 Alexandrine. John went ashore and hung around un- 
 til he saw a tug bustle up and take her in tow; then 
 he got his baggage and established himself at a hotel. 
 
 The next morning he started his search for a trace 
 of Janice. He had forgotten the name, heard but once, 
 of the people with whom he had left her, but he soon 
 found that out. It was Dorien. Then he learned that 
 Captain Ike had been right. The Doriens had gone 
 down in the financial crisis that followed the war. For 
 a time they had leaned on friends, and that had led, as 
 usual, to the alienation of friendships. One defection 
 in especial had cut Dorien to the quick. He had 
 brooded on it and finally shot himself. Mrs. Dorien 
 had realized what she could from every available source 
 and sailed for England, taking Janice with her. No 
 one that John could find had since heard from them. 
 Feeling desperately lonely, he left the scenes that
 
 262 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 had so depressed him and made his way slowly up the 
 coast. An island city attracted him, it was so old, so 
 dead, so left out and behind of the onward sweep of 
 the world. Here he lingered, and one day came upon 
 the figure of a native standing at the edge of a deserted 
 beach and gazing fixedly at the mainland. John ap- 
 proached and stared at the face of the black boy. It 
 was eloquent with a loneliness so infinitely beyond his 
 own that he felt as though the burden had suddenly been 
 lifted from his heart. 
 
 He spoke to the boy but got no answer. He motioned 
 to him to follow him, took him to the room he had hired, 
 and fed him. The boy ate ravenously for a few mo- 
 ments, then stopped of a sudden and stared before him. 
 Presently he roused himself, started putting the room 
 in order and brushing John's clothes. John watched 
 him in wonder, then he smiled. The lonely black was 
 a trained houseboy. He evidently considered himself 
 engaged.
 
 JOHN'S servant was not altogether dumb; besides 
 his native language he could speak a few words 
 of Portuguese. He said that his name was Muno- 
 Muno and that he was far from his native land. When 
 at the end of a week John offered to send him home 
 he trembled from head to foot, his eyes grew large and 
 glassy, and he shook his head in refusal. 
 
 John found an interpreter and learned the boy's tale, 
 astounding to a European, a thing of every day to a 
 native. Muno-Muno was banished. His father had 
 gone mad, run amuck, and killed a man of another 
 family. Muno-Muno had been offered in atonement. 
 He had run away. He could never go back except to 
 die. His own family would be the first to kill him. 
 
 John was loath to believe that such a law still ruled, 
 but one glance at Muno-Muno's face told him beyond 
 any argument that it was so. " What," he asked of the 
 interpreter, " if the man that was attacked had killed 
 the madman ? " 
 
 " Eh ! " said the interpreter, grinning. " His life 
 forfeit When a madman come, you run plenty, tell 
 his family, his family kill him, nobody pay forfeit." 
 
 When John got a chance at a cheap passage on a 
 freighter bound for New York with a cargo of mangrove 
 
 bark, Muno-Muno went on board with the baggage and 
 
 263
 
 264 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 refused to leave. He crouched under the rail, put his 
 arms around a stanchion, and shook his head from side 
 to side to everything that John said. 
 
 " Shall we chuck him over for you ? " asked the cap- 
 tain. 
 
 " No," said John, smiling a little ruefully at the 
 trouble he was laying in for himself. " I '11 take him 
 along." 
 
 After an uneventful voyage of forty-five days the 
 freighter entered New York harbor and John set out 
 with Muno-Muno for his old lodgings. The house was 
 closed. He could find no trace of its former occupants 
 nor did he ever learn what had become of the things 
 he had stored with them. He tried to pass the portals 
 of various modest hotels but found that even the 
 servants' quarters of these hostelries balked at receiving 
 Muno-Muno, who. presented a weird figure, got up as 
 he was in various tags and ends of clothing purchased 
 during the voyage by John from sailors of different 
 sizes. 
 
 Toward evening John was growing distracted and 
 his cab bill was assuming the proportions of a mortgage. 
 He voiced his despair to the proprietor of a last hotel 
 who had been called in consultation by the clerk. 
 " You see," said John. " I can't put him up at a col- 
 ored hotel and myself here for the simple reason that 
 he can't talk a word of English. He 'd be absolutely 
 helpless. Never saw a white man till five years ago 
 and never put a hat on till to-day, or trousers, for that 
 matter." 
 
 " Gee ! " said the proprietor. " Is that straight ?
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 265 
 
 Why did n't you tell us he ain't a nigger ? " He turned 
 to the clerk. " Send for Sam." 
 
 In the few moments they awaited the head porter, 
 two or three waiters and half a dozen bellboys gathered 
 unrebuked about the black boy, who was staring straight 
 ahead with fixed eyes, and a lobby loiterer drew 
 near. In the background hovered the anxious cab- 
 man. 
 
 " What 's his name ? " asked the proprietor. 
 
 " Muno-Muno," said John. 
 
 The boy's face lighted. " Ya, baas," he said quickly, 
 turning his eyes on John. 
 
 " Gee ! " breathed a young bellboy. " Did-ya hear 
 'im?" 
 
 The head porter arrived, scowling. " Look here, 
 Sam," said the proprietor. " Don't you make no mis- 
 take. This ain't a nigger ; it 's a African. Put him 
 away somewhere and look after him. He belongs to 
 this gent." 
 
 John saw his chance. He drew the porter aside and 
 handed him a couple of bills. " When you can get off," 
 he said, " take him out and fit him up with the right 
 clothes so he '11 look like a neat servant. Nothing loud 
 or fancy and don't try to make more than two dollars 
 out of it for yourself." 
 
 Sam grinned as he took the money. " Leave it to 
 me," he said enigmatically. 
 
 That evening when John, under the leadership of the 
 proprietor, looked up Muno-Muno to see how he was 
 getting along, he found him sitting absolutely impas- 
 sive before all the pages off duty, the head laundress,
 
 266 JOHN BOGAEDUS 
 
 four chambermaids, the head porter, and three waiters, 
 who were pressing various dainties upon him. 
 
 " Here, all o' you," growled the proprietor. " What 
 d' ya think this is ? A dead-head show runnin' against 
 the movies ? Get outside and blow your nickels." 
 
 " Cut it out," said one of the waiters indignantly. 
 " We ain't lookin' at him. We can't make him eat." 
 
 John laughed. " Bring him a big bowl of rice," he 
 said, " and take away the cutlery. A little fried fish 
 tumbled on top of the rice will make him love you for- 
 ever." 
 
 During the days that followed Muno-Muno would 
 have been utterly spoiled by the staff had it not been 
 for the barrier of language and the grief that never left 
 him. He himself was an unfailing object of curiosity, 
 but nothing seemed to rouse his interest. When an 
 aboriginal African is happy anything new delights him ; 
 he will chortle, jabber, and caper. But let him be filled 
 with a lasting sadness or even downcast and he will meet 
 his first horse, motor-car, telephone, airship, or any 
 other modern wonder with an impenetrable apathy. 
 
 In his new surroundings the boy showed no emotion 
 until the day that John explained to him that he must 
 wait where he was for a few days, and then he betrayed 
 his feelings only by a glance beseeching as short a sepa- 
 ration as possible. John reassured him and decided 
 to make this first visit to his father a very brief one. 
 He left by an early train and before noon reached the 
 old university town. He went straight to his father's 
 house and to his amazement found it in possession of 
 utter strangers. Professor Bogardus? No, he no
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 267 
 
 longer lived there. He had moved. A maid would go 
 with John to the corner and point out the way to the 
 professor's new abode. 
 
 John found his father in one of those horribly new 
 little houses whose patch of lawn still looks like a grubby 
 beard and which are possessed and possess everything 
 that touches them with an air of transiency; the sort 
 of house one hesitates to call a dwelling. The profes- 
 sor was in a room furnished with unfamiliar furni- 
 ture of as cheap a grade as the house. The large 
 chair in which he sat carried an air of having tried 
 to accommodate itself to an angular apology for a bow- 
 window and been pushed out. 
 
 James Bogardus himself was transformed. He was 
 old, shabbily dressed, he had lost his erect carriage, and 
 his quick, bird-like movements. Only his eyes re- 
 mained the same, extraordinarily brilliant as they 
 realized the presence of his son. " Well, well ! " he 
 cried, getting slowly to his feet. " Where do you hail 
 from, Mr. Budding Author ? " 
 
 John sat down on one of the new chairs and felt it 
 give beneath him. He answered his father's greeting 
 cheerfully ; then his face grew grave. " Father," he 
 said with a glance around, " what 's the meaning of 
 this?" 
 
 The elder Bogardus's eyes shifted nervously. 
 " This ? " he said. " Oh, it 's easily understood. You 
 can understand that the old house was too big for me, a 
 little beyond my means. A chance came to let it, all 
 furnished, just as it stood, and the opportunity seemed 
 too good to miss too good to miss." His eyes wan-
 
 268 JOHN BOGARDTJS 
 
 dered over everything except John. " I 'm quite com- 
 fortable," he finished vaguely. 
 
 " Look here, Father," said John, as though he were 
 speaking to a child. " You tell me the truth." 
 
 The professor's lined face set stubbornly for a mo- 
 ment; then it lit up with a sudden change of decision. 
 He fixed his brilliant eyes on John. A twinkle shone 
 in them. " You want the truth, eh ? " he said in his old 
 manner. " Well, you shall have it. Tell it not in 
 Gath, my son, but eight months ago eight months 
 and three days, to be exact at somewhat after the 
 midnight hour, your father held four kings against four 
 aces and and made the aces call ! " 
 
 " Whew ! " said John, his face full of sympathy. 
 " What did it cost ? But never mind. Don't tell me. 
 Is there a mortgage on the old house ? " 
 
 " No, oh, no," said the professor, mildly. " You see, 
 he called me." 
 
 Then John grinned while his father looked away and 
 frowned. " You can appreciate," he said sadly, " what 
 a blow it was to my theory of the science of Poker. It 
 shows up the weak spot and that is that there are shades 
 of calculation utterly beyond the range of the human 
 mind. It was a great disappointment and coming as it 
 did just as I had completed the revision of my mono- 
 graph on the game it was a great shock." 
 
 " I should say so," said John, " if it drove you to 
 living like this." 
 
 The professor stared at him in commiseration. 
 " You misunderstand me," he said coldly. " The
 
 JOHN BOGARBUS 269 
 
 shock was in having the aces call. He should never 
 have called." 
 
 John threw back his head and laughed aloud. Then 
 he sobered and got down to business. First he moved 
 his father to a luxurious suite of rooms at the Inn, 
 then he tackled the people who were living in the pro- 
 fessor's old home. He let words throw them into a 
 fiery consternation and then calmed and conquered the 
 flames with a surprising flood of cold and eloquent cash. 
 In two days they had moved out; in another the pro- 
 fessor was back in his old beloved library, sighing over 
 and over again with content, and following his son 
 about with a wistful and loving gaze.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 AS John settled down to enjoy the luxury of a par- 
 lor-car on his way back to town, an extravagance 
 that seemed a mere trifle in comparison with the checks 
 he had been signing for his father's benefit, he noticed' 
 that a young man sitting opposite, twirling a diminu- 
 tive mustache, had laid down his paper and was study- 
 ing his face intently. 
 
 Presently the young man swung his chair around 
 and leaned across the aisle. " Is n't your name 
 Bogardus ? " he asked. 
 
 John looked up, surprised, and stared at the stran- 
 ger's face. While it was vaguely familiar, he could not 
 quite place it. " Yes," he said doubtfully, but smiling. 
 
 " You 've forgotten me," said the young man. " I 'm 
 Jack Holson, the fellow that tried to keep you from 
 firing yourself. I remember I even bearded the Dean 
 in his den." 
 
 John's face lighted up. " Of course I remember you. 
 It 's that mustache that put me off." 
 
 " I know a mustache is n't at all the thing," said 
 Holson, " but I 've just come back from Europe and I 
 always wear one over there to keep down the tips at 
 being recognized for an American and to save myself 
 from being taken for an actor. I ought to have shaved 
 it off but I 've sort of grown used to it this time and 
 
 it gives me something to do with my hands." 
 
 270
 
 JOHN BOGAKDTJS 271 
 
 John laughed. He felt light-hearted and at ease 
 with Holson. They went to the diner together for 
 lunch and after that drifted into the club car where 
 they could smoke and talk in an approximate privacy. 
 In giving a mere outline of how he had spent the years 
 that had intervened since they had separated in the 
 classroom, John made Holson open his eyes in wonder 
 and a puzzled disapproval. 
 
 " So you Ve just loafed," he commented at last ; 
 " made your living but got nothing in the bank to show 
 for wear and tear and the general depreciation of your 
 plant." 
 
 John smiled. " Less money to-day than when I 
 started," he acknowledged. 
 
 Holson seemed still puzzled. " You don't seem to 
 mind it much," he said, " and for the life of me I can't 
 tell you why you ought to, but of course you ought. I 
 can't say that I feel any more comfortable than you 
 look, but I 'm drawing down a pretty decent-sized 
 yearly pay envelope." 
 
 " Married ? " asked John. 
 
 Holson frowned. " What made you ask that ? No, 
 I 'm not. They tell me I 'm always looking for it, 
 though." Then he changed the subject. " Where are 
 you staying ? " 
 
 John told him. 
 
 " God ! " said Holston, pityingly. " Are you as hard 
 up as that ? " 
 
 " No, not quite," said John, grinning, and told him 
 what an obstacle Muno-Muno had been to his getting 
 any lodging at all. Then he explained that his resi-
 
 272 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 dence was temporary, that he expected to make enough 
 money by writing to keep a little place in the country, 
 and would n't Holson give him a pointer or two where 
 to look ? 
 
 " Well," said Holson, gravely, " it all depends on 
 what class you 're in. The writer breed flock together 
 just like stockbrokers or any other business bunch. 
 There 's the lily-handed Boston crowd on the East and 
 the virile life-in-the-open rough-necks south of 'Frisco 
 on the extreme West. Sliced in between there 's the 
 Indiana domestics, a Ha-Ha crowd at Mount Kisco, a 
 settlement of comic-dramatics and movie binders around 
 Lake Hopatcong, and a large sprinkling of miscel- 
 laneous has-beens in the Connecticut hills." 
 
 " Thanks," said John, " but what I want is a very 
 small house in a decent-sized wilderness, somewhere 
 that I can take my ease in pajamas on the front stoop." 
 
 " Are you serious about the wilderness part of it ? " 
 said Holson, " Because if you are I '11 show you a hand- 
 me-down that will fit as if it was tailor-made." 
 
 " Where ? " asked John. 
 
 " If I said right here in this State you 'd laugh, 
 would n't you ? But just remember that three miles 
 from a railway in New Jersey is as good as thirty in 
 Wyoming. What are you doing next Sunday ? " 
 
 " Nothing," said John. 
 
 " Well, tell that slave of yours to call you at six 
 sharp. I '11 pick you up in time to catch the seven 
 o'clock ferry. It will be a long run but we can do it." 
 
 "Motor?" asked John. 
 
 " Yes," said Holson.
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 2T3 
 
 " It 's awfully good of you to take the trouble. I '11 
 be ready and waiting." 
 
 " And in the meantime ? " asked Holson. " Do you 
 trot?" 
 
 " Trot ? " said John. " What d' you mean ? Don't 
 forget I 'm several years behind the local language." 
 
 " Of course," said Holson. " I forgot. Well, put 
 your gladdest clothes on this afternoon and let me show 
 you the dotage of our little town. Everybody will be 
 glad to see you ; it 's such a pleasure to find some one 
 now-a-days that you can surprise." 
 
 By five o'clock John was being surprised and making 
 no secret of it. The gilded room and the gilded flunkies 
 of a cafe chantant, Americanized and raised to the nth 
 power, the odor of wines, cocktails, and scented ciga- 
 rettes and, above all, the well-dressed throng of excited 
 dancers twined in the eccentric movements of the hey- 
 day of the shake-your-shoulders rag, hit him in the very 
 pit of the emotions and made him gasp for his mental 
 balance. He remembered how shocked he had been 
 at his first initiation to the American waltz, apologized 
 to Joan in his mind, and laughed out loud. 
 
 " Some leg-show, eh ? " said Holson, watching John's 
 surprise with satisfaction. " Look at old Mrs. Dunnel. 
 Sixty, if she's a day. I tell you, Bogardus, nobody 
 had any idea of the physical vitality of our old Puritan 
 stock till the rag hit New York. Come on over. I 
 want you to meet her daughter." 
 
 Holson introduced John to Miss Geraldine Dunnel, 
 but managed, as many men do, to give the impression 
 that he was presenting the girl for inspection. It was
 
 274 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 as though he said, " Well, what do you think of her ? " 
 and stood by, intently watching for an unconscious 
 verdict. 
 
 Miss Dunnel interested John until he learned that 
 she was merely an index-card to a type. She was small 
 but beautiful in the manner of a cameo. Her contours 
 were all faintly defined but clear, her hands and feet 
 exquisitely formed, her face alight but hard. She paid 
 no attention to what was being said, kept her eyes fixed 
 on the band, and the moment it struck up her whole 
 body twitched. She rose and literally fell toward Hoi- 
 son. He caught her and they moved away. 
 
 " Young man," said Mrs. Dunnel, " don't you 
 dance?" 
 
 John jumped in his chair. " No-no," he stammered. 
 
 Mrs. Dunnel raised one expressive shoulder and half 
 turned from him. John looked at her curiously. The 
 fever in her eyes was the selfsame fever as shone in the 
 faces of the dancers, only it looked half-starved. He 
 felt for her as one feels sorry for a drug-fiend cut off 
 from supplies. " I wish I did," he murmured con- 
 ciliatingly, but promptly regretted his overture when 
 she sprang to her feet and said resolutely, " Come on. 
 I '11 teach you."
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 WHEN Holson, driving his own car, drew up at 
 the curb before the hotel early on Sunday 
 morning he found John ready and waiting, with Muno- 
 Muno standing in the background looking sad even 
 beyond his usual depression. " Is that the heathen ? " 
 asked Holson. "What's the matter with him? He 
 looks as if he 'd never seen a league game in his life. 
 Smile, Sambo. Show your teeth." 
 
 " Poor devil," said John. " You don't know how it 
 makes him feel to have me leave him. He can't speak 
 a word of English and he does n't dare go ten steps 
 from the hotel alone." 
 
 " Bring him along," said Holson, promptly. " Put 
 him in the back seat to keep it from flopping over on 
 us." 
 
 The car made slow progress until it had crossed the 
 ferry and climbed the Jersey heights, but once on the 
 Boulevard, Holson began to let her out and on the long, 
 straight stretch across the flats they were doing a com- 
 fortable forty miles an hour when they struck a dust 
 pocket. " Is he there yet ? " asked Holson as they 
 landed from the bump. 
 
 John glanced back at Muno-Muno. " He 's there, 
 all right, but his hat 's gone and his teeth are chatter- 
 
 ing." 
 
 275
 
 276 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 " Tell him to wrap himself in the rug if he 's cold." 
 
 John pulled the rug from its rail and threw it at 
 Muno-Muno. The boy spread it over his knees and 
 drew it higher and higher, his glassy eyes fixed im- 
 movably on the back of his master's head. He never 
 glanced at the landscape tearing by. Presently he be- 
 gan to wrap himself in the rug from the waist up. 
 
 The car, speeding south, passed through city, town, 
 and village with a fine adjustment of speed that spoke 
 eloquently of Holson's personal acquaintance with the 
 local foibles of the police ; consequently he was puzzled 
 to find that everybody he met turned and stared and that 
 the people were even lined up in the villages and wait- 
 ing. 
 
 " Somebody must of yelled, ' Car coming ! over the 
 telephone," muttered Holson, and a moment later swore 
 as a motor-bike constable ranged up alongside and hailed 
 him. 
 
 " Well," said Holson, trying his best to look pleasant. 
 " What is it ? Are you afraid I '11 catch up to a fu- 
 neral ? " 
 
 " It ain't yer speed this time," said the constable, 
 turning a deep red, " but what are ya carrying? " He 
 jerked his head toward the tonneau. 
 
 Neither Holson nor John had looked' back for many 
 miles. They did so now and their jaws dropped. 
 Muno-Muno, completely enveloped head and all but 
 especially head, after the fashion of Africa feeling a bit 
 cold, was sitting cross-legged in the exact center of the 
 back seat as impassive and awe-inspiring a column of 
 mystery as the wife of Lot after the transformation.
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 The car had come to a stop just in front of a cigar 
 store, the village center of leisure and gossip, and was 
 soon surrounded by an interested throng. 
 
 " What is it, mister ? " whispered a freckle-faced 
 urchin, hoarsely. 
 
 " Muno-Muno ! " cried John. 
 
 ' Ya, baas," replied the pillar and gradually worked 
 an ebony head up through the tight folds of the blanket. 
 Muno-Muno stared absolutely impassive at the face of 
 his master. 
 
 " Gee ! " breathed a youngster, " c'n it say * papa ' 
 and ' mama ' ? " 
 
 " Say, mister, squeeze it again." 
 
 The constable stared nonplussed at the apparition 
 which somehow seemed more of a mystery than ever, 
 for there was something austere about Muno-Muno's 
 face that never moved people to outright laughter just 
 as itself was never moved to smiles. 
 
 Holson saw his chance and took it. " Look here," 
 he said testily to the officer, " this is the Maharawek 
 of Monomopotama and if he 's bothered again between 
 here and Atlantic City I '11 see that the British embassy 
 at Washington hears of it and you '11 get what 's com- 
 ing to you for butting into other people's business." 
 
 He threw in the clutch and the car impudently 
 spurted dust over the constable and the astonished by- 
 standers. " Say," he said to John as they gathered 
 way, " what d' you think of that for one out of the box ? 
 I 'm going to let her out a bit. I '11 bet he 's busy on the 
 telephone now getting us a clear road." 
 
 A few miles short of Atlantic City he turned at a
 
 2Y8 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 right angle and worked the car gingerly through two 
 miles of a bad woodroad coming out on a narrow high- 
 way of crushed shell, that meandered through a 
 vast area of salt marshes and finally emerged into a 
 second-growth forest. An hour later the car drew up 
 before the general store of one of those forgotten vil- 
 lages on the South Jersey coast that are just too far 
 away from transportation to share in the harvest of 
 summer boarders and summer money. Save for the 
 trees that line their broad main street, they are gray; 
 gray houses, weather-beaten and stung by the salt-sea 
 winds, gray shell roads, gray men, and gray women 
 living on misty gray incomes from gray boats, oysters, 
 and clams. 
 
 " We leave the car here," said Holson. " Can the 
 Maharawek carry the lunch-basket ? " 
 
 The village ran lengthwise of a long spit of sandy 
 loam that reached out into the sea, and was just too 
 short and too low to be dignified by the name of promon- 
 tory. On its south side lay the small-boat harbor and 
 what life there was faced that way; on its north 
 stretched sand dunes and the open sea. 
 
 It 'was toward the ocean that Holson led the way, 
 followed by John, who in turn was followed by Muno- 
 Muno carrying the large wicker lunch-basket on his 
 head. On the porch of the general store an old man, 
 apparently the only living inhabitant, stood pulling at a 
 long chin-beard and gazing after them. Holson, fol- 
 lowing a telephone wire, topped a dune and stood still 
 until John caught up to him. " There you are," he 
 said.
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 2Y9 
 
 Below them squatted a lonely little bungalow facing 
 out to sea. Except for the thin strand of a single wire 
 linking it to the general store it was entirely cut off 
 from the world. " Lonely enough for you ? " asked 
 Holson. 
 
 John nodded. Together they walked down and 
 around to the front of the house, where a broad, shady 
 veranda welcomed them. Holson took a key from his 
 pocket, opened the front door, and threw wide the shut- 
 tered windows, revealing a simple but charming in- 
 terior completely furnished in every detail but all man- 
 tled with the fine white dust of blown sand. 
 
 " Here you have one large living-room with open 
 fireplace," said Holson in the manner of a real-estate 
 agent, " and on this side a summer and on that side a 
 winter bedroom. The prevailing winds are from the 
 southwest in summer and from the northwest in winter, 
 or if they are n't they ought to be. This way, sir, 
 you '11 find the model kitchenette opening on the right 
 into the suite of one room and one window, which seems 
 made to order for the Maharawek of What-was-it. 
 From this window you can see the outbuildings, wood- 
 and-coal shed, ice-house, and the etcetera. There 's a 
 two-by-four porch built out from the summer bedroom 
 which carries a shower-bath. When you want to lie 
 down and splash, there 's the whole Atlantic." 
 
 " That 's enough," said John, laughing. " I '11 take 
 the place. If I had the cash I 'd buy it." 
 
 " Foolish child," said Holson. " Never buy a toy 
 when you can rent it and throw it back when the paint 's 
 worn off."
 
 280 JOHN BOGAEDUS 
 
 They went back to the veranda and found that with 
 extraordinary rapidity Muno-Muno had unpacked the 
 lunch basket, unearthed a tablecloth, moved out a small 
 table, dusted it, and laid it for two. " Aikona flor, 
 baas," he said to John. 
 
 " Jiminy ! " cried Holson, " and I thought he was a 
 heathen! What '11 you take for him? What's he 
 saying ? " 
 
 John laughed again. " He 's apologizing because 
 there are no flowers." 
 
 They sat down to lunch in high spirits ; even the sad 
 face of Muno-Muno took on a sort of reflected bright- 
 ness as though something told him he was through with 
 hotels and alien fare. As Holson handed over to him 
 an entire surplus roast chicken and John said, " Muno- 
 Muno flca } volto amariha" a flicker of light, startlingly 
 expressive, shone in the black's eyes. 
 
 " Did you see that ? " asked Holson. " I '11 swear 
 you almost made him smile. Or was it the chicken ? 
 What were the mystic words ? " 
 
 " I just told him to stay here and that I 'd be back 
 to-morrow," said John. 
 
 For half an hour they sat lazily smoking, and when 
 Holson said regretfully, " Time we were moving," 
 John asked, " How did this place happen ? " 
 
 " There 's no mystery," said Holson. " I had an 
 aunt, a spinster, who was somehow left behind. What 
 she lacked in good looks she made up in brains. She 
 could see the day of woman coming and it made her so 
 sore to think that she 'd been born a generation or two 
 short of the golden age for bachelor maids that she grew
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 281 
 
 one of those lifelong New England grouches and delib- 
 erately turned her back on the world." 
 
 He jerked his head toward the village and waved his 
 hand at the open sea. " Poor old girl," he added after 
 a pause. " She called this place The Outlook." 
 
 "That won't do for me," said John. " I '11 just 
 twist the name around and call it The Lookout.' 5
 
 CHAPTER XXXV ; 
 
 JOHN" and Muno-Muno settled down in their new 
 life so evenly and so softly that the shock of the 
 radical change was almost completely absorbed. Every 
 week John would telephone for supplies to the general 
 store and when the packages came Muno-Muno would 
 receive them, open them, put them away, and use them 
 in absolute silence. 
 
 He was safari trained to cook, serve, wash, and to 
 steal on occasion for his master, never from him. He 
 had but one rule of life: to have everything ready be- 
 fore it was asked for. John knew when he sat down 
 to table that he would have one of six or seven well- 
 cooked dishes but he never knew which, and in that mild 
 surprise lies much of the pleasure of eating. 
 
 The purchasers of the Tot and Pot stories which, 
 by the way, had been published under a woman's name, 
 were eager to consider a new series. John wrote it, 
 but in between times turned his pen toward more seri- 
 ous matters. He was no exception to the writer breed. 
 From doing charming old-style fairy tales in words of 
 one syllable he turned to an essay on the sex-problem, 
 a subject about which he knew less from an American 
 point of view than the average washerwoman. He 
 signed it with his own name, kept it for three weeks, 
 
 read it, reread it, and burned it. For a fortnight he 
 
 282
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS- 283 
 
 thought hard and wrote nothing; then, as he sat one 
 hazy Indian summer afternoon on the top of a sand 
 dune, he fell to dreaming of cities he had seen. Sud- 
 denly an inspiration came to him. 
 
 He looked back intently at distant scenes. The tur- 
 moil of harbors, the rattle of traffic, the blare, the sweat, 
 and confusion of present life, all died away, and to his 
 undistorted vision rose each city eternally personal, de- 
 tached ; young, aging, or old, mostly feminine but occa- 
 sionally hard and masculine as the sterile slopes of An- 
 tafogasta or the rock of Aden. Here was something 
 he knew, something he could do ; lay bare the hearts of 
 cities, paint their aspirations, achievements or death 
 against the settings that God and man had given them. 
 Callao, Melbourne, and Sidney, Mozambique, Zanzibar, 
 and Singapore. The words sang to him, each a spur to 
 memory. To the essays of knowledge and love he be- 
 gan to write from that day he could sign his name un- 
 afraid. 
 
 John's new life was not entirely monastic; occasion- 
 ally the isolation of The Lookout palled upon him. 
 Southward he could not walk and his strolls in the oppo- 
 site direction showed him how skilfully the builder of 
 the bungalow had chosen her ground. Barely three 
 miles to the northward the beach was broken by salt 
 marshes that stretched as far as the eye could reach. 
 At such times John would give Muno-Muno the free- 
 dom of the hickory woodpile and of the living-room fire- 
 place, hire a buggy and a boy to drive it to the nearest 
 railway station, and make for the city where he would 
 stay for the few days it took to readjust and reconcile
 
 284 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 him to his exile. He went away eagerly; he always 
 came back gladly. 
 
 The winter cast an added gloom on the gloomy Muno- 
 Muno, who went about the house entirely encased in the 
 heaviest woolens John could buy; but with the first 
 warm breath of the early South Jersey spring, peace 
 began to return to his spirit and he shed garment after 
 garment in rapid succession until an equatorial day in 
 May found him sitting on the radiating sands, bare- 
 headed, clothed only in a loin-cloth, taking all the pun- 
 ishment the sweating, outraged sun could give and ask- 
 ing for more, almost with a smile. 
 
 On his excursions, John almost invariably met Hoi- 
 son either by appointment or by chance, for he had un- 
 consciously adopted the haunts of his friend and quite 
 as invariably Holson was in tentative possession of a 
 woman. He was forever discovering women, but for- 
 tunately the feminist curiosity that drove him usually 
 ignored types and fed on individuals. As a result his 
 subjects were generally interesting. He bore toward 
 each in turn not so much an air of possession as one of 
 doubt and inquiry. He was no miser. " Come see 
 what I 've found," was continually in his eyes if not on 
 his lips, followed by the inevitable question, " What do 
 you think of her ? " 
 
 John would sometimes readily go and see, sometimes 
 he would try to refuse, but it never got beyond trying, 
 for under his flippant exterior Holson was hard. He 
 was one of those pleasantly persistent men who seem to 
 yield continually but who in fact never surrender. 
 John found that he was not content merely to exhibit 

 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 285 
 
 women ; he liked to discuss them as well. Not nastily, 
 far from it ; but as though he mistrusted his own judg- 
 ment and wished to see them through others' eyes. 
 
 " Holson," said John one day, " why don't you 
 marry? You need it." 
 
 Holson stared at him. " Why don't you ? " he asked. 
 John stared back. They both stared gravely at each 
 other for half a minute and then Holson broke out, 
 "D'you really want me to tell you? When are you 
 going back to your own yard and sand-pile ? " 
 " To-morrow, if you '11 run me down." 
 " I will," said Holson, " and I '11 stay over night. 
 Perhaps I '11 stay over two nights." 
 
 At The Lookout there was literally nothing to do but 
 walk and think or walk and talk. Summer was al- 
 ready waning and all Holson or John could stand in 
 the way of sea-bathing was a quick plunge in the morn- 
 ing and another after their afternoon walk. In the 
 evening they left the doors and windows open but had 
 a fine log fire to take off the chill and to look at. 
 
 " Great thing, a fire," said Holson, pensively. " If 
 I was a poet I would n't be forever writing, f Spring, O 
 Spring ! ' I 'd write nothing but open fires and what 
 you see in 'em. Watch it kindle and smoke as though 
 it 's in two minds which way it will go, then take hold 
 and burn with a gorgeous flame, then glow steadily for 
 a long time, and then turn gray. Just like a man, eh ? " 
 John nodded. " But I don't like to see a fire go out ; 
 do you ? " He called Muno-Muno and told him to put 
 in a new back log. 
 
 " No," said Holson. " I suppose it 's because we 're
 
 286 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 young or youngish. I 'm just going to touch thirty. 
 How old are you ? " 
 
 " Thirty-two," said John. 
 
 " You know that aunt I told you about," said Holson 
 after a pause. " Well, she was a wise one, all right. 
 When she said a thing you could tell she 'd waited and 
 watched a lot before she let it out. One time she 
 turned on me and said, ' Jack, marry young ; after 
 thirty a man marries with his head unless he waits for 
 his dotage/ I just laughed. A thing like that does n't 
 impress you at first." 
 
 John frowned into the fire. " I wonder if it '& true," 
 he said. 
 
 " Well," said Holson, " I guess it used to be. But 
 it 's a darned sight easier to say ' marry young ' than 
 it is to do it now-a-days. There was a kid I used to 
 play with and I 'd have married her along with my col- 
 lege dip. if she had n't died two years before I got it. 
 Even so, I did n't think of her as having hit me espe- 
 cially hard and I looked forward to finding some one 
 to tie to, but I found myself measuring the candidates 
 up against her and before I knew it three years had 
 gone over and the bunch of fellows that had mixed mar- 
 riage with graduation were getting their divorces." 
 
 " Not all of them, I hope," said John, smiling. 
 
 " No," said Holson, " not all, but enough to make 
 you think and think hard. I tell you the younger gen- 
 eration has to marry with its head before it 's thirty, 
 and from what I 've seen the head is n't up to the job. 
 I 've seen my crowd try all sorts : city ingenues and 
 three-season girls, two or three choruses and one leading
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 287 
 
 lady, and even the unspoiled country brand. Only one 
 of the last but it 's a prize sample. Poor old Mars- 
 ten!" 
 
 " Marsten ? " repeated John. The name seemed 
 vaguely familiar. 
 
 " Sure," said Holson. " Charlie Marsten. You 
 did n't know him. He was Yale and one of the finest 
 fellows that ever stepped. Full of the old Nick, but 
 he had a head on his shoulders and came into lots of 
 money he did n't need. Turned from the hot-house in- 
 genues that were after him and married a simple coun- 
 try maid. Joan, Joan Something-or-other." 
 
 John started in his chair and leaned forward. He 
 tapped out his pipe. " What 's become of them ? " he 
 asked. " Why have n't you ever run me up against 
 them?" 
 
 " For the simple reason," said Holson, " that the fair 
 Joan queens it in realms far above yours and mine, 
 and Charlie Well, no one sees Charlie for more 
 than a minute at a time. He 's a director in half a 
 dozen big things and in a dozen small ones. To look at 
 him he 's older than his father was when he died and 
 the last time I ran into him I said, ' Charlie, why don't 
 you shoot yourself ? ' and smiled so he could n't get 
 huffy." 
 
 " And what did he say ? " asked John. 
 
 " Well," said Holson, " it is n't the sort of thing to 
 repeat but he said, ' Jack, if she 'd only take time out 
 to have a kid I 'd stand the racket and would n't give a 
 damn.' " 
 
 After a pause John said, " I think your special cross-
 
 288 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 section of life has struck a rotten spot in the national 
 plank. You can't make me believe that there aren't 
 lots of girls with simple hearts and simple ways that can 
 love life just because they love some ordinary man. 
 That sort of thing is fundamental. It can't die out." 
 
 " Of course there are," said Holson, " but the ones 
 that are n't buried are n't labeled ; that 's my trouble. 
 I tell you there 's something the matter somewhere. 
 I 'm no psychological wizard but it seems to me it 's 
 got something to do with chastity, and when I say chas- 
 tity I don't mean the irreducible minimum that Elise 
 means when she says, ' I 'm straight honest ! ' 
 after you Ve kissed her, fondled her all over, and dan- 
 gled her on your knees. Why, if you '11 believe me, the 
 kid I told you about would jump and say it made 
 her burn all over if I laid a finger on her. She had 
 an idea that her person, just the bloom on it, was as 
 precious as sapphires and pigeon-blood rubies ! As for 
 my cross-section of life, you can't look around farther 
 than you can see, can you? However, I haven't 
 stopped looking. Have you ? " 
 
 " I don't know," said John, and from that day began 
 to think of marriage as a thing in itself and not as the 
 incidental culmination of a love affair. Was it true 
 that he was getting too old to marry ? Was n't life 
 without marriage a sort of premature death ? Was n't 
 all passion vile that did n't justify itself by creation ? 
 How does a man set out to marry before it 's too late ? 
 
 He looked back and reviewed his own life. Had he 
 missed any chances ? Surely not in Joan ; Holson's un- 
 conscious news had proved that. He thought of Pau-
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 289 
 
 line and remembered the sudden barrier that had shut 
 her from him. He looked farther and farther and a 
 faint despair seized him, a sadness born of thoughts of 
 the inevitable steps of the past that cannot be retraced. 
 For days his spirit was mute ; life was mute. He was 
 too far away from it. Here neither those who were 
 saved by the sins and the sufferings of others nor those 
 who lifted themselves through their own sin and suffer- 
 ing could touch him. He grew restless, and when win- 
 ter drew near closed up The Lookout and taking Muno- 
 Muno with him sailed for the West Indies. 
 
 No choice could have been more unhappy, for those 
 lovely isles are but a tomb, a tomb of the whites that 
 ruled there once, then fought for a foothold, that finally 
 were ruled in turn, and to-day are but a crumbling 
 husk of a race caught and devoured like a tree in a cruel 
 parasitic grip; racial conquest at its worst, victory in 
 terms of guinea pigs. It was a combination of a sordid 
 atmosphere and Paradise. John more than once was 
 seized upon by ignoble desires. He felt himself abased 
 and fled from island to island and finally back to his 
 retreat, never so glad before at a return.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 OI^CE more John's thoughts turned to introspec- 
 tion. What was life to him? Where did he 
 stand ? He could see that he had chosen well in hiding 
 himself away at The Lookout. At least he had saved 
 himself from the treadmill whirl that held Holson even 
 while it repelled him. He could look back now with a 
 clearer gaze than ever before, because he knew what he 
 was looking for. He was seeking that thread in the 
 varied strands of his life that stood most for perma- 
 nency and he recognized it at last in his writing. Here 
 was a thing that was intimately his, that had grown as 
 he had grown, and that rightly nurtured might become 
 more than a mere staff of life, might grow into a bul- 
 wark and a continuing source of youth. 
 
 As he pondered he suddenly realized that his writing 
 was a bigger thing to him than he had suspected, that it 
 lay near his heart. Heretofore he had looked upon it 
 as a diversion, a sort of stop-gap; now he turned def- 
 initely from dilettanteism as a man turns from trifles 
 to a red round of beef, sought his weaknesses, found his 
 limitations, and bent his efforts toward wiping them 
 out He was entranced by the power of words, their 
 power to evade, but once seized, to grip a flower, a 
 heart, or a thought, and hold it eternally fragrant, puls- 
 ing or ringing on the printed page. 
 
 290
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 291 
 
 Then came the war. It burst upon him in one big 
 mouthful of news from the grocery boy. He could not 
 believe it. All his life long he had heard that this war 
 was bound to happen; all his life long he had heard 
 that Austria-Hungary was nothing but a bomb with, its 
 fuse trailing loose-ended in the Balkans, looking for a 
 spark ; all his life long he had said to himself, " It won't 
 happen in my day. I '11 never see it." And now 
 it had come. 
 
 There is a barbaric streak in the young and the near 
 young that always records a feeling of elation at news 
 of a catastrophe. It is a horrible thing to say but it is 
 true, that man instinctively loves best to hear of horror. 
 He has loved to hear of horror, of the mountainous 
 deaths of others, for thousands of years ; it is only half 
 a dozen generations since he began to value the life of a 
 man above the market value of a suckling pig. 
 
 But it was to no such primitive source that John 
 traced his sudden exaltation. It seemed to him that 
 from Ari Frodi and Kolsegg Asbjornsson down to Cer- 
 vantes, Camoens, and Milton, the monuments of litera- 
 ture had been built not by men but by the times in 
 which they lived. It seemed to him that great books 
 sprang from the growing-pains of nations, from the tur- 
 moil of their ascendancy, from the rumbling echo of 
 their downfall, from any mighty issue that raised men 
 above the dead level of food and raiment, that reestab- 
 lished perspective, and made giants and heroes of those 
 who but now had cringed at petty trades. 
 
 In this mood he went to the city. The rest of The 
 Lookout had palled upon him. He wanted a rest from
 
 292 JOHN BOGAEDUS 
 
 rest, just as one turns to beer from an overdose of tonic. 
 But he did not wish to plunge into the city whirl him- 
 self so much as he craved the distraction of sitting for a 
 while where he could watch it. Consequently he was 
 not overjoyed at running into Holson at the very mo- 
 ment of entering the supper room where he had engaged 
 a small corner table. 
 
 There was a gleam in Holson's eyes that John had 
 seen so often before that he took a laughing chance shot 
 with, " Not to-night, old man. I 've come up to town 
 for a rest. I want to hear people chatter, but I don't 
 want to chatter myself." 
 
 " You 've guessed it," said Holson, smiling. 
 " There 's somebody I want you to meet. You 're 
 lucky," he continued amiably, as with hands in pockets 
 he accompanied his victim toward his table, " lucky to 
 have dropped in to-night." 
 
 John was not deceived by Holson's smile nor by the 
 apparent acquiescence in the fact that they were walk- 
 ing away from Holson's party. However, he was not 
 inclined to give in without a struggle. He sat down 
 at his own table with an air of finality, well acted. 
 Holson continued standing, smiling and unmoved. 
 
 John glanced half along the room to where a party 
 of seven were watching with amused impatience their 
 absentee host's imperturbable back. He realized that 
 in a moment some one would begin to look ridiculous 
 and it would n't be Holson. 
 
 " Look here," he said, " don't be an ass. You 're not 
 short a man. Clear out." 
 
 *' Uncle does n't count," said Holson, " You 'v
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 293 
 
 never met my uncle. We '11 put him between us. 
 He 's married, you know, up to the neck. That 's 
 one reason why I want you." 
 
 A woman, one of the seven, caught John's eye. A 
 tiny frown was just beginning to pucker her brow. He 
 suddenly knew that if he did not get up, and quickly, she 
 would walk out of the room. He saw it coming and 
 arose, almost with a motion of haste. 
 
 " Who 's- the lady that 's not merely dressed ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 Holson's smile brightened. " That 's the very one, 
 the one I want you to meet. Dora Tenable, you know. 
 Came over as understudy to Talleck's leading lady and 
 fell heir to the part. Sort of girl-woman. Interest- 
 ing. Everybody 's after her ; nobody gets her." 
 
 As he approached, John kept his eyes on Miss Tem- 
 ble. He saw the tiny frown clear from her brow and 
 good-nature return to her face.
 
 CHAPTEE XXXVII 
 
 IT was a merry party. By expectation Miss Temble 
 should have dominated it, but to everybody's sur- 
 prise it was Holson's uncle that assumed the scepter in 
 the end. His peculiar position between his nephew and 
 John drew the eye and at first threatened to make him 
 the butt of the talk. 
 
 " Have you been naughty ? " smilingly asked the 
 prettiest of the women, leaning across the table toward 
 the little man. " You look as if you 'd been interned." 
 
 " No war talk, please/' said Holson. " We 're all 
 as tired of it as we are of weather and for the same 
 reason. Any fool can tell you the sun 's shining or it 
 isn't." 
 
 " Not talk war ? " said a man heavily from the op- 
 posite side of the table. " We simply must. It 's all 
 I 've heard to-day." 
 
 " Well, let 's don't," said the prettiest woman gaily. 
 " We '11 just sit and watch each other eat." 
 
 "No, we won't," said Holson. "We'll talk mar- 
 riage. Uncle has n't been naughty but he 's been mar- 
 ried. What 's more, he 's still married." 
 
 Everybody looked at Holson's uncle in feigned or 
 actual commiseration, but he bobbed his head in cheerful 
 affirmation. 
 
 " Please let me do my share first," said the man across 
 the table. " What is marriage, after all ? " He im- 
 
 294
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 295 
 
 mediately subsided and turned his attention to soup and 
 a dish of salted almonds. 
 
 " Isolation," said the prettiest woman with a mis- 
 chievous glance at Holson's uncle. 
 
 " Make it insulation," said some one else. 
 
 " Double," said Holson, more from the habit of bridge 
 than from wit. 
 
 " You 're none of you even warm," said Miss Temble, 
 watching Holson's unperturbed uncle. " Let me try. 
 A voyage on an inland sea." Her low voice floated 
 clearly to the limits of the table but not beyond. 
 
 The uncle gave her a quick, bright glance. " Thank 
 you, my dear," he said simply. " A landlocked sea is 
 peaceful." 
 
 "Well, Uncle," said Holson, "you're the only 
 actually married person in this charming circle. Hear 
 us all and then play referee. Speak up, Bogardus, 
 Your turn. What 's marriage ? " 
 
 John fingered an olive absently. " I wish to God I 
 knew." 
 
 "What!" 
 
 "Traitor!" 
 
 " Say it again ! " 
 
 " Fact," said John, his face still absent and puzzled 
 as though he were back alone on the sands of The 
 Lookout, thinking over this very same knotty problem. 
 " If I only knew, I 'd marry." 
 
 " Or perhaps you would n't." 
 
 John shook his head. "No," he said, "one isn't 
 afraid of a certainty. Doubt is the single source of 
 fear."
 
 296 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 Miss Temble looked at him curiously. "That's 
 true," she said. " I should have liked to have said 
 that." 
 
 John turned half toward her. He felt an impulse 
 to stop and appraise her, but he suppressed it. " Life," 
 he went on, " holds only two finalities : marriage and 
 death. They are the only things we can't taste first." 
 
 " Not marriage," said some one. " You 're wrong 
 there. Lots of people taste it first." 
 
 " The exception that proves the rule is always over- 
 worked," said John with an expression of distaste. 
 " You all know that in practice it 's absolutely true that 
 men such as we are can't go up to women such as are 
 here and say, l Let 's try it first.' It would n't be fair. 
 Parity is too far off." 
 
 " But it 's on the way," said the prettiest woman. 
 " I don't mean vile freedom, exactly, but that we '11 all 
 live more or less a la carte before long." 
 
 " Never ! " said Holson's uncle, suddenly, his bright 
 eyes sweeping the circle and drawing every gaze to his 
 shining face. " You 've all had your say," he went on, 
 " and you 've made me referee. Now, listen ! " 
 
 " Hear ! Hear ! " said Holson, under his breath. 
 
 " If it were a mere matter of chivalry," continued his 
 uncle, with a jerky little bow toward Miss Temble, " I 
 would give the prize to you. Thank God, marriage is 
 sometimes a voyage on a peaceful inland sea. But 
 we 're up against a matter of fact, not of chivalry. 
 After all, you 've every one given the same answer. In 
 varying terms, you 've all called marriage a restriction 
 a personal restriction."
 
 JOHN BOGAEDUS 297 
 
 "Well, is n't it?" 
 
 " No. It is n't a restriction and it is n't personal." 
 
 There were cries of protest from three different quar- 
 ters. " Not a restriction and not personal ! " exclaimed 
 the prettiest woman. " Why, those are two things that 
 it just certainly is ! " 
 
 " You 're blind, the lot of you," said the little man. 
 " Not blind, exactly, but bandaged." He paused, his 
 glance passing, a little troubled, from face to face as 
 though he strove to gage the measure of reception in the 
 minds behind the eyes that watched him. 
 
 " You all have the same idea of marriage," he went 
 on, " that it begins at the altar and ends in the courts, 
 except in the rare cases when you think it binds affini- 
 ties. Just think it out and you '11 see that true affini- 
 ties don't require the altar any more than they do di- 
 vorce. Neither does marriage. That 's why I say it 's 
 impersonal. Marriage isn't propped on individuals. 
 It stands alone and looms over the well- and the ill- 
 assorted like a rock. You can bruise yourself against j^ 
 it but you can't shake it. If the tenure of marriage de- I 
 pended on affinities " 
 
 He broke off with a smile and held out one pudgy 
 hand with fingers extended. " Here, look back on life 
 as you 've seen it and count the affinities you 've known 
 on the fingers of my hand." 
 
 "Do you mean," said John, still playing with the 
 olive, " that if the men and women trooping out of a 
 theater paired off couple by couple, like the animals 
 coming out of the ark, the average success of marriage 
 would be just the same ? "
 
 v w 
 
 298 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 " The average success of marriage," said Holson's 
 uncle, " is a masterly phrase. It hits the nail of my 
 argument on the head. Such an arrangement as you 
 have illustrated would be the death-blow to many a 
 personal emotion. It would rob the world of many a 
 flash of divine fire. But the point is this. It would n't 
 even scratch the face of marriage." 
 
 " I don't believe it," said the prettiest woman. 
 
 " You reduce marriage to the proportions of a habit," 
 said some one else. 
 
 " Reduce ! " cried Holson's uncle. " Is there any- 
 thing stronger than habit ? But you 're not going to 
 drive me to a cliche. I refuse to call marriage a habit 
 and let it go at that. Bogardus was much nearer the 
 mark when he classed it as a finality. That 's it. An 
 element. An absorption, not an institution. Marriage 
 itself is unchanging, but the things we bring with us to 
 it" 
 
 The little man's eyes wandered from the faces before 
 him. He nodded his head slowly. " There 's the 
 hole rub," he went on. " The things we bring with 
 us to it. The garlands of purity, devotion, constancy, 
 or or tinsel, that individually we lay on its imme- 
 morial altar that's what counts. That's the whole 
 matter." 
 
 He brought his gaze back to the table, glanced quickly 
 around, and suddenly smiled. " Well, well," he said. 
 " Now you know, eh ? Now you know." 
 
 They all looked at him with grave but kindly eyes. 
 For the first time he seemed a trifle nervous, almost 
 embarrassed. " Jack," he said to his nephew, picking
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 299 
 
 up his glass and looking at it critically, " I don't want 
 this liqueur after all. There 's a gayer one that goes 
 better with the candle shades." 
 
 " I know, sir," said Holson, promptly. *' Mandarin." 
 
 When the party broke up John felt as though his 
 interest in Holson's uncle had cheated him out of Miss 
 Temble. He turned to her and spoke as if he had a 
 grievance. " D' you know I 've hardly spoken to you 
 nor you to me, and it 's all over ? Do give me one little 
 chance. Let me see you home." 
 
 " I 'm sorry but it 's impossible," said Miss Temble. 
 
 John felt a disproportionate shock of disappointment. 
 " I 'm sorry, too," he said, his eyes underlining each 
 word. 
 
 " You see, I 'm home already," said Miss Temble, and 
 smiled. 
 
 " Not really ! " cried John with a boyish laugh. 
 " That 's great. I 'm hanging out here myself." 
 
 " Good night, you two," called Holson with a wave 
 of his hand and disappeared, piloting his little uncle f 
 across the lobby. 
 
 Miss Temble led John to the elevator. " What floor 
 are you on ? " she asked. 
 
 " Fifth," he answered. 
 
 So am I." 
 
 They got out and walked down the hall together. 
 She stopped before a door and John reached out to throw 
 it open for her. He caught a glimpse of a private sit- 
 ting-room before he held out his hand to say good night. 
 
 Miss Temble brushed past him. " Come in," she 
 said. He followed her. After the slightest hesitation,
 
 300 JOHN BOGAKDTJS 
 
 he left the door open behind him. For a moment he 
 walked about not quite at ease. The room was not un- 
 lovely. Unlike most hotel rooms it had an air of con- 
 tinued habitation and it was as fragrant as a garden of 
 roses. Eoses were everywhere. Even the open fire- 
 place, long stranger to coals, had its ugliness made beau- 
 tiful by a mass of them. 
 
 Miss Temble looked from the open door to John and 
 back again. " Oh, you Americans ! " she laughed, with 
 a lifting of her shoulders. " You not only mind every- 
 body else's business but you insist on their minding 
 yours." 
 
 She reached out one slim foot and started the door. 
 A draft caught it and it closed with a bang. 
 
 " Did you hear it say damn ? " she asked. 
 
 John laughed. 
 
 Before the fireplace there was a great leather couch. 
 
 Miss Temble pointed to one end of it. " Sit down 
 
 there." She pushed a small table to his elbow. On it 
 
 fe there were cigarettes and matches and a silver ash tray 
 
 that was not of the hotel. 
 
 John held the cigarettes toward her but she shook her 
 head. " Not just now," she said. 
 
 k He lit one himself and settled back, his eyes fixed on 
 his hostess. The moment was propitious for apprais- 
 ing. She stood with one crooked elbow on the mantel 
 over the fireplace, her head propped on her hand. It 
 was a pose but John felt it was unconscious and found 
 it lovely beyond anything he had anticipated. 
 
 His gaze passed rapidly from the small head down the 
 line of beauty. The rounded grace of her neck, of her
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 301 
 
 shoulder, and of the long firm arm that hung at her 
 side challenged his eyes to linger, but they swept on, 
 eager to seize the whole of her slim, flowing body at a 
 glance. When his gaze reached her one visible foot, 
 daintily shod in satin, clad in silk, he sighed and then, 
 as though it had called his eyes, raised them to her face. 
 
 She was looking directly at him, her black eyes wide 
 open under the clear, arched line of her brows, but her 
 face was a mask. " How old am I ? " she asked, her 
 lips scarcely moving. 
 
 John did not think to lie. " Twenty-four," he 
 guessed without a smile. 
 
 Her head gave a playful toss. It was as though she 
 flicked the mask away. Her eyes brimmed over with 
 light. A smile broke the firm line of her lips. A dim- 
 ple burrowed suddenly at the side of her chin. She 
 clasped her hands and bent her shoulders toward him. 
 " And now ? " she asked with a merry shake of her head 
 that set the lights and shadows in her dark hair to 
 dancing. 
 
 " Now," said John, with a catch in his breath, 
 " you 're a child, just a child." His eyes filled with a 
 vague, a puzzled trouble. 
 
 Miss Temble straightened. Immediately she seemed 
 to stand midway between girl- and womanhood. 
 " That 's me as I should be," she said with just a shade 
 of wistfulness in her smile and in her voice. " I am 
 twenty to-day. Which do you like best ? " 
 
 " I like you both," said John, without a pause. " I 
 like you now. I like all of you."
 
 CHAPTEK XXXVIII 
 
 THE next afternoon John was having tea in Miss 
 Temble's sitting-room. A sudden peace had de- 
 scended upon him ; the ever-present war seemed to have 
 loosed its grip. He had forgotten it. He felt that if 
 he could only sit always watching Miss Temble, ab- 
 sorbed in the grace of her movements, so practised but 
 so unstudied, he might forget it forever. She was so 
 natural, not with the naturalness of youth but of ex- 
 perience, that from the first moment he had been alone 
 with her he had felt absolutely at ease. He could im- 
 agine her abashed, thrown out of poise by the merest 
 slight in a crowd, but never anything but sure and un- 
 hesitating when alone with a man. 
 
 He felt her beauty growing on him apace but he 
 was not frightened. " Do you know," he said, after a 
 silence broken only by the tinkle of tea-cups and the 
 striking of a match, " I have the funniest feeling that 
 soon I '11 be asking you, begging you, to marry me ? " 
 - " I thought you would," said Miss Temble, quietly, 
 " but Where 's doubt ? Did that dear little man 
 quite cure you of wanting to to taste marriage first ? " 
 
 John paid the tribute of a smile to her composure; 
 then he said gravely, " No, I don't think he did." 
 
 They sat in silence for a moment, then Miss Temble 
 said, " Are you quite foot-loose ? Quite your own mas- 
 ter, I mean ? " 
 
 302
 
 303 
 
 " As much as ever man was," said John. " A pad of 
 paper and a pen are my staff of life and I live in a lit- 
 tle cottage by the sea on the edge of a village to which 
 I am merely a name. Are you, too? Foot-loosej I 
 mean." 
 
 " Absolutely," said Miss Temble. " We closed our 
 season here last night." 
 
 There was another long pause. Miss Temble's eyes 
 fixed on John's face with a strange intensity. " You 
 see," she continued at last, " parity is not so far off as 
 you thought." 
 
 John started and rose slowly to his feet. He stared 
 at her. " What did you say ? " he asked. 
 
 " I said parity is not so far off as you thought," an- 
 swered Miss Temble, steadily. " It 's here. In this 
 room." 
 
 He turned and walked up and down before her, his 
 hands in his pockets, his eyes on the floor. Presently 
 he stopped and faced her again. " I 'm thirty-three 
 years old. I 've lived a lot. I have n't been altogether 
 a saint." 
 
 Miss Temble nodded. For a moment the old look, 
 old in knowledge, came into her face. " I have n't been 
 altogether a saint, either," she said. 
 
 John looked at her keenly. " I wonder," he said, 
 " do you mean by that all that I meant ? " 
 
 She threw out her hands in an impatient gesture. 
 " Yes, I meant everything." 
 
 Suddenly John found that his breath was coming 
 short and fapt. He looked at Miss Temble and saw 
 that she, too, was breathing fast. There was a rich
 
 304 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 glow in her cheeks, such a glow as only dark women who 
 never grow old can boast. 
 
 " Do you "Would you " he began and stopped 
 as Miss Temble slowly raised her hand. She said noth- 
 ing, but it was as though she had told him aloud to think 
 before he spoke. 
 
 He started walking up and down again, his brow puck- 
 ered in a puzzled frown. His footsteps, muffled by the 
 soft carpet, seemed to say, " Why not, why not, why 
 not?" 
 
 Love had passed him by. What had he to lose? 
 What might he not gain? Only now he realized how 
 desperately he had longed of late for a touchstone 
 wherewith he might test the mystery of marriage. 
 Here it was. It had come to his hand. 
 
 He glanced down at Miss Temble. She was not 
 watching him. She was sitting very still. When 
 some one at the supper table had said, " Lots of people 
 taste it first," he had winced at the vulgar visions the 
 words had conjured. Now his downward glance reas- 
 sured him. Vulgarity and Miss Temble were beyond 
 simultaneous conception. Her note was fineness. She 
 was fine in every contour, fine in the quality of her in- 
 ward as of her outward person. 
 
 He sat down beside her, lifted her hand from her 
 knee, and held it lightly between his own. " Coming 
 down to my little place will be like dropping out of the 
 firmament for you," he said. " You can't be a star for 
 the multitude down there ; you '11 have to be just a hu- 
 man being. Can you stand it ? " 
 
 She looked up at him and something in her face, so
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 305 
 
 near, so warm, so alive, struck him as it had before with 
 a vague, a troubled fear. 
 
 " Only," she said, " if you and I start from to-day 
 not from any yesterday. Seal your past as I shall seal 
 mine. Promise. And then " She clenched her 
 hands. " Then let 's try to blot yesterdays out of mind. 
 Shall we ? Let 's be just human beings. Why, that 's 
 just what I want. Just to be a human being for a 
 while, and play." 
 
 There were depths of longing beneath the lightness 
 of her words and voice. John felt the hidden sadness 
 of her heart. He reached out his hand and touched her. 
 " I promise," he said. 
 
 She sprang to her feet. In the flash of an eye she 
 was gay. She whirled across the floor in a merry but 
 intricate step; then stopped, clapped her hands and 
 laughed. " To-morrow ? " she cried. " No, nor the 
 day after. But the very day after that. Now tell me 
 where it is, how it is, and when will I get there if I start 
 very early on the very day after the day after to-mor- 
 row ! " She caught her breath and laughed again and 
 John laughed with her. With the length of the room 
 between them they nodded good-by. 
 
 Two days later John met her at the nearest station 
 with a buggy which he drove himself and a spring- 
 wagon driven by a boy for the luggage, and took her 
 to The Lookout. They left the buggy at the grocery 
 store and walked the last quarter mile through the sand 
 in silence. John was uneasy but from the moment 
 Miss Temble reached the house, flew through it like a 
 playful breeze and out again to the broad veranda, he
 
 306 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 caught her mood and lived it with her. She glanced 
 around and out to sea and her whole body gave a rip- 
 ple of content. 
 
 " I 'm just Dora, now," she said, sighing with happi- 
 ness. 
 
 He put his arms around her and his blood surged at 
 the firm contact of her body. " Do you want me to ? " 
 he asked, with the ardor of a boy. She nodded and held 
 up her lips to his. 
 
 A moment later she was peering over John's shoulder 
 but clinging to him. " What is that ? " she asked. 
 " Why, it 's a live black man ! " 
 
 John looked around and followed her gaze. The de- 
 jected figure of Muno-Muno, stripped to the waist, was 
 seated on a distant sand-dune facing out to sea. He had 
 not heard them come. His head was fallen forward be- 
 tween drooping shoulders and his whole pose seemed to 
 breathe despair. 
 
 " That 's Muno-Muno, my servant," said John. 
 
 " What is it ? " said Dora, facing about but drawing 
 John's arm around her. " What is it about him ? " 
 
 " I know what you mean," said John. " Poor devil ! 
 His life is forfeit in his own country. He can never 
 go back." 
 
 " Poor, poor boy," said Dora, the tears springing to 
 her eyes. 
 
 John stared at Muno-Muno. In a measure he was 
 the key to the present situation. He was like a black 
 finger of destiny. Without him their stage of isolation 
 could scarcely have been set; with him, all was made 
 plain, indicated.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX 
 
 THEY had their supper on the veranda. Muno 
 Muno, fully clothed, cooked for them, served 
 them, and anticipated all their wants as though they two 
 were one and that one his familiar master. Not even 
 with his eyes did he question. Dora could scarcely take 
 her gaze from his face. Never before had she seen one 
 who bore in his carriage and countenance the imprint 
 of a single preoccupation, the deep brand of one per- 
 petual thought. Even if John had not told her, this 
 boy's face would have said to her eyes and to her heart, 
 " I am exiled. I am exile ! " 
 
 It was a still, a breathless evening, but with the ris- 
 ing moon there sprang up a breeze that flapped the 
 fringes of the veranda awning and made them call and 
 beckon impatiently to the two sitting within, " Come 
 out ! Come out ! " 
 
 John rose. " Let 's walk on the sands." 
 
 Dora glanced down at her satin slippers. " Wait a 
 minute," she said, and ran to her room. 
 
 Five minutes passed before John felt her presence 
 in the doorway. He turned and started as though a 
 stranger had suddenly come upon him. Dora had 
 changed from her frock into a short skirt, a very short 
 skirt. With it she wore a cherry colored blouse, open 
 at the throat. She had changed her slippers for shoes 
 and had let her hair tumble down just any way and 
 
 307
 
 308 JOHN BOGAEDUS 
 
 tied it at the back of her neck with a great black bow. 
 Her eyes were sparkling with a mixture of fun and 
 elfish shyness. Her moist lips were half parted and her 
 bosom rose and fell as if she were panting a little from 
 her haste. 
 
 John felt a lump rise in his throat. He strode for- 
 ward, caught both her hands in his, and buried his face 
 in them. " My dear," he said, "my dear." His lips 
 trembled so that the words were barely audible. 
 
 Dora gently freed one hand and laid it on his 
 shoulder. " Come on, boy," she said. 
 
 To John and Dora, thrown absolutely upon their own 
 resources, a concentration of life was possible beyond all 
 relation to time. In a week they lived through all the 
 sensations of a normal year. They played the whole 
 gamut of erotic emotion as though they were racing the 
 days to their world's end. 
 
 " Are you happy ? " 
 
 " Never so happy in all of life." 
 
 Question and answer were too often on their lips and, 
 asked and answered, left them chilled frightened, as 
 though, sitting but now in sunshine, they awaked to find 
 themselves under a dark shadow. 
 
 They thought that they were testing marriage, but the 
 fevered existence that they lived was as little like mar- 
 riage as a concentrated essence is like the fragrance of 
 flowers in a field. Life pays sometimes in years and 
 lometimes in moments. It was paying in moments now, 
 moments that lifted them on the wings of the morn- 
 ing to the heights where the heart soars never alone only 
 to plunge them thence in dizzying downward swoops
 
 JOHN BOGAEDUS 309 
 
 into the black vale of regret for the things that had 
 been. And yet they dreamed. 
 " My Dora." 
 
 " My boy." 
 
 There were things that John learned, a thousand 
 things that he learned. A night came when they sat in 
 the dark on a couch on the veranda and he held her in 
 his arms. She lay across his knees, her head pillowed in 
 the hollow of his arm. " Won't you get tired ? " she 
 asked. " Tell me when you get tired." 
 
 He laughed. "I could hold you like this till the 
 morning." 
 
 Silence fell on them, a long, long silence; then sud- 
 denly, she gasped, " Darling, I 'm c-crying ! " 
 
 He lifted her face to his lips. Her cheeks were wet, 
 flooded with tears. A lump was in his throat. " Dora ! 
 Oh, Dora ! Don't cry ! " 
 
 " But I vf-want to cry ! " 
 
 And so he learned that there are recurrent days when 
 all a woman asks of life are tears and the nursing of 
 loving arms, days that brand her eternally feminine and 
 demand love and the passionless caress as simply and as 
 desperately as ever babe clutched at its mother's breast. 
 At such moments of absolute intimacy there was for 
 them no past and no future, only the present and peace 
 and a great content. Surely they two were indivisible, 
 inseparable, veritably one ! 
 
 However sublime a moment, in time it is but a fco- 
 ment still, subject as the most throbbing life to the chop- 
 ping shears that are our common lot. John drank liis 
 brimming cup of exaltation as fast as it would fill but
 
 310 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 ever found it shallow. His glorious moments were 
 strung like pearls upon a string; between each two a 
 shadow, a chasm. More than once it was on his lips to 
 ask Dora to unseal the past, but he knew that to-day, 
 now, there were things she dared not tell because he 
 dared not hear. 
 
 He could make himself dumb to their covenant of 
 silence, but not blind ; so, even while he nursed her with 
 infinite tenderness, visions of the things untold came 
 like the chopping shears and filled him with poignant 
 rage for the long road without returning that she had 
 traveled before she reached the haven of his arms. 
 
 " Haven, yes, haven ! " cried his aching heart but his 
 head answered pitilessly, " Port of call ! " For it is in 
 the power of no woman who has used the hearts of many 
 men as ports of call to quite lock her past from sight. 
 She may never speak of it, never even think of it, she 
 may deceive the multitude all the time and herself part 
 of the time, but sooner or later the slip comes when an 
 understanding ear is by ; some phrase, some single word, 
 standing out from all other words to the knowing hearer 
 because it is a branding shibboleth that not only pins 
 the speaker to the tarnished world but illumines the 
 very path, high or low, in which she once walked. 
 
 Once Dora used such a word, playfully, laughingly, 
 as it had been used to her, and John's whole body stiff- 
 ened. " Why," she cried, looking at his face gone sud- 
 denly white and set, " what 's the matter ? " 
 
 He gripped himself and said earnestly, " Darling, 
 never use that word again." 
 
 " Why ? " she demanded, amazed, still laughing.
 
 JOHN BOGAEDUS 311 
 
 Then she traced the little word, so innocent in itself, 
 back and back until suddenly it was her face that went 
 white and set. Her bosom rose and fell rapidly and she 
 gasped, " I am so young, so ignorant and you you 
 hidden away here in your land's end of a little house, 
 you know so much. Oh, you have frightened me," and 
 she began to cry as he had never seen her cry before, 
 deep sobs that tore up from her heart and aged her face. 
 
 In such moments of absolute distress love can forget 
 any sin however heinous, and John loved Dora ; not with 
 the fringe of his senses, as he had loved Joan, not with 
 the adoration and the awe with which his whole being 
 had bowed down before Pauline, but with his heart, just 
 with his heart. So he quickly banished his own hurt, 
 took her in his arms and nursed her, talked to her as he 
 would to a child and she sobbed herself to sleep, her face 
 against his breast. 
 
 In the long still hour that followed a new fear was 
 born to John. Twice, thrice, he had felt it vaguely, 
 tried to seize it and failed. Now, in this hour of si- 
 lence, it appeared before him; at first, mistily as a 
 wandering wraith, then clearer and nearer until his eyes 
 fastened and fixed as on some sinister apparition. Yes, 
 this was the thing that had been hanging on the outskirts 
 of his mind. To just such a child-woman might Janice 
 have grown in a buffeting world. 
 
 At the thought he felt no elation, only horror. That 
 such a thing might be seemed to him so horrible that he 
 attributed the very thought of it to a fevered brain. 
 His brain was playing him tricks. He had been think- 
 ing too much, too morbidly, of Dora's past. And yet
 
 312 JOHN BOGAEDUS 
 
 Just so old and young might Janice be, just so dark 
 of hair and eyes and brows, just so might her gaiety be 
 tinged with sorrow, wistfulness, and irremediable pain. 
 As for her name, how many women attaining the stage 
 by the via dolorosa ever clung to the names of their 
 innocence ? 
 
 The new doubt seized on him, grew into a great fear. 
 What was it he had said, the first thing he had said to 
 draw Dora's eyes and thoughts upon him ? " Doubt is 
 the single source of fear." And she had said that it 
 was true, he had thought it was true, yet here was a 
 fear that was greater than doubt. 
 
 It would be so easy to dispel doubt and so sensible. 
 He could ask her to break their covenant, just to tell 
 him the meaningless skeleton of her life, where she was 
 born, where she had lived, were her people alive ? She 
 might refuse, for she had been steadfast to that cove- 
 nant. There was a hardness in her, a hardness gained 
 of life, that told him she could be firm as rock and a 
 shrewdness, too a shrewdness that would jeer at any 
 clumsy trap. 
 
 She might refuse. But what if she did ? Could he 
 not await some still moment when her thoughts were 
 far away and then say, " Janice ! Janice ! " 
 
 He shivered and Dora awoke. For a second her eyes 
 were dazed as though she had quite forgotten where she 
 was; then she smiled, lifted her bare arms slowly 
 around his neck, drew him down, kissed him on the 
 mouth. 
 
 " Ah, no ! " cried his heart. " Cling to doubt ! It 's 
 such a silly doubt, but cling to it."
 
 CHAPTEE XL 
 
 SHADOWS and darkness cannot fill all of life nor 
 even dim the present happy moment. There were 
 whole days when John and Dora were rocked to a 
 dreamy sleep in the arms of an absolute content. For- 
 gotten was the war, forgotten the whole world. Muno- 
 Muno was forbidden to use the papers to light the fire. 
 They were set neatly in a corner in a pile that grew and 
 grew. Gray and sullen it looked, like some bit of 
 creeping masonry crawling upward toward its own day. 
 It stood in the house of folly like an emblem of aban- 
 doned sanity. 
 
 The course of love itself was not all even. Dora and 
 John quarreled more than once, sometimes prettily, 
 purposely, but sometimes desperately, with an earnest- 
 ness that sank deep and left a wound. These graver 
 tiffs had but a single source ; they arose invariably with 
 Dora from some imagined or careless slight on the part 
 of John. Did he so much as hesitate in rushing to pick 
 up her handkerchief, move her chair, or hold her jacket, 
 anger would flame in her cheeks, her eyes would grow 
 hard and she would say, " Tired of me ? Say so if you 
 like, for I got there first. I 'm sick of you. It 's time 
 I went and I 'm going." 
 
 At first he believed her and his belief threw him into 
 a panic. He could not understand that her defense was 
 
 313
 
 314 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 as old as unhallowed love, the quick rush to arms of a 
 woman who seeks to save herself from the shame of 
 desertion by a lover. His panic always brought her 
 back to good-humor quicker than any words could have 
 done, but when he came to reason out the fear behind 
 her sudden rages, he could not feel nor feign alarm and 
 then he could only calm her by long and passionate pro- 
 test. 
 
 Even so, their weeks together were a time of glory. 
 They were like a breathless journey through mountain- 
 ous country. There were storm-clouds and gashes of 
 lightning and there were dark valleys; but then, too, 
 there were sunshine and the high, windswept peaks that 
 limit the range of man's emotion. For these, regret 
 could never be. 
 
 Some women of charm grip by a single magnetism, a 
 predominating force that dwarfs and hides its accom- 
 panying faults, but Dora gripped and held a heart by 
 her diversity. To see her in the evening rigged out 
 through caprice in some diaphanous and exquisite gown 
 was to see a goddess of Mammon straying through 
 pastoral scenes, but to see her short-skirted, slim-legged, 
 her hair loose about her little head and upon her 
 shoulders, seized at the back of the neck by a big black 
 bow, her eyes dancing with fun, was to see Naiad desert- 
 ing brooks, fountains, lakes, and wells to haunt forever 
 the two pools of a man's eyes. 
 
 To hear her strike a single keynote on the piano and 
 then pour out her unaided voice in a veritable whirl of 
 mounting song made one dream of open country and a 
 climbing lark, but to lie with one's head in her lap, look
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 315 
 
 up, and see her crouching forward, her brow puckered 
 in a terrible frown, and hear her chant in a hoarse voice 
 the sanguinary words of what she called " The Cockney 
 Lullaby," was to try desperately to hold one's laughter 
 and suddenly burst in the attempt. 
 
 John never heard the end of that old, old ballad and 
 never knew its proper name, but as long as he was to 
 live the memory of its first verse as sung by Dora was 
 but another name for laughter hanging on the verge of 
 tears. 
 
 " My nime it is Sam 'All, chimbley sweep, 
 My nime it is Sam 'All, chimbley sweep, 
 My nime it is Sam 'All; 
 An' I 've robbed both great an' small 
 An' said to one an' all, 
 DAMN YOUB EYES ! " 
 
 Had John been less of a man than he was, had he 
 even been virgin soil to woman, Dora would have held 
 him body and soul and they would have rushed together 
 down the old road to utter satiety and ruin. But he 
 was too broad, too many-sided for such a fate. He 
 lived in fever but not in delirium. Even at the height 
 of their folly his head was clear enough to make his 
 spirit fight for a higher level. There was something 
 within him steadily calling, telling him that no great 
 world is ever bounded by the circle of a woman's arms. 
 
 " Dora," he said one morning with sudden decision, 
 " I 've got to work." 
 
 She stared at him. 
 
 " Come over here," he said. " I 'm going to fix you 
 and you 're going to read. That 's a good girl." 
 
 He made her comfortable on a couch in a corner of
 
 316 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 the room with many pillows at her back and a book in 
 her hands. She pouted her lips at him and he kissed 
 them ; then he went to his writing table, laid out all his 
 paraphernalia, an ash tray, pipes, a tobacco pouch, 
 sponge-cup and sponge, a dictionary because he was a 
 miserable speller, matches, a fountain pen, and a beauti- 
 fully white and alarmingly blank pad of paper. Before 
 this array he sat down, frowned, looked at Dora, and 
 puffed up a vast cloud of smoke to hide her from his 
 sight. 
 
 " I wish you would n't smoke a pipe, dear," she said 
 without raising her eyes from her book. " It makes 
 your mustache smell so." 
 
 John laid his pipe aside, got out a box of cigarettes, 
 and lit one. Immediately the color rose in Dora's 
 cheeks. " Are n't you forgetting me, dear ? " she asked 
 in her hardest voice. 
 
 John sprang up, crossed the room, and picked up a 
 cigarette from a pile at her elbow. He held it to her 
 lips and lit it for her. He was trembling with exaspera- 
 tion but he managed to grin down into her face. 
 
 He went back to his table and sat down. There was 
 a long silence. He tried to keep his eyes on the blank 
 paper before him but could not. He glanced at Dora. 
 She had hidden her face completely behind her open 
 book, but the book was moving. Slowly, slowly, it de- 
 scended. The loose waves of Dora's hair appeared, then 
 her smooth, white brow, then her straight dark brows, 
 and then her big black eyes. 
 
 The book stopped in its downward course. John 
 stared at those big eyes and they stared back. The
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 317 
 
 book started again, very slowly. Dora's adorable nose 
 came into view, quivering just the tiniest bit at the 
 nostrils. Then appeared her mouth. Her lips were 
 puckered in a pout. It was the signal for a kiss. 
 
 John got up with a laugh. " You little devil," he 
 said. " How did you know I 'd be watching ? " 
 
 He kissed her and went back to his seat. The silence 
 was longer this time, much longer. He was just begin- 
 ning to concentrate his thoughts on the dire need of con- 
 centration in general when a small voice came from the 
 far corner of the room. 
 
 " Kiss Dora." 
 
 He paid no heed. The voice came again, soft, cooing 
 as any suckling dove, " Kiss Dora." 
 
 John coughed and struck a match without looking up. 
 Suddenly Dora sprang to her feet, slammed the book 
 on the floor, stamped her foot, and yelled with a shout 
 that made the welkin ring, " KISS DORA ! " 
 
 John rose and moved toward her slowly. He gripped 
 her arms suddenly against her sides, tripped and threw 
 her on the couch, kissed her hair, her eyes, her nose, 
 neck, and ears, and then her mouth, until she gasped and 
 choked for breath. Even then he did not stop ; he only 
 paused. When at last she struggled free, tore herself 
 away from him, and got to her feet, her lungs were 
 pumping violently and she was as dishevelled as though 
 she had been all but drowned in a raging sea. 
 
 "Come on," said John, laughing and panting. 
 " Just a dozen more." 
 
 Dora clutched her breast with both hands and laughed 
 back ; then calmly, as though she felt the need of a little
 
 318 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 exercise, she began to dance. Her vitality was enor- 
 mous; it was her most constant source of surprise. 
 John sat up and watched her with an admiration that 
 was unfailing. 
 
 Her face was as solemn as a mask. She did a rapid 
 and intricate pas seul, and then suddenly stopped, erect, 
 poised on one foot. Her hands went up in a Greek ges- 
 ture parallel with her head. Her free knee crooked, 
 straightened, her leg shot out in a black streak, and she 
 kicked John's writing table upside down. 
 
 Then her face broke into the fixed smile of Adelina 
 Genee picking up scattered flowers in " The Dryad." 
 She picked up a cigarette, danced under it, smiled up at 
 it, let it flutter to the floor. She picked up the cracked 
 glass sponge-cup, danced under it, smiled up at it, and 
 let that, too, flutter to the floor. John laughed until his 
 sides ached. Dora reeled toward him and fell into his 
 arms in a magnificent stage faint. 
 
 From that hour he abandoned all thought of work 
 while Dora was around and began tricking her into 
 going to bed early. It was easy to do because when 
 people are well they sleep well and Dora, made free of 
 time and the sea and sands, was very well indeed, and a 
 very sleepy little person if one let her alone and kept 
 still for ten minutes at a stretch after dinner. 
 
 When he had tucked her in, kissed her good night and 
 sat on the edge of the bed, holding her hand until she 
 had cuddled herself to sleep, John would steal out to his 
 work with no fear of waking her, for during those first 
 hours of the night she slept heavily, like a little child. 
 
 Even so, she came to him at times in spirit, laid her
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 319 
 
 small detaining hand on his shoulder, her warm cheek 
 against his face. At such moments he would stare be- 
 fore him, forgotten the pen in his hand and the blank 
 paper beckoning him to the wider world. 
 
 What was the use, after all ? Why deceive himself ? 
 Dora and he were not one, they were not becoming one. 
 Only with her beside him in spirit as in flesh could he 
 cling to his wider world yet he felt that each day was 
 straining more and more the hold he had upon her. 
 They walked amid the pageantry of love not hand in 
 hand, but each holding the cold hand of the past that 
 stood between them. The past and what else ? Doubt 
 and fear. He drew near to a desperate resolve. What 
 were they doing? Burning all the candles of all their 
 days at once. It was not worth it. He would put life 
 on clean plates, seize their past however ugly, drag it 
 into the light of day, link it; weld it to to-day. The 
 blood throbbed in his eardrums. It seemed to him a 
 voice whispering. " Say l Janice.' Call her Janice."
 
 CHAPTEK XLI 
 
 IN her haste at leaving New York, Dora had 
 neglected a matter of business. Almost from the 
 day of her arrival at The Lookout letters had been com- 
 ing, demanding her presence. She had opened the first. 
 One morning John picked up the accumulation of un- 
 opened missives and shuffled them absently. 
 
 Dora's eyes fastened on his face. " Open them," she 
 commanded. 
 
 He did and read them in chronological order. At 
 the crescendo of appeal, remonstrance, insistence, exas- 
 peration, and rage that the letters disclosed Dora could 
 not help but laugh and John laughed with her. 
 
 " Oh, well," she said at last, " I suppose I 'd better 
 go." She rose and started toward her room. 
 
 Something in her tone alarmed John. He walked 
 swiftly toward her, seized her arms and turned her 
 around. He was not gentle with her. That was the 
 satisfying thing about Dora. She was so healthy, so 
 strong, that when one touched her one felt that she was 
 supremely virile, unbreakable. 
 
 " Promise you '11 come back," said John, his eyes 
 glowing and insistent. 
 
 For a moment she studied his face intently ; then her 
 own softened. " I '11 come back," she said gently as she 
 
 released herself. 
 
 320
 
 JOHN BOGAEDUS 321 
 
 John let her go. In the short time that he had known 
 her he had learned one thing : that she was one of those 
 rare women who never look back. She came delib- 
 erately to a decision ; she held to it steadfastly. 
 
 As he saw her off at the station he was conscious of a 
 feeling of elation. He was free, free to work, to live 
 his own life. He looked forward to an orgy of old 
 clothes, pipe tobacco, and inky fingers. But even before 
 he reached The Lookout he felt a depression, a premo- 
 nition that Dora's spell was still upon him and that the 
 charms at his disposal were too weak to quite break her 
 thrall. 
 
 Once back in the house, he changed into his most 
 ragged clothes, laid out his writing things, and lit his 
 most disreputable pipe ; but he could not settle down to 
 work. He wandered about restlessly and in despera- 
 tion picked up the top paper on the pile that had grown 
 and grown through the weeks during which his whole 
 world had been bounded by the circle of a woman's 
 arms. 
 
 He stared at the headlines with unbelieving eyes. In 
 those few days of his oblivion the wide world had taken 
 such a precipitous leap as defied immediate comprehen- 
 sion. He felt stunned as though he walked in a dream, 
 as though he waked to find the daily press given over 
 to crude and melodramatic fiction. He picked up one 
 paper after another, scanned the headlines, and plunged 
 deeper in the pile to find the threads to the sudden, 
 chaos. 
 
 With papers heaped about him he threw himself on 
 the couch and began to read. He had found the greater
 
 322 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 charm. Dora was forgotten. Muno-Muno came in 
 with lunch. John glanced up, surprised that hours had 
 passed. He waved the food away. 
 
 All day long and far into the night he read and read, 
 steeping himself in the atmosphere of cataclysm that 
 was already becoming an old story to the outside world. 
 He went back to only a month ago when people had been 
 talking of a three weeks' war. He remembered that 
 even then Holson had barred war talk because it bored 
 him ; and in that short time war had become more than 
 hell; it had become horror. 
 
 At last he had finished reading. He got up, ate his 
 dinner long since gone cold, and went out on the sands. 
 It was a clear, star-spangled night. The first chill of 
 autumn was in the air and a vast stillness. Not a cloud 
 broke the deep bowl of heaven. But standing there hat- 
 less beneath the cold, clear stars, John felt himself 
 under a shadow. A cloud hung heavy over his beloved 
 Europe. It darkened the faces of countries he had 
 loved and beneath its creeping shadow still darker blots 
 were spreading in vast bloodstains on the face of the 
 once peaceful earth. 
 
 A mocking voice spoke to his memory. " Humanism, 
 a life force and an atmosphere, the only atmosphere 
 which you and I can breathe with any comfort to the 
 soul. . . . The age when we are trying to look at God 
 through man as opposed to the epoch when we looked at 
 man through a far-away God." 
 
 John's lips twitched and then straightened to a 
 thought broader than any mockery. The thought was 
 not immediately clear in his mind. It gleamed afar ; he
 
 JOHN BOGAEDUS 323 
 
 saw it as through a mist. It was at once a guide and a 
 goal. Was this war a mocking eclipse or was it a revela- 
 tion? 
 
 During the two days that followed he lived in a sort 
 of animal suspension. He almost forgot to eat, to 
 dress, to sleep ; his body seemed to lose memory of every- 
 day needs and left his mind untrammeled, free to rise 
 and soar on a plane that concentrated below him not 
 only all that he himself had been, felt, or seen but also 
 those worlds of thought, conquered by others, that form 
 the great subconscious growth of each newest generation. 
 
 With this newly acquired sight he saw humanism 
 stripped of all vain garnishings, brotherhood not as a 
 sectarian creed but as an idea, a saving force that had 
 slipped into the world of men with the Renaissance and 
 had crept toward dawn through five centuries in the slow 
 birth of things that live long. 
 
 He traced the course of light from its rebirth through 
 the channels of individual men and bruised his spirit 
 against the basic truth that all knowledge, all realiza- 
 tion, all philosophy, religion itself and its expression, 
 are eternally fractional. Many a man had stood and 
 written at least for a moment in the gleam of that light, 
 but to all who had tried to write finis to the rounded 
 chapter had come the round sum of failure. To all 
 but One. 
 
 All his desultory reading of modern philosophies 
 suddenly crystallized into a chain of gleaming stones, 
 each distinct, easily compassed. He held them in his 
 hand as though they were a breviary. Here was Hegel, 
 binding himself in a cocoon of the triadic law and abso-
 
 324 JOHN BOGAEDUS 
 
 lute idealism, bloodless as is anything ultimate, confess- 
 ing at the last that his religion had but one defect, that 
 it was made for a single man and that man himself. 
 And here, Spencer, glimpsing day for a moment and 
 groping forever after through innumerable and inter- 
 minable speculations. 
 
 Marx took his turn in the glistening breviary, denying 
 finality as though enlightened by a single divine spark 
 and plunging on thenceforth to a monster contradiction. 
 Last of all came Comte on whose eyes had broken the 
 clearest vision only to be dimmed by the blurred 
 medium through which it passed and besmirched for all 
 time by the dogmatic puerilities of his waking moments. 
 To all of these men had come a glimpse of the warm 
 flame of truth, yet the world had seen each in turn pass, 
 bearing a dead torch. Their level tide of cold reasoning 
 shone here and there with high lights, illumined as 
 through a fog by the single light of a towering Christ. 
 
 " Not a finality," said John to himself, " but at least 
 an enduring goal." 
 
 He sought the secret of that continuing light and 
 found it. None of the men he had passed in review had 
 bled. With his mind abnormally quickened to the vis- 
 ualization of the dripping agony of the Europe he had 
 known and loved, so long, so well, he saw Christ and the 
 Eedemption itself as a mighty illumination, a symbol 
 of this day when ten million common men, blind or 
 conscious, wore a crown of swords and died that men 
 might see. He sat down and as though in a trance 
 wrote the first of his essays on The New Crucifixion.
 
 CHAPTEE XLII 
 
 THE next day John reread what he had written 
 and sat dazed by the reaches of his own sub- 
 conscious self, by the altitudes to which his fevered 
 brain had swept, and which, in the calm light of a morn- 
 ing so like a thousand other mornings, seemed be- 
 yond his normal comprehension. This thing that had 
 been born was no mere copy, no article of barter for food 
 and clothing ; it was a message. Either he still dreamed 
 or it would speak to the hearts of men. He sent it to a 
 weekly of wide circulation. 
 
 Even inspiration follows a prosaic course through the 
 mill of print to light, but John's paper was not alto- 
 gether to share the common lot. The reader to whom 
 it was apportioned carried it to the editor's desk and laid 
 it there without a word. The editor read it through 
 at first with impatience and once again patiently, passed 
 it for immediate publication and then sat and stared ab- 
 sently before him. His mind hovered long above trivial 
 personalities, but at last it was dragged down by habit 
 to the level of his daily bread. He rang a bell and 
 waited impatiently, a question hanging on his lips. 
 " Who is John Bogardus ? " 
 
 In the meantime, reaction had come to John with 
 the force of an overwhelming wave. With his spirit 
 exhausted and dormant, his heart suddenly reawakened. 
 Its pulse clamored in his ears as though it had been 
 
 325
 
 326 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 knocking at a closed door through long hours. 
 " Awake ! What are you doing ? What have you 
 lost?" 
 
 In John's eyes swam a memory of Dora, dim and dis- 
 tant, looking back from a far horizon. The three days 
 of her absence lengthened suddenly into weeks, into 
 years. It seemed to him as though with another mo- 
 ment's delay she would be gone beyond recall. He 
 rushed to telephone a wire to her. Every hour he fol- 
 lowed up his first appeal with another. At last came 
 her answer : " For heaven's sake stop wiring, boy. 
 I 'm coming." 
 
 It made him smile, that message; it was so like her. 
 
 She came. They met silently, almost shyly, but 
 through all the long drive to The Lookout John could 
 feel her nearness warming him, gradually possessing 
 him, so that when, once in the house, she hurled off her 
 formal traveling things and started dancing around the 
 room, he clutched her in his arms and held her so tightly 
 that she cried out. 
 
 That evening and half the next day were like a taste 
 of Paradise unalloyed, but with the afternoon reason 
 spoke to John. It told him to beware. It reminded 
 him of the world of the spirit. It even went so far as 
 to picture to him Dora throttling the world of the spirit 
 with her soft hands, and smiling. He grew depressed. 
 How could he make her concentrated eyes look beyond 
 the close circle they had drawn about themselves ? 
 
 " WTiat 's the matter with you ? " she asked suddenly. 
 " Just now I made a joke, a good joke, and you did n't 
 laugh."
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 327 
 
 " Do you really want me to tell you ? " asked John. 
 
 " Um-hm," said Dora, her mouth full of two choco- 
 lates at once, " ba-ki-mi-firt." 
 
 He took her in his arms and kissed her, then he held 
 her close and talked to her. " You see, kiddie," he said. 
 " It 's this way. I 've simply got to work. We 've had 
 our honeymoon ; now let 's settle down like old married 
 folks. I know there isn't much for you to do, but if 
 you 'd just go for a walk in the morning for an hour, or 
 read or sew. I can do a lot in an hour a day." 
 
 " But why do you want to work, dear ? " said Dora, 
 quite calmly. " Are you sure it is n't because you are 
 getting just a little bit tired of having Dora around ? " 
 
 John knew he was on dangerous ground but this time 
 he thought he saw a clear way out. " Tired of you, 
 darling ? " he said. " It 's just because I 'm not tired 
 of you that I 've got to work. We two are pretty 
 healthy youngsters. We eat a lot and we 've got rent to 
 pay even if it is an infinitesimal sum just big enough 
 to cover love and two in a cottage." 
 
 Immediately he felt demeaned. In a way what he 
 said was true but in another it was a monstrous lie. 
 Fearing to put her to the test of his world of the spirit 
 he had crawled to this low level that she might under- 
 stand. 
 
 " Oh," said Dora, in a tone of faint distaste he had 
 never heard before, " you mean money." 
 
 She disengaged herself and got up. He wondered 
 what had come over her, she was so cool, distant, and 
 different from her usual self. He had forgotten that a 
 woman of her precedents despises all but the uses of
 
 328 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 money. Spend, spend till the last cent is gone and if 
 she loves she '11 go on the streets for a lover. But save, 
 live within an income, any income Dora turned from 
 him and passed into her room. " I '11 be back in a 
 minute," she said. 
 
 She came back, carrying a work basket in her hands. 
 Her face was set in hard lines. She looked as ageless 
 and as cold as a statue. John stared at her and was 
 silent. He jeered at himself for ever having had a 
 thought of calling her Janice, laughed at himself for an 
 emotional fool. 
 
 Dora set the basket on the table and opened it. 
 " Come here," she said. 
 
 The basket was large and held a tangled mass of 
 things so various that John could not help but smile. 
 Dora smiled with him but apathetically. She drew out 
 one thing after another; a pair of gloves split at the 
 finger tips, an old bedraggled and beloved powder puff, 
 a lone silk stocking, a bit of smudged fancy work that 
 looked as if it had been started in her infancy, cotton, 
 yarn, a skein of silk, but above all, banknotes : English 
 banknotes and American yellow-backs, and finally a gen- 
 erous handful of gold coins. 
 
 She pushed the heap of money towards John. 
 " There you are," she said. " Now, for God's sake, 
 cheer up ! " 
 
 In a flash he realized what was happening and 
 the thing that had changed her. She was reproving 
 him, reproving him for measuring the cost of her in 
 money. 
 
 " Dora," he said, " I 've never felt like slapping you
 
 DORA
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 329 
 
 before but I feel like it now. Take that money back 
 and do it quick." 
 
 Dora gave him a sly glance like a puppy wondering 
 how far he dare go with the full-grown family cat. In 
 that instant her whole atmosphere changed. She was 
 no longer a statue ; she was alive and in a mood to tease. 
 Keeping her voice to the same hard tone, she said, " Oh, 
 no, I won't. You need n't mind taking it. Just look 
 at it as board and lodging." 
 
 Pale and trembling, John rose to his feet. Dora, 
 watching him, gave an excited gasp and started to laugh. 
 John controlled himself with an effort and reached 
 across the table for the work-basket. Dora snatched at 
 it. Between them it turned over and two or three spools 
 of cotton tumbled out, the loose thread of one dragging 
 with it a ring. Dora's eyes fastened on the ring; she 
 went white and reached out her hand slowly as though to 
 cover it. 
 
 The ring rolled to the middle of the table, fell on its 
 side, and suddenly possessed the room. From a setting 
 of pale platinum shone a circle of seed-pearls surround- 
 ing the red glow of a ruby whose equal John had never 
 seen except through the plate glass of a shop window. 
 The magnificence of the ring arrested his eye ; the glow- 
 ing stone set fire to his mind and sent it reeling from 
 one horrible thought to another. 
 
 He no longer saw the ring. A vision came to him of 
 Dora, his own Dora, flaming years behind his reach in 
 the untarnished glory of her innocence, bartering the 
 torch of life for a vile precious stone. Jealousy and 
 remorse, pity, love, and despair swelled up from hii
 
 330 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 heart in one confused and strangling surge. He caught 
 at his collar as if it were choking him ; then his blood- 
 shot eyes fell once more on the ring. He picked it up 
 and hurled it into the fireplace. It struck on the grate 
 and rebounded. Two or three seed-pearls splashed 
 into the air like drops of water from a fountain. Dora 
 sprang up and rushed across the room. 
 
 " My ring," she cried. " Oh, my ring ! " 
 
 Even as she crouched to pick it up he was upon her. 
 His hands clutched down at her and fell in her soft hair. 
 He seized it and dragged her to her feet. Breathing 
 hard, holding her to him roughly, he sought her wrists 
 and found them, gripped them till the bones cracked. 
 " Give it to me," he gasped. 
 
 Dora raised her eyes, luminous and unafraid, to his 
 face. " John," she said, " I have n't got it. Look, 
 dear. It 's on the floor." 
 
 He glanced down, saw the ring, and crushed it with 
 his foot. The metal and the pearls crumbled and fell 
 away but the ruby remained. It glowed up from the 
 darkness of the floor balefully like a red eye and said to 
 him, " I am still here. You cannot crush me." 
 
 Suddenly a wave of shame swept him from head to 
 foot, shame for the raging thing he had become. He 
 dropped Dora's wrists, released her, and raised his 
 hands to his face. His cheeks were hot and wet with 
 sweat, his brow was cold and clammy to the touch of his 
 fevered hands. Then his arms fell limp to his sides, his 
 head dropped forward, and he made such a sound in his 
 throat as no woman ever heard twice.
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 331 
 
 In that moment Dora knew herself desperately be- 
 loved. She sank to the floor, wrapped her arms around 
 his knees, buried her face against him, and sobbed as 
 though only then her heart had broken. It was the end.
 
 CHAPTER XLIII 
 
 ALL that night John paced up and down the beach, 
 and till the sky began to pale in the east a light 
 gleamed from Dora's room. He did not have to ask 
 what she was doing; he knew as surely as though 
 no walls intervened. She was packing, and crying. A 
 thousand times he asked himself if he could let her go 
 and a thousand times came the answer, " She is gone." 
 Nothing that he could do could hold her ; in spirit and 
 in flesh they two waged a battle that rushed on to its own 
 appointed end. 
 
 Through the long night he lived over moment by mo- 
 ment their life together. Even at that short range 
 he could see how it had mounted by steady leaps like a 
 mortal fever to a predestined and consuming death. 
 In his despair it seemed to him that naught was left, 
 that in the hot flame of jealousy, violence, and scorching, 
 demeaning thoughts, all hopes of peace to body or to 
 soul had perished. 
 
 Toward morning a rage seized him. He stripped, 
 hurled himself into the sea, and battled with the waves 
 until through very exhaustion they laid a chill upon his 
 flesh and subdued his brain to a cold stupor. He went 
 to the breakfast table outwardly calm but inwardly in a 
 state of tension which he little realized. A new thought 
 obsessed him. He had lost all, but he could still lose 
 more. He could settle for all time his silly doubts and 
 
 332
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 333 
 
 fears. To-day, this morning, he would say to Dora, 
 " Janice ! " and see if the heavens could still fall ! He 
 clung to the thought of this last folly like a gambler to 
 a last small coin. 
 
 Dora came to the table looking pale and tired but 
 coldly self-possessed. She was dressed in a close-fitting 
 traveling suit that in contrast to her short-skirted, holi- 
 day garb made her seem tall, slim, and suddenly ma- 
 tured. She had gone back into herself as John first had 
 known her. 
 
 They sat down opposite each other. Gleaming on the 
 white cloth where Muno-Muno had carefully placed it 
 was a little pile of pearls, metal, and the ruby, looking 
 like a tiny heap of fairy rubbish. John reached for 
 an envelope, swept the ruin into it and laid it aside. 
 He knew instinctively that he need not say in words, 
 " I will have this ring reset and send it to you." He 
 and Dora had passed into the intimacy that scorns 
 speech for little things. 
 
 They toyed with their food but scarcely ate. They 
 were both silent as though they knew that the air 
 was charged and might flash into a blinding flare at 
 the spark of a careless word. Dora moved her hands 
 nervously, to her head, to the table, to her lap. More 
 than once she caught up her tiny watch, hanging, like 
 an iridescent bead, at the end of a long old-gold neck- 
 chain, and looked at it. Every time she glanced at her 
 watch John raised his eyes to the clock on the mantel. 
 
 " It is time," she said at last, laid down her napkin 
 and pushed back her chair. 
 
 John's eyes fastened on her face. He clutched the
 
 334 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 edge of the table with both hands. He could feel small 
 drops of cold sweat forming on his forehead. 
 " Janice ! " he whispered hoarsely. The sound he 
 made was more like a croak than a name. 
 
 " What ? " asked Dora, her eyes wide and puzzled. 
 
 " Janice ! " shouted John and struck the table with 
 his fist. 
 
 Dora's pallor went dead white. Her chin flew up as 
 though some one had stabbed her in the heart. She 
 swayed from side to side and clutched the table. 
 " Why ? Oh, why ? " she moaned, her hands clasped 
 and straining so that the knuckles showed white as the 
 linen cloth. Then suddenly, her eyes that had half 
 closed, blazed out on him. 
 
 " You could n't let me go without hurting me with 
 another woman's name ? " she asked, steadying her gaze 
 and bringing it defiantly to his face. Her lip began to 
 curl. She raised one hand to her heaving breast but 
 drew it away with sudden decision, tapped the table, and 
 stared fixedly before her. " Or are you just mad ? " 
 
 " Mad ! " cried John, staring at her despairingly, and 
 choked on the word. Oh, this was worse, a thousand 
 times worse. He had staked all and lost ! By no 
 such crude assault could Janice be snatched from the 
 long years that had made and bound her. He rose and 
 fell on his knees beside her, buried his face in her lap 
 and sobbed. 
 
 She ran her fingers through his hair once, then she 
 pushed his head from her lap, got up, and left him cling- 
 ing to 'the empty chair. When he recovered himself and 
 arose, her face was calm with the calm of a trained con-
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 335 
 
 trol. She had picked up a cigarette and was looking 
 around for a match. 
 
 During the drive to the station they scarcely spoke 
 and when they did it was of commonplace things. She 
 was to go to a certain hotel and to cross by the boat 
 of her choice. She need do nothing nor worry. He 
 would arrange everything by wire. Even at the station 
 they said no good-by. John helped her up the steps, 
 watched her disappear into the coach, and half turned 
 to go. But something stopped him. A definite influ- 
 ence seemed to hold him. 
 
 The train with its blank windows or blanker faces 
 started and crawled by him. He looked up. She had 
 rushed through the carriage to the rear platform. She 
 stood there, a little breathless, holding both hands to 
 her breast in a gesture he knew well. Her eyes met his. 
 He saw, or he imagined, that her eyes and her whole 
 face were changed. It was as if she had transcended 
 youth, as if the youth that was left to her had suddenly 
 become fixed for all time, staple as the youth of the soul 
 that cannot die. Gravity, sweetness, and love hovered 
 in her gaze as though not yet quite sure of their abiding 
 place and as she leaned toward him, all passion forgot- 
 ten, her lips moved mutely. She made no sound but to 
 John it seemed that he heard her cry, " Suffer. Pay. 
 You and I will still grow beyond this thing ! " 
 
 He made his slow way back to The Lookout. All 
 that day he was plunged in thought, buffeted between 
 the seeming and the truth of Dora, oppressed and dis- 
 heartened by an all-pervading desolation. He locked 
 her room without looking in and put away the key. In
 
 336 JOHN BOGARDUS 
 
 the days that followed he tried to lock Dora herself away 
 in some deep and dark closet of the mind. 
 
 Gradually a sense of freedom came back to him, a 
 freedom that was sweet even though the chains that had 
 bound him had been of flowers heavy only in perfume. 
 He reveled in his pipe, in lonely, tobacco-laden musings, 
 in ragged clothes, early hours, and all those things upon 
 which the constant presence of Dora, passionately de- 
 manding and demanded, had put a tacit ban, and he 
 looked forward to quiet hours of work. 
 
 But freedom too can pall when once the heart has 
 known servitude, and days came, nights came, when 
 John and the memory of Dora walked hand in hand on 
 the sands, sat upon the couch locked in each other's arms, 
 pressed lips to lips and breast to breast; nights when 
 echoes of laughter and a fragrance of womankind that 
 would not die haunted the lonely house. 
 
 Was marriage, after all, merely a habit, a habit of 
 the heart ? He picked up a small lamp, took the key, 
 and went for the first time to the room that had been 
 Dora's. He set down the lamp and looked about him. 
 
 On the dresser were wilted roses in a dried up vase. 
 A discarded pair of slippers, only half worn out, one 
 tumbled on its side, lay on the floor. On a chair hung 
 a black hair-ribbon, broad and smooth in places, tightly 
 wrinkled in spots. Would Dora, his child-Dora, ever 
 again wear her hair down her back ? For whom ? His 
 teeth ground together on that torturing thought. Pain 
 settled in his eyes. They passed on and paused at the 
 washstand where two cakes of soap lay in the dish in 
 strange misalliance.
 
 JOHN BOGAKDUS 33Y 
 
 He had learned that, too that a woman must have 
 common washing soap for her hair. He picked up the 
 vulgar cake and stared at it vaguely. How common it 
 was but what memories it evoked of Dora's glorious hair 
 all fluffy and soft and fragrant ! How he had loved her 
 hair on those days when she had said with all the women 
 in the world, " I 've just washed it and I simply can't 
 do anything with it ! " 
 
 He went out to the living-room with a smile on his 
 lips and a dull ache in his heart, picked out all the little 
 things that spoke too loudly of Dora, gathered them 
 together, and carried them into her room. He stood as 
 one dazed, held in the clutch of memory. Just so had 
 his heart ached on a blue day of long ago, the day of 
 the farewell to Janice. A lump rose in his throat. 
 Had he blundered on that far-away day? Had he 
 killed the thing he loved best ? 
 
 For answer Dora's face as she leaned from the train 
 pressed to his eyes. The gravity, sweetness and love 
 that he had seen hovering in her gaze enveloped him 
 like a mantle, blinded his eyes as with a vision. He 
 saw her lips move. He heard her voice. " Suffer. 
 Pay. You and I You and I"
 
 CHAPTER XLIV 
 
 DORA was gone and summer was over. Even the 
 warm South Jersey coast was approaching the 
 grip of frost. John looked out to bleak skies and a dull 
 sea and knew that soon his desolation would be more 
 desolate, but he had no fears for to him all places, all 
 time, had become but here and to-day. 
 
 One morning he awoke to the chill air that tells of 
 bursting chestnut burs, of the falling of the glory of 
 painted leaves, and bears with it the first whisper of 
 snow and a threat of ice and sleet. He arose shivering 
 and stepped out to a gray and sodden world. It was 
 raining; a fine, persistent rain, slanting like a falling 
 mist to the driving north-east wind. 
 
 John got out Muno-Muno's hated woolens and handed 
 them to him. The black's eyes started wide as to a 
 sudden fear and filled to the brim with a strange fire. 
 They were like two wells of light. He took the woolens, 
 stared at them, shook his head, and laid them aside. 
 Through the three days that the rain lasted he crouched 
 chattering over the kitchen fire clothed only in his loin 
 cloth. 
 
 At last the storm broke to a limpid day, still and blue, 
 so clear that the eye reached maddeningly beyond the 
 range of sight, aspiring to infinity. A rare calm had 
 fallen on the sea. To the clear line of the horizon, so 
 
 338
 
 JOHN BOGAEDUS 339 
 
 near that it called to vision to peep beyond now or never, 
 the ocean swelled like an undulating mirror of the bowl 
 of heaven, mute, silent but for the gentle whispering of 
 its hushed lips upon the beach. 
 
 In mid-afternoon John looked out and saw Muno- 
 Muno sitting on his favorite sand-dune, gazing out and 
 beyond the sea as he had so often gazed before; only, 
 to-day he was different, rigid, chin up, intent. John 
 watched him absently but curiously. Presently the 
 black got up, walked down to the edge of the water and 
 with a slow gesture let fall his loin-cloth. The sun 
 glinted on his naked body and blazoned it against earth 
 and sea and sky as though the whole world held but this 
 single sculptured bronze. 
 
 With his hands fallen at his sides Muno-Muno 
 stepped over the thin line of foam and walked into the 
 water. The vast mirror of the sea gathered and spread 
 in oily ripples from his ankles, from his knees, from his 
 waist, and crept steadily higher. John knew that like 
 most natives brought up on the shores of waters infested 
 by sharks or crocodiles Muno-Muno could not swim. 
 Feeling vaguely uneasy he went out on the veranda and 
 shouted. 
 
 Muno-Muno did not turn. With his eyes steadfastly 
 fixed on the beckoning horizon he walked on and down. 
 The water rose to his shoulders, covered them, reached 
 his chin. John leaped from the veranda and plunged 
 in great frantic strides down toward the beach. While 
 his eyes had been vacantly questioning the black's 
 strange actions, Muno-Muno's immutable purpose had 
 crashed in on his consciousness and revealed itself to his
 
 340 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 inner sight. He reached the beach panting, dismay 
 clutching at his heart. 
 
 " Muno-Muno ! " he shouted hoarsely. 
 
 There was no answer. Where but now as he ran he 
 had glimpsed a black dot centering a widening circle of 
 oily ripples there was nothing, nothing but the vast un- 
 dulation of an unbroken sea. 
 
 John rushed into the water. It seized and wrapped 
 his trousers clammily about his legs, arrested him, made 
 him pause. Never before had the sea seemed so vast, 
 so uncharted. Where had those ripples quivered only 
 a moment ago ? He waited to see some sign of commo- 
 tion, some rising blur upon the surface of the water. 
 It did not come. With despair already in his heart he 
 plunged headlong, swam out and dived, swam up and 
 down and dived again and again. Quickly exhausted 
 by his clinging clothes in moments that seemed like' 
 hours, he turned and forged his slow way to shore. 
 
 On the beach stood a stranger. He had topped the 
 big dune behind the house just as Muno-Muno had sunk 
 from sight. He had rushed down to help but age had 
 quickly laid its forbidding hand upon him. He was 
 still breathing heavily with a cracked wheeze in his 
 throat. John stared at him with unrecognizing eyes. 
 
 " You don't know me," said the old man. " But do 
 not let us stop here," he continued without a pause. 
 " Come up to the house. Change your things." 
 
 John's emotion was conquered, almost stilled, by the 
 calmness of this stranger in the face of death. Strug- 
 gling to place and grasp a half-formed recollection, he 
 followed the old man toward the house and left him
 
 JOHN BOGARDUS 341 
 
 submissively to go and change to dry clothes. As he 
 dressed, absently picking up one garment after another, 
 full memory came suddenly upon him. It was the Dean 
 sitting out there, scarcely more aged after all than when 
 he last had seen him. 
 
 John came out fully dressed and sat down before his 
 guest. The Dean was folding and unfolding in his 
 hands a crumpled magazine. He opened it and laid 
 it on the table. John saw the heading of his es- 
 say. 
 
 The Dean slowly turned one leaf backward and for- 
 ward, glanced at a phrase or two with a gravity tinged 
 by a feeling John had never seen him betray in the old 
 days, and finally turned his eyes on John's face. " I 
 came to tell you," he said in his low sonorous tones, 
 " that you have swum back into my heart and into the 
 heart of the university. After all my years I think of 
 the two almost as one. We need you. We have just 
 founded a social chair and I have been holding it in my 
 unsteady old hands waiting for the right man to come 
 along waiting for you." 
 
 John threw up his head in instinctive protest and 
 then suddenly dropped it. A strange lassitude fell upon 
 him. To what freedom did he cling to-day? Where 
 was freedom to-day if not in service ? 
 
 " Never mind what you bring in your hands," con- 
 tinued the Dean. " Bring yourself. Name the chair 
 what you like. Write your essays just as you would 
 here, only lecture them first." He laid his hand on 
 John's arm. " Will you come 2 " 
 
 John looked at the old man's face, suddenly alight
 
 342 JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 with the intensity of a great desire, and then let his gaze 
 wander about the room and out across the still sea. 
 
 " When ? " he asked. 
 
 A wave of color rose in the Dean's sallow cheeks. 
 '" Now," he said. " I 'came down by motor. The car 
 is waiting for us." 
 
 John rose and turned slowly about, drinking in with 
 his eyes each least detail of the little house whose deso- 
 lation had suddenly become absolute. He picked up an 
 overcoat, motioned to the Dean to go out, closed the win- 
 dows, locked the doors and then led the way over the 
 hill along the single strand of wire that linked The 
 Lookout to the world. 
 
 " Is n't there anything you want to bring ? " asked the 
 Dean, troubled. 
 
 " Nothing," said John. 
 
 Plunged in silence, his mind dazed and wandering 
 in a mist of memories, he sat huddled in his corner 
 throughout the long ride, and, when after dark they 
 reached the door of his father's house, scarcely answered 
 the strong pressure of the hand the Dean held out in a 
 wordless farewell. 
 
 He did not enter the house at once. For a moment 
 he stood on its steps and looked toward the distant 
 campus. Lights gleamed there like stars in a still sky 
 and above them rose misty forms of granite and brick 
 and the Gothic cobweb of leafless elms all equally soft- 
 ened and aged by the dimming touch of night. It was 
 a dear place, a quiet place where roads end, but only in 
 service. 
 
 He felt as though he stood on the threshold of a
 
 JOHN BOGAEDUS 343 
 
 mighty portal. He forgot the Dean's long handclasp. 
 If his own hand was warm, it was warm because Dora 
 seemed to hold it. He could not tell if she held him 
 back or led him on ; he only knew that she was eternally 
 with him as he last had seen her, her throbbing heart 
 naked to his eyes. 
 
 "Marriage," he breathed, "is a monumental noth- 
 ing. It 's the garlands that count, the garlands of con- 
 stancy, faith, purification, that we bring with us to its 
 immemorial altar." 
 
 He turned and passed into the old familiar hallway, 
 hung up his coat and hat, knocked on the library door, 
 opened it at a call from his father, and went in. The 
 professor did not rise to greet him. He was sitting in 
 a deep chair drawn close before the open fire and in his 
 lap were scattered the loose sheets of a bulky manu- 
 script. He was dropping the pages one by one into the 
 flames. He twisted in his seat as his son drew near. 
 
 " Ah, John," he said, his face lighting up. " You 
 have come back ! I am very glad." 
 
 He held out his hand. John grasped it and looked 
 down at his father. The professor had grown white and 
 old, even his brilliant eyes were blurred as though they 
 had been dimmed by years of tears. All about him, on 
 the floor, on the table and the chairs, lay open news- 
 papers, the accumulation of days and weeks. Just their 
 headlines were an epitome of all the horrors that a na- 
 tion gone mad, building a philosophy on iron and 
 bowing in adulation before a God of steel, had visited 
 upon a blind and pitiful world, slow to believe the 
 incredible, stunned before the monstrous. Before that
 
 3M JOHN BOGAKDUS 
 
 onslaught phrases old and beloved, honor, mercy, 
 charity, and faith, clung desperately to the written 
 page as though each day threatened to blot them for- 
 ever from the minds of men. 
 
 " What are you doing, Father ? " asked John. 
 
 The professor let his hands drop on the crumpled 
 sheets in his lap and stared into the fire. " I am burn- 
 ing my monograph," he said quietly, " my monograph 
 on the great American Game. I read your essay. 
 Like you, my boy, I know that to-day all frivolous am- 
 bitions are dead." 
 
 With the opening of the following week, John found 
 himself once more before a class. As he looked back 
 in memory it seemed to him that these faces were 
 changed, matured, possessed of a gravity beyond their 
 years. He did not know that he gazed upon the reflec- 
 tion of his own countenance. 
 
 " Gentlemen," he began, " I am an apostle." 
 
 THE EISTD
 
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