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 Copyrighted by 
 the author * 
 1895 
 
CAPE OF STORMS 
 
"So this old mariner, Bartholomew Diaz, 
 called that place the cape of torments and of 
 storms and blessed his Maker that he was 
 safely gone by it. And even so, in the lives 
 of us all, there is a Cape of Storms, the which 
 to pass safely is delightful fortune, and on 
 which to be wrecked is the common fate. 
 For it often happens that this Corner 
 Dangerous holds a woman s face." * * * 
 An Unknown Author 
 
 M205706 
 
1894 
 
 ST. JOSEPH 
 FRIDENAU 
 CHICAGO 
 
 1895 
 
 This edition is limited to 800 copies. 
 
OLOcUe 
 
 IFE is a cup that is better to sip 
 than to drain ; the taste of the 
 dregs is very bitter in the 
 mouth. " I shall never forget those words 
 of our dear minister s, I suppose, because 
 so much that has happened since he first 
 uttered them to us as we sat in his Sunday- 
 school class has shown me the truth of 
 them. Dick himself, I remember, was 
 especially loth to believe Mr. Fairly s 
 monition ; indeed, none of us young 
 bloods cared to think that there was any 
 thing in the life before us that was not 
 altogether worth living, and when Dick 
 spoke up plainly and quite proudly, 
 arguing against the pastor s words, we 
 were all silent approvers of his challenge. 
 Dick was always the bravest boy in the 
 village ; and we had long since come to 
 be admirers rather than rivals. But Mr. 
 Fairly only shook his head and smiled a 
 little he had a wonderful smile, and 
 his eyes were always shining with kind 
 ness and patted Dick on the head, with 
 a gentle, "Well, well, my boy, let us 
 hope so ; let us hope so. Perhaps you 
 will be fortunate above your fellows." 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 The incident dwells in my memory for 
 many reasons. It was, as I have said, 
 a curiously prophetic sentence of our 
 pastor s ; besides that, it was the last 
 Sunday that we were all together in 
 Lincolnville, we boys who had played, 
 and fought and learned together. Early 
 in the week, Dick somehow, long after 
 the world has come to know him only 
 as Richard Lancaster, I am still unable 
 to think of him as anything but the 
 "Dick" of my boyhood was to leave 
 the village for the world ; he was going 
 to begin a life for himself, up there in 
 that mysteriously magnetic maelstrom - 
 the town. Like Dick Whittington of 
 old, and every fresh young blood every 
 day of this world s life, he was going up 
 to town to conquer. Before him lay the 
 beautiful pathway into a glorious future ; 
 promises and pleasures were like hedges 
 to that way that he was going to tread. 
 He was all eagerness, all hope, all am 
 bition. And, to be just, perhaps there 
 was never a boy went up to town from 
 Lincolnville who had better cause to be 
 full of pleasant hopes for his future than 
 Dick. Certainly, it was the first time 
 the little place had evolved such a talent; 
 and it felt a pardonable pride in the boy; 
 it expected, perhaps, even more than he 
 did, and was looking forward to the re 
 flected glory of being his native village. 
 
 If you have traveled through the West 
 at all, and have anything more than a 
 car-window acquaintance with the great 
 Middle West, you know Lincolnville 
 fairly well, I think. Not that you may 
 ever have been to the village itself, but 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 because it is a type of thousands of 
 other villages scattered throughout the 
 country. 
 
 It is the county-seat, and is built 
 upon the checker- board plan, with a 
 sort of hollow square in the middle, 
 filled, as an Irishman might say, with 
 a park. The sides of this square form 
 the business heart of the place; each 
 street that runs away from the square is 
 lined with pretty dwelling-houses of 
 frame or brick, so that the village looks 
 like an octopus with four large tentacles 
 stretching toward every point of the 
 compass. The streets are fringed with 
 shade trees of every sort, and in mid 
 summer the place looks like a veritable 
 nest of green and cool bowers. The 
 county is strictly and agricultural one; 
 the farmers come to "town," as they 
 call it, every Saturday; at least, hitch 
 their horses to the iron railing that sur 
 rounds the park, and spend the day sell 
 ing produce, buying dry goods, imple 
 ments or other necessaries. The face 
 of the village rarely changes; there is an 
 occasional fire on the "square," may 
 hap, and then the newer building that 
 fills the gap is in decided improvement 
 over the old one; young men are for 
 ever going out into the world, and old 
 men are for evercoming back thither to 
 die; for the rest, one might fancy that, 
 if you came into the world again a hun 
 dred years from now, you would find the 
 same farmers doing their "trading" at 
 exactly the same stores that they now 
 favor. On occasions of a political con 
 vention, or a circus, the town takes on 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 a festive aspect, and the roads leading 
 to the square are filled, all day long, 
 with wagons that have come from the 
 further edges of the county. During 
 the three or four days of the County 
 Fair, too, there is great activity between 
 the village and the Fair Grounds, and, 
 if it be a dry summer, the air between 
 those places is merely one huge cloud of 
 dust. Occasionally the pretty little 
 Opera House has an entertainment that 
 draws out such of the citizens as have 
 no very severe religious scruples against 
 the theatre. For the rest, the place is 
 an admirable home of quiet. Young 
 blood chafes at this quiet; old blood 
 finds there the peace it seeks. 
 
 In the very nature of things, a place 
 of this sort is chiefly concerned with its 
 own affairs; the main theme of conver 
 sation are its own people. Everyone is 
 perfectly acquainted with his neighbor s 
 affairs, and not infrequently, in fact, is 
 able to inform that neighbor of certain 
 details relating to the latter, that had 
 until then been unknown to him. So it 
 was that, at the time of Dick s leaving 
 Lincolnville, the good people of that 
 place knew, much better than he did 
 himself, the surety of his engagement to 
 Dorothy Ware. He himself would have 
 been only too glad to be as sure as they 
 were, when he heard the rumors he was 
 given to smiling rather sardonically. 
 
 He came to me once, I remember, 
 and looked at me for a long time with 
 those clear, grey eyes of his. "Tell 
 me, old man," he said, "do you think 
 she cares for me? " It is a stupid ques- 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 tion, this; but almost every boy who is 
 in love puts it to some friend or other, 
 in the quest for confirmation of his fears 
 or hopes. "Why, Dick," I said still 
 more foolishly, perhaps, now that I look 
 back on it "Why, Dick, of course she 
 does. We all do." "Oh, "he flung in, 
 impatiently," "I don t mean that!" I 
 knew what he meant; but who shall tell, 
 being a man, whether a girl cares or 
 not? Although, if ever a boy was made 
 to be well beloved, surely it was Dick. 
 
 He was always a high-spirited young 
 ster; some of his tricks are still legends 
 of the old high-school in his native 
 place. He never liked to fight, being 
 naturally mild of temper; but when he 
 was roused beyond endurance lie was a 
 veritable Daniel. His father died when 
 he was only four years old; to his mother 
 he was the most devoted oi sons. 
 
 It was when he v/as about ten years old 
 that his talent for drawing first proved 
 itself. It came to him in the way that 
 it has come to many who have since 
 made the world listen to their names 
 on the old blackboard in the school 
 room. It was a caricature of Mr. Fairly, 
 I remember, who was always very tall and 
 very thin, and whose face was like that 
 of a French general s under the empire. 
 Dick exaggerated all these peculiarities 
 most deftly with his chalk, and then it 
 so happened that Mr. Fairly himself 
 walked in and found the caricature. He 
 only looked at Dick quietly, and put his 
 hand down on his shoulder with a sub 
 dued, "I am a good deal older than you, 
 my boy, a good deal older. You re 
 5 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 sorry, aren t you?" And something in 
 our minister s tone must have touched 
 Dick, for the boy put his head down and 
 said: Yes, sir," with a little choke in 
 his voice. Nor do I think that from 
 that day to this Dick has ever drawn or 
 painted in caricature. But in all other 
 ways he developed his talent day by day 
 with really wonderful results. He al 
 ways had a rare notion of color; the 
 autum foliage thereabouts gave him the 
 most startling effects. He used to go 
 out into the woods in mid-summer and 
 mid-winter it made little difference to 
 him and come back with some of the 
 prettiest bits of landscape work I have 
 ever seen. There were, it is true, cer 
 tain palpable crudities in his work, due 
 to the lack of any training save that of 
 his instincts, but those would undoubt 
 edly disappear as soon as he came 
 under the influence of a proper instructor. 
 It was for this that he was going to leave 
 the village and become of the greater 
 world in town. His mother had re 
 belled at first; she was growing old, and 
 she feared the thought of losing sight of 
 him; but there was no restraining his 
 ambition. To remain cooped up in that 
 little corral of a place all his life oh, 
 no; that was not at all the thing for 
 Dick Lancaster. That great world, out 
 there, that he had read and heard so 
 much about, that was where he ought to 
 be; and it was there he wanted to wager 
 and to win; what was there left in Lin- 
 colnville? He could do nothing more 
 there; his life was beginning to be a 
 mere stagnation. He must out and 
 6 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 away. This longing for shaking off the 
 shackles of that narrow village life was, 
 as much as ambition, the spur that sent 
 him out into the larger world. And I 
 do not wonder at him. Those small 
 places are not fit arenas for the disport 
 ing of ambitions or freedoms. 
 
 At this time, Dick was a little over 
 one-and-twenty. He was handsome in 
 a dark, olive-skinned sort of way, and 
 his eyes had the longest lashes I have 
 ever seen in a man. His hair curled a 
 little, though he was forever trying to 
 comb and coax the curl away; he hated 
 it, saying that curls were all right for a 
 girl, perhaps, but not for a man. He 
 was, but for the fact that he was very 
 fond of good cigars, a veritable Pierrot. 
 He had always been very closely under 
 his mother s influence; even his associa 
 tion with the boys of his own age and 
 class had not been enough to taint him 
 at all. He had a fancy that, now as I 
 consider it, after all these years, seems 
 a most pathetic one, that the world was 
 a very beautiful place in which the 
 wicked were always punished, if not by 
 actual stripes, at least by the disdain of 
 their fellowmen. It seems strange, per 
 haps, that a young man of his age 
 should still hold such notions, but you 
 must remember that in the quieter vil 
 lages of our country it is possible to hold 
 these fancies all one s life; the town is 
 the great disenchanter. Dick consid 
 ered that he had two things to live for 
 his ambition and Dorothy Ware. 
 
 It was beautiful, the way the boy 
 sometimes rhapsodized; beautiful, and 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 yet in the light of after events, sad. 
 "One day, you know," he said in one of 
 his bursts of enthusiasm, "I will be 
 known all the world over as a great 
 painter. People will come to my studio 
 and wonder at it, and the work in it. 
 They will invite me everywhere. I will 
 be a lion. But I shall always place my 
 work first; admiration shall go into the 
 last place. And there will be Dorothy! 
 Dear Dorothy! I haven t asked her 
 yet, you know, but I hope oh, yes, I 
 hope that it will be all right between 
 us. Dorothy will help me in everything; 
 when I begin to flag, or to lose spirit, 
 she will spur me on. She will represent 
 me to the great world of society when I 
 am hard at work; she will be my verit 
 able Alter Ego. And some day some 
 day, when I feel that my brush and my 
 hand have in them the passion for my 
 masterpiece, I will paint her face her 
 face ! " He took up a photograph that 
 lay on the table before him and looked 
 at it steadily for an instant or two. 
 1 Sweet face ! " he went on, "how shall 
 mere paint ever represent you ? There 
 must be love, too. Love and paint. 
 The one is a mere trick of the h&id and 
 eye; the other is mine and mine alone. 
 For no one can love her as I do. " 
 
 As for Miss Dorothy Ware, she was 
 eighteen and beautiful. I do not know 
 that any woman really needs a fuller de 
 scription than that. As for her wit, it is 
 too early in this chronicle to speak of 
 that; nor do I, personally, differ much 
 from Theophile Gautier, when he states 
 8 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 that a woman who has wit enough to be 
 beautiful has all she needs. 
 
 Miss Ware s father had made a great 
 deal of money by the very simple process 
 of growing old; he had been one of the 
 pioneer settlers in that county and his 
 had been most of the land that the vil 
 lage now stood on. Miss Ware herself, 
 while sensible of her riches, was un 
 spoilt by them. By nature she was of 
 the disposition that one can call nothing 
 else but sweet;" she was tender and 
 gracious; she was fond of fun, so long 
 as that fun annoyed no one else; in a 
 word, she was considerate ancl gentle 
 and lovable. She had been brought up 
 in the south, and she had retained a 
 trace of the southern accent, so that her 
 speech was in itself a charm; she had 
 natural talents for looking pretty under 
 all circumstances; some might have said 
 that she had the instincts of a coquette, 
 but I do not believe it of her. She was 
 devoted to children and dumb animals. 
 And whoso has those instincts is intrin 
 sically good. But Miss Ware held that 
 she had by no means had enough of this 
 world s pleasures to begin thinking of 
 so solemn a thing as marriage. Like a 
 large number of the girls of today, she 
 was, first and foremost, "out for a good 
 time," as the slang of the time has it. 
 She had certainly the intention of some 
 day marrying the man she loved and 
 making him as happy as she could; but 
 in the meanwhile she wanted to test the 
 world s ability to furnish entertainment 
 quite a little while yet. Which was why, 
 although she was very fond of Dick, she 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 had invariably put him off, when he 
 grew importunate, with a laugh. "Why, 
 Dick," she would say, "don t you know 
 you re absurd to think of such a thing ? 
 We re just children yet. Oh, I know 
 we re of age, but what of that? You 
 don t mean to tell me that you think 
 your life has shaped, or even begun to 
 shape itself yet ? No. And as for me, I m 
 going to skirmish around a while yet be 
 fore I settle down and become old mar 
 ried people! Be sensible, Dick! " And 
 Dick, with a sigh in his heart, was, per 
 force, fain to say that he would try. 
 "Skirmish around! " It grated on him, 
 somehow, that phrase; it seemed to 
 hold for him visions of innumerable 
 flirtations; of contact with the world, 
 the flesh and the devil, with the brush 
 ing off of the faint, roseate bloom of 
 innocence. 
 
 It was on the day before Dick s de 
 parture for town that Lincolnville re 
 ceived the news of another intended 
 going abroad. The Wares were 
 to sail for Euiope before the month 
 was out. Mrs. Ware had long been an 
 invalid; for years the doctors had ad 
 vised travel, but her husband s objec 
 tions to any sort of change had hitherto 
 prevailed against her wishes. But now 
 the really dangerous state of Mrs. Ware s 
 health, added to the entreaties of Dor 
 othy, who longed, as do all American 
 girls, for a glimpse of the old country, 
 had brought the old gentleman to acqui 
 escence. He would not go himself; he 
 was getting too old for such a trip; but 
 his wife and daughter should go, if they 
 10 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 had set their hearts on it. So that, with 
 the prospective departure of both Rich 
 ard Lancaster and the girl that rumor 
 had him engaged to, the tongues of the 
 gossips had plenty to do on that day. 
 When Dick first heard the news about 
 the Wares he was inclined to be down 
 hearted; then it struck him that it would 
 give him an opportuity for another effort 
 at getting from Dorothy at least the 
 promise of a promise. 
 
 Than Lincolnville in mid-summer I 
 know few fairer places; there is a cool, 
 green quiet all about that makes for 
 peace and gentleness, and in the whis 
 pering of the breeze as it curls through 
 the thick foliage of the spreading trees 
 there is the note of happiness. Hap 
 piness, indeed, lies nearer to man in one 
 of these small, serene villages, than any 
 where else in the world, save in solitude; 
 but it is rarely that man sees the sleep 
 ing beauty that he has sought all his 
 life long. Dick, as he walked along 
 toward the Ware house that splendid 
 afternoon, caught something of the 
 warm, comfortable languor that was in 
 the air, and looked about him with a 
 note of regret in his regard. "How 
 pretty it all is!" he thought, looking at 
 the familiar houses, with their well-kept 
 lawns and ivy-covered verandahs, "how 
 pretty! And yet " he sighed, and then 
 smiled with a proud lift of the head 
 "there are other things! " 
 
 He found Miss Ware seated in a ham 
 mock on what was known as the front- 
 porch. It was a long, low, cool stretch 
 of verandah, reminding one of the style 
 ii 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 of architecture in vogue in the old south. 
 It was all harbored in vines that were so 
 luxurious they hardly gave the breeze a 
 fair chance to penetrate; on the other 
 hand, the sun s rays were safely guarded 
 against. 
 
 Young Lancaster drew up a chair, 
 after she had smiled and reached him 
 one of her hands. He looked at her 
 critically for a moment. 
 
 1 Dorothy," he said, "I have never 
 seen you looking so pretty." 
 
 "I have never felt so happy, Dick," 
 she said. 
 
 "Because you are going away?" 
 ; "Yes. And you?" 
 
 "I am happy, too. And yet, I am 
 rather sorry. I have lived here all my 
 life; this is the first time that I am going 
 away from home. There is something 
 solemn about it; but then the end, oh, 
 the end justifies it all. That is not the 
 chief reason why I am not altogether 
 satisfied to go away. Dorothy, don t 
 you know the other reason? " 
 
 She opened her eyes a little, and 
 smiled a trifle at the corners of her 
 mouth. "I, Dick, why, how should I 
 know? " Then she saw that he looked 
 hurt and she changed her tone. Dick, " 
 she went on, "why won t you be sen 
 sible about it? I suppose you mean 
 about me? Why, Dick, you know I 
 like you, don t you? I ve always liked 
 you and admired you, but dear me, 
 can I help it if I feel sure that I don t 
 like anyone yet in that way? I d like 
 to, perhaps, but well, I don t. What 
 
 12 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 can I do? " She looked at him appeal- 
 ingly and reproachfully. 
 
 "I know, I know," he said, soothingly, 
 "I m an impetuous, thoughtless idiot, 
 I m afraid, and I hurt you. And, oh, 
 Dorothy! don t you know I d rather 
 surfer torments unspeakable than hurt 
 you?" He put out his hand and touched 
 the one hand of hers that swung beside 
 him, over the edge of the hammock. 
 "But yet, dear," he went on, "if I only 
 had a word from you to remember, be it 
 ever so slight, I would fight so much 
 better against the world. For it is the 
 same to-day as it was in the middle 
 ages; we go to our crusades, all of us, 
 and if we have a sweetheart who will 
 give us her love as an armor, we fight 
 the better fight. Our crusades have a 
 different air, to be sure, but the idea is 
 the same. Don t you know, Dorothy, 
 that if you only gave me some little 
 thing to cling to, I would feel a hundred 
 times stronger. Come, Dorothy, it 
 costs you little to say it! " 
 
 "But if I say that word, I must live 
 up to it." 
 
 "True; your fair conscience would let 
 you do nothing less. And yet, there are 
 words so slight that they would cost you 
 scarcely anything, while to me they 
 would be coats of mail." 
 
 For a time there was silence,both look 
 ing out over the street where the school 
 children were passing homewards. A 
 buggy rattled by, throwing clouds of dust; 
 then there was quiet again. "If you could 
 say to me, Dorothy, Dick, I won t 
 marry anyone until I see you again, un- 
 
 13 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 til I come home again. And I ll try to 
 like you that way, why, that would be 
 enough for me." 
 
 She held up her right hand with a 
 pretty little gesture. "I do solemnly 
 swear," she said. Then she went on 
 more seriously, "Why, yes, Dick, I ll 
 promise that. Small chance of my 
 getting married for a few years, anyway, 
 so I won t have such a very awful time 
 living up to that promise. Now, do you 
 think, sir, that you re engaged to me?" 
 
 "No, no, dear; not at all. But you ve 
 let me hope, haven t you? That s all I 
 want. You don t know how much hap 
 pier I ll feel all the time you re away. 
 How long, by the way, do you think 
 you ll be abroad?" 
 
 "A year, at the least. I want to see 
 it all, you know, when I do get the 
 chance. Mamma ll want to stay in 
 Carlsbad or Ems, or somewhere all the 
 time; but I m going to get her well real 
 soon, you see if I don t, and then we ll 
 just travel for fun and nothing else. 
 Dick, wouldn t it be great if you could 
 go along?" 
 
 "It would, for a fact," he assented, 
 "but it s too good to be true. Besides 
 I m going to have some fun of my own ! " 
 
 "Your work, you mean? " 
 
 "Yes. Isn t it fun to succeed? And 
 I m going to succeed! The fighting for 
 success will be fun, and the victory will 
 be fun!" His eyes flashed with a fierce 
 battle-light. Today this fire of ambition 
 is the only thing that at all takes the 
 place of the blood fervor that spurred 
 on the knights of the olden times. 
 14 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 "Dorothy," he said, presently, with a 
 sudden softness in his voice," will you 
 wish me luck?" 
 
 She gave him, for answer, her right 
 hand, and looked at him wistfully. She 
 was wondering, perhaps, why it was that 
 she did not love this lovable boy. "I 
 wish you all the success in the world," 
 she said quietly. And then, as he 
 turned to go, she called after him, in the 
 old formula they had used to each other 
 a thousand times as boy and girl 
 "Good-bye, Dick. Be good!" 
 
 The love affairs of a boy and a girl, 
 you may think, are hardly the things 
 that matter very much in the world of 
 today. But the boy and girl of today 
 are the man and the woman of tomor 
 row; and between these stages there is 
 only the little gulf, so easily crossed, 
 wherein runs the river of knowledge of 
 the world we live in. As soon as we 
 have crossed that we are become men 
 and women, and are left of our childhood 
 nothing but the wish that it were ours 
 again. 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Oi LTHOUGH the western windows 
 /X were open, it was decidedly 
 <^3 warm in the offices of the Weekly 
 Torch. The offices were on the tenth 
 floor in one of the town s best known 
 sky-scrapers the Aurora. There was a 
 view, through the windows, of innumer 
 able roof sand streets; here and there the 
 tower of a railway station or a new hotel 
 15 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 protruded in the words of A. B. Wooton 
 owner of the Torch "like a sore thumb." 
 Mr. Wooton was at that moment engaged 
 in the diverting pastime of having his 
 feet stretched over the side of his desk; 
 and watching the smoke of his cigarette 
 curl out of the window. Besides his 
 own, there were three other desks, of 
 the roller-top pattern, in the room, the 
 door of which was marked Editorial 
 Rooms," but was rarely, if ever, seen 
 closed. As a usual thing the outer door 
 to the corridor was, in the summer-time 
 at least, also left wide open; you could 
 see -from the window clear to the outer 
 door. Indeed, it was one of Wooten s 
 special talents, this ability of his to see 
 at a glance, from his seat by the win 
 dow, who it was that was coming in 
 through the farther door. At one of 
 the other desks a man was smoking a 
 pipe and shoving a pencil rapidly over 
 sheet of paper. Presently this man 
 laid his pencil down, took his pipe out 
 of his mouth and knocked the ashes 
 over into the cuspidor. Then he 
 leaned back in his chair and inquired, 
 
 "Who was it?" 
 
 "Young fellow from the Art Institute," 
 said Wooten. "Sketches to show; 
 wants to do illustrating; same old gag. 
 They all come to it. Paint and fame 
 come altogether too high, and a fel 
 low s got to live. Although, as the 
 Frenchman remarked, 1 J& ne vois pahs 
 la necessite" " The ability to hideously 
 mispronounce French with a sort of 
 bravado that almost made it seem cor 
 rect was one of Wooten s peculiarities. 
 16 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 The other man gave a mock shudder. 
 "If your morals," he said, "were as bad 
 as your French, you would t be fit to 
 print. Was his stuff any good ?" 
 
 "Very fair. Got a thing or two to 
 learn about working for reproduction, 
 as all these art-school men have; but 
 he s got it in him. I told him to go and 
 see young Belden, on the Chronicle, 
 to get a few points about reproduction. 
 I believe I ll be able to use him. If 
 he s cheap." Wooton laughed, and 
 threw the stub of his cigarette out of the 
 window. Then he began throwing the 
 papers on his desk all in a heap and 
 looking into, under and around them, 
 "Confound the luck," he began; then, 
 turning to the other man, "Got a 
 cigarette, Van ? " 
 
 Van, whose full name was Vanstruther, 
 and whom his intimates called alter 
 nately "Tom" and "Van," threw a box 
 over to the other s desk, laughing. "I 
 swear," he said, "it s my firm belief 
 that if a man were to put you in a story 
 and try to draw you with a single stroke 
 he would only have to say that you 
 spent your life between buying and 
 losing cigarettes." 
 
 "And matches," added the other 
 calmly. "Got one?" 
 
 "Jupiter! If this thing goes on I m 
 going to strike for higher rates, It s 
 not in the contract that I furnish the 
 office with smokes!" 
 
 "No. But the stuff you write, Van, 
 is what drives me to cigarettes. So you 
 make your own bed, you see. Hallo! 
 17 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 Here s alone female to see me! Won 
 der who ? 
 
 He got up and went towards the door. 
 "Did you wish to see me?" he inquired. 
 
 "The editor?" She hesitated a little 
 but he assured her with a slight nod that 
 she had found her man, and she fol 
 lowed him towards his desk. She took a 
 seat beside him, and they began convers 
 ing in a tone so low that Vanstruther 
 could only catch a stray word now and 
 again. Presently she got up. "Very 
 well then," she was saying, "you have 
 my address; if anything should turn up, 
 you will let me know, won t you?" 
 With a little rustling of skirts she was 
 gone. Presently they could here her 
 voice saying "Down!" to the elevator 
 boy. 
 
 "What was her game?" asked Van 
 struther. 
 
 "Wanted to contribute poetry as a 
 regular department. You can t fling a 
 club around a corner anywhere in this 
 town without hitting one of her kind, 
 nowadays!" 
 
 "Then why didn t you tell her right 
 away you weren t using anything of that 
 sort?" 
 
 "Why, you infernal idiot, didn t you 
 look at her?" 
 
 "No. Choice?" 
 
 "Very.\" He put a slip of paper into 
 a pigeon hole, remarking as he did so, 
 "Filed for future reference." 
 
 From the next room came a gruff 
 voice, "Column of editorial to fill yet, 
 Mr. Wooton." 
 
 "That foreman of mine s like Ban- 
 18 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 quo s ghost," muttered Wooton, as he 
 put his pen into the ink and bent down 
 over the desk. For a while there was 
 only the sound of pen and pencil going 
 over paper, and the click of the type in 
 the next room. Then there was a heavy 
 step heard in the passage outside, and 
 presently Wooton muttered: . "The 
 Lord s giving us this day our daily loafers, 
 I see. I wonder why it is," he went on 
 aloud, as a tall, heavy-set man, with a 
 military mustache and eyeglasses in 
 front of mild blue eyes, came into the 
 room, "that you fellows always show up 
 on Friday. Which, being the day we go 
 to press what s that? More copy? Oh, 
 all right! " The foreman was taking all 
 the written sheets from his desk* and 
 pleading for more. The new comer was 
 evidently used to this sort of greeting; 
 he calmly picked a cigarette from the 
 box on Vanstruther s desk, lit it and sat 
 down on a chair that was drawn up to 
 the table-where the "exchanges" lay piled 
 in heaps. He fina^y found what he had 
 been apparently looking for a paper 
 with a very gaudy and risky picture on 
 the front of the cover; he folded it to his 
 satisfaction and began to look through 
 it. "Say, Van," he began, presently, 
 "what s this I hear about their going to 
 play the Ober-Ammergau Passion Play 
 here? Anything in it? " 
 
 Vanstruther was terribly busy. 
 "Haven t heard," was all he said. 
 
 "I heard that it was all fixed," the 
 other went on. "They ve even got the 
 man to play the leading part. Fellow 
 called Tom Vanstruther. They say he s 
 
 19 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 going to play the part without a make 
 up, and " 
 
 "Oh, look here," said Vanstruther, 
 half turning around in his chair, "you 
 go to the devil, will you? " 
 
 The other man took out a huge cigar- 
 holder, inserted his cigarette and curled 
 his mustache. "Van s still a little sore 
 about that," he said, turning to Wooton, 
 who merely nodded his head. There 
 came again the sound of footsteps in the 
 outer hall, and Wooton, peering forward 
 a little, broke into a cheery "Hallo, 
 Dante Gabriel Belden, glad to see you! 
 Come in. By the way, I just sent a 
 young fellow who has your disease over 
 to see you this morning. Wants to 
 learn the reproduction rules of the 
 game. See him?" 
 
 "Yes. Had a little talk with him. 
 Clever chap. Tell you about him in a 
 minute. Hallo, Van, how are the other 
 three hundred and ninety-nine? Hallo, 
 Stanley, haven t they got you under the 
 vagrancy ordinance yet? " 
 
 The man with the huge mustache 
 and the lengthy cigar-holder shook his 
 head and said, "Not yet. But I under 
 stand they re on the trail. Well, how is 
 Art, and what are the books you have 
 lately bought, and what is the latest of 
 your schemes that has died? " 
 
 "Oh, give them to me one at a time. 
 Hang it, Wooton, why do you allow this 
 man to come up here, anyway, to wear 
 out your furniture and the patience of 
 us all?" 
 
 "Oh," said Wooton, "he s an amusing 
 20 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 animal, and I forgive any man anything 
 if only he will amuse me." 
 
 < That s beastly bad morals!" said 
 the artist. 
 
 "Morals!" echoed Wooton, with a 
 bland smile, "my dear boy, you want to 
 take a pill. No; take two! Morals in 
 this day and age; moreover, on the 
 borders of Bohemia, to talk about mor 
 als! Jove, I see myself forced to seek 
 the solace of the deadly cigarette." 
 He lit one of those slender rolls of 
 tobacco and paper and went on, "How 
 ever you haven t answered Stanley s 
 questions yet. For you must know, 
 Van, that Belden is one of the most ex 
 travagant and insatiable hunters of art 
 books in all this town. Ever been in 
 his flat? Well, it s a series of rooms, 
 completely lined with books and pic 
 tures, with a very small hole in the 
 middle of each room. Said hole being 
 usually filled to use an Irishism with 
 a center-table loaded to the guards with 
 art portfolios. I don t believe there s a 
 book or art store in town that the man 
 doen t owe large bills to; and I know, 
 for a fact, that when it comes to be a 
 question between a new overcoat and a 
 new art book, he always takes the lat 
 ter. And as for his schemes well, I 
 will admit they re all good, but, like the 
 good, they die young. While they have 
 the merit of exceeding novelty, they 
 ride him like the plague; but presently 
 a new idol comes and the old one falls 
 into decay. Tell us, Dante, about the 
 newest scheme! " 
 
 "H m," replied the artist, "I don t 
 21 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 see that you ve left me anything to tell. 
 I ve got a new book of Vierge s stuff that 
 you fellows want to come up and see 
 one of these days; that s about all that 
 I can think of." 
 
 "Thank you for the pressing invita 
 tion," said Wooton. 
 
 "Oh, and about that fellow you sent 
 up to see me," Belden continued, "I 
 liked his stuff immensely. He needs a 
 little experience and hard luck on the 
 practical side of getting his stuff made 
 into cuts, and he ll be all right. The 
 fact is, Wooton, seeing you like the fel 
 low s sketches fairly well, and I m rushed 
 to death with other work, I ve thought 
 of turning my work for the Torch over to 
 him. Would you object? " 
 
 "Not a bit, provided he does it as 
 well; and he won t have to get much of 
 a move on to do that. And then they re 
 cheaper when they re green! " 
 
 Belden groaned. "You re the most 
 awful specimen of materialism I ever 
 hope to run up against. Then you 
 don t object to this fellow what s his 
 name again, Lancaster, isn t it? doing 
 your sketches? All right, I ll train him 
 a bit for you. And then I guess it 
 would be a good scheme for him to have 
 a desk here in your office somewhere, so 
 that he can have a workshop and be 
 right at hand for you. It isn t as if he 
 had a studio of his own." 
 
 "That ll be all right; we ve got plenty 
 of room. But while you re training 
 him, old man, I hope you won t inocu 
 late him with that villainous style of 
 dressing you adopt at the end of your 
 22 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 pen. You re very hot people on 
 everything that s got to be done in a 
 hurry, and you re great on fine work of 
 the etching order, but when it comes 
 to making people look like the men and 
 women one would care to be seen with, 
 you re simply not in this county, that s 
 all there is about it. I ve always 
 claimed, you know," he went on, turn 
 ing a little so that he faced Vanstruther 
 and Stanley, "that the great fault com 
 mon to all the black-and-white artists 
 in this town was that they couldn t 
 define the difference between a gentle 
 man and a hoodlum. They talk to me 
 about technique, and drawing, and all 
 the rest of it, none of which, I will 
 admit, I know a mortal thing about; 
 but all I answer is that I m going from 
 the point of view of the man who 
 doesn t know how the drawing is made, 
 but who does know how it looks when 
 it s finished. The people of today look 
 at nearly everything for it s merely 
 superficial aspect; and the finer people 
 look to our artists to display taste in 
 clothing their pictorial creatures. If 
 you only dress your people well, they ll 
 want your drawings so that they can 
 get fashion pointers from them. Now- 
 a-days an illustrator has got to be more 
 than a mere manipulator of pen and 
 ink; he has got to keep an eye on the 
 fashions, and even a little ahead of them. 
 At least, that s what the man I m look 
 ing for should be." 
 
 Stanley muttered, around the edges of 
 his mustache, so that only Vanstruther 
 could hear, "Yes; and he d want to pay 
 23 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 him as much as ten dollars a week!" 
 
 Belden laughed, and got up. "Why 
 don t you put all that into a lecture, 
 Wooton, and give the fellows over at 
 the Institute a glimpse of this higher 
 knowledge of yours. However, I ve got 
 to be going. I ll send that man Lancas 
 ter over here in a day or so. Goodbye, 
 people!" 
 
 There s one of the cleverest fellows 
 with a pen in this town," said Wooten, 
 as soon as the artist s footsteps had died 
 away down the corridor, "but he s utterly 
 spoiled himself by the work he s been 
 doing of late years. He s a very fast 
 worker, and one of the best men a daily 
 paper ever got hold of. Then, too, I ve 
 seen copy-work of his that is, from 
 photographs or paintings done in pen- 
 and-ink, that had all the fine detail and 
 effect of an etching. But, for the sake 
 of the money there is in it, he does 
 blood and thunder illustrations for a 
 paper of that sort. After a man has 
 done that sort of thing for a year or two, 
 it gets into his style. I don t believe 
 he ll ever be able to do anything else, 
 now. Of course, he ll aways make good 
 money, because his speed and capacity 
 for work are simply invaluable; but art, 
 as far as he is concerned, must be weep 
 ing large salty rears." 
 
 "This picture of you, A. B. Wooton, 
 pleading the cause of art," remarked 
 Stanley, "is one of the most affecting I 
 have ever beheld. It really makes me 
 feel hungry." 
 
 "Your invitation, sir," said Wooton, 
 walking over toward the closet and 
 24 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 getting his hat, "is cordially accepted. 
 Come on, Van; we are invited to lunch 
 by the Honorable Mr. Stanley, exchange 
 reader to the Torch. Never linger in a 
 case like this!" 
 
 "For consummate nerve," Stanley 
 suggested, "you really take the medal, 
 A. B. However, seeing I made a little 
 borrow from the old lady yesterday, I 
 will go you one lunch on the strength of 
 it. But I do hope you men had late 
 breakfasts." 
 
 Just before they were ready to pass 
 out, Tony, the office boy came in. 
 "Say," he said to Wooton, in a low 
 tone, "you remember that letter I took 
 to the house day before yesterday? 
 Well, does the quarter walk to-day?" 
 
 "Which," Wooton explained, as he 
 handed the boy a quarter, "is Tony s 
 peculiar way of inquiring whether he is 
 going to get that twenty-five cents or 
 not." Tony grinned and went back to 
 his desk were he was busy addressing 
 wrappers. 
 
 When the three men came back from 
 lunch, they found a young man, holding 
 a black leather case in his hand, such 
 as bank messengers carry, sitting 
 patiently in a chair in the outer office. 
 He got up when they entered, and 
 handed Wooton a paper. Wooton took 
 it to the light, read it slowly, and 
 handed it back. "Tell him to s?nd that 
 around again on the tenth, will you." 
 Then he walked into the composing 
 room and began talking to the foreman. 
 The collector put the slip of paper back 
 into his portfolio and went out. 
 25 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 "Van," said Wooton, as they sat 
 down at his desk, presently, "I wish 
 you d try and hurry that stuff of yours 
 along a little, wiJl you? I ve got to go 
 to a tea at Mrs. Stewart s at four, and 
 the ghost tells me that your page is 
 half a column shy yet." 
 
 Vanstruther nodded silently, while 
 Stanley inquired, "Excuse my ignorance 
 Mr. Wooten, but who is Mrs. Stewart?" 
 
 "What? You don t know the great 
 and only Annie McCallum Stewart? Oh, 
 misericordia, can such things be?" 
 
 "They are." 
 
 "Well, Mrs. Stewart is a remarkably 
 clever woman. One of the cleverest 
 women our society affords, in fact. She 
 is the daughter of one of the town s best 
 known and most popular doctors, and 
 everyone in society knew her so well 
 when she was only Annie McCallum that 
 now, when she is married to Stewart, 
 one still uses her old name as well as her 
 new one. That s all the result of indi 
 viduality. She has read a great deal, 
 and kept her eyes open a great deal. She 
 has a husband who is ridiculously fond 
 of her, and otherwise as blind as a bat. 
 She, on the other hand, has a mania for 
 young men. Whenever you see her with 
 a young man of any sort of looks, some 
 body will tell you that Annie McCallum 
 Stewart has got a new youth in the net. 
 She likes to lure them up into her <den, 
 as she calls it, and talk to them about 
 the higher life. Then they fall in love 
 with her and she forgives them and 
 elaborates upon the beauties of pure 
 Platonism. In a word, Stanley, she s 
 26 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 one of the most perfect forms of the 
 mental flirt I ever come across." 
 
 "H m. Is your tea today to be in 
 duet form, or is it a general scramble?" 
 
 "Oh, it s a general all-comers game. 
 But I always like to go to that house; 
 she interests me immensely. I m always 
 wondering how near she really can skate 
 to the edge without breaking over." 
 
 "Yes," acquiesced the other, reflec 
 tively, "that is an interesting specula 
 tion. Hallo, here s another friend of 
 yours!" 
 
 The new-comer laid an envelope on 
 Wooton s desk and waited. The latter 
 opened it hastily, and then said, "I sent 
 that down by this morning s mail." 
 
 The man had hardly gone before Stan 
 ley laid down the paper he had been 
 paging through and said, looking stead 
 ily at Wooton, "Jupiter, but you do that 
 easily! If I could do that only half as 
 well I d count myself as free from debts 
 for the rest of my life. It s my solemn 
 belief that you can tell a collector from 
 an ordinary mortal as soon as he steps 
 inside the door. I ve heard you tell a 
 man, who had only just turned inside 
 the outer office, that you were going to 
 send that down in the morning, and I ve 
 seen you look the enemy calmly in the 
 face and tell him that you had fixed that 
 up with his employer about an hour ago. 
 And you do it as easily as if you were 
 lighting a cigarette. Another man might 
 get embarrassed, and hesitate, or feel 
 guilty! But you! Not in a hundred years! 
 You never quail worth a cent. It s posi 
 tive genius, my boy, positive genius!" 
 27 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 "No; it s only business, that s all." 
 
 "H m, by the way, speaking of busi 
 ness, aren t you running the game a trifle 
 extravagantly here ? I don t want to mix 
 in, of course, but is the thing paying so 
 well as " 
 
 The other interrupted him. < My dear 
 fellow, " he said, "it s evident you haven t 
 any idea how well this thing is paying. 
 Why, man, look at me! Do I econo 
 mise much? No. Well, I don t have 
 to, that s why! But come on and let s 
 saunter down street. Van s finished, 
 and they ve got all the copy they want, 
 and I expect there are a few pretty girls 
 out today. Let s go and take a glimpse 
 at the parade on the Avenue. And then 
 I ll go down to that tea." 
 
 There were several callers at the office 
 after they had left; some bill-collectors, 
 a society man who left the announce 
 ment for some forthcoming dances; a 
 boy to buy ten copies of last week s pa 
 per; a printer looking for work; and the 
 mail-carrier. Towards six o clock the 
 foreman and the compositors left; then 
 Tony, the office-boy, shut up his desk, 
 and went out, locking the door behind 
 him. The Weekly Torch had gone to 
 rest for the day. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 C^T N the very air and life that pre- 
 
 j\ vailed in the office of the Torch 
 
 <^5 there was, as one may suppose, 
 
 something strange, and at first repugnant 
 
 to Dick Lancaster. To one of his bringing 
 
 28 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 up, his earnest intentions, his thirst for 
 real things, it seemed that all this was very 
 like a gaudy sham, a bubble of pretense, 
 of surface prattle. He could scarcely 
 believe that the flippancy of these men 
 was serious with them; their talk, their 
 point of view astonished and horrified 
 him. If they were to be believed, life 
 was nothing but a skimming of more or 
 less uneven surfaces; the only thing to 
 be tried for was pleasure, and there was 
 no moral line at all. And then again he 
 rebuked himself for being, perhaps, a 
 homesick young idiot, overgiven to mor 
 bid speculation. That was not what he 
 had come to town for; he was going to 
 do some good work and make a name 
 and fame for himself. 
 
 He had found, very early in his career, 
 that in order to get upon the first steps 
 of the ladder he must become an illus 
 trator. If he had had the means that 
 would have enabled him to wait through 
 studio-work, a trip to Paris, and the 
 dreary years ere orders came from deal 
 ers, he would have clung to paint at any 
 risk; but he saw himself forced to earn 
 some bread-and-butter even while he 
 waited for his dreams to come true. So, 
 with some slight reluctance at first, to be 
 sure, but afterwards with all his energy, 
 he applied himself to pen and ink work. 
 In course of time, as we have seen, he 
 became the staff-artist of the Torch. 
 He was making a very fair living for so 
 young a man, and he made a great many 
 acquaintances. And life every day 
 showed him a new aspect. 
 
 One of the men he had so far taken 
 29 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 the greatest liking to was Belden, the 
 artist, who had, to all intents and pur 
 poses, put him into his present position 
 with the Torch. Belden, whose name 
 was Daniel Grant Belden, but whom 
 his friends chaffingly called, on account 
 of the similarity of the initials, Dante 
 Gabriel, was one of the - most happy- 
 go-lucky individuals that ever breathed. 
 His mania for art books kept him 
 more or less hard-up; yet he un 
 doubtedly had one of the finest 
 collections, in that sort, in town. 
 He got orders for work from a publisher; 
 he took the manuscript that he was to 
 illustrate home with him; he kept it 
 three weeks; then, without having read 
 it, he returned it saying he was too busy 
 to attempt the commission. And if 
 ever there was one in this present day 
 of ours, he was a Bohemian. The 
 peculiar part of it was that in addition 
 to being a Bohemian by instinct, he was 
 one * by intention. He read Henri 
 Murger with avidity, and thought of 
 him always. On the street he was a 
 curious object; his overcoat was a trifle 
 shiny, and his hat was always an old, 
 or at least, a misused one; his trousers 
 were too tight at the knees; his boots 
 rarely polished. He usually walked 
 with a long, quick stride; and a long, 
 peculiar cigar, of the sort the Wheeling 
 people call "stogy," was almost always 
 in his mouth. You rarely saw him on 
 the Elevated except with an armful of 
 books and papers. He would come 
 home at one in the morning and sit 
 down at his wide drawing table and work 
 
 30 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 until dawn. Then, with not much more 
 than his coat hastily thrown off, he would 
 fling himself on the couch and be fast 
 asleep in an instant. Often, too, he 
 would go fast to sleep while his pen was 
 traveling over the paper; in ten minutes, 
 or sometimes half an hour, he would 
 wake up and continue the stroke that 
 had been interrupted; his pen would 
 have not spilled a single drop. He did 
 all his own cooking, and marvelous were 
 the meals that resulted. He liked noth 
 ing better than to fill his rooms with a 
 number of choice, congenial souls. 
 They would talk art-shop for hours, or 
 listen to music; he knew a great many 
 clever young fellows who were gifted in 
 playing the piano, the flute or the violin; 
 and while his own musical tastes were 
 barbaric, and called, chiefly, for the 
 spirited rendition of darky-minstrelsies, 
 he gave the rest of his company the 
 freedom of their choice, also, and sat 
 patiently through the most beautiful of 
 operatic strains. Sunday was the day 
 singled out more especially for those 
 pleasant little "evenings" at Belden s 
 flat. 
 
 Dick Lancaster had been asked up to 
 these evenings a great many times 
 before he ever went. For long, he could 
 not make up his mind to it; in spite of 
 all the thousand and one laxities that he 
 saw in the daily life around him, to 
 devote oneself to anything in the nature 
 of sheer pleasure, on Sunday, still 
 seemed to him a decided mis-step. 
 
 But one day, toward the beginning of 
 winter, Belden, who had been in to call 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 on his young protegee at the Torch 
 office, said to him, 
 
 Look here, Dick, why don t you 
 come up some Sunday evening and 
 join our gang? Goodness, you can t 
 afford to be as straight-laced as all 
 that, in this town. Besides, we don t 
 do anything that s against the law 
 and the prophets, you know. We 
 talk a little shop, and some man reads 
 something, perhaps, and Stanley plays 
 a thing or two on the violin. Then we 
 go out and help ourselves to whatever I 
 may happen to have in the larder. And 
 then you go home, or you bunk up 
 there, and where s the harm done? 
 Look at it sensibly, my boy; we are all 
 slaves in the same bondage, in this 
 town, and Sunday is our one off-day; 
 you don t mean to say we re heathens 
 and creatures of the devil if we seek the 
 sweetest rest we can on that day? To 
 some men, rest means church; to me 
 and most of the men you know, it 
 means relaxation, and relaxation means 
 recreation. The others get their music 
 in church, I get mine at home. Now, 
 Dick, say you ll come up next Sunday." 
 And Dick, looking at Belden as if to 
 make out whether that artist were an 
 emissary of the Evil One or merely a 
 man of the present day, coughed a 
 little, and then said, rather sheepishly, 
 Very well, I ll come to please you, 
 Belden." He felt, the next minute, as 
 if he had slipped and fallen; he grew a 
 little faint; he thought he could hear 
 the sound of the church bells as they 
 used to come singing over the meadows 
 32 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 in Lincolnville; he saw himself and his 
 mother sitting side by side in the old 
 pew, listening to the pleasant voice of 
 Mr. Fairly droning out his prayer; then 
 he shook himself together and blushed 
 at his fancies. Belden had gone already, 
 but Dick felt as if he would run after him 
 and tell him, "No, no, I cannot, must 
 not come!" He ran to the door; the 
 corridor was empty; Belden was half 
 way down the next block by this time. 
 Then he solaced himself with the 
 thought, "Surely it can be no great 
 harm after all besides, I have 
 promised!" 
 
 He bent down over the drawing-board 
 once more, but he could no longer chain 
 his thoughts to the work before him. 
 They flew round and round in a curious 
 circling way about this new life that he 
 had become a part of. It was, he was 
 forced to admit tohimself,not as beauti 
 ful a thing as he had expected; but it 
 was certainly novel, and it interested 
 him immensely, it kept his curiosity 
 excited, it touched his senses. As he 
 began to consider that quiet country 
 village that he had left, out yonder on 
 the plains, and this busy beehive of a 
 metropolis, he came, also, to consider 
 the men he was beginning to know. He 
 leaned back in the chair, smiling a 
 little. The office was nearly empty at 
 this time; it was during the noon hour, 
 and Dick was alone in the outer office! 
 He passed over, in his thoughts, the 
 men that he was thrown with in the 
 Torch office. There was Wooton 
 himself: tall, thin, with a face that was 
 33 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 all profile a wonderfully pure profile 
 with a mouth almost too small for a 
 man, a nose that bent a little like those 
 of the Caesars. Dick did not know, 
 yet, what to make of Wooton. The 
 man had a wonderful charm; he could 
 talk most entertainingly, most logically 
 and he had some curiously interesting 
 theories. There was a sort of laisser- 
 aller negligence in his manner; his 
 manners were admirable, and there was 
 some occult fascination about him that 
 one could scarcely define. As Dick 
 considered him, he remembered that on 
 several occasions, he had listened to 
 Wooton s dissertations on subjects that 
 otherwise would have offended him, 
 merely because the man s charm of per 
 son and speech were so alluring. As to 
 whether it was genuine or a mere 
 veneer, well, how could one tell as soon 
 as this? Time, which tells so many 
 things, would doubtless tell that too. 
 
 Then Vanstruther! He had a blonde 
 beard that came to a point, and he 
 always wore glasses. For the rest, 
 Dick knew but little of him save what 
 he had heard. Vanstruther "did" the 
 more important of the society events 
 for the Torch, and himself moved and 
 had his nightly being in the smartest 
 circles in town. The peculiar part of it 
 was that he was married, and had 
 several children; barring the hour or so 
 a day that he spent in the office of the 
 Torch he was the most devoted 
 husband and father in the world, and 
 spent the most of his day at home, 
 where in his little study-room he sat in 
 34 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 front of a typewriter stand and manu 
 factured at lightning speed what do 
 you suppose? dime novels. This was, 
 among the man s intimates, a more or 
 less open secret; but to the world at 
 large, and particularly the world of 
 society, he was known merely as a 
 delightful person, socially, and some 
 thing of a flaneur, intellectually. 
 
 As for Stanley the man s full name 
 was Laurence Stanley Dick had some 
 how taken a dislike to him. He knew 
 little of him except that he was a pro 
 fessional do-nothing, who lived off his 
 wife s money, speculated occasionally, 
 and appeared a great deal in society. No 
 one ever saw his wife, who was an in 
 valid. He talked with inveterate cyni 
 cism; it was this that made him repug 
 nant to young Lancaster. He had a 
 sneer and a cigarette always with him, 
 and Dick hated both. 
 
 The tip-tapping of a light foot-step 
 over the oil-cloth brought Dick back 
 from the land of day-dreams. It was 
 rather a pretty woman that stood before 
 him, and she was gowned in a manner 
 that even with his inexperience he knew 
 to be distinctly up-to-date, and that he 
 certainly admitted as attractive from an 
 artistic standpoint. She looked past 
 him into the inner office, lifted her eye 
 brows a trifle and inquired: "Is Mr. 
 Wooton not in?" 
 
 Not just now," responded Dick, get 
 ting up, "but he will be back in a very 
 little while. If you would care to 
 wait He took hold of the back of a 
 revolving chair that stood close by. 
 35 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 "No," she declared, "I only had a 
 minute. Will you tell him Mrs. Stewart 
 was up? Or, stay; I ll write him a line." 
 
 Dick gave her some letterheads, and 
 pen and ink; she sat down at his desk 
 and began writing, with a good deal of 
 scratching and scraping. "There," she 
 said when she had addressed the envel 
 ope, "If you will please give him that 
 as soon as he comes in. Thank you. 
 Do you do this?" She pointed with one 
 gloved finger to the drawing he had been 
 busy on. He bowed silently. She 
 looked at him with a quick, comprehen 
 sive glance, smiled a trifle, and swept 
 out of the door. 
 
 "So that is Mrs. Annie McCallum 
 Stewart!" was Dick s first mental excla 
 mation, "well, she s certainly not an or 
 dinary woman. Wonder if I ll ever get 
 to know her?" 
 
 With which speculation he turned to 
 his work. When Wooton returned, and 
 had read the note, he broke into a low 
 chuckle, "That s like her! Just like her. 
 What do you suppose she says?" 
 
 Dick was the only other person in the 
 outer office, so he was forced to take the 
 question as addressed to himself. "I 
 have no idea," he declared. 
 
 "She says she is getting awfully tired 
 of her present lot of young men, and 
 wants me, for goodness sake, to bring 
 down some one different, and bring him 
 soon. She says she is tired to death of 
 the man who has lived and seen and 
 heard everything, and she is dying for a 
 man who is as like Pierrot as two peas!" 
 Wooton tore the letter up mechanically, 
 36 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 and put the pieces into the waste-basket. 
 "Well," he went on, "I wish I could " 
 he stopped and looked at Dick, breaking 
 out the next instant into a broad grin, 
 "Jupiter!" he added, "you re just the 
 man! Do you want to join the noble 
 army of martyrs in ordinary to the extra 
 ordinary Annie? She ll do you lots of 
 good; she ll be a pocket education in the 
 philosophy of today, and she ll put you 
 through all manner of interesting paces. 
 Seriously, she s a woman who can do a 
 man a lot of good, socially. And soci 
 ety never does a man much harm; it 
 broadens him, and gives him finish. 
 Now, you re just the sort of youth she ll 
 like immensely; and yet she ll soon find 
 out that you ve heard about her and her 
 ways. Never mind; she won t like you 
 any the worse for that; she s too much a 
 woman of the world. What do you 
 think? The next time I go down to tea 
 at her house I ll take you along, eh? 
 All you ve got to do is to be clever and 
 amusing and different to the others; 
 Mrs. Stewart is like the rest of society 
 in that she demands something of the 
 people she takes up, but she doesn t de 
 mand such impossibilities. I ll write 
 and tell her I ve got the very man!" He 
 went on into the inner office, before Dick 
 had time to say anything in reply. And, 
 to tell the truth, the idea rather inter 
 ested him. He had seen her, and had 
 felt interested in her; he had heard so 
 much about her; and now he was going 
 to meet her! As to being clever and 
 amusing, he thought he was likely to 
 fail miserably; but he might, uncon- 
 
 37 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 sciously perhaps, succeed in being what 
 Wooten called "different." 
 
 Just then Wooton gave a sudden ex 
 clamation. "This is Wednesday, isn t 
 it? Well, that is her afternoon. You d 
 better shut up your desk for today; go 
 up to your rooms and get an artistic 
 twirl or two to your locks, and then come 
 down to the smoking-room of the Cos 
 mopolitan Club about quarter to four; 
 I ll be there waiting for you. Then we ll 
 go on down to Mrs. Stewart s together." 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 days were getting very short 
 now, and darkness was already 
 hovering over the town as Dick 
 passed through the portals of the 
 Cosmopolitan. When they came out 
 together, Wooton and he, it seemed 
 to Dick that the town was in one 
 of its most characteristic tempers. 
 It was in the beginning of winter; the 
 air was a little damp, and smoke hung 
 in it so that it begrimed in an incredibly 
 short space of time. The buildings, 
 in the twilight that was half of the day s 
 natural dusk and half the murkiness of 
 the smoke, loomed against the hardly 
 defined sky like some towering, threat 
 ening genii. The electric lights were 
 beginning to peer through the gloom. 
 The sidewalks were alive with a never- 
 tiring throng, men and women jostling 
 each other, never stopping to apologize; 
 all intent not so much on the present 
 as on something that was always just a 
 38 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 little ahead. This, the onlooker mused, 
 was what it meant to "get ahead," a blind 
 physical rush in the dark, a callous indif 
 ference to others, a selfish brutality, a 
 putting into effect the doctrine of the sur 
 vival of the fittest. The streets clanged 
 with the roll of wheels; carriages with 
 monograms on the panels rolled by with 
 clatter of chains and much spattering of 
 mud; huge drays drawn by four, and 
 sometimes six-horse teams, and blazen- 
 ing to the world the name of some mer 
 cantile genius whom soap or pork had 
 enriched, thundered heavily over the 
 granite blocks; the roar and underground 
 buzz of the cable mingled with the deaf 
 ening ringing of the bell that announced 
 the approach of the cable trains; over 
 head was the thunderous noise of the 
 Elevated. It was all like a huge caul 
 dron of noise and dangers. Dick de 
 clared to himself that it was the modern 
 Inferno. And yet, as he passed toward 
 the station of the Elevated with Wooton, 
 Dick began to understand something of 
 the fascination that the place, even in 
 its most noisome aspects, was able to 
 exert. In the very rush and roar, in the 
 ceaseless hum and murmur and groan 
 ing, there was epitomized the eager 
 fever of life, its joys and its pains. Here, 
 after all, was life. And it was life that 
 Dick had come to taste. 
 
 There was a quick ride on the El 
 evated, Dick catching various glimpses 
 of unsightly buildings that showed their 
 undress uniform, of dim-lit back rooms 
 where one caught hints of dismal pov 
 erty, of roofs that seemed to shudder 
 
 39 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 under the banner of dirty clothes flutter 
 ing in the breeze. The town seemed, 
 from this view, like the slattern who is 
 all radiant at night, at the ball, but 
 who, next morning, is an unkempt, 
 untidy hag. 
 
 Mrs. Annie McCallum Stewart rose 
 rather languidly as they were announced. 
 Dick noticed that in some mysterious 
 way she managed to give a peculiar 
 grace to almost her every movement; 
 there was something of a tigress in the 
 way she walked. She gave her hand to 
 Wooton "Delightful of you to come so 
 soon," she murmured. 
 
 "One of the things I live for, my dear 
 Mrs. Stewart," said Wooton, "is to sur 
 prise people. Knew you didn t expect 
 me, so I came. Brought a dear friend 
 of mine, Mrs. Stewart, Mr. Lancaster. 
 Want you to like him." 
 
 "My only prejudice against you, Mr. 
 Lancaster," was Mrs. Stewart s smiling 
 reply, "is that you come under Mr. 
 Wooton s protection. I pretend I m 
 immensely fond of him, but I m not; 
 I m only afraid of him; he s too clever." 
 And, still laughing at Wooton in such a 
 way as to show the exquisite perfection 
 of her teeth, she presented young Lan 
 caster to several of the others who were 
 sitting about the room, chatting and 
 sipping tea. He had a vague idea of 
 several stiff young men bowing to him, 
 of an equal number of splendidly ap 
 pareled, but unhandsome girls, looking 
 at him with supercilious nods, and of 
 hearing names that faded as easily as 
 they touched him. He found himself, 
 40 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 presently, sitting on a low divan, oppos 
 ite to a girl with dreamy blue eyes be 
 hind pince-nez eyeglasses. He hadn t 
 caught her name; he knew no more of 
 her tastes, of the things she was liksly 
 to converse about than did the Man in 
 the Moon. But he instinctively opined 
 that it was necessary to seem rather than 
 to be, to skim rather than to dive. 
 
 "I ve been round the circle," he said, 
 trying a smile, "and I m delivered up to 
 you. I hope you ll treat me well." 
 
 The girl with the blue eyes looked at 
 him a moment in silence. Then she 
 said, abruptly: "This is the first time 
 that you ve been down here, isn t it? I 
 knew it! Well, these things are not 
 bad when you get used to them. Now, 
 you re not used to them. Confess, are 
 you?" 
 
 Dick shook his head. "I am innocent 
 as a lamb," he said, with mock apology. 
 The girl went on: "Well, that may do 
 as a novelty. Annie s great on new 
 blood, you know. Shouldn t wonder if 
 she took you up. How are you on 
 theosophy?" 
 
 Dick stared. What sort of a torrent 
 of curiosity was this that was gushing 
 forth from this peculiar creature? "To 
 tell you the truth," he hazarded, "I am 
 not on at all." 
 
 She smiled. "Ah, that s bad. How 
 ever, I dare say there s something else. 
 Now, how are you on art? " 
 
 "I know a little something." He 
 smiled to himself, wondering how much 
 of the actual practical knowledge of art 
 41 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 there was in all that room, outside of 
 what he himself possessed. 
 
 "Ah, a little something. Well, that s 
 all that s needed, nowadays. The 
 great point is to know a little some 
 thing* about everything. To know 
 anything thoroughly is to be a bore. A 
 man of that sort is always didactic on 
 the one subject he is familiar with, 
 and absolutely stupid on all other things. 
 However, what s the use of considering 
 those people? They re quite impos 
 sible." She began tapping the carpet 
 with her slipper. "Speaking of impos 
 sible people," she went on, "there s 
 Mrs. Tremont. Over there with the 
 grey waist. Intellectually, she s im 
 possible; socially she is the possible in 
 essence. She was a Miss Alexander of 
 Virginia; then she married Tremont, 
 and lived in Boston long enough to get 
 Boston superciliousness added to the 
 natural haughtiness given to her in her 
 birth. She talks pedigree, and dreams 
 of precedence. She goes everywhere, 
 and I fancy she thinks that when she 
 hands St. Peter her card that personage 
 will bow in deference and announce 
 her name in particularly awestruck 
 tones. The girl who is talking to the 
 tall man with the military mustache is 
 Miss Tremont. She is her mother, 
 plus the world and the devil." 
 
 Dick interrupted her, as she paused 
 to sip her tea. "Yes," he said, "and 
 now tell me who you are?" 
 
 She . lifted her eyebrows a trifle. 
 "You have audacity," she said, "and I 
 begin to think you are clever. 
 42 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 Audacity is successful only when one is 
 clever. When one is stupid, audacity 
 is a crime. Who am I? Well " she 
 smiled again at the thought of his 
 assurance. "Why not ask my enemies? 
 But you don t know who is my enemy, 
 who is my friend. Well, I am the 
 Philistine in this circle of the elect. I :n 
 a cousin of Mrs. Stewart s, and I come 
 because I am fond of being amused. 
 She herself amuses me most. She seems 
 to be so tremendously in earnest, and 
 she s so unfathomably insincere. She 
 hates me, you know, because I didn t 
 marry John Stewart when he proposed 
 to me. Then, I never did anything, or 
 had a fad, or was eccentric, so I don t 
 really belong here; but, as I said before, 
 the house amuses me, and I come. I 
 don t know why I tell you this, but I 
 don t care very much, and besides, I 
 believe you re still genuine. It s so 
 pathetic to be genuine; it reminds me 
 of a baby rabbit blind eyes and fuzz. 
 I m not sure, but it s my idea, that if 
 you want to keep Mrs. Stewart s good 
 graces you ll have to do nothing harder 
 than stay genuine. It s so novel. Most 
 of us, today, couldn t be genuine again 
 any more than we could be born again. 
 Ah, here s my dear cousin approaching. 
 I suppose she comes to rescue you from 
 my clutches. If you want to please her 
 immensely, tell her I bored you to 
 death. She ll have the thought for 
 desert all week." 
 
 Mrs. Stewart sailed toward them with 
 a queenly sweep that was decidedly 
 imposing. She had decided to have 
 43 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 a chat with young Lancaster. 
 When she had seen him in the office of 
 the Torch, and now, when he first 
 entered the room, shs had seen at a 
 glance that he was handsome enough 
 not to need cleverness; but she was 
 curious to see whether he would inter 
 est her in other than visual ways. 
 " You ve been most fortunate," she 
 said to Dick, as she reached them, 
 "with Miss Leigh to interpret us for 
 you. Has she told you, I wonder, that 
 she is my favorite cousin? But now, I 
 want to talk to you about art. If Miss 
 Leigh will surrender you to me ?" 
 
 "I ve been talking to Mr. Wooton 
 about you," she said as she bore him 
 away in triumph, "and he tells me 
 you ve only been in town for a few 
 weeks. You still have vivid impres 
 sions, I suppose. When one has lived 
 here for years and years, one s impres 
 sionability gets hardened. It takes 
 something very forcible to really rouse 
 us. And even then we prefer to let 
 some one of us experience the sensa 
 tion; it is so much easier to take 
 another s word for it, and follow in the 
 rut. That is how most of our present 
 day fads come about. Some one gets 
 pierced between the casings of the 
 armour of indifference, and the rest of us 
 take the cue and join in the chorus of 
 ecstasy. We don t go to hear Patti or 
 Paderewski, you know, because, we 
 really feel their art deeply; it is because 
 someone once felt it and it became the 
 fashion." While she talked, she had led 
 him into a window-nook and motioned 
 44 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 him to a fauteuil that covered the cres 
 cent-shaped niche. As she sat down, 
 the lines of her figure could be traced 
 through the perfect fit of her gown. 
 He noticed what finish, what art there 
 was about the picture she made as she 
 sat there, beside him. Her gown was a 
 delicate shade of gray; the crepe seemed 
 to love her as a vine loves a tree, so 
 closely did it follow and cling to the 
 lines of her hips, her waist, her 
 shoulders. Over her sleeves, immense 
 ly wide, as the fashion of the time 
 decreed, fell lapels of silk. She had on 
 low shoes, and above them he could see 
 the neat contour of her ankles, also 
 clad in gray. "However," she went 
 on, "I did not intend to talk of the 
 fashion; I wanted to ask you how the 
 town struck your artistic side. Don t 
 you find as great pictures in a street 
 full of life as in a valley full of shadow? 
 Isn t there more of the history of today 
 in the faces of the people you meet on 
 the Avenue than in a stretch of blue 
 sky, a white sail, and a background of 
 Venice?" 
 
 "I see you re something of a realist?" 
 "Don t! Please don t That word 
 gets on my nerves. I suppose my 
 amiable cousin, Miss Leigh, told you 
 we were all blue-stockings, and dilettan 
 tes. I assure you we ve got beyond the 
 Realism versus Romance stage of 
 disputation. Really, you don t know 
 how you disappointed me with that 
 question. Mr. Wooton told me you 
 were original!" 
 
 Dick flushed a little. "He also told 
 45 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 me, " he retorted, that you were extraor 
 dinary. I begin to believe him." His 
 tone had a suspicion of pique in it. But 
 Mrs. Stewart beamed. 
 
 "Ah," she said, "I like you when 
 you look like that. That s h m, now 
 what is that? anger, I suppose? It s 
 really so long since I had a real 
 emotion that I don t know how it s 
 done. Do you know, I think you and 
 I are going to be great friends! Yes, I 
 feel I m going to like you immensely. 
 Won t you try to like me?" She 
 leaned over toward him, and his shy 
 young eyes caught the faint flutter of 
 lace on her breast with something of 
 dim bewilderment. Her lips were 
 parted, and her teeth shone like twin 
 rows of pearls. She went on, before 
 he had time to do more than begin a 
 stammer of embarassment, "Yes, just 
 as long as you stay real, and genuine, 
 I want you to come and see me very 
 often; as often as you possibly can. I 
 imagine that talking to you is going to 
 be like dipping in the fountain of youth. 
 Tell me, you people out there in the 
 country, how do you keep so young?" 
 
 "Ask me that, Mrs. Stewart, when I 
 have found out how it is that you in town 
 lose your youth so soon." 
 
 "True. You will be the better judge. 
 But you never told me how it strikes the 
 artist in you, this town of ours." 
 
 "I haven t had time to think yet how 
 it strikes me. I m busy finding out all 
 about it. Just at present it s all like the 
 genius that came from the fisherman s 
 vessel in the Arabian Nights: it is a 
 46 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 huge coil of smoke that stifles me with 
 its might and its thickness. I know there 
 are wonderful color-effects all about me, 
 but my nerves are still so eager for the 
 mere taste of it all that I can t digest 
 anything. Besides " he stopped and 
 sighed a little "I must not begin to 
 think of paint for years. I m a mere ap 
 prentice. I just scratch and rub, and 
 scratch and rub, as a brother artist puts 
 it." 
 
 "But one sees some very pretty effects 
 in black-and-white. Look at Life, for 
 instance " 
 
 "No, Mrs. Stewart, if you would be 
 loyal to me, don t look at the aforesaid 
 loathsome contemporary, as they say 
 out West." It was Wooton who had 
 approached, and interrupted Mrs. Stew 
 art with an easy nonchalance that, in 
 almost any other man, would have been 
 an unpardonable rudeness. He threw 
 himself on a chair and continued: "Mrs. 
 Stewart, you have wounded me sorely. 
 I bring you a disciple and what do you 
 do? You buttonhole him, as it were, 
 and preach treason to him. For, you 
 must confess, that to tell people to look 
 at Li 4 e when they might be looking at 
 h m another periodical, whose name I 
 reverence too highly to mention before 
 a traitoress, is High Treason." 
 
 For reply, Mrs. Stewart tapped Woo 
 ton lightly on the lips with a large ivory 
 paper-cutter that she had been toying 
 with. "As I was saying, when rudely 
 interrupted, look at " 
 
 "My dear Mrs. Stewart, why this 
 feverish desire to look at life? I ask you 
 
 47 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 both, is life pretty? Remember M. Zola 
 and Mr. Howells. They are supposed 
 to give us life, are they not? Well, the 
 one flushes a sewer, and the other hands 
 us weak tea. I prefer not to contem 
 plate life. I am obliged to read the 
 morning papers because it is become 
 necessary to know today the unpleasant 
 ness that happened yesterday. But 
 otherwise I assure you that life " 
 
 This time, Mrs. Stewart tapped him 
 quite smartly with the paper-cutter. 
 
 You know very well that puns have 
 been out of fashion for more years than 
 you have been of age. We were talking 
 about art, and incidentally about a paper 
 that encourages art, and you begin a 
 dissertation on life! What do you 
 mean?" 
 
 Wooton mockingly stifled an effort to 
 yawn. "As if I ever, by the vaguest 
 chance, meant anything! I hate to be 
 asked what I mean. If I knew, I would 
 probably not tell, and if I do not know 
 why should I lie? The safest course in 
 this world is never to mean anything and 
 to say everything. If I had my life tc 
 live over again " 
 
 Mrs. Stewart looked at him with a 
 shudder, lifting her shoulders, while her 
 mouth showed a smile. "Why speak of 
 anything so unpleasant? " 
 
 "Ah, had you there, Wooton, eh!" 
 It was Vanstruther, who had strolled 
 over to pay his respects to Mrs. Stewart. 
 She held out a hand; he pressed it 
 lightly. He nodded to Lancaster, and 
 then looked through the half-diawn 
 portiers to where in the black-and-gold 
 48 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 drawing-room the others were sitting 
 and standing in colorful groups. Some 
 one was at the piano playing a mazurka 
 of Chopin s. There was a faint click of 
 cups touching saucers; the high notes 
 of the women and the low drawl of the 
 men. Vanstruther looked at them all 
 slowly, and then turned to Mrs. Stewart 
 again. " All in? "he inquired. 
 
 Mrs. Stewart nodded and smiled. 
 
 "I ve not been at your house for so 
 long," Vanstruther continued, "that I m 
 a little out of the running. Several 
 people here that are new to me. Now, 
 that girl in black? " 
 
 "Talking to young Hexam? That s 
 Madge Winters. You remember young 
 Winters who was runner-up in the tennis 
 tournament last season? sister of his. 
 She s just back from Japan. Has some 
 idea of doing a sort of Edmund Russell 
 gospel of the beautiful a la Japan course 
 of readings. Her brother amused me 
 once and I m going to do what I can 
 for her. Now, who else is there? Let 
 me see: I don t think you ever met Miss 
 Farcreigh before she s talking to the 
 man at the piano. Delightful girl her 
 father s the big Standard Oil man, you 
 know and collects china. Sings a 
 little, too. But chiefly I like her be 
 cause she s pretty and a great catch. 
 There s a German prince madly in love 
 with her, but her father objects to him 
 because his majesty never did a stroke 
 of work in his life. I believe you know 
 all the others." 
 
 "Thank you, yes." Vanstruther 
 turned to Dick and said to him, with a 
 
 49 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 smile at Mrs. Stewart, "You may find 
 eccentric people here, Lancaster, but 
 you will never find unpleasant ones." 
 
 "That s where Mrs. Stewart makes 
 the inevitable mistake," drawled Woo- 
 ton. "There should be one or two un 
 pleasant ones, merely for the sake of 
 the others. If it were not for the un 
 pleasant people in the world, it would 
 hardly be worth while being the other 
 kind." 
 
 "You re as unpleasant as need be," 
 was Mrs. Stewart s reply. 
 
 "Delighted!" murmured Wooton. 
 "To have done a duty is always a de 
 light. I have done several. I have 
 brought you a new disciple, I have leav 
 ened your heaven with intrusion of my 
 self, and now now I must really go. 
 My virtues are still like incense in my 
 nostrils. Allow me to waft myself gently 
 away before they grow rank and stale." 
 
 Dick rose at the same moment. 
 "Oh," Wooton said to him, "you re not 
 obliged to go yet. Stay and let Mrs. 
 Stewart enchant you with the nectar of 
 proximity! I ve got to be down at the 
 Midwinter dance tonight, so I must be 
 off now." 
 
 But Dick, in spite of the other s pro 
 testations, insisted that he must really 
 go also. He assured Mrs. Stewart that 
 he had enjoyed himself immensely, 
 promised to come soon and often, and 
 was presently whirling down-town again 
 with Wooton. The latter had bought 
 an evening paper and was carefully pe 
 rusing the sporting columns. Dick closed 
 liis eyes, trying to recall the picture he 
 50 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 had just left: the dim-lit drawing-room, 
 with its well-dressed, graceful people; 
 Mrs. Stewart s fascinating voice and fig 
 ure; the flippant frivolity of all their dis 
 course; the useless sham of all their isms 
 and fads; the clever ease with which 
 everything seemed to be taken for 
 granted, and nothing was ever truly an 
 alyzed how like a phantasmagoria of re- 
 pellant things it all was, and yet how fas 
 cinating! Everyone appeared to know 
 everything; no surprise was ever ex 
 pressed; no emotion was ever visible. It 
 was fully expected that everyone was pos 
 sessed of no real aim in life save the rid 
 ing of a hobby; it was agreed that to 
 appear ignorant of anything was to be 
 vulgar. And yet, in that circle, Dick 
 was hailed as "so delightfully genuine," 
 and was told that he would stand high 
 at court as long as he remained so! 
 Surely these were strange days, and 
 stranger ways! That phrase of Mrs. 
 Stewart s about young Winters grated 
 harshly, too "He amused me once!" 
 
 Was life merely an effort at being for 
 ever amused? 
 
 Almost, it seemed so. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 HE room was dim with smoke. 
 Through the faint veil that curled 
 incessantly toward the ceiling the 
 pictures on the wall took on a misty haze 
 that heightened rather than spoilt their 
 effect. It was not a large room, but the 
 walls were covered with pictures of 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 every sort. It was impossible to escape 
 observing the artistic carelessness that 
 had prevailed in the arrangement of 
 the furniture. Bookcases lined the 
 lower portion of each wall; then 
 came pictures. There was an original 
 by Blum; a marvelously executed fac 
 simile of a black-and-white by Abbey; 
 a Vierge, and a Myrbach. Not the 
 least remarkable Mature of these 
 ornaments was the manner of their 
 framing, A Parisienne, by Jules Cheret, 
 for instance, all skirts and chic, looked 
 as if she had just burst through the 
 confines of a prison-wall of a daily 
 paper. The carelessly serrated edges, 
 then the white matting, and the brown 
 frame gave a whole that was worth 
 looking at twice. An etching one of 
 Beardsley s fantasies was framed all in 
 black; it was more effective than the 
 original. 
 
 Over the mantel were scattered 
 photographs of stage divinities in pro 
 fusion. Many of them had autographs 
 scrawled across the face of the picture. 
 In a niche in the wall a human skull, 
 with a clay pipe stuck jauntily between 
 the teeth, looked out over the smoke. 
 
 From the next room, beyond the 
 open portieres, came the sound of a 
 violin and a piano. 
 
 The air of Mascagni s "Intermezzo" 
 died away, and for it was substituted a 
 slow dirge-like melody. Belden, in the 
 front room, broke out into an explosive, 
 "Ah, that s the stuff! Everybody sing: 
 For they re hangin Danny Deever in 
 the mohn-ninV" The wail of that 
 52 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 solemn ballad went echoing through 
 the house, all the men present joining 
 in. Belden, who had been lying at full 
 length on the floor, explaining the 
 beauties of a charcoal drawing by 
 Menzel to a group of three other 
 artists Marsboro, of the Telegraph, 
 Evans, of the Standard, and a 
 younger man, Stevely, who was still 
 going to the Art School had jumped to 
 his feet and was slowly waving a 
 pencil in mock leadership of a chorus. 
 Vanstruther, who was stealing an eve 
 ning from society for Bohemia s sake, 
 was far back in a huge rocking chair; a 
 fantastic work by Octave Uzanne on 
 his knee, and his legs stretched out over 
 the center table; he now held his pipe in 
 his hand and hummed the refrain in a 
 deep bass. 
 
 "Go on," urged Belden, as the last 
 notes moaned themselves away in the 
 smoke, " go on, give us something 
 else! " But Stanley laid his violin down 
 on a bookcase and declared that his arm 
 was tired. 
 
 Vanstruther pulled at his pipe again, 
 until he was sure he still had fire. 
 Then he declared, oracularly, " Stanley, 
 you look tremendously religious to 
 night. Been jilted? 
 
 "No, shaved. You confirm an im 
 pression I have that a man never feels 
 so religious as when he has just been 
 shaved. I assure you that in this way 
 I could really read one of your 
 shockers, Van, and feel that I was 
 doing my duty." 
 
 "Oh," Belden cut in, going over to 
 
 53 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 one of the bookcases, "anything to stop 
 Stanley from hearing himself talk. It 
 makes him drunk. Seeing we had a 
 ballad of Kipling s just now, suppose 
 some one reads something of his. Then 
 someone else can sit still, and think of 
 his sins, while the pen-and-ink men 
 make sketches of him. How ll that 
 do, eh? 
 
 "All right." It was Vanstruther, 
 whose voice came from over the smoke. 
 "I ll read if you like; and Stanley can 
 get a far-away expression into his 
 countenance, while you other fellows put 
 his ephemeral beauty on paper. What ll 
 it be?" 
 
 Stanley, who was rolling himself 
 onto a sofa in the corner, murmured, 
 while he rolled a cigarette with a deft 
 motion of his fingers, "Oh, give us 
 that yarn about the things in a dead 
 man s eye, what s the title again At 
 the End of the Passage , isn t it? I m 
 in the mood for something of that 
 pleasant sort. By the way, aren t we 
 a man shy, Belden?" 
 
 "Yes. Young Lancaster hasn t 
 arrived yet. I had a great time getting 
 him to say he would come; he has 
 scruples about Sunday, and all that 
 sort of thing; but he ll turn up pretty 
 soon, I know. Here s the book, Van." 
 He handed the volume across the table. 
 Stanley, after a few chaffing remarks 
 had passed back and forth, was ar 
 ranged into a position that would give 
 the artists a sharp profile to work from. 
 The artists began sharpening pencils, 
 and pinning paper on drawing boards. 
 54 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 And then, for a time, there was nothing 
 but the sounds of pens and pencils 
 going over paper, and Vanstruther s 
 voice reading that story of Indian heat 
 and hopelessness. In the other room 
 McRoy, the man who had been playing 
 Stanley s piano accompaniment, was 
 reading Swinburne to himself. 
 
 The bell rang suddenly. Belden 
 threw his sketch down and opened the 
 door. Lancaster, I suppose," he said. 
 Then they heard his voice in the hall, 
 greeting the newcomer, who was 
 presently ushered in and airily made 
 known to such of the men as he had 
 not yet been introduced to. 
 
 "You ve just missed a treat, my 
 boy," said Belden, pushing Dick into 
 a chair. "Vanstruther has been reading 
 us a yarn of Kipling s. You re fond of 
 Kip., I suppose?" 
 
 While Dick said, "Oh, yes, indeed," 
 Stanley put in. 
 
 "It s lucky for you you are, because 
 Belden here swears by the trinity of 
 Kipling, Riley and Henri Murger. He 
 has occasional flirtations with other 
 authors, but he generally comes back 
 to those three. But then, when you 
 get to know Belden better, you will 
 realize that he has what is technically 
 known as rats in his garret. Do you 
 know what he once did, just to illustrate? 
 Walked miles in a bleak country dis 
 trict that he might reach a certain 
 half-disabled bridge and there sit, 
 reading De Quincey s Vision of Sudden 
 Death* by moonlight! The man who 
 55 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 can do that can do anything that s 
 weird." 
 
 There s only one way to stop your 
 tongue, Stanley," Belden remarked 
 humoredly, "and that is to ask you to 
 play for us again. Lancaster has never 
 heard you yet, you know." 
 
 Stanley looked out into the other 
 room. "What do you say, Mac? Shall 
 we tune our harps again?" 
 
 "Just as cheap," said the other, with 
 out looking up from his book. 
 
 They began to play. From Raff s 
 "Cavatina," they strayed into a melody 
 by Rubinstein; then it was a wild gallop 
 through comic operas, popular songs, 
 and Bowery catches. While they played 
 the men in the other room began com 
 paring sketches. Vanstruther ushered 
 Dick into many of the artistic treasure- 
 holds that the room contained. Also, he 
 supplied him with running comments on 
 some of the things they saw all about 
 them. Dick, though he scarcely felt at 
 ease, felt strongly the fascination of all 
 this devil-may-care atmosphere. The 
 haze of smoke; the melodious airs from 
 beyond the portieres; the careless attire 
 and jaunty nonchalance of the men, all 
 drew him with a sort of sensual hypnot 
 ism, even while his inner being felt that 
 he himself was a little better than this. 
 He was in the land of Don t-Care; dog 
 mas, creeds, faiths had no place here; 
 everything was "do as you please, and let 
 your neighbor please himself." He said 
 but little; he thought a great deal. 
 
 One of the artists called Vanstruther 
 over to the open bookcase, to show him 
 56 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 a sketch by Gibson. Dick looked about 
 him, picked up a copy of Omar Khay 
 yam, that had Vedder s illustrations, and 
 buried himself in the gentle philosophy 
 of that classic. 
 
 But Belden was again become restless. 
 Mere melody never did anything but 
 irritate him. "Oh, play some nigger 
 music," he asked. Then, when a few 
 merry jingles from " Way down South" 
 had played themselves in and out of the 
 echoes, Stanley put his violin down with 
 a decisive gesture. "There, I ve paid 
 my way, I think!" When the piano had 
 been closed, and the violin laid away in 
 its case, he went on, " Seems to me it s 
 about time you were bringing along your 
 friend Murger?" 
 
 Belden walked toward the shelf where 
 the "Scenes de la Vie de Boheme" had 
 its place. As he took it out, however, 
 he said, "Come to think of it, Marsboro s 
 going to commit matrimony pretty soon, 
 I hear. Any objections?" He held the 
 volume in the air, questioningly. 
 
 Marsboro laughed, and shook his head. 
 "No, no," he said, "go on!" 
 
 "Just as if," Stanley observed, "a man 
 about to be married knew what objec 
 tion! were! Dante Gabriel Belden, in 
 some things you are weirdly primitive." 
 
 "I would sooner be primitive than ef 
 fete," was Belden s retort. 
 
 Stanley turned to Marsboro. "Don t 
 think me curious, old man, but \s it any 
 girl I know?" 
 
 Before Marsboro could reply, Van- 
 struther broke in with, "I ll bet money 
 it s not! You don t suppose Marsboro 
 
 57 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 is likely to think of marrying a woman 
 with a past!" 
 
 Marsboro flushed a little; and moved 
 uneasily in his chair. Dick, looking up 
 from his Omar Khayam, wondered 
 how the man could endure such verbal 
 pitch and toss with such a subject. 
 
 But Stanley turned away from the 
 matter with a sneer. "My dear fel 
 low," he said, "if it will soothe your 
 sweet soul, I am quite willing to admit 
 that in the course of my life I have 
 known some women who had pasts. 
 They are invariably interesting. The 
 only difference between a woman with 
 a past and a man of the same sort is 
 that the man still has a future before 
 him. And a man with a future is as 
 pathetic as a little boy chasing a butter 
 fly: even if he wins the game, there is 
 nothing but a corpse, and some dust on 
 his fingers." 
 
 Belden, turning the pages of the 
 Murger, said, deprecatingly, "Don t 
 get Stanley started on moral reflections: 
 in the first place, they are not moral; 
 in the second place they reflect nothing 
 but his own perverted soul. Talking 
 morals with some men is like turning 
 the pages of an edition de luxe with 
 inky fingers." 
 
 Stanley laughed. "Good boy! But 
 now go on with Rodolph and his flirta 
 tions. Where did you leave off? Hadn t 
 he just written some poetry, spent the 
 proceeds on feasting his friends, and 
 the night in a tree?" 
 
 Belden began to read. 
 
 In spite of himself, Dick began to 
 58 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 feel the fascination of Murger s re 
 cital of all those rollicking, roy- 
 stering episodes in the Latin Quar 
 ter. He let the Omar fall idly into 
 his lap, and gave himself up to 
 listening to Belden s reading. The 
 other men smoked and smiled. Dick s 
 sense of humor told him that there 
 was something quaint in the way 
 Belden intentionally fed his own love 
 for Bohemianism with another s 
 description; none the less he ad 
 mitted that there was no sham, 
 dilettante Bohemianism about this place 
 and the men present. It was not the 
 Bohemianism of claw-hammer coats 
 and high-priced champagne; of little 
 suppers, after the theater, in a black 
 and gold boudoir, where the women 
 tasted some Welsh rarebit and declared 
 that they were afraid it was "awfully 
 Bohemian, don t you know!" It was 
 the Bohemia that recked naught of 
 others, but had as banner, "Do as you 
 please," and as watchword "Don t 
 care." It was the old philosophy of 
 Epicurus brought to modern usage. 
 
 The good-humored account that 
 Henri Murger gave of so many pictur 
 esque light-love escapades, that had so 
 much of pathos mingled with their 
 unmorality, began to find in Dick a 
 vein of sympathy. He felt that it was 
 all very pleasant; all was charmingly 
 put; it was interesting. 
 
 "There," Belden declared, as he 
 finished reading the episode of the 
 flowers that Musette watered every 
 night, because she had promised to 
 
 59 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 love while those blossoms lived, "I m 
 dry, that s what I am. I think it s 
 about time we investigated. Come on 
 into the kitchen, people. There s 
 some coffee and cake and fruit. 
 Shouldn t wonder if you could find a 
 bottle or two of beer on the ice, too." 
 
 They trooped out, through a room and 
 corridor, to the kitchen. There was a 
 bare, deal table, a cooking range, a gas 
 stove, a refrigerator and several doors 
 leading to closets. Every man brought 
 his own chair. A search was begun for 
 cups, plates, knives and forks. Each 
 man sat down where he pleased. The 
 coffee that was made was hardly such as 
 one gets at Tortoni s, but it was refresh 
 ing, nevertheless. The sound of corks 
 drawing from beer-bottles, of knives 
 rattling on plates, and of indiscriminate, 
 lusty chatter filled the place. Belden 
 was the master-spirit. He saw that 
 everyone helped himself; he chaffed and 
 he laughed; he looked after the prov- 
 c.nder and the cigars. The infection of 
 all this jollity touched Dick; he began 
 to say to himself that to worry himself 
 with conscientious scruples just because 
 it was on a Sunday instead of a Monday 
 that all this happened, was to be some 
 thing of a prig. And he had always had 
 a decided aversion to being that partic 
 ular sort of nuisance. He resigned him 
 self completely to the spirit of the time 
 and place. 
 
 McRoy broke into the babel of talk 
 
 with a plaintive, "Everybody listen for 
 
 about a minute, will you? I want to 
 
 ask Belden a solemn question: Belden, 
 
 60 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 have you finished that copy of Old- 
 World Idyls that you were going to 
 illustrate for me in pen-and-ink, on the 
 margins? " 
 
 Belden smiled. "Why, to tell you 
 the truth, old man " he began, but the 
 other interrupted him with, "There! 
 publicly branded! Belden, you re the 
 awfulest breaker of oaths that ever was 
 let live. You ve had the book six 
 months, and I ll bet you ve never drawn a 
 stroke on it!" 
 
 "The mistake you made," put in Stan 
 ley, "was to believe that he ever would 
 do the thing. He once made a promise 
 of that sort to me, but that was so long 
 ago that 1 think I m another person 
 now." 
 
 "If the theory of evolution is correct," 
 said Vanstruther, "your late lamented 
 self must have been and abominably 
 corrupt person." 
 
 Stanley sighed, "Perhaps so. I am 
 trying, you know, day by day, to ap 
 proach the sublime pinnacle on which 
 you, my dear Van, tower above the rest 
 of mankind. However " he reached 
 his arm out over the table "Any beer 
 left over there? " 
 
 Belden handed a mug and a bottle 
 over to him. 
 
 "By the way," cut in Marsborc, "ever 
 had any more trouble with the neigh 
 bors here? Said you kept them awake 
 Sunday nights with your unholy orgies, 
 didn t they?" 
 
 "Yes. But I said if they were going 
 to kick on that score I would get out an 
 injunction against that girl of theirs that 
 61 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 is always trying to play After the Ball, 
 with one hand. So I fancy our lances 
 are both at rest." 
 
 So, with much careless clatter, and 
 exchange of banter, they ate and drank 
 lustily until their hunger was appeased. 
 Then, pushing their plates and mugs 
 into the middle of the table they leaned 
 back to enjoy the pleasures of the god 
 Nicotine. And presently someone 
 hinted that the empty plates and the 
 litter of the late-lamentedness in 
 general was not a cheering sight and 
 they might as well proceed into the 
 studio again. There was a shoving 
 back of chairs, a trooping through the 
 corridor, and they were all assembled 
 once more in the front rooms. Mc- 
 Roy hid himself behind a book. The 
 others grouped themselves around the 
 piano. The plaintiff strains of Cheva 
 lier s "The Future Mrs. Awkins" 
 filled the room, born aloft on the 
 impetus of five pairs of lungs. 
 
 There was a violent ringing at the 
 outer bell. It was some little time 
 before the men at the piano heard the 
 din; it was only at McRoy s muttered 
 "Somebody s pulling your front door 
 bell off the wires, Belden!" that the 
 latter went to open. The men in the 
 room could hear the sound of a man s 
 voice, a quick passage of sentences, 
 then good-nights, all vaguely, over the 
 strains of the coster-ditty. 
 
 "What do you think," said Belden, 
 
 coming in again, "has happened? It 
 
 was Ditton, of the Telegraph lives a 
 
 door or two north just dropped in to 
 
 62 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 tell me a bit of news that he thought 
 would interest me. Wooton of the 
 Torch has disappeared, leaving the 
 property deeply in debt. Nobody 
 knows where he is. Jove, come to 
 think of it, that s pretty rough news 
 for you, Lancaster!" 
 
 "Yes," said Lancaster, "it is. And 
 yet there is one consolation, he paid 
 me within a week of what was due me." 
 
 There was a cessation of all other 
 discussion to make room for the con 
 sideration of this bit of news. Every 
 body agreed that it was too bad that so 
 good a sheet as the "Torch" should go 
 the way of the majority. Concerning 
 Wooton the opinions differed. Belden 
 began to apologize to Lancaster for hav 
 ing led him into this "mess," as he 
 called it, while Stanley sneered at 
 everybody for not having seen through 
 Wooton long ago. 
 
 "He is inordinately vain," said 
 Stanley, "and frightfully extravagant. 
 Clever. Lazy awfully lazy. He can 
 sit back in his chair and tell you how to 
 run the New York Herald, and he has 
 been able to get nothing profitable into 
 or out of his paper from the time he 
 began until now. He theorizes 
 beautifully; the only thing he can 
 really do successfully is to borrow 
 money and talk to women. He used 
 to amuse me just in the way an actor 
 amuses me. Half the time I think he 
 was deceiving even himself. I always 
 thought he would do this very thing, 
 one of these days. He used to have 
 what old women call spells now and 
 63 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 again, when he found himself hard up 
 for cash, that were really the most 
 curious performances. He would stay 
 away from his office altogether; genius 
 as he was in warding off collectors, 
 he used to prefer not to face them 
 sometimes. There was I should say 
 there is a woman, one of the cleverest, 
 most cultured woman in town, who 
 was fond of him in an elderly-sister 
 sort of way, and he used to go to her 
 and borrow money. Think of it: 
 borrow money from a woman! She 
 saw through him long ago, I know, 
 and yet he used to use such artifice 
 such tears, and promises of better 
 ment as the men employed! that she 
 always helped him in the end. Then 
 he gambled to try to make the big 
 stake that would enable him to run a 
 rich man s paper; the only result is 
 that he got deeper and deeper into 
 the hole. All the time he avoided 
 his office; if he scraped up a banknote 
 or two he would send them along, per 
 messenger boy, to the foreman of the 
 composing-room and have the printers 
 paid, at least. You must pay the printers 
 and the pressmen, you know, even if 
 you let a lot of literary devils starve! 
 And then some guardian angel would 
 send along a college chum, or some 
 fellow with more loyality than discre 
 tion, and A. B. Wooton would make a 
 big borrow and be once more the 
 genial, cynical man-of-the-world that 
 the rest of you know. This time I 
 presume the angel refused to come. 
 64 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 The end had to come; it was simply a 
 huge game of bluff. 
 
 < How is it you know all this?" asked 
 one of the others. 
 
 " My dear fellow," was Stanley s 
 answer, " I have gambled with him. All 
 through one of those periods when he 
 was engaged, ostrich-like, in sticking 
 his head into the sand, I was with him. 
 Besides, I know something of his private 
 affairs. He had sunk all of his own mon 
 ey long ago; for the last year or so the 
 Torch andWooton have been living on the 
 gullibility of others. It seems strange 
 that this should be possible in this 
 smart American city, but Wooton was 
 not an ordinary bluffer; he was a genius. 
 Owing you hundreds of dollars he could 
 talk to you all day so skilfully on the one 
 especial vanity of your heart that you 
 would feel much more like offering him 
 another hundred than like even so much 
 as mentioning the old debt. I feel sorry 
 for him. He should have a patron, to 
 humor him in all his extravagances; he 
 would be splendid, splendid!" 
 
 But Lancaster, whom the news had 
 touched a good deal, declared that it 
 was time he was taking himself off. 
 Belden accompanied him to the door, 
 and spoke to him encouragingly about 
 another position that he thought Dick 
 could easily obtain. Then Lancaster 
 passed out into the night. 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 ARRIAGES lined the sidewalk for 
 blocks in every direction. There 
 was a slight sprinkle of rain fall 
 ing, and the shining rubber coats and 
 hats of the coachmen caught the electric 
 light in fantastic streaks. Horses were 
 stamping, and chafing the bit. From 
 every direction came a stream of human 
 ity, all making for the Auditorium. Car 
 riages were arriving every moment; the 
 bystanders and ticket scalpers caught 
 glimpses of light hose and dainty opera 
 shoes and skirts that were lifted for an 
 instant. Men in black capes were 
 hurrying about busily. The cable cars 
 emptied load after load of well-dressed 
 men and women. All the world and his 
 wife was going to the opera. 
 
 Dick Lancaster, as he got out of his 
 hansom, looked appreciatively at the 
 picture that all this hurrying throng 
 made, and shaking some of the rain 
 drops off his coat, entered the opera 
 house. As he looked about him at the 
 richly caparisoned human animals all on 
 pleasure bent, at the nonchalance that 
 the mirrors told him he himself was dis 
 playing, it came over him with some 
 thing of amusement that there had been 
 decided changes in Richard Lancaster 
 since that young person first came to 
 town. Impressionable as wax, the town 
 had already cast its fascinations over him; 
 he was in the charmed circle. He 
 had been put up at one of the best 
 of the clubs; he had been made much 
 of, socially, by the select set that allowed 
 66 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 the preferences of Mrs. Annie McCallum 
 Stewart to dictate the distinction be 
 tween the Somebodies and the Nobodies; 
 he had been successful enough, pro 
 fessionally, to enable him to move in the 
 world as befitted his tastes. It is to be 
 confessed that his tastes, now that they 
 had been whetted by the approach of 
 opportunities, were not of the most 
 economical. He was fond of all things 
 that show the intellectual aristocrat; he 
 liked to look well, to dine well, to talk 
 well, and to enjoy good music. He 
 liked the comfort, the remoteness from 
 the mere vagaries of the weather, that 
 this town life afforded. Here was a night 
 such as in the country would be dismal 
 unspeakably; yet nothing but brilliance 
 and enjoyment was evident in his pres 
 ent surroundings. 
 
 He threw his shoulders back with 
 something of proud pleasure in his own 
 well-being, as he handed his cape and 
 opera-hat to the caretaker. Yes, life 
 was good! It tasted well, and he was 
 young, and there would yet be many 
 long, delicious draughts of it! 
 
 Mrs. Stewart was in her box. Several 
 girls, whose low-cut dresses seemed to be 
 longing for something more worth show 
 ing, were seated on the chairs that sur 
 rounded the central figure, Mrs. Stewart. 
 In the background of this, as of all other 
 boxes, was a phalanx of white shirt- 
 fronts. It looked like the fore-front of 
 an attacking army; first 4he flash of 
 bayonets, as they are to be found in 
 woman s eyes, and then the heavier 
 artillery, the stolid force of masculinity. 
 67 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 In the wide corridors behind the boxes, 
 in the foyers, and up and down the 
 marble stairways, the stream of people 
 flowed back and forth. Presently the 
 conductor of the orchestra took his seat. 
 There was a hastening toward seats 
 and boxes, and the overture of the 
 "Cavalleria Rusticana" floated out in 
 echoes. 
 
 Young Lancaster reached the Stewart 
 box just as the first bars were streaming 
 forth. Mrs. Stewart leaned her head 
 gracefully back over her right shoulder, 
 and smiled up at him. She stretched 
 up a beautifully gloved hand, and whis 
 pered a "Glad you came through the 
 rain, after all. Awfully disappointed if 
 you hadn t!" at him. He nodded 
 to the other women, and shook hands 
 with Mr. Stewart and some of the other 
 members of the white-shirted, blank- 
 faced phalanx. 
 
 " Ah," whispered Mrs. Stewart with a 
 languid show of interest, and putting 
 her lorgnette up, " there is Calve! " 
 
 There was a flutter of hand-clappings 
 that went like a light wave from the 
 stalls to the upper balconies. And then 
 began that exquisite, dramatic exposi 
 tion of rustic jealousy that Mascagni 
 has so wonderfully set to music. As 
 Santuzza, Calve was magnetic. Actress 
 as much as singer she riveted all atten 
 tion. Her face was the picture of agony 
 the while she was contemplating the 
 inner visiorv.of her betrayal by Turiddu. 
 Then, the jealous hatred flashing out at 
 Lola, her rival; and lastly the self- 
 accusing sorrow that covered her when 
 68 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 she saw the effect of her tale-bearing 
 against her former lover. In the inter 
 val there was the marvellous Intermezzo. 
 Mrs. Stewart leaned back in her chair 
 and closed her eyes. When it was over 
 she said, "There is something of the 
 world s joy and something of its pain in 
 that melody. It appeals to me wonder 
 fully." 
 
 Lancaster put in, "One of the men 
 at the club declared that it was the only 
 thing that had given him real emotion 
 for oh, years." 
 
 "He must have been a very blase 
 creature," said one of the other women. 
 
 "He is," assented Lancaster. 
 
 Their further conversation was inter- 
 ruped by the rising of the curtain. When 
 it came down again there was a general 
 movement toward the foyers. Some of 
 the tall and pale young men strolled out 
 to smoke cigars and talk of the boxing 
 match that was going to come off at the 
 club in a day or so. With much flutter 
 ing of fans and swishing of skirts the 
 angular girls betook themselves from 
 Mrs. Stewart s box to see if they "could 
 see any of the other girls. " Mrs. Stewart 
 and Dick Lancaster were left in sole 
 possession. He took a chair beside her 
 and looked over into the stalls. 
 
 Only f air, " she said, noting his visual 
 measurement of the size of the audience. 
 
 "Yes. These people don t want the 
 New. They want < Faust and <Aida, 
 and they think Tannhauser is the very 
 last in music. It will be years before 
 they see the gem-like beauty of this new 
 Italian school." 
 
 69 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 84 And yet it s a return to the old." 
 
 "That is why. The old things are 
 the best, if you only go far enough into 
 the past." We are never really modern, 
 we are merely old in a new way. " 
 
 "Do you know " she leaned her 
 white elbow on the cushioned chair-back 
 and placed her forefinger just under her 
 ear, so that from the elbow up her arm 
 formed a white, beautiful rest for the at 
 tractive face, and looking young Lan 
 caster smilingly in the eyes, tapped her 
 foot caressingly to the floor "do 
 you know that I think I shall have to 
 cut you off my list very soon? You have 
 h m changed a great deal in the 
 few months I have known you. You 
 occasionally make speeches that sound 
 almost cynical. You were always clever; 
 you always talked brightly, but you 
 never used to believe some of the sharp 
 things you said; now I think you are 
 beginning to. I liked you because you 
 were different; you are not different any 
 more, at least not different in the same 
 way. You will never be as stupid as 
 most of the others; but I am afraid, too, 
 that you will never be quite as genuine 
 as you were." 
 
 He sighed as he looked at her. He 
 smiled very faintly as he answered, 
 "Yes, I am afraid you are right. I am 
 not as I was." His gaze swept out over 
 the stalls, the crowded foyer, the bril 
 liance everywhere. " But how could I 
 have done anything else than let all this 
 affect me a little? I am pliable, I sup 
 pose, and I bend easily to the wind. I 
 came here to taste life. As soon as I 
 70 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 began to sip the cup I found that I was 
 going to like it immensely. I trod the 
 way of the world that I might see what 
 manner of men walk there, and what 
 sort of a road it was. Presently, I found 
 that I liked that path so much that I 
 preferred it to the bypaths of solitude 
 and asceticism. And what has it mattered 
 as long as I have not neglected the 
 work there is for me to do? No one can 
 say I have changed in that respect. I 
 work harder than ever. It s not fair of 
 you to upbraid me. A great deal of it is 
 your own doing." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " Of course it is. You have been my 
 pilot out of the land of the Narrows. 
 When I came up here I was narrow. I 
 thought about things dogmatically, and 
 applied hard and fast rules to every sort 
 of conduct. Now I am broader. I know 
 that where the world moves at lightning 
 speed you cannot apply the same tenets 
 that hold good in a village where life is 
 lived at a cripple s gait and where 
 routine is the reigning deity." 
 
 "You would not have called it a 
 cripple s gait a little while ago," inter 
 posed Mrs. Stewart. 
 
 He flushed slightly but went on: "I 
 realize now that since we have but one 
 life to live, we should live it as fully as 
 we may. I could not have seen the life 
 that all of you here are living without 
 realizing that it was a fuller life than the 
 one the country afforded me. So, cost 
 what it may, I must needs live it also." 
 
 She looked at him curiously. "Yes," 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 she repeated, half to him and half to her 
 self, "cost what it may." 
 
 " Besides," he went on, looking away 
 from her, and with something of regret 
 in his voice," I have grown worldly be 
 cause I loved a worldly woman. You 
 you have made me love you." 
 
 She lifted her eyebrows a trifle, turned 
 her head, with the eyelids drawn down 
 over her eyes, toward him, and opened the 
 lids slowly, with a smile on her lips. 
 Then she looked past him to where her 
 husband was leaning over a chair in one 
 of the other boxes. 
 
 "Don t you think John is looking very 
 handsome tonight?" she asked softly. 
 
 Lancaster, who had gone red and pale 
 in waves, answered, through set lips, 
 "Very." 
 
 Then the curtain went up on " Pagli- 
 acci." 
 
 It was the first time that Lancaster 
 had heard Leoncavallo s opera. In its 
 novel charm his shame and mortification 
 shame at having spoken those words 
 to Mrs. Stewart and mortification at the 
 rebuff they had only naturally brought 
 him were for the time being swallowed 
 up. With eager eyes and attentive ears 
 he watched and listened to the play with 
 in the play. First the arrival of the 
 mountebanks. Amid the laughs and re 
 joicings of the villagers the theater- 
 tent is set. Then the effort of the clown 
 to make love to Canio s wife; the slash 
 of the whip from her, the muttered 
 curses from him. But the woman is 
 72 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 fickle, after all; the villager, Silvio, is 
 more successful than the clown was. 
 The sudden approach of Canio, the hus 
 band, led hither by the vengeful clown, 
 still smarting under the whip; the escape 
 of Silvio, and the woman s refusal to tell 
 the name of her lover. And so, to the 
 wonderful second act, where tragedy is 
 so dexterously woven into comedy; 
 where, under the guise of a drama that 
 the mountebanks proffer the villagers on 
 their little stage, the greater drama of 
 Canio s jealousy is spun out to its tragic 
 ending. In between the lines of the 
 dialogue intended for the village audi 
 ence come lines wrung from Canio s 
 heart that sear their way into his wife s 
 breast, spite of her stage-smiles and 
 graces. And when, at the last, Canio, 
 in his baffled rage, would strike her, and 
 Silvio, her lover, rushes from the audi 
 ence in rescue, only to be stabbed by 
 the finally exultant husband, young Lan 
 caster involuntarily shuddered. There 
 was something griping in the wonder 
 ful display of human rage and jealousy 
 that this young tenor gave in Canio; 
 in the final words, full of tragic, 
 double, ironical meaning, "La comedie 
 e finitn!" there was something of a 
 sentence of death. And somehow, in 
 Silvio there seemed to be something 
 ,of himself: that lover s terrible fate was 
 fraughtforhim,intheconscience-stricken 
 state he found himself in, with warning 
 and protest. While the applause, reach 
 ing curtain-call after curtain-call, surged 
 all about him, young Lancaster was 
 lost in reverie. He was changed, yes. 
 73 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 He had adapted himself to the man 
 ners of the town; but he still had a most 
 nervous conscience, sharp, unblunted. 
 He sat still, with his chin hiding his 
 upper shirt stud. 
 
 Mrs. Stewart s voice roused him. Her 
 husband was already engaged in putting 
 hercloak about her shoulders. "Won 
 derful, wasn t it?" she said iweetly. 
 "We shall see you Wednesday, shall we 
 not?" 
 
 He bowed and stammered something, 
 he hardly knew what. 
 
 The opera was over. 
 
 That night, before he took off his 
 dress clothes, Dick sat down and wrote 
 to his mother. It was a thing he had 
 not been so steadfast in of late as once 
 he had been. 
 
 In one place he wrote: "You ask 
 me, mother mine, how I like the 
 town now that it is no longer strange 
 to me. Oh, I like it only too well. 
 The old place, the old friends, the sweet 
 gentle tenor of all the old life out there 
 in Lincolnville, all seem like some far- 
 off dream to me. My ears and eyes are 
 full of the many sounds and sights of 
 the town; the multifarious vistas, and 
 the ever-changing face of the street. I 
 like the town and yet I fear it. Some 
 times its might oppresses me, and I feel 
 as if I wanted to get out in the woods 
 near our home and lie down at full 
 length on the mossy bank, where the 
 creek sings soothingly and the sun 
 hangs like a golden ball in a clear sky. 
 I want to hear the crickets, and the 
 74 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 deep silence of the nights, and the echoes 
 of detached laughter floating over the 
 meadows. I want to watch the sunlight 
 as it comes through the leaves and plays 
 hide-and-seek on the lawn; I want to 
 watch the hawk circling in the air, the 
 chickens scurrying fearfully at the sight 
 of him. And then again the feverish 
 itch to be in the very middle of this 
 maelstrom, the town, seizes me. I long 
 for the very thick and foremost of the 
 struggle, and the picture of Lincolnville 
 fades away. At this present time of 
 the year, though, I can really prefer the 
 town without seeming a slave to it. 
 
 "It is in the winter, or in the early 
 spring, when country places are chiefly 
 seas of mud and slush that one most 
 deeply realizes the delights of dwelling in 
 town. Modern invention has put the town 
 dweller beyond the weather s jealous 
 bites. We step into a hansom, we drive 
 to the club, we have dinner; behind 
 club doors, and in club comfort we 
 are above all the slings and arrows 
 of the elements; we drive to the 
 theatre, and the black-and-white splen 
 dor of our men, as well as the fur-decked 
 rosiness of our women, is only enhanced 
 by contrast against the frowny murkings 
 of the sky. I have noticed that the 
 finale, the curtain-fall of any important 
 public event, such as a dinner, a dance, 
 or an opera, is always a more picturesque 
 thing when the carriages have to drive 
 away through the sleet. Whereas, the 
 country! The weather is the world and 
 all that therein is; you can t get away 
 from it. Mud is king! * * * 
 
 75 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 " I am doing something in paint now, 
 just to feed this terrible ambition of 
 mine. The pen-and-ink work is all very 
 well, and it does bring the bread and 
 butter, but it is not what I want for 
 ever and ever. And I think I am going 
 to have for my subject just such a scene 
 as I wrote of a moment ago: the mo 
 ment before the carriages drive away 
 through the rain, with everybody in 
 gala attire and scintillant with bright 
 ness and insincerity. For the town is 
 insincere, mother, and cruel. Some 
 day, perhaps I, too, will become insincere. 
 I do not know. I pray it may not be so. 
 But I am alarming you causelessly. I 
 am only a little tired and unnerved to 
 night. I have been to the opera, and it 
 was just a little affecting. So don t 
 mind what I said just now. * * * * 
 I am getting rather tired and will say 
 good-night. * * * 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Cjl N the early dawn there had been a 
 j\ slight shower of rain, but by the 
 C5 time the sun was high enough to 
 shine over the town s highest buildings, 
 the clouds parted, and presently drifted 
 away altogether, leaving the golden disc 
 full freedom in giving a brilliant look to 
 the clean-washed streets. By noon 
 everything was as bright as a newly- 
 scoured kitchen. 
 
 It was at that time of the year when 
 spring is kissing a greeting to summer. 
 There was not too much heat. Growth 
 and activity were not yet subdued by 
 the later lassitude of midsummer. In 
 76 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 the parks the trees were full of blossoms, 
 the flowers were spelling out the runes 
 that the gardners had contrived for the 
 Sunday sight-seers, and the roadways 
 were alive with well-equipped traps of 
 every sort. The avenue was colorful 
 and kaleidoscopic. Dog-carts, driven by 
 smartly-gowned, square-sitting girls, 
 bowled along noiselessly, the footmen 
 looking as stolid as if carved in wood. 
 Landaus, with elderly women leaning 
 far back into the cushions, and shading 
 their complexions under lace-decked 
 parasols, went by with an occasional 
 rattling of chains. The careful observer 
 might have noticed that the number of 
 smart vehicles was a trifle larger than 
 usual; there were more coaches out, and 
 the air resounded more often to the 
 various military and hunting-calls that 
 the English grooms were executing on 
 their horns. 
 
 It was Derby Day. 
 
 Dick was walking along the avenue 
 watching, with his artist eyes open for 
 all the picturesque effect of the whole 
 the yellow haze of the sun that filled 
 the atmosphere in and out of which all 
 these rapid color-effects flashed swiftly, 
 the thin strip of sky-reflecting water to 
 the east, the line of grass and the sky- 
 touching horizon of huge buildings 
 when he heard someone calling out his 
 name. 
 
 "Lancaster!" It was Stanley, driv 
 ing a dog-cart and a neat bay cob. "The 
 very man! Jump in, won t you? Going 
 down to the Derby. Thing you should 
 n t miss; lots of color and all that sort 
 
 77 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 of thing! Asked Vanstruther to go 
 down with me, but one of his dime- 
 novel heroes is ill or something of that 
 sort, and he s off the list. That s good 
 of you. Look how you re stepping. This 
 brute has been eating his head off all 
 week, and isn t really fit for a Christian 
 to drive. That s it! Now." They went 
 spinning along the avenue. 
 
 In the instant or two before he climbed 
 into the dog-cart, Dick had reflected 
 that while he was not over-fond of 
 Stanley in a good many ways, the man 
 was undeniably a clever fellow, always 
 to be depended on for bright talk; be 
 sides he did feel very much like study 
 ing the scene of a Derby Day with its 
 many-colored facets. 
 
 Watching the rapid, shifting beauties 
 of the boulevard, Dick burst into a little 
 sigh of admiration. "Ah," he said, 
 " this is good! This is living! " 
 
 "Youthful enthusiasm, "muttered the 
 other man. "Delightful thing youthful 
 enthusiasm to get over." 
 
 "Oh, no! I hope I never shall! What 
 is life worth if one is not to show that 
 one enjoys it? How can you look at a 
 day like this a splendid, champagne- 
 like day and yet " 
 
 " My dear fellow," interrupted Stan 
 ley, with a queer smile, "when a man 
 gets to my time of life there is always 
 something melancholy to him in the 
 picture of a spring day. It reminds him 
 of his own youth: all tears and sunshine. 
 Today there are neither tears or sun 
 shine; it is all just contemplation. I don t 
 seem to belong to the play at all, any 
 78 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 more, myself; I m merely a spectator. 
 To the spectator there is always some 
 thing pathetic about joy." 
 
 "Your lunch was indigestable, that s 
 all that is the matter with you," laughed 
 Dick. " It s a dogma of mine that pes 
 simism is merely another word for in 
 digestion." 
 
 "Dogma!" sighed Stanley, "Don t 
 you know that all dogmas are obsolete? 
 Don t you know that in this rapid age 
 we believe everything, accept every 
 thing and yet doubt everything? " 
 
 " Isn t that a trifle paradoxical?" 
 
 No ; only modern ! We believe every 
 thing that inventors or scientists may 
 tell us; but in the world spiritual we be 
 lieve nothing. Is that a paradox? " 
 
 "But indigestion is surely, h m, ma 
 terial rather than spiritual?" Dick en 
 joyed the verbal parries that he was 
 always sure of with Stanley. He was 
 always trying to get at the secret man s 
 cynicism, a cynicism that was the essence 
 of what many other men of the world he 
 lived in seemed to feel, but were not all, 
 perhaps, so well able to express. 
 
 "Oh well, " wasStanley s answer, after 
 all, it doesn t matter. Nothing makes 
 any difference." He looked blankly 
 ahead as if all the world was contained 
 in the space occupied between the cob s 
 ears. Then he went on, in his minor 
 monotone, "No, nothing, except " 
 
 Dick, thinking to be cheery, put in 
 "Except marriage?" 
 
 "No!" came from Stanley, with a 
 sudden flick of the whip over the cob s 
 flanks, "that only makes differences." 
 
 79 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 Dick laughed somewhat impatiently. 
 " Oh! " he urged, "why sit there and be 
 dismal? Why not wake up and live? 
 Surely the air is full of it, of this fair 
 Life? Enjoy it, brace up, be young! " 
 
 "Ah, if I only could again, if I only 
 could! Oh, to be young again! He is 
 the Autocrat of today, the young man." 
 He lapsed into his sneer once more. 
 "The young man of today thinks he has 
 the experience of the centuries at his 
 fingertips, whereas he really has only 
 the gloves that were made yesterday 
 and will split tomorrow." 
 
 "You are not only unjust," protested 
 Dick, "you are flippant." 
 
 "Of course I am! The keynote of 
 this end of the century is lightness. 
 The modern declares that life is but a 
 joke, and a bad one at best. How 
 to live without ever allowing one 
 self to suspect that life is more than a 
 game in which the odds are heads, 
 Death wins; tails, Man loses: that is the 
 great problem of the decade. The uni 
 versal solution of the difficulty is the 
 practice of superficiality. Skim ! Be 
 light! Never penetrate below the sur 
 faces! Never search the deep! Make 
 love as if it were a tourney of jests; die 
 as if it were a riddle well guessed! Be 
 scintillantly versatile, rather than thor 
 ough; hide your ignorance with bland 
 blasedom; treat tragedy as an intruder, 
 comedy as a chum, and as a reward you 
 will be called up-to-date. Nay, more: 
 your fashionable friends may even mis 
 pronounce French in your behalf and 
 dub you fin de sieclef" 
 80 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 Dick shuddered laughingly. " A hor 
 rible philosophy," he said. And yet he 
 was glad of the other s bitterness; it 
 showed, through all its veil of sneers and 
 scorn, something of the point of view of 
 the foremost in that race toward Death 
 that some of the town -dwellers are wont 
 to call Life. 
 
 Yet he could not keep his thoughts 
 long on the serious import of the other s 
 scornful flippancy. How shall two-and- 
 twenty years, and health, and sunshine, 
 and a spirit susceptible to enjoyments 
 that the very atmosphere seemed rendol- 
 ent of, allow a young man to brood on the 
 progress of the world s cancer? No; 
 there were too many distractions! 
 Tandems whirling by with horsy young 
 men handling the ribbons; brakes full 
 of laughing girls and straw-hatted young 
 men; hackney carriages with four oc 
 cupants unmistakably of the bookmaker 
 guild. 
 
 Just before they rolled into sight of 
 the grand-stand, Stanley said, "Oh, who 
 do you suppose I had a letter from 
 yesterday?" 
 
 "No idea." 
 
 "The most noble A. B. Wooton, of 
 the late lamented Torch." 
 
 " You don t say so. His nerve never 
 dies, eh?" 
 
 " As I said before, his is not a case of 
 nerve ; it is genius. He has the pret 
 tiest story you ever read, swears his 
 advertising man deceived him and got 
 the paper into all manner of tight places; 
 found himself forced to get away from 
 the ruins so that he could the better 
 81 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 repay his creditors, which he states he 
 has instructed his lawyers to do, and all 
 the rest of it! I don t believe a word of 
 it; but he has got grit! " 
 
 " That is a national fault," said Dick 
 soberly, " the admiration of grit in 
 scoundrels. For that is all that Wooton 
 is, after all!" 
 
 "Oh, well, why split hairs? He never 
 did you any harm, did he? However, 
 about his letter. He writes from Dres 
 den. Says he has just met some Ameri 
 cans name of Ware, I think. Enjoy 
 ing himself immensely girl in the party 
 moonlight rides and all that sort of 
 thing. Wonder how long he ll last over 
 there?" 
 
 "I knowsomeWares," said Dick quiet 
 ly; "but I hardly think it could be the 
 same ones. Though they are in Europe 
 just now, that s true." His thoughts 
 tried to hark back to Lincolnville, to 
 his parting with Dorothy Ware, and to 
 her return; but the present was too 
 strong for him. They were driving across 
 the course at this moment, and over into 
 the field, which was already a motly, 
 colored mass of vehicles, white dresses, 
 parasols and stamping horses. The tops 
 of coaches were made over into sitting 
 room for summer-dressed girls, of whose 
 faces one caught only the white under- 
 half the chin and the mouth, in high 
 sun relief while the eyes were in shade 
 of the huge parasols. One caught 
 glimpses of light shoes and hose; of 
 young men walking, in earnest converse 
 over betting tickets held in hand; of 
 wicker lunch-baskets being brought 
 82 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 from the inner chambers of the coaches 
 and prepared for a future hunger; and, 
 beyond, in the grand stand, of a black, 
 indistinguishable mass of spectators, 
 noisy, tremendous. 
 
 As soon as they had found a place for 
 the dog-cart, from which they would be 
 able to see the finish with tolerable 
 comfort and completeness, Stanley said, 
 with a noticeable alacrity succeeding the 
 languid pessimism that had distinguished 
 him all during the drive down. 
 
 " Now then, Lancaster, let s hurry over 
 to the betting-shed!" 
 
 For a moment only Dick hesitated. 
 "Going to bet, or just to look on?" he 
 asked. 
 
 "Bet, of course, you innocent infant! 
 But, Scotland, you don t have to! You 
 can just soak in the what do you call 
 it the inpressionistic view of it. But 
 hurry up, whatever you are going to do, 
 I don t want the odds to tumble down 
 too far before I get there!" 
 
 Not so long ago Dick would have 
 cavilled, hesitated, perhaps refused. 
 Now he caught his half-uttered objec 
 tions being met by a whisper in his own 
 mind of * Don t be a prig! and he fol 
 lowed Stanley silently. It occurred to 
 him, presently, that to warn oneself of 
 becoming a prig was in itself evidence 
 of priggishness. Impatiently he shook 
 his head, as if to get all analytical reflec 
 tions out of his head altogether. He 
 looked at the scene around him, and 
 forgot everything else. 
 
 The scene in the betting-shed was, 
 just as is the stock exchange floor, the 
 
 83 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 boiling-point of the kettle of froth called 
 metropolitan life. Around the book 
 makers stands was a seething, struggling 
 mass of humanity. Each member of this 
 mob was pushing, striving, perspiring for 
 what? the chance to get something 
 for nothing! The bookmakers them 
 selves were straining every nerve to keep 
 pace with the public s feverish desire to 
 get rid of it s money. On their little 
 stands, their heads on a level with the 
 black-board that furnished the names of 
 the horses and the odds against, they 
 stood; one hand busy taking in money 
 that was handed in to the inner part of 
 the stand, the other grasping the piece 
 of chalk that ever and again touched 
 the black-board to effect some change 
 in the odds. One man inside was busy 
 with pencil and paper, registering each 
 ticket as it was handed out; another 
 covered the face of the ticket with the 
 hasty hieroglyphics that stood for the 
 horse chosen and the amount wagered 
 and the amount that might be won. Here 
 and there a bookmaker encouraged the 
 "plunge"on some horse that he professed 
 to scorn by shouting forth his odds and 
 the horse s name. The blind struggle 
 of the majority was an amusing spectacle; 
 it certainly seemed to vouch for the truth 
 of the saying that man is a gambling 
 animal. Like serpents, the " touts," 
 professional vendors of spurious stable 
 information, went winding in and out 
 through the. throng, sometimes dis 
 playing judgment in the would-be bettors 
 they approached, but as often as not 
 displaying most lamentable indiscretion. 
 84 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 Dick watched, with an amused smile, 
 how one of these fellows sided up to a 
 quiet man, who, program in hand, was 
 leaning against ? pillar watching the 
 boards and the changes in odds. The 
 quiet man listened to the tout s hoarse 
 whisperings, and then threw his coat 
 back showing an "owner s" badge. The 
 tout slunk sheepishly into the crowd. 
 
 " If you take my advice," said Stanley 
 who was fighting his way towards some 
 remote goal or other, "you ll take a little 
 flyer on Dr. Rice. That s what I m going 
 to do. There s a fellow on the other 
 side of the ring has him a point higher 
 than anyone else." 
 
 Dick, without having made up his 
 mind as to his own betting or not betting, 
 helped his companion in his struggle to 
 get through the crowd. Desperate 
 energy was necessary. There was never 
 any time for apologies; elbows were 
 pushed into sides, toes were trodden on, 
 scarfs twisted and sleeve-links broken; 
 no matter, there was money to be won 
 and there was no time either to con 
 sider passing annoyances or the posibil- 
 ity of loss. 
 
 "Ah," said Stanley, finally, as they 
 found themselves in front of a black 
 board that had a figure "7" chalked 
 to the left of the name Dr. Rice and a 
 "3" to the right. "Here we are! 
 Now then, what are you going to do?" 
 He whipped out a twenty dollar bill and 
 crumpled it carefully into the palm of 
 his hand. 
 
 Dick thought quickly. After all, it 
 was merely the foregoing of some luxury 
 85 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 or another; he would postpone joining 
 that polo club, perhaps, or go without 
 that new edition of Menzel s drawing s 
 that he had been promising himself. 
 He took a bill out of his card-case and 
 handed it, without a word, to Stanley. 
 
 The ticket that Stanley presently 
 handed him had "Rice" almost illigibly 
 scrawled across it, and the figures "70" 
 and " 10." Dick stood to lose ten or to 
 win seventy dollars. 
 
 By the time they had got comfortably 
 ensconsed in their seats in the dog-cart 
 once more, the horses were at the post 
 for the great event of the day, the Ameri 
 can Derby. Dick had begun to feel 
 something of the torment of expectation 
 and fear and hope that makes the gam 
 bler s nerves either like a sheet of reeds 
 in the wind or like a tightly-drawn wire. 
 If he won it would be, as he heard some 
 men in the betting-shed remark, "just 
 like finding money." He could allow 
 himself all sorts of extravagances. He 
 observed the horses making false start 
 after false start without even a suspicion 
 of qualmishness as to the moral aspect 
 of the case coming over him. He had 
 grown, to use his own phase, broader. 
 
 Down beyond the turn into the stretch 
 was the bunch of restless horses, the vari 
 colored jackets, the starter s carriage, 
 and the assistant starter s flag. There was 
 the sky-blue jacket that showed where 
 the favorite, The Ghost, was pirouetting 
 on his hind legs; the black and yellow 
 bars of Etna s jockey, and many others. 
 But Dick s eyes were focused on Dr. 
 Rice; the horse s jockey was in all-black. 
 86 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 "Ah h! " The vast crowd roars and 
 cheers as a start is made. All together, 
 like a herd of cattle, they sweep on to 
 ward the grand-stand. It is not racing 
 yet. Favorite and second favorite are 
 back in the centre of the bunch. In 
 front of the grand-stand one jockey 
 sends his horse out a length in front. 
 It is an outsider, but there are plenty 
 of backers of outsiders, and a cheer goes 
 up. "He ll walk away from them!" 
 "The others are standing still!" and 
 such-like shouts go up. The pace begins 
 to get killing. At the half ^Etna is seen 
 to move up to the leader, finally to pass 
 him. The favorite is also creeping from 
 out the ruck. Slowly, surely he forges 
 past all the leaders but ^Etna; the latter 
 shoots ahead again for the distance of 
 a length and The Ghost drops back to 
 fourth place. It was evidently merely a 
 feeler to find out whether ^Etna was going 
 too fast or whether there was still time 
 to get up when the stretch was reached. 
 
 Round the turn they sweep into the 
 stretch. It is a dangerous picture, with 
 so many horses so close together, with 
 such speed, and such possibility of col 
 lisions. But the turn is made in a sec 
 ond; now they are in the straight road 
 for home. The Ghost is creeping up 
 again, wearing down horse after horse, 
 finally reaching ^Etna s throatlatch. 
 Neck and neck these two race up the 
 last furlong; then a sudden, surprised 
 roar breaks out from the mob of on 
 lookers; another horse has cut loose 
 from the bunch that has now become a 
 straggling, attenuated string of tired 
 
 8? 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 horses. The shout goes up: " Look at 
 Dr. Rice!" " Dr. Rice!" 
 
 Now he is up to Etna s flanks and 
 going under a pull; his jockey has never 
 yet touched spur to him. The whip 
 comes down on ^Etna; it is no use; he 
 is raced out. Now Dr. Rice has reached 
 The Ghost, and the latter s jockey be 
 gins using the whip. In the grand-stand 
 there is an inferno of cheering; men are 
 shouting themselves hoarse, and jump 
 ing up and down in nervous paroxysms. 
 Dr. Rice s jockey never moves a muscle 
 to all appearances. The cries go up 
 from the mob: "Come Rice! " "Come 
 Ghost!" The judges begin to strain their 
 their attention to the viewing of a very 
 close finish. Then with a final mighty lift, 
 Dr. Rice, in the very last stride, shoots 
 forward under the wire a neck in front 
 of The Ghost. 
 
 Dr. Rice has won. 
 
 On the way home Stanley was another 
 man. He talked as if such a thing as 
 a regret for a lost youth had never en 
 tered his head; he was young again. He 
 recounted his impression of the race, 
 asked Dick what he had thought of it all, 
 was full of amusing anecdotes about 
 men who had tried to get him to back 
 the favorite,and was fertile in suggestions 
 for what they should do that evening. 
 Of course it was understood they must 
 celebrate in some way. Surely! Surely! 
 
 " Oh," he said, finally, "I know what 
 we ll do. We ll go along to the Imperial 
 Theatre. I know some of the girls in 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 the burlesque there. I ll introduce you. 
 We ll enjoy ourselves." 
 
 Dick began to demur. 
 
 "Don t be a d d idiot," said the 
 
 other man, half smiling, half frowning. 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 O one that has ever been in Dres 
 den is likely to forget the beau 
 ties of the Bruehlsche Terrasse. 
 The cool plash of waters from the Elbe 
 come up invitingly; the green of the 
 neighboring gardens is luscious, and 
 there are nearly always strains of music 
 in the air. Especially pleasing is the 
 picture on a summer s evening. 
 
 In one of the concert gardens they 
 give out on the Terrasse, there sat at 
 a small round table, one dreemy mid 
 summer evening, Mrs. Ware and her 
 daughter, Dorothy. In front of them 
 were small cups of coffee, and such ap 
 petising rolls as only the Conditors of 
 the continent can make. The garden 
 was in no wise different from a thous 
 and others to be found in German cities; 
 save only that it was especially happy in 
 its location. There was a light, gravelly 
 soil; a multitude of round tables; chairs 
 occupied by a cosmopolitan crew of 
 both sexes; at one end, in the shadow of 
 huge lime trees, was the Capelle. Over 
 all was the star-gemmed sky. The air 
 was sweet with the song of the violins, 
 and the cheery laughter of the many 
 family parties came echoing along from 
 time to time in musical accompaniment. 
 There were German students, with the 
 89 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 vari-colored caps and occasional sword- 
 wounds on their faces; officers with 
 clanking swords and clothes fitting in 
 lines that suggested stays; English 
 tourists, easily distinguishable by cos 
 tumes they would nothave dared to startle 
 Hyde Park with; Americans with high 
 pitched voices; and a few Russians, ex 
 cessively polite of manner and cruel of 
 eye. 
 
 Miss Dorothy Ware was engaged in 
 munching at a roll that had been steep 
 ing in the strong coffee, when she sud 
 denly turned to her mother with an 
 eager exclamation. 
 
 "I declare, mamma," she said, " if 
 there isn t Mr. Wooton coming this 
 way. The idea of meeting him again at 
 all. I m sure I never thought we would; 
 there are so many people away travel 
 ing about this time of the year, and there 
 are so many places. He has just seen us, 
 mamma, and he s coming over here. See 
 he s lifting his hat. I m glad we ve got 
 this vacant chair." 
 
 Wooton shook hands with them. "The 
 old platitude about the world being a 
 very small place seems to strike true," 
 he said. " Do you know, it s a positive 
 relief to talk to people of my own sort 
 once more." He had sat down beside 
 Dorothy, and placed his stick and gloves 
 on the gravel beside him. He looked 
 decidedly handsome; his small mouth 
 seemed smaller than ever, and his face 
 was paler than when he dictated the 
 fortunes of the Torch. He was scrupu 
 lously dressed; every detail was so nice 
 ly adjusted that he would have success- 
 go 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 fully run the gauntlet of all the comment 
 of Piccadilly and Broadway. 
 
 " I ve just come from Berlin," he went 
 on, "it was like an oven there. Nearly 
 everybody was away; some of them in 
 Heringsdorf, some in Switzerland, some 
 down in this district. My compartment 
 in the train was filled with a lot of offi 
 cers on leave, and they talked army 
 slang until my head swam, and I would 
 have given gold for the sound of an 
 American voice." 
 
 "You seem to rush about a good deal," 
 ventured Mrs. Ware. " Din t we meet 
 you in Schwalbach?" 
 
 " Mamma forgets so," put in Dorothy, 
 "she s been meeting so many people, 
 I begin to think she jumbles them all 
 up. But it was in Schwalbach, mamma; 
 you re right. Don t you remember? 
 We were sitting near the Stahlbrunnen, 
 with the Tremonts we used to set 
 next to them at the Hotel d Europe 
 when Mr. Wooton came up and said 
 how-d ye-do to the Tremonts, and they 
 presented him to us. When Mrs. 
 Tremont was at boarding-school, you 
 know," she went on, turning to Wooton, 
 "she and mamma were great chums. 
 She was a Miss Alexander. " She put her 
 hand up to her hat and gave it a mysteri 
 ous pressure, presumably to rectify some 
 invisable displacement. She turned and 
 looked out into the darkness whence 
 came the sullen swish of the river. "It 
 was delightful in Schwalbach," she said 
 finally. 
 
 "It was horribly expensive," com 
 mented Mrs. Ware, sipping her coffee. 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 But the waters did you good, I hope ?" 
 inquired Wooton, suavely solicitous. 
 
 "Oh, I guess so. But I don t seem 
 to improve right along, as I should? 
 But I shouldn t complain. I m a good 
 deal stouter than when I left home. Be 
 sides, Dorothy is having a right good 
 time." 
 
 "Ah," smiled Wooton, to the girl, 
 "you like it the life here? " 
 
 "Yes; I like it. I don t say that I like 
 it better than other things. But who 
 could help liking that?" She swept her 
 parasol around so that it pointed out 
 toward the river. There was complete 
 darkness there, lit up occasionally by 
 the lights of passing steamers. Fog- 
 whistles sounded occasionally; on the op 
 posite shore there was a dim glow of yel 
 low lights. The water sobbed ceaselessly; 
 there was a mist rising, and the steamer 
 lights began to seem hazier than ever, 
 mere golden circles hanging in the dense 
 darkness. The violins were playing some 
 thing of Waldteufel s. 
 
 It was true; not even the most patri 
 otic of Americans .could have helped 
 granting that all this was very pleasant. 
 Dorothy Ware had certainly given up 
 being half-hearted in her enthusiasm for 
 European things; they had met so many 
 people and had rubbed up against so 
 much of cosmopolitanism that unconsci 
 ously she had come to see that to apply 
 the narrow Lincolnville view to all the 
 people she saw now was a trifle absurd. 
 She gave herself candidly over to enjoy 
 it all. That was what she had come for. 
 And it must be confessed that, during 
 92 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 this process of enjoyment, her memories 
 of her former self became ghosts of ever- 
 increasing vagueness. When she caught 
 herself thinking of Dick Lancaster it 
 was usually to wonder what sort of a girl 
 he had married. She smiled when she 
 thought of the things he had said to her 
 before they parted. It didn t seem to 
 touch her at all now, and she seemed 
 sure that a man siips out of that sort of 
 thing much earlier than the woman. 
 
 They met Wooton a good deal after 
 that. He spent a good deal of time 
 among the pictures, and when they 
 visited the Gruene Gwoeble they found 
 him there. He was invariably bright 
 and amusing; he offered to pilot them 
 and smooth things for them generally; 
 Mrs. Ware began to think he was tre 
 mendously nice. She remembered that 
 Miss Alexander now Mrs. Tremont 
 had always been one of the most aristo 
 cratic of girls; she recalled with some 
 thing of a shudder, her own awe at her 
 school-mate s lengthy dissertation upon 
 blood and family and kindred subjects. 
 So, she argued, if Wooton was in Mrs. 
 Tremont s set in town, there was cer 
 tainly not the vestige of a doubt con 
 cerning his being eminently the correct 
 thing. She had lived in the country so 
 long herself that she admitted she was 
 no longer able to note the difference 
 between good coin and bad; but she had 
 infinite faith in Mrs. Tremont. Dorothy, 
 too, got to feel that he was very charm 
 ing; he was so handsome, and dressed so 
 well. It was very pleasant to have him 
 in the party \ he added distinction. 
 93 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 Wooton had admitted that he knew 
 young Lancaster; he divined that she 
 had liked the boy; he was wise enough 
 to tell her only pleasant things about 
 Dick. The only thing Dorothy objected 
 to was that Wooton went about a good 
 deal with the Tremonts. It seemed to 
 her that he was quite devoted to Miss 
 Eugenie. 
 
 " I don t like her a bit," she told him 
 rather tactlessly, speaking of Miss 
 Tremont, " she s so supercilious. I 
 never know when she s laughing at me 
 and when she s not listening to me. I 
 suppose she thinks I m a country chit 
 and don t know anything. But I wouldn t 
 be clever the way she s clever for any 
 thing in the world. Why does she have 
 to sneer at innocence and goodness? 
 Nobody ever accused her of either, did 
 they?" 
 
 Which, Wooton thought to himself, 
 was not half bad. As a matter of fact 
 he enjoyed being with Eugene Tremont 
 immensely. She was one of those in 
 tensely modern girls that the world is so 
 unhappily rich in just now. She would 
 talk about any subject under the sun. 
 She declared that she had always cared 
 more for male society anyway; she de 
 spised her own sex and said spiteful 
 things about it. She pretended to be 
 completely cognizant of all the wicked 
 ness there was in the world; and she 
 went on the presumption that man was 
 a sort of infernal machine that there was 
 unlimited fun the fun of danger in 
 handling. Men liked her at first invari 
 ably; there was something refreshing 
 94 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 and stimulating in the nonchalance 
 with which she tabooed no subject 
 from her conversation ; they said to 
 themselves that this was a person, 
 thank goodness, whom one did not 
 eternally have to consider in the light 
 of a sex, but rather of a sexless clever 
 ness. But, somehow or other, her 
 cleverness wearied presently; she palled 
 as all surfaces must inevitably pall. 
 Wooton, however, turned to her be 
 cause she was of his own special calibre 
 all cleverness, and no apparent sharply 
 denned system of conduct. With the 
 Wares he was so perpetually on a grid 
 iron; he was afraid of saying something 
 that would startle them. They amused 
 him, these people, with their simplicity, 
 their taking virtue for granted and vice 
 for an abhorent mystery! To talk to them 
 it was necessary to keep a constant 
 check on his cynical; while with Eugene 
 Tremont it was sword to sword, a sharp 
 continuous fencing with verbal weap 
 ons. 
 
 So, when Dorothy Ware made the cut 
 ting little speech about Miss Tremont, 
 Wooton told himself that there was 
 something more than mere dislike for 
 the Boston . girl at the bottom of it. 
 Considering the matter, he broke into a 
 laugh. Was it possible, h m. That would 
 really be too rich. 
 
 He began to be seen with the Tre- 
 monts oftener than ever. He went with 
 them to the opera, he took a seat in 
 their landau. He went to Teplitz with 
 them. 
 
 "They re more in the same set, I sup- 
 
 95 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 pose," said Mrs. Ware, when Dorothy 
 spoke of it. " He was at college with 
 her brother, too; I guess they talk about 
 him a good deal." 
 
 Dorothy guessed that she knew better; 
 but she said nothing. Somehow, Dresden 
 began to seem fearfully dreary. She be 
 gan importuning her mother to pack up 
 and go to Munich; they had some friends 
 there. Dorothy declared Dresden made 
 her homesick; she said it was all so 
 small and pretty, anyway; it wasn t a 
 metropolis, yet it tried to ape the real 
 article. And then there were so many 
 Americans you couldn t talk English 
 anywhere without having people under 
 stand you, which was distinctly annoy 
 ing, because occasionally one likes to 
 make personal asides about costumes 
 and hats and complexions and, well, 
 what was the use of staying there any 
 longer anyhow? But Mrs. Ware de 
 clared the climate agreed with her. She 
 said she hadn t felt so well for ever so 
 long, she wasn t going to try any other 
 place as this one agreed with her. Did 
 Dorothy want to see her die? No; 
 Dorothy did not. She submitted, and 
 went about looking dismal. 
 
 And then, one day, the sunshine came 
 back into here face once more. It 
 was not that the good fairies had re 
 modeled the town of Dresden; it was 
 not that all English-speaking people had 
 suddenly deserted the place; in fact, it 
 was hard to say just what made the 
 difference. It was just possible that 
 Wooton s return from Teplitz had some 
 thing to do with the good humor in 
 96 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 which Dorothy came back to her mother 
 that noon, after a walk down to the Con- 
 dftorei. She had almost cannoned into 
 him, rounding a corner; they had shaken 
 hands; he had avowed the pleasure he 
 felt at seeing her again. It is just pos 
 sible that the sight of this young man 
 was a talisman for Miss Ware s temper; 
 it is at least certain that her melancholia 
 was gone. 
 
 He called on them, in a day or so, at 
 their apartments in the Hotel Bellevue. 
 Mrs. Ware was very glad to see him; 
 she was more vivacious than she had 
 yet shown herself. She proposed that 
 they take their coffee out in the garden, 
 on the river front, under the trees. They 
 sat watching the boats, and the little 
 boys paddling about barefooted; it was 
 in the cool of sunset, and there were red 
 bars slanting across the western horizon. 
 It was very pleasant. The waiter moved 
 about noiselessly; there were some 
 children making merry in the swing set 
 up at the far end of the garden. 
 
 "Is Teplitz very full?" asked Mrs. 
 Ware. 
 
 "Yes; more people than usual, I be 
 lieve. I should think the hot baths would 
 do you good, too, Mrs. Ware?" 
 
 "Oh, I guess I ll stay here a while yet. 
 I m getting to feel quite spry again. 
 You left the Tremonts there? " 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 Dorothy turned away from the river 
 and looked at him a trifle reproachfully. 
 "You must be awfully fond of those 
 people," she said, trying to smile. 
 97 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 Wooton shrugged his shoulders care 
 lessly. 
 
 "No," he replied, "I can t say that 
 exactly. But Mrs. Tremont really insist 
 ed on my going; she said she had never 
 been there before, and thought that as I 
 knew the ropes of the place, it would be 
 a small thing for me to play pilot for 
 them for a while. What was I to do?" 
 He looked at Dorothy appealingly. 
 
 Mrs. Ware was pushing a stray wisp 
 of hair from her cheek. 
 
 "In Boston, Dorothy," she said, "I 
 guess Mrs. Tremont is quite a society 
 leader." She said it as if that was an 
 assertion of crushing significance, in 
 tended to quiet any possible questionings 
 as to why any young man should think 
 it necessary to comply with the wishes 
 of so great a personage. 
 
 "What if she is?" was Dorothy s 
 quick reply; "that doesn t make h,r any 
 better, does it? I don t see how you 
 can go around with them so much, that s 
 all, Mr. Wooton." 
 
 "Oh," he laughed, "I assure you I 
 don t like them so very much myself; 
 but I don t dislike them. And I hate to 
 offend people. They asked me to go!" 
 
 They drank their coffee, and watched 
 the twilight settling down. They talked 
 lightly, and laughed a good deal. 
 
 Miss Ware," Wooton asked presently, 
 "you ve never been down to Schandau, 
 have you?" 
 
 " No. Is it worth while?" 
 
 " Immensely! You ought to make the 
 trip." 
 
 Oh, I simply can t begin to get mamma 
 98 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 to move from this town. She s perfect 
 ly enchanted with it, somehow." She 
 looked at her mother, and patted her on 
 the arm. Mrs. Ware said nothing, only 
 smiled back at her daughter, who went 
 on, "but I d like it mightily." 
 
 "I wish you d let me show you the 
 place," Wooton persevered. He looked 
 over at Mrs. Ware in a hesitating way. 
 "Perhaps if Mrs. Ware would rather 
 not stir from the hotel there would be 
 no objection to Miss Ware making the 
 trip with me ? The place is really pretty; 
 the royal residence there is one of the 
 sights. It s only half an hour or so by 
 the steamer. You d hardly notice our 
 absence; I think she d enjoy it." He 
 wondered a little whether they would 
 look at him in frigid horror, or take it as 
 a proposition quite in accord with the 
 conventions they were accustomed to. 
 He knew perfectly well that most of the 
 people he knew in the East would have 
 considered him insane if he had ven 
 tured such a proposal; but, in regard to 
 these people, and this girl in particular, 
 he remembered that a friend of his had 
 once used a phrase that had struck him 
 at the time as rather good, and that was, 
 perhaps, applicable. The man had 
 declared, half in a spirit of banter, half 
 in chivalrous defense, that the girl of 
 the West paraphrased the old motto to 
 read: " Sans peur, sans reproche et sans 
 chaperon" 
 
 To his relief, Mrs. Ware s answer was 
 
 merely a smile at her daughter, and a 
 
 " You ll have to see what Dorothy thinks 
 
 about it, I guess. It s her picnic. If she 
 
 99 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 wares to go ." She left the sentence 
 unfinished, as if to convey the impres 
 sion that under the circumstances men 
 tioned her own preference would be 
 allowed lapse. 
 
 " I think," said Dorothy, with a little 
 clasping together of her hands, that 
 it would be simply delightful! You 
 wouldn t worry, would you, mamma? 
 There are always so many waiters around 
 and dear, dear, I talk just as if we were 
 going this very minute!" She looked 
 gratefully at Wooton. Somehow or 
 other, he felt himself blushing. He 
 caught himself regretting the fact that 
 he was no longer as genuine as this girl 
 was. I think it s simply perfect of you 
 to ask me," she went on, "I m sure I ll 
 enjoy it ever so much." 
 
 "Then," he said, airily, "we ll con 
 sider that settled. It s very good of you 
 to say you ll go, Fm sure. Suppose we 
 say Wednesday?" 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 T was certainly ft sunny enough day, 
 and the Elbe glistened invitingly. 
 Wooton had been up earlier than 
 was usual for him and had taken a walk 
 out into the level country; when he 
 came into the hallway of the Bellevue 
 he was in the best of spirits. Miss Ware 
 came down the stairway, presently, her 
 parasol in rest over her left arm, and her 
 gloves still in process of being buttoned. 
 She smiled down at him radiantly. 
 100 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 " I haven t kept you waiting, have I?" 
 she cried. 
 
 "Not a moment," he answered," ad 
 ding, with a smile, "strange to say. 
 You young ladies usually do! But do 
 you notice how kind the clerk of the 
 weather is?" 
 
 "Delightful!" They went slowly down 
 toward the wharf where the little steamer 
 was puffing lazily in the rising heat. 
 
 "Your mother is well? " He asked the 
 question as solicitously as if he were the 
 family physician. 
 
 " Quite well. The fact is," she added 
 with a comic effort to seem melancholy, 
 " I m afraid she ll be so well soon that 
 she ll want to go back to the States. 
 
 "Ah, so you don t want to go just 
 yet?" 
 
 " Oh, I haven t half seen it all, you 
 know! Still, " she sighed gently and 
 looked out beyond the real horizon, " it 
 will be nice to be home again." 
 
 Wooton brought a couple of steamer 
 chairs and placed them on the deck-space 
 that was well in the shadow of the awn 
 ing. The sun was beginning to grow 
 almost unpleasantly strong. Presently, 
 with a minute or so of wriggling away 
 from the wharf, of backing and sidling, 
 the little steamer got proper headway 
 and proceeded slowly on its way up the 
 river. The central portion of the town 
 was soon passed; green gxrden-spaces, 
 and houses shut in by cherry-trees, gave 
 way to low-lying meadows and hills riting 
 up in the distance. The perpetual "shug- 
 shug-shug" of the engines, and the 
 hushed whispering of the river as the 
 101 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 steamer bows cut through the water 
 were almost the only sounds that broke 
 the quiet. There was not a cloud in the 
 sky. Swallows darted arrow-like through 
 the air. 
 
 Wooton had pushed his hat back from 
 his forehead and sat with half-closed eyes. 
 He was silent. Miss Ware, looking at 
 him shyly, wondered what he was think 
 ing about; told herself once more that 
 he was the handsomest man she had 
 ever seen, and then sent her clear gaze 
 riverward again. What Wooton was think 
 ing at that moment was that he would 
 give many things if in his spirit there 
 were still that simplicity that would ask 
 of life no more feverish pleasures than 
 those he was now enjoying the pleas 
 ures of peace and quiet. To be able to 
 sit thus, with half-closed eyes, as it were, 
 and let the wind of the world always 
 blow merely a gentle breath across one s 
 face! perhaps, after all, that was the 
 road to happiness. On the other hand, 
 the thousand and one experiences 
 missed, the opportunities wasted! Surely 
 it was impossible to appreciate the 
 sweets of good had one not first tasted 
 of the fruit of knowledge of evil! But 
 supposing one so got the taste of the 
 bitter apple into one s mouth that there 
 after all things tasted bitter and the 
 good, especially, created only nausea? 
 For that was his own state. Well, in 
 that case he smiled to himself in his 
 silence there was nothing to be done 
 but enjoy, enjoy to think of the once 
 easily reached contentment as of a dream 
 that is dead, and to strive so ceaselessly 
 102 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 to blow the embers of the fires of pleas 
 ure that they would at least keep smoul 
 dering until all the vessel was ashes. 
 The pleasures of the moment those 
 were the things to seize! The moment 
 was the thing to enjoy; the morrow 
 might not come. 
 
 He turned to look at the girl beside 
 him, who had by this time resigned her 
 self with something of quiet amusement 
 to his silence, and now sat, veilless, her 
 lips slightly open to the breeze, her face 
 unspeakably fair-seeming with its rosy 
 flush and its look of eager, expectant 
 enjoyment. He told himself that, as far 
 as this moment at least went, it left 
 little to be desired; to sit beside so sweety 
 a girl as Dorothy Ware was surely pleas 
 ure enough. And then he thought some 
 what grimly that he himself was, un 
 fortunately, impregnable to the infec 
 tion of such simple joys. 
 
 "A penny! " he spoke softly, as if not 
 to wake her too brusquely from a reverie. 
 
 Oh, " she cried, with a little start, and 
 turning toward him, "they are not worth 
 so much, really! I was thinking of Mr. 
 Lancaster. He used to be so terribly 
 ambitious; you know. Didn t you say 
 you knew of him, in town?" 
 
 Wooton realized that he must needs be 
 diplomatic. He called it diplomacy; 
 some persons might have rudely termed 
 it mendacity. The two are commonly 
 confounded. 
 
 " Yes," he replied, "some artists that 
 I knew used to mention his name oc 
 casionally." He paused an instant or two 
 and then continued, impassively, I 
 103 
 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 seem to remember hearing someone say 
 that he was engaged to some very rich 
 girl." 
 
 Dorothy Ware smiled sadly. "I sup 
 posed he would be," she said, simply. 
 She felt angry at herself for not feeling 
 the news more deeply; yet it hardly 
 seemed to touch her at all; it was 
 just as if she had heard that one of her 
 girl friends had married. She recalled 
 Dick s impassioned, if soberly worded, 
 farewell; sheremembered her own words; 
 she wondered how it was possible that 
 the passing months could have changed 
 her so that now she seemed almost in 
 different as to young Lancaster s fortunes 
 or misfortunes. 
 
 Wooton s exclamation of "Ah, there s 
 Schandau!" broke in upon the train of 
 her self-questioning thoughts. They 
 walked over to the rail of the boat 
 together, and looked out to where 
 the roofs of summer-villas and hotels 
 came peeping through the wooded banks 
 of the river. As they stood thus she 
 felt his right hand just touching her own 
 left. Somehow, the blood came rushing 
 into her face, and she took her hand 
 away under pretense of fastening up her 
 veil. 
 
 From the landing-stage they walked 
 up to one of the hotels, where Wooton 
 ordered a light repast. Miss Ware was 
 in excellent spirits. The beauty of the 
 day and the picturesqueness of the place, 
 with its cozy villas tucked away against 
 the hillside, its leafy lanes and its 
 mountain shadows, filled her with the 
 elixir of happiness. She chatted and 
 104 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 laughed incessantly. She asked Wooton 
 if they couldn t go for a walk into the 
 woods. Walk, of course! No, she didn t 
 want to drive; that was too much like 
 poking along the boulevards at home in 
 the States. She wanted to stroll up little 
 foot-paths, into the heart of the wood, 
 and gather flowers, and have the birds 
 whistle to her! Didn t he remember 
 that she was a country girl? She hadn t 
 been in a real wood since she left 
 Lincolnville, and did he suppose she 
 was going to enjoy this one by halves? 
 
 They walked out along the white, dusty 
 chaussee until it reached the denser part 
 of the hill-forest; then they struck off 
 into a by-path. In the shadow of the pines 
 it was cool and refreshing; the scent of 
 pines filled the air. In the thick under 
 growth there were occasional clumps of 
 blue-berries. Dorothy Ware picked them 
 eagerly, laughing carelessly when she 
 stained her gloves with the juice. She 
 plucked flowers in abundance, and had 
 Wooton carry them. They strayed heed 
 lessly into the forest, hardly noting 
 whether they followed the path or not. 
 They found themselves, presently, in the 
 lee of a huge rock that some long-silent 
 volcanic upheaval must once have thrust 
 through the earth s shell. Close to the 
 earth this rock was narrower than at 
 its summit; under its sloping base there 
 was a cavity all covered with moss. Over 
 head the pines shut out the sky. 
 
 A trifle tired with her walk, Miss Ware 
 hailed the sight of this spot with un 
 feigned gladness. Wooton spread his 
 top-coat for her. Sitting there, in the 
 105 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 silence made voiceful by the rustling 
 of the pines, Wooton felt his heart beat 
 faster than it had in years. She was 
 pretty, this girl; her voice was so caress 
 ing, and her presence and manner such 
 a charm! Young enough, too, to be 
 taught many things. He watched her, 
 as she sat there, binding the flowers 
 with the stems of long grasses, stray 
 curls playing about her cheeks, and her 
 mouth showing the slight down on the 
 upper lip, and, for an instant, there 
 came to him a feeling of pity. It is 
 possible, perhaps, that the serpent oc 
 casionally pauses to admire the pigeon s 
 plumage. 
 
 "I wonder," he began, softly, "whether 
 you know Hugh McCulloch s Scent o 
 Pines ? No? I think you will like it: 
 
 Love shall I liken thee unto the rose 
 
 That is so sweet ? 
 Nay, since for a single day she grows, 
 
 Then scattered lies upon the garden-rows 
 
 Beneath our feet. 
 
 But to the perfume shed when forests nod, 
 
 When noonday shines; 
 That lulls us as we tread the wood-land sod, 
 
 Eternal as the eternal peace of God 
 
 The scent o pines. 
 
 He quoted the verses musically. He 
 gave the words all the sincerity that 
 never found its way into his actions. He 
 was one of those men who read a thing 
 better than the man that wrote it, be 
 cause they know better the art of simulat 
 ing an emotion that he knows only how 
 to feel. 
 
 " A pretty idea," she admitted. They 
 talked on ramblingly, lightly. Over- 
 106 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 head the sun was sinking into the west. 
 A wind had sprung up from the south 
 west, and in the north-west banks of 
 clouds had gathered, thick and threaten 
 ing. Occasional flashes of lightning darted 
 across the cloud-space. A thunderstorm 
 was evidently approaching, proceeding 
 stubbornly against the wind. The sun 
 dipped behind the clouds, that rose 
 higher, presently over-casting all the 
 heavens. Light gusts of wind went 
 puffing through the forest, scattering 
 leaves and whirling twigs. 
 
 Suddenly, with a crash and a roar, the 
 mountain storm broke over the forest. 
 Almost on the stroke of the first flash of 
 lightning came the thunder; then as if the 
 clouds had been bulls charging in the 
 arena, the furious concussion was followed 
 by the gush of the blood of heaven. The 
 rain came down in lances that struck the 
 earth and bounded up again. About the 
 heads of the pines the wind roared and 
 wailed. 
 
 Coming upon them so suddenly, this 
 riot of the elements made the two young 
 people sitting there in the lee of the rock, 
 start to their feet in dismay. A mo 
 mentary gleam came into Wooton s eyes; 
 whether it was anger or joy only himself 
 could have told. All about them the 
 storm was playing its tremendous taran- 
 telle; the whole earth seemed to shake 
 with the repeated cannonades of the 
 thunderous artillery of the heavens, and 
 through the darkness that had fallen the 
 lightning sent such vivid streaks of light 
 as only made the succeeding gloom 
 more dismal. It was to tempt fate to 
 107 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 venture out of the shelter the rock was 
 giving. Instinctively the girl shrank a 
 little toward Wooton. She looked at 
 him appealin gly. " It s dreadful," she 
 said, "it it hurts my eyes so! And 
 the steamer! Mamma will think " She 
 stopped and covered her eyes with her 
 hands just as another flash seared its 
 way into the forest. 
 
 Wooton stood still, biting his under- 
 lip nervously. "I I m afraid it s all my 
 fault," he said, "I ought to have known 
 it was getting late. And these storms 
 come up so quickly here in the moun 
 tains. We can t stir from here. The 
 storm is playing right around this wood. 
 It means waiting." He saw her shivering 
 slightly. Bending down, he picked up 
 his top-coat, and put it gently about her 
 shoulders. "You ll catch cold," he 
 warned, in a tender voice. 
 
 She said nothing; but he could see 
 gratitude in her eyes. Something seemed 
 to draw her toward him. At each glaring 
 flash she shrank nearer to him. He was 
 looking tensely at her, his hand against 
 a ledge of rock, lest the gusts of wind 
 should swing him out into the open. 
 
 A crash that seemed to deafen all hear 
 ing for several instants; a flying mass 
 of splintered wood, torn from a sudden 
 ly stricken tree that fell straight across 
 the opening of their shelter; a light so 
 white that it hurt the eyes; and a trem 
 bling under foot that shook the very 
 ground these two storm-stayed ones stood. 
 In the instant that followed the crash 
 Wooton felt the girl beside him lean 
 heavily towards him; her eyes were 
 108 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 closed; she had fainted. Keeping her 
 tightly in his arms, a queer smile played 
 about the corners of his mouth. " It was 
 ordained! " His thoughts uttered them 
 selves almost unconsciously. Holding her 
 so, with the thunder still rolling its 
 chariot wheels all about the reverberate 
 rocks, he kissed her. 
 
 The wind veered about, sending the 
 rain spatteringly into their faces. Woo- 
 ton unfastened the girl s veil, and took 
 her hat off, very gently and carefully. 
 The rain splashed into her face, stream 
 ing over the brow and the heavy lashes. 
 
 Slowly the lashes lifted; her breast 
 moved in a tremulous breath. As com 
 prehension of her position came to her 
 awakening faculties she seemed to shud 
 der a little, to attempt withdrawal; then 
 her eyes sought his, and something found 
 there seemed to soothe; she sighed again 
 and sank more closely into his embrace. 
 And now fires went coursing through 
 the man; he pressed the girl s slight 
 body to him fiercely, and kissing her 
 upon both eyes, whispered into the rosy 
 shell of her ear, " Dorothy I love 
 you!" 
 
 The storm still played relentlessly 
 about them. The rain came further and 
 further into the shelter-hole. But these 
 two, lip to lip, and breath to breath, 
 gave no heed save to the promptings 
 of their own emotions. The elements 
 might rend the rocks; but hearts they 
 could not scar! The girl felt herself ir 
 resistibly drawn by this man. Some 
 thing in him had always attracted her 
 wonderfully something she had never 
 109 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 sought to explain, scarcely heeding it 
 for any length of time. But now that 
 chance had, as it seemed, thrown the mag 
 net and the steel so closely together, she 
 felt this hidden, mysterious force more 
 mightily than ever; it seemed to her 
 that in his kisses all the earth might melt 
 away and become nothing. Moments 
 when she feared him, when he inspired 
 her with something not unlike anger, 
 were succeeded by moments when she 
 felt that he had put an arrow into her 
 heart which to withdraw meant unutter 
 able anguish; but which to bury more 
 deeply meant the bitterest and sweetest 
 of the bitter-sweets of love. 
 
 While the storm raged on and over 
 the mountain, these two sat there where 
 whatsoever forest-gods of love there be 
 had drawn their magic circle. Reeling 
 over the mountain top like a drunken 
 man, the storm passed on along the 
 river-banks, waking up echoes in the 
 Bastei, and flying, presently, into Austria. 
 Its muttered curses grew fainter and 
 fainter, gradually to be swallowed up 
 altogether in the swaying of the pines 
 and the streaming of the rain. 
 
 Then, presently, the pines began to 
 lift their heads again, to shake them 
 selves as if in angry impatience, so that 
 the rain dropped heavily, and after the 
 flying column of darkness, light came in 
 once more from the west. The sun was 
 still above the horizon. Turning the 
 rain-drops into opals that glistened with 
 the rain-bow hues, the sunshine streamed 
 over the forest. The afternoon, that had 
 seen such a terrible battle of the ele- 
 no 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 ments, was to die in peace, and light, 
 and sweetness. 
 
 They walked together to an eminence 
 that was almost bared of trees. Below 
 them the forest swept in every direction 
 like a field of dark grass. The sun sent 
 its last rays ricochetting over the waves 
 of green to where they stood, silently. 
 Another instant, and the great bronzed 
 body was below the line of hills that 
 made the horizon ; only the salmon- 
 colored streaks that stained the lower 
 strata of the western sky remained to 
 tell the tale of the sun-god s day. The 
 air grew slightly chill. 
 
 With that first forerunner of the fall of 
 night, there came into the dream that 
 Dorothy Ware had moved in, the chilling 
 thought of certain facts. They had 
 most assuredly missed the boat back to 
 Dresden. Would there be another when 
 they reached Schandau? Could they get 
 home by carriage? 
 
 Wooton could only shrug his shoulders 
 in despair. He did not know. He had 
 counted only on the two hours the hour 
 of the departure from Dresden and the 
 return from Schandau; the storm had 
 upset all his plans. He was utterly at 
 sea; he could say nothing until they 
 reached Schandau and made inquir 
 ies. Would she not let the thought drop 
 until then. Was there not the sweet 
 present? 
 
 As they walked through the forest, 
 picking their way as best they could, 
 without a compass, and uncertain 
 whether their direction was the right 
 one or the wrong one, night falling sure- 
 iii 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 ly and swiftly, Wooton held his arm 
 about the young girl s waist, lest she 
 stumble or slip. She looked up at him 
 smilingly and trustingly, yet tremulous 
 at the behest of that mysterious some 
 thing that drove her to accept his 
 caresses instead of spurning them, that 
 made her quiver at his touch, like a wind- 
 kissed aspen, and had her still the storm 
 within her by giving it a storm to fight. 
 
 The darkness became denser. Their 
 feet stumbled, and trees were hardly 
 distinguishable in the blackness. Had 
 there been no other thought save that 
 considering their condition and sur 
 roundings, the girl, at least, would have 
 been trembling in fear and and uncer 
 tainty. As it was, each loophole for a 
 doubt was closed up by a kiss. 
 
 A streak of white came suddenly in 
 view, and they found themselves upon 
 the chaussee once more. But in which 
 direction lay Chandau? Overhead the 
 the stars were shining, but neither of 
 these two could use the night heavens 
 as a chart. 
 
 Behind them came the dull rumble of 
 wheels. Around a turn of the road came 
 carriage-lights. As they flashed close 
 upon them, Wooton spoke to the driver. 
 
 Siefahren nach Schandau?" nicht wahr? 
 
 The driver assented, without stopping. 
 At the sound of the questioner s voice, 
 one of the occupants of the carriage had 
 leaned window ward. 
 
 It was Miss Tremont, of Boston. In 
 the glare of the lanterns she had caught 
 the faces plainly. 
 
 112 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 She leaned back to the cushions, smil 
 ing slightly. 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 <Jj T S dark as an inferno, and the 
 It stairs make a man s back ache," 
 C^3 said Laurance Stanley dismally to 
 himself, as he climbed up to the Philis 
 tine Club, " but," as he caught his breath 
 again and consequently began to feel 
 more cheerful, "it s comfortable when 
 you get there. 
 
 Which was distinctly true. The furni 
 ture, the carpets, the hangings in the 
 spacious, rambling old rooms were all 
 ancient and worn, but comfort was as 
 common to them all as was age. When 
 you came in and slid down into the shiny 
 leather cavern of an arm chair you felt 
 that you were at home. At least, the men 
 who were members did. They were a 
 queer lot, these members. Just what 
 they had in common, no man might say; 
 there were artists, and writers, and musi 
 cians, and men-about-town. To out 
 siders it seemed as if a certain sort of 
 cleverness was the open sesame to the 
 membership rolls. In the matter of 
 name, it was doubtless, the effect of a 
 stroke of humor that came to one of the 
 founders. Perhaps, for the very reason 
 that most of the members were men of 
 the sort that one instinctively knew to be 
 modern, and broad and untramelled by 
 dogmas or doctrines, the club had been 
 named the Philistine Club. It was no 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 longer in its first youth. The walls were 
 behung with the portraits of former 
 presidents portraits that were all alike 
 in their effect of displaying an execrable 
 sort of painting; it was evident that in 
 its selection of painters in ordinary the 
 club had lived strictly up to its name. 
 The building that housed the club was 
 an old one, on one of the busiest business 
 thoroughfares in the city. It was very 
 convenient, as the hard-working fellows 
 among the members phrased it; in a 
 minute you could drop out of the rush 
 and roar of the street-traffic into the 
 quiet gloom of the club, a lounge, and 
 a book. 
 
 Stanley had not been in the dark cor 
 ner that he usually affected very long 
 before Vanstruther came in, his beard 
 more pointed than ever. He dropped 
 limply into a chair, put his feet on one 
 of the whist tables, and said, as he lit a 
 cigar: " Do you know this is about the 
 time of year that I realize that this town 
 is a hole? I repeat it a hole! A hole, 
 moreover, with the bottom out. I tell 
 you there s not a soul in town just 
 now." 
 
 "Most true," assented Stanley, "for 
 neither you nor I have anything that 
 deserves the name." 
 
 "Bosh! What I mean is that the place 
 is a howling desert. Everybody is still 
 at the seashore, or the mountains, or 
 the mineral springs. Newport or the 
 White Mountains, or Manitou, or 
 Mackinac Island there s where every 
 self-respecting person is at this time; 
 not in this old sweat-box. Why, it s a 
 114 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 positive fact that there are no pretty 
 girls at all on the avenue these days; or, 
 if there are any, you can tell at a glance 
 that they re from Podunk or Egypt." 
 
 " In other words, there is a scarcity of 
 Mrs.Tomnoddy received yesterday, and 
 there will be a meeting of the Contribut 
 ors Club at Mrs. Mausoleum s on Fri 
 day. People who like to see their names 
 in the daily papers are out of town, so 
 the society journalist waileth; is it not so ? 
 It all comes down to bread and butter 
 in this country. Just as soon as we get 
 away from bread and butter, we ll be 
 greater idiots than the others ever 
 knew how to be." He waved a hand 
 carelessly to some remote space in which 
 he inferred the continent of Europe. 
 
 "That s all very well," rejoined the 
 other, "you are always great on mag 
 niloquent generalizations, but you never 
 trouble about the concrete things. I m 
 up a tree for copy, day in, day out, and 
 I groan just once, and what do you do? 
 You moralize loftily. But do you help 
 me with a real bit of news? Not a bit 
 of it." 
 
 "Well, you know," Stanley said, 
 lazily, " I m the last man in the world 
 to come to for items of news concerning 
 le monde ou I m s amuse. But if you want 
 something a notch or two lower say 
 about the grade of members of this club. 
 Do you notice that Dante Belden s sofa 
 is empty today?" 
 
 The journalist looked around to the 
 other side of the room where an old 
 black leather lounge stood. It was the 
 sofa that had long since become the 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 special property, in the eyes of the other 
 members, of the artist, Dante Gabriel 
 Belden. He used to sleep there a great 
 deal; and he used to dream also. Oc 
 casionally he waxed talkative, and then 
 there usually grew up around him a 
 circle of chairs. In such conclave, there 
 passed anecdotes that were delightful, 
 criticisms that were incisive, and, in 
 total, nothing that was altogether stupid. 
 
 " Where is he?" asked Vanstruther. 
 
 " Where is who?" It was Marsboro, 
 the Chronicles artist, that had sauntered 
 over. 
 
 " Belden." 
 
 11 Married," said Stanley, laconically. 
 
 " The devil!" exclaimed Vanstruther, 
 putting his cigar down on the window- 
 ledge. 
 
 " Not the same," was the quiet reply. 
 "Although " and Stanley paused to 
 smile "it might be interesting to trace 
 the relationship." 
 
 " Oh, talk straight talk for a minute, 
 can t you) I never knew the man was 
 thinking of it, " 
 
 "Nor did I. Well, we re all friends 
 of his, and men don t think any less of 
 each other in a case of this kind, so I ll 
 tell you the story. In my opinion, it s a 
 clear case of Tomlinson, of Berkley 
 Square . However, that s open to in 
 dividual interpretation. Belden has suc 
 cumbed to a lifelong passion for Henri 
 Murger?" 
 
 Marsboro swore audibly. "I don t see," 
 he said, that you re any plainer than you 
 were! What s all that got to do with the 
 man s marriage?" 
 
 116 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 "Everything! Everything the way 
 I look at it, at least. You know as well 
 as I do, how saturated he is with admir 
 ation for those delightful escapades of 
 the Quartier Latin that Muger makes 
 such pretty stories of. Well he has 
 acted up to them. The trouble is that 
 this is not the Quartier Latin, and that 
 sort of thing is a trifle awkward when 
 you make a Christian ceremony of it. 
 Here are the facts: Belden and myself 
 were com ing home from the theatre a good 
 while ago, when we came to a couple 
 that were decidedly in liquor. The man 
 had been out to dinner, or a dance or 
 somewhere; he had his dress clothes on, 
 and his juhite shirt was still immaculate. 
 His silk hat was on straight enough. 
 His walk was the only thing that be 
 trayed him. He had his arm around the 
 girl. When we passed them, or began 
 to, we could hear that the girl was cry 
 ing. Her boots were shabby and the 
 skirt that trailed over them was badly 
 fringed at the bottom; above the waist 
 she had on such sham finery and her 
 face, once pretty, had such a stale, 
 hunted look, as told plainly to what 
 class she belonged. The class that is 
 no class at all, and yet that has always 
 been. "I m afraid of you you ve been 
 drinking let me go," she was crying 
 out. Belden stopped at once. The 
 man put his arm more tightly about her 
 waist, and tried, drunkenly, to kiss her. 
 The girl wrenched herself almost away 
 from him. She screamed out, "Let 
 loose of me, you beast!" Then she be 
 gan to moan a little. That settled Bel 
 li; 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 den. He walked in front of the man In 
 the white shirt-front, and told him to 
 let the woman go. The man said he 
 would see him damned first. The words 
 had hardly tortured their stuttering way 
 from the drunken man s mouth, before 
 Belden gave him a blow between the 
 eyes that sent the fellow to the side 
 walk. He lay there cursing, drunkenly. 
 Belden asked the woman, quietly, where 
 she lived. She looked at him and 
 laughed. Laughed aloud! I ve seen 
 most things, in my time, but that 
 woman s laugh, and the look on her face 
 are about the most grewsome things I 
 remember. She laughed, you know as 
 if someone had just told her that he 
 would like to walk down to hell with her. 
 She laughed in that high, unnatural key, 
 in which only women of that sort can 
 laugh; it was a laugh that had in it the 
 scorn of the Devil for his toy, man. There 
 was in it a memory of a time when she 
 might have unblushingly answered that 
 question of Where do you live? There 
 was in it something like pity for this in 
 nocent who asked her that question in 
 good faith, or seemed to. Then she stead 
 ied herself against a lamp-post, and 
 said, with the whine coming back into 
 her voice, What d ye want to know for? 
 I ll see that you get there all right, said 
 Belden. The woman laughed again. 
 She took her hand away from the lamp 
 post, and began an effort to walk on 
 without replying; but in an instant she 
 swayed, and, had not Belden jumped 
 toward her and put an arm about her 
 shoulders, would have fallen. 
 118 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 "She cursed feebly. Tell me where you 
 live? Belden persevered. His voice was 
 harsher and almost a command. She 
 stammered out more sneering evasions; 
 then she flung out the name of the dis 
 mal street where she had such residence 
 as that sort ever has. What do you 
 suppose uhat man Belden did? Hailed 
 a cab, put the woman in, and got in 
 after her. Simply shouted a hasty good 
 night to me, and drove off. Well, 
 that s where it all began. " Stanley stop 
 ped, got up, and walked over to the 
 wall, pressing a button that showed there. 
 
 "But you don t mean to say " began 
 one of the others, with wonder and in 
 credulity in his tone. 
 
 "Oh, yes, I do, though. Russell, take 
 the orders, will you? What ll you men 
 drink or smoke? I ve been talking, 
 and my threat s dry." 
 
 The darky waited patiently until the 
 several orders had been given. Then 
 he glided away as noiselessly as he had 
 come. 
 
 "There is really where the story, as 
 far as I know it, ends," Stanley went on, 
 after he had cooled his throat a little, 
 "The other end of it came to me from 
 Belden the other day. Got anything to 
 do Thursday evening? he asked me. 
 We had been talking of dry-point etch 
 ing. I told him I thought not. Then 
 will you help me jump off? he went on. 
 Then the whole scene of that winter- 
 night flashed back to me in a sort of 
 wave. I felt, before he answered my 
 question for further information, what 
 his answer would be, Yes, he said, 
 119 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 it s the same girl. I know her better 
 than I did. Her s is a sad case; very 
 sad. I m lifting her up out of it. I 
 didn t say anything, he hadn t asked my 
 opinion. As between man and man 
 there was nothing for me to cavil at; I 
 was invited to a friend s wedding, that 
 was all. I went. I was the only other 
 person present, barring the old German 
 minister that Belden fished out from 
 some dark corner. It was the queerest 
 proceeding! Belden had brought the 
 girl up into a righteous neighborhood 
 some months ago, it seemed; had been 
 paying her way; the neighbors thought 
 she was a person of some means, I sup 
 pose. He introduced me to her on the 
 morning of his wedding-day; I think she 
 remembered me, although she has caught 
 manners enough from Belden or her past 
 to conceal what she felt. And so they 
 were married." 
 
 "My God!" groaned Vanstruther, 
 "what an awful thing to do! Lifting 
 her up out of it, does he say? No! He s 
 bringing himself down to it! That s 
 ivhat it always ends in. Always. Oh, 
 I ve known cases! Every man thinks he 
 is going to succeed where the others 
 have failed. For they have failed, there is 
 no doubt about that! Look at the case 
 of Gripler, the Elevated magnate! he 
 did that sort of thing, and the world 
 says and does the same old thing it has 
 always done sneers a little, and cuts 
 her! He is having the most magnificent 
 house in all Gotham built for himself, I 
 understand, and they are going to move 
 there, but do you suppose for a minute 
 120 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 they will ever get into the circle of the 
 elect? Not in a thousand years! Don t 
 misunderstand me: I m not considering 
 merely the society of the society column, 
 I m thinking of society at large, the en 
 tire human body, the mass of individuals 
 scripturally enveloped in the phrase thy 
 neighbor. The taint never fades; a sur 
 face gloss may hide the spot, but some 
 day it blazons itself to the world again 
 in all it s unpleasantness. Take this 
 case of our friend Belden. We, who 
 sit here, are all men who know the world 
 we live in; we will treat Belden himself 
 as we have always done. We will even 
 argue, in that exaggerated spirit of 
 broadness that might better be called 
 laxness, typical of our time, that the man 
 has done a braver thing than ourselves 
 had courage for had the temptation 
 come to us. We will acknowledge that 
 his motive was a good one. He honestly 
 believes that he will educate the girl in 
 to the higher life. He thinks the past 
 can be sunk into the pit of forgetfulness; 
 but there is no pit deep enough to hide 
 the past. We will say that he is putting 
 into action what the rest of the radicals 
 continually vapor about; the equal con 
 sideration, in matters of morality, of 
 man and woman. He is remembering 
 that a man, we argue, should in 
 strict ethics demand of a woman no 
 more than himself can bring. But, mark 
 my words, the centuries have been wiser 
 than we knew. It is ordained that the 
 man who shall take to wife a woman that 
 has what the world meaningly call a 
 past, shall see the ghost of that past 
 121 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 shaking the piece of his house for ever 
 and ever." 
 
 There was silence for a few moments. 
 Beyond the curtains, someone came in 
 and threw himself down on the sofa. 
 Marsboro, looking vaguely out at win 
 dow, said, somewhat irrelevalantly, "I 
 suppose that will be the end of the Sun 
 day evening seances?" 
 
 "Oh, I don t know," said Stanley. 
 "If I know anything about Belden, I 
 shall not be surprised if he asks us all 
 up there again one of these evenings. 
 He has lived so long in Free-and-easy- 
 dom that no thought of what people call 
 the proprieties will ever touch him." 
 
 "Heigh!" Vanstruther stretched him 
 self reflectively. "It s a queer life a 
 man leads, a queer life! God send us 
 all easy consciences!" 
 
 "Don t be pathetic!" Stanley frowned. 
 "The life is generally of our own choos 
 ing, and if we play the game we should 
 pay the forfeits. Besides which, it is 
 one of the few things I believe in, that 
 the man who has tasted of sin, and in 
 whose mouth the bitters of revulsion 
 have corroded, is the only one who can 
 ever safely be called good. It is differ 
 ent with a woman. If once she tastes 
 there s an end of her! Oh, I know very 
 well that we never think this way at first. 
 At first when we are very young we 
 think there is nothing in the world so 
 delightful as being for ever and ever as 
 white as the driven snow; then Life sends 
 his card, we make his acquaintance, he 
 introduces us to some of his fastest 
 friends, and we, h m, begin to change 
 122 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 our views a little. In accordance with 
 the faint soiling that is gradually cover 
 ing up the snowy hues of our being, the 
 strictness of our opinions on the matter 
 of whiteness relaxes notably. Arm in 
 arm with Life, we step slowly down the 
 ladder. Then, if we are in luck, there 
 is a reaction, and we go up again so 
 far! only so far, and never any further; 
 if we are particularly fond of Life, we 
 are likely to get very far down indeed; 
 and the end is that Life bids us farewell 
 of his own accord. That is the history 
 of a modern man of the world." 
 
 "I believe you are right," said Mars- 
 boro, "I know, in my own case at least, 
 that I can remember distinctly how 
 beautiful my young ideal was. But Life 
 is jealous of ideals; he shatters them 
 . with a single whiff of experience. And 
 it happened as you just now said: as I 
 descended, my ideals descended. I 
 only hope he sighed, half in jest, half 
 in earnest, "that I will begin the up 
 ward climb and succeed in winning up." 
 "Ah, assented Stanley, "that is always 
 the interesting problem. Which it will 
 be: the elevator with the index pointing 
 to Up or the one destined Down. 
 You needn t look so curiously at me, 
 Van, I know what you are wondering. 
 Well you can rest easy in the assurance 
 I give you: the nether slopes are beckon 
 ing to me. I became aware of it long 
 ago, reconciled moreover. I live merely 
 for the moment. My f senses must 
 amuse me until there is nothing left of 
 them; that is all. But look here: don t 
 think there is no reverse to the medal. 
 123 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 I have, fate knows, my moments of be 
 ing horrified at myself. It is, I presume, 
 at the times when the ghost of my con 
 science comes to ask why it was mur 
 dered." He appeared to be concentrat 
 ing all his attention on the ashes at the 
 end of his cigarette. "Why, don t you 
 know that there is no longer any mean 
 ing for me in any of those words: honor, 
 and truth, and virtue? I have no stand 
 ards, except my digestion, and my 
 nerves. I don t mistreat my wife simply 
 because it would come back to me in a 
 thousand little annoyances that would 
 grate on my nerves." He sipped slowly at 
 the glass by his side. "And I m not 
 worse than some other men!" 
 
 "True. All of which is a pity. But 
 we ve got off the subject. The villainy 
 of ourselves is too patent a proposition. 
 The question is, by what right we con 
 tinue to expect of the women we marry 
 that which they dare not expect of us. 
 
 "Are you the mouthpiece of the New 
 Woman? Well, the Creator made man 
 king, and the laws of physiology cannot 
 be twisted to suit the New Woman. 
 For it is, in essentials, unfortunately a 
 question of physiological consequences. 
 Wherefore, suppose we stop the argu 
 ment. This is not a medical congress!" 
 
 Stanley went over to the desk where 
 the periodicals lay, and picking one up, 
 began, with a cigarette in his mouth, to 
 let his eyes rest on the printed pages. 
 
 "Will you go, if you re asked?" Mars- 
 boro said, presently. 
 
 "I?" Stanley looked up carelessly. 
 "Certainly. As far as I m concerned a 
 124 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 man may marry the devil and all his an 
 gels. But I wouldn t take my wife or 
 my sister." 
 
 Vanstruther laughed dryly. "If women 
 were to apply the tit-for-tat principle," 
 he said, "what terribly small visiting 
 lists most of us fellows would have!" 
 
 But Stanley disdained further discus 
 sion, and the other men got up to go. 
 When they had passed beyond the cur 
 tains Stanley laid down the paper he 
 had been reading, and smiled to himself. 
 He was wondering why he had been led 
 into this waste of breath. A man s life 
 was a man s life, and what was the use 
 of cavilling at facts! The only thing to 
 do was to take life lightly and to let 
 nothing matter. Also, one must amuse 
 oneself! If the manner of the amuse 
 ment was distasteful or hurtful to others, 
 why so much the worse for the others! 
 
 So musing, Laurence Stanley passed 
 into a light slumber, and dreamed of 
 impossible virtues. 
 
 But Dick Lancaster, who, from the 
 sofa beyond the curtains, had heard all 
 of this conversation, did not dream of 
 pleasant things that night. In fact, he 
 spent a white night. Like a flood the 
 horrors of self-revelation had come upon 
 him at sound of those arguments and 
 dissections; he saw himself as he was, 
 compared with what he had been; he 
 shuddered and shivered in the grip of 
 remorse. 
 
 In the white light of shame he saw 
 whither the wish to taste of life had led 
 him; he realized that something of that 
 hopeless corruption that Stanley had 
 125 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 spoken of was already etched into his 
 conscience, Oh, the terrible temptation 
 of all those shibboleths, that told us that 
 we must live while we may! He felt, 
 now that he had seen how deep was the 
 abyss below him, that his feet were long 
 since on the decline, and that from a 
 shy attempt at worldliness he had gone 
 on to what, to his suddenly re-awakened 
 conscience, constituted dissoluteness. 
 
 To the man of the world, perhaps, 
 his slight defections from the puritanic 
 code would have seemed ridiculously 
 vague. But, he repeated to himself with 
 quickened anguish, if he began to con 
 sider things from the standpoint of the 
 world, he was utterly lost; he would soon 
 be like those others. 
 
 He got up and opened the window of 
 his bed-room. Below him was the hum 
 of the cable; a dense mist obscured the 
 electric lights, and the town seemed 
 reeking with a white sweat. He felt as 
 if he were a prisoner. He began to feel 
 a loathing for this town that had made 
 him dispise himself so much. The roar 
 of it sounded like a wild animal s. 
 
 Then a breeze came and swept the 
 mist away, and left the streets shining 
 with silvery moisture. Lights crept out 
 of the darkness, and the veil passed from 
 the stars. The wild animal seemed to 
 be smiling. But the watcher at the win 
 dow merely shrank back a little, closing 
 the window. Fascinating, as a serpent; 
 poisonous as a cobra! The glitter and 
 glamour of society; the devil-may-care 
 fascinations of Bohemia; they had lured 
 him to such agony as this! 
 126 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 Such agony? What, you ask, had 
 this young man to be in agony about? 
 He was a very nice young man all the 
 world would have told you that! Ah, 
 but was there never a moment in your 
 lives, my dear fellow-sinners you men 
 and women of the world when it came 
 to your conscience like a sword-thrust, 
 that the beautiful bloom of your youth 
 and innocence was gone from you for 
 ever and that ever afterward there would 
 be a bitter memory or a bitterer forget- 
 fulness? And was that not agony? Ah, 
 we all hold the masks up before our 
 faces, but sometimes our arms tire, and 
 they slip down, and then how haggard we 
 look! Perhaps, if we had listened to 
 our consciences when they were quicker, 
 we would not have those lines of care 
 upon our faces now. You say you have 
 a complexion and a conscience as clear 
 as the dew? Ah, well, then I am not 
 addressing you, of course. But how 
 about your neighbors? Ah, you admit ? 
 Well, then we will each of us moralize 
 about our neighbor. It is so much 
 pleasanter, so much more diverting! 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 ITH the coming of morning, 
 Lancaster shook himself out 
 of his painful reveries, and 
 decided that he must escape from this 
 metropolitan prison, if for ever so short 
 a time. He would go out into the 
 country, home. He would go where 
 127 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 the air was pure, and all life was not 
 tainted. He walked to a telegraph 
 office and sent a dispatch to his mother, 
 telling of his coming. 
 
 Then he went for a walk in the park. 
 Now that he had made up his mind to 
 get out of this choking dungeon for a 
 while he felt suddenly buoyant, re 
 freshed. He tried to forget Stanley and 
 the Imperial Theatre, and all other un 
 pleasant memories of that sort. Some 
 of the park policemen concluded that 
 this was a young man who was feeling 
 very cheerful indeed else, why such 
 fervid whistling? 
 
 When he got to his studio he found 
 some people waiting for him. * They 
 had some commercial work for him to 
 do. He shook his head at all of them. 
 
 "I m going out of town for a week," 
 he said, "and I can do nothing until I 
 return. If this is a case of rush you ll 
 have to take it somewhere else." 
 
 He turned the key in the door with a 
 wonderful feeling of elation, and the 
 pinning of the small explanatory notice 
 on his door almost made him laugh 
 aloud. He thought of the joy that a jail 
 bird must feel when he sees the gates 
 opening to let him into the free world. 
 No more elevated roads, no more cable 
 cars, no more clanging of wheels over 
 granite, no more deafening shouts of 
 newsboys; no more tortuous windings 
 through streets crowded with hurrying 
 barbarians; no more passing the bewil 
 dering glances of countless handsome 
 women; no more town! 
 
 There was a train in half an hour. He 
 128 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 bought his ticket and strolled up and 
 down the platform. He wondered how 
 the dear old village would look. He had 
 been away only a little over a year, and 
 yet, how much had happened in that 
 short time! Then he smiled, thinking 
 of the intangible nature of those hap 
 penings. There was nothing, nothing 
 that would make as much as a para 
 graph in the daily paper. Yet how it 
 had changed him, this subtle flow of 
 soul-searing circumstances! It was of 
 such curious woof that modern life was 
 made; so rich in things that in them 
 selves were dismally commonplace and 
 matters of course, and yet in total exerted 
 such strong influences; so rich, too, in 
 crime and casuality, that, though served 
 up as daily dishes, yet seemed always 
 far and outside of ourselves! 
 
 The novel he purchased to while 
 away the hours between the town and 
 Lincolnville confirmed his thoughts in 
 this direction. It was one of the mod 
 ern pictures of "life as it is." There was 
 nothing of romance, hardly any action; 
 it was nearly all introspection and con 
 templations of the complexity of mod 
 ern existence. The story bored him 
 immensely, and yet he felt that it was a 
 voice of the time. It was hard to in 
 vest today with romance. 
 
 Was it, he wondered, a real differ 
 ence, or was it merely the difference in 
 the point of view? Perhaps there was 
 still romance abroad, but our minds 
 had become too analytical to see the 
 picture of it? too much engaged in 
 observing the quality of the paint? 
 129 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 His mother was waiting for him at 
 the station. It was pleasant to see how 
 proud she was of this tall young son of 
 hers, and how wistfully she looked deep 
 into his eyes. " You re looking pale, 
 Dick," she said, holding him at the 
 stretch of her arms. "And your eyes 
 look like they needed sleep." 
 
 Dick gave a little forced laugh and 
 patted his mother s hand. 
 
 "Yes, I guess you re right mother. I 
 need a little fresh air and a rest." 
 
 "Ah, you shall have both, my boy. 
 And now tell me all you ve been doing 
 up there in that big place." 
 
 They walked down to the little house 
 wherein Dick had first seen the light of 
 this world. He looked taller than ever 
 beside the little woman who kept look 
 ing him over so wistfully. He told her 
 many things, but he felt that he was 
 talking to her in a language that was 
 rusty on his lips, the language of the 
 country, of simplicity and truth. The 
 language of the world, in which his 
 tongue was now glib, would be so full 
 of mysteries to this sweet mother of his 
 that he must needs eschew it for the 
 nonce. It was a small thing, but he felt 
 it as an evidence of the changes that 
 had been wrought in him. 
 
 He told her of his work, of his career. 
 Of the Terch, of his subsequent rent 
 ing of a studio, and free-lance life. Yes, 
 he was making money. He was inde 
 pendent; he had his own hours; work 
 came to him so readily that he was in a 
 position to refuse such as pleased him 
 least. But, he sighed, it was all in 
 130 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 black-and-white, so far. Paint loomed 
 up, as before, merely as a golden dream. 
 In illustrating and decorating, using 
 black-and-white mediums, that was 
 where the money lay, and he supposed 
 he would have to stick to that for a 
 time. But he was saving money for a 
 trip abroad. 
 
 They talked on and on until nearly 
 midnight. He asked after some of his 
 old acquaintances; he listened patiently 
 to his mother s gentle gossip and tried 
 to feel interested. 
 
 "The Wares are back," explained 
 Mrs. Lancaster. 
 
 " Ah," Dick looked up quickly. "Does 
 Dorothy look well?" 
 
 "I don t think so, though I m bound 
 I hadn t the courage to tell her so to her 
 face. She looks just like you do, Dick, 
 kinder fagged out." 
 
 "Yes. They say traveling is hard 
 work. And her mother? " 
 
 "Oh, she s about the same as usual. 
 Looks stouter, maybe." 
 
 "I must get over and call there, be 
 fore I get back to town," he said, reflect 
 ively. "Well, mother, I suppose I m 
 keeping you up beyond your regular 
 time. I m a trifle tired, too. So good 
 night." 
 
 He kissed her and passed up stairs to 
 his old room. There were the same 
 pictures that he had decorated the walls 
 with a few years ago. He smiled; they 
 were, fortunately, very crude compared 
 to the work he was doing now. When 
 all was dark, he lay awake for a long 
 time, drinking in the deep silence of the 
 131 
 

 Cape of Storms 
 
 place. He could hear the chirrup of 
 the crickets over in the meadows, and 
 from far over the western hills came the 
 deep boom of a locomotive s whistle. 
 The incessant roar of the town, in which 
 even the shrillest of individual noises are 
 swallowed into one huge conglomerate, 
 was utterly gone. He could hear the 
 wind slightly swaying the branches; the 
 deep blue of the star-spotted sky was 
 full of a caressing silence. The peace 
 of it all soothed him, and ushered him 
 into deep, refreshing sleep. 
 
 The sun touched him early in the 
 morning, and seeing the beauty of the 
 dawning day, he dressed quickly and 
 went quietly down stairs and out, for a 
 stroll about the dear old village. He 
 passed the familiar houses, smiling to 
 himself. He thought of all the quaint 
 and queer characters in a little place of 
 this sort. Presently he left the region of 
 houses and passed into the woods that 
 were beginning to blush at the approach 
 of their snow-clad bridegroom. The 
 picture of the sun rising over the fringe 
 of trees, gilding the browned leaves 
 with a burnish that blazed and sparkled, 
 filled him with artistic delight. He said 
 to himself that after he had been abroad, 
 and after his hand was grown cunning 
 in colors, he would ask for no better 
 subject than these October woods of the 
 West. He sat down on the log of a tree 
 and watched the golden, crescent lamp 
 of day. He had forgotten the town 
 utterly, for the moment, and for the 
 moment he was happy. 
 
 But the sun s progress warned him 
 132 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 that it was time to start back to the 
 house. With swinging stride he passed 
 over the highway, over the slopes that 
 led to the village. Suddenly he heard 
 his named called, and turning, saw a 
 tall figure hastening toward him. 
 
 It was Mr. Fairly, the minister. 
 
 "My dear Dick, "he said, shaking the 
 young man s hand, "I am rejoiced to 
 see you. We have heard of you, of 
 course; we have heard of you. But that 
 is not seeing you. Let me look at you!" 
 
 Dick smiled. "I ve grown, I believe." 
 
 "Yes. In stature and wisdom, I dare 
 say. But " He sliped his arm within 
 Dick s, and walked with him silently for 
 a few minutes. "The town," he went 
 on, "has a brand of its own, and all that 
 live there, wear it." They passed a boy 
 going to school. "Look at that 
 youngster. Isn t he bright-eyed!" A 
 
 Sfarm wagon drove by, the farmer and 
 his wife sitting side by side on the 
 springless seat. "Did you get the 
 sparkle of their faces?" said the minis 
 ter. "Their skins were tanned and 
 rough, no doubt, but their eyes were 
 clear. Now, Dick, your eyes have been 
 reading many pages of the Book of 
 Knowledge and they are tired. I know, 
 my boy, I know. We buzz about the 
 electric arc-light till we singe our wings, 
 and then, perhaps, we are wiser. Have 
 you been singeing your s?" 
 
 * Not enough, I m afraid. The fasci 
 nation is still there. Sometimes it is 
 the fascination of danger, sometimes of 
 repulsion; but it is always fascination." 
 
 "Ah, so you have got to the repul- 
 133 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 sion!" The minister spoke softly, al 
 most as if to himself. "And you no 
 longer think the world is all beautiful, 
 and sometimes you wonder whether 
 virtue is a dream or a reality ? I know, 
 I know! And sometimes you wish you 
 were blind again, as once you were; 
 and you want to wipe away the taste of 
 the fruit of knowledge? " 
 
 Dick said nothing. 
 
 " Those who chose the world as their 
 arena," the minister went on, "must 
 suffer the world s jars and jeers. The 
 world is a magnet that draws all the 
 men of courage; it sucks their talents 
 and their virtues and spews them forth, 
 as often as not into the waters of ob 
 livion. To swim ashore needs wonder 
 ful strength! Here in the calmer waters 
 we are but tame fellows; we miss most 
 of the prizes, but, we also miss the dan 
 gers. Perhaps, some day, Dick, you ll 
 come back to us again? " 
 
 " I don t know. Perhaps. But I 
 don t think so. That other taste is bit 
 ter, perhaps, but it holds one captive. 
 And I m changed, you see; the old 
 things that delighted me once are stale, 
 and I need the perpetual excitation of 
 the town s unceasing changes. The town 
 is a juggernaut with prismatic wheels." 
 
 They had nearly reached the minis 
 ter s house. 
 
 " I haven t preached to you, have I 
 Dick?" 
 
 Dick looked at the minister quickly. 
 There was a sort of wistfulness behind 
 the eye-glasses, and a half smile beneath 
 the waving mustache. 
 134 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 " No. I wish you would! " 
 
 "Ah, Dick, I can t! I m not compe 
 tent. You re in one world, and I m in 
 another. Too many make the mistake 
 that they can live in the valleys and yet 
 tell the mountaineers how to climb. But, 
 Dick, whatever you do, keep your self- 
 respect! In this complex time of ours, 
 circumstances and comparisons alter 
 nearly everything, and one sometimes 
 wonders whether b-a-d does not, after 
 all, spell good; but self-respect should 
 stand against all confusions! Goodbye, 
 Dick. Remember we re all fond of you! 
 I go to a convention in one of the neigh 
 boring towns tonight, and I won t see 
 vou again before you go back. Good 
 bye!" 
 
 Dick carried the picture of the kindly, 
 military-looking old face with him for 
 many minutes. If there were more such 
 ministers ! He recalled some of the 
 pale, cold clergymen he had met at var 
 ious houses in town, and remembered 
 how repellant their haughty assumption 
 of superiority has been to him. He was 
 still musing over his dear old friend s 
 counsel, when he noticed that he was 
 approaching the house where the Wares 
 lived. There was the veranda, blood 
 red with it s creeper-clothing, and full 
 of memories for him. 
 
 He began to walk slowly as he drew 
 nearer. He was thinking of the last 
 time that he had seen Dorothy Ware. 
 He recalled, with a queer smile, her 
 parting words: Goodbye, Dick, be 
 good! He realized that the Dick of 
 that day and the Dick of today were 
 
 135 
 

 Cape of Storms 
 
 two very differing persons. And she, 
 too, doubtless, would no longer be the 
 Dorothy Ware he once had known. 
 Something of fierce hate toward the 
 world and fate came to him as he 
 thought of the way of human plans and 
 planning were truthlessly canceled by 
 the decrees of change. Had he been 
 good? Bah, the thought of it made him 
 sneer. If these memories were not to 
 be driven away he would presently set 
 tle down into determined, desperate 
 melancolia. 
 
 The conflict, in this man, was always 
 between the intrinsic good and the 
 veneer of vice that the world puts on. 
 In most men the veneer chokes every 
 thing else. When those men read this, 
 if they ever do, they will wonder why 
 in the world this young man was tor 
 turing himself with fancies? But the 
 men whose outer veneer has not yet 
 choked the soul will remember and un 
 derstand. 
 
 Dorothy Ware was on the veranda, 
 gathering some of the vine s dead leaves 
 when Dick s step sounded on the wood 
 en sidewalk. As he saw her, his face 
 lit up. He never noticed that the flush 
 on her face was of another sort. 
 
 She smiled at him. 
 
 " How do you do, Dick? Come up 
 and shake hands." 
 
 Then they stood and looked at each 
 other silently for an instant. We re 
 both a little older," said Dick. " But I 
 suppose we have so much to talk about 
 that we ll have to make this a very pass 
 ing meeting. Besides, mother s waiting 
 136 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 for me; I ve been for a morning walk, 
 you see. You ll be at the great and 
 only Fair, I suppose?" 
 
 "Oh, yes; I ve almost forgotten how 
 it looks. I do hope they will have a fine 
 day for it." 
 
 Miss Ware looked after him wistfully. 
 She thought of the thunderstorm in the 
 forest at Schandau, and sighed. 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 H E first day of the County Fair 
 was hardly eventful. The farm- 
 ers were busy bringing in their 
 exhibits of stock and produce, and ar 
 ranging them properly for the inspection 
 of the judges. It is all merely by way 
 of preparation for the big day, the day 
 on which the trotting and running races 
 take place. 
 
 Fortunately, it was a cloudless day. 
 Shortly after sunrise clouds of dust be 
 gan to fill the air. All the roads leading 
 fairwards are filled all morning with 
 every sort and condition of vehicle. 
 Farmers come from the farthest boun- 
 deries of the county, bringing their fami 
 lies; the young men bringing their "best 
 girls." This volume of traffic soon re 
 duces the road-bed to a fine, powdery 
 dust, that rises, mist-like and obscures 
 the face of the earth and sky. 
 
 Soon the presence of the Fair is felt 
 in the village itself, and the "square" 
 resounds to the cries of the omnibus 
 drivers soliciting fares. "All aboard, 
 
 137 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 now, for the Fair Grounds, only ten 
 cents!" So runs the invitation yelled 
 from half a dozen lusty, though dusty 
 throats. For this occasion every livery 
 stable in the place brings out all the 
 ramshackle conveyances it has. Every 
 thing on wheels is pressed into service. 
 Like Christmas, the great day of the 
 County Fair, comes but once a year, 
 and must be made the most of. Few 
 people are going to walk on so dusty a 
 day as this, so the bus drivers ply up 
 and down from seven in the morning 
 until dusk sets in, and the last home- 
 stragglers have left the grounds. 
 
 At noon, the highway was become a 
 very sea of dust. Dick had walked 
 down to the "square," and was looking 
 about for a conveyance of some sort 
 when a carriage came up with Mrs. 
 Ware and her daughter inside. Doro 
 thy spoke to the coachman, and then 
 waved a daintily gloved hand at Dick. 
 "Delighted!" said that young man, 
 getting in quickly, and adding, in Mrs. 
 Ware s direction, "This is awfully kind 
 in you!" In that course of the drive 
 there was as little said as possible, be 
 cause each sentence meant a mouthful 
 of dust. 
 
 As they passed through the gates at 
 last, Dick smiled at the dear familiar 
 sight that yet seemed something strange. 
 There was the half-mile track in the 
 open meadow; the ridiculously small 
 grand-stand perched against the west 
 ern horizon, the acres of sloping ground, 
 shaded by lofty oaks, and covered by a 
 mass of picturesquely rural humanity. 
 138 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 Against the inclosing fence the count 
 less stalls, filled with the show stock of 
 the county. The crowd was surging 
 around the track, the various refresh 
 ment booths, the merry-go-rounds, and 
 the spaces where the "fakirs" held 
 forth. The grand-stand was filled to 
 running over. The air was resonant 
 with laughter; with the appeals of 
 the "fakirs," with the neighing of 
 the hundreds of horses hitched in every 
 part of the field. 
 
 The driver halted his horses as close 
 as possible to get to the centre of attrac 
 tion, the race-track. Then, the horses 
 turning restive, Mrs. Ware decided to 
 get out and go over to the dairy-booth, 
 and see some of her friends from the 
 farms. Dorothy and Dick accompanied 
 her, but had soon exhausted the attrac 
 tions of the booth. Mrs. Ware guessed 
 she wouldn t go with them. They 
 started out into the motley crew of 
 sightseers together. 
 
 As they approached the grand-stand 
 again, their ears were assailed with by a 
 number of quaint and characteristic 
 cries. " Right down this way, now, and 
 see the man with the iron jaw! Free 
 exhibition inside every minute! Walk 
 up, walk up, and see the ring-tailed 
 monkey eat his own tail ! " The most 
 laughable part of this exuberant invita 
 tion was that it had nothing to do with 
 a circus or a dime-museum, it was 
 merely the vocal hall-mark of an ambi 
 tious seller of lemonade and candy. It 
 was one of the tricks of the trade. 
 139 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 It caught the fancy of the countryman. It 
 sounded well. 
 
 There were other cries, such as: 
 " Here s your chance. Ten shots for a 
 nickel," and "the stick you ring is the 
 stick you gits!" "This way for the great 
 panoramy of Gettysburg, just from Chi 
 cago!" "Pink lemo. here, five a glass; 
 peanuts, popcorn!" "The only Calif orny 
 fruit on the grounds here!" "Ten cents 
 admits you to the quarter-stretch don t 
 crowd the steps, move on, keep a-mov- 
 ing!" Babel was come again. 
 
 The farm-people themselves were a 
 healthy, cheering sight. They were all 
 bent on as much wholesome enjoyment 
 as was possible. It looked as if every 
 man, woman and child in the county 
 was there. They had, most of them, 
 come for the day, eating their meals in 
 their vehicles, or under the trees on the 
 green sward. The meadow was a blaze 
 of color. The dresses of the women, 
 with the color-note in them exaggerated 
 in rustic love of brightness, gave the 
 scene a touch of picturesqueness. The 
 white tents of the various booths, the 
 greenleaf trees, the glaring yellow sun 
 over head, and the dust-white track 
 stretching out in the gray mist of heat 
 and dust made a picture of cheer and 
 warmth. 
 
 A cheering from the grand-stand. A 
 trotting heat is being run, and the 
 horses have been around for the first time. 
 It is not like the big circuit meeting, 
 this, and Dick thought with something 
 of gladness that the absence of a bet- 
 140 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 ting-shed left the scene an unalloyed 
 charm. 
 
 Everybody thinks himself competent 
 to speak of the merits of the horses. 
 "He ain t got that sorrel bitted right," 
 declares one authority. "He ll push 
 the bay mare so she ll break on the turn; 
 there watch her what d I tell you!" 
 triumphs another. A third utters the 
 disgusted sentiment that "Dandy Dan 
 d win ef he wuz driv right." And so on. 
 Dick and Dorothy smile at each other as 
 they listen. There is nothing pleasanter 
 in the world than a silent jest as jointure. 
 
 Then there comes a rush of dust up 
 the track, a clatter of hoofs over the 
 "stretch," a whirl of wheels, cheers from 
 the crowd and the heat is lost and won. 
 
 And so the day wears on, and the 
 program dwindles. There are several 
 trotting races, a pacing event, a running 
 race, and some bicycle exhibitions. 
 The day is to be topped off with a 
 balloon ascent, the balloonist, a woman, 
 being billed to descend, afterward, by 
 way of a parachute. 
 
 But to neither of these two spectators 
 did the events of the program seem the 
 most interesting of the displays. It was 
 the country people themselves that had 
 the most of quaint charms. Miss 
 Dorothy Ware was become so saturated 
 with the polish of cosmopolitan views, 
 and the manners caught from extensive 
 travel, that these scenes, once so famil 
 iar and natural, now struck her as very 
 strange and extraordinary. In Dick the 
 air of the metropolis had so keyed him 
 up to the quick, unwholesome pleasures 
 141 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 of the urban mob that this breath of 
 country holiday filled him with a pleas 
 ant sense of rest. Never again could he 
 be as these were, but he could, in a far- 
 off, dreamy way, still appreciate their 
 primitive emotions. They were all so 
 ingenious, so openly joyful, so gayly 
 bent on having a good time, these coun 
 try folk! They strolled about in groups 
 of young folk, or in couples, or in fami 
 ly parties. She casts a wistful look 
 toward a fruit-stand; he must go prompt 
 ly and buy her something. He bargains 
 closely; he is mindful, doubtless, of the 
 fact that there is still the yearning for 
 the merry-go-round, the phonograph, 
 and the panorama, to be appeased. 
 
 In the West the sun was taking on 
 the dull red tone of shining, beaten 
 bronze. The haze of dust began to lift, 
 mist-wise, up against the shadowgirt 
 horizon. From thousands of lips there 
 presently issues a long drawn "Ah-h! " 
 and the unwieldy mass of a balloon is 
 seen to rise up over the meadow. A 
 damsel in startling, grass-green tights 
 floats in mid-air upheld by the resisting 
 parachute, and drops earthward to the 
 safe seclusion of a neighboring pasture. 
 Vehicles are unhitched; there are some 
 moments of wild shouting and maneuver 
 ing, and then the stream of humanity 
 and horses pours out into the dusty 
 road, and in a little while the fair 
 grounds are merely a place for the ghosts 
 of the things that were. 
 
 When it was all over, when he had 
 said goodbye to Miss Ware and her 
 mother, a sense of loneliness came over 
 142 
 
Cape of Storms , 
 
 Dick, and he sank into one of those 
 moody states that nowadays invariably 
 meant torment. He could not remem 
 ber to have talked to Dorothy of any 
 thing save commonplace and obvious 
 things, and yet with every glance of her 
 eye, every tone of her voice, the old 
 glamour that he had felt aforetime had 
 come upon him again. She was no 
 longer the same, he had observed so 
 much; the girlish exuberance and forth- 
 rightness had given way to a more sub 
 dued manner, a fine, but somewhat 
 colorless polish. Something, too, of 
 the sparkle seemed tc have gone from 
 her; her smile had much of sadness. 
 * It flashed over him that never once 
 had either of them referred to the words 
 with which they once had parted. Had 
 it been his fault, or hers? Once, she 
 had let him hope, had she not? He re 
 membered the dead words, but he 
 smiled at the dim tone that yon whole 
 picture took in his memory. It was as 
 if it had all happened to someone else. 
 Well, perhaps it had; certainly he was 
 separated by leagues of too well re 
 membered things from that other self, 
 the self that had said to a girl, once, 
 " Dorothy, will you wish me luck? " 
 
 But in spite of the changes in them 
 both, Dick felt that her charm for him 
 was potent with a new fervor. He could 
 not define it; it seemed a halo that sur 
 rounded her, in his eyes at least. The 
 sardonic recesses of his memory flashed 
 to him the echo of his foolish words 
 to Mrs. Stewart, at the opera. " Oh, 
 damn the past," he muttered, hotly. He 
 
 H3 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 would begin all over again, he would 
 atone for those pretty steps aside; he 
 would pin his faith to the banner of his 
 love for Dorothy. For he felt that he 
 did love this girl. He longed for her; 
 she seemed to personify a harbor of ref 
 uge, a comfort; he felt that if he could 
 go to her, and tell her everything, and 
 feel her hand upon his forehead, her 
 smile, and the touch of her hand would 
 wipe away all the ghostly cobwebs of 
 his memory, of his past, and leave him 
 looking futureward with stern resolves 
 for white, and happy, wholesome days. 
 
 Surely it would be madly foolish to 
 let a Past spoil a Future! 
 
 He saw the grin upon the face of 
 Sophistry, and set his lips. No, there 
 were no excusing circumstances; he had 
 gone the way of the world, because that 
 way was easy and pleasant. Only his 
 weakness was to blame. 
 
 She is as far above me," he said, 
 before he went to sleep that night, " as 
 the stars. But we always want the 
 stars!" 
 
 As for Miss Ware, it need only be 
 chronicled that she was very quiet and 
 abstracted that evening, so that her 
 mother was prompted to remark that 
 " Lincolnville don t appear to suit you 
 powerful well, Dorothy." As a matter 
 of fact, the girl was afar off, in thought, 
 and her eyes were bright with tears be 
 cause of the things she was remember 
 ing. 
 
 She had loved Dick, on a time. And 
 to realize that never, in all time, would 
 144 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 her conscience permit her to satisfy that 
 love that was bitter, very bitter. 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 INTER was coming over the 
 town. The gripmen of the 
 cable cars were muffled to 
 their noses in heavy buffalo coats, and the 
 pedestrians were heralded by the white 
 steam that testified to the frostiness of 
 the air. The newspaper boys performed 
 * break downs on the corners for the mere 
 warmth thereof, and the beggars and 
 tramps presented a more blue-nosed, 
 frost-bitten appearance than usual. 
 
 Everybody was in town once more. 
 The hills, the seaside and the watering 
 places had all given up their summer 
 captives, and the metropolis held them 
 all. The Tremonts were returned from 
 Europe. The opera season, promising 
 better entertainment than ever, had 
 lurred many of the wealthier folk from 
 the country, for the winter at least. 
 Among these were the Wares. It was a 
 fashion steadily increasing in iiavor, this 
 of living in town the winter over, and 
 retiring to rusticity for the dog days. 
 With the Wares it was not yet become 
 a fashion; it was merely in accordance 
 with Dorothy s wish to hear the opera 
 and the concert season that the move 
 townward was made. 
 
 Mrs. Annie McCallum Stewart s little 
 " evenings" were more popular than 
 ever. There seemed a positive danger 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 that she would become known as the 
 possessor of a " salon" and have a 
 society reporter describe a represent 
 ative gathering of her satellites. On 
 this particular evening the carriages 
 drove up to the house and drove off 
 again without intermission all the eve 
 ning. People had a habit of coming 
 there before the theatre, or after; of 
 staying ten minutes or two hours, just 
 as their fancy, or Mrs. Stewart might 
 dictate. 
 
 One of the latest to arrive was Dick 
 Lancaster. It was his first appearance 
 there that season. He had only come 
 because he had heard that Dorothy Ware 
 was to be there. He hardly looked as 
 well as usual. He had been working 
 very hard, making up for the time lost 
 in the country. His cheek-bones stood 
 out a trifle prominently, and his eyes 
 were tired. 
 
 Mrs. Stewart proffered him the tips of 
 her fingers, shaking her head at him with 
 mockery of a frown. 
 
 " You ought to be introduced to me 
 again," she said. 
 
 " I ve been tremendously busy. 1 
 
 "Ah, you plagiarist! The sins that 
 the word busy is made to cover! 
 People escape debts, and calls, and en 
 gagements, nowadays, by simply flour 
 ishing the magic word busy. " She 
 broke off, and began to look at him 
 steadily over the top of her fan. Then 
 she went on in a very low voice, "And 
 have you found out how one s youth is 
 lost in town?" 
 
 "You re cruel," he murmured. 
 146 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 " Not I. But there, go in and talk 
 to the others. There are lots of people 
 you haven t met before, and there are 
 some pretty girls. Go in, and enjoy 
 yourself if you can. And perhaps, if 
 you find time, and I think of it again, I 
 shall ask you to introduce me to your 
 new self. 
 
 " I ve never been introduced to that 
 new self yet, egomet ipse" 
 
 He found two arch-enemies, Mrs. Tre- 
 mont and Miss Leigh, conversing with 
 cheerless enthusiasm. " I heard of you 
 a good deal while I was abroad," said 
 Mrs. Tremont, after greetings had been 
 exchanged. Dick bowed, and looked a 
 question. 
 
 "It was Mr.Wooton mentioned you," 
 Mrs. Tremont went on, pompously. 
 " We met in Germany. A charming 
 man! " She said it with the air of one 
 conferring a knighthood. 
 
 Dick was wondering how many times a 
 day a woman like this one managed to 
 be sincere. Then he said, " Miss Tre 
 mont is well, I trust?" 
 
 "Yes. She s here somewhere." She 
 lifted her lorgnette deliberately and 
 gazed toward the piano, " Who is that 
 playing? " she asked. 
 
 " Mrs. Stewart herself," said Miss 
 Leigh. 
 
 " Dear me! I didn t know she played. 
 I must go and congratulate her." * She 
 moved off with severe dignity. 
 
 Miss Leigh laughed as she watched 
 the expression on Dick s face. 
 
 " Do you believe in heridity? " he 
 asked. 
 
 147 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 "Yes, and no. Not in this case, if 
 that s what you mean. Miss Tremont is 
 far too clever. Do you know," she went 
 on, with slow distinctness, "that you 
 are changed." 
 
 He made a movement of impatience. 
 " I have heard nothing but that all eve 
 ning," he declared. " Simply because 
 the town had put it s brand on me, 
 whether I wished it or no, am I to be 
 forever upbraided?" There was both 
 petulence and pathos in his voice. 
 
 " H m," she said, " you still have all 
 your old audacity. But I don t think it 
 is anything but genuine interest in you 
 that prompts such remarks." 
 
 "You once said something about be 
 ing genuine. You said it was pathetic. 
 Now I know why that is so true. The 
 pathos comes after one has lost the 
 genuineness. 
 
 "Yes, but when one does nothing but 
 think and think, and brood and brood, 
 the pathos turns bathos. The thing to 
 do is to laugh! " 
 
 "Is that why there is so much flip 
 pancy?" 
 
 "No doubt. Tragedy evokes flippancy 
 and comedy starts tears." 
 
 "You are a very fountain of worldly 
 paradoxes. Where do you get them all 
 from?" 
 
 " From my enemies. I love my 
 enemies, you know, for what I can de 
 prive them of. That s right, leave me 
 just when I m getting brilliant! Go and 
 talk to Miss Ware about the rich red 
 tints of the Indian summer leaves and 
 the poetry in the gurgle of the brook. 
 148 
 

 Cape of Storms 
 
 Go on, it will be like a breath of fresh 
 air after the dismal gloom of my con 
 versation!" She got up, laughing, and 
 added, in a voice that he had not heard 
 before, " Go in and win! Your eyes 
 have told your secret." 
 
 She moved off, and he saw Dorothy 
 Ware coming toward him. He noticed 
 how delightfully she seemed to fit into 
 this scene; how charmingly at ease and 
 how natural she looked. Her color was 
 not as fresh as it once had been- but he 
 remembered how popular she had at once 
 become in town, and that her life was 
 now a very whirl of dances and recep 
 tions and festive occasions of that sort. 
 He had hardly shaken hands when Mrs. 
 Tremont and her daughter approached 
 from different directions. They were 
 both, they declared, so perfectly de 
 lighted tc see Miss Ware again. 
 
 Mrs. Stewart sailed majestically up to 
 them at this juncture, and bore Lan 
 caster away in triumph. He heard Mrs. 
 Tremont asking Dorothy, as he moved 
 away, " And how s your poor, dear 
 mother? " Then he found himself be 
 ing introduced to a personage with a 
 Vandyke beard. 
 
 " Ah," said the personage, with some 
 show of interest, "you re an artist? 
 Now, tell me, frankly, why do you West 
 ern artists never treat Western subjects?" 
 And then Dick found himself flounder 
 ing about in a sea of argument with this 
 personage. Afterwards, when the agony 
 was over, he discovered that it was 
 the author, Mr. Wreath, who had thus 
 been catechizing him. It was noised 
 149 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 about the world that Mr. Wreath was a 
 monomaniac on the subect of realism. 
 Dick remembered wishing he had caught 
 the man s name at the introduction. 
 
 In the meanwhile Miss Tremont stood 
 talking to Dorothy Ware in a dim corner 
 of the room. There was a small table 
 near them, and upon it were scattered 
 portfolios of photographs. 
 
 " Do you ever hear of Mr. Wooton? " 
 Miss Tremont asked, smiling sweetly. 
 
 Dorothy gave a little start, and a flush 
 touched her cheek. 
 
 " No," she said tonelessly. 
 "He s a very clever man," persisted 
 Miss Tremont. " I congratulate you." 
 She smiled meaningly. 
 
 " I m sure I don t know what you 
 mean?" Dorothy s eyes flashed and her 
 fingers toyed nervously with the photo 
 graphs. 
 
 " If I were an expert photographer I 
 could show you what I mean instantly. 
 Speech is so clumsy! " 
 
 Dorothy still looked at her blankly, 
 though she felt her heart beating with 
 accelerated speed. 
 
 "From what I saw at Schandau," the 
 other went on coldly, "I should say it 
 was time to announce the engagement." 
 Dorothy gripped the little table with 
 a tight clasp. Bending over, as if to ex 
 amine the pictures, she felt waves of 
 heat and cold follow each other over 
 her cheeks and forehead. Her breath 
 seemed to choke. How warm the room 
 was! She longed for a breath of fresh 
 air. She would go and tell her mother 
 that she wanted to have the carriage 
 150 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 called at once. But there was her 
 mother talking busily with Mrs. Tre- 
 mont. And there, beyond, was Dick. 
 
 Something very like tears came to the 
 borders of her eyes, as Miss Dorothy 
 Ware looked at, and thought of Dick. 
 He had loved her, and she Ah, well, 
 that was all over now! Even had she 
 been able to compound with her own 
 conscience, Miss Tremont had effectually 
 barred the way to ah, to everything! 
 There was Miss Tremont talking, now, 
 to Mr. Wreath and to Dick. Surely the 
 girl would not dare but no, that was 
 absurd! 
 
 Fortunately, Miss Leigh, noticing 
 Dorothy s solitude, decided, just then, 
 that she would go and talk to the girl, 
 which succeeded in diverting Dorothy s 
 mind from unpleasant thoughts. 
 
 At the other end of the room the vari 
 ous groups were constantly changing. 
 Above the chatter one could hear the 
 strains of music that floated in from the 
 music-room. Miss Tremont having 
 finally succeeded in luring Mr. Wreath 
 on to a discussion of his own peculiar 
 theory of the art of fiction, Dick left 
 them and strolled into the conservatory, 
 He wanted to be alone. He had been 
 suffering more than ever before from 
 such accute pain as afflicts each 
 individual soul that submits to drown 
 ing itself in the meaningless chatter of 
 society. As he himself put it, with 
 something like an oath of disgust, "I ve 
 been listening to people I don t care a 
 pin about; hearing rubbish and talking 
 rubbish!" The real key to his feeling 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 of disgust, however, was in the fact that 
 his opportunities to a confidential talk 
 with Miss Ware had all been ruthlessly 
 killed. 
 
 "A nice way to contribute to the 
 general entertainment!" It was Mrs. 
 Stewart herself. She was shaking her 
 fan at him. "Don t get up! " she went 
 on, "I want to talk to you." She 
 scrutenized him. You don t look cheer 
 ful!" 
 
 " I m not," he said curtly. 
 " Remorse?" 
 
 " No. Remorse is the divine right of 
 cowards and gourmands. Mine is mere 
 ly a case of weariness. 
 
 "With your own sweet self to blame. 
 I know the feeling. You ve been think 
 ing, or, rather, you think you have been 
 thinking. And when one is in that state, 
 everything goes against the grain. Even 
 such a galaxy as that! " She waved her 
 fan to the direction of the inner rooms, 
 and a smile of mischief curled her mouth. 
 "What do you think of this year s crop 
 of lions?" 
 
 " Bah!" he scorned viciously, with all 
 the bitterness of the man knocking at 
 the closed portals. "Who was it that 
 first gave your friend Clarence Miller 
 the idea that he was a novelist? His 
 wife, I suppose. When a man s single 
 his follies are suggested by the devil; 
 when he s married, by his wife. I sup 
 pose she wants her husband to equal the 
 notoriety attained by her brother-in-law, 
 the composer of Rip Van Winkle and 
 other comic operas that society flocks to 
 listen to. It s a great pity that art and 
 152 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 literature happen to be the thing this 
 season." 
 
 "You re thinking of the real artists 
 and writers, I presume. Well, it is rather 
 hard on them." 
 
 < < Hard? Why, its death! Think of 
 the author that finds the market glutted 
 with the free-gratis product of the so 
 ciety butterfly s pen. Its enough to 
 create suicides." 
 
 " But you can t very well include Mr. 
 Wreath in the free-gratis class?" 
 
 " No. But he is a charlatan, for 
 revenue only. He has so many fads 
 that they stud his conversation as barn 
 acles cover a rock. He is a trumpeter 
 of theories. Oh, I don t deny that he 
 writes well! But he is not satisfied with 
 that, unfortunately; he must needs 
 preach, and the man who preaches about 
 his art is a dispiriting spectacle." 
 
 "Dear, dear! What a change! It 
 used to be that we others said all the 
 cutting things, while you listened in 
 awe and trembling; now it is you that 
 uses the edge tools of language. You 
 have beaten us at our own game." Mrs. 
 Stewart dropped her voice a little, and 
 sighed. " But you have lost as much as 
 you have gained, have you not?" 
 
 He nodded silently. The world is a 
 usurer that lends us wisdom if we will 
 but pay our youth as interest. And 
 when we are bankrupt in youth, the 
 wisdom turns to ashes." 
 
 " Don t be morbid. It s too fashion 
 able. Cynicism is so cheap nowadays 
 that the poorest Philistine of us all can 
 afford it. The only virtue in optimism, 
 153 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 it seems to me, is that it is suffering 
 neglect today; for that reason I may 
 espouse it, merely to avoid the charge 
 of being commonplace. Come, be gay! 
 Laugh! Forget!" 
 
 "To forget is to forego one of life s 
 sweetest pains." He laughed mechanic 
 ally, and got up, offering Mrs. Stewart 
 his arm. " I m a stupid, morbid fool. My 
 only saving grace is that I know just 
 how big a fool I am." They entered the 
 inner rooms, and Mrs. Stewart, with a 
 smile and a bow, left Dick to talk 
 flatteringly to the musical lion of the 
 town. 
 
 Some of the people were already leav 
 ing. Dick determined to slip away quiet 
 ly. But, as he turned to the vestibule, 
 he found himself face to face with 
 Dorothy Ware. 
 
 All his gloom vanished. "I ve been 
 trying to talk to you all evening," he de 
 clared. " I ve been wanting to ask you 
 something. I asked you once before. 
 But that seems a very long time ago." 
 He found himself carried away in a whirl 
 of eager enthusiasm and hope. " Dor 
 othy," he said, looking down at her, 
 "there is still hope for me, is there 
 not?" 
 
 But in the girl s eyes there was noth 
 ing save pain, and shame. She looked 
 away. She played nervously with the 
 lace of her dress. 
 
 Blind, man-like, he took it all for shy 
 ness. "Only a little hope," he repeat 
 ed, tenderly. He tried to take her hand. 
 
 She shrank away from him in a sort of 
 horror. "No, no," she murmured, in a 
 154 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 voice of torture. She did not look him 
 in the face. 
 
 Dick stared at her dumbly. Now, at 
 last, he understod her silence, her avert 
 ed head. He saw the expression that 
 told him she feared to wound him, even 
 though she cared for him not at all. 
 
 "Forget me!" she said, and moved 
 away quickly. 
 
 He stood, for an instant, looking after 
 her, then he went, moving his lips in a 
 queer, mumbling way, to the vestibule, 
 and asked for his wraps. 
 
 As he was leaving the house Dorothy 
 was sinking into a chair by her mother s 
 side. She stared straight out in front 
 of her. When her mother spoke to her 
 she turned slowly around and said, " It s 
 very cold in here. " She shivered. 
 
 And her mother, knowing that it was 
 as warm as an oven in those rooms, and 
 watching the queer look on her daugh 
 ter s face, decided the latter was not 
 very well, and must be taken home at 
 once. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 E went down the steps with his 
 hand clutching the rail with the 
 fervor of a tooth biting on a lip. 
 If it had been daylight the twitching of 
 his eyes and lip-corners would have been 
 peculiarly noticeable. 
 
 For some reason or no reason he 
 scorned the sidewalk; the middle of the 
 road presently felt his nervous footfall. 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 Underneath him he could feel and hear 
 the droning of the cable. Some hun 
 dred yards before him he saw the vivid 
 glare that betokened the headlight of an 
 approaching cable-car. For an instant 
 or two he asked himself why he should 
 not continue walking in that direction, 
 in the path of the Juggernaut, and allow 
 himself to be ground into fragments 
 into the everlasting Forget. Gravely he 
 pondered it: why not? Could the game 
 be worth the candle that was snuffed? 
 And yet, there was something so com 
 monplace, so cheaply melodramatic in 
 that manner of going out that he drew 
 back; he stepped aside and let the dust 
 of the passing car brush him spattering- 
 ly. To commit suicide, to choose such 
 a moment for it a moment that, after 
 all, was but the repetition of a million 
 similar ones had something so ordi 
 nary, so vulgar in it, that after he resisted 
 the thought of it, he shuddered. His 
 lips took on a semblance of smiling. 
 
 "What a play for the gallery it would 
 have been! " he thought bitterly. 
 
 Presently, as he walked, sobs broke 
 through his lips. The measure of what 
 was lost to him seemed terribly great. 
 All the light of the world was but dark 
 ness for him now. What did it all mat 
 ter now, this world, this life, this aim 
 less race? What was ambition worth, 
 when ambition s cause was gone? 
 Could he take up the dream again, now 
 that waking had brought such pain ? 
 Incoherently his mind went back to the 
 moments that had elapsed just before he 
 had left the house, moments that lasted 
 156 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 longer than lifetimes. He saw it all 
 again, that scene so indelibly graven on 
 his mental film; he heard those fateful 
 words again and felt their blighting im 
 port. His arms went up wildly, with 
 fists clenched, toward the stars, and 
 down again toward the earth like falling 
 hammers, driven with curses. 
 
 If anyone had met him at that mo 
 ment, Dick Lancaster would have been 
 called insane. 
 
 Suddenly he stood still, and began to 
 laugh. It was not a pleasant sound, 
 and he himself noticed that it had the 
 discordance of the laugh bred by arti 
 fice. He had remembered a sentence 
 that someone had addressed to him, 
 " The thing to do is to laugh ! " 
 
 So it was. Yes, that was the only 
 armor, the armor of indifference. He 
 walked on, evolving a philosophy of flip 
 pancy. Wounded sorely, as he was, he 
 found himself sympathetically wonder 
 ing whether that flippancy that he once 
 had so despised in his fellow-men and 
 women was not as often a growth of 
 experience as a mask of fashion. 
 
 When he reached his room he flung 
 himself on a couch. Outside everything 
 was still. He sent his mind back to the 
 time when he had first entered this town. 
 How void of all suspicion, all cynicism, 
 he was in those days! Experience after 
 experience had left its impress on his 
 wax-like mind and now, with the slip- 
 ing away of beliefs, the vanishment of 
 idols, the twinges of fate, he found him 
 self at the other extreme, in the mood 
 that laughs at all things, and believes 
 
 157 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 that there is nothing potent save 
 chance. 
 
 In that mood he resolved to remain. 
 It was the only one that was no longer 
 unbearable. To attempt the old beliefs 
 were merely to give hostages to disin- 
 chantment. He was done now with dis- 
 inchantment. He would expect nothing, 
 care for nothing. Except to laugh. 
 
 But, in the meanwhile, he could no 
 longer bear the scenes and sounds of 
 the town. He cast about for plans. 
 The thought that in one mind at least 
 his flight would look like cowardice did 
 not annoy him; that also was merely a 
 thing to laugh at. The country was not 
 what he wanted. It was not quiet 
 he desired; it was struggle and strife 
 with the dragons of memory and bore 
 dom; he wanted new battles to fight, 
 new experiences to harvest not sensi 
 tively, as of old, but coldly, cruelly in 
 other fields, as far away as possible. 
 
 He unlocked his desk and searched 
 for his bank-book. The figures seemed 
 to satisfy him. 
 
 "Three thousand," he murmured, 
 " will be enough. I will take a year. I 
 will see everything that my fancy asks 
 for, do everything, be everything." They 
 call it the Old World. Well, it must 
 be able to furnish amusement for me, be 
 it old or young." 
 
 He turned to the unfinished sketches, 
 the letters and the other impediments 
 that littered the room. "These shall 
 not hold me a minute," he said. "I 
 want a change of air. I am going to 
 take it. Nor friends, nor promises, nor 
 158 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 prospects shall stay me. It s goodbye." 
 He laughed again, and went out to 
 buy an evening paper, to scan the sail 
 ing-lists for the out-going steamers. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 /^\ N one of the hottest days of August, 
 \\\y a month by no means the most de 
 lightful of Berlin s moods, there sat 
 in the pleasant, shady garden of the res 
 taurant "Zum Kapuziner," facing the 
 Schlossplatz, a tall young man, whose 
 material externals proclaimed him, to 
 the trained eye, either as an Englishman 
 or an American. It is a safe axiom that 
 all the well-dressed people in the Ger 
 man capital are either English or 
 American. 
 
 In front of the young man, on the 
 table, were a glass, a bottle of Mai-trank 
 and an illustrated paper. But the young 
 man was not regarding any of these 
 things, but kept his eyes to an observ 
 ance of the passers-by. This seemed to 
 amuse him, for from time to time he 
 smiled softly. 
 
 It was certainly a pleasant spot. In 
 front there stretched the broad, paved 
 square that gave to the Old Castle of 
 the first German Emperors on the left, 
 to the royal stables on the right, and 
 beyond, straight ahead, gave a glimpse 
 of the quaint, old-fashioned architecture 
 ofthe"^//* Stadt? For the Schloss 
 platz marks the limits of the newer por 
 tion of Berlin; beyond the bridge every- 
 159 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 thing is the real Berlin, the Berlin un 
 touched by the triumphant splendors 
 that came after 71, the Berlin that 
 knows but little of the passing stranger 
 and the ways to despoil him. And that 
 was why Dick Lancaster had chosen the 
 spot. The passers-by were not at all 
 cosmopolitan; there was little of that 
 mixture of all races, all garbs, all 
 voices, that was to be seen and heard 
 on the "Linden. " These were the real 
 Berliners. 
 
 In the months that lay between this 
 day and the day on which Lascaster had 
 first felt the soil of Europe under his 
 foot, there had come to him many exper 
 iences, many amusements. He had ac 
 cepted all things. Unfettered by any 
 restraints he had probed all the novel 
 ties that presented themselves. He had 
 lived in alternating fevers of discrimina 
 tions and hard work. For all these new 
 aspects of life and living filled him with 
 the old, dear mania to create. He found 
 himself inspired by the very overflow of 
 his sensations. From long draughts of 
 enjoyment hs plunged into as long fits 
 of artistic energy. 
 
 He found, moreover, that the in 
 creased tension of his spiritual being 
 put a peculiar force into his pencil. Be 
 cause it was merely one way of laugh 
 ter, because he began in a spirit of flip 
 pancy, the sketches all succeeded im 
 mensely. Fortune began to favor him 
 in artistic ways. In Paris he had made 
 a portfolio full of the most admirable 
 sketches of types. There was a crafty 
 cynicism about his work that gave a fas- 
 160 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 cination to them; something not cari 
 cature, but finer. Now he chose as his 
 subject the traveling millionaire, now 
 the splendid queen of the boulevard, 
 now the phantom of the "brasseie," and 
 now the rag-picker. One day he had 
 showed some sketches to a man that 
 had begged permission to glance through 
 the portfolio, as they sat, in a crowded 
 cafe, at the same table. The man was 
 the manager of a famous illustrated 
 paper. He bought some of the sketches, 
 and presently there appeared a most as 
 tonishingly eulogistic article about this 
 young American. 
 
 People carefully read the name. They 
 had never heard of him. They looked at 
 the sketches. That was certainly tal 
 ent of a significant sort. The other 
 papers followed suit. The noise of this 
 discovery went across the channel. 
 There came to this young man orders 
 from London, and the newspapers of that 
 town began to print the most extraordi 
 nary inventions, by way of personalities, 
 about him. The world, now as ever, is 
 always glad of a new subject. After 
 that Parisian journal had sounded the 
 first note, the volume of sound that had 
 as its burden Lancaster s name, grew 
 and grew. Of course, there were those 
 that dissented, that took occasion to flay 
 this young man s achievements until 
 there seemed left only a skeleton of 
 faults. But even that only swelled the 
 flood. 
 
 All the while, his sketches grew in 
 force and individuality. For, whatever 
 else his detractors denied him, they ad- 
 161 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 mitted the originality of his style. It 
 had never been done before. Some 
 called it hideous, some grotesque; but 
 all called it new. That was the great 
 point. 
 
 He became the fad. The representa 
 tives of American newspapers, who had 
 been prompt to cable home reports of 
 the successes of this unheard-of youth, 
 began to attempt to interview him. 
 Whereupon, having by that time ex 
 hausted the immediate enjoyments of 
 Paris, he fled abruptly. 
 
 His success had at first surprised, 
 then amused him. When, presently, 
 he found that his bank account was 
 swelling most astonishingly, he was more 
 entertained than ever. He laughed 
 that unpleasant, mirthless laugh. But 
 he felt no duties toward his success. 
 When Paris became tiresome, he had no 
 hesitation about quitting it without" 
 leaving an address. For that matter, 
 he did not, himself, know just whither 
 he would go. 
 
 His ticket had been taken for Monaco. 
 The life of that place fascinated him no 
 less than that of Paris, when Paris was 
 fresh to him. Day after day he watched 
 the procession that filed to and from the 
 green tables; the princes of the blood, 
 the newest nabobs, the touring Ameri 
 cans, the Russians, the worldlings and 
 half-worldlings of all nations and de 
 grees. He watched the blue of the Med 
 iterranean as a contrast to the black 
 nesses of humanity that he saw daily. 
 
 And then without an accompanying 
 word, he sent a selection of sketches to 
 162 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 that Parisian paper whose discovery, so 
 to say, he was. There came another 
 salvo of applause from the world of art. 
 It seemed, so they all said, as if this 
 young man was destined to show such 
 possibilities in black-and-white as had 
 not yet been dreampt of. 
 
 From Monaco the wanderer went to 
 Egypt. A white-sailed fishing-smack, 
 anchored in the bay below him, had 
 started the thought in his mind one sun 
 ny afternoon, when the attractions of 
 Monte Carlo were beginning to pall. He 
 could afford extravagances now. The 
 fisherman, when he was accosted, had 
 smiled. Yes, he might charter the boat. 
 But where would the gentleman wish to 
 sail to? And it was of Egypt that Dick 
 thought, suddenly, with a longing for 
 the cold silences of the sands, and the 
 pyramids, and the quaking waves of 
 heat. And so the bargain was arranged 
 and to Egypt went the artist. 
 
 Thence he swung back to Italy. Then 
 through Switzerland. Everywhere he 
 roved through the corners that his fancy 
 led him to; nowhere did he merely echo 
 the footsteps of the millions of tourists. 
 Sometimes he walked for whole days at 
 a time. Sometimes he went to a petty 
 inn and astonished the host by staying 
 all day in his room and working. When 
 ever he found his purse suffering unduly 
 through the vagaries of his nomadic fan 
 cies, he posted some sketches to such of 
 the Paris or London papers as had been 
 most clamorous for them. 
 
 It was, perhaps, just because he cared 
 so little for it all, that this luck was 
 163 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 come to him. In the old days he had 
 chafed against misfortunes, against 
 limitations of all sorts; he had declared 
 that great successes were no longer pos 
 sible, that everything worth doing had 
 been done long ago. Now, when he 
 cared not at all, fortune kissed him . 
 Which also amused him. 
 
 Another man would have laid plans 
 for the furtherment of this fame, would 
 have counted the ways and means of 
 plucking the fruit of success at it s ripest, 
 would have plotted against the erasure 
 by caprice, of the world, or loss 
 of his own skill, of his own name 
 from the list of the world s favorites. 
 Dick Lancaster did none of these things. 
 He merely accepted the gifts of the mo 
 ment, and continued recklessly in alter 
 nate disappearances and bursts o f 
 splendid achievement. There was noth 
 ing, he argued bitterly, for which he 
 needed all the fame; so why should he 
 care to be Fame s courtier? If fame 
 chose to pursue him, that was another 
 matter, and beyond his heed. 
 
 So, carelessly, recklessly eager for 
 novelties and excitements, this young 
 man adventured over the continent of 
 Europe, gaining everywhere a reputa 
 tion for devil-may-care-dom and bitter 
 ness. 
 
 And over many of these things he was 
 thinking, as he sat in the garden of the 
 "Kapuzimer." He thought, too, with 
 something of amused wistfulness of the 
 Dick Lancaster that had once been him 
 self, the boy that had suffered twinges 
 of conscience at the thought of giving up 
 164 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 a Sunday to enjoyment, and had felt for 
 ever stained because of things that now 
 caused him little save ennui. Was it 
 possible that he had once been like that? 
 Oh, yes, all things were possible; he 
 had found that out plainly enough. In 
 deed, he reflected, if it should happen 
 to him that the End came tomorrow, he 
 would have the satisfaction of having 
 lived his life, completely, fully, even to. 
 satisfy, in half the time that most men 
 take for that task. Since that night, 
 after a certain girl had told him to "for 
 get," he had spared himself in nothing 
 that promised entertainment. With the 
 old restraints completely cast t o the 
 winds, with nothing but studied reck 
 lessness as his Mentor, he had followed 
 all the promptings of that epicureanism 
 that he now feigned to consider the only 
 philosophy. ^ 
 
 In all things he was fickle. Just as 
 the artistic side of him tired quickly of 
 one place, one set of types, so his ani 
 mal nature was essentially of the dilet 
 tante rather than the enthusiast. Wherev 
 er he saw a will-o -the-wisp he followed; 
 but it was no sooner caught than he was 
 repentant of his success. The taste of 
 pleasure was of the briefest to him; it 
 turned to bitterness in a moment. 
 
 And yet, he mused, with all his varied 
 experiences, with the feeling of satiety 
 that sometimes overcame him from sheer 
 excess of sensations, the fascination of 
 the town was still upon him. It was 
 surely in his blood, he speculated. He 
 remembered with what passionate eager 
 ness, after the final shaking off of all the 
 165 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 old consciences all those moral skins 
 that he had shed, and left to rot, over 
 there, in America he had come to the 
 realization of the varied facets of that 
 bewildering jewel, the town. 
 
 He shut his eyes to escape the glare 
 of the noon-day, and evolve, behind his 
 closed lids, the aspect of the town after 
 lamps are lit. The constant current 
 of humanity, of the swishing of the 
 women s gowns as they walked, 
 the rattle of the cabs over the 
 stones, it all filled him with a pas 
 sion of pleasure. His young blood went 
 more quickly at each sight of that surg 
 ing sea. The crowds going to the thea 
 tres and music-halls; the shadows that 
 flitted hawk-like about the corners; the 
 colors of the occasional uniforms; he 
 drank in the picture thirstily. Both the 
 artist and the man were joined, too, in a 
 passionate eagerness for beauty; he had 
 been known, in his folly as men may 
 call it, to walk a mile so that he might 
 the more often meet an attractive face 
 again. The vision of a beautiful female 
 figure, of a well-fitting gown, gave him 
 an almost painful joy; he felt that charm 
 of mere feminity most acutely and cov 
 etously. 
 
 And yet, with all, he had been a lonely 
 creature. His pleasures were evanescent 
 and he was ever constrained to browse 
 upon fresh pastures. From this novel 
 experience, that colorful scene, and that 
 delightful companion he extracted the 
 essence all too soon; and the dregs 
 he ever avoided. In his mind there was 
 166 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 a gallery of places, faces and voices 
 all loves of a moment. 
 
 It was a cheerless train of thought 
 that he found himself in. But, as he 
 sipped the pale Mai-trank, the glad re 
 flection occurred that the world was 
 very large and that he had seen very lit 
 tle of it so far; there were still plenty of 
 things left that were new to him. Sur 
 prise would not die for him just yet. 
 
 He was watching the rainbows that 
 glimpsed in and out of the streams of 
 cool water that the fountain, in the 
 square, was sending up into the sun 
 light. And as he was so engaged, there 
 came to his ear the sound of men s 
 voices, speaking English with an unmis 
 takable American accent. 
 
 He turned about. 
 
 One of the men was Wooton. As they 
 .came nearer, he recognized the other as 
 Laurence Stanley. They were coming 
 directly toward the garden, and in 
 another instant they had seen him. 
 Stanley put on his prince-nez. Then 
 they hurried up to him with a flourish of 
 hands. 
 
 " Why, God bless our home," laughed 
 Wooton, "if here isn t our famous young 
 friend, Dick Lancaster, the talk of two 
 continents! I m glad to see you, mighty 
 glad." 
 
 " Stanley," said Dick, after they had 
 all shaken hands, "what are you doing 
 here? Where s Mrs. Stanley." 
 
 "My boy, I m enjoying myself. I 
 presume Mrs. Stanley is doing the same. 
 For reasons not necessary of explana 
 tion to the mind capable in deduction 
 167 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 we are not, at this moment, breathing 
 the air of the same hemisphere." 
 
 "Will you fellows take a bit of lunch? 
 We ought to celebrate this meeting with 
 the famous, etcetera, etcetera," said 
 Wooton. 
 
 "Look here," said Lancaster, a trifle 
 coldly, " I d just as soon you d drop that 
 adjective business. Here s the bill of 
 the play, Stanley." He handed the 
 carte-du-jour over. 
 
 While they were discussing their 
 luncheon, chatting of the various causes 
 that had brought them together, and re 
 counting stories, and adventures, Woo 
 ton rose solemnly, after a few moments 
 of reflection, and held out his hand to 
 Lancaster. "I want to shake hands 
 with you," he declared, "as with a genu 
 ine thoroughbred. I ve been listening 
 to you, watching you, and but that was 
 a long time ago, hearing about you. 
 You re not the Lancaster I knew." 
 
 But, for some strange reason, Lancas 
 ter did not hold out his hand. He pre 
 tended to be engaged in lifting his glass 
 to his lips. Then he said, "I don t 
 consider that a compliment." 
 
 Wooton scowled a little to himself, 
 but passed the matter off lightly enough. 
 "Well," he continued, "at any rate 
 it does me good to see you. How are 
 they all? I ve not been back in years, 
 you know." The reason for, and occa 
 sion of his exodus did not seem to 
 touch him with the least shade of annoy 
 ance. 
 
 Lancaster looked at Stanley. "I m 
 not the man to say. I left there almost 
 168 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 a year ago. Stanley was still there 
 then. Stanley, tell us the news from 
 home." 
 
 "Yes, "was Stanley s reply, " and a 
 nice lot of speculation there was about 
 your sudden disappearance, Dick. There 
 were all sorts of rumors. Some of them 
 hinted at affairs of the heart." He 
 caught the look on Dick s face, and 
 stopped. "However, that s not to the 
 point, I suppose you re thinking? Well, 
 now let me see: they re all about as 
 usual, I think, except, of course, Mrs. 
 Stewart." 
 
 The others both started a little. 
 
 "Yes. Her husband died in Janu 
 ary. She gave up the salon of course; 
 in fact, I think she went abroad." 
 
 Lancaster wondered what she would 
 say to him, were they ever to meet. She 
 must have heard about his sudden leap 
 into public notice, his vagabondian 
 ways, his reckless career. He became 
 moody, abstracted. The others were 
 not slow to observe the change in him. 
 
 "Stanley," said Wooton, "its time 
 we left the great man to his thoughts. 
 He is evolving a new and fearful sketch. 
 Hope we ve not intruded." They got 
 up and were for leaving him, but he pro 
 tested, and they all strolled away to 
 gether. He accompanied them to their 
 hotel, and then sauntered off for a stroll 
 in the Thiergarten. He found a bench 
 that gave him a view of the sandy ditch 
 wherein the children played all daylong 
 in the sun-light, while their nurses sat 
 placidly knitting or reading. It attracted 
 him immediately, this picture of the lit- 
 169 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 tie bare-legged youngsters in their quaint 
 German attire, digging about in the 
 sand, shouting and laughing and fight 
 ing, and all living in the evergreen 
 country of make-believe. 
 
 He began to draw some rough 
 sketches. So engrossed was he that the 
 sun had sunk behind the trees before he 
 remembered that he had promised his 
 two townsmen to go to the "Linden" 
 theatre with them, He got up, looked 
 at his watch, and hailed a passing Tax- 
 omcter. 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 Cjl N the days that immediately fol- 
 i\ lowed, these three were together a 
 C5 great deal. Presently Stanley 
 drawlingly, announced that he would 
 have to be packing up; his bank account 
 was getting low, he declared, and he 
 would be forced once more to bask in 
 the sunshine of his wife s presence. 
 
 The other two still stayed on. Berlin 
 was just beginning to be amusing. Peo 
 ple were beginning to return from 
 Marienbad, from Schwalbach, from 
 Heringsdorf. All the theatres were once 
 more open. Summer was saying good 
 bye. 
 
 One day Wooton asked: " Of course 
 you ve seen Potsdam? " 
 
 Lancaster shook his head. 
 
 "Well, then it s high time you did. 
 Leaves beginning to fall and all that 
 sort of thing. The last chance. It s 
 170 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 really very worth while. Castles till you 
 can t rest. Babelsberg, Sans-souci, and 
 the New Palace. To say nothing of a 
 bit of Potsdam, near the Barberini Pal 
 ace, that s almost as good as Venice. 
 
 They arranged to make the excursion 
 the first sunny day, and had only to 
 wait until the sun rose again. They 
 chose to travel by boat. It was a splen 
 did journey, in the bright sun-light, past 
 the woods and rushes and villas that 
 skirt the little series of inland lakes be 
 tween Spandau and Potsdam. They 
 left the steamer at the landing-stage for 
 Babelsberg and went leisurely through 
 the grounds and the simple, comforta 
 ble, old place. By the time a boatman 
 had rowed them over to Potsdam, it was 
 luncheon time. 
 
 They left the boat riding in the Ven 
 ice-like waterway, and stepped directly 
 into the garden of the vine-covered, shady 
 cafe that skirted the water for quite a 
 distance. Waiters were moving about 
 and at tables sat family parties, eating 
 and drinking cheerily and honestly. 
 It was one of the things that enchanted 
 Lancaster, this part of continental life, 
 this open-air freedom of taking one s 
 glass of beer, this cheerful way of sup 
 ping out-doors en familla, of devoting 
 to restaurant-garden uses the most ex 
 pensive corner-lots, of making the pass 
 ing show of strollers one of the sights 
 that you paid for with your glass. 
 
 They chose a table that directly over 
 looked the water-front. Behind them 
 lay the yellow shabbiness of the Bar 
 berini palace, that relic of a king s devo- 
 171 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 tion to a dancer. Below them gleamed 
 the water. It was by no means an un- 
 picturesque spot. 
 
 "By the way," said Wooton, casu 
 ally, as they were discussing the entree, 
 " I met a friend of your s last summer, a 
 Miss Ware." 
 
 " Oh." There was not much interest 
 in Lancaster s tone, but Wooton helped 
 himself to the Rauenthaler and went 
 on: 
 
 " Yes. Rather a pleasant girl. Charm 
 ingly unsophisticated. Known her 
 long?" 
 
 " We were children together." 
 "Ah, then she s a country girl, so to 
 say, eh? I thought so." 
 
 Lancaster was deep in thought. The 
 other continued to ply himself with 
 wine. 
 
 "We had some charming days to 
 gether," he went on, reminiscently. 
 "She amused me immensely. The Tre- 
 monts were staying at the same place 
 then, and I used to amuse myself con 
 trasting that Tremont girl with Miss 
 Ware. The one was like an armor- 
 plate, the other impressionable as wax." 
 He began to smile to himself mysteri 
 ously. " Do have some of this Rauen 
 thaler Berg," he urged, effusively. " It s 
 really capital!" He ordered another 
 bottle, and helped himself liberally. 
 Lancaster was scarcely heeding his com 
 panion. He was looking out over the 
 water. For once, he was forgetting to 
 be amused. 
 
 "As between two men of the world, 
 you know," Wooton was saying, lean- 
 172 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 ing impressively on his elbow, "it may 
 as well be understood that that Tremont 
 girl is the newest kind a new woman." 
 "Know what she said to me one day? 
 * The only thing I don t like about love 
 is its consequences! Nice girls, these 
 new women, eh?" He laughed softly 
 and drank again. Lancaster turned to 
 watch him. The man was showing all 
 the cad in him; the wine was bringing 
 it out. "Women, nowadays," Wooton 
 went on, " make a fad of everything ex 
 cept the homely virtues. They deliver 
 lectures on art, and literature, and post 
 ers, and music, and the redemption of 
 the fallen; but they never care for the 
 staple virtues that bring happiness to 
 households. I m not saying that I m a 
 model, not by a damned sight, but I 
 have my eyes open, and I think the wo 
 man of today is trying to usurp, chiefly, 
 man s prerogative of being a roue if he 
 chooses. What she needs is to go to a 
 medical school. Then she knows the 
 difference." He crumbled a piece of 
 bread, and flung it out to the swans that 
 floated down before them. 
 
 "I don t mind telling you," he con 
 tinued, confidentially. " that they were 
 both in love with me, Miss Tremont and 
 Miss Ware. In Miss Tremont s case, I 
 naturally, had no scruples at all. The 
 fact is, I think she took the initiative." 
 He stopped, smiling significantly, and 
 sipping at the yellow wine. 
 
 Lancaster s eyes were glowing with 
 anger. The man s brutality was so dis 
 gusting! Not that there was anything 
 surprising in these wine-woven state- 
 
 173 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 ments, for a man who could welch his 
 debts in the way Wooton did, two years 
 ago, was hardly a man to suffer from 
 scruples of any sort; but the very fact 
 of having the names of people well- 
 known to him brought up in this way was 
 nauseating to Lancaster. 
 
 "Why don t you drink some of this 
 wine? " Wooton was holding the bottle 
 across the table. "No? You re miss 
 ing something good, you can bet on that! 
 Wine is the way to forgetfulness, and 
 most men would sell their souls to be 
 able to forget. Don t you agree with 
 me? That s right. He leered fatuously 
 at his companion. "I ve always liked 
 you, y know, Lancaster, always liked 
 you. Friend of mine, yessir, friend of 
 mine; you bet! Great artist, too, proud 
 to know you. But, oh Scott! what a 
 simple sort of idiot you were when you 
 first came to town! You ll excuse my 
 candor; friend of your s, I am, yessir, 
 friend of yours. " He proceeded to watch 
 the swans that glided past them, rip 
 pling the smooth water gracefully. 
 "Beautiful creature," he drawled in 
 drunken sentimentality, "beautiful crea 
 ture! Reminds me of that girl s neck, 
 that girl I kissed in Schandau. Beautiful 
 neck, Lancaster, beautiful neck! White, 
 and smooth, and soft, Moreover, she 
 had the most adorable lips; extraordi 
 narily sweet, I assure you. Lancaster, 
 I understand you ve been rioting all over 
 this continent, you dog you; but I defy 
 you to say you kissed any sweeter lips 
 than those. I defy you to !" He 
 sank back into his chair, chuckling to 
 174 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 himself. " Excuse me, didn t mean to 
 be so energetic. Excuse me." 
 
 Lancaster half turned his head away 
 from the man and looked out over the 
 water. Where the canal widened out 
 into the lake a crowd of youths were 
 amusing themselves in diving from a 
 considerable height; the sun flashed for 
 one instant on each white body as it 
 gleamed through the air down into the 
 cool canal. From across the water came 
 the voices of sightseers and pleasure- 
 finders. Closer at hand, in the very 
 garden they sat in, the occasional clir- 
 ring of a sword over the gravel denoted 
 the entrance or exit of an officer; in the 
 warm sun-light all these things combined 
 to make a delightful impressionistic 
 scene. Lancaster turned to it as a re 
 lief from his companion. 
 
 But Wooton, with the growing per 
 sistence of intoxication, was heedless of 
 the other s indifference. He began again, 
 maunderingly: 
 
 * 1 don t deny, y know, that there s 
 an attraction about the woman of experi 
 ence. Not for a minute! extremely 
 fascinating person, woman of experi 
 ence. As good as a comedy to make 
 love to her. But the women of experi 
 ence grow old, very old; while the fresh 
 young sprigs of girlhood never grow 
 old." He chuckled again. "No; they 
 never grow old. They grow into expe 
 rienced women. Axiom: I prefer the 
 fresh flower of innocence because it 
 never grows old. Sometimes, sometimes 
 it withers. To wither innocence is one 
 of the most fascinating games in the 
 
 175 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 world. I wonder how often the aver 
 age man of the world has played that 
 game in his life?" He helped himself 
 to the wine again, and looked at it lov 
 ingly as it gleamed yellow between him 
 and the sun. "You really should let 
 me pour you out some of this excellent 
 vintage," he said, oilily smiling upon 
 Lancaster, "you really should. There 
 is a deal of philosophy in it." 
 
 Lancaster was now watching the fel 
 low in an increase of amused attention. 
 With the inflow of the wine the man s 
 mood changed, from a species of maud 
 lin sentimentality to an extravagantly 
 ornate loquacity. 
 
 " Philosophy is one of the fairest jew 
 els on the robe of fortune. In misfor 
 tune it is marked worthless collateral. 
 When we are well off, we philosophize; 
 when we are hard up we curse philosophy. 
 Wine is the only real philosopher. Do 
 you know, I consider your abstinence, 
 disgraceful, positively disgraceful. It 
 argues an unphilosophic mind. . . 
 There s that swan again! Beautiful 
 neck. Such grace ! And yet, I prefer 
 the other one. The other one had a 
 beautiful face, as well as a glorious 
 neck. Moreover, the taste of those lips 
 was positively intoxicating." He looked 
 solemnly at the glass of wine before 
 him, and declared, impressively: "As 
 between the two, do you know, I actu 
 ally believe I prefer the lips?" He 
 gulped at the liquor again. His eyes 
 strayed dreamily into an abstracted 
 stare. " Dear Dorothy ! " he mur 
 mured. 
 
 176 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 "I beg your pardon?" Lancaster 
 started savagely. He thought he might 
 not have heard aright. 
 
 The other blandly continued. " I said 
 Dear Dorothy! That was her name, 
 you know. Her name is almost as sweet 
 as her kisses. Dorothy" he lingered 
 over the syllables " Dorothy Ware." 
 
 " What ! " Lancaster half sprung up 
 from his chair. Then he curbed him 
 self, with intense efforts, to calmness. 
 "Did I understand you to say that it 
 was Miss Dorothy Ware? " 
 
 " Certainly, my dear boy. Most cor 
 rect. Oh, yes; remember now: friend of 
 your s. Recommend your taste, my boy, 
 I really do. She" 
 
 " Look here ! " Lancaster s voice had 
 grown hard and chill. "Do you mean 
 to say that all that is true? " 
 
 Wooton noticed the other s repressed 
 agitation, and it quickened this mischief 
 in him. " Most exactly true. Are you 
 can it be? are you, h m, jealous? My 
 dear boy, go in and win; I clear the 
 field. I only harvest once." He 
 laughed at the thought. And then, in a 
 second, his laughter choked to a rattling 
 gurgle in his throat. 
 
 Lancaster had sprung up, white and 
 trembling with rage, and stood over him, 
 squeezing the breath out of the fellow s 
 windpipe. "You drunken, hideous 
 hound you," he crunched from between 
 his teeth, "you rifler of reputations, you 
 damnable dog ! " He stopped. H i s 
 rage scarcely permitted words. "You re 
 drunk, damn you, and you re a puny lit 
 tle brute, so I can t whip you as you 
 177 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 should be whipped. But if you don t 
 take that back, if you don t say you lied 
 I ll give your burning head the cool 
 ing it deserves." He eased his hold on 
 the other s throat for a time. Wooton 
 glared at him, breathlessly, with a fan 
 tastically ugly sneer attempting lodg 
 ment on the lips that still writhed for 
 air. 
 
 " Say you lied ! " Lancaster loomed 
 over him in tremendous wrath. 
 
 Wooton glared doggedly. " I shall 
 do nothing of the sort," he managed to 
 whisper. His left hand was sliding along 
 the table to where the glass, half full of 
 wine, stood. Suddenly he gripped it 
 and with a wrench, splashed up the con 
 tents and the glass, full into Lancaster s 
 face. The crystal shattered on the 
 artist s chin, fortunately, and so did but 
 little harm. Before the crash of the 
 breaking glass was stilled, and the wine 
 spent, Lancaster s hands were about the 
 other s throat again; he gave a swing, 
 viciously, and flung the body completely 
 over the low railing. 
 
 It splashed into the still waters noisily. 
 The swans swam away for a moment, 
 then returned in curiosity. As Wooton 
 came to the surface, he screamed out an 
 oath and a cry for help. There was a 
 boatman at the water-steps of the ad 
 joining cafe, and in a few minutes he 
 had pulled the choking man out of the 
 water. 
 
 Wooton glared up to where Lancaster 
 
 stood, still hot with anger. "Damn 
 
 him," he thought, "if he were not so 
 
 much stronger than I " But the 
 
 178 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 thought prevailed, and he told the boat 
 man to row further down the canal. 
 
 To the waiters who had rushed up, 
 Lancaster had been very cool. "s 
 handelt sick um eine Wette" he assured 
 them. The whole thing had been so 
 swift, so silent, that up to the moment 
 of the splash in the water, there had 
 been no eye-witnesses. He smiled at 
 the waiters, paying his bill, and leaving 
 a liberal trinkgeld. Mein freund hat die 
 wette gewonnen. " Then he sauntered out 
 with a final fierce glance in the direction 
 of the boat that was turning the corner 
 in the far distance, bearing away the 
 scoundrelisms that lived in Wooton. s 
 
 When he reached the marble circle of 
 the fountain in the gardens of Sans- 
 souci, Lancaster stopped, and addressed 
 the spray, bitterly: "So that was why 
 I was refused? Well, well! It seems, as 
 I said a little while ago, that there are 
 still new emotions in store for me." He 
 watched the spray turn to mist that was 
 almost invisible. "That is the way 
 with ideals," he mused. Then he turned 
 with a laugh in the direction of the ter 
 races. "How absurd he looked, in 
 the water!" He went on, laughing 
 quietly. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 H E late John Stewart had, in 
 his lifetime, achieved the dis 
 tinction of being a model hus 
 band. He was devoted to his wife in 
 more senses of the word than one; he 
 179 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 was content to appear stupid so she 
 might shine the more; content to slave 
 at Mammon s shrine for his wife s sake. 
 His fund of patience, of tolerance, of 
 faith, had been infinite. It was in return 
 for these things that his wife, as he lay 
 in the dying moments of typhoid, whis 
 pered to him, with a tremendous suspi 
 cion that she had seemed blind to much 
 of her fortune, "John, dear John, you 
 musn t go, not yet. I I " 
 
 And though John assured her that he 
 was going to get well, the next day 
 found the promise broken. 
 
 Mrs. Stewart, after his death, rea 
 lized all that he had been to her, all that 
 she, except in his loving fancy, had not 
 been to him. And brooding over such 
 recollections she began to feel the ban of 
 morbidness, the old rooms, the dear, fa 
 miliar haunts that had once known his 
 voice, were peopled now with sadness, 
 and she resolved to seek escape, for a 
 time at least, from these living voices of a 
 silenced lip. She had some cousins in 
 London; she determined to travel, to visit 
 them. With her went her nearer cousin, 
 Miss Leigh, whose whimsical, cynical 
 sincerities she loved the while she com 
 bated them. 
 
 So, in the spring, they found them 
 selves in London, then harboring the 
 whirl of society at its swiftest. But that 
 had palled on Mrs. Stewart, and she 
 dragged Miss Leigh off for an appar 
 ently aimless tour through Wales, and 
 the Lake district, and on up to Scot 
 land. 
 
 180 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 September found them in St. An 
 drews. 
 
 Although it was one of the months 
 that constitute the "short season" of that 
 dear old academic village, it was easily 
 possible to escape the crowds of golf- 
 enthusiasts that studded the links with 
 their glaringly colorful costumes. The 
 old castle, the ruins of the cathe 
 dral, the legends of the historic, bloody 
 occurrences that had taken place here 
 for religion s sake, all these were full 
 of charms to these two American women, 
 saturated, as is nearly all that Nation, 
 with a peculiar, wistful reverence for 
 things antique. 
 
 There were drives, too, that gave op 
 portunities for enjoyment of the Scotch 
 autumn scenery. Along the banks of 
 the Tay, with the solemn Grampians 
 showing dim in the distance. 
 
 Mrs. Stewart loved to sit in the silent 
 coolness of the college quadrangles and 
 dream. It seemed to her that only for 
 such places were dreams fit compan 
 ions. 
 
 One day, they were sitting together 
 on the turf that once had marked a ca 
 thedral wall. Miss Leigh was reading; 
 Mrs. Stewart idly watching the breakers 
 roll up to the cliffs. 
 
 " I beg your pardon! " 
 
 The two ladies looked up, and turned 
 to find Lancaster standing before them, 
 with his hat off and a look of amused 
 surprise on his face. 
 
 "Well," said Mrs. Stewart, shaking 
 hands heartily, " the world is small as 
 181 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 ever, is it not? It s like home, seeing 
 you!" 
 
 " It strikes me the same way." He 
 sat down beside them. They noticed 
 that he was browned and furrowed; the 
 marks of travel, the brace of different 
 climes, the scars caught in the thick of 
 life s battle were all sharply dominant 
 in his externals. 
 
 " We ought to feel honored," smiled 
 Miss Leigh. "You are such a celebrity 
 nowadays! We have heard the most 
 weird anecdotes about you of late, you 
 know. You are pictured as the Sphinx 
 and the Chimera in one." 
 
 "You are still," he answered, "as 
 cruel as ever." 
 
 " But we really feel very proud of 
 you," said Mrs. Stewart. "We know 
 each other too well, I hope, to veil our 
 honest opinions. I admire your work 
 immensely; but I think you re terribly 
 bitter sometimes. 
 
 "Ah," he laughed gently, "I m glad 
 it strikes you that way. Bitterness is 
 the only taste that lives after a com 
 plete course of life. But we really must 
 talk of something less embarassing than 
 myself. Do tell me the news! How 
 are all the dear familiars?" He paused, 
 and lowered his voice a little. "If it 
 pains you," he said gently, "let us talk 
 of other things. I have, heard. Be 
 lieve me, I am sorry, very sorry. It is 
 a poor word, but " he stopped as she 
 looked up at him gratefully for an in 
 stant, and then said with an effort at 
 cheerfulness: 
 
 182 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 " Oh, they were all well, when we 
 left." 
 
 " Yes," put in Miss Leigh, "and do 
 ing about the same old things. Mr. 
 Wreath still expounds, in and out of 
 season, the doctrine of his own surpass 
 ingly correct theories on veritism in 
 literature; and incidentally takes all 
 occasions to assail the sincerity of every 
 other living writer. He s an amusing 
 man, and if he had only been given a 
 sense of honor he would find himself an 
 ever re-direct jest. Clarence Miller has 
 written another novel, and all society is 
 wondering whether it will be translated 
 into Magyar or Mongolian. He calls it 
 " Five Loaves and Two Fishes." His 
 brother-in-law has composed another 
 comic opera that some people have 
 the originality to declare original. 
 And but why continue the catalogue? 
 It s just the same ridiculous circus it 
 ever was." 
 
 Lancaster laughed. "Thank you. 
 That s really a volume in a nutshell. I 
 wonder if the performers in that circus 
 really know how amusing they are? " 
 
 "Oh, yes," said Mrs. Stewart, "but 
 they keep it up nevertheless. Of course, 
 it s only when one gets away from it 
 that one really gets the most entertain 
 ing focus on that sort of a thing. I m 
 sure," she sighed, "I don t seem to be 
 long to those ranks at all, now." She 
 shivered a little. The sun was setting, 
 and a chill breeze blowing off the sea. 
 "I m a fraid we must go," she said, 
 rising, "but you must be sure and come 
 to see us." She gave Lancaster a small 
 183 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 card, and* then, with smiles and bows, 
 and rustling of skirts, they were gone. 
 
 In the weeks that followed Lancaster 
 availed himself of the privilege accorded 
 in Mrs. Stewart s invitation as often as 
 possible. The three were together al 
 most daily, if only for a few moments. 
 Lancaster was busily employed, the 
 while, in fixing in black-and-white some 
 of the types and features that prevailed 
 in this fashionable corner of Fife. The 
 London and Paris journals soon gave 
 evidences of his industry. Fortunately, 
 but few of these papers found their way 
 to St. Andrews, and Lancaster s love 
 of incognito was not disturbed. Some 
 times the artist would disappear for 
 days; a fishing-boat would be his hope 
 for the time, and he would drink in the 
 free winds of the sea, and the passing 
 joy of that toilsome life of the fishermen. 
 The winds and the freshness of the life 
 were like a tonic to him, but he knew 
 that it would presently pall and he 
 would give way to the fever for the met 
 ropolitan whirlpool. 
 
 Occasionally Miss Leigh preferred to 
 remain in her apartments, leaving Mrs. 
 Stewart to stroll along the links alone 
 with the young artist. "Do you know," 
 remarked Mrs. Stewart, on one such 
 occasion, "that my cousin s tremen 
 dously fond of you?" 
 
 Lancaster looked up in surprise: 
 Then he gave a short laugh. "She s 
 tremendously mistaken," he said, "I m 
 not the sort that anyone should be fond 
 of now." He looked out over the sea. 
 " There goes a steamer. I suppose it s 
 184 
 
Ca;:e of Storms 
 
 the Aberdeen boat." He watched it 
 wistfully. 
 
 < * She thinks, "continued Mrs. Stewart, 
 heedless of his abstraction, "that you 
 are a young man much to be envied. 
 Already you have a name that is known 
 far and wide, and all life is yet before 
 you. She " 
 
 He interrupted, bitterly: "Life is 
 all behind me," you should say. All, 
 all ! I have tried everything, the good 
 and the evil. The one broke my belief 
 in all things ; the other gives me the 
 belief that the only thing to do is to 
 laugh. Strange ! I heard that phrase 
 first in your drawing-room, Mrs. Stewart ! 
 Suppose we sit down. These rocks are 
 fashioned delightfully for easy chairs." 
 
 The sun was burnishing the water with 
 a lustre of copper. Thesea-gullsmoaned 
 as they circled about hungrily. The 
 breakers hissed sullenly below them. 
 
 "My philosophy," he went on, after 
 he had seen that Mrs. Stewart was com 
 fortably seated, "is very simple, now. 
 Laugh ! That is the text of it." 
 
 She mused in silence. "You used to 
 be so different," she murmured, pres 
 ently. " You were, not so long ago, 
 at the other extreme. You thought 
 everything was solemn, awful, impor 
 tant ; that there were majestic duties in 
 life, splendid obligations, and splendid 
 things to live for. Now, you say it is 
 all a jest, and the only thing to do is to 
 laugh. I think you have had too much 
 curiosity. " 
 
 " Perhaps. Curiosity is a guide that 
 takes us into a labyrinth and leaves us 
 185 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 there. But why," he shrugged his 
 shoulders impatiently, "why must we 
 be forever talking of this hapless per 
 sonage, me? Suppose we talk, instead, 
 of you?" 
 
 " Oh, no. You are the interesting one. 
 You are a study. I should like to help 
 you. I think you are doing yourself an 
 injustice : letting yourself drift as you 
 are. Your fame, alone, won t bring you 
 happiness." 
 
 " I m not expecting happiness." 
 
 Mrs. Stewart watched his face, hard 
 set, with it s bitter drop to the right 
 corner of the mouth, and something of 
 pity came to her. "Once," she went 
 on, "it seemed to me that there was a 
 woman who meant for you the same 
 thing as happiness." 
 
 "Perhaps." His voice was as hard 
 as before. " That was a very long time 
 ago, counting by experiences. Why 
 talk of marriage? I don t think I could 
 stand it for an instant; I don t think 
 any woman could stand me. As I once 
 was that was different." 
 
 " Some women are very patient." 
 
 "Yes. And then I should go mad 
 until they came out of their deadly 
 patience into something more exciting. 
 A woman s fury would amuse me vastly, 
 I think." He twisted his stick into the 
 rocks, and outlined vague designs in the 
 sandstone. "Why, supposing, for the 
 sake of the argument, that I asked you 
 to marry me, you would, I am sure, con 
 sider me a madman to expect you to 
 make such a fool of yourself? " 
 
 She flushed slightly. "Merely for 
 186 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 the sake of the argument, I don t say 
 that I would do anything of the sort. 
 I might consider it ill-timed, incon 
 siderate." 
 
 "Ah, I beg your pardon, humbly. I 
 realize that deeply. Merely, I said, for 
 the sake of the argument. I want to 
 show you the utter hopelessness of my 
 position. Suppose then, that I asked 
 you that question, what would you tell 
 yourself? That I was a man, young in 
 years, old in experiences, soured in 
 thought and taste, bitter in mind, self 
 ish, a slave to the most egoistic of 
 epicureanisms. A man who considers 
 nothing too sacred for laughter, or too 
 ridiculous for tears. A man who is a 
 perpetual evidence of the corroding in 
 fluences of flippancy ; whose very art, 
 even, is merely a means for amusement. 
 No, you, clever, shrewd, adaptable 
 woman of the world though you are, 
 would realize at once that to enter into 
 a life-partnership with a man of that sort 
 were to invite immediate misery. Think : 
 the man would be ungovernable, save by 
 his moods ; when he should be at home 
 acting as host to a dinner-party he would 
 be tramping the moors in a wild passion 
 for solitude? A man who would per 
 petually fling at his wife the most mor 
 dant of sarcasms, merelyfor thepleasure 
 they caused his powers of creation. If 
 a biting jest came to him, he would hurl 
 it at his wife, without malice, but because 
 she happened to be present. Not even 
 the cleverest woman in the world can 
 decide between the words and the motive 
 in a case like that. No ; this man has 
 187 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 fed too much on the lees of disenchant 
 ment to be himself aught but a sorry 
 devil of a jester." 
 
 She signed. "You have the modern 
 disease in terrible development self- 
 analysis. It seems to me to be quite as 
 cruel as vivisection. And I think you 
 exaggerate your vices. After all I may 
 speak frankly, may I not? I am a wo 
 man that has ever kept her eyes open 
 you represent nothing so very dreadful. 
 You are young, impetuous; you have had 
 the bandages of stern puritanism rough 
 ly torn from you, and you have had a 
 little of what the world calls your fling! 
 You realize yourself far too much. You 
 are not one whit worse than others. All 
 men worship, for a time, at the shrine of 
 their animal natures, I suppose. But in 
 stead of letting the thought of it all 
 drive you further and further into bitter 
 ness, why not resolve to shake off the 
 whole cloak, and put it back into the 
 limbo of thinks henceforth to be avoid 
 ed?" She paused, and looked at him 
 with a smile. "Get married. I be 
 lieve, in spite of your fears, that you 
 will make a good husband. Believe me, 
 you will be a much better one than if 
 you had never taught yourself the re 
 volting nausea that the other side of 
 life brings." 
 
 " Marry?" he repeated, why do you 
 harp on that? I tell you, there is no 
 one, no one at all! Unless " he looked 
 over the breakers to the setting sun, 
 " unless there were a woman some 
 where that could understand and for 
 give. A woman that knew something 
 188 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 of the world, of the stings of experience 
 and the hollowness of hope. With a 
 woman like that I might become the 
 owner of the new youth, might sink all 
 these bitternesses, live earnest in am 
 bition and , . ." But there is no such 
 
 woman, none A sudden light 
 
 flashed into his eyes, and with passion 
 he continued, "Except-yourself. Yes~ 
 you are the only one. You know; you 
 understand. Oh, listen to me, listen! 
 Why tell me that this is a sacrilege, an 
 insult to a memory. Do you suppose 
 I don t know that? I do; I feel it deep 
 ly; but I also feel that I am pleading 
 for a helping hand, that I see in you the 
 only chance of safety, that you mean for 
 me a new life, and that I must tell you 
 so now, before the opportunity is gone. 
 Oh, don t tell me I m a coward I know 
 that, too, well enough. I confess it; I 
 am a coward, a broken-hearted cur." 
 He groaned, and getting up, began to 
 walk slowly up and down before her. 
 "Is it so impossible? I would you 
 yourself admitted that hope! improve. 
 Is there no hope?" 
 
 11 What a boy you are, what a boy! 
 You have all the headstrong, passionate 
 eagerness of youth, and yet you pretend 
 to play the wearied liver of many lives! 
 No, Dick," her voice grew gentler, and 
 it came to him like a pleasant harmony, 
 "we will do nothing so foolish. You 
 and I are always to be very good friends, 
 and we will help each other always, but 
 not that, not that! You are too young; 
 regret would come to you all too soon. 
 No matter how nicely each of us were 
 189 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 to fashion his or her temper to the 
 other s, there would come that thought: 
 for the hope of mere comfort I have 
 sacrificed an idol. For, Dick, think, 
 think! Dorothy Ware! Do you think 
 1 have not watched you, found you out 
 long ago? What was it, Dick, a tiff? 
 A refusal?" 
 
 He stopped in his sentry-go, and be 
 gan to whistle, softly, La donna e Mobile. 
 " I I beg your pardon," he added, has 
 tily, "I fear I forget my manners." 
 Was it a refusal? you ask. Well, per 
 haps, perhaps not. At the time, I 
 thought it was. Since then I have found 
 out things things Bah, what does it 
 matter!" 
 
 "Go on," she said, " tell me! " 
 
 " In Germany, I met Wooton " 
 
 She interrupted. "Ah, yes; I remem 
 ber a terrible cruel picture you drew of 
 a man at a cafe table, drinking. It was 
 his face, unmistakably. Why did you 
 do that?" 
 
 "That was only an afterthought. 
 Well, he had been drinking, and he 
 talked a good deal. Some of it was about 
 Miss Ware." 
 
 For a moment there was silence. 
 
 Then "And you believed it?" she 
 asked. 
 
 "At the time, no. Lord knows I did 
 not want to. But, afterward, I remem 
 bered the look on her face when she 
 gave me that last refusal. It was a 
 strange look; it meant more than I could 
 account for, at that time. Yes," he 
 sighed, "I believe it. Why shouldn t 
 I? I know how vile a man may be; be 
 IQO 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 a woman only half as weak, or half as 
 new, and she is a thing for loathing." 
 
 " Hush! What a conventional man it 
 is, after all. Always the same old tune, 
 one thing for the man, another for the 
 woman! Listen: I know Dorothy Ware, 
 better, perhaps, than you do; I know 
 her later self, you only know her as a 
 child. There are great points of simi 
 larity between you two. She has much 
 of your absurd sensitiveness; self-tor 
 ment is one of her vices. She is very 
 much given to making mountains out of 
 molehills. She" 
 
 "No, no," he interrupted, wearily, 
 "I tell you I believe it. All, all of 
 it!" 
 
 "Well," she said, somewhat angrily, 
 "and suppose you do! What then! Who 
 are you, that you should judge ? " 
 
 He winced slightly, but then shrugged 
 his shoulders. "Oh, of course, of 
 course; I ve heard all about that. But 
 it won t do, in practice." 
 
 "Won t it? Let us put the cases 
 plainly, for comparison s sake: You are 
 a young man that has had more than his 
 share of selfish indulgence; you have 
 thrown aside all scruples and done ev 
 erything and anything you pleased. 
 Your actual transgressions of the com 
 mandments we will waive; there is a 
 greater crime: you have allowed your 
 self to become a soured, bitter, heart 
 less creature, fit only to disseminate 
 scorn and distaste. She, the woman in 
 the case, once, we will say, allowed her 
 senses to oust her sense. Ever since, 
 she has suffered agonies of regret. Un- 
 191 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 like the man she has not told herself 
 that she might as well let fate have it s 
 play out. She is as sweet as the dew of 
 Maytime, and the slight trace of sad 
 ness only needs the touch of love to fall 
 and almost fade. I think she loves you; 
 I am not sure she is a woman, and it 
 is hard to say. As for you, in spite of 
 everything, you love her. You coward! 
 Why don t you ask her again? She will 
 tell you that it is impossible, of course. 
 She will say there was once another. 
 Then, unless you are a greater coward 
 than I think you, you will tell her 
 that compared to yourself she is as pure 
 as the driven snow, and you want noth 
 ing, only her forgiveness for yourself." 
 
 He was still stubborn. "It is the old 
 story," he said, "one has heard it all 
 before. The woman is to be put on a 
 par with the man; there is no actual dif 
 ference in ethics. But I once saw it 
 tried; I shudder when I think of it. To 
 be sure the woman was notorious." 
 
 "Ah! How can you compare the 
 cases? And yet " she laughed a trifle 
 bitterly, "in this case the man is notor 
 ious." She watched him wince under 
 the callousness of triumph. 
 
 "Think, "she continued, "what she 
 could be to you, how she could help 
 you; how you could help each other! 
 The happy days and dreams together, 
 the planning for new artistic achieve 
 ments, the sweet companionship of a 
 soul capable of understanding! Instead 
 of what? Fierce flights into forgetful- 
 ness; pursuits of vanishing pleasures, 
 palling desires; short triumphs in art 
 192 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 merged into long revulsions from life! 
 It seems, to me, a fair exchange ! " She 
 rose, as if to end the subject. He put 
 her shawl about her shoulders, and they 
 walked slowly back to the village, talk 
 ing of other things, gaily, lightly, insin 
 cerely. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 ANCASTER said goodbye on the 
 following morning, and by noon 
 he was in Edinboro . At the 
 Travelers club he found a letter from 
 the firm of publishers, at home, that had 
 lately been using a great many of his 
 sketches. They took the liberty of in 
 forming him that owing to the pop 
 ularity of his work they had thought 
 proper to open an exhibition of his 
 original sketches in the Museum Art 
 Gallerie?. While they were aware that 
 possession of these originals was entire 
 ly vested in themselves, they had decided 
 to lay aside a share of the receipts from 
 the exhibition and sale for him, as a 
 courtesy royalty. Lancaster folded the 
 letter up, drummed on the table for a 
 second or two, and then went out to get 
 a paper. It had occurred to him that, 
 if he sailed for home at once, he could 
 reach there before the exhibition closed. 
 It would be a grim bit of humor to ap 
 pear there in person, and listen to the 
 comments of the very people who, a 
 year ago, would have considered him 
 and his work beneath their notice. Now, 
 with a European reputation, his stock, 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 so to put it, had gone far beyond par in 
 his native country. Besides, the mem 
 ory of the things that Mrs. Stewart had 
 said to him refused to pass from him 
 there was Dorothy! He would see her 
 again; he would put his fate to the 
 touch once more. 
 
 It had been a white night that had 
 passed between his conversation with 
 Mrs. Stewart and his departure from St. 
 Andrews. He had lain awake listening 
 to the hissing of the sea over the rocks, 
 and recounting the arguments that af 
 fected his feelings toward Miss Ware. 
 Now, it had seemed to him that she rep 
 resented for him the one chance of hap 
 piness; that the touch of sadness that 
 had come to her would make her but the 
 more merciful to his own past. Then, 
 again, the old bitterness, the old distaste 
 came; he could not escape the thought 
 that the old conventions teach, that one 
 step aside means, for the woman, eter 
 nal disgrace. Well, and even if the old 
 conventions said so a thousand times, 
 were they to bind him now, when they 
 had so long been thrust away by him in 
 scorn? At any rate, the torment of 
 these conflicting thoughts was to be 
 avoided. He must decide upon one at 
 tempt or another the return home and 
 the repetition of a certain question, or 
 the effort to continue more steadfast 
 than ever in the philosophy of laughter. 
 
 He decided for the return to America. 
 
 No boat left Liverpool for two days. 
 
 In the interval he roamed about the 
 
 most beautiful city in Scotland, enjoying 
 
 the memories and pictures of the past 
 
 194 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 ^ 
 
 that Holyrood, the old Castle, and John 
 Knox s house brought up. The autumn 
 sun turned Prince s Street Gardens, and 
 the Scott Monument into a green and 
 gold and flowered picture that he re 
 membered no equal to, in his wander 
 ings through the capitals of Europe, 
 Prince s Street, he maintained, was the 
 prettiest thoroughfare in the world. He 
 left it with regret. 
 
 His voyage across the Atlantic mere 
 ly gave him material for a study of the 
 gowns adopted by the fair ocean travel- 
 ers,and several chances for cynical repre 
 sentations of the humors of upper-deck 
 flirtations. Otherwise his journey was 
 as monotonous as the luxuriance of 
 the modern travel could make it. 
 
 It was morning, when after another 
 fatiguing journey by rail, he reached the 
 metropolis that held so many mixed 
 memories for him. He went straight to 
 the Philistine club, and took some 
 rooms there. The servants hardly knew 
 him. He had, it was true, changed a 
 great deal. He was browner, thinner; 
 there were deep lines about his eyes and 
 mouth. 
 
 The first man he met in the smoking- 
 room, after he had refreshed himself 
 with a bath and a lunch, was Van- 
 struther. 
 
 "Why/ said that gentleman, after a 
 long, puzzled look, "dashed if it isn t 
 Dick Lancaster!" "Come into the 
 light, most noble genius, and let me gaze 
 upon you. You you put bright crim 
 son tints on all the effete European cit 
 ies, didn t you? I declare it s good to 
 195 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 see you again! You ve seemed a good 
 deal like a myth lately, you know; no 
 one ever seemed to know just where you 
 were, or whether you were alive at all." 
 
 They walked up and down the room, 
 asking and answering such pleasant 
 questions as come between two familiars 
 after a long absence. 
 
 "Oh, there s not much change," Van- 
 struther was explaining, except in 
 yourself. You ll be no end of a lion, I m 
 afraid. Have to do a couple of para 
 graphs about you myself, just to scoop 
 the other fellows. Give me a text or 
 two. Oh, but you have hit the fad in 
 the exact centre, somehow! I m not 
 saying a thing against the real value of 
 your stuff, but the fact remains that this 
 whole blessed nation is fad-mad just 
 now, and it simply has got to have a 
 fad or quit. Your European reputation 
 came along just about the time the fad 
 for the newest English novel was dying. 
 You went, so to say, with a whoop. 
 One can t pick up a Sunday paper now 
 but what one finds weird, impossible in 
 terviews with you; descriptions of your 
 favorite models, or reproductions of 
 your newest sketch. You are depicted 
 as the founder of a new style; they talk 
 of women as being " Lancaster-like," 
 and you are a pest generally. In print, 
 I mean, of course, only in print. You 
 are about to furnish my own dear self 
 with material for about a column, so I 
 shouldn t call you a pest; but from the 
 standpoint of the reader, rather than 
 the penny-a-liner, I abhor you!" He 
 made a gesture of aversion, laughingly. 
 196 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 "You want to know about the old 
 guard, do you? Well, Stanley is still 
 the same dismal distiller of cynicisms 
 that he ever was; his trip abroad only 
 seems to have made him worse. Bel- 
 den? Oh, he plods along in the same 
 old way, drawing bloody battles for the 
 dailies, and making all creation look 
 like the prize-ring toughs. We have 
 the same old Sunday evenings up at his 
 house, too; his wife s turned out well, 
 as far as one can see. He certainly 
 doesn t look unhappy. We were all up 
 there not long ago, Marsboro, Stanley 
 and myself. Mind you, I never take 
 Mrs. Van. I m about the same as ever, 
 too. I ve got a blood-curdling dime- 
 novel on the stocks just now, and the 
 season is beginning for the winter, so 
 I m not likely to have much time for 
 idle trifling for a while. Oh, did you 
 see Mrs. Stewart while you were abroad? 
 Thanks! That ll be another scoop on 
 the rest of the society editors. Hallo! 
 three o clock, got to be off to the of 
 fice see you again!" He rushed off, 
 leaving Lancaster smiling at his frank, 
 jerky sentences. 
 
 Lancaster sat down and took up the 
 morning paper. Before long the adver 
 tisement of his exhibition at the mu 
 seum met his eyes. It occurred to him 
 that if what Vanstruther had said was 
 only in part true, it would be wise for 
 him to go and take a peep at the show 
 this very afternoon, before people knew 
 he was in town. 
 
 The place was crowded with well- 
 dressed men and women. They flowed 
 197 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 in and out in a constant stream. They 
 held catalogues in their hands, and 
 chatted volubly. In front of one pic 
 ture, whereon was depicted a London 
 music-hall scene, there was an especially 
 large gathering. 
 
 "He s so dreadfully cynical, don t you 
 think so?" one man was saying to the girl 
 that was with him. "I really think he 
 ought to be called a caricaturist." 
 
 "Oh, but, after all, it s nearly all 
 true, you know. Look at the expres 
 sion on that gallery-god s face, will 
 you ! " 
 
 "Wonder what sort of a chap he is 
 personally? " 
 
 "Oh impossible, I suppose. Al 
 though I ought not to say that; nothing 
 is impossible nowadays, there never was 
 such a run on intellect. I never saw 
 anything like it ! It positively seems as 
 if society was intellect-mad. Singers, 
 actors, painters, writers all sorts of 
 queer people go everywhere now, and 
 that isn t the worst of it! The society 
 people won t be content with just play 
 ing at society as they used to: they 
 want to sing, and paint, and write, too! 
 It s awful! I ll have to go on the stage, 
 or something of that sort, myself, if I 
 want to keep up with the procession." 
 
 Lancaster moved away from that 
 corner. It was amusing, certainly; but 
 it was also painful. What pleased him 
 more than the overheard conversations 
 were the little labels, displaying the 
 word " SOLD" that decorated many of 
 his sketches. It was balm to him to 
 think that these moneybags, these pup- 
 198 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 pets mumbling set phrases, were being 
 despoiled of some of their wealth for his 
 sake. 
 
 Walking over to the wall whereon 
 hung the sketch for which Wooton had 
 been the unconscious model, Lancaster 
 heard a voice that seemed familiar. 
 
 "It certainly looks like him," the 
 voice was saying. "That would be a 
 wanton brutality." 
 
 It was Miss Tremont. Lancaster 
 flushed angrily. What had she to judge 
 by? It was Mrs. Tremont who was ac 
 companying her daughter; the elder 
 lady moved away, that moment, to 
 speak to an acquaintance. Miss Tre 
 mont remained in front of the picture 
 of the drunkard, her brows moving 
 nervously. 
 
 Lancaster stepped close up to her. 
 
 " If I were you," he said quietly, but 
 distinctly, " I should go and look after 
 him. He needs it." 
 
 The girl started quickly, turned mo 
 mentarily pale, and then, seeing who 
 it was, nerved herself to stony calmness. 
 "How dare you? " she said twisting her 
 catalogue into shapelessness. 
 
 "Oh," he laughed, " I really mean it 
 for the best. As you see " he looked 
 sneeringly at the sketch "he s not the 
 pink of sobriety. And when he drinks, 
 he talks a good deal. He sometimes 
 talks about you, for instance." He 
 paused and seemed engrossed in noth 
 ing save the smoothing out of the 
 wrinkles in his gloves. 
 
 "You coward!" If intention could 
 199 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 have killed, Miss Tremont s eyes com 
 mitted murder. 
 
 "True; I fear for you both. And I 
 take such an interest in you! But I be 
 lieve he will make an excellent husband 
 for you!" He lifted his hat, with a 
 fleeting mockery of a smile, and left her 
 before the picture, staring, trembling. 
 
 "That," he told himself, "was want 
 on brutality number two. But she should 
 not have judged me ! " 
 
 He left the galleries, taking with him 
 a feeling of scorn for himself, that he 
 should have put himself on the level of 
 the praise or blame of the fadists in such 
 a public way. Yet, he reflected, it had 
 been not of his own seeking. 
 
 The afternoon was already touched 
 with the darkening shadow of evening. 
 The town roared and hissed and seethed 
 in all it s wonted fervor; the chill-hard 
 ness of its material manners were pain 
 fully evident to Lancaster as he came 
 from the comparative quiet of the pic 
 ture-galleries. He contrasted the grim 
 roar of the place with the smiling, care 
 less, jovial glitter of those other towns 
 he had lately enjoyed; for the bright 
 cheer of the boulevards and the gardens 
 and the open-air cafes he found the sky- 
 piercing buildings that shut out the sun 
 light, hemmed in masses of money-mad 
 humanity, and extended apparently to 
 all the horizons. For the strolling 
 gayety he had grown to love so; for the 
 ever-changing current of picturesque 
 triflers, idlers and dandies, he had re 
 ceived in exchange a breathless surge of 
 anxious, nervous, straining men and 
 200 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 women, plunging wildly down the 
 slopes to an imaginary sea of gold. 
 Something of the old repulsion made 
 itself felt in him; he foresaw that it 
 would never again be possible for him 
 to endure life here. That other glitter 
 ing, careless, joyous maelstrom, per 
 haps; this one, never! He realized that 
 while for future generations it was pos 
 sible, for himself the hope of finding an 
 American metropolis tinged with aught 
 but the feverish strivings after riches 
 was utterly vain. He tried to argue 
 with himself about it; to persuade him 
 self that it was a nobler sign, this one 
 of the masses all honest in labor and 
 in pursuit of it s fruits, than the evi 
 dences of inherited wealth, or quiet con 
 tent with small means, that were the 
 prevailing notes of older countries. But 
 he failed. His temperament rebelled; 
 he loved the smooth, the finished 
 sides of life; the artist in him re 
 belled agianst the commercialism of his 
 native haunts. If it should be the de 
 cree of fate that he continue to seek out 
 life s most distracting enchantments, he 
 would certainly have to bid his native 
 land farewell again. If there were any 
 thing else in store for him; if it hap 
 pened that he be required by Dame 
 Chance to do something more serious 
 than to laugh, to laugh, and laugh 
 well, that consideration would bear post 
 ponement. 
 
 It seemed to him, as he walked 
 through the streets that were now be 
 ginning to glitter with the white and 
 yellow lights born of electricity and gas, 
 201 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 that these faces were the same faces al 
 ways, that there was never any change, 
 from year to year, in the puppets that 
 paraded on this urban stage. A thous 
 and differing types, to be sure; but 
 always the same in their hard, 
 tense, sinster look of restraint; all wore 
 the same tiring eyes, the same rounded 
 shoulders. The same fierce passion for 
 excitement swam in the eyes of the wo 
 men. In his morbidness he fancied that 
 it was as if all these city-dwellers were 
 life-prisoners, condemned forever to 
 walk, and mumble and laugh shrilly. 
 
 " The metropolis," he told himself, 
 is a maelstrom that never gives up it s 
 human prisoners: it merely changes 
 their cells occasionally." At which re 
 flection he presently laughed. The old 
 text came to him: " The thing to do is 
 to laugh!" 
 
 "Yes, "he thought, "but it s harder 
 here than anywhere else. Much hard 
 er." 
 
 Arrived at the club, he ordered din 
 ner, and in the short interval, set down 
 to write a letter to his mother. For the 
 many months of his absence abroad he 
 had contented himself with sending her 
 occasional newspapers, the briefest of 
 notes, and illustrated magazines. In 
 none of these missives had there ever 
 been the real personal, familiar note. 
 He had given merely the scantest news 
 of his whereabouts and his well-being. 
 In the life and the philosophy he had 
 chosen there was little room for com 
 radeships, even with his own mother. 
 Now, however, with the distance be- 
 202 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 tween them so vastly less, he felt again 
 some of the old affections that he had 
 thought to have slain with laughter. In 
 any .event, he wrote, whether he decided 
 to remain on this or that continent, he 
 would pay Lincolnville a visit present 
 ly. They would have that dear, delight 
 ful talk that the months had despoiled 
 them of. 
 
 As he stepped into the dining-room, 
 Vanstruther nailed him. "Saw a friend 
 of yours just now, Dick," he said, "Miss 
 Ware!" 
 
 "Ah," was the reply, given in appar 
 ent abstraction, "they still live here 
 then?" 
 
 "Yes. Dick did it ever occur to 
 you that she s a devilish pretty girl? " 
 
 " Oh, look here, Van," said Dick, 
 laughingly, "I came to feed on solids, 
 not the lilies of your imagination. The 
 prettiest thing in the world to me, at 
 this date, is a good dinner." 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 Of\ T is impossible, even for the most 
 it harassed of human beings, to be 
 <^5 entirely pessimistic after a dinner 
 that had been well prepared, tastefully 
 served, and finely appreciated. With 
 the coffee and the liqueur a warm 
 glow of pleasant sentiment is sure 
 to invade the dinner; the dismal 
 reflections that harrowed his soul 
 an hour ago have fled at the approach 
 203 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 of that self-satisfied feeling that marks 
 the man that has dined. 
 
 By this time the Curacao called for 
 discussion, Lancaster had succeeded in 
 putting away all thoughts of the cheer 
 less philosophy of laughter that he had 
 come to consider at once his salvation 
 and his curse, and was quietly, even 
 hopefully, contemplating the chances 
 in his intended interview with Dorothy 
 Ware. 
 
 It was all a question, he had now as 
 sured himself, of whether she loved him 
 or not. If not, then all other things 
 were of no consequence. If she did, 
 but yet denied the possibilities of their 
 union, he would venture all things to 
 scatter her arguments to the ground. 
 Nothing else need matter, so she loved 
 him. Who was he that he should ask 
 of any woman the question: What art 
 thou? 
 
 He had a hansom called and bad the 
 man drive North. The fierceness was 
 changed a little in the face of the town; 
 it was now the fierceness for pleasure, 
 rather than for riches. Everywhere 
 there were couples hurrying to the 
 theatre, the opera, the concert. Car 
 riages drove swiftly through the glaring 
 streets. The restaurants seemed shining 
 with the eagerness of expectancy. Men 
 in evening clothes walked along, smok 
 ing, laughing and chatting. The news 
 boys were gone; in their stead was a 
 miserable, skirmishing band of Italian 
 tots, who used the papers they carried 
 more as an aid to mendicancy than as 
 stock in trade. 
 
 204 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 It came to Lancaster for an instsnt, 
 that he might tell the driver to head for 
 the Auditorium; he might go in and hear 
 that charming Santuzza whose acquaint 
 ance he had made and enjoyed abroad. 
 He might send her his card; there 
 would be a renewal of pleasant fascina 
 tions, forgetfulness of all other things 
 and laughter! He lifted up his arm, to 
 tap for the driver s attention; his cuff 
 caught in the window-curtain, and the 
 accident, slight as it was, recalled him 
 to himself. He shuddered a little; the 
 things that shaped the courses of men s 
 lives, he thought, were so absurdly in 
 significant! 
 
 When the cab stopped in front of the 
 house that the Wares occupied when 
 Lancaster was last in town, a flood of 
 brilliant light flooded out upon it from 
 the windows and the hall. It was evi 
 dent that there was an entertainment in 
 progress. Could it be that they had 
 moved? Lancaster, paying the cabman, 
 told him to wait for a moment, for fur 
 ther orders. 
 
 But the maid, answering Lancaster s 
 ring, settled the doubt in his mind. 
 Miss Ware, she said, was receiving. He 
 gave his name, dismissed the driver, and 
 entered, feeling a little annoyed at hav 
 ing fallen upon such an occasion. 
 
 But presently Miss Ware appeared, 
 radiant in a rosehued gown, and wistful 
 happiness shining in her eyes. 
 
 " We thought you were thousands of 
 
 miles away," she smiled. "What a 
 
 will-o -the-wisp you are! Mother will 
 
 be ever so glad. We are going back to 
 
 205 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 Lincolnville soon, you must know; and 
 this is our farewell reception. Every 
 one has been so kind to us; we felt we 
 must do something in return." 
 
 "To think," she added, looking up 
 at him shyly, "that the occasion should 
 bring out such a lion! " 
 
 "Don t!" he implored. "Do you 
 really think they ll know anything 
 about me? They do? Then, for good 
 ness sake I m someone else anyone! 
 For I do detest " 
 
 She interrupted him gaily. "Oh, no; 
 you are doomed. I shall introduce you 
 to the most portentous faddists; you 
 shall suffer. That, sir, may be your 
 punishment for surprising me so! " She 
 glided away, and returned with Mrs. 
 Ware. 
 
 Never, thought Lancaster, had he 
 seen Dorothy so gay, so cheerful, so 
 roguish. Whence came that playful 
 mood of hers; that mocking, joyous 
 laughter? Talking to this and that per 
 son, Lancaster kept his watch upon Miss 
 Ware. He saw her go out of the room, 
 laughing and chattering, and the mo 
 ment she reached the conservatory, put 
 her hands up to her forehead and press 
 them swiftly over Jier eyes. The smile 
 went from her lips; her whole form tes 
 tified to a sudden relaxation of an artifi 
 cial tension. 
 
 A mask, Lancaster told himself, a 
 mask for her feelings. She was agi 
 tated, but she determined to hide all 
 that under a cloak of gayety. He un 
 derstood. Had he not himself tested 
 the expungent qualities of laughter? 
 
 2C6 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 As of old, the touch of her hand, 
 the sound of her voice had thrilled him 
 with a sense of wonderful gladness. At 
 sight, at sound of her all the good in 
 him seemed to become vibrant; she was 
 still the star, far above him, that he 
 longed for. The comforts of his cold 
 philosophies, the promises of the epi 
 cureanisms he had delved in so deeply 
 all faded into ashes at approach of 
 this girl. 
 
 "We are really very fortunate," a 
 voice behind him aroused him from his 
 reverie, "in having such a distinguished 
 guest with us tonight." It was Stanley, 
 who stood with his hand on Lancaster s 
 shoulder. "Surprised to see me here, 
 are you? Well, to tell the truth, it s 
 only of late that I ve gone into these 
 rare regions. I find that it conserves 
 one s pessimism to enjoy the company 
 of one s fellow-creatures. Will you ex 
 cuse me, I see that man Wreath coming 
 over here. I really can t stand him. 
 He always remarks to me, sorrowfully, 
 Ah, Mr. Stanley, I m very much afraid 
 you re not in earnest! " Why, the man 
 himself s an eternal warning against 
 being in earnest. There s nothing that 
 spoils the look of a person s mouth so 
 much as earnestness." 
 
 In truth, at that moment, just after 
 Stanley had deftly slipped away, Mr. 
 Wreath had solemnly greeted the artist. 
 "You have shown great talent, Mr. 
 Lancaster, great talent. But " and 
 he beamed reproach upon the other, 
 " why don t you dig deeper?" 
 
 Lancaster felt as if he could have 
 207 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 sworn at the man s presuming egoism. 
 But he merely laughed, and said, "Ah, 
 you forget what a fellow-artist of mine 
 once said, apropos of cleanliness. 
 Wash, he said, no, we don t wash; 
 we merely scratch and rub, scratch and 
 rub. I choose, in like manner, only to 
 scratch. If I can scratch an effective 
 creation, why should I dig?" 
 
 Wreath shook his head, with a mourn 
 ful smile. " Ah, you will agree with me 
 later. In the meantime, I want to 
 talk to you about my next novel. Do 
 you think we could make it worth your 
 while to illustrate it for us?" He drag 
 ged Lancaster off into the library and 
 bored him, for at least ten minutes. 
 From the other room came sounds of 
 music. Someone was singing. "InEinem 
 Kuehlen Grunde" went the soft, sweet 
 old ballad. Lancaster promised Wreath 
 that he would let the writer s publish 
 ers know definitely in a day or so, 
 whether he would undertake the illus 
 trations. He hurried back into the 
 salon, muttering, as he went. 
 
 "Several haystacks; two threshing- 
 day scenes; several prairie pictures, one 
 for each season of the year that s 
 about what those illustrations will have 
 to be. Well, I d do it twice over if that 
 man would promise to let me alone!" 
 
 It was Dorothy Ware that had been 
 singing. She got up just as he entered 
 the room. She caught his look, and 
 smiled to him. " You must take me to 
 the conservatory," she commanded, 
 with a pretty air of authority, "for sing 
 ing is warm work." She took his arm, 
 208 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 and while someone else went to the 
 piano and began to play the ballet from 
 "Sylvia," together they strolled out into 
 the cooler rooms beyond. 
 
 "And now," she said, when they were 
 snugly seated upon the cushioned win- 
 dowseat, "I must tell you how proud 
 mother and I have been of you. Oh, 
 it was so good to read all these praises 
 of you!" 
 
 He smiled. " It came," he said, 
 "because I did not care whether it 
 came or not. I was indifferent; and so 
 success came." 
 
 " Indifferent? Why, Dick? With such 
 power it is not right to be indifferent. 
 Why" 
 
 "Why should I be anything other 
 than indifferent? For myself? No. I 
 despise myself too much. I consider 
 myself only a means toward amusement. 
 And if not for myself, for whom?" 
 
 She was playing with the leaves of a 
 palm that hung down over her shoulder. 
 
 " No," he went on, " there was never 
 any motive in it all. It was all sheer 
 play. There was the joy, the delirium 
 of creation; that was a sufficient sensa 
 tion; beyond that nothing! It might 
 be different if ..." He stopped with 
 the word half spoken. 
 
 "If what?" 
 
 He looked at her swiftly. There was 
 in her face only earnest curiosity and 
 sympathy. "If," he continued, "if 
 there were someone else. Oh, Dorothy, 
 dear, don t you see? Don t you realize 
 that it is you, you for whom I would 
 work yes, work and live? Doroth3 r , tell 
 
 20Q 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 me that you are not altogether in 
 different. Once long ago you said 
 you might care for me. Then we 
 were boy and girl; now we are man and 
 woman. Then again you told me to 
 forget you. I tried. I tried all ways 
 into forgetfulness. I tried to laugh 
 away you, and all the past; to live only 
 for the essence of the moment. And now, 
 Dorothy, why don t you speak? 
 
 She gently disengaged her hand from 
 his. Her face was white, and she could 
 only shake her head. 
 
 But why?" he moaned, fiercely, 
 "why? Can you not love me a little?" 
 
 She looked at him reproachfully, and 
 for a moment he thought he divined the 
 framing of the words, "Ah, but I do 
 love you," then she merely sighed, and 
 looked away again. 
 
 "Is it," he went on, "that I have put 
 myself beyond your mercy? Have I be 
 come too notorious a vagabond?" He 
 laughed bitterly. "Well, it is all true; 
 I am come through all the highways 
 and byways of life, and I am touched 
 with the scum of it all. Perhaps you 
 are right. I am not worthy. And 
 yet I only ask for forgiveness, and a 
 little love. With that, I might be able 
 to sink the bitterness of the days be 
 hind. But, as I said, I dare say you 
 are right. Shall we go into the other 
 room?" 
 
 "Oh, Dick," she sighed, "how hard 
 
 you make it! Dick, it is it is I that 
 
 am not worthy." She put her hands to 
 
 her face suddenly, and pressed them 
 
 210 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 feverishly to her cheeks and eyes, and 
 then started as if to go away. 
 
 Lancaster took her hand and kissed 
 it. " Dorothy," he said, "Don t talk 
 nonsence! Unworthy of me of a man 
 who has used the world as a playground, 
 and exhausted his days in satiating 
 curiosity! Ah, no! That is imposible. 
 There is no one, Dorothy no one, 
 however wretched, who would not be 
 worthy of me." 
 
 "You don t understand," she wailed, 
 "you don t understand! I " she hid 
 her face in her hands again, "I have 
 sinned!" 
 
 He put his arm about her, and 
 whispered, " What does it matter Doro 
 thy, if only you love me?" Do you, 
 Dorothy, do you love me? 
 
 She sobbed, silently almost. Then 
 she looked up, and, as if she were de 
 fining a happiness that could never be, 
 said, " Yes, Dick, I love you." Then, as 
 he covered her brow with kisses, she 
 shuddered in his arms, and again moaned, 
 "But you don t know, you don t under 
 stand!" 
 
 He smoothed the tears from her eyes, 
 and looked tenderly upon her. " Yes, 
 dear, I do." He burst into a fierce 
 trumpet of rage. " That cad, Wooton, 
 he told me some damnable lies . . . ! 
 He was drunk . . !" 
 
 She shrank away from him. "Ah, 
 then, you see it is quite impossible!" 
 
 "Dorothy," he said, " I am not speak 
 ing of that, am I, dear? I am asking 
 you to have pity on me, to help me see 
 that there are bright and tender and true 
 211 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 things in life. I tell you that, past or 
 no past, you are as high above me as the 
 stars. Why must we listen to the old 
 shibboleths, Dorothy? Have you not 
 spent a lifetime of regret to atone for a 
 moment of folly? And who am I to 
 judge? I, in whom there is no more of 
 whiteness left, save only that I love 
 you! Consider, dear, if this is not to be, 
 what our lives will be! For me, all the 
 old bitterness, the efforts to drown all 
 things in laughter. For you memories I 
 But if you say yes, Dorothy, think! 
 How different the world will seem! We 
 will go and live in the country, close to 
 the heart of Nature. All the noise and 
 noisomenesses of this town- world will be 
 shut out; we will forget it. For you, 
 dear, I will work as I never worked be 
 fore. Think, dear think of the dear 
 old, silent, restful hills of Lincolnville! 
 How the insects hum in the clear nights; 
 how blue, how deep, how tender the 
 sky seems there; how the very flowers 
 seem to wear more natural faces than 
 do those of town! Do you remember 
 how, in summer, we used to go camping 
 by the river? The simple pleasures, the 
 healthy out-door life can you not be 
 lieve that it would make new creatures 
 of us two, Dorothy? The house think 
 of the house we would plan, the orchard, 
 the garden! And are we to lose all that, 
 dear, for a whim? Dorothy," he held 
 out both his hands to her, "see, Doro 
 thy, I ask you to let me not see happi 
 ness only to lose it?" 
 
 For another moment she wavered, then 
 with a choking "Ah, Dick, I love you!" 
 
 2T2 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 she let him take her to his arms. He 
 kissed her shining eyes, and said, fervid 
 ly, " Sweetheart, I thank you." 
 
 EPILOGUE 
 
 CM T was in the first beauty of June that 
 2\, Dick Lancaster brought her that had 
 C$ beenDorothy Ware home to Lincoln- 
 ville as his wife. The village, as I re 
 member, was looking its fairest; the 
 trees were radiant and profuse of shade; 
 the grass was long and luscious, the birds 
 were cheerful and bold. We welcomed 
 the two with all the heartiness we had 
 command of; we had known them as 
 children, and we had loved their mem 
 ory always, all through the years they 
 had been gone. Of Dick s fame we were 
 immeasurably proud. We wondered a 
 little, indeed, that a man so dear to the 
 world s heart should find satisfaction in 
 living so far from the pulse of it all. 
 But, we argued, if indeed, he preferred 
 Lincolnville, all the greater was the 
 honor. 
 
 Both, as we soon saw, had aged, 
 Mr. Fairly, who had gone up to town 
 to marry them, had told us as much, 
 but we were but little prepared for 
 the actual evidence. Those of us, 
 too, who were permitted closer glimpses 
 into the life of these two, observed in 
 the two a passionate fondness for the 
 fields, for the silence and stillness of 
 our life there that was something very 
 different from the matter-of-course ac- 
 213 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 ceptance of those attributes to our ex 
 istence that existed in the rest of us. It 
 was as if the place were, for them, a 
 very harbor of refuge, a hospital in 
 which to forget old ailment, or regain 
 old healthfulness. These things, and 
 many other signs of something wistful 
 in the affection they bore the place and 
 the dislike they long showed for leaving 
 it, made up for me and many others, 
 something of a mystery. At that time, 
 I knew nothing of the things that had 
 occurred since Dick left Lincolnville. 
 
 Afterwards, long afterwards, it hap 
 pened that I came to know all the things 
 that have been chronicled here. And, 
 for my part, I came to love them the 
 more. As Mr. Fairly, who, I suspect, 
 also knew something ot these things, 
 once said to me, "If one has not seen 
 the devil, one does not know enough to 
 get out of his way." I consider that 
 Dick Lancaster is much more to be com 
 mended for the honest life he lives 
 among us than old Scrattan, the milk 
 man, who has never been out of Lincoln 
 County in his life. And as for Dorothy, 
 all Lincolnville thinks she is the sweet 
 est woman breathing and when a vil 
 lage as given to gossip as is this place, 
 agrees on any such eulogy as that, there 
 must be potent reasons. 
 
 It is an ancient trick, I know, and an 
 uncommendable, this of chronicling the 
 lives of two people only up to the church 
 door. In the lives of most people, I 
 hear on all sides of me, the tragedy 
 only begins after marriage. Well, per 
 haps so. But I hope, for my part, that 
 214 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 for Dick Lancaster and his wife there is 
 not to be much more of battling against 
 the buffets of the world. For them 
 there had been so much of tragedy the 
 tragedy that is almost intangible, the 
 tragedy that underlies the surface flip 
 pancy of our modern life before Fate 
 chose to let them come together, that it 
 would seem just that thereafter their 
 life be but a pleasant pastoral. As for 
 that I cannot say. I know that Dick s 
 fame grows with each passing year; and 
 that both he and his wife are beginning 
 to lose the look of weariness that was 
 on them when they came back to us. 
 
 I have not given this chronicle as an 
 example or a lesson. I do not mean 
 in telling it to declare my belief in 
 the theory that Christ s words "Go, and 
 sin no more!" can be perpetually ap 
 plied in the practice of modern life. I 
 have transcribed one episode, one group 
 of characters, one set of lives, and hav 
 ing done so, I refer the responsibility 
 whither it belongs to the Being that 
 mapped, that directed those life-threads. 
 I do not mean to say that in like in 
 stances, a similar course would inevit 
 ably lead to happiness. I only say that 
 yesterday, as I was walking in my garden, 
 watching the blue-jays quarreling in the 
 firs, I heard Dick and Dorothy talking 
 and laughing on their veranda. There 
 was something so infectious about their 
 gladness that I paused and listened, 
 without thought of curiosity, but rather 
 in something of wistful appreciation of 
 their happiness. 
 
 " I had not thought, I heard him 
 215 
 
Cape of Storms 
 
 say, "that the world would ever seem 
 so fair to me." 
 
 There was a pause, and I fancied I 
 heard a kiss, but I will not be sure. 
 
 "And all," he went on, "is thanks to 
 you." 
 
 Again there was a long silence! And 
 then there came a sudden frightened 
 whisper from her: "Dick do you think 
 we shall ever see him again?" 
 
 He laughed bitterly. "No, dear. He 
 is too vain, too selfish, too fond of his 
 own safety. Besides what matter if we 
 did. He belongs to the things that we 
 have forgotten. 
 
 Then they turned, laughing into the 
 house, and their voices gradually died 
 from my hearing. 
 
 It seemed to me, as I nipped the dead 
 leaves from my geraniums, that to these 
 young neighbors of mine Happiness was 
 showing a smiling face. And whether 
 they had deserved that or no, I wish it 
 may be so always, to the end. 
 
 FINIS 
 
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 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY