THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 A, BACHELOR MAID
 
 'IT NEEDED ONLY THIS!' SHE CRIED." (SEE PAGE 118.)
 
 A BACHELOR. MAID 
 
 BY MRS. BURTON HARRISON 
 
 AUTHOR'OF "CROW'S NEST AND BELHAVEN TALES," "SWEET BELLS 
 OUT OF TUNE," ETC. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY 
 IRVING R. WILES 
 
 NEW YORK: THE CENTURY CO. 
 
 1894
 
 Copyright, 1894, by 
 THE CENTURY Co, 
 
 THE OdVIHNc PR
 
 Ps 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 1702018 
 
 r.u;i; 
 
 ; <IT NEEDED ONLY THIS!' SHE CRIED" Frontispiece 
 MR. JUSTICE IRVING 
 
 GORDON ' .0 
 
 MARION 
 
 61 
 
 'THEY WERE A PLEASING CONTRAST" 59 
 
 "PERHAPS WE OUGHT NOT TO DISTURB You" 151 
 
 "MARION CAME AT ONCE" 183
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 31 R. JUSTICE IRVING was in the 
 
 act of putting on his overcoat to 
 leave the Antediluvian Club. He 
 was feeling reasonably cheerful, for 
 he had beaten his favorite adver 
 sary, Bob Crouch, at billiards; so 
 cheerful,- indeed, that he made a mental note of a 
 fleeting resolve to give Crouch, to console him, the 
 next appointment he should have of a commissioner 
 in lunacy. 
 
 It was, therefore, a smiling countenance his honor 
 turned upon a young man already equipped for the 
 street, who came to offer him a hand with his coat. 
 
 " Ha, Gordon ! That you ? Have n't seen you be 
 fore this evening." 
 
 " No ; I have just come in, hoping to catch you 
 and to walk home with you, if I may." 
 
 " Glad of your company, my dear boy," the judge 
 said, as they emerged under the sparkling heaven of 
 a mild winter's night in New York. ''Wanted to 
 speak to you about the sale of Romaine's books. 
 What the deuce he means by selling them, I can't make 
 out. Twenty good years of a man's life put into a 
 collection that can't be beat for choiceness, and here 
 i
 
 2 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 they are to be scattered for a freak. You must man 
 age to be there, my dear lad ; there are one or two 
 tidbits my mouth has been watering for this age. 
 You must appear for me, as usual, and mind you se 
 cure them, if I am to die in peace. And I 've got a 
 copy of the new Prayer-Book, edition de luxe, to show 
 you, with a story attached to it as good, almost, as 
 my luck in getting it half price. Did n't see you at 
 the Grolier last night, by the way. Were you and 
 Marion quarreling, as usual, at our house? Can't 
 think where that daughter of mine gets her way of 
 flying off the handle about little things not quite to 
 her taste." 
 
 " She has flown off the handle for good and all, so 
 far as I am concerned," said the young lawyer. " She 
 has broken our engagement." 
 
 "Broken your oh good heaven, Gordon, you 
 are thirty years old you are not taken in by stuff 
 like that ? Broken the girl 's mad ; I always said 
 so ; that woman's college I was fool enough to send 
 her to to ' finish her education,' forsooth ! has put 
 more silly rot into her head than it ever did ideas. 
 Ever since she quitted it, four years ago, she has gone 
 on following one fad after the other, till I 'm thank 
 ful she has n't brought me to be an open laughing 
 stock before the town. And what this means, I don't 
 believe anybody knows. She took you of her own 
 free will; you've been engaged a year; and I had 
 every hope of seeing her married, and settled, and out 
 of mischief, in the spring and "here his honor 
 emitted a naughty word, and struck his stick upon 
 the pavement so fiercely that a policeman, acciden-
 
 A BACHELOE MAID 3 
 
 tally in his place upon the block, looked around with 
 languid interest to see what was " up " " she shall 
 marry you in the spring, or I '11 know the reason why." 
 
 "Marion would not be the prize I have thought 
 her," said the young man, modestly, " if she could be 
 forced into marrying against her will." 
 
 " What 's her will ? What does a girl know about 
 what she wants, and what she does n't want?" pur 
 sued the irate father. "If there 's anything on God's 
 earth troublesome to deal with at the breakfast-table, 
 or on the witness-stand, it 's a woman. Trouble 
 some? Exasperating? J)e rilix/t ! If ever I lost my 
 temper, it would be with the whimwhams miscalled 
 woman's ideas. This age is going to pot with 'em. 
 The creatures write (and, what 's worse, print !), and 
 howl and shriek on platforms, and struggle for equal 
 ity with us in a perfectly disgusting way. It 's some 
 one of that gang that 's got hold of Marion, you may 
 depend; that 's persuaded her she has a mission 
 above matrimony. If that were the case, and I had 
 my way, I 'd like to sentence the offender to be ducked 
 as a common scold." 
 
 Gordon had foreseen the effect of his communica 
 tion. He waited quietly, adjusting his long strides 
 to the somewhat shorter and heavier ones of his se 
 nior, until the first access of anger had talked itself 
 out, and then took up the tale in the same even, self- 
 controlled voice in which he had begun it. 
 
 " I don't suppose it 's worth while for me to tell 
 you how long I 've wanted Marion. She is five-and- 
 twenty now; I took my love for her into the law- 
 school with me, and have never wavered in it since.
 
 I did not ask her till a year ago, because I had n't 
 enough to offer her till then." 
 
 " Egad, man, you 've made a hit at our bar second 
 to none of your contemporaries ; and I 'm blessed if I 
 know one of them that 's got an eye and a flair like 
 yours for a good book. You are the only man alive 
 I 'd wish to have come in for my library when I 'm 
 gone. I have left it to you in my will, as you know, 
 with the stipulation it 's to be kept together." 
 
 "That can now no longer be my duty, sir," an 
 swered Gordon. 
 
 " Alec, what are you thinking of I Why, if twenty 
 Marions threw you overboard, you 'd still have the 
 books ! " exclaimed his honor, with heartfelt emphasis. 
 " But, come, tell me about this business quietly ; don't 
 excite yourself. In such matters nothing is gained 
 by losing our grip on our tempers. When did she 
 give you this precious piece of information ? Broken 
 her engagement, eh? I '11 be hanged if I '11 put up 
 with such scurvy treatment of her father's wishes. 
 Am I nobody in my own house, I 'd like to know ? 
 Am I a cipher, a petticoat-ridden judge, at the mercy 
 of a spoiled girl infected with all the worst notions 
 about woman's independence in our day a ?" 
 
 " I received, yesterday, a note from her," Gordon 
 said, taking advantage of a pause during which the 
 judge was fortunately obliged to blow his nose, " tell 
 ing me that she was thoroughly unhappy in the exist 
 ing relations which, indeed, I had perceived. She 
 asked me to go to her last evening, and I went. We 
 talked over the subject in every aspect possible. I 
 said everything a man in my circumstances could
 
 MR. JUSTICE IRVING.
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 7 
 
 say. She looked more beautiful than I have ever 
 seen her, and she was neither over-excited, nor exag 
 gerated in her speech " 
 
 " Marion is like me, they tell me," interpolated the 
 father, grimly smiling in the dark. 
 
 "But there was no deceiving myself. Marion's 
 ideas have undergone a change. She has come to 
 this conclusion deliberately. She did not need to re 
 mind me that she, unlike most girls, had begun her 
 life in society without holding marriage as its chief 
 goal " 
 
 " Stuff and nonsense ! If you can find anything in 
 the world as dismal and depressing as a woman, out 
 side of a sisterhood, who devotes herself, through 
 conviction, to a single life they 're bad enough, 
 and vexatious enough, married ; but as old maids 
 and if I 've got to pass the remainder of my days in 
 the cage with one of them ! I won't do it, Gordon ; 
 I won't do it! I '11 box up the books, send them 
 to a safety deposit company, let my house, take 
 rooms near the club, and allow Miss Irving to en 
 joy her single blessedness where she will." 
 
 " Don't decide now, sir," said Gordon, who, not in 
 the least surprised at the father's attitude, pursued 
 the even tenor of his way. "What I want to ask 
 you as a favor to me, if you consider that I am at 
 all injured or aggrieved by the turn affairs have taken 
 is to say nothing to Marion. I told her that I 
 would tell you of her dismissal of me." 
 
 " It 's the first time I ever knew her to be a coward ! " 
 
 "She is no coward; and you do not think so," 
 Gordon said, a little rise in his temperature making
 
 8 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 itself manifest in his voice. " She is as brave a girl 
 as ever drew breath, and as true. I asked her leave 
 to tell you I want you to prove your friendship for 
 me, sir thlit I Ve never had cause to doubt that 
 is my honor and my pride " 
 
 <r You 'd have been the son I 'd have chosen, Alec, 
 to make up for the boy I lost," said the older man, 
 and the two gripped hands on it. 
 
 " You won't scold her you won't visit it on her 
 in any way? You will accept it, as I do, as final? 
 You will gratify any wish of hers to shape her life 
 according to the ambition she now has ? " 
 
 " You ask a good lot of me, Alec. I did not see her 
 this morning. Come to think of it, they said she had 
 a headache, and Marion never has headaches ; and I 
 dined at the club with Crouch and a couple of Western 
 lawyers he has on hand. Crouch plays a pretty good 
 game at billiards, Alec, eh ? Not many men in the 
 Antediluvian who can lay him out. Well, I beat him 
 three times running to-night. Poor return for his 
 capital dinner, eh? By George, that chef can cook 
 ducks! Outside, a beautiful, even brown, and the 
 blood following the knife cooked to a charm. And 
 with them we had a glass of Chainbertin just the 
 right temperature. Say what you will, those things 
 tell. Give me rather a chop and a bottle of beer if I 
 can't get ducks roasted right, which you never can in 
 your own house, I Ve found. I 'm the easiest fellow 
 to please in all the world, but when that woman of 
 Marion's sends up wild ducks overdone ! You were 
 saying you want me not to haul Marion over the 
 coals. Why, Alec, you know if there 's anything I
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 9 
 
 don't do, it is to let myself loose when anything 
 vexes me." 
 
 " I know," ventured Gordon, soothingly. " But as 
 this is rather more vexing than usual, I want to be 
 sure Marion does not suffer because I have been tell 
 ing tales on her. Let her speak to you first, if speak 
 of it you must between you. Allow everything to go 
 on as before. If you could think of some one to in 
 vite to make her a visit at this time, it would take her 
 out of herself, and break up her solitude, which can't 
 be good for her just now." 
 
 " Solitude? What does she expect! She 's mis 
 tress of a good house, with plenty of servants, leave 
 to go and come, a carriage and a maid to take her 
 into society. She has more invitations than she cares 
 to accept. I can't fill up the house with chattering 
 women, to please her. Good Lord ! They 'd be 
 turning over my neckties, and even handling the 
 books, before you 'd know it ! But I '11 agree to say 
 nothing. That I can do. It 's no sacrifice to me not 
 to speak my mind out." 
 
 " Thank you," said Gordon, briefly. They were now 
 stopping in front of the judge's house, a broad, com 
 fortable mansion of red brick a few doors from Fifth 
 Avenue, in an old-fashioned, pleasant quarter not far 
 from the Marble Arch. While the judge was feeling 
 for his latch-key, Gordon managed to look up un 
 observed at the windows of the third story above 
 him. From the angle made by the curtains in one of 
 these upon a shade illuminated from within, he saw a 
 shadow withdraw. He knew this room to be the 
 special belonging of his lately affianced wife, and he
 
 10 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 recognized the stately outline of her figure. She, 
 then, had been waiting and watching for her father, 
 when all the rest of the quiet house was in darkness. 
 Gordon remembered, with a pang of sympathy for 
 her, that in all the world outside that sleeping house 
 she had no friend but himself who knew her as she 
 was, who was familiar with the daily trials of her lot, 
 who could stand between her and them. And now 
 she had voluntarily put him from her, to live alone 
 and to fight her own battles with what he believed 
 to be a world of shadows summoned by her over- 
 vivid imagination to people the loneliness of her 
 life. 
 
 Not anger, but a vast pity for Marion, took fresh 
 possession of him. 
 
 " Good night, then, Alec, if you won't come in and 
 look at that catalogue of Romaine's books," said the 
 judge in his loud, clear, self-satisfied voice. 
 
 "Not to-night. I think if you or Marion could 
 think of any place where she might like to go for a 
 little change any one going abroad whom she 
 might join " 
 
 "Go abroad! Not by a jugful," said his honor, 
 vexed into a slang phrase. " I Ve no patience with 
 these female vagrants who leave the houses provided 
 for them, and the duties of their proper sphere, to go 
 wandering around in foreign parts amusing them 
 selves like tramps. Marion knows that, when I am 
 able to get off, she goes with me under my charge, to 
 do the things I think best for her ; and with that she 
 has got to be content. Oh, these women, Alec 
 these women nowadays ! They never are content ;
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 11 
 
 they are as mischievous an element in our society as 
 anarchists. Look at my mother wife of a country 
 parson, brought up six sons in a Massachusetts vil 
 lage, toiled and struggled for them, never thought of 
 herself, I believe, till she lay down to rest in the old 
 graveyard. Look at Marion's mother ill health 
 from the time Marion was born, and she never let me 
 know it, except in a general way, until she died. 
 Those were women ; Marion 's degenerate " 
 
 " I won't keep you in the ^draft of the open door," 
 Gordon went on, with the quiet persistence that was 
 a part of him. " But I hope, if Marion has any friend 
 she desires to visit her, you will think well of provid 
 ing her with a companion. Just now she needs dis 
 traction -for her thoughts. She will be safer with 
 some outlet." 
 
 " Well, well, I '11 think of it. Good night. Come 
 over on Sunday afternoon as usual, and stop to din 
 ner, and we '11 go over Romaine's catalogue carefully. 
 You are not going to let this girl's folly rob me of 
 you, my boy? w 
 
 "Good night, sir," the young man said. He had 
 grown into the habit of thus addressing him as a 
 father. 
 
 Again they shook hands, the front door closed, and 
 Gordon ran down the steps to the sidewalk. Instead 
 of going home, however, he crossed the street, walk 
 ing up and down, and looking from time to time over 
 at the window of Marion's sitting-room. "When the 
 lights there were extinguished, he turned into the 
 Avenue, and made his way to his quarters in Wash 
 ington Square.
 
 12 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 In the corridor leading to his rooms he met a man 
 of his acquaintance, likewise on his way into retreat. 
 
 "Hullo, Gordon! Saw you leaving the Antedilu 
 vian a while ago arm-in-arm with your father-in-law 
 elect. I stopped behind to enter my third remon 
 strance on one subject in the complaint-book. There 's 
 a plot among the club-servants to smile whenever I 
 make observations about the ventilation of the rooms; 
 and, by George, if the governors don't take some no 
 tice of it, I '11 resign out of the club. Been seeing his 
 honor home, eh? Soft thing you have there, old fel 
 low; not to speak of the references that drop into 
 your path like 'the gentle dew from heaven.' When 
 are you going to hang up your hat for good upon 
 Irving J.'s hat-rack?" 
 
 "Miss Irving's engagement to me is at an end, 
 Clarkson," said Gordon, pausing at his own door, and 
 speaking deliberately, while holding his handsome 
 head erect, and looking his interlocutor full in the 
 face. 
 
 " What f " said Clarkson, genuinely surprised. 
 
 " Yes," answered Gordon. 
 
 "Is there if any one asks me the reason, what 
 would you like me to say, old man?" 
 
 " Say that it has been dissolved by mutual consent. 
 Good night to you." And, opening his door, Gordon 
 disappeared abruptly from the view of his acquain 
 tance, who was left upon the mat, whistling softly. 
 
 " FATHER, I have been sitting up for you," Marion 
 had said, following the judge into his library, whither 
 he went directly upon entering his home.
 
 
 
 GORDON.
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 15 
 
 This room, containing the apple of Judge Irving's 
 eye, was at the back of the house, in an extension 
 built to receive it over the dining-room. Upon its 
 walls, everywhere save for the projecting jamb of 
 a great chimneypiece of carved oak, and a bay-win 
 dow, the upper half of thin glass veined with delicate 
 traceries of lead, the lower curtained with amber silk, 
 making sunshine in the gloom were seen the mel 
 low bin-dings of " the books." The books, Marion's 
 rivals, were best loved, as she knew, for their outer 
 integument, for their rare press- marks, for the fact 
 that another collector had failed to secure them. 
 Into these had gone a liberal part of the income in 
 sured to Mr. Irving during his life by his wife's will, 
 setting aside for her daughter, after she should have 
 reached the age of twenty-five, an annual allowance 
 of three thousand dollars. 
 
 Marion, having just passed the period indicated, 
 had not as yet touched her inheritance. Her father 
 had reluctantly acceded to his wife's desire so to dis 
 pose of her own belongings. Although he would 
 have furiously repudiated the idea of having influ 
 enced his spouse in the matter of a will so largely in 
 his favor, poor meek Mrs. Irving, going to her grave 
 at a gallop, took care to obtain from her husband in 
 formation as to the exact age at which he was willing 
 their daughter should begin to enjoy an indepen 
 dence of the purse ; and, somehow or other, twenty- 
 five was the age given to the lawyer who drew up 
 the document. 
 
 " I am glad you fixed upon five and twenty, An 
 gela," the judge had said approvingly, after the poor
 
 16 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 lady's last will and testament had been duly signed 
 and witnessed. " It is an evidence of your excellent 
 judgment, my dear. You know very well that no 
 young woman, before that age, should be regarded as 
 a responsible being, or have tools for folly or mis 
 chief-making put into her hands. Yes; I am glad 
 you thought of it very glad." 
 
 Whereon he had stooped over her couch, and 
 kissed her, going out of her room in such fullness of 
 vigor and manly good-looks that she felt, in the heart 
 already gripped by death, a gentle palpitation of her 
 old adoring love for him. A little later she went to 
 her reward, satisfied that she had done her best by 
 the daughter left in the care of such an infallible 
 being. 
 
 These things had passed when Marion was a child 
 of twelve. At eighteen she had been a woman, ar 
 dent, thoughtful, speculative, but ever since had lived 
 the life of an infant in leading-strings, so far as her 
 father was concerned. The curriculum he had al 
 lowed her to take at a woman's college in a neighbor 
 ing State had been her one opportunity to stand 
 alone, to test the little budding wings of her intellect, 
 to speak upon any subject of the outer world without 
 the certainty that she would be crushed, or smiled 
 down upon, according to his mood. 
 
 Thus the engagement with Alec Gordon, entered 
 into by her with hesitation in response to his fervent 
 pleadings, was poisoned at its source. She had 
 learned to look upon man as an oppressor of woman ; 
 to mistrust him as morally weak whan physically 
 most attractive ; to resent the domestic law-giver ; to
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 17 
 
 dread giving up liberty, even comparative, for the 
 positive slavery of marriage. Her father's favorite 
 saying, in response to any remark of hers he found it 
 inconvenient to answer, " When Gordon gets hold 
 of you, he will take all that nonsense out of you, my 
 dear," had grown to be the nightmare of her en 
 gagement. And at last, little by little, the solitary 
 self-tormenting of the girl had worn away her power 
 to discriminate in character. She could see in her 
 lover only her father's instrument. In her despair, 
 she wrote to a friend who had been a professor in the 
 college, and told her the case as if it had been that 
 of some one else. Of the answer we will quote this 
 phrase : 
 
 In sum, I should say to your friend that if her God-sent in 
 tentions were followed out by all women who experience them, 
 we should be moving with quick strides to the future we pray 
 for, when man through woman shall be made to know himself. 
 
 " I am not sure I know what she advises," quoth 
 poor Marion, who had been reading seven pages pre 
 ceding the sentence quoted. " But she feels for me. 
 If I could talk with her in person, I should be easier. 
 Oh, what in my place would the Higher Woman do? " 
 
 What Marion did we have learned from Alec Gor 
 don's lips. It now remained for her to meet the 
 storm of her father's wrath. She came into the 
 library, swiftly, tragically, her tall form carrying the 
 sweep of a loose white robe edged with brown fur. 
 A band of the same fur, clasping her throat, repeated 
 the tint of her massive hair, parted in an exquisite 
 clean line, and twisted in a coil behind. This, as did
 
 18 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 everything about the physical woman of Marion 
 Irving, illustrated nature unspoiled by convention 
 ality. Her taper waist, her small bust, her grand 
 arms, her free movements, were the delight of a 
 sketch-class of girls to which she belonged. When 
 she would consent to sit for them, there was a general 
 exclamation a long-drawn "Oh!" of satisfaction, 
 deep, not loud. Once, draped in cheese-cloth dam 
 pened and dried into the beautiful pliability beloved 
 by an artist, she had posed for them in the attitude 
 of the " Winged Victory of Samothrace." Her superb 
 appearance on the platform in this guise was followed 
 by an enthusiastic burst of applause from the class 
 that covered the model with a veil of blushes. 
 
 Of the bewitchments of ordinary feminine beauty 
 she possessed few. She had no coquetry, no desire to 
 test her power on men. Her father's unfeigned con 
 tempt of all varieties of female supremacy had made 
 her mistrust her ability either to charm or to com 
 mand. She was singularly simple, direct, outspoken, 
 and by men of society, so called, was rather eschewed 
 than otherwise. 
 
 As she now descended upon her father, she found 
 him warming himself, with his back to a cozy little 
 fire, its flame many times repeated in a setting of yel 
 low tiles. On the table beside his deep arm-chair 
 cushioned with old-blue corduroy (these blues and 
 yellows carefully chosen by himself) stood a reading- 
 lamp, and a tray with a small cut-glass decanter of 
 spirits and a plate of biscuits. The butler had seen, 
 according to custom, that everything was in place. 
 The judge meant to sit there for a quiet half -hour
 
 A BACHELOE MAID 19 
 
 before retiring, to enjoy the consciousness of good 
 health, good looks, good digestion, good repute, and 
 a good balance at the bank. 
 
 Marion's appearance surprised him unpleasantly. 
 A domestic whirlwind, in the wee sma' hours, when a 
 man has nowhere to flee from it, is indeed a fear 
 some sight. Why in the dickens, he asked himself, 
 could not the girl have put off this business till morn 
 ing, when it is always possible to cut short the heat 
 of any discussion by opening the front door? He 
 frowned, therefore. His eyes surveyed her with the 
 cold displeasure she so easily aroused. He was the 
 Mr. Justice Irving Marion knew best, not the clever, 
 genial Mr. Justice Irving known to the bar and 
 public. 
 
 "You know I cannot endure having any one sit 
 up for me. You have repeatedly heard me say so to 
 the butler and the maids." 
 
 " I know, father, I know. I will never do so again. 
 But I felt I could not go to sleep another night, 
 not having told you that I have broken with Alec 
 Gordon." 
 
 "You may, spare yourself the words, and me the 
 annoyance. Gordon walked home with me and told 
 me. If I had to hear it, it was better coming from a 
 man who can tell a straight story than from a woman 
 who dresses the whole thing up to suit herself " 
 
 "Stop!" she cried. "Not that! In all my life I 
 never told you a lie." 
 
 " There you go, taking offense at trifles, as usual. 
 I meant, of course, that you would naturally want to 
 put the best face on this shameful business."
 
 20 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 " There is no shame in refusing to marry a man I 
 am afraid I may grow to hate. The shame would be 
 standing at the altar by him, and swearing false oaths. 
 I want to put no face on it except the true one. I 
 have searched my heart, father, for the love a wife 
 ought to bear her husband, if married life is to be 
 supportable " 
 
 " Come, come ! " said the judge, rather scandalized. 
 
 " I have found there nothing but a cold, hard crust 
 of indifference. I like Alec as a friend ; I tried to 
 love him: but I love no one. Father " she paused, 
 a mighty swelling of the heart took away her speech 
 for a moment; she drew near and, rare act, laid her 
 hand upon his shoulder "father, you do understand 
 me, don't you ? You loved once did n't you ? " 
 
 The judge, uncertain whether to be angrier than he 
 already was, or to treat the matter as a very insignifi 
 cant joke, moved away from her hand. 
 
 "I why, Marion, I am astonished at you I 
 bless my soul, what won't women try to investigate 
 in these days I believe your mother had no cause 
 of complaint against me as a husband. But then she 
 was one of the kind who take things as they find 
 them, who don't tear the passions to tatters, and go 
 back to the fundamental basis of created things when 
 a hasty word is spoken. She was an admirable 
 woman, and her loss er ah " here the judge, 
 catching sight of a newly arrived express-parcel upon 
 the table, expanded into a positive smile of rapture. 
 " By the Great Horn Spoon ! if there 's not the ' Gesta 
 Romanorum' from that Boston sale ! " 
 
 "May I finish, father?" said Marion, her arms fall-
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 21 
 
 ing dead, as her father seized, gloatingly, upon his 
 prize. 
 
 " If it 's quite the same to you, my dear Marion, 
 we '11 remit the rest until breakfast-time to-morrow. 
 I had made an offer for this, but feared Lewis, who 
 was on the spot, would outbid me. Oh, by the way, 
 on Saturday I shall have leisure you shall have 
 your bank-book and check-book, and I '11 explain to 
 you how to use them. And, Marion," he added, turn 
 ing over affectionately the saffrou-hued leaves of the 
 little volume, "that reminds me, if you would like to 
 have a visit from any friend how would it do to 
 invite my brother Joe's girls over from Philadelphia 
 for a week ? " 
 
 " They have gone to Montreal, father," she said list 
 lessly. Even the threat of a visit from her Uncle 
 Joe's girls pretty, flippant creatures, forever agog 
 after men and finery could not shock her now. 
 
 "Then think for yourself there must be some 
 body," he suggested, already a little out of patience, 
 and longing to be alone. 
 
 "I have a friend a widow; she was for a time a 
 teacher in our college, and left it to be married. She 
 is now in Washington, unoccupied and very poor, I 
 believe." 
 
 "And, pray, what is her name ? " he said, turning 
 over the leaves as before. 
 
 " Stauff er Madame Stauff er, they call her, since 
 her husband was a foreigner. She is not old, and 
 rather nice-looking. She would interest me, I think." 
 
 " Then for Heaven's sake ask her, and be done 
 with it. Only, when she gets here, mind, I break- 
 
 2*
 
 22 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 fast alone, and dine at the club whenever the fancy 
 takes me." 
 
 "I understand." 
 
 She waited a minute, but he did not again notice 
 her. Marion left the room, in spite of herself a trifle 
 lighter of heart than when she came into it. She re 
 membered Sara Stauffer's gift of sympathy. She 
 was at last to have some one, all her own, unshared 
 by her father, uninfluenced by his views and wishes. 
 
 Before going to bed, she glanced again at the letter 
 received from Sara a few days before. She decided 
 that she would not wait to write, but early next 
 morning would send a telegram inviting Madame 
 Stauffer to be her guest. 
 
 Marion, warmed with new hope, was still thinking 
 of Sara Stauffer when, by extinguishing the gas, she 
 did what, unknown to her, was the signal for Alec 
 Gordon to turn away from his watchman's beat on 
 the pavement over the way, and to go back to his 
 quarters, carrying the keenest disappointment of 
 his life.
 
 II 
 
 FEW days after the permission 
 given to his daughter in the first 
 glow of satisfaction at acquiring an 
 almost unique copy of the " Gesta 
 Romanorum," Judge Irving, coming 
 home to dinner, stumbled, upon his 
 own threshold, over an expressman carrying in a 
 little trunk. 
 
 " Here, you ! There 's some mistake. That is not 
 for this number," he called out to the man, who was 
 blocking the way ahead of him. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, sir," interposed the footman, 
 who held open the heavy old mahogany door with its 
 side-lights, fan-light, and brass knocker, bespeaking 
 the antique respectability intrenched behind it. " It 's 
 the luggage of the furren lady that 's come to visit 
 Miss Irving. Hurry up, my man ! " he added in a 
 lower tone. "Look sharp for the gas-fixture, and 
 carry that little article to the third-story back. 
 Maid 's on the stairs to show you." 
 
 "Third-story back?" repeated the master of the 
 house, who was all ears for everything that went on 
 inside of it. " That is Miss Irving's own bedroom, 
 Hilary." 
 
 23
 
 24 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 " Them was Miss Irving's orders, sir. Miss Irving 
 have moved into the small room for the present." 
 
 " Very extraordinary," muttered the judge, rather 
 pleased with a grievance to cover the extreme an 
 noyance he had felt at sight of the little trunk. 
 
 An impertinent little trunk small, cramped-look 
 ing, not by any means of the appearance to justify 
 its ascent of Ms front stairs the kind of trunk hab 
 itually delivered after nightfall by cheap expressmen 
 at the basement door, as appertaining to one of the 
 ladies of divers nationalities who arrive at one's 
 home, and remain for a time, "until suited," with 
 their clothes in a paper parcel. 
 
 Mr. Justice Irving, whose appearance on the bench 
 presented a majesty felt alike by lawyers, clients, and 
 court-officers, had a dim idea that he had detected on 
 the countenance of his servant, when the offending 
 box had come under his august observation, an ex 
 pression of pleased appreciation. 
 
 "So Miss Irving has changed her bedroom? And 
 this lady when did she arrive?" 
 
 "About four-thirty, sir. Walked over from the 
 elevated, sir, I understood. I took tea in, almost im 
 mediately, to Miss Irving's sitting-room, where the 
 ladies has been talkin' ever since." 
 
 " I remember, now," said his master, frowning upon 
 his affability. " It was to-day she that pers the 
 lady, was to arrive. Hilary, I shall dine at the club. 
 You can mention it to Miss Irving, just before dinner 
 is served, so that she may not wait for me." 
 
 "Very good, sir," said Hilary, hanging up the 
 judge's coat and smiling more freely as the broad
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 25 
 
 back of his master ascended the stairs to his dress 
 ing-room. 
 
 But, 'after all, what was there to smile at ? Any 
 man in Judge Irving's circumstances would have had 
 just cause for a desire to flee. His privacy invaded, 
 the silence of his home broken, by a little Madame 
 Nobody, who had been trumped up by his daughter 
 when in one of her hysterical moods. A little person 
 that she was little he decided from her trunk 
 who would require civility, before whom he must 
 needs curb his tongue into the platitudes expected 
 by women at meal-times. A " queer" person, he was 
 sure; a genius of the provinces ; a bore, in short a 
 fearful, unmitigated bore ! 
 
 And add all this to the natural unwillingness of the 
 male sovereign to face in his domestic kingdom a 
 stranger who would expect him to live up to his repu 
 tation for dignity and agreeability. He thought, 
 while tying his white cravat, of the occasion when 
 Charlotte Bronte had arrived to dine with Thackeray, 
 and that great man was discovered by his daughters 
 in the act of escaping from the house to seek the se 
 clusion of Ms club. No ; this was really too much for 
 even Marion's selfishness to impose on him, and he 
 should take care not to delay in making her under 
 stand the ordeal was not to last. 
 
 MEANWHILE, the afternoon that Marion felt to be 
 an epoch in her existence had flown by, for the wo 
 men, on happy wings. Sara, arriving by some mis 
 chance unexpectedly, had been met, greeted, installed 
 by Marion in her own easiest chair in her own sane-
 
 26 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 turn, petted, looked after, in a way that expanded the 
 stranger's heart with wonder. 
 
 What a transition for Madame Stauff er from the 
 hall-bedroom of a dingy boarding-house in Washing 
 ton to the heart of this broad, luxurious, esthetic 
 home, where life ran on well-oiled wheels, where flow 
 ers and sunshine banished winter, where the delicious 
 scent of burning hickory arose from the fireplaces, 
 where books and pamphlets, old and new, were scat 
 tered on all sides ! 
 
 Sara, who by nature dearly loved easy-chairs and 
 sweet odors and warm sunshine, and by theory as 
 well as necessity renounced them, was for a moment 
 staggered, at the outset of her visit to her old pupil. 
 
 She had not, for some reason, counted upon all this. 
 Marion, always simple in her dress and habits, had 
 been, while in college, under the yoke of a period of 
 self-denial. Everything not absolutely necessary had 
 been by her vowed to students poorer than herself, 
 to philanthropic or charitable enterprises nurtured 
 among them. And, since Miss Irving's father had 
 never thought it wise to give her the control of funds, 
 her scanty pocket-money had not gone far in the direc 
 tion indicated. Her want of finery had often been 
 discussed among her fellows. She was, in fact, re 
 garded as one of the students kept in college by an 
 effort on the part of their parents or guardians. 
 
 Madame Stauffer, after weighing against the price 
 of board in Washington the expense of a railway 
 journey to New York, had decided that the affair, 
 even if Marion's way of living were rather pinched, 
 would be " worth while." A two weeks' stay would

 
 A BACHELOE MAID 29 
 
 justify her outlay. And for many reasons Sara had 
 long and ardently desired a visit to the great me 
 tropolis. She was of the army of modern thinkers 
 who declare, " Better a garret in New York " than a 
 first-floor bedroom in the " half-baked" cities else 
 where to be found in America an expression for 
 which Madame Stauffer's class must stand responsible. 
 
 In the short time that had elapsed since her arrival, 
 Sara had been put into possession of the chief facts 
 of her friend's recent experience of the heart; of 
 Marion's doubts, fears, and ambitions for a more 
 fully developed intellectual existence; of her diffi 
 culty in finding true sympathy with her aims among 
 the people she was cast with ; of her conviction that 
 there was a key to the higher philosophy of living, 
 if she could only lay hand on it; of her longing to 
 be something if it were but a unit in the great 
 cause of the evolution of true womanhood. 
 
 Madame Stauffer, a slight, pleasing woman of 
 thirty-one or -two, with dark, diamond-bright eyes 
 and an irradiating smile, looked down from her 
 throne among the cushions on the corner of Marion's 
 divan next the fire, at the noble, earnest, dilating 
 creature seated upon a low stool at her feet. They 
 had dressed for dinner, and returned to wait in the 
 drawing-room till that meal should be announced. 
 
 In her room Marion's room vacated for her 
 Sara, left alone, had sped from object to object of 
 its luxurious furnishings, examining them curiously. 
 She had even turned up a corner of the old Genoese 
 coverlet of flowered cotton edged with antique lace, 
 to see the silk lining underneath.
 
 30 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 " Cotton on top, silk underneath ! That is the real 
 thing ! When could I have afforded such ? " she said, 
 with a pang of envy. " Every thread of silk in my 
 life has done duty before the public exhibited for 
 all it was worth ! " 
 
 The couch, the writing-table, the sundry mirrors, 
 the bath-room opening out of Marion's bower, had 
 seemed to her unbelievable. 
 
 "A porcelain tub, all to myself, with white tiles 
 underfoot, has always seemed to me something in 
 tended for the angels," she murmured whimsically. 
 "And towels like these! Long, fine, hemstitched, 
 abundant ! Oh, it is too much ; I must shut the 
 door, and not think of the bath-room, or my brain 
 can't be depended upon to do its duty and pay for 
 the privilege of using all this ! " 
 
 She had put on the one best gown of the tradi 
 tional poor heroine, and, opening the door into the 
 corridor, had found Marion waiting there for her, 
 with a fresh bunch of purple violets. There is no 
 heart, however cold, case-hardened, worldly, that 
 cannot be touched by the humanizing offer of a 
 bunch of fresh violets. They are the open sesame 
 to every woman's affections; on their breath arise 
 the most tender beseechings to loving-kindness; un 
 der their influence the recipient longs to do, say, be 
 something delightful to the giver. 
 
 Sara Stauffer almost cried when she took these 
 from the hand of Marion. It was the finishing touch 
 to her newly erected dream-temple of comfort and 
 beauty combined. She kissed the tall girl, inclining 
 her face upward to do so, and, twining her arm round 
 her waist, exclaimed, as they went down-stairs :
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 31 
 
 " O Marion, how perfectly happy we are going 
 to be!" 
 
 And now Marion, whom nothing could long divert 
 from her intense purpose, had reverted to asking 
 Sara's advice. 
 
 " Do you mean that you want to go in for public 
 utterances ? " Sara answered, vaguely thinking how 
 hard it would be to leave this nest of cushions by the 
 fire in behalf of the suffering sisterhood. 
 
 " For speaking ? " said Marion, a little startled, yet 
 dazzled visibly. "Oh, I should never be allowed, 
 never ! After you have seen, you will know." 
 
 " Writing over your own name ? As your father's 
 daughter, that would mean much." 
 
 " Even if I dared to think of that, Sara for you 
 are not madame to me, are you, any longer ? You are 
 my friend, my teacher; you are going to be my sister 
 spirit. Think of a woman of twenty-five saying, ' If 
 I dared do what my conscience tells me is right ! ' 
 But as long as I live here under his roof, supported 
 by my father, I can do so little : I could write anony 
 mously, I suppose." 
 
 "There are so many who write well whose names 
 don't count," answered Sara, as if with an effort. She 
 had just caught sight of Marion's beautiful, shapely 
 foot extended upon the hearth-rug ; of its casing of 
 fine black silken openwork, its high-heeled slipper of 
 patent leather, with a. small buckle of brilliants. And 
 Sara, who had a charming foot of her own, did so 
 love pretty shoes and stockings, and had had so few 
 of them ! " Perhaps we can work out between us 
 some method for you to serve the Cause." 
 
 " Oh, how gladly would I do so ! If I might, how
 
 32 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 gladly would I give up all this cramping luxury, to 
 go out and work for and with rny sisters, as you have 
 done ! " 
 
 " It is a hard life. I have lectured so much in the 
 last year, and traveled so far, that my physician or 
 dered me to rest in the comparatively mild climate of 
 Washington," said Madame Sara, with a faint sigh. 
 
 " Poor thing ! " said Marion, with a heartfelt sigh. 
 "And so you divined at once that, in the hypothetical 
 crisis my first letter laid before you, I was stating my 
 own case ? " 
 
 "Yes, dear child," answered Sara, caressingly. 
 "And to tell you the candid truth, I was a little 
 afraid to handle it freely, as you asked me to do." 
 
 "Well, it is all settled now. You can speak out 
 now. As I told you. a little while ago, I am already 
 happier to be free from the torment of wondering if 
 I loved him enough to accept, for his sake, the further 
 limitations marriage would set around me." 
 
 "Is he is he good-looking, dear child?" Sara 
 asked, burying her little nose in her violets, as if she 
 could not get enough of their fragrance. 
 
 " I suppose you would think so," answered the 
 girl. " He is on rather a large scale ; but most peo 
 ple call him handsome." 
 
 "And successful sure to rise ? " 
 
 Marion was a little surprised. In the college days 
 Sara had affected to scorn mere externals in man 
 kind, to hold them as naught beside the gold of heart 
 and mind. 
 
 " I believe people say he is," she said almost coldly. 
 
 " I was only trying to gage the depth of your re-
 
 A BACHELOE MAID 33 
 
 nunciation, my love. In these days what they call a 
 good match is so hard to find, and the world is so 
 hard upon women struggling for themselves, it is al 
 most heroism to renounce a safe marriage. But you 
 what am I thinking of? Your future is secure be 
 yond peradventure. You, no matter what knocks 
 and thumps you may get from the public, will have 
 the sinews of war provided. You have only to be 
 brave and steadfast, and in time all things will come 
 to you." 
 
 " -Do you think so ? " cried Marion, exultingly. 
 
 "I do. Just now, while you are still young and 
 nominally under your father's control, you can work 
 for the ' Woman Question' alone. By and by you 
 will reach, and be able to handle, the broader phase 
 of it, the ' Marriage Question/ which is, after all, or 
 is sure to absorb, the ' Woman Question.' " 
 
 "I don't quite understand," said Marion, her sweet, 
 innocent eyes a little clouded by bewilderment. 
 
 " No ; but there is time enough for that," said Sara, 
 nestling down with fresh abandonment among the 
 pillows. " Those of us who are victims of the horri 
 ble mistake of marriage with men we could not pos 
 sibly knoAV as they were may be left in charge of that 
 branch of the subject. I see you are too much afraid 
 of wounding rne to ask if that was, indeed, my case. 
 Some day I will tell you at length my experience, 
 luckily brief. My husband, a German professor I 
 met at a friend's house in Chicago, and married three 
 weeks later, died of yellow fever in the South at the 
 end of a year, six months of which we had spent 
 apart. From these dates you may see my bondage 
 
 3
 
 34 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 did not long endure. But it has left in me an ineffa 
 ceable sense of wrong, and, having told you so much, 
 I will not darken the enjoyment of the hour by elab 
 orating on the theme." 
 
 " Don't tell me, you poor dear ! " cried Marion. " I 
 am sure that, whoever was wrong, you were right ; 
 that you did everything noble, grand, and true." 
 
 At this juncture the door opened. Madame Stauf- 
 fer, who had paused to adjust an answer to Marion's 
 enthusiastic speech was prevented from uttering it 
 by the appearance of Hilary, conveying the judge's 
 message to his daughter. 
 
 '' Not going to dine with us ! " exclaimed the new 
 arrival, in what Hilary decided to be " a forward way, 
 considerin'." 
 
 " Of course you understand, dear girl," the lady 
 went on, as they, directly afterward, walked in to 
 dinner, " that, having come here as special physician in 
 your case, I am all impatience to possess myself of it in 
 every detail. Until I know your father, and see you 
 with him, I cannot pretend to say how far you ought 
 to venture in maintaining our ideas about free wo 
 manhood. Until now my time has been almost ex 
 clusively occupied with wives, not daughters. My 
 mission is to overcome the isolation of the married 
 woman, to reclaim her into an understanding of her 
 rights, to show her there are other things to absorb 
 her every waking thought than the mere subserviency 
 to a husband the mere bringing into the world, 
 and up in the world, of children. Your case, being 
 novel, interests me greatly. Yours is a thraldom 
 from which even your liberal education has not been 
 able to free you "
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 35 
 
 At this moment Madame Stauffer dipped her spoon 
 into her soup, and a mouthful of velvety creme de 
 celeri found its way to her palate. 
 
 The Swedish dame who presided over the stew- 
 pans of Mr. Justice Irving was, in her way, a gem. 
 In spite of his animadversions upon her habit of mis 
 understanding the divine canvasback, he knew, and 
 everybody knew, she could be trusted to send up 
 dinners not to be outdone at any of his clubs. For 
 the two ladies she had prepared a few selected plats 
 only ; but they were cooked to perfection, and served 
 by the butler and Hilary on the silver dishes bearing 
 the Irving crest. The little round snowy table in the 
 middle of the big crimson-hung dining-room, the 
 shaded candle-light upon the silver vase of white 
 orchids in the center, the "feel" of the large fine 
 damask napkins across her knees, renewed in Sara 
 the gentle cerebral intoxication she had experienced 
 over the porcelain bath-tub in her dressing-room. 
 After she had sipped half, a glass of good claret, the 
 color rose into her pale cheeks, her diamond eyes 
 sent forth more brilliant rays, she talked dashingly 
 of many themes, but said no more, that night, of 
 advancing the day when women shall count all dross 
 save the effort of her intellect to dominate slowly- 
 awakening man. 
 
 "When they returned to the drawing-room, she sat 
 down at the piano and played so exquisitely as to 
 finish the subjection of Marion. 
 
 "You must play for my father," cried the girl. 
 " He loves music. If I could play like you, I believe 
 he would have loved me," she added, with sudden 
 pathos.
 
 36 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 "You must make him honor your courage, your 
 consistency/' remarked Sara, her white fingers twink 
 ling over the keys. "It is a great mistake for wo 
 man to suppose that she is dependent on man's love 
 for her earthly happiness. Great Heaven! When 
 one thinks how many things there are besides men ! 
 Are not we two, for instance, perfectly cheerful, com 
 fortable, well entertained by each other! Why on 
 earth should we hang our hopes and fears upon man's 
 frowns and smiles, as most women do ? A woman 
 who has the world's applause, the world's indorse 
 ment, will she not often throw it all at the feet of 
 some good-looking animal, and be wretched if he 
 does not approve of her, and then crawl up like a 
 spaniel to receive a pat of his hand ? A girl like you 
 who has brains, beauty, wealth, position, power to 
 come and go, why should her life be blighted because 
 the man nature has chanced to place in charge of her, 
 unsolicited by her, refuses to smile on her unless she 
 is the abject echo of his opinions?" 
 
 "Why, indeed?" exclaimed Marion, kindling. 
 
 "And, all said, what is man as we know him in our 
 generation? I pass over the so-called man of the 
 world, except to ask you if a season passes, in your 
 society, when you don't see parents ready and willing 
 and anxious to give their young daughters in mar 
 riage to the heroes with whose i gallant' adventures 
 the newspapers have been filled for years ? Is there 
 ever a time when you don't hear this rich bride 
 groom's gifts of jewels, and horses, houses, publicly 
 extolled before other young girls as an incentive for 
 them to go and do likewise, if they can ? Let such
 
 A BACHELOE MAID 37 
 
 things go. I speak particularly of the man of our 
 homes, the average man we are called on to honor 
 and obey. Is n't he a petty creature when you see 
 him behind the scenes ? A captious, whimsical being, 
 unjust, and unwilling to admit himself in the wrong. 
 Are his purpose, achievement, fair play, to be all 
 devoted to outer affairs, and left down-town in his 
 office, to hang behind the door there till he puts them 
 on again next day ? Why must he be wheedled as 
 God knows all women have to wheedle in order to 
 purchase peace at home f This is the cry of thou 
 sands of quiet home-keeping women, if they only 
 dared voice it. This is one of the things we are 
 trying to help them to speak out and the time is 
 coming when speak they surely will." 
 
 " Do you believe that all marriages end in this, if 
 they end in nothing worse?" said Marion, with a 
 shade of regret in her honest voice. 
 
 " My dear, if Asmodeus could lift the roofs of all 
 the houses of all your acquaintances to-night, to jot 
 down statistics of woman's dissatisfaction in his note 
 book, I 'm afraid there would be few from which he 
 would go away carrying a blank page.' 1 
 
 She struck into a bit of Chopin that might have 
 been composed by Asmodeus on his return from such 
 a statistical round as she described. Marion shivered, 
 as if with cold, and Sara, jumping up, shut the lid of 
 the pianoforte, abruptly. 
 
 " Come over to the fire," she said. " Do you mind 
 my taking your tongs, and playing with your log? 
 For so long I have dreamed of a wood-fire with lib 
 erty to poke at it unchecked." 
 
 3*
 
 38 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 " But, Sara, you have not answered me. Do you 
 believe all marriage is a bar to the intellectual de 
 velopment of woman?" 
 
 "My dear, do you know what a Girton girl re 
 marked not long ago ? ' All might yet be well with 
 us, if we could only have three generations of single 
 women. " 
 
 " I am not prepared to say that. I have too much 
 tenderness for the memory of my mother." Marion 
 looked over wistfully at an oil-painting of a pale, 
 slender lady in a robe of velvet and sable fur, hang 
 ing upon the wall. " That was done by Cabanel from 
 an old photograph some years ago, and my father 
 thinks it very like her. She was an invalid, in charge 
 of nurses, for years before she died; and I was not 
 allowed to be much with her. But I remember cer 
 tain expressions of her face when I came into the 
 room yearning expressions, as I now interpret 
 them. She seemed to be wanting to save me from 
 something that had overtaken her. The son she lost 
 just before her own death was her joy and comfort. 
 She had no fears of any kind for him." 
 
 "Do you not see?" exclaimed Sara. " She wanted 
 you to be spared the inevitable disappointments of 
 marriage and maternity. So long hovering on the 
 threshold of another world, may not she have had 
 power to see what was in store for a girl of your 
 strength of character? She, I take it, was of a yield 
 ing character." 
 
 "Entirely so, I think. The gentlest, timidest, of 
 women. I remember that when, just before she died, 
 she called me to her, and said she had arranged, by
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 39 
 
 will, that I should have an independent income upon 
 reaching the age of twenty -five, she uttered the word 
 'independent' in a whisper, looking about her to see 
 that no one was in the room. And then she added: 
 ' It is not that I do not feel your dear father will do 
 all that is just and best for you, my child. His judg 
 ment is so much better than mine that you lose little 
 in losing me. But perhaps you will marry, and there 
 are moments when every woman likes to feel she has 
 it in her power to supply her own needs to give as 
 she likes. Since I have been married, your father 
 has been good enough to lift every care of my prop 
 erty from me. With my health, indeed, what could 
 he do, else ? I have had only to sign the papers. But 
 you may not get such a husband as I have had, my 
 dear.' A nurse came in just then, and ordered me 
 away. I was a wide-eyed, serious child of twelve, and 
 my mother's words sank deep. Two days later, I saw 
 her again in her coffin. After she was carried out 
 in it, my life went on with my new governess almost 
 as before. I scarcely missed my mother; but this 
 was not my fault." 
 
 " No, poor darling ! " said Sara. " But I trust the 
 governess was able in some degree to supply her 
 place!" 
 
 " Miss Ainslie was an Englishwoman of the most 
 conventional pattern. She had brought up a Lady 
 Maud and a Lady Sylvia, so that my father congratu 
 lated himself upon having secured her on her first 
 arrival to seek a far higher salary in New York than 
 her noble employers had given her in England. But 
 not knowing our customs in America, not allowing
 
 40 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 for the impulse of revolt against authority in our air, 
 she made my life, as I made hers, no doubt, a 
 wretched one for six long years. A devotee to duty, 
 she never left me. I knew every one of her maxims 
 by heart. A-h-h ! Do you wonder I rejoiced in going 
 to our college, where I expanded like a cellar-bred 
 plant in the sunshine?" 
 
 "And what became of Miss Ainslie?" 
 "Her father's death recalled her to England. I 
 have often wondered how she has adapted herself 
 to the new order of things over there the new edu 
 cation for women, the university training, that was 
 to her like a red rag to a bull when I mentioned it, 
 here. She must be a much astonished woman." 
 
 "I am surprised your father consented to let you 
 come to us at Somerville." 
 
 " You could not have been more surprised than I 
 was. I was eighteen, just ready to go into society, 
 when Miss Ainslie quitted us. My father waked up 
 to confront that fact with genuine dismay. When lie 
 was asked by my Uncle Joseph's wife if he meant to 
 give me a coming-out ball, or a reception, I wish you 
 could have seen his face. Then I took my courage in 
 both hands, and pleaded to be sent to Somerville. I 
 have always felt I owed the permission he granted to 
 my Aunt Joseph's offering to come over with her 
 girls, and arrange the details, and chaperon the affair 
 of my debut." 
 
 " Your father, then, has an aversion to society ? " 
 "Not at all. He is one of the men most sought 
 after for dinners, where, I am told, he is the life of 
 the table. Sometimes, when we dine out together,
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 41 
 
 I peep across at him between the lights and flowers, 
 and wonder if he can be the same man I see, but 
 don't dare interrupt by speaking to, behind his 
 morning or evening newspaper. I am proud of his 
 looks, of his wit, of his youth, for he is younger than 
 most of his confreres barely fifty now. Then I hope 
 some other hostess will take pity on me, and invite 
 me with him, so that I too can be charmed by him." 
 
 " I understand," said Sara, sympathetically. 
 
 " Oftentimes the older women of society say to me, 
 ' WJiat a lucky girl you are, to have that delightful 
 creature to yourself ! ' I fancy what he would say if I 
 told him he is called ' a delightful creature.' " 
 
 "And where, in this life you have been leading 
 since you left Somerville, did the man come in to 
 whom, you have just ceased to be engaged?" 
 
 " Alec ? I have known him always. Better since, 
 after his graduation at the law-school, and a year of 
 study in Germany, he became one of the ' juniors ' in 
 my father's law firm. For my father is in his first 
 term, as you know, and has not been long upon the 
 bench." 
 
 " I think I rather like your Mr. Alec Gordon," said 
 Sara. 
 
 " I 'm sure / do. He is far and away the best 
 friend I ever had. He understands me as well as a 
 man can understand a woman. Not as you do, dear ; 
 that could not be. Intuition like yours is not born 
 into man." 
 
 " It must have cost you something to give him up," 
 said Sara, narrowing her diamond eyes after a little 
 nearsighted fashion not unattractive.
 
 42 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 " Yes. I wounded him. I disappointed him. For 
 a time he will feel very sore. But, feeling as I do, I 
 am not fit to marry. I can't tell at what moment I 
 should say or do something that would turn him 
 away from me completely. I had rather keep his 
 friendship than ultimately lose his respect." 
 
 " It is too late to-night to discuss that most inter 
 esting question. I shall have to study you all before 
 I can say whether I indorse your action thoroughly. 
 But, after all, you should, at your age, be your own 
 mistress." 
 
 "Yes; and on Saturday I come into uncontrolled 
 possession of an income, not large according to values 
 in New York, but a boon to me three thousand dol 
 lars a year, left me, as I told you, by my mother." 
 
 " Three thousand dollars a year!" cried Sara Stauf- 
 fer, sitting upright. "Not large? Oh! \vhat could 
 not I do with three thousand a year, safe, secure, 
 coming in regularly? No struggle to pay rent, to 
 pay board, to journey from place to place, to strain 
 after new, whole clothes. Why, you who are cradled 
 in eider-down have no conception what other women 
 live on what the world you are so anxious to go 
 out and confront is to us who are at its mercy. Try 
 to fancy yourself always, for instance, in one of those 
 crowds going off a ferry-boat or pushing into the car 
 of an elevated train. That 's my world of every day ! " 
 
 " It shall never be said, when I have the means, 
 that I forget others less fortunate," answered Marion, 
 simply. 
 
 " I am not afraid of you. Forgive my vehemence," 
 said Sara, relapsing into her old pose. And so they
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 43 
 
 talked, till the fire on the andirons sank into the sing 
 ing stage, and Madame Stauffer, gracefully covering 
 a tiny yawn, announced that she would like to go 
 to bed. 
 
 As they mounted the stairs, the butler, who had 
 just finished adjusting his master's little arrange 
 ments for a comfortable closing of the evening, came 
 out of the library. 
 
 " What a lovely room ! " exclaimed Sara. " Might 
 I take one little peep ? " 
 
 " I rarely go in," said Marion, while nervously pre 
 ceding her friend across the threshold. 
 
 ''Poor Fatima!" laughed Madame Stauffer. "I 
 believe if, after finding her predecessors hanging in a 
 gory row,' she had had courage to face Bluebeard, and 
 threaten to report him to the police, there would have 
 been no need of the brothers riding up to deliver her. 
 In our version, if there are any deliverers, they shall 
 be sisters. Ah, what treasures of bindings! Now I 
 happen to know something about good bindings." 
 
 " What do you not know ?" asked Marion, one ear 
 alert for her father's latch-key in the door below. 
 
 u I see we had better not stay. What if, some day, 
 he asks us to come in here and visit him ? " 
 
 " He will never do that, Sara." 
 
 Sara was not so sure. Still, it was very well for 
 Miss Ainslie's pupil to preserve her illusions on this 
 as on many other subjects. 
 
 At this moment they both heard the click of the 
 latch-key in the lock of the front door. 
 
 " Shall we go up ? " asked Marion, catching her 
 breath a little.
 
 44 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 "Just as you like," her guest answered carelessly. 
 As the two moved along the corridor, Judge Irving 
 mounted the stairs. It seemed impossible that he 
 should not have been aware of their presence, but he 
 gave no sign opening the library door, and retiring 
 within, with the magisterial dignity of his usual 
 movements. 
 
 "You do resemble him strongly," remarked Ma 
 dame Stauffer, who, through those narrow, deep- 
 fringed eyes of hers, managed to take in much of 
 the fleeting show of life.
 
 Ill 
 
 T was the witching hour of dinner at 
 the Antediluvian Club. The tables 
 in the dining-room were, for the 
 most part, occupied. Men dining 
 alone, in eclipse behind one or an 
 other of the favorite evening papers, 
 eating or drinking intermittently the while, accounted 
 for the disappearance from the reading-room of all 
 the most desirable journals. Parties of two or three 
 men comfortable-looking bankers, brokers, lawyers, 
 doctors, with snowy shirt-fronts and complexions of 
 mantling red laughed and jested together, making 
 the most of their hours of good cheer, free from pro 
 fessional or financial cares. Here and there, sitting 
 alone, might have been seen a man to whom neither 
 the current tidings of the outer world nor the society 
 of his fellows offered a surcease of the pressure of 
 affairs. Upon his brow lingered the never-relaxing 
 lines of worry. By and by his place will be found 
 vacant, and the other men will read paragraphs an 
 nouncing his death from apoplexy or heart-failure, or 
 if the struggle has been particularly long and 
 fierce, and the disappointment crushing by suicide. 
 Among these groups no trace was seen of the 
 
 45
 
 46 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 familiar figure of " Johnny" Waters. Since time 
 out of mind, this veteran had been a feature of the 
 Antediluvian at its prandial function. He was a 
 spare old bachelor, living, no one knew where or how 
 "over Chelsea way," some quidmmc, bolder than 
 the rest, had ventured to assert. 
 
 Neither did any one know when Waters had pos 
 sessed a new suit of clothes. He was, however, clean, 
 if rusty, and his pocket, like the widow's cruse, was 
 at no time entirely empty ; it contained a few pieces 
 of gold, which he had the habit of playing with, but 
 never changed. 
 
 His diversions were an occasional game of billiards, 
 pool, or cards, in which his adversaries were dis 
 creetly selected from among the feebler folk, who 
 might be depended upon to pay the club-tax for the 
 game, charged always to the player who loses. 
 
 An authority in gastronomy, the cooks and ser 
 vants treated him with respect, the club frequenters 
 bowed down to his dicta : and there was hardly a day 
 when he did not dine well with and at the expense of 
 somebody whose dinner he had ordered by special 
 request. On occasions when an opportunity for this 
 thrifty exchange of benefits did not present itself, 
 Mr. Waters, after long waiting for an invitation, 
 usually denied himself a dinner. Arriving at the 
 club regularly at about five in the afternoon, it was 
 his custom to order toast and a cup of tea probably 
 his first meal, so whispered the gossips, since the 
 liberal repast overnight, superintended by him, and 
 paid for by " the other fellow." As the dinner-hour 
 drew near, and men, dropping in, went to the desk to
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 47 
 
 inscribe their orders, he would be espied wandering 
 about with a blameless expression of innocence upon 
 his withered old face. What, then, more natural than 
 that some would-be diner, assured of getting thereby 
 the best the club contained, should ask "Johnny" if 
 he were disengaged for dinner? 
 
 To-night, upon his absence the jokers chose to 
 hang the time-honored story that he was either walk 
 ing in the square below, engaged in buckling up his 
 belt, or else eating macaroni in a cheap Italian res 
 taurant. But the morrow would see him at his post, 
 renewed in hope. 
 
 It was at the period of the repast when most men's 
 orders had been served, that Mr. Robert Crouch the 
 opponent at billiards of Mr. Justice Irving was wont 
 to appear upon the scene. 
 
 Short, thick-set, breathing stertorously, with his 
 waistcoat well exposed to view, his protruding eyes 
 taking in the tables as he passed, Crouch had the 
 offensive habit of slowly sauntering the length of the 
 dining-room, scrutinizing every table, and gaging the 
 social value of every man according to the dinner 
 spread before him. 
 
 " Don't talk to me about him, sir," he had once ob 
 served regarding a local dignitary. "He 's a pre 
 tender a mere pretender. Why, when I met him 
 just after he had ordered his dinner yesterday, and 
 casually asked him what he was going to have, he 
 said, ' Well, for one thing, woodcock.' And blame 
 me, sir, if, when I passed up the room, I did n't see 
 him in the corner pegging away at a blanked old 
 prairie-chicken ! "
 
 48 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 Mr. Crouch, like Mr. Waters, did not object to being 
 bidden to sit at the table of his friends. With all his 
 bluster at the Waiters, and all his braggadocio about 
 living on the fat of the land, he was, when dining 
 alone, generally observed to be attacking a slice from 
 a joint, and a couple of baked potatoes. 
 
 To-night, having accomplished his customary es 
 pionage, and driven several quiet citizens to the length 
 of a wish to strangle him for his impertinence, Mr. 
 Crouch stopped before a table laid for two in the 
 upper end of the room. 
 
 " Who 's due here, Clarkson ? " he asked of that 
 gentleman, just come in to take his own bit of fish 
 and some chops at the adjoining table. 
 
 u Don't know, I 'm sure," answered Clarkson. " I 'm 
 late myself ; just stopped a minute to enter a line in 
 the complaint-book about the disgusting way these 
 waiters breathe into one's back hair. If a man hap 
 pens to be bald, as I am, it makes him sneeze, by 
 Jove ! " 
 
 " What was the complaint yesterday ? " said Crouch 
 facetiously. 
 
 " Oh, I don't remember. Probably that the floor of 
 that wretched library shakes so confoundedly I can't 
 digest when I go in to read after dinner." 
 
 "Who is this table reserved for?" asked Crouch, 
 beckoning the head waiter, who was not imposed upon 
 by his large, authoritative manner. 
 
 "Mr. Gordon, sir," said the functionary, turning 
 away at once. 
 
 "Alec Gordon ? Who 's he going to dine, I wonder ? 
 Quite a spread, to judge from the forks and glasses !
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 49 
 
 Have you heard they are putting Gordon forward for 
 United States Attorney, Clarkson ! " 
 
 " Fact ? " said Clarksou, with animation. 
 
 " Yes. They are working it up among them ; and 
 by Jove ! sir, with the luck that chap has, I should n't 
 in the least wonder if he gets it." 
 
 "I 'm for him, and here 's to his success," said 
 Clarksou, draining his glass of claret. "But even 
 Gordon's luck goes under, sometimes. His engage 
 ment with Marion Irving is off, by mutual agree 
 ment. I have n't the pleasure of knowing the young 
 lady personally, but she 's a splendid creature to 
 look at, a'nd I condole with him over the loss of her." 
 
 " She 's.no loss to a man in his senses," said Crouch, 
 with a sardonic laugh. " Why, she 's daft, or nearly 
 so, over ' women's rights ' ! " 
 
 " What extraordinary capers these females are up 
 to, nowadays!" replied the cheerful Clarkson. "If 
 you believe me, I got a notice from a committee of 
 them, requesting me and 'all the adult members' of 
 my ' household ' to call somewhere to sign a petition 
 to strike out of our State constitution the word male 
 as a qualification for voters. Now, I have n't any 
 household ; but if I had, why should n't they ask my 
 babies as well as my adults, if the thing is to put 
 everybody on the same footing 1 ? Last year it was 
 street-cleaning. All the pretty women went at you 
 at dinners, and asked if you had influence with vari 
 ous 'bosses' whom they 'longed' to know. Well, 
 they accomplished then what they set out to do, 
 those charming creatures, I must confess; but why 
 can't they rest on those laurels ? The year before it
 
 50 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 was the abolition of ash-barrels. You could u't open 
 your mouth to a girl at a party without having an 
 ash-barrel thrust into it ! They 've had their dab at 
 city politics; and as to the Higher Education of 
 Women, the University Settlement, and the Kinder 
 garten Association, those we have alway with us 
 and we are allowed to buy tickets, or send checks for 
 boxes for their entertainments, to an almost unlim 
 ited extent ! " 
 
 "And Marion Irving is in the front rank of all 
 this," put in Crouch, who did not relish having to 
 listen to so long a disquisition. "What 's more, 
 she 's got the Woman Question for a bee-in-her-bon- 
 net, which lots of the others have n't. If I were Irv 
 ing, I 'd lock that girl up, or send her traveling with 
 a keeper; and, if he does n't do something of that kind, 
 she 11 end by coming to no good." 
 
 " Hush ! " said Clarkson, warningly ; but it was 
 too late. Gordon, accompanied by a blond-bearded, 
 smiling young man who had something foreign in 
 his aspect, was close upon them, and must have 
 heard every word of the close of Crouch's speech. 
 
 A surge of anger came over Gordon's face. Wheel 
 ing quickly, he spoke in the offender's ear a few evi 
 dently stinging words, whereat Crouch, uncomfor 
 tably red, turned away, relieved by the coincident 
 summons of a waiter to his modest meal served in a 
 sequestered corner of the room. 
 
 " Ha ! Clarkson," resumed Gordon, quietly, " I hope 
 that cad has n't taken away your appetite. Come, 
 after dinner, and let me make you known to my 
 friend Baron Stremof, a Russian, just arrived."
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 51 
 
 " Charmed, my dear fellow, but what the deuce am 
 I to speak in ? " whispered Clarkson. 
 
 " English, of which he 's a master/' returned Gor 
 don, going on to place his friend at table, and to 
 introduce him to a plate of tiny oysters a visible 
 disappointment, as to size, for the new-comer. 
 
 "You had not pardon me a very agreeable mo 
 ment in getting rid of the man who offended you," 
 said Stremof, lightly. " But it was, at any rate, ef 
 fectual. And these are the famed oysters Blue 
 Points, you call them. The flavor makes amends for 
 their limited caliber." 
 
 " We reject the large ones, purposely, when served 
 in this way. For once, you will find America not 
 anxious to illustrate her excellence by size." 
 
 " Oh, you will not find me agreeing with any slur 
 put upon America," said Stremof, with delightful 
 animation. "It has been the ambition of my life to 
 visit your country. And your Exposition at Chicago 
 has made of last summer an ineffaceable dream of 
 beauty to me. At even this distance of time the 
 White City appears to me amid a luminous haze con 
 cealing all the petty vulgarity that must, of neces 
 sity, attend upon such a spectacle. I am more than 
 ever lost in wonder at the fresh vigor of its concep 
 tion, and the enormous abilities displayed in carry 
 ing it out. But I believe, already, you astonishing 
 Americans are checking each other for allusion to 
 the crowning glory of your age. A young woman 
 of Chicago told me I must no longer speak of the 
 Columbian Fair that it is, by now, 'a chestnut.' 
 Fancy ! how delicious ! I wrote home this little
 
 52 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 anecdote, and with it I am confident of amusing my 
 friends in Petersburg. "Would she consider St. 
 Peter's of Rome, or St. Mark's of Venice, ' a chest 
 nut,' may I ask ? " 
 
 There was no venom in the lively strictures of 
 Stremof, whose buoyant enjoyment of the world and 
 of himself made him pleasant company. Everything 
 interested him; nothing escaped him. 
 
 " If it has accomplished nothing else, the Fair has 
 made us better known and understood by our friends 
 from across the water," Gordon said. " And I think 
 it has led them to understand, at last, that creation 
 in art is possible to us." 
 
 " My dear friend," exclaimed the Russian, knocking 
 over a glass of Sauterne in his enthusiasm/' who could 
 fail to appreciate the fact that those splendid palaces 
 of white ' staff ' built for a day, and already vanished 
 into the fairy -land of dreams from which they came 
 typified the new birth of art from the virgin soil of 
 America? What struck me most, after that, was the 
 serious way in which the crowds, assembled to do it 
 homage, received their impressions of your Fair. I 
 thought those people from remote towns and villages, 
 who had journeyed such immense distances, were es 
 pecially interesting to watch. They seemed dazzled, 
 oppressed, shy but, through it all, proud and in 
 spired. Henceforth, I thought, whatever they may 
 read in their papers about the Old World, they will 
 understand and enjoy. Some day they will bring their 
 modernism to visit our antiquity and, when they 
 see our treasures, will not be ashamed because they 
 have had nothing of that sort of their own. But here,
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 53 
 
 as usual, I let my feelings run away with me. I 
 radote, instead of doing justice to your menu." 
 
 " You say you have always had a wish to know us 
 better," rejoined his host. " I can only regret you 
 have put it off so long. Carroll's letter tells me you 
 are amusing yourself by contributing studies, social 
 and economical, of American affairs to some of your 
 Russian journals. I wish I could enjoy them." 
 
 " I am indeed well protected by my language. But 
 I am not afraid for any of my American friends to 
 read them. They tell me, if anything, my letters are 
 too uniformly couleur de rose. Yes, for some years 
 before I came I had been gathering facts about you. 
 Carroll, who is a charming fellow, and much liked in 
 Petersburg, put me up to the books I must read to 
 understand your social side. I wish you could have 
 seen the bewilderment of an old countess with whom 
 I go to take tea who is by way of being an amateur 
 in your literature after I left with her a volume of 
 American stories in dialect. ' But, my dear boy/ she 
 said to me, ' as well expect my old teeth to crack 
 nuts ! " 
 
 "And now," said Gordon, smiling, " I suppose you 
 wish to find the originals of the types you have met 
 in our novels." 
 
 " You have hit the mark ! Here is my complaint 
 I have not met one of them. Where are they ? In the 
 ateliers of the writers, behind screens, supporting a 
 mass of different costumes to be put on when the lay 
 figure is required ? Everybody I meet is conventional. 
 I could do as well in London, Paris, Vienna, Rome, or 
 by staying at home in Petersburg, Your clubs are
 
 54 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 superb, but the men in them are like those I see in 
 such places abroad j your houses are little palaces, 
 crowded with works of art. Your women, perpetually 
 on the wing, sip sweets from the fashions and customs 
 of every country to bring home. Even in the far cit 
 ies of the West I found furniture and costumes and 
 modes of living like these here, and all under the eter 
 nal glare of electricity. Imagine a continent full of 
 New Yorks ! Your men, more original in thought and 
 expression than your women, are fast becoming super- 
 civilized. I am in despair. If I could only meet on 
 the street a lady Bloomer, c'est $a, west-ce pas ? in 
 her trousers and pot-hat, I should be happier. But it 
 seems to me that, even in London, the women are more 
 fearless in action, in expression of opinion, than your 
 women. I wish I could know an American unmarried 
 woman of the sort I have dreamed of. I should not 
 write about her in my notes for publication, ~blcn 
 entendu, but I should enshrine her in my heart." 
 
 " It would take me some time to explain to you the 
 transition stage of society which is responsible for 
 what you charge/' said Gordon. 
 
 Stremof was silenced by his first introduction to 
 terrapin. But not for long. 
 
 " This is wonderful ! " he exclaimed. " I now con 
 fess to you, my friend, that it was with a species of 
 resigned terror I tasted your national delicacy a mo 
 ment since. Last year Carroll, who wished to make 
 some acknowledgment of my father's friendship for 
 him, ordered to be sent to our house, express from 
 America, some terrapin in tins. I have since learned 
 they had cooked and sealed it at the last moment
 
 A BACHELOE MAID 55 
 
 before the fast steamer sailed, and had expedited it 
 direct to Russia in the care of a friend, scarcely 
 daring to hope it could arrive in good condition for 
 immediate use. But my father, not understanding 
 this, had his wait re d'hotel put the dainty away until 
 the belated occasion of a dinner of ceremony to which 
 Carroll was invited. The American dish came on ; 
 alas ! it was left upon every plate ! Poor dear Carroll, 
 who did not in the least recognize it, had covered his 
 portion with a piece of bread when he heard my 
 
 father announcing to Count X upon his right 
 
 that this was the famous terrapin of North America ! 
 My dear friend, let me thank you," he added radiantly, 
 extending his hand, which the amused Gordon shook. 
 " You have not only saved Carroll's reputation, but 
 you have given me new bliss ! " 
 
 Over their coffee, Clarkson joined them, and their 
 merry talk was prolonged till Gordon hurried Stremof 
 off to hear Calve in " Carmen," and to make acquain 
 tances in the boxes of a number of his friends. It so 
 happened that, for this night, a woman inclined to be 
 gracious to Marion Irving had sent a note inclosing 
 three tickets, and urging Marion to join her in her 
 box, bringing "any friends" she might select. 
 
 Marion, who had no taste for the conversational 
 patter that accompanies the opera of to-day, had been 
 about to decline the offer when she saw in the eyes 
 of Sara Stauffer an expression interpreted as a crav 
 ing for the music so little within her possibilities. 
 
 "I could take tickets in the parquet, or in a gal 
 lery where it will be possible to listen in peace," said 
 Marion ; but a girl, happening in at the moment, as-
 
 56 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 sured her of the impossibility of buying a seat for 
 Calve in " Carmen " at that late hour. 
 
 " It is just possible Mrs. Romaine won't be in her 
 own box," she meditated ; " if the fancy took her to 
 go to see Sandow the strong man, or the trained ani 
 mals, she would follow it, and leave the box empty. 
 Yes, Sara, we will go." 
 
 Madame Stauffer, who had been waiting with a 
 strange palpitation of anxiety at the heart, looked 
 frankly delighted, and cried out with pleasure. 
 
 " I am hungering for opera," she went on. " But 
 oh, Marion, you know my wardrobe ! What have I fit 
 to wear I There is a poor little white silk made long 
 ago for a concert of the graduating class at Somer- 
 ville. Perhaps, if I bought a lot of that soft white 
 chiffon, and put it on in full ruffles around the 
 neck " 
 
 " I think so," said Marion, absently ; then, remem 
 bering herself, " Dear Sara, how vexatious it is that a 
 woman like you should be in the shackles of conven 
 tionality in dress. "Why can't we soar out of these 
 petty considerations I You are charming in the little 
 black frock, with the black lace, and a red rose in 
 your bodice." 
 
 " To accomplish what we seek, we should never let 
 ourselves be remarked for singularity." said the teacher. 
 "Therefore, darling, as we are driving out, if you 
 will take me to some cheapish place to buy the 
 chiffon " 
 
 Marion, obedient to a certain point, directed her 
 coachman to stop at the emporium where her own 
 purchases of that sort were made. A fichu of fine
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 57 
 
 white gauze, floating at a breath into a feathery mass, 
 was found already made by skilled fingers, and was 
 supplemented by new gloves of Sara's number, and 
 the offer of a gift of Marion's best fan. 
 
 "How I rejoice in ordering these things to be 
 charged to my own account," meditated the girl. "'No 
 more requests to step into the library to explain the 
 items upon forgotten bills. But it surprises me that 
 Sara should seem so glad to get them. I suppose it is 
 only a refinement of the feeling she touched upon 
 her objection to illustrate Women's Rights by peculi 
 arity of costume." 
 
 THEY were in the Romaines's box at the opera, 
 alone, when Gordon came in to introduce Stremof. 
 As Marion had predicted, the notional owner of the 
 premises had elected to remain at home, or to go 
 elsewhere. 
 
 Gordon, who, designedly, had not seen Marion since 
 their rupture, having gone off on business of his firm 
 for a " little American journey " to Salt Lake City, and 
 having but just returned, observed her with surprise 
 in the company of this peculiar but attractive-look 
 ing " woman in white," whom he could not remember 
 having seen with her before. 
 
 For a moment he had hesitated in the lobby at the 
 door of the box. Then, telling Stremof he was about 
 to present him to a lady, young and unmarried, per 
 haps the best exponent among his acquaintances of 
 the "unfettered American spirit" which Stremof as 
 pired to meet, he opened the door into the anteroom. 
 
 Here, in the surrounding of crimson satin, decorated
 
 58 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 with mirrors in Florentine gilt frames, for Mrs. Ro- 
 maine knew well how to set off her fading looks, 
 they found the two women, who had retired, during 
 an entr'acte, from the glitter of the auditorium. 
 
 They were a pleasing contrast, nestling toward each 
 other, as women sit, upon the crimson cushions of a 
 little couch. Sara, dark, lithe, sparkling, all in white ; 
 Marion in satin, as usual, the color of her hair, with 
 sleeves and scarf of a topaz yellow. Unconsciously, 
 she had placed herself against her long coat of amber 
 satin, with its many capes bordered with otter fur. 
 
 Stremof, the impressionist, seeing this artistic " com 
 position," that might have been hung with effect on 
 the line in the Salon of the Champ de Mars, was pos 
 sessed with wonder that the two should be alone, 
 when all the other women he had visited were sub 
 dividing their chitchat and attention between numer 
 ous male callers. He could hardly be expected to 
 divine that it was the possession of the very indepen 
 dence of thought which he affected to be in search of 
 that isolated the beautiful and distinguished Marion 
 Irving from the class she belonged to. 
 
 When Gordon entered the box, Marion blushed, and 
 then, feeling that the Higher Woman would not have 
 done so, blushed again at having blushed. Sara, per 
 ceiving as much, understood, before his name was 
 mentioned, who this great manly fellow was. Imme 
 diately falling into conversation with Gordon, she rose, 
 and returned to the front of the box with him, followed 
 by Marion and Stremof. 
 
 Sara's boast was not exactly like that of Wilkes, the 
 most ill-favored Englishman of his day, who said that,
 
 "THEY WERE A PLEASING CONTRAST."
 
 A BACHELOE MAID 61 
 
 with a half -hour's start, he would not be afraid of the 
 handsomest man in the kingdom ; but she knew how 
 to value this opportunity to make a first impression 
 upon her friend's friend. 
 
 Although he and Marion were no longer lovers, she 
 had early realized the importance of Gordon's opinion 
 to Marion, and to a more formidable power in the 
 Irving household. She recognized that this strong, 
 straightforward, clean-minded gentleman was not to 
 be dealt with by any of the commonplace methods 
 known to women who set themselves to attract men. 
 She felt that he would not be easy to deceive. Her 
 supple spirit, confronting his, yielded to it for a mo 
 ment, leaving her almost at a loss. Then, rallying, 
 she determined to compel him, before she was done 
 with him, to admire her talents, enjoy her society, 
 respect her. Ah ! poor Sara ! 
 
 After Gordon had talked with Madame Stauffer 
 during a longer time than is generally allowed in a 
 visit of the sort, he changed places with Stremof. 
 The latter, finding Marion attractive, had yet been 
 baffled by her odd reserve. He was rather relieved 
 to plunge into a merry war of wits with her com 
 panion. With the foreigner, versed in such arts, 
 Sara could let her rare facility in conversation have 
 full swing. She flew lightly ahead of him, putting 
 Stremof on his metal to keep up with her, and yet al 
 lowed him to perceive that he entertained her thor 
 oughly. Like most strangers visiting America, he 
 could not see the reason that, had he been an ordinary 
 frequenter of New York society, would have made 
 him give a cold shoulder to the little unknown woman
 
 62 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 who had no backing except Miss Irvingfs caprice in 
 friendship. And there was one subject upon which 
 they did not spar : Stremof, himself a brilliant musi 
 cian, saw that in Sara he had met his match. 
 
 Thus, while their friends were in the stream of ani 
 mated talk, Gordon and Marion profited by the first 
 occasion for communication with each other since the 
 breaking of their engagement. By the time he sat 
 down by her she had regained her self-possession, and 
 her glance, turned upon him, was full, free, and cordial. 
 
 " You have not told me how you like my friend ? " 
 she said, dropping her voice, after a few generalities 
 and a description of his journey. 
 
 " I have been patching together my recollections of 
 what you have said about your acquaintances at Som- 
 erville, to try to place that rather dazzling person." 
 
 "In those days she was Sara Mills, a lecturer to 
 our freshmen on English literature. After leaving 
 Somerville she married a German professor, a Dr. 
 Stauffer, as clever, apparently, as she; but the mar 
 riage was not happy, and he died very soon. I can't 
 say that Sara, as I see her now, in the least suggests 
 the little Miss Mills I first met. She is the most pro 
 tean of creatures, and fascinates every one." 
 
 " How did you come to find her again I " 
 
 " I saw in a woman's journal I subscribe for that 
 she had been obliged to stop work from ill-health, and 
 was in Washington ; so I wrote to her," here Marion 
 colored a little at the recollection of the subject of that 
 first letter, " remembering her as the most sympa 
 thetic person I ever knew." 
 
 "It was a kind impulse to want to give her this
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 63 
 
 glimpse of brightness in her life. I can't imagine a 
 more wretched breakdown than one from teaching." 
 
 " Oh, but I don't deserve credit for pure unselfish 
 ness/' said Marion, always sensitively truthful. " I 
 wanted her for myself. I wanted guidance in certain 
 paths. I have not explained to you that for some 
 time past she has been a public lecturer on the Wo 
 man Question, and has appeared on many platforms 
 about the country.'' 
 
 " Good gracious ! " said Gordon, with a jump. 
 
 " Oh, yes. And I am proud of her courage, and 
 pluck, and talent. I think, as I know her better 
 every day, I could follow anywhere she may lead. 
 And, after all, it is to you I owe the permission to 
 have her come. My father told me that you advised 
 it in the first place." 
 
 "I oh! yes, I did," said the unfortunate young 
 man, remembering his conversation with the judge. 
 
 " But you did not know I was going to capture 
 such a ram avis, did you ? It is a great pride to me 
 to show you such a champion of our Cause, one so 
 fine, so intelligent, so truly a woman in all that is 
 best." 
 
 " Our cause ? " he repeated in a blundering attempt 
 at an undertone that sounded like a groan. 
 
 " Don't speak so loud ; you will be heard in the 
 parquet," she said in smiling rebuke. "Yes, 'our 
 Cause'; for I am quite decided, now. I mean to 
 work for them with all my might and means when 
 Sara shall have decided in what way it will be best." 
 
 " Your father 1 " said Gordon, helplessly. 
 
 " That is, of course, our greatest obstacle ; though
 
 64 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 Sara has won him over, in a way most surprising to 
 me, to let her explain to him our aims and objects." 
 
 "Explain to Mm " began Gordon, again, and 
 stopped, feeling that he was not coming through 
 this very brilliantly. 
 
 " Really, Alec, I never knew you so dull in taking 
 an idea. Her logic, her reasoning faculties, would 
 command any man's respect. There, the curtain is 
 going up." 
 
 " May we stay a while longer ? " he said, hating 
 tremendously to leave 'her alone with his new foe. 
 
 " Certainly. We are deserted females, apparently. 
 But when I have Sara to talk with, I never miss any 
 one else." 
 
 Gordon, falling again into the chair behind hers, 
 queried no more. The act progressed. Calve had 
 come upon the scene ; and upon her the attention 
 of the great audience was focalized. 
 
 There was the patio of the little fonderia in which 
 Don Jose lounged upon the edge of the table, while 
 saucy Carmen, a rose dropping from her dark hair, 
 her glances as full of fire as were her motions of sin 
 uous grace, swaggered before her lover's eyes, or 
 danced and sang for him in a voice as rich as wine. 
 
 But of this Gordon saw nothing. Perhaps, under 
 the spell of that lovely voice, the captivating sensu- 
 ousness of Bizet's music, he was impelled to feel for 
 the girl, so near him that his breath stirred the loose 
 tendrils of hair upon her neck, a new awakening of 
 the tenderness of their old relation ; and then a vague 
 alarm for her, the instinctive idea that she needed his 
 protection, had greatly shaken his resolve to think of
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 65 
 
 her only as a sister. Already, in the short time since 
 she had thrown off his loving yoke, she seemed to 
 have not only receded far from him, but to be quieter, 
 more content, nay, happier, than while he had been 
 pouring out on her the best passion of his young 
 manhood. 
 
 When the toreador came on, and strutted his brief 
 space before the footlights, and sang his familiar, 
 ringing song, Gordon was glad of the burst of ap 
 plause that followed it. He started from his reverie, 
 uncertain whether he had uttered an actual sound ; 
 but as nobody seemed to notice him, he felt relieved, 
 assured that he had not. 
 
 " Oh, my love, my love," he was saying within him 
 self, " you did not kindle such a fire in my breast, 
 you did not feed it all these months when I believed 
 you mine, to have it go out suddenly at your bid 
 ding." 
 
 As Escamillo came back on his recall, the ante 
 chamber of the box was invaded by new arrivals ; and 
 at the close of the repeat, Mrs. Romaine and two 
 others came to the front. The greetings and ex 
 planations that ensued effectually broke up senti 
 ment ; and, pledging himself to take Stremof to call 
 at the Irvings's on the day but one following, Gordon 
 and his friend took leave. 
 
 In the lobby he encountered no less a person than 
 Mr. Justice Irving, hovering rather uncertainly, it 
 appeared to Gordon around the door of the Ro- 
 maines's box. 
 
 "I saw you looking after Marion, from the par 
 quet," the judge explained hastily. "You know I
 
 66 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 never will spoil an evening of good music by sitting 
 where people gabble, and Mrs. Romaine is notorious 
 in that respect. She 7 s just gone in, I see ; so that 
 Marion 's all right. There 's no call for me to show 
 in there, I suppose ? " 
 
 " None, if it bores you, I should think," said Gor 
 don, introducing Stremof. 
 
 " Then I 'd as well go back and get the rest of this 
 act in my seat below," said his Honor, after extending 
 a civil greeting to the stranger. 
 
 " May I see you on Sunday afternoon, alone 1 " said 
 Gordon. "I am promising myself the pleasure of 
 introducing Baron Stremof to your daughter on that 
 occasion ; and, if you are free, I will try for a talk with 
 you." 
 
 "Of course, of course," answered the judge. 
 
 Then he hastened off ; and Stremof had to repeat a 
 remark he made to Gordon before it was heard, so in 
 tent was the young man in looking after the vanish 
 ing figure of his sometime father-in-law-elect. 
 
 "You are in a brown study," said Stremof, gaily. 
 " Let me thank you for the delightful opportunity you 
 have given me in that last visit. Now that we have 
 left them, I see that, with all her sparkle, the petite 
 Madame Stauffer is less remarkable than the young 
 lady in her charge. One could readily commit folly for 
 a Madame Stauffer, but any wise man would choose to 
 live for Mademoiselle Irving. Why does not one of 
 your American sculptors your great St. Gaudens, 
 for instance see in her the new Pallas of the coming 
 woman's era ? " 
 
 Gordon, indisposed to talk on this subject, proposed
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 67 
 
 another call. As they threaded the half-circle of the 
 lobby, various men, strolling outside, met them, and 
 Stremof was quick to notice the tone and temper of 
 the salutations bestowed on Gordon. 
 
 " You are like a hero returned," he said. " Every 
 one welcomes you, and looks up to you. Pray, how 
 long have you been out of town ? " 
 
 "A fortnight," Gordon answered, and then won 
 dered if that was indeed the length of time consumed 
 by his journey. So much had happened since his de 
 parture, he felt that it must have been longer.
 
 IV 
 
 RS. ROMAINE, who had never been 
 beautiful, and was no longer young, 
 brusquely cordial in manner to those 
 she fancied, abominably rude to the 
 people she chose to ignore, had a 
 certain attraction of individuality 
 that created for her a following of friends indepen 
 dent of her place and wealth. 
 
 Well-born, married to a prosperous and influential 
 ruler of nuance, she liked to take liberties with estab 
 lished things, which, when pushed too far, were usu 
 ally atoned for by some entertainment from which 
 society went away persuaded it could not have afforded 
 to stay away. 
 
 On fairly good terms, as such things go, with her 
 husband, she never failed to do herself the injustice of 
 referring to him in public as an enemy of her peace, 
 against whom her only protection was a series of 
 needle-pointed sayings, repeated successively as " Mrs. 
 Remain e's last." In actual fact, John Remain e a 
 man whose ambition it was to accumulate millions, to 
 be panoplied with the world's adulation, to have his 
 schemes and ventures discussed in the newspapers 
 with the admiration for success that tempers, if it
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 69 
 
 cannot subdue, the audacity of the American press 
 had come to care very little for what his wife did or 
 said. Prosperity had driven them asunder, and their 
 lives under the same roof were lived very much apart. 
 Liberal to indulgence, Romaine enjoyed the dashing 
 exhibition of his riches as dispensed by her hands. 
 At the pace they were going, he had no time to wish 
 her other than she was. He had no time either to 
 regret the loss of his children in infancy, to wonder 
 what he might have conferred upon posterity. The 
 present, the great powerful present, rushing over steel 
 rails with its iron wheels, in the glare of electric light, 
 was his, and he exulted in his ownership, nor asked 
 for more. 
 
 Mrs. Romaine, who, Marion thought, fancied the Ir- 
 vings principally because they were so indifferent to 
 her, now spoke to Marion in her usual sleepy, very- 
 much-bored voice. 
 
 " Glad you could come, I 'm sure. Is n't that the 
 judge I see down in the parquet that shocking 
 man who never fails to snub me? We would 
 have been here earlier, but on the way Reggy Poole 
 was possessed with the idea of stopping to hear 
 Lizzie Linwood sing, and we went in a box, just for 
 the lark, you know. But she bawled, and I soon got 
 tired. "Who is the woman you Ve got with you to 
 night ? " she ended, looking over at Sara, and hardly 
 troubling herself to subdue her voice. 
 
 Marion explained. 
 
 " That alters the case," exclaimed the hostess, with 
 animation. " She is talking to Reggy now, so in case 
 I forget to mention it again, bring her to lunch with
 
 70 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 me to-morrow. Her subject, after socialism, is of all 
 others the one that interests me now ; if she 's as clever 
 as you say, why should n't we have an afternoon lec 
 ture for women, and let her 'give it' to the men? 
 Poor creatures ! I have a pet idea to promulgate, and 
 perhaps I '11 start it, then. I want to open a kinder 
 garten for husbands, who are nothing but children, 
 morally, as we all know. We will set for them object 
 lessons in consistency, and teach them how not to get 
 out of responsibility crab-wise. You shall be a 
 teacher, your friend chief lecturer, and Loulie Kemp, 
 there, might have sense enough to distribute slates, 
 and amuse the very little husbands who won't want 
 to be taught. (Never mind ! She don't hear me.) 
 And what shall we do with Reggy Poole? I can't 
 leave him out, can I, when he 's always at my heels ? 
 Oh, he 's so much like us, we 'd put a frock on him, 
 and they 'd never know the difference. Now, say 
 you '11 come to-morrow, my dear. I 'm so afraid it 
 will go out of my head." 
 
 To the invitation thus extended Marion had very 
 little idea of paying serious heed. But when, next 
 day, after breakfast, which Sara and she had fallen 
 into the habit of having in her morning-room, the 
 matter was casually mentioned, she found her guest 
 of another opinion. 
 
 " That woman is helter-skelter, foolish, strained, 
 perhaps," Madame Stauffer said reflectively; "but 
 she is at present with us, and we must use any 
 weapon we can lay hands upon." 
 
 " Do you think so, dear ? " Marion asked protest- 
 ingly. " I had set aside to-day to send for some girls
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 71 
 
 I am sure you would be interested in, to come to 
 lunch with us." 
 
 " And who are they, dear child ? " asked Sara, sip 
 ping with satisfaction her cup of cafe au lait, her feet 
 toasting on the brass fender before a blazing wood- 
 fire. 
 
 " They are well-born working-girls. One of them 
 addresses envelopes and sends out cards for women of 
 society; the other makes lamp-shades, and reticules, 
 and cotillion favors. One has a drunken father who 
 oppresses her ; the other a young brother she is put 
 ting through college. Both have been successful, and 
 deserve to be. They are refined, intelligent, cheerful, 
 suggestive. I am never with them (they are friends, 
 and constantly together) without coming away re 
 freshed. Then there is a journalist, whose life is a 
 perfect romance I meant to ask her, too, on the 
 chance of getting her ; and a stenographer whom I 
 know you would enjoy. These are the recruits I 
 would choose for our army not faded, whimsical 
 women of fashion like Mrs. Romaine." 
 
 " But Mrs. Romaine has great wealth and power, 
 you tell me. We need means for everything, begin 
 ning with the endowment of more colleges." 
 
 " New York is hardly the place to seek for that," 
 said Marion, with kindling eyes. " Boston, New 
 Orleans, and other places were before us in offering 
 to women advantages in education approximating 
 those enjoyed by men ; and New York, the metrop 
 olis in point of population and wealth, has only now 
 begun to move in that direction. If Mrs. Romaine 
 and her set would take hold of that idea, and make
 
 72 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 it the fashion, it might be different. But they 
 won't ; they are not broad-minded enough, far-seeing 
 enough; they do not altogether fancy dandling a 
 cause which their men turn into ridicule. I 've seen 
 it tried with them; you have n't. Believe me, by 
 going to her you would only waste time, and sacri 
 fice our aims as a toy for her passing amusement." 
 
 " But I think, my darling," and Marion had a 
 dim sense that there was no use in trying to contro 
 vert one of Sara's " buts," " you must be content to 
 leave some things to my judgment, without question 
 ing it. I know that among us, in council, we have 
 often wished for opportunities such as this seems to 
 promise, to spread the doctrine; and I cannot, in 
 conscience, abandon it." 
 
 " I only felt that a few words from you would mean 
 so much to these earnest girls I spoke of," said 
 Marion, submissively. 
 
 " It is a satisfaction to me to work in more difficult 
 channels, once in a while," answered the reformer, 
 preparing for herself, with great daintiness of touch, 
 an orange. "For so long my efforts have been di 
 rected to showing the intelligent proletariat of the 
 country the enormous mental, moral, and material 
 gain that will come to them from woman's univer 
 sal right to the ballot, it is time I should handle the 
 class that is smothered in the eider-down of luxurious 
 indifference." 
 
 " Mrs. Romaine says she is a socialist," said Marion, 
 with a smile not repressed by the dignity of the sub 
 ject. 
 
 " Better and better ! " exclaimed Sara. "At last I
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 73 
 
 see the dawn of our opportunity. How I wish I could 
 engage Mr. Gordon to let me explain to him our lead 
 ing arguments, and hear some of his objections. Ah, 
 my dear Marion, there is a man worth breaking lances 
 with." 
 
 " I never broke any with him," answered Marion, 
 half quizzically. 
 
 "I suppose not. He was a lover, out and out, I 
 don't doubt ; as he is everything he sets out to be 
 I am sure." 
 
 It is too recent for me to talk about, even to you," 
 said Marion, confused. 
 
 " Very well, I shall respect your feeling. But one 
 thing, Marion," and Madame Stauffer leaned over, 
 and looked scrutinizingly into her friend's face, 
 " after meeting him last night, you are quite sure you 
 do not waver ? " 
 
 " I shall never be anything to him again, if that is 
 what you mean," said Marion. " Even if I were made 
 of the weak stuff to play fast and loose with a man's 
 love, he is not the one to put up with it. He is still 
 my friend my best friend. I should hate to pain 
 him by carrying out any scheme the Cause laid down 
 for me that he did not approve of. But I should do 
 it, nevertheless. I could never submit to the control 
 that, as a husband, I felt convinced he would exercise 
 over me. Every now and then, during our year's en 
 gagement, I used to come upon phases of his character 
 that revealed this to me. My father says one secret 
 of Alec's success in public life is his inborn power to 
 rule men. His fearlessness of speech startles, but 
 carries the judgment of others with it; his belief in
 
 74 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 himself is infectious; his integrity is absolute and 
 his will sweeps over obstacles like a tidal wave." 
 
 To this Sara made a response that caused Marion to 
 look at her in considerable surprise. 
 
 "A-a-h ! " said the little woman, throwing her head 
 back, half closing her eyes, and relaxing her slender 
 body in her easy-chair. " If one dared let oneself go, 
 what joy to be swept away by such a wave ! " Then, 
 sitting up erect, and dipping her fingers into her 
 finger-bowl, she flicked the water from them into the 
 air. " You look at me as though I were a mad wo 
 man, Marion. Perhaps I am, dear child; but, the 
 truth is, when one has gone through my experience 
 of battering around the world, there are moments of 
 temptation to shut the eyes, and let somebody else 
 fight one's battles moments that come like the 
 whispers of Apollyon to deter Christiana from fol 
 lowing the right road. That 's wretched femininity, 
 I suppose the weaker part we are all trying to live 
 down. No matter ! It 's gone as it came. Such an 
 indulgence makes me a traitor to my Cause. Give 
 me my casque and doublet, Marion, and help me to 
 buckle them in place." 
 
 Just then there was heard a tap on the door of the 
 morning-room a timid tap, a deprecating summons. 
 
 " Come in," said Marion. 
 
 The door opened, and upon its threshold appeared 
 the judge, in his top-coat, holding his hat in his 
 hand. 
 
 " Marion, my dear, good morning, Madame Stauf- 
 fer," he began, looking from his daughter to her 
 guest, as if he had casually become aware of the
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 75 
 
 existence of that lady "I thought I would mention 
 that I am engaged this evening at a meeting of our 
 dining-club, from which I cannot very well get off, 
 and it would probably be too late upon my return to 
 hope for Madame Stauffer's assistance with my new 
 catalogue of the French and Italian books in my col 
 lection. But if on Monday evening it would not 
 trouble Madame Stauffer to resume her important 
 cooperation " 
 
 " You are too kind, dear Judge Irving," said Sara, 
 " but Marion knows that is the day fixed for my re 
 turn to Washington." 
 
 The words were commonplace, but the sigh that 
 escaped with them was pregnant with pathetic mean 
 ing. 
 
 " Monday ? Impossible ! " said the judge, with a re 
 turn of his imperative manner. " That is," he went 
 on, as before, " I don't know, of course, the engage 
 ments made for your valuable time, but I cannot sup 
 pose Marion has allowed you to feel that your visit to 
 her has lasted long enough. As for me, I can only 
 say that as long as you are willing to confer your 
 er inestimable companionship upon my daugh 
 ter, I shall er consider myself your debtor." 
 
 "There, Sara!" said Marion, exultingly. "I told 
 you papa feels as I do. We won't hear of your 
 leaving us till after Christmas." 
 
 "What can I do but say yes, and thank you a 
 thousand times?" cried Sara, dropping her eyes be 
 fore those of the judge, while holding Marion's hand 
 in her own. " This dear child, Judge Irving, is my 
 sister of the heart ; and you have made me so happy
 
 76 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 in feeling that I can be of some little, little use to 
 you in your arduous brain labors." 
 
 The judge's ear was tickled by the phrase. He 
 loved to think of himself as a victim to over-exer 
 cise of the mental faculties. 
 
 "It is er an immense gain to my work to have 
 from you such intelligent apprehension of its scope," 
 he said, in rotund speech. 
 
 "And we are going on, also, with my attempt to 
 make you understand the real force and meaning 
 of the mission I am, however unworthily, trying to 
 sustain ? " 
 
 "Far be it from me," quoth the judge, "to wish to 
 raise a hand toward tearing down the veil of reticence 
 with which every shrinking woman should surround 
 her life before the public. But I concede what you 
 have said as to what they can accomplish in school 
 elections. More, I am hardly yet prepared to grant." 
 
 This concession, accorded with Jove-like dignity, 
 fell upon Marion's ears with startling effect. 
 
 " Ah ! but if you will only have patience with me," 
 said Sara, in her winning voice, " I shall not undertake 
 to alter your opinions ah, no! That would be far 
 too much to aim for, too high an achievement in my 
 life. But I will dare to hope you may end by think 
 ing that justice and honor might do worse things than 
 place in our hands the privilege of the ballot." 
 
 " We shall see ; we shall see," said his honor, with an 
 attempt at amiability having rather the effect of a 
 grunt. But, as he bade them good morning and went 
 off to court, Marion thought she had rarely seen her 
 father wear such an animated expression of youth and
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 77 
 
 interest in current things. With a sigh, she said to 
 herself, " It is his manner of society, of course, that 
 makes all women tell me what a delightful man he is." 
 When he had gone, she dared not speak of this to 
 Sara, lest that clever person should see farther be 
 hind the veil than Marion intended her to penetrate. 
 Why should his own child expose his weakness? 
 And Sara, equally discreet, said nothing on her side. 
 
 MRS. ROMAINE, doing the honors of her stately din 
 ing-room with careless grace, rather " laid herself 
 out," thought Marion, to be civil and gracious to 
 Madame Stauffer. The other guests at luncheon 
 were Stremof, who at the moment of introduction the 
 night before had been bidden by the hostess to come 
 next day and make her better acquaintance; Miss 
 Kemp, a colorless young woman serving to fill the 
 vacant place in most of Mrs. Romaine's incomplete 
 functions of life and society ; and a pale, wild-eyed 
 man dressed in threadbare clothes, who was intro 
 duced as " Herr Hofman, from Basel, a distinguished 
 socialist," employed to come three times a Aveek to 
 "coach" Mrs. Romaine in the doctrines of his creed. 
 
 " Oh ! you may smile," said the lady of the house 
 to Stremof, who had treated himself to a small in 
 dulgence of the nature designated, "but until I had 
 Hofman's talks, life was quite empty. I am so en 
 thusiastic about it I mean to become a member of 
 the American Branch of the League, shortly. Until 
 then I must be content to give money " 
 
 " They also must be content, madame," said Stremof. 
 
 "And to talk to any one I meet whom I think I
 
 78 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 can influence. When I drive about to pay bills to 
 my tradespeople, I cast a seed here and there. I 
 have great hopes for an intelligent young plumber 
 who has lately been at work in the house ; and " 
 lowering her voice "my butler and footmen are 
 hotfoot after the new doctrine." 
 
 " And so, when the day comes that is foretold by 
 Henry George," said Stremof, "which some one of 
 the Scotch writers has described as a 'huge wedge 
 driven through the middle of society, and on the un 
 derside of it the merchant princes eating the bread 
 of poverty with their lowest dependents/ you are pre 
 pared to share all your present privileges ? " 
 
 "There are some of my privileges I would not 
 only share, but give away with rapture," she said 
 "the privilege of being bored to extinction by half 
 my acquaintances, for example. But we are not here 
 to talk about my ' mania/ as my husband pleasantly 
 calls it. Madame Stauffer must tell us of her mis 
 sion, that I think should march hand in hand with 
 mine to the dawn of the New Day; and then Hen* 
 Hofman may be induced to follow." 
 
 "Not at table, if you don't mind," said Sara in a 
 low, distinct voice. In her heart she resented the 
 airy impertinence of Mrs. Romaine's mocking man 
 ner, the fact that she had been brought there to 
 make entertainment, and was classed with the long 
 haired man with a dingy shirt-collar. 
 
 "Has temper," decided Mrs. Romaine, internally; 
 then, turning away, she devoted herself to Stremof, 
 leaving the others to take care of themselves. 
 
 "For once," thought Marion, "one of her 'mena-
 
 A BACHELOE MAID 79 
 
 gerie luncheons/ as she styles them, is a distinct 
 failure." 
 
 And so it proved. The affair languished, until 
 even Stremof, who had been making stupendous ef 
 forts to support the occasion, ceased to struggle, and 
 went under. 
 
 " Goodness, how dull we are ! " said the hostess, at 
 last aware of the fact. " Let us go into the library, 
 and smoke ; and perhaps that will enliven us." And, 
 rising abruptly, she led the way into a room where no 
 vacancies appeared to mark the recent withdrawal 
 from it of Mr. Romaine's treasures of books, now dis 
 persed. 
 
 "My husband is bearing up under it as well as can 
 be expected, thank you," she answered to Marion's 
 inquiry as to how Mr. Romaine bore his loss of the 
 famous library. " If there were a place to dispose of 
 wives added to one's collection at vast expense, I sup 
 pose it would be my turn to go next. You know my 
 husband does not illustrate what Marx says, Herr 
 Hofman that 'the value of a commodity changes 
 directly as the quantity, and inversely as the produc 
 tive power, of the labor which realizes itself in that 
 commodity.' " 
 
 "Ah, yes," rejoined her adviser, with entire solem 
 nity ; " you mean where he also says ' value is an im 
 manent relation to socially necessary time of labor.' " 
 
 " This is not gay," remarked Stremof, sotto voce to 
 Madame Stauffer. "Why should this lady, into 
 whose cradle the good fairies seem to have poured 
 all the gifts, be so sharp, so little restful ! What a 
 contrast to the old times when it was the chaplain or
 
 80 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 father confessor who made part of the domestic staff 
 of the woman of place and fortune ! Now she must 
 have her spiritual director in socialism, mon Dieu ! Is 
 it so everywhere? Must I be ready on all sides to 
 talk of new doctrines, new ideas, casting behind me 
 the gossip, the pleasant nonsense, that is really the 
 high art of conversation? But, no, I will not ask that 
 of you, madame, since last night, when you gave me 
 a glimpse, all too short, of your own brilliant powers. 
 Tell me and if I am indiscreet, silence me about 
 that beautiful sphinx who is in your charge Miss 
 Irving. She interests me. She perplexes me. Since 
 last night, when we parted, I have been trying to 
 solve her ; but I do not succeed. Is she happy ? Is 
 she sad! What is the secret of that noble expres 
 sion of infinite patience upon her broad brow? You 
 smile ah! I am always losing myself in my en 
 thusiasms. But, I swear to you, for hours I have 
 thought of hardly anything but that girl, and have 
 dreamed of meeting her again. At table, to-day, she 
 surprised two or three looks from me that I could see 
 she did not fancy, and so I looked no more." 
 
 In a few words Sara told him the outline of Marion's 
 history, of her engagement to Gordon, and its ending. 
 
 " So ! " said the young man. " And there is abso 
 lutely no chance that she will take Gordon back?" 
 
 " None," said Sara. 
 
 They were sitting apart in an alcove by a rack con 
 taining an open portfolio of etchings at which neither 
 looked. Stre"mof was struck with a certain expression 
 passing, like the shadow from a bird's wing, over the 
 speaker's face.
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 81 
 
 " Besides," she added, " Mr. Gordon is a man on 
 the quick rise to power, to political fame. The world 
 will soon afford him all the balm his spirit needs." 
 
 " He will be here presently," said Stremof, looking 
 covertly at his watch. " We have an engagement to 
 spend the afternoon together, to see some clubs and 
 galleries, I believe ; and he was not able to give the 
 time to Mrs. Romaine for luncheon." 
 
 Simultaneously, a servant preceded into the room 
 the subject of their conversation, on whose appear 
 ance Mrs. Romaine fairly clapped her hands. 
 
 "Now that you are come, we shall cease being at 
 odds with one another," she exclaimed. "Here we 
 are, a group of people, all clever and original ex 
 cept Loulie Kemp and myself, who want to be made 
 so. What better opportunity for something I have 
 long desired to hear Gordon's views on the Wo 
 man Question ? And, to lead the way to it, for no 
 one believes more in fair play than I do, will not 
 Madame Stauffer open with just a resume, so that all 
 can understand our platform about the ballot, which 
 is, after all, the main object of our hopes ?" 
 
 At an ordinary time, no proposition could well have 
 been more distasteful to Gordon. But he had parted 
 from Marion, overnight, in a sort of blank terror as 
 he thought of the gulf toward which, in his eyes, she 
 was drifting. He knew she would never personally 
 demand from him an expression of his views on the 
 subject given. And he wanted to feel that, whether 
 she recognized it or not, his hand had been stretched 
 out to withhold her. 
 
 Sara Stauffer, on her side, was, as has been seen,
 
 82 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 vexed and out of spirits. But, on Gordon's arrival, 
 her pulses had begun to stir with pleasure of the 
 most agitating and least welcome variety. It was, 
 indeed, a protest against her own infirmity of spirit 
 that spurred her on to enter the arena against the 
 young man who had so affected her. With eyes cast 
 down, with the hesitancy of a child, she began an ex 
 position of certain arguments so well known of late 
 it were useless to rehearse them here. She gave a 
 brief history of the " disfranchised " classes of hu 
 manity, beginning with those in England, then pass 
 ing to the negro, and finally to the women of the 
 States. The question of equal wages for equal labor 
 was next touched upon, Madame Stauffer making the 
 point that, until the power of the ballot shall be ac 
 corded to women, this equality cannot exist, and that 
 the first result of woman's " enfranchisement " will 
 be the opportunity to receive pay commensurate to 
 the value of her work. 
 
 She spoke simply, with an admirable choice of words, 
 with trained ease and rhetorical method, with convinc 
 ing earnestness. The predominant feeling of her lit 
 tle audience, when she had finished, was one of respect 
 for the cause and the worker. Marion's heart swelled 
 with pride in her champion ; and, stretching out her 
 hand to Sara, the two sat thus, while Gordon rubbed 
 up his wits for an answer. 
 
 " It is quite needless to tell you that I am tremen 
 dously at a disadvantage in this fray," he said 
 pleasantly. 
 
 "Madame Stauffer has brought the grace of her 
 oratory to the support of her, evidently, long-con-
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 83 
 
 sidered conviction. She has, of course, the sympathy ^ 
 and deserves the applause, of her audience. 
 
 "I cannot, however, share her views on this subject; 
 and though I have never attempted a discussion of 
 this kind, or any formal discussion in such presence, 
 and must throw myself upon your considerate indul 
 gence in entering at all upon a disputation before 
 you, now, and so unexpectedly I venture, in the 
 rough, upon some of the ideas that occurred to me 
 while Madame Stauffer was speaking. 
 
 "When the ' women's rights' insisted on by our 
 agitators of the last generation related to questions 
 of married women's property rights ; or to the ameli 
 oration of the condition of women, to be afforded by 
 laws more liberal in the matter of divorce ; or to the 
 authority a woman should have over her children 
 the right feeling and the good sense of the community 
 were every year more and more with the champions 
 of the sex. But in matters of divorce, any woman in 
 this country can now be readily relieved of the yoke 
 of a conjugal relation which ought to be dissolved 
 for any substantial reason; the law among us is 
 everywhere rather too lax than too stringent in that 
 regard. Women have now been constituted by our 
 legislature joint guardians with their husbands of 
 their children with equal powers, rights, and du 
 ties, in regard to their children, with their husbands ; 
 though I think experience will show that to be a 
 measure open to the objection I shall presently make 
 to female suffrage that it tends to prevent a proper 
 headship in the family. In the State of New York, 
 too, the rights of a married woman to her earnings
 
 84 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 and in her property of every kind, acquired whether 
 before or after marriage, are now securely established. 
 Our statutes make her control of her real estate, for 
 instance, more complete than a married man's do 
 minion in lands held by him ; in his lands she still 
 has her right of dower. And in the other States of 
 the Union those conditions have already been reached, 
 or soon will be. 
 
 " The history of the growth and development of 
 that legislation about the property of married women 
 is, by the way, very interesting for this among other 
 reasons. Our statutes on those subjects have revo 
 lutionized the law among English-speaking peoples 
 everywhere. The first of them, in the States which 
 began with the common law of England, was en 
 acted in Mississippi in 1839. It was crude, but was 
 amended and broadened in 1846, while the first of the 
 New York statutes was not adopted until 1848; in 
 fact, the Mississippi Act of 1839 was passed for spe 
 cial application to a particular case was promoted 
 by a bankrupt suitor of a prudent and well-advised 
 woman, who had great expectations of estates she 
 was unwilling to expose to claims by the creditors of 
 an insolvent husband. To relieve the situation, the 
 aspirant for the lady's hand had the bill put through 
 the legislature, avowedly to introduce, not the rule of 
 the civil law of Louisiana, which is enlightened in 
 such particulars, but the tribal customs of the Chiek- 
 asaw Indians, who were still numerous in the neigh 
 borhood ! The squaw, as you may know, is the head 
 of the family ; the chief traces his descent, not from 
 his father, but through his mother.
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 85 
 
 " But when the question of ' women's rights ' has 
 come to relate only to a demand that woman be al 
 lowed to vote at public elections, and upon questions 
 affecting government and the State, it is a very dif 
 ferent kind of thing, and seems to me to be but a 
 symptom of the general drift of the age we live in, 
 through socialism to anarchy." 
 
 At this point of Gordon's remarks Herr Hofman 
 threw up his hands, with a resigned gesture, toward 
 Mrs. Romaine, as who should say, "You see! As 
 ever, we are misunderstood"; and Mrs. Romaiue 
 smiled back at him, consolingly. 
 
 " There never was, and never will be, government 
 by all the people," went on the speaker. "Every form 
 of government is necessarily more or less by repre 
 sentatives of the people. No system of government 
 is or can be conducted by all the people by direct 
 participation. Infants, for example, of either sex, 
 are, like women, citizens equally with men. But 
 no one has ever proposed that infants be given the 
 ballot to take part in actual administration of public 
 affairs of the commonwealth. The line must be 
 drawn somewhere between those who may exercise in 
 person, and at the polls, the authority of a choice in 
 prescribing the policies and designating the officers 
 of government, and those who may not. The suf 
 frage is not a natural right, like the right to life itself, 
 but a privilege accorded by society to those members 
 of the body politic who are thought likely so to exer 
 cise that privilege as to advance the general welfare 
 in doing it a privilege conferred, not for the special 
 benefit of the individual to whom it is given, or in 
 
 6*
 
 86 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 the interest of the class merely to which that indi 
 vidual belongs, but for the advantage of the Republic 
 itself. When that franchise was allowed to the re 
 cently emancipated negroes of the South, for instance, 
 so hazardous an experiment was justified, not as a 
 present to the black for his own sake merely, but as 
 an expedient, intended to be a means in his hands for 
 usefulness to us all. For the good and peace and 
 prosperity of the whole country, it was considered 
 wise to intrust to those who had been slaves a wea 
 pon of protection against the possible oppression of so 
 numerous a class, left otherwise very much at the 
 mercy of a reckless or resentful body of their former 
 owners, who, unless held in check by the ballot, which 
 could choose legislatures and executive officers of 
 government, might indulge in practices destructive 
 to the best interests of the nation, of the residents 
 in New England as well as of residents in Carolina, 
 practices inviting to civil strife, violence, and insur 
 rection, as well as to other occasions for a general 
 disturbance of the well-being of society. And we 
 cannot even deal, in this matter, with women as a 
 class by themselves $ they have, and can have, no in 
 terests, as women and as a class, conflicting with, or 
 different from, the interests of their husbands, fathers, 
 brothers, and sons, as men and as another class. 
 There are classes among women, as there are classes 
 among men : but surely men and women are toge 
 ther and united in every interest which concerns the 
 welfare of the community as a whole. 
 
 " It is, therefore, not true that by withholding from 
 women the authority to vote in person they are de-
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 87 
 
 prived of a right, or denied their proper influence in 
 administration any more than it can be said that 
 because, not being a senator or a representative in 
 the Congress, I myself am not allowed to vote upon 
 the passage of bills pending at Washington, I am de 
 prived of a right to a voice in government. Though 
 I never vote in person, in the House or in the Senate, 
 I do vote there, every day, by my representative. 
 
 " The unit of the social state, to be considered in 
 such a matter as this, is not the individual, but the 
 family; and things that tend to develop and main 
 tain well-ordered and harmonious families should be 
 the first care of the Republic. Women, at every 
 election," vote by their representatives who, in any 
 properly constituted domestic relation, feel, and re 
 spond to, and act under, the due influence of their 
 womenkind in everything the latter are interested in." 
 
 "Pardon me, but is n't that more Utopian than 
 Herr Hofman's vision of a new world under social 
 ism?" said Mrs. Romaine, in her provoking little 
 drawl. " But pray go on, Mr. Gordon. I am so glad 
 to know that John Romaine is always thinking of 
 me, at the polls." 
 
 "I have just reached the special point I desired to 
 make," Gordon resumed, with a smile. "In every 
 government, whether of the State or of the house 
 hold, there must be one head, or there will always be 
 confusion. There are many individuals who now en 
 joy and exercise the electoral franchise whose par 
 ticipation in government could be dispensed with, to 
 the advantage of the country. There are cases where 
 the wife is the real head of the household, and where
 
 88 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 it would be better if the law recognized and dealt 
 with her as such, and allowed her to exercise all the 
 power of such a situation. But laws are rules of 
 conduct provided, not for exceptional cases, but for 
 all ; and, constituted as human nature is, society, the 
 world over and in all ages since we emerged from 
 savagery, has found that, as a rule, the man must be 
 the head of the family. With understanding between 
 them, the wife has a fit representative in her husband 
 in the matter of voting. And where they differ so 
 strongly as to make it useful to her as an individual, 
 perhaps, to have her destroy his vote by voting 
 against him, it is, in another and more serious as 
 pect, and as a rule, a source of danger to the com 
 munity to allow her the opportunity to do so. It 
 would foment discord in every household where the 
 husband and wife disagree, to confer upon woman 
 the right to vote ; all domestic headship and author 
 ity would be subverted. And when there is no longer 
 a government in the households the homes of the 
 land, there may soon be a subversion of all govern 
 ment; and anarchy will then have come." 
 
 When Gordon stopped speaking, he did not ven 
 ture to look directly at Marion. He felt rather than 
 saw her exchange glances with Sara Stauffer, who, 
 with great tact, good-humor, and cleverness set her 
 self to refute his argument. 
 
 Whether she did so to her own satisfaction, she 
 was greatly applauded; and the hall-clock, striking 
 four, broke up a sitting prolonged beyond expecta 
 tion of any of them. 
 
 " How admirably she speaks ! How well she has
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 89 
 
 herself in hand ! " Stremof remarked to Mrs. Ro- 
 maiue, as he was taking leave. 
 
 "I belong to a club of women," said the hostess, 
 "who meet from time to time to discuss current 
 topics of thought ; and I assure you that, among 
 them, Madame Stauffer would be only incidental, not 
 phenomenal." 
 
 " Is Mademoiselle Irving among them ? " asked the 
 Russian, whose eyes had been wandering more than 
 was good for him to the tall girl in the black serge 
 costume, sitting in such immovable earnestness 
 through it all. 
 
 " She ? Oh, no. We are not quite intense enough 
 for her." Because I give dinners, and go to balls, 
 and spar with my husband, religiously, Miss Irving- 
 thinks I have no place in serious thought. Good-by! 
 So glad you were not bored by our impromptu duel. 
 Sunday afternoons, remember! And you will let 
 me send you a ticket for my box at the opera on 
 Wednesday ? " 
 
 " DID you tell me you had never met this Madame 
 Stauffer until last evening, when I did?" Stremof 
 asked Gordon, as the two men got into their hansom 
 at the door. 
 
 "Never." 
 
 " And may I venture to ask whether you did not, 
 until then, know of her relation to Miss Irving?" 
 
 " They were friends in Miss Irving's college-days, 
 but they have not met in years." 
 
 " Well, my dear friend, if you will permit me, I 
 must felicitate you upon a conquest," said Stremof,
 
 90 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 gaily. " The little lady asks nothing better than to 
 test, through you, the practical value of a head to 
 her household." 
 
 "Absurd!" said Gordon. "Don't make me feel 
 any more of an ass than I already do, after holding 
 forth seriously on that theme in a drawing-room." 
 
 " But you did not convince Miss Irving," went on 
 the audacious fellow. "Her face, as I watched it, 
 was cold; her eye shone clear as polished steel." 
 
 tl This club where we shall next stop " began 
 Gordon in a manner that admitted of no further 
 trifling ; and on he went, to fulfil his duty of cicerone, 
 with a description that was cut short only by the 
 stopping of the cab.
 
 GOOD Briton, says Henley, must 
 wear his heart in his breeches-pocket, 
 or anywhere but on his sleeve. Alec 
 Gordon, a good American, did not 
 consign to his breeches-pocket the 
 heart so unceremoniously returned 
 to him by the girl he loved, although he certainly did 
 not wear it upon his sleeve. He put it, rather, into 
 an office envelop stamped with the firm's name, tied 
 it with legal tape, and consigned it to a pigeon-hole 
 of his desk. There was work in plenty, and of a 
 congenial sort, ahead of him, without forever playing 
 the lorn lover. When he awoke on a bright, crisp 
 Sunday morning, the day following his meeting with 
 Marion at Mrs. Romanic's luncheon, and went to his 
 window to fill his lungs with invigorating air, he felt 
 that delight in living, that renewal of mind and body 
 after healthy sleep, which is nearest akin to being 
 born again in the flesh. 
 
 A church-bell, sounding near, did not act upon him 
 like a prick of conscience, as it does upon older people 
 who have nearly lived their span. He liked its re 
 minder of peace and order in the calm of the usually 
 
 91
 
 92 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 noisy streets, as he did the Puritan denmreness of 
 many of the groups trooping churchward, and the 
 quiet space to think and be glad in his youth and 
 strength. Through his veins ran an exulting sense 
 that the world outside his narrow chamber was his 
 heritage, where there was nothing seriously awry in 
 which he might not take a hand for bettering it. 
 
 But while, in bright day, the image of his lost love 
 may not have glowed as effectively as in the mystery 
 of night, when others around it had faded, his loy 
 alty to her and to her father remained undiminished. 
 He was not satisfied with the new inmate of their 
 home. The hold Sara Stauffer had evidently ac 
 quired there made him vaguely uncomfortable. That 
 afternoon he should make it his business to warn the 
 judge in plain words that his daughter's friend was 
 an unsafe guide for a girl full of opinions, like ten 
 drils swaying in the wind, seeking a support to cling 
 to. Disagreeable as this task might be, it was ren 
 dered doubly obligatory upon him by the fact that 
 from him had originally come the urgent request 
 that a companion to Marion's solitude be provided 
 according to her wish. 
 
 Strengthened in disagreeable resolution by bath 
 and toilet and a cup of tea, he stopped, on his way 
 out of the building, at the quarters of his friend 
 Clarkson. Of this gentleman he caught a glimpse 
 in his inner room, in light attire, engaged in a 
 matinal exercise of lifting himself some hundreds 
 of times successfully upon his toes, with a view to 
 the ultimate enlargement of a pair of unsatisfying 
 calves.
 
 A BACHELOE MAID 93 
 
 " Sit down, old chap/' called out Clarkson, cheer 
 fully. " I 'm ou my last hundred, and shall be with 
 you in a minute ninety-four, ninety-five, ninety-six 
 I 'm really tremendously encouraged. Talk about 
 climbing Alps ninety-seven, ninety-eight it 's 
 nothing to this ninety-nine, one hundred there! I 
 really believe I '11 be able to wear knickerbockers this 
 summer. Though the increase in girth is slow, I don't 
 find the exercise half so tiresome as I did, and I mean 
 to give the thing fall trial. Stop and breakfast with 
 me, won't you ? Can't promise you much to eat ; but 
 I '11 have my tea and toast and an egg in, directly." 
 
 "It is so late now, I 'm going to lunch with my 
 maiden aunts, instead of breakfasting," said Gordon. 
 " There 's a matter I want to consult you about. I 
 think you told me you have a relative who was or is 
 one of the instructors at Somerville College ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Clarkson, emerging in a gorgeous dress 
 ing-gown. "A cousin about my age brought up 
 in our house. Don't mind telling you that I 'd have 
 married her once, if she 'd have had me. But she 
 preferred single-blessedness, and illimitable power to 
 boss. Nice little fortune of her own, too. Teaches 
 because she likes it. Writes pamphlets all that 
 sort of thing. Fine woman, though very." 
 
 " Could I trouble you to find out from her, in con 
 fidence, any information they may have in the faculty 
 about a lady who was once an inmate of their insti 
 tution ! " 
 
 " Gad ! you speak as if it were a lunatic asylum, 
 Gordon," said Clarkson, with a grin. "What you 
 mean is a 'student at their university. 7 "
 
 94 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 "Not a student a teacher," said Gordon, giving 
 the name of the object of his search. 
 
 "A client, eh?" 
 
 " I arn acting in the interest of a friend ; and I 
 need not tell you that whatever information I receive 
 will be treated with respect, and brought to bear only 
 upon righteous ends." 
 
 " I '11 write to Kitty to-day Katharine I beg 
 her pardon. And to think, Gordon, that woman 
 nicest creature you ever saw round and rosy, with 
 dimples by George! such dimples! might have 
 been my wife long ago, if she had n't sacrificed us 
 both to an ideal. Said I would n't sympathize with 
 her aims, and therefore she could n't make me happy. 
 Here I am, an old bach. ; and she a spinster of thirty- 
 five pretty still ! Well, hearts don't break, Gor 
 don ; hearts don't break, in this world. Look at that 
 for a pair of calves, now. Pretty fair, are n't they ? 
 Not quite up to silk fleshings for a fancy ball, per 
 haps but fair. I 'in thinking of going in for a new 
 health-food I 've seen greatly advertised for fatten 
 ing, if I could be sure of getting" it properly cooked 
 at the club. That 's one advantage a man has when 
 he 's married, Gordon. He can keep at it till they 
 cook things to suit him in his home; but the nui 
 sance of trying to teach those servants at the club 
 is why, sir, I " 
 
 " I won't keep you from your breakfast, longer," 
 said Gordon, smiling. " Good-by, and thank you for 
 your promised cooperation in my little affair." 
 
 " Little affair," he repeated to himself on his way 
 to luncheon with his aunts. " That 's a misnomer.
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 95 
 
 Marion's life, heretofore, has been like a fair white 
 page. What may not that woman inscribe on it? 
 For I do not, I cannot, feel satisfied there is not a 
 niche sealed up in Madame Stauffer's past, that con 
 tains some record of a moral warfare with society in 
 which she has been worsted. She is a mistress in 
 the art of self-control, but I saw in her eyes that 
 which sought to evade the too close scrutiny of mine. 
 It was but for an instant, but the red flag warned me ; 
 and for Marion's sake, I pray God the woman may be 
 got out of Marion's home and thoughts as quickly as 
 possible." 
 
 THE Misses Stella, Clarissa, and Euphemia Gordon 
 enjoyed the claim to respectful consideration, rare 
 in New York of the present day, of residing in the 
 house where they, and there father before them, had 
 first seen the light. 
 
 Now well advanced in years, these maidens, whose 
 fortune was to descend to the sou of their younger 
 brother Alexander, had survived the old-time preten 
 sion of the family to " lead New York." From time 
 to time, indeed, they received their friends in this 
 house built by their grandfather on a suburban prop 
 erty of his near the Hudson River, in preference to a 
 site of greater value in Broadway, because the old 
 gentleman feared the noise and dust of a post-road 
 outside the windows of his wife's drawing-room. 
 On such occasions although fashion, save when en 
 gaged in paying its respects to the Gordons, had 
 kept aloof from the spot now hemmed in by houses 
 given over as tenements to an encroaching popula-
 
 96 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 tion of foreigners, its garden overshadowed by an 
 elevated railway "every one" was there, because 
 not to be seen there would have argued uuacquaiu- 
 tauce with the " best old stock." 
 
 New-comers and youngsters of the ruling genera 
 tion might stray through the large, dull rooms, won 
 dering how life could have been endured upon carpets 
 artlessly sprinkled with the lily and the rose, amid 
 furnishings of rosewood and satin damask, giran 
 doles with twinkling lusters, florid mirror-frames, 
 and statuettes on pedestals in every other window 
 But still society respected the Gordon house, and 
 obeyed its summons as of yore. In the eyes of some 
 ancients there lingered about the place a softly lam 
 bent halo, recalling the merry days of their youth. 
 It was all very well, they would allege, for brilliant 
 latter-day architects to reproduce, for new people 
 with long purses, purely "colonial" interiors, and 
 call them a revival of the best of early American art. 
 Early America never dreamed of such beauty and 
 harmony as these artists evolve for their clients. 
 But, with all its sins against modern creeds in deco 
 ration, here were the actual surroundings of the gen 
 tlefolk who were the founders of their body social. 
 One must needs be a Gordon to display now, on a 
 center-table with a marble top, a wreath of shell- 
 flowers under a dome of glass. 
 
 As far as Alec knew, this wreath had never left 
 this table. So, also, on a little mahogany stand in 
 the dining-room, a " Scott's Bible " still nestled in a 
 worsted mat. This he could not see without a vision 
 of himself in infancy at family prayers, fatally im-
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 97 
 
 pelled by original sin to kneel where he could have 
 an eye upon a certain china basket containing crul 
 lers, kept always upon the buffet. Abhorring at this 
 date of his life the old Dutch dainty as he had loved 
 it then, it was yet inextricably associated in his mind 
 with the act of devotion. 
 
 Through a like twist of psychology, he could never 
 kiss the ivory-tinted cheek of his Aunt Stella, pre 
 sented to him by that gentle old lady, without fancy 
 ing he perceived the scent of rose geranium in the 
 air. He had always heard of her u dressed for a 
 party" in a book-muslin, with a blue scarf, a cameo 
 brooch, a camellia with rose-geranium leaves in the 
 hair behind her ear. This tradition of the family 
 beauty equipped for conquest, as described to him in 
 childhood, was indelible ; as likewise the picture of 
 Aunt Clarissa dancing a shawl dance for the com 
 pany at a ball given upon her " coming out." Alec 
 quite believed he had seen the latter performance, 
 although a reflection upon dates would have proved 
 it impossible. 
 
 The same endurance of early impressions upon the 
 mind of a child kept in him a faint belief in the abil 
 ity of puzzle-cards tied together with faded ribbon to 
 amuse a visitor. Nor did he doubt that Aunt Clarissa 
 had an "admirable finger" for the guitar; and he 
 sympathized earnestly when Aunt Stella confided to 
 him that, in deference to a promise once extracted 
 by her mama, she had never read any of the works 
 of Lord Byron ! 
 
 His two elder aunts, who were twins, were sitting 
 together awaiting summons to the early dinner that 
 
 7
 
 98 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 on Sunday did dnty for luncheon, when Gordon was 
 shown into their presence. 
 
 The dim room, its shutters bowed to keep sunshine 
 from the carpet, the gray cerements upon chairs and 
 sofas, the tiny coal-fire in the grate, Miss Stella's pug, 
 and Miss Clarissa's pussy, were all as usual. 
 
 The sisters, having returned from morning service, 
 were, according to custom, engaged in analyzing the 
 sermon until the dinner-bell should ring. 
 
 As the young man entered, Aunt Stella arose auto 
 matically and presented her cheek for his salute. 
 Alec knew just how many steps he would have to 
 make across the hearth-rug to meet Aunt Clarissa 
 and her cheek. Then, sitting between them, he heard 
 from Aunt Stella the exact condition of Aunt Cla 
 rissa's health, and from Aunt Clarissa how the last 
 medicine had affected Aunt Stella's harmless malady. 
 It was next in order to stroke the cat, which, advan 
 cing to greet him, made of her back an arch against 
 his leg, and the pug, which, resting his forefeet on 
 Gordon's knee, wheezed an asthmatic "how d' ye do." 
 
 "And Aunt Erne!" asked Alec, cheerfully. 
 
 Aunt Stella cleared her throat in a feebly depre 
 cating fashion. Aunt Clarissa did likewise. 
 
 " Euphemia has not yet returned from service," 
 said the twins, reluctantly. 
 
 "She still keeps up her preaching to those poor 
 people in the Hell's Kitchen district!" 
 
 " Oh, yes, my dear Alexander ; she still does," said 
 Aunt Stella, the readier speaker of the two. " When 
 I think of my poor mama, who was the most shrink 
 ing and sensitive of females, of my papa, who had a
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 99 
 
 horror of ladies of our position being put before the 
 public in any way I really am almost glad they are 
 spared Euphemia's extraordinary conduct. To teach 
 in a Sunday-school that, indeed, is one thing ; but 
 to conduct a service of her own arrangement, a ser 
 vice not in the prayer-look, to stand on a platform 
 and speak before the men and women of that horrible 
 quarter ! " 
 
 "Yes, my dear Alexander, in spite of all we can 
 say," chimed in Aunt Clarissa. " It is not only that 
 she has the most shocking-looking characters calling 
 here and waiting in the hall ; that she receives visits 
 from people who, I know, had just as soon as not 
 throw a bomb into our dining-room if they caught a 
 glimpse of the plate upon the side-board; that she 
 attends meetings, and offers resolutions just like a 
 man : but she now writes for the newspapers and 
 what is going to become of us, Heaven knows ! " 
 
 "At Effle's age, she should be more careful than 
 she is of appearances," began Miss Stella ; " not even 
 a maid to attend her when she goes into those dread 
 ful places ! " 
 
 "At fifty-odd I think Aunt Effie might be trusted," 
 said Alec, smiling ; and the midday meal being an 
 nounced, his energies were for a time devoted to 
 carving a turkey upon a willow-pattern dish, and to 
 appeasing the pangs of his vigorous appetite. 
 
 "What has Aunt Effie been writing about to the 
 newspapers ? " he said, at a convenient opportunity. 
 
 " Hush ! " said Aunt Stella, warningly, till assured 
 that the servant was out of hearing. "We try to 
 keep it from our people, Alexander. It is a great
 
 100 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 sorrow, but we must bear it as we can. It was bad 
 enough when she wrote a letter defending a Greek 
 flower-seller unjustly arrested, and even went into 
 court to testify to his good character ; but what will 
 you say to her communicating to the press a new 
 scheme she has for the cremation of I hate to men 
 tion it at table of garbage in the flats of poor 
 people ? " 
 
 " Kitchen refuse would have been a better word, 
 sister," said Clarissa, in mild rebuke. " Yes ! What 
 a subject for a refined, elegant female. Why, she 
 should not know that such a thing exists ! " 
 
 " It is a mystery I can never solve, why Euphemia, 
 who was given just the advantages we had, should 
 be so far from sharing our tastes and occupations." 
 
 "Alec, my lad, you 're as welcome as flowers in 
 March," exclaimed a hearty voice ; and Miss Euphe 
 mia Gordon, in a tailor-made suit of masculine cut, 
 and a pointed felt hat, walked into the dining-room, 
 and took her place, after greeting her nephew with a 
 stout shake of the hand. 
 
 Between the pastel tints and old-time poses of her 
 sisters, this daughter of the house of Gordon resem 
 bled a vigorous sketch in black and white. Stout of 
 frame, and never in her best days called handsome, 
 Miss Effie's face was radiant with health, good-nature, 
 and indomitable purpose. 
 
 Luncheon over, she carried Alec away to her own 
 room, an apartment severely devoted to papers, a 
 table with a type-writer between two southern win 
 dows full of sunshine, some chairs, and a desk, of 
 which the pigeon-holes were well filled with neatly
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 101 
 
 parceled documents. Here Miss Effie transacted the 
 business of her life in its broadest and truest sense 
 the business of other people's lives. 
 
 " Now, answer me," she asked, wasting no words in 
 preliminaries, " what did you mean by going off on 
 that journey without coming to tell me in person of 
 your trouble with Marion ? " 
 
 " I simply could not speak of it," he said. 
 
 "I ought by this time to know the Gordon lock 
 jaw," she said, sitting down in her office-chair, op 
 posite him. "Well, are you disposed to be more 
 communicative now ? " 
 
 " I ought to hold you accountable, Aunt Effie," he 
 answered, with a half smile. " It is your creed that 
 has infected her. And all this while I was comfort 
 ing myself with the idea that, if Marion's indulgence 
 in certain notions should make her turn out to be 
 such a big-souled woman, helpful to herself and all 
 around her, as you are, they could do her only good." 
 
 While he told her in brief his story, Miss Effie, 
 listening, let the tenderness of her nature creep into 
 her homely face. 
 
 " My boy," she said softly, when he had done, " don't 
 you know we women have to learn our wisdom as you 
 men do by experiments, blunders, and new experi 
 ments controlled by experience ? And don't you know 
 my ideal society, wherein men and women shall work 
 side by side, having share and share alike of the duties, 
 responsibilities, and rewards of life ? I had hoped that 
 you and Marion were going to be its corner-stones; 
 and if she has stumbled and fallen away from you in 
 the darkness before dawn, I mean to believe that you 
 
 7*
 
 102 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 will grope till you find each other's hands again, and 
 grasp them never to be separated." 
 
 " I 'm afraid you 're a dreamer, dear Aunt Effie," the 
 young man said sadly. 
 
 "It 's the first time I Ve been accused of it then. 
 Bless me, Alec, don't I know this girl is just stifled by 
 the life she 's been leading as a polite slave of the 
 nineteenth century in America. She must have time 
 and opportunity to gratify her longing for a certain 
 independence of thought and action ; to find out for 
 herself the values of the prizes of life, before she 
 settles down to the task of being a wife and mother. 
 She can't compromise with her conscience, to sacrifice 
 to the petty duties of home her mental powers, until 
 she has tested the exercise of them in a wider field. 
 You ask me what she wants to do what she thinks 
 she can do 1 You don't know, I don't know ; perhaps 
 she does n't know yet. But she has put to herself the 
 question that is the question of the age : ' What am 
 I? What do I mean to be? Am I not folding my 
 talent in a napkin, by just allowing a man to love me 
 and loving him in return? Who knows how long 
 this love will last intact? When I look around me, 
 what do I see but strained, disillusioned couples, who 
 live together because they have sworn to do so, whose 
 hearts are cold, whose spirits hold each other forever 
 to account ? ' Marion may not recognize this, but it 
 is what makes her fearful. The sense of her respon 
 sibility to herself is just now greater than her desire 
 for love." 
 
 "Decidedly greater," said the young man, with a 
 reddening face, as he got up to walk about the room.
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 103 
 
 " Now, Alee, don't be miffed with your plain-speak 
 ing old aunty. If Marion knew you as I do, she 
 would have no fear. Be fair ; and own that if all girls 
 weighed as well their chances of married happiness, 
 there would be fewer of the fearful mistakes we see 
 about us. But no ! Most of them go to the altar, 
 their heads dizzy with their own importance, with 
 thoughts of their presents, bridesmaids, jewels, es 
 tablishment, at the side of a lover who swears they 
 are perfection. How many of these escape the hour 
 of bewildered dismay when they realize the bond that 
 makes them subject for life to a man they can have 
 known only on the surface? I believe if wedding- 
 presents" could be made into a pile, and the wife of a 
 month could offer herself upon them in suttee, it 
 would be a not uncommon event." 
 
 " You are not cheering, Aunt Effie." 
 
 "But I speak the truth the truth that mothers 
 know, and yet hide under wedding frippery, giving 
 their girls no chance to discover it, until too late. It 
 seems to me that, until girls are educated to think and 
 act more freely, even the foreign fashion of the parents 
 deciding for them in marriage would be a wiser one 
 than that now prevailing." 
 
 "No fault can be found with the average young 
 woman's willingness to ' know all things,' " said Gor 
 don. " That is, if we are to judge by the freedom of 
 speech and discussion that seems to be the outcome of 
 young woman's emancipation. I declare to you, Aunt 
 Effie, my gorge rises at the books I hear discussed in 
 modern drawing-rooms. I am told even school-girls 
 read these stories, written by women 'with a purpose,'
 
 104 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 happily sometimes too well-veiled to be perceived by 
 their innocent readers. But who knows, if they are 
 to explore all veins of thought, what our girls will not 
 come to knowing or surmising? No, no ; the girl of 
 my imagination, like that of every honest and healthy- 
 minded young man, is the old-fashioned Una sitting 
 upon the lion's back, passing unsmirched through the 
 world the girl who loves and trusts, and accepts with 
 womanly dignity the lot her Creator has set aside for 
 her. As to some of the advisers of young femininity 
 in these days those who rant and shriek, and fer 
 ment society without arriving at any result may 
 the Lord settle with them according to their deserts 
 for the mischief they are doing ! " 
 
 " I don't know what they are reading, and I don't 
 go to the play," said Miss Effie. " When I want to 
 be entertained I just take down a volume of Sir 
 Walter Scott, or Thackeray, or Dumas. I feel no 
 call to investigate these Ibsens and Maeterlincks, and 
 the queer English novels written generally by wo 
 men, as you say I see mentioned in the newspapers." 
 
 " I wish there were more like you, Aunt Effie, and 
 you might bring us over to your way of thinking." 
 
 "Oh, my dear, I am just a plain old woman, not 
 clever or progressive, in the ' highf alutiu ' modern 
 sense. Long ago I found out my work, and I am 
 happy without husband or chick or child. I have 
 never had experience of the feverish mental condi 
 tions of many women of this hour but I can under 
 stand them, and, in a degree, sympathize with them. 
 I believe they will end in something sane and sound. 
 And, to come back to where we started, to Mar'
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 105 
 
 ion, I repeat that she is developing in a period 
 when women no longer accept their fate blindly. 
 She knows it would be as disastrous to you both, to 
 devote her life to a union in which she is not abso 
 lutely sure of her willingness to submit to a tremen 
 dous will like yours, as to live that life in any mere 
 self-indulgence." 
 
 "Marion could hardly have felt herself called on 
 to sacrifice anything that is good in her to selfish or 
 trivial demands from me," he said coldly. 
 
 " There, there, I Ve cut you, without intending it. 
 I know you, but how can she! How can any girl 
 know the lover who is captive to her youth and 
 beauty!" She sees you through a veil, dimly. Bide 
 your time, and I trust she will come back to you 
 for, oh, Alec ! what a grand couple you would make ! " 
 
 Aunt Effie's all-feminine burst of admiring cham 
 pionship was too much for her nephew's sense of 
 humor. He laughed; she laughed, patted his head, 
 made him light a fresh cigar ; and, stretched upon 
 her hard little lounge, he entered into one of the 
 long, intimate talks he well knew how to value. 
 
 LATER that afternoon Gordon met Stremof, and 
 took him to the Irvings' house. They found Marion 
 in the drawing-room, who told them that Madame 
 Stauffer, having letters to finish, would join them 
 before long. 
 
 Then Gordon, seeing Stremof s anxiety for a con 
 versation with Miss Irving in which he might not 
 be always a third between two people so linked by 
 past relation, took the opportunity to seek the in-
 
 106 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 terview with Marion's father to which he was urged 
 by conscience rather than by inclination. There was 
 no false sentiment in his mind about ousting the 
 homeless little person safely ensconced in Marion's 
 chamber, in possession of all the privileges of Mar 
 ion's dwelling. If she were, as he honestly believed, 
 dangerous to Marion's peace, then go she must. And 
 yet he wished it could have been another than him 
 self who was to sow the seed of doubt of her in the 
 judge's unsuspecting mind. 
 
 Thus pricked by regret, he opened the door of the 
 library a spot where he had never failed to find the 
 warmest welcome; and there saw what intensified 
 his original mistrust. 
 
 In his great arm-chair, his hands folded, leaning 
 back with a look of entire mental satisfaction, sat the 
 handsome judge, over whose fine, clear-cut features 
 the firelight played with cheering warmth. At the 
 end of the table nearest him, Sara Stauffer, pencil in 
 hand, was checking off a catalogue of an expected 
 sale of books, writing upon the margin notes at the 
 dictation of his Honor. 
 
 Gordon well knew the task. It was one in which 
 he had often served the judge as Madame Stauffer 
 was now serving him. Judge Irving had no instinct 
 of the solitary bookworm who burrows in the dark. 
 He liked to discuss, with some confidential and ap 
 preciative spirit, values, editions, bindings, the ques 
 tion of duplicates of the volumes he desired. Once 
 acquired, the books were apt to remain upon their 
 shelves, unless taken down for dusting or to display 
 to envying connoisseurs.
 
 A BACHELOE MAID 107 
 
 It was not the service yielded by Sara Stauffer that 
 made Gordon conscious of a stab of disagreeable sur 
 prise. That might have been exacted by the judge 
 from any one intelligent enough to render it, and 
 tactful enough to make him think all the wisdom in 
 the matter came from him. In the curves at the cor 
 ners of the judge's lips Gordon could read vanity well 
 satisfied by daintiest feeding. After all, what could 
 a dependent creature like this do better, to make her 
 self welcome in a house where a guest stopping over 
 night had been till now a thing almost unknown ? 
 No, it was not the subtle incense which Sara had 
 been burning under the judge's nostrils that Gordon 
 objected-to. If poor Marion had burnt more of that, 
 she would have had an easier lot. But it was an 
 other one of those momentary flashes of self-con 
 sciousness he met in Sara's eyes, when she thus un 
 expectedly confronted him, that made him pause, 
 uncertain how to move next in his game against her. 
 He could not tell whether she meant defiance, or pro 
 test, or appeal. Perhaps all three. But the expres 
 sion was withdrawn as nimbly as the tongue of a 
 toad after his winged prey is secured. It was suc 
 ceeded in her soft, dark orbs by a look of ingenuous 
 welcome. 
 
 " There, you have come ! I resign my task," she 
 said, rising, while the beaming countenance of the 
 judge became never so little blank. "Judge Irving 
 feared you had forgotten him, and he wanted so 
 much to be prepared for this sale on Wednesday. 
 Don't criticize the paucity or the ignorance of my 
 notes, please. I am only an humble understudy,
 
 108 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 who has taken the place of the leading man upon 
 occasion." 
 
 " She has done it remarkably well, Alec," said the 
 judge, rallying. " I may say that I never before met 
 a lady who had her grasp of the thing. But I won't 
 detain you, Madame Stauffer. After dinner you will 
 give us some Chopin, perhaps." 
 
 " It is so good of you to listen. Marion and I are 
 so proud of the success of our little home musicales," 
 she said, with perfect propriety. " If Mr. Gordon is 
 dining with you, perhaps he too will do us the honor 
 afterward to be a listener to one of our four-handed 
 pieces " 
 
 " It 's not those things I care much about," said the 
 candid judge. " It 's when you play without knowing 
 beforehand what you are going to fall upon. By 
 George ! Gordon, that 's wonderful ! If you have n't 
 heard her, you 've a treat before you." 
 
 " If I know anything is expected of me, I invariably 
 fall flat," said Sara, laughing, on her way out of the 
 door. 
 
 Gordon, who closed it after her, was rather smitten 
 with a certain meek grace of her manner, a resigna 
 tion to her position as entertaining supernumerary, 
 as was apparent^ the judge. 
 
 " Pity a fine creature like that should be put to the 
 right about to make her own meager living/' said his 
 Honor. " Do you know, Gordon, I was meaning to 
 consult you about an idea I Ve got of asking her 
 to er ah accept compensation as a kind of 
 er ah librarian for me, and at the same time, a 
 companion to Marion, who is never happy out of her 
 sight."
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 109 
 
 " What do you know of Madame Stauffer ! " asked 
 Gordon, from whose path the first stone was thus 
 felicitously rolled away. 
 
 "Know er ah why she was an instructor 
 at Somerville College. I have often heard you vaunt 
 the intelligence and good judgment of that faculty." 
 
 "But before? Since! I understand how Marion 
 answers these questions ; but that is not indorsement 
 enough for the woman who is to make a permanent 
 part of your home, and to be the guiding influence of 
 Marion's life." 
 
 An expression that began with foolishness and 
 ended with vexation came upon his Honor's face. His 
 temper, always ready to explode upon being crossed 
 or dictated to, flew to the relief of the situation. To 
 Gordon he was simply cross, to Marion he would have 
 been insufferably rude. In sufficiently plain terms, he 
 announced himself quite able to take care of the in 
 terests of his household without interference from 
 without. He eulogized the sterling excellence, above 
 all the submissiveness of character, of the cause of 
 their dissension ; and summed her up by saying that, 
 for a woman, she had an amount of good common 
 sense that would keep her from making mistakes or 
 committing follies, no matter what the provocation. 
 
 Alec, who, on the judge's outbreak of irritation, had 
 begun to poke at a lump of cannel-coal, here succeeded 
 in shattering it into a glowing mass, licked by tongues 
 of livid flame that spread radiance to the farthest ends 
 of the room. It was growing dark, and the lamps 
 had not yet been brought in ; but this enabled him to 
 give another glance at his senior's countenance, in
 
 110 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 which he read something sufficiently startling to 
 make him wish at once to change the subject. 
 
 A feature of the ebullitions of Judge Irving's tem 
 per was that, without opposition, they died out as 
 quickly as they came. He was really so well satisfied 
 with his own importance and his own judgment, it 
 did not seem worth while to contend for them. Hav 
 ing sufficiently silenced Gordon upon the point under 
 dispute, he turned the conversation to the young law 
 yer's chances for political advancement ; upon which 
 topic, to the exclusion of all such minor matters as 
 women and their influence for good or ill, they talked 
 until dinner-time. 
 
 Stremcf, who had awaited Gordon's return until he 
 could wait no more, had long ago taken his leave. 
 One or two other people had dropped in; but Sara 
 Stauffer did not appear. When Marion was free to 
 go up-stairs and look for her, she found her door 
 locked, and Sara protesting through the key-hole that 
 she was dressing for dinner, and would join her below 
 in due time. But Sara had not heen dressing for 
 dinner ever since she left the library. For a long 
 time she had been pacing her floor in a stormy wrath 
 that shook her frail figure like a reed. Then she had 
 thrown herself across her bed and sobbed, shedding 
 hot tears of a nature we must hope the Higher Wo 
 man will never be called upon to shed tears of rage 
 and defiance, mingled with overmastering love for 
 one of the abject creatures born into the world to 
 be woman's cross and curse ! Sara may perhaps be 
 pardoned this weakness, when we reflect that it was 
 the first time in her thirty years of varied experience
 
 A BACHELOE MAID 111 
 
 she had ever known the bitter-sweet experience of 
 caring for another more than for herself. 
 
 When she appeared at dinner she found their party 
 of three supplemented "by Gordon, who had been in 
 duced by the judge to remain as he was, in morning 
 clothes. Not the closest student of the human mask 
 could have read in hers a trace of the storm that had 
 recently swept over it. So gracious, graceful, modest, 
 yet entertaining withal, was she, that even Gordon 
 was drawn into the circle influenced by her. Marion, 
 effacing herself, looked proudly on at the irresistible 
 effect of Sara's charm upon Alec. 
 
 And the judge ! What had become of the testy, 
 elderly gentleman who usually occupied that chair at 
 the head of the table, who either fretted at the butler 
 about the wines, the joint, the game, the salad, or else 
 sat in gloomy silence that fell over his household like 
 a pall ? He was gone, and in his place sat a youngish, 
 alert, courteous, good-looking stranger, the model of a 
 judge off duty, a judge relaxed, a genial, considerate 
 parent, and host, and master ! 
 
 So far did the little candle of Sara Stauffer throw 
 its beams. And, after dinner, when she sat down 
 behind the pianoforte in the half darkness of the 
 lamp-lighted music-room, and played uninterruptedly 
 for half an hour, Gordon felt himself impelled to go 
 over to her side. When he reached her, he stopped 
 short, wondering why he had done this thing. 
 
 " You won't condemn my fingering," she said audi 
 bly to the others. " I am aware that according to rule 
 it is lamentably defective. I should be afraid to play 
 before Baron Stremof, for example."
 
 112 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 " But you have a gift of going straight to the heart 
 with your music, that is of all gifts the most charm 
 ing," he replied, enthusiastically. 
 
 He stood there for a moment, and, as she played 
 louder, added in a lower tone : " I think you are a 
 Pied Piper of Hamelin, to have lifted me from my 
 chair, and brought me across the room, for what 
 reason I know not." 
 
 She did not answer, but her music just then con 
 veyed such "divine enchanting ravishment" the young 
 man felt his steady brain invaded by something mar- 
 velously like personal attraction to the player. He 
 wondered if it were true that, in the dusky corner 
 where she was niched, he heard a half -breathed sigh. 
 
 The music stopped with a crash. With a petulant 
 movement Sara arose from her seat, and passed over 
 to sit on a stool by Marion, resting her elbow in the 
 girl's lap. 
 
 The judge, this pretty picture in full view, was 
 quite carried out of himself by enthusiasm. 
 
 "By Jove!" he said, gallantly, "Madame Stauffer 
 has bewitched us all! Gordon stands there moon 
 struck; I believe Marion has been crying; and I 
 by Jove ! " he repeated^ smiling ecstatically, but at a 
 loss for further words. 
 
 Gordon, saying good night, got out into the street 
 as quickly as possible. He had a confused idea that 
 Marion's eyes had met his with a look of triumph, and 
 that before he had finished shaking hands with her, 
 she had sought Sara's face with reverent admiration. 
 The cool air, a brisk walk down the avenue, restored 
 his balance and made him see things as they were.
 
 A BACHELOK MAID 113 
 
 " The little Lorelei is stronger than I thought ; but 
 she has done no more than make an ass of me for a 
 minute and a half. The question is, what is her 
 game! That, I shall make it my business to find 
 out. ... I wonder what Aunt Effie, who is a shrewd 
 old dear, meant by suggesting Marion will, of her 
 own accord, come back to me. To-night she might 
 have been a star trembling upon a lonely peak, so far 
 away she seemed." 
 
 When he reached his room, he took out of a desk 
 an imperial photograph of Marion which he had asked 
 her to let him keep. As he gazed at it, a sweet, hu 
 man look of love and trust he had sometimes seen 
 there made a fresh imprint upon his heart. 
 
 " There is none like you, dear," he said loyally. 
 "After this, either I win you back, or no woman shall 
 claim me. And now, God speed my quest ! "
 
 VI 
 
 HREE weeks later saw Alec Gordon 
 again in the hall of Judge Irving's 
 house, asking, with conventional in 
 difference, the conventional question 
 if " the ladies " were at home. The 
 man who had admitted him, profess 
 ing to be unaware of the movements of Madame 
 Stauffer, said that he knew that Miss Irving had gone 
 to attend a meeting of the University Settlement As 
 sociation, as he himself had given the order to the 
 coachman to drive there. 
 
 " Very well, Hilary," said Mr. Gordon, who was in 
 reality well informed as to the point upon which he 
 sought enlightenment. " Then you will probably find 
 Madame Stauffer in the drawing-room ; so give her 
 my card, and say that I shall not detain her long." 
 Madame Stauffer was in the drawing-room. When 
 Gordon entered that apartment, he had a sudden 
 realizing sense of the fine way in which she had in 
 corporated herself with her surroundings. Her face, 
 figure, and dress had equally improved in appearance. 
 There was in her manner a species of elegant nonchal 
 ance that allowed no hint to escape of her transitory 
 relations with the luxury of this house and furniture. 
 
 114
 
 A BACHELOE MAID 115 
 
 The sun shining too brightly upon her face through a 
 screen of azaleas in the window, she bade the servant 
 lower the shade as though her life had been spent in 
 controlling that servant and that shade. But Gordon, 
 as he drew up a chair facing her, noticed that she 
 shrank a little from his scrutiny. 
 
 "Would you not rather sit here?" she asked., in 
 dicating a place beside her. 
 
 " Thanks," he said coolly ; " I took this chair, with 
 my back to the light, the better to see your face." 
 
 " Outspoken, as usual," she answered, wincing a lit 
 tle, but holding her head up bravely, as she fronted 
 him. 
 
 " Yes"; I rarely lose time when I see my point, and 
 have an opportunity to go to it direct." 
 
 " Dear me ! what is it you want to say to me ? " 
 she exclaimed. "When I received your note, and 
 made a point of meeting its request, I was plunged 
 into agreeable curiosity." 
 
 " I have not often had a visit to make that cost me 
 so much hesitation so much genuine regret," he 
 said, with a touch of honest feeling in his voice. 
 
 " More and more tragic," she replied, smiling plea 
 santly, " when I consider how r chary you have taken 
 pains to be of your visits, in general." 
 
 "Madame Stauffer, I am sorry for you," he went 
 on bluntly. " But when you took up your abode in 
 this house, you must have counted upon the risk you 
 ran." 
 
 " Wait," said Sara, shutting her eyes. She wanted 
 one moment alone with her own thoughts. 
 
 She knew, now, that he had found out that in her
 
 116 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 life which she had desired above all things to con 
 ceal ; and the knowledge that from him the blow of 
 exposure was to come was more than she could bear. 
 
 "I see that you understand me/' said the quiet, 
 persistent voice. 
 
 "So it was for this you wished to see me alone," 
 she cried bitterly. " I blind fool who fancied that 
 it was, perhaps, for other things; I, who dreamed 
 there could be such a being as a big-hearted, unsel 
 fish man that, seeing the struggle of a woman against 
 fate, might stretch out over her the mantle of his 
 generosity his pity his but no no ! They are 
 all alike. Cruel, implacable, they ruin and they 
 condemn." 
 
 " I cannot imagine why you use these very inap 
 propriate words to me," he said. 
 
 " Oh, you do not ? You refuse to see what is near 
 you, what might have been so much to you, what 
 would have made of your life one long brilliant ca 
 reer of success over your fellow-men? How could 
 you fancy a man born to be a ruler that a wife 
 like Marion Irving, a cold, half-developed dreamer, 
 could satisfy the needs of your nature inspire you 
 to great deeds ? n 
 
 "It is I who am dreaming, or else you are mad 
 that you say, or I think you say, things like this to 
 me." 
 
 "Why should I not say them to you, as well as 
 you say them to another, or to me ? Are we not 
 equal souls ! " 
 
 " I think not," he continued, looking down upon 
 her with a look that left her no rag of delusion as
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 117 
 
 to his feeling toward her. "I beg your pardon if I 
 seem brutal. But I cannot delay what I came here 
 to say. I don't need to go into particulars. For 
 some time past I have been engaged in satisfying 
 certain doubts of mine about you, and I have suc 
 ceeded. There is not in my mind a shadow of un 
 certainty as to the fact that you must not remain a 
 day longer under this roof." 
 
 "Do you mean to tell them?" she said in a low, 
 strained voice he hardly recognized. 
 
 " "Why need I tell them ? Why need I so pain her ? " 
 
 "Her her! it's all for her," she cried desperately. 
 "For her you have done me this wrong." 
 
 "If you wish me to say it, knowing your past, 
 what in the world else could I have done ? " 
 
 "How came you to set out in your noble quest 
 for information about my past?" 
 
 "Because, from the first, I felt that somebody 
 should know, better than anybody did know, who 
 it was that had been admitted into the most sacred 
 confidences of Marion Irving's life, to influence her 
 thought and actions. I inquired from your late em 
 ployers at the college. They referred me to some 
 people in Chicago. The track ended there. "When 
 you were next heard of you were in the South, under 
 your present name to which you have no lawful 
 right" 
 
 ""Well, granted that I went away with Dr. Stauf- 
 fer, who had persuaded me to live according to his 
 theories. I was deluded by a specious fanatic, a bril 
 liant madman-. I believed in him ; he almost broke 
 my heart and spirit ; but he is dead. The world was 
 
 8*
 
 118 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 all before me, the future long in which to live down 
 six months of folly." 
 
 " People of my way of thinking have a harsher 
 name for it," he said. 
 
 " You are pitiless ! But it is over, I tell you. No 
 one knows, unless you choose to publish it. Why is 
 not the world wide enough for you and me ? " 
 
 " It is wide enough, and I am not without pity. If 
 you go from here at once, to-morrow afternoon, as 
 soon as you can make arrangements to do so that 
 will not arouse suspicion in our friends ; if you will 
 promise me to hold no future communication with 
 Marion or her father, I shall see that you suffer no 
 material loss." 
 
 " It needed only this ! " she cried, bursting into tears. 
 
 Gordon walked up and down the room till she had 
 spent the first force of her emotion. The experience 
 thus coming to him of a nature divided against itself, 
 in which an unconquerable passion for him had arisen 
 to bear down all obstacles presented by her alleged 
 principles of independence, was interesting enough to 
 be dangerous to his resolution. He returned to her 
 side, and stood there for a moment hesitating. 
 
 " You must know it is my desire to spare you any 
 thing more than it is absolutely needful for mefto in 
 flict that makes me propose what so wounds you," 
 he said finally. "In leaving here, you will be less 
 than ever prepared to battle with the hardships of 
 the world. You must let me help you financially as 
 a loan as you will ; you must not refuse me." 
 
 She had ceased sobbing, and now sprang up beside 
 him, and laid her hand upon his arm.
 
 A BACHELOE MAID 119 
 
 " You do care, then ? You care, even a little bit." 
 
 "I care? Certainly. For what do you take 
 me?" 
 
 " Enough to give me a little longer time ? " she 
 pleaded eagerly, her face kindling. 
 
 Her eyes sought his with magnetic influence. If 
 ever in her life, she was under the spell of a genuine 
 feeling. 
 
 As they stood so, together, the door of the draw 
 ing-room opened, and Marion came in. Sara, who 
 must have known who the intruder was, did not alter 
 her position by a hair's breadth. It was Gordon who 
 started violently away from her, and went over to 
 take Marion by the hand. 
 
 " What is it ? " said Marion, a shade paler. 
 
 Then Sara, for a moment unbalanced, sent a look 
 of swift appeal to Gordon. But the sight of Marion 
 had brushed all cobwebs from the man's brain. He 
 saw the edge of the chasm he had grazed in passing. 
 He stood erect, fearless, unmerciful a righteous 
 judge. 
 
 " Your friend has been telling me, Marion, that to 
 morrow she must leave you," he said distinctly, and 
 without a tremor in his voice. 
 
 " To-morrow '? " echoed Marion, without moving to 
 ward Sara. 
 
 " To-morrow afternoon, I think you said, Madame 
 Stauffer ? If there is anything I can do to assist you 
 in your preparations for departure, you will command 
 me?" 
 
 Sara Stauffer did not answer him. Turning swiftly, 
 she swept by the two, and left them alone together.
 
 120 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 " What does this mean ? " again asked Marion. 
 
 "Marion, you trust me!" he answered, trying to 
 take her hand, which she withdrew. 
 
 " I have had a shock," she said mechanically, going 
 over to drop into a seat by the fire. 
 
 Gordon recognized that she would be relieved by 
 his absence, but he could not go without one other 
 word. 
 
 "Marion," he said, following her that he might 
 speak in a low tone. " It 's a pity you came in when 
 you did, and it 's a double pity I can't explain to you 
 what you naturally can't understand. But I cannot. 
 My lips are sealed. I have got to throw myself upon 
 all the kind feeling you ever had for me. This is a 
 pretty rough trick Fortune has played me. Surely 
 we 've known each other long enough and well enough 
 for you to believe me, without question, when I say 
 there has been nothing between me and that woman 
 you might not know, if you could know but you 
 can't. She is going out of your life to-morrow, as 
 suddenly as she came into it. Be kind to her, for she 
 needs you. But for God's sake, believe me and 
 don't try to keep her in this house." 
 
 "The best kindness to me, just now, would be to 
 leave me," the girl said; and he could see that she 
 spoke the truth. With an inarticulate exclama 
 tion, driven from him by his thought of her vigil, 
 soon to come, with a tremendous disillusion, he left 
 her. 
 
 For the remainder of the day he had, about the 
 whole matter, a defeated and miserable feeling that 
 gave him a sleepless night. The darkness into which
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 121 
 
 his wide-open eyes stared was peopled for him by 
 visions of possibilities arising out of his interference, 
 and the luckless turn it had taken. The scene with 
 Sara, upon which Marion had come so inopportunely, 
 now took on a complexion most unpleasant. What 
 use might not that exquisitely artful person (of whose 
 passion for him, however, it did not occur to his 
 masculine mind to doubt the sincerity) make of the 
 situation Marion had discovered, further to poison 
 Marion's mind ? What would it avail him to get rid 
 of Sara, if he was to lose Marion in a way far worse 
 than by the breaking of their late engagement ? And 
 whose part would the judge take in the matter the 
 judge who, having carried his point in offering to 
 Madame Stauffer a salary as secretary for him and 
 companion for his daughter, had found himself so 
 evidently comfortable and at ease in the new relation ? 
 
 The night, that brings counsel, did not answer any 
 of these questions to Gordon's satisfaction. He arose 
 jaded and out of humor; went down-town to his 
 affairs ; then into court, to be disgusted with his own 
 performance in a particularly interesting case ; and, 
 on reaching his rooms to dress for dinner, found, cool 
 ing his little heels in the passageway outside his door, 
 a messenger boy, bearing a note, for which he was 
 instructed to await the answer. 
 
 The envelop, addressed in Marion's handwriting, 
 excited so lively a commotion in Gordon's breast that 
 he struck three matches before he could light the 
 gas. His hand trembled as he tore the note open. 
 But all minor sensations of any description were 
 destined to be swept away in a flood of angry aston-
 
 122 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 ishment when his. mind grasped the actual meaning 
 of the words he read. 
 
 Come to me if you can. I must have advice, and I have no 
 one to whom to turn. My father married her to-day at twelve ; 
 and they have gone away on a wedding-journey. Of this I have 
 just been informed by letter. 
 
 Gordon, having enlisted his good Aunt Effie to go 
 with him to Marion, sat that evening in the library 
 of Judge Irving's house, turning over and over in his 
 hand a letter. It was from Sara, and read : 
 
 It is better so, my darling Marion. When I saw last night 
 your confusion and distress at the announcement of my inten 
 tion to leave to-day, when you did not come near me once 
 during my packing this morning, I was so grieved at the mis 
 understanding I longed, a thousand times over, to tell you 
 my secret, and to weep it out upon your breast. But your fa 
 ther's wishes henceforth the law of my life were inflexible. 
 He said that in a position like ours nothing would be gained by 
 previous discussion of our intention. During my talk last night 
 with him in the library, when you were shut up in your room, 
 he exacted from me a promise to put our plan for which I 
 may tell you he has for some time had all the preliminaries 
 arranged into execution before speaking of it to you. Ah ! 
 my Marion, if you are inclined to' blame me, think what you 
 he and your dear home have been to the friendless stranger, 
 and say whether I could resist making them my own. When, 
 after a few days' absence, we come back to you, may I not 
 count upon a renewal of our sweet tie, our friendship, now to 
 be one for life ? May not our tastes, our aims, our energies, 
 work together more closely than before ? Consider, as I have, 
 that in your isolated position you need me as much as I need 
 you. I shall be so kind, so tender, your life will be smoothed in 
 many respects, I promise. Let nothing drive from your heart 
 one who, whatever comes, will ever hold you close in hers ! 
 
 Your SARA.
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 123 
 
 While the two women, up in Marion's room, were 
 discussing the matter in the aspect it would present 
 to friends and society at large, Gordon felt the sting 
 of his defeat to be more poignant, the more he con 
 templated its various faces known only to himself. 
 That Sara had effected her victory over him by a 
 dazzling swoop, he had reluctantly to confess. For 
 so many weeks he had carried about with him the 
 uncomfortable knowledge of her interest in himself 
 far beyond an ordinary interest, he had entirely 
 ceased to apprehend danger from the direction in 
 which it had finally and decisively come. He now 
 cursed himself as an infatuated idiot not to have 
 suspecte'd that this adventuress was well equipped 
 at every point; that, failing her schemes upon him, 
 she would immediately resort to the act that had 
 placed her in sacred safety forever, beyond the reach 
 of his knowledge of her past. That, after all, was 
 the rub. To save Marion and Marion's name from 
 the exposure of Sara Stauffer's past, he would hence 
 forth have to spend his best efforts in concealing it. 
 In all human probability the question, unless he 
 brought it up, would never present itself to threaten 
 the peace of the Irving household. His investigation 
 of the facts, known to few, and carefully concealed, 
 had been made with difficulty ; and even those from 
 whom he had procured information did not suspect 
 his object. Never did an ingenious piece of detective 
 work reward its contriver with such a thankless end 
 ing. With all his heart he wished himself free of 
 the secret 5 and then cast about him for a means of 
 meeting a demand for explanation sure to come from 
 Marion.
 
 124 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 " You are still here, Alec ? " said Marion, entering 
 the room. "I fancied you would stay till I could 
 have a talk alone with you. It was a kind thought 
 to bring your Aunt Effie to me, and, whatever comes, 
 I thank you for it." 
 
 " Whatever comes ! " Gordon, who had risen to meet 
 her, stood while she sat down. He had a queer feel 
 ing of complicity in the wrong that, in a few hours, 
 had changed her to a woman of marble, with bright, 
 glittering eyes in which there were no tears. He 
 waited. For the life of him he could not speak. 
 
 " When you came here yesterday, am I wrong in 
 thinking it was by appointment with her f " she 
 said. 
 
 "I had written asking her to receive me, and she 
 had fixed that hour." 
 
 " Had you then any suspicion of her intentions to 
 do what she has done?" 
 
 " None. It came upon me like a thunder-clap," he 
 said frankly. 
 
 "And yet, when I came into the room, there was 
 something between you, far out of the common," she 
 went on, trying to weigh her words. " If it was not 
 about my father, ifc must have been on your own ac 
 count," she burst out, losing her self-possession. " Oh ! 
 what is the hateful mystery? Either she is a mira 
 cle of deceit, or you you, the one it is my first 
 impulse to trust and believe in have been hiding 
 something from me. Alec, when I found myself alone 
 to-day, in my distraction I wrote first to you. As soon 
 as I had sent the message, I remembered the circum 
 stance of yesterday, and I wanted to recall the note.
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 125 
 
 I think if it had not occurred to you to bring your 
 Aunt Effie with you, I should have asked to be ex 
 cused when you came. And yet, how can I believe 
 you are other than I have always known you inca 
 pable of betraying our friendship ? " 
 
 " You are right, Marion. I am incapable of betray 
 ing our friendship," he said, greatly touched. " If ever 
 in my life I wanted to do anything, it is at this minute 
 to give you the fullest possible explanation of what 
 you ask. But it is simply impossible. For myself, 
 you might read every thought of my heart ; but unless 
 you can trust me, I must go away and leave you, and 
 bear, as I can, the misfortune of the accident that has 
 placed me in this position." 
 
 " Then I will alter the form of my question," she 
 said, after thinking for a time. u Tell me what you 
 would counsel me to do. Is there known to you any 
 reason, apart from her duplicity to me, why I may 
 not accept this woman as my father's wife, live under 
 the same roof with her, put the best face before the 
 world upon the situation?" 
 
 She gazed at him steadily. The color rose into 
 Gordon's face. He turned aside, and walked to the 
 far end of the room and looked through the window 
 into the night. 
 
 " I am answered," said Marion, drearily. 
 
 "Marion, you are putting me in a position that 
 is intolerable," he exclaimed, returning to her side. 
 " May I not beg you, in justice to me, to withdraw 
 that question? Consider that you are asking me 
 about your father's wife." 
 
 " Then you do think that it is my duty to receive
 
 126 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 her as such ? " she cried, pathetically eager, it seemed 
 to him, to cling to her last illusion. " Oh, Alec ! 
 Hard as I may seem, I am almost desperate. I want 
 to forgive, I want to forget. I want to live down the 
 cruel doubts I have had of her, and the constant feel 
 ing I have that she has used me, and everything 
 around me, for her own purposes. But I can't. I 
 will not attempt to struggle, if I must end by dis 
 astrous failure. There is only one way to meet the 
 crisis. I must go out of this house. I cannot await 
 them here." 
 
 "Could you not come to me, Marion?" he said 
 tenderly. 
 
 " No, no, not that ! Don't make me sorry I sent for 
 you in my overpowering trouble." 
 
 Gordon started as if he had been stung. 
 
 " I did not mean to hurt you," she added quickly. 
 " But you must see I am in no condition to talk of 
 what I have just succeeded in putting out of my 
 thoughts. It is not that I do not believe in you. I 
 do; and I ask your pardon for a doubt born of ex 
 traordinary circumstances." 
 
 " I believe you never loved me," he said, cut by her 
 measured tone. 
 
 "At any rate, I thought so once," she returned, 
 covering her eyes wearily with her hand, as she rested 
 her elbow on the table. " Since we have been parted, 
 I have almost thought I was mistaken; there have 
 seemed to be things so much more incumbent upon 
 me than loving. In place of the heart I used to have, 
 there is now a spot sealed under a stone. The person 
 who has come nearest to touching it is dear Miss
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 127 
 
 Effie Gordon; but I arn afraid even she will be 
 discouraged." 
 
 " You will let Aunt Effie take charge of you ? " he 
 said, catching at a straw. 
 
 " Your aunt? Your nearest relative ? I think not. 
 It would only complicate matters. No, she sees that, 
 as I do; and in the last hour she has helped me to 
 come to a decision about my future. Feeling as I do, 
 I cannot stay here till they return. I shall find a 
 place to go to ; and, trust me, I shall do nothing that 
 either you or Miss Effie would disapprove of. If you 
 choose, I will promise to be guided by her advice in 
 everything about the change. But as, henceforth, I 
 am to live to myself, I think I might begin now to act 
 independently. A woman of twenty-five is no child, 
 Alec. Don't look at me with such doubtful eyes, be 
 cause I am going out to meet the world." 
 
 Insensibly, she had fallen into the old attitude of 
 appealing to his judgment. 
 
 "What, in God's name, do you know about the 
 world!" he burst out irrepressibly. 
 
 " It is time that I should, then," she said, with an 
 answering spark of spirit. " I am a thousand times 
 better equipped in means and education than most of 
 the other women who are forced into the conflict by 
 necessity. Is it not my plain duty to correct the 
 defects of my environment?" 
 
 Gordon looked about the room, to whose interior of 
 mellow beauty no sound of the street penetrated. 
 
 " And you, who have lived all your sheltered life in 
 this," he said, " think you can step outside of it, alone, 
 without definite aims, with no protection? Have you
 
 128 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 ever fancied what it would be to be left in the street 
 at midnight, unable to get within your own door ? 
 The helplessness of woman when she is bereft of the 
 shield of conventionality is something you never have 
 had to contemplate, and that I cannot contemplate 
 for you." 
 
 "What, then, do you propose for me, Alec?" she 
 said quietly. 
 
 Gordon was silent. 
 
 " Not a residence under the roof of either of my 
 uncles, even if their wives would have me? I can 
 hardly go back to college though, indeed, I have 
 thought of teaching there, if they would make a place 
 for me. In the seven days' wonder this affair of my 
 father's is going to make, surely the best thing I can 
 do is to keep out of sight and chance of comment. 
 Miss Effie says she will help me when I have deter 
 mined and since we have been talking I have de 
 termined to make a home for myself." 
 
 Gordon looked at her in surprise. In spite of the 
 marks of deep distress upon her face, it had been 
 lighted from within by the new flame of resolution 
 that transfigured her. 
 
 Miss Effie, coming in, saw also the expression of 
 Marion's countenance, and, going up to her briskly, 
 put a kind arm around the girl's shoulders. 
 
 "Courage, my dear!" the old maid said in her 
 hearty voice. " The hardest thing in all this world is 
 to be true to oneself. If I don't mistake, you have 
 been asking this boy of mine the question why you 
 may not belong to yourself, and perhaps he has not 
 been able to answer you. What you are striving for
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 129 
 
 is neither unwomanly nor revolutionary ; it is a thou 
 sand times better for you to work out your own ex 
 periment in your own way than to let yourself be 
 cramped and choked by mere conventionality. And, 
 after all, who knows but the opportunity that has 
 come to you in this unwelcome fashion may prove 
 a blessing in disguise ? " 
 
 " You will excuse me from discussing it further," 
 Gordon said stiffly. Just now he was irritated against 
 all the world, including honest Aunt Effie ; and his 
 only idea of an appropriate exit from the situation 
 was an exit from the house. 
 
 After this, he would let the women manage affairs 
 for themselves; and when Marion should want him 
 again, she must ask twice before he would adventure 
 himself to a like experience. Even his dismay at the 
 fate that had overtaken his old friend, the judge, was 
 subordinated to the thought that Marion was now 
 free to roam unchecked in the dangerous field of 
 modern feminine independence.
 
 VII 
 
 EXT morning, Marion, in her turn, 
 awoke out of a dull and troubled 
 sleep, to cogitate her new situation 
 in the chill gray of early daylight, 
 so depressing to resolutions of the 
 night before. To Miss Effle, who 
 had offered to remain with her, she had said no 
 that it was better at once to attempt the solitude 
 henceforth her portion in life. And Miss Effie, ten 
 der, if a trifle gruff in voice, had patted her on the 
 shoulder, told her that on the whole she was right, 
 and, declining to have a cab or servant, had trotted 
 off alone in the darkness, intending to catch a street 
 car going west. 
 
 Marion, as she dwelt on the old maid's sterling 
 goodness, her clear common sense, her happiness in 
 her own beliefs, yet had a little shiver of distaste at a 
 grotesque dread thrusting itself upon her, that she, 
 Marion, might one day come to be of the same type. 
 Whilst combing her hair, the girl surveyed in her 
 mirror her stately shape and clear soft coloring, and 
 wondered if she ought to wish they would never 
 know transformation into the square dimensions, 
 drab tints, and tanned surfaces with which Miss Effie 
 
 130
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 131 
 
 faced the realities of life. And yet even Miss Effie, 
 provided by nature with a shield against contact 
 with the wicked world, had the walls of a home 
 behind which to intrench herself an unimpeachable 
 background in those faded pastels, the sisters ; while 
 Marion, having none of these, must go on her lonely 
 way, and look not back or around her. 
 
 It would have been superhuman indeed, if, in the 
 first moment of reaction after great excitement and 
 stern resolve, Marion's thoughts had not dwelt upon 
 Alec Gordon. As she lay waiting for sounds of 
 awakening life about the house, for the soft noise of 
 the housemaid's brushes in the hall outside her door, 
 for the glimmering casemate to be defined upon the 
 full light of outer day, her soul seemed to be floating 
 afar in a world void of substance, instinctively seeking 
 a mate with which it could blend and be at rest. This, 
 was no doubt a capital weakness, but Marion, in that 
 hour betwixt sleep and waking, was not fully respon 
 sible. As she turned on her weary pillow, trying 
 to banish these thoughts in sleep, again and again 
 the image of Gordon putting aside his pride in the 
 tender burst of pleading that she would bring all her 
 troubles to him, with him share the odium that had 
 been thrust upon her, returned with haunting persis 
 tence. How simple a process, how natural and right 
 it then appeared to her, to throw aside her dream of 
 independence, put her hand in that of this true and 
 manly fellow, and say to him : " Where thou goest, I 
 go. Thine is mine, the world before us is ours to 
 meet for good or ill, to live together according to 
 God's holy ordinance as man and wife."
 
 132 A BACHELOE MAID 
 
 God's holy ordinance! What did that mean the 
 words she had so often heard over the heads of couples 
 standing at the altar? If there were anything in re 
 ligion, was it not the first injunction of the Creator to 
 created man and woman, to blend their interests in 
 one ? If there were anything in law and order of 
 human society, was it not the first requisite that the 
 joint life of man and woman should be lived as or 
 dained, that their mutual love might remain immortal 
 in a perishable world ? 
 
 Somehow or other, this was a sweet and sustaining 
 thought. All her other ideas of living for champion 
 ship of the unaccorded rights of her own sex faded 
 away in the light of its steady radiance. The fond 
 fancies of girlhood about wifehood, hitherto dormant 
 in Marion, trooped up to surround the image of the 
 lover she had cast away. 
 
 When the maid came in, and Marion, starting, saw 
 upon the woman's face the ill-concealed curiosity of 
 her order about her young lady's changed prospects, 
 she was disagreeably surprised. The hard reality of 
 her actual lot had been, during this last hour of 
 reverie, so happily remote ! She had had such lovely 
 things to think of! 
 
 Dismissing the woman, whose eagerness for items 
 to discuss among her fellows below-stairs disgusted 
 Marion, she went through the various stages of her 
 toilet, still strangely under the influence of the re 
 bound in favor of Gordon. She recalled his trying 
 position under her interrogatory, his self-control, his 
 open statement that unless she could trust him he 
 must go away without her trust, and stand by the
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 133 
 
 consequences of his inability to make due explanation. 
 Her fleeting suspicion that he had been engaged in 
 some affair of the heart with Sara now seemed to her 
 to have been a monstrous injustice. Whatever the 
 understanding between them, Marion would never be 
 lieve that Gordon's attitude in the matter was not 
 one of fidelity to herself, although many evidences of 
 Sara's fancy for the handsome young man now arose 
 to convict Madame Stauffer of double treachery in 
 her hasty marriage with the judge. 
 
 On Sara's side all was dark, shifty, perfidious. On 
 Gordon's, Marion saw only his native endowment of 
 manly virtue, strengthened by a great love for her, 
 a love she now knew she never had deserved. The 
 fine balance of wits and judgment in his character, 
 his refusal ever to be moved to the right or left 
 against their dictates, were admirable in her sight. 
 Nothing like them was observable in her retrospect 
 of the brilliant inconsistencies of her later friend and 
 guide, who had ended by inflicting on her that most 
 cruel wound. 
 
 In this mood, she went down into her morning- 
 room to find on the table a note from Gordon, 
 running as follows: 
 
 I cannot but hope, my dear Marion, that your afterthought 
 of our conversation will confirm you in your generous promise 
 to believe me without specific explanation of my share in the 
 crushing blow that God knows I never dreamed would fall on 
 you. If I bungled, it was hoping to be of use to you. But 
 consideration of the affair, and, above all, of your present 
 attitude to me, proves that I am wiser in not again offering to 
 approach you personally. In whatever I can serve you as a 
 friend, as a brother, as one who has received every kindness
 
 134 A BACHELOE MAID 
 
 from your father and yourself, command me always. A letter 
 from your father, which I found on returning home last night, 
 makes such explanation of his act as he thinks needful. He 
 asks me to convey it to you, and I do so. While I cannot, in 
 conscience, advise you to reconsider your intention not to 
 remain under their roof, I am still gravely anxious as to what 
 other course you will pursue. I beg of you to be guided in all 
 things by my aunt, who will counsel you as I could not. If I 
 do not again take occasion to say so, believe always in my 
 interest and solicitude for your welfare ; count upon me not as 
 the lover who has failed to win you and accepts his fate, and 
 to whom wisdom suggests absence from you as the only means 
 of enabling his judgment to act in your behalf, but as, in the 
 
 full sense, your friend and servant, 
 
 ALEXANDER GORDON. 
 
 Marion dropped this letter in her lap. 
 
 It was as if a needle-bath had played upon her 
 warm feelings. 
 
 Mechanically she took up the sheet of note-paper it 
 had inclosed, in which the bridegroom of the day 
 before had penciled a few lines of palliation of his 
 sudden action. Few they were, and, naturally, ineffi 
 cient in producing the desired, result ; the plea of a 
 vain, pompous, self-sufficient man under the spell of 
 a folly old as creation determined to indulge him 
 self, and to leave others to bear the consequence. 
 
 Her father's letter had upon Marion the salutary 
 effect of arousing anew her old resentment of in 
 justice. Otherwise had she been in great peril of 
 shedding mere womanly tears because her lover had 
 at last gratified her by definitely leaving her to 
 herself. In a trice, the soft visions of the early 
 hours of day fled away from her now, indeed, had 
 she attained the summit of her old ambitions ; now
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 135 
 
 was she free and able to be a law unto herself ! And 
 Marion, for the first time in all her trials, broke 
 down, and cried until she could cry no more. 
 
 Miss Effie, engaged with some of her charities in 
 the forenoon, had promised to be with her in the 
 afternoon. 
 
 Marion, after regaining her self-possession, was 
 employed in putting beneath the grate and burning 
 to a crisp a newspaper containing an animated 
 version of the surprising marriage at such a church, 
 by such a rector, of the well-known Mr. Justice 
 Irving with his daughter's " governess," when Hilary, 
 coming into the room fresh from a bout with a re 
 porter who had called to inquire particulars of the 
 judge's family, brought Marion a card. 
 
 It was Mrs. Romaine's, and above the name was 
 penciled an urgent request to be received, if for a 
 few minutes only. 
 
 " That hard, cold, cynical woman ! " said Marion, 
 inwardly. " How she will grate on me ! But still 
 what does it matter? I have got to face this 
 wretched business, and I may as well begin. Yes, I 
 will begin. If she is hard, I will be hard. No one 
 shall pity me ! " 
 
 She went into the drawing-room to find quite 
 another Mrs. Romaine than the one to whom she 
 and society had been used. This woman's face was 
 not hard, and there was genuine sympathy in her 
 eyes, as she arose and took Marion's hand. 
 
 "My dear, as soon as I read it in my morning's 
 paper, I ordered the carriage, to come to you," she 
 said. "I felt as if I, better than some others, can
 
 136 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 understand what has been going on, because I mis 
 trusted that person from the day she was at my 
 house at luncheon. But, Marion, I thought it was 
 Gordon she aimed for, and I still think so, if she 
 could have got him. Don't think me impertinent, 
 I don't mean to be, or prying, or anything. Don't 
 answer me unless you like, but give me leave to talk 
 out what 's in my mind, or heart, rather if I can 
 persuade you I have such a commodity behind my 
 hooks and eyes. You are dreadfully alone in the 
 world, you poor girl, and I came to say that if you 
 would like to if you can't think of anything better 
 for the present I have plenty of room in my house 
 for you or, better still, if you want to go away, 
 I will take you anywhere Florida, Bermuda, Spain, 
 Italy all places are the same to me, and I am 
 always glad to move on. I have been told you 
 have resources, independent of your father; but don't 
 speak of expense. I have more money than I can 
 spend, and it is n't because I want a new sensation 
 that I ask you, though you probably will think so " 
 
 She stopped to draw breath, and Marion saw some 
 thing like tears come into her eyes, and escape upon 
 her cheeks. 
 
 " Mrs. Romaine " the girl began, gratefully, her 
 heart kindling with a sudden pleasant warmth. 
 
 "Don't answer me yet. You '11 say no, of course; 
 and I hate to be refused anything. Think it over. 
 You won't care to stay on here a girl of your cut 
 of mind and temper, I 'm sure ; and, on the whole, 
 the best thing would be to travel. So, pray come 
 away with me; and if I 'm trying, you may be trying,
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 137 
 
 too. But I 'm really better than I seem. And, if 
 you want to know one reason why I 'm sorry for 
 you it 's because I had a baby once named Marion 
 my only girl, whom I loved passionately. She was 
 a wee, delicate thing, that died in my arms in her 
 sleep. I sometimes think my husband has forgotten 
 she was ever born ; he never speaks of her. I believe 
 he thinks it a relief to have had her taken. But I don't 
 forget. I see her, in company, among the other girls ; 
 and think that if I were ever ill (which fortunately 
 I 'in not) she would sit by my bedside, and stroke 
 my hand, and kiss my brow, and call me 'mother.' 
 Now, my dear, 1 7 m not given to gushing, any more 
 than you are ; but if you want me, take me, and 
 you '11 not regret it." 
 
 " If you knew how empty the world seemed to me, 
 half an hour since, of people likely to make such an 
 offer," said Marion, " you 'd know how truly I thank 
 you for it. When I sat there reading those wretched 
 notices with the head-lines in the newspapers, about 
 my father's marriage, I felt utterly alone." 
 
 " Gordon I " said the lady, eager interest perched 
 upon her brows. 
 
 "You know, of course, that our engagement has 
 been for some time at an end ? He came last night, 
 and so did dear Miss Effie Gordon ; but I can hardly 
 take more than sympathy in words from them." 
 
 " I thought so," said Mrs. Romaine, triumphantly. 
 " I considered all that, before I came. Otherwise, I 
 should perhaps not have ventured to offer myself." 
 
 " How good you are ! " cried Marion, struck with 
 this evidence of, it must be confessed, an unsuspected
 
 138 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 delicacy. "But, indeed, you must not tempt me to 
 be a coward and run away from my duties and obli 
 gations in New York. Nor must I trust myself in 
 your home. You, who are all for the ability of 
 woman to meet crises in life as bravely as any man 
 would meet them, must not unnerve me at the start." 
 
 "Oh, but, my dear, a man under your circum 
 stances would whistle and say a few bad words, and 
 probably take a room at his club or a hotel till he 
 had made up his mind where to move to and that 
 would be an end of it. He would not feel it as you 
 do ; his nerves would not be on edge at the prospect 
 of staying here to welcome the happy couple home." 
 
 Marion shivered. 
 
 "As usual, my tongue goes too fast. No, my dear 
 girl, what I should have advised would have been for 
 you to make up with Alec Gordon, who, even if he 
 does n't hit it off with me, is a rare fine fellow 
 
 " You counsel me to marry?" interposed Marion, 
 surprised. 
 
 This time it was Mrs. Romaine's turn to wince. 
 
 "Did nobody ever tell you that in some far pre 
 historic time I was in love with my husband ? " she 
 said carelessly. " Well, I was. I used to go to after 
 noon services in Lent and pray for that love to last, 
 because the sensation was so much to my taste. I 
 used to have ecstatic feelings when his foot was on 
 the stair, and I sat sewing little baby-clothes. We 
 lived in a plainish way then ; three dollars spent in 
 two theater-tickets was a tremendous outlay ; and 
 we walked out to dinners I tucking up the train 
 of my best gown under a long cloak, and laughing
 
 A BACHELOE MAID 139 
 
 if the wind snatched it away from me at the corners 
 and whipped it around my feet. Then he grew 
 richer, and we broadened the borders of our phylac 
 tery, and then how when dear knows if I can 
 remember we grew farther and farther away from 
 each other. Now, when he is at home, I am aware 
 of it because he is there behind a newspaper, but 
 that is all ! When our lips meet, it is like two pieces 
 of dry pith coming together. I have a perfectly 
 unsurpassed power of annoying him by my presence. 
 I know nothing of his affairs, or he of mine. Our 
 interests are his, not mine. Our house is mine, not 
 his. All my tastes are ' fads ' ; but, so long as I don't 
 disgrace him, he does not interfere. I have money 
 in abundance. Money money who cares for 
 money, when a man's heart and soul and brain have 
 gone into it ? How long is it since he has thought 
 I could want anything from him but a check ? But 
 ah! if I were you, and Gordon were my suitor 
 if, knowing what was to come, I had it all to live 
 over again I think I would take the bitter present 
 for one taste of the old sweet that can never come 
 back." 
 
 "Nevertheless you make me feel that I was wiser 
 than I knew," said Marion with a wan smile. 
 
 "Yes, I suppose you were wise. Now, please for 
 get my maunderings, and think over my desire to be 
 of use to you. If you don't wish to travel, then just 
 come to my house, and stay with me. It is too wretch 
 edly lonely for you here. Have you an idea when 
 they will be at home ? '* 
 
 " A week hence, my father said in his note."
 
 140 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 " A week of this ? An eternity of moping. Come, 
 my dear, I have a brand new notion. Leave the house 
 to run itself ; you have old servants who know their 
 business. Return home with me, or come this after 
 noon. My husband is away ; we shall be quite to our 
 selves. I won't let my stupid sheep-dog Loulie Kemp 
 darken the doors while you are there, or Herr Hof- 
 man, or that idiotic Reggy Poole. Then, if you are 
 still bent on living to yourself, we will find out a home 
 for you, and amuse ourselves with fitting it up, and 
 you will add an important ' one more ' to the fast- 
 growing ranks of the ' Bachelor Girls.' Oh ! " and 
 she clapped her hands, " we will make yours an ideal 
 bachelor establishment. You shall test the question 
 whether it is possible to do the thing properly, thor 
 oughly, in a perfectly well-bred, unbohemian way. No 
 divans and cigarettes like that goose Kate Colling- 
 wood, who makes such strenuous efforts to be an 
 original, and succeeds only in being a bouncer ! I am 
 almost sorry you have three thousand a year, it would 
 be so nice to find you a vocation. But three thousand 
 won't go far, after what you have been used to. It 
 will really be quite paltry, after you pay the rent of a 
 little flat, even if I furnish it and I have rooms full 
 of furniture I don't use. You could not trim bonnets, 
 could you ? No, that 's not your sort, at all. Perhaps 
 you would like to be the agent to sell the violets from 
 our country-place. The gardener tells me he has 
 thousands in the new frames, and begs me to let him 
 dispose of 'em." 
 
 Marion again recognized the Mrs. Romaine of her 
 former acquaintance, alert, animated to enthusiasm in 
 carrying out a new idea.
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 141 
 
 " There is Clara Van Shuter, who has started a mush 
 room 'plant' in her father's cellar, and has orders from 
 all the clubs. She has her own floor, where she receives 
 her own visitors independently; and is making a very 
 tidy little income, on which she travels where she likes. 
 Mr. Van Shuter, who is a lazy kind of a man, fond 
 of his own ease, and not so rich as other members of 
 his illustrious family, says he does not mind, if it 
 keeps Clara out of mischief. Then Louise Alston 
 runs a shop, where girls under her direction make 
 the loveliest evening shirts for men, with white lawn 
 ties, better than any you can get in the shops ; and 
 they drive a thriving trade. Louise takes orders at the 
 Assemblies, and ' Howling Swells,' and the like ; and 
 supports a lot of poor women, and gives herself a 
 nice little margin of profit. The thing is, to think of 
 something taking; and, with a little capital, it is 
 done. Oh, we must find a trade for you. I shall 
 give a luncheon altogether for self-supporting bache 
 lor girls, and afterward each will say a little something 
 about her experience of the blessed estate of living to 
 herself, and whether she can think of anything nicer." 
 
 Marion laughed outright. Mrs. Romaine had at last 
 succeeded in putting to flight the haunting shadow of 
 her grief. 
 
 "I can think of many things nicer," she said; "but 
 as circumstances have driven me to making the ex 
 periment, I must try to be equal to the occasion." 
 
 " Well said, Marion ! I, for one, have faith in you. 
 And, whatever you do, you may count on me to help 
 you." 
 
 " Then I think I shall begin by living here until my
 
 142 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 father returns ; and going out of his house quietly, to 
 avoid the talk my leaving now would create." 
 
 "I suppose you are right," said Mrs. Romaine, a 
 trifle disappointed. " But I shall be robbed of my 
 visitor." 
 
 " You have a much better friend than I was before," 
 cried Marion, warmly. 
 
 "I hope so, my dear. I need all I can get. And 
 there is one thing certain. Your mother's provision 
 for an independent income for you will at once deter 
 mine your entity as one meriting consideration from 
 all outsiders. If I had had any funds of my own that 
 did not come in a stream running from my husband's 
 pocket into mine, I should have been a happier and a 
 better woman. If to-day I could go to work and earn 
 an income, however small, that I might jingle in my 
 own pocket, I should walk through life with my head 
 higher. As it is, I spend money like water because 
 my husband likes to have me do it ; but he pays all 
 bills, or gives me checks to pay them. I don't know 
 what we spend, or where it comes from. I don't value 
 it. I am a wretched do-nothing in a society of busy 
 workers. And I 've an idea I should have made an 
 immense success in business. Just see how I make 
 the wheels of social enterprise go round. Ah, there 
 was a famous wage-earner lost in John Romaine's 
 wife ! " 
 
 " I don't think I should object to owing my indepen 
 dence to the man I love," said Marion, wondering, as 
 she said it, what strange influence was at work inside 
 of her and, blushing, she stopped short. 
 
 " Perhaps not. Unmarried girls have literally every
 
 A BACHELOE MAID 143 
 
 kind of fantastic notion before they meet the touch 
 stone of the financial question with a husband face to 
 face. But take my word, and be thankful for your 
 little purse. That is the key that will unlock the chief 
 difficulty of your present position, and a lot of others 
 through life, I can tell you."
 
 VIII 
 
 T was over, and Marion breathed 
 more freely ! She had nerved her 
 self to stay and receive Sara, upon 
 her return as the mistress of the 
 house into which she had come in 
 her meek poverty and insignificance, 
 a stranger, so few months before. Needless to say, 
 Mrs. Irving's manner upon this crucial occasion had 
 been all that the most fastidious could have demanded. 
 To Marion she was deprecating yet tender not offer 
 ing, but awaiting, overture ; to the servants, banded 
 together in tacit opposition, gracious, tactful, yet leav 
 ing no loophole by which any one of them might 
 escape into open rebellion against her rule; and to 
 her husband she held herself as to the source and 
 fountain of all earthly beneficence and wisdom. It 
 was long since indeed, it had never been in Marion's 
 experience, or in that of his present household staff 
 that the judge had worn such an air of complacent 
 satisfaction with the events of every day. 
 
 Upon Marion, this new aspect of her father acted as 
 an instant quietus of any emotional demonstration 
 she might, in spite of her proud resolve, have been 
 led into betraying upon his return. For the first
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 145 
 
 time she saw fully the childish side of him, his vanity, 
 strutting cockerel- wise through all his actions, and 
 realized that her whole life had been a sacrifice to it. 
 The film of filial reverence fell from her eyes. She 
 knew now that, had he been different, her nature had 
 not been warped into dissatisfaction with the common 
 lot of woman. Something within her even asked the 
 question whether, in the happy natural estate of girl 
 hood and wifehood, where the relations with father 
 and husband, or other so-called " governing" power 
 of home, are as they should be, this modern unrest 
 an dimpatience of woman are to be found. 
 
 But this was not the time, upon the eve of putting 
 into reality her most cherished dreams of freedom, to 
 turn and look back at what might have been. To 
 Sara she said nothing of her new plans. Between 
 those two, henceforth, there was to be a barren place, 
 charred as by fire, in which no shoot of verdure would 
 ever grow again. And Sara, who perfectly under 
 stood this fact, secretly rejoiced that matters had 
 turned out no worse. The circumstance that Marion 
 had met them ; greeted them in conventional fashion, 
 ordered tea to be ready for the bride on her arrival, 
 and had sat down to dinner with them on their first 
 evening at home quietly gliding out of her own 
 place for Sara to sit in it (which Sara did with the 
 most bewitching gesture of grace and deprecation) 
 was an enormous gain to the new Mrs. Irving. It 
 had given her the pas with the servants, and would do 
 so with the outer world ; and it had put the judge 
 into such bountiful good humor with Marion that he 
 
 was absolutely playful with her, in an elephantine way. 
 
 10
 
 146 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 Sara, pleading fatigue, had contrived to leave Mar 
 ion alone with her father while he was still m this 
 happy frame of mind, enjoying what seemed to him 
 the reward of a deed that had brought good to 
 all concerned. And Marion, profiting by it uncon 
 sciously, for she was in the exalted state of one ready 
 to move mountains, if called upon to do so, had gone 
 at once to the point by telling her father that she 
 intended directly to leave his house. 
 
 Spite of his serene selfishness, the judge was startled 
 into an expression of some natural regret. He went 
 further ; he even lost his temper, quite in the old nat 
 ural way, ill befitting a joyous bridegroom. Marion 
 was told that she was unfeminine, ungrateful; was 
 threatened with every variety of paternal displeasure 
 if she so much as proposed the scheme again ; and, in 
 the end, was ordered out of his presence contemptu 
 ously, like a child who has been caught stealing jam. 
 
 " This makes it easier for me," said Marion, as with 
 a swelling heart she locked herself into her own room. 
 A little later, she heard outside her door a footstep, 
 and the sweep of feminine garments. There was a 
 soft knock, and Sara's voice pleaded with her for 
 admission. 
 
 Marion, opening her door, stood within it holding 
 to the knob. 
 
 " You will excuse me," she said, frigidly. " It is as 
 well to tell you, now, that what I did in staying here 
 to receive you was done for him. And, since he has 
 spoken as he allowed himself to speak to me just now, 
 there is no longer any reason to affect for you a 
 tolerance I do not feel,"
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 147 
 
 "As you like. But, indeed, peace is so much less 
 complicated than war between us two," said Sara, 
 with a shrug. " I could really be of the utmost ser 
 vice to you." 
 
 " I will owe nothing to you," said Marion, inflexibly. 
 
 " My dear child, you are always so very positive," 
 returned her step-mother, entirely at her ease. " But 
 I am afraid you will be forced into accepting from me 
 your father's consent, given since I have remonstrated 
 with him, for you to shape your life from this time 
 according to your own desires. I don't say that I ap 
 prove of it. I think that, together, you and I should 
 have got on better than the majority of mixed fami 
 lies. I have always liked you, and meant well by you ; 
 and, of course, I recognize that, by living on here, 
 and accepting me before the world, you 'd have been 
 a tremendous help to me. But when I contrast what 
 I was when I first came here when you were so 
 much more hospitable with that door of yours than 
 you are now, by the way with my present posi 
 tion and possibilities, I really can't bring myself to 
 lament over spilt milk. Therefore, since you are bent 
 on not forgiving me, I '11 just agree with you to carry 
 on this thing as we 've begun it decently, before 
 observers. Your father bids me tell you, you are to 
 do exactly as you choose come, go, remove yourself 
 and your belongings, where and when you please. 
 This house, when you like to come here, will be open 
 to you as before ; and we shall always receive you 
 most kindly." 
 
 " I thank you," said Marion, with haughty emphasis. 
 
 " You should really thank me, though you do not
 
 14S A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 mean it," went on Sara. " And if, as I suppose you 
 mean to try to do, you succeed in whistling back 
 your old lover " 
 
 " That I will not hear ! " cried Marion, shutting her 
 self in her own room to hear Sara's soft, uncon 
 cerned laugh, as she withdrew rustling down the 
 corridor. 
 
 " What did she mean ? " Marion asked herself. " It 
 was as if she had kept that arrow for the last ; and 
 had shot it against her better judgment." 
 
 And, for the remainder of the night, the arrow, as 
 its sender had intended it to do, rankled in the bull's- 
 eye of the target at which it was let fly. Marion's 
 nature, too large for petty jealousy, was just then 
 in an abnormal and not especially healthy state of 
 readiness to doubt every one in whom she had for 
 merly believed. The fact that she and Gordon had 
 so elaborately given each other up, and that she was 
 about to embark upon the career of a "victim of 
 arrested development" emerged into the "arena of 
 perfect independence," did not entirely console her. 
 
 AND so, through the series of events detailed, the 
 wrench had been made; the parting was complete 
 between Marion Irving, her home, and her domestic 
 duties of the past. 
 
 To Miss Effle Gordon, as the representative of Alec, 
 she could not bring herself further to appeal for 
 the advice and assistance offered. To Mrs. Romaine, 
 rather, who, although she failed again to exhibit 
 the womanly tenderness of their first interview after 
 Marion's blow, was unceasingly kind and active in her
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 149 
 
 behalf, Marion listened exclusively, thereby wound 
 ing Miss Effie, and keeping her at a distance. 
 
 " It is only to start you, my dear," said her ani 
 mated mentor, who actually put off two of Herr 
 Hofman's talks on Socialism, in her energy to find a 
 habitat suitable for her new protegee, "that I inter 
 fere at all in your affairs. And I have come this 
 morning you won't mind that I have left no cards 
 for Mrs. Irving, but my time is really so taken up 
 to say that Providence has sent us Mignon Cox, 
 whose silly mother has just started off upon another 
 one of those long wandering journeys to kill time 
 abroad gust the kind I proposed to you, and you 
 refused !' Mignon, who is tired to death of dawdling 
 in foreign countries and being a cipher, so she says, 
 positively declined to go. So Mrs. Cox left her with 
 an ex-governess in a flat hired for her since Mignon 
 could not be expected to keep up the big Cox estab 
 lishment alone, and that is let at a huge sum per 
 annum, all of which Mrs. Cox is warranted to spend, 
 and more, on this expedition. I believe she and her 
 maid mean to go around the world, this time. Where 
 was I ? oh ! the flat and the ex-governess ! It seems 
 Mignon and Miss Slater have fallen out, and the 
 governess is about to leave. Mignon, who says she 
 always admired you awfully, but is rather afraid of 
 you, wants to know if you won't share the flat and 
 the expenses, have your own sitting-room, bedroom, 
 latch-key, and maid only sitting at table with her. 
 And as she is a nice little girl (a cousin of mine, 
 did I tell you? though I can't stand that mother of 
 
 hers), I thought it is just your affair." 
 
 10*
 
 150 A BACHELOE MAID 
 
 "Mignon Cox? Why, she looks like a mere child." 
 
 "She is two-and-twenty, has a separate income 
 from her father's estate, and yearns to be in the 
 swim of modern thought." 
 
 "But I thought she was going to be married to 
 Lowndes Carleton." 
 
 " So she was, but it 's off. Carleton is terribly old- 
 fashioned, you know; and when she told him she 
 was determined not to be, according to Mrs. Brown 
 ing, ' kept in long clothes long past the time for 
 walking/ he asked her if she was going to take up 
 the divided skirt; and that was enough. The real 
 truth was that he scoffed at the i woman's movement ' 
 on all occasions. Anyhow, their engagement came 
 to a sudden crash. Of course you think she was 
 right to rid herself of such an obstacle to progress." 
 
 " Of course," echoed Marion, but without warmth. 
 
 " This arrangement with Mignon need not last 
 longer than the summer. It is to be an experi 
 ment, for both of you; but I know she is refined 
 and amiable, and very affectionate ; so I 'd strongly 
 advise you to consider it. Come with me now, and 
 call on her, and you can judge how you would like 
 the idea ; and then I will take both of you home to 
 lunch, and we can talk it over on all sides." 
 
 There was no resisting the breezy impulse of Mrs. 
 Komaine when in pursuance of a novelty; and Marion, 
 shortly after, found herself with that lady invading 
 the maiden stronghold of Miss Mignon Cox. 
 
 This was a seventh floor in one of the tall new 
 buildings of cream-colored brick possessing florid 
 portals of iron scrollwork, and buttoned elevator-
 
 "PERHAPS WE OUGHT NOT TO DISTURB YOU."
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 153 
 
 men that embody every known idea of modern 
 architects for condensing conveniences. There were 
 a drawing-room and a library of equal dimensions, 
 opening out of a hall into which visitors, caught upon 
 entering, were forced to move back or forward in 
 single file. In one of these rooms, decorated to ex 
 tremity with a colonial mantelpiece and frieze, and 
 filled with the usual litter of choice nothings that 
 strew the path of favored young womanhood, Miss 
 Cox was discovered behind an Empire desk covered 
 with brass filigree, whence she arose with cordial 
 alacrity to receive her visitors. 
 
 That this bachelor was a pretty creature, with a 
 complexion of cream and roses, hair purely golden 
 unmixed with brown or red, and a physique suggest 
 ing extreme fragility, Marion already knew. They 
 had 'met often in society, but in a casual way. Mi- 
 gnon was now attired in a so-called " morning " frock 
 of white crepon, with floating ruffles, and a sash of 
 white satin belted around the prettiest little waist 
 in the world. Her hair, twisted in a small knot, was 
 arranged with care and neatness. Her feet, shod with 
 nicety, were matched by a pair of snowy, pink-tipped 
 hands, soft as down, and adorned with rings of tur 
 quoise and diamonds. She had just laid down a 
 formidable rubber penholder, of the " office " variety, 
 which had been coursing its way unchecked over a 
 pad of undefended paper. 
 
 " Perhaps we ought not to disturb you, dear," Mrs. 
 Romaine said, sinking upon a " three-decker " of 
 silken cushions, near the wood fire sparkling upon 
 brass dragon andirons ; " are you too busy to be 
 interrupted ? "
 
 154 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 "Not at all. I was just finishing my paper upon 
 Municipal Reform, to be read before our Twentieth 
 Century Symposium, to-morrow. And I am glad it 
 is finished, for it leaves me comparatively free. This 
 week I had rather more than usual. In addition to 
 my visits to the tenement-house regions, my lecture 
 on Political Economy to a class of working- girls, 
 whom I am really bringing over in the most grati 
 fying manner to accept Free Trade, occurs this after 
 noon ; and yesterday I had to lead the discussion in 
 our literary club that takes up weekly some book of 
 the hour." 
 
 "And what did you take up yesterday, if I may 
 ask?" said Mrs. Romaine. 
 
 " They gave out , but it was voted 
 
 down as really a little too advanced ; then we took 
 , which was unanimously ac 
 cepted. I wish I knew your opinion, Miss Irving, 
 of that deliciously sad story. Somehow or other, it 
 seems an echo of so much I have felt and dreamed of." 
 
 " You ? " said Marion, in some surprise. 
 
 " Yes, though I am not sure I should have found 
 voice for it, had not the talented author done so for 
 me. It makes one feel there is, after all, so little 
 in our healthy, every-day lives of interest comparable 
 to those of our brothers and sisters whom God has 
 set aside for affliction and infirmity." 
 
 " When I was a girl, people used to read Moliere's 
 ' Malade Imaginaire/ " said Mrs. Romaine, with ap 
 parent irrelevancy. " And in that we were told about 
 the learned Thomas Diafoirus, who, when he wooed 
 his fair Angelique, drew from his pocket a medical
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 155 
 
 thesis and presented it to her, at the same time invit 
 ing her, with her father's permission, to attend, as 
 a divertissement, the dissection of a woman upon 
 whom he was to lecture. That 's what modern 
 authors are doing to yon fair Angeliques, only they 
 don't ask the fathers' permission." 
 
 "I thought you are saturated with the modern 
 thought-waves, Cousin Adela," said Miss Cox, like a 
 reproving cherub. 
 
 u Dear me, so I am," said the lady. " But I 'm on 
 the down-grade in life, and I can't afford to enjoy 
 melancholy as you can. For instance, I like to go 
 to 'Charley's Aunt'; but you, I make no doubt, prefer 
 Maeterlinck's ' Aveugles.' " 
 
 ". That marvelous soul-drama ! Oh ! I have no 
 words for it," cried Mignon. 
 
 "I thought not. Neither have I. But all the 
 same, my dear, you are a delightful little person ; 
 and I have every confidence in your ability to make 
 just the chum Marion Irving wants. She is n't as 
 advanced as you, and she will be a good brake upon 
 your wheels. You '11 give her something to interest 
 her, and to work with. And I shall have an eye on 
 both of you." 
 
 " I wish you would come to me," said Mignon to 
 Marion, blushing in true girlish fashion. " I should 
 consider it such a privilege. And I am so constantly 
 engaged, I don't think I should interfere with you. 
 You can have no idea how often I 've wanted to 
 make friends with you, and how I could hardly 
 believe my good fortune when my cousin proposed 
 this arrangement."
 
 156 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 " I am a very disappointing person," said Marion, 
 genuinely pleased. " Could you take me soon?" 
 
 " Indeed, yes," cried Mignon. " Miss Slater is just 
 stopping on till I can get somebody ; and, to tell you 
 the truth, Cousin Adela, she is too cross for any 
 thing. She 's one of those old bodies that always 
 take offense at suspected affronts ; and now she sits 
 at table without opening her lips to speak to me. 
 Oh ! Marion (I may, may n't I?) if you really will 
 come at once, what fun we shall have ! " 
 
 "Not fun. A chastened resignation to hilarious 
 circumstance," suggested Mrs. Romaine, mischie 
 vously. 
 
 The conversation, at this point, was interrupted by 
 the entrance of Mignon's married half-sister, a hand 
 some young woman a year or two older than Marion, 
 dressed with the fastidious elegance of her class. 
 
 Mrs. " Johnnie " Clyde, as she was usually called, 
 was full of excitement, and lost no time in communi 
 cating it. 
 
 " I want you all to come to a woman's suffrage 
 meeting at my house on Thursday," she exclaimed. 
 " I told Johnnie at breakfast, to-day, that he need n't 
 say a word, that I am bound to have my turn, 
 and I have got several leaders of public opinion on 
 both sides to promise to be present and address us. 
 There '11 be no trouble about getting people to come, 
 for the thing is a ' go ' in society, if it never was 
 before." 
 
 "And what did Johnnie say?" asked Mrs. Ro 
 maine. 
 
 "Oh! he was trying to be witty, as usual. He said
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 157 
 
 that, if, in addition to striking out the word ' male ' 
 as a qualification for voters, they require voters to be 
 thirty-one, instead of twenty-one, years of age, it will 
 settle the whole affair that no woman will ever 
 confess to the qualification." 
 
 "How ridiculously trifling men are about the great 
 issues of our age," said Mignon, putting back into 
 duress a truant of a curl, and elevating her little 
 patent-leather toes upon the low fender. "But it 
 does n't matter, in the least. Our day is coming, 
 swiftly, surely. What if we don't master at once all 
 the intricacies of political knowledge involved in the 
 assertion of our rights. When we have the right to 
 cast a ballot, we shall have wider views, see further, 
 see all things as they are." 
 
 "Good gracious, I hope not," said Mrs. Romaine. 
 
 "Indeed we shall," chimed in Mrs. Clyde. "Mi 
 gnon is quite right. It is time to have done with ac 
 cepting what is handed down to us by tradition as 
 the limit of woman's horizon. And we must work, 
 work always. There must be no rest, no shameful 
 peace, till we have asserted ourselves." 
 
 " Then, my dear, there will be a larger army of 
 nervous prostrates than ever, in the field," remarked 
 Mrs. Romaine; "for goodness knows how we Ameri 
 can women are going to take on any more than we 
 are doing now. That is, I confess, what is always 
 bothering me." 
 
 " With our allotted work will come strength," said 
 Mrs. Clyde, piously. " You must let me give you one 
 or two ' Woman's Suffrage Leaflets ' I carry about 
 with me, Cousin Adela; and don't fail to be at my
 
 158 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 house Thursday, at three. You are to be one of our 
 champions in the column now forming for the march, 
 although you do amuse yourself by jesting a little 
 on the way. Here is the leaflet entitled ' Wyoming 
 Speaks for Herself.' It is a conclusive answer, I 
 think, to that exceedingly mischievous paragraph 
 read aloud at a recent meeting by a prominent editor 
 and purporting to come from an observer of the re 
 sults of women's vote in that State. And here is Mr. 
 Higginson's ' Short Answers to Common Objections 
 against Woman Suffrage.' I wonder which of the 
 enemy is clever enough to dispose of these. And look 
 how beautifully Mr. Cordaire spoke for us the other 
 day ! There was n't a right-minded woman present 
 who did n't just love that man when he had finished 
 speaking ! Why, I tell you, there are lots of our very 
 best, soundest, most conservative men ready to be 
 won over to our cause if we take hold of it the 
 right way. As for the best women, we think we 
 have them already ! " 
 
 " Bravo, Adelaide ! I hope the husbands will all be 
 as amiable as yours, and then we shall have fewer ob 
 stacles. We must get them to illustrate what they 
 say in that play of Oscar Wilde's that ' all men are 
 married women's property in fact, that is the true 
 meaning of married women's property.' As for me, I 
 have no more claim to that sort of property than I 
 have to any other. John Romaine does n't even do 
 me the honor to listen, when I talk about such 
 things." 
 
 " But you could have us in your ball-room, dear ? " 
 asked Mrs. Clyde, eagerly.
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 159 
 
 " Oh, yes, as often as you please. I don't think 
 John Romaine has been inside of that room, any 
 more than he has of our pew at church, or of my car 
 riage, in the last twelve months." 
 
 " Never mind, Cousin Adela," said Mrs. Clyde, with 
 conviction. " The best part of all this is that we are 
 proving to ourselves, as well as to the men, that we 
 can do without them." 
 
 " So we are ! " cried Mrs. Romaine, looking from 
 one to the other of the three " except you, Adelaide, 
 who are a high priestess. I am afraid you and John 
 nie are still in love with each other." 
 
 a Of course we are," said Adelaide, bridling. "It is 
 only that I have just come to a realizing sense of the 
 unnecessary and unjust limitations of our sex. Miss 
 Irving, you have kept so quiet, I wish I knew exactly 
 your view of this matter." 
 
 " My view seems, by yours, to be a rather humdrum 
 kind of one," replied Marion. " I think if we have the 
 right to hold property, we are entitled to the right to 
 vote ; but it does not seem to me we are yet, as a class, 
 well enough informed in political matters to wisely 
 handle that right. And if all this stir should fit us 
 for what we are seeking, then it will not be thrown 
 away." 
 
 " Oh, I see. You are one of the moderates," said 
 Mrs. Clyde, in a rather dissatisfied tone. " But come to 
 our meetings, and you will get on. And now let me 
 tell you how pleased Mr. Clyde and I are I mean 
 how pleased I am that you are thinking of putting 
 up here with Mignon. Mrs. Romaine told us yester 
 day she was going to beg you to do so."
 
 160 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 "She won't be allowed to say no/' said Mignon, 
 taking Marion's hand. 
 
 "I can think of nothing pleasanter," answered 
 Marion, looking with admiration into the beautiful 
 eyes, appealing as a child's. 
 
 " Then it 's done ! You are mine ! My pal, shall we 
 say? The firm is Irving and Cox, for weal or woe 
 or till either of us has any valid reason to back out," 
 exclaimed the girl, joyously. 
 
 "What is a valid reason? marriage? " asked 
 Mrs. Romaine ; and immediately the countenances of 
 the new firm were overspread with gloom, tinctured 
 with some resentment. 
 
 " There is no danger of that for either of us," said 
 Mignon, firmly. "Now come, Marion, let me show 
 you the flat. It 's, of its kind, a perfect dear, I know 
 you will admit. You shall have the yellow bedroom 
 it 's larger and has the sweetest glimpse of the 
 river over the chimney-pots and roofs ; and it is n't 
 as becoming to me as the blue. And there 's a por 
 celain tub and tiled floor in the bath-room, and elec 
 tricity everywhere. The cook and housemaid have to 
 turn in unison when they are in the kitchen, it is so 
 tiny. But you '11 see ; and I 'm quite sure you '11 fall 
 in love with our bachelor establishment."
 
 IX 
 
 MONG the political advocates of 
 Alexander Gordon during these busy 
 days when his prospect of high place 
 in the service of his country occu 
 pied our hero to the exclusion of 
 minor considerations, none was more 
 ardent than Lowndes Carleton. Although both at 
 the bar, the two men had never been intimate until 
 latterly, when, during the public discussion of Gor 
 don's aspiration to be United States Attorney, Carle- 
 ton had sent to one of the newspapers a letter, since 
 widely quoted in Gordon's favor. 
 
 This circumstance bringing them together, they had 
 met frequently, and become friends. Gordon found 
 in his new advocate an enthusiastic, manly fellow, as 
 good-looking as Greek regularity of features joined 
 to Spanish richness of coloring could make him, and, 
 while of a pleasant temper, possessed of that pugnac 
 ity of opinion apt to be agreeable only when it chimes 
 with one's own way of thinking. 
 
 Gordon, as he looked at Carleton one evening over 
 the edge of a claret-glass, while they were dining 
 together in Carleton's rooms, felt himself wondering 
 at the heroism of Miss Mignon Cox, in having deliber- 
 
 n 
 
 161
 
 162 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 ately put out of her range of vision such an attractive 
 object for daily survey 5 and was further possessed 
 with a secret wish that something would lead Carle- 
 ton to embark upon the subject of this his sentimental 
 side of experience in life, which their intimacy seemed 
 now to warrant. Needless to say that Gordon, to all 
 intents the same man as before his final break with the 
 lady of his own love, was still eagerly interested in all 
 that concerned her. He knew, as everybody knew, of 
 her removal to live with Miss Cox ; and yet, by a 
 strange fatality, he had met no one who could give 
 him details of their arrangement, of its success or fail 
 ure, of Marion's welfare, spirits, occupations. Had he, 
 at this epoch, gone into general society, there would 
 have been no lack of petty dribblings of information 
 on the subject. But, partly from a natural distaste 
 for its functions of the ordinary banal kind, partly be 
 cause he preferred to keep out of range of discus 
 sions of the Irvings' household calamity, Gordon had 
 eschewed society, and treated the houses of his friends 
 as if they displayed yellow flags over their doors. 
 
 Moved to especial activity of speculation and an 
 noyance by a column in an evening paper including 
 Marion and her chum in a jocularly described list of 
 the girl bachelors of the new era, he had arrived to 
 break bread with Carleton in a very truculent frame 
 of mind. Carleton, also, was perturbed. His hand 
 some face was clouded, his speech upon all subjects 
 was biting, uncompromising. And now, after dinner, 
 both men had subsided into a sort of sulky silence. 
 
 "Hang it all, Gordon," said Carleton, finally emerg 
 ing from a reverie during which he had been uncon-
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 163 
 
 sciously gritting his teeth. " This is slow work for 
 you. Let me make a clean breast of it, and say I 
 want to murder somebody." 
 
 "Spare me till we have heard the result of the 
 President's cogitations upon my case/' said Gordon, 
 smiling. "Then I don't know but you '11 be wel 
 come to make a beginning with me." 
 
 " I want to know if you saw that infernal thing in 
 
 the 'Evening ,'" said his host, who declined to 
 
 smile. "It has broken me all up; and you I beg 
 your pardon, if I take a liberty but you must have 
 something of the same sort of disgust and rage in 
 you." 
 
 " Quite the same sort," said Gordon, grimly. 
 
 "If these girls were our wives I mean if such 
 good, straight, honest girls, who have no earthly in 
 tention to invite comment like that, would give men 
 the right to punch heads for them, there might be a 
 way of relieving the situation." 
 
 "As it is, we are helpless. "Walter Bagehot says 
 the Earl of Buchan once had a copy of the ' Edin 
 burgh Review,' containing an article that offended 
 him, put in the lobby of his house, and kicked it 
 solemnly into the street. Perhaps you and I might 
 insure a pleasanter evening if, between us, we dis 
 posed of the offender in that sort." 
 
 "What does it matter? The whole country will 
 have it to-morrow, anyway. Gordon, now the ice is 
 broken, do you mind if I talk to you about those 
 girls? What 's the matter with 'ern with all the 
 women, nowadays ? I would not care if it was n't 
 the nice ones the kind a fellow wants in his home,
 
 164 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 you know ; but they 're as prickly as hedgehogs, and 
 they 're forever trumping up ' intense ' arguments 
 you are not prepared for. After I 've been in court, 
 and down-town in that bustling throng of workers 
 all day, I don't want to spend my evenings in a 
 debating society where women expect you to give 
 them the lead because they are women, in order to 
 prove to you they are not women ! " 
 
 Gordon made an attempt to answer, but his friend, 
 having begun his tirade, was not prepared to re 
 linquish it. 
 
 " Do you believe they are really, as they affect to 
 be, ashamed of being loved by us in the old-fashioned 
 way? Do you know they declare a true woman 
 ought to teach her husband to love her ethically, not 
 physically. Now, what do you suppose they mean by 
 that? I don't understand ; I can't understand ; lam 
 all at sea; and I confess this unrest, this hysteria 
 they call the advent of release from their slavery of 
 sex, is the most unpleasant feature of the not enticing 
 age we live in." 
 
 "It is not all unrest and hysteria," said Gordon. 
 " My own idea is that it is a serious movement that 
 will lead to results from which many of these offen 
 sive features will be absent. But our American wo 
 men have got to solve the problem whether they can 
 accomplish all they have laid out for themselves to 
 do. They are not, as a rule, good housekeepers ; and 
 I fear they will become worse ones. They are de 
 voted mothers ; but in a high-strung, emotional way, 
 not always best for their children. Is the present 
 training going to improve them in that respect? Too
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 165 
 
 many of them are but fairly good wives, inclined to 
 regard husbands merely as channels for golden 
 bounty, whose cheerful compliance and continuing 
 admiration of them are only their just due. I am 
 not sure a wider liberty will change this condition 
 for the better." 
 
 " See here, Gordon, as you 're in the same box with 
 me, I 'd like to tell you how cut up I feel about my 
 affair. And the worst of it is, they tell me she goes 
 about as pink and white and jaunty and smiling as 
 ever, perfectly absorbed in her duties to humanity at 
 large, evidently ignoring my existence. I could n't 
 have believed it of her. A perfect little angel, she 
 used to be. And the worst of it is, I can't go there 
 to s.ee for myself how she is getting on. I said some 
 things when she threw me overboard that she can't 
 forgive, and I have n't shown myself to her since. 
 The fact is, I don't know whether they receive men 
 visitors, do you ? " 
 
 Gordon, who had read in his friend's countenance 
 a gradual leading-up to the question put, and was 
 conscious of an equal desire for information of an 
 exactly similar kind, burst into a laugh. 
 
 " I don't know, and it 's just what I want to know," 
 he said frankly, and was interrupted by the arrival of 
 Stremof and Clarksou, who had been asked to the 
 dinner, but had excused themselves on different 
 grounds. 
 
 "I did not join you, my dear fellow," said Clarkson, 
 beamingly, " because, in my new regime, it is really 
 more than human nature can endure, to sit through 
 a good dinner and not touch a morsel of it." 
 11*
 
 166 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 "What 's your present lay-out, Clarkson?" asked 
 the host. " Still on that liquid food that rhymes, I 
 believe, to hats off?" 
 
 "Matzoff? The same," said Clarkson. "And my 
 digestion is wonderfully improved already, I assure 
 you. The only trouble is, it is revolutionizing my 
 habits. Hardly worth while to put on a clean shirt 
 and a white tie and evening clothes to sit down 
 before a bottle of milky, fizzy stuff that you have 
 been keeping outside on your window ledge, is it? 
 Confounded thing went off in my office the other 
 day, and the cork hit a respectable elderly client in 
 the eye, and scared him out of his wits. Thought it 
 was a dynamite explosion, don't you see ? " 
 
 " You have n't the excuse of a solitary banquet, 
 Stremof," said Carleton, offering cigars, and a little 
 silver lamp alight with alcohol. 
 
 "No, but I have, of all excuses, the one a man 
 most readily accepts the ladies," said the gallant 
 Russian, who, having just returned from his first 
 visit to Washington, had not seen Gordon for some 
 time. "And in what shape my temptation came, you 
 will never guess. I was bidden this afternoon at five 
 to Mrs. Clyde's, to a discussion of " 
 
 "Holy smoke ! not ' women's rights ' ? " interrupted 
 Clarkson, with a groan. 
 
 " Yes ; and what is better, I was told to stop after 
 ward to a ' high tea ' of bachelor girls, to which the 
 master of the house was the only other male invited. 
 As far as I could see, the 'high tea' was a short din 
 ner, lacking variety in wines. But the damsels I 
 kiss my hand to them were lovely, most spiritu-
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 167 
 
 elles; they argued, they spoke, they demolished us 
 poor men with a skill, a suavity, that made it rapture 
 to suffer in their cause." 
 
 " What were their special topics this time ? " asked 
 Clarkson. 
 
 " The first chapter of the discourse was in insis 
 tence upon the right of women who are property- 
 holders and taxpayers to vote upon any and all ques 
 tions affecting the expenditure of moneys collected 
 from taxes." 
 
 "Yes; but that includes all questions of every kind 
 which concern the administration of government. 
 And property as a qualification for the suffrage is no 
 longer satisfactory anywhere. Even in England it 
 will very soon come to pass that whether one shall be 
 a voter or not will depend not at all upon ownership 
 of property of any kind, or in any amount. If prop 
 erty is to vote, it is only logical that, wherever one's 
 property is situated, if in each of many different 
 towns, counties, States, where taxes are applied to 
 local expenditures, there the taxpayer must be al 
 lowed to cast that vote ; and in England, to-day, the 
 loudest chorus of the radicals is ' one man, one vote ' 
 to put an end to such a privilege of the owner of 
 property." 
 
 "And next," said Stremof, "they were very ani 
 mated in their demand that, if married women are to 
 be refused the ballot, on the theory that husbands 
 represent them at the polls, unmarried women, 
 maidens and widows, shall not be put off on such a 
 pretext." 
 
 " But," exclaimed Clarkson, " the law cannot dis-
 
 168 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 criminate among women, in favor of the unmarried, 
 when a demand for the privilege of voting is in ques 
 tion; to do so would be to offer a bounty to tempt 
 women not to marry, or to get rid of their husbands. 
 There are women who would murder their husbands 
 to secure the right for which so many of them are 
 now hysterically clamoring. And there are too many 
 young girls already who, distracted by the agitation 
 for 'woman's rights/ refuse to exchange what they 
 call ' single blessedness ' for matrimony." 
 
 "And who were there?" continued Clarkson, after 
 a pause, neither he nor Stremof observing that the 
 other men had dropped out of the conversation. 
 
 "If I could remember their names! First, Gordon, 
 there was your beautiful friend, the young lady who, 
 before any other, claimed my homage to her kind 
 Miss Irving. I am grieved, but not surprised, at the 
 way things turned out in her paternal mansion, by 
 the way. And I hear that ces dames of high society 
 have not yet extended to the bride the welcome due 
 to her husband's place among them ; but who knows 
 if this be so? Enfin, there was, with Miss Irving, a 
 young person of the rose and snow and gold type of 
 beauty one sees in our Swedish neighbors, a ravish 
 ing young person, made for smiles and laughter, but 
 serious as a little nun, how she lectured us! Ma 
 foil what am I saying, that I ought not to say " 
 
 " Miss Cox was once engaged to be married to me, 
 that 's all," blurted out Carleton. " But go on ; I Ve 
 no right to her now, any more than the rest of you." 
 
 " I beg ten thousand pardons," cried the distressed 
 Stremof.
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 169 
 
 " Go on with your description, and you are for 
 given," said Carletou, emphatically. 
 
 " There was, of course, our hostess, a believer from 
 whom her admiring husband can hardly keep his 
 eyes even when she is fulminating against his sex's 
 tyranny. Then, two single ladies friends who live 
 together who, I am told, have great wealth and a 
 beautiful establishment, and are generous patrons of 
 the arts. The young lady who decorates interiors ; 
 she who makes bonnets; she who grows mushrooms; 
 the one who has kennels, and raises prize dogs for 
 the market ; one who gives lessons in whist ; another 
 who has an emporium for men's shirts ; a girl of 
 nineteen who has been coaching male students condi 
 tioned in chemistry; a firm of pretty florists; an 
 artist or two; a litter ateuse ; a law student; a lec 
 turer on bric-d-brac, in parlors as you say." 
 
 ' I beg your pardon, Baron Stremof," put in Clark- 
 son, politely. " ' Tousorial artists' and ' chiropodists ' 
 have parlors ; we have drawing-rooms." 
 
 " Thanks, Mr. Clarkson ; but I have to unlearn in 
 one city of America what they teach me in another," 
 said Stremof, gaily. ' Have I told you all, I wonder? 
 I heard that each of several of these young women is 
 in receipt of an income, earned by herself, that would 
 support a bookkeeper, his wife, and children, in hum 
 bler circumstances; that they have great aptitude 
 for business, great energy, and in every case behave 
 with the greatest dignity and prudence. I wonder 
 what old Tolstoi would say to a society like this. He 
 would hail it with delight, le vieux matt-re ! " 
 
 " That is not all ' unrest and hysteria,' eh, Carle-
 
 170 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 ton?" said Gordon. " Were any of these ladies 
 prominent in the discussion of the afternoon, Stre- 
 mof!" 
 
 " Several spoke briefly and gracefully. The long 
 est speech, and it seemed to me the smoothest and 
 best considered, came from the young lady who er 
 is Miss Irving's 'chum.' She is really astonish 
 ingly suave, and looks to be hardly more than a 
 school-girl. Miss Irving was called upon, but ex 
 cused herself on the ground that she had not yet for 
 mulated her ideas sufficiently to be of weight in the 
 discussion." 
 
 " Not yet ? " said Gordon, bewildered. 
 
 When he had last seen Marion, she had been like a 
 young archangel pluming his wings for flight into 
 this debate. 
 
 " She avowed, very modestly and charmingly, that 
 some of her opinions have been modified recently, and 
 that she was not prepared to try to influence others 
 by her own uncertainties." 
 
 " Did ahem Miss Cox say anything about 
 Tier views having modified?" asked Carleton, who 
 had been pondering gloomily. 
 
 " Ah not that I observed," said Stremof. 
 
 "Thank you," said Carleton, relapsing into reti 
 cence. 
 
 " I am accorded the privilege of visiting their bach 
 elor establishment to-morrow afternoon, at tea-time," 
 went on the Russian. 
 
 Carleton and Gordon exchanged covert glances. 
 
 " They receive, as I understand, at that hour on 
 Thursdays, quite frankly, without a chaperon. But
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 171 
 
 Mrs. Clyde or somebody is sure to be there, on 
 dit; and already their little five-o'clocks are very 
 popular." 
 
 The rest of the evening in Carleton's rooms 
 dragged, perceptibly. Before they broke up, Clark- 
 son took occasion for a word apart with Gordon. 
 
 "I ought to thank you for indirectly putting me 
 into renewed intercourse with my cousin Kit Kath- 
 erine," he said. " Since I undertook those inquiries 
 for you, that in the light of subsequent events I 
 could readily understand by the way, it was lucky 
 the faculty of Somerville had nothing but good to 
 say of their ex-professor, was n't it ? 'T would have 
 been deucedly awkward if she had not been a fit per 
 son for the judge to marry." 
 
 "Very awkward," said Gordon. 
 
 " Has n't turned out extra well, has it ? But no 
 body could suppose a high-spirited creature like Miss 
 Irving would stay there and play second fiddle in 
 that house. Noticed how sort of down in the mouth 
 Irving J. has seemed, lately ? Fellows about the 
 courts say it 's because he has got the gray mare do 
 mesticated ! But where did I begin ? Ah ! about my 
 cousin Kitty. Katherine, dear soul, passed through 
 town last week, and I danced attendance on her 
 at her hotel; and by George, Gordon, she 's kept 
 wonderfully fresh. I 'm an oldster, beside her. To 
 tell you the truth, if I had n't put all such notions 
 out of my mind, I believe I 'd propose to Kitty to 
 lecture to me for the remainder of my days. But I 
 doubt if she 'd have me ; she 's just the model of a 
 quiet, contented, young old-maid, not an ounce of
 
 172 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 morbid stuff about her; and I could n't add any 
 thing to her happiness, of course." 
 
 STREMOF, who had engaged Gordon to walk home 
 with him, waited no longer than until they had 
 reached the half -deserted streets, before entering upon 
 a subject that transformed his buoyant manner into 
 one of sober earnest. 
 
 "I came here to-night, Gordon, to get this oppor 
 tunity to consult you about a matter of great impor 
 tance. I don't know whether you have surmised what 
 feeling I took out of town with me, and have brought 
 back stronger for absence from its source." 
 
 Gordon felt a big throb of the heart. It was the 
 first time what seemed a possibility had been pre 
 sented to him as a thing likely to happen; and it was 
 not agreeable. 
 
 " You observed from the first what a strong hold 
 upon my imagination Miss Irving has. She seems to 
 be the ideal woman I have been seeking, to aid me in 
 carrying out all the plans for my fellow-men that I 
 have cherished from boyhood. Call me a fanatic, if 
 you choose; it is in my blood. My father, a dear 
 friend and disciple of Tolstoi, is full of it. I have a 
 young sister who shares Miss Irving's progressiveness 
 how she would welcome her ! It is n't vain of me 
 to tell you that my position at home and my expecta 
 tions would not be beneath Miss Irviug's notice. I 
 shall have large estates, wide interests, great oppor 
 tunities of control of human destiny. When we first 
 met, Miss Irving told me, with delightful frankness, 
 of her vivid interest in my country, its problems, its
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 173 
 
 people, its literature. Of me, she was good enough, 
 to say that I am more like an American than any for 
 eigner she ever met. So I do not think that I dis 
 please her, personally ; and I know that she charms 
 me, utterly. Now, I am well aware of your former 
 claim on her; but if that is renounced, finally, defi 
 nitely, I ask you whether I have not the right to try 
 my chance." 
 
 "You have every right," said Gordon, mechani 
 cally, though he felt a noise like rushing water in 
 his brain. 
 
 11 1 thought you would say so," exclaimed Stremof, 
 with innocent egotism. " I must tell you in all sin 
 cerity that I do not expect to woo her as an ordi 
 nary lover woos. I expect to set before her my life- 
 work as a chief attraction. I hope to convince her of 
 my sincerity. I can offer to her father every assur 
 ance of my fitness to ask her to be my wife ; but, I 
 forget it is no longer a question of offering to the 
 father I shall have to ask her to weigh me in the 
 balance, and see if I be found wanting. It is in fact 
 a comrade a fellow-missionary that I am seeking 
 to take home with me; but that will not prevent 
 my loving her, and being to her what one of her 
 own countrymen would be. Smile at me if you like, 
 Gordon, mon ami I shall not resent it. I have, no 
 doubt, a way of expressing myself fervently, that you 
 self-contained Americans do not understand. But I 
 am sincere, voild tout." 
 
 11 1 believe you, Stremof," said his companion, upon 
 whom it was now clearly incumbent to make appro 
 priate answer. " And it 's no use my telling you I
 
 174 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 understand your feelings. That would be highly 
 superfluous." 
 
 " But you see that I could not go on further, with 
 out this sanction from you?" cried Strmof, whose 
 radiant zeal made him eager for the relief of speech. 
 " You, who, of all the men I have met in this won 
 derful, inspiring country, are the one I should first 
 choose to be my friend always." 
 
 "You are very good," responded Gordon, secretly 
 possessed of a desire to end their friendship then and 
 there by some such indefensible act as knocking 
 Stremof down. 
 
 But this was not because he did not, in spite of 
 bitter rivalry, appreciate and admire the honest spirit 
 of his unconscious opponent. He was overpowered 
 by the new idea that danger, like this now threatened, 
 could have come to him from such a quarter. Such 
 a thing as Marion's loving, or giving her hand to, 
 any man of their common acquaintance in New York 
 had never suggested itself. He knew her too well ; 
 there was no other possible Richmond in the field! 
 She was cold, fastidious, a dreamer of dreams, 
 isolated by her fancies from risk of impressiona 
 bility from ordinary sources. It was only some 
 great quixotic enterprise, some task to work out, 
 some definite career to accomplish, that could tempt 
 her. And here was this winning and ardent thor 
 oughbred, appearing to offer just what, under the 
 circumstances, might prove to be, to her, a welcome 
 outlet for her energies. 
 
 " I do not ask you, my dear Gordon, to give me 
 your good wishes," pursued the young man. "It is 
 too much ; because, whatever the cause of your sepa-
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 175 
 
 ration from the lady, I well know you cannot be 
 pleased to think of another man winning that prize." 
 
 " Confound his impudence ! " was Gordon's thought, 
 as he assented with some unintelligible monosyllable 
 that might have meant anything. 
 
 It was perhaps well for both of them that the con 
 versation came to an end in their arrival at the door 
 of Gordon's lodgings. He did not ask Stremof to go 
 in, nor did the latter seem to expect it. 
 
 " Voiis ne m'en voulez pas, Gordon f " he said, as they 
 parted, with a boyish appeal that upon another sub 
 ject would have won a cordial response. " You won't 
 keep a grudge for me ! You think I have been, as 
 you say, ' fair and square ' ! " 
 
 " Altogether fair and square," said Gordon, giving 
 him. his hand. 
 
 Stremof, humming Carmen's song, heard at his first 
 meeting with Marion, fared gaily off into the night. 
 Gordon, on his door-stone, watched the blithe fellow 
 disappear, and then mounted his stairs, feeling as if 
 a leaden weight were attached to each foot. Opening 
 his desk, he took out, as he had done on a former 
 occasion, Marion's photograph, and again gazed at it, 
 but with a different feeling. 
 
 "You did not reclaim this from me!" he said to 
 her, in spirit. "You knew you could trust it with 
 me. And, to prove that you were right, I now sur 
 render it." 
 
 A fire was burning behind a wire-gauze screen 
 upon his hearth. Removing the screen, he realized 
 for the first time the chill of his fingers and of his 
 heart. 
 
 Bending down, he threw the photograph upon the
 
 176 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 coals. Strangely enough, it fell erect, and shriveled 
 from below, leaving her lovely eyes gazing at him 
 untouched. 
 
 He could not resist an impulse to pluck away the 
 fragment, and, scorching his fingers in the act, thrust 
 the remainder of the card into destruction. 
 
 "Finis!" he said, aloud, the smart of his burn 
 recalling him from dreamland to the infirmities of 
 poor physical nature. 
 
 After this, he knew, it would be no more in him to 
 make a step in her direction until she should ask it, 
 than for the obelisk in the park to wander forth to 
 pay court to Diana on the tall tower.
 
 PRIL had come, and winter, linger 
 ing in the lap of spring, found in 
 the household of Judge Irving 
 hardly a realization of expectations 
 so fondly cherished by the newly 
 married pair upon entering into 
 their bond. Over the master of the house, indeed, had 
 passed a change that was patent and consoling to his 
 domestic staff. In the tart language of old Ann, an 
 Irish- American citizen who had been long a resident 
 under his roof, " He was that bruk in sperit, praise 
 the saints ! 't was a joy to see him about the house." 
 The new mistress, who had been regarded at first 
 with considerable doubt, had succeeded in planting 
 her banner triumphantly upon the kitchen citadel. 
 The servants, one and all, swore by her, enjoyed her 
 liberal reign, her love of luxury, and the stir and 
 vivacity her presence had brought into the previously 
 dull house. 
 
 For although Mrs. Romaine and other ladies of 
 Marion's acquaintance had somehow not yet found 
 it entirely convenient to pay their respects to the 
 judge's bride, there had not been lacking a following 
 to the representative of his name and fame. It is 
 
 12 177
 
 178 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 curious how, in a large society, such a following is 
 formed. It is gathered from unexpected quarters ; it 
 presents to casual view a very fair imitation of a se 
 lect original whose doings are constantly upon its lips; 
 and yet, turn it as one may, the hall-mark is nowhere 
 to be found. And Mrs. Irving had not by any means 
 intended to frequent a society that had not the hall 
 mark. What she aimed for was to leave behind for 
 ever the debatable land, and to come out into a region 
 of unshadowed respectability. She even hated some 
 of the people she had drawn into her circle, so dubi 
 ous did she feel them to be. But, all told, she did 
 not hate them as much as she did the people of 
 Mrs. Romaine's set, who resented the unseemly haste 
 of her marriage with Marion's father, and, although 
 they could extract no word in blame of her from 
 Marion, were persuaded that Sara had ventured 
 among them out of her place. 
 
 Everything is forgotten or lived down in six 
 months in New York, Sara had heard it said, and 
 with that she was obliged to be content. In the 
 mean time she was not going to live exclusively 
 dependent for companionship upon a vain, pragmati 
 cal man, whose demand upon her for approval and 
 compliment was practically without limit. Why, this 
 would be worse than the boarding-house in Wash 
 ington, with the old ladies knitting and speculating 
 over the society columns of newspapers ! Luckily the 
 hours were long in which her lord kept himself and 
 his sponge-like appetite for praise down-town; and 
 there was Marion's carriage for her to drive in, and 
 Marion's vogue in the big shops, that she had once so
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 179 
 
 much envied, to draw upon. But even this, and the 
 obsequiousness of shopmen who did not know the dif 
 ference between herself and the " real thing," became 
 in due time a bore. Her eager intellectual spirit cast 
 aside the acquirements of material wealth as heartily 
 as it had aspired to them. The safe haven of conven 
 tionalism now hers for she had little fear that her 
 Nemesis would ever rise up to hound her out of it 
 seemed to her already at times a prison. 
 
 To do Sara justice, the governing impulse of her 
 discontent was repudiated love. As well as she 
 could love any two beings, she had loved Gordon 
 and Marion Gordon, fiercely, imperiously, with a 
 first passion unsupported by reasonable hope; Mar 
 ion, fiercely, jealously, and, withal, with a certain 
 reverence for her regnant quality of womanly purity 
 of thought and word and deed. Sara could not tell 
 whether she would rather have had Gordon return 
 her feeling, and thus alienate her from Marion or 
 have Marion believe in her and trust her as of old. 
 Now that she had lost that trust, it seemed as if 
 an angel, stooping toward her, had been suddenly 
 snatched away. 
 
 In her first resentment of Marion's very natural 
 inclination to shrink away from her father's wife, 
 Sara had tried bravado, had assumed indifference. 
 But in reality she was stabbed to the quick with 
 disappointment. How could she let Marion know 
 that the marriage with the judge had been like a 
 plank to save her from drowning ? Upon the episode 
 with Marion's lover, Sara chose not to let her memory 
 dwell.
 
 180 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 The fact that Gordon also had kept aloof from 
 her siuce her return as his old friend's wife did not 
 of course surprise her. His visit of ceremony two 
 cards left one afternoon when she was sure to be out 
 had not been followed up, and she had lent her 
 subtle powers to the work of estranging her husband 
 from him. When one considers how easily this pro 
 cess is every day accomplished, in the matter of hus 
 bands' friends, by women who have no such good and 
 cogent reasons as had Mrs. Irving, her success is not 
 surprising. 
 
 Sometimes, as the days went on, and Marion did 
 not come back to her, Sara sat fretting her heart out 
 in a desire to reclaim the girl's love and respect. 
 From what she could gather here and there, her step 
 daughter, under the new influence upon her life, had 
 blossomed out to be quite a different being from the 
 recluse of her father's home. Marion was heard of 
 as in demand by society, not of the madly merry 
 variety, but of such cultured and individual folk as 
 Sara would have given her eyes to call her own. And 
 now there had come to Sara's ears a surprising rumor 
 concerning Marion a rumor she properly judged to 
 require investigation before it was believed. 
 
 The story had been brought to her by a certain 
 Miss Boulter, a girl like herself on the fringe of a so 
 ciety she yearned to enter, but, unlike Sara Irving, a 
 silly, pushing creature who carried her small wares 
 of gossip like a packman from house to house, and 
 was at no time, in the handling of them, redeemed 
 by the saving grace of wit. 
 
 "Is it possible you have n't heard!" said Miss
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 181 
 
 Boulter, with well-simulated surprise. " I thought, 
 as much together as you and Miss Irving are, you 
 I just admire Marion Irving ! She and Mignon Cox 
 were at the play in Mrs. Romaine's box last night, 
 and Baron Stremof was there, too. He 's a beauty, 
 don't you think ? Something so aristocratic I wish 
 you 'd have him at one of those nice little dinners of 
 yours, and ask me. I think he 's ever so much bet 
 ter-looking than that ill-mannered Alec Gordon, who 
 undertook to pretend he did n't see me when I bowed 
 in the street the other day. But then blond mus 
 taches are so much prettier than dark ones, don't you 
 think so ? Popper says I 'm so gone on foreigners he 
 believes I will end by marrying one myself, and, if 
 I do, he '11 not give me a cent. He says they are 
 all make-believe titles and fortune-hunters, every one 
 of 'em. Does Baron Stremof expect to get a lot of 
 money with Marion, I wonder ? " 
 
 " Baron Stremof is a man of rank, culture, and 
 wealth," said Sara, stiffly. " He is, besides, of a 
 charming temper and manners, and an offer from 
 him would be an honor to any girl to whom he should 
 make it. But you will oblige me by not asking me 
 to discuss the affairs of my husband's daughter with 
 an outsider." 
 
 " Goodness me ! " Miss Boulter observed, retiring 
 under cover of a spiteful laugh. "I could not sup 
 pose it was such a sacred matter, seeing you had n't 
 even heard of it before I told you." 
 
 Sara, mentally determining to cross Miss Boulter 
 off her poor little visiting-list, came to a quick re 
 solve. Ordering her carriage, she drove at once to 
 12*
 
 182 A BACHELOK MAID 
 
 the cream-colored mansion that held her stepdaugh 
 ter enshrined on its seventh floor, and, boldly ascend 
 ing in the lift, pressed the electric button of the 
 Bachelor Girls' door. A plump little maid, with a 
 butterfly of white muslin soaring above her head in 
 lieu of cap, ushered the caller into Miss Irving's sit 
 ting-room, and, taking her card, announced her inten 
 tion to "see " if Miss Irving was at home. 
 
 Marion came at once, a look of alarm upon her face. 
 
 "My father there is nothing the matter with 
 him?" she asked eagerly, holding back perceptibly 
 from Sara's studied smile of greeting. 
 
 " So you think nothing short of illness or accident 
 would have brought me ! " Sara said with a gentle 
 melancholy in her tone. "I come, my dear, as an 
 envoy from your father. We have heard that your 
 engagement to Baron Stremof is discussed as likely 
 to be, if not already, a fact, and we think common 
 propriety demands that we should know how much 
 of this is true." 
 
 " When my father makes such an advance to me as 
 his child deserves," Marion said haughtily, " I shall 
 answer him, not you." 
 
 Even Sara's armor was not proof against the look 
 that accompanied this speech. 
 
 In one of the revulsions of mood that lent, in its 
 way, an odd attraction to her character, she went 
 over to Marion's side, and took her hand tenderly. 
 
 " O Marion, why can't w-e be friends ? If you knew 
 how weary the days are that keep you from me ; if 
 you knew how all I have acquired seems as nothing 
 beside the knowledge that you shun and mistrust me !
 
 "MARION CAME AT ONCE.'
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 185 
 
 After all, what have I done that another in my situ 
 ation would not have done? Why should you sit 
 forever in the seat of judgment, and condemn a 
 homeless pauper who accepted such bounty as your 
 father offered me? Put yourself in my place 
 everything in the world I aspired to do was depen 
 dent on means and opportunity could I refuse 
 them ? Marion, Marion, forgive me, and love me as 
 you loved before." 
 
 "It is not that I cannot forgive," said Marion, 
 slowly. " I believe, if I know my heart, I have 
 already forgiven you. As affairs stand, it has all 
 turned out for the best. My life is freed of some of 
 its worst crosses. If I am not altogether happy, it is 
 because no one in this world is meant to be happy, I 
 suppose " she stopped, sighing. 
 
 " Take me back into your heart, darling, make 
 me your confidante as before, and I '11 engage to 
 make you 'altogether happy/" cried Sara with her 
 old impulsiveness, throwing her arms around Marion, 
 and kissing her upon the cheek. 
 
 But Marion, troubled and unrespondiug, drew 
 away from her with a movement of repulsion Sara 
 could not mistake a movement that, while it pierced 
 her with mortification, aroused in her an impulse to 
 repay it in mischief. 
 
 " So you will have none of me, eh "? " she said in a 
 changed tone. "Well, as you please. But, before 
 we drop the subject, tell me, to clear up mystery, if 
 the grudge you bear me has nothing to do with the 
 little interlude between me and a certain old lover 
 whose place you seem so quickly to have supplied."
 
 186 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 Marion started violently. Sara could not now com 
 plain of her indifferent exterior. 
 
 "You don't answer, but I do not need words. 
 Pray, then, when you had no longer a claim upon 
 Gordon, why should you have resented what you sup 
 posed to have passed between us f Had not I, as 
 well as you, a right to my chance ? To tell you the 
 truth, he was so much a man that, had I not realized 
 the match with your dear father had been made for 
 me by heaven, I might perhaps, by now, have been in 
 enjoyment of privileges you cast away." 
 
 " Is this true ! " said Marion, coming nearer to her. 
 
 " What can it possibly matter to you, now ? " re 
 turned Mrs. Irving, gracefully. 
 
 There was a pause. Marion was trying to control 
 the emotion that confused her power of formulating 
 thought into words. Sara was rapidly reviewing 
 contingencies. 
 
 " For not only," went on the stepmother, " did you 
 give him up, in the first place, for no reason that 
 anybody could see, but you have chosen entirely 
 to break with him since." 
 
 " I did not choose ; it was his doing," said Marion, 
 forlornly. 
 
 " Indeed ? " said Sara, quickly, having thus ascer 
 tained exactly what she desired to know. " But, my 
 dear, when you know men as I do, you will under 
 stand that, however kindly Gordon may still feel to 
 ward you as a friend, it would be natural for him to 
 keep his distance till all these things have become 
 a little more ancient history. Men are not fond of 
 being confronted with their own changes of base."
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 187 
 
 "He told me," said Marion, impetuously, "that 
 there had never been anything between you and him 
 self that I might not know only he could not speak. 
 And I believed him. I believe him still." 
 
 " Hum ! Admirable ! Just what I should have ex 
 pected of him. He belongs really to the age of the 
 preux chevalier. If you believe him still, my dear 
 girl, then why should you have asked me if what I 
 hinted at were true?" 
 
 " You took me by surprise. But now that you 
 have gone so far, you must say all. Tell me what 
 had happened between you the day I came in the 
 day before your sudden marriage with my father. 
 Had Alec was it a question whether you should not 
 rather marry him oh, why do I ask that? Don't 
 aiisAver me! I promised to believe him. It is your 
 manner that is trying me beyond endurance. You 
 seem so full of something I must have been blind to 
 well, then, do answer me ! " 
 
 " I cannot deny that some such question was dis 
 cussed between us," said Sara, dropping her eyes, 
 a though it is hardly becoming in your father's wife 
 to speak of it to your father's daughter. But I insist, 
 Marion, that you put to me no more of these explo 
 sive questions that grate upon my nerves in the most 
 hateful way. Let us talk, rather, of your intended 
 marriage, which you have left me to assume is no idle 
 rumor. As the Baroness Stremof you will have a 
 brilliant position and a husband of an ideally sweet 
 temper. You two will have abundant opportunity 
 to go tilting together at windmills. On the whole, 
 your life will have a great deal more local color in it
 
 188 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 than it would have had as plain Mrs. Alec Gordon, 
 the wife of a New York lawyer. I almost envy you 
 the opportunity of getting out of this little frog-pond 
 we call New York society." 
 
 Then Marion rallied. 
 
 "What, already?" she said; and the famous 
 "Deja" of Talleyrand did not sting deeper. Sara 
 had actually nothing more to say. 
 
 Marion escorted her to the door of the lift, and 
 bade her a courteous " good morning." As the lift 
 sank out of sight with the little richly clad figure, 
 wearing an air of almost dejection, Marion had an 
 impulse to call after her some word betokening re 
 gret. But the image of Gordon came between them, 
 and the softened moment passed. She went back 
 into her room and wrote a note ; then, ringing for a 
 messenger, despatched it firmly. 
 
 Mignon, returning later to the house, found her 
 chum sitting before a wood fire that was twittering 
 like a chimney full of birds. How long Marion had 
 been there, she herself did not know. As Mignon 
 spoke, she started in a bewildered sort of way. 
 
 " Surely you have n't been asleep H " said Mignon, 
 laughing. 
 
 "I I think not. Why, how absurd of course 
 not ! I have been reviewing my whole life, dear 
 all my opportunities, my aspirations, my disappoint 
 ments. And I have been wondering whether I can 
 do better with what remains of it than to take up a 
 definite mission to help poor souls in chains, and at 
 the same time make somebody happy who is fonder 
 of me than I deserve."
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 189 
 
 "Marion, listen to me." said Mignon, throwing off 
 her jacket and hat, and dropping 011 a chair at 
 Marion's side. "You don't love Baron Stremof; 
 you are trying to work a mine that has nothing in 
 its veins. Regard, respect, romance, are not going 
 to make up to you for the love you do not feel." 
 
 " Why, Mignon ! " said Marion, regarding her with 
 astonishment. 
 
 "I know you think I 'm a selfish and heartless 
 little cat ; and so I was. But this winter, spent for 
 other people, has set my mind to working on many 
 things that did n't occur to me before I was out of 
 leading-strings. I used to take my mother's views 
 as gospel ; now I see I have a right to my own. I 
 believe every woman's life is given to her for her 
 very own. I don't mind telling you, now, that if 
 mama had not disliked Lowndes Carleton and kept 
 disparaging him to me at every opportunity, I should 
 not have parted with him. Mama's own married life 
 was wretchedly unhappy, and I suppose I reap the 
 fruit of it. But it was n't myself I started to talk 
 about. I wonder if you would let me ask you one 
 little question. Are you ever sorry you gave your 
 lover up?" 
 
 " ' Ton f ' Oh, Mignon ! " said Marion, putting one 
 finger upon her mentor's roseate cheek. 
 
 "Never mind. Tell me, Marion." 
 
 " It would be no use telling you, if I were. It is 
 he who gave me up, really. Something is between 
 us that is too dark and sad for anything." 
 
 "And you are no longer interested in Gordon?" 
 
 "Did I say that?"
 
 190 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 "Enough, perhaps, to be glad he has got his ap 
 pointment. I met Mr. Clarkson in the street just 
 now, who told me a telegram has just come from 
 Washington saying that the Senate has confirmed 
 the President's nomination, and that Gordon's friends 
 are all jubilant." 
 
 " I am glad," said Marion. 
 
 " Really, Marion, I don't know what to make of 
 you. Yesterday you would not have spoken of it in 
 that lifeless way. But no more of Mr. Gordon. 
 
 "I will tell you of my visit this morning to my 
 little German woman, the baker's wife, you know, 
 with the week-old baby. I was sorry to find that 
 since I was last there she was not doing so well. The 
 woman who was taking care of her had left, and Mrs. 
 Stromeyer was very restless and miserable, the baby 
 crying, and the place dreadfully upset and dirty. It 
 was that, as much as anything, that worried her, I 
 saw; and so I went to work and had a regular i clean 
 house' on my own account, aided by a stupid girl 
 I impounded on a lower landing of the tenement and 
 paid, then and there, to help me. I always liked 
 bringing order out of chaos. And when the rooms 
 were clean, and the husband's breakfast things 
 washed up, we set to work upon the invalid, who 
 besought me to give her baby a good bath. I don't 
 think I ever touched such a young creature before, 
 and I was rather timid ; but the mother directed me, 
 and there were clean clothes in a drawer. By and 
 by I had the little thing as fresh and pink as an ar 
 butus bud; and dressed it; and, to stop its wailing, 
 laid its cheek against mine as I walked up and down
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 191 
 
 the floor. Marion, did you ever know how soft and 
 sweet a baby's cheek is, and its little fuzzy head? 
 I wanted to hug the darling tighter, but it would 
 not stay quiet with me, and so I laid the little bun 
 dle beside the mother, and instantly the crying 
 stopped such a funny little gobbling noise, and the 
 mother radiant over it in spite of maladies, dire pov 
 erty, husband out of work, she quite unfit to nurse 
 her child! I stopped at our hospital, coming back, 
 and made arrangements to get her in there till she 
 is well again. Marion, that baby really felt and 
 smelled like a rose-leaf! I shall never marry, of 
 course; but I had a sort of a little thrilling feeling 
 of what motherhood must be. It is so strange, you 
 can't imagine no one can imagine till a baby is 
 left all alone in one's arms to care for. I could have 
 stayed there for hours, for the pleasure of feeling 
 its warm body upon my heart. I wonder if Mrs. 
 Stromeyer does n't have that to balance some things 
 you and I have, Marion. Oh, dear ! there are all 
 those circulars to address and get out this afternoon. 
 And here comes Mary with a note for you. No an 
 swer, Mary! Then you may go and serve luncheon 
 at once. Now, Marion, as I live and breathe and 
 am a curious girl, that 's Stremof's crest upon the 
 envelop ! " 
 
 " It is an answer to one I sent him a little while 
 ago," said Marion, coloring deeply as she opened the 
 note. " I think I will leave this with you, Mignon, 
 while I go to prepare for luncheon. But don't com 
 ment on it to me afterward, please, dear." 
 
 Left alone, Mignon's eager orbs lost no time in
 
 192 A BACHELOB MAID 
 
 possessing themselves of the contents of Baron Stre- 
 mofs epistle. 
 
 "Your word is law to me," it said, "and I leave 
 town this afternoon, for a fortnight in Boston, with 
 out attempting to see you. But unless you notify 
 me, there, not to return at all, I shall count the 
 hours before placing myself again and forever at 
 your feet." 
 
 Miss Cox made no attempt to overcome the blank- 
 ness of her feeling. After thinking it over, she rang 
 the bell, and interrogated the butterfly-topped maid. 
 
 " No one has called this morning, Mary ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, miss ; only the circulars that was left by 
 the Ladies' Suffering man ; and the Cruelty Society 
 called for the bundle o' clothes ; and Mrs. Irving for 
 Miss Irving, miss." 
 
 " Mrs. Irving ? " 
 
 "Yes, miss; a pleasant-spoken lady, in a rich brown 
 velvet suit and hat. I don't think she 's ever called 
 here before now ; but I made sure 't was a relation, 
 and let her right in ; and Miss Irving saw her right 
 away." 
 
 "Yes, Mary. Luncheon, now."
 
 XI 
 
 HILE Strernof, in Boston, was en 
 joying a wide variety of discreet 
 hospitalities that went as far as 
 possible toward robbing this espe 
 cial absence from New York of its 
 sting, Gordon, in the excitement of 
 his honorably won success, felt a sense of something 
 lacking to his satisfaction. 
 
 But a short time before, the household to which 
 it would have occurred to him to carry his laurels, 
 for the best kind of congratulation thereupon, would 
 have been the Irvings'. Now that door was closed 
 to him. The judge had, indeed, indited to him a 
 short perfunctory note, expressing his satisfaction at 
 the final action of the Senate in Gordon's case. But 
 it was not a note that referred hopefully to any meet 
 ing of the sender and recipient in the immediate 
 future, and Alec could not but feel it confirmed the 
 previous distance between them. Harder to bear 
 was the absolute silence of Marion. Unreasonably 
 ignoring that it was he who had elected total sepa 
 ration from her as the better part of discretion for 
 him, he worried himself with daily expecting from 
 her a few words of kindness that never came. So many 
 
 13 193
 
 194 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 little missives had come to him from fair women with 
 whom he could claim only the passing acquaintance 
 of society. On all other sides the world exposed to 
 him a broadly beaming smile. But from Marion, 
 nothing ; absolutely not the ghost of a conventional 
 word of approval. 
 
 With an idea, perhaps, of obtaining some tidings 
 of her, he repaired one Sunday afternoon to call upon 
 Mrs. Romaiue. As he drew near the familiar front 
 door he even indulged in a hope that he might meet 
 Marion within, and his brain grew dizzy with the 
 fancy. Hear from her, or from somebody, he must, 
 of the progress of Stremof s suit. Stremof absent 
 in Boston, Stremof silent, uncommunicative, did not 
 seem much like a triumphant lover ; and yet the un 
 certainty was intolerable. Gordon had even worked 
 himself up to the point of being afraid to take up 
 a newspaper, lest he should somewhere come upon 
 an announcement of their engagement. 
 
 Mrs. Romanic's surroundings, that afternoon, were 
 unsatisfying. There was about the rooms a scatter 
 ing of the mixed lot of her acquaintances. The 
 hostess, in a robe of gray satin with big muslin 
 sleeves like a bishop's, sat against a mass of orange 
 cushions, and poured tea. But she seemed distracted, 
 looked wan, talked to make talk, was a trifle more 
 brilliantly vague than usual. On a gilt chair at her 
 side Reggy Poole, her familiar, sat babbling with in 
 finite importance about nothing in particular. He 
 was a well-dressed, fat-faced young man, with a little 
 mustache above a baby mouth ; and black hair parted 
 in the middle, and glued to his head like a priest's
 
 A BACHELOE MAID 195 
 
 cap. In season and out of season, even if nobody lis 
 tened, Reggy must always talk. He would hold on to 
 his hostess's hand on arriving at a ball, and keep 
 back the stream of people behind him, while he told 
 her a little anecdote of himself last year at Homburg. 
 
 On the other side of Mrs. Romaine, who was doing 
 the honors to a foreign ambassador imperfectly ac 
 quainted with the English tongue, were two ladies 
 profoundly interested in each other's oracles; that 
 is to say, they were talking for the most part to 
 gether. By close listening, only, was one able to as 
 certain that they were exchanging experiences about 
 a new prophetess of faith-cure. 
 
 One of these disciples, a long, slim woman witli 
 flaxen hair, pale eyes, and a little shining knob upon 
 her long, slim nose, gesticulated a good deal with a 
 pair of long, slim, pearl-colored kid gloves; but her 
 face showed no change of expression. When for a 
 moment she would pause, her companion, a chubby 
 little lady, " greatly infested with beads " in her cos 
 tume, would dash in eagerly to tell how she had been 
 raised by faith from the bed of unprecedented lan 
 guor to which she had been abandoned by all the 
 faculty of physic. 
 
 Another group enshrined a fashionable woman of 
 letters, who looked like a Polish princess making 
 her first round . of the American republic ; two or 
 three of her adorers; an artist of American birth 
 and Parisian residence who had returned to enjoy 
 the fruits of his renown in a brief glimpse of home; 
 and Mrs. Townsend Murray, an agreeable widow os 
 cillating between two hemispheres, of whom it was
 
 196 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 claimed that she dined at her own house only when 
 her chef was ordered to provide for a company of 
 invited guests. 
 
 Elsewhere people were less interesting. Herr Hof- 
 man stood alone beside the mantelpiece, on which he 
 had set his cup of tea, dipping into it sweet biscuit, 
 which he afterward absorbed with solemn gusto. 
 There was no trace anywhere of the object of 
 Gordon's search. 
 
 Gordon, stopping by the tea-table, shared the privi 
 lege of his hostess's conversation with the foreign 
 ambassador for a while ; then, declining to be button 
 holed by Reggy Poole, He strolled on to the party 
 to whom Mrs. Townsend Murray was now dispensing 
 animated speech. 
 
 "I have signed nothing ; I shall join nothing,'' she 
 was saying with finality. " The only compensation 
 a woman can claim from society for getting on to be 
 fifty years old is the right to be amused by it ; and I 
 don't find this women's suffrage business even amus 
 ing. But then I have lived down so many 'move 
 ments ' in New York. I have been shaken to my 
 center by such a variety of enthusiasms. Long ago 
 there was a society of ' The Crescent and the Cross/ 
 in which what was called the liberality of American 
 thought gave precedence to the Moslem symbol in 
 the title. I believe it was to furnish relief to the 
 hospitals in the war of Russia against Turkey. At 
 any rate, it nearly disrupted our body social, and 
 there was a dark whisper that all or much of the fund 
 raised was pocketed by remote agents of distribu 
 tion. Then we had an early dress-reform wave that 
 was dashed and lost on a question of becomingness.
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 197 
 
 I never even heard what became of that; but we 
 quarreled frightfully while we were getting it up. 
 Then the ' Centennial ' agitation, and one can't have 
 forgotten the tantrums that raised ; and a half-dozen 
 others I won't bore you by recalling. There must 
 always be something that women of our class, uncon 
 vinced of on one day, will rush into with an absolute 
 rage of conviction the next. And we generally begin 
 proselyting before we acquire the articles of our 
 faith. Vote"? No, thank you; I decline. I might be 
 willing to deposit my own vote, but I don't want it to 
 go in and be lost under those of my naturalized 
 French, German, Swedish, Italian, and Irish maid-ser 
 vants, And I don't want them going to the clergy 
 for instructions how to vote." 
 
 " Right you are, Mrs. Murray," observed a fee 
 ble voice. It was that of young Mowbray Packer, 
 chiefly known as the rapid dispenser of his father's 
 hard-earned millions, and for paying an enormous 
 price to secure an artificially tinted gardenia, fresh 
 every day, for his buttonhole. He was small, pale, 
 bald, and had a heart discoverable only because of 
 its occasional rebellion against the incessant smoking 
 of cigarettes. " Can't think what the women mean 
 by undertaking to put themselves on a level with us, 
 you know ! "Wish people would stop agitatin' things, 
 anyhow. It 's no use. World 's all played out, seems 
 to me." 
 
 " That 's lucky for you don't you think so ? " said 
 Mrs. Murray. " Mr. Gordon, you are a man of the 
 future; is it your opinion the world has gone to the 
 dogs ? " 
 
 " I am too busy in my own part of it to look far 
 
 13*
 
 198 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 away from me, I 'm afraid/' said Gordon. " But I 
 think the standard of mankind and womankind keeps 
 up pretty fairly." 
 
 " Don't you think the women are a little ahead of 
 the men I " put in a sharp young woman who was 
 under Mrs. Murray's wing. " Has not your race de 
 generated ? One used to hear of men doing gallant 
 deeds, and looking like heroes, but there are n't many 
 such around my way. There are only athletes, now, 
 who perform in public for universities; and they 
 soon go out and belong to the dead level of men who 
 seem to do nothing but try to make or spend money." 
 
 "Allow me to refer you to our late war," said Gor 
 don. " That afforded examples of heroism that ought 
 to be remembered at least half a century. But per 
 haps you will be better able to appreciate something 
 more nearly contemporaneous. Am I allowed one 
 little story of to-day, Mrs. Murray ? I promise not to 
 be long. Last year, in the Matabele war in Africa, 
 a small party of Britons went into the bush to in 
 tercept and capture bad King Lo Bengida. Only re 
 cently the story has been published which explains 
 why none of that little company ever came back. A 
 Matabele warrior has told how they met their fate. 
 The Englishmen, surrounded by overpowering num 
 bers, fought till their last cartridge was exhausted 
 some shooting themselves rather than fall by 
 the hands of the savages. A little handful of the 
 wounded survivors, who had been partly sheltered be 
 hind dead horses, then dragged themselves, bleeding, 
 together, and stood shoulder to shoulder in a group 
 facing the foe. l Then they raised their hats,' the
 
 A BACHELOE MAID 199 
 
 Induiia is reported to have said, ' and sang that song 
 of your country I have heard the missionaries sing. 
 And, as they were singing, our warriors swept down 
 on them like a river, hurling their assagais as they 
 ran, and overwhelmed them, and speared them to 
 death.'" 
 
 "And what song did they sing?" asked one of the 
 women. 
 
 " It was ' God Save the Queen! ' And perhaps you 
 remember a similar incident, when our own flag-ship, 
 the Trenton, was wrecked at Samoa a few years since. 
 The crew, assembled on the quarter-deck, expecting 
 death, sang the 'Star-Spangled Banner' while the old 
 war-ship" was driving on the rocks to destruction, 
 as they believed ; though, happily, they were saved to 
 sing another day." 
 
 " Quite so ! " remarked Mr. Mowbray Packer, stroll 
 ing away from the group to seek entertainment else 
 where. 
 
 " It does seem as if the men have a little showing, 
 still," commented Mrs. Murray upon Gordon's recital, 
 " and as if Odin had n't kept all the heroes of the 
 sagas to himself. I fancy most of the charges that 
 men are degenerate in our day come from women 
 who for the first time find themselves thwarted by 
 their lords and masters in little schemes of their own. 
 Now, I 'm a free lance. I have n't any lord and 
 master, so I am lifted above suspicion of truckling in 
 such a matter. I own I like men rather better than 
 women, at most times. And why do the women suf 
 fragists say men have deliberately retarded .their 
 efforts "? That does not seem to me fair play."
 
 200 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 "What men have really done, in this generation 
 and locality/' said Gordon, " has been to concede to 
 women everything they have themselves been agreed 
 upon as reasonable or desirable to demand as a right. 
 The indifference of women generally to the claim of 
 a right to vote is what chiefly retards the efforts 
 of the champions of the female suffragists; and the 
 open and avowed opposition of others is the obstacle 
 they cannot overcome. When women all move to 
 gether in that matter, or in any other, Heaven de 
 fend those of my poor sex who attempt to stem the 
 current ! " 
 
 Mrs. Murray and Gordon had been left to them 
 selves. 
 
 " I must take this opportunity to tell you, Mr. Gor 
 don," the lady said, " how proud this representative 
 of our party is of your having won the prize. You 
 know I am a bit of a politician, unfashionable as that 
 is with us. I have watched you, and know of your 
 progress in affairs. Perhaps, in the sweet by and by, 
 I shall be one of your lieutenants in a campaign to 
 make you President of these United States. Only 
 I am afraid there will then be, as they threaten, a 
 woman Vice- President upon your ticket ; and I have 
 long ago sworn never to work again for women." 
 
 " Perhaps you yourself will serve on the national 
 ticket with me," said he, smiling. 
 
 " Dear me, no ; there might, by that time, be the 
 disability of age, among others, for me. I can think 
 of no one woman among the ranks of the suffragists 
 who would do to put forward with you, unless it were 
 that stunning-looking Marion Irving, whom I hardly
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 201 
 
 know the girl who is living with Mignon Cox 
 daughter of the judge who married his type- writer, 
 was n't she f Now that Miss Irving might be made 
 anything symbolical, monumental ; but I did hear 
 it seems to me the ambassador told me a few mo 
 ments ago that Baron Stremof is to marry her." 
 
 " Is this generally known ? " asked Gordon, not a 
 muscle of his face betraying that he had got the 
 death-blow, dealt so heedlessly. 
 
 " Bless me, I can't tell you ! One hears so many 
 things. Old Roncesvalles loves gossip, and must 
 always have a crumb of it to distribute as he goes. 
 Ask him. No ; he 's gone. Ask Mrs. Romaine. 
 She 's by way of being intimate with that pair of 
 pretty spinsters. You know Stremof, then ! What 
 a dear he is ! So refreshingly unaffected in this age 
 of manner ; and so full of appreciation of the best 
 there is in us ! Why almost everybody 's gone ! 
 I did not know it is so late. Did you happen to 
 see our host come to that middle door just now, and 
 stand for a moment by himself, looking at the people 
 around his wife, then disappear"? He looked abso 
 lutely ghastly. I am afraid the poor man is ill, so 
 we had better take ourselves away. Tell my girl 
 over there I am going, please." 
 
 When Gordon went up to say good-by, Mrs. Ro 
 manic asked him in an undertone to remain until 
 after the others had gone. Struck with an expres 
 sion of her eyes, as if she were keeping at bay some 
 mortal apprehension, he noted in amazement the ab 
 solute self-control with which she fulfilled the last 
 fraction of her duty as a hostess. Then, as the ser-
 
 202 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 vant let fall the portiere held aside for the departing 
 visitors, she motioned Gordon to a seat beside her. 
 
 " You are not well I You are in some anxiety that 
 I may relieve ? " he said. 
 
 " Am 1 1 Perhaps. I did not know that I show it. 
 I kept you to ask if you have heard this story about 
 Marion and Stremof, and if you are going to let the 
 thing go on." 
 
 " What can I do ? " he replied icily. 
 
 " It is a sort of pious insanity on her part, I think. 
 Oh, Mr. Gordon, I have n't the grip on things I once 
 had, or I should stand up and proclaim to young wo 
 men, nowadays, the gospel of letting true love light 
 the flame on conjugal altars. I begin to think if we 
 called back our talents from the turmoil of out-door 
 affairs, and devoted them to what the Lord gives us 
 for better or worse, at home, we 'd be happier. And 
 why should Marion even contemplate this marriage, 
 when I believe her heart and soul are yours ? Go to 
 her; it is never too late to right wrong. Break up 
 this affair." 
 
 " How can If" he asked, flushing, but with his 
 lips still sternly set. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know. Everything 's an insoluble 
 problem in these days. There 's that pretty little 
 cousin of mine, Mignon made to be the joy of some 
 fond husband's life ; she 's another devotee to the 
 ideal. But I, who have tried everything, and failed 
 in everything, who am I, to preach to them? They 
 would laugh at me if I told them that in every natu 
 ral woman's life the need of loving and being loved 
 by man is the immortal impulse, sure to overmaster
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 203 
 
 her some day. Now, I Ve prattled enough ; you 
 think I 'm an impertinent old woman. Go away, 
 and let me rest for a moment before I dress for 
 dinner." 
 
 " There is nothing in which I can personally serve 
 you ? " he said, holding her hand and looking her in 
 the eyes. 
 
 " No, no." 
 
 " If the moment arises, you will promise to think 
 of me ? " 
 
 " How good you are ! I ought to have had a big, 
 strong sou like you." 
 
 " Is your is Mr. Romanic's health quite what it 
 should bef" 
 
 " I think so. He seems quite the same, only 
 bothered by affairs. Are n't all men bothered by 
 affairs ? As a matter of fact, probably, you know 
 more of his concerns than I do. If you ever marry, 
 Mr. Gordon, open your heart to your wife, and let 
 her stand beside you, not apart from you, in interest. 
 Now, good-by again." 
 
 Gordon, pondering on these things, repaired, after 
 his dinner, to his Aunt Effie for a chat. The kind 
 lady, too wholesome to nurse a grudge, did not call 
 him to account for recent neglect of her. She talked, 
 instead, and with hearty interest, about himself ; 
 soothed his ruffled spirit ; and finally led him to tell 
 her outspokenly of the wound corroding in his 
 heart. 
 
 " I heard it to-day," said Miss Effie, looking blank. 
 "And, my dear, if I were of the crying sort, I 'd 
 have cried then and there. She 1 s your girl, Alec,
 
 204 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 cut out for you in heaven, and I don't understand 
 this sudden, fantastic alliance with a foreigner." 
 
 " Stremof is sui generis" said Gordon, hastening to 
 do justice to his friend. 
 
 "All the same, I don't believe in it. I know very 
 well it 's because I 'm your nearest relative that Mar 
 ion has kept away from me. I don't resent that 
 though I 'm sorry. If I could, I 'd stretch out a 
 hand to help you, Alec, boy." 
 
 " Help me ? What do you mean, Aunt Effie ? Do 
 you suppose I am a child, to fret after another's 
 prize ! Thank God ! I 'm no weakling ; and, if I 
 know myself, this is the last time I shall speak to 
 any living being of her personal relation to me. 
 Please to consider that chapter ended, and the covers 
 clasped." 
 
 Miss Effie had something on the tip of her tongue, 
 but, like the heroic woman that she was, kept it there. 
 
 Alec, picking up a new book from her table, fell to 
 discussing that. 
 
 After he had gone, Miss Effie opened a compart 
 ment of her desk, and, taking out a faded ambrotype 
 of a soldier in uniform, looked at it for a long time.
 
 XII 
 
 N the camp of the Amazons, now 
 threatened with a disbandment so 
 unwelcome to Mignon, had arisen a 
 spirit of determination on the part 
 of that small campaigner which 
 boded ill for the gallant Stremof's 
 hopes to secure an American bride. 
 
 Whatever the world might assert upon this sub 
 ject as final, Mignon knew the matter was not yet 
 closed. She was aware that three days yet remained 
 of the fortnight's probation, at the end of which 
 Stremof might be allowed to claim what he aspired 
 to. She had given up talking about it with Marion, 
 but, by watching narrowly, saw that her friend was 
 every day more nervous. How heartily Mignon 
 wanted to cut the knot of difficulty by the simple 
 process of bringing Gordon and Marion together, 
 only she knew. For days it had absorbed her 
 thoughts almost to the exclusion of her platform and 
 her work of canvassing for emancipated women. 
 Had she lived in the artless days of old, she might 
 have followed the method then pursued by ladies 
 desirous of securing the presence of an unwilling 
 gentleman hiring bravos to abduct him after dark. 
 
 205
 
 206 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 But, short of this compelling device, she saw none 
 that would accomplish her desire. The little ob 
 stacles of conventionality are surely to blame for the 
 gravest miscarryings of human affairs. Knowing 
 for how long a time Gordon had absented himself 
 from Marion, would Mignon be justified in inform 
 ing him that Marion was unconsciously perhaps 
 as much in love with him as she was repentant of 
 her pledge to Stremof? 
 
 Mignon tried to persuade her chum to write to the 
 absent suitor, and tell him frankly she had made a 
 great mistake. But Marion was in an exalted state 
 of devotion to supposed duty. Stremof had con 
 vinced her that life with him would open a broader 
 opportunity for usefulness than any she was likely 
 to find at home. The prospect of living out of 
 New York, and at the same time doing missionary 
 work among those " most interestingly wretched " 
 Russians upon Stremof s estates, kindled in her an 
 excitement she almost mistook for pleasure. 
 
 A wise mother, to whom Marion might have car 
 ried her case in this exigency, could have demolished 
 its weak points with love and common sense. But 
 what was Marion's only counselor poor little Mi 
 gnon, her own head stuffed with distracting aspira 
 tions and mistaken aims, with noble fallacies, with 
 puzzling counter-impulses to advise? Had they 
 not, together, many a time decided that duty to the 
 individual should be subordinated to duty to society 
 at large ? Whatever their personal discomfort, must 
 they not, before all things, assist in running the 
 machine of the Brotherhood of Humanity?
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 207 
 
 But as the days narrowed into hours before 
 Stremof was due to return, Mignon grew unaffect 
 edly desperate to keep him away. In the throes of 
 conflicting feelings she walked over to the hospital 
 to see after her Mrs. Stromeyer, the wife of the 
 baker out of work, and joint proprietor of the be 
 witching baby. 
 
 Things there were in a bad way for the house of 
 Stromej^er. Not only did poverty still hold the hus 
 band hard and fast in its clutches, but the wife was 
 sinking fast. While the baby in another ward slept, 
 all unconscious of his distressed estate in life, the 
 husband, admitted behind the screen around the cot, 
 sat dazed and wretched at the patient's side. The 
 doctors who had just passed on their rounds had told 
 him she would not last out the hour. 
 
 Mignon, laying aside the useless cluster of spring 
 blossoms she had brought, stood sorrowful, looking 
 on at this little scene from the drama of every day. 
 Presently the sufferer, opening her eyes, became 
 aware of her visitor, and smiled gratefully. 
 
 " That is nice ! I am happy," she whispered, her 
 eyes quickly leaving Mignon to seek her husband, 
 her wan hand going out to imprison his. 
 
 " Sh'an't I bring the baby ? " asked Mignon, seeing 
 the end was near. 
 
 Obtaining leave from the head nurse, she ran away 
 into a far ward, and, returning with the infant in her 
 arms, leaned down to let it touch the mother's lips. 
 
 " That is nice ! I am happy," repeated the woman. 
 But she did not look a second time toward the child. 
 Her gaze again sought her husband.
 
 208 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 And as Miguon left them, the man's head had 
 fallen forward upon the bedclothes, the wife's arm 
 was around his neck. 
 
 MIGNON went out of the hospital into the broad 
 sunshine of the jocund day, and walked home slowly. 
 In 'the seclusion of her room she wrote a note, and 
 sent it by special messenger. Just what influence 
 the pitiful scene at the hospital had in shaping this 
 course of hers she did not allow herself to think. 
 
 For the remainder of the afternoon she was rest 
 less, growing white and red by turns, starting at 
 every ring of the door-bell. Nothing she ordinarily 
 found interesting attracted her. She even renounced 
 an important lecture, to stay indoors, seeing Marion 
 go off to it with ill-disguised satisfaction. 
 
 " If any one calls, I am at home, Mary, you will 
 remember at home," she enjoined upon the butter 
 fly maid. And shall it be told of her? Mignon 
 then selected from her wardrobe a gown, not of the 
 most recent cut, but undoubtedly enticing to the eye 
 a gown long hung away under others, and twisted 
 anew her golden locks to place the knot at an angle 
 formerly much admired by interested eyes. 
 
 This done, she was wrought up to a pitch of ex 
 citement that brought on internal tremblings, ill 
 masked by apparent calm. She tried to read ; tried 
 the piano ; she rearranged the flowers, the ornaments 
 on the mantel-shelf; then last resource of expectant 
 woman changed the position of several pieces of 
 heavy furniture. At length, bethinking her of an 
 unfinished essay for a girls' club that was lying upon
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 209 
 
 her desk, she boldly took up her rubber penholder, 
 and dashed into a sentence left incomplete : 
 
 " Not, O iny sisters, until woman shall cease crying 
 out against her wrongs at the hand of man, and set 
 herself to living as if man were not, shall v 
 
 Here the clock struck five, and Mignon jumped. 
 Dropping her pen, she turned around to interrogate 
 the clock-face, as if trying to persuade herself it was 
 in the wrong. But it was a very well regulated little 
 timepiece, and obstinately held its own. Five o'clock 
 and she had said she would be at home to him 
 at four ! 
 
 To Mignoii's dismay, two round, bright tears welled 
 in her eyes, to course their way adown the rose-bloom 
 of her cheek. It was a crisis at which any girl might 
 have been excused for an expression of temper 
 against things inanimate. The first object Mignon's 
 eyes rested upon was her uncompleted essay; and, 
 tearing the page from the pad, regardless of wasted 
 wisdom, she crumpled it viciously in her hand, and 
 threw it into the fire. 
 
 Simultaneously there was a ring at the door-bell 
 of the flat an insistent, energetic ring, short, sharp, 
 and decisive. Mignon's little heart fell to beating 
 so violently she could hardly breathe. She felt her 
 self wondering if such an internal tumult could pos 
 sibly show outside. But she retained sufficient self- 
 control to give a glance into the little mirror above 
 the mantelpiece. The door opened. It was the maid, 
 preceding a gentleman. 
 
 "Mr. Carleton," said Mary, secretly pleased that 
 this visitor could not, by any stretch of imagination, 
 14
 
 210 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 be converted into one of those "Ladies' Suffering" 
 men of whom she was beginning to be aweary. 
 
 Lowndes Carleton did not smile overmuch when 
 Mignon held out her hand to him. He was, at this 
 period of his career, in the condition of the dog Dr. 
 John Brown tells about, of whom his master averred: 
 
 " Oh, sir, life is full of sariousness to him. He can 
 never get enough o' fechtin'." 
 
 " I received your note about half an hour ago," he 
 said with business-like gravity ; " and as it seemed to 
 indicate some matter of importance, I came as fast 
 as I could get up-town." 
 
 " You are very kind. But I knew you would be/ 7 
 faltered Mignon, as they sat down on opposite sides 
 of the room. This distance, however, was not so 
 great that Carleton, by extending his long legs, could 
 not easily have succeeded in covering half its width. 
 He studied the crown of his hat, while she, the ready 
 speaker, the silver-tongued oracle of women's meet 
 ings, wondered, now that she had him, what use she 
 could make of her acquisition. 
 
 " It is a hard thing to explain to you why I have 
 asked you to take this trouble," she said at last. " I 
 don't know whether it will make it any better if I say 
 it is for another person other persons friends of 
 yours and mine, who I think are in great distress 
 that might be remedied if I only knew how to do it." 
 
 " I could hardly flatter myself you would send for 
 me on your own account," said he with unnecessary 
 irrelevancy, Mignon thought. 
 
 " It has been so long since we met, I did n't quite 
 know whether you would recall my name," she an-
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 211 
 
 swered also going off the track with an unpardon 
 able deviation from facts. " But that is neither here 
 nor there. And, not to take any more of your time 
 than I need, let me tell you at once what I mean." 
 
 Carleton now lifted his eyes from the crown of his 
 hat, and looked at her. Then Mignon' s eyes drooped ; 
 she took a paper-knife from the table, and began 
 playing with it upon her lap. 
 
 "We my friend, Miss Irving, and I have heard 
 how much your partizanship did for Mr. Gordon in 
 his campaign. I felt sure you admire and appreciate 
 him as all his friends seem to do. And I wanted to ask 
 if you if you think would it be possible if you 
 know whether he is in town," she broke down lamely. 
 
 "He is in town. I saw him to-day at luncheon. 
 He is very well, very busy, overrun with necessary 
 affairs, and one of the best fellows in the world," 
 Carleton's lips said. His thoughts were concerned 
 with their tumultuous recognition of his favorite 
 gown, his favorite mode of hair-dressing. But he 
 did not know quite enough to take these, upon this 
 occasion, as a tribute to himself. 
 
 "I ought to tell you, I think," Mignon went on, 
 warming to her subject, " that, after I wrote to you, I 
 was frightened to death lest I had done what Mar 
 ion's delicacy would take offense at. You know 
 maybe you don't know she is one of the most fas 
 tidious girls I ever met. But the only thing, in such 
 a case, is to apply it to one's self and I " 
 
 Mignon stopped, appalled. She ventured a glance 
 at Carleton, to see what effect her slip had had upon 
 him ; but his face gave her no satisfaction.
 
 212 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 " Won't you go on with your statement ? " he said, 
 returning to his hat, she to the paper-knife. 
 
 " It would be better to ask you what you would 
 think of a pair of people who, I believe, truly love 
 each other getting apart for no really good reasons 
 (though they seemed so at the time), and then not 
 being able to come together again." 
 
 "Well?" he said eagerly, his eyes kindling with 
 sudden hope. 
 
 " Suppose the girl had never been truly happy 
 since their parting, and it was not known that the 
 man had er formed any other attachment " 
 
 " Of course he had n't," Carleton blurted out. 
 
 " You really think so ! " cried Mignon, ecstatically. 
 
 "Think"? I know it. By Jove! where would he 
 have found a girl that could hold a candle to her, 
 even if she did play the mischief with his feelings ? " 
 
 " But she did not mean to, and she has been 
 wretched ever since perfectly wretched almost all 
 the time." 
 
 " Mignon ! " he exclaimed, making an abrupt move 
 ment by which his stick, entangled with the fire-irons, 
 knocked them over with a crash. 
 
 " Why, Lowndes, how awkward you always are ! " 
 she said quite naturally, stooping to put the poker 
 and tongs in place. " Yes, wretched ; though she 
 would n't have had anybody know it for the world. 
 And now that a crisis has come in her affairs " 
 
 " A crisis ? " he said, turning pale. 
 
 " Yes ; she has given a conditional promise to an 
 other man to marry him. And to-morrow the other 
 man is coming ; and if nothing interferes, she will be
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 213 
 
 bound forever. And, oh ! how I can look 011 and see 
 my poor dear mistaken Marion " 
 
 " Marion ? " he thundered. 
 
 " Lowndes, don't be so noisy ! The servants will 
 hear you in the kitchen. You would never do in 
 a flat." 
 
 " But you frightened the very life out of me with 
 your hypothetical heroine, don't you see ? " 
 
 "I don't know what you mean," she answered, over 
 come by the old familiar methods into which they 
 had involuntarily fallen. The sound of his voice 
 seemed to her as joyous and inspiring as a bugle. To 
 be near him stirred in her an old delight in living 
 she had" quite forgotten. 
 
 " You are acting in a very odd way," she said re 
 provingly ; " and, unless you sit down again quietly in 
 your chair, I can't finish what I began to say." 
 
 " You need n't finish ; I understand," he inter 
 rupted breathlessly. "You are for showing me 
 there 's a chance for Alec Gordon to get his sweet 
 heart back ; and, to satisfy you, I '11 promise now 
 that I won't leave a stone unturned till I bring him 
 here, dead or alive, this evening. Losing her just 
 took the salt out of his life. And, whatever has hap 
 pened between them since, if he thinks she will have 
 him again, he will come fast enough." 
 
 " I don't know that she would like him to think ex 
 actly that," cried Mignon, rather alarmed. "A girl 
 could n't well ask a man to come and just talk things 
 over, could she, no matter whether any good is to 
 come out of it ? But no, no ! I have no authority 
 to say that Marion wants to see him." 
 
 14*
 
 214 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 " You think it likely I " 
 
 "Ye-es," she said finally, laying hold, as upon an 
 anchor, of the paper-knife. 
 
 '* You believe there is a moment in a true, honest 
 girl's life when she is ready to put aside nonsense 
 and affectation, and own to the man she has wounded 
 that she is ready to make him forget it all in an 
 eternity of bliss." 
 
 " Oh, Marion would never forgive me saying 
 that!" she exclaimed, her face dyed with innocent 
 blushes. 
 
 " Let Marion go, Mignon. Let Gordon go. For 
 this little minute think of yourself and me, and tell 
 me if all you 've been saying for her does n't apply 
 to you too, dear." 
 
 " But I 'd never have sent for you" she cried, 011 
 the verge of tears. "Never, never; and you know 
 it ! If my mother were here, it would be different." 
 
 The sight of the poor little Bachelor Maid break 
 ing down in a fit of crying in her chair appealed to 
 the best manhood in her lover, and took him, at two 
 strides, across the room away from her. 
 
 " I shall go now, dear," he said, with his hand 
 upon the knob. " Don't fear I will presume on your 
 generosity to her. But it 's given me hope ; and 
 after I 've succeeded as I shall, I promise you 
 in doing what you want, perhaps you '11 not forbid 
 me to come back on my own account." 
 
 Mignon wiped her eyes, and took courage. 
 
 From that moment dated her conviction, since un 
 shaken, that whatever life-work a woman has to do, 
 she does it better for sharing it with man.
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 215 
 
 MRS. ROMAINE came in to dine with the girls that 
 evening, saying her husband had sent word from 
 his office he might be detained away till late. Neither 
 she nor Marion could account for the extraordinary 
 rise in the barometer of Mignon's spirits. The little 
 maiden was transformed into a creature full of 
 tricksy merriment, her joy bubbling, in spite of her, 
 into all she said and did. Marion, whose wings were 
 tipped with lead, could not follow her friend's nights. 
 In her heart she thought Mignon for the first time 
 a little flippant. Mrs. Romaine, also, was grave and 
 preoccupied. It was a dull banquet, between them ; 
 and as they sat afterward around the fire in the 
 drawing-room, even Mignon's gaiety flagged. From 
 time to time she glanced at the clock, and sighed. 
 
 " What ails you, dear ?" said Marion, finally. " One 
 would think you bewitched." 
 
 " You and I are brakes upon her wheels," said Mrs. 
 Romaine, rousing herself from painful abstraction. 
 " Come, Marion, give me something pleasant to think 
 of. Tell Mignon and me if to-morrow is really to see 
 you promised to be the future Baroness Stremof." 
 
 " I have asked for another day," replied Marion, 
 blushing deeply. 
 
 " Thank Heaven ! " cried Mignon, clapping her 
 hands. 
 
 Mrs. Romaine could not resist a shaft of her old 
 forging. 
 
 " Reprieve at the final moment 1 ? The prisoner mer 
 cifully spared for further consideration of her of 
 fense? My dear girl, you know your own affairs, 
 but, for Heaven's sake ! let a thousand Stremof s be
 
 216 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 disappointed rather than do yourself the wrong of 
 going into this with any uncertainty." 
 
 " But I am certain," said Marion, proudly. 
 
 " Then, in that case, I retire." 
 
 " I am certain of so many things that make others 
 seem less important," the girl went on more gently. 
 " Dear Mrs. Romaine, have confidence in me. I have 
 not found life so full of sunshine that I am likely 
 to rebel if I sometimes wander into shadow in the 
 future." 
 
 " What a way for a girl to talk, in anticipation of 
 her married life ! " Mrs. Romaine thought ; but she 
 did not speak this thought. Instead, she looked at 
 Mignon, and was surprised to see that young lady's 
 recent exaltation of spirit succeeded by a look almost 
 woebegone. 
 
 "What 's in us all?" said Mrs. Romaine, shrugging. 
 " Depend on it, girls, this is what it will be like when 
 we have finally downed our tyrant man, and under 
 take to get on without him." 
 
 There was a ring, and Mignon's color came back 
 into her pretty face. Her eyes shone, her cheeks 
 dimpled. 
 
 " Let us agree, then, if these are some of the said 
 tyrants come to call, to make them welcome no 
 matter who they may be," she exclaimed saucily. 
 
 " Judge Irving, for Miss Irving," was the altogether 
 astonishing announcement brought to them. 
 
 Marion's face was pale, her lips firm, as she walked 
 across the entry into her own sitting-room. 
 
 She found her father wandering about the tiny 
 place in his top-coat, having forgotten to remove his
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 217 
 
 hat. He looked shrunken, careworn denuded of 
 dignity, of importance. Marion, smitten by these 
 facts with compunction, offered to kiss him; but 
 the judge seemed hardly aware of that overture of 
 friendship. 
 
 " She has gone away from me, Marion," he said, 
 without preamble. " I don't know for how long. I 
 shall never be sure she does n't mean to come back. 
 She has long shown me she was tired of my life 
 tired of me. Yes ; she 's been restless a good while. 
 But I was not prepared for her leaving me." 
 
 " I am sorry," Marion began to say, and paused. 
 
 " That is not the worst. I believe she is going on 
 a lecturing tour in Canada and the Northwest ! She 
 showed me a letter from an agent and a poster, 
 Marion, calling her 'Mrs. Judge Irving of New York 1 ! 
 It is rough on me, though I Ve got nobody to thank 
 but myself. She 's been making it very hard to live 
 with her, my dear. There are two women in that 
 one ; you Ve never seen the worse. And it will be 
 hardly possible to tell when she may not be coming 
 back." 
 
 He sank into a chair, so dejected and crestfallen 
 that Marion could scarcely believe her eyes. 
 
 " I am sorry, father," she said again presently, go 
 ing over to lay her hand upon his shoulder. " Don't 
 think I blame you for what has kept us apart. We 
 both made mistakes. It seems to me life is all mis 
 takes." 
 
 " There 's another thing I came to say to you, my 
 dear. From something she let fly, in a fit of anger 
 with me, I think she flatters herself she has helped
 
 218 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 to keep Alec away from you. If she said anything 
 against him to you, Marion, I 'd I 'd take it with a 
 grain of salt. She has not scrupled at falsehoods. 
 And I could see there was some angry feeling in her 
 boast of this to me. 
 
 " You believe he was never in love with her ? " she 
 cried eagerly. 
 
 " Never, my dear. On the contrary, he did every 
 thing in the world to warn me against her, for your 
 sake. All he did was always for your sake, Marion. 
 I did hope you and Alec might forgive bygones, and 
 be friends with me again and with each other. He 's 
 a safe fellow to trust both you and the books to after 
 I 'm gone ; and there '11 be a good lot of money. But 
 she said you are going to many the Russian. Is this 
 true, Marion ? " 
 
 " I believe so, father," she said, in a low tone, her 
 hands straining one within the other. 
 
 A tap on the door. Mignon was there, a radiant 
 look upon her face. 
 
 " I would n't disturb you, dear ; but here is some 
 one who wants to see you, and your father too, on 
 very particular business. Please go in, Mr. Gordon ; 
 Mrs. Romaine and I will take care of Mr. Carleton ! " 
 
 A FEW moments later, the judge went away from 
 his daughter's door, and walked dejectedly down a 
 long avenue, to bring up at his club. He slept there 
 that night, and, after he was in bed, tried to remem 
 ber just what had passed before he had left his 
 daughter standing hand in hand with Alec Gordon. 
 He had an idea that Gordon, on entering the room,
 
 A BACHELOR MAID 219 
 
 had taken Marion at once into his arms, and that 
 Marion had seemed more than content to let him do 
 so. But to his Honor all minor events were swallowed 
 iip in the flood of mortified vanity and crushed pride 
 that had overwhelmed him. 
 
 MRS. ROMAINE, yawning over a magazine in the 
 dining-room, remained at her post as chaperon 
 of four happy people as long as she could keep 
 awake. Then, breaking up the ball, she ordered 
 the men away, asking Gordon to accompany her in 
 her brougham as far as her own door. 
 
 It was only a short distance to her house, and Gor 
 don had hardly begun to tell her of his capture by 
 Lowndes Carleton, who had pursued him half over 
 town in a cab before finally coming upon him at din 
 ner with a friend, when the brougham stopped. 
 
 A servant, evidently in waiting at the front door, 
 ran down the steps to meet them. He begged Mrs. 
 Romaine to go at once up-stairs to her husband, who 
 had entered the house but a short time before them 
 selves, looking so ill the man had wanted at once to 
 send for a doctor. This forbidden peremptorily, Mr. 
 Romaine had shut himself in his own room, whither 
 nobody had yet dared to follow him. 
 
 "Let me wait and keep the carriage in case you 
 should need a doctor," suggested Gordon, startled not 
 so much by the news as by the look of apprehension 
 upon Mrs. Romanic's face. 
 
 " Thank you, perhaps it will be best," she said; and 
 he saw that her thoughts had flown before her up the 
 stairs.
 
 220 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 " Does she care for him so much ! " the young man 
 wondered, entering the library, and sitting down to 
 ponder on his own surprising fortune. With Marion's 
 kiss upon his lips, Marion's plea for pardon in his 
 ears, the affairs of other people could not seem to 
 him of the first importance then. 
 
 Before long he had a message from Mrs. Romaine, 
 praying him to go up to her husband's room. 
 
 "Mr. Romaine is better, I hope?" he said to the 
 butler, who preceded him. 
 
 " Can't say, I 'm sure, sir. I did not see Mr. Ro 
 maine himself," the man answered imperturbably. 
 
 What was it ? Gordon felt a sense of uncomfort 
 able anticipation as he followed along the corridor, 
 and tapped at the door indicated to him. 
 
 It was opened by Mrs. Romaine, who, drawing him 
 inside, shut and locked it. Gordon looked at her in 
 dismay. In the brief time since their parting a terri 
 ble change had been wrought upon her face. 
 
 " My dear lady ! " he exclaimed in a shocked 
 voice. 
 
 " He is there in his own room you will see him 
 presently," she said in a lifeless voice. " Sit here a 
 moment, first. I must tell you what soon every one 
 will know. My husband is not only a ruined man 
 he tells me he is disgraced. He says he has ruined 
 so many others that, after this, men will always 
 speak of him as a thief ! " 
 
 " Good God ! " cried Gordon. 
 
 " There is more. When I got up-stairs, a few min 
 utes ago, I was just in time. Another minute there 
 would have been this" She faltered, and with a
 
 A BACHELOK MAID 221 
 
 shaking hand lifted a pistol from the folds of her 
 dress. 
 
 Possessing himself of the weapon, Gordon made 
 haste to unload it, and to place the wretched woman 
 in a chair, where, dropping her head upon a table, 
 she gave way to a burst of sobs and tears. 
 
 " But I must tell you all," she said, when again 
 able to articulate. " No, how can I tell you, when I 
 myself don't know particulars ? For weeks I have 
 seen that some awful cloud was over him ; but God 
 knows I never dreamed of this. Of all the chances 
 of misfortune, this would have been the last for me 
 to expect. I always believed in his integrity among 
 men always always. But he has told me now, 
 everything freely, fully. Oh, would to God I had 
 shown him long ago what he is to me, and he might 
 have confided in me when there was yet time to save 
 him and his victims ! He did n't mean wrong, Mr. 
 Gordon ; I 'd swear to it. See how generous he has 
 always been to me, to every one ! It was that mad 
 rage for speculation. It has overwhelmed him and 
 all who trusted him. And now that, like a child, 
 he has opened his heart to me what shall I do to 
 comfort him, my love, my poor darling ! " 
 
 Another storm of despair swept over her. Gordon, 
 standing beside her, kept his hand upon her shoulder 
 tenderly, firmly. 
 
 "When he thought of dragging me down in the 
 disgrace that will be known everywhere to-morrow, 
 his impulse was to get out of life anyway, he said. 
 He supposed, oh, God ! that I would be relieved 
 relieved of my husband, the lover of my youth my
 
 222 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 poor husband, weighed down with sin and care ! 
 Think of that, Mr. Gordon ! Think I let him believe 
 so ! It breaks the poor remnant of my heart. But 
 I 've saved him from the worst I saved him. He 
 is mine still, to comfort, to stand by no matter 
 what 's to come ! " 
 
 There was silence, broken only by a fresh burst of 
 her uncontrollable love and sorrow. Gordon spoke 
 at last. 
 
 "You are quite sure he will make no other attempt 
 to " He glanced significantly at the pistol still in 
 his hand. 
 
 " No, no. He has promised to live for me. He is 
 in there, lying across his bed, not stirring. He has 
 given me leave to speak to you." 
 
 " My dear lady, this is inexpressibly painful to me," 
 began the young man. " Perhaps you will tell me 
 what you would have me do?" 
 
 " Do ? " she cried, springing to her feet, with a look 
 of dauntless resolve in her haggard eyes. " There 
 is but one thing to do thank God we are childless ! 
 As I have told my poor darling, we must face it 
 and meet the punishment together ! " 
 
 WHEN Gordon, late that night, found his way from 
 the rooms in which he had undergone a most dis 
 tressing experience, he passed unobserved through 
 the lower hall deserted by the servants, who scented 
 disaster. 
 
 As he let himself out of the stately portal, and 
 stood for a moment in the vestibule, he lifted his hat 
 toward the door.
 
 A BACHELOK MAID 223 
 
 " To the Higher Woman," he murmured, then strode 
 with a sad heart from the house around which sha 
 dows deeper than those of night had forever closed, 
 into the brightness of his own steadfast way. 
 
 IN the contemporaneous aspect of their affairs it 
 is possible to give only a few facts in disposing of the 
 other people with whom this episode has had to deal. 
 
 Just yet it is hard to say what effect Stremof s 
 disappointment has had upon him. He met it with, 
 assuredly, an admirable bearing, sailing shortly after 
 ward, with the remark that he will return to pursue 
 his studies of American sociology. 
 
 The junior member of our firm of Bachelor Maids 
 very soon became an utterly devoted Mrs. Carletoii. 
 As they were giving up the flat on May 1, and her 
 mother was remotely heard from as still upon her 
 travels, with no intention of abandoning her pursuit 
 of change of scene, Mignon decided that she could 
 do no better with herself than be married from the 
 house of her sister, Mrs. Clyde. Lowndes, as soon 
 as he had secured his individual share of female suf 
 frage, stopped fulminating against it, and was spoken 
 of by his wife's friends as " an ardent sympathizer, 
 only not quite ready to speak out." The worst re 
 corded against him was a query to his wife whether, 
 on the whole, she considered that she would have 
 done better by defeating nature than in letting 
 nature defeat her. But, as Mrs. Clyde observed, it 
 is hardly worth while remembering the foolish things 
 men say when they are trying to make you think 
 they feel themselves your equals.
 
 224 A BACHELOR MAID 
 
 Marion, while awaiting her own marriage, fixed 
 for the early days of June, had returned to her fa 
 ther's house. She there told Alec and Miss Erne 
 that, in thinking over her winter's experience, she 
 had come to regard the woman question as one in 
 volving the whole not half of the human race. 
 
 " So do I," said Miss Effie. " I regard our eman 
 cipation as an inevitable development awaiting us, 
 but one in which men are equally concerned." 
 
 " You are willing to let us think that, in helping 
 you out, we are working for our own regeneration I " 
 asked Gordon. " Well, be it so. I recall those lines 
 of Tennyson : 
 
 The woman's cause is man's: they rise or sink 
 Together, dwarf'd or godlike, bond or free: 
 For she that out of Lethe scales with man 
 The shining steps of Nature, shares with man 
 
 Here my memory fails me. What comes next, Aunt 
 Effie?" 
 
 " I can remember only this," she answered, looking 
 at the two with eyes brimful of satisfied pride : 
 
 Till at the last she set herself to man, 
 Like perfect music unto noble words."
 
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