THE 
 
 TAKE/FL 
 
 Daniel 
 
 Carson 
 
 Goodman
 
 THE TAKER 
 
 BY 
 
 DANIEL CARSON GOODMAN 
 
 BONI AND LIVERIGHT 
 NEW YORK 1919
 
 COPYRIGHT. 1919, 
 BONI & LIVERIGHT, INC. 
 
 Printed in the U. 8. A.
 
 TO 
 
 ALMA RUBENS 
 
 2135324 I
 
 OTHER NOVELS 
 BY DANIEL CABSON GOODMAN 
 
 UNCLOTHED 
 HAGAR REVELLY
 
 THE TAKER
 
 * Lilies that fester smeUfar worse than weeds'
 
 THE TAKER 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 TVyTRS. VERNON stopped her writing, suddenly arose 
 ^ -* from the chair, and with her deep-set eyes cast 
 ahead, as if seeking release from painful thoughts, walked 
 slowly across the room to the window. All the time she 
 moaned: "Oh, what will become of me?" 
 
 She had the appearance of one in whose life a rent had 
 been torn, like one of those widening chasms made when 
 a river of ice suddenly breaks. 
 
 Then the door opened and there came in from the hall 
 a fat, waddling person, aged about fifty. Her sandy, 
 unkempt hair showed grey streaks and was pulled back 
 straight from her forehead, which left a jagged line close 
 over her brow, while a greasy apron, spanning tight across 
 her thighs, looked like the protector embalmers use. 
 
 "The butcher's here, Mrs. Vernon," the servant said 
 calmly. "Won't leave any meat unless we pay him. What 
 am I to say?" 
 
 Mrs. Vernon's figure became even more rigid. Then 
 she glanced unhappily at the woman and answered with 
 a dull, wearied voice : 
 
 "Oh, Mat tie, tell him " As the servant placidly 
 
 waited, Mrs. Vernon halted and turned away wearily as 
 if searching for some way out. But her pain-ridden 
 
 I
 
 2 THE TAKER 
 
 thoughts seemed incapable of meeting the situation. "Say 
 Fll stop in and see them say anything." 
 
 When she walked over to the window and sadly gazed 
 out onto the lawn, the servant muttered to herself a 
 
 sonorous lamentation : "Poor woman, poor thing " as 
 
 if to ease her own conscience from any further need for 
 sympathy. Glancing pathetic-eyed at the dark figure sil- 
 houetted in the window's sunlight, she left the room. 
 
 But Mrs. Vernon could hear the derisive comment that 
 came from the man's lips at the kitchen door, a comment 
 made more poignant at the moment by an odor that 
 floated up, as of old pork or of fried onions left to burn 
 on its skillet. 
 
 Wrapped in a silent reverie, Mrs. Vernon stood at 
 the open window for some time, while the heat from the 
 glaring July sun, penetrating past her into the room, 
 vibrated almost visibly in its first vigour of summer, 
 brooding in waves from the ceiling and floor and from 
 the fresh varnish that streaked the old furniture. 
 
 In fact, everything in the room was old and time- 
 worn; showing a painful blending of want with care- 
 fulness, remnants of better days voicing the pathetic sym- 
 phony concerning the Vernons, mother and son, familiar 
 to the ears of nearly every one in Elyria. The spindle- 
 legged mahogany desk with its splintered roller top 
 thrown back and fixed by the years, cried out its squeaky 
 protest at the faintest touch; the worn green Turkish 
 rug in the centre of the room made a dry cracking sound 
 like parched grass, at her slightest tread; even the lace 
 curtains at the window lent a brittle murmur as Mrs. Ver- 
 non crunched them in her rigid fingers ... a heart- 
 breaking melody, indeed, bowed to the very apparent dis-
 
 THE TAKER 3 
 
 cords made by money lost and vain striving to keep up ap- 
 pearances. 
 
 Only the many pictures of an attractive, sensitive look- 
 ing boy in varying poses and years, hanging in gilt 
 frames about the room, proved that one interest had 
 not dimmed and that to it Mrs. Vernon had been de- 
 voted with all a mother's love and constancy. 
 
 Here the resemblance between mother and son was 
 strikingly marked. There were the same large, deep-set 
 eyes, with a dreamy spark in them, the same perfect, 
 though weak, chiselling of the nose and mouth and chin. 
 
 It was after a long spell of despairing thought, which 
 many saddening days had forced to become as a second 
 nature in her, that Mrs. Vernon walked back to the desk 
 and again took up the unfinished letter. A half-dozen 
 times at least she started to write on it, hesitated, tore 
 it up entirely and then started afresh, though always 
 she had the resolution in her mind to tell all and open her 
 heart without reserve. And at last she went on with- 
 out the earlier hesitancy. 
 
 Just an occasional sob choking itself in her throat 
 or the nervous scratching of her pen as it fitfully moved 
 across the white paper, told the unhappiness of her task. 
 
 She wrote : 
 
 ELYRIA, OHIO. 
 JUDGE DAVID TALBOTT, 
 
 "165 BROADWAY, 
 
 "NEW YORK CITY. 
 "MY DEAR FRIEND: 
 
 "My boy is just breaking his mother's heart. The most 
 terrible stories come to me from all sides. I can't believe 
 that my own child would do any of the things I hear, in his 
 right senses. 
 
 "You are my oldest friend and know conditions so well,
 
 4 THE TAKER 
 
 tere in Elyria, yet I hesitate to inflict my troubles on you. 
 I really wouldn't, did I not feel it impossible to hold out any 
 longer. 
 
 "I hardly know how to start writing you about it. I have 
 had at least half a dozen anonymous letters about him, al- 
 though I can trace pretty well where they come from. I sup- 
 pose I must go right to the point. Well, it concerns Victoria 
 Leeds. Perhaps you remember the family. She was a 
 Harrison before she married. Anyway, it is nearly too much 
 to bear. She must be a very foolish, thoughtless woman to 
 play with my boy this way. Only this morning the Thomp- 
 sons called me up to tell me that she was seen with him last 
 night at a place out on the State Road, drinking and dancing. 
 It was months ago, too, that I tried to make Leonard give up 
 his phaeton. I see now why he wouldn't listen to me. Even 
 when I told him in what circumstances we were. Anyhow, I 
 believe what people tell me, my dear friend. And just a few 
 minutes ago, when I started to reprimand him about it, he 
 turned on me like some wild animal. He is in the next room 
 now. I hardly know what he'll do when he comes out. 
 
 "At least, he is actually forcing me to leave Elyria. I 
 can't stand the disgrace of it all in the place where our family 
 has gone on for so long. 
 
 "I can't help feeling that this is the end of us. Since 
 Francis died, everything has gone wrong. We are entirely 
 dependent now on the money from the rents here it comes to 
 about $3300 a year. Think of it, my friend, when we had so 
 very much to be thankful for. Yes, it's sad indeed whenever 
 I think of what we had when he was with us. All the cash 
 from his insurance has vanished as well as what was left in 
 the bank. Everything is proving to me now how weak and 
 foolish I am when it comes to running my life." 
 
 It was difficult to put down on paper all she wanted to 
 say. A longing rose in her soul to tell it to some one 
 aloud, so that the tears could be released, to ease up the
 
 THE TAKER 5 
 
 stifling feeling that choked her. She controlled herself, 
 however, though as she wrote, tears, again and again, fell 
 on the back of her hand or onto the letter. 
 
 "I have so wanted Leonard to grow up and be a fine son. 
 All his life he has been to me just my second self. I wanted 
 him to know a lot of girls of good family and have him 
 eventually marry some day, so that I could be proud of him. 
 I have just waited to see all this happen and waited, I sup- 
 pose, to see my own youth born again. Or at least, get through 
 him what really never happened to me. 
 
 "Instead of all this, he has queer, startling ideas. And he 
 is so precocious and wilful and won't study. 
 
 "What a fool a mother is, after all. You know, I've tried 
 to keep myself looking young, just so I could be chums with 
 him. It makes me choke writing it out for you like this." 
 
 Then she stopped, suddenly assailed with the idea that 
 she must not go on in this manner. A mother was com- 
 plaining to an outsider, against her own flesh and blood, 
 though the conviction shot through her that she had 
 always been like this, giving in too readily. 
 
 Reflecting for some minutes, while her idle pen tore 
 away crumb after crumb of the blue blotting paper, Mrs. 
 Vernon's aching thoughts suddenly were stilled by the 
 presence of Leonard, who appeared in the doorway, coldly 
 regarding her. The boy's soft felt hat, pulled down 
 recklessly over his head, apparently had been put on 
 with some certain idea of defiance. 
 
 While Mrs. Vernon guiltily placed her handkerchief 
 over the letter, he said coldly : 
 
 "I suppose you're complaining to some one about me, 
 aren't you?" His lips were pressed close and she could 
 easily outline the tightly clenched hands, dug so deeply 
 in his coat pockets.
 
 6 THE TAKER 
 
 When his mother failed to answer Leonard went on 
 impetuously, each word with a lash in it* 
 
 "Oh, I think you are terribly foolish, mother. You 
 don't seem to know that times have changed that a boy 
 nearly eighteen has some right to think for himself." 
 He added pointedly: "Well, it's no use for us to fight 
 twice in the same day. The one sure thing is I'm just 
 sick of all this I'm going to New York to get some sort 
 of a job." He stared insolently at her for some time, 
 then went on hotly again. "Yes, I'm going to New York, 
 I'm going to New York." And now his mother heard 
 a taunt in his words that held her rigid with amazement. 
 "I suppose you think it's a fine thing for a young man 
 to go to Elyria's Best School for Boys and then to some 
 fresh water college, the way you want me to do. Good 
 God, mother, every time I have gone in the gate this 
 whole last year I've had to laugh. Then another thing." 
 His brows became furrowed with thought. "I've beeri 
 looking over the future of some of Elyria's graduates 
 and there's hardly a one who has staj^ed in this town 
 who isn't just clerking or bookkeeping or something 
 like that." He added earnestly: "Yes, I think I'm going 
 to get out into the world and make money. This sketch- 
 ing and painting that they're teaching me will get me 
 about twenty a week if I live long enough." 
 
 Just as he was on the verge of continuing his attack 
 Mrs. Vernon interrupted, saying in a whispered, broken 
 voice : 
 
 "Leonard, dear, you are not old enough yet to know 
 what is right or wrong. If you were a good, loving 
 son you would listen to me and take for granted that what 
 I wanted for you was for the best." 
 
 It seemed difficult for her to word all she had in mind,
 
 THE TAKER 7 
 
 for he hardly listened. Though as she watched him 
 a half dozen or more reasons for argument scurried 
 through her mind. 
 
 Suddenly there was a restless toss of his head and a 
 survey of her that showed cold and impassionate in the 
 deep blue eyes. He turned toward the door, saying: "Oh, 
 what's the use trying to explain? It wouldn't do any 
 good, you know. You'd never understand me, you're so 
 damned old-fashioned." 
 
 There came a short lull as he stopped with his eyes 
 toward the shadows of the hall. When he turned and 
 came back into the room his face revealed with a new 
 strength the antagonism that had come over him. Sud- 
 denly, for the first time in her thirty-six years of life, 
 she felt a resentment forming deep in her, not so much 
 against the wilful child standing so defiantly in front 
 of her, but more against the hateful spirit gnawing its 
 way through the young mind and heart. 
 
 With a sort of horror the woman looked at him, as 
 before her eyes there seemed to be creeping a vague, 
 undefinable mass, crowding in at her boy's handsome 
 throat and face, at the mouth and eyes, as if to crush 
 out the love that was hidden there away from her. 
 
 So it was that a frantic feeling encompassed her, come 
 now out of the many months of submissive thinking, vol- 
 untary isolation, and her frail neurotic grasping at life ; 
 a desire suddenly frenzied, to get her fingers on this 
 antagonist and tear it away from the flesh which was 
 hers. 
 
 In another moment Mrs. Vernon lost control. With a 
 mad bound, holding the young boy transfixed with fright, 
 her clenched fingers hysterically grasped at his face and 
 shoulders.
 
 8 THE TAKER 
 
 And she cried, as the pale, delicate-faced Leonard, be- 
 wildered by this sudden attack, fought her off: 
 
 "I'll kill it first it won't destroy his love for me. It 
 won't it won't, I say." 
 
 Only after Leonard had torn himself loose and with an 
 infuriated yell shouted, "You'll never strike me again, 
 I'll leave here to-night," did the mother finally come to 
 her senses. 
 
 And while the boy ran out of the room and down the 
 carpeted stairs, a wild, embittering anger clutching at his 
 throat, the mother, stricken, leaned against the mantel- 
 piece, her eyes agape, her face wan her senses slowly 
 trying to clear away the obstruction of pain and anger 
 lodged there.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 TAOWNSTAIRS in the hall, Leonard ran to a little 
 
 ^-^ table whereon was placed a telephone, concealed in 
 a cabbage-leaf arrangement of yellow and red tissue 
 paper. 
 
 In his effort to get at the receiver he quite tore away 
 the flimsy disguise. His voice, however, as he told the 
 number, was strong and his face determined looking, as 
 if in his mind there played the thought that any wrong 
 he may have committed toward his mother was now sud- 
 denly balanced by this assault. 
 
 A half hour later he was seated in a small red phaeton, 
 alongside a woman some years older than he, with bril- 
 liant reddish hair and pale cheeks. He explained as she 
 listened, her gaze fixed admiringly upon his face: 
 
 "You know I don't know how it happened, Mrs. Leeds. 
 It certainly wasn't anything I did. But she just got 
 crazy-like for a second. Why " his eyes blazed at the 
 recollection, "for a minute I thought she was trying to 
 kill me. I'm going to get away. I am going to try to do 
 something for myself. I think I see a way of managing 
 things." 
 
 He thought a moment, then went on, the while he gazed 
 hard ahead: 
 
 "I'm not going to stand it any longer. I can't stand 
 the way she preaches about my future and how compan- 
 ionable we ought to be. Why," he reflected thoughtfully, 
 "it's gotten so now I can't wait till I get out of the house. 
 
 9
 
 10 THE TAKER 
 
 I believe she's just gone crazy from thinking too much 
 about my future." 
 
 "Dear boy," murmured Mrs. Leeds, regarding him af- 
 fectionately as he rambled on, telling her that some one 
 must have spoken about their being together and whimsi- 
 cally adding, with a half glance at her : 
 
 "I suppose they think I'm in love with you, Mrs. Leeds." 
 
 She did not comment on his words, only looked straight 
 at him, quizzically even, as if it were painful that he should 
 make fun of something she held sacred and yet not daring 
 to point to this thought of her weakness for fear of his 
 recognising it. Then she would lose him altogether, she 
 saw. 
 
 Leonard went on to say that mothers ought to know 
 that a boy had to grow up and be a man some time. 
 "What difference does it make, just because a woman 
 happens to be your mother?" he asked earnestly, in a 
 manner full of conviction. "Maybe it sounds terrible, 
 but I think everybody accepts facts like these too easilv. 
 They sort of don't think for themselves." He looked 
 determinedly onto the road for a time, then broke out: 
 "Which is no reason why I can't afford an original idea 
 once in a while. I know mothers are just things of chance, 
 like gambling for instance." 
 
 The young woman at his side remained silent. When 
 she did answer him her words had a bit of reprimand in 
 them, only shading off into agreement with him as her 
 eyes turned from the reins he held, onto his handsome 
 face. 
 
 "Well," she replied, "you know some mothers don't 
 realise that times are different than when they were young, 
 
 Lennie. But maybe you ought " She hesitated, then 
 
 ended by saying: "Oh, well, I've gone through so much
 
 THE TAKER 11 
 
 myself, Lennie, I don't blame you for wanting to go to 
 New York. Sometimes I wish I could get out of this 
 town. But my husband thinks the sun just rises and sets 
 here. And when he comes off the road he wants to rest, 
 you know." 
 
 Leonard interrupted, apparently unaware of her words : 
 "Well, I've got ray life planned out differently. I cer- 
 tainly don't intend to fool myself the way others do. 
 Maybe it's because I've seen so much unhappiness already 
 at home. But I know one thing. First, I'm going to live 
 in New York, and secondly, I'm going to get on after I 
 get there. I'm going to be hard and mean." He talked 
 more to himself than to the doll-faced woman at his side. 
 "Every time I find myself caring or falling in love I'm 
 just going to to cut it out. I'm going to be cold 
 strong. You watch me, Mrs. Leeds." 
 
 While she regarded him with affectionate eyes he went 
 on. But as he talked the idea confronted him that it 
 would do very little good to get sympathy from her. 
 "I've got to get along," he told himself. "She can't help 
 me any more than anybody else here." 
 
 Even as he looked at her he felt sorry that he had 
 'phoned her. Somehow her short, little nose seemed stub- 
 bier than ever before. 
 
 He ran on: 
 
 "Anyway, nobody can manage your life for you. When 
 mother called me down so terribly this morning for go- 
 ing out with you it was only because of her selfishness 
 because I'm not working out things according to her 
 plans. I suppose she thinks I'm not able to take care 
 of myself. Now, isn't that true?" he asked. "When the 
 true reason is that she fears I'd do something on my own 
 hook and prove she's wrong."
 
 12 THE TAKER 
 
 Without giving her a chance to answer, he continued 
 impetuously, though not so much to himself: 
 
 "The whole trouble with her is she's suffered all her 
 life because she's too sentimental. And there's never 
 been a minute that she hasn't paid for being that way, 
 somehow or other. And that's not going to be my lot." 
 
 "I'm sure of that," his companion broke in, now smiling 
 at him, and looking rather intently at his interesting 
 face and brightly burning eyes. "You'll never care for 
 anybody but yourself, Leonard, will you?" 
 
 "Well, love isn't going to mean anything to me," he 
 answered, looking at her as if he had been hurt by her 
 words, "until I've got other things arranged first things 
 like a home and money." He murmured on with a note of 
 weariness in his voice. "I'm sick of being poor. I think 
 I'll marry some woman about forty or so. They're more 
 sensible then, anyway."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 IV/T RS. VERNON waited in her bedroom that evening 
 **** while Leonard, in his room adjoining, without plan 
 or arrangement for the future, packed a small steamer 
 trunk. Very quietly he emptied the drawers and picked 
 out shirts and underwear, which he placed into the top 
 tray. Occasionally, however, he managed to shut a 
 drawer or replace a tray in the trunk so noisily that his 
 mother, who was listening in the next room, would hear. 
 
 And the whole time the mother waited and wondered 
 what he would do. It had been a terrifying day for her. 
 Not a word had passed between them all afternoon. Many 
 times she felt she could no longer restrain herself from 
 rushing into the next room and clasping the foolish, wilful 
 boy in her arms and crying out : 
 
 "Lennie, please, please forgive me. I didn't know what 
 I was doing this morning. Do what you want. We will 
 go to New York yes, anything, only love me and know 
 how your mother loves you." 
 
 With all her heart she longed to do this. What would 
 life be anyway, she thought, if he should actually carry 
 out his threat? 
 
 Then she would reason: 
 
 But could she really give in? How would it be after- 
 wards? Wasn't there some better way? 
 
 In misery, the mother sat and speculated. She had 
 heard her son come in at noon, later heard him go into 
 the kitchen for a bite to eat and talk to Mattie and 
 
 13
 
 14 THE TAKER 
 
 then come upstairs into the bedroom. She could hear 
 the drawers slamming now. And again the clutch came 
 at her heart. Supposing the boy really did go away ? 
 
 It was quite nine o'clock when she slipped on her 
 frayed, blue silk dressing gown and went back to the 
 rocker by the window. Her face was pale, her eyes 
 sunken, her soft cheeks marred by the imprint of fingers 
 which nervously she had raised now and then to her face. 
 
 Two different ideas at last settled in her mind. 
 
 One was that she could no longer control her son, that 
 she must give in to him. The other was that there was 
 no one to help her. There was no one. The mother who 
 had so hoped and prayed for more than eighteen years 
 was helpless. 
 
 Raising her aching head on her hand again, Mrs. Ver- 
 non went over the whole situation, thinking what had so 
 gradually brought it about, going back in her memories 
 to the time when she was Leonard's age, when even at 
 eighteen the thought of being a mother had filled her 
 mind. 
 
 Recounting and recapitulating, her thoughts shocked 
 every once in a while by a noise in the next room, she 
 went over the mistakes of the past years, her mind careen- 
 ing along the highway of that almost forgotten time; 
 while her heart, seared by the truant recollections, 
 throbbed open its casket of remembrances and let out 
 into distracting flight all the stored fancies, the smoth- 
 ered passions that so long had lain there desolate. 
 
 She caught an impression, strangely well defined, of 
 her marriage to the tall, delicate, almost effeminate look- 
 ing Francis Vernon; the way she, an unknowing, seven- 
 teen-year-old girl, had approached the black clothed form 
 of the minister the emotion that had welled in her as
 
 THE TAKER 15 
 
 she walked erectly along the aisle. She saw herself quite 
 plainly, catching even the fleeting expression on the faces 
 she passed. She could remember how well she looked 
 then, how tall she seemed, and how soft were her hands 
 with their graceful, tapering fingers as she put on the 
 wedding ring. Even the words came back to her ears 
 that the man so many years older than she used to 
 whisper : 
 
 "Oh, Marion, love me a little, you beautiful child." 
 That was his favourite expression she remembered "you 
 beautiful child." 
 
 She recalled even more from these forgotten days, 
 glimpsing the picture of one early spring morning . . . 
 that had changed everything. She was sitting in front 
 of her dressing table. Her mother came into the room, 
 her pale, streaked face showing plainly the result of a 
 tearful night. 
 
 "Oh, Marion," she sobbed, "please think a little of your 
 poor mother. You know how poverty stricken we are, 
 and Mr. Vernon is so rich. Please think a little of me, 
 dearie." 
 
 Her poor, selfish mother. Oh, mothers of the world, 
 if they could only know ! 
 
 Mrs. Vernon thought on. 
 
 After all, was she right in denying her child quite 
 as her mother had denied her? Perhaps she was as per- 
 haps all mothers were to blame, were selfish in hoping 
 for a continuance of their youth through their children. 
 
 Still, had a mother the right to direct her son's course, 
 even though the boy thought he was old enough to have 
 a mind of his own? 
 
 Her answer came emphatically : "Yes. Only a mother
 
 16 THE TAKER 
 
 was experienced enough and had lived long enough to 
 know what was best for her child." 
 
 Mrs. Vernon arose now and was on the point of call- 
 ing into the next room when she saw that another quar- 
 rel would be the only outcome. 
 
 So she sat down again, seeking some more decisive 
 answer, some solution of the situation that would silence 
 Leonard and still hold him back. A dozen times over 
 she covered the printed designs of the wall-paper, asking 
 herself the question : "What ought a mother, who loves her 
 boy, do in a case like this?" 
 
 And in her soul, where mother love puts on the guise 
 of unselfishness and then succumbs to self-blame for the 
 possible deception, all the different arguments assailed 
 each other. Her first ideas guided, then became the 
 cause of remorse until they were conquered again. And, 
 as always, the old submissive spirit in her won the day. 
 There was only one way for peace. 
 
 Going to the door, she called into the next room. Her 
 voice was steeled to it, but with a tremor penetrating: 
 "Lennie, Lennie.'* 
 
 Following her words, she walked into the boy's room 
 and stood by his side, while Leonard, looking up from 
 where he was bending over the trunk, surprisedly eyed 
 her. 
 
 In a forced, calm way Mrs. Vernon began: 
 
 "Leonard, do you think Pm altogether in the wrong? 
 Now, let's talk this thing over, mother to son. Perhaps 
 you will see my point of view too, Leonard." 
 
 The boy stood quiet for a moment, apparently in doubt 
 of what course to pursue. At last he said in rigid 
 fashion : 
 
 "It's no use, mother, I tell you." He turned and began
 
 THE TAKER 17 
 
 to pace the room restlessly. "I can't stand it here. I'm 
 bored to death. I can't go back to school any more. I'm 
 too sick of it." 
 
 The colour came high on his cheeks. He took hold of 
 the cord dangling from his dressing robe and intermit- 
 tently squeezed the tasselled end. After a time he said, 
 looking up : "I am sorry that you take it so hard, mother, 
 but if you stay in this town much longer I'll hate you 
 the way I hate everything else." 
 
 His mother looked at him, her heart throbbing with 
 disappointment at her boy's manner. "You must think 
 what you are saying to me, Lennie," she pleaded, while 
 the thought flashed into her mind as she saw his intel- 
 ligent face cloud and his blue eyes sparkle, that she had 
 read somewhere that this wilfulness was a disease, just 
 like the desire to kill or steal. 
 
 However, her appeal brought only a more defiant 
 argument. "It's no use, mother. You don't know how 
 unhappy I've been for a long time. Why, what chance 
 have I got here? I've some ambitions of my own, you 
 know. You might as well know it now. I must live my 
 own life." 
 
 Mrs. Vernon gazed unhappily at the temper-ridden boy. 
 But she remained silent, only shrinking a little more from 
 him as he continued impulsively, aroused to a bolder stand. 
 Leaning against the grey marble mantel-piece, he went on 
 vindictively, pointing out the injustice done him by hold- 
 ing him in a small town, away from all opportunity. 
 
 "Why," he argued, "you're just selfish, mother. You 
 want me to stay with you because you would be lonely 
 without me. Well, it's not my fault now, is it that I 
 was born? Then why didn't you marry again when fa- 
 ther died?" He moved restlessly toward her. "And have
 
 18 THE TAKER 
 
 another child? You see, you've never watched the prac- 
 tical side of things and now you're just afraid of suffering 
 for it." 
 
 The mother appeared aghast at the convincing manner 
 he was using and the cold tones of his argument. It 
 seemed as if she were inarticulate from amazement, for, 
 though her lips were silent and her eyes gazed appealingly 
 at him, her thin long fingers were never silent for a mo- 
 ment, moving from the edge of the mantel to her buttons 
 and then to her forehead, again and again. 
 
 And Leonard was aware of the agony he was causing 
 her. Following his words much in the manner of a lawyer 
 who watches his jury, he told her how they could go 
 into New York and become happy and successful. 
 
 "Why, mother," he said, "you could go into New York 
 and land somebody yourself if you didn't think you were 
 so old. Then we could have a decent home and I could 
 have a better chance that way." Turning toward the 
 window, he stared out into the street for a time, saying 
 more to himself than to her: "But it's no use, you know. 
 All you want to do is to stay here in Elyria and think 
 about your life being over and getting your youth through 
 me, and rot like that." 
 
 Suddenly the thoughts of the morning appeared to 
 have come back to him, for his rebellion was even greater 
 than ever. In words that came to his mother's ears like 
 cold steel, he exclaimed: 
 
 "Anyway, I don't believe there is any love lost be- 
 tween us, mother." 
 
 Conscious of the unrelenting expression that was set- 
 tling over his wilful face and as if anxious to stop his 
 train of thought before it went beyond his control, Mrs. 
 Vernon burst out:
 
 THE TAKER 19 
 
 "Oh, child, where have you learned all this? You talk 
 more like a woman than a man my son." 
 
 Suddenly she burst into tears. The stress of the day 
 apparently had found its vent. Laughing strangely for 
 a moment, she quite as abruptly went into convulsive sobs. 
 This she kept up for some minutes, while Leonard stood 
 regarding her, only after some time entreating her to 
 calm herself and not carry on so. 
 
 Soon, with her handkerchief to her face, Mrs. Vernon 
 turned and ran from the room. The expression on her 
 face told plainly now of the wild thoughts in her mind. 
 Why should she go on living when there was nothing 
 to live for? If she were not here, could not Leonard go 
 on unhampered and amount to something? If she were 
 dead perhaps it would be far easier, for then she would 
 never know how the child who meant everything to her 
 had suffered from his queer, selfish, emotional nature. 
 
 She would kill herself. That would be the only way 
 out. 
 
 It was in this fashion Mrs. Vernon reasoned as she 
 flung herself on the bed in her room. 
 
 While Leonard stood quietly wondering what to do, 
 it suddenly struck him that something might have hap- 
 pened to her. 
 
 Then he, too, ran out into the hall and followed into 
 the next room and saw her, lying outstretched across the 
 white lace spread, sobbing with deep stifled cries that 
 shook her entire body. 
 
 As he stood looking down upon her Leonard's tower 
 of determination was shaken, and he bent over her, put- 
 ting his arms around the quaking body, holding her tight, 
 until it seemed that the hysteria had eased off. He even
 
 20 THE TAKER 
 
 found tears rushing to his own eyes, which he fought 
 back resolutely. 
 
 And he cried: "Mother, mother, please don't carry on 
 so. Please, please don't. I'm sorry I hurt you. I only 
 want you to understand." 
 
 But his mother lay motionless and, except for deep 
 racking sobs that escaped now and then, she seemed una- 
 ware that her son was near her. 
 
 Only after a time did she impetuously take hold of 
 his face and frame it with her trembling hands. And 
 then, apparently forgetting all the cruel imputations, all 
 the heartless words, remembering nothing nor asking for 
 reasons, but only swayed by a mother's natural in- 
 stincts, she threw her white arms about the boy's slender 
 body and cried out as she gazed at him : 
 
 "Lennie, my son, you don't know what this day has done 
 to me. I've seen your father in you for the first time. 
 And you can't know what unhappiness he brought me.'* 
 
 They lay together, cheek against cheek, which seemed 
 to ease her hysteria somewhat, while with trembling fin- 
 gers she smoothed back his soft brown hair, saying as she 
 stroked it: 
 
 "Darling, listen to me. Perhaps your mother is dif- 
 ferent from most mothers, for every thought and every 
 desire she has had for over eighteen years has been for 
 her little baby." 
 
 Leonard replied restlessly : "Yes, I know, mother." 
 
 Now Mrs. Vernon ran on to more and more self- 
 scanning, whispering, as she gave his soft hands a pas- 
 sionate squeeze, that she alone was to blame and was 
 only getting what she deserved. As if making herself 
 a little more pathetic might move the child to repent, she 
 started to say that which lay uppermost in her mind
 
 THE TAKER 21 
 
 how years before she had thought many times of run- 
 ning away from her husband, how it had only been the 
 baby that held her back until too late. 
 
 However, she controlled herself, and tranquilly enough 
 said, as she looked deep into the boy's eyes: "Yes, my 
 son, I am getting what I deserve. I never cared for your 
 father. I married him for the money he had. I wanted, 
 a home. Yes, I'm getting what I deserve.'* 
 
 Leonard watched her closely while she told more in 
 detail of her struggles at that time. And how her 
 mother had suffered. 
 
 "Yes," she added, "it was more for my mother than for 
 myself, dear." Now she seemed to forget entirely how 
 prostrated she had been. Getting up from the bed, she 
 went to the bureau and took out of a drawer an old 
 daguerreotype, explaining, after she had come back and 
 showed it to Leonard, that she had saved it for nearly 
 eighteen years. She talked about this picture in a voice 
 full of reminiscent sadness, a voice that ended always in a 
 languorous murmuring protest against things having been 
 that way. Only as she felt more sympathetic understand- 
 ing from him did her voice lose its weariness and her eyes 
 open. 
 
 But Leonard knew that in the end he must not give 
 in and to keep his purpose clear in mind kept repeating 
 this resolve to himself, even as the mother indulged in 
 more and more self-revealing. And as she told of her 
 years of travail, Leonard noticed how tensely drawn her 
 lips had become and how sad were her eyes the expres- 
 sive sadness that comes when one recalls the past. 
 
 Mrs. Vernon continued: 
 
 "So I had my punishment, dear. I could have married 
 another man. He is a judge now and has a fine, happy
 
 22 THE TAKER 
 
 family. And I married a man I didn't love because the 
 man had money. And God made me suffer by giving me 
 affection that I didn't want." She paused, then thought 
 aloud: "Oh, I'm not going to let you make that mistake, 
 Lennie. I see the way clearly now." 
 
 She went on to tell him how she had planned for him 
 to marry some noble girl and how she had looked forward 
 to the time when she could kiss his little babies. "Oh, 
 God knows that thought was sweet music to my mind!" 
 she cried. "I hate to give up that hope, Lennie." 
 
 As if overtaken by some outburst from a hidden well 
 of truth, now she told Leonard all that had been searing 
 her. Imploringly, half crazed by the anxiety that stifled 
 her at the thought of how her child would be far away 
 from her, she went on, though in her words was the 
 tone of one who knows the futility of her plea. 
 
 "I want you to know all this, my son," she said ear- 
 nestly. "I held back during his whole life, Lennie, just 
 waiting waiting for you." She searched his face. "Per- 
 haps you see the reason now why I wanted to get some 
 happiness from you." 
 
 Some joy came to her at the moment, for she per- 
 ceived that the expression in the boy's eyes had softened, 
 as if there were tears coming. But her happiness was 
 short-lived, for suddenly Leonard jumped from the bed 
 and began walking back and forth in front of the win- 
 dows, more restless and defiant than ever. 
 
 "I want to have some fun," he nearly shouted. "I want 
 to have my chance to be somebody. Can't you under- 
 stand?" 
 
 Instantly she stopped him. "Leonard, you've got 
 strange ideas about life. I'm afraid you are going to be 
 very unhappy some day." Then she said, as if she had
 
 THE TAKER 23 
 
 been hurt: "You ignore me entirely you seem to forget 
 that I brought you into the world and have a right to 
 want to love you." She murmured on, the old sadness 
 trailing into her thoughts: 
 
 "I raised you and watched over you, just to bring 
 you to what you are to-day. I felt that all this was 
 worth waiting for, Lennie. 'And yet you think that it 
 is only the big city and wealth that will make you 
 happy. And I know that it's only love that can do 
 it." She thought for a time, then said : "Just so you find 
 it when you're young. All the rest comes after that. 
 And if love means nothing to you, Lennie, I am terribly 
 afraid for you." 
 
 Leonard's attention was attracted by the strange 
 breaking tremolo in his mother's words. Fearing another 
 paroxysm of anguish, without much notice of what had 
 brought it on, he took hold of her pale hands and said, 
 softly, as if to match up with her mood : 
 
 "Mother, I'm so terribly sorry for you. Indeed I am. 
 You don't know how sorry I am that you have suffered 
 so." 
 
 Silence came between them after this, though a strange 
 curiosity came into the mother's eyes and manner, which 
 rather startled Leonard. For some time Mrs. Vernon 
 looked at him and then nodded her head affirmatively, 
 as if finding the truth of thoughts hidden in her mind. 
 
 And at last she cried out: "Oh, I'll give in to you! 
 Well sell everything and move to New York. I'll let 
 you do as you please, but oh, my poor boy ! God knows 
 what will happen to us."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 "JV/TOVING into New York was not the simple proce- 
 *>" dure that Leonard had thought it. Although he 
 troubled very little about it, leaving everything to his 
 mother while he lent himself entirely to the bewildering 
 glamour of riches and busy life that confronted him. 
 
 He roamed up and down Fifth Avenue, drinking in 
 the city's veneer like some young adventurer from a 
 desert slaking his thirst. And at night, when he went up 
 to the third floor of the crumpling brownstone house on 
 Fifty-fifth Street where they had their rooms, he shut 
 his eyes to the horror of the reality surrounding him by 
 telling his mother again and again how wonderful it all 
 was. 
 
 "Why, everybody is rich here, mother. The poor peo- 
 ple don't count, they don't exist." 
 
 This statement became a chronic apology for the weary 
 questions she asked of him on his return from his job 
 hunting expeditions. It had come down to a necessary 
 acknowledgment of failure within the first six weeks of 
 their new residence. Judge Talbott, whom the good- 
 looking Leonard had sought out during the first days, 
 turned him off in a manner that only Mrs. Vernon was 
 acquainted with. Calling the mother on the 'phone the 
 next morning after Leonard's visit to him, the Judge 
 said politely, sadly, sympathetically : 
 
 "Dear, dear, what can I tell you? Your son is a won- 
 derfully handsome fellow, but I don't dare recommend 
 
 24
 
 THE TAKER 25 
 
 him to any position of responsibility. Why, he sat here 
 yesterday in his white and black checked vest and patent- 
 leather shoes hardly conscious of what I was talking 
 about. When I mentioned starting at the bottom he 
 sneered at me. Oh, my poor dear woman !" 
 
 Leonard began now to lose his courage, which worried 
 the mother even more, and she did everything in her 
 power to cheer him up and make him understand that it 
 was only because his gifts were so different from others 
 that he found so little appreciation. She gave him more 
 money to spend than they could afford, she made him 
 stop his job hunting altogether so that he might further 
 his studies in art. 
 
 These were indeed harassing times. Leonard would 
 rush out of the house the moment a meal was over and, 
 with a few dollars in his pocket, embark on expeditions 
 that she no longer stopped to question. However, time 
 and again she caught the faint odour of liquor on his 
 breath as he came in late and kissed her good-night. The 
 'phone rang constantly too, and the voices were always 
 either too mature in their tones or else too childlike and 
 petulant. 
 
 So the days repeated themselves, end on end, until Mrs. 
 Vernon could stand it no longer. Calling him into her 
 room one night, she said to him as sympathetically as 
 possible : 
 
 "Leonard, what are you doing with your time?" 
 
 Somehow he appeared ready with his sullen answer. 
 
 "Well, mother, I'll tell you. I've stayed in this town 
 long enough to know that it's only the big game that's 
 worth while going after. You can work all your life, see, 
 or you can get people to work for you all your life." 
 He ^gathered force in his remarks as he went on. "I've
 
 26 THE TAKER 
 
 been figuring it out. People are either victims or not, 
 in this world. I'm not going to take a job unless it's 
 got a chance, a real chance, to get me some place." 
 
 His mother shrank from his commonplace manner as 
 if he were shooting poison darts at her. As he went on 
 she could only repeat to herself the words that he had 
 never stooped to before "See" "Understand." 
 
 "I'm going to drive big or not at all, understand. I'd 
 rather starve than have to eat bread and butter all my 
 life." 
 
 For the first time the mother became really aware of 
 what ingredients were in her son's make-up. And after 
 that she went on in her heart-broken way, never molest- 
 ing him or trying to make him view what would be the 
 eventual outcome of his new philosophy. 
 
 Until one day, near the end of their twelfth month. 
 
 For weeks Mrs. Vernon had gone back to spending her 
 time sitting by the window thinking and reflecting, and 
 now her thoughts were just as disabling to her confidence 
 in the future as they had been in the years before at 
 Elyria. Only the accompaniment was different. Instead 
 of birds in the trees or children running past whom she 
 had known from their infancy, there was now the brutal 
 chugging of automobiles in the row of garages opposite. 
 She sat thinking over the change that had come to her 
 baby boy. She saw him slowly absorb the city's false 
 manner of wealth. One habit after another had taken 
 hold of him. His hair was glistening much darker now 
 with a brilliantine and polished down to a mirror-like sur- 
 face, his nails were shiny to a pinkish white. 
 
 That night she stopped him just as they rose from 
 the dinner table. Leonard had already made his way 
 into the hall for his coat and hat before he really listened
 
 THE TAKER 27! 
 
 to her call, and he actually showed his resentment when 
 she gently took hold of his arm, as if his thoughts should 
 not be intruded upon. It might have been the tears, sud- 
 denly glistening in his mother's eyes and which she fought 
 back with all the control she could muster, that arrested 
 him. 
 
 "Leonard," she cried, "why won't you tell me all that 
 you are doing? Why do you leave me here alone night 
 after night? Don't you know how I worry?" 
 
 He lifted his drooping head just enough to return her 
 piteous gaze. When finally he did manage to answer 
 her, he groped awkwardly for his words, which more em- 
 phatically than ever brought to the mother an under- 
 standing of the losing fight. 
 
 "Oh, mother," he said, "I am a man. I've got men's 
 things to work out for myself, you know. I'll come out 
 all right if you'll just leave me alone for a while." 
 
 He turned toward the door as if this should settle the 
 argument, but Mrs. Vernon ran on quickly to what she 
 wanted to say, the while she spoke in soft pleading words. 
 
 "Leonard, why don't you take up your sketching again? 
 You know how clever you are at drawing and how every- 
 body back home thought that would be your career. Why 
 don't you get interested in it and 1 make up your mind 
 to be a success and claim your own honestly, like other 
 men?" She put her arm through his as if to draw him 
 back into the dining-room. But he stood stolidly in his 
 tracks. "You know, there would be a wonderful chance 
 for you in working on a newspaper, or in an architect's 
 office. I would be so happy, dear, if you would do 
 this. I'd," she turned away to hide tears that were now 
 unmindful of her will "I'd almost be willing," she added,
 
 28 THE TAKER 
 
 "to endure all the loneliness if I knew you were suc- 
 ceeding." 
 
 The next morning Mrs. Vernon called up Judge Tal- 
 bott and explained how anxious Leonard was to get work 
 along a draughtsman's lines. "He would be so good 
 at making water colours of buildings and things like 
 that," she cried over the 'phone. "Please help me, my 
 friend." 
 
 In fact, Leonard had no way to walk out of the situa- 
 tion when, on the following day, the Judge called up 
 Mrs. Vernon and said that by accident he had been able 
 to procure just such a position for Leonard in a large 
 art glass works at Hastings, New York. 
 
 They concluded their arrangements quickly enough. 
 
 "I think I'll go back to Elyria until you can send 
 for me," Mrs. Vernon said to the boy. "You must write 
 often, though, and just devote yourself to making a ca- 
 reer. I'm so happy." 
 
 His mother seemed to carry out and complete all the 
 details for their departure quite before he could gather 
 his objections. 
 
 But though he was going off to a position of his moth- 
 er's making, he determined to see if he could not get out 
 of the rut that was holding him and really shape his own 
 career when he was once free from home ties. 
 
 When the mother stood on the back platform of the 
 train bound for Elyria waving good-bye to him, she 
 was really happy, for he seemed to be in earnest for the 
 first time in his life.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 TEN days after Leonard Vernon had forsaken his 
 mother in New York and entered into the routine 
 of his new position at the great Jacob demons' Art 
 Glass Works, Hastings, U. S. A., he met Jennie dem- 
 ons, his employer's daughter. 
 
 Jennie was a blonde person, a tall girl, beautiful, though 
 a little too stout, whose ignorance kept her from being 
 a bore to many intelligent men. 
 
 The moment she met the handsome Leonard she told 
 him in her hesitating, even babyish, way that she had 
 heard so much about him from her father, how different 
 he was from the other men in Hastings and' how artistic 
 and intelligent were his tastes. 
 
 And it was only three months after this meeting that 
 Leonard wrote to his mother in Elyria the following 
 letter : 
 
 "DEAR MOTHER: 
 
 "You ask me to come out to Elyria if I'm not doing well 
 here. Now, I'm doing very well indeed. I believe results 
 will begin showing pretty soon for now I am not designing 
 any more and am getting more into the business end of it with 
 Mr. demons. 
 
 "It's best that I give up my 'artistic career/ as you put it, 
 for a time. I am really getting some sense about life and 
 don't want you to keep worrying about me. The world does 
 not care about my artistic career. That's the trouble with 
 most people anyway they think more about the world and 
 what the world might think than they do of themselves. I am 
 
 29
 
 30 THE TAKER 
 
 going to think more of myself. At least I believe I've learnt 
 to do that much since I left home. 
 
 "I hate to go over the whole thing again, but really, mother, 
 it's best that I left home after all because I don't believe I was 
 driving very straight towards being a real man. When I think 
 back and realise how soft and weak I was about everything 
 it scares me. I'm reading a lot now and just last week fin- 
 ished a book by Montaigne. 
 
 "The people up here are pretty commonplace; but strangely 
 one gets into their mode of life and doesn't feel so much any 
 of the outside contrasts. Which is just as well. I'm wearing 
 Hastings glasses now, over my eyes and mind, and I have 
 about decided to include my heart as well. 
 
 "Now I'll write often and tell you all that's happening. 
 Anyway, let's be sensible. You think it over and you'll see 
 that it's only those people in the world who measure out every- 
 thing that get along well. My health is better too since I cut 
 out the artistic stuff. 
 
 "I'm sorry you're so lonesome. Don't you think you ought 
 to go out more? You know everybody out there. 
 
 "With love, your son, 
 
 "LEONARD." 
 
 Then the following Saturday Leonard drove up on 
 the state road to Albany. He seemed determined to 
 get along in this affair with his employer's daughter. 
 
 With Jennie by his side they followed the soft dirt 
 road, his own strange quietness influencing even the mind 
 of the young girl. 
 
 On one side of them was an unending expanse of wav- 
 ing green fields of corn, dotted here and there by yel- 
 lowish patches of wheat. On their left was dense shrub- 
 bery and high trees. Now and then a rift opening 
 through showed the river below shining in the strong 
 sunlight like a wide ribbon of polished glass.
 
 THE TAKER 31 
 
 Leonard was indeed strangely silent, finding satisfac- 
 tion in watching to see if Jennie would match his mood. 
 
 Until at last she exclaimed : "Oh, Mr. Vernon, what do 
 you say let's stop on the side of the road and go down 
 and watch the river." 
 
 He looked at her and smiled back, "Why I think it 
 would be nice, don't you?'* 
 
 Then he pointed out a place in the ditch-like hollow 
 along the road and she jumped out, while he backed 
 into the rut and tied the horse to a tree. Even as he 
 laboured with the animal she gazed at him approvingly 
 with wide admiring eyes eyes that seemed to hide wordjs 
 of flattery, that were forever crying for life at her hesi- 
 tating lips. 
 
 At last the horse was quieted and the buggy settled 
 into a patch of deep weeds and grass and he jumped from 
 the seat and led the way, Indian fashion, through the 
 trees. Holding his hand back of him as he walked, he 
 said: "I guess everything will be safe there, Miss dem- 
 ons. Perhaps you had better keep near me." 
 
 But the trees were close together in places and so after 
 a few steps, as if to make easier the steep descent, he 
 casually put his arm around her waist. 
 
 "We can walk better this way, I think," he remarked. 
 When they had gained a spot that glimpsed the river, 
 they stopped to enjoy the scenery and stillness about 
 them. Leonard felt a vague inertia in the quietness of 
 the trees, and as the tall girl beside him stood gazing 
 silently, also apparently happy, he gave way to a languid 
 spell of dreaming. Casting his eyes down on to the river, 
 he saw a small power boat lazily slipping through the 
 water, leaving after it a flood of bubbles, like a train of 
 surging jewels.
 
 32 THE TAKER 
 
 But Jennie broke in on his silence. 
 
 "I think there is a good place to sit down farther 
 along," while the thought disturbed her queerly that he 
 was more silent than any man she had ever known. 
 
 "I love it when it is so quiet like this," he answered. 
 
 Walking on, they at last reached a stony ledge that 
 hung directly out over the river. Here they stood for 
 some time, both occupied in watching another boat which, 
 like some white bug, was crawling off from the shining 
 surface into two projecting arms of timber on the shore 
 opposite. 
 
 It moved Leonard to remark that it looked like some 
 animal entering its trap. 
 
 "All the people are waiting to see what is caught," 
 he added. 
 
 "It surely is delightful here," she breathed deeply. 
 
 Then Leonard looked down at the ground and said 
 quickly : 
 
 "Let's rest here. You're out of breath, aren't you?" 
 
 "Oh, not so very." 
 
 Though when she sat down and threw her sweater on 
 the ground and lay back, there came a contented sigh. 
 Her skirt folded itself tightly about her limbs, and with 
 her arms thrown back all the developing maturity of her 
 form became apparent. 
 
 Leonard looked down on her. 
 
 "It certainly did take your breath," he said. 
 
 She did not answer him at the moment, only glanced 
 down into the river, though presently she exclaimed, point- 
 ing as she spoke: 
 
 "Oh, look how beautifully the mist is hanging over the 
 water!" 
 
 The river, caparisoned by a rainbow of colours made
 
 THE TAKER 33 
 
 by the sun as it shot down through the mist, was rippling 
 along in a slowly moving current. And off to their 
 right, crowning a hill, their eyes were caught by the 
 tops of a cluster of tall, haunting maples, swaying deso- 
 lately in a gentle breeze. 
 
 "Don't you just love this?" she murmured. 
 
 "I surely do." 
 
 With her hands she began shutting out all else but 
 the dazzling blue vault of the heavens, after the man- 
 ner of a landscape artist hunting for his framed bit of 
 perfection. 
 
 "Didi you ever try this?" she suggested. 
 
 To do as she bid, he too lay down on the smooth rocky 
 surface beside her and rimmed his eyes with his hands. 
 However, he soon gave up this task and seemed content 
 to gaze moodily about him. 
 
 For a long time, then, they were silent, both dreamily 
 staring up at the sky. 
 
 Until at last a sigh escaped from her. 
 
 "Gee, this is great. I just love it," she murmured. 
 
 When there came no answer, she said: 
 
 "Don't you think so?" 
 
 "Of course I do," he answeredj lazily. 
 
 Now she saw that his gaze was again lost in the river 
 below them. 
 
 "That's the way everybody goes on just like the river 
 down there on and on and never able to change the 
 place they're going to." His words were moody, tinged 
 by dull melancholy. 
 
 Sensing the trend of his thoughts and wishing that at 
 this moment he would not spoil the pleasing quietness 
 about them, she replied airily: 
 
 "Oh, let's not think things like that now, Mr. Vernon.
 
 34 THE TAKER 
 
 Let's just be happy." She turned away from him and 
 exclaimed in a vague way: "Let's just imagine we're lost 
 so that nobody would ever find us just away from the 
 world." 
 
 Leonard looked at her, aroused. 
 
 "Why, that's just what I don't want to do. That's 
 just what I'm never going to do. I'm going to stay 
 in the world." 
 
 His blue eyes flashed as he spoke, and as he smiled a 
 little she appeared to feel that he thought she was not 
 taking him seriously. So she encouraged him to go on 
 by an almost reverent gaze on him. He said, after some 
 time, while he tore holes in the sandy soil with a jagged 
 piece of stone: "Do you know, Miss demons, my mother 
 never thought I was going to amount to anything? She 
 just wanted me to be weak be an artist and have ideals. 
 She was always watching me. Why, before I came up 
 here to work for your father, when I'd go up to the top 
 floor to sketch and paint I always knew she'd be up 
 there in about five minutes. Why, until I left home I 
 never had a chance to think for myself." 
 
 As he talked the girl was pleased immeasurably by 
 his confidence, though somehow, in an unexplainable way, 
 a wonder was growing in her heart whether he was laugh- 
 ing at her for taking him seriously. 
 
 "You know," he went on, "sometimes I wish I could 
 get away from everybody just be the only person in 
 the world." He clenched his hands tightly as he worded 
 the thought. "It's pretty hard to meet any one who 
 really understands." 
 
 Bashfully, she objected: "Don't you think I under- 
 stand?"
 
 THE TAKER 35 
 
 Smiling back at her, he said slowly, as he studied her: 
 "Perhaps you do." 
 
 Now Leonard lay back silently, and Jennie, very close 
 to his side, methodically busied herself in finishing up one 
 of the holes he had been digging. Then she too stopped 
 and became lost in a day dream ; while Leonard was 
 vaguely thinking how he should make his next move, 
 his mind planning stratagems at the command of an 
 impulse, of the existence of which he was hardly aware. 
 
 At last he rolled over on his side and began replacing 
 the yellow sweater under her loosened hair. But he was 
 unable to accomplish this while leaning on his elbow and 
 so took away the sweater altogether and instead placed 
 his arm under her shoulders. 
 
 "Isn't that better?" he asked, while the thought shot 
 through him that her lips were actually inviting him. 
 
 Though she failed to answer, after some time he re- 
 laxed his gaze on her and lay back quietly with his eyes 
 dreamy, apparently content that she had offered no pro- 
 test to this casual caress. 
 
 For some minutes then there was this quality of silence 
 between them. Only the sharp crowing of a hawk circling 
 high above them disturbed the silence. 
 
 Suddenly Leonard jumped to his feet and began to 
 walk back and forth with long, decisive strides. His deep- 
 ened breathing told her that some troubling force had 
 beset him. 
 
 "What's the matter, dear?" she said' uncertainly. 
 
 A nearly unendurable period passed before he sat down 
 rigidly by her side. 
 
 She looked at him earnestly. "You do like me a lit- 
 tle?" she questioned.
 
 36 THE TAKER 
 
 He studied her quizzically, in an unaroused fashion. 
 Until she repeated: 
 
 ''Don't you?" 
 
 A shudder passed over him, a paroxysm that made him 
 sigh and drew his shoulders together. When he looked 
 up she saw that an expression had settled on his face 
 which was strangely changed from his usual gentleness. 
 
 At a loss for words to break his strange attitude, she 
 muttered : 
 
 "Didn't you hear me?" 
 
 "You said something about my liking you, I think?" 
 
 He still gazed at her whimsically, soon startling her 
 by bursting into a clear, unnatural laugh. 
 
 With just a little anger she exclaimed: "Why, what's 
 the matter?" 
 
 And now he got up again and began to walk back and 
 forth. It was some minutes before he turned to her 
 and said, quite seriously: 
 
 "I wonder if you would understand?" 
 
 "Why, what do you mean?" she asked. 
 
 Now he seemed determined to point out his views and 
 be understood by her. 
 
 "Well, maybe you don't understand. But things like 
 kissing seem so unimportant. You know, I've thought a 
 lot about it, too. Just because a man likes to kiss a 
 girl and she likes to have him do it is no sign that a 
 man ought to be in love with her. Now, is it?" He 
 added: "Then a man's job on earth is too important for 
 him to let sentimental things like that rule him." 
 
 "Do you mean," she cried, trying to penetrate his 
 thoughts, "that a man and a girl ought to go on making 
 love to each other just for the fun of it? Why, how 
 queerly you talk."
 
 THE TAKER 37 
 
 He came back at her directly, saying: "Of course 
 why not?" 
 
 She thought about it seriously for some time while 
 two red spots mounted high on her already coloured 
 cheeks. At last she said: 
 
 "Well, no man that is a man will go on making love 
 to a girl or want to make love to a girl unless he's 
 in love with her. Everybody knows that." She bit her 
 lips until they showed a fine red line. "And if he is 
 in love with her, why then he'd want to marry her. And if 
 she loves him enough to want him to kiss her" she looked 
 deeply into his eyes "then she'd want to marry him." 
 
 She waited for some time for his answer, busying her- 
 self the while, to better show her control and lessening 
 concern, by dusting her face and throat with a chamois 
 drawn from a pocket in her sweater. 
 
 But Leonard appeared amused now that she had be- 
 come so serious, though from the way he looked ahead 
 of him, and now and again took a deep breath, she could 
 tell that some thought was troubling him. At last he 
 said slowly: 
 
 "I knew you'd talk like that." 
 
 Then he went on: "Well, I'll not change my views, 
 anyway. I like to kiss, and I guess you do, too. That's 
 the way we're built. I can't see the use of lying to our- 
 selves. I think if it were wrong for us to be like that, 
 then we should have been made different from the start. 
 At least, when it comes to marrying somebody, why then 
 it certainly is different. That's one thing I'm not going 
 to fool myself about." 
 
 While she listened he continued slowly, wonderingly, 
 wording his thoughts as if they were the result of great 
 deliberation.
 
 38 THE TAKER 
 
 "It's just this: I've made up my mind to be a suc- 
 cess, some time. Maybe I've thought more about it than 
 most men of my age. Maybe it's that I've learned a 
 good deal just watching. Anyway, I'm not going to 
 fool myself the way everybody else does." He paused 
 for a moment. "You know, I don't think that an artist 
 can have love affairs and feel deeply about them, like 
 other people. They don't get over them so quick and 
 they're hurt more, because they feel more. Then they've 
 got another business than just getting married, like other 
 people, and they've got to guard their business so that 
 their power of expression won't suffer." He looked 
 up at her. "Do you see what I mean? It's just that 
 getting married has nothing in the world to do with kiss- 
 ing or making love. They don't belong to the same 
 family." He added: "Anyway, it might be all right for 
 ordinary men, but not for artists like myself." 
 
 "You mean," she interrupted, her face paling with 
 growing anger, "you mean that you think it's all right 
 to be to make love with somebody without really lov- 
 ing them at all?" 
 
 He looked at her composedly. 
 
 "Why, of course, if it's somebody you like having do 
 it." 
 
 Suddenly she got up and ignoring her crumpled linen 
 skirt, reached down and took her sweater and walked 
 quickly away. As she went she threw over her shoulder : 
 
 "If you want, you can take me home." 
 
 This was unexpected, but somehow it seemed far bet- 
 ter to have her angered, which showed how she cared 
 for him, than to give her any understanding that he 
 had been playing or was sorry. "It's only because I'm 
 that way with her that she cares," he told himself.
 
 THE TAKER 39 
 
 So he meekly followed her up the hill and through the 
 trees and they were home in less than an hour. 
 
 When they gained the iron fence of the demons place, 
 Jennie jumped out without a word to him, just holding 
 herself rigid as she opened the gate and walked up the 
 walk to the porch. 
 
 Leonard did not get out after her, but drove up the 
 street toward his boarding place, queerly pleased. A 
 wild! exultation beat in his heart. As he walked up the 
 green carpeted steps to his rooms, his mind throbbed 
 with- the undertsanding that now he had made a final 
 settlement with himself. He would marry Jennie dem- 
 ons, the daughter of his employer. She was rich, in 
 love with him and would follow his slightest nod. He 
 could control her to the slightest degree. It would be 
 the keystone of his career. 
 
 When he entered his room Leonard took off his hat 
 and coat hurriedly and threw them on the bed, then ran 
 upstairs to the attic space he had rented and fitted up as 
 a work shop. Also, as was his systematic practice, he 
 put on a very faded velvet jacket that he used, took off 
 his low oxford shoes and put on a pair of half slippers. 
 Then, as if he had completed some preliminary task, he 
 began to pace the floor. One thought after another 
 raced through his mind. Now he could have some chance 
 in life. No more sentiment. He would marry this rich 
 girl, much richer than he ever would have been out of 
 painting a girl who was just satisfied to have an intel- 
 ligent, handsome artist for her husband. He was tired 
 of being poor, anyway. He would have a great, big 
 home and a lot of servants and all over the place would 
 be hung Monets, Renoirs, Greuzes, Manets, like at the 
 Fowler Gallery up on Fifth Avenue. And his favourite of
 
 40 THE TAKER 
 
 all Zier's "La Sieste," hand-tinted, so that it would be 
 elegant enough to hang with the rest. Yes, and his own 
 work, too. For then he would paint at his leisure; he 
 would invent a new school perhaps, a combination of 
 Renoir's mystic impressionism with the bolder stroking 
 of Cezanne. But he thought, too this last idea might 
 be qualified a little. Perhaps it would, be better to let 
 the others paint for him. At least a different future than 
 would happen if he waited until his art brought results. 
 
 His meditations punctuated now and then by deep 
 inhalations from his cigarette, Leonard pondered over 
 what had kept him so blind all the past years. Settling 
 himself in a large rocker in front of the slanting oval 
 mirror that he used as a reflector, he contentedly re- 
 garded himself, while in his mind paraded all the possi- 
 bilities of a well-managed future. If only he kept con- 
 trol of himself as he had for instance this afternoon. 
 Visions came to him of how he would alight from his 
 luxurious motor car, in front of the great hotels in New 
 York ; how at night he would step out in his tight-fitting 
 evening clothes in front of the lighted doorways of the 
 theatres. He could almost see his rich wife in a few 
 years. She would look a little older than he did, and per- 
 haps her stoutness would grow, too. But she would look 
 up at him with admiring eyes, and he would know all the 
 time how fascinating she thought him and how, rather 
 than lose him, she would give in to every one of his 
 desires and whims. Yes, this was the only way an artist 
 should live ! After that could come the love affairs. 
 
 For more than an hour Leonard Vernon sat thinking 
 in this fashion, at last crying out as he studied his mir- 
 rored reflection: 
 
 "Yes, you bet I'm going to get along. I'm going to
 
 THE TAKER 41 
 
 be rich and successful." It was as if some antagonist 
 were viewing him. "Wait, you'll see you will." 
 
 He thought on, his lips compressed, his hands clenched, 
 how much better things had proved themselves now sim- 
 ply because he had decided to be practical. Though, 
 too, if he were to get out into the world of men, he must 
 equip himself well, read up on French history and the 
 fall of the different nations. Then he must read the 
 Russian writers people were talking about. 
 
 Leonard remembered that before he had left Elyria 
 he had been rather delicate, a fact which had worried 
 his mother so terribly. But now he was the possessor 
 of a fairly well-proportioned frame, considering his six 
 feet of height. At least, his former frailty had only 
 been an expression of weakness which had come because 
 of his lack of aggressiveness toward life and people. In- 
 deed, he had changed, he saw. 
 
 He really had always pitiedj himself too much. And 
 tried to emphasise this weakness in the presence of others. 
 People seemed to feel so sorry and then would give in so 
 easily. But that was the way women were and the reason 
 for their continual success. When they wanted anything, 
 they acted frail and every one was anxious to give in to 
 them. 
 
 No more of all that. He would win now because he 
 was strong. The other could never work out in the long 
 run, anyway. He would use the weak ones, trample over 
 their bending bodies up the ladder to success. 
 
 Leonard's inner being churned itself into a state of 
 tempest. As he sat rocking back and forth, a powerful 
 and tumultuous yearning for great things welled up 
 in him. A demand for conquering harmonies filtered 
 through his young mind's turmoil. He was going to win.
 
 42 THE TAKER 
 
 He would climb his porphyry-runged Jacob's ladder to 
 the heights. 
 
 At the moment, it would have taken the tremendous 
 cacaphonies of "Tristan" to symphonise with the over- 
 powering rhythm of his youthful fancies. All the inglo- 
 rious journeys of a score or more of world-famous artists 
 flashed across his clamouring mind. A life of adventure 
 that was it. And no bowing of his head to pick his way 
 along some unhallowed labyrinth of the commonplace. 
 
 Had he not read the story of Chopin, of Napoleon, 
 with envy? They had lived. At fifteen, with aching heart, 
 he remembered how he had read Emma Bovary's miser- 
 able tale. Yes, even then, the seed of a strength was in 
 him. Had he not ended up with a feeling that Emma 
 was a fool to be so sentimental, and that the man could 
 not be blamed? 
 
 So it was that an invisible audience applauded Leonard 
 Vernon as the torrent of rebellion flooded his soul. He 
 would get on, with envy as the only accompaniment. 
 Others could reverence, if they would, men who mar- 
 tyred themselves for love. 
 
 Sitting in front of the oval mirror, Leonard's mind 
 then filled with more quieting and satisfying pictures; 
 a composite of all he had ever read or dreamed, strangely 
 interwoven, like the scenes on the library tapestry down- 
 stairs at the demons'. Suddenly he was taking a winged 
 flight to the exotic colouring of harems, where soft-armed 
 Bayaderers were caressing handsome Sultans with love- 
 drugged senses ; to marble mansions where swarthy 
 Greeks, with their fine handsome bodies, were lost in 
 Bacchanalian adventures. Without detail or structure, 
 his fancies ran into even more idyllic staging mountain 
 scenes, and shady lovers' lanes, dark cypress glens, where
 
 THE TAKER 43 
 
 whispered harmonies came from swishing waterfalls and 
 nickering goats ... a vague, mysterious fantasm 
 to which he unresistingly lent himself ... a conglomer- 
 ate essence of that unaccountable quality in nature which 
 consorts with the fancies of an untrammelled youth con- 
 templating a serious human relationship for the first time 
 in his life. 
 
 He became more aware of his physical self. 
 
 Turning his head until he saw the enticing oval of his 
 face in its frame of soft, dark brown hair, he surveyed 
 himself coldly, much as if he were taking an inventory of 
 his assets for the future. He set his jaw and half closed 
 his eyes until they became dreamy, interesting . . . after 
 the manner in which a woman with the portrait of her 
 lover in her heart admires herself before retiring. 
 
 And all the time a picture limned itself at the back of 
 his mind. It was that of Jennie waiting for him to come 
 back to her. He could hardly keep from smiling as he 
 thought about it. How interesting it would be to keep 
 her waiting until she was so eager for him, and so afraid 
 of losing him, that she would even help to make his 
 conquest sweeter. 
 
 Also he told himself that anxious waiting on her part 
 would make the future between them all the more sub- 
 stantial. 
 
 . . . While Jennie was in a different state of mind, 
 indeed. Waiting until Leonard had disappeared, she 
 came down from the porch and walked through the iron 
 gate out into the street again. The hot sun beat down 
 and wearied her and she walked slowly, her hat in her 
 hand, her feet dragging. She was sick at heart, un- 
 happy and angered, as one is who has been slapped in
 
 44 THE TAKER 
 
 the face in the dark by some unknown adversary, or sud- 
 denly been disappointed after some long and heart-break- 
 ing wait. She had been hurt somewhere inside and had 
 a distressing feeling that the wound would never heal as 
 long as she lived. 
 
 She was a block or more djown the street, on the point 
 of returning home, when she hesitated, thinking what she 
 would tell her father, who, red-faced and nervous from 
 the heat, would be awaiting her for luncheon. Of course, 
 she thought, she might pretend that nothing had hap- 
 pened. But something had happened. 
 
 The man she loved 
 
 The thought was more than she could bear. She 
 could not confront him with the calamity that had be- 
 fallen her still fresh in her mind 1 . 
 
 So she turned and walked up the street again, feeling 
 a bit better with the knowledge that her father would 
 not search her face and question her. 
 
 Losing all sense of direction, she walked until she 
 was opposite some factories on a street that led directly 
 down to the Hudson. Some truckmen were unloading 
 heavy barrels of flour, and farther on three men were lift- 
 ing the gang-plank of a boat. 
 
 She thought to herself: 
 
 "If it weren't for my father, I'd get on some boat and 
 disappear forever. It would be a good lesson for 
 him. Perhaps he'd never again play with a woman and 
 make her suffer so." That night Jennie sat by the 
 window in her room until the sun crept up red and mock- 
 ing in the east. Then she threw herself, aching in soul 
 and body, on to the bed and buried her face in the 
 pillows.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 next day Leonard happened to pass Jacob 
 * demons' office and heard the president's physi- 
 cian say to the heavy red-faced man: 
 
 "It's as I tell you. You will have these dizzy spells, 
 and maybe worse, if you don't take better care of your- 
 self. Your arteries are hardened." 
 
 Leonard carried these words with him throughout the 
 day. Somehow they had a significance that he must get 
 at and interpret in a way that applied to his own future. 
 
 Sitting in front of his pine board, he kept repeating 
 over and over the physician's words. And he thought 
 on, much further: supposing Jacob demons died and the 
 rich Jennie suddenly got to thinking beyond the boundary 
 of Hastings; supposing he married Jennie demons and 
 then Jacob demons died 
 
 At five o'clock in the evening he could hardly wait until 
 he should see Jennie and make things right. A dozen 
 times he had to hold back from writing a note of con- 
 fession to her in which he told her how sorry he was 
 that they had quarrelled. On the way home he invested 
 twelve dollars on some American Beauty roses and when 
 he had gained the front entrance of the demons* resi- 
 dence his heart was throbbing and creeping up in his 
 throat in a manner that almost choked him. 
 
 But Jennie met him at the front door, and her first 
 words brought surcease to his tortured imagination. 
 
 "I'm so glad you came, I don't know what to do," 
 
 45
 
 46 THE TAKER 
 
 she cried, taking his hand. "I saw you from the window." 
 
 They went into the front room and for some time 
 stood together looking out of the broad bay window onto 
 the sloping lawn. They stood in silence, too, like lovers 
 breathing in unison, though it was a hard fight on Leon- 
 ard's part to keep from saying something to her that 
 would show repentance for his actions. He held himself 
 back, however, telling himself that everything was in his 
 hands again. 
 
 The only compromising thought he worded was that 
 she did so much for him and gave him renewed desires 
 in the battle of life. "It's a fine thing," he said, "to know 
 that you've got a good friend." 
 
 She echoed his "friend" anxiously enough and looked 
 searchingly into his eyes. 
 
 Leonard saw that conquest was indeed a simple pro- 
 cedure. 
 
 Some ten days later they left about twilight and went 
 up the State Road along the Hudson. 
 
 The idea seemed to strike Leonardl casually as they 
 were passing a little Chapel House. 
 
 That evening when they returned home to Hastings, 
 Jennie was the secret wife of one Leonard Vernon. 
 
 Some three weeks later the sclerosis of the arteries 
 gained the upper hand and Jacob demons passed away 
 in his fifty-fourth year. 
 
 Jennie was a lucky holding, too. She was good to 
 him, gave him the house of her father to live in and a 
 future at the great works quite beyond any flight of 
 imagination he had ever indulged in. But after a few 
 months, when early married life had lost some of its 
 stimulus, he was conscious of her defects more and more. 
 She mouthed a lot of flattering verbiage which drugged
 
 THE TAKER 47 
 
 his intelligence; she petted and fed him well, and soon 
 he became undiscerning and much less introspective. 
 
 She had big knuckles, also, that kept her from spelling 
 with any style when she accepted invitations from the 
 "nice" people in Hastings, and the Tarrytown and Sleepy 
 Hollow set, ancH her servants talked a great deal of her 
 ability to spend long hours in front of the mirror; she 
 played tennis fairly well, which for a time served to 
 keep away the fat creeping around her chin; and once 
 in a while she would even become interested in some 
 popular and tawdry love story or become immersed in 
 memorising on the piano, which she played surprisingly 
 well for the sort of music she selected, some popular tune 
 with a syncopated rhythm. Mostly she just waited for 
 Leonard to come home so she could greet him at the 
 front door with some such words as : 
 
 "Oo bootiful boy oo's so tired!" 
 
 To offset this, Leonard raised a firm-looking moustache 
 for a few weeks and culled one verse from Milton's "Para- 
 dise Lost" and pasted it on a bit of cardboard which he 
 kept continuously on his desk in the mahogany study he 
 had set off the dining-room. 
 
 The verse read : 
 
 "High on the throne of royal state, which far 
 Outshone the wealth of Omus and of Ind, 
 Or when the gorgeous East with richest hand 
 Showers on the King barbaric pearl and gold, 
 Satan exalted sat." 
 
 The last line, a motto that signified power of tHe merci- 
 less calibre, he found to be a sterile prompter of his 
 emotions.
 
 48 THE TAKER 
 
 Nearly every morning, after leaving Jennie at the 
 breakfast table, he walked into his study, gazed at the 
 heroic verse and concentrated on its stiffening effect for 
 the rest of the day. 
 
 All in all, Leonard soon felt himself a success. 
 
 He practically was owner of the Clemens' Art Glass 
 Works, a thing which he saw had only sprouted because 
 of the seeds he hadi planted in his nature. 
 
 He went on contentedly for many months, confident 
 with the absolute control he had over himself. 
 
 Only once in a while, mostly at about twilight, when 
 the shadows would streak into his office, did Leonard sit 
 up aghast at the thought that he was becoming a busi- 
 ness man that, with blunted sensibilities, he was making 
 money and accepting nourishment at the common larder 
 with all the successful Smiths and Joneses of the business 
 world. 
 
 This realisation always stifled him, especially when he 
 remembered how a few years before he had decided to be 
 one of the select and never to become tarnished by the 
 commonplace. 
 
 So the days passed for him, his convictions perpetually 
 torn asunder by continual evidences of success on one 
 side and on the other by perplexing shifts in his nature 
 which puzzled him, and by inner conscious adventures 
 which were ruthless in their regard for his peace of mind. 
 And he was attacked in this way, mostly any place; in 
 a business meeting; while he dictated important letters 
 to his secretary ; or as he sat at the dinner table, talking 
 to his wife or the guests who might be with her. 
 
 Then, as usual, in the morning it would be different. 
 
 Jennie would greet him, soft and lovely, dressed in
 
 THE TAKER 49 
 
 some filmy, clinging material; the grapefruit would be 
 mellow and luscious, the cream thick, the toast just crisp 
 enough; and her kiss, under the porte cochere, became 
 a perfumed narcotic for the rest of the day. 
 
 Noticing how his face cleared, Jennie cultivated a habit 
 now of getting on his lap when he came home sullen and 
 tired. Hugging and petting him, she whispered how won- 
 derful he was, how proud she was of her man. Nor 
 was it a dishonest trick. She really was anxious to be 
 of use to him, getting real pleasure by putting a little 
 more powder on his face as he finished shaving, or in 
 helping him with his collar buttons and studs or changing 
 his tie or waistcoat when he dressed for the evening. 
 
 She had the maternal feeling for him, a desire that 
 made her ever want to be his servitor, though Leonard 
 began to feel more and more gradually that her capacity 
 for this role was as flaccid as her fattening muscles. 
 
 So matters stood when, two years after their marirage, 
 a very beautiful little daughter came to them, whom Jen- 
 nie persisted in naming Maxine. 
 
 This christening was the subject-matter of their first 
 real argument. Jennie seemed to have conceived some 
 tremendous ideal in the baby's name. As Vernon studied 
 his wife during this soon patched-up difference, the 
 thought came to him that the name "Maxine" must be 
 symbolical of some hidden spirit of adventure in her 
 heart. Her eyes lit up and she became quite gay when 
 he gave in to her. 
 
 Soon after that she confided in him in her pouting, 
 baby manner that they must some day go to Paris and 
 have a real spree, visiting the restaurants and dance halls, 
 the way they used to do before they were married. 
 
 And he understood better the subtlety of it.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 A T this time there worked at Leonard's factory a 
 ** teamster, John Neil. 
 
 Neil's wage on account of an inclination for liquor, 
 which made his reputation an unstable one with the dif- 
 ferent foremen, was sixty-five dollars a month. At least, 
 it was not large enough, and had not been for some years, 
 to keep his sixteen-year-old daughter Marcy in one of 
 Hastings* grade schools much beyond her twelfth year. 
 So she had left school while her skirts were still at her 
 knees, Neil deciding that his motherless home needed her 
 more than she needed further educating. 
 
 But it did not make so much difference to the child, 
 who was now a pretty girl indeed, with deep red brown 
 hair and enticing body, just a shade over-developed for 
 one of her years. 
 
 However, what she lacked in book-learning, she made 
 up for in dreaming. Marcy, in fact, was a dream-woven 
 child of nature. She matched up in her movements, too, 
 with this dream constructed life of hers. Perhaps she 
 could not have stood her father's treatment of her were 
 she actively engaged in living in the world inhabited by 
 her neighbours on the densely crowded Third Street. 
 
 She was away and above all of them. 
 
 While her hands were washing some urchin's scratched- 
 up face, her mind was careening along a romance-paved 
 highway; while her little feet were stopping in at Mrs. 
 Quinn's next door, or Mrs. Pavey's around the corner, her 
 
 50
 
 THE TAKER 51 
 
 heart was throbbing with vague adventures along some 
 air-castled roadl 
 
 Marcy had no great names for these mirage-like visions 
 that fluttered and flocked endlessly through her mind. 
 Instead, she just accepted it all in a sort of an ecstatic 
 numbness, the door of her mind held constantly open for 
 it with an eager invitation for more. 
 
 So she wandered in and! out of her days with this 
 skein of emotional fantasy woven around her, singing a 
 little song in a queer, thin pathetically squeaky voice, a 
 song sung so often by her that it had become a part 
 of her, just as her arm was a part of her. It was the 
 symbol of all her hopes and prayers for the future a 
 fetish that would charm away all her troubles. 
 
 "I'd rather have him and his fifteen a week 
 Than be some old millionaire's doll, 
 He's the best thing what wuz, and I love him becuz 
 He's my pal, he's my pal." 
 
 When she was with Lester Moore, the nineteen-year-old 
 fellow she "went with," and he told her he thought he 
 would marry her, she only argued that all the girls mar- 
 ried at her age and that she had very little to say about 
 the matter. In fact, every one told her she was lucky 
 to have a fellow like Lester, who was one of the best 
 young lead 1 workers in Vernon's factory. 
 
 True, there was within her at times a feeling that she 
 must throw her arms about the boy's neck and make him 
 love her, more as an accompaniment to yearning for 
 affection, than any particular desire to have the stolid 
 Lester. 
 
 She really did not care for the lumbering youth who 
 paid so little attention to her. Mostly she walked and
 
 52 THE TAKER 
 
 talked with him, conscious at all times of an unusual 
 weariness, lifted only when he left her. 
 
 In fact, she was like a ship buffeted by the elements ; 
 on the one sidte by the harsh, bloodless words of her toil- 
 driven father, on the other by the soft meaningless words 
 of the man who would marry her. 
 
 At times, as she wailed out her thin, cracked little 
 song, there sprung into the back of her mind the out- 
 lines of some tall, Apollo-like lover who said beautiful 
 words to her and caressed her with wonderful gentle- 
 ness. And relief only came by imagining Lester Moore 
 to be this vaguely outlined wonderful lover. She could 
 tolerate him more easily that way. 
 
 But often her only real comfort came from running 
 out into the outskirts of Hastings and jumping over the 
 fences until she gained a certain high mound in the rear 
 of the Vernon grounds and from this height, which was 
 to her like the top of the world, yelling so that all the 
 denizens over and under the earth might hear: "Hi-yi! 
 hi-yi!" She would perch herself strainedly and scream 
 until the echoes answered her from the parched crimson 
 palisades across the river. 
 
 And then she would run back, her soul temporarily 
 purged of its pent-up yearnings, her feelings fused into 
 a common chord with the soft air and gently waving trees. 
 It was almost as if she had held communion with the 
 forces that understood her and awaited her coming. 
 
 It was sad, indeed, that all this should be spoiled in 
 the evenings when Lester called after his day's work. 
 Everything then seemed to be changed into a sort of duty 
 which she must meet by smiling silently and concealing 
 any word that might give a clue to her true feelings. 
 When the boy roughly caught and kissed her just once,
 
 THE TAKER 53 
 
 then stalked away, strangely, as he often did, she felt like 
 calling after him and saying: "Why do you kiss me? I 
 don't want to kiss you." She would always pout when 
 she did this and hold her chin up and shake her head at 
 his imaginary presence. 
 
 One evening she walked into the country and back with 
 him. She was looking pretty, indeed, wearing a dark 
 green dress, softened by numerous washings, which showed 
 off the gentle rounding of her hips and the lines of her 
 bosom, in a tantalising way. As they came up the cinder- 
 walk in front of her home he said: "Say, Marcy, you 
 know I'm making two dollars and eighty cents a day 
 now. That's more than your father's getting." But she 
 did not look up so proudly as he imagined she would. In- 
 stead he grabbed her arms, saying: "You're the funniest 
 kid I know, Marcy. What's the matter with you? Don't 
 you want to marry me?" 
 
 She bowed her head in silence, saying: "Please don't 
 talk like that." 
 
 They loitered at the steps of the porch for a long time. 
 Somehow, the boy seemed a little closer to her than 
 ever before. But she concealed from him her spirit of 
 surrender and at the door he stopped her and said : 
 
 "Now this is the last time, Marcy. You've just got 
 to say 'Yes' right out, and not keep so quiet about it 
 when I ask you. You know you'll never get another 
 chance like this even if you are so" he surveyed her 
 appraisingly "so darn pretty." Then he took hold; of 
 her rather fiercely, saying with his breath a little hotter 
 to her cheeks: "What do you say? Will you tell him?" 
 
 "All right," she said ; "let's go in." 
 
 They found her father in the dining-room. He was 
 sitting at the table, his pipe in his mouth. His seamy
 
 54 THE TAKER 
 
 face, wrinkled like the reefed canvas of a sail, was dull 
 and hard set. He looked like one of those beggars whose 
 sharp, deep wrinkles compelled Callot to use for his 
 etchings the hard varnish of cabinet makers. 
 
 Lester spoke up proudly as soon as he entered: 
 
 "The girl's given in. Ask her yourself." 
 
 Neil's face lit up as he muttered: "Well, I supposed 
 I'd have to lose her some time. But she's a good house- 
 keeper, boy. It'll be hard to get along without her." 
 
 "I guess we'll get married in a couple of days," said 
 the boy, glancing around the room. He then looked at 1 
 Marcy and drawled : "I suppose the sooner the better, eh, 
 Marcy ?" 
 
 With a look of understanding at Marcy, he sat down 
 beside Neil, lighting his pipe methodically, and drawing 
 at it a few times, rhythmically accompanying the old 
 man. "I hear Vernon is going to get rid of a lot of men 
 at the factory," he went on. Marcy saw him watch the 
 effect of his words on her father. "Did you hear any- 
 thing about it?" 
 
 Neil leaned over. "No," he snarled, and added: "Well, 
 I won't be one of 'em." 
 
 Moore laughed and then took a few deep puffs at his 
 pipe. "Why I believe you was to be. I'm not sure. 
 Anyway, you'll be rid of Marcy, and won't have to look 
 after her any more." 
 
 And now Neil stood up, his face white through the 
 week-old beard. 
 
 "You heard them say I was going?" he repeated. "By 
 God " 
 
 Lester broke in. "Oh, I was just telling Marcy about 
 it. I was trying to make her see that if you lost your 
 job it was another reason why she should marry me."
 
 THE TAKER 55 
 
 Neil stood still for a moment, pale and mad-eyeid, 
 clutching convulsively at Moore's shoulder. But the boy 
 laughed and gently pushed him off. Then picking up his 
 cap from the table, with his eyes on Marcy, he said: 
 
 "Good-bye, Marcy; I'll stop in before work in the 
 morning." 
 
 At the door he turned and said to Neil: 
 
 "Now don't take this thing so hard. You know I don't 
 care for the boss any more than you do. I know all his 
 sneaky ways as well as you do. So what's the use of get- 
 ting excited about it?" 
 
 He banged the door after him. He was glad to get 
 away. 
 
 Marcy ran upstairs after Lester had left, and had no 
 sooner reached her rafter-roofed bedroom than she threw 
 herself on the bed. It had been a strain for her. She 
 even pulled a cover over her eyes and face to shut out, 
 for a moment, all thoughts of this business-like disposi- 
 tion of her. 
 
 And as she lay there she thought : 
 
 "I'm going to get away from here I'm going to get 
 away from here." Somehow she did not dare to word 
 the thought, "I'm going to get married." 
 
 Outstretched on the bed, Marcy wondered about the 
 many things that were going to happen to her, won- 
 dered if she were pretty as Lester had said, wondered 
 if she would ever love him, or if she would meet the hand- 
 some man of her dreams only after Lester and she were 
 married. 
 
 But it was hard to understand all this right now. So 
 she merely smiled, sat up on the bed, looked across into 
 the broken mirror on the bureau opposite, the wooden
 
 56 THE TAKER 
 
 frame of which was bordered by hair-nets, bits of ribbon 
 and two Kodak pictures badly framed, and said, "Oh, 
 well; oh, well," then smiled gently to herself as she lay 
 back and shut her eyes that she might dream some more. 
 
 On his way to work the next morning, Lester stopped 
 at the gate. Through the blinds Marcy saw him and 
 ran out to him with a manner so glad that he was sur- 
 prised. 
 
 "Hello, Marcy!" he said, while his eyes studied her 
 blue-ginghamed figure. "Let's take a walk; can you?'* 
 A thought was in his mind that near the factory grounds 
 was a place where he might steal a kiss. 
 
 Together they walked in silence for a few blocks of 
 cottage-lined streets, then along a high board fence 
 marked with various painted advertisements. Here he 
 took her hand. 
 
 "Well, Marcy, what'll you say if we go up to Squire 
 Conley's office to-morrow?'* 
 
 "All right, Lester," she answered. 
 
 And then the boy put his arms about her and held her 
 tight for an interminable time and kissed her. 
 
 He held her so long that it seemed she must tear loose 
 to get her breath, but she even held out against this 
 escape, telling herself that she must give in to him ; that 
 the voluntary right for rebellion was no longer hers. Her 
 only solace was that he could not know her dreams about 
 the future. 
 
 They were back at the gate before she worded the 
 thought that was troubling her. 
 
 "Lester, does everybody get married like this? Don't 
 they love a long time first? And then have an engage- 
 ment and everything, after the man asks her?" 
 
 He laughed and drew her up to him.
 
 THE TAKER 57 
 
 "You're my girl,* 5 he said. "We'll get married 
 to-morrow." 
 
 And not until Marcy was in her room at night again, 
 and quiet for some time, did she think about her coming 
 marriage or picture what had gone on. Walking about, 
 looking at herself a great deal in the milky mirror, fright- 
 ened, pleased, even making grotesque faces at herself, 
 she kept whispering: 
 
 "I'm going to be married to-morrow !" 
 
 Her cheeks felt hot, as if they were burning up. She 
 wanted to cry and laugh at once. So many thoughts 
 scurried through her she could not fix one of them. All 
 of which ended with her leaning against the foot of the 
 bed, sobbing for no reason that she understood. 
 
 That night Marcy began preparing for her marriage. 
 Hustling from one drawer to another, from the bureau 
 to an old battered trunk that had belonged to her dead 
 mother, she gathered together bits of ribbon, a little 
 cap she had worn when a baby, a letter she had once 
 written to a youth she met at a picnic and then bash- 
 fully never sent, a piece of hair-net in which she had 
 invested one day when an overwhelming desire had en- 
 compassed her to be a fine lady. And as she gathered 
 together her possessions she hummed her little song. 
 
 The next day, with her father and a friend of Lester's, 
 she walked to Squire Conley's office, and in front of the 
 much initialled wooden railing was married to a man who 
 had asked her to marry him.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 T EONARD VERNON easily and quite unconsciously 
 * tolerated the monotonous routine of his married life. 
 His desire for something else some new field to till 
 something to put more of an edge on his desires became 
 so inextricably mingled with his wish for a machine that 
 perpetually flattered him that months piled on months 
 before he was confronted by a personal self-accounting, 
 or by moments that held him rigid with fears about his 
 future. And then the old heart-rending doubts would 
 battle their way into his mind just as they had done when 
 he was in his teens. 
 
 What was the use of making money, he would think, 
 as he made out the deposit slips for check after check, 
 if money meant nothing toward attaining one's ideal life, 
 and only reduced you to the commonplace? What was 
 the use of working before the ideal was obtained, since 
 only what came after could bring any happiness? 
 
 Often he repeated to himself: 
 
 "Yes, God help me, I'm going to get what I want." 
 
 He said "God" a good deal and without thought. 
 
 At these times he had a vague feeling that "God" was 
 the only one who understood him and so agreed with 
 him. Also, it was a solacing thing to know that The 
 Omnipotent Being up above was in communion with him 
 at all times and in sympathy with his ambitions. 
 
 During the day all this would work itself out somehow, 
 and in his favour, too. He could easily imagine him- 
 
 68
 
 THE TAKER 59 
 
 self very successful because of the justice of it. But at 
 night it was not so easy. Alone in his room, when he 
 could see himself in a truer light and was away from 
 Jennie, who acknowledged him so readily as her superior, 
 he would become stiff with doubt and fear. These mo- 
 ments always ended up by his becoming even more defiant, 
 reasoning that the daughter of Jacob demons was 
 rightfully being used as one of his stepping stones. 
 
 But this mood of self-analysing would attack him again 
 and again, until the question gradually crept into his 
 consciousness as to what really was the thing he most 
 wanted. He hardly dared to acknowledge to himself that 
 the only strong desire he possibly could make out of his 
 yearnings, even in the faintest way, was that it had fo 
 do with some woman who would understand him and sym- 
 pathise with him in his struggle with life. He thought 
 that merely the physical could never fully satisfy his 
 artist's soul. 
 
 Until came Mabel Gillette, a stenographer, sent up by 
 an agency in New York ; a rather weary person of twenty- 
 eight with hay-like hair and dim, watery eyes. 
 
 Only a couple of weeks after her arrival, sympatheti- 
 cally observing Leonard's restlessness, she said: 
 
 "You know, you are wasting your time, Mr. Vernon. 
 There are so many big things in the world that we should 
 think about. So many things that lift us above the 
 commonplace, that should give us the right inspiration 
 for living. Oh, Mr. Vernon, when I see you sitting here 
 at your desk and looking so tired over all these mean- 
 ingless figures, I can't help feeling it is my duty to urge 
 you to fight harder for the things that a man of your 
 intelligence deserves." 
 
 That night Leonard said to his wife, when she hung
 
 60 THE TAKER 
 
 over the back of his chair as they sat in the stuccoed 
 dining-room now stained to resemble mahogany: 
 
 "Good God, Jen, leave me alone! Don't you suppose 
 I ever get sick of you always whining around me; and 
 wanting to do something for me? Let me help myself 
 once in a while. I'm getting too damned content like 
 an old man. And here I'm young yet. Just let me do 
 something for myself once in a while." 
 
 The following day Miss Gillette was urged to tell him 
 more. 
 
 "Well, it's that you are living in a futile way, Mr. 
 Vernon," she answered. "I've had to work it out for 
 myself, too. You are being engrossed in petty, material 
 things, the physical in life that so easily is used up and 
 gives you no return whatever. You are too well satis- 
 fied, I guess. How old are you?" 
 
 She went on for more than an hour, at the end of 
 which Leonard Vernon sat rigid and unhappy in his 
 big desk chair. Suddenly, and in the old way, he was now 
 filled with recollections. As he listened to the woman 
 it really seemed that she was diagnosing his case even 
 better than she knew. He saw now that, quite unknow- 
 ingly, for which he could not blame himself, he had slipped 
 into a period of buttery complacence for all his efforts 
 at telling himself that his material search was only a 
 temporary affair. 
 
 Suddenly he wondered if it were too late. 
 
 On his way home from the factory that night Leonard's 
 perplexity was not diminished, either. With lips pursed 
 together, then thinning out into two tense sheaves of 
 determination, he sat on the soft cushions. Among other 
 things he could not help wondering why he had so easily 
 allowed this woman to humble him; though he solaced
 
 THE TAKER 61 
 
 himself with the thought that the one who had told him 
 all of this was surely an unusual woman. Even if she 
 were so ugly to look at. She had not flattered him, either, 
 but he apologised to himself for her by realising that her 
 interest in him had made her tactless. 
 
 At least, it surely was the truth that he had steeped 
 himself in a world of flesh and cheap values, quite all his 
 life completely ignoring every endowment given him by 
 his earlier environment and native intelligence. 
 
 As he passed in through the library he saw, beckoning 
 to him, the beautifully embossed leather copies of Ver- 
 laine, Pater, Baudelaire, Rossetti, Browning, that he had 
 bought the first few weeks of their marriage. And to 
 Jennie he mentioned, after her caress had eased off some- 
 what, that they ought to spend an evening reading some 
 of them. "We've neglected decent reading for an awful 
 long time, Jen," he said. 
 
 Jennie's remark smote him to the heart. 
 
 "Oh, you only think you're interested in them!" she 
 exclaimed. 
 
 Leonard gave her one shrivelling glance and then went 
 into his study. 
 
 She ran after him, full of perplexity, and threw her 
 arms about his shoulders. 
 
 "Why, Leonard, boy, what's happened? You've never 
 acted this way with me. Oh, Lennie, dear, what have I 
 done?" 
 
 But her insistence was met only by a strange attitude 
 of reflection. 
 
 "Just leave me alone, Jennie," he begged. "Just leave 
 me alone. That's all I ask. There is a lot I want to 
 think about." 
 
 When he walked over to the fire and sat down in the
 
 62 THE TAKER 
 
 big chair in front of it, she dropped on the floor at his 
 feet and put her bare white arms around his knees. 
 
 But he tore himself loose from her and went upstairs 
 to his room. 
 
 And neither of them answered the servant's call for 
 dinner. 
 
 Leonard paced the floor in his room, assailed and ter- 
 rified by his thoughts, while Jennie, bewildered and 
 anxious, lay beside the chair in his study and sobbed 
 till long past midnight. Then with throbs jerking at her 
 heart, she stole out into the library and up the stairs 
 to where Maxine lay sleeping. Drawing a rocker to the 
 side of the little bed, she pulled herself back and forth, 
 rocking rhythmically with the agonising thoughts that 
 flew from her troubled mind to her heart.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 A/TABEL GILLETTE never ceased talking of art 
 * * and life to Leonard Vernon. 
 
 Many times in the twilight of his office they stood look- 
 ing out of the window together onto the dark expanse 
 of the Hudson. A strange period of thought com- 
 munion seemed to encompass them whenever they watched 
 the river together in this fashion. Each little spectre 
 of a boat as it floated by seemed a silent carrier of 
 symbols of understanding. 
 
 After closing hour, one evening, during the earlier 
 part of this period Vernon became better acquainted with 
 Mabel's life story, a story that was replete with poignant 
 mishap, always tinted by a cheerful philosophy and a 
 blind belief in the future. 
 
 "When father died and they took me out of school, I 
 was such a funny little thing, Mr. Vernon," she said. 
 "They all stood around the house grief-stricken, wonder- 
 ing what to do about it, and when I announced that I 
 would work and support them they seemed even more 
 troubled, especially my mother and a little sister. My 
 aunt, who came to us at that time, didn't count, as I 
 hated her. She always made fun of me and said I was 
 always cheerful because I didn't have any better sense." 
 She halted a moment as Vernon watched her. Then she 
 added lightly, her eyes smiling reminiscently, " 'T would 
 have done little good to explain my philosophy and be- 
 liefs to her. She only saw things through nearsighted 
 glasses.'* 
 
 63
 
 64 THE TAKER 
 
 Vernon grew fond of her; not the kind of fondness 
 that bespeaks a caress or a kiss but a feeling that humbled 
 him, even humiliated him, in the presence of this mentor 
 of ambition. 
 
 And Mabel Gillette suddenly came into her own time 
 of emotional unrest. One night, alone in her boarding 
 house bedroom, she found herself wording for the first 
 time the little postponed prayer of hope and soul-yearn- 
 ing that for so many years had been a companion piece 
 to her spirit. 
 
 She said to herself over and over again, as she knelt 
 by the side of her bed with bowed head and closed eyes: 
 "Oh, Charitable Giver of Peace! Please, please watch 
 over me now and be good to me. Please, please make him 
 love me! This is my only chance. Make me good and 
 noble so that I can give happiness to him. Please, please, 
 make him know what I can do for him and how I can 
 help him in his work." 
 
 Strangely, it was nearly a duplicate of the prayer that 
 the love-crucified Jennie repeated to herself night and 
 day throughout these months, a prayer that seared her 
 with the knowledge that her husband, for some unaccount- 
 able reason, was tiring of her. 
 
 These were trying days for Jennie. For a time she 
 made an effort to hold Vernon by accomplishing an 
 even greater physical attractiveness the only fortress 
 of protection her love had. But days of exhausting diet 
 and camphor massaging only seemed to tempt him to fur- 
 ther vindictiveness in his manner. 
 
 One evening when he came in to find her rolling on 
 the floor of her boudoir, after a receipt she had obtained 
 through the medium of the Ladies' Home Journal, her 
 only reward was a temper-ridden exclamation : "For God's
 
 THE TAKER 65 
 
 sake, Jennie, don't make a fool of yourself it's dis- 
 gusting." 
 
 . . . Mabel Gillette on the other hand began to thrive. 
 For the first time in her life a man was paying some 
 attention to her. She became filled with a greater cour- 
 age. She became the possessor of a virility that had as 
 much effect upon her mental state as it had upon her 
 circulation. 
 
 Too, an unconscious note of shrewdness forced itself 
 upon her intelligence. She found that, whenever she 
 exercised her fierce proprietorship over Vernon's neglected 
 ambitions, he gave in even more readily. 
 
 So it was not long before she launched out into the 
 fulfilment of her new role with all the zeal and confidence 
 she could muster a scholarly Cleopatra tempting her 
 Antony. 
 
 Incessantly she talked to him of things idealistic, hunt- 
 ing for examples continually, to prove her contention that 
 he was wasting his highly endowed nature. She gave him 
 books to read wherein passages were marked for him. 
 By a strange coincidence, one Saturday evening, she 
 forced upon him Rossetti's "Saint Agnes," a companion 
 piece to the leather bound edition which so long lay 
 mouldering on the library table. Nearly the first pas- 
 sage that he came across seemed to be carried to him by 
 angelic messengers: 
 
 "Some lives of men are as the sea is, continually vexed 
 and trampled with winds. Others are, as it were, left on the 
 beach." 
 
 ,r 
 
 It was inopportune, as he lay in bed that night, his 
 thoughts convoyed by a host of smiling, endearing faces,
 
 66 THE TAKER 
 
 that his wife should knock on the door and call him plain- 
 tively, in a worried, whispered voice: 
 
 "Leonard, Leonard, please come in to Maxine. I am 
 so frightened about her." 
 
 With a smothered curse ranging in his thoughts, Ver- 
 non wheeled out of bed, put on his dressing robe, and 
 went into the next room, where he found his wife and 
 one of the servants bending anxiously over the writhing 
 form of his daughter. 
 
 As he came in Jennie ran up to him with the cry: 
 "Lennie, I am scared to death. Get the doctor, quick 
 as you can. She's been moaning and tossing for over 
 an hour." 
 
 He ran over to the bed, impelled more by a thrust at 
 his conscience than by any love for the suffering child, 
 and saw how damp was the soft, pale skin of his offspring, 
 how matted from tears was the fine blonde hair at the 
 temples. 
 
 And into his heart stole a momentary feeling that he 
 might be punished in some unseen way if he did not im- 
 mediately love this child as a father should, and try to 
 save its life. 
 
 So he rushed down to the telephone and as he called 
 the doctor's number, was even surprised that his voice 
 should so choke with excitement. 
 
 His daughter died at five o'clock. When he stole away 
 from the hysterical mother and went to his own room 
 nearly an hour later, he was unable to comprehend what 
 had happened. The shock of it seemed buried so deep in 
 him that it could not be reached. Sitting on the edge of 
 his bed he watched the early sun filter through the drab 
 silk curtains, like something new born slowly gaining 
 courage to assert itself. Somehow there seemed a mes-
 
 THE TAKER 67 
 
 sage for him in its revealing light. All was over for him 
 in life now. He had sensed that, as life had ebbed away 
 from his beautiful daughter. 
 
 If only he could have known before. He might have 
 thrown all his ambitions at her hesitating feet and had 
 real joy in building up a future for her. 
 
 In the piecemeal light reflected at his feet, the printed 
 message began blazing now with significance : 
 
 "Some lives of men are as the sea is, continually vexed 
 and trampled with winds. Others are, as it were, left on the 
 beach." 
 
 And he thought "God pity me what am I coming to ?" 
 
 For over an hour he sat on the edge of his bed in a 
 stifling silence. A procession of past events flocked to 
 his mind. He saw himself at college, leaving his mother, 
 his decision to be a draughtsman then his meeting with 
 Jennie, his marriage to her 
 
 After that Mabel Gillette's attack found him resisting 
 less and less. Her love for him impelled her and while 
 he more and more welcomed her crooned-out restless 
 words, she valiantly sequestered every spark of her own 
 ambition for love and affection. 
 
 Until a certain afternoon, some three months later. 
 
 Day after day he was conscious that a definite decision 
 about the future must come to pass between Jennie and 
 himself. It got so that Jennie's alternating threats and 
 tears made him find Mabel the only haven he could turn to. 
 
 It was about five o'clock that he met Jennie driving 
 down the street toward the factory just as he was coming 
 out. She was pale and her eyes looked heavy and red. 
 
 He tried to cover his surprise by casually inquiring: 
 
 "You were coming in to see me?"
 
 68 THE TAKER 
 
 Pathetically she searched his face. "I think it's best, 
 Leonard that we see each other." 
 
 She did not wait for him to direct the way but quietly 
 turned and walked into the building. She seemed to take 
 it for granted that he would follow her. 
 
 When they gained his private office and Leonard had 
 shut the door after them, she began directly. 
 
 "Leonard, you're not happy, are you?" 
 
 He was not quite ready to have her plunge into the 
 scene he had gone over so many times in his mind. He 
 had pictured an entirely different procedure. He would 
 approach her some evening, half in tears, explaining to 
 her that it was as much for her sake as his own that they 
 part. And now quite sternly she was confronting him. 
 At last he managed : 
 
 "Well, Jen, I guess you know I'm not so so very 
 happy." 
 
 She came back instantly. "Yes, I know." Then she 
 went into what apparently had been an arrangement in 
 her mind for days. "We'll arrange a divorce, Leonard. 
 I'll go out to Reno and establish a residence and you must 
 give me what I think is necessary" she paused for a 
 moment, then said "you know it will only be what is 
 necessary and I'll give you this freedom you're so 
 anxious to get." She seemed on the verge of breaking 
 down as she continued, "Of course, nothing means very 
 much to me, and so you take over my share in the factory 
 in the way you think is fair, out of the profits, or any 
 way. The house we live in is mine," she added, "so I 
 suppose I'll keep that." 
 
 She rose from the chair, while Leonard stood watching 
 her, quite inarticulate from the calm, sure manner in
 
 THE TAKER 69 
 
 which she spoke. Just at the door she turned. Now, for 
 the first time her voice quivered. 
 
 Leonard, why is it that women love you so? Why is 
 it that even now I am doing what you want me to 
 do in sacrificing myself?" She looked straight into his 
 eyes. "Of course, you are handsome every one is aware 
 of that but you have one fault after another. You 
 fake, yes, just fake all the time. Everything you have 
 ever gotten has come easy for you. You've never 
 really worked or had to work in your whole life. And 
 you never will. You're just so selfish. You're always 
 thinking how some one is going to bring something to 
 you and how you're going to take from them. You never 
 think of how you must work to get anything. Why, in 
 all the time we have been married, I have never seen you 
 sit home and read and think like other men. Oh, I have 
 watched you. Your mind is always working around your- 
 self." She braced herself against the sill of the door 
 and then turned away from him. His anger was rising 
 too as he heard her say, "Yet I love you, Lennie, I'll love 
 and worship you as long as I live. That's the funny 
 part of it." 
 
 Then she broke down completely and, while he stood 
 watching her, she ran down the hall. One hoarse sob 
 after another came to his ears, until she shut the factory 
 door after her. 
 
 In the days that followed this interview, right up to the 
 time when he heard that Jennie, bowed and broken, had 
 taken a train for the West, the following conviction be- 
 came more and more firmly imbedded in his mind. It was 
 this: 
 
 The real reason for his unhappiness from his youth
 
 70 THE TAKER 
 
 on was simply because of his blind and constant idealistic 
 search for physical and material beauty and an entire 
 ignoring of the true question of life spiritual and mental 
 companionship.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THAT her marriage to the broad-shouldered and 
 shaggy-browed Lester Moore changed matters very 
 little for her, Marcy learned soon enough. Three months 
 passed and yet her feeling of restless unhappiness with 
 him was just as great as when she had married him. 
 
 Somehow, they could not get acquainted. 
 
 Except for his thundering ownership, and his physical 
 demands, there was little difference from the time when she 
 was at home, cooking and taking care of the house for 
 her father. She had just as much work to do and had to 
 live in her dreams of the future quite as often if she 
 wanted to be happy. 
 
 There was only one exception as the months passed 
 an occupation that made up for everything else, an oc- 
 cupation that she sheltered in a harbour of silence and 
 subterfuge. 
 
 She began to make a tiny woollen jacket. All her 
 spare time was spent at it, working in an ecstasy of ex- 
 citement as if it were some game at which she must win. 
 It was the one oasis of bliss for her, and she kept it secret 
 and guarded. 
 
 But this was not a difficult task. 
 
 Evening after evening, Lester came in, said: "What 
 have you got for supper, Marcy?" sat and ate silently, 
 morosely then, as soon as the meal was over, threw on 
 his coat and rushed out to some saloon or to a place 
 where the crowds spent the night playing pool. 
 
 In these first three months he apparently grew to resent 
 
 71
 
 72 THE TAKER 
 
 every feeling he had ever divided with her, even the affec- 
 tion that he had bestowed upon her in the earlier period 
 of their companionship. 
 
 One day at the end of July he came home hot and 
 tired. 
 
 "Say, Marcy," he questioned, as he found her looking 
 at the joke page of a Sunday paper, which she had 
 hastily grabbed up as she saw him coming, "what do you 
 do all day?" 
 
 A good deal frightened by his manner, she looked up 
 at him. 
 
 "Why, Lester, there's a lot to do. Don't everything 
 look nice and clean?" 
 
 He laughed derisively. 
 
 "Say, that ain't what I work all day for." Then he 
 went on slowly, calculating, "Marcy, I've been thinking 
 about it. I guess you better come over to the factory 
 and get a job with the rest of the girls." 
 
 "Lester, you mean you want me to work all day at 
 the factory?" She was bewildered by his sudden pro- 
 posal. 
 
 "Sure, why not? You'd have had to do it if I hadn't 
 married you." 
 
 "But that's why I got married," she exclaimed. 
 
 "Oh, was it?" 
 
 "Then, Lester, I wouldn't have time," she ran on, 
 more guardedly. "There's a lot I do here that you don't 
 know nothing about." 
 
 An hour later, after continued upbraiding from her hus- 
 band, there came in defence the words she had fought 
 hard to hush. She told him how she had been doing 
 something other than cooking and housework, after all, 
 and she went to the bureau drawer and held up a little
 
 THE TAKER 73 
 
 blue woollen jacket, so tiny and queer that it could not 
 have been slipped over his closed fist. It made him laugh 
 outright when he saw it. 
 
 But he came closer to her. "What's all this about?" 
 he demanded. 
 
 "Why, I don't know, Lester," she answered meekly, even 
 fearsomely, as she saw that he was strangely angered 
 about it. "I just wanted to do it, that's all. I'm just 
 showing it to you to show you that I haven't been doing 
 nothing." 
 
 He was angry with her, angrier still, when she could no 
 longer hold the tears back from her eyes. And when 
 she tried to protect the little knitted garment from him 
 by folding it in her arms, his indignation seemed to over- 
 whelm him. 
 
 "Who told you to do that?" he demanded. 
 
 She tried hard to remember how she had happened to 
 begin knitting the little jacket. All of a sudden it 
 seemed that a mighty host of enmity for this man was 
 overcoming her, and stifling her reason. 
 
 "Why why, Lester," she found her throat blocking 
 with emotion, "no one told me. I just did it. I thought 
 why, Lester I thought maybe you'd like me to do it." 
 
 In another moment he jerked the garment from her and 
 tore it, into many pieces. 
 
 "I'll tend to that end of it," he said. 
 
 The garment had been precious to her. In it were 
 stored all the secret yearnings and flooding words of 
 love that had found no other haven. Now she could not 
 sing to it and talk to it the way she had done for so 
 many days. And she looked up at him, the anger she 
 felt blazing in her eyes. 
 
 "I did it because I because I wanted to because
 
 74 THE TAKER 
 
 something made me do it," she cried. "Oh, I hate you, 
 you brute." 
 
 As she stood in front of him and saw the sneering 
 smile curve his mouth, she felt that the only release she 
 could get from her feelings would come from tearing at 
 his throat and beating his face. He had destroyed the 
 thing that was closer to her than anything she had 
 known her whole life. 
 
 "Oh! for you to do it. Oh!" she moaned, and fell 
 limp into a chair by the table, her head buried in her 
 arms, the while she uncontrolledly sobbed with hoarse, 
 low cries. 
 
 When, after a period of contemplation, the husband 
 came over to her, apparently sorry that he should have 
 been the cause of all this fuss, she wrenched herself loose 
 from him. 
 
 "I just want to die!" she shouted. "I just want to 
 die!" 
 
 Moore took hold of her shoulders. He tried to be more 
 gentle with her, though not enough to let her see that he 
 was sorry. 
 
 "Say, Marcy," he said, "brace up; what's the use of 
 carrying on like this?" 
 
 But she only moaned, "I'm so miserable, I'm so miser- 
 able. I hoped that the little jacket would make you 
 know what would make me happy." 
 
 "Well, I told you when I'm ready for a kid, we'll have 
 one and not before, see?" 
 
 It was over an hour before he could quiet her. 
 
 Lester's revelation brought no great change, however. 
 He kept to his habits even more studiously, fighting off 
 now, more than ever, any sign of regret. The thought 
 was ever pregnant in his understanding that he had lost
 
 THE TAKER 75 
 
 control of her only because of the affection which he 
 had given her. It was no way to control your woman. 
 
 This last thought harried the boy more than anything 
 else. It seemed a crime to spend a moment in any affec- 
 tion not born out of physical need. When some days 
 later he felt her frail call for help weakening him, he 
 stayed away from tke house for two days. He needed 
 this proof for her as well as himself, that he was a strong- 
 minded individual. 
 
 And her lamentable entreaties, sprung from the soil 
 that must either fertilise or become barren, found no 
 answer in his heart or soul ; her thirsting appeal for pas- 
 sionate regard and affection could not be slaked in his 
 well of understanding. She might have been one of 
 Ashur's widows for all her pitiful wail was heeded. 
 
 Six months after her marriage to Lester Moore, simple 
 little Marcy found herself entirely estranged from the 
 man she had married. 
 
 All the wondering she indulged in, all the scanning 
 and searching of her understanding, failed to supply her 
 with a plausible reason or give greater facility for work- 
 ing out the situation. 
 
 Her task at last came to be a simple one. 
 
 She only waited for to-morrow, accepting stoically 
 in her queer childish way the unsatisfying lot that was 
 plainly her share in life.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 TT^OR a week after the settlement with his wife, Leonard 
 * Vernon indulged in a period of feverish contempla- 
 tion that painfully distorted the hitherto easily disposed 
 of problem. 
 
 Continually he told himself that now he was free; 
 yet every thought of Miss Gillette strangely scorched him, 
 like some invisible, white flame. 
 
 And whenever the thought confronted him that hers 
 might be the greatest flattery, Leonard smothered the 
 idea as one steps on a spider and crunches out its life. 
 
 It was queer indeed how his path of future endeavour 
 stretched out in front of him. 
 
 And how he was impelled to walk that road. 
 
 It really seemed that it was a task that could only be 
 gotten over by doing it. If Mabel Gillette had been more 
 attractive, physically, there might have been some en- 
 joyment in prolonging a clandestine friendship, which 
 marriage, of course, always spoiled. 
 
 But here was so much medicine to be taken for the sake 
 of a future mental strength. 
 
 Miss Gillette was hardly pleasing to look at, indeed 
 a very sad comparison, whenever he thought of Jennie 
 in the physical sense. But had not the physical of 
 Jennie held him stupefied for a long enough time? He 
 had unclasped its manacles now. Of course it was only 
 foresight that he should wed himself to the key. 
 
 Leonard took the decisive step very soon after he heard 
 
 76
 
 THE TAKER 77 
 
 that Jennie had obtained a divorce on the grounds of 
 desertion. 
 
 In fact, it was just two days after the information 
 had reached him that he, waiting until the office force had 
 gone for the day, called Mabel in from the outer office. 
 Very seriously he said: 
 
 "Mabel, I'm going to marry you. I don't know 
 whether or not this will come to you as a surprise. At 
 least you are surely aware how much I depend on you." 
 
 For fear of seeing the satisfaction on her face, he 
 steadily scrutinised a lead pencil which he twirled with 
 his thumb and first finger. 
 
 "I don't care what the people here will say, Mabel. 
 You know I have fixed myself against that here at the 
 factory. And socially, I believe our ambitions are above 
 the habits of Hastings." He continued thoughtfully: 
 "Yes, I want to marry you, Mabel. You have taken 
 hold of my ambitions where I left them a long time ago." 
 Even more meditatively, he added : "You know, it's been 
 a long while since I've had a companion in the real sense." 
 
 As he worded this last thought, his jaws set hard. 
 
 He wanted to say much more, to talk over the art 
 that he had given up temporarily of course. And how 
 he would like to take up a little more of it again. And 
 how she should get interested in painting so she could 
 advise and help him. 
 
 But Miss Gillette broke in upon his contemplated state- 
 ments. She wilted as a delicate flower wilts in a searing 
 breeze. 
 
 "Oh, Leonard !" she cried. "Leonard, Leonard !" 
 
 She could say no more than that. 
 
 But he could not kiss her. 
 
 She was not another Jennie.
 
 78 THE TAKER 
 
 Although she startled him quite when she frenziedly 
 grasped his arm with her long, thin fingers, and clung to 
 him. Indeed, he did not exactly understand the pain of 
 disappointment and wonderment that swept through him 
 at the moment. He could not help looking at her in 
 the impersonal way one surveys a stranger and rebelling 
 a little. He could not help asking himself if all women 
 were transformed into a common idiocy that mounted the 
 instant love was mentioned. 
 
 Suddenly this woman so close to him appeared to have 
 become a good deal like Jennie, in the way she hung on 
 him. Also he noticed that she was wearing the same sort 
 of lace collar, with its points encircling her neck, that 
 Jennie wore when he first met her. 
 
 There came a feeling that clutched at his heart, and 
 choked his throat with the silent words : 
 
 "Oh God, what is life anyway? What do I keep on 
 doing with myself? Here am I getting old, yet I am 
 shutting out more than ever all my chances with this 
 clinging thing tied to me. What's the matter with me?" 
 
 For the first time he was definitely conscious of her 
 resemblance to Jennie. 
 
 When it was too late ! 
 
 ... In the days that followed, days that were only 
 staccatoed spans of discontent, Mabel became as the ac- 
 cepted dregs in his cup of disappointment. 
 
 If Jennie had pawed him and bored him with her be- 
 nignant caresses, Mabel's queer manner ,of shrinking 
 lovemaking, of meeting him with her ghastly smile of 
 affectionate regard, of showing unmentionable inner pain 
 at his least brow shrivelling, pained him past endurance. 
 
 He would have undone the whole thing many times
 
 THE TAKER 79 
 
 had not everybody in the town liked her so. She soon 
 became a force in municipal affairs, heading the sewing 
 leagues and "anti" crusades, against everything from 
 flies to vice. At the factory, she formed societies for 
 the prevention of many things. She was universally 
 loved. All of which made Vernon guard his delinquent 
 allegiance to her with distasteful tact and precaution. 
 For now, there seemed at stake the vitality of his ever- 
 increasing business. 
 
 It was like being in a velvet cushioned vise from which 
 there was no escape. 
 
 And although his visits to New York were made with 
 more and more frequency, they never blunted the feeling 
 that overcame him, whenever he was with Mabel; a feel- 
 ing that always made him imagine her his jailer, watching 
 for his first burst for freedom. 
 
 There came now in Leonard's career just a long period 
 jf ghastly reminiscence and slackening hope. 
 
 He could hardly face her maudlin way of meeting some 
 unkind word of his by saying: 
 
 "Lennie, darling, you're so tired and nervous." 
 
 It wasn't difficult for him to see the very proportions of 
 Jennie in her place; which really served to solace him 
 a little. 
 
 Soon he actually found himself laughing at the realisa- 
 tion that Mabel was only the reincarnated husk of Jennie. 
 
 Even as he sat in his luxurious gold-leaf office, this 
 sardonic contemplation was not tempered. Trying to 
 experiment with a prognosis of his future, Mabel's face 
 suffering with repression and enduring, instantly obtruded 
 itself into the deep shadows of the perspective. 
 
 One Friday evening, under the guise of business pres- 
 sure, he took a trip to New York and tried to break loose
 
 80 THE TAKER 
 
 from his shackles, tried to defy the realisation that the 
 borders of his future were converging and offered no es- 
 cape. 
 
 But Mabel's smiling, pain-cheery face haunted him. 
 
 It was like having some sharp projectile, a Damoclean 
 instrument hanging over him, penetrating his pleasures, 
 symbolising her quivering love in every pleasure cranny 
 in which he sought a haven. 
 
 During this time Jennie began fading in on him, like 
 some spirit form, which had lost him for a good many 
 years and then suddenly encountered him. Standing 
 under the eaves of the Knickerbocker Hotel at 42nd 
 street one day a woman passed him whose physical 
 contour was a good deal like Jennie's. Immediately there 
 was a materialisation of the spirit. Jennie stood in 
 front of him with her dimpled chin, her soft round cheeks 
 and golden hair. It was nearly an hour before he could 
 turn and go back into the bar and ask for a drink to 
 shatter the illusion. And even then he was pursued by 
 new conceptions of Jennie's beauty, her heavy arms, her 
 wealth of lustrous yellow hair. 
 
 When he returned home to Mabel, nervous and irritable 
 and she, seeing how pale and worn he looked, threw her 
 thin arms around his neck, he actually felt as if he must 
 push her away from him and immediately seek Jennie. 
 
 Where Jennie's arm had its cushion of fat, the bones of 
 Mabel's elbows dug into him. 
 
 Yet Mabel complained very little about his treatment of 
 her. And after much wondering and speculation as to 
 why she wouldn't fight back and point out to him what 
 he was doing, Leonard conceived the idea that in him 
 she held forth some future metamorphosis and that with 
 Spartan-like endurance she was only biding her time. In
 
 THE TAKER 81 
 
 a vague way he was aware, now, of the understanding that 
 as Jennie had rolled her body on the floor after she was 
 married so had this woman rolled her mind in the deep 
 books of philosophy. 
 
 What bothered him most, however, was that he felt 
 sorry for her. 
 
 He felt sorry for her, even while some fresh, common- 
 place remark, or some obvious quotation, which was be- 
 coming more and more a habit with her, rang painfully 
 in his ears. 
 
 One day, he decided to walk to the factory for the 
 exercise this would give him and Mabel went to the gate to 
 see him off. Just as he shut it after him, she remarked, 
 looking at the clouding sky: 
 
 "I believe it's going to rain, Leonard. Perhaps you 
 ought to take an umbrella. You know it never rains when 
 one has an umbrella." 
 
 Her words hounded him all day. He could not help 
 repeating "It never rains when one has an umbrella," 
 then laughing at the horror of it. 
 
 Yet it was that same afternoon while at a Board Meet- 
 ing at the factory that he saw her hanging from a rafter 
 in the attic with a rope around her neck. He rushed 
 home only to have Mabel meet him smiling and cheerful. 
 And when she threw her thin arms around his neck the 
 old regret for his alarm smote him. 
 
 Unfortunately Mabel stopped him that evening just as 
 he was on his way to get in a night of billiards and man- 
 conversation at the Golf Club. Hesitating, halting, as if 
 she dared not trespass upon the borderland of his desires, 
 she asked, simply enough: 
 
 "Where where are you going, Leonard?" 
 
 He looked at her. A thought raced through him that
 
 82 THE TAKER 
 
 the whitened face and thin lips were the result of some 
 long unworded decision. He wondered what he should 
 say to her to postpone any possible argument. 
 
 "Why," he muttered at last, "I am going out, Mabel." 
 
 Thinking to soften the moment he debonairly took his 
 cigar between his fingers and started to kiss her; but she 
 began to talk, slowly, suppressedly, her voice delicate, 
 wistful, yet strangely hollow and dry. The old inquisitive 
 softness, however, was gone. 
 
 "Leonard, tell me," she began, "are you thinking these 
 days? Are you realising what I must go through get- 
 ting so little and giving you so little when there is so 
 much that I could do for you?" 
 
 As she went on she took hold of his hands. At that 
 moment he was more conscious of her pointed fingers than 
 ever before. Looking down at them he could see how 
 her nails were making little blue marks in the flesh of his 
 wrists. He felt like jerking away from her or even 
 hurting her a little in return. Only the sickly plea of 
 the blue veins as they showed through the thin, parched 
 skin held him. 
 
 So he looked up, and tried to keep softness in his 
 voice. 
 
 "Why what do you mean, Mabel?" 
 
 "Oh," she went on earnestly, "I've had a lot of time 
 to think, Leonard. Yesterday I was reading a passage 
 from from Victor Hugo. He said that our lives are 
 only brief reprieves, a short interval in which we must 
 do and get, and that the world soon forgets us. It made 
 me think, Leonard, how little you and I realise it." She 
 looked pleadingly at him. "You know, I just want to 
 help you, Leonard. That's all." 
 
 It was hard to know what to do. She looked so be-
 
 THE TAKER 83 
 
 seechingly at him, so pathetically, as she placed one 
 arm against the centre table for support. Nor was it 
 easy for him to defend himself by assailing her. Her 
 frailty so disarmed him. Standing there he thought to 
 himself, "If she were only a woman like other women 
 and would fight back." 
 
 Her longing gaze on him, the while her eyes reddened 
 and filled slowly with tears, made him feel like striking 
 her just to force her to fight back. But in the next 
 moment he weakened through real pity and was even on 
 the point of apologising and telling her he would do 
 better, when he saw how disastrous this would be to any 
 possible lessening of her weight upon him. 
 
 So, instead, he scrutinised her imperiously, with the 
 manner he used in business, and drawled: "I don't need 
 any help, Mabel. I guess I'm all right. Fve done pretty 
 well, except well, it's no use to dig up the past." 
 
 Apparently unaware of his thrust, Mabel went on per- 
 sistently. A martyr-like expression encircled her eyes and 
 her mouth trembled wearily with emotion. 
 
 "Leonard, you're neglecting yourself more than you 
 know. Oh, Leonard, don't turn away from me. You 
 see I just must tell you what I feel." The tears ran 
 down her cheeks, though her face still smiled. "What is 
 life anyway, Leonard? What's the use of all the ecsta- 
 sies and sorrows if you just rush madly along, blunting 
 day by day oh, I can see it, Leonard, it's tragic I tell 
 you just blunting your brilliant mental gifts, drowning 
 every possibility of ideal life, with your desire to make 
 money and be successful? Oh," she whispered, coming 
 closer to him and winding her arms around his neck 
 "I'm worried about you I'm honestly sorry for you, 
 You are too big a man to let up like this."
 
 84 THE TAKER 
 
 For a moment he suffered her embrace. It was hard to 
 think with her tear-laden eyes confronting him. But 
 when her lips came close to his lips he tore loose from 
 her and stalked about the room, exasperated that her 
 emotions should hold him mentally inarticulate. And 
 when he saw that he was really beginning to sympathise 
 with her he turned and excitedly grasped her arms, try- 
 ing to word his thoughts before he should weaken too 
 much. What a fool he had been indeed, to get into the 
 clutches of this ugly, hysterical woman. 
 
 "Look here," he said. "I don't want you worrying 
 about me. What do you suppose has gone on in my 
 mind since you seem to want to talk about mind? Don't 
 you suppose I have been thinking all these years ? Well, 
 I have, and I'll tell you something. I've blundered. I've 
 made a mistake. I'm a fool. What do I care about 
 this 'ecstasy of life* business ? I'm not an artist hunting 
 for emotional climaxes. I was once, but I stopped as 
 soon as I saw what life really meant. And I'll tell you 
 now, things like that are meant to solace failures. And I 
 am a success. And I mean to be a success." 
 
 Her mouth dropped open with surprise, as he went on, 
 even more vindictively than ever. 
 
 "Well, you had just as well know it, Mabel. I am 
 trying to get down to earth. From now on I'm going 
 to take what everybody else takes and be happy. All 
 the stuff you've fed up on means nothing to me." 
 
 Leonard looked at her steadily, now. Two thoughts 
 raced with appalling rapidity through his mind. One 
 was that he could word with so much facility an idea 
 that he had never before been able to approach ; the 
 thorny cactus which had always been in the middle of 
 his rose bed of intentions but which he had never dared
 
 THE TAKER 85 
 
 touch with ungloved fingers. The other was that he could 
 word so easily an idea, every proportion of which was, he 
 knew, a lie, to his craving for an ideal emotional life. 
 
 Yet he went on, slowly and confidently, fighting ,'he 
 more against her as he saw the thin dilated nostrils and 
 quivering lips. 
 
 "No, Mabel, we haven't time for such things. We've 
 got to stick closer to natural laws. Do you see what I 
 mean ? Jennie understood." 
 
 Mabel interrupted him, her words ringing out un- 
 naturally, falsetto with emotion. 
 
 "Leonard! Leonard! You mean you have made a 
 mistake with me? You mean you don't love me, Leonard? 
 You mean that you haven't all the time?" 
 
 Then she turned from him, her hands holding her tem- 
 ples, and again clutching at the air, as if she might 
 draw out of the walls some defence for her plea. 
 
 Leonard walked out into the hallway, for no apparent 
 reason stopping to turn on the orange coloured wall 
 lamp, just inside the door-arch. "I guess I'll go now, 
 Mabel," he said. "Maybe it's best we have had this 
 understanding. Maybe" he blew a perfect ring with 
 the grey smoke of his cigar "maybe we can cut out 
 some of this highbrow stuff. I'm pretty sick of it." 
 He thought a moment. "After all, Mabel, you know 
 we never talked about love, anyway. You think about 
 it." His eyes roamed up and down her form. A thought 
 struck him that while he was at it he might as well make 
 his apparent defence as strong as possible. "This mental 
 business is making you thin. Better try taking a couple 
 of raw eggs and milk every once in a while." 
 
 He hesitated again.
 
 86 THE TAKER 
 
 "You need fattening, Mabel," he said as he passed out 
 of the door. 
 
 It was an interesting coincidence that he should re- 
 ceive a special delivery letter the next morning from his 
 mother in Ohio which, by some strange chance, mocked 
 his every thought. 
 
 "My dear son:" it said. 
 
 "I wonder how you are getting along with Mabel, your 
 wife. I'm so afraid, my boy, that you're not happy. There's 
 no one here I can talk to. You are simply a great success in 
 the East, but a mother has the right to pour out her thoughts 
 to her own boy, and, my darling, I want you to understand 
 what I am going to say. 
 
 "Last night I sat by the window until nearly midnight just 
 picturing you in my mind, and how you and Mabel were with 
 each other. 
 
 "It's no use to lie about it, I guess. The very few letters 
 that you send to me tell me how worried and unsatisfied you 
 are. Leonard, I believe you've got a very good woman for a 
 wife. It isn't easy to find love in this world and there are so 
 many different kinds, we must try to be sensible enough to 
 know which is the best for us. 
 
 "Leonard, Mabel, from your description, is not beautiful, 
 but don't you think when the heart is good and unselfish there 
 is just as much beauty in it as there is in some pretty face?" 
 
 For a half dozen pages she wrote of how he must be more 
 contented and appreciate the thin dark Mabel. 
 
 For the first time he threw a letter from his mother 
 in the tin waste basket at the side of his desk without 
 a second reading.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 rilHE next day, Leonard was called into New York on 
 a bit of business that required sitting in a close, 
 over-heated office until late in the afternoon, discussing 
 the different phases of an offer made by a larger and 
 rival concern, the Wheelland Ornamental Company, to 
 form a possible partnership and have an aggressive New 
 York office. 
 
 When he came out into Times Square at five o'clock 
 he felt as if he had spent just so much time in jail. The 
 constant haranguing and bickering over the advantages 
 to be gained and the apportionment of interest, had bored 
 him beyond endurance. An especially trying time had 
 been had with a man named Whittimore, one whom he 
 had always thought rather charming in previous inter- 
 views but who showed himself now to have an aggravating 
 desire for definite figures that left nothing to chance. 
 
 At the cigar stand of the Knickerbocker Hotel Leonard 
 stopped to buy a long panetela-shaped cigar. It was 
 some satisfaction to get away from the money-mad men 
 and to have the dark, round little woman back of the 
 glass stand say: 
 
 "A Bock panetela, as usual, Mr. Vernon?" 
 
 As he replied, "Yes Miss," he wondered what her 
 name might be. For so many years she had waited upon 
 him, always with her pleasing smile and correct under- 
 standing of his wants. As he walked away he thought 
 to himself that she, too, must have some intimate trouble 
 
 87
 
 88 THE TAKER 
 
 that hung over her all day. Perhaps a husband, or a 
 sweetheart who harassed her. "Guess I'm not the only 
 one," he thought. "We've all got our battles." 
 
 However, as Vernon passed through the lobby toward 
 the revolving doors, he gave a sweeping glance at the 
 many women, sitting or standing about a glance which 
 darted even as far as the gold raftered dining-room, 
 thrown out as a fisherman casts his fly. 
 
 Only one of them held him for an instant. Though she 
 was young and pretty, her face had a look of experience 
 and world-wisdom which acted as a barrier to further 
 scrutiny. 
 
 . . . All day long, the tall buildings and the crowds 
 had conjured old sights and memories before him; his 
 heart ran over with homesickness for what was no more. 
 The very monuments of brick and stone seemed to 
 whisper : 
 
 "You see, here you used to be happy." 
 
 But also there was vaguely present in his mind, the 
 thought that now he had freed himself from Mabel, and 
 that new vistas were open to him. It was as if the dark 
 cavern of his past enduring had been opened and out of 
 it had winged their way all the harassing thoughts of 
 his wasted years. There really was a greater content 
 brooding in his being than he had known for a long time. 
 
 Walking up Broadway, with chest out and shoulders 
 back, which made his grey walking suit fit unusually well, 
 he thought how different he was from all the people who 
 passed him, the actors out of jobs with their careless 
 apparel, the rough-looking men with weak faces, who 
 lined the curbs suddenly he felt ashamed that he should 
 be seen walking in this district. 
 
 So at Forty-Fourth Street, he turned and went across
 
 THE TAKER 89 
 
 town to the more adorned trumpery of Fifth Avenue. 
 "Here," he thought, "New York puts on a varnished mask 
 over her harlot's heart, and doesn't betray herself." And 
 with his muscles echoing to the will of his mind, he as- 
 sumed a more elastic, tripping manner in his gait, while 
 with his cane he cut the air every few steps. As he 
 walked, he noticed how women turned and gave him a sec- 
 ond glance. One with white spats and soft blue tailored 
 suit, smiled at him, and when he turned to look after her, 
 he saw that she had halted to examine the contents of a 
 show-window. He was on the point of turning to follow 
 her when she looked up to see if he had noticed. But again 
 there was the look of experience in her eyes and about the 
 corners of her mouth, for all its veneer of cosmetic arti- 
 fice, played fine, anxious lines of a spent youth. 
 
 It was easy to project into his mind the whole routine 
 of what would follow. So he turned and walked on. 
 "Poor thing," he reflected to himself. "Poor thing!" 
 
 Reaching Forty-seventh Street, he paused again, unde- 
 cided as to what he should do, wondering if he should 
 really spend his evening with one of these women whose 
 looks bespoke such cordial invitation for adventure. Why 
 shouldn't he after all? It had been a long time, in 
 truth, not since his marriage to Jennie that he had 
 been really stimulated by a touch or a caress. Every- 
 thing spoiled under the memory of his home. 
 
 But now he had rid himself of a greater part of this 
 foolish allegiance. Only he must not be cheap about it. 
 He must match up somewhere near his own understanding 
 and superior manners and intelligence. He wondered if 
 there really were some one in this crowd, some woman, 
 young and pretty, who would admire him and understand 
 what a fight he was having with life; what it meant to
 
 90 THE TAKER 
 
 have to smother every emotion. Some one perchance, 
 who, however beautiful, needed him and who was not so 
 well tutored but what he could mould her and teach her 
 his views of life. 
 
 It would be good to find some one like that. Then he 
 would have work to do. That was what he really needed. 
 Some one he could build up. Then he could come to New 
 York oftener, too. And be a little kinder to Mabel at 
 home. If he knew exactly when his hour of relief would 
 come he could afford the period of hypocrisy with her. 
 
 Reasoning that this was the thing to do, Vernon walked 
 on, slowly, thinking how different it was now from a 
 few years before. He was a success in life. Also he 
 had been using women in the wrong way up to now, with- 
 out judgment or foresight. And like a boomerang, they 
 had come back to him. Now it must be different. After 
 all, experience was a good thing when it taught a lesson. 
 And it was too late to grieve about it anyway. He had 
 needed those women. One paid one's price for knowledge. 
 But his youth had paid its price. And time was too 
 ghastly a coin to deal with. After all, maybe his failure 
 was not his fault. Perhaps it was simply that he, being 
 an intellectual, was too subtle for the ordinary woman, 
 and for the same reason, not audacious enough for the 
 more clever ones. Yes, there must be a new era in the 
 management of his life. 
 
 He walked on, thinking. Was he a success after all? 
 Everything was no more solved than it had ever been. 
 Life life what a sad joke. And so many grew excited 
 about it, too ! Really there was little hope, little chance 
 even, of ever being truly happy. Unless one had some 
 sort of anaesthetic to dull the senses and create lying 
 illusions. Just posed before oneself. After all, was not
 
 THE TAKER 91 
 
 posing the only protection that unhappy people and 
 lonely people had for themselves? But perhaps that 
 really was his trouble. Perhaps he had never got inside 
 of himself, because he had had to pose for himself so 
 much. 
 
 As Leonard went on and became less conscious of those 
 passing him, a feeling of unhappiness stole more into the 
 heart, of his reveries. He thought of his mother, so be- 
 lieving, so simple, so blind to anything that was not virtue 
 in him. 
 
 At the moment, his throat actually choked up. He 
 thought nearly aloud: 
 
 "Oh, mother darling, if you were only by me and could 
 help me all the time " 
 
 Yes, he decided, a man needed a woman's solace and 
 help. Scientific groping about to stiffen the mind was 
 all right, philosophising was all right, if one were already 
 fixed in life. But philosophy was only a name unhappy 
 people gave to their thoughts and helped little. 
 
 He turned and slowly walked back toward the 
 Grand Central Station. In his mind was the idea that 
 there, perhaps, he would be more likely to run across an 
 adventure, some one disappointed by waiting, some woman 
 suddenly assailed by a little madness in her heart, as 
 must happen some time or other to all women. 
 
 At the corner of Madison Avenue and Forty-second 
 Street, he did pass a woman whose glance he caught, and 
 decided to follow her; only to change his mind for some 
 reason that had to do with the way her skirts lashed her 
 white shoe-tops. Also she halted a little in her steps 
 as if to wait for him. 
 
 So he kept on toward the station while on his face be- 
 came more and more defined a peculiar expression of an-
 
 92 THE TAKER 
 
 guish and expectancy the expression that he discerned in 
 the eyes of the others as they passed him, seeking their 
 mates along the Avenue. 
 
 Reaching the station, he went down through the en- 
 trance and onto the stone-paved incline to the great open 
 place backed on the far side by the numbered track en- 
 trances. Stopping at a news-stand, he bought a maga- 
 zine with a multi-coloured front page; a magazine dedi- 
 cated mostly to women's wearing apparel and dogs and 
 the doings of the Smart Set. As he took the change from 
 the man back at the counter, he said to himself: "It's 
 best to appear interested in something." 
 
 He decided to stand near the information bureau, 
 where four or five women were already waiting. A thrill 
 of satisfaction went through him at the thought that be- 
 fore him was an adventure that might be just the thing 
 he had been waiting for so many years. 
 
 One of the young women in particular attracted him. 
 She could not have been more than twenty-two or twenty- 
 three years old. He 'saw, too, as he came closer to her, 
 that her slender figure was just a bit too flashily dressed. 
 
 That she was tired of waiting, however, was very ap- 
 parent from the way her eyes sought the different en- 
 trances and then the clock over her head. When Leonard 
 took his stand quite close to her he perceived with some 
 satisfaction that her glance took him in too. Then the 
 charm of a possible acquaintance with her was somewhat 
 dulled when he made out two well-defined splashes of 
 rouge on her cheeks and a perfection to her brows that 
 were no benevolent adornments of nature. 
 
 Now, he thought : "Well, beggars mustn't be choosers," 
 and decided that conquest with her might even be easier 
 than with some one more refined. The main thing was
 
 THE TAKER 93 
 
 to make her understand that this good-looking man be- 
 side her was also tired of waiting. 
 
 For five minutes he tried to seem interested in what 
 really was a page of dog advertisements, when a sudden 
 impulse compelled him to look up. He found that she was 
 observing him. Allowing a smile to spread over his face, 
 he folded the magazine as if preparing to depart. 
 
 There was a faint, but discernible irritation about 
 her lips and eyes. 
 
 It was a little disappointing that she should be con- 
 quered so easily, but it was too late to retrace the step. 
 He lifted his hat and said cordially: "It's stupid, isn't 
 it, waiting?" 
 
 "Yes, quite," she answered. Her smile was rather at- 
 tractive. 
 
 He wondered what he should say next. Presumptuous- 
 ness might anger her, yet hesitancy could be even a 
 greater blunder. 
 
 "I I expected some one on the 6:10 from Albany. I 
 guess they are not going to show up." 
 
 His next step was even more difficult, for she only 
 grinned at him in her knowing way, without a reply. 
 
 He went on: 
 
 "I wonder when the next Albany train gets in?" 
 
 Still she smiled in her really aggravating manner. 
 "Why don't you ask the Information Bureau?" she at 
 last suggested. 
 
 "That's right," he said, and turned to the man who 
 was answering the questions of a little woman with a 
 baby in her arms and another dragging at her skirt. 
 
 Authoritatively he questioned: "Will you tell me the 
 time of the next Albany train?"
 
 94 THE TAKER 
 
 The man looked at him. "In or out?" after he finished 
 with the little woman. 
 
 Vernon saw a broad smile cover the face of the girl 
 at his side. He looked at the officious questioner back 
 of the counter. "Why, in," he managed. The thought 
 struck him that he was not conducting this affair in the 
 right way. He should have gone up to her at the very 
 first smile, and said: "I'm tired of waiting, so are you. 
 Let's merge our disappointment and go to dinner." 
 Yes, perhaps it was not too late, yet. 
 
 He turned to her, and with a laugh said: "What's the 
 use of waiting? Let's go over to the Belmont and get 
 a something to eat." 
 
 As they walked across the street she said to him, quite 
 to his surprise, "You know, as we stood there I was 
 wondering how long it would be before you asked me to 
 do just this. You men are so funny." 
 
 "You knew I was going to ask you?" he questioned. 
 
 "Sure I did." 
 
 Vernon looked at her. "Weren't you waiting for some 
 one?" 
 
 "Oh, yes." 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 Now she laughed outright. "Why, you, silly boy!" 
 
 A wave of regret encompassed him. He had planned 
 such a romantic and charming adventure. 
 
 After checking his light grey coat, cane, gloves and 
 hat at the crude rack, which he did slowly and method- 
 ically as if to show the girl he was unaffected by this sort 
 of adventure, he erectly led the way into the low ceiled 
 grillroom of the hotel. Following the headwaiter, they 
 sat down at a side table, halfway down the room. 
 
 At the side of her chair a window was open and for
 
 THE TAKER 95 
 
 another moment he was occupied in directing the waiter 
 to close it. 
 
 "All the dirt from the street blows in," he said solici- 
 tously. 
 
 "Oh, I don't mind." 
 
 Her voice was not lacking in charm and he resumed his 
 place somewhat reassured. 
 
 Then he glanced at the amber-coloured light on the 
 table and was on the point of turning it out, with an 
 excuse that it was too strong for his eyes, when he saw 
 that the glow really softened the hard lines of her painted 
 cheeks. Vernon noticed that she looked rather attractive. 
 
 He gave an order to the waiter and very soon a large 
 tray with hors d'osuvres was placed between them. 
 
 Vernon exclaimed: "I'm really hungry, aren't you?" 
 And the girl replied with a little laugh: 
 
 "Sure, I am. Let's order a drink." 
 
 Vernon looked at her. Quite on the point of moralising 
 about the effect of liquor on young women, he checked 
 himself, and instead, quickly entered into her mood. 
 
 "What's the matter with me?" he exclaimed. "Waiter! 
 Waiter !" 
 
 At her direction, two pinkish drinks, covered with a 
 foamy cream, were brought in. Then another waiter 
 poured out a rich, heavy soup. 
 
 Without apparent thought of whom the other might be, 
 they began to talk of current gossip; a story which was 
 adorning the front page of all the newspapers; about a 
 society woman who had married a policeman ; the new 
 show at the Winter Garden. Vernon entered into the 
 conversation in his best manner, telling himself it would 
 do no harm to let her know he was different from the 
 ordinary business man. Also there sprang into his mind
 
 96 THE TAKER 
 
 the idea which he soon worded, that they visit the music 
 hall. He added : "I'm so busy that I haven't been able 
 to see the new show yet." 
 
 He spoke in a casual way, as though it were his custom 
 to visit all the theatres. 
 
 The young woman confessed that she had one or two 
 friends who were connected with the theatre, and that she 
 had seen the new show at least a half dozen times. And 
 Vernon, toying with his fork, and drawing criss-cross 
 lines on the white table cloth, suddenly looked up and 
 said: "I haven't been going out as much as I wanted to, 
 lately. A man's a fool to get wrapped up in his busi- 
 ness, isn't he?" 
 
 After a moment the girl replied, with an apparent 
 effort to match his mood: "Yes, you bet, you only live 
 once." 
 
 The roast beef they had ordered was being placed on 
 the table when the head waiter approached Vernon, and, 
 in a whispered voice, suggested a nice light wine, and 
 handed him a wine-list, at the top of which stood in 
 large letters CHAMPAGNES. 
 
 "I suggest No. 123," said the man, "if the lady doesn't 
 mind a dry wine." 
 
 He looked at the young woman, who glanced at Vernon 
 in rather bored fashion and said, casually: "Why, I 
 think you'd like the No. 130 better. It's Pommery." 
 
 Vernon gave the order and in an amazingly short time 
 their glasses were being filled by the head waiter's 
 assistant. 
 
 "This is really a delicious wine," exclaimed Vernon, 
 and they drank slowly, sipping their glasses and looking 
 into each other's eyes in a silent toast. For the first
 
 THE TAKER 97 
 
 time he was really conscious of the dreamy strumming 
 from a hidden orchestra. 
 
 Vernon went on: "You know I've been in a rut for 
 an awfully long time. It's good for me to get out like 
 this now and then." He told her this rather earnestly. 
 
 She replied, a little quizzically, "You are married, 
 aren't you?" 
 
 He took another gulp of wine, and then murmured with 
 an air of reflection: "Yes, a little too much married." 
 
 Somewhat disdainfully, but with a decided tone she 
 remarked: "Well, all the fools aren't dead yet." 
 
 A little put out by her lack of sympathy, Vernon called 
 the waiter to refill his empty glass. This he drank in 
 almost a swallow. 
 
 Then both began to eat and the conversation lagged. 
 Once he looked up, and said: "You know, it's too bad 
 about little episodes like this. We can't appreciate them 
 until we have the next one. Then it's too late." He 
 added sadly, "Life is like that, I guess." 
 
 She waited until he was sipping at his third glass of 
 wine before she ventured : "Yes, when they come so few." 
 
 "Do you have many?" 
 
 She waited until some effect showed itself from his 
 last drink before she dared: "Now, don't be a fool." 
 
 Vernon leaned back in his chair and studied her. His 
 face had grown quite red and his forehead was damp 
 with perspiration, which he mopped with a blue-bordered 
 silk handkerchief, now and then. 
 
 "You're a wise little girl, aren't you?" he exclaimed. 
 
 Ice cream was placed on the table and then two small 
 cups of black coffee. As Vernon lifted the little cup 
 the while he waited for her reply, his hand trembled visibly. 
 
 Finally she answered: "I've got to be." Opening her
 
 98 THE TAKER 
 
 purse she took out a cigarette. "Everybody is not as 
 easy as you are." 
 
 Vernon leaned across the table and took hold of her 
 hand rather f renziedly : "Am I easy, little girl ?" 
 
 "Oh, sure you are up to now." 
 
 It was exasperating to have her command the situation 
 with so much calm scrutiny of him. Thinking that they 
 would never get better acquainted as long as they talked 
 so impersonally, he said: 
 
 "I hate to see a beautiful little girl like you, ready to 
 be trampled down by the first big steam roller that comes 
 along. No woman can look out for herself. She needs 
 some man to watch out for her and take care of her." 
 As he said this she laughed outright and then proceeded 
 to take a little white powder puff from her pocketbook. 
 Powdering the tip of her nose the reflection of which she 
 peered at in a small silk backed mirror, she exclaimed, 
 "You poor, poor thing," the while Vernon fought back 
 the sudden understanding that it would be indeed difficult 
 to train her into manners refined enough to accompany 
 him about the restaurants and hotels. 
 
 She seemed even a little disgusted with the look of 
 affection and endearment that had come into his eyes. 
 Drawing her hand away from his clammy fingers which 
 again had sought hers, she said: "And I suppose you 
 want to be that man, don't you? Why, if you've got a 
 wife," apparently observing the effect of her words, "you 
 had better go back to her and consider yourself lucky." 
 
 Vernon was aroused by this unexpected turn in his 
 love seeking. He was thinking how stupid of him it was 
 to allow this little painted creature to assail him; though 
 he solaced himself as he had often done when meeting 
 some one who showed they didn't care for him. by think-
 
 THE TAKER 99 
 
 ing she was trying to be elusive and clever with him 
 so as to attract him the more. 
 
 Reaching into his pocket he took out a small leather 
 case. From it he drew a bill and crumpling it, tossed it 
 across the table to her, saying: "There's five dollars. 
 I guess you'd better go." 
 
 Laughing derisively, the girl took the crumpled bill 
 and thrust it into the small bag lying beside her on the 
 table, then rose from the table. "You are very kind," 
 she said, in a mock effect at humility; "only next time, 
 don't try to do the big brother stunt. It's old stuff." 
 
 Vernon watched her as she walked pertly through the 
 swinging doors and up the few steps to the sidewalk. 
 The last glimpse he had was of two well-formed, silk- 
 stockinged ankles. 
 
 He began to reflect. What a pity it was that he could 
 not have taken just such a girl as that and moulded her 
 to his own ideas. It wouldn't have been such a difficult 
 process to make her a really charming creature. She was 
 not doll-like, or stupidly pretty, and not so old in this 
 worldly business that the trading had left its mark. 
 1 It was a real disappointment, with an after thought 
 that, strangely, she had not appreciated him like most 
 other women. 
 
 It was after some little time of this self-interrogation 
 that Vernon decided this sudden demise to his pleasure 
 seeking was really his own fault. He had been held 
 down so long by the ties of his marriage to Mabel and 
 the business, that he had lost that manner of worldli- 
 ness which is attractive to women. 
 
 As he sat lost in thought his eyes rested on the bill 
 in front of him with some figures in blue pencil at the 
 bottom of a long column. And it came to him how
 
 100 THE TAKER 
 
 stupid it was to try to buy real affection, which could 
 come only through the communion of spirits. He had 
 made a mistake, he saw, but reflected that this must not 
 discourage him. Some one, somewhere, must be waiting 
 for him and seeking as he was seeking. As he fingered 
 the cardboard reminder of his meal, a fusillade of 
 thoughts shot through him. What a horrible scheme it 
 was that society had forced upon life. One was at the 
 mercy of chance. Was he going to be buffeted about 
 through the years? He was nearly forty now. 4< Why, 
 I'll be an old man in five years," he found himself repeat- 
 ing aloud. 
 
 And then the factory, too. Whj, it was getting so 
 that he was held accountable for the success of his busi- 
 ness by the very workmen he hired. That was one of 
 the biggest jokes of all. 
 
 The sound of his own voice startled him and he glanced 
 around nervously. Calling the waiter he then paid his 
 check and after his glass had been refilled and its con- 
 tents gulped down, he rose and stalked from the room. 
 
 A little dizzy from the wine, Leonard brushed shoulders 
 with a man coming in, and the man flung an angry retort 
 after him which he heard only vaguely. 
 
 Stopping at the head of the stairs for a moment, he 
 glanced down the hall to the dining room where people 
 were sitting at rows of white covered tables. Just the 
 faintest murmur of the orchestra caught his ears and 
 held him by its soft strains. 
 
 When the musicians stopped he walked across the lobby 
 and down the steps of the grill to the front of the bar 
 where he ordered a pint of wine from the bartender. 
 And when it was served, he drank it as if it had been some 
 adversary that he must conquer. There was a table
 
 THE TAKER 101 
 
 near by and much more tispy than he had been, he made 
 his way over to it and sat down. He began to reflect: 
 Why did all these men sitting around look so prosperous 
 and happy ? Why was it they were so gay about life ? 
 
 One man in particular he noticed, a man quite his 
 own age, who was talking animatedly to a companion. 
 He had clear eyes and pink soft skin like a child's. Ver- 
 non could just catch the words: "I'm the happiest man 
 alive. You know that makes our third one. The other 
 two are girls." He was talking about his family. Per- 
 haps that was the secret of it after all. Just to have 
 a wife and children and come home at night and have 
 their arms around your neck and be called "Daddy." 
 
 With his eyes fixed on the stranger, Vernon thought on, 
 angrily aroused against the combinations in his life that 
 seemed always to work against him. "Why is it so 
 hard," he questioned nearly aloud, "for me to be happy?'* 
 He began tearing to bits a printed menu that lay on the 
 table. "Haven't I just as much right to happiness as 
 the next one? Why is every thing always set against me?" 
 
 The sound of his own voice made Vernon shudder. 
 He glanced at the men at the next table, but they were 
 immersed in their conversation. Suddenly the room be- 
 came very hot. He took his hat and plunged up the 
 steps to the street. 
 
 Here there was a hurrying crowd, people rushing to 
 the theatre, and to and from their trains. Some were 
 going home. Tall buildings, like so many towers of 
 Babel, stretched up into the night's blackness, while 
 lighted areas here and there in the black mass told of 
 some office clerk working overtime. It made him feel 
 that they were signals of distress flashed from some com- 
 panion sufferer.
 
 102 THE TAKER 
 
 Then he noticed a young fellow in a light grey suit and 
 new tan shoes, running toward the station entrance with 
 a great basket of fruit under his arm. Probably hurry- 
 ing to some young wife who would meet him with open 
 arms. 
 
 Vernon mopped his hot head as he thought: "Good 
 God, just to have some one waiting for you like that." 
 He wondered what Mabel was doing. Probably she was 
 waiting for him. Yes, she really must be. She always 
 was waiting for him, like a dog waiting for its master. 
 
 That was the main trouble with her. 
 
 A strange doubt assailed him. A doubt of himself. 
 He had been making Mabel unhappy and finding many 
 reasons to justify himself in doing so and now he was 
 suddenly stumbling over the fact that he might be throw- 
 ing away something which he ought to keep, and was 
 lucky to have. 
 
 Never before had he felt so lonely. None of the 
 passersby in their mad hurry to some waiting one stopped 
 to notice him. 
 
 Passing a cafe, he saw his face reflected in a mirrored 
 sign. For a moment he was stifled, meeting himself like 
 that. He saw how enormous his eyes were, how unnatu- 
 rally pale was his face. The merciless light of an over- 
 head sign threw a strange shadowy glare under his eyes 
 and cheeks. His face looked hollowed out, hard, wolfish, 
 pasty. And the thought hit him that if he should sud- 
 denly be laid low in that crowd no one would know him or 
 even care about him. He had a nervous heart. The in- 
 surance doctor had told him that not so long ago. For 
 a flashing moment he saw himself lying unconscious on 
 the pavement with the crowd around him. 
 
 And a policeman hunting for some identification.
 
 THE TAKER 103 
 
 Mabel was probably in the library, reading some book 
 in her quiet way, and looking up at the clock every once 
 in a while. Or, perhaps, she had gone to bed already 
 and was lying awake worrying about him. Across his 
 mind came a picture of the way she had taken him to 
 the door that morning, and said: "Dear, do be careful 
 to-day." 
 
 The illuminated clock on the faade of the station 
 showed nine-fourteen. There was a train at nine-fifteen. 
 He might make it if he ran. Mabel would be sitting in 
 the chair by the reading table. She would be so happy 
 when he came in. And it wouldn't hurt him to sit and 
 talk to her a little while. 
 
 So he ran across the street and into the station and 
 was the last passenger on the train. He had a real fright 
 when his foot slipped as he hurriedly jumped into the 
 moving coach. 
 
 All the way up to Hastings he slept soundly. It was 
 an accommodation train and took much longer than- 
 usual, so that by the time he got off and walked through 
 the crisp night air to his home, the ill-effects of his 
 drinking had worn off; though when he unlocked the 
 door and entered the dark vestibule, he regretted a little 
 that he had come, wondering why he had not stayed in 
 town and gone to a show. 
 
 The lights were turned out in the library and he 
 mounted the steps towards Mabel's room, deciding to go 
 in and greet her and talk a little. 
 
 Mabel's door was closed and he opened it gently. 
 
 When he went in, his wife lay asleep, with the electric 
 bedside lamp shining directly on her face. Near her 
 hand was a crumpled handkerchief and he noticed how 
 damp it was. He looked down at her pale and drawn face.
 
 104 THE TAKER 
 
 He noticed how high her cheekbones were and in what 
 deep recesses her small eyes were placed. She really 
 looked like an old woman with her hair drawn back from 
 her forehead, and her thin arms protruding from the lacy 
 short-sleeved nightgown. The thought struck him as 
 he gazed onto the bed that the soft pattern was worthy 
 of a better tenant. 
 
 Then he turned and went out of the room again, and 
 into his own. Slinging his hat and coat into a chair, 
 he sat down on the edge of the bed. For a long time 
 he sat thinking, before he bent over and began unlacing 
 his shoes. 
 
 He kept saying to himself: "What a fool I am." 
 
 And back of that thought was another: 
 
 He must get away from Mabel.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 AMONG his fellow workers young Lester Moore, the 
 boor at home, the selfish, brutish churl, was some- 
 what of a leader. He was always friendly with them, 
 and took the initiative in their evening meetings. He 
 liked to be a big man at the smoke-laden meeting of 
 the Lead Workers' Union No. 55, held every Friday night 
 over the Miller Grocery Store, on Walnut Street. 
 
 He had ideas about common rights and drove them 
 home with sincere purpose and though his ideas bore no 
 greater intelligence than came from the mouths of the 
 more modest members, he still had a virility and nerve 
 back of his words that gave his thoughts forcible deliver- 
 ance. 
 
 It was all the more startling then, considering his posi- 
 tion at the factory, when he heard one day that he 
 was actually among those included in a general lay-o-T 
 brought on by some merger with a New York firm. 
 
 That night over fifty men met at the hall to discuss the 
 situation. In and out among them floated various 
 rumours; Vernon was in a bad way, he had lost a big 
 contract, he was being swallowed up by a big city cor- 
 poration, he was away from the factory over half the time 
 and had neglected his business. Other words were whis- 
 pered about his domestic affairs he was unhappy at 
 home. 
 
 In one corner Moore met Neil, who had just come out 
 of a flaming denunciation of his employer. 
 
 105
 
 106 THE TAKER 
 
 "Hello," said Moore to the temper-shaken old man. 
 
 "Hello! Hello!" Neil grumbled, and then launched 
 forth into the hanging ends of his tirade. "So he's done 
 it, and you too, eh, boy. We ought to kill him, the low 
 dog." 
 
 At the further end of the hall a young fellow with 
 black hair and a blazing red necktie, named Jim Sylvester, 
 got up and began speaking. His voice came through the 
 tobacco smoke, sharp and cutting. Neil stopped talking, 
 and with every one else began to listen attentively. 
 Every now and again, as some remark stood out and 
 brought a few cheers, he shouted: "You're right, you're 
 right," ending up with some wild curse. 
 
 Lester, too, was held for a moment. Then he took 
 the old man's arm. "Now, what's the use of going crazy 
 over this thing," he said ; "what are we going to do about 
 it? We're laid off. That's all there is to it, see." It 
 bothered him that every one should hang so approvingly 
 on to the words of the speaker. 
 
 The meeting broke up early, without anything definite 
 being accomplished, although for some time after, they 
 stood around in sympathetic groups, talking and plan- 
 ning, little eddies on the surface of unsounded depths. 
 Once in a while some voice would rise above the others 
 and gain the attention of another group and then both 
 groups would join and listen together. 
 
 All the talk was centred on Vernon. 
 
 Full blame was put upon his shoulders. "He should 
 have managed better." "He didn't attend to business." 
 "His wife could have run things better than he did." 
 "Too fond of goin' to New York." 
 
 As Lester stood listening, he looked about him. On 
 all sides he saw men standing silent, with their heads
 
 THE TAKER 107 
 
 strained to catch every word. Now and then he could 
 see them turn to each other in affirmation of the speaker's 
 argument. He saw how red their faces were with anger 
 and excitement. Suddenly it occurred to him they were 
 apart from him, that they had left him out of the general 
 discussion. He wondered why he had lost his power over 
 them, or if he really had. Why couldn't he think of 
 something to say, something that would make them turn 
 and listen to him? 
 
 But somehow he could think of nothing else but his 
 own plans, his own way out of the difficulty. And as 
 this thought struck him, he looked around feeling even 
 more weak and guilty, as if he were cheating the men. 
 
 Noticing that Neil was still at his side, he turned to 
 him, at just about the moment a great scheme had 
 wormed its way into his mind, an idea that so pleased 
 him, he hated to part with it at once. Taking Neil's 
 arm he said, under his breath : 
 
 "Let's get out of here," and then, "Listen to me. I 
 want to know if they've got anything on him. Forget 
 your own troubles something has just come to me. 
 
 Neil looked into the boy's eyes. "What do you mean?" 
 
 "Well" Lester ran the idea over in his mind before 
 he went on, "I mean about these New York trips. Do 
 you think he's got himself in trouble? Does he go around 
 much in the city, do you think gambling, women and that 
 business ?" 
 
 Neil broke into a laugh. "Sure, he does. He always 
 did. But now he's so rich you can't get a line on him." 
 
 The boy thought a moment. "Let's go home," he 
 said ; "I've got a lot I've got to think about." 
 
 Marcy was in bed when he entered the green shingled 
 cottage and the lights were out. Without much care
 
 108 THE TAKER 
 
 for noise, he went into the bedroom, and looked at her 
 sleeping face, intending to arouse her and tell what was 
 in his mind. 
 
 He called her once, and then, as she did not awaken, he 
 decided to wait till morning. 
 
 "It can wait," he thought. "It'll keep." But it was 
 a great plan he had in mind. 
 
 It was an hour, however, before he could close his 
 eyes in the least semblance of sleep. And as he lay 
 awake he thought again how exciting and disappointing 
 the day had been. The crowd had not listened to him 
 as they always did. Instead, it seemed as if, in losing 
 his position, there had gone along with it, his position 
 among the men. It made him hate Vernon more than 
 ever. 
 
 Marcy was sleeping soundly at his side, and somehow 
 he could not help turning and studying her and thinking 
 that his plan was the first opportunity he had ever had 
 of evening up with her for having married him. 
 
 It was mighty lucky, he reflected, that he had struck 
 upon this way out of his difficulties. And it would be 
 safe, too. If his plan worked out, he would be able 
 to laugh at the others. It would be a good return for 
 their having ignored him. He breathed deeply as he 
 thought on. And what a great joke it would be on Ver- 
 non, the man who wouldn't even shake hands with any 
 of his employees. If he worked out his scheme ... a 
 hot whirlwind of selfish ambition rushed through his senses 
 ... he would be safe, too. And beyond that, there 
 loomed a vista of even greater security. If only he did 
 not lose his nerve. And his plans worked out. 
 
 The next morning at the breakfast table, he said to 
 Marcy :
 
 THE TAKER 109 
 
 "Marcy, I want you to see Mr. Vernon to-day. I want 
 you to get a job. You can do it. Take anything he'll 
 give you." His voice was unusually kind. "And fix 
 yourself up in your best. Don't wear that long blue 
 dress. Wear something shorter. I want him to see how 
 pretty you are." 
 
 Her protest was smothered by him. 
 
 "I mean what I say," he said, a little harder. "Do 
 you hear me? I mean it. And after he hires you, I want 
 you to sort of let him know whose wife you are, too and 
 that he's laid me off." 
 
 Now, she was genuinely surprised. "Lester, he's lay- 
 ing you off?" 
 
 He looked silently ahead. "Yes, he's laying me off 
 with a bunch of others." 
 
 "Oh, that's awful, Lester. What will we do? We 
 haven't got anything saved up, have we?" 
 
 Lester walked over and patted her cheeks. "I knew 
 you'd see it, Marcy, old girl," he said. "That's the 
 reason I want you to see Mr. Vernon, and have him like 
 you a little. It might help a whole lot." 
 
 When he saw her hesitating the boy went on, telling 
 himself that she must not have too much time to think 
 about it. So he hurriedly told her how much depended 
 on her, and how happy they would be once they got on 
 their feet. He was really kind to her for the first time 
 in months. He gently touched her little hands and looked 
 into her violet eyes as he talked. 
 
 And all the fearsome things Marcy had heard about 
 Vernon's mastery over those who came near him, flew 
 away on the wings of her husband's happy voice. 
 
 It meant a lot to have some one kind to her like that, 
 and to be able to do something for him. Also she
 
 110 THE TAKER 
 
 thought, how wonderful it would be to just see Mr. 
 Vernon and talk to him. Then, if she pleased Lester, she 
 could always keep him affectionate and nice to her. And 
 that was nicer than having him always so gruff and 
 mean. 
 
 So she said, smiling at him cosily: "Shall I wear that 
 dress I married in, Lester?" 
 
 Eying her shrewdly, he answered: "You got the right 
 idea, old pal." 
 
 And for the first time in many months Marcy felt gay 
 and kind toward her husband, as one feels who has spent 
 days in fog and suddenly comes into sunshine. She was 
 even playful and paraded about in front of him with 
 graces he had never before seen in her saying, as she 
 swept before him, "Now look at me. Won't you be 
 jealous! I'll be so grand." 
 
 Moore sat back and laughed, thinking as he watched 
 her: "Poor kid poor kid." 
 
 He was somehow sorry for her. 
 
 She noticed this and came to his side, pouting: "Well, 
 don't you want me to, Lester?" 
 
 "Why, of course, Marcy. Ain't I the one that's beg- 
 ging you to do it?" 
 
 Coming close to him, she took his face in both her little 
 hands and studied him, as if to search for some possible 
 thought smirking behind his eyes that would give the lie to 
 the words which had made her so happy ; murmuring the 
 while: "Oh, Lester, you've all said so much such awful 
 things about Mr. Vernon. I'm afraid." 
 
 Her smooth, round arm was touching his own, her vel- 
 vety pouting lips were close to his, and an instant's ema- 
 nation of selfishness that he could hardly control, shot 
 through the boy. But he fought past it in a moment, and
 
 THE TAKER 111 
 
 when he replied: "Why, Marcy, you needn't be afraid 
 why, he'll just fall over himself to be nice to you, if 
 he ever sees you," he felt that he was surer of himself 
 than ever. "Sure, he'll be nice to you," he said again, 
 daring to touch her sleeve, the while he reasoned how 
 foolish it would be not to follow out his plan. And 
 when he petted her hand affectionately, Marcy felt satis- 
 fied. 
 
 After all, it was nice of him, and unselfish, she thought, 
 to let her go to Vernon. 
 
 For a moment they stood silently, and Marcy realized 
 it was the first time in weeks they had been so close to each 
 other. In that instant it struck her that now might be a 
 good time to make Lester see how he had neglected and 
 mistreated her. 
 
 So she said suddenly with an effort to make her remark 
 casual, as if it were only at this moment that she had 
 thought of it, "Oh, Lester, I wish you'd be nicer to me." 
 She reached her hand up to his face. Why shouldn't she 
 let him know how unhappy she was? "You know I think 
 a lot about you and me." 
 
 "You do?" he questioned. 
 
 Now that she had given in, there remained nothing fur- 
 ther to do. But as a sudden dejection spread over her 
 face he thought it best to humour her. She seemed so 
 harmlessly happy, anyway. And so, he in turn, gently 
 touched her face, saying, "Why, what's the matter, 
 Marcy?" 
 
 Marcy thought for some little time. Never before had 
 he seemed so kind. But it was easy to see that he was not 
 thinking of her. She got up and walked away from him, 
 slowly, meditatively, and went into the next room, while
 
 112 THE TAKER 
 
 Lester heard her say, feebly: "Oh, nothing, I guess Pd 
 better dress." 
 
 She shut the door after her, and it was hardly a mo- 
 ment before he heard her begin the fragment of her little 
 tune, which relieved him a good deal. It was a good joke 
 on her. 
 
 He had made her happy by getting her to do something 
 from which lie would reap the reward. 
 
 The song came to him in her queer little voice. 
 
 "I'd rather have him and his fifteen a week, 
 Than be some old millionaire's doll, 
 He's the best thing what wuz, and I love him becuz 
 He's my pal, he's my pal." 
 
 He sat down at the table and listened, his thick lips 
 pursed, his lids half closed, his heavy arm swung over the 
 side of the chair. He remembered how he had first met 
 her, how he had been attracted to her when she, with a 
 dozen other girls from the factory and the village, had 
 made up a hay-ride party along the river. He remem- 
 bered how pretty her round little legs were as they hung 
 over the side of the wagon, and how, with the girls' arms 
 around their necks, they had all sang lustily : 
 
 "I'd rather have him and his fifteen a week, 
 Than be some old millionaire's doll." 
 
 As he thought about it now, realising how childlike and 
 innocent she was, and how he was using her, he could not 
 help feeling a little sorry. 
 
 "Poor kid, poor kid," he thought . . . while his smok- 
 ing pipe swayed back and fro in the hand that hung over 
 the chair's arm. 
 
 Once he called to her: "Hurry, Marcy, hurry " 
 
 Mostly he kept on thinking: "When he likes her it'll 
 be easy."
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 TV/TARCY, an accomplice in her husband's scheme, was 
 **** made so through the same innocence that sent her 
 from Lester's side to Vernon's, acquiescent and pliable, 
 like a reed that bends to the wind. 
 
 It was when she saw the familiar enough, long, red wall 
 and the iron gateway of the demons Art Glass Works 
 that she became really afraid for the first time and won- 
 dered if it had been wise of Lester to make her see his 
 employer. Hesitant, she entered the long, bare waiting 
 room and took her seat as near as possible to the aged 
 clerk in charge, while her vision took in a huddling crowd 
 of people, girls and boys she knew and had played with, 
 and bent over men and women, all waiting for an interview 
 with the important Mr. Vernon. 
 
 Sitting on the hard bench, after she had hesitatingly 
 told what she wanted, to the old man at the desk, she won- 
 dered if Vernon would be mean and horrid the way every- 
 body said he was. She remembered the first time she had 
 ever seen Mr. Vernon. It was seven or eight years before 
 and she was playing in the street in the front of her home ; 
 a car went past ; a very handsome man and a woman with 
 blonde hair were sitting inside. How they ah 1 had to run 
 out of the way, whispering, after they had reached the 
 sidewalk : "There go the Vernons !" 
 
 And now she was sitting in his office. Soon she would 
 see him. 
 
 When the clerk motioned to her she had become so 
 nervous she could hardly move shot through with fear. 
 
 113
 
 114 THE TAKER 
 
 But she managed to walk to the desk, controlling any 
 outward sign of her nervousness. 
 
 Then disappointment pounded at her ears. 
 
 "Mr. Vernon's secretary cannot see you to-day, Miss. 
 They don't need any one." 
 
 "Do you mean that I can't see him?" she begged. 
 
 "Not to-day. Come back to-morrow, if you want." 
 
 She saw the clerk glance at the man standing back of 
 her. Mechanically she turned and walked out of the room 
 and found herself in the courtyard before she realised 
 what had happened. 
 
 She had failed. What would she tell Lester? What 
 would he say to her? She could almost hear him shout 
 hoarsely at her : "Don't you tell me you didn't see him !" 
 
 At one corner of the yard, near the entrance, she en- 
 countered some workmen, encasing some great frames of 
 heavy glass windows. She stopped dumbly, in front of 
 them, and caught her reflection in one of the shining sur- 
 faces. Another pang of anguish rushed through her. She 
 saw her bright new clothes in which she had garbed herself 
 to approach Vernon. 
 
 Then she turned hurriedly from the reminder and 
 walked quickly through the large iron gate, her determina- 
 tion withering with every step. 
 
 Fortunately, a brief respite awaited her at home, for 
 Lester was away. Sinking into a chair she sat silently for 
 some time, glad of a chance to plan some excuse for her 
 failure. When Lester came in and very anxiously walked 
 up to her and said: "Well?" she answered hurriedly, 
 "Well, I saw him, Lester, and he wants me to come back 
 in the morning. He was awfully busy." Thoughtfully 
 she added, as his face seemed to cloud: "Ain't that 
 great?"
 
 THE TAKER 115 
 
 "What do you think of him?" 
 
 "Oh," it was hard to lie while his heavy face was 
 studying her so. "He wasn't so bad." Then she added 
 with a quaint toss of her gold brown head, "I didn't have 
 so much time to talk to him, you know." 
 
 Apparently this satisfied him, although she noticed he 
 glanced at her in a queer way, as if he would reserve his 
 suspicions for some future time. Later, while she was 
 preparing the supper, he called in to her : 
 
 "I had a funny time to-day, Marcy. You know the fel- 
 lows are talking about striking. Well, I had a job making 
 them see it wouldn't do no good." When she came into 
 the room with a platter of cold meat, he said, regarding 
 her closely: "They'd spoil everything for us, wouldn't 
 they?" 
 
 "Sure they would," she answered, wondering what 
 meaning was in his words. 
 
 All through the night there played in front of Marcy 
 the people who vainly had sat waiting to see Vernon, the 
 old bent grey figures, the girls she knew, even her own 
 hesitating form. And early the next morning she hurriedly 
 rose, cooked the breakfast for her sleeping husband, scrib- 
 bled a note that she put on his plate at the table: "1 
 guess I better get there before the others Marcy," and 
 rushed off to the factory. 
 
 There was only one thought in her head as she tore out 
 through the door. She must see Vernon this time, or she 
 would be in a fix, indeed. 
 
 The waiting room was empty. She looked around, 
 thinking to herself that it was better to come early than 
 to have been caught in a lie by Lester. For some minutes 
 she sat patiently on one of the benches. Then, with the 
 thought that the old clerk might be inside, she arose and
 
 116 THE TAKER 
 
 walked confidently to the door through which he had dis- 
 appeared the day before. 
 
 Silhouetted against the light of the window was a man 
 with his back toward her. He was stylishly dressed, tall, 
 with broad shoulders. More as an apology for being 
 there, Marcy said tremblingly: "Is any one here, Mister?" 
 
 The man turned toward her. "Did you want to see 
 some one, Miss ?" He had a steady, deep voice. 
 
 She faltered: "Why, I I just wanted to see the gen- 
 tleman that waits outside." His clean, white face, so 
 stern and serious, upset her. However, her fright was 
 eased a great deal by the gentle smile as he looked at her, 
 that spread over his face and came into his eyes and about 
 his thin lips. 
 
 She saw him take out his watch. Then he said, kindly : 
 "Well, you are a little too early a half hour or so. I 
 just happened to be here on my way to the train." He 
 looked again at his watch. "You might sit in the other 
 room and wait," he added. 
 
 Braver, now, Marcy said, "Yes, sir. I wouldn't have 
 
 come so early, only " . . . suddenly she realised 
 
 that this was Mr. Vernon. No one else around the place 
 could be so fine looking. She went on bravely, determined, 
 unless she fall in a faint, to make the most of this oppor- 
 tunity. "Well, I just must see Mr. Vernon." 
 
 He came closer to her. "What do you want with him?" 
 She saw his eyes were studying her up and down. 
 Strangely, when she looked straight at him and began 
 speaking she found herself saying: "I think I'll come 
 back again. I just thought I might catch him in early," 
 while her one thought now was to stay and talk about the 
 job.
 
 THE TAKER 117 
 
 "What do you want to see him about?" He was looking 
 at her steadily. 
 
 "Why, I just wanted a job," she hesitated the first 
 words that came to her mind. 
 
 "What can you do?" 
 
 That she must be fitted to do a certain thing was a fact 
 that suddenly confronted her. For the moment she re- 
 sented his words, which in the instant seemed to scatter all 
 her plans. At last she plunged into the first defence that 
 came to her, while she looked up at him in a silent appeal 
 for mercy. 
 
 "I don't know I couldn't tell until I see what kind of a 
 job I get." 
 
 He gave a little comforting laugh, and then, gently 
 took hold of her arm, saying: "All right, just wait in the 
 next room. We'll see what we can do." 
 
 And Marcy walked out, perplexed, wondering, and yet 
 happily conscious that what she had done was the right 
 thing. 
 
 It was about an hour later that the old clerk called her 
 to the desk and said that Mr. Vernon would see her in his 
 private office. In another moment she found herself stand- 
 ing in front of Vernon. For some time, an interminable 
 time to Marcy, the man looked at her. Then, with a smile, 
 he exclaimed: "I've found I don't need to go to the city 
 to-day and I don't usually see those seeking employment ; 
 but you rather interested me. What is your name?" 
 
 "Oh, you are Mr. Vernon, aren't you?" she implored. 
 
 Again he smiled. "Yes. But that need not bother you. 
 Sit down." He pointed to a leather cushioned seat beside 
 the desk "and tell me as much as you can in a minute." 
 
 Marcy found it difficult to realise that she was in the 
 presence of the man whose name had always awed her so.
 
 118 THE TAKER 
 
 She tried to think what she must say to him. Everything 
 in the room looked so important, the heavy gold framed 
 pictures of churches and cathedrals, the panelled samples 
 of art glass work, the different plans and etchings. On 
 the desk she noticed heavy glass jars of some material 
 marked "Silica" and right at the side of his desk a series 
 of old drawings showing the Egyptians working in glass. 
 Also there were two small oil paintings, one of them show- 
 ing a naked woman reclining on a sofa. 
 
 But out of them came no thought that would clear the 
 way for the little speech she must make to him. Then she 
 heard him say again: "Now tell me your name, Miss," 
 and she caught herself. 
 
 "Why, my name it's Marcy Marcy Moore, Mr. 
 Vernon." 
 
 For a time he was very apparently studying her, look- 
 ing at her so steadily that she found herself bowing her 
 head, as if to shield herself from his glances. Then he 
 arose from his chair, just as she was on the point of tell- 
 ing him that she was married to a young man that her 
 own name had been Neil. But he became suddenly serious 
 again and impatient and his words "Come in to-morrow 
 maybe we can find something for you," shut off whatever 
 explanation she wanted to give. However, as she walked 
 out she felt that he was still looking at her, studying her 
 in a way that was not unfavourable. 
 
 That night Marcy told Lester, with face alight, "I 
 think it will be fine, Lester. I know he'll give me work the 
 way he acted. And as soon as I get a job I'll ask him to 
 give you work too." Without knowing the reason for it 
 she went on to a fanciful scene, quite elaborately describ- 
 ing how he had selected her from all the others who were 
 waiting.
 
 THE TAKER 119 
 
 Two days passed when a little note came saying that a 
 small position awaited her at the factory and that if she 
 proved satisfactory after a trial, her small salary would 
 be raised. 
 
 Early the next morning she went to the factory office 
 and a fat, baldheaded man took her to the mailing and 
 filing room, immediately adjoining Vernon's office, showed 
 her how she was to put away in their proper places, copies 
 of all the letters that were sent out and told her she must 
 be particular to do her task without any mistakes. 
 
 So nearly a month went by, with Marcy happy and sat- 
 isfied, her only troubling thought springing from the fact 
 that she never dared tell her employer she was married, or 
 that her husband had been laid off and was sitting at 
 home, in the dining-room, waiting for her to get his job 
 back for him. 
 
 From day to day she put off this obligation, until, one 
 evening, when the opportunity did come, she found there 
 were many reasons why she must not tell him. 
 
 Vernon called her into the office that night, just at clos- 
 ing time. 
 
 "How are you getting along?" he asked, motioning her 
 to the seat beside him. He seemed so glad to see her that 
 she felt quite at ease. 
 
 "Oh, I'm getting along fine," she answered, taking the 
 chair he pushed out for her. 
 
 "I was wondering about you," he went on ; "wondering 
 if you were satisfied here." 
 
 Opposite her, in a mirror that hung out from the wall 
 from an angle, she saw the reflection of the crowd pouring 
 out of the gateway and over running into the brick-paved 
 street. A wish came into her mind that she could let them
 
 120 THE TAKER 
 
 know that she, Marcy Moore, was having an interview 
 with Mr. Vernon. 
 
 As he took a cigarette and gently rolled it between his 
 fingers, he said casually: "You like your work, then?" 
 
 "Oh, awfully much." 
 
 He noticed how nervously eager she was, how her lus- 
 trous hair hung embracingly over her ears and caught a 
 silvery polish, from the fading daylight, on its heaviest 
 curl. 
 
 Slowly he lit a match, looked strangely into her eyes 
 and said, thoughtfully: 
 
 "We're not so very busy now, but the fall orders will 
 soon make us rush again." Laughing in a friendly way 
 he added : "That'll mean harder work for you. Will you 
 mind?" 
 
 She cried earnestly : "Oh, I should be glad of it." 
 
 "Anyway," he went on, "maybe we will see that you get 
 a little larger salary by then." 
 
 For a time there was silence between them which Marcy 
 hesitated to break. However, she did feel uncomfortable 
 with Vernon sitting so quietly looking at her. It had be- 
 come quite dark now too, and somehow a picture crept 
 into her mind of her husband standing by the window and 
 watching for her to come in through the gate. It was in- 
 deed a relief when a scrubwoman's brushing could be 
 heard coming down the hall. 
 
 Suddenly Vernon got up. "Why," he exclaimed, "I 
 didn't mean to make you stay so late, Miss Moore. I'm 
 sorry. Do you live near here?" 
 
 He seemed so anxious about her welfare that she said, 
 earnestly : "Oh, don't worry about me. I'm all right. I 
 can get home in five minutes." Rising from the chair, she 
 added : "I only live over on Third street." As if he might
 
 THE TAKER 121 
 
 not know about the little row of cottages peopled by his 
 employees, she directed his gaze out of the window with 
 the little finger of her left hand, while a thought smote 
 her heart that even this was not the proper way to point 
 out a direction. 
 
 But he did not seem to notice, only jumping up and 
 looking at his watch. Marcy saw him hesitate, as if he 
 were in doubt whether he should dare to venture out on 
 the walk with her. He ended up by saying : 
 
 "Yes, you had better get home. You'll be late for your 
 supper, won't you?" Then his nervousness seemed to be 
 controlled, for he added, quietly enough: "I'm so sorry I 
 kept you." 
 
 But in Marcy there was only a great smothering feel- 
 ing, a desire that the power be given her to let him know 
 how she appreciated his thought of her. And at last she 
 managed: "Oh, I think it's been the reverse. I think I 
 have been keeping you, instead of you me." 
 
 Hurriedly she picked up her little frayed pocket-book 
 and walked toward the door, a good deal surprised that 
 he should follow her. Somehow all she wanted to do 
 was to get away, while in her mind kept pounding a 
 great joy that she had talked so well to him. The word 
 reverse seemed just to have come out of some friendly 
 heaven. But he followed her to the door and opened it 
 for her. He seemed to be thinking about something until 
 he said in a very careless fashion : 
 
 "You know you look a little pale, Miss Moore. Don't 
 you ever get out in the country, out in the sunlight? It 
 would do you a lot of good." 
 
 She couldn't give him an answer right away. Nor 
 could she say that she had little opportunity since she
 
 122 THE TAKER 
 
 must cook her husband's meals. She caught herself just 
 
 in time and said: "Why, I " the lie she was telling 
 
 seemed to choke her "I just love the country whenever 
 I get a chance to." 
 
 Torn between letting himself do what he wanted to do 
 and the fear of a possible calamity by being seen, Vernon 
 did not answer her as she expected he would. Instead she 
 saw him walk over to the window and look up and down the 
 street. A great thought racked him. Had he ever had 
 this sort of opportunity for real happiness? Had any 
 kindly fate ever before so tempted him? Within his soul, 
 as he looked down on to the people filing out who 
 gained their bread and butter simply because of him, a 
 great whisper seemed to rise a whisper that said: 
 "You've been a fool long enough." So it was that when he 
 came back to her side he said in a very friendly and de- 
 cisive way : 
 
 "Now I tell you what I want you to do. Some Satur- 
 day afternoon next Saturday would be a good time, you 
 walk out on the Farm Road. Maybe I'll come along in 
 my roadster and pick you up. Would you like a nice little 
 ride?" 
 
 How good it was of him, she thought ; then wondered if 
 she could get back in time to cook Lester's dinner at 
 night. Still her husband always played pool every Satur- 
 day afternoon and hardly ever came home. 
 
 As if divining the reason for her hesitation, Vernon 
 added: "Oh, you needn't worry about getting home. I 
 can get you back," he thought for a brief moment "to 
 the end of Main Street, long before six o'clock. Then 
 you can run on home, yourself. You wouldn't mind that, 
 would you?"
 
 THE TAKER 123 
 
 "Oh, you're so kind, Mr. Vernon. Of course I wouldn't 
 mind." 
 
 He opened the door for her and Marcy walked out, with 
 the wish that one of the scrubwomen, perchance, might 
 see her come out of the President's private office.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE following Saturday afternoon, after an interim 
 of breathless expectance and incredulity, Marcy 
 tramped a good half hour through the dust of the seldom 
 travelled Farm Road before Vernon overtook her. 
 
 "I'm sorry I made you wait so long," he said, as he 
 stopped the car and opened the door for her to get in be- 
 side him. "I had to attend to some stupid correspondence 
 at the office." He added, bending over her: "Only the 
 boss has to work Saturday afternoons." 
 
 She stepped into the car proudly, yet stifled by the 
 realisation that the great man, so fine looking in his heavy 
 grey coat and white flannel trousers, should be taking 
 her with him the way he would any of the people he 
 knew. 
 
 For some time he drove very fast, without a word. 
 Then, with his face away from her, as if he must study 
 the road ahead, he said, apparently pleased by the idea: 
 
 "I know a little place up near Tarrytown, where we 
 might stop and get some lemonade, or something. It's so 
 hot and dusty." Now he turned toward her, "How would 
 you like that?" 
 
 "Why, I think that would be fine," she answered. 
 
 "It's a nice, quiet, little place," he exclaimed a little 
 more enthusiastically. "There are a couple of musicians 
 there, or at least there used to be if any one wants to 
 dance. Do you care for dancing?" 
 
 "Oh, I love to dance. Do you dance?" she blurted on. 
 
 He smiled, answering, "No, I don't dance, you see I'm 
 
 124
 
 THE TAKER 125 
 
 thirty-seven that's near forty, but if you want to, per- 
 haps we can find a partner for you," he added, half in 
 earnest. As he spoke she suddenly became conscious that 
 her dress had drawn up, baring her legs far above her 
 shoetops. Quickly pulling down her skirt she saw too, 
 that his attention had been attracted by her action. 
 Rather shamedly she turned away from him, while crimson 
 blotches stole to her cheeks. 
 
 Vernon was on the point of saying something, then 
 caught himself and turning to the wheel, fixed his eyes on 
 the road ahead. 
 
 A little further on they turned through a bowered gate- 
 way and stopped at the side of a newly painted frame 
 building. One or two other automobiles were standing 
 under a sort of shed. He helped her out, standing for a 
 moment in a study of the other cars. 
 
 Then he said: "Let's go in," a little nervously, and 
 led the way through a screen door, into a large room with 
 many tables. At the farthest end sat two or three couples 
 and Vernon gave them a sharp glance before he sat down 
 at a table shown him by the waiter. For a moment his 
 look of uneasiness worried her, as if he regretted their 
 coming here. But as soon as they sat down at the table 
 his manner changed again. He suddenly became kind and 
 gentle, while his only explanatory word was : "You know 
 I'd hate to run into anybody from the factory," and 
 added: "You understand that, don't you?" 
 
 She replied assuringly, "Oh, of course I understand." 
 
 But she could not help noticing how the other couples 
 eyed them. "You don't know any of those people, do you, 
 Mr. Vernon?" she suddenly asked. 
 
 Vernon understood what had prompted the question. 
 He answered casually, looking at his watch as he spoke:
 
 126 THE TAKER 
 
 "They're probably people living near here. Everybody 
 knows every one else. It's like a big family." 
 
 But it was with some satisfaction that he saw the 
 couple at the end of the room, turn to each other and be- 
 gin in whispers their own conversations. He had visions 
 of news spreading at the factory next day. He could even 
 see the old clerk at his desk in the reception hall, whisper 
 to the doorkeeper : "I hear the boss was out for a little 
 drive." 
 
 Marcy's eyes now took in the small raised platform at 
 the end of the room, where two coloured musicians were 
 playing the piano and violin. It was fine to be happy 
 like this, she thought, and when she watched Vernon give 
 his order to the waiter saying: "A claret lemonade for 
 the lady, a Scotch highball for me," she thought how won- 
 derful he was and how coarse Lester would be, giving an 
 order, with his rough words and bullying manner. She 
 even remembered the time the boy had taken her out to a 
 cafe and forced her to drink some plain whiskey. "Be a 
 sport," he had said, and was angry with her when she hesi- 
 tated. This man was so kind, so different. 
 
 When the waiter brought the drinks, Vernon murmured, 
 apologetically, "I ordered lemonade for you. I hope that 
 was all right," while the thought stole in his mind that if 
 any one should ever question him, the lemonade would be a 
 good proof of his care of her. 
 
 "Oh, I never drink anything else," she asserted. 
 
 He drank very slowly, as he watched her. Marcy was a 
 little ashamed when she realised that she had finished her 
 drink before he was through with his. "You can have 
 another, if you want it," he said, noticing her embarrass- 
 ment. 
 
 "Well, if I
 
 THE TAKER 127 
 
 "Waiter," he called, "bring us another claret lemon- 
 ade," even before she could stop him. 
 
 It was such fun to be in this quiet place. Their table 
 was in a sort of bay window and down through the trees 
 could be seen the shining water of the Hudson. A gauzy 
 pink shade that covered the light on the table made the 
 place even more cozy. As she looked across to Vernon she 
 smiled to show him how happy she was. 
 
 For a time Vernon sat in silence listening to the music 
 with just a casual glance at her now and then, which 
 Marcy tried to return in the same knowing manner. She 
 could not know what pitying thought went through the 
 man's mind for her effort at worldliness, wording to him- 
 self the phrase that always lay deep in his consciousness. 
 "Poor things they're all alike." 
 
 There even raced through his mind many of the spent 
 episodes in his life, where all the glory of an assignation 
 had been spoilt by this same willingness but lack of under- 
 standing. Even as he watched the beautiful child smiling 
 so sweetly across at him he reflected what a pity it was 
 that all attractive women didn't know the rule of the hunt 
 that a sportsman could not fire at the bird on the limb. 
 Only the ugly women knew how to hold aloof their only 
 defence, perhaps. 
 
 It was after some time of this disturbing reflection that 
 Vernon said, as much to upset the trend of his own 
 thoughts as to interest Marcy: 
 
 "Tell me, do you wonder much about things, people, 
 life you know, the things that we read about in the news- 
 papers ?" 
 
 Determined that he would not find her ignorant and 
 unprepared with a reply, she plunged into an answer. 
 
 "Oh, I guess I know a good deal, that is, for one who
 
 128 THE TAKER 
 
 hasn't travelled much." She watched his eyes for approval 
 as she spoke. 
 
 He laughed gently and thoughtfully went on: "Tell 
 me, what kind of a man do you think I am ?" 
 
 "Why, I guess you are a man that's used to having 
 everything pretty nice." She continued with more con- 
 viction, "I guess you know how to make men mind you, 
 all right." 
 
 He gently reached across the table and, as if it were a 
 good joke, took her hand, squeezed it, and said: "Fine, 
 just my character exactly." When he leaned back, he 
 added: "Have you ever thought about what kind of a 
 man is going to love you some day, and you are going to 
 love? You know that's bound to happen to you just like 
 it happens to every one else." 
 
 This was not so easily answered. For a moment she 
 thought that now would be a good time to tell him that 
 already she was well, after all, she wasn't loved by Les- 
 ter. So for the want of a better idea she entered into a 
 description of what she thought represented a fine looking, 
 well-dressed, successful man like Vernon. She said, "blue 
 eyes" even, finding it hard in her veiled glance to be sure 
 whether his eyes were blue or grey. 
 
 It made him laugh, and this time he reached across and 
 took her hand and held it, even after he was through with 
 his remark : "I think you're flattering me." 
 
 At the moment, the conviction shot through him that 
 all his days of longing were at an end. In a way appar- 
 ently without design, or thought, he took her fingers and 
 gently squeezed them. Then just when it seemed as if an 
 unspoken protest must steal into her thoughts, he took his 
 hand away and from the little stand in the centre of the
 
 THE TAKER 129 
 
 table lifted a few matches. Burning one or two of them 
 down to their very ends he exclaimed, rather seriously : 
 
 "That's the way some people's lives go. Just burning 
 out, without ever making a flame that any one sees." 
 
 He seemed so sad that Marcy remarked, for no other 
 reason than to justify his kindness to her, "I guess it don't) 
 do any good to think so seriously about things, does it?" 
 
 This period of speculation was cut short, however, when 
 a very fat woman of middle age got up from her chair at 
 the far end of the room and with a thin, pale-faced young 
 fellow began to dance around the space cleared of tables. 
 
 Vernon saw the look of disgust creep into Marcy's eyes 
 and hastened to change her thoughts, saying: 
 
 "This is a pretty nice place, isn't it?" 
 
 "Yes, it's awfully nice," though her eyes followed the 
 ill-matched couple. 
 
 Then, a middle aged man, with a woman quite the same 
 age, and a young girl of about her own age came wearily 
 into the room, and sat down at a table near them. They 
 had on dusty looking automobile coats and seemed too 
 tired to speak to each other, though Marcy noticed how 
 the young girl's eyes continually roamed about the room. 
 She had blonde hair and was really pretty. 
 
 It was at this moment that Marcy saw Vernon turn, 
 caught by the little girl's wandering glance. He said : 
 
 "A happy family out for an airing and none of them 
 talking to each other." 
 
 "I guess they're too tired," she suggested. 
 
 He added, "Or too bored." She heard him sigh, and 
 murmur sadly: "Life life " 
 
 They were in the car and at the outskirts of Hastings 
 in what seemed to Marcy half the time it had taken them
 
 130 THE TAKER 
 
 to go out. And when Vernon said: "Good-bye, now 
 hurry home and take good care of yourself," adding in a 
 very kindly voice : "know that I am thinking of you too," 
 it seemed that instantly all of her happiness was swallowed 
 up. 
 
 She had even composed a little speech that would tell 
 him how wonderful it was that he should be so interested 
 in a poor girl like her but he skipped off leaving her full of 
 resentment, at his hurried departure. 
 
 However, until his car vanished in a cloud of dust at a 
 turn in the road she stood loking after him, thinking how 
 lucky she was, and how she wished she might dare defiantly 
 to tell her husband how Mr. Vernon liked her. Never 
 before in all her life had she ever felt so full of courage. 
 
 When she reached the little cottage and went in to the 
 green-papered dining room and saw that it was ten min- 
 utes of six and that she must hurry with the supper, a feel- 
 ing of honest indignation spread over her at the idea that 
 she must cook for the gruif Lester, who appreciated her 
 qualities not even half as much as did her employer. 
 
 She was really happy when, after waiting until past 
 seven-thirty, she realised that her husband was not coming 
 home for the evening meal. Her anger had even fuller 
 sway when she imagined him playing pool and gambling 
 away the money she was earning for him. 
 
 Marcy waited till eight o'clock before she went into her 
 room and undressed slowly, for the first time putting her 
 clothes away with care, even laying out her Sunday morn- 
 ing's dress and the little lace collar she wore with it. Con- 
 tinually in her mind were pictures of the afternoon the 
 way she had sat opposite Mr. Vernon and talked to him 
 how sad he had looked when he bent over the burnt 
 matches.
 
 THE TAKER 131 
 
 As she jumped into bed her thoughts had an odd ac- 
 companiment. 
 
 She wished now she might have said something that 
 would have made Mr. Vernon feel better.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 N the weeks that followed, Mabel found her husband 
 * growing more and more silent and meditative, while 
 Leonard became more and more aware that she was in- 
 creasingly petulant and childlike. Every day it seemed 
 she had some new experiences which she must relate to 
 him. It seemed to be a species of expression of her love. 
 For the first time she began to consult him regarding per- 
 sonal matters, like her clothes, and fineries. And no mat- 
 ter how bored he was by this, she would talk to him and 
 question him in an animated, childlike way, that made him 
 want to run out of the house. 
 
 Sitting in his office, Leonard would grow tense with 
 anger, as he thought over this, and saw how, without even 
 knowing it, she was re-living for him Jennie's lover-like 
 antics. 
 
 One day, Mabel came across an advertisement in a New 
 York paper, relating how a certain Madame Bleu had dis- 
 covered a method by which one could determine the exact 
 perfume each temperament required. The only set back 
 was that the wife must know her husband's preference in 
 colours and music. 
 
 And that night as they were leaving the table, she 
 stopped him and told him this with wide-open eyes and her 
 face wreathed in satisfaction at her great discovery. 
 
 And when he laughed at her, she came back, her spirits 
 drooping somewhat: 
 
 "But Leonard I'm only doing this to please you." Ris- 
 
 132
 
 THE TAKER 133 
 
 ing from the table she came to his side. "Why, it might be 
 just some such a an intangible that will make you love 
 me the way you ought to." 
 
 "Oh, Mabel, don't don't," he begged; "our lives 
 aren't guided by intangibles." 
 
 He felt like saying that it took something a whole lot 
 more definite. But as always, her strange expression of 
 agony showing through her glad face, like some veil-like 
 shroud covering the horror underneath, kept back his 
 words. 
 
 Restlessly, he left the table and walked to the white 
 stone mantel-piece where he caught a reflection of himself 
 in the slanting mirror hanging above it. For the first time 
 in a great while he had dined wearing his dinner clothes. 
 And in the mirror he could see how Mabel glanced at his 
 back, admiringly. The thought came to him that she 
 ought to realise that a good looking man like him could 
 not be expected to throw himself away on her. 
 
 In fact, Mabel had a hard fight to keep back her desire 
 to add just one more plea that he come back to her, at 
 least in spirit. As he stood smoking with his arm resting 
 on the mantel, he was indeed fine-looking. Somehow the 
 narrow dinner coat made him look taller and broader 
 through the shoulders. She wished that she might go up 
 and throw her arms about him and draw him close to her. 
 For the moment a pang of vindictive remorse actually 
 shot through her that she had not been created more 
 beautiful. Then he turned and she saw how tightly the 
 broad expanse of white silk clung to his bosom. Truly 
 he was getting more handsome than ever. And developing 
 more in character, too. It must have been the strain of 
 his business worries that was moulding him. At least the 
 strength of his will was more apparent than ever. He
 
 134 THE TAKER 
 
 seemed so much more confident, more pleased with things 
 and more at ease. She could tell by the way the muscles 
 contracted uneasily under the flesh of his smooth skinned 
 jaws and cheeks and by his eyes, formerly so soft and 
 dreamy, which now were showing a new strength unyield- 
 ing, cold, yet reposeful. Suddenly she broke out: 
 
 "Oh, Leonard, why can't we be happy? Why can't 
 you treat me decently, as you used to before we were mar- 
 ried?" She half shut her eyes, as if to recall the past. 
 "Oh, you don't know how noble and wonderful you were 
 then !" 
 
 He answered with a good deal of control : 
 
 ''Why, Mabel, do you think you are giving me all 
 
 that a wife should? Maybe you are not to blame " 
 
 fully conscious that what he was saying had no meaning. 
 He saw her look at him in a startled way. "But you 
 know," he went on, "it is not always good intentions that 
 even up things. Sometimes we have to bow our heads 
 and submit to things that are inevitable, just because 
 well, because we are made in a certain way.'* 
 
 At the moment he could not help surveying her tall, 
 thin figure, the spareness of which she even accentuated 
 by wearing a black jet and lace dress. Also he was a lit- 
 tle angered that she should have intruded this subject on 
 him so inopportunely. Just at the moment his thoughts, 
 enveloped by the soft blue smoke from his cigar, had been 
 delving along new vistas, where a beautifully gowned little 
 woman was waiting for him amid glowing lights and 
 humming orchestras. 
 
 And he added with a certain bitterness, "I suppose you 
 understand what I mean, don't you?" 
 
 "You see, Mabel," he said there was a long cone of 
 ashes on his cigar and he took the time to brush it into
 
 THE TAKER 135 
 
 the grate before he went on "our angles of vision are 
 different. You know, all women are a little insane in their 
 hearts. But God made them just that much cleverer to 
 
 keep it from going to their heads. And in your case " 
 
 there was a disparaging glance that/cut her to the quick, 
 as he ranted on, "but I'll get off the physical end of the 
 conversation, if you want to." He ended up by exclaim- 
 ing restlessly: "Oh, Mabel, why won't you just see it 
 and give in? You know, you will always have a hard time 
 of it, because it's your vanity to suffer anyway." 
 
 A tall waiter, sent up from New York some three weeks 
 before, with the recommendation that he had worked in a 
 home belonging to the "Four Hundred," now came in and 
 interrupted them for a time by clearing away the table. 
 When he had left in his automaton-like fashion, Mabel, 
 with some show of relief, said anxiously : 
 
 "Leonard, you don't care for me merely because I'm 
 not good-looking enough." More to herself she ex- 
 claimed: "And I thought you were different from other 
 men. I thought you were attracted by whatever spiritual 
 beauty you might have found in me and not by this per- 
 ishable physical thing." She turned away. "But I know 
 better now, Leonard." Suddenly she broke out in a tem- 
 pest which in the instant seemed to consume her entirely : 
 "I'm beginning to hate men." 
 
 Seeing that he must argue out the point if for no other 
 reason than to spend a few minutes in conversation a 
 brief payment to his conscience he sought for a way 
 that would show clearly what he meant. 
 
 "Well, you see, Mabel," he began, "I thought when I 
 married you, that the mental and physical beings were 
 entirely separate and independent of each other. That 
 was the real reason for my marrying you. But I've
 
 136 THE TAKER 
 
 learned, regardless of my fight against it, that one only 
 reveals and completes the other." 
 
 A new idea seemed to come to him as he talked, and he 
 went on more earnestly: 
 
 "One is the breath of life to the other. It's just like 
 the new-born babe. It has a body and all that, but breath 
 must be put into it before there is life." As he said this, 
 Mabel's thin lips were pressed even more tightly together, 
 and from the way she folded a napkin back and forth, 
 which she had picked up, he could easily see how hard she 
 was fighting to control herself. 
 
 "You you mean," she exclaimed distrait, when she 
 could hold out no longer, "why, I don't understand you, 
 Leonard !" 
 
 "Yes, I mean that you, knowing you lack physical at- 
 tractiveness, are dwarfed by this same conviction your- 
 self. You're enfeebled by it. You would, therefore, 
 rather be weak and suffer, since this is more readily at 
 your hand. Your pride is in not having any. It's like a 
 man, only half prepared, trying to make a speech. He's 
 afraid of his audience. That's the way it is with you, 
 Mabel." Then he halted abruptly. He had never seen 
 her face so ghastly pale. "Oh, I hate to talk like this to 
 you," he cried, honestly enough. 
 
 For a time she seemed to be stunned by his remarks, and 
 then as if conscious that she could only make the situation 
 more unendurable she smiled a little, rang the bell and 
 asked the waiter to bring in the black coffee and changed 
 the subject. It relieved him a good deal to see that she 
 was not breaking down. 
 
 For some time they talked on now, in a rather matter 
 of fact manner. It was their first real bit of conversation 
 for days and they rambled on to a dozen subjects each
 
 THE TAKER 137 
 
 touching perilously near to what she knew must be brought 
 out before she left him. She must prove to him how 
 wrong he was, to save him from himself as well as for her. 
 And as they talked, Vernon realised as he watched her, 
 how pathetic the situation really was. So far as her 
 mind was concerned, she was a help to him. She made 
 his mind active. What a pity it was that she had never 
 attempted to attract him physically, back in those days 
 when he had been so foolish and na'ive about his life. 
 
 "It's good for me even now," he thought on. "Yet she 
 always wants me just like the rest.'* 
 
 It was a pity indeed that he could not make her see 
 this fact. Though, even if he did, she could not change 
 her face. Beauty was the only thing that made the mind 
 worth while. 
 
 But Mabel was encouraged and with a sparkle in her 
 voice that had been lost for so long, gradually worked the 
 conversation around until she told him how he misunder- 
 stood the sort of woman who does not attempt to control 
 herself. 
 
 "All women deal in suppression, Leonard," she said. 
 "It's a first instinct with her. Every emotion she feels is 
 checked down in some sort of storehouse." She added: 
 "The lock and key of pride and convention keep them 
 shut forever. And it's only fear fear of being honest, 
 fear of other people's thoughts, that makes this thing 
 called 'convention' and makes them heed it. Still," she 
 thought on "that woman gets credit for being sensible 
 from just such men as you." 
 
 She continued after a moment's serious thought : "You 
 see it's different with a man, Leonard. When he discovers 
 some new impulse he is pleased ; gives in to it and makes 
 things easy for himself. In fact he only suffers when his
 
 138 THE TAKER 
 
 emotions are denied. When he lets his feelings rule him, 
 most women give him credit for being only human." 
 
 "Well, things work differently for men than for women. 
 You mustn't forget that," he pointed out. 
 
 Mabel's eyes were bright now. "Yes, you've said it!" 
 she exclaimed cynically. "And now, because I let you 
 know how I love you, you don't care for me any longer. 
 You want me to fool you." 
 
 When she came closer and stood back of him, Leonard 
 suddenly wished he could tell her how futile it was to dis- 
 cuss life like this. He wished that he might say to her: 
 
 "Mabel, what's the use of our talking? Nobody works 
 out life according to reason or analysis. Let's go over 
 to the Club and get a drink." 
 
 Yes, he would have said this had Mabel been 
 Jennie. 
 
 But Mabel placed her thin hand carelessly on his arm, 
 just for a moment, as if it were a thoughtless movement, 
 and saw again that response was chained somewhere in 
 his soul. So with an understanding that told her to rush 
 on while he was listening, she said : 
 
 "You know, Leonard, while you've been away from me 
 so much, I've had plenty of time to think. Oh, so much 
 about you and me and the way we've failed. Sometimes 
 
 I've thought " she paused to reach over onto a little 
 
 table for an engraved silver match box, "that we expect 
 too much happiness from life." 
 
 She murmured on meditatively. "Ive been thinking 
 that maybe the fault is all mine. That I expect too 
 much." 
 
 As she talked, she searched his face for some evidence 
 that her words were holding him. But he simply chewed
 
 THE TAKER 139 
 
 on his cigar and said, after she had been quiet for some 
 time: 
 
 "Oh, Mabel, Pm all at sea about it." Then he thought 
 on as he took the cigar from his mouth and looked at it, 
 "Maybe life is just like a cigar, Mabel it takes a mighty 
 good cigar to make us enjoy a smoke, yet the better the 
 cigar the worse the after taste. So if we have just a lit- 
 tle happiness then we only have a little suffering. Maybe 
 we're just as well off this way." 
 
 Leonard rose now and walked into the hall. In his 
 mind was the idea that this last remark really had some 
 truth in it. 
 
 Taking his hat and coat from the rack, he said : 
 
 "I guess I'll go over to the club, Mabel. Tell the man, 
 will you?" 
 
 In the days that followed, Mabel was continually 
 racked by the knowledge that she must have some power 
 to draw away from him if she wished to hold him again. 
 
 But her love for him controlled her, even while the 
 thought came into her mind that she could not endure 
 being cruel or hurting him. 
 
 On one side she was conscious that love for him 
 strangely paralysed her desire to play this game, and on 
 the other, that if she held off from him he might not even 
 bother about her.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 TV TARCY, too, through association with Vernon, felt 
 *"-* that she was learning 1 a great deal about life and 
 men in particular. Formerly she had thought all success- 
 ful men strong and cruel and in a world entirely apart 
 from her own. And now she was suddenly realising that 
 not only were big men, like Leonard Vernon, in need of 
 other people's companionship, but actually dependent 
 upon it for their happiness. Losing many illusions about 
 Vernon she became conscious that something within her 
 gave her command over him. 
 
 On the Friday following their ride, Vernon stopped her 
 and after seeing that she was comfortably seated in his 
 office, said to her: 
 
 "Marcy, people don't understand. They think some of 
 Us live behind unsurmountable bulwarks. But we are just 
 like everybody else, needing human sympathy and friends 
 and companionship." 
 
 Touching her arm gently and quite thoughtlessly as he 
 leaned over to her, he went on to tell her how unbearable 
 loneliness was. 
 
 "You know, little girl," he said : "I get so lonely. And 
 the hardest part is knowing that people don't understand 
 this sort of thing in a man who is so busy. They don't 
 understand as long as they themselves have somebody, 
 anybody even, hanging around them. To them loneli- 
 ness is a fanciful notion like living on a desert island. 
 As long as they are safe from it they can't imagine it 
 exists." 
 
 140
 
 THE TAKER 141 
 
 As he talked, Marcy noticed how his head was bowed. 
 Also he took her hand and squeezed it as if glad he had 
 found some one to tell his troubles to. But he talked so 
 low and quietly she could not understand what he meant 
 much beyond that he was sad and needed her help. 
 
 However, just as gently, she squeezed his hand in re- 
 turn. And with every pulse, an increased feeling of power 
 pervaded her being. 
 
 She was only with him a little while when he got up, 
 smiled, said : "Ah, well," and took her to the door. But 
 from the moment she reached her home, a new era of hap- 
 piness settled into her soul. 
 
 From that night on she began to see and believe that 
 she must equip herself so as better to understand all the 
 big things this man said to her. She must be able to help 
 him with his moods from now on. 
 
 So she began to stand in front of the mirror at night 
 after Lester went out, and look serious, the way she knew 
 she must look when he spoke to her. She began reading 
 books and magazines with little understanding of their 
 contents, but instead, with her mind wandering to the 
 places where Vernon must be. She was glad now, when 
 she could sit alone, in her dim-lit green wall-papered bed- 
 room, and think of him. 
 
 Bashful and hesitating enough, when she was in Ver- 
 non's presence, yet when away from him, she had a grow- 
 ing sense of strength and control over him that gave her 
 much happiness ; while her yearning mind went begging in 
 a prayer that he was thinking of her as she thought of 
 him. 
 
 In this way passed the days through to the end of 
 summer. 
 
 At times she felt so close to him and so proud of his
 
 142 THE TAKER 
 
 confidences that she could hardly keep from speaking 
 about him to every one. 
 
 Then at the beginning of Fall, Vernon became busy 
 again and she hardly had an opportunity to see him be- 
 yond a casual glance. 
 
 At first she was hurt that he should neglect her. But 
 one day he erased all her troubled thoughts by calling her 
 in and telling her not to forget him; that he was planning 
 on a little jaunt some afternoon that would make them 
 forget their troubles. 
 
 The only events that varied the monotony of her days 
 for so long had been her silent walks over to the Hudson 
 to watch the big white Albany boats crawl along, or on 
 Saturday night when she brought home her pay envelope 
 to her husband, and was met by bitter words against her 
 employer. 
 
 It was a few (days later that Marcy chanced to look 
 into Vernon's office through the half opened door, and 
 saw him pacing the room, serious and quiet, as if weighed 
 down by heavy thoughts. Just as she was passing he 
 came to a halt and looking up saw her. When he said: 
 "Marcy, come in for a moment," his voice seemed more 
 than usually sad. 
 
 To make sure that he wanted her, she asked: "Oh, 
 may I?" 
 
 "I want you to," he said earnestly, looking out at her 
 and smiling kindly. 
 
 But as soon as she was in the room, he again started 
 pacing the floor. She noticed how he walked into the hall 
 for a few steps whenever he passed the half opened door. 
 
 "Marcy," he then began, "I wonder if you can under- 
 stand the strange laws of life that govern us." 
 
 A bit disappointed that he should start in again on his
 
 THE TAKER 143 
 
 big words and thoughts about life, she nevertheless was on 
 the point of begging him to say whatever he thought, 
 when he went on, talking as if he were unaware of her 
 presence. "A law, Marcy, that impels us to render our- 
 selves unassailable by having control and strength and 
 then by the same process, reduces us to a pulp of senti- 
 ment." 
 
 Marcy told herself that he was in trouble. He always 
 was when he talked about life that way. 
 
 She murmured : "Oh, I'm sorry you are unhappy, Mr. 
 Vernon. I wish I could do something to help you." 
 
 Then he stopped his pacing, and, with a laugh, sat 
 down at the swinging chair by his desk, saying: "I guess 
 you think I'm peculiar, don't you, Marcy?" 
 
 She answered : "Oh, no, I don't," all the time wonder- 
 ing how she could convey to him the understanding that 
 she knew he talked this way to her only because he 
 trusted her. 
 
 He picked up some papers from the desk : "Sit there, 
 Marcy." He pointed to the chair at his side. "Unless 
 you have something else to do. Maybe we can have a 
 little talk." 
 
 Marcy watched him closely while he ran his eye down 
 the column in front of him. His face no longer seemed 
 so serious and thoughtful. Rather, it looked hard from 
 the way he set his jaw. Though his eyes were kind. At 
 last he said: "Enough, Marcy, enough," quickly folded 
 the papers into a drawer, drew out his keys and locked it, 
 and then asked, taking her hand and patting it: 
 
 "Well, Marcy, what do you think of a man, running a 
 big factory like this, who lets little details disturb him?" 
 
 "I know you must have a lot to bother you," she has- 
 tened to say. "People don't know, do they?"
 
 144 THE TAKER 
 
 Apparently conscious that she had thrust herself into 
 a partnership with him, he confided: "Well, my wife 
 knows of our little automobile party that we took that 
 day." 
 
 "Oh, did you tell her?" 
 
 Vernon replied: "No, not exactly. Not until after a 
 few others did. But it doesn't worry me." 
 
 He looked into her eyes, and then at her well-developed 
 shoulders and arms. He thought : "How well formed she 
 is, how soft her mouth is. Just like a rose unfolding its 
 petals. And her skin just the right tint of olive. Her 
 red hair makes her look like that painting by Aosti." He 
 thought on that if he had kept up his painting, she would 
 have been just the model, for a lot of reasons ; that he 
 must not lose her, and that like most women, the dominant 
 call in her nature was maternal ; if she could mother him, 
 he would win her. He saw that he must call for sympathy 
 from her. 
 
 So he looked up at her face and said : "But don't you 
 feel sorry about me, little girl, I'm all right. I can fight 
 them all." 
 
 "Oh, I hope that it was all right," she asserted. "I 
 hope it didn't hurt anything here at the factory, did 
 it?" 
 
 "Why, of course not." He laughed carelessly, bravely. 
 Then suddenly, he leaned towards her and took both her 
 hands in his. "Child," he said : "You do a lot for me. I 
 like you. Do you like me?" 
 
 The thought raced through Marcy's mind that he had 
 never before pressed her hand so strangely. Nor was he 
 as gentle as always. She stammered out : 
 
 "Why, Mr. Vernon, ought you to talk like that to me? 
 I'm only one of the girls."
 
 THE TAKER 145 
 
 But he seemed to ignore her protest entirely and took 
 his key and unlocked the desk drawer, as if unconscious 
 that he had held her hand or that she had noticed. For a 
 moment he seemed unable to find what he wanted. Then 
 he brought out a book with a worn greenish cover and 
 turning to one of its pages, read aloud to her with clouded 
 face and dull voice. 
 
 "Ye who have yearned alone 
 My grief can measure. 
 No friends are near, and flown 
 Are joy and pleasure . . ." 
 
 He finished with a rising inflection turned on the word 
 "pleasure." "Do you understand that, Marcy? I guess 
 there is just one thing that ought to be added . . . 
 youth, youth, Marcy that's why I'm talking to you, 
 that's why I like you. You are youth, Marcy my lost 
 youth." 
 
 Marcy rose from her chair; looking at his face some- 
 what anxiously she murmured, "I guess I'd better be go- 
 ing, Mr. Vernon." 
 
 He rose with her, apparently surprised that she should 
 still be so conscious of herself. At first he even seemed 
 unable to collect his thoughts, then went to the window 
 and looked outside, as if to let her understand that he 
 thought it was the gathering dusk that made her anxious 
 to leave him. 
 
 After a bit he said: 
 
 "Yes, it's getting late. You'd better go." 
 
 . . . After that Marcy tried to put him out of her 
 thoughts, though she suffered all the time from this self- 
 torture. She saw and understood now that he really
 
 146 THE TAKER 
 
 liked her, and in the solitude of her dreams at night she 
 wanted him, and thought how wonderful it would be if he 
 should put his arms around her, or kiss her. It was this 
 realisation that made her stay away from him; partly 
 through fear, mostly through that vague moral sense ac- 
 companying youth that told her it was wrong to see him 
 again. 
 
 It was a hard task, indeed, that she outlined for herself, 
 for every thought of him drew her irresistibly; his au- 
 thoritative way with the other employees, the understand- 
 ing that of all the other girls, he had singled her out as a 
 confidant. 
 
 Nor did she find any great peace at home to allay the 
 strain of these days. Lester, unable to procure another 
 job, was drinking now and going deeply into debt, having 
 used up the money from the factory savings fund. He 
 assailed her again and again for not being able to influ- 
 ence Vernon in his behalf. 
 
 But Vernon was never out of her mind. One night she 
 hurried out of the factory, to avoid him, and started on 
 her way home, only to find herself seeking a path on the 
 hill back of the building, from where she could peer down 
 to the very windows of his office. The days were getting 
 shorter too, so that now it was quite dusk at closing time. 
 Seeking a path among the trees she gazed down onto the 
 lighted windows of his office for nearly an hour the epit- 
 ome of her entire thoughts being a sympathetic prayer 
 that he would go home and not work so late. 
 
 How the childish heart swelled, proud of its secret. 
 She wandered through the days, content, peaceful, then 
 fear-ridden and anxious, sucking up, like a sponge, every 
 word she heard dropped about him, every glance he cast 
 at her. And at night, at rest on her pillow she went over
 
 THE TAKER 147 
 
 all the accumulated thoughts, the words, the glances, 
 . . . and enchanted by them fell into an ecstatic slumber ; 
 while her husband dozed close by her, even in his sleep 
 taut with patient watching, like a sentinel at his post. 
 
 This repression extended over a period of two months, 
 and all the while a mighty spirit of affection and protec- 
 tive endearment grew within her being. 
 
 Entirely conscious of all this, Leonard saw that he 
 must forbear until she came to him willingly. Often, how- 
 ever, he casually passed her desk just to see her bow her 
 head in work as long as he was near. But it was trying 
 indeed to hold off. 
 
 His experiences in New York and the weeks and months 
 of Mabel's pathetic quarrels had indeed taught Vernon 
 certain things. He had now the manner and bearing of 
 one who comes into the open after a weary journey along 
 some blind trail. He knew the expression of his face was 
 less stern and that he was more affable with his employees. 
 
 During this time he came across an article in which it 
 was stated that certain rare human characters possessed 
 the virtue of radium a virtue which enabled them to af- 
 fect adjacent objects and to turn them for the moment 
 into a quality the same as themselves. And he discov- 
 ered that by smiling and appearing amiable and gay, 
 others were affected and seemed to beam back at him with 
 the same spiritual radiance. This he began to try at all 
 times, with unfailing success. He became an alchemist of 
 life, transforming with a glance, darkness into light. He 
 really felt that he had hit on a philosophy now that would 
 soften any moment of stress. It was a peculiar philosophy 
 too. He reasoned that within himself, in the secret depths 
 of his soul, was a sanctuary wherein he could keep invio- 
 late his desires and ambitions ; a confidential place where
 
 148 THE TAKER 
 
 he could store up all his impulses, where he could blush 
 and exult and deride and sorrow, unseen and safely 
 guarded from alien eyes. 
 
 It was only his impervious exterior that the world 
 would know from now on, he decided, telling himself that 
 this was the reason men succeeded, that only the weak or 
 stupid lent themselves to sympathy or calumniation. 
 
 Only to imperially garbed youth emblem of days that 
 had seared him and then vanished, did Leonard now bow 
 his head youth, intangible, unrequited, the symbolisa- 
 tion of passing time, was his only fetish. The ebbing sap 
 of love and life that swelled and receded in him, his griefs, 
 regrets, the wild songs and their crying music leaping 
 forth madly, he now kept encased in this sealed casket of 
 his inner self. And he felt that no one knew. Not even 
 the devoted Mabel, who seemed so content to grope after 
 the dim form of his retreating love. 
 
 Then, one more thing: one must hold off become a 
 waiter in life. Waiting emphasised everything made 
 it pleasanter made it assume more interesting propor- 
 tions. Beauty was only a product of prolonged anticipa- 
 tion. 
 
 And he carried this to the point where, when he be- 
 came thirsty, after an hour spent by one of the furnaces 
 in the mixing room, he sought his office and quenched his 
 thirst by filling a tiny wine glass full of water a dozen 
 times, rather than swallow his fill from the large goblet 
 that stood on the oil-cloth covered stand. 
 
 So Vernon accepted Marcy's silent devotion in this new 
 philosophical way, quietly content to await her surren- 
 der, as they must have stood by in olden times waiting to 
 see fall the gates of the besieged Jericho. She was in his 
 thoughts, and yet apart from them ; more the emblem of
 
 THE TAKER 149 
 
 something than the thing itself. Any sense of obligation 
 or allegiance to the girl careened easily off his conscience. 
 But to that which she represented and brought to him 
 youth he gave reverence and fidelity. 
 
 With this understanding he felt he could peacefully 
 walk the pathways of the world. 
 
 Strangely this brought a queer new feeling of freedom. 
 
 . . . And all this time, Marcy felt in her the building 
 of a great duty. She knew that Vernon was so much 
 older than she, though that made little difference. But no 
 longer was it the case of simply being Marcy Moore, but 
 that of a messenger brought into the world, patiently 
 waiting to give succour to a needy one. 
 
 Then early one December morning, when the snow was 
 so deep that Vernon was compelled to walk to the factory, 
 Marcy met him. Silently they trudged to the red brick 
 building, and quite as willingly she followed him into his 
 office. 
 
 "Well, Marcy," he began, "I guess we've been fools long 
 enough, haven't we?" She pathetically reached out and 
 touched the sleeves of his coat and Vernon saw tears flock 
 to her eyes. 
 
 "Yes, I guess so," she said. 
 
 He put his arm around her, and his head quite near 
 hers, nearly whispering: "Dear little Marcy." 
 
 Suddenly she seemed unable to control her long pent 
 up emotion. Even out of joy, as out of pain, she began to 
 cry, tumultuously, sobbing with deep agony that shook her 
 little body from head to foot. 
 
 Vernon put his arms around her, took her streaked, 
 pretty face between his two hands and said, again and 
 again : "My little darling, my sweet one." 
 
 And Marcy buried her head in his arms, valiantly try-
 
 150 THE TAKER 
 
 ing to conquer her feelings under his caressing protection. 
 
 It was some time before both sat back in their chairs, 
 Marcy unabashed, smiling in a sweet knowing way, while 
 he tried to return her endearing glance without betraying 
 any trace of his thoughts. 
 
 A little later he said to her : 
 
 "Well, dear, you do care a little for me, don't you?" 
 
 She looked down at her tightly clasped hands and then 
 gazed vacantly out of the window before she replied : "I 
 like you awfully much, Mr. Vernon." It seemed she 
 could hardly word the thought in his presence. It was 
 even unkind of him to make her say what he already must 
 know so well. 
 
 Getting up, he walked over to her, and with the thought 
 that now was a good time to add a little to her pity for 
 him, braced her with his two hands on her shoulders. 
 "Marcy, look at me." She tried to bow her head again to 
 avert his direct gaze. "No, dear, look at me," he com- 
 manded. "I want to tell you something." She lifted her 
 head. "Marcy say you understand." He gazed into 
 her eyes with the most endearing look he could muster. 
 Only after he saw the tears forming again, did he gently 
 force her into the chair and go back to his place behind 
 the desk. 
 
 He then said earnestly : "Marcy, of course you cannot 
 know how a man like me must feel. Sometimes I feel like 
 crying out; 'God in Heaven, will I never dare to love just 
 for fear of losing it?' ' He smiled dejectedly at her as he 
 talked, although the conviction suddenly dazed him that 
 now, and for the first time in his whole life, he really was 
 meaning what he was saying to a woman. Somehow, here 
 he could dare expose himself without covering his words
 
 THE TAKER 151 
 
 with false wings so that he might fly to a retreat when 
 necessary. 
 
 And Marcy replied, quickly, longingly: 
 
 "Well, you won't ever lose mine." 
 
 She looked at him, awed by the mysterious way in which 
 he spoke, but listening attentively, even in her misery, 
 alert that he should not find her lacking in understanding. 
 And Vernon continued, talking as much to the pen which 
 he kept twisting between his fingers, as he did to her. 
 Now, as if a curtain had been drawn, it seemed he must 
 only and faithfully word what he knew to be the truth in 
 his nature. It was as if Honesty were making a first ap- 
 pearance on the stage of his brain. 
 
 "Yes, it is to those unacquainted with life that life holds 
 no perplexing problems, Marcy." He went on to argue 
 that it was of no use trying to control feelings by rule, 
 that temperament was a matter of personal equation. 
 "You know," he continued, "after all these years, Marcy, 
 I have come to see that one must not try to keep a set 
 standard, and that we cannot shut off what we think and 
 feel any more than we can tell ourselves when to love or 
 hate." He added : "And another thing I've learnt is to 
 look at life through your own eyes, paying no attention 
 to what other people think or say. That's the big thing 
 to learn in life, Marcy." 
 
 Vernon talked to her as if he had given profound 
 thought to the subject, knowing that she was not following 
 his words. He did not even trouble to interpret their full 
 meaning, himself. But it was interesting to watch her 
 eyes, see her admiration for him light them so he talked 
 on, like a seer, a sage giving out wisdom. His bearing 
 was like that of a Buddha from the Ganges, invested with
 
 152 THE TAKER 
 
 life the grandiose expression of anguish in a deeply 
 stirred soul. 
 
 Then he rose and went to the window while he talked, 
 his arms folded, his eyes glancing outside through the 
 frosted panes, on to the sparkling snow. However, he did 
 not forego watching the effect of his words upon her; 
 while Marcy sat silently regarding him, with eyes sending 
 a message which he easily understood, eyes which said, 
 "Oh, you talk so wonderfully. You are so good to think 
 I understand all you say. You big, wonderful man." 
 
 There was an interruption when a knock came at the 
 door and the whiteheaded clerk from the waiting room 
 came in with a package of letters. 
 
 "Good-morning, Mr. Vernon," he said, his eyes turning 
 on Marcy. 
 
 Vernon grunted out a gruff "good-morning," adding 
 coldly: "Shut the door after you." 
 
 When the clerk went out Vernon walked over to his 
 desk, and slowly, absentmindedly, as if his thoughts were 
 far distant, began sorting the letters and papers the man 
 had left. As he placed them and opened some, he talked 
 on, in staccato fashion, punctuating his words according 
 to the importance of each letter. 
 
 "How old are you, Marcy?" he asked, suddenly break- 
 ing a long winding comment on life. 
 
 "I'm eighteen," she replied quickly. 
 
 Gently, Vernon studied her and asked if she had much 
 time to think. 
 
 "Oh, of course, I have," she answered. "I'm poor. 
 Poor people have more time to think than rich people." 
 
 He looked at her steadily. "Do you think I have much 
 time to think, Marcy?" 
 
 "Well, I think it's different with you. You aren't
 
 THE TAKER 153 
 
 happy. If you were as rich as you are and happy too, I 
 don't think you'd want to think, much. I know you 
 wouldn't." 
 
 Apparently desirious of getting better acquainted with 
 her views, Vernon said: 
 
 "Marcy, rich people have to believe themselves happy, 
 at any rate. But there must always be some real cause 
 for happiness, just the same, some cause like love or art." 
 He looked fondly at her, adding, "You can't buy those 
 things with money, you know." He found himself to be 
 arguing the matter as much for himself as for her. 
 
 Marcy thought for some little time. 
 
 "I don't think you could buy love," she pointed out. 
 "You just have to feel that, don't you?" 
 
 The words bred out of her childish convictions came 
 easily and sensing the mystic spark of intelligence in her 
 wondering mind, there rose in Vernon a thought that un- 
 der his tutelage, it easily could, and must burst into a 
 glorious flame. 
 
 This thought was coupled with another; that if he 
 would make their liaison attractive he must create its 
 glamour by holding her back from giving in too readily. 
 
 He thought on as he looked out of the window : 
 
 "It's no fault of mine. Besides, I've not the years to 
 play with any more !" 
 
 But he wondered why he had never before been aware 
 of her fruitful effort to appear more womanly, her man- 
 ner of holding her head erect, her quaint way of lifting her 
 chin; he wondered why he had never marked the perfect 
 outlines of her slender body and the way they settled into 
 the long lines gently curving from her waist to her knee ; 
 then the depths of her limpid brown eyes, the wonderful 
 texture of her skin.
 
 154 THE TAKER 
 
 He wondered on unconsciously tautening the lines 
 stretched over the abyss of his emotions. 
 
 And over that line, a tight-rope walker on the road to 
 Destiny, he began to tread his way. 
 
 "Marcy," he began . . . the rhythmic striding to- 
 wards her gained speed while the thought struck him that 
 it was foolish to hold back any longer. 
 
 "Marcy !" 
 
 His hand reached out as he stood studying her. He 
 looked into her staring eyes. His hand folded over her 
 trembling fingers. 
 
 "Marcy . . ." 
 
 Her bewilderment grew apace with the tightening of his 
 grasp. For a moment she could only look at him, trans- 
 fixed, her eyes gaping wide. Then she tore loose from 
 him, crying: 
 
 "Why, Mr. Vernon! What are you doing? What's 
 the matter with you ?" 
 
 In another moment control was blinded and he 
 frenziedly drew the trembling girl to him, and with a mad 
 abandon kissed her forehead, her neck, her lips. The 
 cataclysmic proportions of his desire for her went now be- 
 yond his control. For only a moment he controlled him- 
 self, as he saw a certain terror rise to Marcy's face. Then 
 his hands sought her arms, her shoulders, her breasts. 
 
 "I love you, little girl," he cried savagely. There was 
 agony in his hoarse words. "I can't help it. You are so 
 beautiful." 
 
 A wave of wild longing and (desire swept over him. With 
 eyes closed and lips compressed, suddenly he became a 
 puppet, beyond thought, responding to the strings of 
 some dormant impulse, some savage passion beyond his 
 own will.
 
 THE TAKER 155 
 
 And just as all his passion and love hunger were re- 
 leased, just so suddenly was thrown off all the mental and 
 physical torpor that had held Marcy pliable and unre- 
 sisting. She became ablaze, vindictive with anger and re- 
 sentment youth's innate cry for freedom. 
 
 "How dare you? I hate you! I hate you!" she 
 screamed, her eyes flashing as she tried to pull herself out 
 of his arms. 
 
 And not until she was out in the hall and running from 
 him did Vernon, trembling and amazed, move towards the 
 door. 
 
 Then for a long time he stood inert, stunned, gazing at 
 the door through which she had run from him ; only after 
 many minutes did he feebly grope his way back to the 
 chair at his desk, and drop his head between the arms he 
 had stretched across the paper-littered surface. 
 
 "Oh, you fool you fool," he moaned.
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 LESTER was just leaving the house as Marcy ran up 
 to the porch. Immediately the boy saw that she was 
 in a highly excited state. As she reached his side he saw, 
 too, that she had been crying. 
 
 "Why, what's the matter?" he exclaimed. "Why ain't 
 you at the factory?" 
 
 "Oh, Lester," she cried. "Something terrible has hap- 
 pened." 
 
 She ran into the dining-room off the porch, with Lester 
 close after her. 
 
 "Now, what's the matter ?" he demanded. 
 
 For a time her quickened breathing seemed to smother 
 all ability for expression, then she said: 
 
 "I Lester, I can't go back to the factory any more." 
 
 The husband listened to her, sensing in her words some- 
 thing deeper than the anguish of disappointment. It was 
 as grief brought on by an irreparable loss. He took her 
 hand, saying: "Now, now, quiet down and tell me what's 
 up." 
 
 When she kept on sobbing, he shook her gently. "Now, 
 tell me what's the matter. Tell me why they fired you." 
 
 And Marcy, even in her heart-sore misery, became con- 
 scious that he would be angered only because of his selfish 
 interest, which might carry him to the point of harming 
 the man who had assailed her. So she held out before his 
 blunt and rough demand for an explanation, only moan- 
 ing, "Oh, everything's terrible. I can't tell you, I can't 
 tell you." 
 
 156
 
 THE TAKER 157 
 
 Her husband surveyed her from head to foot derisively, 
 and then taunted her with the words : "So you lost your 
 job, did you? Well, I knew it would happen." His jaws 
 set together treacherously. "You couldn't hold down a 
 job you ain't got sense enough." 
 
 Smitten by the injustice of his accusation, Marcy lost 
 all sight of her idea to protect Vernon. She cried back : 
 "I I can hold the job all right. It's not that. It's 
 
 It's " just in time she caught herself "Oh, I can't 
 
 tell you." 
 
 She tried to rise from the chair in which she had thrown 
 herself and run for shelter into the green-carpeted bed- 
 room, but he firmly took hold of her and pushed her back 
 against the table, angrily demanding, "Now, look here, 
 what's the matter? Out with it, quick!" 
 
 And when she said: "He Mr. Vernon tried to to 
 hold me," a wave of remorse swept through her that told 
 her she was a coward, a traitor, to the sacred cause. 
 
 In that moment, even as the hot tears coursed down her 
 cheeks, she saw that she must defend Vernon against the 
 red bloated face so madly distorted. Like a flash she also 
 saw that now would be revealed the silent lie, both to her 
 husband and Vernon, that she had carried with her 
 through the months. The truth about her marriage would 
 come out. Vernon would hate her for not having told him, 
 and her husband would attack her for the same reason. 
 
 For a time Marcy was crazed by these thoughts, and 
 Lester saw her look about the room in a wild-eyed search 
 as if trying to seek some intelligence that would tell her 
 what to do in this crisis. When she realised this, it 
 came to her that she must get to Vernon and warn him. 
 She quickly ran out to the porch. He was after her on 
 the instant. "Where are you going?" he called.
 
 158 THE TAKER 
 
 But she ran on and was a half block down the street be- 
 fore he reached her side. 
 
 When he had her by the arms he said, with a lack of 
 anger that surprised her: "Look here, now, don't be 
 crazy. I don't care about Vernon. I was mad just for a 
 minute back there, but I've been thinking about it it's all 
 right if he likes you. Don't you see?" 
 
 Stopping short, Marcy heard his breathless words in a 
 maze of perplexity. 
 
 "I don't understand," she gasped. 
 
 "I mean I mean I don't care, Marcy. That it's all 
 right you and the boss. Why, it's just what I wanted 
 him to do. Don't you see?" He dropped his head just a 
 little and pushed his red tie in place under the soft cotton 
 collar, as he confessed, "Why, he'll give me a big j ob now, 
 the one I've wanted. He can't refuse you now, see." 
 
 As they started walking down the hill and she had re- 
 covered somewhat from her bewilderment, he said to her, 
 "Don't you see what I'm driving at?" He took her arm. 
 "Why do you suppose I let you waste the last five 
 months ?" 
 
 "I don't know," she murmured. There was in her mind 
 little else than the idea that now, for a time at least, Ver- 
 non was safe. 
 
 Her husband went on decisively : "Well, that's why." 
 
 Marcy walked silently at his side. There was only one 
 thought in her mind. She must get to Vernon, quickly as 
 possible, and say to him : "Oh, forgive me, please forgive 
 me." 
 
 She was brought back to reality by her husband's rough 
 hold on her arm and his remark : "Say, what's the matter 
 with you? Why don't you answer me?" 
 
 "What did you say?" she asked.
 
 THE TAKER 159 
 
 "Why, I was saying it was all right." 
 
 Marcy searched his face in surprise. "You mean you 
 don't care, Lester if he Mr. Vernon is nice to me?" 
 She was conscious that in this part of Hastings she and 
 Lester were known and that she must be careful so that 
 those behind the shutters would not know they were quar- 
 relling. 
 
 Lester looked at her and gave a sly chuckle. "Why, 
 you understand, don't you? Be nice to you? Why, that's 
 what I wanted him to do all along. He knows what he's 
 doing. He knows you are married. Now, go back and 
 tell him you are sorry and maybe be a little sweet to him 
 for a while." 
 
 Marcy stared at him. It was some time before the real 
 meaning of what he had said penetrated her confused 
 mind. Then she burst out, feverishly gathering vindictive 
 force as she went on, as if she were picking up the frag- 
 ments of her misplaced anger with Vernon. When she saw 
 the boy's grinning, sheepish face harden to sneering lines, 
 she prayed for strength to hurt him. 
 
 "I know now, I see what you mean. And you are my 
 Jiusband. Why, Mr. Vernon is an angel beside you, and I 
 like him, too. I tell you that right now. I do like him. I 
 love him. I don't care if the whole world knows it. No- 
 body ever made me think before, and teach me nice things 
 the way he has. He has been good to me just like a 
 father while you you have been trying to use me and 
 him." 
 
 Moore grabbed her arm, trying to hush her words while 
 they were on the street and might be heard. 
 
 But she was not to be stopped, even losing herself in a 
 greater hatred for his scheme. She went on, bursting into 
 one torrent of indignation after another, speaking as
 
 160 THE TAKER 
 
 though her anger had torn off the covering from all her 
 previous stupor and childishness. 
 
 "You devil! You thought you could use me, didn't 
 you? Well, I hate you! You are just low and mean. 
 That's all. You don't know anything about nice things, 
 about how wonderful it is to be intelligent and read, and 
 everything. All you know about is drinking and gam- 
 bling. Then " this was the hardest for her to word 
 
 "You never wanted me to be happy anyway. You know 
 that you fought with me about a baby. And I know that's 
 not right. Oh, I've been thinking all right, too. I know 
 God never meant us to be like that. That's why I hate you 
 more than anything else. You don't know how bad that 
 made me feel. I'm not a child any more. I'm a woman. 
 And women were meant for something." 
 
 Her husband offered no defence, just listening to her in 
 gaping surprise. When she suddenly turned and ran 
 from him he followed her slowly, automatically, wondering 
 where she was going, what she really meant by all the 
 crazy things she had said to him. 
 
 Within a minute she was a block away from him, tear- 
 ing along like some wild young animal running from a 
 hunter. And as the boy followed, his disordered mind 
 conveyed to him the intelligence that something was being 
 lost, that something was going from him that he could 
 never get back. 
 
 Marcy ran all the way to her father's house, her hat in 
 her hand, her shining hair loosened about her shoulders 
 and hanging lustrous in the sunlight. While her husband 
 stalked after her, like some heavy animal bent on revenge. 
 He was angered now, mumbling as he went : "I'll teach her 
 a lesson she won't forget." 
 
 Once he called to her, "Marcy, Marcy." And when she
 
 THE TAKER 161 
 
 did not heed him he caught up with her by an extra effort 
 and grasped her arm. She tore loose and actually out- 
 ran him after that. 
 
 Near her father's house, Marcy was a half block ahead 
 of him, and when she reached the weather-scarred cottage 
 she did not stop to knock at the door and call, but opened 
 it and plunged inside. 
 
 Neil was putting on his hat and at her first glance, al- 
 though she had seen him only the day before, he was 
 hardly recognisable with his cowed and bent figure. In 
 that moment the effect of his months of lay-off was woe- 
 fully apparent. His face was yellowish grey, his eyes 
 watery red and puffed from heavy drinking. 
 
 Marcy ran quickly to his side. 
 
 "Oh, father," she cried. 
 
 The man drew his pipe from his mouth and quickly 
 asked: "What's up?" 
 
 That she should confront him, so troubled, did not ap- 
 pear to give him any pleasure. Instead, he seemed an- 
 gered that his departure should be interrupted. It was 
 only after she had fallen into a chair and buried her head 
 in her arms on the table that he asked : "What's the mat- 
 ter, Marcy?" 
 
 She broke loose now. "Oh, father, I'm so unhappy." 
 
 He walked over to her side. "What's the matter? 
 You've been all right, right along." He questioned again, 
 just as Lester walked in through the open door, bursting 
 out, as he entered, "What's she told you?" 
 
 Neil took off his hat and, looking at Lester and then at 
 Marcy, angrily threw it on the table. 
 
 Neither one answered him for some time, until the boy 
 started to explain by saying: "Why, she's just gone 
 crazy, that's all."
 
 162 THE TAKER 
 
 Then Marcy broke in, crying out wildly: "Oh, father, 
 he's a devil. He was trying to make Mr. Vernon like me. 
 And then get him in trouble, so he could have a big job." 
 Her voice choked as she went on, looking from one to the 
 other, as she spoke: "That's what he was doing. He's 
 just low and mean. He don't care for me. And I hate 
 him I do, I do." 
 
 Marcy's glance now settled on her father's face, search- 
 ing his expression for an answer to her appeal. But her 
 agony of mind was not eased. A queer look of cunning 
 pleasure spread over his screwed-up countenance. 
 
 The old man rather leisurely sat down on a chair which 
 he drew up beside her. Beginning slowly, as if there was 
 pleasure in hearing the words he asked: "Did you say 
 that Vernon likes you?" In the instant the hatred for his 
 employer stood out palpably. "Tell me, does he like you ? 
 Does he see you? What's he done?" 
 
 Marcy shrank back. "Father !" 
 
 He went on, "What's he done, Marcy?" 
 
 The girl rose from her chair. His manner and expres- 
 sion conveyed to her the message that he was not in sym- 
 pathy with her, that he even shared some of the desires 
 her husband had worded. 
 
 With a glance, Marcy's tearful eyes took in the faces 
 of the two men. Then without another word, she turned 
 from them and walked quickly toward the stairway that 
 led to the garret-like chamber she had occupied before her 
 marriage. That she must get away to her own thoughts 
 was the only coherent property of her mind. As she 
 closed the door after her the two men below heard a sigh 
 as of pain as if she had been hurt too much by them to 
 protest. 
 
 Then Neil turned to Lester.
 
 THE TAKER 163 
 
 "Say," he said, "tell me what's happened." 
 
 The boy smiled, and told himself it would be easy to 
 get Neil on his side. He began slowly: 
 
 "Well, Neil, you see it's like this. Me and Marcy ain't 
 been getting along so terribly well together, though you 
 ain't seemed to notice it. That's the reason you ain't 
 seen us together for some time, I guess. She's an all right 
 girl, but she's got lots to learn yet. You know me. I 
 ain't the kind that stays around making love all the time.'* 
 He added thoughtfully, "But she's funny that way." 
 
 He stepped carefully into further explanation. Never 
 before had he worded his thought about Marcy. He went 
 on as the father listened keenly to every word. 
 
 "Anyway, you remember when she got the job over at 
 the factory ? It was after you and me got laid off. Well, 
 since that time she's sort of changed. She don't care so 
 much for the kind of things you and me can give her. 
 Why," he added proudly, "you know any of the other 
 girls here would be glad to do as well as she has done. I 
 know because I've talked to some of them about it. 
 They've all noticed how different Marcy has acted, too. 
 Why, she's been acting as if she was better than they 
 are." He continued apologetically, "Of course, I am not 
 kicking, you understand. I'm just saying it's Vernon 
 that's been getting funny ideas into her head." 
 
 Rambling along, he talked as if he were arguing in his 
 own mind the reason for Marcy's queer action ; when Neil 
 stopped him entirely, saying: 
 
 "Look here, boy. You told her to get in with Vernon ift 
 she could, didn't you?" 
 
 "Well," Moore drawled. "I told her to be decent to 
 him." 
 
 "What'd you think that would do?"
 
 164 THE TAKER 
 
 The boy hesitated before he answered. 
 
 "Well, I did think if he liked her a little bit, it mightn't 
 be so hard for me to get a big job back." 
 
 "Ain't you jealous?" 
 
 Lester pondered over an answer, wondering if he should 
 let Neil know his actual feelings. At last, deciding that it 
 would be wise to show he believed in Marcy, he laughed 
 out, carelessly: 
 
 "Oh, I never thought of that. I guess I know Marcy." 
 
 Neil's face lightened. "But you see it ain't so easy to 
 get your job, is it?" 
 
 "She hasn't worked it yet," Moore pointed out. 
 
 As he saw the look of satisfaction spread over the old 
 man's face, the boy exclaimed, "You don't act as if you 
 minded if I did use Marcy a little." 
 
 Neil did not answer him. Instead, he arose from the 
 chair and heavily began pacing the floor. When he 
 turned, Moore noticed his face was hard and set. 
 
 "Mind? Mind?" he repeated derisively. His mouth 
 distorted with bitterness, his lower jaw dropped. As he 
 began talking in little more than a whisper, the boy was 
 greatly relieved. 
 
 "Why, it's our only chance to get even with him make 
 him suffer. Don't you see that's the game between us 
 poor and the rich. They take whatever they can that be- 
 longs to us. But you watch. He'll have to pay after- 
 wards." 
 
 For a time, Lester restlessly watched the embittered 
 man. Then, deciding it would be easier for him to think 
 away some place by himself, he suddenly turned, and 
 walked out of the house. 
 
 At the gate he stopped for some minutes, then struck 
 off to an intersecting street that he knew led into a field
 
 THE TAKER 165 
 
 path along the river. As he cut his way through the vir- 
 gin snow, his face became red from the fever of his 
 thoughts and trickling lines of sweat ran down to his 
 collar. It was not until he had gained the top of a long 
 hill mounting like a sentinel over the river below that he 
 was able calmly to go over the situation. 
 
 Here he stood watching the mist across the river which 
 made a fine blue line at the opposite shore. The silvery 
 ribbon of the Hudson glistened before his eyes like a 
 crawling snake. But it was the peaceable whiteness of the 
 ground all about him that affected him most. Suddenly 
 life became important to him. 
 
 The wind was blowing. The whisper of it came through 
 the trees with a gushing sound, like falling water. Some- 
 how it had been a long time, he realised, since he had been 
 aware of the wind or things like that. 
 
 "What'll I do?" he thought. 
 
 With long strides, he began walking again, passing out 
 of the snow-covered hill tops to an open road. 
 
 And soon, determination bivouacked into his soul an in- 
 finite content. 
 
 It was simple enough. He would let Vernon have 
 Marcy up to a certain point. And then make a demand 
 on him while Vernon was in an anxious state. Women 
 were only meant to be used anyway. Hadn't Vernon got- 
 ten his start that way, when he married the boss's daugh- 
 ter ! Didn't he use her and then throw her down ! For a 
 minute he had forgotten that. 
 
 He'd kill Vernon probably and they'd never get him for 
 doing it. It would be Vernon who would never tramp 
 through the snow again. 
 
 Strangely, for the first time a great jealousy was build-
 
 166 THE TAKER 
 
 ing itself in him. He saw Vernon's arm around Marcy's 
 beautiful waist. 
 
 . . . The while Marcy lay in the attic room, her head 
 buried in a hot pillow, her thoughts filled with pictures of 
 Vernon and of the different times they had been together. 
 
 She wondered if God would be good to her and ever let 
 her be happy again.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 T T was during this period that Mabel, while searching 
 * through the library, came across a passage in a novel 
 which penetrated into her senses like some sharp instru- 
 ment but which suddenly made it easier for her to go on 
 and endure all of Vernon's increasing neglect. 
 She came across these lines : 
 
 "Souls shrivel up in great extremes of pain and sorrow, and 
 issue forth as diamond points, to engrave wondrous images on 
 the world." 
 
 All day she was immersed in this story, a tale of two sis- 
 ters, the elder of which was a creature of unhappiness, 
 even as she was. In this fictitious person,. Mabel found a 
 real companion. "* The barrenness of her life was eased by 
 knowing that there were other women who were suffering. 
 
 It was from this point that events seemed to shape 
 themselves toward a climax, too. 
 
 Then, at night, Leonard came in, remorseful and sor- 
 rowful. Without preparing her for what was to follow, 
 he stopped her in the library and after being there silently 
 for a moment, said: 
 
 "Mabel, Fve been thinking hard all day to-day. Now 
 let's look at this thing in the right way. You are wrong 
 in blaming me. Why don't you realise that we both blun- 
 dered and that neither you nor I can change this strange 
 business of life? I know my mistakes and know I can't 
 help suffering for them. But yours is more a question of 
 
 167
 
 168 THE TAKER 
 
 judgment, while I have no control over mine. Your mis- 
 take is the mistake of most women. They think that they 
 must hold certain places, certain secret recesses away 
 from their husbands never revealing themselves entirely. 
 They have an idea that true intimacy is a dangerous 
 thing; that only the glamour of the unknown keeps up 
 love. If you remember, you were that way with me before 
 we married." He broke off restlessly. "No, Mabel, I tell 
 you, if any woman wants to be attractive to the man she 
 wants she can't have more allegiance to her pride than to 
 her feelings for him. You see she only loves herself when 
 she's that way." 
 
 Mabel broke in on his contemplation : "Please sit down, 
 Leonard," she said. "I do want so much to talk to you." 
 As he hesitated she continued, "You see, you are wording 
 exactly what I said to you the other day. You're going 
 through the same self-dissecting process, too that you 
 were undergoing when we first met." 
 
 She pondered for a moment. 
 
 "Leonard, I feel that there is a part of you which makes 
 you how can I say it recoil, or coil up within yourself. 
 It is as if you were living with a second self an enemy of 
 yours. It even shows on you physically sometimes. I 
 just feel as if so often the things that you say and do, 
 are not you but this other person. Leonard," she looked 
 away as she said softly, "I just want to save you from 
 him." 
 
 But matters were helped very little by trying to argue 
 with Leonard and to prove to him the tragedy of his treat- 
 ment of her. 
 
 During the following days, she suffered terribly, though 
 to keep this knowledge from her friends she cultivated the 
 habit of retaining the same expression on her face at all
 
 THE TAKER 169 
 
 times an expression that was neither gay nor sad, rather 
 one of tense immobility with no story of her suffering in 
 her eyes. It was only when she laughed at some trivial 
 thing that there could be discerned the pain she was un- 
 dergoing. 
 
 And she gave no hint of her troubles to either her 
 mother or sister, Mildred, who had married and moved to 
 Long Island. It was only to a diary, written in a small 
 precious hand that she poured out all her heart's misery. 
 To this little leather-covered volume she seemed content to 
 confide without pride or reason. 
 
 The morning after her talk with Leonard while still in 
 her dressing gown she wrote the following confession: 
 
 "I don't know why I write all this to you I, who have 
 never talked to any one about myself. But I think it will 
 make little difference to you. You have already listened to 
 so many of my confidences. 
 
 "Things seem darker than ever for me at present, I am a 
 little afraid. When one keeps one's feelings pent up so long 
 one becomes bitter towards the world. I believe I would 
 rather die first. I want to believe. That's what life is any- 
 way. Belief! Blind belief, if you will. 
 
 "I am fighting so hard. I want to be happy. I want to 
 think of the future as being something cheerful. 
 
 "But he leaves me alone without a word and something 
 within me keeps on crying: 'What's the use of hoping?' Who 
 was ever really happy in this world? 
 
 "Oh, why can't a woman ever dare to let the man she loves 
 know how faithful she is to him? 
 
 "Maybe he thinks I'm not fit for the position as his wife. 
 
 "But haven't I proved that already? 
 
 "He doesn't know and I have got to keep that from him 
 too that any woman can occupy the position in life she 
 wants, the illusion of which she has the desire to produce.
 
 170 THE TAKER 
 
 "Oh, how much I want to be happy ! 
 
 "The strangest part of all is that yesterday for the first 
 time the idea suddenly came to me that there is some one else 
 he loves. 
 
 "Now I see that the future never comes. People who are 
 older must know that as life advances it is only a series of 
 hopes and mishopes with something infinite pulling them 
 toward the end. 
 
 "Can it be that no one ever wins ?" 
 
 She went on in this fashion for two pages, telling how 
 intolerable was her situation. And each complaining 
 phrase was interlined in her consciousness with words of 
 love for Vernon and how he needed her, how much he 
 needed some one to watch over him. 
 
 At the end, with tears dropping from her eyes on to the 
 page and into her hand, she put down the two lines which 
 she had memorised with aching heart: 
 
 "We who love are those who most do suffer, 
 We who suffer most are those who most do love."
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 A DEFINITE loneliness settled over Leonard. 
 ^*- And strangely, two incidents happened to him in 
 quick succession that made his suffering more poignantly 
 acute than ever. He was confronted by the conviction 
 a seed blindly sprouting in a steel husk that compassion 
 for himself brought recompense of little value. Also he 
 became more aware than ever that the world was mocking 
 him, that his lonesomeness and isolation was an arrange- 
 ment made by an unrelenting fate that would never let him 
 live in peace. 
 
 His mother, anaemic and ill for a long time, suddenly 
 succumbed to a brief heart attack. 
 
 The telegram was brought up to him just as he was 
 looking out of the front window, waiting for the servant 
 to bring his hat and coat. Somehow he recognised the 
 messenger's errand and rushed out to meet him. 
 
 Then he stood still, staring at the words while the boy, 
 sensing the importance of his errand, waited a moment, 
 then turned and walked out to the street. 
 
 It was some time before Leonard, holding the yellow 
 message in front of him in dazed fashion, could go into 
 the house. 
 
 For the first time now in his whole life, a real calamity 
 had befallen him. 
 
 When Mabel came in anxiously and cried, "Why, Len- 
 nie, what's the matter?" he just stared at the message in 
 
 171
 
 172 THE TAKER 
 
 his hand. Then silently he handed the message to her and 
 walked up the stairs to his room. 
 
 He was torn by uncomfortable heart-twisting emotions. 
 Somehow, he had never counted on this happening to him. 
 And he could not get away from the fact that in some way 
 he was to blame. Walking up and down the floor he 
 thought of the telegram with its words typed on the sickly 
 looking yellow paper. 
 
 "Mrs. Vernon died suddenly at five-thirty-one this morn- 
 ing. Tried to get you on long distance." 
 
 The doctor's name was signed "Dr. Lemon." 
 
 What an absurd name ! 
 
 A doctor with a name like that ought not to be allowed 
 to practise his profession. 
 
 His mother how sweet and tolerant she always was 
 had been. 
 
 A thought shot through him into his very soul. 
 
 Why had he ever left her alone and treated her so 
 thoughtlessly? Why hadn't he brought her from Elyria 
 when he married Jennie? He remembered now the heart 
 broken letters she had written him at Maxine's birth. 
 Yes, she had wanted to come to him, and he had not even 
 answered it for weeks. He had known so well she was sick 
 and needing him. Yet, not once had he gone to her. 
 
 Then his own voice crashed in his ears : 
 
 "Great God! She's gone from me! I could have saved 
 her! Great God . . ." 
 
 It was not easy for Mabel to pacify him on his return 
 from the funeral. Nor in the days that followed. He 
 went about like an automaton or just sat in the front 
 room looking out at the window.
 
 THE TAKER 173 
 
 But Mabel was not really aware of how he was suffering 
 until the evening of the third day when she came into the 
 darkened library and saw him sitting in a rocker, quietly 
 sobbing. 
 
 Running to his side she placed her hands on his shoul- 
 der. 
 
 "Leonard," she pleaded. 
 
 And when he looked up at her she perceived for the first 
 time that he had really grown much greyer and that his 
 face was furrowed by deep sad lines. 
 
 "Poor, dear boy," she murmured. 
 
 He turned his head and looked up, steadily, quizzically. 
 
 "Mabel, my mother has left me," he whispered. 
 
 The thought came to her that now he was depending on 
 her to succour him. She started in to talk, trying to 
 reason with him that all this had to be, that it was in the 
 hands of a higher being and was only the beautiful adven- 
 ture that came to every one sooner or later. 
 
 But he only pushed her away. 
 
 "Mabel leave me alone awhile. I want to sit here in 
 the dark with my thoughts." 
 
 Somehow, at the moment she felt she must save him, 
 that now he would listen to her. 
 
 And she put her hand on his forehead and began strok- 
 ing back his thick brown hair. She even accompanied it 
 by saying, "My poor boy my poor boy." 
 
 But he pushed her away, saying gently: "Mabel 
 please " 
 
 So she turned and went out, shutting the door lightly 
 so as not to shock him. 
 
 However, she was not far down the hall when she had 
 to stop and hold on to the balustrade at the stairs. 
 Though something clutched at her throat in sympathy
 
 174 THE TAKER 
 
 with him, she felt inadequate at the moment to be of any 
 use to him, incapable of helping him in the slightest de- 
 gree. And she went up the stairs into her own room with 
 the prayer that some goodly prescience would put the 
 right words at her lips to ease him. 
 
 All that night, Leonard sat gazing out of the window, 
 crystallising in his mind one painful thought after an- 
 other. His loneliness was indeed acute and agonising. 
 
 He saw the dawn creep up and throw a pale pink light 
 on the trees and ground. He saw it creep away and the 
 bright morning light come with its sunshine. And he be- 
 came struck by a thought that seemed queerly true the 
 idea that all human beings went through the same process 
 as a day the faint light, then the deepened shadows when 
 the glare becomes bright. 
 
 He went to the factory but came home at three o'clock 
 again. And again he sat in the rocker until long past ten 
 o'clock. Then he got up, quietly, and walked slowly 
 across the lawn and around to the rear of the house. 
 Somehow he wanted to get a perspective of the place 
 wherein he dwelt in so much misery. 
 
 For a long time he stood, leaning against a tree and 
 just gazing at the sky and stars, at the foliage overhead, 
 at Mabel's room where her sitting figure was shadowed on 
 the curtain. 
 
 It made him think how his mother must have sat in her 
 room, first, in the New York apartment, and then in the 
 house in Elyria alone. 
 
 Standing there in the night shadows of the house, tears 
 coursed down his cheeks, and he mumbled aloud : 
 
 "Mother, mother forgive me! I didn't realise . . . 
 do you hear?'* 
 
 Walking around to the front of the house again he
 
 THE TAKER 175 
 
 climbed up the steps to the stone balustrade that over- 
 hung a cluster of wild rose bushes. As he looked down, 
 the deep shadows underneath him made him feel as if he 
 were peering into his own abysmal darkness, while from 
 where he stood his eyes, as he lifted them, carried out over 
 a sea of lonely shingled roofs and towering tree tops. 
 Though he was little aware of what he saw. He could 
 only lend himself to the heart-breaking conflict that was 
 going on in his mind. 
 
 All this wrought a further change in the make-up of 
 Leonard Vernon. He became a different person. Night 
 after night he sat at the table, silently and meditatively, 
 waiting for the meal to be over and then walking slowly 
 into the library and reading and smoking until long past 
 midnight. 
 
 He read book after book, French History, wild detec- 
 tive stories, novels of romance. 
 
 Until one day he came across the following lines which 
 struck him forcibly, more for the remembrance that came 
 with them than for any other reason. 
 
 Jennie, to whom he remembered reciting them more than 
 once, returned to Hastings and to the old home on the 
 hill, for the first time since their divorce. And, for the 
 first time, he wondered what had happened to her and 
 how life had treated her? 
 
 "Happy are they whom life satisfies, who can amuse them- 
 selves, and be content . . . who have not discovered, with a 
 vast disgust that all things are a weariness." 
 
 And over these lines he then spent most of his time and 
 thought reflecting how his own life had been a fair exam- 
 ple of this just one continual process of disillusionment.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 fflHE day she ran from Lester, Marcy stayed at her 
 A father's home until near midnight, and during the 
 entire day her father neither called to her nor came up to 
 her. 
 
 When she walked down the steps for the first time it 
 was dark and she nearly stumbled over his body which lay 
 near the door. 
 
 She stooped down, rigid with fright, with an army of 
 thoughts about suicide and murder marching through her. 
 
 Only the smell of whiskey and the heavy, stertorous 
 wreathing relieved her. 
 
 Her father was drunk. 
 
 So she stood up quickly and stepped around his pros- 
 trate form and out of the door onto the porch. 
 
 Anxious to get away from the place, she ran quickly, 
 though weak from her day of hysterical fasting. 
 
 When she was more than a block away from the house, 
 the thought flashed into her mind that maybe her father 
 was not drunk but dead and that she had imagined he was 
 breathing. So she ran back, and with a spasm of fear, 
 entered the dining room and put her head down on her 
 father's chest. He was breathing, heavily, and snoring 
 from the effects of the liquor. 
 
 Relieved, she walked out into the night air for the sec- 
 ond time, wondering what she should do, where she could 
 go. She saw the impossibility of going to Lester again. 
 She could never do that, she told herself. He'd taunt her 
 now, and even beat her. 
 
 176
 
 THE TAKER 177 
 
 So for a second time, she walked back to her father's 
 house. Quite fearlessly she sat down in a rocker near 
 his snoring body and scanned the situation, for some way 
 out. For an hour or more she sat there, until her father's 
 returning consciousness made her aware of the utter im- 
 possibility of spending the night under the same roof. 
 
 Then she walked out into the dark street again, trudg- 
 ing along with little thought as to direction or what 
 might happen to her. Although there were some ideas 
 that racked her ; where Vernon was now ; had the way she 
 had fled from him made him hate her? and other though U 
 that seemed to keep him vividly before her. 
 
 Too, the thought that she might lose him forever so be- 
 numbed her that at one time she nearly ran into a picket 
 fence. 
 
 Walking along, she recalled how he had said : "Marcy !" 
 and kissed her for the first time. 
 
 Suppose he should never feel like doing it again. 
 
 Suddenly she found herself near the Vernon home. A 
 little forgetful, she became enchanted by the realisation 
 that she could gaze on the big house and know there was 
 some one in there who might be thinking of her. It was 
 such a wonderful looking place. The moonlight on the 
 shadow-crested chimneys and peaks made the place look 
 like some of the castles in Fairyland that she had seen 
 pictured. 
 
 Looking up at the silhouetted towers and gables, she 
 thought : 
 
 "He is sleeping up there. I wonder where? I'll bet he 
 doesn't know how unhappy his poor little Marcy is be- 
 cause of him." 
 
 Then the thought that he might be talking to his wife, 
 when she was so alone and suffering, hurt her indescrib-
 
 178 THE TAKER 
 
 ably. She turned and walked toward where the saloons 
 and billiard rooms of Hasting were grouped. Somehow, 
 thinking about Vernon forced her into this demonstration 
 of a defence for him. She would go past the saloon where 
 Lester was and prove his worthlessness while a good man 
 like Mr. Vernon was at home, asleep. 
 
 Marcy went on. In one place her notice was drawn by 
 curses and loud talking and in a mirror set at an angle 
 inside the doorway, she caught a hasty glimpse of what 
 seemed like her husband's face. 
 
 After that she felt satisfied. Now she could go home 
 and just wait for morning to come. Then she would go 
 back to the factory and tell Mr. Vernon how sorry she 
 was for being mean to him. 
 
 When Marcy walked to the door of her cottage, she was 
 surprised to see her husband sitting by the table, smoking 
 his pipe. 
 
 "Well, you thought you'd come, did you?" he said, the 
 while she tried to understand that this was not an ap- 
 parition in front of her. But in a moment she got over 
 her fright and without answering him, walked rigidly past 
 him to the bedroom. 
 
 Without a word to him, she undressed methodically, 
 even taking longer than usual to comb out her hair and 
 brush it. Then she tumbled into bed mumbling a prayer 
 for the future and her chance of seeing Vernon again. 
 
 Not until her head was deep under the covers did she 
 venture to think about Lester. That he was not in the 
 saloon as she had thought, made her more angry than 
 ever. 
 
 During the following weeks Vernon did not come near 
 her. News of his mother's death and his grief solaced her, 
 however.
 
 THE TAKER 179 
 
 But these were days of terrible longing and sympathy 
 for Marcy. Her only satisfaction came from feeling that 
 he was watching and that it was simply a question of hold- 
 ing out, as it had been before. 
 
 Though each day of longing saddened her and made her 
 feel a little older. 
 
 All the time she starved for just a word from him, a 
 glanee even. 
 
 Then suddenly he began paying more attention to her. 
 
 It was perhaps six weeks after his mother's death that 
 Vernon passed her at her desk and said cheerily: 
 
 "Good-morning, Marcy." 
 
 Even though the sadness was plainly discernible on his 
 face, it was as if a mantle of happiness had been placed 
 around her. 
 
 Then some days later she had to go into his office for 
 some invoice papers and he stopped her and very casually 
 talked about a big spring order that had just come in for 
 a parish house in Bridgeport. She was conscious, how- 
 ever, that there was a change in him. As he talked, he 
 seemed to avoid any mention of their past regard for each 
 other. It was as though they were starting to become 
 acquainted all over again. He was so polite, as if she 
 were some stranger. And she wished that now he would 
 not be so kind and gentle, that he would treat her roughly 
 as if he knew her. Nor did he break forth into any serious 
 talk about life, or say any of the great wonderful things, 
 the way he used to do. He was just sweeter and more 
 kind than ever before. 
 
 It made her wish that she could say to him : 
 
 "I don't understand what's the matter, Mr. Vernon. 
 You know how much I like you and how sorry I feel for 
 you. Don't you see I can't stand this?"
 
 180 THE TAKER 
 
 At last, a few days later, she could no longer tolerate 
 this treatment. She went to him and said: 
 
 "Mr. Vernon, I know you don't care for me. I knew 
 all the time, that you were just loving your wife and 
 just playing with me.'* 
 
 He smiled in somewhat his old manner: 
 
 "Come here, little Marcy." 
 
 Like some young animal who had found its lost master, 
 she went to him. 
 
 He began : "I've had something to work out, Marcy. I 
 really have been trying to forget you. But you win. I 
 just can't do it. I don't love my wife. I'm only thinking 
 of you all the time. I've felt like a lost sheep these last 
 weeks. I tell you this honestly. My wife doesn't need 
 me. She's a finished product. And I have got to build. 
 I guess, little girl, that's why I want you so. You prob- 
 ably don't understand, but men like me are like that. 
 We have got to create. Watch things grow under our 
 hands. Mould them. Watch them reflect us. There's 
 a good deal of the mother in men like me, Marcy. That's 
 the reason I like you. You give me work to do. That 
 is the reason I have come back to you. I've got to finish 
 my job." 
 
 She looked up into his eyes. 
 
 "Oh, you wonderful, wonderful man," she said, rever- 
 ently. 
 
 Impelled by that admiration begotten from sympathy, 
 she could no longer hold back her feeling for him. "I 
 just love you," she cried. 
 
 She was surprised when, instead of taking her in his 
 arms, he walked over to the window, saying: 
 
 "It's hot in here. Let's open the window." 
 
 Strangely he again avoided her after that day. And
 
 THE TAKER 181 
 
 again she was hurt, lost in the fear that her confession of 
 love for him had weakened his desire to conquer her. 
 
 Until one evening, when she met him in the corridor 
 outside the main office. He was carrying a satchel and 
 had just come in. 
 
 "Going home?" he asked, as he stopped in front of her. 
 
 "I I was," she said, trying very hard to restrain her- 
 self from showing how glad she was to see him. 
 
 "Come into the office," he said. 
 
 When he walked away and took it for granted that she 
 would follow him, she had a desire to hold back and show 
 him she did not give in so easily. She wanted him to come 
 and take her by the wrists and force her to follow him. 
 But the fear encompassed her that he might not do this. 
 She followed meekly in his footsteps. 
 
 When they were together, he put his satchel on the desk 
 and slowly advanced toward her. 
 
 He said, very softly and kindly: "Marcy Marcy." 
 
 He seemed afraid to touch her and yet desirous, closing 
 her fingers one at a time in his own. 
 
 She did not draw away. Instead, a shock of gladness 
 went through her body. And then he put his arms around 
 her, very slowly, holding her body in a close, quiet em- 
 brace, holding her so tight that she could not move. 
 
 "Marcy," he whispered. 
 
 She felt his hot kisses upon her face upon her throat. 
 The touch of his lips made her faint and hurt her, yet 
 sent thrills through her that made her feel like crying 
 with happiness. 
 
 He began talking again, saying many times: "Marcy, 
 Marcy, you're so glorious," and other words kept from 
 her understanding by the haze over her senses. She was 
 only really conscious of the warmth of his breath and the
 
 182 THE TAKER 
 
 sweet softness of his voice. His words were like some 
 distant rumble. 
 
 At last she managed to look at him and he kissed her 
 again. Then she met his lips with her own. She wanted 
 to. Even clutching him nearer to her, so that some 
 thought would not send him away from her again. 
 
 She heard him say: 
 
 "Marcy meet me to-night out in the road that leads 
 past the demons grounds. You know the summer house 
 there on the place where I used to live, over on Henry 
 Street. I must see you, Marcy. Will you, Marcy, will 
 you?" 
 
 She looked up into his eyes, reverently : "Oh, of course 
 I will," she exclaimed. 
 
 She could penetrate the blackness now and see his face, 
 white, drawn, with deep lines around the eyes and mouth. 
 It made her put her hand up to his cheeks to rub the lines 
 away. "But don't be so unhappy," she added as she saw 
 how clouded his handsome eyes were. 
 
 Marcy was ravished with joy the entire way home. All 
 the distress of the many weeks seemed smoothed away, 
 leaving only a wonderful sweetness. Now she was ashamed 
 of the antagonism she had borne against him, feeling that 
 no matter what he did now she would understand. 
 
 Every possible fear for the future was erased. 
 
 Only thoughts of Vernon, love for him, desire for him, 
 worship of him, reverence, filled her. The mocking law 
 of the world that at times had made her feel poor and 
 ashamed was now changed. Instead she owed the world 
 a deep feeling of obligation and gratitude, felt like going 
 home and being even kind to Lester. 
 
 At supper Marcy was gay and talkative, her husband 
 morose and watchful.
 
 THE TAKER 183 
 
 She wanted to tell him outright that to-night she was 
 going to be very happy. She wished he might know how 
 her heart was throbbing. 
 
 However, her husband's sombre mood quieted her and 
 made her more reasoning. When the meal was over she 
 took the dishes into the kitchen, silently wondering when 
 she could leave the house. The boy seemed to be sitting 
 there watching her, like a soldier at his post. Strangely, 
 he was lingering long past the time for his usual : "Guess 
 I'll go down for a little game, Marcy." 
 
 She thought: "Supposing he suspects something and 
 stays home." 
 
 But she pacified herself with the knowledge that there 
 was no possible way for him to know of her meeting with 
 Vernon. Though as she washed the dishes and dried them, 
 he kept watching her. She tried to work faster so that 
 he could see that she was really interested; and then 
 slower, so that he could see that she was not hurrying. 
 But he kept up his queer piercing gaze at her until soon 
 her arms seemed so rebellious against the lies they were 
 telling, she could hardly lift them. 
 
 With the thought of suggesting that it was time for 
 him to go out, she stepped to the window, pushed the 
 curtains back, and looking out into the darkness, managed 
 casually, "Are you going into town, Lester?" 
 
 His eyes seemed to pierce her at her back. 
 
 When he said, "What are you anxious about it for?" 
 she was more sure than ever that he was suspicious. It 
 was only after a time of vain struggling for control that 
 she replied: "I'm not anxious. I'm just tired to-night. 
 I guess I'll go to bed when I'm through." 
 
 She was strangely satisfied now that this last idea had
 
 184 THE TAKER 
 
 come to her. He would soon get tired of sitting around 
 alone. 
 
 As she talked, however, she kept glancing out through 
 the window panes, so that he might not discover any tell- 
 tale guilt hovering over her face. 
 
 Looking out through the black branches of the trees 
 in the back yard, she saw how the wind was swinging 
 wildly; even the bushes at the side of the house were 
 huge black scary blots that seemed to conceal hosts of 
 secret watchers. 
 
 It was getting colder, too. And Vernon would be 
 tramping back and forth in the meadow lane trying to 
 keep warm. Supposing he grew impatient and did not 
 wait. 
 
 She must get away. 
 
 But she must be careful. There was earth under her 
 feet now. No longer would she be lonely and unhappy. 
 She must not lose it. 
 
 Turning from the window she blithely went into the 
 bedroom, saying rather sleepily as she went, "Lester, if 
 you happen to go out, turn out the light when you leave, 
 will you?" 
 
 She wondered why he looked at her so strangely and 
 waited so long before he answered : "Oh, all right, I'll turn 
 out the light." Then came: "Guess I'll go into town for 
 a little game with the boys." 
 
 But she dared not turn around to search his face for 
 the truth, for fear of his discovering the joy on her face. 
 So for a long time she stood in front of the bureau, 
 vacantly gazing at a row of kodak pictures stuck to the 
 mirror's edge. Her first deep breath was taken when she 
 heard the door close after him. He slammed it, too, as 
 if to let her know that he was going. Which troubled her
 
 THE TAKER 185 
 
 somewhat. He didn't usually slam it so hard. But as 
 she ran into the dining room and discovered that he had 
 taken his pipe and tobacco, all fear was removed from 
 her mind. 
 
 "If he wasn't going downtown," she thought, "he 
 wouldn't take his tobacco with him." 
 
 But she decided to wait until he had time to get away, 
 and for five minutes by the clock sat restlessly in the chair 
 by the table. Then she darted into the bedroom, put on 
 her hat and long black coat, and with a hurried glance 
 about her, rushed out through the door into the night air. 
 
 Running along the street she was so happy and care- 
 free, she felt like crying out. Breathlessly she soon passed 
 the long line of little cottages which marked her street 
 and turned off into the lane that bordered the snow- 
 covered rolling lawn of the demons' place. Here she 
 could look ahead over clear ground. 
 
 But it was a little more scary here, a mixture of glooms 
 and irradiations, lights and shadows coming at her with 
 startling suddenness. And she went on more slowly, the 
 way a stranger enters some dark, silent city street. 
 
 When she made out Vernon's figure, her heart pounded 
 so violently she could hardly breathe. Drawing nearer, 
 she saw that he was walking back and forth, his head 
 down, his form tall and black in the shadowy, dim light. 
 
 She quickly ran toward him. And in a gush of un- 
 controllable love she cried as she reached him : 
 
 "Oh, I was so afraid you wouldn't wait." 
 
 He had on a heavy black overcoat, and as she ran up, 
 instead of clasping her into his arms, he nervously turned 
 up the broad collar and buttoned it close up to his chin. 
 Then he said or rather whispered, with a furtive glance
 
 186 THE TAKER 
 
 around him as he spoke, "Let us walk a little away from 
 here. I had nearly given up hope." 
 
 "Aren't you glad I came?" she breathed, surprised that 
 he did not take her in his arms and smother her with 
 kisses. 
 
 "Marcy, you are a wonderful child. Let's walk a little 
 faster," he said nervously. 
 
 As he talked he took hold of her arm for the first time. 
 He seemed much quieter than she thought he would be. 
 They were really walking along in silence. But she was so 
 happy. His body touched hers at every step. Just being 
 with him like this was happiness enough, after the hour 
 with her scowling husband. 
 
 But he seemed uneasy and kept turning and looking 
 around again and again, and taking deep quick breaths. 
 
 Also, he had dropped her arm. 
 
 It was after about five minutes of this silent tramp 
 through the unbroken snow, that he said: 
 
 "There's a pavilion only a couple of minutes from here; 
 let's go there. I think it will be warmer." 
 
 And not until the snow covered roof of the little latticed 
 pavilion loomed up in front of them, did he put his arm 
 around her and draw her closer to him. Then, under the 
 shadows of the vine-covered pathway, he looked into her 
 face for a moment, and silently kissed her two or three 
 times. However, the place had that forlornness of things 
 that are made small by darkness, and made them speak in 
 whispers. 
 
 Suddenly, there was a rustling of the dry twigs over 
 their heads and a chirping sparrow scurried swiftly out 
 of its shelter. 
 
 Both were held transfixed in each other's arms with ter- 
 ror and then laughed at their fright. For a moment
 
 THE TAKER 187 
 
 it seemed as if the unseen hand of dusk had reached them 
 through the black tranquillity and stillness about them. 
 
 "Marcy," he said, "that's the way thoughts about you 
 startle me when I get so lonely." 
 
 For a long time he searched her face while she stood 
 inanimate, her soft cheeks white in the pale light. 
 
 Looking into her eyes, he then went on, calmly : 
 
 "Marcy, why do you love me so much ?" 
 
 She huddled closer to him. "I don't know. I just do. 
 I just want to. Please hold me." 
 
 "Marcy we can't always give way to our feelings." 
 
 Looking up into his eyes and clinging to him even more 
 feverishly, she begged: 
 
 "Don't you want me to love you? It ain't wrong, is 
 it?" She pulled away from him just a little. "Oh, I 
 know it's not wrong to act the way you feel." 
 
 "Marcy," he said, "we suffer so much in life. I've been 
 thinking a lot since this afternoon. There is something 
 I want to tell you." 
 
 There was the crunching of steps on the snow-covered 
 gravel, a wild curse near them, and at their ears the thun- 
 derous roar of two shots. 
 
 ... It was Vernon who was shot, Marcy realised, 
 when the form beside her began slipping down into the 
 snow. 
 
 Bewildered and nearly rigid with fright, she saw his 
 face whiten and then become ashen coloured. When he 
 drew his hand away from where he clutched at his shoul- 
 der, it was covered with blood. 
 
 Faintly he whispered : "I'm hurt, Marcy. I knew some- 
 thing was going to happen. I felt it."
 
 188 THE TAKER 
 
 Hysterically she cried: "Oh, what shall I do? What 
 shall I do?" 
 
 "I must get home without any one knowing," he 
 whispered. 
 
 Then he drew himself to his knees and said in a hoarse 
 voice : 
 
 "Marcy, leave me I I've got to get home alone. We 
 mustn't be found together. Somebody is sure to come 
 up. My wife " 
 
 "I'll never leave you," she said valiantly. 
 
 He grasped her hand and squeezed it cruelly. Sud- 
 denly he seemed angered in a way that was utterly new 
 to her. 
 
 Hoarsely he said: "I mean it, damn it leave me. I'll 
 yell for help. Somebody will come. I knew I was a fool 
 to risk it." 
 
 For a moment she was aghast at his strange anger 
 toward her. Then his strength left him and he sunk 
 back, helplessly, into the snow. In a moment she had her 
 arms around him and without thinking of the impossibil- 
 ity of it tried to lift him. 
 
 It was at this moment that two dark figures came run- 
 ning through the snow. 
 
 One of them was a man of about sixty, the other a 
 younger man, and both wore black coats with brass 
 buttons. 
 
 Immediately the older man had come up and bent over 
 Vernon's body, saying : "He's shot," then an instant later, 
 "My God, it's Miss Jennie's husband. Tell them at the 
 house, quick." 
 
 The proceedings of the next few minutes were a wild 
 blurred nightmare to Marcy. Dazed by the suddenness of 
 it all she saw a woman run up and heard the cries :
 
 THE TAKER 189 
 
 "Oh, my husband " "Oh, what's happened?" 
 
 At first Marcy thought she must explain. But the 
 words would not come. She could only stand by and see 
 them bend over the man she loved, see them lift him to his 
 feet, hear their anxious cries. When the woman suddenly 
 turned to her and said, "Do you know how it happened, 
 Miss?" Marcy could only mumble back: "I I don't 
 know. Somebody shot him." 
 
 Then she saw the men lift Vernon from the ground and 
 with their arms around him and the women following, 
 carry him towards the large house that stood dimly out- 
 lined back of them. 
 
 They neither consulted nor noticed her. 
 
 For a few minutes Marcy followed back of them. Then 
 the understanding conveyed by Vernon's command came 
 to her. She had no place there. At last she turned and 
 humbly walked down the path to the road. 
 
 Before she realised fully what had happened, she was 
 back in her own little sitting room, staring at the figures 
 in the red carpet. 
 
 Sitting down in a chair by the stove, she began think- 
 ing thinking of what right they had to take him away 
 from her, and if they would take good care of him. Sud- 
 denly, something made her stiff with fright. Supposing 
 he was killed. What then! She would never see him 
 again ! Probably she would have to go on living with her 
 husband. Never again would she feel the kisses of the 
 man she loved. 
 
 Jumping up from her chair, she cried aloud: 
 
 "If he's dead then I'll kill myself. That's what I'll do. 
 Yes, I will." 
 
 It was a full minute before she relaxed and began to 
 walk around the room, distrait, and anxious, wondering
 
 190 THE TAKER 
 
 if she hadn't better go to him and force her way in and 
 tell the woman, who was evidently Mr. Vernon's first wife, 
 of her right to be near him. 
 
 It was an hour of delirium and torment, of crazed long- 
 ing and agony that she spent in her small, dark room. 
 Restless peace only came to her after her hysteria had 
 quieted down into a sort of understanding that Vernon 
 had not beetn shot fatally, that it was only a wound in 
 the shoulder or arm, and that she must wait until morn- 
 ing for his sake, if not for her own, as he had begged her 
 to do. 
 
 But even when she was eased, she still suffered from the 
 fear that she was not suffering enough. However, she 
 did feel a little relieved. Like some woman of mutability, 
 she coloured her thoughts so that only soothing came, tell- 
 ing herself she must be wise, even clever, so that no worry 
 should come to the man she loved. She would go to bed 
 and in the morning casually inquire at the factory how 
 badly he was hurt. But not until some one first told her 
 the news. No one must know how she was suffering. No 
 one must know that she had been there or knew anything 
 about it. Unless, of course, some one at the demons' 
 home told about it. 
 
 Then she would gladly face the world and tell how she 
 loved the man who had been shot and how he loved her. 
 She was a woman who loved now not a little girl. If she 
 were the only one concerned the whole world could know it. 
 
 Marcy was in her room and undressing before she 
 thought about her husband or the part he might have 
 played in the affair. 
 
 And then speculation rioted again in her mind. 
 
 It was her husband who had tried to kill Vernon ! Why 
 had she not thought of that before?
 
 THE TAKER 191 
 
 She remembered how queerly he had acted at the supper 
 table, how reluctant he had been to leave after the meal 
 was over. Yes, he had followed her as she left the house. 
 
 Which made her to blame for the shooting. 
 
 Reasoning like this, Marcy was suddenly confronted by 
 a new phase in the night's happening. 
 
 Why should her husband shoot Vernon when he had 
 begged her to be friendly with him? Wasn't that what he 
 had wanted? Lester had told her that, the day she ran 
 away from him. 
 
 By association of ideas, she saw now that it must really 
 have been her father who had shot Vernon. He was the 
 only one, after all, who hated Vernon or had threatened 
 him. 
 
 In the instant Marcy became filled with a wrath that 
 steeped the broken old man in calumny. Losing sight of 
 the fact that he was her father, she only saw in him a 
 monster who had tried to take away from her something 
 which she would fight for to her dying breath. 
 
 In a moment she had tied a ribbon around her hair, 
 frenziedly put on the suit and coat she had been wearing, 
 and rushed out of the house. When she reached the 
 shabby cottage, she was sobbing with anger and hatred, 
 and when, through the window, she saw her father in his 
 shirt sleeves, smoking, and gazing vacantly into the grate, 
 she felt like taking a stone or a brick from the walk and 
 hurling it at his head. No sooner was she within the door 
 than she cried at him: 
 
 "You shot him, didn't you? maybe you killed him!" 
 
 Neil had been sitting in a dozing lethargy and in the 
 moment could not muster his senses sufficiently to grasp 
 the meaning of Marcy's accusation. 
 
 He tried to rouse himself, but the girl could not wait,
 
 192 THE TAKER 
 
 only crying out menacingly, as she straightened her slen- 
 der little body to its full height : 
 
 "I wish I was a man. I'd fix you." 
 
 "Say, what are you thinkin' about?" Neil now de- 
 manded. "Who's killed?" 
 
 "Why, you know," she answered. "Oh, how could 
 you!" " 
 
 The man seemed to realise now a little more of what 
 the half-crazed girl was saying. He answered solemnly: 
 
 "Marcy, I don't know nothin'. I went over for supper 
 and then came home. I've been home ever since." 
 
 But after he had forced her to tell him all about it, he 
 shook his head knowingly, saying: "It wasn't me, Marcy." 
 He seemed to chuckle as he added, "But I guess I know 
 who it was, all right." 
 
 However, she could get no more out of him. 
 
 On her way home, Marcy thought over how her father 
 had been sitting in front of the fire. He seemed to have 
 grown older in the last few weeks. As she remembered 
 how he had said at the door, "Maybe you'd better stay 
 here to-night, Marcy," she felt a little sorry for him. 
 
 It was nearly the first time he had ever thought about 
 her welfare. She might have stayed, too, had not his 
 words recalled her obligation to the man she loved. At 
 home, alone, she could think of Vernon and pray for him. 
 That would not be possible in her father's house. 
 
 In this state of mind, Marcy entered her cottage again ; 
 even running the last few feet up the walk, queerly anxious 
 to get in and shut the door after her a barricade behind 
 which she could think again about Vernon. 
 
 She was inside for a minute or more before she saw that 
 a change had taken place in the room. The furniture had 
 been moved about, one chair was upset, and like a crippled
 
 THE TAKER 193 
 
 person leaned against a leg of the table. When she walked 
 into the kitchen she saw that the window was up and a 
 drawer of the oilcloth-covered table opened. 
 
 Soon it came over her what had happened in her ab* 
 sence. 
 
 It was all too plain. Some money she furtively had 
 been hoarding was taken from the table drawer. In its 
 place was a bluish pistol with its barrel directed at her, 
 looking like some horrible little animal with its beak point- 
 ing her out. 
 
 For a time she stood in front of it, too bewildered to 
 move. The realisation that her husband had come in and 
 taken the money only slowly filtered into her mind. And 
 then, under the revolver she saw a piece of yellow paper, 
 with lead pencil writing on it. Carefully she pulled it out 
 from under the weapon and read Lester's uncertain 
 scrawl: 
 
 "Good-bye, Marcy if I didn't get you too, I tried to." 
 
 Marcy read this note over many times. Coupled with 
 the fear that shot through her was a certain kind of ex- 
 ultation. "Oh, you common thing," she cried out, but 
 there was some real satisfaction, too. 
 
 At least he was gone from her. 
 
 Then she turned and walked into the sitting room 
 again. 
 
 Lester, white, perspiring, besotted with drink, was 
 standing in the doorway watching her. 
 
 Her first impulse was to run back into the kitchen. 
 But strangely she felt brave and defiant. Walking over 
 to him she said coldly: 
 
 "What are you going to do now?"
 
 194 THE TAKER 
 
 He looked at her and pointed to the note in her hand. 
 "Did you read that?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes, I read it." 
 
 He laughed at her with a forced effort. "Well, I just 
 waited around to see if you'd come back alone." 
 
 Then he laughed again. 
 
 Marcy's face reddened with anger. "I wish I had 
 brought somebody with me just to catch you," she said 
 hotly. 
 
 He looked around before he said sharply, "Don't worry 
 they'll never get me." 
 
 Then he went on. "Don't you see you brought this on 
 all yourself. Trying to play a trick on me, wasn't you? 
 What kind of a fool do you think I am anyway?" He 
 looked sneeringly into her face as he spoke. 
 
 Marcy interrupted him now. "Don't you come near 
 me, Lester Moore," she cried. "You know well enough 
 what you've done to me. You know you are the one who 
 is to blame because I was with Mr. Vernon. You know 
 you wanted me to be friendly with him. You even made 
 me do it. And I am not made out of iron, or something. 
 He's the most wonderful man in the world. And if you 
 forced me to like him you can't blame me. Then he 
 needed me anyway," she added resolutely. 
 
 Moore seized her wrist. His manner was much like that 
 of a snarling dog. "Aw, hell," he said. "I know your 
 finish, all right. Women like you have got to have some 
 reason for getting their start. You're just another one 
 for him. There won't be any loss if I've killed him. Men 
 like him out hunting for chickens like you by God, 
 ought to get theirs, all right." 
 
 Marcy tore loose from his grasp. With one movement 
 she ran from him and opened the door. Her waist had
 
 THE TAKER 195 
 
 burst open and revealed her shoulders and a small rounded 
 breast. 
 
 "You get out of here," she shouted. "You get out of 
 here. If you don't, I'll yell for help and you'll get 
 caught." 
 
 The boy stood still for a full minute with the evident 
 desire of showing indifference to her threat. Then, calmly 
 he walked out onto the porch. 
 
 "Don't get excited," he said. "Don't think I want to 
 hang around here." 
 
 Walking very slowly down the steps, he stopped at the 
 fence. 
 
 He was whistling, too. 
 
 Marcy saw him kick the gate open and then turn town- 
 ward.
 
 CHAPTER XXH 
 
 AT two o'clock that morning, Lester found himself in 
 front of the factory. How he got there, he hardly 
 knew ; nor how he had determined to complete his sinister 
 work of the night. But a desire, definite even to its de^ 
 tails, had worked its way into his mind, gradually and 
 surely, quite from the time he had left Marcy. 
 
 He wondered why he had not thought of it at first, or 
 weeks before even. At least now the idea was fixed. He 
 would set the factory on fire. Since he had to make a 
 getaway, he might just as well "kill two birds with one 
 stone." 
 
 Standing under the shadow of the high fence surround- 
 ing the factory, he could see the light that always burnt 
 at night in Vernon's main office. And after only a little 
 planning he saw how easy it would be to get up to the top 
 floor where the chemicals and dyes were kept. 
 
 Lester waited a few minutes more, in a sort of reverie. 
 He saw the night watchman return to his shanty after 
 making his rounds. Then, keeping to the shadows and 
 with his cap pulled far down over his eyes, as if to shut 
 from his conscience the revealing rays of strong moon- 
 light, he went into the grounds and circled back of the 
 watchman's hut to the door of the shipping room. 
 
 This he found was open, and with a gentle shove was 
 let into a large room filled with crates and boxes. It was 
 all going easier than he had imagined. 
 
 One thing that had worried him all evening was the 
 
 196
 
 THE TAKER 197 
 
 sound of the glass falling from the window he must crack 
 to get in. 
 
 At least now the ground was familiar and with little 
 difficulty he tiptoed to the circular stairs and started 
 climbing the steps which like a corkscrew ran up through 
 the building. But at each floor the moonlight came in 
 like a white flashlight through a narrow two-paned 
 window. And as he walked up the steps, taking three and 
 four at a time to avoid the creaking, he was every now 
 and then startled by the strange shadows that followed. 
 
 When he reached the fourth floor he sat down for a 
 moment to get his breath, lost more by the excitement 
 than his climb. It was only a minute, however, before 
 his eyes began their investigation. Then looking around 
 he saw, standing in a row, like men squatting, four barrels 
 of linseed oil. He saw that it would be easy enough to 
 turn them over and shove in the tops so that the oil would 
 run out on the floor, and even trickle through the cracks 
 onto the floor below. Then he would light a piece of 
 twisted wrapping paper which he would make so long that 
 he could get out before there was even a flare. 
 
 More to get further balance than for any other reason, 
 he got up and walked to the window and looked down 
 onto the watchman's shanty. Somehow it looked smaller 
 and more inoffensive, sitting in the snow with the moon- 
 light covering the roof. It was more like a dog house 
 with a chimney stuck in its top. 
 
 At least everything was quiet. So he walked back to 
 the barrels and gently turned them over on their side, one 
 at a time, opening the faucet of each of the first two and 
 then pulling out heavy wooden stoppers from the sides of 
 the others. It was with a great deal of satisfaction that
 
 198 THE TAKER 
 
 he saw the oil spread over the rough floor into three shin- 
 ing black pools. 
 
 Now he worked more quickly. For the first time he 
 began to realise what he was doing. 
 
 Groping about in the dim light he came to a large roll 
 of packing paper. Peeling open the thin wrapper, he tore 
 off a great piece and made a long funnel of it. Some ex- 
 celsior on the floor helped and this he scraped up and 
 twisted into a cone. 
 
 For a moment Lester paused now. It would be a suc- 
 cessful fire, he thought and perhaps Vernon carried a 
 lot of insurance. Strange he had not thought of this be- 
 fore. With the business failing, he would really be help- 
 ing Vernon. 
 
 But it was too late to stop now. And maybe they'd sus- 
 pect Vernon, anyway. 
 
 This thought satisfied him only for an instant, how- 
 ever, for he saw that Vernon would have an alibi. He 
 was at home, shot perhaps dead by this time. 
 
 So many thoughts assailed him that suddenly he felt 
 himself getting lost and nervous. At last in a blind, reck- 
 less impulse, he pulled out of his pocket a box of matches 
 and lit the paper which he had packed to within an inch 
 of the nearest pool of oil. He must not back out now, at 
 any rate. He had a good enough reason if he stopped to 
 figure it out. And there wasn't time for that. 
 
 Waiting only long enough to see the fire crawl along 
 the paper funnel towards the oil, he made his way to the 
 stairs, and slid and fell through nearly its whole length 
 to the first floor. Only the sharp turns stopped him again 
 and again from a headlong plunge. 
 
 Once he thought he should wait until he heard the crack- 
 ling of the flames. But there would be a blaze with this,
 
 THE TAKER 199 
 
 and the only thing to do now was to get out quickly. 
 Back of the factory some three blocks was the Irving 
 Street Hill. He could watch from there, if he wanted to. 
 
 He reached the shipping room in safety, and in another 
 moment was out in the cold, clear air. His first glance 
 was at the shanty. But the door was closed and from 
 the steady reflection of the watchman's lantern inside, he 
 knew that the man was sleeping. Then he looked up. A 
 red glow seemed to be reflected in some of the fourth-story 
 windows. It made him run, without looking back until he 
 was out of the yard and well up the street. Time and 
 again he had to fight to keep from turning around. He 
 did look back when about two blocks away. And then 
 all was dark. Which was hard to understand. He had 
 distinctly seen a glow. It must have been his imagina- 
 tion. Yet the oil was there and the burning paper. 
 
 Standing in the warm snow, Lester strangely felt a 
 little satisfied, and hoped that the paper would go out 
 before it reached the oil. He was a little remorseful, too. 
 After all, why had he wanted to fire the building? Or 
 kill Vernon, for that matter? 
 
 So wrapt was he in this reflection that when the flames 
 burst through to the roof of the factory he only stared, 
 transfixed, for a time forgetting that he had any part 
 in it. 
 
 Then he turned quickly and began to run, blindly. 
 
 At four o'clock in the morning, he wedged himself in 
 between two cars of a New York Central freight train 
 rumbling west. 
 
 Strangely he had run in a circle, and was only a few 
 blocks away from the fire, when he caught the freight. 
 
 But he had a secret pride that no one would ever know 
 about it. He saw flames mounting into the sky, and
 
 200 THE TAKER 
 
 heard the clanging of the fire engines and the shouts of 
 running people. 
 
 And not one of them knew that the man responsible for 
 all this was calmly laughing as his train went away across 
 the open country.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 VERNON'S first moments of thought, after the two 
 servants had carried him into the library of his 
 former wife's home, and placed him tenderly on a divan, 
 were a frantic disarray of pain and bewilderment. He 
 saw the look of anxiety on Jennie's face and heard the 
 authoritative words which she directed at the servants. 
 
 He was only dimly conscious of her soft hands holding 
 his own, or of the sobs that shook her as she told the doc- 
 tor how they had carried him in only a few minutes after 
 they had heard the two shots fired. 
 
 It was through a haze of mixed emotions that he per- 
 ceived these things. 
 
 At least he was not dead. He could tell this because 
 when he breathed there was pain and when he could get 
 his thoughts down to it, he could make his head move and 
 raise the hand of his other arm. 
 
 Then the doctor dressed his arm and he heard the re- 
 mark that it was only a very slight injury of the flesh. 
 And finally he went to sleep as the result of the hypoder- 
 mic needle with just a fleeting impression before him of 
 Jennie's sweet sympathetic face as she anxiously bent over 
 him and helped the doctor dress his shoulder. 
 
 Vernon felt much better in the morning and though 
 news of the fire had come to Jennie during the night, no 
 word was carried to him. 
 
 For a time Leonard found it difficult to project into 
 his mind what had happened. Only slowly did it ebb into 
 
 201
 
 202 THE TAKER 
 
 his consciousness that he had a wound in his shoulder and 
 was now in a very soft bed. But as he looked around, he 
 seemed to recognise the cream-enamelled furniture and the 
 picture of "The Angelus" that Jennie had brought home 
 one evening and proudly hung over her dressing table. 
 
 The sun was streaming in through the blinds when he 
 saw the door open very slowly and noiselessly. Then 
 Jennie tiptoed into the room. When she saw that he was 
 awake she ran quickly to his side. 
 
 "Oh, Leonard, Leonard," she cried; "are you all 
 right?" 
 
 He noticed that she was a great deal thinner than when 
 he had last seen her. And that the dull expression had en- 
 tirely disappeared from her face. Instead she seemed to 
 be more alive, even through the tracings of unhappiness 
 that played about her eyes. 
 
 When she took his hands and placed the cooling surface 
 of her palms upon his forehead and said: "Leonard, it's 
 strange we should meet again, this way, isn't it ? And by 
 what strange Providence I should have come back in 
 time to have helped you when you needed me," he could 
 not help feeling less guilty of his treatment of her. 
 Though older looking, her poise, so apparently born out 
 of suffering, had really worked for her good. 
 
 But he controlled himself from wording this thought 
 and said: "It is all very strange, Jennie," while Jennie 
 looked down at his face, her eyes speaking much of the 
 old love for him. 
 
 Then her expression clouded as she exclaimed suddenly : 
 "Leonard, we must notify your wife." 
 
 "Yes, I guess we had better," he replied after some 
 thought, although a certain distaste for the idea flashed 
 through him.
 
 THE TAKER 203 
 
 In an instant the woman beside him f renziedly took hold 
 of his fingers : 
 
 "Leonard, I know you are not happy. Tell me are 
 you?" 
 
 Vernon looked at her and smiled. "Jen," he said quietly, 
 "how would you have me answer that?" 
 
 She started to say something, then with her handker- 
 chief choked off the words at her lips. At last she turned 
 to him again and said, as her eyes, happy with under- 
 standing, sought his own: "Let's not talk about it now. 
 Let's wait till you're stronger." Vernon could see how 
 happy and confident she was at the moment. 
 
 And a pang of regret filled him when he thought of 
 how he had allowed this really pretty woman to slip from 
 him for Mabel. 
 
 "To tell the truth," Jennie went on, "I've already 
 'phoned for her." 
 
 She looked away from him as if she were on the verge 
 of breaking into some angry outburst. "It was the 
 hardest thing I ever had to do, Leonard," she said. 
 
 Now a servant came into the room and announced: 
 "There's a tall lady just getting out of an automobile." 
 
 Jennie jumped up quickly, nervously darting toward 
 the window, then stopping, as if a second thought had 
 restrained her. 
 
 "I had better go down and meet her," she said, and 
 turning directly to Vernon, added: "It is all for your 
 sake, Leonard, that I do it." 
 
 Then, silently, she walked out of the room, the servant 
 following her. 
 
 As Vernon studied over the situation he reflected that 
 the few hours they had been together had really brought 
 a change in Jennie's expression. But his reflections were
 
 204 THE TAKER 
 
 cut short when he heard the voices of the two women in 
 the hall outside, and something about a fire which he took 
 for granted had to do with the shooting. 
 
 Then the door opened and Mabel, white and tearful, 
 wrapped in a black lace coat, plunged into the room and 
 took hold of his hand. 
 
 She cried wildly: 
 
 "Leonard, Leonard what has happened? Who shot 
 you?" She ran on crazily. "Oh, tell me, dear. Why 
 didn't you let me know sooner? I didn't know what had 
 happened to you last night. I was nearly crazy and 
 'phoned all over New York." 
 
 Before Vernon could answer her the tearful woman 
 turned to Jennie, questioning again, how it had all hap- 
 pened. 
 
 "We heard two shots and the men ran out," Jennie 
 answered rigidly. "I followed and down near the pavilion 
 Vre saw Mr. Vernon lying prostrate in the snow. There 
 was nobody near except a little girl, who had run up. The 
 poor little thing was terribly frightened. Then we car- 
 ried Mr. Vernon in and called Dr. Finney." 
 
 "Oh, how terrible ! how terrible !" Mabel moaned as she 
 sorrowfully looked at Vernon. "He might have died from 
 exposure." Then she quickly turned to Jennie and re- 
 covering herself, went on in a business-like authoritative 
 way which was so familiar, "We must get hold of the little 
 girl and immediately have her interviewed by the police. 
 Maybe she saw the man who did it run away." Quietly 
 placing her hand on Vernon's arm, she asked: "Do you 
 know who the child was, Leonard?" 
 
 Vernon hesitated before he groped at the words : "I 
 I never saw her." In a fashion of painful reminiscence, 
 he managed to shape an explanation that he had turned
 
 THE TAKER 205 
 
 over in his mind many times. "I I had a hard day yes- 
 terday and left the office too late to come home, so had 
 dinner at the Golf Club and then I don't know what 
 made me do it I felt like walking." 
 
 Both women hung on to his words and in the expres- 
 sion of each was the message that he must conserve his 
 strength and not speak. 
 
 For a time both women sat quietly regarding him, each 
 apparently waiting for the other to begin talking again. 
 
 Suddenly, Mabel rose from her chair and in a very pre- 
 cise manner said : "Well, we must call the ambulance im- 
 mediately to take Mr. Vernon home." 
 
 This brought Jennie to her feet protesting that Vernon 
 dare not be moved for at least twenty-four hours. She 
 made this claim with a glance at Vernon which was quite 
 plain with the silent message : "You don't want to go home 
 with her, do you?" 
 
 But Mabel walked over to the bed, and taking Vernon's 
 hand said, with a glance toward Jennie: "It's very nice 
 of you to be so kind to us but I think it will be safe to 
 move Leonard, since, as you say, the wound is so slight." 
 
 In a flash Jennie became defiant, crying excitedly: "I 
 am just telling you what the doctor said." And the 
 thought struck Vernon that Jennie had never in all the 
 time he had been with her, displayed such fire and life. 
 She surveyed the surprised Mabel with a vindictive glitter 
 in her eyes, and added : "I won't allow him to be moved at 
 least for another day." 
 
 Mabel looked at her. There was a very apparent effort 
 to control her indignation and astonishment. "I ap- 
 preciate your feelings in the matter," she said calmly 
 enough, "however, / can take care of my husband." 
 Rather haughtily she emphasised the "/" and "my."
 
 206 THE TAKER 
 
 Jennie came back intensely: 
 
 "You've never known how to take care of your husband. 
 He's sick of you and you know it. You are not fitted for 
 each other. Since I've come back, I hear it's common 
 talk in the town how Leonard stays away from you. Why 
 should you try to fool yourself?" 
 
 Mabel, amazed at this torrent of vindictiveness, looked 
 at Vernon who sat upright in the bed. 
 
 "We are all together," Jennie went on. "Go ahead, 
 ask him now, how happy he is with you. I dare you." 
 
 All of a sudden Jennie lost her passion and began to 
 sob, quite hysterically, and with the words "You know 
 you have ruined my life and his as well," ran from the 
 room. 
 
 Until another door had slammed at the end of the hall 
 Mabel stood silently at Vernon's side fighting back the 
 anger that betrayed itself in crimson blotches on her pale, 
 drawn cheeks. 
 
 Then she said to Vernon in anxious tones: "Leonard, 
 what would you have said to her?" 
 
 He replied, strangely restless, the while he looked away 
 from her sad face : "Mabel, I've got a lot to think about. 
 I'd like to be alone to-day. You come over in the morn- 
 ing and we will talk." 
 
 An expression of terrible mental agony spread over 
 Mabel's countenance ; in the instant, somehow, she seemed 
 to expect a solacing word from him. She glared at him 
 like an insane woman. Her lower lip grew bloodless from 
 the pressure of her teeth as she fought for control, while 
 her flat chest tumultuously fought for breath. 
 
 Then silently, like an automaton, she too, turned and 
 groped, rather than walked her way out of the room.
 
 THE TAKER 207 
 
 As she went out, Vernon thought he caught the mur- 
 mured word : "And from my own husband, too." 
 
 At seven o'clock that evening, Vernon decided to go to 
 a sanitarium in New York City. 
 
 There were two main reasons for this decision, the prin- 
 cipal one being a desire to see Marcy that had so grown 
 in proportion that he could not withstand its assault ; the 
 other was to get away from Jennie, who fought with hys- 
 terical ardour for her chance to win him back. 
 
 Begging again for his love, she threw herself at him 
 with an abandon that made him all the more conscious of 
 the grey hairs at her temples and the sad, ageing lines 
 upon her face. Vernon was perplexed indeed before he 
 made his decision. Jennie had really seemed so much 
 younger and even more beautiful until her fight for his 
 love showed the effect of the passing years. 
 
 It was then the thought of Marcy began tugging at the 
 strings of his heart and mind. He saw plainly how foolish 
 it was to waste the years of his life, just out of weakness, 
 on a woman already of middle-age. And he told Jennie: 
 "Jen, dear one, what's the use of all this? Everything 
 was going along smoothly until this accident ; I am really 
 fond of you, but I don't love you. If I told you I did, or 
 thought myself, that I did, we would both be getting 
 fooled." 
 
 "But I want you to be happy, Leonard, that's all," she 
 pleaded. "You love me, but you don't know it, and I 
 am so miserable without the man I love. Why can't you 
 see, Lennie ? You will wear yourself out with this hunting 
 and seeking of yours for God knows what." 
 
 He replied, wondering if he should tell her the truth 
 and amazed at the moment to find that he was not really 
 sure what was the truth : "Certain natures are created to
 
 208 THE TAKER 
 
 match up with other certain natures, Jen," ending up by 
 saying in a philosophical manner that what had happened 
 had been for the best. "I'll know when I have met that 
 nature. We cannot defy the natural laws that govern 
 us," he added. 
 
 So, at about seven o'clock, Vernon's limousine called for 
 him and, accompanied by the stout Dr. Finney, he rode 
 into New York. And at a few minutes before nine he was 
 sitting in a large barren room of the Allendale Private 
 Sanitarium, near Central Park, peering out over the 
 gaunt shadowing framework of a business monument being 
 built across the street and searching in his mind for some 
 way to get word to Marcy. 
 
 At about the same time, Jennie was sitting in her 
 library reading a note that had come to her and that to 
 its minutest scrawl showed a hand working under the stress 
 of a belaboured mind. The note ran : 
 
 "You will never know what I have suffered since I left you 
 and Leonard this morning. It is strange that we should love 
 him so. He is such a child in many ways, and so helpless. 
 His faults are many, and some even dangerous. Perhaps 
 that is what has called both of us to him. At least I have 
 always had the feeling that he was my child and that, like a 
 mother, I must be the one for him to come home to. 
 
 "I am heartbroken now. He doesn't care for me any more 
 and I see that he loves you, as much as it is possible to one 
 so selfish. I knew it would come. Everything he has 
 said lately has shown me he was thinking of you again. I've 
 fought hard against it, too. What am I to do? Perhaps, 
 after all, this has been a terrible mistake and I am to blame. 
 At least, if he loves you, surely I, who love him, must not 
 stand in his way. A mother does not willingly hurt her boy. 
 
 "It is so hard to write this to you, for my surrender is a 
 bitter one. There have been times when we have met in the
 
 THE TAKER 209 
 
 same homes, that I have felt like coming up to you and ask- 
 ing your forgiveness for having taken him away from you. 
 But I was fighting then, the way you are now, to be happy. 
 It must be that this is my punishment. 
 
 "Take him back. Only make him happy! That is all I 
 ask of you, for I love beyond all reason except this one. I 
 want to know that he is smiling again. I will try to find some 
 solace in knowing that I had a few years at least of a happi- 
 ness that I was growing to believe would never come to me. 
 Will you tell him this for me?" 
 
 In a scrawl that trailed off to where a few tears had 
 fallen on the paper was barely decipherable "Mabel 
 Vernon." 
 
 And as Jennie read over the words of this woman who 
 loved even as she loved, tears fell from her eyes onto the 
 missive in her hand. 
 
 But when she went to the telephone after more than 
 an hour of racking heart-ache, her pride would not let 
 her confess the truth. 
 
 "I am glad you understand the situation," were her 
 words to the stricken Mabel. "He is upstairs, and I'll 
 tell him what you've done for us." 
 
 When Jennie put the receiver on its hook, she weakly 
 clung to the little projecting steel arms for support. 
 
 Quite to herself she moaned: "Oh, why couldn't it be 
 true? Why did he leave me?"
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 MARCY slept only little the night of the shooting. 
 And that sleep was a transparent one, anxious, har- 
 assing like the doze secured in a railway coach while 
 travelling at top speed, through which come sensations 
 and you can hear and feel. When she actually awoke in 
 the morning, she found herself leaping from one wild fear 
 to another, her thoughts so full that even the fire at the 
 factory was not attended to, in her mind, till some hours 
 later. 
 
 Her main fear was that she would hear that Vernon was 
 dead. And again she thought that Lester might come 
 back and kill her, too. This last she even prayed would 
 happen if Vernon had actually been killed. 
 
 And all the time she kept repeating in groups of two 
 and then for better luck, in groups of three, the phrase : 
 
 "Oh, dear Lord, spare my sweetheart, please please 
 dear Lord." 
 
 Her fearful state of mind was not lifted the next morn- 
 ing. When she arrived at the corner of the building and 
 found the crowds viewing the giant skeleton of the whole 
 top floor and roof, she could hardly control herself. And 
 as she walked in through the great iron entrance, after 
 being told that work would go on as usual, she felt that 
 the eyes of every one in the place were turned on her and 
 penetrating her thoughts. 
 
 She was happy indeed when she found that no infor- 
 mation about Vernon apparently had reached any of the 
 
 210
 
 THE TAKER 211 
 
 office force. Thus she reasoned that if he had been killed 
 surely there would be some word sent. 
 
 Then Vernon did not come at noon, and word was 
 passed around that he was ill and was unable to leave 
 his bed. 
 
 Strangely, everybody just stood about and made no 
 comments. She felt like running up to them and saying: 
 
 "I suppose you think he's in New York or sick. But 
 7 know better." 
 
 Throughout the day she endured his absence. Then 
 hesitating, halting, as if a word aloud about her injured 
 lover were sacrilegious, she approached an old clerk in 
 the shipping room. 
 
 "Is there anything wrong with Mr. Vernon? He did 
 not come in to-day, did he?" 
 
 The man answered : "We've had word that he has had 
 a slight accident. That's all we know. He doesn't know 
 about the fire yet." 
 
 She ventured further. "Do you know if he was hurt 
 badly?" 
 
 "He's been hurt. That's all we know. I guess it's 
 nothing serious." He looked at her over his glasses. 
 
 Unconsciously she gasped: "Oh, I'm glad." 
 
 But the man did not notice, and she was happy, walking 
 back to her desk with a picture projected in her imagina- 
 tion of Vernon sitting up in a chair, with his arm in a 
 bandage and smiling. 
 
 It was the next day she received this message : 
 
 "Marcy, I'm in New York. In a private Hospital, the 
 Allendale, on Sixty-fifth Street, just off Central Park. I 
 want you to come in to-morrow, during the afternoon. Make 
 some excuse at the factory, or just leave without any excuse.
 
 212 THE TAKER 
 
 Take a taxi from the Grand Central Station. I must see you. 
 Come sure, dear Marcy. 
 
 "P. S. Have heard about the fire. But no need to worry. 
 Am fully insured and other things are much more impor- 
 tant." 
 
 It was unsigned and at the bottom of the note was 
 scribbled the words : "Tear up as soon as you read it."
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 next afternoon Marcy rode in to New York. A 
 change had taken place in her, distinct and well de- 
 fined. 
 
 During the whole trip into the city she sat in her seat, 
 thinking and recapitulating. She was going to Vernon 
 because he had sent for her. She was the one he had 
 called upon for help. These were the two principal ideas 
 that sent vibrant messages to her heart. 
 
 Meditative and quiet, with a thrill of happiness per- 
 vading her whenever she visualised her meeting with Ver- 
 non, Marcy sat in the yellow cushioned seat of the coach, 
 looking fixedly out of the window. 
 
 With a faint smile, pirouetting about her full lips, she 
 gazed out at telephone poles as they shot past her window 
 and as she watched and tried to count them, she likened 
 each one to an obstacle brushed away in her progress 
 toward Vernon. 
 
 On arriving in New York she had some trouble in find- 
 ing a taxi, as all at the station were taken. But she 
 went about the task of finding one with resolute mien, de- 
 termined now that she had responsibilities, to manage well. 
 Somehow, she felt that this was the burial time of her old 
 life. She told herself that now she must act calmly and 
 experienced, that new things would happen to her. She 
 was a woman now, not a little girl and the most wonder- 
 ful man in the world was waiting for her. 
 
 But the city bewildered her as the taxicab jerked her 
 through the streets. The great buildings, the long bridges 
 
 213
 
 214 THE TAKER 
 
 through the streets with trains rushing over them, like 
 huge crawling black bugs ; the pall shed from the dull sky 
 onto the shining sides of the towers ; one street that looked 
 like a dark ravine all this gave her a sinister lonely feel- 
 ing, as if something would topple over her and crush her 
 as if she might get lost among all the people and never 
 be able to find herself again. Three times she knocked on 
 the window and stopped the driver, and in her quaint 
 childish voice asked him if he was sure he was driving to 
 the right place. 
 
 When she was shown in to Vernon, she found him prop- 
 ped up in bed, his left shoulder bandaged heavily, his face 
 pale. Silently she sat down beside him while the white- 
 gowned nurse hastily fixed his pillows, smiled and left the 
 room. 
 
 In the hall outside came the stern voice of a nurse and 
 the feeble words of a protesting patient. But she was 
 alone with Vernon. It was hard to believe. It did not 
 seem real that she, Marcy Moore, could be in this room 
 with Vernon, her hands held by him while his face looked 
 so happily into her own. 
 
 The wonder of it ! That same day she had been wash- 
 ing the breakfast dishes in her little kitchen and thinking 
 that she would never see him again. 
 
 Vernon looked at her and studied her. She tried to be 
 brave and look back at him. But somehow, his glance 
 was a chasm over which she could not leap. So she bowed 
 her head, and when he said: "Marcy, little girl, you are 
 awfully sweet to have come to me," she could only answer 
 back: "I'm awful glad to be here, Mr. Vernon. Please 
 don't talk like that." 
 
 He touched her hand gently. "You know why I sent 
 for you?"
 
 THE TAKER 215 
 
 Still unable to bear up under his gaze she replied, "Be- 
 cause you wanted to see me, I guess." 
 
 She thought that in another moment he would put his 
 free arm around her and draw her to him and kiss her 
 and then she would let him know how terribly sorry she 
 was and how she loved him. 
 
 When she heard him say bitterly, "I've learned who 
 shot me, Marcy," she was too astounded to move. 
 
 Calmly, seriously, he said: "It was a young fellow 
 named Moore. One of my employees. But tell me," with, 
 his fingers he lifted her chin, "this fellow wasn't a sweet- 
 heart of yours, was he?" 
 
 She fought for some word, some untruth even, that 
 would hold him to her. 
 
 When she failed to answer, he said, again kindly: 
 "Answer me, Marcy." 
 
 It was then that Marcy looked up and Vernon saw that 
 her pretty face was strangely pale, and her lips were 
 quivering as if she were on the verge of tears. When she 
 continued to stare at him without a word Vernon took her 
 hand and patted it, saying, "Marcy, you must tell me, 
 dear. Don't be frightened. I just want to know." 
 
 At last she cried : "Oh, Mr. Vernon, I can't tell you." 
 
 And now the man leaned over nearer to her. "Why, 
 Marcy, I didn't mean to make you unhappy. I'm not 
 blaming you. I just wanted to know. But I guess you 
 don't need to tell me now," he added. 
 
 Vernon turned away from her and even through her 
 tear-filled eyes, Marcy could see the set look that crept 
 into his face. Instantly she cried out, telling herself that 
 she must not lose him, no matter what the cost : 
 
 "Oh, please, please, don't turn away from me like that. 
 I have been so lonely for you, I've been nearly cra^v."
 
 216 THE TAKER 
 
 "Tell me about the boy," Vernon muttered, persist- 
 ingly. Thinking that she might bridge over his sus- 
 picion, she replied, in nearly a whisper, "There is hardly 
 anything to tell about about him. I just hated him, 
 that's all. He was so common and mean." Slowly she 
 added, "I don't know why he wanted you to like me." 
 
 A flash stole over Vernon's face. "What do you mean, 
 Marcy?" 
 
 "Why, he wanted us to be good friends." 
 
 "Then you knew him ?" 
 
 Before she could stop, the words were out "He was 
 my husband." 
 
 Vernon sank back upon his pillow. Anger visibly rose 
 within him, while a spot of scarlet appeared high on his 
 cheeks. When he spoke to her, his voice was vibrant with 
 passion. 
 
 "You mean to say that he was your husband and you 
 never told me that you are married that you have been 
 married all the time? Marcy," he demanded, "look at 
 me ! You mean all this ?" 
 
 Marcy sat rigid and silent. As the caged animal 
 enigmatically peers out at onlookers, she sat in her chair, 
 looking at Vernon. She could not talk nor answer him, 
 as if she had become rigid, frozen up within herself. It 
 seemed unreal to have him angry with her. It was hard 
 to believe in the face of all the kindness she had expected 
 to get and to give. At last, just as the tears came to her 
 eyes, she saw that his anger was rising and she faltered, 
 "Oh, please don't speak so hard to me." 
 
 Vernon was trembling. "But haven't you an explana- 
 tion, Marcy?" he demanded. "Why didn't you tell me 
 you were Moore's wife? You knew all the time I simply 
 thought you one of the girls."
 
 THE TAKER 217 
 
 For a considerable time he reflected over the situation. 
 
 "And so you are a wife. You've certainly made a fool 
 of me." 
 
 Marcy reached over and hesitatingly took hold of his 
 clenched hand and kissed it. "Oh, I'm so sorry," she 
 murmured, while the thought came to her that she could 
 hold back his anger by making him feel sorry for her. "I 
 wish I could make you understand." 
 
 "Understand ! Why didn't you tell me long ago ?" 
 
 Feebly she answered: "I just don't know. Honestly, I 
 just don't understand myself. I do know I was afraid to, 
 at first, because because I thought maybe you wouldn't 
 like me if you thought I was married. And I wanted you 
 to like me so much." Resolutely she went on: "But now 
 I feel so different. I feel older like I could understand 
 anything you would say to me." Tears flowed over on to 
 her face as she cried, "Oh, please don't blame me. If 
 you don't love me now I think I'll just kill myself." 
 
 But Vernon laughed a little and then, after a long in- 
 quisitional study of her, went on sternly : 
 
 "Marcy, I guess you'd better go. I have been a fool, 
 a weakling. You are only an ignorant little girl." He 
 turned painfully from her. "Yes ; you had better go," he 
 said as if there had been just a moment of doubt in his 
 determination. 
 
 Marcy rose from her chair and silently stood at the 
 side of the bed, as if willing to receive further reprimand. 
 
 In the tones that a father addresses his child, Vernon 
 said : "Oh, I don't blame you so much, child. No, not as 
 much as I blame myself. I am sorry, little girl." 
 
 "You mean you honestly want me to go ?" 
 
 "Yes, Marcy." 
 
 Realising for the first time that Vernon was actually
 
 218 THE TAKER 
 
 driving her away, that he apparently cared no longer 
 for the love that she was so willing to give, Marcy could 
 not keep from wording the thought that pulled at her 
 heart. 
 
 < What were you going to do with me, then ? Just be- 
 cause you thought I was an innocent little girl, you 
 wanted me near you. And now when you know I'm I've 
 suffered you hate me." 
 
 She walked from him now to the door, sobbing slowly, 
 intermittently, thinking that he surely would call to her 
 before she went out. 
 
 But he lay silently only watching her. At the door 
 she hesitated, waiting for his word. She was conscious 
 only of his glances at her back. Then she went out in the 
 hall and walked towards the elevator, while each step 
 made her hate the pride that kept her from running back 
 to him and throwing herself by the side of the bed, beg- 
 ging for his mercy. Many times before she reached the 
 end of the hall she sobbed to herself, "Oh, he's so mean. 
 What am I going to do?" 
 
 Curious, indeed, was her state of mind. Wanting to 
 run from him now while anger held her, she felt he needed 
 her more than ever; that she ought to make him under- 
 stand she was older, and wiser than he was a feeling 
 the mother has toward the wayward son. She really felt 
 that she ought to go back; just for his sake, if not for 
 her own. 
 
 Then the door of the elevator opened and a woman got 
 out whom Marcy immediately recognised. 
 
 In that moment of conf rontal Marcy felt a strange sen- 
 sation of guilt, as if she had stolen something and was 
 being caught.
 
 THE TAKER 219 
 
 "What are you 'doing here?" Marcy heard the woman 
 say. 
 
 She must answer bravely, she saw, even take this oppor- 
 tunity to assert her rights. So, very defiantly, even a 
 little sneeringly, she said: "Why I I came to see Mr. 
 Vernon." 
 
 The elevator door was closing, and seeing a possible 
 escape, she started to push past them into the half-closed 
 door. "Wait," she said to the nurse inside, "I'm going 
 down.'* 
 
 But the woman quickly grasped her by the wrist, say- 
 ing authoritatively: "I want to speak to you first," and 
 motioned to the nurse. 
 
 As soon as the door had banged shut, Jennie began, 
 in hard, bitter tones : "Oh, don't look so frightened. You 
 are not so innocent. We heard all about it this morning. 
 It was your husband and he skipped from the factory. 
 We've found out everything." 
 
 She went on passionately, ridden by temper. "What 
 are you trying to do you little brat? Break up homes? 
 Isn't it enough that Mr. Vernon was nearly killed through 
 you?" 
 
 Many words in defence rushed into Marcy's mind. 
 Words of defiance, of self-vindication, of self-blame. At 
 last, all she could say was, "I'm not trying to do anything. 
 I'm terribly sorry !" 
 
 "Well, you had better stop. There's been enough of 
 this. His wife has been as blind as a bat, too." 
 
 Suddenly Vernon's commanding voice cried from the 
 end of the hall, "Jennie, come here," while two white- 
 gowned nurses ran out into the corridor to see what was 
 happening. 
 
 "Now, don't you dare come here again," Jennie thrust
 
 220 THE TAKER 
 
 at Marcy as she turned towards Vernon's room. "Do you 
 understand?" She was quite on the point of taking 
 Marcy's wrists to emphasise her words, when some better 
 judgment stopped her. 
 
 Then she turned and went down the hall. 
 
 While Marcy waited for the elevator there came the 
 fragments of bitter words from Vernon, which at least 
 was some satisfaction. Listening strainedly, she heard 
 the former wife plead : "You've no right to be angry with 
 
 me, Leonard. Dr. Finney " then the elevator door 
 
 opened and she could hold back no longer. 
 
 All the way home the woman's harsh words echoed in 
 Marcy's ears ; while as she looked out of the car window, 
 hot tears poured from her eyes at the very thought of 
 not seeing Vernon again. And to the flying hills and trees 
 she cried, again and again, "Oh, God! please won't you 
 help me ?" 
 
 Reaching home, she was still dazed and unhappy, hardly 
 knowing what to do beyond sitting in the dining room 
 rocking chair and rocking back and forth. She sat there 
 until it grew very dark, until the moon came out and 
 threw a white spot on the rug at her feet. Noises of 
 passing trains or automobiles, whose passengers, she 
 thought, little knew of her misery, came to her ears, but 
 they seemed to come from a great distance, from some 
 other world than her own. No longer did she cry. In- 
 stead, all the heartache and mind-pain seemed to have 
 gone into her body, into her arms and legs, and held them 
 numb and stiff, so that she could not get up or walk. 
 
 It was midnight before vague thoughts again began 
 trickling into Marcy's senses. And then they came in a 
 tumultuous horde, every sweet word Vernon had said, all 
 the hopes she had built up so fantastically. It was al-
 
 THE TAKER 221 
 
 most as if they were outlined . . . like figures walking 
 past, with drooping, grotesque heads, bowed and hanging 
 loosely. 
 
 Gradually, as she sat thinking, a great fear encom- 
 passed her; a fear that the sides of the world were 
 closing in on her and crushing her. 
 
 And all she could do was to sit calmly and wait. 
 
 For a moment, she thought of the revolver in the kit- 
 chen with four queer-looking leaden things filling its 
 chambers, and she groped her way out in the darkness 
 and opening the table drawer, took hold of the pistol and 
 pointed it at her breast, and only the thought that Ver- 
 non might some day want her made her put the revolver 
 back in the drawer and return to her bedroom. 
 
 "Perhaps I'll hear from him the first thing to-morrow,'* 
 she said to herself. "Then how terrible it would be if 
 I was dead." 
 
 Possibly premonitions are an exact combination of 
 molecules of thought, depending for their integrity upon 
 some combination resting in another's brain. At least it 
 was quite at this moment that the conscience-stricken Ver- 
 non, full of yearning, after a day of wearisome harangue 
 with Jennie, and hours of soul-scanning that always 
 ended with Marcy, reached over to his table by the bed, 
 and with an awkward lump rising in his throat, wrote the 
 following : 
 
 "Marcy forgive me. Things have happened that make 
 me see there is only one thing to do. Please forgive me and 
 come when you get this." 
 
 At that moment, he wished he might have dared to 
 pen her that he loved her.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 AT noon of the next day, Marcy was again at his 
 bedside. 
 
 "Sit down, Marcy," he said, after the first greeting. 
 "Let's talk this thing over." He pointed to a chair which 
 she drew up, close to his side. Then with her hand resting 
 in his, he began: 
 
 "My only prayer is that I can make you understand 
 me in the right way. And that won't be easy. A whole 
 lot of women would say I am simply bad if they knew 
 what I am going to say to you. And a lot of men who 
 did not understand, might condemn me. I may be wrong, 
 but my nature is made after a certain pattern, and I 
 don't feel sorry for myself at all. Anyway, I have 
 dreamed about you, had before me your pretty face, your 
 e J e s your lips, ever since yesterday in fact ever since 
 you walked into my office. I can't explain it to myself, 
 Marcy. I just know that in me are certain demands on 
 life, and that I must grant them. I owe that much allegi- 
 ance to myself. Men who don't understand this fact are 
 fools." He drew himself nearer to her, saying: "The tree 
 of my nature was planted for me. I can only gather the 
 fruit it bears. It's the way I am and the way I've got to 
 be." He reached over and took her other hand, saying, 
 "I wonder if you can understand all this, Marcy?" 
 
 When she looked down without answering, he went on : 
 "Marcy, that was my first wife who was here just after 
 you left, yesterday. She wanted me to come back, wants 
 
 222
 
 THE TAKER 223 
 
 to make me happy again, she says. You see, she wouldn't 
 understand if I told her that I, myself, have nothing to 
 do with the management of my happiness. You see, 
 Marcy," he confessed on, "I know I might suffer for want- 
 ing y u the way I do, but it is not in my province to 
 change my yearning and desires." 
 
 "What about your present wife?" asked Marcy. 
 
 "There is the very thing I want to tell you about. My 
 wife and I are very unhappy. In fact, there has never 
 been a moment that I have known the slightest thrill when 
 I was with her. It's the old problem about marriage. The 
 very happiness that you try to get by marriage is shut 
 off by making it legal. The wedding ring is the iron 
 prison of love. And love can't be imprisoned. These are 
 queer ideas, I suppose," he went on, "but there's a change 
 taken place in me. I see what fools people are to imagine 
 that there is only one institution in life and that it is big 
 enough to hold everybody. I've been under its roof, 
 Marcy, and now I am going to get out. After all I have 
 only got a few years left that mean anything." 
 
 Marcy faltered, "Oh, please don't talk like that, Mr. 
 Vernon." 
 
 "We've got to look things in the face, Marcy ." 
 
 He hesitated for a moment and then said slowly, and 
 with determination: "Marcy, you have been with me for 
 a year now, haven't you?" 
 
 She replied : "Yes ; I think it is about a year." 
 
 "And in that time a great big idea has been growing 
 up with us, hasn't it?" 
 
 When she failed to answer, he said: "You must think 
 about what I am saying, Marcy." Then he continued 
 slowly, his voice lowered to nearly a whisper; as if he 
 were afraid to give the words full strength :
 
 224 THE TAKER 
 
 "You know you are built a certain way, Marcy you 
 are slender and frail and not made for real hardship." He 
 glanced at her bosom which was moving uneasily. "I have 
 watched a lot of girls and women, and I believe I know 
 their natures. You are like some flower, soft and deli- 
 cate and tender, that in the springtime is very beautiful. 
 That's like you when you are young, as you are now. 
 But when summer comes when you get older, Marcy, like 
 that flower, you must be pretty well taken care of or you 
 will die. 
 
 "Don't you see? Here you are, plodding away with a 
 lot of girls who are different from you, whose natures 
 have been made to have a coarse life. Yet you are ex- 
 posed to the same things that they are. Don't you feel 
 it, sometimes?" 
 
 He watched the effect of his words. 
 
 Still she did not answer. 
 
 "Oh, I know what you will think of me," he went on, 
 "but I can't help it. At least, I've got one religion and 
 that is, that no one should suffer through any fault of 
 mine. No one ever has, Marcy, and you will not be the 
 first. Anyway, look at the fix you are in now " 
 
 "Please, let's not talk about that," she interrupted. 
 
 And for the first time Vernon lost his stern, argumenta- 
 tive manner. He saw that with one leap he could not 
 change her nature with its rigid middle-class morals. He 
 must take time, and since it was so important to him, there 
 must not be one false step. So he said, as he gently put 
 his fingers over her hand: "I'm sorry, Marcy, to talk all 
 this stuff to you." 
 
 So there was nothing definite accomplished by their talk 
 that day. In the two hours which Marcy spent with him, 
 she had said hardly a word. And she went back to her
 
 THE TAKER 225 
 
 lonely home that night, washed the dishes from a hastily 
 prepared meal of cornflakes and coffee, and tumbled into 
 bed, dulled and stupefied by the perplexing array of 
 events that confronted her. 
 
 The next day it was decided, partly through the in- 
 fluence of her father, that Marcy live with an aunt, whose 
 cottage was only a block from the factory. She could 
 not understand why her father wanted this rather than 
 have her come to live with him. The thought came to 
 her that he did not want her around him, where his now 
 almost continuous drinking might be interfered with. 
 
 The following days were spent with only one thought 
 filling her mind. She was awaiting Vernon's return to the 
 factory. Nothing else counted, not even the patronising 
 courtesy given her by the other employees, or by the 
 blonde-headed foreman of her department. She did not 
 even stop to think it strange that no excuse for her ab- 
 sence should be asked of her. That every one was ac- 
 quainted suddenly with her friendship to her employer, 
 mattered little. In fact, the knowledge that they should 
 know of her intimacy with Vernon, pleased her immeas- 
 urably. 
 
 The only thing that did bother her was that her father 
 was drinking more heavily than ever. A few hundred 
 dollars that for years had been kept safely in the Hast- 
 ings' Bank of Savings was drawn on and the broken man 
 seemed determined to fill his bloated frame with liquor. 
 He seemed to be a victim of life's emptiness as there was 
 no other reason nor was there the intelligence necessary 
 to a plan of self-destruction. He was one who somehow 
 must needs go into disintegration at the end, just as there 
 are others who are destined to rise and succeed without 
 particular effort.
 
 226 THE TAKER 
 
 It was at the end of Vernon's fortnight of absence that 
 Marcy became aware that her father was on a death-deal- 
 ing spree. And nothing she could do would stop him. 
 From one bar to the other he wandered, feebly, unsteadily, 
 his mouth quivering, his eyes red and watery. At one 
 saloon he was allowed to sit behind a table and drink. 
 And this corner he then sought out every day and tried 
 to gather around him a few of the hangers-on. To these 
 he related stories about Vernon all the hate of his use- 
 less life seemed to have centred on his prosperous employer. 
 
 The day before he died he filled his flabby, loose body 
 with glass after glass of whiskey, and laughed and hic- 
 coughed his way to the very end of him. In nearly his last 
 breath, he mumbled how he had evened up with his boss. 
 
 They found him dead in the corner in Ryan's saloon. 
 The young doctor who tried to arouse him, in a wise, 
 authoritative manner, which would show the magic of his 
 genius, announced to the bystanders, after his very evi- 
 dent failure, that the poor man had died from a suffoca- 
 tion brought on indirectly by heart collapse. Evidently 
 having learned from some previous case that a doctor 
 must not commit himself too freely, he suggested under 
 his voice that perhaps the death had been induced by a 
 little too much liquor. That the light of Neil's feeble 
 mind had simply flickered out, he did not understand. 
 
 Then they put the corpse into a cheap black coffin and 
 a rickety hearse and six carriages took the body to the 
 cemetery, followed by a few straggling members of a fra- 
 ternal society. Some one had bought a wreath of laurels 
 it was said the bartender at Ryan's had made the pur- 
 chase, and it lay dejectedly on the coffin as it was carried 
 from the church, like a crenated snake coiled on the bier 
 of its master.
 
 THE TAKER 227 
 
 And even as Marcy stood at the open grave, by the 
 side of her aunt, the while the black casket was being low- 
 ered into the yawning hole, her thoughts were of Vernon, 
 and a feeling of protection and assurance of her future 
 unchanged by this sudden bereavement. 
 
 When her aunt came and stood by her side as she 
 looked down into the grave, Marcy felt no guilt in the 
 thought that the woman misunderstood her silence ; as the 
 band of the fraternal organisation played a low, meas- 
 ured melody, and her aunt, with shining eyes, looked up at 
 her and called out once or twice, "John! John!" she felt 
 as if her lack of communion with the grieving woman de- 
 served no censure. All of her allegiance must be given to 
 the man walking about his room in a hospital in New 
 York City. 
 
 In the walk from the cemetery, Marcy's thoughts in- 
 variably reverted back to Vernon and what might happen 
 to her, had she not refuge in his love. 
 
 . . . Vernon came back on the following Monday and 
 they had another talk, rather casual, followed by one the 
 next day, which ended in her gradual understanding of 
 things in Vernon's way. 
 
 Of course he could not marry her. He was back home 
 now, and he told her his wife, Mabel, seemed more in Iove 4 
 with him than ever, and more desirous of making him 
 happy. She had not even reproached him for his utter 
 neglect of her when he left Hastings to go to the sana- 
 torium. 
 
 But Marcy could have a wonderful motor car and live 
 in New York, and have attractive clothes, and have people 
 notice her and envy her. Also, she could go to the theatres 
 and learn about the big things of life. 
 
 Marcy thought much about these new possibilities. It
 
 228 THE TAKER 
 
 seemed now that the greatest crime to herself was to keep 
 on being just Marcy Moore. 
 
 What gave her the most pleasure was the thought that 
 she might wait a lifetime, and work from morning to night, 
 and not gain as much as she could now by simply saying 
 one word to the man she loved. "Just think of it," she 
 would repeat to herself, "All I have to say is 'yes* . . . 
 'yes.'" 
 
 The night after her second talk with Vernon she could 
 not help dancing crazily about her bedroom, parading 
 gaily in front of a mirror, in the manner she would as- 
 sume when she had on all the fine clothes. 
 
 For the first time, she began thinking of Vernon in a 
 personal way, thinking of how good-looking he was, how 
 wonderful it would be to stroke his soft hair and know 
 that she alone had this privilege. 
 
 It was the next night that she said to her aunt : 
 
 "Auntie, I've got a better job. Mr. Vernon has opened 
 an office in New York, where he will have to spend a lot 
 of his time. He wants me to be there." 
 
 "Do you know what you are saying?" came from the 
 aunt's thin white lips. 
 
 Marcy looked at the haggard, toil-driven face of the 
 woman. She felt more than ever the conviction that hers 
 was the right course to pursue. But it took some bravery 
 for her to say: "Well, I've thought about it for a long 
 time. I am tired of living here, anyway. There's nobody 
 here that I would want to marry again. So it won't make 
 much difference if I go amongst strangers." 
 
 The woman looked at her and said queerly: "Marcy, 
 Marcy, this is terrible!" 
 
 For a few days, her aunt's attitude filled Marcy with 
 indecision, and she spent many agonising hours telling
 
 THE TAKER 229 
 
 herself that as long as she lived, she must stay by this 
 poor woman who seemed to love her so. 
 
 And then, as she sat thinking in this manner, a motor 
 car would rumble past the house, and her thoughts would 
 be scattered like a fine powder in the wind. She could 
 have a motor car, even have sit beside her the man she 
 loved. 
 
 It was a sort of anaesthesia of love that hung over her, 
 the influence of which took away all control of her 
 thoughts. 
 
 Sitting and thinking, she would say to herself, in the 
 more calculating moments, "Yes ; that's got to be my life 
 I love him and he loves me. What else counts ?" 
 
 Through the days, the decision that she must always 
 stay with her aunt and take care of the grey-haired, sad 
 woman, became less and less a force to be overcome. 
 
 Until one evening when there came a note from Vernon. 
 He slipped it to her quite casually, under a pile of letters. 
 
 "I wonder, little darling, if ever you went through the 
 pangs of loneliness that are assailing me. Oh, if you could 
 know how I want you. I am growing utterly miserable and 
 utterly reckless. I am getting so I don't care what happens. 
 I haven't seen my wife to talk to her for days. Last night I 
 went to my room and felt that I had no right there any longer. 
 You see what you have done to me. I could hardly turn on 
 the switch-button just wanted the darkness so I could think 
 about my little girl, think what my life has come to. You 
 have made this old man want to be young again just for a 
 little. I stood in front of it ten minutes thinking. My little 
 sweetheart, I don't dare write what I feel. You know how 
 I think about you. You had better say 'yes' to the matter 
 we talked over the other day and we will attend to it imme- 
 diately."
 
 THE TAKER 
 
 It was unsigned, as usual, but at the bottom was the 
 familiar "Tear this up as soon as you read it." 
 
 Marcy read it through many, many times, and then 
 with only one thought in her head, impelled by a force 
 that she did not try to stop or question, she put on her hat 
 and coat and went out into the night. 
 
 She fairly ran to a telephone booth in a drugstore a 
 few blocks down the street. When she heard Vernon's 
 voice she could hardly talk: 
 
 "I'll come yes yes. I'll see you to-morrow. Take 
 good care of yourself," she cried at the black mouthpiece. 
 
 Then she went back to the house and into her aunt's 
 room and said, in a very tired and sleepy manner, as if it 
 were of little concern : 
 
 "Auntie, I'm planning to go into the city in a few days 
 if you want somebody to have my room." 
 
 . . . The next morning Vernon told Mabel in a few 
 words that he had opened a New York office of his own 
 and would have to spend a good deal of time there. "I'll 
 try to get here as often as I can," he said ; "but if I don't 
 come for a week or so, don't you worry. You can have all 
 the money you want to run the place. I'll have to come 
 out to the factory here a good deal of the time, anyway, 
 and I can run over and say 'Hello.' But if you don't see 
 me, don't worry." 
 
 Mabel did not answer him but just stared at him in a 
 manner that puzzled him all the way to his office. She 
 showed a strange lack of excitement, of interest even, in 
 what he said. It was almost as if she had not heard him. 
 
 But peace filled him the whole day. At last he was 
 managing his life so that some real happiness could come 
 from it. Somehow, he was free for the first time, and he 
 would make Marcy beautiful and she would make him
 
 THE TAKER 231 
 
 young again. Yes, he was truly happy happier than he 
 had ever been in his life. He was in love 
 
 How strange were the workings of destiny, he thought 
 over and over. All day his fancies ran on in this manner 
 like some smoothly flowing river. And when he rode home 
 from the factory there settled in his being a content and 
 elation greater than he had ever known. He saw that if 
 it all worked out well he could actually afford an hour or 
 two of hypocrisy with Mabel. "It would make the poor 
 old girl feel better and won't hurt me," he told himself. 
 
 He stole into the silent house, without being discovered, 
 like some guilty school boy, who had committed an indis- 
 cretion. He resolved to be sweeter to Mabel, perhaps 
 Jiave dinner with her. 
 
 As he went up the softly carpeted stairway to break 
 the news to her, he visualised just how she would listen to 
 his words, then look up into his face and say tearfully, 
 yearningly: "I knew you would see things sensibly and 
 come back to me, Leonard." 
 
 . . . Mabel lay on the floor by her bed. 
 
 A sharp, sickening odour filled the room. 
 
 Her thin face was pulled out of shape and smeared and 
 bloated about the cheeks. Her lips were charred white 
 and swollen wide apart. Her body was twisted and bent. 
 
 On the floor beside her lay a bottle with a red label on it 
 marked "POISON." 
 
 Leonard picked it up and threw it out of the window. 
 
 Then he sat down in a chair and mopped the cold 
 sweat that bathed his forehead. 
 
 For the first time he noticed that she had on the only 
 attractive gown she possessed a rich grey satin, trimmed 
 with lace.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 MABEL'S death, the result of mistaking a medicine 
 as the Hastings' papers had it from the Coroner 
 put a stop to Leonard's plans for more than a month. 
 
 Then he became determined again, began going in to 
 New York every day and in two weeks had furnished for 
 Marcy a small apartment with a maid and a telephone, 
 on a quiet street that led directly into Riverside Drive. 
 
 The first time that he must visit her came soon. At 
 noon he had Marcy come in on the train and his chauffeur 
 met her and drove her to the place. 
 
 And her vigil started not over an hour later. Caressed 
 by the warm glow of the shaded lights and the soft 
 strangeness of a silk gown, quite the first piece of cloth- 
 ing she had ever owned made of silk, Marcy sat waiting 
 for him like a dressed-up beautiful doll. 
 
 As she sat looking out of the broad front window on to 
 the innumerable cars that flashed by, which shot past like 
 a procession of giant fireflies, she thought of a mocking 
 contrast; her mother, whom she barely remembered, her 
 drunken father, Lester, her aunt, herself even in the fifth 
 grade of the school, and then again, as she was that day 
 she walked into Vernon's office. 
 
 She went on thinking in this strain till the bell rang, 
 and she knew it was Vernon. Then she flew to meet him, 
 happy, embarrassed, bashful, pulsating all over. 
 
 With her arms around him she brought him into the 
 little sitting-room, with its grey carpet and orange silk 
 
 232
 
 THE TAKER 233 
 
 hangings, looked at him with her eyes wide for a long time, 
 then gave a little exultant scream and huddled in to him 
 and kissed him many times, on his lips, his chin, his fore- 
 head, his nose, his eyes. 
 
 Vernon looked happy and well, even gay in a new 
 brown suit. But he, too, was excited and said, as they sat 
 down together on the silk-cushioned divan, "Well, Marcy ! 
 So at last ! at last !" 
 
 For a time, it seemed nearly beyond endurance to 
 Marcy, he sat looking at her, studying her and ruminat- 
 ing over her. At last he gave a long happy sigh and, 
 pointing to the talking machine that stood in a corner, 
 said: 
 
 "Marcy play something for me." 
 
 Happy to do whatever he bid, she jumped up and took 
 out the first record her hands touched, a gay dance that 
 the Russian ballet had brought over to the Metropolitan, 
 and placed it on the green-cushioned disk of the machine. 
 
 "Do you know what that is, Marcy?" he asked, as the 
 brilliant notes, like clear crystals, floated into the room. 
 
 "It's lovely, isn't it?" she answered. 
 
 He caught its penetrating rhythm, was even lost in it 
 for a moment. Then he looked at Marcy again. 
 
 "It's the Scheherazade." 
 
 His eyes rested on Marcy as he spoke, while she stood 
 waiting so patiently by the side of the music box. 
 
 At last it ended. The dying notes were lost in a sea of 
 human emotion. As he watched her, Marcy turned, obedi- 
 ent to his glance, and came to him, while her supple body, 
 down to her very silk-clad feet, was a picture of inex- 
 haustible loveliness. 
 
 Leonard held out his arms to her, unmindful of the 
 scraping of the disappointed needle, and when she reached
 
 234 THE TAKER 
 
 him, let his fingers gently caress the warm softness of her 
 neck and throat. 
 
 "Marcy," he breathed, looking deep into her eyes. 
 
 He could almost feel her poor thralled flesh weaken and 
 beg to dedicate itself . . . 
 
 That night, they visited a great Broadway restaurant 
 and after dinner he whispered to her : 
 
 "Marcy, I never really knew how wonderful you are. 
 Look at the way everybody watches you !" 
 
 Her response was to look into his face and murmur, 
 lovingly, 
 
 "Oh, I only hope you will always think so." 
 
 "I always shall," he answered. 
 
 Then the music of the orchestra filled the air of the 
 restaurant, and its wistful, appealing tune caught at her 
 heart, whose very tendrils responded and in turn sent out 
 to the man in front of her a message of complete love and 
 endearment. 
 
 "Oh, isn't that wonderful music!" she cried, looking 
 questioningly at him. "What is it?" Her eyes sought 
 him inquisitively and he could hardly control the impulse 
 he had of getting up and kissing her velvety lips. How- 
 ever, he thought a moment, seriously, at last saying: 
 
 "Something McCormack sings, I think. It certainly 
 makes one happy, doesn't it?" 
 
 Exultation, replete with the golden prophecy he had 
 made for himself, filled him. 
 
 Marcy answered quickly. "I should say it does." Her 
 enthusiasm matched up with his. 
 
 Then, as if to offer a bounty to his goodness, Marcy 
 took a searching glance around and bent over the table.
 
 THE TAKER 235 
 
 Reaching for his hand, she took hold of it and kissed it, 
 almost reverently. 
 
 Hers was satisfaction enough when she heard him mur- 
 mur lovingly, "My little sweetheart !" 
 
 Then he became even more fervent. "Marcy, darling, 
 I'm a happy man to-night." 
 
 He looked deeply into her eyes. "Marcy, you do love 
 me as I love you, don't you?" 
 
 Longingly and lovingly, she glanced back at him. Her 
 head was bent low while with one movement she stretched 
 her hands across the table to him. 
 
 "I love you just terribly," she breathed. 
 
 Leonard looked steadily at her. Never before had she 
 seemed so exquisite. And it was no chimera. The beau- 
 tiful, soft arms would soon be round his neck, the deli- 
 cately curved lips, close to his own. He could not help 
 thinking how lucky he was. Over and over in his mind, 
 ran the thought : 
 
 "How wonderful I'll make her! How I'll be envied!" 
 
 Then he called the waiter. "Waiter, waiter another 
 bottle the same," while Marcy, noticing how he hated to 
 take even a moment from her, felt like putting her arms 
 around him and saying: "You're my boy, aren't you, Mr. 
 Vernon ?" 
 
 Strangely at that moment, he leaned over and took hold 
 of her hands. 
 
 "I want you to call me by my first name, Marcy," he 
 said. "I won't feel so old, that way." 
 
 She smiled into his eyes. 
 
 "I'll I'll be glad to, Mr. " she hesitated, "what is 
 
 it?" Somehow, at the moment, his first name had slipped 
 from her entirely. Vernon showed his surprise. 
 
 "You don't know?"
 
 236 THE TAKER 
 
 "No, honestly not." 
 
 "I thought you'd know it from around the factory." 
 
 She did remember now. But it was less difficult to con- 
 fess she had forgotten. Then, too, it seemed not a bad 
 idea to show him that she had never speculated or even 
 dreamed she would ever be with him in this manner and 
 able to call him by his first name. So she said : 
 
 "Why, it seems to have slipped from me." 
 
 "Well, call me Leonard or Lennie. That's what 
 
 " suddenly he remembered how Jennie had always 
 
 called him "Lennie." He could nearly see her now, stand- 
 ing in the doorway, as he came up the walk. "You'd best 
 make it Leonard, I think," he exclaimed. "I guess Lennie 
 is too boyish for me." 
 
 "I want it to be Lennie," Marcy said, lovingly. Halt- 
 ingly she added, "I want you to be my boy. Anyway, 
 you're just a young man to me!" 
 
 Now he raised his glass to a level with their eyes. 
 
 "Let's drink to our future happiness, sweetheart, and 
 to the days and days," he caught himself as she pouted, 
 "and months and years that you are going to love me." 
 
 Marcy took a deep swallow before she exclaimed, 
 softly : 
 
 "And you'll love me too, won't you?" 
 
 "You bet I will." 
 
 For a time they sat gazing lovingly at each other. Over 
 Marcy there came a feeling of soft warm happiness, and 
 as she turned and saw the people at other tables, all their 
 eyes seemed to be directed at her, in a curious, admiring 
 way. 
 
 Leonard seemed better looking than ever too, with his 
 black tie and solitary pearl stud in the middle of his soft
 
 THE TAKER 237 
 
 white shirt. She wondered if any one else had ever been so 
 happy as she was. 
 
 "Of what are you thinking, darling?" Vernon asked 
 suddenly. 
 
 She could see his piercing eyes. But somehow she felt 
 she must look down, as if to hold her great joy a secret. 
 
 "Oh, nothing just you and me." 
 
 He laughed. "That's a great deal, dear." 
 
 "Oh, you know what I mean." 
 
 He reached his hand across the table and clasped her 
 small fingers tightly. 
 
 "Dear little sweetheart," he murmured. 
 
 At a few minutes past nine, Vernon paid the check and 
 they left the restaurant. The air was sweet and cool out- 
 side, and Vernon, happy in the thought that for quite the 
 first time in his life, he need not impetuously grasp what 
 was in his hand for fear of losing it, suggested they go to 
 some place of amusement before taking a taxi home. 
 
 "It's early yet," he told Marcy. 
 
 But she had not the gift of prescience to know what was 
 going on in his mind, the teasing caress he was giving his 
 anticipations. 
 
 Walking down Broadway, which looked more like some 
 war-time upheaval with its subway-demolition, they soon 
 came to the Metropolitan Opera House. Here Vernon 
 had a sudden idea and was at the box office before Marcy 
 could restrain him. 
 
 "You ought not spend your money like this, Mr. 
 Leonard," she said bashfully, as she caught up with him 
 and grasped his arm tightly. But it was too late and he 
 had two yellow tickets in his hand. Indeed, she had a 
 vague feeling of hurt that he should want to go to a
 
 238 THE TAKER 
 
 theatre, when they might be out at the little apartment, 
 happy and alone. 
 
 Her feelings were changed somewhat only after they 
 had taken their seats in the rear of the orchestra. 
 
 Then, a caressing cloud of happiness enveloped Marcy. 
 For the first time in her life she was inside a great theatre 
 and she became lost in a burst of dreamy reflection that 
 she could not dispel. It was too unreal to believe. She 
 actually pinched herself and then Vernon, to see if it were 
 all true. And when Leonard jumped a little, startled, and 
 questioned what was the matter, she said smiling: 
 
 "Oh, nothing Leonard. I was just dreaming, I 
 guess." 
 
 The opera was Wagner's "Walkyrie" and the stirring, 
 crashing, and then pliant stroking of the orchestra filled 
 Marcy with a queer restlessness entirely new to her. 
 
 When Wotan had put his daughter Brunhilde to sleep 
 upon the painted canvas rock as a punishment for her re- 
 bellion in protecting Siegmund and saving Sieglinde, a 
 prayer came to her mind that some one else would come 
 from behind the scenes and upon the stage and put an end 
 to the fiery-bearded singer. 
 
 She had no idea of the story, but it could be seen easily, 
 how mean he was to the wailing, beautiful woman who had 
 sunk onto the rock. Once she looked at Vernon to see if 
 he, too, were stirred. But he only whispered back in a 
 way that surprised her: 
 
 "It's too bad it's Wagner. You'd like music that's got 
 some sweetness, better. Some day we'll hear something 
 from Puccini." 
 
 She felt like saying that this was wonderful enough ; in 
 fact, she was on the point of whispering back, when she 
 saw that her feelings about it must only be the outcome of
 
 THE TAKER 239 
 
 ignorance. Somehow this music made her feel different 
 than she had ever felt before. 
 
 Then Wotan called upon Loki, the God of Fire, and as 
 he struck the rock with his long spear, the flame shot up 
 on all sides, completely surrounding the sleeping figure. 
 
 Marcy, now, more than ever, was overwhelmed by the 
 music from the orchestra. It was like some beautiful 
 thunder, she thought. Becoming overpowered by the ris- 
 ing swell and sighing of the violins, the heart-rending la- 
 mentation, she held tightly to Leonard, and he squeezed 
 her hand in return. 
 
 His only disappointment was that the lights were so 
 low, he could hardly define the outlines of her beautiful 
 face. 
 
 Great changes came over Marcy after that evening, 
 which pleased Vernon immensely. She seemed to grow 
 taller, to respond to soft clothes and better living so 
 quickly that in a few months it was hard to believe that 
 she had not been born in this luxury of love and adorn- 
 ment. 
 
 Leonard did not see her every day, but if a day passed 
 that he did not visit her, the engulfing sadness held her so 
 numb that even his absence did not affect her. She was 
 alive only when with him; dead and insensate to all im- 
 pressions in his absence. When the telephone would ring 
 and she would hear his low, musical voice saying: "I'm 
 sorry about yesterday, I'll be over in an hour, dear," she 
 would fly about the rooms again like a young bird come to 
 life, thirsting for the first sight of him. 
 
 At the luxurious restaurants on Broadway and the 
 Avenue, where they always had their evening meals, she 
 grew to know the waiters by their first names, and the
 
 240 THE TAKER 
 
 favourite dishes of the different places. When she saw 
 the diners whisper to each other as she came in, she knew 
 they were talking about her and the rich man who was her 
 friend. How she budded and bloomed under it. How 
 proud she was of what she felt had come only out of her 
 understanding of life. 
 
 The only thing that worried her at all was her aunt's 
 attitude toward her. Although many presents were sent 
 to the woman there never came back a mention of them 
 or a word of thanks. 
 
 Which made little difference since mostly they were sent 
 as a sort of an outlet for her joy, or better, a silent offer- 
 ing on the sacrificial altar of her conscience. 
 
 With this possible exception, Marcy was very happy 
 indeed. Blithely going along the path that Vernon paved 
 for her feet, she never stopped to wonder if perchance 
 there might be some thorny bush along the pathway. 
 
 Their love grew out of each other's love. There was 
 and never could be any other consideration. It would al- 
 ways be this way. 
 
 It was love begotten by love. ...
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 LEONARD could hardly understand the situation. He 
 who had thought romance lost to him, was now over- 
 whelmed by the tenderest affection and passion brought 
 to him, coupled with beauty and child-like understanding. 
 Their feelings were like antennae that reached out to 
 touch each other whenever they were near, like the feelers 
 of ants. 
 
 And how Marcy loved to do as he bid. He opened 
 charge accounts for her at the various shops and she 
 would appear before him time and again with some new 
 frock that always required an evening spent in parade, 
 first at home and then at the Ritz or the Plaza. 
 
 From a little woman, at a shop on Forty-fourth Street, 
 she learned that her figure was heightened by wearing a 
 tight, broad band over her breast. And this she incor- 
 porated in every gown she ordered. It really did give 
 height to her trim figure, and changed her in other ways. 
 Somehow she responded with lightning-like rapidity to 
 the illusion wrought by the gown's proportions, walking 
 more stately, never tripping along, just from sheer youth- 
 ful enthusiasm, as she formerly had done. 
 
 And when she appeared before Leonard, so elegant, her 
 cheeks glowing with natural health, her delicately curved 
 lines faintly suggested through the thin fabric, taller, 
 more graceful than ever he had believed possible, he could 
 hardly restrain himself from rushing off to some Justice 
 of the Peace or minister and obtaining a license for mar- 
 riage. 
 
 241
 
 242 THE TAKER 
 
 Strangely he took more of an interest in his business, 
 too. It required money to shower this luxury on Marcy, 
 and he would sit scheming with Whittimore by the hour. 
 More salesmen were sent out into Pennsylvania and Ver- 
 mont, and through his advice a campaign was started to 
 persuade public officials of various small towns to see that 
 a new fire-proof glass, they were specialising in, was in- 
 stalled in the public institutions. 
 
 It was really a period of delightful rehabilitation for 
 him, netting him many thousands of dollars as well as com- 
 plete happiness. It had been a long time since he had been 
 so exultant over just living, really quite the first time in 
 his whole life. And now the most trivial things, abso- 
 lutely devoid of the slightest semblance of emotional 
 value, pleased him immeasurably. 
 
 One day, he spent at least a half hour, walking up and 
 down in front of an automobile agency, which kept each 
 new patron listed in small, gold letters on an oaken slab 
 in a front window of the show-room. 
 
 "Miss Marcy Moore," 
 
 he read under the name of two or three society leaders. 
 
 He really could not talk enough about her, or think 
 enough about her, even seeking out Whittimore, one night, 
 who in turn took him to a friend's apartment, Edna 
 Mason by name. And at the luxurious duplex suite of 
 the good-natured, little woman, a vivacious blonde, Ver- 
 non again went over all of Marcy's good points, her 
 childish love for him, her beauty, the way she tried to 
 please him, how quickly she had discarded gay attire and 
 learned the knack of dressing richly, simply. 
 
 Now he entered a new world where people had attach-
 
 THE TAKER 243 
 
 ments and where clothes and money counted for some- 
 thing. 
 
 "Of course," he said, "I take a little credit for it myself. 
 At first she used to dress too gaudy. I had to tone her 
 down." 
 
 "Yes," remarked Miss Mason, who was sitting with her 
 elbows pressed against the arms of her chair and the tips 
 of her fingers just touching her chin. "Little girls like 
 this catch on quickly. You'd think they were born to it. 
 But it is nice when a man of education and refinement like 
 yourself, takes hold of a poor little waif like that." 
 
 And that was the first sod upturned in the garden of his 
 discontent . . . but a veritable foundation for his oncom- 
 ing unhappiness. 
 
 What could she mean by saying such a thing? Marcy 
 was fine delicate honest. 
 
 What could she mean? 
 
 But the conviction pierced its way into his intelligence 
 that the little woman had worded a thought that he saw 
 now had always been present in his mind. And it was 
 plain how different from Marcy was the person who told 
 him this. 
 
 Miss Mason had a manner and air about her as if she 
 would be at home with any one. While Marcy 
 
 At the moment he could not help making the compari- 
 son. Marcy were she with them at this moment would 
 be over-awed and silent. 
 
 Leonard hurried away from them. 
 
 "I've really got to go," he said, as they stood up and 
 begged him to stay. It even pained him a little to see 
 Miss Mason take hold of Whittimore's arm. as together 
 they stood watching him put on his hat and coat.
 
 244 THE TAKER 
 
 He found himself at Marcy's door without really being 
 aware of how he had arrived there. 
 
 "Oh, honey," she cried, "I've been waiting for more 
 than an hour for you. You mustn't make me wait like 
 this. It ain't nice." 
 
 She had not said "ain't" for months. Or at least he had 
 not been aware of it. And he had spent long hours breaking 
 her of the habit. As he stood looking at the glossy head 
 now huddled in his arms, he reminded himself of all the 
 trying times, when he had scolded her and she had smoth- 
 ered all argument by caressing him and trying to soothe 
 him with rather endearing "baby-talk." 
 
 "You must not say 'ain't,' dear." 
 
 "I just love you," she replied. "I do. I love you." 
 
 "But 'ain't' is incorrect, Marcy." 
 
 She looked up into his face with her big eyes, wide and 
 loving. 
 
 "Dear, I love you. What do words count with us ?" 
 
 Reaching up, she drew his lips down to her lips and held 
 him yearningly. 
 
 And the protest in his conscience was inhibited by 
 other calls. 
 
 But there came other incidents, spread out over a pe- 
 riod of about five months, unworded glances that Marcy 
 was totally unaware of, crudities in her gestures, her way 
 of holding a fork, the strange smallness of her ears that 
 he seemed never to have been conscious of before. And all 
 driving a wedge into his understanding. 
 
 Anyway, he was not bent on philanthropically groping 
 his way through life. It was very beautiful to be so chari- 
 table and foolish but he had wasted enough time. 
 
 Suddenly there seemed a sort of similarity between this
 
 THE TAKER 245 
 
 episode and the others with Jennie and Mabel, though at 
 the moment he could not place his finger on it. 
 
 One night they went to the theatre. And though Marcy 
 was truly more beautiful than any one Vernon compared 
 her with in the audience, yet she surely lacked that tired, 
 bored expression of good-breeding, the expression that 
 shows how accustomed one is to it all. 
 
 She was too eager. As he sat at her side, he noticed 
 how animated and happy she was. 
 
 Somehow it was difficult to define she sat up too 
 high and erect in the seat. And as some people crowded 
 past them, she rose hurriedly and rather apologised 
 for being in the way. One tall woman with a collar of 
 pearls around her neck didn't even recognise her obliga- 
 tion. 
 
 It was really a horrible moment for Leonard. He was 
 aware that many women near them turned and looked at 
 them through their lorgnettes. 
 
 Then the curtain rose on a rather lurid melodrama, a 
 play called "The Case of Mrs. Dunne," a piece which was 
 headed for failure on account of the obviousness and arti- 
 ficiality of a situation revolving around a woman who mas- 
 queraded as her own maid, while her husband was away on 
 a business trip. It was lurid indeed. For no apparent 
 reason the wife suspected her husband of infidelity and 
 chose this unnecessary way of spying on him. 
 
 But Marcy, always waiting until some one applauded, 
 usually at the back of the house, would then begin clap- 
 ping her hands gleefully, more from sheer happiness than 
 from pleasure at what the stage brought out. Time and 
 again she did this, only to suddenly stop when her isola- 
 tion became apparent. 
 
 However, she seemed to enjoy it, bubbling over with
 
 246 THE TAKER 
 
 laughter and then drooping with the wife as she confessed 
 to her husband in the last act a scene which brought only 
 ridicule from the rest of the audience. 
 
 Vernon told her not to be so serious about it. 
 
 "Hold yourself in a little, dear," he whispered, smil- 
 ingly, though something was tightening at the very ten- 
 drils of his heart. 
 
 And then after the theatre he accidentally blocked the 
 way of a young girl, who, with an old woman, was rushing 
 to their motor. The girl had a finely chiselled, delicate 
 face, whose every lineament showed its certain breeding. 
 He noticed, too, that her dress was cut high and modestly. 
 At that moment he took a sidelong glance at Marcy and 
 saw how voluptuously her rounded breasts were outlined 
 beneath their filmy covering. 
 
 And more strangely, at that instant, Marcy cried to 
 him, right in the midst of a crowd of people : 
 
 "Baby, don't you think we'd best walk to the car?" 
 
 He could not help looking around to see who had heard, 
 seared by the thought that had he planned his life sensibly, 
 he could be married now to some fine, cultured young girl, 
 who had position and family back of her. At this very 
 moment, they could be entering their waiting limousine 
 with the eyes of all the others upon them. 
 
 Yet he must walk to the corner, and then go to some 
 restaurant. They must sit and eat alone alone alone 
 good God because they knew no one. Except Whitti- 
 more and Miss Mason. And what could Miss Mason talk 
 to Marcy about ? 
 
 No, there would be nothing to talk about. No more 
 than what he had to talk about, as they sat over the res- 
 taurant table nothing the show her dress what they 
 would do to-morrow night.
 
 THE TAKER 247 
 
 And so an idea formed itself in Leonard's inner con- 
 sciousness, an idea he could not or would not dislodge. 
 
 After that night, he was haunted by this idea every 
 time he left the little apartment. The idea was this : He 
 could be having a really beautiful life now. He could be 
 living with an exquisite wife who had many admiring 
 friends. And they could be having evenings at home, 
 where there was clever talk and music. In this way, he 
 would meet others too. It would help his business in a 
 way, even. 
 
 He was suffering now simply because of lack of fore- 
 sight. Again he had mismanaged, had not reached high 
 enough. Anybody could get what they went after, if they 
 were persistent. The trouble was that now that he had 
 money, he did not appreciate himself. 
 
 Then one day, Marcy questioned him : 
 
 "Sweetheart, what's the matter? You act so pre- 
 occupied, lately." 
 
 He noticed the deep-circling hollows about her eyes as 
 she spoke. 
 
 He was tempted to tell her, yet held himself back, on 
 the verge of saying: "It's no go, Marcy, I'm sorry. But 
 We've got to part. I'm doing myself an injustice by living 
 this way, though you wouldn't understand it, I'm afraid." 
 
 He would have said all this, did he not realise that it 
 was foolish to do this until he had found the other 
 Woman. 
 
 He would be losing a lot of real pleasure without gain- 
 ing anything. 
 
 Some one had said something about not throwing out 
 idirty water until you had got clean water. 
 
 But he did act more and more sullen and on occasions 
 was actually unkind to her, which she took for restless-
 
 248 THE TAKER 
 
 ness, and worry over business, or just simple shifts in his 
 temper. 
 
 And she treated him even better, more sweetly, amiably 
 more baby-like. 
 
 "My own, poor little boy," she would murmur, "Just 
 come to Muzzer." 
 
 And Leonard, indulging now in a constant survey of the 
 situation, became shamed by remorse at what he had done. 
 It was made more and more poignant by the thought that 
 came intermittently but resolutely, that he was settled for 
 life in just this manner. He questioned himself inces- 
 santly about it, in his bath, as he shaved, or dressed him- 
 self. 
 
 It really became a practice with him to visualise him- 
 self as he would be in a few short years. 
 
 Somehow he saw himself on a mortuary couch, an old 
 man, shrivelled up and spent. 
 
 One night, with eyes sunken and face pale from loss of 
 sleep, he talked for hours with Edna Mason and Whitti- 
 more. 
 
 "I am really worried about it," he confided to them. 
 "She doesn't seem to realise that I must have an evening to 
 myself now and then, like to-night, for instance. Then 
 she always wants me by her, and yet she doesn't seem to 
 acquire the things that will show people she had the right 
 sort of stuff in her. You know what I mean?" 
 
 Whittimore interjected: 
 
 "Well, what do you care about people Vernon ; what 
 do people care about your happiness ? Why do you try to 
 fool yourself, anyway?" 
 
 "That isn't exactly what I mean, my friend," Leonard 
 insisted, "I mean the little things that only I would no- 
 tice. You know a man is bound to be conscious of them,"
 
 THE TAKER 249 
 
 his brows contracted and he said quite to himself, "more 
 and more." 
 
 Whittimore smiled. "I'm afraid you haven't got enough 
 confidence in your own opinion of what is so important to 
 you." Quite seriously, he added, "I believe you would 
 change your entire idea about things if I were to tell you 
 that your little girl was the most exquisite and innately 
 refined little person I had ever come across." He hesi- 
 tated, then said slowly: "I believe your tragedy is that 
 you are going through life, waiting for other people to 
 appraise what you have." 
 
 Vernon looked up, startled, just as Whittimore's com- 
 panion exclaimed with an approving glance : 
 
 "I think Mr. Vernon is right. I believe he realises he is 
 trying to work with material that isn't there." 
 
 After that, Vernon was haunted and harrowed more 
 than ever, thinking continually that what Miss Mason said 
 was right. That this was the secret back of the whole 
 situation. One had to be born to the manner and once 
 they were that way nothing could change it. Look at 
 himself. His ideals and desires for finer things were as 
 high as ever. And that was just the reason it was inevi- 
 table that two people like him and Marcy could never work 
 it out. She did not have the foundation to build on. 
 It was all only a fancy, a sheer, flimsy, unstable dream. 
 All because he was so indecisive, so weak. Even if his 
 great precept was never to hurt others, he must also think 
 of not hurting himself too. Yes, he was just a weakling. 
 Other men, realising the impossibility of a structure 
 he was building a structure, yes, giving his years to it 
 would dismiss it without thought. He was always hang- 
 ing on, waiting for some magic to work, that would fix 
 everything all right as he deserved.
 
 250 THE TAKER 
 
 ... It was during this period that Edna Mason sent a 
 note to a Mrs. Bellamy, living at Milford, Conn., where 
 formerly she, too, had resided. The note was in answer to 
 one received by her. 
 
 "DEAREST DEHLIA: 
 
 "Your letter has pained me more than I can possibly tell 
 you. Truly I am grieved that Charline is so wayward, and 
 grieved more that you are so worried and unhappy about her. 
 It is strange, 1 indeed, how things do happen. Only a night 
 before last, I was speaking with a friend of mine, a Mr. 
 Vernon. I told him all about you, Dehlia. He is one of the 
 most charming men one could possibly meet. And a dear 
 friend of Mr. Whittimore's, whom of course I've told you 
 about before. 
 
 "Now this is the idea, Dehlia, dear. I want you to cut out 
 the heavy thinking, and get into New York here with me. 
 You've done enough mourning about Henry. Heaven knows, 
 he left you little as it is. I just would love to have you. And 
 I believe it is the thing for you and Charline to do anyway. 
 She'd have all kinds of chances here and I miss my guess, 
 if you won't care just a little for Mr. Vernon. He's just your 
 type, if I can remember back sort of sad and sentimental. 
 I think he's around forty. For one reason or another, he's 
 just ripe for somebody to pluck now, too. 
 
 "So don't be foolish, Dehlia. Just pick up and warn me 
 when the train leaves. I know, if anybody does, what being 
 in the rut in Milford means. 
 
 "I'll look for you in about a week. If you don't come, why, 
 I'll come and get you. 
 
 "Lots of love, 
 
 "EDNA. 
 
 "P. S. Am serious, old friend."
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 SOME few days later, Whittimore invited Leonard to 
 join him at dinner and to bring along Marcy, so that 
 Edna "might get to know her better." 
 
 So they met at the Plaza, in the lobby, at about eight 
 o'clock. On the way over, Leonard told Marcy to try and 
 not act too interested in things, but to be just a little 
 bored, in fact, to watch Miss Mason and emulate her. 
 
 But somehow, as they all walked through the lobby into 
 the dining room, Leonard felt that he could read the 
 thoughts of the diners that were present. 
 
 Marcy had on a black, dull silk dress, cut very low, and 
 below the broad band of black crepe de chine over her 
 breast, there was a corseted effect down to her hips which 
 gave her body an enticing undulation and freedom as she 
 took each step. Whittimore was really full of admiration 
 for the child, even whispering as they walked : 
 
 "Lucky dog, Vernon." 
 
 But Edna did not approve of Marcy, somehow, and her 
 manner, much too kindly and affable, made it plain to 
 Leonard that she would watch over Marcy and see each 
 mistake that the girl made. 
 
 She called Marcy "dear," right from the start of the 
 meal. "If I were you, dear, I should brush my hair back 
 straight from the forehead. I believe it would become 
 you make you a little older looking, too, dear." 
 
 She looked at Vernon while Marcy, sensing the injustice 
 of the woman's patronage, felt that it was being done only 
 to get back Whittimore's attention, for he seemed to be 
 
 251
 
 252 THE TAKER 
 
 staring at her queerly, no matter how much she tried not 
 to notice him. 
 
 However, it was only toward the end of the meal that 
 she realised that Leonard too was studying her, unkindly, 
 in a manner utterly strange. And after that, she could 
 not control herself, doing things that she absolutely did 
 not want to do. She was unable to say the slightest word 
 to the woman, or even to Vernon or Whittimore. She 
 could only sit quietly and try to hold herself from getting 
 up and telling Miss Mason what she thought of her. 
 
 Though disaster came soon enough. Led on by the 
 soft light and the music from an adjoining palm room, 
 Edna crooned out some chanting negro songs, semi- re- 
 ligious and dirge-like, but in a soft voiced dialect that 
 was really interesting and clever. Each song was fol- 
 lowed by admiring words from Vernon, who, held by the 
 woman, listened intently. He murmured complimentary 
 phrases while Marcy suddenly realised that he was not 
 paying the slightest attention to her. 
 
 It seemed as if it were left to Whittimore to amuse her. 
 But to him she could not say more than the slightest "yes" 
 or "no" and once when he asked her if she didn't sing, she 
 felt like telling him that there was a song that she knew, 
 and then get up and show Vernon that she wasn't suffer- 
 ing the slightest bit. But she was stifled, inarticulate 
 from worry over the man she loved and could only answer, 
 "Oh, no, I don't sing." She even hated herself for the 
 moment for appearing so numb. 
 
 She sat there amidst all the splendour, not eating, si- 
 lent, unhappy only noticing how Vernon's eyes rested on 
 Edna Mason, or roamed about the room to the adjoining 
 tables. 
 
 Once, when Leonard quite spontaneously exclaimed:
 
 THE TAKER 253 
 
 "There are certainly a lot of exquisitely gowned women 
 here, aren't there?" she could hardly control herself from 
 defiantly standing up in front of him and saying, "Well, 
 what's the matter with me?" 
 
 The meal was finished near ten o'clock and Whittimore 
 suggested that they run up to Edna's apartment at the 
 Pranton. 
 
 So they got up, and, after receiving their wraps, had 
 the car called. They rode across town in silence, though 
 Edna, acting as if she realised Vernon's unhappiness, 
 talked more than ever, and directed her words entirely at 
 Vernon. And again, Marcy sat rigid and unhappy in a 
 haze of isolated embarrassment, conscious more than ever 
 of her inability to cope with the little woman on the seat 
 opposite her. 
 
 She heard such a variety of topics, too ; the exhibit at 
 some gallery or other, of a new painter from Spain, the 
 bill at the Princess Theatre, the Russian dancers then 
 shifting in kaleidoscopic fashion to a half dozen other sub- 
 jects, all equally meaningless to her ears. 
 
 How Leonard listened to the woman! She noticed as 
 they went into the Pranton entrance, that he accidentally 
 held on to her arm for a moment as he helped her into the 
 elevator. 
 
 Then when they reached the white and gold apartment, 
 two extraordinary things happened, each having a certain 
 relation to the other. 
 
 While Leonard was dancing with Edna, to the accom- 
 paniment of the graphophone, Marcy heard the woman 
 whisper: 
 
 "I did something for you, the other night. I wrote a 
 little note." 
 
 As she sat and talked to Whittimore, Marcy could see
 
 254 THE TAKER 
 
 how Leonard was questioning Miss Mason. Perhaps it 
 was just as well that she did not hear clearly what the 
 little woman said into his ear. 
 
 "I guess I'll have to save you from yourself. It's with 
 a dear friend of mine. She's only thirty-six and a corker. 
 You'll like her. She used to be mighty pretty when I 
 knew her." 
 
 But she completed her understanding as she watched the 
 expression on Leonard's face, as he asked: 
 
 "Is she intelligent, like you ? And does she know about 
 the good things of life?" 
 
 The other was that Marcy, unable to longer hold back 
 her feelings any longer, ran up to Leonard and cried: 
 
 "Oh, Lennie, please take me away from here. I'm ter- 
 ribly unhappy." 
 
 Leonard answered brutally: 
 
 "You'll stay here until I'm ready to take you home, 
 
 unless " he worded the thought earnestly enough, 
 
 "unless you want to take the car home yourself now." 
 
 That was the last word she had with him that night. 
 
 Although she did sit and wait until Vernon, petulant 
 that his evening had been spoilt, took hold of her arm, and 
 quite dragged her out of the place and to the elevator.
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 N silence, the next morning, Vernon sat reading his 
 * newspaper, while the steam from the percolator on the 
 table obscured from Marcy all but his eyes. 
 
 Marcy could not control her anger. She was even 
 ashamed for the sake of Nina, the coloured servant, who 
 kept coming into the room with scrutinising glances first 
 at Vernon and then at her. 
 
 But one thought she no longer could hold back. 
 
 Suddenly she was conscious of the great distance that 
 lay between their feelings for each other. 
 
 It did not seem possible that this smooth-faced and calm 
 man, so quietly reading his paper, could be metamorphosed 
 into the temper-ridden, relentless individual of the night 
 before. She could not help likening him to some animal 
 who had devoured his victim and was now purring in con- 
 tent. 
 
 Sensing her scrutiny of him, Vernon looked up from his 
 paper. Calmly enough he asked her what was on her 
 mind. 
 
 "I I'll tell you some day," she answered thought- 
 fully. 
 
 With only a glance at her as if to say, "Well, that's 
 your affair," he went back to his paper, buried himself 
 in it for a few moments, and then casually remarked 
 even as he read: "I might have to go out to the factory 
 to-day. One of the foremen didn't show up. See if you 
 can amuse yourself. I ought to be back to-morrow." 
 
 255
 
 256 THE TAKER 
 
 When he became conscious of her continual strange 
 observation of him he added: "For God's sake, child, 
 don't sit there staring like that at me. Come, what's the 
 matter?" 
 
 With gaping eyes but shrinking manner, Marcy kept 
 gazing at him. At last he put his paper down entirely: 
 "Now, what in the world is the matter? You are too 
 pretty to look so sad. And let's forget last night. I've 
 got a lot to think about these days." 
 
 He looked at his white metalled watch and then com- 
 pared it with the little French clock on the mantel and 
 for a moment busied himself regulating a hand; then 
 gathering his paper and folding it so that it would fit 
 into his pocket, he rose from the table. At last he could 
 no longer tolerate the wondering look on Marcy's face. 
 
 "Well?" he said, hardly able to control his temper. 
 
 Slowly Marcy began, "You know, Leonard I don't 
 know you you are just a stranger. I don't know why it 
 never came to me before." 
 
 She kept up her aggravating scrutiny of him until he 
 went out in the hall and put on his light grey overcoat 
 and derby hat. When he came back into the room for his 
 newspaper he said, easily, "I'll just give you a thought for 
 the day. If you think I've grown cold all of a sudden, 
 why don't you ask yourself if it isn't because you are 
 that way to me?" 
 
 Only when he added: "I've got to defend myself some 
 way," her pent-up feelings betrayed themselves. 
 
 "I I've learned something about men," she cried, 
 without control her voice more like that of an aggrieved 
 woman than of a young girl "Men are devils." 
 
 Vernon walked around the table to the back of her 
 chair and put his hands on her shoulders.
 
 THE TAKER 25T 
 
 "Now, Marcy," he said, "I suppose I've spotted you. 
 Of course men are all alike. You had just as well know 
 that. It's only their methods that are different. That 
 is what makes the difference between, well, for instance 
 between me and somebody else. Why shouldn't we look 
 things squarely in the face? You know how many times 
 I have told you that there are laws in life that cover 
 everything. Now, we are up against one of those laws. 
 That's what keeps the world going. If everybody slipped 
 into some rut along the road and stayed there a lifetime 
 well, nobody would ever get any place. Now," he placed 
 his hands under her chin, "now kiss me, Marcy. I've got 
 to go." 
 
 She looked up at him with wide-open, accusing eyes, 
 and instead of meekly giving in to him and following his 
 slightest call, she spoke bitterly. "I thought you were 
 so fine and now I know that you don't care about me. 
 You are just brutal. Why," she hesitated over the 
 thought, "you're no different than Lester Moore. I want 
 to love you. But, when I think of how you really are I 
 can hardly help hating you." 
 
 The impetuous words startled Vernon. He could never 
 control her, he saw, if her love for him was lost. As he 
 stood, and watched her soft round chin tremble with 
 anger and her cheeks flush with temper, he thought: "I 
 mustn't lose her yet." There even flashed into his mind 
 the possibility of some one else, Whittimore perhaps, being 
 able to have her love, and hear her childish words of af- 
 fection. So he changed his manner on the instant, letting 
 her see that he was really affected by her hard words, even 
 hurt by them. He pulled up a chair and sat very close, 
 and looking deep into her eyes, said, in a way that showed 
 he was suffering more than she must know :
 
 258 THE TAKER 
 
 "Please idon't talk like that, Marcy. You have gone 
 through so much already, and it hurts me to see you just 
 the least bit unhappy." 
 
 Instantly he saw that he had not lost his control over 
 her, that she still loved him as a master, though a fear 
 assailed him that if he showed himself weak to her he 
 would lose his power over her entirely. He must strike a 
 happy medium, he told himself, so that when he did break 
 away he could still be protected by her love for him. That 
 was the thing he must not lose sight of. 
 
 So he said, a little more sternly now : <c Why, Marcy, you 
 are a woman not a little girl. And two people can't go 
 on the way we have, unless there is some sort of under- 
 standing between them about things life in general, 
 you know. Nobody can go on indefinitely without having 
 a pretty good idea of what he is doing." 
 
 He rose from his chair and began pacing the floor, 
 while Marcy watched him, her little nostrils dilating in 
 rhythmic companionship with the racking throbs in her 
 throat. 
 
 "You know we are just puppets, Marcy. You every- 
 body. We do things like you and I have done we're 
 happy, then hesitate then plunge and yet all the time 
 in the back of our hearts there is the idea that if we 
 follow the crowd along the path we take, we will have 
 to meet the worries and the same end, with the rest of the 
 crowd. We haven't got any other chance." 
 
 She failed to answer him, only sitting rigid and star- 
 ing at him. Then in an instant her manner changed to 
 one less passive. She jumped up from her chair and 
 with a wild lunge tore past him into the next room, where 
 she threw herself upon the cushioned divan. 
 
 Vernon was held aghast for a moment, disappointed
 
 THE TAKER 259 
 
 that she should not have welcomed his words with some 
 such appeal as had always been her wont. If she defied 
 him, nothing could be accomplished. He followed her 
 quickly, then, into the living room, and apologetically 
 tried to gather her in his arms, saying repeatedly, as he 
 tried to control her, "Now listen, Marcy ; you must under- 
 stand things the way I mean them." 
 
 However he tried to soften her anger she would not 
 listen, only crying, "Stay away from me, I hate you." 
 
 Vainly he tried to quell her frenzy. 
 
 "Marcy, Marcy, listen, you are so wonderful and beau- 
 tiful." 
 
 She did seem c at that moment extraordinarily inviting. 
 Her bosom heaved tumultuously and her hair had fallen 
 down onto its curves, which gave her a Madonna-like ap- 
 pearance. 
 
 Impetuously, he grabbed her, fought down her arms and 
 kissed her on the cheeks and mouth. "Kiss me back," he 
 demanded, breathless from his exertions. 
 
 But Marcy did not heed him, and Vernon saw that his 
 old strategies, for some unaccountable reason, had lost 
 their influence over her. As he watched her delicious 
 figure, crumpled in the cushions, he wondered how he could 
 reason her out of her strange attitude toward him. He 
 would not believe that it was all over now. It was really 
 difficult to know what to do at the moment. 
 
 And yet, of her own volition, she had never so gallantly 
 defied him. Wondering if it were possible that some one 
 had been talking to her and advising her, he asked : 
 
 "Have you seen anybody and talked to them about 
 us? Is there some other man?" 
 
 And then the instinctive cry of allegiance that the dog 
 has for its master, the searching peal for its mother of
 
 260 THE TAKER 
 
 the lambless ewe gone desolately astray, found its way to 
 the girl's mind and Vernon knew that he had not lost 
 her yet. And that he had been reasoning above her 
 emotional order. She said, in answer to his question: 
 "Oh, Leonard, how can you think of such a thing, when 
 you know you are the only man in the world that I love?" 
 So the process went on. 
 
 He saw that he still controlled her, that his mistake had 
 been to think her a woman of the world, of mutable in- 
 clinations, when she was only the simple little girl that 
 loved him, and that she could never be otherwise. 
 
 He told himself that the Maker creates all manner of 
 men or women, but that his mistake had been to think that 
 natures can change. In the instant he saw that Marcy 
 would always love him, that she was one of Nature's chil- 
 dren that love once and eternally. 
 
 He felt a little sorry when the full conviction of this 
 knowledge smote him. For he saw that she would never 
 defend herself, that she would never offer battle, but go 
 to the end of her days a love-child giving always and 
 only happy when this side of her nature had expression. 
 
 And so immediately he became gentle with her, and 
 caressing and kind, smoothing back her soft hair, ex- 
 plaining to her that his temper was not an easy thing to 
 control, that love distorted all things. Kneeling down be- 
 side her he gently took her hands and patted them, told 
 her how he cared for her, the while he searched her eyes 
 until they yielded to him and made him feel a little 
 ashamed that this power over her was so complete. He 
 saw that he had found the dominating note of her nature, 
 and through that, now, he would always be safe no matter 
 what happened, as long as he made his attack along that 
 line.
 
 THE TAKER 261 
 
 And when Marcy heard the caressing words shrouding 
 his desire for her, she felt sorry she had doubted him, and 
 guilty for having made the man who really loved her 
 suffer so. She resisted him no longer. 
 
 "Oh, you get so cruel, sometimes," she cried, with pout- 
 ing lips, "but I'm sorry if I hurt you. I understand you 
 better now. You do love me, don't you?" 
 
 He whispered back : 
 
 "Why, Marcy, my little foolish sweetheart!'* But the 
 pity of it all filled him with sadness. 
 
 She then leaned over and framed his face with her two 
 soft hands. "Kiss me then," she begged " 'cause I love 
 you, and always will." 
 
 And Vernon, again invaded by the disenchantment that 
 attainment always brought him, wondered if he would ever 
 meet a woman who would stimulate him by defying him, a 
 woman who would make him rise to the heights of conquest 
 by being adamant. 
 
 He had a trying time with himself that night, however. 
 Forced by some whim, when he left Marcy, he entered 
 the subway at Ninety-sixth Street and stayed under- 
 ground till he was at the Battery, looking out over the 
 water of the bay. Then he went up into the fresh air and 
 walked across the park, beckoned on his way by a tribe 
 of chirping sparrows, protesting against this intrusion, 
 until he stood at the edge of the water. 
 
 Somehow, he felt overwhelmed with melancholy. The 
 inky expanse of water, stretching out like a bottomless 
 pit, seemed as desolate and barren as his feelings. Walk- 
 ing along slowly, with head down, listening to the lapping 
 of the waves as they struck the logs of the shore wall be- 
 neath him, he thought over what strange turns life had 
 taken for him.
 
 262 THE TAKER 
 
 Perhaps a mile out, a tiny light was blinking along 
 its uneven course. But no human sound came out of the 
 idle bay's watery expanse. Only a spot of denser dark- 
 ness showed itself gradually where the Island held the 
 Statue of Liberty. 
 
 Suddenly he thought of all the people who must have 
 found a watery grave around the small, beacon-light of 
 Freedom that topped the silhouetted structure people 
 who had yearned and hoped, perhaps as he had. He 
 thought on, that this might have been their way of gaining 
 Liberty. 
 
 Death lurked in his soul. 
 
 For the moment he could not blame people for having 
 such a horror of the dead that they buried them far 
 underground away from their thoughts. He could not 
 help looking at the water through the eyes of his de- 
 pression and the dark, rolling surface became actually 
 inviting. 
 
 Transfixed, the idea encompassed him. It took some 
 strength to turn and run away from it, not stopping till 
 he reached the protecting entrance of a side street saloon 
 marked "Seaman's Rest," with a red light over the door. 
 He found himself actually muttering with fright as he 
 entered. 
 
 Inside he saw a rough crowd of men hanging over the 
 bar. But he ran up and cried hoarsely : "Gimme a drink 
 of whiskey." 
 
 It was not until he had got it down that he felt entirely 
 safe from the watery grave. 
 
 It had seemed to him as he looked at the black water, 
 and the Island resting on it, that there was a great coffin, 
 resting on the sea, waiting for him, with a light above it 
 to show him the way.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 IT^ORGETFUL, unconscious of passing time, Marcy 
 * grew to actually believe Vernon her mate. And she 
 began making certain demands of him. 
 
 Such unwise demands as the wife makes of her hus- 
 band. 
 
 She became utterly blind so far as her own welfare was 
 concerned, and as utterly unaware of the real reason for 
 Vernon's increasing restlessness and periods of brooding 
 whenever he was with her. 
 
 Many times she would become curious to know what 
 held him so unhappy. But she blindly took his passivity 
 as having something to do with his love for her, and 
 smiled at any troubling idea. 
 
 One day she ran over to him, fondled his face and 
 caressed his hair and said: 
 
 "Leonard, you ought to be terribly happy when you 
 know I love you so." Laughing in a queer, broken fash- 
 ion she told him: "I'm just so happy; things like what 
 are going to happen are just too far away to think about. 
 Now be a l/ttle more cheery." 
 
 And Vernon looked at her while the thought gnawed its 
 way into his consciousness that here again was yet an- 
 other Jenny and commonplaceness and blunder 
 blunder ! And he became racked by the thought that some 
 vindictive fate was pursuing him with the Jennies of the 
 world that he would never get away from them. But the 
 days managed to pass somehow, covered by a veneer of 
 
 263
 
 264 THE TAKER 
 
 hypocrisy on his part and a blind grasping at what- 
 ever was offered on the part of Marcy. And though they 
 had no more harsh words there still was not the complete 
 happiness that Marcy kept praying for. It was much as 
 if she were waiting on a sand beach, for the tide to go out 
 so that the sand might be free to dry its entire breadth 
 in the sunlight, and the tide never went back only crept 
 a little closer. 
 
 Then, one night, Vernon phoned to say that he could 
 not stop in over the week-end. 
 
 "I'm sorry, honestly but it's business. I've got to 
 do it," came his soft voice at her ears. 
 
 Marcy was woefully affected. All day she had been an- 
 ticipating him and resting so that she would not look tired 
 or worn. When evening had come, the coloured maid had 
 helped her into a new gown that she had found on Fifth 
 Avenue only the day before, a gown that blended per- 
 fectly with her hair and her skin. She had even dressed 
 hurriedly in fear that he would come before she was ready, 
 which gave her so long a time to sit waiting for him. She 
 had purposely turned the lights down low, too, so that he 
 would come in and at first not discover her. With many 
 a little burst of glee she had gone over the picture of his 
 surprise when the first thing he knew her arms were around 
 his neck. She thought a good deal about how he would 
 be affected by her appearance, how he would stand her off 
 in front of him and gaze at her proudly and then say, as 
 he had done so many times: "Won't we be proud to- 
 night, when they see us walk through the Plaza." 
 
 She could even picture his proud manner when the head- 
 waiter would come up and say : "Good evening, Mr. Ver- 
 non, I've saved your table for you." 
 
 And then, through the black receiver of the telephone
 
 THE TAKER 265 
 
 she had heard him say that he would not come home. 
 
 His manner seemed cold and hard, she thought; over 
 the wires it sounded like words made of ice or moulded 
 in steel. 
 
 "At least, Lennie," she pleaded, "you might have run 
 in for a minute." 
 
 He stayed away from her for three whole days. And 
 those three days Marcy lay in her chintz-curtained bed- 
 room, inert and listless, with the covers high over her, a 
 vain effort to warm the inner chill of her soul. 
 
 She had just the slightest diversion when a Mrs. Ranier 
 called, a sweet-faced, blonde, little woman, of about thirty- 
 eight, who lived alone across the hall. 
 
 "I just thought I would run in. I noticed that your 
 husband " she hesitated and smiled in a knowing way, 
 "wasn't in." 
 
 Marcy started to protest, even become angry, but Mrs. 
 Ranier's manner was so motherly, she could only com- 
 ment: 
 
 "Yes ; he's been away a good deal lately." 
 
 The woman said : "I understand, dear child." And then 
 hurried on to tell about her own life, while her eyes seemed 
 to devour the beautiful Marcy. 
 
 "I had a little girl, dear by my second husband, and 
 you mustn't mind if I mother you a little." 
 
 Sitting in the light from the pink-shadowed piano-lamp, 
 the pert little woman talked for an hour or more, while 
 Marcy listened and felt a real comfort in having her near. 
 Although she listened incessantly for Vernon's ring or his 
 steps on the front walk. 
 
 The woman said softly: 
 
 "Yes, dearie, my little one died, but not before I learned 
 something that has lasted with me ever 1 since. I have
 
 266 THE TAKER 
 
 found out what love means. Oh, yes ; love of any kind." 
 As Marcy looked up questioningly, she continued : "Yes ; 
 the love of a man and woman or a mother and her child 
 it's all the same." 
 
 She thought on: "Why, I used to sit at night and 
 study the little one's profile and think to myself how won- 
 derful it was and that a living, throbbing being could 
 come out of love." The woman looked up smiling. "I 
 think she'd have grown up beautiful like you, too, 
 Mrs. " 
 
 Marcy broke in as the woman hesitated : 
 
 "Mrs. Vernon " 
 
 With an apology that she didn't remember seeing the 
 name on the letterbox, she went on, pausing long enough 
 to say that her own name was Mrs. Ranier, spelled R-a-n- 
 i-e-r; then saying, "Yes; she had your silky hair, too, 
 deary, and your fresh skin and even as a little thing was 
 just as slender as you." 
 
 For a moment her eyes seemed to rest on the gentle out- 
 ward curve at Marcy's hips, made even more alluring by 
 the soft silk covering. 
 
 Then she sighed, and said : "Yes, my dear, you are very 
 lucky." 
 
 "I know I am," Marcy said earnestly. "But what makes 
 you think so?" 
 
 "Oh, in having such a fine man as Mr. Vernon. He's 
 some handsome man!" she exclaimed with admiration in 
 her voice, "and so refined, too." 
 
 Marcy looked at her. "Yes; he is isn't he?" 
 
 It brought joy to her heart to have this woman speak 
 well of the man she loved. 
 
 Mrs. Ranier went on, while the thought came to Marcy
 
 THE TAKER 267 
 
 that she must keep her talking so that she would stay and 
 could meet Leonard. 
 
 "Fve been married twice though I'm " she hesitated 
 "only twenty-nine now. But I've been unlucky, poor 
 and all that. I've had to take what the Fates handed me, 
 but you bet I got rid of my second quick enough. He was 
 at least twenty years older than I." 
 
 "Oh, how terrible," Marcy exclaimed. 
 
 "Well, it was terrible. I used to lie by his side and see 
 his grizzly face and coarse, wrinkled skin and think how 
 wonderful it would be to have some one like your husband, 
 fine and smart-looking. Anyway, it got so I could hardly 
 stand him. Once, I remember I did forget myself and put 
 my arm around him, when I was half asleep." 
 
 Held by the woman's intimate and friendly way, Marcy 
 was really interested; quite disgustedly, she exclaimed: 
 "Oh, how terrible ; what did he do ?" 
 
 "Do! Why he was downright surprised, thought he 
 had started up some love in me ; took hold of me and be- 
 gan calling me pet-names, 'sweetheart,' his 'little one. 1 
 Then I woke up and saw his wrinkled face and bleary 
 eyes " 
 
 Her face changed in expression now. There was a 
 different light in her eyes. 
 
 "It was then I determined to be a mother, Mrs. Vernon. 
 I wanted love and affection, and as long as I was married 
 to him, I couldn't have it and be true to him unless it 
 came through a child." 
 
 She reflected, while Marcy looked on with rising sym- 
 pathy: 
 
 "Maybe a lot of women are like that. You see," she 
 added, "it was the only chance I had at love, anyway." 
 
 Vernon did not come in until Monday. And Marcy
 
 268 THE TAKER 
 
 tried to meet him with a gay manner, as though nothing 
 had happened, and she had amused herself and not noticed 
 the passing time. This, she had discovered, from a "Let- 
 ters to the Lovelorn" column of an evening paper, was 
 the way to bring back a husband who is wandering from 
 you. The futility of this method, applied to her own 
 case, smote her, but she must grope at anything, even if 
 her intelligence told her what was the truth. 
 
 She thought, too, that this would anger him and make 
 him suspicious. But it was a bulwark which gave her no 
 protection. Vernon was restless more than ever. His 
 voice was gentle but contained no lover's message. And 
 though she knew how he rebelled at any pecking word 
 from her even as she wanted to say something buoyant 
 and casual, her desire inexplicably fused with thoughts 
 of punishing him and of displaying real evidence of her 
 lonely vigil. And she burst out : 
 
 "That was the first time you ever stayed away from me 
 so long, Leonard, without calling me up." 
 
 "I am sorry, dear," he answered. 
 
 But he ventured no further explanation, and his eyes 
 were hard and thoughtful looking. 
 
 Vernon's absences became the usual order during a 
 period that covered the next three months. Beyond an- 
 noyances like whispered gossip that came to her ears 
 through the maid and the very noticeable ostracism of the 
 tenants (except Mrs. Ranier across the hall), which dis- 
 turbed her very little, nothing really unusual happened 
 that she could point out as an event. However, it did 
 seem as if there had been a great change, as if an alien 
 hand were controlling things for her. 
 
 While this state of affairs lasted Marcy watched assidu- 
 ously for the definite thing to happen that would allow
 
 THE TAKER 269 
 
 her to go to Vernon and tell him exactly how things were 
 different. But he would only come in and be as gentle 
 and kind with her as ever. 
 
 During the bright, crisp days of early fall, he even 
 seemed to be more like himself again for a time, which 
 made Marcy once more gay and happy. Indeed, she ac- 
 cepted his every changing mood as being indicative of his 
 feelings only at the moment ; as if she had builded in her 
 inner consciousness, a protective understanding that it 
 was better to be deceived and get what had the semblance 
 of fidelity, than to peer down into the depths and destroy 
 that which was at least fooling her. 
 
 But one night when she had thought him even too gentle 
 and respectful to her, she said: 
 
 "Lennie, I am terribly worried. And I can't tell you 
 just what it is that makes me feel that way. I honestly 
 believe you don't care as much for me as you used to. 
 I feel as if you wanted to be away from me and only saw 
 me because you did not want to hurt me." She came 
 over and knelt down on the floor by his side and placed 
 her head on his knee. "I found something awfully funny 
 in a magazine to-day," she went on. "It said something 
 about a love that dies, being like drinking water after you 
 had had wine. It made me think that maybe that is the 
 way it is with us, now." 
 
 When he kept strangely silent her fright became more 
 real. 
 
 "Oh, tell me," she cried, "you mustn't just think like 
 that. Tell me the truth." 
 
 After repeated imploring from her, Vernon finally got 
 up and tore himself away. And for the first time in a 
 long while his voice had the ring of one forced against his 
 will to speak unpleasantly:
 
 270 THE TAKER 
 
 "Just leave me alone, Marcy," he said, "I can't tell 
 you." 
 
 He started pacing the room. 
 
 Sitting stupefied for a time, all she could do was to fol- 
 low him frantically with her eyes. 
 
 Then she managed to break loose from the spell which 
 held her, and ran to his side. 
 
 "Do you mean it?" she cried. "Oh, I can't believe it." 
 She added resolutely: "No; I won't believe it." Then she 
 faced him squarely again, holding on to the sleeve of his 
 coat. "Do you know what you are doing to me, Lennie? 
 Well, I'll tell you. You're killing me when all I want to 
 do is live just to love you." 
 
 In another moment she had crushed into a heap on the 
 floor at his feet. 
 
 For nearly a minute Vernon gazed down at her, while 
 the thought came into his mind that this certainly was the 
 beginning of the end for them. That it was of no use now 
 to follow the old recipe of gentleness. He must go on 
 brutally to the finish, fighting the consequences as they 
 came. 
 
 He knelt down beside her and raised her head, struck by 
 the thought that she looked quite lifeless, that maybe some 
 heart attack had stricken her and that she was dead. 
 That would be a dilemma, indeed. He might even be 
 charged with some crime. There flashed before him the 
 incriminating headlines of a newspaper. 
 
 And Vernon grew actually scared, slapping her wrists 
 frenziedly for a time, and then running into the bathroom 
 and getting a glass of water which he brought back and 
 dashed full in her face. 
 
 When she slowly opened her eyes and he saw that she 
 was all right again, the thought encompassed him that
 
 THE TAKER 271 
 
 she had been shamming just to scare him, or to make him 
 sorry for his treatment of her. 
 
 But he smoothed her temples gently, the while she sob- 
 bed, thinking that if he let this time pass it would not be 
 long before she would thrust ah 1 the responsibility of her 
 life upon him. He saw that she would be so helpless that 
 even like a father, more than a lover, he would have to 
 take care of her. 
 
 And that was not the sort of thing for him. 
 
 Standing over the dishevelled little figure, Leonard be- 
 came lost between pity for her and pity for himself, be- 
 tween the understanding that she needed him and the real- 
 isation that the rest of his life would be ruined if he let 
 his pity for her control him. He looked down at her 
 throbbing temples. Their beating vessels seemed to send 
 out an appeal for help which was even the more empha- 
 sised by one or two strands of prematurely grey hair. 
 
 It was, indeed, a difficult proposition to complete the 
 task he had set out to accomplish. 
 
 When he began to talk again to the tearful child, he 
 had to turn his face away, so that his resolution would 
 not be weakened by any appeal from her. So he spoke 
 quickly, in an attempt to crowd in all the words he could 
 muster, before her frail cry might weaken him. 
 
 "Marcy, listen," he said, looking down over her again. 
 "I'm going to leave. I've been thinking about it for 
 months and months. I can't go on with this. You are 
 getting older and I well I want you to have some real 
 kind of a home where you can live decently and get hon- 
 estly what you deserve." 
 
 She raised herself with mouth agape at his words. And 
 then, as if to shut off further argument, she placed her
 
 272 THE TAKER 
 
 hand to his lips and cried: "Why, haven't I been good? 
 Have I ever done anything wrong?" 
 
 "That isn't what I mean, Marcy," he went on, his brow 
 deep with furrows. "I mean a different kind of home. 
 You don't think now but well, in a few years I'll be so 
 old you won't care for me." 
 
 "I will always care for you," she broke in. 
 
 He lifted his hand protestingly. 
 
 "Oh, you say it now, Marcy, but I've lived longer than 
 you have. I know." His words came in more restless 
 fashion. "Anyway, we have got to think about it. if 
 we went on much longer it would be too late for you, so 
 we've got to think about it now, Marcy. It's only for you 
 that I say this. You know I am not thinking about my- 
 self." 
 
 At last the words were out. He wondered how he had 
 accomplished it. Not daring to look at her, yet he knew 
 she was sinking to the floor and hysterically trying to 
 argue with him. 
 
 To shut this off he continued, without looking at the 
 crumpled heap at his feet. But he found there was a cold 
 sweat breaking out upon his forehead, which he wiped 
 away with his silk handkerchief. Then he went on : 
 
 "Yes, Marcy, there's a price to pay for everything in 
 this world, and we both have given our years. People 
 never realise things like this until it is too late. Marcy, 
 I would be a criminal if I let you give yourself to me any 
 longer." 
 
 After a moment, the intelligence came to him that now 
 would be a good time to go. So he walked to the door, 
 saying as he went : 
 
 "You know I'll do the square thing by you. You can 
 have all the furniture and to-morrow I want you to stop
 
 THE TAKER 273 
 
 at the office at say ten o'clock. Now," he reached into 
 his inside coat pocket and thoughtfully withdrew a 
 leather packet from which he took out a yellow-back bill, 
 "here's some money, Marcy, for a few days if you don't 
 feel able to come down to-morrow." 
 
 He took his hat from the chair and walked out of the 
 room. 
 
 While Marcy, for just one kind word from him even 
 yet, would willingly have crucified herself on the very tree 
 whereon her anguish had engraved deep the legend of her 
 past love and devotion.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 T T was a grey twilight in the room before Marcy had 
 * strength to raise herself from where she had slipped to 
 the floor. Even then she had not the ability to review the 
 situation or make any plans. There was only a terrible 
 ache in her heart an unutterable pain as if it had been 
 torn out of her body and its wound left gaping. Even 
 the wind at the door made her feel as if some poor wan- 
 derer was outside, waiting to take her away. 
 
 Just for a passing moment she recalled Vernon's last 
 words. And then she cried to the bare walls : 
 
 "You hear! The man you loved offered you money 
 do you hear the man you loved?" 
 
 She sank back on to the floor again, sobbing, though 
 no tears came into her eyes. It was as if they flowed into 
 some internal well of misery. 
 
 Another hour passed. 
 
 And she held out until the darkness of the room became 
 intolerable. Then she groped her way into the hall of 
 the apartment building and through the front door into 
 the street, lacking the courage to turn on the switch but- 
 ton and see by light, all the things that would remind her 
 of him. She walked out of the house, bent, like an old 
 woman, starting at each touch of the furniture or the 
 walls. When she reached the sidewalk there was the same 
 queer proportion to everything. Things were distorted, 
 dark, gloomy looking: the corner lamps looked streaky, 
 dim, the street, narrow and dark; everything seemed to 
 
 274
 
 THE TAKER 275 
 
 be touched by the same destructive hand of sadness that 
 was rending her, heart and soul. 
 
 Shuddering, she walked on, fearing to take each step 
 as if it would carry her to greater unhappiness. 
 
 Continually in front of her, though very vague in out- 
 line, was her scene with Vernon. How he had stood over 
 her, talking. How bitterly mean he had appeared. How 
 she had loved him. And now she would have him no longer. 
 No longer could she touch his soft hair with her hands, 
 or kiss him unexpectedly, as he came in the front door. 
 He had left her because he was tired of her. That was it. 
 She had noticed it coming for months. 
 
 A man passed her without the slightest notice, even 
 though she was sobbing. And somehow Marcy felt more 
 poignantly alone than ever. Was it a common sight for 
 sobbing women whose hearts had been broken to pass 
 along the city's streets, she asked herself. 
 
 Hardly aware of how she got there, Marcy found her- 
 self in front of The Welton, the hotel where Vernon had 
 his own apartments. As she looked up she saw lights in 
 the fourth story where his apartment was. The curtains 
 were drawn to. "He's probably up there," she told her- 
 self, "and already forgetting me." She looked at the 
 stone steps and the white marble entrance which led into 
 the warm light inside. She could never again have the 
 right to go in that entrance with him. 
 
 Overcome suddenly by weakness, Marcy sank down 
 against the iron railing, her body convulsed by deep in- 
 ternal sobs that every moment seemed to gain fuller sway, 
 while a chill wind rattled through the trees and scattered 
 the dry, crackling leaves about her, whirling them into an 
 eddy around her feet for an instant, and finally chasing
 
 276 THE TAKER 
 
 them off into the gutter . . . dead leaves, refuse, until 
 the street-cleaner came, or the snows. 
 
 Sinking into a heap in the shadow of the entrance, she 
 lay there benumbed, barely conscious of her surroundings 
 until the big-coated doorman, not recognising her as the 
 little friend of the man who tipped so liberally, shoved her 
 on down the street. 
 
 To be alone, Marcy dismissed her maid on the morning 
 following Vernon's departure. Sight of the inquisitive 
 darky brought back too many memories. After the 
 woman had bid her a sweet good-bye, Marcy went to her 
 room and like an automaton thereafter slept and ate. 
 
 For four days on end she hardly stirred. Mentally and 
 physically she was inert. Life gave forth no vibrations 
 in her body or soul. No greater was her desire for a way 
 out of her dilemma than was her ability to choose that 
 pathway; just a dull ache from head to foot and a fast 
 withering of desire to live. Even what was labelled love 
 in her inner consciousness had foundered in a sea of pain- 
 ful reality. 
 
 Day and night she either lay on her bed or sat by the 
 low front window, swinging back and forth in a rocking 
 chair, neither thinking nor seeing, but swinging to and 
 fro, like a pendulum, as if certain hours must be swung 
 away before she could live again, or die. It was like an 
 atonement. 
 
 Many times during these hours Marcy thought in a 
 vague, inco-ordinated way, that she must die, which 
 usually ended with the self interrogation, "But why should 
 I die? He wouldn't care " 
 
 This was the order of her life until the fifth night after 
 Vernon's departure, when, automatically and with no rea- 
 son in her mind for doing so, she attired herself as for
 
 THE TAKER 277 
 
 some holiday jaunt, walked over to the subway station on 
 Broadway and down the steps to the platform, as if she 
 had some business or an actual engagement to attend to. 
 
 When the train reached Times Square, she came out 
 with the rest of the crowd and was soon up on the street 
 moving along with the restless throng. 
 
 She wondered a little why she had left the apartment, 
 although now there was a certain mocking cry way back 
 in her mind against her innocent pose, that told her the 
 only reason she had come out was the hope of catching a 
 glimpse of the man she loved. 
 
 At one huge hotel a policeman held her back while a 
 half dozen well-groomed women in shining gowns crossed 
 the path in front of her and entered waiting motor cars. 
 Further along the street she saw a young girl, quite her 
 own age, lifted into a car by a young man. The fellow 
 smiled up at the girl as he helped her, and Marcy saw 
 the girl, in a movement quick as the wind, brush a kiss 
 against the upturned face. 
 
 Marcy had a fight to keep from crying out. Why, 
 through no fault of her own, had she been robbed of all 
 future happiness? 
 
 And now Marcy walked along the lighted street more 
 hurriedly. It seemed to her as if she were tramping on 
 forbidden ground. Wondering if every one had money 
 and love that did not trouble them, she exclaimed aloud 
 bitterly as she walked: "Oh, what has he done to me? 
 Won't I ever be happy again?" She even tried to tell her- 
 self that when she went back to the little apartment Ver- 
 non would be awaiting her; that it had all been a wild 
 nightmare. Then, strangely she fell to speculating if it 
 were all her fault, if a girl like her had no right to the 
 happiness she had known.
 
 278 THE TAKER 
 
 It was under the lights of Columbus Circle that Marcy, 
 held back by a line of motor cars, caught a glimpse of 
 some women in evening dress in a limousine, smoking and 
 laughing gaily. As she watched, there crept into her 
 thoughts, even gripped at her heart, a solacing under- 
 standing of all this world of sham. 
 
 "I know," she told herself; "they're just too scared to 
 think about things." 
 
 Now she stopped in front of a brilliantly lighted res- 
 taurant above the Circle where a gold-bedecked porter 
 stood ready to open the door of each successive automo- 
 bile that came, a place where Vernon and she had had so 
 many happy times together. Strangely the place brought 
 back to her a whole succession of events quite from the 
 time she had so ignorantly married Lester Moore. 
 
 As Marcy stood there, looking in upon the crowd eat- 
 ing and drinking, a policeman came along and prodded 
 her with his nightstick. 
 
 "Get along, kid," he said. "Nothin* doing here." 
 
 When she failed to move, he took her arm and re- 
 peated hotly: "Do you hear?" 
 
 Marcy took hold of the thick fingers that squeezed her 
 arm and cried out angrily, "Why, I am only looking in." 
 
 But the officer laughed at her and muttered gruffly: 
 "Never mind the innocent game. Now get along." 
 
 And then a doll-like woman with golden hair and wide- 
 open eyes but with a face matured by wise wrinkles, step- 
 ped out of a car. She was accompanied by a tall man 
 muffled in a heavy evening coat. The policeman had al- 
 ready shoved Marcy out of the shadows of the restaurant, 
 but she was not too far away to look at the man, who for 
 a moment stopped to give an authoritative command to 
 the chauffeur.
 
 THE TAKER 279 
 
 It might have been Vernon from the way the man smiled, 
 so wistfully and father-like. 
 
 She could hardly restrain herself from running up and 
 looking into his face.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 THAT night Marcy sat in a rocker by the window and 
 wept all night. Her soul flooded with despair; she 
 felt it of no use to live on. However, toward morning, a 
 ray of hope did inject itself into her mired senses. And 
 then in a careless distorted scrawl made even worse by the 
 dim, early light coming into the room, she wrote : 
 
 "DEAR LEONARD: 
 
 "I know it's all over between us. But I j ust must see you 
 about something. I'll not beg you to come back for good. 
 But please, please, come this time. I can't tell you what it 
 will mean to me. 
 
 "Sincerely your friend, 
 
 "MARCY." 
 
 Only after she had posted it at the corner mailbox and 
 returned to the leather rocker, could she doze off into 
 sleep. 
 
 ... It was about seven o'clock the next evening that 
 Marcy heard some one fumbling at the bell, and ran to the 
 front window. Vernon was standing there, his finger press- 
 ing on the electric button. The thought stifled her that for 
 the first time he was not using his key. However, she con- 
 trolled herself and walked into the hall and opened the 
 door for him. 
 
 Vernon came in slowly, studied her silent gaze at him 
 and then walked into the front room. At first she could 
 
 280
 
 THE TAKER 281 
 
 not follow him, but when he sat in a chair, in fact the 
 same rocker where she kept her all-day vigil, she went in. 
 
 He looked up. "How are you getting along?" he asked. 
 
 His speech eased a little the tension between them. But 
 Marcy could think of no answer until she saw the soft 
 brown hat he was turning between his fingers. Then she 
 reached down, saying, "Won't you let me take your hat? 
 You can stay a while, can't you?" 
 
 When she walked into the hall, Vernon could not keep 
 his eyes from following her. Her little figure was still 
 as trim and straight as ever. He felt a little eased with 
 the idea that perhaps she had not suffered so much after 
 all. 
 
 Then Marcy came into the room again. In the hall she 
 had taken a hasty glance at the mirror and prayed that 
 the tears would stay back, so he would see that she wanted 
 to be reasonable and did not want to worry him. 
 
 She found him looking about the room, as if he were in 
 some strange place when she came back. She felt like 
 crying out: "I suppose you recognise things Lennie!" 
 but held herself. 
 
 For some time there was silence. Then he broke in 
 restrainedly : "You said in your note that there was some- 
 thing you wanted to see me about." 
 
 She looked down at the small rug in front of the grate. 
 He had plunged into the question without giving her 
 notice. 
 
 At last she muttered : "Well, I I am, oh, terribly un- 
 happy. I guess you know that." 
 
 "I thought you said you'd be sensible!" he exclaimed. 
 He even allowed a little anger to creep into his words. 
 After all, did she think he thought her happy? And he 
 knew he must not pity her. Pity pity that was what
 
 282 THE TAKER % 
 
 ruined so many men. And since they had gone contrary 
 to convention one at least had to suffer. He reflected 
 that that was better than both suffering 1 . 
 
 Looking at her trembling fingers which were twisting 
 frantically at a small veil of a handkerchief, he said : 
 
 "Now Marcy, it's no use for us to go over the whole 
 thing again. If there's anything I can do to make you 
 happy why just don't hesitate to ask. You know I 
 don't want to see you unhappy, don't you ?" 
 
 She smiled, and after a time gave a queer broken laugh. 
 "Then you don't want to see me unhappy?" 
 
 "Of course not; you're too sweet and good." 
 
 "You think so?" 
 
 "You know I do." 
 
 "Well " she hung on to the word before plunging 
 
 ahead. "Well, then, do something for me to help me 
 to keep me from being so terribly lonely." 
 
 Her actions were really puzzling. But Vernon made 
 up his mind to go directly to the point. Beating about 
 the bush might break open some hornet's nest of sentimen- 
 tality. He asked rather sternly: "What do you want, 
 Marcy? More money?" 
 
 She turned away. "Oh, not money. What does money 
 mean ?" 
 
 '"Then what do you want?" 
 
 She seemed to be undergoing a struggle. He could see 
 how the words were unable to form themselves. Suddenly 
 she drew her handkerchief to her face and sobbed : 
 
 "I I want a baby, Leonard." Then by a mighty ef- 
 fort she controlled herself and looked squarely at him. 
 "Oh, Lennie, if I had a baby I wouldn't be so lonely, and 
 I could think of you without you having to bother 
 about it."
 
 THE TAKER 283 
 
 He jumped from his chair and stared hard at her. At 
 the moment, he wondered if some one had been advising her. 
 Yes, it was surely that, he saw, for her own brain was too 
 feeble, too honest, perhaps, to conceive such a scheme. 
 
 He shouted, glaring at her, "What's your game, 
 Marcy?" 
 
 Only as a tremor encompassed her, horrible in its at- 
 tack, did he realise that from her this was neither intrigue 
 nor cunning. He knew her nature well enough for that. 
 
 So he went on more quietly, more gently, reflecting that 
 he must argue with her and get her to see how ridiculous 
 was her quest. 
 
 "Why, Marcy, child, you must think about what you're 
 saying. You're free now. You can do anything you 
 want to do. Anything you feel like. I'll see that you have 
 money enough. You know that. You can go down to At- 
 lantic City any place, but if you had a child " he 
 
 broke off imploringly, "Oh, Marcy, don't be so foolish !" 
 
 She began to sob now slowly but without much control. 
 
 "But, Lennie, I don't want to be free. That's just it. 
 I want something to own, to have to take care of to be 
 with me all the time. I want something to protect. Now, 
 it makes no difference whether I am dead or alive. And," 
 she hesitated, "I am afraid to go on like that." 
 
 For just a moment Vernon weakened. It was a strain 
 to see her beg and cry like this. Then she really would 
 give him no trouble. Her love for him would always pro- 
 tect him from that. And how beautiful and soft was her 
 little body. Good God, it wasn't easy ! But supposing 
 supposing he married again, as he intended to some 
 day, what then ? Yes ; then he would have to suffer years 
 of worry and trouble for just a moment of weakness and 
 sentiment. Like everybody else.
 
 284 THE TAKER 
 
 He cried out: 
 
 "No, Marcy, life's too rotten a business for anything 1 
 like that. You don't understand." 
 
 The aridity of his soul she could not understand, how- 
 ever. Arising from the floor she clutched at his coat col- 
 lar and arms. 
 
 "Listen, Lennie, please, please" she could see how he 
 was trying to shut his senses against her plea "Can't 
 you realise what it will mean? You want to be free. But 
 I don't. And this will take care of both of us. Lennie, 
 please please think my way, won't you?" 
 
 Even as he angrily tore away from her, she grasped his 
 hand and kissed it imploringly. But he exclaimed 
 angrily : 
 
 "Good God! You don't seem to have the least sense 
 about life or anything else. You've been reading stories, 
 I guess. But in real life things like that aren't done." 
 He took hold of her arms, embraced her in front of him. 
 "Now for God's sake try to be a sensible little girl. And 
 don't make it so hard for me." 
 
 He walked out into the hall. Her tears and her beauti- 
 ful pale face were beginning to have their effect on him. 
 But he saw a whole train of unhappiness stretching over 
 the years if he gave in now. 
 
 In the hall he waited a moment for her to follow. When 
 she did not come after him he walked back into the room 
 again, to where she was standing like some inanimate 
 figure of wax. 
 
 "Marcy," he said, "maybe I ought to make it a hundred 
 and a quarter. That'll be six thousand dollars a year. 
 What do you say?" 
 
 He studied for the effect of his words. And then when 
 she continued her frozen stare ahead of her, he said cas-
 
 THE TAKER 285 
 
 ually, deeming it best to leave her with this last thought 
 on her memory, "Now think about it and brace up." 
 
 When the door shut after him, Marcy sank onto the 
 floor near the divan and for hours lay numb, inert. 
 
 She was crushed completely. 
 
 All the frightful force of love's demands, of heart dis- 
 illusion the ferment of passion and compassion, battling 
 all crushed in at the flimsy husk that had sheltered her, 
 overwhelming her with a withering cross-fire of realisa- 
 tion. 
 
 Near midnight, however, a strange thing happened. 
 Suddenly the bitter suffering was erased, swept from her 
 mind as by some magic broom; when she uttered terrible 
 words of self-condemnation, the words were devoid of 
 meaning; when she repeated over and over words of pity 
 for her unhappy plight, they were meaningless like the 
 animated puppets of a marionette play that move and talk 
 but are propelled by some hidden unseen force. 
 
 The stupor passed off completely and other thoughts 
 came to her thoughts so distinct they almost had form. 
 She shrank back, not frightened but happy, pleased, 
 for the thoughts seemed to take form and stand in front 
 of her, beckoning with outstretched arms and dulcet 
 voices. 
 
 And Marcy rose from the floor, and, dazed, yet with an 
 infinite content soothing her heart, walked out of the 
 house and to the drugstore at the end of the block. 
 
 . . . When she came back to her bedroom she walked 
 firmly over to the mantel, placed on it what she had bought 
 at the drugstore and then took off her hat and coat. 
 
 For a time she sat at the window and then groped her
 
 286 THE TAKER 
 
 way over to the writing desk and took out a few sheets of 
 paper. 
 
 It took some effort to get the pen to the blank sheet 
 before her: 
 
 "I guess I'll go now. It's not terrible and I'm not unhappy 
 at all. I just feel glad, honestly I do. I used to want to 
 be happy in a different way. I used to think when I looked 
 at the birds sitting up in the trees in front of our house 
 that when I grew up I'd just fly any place I wanted to and 
 sing all the time. I guess my wings are cut, though. 
 
 "Anyway I'm not sad now. Honestly I'm not." 
 
 Marcy stopped her writing. Her heart was too full 
 to give expression to words. She could only look out 
 through the window. 
 
 It was one of those moonless nights that absorbs and 
 yet crystallises thought. 
 
 A mist, full of rainbow colours but impenetrable, began 
 to shroud everything. 
 
 "How wonderful it is!" she thought. "How wonder- 
 ful!" 
 
 She relaxed utterly. Joyful tears trickled down from 
 her closed lids. 
 
 She saw a little girl looking at birds. 
 
 Then there spread in front of her a wide expanse of 
 fields, dancing gaily in a dazzling sunlight. The flash of 
 sun on the horizon even blinded her but it drew her, too 
 . . . Eternal happiness . . . there . . . eternal sun- 
 shine. 
 
 "I'm coming now," said Marcy. 
 
 She rose and walked over to the bottle she had pur- 
 chased at the drugstore.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 T) EMORSE filled Vernon from the moment he left 
 " ^ Marcy's side. All night she stood before his eyes, 
 a beautiful, sensitive, tender-hearted child, begging him to 
 be kind to her. He tried to do several things to get her off 
 his mind. He called up Edna Mason at the Pranton. He 
 bought tickets for a musical comedy at the Globe, and 
 then at the last minute called her up and told her busi- 
 ness had detained him. Then deciding that he had best go 
 anyway, and had only wanted to be alone, he took a taxi to 
 the theatre, and was already in the orange lighted lobby 
 when he realised he couldn't go in. He ended up by 
 going to his apartment and sitting rigidly in a chair at 
 the window and looking down on to Broadway till all the 
 signs had closed their blinking messages for the night. 
 
 It was at about five o'clock the next afternoon that he 
 received a telephone message from Mrs. Ranier. 
 
 "The woman wants to talk to you on private business," 
 the operator said. When he was connected a tremulous, 
 sobbing voice cried : 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Vernon, I am very nervous about Mrs. the 
 Mrs. yes, she confided in me. This is Mrs. Ranier 
 who lives across the hall. I've tried to be a friend to the 
 poor little girl. But you'd better come right away. I've 
 knocked on the door a dozen times and can't get any 
 answer. She ran out about noon time and I saw her come 
 in. I know she hasn't left the house since." 
 
 287
 
 288 THE TAKER 
 
 In less than fifteen minutes Vernon was standing at 
 Marcy's door, hysterically shaking the knob and knock- 
 ing, with Mrs. Ranier, in a soft blue dressing robe, crying 
 at his side and holding on to his arm. 
 
 "Why, she couldn't have harmed herself," cried Ver- 
 non. "My darling little girl." 
 
 His face was white, nearly grey, the pupils of his eyes 
 were large and staring, his mouth infirm and drooping at 
 the corners. At once he seemed to have grown ten years 
 older. 
 
 At last, with a hysterical shove, he threw his whole 
 weight against the door and it gave way. 
 
 Marcy lay on the floor in the dark room. Her legs 
 were drawn up and twisted; her arms outstretched in a 
 rigid curve; every feature of her face distorted by the 
 same sinister instrument. 
 
 On the floor lay an empty bottle with a red label. 
 
 Vernon suddenly stooped down, took the dead body in 
 his arms and in a hoarse voice that was more of an im- 
 ploring wail, cried at the lifeless eyes and mouth: 
 
 "What have you done my little Marcy my love my 
 sweetheart my whole life!" 
 
 He went on that way for a long time, until Mrs. Ranier, 
 fearing he would lose his mind, stopped him, and gently 
 led him across the hall into her apartment and placed him 
 on the sofa in the front room. 
 
 "You must think of yourself a little," she said tenderly.
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 T EONARD left Mrs. Ranier's apartment at five 
 * ^ o'clock in the morning. All night he mourned his 
 loss. His suffering was intense and the little woman did 
 all she could think of to ease him. She told him how it 
 was only Fate that had control of life, and that he mustn't 
 think he was to blame. 
 
 But he only threw out his arms and in one outburst 
 after another of hysterical remorse, cried: 
 
 "Oh, my poor little darling my little darling if I 
 had only known I" 
 
 And then he would moan for some time after "She's 
 gone from me. Oh, what will I do?" 
 
 Never in all the days of Marcy's pathetically short life 
 had he recognised the wealth of beauty in soul and body 
 that he saw now was taken from him forever. 
 
 When Mrs. Ranier pushed him out into the street, after 
 he had mumbled that they must meet again, Leonard felt 
 as if he were stepping out into a world that held forth 
 nothing but emptiness. The little middle-aged woman's 
 affectionate solacing had only been another horror. 
 
 It was a clear morning, just between night and day 
 when the darkness was creeping down the long street, like 
 some frightened marauder. Without fog or dampness, 
 there was still a wet glistening surface on the roofs and 
 pavements, left over from a fine, thin rain that had fallen 
 during the night. 
 
 289
 
 290 THE TAKER 
 
 For some time he stood in front of the apartment look- 
 ing toward the river, lost in a dull stupor. 
 
 Then a taxi-cab darted into the street from Riverside 
 Drive and he stopped it and got inside. When the driver 
 opened the door before starting and questioned him, it 
 took some time for him to understand what was wanted. 
 Then he said: 
 
 "Go on go on anywhere." 
 
 The man leaned back on his seat with the evident under- 
 standing that he would have trouble with his fare, while 
 Leonard sat back into the corner, crushing against the 
 cushions, inert and feebly trying to shut out all the agon- 
 ising thoughts that flew to his mind. 
 
 But as the rattling vehicle swung along, dis j ointedly, 
 he couldn't keep from reviewing the entire situation. 
 
 It was all somewhat hazy though he could peer into the 
 future well enough to see its outlines as one views a 
 statue through a cloth covering. 
 
 And all he could see was future loneliness. 
 
 Visions of to-morrow confronted him relentlessly, like 
 wax figures endowed with life, parading before his imagi- 
 nation. 
 
 Again and again he thought: 
 
 "Oh, why didn't I know? I can't live without her." 
 
 Then the chauffeur turned and swung down Broadway, 
 which was now beginning to take on again its early-morn- 
 ing life. And mechanically Vernon looked out of the cab 
 window and began reading the signs : 
 
 "JOHNSON AND MATTHEWS, Florists," "I. MAYER, 
 Clothier and Men's Furnishings," "THE JEWEL CANDY 
 STORE." 
 
 He remembered how Marcy had looked up into his eyes 
 and begged him to be kind to her.
 
 THE TAKER 291 
 
 A man groped his way out of an apartment house, 
 drunk, walked a few steps, than sunk down into a vesti- 
 bule. 
 
 "At least he doesn't know what's happening," thought 
 Leonard. "And I do. Oh, my God, I do !" 
 
 Why was it that people could get drunk, carouse, steal, 
 cheat mistreat life brutally and yet never bring any 
 suffering on themselves ; while he, so careful to do what 
 was always honest and fair, was continually suffering loss 
 and disappointment?
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 LEONARD came onto many new philosophies during 
 the next days, seeking out all who would listen to him 
 and his story of woe and misfortune. And he was sur- 
 prised, indeed, to realise how unsympathetic people were 
 and how little they took his troubles to heart, after they 
 had rid themselves of their own particular worriment and 
 ideas about life. 
 
 For the first time in his life, he found, with surprise, 
 that nearly every one had some kind of faith or creed that 
 pacified them and gave them strength to go on. 
 
 And at last, over a week after Marcy's death, he came 
 to believe, mostly through a man he had been referred to 
 by a customer from Ft. Wayne, Indiana, and partly by 
 reading, that one thing was definite and certain. It was 
 this : His happiness in life had been at the mercy of an- 
 other. He had been a slave. And God had created man 
 to be his own master. 
 
 After that came another problem which he pondered 
 over continually at the office or in his new rooms at the 
 Claridgc. 
 
 God! Who what was God? 
 
 Which took him some few days of further analysis and 
 delving. And he wouldn't let up. Somehow he found 
 that a definite understanding of life was necessary be- 
 fore he could go on. Otherwise the futility of his trying 
 to live was too apparent. 
 
 Strangely he had always talked about God, and felt he 
 
 292
 
 THE TAKER 293 
 
 must do right because God was watching. Yet he had 
 never questioned what God meant or was until now. Of 
 course times were too modern to think of accepting the 
 religious interpretation of his mother. That was too old- 
 fashioned and lacking in modern development. 
 
 It was really bewildering. As the man had said, God 
 was back of everything. Of course there was proof of 
 creation all about flowers, forests, people. And every 
 one talked of God and felt that on Him depended their 
 life. There must be a God who watched over him; per- 
 haps who knew his suffering. Perhaps it was as the man 
 had said "God is a principle the first principle of life." 
 
 And there he stopped, for a few more days. 
 
 If God was the principle of life, the scheme of creation, 
 why had he been allowed to suffer so and make so many 
 mistakes? He began to believe a little more what had been 
 told him. The truth was that he was created by this 
 principle, and had not accepted its creed. He, in him- 
 self, was the perfect thing since God had made him per- 
 fect, made him in His own image. He could only control 
 the one perfect being then his own. He, himself, was 
 God, and perfect unto himself. And he could do no wrong 
 unless he worshipped some other god some other be- 
 ing than his own. One could only control one's own life. 
 And he had tried to control another's. She, or her mind, 
 which was the only perfection he had worshipped, and 
 tried to control. While all the time she was living in her 
 own world. They really had nothing to do with each 
 other. 
 
 Thoughts like this came to be part of Vernon's days 
 now. He saw he must solve the riddle before life would 
 ever again have value for him. 
 
 Then came another stumbling block.
 
 294 THE TAKER 
 
 He had been happy with IVlarcy. And suddenly this 
 was all taken away from him, when he had wanted it 
 otherwise. Was it really as the man had told him that 
 he had been allowing himself to be at the mercy of the 
 physical, the material which had no life? 
 
 Had God seen fit to prove to him that he, Leonard Ver- 
 non, was really idolatrous, worshipping false gods, when 
 he should have been worshipping himself? 
 
 The man who told him this had a long, thin face, but 
 as he talked his eyes lit up and his countenance became 
 wreathed in a peaceful smile. And he seemed to have 
 proof for everything he said and was so emphatic about it. 
 
 Vernon sought him out again. In fact he could hardly 
 wait till the elevator let him off at the twelfth floor in the 
 building where the man had his little office and gave les- 
 sons in "Mental Healing." 
 
 "I was just passing," said Leonard, "and thought I 
 would drop in and pay you a little visit." 
 
 He was motioned to a seat and there seemed real joy 
 on the man's face as he said: "I'm so glad you've come. 
 I've been thinking a lot about you." Then he added, 
 "You're looking much better, too." 
 
 "Yes I I believe I am getting hold of something. I 
 seem to feel that there is a sort of background to life 
 that I never felt before." 
 
 The man's eyes fired again. "Fine !" came the exclama- 
 tion. Then he handed Leonard a Bible and asked him to 
 read a passage on one of its pages. As if to give more 
 significance to the act, he sat back while Leonard was al- 
 lowed to find the page for himself. 
 
 And Leonard read therein how one must not worship 
 false gods, or the physical manifestations that trod the 
 earth's soil. Somehow the truth of what had been troub-
 
 THE TAKER 295 
 
 ling him was revealed. And the words he read were a 
 direct explanation of what God was. God was as he had 
 been told before the Spirit of him Leonard Vernon. 
 Leonard Vernon in spirit was God. 
 
 They talked for over an hour in the little office-like 
 room. When Leonard rose to leave the man said: 
 
 "My friend, you've been trying to run your own life. 
 Now, why not accept what is the only perfect truth and 
 be happy?" 
 
 Leonard felt much better and happier as he shot down 
 with the elevator and out into the sunlight of Fifth Ave- 
 nue. He saw that he or rather the spirit of himself was 
 a perfect thing wrought by an All-knowing and wise Prin- 
 ciple that could make nothing wrong. Therefore, he could 
 do no wrong. Hereafter he would renounce all allegiance 
 to the physical expression of things just know that he 
 was part of the great Principle that gave and governed all 
 life and be satisfied. Yes, he was learning at forty. 
 
 But what difference did age make, if it were only the 
 spirit the mental life that was important? One could 
 shrink up from age and still be young and content if the 
 mind did not go worshipping other creeds seeking in 
 physical forests where it would be lost and had no busi- 
 ness to wander. What the mind wanted, the mind could 
 have. 
 
 That was easy. 
 
 Since it regulated its own dreams. 
 
 To thought, all manner of thought was possible, since 
 one only had to think to obtain. And he had gone for 
 years hoping that Chance and Opportunity and Circum- 
 stance would fix things so he could be happy. When it 
 was all within his power in the instant.
 
 296 THE TAKER 
 
 How truly wonderful ! A life organised in such a man- 
 ner could have no mishap or misery. 
 
 What fools people were, anyway worshipping youth 
 or the material expression of youth when youth dried 
 up and died. Of course he had been worshipping a false 
 god. He had been an idolater. He should have worship- 
 ped himself. He and God were one. 
 
 So Leonard Vernon grew more cheerful. With his new 
 understanding he began to eat again and sleep and go to 
 the office and to the theatre and talk to Whittimore about 
 the business. 
 
 And he did not want to go out in the company of 
 others. 
 
 He was such good company for himself, now. Always 
 he had something to think about and work out a delight- 
 ful companion for himself. 
 
 He had never been able to do this before in all his life. 
 
 He had always been dependent upon others Jennie, 
 Mabel Marcy. 
 
 What a fool he had been ! 
 
 One evening, just as they were leaving the office, he 
 told Whittimore about his theories. He related, too, what 
 conclusions he had come to, and how he was no longer 
 obedient to the capriciousness of chance. He told how he 
 ruled his days now, his desires, his destiny. And how 
 easy it was, all resting simply in one's mental understand- 
 ing of what life really was. "You know," he said, "now, 
 I understand what has been wrong with me my whole life." 
 
 But Whittimore, he found, obtained his happiness by 
 a process of simplification, or elimination, which could 
 never satisfy any thinking person. That was more like a 
 child's way of life without the labor of philosophy. And 
 he told Vernon that his search was like people who never
 
 THE TAKER 297! 
 
 hunted for facts, but always for some confirmation of a 
 prejudice. 
 
 "You are like I used to be, Vernon," he said. "It took 
 me a long time to discover that I was only mimicking life, 
 believing myself intelligent about things, when in reality 
 I was only thinking that I thought. I was a fake philoso- 
 pher." He laughed as if he were ashamed of his past 
 stupidity, then went on: "And of course the sad part of 
 it all was that whenever I blundered, I had to pay the 
 same price as the vicious. Yes," he went on, "I, like you, 
 had the wrong idea. I had the bachelor's fear of making 
 things fixed. I was always sounding the depths of my af- 
 fections. I used to look at love as if it were a sort of ocean 
 into which I could dive and get that wonderful afterglow 
 peace, contentment, thrilling happiness.'* 
 
 Leonard became eager to have him go on. "How about 
 now?" he asked. 
 
 "Well, I've since found out that love is a sort of taber- 
 nacle, where you house your thoughts a roof over your 
 head if you are willing to live under it. You don't exult, 
 but neither are you exposed to the elements." Looking 
 at Vernon, he pointed out: "Maybe that's your trouble. 
 You never want to go inside and you don't want to stay 
 outside." 
 
 "I've been inside all my life. That's the trouble," Leon- 
 ard objected. 
 
 Whittimore smiled. "Maybe that's been your trouble. 
 When you do go inside, you leave the door open, so you 
 can get out quickly. And the elements get you just the 
 same. You see what I mean?" he asked. 
 
 While Leonard listened earnestly, Whittimore went on 
 to tell him that all this analysing was a mistake. 
 
 "You see, you have to work too hard to get anything,"
 
 298 THE TAKER 
 
 he said. "I'm not going to bother my head with all this 
 figuring out what life means. I used to be that way and 
 I learned my lesson. It's no use." 
 
 Vernon interjected: "You don't know what a revela- 
 tion it is, Whittimore !" 
 
 "My God! I'm afraid there is some sort of after-life. 
 And if there is, I certainly don't want to learn about it in 
 this existence. Think what a contemplation that would 
 be having to live all over again what we've been through 
 once." 
 
 **You're making fun of it," Vernon exclaimed restlessly. 
 "You don't understand." 
 
 "I believe I understand enough. It's no use to be seri- 
 ous over anything except the very little things. And they 
 don't matter. The big things are too big to be serious 
 over, and beyond any control of ours, anyway. So worry- 
 ing about them would make no difference. That's my 
 philosophy. All I want to be is happy." 
 
 "But that's all I want, too. Only I can't accept any- 
 thing so ignorantly." 
 
 It was Whittimore's turn to look at his friend in a sur- 
 prised way: "Now, just what difference can it make?" he 
 argued. "We both arrive at the same result content- 
 ment. And you have to work so hard for it." Then an- 
 other thought came to him. "And I can have so much 
 more fun than you can, too, Vernon." There was a sly 
 sparkle in his eyes. "You see, women are pretty good 
 company. Now, with all this this self-abnegation of 
 yours, you'll have to cut them out, won't you? Or else 
 see them without any emotion, whatever which would be 
 just lying to yourself and absolutely physical then." 
 
 There was a long silence. At last Vernon faltered: 
 "Well, you're not telling me anything new. I've been a
 
 THE TAKER 299 
 
 slave to the material all my life. And it never was the 
 complete thing for me." 
 
 However, it was an angle that required investigation. 
 If he were true to his new understanding, then being with 
 the opposite sex would and could never mean anything 
 more to him. He would have to go through life without 
 that sort of emotion the emotion that comes of love, 
 physical love. In other words he must never recognise 
 material beauty any more. That would not be easy. What 
 else was there to be interested in? 
 
 What would life mean living like that? Emotion and 
 life were synonymous. 
 
 He must find some other philosophy something which 
 could have the spiritual in it and yet permit the recog- 
 nition of the material beauty on earth. That's what 
 beauty was put on earth for. 
 
 And so Leonard came on to many more theories and 
 schemes of life. It became a habit with him to entice 
 others into conversation along these lines. He ran the 
 gamut from the elevator man to the stenographer. 
 
 All had been disappointed in some way or another, and 
 yet were living on. 
 
 And more and more he found how wrong he had been 
 to think that one could go on just living without examin- 
 ing the facts of life. He always had been content to know 
 that there was some sort of explanation of life which took 
 care of itself. He had felt that to stay on the safe side 
 was simply a question of not doing a wrong that could be 
 pointed out to his own conscience. He must always escape 
 suffering the retribution in mental agony that comes 
 to the guilty. He remembered now how many times he had 
 hesitated to do what seemed wrong, until he had found a 
 reason that he could explain to his own mind for so doing.
 
 300 
 
 Anyhow, everybody seemed to join one or another of 
 these armies of life-analysers at their first disappointment. 
 
 Some days later, the chemist from the Hastings factory 
 came in and lunched with him at the Astor. It took Ver- 
 non no longer than fifteen minutes after the waiter had 
 taken their order, to get at the theories of his spectacled- 
 eyed employee. 
 
 "You see, Mr. Vernon, we have a theory of anti-bodies, 
 like the proven theory of anti-toxins, now haven't we? 
 Well, just so is there a scheme of anti-souls where every- 
 body is a being waiting for its other being, or rather soul, 
 to make it complete. In other words, one can only be- 
 come a complete entity through its soul finding its other 
 half." He explained further that it took tremendous un- 
 derstanding on the spiritual plane to unite these anti-souls 
 and fix them forever after. 
 
 The conversation lasted until four o'clock in the after- 
 noon, and the little man went to a bewildering depth into 
 all the things that had so worried Leonard. 
 
 "There is an after life and a before life on earth," he 
 said. "Or, better, there is no death. And no one could 
 ever stay departed unless we were not matched with 
 them in soul-spirit and did not seek them after the death 
 of their material bodies." It was amazing indeed. 
 
 There was a scheme of reincarnation, Leonard learned, 
 definitely proven, which he had heard so much about and 
 paid so little attention to. But it was a fact that he, 
 Leonard Vernon, the millionaire, had had a previous life 
 and pleasures and sorrows utterly away from the glass 
 industry. And he would never really die. 
 
 "Why, Mr. Vernon," the man went on seriously, "you, 
 can disassociate yourself if you want, from all this ma-
 
 THE TAKER 301 
 
 terial life, and become a spectator away and above this 
 earthly turmoil." 
 
 "Where do these people live?" Leonard asked. It 
 seemed he had caught the man at his own game. 
 
 "There are spiritual cities in amongst our own cities, 
 where the highest development of vibration is reached 
 cities peopled with these spirit persons above and through 
 New York and Chicago and Philadelphia. It is only the 
 developed seekers, however, who have communion with 
 them, people who have attained the secret of vibrating in 
 communion with these spirits." 
 
 The little man ended up by saying in a very authorita- 
 tive manner: 
 
 "I want to tell you, Mr. Vernon, that sooner or later 
 the world will accept this new idea. They will learn why 
 geniuses are born and why others are stupid. And they 
 will not be so scared of this horrifying physical life. It 
 is surely destined to be the great idea of this century, 
 even as the idea of evolution transformed the conceptions 
 of the last century. If this re-birth of the soul is not 
 a vital truth, then the idea of reincarnation could not 
 have endured for so many thousands of years, and at- 
 tracted and held some seven hundred millions of human 
 beings. I know," he went on, "it won't be so long before 
 we accept this truth just as we do now the law of gravity." 
 
 And then he spoke in phrases that left Leonard com- 
 pletely at sea. He told how the Christian Master ap- 
 proached the ancient city of Caesarea Philippi, in Pales- 
 tine, nestling on the slopes of Mount Hermon, and asked 
 the disciples if they knew who He was. And He had asked 
 this because His disciples had thought Him so many dif- 
 ferent persons John the Baptist, who had been beheaded, 
 Jeremiah, Elias, and others.
 
 302 THE TAKER 
 
 Then came legends sung in the Sagas of the Northmen 
 and spread with the legends of the Gauls ; the mystic lore 
 of the Druids ; stories of the Gnostics, the Neo-Platonists. 
 
 Leonard could hardly get away from him. 
 
 But somehow Leonard left him with a feeling that the 
 anti-body, somehow or other, had a certain value, if not 
 exactly in the manner presented to him. 
 
 Wasn't it true that people, men and women, were only 
 really complete individuals, mentally and physically, when 
 they found their mates? 
 
 Look at himself! 
 
 Wasn't he only really half a being? 
 
 And hadn't he been searching all his life for his other 
 half? Without knowing it, he had been at the secret of 
 his trouble for years. Companionship and sympathy was 
 life. And that could only come from some one else the 
 anti-soul. People who were then happily completed did 
 not have to seek any longer. They were finished with their 
 work. They were content, which proved the fact. 
 
 The natural law was right and helped to prove this, 
 too. God had given sex these halves and given each an 
 individual beauty, attractive to the other half. He had 
 been right in sensing all his life the fact that his other 
 part was contained in the soul of some beautiful young 
 woman. And he had been wanting to fool himself by mak- 
 ing this a product of his imagination when the thing was 
 really tangible so far as a soul could be. 
 
 All this deduction took place in Leonard's mind on the 
 evening of the Tuesday that he had lunched with his chem- 
 ist. 
 
 Until Friday, Leonard spent the time in talking to 
 others, as if he believed one or all of these different
 
 THE TAKER 303 
 
 schemes, as if he had fathomed the mysteries of this spirit- 
 ual life. 
 
 Also, he noticed that talking about these psychic mys- 
 teries gave him a certain degree of importance. 
 
 Until Friday came, when thoughts of Marcy and how 
 near she had come to completing his life, troubled him 
 more than ever. Through the columns of "The World," 
 he sought out a spiritualistic healer, Madame Eloise, who 
 held forth on Seventh Avenue near Forty-seventh Street. 
 He read that hers was the power to dip into the spiritual 
 cities and bring out the lost one in thought and voice. 
 But his determination faltered as he wended his way 
 through a long narrow hall that went back for a hundred 
 feet or more before a series of steps led him to the "Heal- 
 er's" residence. 
 
 It was a weird few minutes for him. Immediately on 
 entering the stuffy room, he became hot and nervous. 
 There was hardly a vacant space where his eyes could rest. 
 Faded pictures of saints, painted upon parched-looking 
 deerskins, crowded upon figures laboriously wrought in 
 wood that pictured the crucified Nazarene, and votive 
 offerings in dull, tarnished silver were spread out care- 
 lessly on a tapestry-covered table before an indentation in 
 the wall masquerading as a shrine. 
 
 He held on to his seat in the dimly lighted room until 
 the Madame entered, a fat waddling woman with a 
 strangely bored expression on her face. 
 
 Then he was about to rise, but the woman stopped him, 
 saying: 
 
 "A little coloured girl named Nanny will put us in com- 
 munion with 'the other side.' ' 
 
 Leonard's throat burned with dryness as he at last ad- 
 mitted that he would like to speak with Marcy.
 
 304 THE TAKER 
 
 It seemed only an instant when a thin piping voice said : 
 
 "Everything is well and I am happy and always with 
 you." 
 
 With a cold perspiration blinding him, Leonard threw 
 a bill to the woman and ran from the place. 
 
 After that Leonard closed his mind to the whole tribe 
 of esoteric cult that had touched him astrological, Rosi- 
 crucian, spiritualistic, neo-alchemy. 
 
 Of what good was it, even if true, to converse with 
 Marcy in spirit, when he would give ten years of his life 
 to be able just to kiss her wonderful lips? 
 
 He was lonelier than ever. And filled with regret. 
 
 He had really learned too much about the mysteries of 
 life.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 A MONTH after Marcy's death, Vernon obliged 
 Whittimore by calling up Edna Mason, who for over 
 two weeks had been entertaining Mrs. Bellamy and her 
 beautiful daughter, Charline. 
 
 He had himself well in hand, too. Deep in him he felt 
 that here perhaps was the fate awaiting him that he had 
 pictured. However, it was not easy to subdue the memory 
 of Marcy. He reflected continuously, as he went up in 
 the mirrored elevator, how she had been with him on his 
 last visit. 
 
 Miss Mason greeted him warmly and then introduced 
 him to Mrs. Bellamy, whom he found as a charming, sym- 
 pathetic woman, somewhere near forty. From the moment 
 he took her hand, this woman, so kind and gracious, an 
 ideal sort of mother, beamed on him, and he saw that she 
 liked and admired him. 
 
 But Charline attracted him from the moment she came 
 in the room. A tall, fair, beautiful young girl, with all 
 the full development of Marcy and hair of the most lus- 
 trous golden brown he had ever seen. The moment he 
 touched her gentle flesh, he saw that she was the waiting 
 one there was a tightening of the fibres of his heart 
 strange spasms shot through him holding him taut. 
 
 It was only when they sat down and indulged in con- 
 versation which he could hardly follow for looking at 
 her, that he saw that her eyes were not quite as soft and 
 gentle in their message as were Marcy's, but were every 
 bit as inviting. 
 
 305
 
 306 THE TAKER 
 
 She was very friendly, too. In fact, all three women 
 seemed bent on being kind to him. 
 
 "I just ran over," said Leonard, with a sweeping 
 elance, that started and finished with Charline, "to see 
 
 o 
 
 Miss Mason's charming visitors." 
 
 Though Edna disappointed him a little when she said 
 to Mrs. Bellamy : 
 
 "I've so wanted Mr. Vernon to meet you, Dehlia, He 
 is New York's most charming man." 
 
 But they talked on through a variety of subjects that 
 never wandered very far from polite commonplaceness, 
 until Leonard saw that it would be clever to abruptly 
 leave. 
 
 So he shook hands, first with Edna and then with Mrs. 
 Bellamy. When he took the hand of Charline he looked 
 deep in her eyes. It took all the manacles of his experi- 
 ence to make him understand that silence was far better 
 at the moment than the sweetest greeting he could give 
 her. 
 
 He left the apartment, feeling as if the world had 
 suddenly offered to him the prize he had waited for. 
 
 When he entered his bath before dinner he was more 
 alive and had a wealth of vitality and energy that bewil- 
 dered him. When he closed his bathroom door the sensa- 
 tion of being so fresh and supple went to his head. He was 
 like an athlete who had just finished some victorious race. 
 He stripped off his clothes, taking dance steps as he un- 
 dressed. 
 
 It was as if this Charline would dramatise for him all 
 the ambitions of his lost youth. He was flooded with the 
 ecstasy of it. 
 
 Deciding that he would choose Delmonico's, rather 
 than stay at the Claridge, he finished his dressing and
 
 THE TAKER 307 
 
 walked up to Forty-fifth Street. It was delicious even to 
 walk, and he swung along buoyantly, young, fluttering 
 with anticipated emotion. 
 
 At Fifth Avenue, he stopped before crossing just to 
 drink in the glory of it all. Everything had an unnatural 
 attractiveness. The fading daylight had a softness, as it 
 lit up the streets and windows, as if it had been filtered 
 through soft glass, and was caressing only its favourites. 
 Everybody that passed him had a luminous joy in their 
 eyes. 
 
 How different the past seemed, too. Now he could 
 look at all the past misfortunes, as one peers through 
 the small end of an opera-glass. The importance of 
 things that formerly had so controlled him, he could now 
 shove away, until their definiteness, though still with the 
 same detail, was too far away to even bother him again. 
 In fact, he could dare to exteriorise for the first time, a 
 Leonard Vernon free from all barriers to happiness and 
 much more clever than the old one. 
 
 He made his way to the entrance of the restaurant. 
 
 But even at dinner he was so ecstatic he could hardly 
 finish his meal. 
 
 He reflected over what a beautiful name the child had. 
 Charline. He could already see her as his wife. She had 
 manner, poise, cleverness everything. And such beauty ! 
 And what a wonderful, graceful body ! 
 
 Over his demi-tasse and on the back of his menu card, 
 oblivious to the orchestra or the people around him, he 
 began a poem that was only finished at two o'clock in 
 the morning, as he paced his room in his pajamas, look- 
 ing out over the darkened signs of Broadway. 
 
 From the multitude of scribbled papers, he made out 
 the following:
 
 308 THE TAKER 
 
 "The city lies between us, dear, 
 Street after street, 
 
 And hosts of gray mortar and dull concrete 
 Separate us, like mountainous walls 
 Impenetrable. 
 Yet I find your beauteous face before me. 
 
 "The city lies between us, dear, 
 My eyes o'erlook 
 
 A hundred thousand restless, moving things, 
 Where as many destinies are being woven 
 By the Mystic Hand. 
 Yet I find my wandering spirit is at rest." 
 
 He was on the point of mailing it when he saw that it 
 would be much more effective if he should read it in a soft, 
 well-modulated voice. 
 
 Leonard's sleep that night was the most satisfying he 
 had had in many months. When he awoke in the morn- 
 ing he could not help remarking to himself how fresh he 
 looked and how clear were his eyes. And during the day 
 he took especial care with his appearance. After shav- 
 ing he used for the first time a dark flesh-coloured talcum, 
 which a druggist had persuaded him gave a more healthy 
 appearance to the skin, and just after lunch, attracted by 
 a sign in a drugstore across from the hotel, he entered 
 and purchased a vial of an imported brilliantine, which 
 "gave the hair a natural and youthful lustre." 
 
 He called at the Pranton at tea-time. Edna and Char- 
 line, he found, were out for a walk in the park and had 
 not yet returned. However, he held out as long as he 
 could, answering nearly in monosyllables the conversation 
 which Mrs. Bellamy was amazed to find was boring him. 
 
 At last he remarked : "I hope Charline your daughter
 
 THE TAKER 309 
 
 returns before I go. You know, I am quite enamoured 
 with her, Mrs. Bellamy." 
 
 Indeed, he was disappointed to find this did not bring 
 her the pleasure he anticipated. Somehow he noticed 
 a queer drooping of the woman's eyes and mouth as she 
 replied: "Yes, Charline is an unusual little person." 
 
 "I am sure she is," he added exultantly, so that she 
 would be sure beyond a doubt of his feelings. 
 
 Then, in the hall, came a slamming of the elevator 
 door and Charline, enveloped in a long blue coat thrown 
 about her shoulders in military fashion, came in with 
 Edna. 
 
 "Oh, how do you do, Mr. Vernon?" she said cordially. 
 
 And life was again worth the living. The sparkle in 
 her eyes seemed to shoot pointed darts of enticement in 
 his direction. Then after a few minutes in an adjoining 
 room, she came in and again sat down by his side, while 
 Mrs. Bellamy with a vague excuse that she must help 
 Edna left the room. Leonard felt the touch of Charline's 
 delicately fragranced person with an intoxication of bliss. 
 
 And the bit of poetry was in his inner pocket. 
 
 When Charline exclaimed: 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Vernon, we talked about you half the night 
 last night ! You've certainly made a hit with mother." 
 
 Vernon looked at her, startled. He was unable to 
 keep back the exclamation of his surprise : 
 
 "With mother!" 
 
 He faltered on : "Why, how old do you think I am ?" 
 
 She studied him for some time. Out in the kitchen 
 (dishes were rattling, intermingling with a rather whis- 
 pered conversation. 
 
 "Well, I guess you are about fifty."
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 LEONARD VERNON felt sleep impossible that night. 
 Walking on the carpeted floor, he fought all the 
 anguishing thoughts that seemed to have returned with 
 more ardour than ever. He could not help comparing 
 Marcy with the blonde-haired child of the afternoon. 
 And one he found was wise and worldly and clever and 
 irritating, while the other a gracious gift of God to man 
 was wholesome and real and lovable. And she was 
 lost to him forever. Never again, as long as he was on 
 earth, would there be that sweetness for him that she 
 had given him. Never again would such eyes look into 
 his eyes, and such lips press against his lips with a mes- 
 sage that gave all and asked no return but love. 
 
 Life w^s over for him. There was no use to lie about 
 it to himself. She had been the other part of him and 
 had been taken away. Half of him was dead. The other 
 [half must follow. Perhaps they might be united in 
 some other life. But this earthly existence was fin- 
 ished. He would go on seeking, but he would never 
 find. 
 
 And as he had done as a boy, Leonard sat down in 
 a chair by the window and leaned his head on his hands 
 while bitter tears filled his eyes and ran down on to 
 his cheeks. 
 
 Near early dawn, he resolved upon death. 
 
 Life uncompleted had no worth. There was no reason 
 for his existence. Unfinished men like himself had no 
 value on earth. 
 
 310
 
 THE TAKER 311 
 
 Soon he would be going around hunting for a kind 
 word. 
 
 Leonard became quite tranquil at this new decision. 
 Just deciding to take this step, suddenly offered to him 
 the first relief he had ever known. He could stare out 
 of the windows now and look up Broadway with its lines 
 of piercing street lights without each one seeming a mock- 
 ing face grinning at his misery. 
 
 He decided to kill himself, quietly, as if it were a long- 
 sought-for solution a noble ending, not pausing to re- 
 flect that it would be the end, his eternal farewell to earth 
 and to life. 
 
 Then he thought about how he could accomplish it. 
 He quickly rid himself of the idea of a revolver. One 
 had to have a steady hand and take a sort of aim and 
 pull a trigger. It was mechanical. 
 
 He thought of poison. But what kind of poison? Car- 
 bolic acid might do it. But he had read enough of the 
 agonising death brought by its corrosive action. That 
 was the common way, too. Every one used it. 
 
 Good God! 
 
 Mabel Marcy ! ! 
 
 It took him some time to get back to his original idea. 
 Until he found he was getting nervous and must decide 
 on something quickly. 
 
 He thought of chloroform. Just that day he had read 
 how a young fellow had managed to kill himself with the 
 anaesthetic. The paper had commented that this was an 
 unusual death self-asphyxiation by this method. It had 
 been proven nearly impossible unless the patient had a 
 weak heart. And then the heart collapsed. Otherwise, 
 the article had said, death was impossible because air 
 became mixed with the gas, and it could be carried in no
 
 312 THE TAKER 
 
 other way; in fact, the power was lost to do it by 
 muscular numbness, before the thing could be carried 
 through. 
 
 He thought about it. 
 
 A doctor had told him he had a weak heart, he re- 
 membered, some years before. Though at the age of 
 seventeen he had had quite a bloody operation for ade- 
 noids under an anaesthetic. And the doctor had told him 
 then that his heart was sound. 
 
 Certainly it would be the pleasantest way he could 
 think of. 
 
 The matter was settled. He would make out his will 
 in the morning, leaving everything to charity. 
 
 The joy of living was in creating and giving as he 
 had read some place. 
 
 Though now he was dying. 
 
 Perhaps he should have thought of that before. Per- 
 haps that was the secret of happiness. Anyway, it was 
 too late now. 
 
 He would get a list of hospitals and let his lawyer 
 divide it between them equally. Yes, he had nearly for- 
 gotten Jennie. He would leave her half. It was a 
 nice thing to do, too. About the first time he had ever 
 done anything for her. 
 
 Then he would get the chloroform in a drug store and 
 end it all about five o'clock in the afternoon. 
 
 It was odd, he reflected, that even death had to have 
 an exact time. At least his business instinct was fol- 
 lowing right through to the end. Standing in front of 
 the mirror, he could not help but laugh a little about it. 
 
 At least he was running his death. He had not had 
 the power to control his life. 
 
 Leonard now took off his clothes, quite calmly took a
 
 THE TAKER 313 
 
 brush and straightened out the thin long hairs at the 
 crown of his head, put on his pajamas and got into bed. 
 
 At three o'clock in the afternoon Leonard walked up 
 Broadway to the drug store at Forty-sixth Street. 
 
 He felt a sort of joy, now that he had actually deter- 
 mined to finish himself. In fact, it was a feeling more 
 like pride than he had ever known. Whittimore and 
 the clerks in the office would talk about how brave he 
 was. They would remark how light-hearted he had seemed 
 in their last words with him. Just as he entered the store 
 the thought came to him that he ought to leave some sort 
 of letter. 
 
 This idea pleased him. He could give a few thoughts 
 on life all right. And he really might do some one some 
 good by it. 
 
 In the drug store the clerk enquired why he wanted 
 chloroform. He was pleased at the alertness of his mind 
 when he answered casually: 
 
 "Why, I really don't know. Our family physician 
 ordered it for rubbing purposes, I think." 
 
 The clerk, a young fellow with blonde pompadour hair 
 and a red necktie, thought for a moment, then went back 
 to the prescription counter and soon returned with a small 
 can, which he wrapped up in front of Leonard. 
 
 Leonard walked out strangely happy, as if he had out- 
 witted some one in a business deal. 
 
 When he got up in his room he took off his hat and 
 coat and unwrapped the can and placed it on the table in 
 front of him. 
 
 He thought: 
 
 "Well, Leonard Vernon to-morrow this time you'll 
 be dead."
 
 314 THE TAKER 
 
 For the instant a horrible feeling passed over him. 
 Dead ! He would never again see any one, or eat, or sleep, 
 
 or talk! 
 
 What power an individual had after all. In an instant 
 he could undo the work of nearly forty years, and the 
 instrument was within everybody's reach all the time ! He 
 walked over to the bureau and stood in front of the 
 mirror. He saw how determined his eyes looked. He 
 was really astonished to see what strength was there. 
 
 And he reflected on: 
 
 "Queer. This is the first time in my life that I have 
 been actually determined on what I want to do. With- 
 out asking anybody's advice or consulting them." 
 
 He sat down on the edge of the bed. What would 
 people say? Leonard Vernon had committed suicide in 
 his room at a Broadway hotel. 
 
 How Jennie would mourn! 
 
 Poor Jennie! 
 
 A shudder ran through him. He could almost see her 
 cheerful face. After all, she had loved him. Perhaps 
 he should have just stayed with her and been content. 
 And commonplace. 
 
 But Marcy had proved to him how impossible that 
 would have been. 
 
 Certainly his life had been a failure. He was right 
 in knowing when to end it. He had been just an atom 
 put on earth with no purpose in itself. In fact, just 
 half an atom if such a thing were possible. Had he 
 not needed this other half to make him a completed thing? 
 How clear things were now. Had he found the right 
 woman he would have been happy. But supposing he 
 had. Of what purpose would life have been anyway? He 
 would have had to go on making money just to buy
 
 THE TAKER 315 
 
 things that people without money couldn't have. And 
 what good did that do? In fact, what good did any one 
 do in life? What difference was there if any one cer- 
 tain person weren't born? Or were killed after he was 
 born? What difference did it make if a million people 
 were killed, for that matter? Perhaps one or two of 
 them might invent something like the telephone or wire- 
 less. But people went on just as well before they had 
 them. Perhaps that was the solution of it. Ignorance! 
 And being happy! Certainly it made no difference 
 whether one lived ten years or seventy years. One was 
 only really first born the day that happiness came. In 
 his youth he had so wanted to be a painter. But what 
 difference would it have made if he had painted some un- 
 usual picture? Nobody would have known how unusual 
 it was until some one had said so first. And that one 
 person, if his opinion were accepted, could say it was 
 a bad picture. And then the picture would never be 
 heard of. People were like sheep. Taking other people's 
 opinions and conventions. They were afraid to think for 
 themselves. Then, even if they did think for themselves, 
 it would not be accepted as right unless everybody else 
 thought the same thing. After all what did anything 
 amount to ? Yet every one was so anxious to live ! Queer ! 
 
 Killing one's self was probably the only real accom- 
 plishment in life! 
 
 At least it was certainly some revenge on the ironic 
 scheme. 
 
 Downstairs the orchestra was playing in the restaurant. 
 The noise came up through the shaft of the court. Down 
 there, people were having tea drinking and eating 
 looking into each other's eyes and trying to persuade 
 themselves, or at least each other, that they were mates.
 
 316 THE TAKER 
 
 If they only knew what he knew about it! Mates were 
 born of some force beyond the control of man. 
 
 What fools ! 
 
 He decided to undress before he wrote the note. 
 
 When he had on his dressing-robe, he placed a number 
 of sheets of paper in front of him on the table by the 
 window. Across the way, on a roof, a vast chewing-gum 
 sign began faintly to blink at him, but he soon got this 
 off his mind. 
 
 Then the orchestra downstairs began playing again. 
 It was faint and lively. He listened. 
 
 It was the motif of Scheherezade. 
 
 Poor Marcy! 
 
 If only she were here now ! 
 
 He began to write : 
 
 "I don't mean to complain. I used to believe in this life. 
 I wanted so much. I guess I was too unknowing about it. I 
 used to think there was some law of equality. J I " 
 
 What a difficult thing it was to write a message to 
 the world. Perhaps it would be better just to leave him- 
 self out of it entirely. 
 
 Strange! What would people care who or what he 
 was or thought when he was dead? 
 
 He started again: 
 
 "None of us ever get what we want. It is inevitable that 
 every one must go on fooling themselves until the end " 
 
 After all, what was there to say? And if he did say 
 something worth while, it would only be the curious who 
 read it. And then they would make fun of him be- 
 cause they were happy and well. 
 
 Then who would he address it to anyway? Excepting
 
 THE TAKER 317 
 
 Jennie perhaps, or Wliittimore ? And it would never 
 reach the world that way. Perhaps he could say, "To 
 whom it may concern." 
 
 How ridiculous ! 
 
 Yes, he would just scribble the word: "Farewell.** 
 
 That said everything and would prove how debonairly 
 he had taken the whole matter. 
 
 Leonard scribbled the word "Farewell" across the 
 top of the paper. Then a sort of hysteria overcame 
 him. And he scribbled, "Farewell," "Farewell," a dozen 
 times or more, up and down and across the page. 
 
 It was hard for him to quiet himself now. But he at 
 last managed to sit down by the centre table after go- 
 ing into the bathroom and getting a large bath towel. 
 For a time he became silent, indifferent to everything 
 a feeling that he vainly tried to throw off. With his 
 hands spread out upon his knees, he stared into ghastly 
 emptiness. If he could have reached the thought deeply 
 buried in him, it would have been that he was seeking con- 
 solation for the shattered dream in his grief-trammelled 
 soul. 
 
 He took the can and opened it. Now there was only 
 one distinct thought in his mind. He was going to die. 
 
 When he opened the can a strange, sharp, yet sweet, 
 odour filled the room. He poured it onto the towel until 
 one end of it was saturated. Then he shut his eyes and, 
 leaning back in the rocking chair, placed the towel over 
 his nose and began to inhale, very deeply. 
 
 At first this was difficult, as he could not keep from 
 coughing and choking terribly. But at last he became 
 more accustomed to the fumes. 
 
 Thoughts began filling his mind with each inhalation, 
 thoughts that told him he must fight against stopping
 
 318 THE TAKER 
 
 this breathing with all his strength. But in a moment 
 he felt much better, although it seemed as if all the gas 
 stayed inside of him and pushed out his chest. 
 
 Yes, he was expanding, most surely. 
 
 It was just at the instant when he made up his mind 
 to tear the saturated towel away from his face that the 
 bursting feeling was replaced by a sensation that made 
 him feel much better, much lighter, like an inflated bal- 
 loon made him feel more pleasant. 
 
 Indeed, he was being carried away now, luxuriously. 
 
 What an idea! 
 
 His body had filled with this gas and he was floating 
 about the room. 
 
 Where would he float? 
 
 How people would be startled if he should go out of 
 the window and over Broadway ! The papers would have 
 headlines full of it. Why shouldn't he just let himself 
 do this for the fun of it? 
 
 When Leonard opened his eyes he saw that the towel 
 was on the table and quite dry. 
 
 He poured the remainder of the can on to the towel 
 and shut his eyes again. And began to take deep breaths. 
 It was so sweet and pleasant. 
 
 By far the sweetest and pleasantest thing he had ever 
 done. 
 
 While the people downstairs were sitting and talking 
 about life, he was living it just happy, tingling, com- 
 fortable, soothed. Just as happy as he was as a boy, 
 when he used to whistle in the morning before break- 
 fast. 
 
 Perhaps he might whistle now? They couldn't hear 
 him downstairs? Why shouldn't he whistle if he wanted 
 to? What should he whistle? If he wanted to whistle
 
 THE TAKER 319 
 
 no one could stop him? He was Leonard Vernoji. He'd 
 buy out the whole hotel if they'd stop him. 
 
 He had no body at all just a sensation of wanting 
 to whistle. That was all. Of course, he had legs and 
 arms some place but they were of no importance. He 
 was too happy to bother about legs and arms now. 
 
 But he could think wonderfully now. He could see 
 everything that had happened since he was a boy. 
 
 They were lifting him up on a sort of platform that 
 was floating in the air. Everybody was throwing flowers 
 at him and cheering him and he was bowing to them 
 for the homage they paid him. How they appreciated 
 him and understood what a big man he was and how he 
 had suffered. 
 
 Somehow he was a great man. Which the people 
 seemed to know all about. They couldn't be making any 
 mistake. 
 
 Suddenly there was vagueness . . . nothing. He 
 opened his eyes. There was a table in front of him and 
 the towel on the floor. 
 
 So he was not dead yet! 
 
 But very comfortable! And there was a sweet numb 
 feeling all over him. His hands were in front of him on 
 the table. They looked like the hands of some one else 
 funny-looking and large and white. 
 
 What a strange object a hand was anyway! And 
 people wore them. 
 
 Funny ! 
 
 It made him laugh! 
 
 So he was not yet dead? 
 
 Why should he die? 
 
 What h?d made him want to die?
 
 320 THE TAKER 
 
 If he could feel like this he would want to live forever. 
 One could have so much fun! 
 
 There was Mrs. Ranier, for instance. Why hadn't he 
 thought of her before he made up his mind to die? She 
 was charming-looking and had such a cute nose and such 
 round laughing eyes a really delightful little person. 
 And she liked him too. And understood him. And knew 
 how he had struggled. And she knew how stupid were 
 all the institutions of life like marriage. She had told 
 him that with her eyes when Marcy died. 
 
 No no bad thoughts now just happiness. 
 
 He must call her on the 'phone if it wasn't too late. 
 
 Somehow Leonard managed to grope his way to the 
 telephone and talk into the hollow black mouth of the 
 transmitter. 
 
 "Give me " 
 
 It was all so vague where she lived. Then he re- 
 membered the apartment house. 
 
 "You must get this party on the 'phone for me a 
 Mrs. Ran-ier," he called to the hotel central. He gave 
 her the apartment house number and the street. 
 
 He was so deliciously weak and there seemed to be 
 many white-faced, hollow-eyed Leonard Vernons in the 
 mirror of the dressing-table opposite him. 
 
 Strangely, it took hardly a second for the call. He 
 wondered why everything happened so quickly. 
 
 < You think of something and it happens," he reflected. 
 
 He put the receiver to his ear. 
 
 "I I " he faltered, "I would like to call on you, my 
 dear Mrs. Ranier. I'm feeling pretty fine this eve- 
 ning." 
 
 But how unfortunate. She could only see him for a 
 half hour, though there were other evenings. "A Mr.
 
 THE TAKER 321 
 
 Weinstein" perhaps he had heard of him, he was a very 
 successful jewelry importer from Chicago "was in the 
 city." But she was so sorry. "How are you? I've 
 thought so much about you." 
 
 Leonard could hardly make out what she said. But 
 it was something about coming for a half hour anyway, 
 and he answered: 
 
 "Fine. I'll be there." 
 
 To himself he thought aloud, as he caught the receiver 
 on its claw-like hook, "She's a dear little woman." 
 
 Then he wondered if she were through talking and he 
 grabbed the receiver again and heard floating into his 
 ear: "How are you? You sound woozy." 
 
 "Oh, fine," he muttered back. "I'll be up in a half hour. 
 Wait for me. Fine." 
 
 He remembered what a nice round body she had, and 
 how kind she had been to him at some time or other. 
 
 Leonard Vernon began to dress while songs of aban- 
 don ran through his ecstatic mind. 
 
 Also he stumbled against the table as he crossed the 
 room. 
 
 And in the bathroom, where he went to wash his face 
 and hands, he sank helplessly to his knees in front of the 
 wash-basin. 
 
 He was going to live after all. 
 
 But how his mind was clearing!
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX 
 
 DISINTEGRATION of what was left of the man, 
 Leonard Vernon, began the moment he regained his 
 senses. 
 
 He thought, his hands moved but there was no co- 
 hesion in him. It was more as if his thoughts were only 
 segments of himself isolated in his brain with no con- 
 nection or control that he could call on for help. 
 
 It was as if he were being resolved into his different 
 elements. 
 
 So he hung on to the side of the wash-basin, supporting 
 himself against the white-enamelled surface, like some 
 liquor-besotted individual. 
 
 And unto himself he moaned, "Vernon Vernon" a 
 pitiable cry of anguish, while the clouds floated away from 
 his mind and revealed to him the horror of his prospective 
 errand. 
 
 But the worst horror came when he glimpsed himself 
 in the mirror above the nickel-plated faucets. Then it 
 was that the delicate balance that had maintained itself 
 between his mind and his body was completely severed. 
 He saw a white, pasty, aged face, so transparent that not 
 a drop of blood seemed to course through the flesh. 
 
 He sunk down to the floor, possessed by a racking las- 
 situde that destroyed the last vestige of his awakening 
 determination. 
 
 It was over an hour before he could resume the inter- 
 rupted thread of his thoughts. 
 
 322
 
 THE TAKER 323 
 
 Though he felt all the time that something ghastly 
 confronted him, which must be put off as long as possible, 
 only gradually could he conceive the significance of it. 
 
 He who somehow had become anxious to live again 
 had a rendezvous with a little pug-nosed woman of 
 middle age. 
 
 God in heaven! 
 
 For that he had wanted to get back on earth ! 
 
 Life God that had taken so much of his thought 
 resulting in what? 
 
 Musing on, in a sort of mingled agony of self-loathing 
 and amazement, the while he dragged himself from the 
 bathroom back into the bedroom and into the bathroom 
 again, perhaps a half-dozen times, Leonard began to re- 
 bel against the sardonic future beckoning to him. 
 
 And then began to shade the eyes of his future from the 
 tragic illumination cast by the powerful light of Fact. 
 
 And at last he seated himself by the window and looked 
 down upon the more consoling lights of the city, which 
 were more distant from him. 
 
 What should he do? Live or die? Why should he 
 want to live? or die, for that matter? 
 
 He sat very quietly, his eyes riveted upon the crowds 
 in miniature below. The question seemed to be echoed 
 from every moving thing. Queerly, after some time, every 
 one seemed to stare up at him, with their eyes gaping big 
 and round, like the Beasts in Revelations. , 
 
 And then, by barely discernible shifts, there grew in 
 his mind the understanding that it was just as foolish 
 to die as it was to live. 
 
 While one had some hand in managing life, they should 
 not tamper with death. That should be left to other
 
 324 THE TAKER 
 
 hands who did it for you, in one way or another, with- 
 out you bothering to exercise your own ingenuity. 
 
 . . . It was indeed a period of real understanding, a 
 sort of gifted hour of clairvoyance that really displayed 
 to him the exact status of man in relation to the un- 
 solvable riddle. And in this period of unprecedented 
 lucidity, Leonard Vernon saw as a clear and simple neces- 
 sity that the human being's only vocation should be to 
 get the most out of the life that was handed him. He 
 saw that it was contrary to the laws of Nature to assume 
 the authority of ending it. In fact, all that God, or the 
 principle, or scheme, demanded was for the human being 
 to be sensible enough not to meddle with things, like death, 
 which didn't concern him. His job was to accept and 
 make the most out of Life. 
 
 What an idea! 
 
 Ninety per cent, of the world's misery would be elimi- 
 nated if people attended to their own business. 
 
 At least, if one didn't concern themselves about it, there 
 would be lost the element of doubt in life. Because one 
 wouldn't doubt so much the things he couldn't control. 
 One only doubted when he didn't know what he was going 
 to do next. 
 
 What a fool everybody was! When they could have 
 so much fun ! 
 
 He found himself talking to himself, with a chuckling 
 laugh : 
 
 "How silly! We haven't any right to bother about 
 what doesn't concern us. That's the reason we are made 
 to suffer. We don't attend to our own business. . . ." 
 
 It was all so clear, as if the curtain of his life had 
 been drawn and revealed for the first time the advantage
 
 THE TAKER 325 
 
 of plain, common sense, which he saw now had never, in 
 all his years, been unveiled. 
 
 "Common sense is the secret of life," he whispered, and 
 the idea actually seemed to represent the golden key to 
 happiness. Without common sense one wanted things 
 of the imagination, as he had done. 
 
 Which meant wanting things he couldn't get! 
 
 Then another idea came to him. 
 
 Common sense was the Nirvana to be obtained on the 
 Heavenly Plateau, which understanding had to be reached 
 by suffering. In no other way could one discard illusions. 
 Common sense was no gift that could come with Youth, 
 for instance. 
 
 One had to undergo experiences. 
 
 As he had. 
 
 The life of man upon earth was a process of elimination. 
 Some, the less clever ones, never entirely eliminated imagi- 
 nation from their thoughts, while others, he for instance, 
 gained the heaven of complete elimination of illusions at 
 forty. 
 
 He was indeed lucky ! 
 
 So deciding, Leonard arose and went to the medicine- 
 chest in the bathroom, took down the bottle of whiskey 
 with its leather covering, and poured out a drink that half 
 filled the tumbler. 
 
 For years he had been such a fool, always serious and 
 thinking about things. 
 
 After which, in a glowing inspiration, he put on his 
 hat and overcoat and went down into the night air of 
 Broadway. The night, above the strata of lighted signs, 
 was dark and starless, the sky was fringed by dripping 
 clouds of drizzle that seemed to mock the blazing streets 
 below it and determined to dampen some of their ardour.
 
 326 THE TAKER 
 
 But his elation was growing by the minute, more definite 
 and substantial. 
 
 As he walked, he thought: 
 
 "My happiness and peace of mind are in my own 
 hands. . . . 
 
 "I have learned the Sesame to contentment. . . . 
 
 "I have been through the scorching hell of disillusion 
 ment. . . . 
 
 "Now I am free! Free!" 
 
 Even as he ended his walk at a night restaurant at 
 Forty-ninth Street and very quietly was handing his cane 
 and hat to the boy who blocked his way at the foot of 
 the cushioned stairs ascending to a miniature ballroom, he 
 went on, thinking, over and over : "I've been through hell 
 I've been through hell!" 
 
 No longer was he shivering with self-distrust ; no longer 
 was he a living apostrophe to the King of Mercy. 
 
 He was emancipated unmanacled from the steel grip 
 of every earthly imprisonment. 
 
 And this included women. . . . 
 
 He entered the arena of pleasure upstairs in an efful- 
 gence of self-satisfaction. 
 
 His head was erect, his chin lifted, his body straight. 
 
 He was the captain of his ship, the master of his soul.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 LEONARD was shown his seat, at the edge of the 
 cleared space, in the midst of an encore. Though 
 not without the usual preliminary. The head-waiter, 
 never having seen him before, hesitated about giving even 
 this well-groomed slightly tipsy gentleman such a choice 
 seat. But a bill on Leonard's part and a relenting glance 
 from the waiter, that immediately placed his guest in his 
 proper social niche, completed the transaction of entry. 
 
 Leonard adjusted himself at the small table and then 
 quietly ordered a bottle of "Pommery Simple Sec.," 
 while he cast his eyes onto the cleared waxen space, where 
 a dark-skinned girl with cadaverous face, framed by heavy 
 lustrous black hair, was bowing to the clapping multitude. 
 Next him shouted a bald, bespectacled individual: 
 "Encore encore Fanchon ! Be a good girl !" 
 Fanchon seemed to know him, too, for she gave him a 
 sidelong glance, then nodded to the orchestra. The cem- 
 balo broke into a weird tom-tom melody that reminded 
 Leonard of gipsy caravans journeying across the lonely 
 prairies, the lights went out and she began to dance as 
 a purple and gold shaft of illumination caught the 
 diamond-studded bracelet on her wrist. 
 
 She was a favourite, he could easily see, from the way 
 every one hung on to her rhythmic gyrations. Every one 
 watched her. Looking about the room, Leonard could 
 see how the eyes of every one followed her, older men, 
 men much older than he, over-developed young girls, yet 
 
 327
 
 328 THE TAKER 
 
 deep in their teens, sallow-faced youths with sleepy ex- 
 pressions, other young fellows, college youths perhaps, 
 with round cheeks untarnished by dissipation and eyes 
 shining with unnatural eagerness. 
 
 Then from out of the darkness came a tall thin youth, 
 who turned and twisted her to the end of the dance, till 
 it seemed that both must stop, faint for the want of 
 breath. 
 
 At last it was over. Fanchon threw a kiss to the crowd, 
 the jewelled band round her thin wrist caught the light 
 and sparkled like dots of fire, a jaded girl with a thin 
 blue dress and dark purplish rings of dissipation under 
 her eyes began dancing cheek to cheek with one of the 
 sallow-faced youths in evening dress, the tired musicians 
 tried to mop their perspiring heads and helped themselves 
 to the ice-water, poured out for them from a cut-glass 
 water-pitcher by the drummer, who was at leisure. 
 
 Nor was Leonard's mind unaffected by this rollicking 
 scheme of desire and exotic idling. He had caught the 
 close proximity of the dancers' bodies, had caught the 
 vehemence of Fanchon's unnatural beauty as she whirled 
 past him. And he was steeped in it, body and soul. 
 
 Fanchon came to the table next him, sat down ; he saw 
 she was clever-looking, strangely pretty; he caught her 
 eye, beckoned to her ; she apologised, arose, and before he 
 knew or could realise it was sipping wine with him and 
 exchanging glances. 
 
 "You're a perfectly marvellous dancer," said Leonard. 
 
 "Oh, you mustn't, dear boy !" 
 
 Her eyes danced tantalisingly. 
 
 "But I mean it. Quite the most wonderful dancer I've 
 ever seen." 
 
 Her skin, under the orange-coloured light of the table,
 
 THE TAKER 329 
 
 had a delicate velvety softness, like the sheen of a heavy 
 pink silk. 
 
 Then he became more earnest and sympathetic. 
 
 "It must be tiring, dancing like this every night. Don't 
 you get worn out from it?" 
 
 He was indeed lucky to have her so long. Every one 
 must have envied him. 
 
 And immediately he noticed a deepening of the shaded 
 circles under her eyes. Her voice lost its fictitious note 
 of cheer. 
 
 "I do get tired so tired. The people are so so com- 
 monplace and " she seemed to be studying him, wonder- 
 ingly, "the men are all so alike." Looking back at the 
 table she had just left, she added: "Him, for instance 
 here every night out chicken hunting looking for some 
 young girl to make him young again one of New York's 
 tired business-men! Oh, they make me so sick." 
 
 A breath of companionship for her came from Vernon's 
 lips: 
 
 "Poor little girl." 
 
 And what a challenge it was to him. She had dis- 
 covered in five minutes of conversation that he was 
 different. 
 
 She had to leave him shortly to prepare for her next 
 dance. But she left Leonard exultant, proud, and glow- 
 ing again, with warm satisfaction. 
 
 After all, he saw, it was only the woman who herself 
 underwent the hard knocks of the world that understood. 
 
 . . . For two days thereafter he embarked upon a voy- 
 age of courting that left far behind in its wake all mem- 
 ory of past squalls. 
 
 The next night he sat by the little round table for 
 four hours, just admiring her.
 
 330 THE TAKER 
 
 And the day following he spent four hundred and 
 seventy-five dollars upon a delightful little memory-pin, 
 studded with chipped diamonds and amethysts, which she 
 wore at night when she greeted him and reached over the 
 table and, pressing his hand, murmured : 
 
 "You're too good to me, Mr. Vernon. I ought not 
 accept it." 
 
 But he beckoned casually to the waiter for a bottle of 
 wine before he answered her. 
 
 "It's nothing just a slight token of my my esteem 
 for your art." 
 
 She relinquished only slowly, saying: 
 
 "It's wonderful of you just the same." 
 
 As she spoke he saw her give the heart-shaped clasp 
 a soothing stroke of appreciation. 
 
 The following night Leonard danced with her, when 
 a song she sang demanded a partner from the audience. 
 For the first moment he faltered, as her extended arms 
 awaited him. Then he threw to the winds the fear of 
 ridicule. He made his way out through the tables and 
 folded her in his arms in the centre of the floor. And 
 betwixt the fragrance that rose from the perfumed flesh 
 of her bosom, intoxicating him, and the sturdy way she 
 guided him through the dance, his delirium was neither 
 smothered nor even halted. 
 
 But a real pang of jealousy shot through him down 
 to his aching, stiffened knees, when she must needs have 
 another partner for the next verse. 
 
 However, her sweet whispers would not be repeated to 
 her new partner: "You dear old boy you danced just 
 lovely for one who dances so seldom." 
 
 Indeed, he followed her closely and saw no evidence 
 of such confidences.
 
 THE TAKER 331 
 
 Although the solace offered him was not entirely a 
 heart-stilling one. The partner she selected was fat and 
 pudgy and his red watery eyes were screened by a pair of 
 thick glass spectacles. In fact, he was the pudgy one 
 who had sat next him on the evening of his first entrance 
 into this bedizened gallery. 
 
 Leonard sat drinking his Pommery till nearly three 
 o'clock. Then a determination stole into the very heart 
 of him, a startling, revealing spasm of anticipation, that 
 racked his desires into a restless frenzy. 
 
 He must take her home. She must sit beside him 
 in his limousine and have her warm presence close to 
 him. 
 
 But right at the door she put him off with a shy answer, 
 nearly childish in its awkward refusal. 
 
 "To-morrow night sure," she murmured, with lids cast 
 downward. But her answer bespoke even greater antici- 
 pation for the waiting. "I am so sorry I I promised 
 one of the girls I'd stay with her. Her husband's away 
 and she's 'fraid." 
 
 Leonard went home to his rooms at the Claridge with 
 a slow-beating heart, heavy and sad. As he walked past 
 the shop windows, he rearranged in his mind an apology 
 for her delay in appreciating what he was thrusting at 
 her. Though he did not blame himself. There was enough 
 to fortify him against that at every reflection his tall, 
 well-formed, well-groomed person called forth from the 
 shop windows. 
 
 He understood so much more now than formerly. The 
 world would go on just the same. It would have made 
 no difference if he were walking past these windows with 
 a half-dollar piece in his pocket instead of the million 
 or more he could command at the banks. That was the
 
 332 THE TAKER 
 
 way of the world. Some day he would be dead an'd yet 
 these same windows would see saddened men going home, 
 gazing at their reflections. 
 
 Everything was set so the world made a fool of you. 
 
 If you weren't wise. 
 
 His confidence came back entirely when he entered the 
 warm marble lobby of the hotel and the elevator shot him 
 up to his room. 
 
 "To-morrow night this time," he reflected. 
 
 The reality of his consummation was very different 
 from anything he had prepared in his mind's journey. 
 On the stroke of eleven the next night he made his way 
 into Fanchon's web of pleasure. He was attired in a 
 close-fitting evening jacket, just arrived from the tailors. 
 He had on his head to cover the bald spot at the crown 
 an "invisible toupee," sleekly concealed by an over-appli- 
 cation of the imported brilliantine. 
 
 Fanchon spied him as soon as he entered. He saw her 
 rise from the table in a corner where also sat an anaemic- 
 looking youngster of some twenty-one or twenty-two 
 years. She seemed to have glimpsed him when he had 
 hardly entered the door. 
 
 "Come," she said, as she reached his side and took 
 hold of his hand, "sit with us for a few minutes. I am 
 so glad to see you." 
 
 Perplexed, he followed her through the labyrinth of 
 white-covered tables. 
 
 Also he noticed that she was very gay. And when they 
 reached the table in the corner, as the young man rose 
 for an introduction, that her eyes hungrily sought the 
 young fellow's. 
 
 "Ralph, I want you to meet Mr. Vernon. You know 
 I told you he was going to be my second papa.'* Ralph
 
 THE TAKER 333 
 
 smiled and reached for Vernon's hesitating fingers with an 
 over-manly greeting. 
 
 After which Leonard sat down, slowly, dazed. 
 
 They busied themselves in looking about the room, while 
 he murmured to the waiter at his side: 
 
 "A large bottle, Pommery Sec.'* 
 
 But he could see how the boy's eyes were searching 
 Fanchon's. 
 
 Then Fanchon's fingers stole across the white cover and 
 held the long lean fingers of the boy, rapturously, pas- 
 sionately. 
 
 A picture filtered into the abyss of Leonard's memory, 
 of an old man sitting by a path, while young lovers went 
 dancing by without noticing him. 
 
 His companions saw him rise and grope his way from 
 the table. 
 
 But it was not until Leonard reached his room that he 
 ^ould realise the manner of Fanchon's betrayal of him. 
 
 He was crushed by the irony of it. 
 
 "Great God in heaven !" he cried. 
 
 As he sat numbly in the leather rocker by the window, 
 the figure of the lovely Marcy came like a relentless spirit 
 and confronted him, for just a fleeting moment. 
 
 Then Leonard jumped up, ran into the bathroom, took 
 down the whiskey bottle and gulped two swallows that 
 choked off his breath. 
 
 His eyes became blind, his brain swollen with anger 
 and rebellion. 
 
 In his struggle to replace the bottle he smashed into 
 uncountable bits the mirror over the wash-stand. 
 
 A frenzy overtook him. He stamped on the bits of 
 glass as if each were a miniature monument of mockery 
 which he must crush.
 
 334 THE TAKER 
 
 The heavens of his faith, his new philosophy, his con- 
 fidence, his hopes, came crashing down about him in a 
 great chaos. 
 
 He swept up and down the room, stamping, clutching, 
 swearing, crying out hoarsely, until at last he tottered 
 to the bed and flung himself across the silk cover. 
 
 Then slowly, in a sort of darkness, his anger subsided, 
 his rebellion relinquished its hold upon his heart-strings 
 and his mind. A feeling slowly came over him that he 
 must rest, sleep. The gush of delirium passed and a 
 great peace encompassed him and took its place. 
 
 How tired he was of this merciless attack of the world. 
 How tired he was of everything, though somehow he no 
 longer hated or desired anything. What mattered the 
 money that was pouring in from Hastings? Instead, he 
 just felt sorry sorry for the world of people, who must 
 struggle so to live, sorry for the young and the old who 
 toiled and hoped and dared the vulturing demands of the 
 pitiless, circumambient city. 
 
 It was over an hour later that Leonard rose slowly 
 and undressed, for a surging weakness had come over 
 him. Then he crept in between the cold sheets. He no 
 longer suffered. Reasoning and reflection quite drowned 
 out every bodily supplication. 
 
 He just was filled with pity; he felt sorry for all the 
 young people, with their worn expressions and eager faces, 
 who must toil to sustain themselves. They passed in front 
 of his mind like a procession ... all the young girls 
 whose joyful faces covered their anxiety and fear for 
 the future ... all the Fanchons ... he felt sorry for 
 men like himself who had to be amused . . . who tried to 
 retrieve youth. 
 
 Oh, pity! Pity!
 
 THE TAKER 335 
 
 He thought: 
 
 "I love all of you, you poor people of this world . . . 
 my dear, lovely, darling little friends. I know how you 
 are suffering. I know how your beautiful bodies ache 
 and you dance and try to entice us poor bent-over fools. 
 I know how you are suffering. And my head is bowed. 
 Pity us, for there is a wall between us and happiness. 
 Oh, please listen to me. I love you all. I have been so 
 selfish. I've never had compassion for my fellow-beings. 
 And I am lying here prostrated in this bed, stricken ; yes, 
 forgotten, unhallowed . . . and a million men are fol- 
 lowing me. Oh, you fools, you men, who are sleeping, 
 listen to me, you will love me for it when I am gone. . . ."
 
 CHAPTER XLI 
 
 THE cleaning maid found Leonard the next morning 
 in a semi-unconscious state, and with the manager, 
 and a bell-boy, he was roused sufficiently to ask them to 
 send for Jennie. 
 
 It seemed that the process that had gone on in his 
 cataleptic mind had resulted in a definite demand for his 
 first wife, like the filtrated sediment brought down in a 
 chemist's laboratory. 
 
 They sent out to Hastings for her, and it was not more 
 than three hours later that she began a vigil at his bed- 
 side that lasted without interruption for three days. 
 Hour after hour, she sat by him and held his palsied hand. 
 
 Once, on the second day, he roused himself and said : 
 
 "Jennie, Jennie, you're here, dear? I'm so glad." 
 
 And she answered, a prayer of thankfulness springing 
 up within her: 
 
 "Yes, my beloved, I am here." 
 
 His eyes remained closed as he asked: 
 
 "Why are you so good to me, dear Jennie?" 
 
 She turned away, though she knew that he would not 
 perceive her tears through the veil over his consciousness. 
 
 She breathed a reply. 
 
 "Because I love you so, I guess." 
 
 She could hear just a faint murmur escape from him. 
 
 "Things are funny, aren't they ?" 
 
 . . . Leonard regained his health gradually after the 
 
 336
 
 THE TAKER 337 
 
 third day. At the end of the week, he was able to sit 
 up in a chair by the window. 
 
 And Jennie was by him at all times. She took a room 
 at the end of the hall and had some clothes brought 
 from Hastings. She appeared determined to restore his 
 health and went about her task with sparkling eyes and 
 freshened cheeks. It was as if all her slumbering love had 
 been lying dormant, waiting for this opportunity, wait- 
 ing for the call that some day was to come from him 
 again. 
 
 For now there was a youthful flush on her pale cheeks 
 and Leonard perceived a radiance firing her tired blue 
 eyes. No longer did she move about slowly with the 
 old phlegmatic precision. Instead, she went about quietly, 
 ecstatically, noiselessly soothing his brow, or brushing his 
 hair with a touch faintly perceptible. 
 
 And Leonard responded, apparently emerging out of 
 the cataclysm that had stormed him, with a new vision. 
 He took her hands and regarded her silently. Somehow, 
 he found himself able now to look past the wrinkles about 
 her eyes and see the love-light hidden there, to glimpse 
 past the silvery hair at her temples into her very soul. 
 
 And he cried: 
 
 "Oh, Jennie, am I finding out for the first time what 
 is the real truth? Have I had to wait this long to know 
 how wonderful you aj*e?" 
 
 His voice quite broke as he turned away and ex- 
 claimed: "Jennie, dear one, forgive me. I've been so 
 unknowing." 
 
 She murmured back, not able to hide the swelling emo- 
 tion of her feelings : 
 
 "Lennie my Lennie boy. I'm so happy. I knew you'd 
 realise some day if I just waited long enough."
 
 338 THE TAKER 
 
 While in Leonard's mind there rose a vision of a lonely 
 man an alien in the world of men, come back a victim 
 of vain seeking, of starved imagination, of egotism a 
 man of one race with those who roam the lonely highways 
 of the world . . . rescued just as the whirlpool was suck- 
 ing him under. 
 
 He turned to Jennie. 
 
 "Jennie, dear girl," he sighed, "I've been terribly un- 
 happy and now " it seemed difficult for him to word his 
 thoughts "now I just find myself happy in planning to 
 make you happy." 
 
 "Lennie dear," she breathed. 
 
 He went on: 
 
 "Just to make you happy, Jennie. Think of it! Tell 
 me what I can do for you. I deserve your pity more than 
 you know. What a pathetic thing it is when a man must 
 get to my age before he gets to the great truth, before 
 he finds out the joy of waking up to the understanding 
 that one must think of some one else. I have always 
 
 been seeking, seeking " He looked away from her 
 
 and broke into a cry, "God pity me!" But when she 
 tried to shut him off by affectionately placing her fin- 
 gers over his pale, trembling lips, he pushed them away 
 gently, firmly. "No. Let me go on. I've been seeking, 
 Jennie even begging for just a morsel of other people's 
 pleasure and always wondering because it didn't fit me. 
 Yes, that's my story, Jennie, day in and day out, as far 
 back as I can remember." Now he faltered : "A few days 
 ago one night I found myself actually happy at plac- 
 ing the last rose-scented ashes on the grave of my buried 
 hopes for all time. And now you've come and shown 
 me what is the greatest thing in life." He reached out
 
 THE TAKER 339 
 
 and took her hand and kissed it, humbly, devoutly. "Jen- 
 nie," he begged, "you still care for me?" 
 
 She almost burst into tears with her frantic answer: 
 
 "I love you, Leonard with all my heart. I've always 
 loved you from the first day we met." 
 
 She put her handkerchief to her shining eyes. "My 
 only fear was that maybe you'd call me too late." 
 Looking at him, as if daring to face him for the first 
 time, she cried: "But, oh, thank God you knew I was 
 waiting!" 
 
 Leonard could not keep his eyes from her as she talked. 
 Somehow she seemed much younger and he saw that he 
 had been a fool, indeed, for a good many years. Her 
 face was actually attractive. The circles of care about 
 her eyes and the tiredness about her lips, which formerly 
 had been so noticeable, all seemed to be erased and in 
 their place was a new expression an expression infinitely 
 younger, as if the glory of her consummated love were 
 shining through as the sun imperceptibly works its way 
 down to earth through a heavy fog. 
 
 The following morning, complete readjustment had 
 taken place. As they ate their lunch he told her what 
 he had gone through the night of his illness, following his 
 adventure at the cafe. 
 
 Jennie's hands went to her heart as she listened to the 
 man she loved, while Leonard spoke seriously, reverently, 
 a sermon in miniature on the mount of his unfortunate 
 past. He told her of the smashed mirror, of his drinking, 
 his collapse on the bed. 
 
 "Then something snapped in me," he said. "I just 
 went to sleep, and in my sleep the selfish part of me 
 'died." 
 
 Jennie moved to protest, even framed a cry against his
 
 340 
 
 THE TAKER 
 
 speaking so cruelly of himself. But his words kept her 
 
 silent. 
 
 "Yes, I just died. Every drop of me that used to count 
 is gone. I am through with the old scheme. I'm new 
 because my soul is new. My body doesn't count any more, 
 so its growing old can't bother me. That's what I've 
 learnt. My body can age, but I own my soul, now and 
 forever. I've dug the grave for my poor foolish body and 
 the thoughts it carried, and buried it. I'm emancipated, 
 Jennie, free, and I'm going to love you and you you'll 
 love me, won't you?" 
 
 Jennie was enthralled. "Love you !" she cried. "Why, 
 I love you with every breath of me as long as I live." She 
 had to wait some time before she could go on wording 
 what she wanted to say. Then she controlled herself. 
 She took his fingers and entwined them within her own. 
 Earnestly she said: "You know I had to go through just 
 what you had to get free. That's why I was able to 
 wait for you. That's why my love didn't die." She looked 
 up. "We've never talked like this, have we, Leonard?" 
 
 He corrected her. "We've never talked at all, Jennie." 
 
 "Well, I loved you so in the old days. I never thought 
 about anything else but just what I could see. I was 
 contented with a nice home and contented more with your 
 handsome looks. But after you left me, I grew to won- 
 dering if that was all there was to life. You see I had 
 to," she broke off. Then she went on even more quietly: 
 "I learnt a good deal after that, Leonard. I was alone 
 so much and watched you all the time watched you go 
 through oh, Leonard, so many mistakes. I just had 
 to realise that one of us was wrong. But my love for you 
 grew all the time. That was the strange part of it."
 
 THE TAKER 341 
 
 She stopped short, breathless from the excitement of 
 her confession. 
 
 And as Leonard watched her he murmured, studying her 
 eyes closely: 
 
 "Just to think that I couldn't know." 
 
 Then he rose and walked over towards the window, 
 swaying from emotion as he walked, as if he were reeling 
 under an overwhelming revelation. He was at the window 
 some moments before he said, without turning: 
 
 "No, I couldn't know, Jennie. I just had to learn 
 this way." 
 
 In another moment she, too, rose from the table and 
 joined him at the window. Putting her arm around his 
 shoulders, she stood looking down with him at the rest- 
 less Broadway crowd below them. "Anyway, Leonard, 
 you're not dead," she murmured slowly. "You're alive 
 for the first time, maybe. Maybe we've found real life 
 for the first time." 
 
 Reaching up, she drew his face down to her. 
 
 "Leonard ! My husband !" she cried. 
 
 His arms encircled her and crushed her to him as he 
 answered, full of emotion: 
 
 "Jennie Jennie 1"
 
 CHAPTER XLII 
 
 THEY went down into the main dining-room for 
 dinner. Jennie could hardly contain herself from 
 the joy of being with Leonard again, while he, perceiving 
 the joy he gave her, was also actually happy. 
 
 As they sat down, he said to her : "Jennie, this is fine, 
 isn't it?" And he patted her hand across the table. 
 From the fathomless expression in her eyes, she might 
 have been peering back in defiance across the ocean of 
 time that no longer would ever separate them. She was 
 just happy happy. Turning to Leonard after he had 
 ordered the meal, she exclaimed: 
 
 "Let's make this our honeymoon, Leonard the begin- 
 ning of our journey into a different life." 
 
 He was about to answer her when the orchestra started 
 up a soft crooning melody, carried mostly by the violins. 
 For some time they were held by the pliant strains, only 
 looking at each other with a deep silence. Then the 
 music quietened, a fusillade of sharp high notes came 
 from the horns, the drum began a quick crackling rhythm, 
 the bass notes of the larger horns became loud and sonor- 
 ous, and for a time their entire attention was held by the 
 musical director. But soon the violins crept back with 
 their singing, swaying music like sheep stealing in between 
 herds of cattle; the blatant sounds softened back into 
 melody again and Jennie looked up at Leonard. Full of 
 elation, she exclaimed: 
 
 "Isn't this just wonderful, Leonard?" Then another 
 thought came to her. "You make a request," she said, 
 "just for you and me." She thought on for a moment. 
 "Ask them to play something they used to play for us." 
 
 342
 
 THE TAKER 343 
 
 "Do you know the Scheherezade ?" But he choked off 
 the sentence as a swift pang of recollection shot through 
 him. However, she did not seem to notice and he was 
 intensely relieved when she called to the waiter who was 
 standing at her side: "Have them play one of those In- 
 dian Love Lyrics." Turning to Leonard she added : 
 
 "You'll love it, dear." 
 
 As she spoke a curtain of sadness seemed to drop 
 across her face, offering an especially unfavourable con- 
 trast to two young girls whom Leonard now perceived 
 were taking the next table. The taller of the two was 
 exceptionally pretty, her full cheeks and tall figure had 
 the inviting perfection of desirous youth. The other was 
 not so unusual-looking, but her gown fitted her trimly and 
 there was an arrangement of it over her breasts and 
 shoulders that revealed a fulness which Leonard noticed 
 for the first time was lacking now in Jennie. 
 
 Then Leonard shifted his gaze and, calling the waiter, 
 ordered a bottle of wine. Somehow his words, "Pommery 
 Simple Sec." actually frightened him with a shaft of 
 reminiscence he could not explain. 
 
 For a minute or more he sought for the answer, while 
 better to veil his thoughts from Jennie he lost himself 
 in observing the people crowd into the dining-room, flut- 
 tering and hunting for reservations with their knowing 
 glances at the head-waiter. 
 
 Then he exclaimed: "Jen, I wonder why people don't 
 think more. I used to come in here every day and yet 
 to-night is the first time that I seem to see a sort of 
 fatality hanging over everybody " he corrected himself, 
 "everybody but you and me." 
 
 "You mean " she interrupted. 
 
 "Oh, that we're probably the only ones in the room
 
 344 THE TAKER 
 
 who have discovered the true essence of life and dis- 
 carded everything else. Every one here is so anxious!}' 
 eating or trying to make an impression or flirting or 
 lying. Oh, it's pitiable! People are their own assassins 
 of pleasure." 
 
 He stopped his harangue to which Jennie listened with. 
 an adoring interest. From where he sat he caught a 
 vision under a chair of a pair of deliciously formed brown 
 silk-clad ankles. He had to grope in his mind for some 
 time before he could gather his thoughts again. Jennie 
 brought him back, saying: 
 
 "Leonard, I'll make you forget all the lonesome days. 
 And we'll be awfully happy, won't we?" 
 
 He looked at her vaguely. The music had started up 
 and bothered him queerly. But he managed: 
 
 **You bet we will, my dear." 
 
 While a fleeting wish stole through his mind that he 
 might be able, by some magic, to smooth away the wrin- 
 kles he saw about her love-hungry eyes and make of them 
 a better contrast to the soft glances of the girl facing 
 him. However, he fought off the thought in the instant 
 and Jennie was relieved to see his face brighten again, and 
 to hear him say: "I tell you what we'll do. As soon as 
 dinner is over, we'll drive down and hear the opera." 
 
 This was a new thought and immediately both busied 
 themselves in ascertaining what the bill was at the Metro- 
 politan. At last Jennie found from the "caption" that it 
 was "Carmen" with Alda in the title role. 
 
 "I'm sorry it isn't Farrar," Leonard said, "but it'll be 
 interesting just the same." 
 
 It was a quarter-past eight, Leonard observed, when 
 they rose from the table and he suggested to Jennie that 
 she go upstairs and get her wraps.
 
 THE TAKER 345 
 
 "While you're going up I'll get a cigar," he said, in- 
 deed perplexed (although he would not let the full truth 
 of it reveal itself) that he should prefer to stay down in 
 the lobby and watch the crowds. 
 
 He took her to the bronze elevator doors, remarking as 
 he placed her in one of the cages about to ascend: 
 
 "Hurry down, dear, won't you?" 
 
 But on his way into the lobby again, he could not dis- 
 pose of the thought that she had scrutinised him in a quiz- 
 zical sort of way, as if to say, "You could have come up 
 with me." 
 
 He walked through the lobby slowly towards the cigar- 
 stand, possessed by a feeling of momentary freedom that 
 he no longer stopped to analyse. 
 
 It was queer, too, that just as he passed the desk the 
 two girls from the dining-room should brush by him as 
 they hurried out toward the revolving door. In fact 
 he could not be sure of it the younger one seemed to let 
 her beautiful eyes cross his glance, in a fleeting look of 
 recognition. It took some control of his will to keep 
 from walking out toward the door after them. 
 
 He was in a daze until he found himself at the cigar- 
 stand, asking the dark-eyed young woman back of the 
 counter for a "Bock Panetela." 
 
 "A very light one," he said kindly. 
 
 Then he noticed that she was a new girl, one that he 
 had never seen before. Also she had a shyness about 
 her that was indeed attractive. 
 
 As he lit his cigar, he asked: "You're new here?" 
 
 She smiled. "Yes, worked at the Van Nuys in Albany, 
 only came down last night." 
 
 As she talked she had a way of leaning across the glass 
 case in a manner that displayed two beautifully formed
 
 346 THE TAKER 
 
 forearms. Also Leonard observed that her skin was 
 soft and of a very fine texture. 
 
 Then he looked up, as if by some prescience, and saw 
 Jennie coming across the lobby, searching for him with 
 her tired-looking eyes. Quickly he paid the girl, wished 
 her "Good-night," to which she responded with a sweet- 
 ness that bespoke at once both invitation and regret, and 
 hurried off. When he reached Jennie's side he noticed 
 that she anxiously searched his face. "Leonard, I 
 thought I had lost you, dear," she exclaimed. 
 
 "I was just buying a cigar," he answered. A certain 
 resentment swept over him and rather forcibly, as if some 
 long inert savagery had beset him, he took her arm 
 and turned her toward the door. 
 
 But it was not until they were out under the white 
 arcs of the hotel entrance and getting into the waiting 
 limousine that he noticed how pale and drawn she was. 
 For the instant a thought racked him that perhaps she 
 was trying to discover the emotions that were charging 
 with unrest his mind and soul. They were seated in the 
 car, however, and driving toward the Metropolitan before 
 he heard Jennie question his silence. "Leonard, you have 
 gotten so quiet all of a sudden. What's the trouble, 
 dear?" 
 
 He continued to lean on his cane and stare out of 
 the window at the gaily passing crowds, allowing his 
 eyes melancholically to search each passing face. He 
 could hardly keep himself from turning resentfully on 
 the anxious eyes and quivering mouth that he knew were 
 Egging at his side. At last he answered her. 
 
 "I've got a little headache," he said. "I'll be all right 
 in a few minutes." 
 
 THE END
 
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