THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES 8ERTRAND SMITH - ACRES OF SOOKS PACIFIC AVENUJf NEW YORK A NOVEL. BY EDGAR FAWCETT, Author of "An Ambitious Woman," "A New York Family, "Women Must Weep," "An Heir to Millions," "The House at High Bridge," "A Gentleman of Leisure," etc. F. TENNYSOX XEELY, PUBLISHER . LONDON. XEW YORK. Copyright, 1898, by "F. TENNYSON NEELY, in United States and Great Britain. All Rights Reserved. 5 7 TO HENRY JAMES: With the touch of a Velasquez you have painted many portraits. No living Briton or American ranks above you in your art* And so with reverence for the depth and reach of it, I venture to make you my modest offering, as one to whom your gifts have been for years a delight, and by whom your fame, now strengthening with time, was long ago foretold. E. F. Venice, April, J898. NEW YORK. I. IT was one of those lovely April nights that sometimes bend over New York with the sparkle of winter in their stars and the blanduess of late spring in their large-flow ing breezes. Clock was answering clock throughout the vast town; and each, in big tolls, or low throbs, or far away fairy trebles, counted eleven strokes before it ceased. A j'oung man paused at the gateway of Abingdou Square park. A few people were scattered here and there among the benches, dusky shapes of either sex. A tree or two in the little triangular park sent out plaintive rustles. If you had a turn for analogies you might have thought their boughs were shuddering at all the bitter poverty near by. For Abingdon Square, though far from being a grossly squalid quarter, is still girt with haunts of pinching want. Near it is Bethune Street, and Bank Street, and Horatio Street, and Jane Street, and many another shabby biding-place of those for whom life means only struggle and fear. But the sweet, cool star light romanticized all dinginess. Hudson Street and Eighth Avenue, sweeping to left and right, lost their daytime look of commonness, and the ungainly cars had become merely fire-specked ghosts of themselves, with ghosts of jaded horses to draw them. Now and then rose long, mellow booms from craft on the neighboring river, dying softly away like mystic laments that seemed to de plore something which they could not explain, to ask something of the immense, shadowy, life-packed city which it either could not or would not answer. The young man, though strong of frame, was tired, and he leaned on the old iron railing at the edge of the gateway. 4 NEV7 YORK. Just then a policeman, burly in his official buttons, with an auburn cataract of mustache, came sauntering up. "Can't loaf on the railing like this. Either go in or out." "I I was going in," hesitated the young man. Then, as he was about to pass through the gateway, a hand caught his arm. "Oh, it's you?" said the policeman, with a veiled sneer. "You'd better get home, George Oliver. We don't want no fellers like you loafin' round here." The young man faced the policeman, though not at all defiantly. He was tall and of compact build a figure so clean-limbed, broad-chested, slim of waist, spare of thigh, that his ill-fitting rusty clothes could not hide these phj'sical graces. Beneath his slouched hat was a glimpse of curly brown hair. His face, full of fatigued pallor, had few flaws in its regular moulding. Yet it was not a face that made you think of beauty no doubt half bo- cause of its fleshly thinness and half because of its grave, fagged, troubled look. He had not passed his twenty- fifth year, though then and there he seemed ten years older. "You know me, officer?" he said very quietly. "I thought I'd changed too much for that." "You've changed some yes. But I knowed ye. I've seen ye round here sev'ral times. When did ye get out?" "Three weeks ago." "Sent up for three years, wasn't ye?" "Yes. But good conduct Oh, never mind, though. I'm out now, and much it profits me! Even if work wasn't so hard to get nowadays, I don't suppose I could find anything decent to do. The brand of the jailbird is on me." George Oliver spoke these words in a cold, slow mono tone. But the next moment his dark eyes very dark blue they really were, but black in the lamplight kindled a little as he ran them over the policeman's features, naturally genial, though now puckered into a dogged, suspicious cramp. "Oh, I remember you perfectly. You're Garrety. NEW YORK. 5 You were on this same beat when I was going to the New York College." The other nodded, with haughty solemnity. "I guess that's so. And they used to say your father, 'fore he died, was a kind of a gentleman, one o' the broken-down sort. ' ' "He was. He died when I was seventeen. He came to this country in 1867, from England. He had success in business at first. Then bad health overtook him, and he moved from West Ninth Street, over between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, to lodgings in "West Twelfth Street, a short walk from here. It was a better part of the town then than it is now. My mother's there yet. . I'm living there, too, since I left Sing Sing. She's not in any need ; her wants are small. There's eleven hundred a year in surance money." Garrety measured the speaker with a gaze of incredu lous scorn. George Oliver did not seem in the least offended by it. Ever since his release from prison he had never met any one who knew him and yet treated him at all differently. His pride, in a certain sense, had long ago been deadened; there were times when every manful impulse in his soul struck him as having lost the faintest power of assertion. The libers of his native virility were like some elastic substance that could no longer spring back when pulled, like some ball that failed to rebound. He had been speaking with a certain careless apathy. He did not expect to be believed. Everybody who knew him either doubted what he said in such a way that he guessed distrust or in such a way that distrust was flaunt- ingly manifest. Garrety chose a kind of middle course. " 'Leven hundred dollars a year, eh? That coat ye got on, and them pants, and them shoes, don't show it. You ain't dressed like a tramp, but then you ain't dressed first-class." A strange dignity flashed up in George Oliver, and then quickly faded. It was hardly explainable save per haps by a slight back-throwing of the head, and yet his observer noted it and inly scoffed at it. But the young man's next words were patient, stolid and colorless as before. 6 NEW YORK. "I don't touch a cent of that money (though I could have it all, if I chose) except for the barest necessities washing, car fare, and a few small needs like that. If I did otherwise it would take from my mother's comforts in the end. As it is, she has all that she requires, and a companion to watch her as well. I sleep there and get my meals there, but that's about all. My poor mother never really knows me." "How's that? Never knows ye?" growled Garrety, as if each new word fed his skepticism, and as if he were telling himself that this ex-convict wished to palm off on him "a pack o' lies." George Oliver's garrulity bad something primitive and elementary in its lack of all reserve. This officer of the law was a human being, such fact for the time sufficed him. His social instincts, repressed for three years, and always with gruff contempt as a prime factor of the sub jugation, broke out now with a random, weed-like wildness. At twenty-two, with his education and his sense of dis tinct superiority, he would not have dreamed of mention ing his own affairs, the antecedents of his father, the name of his mother, to an illiterate person like this policeman. But now all had changed. The world, the new world on which he had emerged from prison walls, was made up of two classes those who despised him to the verge of shutting their ears against him altogether, and those who did not despise him enough to let him hear the sound of his own voice. It had been stifled so many months, that voice, in the austere glooms of cell and corridor, under the cold frowns of keepers! He felt a certain vanity in using it; often he did so mechani cally, as an athlete, long debarred from exercise, will loosen or tighten his muscles for the very joy of hearing them creak, of seeing them swell and dwindle. His can dors, as at present, were often irrepressible as they were pathetic and unartificial. He loved his regained free dom, and sometimes had almost hysteric desires to test it. Calamity, that terrible socialist, had taught him scorch ing precepts. He had often hungered, during these three past weeks of liberation, for the vital flesh and blood testimony that he was no longer a caged and driven and dominated slave. NEW YORK. 7 "No," he now went on, "my mother never knows me any more. She lost her mind after my trial and conviction. She thinks I am somebody else. Or, not quite that, but somebody very different from what I really am." "Umph," grunted Garrety. He surveyed the tall, lithe shape, the pallid face, the demeanor of humility and sincerity so clearly mingled, crestfallen yet somehow dignified, wistful yet somehow touched by courage. But concerning all men with records like George Oliver's, he was (and who shall say how unjustly?) a doubter to the bone. He had seen so many of them; he had so often looked straight into the rottenness below their most decorative and enticing plausibilities. He rolled the quid in his plump, florid cheek, spat on the ground with a hint of so treating the late recital of his interlocutor, and brought out, in a throaty, satiric mum ble : "O' course ye were innercent. The likes o' you al ways is!" "Innocent?" said George Oliver. Then, steadily, after a slight silence, he added: "No oh, no. I was guilty. At the trial I wanted to say so, but the lawyers kept me silent. I did all I was accused of doing, and got precisely the punishment I deserved." Garrety stared at him aghast. In all his experience of criminals (and it had been a wide one, dating back into a personal past of the grimiest character) he had never before heard so prompt and frank an admission from any body whom the prison shears and the degrading stripes had marked as their own. NEW YORK. II. A SPECIES of pity and even respect wakened in the cal lous nature of this listening policeman. Perhaps una ware of the softened note or two in his voice, he queried : "So ye got sent up square and just, eh?" "Yes. There might have been a little more mercy shown to my youth. Some people, I believe, thought there was too much. I was only twenty-two years old, you know." "That ivas young, wasn't it?" Garrety could not have told why, instead of muttering this sentence, he did not say something professionally curt and brusque, like "move on, now," or "get along with ye." But a queer spell thralled him one which he would have defined as mere curiosity, scarcely aware of humane sympathies at root of it. "You see," said George Oliver, with a ruminative look that seemed to seek some goal far off beyond one of the policeman's stalwart shoulders, "I got into the company of three men that were each ten years older than I. I'd left the college. I'd been out nearly two years; I gradu ated at about twenty, seventh in a big class. They were fellow-employees in the National Brooklyn Bank. It was my duty to make certain entries. Their names were Gleene and Brigham. But perhaps you remember." "M No. I guess I don't." Garrety stroked his fleshy chin with a hand each finger nail of which was a black arc of dirt. "I may have. But I guess I don't any more." "Gleene and Brigham each got twenty years. You see, they thought they'd be safe if they could have those entries made on two or three of the books in my hand writing my figures. They had erasing acids so it came out in the trial and they were ready to use them on my penmarks the minute I'd consent to write what NEW YORK. 9 they wanted where the acids made blanks. They first tempted me by being nice to me. I was flattered ; I hardly knew what drink was, and they gave me two or three suppers, where I lost my head and behaved silly. It was champagne; I'd seldom touched it before, and I liked it, as most boys do for, after all, twenty-two isn't much past boyhood. It seemed to me that the3 r stood so high at the bank, and were so kind to take a fancy to me like that. I came home, once or twice, befuddled with the wine, to my mother. She scolded me, and almost pxit me to bed poor mother! and yet, when I told her in whose company the thing had happened, and how fine the supper had been, she forgave me, or at least softened in her judgment of the whole folly. It went on like that for several months. I never suspected what they wanted. I never suspected when they had a woman, one evening, at a supper in a private room a woman whom I thought, then, the most charming lady I had ever seen. Gleene introduced her to me as his cousin, a widow, Mrs. Car son. It came out in the trial that her past record was horrible, and that her real name but this doesn't matter. "Well, Mrs. Carson and I got to know one another well. I thought her the sweetest and purest woman on earth. It wasn't love it was a coarser kind of fever. One day, over in Brooklyn, she told me that if she could not get five hundred dollars she would have to leave the city. This agonized me, but I felt I could do nothing. I was so crazed by the feelings she had roused in me that I would have begged my mother for the money if I had not known that she was powerless to give me so large a sum out of her insurance income, paid only by instal ments. Meanwhile Gleene and Brigham pretended not to know that I had ever seen Mrs. Carson after the first night on which I met her. She had slipped her address into my hand under the table, as if with the most im mense secrecy, and later she begged me not to tell her so- called 'cousin' that we had ever afterward crossed one another's paths. Gleene would be very angry, she said, and I believed her what villanous lies did I not believe, in those doomful days! Both Gleene and Brigham stood high at the Brooklyn bank. One was cashier, and 10 NEW YORK. the other was the vice-president's nephew. A little while after Mrs. Carson's imploring request, we three had an other supper together. It was in a private room in the Hoffman House. I met them downstairs by appointment, and drank with them at the bar there, just opposite that beautiful picture of Bouguerau's bathing nymphs. I think, sometimes that if I should see it again, great work of art that it is, I should try in some mad way to tear the canvas from the frame. For it reminded me aided by the fiery little glass of drink I took with them of " Here George Oliver, pausing suddenly, passed a hand once or twice with speed across his forehead. "But never mind that, either. It wasn't till we three were seated together in the gilded little room, and I saw the red wines and the yellow wines in their decanters, and observed that there was no lady present, no particular reason evident why such a feast as this should be spread for just us three, that a real doubt crept into my stupid young head. But, Gleene and Brigham were very shrewd. They talked about their recent successes in "\Yall Street, and said not to me, but as if they were careless whether I listened or no that by a certain turn in stocks that, day they must have made a great deal of money. And I thought of Mrs. Carson and her pleading face and tearful blue eyes, and wondered if either of them would lend me five hundred dollars. Then such a request seemed the height of boldness to me, for how on earth could I repay any sum like that? With my small salaiy it would have taken me months to repay even a hundred. "I forget just how they brought the conversation round to that one main point. The wine caused me to for get. But of course they began by making me realize that I could earn a large amount of money if I did for them a certain thing. I asked them, then and quite hotly and proudly, too if it was any thing wrong. Then I recollect feeling sure it was wrong, but that I would at once re ceive a thousand dollars in cash if I did it. A thousand dollars! The very thought of it set my head swimming more than did their champagne. And at length they told me what it was they wanted rne to do. "I was very angry at first. I longed to fling myself out of the room ; I felt as I would have felt if they had NEW YORK. 11 struck me across the mouth, or kicked me. I seemed to see my mother's face arid to hear her voice, as she called 'George, George come away.' "But another face pushed hers back Mrs. Carson's. I heard them through, and understood just how easy it would all be. Gleene, the cashier, could go into the Brooklyn bank at any hour of the night he wished; the watchman wouldn't dream of preventing him. He had, also, the keys of certain safes. A particular ledger my own was just where he could lay hands upon it. Would I go over there with them that night and make the en tries? They could have made the erasures with their acids, they explained, and made their own false entries afterward. But I would have detected this (or so they feared) and have raised an alarm about it. "Well, I did the vile thing, and before midnight I'd got my wage. But I never saw Mrs. Carson again. When I went to her house I found she had gone no one could tell me anything. It was just that; she had gone. There was my money, but I cursed it as Judas did his thirty silver pieces. I put it into a bank a New York one, not the Brooklyn one, where I was clerk and vowed I would not touch a cent of it till I could get some trace of her. After awhile I ventured to ask Gleene concern ing her. He laughed in my face when I called her his 'cousin.' 'She was no more to me than a street-lamp, ' he said scoffingly. And he said other things, and I felt like killing him when I saw how devilishly he had fooled me. Then I taxed him with the meanness and baseness of his behavior, but he only laughed again in mockery, and dared me to expose either himself or Brigharn, since I was as deep in the mud as they were in the mire. This was true enough. I had restless, tortured feelings for weeks afterward, and drew the money from the New York bank by a hundred or thereabouts at a time, and spent it in vicious ways, trying to lull my inward pangs. I hid it from my mother, but she saw the effects of it in my mode of life, and grieved greatly. It was nearly all spent when the crash came. Gleene and Brigham were arrested while trying to reach Canada. The police got hold of me more easily. . . . After that the Brooklyn 12 NEW YORK. prison mother's awful sorrow, and her harrowing visits then the trial, then Sing Sing, and now " He paused broken!}'. There was not an emotional quiver in his voice. It was all one colorless monotone. His eyes were fixed in a musing stare on the blank dim ness; he now seemed quite to have forgotten the police man's presence, as perhaps he had done quite awhile ago. Garrety gave a husky cough as he stopped speaking, and then slowly reached out a hand and laid it on his arm. "That's the way the thing happened, eh?" George Oliver started at the man's touch. Then he smiled faintly as he caught a certain look in Garrety 's eyes. "My talk runs on like this," he said, with a shade of apology in his voice. "You must excuse me; it's be ing so long shut up, I suppose, and having no one near me, except," here he stopped short, and ended with a slight sigh, "convicts like myself." "If what ye've said is true," said Garrety, "ye'dnever ought to been a convict. And I believe it is true, every word of it." His hand dropped from George Oliver's arm, and the latter instantly caught it. He strained it for a moment between tense fingers. His dark-blue eyes were shining moistly. "Thank you, ihank you," he said. "See here," proposed Garrety, the next minute, with a sidelong jerk of his head. "Ye look tired, and a drop o' something wouldn't hurt ye. I know a place not far off where we C9uld have a drink together in the family entrance, if it happens to be empty, and no blabbin' from the barkeepers, neither. Come along." As Garrety turned, the other plucked him lightly by one blue-braided sleeve. "Thank you again, officer, but I think I won't." His tones were very firm. "While I'm like this looking round for some sort of honest work, and terribly anxious in my mind, I'm sure it's best I should keep from all drink. I'm sure it's best unless I give right up altogether, you know, and drop down into the gutter itself that I shouldn't let that sort of danger ous comfort have its wa>- with me. I'll go straight home, now. Thank God I've got a bed there and cleanness and NEW YORK. 13 comfort beside. If it wasn't for this one brace to keep me from going all to pieces, I believe I'd throw up the whole game in no time, and either put a bullet through my brain or else get myself back to the hole I've just quitted. And drink, nowadays, would make me do one thing or the other, there's not the ghost of a doubt!" Soon Mr. Garrety stalked slowly and martially away. If he had wanted any fresh proof that the young man was a martyr, the fact of his having refused "a drink" would have clinched conviction. He did not move in a circle of society where alcoholic potations are often de clined when proffered. He went to the saloon of which he had just darkly hinted, and swallowed there a clan destine tumblerful of raw whisky. His sympathies, made inactive by experience, and lying under deep crusts of cynicism, had nevertheless been strongly moved. He thought George Oliver's case a fiercely cruel one. It did not occur to him, however, that the object of his pity was not by any means so great a criminal as himself. Now a roundsman, after twelve years' service on the "force," he forgot to consider that he was receiving from this very liquor seller whose draughts of whisky were always gratuitous a regular monthly sum as security against arrest for continuous breaking of the law both on week days and Sundays. He also forgot other payments from other liquor-sellers, and many a banknote of hush-money that harlotry had slipped into his hand. He was an evil, this Garrety, that but yesterday flourished in poisonous hardihood, and that to-day, as they tell us, has been dur ably exercised. At least until his return falsifies this affirmation, let us gratefully endeavor to believe it. Meanwhile George Oliver had passed homeward through the April starlight. He entered with his latch key the small brick house in West Twelfth Street, climbed two pairs of dark stairs, and opened the door of his neat little bedroom. There were four rooms on the floor. His mother had lived here for years, though several times the proprietor had changed. In all respects it was a second-rate boarding-house, exclusive of this one suite, for which Mrs. Oliver paid a moderate though very reg ular weekly amount. Her rnealb were served her by the 14 NEW YORK. landlady, and those of her faithful nurse as well. When George had come back from his long absence a new ar rangement had been made regarding his meals also, and he had been given his former quarters at the rear of the house. . Beyond was a sort of sitting and dining room, next the sleeping apartment of the "companion," and finally the front room, where Mrs. Oliver spent most of her time. "Mr. George!" The young man, with a despondent droop of his frame, had just seated himself, after lighting the gas, and was gazing at his small, white, cleanly bed. It was always a grateful sight, nowadays, that bed, though it evoked dreary memories of another, hard and harsh as the life he had lately left. "Mr. George!" He had not heard the first summons, perhaps because it was so gentle, like the little knock that went with it or perhaps because the roar from an onsweeping train of the neighboring elevated deadened it. He went at once and opened the door that led into the next room. "You, Lydia?" "Yes." "How is mother? I was just going to find you and ask." "After you went away, this evening, one of her attacks came on. It's very bad, this time." "Bad? How do you mean?" "Oh, you know how I mean! She wouldn't let me put her to bed. She insisted on waiting up for you. She's waiting now. I've had to dress her, and get the crown, and the jewels, and all that!" "Oh, yes, I see!" George covered his face, and for an instant the tremors that with a woman would have been tears, jarred his body. Lydia laid her hand on his shoulder. As it slid down his arm George seized and pressed it. His underlip shook as he spoke. "Good God, Lydia! To think that I made her like this!" "No, no," urged the other in a quick, soothing, fluty NEW YORK. 15 tone. "You can't be sure of that! Remember wh:it I told you the doctors have said when I asked them. Each one seemed to think the same that in any case it would have come upon her. And remember, we know that her mother and one of her aunts died insane." "But ihisjorm of insanity !" George shook his head mournfully incredulous. Then, as if pulling himself to gether: "I'll go in, Lydia. There's no other way, is there?" "Oh, no other. I could do nothing with her till dawn, if you didn't. She'd keep awake till sheer exhaustion, made her drop asleep and that wouldn't be for hours yet." "Very well." "You're tired," said Lydia, with soft sympathy. "Oh, no more than usual. I've been trudging around all day, looking for something to do. They all want rec ommendations, of course even the 'longshoremen's em ployers. And I can't give them mine. I've tried that too often. It always means one answer the door. Come, now, we'll go in." "One moment, please," said Lydia. "I oughtn't, perhaps, to tell you now, but it's better you should be prepared if anything happens suddenly." "Happens suddenly?" George repeated, while their eyes met. 16 NEW YORK. ni. LYDIA Lad beautiful eyes, large, and of starry and vel vety blackness. She was a mulatto, and about four years older than her mistress' son. Her features were not per fect, but the African coarseness was utterly absent in them, and the delicate carmine-tinted mouth, with its glimpses of dazzling teeth, rivaled in charm the curled thinness of nostril. At times her coloring was a perfection of damask richness, though usualb' there stayed but a dim hint of pink on the rounded olive of either cheek. But what gave her face its choicest attraction could not easily be put into words. One might safely call it, however, the intelligence of an awakened and enlightened soul. George Oliver's father, like many Englishmen, had been totally without prejudice against the negro race. Long ago a certain curiosity had spurred him, in his more prosperous days, to make trial of a full cultivating influence upon one of her degraded class. His wife, agreeable to the plan, stipulated that their adopted child should be a girl, and Lydia, a foundling, was brought to live with them while yet but two years old. Her edu cation cost Robert Oliver more money than he could spare; for he did not trust to the public schools when their doors began to admit negro children, but caused the girl to receive private tuition, in which music and French were comprised. Her career as a scholar was odd. At first she showed discouraging dullness; then some barrier seemed to break away in her brain, and she astonished by her deft aptitudes. "Perhaps her white blood is as serting itself," Robert Oliver would now say, and a little regretfully ; for he had desired to produce a living disclosure of the refinement and superiority which could be wrought in one of purely African blood. But his wife, though sympathetic with his designed experiment, had been charmed by the child's yellowish baby tintings, and NEW YORK. 1? had shrunk from the adoption of a ward whose personality might develop into thick-lipped and squat-nosed ugli ness. As it was, Lydia sweetly rewarded her benefactor, some time before his death, by appealing to him as a far more attractive young creature than he had expected to make her. She had grown into a dark, tall, slender damsel, with all the graces and felicities of deportment and con versation which many of her white sisters, having had equal advantages of training, conspicuously lacked. Her musical talent was marked, and her mastery of the piano distinct if far from thorough. She had a sweet contralto voice, and sang with taste and finish many songs which Mrs. Oliver who had once been an almost brilliant vocalist rejoiced to hear. This lady loved her with so maternal a fondness that she might easily have forgotten her racial stamp if the outward world had not so constantly reminded her of it. George always had treated her as a sister, and her form of address to him as "Mr. George" had latterly been quite of her own choos ing. As lie grew older, and during the years that im mediately followed his father's death, he found himself pronouncing the girl's mode of bringing up "& sad mis take. Others had already so pronounced it. Albert Josselyn, a cousin of the Olivers, quarreled with George's father because he invited himself and wife to dine one day, and had Lydia seated at table. The cousins never afterward spoke, but Mrs. Josselyn was much more indignant than her husband. She had been a dressmaker before her marriage, and a rather obscure one, but she was now the wife of a dry goods merchant who cleared his ten thousand a year. "I'm told," she bristled, "that a brother of mine is a rough-and-tumble miner, somewhere out in the wild west. But even if he eats with his bowie-knife and wears his boots outside his pants, Albert, I don't believe he'd stand having a negress dine at the same table with him." Other acquaintances of the Olivers, much more thought ful and dispassionate, resolved their verdict into this : "Lydia is just what her guardian calls her, an experi ment. And as such, she is a failure. With all her fine, 1$ NEW YORK. and pretty ladyhood she might much better have beeri taught a little arithmetic, spelling and geography, and left the normal associate of her own people. What, in heaven's name, have they now made of her? A kind of social monstrosity. If Robert Oliver could settle any fixed income on her after his death, it would be different. But when he and his wife die, and the hedging-in proc ess by which they have reared her is ended, how can her life be anything but a misery? Granted that they have made her a lady, and a very charming one. What self- rospecting white man would marry her? Is she fit to be a lady's maid? It's doubtful, for she's never been taught to humble herself in the least. As a common servant, too, she would be almost ridiculous. But provided she remains an honest woman she must put up with the most hateful stings and humiliations. Oh, it's all one of the results of forcing civilization! You can't do that kind of thing without committing wretched blunders. No doubt the poor girl is beginning to feel herself, what a lonely, pitiable person they've turned her into." Lydia, of late, had indeed been forced to look at life with all the lines of it sternly hardening. But the sor row of Mr. Oliver's death had first taken her mercifully out of herself, and then, not so long afterward, had come the worse calamity of George's ruin. This, too, had been simultaneous, or nearly so, with his mother's mental wreck. The last three 3 r earshad been to her an incessant self-surrender. There were times when she almost felt thankful for the vigilance and care-taking demanded of all her days. They kept her from brooding and repining from realizing into how strange an anomaly fate had fashioned her. "It's something," she now said to George, "that may happen very suddenly, and at any time. And, as I've told you, it's better you should be prepared. You know how quiet and docile your mother is, for days at a time?" "Yes." "But Dr. Win gate, who "was hero to-day, spoke quite frankly with me. He says that all the while her system is growing weaker, and that the end of paresis is nearly always a sudden paralytic stroke. She has paresis, you NEW YORK. 19 know, and in her it has taken a strange form, though one that is quite similar, after all, to the ordinary patient's great hopefulness of the future and belief in great pros perity, both present and to come." George was silent for awhile. "Poor Lydia!" ho at length said. "If that should happen 3'ou will be left without support of any kind. The insurance money goes with mother's life. I know you you know this. But have you thought of it?" "Yes." "And /should have stood between you and poverty penury! I would have done so, with all my will, and with all my affection and fondness, born in our dear old playfellow days, and fostered through the years that fol lowed! I would have done so, Lydia, if I hadn't turned out the infernal scamp and rogue "Hush, George," she said, grasping his hand for a moment with her slender fingers, and calling him by the unprefixed name of earlier times. And just then they both heard a distant voice. "Lydia!" it called, "Lady Lydia!" "Hear! Lady Lydia! Oh, I have an immense rank to night." The next words came after a strangled sob. "I'm Heiress Presumptive to the throne, in case you die childless. Come." She turned, glancing at him across one shoulder with her dusk, plaintive eyes. George waited a few seconds, after she had quitted the room, as though trying to nerve himself for what he must meet. Then he went forward into the presence of his poor demented mother. "My dear prince! I felt sure you would be late to night. Lady Lydia and I both told ourselves that you would surely be late. There is my hand to kiss. You see, I have on my crown and my robes of office, in which to welcome you. " "Yes, mother." Mrs. Oliver laughed. The pathos of her lunacy was infinite. George and Lydia stole glances at one another. Extremes meet; in their heart-wrung pity each, perhaps, felt the saturnine humor of this distraught woman's de lusion, and checked the hysteric impulse to echo her ludicrous yet awful mirth, 20 NEW YORK. "You may think it foolish in an invalid like myself to employ this almost idle piece of ceremony. But I could not go myself with you to the grand ball given by that grim Duke of Sing Sing" (here George and Lydia ex changed a quick look), "who is, by the way, one of my least lovable courtiers. Yet I have thought it best, and Lady Lydia has thought it best, for me to assume these robes" (they were the flimsiest of pink paper-muslin fineries), "and this crown, which you will recognize as one of our most precious royal belongings, in order to greet you on your return. " Mrs. Oliver had thus far spoken in a standing posture, but she now sank feebly back into her armchair. When George's crime first broke upon her there were only faint gray tinges in her hair; now it was white as snow. She had one of those fragile, windflower sorts of faces that grief always sags and furrows and blanches with such ghastly effect. Her tawdry crown of gilt paper made wofuller the ravaged face beneath it. A necklace and girdle of big, gaudy stage jewels flared from her thin throat and waist. "I see you are dressed to meet me, mother, " said George, as if dragging out each word. "It is very kind. " "Kind! Hear him, Lady Lydia! My boy, it is court etiquette! Once a queen, always a queen." And the crazed woman gave a laugh meant for one of amusement, perhaps, yet cracked and wailful, and dying in a short gasp. "His grace of Sing Sing," she went on, with the sud den petulant frown of the insane glooming her features and causing her lips fiercely to purse themselves, "owes us an apology for having kept you so long in his castle, my son. You were rash to visit him, even though this great ball ia evidently given with a wish to propitiate us for past misconduct. He is, when all is said, a rebellious fellow, and before long we shall find means to level his audacious pride. Oh, and we can find means, too, never fear! Long ago secret dispatches were brought us Ladj r Lydia has them telling of his efforts to head a revolt against our throne." "Your medicine," said Lydia, drawing near the self- NEW YORK. 21 believed monarch with a tumbler of liquid and a spoon. In these acute attacks the doctor had ordered a certain drug, to be taken at somewhat brief intervals apart. Mrs. Oliver drew herself up proudly in her chair. She stared for a moment at Lydia, with glazed and haggard eyes. "Taste it yourself first," she enjoined, with great haughtiness. "It is court etiquette." Lydia drew back the glass, and made a feint of tasting its contents. George stood watching, with a sick feeling of -horror. He could never get used to these eerie mani festations; they were pregnant for him with a mighty re proach. But for his breaking away from the loving and noble precepts of this same shattered brain, it might still have stayed unharmed through many peaceful years! Oh, the agony of such overthrow! And he had caused it all! He was the viper that had stung so cruellj' his was the poison that had wrought such heart-breaking wreck! Mrs. Oliver closed her eyes, soon after this, and let her head fall softly against the back of her chair. "Is she asleep?" George whispered to Lydia. "It may be. These attacks nearly always end in ex haustion." "I'll steal away, then," said George. His face was glistening with sweat-drops. "It's all such torture to me, Lydia you know why " And then Mrs. Oliver reopened her eyes and regathered herself into the former forlornly dignified pose. "We had forgotten to tell you, George, that we have lately discussed with Lady Lydia, our beloved ward, the question of our succession. You, of course, are our lineal heir. But since there is a chance of j*our not marrj'ing, and also a chance that you may marry without having issue, we have determined to make Lady Lydia heir presumptive to our throne. Long ago, if you re member, it was decided that the sovereign had power, in case the direct line became extinct, to appoint from among his subjects one whom he deemed worthy to wear the crown." And now, again rising, the speaker moved a few paces toward Lydia with steps that plainly tottered. She lifted both hands, and took from her white head the brittle bauble of pasteboard. Her motions were full of 22 NEW YORK. a delicate majesty. At the same moment a new slant of light on. her hollowed cheeks showed George that they were strangely, spectrally pale. "Bow your head, my dear, "she said to Lydia, who obeyed her. Then she placed the gilt thing on the girl's dark ripples of silky hair. In the moderate light of the room it became Lydia's swart beauty wonderfully, while she looked with a pained, deploring smile at George. "In the presence of my actual heir, Lady Lydia, I name you heiress presumptive to our realm, touching for this brief while your brow, my dear, with what is per haps the most sacred relic of our august house." The afflicted lady drew backward now, and clasped her hands in ardent admiration. Then, turning to her son, she continued; "Look, prince, is she not lovely? Why should you not make her, at some day, when I am laid with our forefathers, your consort queen. Surely a marriage like this " "Oh, no, no!" struck in Lj'dia, flushing with a sudden unconquerable shame, and impetuousl}' tearing the frail toy from her head. But hardly had her lips framed one cry when another, full of fright, left them. In an instant the foretold stroke came. George dashed to his mother and caught her as she was falling to the floor. He and Lydia thought, at first, that she had simply swooned. But all that night and all the next day she lingered unconscious. Then, toward evening, her faint breathings became a silence. "She is dead," George faltered very low, standing at Lj^dia's side while she stooped and kissed the white, waxen forehead. Then, still lower, he added : "And I have killed her." Though racked with sobs at the loss which meant for her an almost incomparable calamity, Lydia looked up at him and answered abidingly : "You should not go through the rest of your life with that thought! You should not, and you must not!" "The rest of my life!" he said, with the irony of de spair. "And how must I go through it, branded as I am? How except crawling and shambling and stumbling and cringing? For me there's no other way!" NEW YORK. 23 IV. AFTEK the quiet little funeral was over, and he and Lydia were again alone together, George regretted what seemed to him the parading selfishness of those bitter words. He said as much, and with a tang in his tones of gloomy remorse. "My fate, after all, is not so hard as yours I realize it," he told her. "Beside, it is de served; yours is not. " "You have no pity for youself, " she said. "None." "You don't believe in fate, then? that we are what we must be, and do what we must do? You think human will can make or mar a life, as it pleases?" "I don't think this, Lydia, and I do believe in fate. Not to believe in it seems like saying that you doubt if effect follows cause. But, nevertheless, when I look back on what happened three years ago, and remember how I let the clouds of my own wickedness slowly gather over every reminder of truth and honor and goodness my dead father, my devoted mother, you, our quiet and happy and virtuous little home then it seems to me as if my sin must have been purely voluntary a wanton, willful choosing between right and wrong. But I wanted to speak of your own plans for the future, Lydia. Have you formed any?" She gave a slight sigh. "There is but one thing for rne to do; I must go into service." "You a real servant! You're as much of a lady as any mistress you could find." Lydia slightly shuddered. "There's the horror of it," she murmured. "The horror of it?" he said quickly. "What do you mean?" Then he suddenly understood. 21 NF,W YORK. "If I were less of a lady," she went on, her voice quivering before it gained firmness, and the new lines of grief on her face giving to its mellow-tinted pallor a fresh and unwonted tragic beauty, "I might screw up my courage and be content with the prospect of menial r/ork. But my strength isn't equal to that; I've been too tenderly reared. Oh, the truth is, I've been reared in the most horribly unfortunate way!" She checked herself, biting her lips and lowering her soft, splendid eyes as though in guilty regret. "I follow you perfectly," said George, with deep sympathy. "My father and mother should both have considered " "No!" she broke in eagerly; "I have nothing for their memories but the most exquisite gratitude! They gave me a childhood full of unforgetablo joy; they made my girlhood sweet for me with hundreds of precious pleas ures. It was only when womanhood began that I looked in the face of my first sorrow your father's death." "Then came another my crime." She hurried on, ignoring his somber interjection. "Oh, no, if all the rest of my life were one misery, I should still be thankful to them both, as my blessed benefactors! And yet my rearing has been unfortunate I can't help but feel so now. Here I am, brought into direct contact with a world that has for me neither coun tenance, help nor hope. I cannot go and live with my own kind there are reasons why I cannot, reasons which are sternly separative, which I need not explain. And if I live with those who are not of my own kind I must do so only on the conditions of an abasement that will gall and wound. Your dear mother saw no difference. But everyone else saw it and told me of it, by acts and looks, if not by spoken words. Long ago I was forewarned of this absolute isolation. Now it has come it is here; and I must bear it as best I can." She was looking down again, her glance resting on her tawny hands, slender and shapely, as they lay half-folded in the lap of her black gown. Perhaps the deep-tinged rose of their taper nails fascinated her as a sort of sym bol ; its very charm told of that unique isolation to which she had just referred. NEW YORK. 25 "Poor Lydia!" said George, with a great kindliness of compassion. "/ can't blame the "world for ranking me an outcast, and you are just good and patient enough not to blame it. If I could only smooth the way for you as mother did! If I could only take up her work where she left it off! I'd still give you all the brotherly feeling I've ever had for you, and in return you'd be like the sister j'ou've always been, and in some pleasant home you could seem to outsiders a servant, while in reality you were the sister still. Dreams, dreams! But now," he broke off, with a forced yet energetic brightening of mien, "for the practical side. You may be lucky in find ing some employer who will fully recognize your excep tional position and comfort you, shield you, beyond your wildest present hopes." "I've thought of that!" she exclaimed; "I've prayed for it!" Her eyes burned with a melancholy longing, a slumberous gladness, as she raised them once more. "Oh, if there could be some such path as that out of the ter rible tangle !" "Let me think, " mused George, gaining relief from his own corosive anxieties in concerning himself with those of this old-time associate, this familiar and cherished friend. "You spoke of your own kind. You might be greatly aided by one of them " He saw a change cross Lydia's face, and swiftly pursued: "I mean, if you knew one, say of your own sex, who was at all lifted beyond the general class, like yourself." "I do not know one," she said decisively. "Here, it seems to me, they scarcely exist. In Europe, lam told, there are many, scattered about through its various countries. And here, of course, their admission into the public schools will soon accomplish much. But I have not shrunk, as I think you know, from going among them in charitable ways. Even against your mother's wish, though not disobediently, I have seen a great deal of their life here in this huge town." "Yes, I remember. " "A kind of race-instinct has spurred me to it, I imagine. And I have felt for them great compassion, great humane impulse. It has all been one of those more 26 NEW YORK. recent sorrows of -which I just spoke. For everywhere I have found such a terrible tyranny of caste. They have gained something here in New York; they can ride in street cars; they can send their children to the com mon schools; they can sit in theaters; they can drink (often more's the pity I) in certain saloons; they have white people as superintendents of certain of their asylums and hospitals. But in general their condition is still one of scorn, avoidance, neglect. The Jews of the old European Ghettos were far more persecuted, yet they were not more socially despised. I suppose hundreds of years must elapse before they will cease to engender, by the very fact of what they arc,, a shadow of the real equality which their share in the wide humanity of the world ought to give them." "They must have seen, in many instances, Lydia, that you were very far from being one of themselves." "Yes, and in many instances, too, they despised me for that same aloofness. Often it excited their con temptuous distrust. They connected it with something corrupt, licentious." "What insolence!" "Still, excusable. Oh, the enormous pity of it all! For me to go among them with their own blood evidently in my veins, and yet to possess the breeding and manners they had seen only in white women, has affected their foolish ignorance as a proof of my depravity. They imagine, poor things, that I couldn't be as decent and civilized as I am without some sort of mysterious bad ness having made mo so. And as for their own morals! Ah, it has set my heart bleeding again and again," cried Lydia, while her eyes lightened and her nostrils trem bled, "to see the actual swinishness in which many of them live! Their political liberty cost them oceans of tears, and now they must confront a new, inexorable slavery that of caste! Their young women grow up in the slums of the side streets passionate, hot-blooded creatures, full of powers for good, and yet from their birth breathing evil as they breathe the tainted air of their hovels. It is thought nothing for them to sin; their own parents conone and even smile at their loosest NEW YORK. :;? laxities. And with their young men it is the same. Always that horrible pressure pushes them to the wall. No wonder so many of them are thieves and house breakers. Dishonesty is e.rpt><i t '<l of them; if they do not steal they must be prepared for astonishment rather than praise. The summer hotels not all, but a few give them brief employment as waiters. Here their pay is wretched, and the quarters into which they are thrust often surpass for dirt and discomfort those city lairs which they call 'homes.' Now and then they will per suade white women to marry them, but nearly all who take this step belong among the ranks of the abandoned. If a reputable white woman takes it she is cut. by all her relations held up to her sisters and brothers as a wrong doer worthy of only odium and disgust. And to both sexes, as a rule, none but the meanest forms of work aro possible. Scullions, whitewashes, porters, scrubbers, scavengers, keepers of cheap and ramshackle little inns if they strive to be more than these they are soon thrust back agaiu by the great, unfeeling masses of their op pressors!" "A sad picture," sighed George. "But is it not terrible, too?" And Lydia lifted one clinched hand for a second, letting it fall with the heavi ness of despair. "Terrible, I mean, when you think of all those great men Garrison, Sumner, Beecher, Phil lips, Emerson, "Whittier, and a score of others, who fought for them so fiercely and nobly ! And old John Brown, who died for them! And Lincoln, greatest of all, who freeil them first and died for them after! And to this petty and foul and dismal result! The stigma of the captive has been taken away, but the stigma of poverty and prejudice remains. You may tell me it will not last. I believe it will last hundreds of years, if in deed it ever fades. Not long since, a negro in a little Sixth Avenue stationery shop said to me: 'I come of a respectable Brooklyn family that has been known for two generations in the quarter where it has lived. I am not of the class. that you find hanging about the corners of restaurants. My grandfather managed to save a cer tain amount of money, and we, his descendants, have all 28 NEW YORK. received benefits from his tbrift. I am fairly well edu cated, and witb my wife and tbree little ones I bave come over bere to New York to make a living. But it's no use. Customers drift into my shop, get \vbat tbey want, see my color, and never appear again. I am frozen out, boycotted, wbatever you please.' And tbis from a negro wbo would almost bave been called a gentleman if bis skin were wbite. " Tbey talked on like tbis for a long wbile, Lydia dis closing melancholy trutbs and ber bearer botb heeding and sympatbizing. At last George said: "You know, I suppose, Lydia, just bow motber's affairs are left. Had sbe any saved mone3 r any to apeak of?" "Yes. I can sbow you ber tbree savings bank books. Let me get tbern for you." Lydia disappeared, soon re turning. "Tbere," sbe said presently, pointing to cer tain pages, one after auotber. "Your motber bad been very economical. Sbe was always tbinking of you. And after your misfortune bappened, sbe was even more care ful of every dime." "Here," said George presently, "is a record of twelve hundred dollars yet to ber credit." "Yes twelve buudred dollars. Sbe saved tbat amount." "There's a will?" asked George, after a pause. "No. I'm sure sbe made none. It's all yours." "All mine, Lydia! Not a cent of it! All yours, you mean!" "No. You are ber natural beir." "Her it?matural beir!" "Wbile you were away," besitated Lydia, "she often spoke of dying and leaving you something in ber lucid moments, I mean." "I will not touch a coin of it!" asseverated George. But in the end he did take three hundred dollars, leaving Lydia the remaining nine. She implored him to take more, but he resolutely refused. There was some trouble with the payments from the banks, but at length all was settled. Lydia bad meanwhile advertised for a situation, and secured one. George was glad enough to get the NEW YORK. 20 three hundred dollars when it finally came to him in cash. Of ready money there had been about fifty dollars, and this sum was nearly exhausted by the time that he and Lydia, who had divided it between them, separated on the first of May, giving up the apartments which Mrs. Oliver had occupied so long. Already murmurs of scandalous import had swept through the boarding-house. But George, until the banks finally disgorged, had only his former sleeping room, and with Lydia it was the same. They parted affectionately, one with her nine hundred dollars, the other with his three. George kissed Lydia on the lips as naturally as if she had been his sister by blood. He promised to write her soon, taking her new address, which was Nyack. She was going into a family there, as nurse to three or four young children. She had liked the- lady who had answered her advertisement, and hoped for a contented life in her country home. "But I will have my wages, " she pleaded to George just before they parted. "And you give me this nine hundred dollars beside! Let me give you back at least two hundred more!" "No. Not another dollar more, " he said, with calm decision. "You should really have the whole twelve it's your due." "And you'll write me soon?" questioned Lydia. "Yes." "Even if you're unfortunate about getting something to do?" "Yes I'll write you." 30 NEW YORK. V. BUT George did not keep his word. Pride swayed him in the matter of neglecting it, and tender regard, beside, for Lydia's sensitive concern with his welfare. As days passed on it seemed to him all the harder to tell her that he had tried and failed that he was forever try ing, forever failing. He found fair lodgings in a small Bowery Hotel, where his room cost him fifty cents a day. After the discomforts of prison life, these accommoda tions did not strike him as particularly repellent. He had his papers of dismissal in his pocket, and at any time could have sought assistance from the home of ref uge for discharged convicts in Houston Street. But shame always kept pulling him back. There were moments when he told himself that if he could not ob tain work otherwise than by making this sort of applica tion, he would sweep streets, clean gutters, do anything abjectly servile. But to such a pride as his came the desolating thought, was even this form of self-humilia tion possible? Employment of any sort was hard enough to get ; but when the chance of it seemed most relieviugly imminent there was one perpetual question waiting to dash his hopes : "What recommendations can you give us?" He could give none; he could only prevaricate and quibble, and covertly long for a leniency that was never accorded. Soon he drifted among the worst dens of the poor. Indeed, at that time the brand of his disgrace always stung less when he was in company with those .who would have looked lightly on it had they known he bore it. His feeling of fellowship for the castaways of society was just now intense. Had not they, like himself, been tempted and fallen? Nearly all of them were doubtless far lesa blamable thaa he. The bitter despotisms of birth NEW YORK. 31 and environment had allowed them no choice. Their evil had been a necessitous heritage; it would have seemed incredible if they had trodden straight paths when every baleful force of circumstance had dragged them into the zigzags of crooked ones. He had a pas sionate desire to earn something by actual toil, no matter how low or slavish. He would have shrank from a task handsomely salaried if given him as a discharged convict. He loathed the prison taint so deeply that any sort of prosperity connected with it would have irked and pained him. The policeman, Garrety, had recognized him and remembered his immediate past. Hence he had spoken frankly of that past; to all ignorant of it he now wished to clothe it with the most jealous reticence. He was be ginning at last to feel a real sense of freedom. May had arrived hot and humid, as it so often does in New York. In the east side streets life expanded, amplified, desert ing its narrow indoor haunts. The sidewalks were populous with ragged children. Innumerable babies were carried here and there in the frail arms of their little sisters. Tiny two-year-old shapes tottered about in constant peril of overthrow. The doors of vile taverns were opened, and inside you could catch glimpses- of piled barrels and cobwebbed ceilings and grimy floors. Often, too, in the dusk beyond their thresholds, you could see the inalienable patron of the "dead house," an old woman, it might be, with snowy hair straggling down over a bloated face, or a man so thin that his filthy garb hung loose round every shrunken limb, either of them lifting to avid lips the five-cent glass of liquor which had death in it, yet a kind of deatli that for some mocking reason killed slowly. Girls and boys, carrying cans of beei', mounted the stairs of tenements and entered rooms where fetid beds, crawling with vermin, were sui'- mounted by flaring prints of Christ and the Holy Virgin. Brawny men, out of work, would loll at the narrow win dows, their hairy breasts half exposed by the sagging undershirt which alone clad their torsos. Pinched, cadaverous women, with sick infants in their arms, would sit on the stoops and shriek staccato reprimands to others of their offspring whom the slimy gutters too 32 NEW YORK. forcibly lured. Along Hester Street, and in parts of Baxter and Bayard Streets, the odors grew sickening as the sudden heat persevered. Perhaps for this reason George struck toward the river in his morning wander ings. These often began very early, for though he usually went to bed late, the closeness of his little room scarcely gave him more than six good hours of sleep. The first raw discords of the elevated as its trains began to rush past his windows, would wake him. And always with waking a pang of dread would come in fact, of actual affright such as visits nearly everybody whom remorse torments or whom fear of starvation frets, at the advent of a new day. Then he would rise, dress, and go out into the still 3 r ellowish air of the ugly Bowery. Drunk ards, men and women, would totter past him on their homeward routes. The denizens of the tweuty-five-cent lodging-houses would steal forth, unkempt and laggard. Once, among these, he saw a lad of not more than sixteen pause before a little coffee-house whose shutters had but lately been unclosed. He had a long, pale face, with ears" awkwardly outjutting from it, and a chin that was one nebula of scrofulous pimples. But his eyes were brown and softly brilliant, and filled with a kind of dog- like honesty and sweetness. He was fumbling in one dirty hand three cents. George, across his shoulder, saw that they were only three. "That's all you got?" he said, affecting this form of speech, as he nowada3 r s often did, because it suited better his shabbiuess of garb, and because educated par lance and accent would have roused attention and prob ably pricked curiosity. "Yes, that's all," said the boy, with a start. "You'd like to have a cup o' coffee, eh?" "Oh, yes wouldn't I?" came the eager response. George pointed to the narrow doorway of the lodging- house, with its glimpse of steep and soiled staircase. "Do ye mostly sleep like that?" he questioned. "No no, indeed! Las' night father come home drunk. He's a terror, sometimes, when he's like that. Mother ain't afraid of him, but she's afraid o' what he may do to me. He hurt me once very bad, when I was NEW YORK. 33 'bout nine; I had to stay in the hospital for two months. Las' night he went for me with a knife; he'll be sony when he gets sober; he always is. I'd 'a stayed, though, an' took the risks; but mother, she got all of a tremble, an' slipped a quarter into my hand, an' shoved me out inter the entry, an' begged me not to come home agin till noon. That quarter was all she had, an' I knowed it, an' didn't want to take it a bit, for I was sure she'd need it awful bad to-day, an' I don't believe she found a cent in father's pockets after she got him asleep. An' my little sister's sick she's been kinder wastin' away for a year past an' all the medicine give out yesterday afternoon. " "Don't you work none yourself?" said George, rather gruffly. "I lost the job I was at three weeks ago. I helped on an ice cart, pullin' out the ice an' gettin' it indoors, while another feller drove round. I got a dollar a week, an' it was hard on my arms an' chest, you can bet yer life. The other feller the boss'- son, had a pal o' his that he wanted for the place. One day, when I hadn't had any sleep the night afore 'cause o' my sick sister who'd been took terrible bad an' kep' mother an' me awake right straight along till morniu', I fell asleep in the cart. An' then the boss' son told his father I had a load o' beer on, an' got me bounced. An' since then I ain't been able to get a new job, an' I ain't strong enough for bricklayin' such as father does. Beside, ho wouldn't let me. He sez it ain't respectable. He carries the hod himself, he sez, but he don't want no son o' his to begin so low down in the world. And father's awful kind when he ain't drinkin'. He'll be as sorry to-night, when he's slept off his racket! I guess he'll take me to the dirne-mooshmn down by Chatham Square. Anyhow, he'll gimme ten cents to go." "Here's ten cents to get some coffee and a roll," said George. The lad's charming eyes brightened gratefully, above his pimply chin and between his uncouth ears. George watched him pass into the greasy little hostelry and seat himself with a relieved and piteously self-im portant air at one of the coarse wooden tables. 34 NEW YORK "I don't think he lied," mused his almsgiver, while walking onward. "So many of them do, however. I'd be glad to make that dime I gave him. It would some how comfort me to feel that I could earn anything, no matter how small the sum. I'm reaching that pass when a situation seems like an impossible dream. I'm ready to take any chance of picking up almost any sum, as re ward for work, given me by somebody who doesn't know I'm an ex-convict and pays it me for honest service hon estly rendered." This feeling with him was a part of his mordant re pentance, and seemed to increase with every fresh day of his release from prison walls. His surrender of the nine hundred dollars to Lydia had been an act of quiet nobility which he himself did not pause to rate at its truly magnanimous worth. But he very clearly under stood that with the whole twelve hundred dollars he could have traveled many miles into the West and gained there an emancipation which would have been of infinite comfort. Still, the comfort, after all, could never have coexisted with the thought that his mother's devoted nurse and companion had gone penniless to face the altered conditions of her life. He could think of her now with a certain glow of joy at her present security against those very terrors which in a little while he him self might be forced to face. And he was mercilessly judicial regarding his own deserts. Lydia had done her duty, and never swerved from it. Whatever misfortune came to her would be fraught with the pathos of an un merited scourge. Depths of unexperienced suffering might be awaiting him, and yet they could hold no throb of pain which he might reasonably declare an unjust in fliction. That same morning he struck eastward toward the river, and then, on gaining the ferries and wharves of South Street, moved slowly along. Presently he came to the Brooklyn Bridge, and stood directly beneath it, gazing up at its wondrous combination of delicacy and strength, like a long dark cobweb, spun from shore to shore of the river by some mighty spider. He thought of how the placid old South Street merchants of seventy NEW YORK. 35 years ago would have marveled to see this miracle of engineering cut the blue sky above them. They would have regretted, too, the shut-in, unlovely aspect of the bank, now one succession of wooden structures where formerly thousands of masts clustered, and the flags of all countries flew at their tops. Of all maritime cities in the world, New York has been the most insultingly careless of its water fronts. Even nowadays, up at Riverside Park, she tries ineffectually with landscape gardening to conceal the ugliness of the Hudson shore lying below, and allows railway trains to rush along its edge instead of sinking them into tunnels with grassy riparian roof ages. Presently George saw a big, pink, blonde German struggling with several empty kegs of beer. He drew closer to the doors of the low-ceiled tavern. They had just been unclosed; a foul smell told that. The sawdust on. the floor was clogged into stale masses, as though from tobacco juice or spilled beer probably both. A broom was slanted against the clumsy little wooden, streaky-grained bar. While pausing at the threshold, something made George speak, and he spoke very gently, in his new artificial patois: "Hot work, ain't it? Can I give ye a hand?" The man's puffy cheeks were streaming with sweat. He stopped rolling his empty keg toward a bevy of its mates, and eyed George with critical good-humor. "Ye look strong." "I am," said George. The other stood upright, and began to mop his face with a red kerchief. His bulge of stomach was evident now, and the shortness of his legs. These, surmounted by a moony and rosy face, too small for his rotund body, suggested the shapes astride of casks in Teuton pictures. "Fact is, " said Mr. Conrad Schnoor, whose name in small, black letters, gleamed from his lintel, "de man as vas allus doin' dese odd jops rouut here iss deat. He diet yesteray night, suddent. His name vas Tally Ho. Dey callt 'im dat 'e^rybody, I duuno why. I gif him a qvarter to tidy up de sthoremornin's. He doan come no more, ye see ; he diet very suddent, iudeet. I guess 36 NEW YORK. it vas trink. 1 nefer gif him no trink; but he got his loats outside, an' dey must 'a kilt 'un. "I'd tidy up the shop for a quarter," said George. "I*guess I'm as strong as Tally Ho was. I don't ever drink anything but soft drinks." The beady wine-red eyes of Mr. Schnoor twinkled. "Dat's vat dey all say." "Try me a mornin' or two." Mr. Schnoor grinned negatively. But it was very hot, and the past services of the deceased Tally Ho were acutely missed. "Look here," he said, sticking a plump thumb into each waistcoat armhole, and letting his head droop side ways. "I doan mean I gif Tally Ho a qvarter cffry mornin'." George met this burst of economic bargaining with meek bluff ness, "Oh, very well. Let it be fifteen cents to-day and a quarter to-morrow, if I suit ye. P'raps we can talk terms afterward. I'll turn up reg'lar, if ye want me, and do my best." He caught the broom, as he ended, and began to sweep up the soggy sawdust. Schnoor mopped his face and watched him. He was very quick and thorough with this task, and equally so with the piling of the kegs. Afterward, when Schnoor offered him a glass of beer, he took seltzer instead. When the fifteen cents were handed him he felt a thrill of triumphant pride. Somebody had paid him something for a piece of fair and square work not out of pity, but just as value received! His eyes misted with furtive tears as he felt the two little coins touch his palm. "Auspicious omen!" he thought. That clime and that five-cent piece began a new life for him. Every morning for two weeks he appeared punctually at the door of the shop as soon as Schnoor opened it. On the second day he got his quarter, and on the third fifteen cents. On the fourth day Schnoor agreed to give him twenty cents each morning for a fortnight to come. This was because he had shown himself exceptionally handy and brisk. Schuoor was not prosperous enough to employ a bar tender. Back of his shop were three rooms, in which he NEW YORK. 37 and his wife and six children lodged. Upstairs was a sailors' boarding house, kept by a Polish Jewess, whom Schnoor detested. The feud between them had lasted for over a year. As Mrs. Volaski showed him signs of liking George fancied that perhaps he might mend the feud, and in doing so aid his own poor fortunes. But this, he soon saw, was a futile hope. The Polish woman's black ej r es would flash, and her lean, pale face (not unhandsome in its cold, severe way) would wrinkle into a sneering smile. She had a very repellent smile, had Mrs. Yolaski, and it was only then that she showed her teeth, which were pointed, like a cat's. "Do not tell me there is anything good in the Schnoors, " she said, with one bony hand, palm outward, jerkily oscillaut. "Before they came I had decency and peace. But they turned the little grocery shop into a beastly den." She had an accent so sibilant as to make one think, at times, of whistling steam, and her voice, when raised, was nearly as harsh as a parrot's croak. "They've hurt my house horribly, with their drunken noises, their songs and shouts and rows, half the night through. I used to have twice as respectable a custom as I've got now. And when I've told them I'd make charges against them in the courts they've laughed in my face and said I didn't dare. They'll see, some day, if I dare or not!" finished the speaker, with a snarl and a flash of spite from her biack eyes. Schnoor, on the other hand, declared that Mrs. Volaski was known as the meanest woman for "miles aroundt." But this was not all. She did not merely go to Fulton Market and buy there stale fish and meat and half-rotten vegetables for her boarders, but she was suspected of stealing their valuables beside. "Yes," chimed in Mrs. Schnoor, who chanced to be present, with a baby in her arms and a child at either side clinging to her skirts. "Three sailors, as I know, has lost money an' vallerbles up in them rooms. One was a Spaniard, an' he out with a knife to her, last June, an' swore she was the thief an' nobody else. She locked herself in the front room she calls her parlor" this word was pronounced by Mrs. Schnoor with the most scornful 38 NEW YORK. of nasal twangs, for she had been a typical east side girl, born in Heury Street, "an* she screamed down to poor old Tally Ho, that was loafin' somewheres near, to go an' get her brother. An* he got him, over in Pike Street, where he keeps a kind of a junk shop. He's a thin, tall Jew, with a face all black hair an' two big black eyes glitterin' out of it, an 1 they say he owns three tenner- mint houses just here, two in Koosevelt Street an' one in "Waiter Street. Well, he come, an' he brought a cop with him, an' the Spaniard was ketched kickin' at her parlour door, with his drawed knife in his hand. They took hira off, but I guess he wasn't locked up. I heard his ship was leavin' the same day, an' John Lynsko that's the brother's name paid him somethin' an' got him free in time to sail on her. Oh, that air woman had better keep her mouth shut about the rackets in our place. "We've got character, an' that's inore'n she can say. Her bizniss is fallin' off, an' no wonder, with them scandals. She's jealous, that's what she is. She don't want her sailors to spend down here; she's got bottled beer an' likker for 'em upstairs. But I'm tole the likker 'd pizen rats, an' as for the beer, who don't like it foamin' out o' the keg?" George remained wholly neutral in the quarrel. He found that many of these people whom he now met, in their gross ignorance and animal crudity, could often wake his most sympathetic regard. But circumstance vetoed his revelation of it; he was forced to masquerade as one of them, and he must conceal his education, re finement and culture with careful heed. He had care lessly given .himself the name of Jack Jackson, though not with an air of wishing any one to believe that he really owned it. He breathed an atmosphere of aliases, as he well knew and a sense of surrounding criminal dis repute was here more often manifest for him than it had been among the guarded and repressed rogues of his prison. He soon realized that he had the power of making himself popular here, as much by his fine ath letic presence as by the few discreet words which he al ways clad with a good humor, gay yet false. One dom inant purpose kept ruling him to prove that he could NEW YORK. 39 live without tasting in the bread he ate a tincture of con descending charity. He was in the gutter, and felt it, and hated the thought of it; but here he could at least es cape the intolerable sting of being "helped along." Now he was helping himself along, the feeling cheerfully counteracted physical disgust at his environment. He Avas quite aware that nobody really trusted him, not even the Schnoors, by whom, in a sinister kind of social man ner, he had been introduced into the neighborhood, lance there, and carelessly, jauntily vouched for. But then everybody in this new sphere distrusted everybody else. To have shadowy antecedents meant no more than to wear cracked boots. And as for the future, it was like an opaque blank of fog to him. Not the hint of a star pricked its gray monochrome. He had moments of ter rible despair moments when he cursed his own health and strength, loathing the vitality which might insure him years of this weightsome exile. Then came the magic murmur of hope, ftuty and mellow amid the tur moil and discord of his wretchedness. "You are saving something now every day," it said. "If it is only very little, you are still so young that in rive years, at the most, it will be enough for you to cast off these gyves of poverty and go into the far West and buy a patch of land there, and build on it a house, and till its soil, and live truly free once more, satisfying your slight wants, happy below the unscandalizing and helpful sun, below the meek, pardoning stars, and with the rude, honest winds of that far-away land seeming to cleanse, in every new bluff gust they brought, this hateful stain of past guilt from flesh and spirit alike." So he dreamed and longed and hungered, between in tervals of suicidal despondence. And meanwhile he had changed his lodging from the Bowery hotel to a room in Water Street, not far from the Schnoors'; and as "Jack Jackson," whom nobody disliked, and many cared noth ing about, and a few had a lurking, growing regard for, he would sometimes tell himself, in a grimly satiric way that his prospects were brightening. 40 NEW YORK. VI. CERTAINLY he now had a good deal of work given him, however ill-paid, occasional and scrappy. Often his earnings passed a dollar a day; sometimes they fell lower; now and then they reached the hopeful sum of two dollars. "Odd jobs" would have been the best name for them, though this did not always express their keenly distasteful quality. He cleaned out cellars that were damp and foul; he lent a hand to the loading and un loading of trucks; he helped families that were moving into new quarters and families that were quitting old ones; he put up stoves and took them down; he dis jointed old beds and erected those of recent purchase; he got medicine for the sick, and sometimes kept vigil near them for several hours, if they chanced to be of his own sex. Only in desperate cases would he procure drink for those whom drunkenness had prostrated. And drunkenness was everywhere, and the sloth engendered by it often brought him outside errands and tasks of household aid which he could not afford to refuse. He scrubbed and mopped filthy floors, and shoveled coal into bins, and swept sidewalks and stoops. Wherever he knew of a house that was either being built or torn down he would haunt its region with a deep canvas bag and gather therein all the loose wood he could find, selling it afterward at profit small yet distinct. He was invari ably kind to children, the birth-cursed, heart-breaking children of the poor though never sentimentally kind. His gruffuess and sharp chiding would not seldom make them like him the more. He always parted the boys when he came across them with their little dirty fists battering one another's faces, and would not shrink from administering a sharp slap or two when some puny glad iator resisted his peace-making interference. Often he met both boys and girls foraging for wood where he him- NEW YORK. 41 self had come to fill his bag; and then he would pick out for them the fragments best suited to their slim enclasp ing arms, and arrange their shaky bundles so that they could stagger home with some practical chance of not spilling half on the homeward route. He saw many terrible and doleful sights, but no ele ment in the whole sad, ceaseless drama of poverty so moved his soul as that where childhood played its part. These little blameless heirs of so dread and dreary a future! And there were children only a few streets away not those in mansions of the wealthy and luxu rious, but in clean, happy, reputable homes, whose par ents treasured and tended and trained them. But here! Besotted mothers had often given life to these poor starve lings, and suckled them afterward with drink-tainted nourishment. The missions were doing their good work and it jo"3'ed him to note how their humane efforts would sometimes push into the very fetid hearts of the worst brothels, lairs and dens. But in certain places vice grinned stealthy defiance at them, goaded by that most fearful of all human impulses, the desire to keep its off spring prisoned and poisoned through its own corrupt tutelage. George watched good men and good women at work in their various earnest ways. With fine fearlessness they would force themselves where the feet of mercy had not yet gone. But they could not by any means get every where, and he might in some cases have easily turned reformer and told them just how certain most reckless cruelties and iniquities could be reached. And yet he shrank from such a part; him, of all others, it seemed glaringly to misbecome. He was not here in these rank purlieus to point at the sins of his co-dwellers; had he not come hither, indeed, to use their very vagabondage and disrepute as a screening cloak? The tenderness and courage of these charities touched him deeply; but certain features of them filled him, at. the same time, with an astonished regret. "Why did the whole pitiful movement exist at all unless with more ardor, more energy of altruism? If it was a Christian effort, why did it not reveal more of Christ's intense self- 42 NEW YORK. abnegation? Money "was behind these eleemosynary plans and purposes, but why not more money, why not a stronger power of push, resulting in a larger effect of succor and regeneration? Uptown he knew of handsome and almost gorgeous churches, where prosperous people met and prayed. That was the devotional side of reli gion; here, in these plain and shabby little meeting houses one saw its practical side that of works and deeds. Admitting all the generosity and unselfishness of these, why were they not ampler and more strenuous? Had not Christ insisted on works and deeds as the one certain testimony of his worshipers' faith? Had he not clearly said: "Leave all and follow me?" But did these, his modern adorers, obey that precept except with lukewarm languor? Some of them, who had many millions, assumed to "follow" Christ, and certainly did "give," as he had commanded. But how much did they give? Would Christ have been satisfied with the amount of their giving? George, who knew a good deal of the New Testament by heart, and had read every page of it many times during boyish days whether with motives compulsory or spontaneous need not be said now felt only too confident that an earlier impression of his had been the right one. Of actual Christianity in the world there was only a very small residuum. Of half-hearted Christianity, now timorously and now perhaps brazenly shamming, there was a large and conspicuous amount. He had never dreamed of securing any aid from the missions, or presenting himself at all personally to their notice. But he would now and then slip past the doors of a particular one, not far from Water Street, seating himself as retiredly as he could, and breathing with a deep sense of relief, its restful atmosphere of humanity and loving kindness. Here was the one potent spell with him. He knew that he was not of the stuff from which zealots are fashioned, yet the question of religious fer vor or the lack of it did not now concern him. What he sought and enjoyed was the conception of being able to pass, by a slight act of will, from indecencj- to decency, from beuightedness to enlightenment, from dull and niggard struggle to at least a transient appreciable calm. NEW YORK. 43 One Saturday afternoon, in what was now midsummer, he entered the hall, took a seat near the doorway, and joined with unwonted zest in the hymn that was just then softly rising from a small assemblage. He had the feeling of one who dips a soiled body in cleansing water, and because of experiences during the past three or four days which had been specially taxing. He had heard ter rific cries at midnight, not long ago, in a house on Water Street opposite his own. Dashing out of bed and gar menting himself with wild haste, he had been one of fire or six others who witnessed a burlj' and drink-crazed giant cleave in twain the head of his wife with an ax, before there was time to stop the horror. Later, he had been present in a room where a drunken mother shrieked oaths to a policeman who presently dragged from beneath a filthy mattress her smothered baby. It had somehow seemed to rain sickening episodes like these through the past week; crime had been epidemic in the neighbor hood; he had felt, now and then, that "Jack Jackson" must seek his hard-earned bread elsewhere. Often before now he had joined in the song at these meetings. He had no trust in his voice, which was a natural baritone, fairly sweet and full, though not cul tured into any range of skill, and he had always till now let it merge into the general chorus. He was not even aware that he had to-day raised it higher than of old, till a girl just in front of him a madcap creature whom he knew well, with far more fun than badness in her nudged her companion and whispered loudly enough for him to hear : "Jus' listen, Kate. Jack Jackson's got religion all of a heap, sure's we're born!" The color mounted to George's face. He stopped singing forthwith, and the hymn soon ended. Through the silence that ensued a man's clear voice sounded. He was evidently in current phrase, a gentleman. He had a tall figure, attired with faultless neatness, and a face of mild composure set between two whitish puffs of side whiskers. His slender hand played with an eyeglass, whose delicate gold chain gave out little random flickers against the black smoothness of his garb. His voice 44 NEW YORK. struck George as peculiarly monotonous and chill. What he said was the veriest commonplace of religious ex hortation, though delivered with an accent of almost lifeless self-repression. George asked himself if this man could possibly believe that his chill, apathetic monologue carried any cheer to the wrung and weary and want- stabbed hearts of those who heard him. Presently he retired to the rear of the platform, whence he had emerged, among a little group of seated women and men, chiefly the former. Then two or three women descended and several figures rose from the pews, and whispered confabs were held between those who had help to give and those who craved it some of the last, no doubt, with that oily mock-penitence and snivelling hypocrisy which draw so dark a line between the deserving and the un deserving poor. Into George's pew a tardy visitor had just moved. He turned, and recognized a religious enthusiast of the district a man who sometimes headed the Salvation Army gatherings there. He was past sixty, and had a shrivelled, mummy-like face, quite bare of all beard. He had led for years a frightful life among these same parts of the town, and frequently declared so in his bleating, falsetto tones when grouped sidewalk Salvation ists called upon him for an oratorio burst. It was cynically cried by some that that he was in the pay of these, and that they used him as a public shrieker of their temperance tenets. But George, with others less bitterly inclined, believed his reform, however hysteric in its outflow, at least for the time sincere. "Oh, it's you, Tom Glyn?" he said. "D'ye know who's just spoke?" "Do I know?" Tom Glyn returned, at once inflated with reverence. "I guess so, Jack Jackson ! That's no body else but Mr. Lucian Reverdy. Ain't you never hoard o' him?" George had heard of him. Even the one-cent news papers to be bought thereabouts frequently printed his name. To-day they told of how he had spoken at some anti-Tammany meeting in Cooper Union; to-morrow of how he had gone in his huge steam yacht to cruise along NEW YORK. 45 the upper New England coast; again, of how he had taken some positive stand as president or vice-president or secretary of this or that benevolent and rescuing body ; still again, of how he had joined his family at his tine Newport villa for a week of long -needed rest; still again of how he had given some large amount say ten thousand dollars, or even more to some church organization, some asylum, or public library. Then, still again, he had gone to Europe for several months; and still again, he was spending the late autumn or the early spring on his lordly Hudson estate. Who that ever glanced at the Daily News or the Evening World did not know Lucian Eeverdy ? "I guess he must be worth twenty million, 3 ' volunteered Tom, with the momentary pride of a showman. "Some folks puts him down for twice that. But he spends a good deal of it, God bless 'im, on the poor, an' his great riches don't make 'im forget 'em. He wouldn't give to you nor me, Jack, if we was to ask him plump out. That ain't his way. He serves the Lord after his own style o' thinkin', an' he's wiser than we be, an' if all the nice things that's said of him is true, he'll have a good sight wider entrance into heaven than fifty times the eye o' the biggest darnin'-needle ever was made." All this from Tom Glyn in an awed whisper. "God bless him, indeed!" thought George. "The income of twenty millions, at five per cent, (and this man has rail way shares that must yield him eight or ten at the low est), means one million a year. What hint of real sacri fice is there in his donations? Does God, or would God, bless him, as poor old Tom Glyn suggests?" Soon afterward, to George's dismay, a gentleman left the platform and walked down the middle aisle, pausing suddenly at his side. He was young, hardly past thirty, to judge by his smooth, healthful face. It was a face George instantly liked, not handsome in the least, but full of the charm that goes with a fine spirituality of ex pression diffused over features rugged and virile. He stooped at George's side, addressing him in a low, soft voice. "Wasn't it you whom we heard singing so well just now?" 46 NEW YORK. Feeling the nearness of an equal, George answered, in his confusion without the "dialect" which for weeks past he had been assuming : "I sang a little louder than I usually do. I I don't sing icell at all. It was pleasant to be here, out of all the noise and shabbiness of the streets near by, and so, for a moment, I I forgot myself. " The young gentleman stared at George with a gentle consternation that somehow deepened the benignity of his look. "You belong here, then?" he said, stooping a little lower. "Yes," answered George. "I " But now Tom Glyn, pushing forward, broke out in un couth compliment. "There's no better man for many a block round here, sir, than Jack Jackson. Everj'body likes 'im an' everybody's got a kind word for 'm. If he'd only join the great army of the Lord, Dr. Crevel- ling " Smiling, the young gentleman raised a finger. "Never mind that, Tom. Perhaps he's a belter soldier there than you are. It isn't always the noisiest recruits that make the best ones. And beside, my friend, don't call me Dr. Crevelling. I'm plain Mr. Frank Crevelling, pra3 r recollect, preacher in a small Unitarian church." He now turned his large, kind brown eyes upon George. The latter felt himself color and then grow pale; every nerve seemed to writhe under this new scrutinj r , albeit so mild and genial. He had the fancy that his secret might be torn from him at any moment. He longed to rise and fly. Of course the next words spoken to him would concern his mode of work; and how could he answer them? By saying that he was the drudge and factotum of these surrounding streets? NEW YORK. 4? VII. BUT Frank Crevelling's next words were of quite an other nature. "We want a good, full manly, cheering voice like yours, " he said. "I wish you would always sing when you come here, and remember that you are always welcome." He hesitated, and George was try- ingly sensible, once more, of something surprised and interested in his manner. But Crevelling appeared to divine his discomfiture, and to treat it with easy and graceful tact. "We aim to help everyone," he went on, "so far as we are. able. We are a little humanitarian body that calls itself The Clasping Hand. Of course our powers are lim ited; we can only do our best while heartily wishing it were better. But any of us any of the ladies or gentle men here, I mean would gladly listen to you if you so desired. We can't promise much except sympathy where we feel it is due and assistance in procuring work when we have satisfied ourselves that a case is deserving." The last sentence ended with an amiable, half-wistful inflection that stirred George's heart. "This Frank Crevelling," he thought, "is of very different breed from Mr. Lucian Eeverdy, I'll be sworn!" Aloud he said: "Thank you thank you very much." The "sir" somehow stuck in his throat; he had no clear idea why; doubtless he would have pronounced it glibly enough if he could have assumed and retained the mode of speech that chance, in the shape of his sudden embar rassment, had wrested from him. He threw a glance to ward the place in which Tom Glyn had been seated, and was glad to find it vacant. Tom had risen and strayed forward, probably for social and colloquial reasons; there was a scattering of his fellow Salvationists present. "I don't need help," George continued. "There are many, all about me, who need it, however, and if you 4$ NEW YORK. will let me say so, I often wonder that it is not given with a freer hand." Crevelling started. "A freer hand?" he repeated. His face became frowningly serious, though its rich, sympathetic attractiveness deepened. He folded his arms and slanted his strong young body a little against the edge of the pew. To look at him then was to feel how humanely alive were all his faculties both of brain and heart how every appeal or hint or theory or dis sension bearing upon the one great question of his fel low-creatures' advancement toward a higher life was of value and import to him. At least his observer now read him that way, and with secure confidence that he did not err. "A freer hand yes I see," the young Unitarian again repeated. "You mean that we might try and urge the great plutocrats. But they're not to be urged. We pull them just as far as we can" (and here his face charm ingly softened with merriment), "to ninety-nine hun- dredths of an inch." George's dark-blue eyes kindled. He forgot himself wholly. "The strange part to me is," he rather tumult- uously began, "that they do anything if they don't do all. And the 'all' would be so magnificent! This city now contains men whose incomes are actually vast; they draw each year from railways or real estate or commer cial trusts, amounts which are in themselves huge fortunes. Their charities could be colossal, and yet they need not give up even the costliest of their luxuries, or dream of giving them up. Far from that, they could still leave enormous legacies to their heirs. The satisfaction of being thought prodigiously rich the pride of posses sion would still remain." Crevelling, deeply attentive, watched the speaker with a new amazement. "Who was this man, clad in the livery of utter want, showing the air and phrase of education, betokening a fresh individualism of thought on the very subject dearest to his own philanthropic heart? "Imagine," George hurried on, "what one large slice from the mere annual returns of such a man as this Lu- cian Reverdy might accomplish, if four or five other men NEW YORK. 40 of like wealth abetted him in some tremendous enterprise! It takes my breath away to think of what six millions of dollars might do, exploited by financiers of his class with the same shrewdness and ability they bring to bear on their private plans and schemes." He threw back his shapely head and laughed, the flash of his strong white teeth being glimpsed in the dimness. He was speaking with the abandon and vivacity of earlier and far happier days, as he had spoken to his mother, to Lydia, to his college friends, to the men at the bank. For awhile the curse had been lifted from his life; the immediate past had perished; the prison brand had ceased to scorch and sear his soul. "How splendid, for example, would be a monstrous marble edifice built somewhere up on the shores of the Hudson, with baths in which the poor could wash off their filth, with schools for the young, with long galleries of books for students and all intellectual stragglers, with asylums and sanitariums for the feeble and sick! It would not require such a co-operant effort of charity, half as much real momentum as that which goes nowa days to the making of huge oil trusts and mining com panies and railway capitalizations. But these men have no time for it, no will for it, no true Christian spirit. They endow a hospital, an academy; they found free in stitutions of relief; they donate personally this sum or that to one charity or another. But their movements are not undertaken and organized with the right self-effac ing impulse. Aristocracy prevails in their gifts; these should be democratic, in the sense of one mammoth and vigorous coalition. Well, in the end they'll have to pay the cost not they, perhaps, but their children, grand children, great-grandchildren. It's sure to be levied in time." "Ah, then you're a socialist?" said Grovelling quickly. "Not in the least. I've seen too much weakness in mankind, young though I am, to believe in their strength as governors of themselves. I'm willing to grant that the socialists are as wrong in their moderate creeds as the anarchists in their savage ones. But ignorance and misery make a terrible partnership. I see a good deal of. 60 NEW YORK. both, and I ought to know. If education cannot keep pace with the fast-increasing population of the civilized world (and it certainly cannot, to all present appearances), that fierce pair will have their will in a way to make angels weep. They will do harm, with wild masses at their backs, which it may take centuries to repair. And when the bloody tide begins to rise, human skill can rear no dikes against it. They must be fashioned now or never!" He sank back on the seat of his pew, rather pale, and with a strained smile flickering at his lips. He had given leash to slow-formed convictions of the recent past; and yet only a few minutes ago it would have seemed to him impossible that he could have vented them with this self-forgetful candor. "I understand you," said Frank Grovelling, every word touched with a new respect that dealt secret pain to his listener's calming senses. The fine gray eyes came nearer to George's face, and they seemed not only to imply but positively to reveal funds of rich and sweet strength in their possessor's character a strength infused with manly purity and scorn of all evil, yet no pharasai- cal scorn either, but one whose reverse side might well be inferred, as shining with the most patient and wholesome pity. "Thoughts like these of yours have often corne to me lately," he pursued, "though you put them with a direct ness, vehemence and picturesqueuess that make them seem wholly new. Pardon me if I tell you also that they are greatly unexpected. Old Tom Glyn's little praiseful out burst did not prepare me for them, I assure you." George furtively gnawed his lips, dragging his brains for some sort of non-committal yet appropriate answer to the delicate challenge in Crevelling's final sentence. What should he say? What could he say? Why had he roused an astonishment which might in turn provoke sudden friendliness, yet could onb r end in suspicion? "I have been a fool," he told himself, "a hasty, head long, self-betraying fool." Just then the turmoil of his mood was touched by a peculiar lulling spell. It came from a feminine voice, NEW YORK. 51 from the voice of a young girl in a light, pale summer gown, with two or three pink roses gleaming at her breast. George's keen, youthful eyes were near enough to note that her hair was chestnut of shade, and that it grew low over her forehead in that waved, springy way which allowed her to brush it back carelessly with one hand yet produce no real effect of displacement. Her face was an almost fragile oval, but sweet eyes burned largo from it, whose color he could not tell, though their pupils would now and then catch the light of a side win dow and refract it in soft lusters. Her manner pleased him with the unconscious grace of ita simplicity. It was wholly colloquial; she stood for ward on the low wooden platform, too sincere to be em barrassed, too heedless of how she spoke to concern her self with anything save the gist, amicable and intimate, of her utterances. "I've run down here from the country for a day or two, my friends, and I want to tell you that after living among the trees and fields it gives me .a guilty feeling to find you have none of you shared with me their happy holi day freedom." She took the roses from her breast and tossed them to a trio of ragged children in the nearest pew, nodding gayly while they caught them with enraptured grins. "But I wish you to believe one thing that I am using all the influence I can muster, with those far more powerful than myself, to have as many children got into the country for two weeks as our accommodations will per mit. It isn't so very long ago since /was a child, and my heart goes out to your little ones. My heart goes out to you all, as well. Most of you know me, I think." Here a low murmur of acknowledgment sounded through the room. "I recognize a good many faces of those with whom I've talked during the past year or two. I wish I had some new ideas to give you. But old ones, after all, are as good as any, provided they have the right ring in them. And most of you will re member that I've never sermonized to you that I don't know how to do that. All I have done is to beg that you will bear in mind two great truths. The first is that 52 NEW YORK. \vhen your lives are most wretched and dreary you can gain comfort by seeking to make some other life a little less forlorn. Oh, I do so want you to realize this! The helpfulness toward one another means so much! It's a kind of medicine that you can take and feel ever so much better for the taking; it's the blessed medicine of self-forgetfulness. When you sit and hug your own sor rows they don't thank you for it a whit. They merely grow uglier armfuls, and tire you to hold them, and whimper and scowl at you. But if you once put them firmly aside and go to some one else who is suffering, and do little acts of goodness for him or her, then you will be surprised to find how much lighter is that load of your own affliction when fate again forces you to take it up. But of course you must be brave ^very brave, in deed in order to do this. It isn't easy to love your neighbor. Perhaps it's the hardest thing in the whole world. But nevertheless, my friends, it is seeking the greatest happiness in the whole world, and it means the finding of that happiness if you only seek hard enough! The trouble with so many of us is that we grow faint hearted, and falter in our seeking. But persevere there's the sweet and lovely solving of the whole sad riddle. Forget all envies and spites and grudges; go to those from whom the evil in you makes you shrink the most, and lay low your pride before them, whisper kind words of com fort to them, do them little acts of aid and cheer. In the end you will gain such peace and it will come to you suddenly, like a burst of sun from sluggish clouds that you will wonder why you have not seen sooner the path which now seems so straight! Your narrow rooms, and your toilful days, and your hardships of life, will all be touched with the most beautiful and holy consolation. Try it only try it! Say to yourselves now, this mo ment, that you will strive with all your might to forget your own troubles in the effort to lighten those of some fellow-creature! Promise yourselves that 3'ou will strive for one week, each of you. And then, at the end of that week I shall be here, in this place, just as you see me now, and any one of you that chooses may come to me or I will go down among the benches to you and, well, we'll talk it over." NEW YORK. 53 The speaker gave her head a light, quick toss, as though she had been saying to some one that she would keep some engagement to breakfast or dine. But the most careless eye could detect behind this mere superfi cial levity a strong force- of significance and emotion. George, captivated and enthralled, leaned forward with parted lips. He forgot even the presence of Crevelling, which so recently had been as a thorn in his flesh. "Then, my friends, there's the other great truth. So many of you want, and almost claim, charity from those whom you believe are in honor bound to give it you those who have the power to give it in money and food and clothes and shelter. But whether you secure such charity or no, look well into j r our own hearts and ask yourselves if you are worthy of obtaining it. For you also have alms to- offer everyone of you. I mean the alms of mercy and forgiveness." George felt a mist of tears float before his eyes. He felt his heart-beats quicken, too, till they shortened his breath. What was this fair young slip of a girl saying? Could it be possible that she had the power, with her maidenly inexperience, however dauntless its sincerity, to thrill and re-arouse that deep-buried grievance lying below the roots of his deathless remorse? "There may be thosa among you, my friends, whom you judge with great harshness and perhaps because you feel that harshness arnplj' deserved. These people may have done something which you cordially despise them for doing. But if it belongs to their past and not to their present, if you have no evidence that they are still soiling themselves by the commission of it, whatever it is, whether a large sin or only a minor fault, then you will be acting far more wisely and humanly and nobly by treating them with constant kindness. Not with the kindness that stoops, that appears to reach out a hand from some little height above them; this is always a dis tress rather than a relief. No; treat them as if you did not know, or at least did not pause to recollect that there were any dark stains upon their lives. There is no better and surer way of keeping them from going back into their old paths of wrong. Let them see that you 54 NEW YORK. do not judge or condemn them for what they were that you accept and greet them for what they are. You don't know you can never know ; how they may have strug gled against temptation before they yielded to it or how some weakness inherited from their parents may have followed them all through life till that very hour in which it broke forth, like a sudden disease or how others may have been more to blame than they you can never find out such things as these, because you cannot look into their souls or read the wondrous and mysterious work ings of their hearts. And therefore be lenient, since whatever pardon or punishment they may secure, it is not for you to accord them. And never forget that your leniency can do them far more good than harm. Every smile and kind word you bestow upon any sinful fellow- creature, my friends, will help to make the rungs of a ladder by which they can mount toward a safer self-re spect and from which they can look down with a happier confidence. And oh, be certain of this: you lift your selves while you seek to lift your fallen or contaminated neighbor! At such times you will be more generous to yourselves than you guess. They tell us 'a man is known by the company he keeps.' That's a poor proverb, to my thinking. I would like to alter it thus: 'A good man should be known by the company he is not so proud as to shun!' ' The girl looked smilingly down at her au dience, then receded a few steps. Several persons on the platform rose and shook hands with her congratulat- ingly. But Mr. Lucian Keverdy, the charitable multi millionaire, sat quite still, with a somewhat sour tight ness about his thin lips. Meanwhile George had a hungry desire to go and snatch one of those pink roses from the childish fingers that held it. More than this, he felt capable of flinging himself at the girl's feet, there before everybody, and kissing the hem of her white gown. She had left him in a daze of passionate reverence. The ceasing of her voice became swiftly a pain to him. All those latter words of hers had seemed specially addressed to his own hidden revolt and despair. For awhile he had believed this ; he half-believed it still ; the hazes of a delightful NEW YORK. 55 dream were vanishing from his brain as he heard Frank Crevellirig say, close at his ear: "A very charming appeal, was it not? She speaks right from the heart, you know. Would you like to meet her?" George looked into the good gray eyes. He did not answer. "Meet her!" he thought "I! Her purity, if I went closer to it, might kill me with shame!" Then, seeing that his ill-timed silence had brought into Crevelling's face a rebuffed though far from angered expression, he said stammeringly : "No thank you not now." "Perhaps you have heard her before?" said Crevelling. "All through the winter and spring she would often speak here." "I haven't heard her no." Fearful, now, that his inward- excitement would betray itself, George mastered his mood into the quiet question: "Could you tell me her name, please?" "Her name? She's Miss Josselyn, the daughter of Mr. Albert Josselyn, once a prominent merchant here, though now retired. She " "Ah, Mr. Crevelling," said a stout lady with a sweet, infantile mouth, moving rather ponderously down the middle aisle, "we've been wondering where you'd flown. It's your turn, now. You must say a few words. You always speak to them nearly as well as our dear Doris does. You see, I say 'nearly,' for she is one of my pet enthusiasms." Crevelling moved forward to answer the lady. As he did so George slipped out of his pew and went down to the door that gave on the street. He could hear his own heart-beats, and his eyelids felt heavy as with the weight of crowding tears. 56 NEW YORK. VIII. THE ugly street glared at him in the late, sultry light, with its fetid gutters, its bleared window-panes, its slovenly passers, its castaway dilapidation. Like a deli cate, inalienable fragrance her voice followed him, "how ever, and incongruous as though it were an urn of Easter lilies glimmering from the doormat of some open grog- gery, her virginal presence kept haunting his gaze. By and by he had pushed his way out upon one of the South Street wharves, and seated himself at the base of a burly wooden mooring-log. The dark river below him, crink ling into snaky flashes of gold from the slanted sunshine, was alive with craft. The clash of traffic was all about him; cries of men mixed with the creakings of ropes the thuds of luggage unloaded from barges, the bell-peals and steam-shrieks of coming or departing ferryboats. But these familiar noises he no longer heard. His eyes were fixed on the red-towered brick factories and tawny lumber piles and black massed docks of the opposite Brooklyn shore, though he saw them all, perhaps, in only a dreamy blur. Miss Josselyn 'Albert Josselyn's daughter. Yes, there could be no mistake. "Once a prominent merchant here, though now retired. " That told the entire tale. This charming creature was his cousin; the same blood ran in their veins. Then, as his nerves were steadying ho remembered that the stout lady with the pretty mouth had called her "Doris," and a new wave of recollection broke upon him. This was not his near cousin at all; it was Albert Jos- selj r n's ward, a somewhat distant relation of the same name, whom he had adopted jiist as his own father had adopted Lydia (yet with such a radical difference!) when almost a babe. He recollected hearing of how Albert Josselyn had said to his father in the wrath of their first and last quarrel: "If you wished to adopt a child, why NEW YORK. 57 did you not act as I did, and choose one that would not make you the ridicule of your friends?" Yes, this was Doris; the real daughter's name had been Grace. As a boy he had met them both, two girls almost of an age, Grace a little the elder. Doris had light hair, then, and a sweet smile, though her body was very frail and her health poor. Grace had long curls, disagreeably red, and an air of pride. He never got on very well with either of them, and had seen them but a few times before the fiual estrangement of the family quarrel. During his imprisonment and trial Albert Josselyn had behaved with merciless reserve. His mother, in her agony, had written him an imploring letter, to which he had coldly replied. He offered the aid she had asked for the purpose of employing good legal ability to defend her son, but he offered it with what she esteemed an air of such icy hardness that it wounded her worse than a blunt refusal. Then, as she was about to steel her tor tured nerves into acceptance, an old friend of her hus band, a lawyer of some eminence (now dead), had volun teered to defend her boy. She had written Josselyn a brief note of thanks, telling him that his services were no longer the grim necessity they had seemed. But dur ing one of her sad visits to George in his prison cell, she had said, while speaking of his father's cousin : "He is a man of good impulses. He has a sensitive, kindly heart. I am certain that he suffers with me in my grief. But circumstance never permits him to be himself. In his relations with the big world this force has helped him wonderfully pushed him toward the fine success he has won, buoyed, stimulated, nerved him for all sorts of skirmishes and conflicts. But morally it has enslaved, degraded him." "What force do you mean?" George had asked. "His wife. It was she. who wrote me that letter, not he, though the handwriting was his." "Ah, then, you think that she bullies him?" "Not at all, in any vulgar sense. She mesmerizes him. A man sometimes fails in love with his evil genius, and marries her, and cleaves to her, and pays her devout homage, till both he and she are wrinkled wrecks, Ai- 58 NEW YORK. bert Josselyn did that with the astute and brainy little dressmaker, "whom he had the bad luck to adore and wed." How vividly these words of his clever and brilliant mother came back to George now! She had spoken them only a few weeks before her dreadful mental disease broke forth. And for that curse he had been account able! What torments this realization had cost him through the dragging months of his captivity! There were times when its heavy anguish had made him resolve that since all means of self-destruction were debarred him, he would use an immense effort of will, and so cease to breathe. But those had been the first wild horrors of his prison life. Later there had come the inevitable truce that misery, in cases of youth and health, must make with madness and death. He could say to his own thoughts now, "But for my crime she would still be liv ing on, her old, sweet, precious self, " and say it with a stolid composure that in no way partook of callousness, and was only born from the dreary habitude of repent ant suffering. Here was all he knew of Albert Josselyn the little he had seen and the slight yet suggestive de scription supplied by his mother. And now he longed to know everything concerning the man's adopted child. "Why had Gravelling referred to her as Josselyn's daughter? Or had he meant to explain their true rela tions in his next interrupted sentence? For several days George found himself stirred equally by a new happiness and a new discontent. The convic tion came upon him, with slow surety, that he had fallen in love with Doris, and that this fact was one colored for him Toy hues of fresh calamity. Even if she had be longed amid all this ugliness and poverty that compassed him he would scarcely have thought it much better than insolence to tell her of his love. What pure girl, among the few that dwelt hereabouts, would not have held it a distinct downward step to link her fortunes with those of an ex-convict like himself? And yet the elevating power of this new passion filled him, at times, with a strange joy. The prison, the trial, the conviction, and again the prison, had all intellectually NEW YORK. 59 deadened him. At twenty-two he Imd met disgrace, but for several previous years bis mind bad been brightly alive to the best awards of meditation and study. His place was high as a college graduate, but it might have been even higher if the routine process of learning and recitation had proved more to his taste. An overplus of imagination, of literary emotion, had hampered his native mental keenness, and this stood in the way of his becom ing a student or scholar of the first rank. All through the academic course he had read and loved books, whose very existence most of his co-disciples did not know by name. Books! He began to think of them now, under the rea wakening spell of a lofty and holy sentiment. Histories, records of travel, biographies, romances, poems, all thrust into his roused spirit their tender and thrilling reminders. Could it be possible that this glorious company of past associations had so long stayed banished from his daily thought? Now they burst softly in upon him as if through some shattered portal of the soul. There were moments when he trembled below the stress of this ex quisite resurrection. And what agency, simple yet di vine, had wrought it? A slender damsel in a white frock, who had told him, with terms of simple eloquence, that he was not quite the outlaw and churl and "peasant slave" he had deemed himself. "For you also have alms to offer everyone of you. I mean the alms of mercy and forgiveness. And oh, be certain of this : you lift yourselves while you seek to lift your fallen or contaminated neighbor. They tell us 'a man is known by the company he keeps.' That's a poor proverb, to my thinking. I Avould like to alter it thus: 'A good man should be known by the company he is not so proud as to shun.' ' How those words had burned themselves into his being ! They had seared, with a delicious pain, deeper than the social branding-iron of Sing Sing. This candid and in tensely human young preacher had dawned upon his darkness first in the guise of hope, then speedily with all too enchanting an expedition! in the guise of love. She had said to her listeners that she would again 60 NEW YORK. come to them in another week. George would have given the rusty clothes off his back, the worn shoes off his feet, for courage enough to glide past those doors of the mis sion once again and bask in the angelic sympathy of that cherished voice, visage and presence. But, no ; he let the week go by, and many succeeding days as v/ell. Meanwhile he strove to content himself by feeling that he was spiritually regenerated, and that the tedium of his toil had become flooded with comfort, that the vul garity and commonness of his fate had grown etherealized, as by a sort of mysterious moonlight renovation. Odd fancies, indeed, for a factotum of the east side slums a "Jack Jackson," heir presumptive to the dead drudge, "Tally Ho!" But George crushed its mask tighter over the lineaments of his doom, and plied his mean tasks while dreaming heavenly dreams. "If I only had some of iny old books back!" he kept thinking. But before the autumn brought its healthier coolness to the reek and fester of those dens and lairs which he was forced to fre quent, circumstance, by a curious and unforeseen deflec tion of its current, bade him forget this haunting desire. He had made his one small room in the Water Street tenement-house as clean and decent as effort would allow. Now and then he would smilingly boast of its tidiness to the Schnoors or Mrs. Volatski or others of its patrons. "I guess you've always been used to having things neat and nice, ain't you?" the Polish woman said to him one day, when he had finished for her certain decidedly menial labors. George broke into a laugh, for this observation struck him as so peculiarly out of tune with his relations toward the speaker. "You're the last one to say so," he answered, "seein' what dirty work I do for you and the rest o' the folks round these parts." "But I do say so." Mrs. Yolatski's black eyes wandered over his face and figure with a searching though covert intensity that he had frequently noted and always disliked. "A young, hale, handsome fellow like you," she \vent on, "oughtn't to be doing poor old Tally Ho's work. He was over twice your age, and all gone to NEW YORK. 61 seed. He did what he did because he couldn't do noth ing else for a living. It hadn't ought to be like that with 1/011. They used to say (I don't know, I've only heard) that he'd served his time somewheres in some prison, I mean and that this was the reason he never tried any more to get a steady job." "Oh, was that it?" murmured George. "I never knew him, I never seen him," he added aimlessly, and with secret misery staring from one of Mrs. Volatski's parlor windows on half the dull band of the river, lapsing drab along its Brooklyn side below a sullen zinc sky. "Yes, I guess that was it. People that's been in prison, you know, ain't got much chance afterward." "No. I s'pose they haven't. Well, I'll bid you good- mornin', ma'am. You won't be wantin' me any more to day." And George moved toward the door. "Oh, "look here," said Mrs. Volatski, growing affable in her crisp, keen, black and white, staccato way. "I'll want you to come in, if you care to, for our little party to-night. It's only going to be a few. I'll have a bowl o' rum punch, and about four or five ladies, and a half-dozen o' my boarders. You don't drink nothing strong, I know. But I'll be glad if you'll drop in. I guess you've got a better coat than that, ain't you? Oh, yes; I seen you in one, two or three Sundays, Jack. You'll come, won't you? My brother, John Lynsko, he's coming. He says to me the other day that he liked you and wouldn't mind if he seen more o' you. Your room, you know, is in one o' his houses. He owns two in Roosevelt Street, and the Water Street one where you are. I guess he must be awful rich. But he goes on with his junk-shop there in Pike Street, just the same. That's the way with us Jews, all over the world!" And Mrs. Volatski's black eyes wore a proud glitter, while she showed the feline teeth in one of her quick, chill grins. "It's what's kept us alive for near two thousand years. We don't go under because we don't never miss a chance to make money. That's why they can't kill us. We're a wonderful people. Any other, stamped on, spit on, as long as we've been, would have died out ages ago. My brother's a truer Jew than I am, though; he's full o' the 62 NEW YORK. old tough smartness; he can smell a dollar ten times further than I can see one. But then I'm only a woman. Look here, Jack Jackson, you ought to know my brother better. He might do you a good turn put you in the way o' something handsome. You come, now, to the party to-night. You needn't stay long if you don't want to. Say. you will come." George, half-consenting, wondered at the woman's urgency. What motive could she have for bringing him self ai;;t her brother into closer contact? He had already quite made up his mind regarding John Lj-nsko. The man was a nnoerly, bloodless creature, in whom all the worst characteristics of his race seemed concentrated. He had been bitterly cruel to his tenants; his meanness as a landlord was proverbial; he had been known to eject from his tenements more than one workman whom illness had impoverished. Not long ago he had turned from his Water Street building a bricklayer, whom a recent fall had seriously injured in the spine. The poor man had punctually paid him every month for three past years, and now owed him for but one month's rent. George had seen the haggard, shivering wretch, engirt by his four wailing children and his pale, tearful, terrified wife, with all their paltry family chattels lumped near them on the pitiless outer sidewalk whither they had been banished. His indignation had almost forced him to leave this house of John Lynsko's there and then. But he had somehow stayed on, though with the latent intent of leaving soon. The Schnoors, below stairs, had learned of Mrs. Yolat- ski's intended party, and scornfully explained to George, a little while afterward, her reasons for giving it. She wanted to increase her custom among a certain set of Cuban sailors belonging to a prosperous line of ships. Trust them, her rum punch would be of the sorriest qualitj r . And those Cuban fellows would turn up their noses at the Polish Jewesses she would have to meet them. She couldn't have any other women at her ban quet, loudly affirmed the Schnoors, for no others would come. All the Irish and Germans and Americans round about hated her, and she knew it. Oh, it was going to NEW YORK. 63 be a fine 'party!' The Schnoors only wished it would end in a grand row. Then they would have their re vengeful innings for all the malicious complaints she had made against them! If the police should happen to be wanted they'd be got quick enough. They'd whis pered a few words of warning to Eyan and Bafferty, as it was. Let her and her hairy brute of a brother look sharp how their punch played tricks with them hot- blooded Cuban chaps!" 64 NEW YORtf. IX. BUT Mrs. Volatski meant to run no risks. Urged by curiosity and a certain self-admitted wish to remain in her good graces, George appeared at the festivity, though somewhat late. He found his hostess in a flutter of excitement. One of the Cuban sailors had brought an accordeon, and had insisted on playing it while his com rades danced with the Jewish girls. Two of them were angular, with tallowy skins and obtrusive noses, while another was fairly pretty, and a fourth had rich damask skin and liquid ebon eyes. But all were treated with an equal gallantly by the six swarthy male guests. They were spinning about the room, with this or that partner, to the wails and squeaks of the accordeou as George en tered. Mrs. Volatski greeted him joylessly, and pointed to a table in one corner of the room. Her sharp, hard face was screwed into a worried scowl. "This is a plot against me a plot," she fumed to George, "and them Schnoors downstairs is in it. They want to give my place up here a bad name. I wanted to have a nice, quiet little party, and please my Cuban customers with a sight o' these good, well-behaved young ladies, and make 'em tell how pleasant and sociable a boarding-house I kept. But what does them Schnoors do? They go and give these sailors drink, and send 'em up here all gay and frisky at the start." "They ain't doing nothin' very bad," said George, careful of his vernacular. "They're all full o' rum," bleated Mrs. Volatski, husky- toned and dramatic. She again pointed to the punch bowl. George looked into it and saw that it was nearly void. "My punch was mild stuff; I made it so on pur pose. They swigged it down like water in ten minutes, NEW YORK. 65 and before I knew what they was up to they'd filled the bowl again with flasks from their own pockets flasks the Schnoors had given 'em and was calling to me for water and more lemons. " Here Mrs. Volatski shut her eyes and shuddered. "Ugh! I could screech I'm so mad!" her choked voice went on. "And them's your friends, Jack Jackson!" she frowned, with whimpering contempt. "How d'ye know the Schnoors done it?" said George, cloaking a real doubt below his clumsy English. "Know! Why, didn't I read his name on the label o' one o' the flasks? I've got sharp eyes, and I seen with 'em. Ain't that enough?" A sudden hilarious yell made George turn. One of the sailors was pirouetting now, in the center of the room, throwing up both his hands and kicking his feet into the air with mad celerity. The Jewish girls, gig gling frightenedly,.had all withdrawn from their partners, leaving this bacchanal tumbler in full sway of the floor. Soon a comrade joined him, and together they danced a riotous saraband, twitching kerchiefs from their pockets, one yellow and another red, and waving them banner-like in the dull, lamplit air, which the smoke of their strong Honradez cigarettes had already thickened. Mrs. Volatski clutched George's arm. "It's a plot a plot don't you see it is? Oh, if my brother, John Lynsko, was only here! I don't know what keeps him. He said he'd come. Ah!" This last cry from the hostess was a sort of veiled shriek. The accordeon, plied by its loud-laughing player, emitted a falsetto turbulance of whines and yells. Another sailor caught the prettiest of the girls round the waist and dragged her into the dance. She resisted, and her companions rushed terrified toward the door, disappearing into the outer passage. "Rachel! My dear Eachel!" cried Mrs. Volatski, and dashed to the rescue of her young guest. She fought for a moment tigerishly with the sailor who had possessed himself of Rachel, and at length tore her away. Then she pushed her out of the room, and disappeared after her, closing the door. George stood with his buck against the wall, and watched the Cuban sailors. The 66 NEW YORK. whole six now began a furious dance, pounding on the floor with their heavy-heeled boots, -whirling here and there in one another's embrace, and uttering sentences in Spanish, at the top of their voices, which ended with strident shouts. Suddenly one of them produced a dark- hued flask from his pocket and waved it in the air. All the rest rushed upon him, and there followed a furious scrimmage, mixed with cries yei more acute. One of the gang flung himself into a chair and picked up the deserted accordeon, drawing from it a blare of quick, palpitant dis cords. The man with the flask, still clutching it, fell with a heavy thud upon the floor. Two of his mates were soon rolling there in his company. Good humor was fast vanishing. One of the three fallen men struck another a light, half-angry blow. It was returned with rageful violence. Then the two clinched and grappled. Higher rose the cries of all. The two that still stood up right stooped and joined in the melee, their white teeth flashing, their black eyes ablaze. They tried to wrench the contestants apart. Failing in this design, one drew forth a knife and threateningly brandished it. "Here's no place for me, " thought George. "I can do no good, and can merely court danger." He opened the door and slipped out into the hall. There stood Mrs. Volatski, wringing her hands. Behind her were the Jewish girls, all clinging frighitenedly together, their pale Oriental faces picturesque in the vague light. Every minute the uproar of the parlor swelled in volume. As there came a crash like that made by an overturned table, and then another, like the splitting and shattering of a chair, Mrs. Volatski, with both hands raised high above her head, gave an undulating wail. She spoke in Polish, and what she said sounded like a prayer, and the huddled girls answered it, all together, with shivering plaintiveness. "If 'twas only winter and the windows were shut!" she moaned to George. "I guess there's a crowd round the nouse already. Do go for my brother!" she caught George's hand almost frenziedly, fumbling with its fingers. "You know where he lives; do go." George was not sure just where he lived, but he knew NEW YORK. 67 it Avas in one of the two Roosevelt Street houses that stood together. He hastened down the stairway that led to the street. As he opened the door below, a little crowd surged toward him. Foremost among thorn was Mrs. Schnoor, with a baby in her arms and two small children clinging to her skirts. "Oh, it's 3'ou, Jack Jackson?" she cried, with a queru lous plaint in her tonea that instantly struck George as affected. "Here's a fine hullabaloo for such a highly re spectable boardin'-house! An' she's the Avoman that complains of us!" "Complainz of uss yes!" grunted Schnoor, who had just joined his wife. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and puffing at a big cigar. His plump, curled hands rested on his hips, and his round face wore a leer of triumph that George easily explained. " Juss lizzen to dem noises upshtairs. She complaiuz of uss makin' rackets uss hurtin' her bizness. " Then he winked at his wife, and burst out Avith "Ho! ho! some o' the ma tain's barty vill get shpilt onto de sitevalk pretty quick, I guess!" For the tumult up behind the open w r indoAvs of the second floor had now waxed into a vocal tangle of oaths and screeches. In the gathering crowd below, excitement spread like a swift infection. Hoots and yells began to rise from both male and female throats. George recognized a few faces of desperate characters those on whom the law kept steady and stealthy watch. It Avas not yet late ; one or two fruit-sellers near by had not extinguished the yelloAV plumes of lamp-flame above their heaped oranges, peaches and bananas. The light from their stands mixed Avith the elfin silver of a neAv-risen moon. The arch of the great bridge loomed coal-black, HOAV in the strip of delicate amethyst air overhead. Suddenly, just as George Avas about to go in search of Lynsko, tAvo police men pushed through the croAvd, scattering it right and left Avith their brandished clubs. "Aha, here they come!" exulted Mrs. Schnoor. She caught one of the big fellows familiarly by the sleeve of his coat. He looked at her with a fierceness that soon melted from his surly features. And Avell it might so 68 NEW YORK. have fled. Poor as was her husband, many a dollar had both this man and his mate levied from him in shameless blackmail. "You're just in time, Ryan," she said. "I told ye there'd be a big row up there to-night. Just hear 'em." "You got your revenge, didn't ye, Schnoor?" grinned Rafferty, the other policeman. "Revench?" innocently murmured Schnoor. "How you mean?" "Oh, I seen ye loadin' them niggery-skinned sailors this evenin'. No wonder ye warned us." And then Rafferty bowed his tall frame and muttered something which George could not catch into the ear of Schnoor. "Well," said the liquor dealer, with discomfort cloud ing his victorious look, "if I got to I got to, dat's all. Negd veek I guess I can manach. But reggolegd I've gif alreaty " "Oh, never mind what you've give," snorted Rafferty, in bluff interruption. "These jobs is expensive. You'd ought to know'd so when ye started in to raise the devil with that Jew woman's boarders." "Come along," said Ryan, giving the knob of the street door a twist. It yielded, and he plunged into the dark passage beyond, Rafferty following. The crowd, no longer fearful, seeing its late assailants disappear, regathered beneath the two clamor-venting windows. In another minute a lean man, of marked height, with his face almost shrouded by a black beard, pushed past George. The Schnoors, recognizing Mrs. Volatski's brother, shrank several paces sideways toward the open door of their saloon. John Lynsko, one hand on the door knob, turned and envisaged George with his glittering black eyes. He spoke English almost perfectly, and with none of his sister's hissingly harsh accent. It was said of him that he had both brains and education of superior kind, and no one doubted, in these courts of destitution, that he had amassed astonishing wealth. "It's you, eh?" he said, not unpleasantly. George had met him two or three times in his sister's company, and NEW YORK. 69 secretly detested Lira, half because of his clear-proved cruelty as a landlord, and half because of something keenly repulsive in his face, voice, demeanor. "Yes," replied George; "it's me." "What's the trouble here?" Tersely and non-committally, George told him. He soon gave an angrj' snarl, and vanished into the passage. And then, in a little while, there happened precisely what George had expected to happen. The Schnoors, in their craft3 r spite against Mrs. Volatski, had reckoned without this powerful brother powerful because far richer than themselves. Quite soon the uproar dwindled very appreciably. In a few more minutes both the windows were closed and their shades drawn. The crowd reluctantly dispersed; the Schnoors returned to their tavern. Conrad, grumb ling and suspicious of defeat, reinstalled himself behind his bar, where a slim youth, with a wide, tired smile, had been reigning in his absence. Mrs. Schnoor called to the rear of her lodgings by the screams of two older children, whom she found at rageful fisticuffs with one another presently came back after sounds of hot blows from a probable slipper had reached the front shop and joined her husband in vituperation of Mrs. Volatski and her brother. She still held her baby (who crowed and smirked as though he had enjoyed the recent castigation of his relatives) and a child still clung to either side of her gown. The brother had come with his money. Oh they knew how it would be! No arrests would take place, of course not! Kyan and Kafferty would each get a ten- dollar bill perhaps more. The Cuban sailors would be put to bed with broken heads or blackened eyes, and that horrid woman would soon be giving herself the same old airs as before!. And that was what came of trying to fight against the bullying impudence of the rich. No wonder those socialist fellows Herr Most and the others fumed and raved as they did in the Third Street and Fourth Street beer saloons, uptown neai Second Avenue! Money was the curse of the world; it kept forever grind ing the poor into the gutters! George, who stood in the open doorway of the shop, 70 NEW YORK. had an impulse to ask why, if this were true, both Con rad and his wife had relied on money as a means of mak ing Ryan and Rafferty the envoys of tbeir vengeance. But he controlled this question, and with slight difficulty; for he felt fatigued by a day of specially bard work, and he was pierced by an indifference born of disgust. Why should these people, whom Avant was forever buffeting, make for themselves new and needless battles with one another? Mrs. Volatski was arrogant and insulting, but the Schnoors, on their side, were obdurate and spiteful. A. little kindliness either way would long ago have leavened the whole heavy and sullen dispute. "If j'ou're goin' to stay here and watch," he said to Mrs. Schnoor, "let me take them two children and put 'em to bed." He had performed this office several times before, while Conrad's wife was ill for almost a week and could scarcely stir from her bed. The children were fond of him, and now, as they heard his words and understood them, the clasp of their little hands on their mother's skirts relaxed. But Mrs. Schnoor chose suddenly to be sarcastic. "Oh, no, Jack Jackson," she sneered. "You better go upstairs an' offer yer services to them Jewish ladies. I guess they'd rather walk home with you than a p'liceman. " George saw the jealous animus in these words. But he knew that Mrs. Schnoor liked him, and he forgave her for what he judged as only a random spurt of pique. He made no answer, but crossed the threshold and passed out into the warm, still air of the street. Just then these same Jewesses flitted by, all arm-in-arm, a close-pressed group, volubly chattering to one another in their native tongue. George began slowly to walk homeward. He had no desire to wait any longer. He had nodded good-night to Schnoor, but his greeting had not been returned, ad ap parently for obvious reasons, three or four customers having just sought his bar. The sidewalk was void, now, of all curious loungers; the windows upstairs were dim and inscrutable behind their opaque shades; the revel had subsided ; the plot of the Schuoors had ended in dis tinct fiasco. NEW YORK. 71 George wended his way toward Water Street. Just as he turned a corner he perceived, in the brightened moon light, a mob as large as that which had recently massed elsewhere. "Come to Jesus now," cried a voice, high-keyed, lugubrious, yet unmistakably Tom Glyn's. "Don't de lay another minute! He's callin' ye, callin' ye! He loves ye all, an' He wants ye! Oh, it's so ellergant, it's so comfortin'! Ye can face every sorrer if ye've once give yerselfs right square away to that blessed mercy an' love an' help Jesus Christ! Oh, say ye Avill! I've been soaked in rum fur years. I don't touch a drop now an' I don't need to, neither. Jesus fills me with all the drink I should want if I was a Vauderbilt or an Astor. It's the drink o' salvation the blood o' the lamb, better ner all the cocktails money can buy!''" At this point he saw John Lynsko walking along South Street between the two policemen. They were all three laughing, the Pole most heartily. At length they paused within a few yards of George, and he saw Lyusko draw out a dark wallet. Then George moved on, asking him self if there would ever come a time when this infamous dishonesty among the police no longer dared even iu secrecy to exist. He walked slowly, for this night of late August grew sultrier while it deepened. "Nearly de whole houseful is goin' to sleep on de roof to-night, "he heard one young man say laughingly to another. Every stoop and alley and doorway was crowded with people. And such people! "If their Avould-be bene factors," thought George, "could see them now, when the careless nakedness of their poverty is manifest!" Children were sent to near saloons with pitchers that they brought back full of beer. Often they brought back flasks full of spirits as well. Mothers nursed their babies in the intervals of drinking. Here the warm weather revealed what was occurring through all seasons of the year, since these same mothers were feeding their young on milk poisoned with alcohol, in various forms. Fathers, equally infected by the vile stuff sold either as malt or stronger stimulant, sat and puffed bad tobacco 72 NEW YORK. through clay pipes or wooden ones reeking with nicotine oil. "The mother makes us most," said George to himself, remembering a line from his best-loved poet of former days. "These fathers," his thoughts went on, "often work off in toil the venom of their appetites, and yei how vitally must they, too, influence the unborn child! And how constantly their drunkenness must wreak on their offspring curses of untold terror!" In the stillness a voice now sharply cried to him : "Jack Jackson!" it hailed; and with surprise he. turned and saw John Lynsko, pushing on rather hurriedly at his heels. George waited. As the tall shape came up to him and joined him, he had a strange desire to rush away. He could not then account for this odd repulsion, and after ward tellingly remembered it. To his surprise Lynsko laid a hand on his shoulder. "I wanted to see you this evening. I was kept away from my sister's till much later than I expected." "I noticed you wasn't there, " said George, stopping before the house in which he lived. Lynsko laughed. He had the same feline teeth as his sister, but they were bigger and whiter than hers, and now gleamed clearly in the moonlight through the vapory black plenitude of his beard. "No; but I got there in time to spoil the Schnoors' little game. "What spiteful fools! Their own license may be taken from them if the building is pronounced disorderly. And my sister's complaints have been sen sible enough. Her side is the right side; it isn't because she's my sister that I say this. There's been rioting down in that barroom of the worst sort, and it has lasted quite often till daybreak and even later." George could not dispute this. He simply nodded, and Lynsko went on : "I fixed it all, and I dare say you know how. Money, -of course. In this world there's one great power money. I haven't got so very much, and I wish I had more. But I've got a good deal more than these mali cious Schnoors, and well, ray sister is my sister. We NEW YORK. 73 Jews are clannish ; we stick together. The Cubans were scared to bed in no time, and I bid so much higher with Ryan and Rafferty the damned pair of rascals that they'll snap their big Irish lingers at the Schnoors to morrow. Every man has his price, my young friend." George spoke indignantly and forgetfully. " 'Every man has his price,' Mr. Lynsko, is a most devilish proverb. I don't believe it's true I hate to dream of believing it's true. And if I did believe so" (George lifted his hand, pointing toward the glimpse of southern moonlit sky which housetops left evident), "I'd feel like jumping off that big bridge as soon as I could get the chance." Lynsko heard him calmly. "Why do you give your self away like that?" he presently asked. "Give myself away?" faltered George. "Yes that's what I said. Look here; I want to have a little talk with you. I know all about you. What the devil is the use of your living this infernally low kind of life? You're a gentleman or icere one. What you need is a friend. I'll be your friend. Take me upstairs to your room and let me talk with you. This thing is all wrong. You're playing a foolish game. Perhaps you think you can't play any other. I understand why you think so. The whole game, you say to yourself, is lost. At your age bosh! You can begin again, if you want." George felt his heart stand still. Somehow he never for an instant doubted that this man (whom he had al ready decided to be able and clever and of powerful per sonality) was an agency for evil. He admitted a certain un canny fascination in Lynsko. The fellow smelled, as one might say, of cleanliness; his linen was neat; his breath had the wholesome fragrance of health ; his airy dark beard gave evidence of attention. And all this meant so much in surroundings like these, where a bath tub or a toothbrush was rarity supreme. Still, there was also that repugnance, that sense of being near some presence malign and sinister. "I can begin again if I want?" George murmured. He spoke with an excessive dread. Had this John Lynsko discovered his past? What else could his lan guage mean? 74 NEW YORK. "Yes, yes, yes, you can begin again if you want, George Oliver!" And Lynsko caught him by the lapel of his coat and peered into his face with the two dark diamonds of his eyes, inscrutable because of their small- ness, yet singularly bright and acute, above the tossed cloudlike dusk of his plenteous beard. NEW YORK. 75 X. GEORGE thanked the moonlight. It could not show the flush of shame and consternation that was flooding his face. "So, you know me, then, Lynsko. " "Don't get excited." "I'm not excited." "Why, your voice quivers like a girl's! Take me up to your room. I know just where it is; I own the house." "Yes, I know you own the house." "You say that very offishly. Come, now, I'm not going to give you away. What good would it do me?" "Yes what good?" George stood with arms fallen helplessly at his sides, the very picture of quiet despair. "Must the curse follow me to my grave, or drive me there sooner than death's natural course?" He spoke those last words very low, but Lynsko's quick ear caught them. "The curse, as you call it, will pursue you everywhere. The brand of Sing Sing is on you, my lad, and you might as well try to avoid the air you breathe. Of course, I'm referring to this part of the world. It's a big ball of dirt, when all is said. You could go away. But the devil of that is, to find means of going away. A man can take a train at cheap rates he can cross the ocean as a steerage passenger. But afterward there's the nuisance of it! How is he going to live when he's reached his new destination?" "Will you tell me in what way," said George with an abrupt, direct look, full both of sorrow and perplexitj-, "you learned my name and my past?" "Yes if you'll take me upstairs to your room." "Very well." ^6 NEW YORK. They mounted two pairs of stairs together, and entered an apartment so small that its bed, bureau and couple of chairs almost crowded it. George lit a lamp. Then he sank, in sitting posture, on the lower edge of the bed. Lynsko had meanwhile taken a chair just opposite him. "You asked me a certain question and I'll briefly an swer it. The first time I saw you iu my sister's rooms I paid no attention to you "whatever. Later, Maria spoke of you with praise as brisk, active, intelligent and handsome. She also expressed sur prise that one of your youth and vigor should be con tent with so low a grade of work. The next time we met I observed you rather carefully. You interested me be fore I'd given you three minutes of real attention. I read you like a book; you were playing a part; you had had some severe set-back. Everything about you breathed of masquerade. In my day I've seen all sorts of people; I've mixed with the classes, though I mix only with the masses now. As I said, you roused my interest. I perceived your cleanliness under your out side soilure; you had the air of a gentleman who strives to conceal himself; there were little touches about your dress, little irrepressible movements of j'our body, that betrayed you. I noticed that your curl}' hair showed signs of the brush and comb that your finger-nails, de spite all the rough tasks their hands had to deal with, were not the flat, stubby growths of the ordinary laborer. As I said, you roused my interest. And so, I made in quiries. " "Inquiries?" breathed George, while he hid a shud der of hate. "They were not hard to push. I had only to speak a few words, and for a few dollars a man was ready to track you everywhere you went. He took four or five snap shots at you with a kodak the artful young devil of a detective! while you were on the docks, walking the streets, doing this or that bit of a job for j'our various employers. One day you went up the Bowery, and stopped at a certain small hotel there, and talked with the man at the desk. You were followed by the detective, and afterward he showed your pictures and asked who NEW YORK. 77 you were. The man at the desk said you'd stayed there for some time early in the summer, under the name of 'G.Oliver.' That was a clew. The detective (with a professional sleuth-hound shrewdness which I can't ex plain, and of course aided by his photographs) worked it all up. He came to me, after about two weeks and told me you were George Oliver, a gentleman by birth and education, who "Stop," said George. His face was ghastly in the feeble lamplight. "You played the spy on me like this. "Well, for what purpose?" Lynsko leaned back in his chair. Now that his hat was removed, he showed a head almost totally bald. The black copiousness of his beard, reaching literally to his flamy and inky eyes, produced the oddest effect; it was like some gnomish thing done by a fantastic draughts man in pen and ink. "I said to myself 'here is a man who can help me.' " "Help you? How?" "Ah, there's precisely the point. "We two are quite alone together. I have very little fear that you will go and give me away after I have said what I wish. Be cause your word, you know, wouldn't be taken. I should deny ; you might affirm. They would believe my statement before that of an ex-convict." George's lips were white, and his nostrils trembled, as he said: "I am induced to suspect that j-ou have some proposition of a most revolting kind to make me. If so, I prefer you should not make it." Lynsko 's red tongue became visible almost to its roots in an eldritch grimace. George thought of a tiger gaping. "Oho, we're going to play the virtuous young man, are we? Perhaps you'll be saying, next, that you didn't deserve those three years you got in Sing Sing." "I deserved them," replied George "every month, day, hour of them ! Nevertheless, my crime had a certain excuse; for a wicked woman charmed and tempted me into committing it." "A woman yes." Lynsko sat, now, with one hand clasping his kneo. 78 NEW YORK. "I heard the "whole story. From my point of view yon've been a martyr an actual martyr." "Your point of view is no doubt very different from mine." "Not, I should venture to think, on the question of your deserving to be treated like a dog during the rest of your life. For that is precisely what is going to happen with you. I find you driven into a hole, and you repulse me because I've hinted that I can drag you out of it. Before a word of explanation from me, you assert that I am probably about to make you a revolting proposition. Allow that, in one sense, it is revolting, though you haven't auy right to declare so till you've heard it." "Your reputation is that of a very hard and avaricious man. I have seen, with my own eyes, some of the cruel things you have done to your tenants." "Without the least irate sign on his countenance, and with a voice almost gentle of tone, Lynsko answered : "You're quite right. I am cruel. I probably get my perfectly bloodless and heartless way of looking at people, at life, from hundreds of persecuted Hebrew ancestors. You can't expect grapes from thistles. I dare say that I represent the accumulated spite and rancour of many centuries. The Italian and Spanish Jews had a hard time of it for hundreds of years,but the Polish Jews were even worse off. However, I haven't meant any cruelty to you. I meant and I mean only friendliness. Of a source entirely selfish, I admit. I found you out because I needed just some such man as yourself a man at war with society." "I am not at war with society," protested George. "Then it's at war with you which amounts to the same thing." "Not at all," said George, with defiant haughtiness. "If it fights me I will not fight it back. I will simpb' try to live." "To live by it and through it, which is the same as fighting it. Now, suppose I told this wretched little community round about here just who and what you are. Low as it is, it would turn on you the cold shoulder at once. My sister, to whom as yet I have saicV nothing, NEW YOUR. 70 would begin. The Schnoors would copy her course, much as they dislike me. Everybody else would shortly follow suit. You'd be driven out of this quarter as far as concerned the chances of your making here any sort of livelihood." "This is meant for a threat, no doubt," said George, his manner dry and blunt. "A threat? No; an explanation." George gave his companion a long, steady look. "There is something you want me to doforyou,"he said measuredly. "What is it?" Lynsko, with quick-moving fingers, began to caress his beard. "There is something I want you to do for yourself. " "Well, "returned George coldly, "I will not do it." "Not .for ten thousand dollars? That is what you will get." "I have done all the wrong things that I ever intend to do " Then, suddenly, George paused. His indignant loath ing of this man made a certain thought flash upon him. Might he not expiate his own past crime, now, in the sight and sanction of his own spirit? Was not a chance being offered him to pluck the sting from remorse? Granting that his lost self-respect was like a stairway down which guilt had flung him and at whose base he lay, maimed, incapable of reascent, might he not snatch from circumstance a means of mounting those steps once again ? Doubtless the world would never know if he succeeded or failed. But some day, who could tell? he might find the opportunity of making everything plain to Doris Josselyn. He felt certain she would give him her sym pathy, her commendation. These would surely be a guerdon worth the winning! To have triumphed over some villainy no matter if by stratagem and cunning would bring him such glorious thrills of moral emancipa tion! Here a divine spark of possibility struck into the deadness and degradation of his present life. She would be glad if she knew glad merely through compassion for him as a struggling human life! That reminder, that certainty, nerved him wondrously. It made him sirnu- 80 NEW late confusion, doubt, hesitation, even temptation, and with a nicety far from the bungling of the tyro mas- querader's and hypocrites.' "You say that I would get so large a sum?" he mut tered, breaking quite a long silence, during -which Lyn- sko's eyes watched him with what he felt to be a terrible veiled vigilance. "In a period of about one year yes. It would come to you by instalments. The money, in each case, though, would be a neat pile." George lowered his gaze, staring at the floor. He knew that if he acted his part at all he must act it well. One reason why he avoided Lynsko's look was dread that the scorn and disgust which filled him might leap betray - iugly forth. "It's a great amount of money," he pretended to muse aloud. "It would let me begin life all over again, hun dreds of miles away." Then he made a despairing ges ture, and with head still drooped, he went to the one win dow of the narrow room, and drew aside its coarse cur tain so that with strangely discordant result the yellow lamplight and silver moonlight mingled. Then he flung the curtain back, and turned with impulsive swiftness, and once again looked Lynsko full in the eyes this time anxiously, wistfully, excitedly. "Well, then, what would you have me do for you at that price?" It was all very neatly managed ; a trained actor could not have gone through it as well, for he might have been too obviously professional. George was just enough of the amateur for his sincerity to seem unmistakable. "Sit down," said Lynsko, and he pointed to the only other chair in the room. George obeyed him. Presently, by slow degrees, he heard something unfolded that was indeed a revolting proposition. NEW YORK. 81 ONCE or twice during the revelation of itLynsko's proj ect struck his listener as so cold-bloodedly diabolic that he had a fierce desire to leap from his seat and cry shame at its fiendishness. The whole truth soon came out, hideous yei simple. This man wanted a human tool to aid him in a series of what are perhaps, when all is said, the most infamous crimes known to modern society. He was the owner of this Water Street tenement, as we know, and of two others in Eoosevelt Street. He had just be come possessed, also, through a foreclosed mortgage, of a large shirt factory in White Street, and he owned two or three small residences on the lower west side of the town. All these were heavily insured. His own real es tate belongings ended here. But he had four friends, two of whom were his near relation, each the owner of several buildings, scattered between the Battery and Har lem. These, too, were heavily insured. He would not mention names; George need never have any dealings with a single individual save himself. He, Lj'nsko, would act as agent the agent of five people, including himself. He admitted the formation of a little conspir acy; there was always safety in numbers, and if this week a fire occurred here, say in Water Street, and a fort night hence another occurred in some house far away, owned by a different proprietor, suspicion could be all the more easily averted. George would now begin to un derstand? Or did he wish plainer disclosure? That would come, of course ; a great deal more must come. But had he, thus far, in the phrase of the day "caught on?" "Oh, I've caught on," said George, with volcanic heat below an outer crust of coolness. "You mean that you aim to be the head of a gang of firebugs." 82 NEW YORK. Lynsko lifted both hands and made them vibrate with sharpest speed. "Not so loudly," he said, "not so loudly." "I did not speak loudly," replied George in his gov erned undertone. "Not half so loudly as you spoke just then." "Ah, yes, I know. But your word, my boy, was a a sort of loudness in itself, don't you see?" "I see, perfectly. Well, go on." And Lynsko, with a new lease of volubility, did go on. His fresh admissions were like the lifting of heavy fogs and hazes above some foul swamp, each withdrawal dis closing a noisome tract or pool, haunted by reptile life. His project was loathsome in its villainy. It was worse than mere murder, because it took murder for granted, and treated it as a probability that should be held in con tempt. To get the insurance money on these buildings, whole families would be reckless^' imperiled. If they were burned to crisps in their beds, or if they were forced to fling themselves down upon the deadly pavement from smoke-belching windows, all the more luckless they. The horror of this "lirebug" atrocity burned into George's soul while he hearkened. If Lynsko had miraculously shot out a pair of clammy, batlike wings, and had pro jected a curled horn from either temple, the metamor phosis would hardly have amazed his watcher. Though George had read in the newspapers of such phenomenal deviltry, this being brought face to face with it, this hearing it speak, this seeing the physical and tangible source of it, dazed him with detestation. And there were men living in a so-termed enlightened century who could calmly plot such sickening crimes! To run the risk of slaying little children at their mothers' breasts fathers, sleeping off the fatigue of honest toil feeble or bedridden old women and men perhaps the sick and maimed on beds from which they could only rise and stagger into an agonizing death and to risk these deeds of incomparable vileness through hist of lucre! What circle in all Dante's complicated hell would not be for such heartless assassins a merciful bourne? What poign ancy of torment could one conceive that would ade quately punish these monstrous acts? NEW YORK. 83 Between Lynsko and himself was to exist a constant bond as of roaster and servant, though the Pole would so represent those whom he in turn served that their un known personalities would, through his agency, make themselves felt. Lynsko was the only living proof George would receive that a body of men could so steep itself in turpitude. His confederates would stay aloof, curtained in shadow a dimness typical of their satanic sin. One by one each "job" would be pointed out for George, quite unaided, to execute. The needed qualities were marked intelligence and great caution, supple mented by youth, health, agility. One blunder, and the whole splendidly hellish game was lost. In this case Lynsko would alone be endangered, since all those allied to him would remain beyond George's powers of expo sure. But on George, if caught, enormous odium would surely fall". A life-imprisonment must result, if not death itself. Still he must think of the prize for which he plaj-ed. His money would come to him in amounts of eight, nine, twelve, or even fifteen hundred dollars at a time. Lynsko had agreed with his dastardly mates that the first fire should occur here in this same Water Street house. Hence, for their selected young myrmidon, his first task would be his easiest. A kind of distinct crim inal programme had been arranged. The next fire should break out in property owned by another member of the gang, and located far away ; the next in still a totally different quarter. And so, with excessive prudence, the entire scheme of rascality had been worked out. Before Lynsko left him, that night, George had given full seeming consent. His effort to conceal agitation, to restrain inward rage, to appear really dazzled and fas cinated by the proffered prize, was fraught, toward the last, with so intense a difficulty that once or twice he was on the point of shouting forth, "You scoundrel, get from my sight before I lock you in this room and alarm the house!" And when, with his smiles of suppressed triumph and his nods of abhorred amiability and patronage, Lynsko had finally departed, a sort of shivering weakness came over George that made him recall certain awful hours in 84 NEW YORK. the dock while lawyers pleaded for and against him, and spectators ruthlessly stared, and his agonized mother sat pale and tearless, as close to him as the law would let her sit, without a sign, so far, of the mental ruin that must even then have been secretly at work in her brain. Slowly an exhilaration succeeded George's collapse. He had fallen into a chair after bidding Lynsko good night, and had covered with both hands a face whose film of icy sweat chilled fingers and palms. But at length he straightened himself, drew in a deep breath, and folded his arms, resolutely thinking. For nearly an hour he remained almost motionless. Then he rose and pre pared for bed, feeling the tyranny of sleep beginning to assert itself, though confident that it would be one broken by grisly dreams. Meanwhile he had clearly determined on a certain prompt and immediate course. It was one, he felt stanch enough to assure himself, from which John Lynsko, with all the powers of darkness for leaguers, would not have strength enough to drag him. NEW YORK. 85 XII. NOTWITHSTANDING a fevered night, his head was clear next morning, and his nerves were firm. All perturbation born of shock had now passed from him; he could look unflinchingly on his future plan of action, and almost wondered that even the dynamic stress of Lynsko's base ness had bee-a able so to disarray him, sudden and unfore seen as were its overtures. "The wretch is a tiger," he mused, "but a fox as well. By his own confession he has already spied upon me, and learned my record. Last night, just before leaving this room, he told me that I would not see him again for three days, business calling him to Philadelphia. But he is no more going to Philadelphia than I am going to the moon. During these next three days he means to watch every movement I make. He will place some one on my tracks, and if I stir beyond my usual daily or nightly rounds he will know it. Nevertheless, there is an uptown journey that I must and shall take, and between us there will at once begin the fight of cunning against cunning, wit against wit. Let us see, at this first stage of conflict, who shall prove winner." For several hours that day George went about hia ordinary occupations, thankful (as were doubtless thou sands of others throughout the huge metropolitan area) that yesterday's hateful heat had given place to an al most autumnal change of weather. He found the Schnoora f urioua at their defeat ; they could not coin invective enough to shower upon Lynsko. These maledictions pleased their hearer, though in a way far different from any of which they dreamed ; they sounded to his ears like his own abomination made audible. Still he had no sympathy with the rage of the Schnoors. It had been a fair fight all along between Mrs. Volatski and themselves, 86 NEW YORK. and one side was probably as much to blame as the other. They had certainly held revel at the most abnormal hours, and she had certainly blamed them, very often, for luring her boarders into their inn when these marine roysterers had been very hard to drive out before five in the morn ing. But the Schnoors had made it no longer a fair fight, and their treachery in giving free liquor to the Cuban sailors on the night of the party upstairs had been observed by George himself, and their chuckles of mali cious glee had not escaped him either. But he held his peace, equally while listening to their snarls and to Mrs. Volatski's exultations. Yet from either of the contestants he received slurring innuendoes that filled him with annoyance. He had to pay the for feit, as it were, of his prudent neutrality. This was con strued unkindy both by victor and vanquished. "Perhaps I may soon lose my chances of work, " he reflected, "with either of the enemies." Then a con science-twinge hurt him at the thought of taking a dime of payment from the sister of Lynsko. Meanwhile, all through that day, he kept wary watch. Wherever he went, whatever was the labor he performed, always were his faculties on the alert for some evidence that his movements were being observed. Finally, a little past noon, he noticed, on one of the South Street corners a short, thin man in a gray suit, buying a peach at a fruit stall. The man's appearance could not well have been more inconspicuous. His narrow, clean-shaven face was neither bright nor dull; his motions were neither brisk nor slow; his garb was neither shabby nor spruce; his air was neither cheerful nor sad. He ate his peach, after buying it as if it were neither flavorous nor insipid. "Just the man to pass in a crowd," thought George. "But for all the commonplace that invests him, I'm nearly sure I saw him throw a keen glance at me a minute ago, and I've a dim recollection that I saw somebody very much like him standing on the opposite sidewalk while I was cleaning the windows of Dick Slocum's grocery." Three hours later George's doubt became surety. Dining at a small restaurant, he went forth and perceived the same man getting his boots blacked a few yards off. NEW YORK. 87 Going into a second-hand clothing store and spending a good while over the weeding out and grass-cutting of its sickly little back yard, he emerged to find the same man leaning against a lamp post, deeply absorbed in one of the cheaper daily journals. And all through the rest of this day, go whither he would, the man was somehow and somewhere within the radius of his vision. "The most admirable of detectives," he decided, "past question. How I wish I could use him myself against Lynsko! ' He is sinuous and supple enough to slip through a needle's eye. Were it not that suspicion of his employer had pre pared me for him, I would no more have given him a glance than if he were my own shadow into which, by the way, he has contrived most skillfully to turn himself. " Later that afternoon, George made up his mind that he would subject the man to an ultimate test. He went to Fulton Ferry, purchased a ticket and boarded a boat for Brooklyn, which he barely had time to secure. Just as the boat left its landing he saw the now familiar shape pass at an easy pace into the ladies' cabin. This struck him, at first, as almost marvelous; but then he remem bered that it was his own rigid policy to seem as though perfect!}* oblivious that he was being waylaid. And hence his follower had had a chance to use the evident nimble- ness shown, in that slender, compact little shape. Ar riving at Brooklyn, George took a rather crowded car. He was obliged to stand, and did so with an abstracted air, clinging to one of the straps. Presently, just behind him, he saw (though with the careless aspect of quite failing to see) his ineludible pursuer. This discovery made him nervous, for the reason that it warned him of how he might soon convince the man he was conscious of being dogged. And that result he specially wished to avoid. After all, had he not been foolish in faying to make this last test? And what step should he now take? Suddenly a side glance into Fulton Street from one of the car windows gave him an idea. They were tearing down a large edifice in the middle of a block, and the dust of its demolition filled the air, while masses of lath and other burlier wood cumbered the street. George nodded quickly, as if in recognition of the place which he had 88 NEW YORK. come to seek. Then he hastily quitted the car, and for ten good minutes haunted this scene of ruin. He took up certain fragments of wood and examined them as though to make sure of their quality; he asked three or four workmen questions regarding the salability of the debris, in case he brought a cart to carrj' it off. Their answers, not all of which were very civil, he scarcely heeded. And at length, without a look to right or left, he quietly strolled back again through Fulton Street to the ferry. While waiting for the boat, and after having stepped upon its deck, he feigned a sort of drowsy ab sorption. He was quite certain that the ordinary little man in gray was not far off, but he had not the least de sire to verify this belief. All he had wished to learn he had learned. John Lynsko, fearful of the very treachery that he meditated (if treachery toward such a scoundrel were the proper term), had resolved that all his goings and comings, for at least the next three days, should be diligently noted. Returning to New York, he deported himself precisely as he had always been accustomed to do until the hour for entering his Water Street lodgings. Rarely had this hour been later than half-past seven, for in general the fatigue from his drudgeries had enforced his going early to bed, after he had eaten a light supper. Till nine o'clock or thereabouts he would usually read by the light of his lamp some one of the cheap paper novels or mem oirs (often worthy of a far better binding) which bounti ful bookstalls near the ferries had enabled him to procure. But to-night he did not read. He lit his lamp for the waning summer had now markedly shortened the days. Then he changed his working clothes for others, and after a few little unwonted self-attentions of the toilet, looked astonishingly changed. Past years may have had much to do with this rapid alteration; but George was still a man of that flexible build which any nicety of at tire easily set off and improved. He had no awkward angles, no fleshly protuberances. His tall, harmonious, compact body gave grace to what he wore, even though it may have fitted him ill. There are some men thus physically fortunate, just as there are some women, NEW YORK. 80 He decided to leave his lamp burning. The shadeless window was draped with the outer curtain of dark, flimsy stuff, which he himself had nailed there. If his watcher knew his room, that continued light would mean that he still remained in it. But he had no intent of remaining. He brought forth from a box under his bed a low black felt hat which contrasted strikingly with the slouched and rusty one he had doffed, and prepared to quit his room. After he had locked his door on the outside he listened for a few minutes in the darkness. Gruff-toned oaths reached him from apartments just across the narrow hall. Mike Giunerty was quarreling, as usual, with his wife, who would have tried a saint's patience by her drunkenness. Mike was no saint, but then he often kept sober for a fortnight. His wife never did, though she would swear that she hadn't touched a drop since her last vow of abstinence was given the priest, and so swear with a frying-pan of blackened beefseak in one hand, a red-hot brandished poker in the other, and both feet un stable and haphazard on the boards whose very carpet had long ago been pawned for drink. George's room was on the third floor of the five-storied tenement. He passed down to the lowest hall, meeting nobody. If he quitted the building at all that night he must do so, beyond question, by the rear courtyard, getting thence into the next street. Thither he now glided. The place was fairly familiar. Behind him, tier after tier, glimmered the lights from kitchen windows; beyond him was a wooden wall, at least eight feet in height, and impossible to climb; above him was a strip of light blue heaven, sown with a few stars that sparkled as if burnished anew by the breeze of this immature, salu brious night. George knew the whole spot well enough to lay his hands on the crumbled edges of a fissure, breast-high, which he had more than once noticed by day and which gross proprietary neglect had left unrepaired. The opening was too narrow to let him clamber through it, but he soon found that the board which formed its under portion was surprisingly loose. The mode of egress \vas 90 NEW YORK. therefore much easier than he had believed, and with slight real effort he made use of it, dropping into another space larger than that in which he had just stood. Other lighted windows now faced him, but the coolness of the evening caused them all to be closed. He saw the shadowy entrance of an alleyway, and boldly plunged within its gloom. Slipping straight on, he came to another open space, which he expected, knowing that the stretch be tween his own street and the one beyond was packed with inner buildings. But the coolness saved him; everybody was indoors. Then another alleyway met his gaze, and he struck into its dimness. At its end he glimpsed a street lamp and heard the rattle of a cart. Just as he neared freedom, a figure pushed cumbrously toward him. "Well, who are you?" grumbled the voice of a man, whose face he could not see in the dusk. "Who are you?" he shot out laughingly, with a dart forward. The man turned, growling an oath. George gained the street, and hurried westward. After he had gone a block he turned and looked behind him. The moon had risen. Long, somber, sagging house fronts loomed black in its delicate azure shine. A few people were moving to and fro; but there was no sign of pursuit. George smiled, faintly nodding, as if to his own thoughts. "John Lynsko, " these thoughts ran, "will find I've a head on my shoulders before he's done with me. Now for an hour or two of real liberty, while that fellow watches the lighted lamp in my room window (I've no doubt he's been told just which one it is), and con cludes I'm getting safely into bed, and goes to his em ployer with a full report of every step I've taken from early morning till now. For I can hardly believe he'll wait outside much longer. If he does he'll have a sur prise, as I shall run no risks, on my return, in dark alley ways, where I don't belong." NEW YORK. 91 XIII. GEORGE took the east side elevated, soon after this, and journeyed uptown for quite a long time, seeking a certain address which he had found in a druggist's directory. He got out at Fifty-ninth Street and walked to Fifth Avenue, reaching it in the great square, blazing with elec trics and bordered by Central Park, the Plaza Hotel, the New Netherlands and the Savoy. All these build ings, with their glimpsed interiors full of light and lux ury, thrillingly impressed him; and the dense, vague umbrage of the Park, softly overflooded by moonlight, gave him longings to search its leafy mysteries, to spend hours the whole night, even in wandering paths where he could touch the barks of trees and hear the night-wind flute among their leafage. What a contrast to the squal ors of South Street! Had he time for just a brief dive into yonder verdurous arcade, where he saw dim figures strolling? He knew just how to find the Mall, and the fountain overbrooded by the bronze angel, and the lake beyond, with its swans and boats. How lovely they must all look in the moonlight! What memories of youthful, innocent years they were waiting to lavish upon him! How delicious would be the pain of seeing them once more, phantasmally transfigured, pale negatives of that sunny photography by which they had appealed to him in a happier past! But, no; he had another errand, commanding and far less pleasurable. Moving up past the Lenox Library, he marked with admiration the solid, classic dignity of its structure, like a bit of the old Appian Way (the princely villa say, of some patrician Roman translated here), all its heavy angles chastened and softened by the witching argent light. Then, turning into a side street full of smart, homogeneous houses, he came to one whose 92 NEW YORK. stoop he ascended. Ib had an air of elegance, and the panes of its front door were of rich stained glass. He pulled the bronze knob of a bell and heard a mellow clang follow. A maid-servant, in iluted cap and big white apron, soon answered. "Can I see Mr. Courtelyou?" he asked. "Yes, sir; I think so. What name, please?" "He would not know my name, " said George com posedly. Then, detecting in his portress a perplexed civility, "but you might say to Mr. Courtelyou that I would like to see him on some legal business." The woman shook her head, though not ill-naturedly. "I'm afraid he wouldn't see you unless he knew you, sir. He is dining still, though I think he has almost finished. But he never sees strangers, unless they have some message from persons he knows." George pushed into the hall with gentle desperation. "\*Vill you not be kind enough," he said, "to tell Mr. Sourtelyou that I am not a beggar, that I want very much a few minutes' conversation with him, and that circum stances will make it impossible for me to see him, just now, in his office downtown?" The woman stared him full in the eyes for a moment. He divined her thoughts. Ho had not quite been able to make himself look like a "gentleman," although he somehow did look like one, and his speech had caused her to feel that he was one. And yet between speech and ap pearance there was a peculiar discord which her practiced eye perceived. But she was very good-hearted; her round, bland face told 3*011 that; here, in any event, was no personal conquest to be proud of. "I'm veiy sony," she said, drooping her eyes a little, "but my orders are strict. If you had a card or a written message "What is it, Alice?" Osborne Courtel3 r ou, master of the house, had just emerged from the near drawing-room door. He was in full evening dress. He had a long face with a jutting forehead, made more prominent by premature baldness ; for he could not have been over thirt3 r -six. His lips, clean-shaven, were thin and pallid; he wore a little tuft NEW YORK. 93 of black whisker below each temple. His chin, almost acutely pointed, was out of harmony with his large, cold, steel-bright eyes. You might have said of him : 'A mans who can both think and feel, but one in whom reason long ago crushed emotion.' The girl went up to him and spoke a few low words. He nodded, but his gaze turned toward the drawing room the next instant. A woman's voice was calling to him as though from the dining room beyond. What it said was inaudible. Laughing, Osborne Courtelyou went to the half-open door and cried quite merrily : "This isn't the last you shall see of me. I've one or two important letters, but will join you soon again. I promise, Miss Doris." "Doris?" said George to himself. "How strange." Courtelyou turned toward the maid-servant once more. "Ah, 3 r es, Alice." He stroked his sharp chin, and glanced over at George, who stood somewhat in shadow. He half addressed Alice, half Geroge. "I am much oc cupied at present." George at once went forward, fully revealing himself. An immediate look of recognition crossed the gentle man's face. "Oh, it's you?" "I did not wish to send in my name," George hurried, his tones almost a whisper. "I feared you might not care to see me " "I do not." "But my visit has a peculiar reason. It is not any matter that directly concerns myself. It is something that I feel sure will greatly interest you." Courteb'ou's manner was freezing. He dismissed the servant by a gesture. "This is certainly bold your coming to me here in my house." "I don't think your father would have said that," re plied George, with a bitter smile. "He was one of my father's dearest friends." "Quite true." "And he defended me at my trial." "Yes. He chose to do that. It was an affair hardly 94 NEW YORK. so creditable to you that you should wish " Then the speaker stopped dead short, with a shrug and a furtive sneer. "That I should wish to refer to it, Mr. Courtelyou?" said George, gulping down a resentment which he real ized but too sternly that thousands of his fellow-men would denj' him the right to feel. "Well, I came here with no reserves." "Naturally." "Yes, naturally, as you say, since you were pointed out to me in the court as Aaron Courtelyou 's son, and since, having seen you there more than once, I knew that you would be familiar with my entire case." "lam familiar with it, of course." George gnawed his lips for a moment. "Are you unwilling to give me an interview?" The bright, merciless eyes envisaged him. There was no sneer now, but the slim, chill thread of smile in place of it was even more repelling. "I would have given you one Mr. Oliver, at my office." "And you refuse it here?" "I have never yet been approached like this, in my own house, excuse me by an ex-convict." George receded a step or two, half-turning. "Excuse me," came his a slow, firm answer. "I did not know that you father's son was a man of ice. I could not pos sibly have gone to your office, and I had something of great importance to communicate, though something which did not at all concern my own profit. I am sup porting myself, by the meanest labor, it is true, but still by honest labor. I have discovered that a great crime is about to be perpetrated, and I wished j r our help in avert ing it. If you had chosen to treat me with I will not saj' courtesy, but charity, I might soon have made plain to you how thoroughly disinterested is my motive. But now " George lifted one hand, slightly waved it, then let it fall. His other hand, in the next second, had grasped the knob of the hall door. He did not say "good night, " for the civility stuck in his throat. "Stay, please," fell from Courtelyou. "I will speak with you, if you wish, upstairs." NEW YORK. 95 "No," said George, resolutely. He looked across one shoulder with dark eyes aflame, though not in anger. "I can only regret my mistake, and leave you to the enjoy ment of your own handsome self-righteousness. Such men as you, sir, unless I judge wrongly, are living reasons why the world hasn't fewer convicts and ex-con victs than it now holds." "Stay," repeated Courtelyou, and moved coolly up to the door, planting himself in front of it. He was interested, though not at all moved. He did not believe George's avowal, and suspected that some artful trick of beggary was behind it. But the young man's bearing and physical fineness had touched his artistic sense, which was keen. Here he saw a far differ ent fellow from that haggard, crestfallen creature at the trial, whom his dead father, against his will and in the teeth of his entreaties, had so ably yet vainly defended over in Brooklyn. Beside, his curiosity had been piqued, and his ambition (always an inflammable part of him, lodged like dry tinder in a glacial nature) had begun to take fire. Incessantly on the lookout for greater pro fessional distinction as a lawj'er than he had yet achieved, he saw now a possible chance to focus his marked intel lectual forces upon some "case" of extraordinary value and aid. "You took me by surprise," he went on, "and perhaps you'll accept my apology." He did not in the least mean regret for what he had said, but it suited his convenience to seem penitent. "On my own side I will accept your rebuke as having been deserved. If, as you tell me, your motive is disinterested, then you can afford to smother whatever annoyance I may have caused you. There, now; will you come upstairs into my library and talk this matter over? You heard me say, a minute or two ago, that I had letters to write. It's quite true, and they are important letters beside, for I am an extremely busy person. But I can spare you at least a half hour if you'll agree to my proposal." George's hand fell from the door-knob. "As you please," he said. "But I prefer no apology from you, since I have not the right to resent your mode of meeting aae." 96 NEW YORK. They immediately passed upstairs together. The soft carpet felt strange to George's feet. In the rear of the house was a spacious lamplit room, full of large leathern chairs, glimmering rows of books, etchings, a few choice bronzes, an array of dim, rich rugs. Here they entered ; and on George, after his long absence from all such scenes, the mere visual effect smote like some pleasure so cruelly keen that it ends in pain. His sight grew hazed with tears. Such charms of living were lost to him, and perhaps forever! But in that very "perhaps" throbbed the pulse of inextinguishable hope. His youth and health and strength, blent with the genuineness of his radical remorse, bade hope refuse to perish. "Be seated, please," said Osborne Courtelyou, and pointed to one of the big shiny russet chairs. He him self sat down before an immense central desk, loaded with papers. The light of a green-shaded electric lamp struck full on his cold, heavy-browed face, with its taper ing chin and its large, metallic, unsympathizing eyes. "You called me a man of ice," he said, looking full at George, "and you were perfectly right." He paused for a moment, and during this slight interval George made no attempt to contradict him. NEW YORK. 97 XIV. "You called me a man of ice," he repeated, "and I fancy there are numerous people among my acquaintance who share your opinion. But like the best quality of ice I am decidedly transparent. My concealments are few, and I am neither proud nor ashamed of my rather wide spread repute for coldness. And yet I do not recall having ever refused a fellow-mortal the pity logically his due. There is far too much wasted pity in the world, and few. kinds of extravagance, to my thinking, are as dangerous. Take, for example, j r our own case. You had affectionate parents, refined surroundings; you were not even hampered by the temptations that come of wealth. In college your excellent mental gifts brought you stimulating rewards. Altogether your advantages were remarkable. If you will consider the enormous number of young men in the world with smaller brains, weaker bodies and lighter purses, you must admit how remarkable those advantages really were." "I do not deny it," said George, almost below his breath. "But you called me a man of ice." Cortelyou lifted from the table a quill pen, and held it by its nib, and cut the air with it, as if for added emphasis, while he further spoke. "Now, Oliver, I insist that to pity such men as you, when society teems with those who would give a finger, an ear, almost an eye itself, for the same opportunities that you squandered, is helping to drench society in that surfeit of sentiuentalism from which it already suffers far too much." "May I ask you if you believe in free will?" said George very gently and humbly. The lawyer started. He liked that answer. It made him feel that he was not wasting his precious time on a man whose brains had 98 NEW YORK. been benumbed by imprisonment, and vho bad the in tent of placating and mollifying him for some purpose no subtler than a loan or an almsgiving. "Free will? It's an endless metaphysical matter." "I don't wish to cloak my criminality behind it, how ever," said George. "But there has been with me an intense moral reaction. And now, in contemplating what I did to receive the perfectly just punishment meted out to me, I can't help asking myself, sometimes, whether, in the given circumstances, it would have been possible for me to act differently." "A moral reaction, eh?" muttered Courtelyou, flinging down the pen, with some impatience. His tones were full of smoldering distrust. And yet George's perfect sim plicity of candor his use of the word "criminality" his freedom from the faintest effort to employ those cut- and-dried methods of self-defense so dismally common place with one who daily looked upon culprits of all classes these features and revealments produced their unavoidable effect on his hearer. They did not engender compassion, but they roused a kind of unconquerably respectful surprise. "Well, if Sing Sing did that for you, " he continued. "Sing Sing," said George, his quick interruption stabbing the air like a dirk, "did nothing for me except to deepen my sense of self-degradation." "And yet," smiled Courteb'ou mercilessly, "it left you with a belief that you were the victim of fate rather than your own folly." "It left me with nothing of the sort," replied George, haughty though not hostile. "But your doubts regarding free will " "Were and are philosophical doubts. I can't help having them." "Naturally you are thoughtful, ruminative, reflective. You were graduated high in your class at ths New York College. Doubtless you there went through a most instructive course of ethical teaching." "One which should have guarded me against temptation. It did not." "No, it certainly did not." NEW YORK. 99 "You raerelj' repeat my words, and refuse to answer my question." "Your question was ?" Here Courfcelyou smiled down at his profusion of outspread letters and legal documents. "Oh, .yes, I remember. Free will." He lifted his e3*es. "I must answer your question somewhat parryingly, if you please, yet altogether practically. I believe in the agencies and coercions of education. Of these you cannot deny that you received the amplest benefits. Justice, equity, law, must stop there. It is unable to concern itself with abstruse problems." "And yet " "There is always," and 3 r et, "with every criminal of your higher grade." "I am not defending myself; but the fact remains that I fell under the influence of a most treacherous, fas cinating, unprincipled woman." "I recollect perfectly. Here in this very room my father urged that excuse for you." "Your father pitied me; 3 r ou did not. There lay and lies the mighty difference between you." Courtelyou shut his pale lips tightly together. Then, with a little backward motion of his head, he exclaimed: "I recollect very well what I said on the subject to my father in this same room. 'You give this 3"oung man,' I told him, 'what you might far better give to a wrongdoer born in the slums, without chances of shirking the evil that has driven him into crime. And if you treat George Oliver's course with so much leniency, how greater should have been your kindliness to many a plaintiff whom you Lave legally prosecuted, with vice and guilt and harlotry and drunkenness for his nurses and tutors. ' Those were almost my precise words to my father, and he could not answer them except with what /call sentimentalism." George did not speak, gazing somberly at the floor. Courtelyou watched him, with a serene, victorious hardness. "What," he resumed, "does the common clod know of free will of all these subtle and hair splitting abstractions when he is sandbagging a fellow- citizen or picking his pocket? But you, forsooth, had actually concerned yourself with deep moral problems. 100 NEW YORK. and yet you went and played second fiddle to a pair of arch-swindlers. Ah, no, Oliver. It won't do to show men like you mercy till \ve can find something to take its place among others who really deserve it. If the betterment of mankind can only be brought about by education (and none but fools are aware of any wiser way) then at educa tiou we must draw the line of tolerance and clemency. It's the old story some that have eyes will not see, some that have ears will not hear. For my own part I'd rather the jails and penitentiaries were given up solely to these, and that all ignorant malefactors were treated in asylums and hospitals, were included among the world's unfortunates rather than its culprits." The cold undertone that clad these clear-cut sentences had for Georgo a terrible stress of reproach. He felt as if some glaring light were being plunged into the abysses of his helpless and guilty spirit. For many months past he had surveyed his own fault, as we know, with un- pardoning scrutiny. He found himself admiring the man who could thus reach the very inmost sore of his lacerated conscience, yet as a sufferer he realized with repulsion how heavy was the touch it now encountered, how devoid of all human tenderness, how reckless in the infliction of added pangs. Slowly raising his look, he fought against inward agitation, and spoke with what proved at first only a succession of husky gasps, though soon his voice grew firmer, his aspect regained control. "Allow what you say of human volition that reform has no concern with such recondite inquiries your points may be well taken I don't dissent from them let all that rest. But how about the merited term of punish ment for a man like me? Should it be lifelong? I maj' live on for half a century. And yet a burden of dishonor must clog me, drag me down, wherever I go and whatever I seek to do. My one possible refuge is hypocrisy assuming another name in an environment of strangers. But even then there would be the continual dread of discovery the discharged felon's dread. Be side, the risk of positive starvation would at first be great, even if I succeeded (almost a pauper as I am) in locating myself where I ain totally unknown. Such a NEW YORK. 101 plan I have in view, and mean hereafter to try. But is there not cruelty in the idea that a boy's crime (for I prefer this word, and never shirk it when thinking of my past) should so stick to his life, his hopes, his every struggle to gain social release, after he has paid to the law of his land its allotted penalty? Should there be no asylums and hospitals (invisible, intangible, if you will, yet existed somehow in the humanity of his fellow-men) for those afflicted like myself? That very education of which you spoke makes the sufferings of such as I all the more acute! Your ignorant ex-convicts are far too blunted to feel it. Experience, you will concede, has brought me very close to their callousness." Courtelyou was smiling when George finished, and the smile made him think of a sword-blade. "Folk sow the wind and reap the whirlwind, a threadbare phrase enough, yet inexorably true. Education is forewarning and forearming. You were praemonitus, therefore prae munitus. The world will never forget what you did, will never trust you again, will always look at you as kance, with a dubious if not a deriding eye. And I cannot see any real injustice in its doing so. Call life a stream and birth a ship. One by one we are tossed overboard into the- current, and for some inconceivable reason (which religion explains best of all other systems because it does not attempt to explain) a few are provided with life preservers and multitudes are not. It is with those who loosen their life preservers and fling them away that I have my undying quarrel," ended Osborne Courtelyou, and his curiously frigid smile deepened. He did not look as though he were desirious of quarreling with any one, however; he had the impregnably secure and convinced air of being unwilling ever to commit himself by an impulse, either friendly or mimic. Meanwhile his words had dropped like leaden bullets into George's heart. By a sudden mysterious reversion of thought, perhaps an automatic effort of his gloom- steeped soul to seek some relieving light, he recollected Doris Josselyn's tender and frank appeal, a few weeks ago at the mission. How measurelessly different was it from these sentences just heard, unanswerable as logic 102 NEW YORK. itself, with the cut and thrust of the scalpel in them, each a stimulus to dispair and an overthrow to hope! "But I have forgotten," said Courtelyou, breaking a silence, "the object of your visit." "True," George returned. "It has to do, I should judge, with precisely that sort of evil for which you admit no excuse. The man of whom I came here to tell you is plainly of the educated minority. He lives iu the slums as I myself live but it is not hard to see that he has passed years elsewhere. He has a sister, evidently younger than himself, in whom I notice the same traces of refinement, though she shows them in less degree, as though her brother's lost position, whatever it was, had affected her at an earlier, more susceptible age. He is not, like myself, a poor man, a worker with his hands for daily bread. I am that, though I do not say it at all vauntingly, as though to put in more pathetic colors the sad result of my new gained freedom. Indeed, I have chosen this routine of manual toil among lowly and needy people in preference to fighting that very prejudice you have described that ineffaceable remembrance of the prison stigma, where all who hear my name will at once connect it with the cropped head and the striped clothing. But this John Lynsko, a Pole, with a past probably ten times darker than my own, is nevertheless a property holder, and a person of supposable political strength. But he is also a man of the most infamous character, and he has tried to make me his tool in a secret act of such horror and outrage that I greatly long to expose him. This, I realize, will be hard. But I recalled your in fluence and position as a lawyer, and I believed that my story, if j r ou heard it, might carry more weight with you, in spite of ruined character, because of your father's long friendship for mine." Courtelyou, in his revolving chair, wheeled himself round till he directly faced George. On the heavy arm of the chair ho planted an elbow, and sat with one hand propping his slanted head. "I wish you would be quite explicit," he said, "and I promise ycu that I will listen with great attention." George then began and told everything. All that NEW YORK. 103 he knew of Lynsko or bis sister he disclosed, even touching upon the latter's feud -with the Schnoors, and their accusations against her honesty. Then, with extraordinary clearness of memory, he narrated the en tire recent conversation between himself and the Pole, often repeating whole passages of it, word for word. Finally, in tones free from the slightest resentful tinge, he said : "But perhaps you discredit all this, coming, as it does, from my lips. If so, I will not blame you, since I have no such right." He had not expected a sign of sympathy, and he re ceived none. Still the answer of Courtelyou pleasantly disappointed him. "I do not discredit a word that you have spoken. I have not a doubt that your statements are perfectly true. " "That surprises me, after what you have lately said." Here George smiled, and the smile was both weary and patient. "All this, you know, might be falsehood, told for private ends of malice, revenge heaven knows what else?" "Might be yes," retorted the other, with a staccato gruffness new to him. He rose, and with hands clasped behind his back walked toward the rear part of the room "By the way," he asked, speaking from that distance and in the shadow left by the one brilliant lamp on the middle table, "do you require any personal help? Can laid you at all with money? I might spare you, say thirty, fifty dollars, if you feel pi'essed by immediate need. " George gave a quiet laugh. He half turned himself in his chair and answered : "Do you say that to 'test' me, Mr. Courtelyou? Have you suspected that, after all, I am only a more artful beggar than most outcasts of my type?" His host made no response. He was staring up at a picture off there in the gloom a portrait, and a very excellent one, by the way of his dead father. He may have been recollecting also (who shall say) that although Aaron Courtelyou was one of the most famous lawyers of his laud and time, he had left behind him a sweet and wholesome repute for deep benevolence and large, sensi tive compassion. 104 NEW YORK. XV. AT length Osborne Courtelyou turned away from the picture, and reseated himself in a light chair which he caught with one hand from its place beside the wall, and which he drew very close to George, so close that their knees almost touched. "You refuse any aid, then, of that sort?" "Yes with thanks." "You have all that you want?" "By no means. I have very much less than I want." "But, according to your own admission, you are living almost a dog's life there in the slums." "There are dogs in the neighborhood that live a much easier life." "And yet " "And yet I will not accept charity while I have hands to work with. There's nothing ideal or heroic about this attitude. I'm not at all like the theatrical starveling who says to the generous millionaire, 'Keep your gold,' in the accents of that sentirnentalism which you so cordially hate." Courtelyou visibly winced. He threw back his head with a soft laugh, perhaps meant to hide chagrin. "Well," he said, somewhat roughly, the next instant, "does your hatred of sentimentalism reconcile you to this horrible drudgery by which you tell me that you earn only a few dollars a week?" " Nothing reconciles me to it. I abhor it. But what other course can I decently take? Ah, sir, I'm a strange kind of jail-bird! The sin I committed has brought disgrace on my name, but it has somehow left me with a soul, a heart, a conscience redisciplined by remorse. Days and days of mental misery have told me one satisfy ing ti'uth : there is no such help possible for a man like NEW YORK. 105 me as to lift up his own self-respect, cleansed by tears of suffering, from the mud and mirk into which he has let it fall." "Very wise, very brave," replied Courtelyou, color lessly, though without a hint of cynicism. "But I should think, if you will let me say so, that you might employ a more politic wisdom combined with an equal pluck. The monotony of your martyrdom must now be intense." "It is' if you call it martyrdom." "I call it so because it is a voluntary acceptance of painful conditions. It's your imprisonment over again, with a few altered features." "In my slight and pitiable way I've gained a kind of independence." "I should call it a worse captivity." "No, since I'm among those who could not, for the most part, afford to despise me, even if they were not ignorant of my disgrace. And somehow I feel that the filth of the gutters I live near cannot soil me half as much as the thought that I'm cringing to the whims of other people's contempt taking a loaf or two flung me now and then from sheer condescension, and perhaps by those" (here George's dark-blue eyes gave a passionate flash) "whose own records, were everything told, would not prove cleaner than mine!" "You're an odd mixture of resignation and revolt." "Practically I'm resigned enough; in theory I'm re bellious. Meanwhile if I can get somewhere, and escape it all, and begin life over again, I want to do so by an output of my own unaided force. This may be pride, but I don't seem to find it the wrong kind. The other kind you know what I mean would seem to me the wrong kind. And now, as to this John Lynsko. " "Yes as to this John Lynsko." Courtelyou repeated the words a little absently, but still with vehemence. He had not yet recovered from the consternation George had wrought in him. He was now certain of the man's utter integrity, though he disliked being certain of anything without cogent proofs. He had never, in all his exemplar life, been conscious of the least temptation to do wrong. His passions had been dis- 106 NEW YORK. tinctly palpable to him; he knew that they existed, and that they were an evidence of his rleshl.y susceptibility to error. But, all in all, they irritated rather than tempted him. He could not understand how others yielded to their lures. They were like beautiful enticing shapes of shadow, "with woven paces and with wreathing arms." He admitted their charm, but they seemed forever aloof from him comfortably so like mimes and dancers be hind the forbidding glare of footlights. And these foot lights one might call his unquenchable "principals." They appeared to have been enkindled in his nature at some early stage of infancy, and were doubtless an inher itance from an excessively self-righteous and ascetic mother, whose death had been to his father the keenest of reliefs. His virtue resembled some investment in a val uable stock; he drew interest from it and calmly gloried in the revenue thus obtained. He did not flaunt the fact of its possession, but made it a kind of daily common place disclosure, like the glimmer of his watchchain or the neat knot of his necktie. His marble and monumental honesty had already become a public municipal landmark. He presided at reformatory, political, or charitable meetings with an unerring conservative tact. He was immensely trusted as one swayed in all aim and purpose by the most stringent moral code. Accredited with emotions, he was held by his admirers as their rigid master, as incapable of ever becoming their slave. He had many tepid acquaintances, but not a single friend. Kich, important, a matrimonial parti, it had caused slight surprise that he had not yet married. Of course, it was taken for granted, hundreds of well-born women would have married him. But then, on the other hand, where was the woman so talented, so unflippant, so generally sterling and irreproachable, to whom this distinguished and rising young lawyer would extend the favor of an alliance? Women were noto riously weak, and being himself devoid of all weaknesses, how could he either endure or condone them in another. True, he might fall in love; but, after all, would "fall ing" be the proper term with one so sagaciously self- governed? Would he not rather "drop" into love, NEW YORK. 10? watching with cautious glances the probable foothold sentiment might secure, and thus, before the final event, make certain that it lauded on no perilous quicksand, but met the firm support worthy of its deliberative and hon oring descent? Yet now George had struck a queer note of discord through the faultlessly correct harmony of his tenets. It is always this way with the man of stifled sympathies, lie could not understand, in a fellow spirit, that back ward swing of the pendulum which means resuscitation honor, re-emancipation from evil. But George had somehow passed between his sturdy gateways without for an instant making their solidity tremble. He in wardly conceded that an intuitive perception of charac ter had conquered him; and though prepared to "figure it all out" hereafter by the most unrelenting rules of his ethical and sociological arithmetic, he let himself be con trolled, for the present and living hour by a faith which must soon pay the penalty of microscopic dissection. "Yes, as to this John Lynsko, " he again repeated, leaning back in his chair and joining at their tips the fingers of either lifted hand. "Now, I believe him as vile a rascal as you do, and I would like greatly to entrap him. But evidently he is as cunning as he is depraved. And beyond doubt he wishes to make you, in case of discovery, the sole person on whom the law can lay its grasp. For this reason it will be far the most prudent plan that I should begin to act without again seeing you. It is very likely, however, that certain agents of mine may find the chance of communicating with you." "Even that might put Lynsko on his guard, I fear." "Whatever messages or instructions you receive will be delivered very skillfull}' rest sure of that." "Shall you have Lynsko shadowed?" "Undoubtedly." "But will not that be like putting one bloodhound on the track of another." "Perhaps. Only, my bloodhound, I trust, will be shrewder than his. Beside, if he has you watched for two or three days, and discovers nothing suspicious in your deportment, he will hardly be on the lookout for my retaliating tactics." 108 NEW YORK. "Yes, you are right." "Now, my first object is to find out who this John Lynsko really is, and what causes a inan of his alleged culture to live iu so anomalous a way. I must learn, too, the names of his hidden friends. No doubt some of them are old firebugs, already known to the fire mar shal. Others are perhaps public adjusters men, that is, who represent the public as against the insurance companies. These adjusters, on one or two other such horrible occasions, have been known to make terms with the people who wish to have fires consume their houses." "Make terms?" "They looked to the getting of policies from the in surance companies, so that a large enough amount of money could be gathered from them after the fires had done their deadly work. Men in the employ of the insur ance companies and men attached to the department of the fire marshal, were approached by these same ad justers, and seduced, through promise of gain, into co operation. But those conspiracies have collapsed, though many a fire may have sprung from others never exposed. Arrests have been made, confessions have been obtained the latter appalling for the deeps of human wickedness they reveal. One or two of the monsters are still at large in foreign countries. Those who were caught have had to plead to their indictments before the grand jury, and their trials have resulted in long, if not life-long im prisonments. " "Why not in death?" asked George, shuddering. "The punishment for arson is not death, and it was, I believe, impossible to connect that special band with one or more fires in which several persons lost their lives. The cleverness of these rogues almost passes credence. They contrive, at the time of the fires, to be always at a safe distance away, and provided, each of them, with an excellent alibi. The adjusters of insurance, I mean, and the holders of the policies. With the mechanics, as they are called, it is not so easy a matter." "The mechanics?" "That is the prettily euphonius name given to the actual firebugs themselves the incendiaries Avho steal NEW YORK. 109 into hallways and cellars with their bottles of benzine and other inflammables. It is as a 'mechanic' that Mr. John Lynsko evidently desires your services. But in this case there is a different species of plot. Have you not already guessed it?" Courtelyou put this question with sudden stinging directness. A lawyer of great acumen, one almost un rivalled at cross-examination, his look, the poise of his head, the very disposition of his limbs, now implied that he inwardly bristled with professional zest and zeal. It was like the pose oi' the warhorse, scenting battle. "Do you mean," said George, "that I am to be their sole deputy their one single 'mechanic?' ' "I mean precisely that. Lynsko's words to you leave slight doubt of it. He tells you that you are at war with society, and when you den3 r this he answers that society is at war with you. He requires your services, at a wage of ten thousand dollars, for a period of about one year, paid by instalments. He has spoken of four friends, each the owner of several buildings between the Battery and Harlem, and he has stated that you would never have any dealings with a single individual save himself." "Perfectly true." All this points to but one conclusion. A new band of firebugs of which Lynsko is the accepted leader have resolved on a new scheme of villainy. You have been selected by their chief as the very man fitted for their uses. The Pole watched you and suspected that you were living under an alias and that you had some former fault to conceal. He took secret measures and learned just who and what you are. Then he tempted you and was met by your apparent consent to his proposals. But so important did he hold the actual sincerity of this consent that he had you dogged in the adroit viay you have described. No; there is not a shred of doubt that he intends you for his only employee his unassisted factotum. And why? But no doubt you have already guessed." "I think I have guessed," said George, coloring a little, whether with indignation or shame. 110 NEW YORK. In case the incentive of the big bribe may not so stim ulate your trusted and selected intelligence that success shall follow each attempt you make, in case to-day, or next week, or a fortnight later, failure and capture befall you, then he can quietly place your tarnished reputation between himself and disaster. He can claim that what ever testimony you may chose to furnish against him is wholly worthless; he can point to your past, and scorn fully inquire (through his counsel, of course) whether one who has swindled a bank by having made false entries in its books, and been convicted of this offense by a jury of his peers, and suffered afterward a three years' imprisonment, should be held a witness against him of the faintest real account. And to those who know the law as I know it, Oliver, this attitude, this plea, however brazen, must seem of vast importance." "I can imagine that. But Lynsko's own past reputa tion " "Would tell against him, of course, if it be a soiled one and I have not a doubt that it is noisome. But he would nevertheless cook up something quite creditable in the way of a defense be sure of that." Here Courtelyou looked at his watch. "I have not much more time to spare you," he said; and George thought of the words he had spoken downstairs through the drawing-room door and the sacred name of "Doris," that had fallen from his lips. \Yho could his Doris be? Had she a hundredth part of the loveliness of his own? Courtelyou pointed to the vacant chair at the desk. "Suppose," he continued, "you write me a full state ment of everything, just as you lateb r told it me. Then sign, and give the date. Do you agree?" "Certainly." And George at once made an exchange of chairs. There was plenty of paper within reach; ink and pens were beside it. In college, and for two years after graduation, he had been a rapid and fluent writer. Now his hand faltered, and he felt for a "moment seized by despairing inability. "It is so long since I wrote anything," he stam mered, with a scared, piteous look at Courtelyou 's com posed face. NEW YORK. Ill "I understand. Wait a moment; it will come." And the lawyer went to another table, near the wall, and took from it a pamphlet, slowly turning its leaves. It did come, though at first only by degrees. A kind of terror preceded the formation of two or three initial sentences a dread of having lost power to recommand old disused energies, both manual and mental. Then the change followed, hailed with inward thankfulness. George's pen sped along the paper with all its old facile vigor. He had covered two large foolscap pages when Courtelyou, throwing down his pamphlet, again glanced at his watch and said: "You're getting along better than you expected?" "Oh, yes very much." "Well, I must leave you here for a short time. No doubt you will have it all done when I return. I A knock sounded at the closed door just behind Courtelyou. He turned and opened it. A figure brushed past him, and then stood still. "Oh, you're not alone. Martha said she thought there was somebody with you. But I'm going now; the cab is waiting for me. I ordered it early, because I haVe a busy day to-morrow at the little charity festival we're getting up. Mr. Crevelling and Mrs. Stanfield and your sister Martha, and three or four others, are going to ac company the newsboys personally to loua Island. Martha has just consented." "You made her, of course," laughed Courtelyou. "She's agreed to postpone her trip to Newport for one day. And in the height of the season, too! What a triumph, isn't it?" Here Doris Josselyn glanced at George, whom she had already caught sight of, though merely in a swift glimpse. He was leaning back a little in his chair, and had slightly averted his face. But she saw even his profile only in shadow now; the lamplight flooded merely his arms and hands. "I do so wish you to speak to them afterward at the home in St. Mark's Place. I know you're alwaj-s very bus}'; but we want to end the day with something that will leave a serious impression after their fun. Can't you 112 NEW YORK. arrange to be there at about half -past seven? or say later, if you please." She looked at him with a pleading smile, her head a little on one side that aerial head, almost too heavily weighted by its chestnut strands of low-growing hair. He watched her face for a moment, with its pensive little mouth that could yet so flower out into jo.yous smiles, its breadth at the temples narrowing down to so slender a chin, and lastly the glistening gray of its eyes, that sometimes seemed too large and luminous for its wild- rose delicacy. To-morrow evening he had an engagement of the most pressing kind one which concerned a lawsuit of exces sive difficulty, only a part of whose obstinate tangle he had thus far unwoven. On the other hand, though a capable and effective speaker at charitable meetings, and relishing the exercise for good of gifts that he was well aware he possessed, Courtelyou had never liked address ing children. The most ignorant adults he did not mind; he would sometimes take keen pleasure in simplifying for these his thought and language with a skill rare among the ablest of orators. But an audience of children did not rouse him, and perhaps for the very reason that his rectitude had in it no streak of compassion; his morality was brightness without warmth ; it could guide,, but could not comfort. Nevertheless, he gave contsent, and slowly left the room with Doris Josselyn, promising that he would join herself, his own sister, Martha, and the others of her party by surely eight on the following evening. George saw them leave the library side by side. For a little while they stood together in the outer hall. He heard Doris' fluty laugh. Perhaps ten minutes passed before Courtelyou returned. George started from his reclining posture. He made a feint, and a consciously forlorn one, of resuming his task. He had been having the oddest fancies; they were like a gentle delirium. The walls about him, in their glimmers of books and bronzes and deep-crimson up holstery and gilt mouldings, had melted into the plain plaster ones of the mission, and another visionary Doris, NEW YORK. 113 wearing a gown of paler fabric than this which clad her now, had seemed to come forth from a big carved Venetian cabinet just opposite him, and repeat that unforgettable monologue of cheer and good will from deliciously ghostly lips, and with a knot of deliciously ghostly roses at her breast. These she was just plucking forth and throwing toward him, so that one struck him full on the mouth and left an enchanted thrill there, while another lodged itself below the black sphinx head of a massive inkstand, when Cortelyou's reappearance broke the spell. "I suppose you have nearly reached the ending, have- you not?" he asked, pausing at George's side and look ing over his shoulder. "There isn't very much more to do, I think." George raised one of the sheets, but his hand trembled so thai he let it fall upon the table again. "Why, you seem ill." "I I was a little.. But it will soon pass; it's pass ing now," said George, not looking up, but feeling the hard stare that must have leveled itself upon him. "It's not drink, I hope." These words had a buffet in them of bludgeon-like brutality. He shot up at his companion a hostile look. "I've never touched stimulant, in any form, since I left prison. You can imagine that I'd no chance of doing so in the time I was there. The truth is " He stopped short. "Well?" asked Courtelyou, after a slight silence. "The young lady who was just here her presence, quite unforeseen, upset me, no doubt." Instantly, and with chilling haughtiness, while he drew backward, Courtelyou said : "What possible concern can you have with that young- lady's entrance into my library? It strikes me as a most peculiar piece of boldness that you should refer to her at all." "Oh, it does, does it?" burst from George, as he sprang up and faced the other. "You may not remember, or you may not know; but Doris Josselyn is the adopted daughter of my cousin, Albert Josselyn. She is also a relation of his, on his father's side, and therefore, in a way, related to myself a kind of cousin, in fact," 114 NEW YORK. Courtelyou, grown somewhat pale, gave one or two slow nods. George's anger, showing itself for the first time, waxed hotter. "You talk and most arrogantly, of my peculiar boldness in referring to her at all. Let me say this to you, sir : If I had gone up to her, and told her who I am, and asked her to take my hand, I am certain she'd have done so." Courtelyou smiled brightly. This was his usual mode of concealing any intense annoyance. Of course he should have recollected, he was telling himself, that kin ship between the Olivers and Josselyns. His father had spoken of it during the trial. But for reasons which he could well understand, neither Doris' guardian, nor his wife, nor his daughter Grace had done so. And as for Doris, well it must merely have escaped her memory; for was there any kind of candor concerning her family antecedents that Doris would for a moment have shirked? "You speak of telling her who you are," he said. "So, then, that would have been necessary, eh?" "We've not mot since we were children," replied George, his voice harsh and hard. "Oh ah I see." "You don't see, however." "No? Really?" "Is this man trying to make me strike him?" thought George, still throbbing with rage which he would have denied as even vaguely jealous in its origin. "No, really," he said aloud, with a mocking abandon ment in accent and air. "As it chances, I heard her speak at a down-town mission, not long ago, and speak with great sweetness, humanity, tenderness." "Now you make things clearer," returned Courtelyou. He chose to ignore George's ruffled temper. "She has been down from Lenox, where the rest of the household have spent the summer, several time since June, and alway on kindly errands like that. She immerses her self in charities. She is very devoted to all that sort of thing." George flung himself back into the chair he had quitted. He felt desperate, defiant, stubborn. Till now NEW YORK. 115 this Osborne Courtelyou had been a person whom he could dislike discreetly and un explosively one whose cleverness and assurance and gelid tranquillity he could even admire while disapproving. But now his insolent rebuke regarding Doris had set every nerve a-tingle. If he had delivered it with regard to any other man or woman on earth! But this adorable girl, who had been for him a delightful companioning phantom through dreary past weeks! As if he did not know he was un worthy to loosen the latchet of her shoe! But to be told so by this bloodless moralist, this autocrat of self esteem, who had presumed to state, not long ago, that his presence in the house was a pollution of it! "There," he said, gathering up the two sheets he had written, and tossing them sideways. "You can use those or not, as you please. Here on this page are a few sentences to be added." He at once began to write again, but in a dashing, insecure hand. Then he signed his name, and wrote the date below it. Afterward he rose and caught up his hat. "I wish to leave your house, Mr. Courtelyou. Per haps it would be better for you to go before and recon- noiter a little. There's a chance, you know, that I might come across someone whom you objected to my meeting. Your sister, for example. A glimpse of me in one of the halls might be positively compromising." Courtelyou saw that the man, for "two pins," would have thrown aside all further connection with this affair of unmasking Lynsko and his allies. But the lawyer had no desire now to relinquish either the course of exposure itself or George's aid in the pursuit of it. "If I have again given you offense," he said, "I must again ask your pardon." The words look humble as written, but they were filled, as Courtelyou pronounced them, with a perfunctory and rather weaned conde scension, and they served to exasperate their hearer more than if they had teemed with belligerence. "I shall not trouble you," said George, "to apologize a second time. It is very clear to me that you have ex plained yourself in most accurate terms. I can hardly imagine how the poor,, the unfortunate or the sinful could 116 NEW YORK. gain any help from your harangues, whether you vented them in the humblest lecture halls or to audiences of in fluential reformers. It seems to me that your self-satis fied egotism must crop out there, just as it does else where disagreeably in one case and impertinently in the other." Courtelyou played with his watchchaiu a moment, looking studiously down at its minute gold links. "You are that impossible person one who has made his own bed and refuses to lie in it." "I am nothing of the sort. But I insist on your brutality in reminding me that the bed is a hard one, and trying to scrub my flesh with the coarse serge of its sheets. There are the papers." George jerked one thumb toward the table. "Tear them up or utilize them, as you see fit. " Courtelyou 's smile had become a sort of glitter. He lifted his shoulders, and then gave one hand a quick, airy little flourish. "Am I to understand, then, that you refuse me your co-operation?" "For the sake of bringing to earth a gang of rascals I won't refuse it. But its powers are intensely limited, as I think I have shown you." "Then you agree to act if you receive instructions to act?" "Yes." "I have your address." "I gave it j'ou. " Cortelyou drew forth a little notebook from an inner pocket. "Yes," he said, scanning a certain page; "I have it here." Then he read it aloud, and the "Water Street," coming from his lips, was to George like a sneer made vocal. "Since you are bent on rushing away," Courtelyou pursued, a little absently, and as though other notes on other slow-turned pages were absorbing him, "Why er good-night to you." Without any reply, George left the room and soon after ward the house as well. But as he passed the drawing- room doors, which were now wide open, with a flood of soft light pouring from them, and glimpses of silk-shaded. NEW YORK. 11? lamps visible bej'oud, he saw a young woman, richly dressed, standing near the threshold. "Osborne," she said and then recoiled, murmuring, "Excuse me." She was tall, graceful of build, and with hair fashion ably massed high on her head, above a keen, pale, some what pretty face Courtelyou's made feminine, though without the jutting forehead. "His sister, Martha," thought George, as he got him self into the street. "They're as like as two icicles, ex cept in point of size. And she's going to-morrpw with a crew of newsboys to lona Island. God help the poor newsboys! Oh, yes, by the way, God is going to help them. Doris Josselyn is going, too!" 118 NEW YORK. XVI. ONCE in the Third Avenue elevated, being hurried downtown, George found himself surveying his late wrath subjectively, as though it were a volume of fog that floated away from him in misty curves and spirals. He saw distinctly now that Doris had been the sole cause of his shattered self-control. It seemed to him that he could have borne with patience almost any other kind of rebuff from this man, whom he had already grown to regard with antipathy. On alighting from the train and beginning his home ward walk, he took stealthy pains to note if he were being watched by any one in the moonlit and half-de serted streets. Not till he had reached his own door did he desist from this covert yet vigilant survey. And on going upstairs to his room he had gained the firm assur ance that his maneuver of departure, during the early evening, had effectually fooled the spy set on his tracks. "To-morrow,"' he concluded, "I shall probably be let alone or at best watched with far less diligence." To-morrow, as it turned out, he gradually received the impression that he was not watched at all. The weather changed during the night, and was drenchingly rainy all day, with wild gusts of wind. He had got to detest such days of storm, for they made his work far more difficult while decreasing his profits by giving him much less to do. But this day he greeted with satisfaction ; it allowed him to stand under awnings or in doorways without fear of seeming to suspect that he was observed. The next day, thoiigh hot and humid, was clear again. In South Street he suddenly came face to face with Lynsko. "Be in your room at eight o'clock to-night," said the Pole, and passed on, with his diamond eyes a-glitter just above his black mist of beard, and not wait ing for either refusal or assent. NEW YORK. 119 All tbe rest of that day George kept wondering if Os- borne Courtelyou had yet put his mode of warfare into any definite system of attack. Not to have heard from him would be embarrassing indeed if Lynsko's overtures should take an urgent form. But that evening, on entering his room, he was aston ished to find an envelope lying on the floor. Beyond doubt the crevice under the door accounted for its pres ence there. The envelope contained these words: "Much was done yesterday. Lynsko's associates are being looked up, and wherever he goes he is spied upon. Get from him any handwriting with reference to this matter that you can possibly induce him to give you. It will be one of our strongest proofs. Continue to be very careful about going away from your usual haunts. You may be watched, for all you know, by a different person and in a different way. Enough has been unearthed concerning tins Lynsko to render it certain that if he turns out as clever a firebug as he has been a real estate swindler he will make his mark in the latter profession. His record is odious, but no more so than those of several political rogues who have been his backers for several years past. Two of these are high in office one is a Tombs lawyer, hand-and-glove with a most corrupt district assembly man, and the other is a deputj r county clerk of shadiest character. Whether these two men have agreed to share his spoils or no, I cannot say. But it is probable that he has an insurance adjuster and a clerk of the fire mar shal himself, both deeply concerned in his scheme. If he pushes you toward immediate action, write me, and mail the letter with all the privacy you can manage. As you see, I am working with great energy. "Within the past ten minutes I have learned that on the very floor you occupy is a suite of rooms lately vacated. I shall at once do my best to place there a family of three or four people. These will be your invaluable assistants as wit nesses. The case fascinates and absorbs me. I have postponed and no doubt at great personal loss other employment which would mean thousands of dollars if I promptly carried it on." 120 NEW YORK. "Self-worshiping egotist!" thought George. "He cannot refrain from telling me this. He would like it to be cried from the housetops, as it will be, if his eager en deavors succeed. Howl read him! A real power for good a passionate hater of evil and yet brimming with vainglory, having not a spark of Christian modesty, adamant to the appeals of those whom temptation has overthrown, and because he has never yet faced a temptation which his own congenital reverence for 're spectability' did not toughly arm him to overthrow!" Then George read the remainder of the letter, Avhich was brief enough. "Do not tear this up, but burn it, and burn it completely to ashes. "Yours, O. C." He had obeyed that final demand, and was seated be side his lamp, thinking one minute of his self-sought crusade against human depravity and ruminating, the next, as to whether he might not hav been wiser to leave the whole diabolism severely alone, when Lyusko's knock sounded at his door. "Brutal day, yesterday, wasn't it?" began his detested guest. "My spirits w ere indigo." He reached toward the table, being now seated near it, and took up one of George's books. "'Jean Valjean' m yes; but you shouldn't be reading such books as 'Les Miserables. ' The woes of outcasts will no longer concern you. You are going to turn over a new leaf of prosperity." "The woes of outcasts," said George, "would in any case concern me." "Philanthropic, eh? Well, there's no harm in being that, if it brings amusement." "Eather a light word to explain the gratification of doing one's duty." "Duty!" "With a curious mellow chuckle, Lynsko pulled down two thick locks of his fleecy beard and stared at the finger tips that clutched them. "Bah! duty to what? Duty to whom? Look here. He flung one leg across the other, let both the locks fly back into place amid the big smoke-like floss whence he had dragged them, and raised one hand, vertically sawing the air with it while he again spoke, NEW YORK. 121 "I've seen all kinds of life the lowest, as you know, and (in Europe) sometimes the highest, as you don't know. Before I was thirty I'd breathed the atmosphere of two courts, and talked, now and then, with two kings. I've met men of all types, all grades, and exchanged ideas with them in four different languages) apart from my own Polish) either of which I speak equally well. And now, at the age of fifty-three, I'm able to say this, and say it with the truth born of deepest conviction. Never have I yet come across a man who hadn't his price." George merely replied with a faint, neutral nod. "Duty, indeed! It's the same sham as Christianity. How many so-called Christians would openly hate God instead of worshiping him, if they were not afraid? Duty is the same sort of fear, till greed steps in and changes it to courage. And why should it be otherwise to-day with the whole mass of mankind,? Your Shake speare speaks somewhere of money as "the yellow slave." Perhaps it was a slave, in his time. The world was't so densely overpopulated, then. Now r , in every city and town and village, it's a master, and a tyrant as well. Everybody is hungering for money, struggling after it, straining to get it. There is no such thing any more as respectable poverty. To be poor means to be as badly off as the inmates of jails and worse. Look at Wall Street a pack of gamblers, all crowding round one huge faro table, all with greedy eyes fixed on the next card that turns up. London, Berlin, Vienna, each has its Wall Street, and the Bourse of Paris is a hell of hazard that Monte Carlo itself can't match. Yellow slave, indeed! Money is a yellow despot, a yellow czar! Look at De Lesseps, dying smirched with shame after a life of honor! See the men that were ruine4 by that whole Panama exposure paragons, autocrats of probity and principle! Mark the plunderers that have ruled us here in New York for so many years, and are ruling us still, in the same bold, venal way, despite Tweed's over throw and the transient rage of swindled citizens!" George was turning over the pages of "Jean Valjean." "Would you then say," he asked, with neatly assumed. NEW YORK. indifference, "that there are no honest men just now in habiting the planet?" "Oh, lots of them," laughed Lynsko, softly "lots, until they are tempted. Some die without ever being tempted enough." "But, as you've stated, they all have their price." "Yes why not? Religion used to be a force; it's now only a sentiment. Men once died for it; they now forget its very existence six days in the week and recol lect it on the seventh because it produces a lull in the jingling dens of the money changers. Formerly, gold was less adored because it could buy so much less happi ness. Now it is the universal God, because it can bribe into abject submission everything except disease and death. In many cases it can even stave off these for years, the push of science having produced brilliant medical specialists, where once there were only dull- witted leeches. Railroads and steamships have made it possible for the rich to gather thousands of luxurious things, useful things, beautiful things, from lands that it once -took weeks or months to reach. Comforts and grandeurs and splendors of surrounding are now pro curable for the millionaire, which his forefathers, if equally wealthy, might have desired in vain. The whole world has altered its allegiance. High birth is a trivial ity where of old it was a reverenced creed. Italians with the blood of the Caesars, Spaniards with ancestries of nine centuries, Frenchmen who can trace back beyond Charlemagne, Englishmen, whose pedigrees begin almost with Egbert, are coming over here in search of heiresses, whose grandfathers were stablemen, butchers, pork- puckers, or even horse thieves! The enormoiis passion ate craving grows with furious speed. Its a mighty international scramble for what we are all realizing as the one prize of true importance that life can hold out to us. Give me a million, and I'm a prince; give me five, and I'm a king; give me ten, and I wouldn't change places with an emperor!'' George raised his eyes from the book in his lap, and said quietly : "JIow is it, then that you who have so keen an appre- NEW YORK. r;';J elation of what money can bestow and who must have acquired enough to taste some of these pleasures you describe live in the shabbiest quarters as the proprietor of a junkshop while your sister Mrs. Volatski keeps a sailors' boarding house in South Street?" This cool question seemed to stagger its recipient for a moment. He closed his eyes threw back the lapels of his coat, and drew in a long audible breath Suddenly with a radical change of manner conse- quental swaggering, bravadoish, he retorted: "That's my business." "Oh I don't say it isn't," George replied with an air of easy security. "But you were certainly not minding your own business when you set a detective on my track, and your assumption of dignity and mystery both in one is a little amusing to say the least." At once Lj'nsko recoiled before this bluff snub. His face softened into a conciliatory smile, and soon he leaned toward George, putting his arm with one outstretched hand an act that made him feel as though a serpent were offering him caresses. "I only meant this New York is hateful to me. I stay here as long as necessity compels. Then, pouf, I vanish back to Europe, and take my sister with me. You see, now, my friend? You understand?" George made no answer, and the Pole, after a brief pause, continued: "With you it will be the same. "When you have got that big sum of money you will go away. All in all, you have been very wise." "Wise?" "To accept my terms yes. And now let us talk of our affairs. " Here Lo'nsko rose from his seat, went to the door, opened it, stood peering out into the hall for two or three minutes, and then, reclosing the door, strolled back to his chair. "The first attempt had better be made, we have de cided" (George noticed the "we") "here in this house. It will be easier for you to get your hand in, that way; it will make you feel more practiced, so to speak, for the other and harder attempts." "Yes. Well?" "Note this memorandum. You will purchase, at 124 NEW YORK. different drug stores, so much benzine, so much naphtha. The quantity of each is -written down here." Lynsko laid a paper on the table. "These two ingredients must be gradually bought, till they amount to a gallon. Gasoline has been employed on other occasions, but it's an explosive, and explosives are not in our line. Kero- sine can take the place of it this time, anyway. After ward' you'll get a gallon of that, and mix the three ingredients. It will make a very inflammable compound. Store the whole liquid away in two gallon cans, and hide them under your bed, or in any safer spot3 r ou can think of. This must be done within the next three days. Thursday morning, at three o'clock, is the hour decided on. I shall then be in Boston; you follow me?" "Perfectly." "Everybody else who will have any interest in the matter will be a good distance away." "Except myself," George tranquilly interjected. "Except yourself, of course." "And how am I to use this compound?" . "Ah, I was coming to that. By about half-past two you must begin drenching the entire first stairway with it. At the back of this second hall there's a window, with a fire escape just outside. Am I not right?" "Yes." "By the time you begin operations everybody Avill be fast asleep. Of course there's a chance of some belated or drunken tenant coming in and surprising you. Against this risk you must guard; I have little doubt, however, that you will find, at such an hour, no obstacle of any kind. From the head of the staircase in this hall you can throw a blazing newspaper, letting it drop on the soaked woodwork below. Ignition may not be rapid ; that will depend on your own speed. The stairs must be in a roar of fire, understand, before you dream of giving any alarm. And whether or no you do give any alarm is not a matter of my of our concern. You will have your window and your fire escape. It is for yon to determine the efficacy of your own work. If there is only a partial fire, put out by the engines before it con sumes the property totally, your wage is lost. We want NEW YORK. 125 no bungling. The thing must be done thoroughly or not at all, in so far as relates to your reward. This is a ramshackle building a mass of tinder. The destruc tion of it is by far the easiest task you'll have to per form. That back window will afford you ample means of flight. But you must give no alarm till you are sure the fire has got tremendous headway. As regards scaling the back fence, you must make your own preparations. You are young, active and vigorous. A few sharp in struments would enable you to cut certain notches, be tween now and Thursday " "Thursday is too soon," said George, thinking of Courtelyou's letter. "I must have a longer time. I de mand a week from Thursday." Lynsko lifted his night-black eyebrows and softly whistled. "Oho! We're getting cantankerous so soon, are we?" "Cantankerous, if you please. I refuse to be pushed like this. " "Pushed, eh?" "Yes." George went on in an explanatory vein, stating the intense difficulty of making the notches in the rear wall without being observed. "And then," he added, "this question of buying benzine and naphtha. I refuse personally to do it. The material, as you call it, must bo brought me. I will buy nothing. You can bribe detectives; bribe other agents. I shall not tempt arrest by being traced to drug stores. If you refuse these terms, let the whole matter end between us." Lynsko musingly caressed his beard. His next words were sibilantly whispered. "I see. You don't want iowork for the ten thousand. You only want to get it." George had a feeling that verged on nausea as he replied : "Either have the stuff brought here to my room or count me out of the whole business." Lynsko scowled. His white, feline teeth flashed in the lamplight behind his veiling beard. "You mean that?" he presently jerked out, with hoarse gruffness. "I mean that," said George, "every word of it." 126 NEW YORK. A terrible oath left Lynsko, though he did not raise his voice in the least. "It's a part of the danger you , agreed to face; it's in the compact." "I deny your statement." For a moment the Pole's brows grew so black with threat, and there came such a look of fierceness to his half-hidden mouth, that George expected from him some burst of bodily violence. But he met his gaze with great firmness and an answering touch of anger beside. He next spoke in surly semitone. "I should have known beforehand just what forma your whims would take." "It is ridiculous to call them whims. They are natural precautious. As for danger, I shall be brought in contact with quite enough of it. Placing me in such a position that apothecaries can't identify me as the purchaser of these chemicals, I hold to be a needless measure. And I also insist upon a week from next Thursday. If you supposed I would be your servile puppet, permitting you to pull my wires just as your caprices prompted, you have been grievously mistaken!" Before Lynsko let him, that evening, George had carried both points. He had gained time, and he had avoided any future charge of personally abetting a crime which he had no intention to commit. He had tested, too, the intensity of Lynsko 's desire for his services. At the same time he was aware that the Pole had quitted his room with fresh doubts and suspicious of his loyalty to the whole infamous cause. Three daj-s passed, dur ing which he did not see Lnysko. Whether or no he was still watched he took slight pains to observe. The man who had formerly followed him everywhere, how ever, had now disappeared; of that fact he felt thor oughly confident. If he were made the object of a closer and more subtle system of surveillance he did not choose to perturb himself by seeking to discover. On the afternoon of the first day he wrote a note to Courtelyoii, stating how he had postponed the time for setting fire to the tenement in which he lived, and how he had insisted that the inflammables should be brought to him instead of his being compelled to procure them NEW YORK. 12? in person. This note he dropped into one of the South Street lamp post letter-boxes with an almost juggler-like dexterity and quickness. On the afternoon of the second day he chanced to pass his own Water Street lodgings while a cart of furniture and household chattels was being unloaded at the doorway. Instantly he remem bered a certain passage in Courtelyou's missive. Did this mean that the rooms on his own floor, just across the hall, were to be occupied by tenants, whom the lawyer had sent there? Showing no special curiosity, George moved onward. That evening, while he was unlocking the door of his chamber, a man emerged from one of the opposite door- ways. He was elderly and quite gray, with a mild intel ligent face. "Is this Jack Jackson?" he asked, with a faint smile. "Yes," said George. He at once produced a letter, without superscription of any sort, handed it to George, and disappeared again while he was tearing open its blank envelope. 128 NEW YORK. xvn. "An imprudence," thought George, looking about him in the void, narrow hall. "I should not have opened the letter here. " He at once went into his own room, locked its door on the inside, and was soon reading these lines : "I am glad 3 r ou secured the postponement and refused to purchase the combustibles. This will be given you as soon as possible by Joseph Bigsbee, who moves to-day in to the vacant rooms with his wife and sister. He is em ployed as a baggageman at one of the riverside depots a few blocks away. He bears an excellent character, and understands precisely what I want him to do. When he is away his wife and sister will act in his place. They are a three quick-minded and capable; my having got them at such short notice is a great stroke of luck. Talk with them as often as you please between now and Thurs day, but use every care in your communications. This is probably the last letter I shall send you. Preserve carefully the memorandum he gave you; it will be evi dence of value. He will no doubt buy the chemicals him self and bring them to you with his own hands, for he is afraid to trust any one. I have placed three detectives upon all his doings, and each is a man of great shrewd ness and experience. They know just how to deal with so wily a subject, and he cannot enter any drugshop without their knowledge. If possible, some one of the three Bigsbees will see him carry the cans to your door. Should he leave the city on Thursdaj' it will be a bad blow for us. But I think he will stay at his place of business in Pike Street. Your mode of action, in that case, will be to send him, at about midnight, a message " "A message!" repeated George, astonished, keenly interested. NEW YORK. 139 "A message," he continued reading, "in which you will beg him to join you immediately, as something very strange has happened, and you do not wish to act with out his advice. He will obey your summons curiosity will force him. Meanwhile in the Bigsbee's rooms there will be two policemen (not uniformed) waiting. You will then tell Lynsko that you suspect the Bigsbees of being set to spy upon you. This will greatly surprise him, of course. You will pretend extreme nervousness, and insist that he remain and aid you for this once. If he refuses, desist from pressing him too far; it might rouse fears of your treachery. "If, however, he consents, the beginning of your operations cannot, I think, be so stealthy that they will escape my two men, intently listening near by. Then he will be caught in the act, and arrested. The officers will perfectly understand your own position, and leave your liberty unmolested. Eight on from the next morning until the end of Lynsko's trial I will support you with my own testimony regarding your complete innocence, and also with whatever influence, my legal and social stand ing may possess. "But if, on the other hand, he quits the house, refusing the slightest co-operation, I advise you to waive the whole affair, voiding the vessels of their liquid and placing them somewhere outside your apartment with as much expedition as you can manage. Thenceforward I shall work with what information you have given me, and only ask your aid at some future time possibly mouths hereafter when my constant espionage may have resulted in finding the Pole at some new 'firebug' trick, and when your evidence may assist in bringing the viperous creature to the justice he so richly merits. "And let me write you, in ending this lengthy screed, that I have lately discovered the reason why a man of his outward refinement and inward culti vation lives as he does, keeping a shop full of second hand rubbish in Pike Street. His swindling games in the real estate market are not the sole cause of this shabby retirement. Those very nearly put him in prison, and would have done so but for the help of his venal political friends. But since their occurrence he 130 NEW YORK. was concerned in a bank-robbery which he contrived to operate, as far as I can learn, very much as he is now seeking to operate his present loathsome design. Two victims of the law are now serving long sentences. That they were his minions many people have no doubt. He was arrested, gave bail, and lack of definite proof, com-^ bined with the assistance of those fellow scamps whom I have twice before mentioned, saved him. He is now very well aware that if he appears in the more reputable parts of the town he runs the chance of recognition and open abuse. Something, too, I have got hold of regard ing his past life in Europe. During his earlier life ho secured a diplomatic position in Berlin, through the aid of a Russian nobleman whose natural son he is said to be, by a Polish Jewess woman of some rank. But al though his abilities were widely admired and he was sent on a mission to Italy that involved the settlement of certain moderately important affairs, a shady and damn ing scandal something as bad as cheating at cards, or the taking of a proffered bribe to betray state secrets caused his flight over seas. The alleged sister, whose name I do not recall, is probably some woman of his own country, who followed him here, and for whom even his depraved nature reserves a few sparks of real human affection. "This is all. I am compelled to write in haste, as other engagements claim me. But believe firmly in my unwavering zeal inspired by no other motive than hatred of wickedness like this Lynsko's and a desire to punish it, to make of it a crying and reformatory exam ple. O. C." "No other motive?" said George to himself. "Ah, my gentleman, you forget one other ambition." It was after nine o'clock at night when Lynsko and George again met, and nearly four days had elapsed since their previous meeting. He carried two gallon cans full of the deadly fluid, and appeared excessively nervous as he de posited them on the floor of the little room. George had meanwhile seen all the three Bigsbees on several occasions. The women were both commonplace NEW YORK. 131 persons enough. Mrs. Bigsbee, stout and meek-e3 r ed, had a much more timid air than her somewhat gaunt sister-in-law. It was plain that none of the three relished the position in which fate had put them. Still, they were clearl3 r bent on the most faithful discharge of their assigned task, and understood just the combina tion of self-effacement and vigilance for which thej' were being liberally hired. Lynsko did not remain long in George's room after conveying the cans there. His vivacity had all gone, and a sullen gloom replaced it. He curtly told George that there would be no need of meeting him again until Friday morning. "By the way," he asked, as they went out into the hall together, "do you know anj'thing of your new oppo site neighbors?" "Very little," George replied. . "The janitor tells me they're rather quiet people." "Very, as far as I know." "And also that the man, Bigsbee, is employed not far away." "Oh, is he?" "You haven't come across him, then?" "We spoke a few words together here in this hall, not long ago." "I'd rather not have had them come in yet, Lynsko muttered. "If I hadn't been afraid of making the janitor suspect, I'd have kept them out until after" he paused, as if struck by something absurd at the end of his phrase. "Next Friday morning," supplied George; "I see. But, really," he went on, "there doesn't seem to be the faintest danger." "Still, better if those rooms had stayed empty that's all. By the way, one of the women saw me when I came to you with the cans. No sooner had Lynsko gone than George knocked at the Bigsbees door. He explained to Mrs. Bigsbee that she had just seen the proprietor of the house and that he was carrying a combustible fluid which was meant for setting fire to it. "Would you know him again, Mrs, Bigsbee?" asked George, 132 NEW YORK. ""Why, yes, I I guess I would," quavered the woman, all plumpness and timidity. "Amelia, you know you would," said her sister-in-law, with the grimmest of nods to George. "Yes, Jane, I I guess I would, too." "It's not a question to feel uncertain about if you were ever asked it in court," laughed George. "My!" shivered the sweet-faced, fleshy creature. "Court!" "Never mind," nodded Jane Bigsbee; "I seen him, too, through a crack o' the door. I'd swear to him quick enough. Trust me. My sister-in-law 'd faint awaj- if a lawyer said 'boo' to her." "I hope not," answered George. "You go along, Jane!" And Mrs. Bigsbee amiably slapped her kinswoman's arm. "I'll bet I'm nervier than you, when the time comes." "Nervier!" solemnly jeered Jane. "You, Amelia!" "I hope you will all three show nerve enough to testify against this man, as far as you are truthfully able," said George, with great seriousness, quite throwing aside his "dialect," as he had done from the first with these people. For the crime which he wishes to commit, as Mr. Cour- telyou has already told you, is among the most horrible any human being could conceive. Here in this house he will never commit it, for I, his intended agent, will pre vent that. But we four may also find means of keeping him from ever repeating his vile attempt, by bringing him, through our testimony, to the cell of a felon though death would be his far juster sentence." George had not ventured to ask Lynsko whether he would remain in the city or depart from it. When Thursday came he was still ignorant of the Pole's inten tions. But by eight o'clock on Thursday night he had received from Bigsbee a few lines in the handwriting of Courtelyou : He has given no sign of leaving town to-day. Send your message a little before midnight." George found a lad of about sixteen years, whom he knew he could trust, and by nine o'clock had given him NEW YORK. 133 this message, with instructions to deliver it at the Pike Street residence a few minutes before midnight. If Lynsko was in bed he must be rung up, and if he were reported out of town by any one in his lodgings over the shop, then the youth must return with the letter. Thursday night was in early September, mild and starry. By eleven o'clock George saw two men, both rather burly of build, slip silently upstairs and pass into the Bigsbee quarters. Here, he thought, might lie ruin to the whole undertaking, provided Lynsko's distrust of himself still continued and the Pole had put watchers at work to note signs of foul play. In that event it was easy to surmise what might follow. Lynsko might at once assume the defensive, demand his room to be searched, denounce him as a would-be "firebug" assume any conceivable posture of malicious and venge ful audacity. The hours of waiting were long. After his final inter view with the Bigsbees, during which the two non- uniformed policemen stood mute in the background, and during which he gave warning against any sort of ob servance or eavesdropping except that of the most cau tious kind, George seated himself quietly in his room and prepared for future developments. He felt keenly excited, yet undisturbed by the least physical tremor. He was satisfied with the steps he had taken, and be lieved there was no fair-minded man alive who would not approve of the deceit he had practiced toward Lyn sko. It had been his only weapon against a miscreant of blackest purpose, and he could reflect with unsullied conscience on the impulse which had swayed him in its use. He asked no public acceptance of the service he might do society in ridding it of so fell an enemy, but his veins were stirred with the hope that some sort of pardoning grace might drift to him as product of an effort made in the cause of right. He longed to have honest fellow-mortals, his former peers, look him in the eyes and clasp his hand and say, "Well done." A source of deep regret to him had been the underhand nature of the whole proceeding. It thrilled him to think of a far more open conflict with this ruffian soul, to 134 NEW YORK. whom the slaying of his kind was of so much less import than the stuffing of his pockets. And Poris Josselyn, who knew of George Oliver yet for years had never con sciously seen him -what tender and unspeakable victory might there be in even imagining her sanction of his course and her sympathy with it, provided he could only strike, now, toward the last, bold and unconcealed strokes or even die, for that matter, in some struggle that would bathe with expiation his memory as a kins man stained and disgraced! Lynsko, if trapped, would fight hard. He was the kind of man, also, to carry hidden weapons. But George had no implement of self-defense, and would have re fused to carry one if so counseled. "After all," he thought, as midnight sounded in the intense stillness of the autumn air outside, "perhaps he will not come. Indeed, the chances are all against it, even if he has not fled the city so as to prove the most irrefutable alibi." He rose, went to his door, and listened. Not a sound. The hard-working people on the upper floors those whom this awaited wretch was willing to burn in their beds were doubtless all the sleep of the tired if not the just. But suddenly it seemed to George that he heard a step, yards aloof, at the further end of the hall. It was slow and light, but the extreme silence loudened it. Soon it drew nearer, stopping at his door. Then came a knock, which proved Lynsko's. As the two men faced one another in the still little room, George perceived that his visitor had a most wrathful look. "What do you mean by sending for me like that?" came the quick hiss of his whisper. "Why do you think these Bigsbees are playing spies upon you?" George, under a mask of meekness, gave some reasons which he made intentionally lame. Lynsko's eyes glittered scorn. He struck the foot of the bedstead with one hard-knotted fist. "Bosh! flummery! You're a cow.ard that is all." George pretended anger, mixed with sham, "Oh, come, now; that's no way to talk," NEW YORK. 135 Lynsko snarled at him, and then scowled. "Coward, coward!" he jeered. George gave his head a sulky toss. "I may have got a little nervous," he said, as if drag ging the words forth inortifiedly. "There's nothing so very queer in that." "Nothing so queer, eh? When the bargain, square and fair, had been fixed between us! I wish I had gone out of the city as I thought of doing. Then you'd have behaved yourself less like a cursed baby." "I I'm afraid I shouldn't have done anything at all, without your help," said George, half sighing the answer. "My help!" And then the oaths seemed to crackle between his cattish teeth and bearded lips. "My help, eh?" "I thought you wouldn't object to helping me this first time. Afterward I would have more more self- reliance, don't you see?" The word "coward" again leaped from Lynsko. Then he abruptly started, and drew slowly back, staring at George. "Is there any trick here?" he asked. "Trick?" grumbled George, feeling his pulses quicken with anxiety. The game had so nearly been won the plot had given such fine promise of not falling through that failure now looked doubb" exasperating. "I hardly know what you mean, Lynsko. You've called me a coward, and I suppose I am in this instance. But I did want you with me or somebody, to relieve the awful soli tude and perhaps I have exaggerated a little my feelings about the Bigsbees. " If those poignant eyes had been knives how they would cut into his brain and heart! Lynsko 's brows grew slowly less stormful. Duplicity had gained a point with him. He still sneered, but not half so irately as before. "You got me here, then, by a deception " he began. "No; don't say that." "I do say it. What else has it been? Awful solitude, indeed! Ah! Do you think, my good sir, for one in stant, that if I assist you in this job I'll give you a dollar for it afterward?" 136 NEW YORK. George appeared to ponder this retort. "Well," he suddenly said, "let it be like that." "Let it be like that, eh? You're willing to dispense with all reward?" "For this once yes. If you'll stay through it with me this one night, I'll agree that the payment shall not begin till afterward." Here George half unclosed his door. "See, " he said. "The hall is quite dark; they turn out all lights, you know, at ten o'clock. It's well after midnight now. Why on earth should we wait any longer? It's only on Saturday night that any of the laboring men who live here come in later than eleven. I'm certain that they have all been in bed hours ago and their families, too." "Shut that door." The Pole gave his command in a guttural monotone. George obeyed him, and immediately he burst into a low laugh, teeming with contemptuous irony. "Why on earth should we wait any longer!" Another low rattle of oaths followed. " We!" The next second he sprang toward George, and clutched him by either shoulder, trying to shake his tall, strong, young body but not budging it an inch. "Hands off, please," said George, coolly, and before Lynsko knew it he was pressed with an iron gentleness into one of the two chairs. Just as George receded a few steps he saw the Pole make a slight gesture in the direction of his breast. But it was quickly controlled, and only a keen eye could have caught its broken upward swerve. "Oh, I know you're stronger than I am, Oliver! It's a pity your strength doesn't go with a little more manly courage. It's a pity " "Come, there's no use of your calling me a coward again, and all that," George calmly struck in. "I've liad a good deal of abuse from you, as it is. If you re fuse to work with me I'll not work at all there. You can go back home and I'll go to my bed. Which shall it be?" He spoke with great sternness and stubbornness now. The whole affair had begun to sicken him ; this night NEW YORK. 137 must mean the climax of his deceptive course. He felt ready to end it forthwith, either in fiasco or success. It would not be the former, however, no matter what might occur; it would merely be the shifting of all further personal effort upon Osborne Courtelyou, so stirred by moral or ambitious aims, or by both subtly intermingled. Lynsko got up from the chair into which he had been firmly and forcibly thrust. He was very pale, and ho trembled as if with inward rage. "How can I help you. One works at this business better than two. You don't need an.y light. You can drench the staircase in no time. Then, as I told "But I do want a light," said George. "A candle, like this." He took a tallow candle from his bureau while he spoke, and lit it with a match. The two cans were near, and in full evidence. He raised one. "Will you carry this," he said, "and the light? You can watch at the lower end of the second staircase while I pour the contents of the other can all over the steps, beginning with the top one on the third floor, and smear ing the banisters, too." He extended the candle toward Lynsko, prepared to have him savagely dash it on the floor. But, to his sur prise, the Pole took it, with a low, clicking sound, as if made by gnashed teeth. "Now is even safer than three o'clock would be," George continued, hardly daring to trust his voice be cause the rapid pulsations of his heart almost threatened to stifle it. Not that he had any physical fear; in place of that were thrills of wild gladness at the thought of this reprobate's capture. But the moments were so big with opportunity, the scales of triumph and defeat still hung so tremulously uncertain; and then there was the chance that his companion's acquiescence might be cover ing some crafty and even murderous fraud. "Will you take the other can?" he next said. "You can hand it to me when I've emptied mine. That lighted newspaper you spoke of I don't think there'll be any need of it. The candle will serve our purpose quite as well." Lynsko looked down at the can, but did not attempt 138 NEW YORK. to lift it. The light that he held streamed in among the meshes of his beard, showing behind them the hidden contour of his chin, which sloped, as George now saw for the first time, in a feeble, abnormal way, more like a rabbit's than a man's, totally at variance with the power in brows and eyes. "I suppose," he said, with a sidelong dash of one hand, "you've got your means of escape made good for you over yonder." George nodded. He had really nothing of the kind, however. "Well, and how about mine?" "Why, a few steps, you know, into the street, and you're safe." "Safe yes! In the arms of a policeman!" "Nine chances in ten you'll get away without a soul seeing you." "I don't care to take that tenth chance." He grinned tigerishlj'. "There's just my reason for getting you to carry out the whole job." Then another furtive volley of blasphemies. "If I thought " George faced him with an unflinching look. "If you thought what ? ' ' "Never mind." "Put down that candle," said George with stern care lessness, "or give it to me, and I'll blow it out. Either do as I ask of you or let the whole thing end, now and at once. You can go as you came. There will be no fire no attempt at one. I haven't a shred of proof against you, if you fear I'll turn informer. Come, de cide quickly." Lynsko stared, for a moment, at his light, and even leaned his lips a little closer to it as though resolved to blow it out. Then straightening himself, he threw at George a glance of contempt, irritation, disgust. "Well," he said, with infinite gruffness, while stoop ing and lifting the can by its slim, stout handle. "Come along. But recollect for this night's work, however it turns out, you don't receive a dollar!" George softly opened his door. He advanced first into the dark hall. Lynsko, carrying the candle, walked a NEW YORK. 13 9 few feet behind him. The candle, with its wavering flame, at once wrought weird illuminations and goblin, erratic, dancing shadows. The dingy tenement-house hall, where everything was one gaunt plainness, became transiently romantic as though it had been the corridor of some Gothic abbey or castle. The opposite walls and doors of the Bigsbee's lodgings were one fatastic flurry of glimmers and glooms. "Don't tread so loud," came Lynsko's whisper, acutely sibilant in the deep hush. "I won't," said George, though his answer was so intentionally high-keyed that it brought from the other a harsh "ha" of warning. And this reproof, as it seemed, was the signal for those who watched to spring. Whether or no they came from one of the opposite doors, or whether they had been crouched in some dusky wing of hiding, could not be told. In the glow of his candle Lynsko saw a man's face. From the other side of him a hand snatched the candle itself. Then the vessel that he carried, dropping from his loosened hold, made a heavy thud on the bare wood floor. The light, spilling its wax, flickered to a star, and swiftly brightened again. A patter of steps now sounded. The Bigsbees, all three of them, were at work with matches at the hall gas je^s. Joseph, his wife and Jane had three lighted in almost as many minutes. Confronted by a sudden group of five unexpected per sons, Lynsko stood terror-stricken, spectral in his pallor. One by one, he scanned each new face the rugged, plebeian features of either officer on either side of him the placid mask of accusation worn by Joseph Bigsbee the alarmed yet resolute visage of his wife the solemn and austere look of his sister-in-law. George stood furthest away. He had a tired yet relieved air, without a gleam in it of triumph or exultation. Suddenly Lynsko burst into a shrill cackle of laughter. "Well," he said, flinging out his words to no single selected auditor, "what's the meaning of all tbis?" George spoke, then, and with much composure. "The meaning of it is, Lynsko," he said, "you made to ine a horrible proposal- that of setting fire to this 140 NEW YORK. building with all its inmates asleep in it and that I used against you the only weapons I could use the same weapons you have used against myself those of stratagem." George's words had been slow, and for this reason (and perhaps, too, because of a certain high and gentle dignity about their utterance) every eye of those present was turned toward him while he made his answer. And therefore no doubt the imp of ire and vengeance in the Pole had time to wreak its baleful will. One hand slipped into the breast of his coat; he drew it forth, with something flashing in its grasp. Then two bullets, each with the hoarse crash that these jets of death make as they split the air, sped toward George. Lyusko would doubtless have fired again if one of the officers had not wrenched the weapon from his clutch. Then two pairs of stout arms caught him ; there came a struggle, passionate, brief, absurdly, unequal, a click of steel followed, and with twisting shape and glowering face, he stood handcuffed. Meanwhile Joseph Bigsbee had hurried to George. "You ain't hurt, are ye?" he asked. "Yes," said George, whitened to the lips. "Bring a chair, quick!" called the man to his wife and sister. But before the chair could be brought, George had dropped limply and heavily down upon the floor, in spite of all poor Bigsbeo's frantic efforts to buoy him up. "Is he dead?" cried one of the officers, leaving the prisoner and hurrying to where George lay. "I guess he must be," shuddered Bigsbee. "Look there." The blood, flowing from George's breast had already darkly drenched his waistcoat, and now made a glitter ing scarlet pool at his side. NEW YORK:. 141 BOOK II. I. "THE whole unexpected burst of feeling," said Frank Crevelling, "astonished me so at the time I heard it that I've remembered it ever since." He had just recited, with a fair amount of literalucss, George Oliver's fervid outflow respecting the churlish charity of the very rich, delivered fully six months ago in the little mission house near South Street. He had been a most faithful oral reporter, and had forgotten scarcely a single detail of the whole passionate, spontaneous avowal. Conversation was almost always general in his charming drawing rooms at the parsonage of his small Lexington Avenue Church, not far from Central Park. But this evening or this Wednesday evening, it should be more definitely stated, since his "at homes" were never held save on the middle day of the week an unusual attendance had occurred. And having begun his recital to a group of three or four men (the assemblages were always of men only) he soon found that his full, sweet, voice had attracted other listeners. "Begin all over again," somebody had pleasantly com manded, and Crevelling had obeyed. The two long rooms were .furnished with simplicity, but in faultless taste and with touches of great distinc tion. For a man not yet thirty-two, Crevelling's suc cess, in a certain social way, had been widely discussed. But once, when that word "success" had been employed by aa admirer who presented it to him besugared with an encornpassment of complimentary gratulation, he had frowned one of his exceedingly rare frowns and made this offhanded yet earnest reply : 142 NEW YORK. "To talk of my 'success/ Atherton, is ridiculous. In the first place I've never striven for any, as regards being a person of prominence. I've never wanted to be anything whatever but 1' ce wanted to do a great deal, and little enough, as yet, have I practically done. In the second place, I was 'backed' by a moderate inherited fortune at the time I left Harvard, ten years ago. Many a poor fellow must have envied me my power to go abroad and spend two years roaming over Europe. The res atiyus'a never bothered me a bit; what perpetu ally kept bothering me was a desire to reach, by some vital and active process of comfort, the masses of my fel low-men. In Boston my family was well known, though I chanced to be almost the last left scion of it. Of all things it had never been religious, and when I began a course of Saturday afternoon talks under the "protec tion" of my dear old dead friend, Dr. Transome, a popu lar Unitarian clergyman, I am afraid there were many wicked smiles I did not see, and there was much derisive laughter I did not hear. But I have somehow never been a zealot in the black art of making foes; the sowing of dragons' teeth is a form of agriculture for which I possess only the most limited talent. Whenever I heard that any fellow had pitched into me with either language or pen on the subject of what I said at those Saturday afternoon talks, I always wanted to get hold of him, but tonhole him, and fight it out amicably. You see, I could afford to take things in this easy, genial way. If I'd been a poor man, with my philanthropy tormentingly overshadowed and perverted by the need of bread and cheese, I might have turned into the most aggressive sort of snarler. But you speak of success. Why, I had only to shake the bough and down came the plums. Not liking the idea of being assassinated, some evening, within sight of my doorstep, I'll grant that I grew tired of spouting in Boston, and longed for a more capacious tank into which the crystal stream of my eloquence might radiantly pour. But one of the plums I just men tioned was this charming Lexington Avenue church, with this attractive parsonage attached. The congrega tion had just lost their pastor by a sudden caprice of NEW YORK. 143 death. Nil de mortuis but I fear me they were all a trifle bored by the old gentleman's rather colorless dis courses and languid energies. They desired "new blood," in a clerical sense. At a small salary I was pre pared to supply them with it. This parsonage in which we now talk together, was a dreadful barn when I first entered its doors. I had to erase and blot out a good deal of hard-grained ugliness, I can assure 3-011. But how sweet and fine 1103' reward for having simply let myself drift along as fate willed! I deserve not an atom of credit for anything I have done. Mission work, you say? Visiting the sick? Going about among the poor? Preaching to my flock what I believe the essence of Christianity? Why, these, my friend, are the kinds of pursuits that make life to me endurable. They are my dissipations my tobacco, my brandy, my morphine habit what you will. All the Titians and Eaphaels, all the Apollos and Dianas, couldn't wean me, while in Europe, from the wish to return among them." Crevelling's personal charm was in itself, if you please, no remarkable fact. Yet very remarkable was his ability to bring, not merely under one roof but into terms of positive intimacy, men whose views and opinions bristled antagonistic as opposing bayonets. You could not de fine the spell which he exerted. "We may want to tear one another's eyes out when we meet elsewhere," said a certain frequenter of the parsonage, "but at Crevelliug's we are always meek as lambs." And it was not at all that their host nailed figuratively to his lintel any motto about tolerance or loving-kind ness. This would have been fatal indeed to the very harmony which he managed to secure. No; by some delicate yet emphatic dower of individualism he was enabled to impregnate the very atmosphere of his parlors with a courteous loyalty toward their presiding genius. He who entered there by no means left hope behind; for he seldom rang the doorbell without an expectancy of much solid enjoyment. But he left something else be hind, as definitely as though it had been his cane or umbrella, deposited in the hall before crossing the young clergyman's threshold. What was the something? A 144 NEW YORtf. large part of bis self-esteem ? A huge fragment of his prejudice? Well, whatever it was, there it -waited for him to reassume when he returned to the hall, just as if the process of doing so had been no harder than to thrust both feet into a pair of self-adjustable overshoes. And out of the doorway he popped, reapparelled in all his wonted tenets, convictions, bigotries, to come back at some future time and doff them as heretofore. One somehow took an unconscious pledge of good-tempered serenity on becoming the transient slave of this peculiar and sunny despotism. And yet greater laxity of opinion and discussion could not be conceived, inside the bounds of ordinary refine ment and decorum. All kinds of thinkers would congre gate at these nodes Atticae a name given the Wednes day meetings by an enthusiast who had a classic turn. Crevelling never explained one guest to another; his buoyant, expansive manner had never the faintest apolo getic or condoning tinge. Perhaps the very equipoise of his cordiality, diffusing itself with so steady and yet generous a radiance, was the chief secret of this extraor- dinarj 7 salon. You came there to get his warm hand shake and to air your ideas if you desired. But you must air them civilly or not at all, and somehow the droop of the draperies, the soft lusters of the lights, had stolen a trick of tenderly enforcing upon you this gentle com mand. But the true authoritative source of the influence could be found, if searched for, in that young face of your entertainer, far from handsome yet more winning than if real beauty belonged to it, telling of its owner's unobtrusive dignity, his intense humanity, his facile and felicitous and stingless humor. The recital of George Oliver's declaration at the mis sion house, as given by Crevelliug, had roused universal interest. About ten men were present. One of them, a pronounced socialist, made the first comment. "Magnificent charity might of course take palpable shape through a coalition of this sort on the part of our multi-millionaires. But an unfortunate result might follow. The poor would become pauperized. We don't want to help the poor except in the direction of helping NEW YORK. T.45 themselves. Poverty is a curse that should not be fostered; it should be eliminated." "How true how entirely true!" came an answer. And smiles of amusement flickered on more than one pair of lips; for he who had just approved the socialist's affirmation was the only multi-millionaire present, and no less a personage than Mr. Lucian Beverdy. "I believe," pursued that gentleman, with the characteristic fondling of his thin gold eyeglass chain, "that this monstrous marble palace would contain, before many years, a num ber of exceedingly shrewd loafers of both sexes. They would resemble, I fear, those wretched tramps who have proved such a scourge to our public libraries and read ing rooms ^people who enter them to draw books and survey journals, over which they too often fall into drunken dozes." "More than that," said Osborne Courtelyou, with an applausive nod to Mr. Beverdy, who sat just at his elbow; "the administration of such a colossal charity would in time run terrible risks of official malpractice, dishonesty and degeneration." "Past a doubt, sir, you are right, there," said a social economist of some note, with a globular forehead and an immense, clean-shaven upper lip. "The history of nearly all large co-operative charities tells us that their tendency is to encourage fraudulent clerical manipula tion. The original founders die; their heirs succeed them; and it is alwaj r s not only a case of other times and other manners, but of other times and inferior morals." "Ah, yes," explained Crevelling, leaning forward a little in his chair, "but how about the splendid ethical essence of the whole conception? Ought not that alone to be educating and exalting? Beside, if our ideal marble palace fell into disrepute, here would be a fine stimulus for unborn reformers. Take as an example our own city politics. "We had the Tweed ring, and groaned under it. Then came a sturdy revolt against it, followed by a relapse. But now there are signs again of a waken ing public conscience. No; I think that progress, in these days, lias gone too far for all the people, as Liu,- 146 NEW YORK. coin put it, to remain fooled all the time. I believe, " (and here lie laughed blithely) "that the visionary mar ble palace of my friend, Jack Jackson, would shelter fewer thieves among its employees than could be said of our tagible marble City Hall." "And was Jack Jackson," asked a comic writer, "the name of this lofty being? What a disappointment! It's like hearing somebody call Milton 'Johnny' or Shakes peare 'Bill." Courtelyou had started at the name when Crevelling first pronounced it. "I can't help believing it was an alias," the latter said. "He had a very candid and manly face, however a face that I think I should know again; for the eyes, of a dark, rich sea-blue, had gleams in them brave yet singularly sad. Odd as it may sound to some of you more practical gentlemen, they were eyes that told equally of endurance and suffering." "I have seen such eyes," murmured a notorious pessi mist. "They belonged to a butler of mine who robbed me, one day, of half my family silverware.". "I feel sure," said a young novelist of the romantic school, "that Jack Jackson must have been an alias. Was this your onlj r meeting with him?" "Yes. I made inquiries of a certain Tom Glyn, there in the district, a most fanatical Salvationist, who often haunts the mission, and who has been, if reports are true, a terrible rascal in his time. But old Tom could tell me nothing except that the young fellow did all sorts of slavish work thereabouts for nobody in particular was, in fact, a very factotum of the most menial drudgeries." "And yet," said the romantic novelist, "he must have been cultured in striking degree to have spoken to you with all that delightful eloquence. It is just what I am forever insisting upon the unexpected portions of life are those best worth chronicling, and life teems with the unexpected." "It seems to me," said an elderly novelist of marked realistic trend, "that if you assert life to be teeming with the unexpected you leave no room in it for the ex pected, the ordinary." NEW YORK. 14? "You," said a popular poet, "are the oracle of the ordinary- I've given you that name," lie went on, with a disarming smile, as the realistic novelist winced some what painfully, "but only with a most respectful meaning." "It's a wonderfully apt definition!" exclaimed the romanticist, with perhaps a trifle too much visible enjoy ment of what he hailed as its pregnant appropriateness. "I've always insisted," said a literary critic, who had long ago had many an anonymous lling in newspapers at the famous realist, "that as the writing of a piece of fiction is as much a work of art as the painting of a pic ture or the chiselling of a statue, one should employ the same selection in creating a novel as does either the artist in either color or form. And it will not do for a writer of fiction merely to claim that he has been true to life. The camera is that. But what is the camera, after all, but a kind of reporting journalist?" "Oh, don't sneer at journalism," said an editor of some importance. "We are beginning to call ourselves the leadiyg novelists of the age." "And so you are," said the realist, looking at him a little pensively. "Only," he added, under his rather copious mustache, "I wish you would exploit your Xe\v York with more artistic care and patience. Less of the camera, I mean, and more of the etcher's prudent and studious pen." "To my mind," said a statesman, a big man with shaggy hair and the most voluminous of basso voices, "I believe you novelists are very much like us poli ticians; each one of you is trying to poll the largest number of votes. We all abuse Popularity behind her back, but when she rings our doorbell and pays us a call we generally give her a chair and a glass of wine." "Oh, it's he who gives the wine, I should judge," said the pessimist, who was also something of a rank cynic. "It's usually a rather strong potion, too, and it goes to the head of the drinker." "And why not?" said the literary critic. "The man who can write a truly amusing novel is a Pasteur or Koch, in his way. He has found a deadening lymph for the bacillus of ennui," MS NEW YORK. "I shouldn't care much for a novel," said the realist, gravely, "that was written only to kill ennui. I fear that in my own case it would only make boredom more operative." "Ah, yes," cried the literary critic, "that's the shib boleth of the modern tale-teller!" "And a very natural one, "said the romanticist. ""We don't want to be classed with the bromides and other anodynes." "I'm afraid," said the comic writer, "that for "a thor oughly good doze even laudanum isn't 'in it' with some of our reigning fictionists. " "Such authors, then," smiled the realist, though quite mirthlessly, "should be bought of the chemists rather than the booksellers. I confess that I know a few who might be safely handled, in a commercial sense, side and side with 'rough-on-rats' and exterminators of roaches." "Fiction," said the socialist, "should not be too serious. It trespasses, then, on the domain of history." "Only the historical novel does that," said the realist. "Ah," said the romanticist, "a perfect historical novel is food for the gods!" "Then the gods," answered the realist, "can't be par ticular about their form of diet, and are willing to swal low what is neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring." "Give me," declared the literary critic, "a novel that seizes my interest, no matter how one may classify it." "Give me," said the realist suavely, "a novel that seizes my interest in the right way. If it captivates me through the medium of curiosity, as so rnanj' novels do, it is no better than a prize puzzle." "Ah," rhapsodized the literary critic, "I don't ques tion the divine art of story -telling about what special mental faculty it appeals to! I simply allow it to en thrall me by its delightful magic. And alas! I can't help adding that the necessity of any such surrender is sadly rare!" "Everything divine, "said the pessimist, "ought to be rare. The only book I ever read twice was 'Robinson Crusoe.' I devoured and digested it at ten years old, but at twenty-five it gave me dyspepsia," NEW YORK. 149 The literary critic ignored the pessimist. He bristled with challenge toward the realist, who detested, as he knew, mere "plot" and "story." "We see enough," he continued, "of life's minor joys and miseries. We want to read of the important ones, the dominating and salient ones, when it's an affair of inventive portrayal." "'Don't underrate the minor miseries of life," ob jected the comic writer. "They're no less poignant because they seem to parody their grim superiors. I fancy that Hamlet might have got off a good round oath at finding a hair in his butter, and that poor Abelard might have deeply resented the navigation of a roach through his soup." "Ah," lamented the poet, "that is modern humor! Hood, an-d Lamb, and even Dickens, made us laugh. The new-fashioned humor, like that of Gilbert and his imitators, only makes us giggle!" "For my part," said the social economist, "I don't care an old glove to what 'school' a novel belongs, pro vided it takes me away from the dullness and tedium of life." "Precise!}', " said the realist, "and you could not do your author a greater injustice than by treating him thus. His province is no more that of amusing you than your physician's." "But what shall we do," said the statesman, "if we want to be diverted, eased, rested?" "Read bad novels," was the answer, "not good ones. Leave the good ones for your less fatigued hours. Treat them with the same intellectual respect that you bestow on Spencer or Mill." "Or that you pay our poets!" added the romantic novelist. "Who on earth," said the pessimist, "ever dreams of reading poetry nowadays?" "I do," said Crevelling gayly. "Your life is a poem in itself," said the poet, with rev erential tones. "There's no going against theAvill of the masses, " here announced Osborne Courtelyou, with his far-reaching 150 NEW YORK. though moderated voice and his clean-cut manner. "If I were asked what chiefly sways them I should say the desire to make money and the retroactive impulse to be amused. And the story, pure and simple, as old as Boccaccio, as old as the Iliad and Odyssey, amuses them most. After they have finished making money, or trying to make money, they don't want to take up a novel and read of how one male psychological study wasn't quite sure Avhich of two feminine psychological studies he had fallen in love with. They prefer battle, murder and sudden death." This caused a laugh, and Courtelyou rose in the midst of it, going up to Crevelling with his farewells. He was gratified by being thus enabled to make a happy and dis tinctive exit. But while he shook hands with his host, the poet tragical^' said : "Ah, that money-making! It is the curse of all art." "I joined a set of literary gatherings once," said the pessimist, "and I certainly found it so. We were ex pected to discuss great subjects. We were to have nodes cenaeque deum, and all that. But, instead, the talk was almost totally mercenary. 'So-and-so,' protested one, 'is the meanest publisher alive.' 'Yes,' agreed another; 'what do you think he had the impudence to offer me for my last book?' A third would say, 'The "Transcontinental, " pays better for poetry than any of the other magazines;' and then he would state for how much a line he had sold the last holy message from his muse. A fourth would tell of how a certain syndicate had prom ised him twenty-five dollars per thousand words for a manuscript and then cravenly refused him more than fif teen. And so it went on," continued the pessimist, with a forlornly droll look. "I had joined the society with aims of mental improvement. I resigned from it, three months later, having learned why so many authors aim, as the phrase runs, above the heads of the crowd. They evidently conclude that the crowd hasn't any brains, and shoot lower, so as to hit their pockets." The states man and the political economist both greatly enjoyed this, and led with sonorous, effect the laughter that fol lowed. NEW YORK. 151 A faint annoyance touched tbe corners of Courtelyou's clean-shaven lips. He was still standing beside Crevell- ing, and perhaps it stung his egotism not to have made a departure more neatly timed, vanishing before these plau dits, given to another, had tarnished the prestige of his own. "I hope," said Crevelling, low-voiced to him, while the conversation progressed, "that you have not been driven away by this thickening atmosphere of tobacco; for I remember that you never smoke." "No; it is not that, " replied Courtelyou. "I meet tobacco smoke wherever I go, and you manage to keep your apartments more free of it than are several larger ones at my various clubs." "I have a servant who is a magician at ventilation." "Does he also employ his necromancy in keeping your punchbowl forever filled." "Do you know," laughed Crevelling, putting his hand on Courtelyou's shoulder an act which few men would have attempted and which in many he would have coldly repelled if they had done so "do you know, my friend, that there are several members of my congregation who would like to empty that punchbowl out of the win dow?" "I haven't a doubt of it." "Strange, is it not, that because a man tries to help his fellow creatures a little and uses a church and a pul pit partially for that end, he should be expected to live as though he were the sworn foe of all sociality and saw vice in a cigar and damnation in a friendly glass of punch? The other night I went to admire Irving in 'The Bells,' and found myself stared at with undis guised horror by three or four people who too evidently recognized me. But before you go, my dear Courtelyou, I must tell you how glad I am that you won your case against that horrible 'firebug,' Lynsko. I read your speech against the prisoner with intense interest. It was magnificent, and altogether worthy of your great abilities." "Thanks, most heartily," said Courtelyou. "But I don't feel that I really won my case, Lynsko gets five 152 NEW YORK. years for attempted arson. What are five years for such a villain? Unfortunately the testimony of George Oliver, my chief witness, was tarnished by his having served three years in Sing Sing " And here Courtelyou suddenly paused. A gentleman was approaching Crevelliug to bid him good-night. And this gentleman was none other than Mr. Albert Josselyn, cousin of George Oliver, a tall man with snow-white hair and mustache, amiable blue eyes, and an expression somewhat careworn, which his frequent benevolent smile would cause wholly to vanish. As Courteb'ou passed into the hall, Josselyn followed him. "I suspect," said the latter, "that you are going over to tlio Patriarchs' ball." "Yes I thought of dropping in therefor a little while. Are you going?" "Yes. I promised to meet my people there. Shall you walk?" "Oh, decidedly. I wish Delmonico's were further away. " "Then," said Josselyn, "with your permission I'll accompany yofc." "It will be a great pleasure." And then, in his thoughts, Courtelyou added: "Con found him, blood's thicker than water. He's never shown it, though. I may be the 'man of ice' that his cousin, George Oliver, called me, but I doubt if in a similar case I would have acted with his utterly indiffer ent aloofness." The two men left Crevelling's house side and side. And Courtelyou was right; for they had hardly walked twenty paces along the lamplit streets before Josselyn referred most pointedly to his kinsman. NEW YORK. 153 II. "I TAKE for granted," the elder man pursued, after a few sentences had been exchanged between Courtelyou and himself, "that you know I am related to George Oliver." "Yes," answered the lawyer, -with an intentional hesi tation. "It er came out during the trial, if I am not mistaken. " "It did. One of that scamp's counsel drew it out dur ing a cross-examination. You know my wife every well, of course, Courtelyou. It shocked Mrs. Josselyn greatly." "I'm sorry to hear that." "My wife and my daughter, Grace, are exceedingly sensitive about such matters." "I think I understand you." "Doris, now, is so different. She thought it splendid of the young fellow." "I see," said Courtelyou, with dry quickness. "Miss Doris herself has told me something of the sort." "Ah, then you and she have talked about it? Doris has such such boundless sympathies! She believes, you know, that young Oliver must have been more sinned against than sinning. She declares that there was an effort on his part to redeem himself in the eyes of society. Poor fellow! God help him, if he had any such delu sion!" And the old man heaved a deep sigh. Courtelyou surveyed him in the dimness with a swift look of surprise. "I see, " he said; "you mean that there is no pardon possible." "None." The next moment Josselyn hurried along, with rapid and eager speech. "There were reasons, Courtelyou well, family reasons, as you will no doubt guess why, after his narrow escape from death, I did. 154 NEW YORK. not publicly visit him at the hospital where he lay. And tell me for I have never till now had a chance of asking you was his wound so very severe a one? "It's a marvel he lived, Mr. Josselyn. That devil's second bullet narrowly missed his heart. Almost a hair's breath nearer would have been his death. "And a very long illness followed?" "It was months before he could rise from bed." "And Josselyn stroked his chin with one gloved hand "his support during that time?" "Oh, there was hardly any real 'support' possible. As soon as he was able to speak for himself he insisted on being taken from the private room where I had had him placed, and included among the patients in the charity wards." "With what motive?" "Independence." "He still retains it, after " "Those three years in prison ?" Here Courtelyou smiled to himself. "My dear Mr. Josselyn, he has, for an ex- convict and particularly for one who admits his guilt an amazing amount of independence. I needed him at Lynsko's trial, as you know, but I feared, at one time, that his wound would never heal and that sudden blood- snffusion of the lungs would carry him off. I often visited him at the hospital. The truth is, he's a superb fellow, and that stigma upon him is a fearfully unfor tunate event. I never realized till now that so much moral weakness could coexist with so much strength of character. His courage, for weeks, was marvelous. There were hours at a time when he gasped so for breath that to look upon hirn was torturing in itself. Yet I never saw him show a sign of that hysteria which, in the circumstances, would have been thoroughly natural. Well, Mr. Josselyn, it only makes clearer to me what awful power a bad woman can wreak upon a good man. You remember Oliver's trial?" "Yes, yes," replied Josselyn, his tones nervously flut tered. "A woman was mentioned there, I recall men tioned by the defense a woman whom they could not procure as a witness, though they greatly desired her." NEW YORK. 155 Courtelyou looked at him steadily in the dusk as they were crossing Madison Square, going toward Delmonico's. "You seem a little excited, Mr. Josselyu. It'sabad thing before entering hot ball rooms. Perhaps we should not have spoken of George Oliver. I didn't know that you took any interest in him whatever." "Interest? Ah, Courtelyou, I've suffered yes, suf fered keenly, because of the indifferent part the seem ingly indifferent part which I've been compelled to play toward one of rny own blood." "Compelled, sir?" "Mrs. Josselyu is is imperious, on certain points. And then, you know, there is Grace, our daughter. She always kept bringing up Grace " "I see." "And so, then, you really believe George Oliver a good man?" They had reached the Fifth Avenue side of Delmoni co's. It was now half-past eleven, and Twenty-Sixth Street so short a passage, just here swarmed with car riages. They saw the lighted restaurant, filled with feasters who would soon be turned out, if they did not choose to go before midnight and make way for the sup per with which the Patriarchs, at numberless small tables, would provide their guests. And here the grouped or moving carriages were almost as dense. "I think George Oliver a good man," said Courtelyou. "I think him, too, in many ways, an extraordinary man. " He spoke with slowness, and a marked emphasis on each word. "Take my arm as we cross, will you not, Mr. Jos- salyn?" he added, in a tone light and colloquial. "The cabs and coaches hereabouts are having it all their own way." Who does not know a Delmonico Patriarchs' ball? Many thousands of New Yorkers do not, might be the answer. And yet, nowadays, the newspapers have so entirely usurped, in a descriptive sense, all this gay ele ment of New York life that there are doubtless young girla and young men in flats on. Second or Third or 156 NEW YORK. Seventh or Eighth Avenues wbo. could tell you all about Lander's band concealed behind palms on the upstairs balcony, and how the yellow-shaded chandeliers became the ladies' complexions, and whether it was Mrs. Van Wagenen or Mrs. Moneypeuny, who went down to sup per on the arm of the great arbiter eleyantiarum, and who were her and his chosen associates at the one sacred table d'honneur. The realistic novelist whom we met at Crevelling's this same evening, may have been perfectly right in granting that the newspaper writers are the great novelists of the age. There surely is not a doubt that they deal with all the "material" here which Balzac treated in his Paris. And, as it happened, while Jos- selynand Courtelyou were ducking their heads under the awning of the Twenty-Sixth Street entrance, a story- writer and a reporter were having the hottest of discus sions over their brandy and soda( of which both had taken quite too much) in the Broadway cafe. "Damn it," said the story writer. "You newspaper fellows are taking the ground right from under our feet. '' "We wouldn't," smiled the reporter, "if you could claim the ground and keep it." "Ah," sneered the story-writer. "It isn't that!" Then he grew a bit abusive in his cups, as gentlemen of the "artistic temperament" are wont at whiles to be come. "Fools," he cried (and I am afraid he pro nounced it "foolsh") "rush in where angels fear to tread." The reporter puffed at his cigarette. "All right. But if you literarj' chaps are really angels, why be afraid of us fools? Show your divinity, if you've got any there's the point ! Knock us head-over-heels with the cartila ginous parts of your wings. I should hate an angel that hadn't spunk enough to fight for his rights." Meanwhile Courtelyou and his elderly companion had gone into the grandeur and pomp and falsitj' and snobbery and plutocracy and very delightful brilliancy of the ball. Mrs. Josselyn was seated near the edge of the entrade reserved for dowagers when her husband joined her. She hid been a dressmaker at the time of her marriage, and not in her early youth at that, and she was very well NEW YORK. 15? aware that everybody knew her origin. But she was a woman of great energy and push. For years until her daughter, Grace, AVUS almost fourteen she had failed socially to succeed. Then had come the triumph of the millionaires, rising like a wave and sweeping victoriously over the old conservatisms of the Knicker bockers, and this new movement had carried her straight onward past the forbidden gates. She had now arrived, at last. She could hold her head as high as almost any body except the great moneyed autocrats. Her husband was worth precisely a million hardly ten thousand more now that he had retired from the drygoods trade. But she would not have had this fact known for a finger or an ear. Indeed, by every subtle and noncommital means in her power, she strove to have it believed that he was worth five millions, if a dime. She drew the line there; but it should be said expatiatingly of her that she pressed it to this distance because of her daughter Grace. At once she said to her husband, with the blandest of smiles on her fatally sagged and time-ruined face a face that an Englishwoman of fashion would have rouged and "made up" to any remorseless extent: "You came a little later than I expected. Have you been at Crevelling's? Yes? Dear Grovelling! How long he kept you! Mr. Van Corlear is going to take me down to supper. So sweet of him, isn't it? "Whom shall you take down? You've asked nobody yet? Why not ask this lady on my right? We both know her, you know Mrs. Tomlinson Clinch. She's a perfect hag, but look at those emeralds. And she hasn't an escort; I happen to know it. Don't appear so bored, Albert; you always do, at these places. The Clinches are doing wonders this year; her daughter, Sadie, is a great belle. He's the Chicago grain man, you know. They say it's seven millions, but who can tell? Ask her, Albert. I do so want you to get somebody, and not stand all alone downstairs near the sideboards, looking melancholy and deserted." Josselyn obeyed his wife, now as always. No sooner had Mrs. Clinch smirked assent, in her scraggy but be- 158 NEW YORK. jeweled ugliness, than Mrs. .Tosselyn, pretending half to have guessed what she was well aware of, very beamingly said : "Am I right in fancying that I heard 1113* husband ask for the honor of taking you .down to supper? Yes? And you were good enough to accept his services? How kind of you, my dear Mrs. Clinch!" And Mrs. Josselyn looked at the wondrous emeralds flashing on the skinny neck, and thought of how nobody else had thus far desired this lady as a supper companion, notwithstand ing all her glory of raiment and gems. "Times are so changed," Mrs. Josselyn continued, knowing that her listener was "new" herself and had probably not heard of her own newness. "We 'mammas' have to look out for ourselves, nowadays, and get part ners for supper; otherwise we must endure the humilia tion of going downstairs with our own husbands." Mrs. Tomlinson Clinch appeared to think this highly funnj-. "Dew yew know, " she replied, "I was saying tew my Sadie, only this very day, precisely the same thing? And Sadie answered : 'Why, mammar, half the time we gurls have tew look out for two partnerrs, one tew dance the Gerrman with us and one tew take us down tew suppurr. " Here was indeed the Western vocal "burr," most vigorously developed. Never having heard Sadie speak, Mrs. Josselyn could not help asking herself if the burr could possibly thrive in close proximity to those pretty roseleaf lips. But doubtless in the young girl's case, with her reported semi-foreign education, it did not exist at all. It was perhaps as non-evident as her descent from so unbeautiful a mother. "I remember the most fashionable balls, a few years ago," romanced Mrs. Josselyn, who had never been to them and only heard of them, "where the ladies sat along the walls of the supper-rooms and were waited on by the gentlemen. It wasn't half so luxurious or so convenient as the present custom of small tables with servants for each, but then it somehow brought out the gallantry of the men a good deal more strikingly." "Why, yes, indeed," said Mrs. Clinch. "That's the NEW Y@RK. 159 way they like tew dew it still, forr the most parrt, in Chicawgo. " "Grace," soon said Mrs. Josselyn to her husband, "is having a lovely time. The Earl of Brecknock has actually asked her for the German." This was held to be a potent compliment, for Lord Brecknock had of late been a dazzling star in the social New York skies. He was the eleventh earl of his line, and related to half the greater dignitaries of the English peerage. But he was poor, and he had not denied the report that he was in New York this winter seeking to marry an American heiress. Grace Josselyn, with her milky skin and red-gold hair and charmingly curled mouth and shell-pink ears and laughing, silver-blue eyes, had attracted him for several past weeks. He had, in deed, fallen in love with her. But he had nevertheless made efforts to find out the amount of her father's for tune, though without any definite success. And Grace, on her own side, was very much in love also passion ately, if you please, yet with a sense of the romanticism of becoming Lady Brecknock grown intertangliugly, inextricably, a part of her fervid sentiment. The earl was a handsome, well-knit fellow, hardly more than twenty-five, with a blond crop of wavy hair and a fine, arched nose, just large enough for his fresh-tinted face, growing almost transparently thin at either curved nostril. "He dances badly," said a rich man who was making his position, to a bachelorman-about-town who had made his thirty years ago. "But all Englishmen do dance badly, I've observed." "Quite true yes," replied the man-about-town. Here the rich man who was making his position felt his coat-tails gently pulled. He turned, and looked into the eyes of his wife. "William?" she whispered. "Well, my dear?" "Can't you manage to get lord what's-his-name in troduced to our Bertha? Just see her! She's dancing again with that fellow who writes poetry for the maga zines. William, I positively think she likes him." 160 NEW YORK. "I'm afraid," replied William, "that his lordship also likes Miss Josselyn. " "Pooh. Everybody says he came here for one pur pose. And if he supposes the Josselyns are so very rich, he'd better be put right. Our Bertha would have a dot six times larger than " "Stop, my dear. Not that you're being overheard; you're far too clever for that. But even to one another don't let us appear any more vulgar than we can help. Heaven knows, society in this lovely town is all vulgar enough; but let us try to cultivate a decent medium." And the rich man who was making his position lifted a monitory forefinger clad in creamy kid, and shook it gently at his spouse, who wore a gorget of rubies almost as big as the emeralds of Mrs. Tomlinson Clinch. "See old Van Lerius, " said one male guest to another, amid that swarm of black coats which usually haunts the main doorway. "How he enjoys himself, dancing about, though he'll never see sixty again!" "Van Lerius," replied the other, "is the most envia ble New Yorker I know barring, of course, his years, which he wears, however, so gracef ullj r . " "Why the most enviable?" "Because he is the richest of all the real swells a Knickerbocker multi-millionaire. Nobody can sneer at him as a pushing parvenu. He traces back to one of the Signers; his people were as much in the swim a century ago (if then there was any 'swim' to be in) as they are to-day. His wife is over there, talking to a Croesus, whose father carried the hod; his sons and daughters are scattered about the rooms, each having, I'll dare swear, a remarkably good time. The Van Leriuses always do have a remarkably good time, because they're sensible, and don't oppose the inevitable. Look, on the other hand, at certain other Knickerbockers. The Van Cor- lears, now " "They're not so rich as the Van Leriuses." "Not quite, perhaps, but they almost keep out of society because they say that upstarts have begun to rule it." "Begun!" the other echoed. "By the time that 'fin NEW YORK. 161 de siecle* means an end of the century in good earnest, these upstarts will be calling themselves old families. And they're perfectly entitled to their success. Most of the men are as refined as any American men ever are, and some of the women are completely charming. And, when all is said, what was New York society until these same upstarts appeared in it?" "Well, their opponents claim that it was much simpler and less pretentious." "It was simpler in the sense of being marked by fewer luxurious and brilliant functions. But it certainly was not less pretentious in the sense of snobbery and provin cial exclusiveness. The Knickerbockers (many of whom were not Knickerbockers at all) had, about fifteen years ago, everything their own way. And a very stubborn and stupid way it was. I, for my part, am glad their rule has ceased." "Then yon like to think that the two or three wives of the two or three richest men in toAvn are the leaders of society by right of money alone?" "I don't see why money, it wedded to culture (as it certainly is in the cases you mention) has not as strong a claim as alleged 'birth,' in a country founded on purely unpatrician principles. But we are growing rather philosophic, Tom, for a Patriarchs' ball. Introduce me, you promised you would to that nice California girl, whose father bought a Nevada silver mine, they say, for five hundred dollars borrowed mone3 r , at that and found himself a millionaire ten times over in the course of one afternoon." "I will if I can," was the answer. "But the devil of it is, she's so surrounded. She makes you think of the box-office at a theater during a play that's proved a hit; you have to stand in a kind of line and take your turn." Courtelyou had meanwhile moved about the large, crowded room, pausing here and there for a word or a hand-clasp. He had no real friends, if you will, but he had scores of acquaintances, and many of them warm admirers as well. Not a few women would have liked to know him better, but it had begun to be said of him that 162 NEW YORK. no woman could know him very well except Doris Jos- selyn, provided she chose. But Doris, who went little into the fashionable world, was to many merely a name. His late "raid on the firebugs," as somebody called it, had given him just the new sort of glittering distinction that he desired. Before he found Doris, seated with two gentlemen in one of the smaller apartments, he had received numerous gratulations on his last eloquent and scathing speech. Doris gave him her hand as he joined her, and one of the gentlemen rose, gliding away with an almost bashful bow, as if awed by the presence of this eminent lawyer. Courtelyou took his seat, but it was some time before he had a chance of talking privately with the girl whom he had come to seek. For on Doris' other side was a fleshy and florid man, of advanced years, who bore an old and honored family name, had a sten torian voice with which he only spoke inanities, cum- brously and pompously taking for granted that he wearied no woman whom he condescended to approach, though he seldom talked of anything but himself. "I'm so glad he's gone," murmured Courtelyou, at length "the elephantine bore! He's been lumbering through ball rooms for forty years, with his self-assur- rance as massive as his physique. Didn't he tire you horribly?" Doris gave her head a negative shake. "Why, no. I never thought about it, either way. At these places I never expect to be amused. Cousin Ellen had an extra card, and so I went with her and Grace." "Against your will?" "Oh, no. Mrs. Josselyn and I are great friends, you know. I don't do eveiything she wants me to do, but we get on very happily together, nevertheless. "When I'm disobedient she forgives me. Of course we're dif ferent. So are Grace and I different. But I love them both dearly, just as I love Cousin Albert. That means so much. I dare say that if I didn't love then and they did'nt love me, we should have dreadful family quarrels, and all that. But as it is, and as I just said, we get on delightfully. We're a very happy household. But you know this, of course." NEW YORK. 163 Courtelyou watched her in silent homage. To him she was by far the most beautiful woman in the rooms that night. This was far from true, and yet she was perhaps, in a way bafliingly difficult to define, the loveliest and most winsome. "You radiate peace and good will and loving kind ness," he said. "I can't conceivo of you as not 'getting on' with anybody. And yet it does seem so queer that there is no clashing between you and your kindred. For they, you must admit Mrs. Josselyu and Grace, I mean are a trifle worldly." "Oh, yes," said Doris, with gaze on her lap, where lay a big bunch of orchids and pink roses. Then she suddenly raised her eyes to him, full of soft, floating grayish lusters. "But I don't scold them for that, and they only scold me now and then, a little, for my oddi ties." "You said," began Courtelyou, after a slight pause, "that you never expected to be amused at places like these. For a girl of your youth and health and powers of attraction, that sentiment seems to me oddly dirge- like." "And why, pray?" "The lights, the jewels, the flowers, the music, the dancing, the gayety j r ou are not yet old enough, by at least ten years, to feel bored among their blithesome boundaries." "Ah," cried Doris, with a sad flash of smile on her lips, "I don't find that 'blithesome' applies to them." "No?" "No emphatically. It is all an artificial merry-mak ing, and I dislike artificiality. Here nobody is himself; still less, I should say, is anybody herselL The revel lers all wear masks, yet not so discreetly that one cannot catch glimpses of their true faces behind them. No ; it's not even successful as a masquerade. It has one big pivotal impulse pretentiousness. " "Oh, come, now! There must be society. We can't do without it." "We ought to have it of the better sort." "Of course we ought. Everybody will secretly agree with you. Everybody thinks, at heart, just as you do." 164 NEW YORK. Doris laughed. "Only they're not prigs and prudes like me. That is what you moan, I suppose." "The words are 3-0111- own. You mustn't call yourself names, however. It's an injustice which I shall resent if persevered in. May I ask who gave you those charming flowers?" She started, her face lighting. "Somebody who shares my contempt for this foolish brummagem glitter." She lifted the bouquet and hid her face in it, all but the two gray eyes, that shone starry above its tangle of pinks and purples. "Can't you guess?" "Frank Crevelling?" She nodded merrily. Then her look grew grave, in an instant "I dare say he sent them as a kind of con solation, knowing that I had no will to go here, among the attitudinizers. "We've talked 'society' over, you know, a good deal, he and I." "You've talked nearly everything over, I suspect," said Courtelyou, his tones dry and chilly. "He once thought of writing an essay on society for one of our metropolitan magazines or reviews. The editor had asked him for something of the sort. But he gave up the work, not wishing to be cross, yet feeling that if he wrote it at all, he must. I was disappointed. I wanted him to be cross just for once." "And you offered, I suppose, to give him lots of points." "Yes if he needed them. I suggested a name for his essay, too. That was decidedly cross." "What was it?" "'The curse of caste. " "Hardly a benignant title." "Benignant? No, indeed!" Doris drew herself up; the plaint line of her lips took a transient sternness." There are times when a spade should be called a spade, just like that! Oh, if you knew what heart-burnings I have seen what miserable struggles and sorrows! These multi-millionaires, as they are called, have brought financial ruin, I am told, into certain households; the desire to keep pace with their modes of living has in duced reckless disbursements. But it is not that sort of NEW YORK. 105 effect to which I refer. I mean the withering blight that falls upon certain lovable natures. There at Lenox, this last summer, I saw it happening to more than one charming girl; here in town I can point to others whom I knew such a short while ago in all the bloom of sincer ity, charity, loving kindness, but in whom not a vestige of either now stays. Pride has frozen them all ; they look coldly on old friends ; they care for nobodj- who is not of their little exclusive, haughtj- set. The curse of caste, as / call it, has withered their humanity. They .still remain Christians that is the strange part of it. They go to their churches, and pray. They assume to worship a God whom they believe to have been, here on earth, the humblest in rank, and who took for his dis ciples those as humble as he. And yet they worship much more devoutly this idol of caste, and sacrifice to it all genuine friendships, emotions, desires. Ah, it's a kind of contagious moral malady! They take it from one another, like diphtheria. I know its symptoms so well! I've watched them so often! the beginning of that slow change which is like a very ossification of the soul!" 'Keallj'," said Courtelyou, as he studied her glistening eyes, "I think you take your 'curse of caste' quite too seriously. There is my sister Martha, now " "Oh, your sister Martha has never been harmed bj r it. She has only a sort of humorous respect for the entire movement, and frankly admits that it appeals to her imagination. It has never in the least interfered with her finer instincts. Martha is fascinated by the pic- turesqueness of it all, but its falsity is patent to her. She never bends to it; she roundly abuses it; and you know with what a funny audacity she openly ttlls people that association with the swells is something that she always has on her conscience." "Yes. I'm afraid Martha is a good deal of a trifler. " "She's like you, "said Doris, obeying a sudden impulse of intense candor,"and yet radically unlike you, as well. She is what you would be if you had more humanity." "Am I inhuman, then?" "You're wnhuman, very often. There's a difference. 166 NEW YORK. You have no sympathy with your fellow-men, and you have an immense sympathy with yourself." He tried to laugh lightly. "How you misunderstand me, Miss Doris!" "Oh, we've talked it all over before now. I've told you how greatly I respect your intellect. But intellect without heart goes for so little." Courtelyou gnawed his lips. There was not another woman living from whom he would not have turned on his heel, resolving never to speak to her again, if she had thus addressed him. "Of all persons," he brought out, gracelessly and against his will, as men like him say things like this, "you are the last who should accuse me of wanting a heart." Just then two men of fashion almost simultaneously joined them, and a few seconds later Martha Courtelyou, on the arm of a famous ballroom beau, stopped and mur mured a few words to Doris, after tapping her brother's arm with her fan, and saying, in sharp staccato : "Well, Osborne, I'm glad you turned up. It looked positively disreputable for me to be darting about like this, without any visible protector; for how on earth are people going to know that I begged Mrs. Frothingham, this afternoon, for a seat in her carriage, with Emily and Caroline? And I'm sure Caroline is secretly furious ; the dear girl has a new frock from Paris, all puffings and flutings, and had set her mind on occupying a whole seat to herself. I squeezed myself into a corner as well as I could, but Caroline spent nearly twenty minutes in the dressing room, preening her plumes, and there's now an unforgiving glitter in her smile. This comes of hav ing a brother who deserts you at the eleventh hour!" Then to Doris her undertone was full of dainty re morse : "I know, dear, why you came out of pure amiability to Mrs. Josselyn and Grace. But I bless me, I was crazy to come, and am having a perfectly delicious time! I despise it all, just as you do. And this ball is the most utterly vulgar splurge I've ever yet seen. There are certainly five women here who look as if Tiffany had hired them for walking advertisements. NEW YORK. 167 But oh, I do so enjoy it all! It exhilarates me, it en trances rne, and yet I'm privately furious at myself that it does!" And Martha, with smiles and frowns chasing one another across her plainish though fresh-tinted face, which combined dignity and jollity in the oddest and yet most harmonious way, moved off on the arm of her cavalier. 168 NEW YORK. III. COUKTELYOU, soon deprived of all further chance to continue his tete-d-tete with Doris, presently took down to supper a woman in whom he had no interest, and who wearied him to death with her ill-hid joy at having secured him for an escort. She was sprightly, somewhat engaging, not without a fair share of wisdom and wit. But what Doris would have termed the curse of caste had mastered her with iron t3 r rauny. She might have shone in her own circumstantial sphere, being the wife of a cotton broker who seldom made more than ten thou sand yearly, and often considerably less. She lived in a small house, could not afford a carriage, had few serv- vants, and endured agonies of terror regarding the amounts of her dressmakers' bills. But nowadays, since the longing to go out and be seen among folk of the first fashion had savagely gripped her, she would have suffered still keener torments if forced to discontinue her struggles. Nobody wanted her in the cliques which she passionately strove to enter. She could not entertain except in a style where effort was pathetically manifest; she had really nothing to give in return for the splendid hospitalities that she craved. She was forever asking people to get her, and her rather dull husband, cards for this affair or that. She had been snubbed innumerable times, but no amount of rebuff could dishearten her. Two or three years ago she had been quite bloomingly pretty, and had possessed, in no slight degree, the con versational art. But now anxiety and yearning had stolen the roses from her cheeks and replaced by a wist ful stare the dark sparkle of her eyes. Instead of talk ing, too, with her old vivacious cleverness, she kept up an incessant prattle of the most fatuous gossip. "Poor little woman," thought Courtelyou, while he NEW YORK. 169 ate his hot duck and took a few prudent sips of exces sively dry champagne, "she is trying to make me tell her that I will use my influence with Mrs. Van Lerins and procure her two tickets for the next Assembly ball. But though her hints became sharper than needles, my tough epidermis, she'll find, can resist them. Yes, Doris Josselyn is right. There are people whom this 'society' madness has cursed and blighted." He never danced the German, and meant to get away soon after supper. But seated in one of the smaller rooms, he chanced to see Doris, quite alone. She gently beckoned to him with her fan, and in a moment he was at her side. "You are staying for the German, I suppose?" he said. "Oh, yes; what can I do? Grace is dancing, and I must stay on with her and her mother." "Your partner?" "He's gone to get chairs for us." "May I ask his name?" She told him, and he made a little moue. "You'll have to talk gossip or else remain mute. He under stands nothing else." "I don't talk gossip, and I told him so. He takes me at his peril. But then he is greatly sought after heaven knows why " "Plutus would know why. He has fifty or sixty thousand a year." "So, you see, he will be taken out all the time, and I shall escape him for long intervals. But that," she added, self-correctively, "is both bitter and ungrateful, and I don't wish to be either, even behind his back." "And yet, "said Courtelyou, not without a trace of animus, "you can be very severe to people, now and then, before their faces." "I was more than that to you, a little while ago," she said, with abrupt repentancce. "I was impertinent yes, really. Do forgive me." He seemed to be intently examining her bouquet. "And with whom does Miss Grace dance. Lord Breck nock?" "Yes, I believe so. Indeed, I'm sure of it." 170 NEW YORK. "You say that regretfully." "Oh, well; you know I don't like the whole affair. Grace is too interested, and he what may happen if he should mean marriage and yet find her not half the heir ess that her mother has foolishly led him to think her? There! that is a little burst of family confidence, isn't it? But then I look on you as a family friend, and I'm ever so devoted to your sister Martha, as you're aware. And both these facts are powerful reasons why I shouldn't have told you that you lacked humanity. After all, what on earth do I know? Martha dotes on you, and then" (here her voice lowered, though there was no potential listener within many yards of them) "and then you have surely shown courage and high-mindedness in your dragging of that wretched houseburner to justice. Do you know, I believe firmly in that George Oliver's per fect honesty of motive? And you, of course, are con vinced of it." "Oh, of course." "And he consented to take that means of exposure the only means. I read those answers he gave the cross- examining lawyer with keenest interest. They were so clear, direct, brave. And what he said of his own past of his fault, his crime! It was all so tragic in its un complaining acceptance of the shame that had befallen him. You saw how it came out that he's a cousin of Mr. Josselyn's and hence a relative of my own. Poor J/;\s. Josselyn was furious at that. But you must have known a long time ago. And yet you've never spoken of it at least not to me." "I did not imagine you would find it a pleasant sub ject." "Pleasant? No surely not. But with how many miserable people am I brought into contract every month whom it's not pleasant to meet? Still, I should have loved to visit him when he was so ill. I wish you had told me. You know how I go to all sorts of places. I feel for him the deepest sympathy perhaps because of our relationship, though by no means altogether. I used to know him when Grace and I were little girls, but I can't recall his face. There was a family quarrel be- NEW YORK. 171 tween Cousin Albert and his father. The Olivers had adopted a mulatto child, and treated her as an equal, and had her at dinner one day when the Josselyns went there as guests. I should like to ask him what has be come of her. And I never knew till afterward that his poor mother died insane from grief [at her son's convic tion and imprisonment." Here Doris laid a hand on Courtelyou's arm. "Cousin Ellen," she said, with excessive seriousness, "would be very angry with me for making you this request. But can't you ai-range to have me meet George Oliver at your house? Martha won't mind; Martha never minds any thing I ask her to do for me. She lets me drag her to lectures and charity festivals and heaven knows where else, at five minutes' notice." "You met George Oliver at my house," said Courtel- you, to his own thoughts. But aloud : "I'm afraid, Miss Doris, that he would not consent to any such arrangement. For one thing, he is excessively retiring, this kinsman of yours, and for another, he and I well, we are not on terms of very good acquaintance ship, notwithstanding our mxitual detestation of that scoundrel, Lynsko. I am very certain that he doesn't like me, and I doubt if I shall even have a chance of knowing his future whereabouts, now that the trial is over." "How strange!" murmured Doris. "I supposed you and he were on the friendliest of terms." "Oh, decidedly not," said Courtelyou, with a little thin, harsh laugh. And just then Doris' partner came to claim her. 173 NEW YORK. IV. IT WAS thoroughly true that George disliked Courtel- you; and of late, moreover, he had shown his antipathy with more openness than he himself perhaps realized. He was now living in a small room in a small lodging- house not far from Third Avenue on the east side of the town. His expenses at the hospital had been almost nothing, and his present funds amounted to a little over six hundred dollars. The frightful sufferings through which he had passed and the intense stoicism with which he had borne them, were still evident on his thinned and hollow-eyed face. There was that look about his brows and temples, a certain look of dreamy pensiveness, which those are apt to wear who have gone deep down into theVal- ley of the Shadow. He had been marvelously strong and patient during his worst agonies, and that exertion of strength and patience still seemed to haunt his features in some delicate unexplainable way: At the hospital his beard had grown copiously, but before final recovery he had shaved it off, rather through an impulse of habit than from any clear-felt motive. Still, when the time of the trial came, he was almost agreeably reminded of this act. For in the courtroom there were men whom he had known during former times, a few of his college asso ciates among them; and he preferred greatly that these should have remarked in him no sign of facial conceal ment. Nevertheless, he had noted well the disguising effect of the beard. At the trial he had stood simply as a witness for the people against Lynsko, and unilinchingly had told the truth, though Iaw3 r ers adroit in every species of chicanery had striven with all their evil arts to shake his evi dence. They coukl not shake it, for he fought them with an impregnable honesty. But what they could NEW YORK. 173 do was to parade in most glaring colors his unhappy past, and this, with ferocious energy, they did. No detail of his crime did they leave untouched. They knew, in their merciless arrangements, how to pierce their auditors with mirth or fret them into audible sneers. George saw his boyish passion for an unprincipled woman held up before him in flaunting mockery ; he was forced to wrench from his lips humiliating admissions, till the whole crucial business eclipsed, for sheer nervous strain, that fateful trial which had sent him to Sing Sing. Then, after having seen what supple pugnacity the New York lawyer of a certain type can exploit for his client under the stimulus of a fat fee, he was regaled with disclosures of how vilely this same personage can corrupt a group of paid witnesses, making them lie with an assurance born of deft previous "coaching." Mrs. Volatski, the " sister" of Lynsko, coolly testified to George's frequent fits of drunkenness, his constant pro fanity, his generally immoral life. Several other denizens of South Street and its neighborhood declared him a sneak thief by his own occasional confession and a pick pocket as well. One, a young man, whom he had more than once helped to gain a night's lodging or a much- needed meal, brazenly affirmed that he had brought him, one evening, into a low dance house and there had caused two disreputable women to ply him with drugged beer, inducing a stupor from which lie had waked with pockets emptied of a day's hard earnings. This witness had always been clad like the sorriest of tramps when George had hitherto seen him ; but now he wore a good coat and a clean shirt indisputably gifts of his bribers. With all this bevy of falsifiers Courtelyou dealt in magnificent manner. His legal reputation, during a space of three hours, seemed to augment with every tick of the courtroom clock. There were silences, terrible silences, in which these ticks could be heard, while the stammering, squirming liars stammered and squirmed under his steely eye. George, like others, watched him with deep admiration. One after one, he shattered their testimony by his rapier-like questions; one after one he made them slink away amid the jeering laughter of those 174 NEW YORK. whom his splendid acumen delighted. He used logic and language with an ease and strength that tore away their masks and left them shivering in dire discomfort. The district attorney gave him gratulatory nods; bursts of ardent applause had to be repressed by the gavel, sharply sounded; the defense gnawed their beards in sullen wrath ; and Lynsko, glowering on the dock, looked whiter and fiercer than even at the moment which had almost made him a murderer. George, intently observ ant, paid silent homage to the intellect, though not to the man. "It is not Lynsko, the black scamp," he thought, "whom these wonderful tactics are seeking to crush. It is himself, Osborne Courtelyou, the glacial moralist, the self-revering reformer, whom they are eager to elevate and advance. He would scorn the putting of these great gifts to base uses; but without the reward of personal fame he would be languid in employing them. If he were as fine a general as he is a lawyer he would never fight except in a true cause. But he would fight first for renown, and instinctively make the very virtue of the cause a secondary concern." In his final trenchant and scorching speech Courtelyou made much of Lynsko 's attempt to kill. The words could not well have been less rhetorical ; at times they did not seem even like language, but rather like plunges of a dirk. That speech sent the Pole to prison, and but for the tainted character of George's testimony it would have sent him there for double the time he got. George, realizing the new exhaustive strain put upon him, the revived scandal and odium of which he had been made an object, told himself, with pangs of dejection, that he had been rashly unwise. What good had he gained by seeking to punish Lynsko's villainy ? None. It seemed to him that his position was only injured the more, now that fresh publicity had been flared upon it. Still he resolved to make test of this fact. He had seen in the courtroom a certain Charles Churchley, his former college classmate and once his intimate friend. Churchley had been absent in Europe throughout his trial and conviction. Recently, while on the witness stand during his arduous later ordeal, George had more NEW YORK. 175 than once caught the man's familiar gaze, fixed upon him with a compassionate interest there was no mistak ing. "I will go and see Charlie," he decided. "Meet ing him again will be hard, but I will go." Meanwhile he had taken final leave of Osborne Courtel- you, and in this wise : A few days after the trial he held with him a private interview in his downtown office. They discussed for some time the details of the imme diate past. At length Courtelyou said, fumbling with a paper weight on the desk near which he sat: "And your own plans. May I ask what they now are?" "1 have made none," George answered. "As you know, I am 'Jack Jackson' no longer. I am living up town since I left the hospital." Conrtelyou nodded. "You refused my help there. You preferred to go among the charity patients." "Yes; I thought it best." The other made an irritated gesture, which he in- otantly controlled. "I know, of course, that you thought it best. But now at this moment will you think it best to accept aid from me?" "In money?" asked George. Courtelyou gave him a bewildered stare. "Money?" he repeated. "Why yes. "What other aid could I give you?" "A most material one," replied George. "I don't understand," said his interlocutor, with a dazed shake of the head. "It's easily explained, Mr. Courtelj'ou. I have now quite enough money to last me on through several months almost a year, in fact, living as frugally as I live." "Yes. Well?" "Money from you," George went on, "is something that I should not care to accept otherwise than as wages for future services." "Future services? But there are no more possible future services between you and. me. All is over, as you must admit. The execrable Pole has gone to prison " "Oh, I was not alluding to Lynsko, nor do I regard what I did in the way cf sending him to prison as a serv- 176 NEW YORK. ice rendered yourself. It was merely the discharge of duty which I owed ray own conscience." "Yes, of course, I follow you. And yet " "You have it in your power to help me greatly," said George with calm directness. "I mean by giving me, here in your office, some position of trust. For three months six, if you desired I would ask no salary what ever. But I would wish it to be known that you gave me the position, and that you fully relied on my honesty in discharging its duties." Courtelyou colored. He rose from his chair, and walked past George, who still remained seated. For some time he stood at a large table in an opposite corner of his little office, fingering certain papers, glancing at them abstractedly, and then tossing them aside. "I can't do what you ask of me, " he presently said, returning to George, who at once rose on hearing these words. "But I might procure j r ou a place elsewhere, perhaps outside of New York. I should have to be re sponsible for you, in that case. Candidly, it would amount to this I must make it an 'object' with some firm of good repute to employ you. Even such a pro ceeding would have difficulties in its way ; I am by no means sure that I could compass it." "Nor should you do so with my sanction," replied George. He spoke haughtily, but his tones did not sur prise their hearer, who now knew him too well for any thing he might say to cause astonishment. "It is quite clear to me that you have solely served your own ambi tion in sending Lynsko to prison." "Thanks, "replied Courtelyou, with scorn in his quick- fading smile. "From the whole affair you have reaped fresh distinc tion deservedly, beyond doubt. I, who am the cause of your new legal success, have reaped what? Weeks of acute physical pain, apart from the wide public re minder of my sin and its punishment. You tell me with prompt decisiveness that you cannot do what I asked of you. And yet in court you defended my worth as a wit ness by referring in terms of commiseration to my youth aa a wrongdoer and my severe atonement under the law." NEW YORK. 17? ''Quite true. I worked the points of the case. "What lawyer would have done otherwise? But to associate j r ou with my professional business is quite another affair. You have stated I will not say you have insultingly stated that in seeking to benefit my fellow-citizens I have solely served my own ambition. Why, then, since you hold me so abandoned in selfishness, should you ex pect of me an unselfish course of action? Thus, it would seem, you contradict your own theory." Here the speaker waved both hands, for an instant, then letting them drop at his sides. "The fact is, Oliver, there's nobody whom you can find (whether you believe it or no) more distinctly sorry for your lot, in every way, than am I. If I mentioned the payment of any sum, leaving you to name it, and promising that, almost how ever large, I would seriously consider it, you would no doubt repulse me just as you repulsed me in the matter of your private tendance at the hospital. Still, if some future mood " "There could be no future mood," George broke in. ""What I did was done in a spirit of justice, purely dis interested. I could not see my way to taking a wage for it, and any such wage I of course refuse." Courtelyou laughed, as if to himself. The laugh was low but not bitter, and seemed merely like a tribute of amusement paid to an entertaining joke. "Pardon me," came his answer, delivered with sober ing face. "But, really, Oliver, you are more droll than I take for granted you intend to be. One minute you speak most contemptuously of my motive, and the next you exalt your own. I shall not venture to disparage that as you disparaged mine. But how can I see so vast a difference between your unwillingness to take what you term a wage and your very evident willingness to receive from me another sort of payment one com pelling me to run risks of actual ridicule?" George looked at him for a moment with melancholy sternness. "Do you then feel assured," he said, "that such a result would follow if you took me here into your office as one of your clerks?" 1?8 NEW YORK. "Past all question it would," returned Courtelyou, icily genial. "The word 'ex-convict' is one which I wish to avoid. And yet I can use no other, for it is the word they would use." "And if they did what then?" "What, then?" "What, then?" repeated George, his nostrils grown tense, his lips curving downward at either corner. "Would you not have been strong enough to stand their paltry mockeries? Good God, man, where's any use in your straining so for superiority, if it keeps you, after all, a slave to other men's creeds and customs? Is this what you lawyers spout your hj-pocrisies for? I wish, now, that you'd damned my character before the jury deeper than it's damned already. Even that were better, by all means, than having you whitewash it, as you did, for your own greedy profit." So speaking, George had turned on his heel and at once quitted the presence of a man whose mental powers he respected, but whose moral nature he despised. Afterward he forced himself to visit Charles Churchlej'. He found his old friend greatly surprised at his appear ance. But an excess of cordiality veiled fairlj* well Charles' amazement. His father owned large coal yards near the west side docks, and Charles himself held an important position in the wealthy firm. This interview proved a very peaceful one. George told the object of his coming, and soon received the reply that it was quite futile. His father could not, he was perfectly certain, be prevailed to give any kind of a clerkship. Coloring to the roots of his curly flaxen hair, Charles made this admission. And then there were two other partners, both strait-laced and excessively pious. George smiled faintly as that word "pious" fell from his friend's lips, and Churchley, understanding the smile, gave a little helpless gesture of sorrow. "But, George, old fellow, " he began, with his gay blue eyes clouded and troubled, "if I can be of service in another way you know what I mean command me." And he caught George's hand, wringing it with fervor. "I'm in no immediate need of money, thank you, NEW YORK. 179 Charjie. Beside, I hate borrowing. What, I want what I crave and long for is to be trusted, openly trusted by some one whose repute is honorable and clean. I am trying to get back the good name I've lost. It begins to look as if this were the wildest of dreams." "I'm afraid it is. I'm afraid it is," said Charles, with drooped head. Then, suddenly becoming urgent and vehement "George," he said, "why not go far off somewhere say into the West as far as Montana, Colorado, or some such place as that? I could let you have say three thousand, and you could change your name, and try your luck there." Charles Churchley had a face made for smiles; its beardless mouth was rosy as a girl's, with a short upper lip always glimpsing milky teeth. His intimates would sometimes say of him that he was destined never to grow old. But they might have judged oppositely now, his look was so worldly wise in its sorrowful eagerness. "Charlie, " answered George, "your goodness is like a benediction to me. If I'm ever really starving, dear old fellow, and you'll let me come, I'll come to you again. That is, perhaps." Here George paused, swallowing his tears, while the dry glitter from his eyes gave to every other feature an added accent of leanness. "But if I borrowed that sum, Charlie " He stopped dead short, and then, laughing bleakly, went on: "I should feel like a thief again. No; the money I get to go away with, like that, must be money I honestly earned. If I failed out there in some such place, and couldn't pay you back, it would seem to me like like taking a new lease of crime." Charlie gave a prosaic grunt, full of childish impa tience, instantly bringing old times and scenes back to his hearer. "Crime, George! Damn it all, 1 know what a bad woman can do with a fellow. Your answers, there in court, were splendid. They cut mo to the soul. Since we last talked together, I came near But never mind. Do you ever think about her now?" "Sometimes yes. With loathing." "M m m. I see." "Now and then I dream of her, Charlie. And it's 180 NEW YORK. strange. In my dreams I always seem to find her ten times handsomer than she Avas, and ten times handsomer than I ever thought her. But her beauty has the most horrible nightmarish effect on me. It's like that of a cobra, coiled and about to spring. I've waked from those dreams in a cold sweat of horror." George made other efforts. There was no more of Courfcelyou's temporizing subtlety; there was no more of Charlie Churchley's generous helplessness. Men whom in the past he had known well enough to approach now simply held him at arm's length, some with politeness, others with an astonished semicivility, one or two with uncompromising rebuff. "There's no living it down, "he at length told himself. "No doubt I've been a fool not to takeCourtelyou's bank check for as much as he chose to give. But that's just the kind of fool I am and shall remain till the end." The end! What was it destined to be? NEW YORK. 181 V. HE SHRANK from beginning the "Jack Jackson" role all over again in some other quarter of the town. Beside, he might not be able to repeat it anywhere else with his former dismal success. And as for securing any repu table place without a distinct recommendation from some previous employer, it was like looking for a purse of gold in the gutters. He spent many a weary hour wandering along Third Avenue and other less prosperous thoroughfares. The great masses of men and women "seeking employment" grew every day to him a fact intenser and more dismay ing. The silent, perpetual turmoil of their struggle for existence was even vivider here than in the meaner dis tricts he had quitted; for here was greater physical worthiness, far less abandonment to the deadening lures of drink, far greater willingness to fight the savageries of life, could weapons only be gained with which to wage a sturdy warfare. But what added to his despair was an incessant envy. All these hordes of starvelings, all these would-be work ers, in so far as he knew, were unhampered by any burden of disgrace. They had a surging flood to swim, if you pleased, but their arms were at least free. Thousands of them, when asked "who are you?" could truthfully an swer, "I am an honest man." Spring came again, and his stock of money had grown lower, like that of his good spirits. One bright April day he decided to go for awhile among his old South Street haunts. He did not wear the "Jack Jackson" garb of former times, but was considerably better dressed. And yet he had made himself shabbier than was usual with him nowadays, wishing to avoid com ment because of smarter gear. He had reached the door 183 NEW YORK. of the Scbnoors' tavern before meeting any one whom he knew, though his course in getting thither, had been somewhat roundabout, as a feeling of diffidence swayed him. The hostelry doors were wide open on the street as usual. He caught a glimpse of the sawdusted floor, and the two or three round tables of commonest wood, and the raw-colored sporting pictures of prizefights and horseraces hung along the walls. Then he glanced up ward at the windows of Mrs. Volatski, and saw that they were shadeless and grimy, as though the rooms beyond them were untenanted and the sailors' boarding-house had no longer either patrons or landlady. Of this fact he became sure in another instant, for "to let" was posted on the door of the narrow passageway leading up stairs. Conrad Schnoor chanced to be alone behind his bar as George crossed the familar threshold. Short, moon-faced, big of stomach, he looked precisely as when last beheld. George went up to the bar and said, quite as if they had only parted yesterday : "Well, Mr. Schnoor, how are ye?" Schnoor gave him a careless nod. "I'm bowd de same ass uzul, I guez. Fine tay, ain't id?" "Very fine day," said George. "Vat can I giff you?" asked Schnoor, in his politest business-like tones. "Glaz o' peer, eh?" "No, thank ye, Mr. Schuoor. I'll take some seltzer, though, if ye don't mind." And then the voice wrought piercing recognition, though the face had failed to do so. Schnoor gave a backward start and then cried, crimsoning : "You'll get no trink of any kint agroz dis par, Mizder Chorch OJifer for dat's vat your ride name iz no, sir! You'fe made dronple enough rount here an' pesites you peen for dree yearss in brizzen an' we dunno it. You neffer tole no one." "If I had told it," said George, "I could have got no work. You must see that my silence was simply self- protection." But Schnoor shook his head. "Wad you schteal for in de furst plaze, hein? Dey doan sent beople to Zing Zing for nudding. " NEW YORK. 183 "I don't deny that I was guilty of the crime they charged mo with, Schnoor, and perhaps my being very young when I committed it isn't any excuse. But at least you can't accuse me of any dishonest act during all the time I was down here in these parts." Schnoor 's face was one glower of sullenness. "You vass a chailpirt all de vile; an' I doan lige chail-pirts. " He looked full at George with his round, babyish eyes, and it seemed as if the changed visage of the latter, with its appalling evidence of an illness brought about by the satanio Lynsko's pistol, was on the verge of touching him into a tenderer mood. But no; he either could not or would not forgive George's alias of Jack Jackson and the "jail-bird" reputation it concealed. Many a man and woman wearing the stain of the prison had stood on those same floors before now. But he had trusted none of them, had been warned against many by the unhidden facts of their former misdeeds. Here was another affair altogether; hypocrisy had imposed upon him, and made him entertain a criminal unawares. And all through the quarter George either met an equally chill reception or one that bordered upon actual insult. He found himself, as it were, disclassed among even the lowest classes. Not a few pitied his altered aspect, tell ing so clearly of the ravage his late ordeal had caused. But it was not, in any instance, a pity unmixed with scorn. Charlatans regarded him as a charlatan worse than themselves; hardened sinners felt that they could afford to greet him with a shrug of contempt; not a few honest toilers turned their backs upon him in silence. His good deeds, which had been many, were forgotten with a general arrogance of ingratitude. The popularity which once engirt him had vanished, and in its place brooded and smoldered a prevalence of mockery and resentment. He went uptown, that day, feeling himself cut off forever from the old life, even if he should be urged by desperation to resume it. And then followed for him a period of many weeks during which his fellow- lodgers at the cheap boarding-house found him dreamily yet amiably taciturn, and pronounced him the dullest of mortals. Here ho had not dared to give his own name, fearing expulsion by his landlady. 184 NEW YORK. All this while he was playing, so to speak, with the idea of suicide. He had no dread of death, and yet the naked and positive act kept repelling even while it tempted him. For a good while he could not explain this double sensation of desire and disgust. Then, after an interval of stem self-analysis, the truth became clear. It was a world that refused him any haven of vantage a world that did not care whether he lived or died a world that looked on his repentance as indifferently as though it had been his continued guilt. And yet it was a world that contained Doris Josselyn! Often the most passionate longing came upon him to seek her presence and find out whether or no she had formed against him the same harsh opinion which now seemed ubiquitous. He was related to her by blood, if somewhat distantly. This would form his sole right to approach her, provided any such right could be said really to exist. Then the temerity of his meditated im pulse would pierce him with shame. And yet he felt confident that after a short interview he could convince her that he was not deservedly the pariah society had been so merciless as to make him. She had revealed to him her lovely and charity-brimming soul ; he seemed, at certain moments, to know her with an awesome and thrilling intimacy. He could never wholly disbelieve in the goodness of his fellow-creatures while he communed spiritually with her simple yet lofty nature. And he was certain that all her counselings to him would tend one way; she would bid him fight it out to the very bitterest end. She would never sanction self-destruction; coward ice was not in her philosophy, and she would call it cowardice for all he might strive to convince her that it was only the natural surrender of a life pitted against implacable odds. As for the chance of her giving him some aidful push toward a securer footing, he had neither hope nor wish for such result. To help her in any way would have been exquisite ; to be helped by her, except through the subtler method of moral betterment, he did not relish half so well. One spring day he found himself in Central Park, and soon became so delighted by the revival of old memories NEW YORK. 185 it induced, that often afterward, both day and night, he would haunt its eight hundred odd acres of undulation and shade. By and by there was not a path or nook in the whole great inclosure unknown to him. He would spend hours in reading there, hours in sitting unoccupied there, but by far the greater number of hours in rest lessly roaming there. The amazing beauties of this domain, which is destined so soon to be encompassed by a vast city, and to make a sweet, huge green heart, as it were, within all the artificiality and luxury and squalor beyond, kept forever working xipon him new spells of enticement. There is perhaps no lovelier park in the wo Id, and as he got to know it better he felt that this must be true. The maturing springtide was with him in. this recognition of its delicious charms. Every new day that he went there his fondness deepened. Up at the One Hundred and Tenth Street end he grew to love the wildwood tracts where it was easy to fancy himself, in certain stretches of forest or copse, miles from any settle ment larger than a village. Then lower down, to meet the northern lake, or Harlem Meer, with its bowery- banks, its fleets of greening lily pads, its occasional clusters of light-tinted feathery willows, offered a fresh pleasure. Here cultivation became apparent, yet so skilfully was it mingled with nature's own adorable rude ness that the meeting was one incessant grateful harmony. And then how enchanting spread the sweeps of level ver dure, densely surrounded with trees that were leafy shorelands to immense pools of grass! Every bridge, too, spanning the subways or the roads for equestrians, caught the eye with a peculiar airy grace. And then the miniature sea of the upper reservoir, bordered by its delicate balustrade and its firm, commodious path! Under a blue sky it beamed like a monstrous turquoise shield and how many an eye, wearied with sights of stark ugliness, had gazed upon it with gladdest relief! The rich might roll past it in their coaches and scarcely give it a glance. But to the poor it had been, it would for centuries remain, a blessing andabenignancy untold, with its azure waters crisped and crinkled by every pass ing breeze, and its sunny breadth bringing dreama of 186 NEW YORK. seashores and rivers that the niggard narrowness and captivity of their lives would always forbid them to behold! Further down lay the more public portion of this noble estate dedicated to the people that in which art had made itself more evident, and with a secure dignity of triumph. Here glimmered the Mall, leading so proudly between branch-euwoven elms to the magnificent terrace, with its lordly flights of rich-carven stone stairs that led in turn to the grand esplanade beneath. And here, from its big stone basin, rose the bronze Bethesda angel, with bowed head and unfurled wings keen against the sky. Then, to the northward, one saw an incomparably per fect lake, dotted here and there with swans, its curvili near silver now pushed below green slopes overshadowed by patriarchal trees, now slipping along the bases of dove-gray granite bluffs. George had never seen the famed parks of European cities, but he could not have lighted on any park fairer than this, though he had wandered from London to tho Levant. In his melancholy, his misery, with the senso of his savings lapsing away from him, with the menace of beggary growing slowly more definite, its loveliness became at once a consolation and a taunt. There were moments when he felt jealous of the very trees and plants, tended and watered, in their indifferent ease. Again rich flashes of comfort would visit him, when he would silently boast that here was his Newport, his Lenox, his Saratoga, supplied without the silly vainglory by which the newspapers told him that these watering places were infested. And at so short a distance away from all the bustling turmoil of town, one could reach, among these placid glades and sleepy coverts, a refuge of priceless repose. Even on Sundays he could steal, if he chose, among certain unfrequented haunts. But there were times when the great holiday throngs pleased in him a gregarious mood; and then he would join the masse:* gathered near the gay and gilded pavilion, whence music that was often admirable floated through leafy arcades and over shining tides. In blossom time it seemed to him that this expanse could not possibly know a phase NEW YORK. 18? more lovable. The flowering boughs and trilling birds were not all, nor was the intense emerald silkiness of the grass; for at many a turn in your path lilacs peered at you in their bloomy laughter, or an arbor caught your vision smothered in the misty and heavenly blue of lavish wistarias. But when June came, with its exuberance of foliage, George confessed that the oaks and maples and elms, the sycamores and cypresses and tulip trees, made a still more fascinating companionship, with their largess of fresh leaves, depth on depth, growths all flawless as the satin skin of the young children romping or drawn in carriages below them leaves untouched, as yet, by the faintest hint of ill-treatment from that early summer which would soon parch the delicate velvet of their new- spun fabrics. When the heat of real summer began he would sometimes go into the park at twilight and watch the skies gloom over the landscape in leisurely changes of dimming pearl or gold or rose. Then, as the stars came hurrying or loitering to that sublime assemblage at which they all, sooner or later, kept their mystic appoint ments, he would realize how here below, in countless coverts, another human assemblage was being formed. Gradually the dark benches would find occupants, till at full nightfall the great dusky iuclosure literally swarmed with lovers. Every breeze that swayed the innumerable balmy branches had grown lyric with the undj'ing pas sion of humanity. To move along the sweet-scented alleys meant an incessant glimpsing of men and women in attitudes languidly fond. Often where an almost utter darkness prevailed, the eye could vaguely trace these ever-recurring shapes; now and then, some sudden interval of relative brightness would reveal an ardent embrace ; at whiles a tearful feminine voice could bo heard; at whiles a male murmur, expostulating, affection ate or smotheredly stern. The shadowy park had become one enormous rendezvous of jo3~ous or sorrowing or per chance sinful souls. "If the motives of all these tryst- keepers could be known," thought George, "how harle quin a motley would we have of tenderness, devotion, am bition, duplicity, despair, dissoluteness and knavery 188 NEW YORK. past belief!" Still, that power which draws sex to sex, that power we call love, now because it is the rightful name and now because it is, alas, only the make shift euphemism for a worse, struck here the one domi nant note. Life lived itself through these summer even ings with a prodigal importance, a kind of reckless yet secretive publicity, below the mystic stars. And in turn it was mystic as they, as bafflingly indefinable. Mighty and problematic laws were being obeyed hei'e as in the stealthy revolutions of those worlds above. And some times the long winds that shuddered with such volumi nous music through depths and heights of the luxuriant trees, would seem to challenge that answer which eter nity has thus far hidden from our mortal ken with so austere a reserve. George never felt so lonely as when he passed through the park on nights like these. To stand beside the lake under the great terrace was to see boats laden with happy couples perpetually embark, per petually be rowed forth again, as though the sculptured stairs just beyond the statued basin dropped downward from the portals of some palace aglow with festivity, and these merry dames and swains were guests of its proprie tary lord. In the uncertain dusk one could easily fancy them as Venetian, as Florentine or as early English as one pleased. Sixth Avenue or Eight Avenue modernities of costume were beglamored and romanticised. The light that never was fell with impartial charity on paper collars and pinchbeck breastpins, on second-hand trousers and chipstraw hats. Through these days and nights his love-haunted heart would often feel the need of an affection like that which Lydia, his sister in spirit, had once so bounteously given. Often he thought of her, and would long ago have written her in shame at his own continued failure and defeat had not restrained him. He still kept in mind her Nyack ad dress; this might help to find her if she had gone else where. But it struck him as strange that she should not have sought him at the hospital after the news of his wounding by Lynsko had got so widely abroad in the newspapers. And yet no word from her had reached him, no sign that she knew of his racking and almost NEW YORK. 189 fatal Illness. Sureb r , he at length decided, the accounts in the newspapers must have escaped her. And for what reason? Perhaps distance; perhaps even death why not? There came a certain day when he had a sense of past neglect so onerously on his conscience that he resolved very soon to go to Nyack and make inquiries. On the evening of this very day he drifted, as it chanced, into the park. It was one of those faultless evenings in June when only trouble-borrowers remember the sultry afflic tions of heat to which corning weeks must doom us. By sunset a great gray moon hung high in the eastern heaven, and had gathered soft glories into her globe be fore the first star had dawned. Later, the cool breeze swept levels and hillocks and became transfigured by a steady splendor, pouring bland effulgence on every open space and leaving black arabesques of shade below myriads of intercepting boughs. More than ever to night was the place alive with seated occupants. George, feeling a little tired from an unusual amount of tramping in lower portions of the town (his narrow quarters at the boarding house having seemed especially cramped during the delicious weather of the day), sank on a segment of bench which he was glad to find vacant. Near him, in the unobstructed moonlight, he saw an old man with an alert manner, a short whiteboard and brilliant dark eyes. His practiced glance caught marks of poverty in the man's dress, and traces of rustiness in his slouched hat. He had talked with hundreds of male strangers here, both by night and clay. Sometimes their discourse, though rude and uncultured, woke his interest; again, despite touches of culture in their manners, he would quickly weary of them and lapse into silence. Now and then he would hear from them harrowing tales, and with an extraordinary certitude, born of past associations, he would pronounce such disclosures either true, partially true, or altogether false. Many a time he had been touched into practical charities that his lessening re sources warned him he could ill afford. Occasionally grossness and vulgarity had not only sealed his lips but sent him to seek some other resting-place. Yet, all in. 190 NEW YORK. all, pain and persecution had roused within him large ardors of human tolerance and fellowship, and dis ciplined him, so to speak, in the democracy of a sympa thy almost universal. For he had long ago realized how many good men there are in the world whom circum stance rather than inherent morality has prevented from being bad, and how bad men coexist with these whom circumstance, witli its curious tricks of ethical architec ture, might have made pillars of society rather than its crumbled adjuncts of decay. To-night he found the old man with the short white beard and the brilliant dark eyes and the dingy demean or, a person not devoid of attractiveness. He was a Bavarian, speaking English with slight foreign accent. He had lost, during the past two years his wife and three sons. He was partly paralyzed, his right arm being useless and one leg incessantly heavy and benumbed. He had nothing left him to live for, and said so frankly. He was not starving ; he was not even in want. He lived with a relative on the upper west side of the town, in Amsterdam Avenue, a woman who had been good to him but who could not help feeling him a burden on her, as she was a widow with three small children, whom it cost her a hard struggle to support. Of his own accord he fell to talking about certain suicides that had lately occurred here in the park. George always afterward remembered this, as a peculiar and appealing coinci dence. "I only wonder," the old man said, "that more people don't do away with themselves in this miserable world." "But to many it's a very pleasant world." "Of course so it once was to me. I had my wife and my boys; I had my health; I could work for those I loved ; I was happy. Sometimes it seemed to me that my heart would almost break with the love in it for that wife, those little ones. 'But now I have no rest from grief except when I sleep, and often for hours I cannot sleep, thinking about them. It is very painful not to get a sleep when you want, but it is more painful to wake up and remember. I can't lie in bed then. My cousin thinks me half-crazy, I rise so early. Often I slip out NEW YORK. 191 of doors just as dawn is breaking. To lie in bed makes me feel as if I would go mad. And I hate the idea of going mad and being sent to some place where doctors and nurses will watch me. So I try to keep sane all I can. Once I believed in a God, but now I believe in nothing. If I could believe in a God I would kill my self." "That is a strange reason for avoiding suicide," said George, deeply moved. "It is my reason," insisted the old man, with a kind of solemn pettishness, infinitely pathetic. "For I can not think of a God who -would not be merciful to me if I took my life in my own hands and met him face to face. But dying and not finding them not finding anything but darkness! ah, mein Gott, finding not even that!" And here the old man slapped one slim knee with a bony hand, and gave a fretful, eerie little laugh that sank into a sob. "Oh, it's foolish, foolish, I know;" and with a gentle wildness his black burning eyes roved George's face and figure. "Perhaps," George said consolingly, after a pause, "the great mystery will give you back your wife and boys, and give them back sooner if you wait patiently the summons which comes to us all. Perhaps and there he stopped. Somewhere behind him, among the denser trees between the outer stone wall and the Ramble in which he sat, a sharp sound rang out. He started to his feet in a second. The sound teemed with reminder. He had never heard one like it since that night in the Water Street tenement, months ago. Quickly, from other benches, forms also rose. "That was a pistol shot," some one cried. Then there was a little excited tumult of voices men's and women's. George was almost first to reach the spot where a woman lay, with blood oozing from her breast. The trees all about her were dense in their ebon shade, but the moonlight flooded her where she had dropped, still gasping, with a telltale, steely gleam on the sward at her right side. George knelt down. The face, with its closed eyes and strained features, could scarcely have been clearer to him at midday than it was now. Above 192 NEW YORK. him the voices, loudening into a still more excited babble were quite meaningless. He felt giddy and sick; for a few moments he doubted if the gallop of his heart would not choke him. A man in the gray-blue garb of the park police came pushing the crowd aside. Then another joined him, and the two officers raised the woman. George staggered to his feet. Somebody spoke of the arsenal, and some body else of an ambulance. He clutched the low bough of a tree, and saw the crowd surge off. Presently strength returned to him, and he hurried after the mov ing mass of people, who in turn were hurrying after the two policemen with their burden. The latter shouted "Stand off" and "get back," but nobody seemed to obey these commands. George kept the whole moving cohort in sight, but the apathy of his horror still clogged motion. It seemed hours before he stood outside the arsenal. He made no attempt to enter its frowning and fortress-like structure. At length the ambulance came rattling and clanging to a certain door that gave upon a roadway. Then again it seemed hours before the woman was borne out and placed there. "Is she dead?" he asked one of the men who carried her, making a great effort and pressing close to him, through an assemblage which had now grown immense. "No," replied the man. "Pretty near it, though, I reckon." Then, across the man's shoulder, George caught sight of a still face, piercingly familiar, with a hue upon it of olive-tinted whiteness that he had never seen there before. He saw a policeman hurrying toward him with up lifted club. The crowd, parting before the menace of this weapon, swerved alarmedly to left and right. George flung out the quick question: "What hospital?" The man told him. It was the same in which he had passed so many wretched weeks. Only a brief while after the ambulance got there he himself reached the door. He had been popular at the establishment; nearly every body had regretted his going away; the porter admittc.l him with a brightening face. NEW YORK. 193 For a little time lie talked with one of the head nurses, who had readily come to him at his request. "What he asked of her she promised to accomplish, if it lay in her power. Meanwhile he must wait; she could not say how long. Two doctors were with the poor thing now. They thought she must die soon. Still, there was a chance. The bullet had just missed the heart, but caused severe internal hemorrhage. It was a wound very much like George's own, the nurse further volunteered. "If that be true," said George, half to his own thoughts, and mindful of his past agony, "I hope she may die before morning." He waited for over an hour. Then the nurse came back and brought him into a corner of one of the women's wards. It was very quiet there. The glimmering white beds; the austere simplicity commingled with spacious ness; the occasional moan, or heavy sigh, or faint heard outburst of some one talking in sleep ; the snowy-capped figures of the nurses, moving placidly among their patients; the odor of drugs, not aggressive, and as though half-conquered by by forces of careful cleanliness; the feeling that human misery was here being vanquished by human pity in its one most potent form of scientific contest; all this appealed to George with acutest strin gency of reminiscence. "You see," his companion whispered, "her eyes are open, but they have a glassy look. That is due, I think, to the morphine. It has eased her wonderfully. She is conscious, but still she may not recognize you. The doctors say they can do nothing more to-night, and have given us instructions in case she has another attack of pain. Take this chair and sit down beside her. She may turn and know you at once. She may look straight into your face and either call you by some strange name or not pay you the least notice. That is the way with morphine Avhen it stupefies without bringing sleep." George took the chair. For some time he sat quite motionless. Then he lightly touched one of the slender hands lying outside the coverlet. "Lydia, " he said, with extreme softness. The dark head moved on its pillow, and the lovely, 194 NEW YORK. refined visage, thin nostriled, full of tender sculptural curves, slowly fronted him. "You're George?" The words were low, timid, dubious. "Yes, Lydia." "I I am very glad. You never wrote me, George, did you?" Stabbed with remorse, he said brokenly: "I was always waiting to write some some pleasant news to you. But that wasn't possible and so I kept putting it off " "Yes?" she answered dreamily, but without a trace of reproach. "I knew you hadn't forgotten me." "Never, dear Lydia never!" He spoke with lips close to her ear, his voice the mildest of murmurs. For many minutes she held his hand with no sign of tensity, saying nothing, and letting her altered eyes (glassj' indeed, as the nurse had named them) devour his bowed face. Then, suddenly, her grasp tightened. "I I can't remember it all, George, for it's all far away and strange to me, now, as though it had happened to some one else. I was there at Nyack, you know. It was there that I met him. " "Yes, Lydia. Who was he? Do you remember hia name?" "He was there at Nyack. I shrank from him, at first. I couldn't help caring for him, though, and he knew it. And I was only a servant a children's nurse. Oh, I fought so hard, George so hard against myself! He wanted me to go South with him and pass myself off there as a Frenchwoman a Creole. He kept urging this. I speak French well, you know. And it looked an easy thing, just as it looked a sinful thing. But I kept say ing "No, no," and at last he told me that if I would go alone to New Orleans my mind wanders, now, " she faltered, with a plaintive smile. "Where was I, George? You are George really he? Yes? I felt sure of it! Where was I?" "He told you, Lydia, that if you would go alone to New Orleans?" "Ah, yes. He would meet me there, and marry me. NEW YORK. 195 'No one need know,' he said, 'that you've a drop of negro blood in your veins. Many a Creole is as dark as you and many a South American woman is darker. We will go abroad, afterward, and as my wife, my Louisianian wife, you will be received without suspicion. But even if they did suspect, a few of them, it would make no matter. There they have not the same feelings and, beside, they would have no proof. And then you are so beautiful, Lydia, that even those who might suspect and might be prejudiced, would not care.' He pleaded with me like this, George, and at length he won me over, and I went to New Orleans I went alone. And after that, in a few more days, he met me. But soon I saw that he had never meant marriage. He had got me to make that concession, and it was a point gained by him. Ah, yes a point gained by him! And when I knew there was no hope of ever being his wife I should have come back Eorth again. But I stayed on I stayed with him!" She closed her eyes, like one falling asleep gently, from sheer fatigue. George, Avith his free hand, stroked the silky and tumbled waves of hair on her forehead. He forgot to blame himself, so fiery had grown his hatred of this nameless persecutor. "Lydia," he presently said, with great tenderness of tone. "Are you asleep?" "No," she answered, while her eyes still remained closed. "No, George; I am only very tired. There is not any more to tell you, is there?" "Yes, a little more," he pleaded. She spoke in a voice of strange, drowsy querulousness, looking full into his eyes again with a new spark, vivid as a tiny flame point, pricking through the velvety gloom of her own. "Oh, I know! You want me to say that I loathe him for leaving me when those few mouths had passed! You want me to curse him before I die. Yet, no I can't do anything but love him and forgive him. I should have taken his money, perhaps, and come home here with it, and^got work again, after'it was all spent 'Or long before. He offered me a great deal of money I forget how much. 196 NEW YORK. Nobody need have known the truth. Hundreds of women would have acted like that. But I loved him too well! Your father and mother, George I don't reproach them but they had changed in me what might always have been coarseness and bluntness to something sensi tive and delicate. They'd made me a lady. A lady! I, a mulatto girl a negress think of it! God bless them both, George, but their kindness ruined me. If I'd grown up ignorantly, among my own kind, that frightful agony when he left me would have been only a passing trouble. I'd have taken his money, and never dreamed of doing what I did. But I loved him with my soul, not my senses, and they had wakened that soul! God for give them, and God bless them, too! I tried twenty, fifty times to keep from killing myself. But all the while I felt there must be only one end to it all ! I could not live without him, and he had left me! Perhaps if I'd met you a few weeks ago, when I first came back 'but never mind. Ah! " That last monosyllable was a smothered shriek of tor ment. The morphia had begun to lose its power; the dreadful wound in her side had reasserted itself. George rose, horrified at her ghastly, twitching features, and the blood ooze staining her lips. In a trice the nurse came gliding forward. She knew just what to do; it was a repetition of the former soporific injections. Peace followed it, and, for the first time, absolute slumber. George lingered near her bed till dawn. The anodyne saved her from the least death struggle, as nowadays it so often does. The summer sunlight had filled the great hall with mocking radiance when she ceased to breathe. George had money enough to save her from a pauper's funeral. Certain questions were asked of him by legal authorities, and these he answered non-commitally enough, merelj' stating that he had known the suicide, in former days, as a servant of his mother. As for her motive in seeking self-destruction, he unhesitatingly said that it was quite a mystery to him. Throughout the next fortnight, and longer, he was plagued by the most poignant repentance. Those words of the dying "sister" whom he accused himself of having deserted, rang always in his ears : NEW YORK. 197 "Perhaps if I'd met you, a few weeks ago, when I first came back but never mind "Never mind," indeed ! Who on earth would really "mind" save himself? And yet how many horrors even worse than poor Lydia's must spring from the gradual amelioration of her race! In this one isolated instance to educate had been to destroy. She did not reproach his parents, and yet "they had changed in her what might always have been coarseness and bluntness to some thing sensitive and delicate." Well, and the final ameli oration was that possible? Could black and white ever mingle? What was the doom of these millions of people in a vast country that contemned them after having shattered their shackles of bondage? Was Lydia the protomartyr, and would a mighty congregation of un fortunates follow after her? Here, rose the new problem ; the old terrible one had been solved. Our public schools admitted the so-called "colored" race. New York, and all the great Northern cities, had consented to their social equality. And yet what a monstrous mockery was the word! In reality their new boon was only a continued phase (even here in the North) of popular scorn. It was doubtful if education would not prove their bane rather than their benefit. For the tough old prejudice would not die. Apparently the future had not centuries enough in which to annihilate it. The Jews had been a persecuted people, but enlightenment was now changing their status with extraordinary speed. Such persecution as they had suffered was no longer possible with the negro race. Their struggle had been briefer, however stern. But now came a liberation that threatened to make their men perpetual unmanacled serfs and their women forever beset with just such temptation as that to which Lydia had succumbed. Their inferiority in the way of numbers would always preclude any conquest of their social oppressors. There could never be a "negro question" any longer, in the old abolitionist sense. They must obey a relentless law the non-survival of the xmfittest. They must perish, but before such demolition what pathos both of mutiny and extinction would result! And how many a generation would live and die before 198 NEW YORK. they indeed actually perished! Charity, mercy, philan thropy would go on educating them. And the hardier they mentally grew the more would they realize that insuperable barrier between themselves and their bene factors. They would mass together, perhaps, and try to fight it all out, as many a white multitude of their pre decessors had done, against pitiless odds. Bui, that would be in the far future, and they would fall, inevit ably, overwhelmed by suffocating majorities. And iu the meantime they must endure horrible indignities the fate of poor Lydia pointed to this woeful consequence. The insult of passion would be offered to their women, the privilege of intermarriage would be, to both their women and men, forever denied. "Lincoln freed them," thought George, as he stood beside the grave of Lydia, staring down at a few flowers which he had thrown upon its fresh-made mound. "But, in the end, what will his noble effort really have accom plished? Avarice may no more pursue their women, but lust will not leave them unmolested. No more will their men be bought and sold like cattle, but for every species of brain-toil caste will refuse them their due award. And all this while how anomalous, how self-contradictory, how tragically absurd, will be their position!" Then a sudden thought, half-ironical, half-serious, crossed George's mind: "Unless, like the Jews, they should develop a genius for making money. Ah, that scurrillous Lynsko was right! Money is 'a master, and a tyrant as well,' now, and 'everybody is hungering for money, struggling after it, straining to get it. ' There were times when for a Christian to marry a Jew would have been thought no less outrageous than it is held, at the present period, for a white to marry a black. But nowadays a rich Jew can make almost whatever matri monial choice he pleases. Who shall say if hereafter a rich negro may not be likewise privileged? We can shudder, we can raise horrified hands of protest, now, but stranger things have happened in the evolution of races. And is there any kind of strange thing that the possession of great wealth may not bring about?" He gave a last look at the fresh sods on poorLydia'a grave NEW YORK. 199 and turned from it while a summer sunset had begun to burn in scarlet and gold beyond the pale, innumerable tombs of beautiful, mournful Greenwood. Here was another New York, a vast and eternally silent one, its swarms of slabs filled with the names of those who were living out their lives all sorts of lives, from earnest to flippant just across yonder purpling river, but who would one day come to lie down beside their kindred, mute and quiescent as these. Many of their resting- places would be amid stately vaults or in fair flowery plots, far different from this one poor isolated grave pur chased for Lydia. And yet, in the end, what mattered it ? Their sleep would be no more dreamless and profound than hers! Oh, the mockery it meant to watch our huge city from these heights beyond that shining stream, and to think how one slow, perpetual transfer was going on, bringing hundreds hither each year, feeding the metropolis of death from the metropolis of life! And in the soft gray of the southern sky George could see countless church spires pointing upward emblems of hope reared by those cloae-huddled multitudes of humanity who called the awful and imperious Unknown by this creed name or that, and built to It their various temples, typifying each one, as much the feverish revolt against despair as the patient acceptance of faith. What intensity of contrast! Over there the loudness, here the silence; over there the vivid and eager wakefulness; here the deep and unremitting slumber ! And those church-spires did they not portray the sole reason why this immense cemetery was not still more enlarged by suicidal throngs? Would not thousands come and lay themselves down here if they once grew convinced that this terrestrial life were all? "Suppose," George mused, "that science should one day make indis putable the fact that it wall?" Allowing, with certain thinkers, that immortality is a lie, does not mankind need that lie to protect itself against madness and self-mur der as much as it needs thick raiment to protect itself against rigors of cold? Or would the innate fear of death prove savingly operative with great majorities? Animals are agnostics and atheists m their dumb, puv- 200 NEW YORK. blind ways, and yet they shrink from death and are appalled by it. The smoldering sunset had turned to such fiery crim son as he quitted the cemetery that it made him think, somehow, of a symboled Eevenge. Later he saw it flame as if directly above the spot where he had left Lydia lying. "It is better, "he murmured aloud/'that I did not learn the name of the man who drove her to this deed. If she had told me his name I believe that I must have sought him out and given him quicker and heavier punishment than fell to the lot of Lynsko. And heaven knows, this poor life of mine, considering I've yet but barely passed the youth of it, has known more than its rightful share of gloom and storm. And so, peace rest you, sister Lydia! Yours has been the saddest yet most curious of dooms! The very charity that lifted you above the life you were born for proved the instrument of your ruin and early death!" NEW YORK, 201 VI. "!'D almost forgotten the dinner party for this even ing, Cousin Ellen," said Doris to Mrs. Josselyn. The latter tried to look annoyed, though her beloved relative usually made this a difficult affair. "Oh," she said, with a playful tartness, "I suppose Frank Crevell- ing reminded you of it." "He reminded me that you'd asked him," said Doris. "You've been together for the past four or five hours, no doubt." "Yes ever since he called for me after luncheon." "Roaming together the most unheard-of byways, I suppose?" Doris laughed, seating herself on the edge of the lounge in Mrs. Josselyn 's dressing-room, as though she would only be allowed to tarry here for a brief chat. She her self had on some trim gray street costume that con trasted sharply with the velvets and feathers and jewels of the other. ?or it was November now, and Mrs. Jos selyn 's worldly goings and comings had begun. She had long ago ceased to attempt anything like Doris' con version. The girl had irritated her, at first, before the coming of maidenhood, and war had darkened the air, and with trembling lips Doris had said to Mr. Josselyn: "Cousin Albert, I have my four thousand a year, you know, and am quite independent enough to live, at a pinch, if you call it so, all alone by myself. " Then, somewhat mysteriously, bayonets were lowered and a per manent truce was established. More than that, it should be added a firm friendship ensued. Ellen Josselyn was a woman of strong ambitions, but of deep affections as well. In a manner she had educated herself, like many another American woman, her birth having bordered on the humblest. Before her eighteenth year she had been 202 NEW YORK. a bread-winner, and now, past middle age, the wear-and- tear of that earlier past showed only on her lined face, leaving not a hint of former trials and vexations in her placid bearing, full of elegance and equipoise. She despised the falsities of fashion, though its picturesque- ness and power self-admittedly lured her. She had none of Doris' expansive humanitarianism, but she was capa ble of great love and loyalty to those who had once gained her heart. Outsiders thought her cold, but her husband, whom she often ruled despotically, knew that she would have gone through thick and thin to serve or aid him ; and once, when he was desperately ill, she had almost killed herself nursing him night and day. Her strong maternal fondness for Grace would have been per fect i^f too ardent a desire that she should marry bril liantly had not married it. Her respect and regard for Doris were equally sincere. They had not merely learned to disagree agreeably ; they were the stanchest of friends ; neither's disapprobation offended the other, and they could have wrangled for hours, had they chosen, with a mutual smile and kiss at the end. Decidedly she was a woman whom Doris' "curse of caste" had done its best, in that young lady's opinion, to spoil. Only when all was said, the injury had failed to become radical. To the world at large (doubting it, contemning it, forever secretly if not overtly satirizing it, while at the same time paying it steady perfunctory deference) she turned always a chill, hard, amiable, hypocritic side. To her immediate surrounders her home, and a few friends removed from its sacred limit, though still not far re moved, she turned all that was warm and sweet in her character and temperament, radiating love and receiving it, even if sometimes mixed with an element which resembled fear. But Doris had never been in the least afraid of her, as she was doutless well aware. "Roaming the most un heard of byways!" the girl now repeated, with mock indignation. "Why, we've been to a gathering at Sherry's." "At Sherry's?" "I thought I told you about it. " NEW YORK. 203 "You tell me of so many 'gatherings,' my dear. But they are usually in places "Very much less respectable than the corner of Fifth Avenue and Thirty-Seventh Street. See how I anticipate your crushing sarcasm. But surely you were asked to this. Yes, I remember you received your notice, and resolved to ignore it. This new proposed appeal at Al bany, you know, for the granting of suffrage to women." "Oh, dear, yes! It all comes back now. I advised you to keep utterly clear of the thing." A smile of grim amusement played on Mrs. Josselyn'slips. "You treated my counsel with your usual disdain." "I felt the force of the movement immensely," said Doris. "I feel it now more than ever. You'd have enjoyed the meeting, I'm sure." '*J/V "Martha Courtelyou was there, and told me she wouldn't have missed it for worlds. I told her in reply, " continued Doris haughtily, "that she would have missed it, in a minute, for some fashionable tea, provided the season were not still too early for a sign of one." "Poor Martha Courtelyou!" said Mrs. Josselyn. "She adores you, Doris, and you're forever winding her round your finger 'making her do the most absurdly uncharacteristic things and then snubbing her without mercy afterward. So you dragged her there?" "Not at all. She went of her own free will, and found a number of friends in the assemblage. That's why I said, Cousin Ellen, that you would have enjoyed it. There was quite a sprinkling of your beloved swells." "M m, yes. I've heard the idea has gained a few respectable supporters beside yourself, dear." "Thanks," laughed Doris dryly, "for your polite after thought. It was very considerate. But I'm keeping you from somewhere." "Only from some shedding of pasteboard at a place or two where I've recently dined. It's such a lovely autumn afternoon that they'll all surely be out." "Shedding pasteboard at the houses of other dear friends whom they in turn expect to find 'out!' Oh, the touching sincerity of society!" 204 NEW YORK. "Dear Doris, we've talked all this over so often! Pray, did Frank Crevelling speak?" "Yes." "That interested you, of course. He always speaks so well on any subject." "It didn't interest me," said Doris, without the phantom of a blush, though she somehow felt that her observer was looking for one. "You see, I had my own speech to think about, and I came immediately after Frank." "Your own speech! Oh, Doris! You didn't you surely didn't take the platform for Woman's Eights, there at Sherry's!" "Yes more's the pity. I'm convinced that every thing I said was idiotically commonplace." Mrs. Joselyn was clasping her gloved hands together, and giving her modish-bonneted head a series of tragic shakes. "Oh, I dare say you were very clever indeed! You always are when you speak at those charitable meetings. But there! Why, it will all be in to-morrow's news papers." "Yes," Doris nodded. "Reporters rush in where angels fear to tread. There was simply no keeping them out. But I shan't be in such bad company." And she mentioned the names of several other women, young and old, who had spoken beside herself. "Beally?" Mrs. Josselyn wondered aloud. "It makes me feel very old when I see and hear of women like these doing things they'd have thought abominations ten years ago. Of course Frank Crevelling wants the women to vote." "Ho thinks that they should vote if they wish." "And Osborne Courtelyou, very probably, thinks that they should not wish." Doris flushed a little. "Why do you dart from one name to another? Surely the bearers of them have very little in common." Mrs. Josselyn went up to Doris and patted her enkin dled cheek. "They have one thing in common: they are both in love with you." NEW YORK. 305 Doris got up from the lounge. She began to arrange some laces on the front of her relative's gown. "You'll not have time to shed any pasteboard whatever, Cousin Ellen, unless you're careful." "Oh, it's hardly five yet, and our dinner is not till eight. "Which is it to be, Doris? Tell me." Doris made no answer. "Haven't you decided, my dear? Or shall you refuse them both? It would be just like you to refuse them both. Come now, don't even hint to me that both haven't asked you, and more times apiece than once." The girl drew herself up, and quite proudly. "I think it always the best plan for every woman to keep perfectly silent on such subjects. For if she says that a man has asked her she not only betrays his confidence but runs the risk of being thought a mere boaster; and if she denies that he has asked her when people strongly suspect it, she's either rated as subtle and sly and a serpent of deceit, or laughed at as poseuse. " "Tut, tut, tut, my dear," said Mrs. Josselyn. "You are talking of 'people,' now. I am not 'people;' I'm your cousin and loving friend. No such grand airs with me, if you please." Doris snatched another kiss from the faded cheek. "Oh, Cousin Ellen, you know they've both asked me! yes, more than once." "Well?" said her companion inexorably. "I've never made up my mind." "And you've never dreamed of asking me to help you!" reproached Mrs. Josselyn, with some rather genu ine bitterness. "Not you, indeed! My counsel wouldn't be up-to-date enough." Doris, with her gray eyes humid, gave a long sigh. "What counseling but one's own can suffice, in a case like this? One knows her own heart or doesn't know it." "And you don't know yours?" The girl went to a window and looked out through its misty curtains on the gentle bluish twilight of what had been a benign November day a New York November day, full of dreamy sunshine and of still air, just touched 06 NEW YORK. with delicate crispness, preluding, but as yet only vaguely, the sharper "Thanksgiving weather, " to come. Slowly, after a little silence, she turned again and said : "I'm afraid, Cousin Ellen, that I know my own heart only too well." "I see, Doris. You don't love either of them. Strange girl! They 're both excellent matches. Courtel- you is the better, in a worldly sense, of course. But you would make Crevelling an almost ideal wife." Mrs. Josselyn said these words with an unwonted excitement. "And he is such a lovable fellow," she went on. "Yes, with all his intellectuality, so lovable! Think of an old woman like me, having lost her heart to him long ago!" "Oh," said Doris, trying to laugh yet failing, as though her mood were too serious, "in your sense, I've lost my heart to him also." "I see, Doris, I see. You're waiting for a passion." "A passion?" said Doris, starting. "No not that. I never thought of that." "But you've all the while been waiting for it, never theless. Oh, I know you girls! You differ in this trait or that, but in the main you're all alike. I was once a girl myself, please remember, centuries ago. Now, I'd have married Courtelyou I confess that I would. You shrink from marrying either because you're not con tented with the rich and sweet sentiment Crevelling has aroused in you." Doris looked as if she wanted to make some eager and significant reply. But she only said, with a wandering vagueness : "I might explain to you. I think I might make it all very clear." "Then you shall explain you shall make it very clear!" "Your carriage is waiting, Cousin Ellen. I saw it as I came in. " "Did you, indeed, you little temporizer! Well, let it wait." And Mrs. Josselyn caught both the girl's hands and drew her to the lounge. When they were seated close beside one another, she exclaimed with an auster- NEW YORK. 207 ity that could not hide the affection throbbing beneath it. "Now, tell me, Doris tell me, I insist, why you don't marry the best and noblest man in the world and a man whom you've confessed that you're devotedb' fond of, even if your actions hadn't shown it me months before to-day!" 208 NEW YORK. VII. THUS arraigned, Doris at first drooped her eyes. Then fihe lifted them hesitantly, while their gray seemed alive with little mellow dancing lights. "It seems to me, Cousin Ellen, that I could give Frank Crevelling every thing I should like to give the man I married, if only " "If only, Doris?" "There are two lines in Tennyson's Maud " 'The least little aquiline curve in a sensitive nose, From which I escaped heart-free " Please don't stare at me as if I were objecting to Frank Crevelling's nose. I'm not, nor to any of his physical attributes. Indeed, I think his personnel quite engag ing. Mentally, I admit, he fills me with fascination. His intelligence is the widest, the most sympathetic, the most sensitive to impressions, of any that I have ever met. But I don't think, for all this, that I have the right to become his wife." "What a roundabout way of saying that you don't love him!" "I do love him " "Well, then!" "Sometimes, I mean." Doris joined the finger tips of either hand together, and gazed down at their pretty little complicated arch. "Oh, but it's all so strange with me!" came her next feverishly plaintive words. "I somehow resent his success, his prosperity, his secure achievement, all the friends he has, all his power of win ning friends, everything about him that is so secure, so enviable to his fellow mortals." "Doris! I've spent a good deal of time in being sur prised at you, but you've reserved for me one final aston- NEW YORK. ishment. What kind of a man do you want to fall in love with, since you are certainly not in love with Crevel- ling? For love, my dear, never analyzes and ruminates like this. It '' "It loves! You're right, Cousin Ellen. It just loves, and there's an end." "But with Osborne Courtelyou? Have you for him some other queer collection of emotions?" Doris gave a repelling start. "Love for Osborne Courtelyou! Good heavens! I'd marry him to-morrow if I were ambitious. He told me so, the other day. He knows what a match he is. He knows everything, for that matter; he's a mine of the most amazing informa tion on all subjects. Nothing escapes him; I don't pre tend to have escaped him, in any of my minutest details. He strikes me as the keenest person that ever existed. I'm certain he could tell me just what kind of frock I wore six mouths back from any given date, and accu rately describe its trimmings. But to fall in love with him, Cousin Ellen! It would be like falling in love with a city directory, or the catalogue of an auctioneer!" "That finishes him. Off with his head, so much for Courtelyou! But your objections to Frank Crevelling affect me, Doris, as unpardonably absurd." "So they often affect me. " Here Doris began to un button her gloves. "I sometimes fancy, Cousin Ellen," she pursued, with eyes intent on the unsheathing of her flexile fingers, "that I could never really love a man unless I had some kind of pity for him some desire to help him to see him righted, or to prevent him from being wronged." She raised her look, and it was sparkling half-soberly, half-mirthfully. " That you may denounce and with justice, as both unpardonable and absurd." Mrs. Jo sselyn pursed her lips with an intolerant air. " Icertainly do." She gave a light, irritated laugh, and rose again. "The next thing, my child, you'll be plighting troth with some of your numerous blind men or cripples, or hospital patients, or bah! you make me wish you were ten, and I had the authority to put you in a dark closet." 210 NEW YORK. "You never did that to Grace," said Doris, smoothing out her gloves and neatly bagging them together. "You were always the sweetest and kindest of mothers." "Grace never had such wayward and whimsical fancies. " "Oh, I admit that mine is only a fancy." "When you're a spinster of forty you'll admit it with penitence, perhaps." "Penitence! Never!" And laughing, Doris tossed her bundled gloves high in the air and caught them with no mean skill. The next minute she joined Mrs. Josselyn near the door. "Speaking of Grace is Lord Brecknock to dine with us this evening?" "Yes," came the answer, with a slight self-satisfied heightening of Mrs. Josselj'u's head. Then, as if some impulse to change the subject swayed her and possibly because it was one for which she had neither the time nor mood to deal with it : "Oh, I forgot, Doiis. Cousin Albert has decided on taking an uptown secretary.. As you know, he has been for some time thinking about it. I opposed the idea, at first." "Yes, I recoll'ect you mentiond to me that you had opposed it." "But Cousin Albert is not so strong now as he was then. Dr. Lyudsay has been giving me rather bad accounts of him." Instantly Doris' face brimmed with solicitude. "Cousin Ellen! You don't mean he's in any danger?" "Oh, no. But he has a weak heart; that's all. Peo ple live to ninety with weak hearts, I also learned. But his going downtown every day, Dr. Lyndsa3 r says, is a rash exertion. The new secretary can make these journeys/o?' him, if needful." Doris brightened. "I breathe again. You know how dearly I love Cousin Albert! And he has looked pale, and seemed less strong, of late. But he would never allow that he was the least bit ill." "He isn't ill. But I made him see Dr. Lyndsay. We wont together, and afterward I managed a little stolen chat with the doctor." NEW YORK. 211 "And has the new secretary arrived?" "He spent an hour or two with Cousin Albert to-day." "Keally? And you've told me nothing about it all till now?" "My dear Doris, you're forever on the go. [ some times feel as if we didn't live together. Talk of Grace as fashionable! Your hands are twice as full as hers. Well, I suppose your'sare full of good works. Au revoir till dinner time." "But, tell rne, Cousin Ellen, about the secretary. Have you seen him? Is he nice?" Doris caught her cousin's velvet sleeve as she was opening the door." "Have I seen him? Is he nice? Oh, Doris, you democratic plebeian minx, how like you!" Mrs. Josse- lyn's face grew mildly ferocious. "Yes, I've seen him, and he struck me as a vigorous young fellow with a brown beard. His name, I believe, is George." "George what?" "Why, George, Mr. George." "Oh." The mild ferocity deepened. "He isn't, as far as I have yet been able to perceive, the sort of person whom you could pity, or desire to help, or see righted, or pre vent from being wronged." Doris raised one hand as if in act to strike. " TJiat's the way you treat my sacred confidences! And did Cousin Albert advertise for him?" "No, you incarnate curiosity! He simply got him I haven't inquired how; no doubt somebody downtown recommended him. Yes, I recall now it happened like that. Have you any more questions?" "Yes," replied Doris, with one of her breezy laughs. "Is he to live here?" "Live here!" scowled Mrs. Josselyn, though with a smile faint yet betraj-ing. "Not at all. Do you imag ine I'd have you and him forever popping up against one another till the poor fellow began to grow hollow- cheeked and to make mistakes in his commercial arithmetic?" "Oh, then he's just to come here each day?" "That's the arrangement," 212 NEW YORK. "I shall certainly get a glimpse of him to-morrow," said Doris, with a triumphant nod. "I always dart in and out of the library two or three times a day when I'm at home." "But you're never at home any longer," said Mrs. Josselyn, with plaintive sarcasm, while disappearing. "You forget that." At dinner Doris wondered whether her aunt had de signed bringing matters to a climax by placing her be tween Frank Crevelling and Osborne Courtelyou. If so, she swiftly decided, no such point would be gained. For that matter, there was to be no "climax" at all un less Doris' own designs were harshly thwarted. She knew very well that both men were in love with her; she knew very well that she would never, at any future period, bring herself to marry either of them. Mean while they were excellent friends with one another, and she strongly wished them both to remain excellent friends with herself. She had not said to either of them, "I do not love you and hence I cannot marry you;" she had merely stated and restated her conviction that she would never marry at all. But if they did not believe her it was because of no coquetry on her own side or of as little as she could avoid, being a woman. "I often act with those two men," she once said to Grace, "just as if they were two women friends." "Why not put it the other way?" Grace had replied, slanting her small dark head archly, and showing her milky teeth in a full smile. "I mean, just as if you were all three of you men together." Doris pinched Grace's pink and white cheek. She thought the cheek a beautiful one, and her cousin, who was insipidly pretty as some waxen lady in the window of Macy's or Altaian's, a lovely minature divinity. She would have scouted the idea of being better looking herself, though in reality a glance at her finely intelli gent face and the sweet fire of its big gray eyes, was worth twenty that might be given her young kinswoman, with plumpish, neaty-molded little person and babyish curves of cheek and chin. "I hope, Grace, that you're not presuming to call me mannish!" NEW YORK. 213 "Nobody could call you that, Doris, though it might be said of some other girl if she went about in so queerly enterprising a way." Doris folded her arms and looked at the floor. "I dare say it seems 'queerly enterprising,' just as you say. But I often think I haven't seen half enough of this monstrous New York that surrounds me, with all its lights and shades of human living. And oh, the trage dies that are forever going on among the poor! No doubt you're much happier not to bother yourself about them as I do." "You bother yourself about them to some purpose!" cried Grace, who admired her cousin almost more than she loved her. "But what can / do, with my teacupful of brains, except hold my tongue and keep in the back ground?" "Still, Grace," said Doris, pointedly and measuredly, "you have your ambitions." "Oh, social ones, if you please." She looked like a large, graceful, animated doll as she shook her dainty little head from side to side. "But societj' is all I'm fit for, you know." "You're fit for a happy life," said Doris, below her breath, and with a deeper significance than her listener may have dreamed of suspecting. She was thinking of Lord Brecknock, whose attentions were at this time growing more distinct every day. To-night, at the dinner, Doris shone with a good deal of careless and unconscious brilliancy. She was a little excited, and somewhat annoyed beside, at being placed between Crevelling and Courtelyou. The result of these combined emotions had been to make her more volubly expansive than usual, and to draw forth from her that vivacity which we call Americanism in our women, and of which the reader, provided he has not understood her ill, must already have recognized that she possessed an abundant share. It is the sort of quality that most Englishmen are be lieved to find fascinating; and now, as the conversation became general, under Doris' quite spontaneous and unforced leadership, Lord Brecknock, who was present 214 NEW YORK. and who sat beside Grace, felt himself rather pleasurably stirred. "She's awfully clever," he whispered to Grace, above a lifted wineglass, "isn't she? Fancynow! Fora girl as young as that to talk so about your Wall Street! And all the while she's such good form ^not the least like those ladies that hire halls and spout in 'em." Grace frowned. "Mercy! I should say she wasn't!" At this point Courtelyou was saying across the table to a Wall Street man of some prominence: "Beally, Blashfield, if I'd known how your guild was going to be abused I should never have dared to take Miss Doris within a mile of the Stock Exchange. " "Somebody else would have taken me there. You, for instance." And Doris turned to Crevelling. "What! a clergyman!" said Lord Brecknock. "He isn't a clergyman," said Doris; "he's only a preacher. And he's been in places almost as bad as Wall Street, to find his texts. Chinese opium joints, for instance, and the east side sweat shops." "Almost as bad!" gasped Mr. Blashfield, who had made several millions in Wall Street, below his big blond mustache. "Doris, dear," smiled Mrs. Josselyn, "be as convinc ing and amusing as you please, but do try to avoid the sensational." Doris flashed a look at her cousin, which the latter clearly understood. "You've put me here, with horrible cruelty," the look affirmed, "between two men who both want to marry me, as you're very well aware. So now I shall take my revenge by becoming a public chatterbox, and not giving you the chance of watching how I dispose my civilities between these two interesting rivals." "Yes," Doris went on aloud, "almost as bad, but not quite. My glimpse of the Stock Exchange wasn't very surprising. I found it just the pandemonium I expected. The inmates, I believe, were having a specially busy day "You were fortunate, then," laughed Mr. Blashfield, "you saw them in all their glory." "Or shame. " "Come, come, now, [Doris," said Mr. Josselyn, "you, NEW YORK. 215 mustn't forget you're talking to one of our most brilliant Wall Street financiers." "Oh, Mr. Blashfield won't care for anything / may say," returned Doris. "I care for everything you say," protested Mr. Blash field. "Then," said Doris, touched by a certain genuine heartiness in the man's tones, "I won't speak out my bad opinions; I'll keep them concealed." "Not on my account, please. I'd very much like to hear you run down Wall Street as hard as you could. I'm doubtful if your bad opinions can possibly equal my own." "There's a challenge," saie Courtelyou, "and one which certainly bristles with the element of the unex pected." "Still, they tell me you have made lots of money in Wall Street," said Doris, looking at her challenger with a demure defiance that roused general laughter. "I've lost twice as much there as I've ever made, " said Mr. Blashfield ruefully. "Ah, what agreeable tidings!" broke from Doris. "Isn't that as cruel as it is impolite?" asked Mrs. Josselyn. In days before the coming of Lord Brecknock she had thought of this middle-aged bachelor capitalist for Grace. "If everybody always lost, " said Doris, "that mael strom of gambling would cease to exist. Cousin Albert has just called you, Mr. Blashfield, a brilliant Wall Street financier. Tell him that this 'brilliancy,' of which people talk, is only avarice in one of its nimbler forms. For how are your 'great men' different from misers except that they have quicker, more sinewy fingers in the gathering together of dollars? And again, how were your railroad-wreckers different from burglars, except that instead of breaking locks and safes they broke the hearts of men and women? And such people as these did they deserve, in any fair sense, to be called gamblers? Did they not play, as it were, with marked cards? Having mighty capital at their command, they knew just how and when particular stocks would rise or 216 NEW YORK. fall. They spread abroad deceitful rumors, they created untold mischief and ruin and despair. They plunged families into penury by their subtly circulated false hoods; in hundreds of cases they drove men to forgerj' and embezzlement, caused banks to be shattered, sowed suicide and disgrace broadcast. Happily, as I have heard, these czars and tycoons of finance no longer reign except in their natural heirs, who appear to be rather proud of them as progenitors. But the whole hateful system of hazard yet reigns, and continues an enemy of society, an incessant threat to the youth of our present and coming generations." Doris finished with sparkling eyes and a mutinous look about the lips. "I'm inclined to think," said Lord Brecknock, glanc ing at Mr. Blashfield, "that you can't pitch into poor Wall Street very much stronger than that." Before Mr. Blashfield could reply, Crevelling, who feared that Doris' outburst had dashed if not angered its chief recipient, and who was forever tending, in his kindly way, toward the part of pacificator, said merrily : "My dear Blashfield, there's no help for you! You must endow my church with a few millions or so, and I'll build a bigger parsonage and reward you by allow ing you to occupy a nice suite of apartments there." "I'll keep my ill-gotten gains, thank you, "said Blash field dryly, nibbling at an olive. "There, now!" cried Doris. "You told me to say what I chose, and you're annoyed that I took you at your word." "Not at all," replied Mr. Blashfield. "I could say even bitterer things about the whole institution you so despise, Miss Doris. But if the gambling there could be crushed to-morrow it would surely break out somewhere else, and probably in some worse form. You remind me of those who dream they can suppress drunkenness by closing all the liquor-shops." "Oh, I'm not a prohibitionist, if you mean that!" de clared Doris. "I approve high license, and I think the Puritan Sabbath a tyranny." And then the conversa tion became animated on this new subject, nearly every body Joining in it, NEW YORK. 217 "How I wish I were as clever as my cousin!" Grace murmured to Lork Brecknock. "/don't," was the prompt answer. "Then you prefer me stupid as I am?" "I prefer you gentle and feminine as you are." Grace instantly resented the would-be compliment, springing to arms in the cause of Doris. "You don't mean that she isn't gentle and feminine? For if you do, sir, you're horribly mistaken!" "No of course I meant no such thing," said the Englishman, his fair-skinned face coloring. "But then she knows such an awful lot, and she likes to talk on such tremendously deep questions, and she goes for a fellow right between the eyes, don't you see, and downs him in no time. I wonder if she's always doing that to the .clergyman and the other chap; But if she does I fancy they like it, don't you?" "They like her," said Grace primly. "Everybody who knows her likes her. And excuse me but I think your pugilistic way of describing our darling Doris by no means in the best taste." After dinner, while the ladies were alone together, Mrs. Josselyn, without seeming to neglect the guests who claimed her courtesy, seized a chance of saying to Grace : "You went with him this afternoon to the picture show?" "Yes, mamma." "Did he er -say anything more, my dear?" "Yes." And then, for several minutes Grace went on speaking, in a voice as low and rapid as her mother's had been. "Oh, really ?" said Mrs. Josselyn, at length, with a flash of telltale gladness in her discreetly veiled gaze. ""Why, then he will very soon see your father." "I think so, mamma. To-morrow he is going on that coaching party to Tuxedo. It's a men's affair, you know." "Schuyler Charlton's yes I remember. By Fri day he will be back in town." "He may stay over till Saturday," 218 NEW YORK. "Grace, my child, "Mrs. Josselyn's lips were now very close to her daughter's delicate little ear, "you feel, doii't you, that he is thoroughly in earnest?" "Oh, thoroughly!" "There, that will do, my dear. Go over and talk with Mrs. Abercrombie. Doris looks as though she wanted to get away from her, and whenever Doris looks so I'm always afraid she may say something queer. She gave me actual shivers at dinner, with her 'new woman' kind of talk about the evils of Wall Street, and prohibi tion, and all that." "Truly, mamma," smiled Grace, "I thought she made things go off with such a nice sort of snap!" "M m perhaps. But never try to imitate her, my dear. Recollect there's only one Doris in the world. Two like her, for all that I love her so, would be more than I could possibly bear. And Grace," Mrs. Josselyn tapped the girl's creamy shoulder with the tip of her fan. "Well, mamma?" "Be careful, if any one speaks of an engagement, to seem very surprised, and to act as if it were the very furthest thing from your thoughts, and then to keep perfectly silent on the whole subject perfectly, you understand." "Yes, mamma." "I hardly got a word with you at dinner," said Cour- telyou, seating himself beside Doris, a little later, and so pointedly that the ladj' at her other elbow rose and glided away. "You seemed piqued at something were you?" "What an idea!" said Doris impenetrably. "Oh, do you mean at Wall Street?" "Bother Wall Street. Your tirade seemed to conceal something. I hope it wasn't any annoyance at Crevel- ling." "Dear old Frank Crevelling! Of course not." "He isn't old. Is he very, dear?" "We've been friends for ages excellent friends, as you know." "You went with him to Sherry's this afternoon, of course, as you intended?" NEW YORK. 219 "Yes. He spoke admirably. I made a few fatuous remarks. But you should have seen how some of the other Woman's Vote women outshone me." "I should have liked to see how you probably out shone them." "Nonsense. You were expected to be there and to speak against the movement. Why didn't you appear?" "I couldn't. Some hard work at the office claimed me." Doris gave him one of her gentle yet subtle smiles. "I've been flattering myself that I wrought your conver sion, the other day, when we had that hot argument." "Oh, " said Courtelyou, with a mellowness of manner that would have astonished some of those who believed him all legal acumen and cold-cut rectitude, "I'm pre pared to call black white when you really command it of me. ' Doris knit her brows in an offended way. "No won der you don't approve of giving women their civic rights when you're willing to try and please them with such mere sugared triviality." He changed color, biting his lip. "Most men are fools when they're in love. You must pardon me on that score. If you consented to marry me you might convert me for good and all." Doris said nothing. "Have you forgotten your promise?" he presently asked. "What promise?" she asked in reply. Just then Grovelling approached, and with the faintest gesture she pointed to the vacant chair at her other side. "Oh, yes," she exclaimed, with great abrupt amiability. "But 3 r ou should refer to it as your own kind offer. He means, Frank, my going with him to-morrow to that police captain's trial? Of course I will go, Mr. Courtel you, and I am grateful for your goodness in taking me." Courtelyou hated to hear her call Crevelling "Frank." She had never addressed him by his first name; the intimacy with Crevelling had dated from her early girl hood. Perhaps Courtelyou would have cared less for this difference if it had not occurred to him, just then, NEW YORK. that nobody except his sister, Martha, and a small group of near relations ever called him "Osborne. " Nobody, indeed, had so far presumed. Aud a thrill of uncharac teristic regret assailed him at this realization, for the first time in his life. Even the most self-contained man, the one most buoyantly satisfied with his own distinc tion and dignity, Avill sometimes feel a qualm of regret that he is outside the pale of all familiar intimacies and fondnesses while in the presence of a woman whom he loves. "Half-past nine, then, sharp, to-morrow morning," Doris said, giving him her hand as he presently rose to take his leave. He still liked Crevelliug as much as ever, still believed in him as a spirit of high and noble effort. But an irrepressible jealousy had begun to sway his strange austere heart, while now, as somehow never before, he began to face the fact of his impossible suit, in all its baffling and humbling mockery. "Martha would know if she cares for Crevelling, " he told himself, during his homeward walk. And Martha, as it chanced, having just returned from another dinner, met him when he entered the dim-lit drawing room. "I waited for you a few minutes, Osborne, " she said, some clustered brilliants flashing from her corsage and a little hiss breaking from her silken skirts, while she turned and left the ruddy remnants of an almost extinct wood fire. "You're always so punctual; I was sure eleven wouldn't find you away from home. Did you enjoy it at the Josselyn's?" "Did you enjoy it at the Armstrong's?" He spoke absently. "To-night was the Vanderwater's; you're thinking of to-morrow night, when we are to feast at the same mahogany." "Yes, true." "Enjoy it," laughed Martha. "Oh, yes, immensely. Such frivolity, though! Not a person worth talking to. I felt ashamed of myself all the time I was amusing my self." "That's the way you constantly speak nowadays," he said, with a touch of chilly censure. "Since you've got NEW YORK. so to admire Doris Josselyn you act as though you were ashamed of being seen in society." "Dear Doris! Well, she has given me ideas. But the trouble is, I can't live up to them." "Then don't try- Be yourself. Doris makes great mistakes; she's a dangerous model." "Dangerous!" cried Martha. "Oh, Osborne, how can you? She's the loveliest, the most sincere, the most purely womanly creature But there; I'll stop. You know you agree with me. The onlj r difference between us, Osborne, is that I'm in love with her and admit it, while you're in love with her and won't." "Oh, won't I?" muttered Courtelyou, while his sister started. For Osborne to admit or even hint that he was in love with any living woman struck the girl as amaz ingly odd. Then Courtelj^ou went on, with quick, neutral-toned query. "Tell me, by the way, do you think she cares for Frank Ore veiling? Loves him, I mean?" "No," instantly answered Martha. Then, with head posed sideways, as if delivering sapient and valuable intelligence concerning her idol : "Doris is in love with no man, as yet." "As yet?" said Courtelyou. For a second he almost detested his sister, though Martha's verdict and that of the onlookiug world would exactly have tallied as to his being a model brother. "Pray, how is that?" "Why, simply, Osborne, that Doris has never met the man whom she could marry. Not that she is waiting for him; not that she expects him to arrive; but only that she has never met him." "She's told you this?" "In no definite way in fifty vague ones." With a sudden emphasis, both of irritation and regret, Martha continued: "Oh, how I should love to see her your wife! And why not? Are you not the two people on earth of whom I'm fondest?" Courtelyou turned almost rudely from her as she stretched forth one hand to lay it on his arm. He had grown pale, and his heart felt leaden. As he went out into the hall she cried after him, following him : "Os- NEW YORK. borne! you haven't told me how you liked me in this new gown." But he made her no answer. In truth he did not even hear her voice. A stubborn reaction had set in with him. Beaching his library the room in which he had held that memorable interview with George Oliver, an interview destined to increase and strengthen his fame as a lawyer more than any single event which had be fallen him he sank into a chair, and involuntarily clinched both hands till their palms were wounded by their nails. "An imagined rival is no rival, " he thought. "Bah! I'll have her yet!" And then Martha, highly offended, broke into the room. "I don't care about my gown, Osborne, " she cried tearfully. "But I'm afraid I've wounded you. And we've always been such chums!" She threw both arms about his neck and kissed him on the cheek. Still hold ing him thus, she drew back and peered into his re served, unsympathetic face, with its jutting forehead, its thin lips, its pointed- chin. "People may be afraid of you because you're so grand and clever. But I'm not afraid, am I? You've always been sweet and brotherly to me! And if I guessed the soft place in j r our heart (why shouldn't I guess it when I know that I possess at least a share of it?), and if I was cruel enough to wound you there, please forgive me! Perhaps I didn't do so quite unwittingly. Perhaps I I wanted to icarn you, Osborne, having so thoroughly fathomed her nature certain depths of it, I mean. Still, I may be wrong there's always a doubt in such cases and you ivill for give me, I'm sure." He drew her arms from about his neck, and then rose, holding her hands. Quite gently, and with a composed and critical smile, he pushed her away from him, and let his gaze sweep the tasteful n't and folds of her attire. "Your gown is very good, "he said, in an odd, hushed voice "decidedly good. I hope you may look as well 'sent out,' Martha, to speak in modern phrase, the day you are bridesmaid for Doris at her wedding and mine." NEW YORK. She stared at him incredulously. "Oh, Osborne, if I could only believe it ever would happen!" "There; it's threatening midnight. Go and get some beauty-sleep, since you are always telling me you've no beauty." He touched her lips with his own. "I more's the pity must sit up two good hours yet over some knottj" law papers." But he made a sad failure of his work that night. His mind, usually like a well-oiled machine, of the most complicated yet agile capacity, refused, for once, to obey the impetus of his powerful will. And at last he rose from his desk with brows clouded by self-annoyance, while his own recent thought kept reiterating itself through certain mysterious echo-chambers of the brain : "An imagined rival is no rival. Bah! I'll have her yet unless Frank Crevelliug forestalls me." NEW YORK. IX. "AND so you're going to Captain Commisky's trial to morrow?" said Frank Crevelling to Doris, after Courtel- you had left them alone together. I often wonder what new experience you will hunger for next." She looked full into his earnest brown eyes for a moment. She loved their honesty and manliness and sweetness, all commingled. But to Crevelling these fre quent glances had grown of late discomfortingly bold. He would have liked them to be shyer, and it cost him occasional pangs to find that they were not. Their very candor of comradeship confessed, in their charming donor, that absence of all passion for which immensities of friendliness could no longer console him. "I hunger for countless experiences," Doris answered, between a sigh and a smile. "One might not construct from them a theory of life, but one might evolve a theory of human help. Courtelyou thinks I may be shocked and want to go home. But I doubt it. However, the whole affair for me will be like having an electric bell at my finger-tip. I have only to touch it and avoid the unbearable. " "I should have liked to go with you," said Crevelling. "Yonr surprises, even your disgusts, would have inter ested me. " "Why didn't you ask me first, then?" she quickly replied. "Courtelyou was more fortunate. He often is." "You're both busy men," she said evasively, "in your different ways." "His way of being busy I mean his brilliant, nota ble, mundane way is one that would naturally attract most women." "Most women yes. But not me, as you know." NEW YORK. 225 "You prefer, then, my lame efforts at godliness." "If I thought them lame I should pity you but not respect you a whit the less. As it is, I do nothing but envy you. If a fairy should give me a wish I honestly believe that I should ask to be a man with just your talents, just your great religion of charity, and just your splendid range and depth of the finer, wholesomer social success." "Ah, that fairy!" said Crevelling, with a sad smile on his rugged features, all so richly bathed in kindliness that to his many admirers they produced the effect of being delicateb', subtly illumined by a mysterious inner light. "How I should like to buttonhole her catch her by one gossamer wing and detain her for a few precious moments before your fateful interview! Given a fairy, you know, given the omnipotence of magic, I'd pray to her that she'd make you wish something else." "Well and what?" "Not to be the man you so foolishly admire, but to share his future fate." Crevelling was pulling at his tenuous thread of watchchain, and looking down on ifc as though murmuroiisly scolding it for some misde meanor in its tiny links. Doris did not even faintly color. She had so lately heard Courtelyou ask her for the fifth or sixth time to be his wife, and now she was hearing her treasured Frank Crevelling make her, here in the same evening, and for possibly the seventh or eighth time, a similar proposal. And she was thinking that if it were a question of being wife to either of them, how much rather she would choose such a fate with him who now addressed her than with the other ambitious and talented and self-circum scribed wooer. And yet to neither would she give her hand, for to neither did any real passion the kind of passion she understood but had never felt, nor, for that matter, had ever desired to feel respond. "My dear Doris," said Mrs. Josselyn, sweeping softly up to her, at this point, "poor abused Mr. Blashfield is about to de part. Wouldn't it be a little nice of you if you'd just cross the room and say a kind word to him after your barbaric behavior during dinner? I'm sure he'd ap- 226 NEW YORK. preciate it; he's so good natured and forgiving. Leave me with dear Frank Crevelling. I'll try to amuse him till you return. I'll tell him how I condemn all the prattle talked about his Wednesday punch-bowl, and how your Cousin Albert, for reasons which I fear are entirely too gross and earthly, is one of its ardent supporters." When Courtelyou called for her on the following morning, Doris met him with a smile sweeter than the drowsy November weather and much more lively. They drove in a cab to the scene of Captain Cumrnisky's trial. During their downtown journey Doris confined her talk to certain stringent comments and inquiries. "He's been a very trusted officer for ten years, has he not?" "About twelve, I think." "He's grown rich?" "Apparently. He has a house uptown, on the west side, near the park. A rather handsome house, 1 hear." "And he's married, is he not, and he has several chil dren? How terribly sad for his wife! Howl pity her and the children!" "That is so like you," said Courtelyou. "Before you have heard a word of the evidence against him you begin to pity him. Suppose it should be damning, as it probably is, would you pity him still?" "Yes, why not? I don't suggest that he shouldn't receive punishment on that account. Punishment for crime means nothing of any import to the culprit him self. It's only benefit is a warning to society. But think of the forces of heredity, which may have pushed him to his present state!" Courtelyou leaned back in the cab. He relished so the sound of her sweet, eager voice that he forgot to answer it. Everything she might say in this vein was familiar to him as any argument of the great modern thinkers, with their multitudinous followers. But to hear her reproduce the shallowest platitudes would have been delightful just then. "He is acaused, isn't he," Doris soon pursued, "of taking bribes from people whom he should have arrested for violations of the law he was appointed to enforce? NEW YORK. 22? That, ir the main, covers his declared criminality. Am I not right?" "Perfectly right." When they reached the courtroom and had found comfortable seats there, only certain tedious prelimi naries of the trial had begun. Doris looked about her with a keen curiosity, sharpened by her inveterate sym pathy for human nature in all its multiform present ments. She did not see a single familiar face, but she saw a good many that interested, surprised, shocked. More than half the assemblage was feminine. And such curious types of womanhood! From what quarters of the town had they gathered here? Some were dressed in gaudy robes, with jewels, probably spurious, glittering from ears, fingers, bosoms. Others were of neat attire and modest aspect. Others, again, were wofully shabby. Still others were living betrayals of shame, with their painted lips and cheeks, their aggressive exposures of breasts, their reckless daring of posture, laugh or smile. And others were of the pauper class, quite forlorn or even ragged in gear, intensely curious to note every thing that went on around them, mostly huddled together in groups, with their pale and pinched faces expressing the deepest concern, like that of children at the begin ning of some longed-for pantomime. The culprit struck Doris as a superb human animal. He was shorn of his uniform now, but she could imag ine how its gilt buttons must have become him. He had the face of a German demigod, though he was an Irish man, aa his name denoted. He was large and tall of stature, with big hands, a magnificent chest, a short, curled auburn beard, a face of generous yet regular out line, such as Eubens loved to paint. He might have stepped, in his modern garb, from one of the Antwerp canvases, a towering, sensuous, virile shape, incontesta- bly handsome and suggesting the ropy muscles, the dominant physical coarseness that some women dislike and by which others are enchanted. The first questions addressed to him he met with an insolence so marked in its bravado that the judge had repeatedly to chide him. The ebullience of his Irish wit 228 NEW YORK. called forth applause from evident friends and support ers, and here again a reprimanding gavel was briskly employed. "The man is really nervous and unstrung," said Doris to Courtelyou, during a pause in the proceedings. "He has steeled himself to carry it all off in this jaunty way, but I can trace s can't you, a great underlying agitation?" "Frankly, no; I can't. You're a wonderful observer. I only hope the fellow will get his rightful punishment. I think there can be no concealing his rogueries. The New York police are being brought to account at last. These investigations were needed long ago. Examples should be made terrifying ones; there is no other way of stinging into action the apathetic voter." "I somehow feel sorry for this Captain Cummisky," said Doris. "Sorry?" "Yes. What conscienceless folk were most probably his predecessors for generations past! If he is guilty of all these charges laid against him, is he guilty as you or I would be? They trained the Spartan boys to steal, who knows if he were reared much differently? I can imagine that for years he has been surrounded, as a police captain, by people who applauded his chicaneries, and even envied the lucre they won for him." Later the trial grew highly dramatic. Damning testi mony was given against the prisoner. Proprietors of liquor saloons affirmed under oath that he had levied large monthly taxes upon them. Then from shopkeep ers and street venders of various wares came minor com plaints. Finally three women were called in succession as witnesses. All declared that they had paid him large sums to save from exposure the unholy haunts over which they presided. The first might have been taken for a reduced gentlewoman, so refined if threadbare was her apparel, so timid were her voice and manner, so correct was her syntax. Hers was an instance of depravity vest ing itself in the most hypocritic guise. Between what she revealed and her manner of revealing it there was a gulf of astounding contrast. Then came a woman of the people, flashy and fleshy, and bold of tongue. She bore NEW YORK. 239 herself with a bacchanal sort of abandonment, cracked vulgar jokes, bared her red guins in cackling laughter, ogled the judge, simpered saucily at the jury, the law yers, the spectators. Toward the prisoner she showed a certain furtive sympathy and the worst admissions wrung from her regarding his ruthless blackmail were tinged with a matter-of-course exculpation, as though he had only done what any official in his tempted position might have been expected to do, and no more than what she herself might have done if their sexes and mutual rela tions had been reversed. "I warned you, "muttered Courtelyou, embarrassedly, to Doris. "We can go at once if you wish." "No not yet. " He thought he had never seen her so pale, and at the corners of her mouth was a peculiar tensity that implied mental suffering. "It is horrible, yet it's life. If she were a man I might go. But we women have always shirked too much the degradation of our own sex. If I fight fastidiousness and disgust now, I may gain a certain strength of aid hereafter. Perhaps you don't understand, but let it pass." Courtelyou made no reply. He felt, however, that he did understand. Martha had told him of Doris' almost secret work in a certain Magdalen asylum, and of her self-confessed personal associations with women there, her pleadings, arguments, entreaties, and actual offices of affectionate fellowship. Of all this Frank Crevelling was well aware, and had held with her serious talks con cerning it. The next woman called to the witness-chair was a hag of skinny features, with big, rolling black eyes that were/ lairs of rage and spite. She flashed with them her hatred at the prisoner, who had now become tremulous and disarrayed. Doris, from her standpoint of compassion, pitied him more than ever. All his athletic grandeur had undergone a wilting change. An anxious stoop had got into his shoulders, a frown scared and peevish, puckered his brows; on either cheek burned a vivid scarlet spot. The woman with the malevolent eyes and lean face had repeatedly to be called to order, so abusive was the language in which she recountered her persecutor's cruel 230 NEW YORK. briberies. But in spite of their vindictive savagery both her speech aud presence carried conviction. Twice or thrice she lifted her clinched bony hand and shook it at Cummisky. There was never, she averred, a meaner or more cowardly wretch. She, and not a few maltreated beings like her, had helped to pay for this villain's big new house up near the park and the diamonds that blazed on his wife's person. His salary could never have brought him the luxuries he lived in, and he knew that others knew it and talked of it, but what had he cared? For such as himself, he had thought, there would never be a day of reckoning. But once, about three years ago, she had warned him, threatened him. He had laughed in her face, and snapped his fingers in it; and afterward, with his brazen impudence, he had "put the screws on her," as he called it, tighter than ever. This witness, because of her furious gestures and gnashing of teeth, narrowly missed being imprisoned for contempt of court. But despite all its venomous ferment, its palpable personal grudge, her evidence told fearfully against the prisoner. A recess was taken after she quitted the stand, and Courtelyou then said to Doris. "Surelj- you don't care to stay longer." "No," she replied, her low voice unsteady. "Thank you for not having sooner insisted on my going." Here a smile flitted across her pale lips a smile, he could not help deciding, of delicate dissent. And at once confirm ing this swift impression, she added while she rose from her seat: "I should have opposed you, for I was bent on remaining. But now, as you suggest, let us go." That afternoon, when the session of the court broke up, Captain Commisky slipped out into the street, fol lowed by his wife, his boyish-looking son, and a daughter just past her girlhood. They all four entered a carriage with much expedition. Several friends and adherents, wearing looks of condolence and compassion, strove to detain him on the sidewalk. But he shook his head, as though denying them all privilege of converse. And then, while he was stepping forward into the carriage at whose open door waited his son, two newspaper reporters beset him. NEW YORK. 231 "Captain Cummisky, " began one, "will you " "No, no," he said, with a wave of his high-lifted hand. "I ain't got anything to say not anything at all." Then the other: "Captain, just a word, if you please " But the next instant his large frame stooped and shot plunging into the carriage, where his wife and daughter were already seated. Then his son darted in after him, and closed the door with a bang. A shade was hastily pulled down ; the carriage rolled away. Captain Cummisky 's home was far uptown, a modern structure of whitish stone, with rich carvings on stoop and facade. He entered it wearily, watched by the worried looks of his kindred. All were what might be called vulgar people; not so very long ago he had been a common policeman. But the interior of the house breathed refinement, except for a few gaudy or graceless details. Talented architects and upholsterers had waited his command. Their taste, and not his or his family's, reigned everywhere. He had spoken only in monosyllables during the home ward drive. He appeared stunned, though little bursts of rage had varied his torpor. He went at once upstairs into the front room, beautifully appointed and furnished, and said to his wife, with a hand on the knob of the door: "I guess I'll lay down on the sofa here for a little while. Don't you come in, Ann. It's all right. I'll brace up before long. And I won't see any one, you understand." Then he paused for a moment, and his mouth twitched nervously. "Unless " he commenced. "But never mind that, " he suddenly hurried on. "Re member, if anybody comes, I won't see 'em, no matter who." Then he closed the door, and soon he had unlocked a cabinet and poured himself from a handsome cut-glass decanter a copious draught of liquor. The stimulant composed him, and also set him thinking with clearness of just what had happened. The bail he had given weeks ago was exceedingly large. He knew that punishment 232 NEW YORK. and reform were in the air, that old Tammany usages were being sternly menaced, that New York was waking, governmentally, from the lethargy which had succeeded its passionate arousal after the overthrow of the Tweed infamies. But so many other malefactors were "in the same boat" with himself, and those Avho might be dragged forth as his accusers were so steeped in wrong doing, that he had gone to court, that morning, with slight fear of the Draconian tactics which were destined to make him their first victim. Doris, if she could then have looked into his sinful soul, would have pitied him more than ever. He reviewed his past, from the time that he sold papers in lower Broadway, with a drunken father to beat him every night that he brought home less than a certain expected number of cents, to the time when he walked proudly in his gold buttons, conscious of how they became his manly beauty. Everything that he had done of an immoral sort had seemed to him as natural as breathing. Nobody had ever blamed him; it had all literally been with him, as Doris had said to Courtelyou, like the teaching of the Spartan boy to steal. Toughs and roughs and thugs and heelers had been his intimates. The pride of increased wealth had created in him exclusiveness, as it nearly always does with his most educated superiors. He had married a woman of the people, but he had loved her, and been a good hus band to her, though not any more faithful a one than hundreds of his associates, and the two children she had borne him he had paternally treasured from the hours of their births. Disgrace? He had never given it a thought. Black mail had seemed his proper prerogative. If he had grown richer at it than a few others who plied the same trade, so much the luckier he. Being a Catholic, he had often given considerable sums to the church. He had not the religious ardor which sends Catholics to confes sion, but if he had gone at certain intervals to a priest and disburdened his soul of its sins, he would never have dreamed of mentioning these hideous crimes for which he was now being so fiercely arraigned. The dis gusting perquisites attached to them had for him no NEW YORK. 233 taint of real theft. He scarcelj r ever spoke to a man who would have taken, under like conditions, a different course from his own. Morally he had grown as unepi- curean as the hog that quaffs the swill thrown to it and has no concern with the daintier animals bent on choicer diet. The blackness of municipal politics did not trouble his conscience in the least. And when we reflect that men held as gentlemen were conscious of his rascalit3 r and yet solicited his power of controlling a distinct plenitude of votes for their party, how can we marvel that no self-accusing pangs assailed him? Beside, in a way, he had served the city with valor and fidelity. Long ago it had been said of him that his record, as a breaker up of desperate and unruly gangs had become a "handsome" one. Praise for gallantry, for efficient sentinelship and vigilance had rung incessantly in his ears. Till the crash came he had not merely deemed himself safe; he had no more anticipated the first lash- stroke dealt him by this whip of scorpions than he had expected, any morning, to see a lizard swimming in his coffee cup, or a rattlesnake coiled at his bedroom door. And now a great gulf of horror yawned before him. Arrest was imminent. The steadying brandy had lulled his sharper aches of fear, but unassuagable qualms continued. Meanwhile his wife and son and daughter were seated together, not far away from him. They stared into one another's faces with an immense, unspeakable dread. They, too, expected an arrest, in spite of the enormous bail. The woman trembled and sighed; the girl wept at intervals; the boy's face was white and set. They looked into one another's eyes and could not forget the shame that had fallen upon themselves. They communi cated it, each to each, in this piteous way, and then dropped their gaze, ashamed of the shame that made them even transiently unmindful of his torturing solitude. But he had commanded of them this solitude; they dared not disturb it; they had no power to relieve it. His influence was strong upon them all three- They thought him infamously wronged, just as he then thought himself. Those devilish anti-Tammanyites, 234 NEW YORK. with their committee of investigation from that self-ad miring and rottenly corrupt Republican hole of an Albany were martyrizing him for their own party profit. This is what he had told them, and this is what they believed ; and in asserting him a victim rather than a criminal they were far more right than they guessed. He was the spawn of an evil code, a political civic grossness, which Lad nourished him from its poisoned paps and then reared him for the commission and perpetuation of its own beloved misdeeds. His ignorance was the excuse of his vileness; be had been the pupil of blackguardism, not its master. "You go in and see him, Lucy," at length murmured his wife. "I guess you might say something to cheer him up." Lucy rose. She stood hesitatingly for a moment. Then, with sudden fervor, she said: "Mother! Fred! Each of you!" The tears were strangling her voice. They both rose, pierced by a novel note in her tones, a note insistent, summoning. She caught a hand of each, drawing them quite close to her. "Mother Fred let's all three go together. He's never given us anything but love and kindness. I can count on my fingers the times he's spoken harsh!}' to me, and, Fred, so can you! And every time we know we deserved it. Never mind if he wants to be alone. Let's all three go right into the room. He couldn't be really unkind to us; it isn't in him. He's afraid of breaking down before us. And it would be so much better if he once did break down! Then we'd all feel nearer to him, whatever happens. Come, now; let's go right in." And here Lucy, with a faint cry, flung away both the hands that she held. "What was it? what was it?" she gasped. Fred had even now dashed forward. Lucy and her mother, clinging together, waited in speechless terror. A certain sound had come to them, deadened as by a closed door, yet thrillingly ominous. They listened for another sound, in their anguish of suspense. And soon they heard it Fred's cry, full of agonized discov ery. And then, still clinging to one another, they stag- NEW YORTC. 235 gered toward the frightful Something that they knew would soon rack and appal them. Next morning the front pages of the newspapers told in mammoth headlines of Captain Cummisky's death by a self-inflicted pistol shot, almost at the very moment when officers of the law had mounted the stoop of his fine up town residence for the purpose of presenting him with a warrant of arrest and dragging him to the Tombs that prison to which he had consigned so many a culprit in the past years of his bad eminence, his dauntless and unmolested glory. 236 NEW YORK. BOOK III. I come in, Cousin Albert?" Doris spoke, standing a 4 : the door of Mr. Josselyn's library. Then a little laugh followed, aa she coolly opened the door. "I did't wait for permission, did I?" she went on. "You're not usually even so ceremonious as this, Doris," her cousin smiled. "Don't paint me in unpleasant colors to Mr. George," she said, "before you've made me acquainted with him." The new secretary had risen. He held some loose papers in his hand. He had been seated at Mr. Josse lyn's side, and had been reading aloud from these to his employer, who now slowly rose also, with a curious timid and hesitant loo 1 :. For Josselyn the moment was keenly awkward, though he had prepared himself some time ago to meet it, know ing it inevitable. One could never tell what marvels of discovery that penetrant young gaze of Doris' might not accomplish. With his wife it would all be a careless, taken-for-granted affair, he had felt assured, and such it indeed had proved. He acquitted himself, however, with a good deal of unuspicious ease. "Let me then make you acquainted with Mr. George at once," he said, and added, carelessly jocose: "This is my cousin, Miss Josselyn, who could stand being painted in unpleasant colors if anybody were so cruel as to do her that injustice." Doris and the secretary looked full into one another's eyes. Then she held out her hand to him, and gave his a quick, social little shake. In "her own house" this NEW YORK. 237 seemed neither bold nor modest, but merely the natural act of greeting. Beside, there was something about his face that had instantly pleased her. With its short though dense and high-growing brown beard, it some how made her think of a soldier one who might be very brave but was never cruel. "I suppose you're a New Yorker, Mr. George?" she said, when they were all three seated. "No," he replied, and here his glance caught that of Josselyn, though swiftb' withdrawn from it the next second; "I belong to the the the interior of the State. I a was born there." "Yes, I see," said Doris, "and you afterward drifted here. So many people do, don't they?" Her look floated away from his face, which she had found, in this brief time, peculiarly interesting because of a certain union in it of strength and patience. It did not appear old at all, and yet it appeared to wear the wisdom of suffering if not of maturitj'. "I have had such an exciting and saddening time to day with Osborne Courtelyou," she said to Josselyn. Mr. George started a little, but she did not observe him. "He took me to Captain Cummisky's trial." "Good heavens, Doris! "Where will you be going next?" Doris unpinned her hat and took it off. She let it lie in her lap while she smoothed the wavy chestnut hair back from her transparent temples, each with its vague branchwork of blue veins, fine as the traceries of frost ferns. She was still far from passing that age( perhaps she would never think about either passing it or not) when a beautiful woman is afraid of sitting with the light on her face. And a rather strong light from two large windows now played full upon her pearl-pure throat, lifting, as a stem lifts a tea-rose, the choice and chaste symmetries and tintings above it. You could not have called her by so weighty a word as "handsome"and yet you must have resented simply calling her pretty. She challenged with her commingled assertion of femi ninity and dignity, of loveliness and power, the finding of some new and subtler intermediate term. NEW YORK. "I'm not sorry I went," she said, "though I shall dream of it all to-night. I suppose," with reminiscent shudders. "This Captain Cummisky is such a pitiable case! Of course he has been guilty of the very worst official venality. But all the while I kept feeling how much less blamable he is than if he were some really educated man, with educational advantages, who had gone only a few steps on the road of wrongdoing." Albert Josselyn gave an uncomfortable cough. He kept his eyes averted from Mr. George, who in turn stared down at the loose papers which he still held. And then, with her wonted freedom and frankness, Doris had a great deal more to say. She described all that she had seen of the trial with a graphic and often brilliant realism. She touched upon the manners and aspects and seeming credibility of the most noteworthy witnesses in a way that suggested their grossness with out portraying it. The rapid sentences fled from her lips with a volubility plainly stimulated by the most intense moral earnestness and regret. "Ignorance, ignorance, " she ended, "was everywhere. I saw indig nation on the faces of certain respectable-looking persons, but for myself I felt none whatever. Indeed, apart from the compassion which at times almost stifled me, I had a sense of compunction, of actual shame. It was part, I suppose, of the natural debt which we all owe these be nighted creatures, who have so much excuse for their depravity a recognition that some power in the past had pulled me out of the mire in which they were plunged, and that this power had been human sympathy, and that I in turn had not taken my full individual share of the saving work which must go on from generation to generation till all society has grown fortressed against the possibility of such heathen crime." She was addressing her cousin; she had often talked to him like this before; he was familiar with her present mood, the eager staccato of her tones when it possessed her, the vivid play of her features, the lucid dilation of her large gray eyes. She had almost forgotten that the new secretary was also her listener, and now turned toward him with a startled motion as he said : NEW YORK. 239 "You have so much pity for the ignorant criminal that I am led to believe you would hare none at all for the educated one." "What a strange thing for you to say to her!" the soft eyes of Albert Josselyn now seemed mildly to flash at Mr. George. "The greater one's enlightenment, " said Doris, "the lesser one's temptation. Don't you agree with me?" "On general principles yes. " He fancied, in his in ward nervousness, that his voice shook a little; but he was wrong; it was quite firm. "Still, temptation as sumes emotional forms, now and then, and there are many examples, I think, where culture has not proved against it a stout enough safeguard." Doris knit her brows musingly for a moment. "Oh, yes." -Then she gave a slight, plaintive laugh. "Ah, I fear that my pity for all who are tempted is very quick to leap forth. I should make an absurdly lenient judge. The instant I had any clear perception of actual human struggle against evil I am sure I should feel immensely sorry for the struggler in his weakness and defeat." "God bless you! I knew it," said Mr. George. But he did not say this aloud. Doris looked at her cousin. "There is a case in point. George Oliver," she added, speaking the name very swiftly and with lowered key, though Josselyn was not alone in catching it. Then, immediately afterward, she turned again to the secretary. "Mr. Josselyn and I know of a young man who had every incentive to remain honorable, having been graduated from the New York College here, and with a fine record beside. If I told you whom I mean you would probably recall the person at once, for a new distinct notoriety just now clings to him of a peculiar sort. And he, in spite of marked in telligence, respected position and refined family in fluence, allowed himself to be led into a defalcation for which three years of prison were the punishment." There was silence. Mr. George dropped all his papers on the floor, and while he was picking them up, Doris rose. "Well," she continued, "I must be going. I really 240 NEW YORK. think, Cousin Albert, that I shall try how it feels to take a nap in the daytime. Excitement has for once tired me out; and they are giving, you know, a little festival, this evening at one of the 'homes' downtown." She vanished with a nod and a smile to each of them. Hardly had she quitted the room, when Josselyn said, in an agitated murmur "How strange! You under stood, of course, that she meant " "Understood!" shot in George Oliver. "I heard her pronounce my name, though she spoke it so low and quick." He had laid, now, the gathered-up papers on the table near by. He sank into his chair again ; he was pale, and seemed unstrung. "So soon as this!" he went on, under his breath. Josselyn drew close to him and touched his arm. "George," he said, "you would come here, remember. I'd have helped you. to get away to get far away if you'd only chosen to accept my offer. But if you fore see trying future embarrassments, and all that, it isn't too late to change your resolve. You and Doris will often be brought face to face. She's keen wonderfully keen. The whole truth might flash upon her at an in stant's notice. Not that she'd ever mention it to my wife or my daughter. Her first impulse, I'm certain, would be to guard the secret. And, as I told you, she has been anxious for some time to meet you, face to face, the Lynsko trial having roused her deepest interest in both 3 r our past and your future. Still, if you now feel that my other proposed plan would be preferable " George's look had been lowered, but he now lifted it, and meet Josselyn 's kind, anxious eyes. "No; I'll stay on, if you'll let me." NEW YORK. n. LATER, that same afternoon, while George walked home to his lodgings, which were only a few blocks away, the November suu had almost died in the hazy heaven. At one or two street crossings he saw its big disk of blurred gold poised above remote Hudson shores. The air was wooingly bland ; people moved past him with a slowness that seemed borrowed from its lazy repose. But George had caught no indolent contagion ; he could have danced along the pavement for sheer triumph and joy. And now that he was alone with the whirl and tremor of a new beatitude for his sole company, recent words that he had spoken to Albert Josselyn seemed inconceivably tame and chill. How could he ever have controlled him self like that? By what lucky resource of composure had he profited? Why did his precious concealed pas sion for Doris not leap forth, shattering all attempted restraint? "No, I'll stay on if you'll let me, "he had said; and then, just like a man whose nerves were not in an antic tingle and whose veins were not in a tropic glow, he had gone on saying: "What money I get I want to earn. Your salary is very liberal. I can save a great deal out of it. We've talked this all over, you will recollect. When I do go away I'd like to feel that my own efforts have enabled me to make the change, and not your charity, however benign. And then there's your Denver property that you want looked after. If you consent to put me in charge of it at some future day, I should like you to do this with some sort of practical certainty that the confidence you now place, in me haa not been too rashly bestowed." "Deceitful words!" George now told himself. "For why did I ever seek Albert Josselyn 's help at all except through a burning desire to be somehow nearer to her?" NEW YORK. . After Lydia's lonesome little funeral he had endured agonies of depression. There was no further visible chance of his finding any one who would trust him under his own name, and to assume an a/;'as and seek a situa tion was from lack of all recommendation, equally futile. It now all came to this: Should he use -what money was left him and travel hundreds of miles into the interior of the country, or should he make an immediate end of his life? Almost he had concluded to take the latter course. "What keeps me from taking it?" he yet found himself asking, and the answer, which was "Doris Josselyn," burned sharply forth from that dubious mist of reluct ance which he knew was neither hate of death nor fear of it. He still clung to life because it encompassed love. Every other hope or incentive or desire would bo com paratively easy to quit. Still, however, he stood for a long and desolate interval on the verge of self-destruc tion. Then, one day, in a paper, he read that the Josse- lyns had returned to town. It cost him a hard struggle to approach Albert Josse lyn, but at last youth and love conquered pride, and he yielded. Meanwhile, for weeks past, he had let his beard grow, and now felt confident that it would disguise in him a strong resemblance to his father. As it chanced, the day of his visit was one of Josselyn 's "down town days." George's name was brought to him in his private office as simply "Mr. George/' He was never an unapproachable man, and straightway consented to see the person thus calling himself. The next hour had been perhaps the most memorable in Albert Josselyn's life. People had often called him the slave of his wife, and in a manner this was true. But his slavery had, never theless, been a somewhat willing one. Still, it had known moments of rebellion ; and non-interference with the affairs of his unhappy nephew had sharply marked a mood of this combative kind. He had been very fond of George's father in former years. The quarrel about Lydia had been chiefly of Mrs. Josselyn's making. George's trial had proved a stern one to himself sterner than his staying away from Eobert Oliver's funeral, NEW YORK. 243 which had cost him pangs. But always his wife's "No" stood forcibly obstructive. She was a cruel woman with lovable qualities a tender tyrant in the sense of a spouse, yet tyrannical, none the less. He feared her, yet he was very fond of her so fond that dread of her displeasure came natural to him. If she had been a mere domestic shrew and despot he might long ago have openly opposed her will. The Lynsko trial had softened his heart afresh toward George, as we have seen in his pointed and feeling ques tions to Courtelyou. And now, at the very time when he had wanted a secretary, George came to him with this appeal : "Yes, I am George Oliver, as I have just told you. I stand here before you as a living example of the horrible down-treading curse which attaches to a man whom the prison taint has once touched. To my great surprise you have told me that you are regretful of your former treatment of both my poor father and myself. To my great surprise, also, you have heard with the richest sym pathy my whole miserable story. The bold, undaunted help that I have been wanting I cannot find. You will not give it me you, the last of them all. For you shall be the last, Albert Josselyn; I am resolved never to try again. But if you will let me serve you under a false name I will consent to such a plan. The secret can stay between ourselves. I think that my past experience in the bank, and certain natural business aptitudes beside, will combine to render me a real practical aid in the future management of your affairs. There need be no compact between us. Osborne Courtelyou, as you tell me, is an acquaintance whom you never meet except dur ing social hours. But even if he and I were brought together, now, however, I doubt if he would recognize me, so much am I changed by this new growth of beard on my thinned face the face in which you admit that you can see scarcely a vestige of resemblance to my dead father." And so, for the first time since his marriage, Albert Josselyn had taken an important step without consulting his wife. But also it was a step which he knew she 244 NEW YORK. would veto and condemn. And yet the man's conscience quivered applaudingly at his new act. There was repa ration in it, and a species of comfort and consolation as well. Doris, with a vague idea of taking her nap, that after noon, went upstairs to her own pretty and commodious quarters. At the landing of a final stairway, however, she came into full view of Mrs. Josselyn. "Cousin Ellen! You look strange worried not your self, what is it?" "I heard you'd got home, Doris. Have you had luncheon?" "Why, yes, of course. You gave orders that I should be served with luxuries, as usual. I'm so sorry to have been late. But, answer me are you not well? You have such an odd, anxious look." "Luxuries! You ate a morsel of chicken, nibbled at a roll, and then went up to your Cousin Albert. Doris, you're exciting yourself out of your natural appetite by this search for adventure." "Adventure! What a name for it! Whore were you? I wanted to tell both you and Grace how stirring a time I have had. Bnt I could only find Cousin Albert, seated beside his new secretary. I think Mr. George very at tractive. Do you know, his eyes " "Oh, never mind Mr. George. I was sure that you'd discover something remarkable in him. He is simply a tall, clean-limbed young man, with a nice curly brown beard. My dear girl, you didn't find me when you came home late for luncheon, as you so constantly do, because I was with Grace in her own room, trying to console her." "Console her? For what?" "Come in here, and I'll tell you. I mnst tell you." And they passed together into the sitting room of Doris, light-tinted and tasteful. "Lord Brecknock had a talk with me this morning," Mrs. Josselyn soon recommenced. "You mean the important talk, Cousin Ellen?" "Yes." "I supposed he would go to the father first. Isn't that customary with English suitors?" NEW YORK. 245 "No doubt it is. But I told Grace to drop him a hint that he had better come to me. It was simply saving time, you know, and sparing her father needless trouble. " "Oh, certainly," said Doris, with an amused little smile, faint and satiric. "Well, my dear, he presented himself this afternoon, and asked for Grace, who held a short talk with him, and then went upstairs and said to me that his lordship would like a few minutes' converse with myself. Grace's eyes were sparkling and her cheeks wore two rosy spots. Poor, dear child, I'm so sorry for her I'm so sorry for her!" And here Mrs. Josselyn, bursting into tears, leaned her head on Doris' shoulder. The recital that followed might be treated more clearly by an impersonal chronicling of the actual facts with which it dealt. Lord Brecknock had shaken hands with Mrs. Josselyn in a somewhat embarrassed way. It was not long, how ever, before he said, with fair composure : "I have done myself the honor of asking your daughter to be my wife, and she has given me the happiness of granting her consent." . Mrs. Josselyn tried not to smile too radiantly. "I can't say, Lord Brecknock, that this is quite unexpected news." "No no. I fancied it would not be, my dear Mrs. Josselyn. Miss Grace er as you must have seen, has permitted mj r attentions for some time." "You have been kind enough to extend them, as I could not help observing. A mother's eyes are keen, of course I preferred that you should address me first, and frankly told my daughter so. Mr. Josselyn is not very strong, just now, and I thought it best that I should announce this happy event to him before you and he spoke together." Lord Brecknock nodded amiably, and smoothed, for a moment, the bridge of his impressive arched nose with one dogskin-clad hand. The nose was hereditary a kind of birthright, like his earldom of Brecknock, his more ancient barony of Meadmere, and his still more an cient baronetcy which also m-ade him Sir Alfred Aber- gavenny. 246 NEW YORK. "Then you mean, my dear Mrs. Josselyn, that it's best you and I should discuss together the entire prac tical part of the engagement?" "Yes," replied Grace's mother, with a secret bristling at the word "practical," though she kept every feature inscrutably serene. "I hope the discussion may not prove too serious." "Serious?" laughed Lord Brecknock, in a joyless, vacant way. He began to slap the arm of his chair, and gazed diligently at that part of it which he smote. "I'm not in the least a man of business, myself. I I hate money, except for what it'll bring, don't your know?" "Most of us do, in reality." "Do you think so, now? do you truly think so? I've found such a lot of people who don't. Money with 'em is more the haviu' than spendin' it. But of course one must have, you know, or one can't spend." Here the young man appealed, with a sudden wistful look, to his auditor, who bowed approbation of this profound finan cial idea. "I'm so awfully fond of Grace," he went on, after a silence allowed by Mrs. Josselyn to widen between them for reasons which she herself best understood "so tre mendously fond, you know, that I hate to think of er settlements in any way whatever. Still, they've got to be thought of some time or another." "Oh, yes," said Mrs. Josselyn. "You're aware of course, though, Lord Brecknock, that here in America a girl's dowry is not by any means taken for granted." He looked surprised, then embarrassed, then jocular. "Oh, ah, yes I've heard there were no regular settle ments here. We manage differently in the old country I don't say it's any wiser of us, but we do. And as for my own case ; I well, really, you may perhaps have heard that I'm not more than fairly well off for a man of my rank or whatever one pleases to call it." Mrs. Josselyn knew the value of dignity, and just when its value was most telling. "If I had 'heard' anything about your private affairs I should have lis tened very carelessly to the gossipmouger who might have volunteered as my informant please be sure of NEW YORK. 247 this. But I think you will recall having told me, not long ago, during a little talk, that you are not a rich man in the sense of being also an English nobleman." "True true. I remember perfectly. And I I re member findin' you so er sympathetic. I told you about the expenses of keepiu' up my place, Scrope House, in Nottin'hamshire, and my other smaller place, Aber- gavenny Lodge." There was now a second silence, which Mrs. Josselyn chose rather loiteringly to break. "It seems, then, that you would expect some sort of settlement to use your own English phrase?" "Expect it?" said the young man, with a sort of sud den reproachfulness in his disturbed manner. "I'd I'd thought you wouldn't put the matter so so formally upon my word, I had!" It was easy to see that he felt dashed and shy and awkward, and that the present inter view was rapidly becoming tinged for him with disap pointment and annoyance. Mrs. Josselyn laughed, though very genially. "If there's any question of putting the matter. Lord Brecknock, I should say that you and not I should do the ice-breaking. But I'll take the initiative if you so wish. You care for Grace and want her to be your wife?" "Oh, yes indeed, yes!" "Well, then. You think she should go to you wifch a dowry a settlement?" Here Mrs. Josselyn surveyed the clasped hands in her lap, and refrained from further speech. She had somehow contrived to make the air of the room pregnant with demand, imperative yet suave. "That's that's what I've taken as a certainty, " al most stammered the young man. Then, with a success ful effort to control his disarray, he said, much more tranquilly: "My dear lady, sinee it must be a confab about dollars and cents, pounds and shillings, with you instead of my hoped-for-father-in-law, pray let us get it over as soon as possible!" Mrs. Josselyn raised her eyes. "You request a dot with Grace? How much? How much in " She paused, filling the pause with a bright, cold smile 248 NEW YORK. "hard cash?" Lord Brecknock became a tremor of un easiness, moving in his chair as though it teemed with pin-points. "Ah, won't you say how much?" he flung out, half- pleadingly. "Yes, if you prefer. We will settle on Grace two hundred thousand dollars. The income, ten thousand a year, or thereabouts, will be hers for life. The principal she cannot touch. In case of her death without children, it goes to you. If she has children it will be divided equally among them, according to American custom and by American legal prearrangement. " "Mrs. Josselyn! Can you mean it?" The young man, with a forearm on either knee, was staring aston- ishedly into the face of his interlocutress. "You seem bewildered." "I I'm more than that. Two hundred thousand dol forty thousand pounds! No, no; you can't mean it!" Mrs. Josselyn felt her face harden, her lips tighten. "You anticipated more?" "More! Oh, come now, you're joking. You must be joking." "I don't quite like your telling me so, if you please. The dot is a very handsome one." "Handsome!" the young man shivered palpably. "Lord bless me, Mrs. Josselyn, do you want us to wait for your husband to die?" "I don't understand you." She spoke austerely. "But I didn't wish to be uncivil please believe that I didn't!" Mrs. Josselyn 's chin was in the air. "What on earth did you expect Grace to cross the ocean with?" He straightened himself in his chair, grasping both arms of it. He looked agitated, irritated, even defiant, but somehow he did not look in the least ungentleman- like. "I supposed her dower would be a million." "A million? Are you dreaming?" His fresh young features grew oddly resolute. "A million at least^" NEW YORK. 249 Mrs. Josselyn was pressing a handkerchief against her lips, and so strenuously that she seemed to be restrain ing a shriek. Soon she dashed aside the light cambric filament. She was bitterly angry. She had not always been what is termed a "ladj'." The old life of struggle as a dressmaker had put into her temperamental fihre a certain coarseness never eradicated. Deep as was the crust of latter-day self-culture, certain volcanic emo tional stress could crack it, and with big, ugly fissures. One of these spiritually yawned in her now, as she sat trembling before her guest. "Do you love my daughter?" "Ah, Mrs. Josselyn, what a question. ' "Then, if you love Grace, you should be willing to take her without a dollar." "From parents like hers?" He spoke with an almost beseeching gentleness. "From parents of very great wealth, to whom a million as dowry would mean so little?" He could not have said anything to distress his hearer more keenly and to change more speedily her wrath into a mask of deceptive pride. It flashed through her now, with pangs of savage sorrow, that she had for some years past subtly aided the popular exaggeration of her husband's fortune, and done her deceitful best to make people believe him far richer than he really was. This very duplicity, at a time when the possession of great wealth was the one surest passport to fashionable distinction, had aided her in marked degree. Nearly all large fortunes, in New York, are doubled if not quadrupled by rumor. One day at a reception Mrs. Josselyn, standing in the thick est of the crush, had heard two women speak of herself and husband, a few inches behind her back. "Thej'say, "muttered one, "that he took out of his busi ness a clean five million." One million was all he had taken out, and yet the currency of this falsehood had proved a pleasuring bit of knowledge. The prospect of Grace becoming Lady Brecknock had dizzied her with delight; but ever since the young Briton's attentions had grown emphatic, she had dreaded some such demand al most as exorbitant as the present one though not quite. 250 NEW YORK. "There are very few parents," she now said, "to whom a million would mean little. Grace is our only child, our sole heir. Hereafter, if she survive us, she will have much more, of course. But any different arrangement is at present impossible." "I'm so sorry I'm so sorry!" said Lord Brecknock, stroking his chin while he leaned dejectedly forward with an elbow on his knee. "Sorry? and for what?" exclaimed Mrs. Josselyn, her ire again kindling. "Why, simply because I'm compelled to give up all thought of marrying your charming daughter." Mrs. Josselyn rose. "Then you admit yourself a mere fortune-hunter." Growing very red Lord Brecknock rose also. "My dear madam, is not this terribly unkind?" "On your part it is terribly cold-blooded. If you really loved Grace " "I love her dearly. I long to make her my wife!" "With a million dollars thrown in.' "That is a necessity." "Call it rather an audacity." "Since you have told me that I am a fortune-hunter, I am prepared for any kind of cruelty." "Cruelty! Preposterous! Look me in the eyes, please, Lord Brecknock. There yes like that. Are you not ashamed of yourself?" "Not in the least, ' came the young man's firm answer, which he had evidently pulled himself together with much resolute energy in order to make. "If I lose Grace it will be a great trial. But marriage to a man of my position must mean either freedom or captivity. I cannot choose the latter course. If you knew more, understood more, about the requirements, the necessi ties, of one who bears in ray country such a name as I bear, you would see very clearly the the insurmounta ble objection you have raised." Mrs. Josselyn made an impatient gesture. "I know a great deal about your country and its aristocracy as well what modern American does not? Even putting the question brutally, as you have put it <" NEW YORK. "I?" "Even putting the question brutally, I say, you are not a duke, nor are you a marquis. You are an earl, of good, though not remarkably good, ancestry. You can make my Grace a countess. Come now, vulgarity for vulgarit}'. What rich daughter of what rich brewer, collier, commoner of any sort you please, in your own England, would sell you his child on better terms than I've offered mine?" The flush faded from Lord Brecknock's face; anger turned him pale, now. "I have not sought any such alliance," he murmured. "No and why, if you please? I can tell you why. You dislike plebeian connections among your own coun try people. A rich American wife is another affair. Three thousand miles of ocean will lie between her un pleasant kinsfolk and yourself. And then we are all alike over here, in your estimate of us; the mistress and the maid, so to speak, are one. That word 'American' covers a multitude of matrimonial embarrassments." "You've you've been makiu' a study of it all, haven't you, now?" he muttered. "I confess I'm no match for you." "No; and apparently not one for poor Grace, either." "Ah, you pity her! That's an encouraging sign." He tried to smile, and perhaps at the dictate of pure policy; yet his lips were still so stiffened by pique and chagrin that the smile almost failed to relax them. "I should pity her more if I let her go to you bought in that shamelessly 'expensive' way. I will not let her go, and you will have on your conscience, if you possess one, the tragedy of her suffering. For you have won her to be fond of you very fond. You told her that ehe was dear to you, but till now you refrained from stating just how dear you regarded her. It strikes me, as it will certainly strike her, that a million's worth is by no means cheap." This sarcasm, quietly merciless, cut and stung. "You seem to have the art of insult at your finger-ends, Mrs. Josselyn." "Insult! Bah, sir! not I!" she went up to him and 25$ NEW YORK. struck his arm with an actual roughness. "Reprimand 3 r es! I'd like to bring you to your senses. I can't be lieve that you really mean to play this shabby part. I'll give you the rest of to-day and all of to-morrow, if you please, for reflection. You can come to me afterward with your decision. I'm sure I cannot have been so mis taken in you as to find it then unchanged." "There's no use of enterin' into any such compact with you," he said, stubbornly and sullenly. "I'm not the fortune-hunter you've called me, and I'm prepared to make Grace a most lovin' sort of husband. But I've got to behave with prudence, in spite of my deep affec tion." "Your prudence!" came Mrs. Josselyn's fiery sneer, "is nothing but avarice, and your affection is only cowardly deceit go from my house! I despise you, and I hope I am confident that Grace will soon de spise you as well!" He passed out of the room, and as she heard the hall door close behind him it carried to her the death-knell of a passionately proud ambition. NEW YORK. III. "I'vE been fearing it all along," said Doris, while her gray eyes glittered with tears. "Let me go to Grace, Cousin Ellen. She's in her room?" "Yes. And so wretched so broken! It's dreadful to see her!" "She'll soon recover, poor dear," said Doris, drying her eyes, and giving a few quick, wise nods. "Recover!" moaned Mrs. Josselyn. "She loved him the wretch." "Her pride loved him, not her heart. Oh, I know! I've watched her. She'll live to be the happy wife of Mr. Somebody, let us hope, and laugh at the thought of how "Lady Brecknock ever caused her a foolish thrill." Then their eyes met, and Doris gave her cousin's wife a little mock slap on one faded cheek. "How can you feel your pangs of regret? How can you, when he's proved himself such an avaricious monster?" "Oh, Doris, don't scold me! I won't stand it, even from you ! We women are not all of us made of your finer clay. I want sympathy, even if I don't deserve it!" Doris put both arms round Mrs. Josselyn 's neck, and kissed her, twice, thrice. "You goose! as if I were not brimming with sympathy! I know just how you feel, though I couldn't feel so myself to save my life!" "Oh, you!" faltered the other, beginning to weep again, strong and proud and hard though she was held by so many, and perhaps with strictest justice. "You'd refuse the Prince of Wales, if he were a bachelor and twenty years younger, and you didn't find him engag ing enough!" "Recollect how lots of these international marriages have turned out," said Doris, with speed and heat. "Scarcely a single Englishman with a title ever marries 354 NEW YORK. an American girl except from the most sordid motives. Look at poor Lily Gordon, neglected and broken-hearted. Think of Margaret Van Corlear, coming home to her father with almost the marks of her drunken husband's blows yet showing on her body. Think of Cecilia Liver- more, driven ~by ill-treatment into her dreadful folly. Think of Augusta Lee, with her notorious divorce. Think of others I could name Ladies This and Ladies That why, it's grown with us almost a by-word that to marry an English title means to marry mortification if not misery I'll go at once to Grace. I know she needs me whether she'll say so or not." Grace, who adored Doris, received her with a paroxysm of tears. But Doris proved no ordinary consoler. Her instinct had been right; the girl's pride was bleeding, and her more spiritual nature had received no wound. For a long time Doris sat near her bed, speaking softly yet firmly. Grace had said to her mother that she would not dine that evening, she would not dress, she would not even rise from her bed. In truth, however, she did all three, and not with an air quite so inconsola ble, either. Before the servants that very pride which ached from its hurt naturally bore her up. "Tell me," she at last said, with a desperate plaintiveness to Doris, "when I meet him at places how shall I act?" "As if nothing whatever had occurred." "But if there is any bowing I must bow first." "Bow, and bow first. Behave as if your mother had not told you a word about their meeting. Then, if he is lured by your air of innocence to draAv near you, freeze him with your indifferent bearing. I don't counsel re venge, dear Grace, but I counsel as much punishment as it's in your power to administer. The amount will depend on his actual feeling for you ; and hence I fear the punishment will be only too slight." But Lord Brecknock gave Grace no such opportunity. It is quite possible that the loss of her cost him a hard blow. But he either would not or could not look upon his fate as a deserved one. He still haunted society all that season, though with locked lips concerning the estrangement. It began to be whispered about that he NEW YORK. 255 had made an enormous demand upon the Josselyns, and this report infected with the most harmful mercenary suspicions every smile that he bestowed on any new girl who even approached the dignity of an heiress. He rapidly became so unpopular that before the end of an other month he quitted New York. But instead of sail ing eastward he took a train into the West. He had come to America with the intention of marrying a mil lion, and as much more as he could secure. Only, he drew the line at a million. He was perfectly well aware that his motive had become transparent to certain observers. But he did not mind that very much. He clearly understood that if he brought back to England a bride with two hundred thousand pounds, very much the same felicitations would greet him as if he had bagged several mammoth Australian gold nuggets. His titles were for sale, and nobody "on the other side" would dream of blaming him for having made with them a clever bargain. The intense picturesqueness and roman ticism of their attraction in a country which forever shouted its democracy to the remaining three-quarters of the globe, had keenly penetrated his intelligence. In having something that he believed highly salable, and in resolving to get its full commercial value even unto the last penny, Lord Brecknock was perhaps a stancher "Yankee" than he might have cared to own. "I should like to see Grace once really in love," said Doris to her mother, one day. "But you would feel like walling her up alive, or some such dreadful thing, Cousin Ellen, if she should declare to you a genuine passion for some 'ineligible. ' Say Cousin Albert's secre tary, for instance Mr. George." "Doris! How can you?" "I knew I'd shock you," laughed Doris. "Shock me! Not a bit of it. But how often you mention Mr. George, of late! Yesterday you spent a long while there in the librarj'-" Doris nodded blithely. "Yes. Cousin Albert played propriety. That is, we put him to sleep, and then had a very pleasant talk." "Put your Cousin Albert to sleep, Doris! What are, you saying?" 25G NEW YORK. "He felt drowsy, poor old dear. So I made him lie on the lounge, and Mr. George found me a woolen table cloth that drooped unsuspected from a small table in an obscure corner. We covered him with this, and then we had a long chat, of course, employing discreet under tones. " "Which means that Mr. George interests you." "Decidedly." Mrs. Josselyn seemed to muse. She knew very well that however prodigal the girl might be with both her time and attention in respect to paupers, invalids, pris oners, and other objects of her warm and wealthy com passion, she would not speak thus of an acquaintance met on social terms unless he were a person rather prominently unordinary. "Your Cousin Albert," she said, has never mentioned him as at all remarkable. Indeed, he appears to think him of no importance whatever. " And not long after this Mrs. Josselyn said to her husband: "What is there about that secretary of yours that should make him so attractive to Doris?" "I truly don't know," replied Josselj-n, inwardly tingling with guilt. The secret he was keeping from his wife weighed upon him like the albatross which his fellow-sailors hung against the ancient mariner's breast. There were moments when he felt as if this woman whom he both loved and feared this woman who had so long been his second self would discover all, by a flash of clairvoyance, and accuse him of it, charge him with it. "You find him satisfactory as an assistant?" she pursued. "Eminently so. He could not be better. He he is everything I desired." "Doris, for all her charity, you know, wouldn't single him oat like this unless he were somehow remarkable. She likes intellectual men." "Yes naturally thinkers, you mean, of course." "Is he intellectual? Is he a thinker?" asked Mrs. Josselyn, a little sharply. Then, receiving only a queer kind of affirmative head-shake, she went on with more asperity. "Upon my word, Albert, you sometimes act NEW YORK. 25? to me as if there were a species of of mystery connected with the young man." "I? mystery? Why, how is that, Ellen?" "I don't know. Perhaps it's merely a fancy. Of course, Albert, it must have been! To-day you seem to have had no employment for him." "No. There was nothing for him to do. He'd set tled up everything yesterday. He's so quick and prompt and intelligent about all his work." "H m yes. And Doris has availed herself of his holiday. She's taken him with her to the Tombs, of all places." "He has merely joined her usual visiting charity there. You know how they wander everywhere that little society of which she and Creveliing are members the 'Clasping Hand,' they call themselves, do they not?" "How absent you sometimes appear lately, Albert! Hasn't Doris dragged us both to their meetings at various times? I suppose 'dragged' is a pagan sort of word to use in this connection, and Doris, with all her obstinacies and prejudices is an angel at heart. But that damp, ghastly, disreputable Tombs! I think she must have fascinated Mr. George very thoroughly to in duce him to go there. Does it strike you by the way, that he's fallen in love with her?" "Fallen in love?" gently gasped her husband. "Why no not in the least! What what an astonishing ques tion, Ellen!" "Oh, nothing of that kind could be astonishing wher ever Doris was concerned." She took her husband's hand, and lighty laid two finger tips, with a physician's air, on his pulse. "Not quite right, Albert. And ever since we began talking together I've noticed in you an unusual, flurried, bewildered manner. Tell me, now has anything happened, within a few past hours, I mean, to disturb, unnerve you?" "No, Ellen." The something had happened within a few past minutes. Whenever she referred to "Mr. George," he felt as if her eyes were seeing into the depths of his soul. 258 NEW YORK. For years past he had so absolutely surrendered himself to her counsels, dictations, and decisions, that now, while conscious there was not a taint of real dishonesty in what he was doing for his ostracised kinsman and also that he was doing it deceptively because of her fore- Been displeasure alone, he had the sense, whenever she made the least reference to George, of a prisoner who who converses with his jailer after having just concealed a telltale file. Her despotism had never been onerous to him ill now. Long ago it had begun by amusing him; later it had become for him a helpful habit, tinged with devout allegiance. And now to break through its trammels affected him almost like the commission of a crime, though incessantly he kept urging upon himself the absurdity of this idea. The comparatively few talks that Doris had held with George had interested her in a mystic and rather irri tating way. She had not the clairvoyance to hear rhythms of hidden passion beneath his often ordinary and even commonplace sentences. But somehow the in tensity of his love for her, not increased but constantly kept kindled by her presence, her personality, her near ness, had been replete with baffling yet delicate be trayals. Once she said to herself that she had never met a man more spontaneously and perfectly courteous. Again she decided that "this Mr. George" quite over rated her intelligence, paid it a respectful homage which was far aloof from anything like flattery, and yet, while paying it, sometimes irritated her by swift glimpses of a mental power which made it doubly dear. "You strike me as a person strangely reserved," she had said to him only yesterday, as it were, while Josse- lyn had left them alone together, called away by a meet ing of bank directors. "Is that," he asked, "only a civil way of pronouncing me stupid?" Doris gave a negative nod. "I don't waste time on stupid people." "Thanks." "Oh, I meant no veiled compliment." "Your meanings are never veiled," he said. "Your NEW YORK. 259 frankness is one of your choicest refreshments." Then he added, a little confusedly: "Life does not give to all of us, Miss Josselyn, your forces either of action or feel ing. Perhaps that is fortunate. It makes suffering less common. " "Would you have me believe," said Doris, very quickly, Avith one of her impulses, "that you haven't suf ?" And then she stopped dead short. "Suffered?" he replied, mending the broken word. "I?" She was biting her lips, and there had come into the gray lights of her look a little dance and flicker, coy, abashed. "Of course I can't know. I can only sur mise." George thought of Albert Josselyu's recent words: "She's keen wonderfully keen. The whole truth might flash upon her at an instant's notice." Now that he was here as the employee of his relative, he felt consumed by a desire to remain indefi nitely where fate had fixed him. These occasional visits from Doris were divine episodes. He had become an impassioned bridge-builder; he crossed from one meet ing to another on structures wrought of hope, love, ex pectancy. And now, he reflected rapidly, to tell her that he had suffered might mean to challenge that very acumen of which her cousin so pointedly had hinted. An 3 r et how charming had been her discernment, just re vealed ! It thrilled him with fear while it also pierced him with admiring delight. "In one breath you tell me I am reserved," he ven tured, "and in the next you decide that I wear my heart on my sleeve." "Not at all," she contradicted, with a sedate positive- ness. "I pretend to be no seer but unless I am much in error your life has not by any means been a happy one, as far as you have lived it." "Well, you are right." "Ah!" she said, with a little touch of triumph. "Would you affirm that some sentiment of the heart had wrought me trouble?" "Surely, no," she loitered, scanning his features with 2GO NEW YORK. a brief critical boldness. And yet I don't affirm how can I possibly do so? The traces of suffering in human countenances have interested me ever since I went among miserable people. But they are all just as indefinable, I have found, as mournful music. They stand for sorrow in the abstract; to discover their causes would be to flounder in a sea of speculation." "Perhaps I have had enemies." "It's probable. You look too courageous, though, to have let them overcome you. The number of enemies we make is often a numeral that indicates the degree of our self respect." "Circumstance can crush courage." "Oh, I realize its tyrannies. Usually the unsuccessful man is he who believes in luck. When we have once thoroughly succeeded in life we will not hear that any agency but that of our own native thrift and persever ance was gone to the making of our fortunes." "How is it," asked George, "that a woman of your youth can speak of human life so wisely?" "Oh, if you call it speaking wisely, it comes to me, I suppose, because my youth and experience have not kept equal pace." "Indeed they have not! "he exclaimed, off his guard, and thinking of her speech, so lovely and human and in spiriting, that day at the mission the day when his soul, as he might fervidly have phrased it, had fallen at her feet, devoutly abiding there ever since! "It was born in you to acquire an experience far beyond the natural endowment of your years. You've sought it through the sweetest of motives a heavenly compassion and it becomes you, still scarcely more than a girl, with a wonderful delicacy of dignity!" Doris drew back, as if frightened. "How do you know, "she said, "that I am anything even remotely like the person you paint me?" George colored and stammered : "Why, have you not told me of your of your constant charitable aims and thoughts?" "Told you? Hardly that. I have mentioned to you, 'The Clasping Hand,' of which I ana a member, and a very unimportant one." NEW YORK. 261 Her startled eyes, full of gentle yet commanding curiosity, arraigned him. He felt that he must give her some sort of satisfying answer, and before he was well aware of just what words left him he had told her of his presence in the mission w T hen she had once spoken there, even repeating some of the sentences that had fallen from her lips. "And were you there?" she murmured, smiling, keenly pleased, and yet racked with surprise. "I re member the day perfectly. I had come down from the country. It was a visit of 'The Clasping Hand' to that particular place. AYe go everywhere everywhere they will let us go. And you were among our listeners you! How strange! Pray, what brought you there? Tell me about it." Her last phrase invited his full confidence. But at first he could only droop his eyes and feel that he had grown pale, and wonder if she did not think strange and imperilling things. "Oh, it is no mystery," he at length managed, with a smile strained and slight. "I happened, one day, to be in the neighborhood of the mission, and merely by chance I dropped in." She seemed to take this explanation as wholly credible and satisfactory. "What a curious occurrence, was it not? And that I should be talking with you afterward, here in my own home! So it turns out, doesn't it, that you met me before I met you? Then you must have seen Mr. Crevelling," she went on '"or perhaps you didn't know him." "Yes; I saw him, though I left before he began to speak. I learned his name from a person near me in the same pew. He was admirable, I don't doubt, though I feel sure you must have eclipsed him." "Ah, don't say that! If you'd ever heard him you couldn't!" "I have heard him a Sunday or two ago, in his own church." "And you didn't think him very fine?" "I was impressed," George answered, with a pang of sharp jealousy. 262 NEW YORK. "That sounds BO cold! He is such a marvelous man! For myself, I can say honestly that whatever practical good I may have done he has stirred me into doing. I fell in with him when I was the merest girl. He has been my my spiritual salvation." "That is a great deal to be," said George, feeling his heart turn lead in his breast. "I wish you would let me bring you and him together will you not?" She leaned forward, eager and wide- eyed. "He, you know, is the very soul of 'The Clasping Hand.' The rest of us are only satellites that revolve round him." She ran over several names of people, names which George had never before heard. ''Then there is old Lucien Eeverdy the millionaire. He would have broken Avith us long ago but for Frank Crevelling's magnetism, tolerance, boundless geniality. He is such an old Pharisee! He believes he is doing wonders of holiness and beneficence, when really but there I'll stop. Dear Frank Crevelling's face rises reproachful. Till some great ethical optician,' I once heard him say, 'invents a microscope for the discernment of human motives, let us be content with our present makeshift of charity, whose very mistakes are sure to do more good than harm. ' Then there is a Mr. Courtelyou perhaps you've heard of him." "Yes," said George faintly. "The famous lawyer, you know. He sometimes goes with us on our rambles a most brilliant man, and an accomplished speaker; although " And here Doris suddenly paused. "Although?" George repeated. "I was thinking, " the girl pursued, taking from her cousin's near desk a pen-wiper, and beginning to play with it abstractedly, "how I I could best bring you two together " "Courtelyou and myself!" cried George, again un guardedly and with great vehemence. "No, no, no!" She threw back her head, and stared at him in bewil derment. George answered her look helplessly, with thoughts of what relief it would bring if the floor con sented quietly to swallow him. NEW YORK. 263 IV. "I DIDN'T mean for yon to meet Mr. Courtelyou, " presently said Doris. "I was thinking altogether of Frank Crevelling. Mr. Courtelyou I can hardly imagine your liking. But why do you so shrink from his ac quaintance?" "I I have heard about him. I I dislike his methods, his character." "But his character is faultless." "Faultily faultess." "Then," she said, with her consternation becoming puzzlement, "you have met him! No? Ah, I see! You were at that trial in which he so distinguished him self." "Yes, "answered George, with inward desperation; "I was there." "You really went? You did not simply read of it in the newspapers?" "I was there." "All the time it lasted?" "Yes; all the time it lasted." "Then it interested you very much?" "Very much. " She was looking at him so intently, now that he ex pected every instant to hear some realizing, detecting cry leave her lips. But, instead, she exclaimed, with marked feeling : "How I wish that 1 had been there! But there were reasons for my not going. Tell me; did you observe closely one of the witnesses a young man named George Oliver?" For a few seconds he shaded his face with a hand. This gesture, as he forlornly hoped, might pass for one of reflection. 204 NEW YORK. "Ob, yts. The witness, you mean, against Lynsko." "The man who seut that horrible 'firebug' to prison," said Doris. >She lightly touched George's arm. "He was a cousin of mine once or twice removed." "Yes?" "Yes. And you remember his story? How he had served a term of imprisonment?" "Yes, yes I remember it." "Everybody does," said Doris, after a little silence. "And I have wanted to know him to meet him again, since his imprisonment very much indeed? I I wish you knew him; but you don't, I suppose do you?" "N no," somberly lied George. "Mr. Courtelyou does, of course. You recollect how this George Oliver was his chief witness for the prosecu tion?" "I recollect perfectly." "Not long ago I asked Mr. Courtelyou to bring us to gether. But he said that George Oliver and he were not good friends now, or something of that evasive sort. I used to know George years ago, when we were both chil dren, but I almost forget how he looked even as a child. There was some estrangement between our families I won't dwell upon that." "Pray do not," said George, mechanically, now, "if it's at all painful." "Oh, everything about him is painful! I need not repeat to you his history that all came out, as it were, but yesterday." "True 'but yesterday." "In my talk with Mr. Courtelyou I told him what I tell you now. It seems incredible to me that this man could have had any other than a brave and noble motive in seeking to expose that dreadful Polish incendiary." "Lynsko?" "Yes that was his name. And there were things which George Oliver said, under fiery cross-examination, that moved me to the soul." "Indeed?" "I mean his full admission of former guilt and his statement that he deeply repented it. But that is not all." NEW YORK. 265 "Not all?" "He spoke of the frightful, branding stigma that he must go on bearing till he died. Oh, the miserable hopelessness of his words! And he hinted more than hinted that a wicked woman was the cause of his dis grace and ruin. He would not give her name. I liked him better for that, though it made me hate her the more." Doris glanced up at the sky through the broad rear window just at her side. It still wanted a good half hour of sunset, but a spectral, rayless moon already floated high in the darkening blue above massed lines and angles of brick and stone. "I must go," she said, rising. "Affairs, of no great consequence I admit, claim me. I'm such a busy person for one who achieves nothing important. Still, I must go. Good-afternoon." And she gave him her hand as he in turn rose to receive it. George, in a daze, followed her toward the door. "Oh," she said, pausing, "I forgot about your meeting Frank Crevelling. Next Wednesday "The Clasping Hand' as much of it as we can muster for so grim a pilgrimage will go to the Tombs. We've secured special permits, and all that. We're to meet at Mrs. Oleeve Prescott's house at eleven in the morning. Will you join us there? I'll give you the address or send it you before then. It's only a few streets from here. We shall take a light lunch a cup of bouillon and a bis cuit and by twelve o'clock go downtown unassumingly in the cars. Meanwhile you will have a chance of know ing and talking with him." "With your ideal," fell faintly from George. She slanted her beautiful fragile head for a minute, as though in doubt just what answer to make. "Yes," she suddenly announced, with strong decision, "my ideal, if you please." George could not help it. "Then you mean to marry him some day?" he wildly questioned. She gave a cloudy and haughty look for answer. "Perhaps," she said measuredly, going nearer to the door, "you may feel like refusing my proposal." 266 NEW YORK. "No," he hurried. "I'll go anywhere meet anybody in order that I may be nearer you! I'll I'll go to the Tombs -with pleasure or to any horrid hole like it that you may be pleased to name!" "Oh!" said Doris. No descriptive trick could quite describe the peculiar curtness of that monosyllable. And at once she disappeared. NEW YORK. 267 V. GEORGE flung himself on a sofa, when sure she was gone, and covered his face with both hands. It was al most dark when he arose, and the phantasmal moon, clearly visible through the broad back window, had be gun to gather within her disk its wonted noturnal fire, elfin and lovely. "I should have got out of here long before this, " he thought; and at once he stole downstairs, dreading observance and luckily escaping it. He had no doubt that Doris was offended, and with throes of shame he kept wondering if she were not dis gusted as well. Her cousin's secretary, a fellow Avhom she scarcely knew and had treated with kindness for which he should be duly thankful, to snap at her this precipitate jack-in-the-box of personal compliment. What ludicrous familiarity! No wonder that subtle "oh," packed with many meanings, haunted him like an inflamed hurt. He went to a theater that evening, in the hope of deadening his mental worriment. The piece was an English one, of the strongly emotional school, which had been very popular in London. It teemed with "Lon donisms," and was put together with a fair amount of skill. In one of the lobbies, after the third act, he noticed a young man with a very excited air, and heard him say, in fiercely voluble tones to a companion : "What snobs New York theater-goers are! Now just imagine a play of ours being greeted like this in Lon don! The more it represented New York life and man ners, the more Piccadilly and St. James's yes, and Ken sington and Hammersmith and 'passionate Brornpton,' too would turn up their noses at it." "True enough," came the reply. "But don't you forget " 26$ NEW YORK. "Oh, my dear Charlie, I forget nothing! I remember onb* too well that we Americans, in all dramatic matters are the most infernal lot of toadies. Why, only the other day I had a piece handed back to me by no less renowned a New York manager than Mr. Thompson Tom- linson. 'I like this,' he said, 'and I like it very much. If you could get it out in London and it should have a, success there, I'd be ever so glad to do it for you here.' Now, Charlie, those were his actual words! And what do you think of them? Don't attempt to excuse them. You know you can't. And they clearly express, in their cruel, unpatriotic, inartistic commercialism, the whole modern New York managerial spirit." George went back to his seat and witnessed another act of the play. Then, dreading a restless night, he sought his present lodgings. On the pin-cushion of his bureau he saw with surprise a letter which bore no post mark ; it had plainly been left for him during his ab sence at the theater. Opening it, he read : "MY DEAE MR. GEOEGE: Our 'Clasping Hand' com pany will meet at Mrs. Cleeve Prescott's house, next Wednesday morning, at eleven o'clock, as I told you. (Then followed an address.) I shall be very glad if you can and will meet us there. You need not answer this note, but join us if possible. Sincerely yours, " DORIS JOSSELYN. " George kissed the note many times in an ecstasy of relief. He slept, that night, however, with a delicious calmness. Next morning he read in a newspaper that the play he had seen was a work of surpassing merit. The plot was carefully described, but he discovered with astonishment that much of it hud quite escaped his at tention, and that two or three scenes, declared "thrill ing," had had for him no significance whatever. On Tuesday evening he mentioned to Josselyn the in vitation of Doris. "Eleven o'clock to-morrow?" came the reflective answer. "Yes ye, George;, I think you can be spared quite easily." At the same time he strove to hic.e all signs of the NEW YORK. 269 worriment that oppressed him. This intimacy seemed to foreshadow trouble, though of what precise nature he shrank from trying even vaguely to guess. The residence of Mrs. Prescott Cleeve was a gallant and commodious one, east of the park, and in sight of its leaf less trees. The hostess was a tall, thin, homely lady, with beautiful dove-brown eyes and the meek smile of a nun. Doris glided forward, in the most opportune way, and said, "This is Mr. George, of whom I told you," just as her guest felt an embarrassing moment imminent. Five or six women and four or five men were already scattered about the room. Other arrivals soon followed George's, and the assemblage finally made eighteen in all. "Come and see this lovely vaseful of orchids," Doris proposed, and George willingly followed her into a kind of alcove. While they were looking at the strange blooms, voluptuous in their gaudj r tintings and yet ethereal in their delicacy, Doris continued : "Frank Crevelling is here, and he will soon join us. We haven't much time before our departure, at quarter to twelve." George stared at the orchids. "It was very good of you to write me, Miss Josselyn." "I always keep my promises." "I was afraid you would not keep this one." "Why, pray?" "You seemed offended when you last parted from me I mean when you last left the library." "Did I? You were mistaken. I wonder if I'm mis taken now, in thinking you very ill at ease." He gave her a sudden forlorn look. "I am. It's so long since I've gone at all into society." That simple phrase had for him such depth of import that he felt as if she must gain some glimpse beyond its little outward commonplace crust. For it really hid a tragic recogni tion of the fact that these gathered guests would all turn from him in horror if they knew his actual past. "This poor little 'Clasping Hand' of ours," laughed Doris, "doesn't merit the name of 'society' Ah, here is Mr. Crevelling, now." 270 NEW YORK. And then George saw a bright, earnest face, and soon received a hearty hand-shake. "The boullion and biscuits are coming," said Doris. "I must take mine with poor, dear old Mrs. Singleton, and thank her for having risen from a sick bed to accom pany us." "While Doris disappeared, Crevelling said to George : "I suppose your experience of prison life is somewhat limited?" The words, carelessly spoken, gave George a thrill of positive torture. He could not repress a start; then self- control rescued him, and he answered, with a fair show of coolness : "I've seen a little of it." The two men looked full into one another's eyes. An odd, new feeling made George hurry on : "I I have enjoyed hearing j r ou in your church, Mr. Crevelling, though as yet only once." "Ah, 3 r es? Did you come to me. It's hardly a church in the ecclesiastic sense more like a lecture hall. Or perhaps more like the sort of thing one sometimes hears at a mission." His words were so pointed and measured that George felt his cheeks blanch. In another instant Crevelling's hand firmly pressed his arm. And, then, again, the two men looked full into one another's eyes. "I rarely forget a voice," Crevelling said, very gently. "Or a face, either," he added. "You recollect me, then, at the mission that day," faltered George. "But I have changed since then." "You have changed greatly. You have changed, too, since the last time I saw j r ou the second time." "The second time?" George repeated. "You mean that you saw me in your congregation that Sunday." "No," said Crevelling. "I did not see you then." "Not then? "Wh ere else?" A throe of hate, defiance, revolt, cleft George's heart. "Where else?" he again said, with the agonized sense of a fugitive at bay. "I went one morning to the lo'nsko trial " "Ah, you did!" burst from George, his nostrils tense, his lips twitching. Then the great human sweetness of Crevelling's face calmed him. In an instant he found NEW YORK. %n himself comprehending that though all the world should hound him down this man neither could nor would ever join its hue and cry. "Trust me," said Crevelling, putting out his hand. George took the hand. His own felt to him limp and lifeless. But the clasp of Crevelling's was all strength and warmth and support. "Of course, you see, now, that I know and realize every thing." "Everything yes. " "That. day of which I speak you underwent your cross- examination. You stood it splendidly. You showed mo how much you had suffered how intensely you must have repented. I wanted to meet you and know you; I kept saying to myself for days afterward, 'There is just the kind of man I should like to talk with make ruy friend!' ' "Your friend?" "Indeed, yes! You spoke there, if you remember, of the world's pitiless attitude toward one who had gone wrong and then striven to right himself. A hundred other concerns forced you out of my mind. And yet in more than one way it is all so strange! I did not recog nize you at the trial as the man with whom I had spoken at the mission." "No?" "No. It is my nearness to you now that has brought back the remembrance. My recognition has been a double one. You have grown your beard since the trial. You are wonderfully changed, since then, because of it. But now I perceive that he who gave me some of his views and theories on human charity is the same George Oliver who " "Hush; I beg of you!" "We are not overheard; I have no intention that we shall be. Let me hasten to tell you that my little dis covery will remain the closest of secrets between our selves. I surmise the reason of your alia* and also of your secretaryship with Mr. Josselyn. I know Albert Josselyn well; for a long time we have been the warmest of friends. This thing that ho undoubtedly has done is ST2 NEW YORK. tlie kind of thing he would be apt to do. Naturally, his wife does not know the truth." "Naturally?" George murmured. "You put it that way, I suppose, because you have measured the narrow ness of Mrs. Josselyn's character. Yet perhaps I should not presume to judge her," he added, as if in repentant afterthought. "There are so few women of her place and fair repute who would not have rebelled against the plan of having me cross their thresholds as I now daily cross hers." "There are few," assented Crevelling. "And yet your cousin's wife is a woman of many sterling traits. Only she cannot broaden her sympathies; instinctively she keeps them constrained, centralized. " He paused, and smiled, a little sadly. "She is not like Doris." "Was there ever a woman like Doris?" George said, below his breath. "A radiant intellect an unfathomable charity ! How mighty and yet gentle is the force they make!" "True." The two men searched each other's faces. Crevelling's eyes drooped; he had grown paler in a few swift seconds. George had a sudden impulse to cry out "You and she were born for one another you are fated to marry, and I can only tell you that from my soul I would bless so perfect a union!" But he kept silent, and heard Crevel ling say, in musing voice, while he touched the petals of an orchid with one outstretched finger : "I must assure you that what I have just found out fills me with the intensest interest. In the first place it brings me closer to Albert Josselyn. I want to grasp his hand and thank him with all my heart. Do I err in stating to you that I perceive the full situation?" Then he spoke a few rapid sentences, and George at length replied: "Yes; you are right. It has happened that way. My stained name kept dogging me till I threw myself on his mercy. He gave it." "He did not give you enough," said Crevelling. "You deserved more." "Deserved? I?" NEW YORK. 273 ''You. He had read he must have read those dis closures at the trial." "He had read them. He knew many of my sentences almost by heart. It was because of this knowledge, and the compassion roused by it, that he "Gave you the position you now hold. But the falsity of it the alias, and all that should have struck him as ill-advised. For things like these cannot last, as you well know. They are makeshifts, marked at the outset with impermanence. " "Ah," said George, with a deep sigh, "starvation and the gutter are makeshifts as well!" It suddenly struck him that to no other man whom he had ever met would he have used, at this time and in this place, a species of rejoinder so replete with the humility of- despair. Yet Crevelling, though he seemed not only the fated suitor but the fated husband of Doris, had caught him in a magic web of attraction, admiration, allegiance, respect. The mobile, irregular features the lucid, steadfast brown eyes the air of calm courage and prodigal helpfulness, how evinced it was impossible to discern the winning, unconscious cadences of voice the serious yet humorous lips, and the brow broad as with rich stores of wholesome thought all these per sonal qualities had quickly drawn large draughts upon George's willing ..and spontaneous esteem. It was the old spell with Crevelling one that flowed from him as its odor from a flower, never exerted, never "tried for," always an effortless and artless charm. "For a time, then, let it continue," he said. "But I feel sure you would not wish it to go on a great while." "N no. Meantime I am saving money. My salary is generous. I am saving money to get away with and try life in some other part of the world." Crevelling bowed his head, slowly and ruminatively. Then, on a sudden, with sharpness, he replied: "Why not face it all out here? I believe in you, and I'm ready to attest my belief. Every word of your confession if you care to let me call it that is clear in my memory as if I had studied it by heart from some written page. Frankly, the truth is this : I often act on impulse, and. 274 NEW YORK. I'm prepared so to act now. My secretary (for I'm a busy man and need one, and he in turn sometimes needs an assistant), is a most competent and intelligent man. But long ago I told him that he was worthy of a better position, and that I could and would secure him one. Within the next month I will make strenuous efforts to place him in the office of a certain banker whom I know, where his exceptional business abilities trained by several former years of service in a like capacity will soon be rated at their proper worth. And you, if you choose, can then fill the vacancy. Fill it, I mean, under your own name. This act on my own part will doubtless cause comment, discussion, censure, even a sort of scan dal. But all that I am prepared to face. In a way this proposal contains a touch of egotism." "Egotism!" said George, with moist and glistening eyes. "Yes there's no other word. I have resented, for some time past, the cruel social edicts against men of just your youth and wretchedness. It is horrible that society should refuse ever to trust them again. I want to prove society in error; I want to show it a test case. There's the touch of egotism to which I referred. Let hundreds rave and storm ; I'll be perfectly impregnable to all taunts. I will give you my entire confidence. You shall have large sums of money pass through your hands. I will repose in you absolute faith. The world will look on and with all my soul I hope it may be taught a lesson in the dignity of mercy. Whether it will thus be taught or no must largely depend on your self. That is, provided you consent. Do you consent?" There seemed to George a kind of earthly heaven in the sweet, grave manful countenance at which he now gazed. "Consent! In spirit, Mr. Crevelling, I am on my knees before you ! In spirit, I a "Will neither of you take a cup of bouillon and a bis cuit?" said Mrs. Cleeve Prescott, "or have my servants passed you by, here behind these obscuring curtains?" "We'll both have some bouillon, thanks," answered NEW YORK. 275 Crevelling, "if Mr. George will permit me to accept in both our names." Just then Doris' voice sounded rallyingly and blithely, a little distance away. "Come, come, messieurs and mesdames. Our time for starting has already passed.' 276 NEW YORK. VI "Is there anyone save Doris Josselyn, " George had thought, "whom I would follow inside a prison?" One no longer enters the Tombs by its great portico, mightily pillared, on Center Street. For some reason the doors of egress and ingress are small and unimpos- ing, hardly noticeable as you stand a little aloof from the structure and contemplate its dull, massive solem nity. The town has nothing like it, nothing in architec ture at once so true, so repelling and so anomalous. The shanties that environ most of the great European cathedrals make hardly as strong an effect of incongru ity as the mean tenements and pinchbeck taverns within a stone's throw of this grim Egyptian pile, erected more than half a century ago. The encompassments of higher buildings exert upon it a fatally dwarfing influence. Translated to the desert spaces of the Nile, you feel that it would flavor no longer of oddity and grotesqueness. The electric chair at Sing Sing has shorn it of those ghastly associations which frequent hangings of criminals caused to cluster about its walls. But nevertheless, all sense of modern doings, however stern and barbaric, seems to consort most ill with its Oriental lineaments for the thoughtful looker-on from without. In beyond these big lotos-leaved columns, these plinths and entablatures, the Ptolemaic friezes, this low, squat granite solidity, tragedies should occur, you tell yourself, far more picture sque than the condemnation of Barney O'Hara to "ten dollars or ten days." None of the gatemen seemed at all surprised as "The Clasping Hand" trooped decorously past them into the prim stuccoed corridors. An "open sesame" of the most powerful sort had been obtained; keys grated submis sively in their locks as soon as it was shown. Several of NEW YORK. 277 the little company were familiar with the place from previous visits, Doris among them. "This used to be Murderers' Kow, " she said to George, as they stood together in a narrow but very high hall, with three iron-galleried tiers of cells rising above them, like decks of a steamer. "Think what anguish has been endured here! I could feel the death-watches when I first came being held in this very spot, and hear the hammerings at scaffolds off in the execution yard. But all that has ended now. The condemned wretches, you know, as soon as they are sentenced, go to Sing Sing." At the name "Sing Sing" George felt the corners of his mouth tremble. That late talk with Crevelling had had its drastic, exhaustive results. Beyond doubt he could better have borne these prison environments, that so "teemed for him with miserable reminiscence, were his nerves less unstrung by recent thrills. Of course, if this had been the jail where he had spent his earlier term of captivity he would have faced a fire- belching cannon rather than come here to-day. But, after all, the similitudes on every side were poignant in their appeal, savage in the force of their incessant mementoes. He regretted having accompanied the party, dear as it was to go anywhere with Doris. "Shall you talk with the prisoners?" he asked. "Oh, yes. That is why we have come. The last time I was here I selected the most desperate-looking persons." "Have you no fear of insult?" Doris gave a faint shiver. "Indeed, yes! But that hasn't come yet. They say it does, sometimes. Mr. Lucian Keverdy had a shocking experience during our last little pilgrimage. He was so terribly abused that he made a pointed complaint to one of the keepers. I don't know why. It seemed so funny, his sanctimonious horror. He didn't appear to know just what fresh punishment he wanted to have inflicted upon his abuser. I suggested to Frank Crevelling that he should build a new Tombs for the defiant culprit and have him placed there. It would appease his wrath and do a world of 278 NEW YORK. municipal benefit. But Frank reminded me that this is, after all, only a prison of temporary detention, and that even an insulted millionaire magnate might find the cap tive flown long before so useful a Yengeance could be accomplished." "We are going to visit the female department first, " said one of the ladies to Doris; and soon they all passed into another quarter where a kind-faced matron received them. They first paused before a large barred space filled with women old and young One of the gentlemen said to George : "We feel a little out in the cold here. At least I do." "Shall none of you gentlemen address any of these prisoners?" George asked. "N no. I think not. There may be three or four of us who will. But Mr. Crevelling certainly will. He makes no difference between sexes here or anywhere. And it's marvelous how his face and voice and presence win them all. He speaks to them in low tones. I've seen them scowl at first, and half turn away. But the change quickly comes it's like a sort of mesmerism. Ah, he's our real 'clasping hand.' "And Miss Josselyn?" said George. "Oh, she's the other, if you please. But then, you know, it's Crevelliug's tutelage with her at least, in a great measure. They're engaged, / believe, or soon will be. /hope so, for one. Such a marriage would be per fection." "I think you are right," said George, with a great sinking at the heart. Most of the women gathered in the long, narrow court were woebegone creatures, whether old or young. It was the "ten days" department, so called; every variety of feminine depravity met and mingled there. Some sat on the benches with bowed heads; others glared about them with insolent, aggressive eyes; others wore plain tive looks ; and a few betrayed the ravaged remnants of beauty that had been their curse. In all womanhood there is something exquisite and tender and lovable that the worst wickedness cannot wholly destroy. Women, NEW YORK. 279 when they drink and sin and steep themselves in deg radation, never quite lose their inherent divinit.y. Men will grow, sometimes, absolutely like beasts, and often sink lower than bestiality itself. But women, even when they are bloated hags, with a few wisps of blanched hair straying over flushed and mottled foreheads, retain an inalienable piteousness the ruined memories, perhaps, of their wifehood, motherhood, sisterhood of all the infinite sweetness and comfort and benignity they once had power to bestow. Men fall in the mud and grovel there, and we give only loathing to their lewd abase ment. But to women, though fallen just as low, our compassion and regret are always a spontaneous and in stinctive benison. Man's overthrow is that of strength and sturdiness; woman's is that of purity and innocence. We pass by a stalwart tree that storm has shattered, and deplore its ruin. We see a flower lying smirched in some slimy pool, and long to pluck it forth from soilure. Upstairs, among the galleries, Doris, Chevelling, and not a few of the ladies beside, found their chances of converse. George, with nearly all the gentlemen, moved apart from the inmates of the cells. Mrs. Cleeve Prescott, who was fervidly religious, found one of these, who consented to pray with her, and knelt down, with clasped hands before the iron grating. "Oh, Jesus," George heard her murmur, "fill with Thy sweet glory the heart of this lonely and misguided soul. Teach her to struggle for Thee through all mists of unhappiness and error, till at last she finds Thee, precious for comfort, a light, a balm, a benediction past all human and earthly aid." There sounded a sob from the kneeling figure behind the grating, and George, who heard it, said to one of the keepers : "Why iss/iehere?" "She's a bad case, sir. She's the mother of two well- known burglars, both serving long sentences, and she herself has spent eight or nine years in prison already, for shoplifting and other kinds of theft." Soon he saw Doris having speech with a tall, stout, black-eyed woman, whose lower jaw was brutish and 280 NEW YORK. whose nose had the look of being smashed into her face by some savage blow. "Why d'ye stop to talk with the likes o' me, Miss Pretty?" he heard the woman growl. "Nobody ever does." "Then all the more reason that /should," answered Doris. "Well, I guess I don't care much about your company. Look out, or I ',11 scare ye with some talk tougher nor ye've ever heard." "Then, of course, I should have to go. I could slip away quite easily you know, and leave you abusing not me, but the empty air. I haven't come here to preach, or to talk religion. I don't ask you to tell me what you've done why you're here." The woman put a hand on each hip. "I guess if ye'd had my hard life ye might 'a been here yerself. " "No doubt, " said Doris. "Life isn't fair to us. It gives some of us great chances, and from othera it takes away all. Perhaps I might have been far wickeder than, you are if life had treated me unkindly." "What d'ye want o' me ennyhow?" demanded the woman. She grinned, showing two rows of yellow and broken teeth, and her tones had perceptibly softened. "Oh, I don't wa,nt anything. But I thought it might please you to see the face, to hear the voice, of a woman who has only kindness in her heart for you." "Kin'ness, eh?" "Oh, yes a very deep and tender kindness! Do you know, I've thought there might be somebody who hasn't heard you are here, and whom you would like to have come and visit you?" "Yes," said the woman slowly, drooping her head. "There's som'un. He don't know, but if he did I guess he wouldn't come." "Is he?" "He's my son, miss. He's a bricklayer, and a decent man. He left me when I began to drink hard that's three years ago. " She began to whimper, and emotion made her ugly face positively gnomish. "I ain't seen much of him since. He's twenty -three years old, God bless him! And I says this that ought to curse him!" NEW YORK. 281 "Have you written to him?" asked Doris. "I can't write, miss." "Do you know where he lives? Yes? Then perhaps I could go to him and beg him to come and see you. "Would it comfort you at all if he came?" The woman was now racked with sobs. "Oh, miss, if he'd only come! But he won't! My Hughey's heart is hardened against me, and wonder. But if I could see him here before my trial! If I only could! Now the drink's out o' me the mother's love has got its way again. Ye see I nearly killed, one night, a girl almost as pretty as yerself though not o' your quality, miss, of course. And she was his sweetheart. And he won't never forgive me! Oh, no never!" "You must tell me all about it," said Doris, "and when 3 r ou have told mo I'll go to Hughey, and have a long talk with him, and " Here the girl paused, for her interlocutress had sud denly perceived George, and leveled upon him an in surgent scowl. George at once retired, but at a distance ho saw the strange confab continued, and presently watched Doris as she drew forth a little notebook and began to write in it. Later he said to her : "lam afraid you thought me a most impertinent eavesdropper." "No, " she smiled; "bub I can't say as much for Mrs. Mouahan. She had no intention of being expansive in her confidences." Doris' cheeks wore an excited pink, and in the gray of her eyes floated tiny sparks, like the minutest spangles. "It's unnerved you a little, hasn't it?" said George. Her beauty, in this new phase, burned toward him in- toxicatingly. He felt like dropping at her feet and crushing her joined hands against his lips. "Oh, it always does," laughed Doris. "I selected this poor woman because she seemed so utterly repellant and companionless. I didn't care what she was or what she had done. The lower down they get the more I somehow want to try and use 'the clasping hand.' And I've found her after all, remarkably human. She really adores her only sou, whose sweetheart she almost mur- 282 NEW YORK. dered while in drink. Her poor, wicked, perverted soul is longing to have him come here and listen to her passionate penitence." At this point Doris raised her delicate, slim-throated head, and gave it an obstinate toss. "And I'm determined to find 'Hughey' out, and beg him to come here and see her!" "You wrote down his address?" "Yes and I shall soon make use of it." "A New York one?" "Oh, yes." She took out her little notebook and read from it. George heard a street and a number mentioned that were only a few hundred yards from the house where he and Lynsko had held their fateful meetings. "Ah, there!" he said, with an inward shiver. "But you won't go alone, surely!" "No. Frank Crevelling will go with me some evening." "Evening! You certainly wouldn't dare " She looked at him with a confident smile and nod. "Mr. Crevelling must be persuaded a little, but I'm sure of overruling him in the end. And it must be evening, because in the daytime we would be sure of not finding Mr. Hugh Monahan at home." "Since she is bent on going," thought George, "how I wish I could take Crevelling 's place!" Two o'clock was the imperative hour of retirement from the prison, and in view of this fact "The Clasping Hand" soon repaired to the section for males. "Mur derers' Row" was again passed, and here some of the party lingered, while others went up into the three brighter and airier corridors above. In the second of these corridors Crevelling joined George. "Does this strike you," he asked, "as a futile effort?" "Frankly, yes," was the answer. "Still, there is the effort. That is something that means humanity." "We have really done good elsewhere. But here I feel a great hopelessness. If they would let us go into the cells and speak with these unhappy people! But the iron bars are such palpable and mocking reminders of our superior state. They clothe us with an indestructibly NEW YORK. 283 air of condescension. And the secret of all worth in proffered comfort and encouragement emanates, I think, from an impression of mutual equality, even though this be vague and factitious. Our little cornpanj', you know, does not call itself the Helping, but rathei the Clasping Hand. Much practical help has been given by it; but the chief object of its union is to aid through moral stimulus of counsel, monition, friendliness, cornradry, sympathetic warmth." "I see," said George. He hesitated a moment, then added: "Miss Doris and I have already talked it over. You are sadly handicapped here. But then personal safety would be involved by your going inside some of these cells, even if you could." "True. I should not care for that should, indeed, rather relish the danger, if such one might call it, with those keepers at their constant vigil. But you are right. Notice," he went on, in a whisper, "these two men just yonder. They are both lawless criminals, and the visit of such a throng has roused them into a sort of sarcastic astonishment. This putting of two into one tiny cell, by the way it seems to me so barbarous!" "It is." "They surely cannot fraternize the little dark man, with his long, narrow face and wolfish eyes, and the burly blond man, with his thick-lipped, sensual slug gishness. I wonder if I could say anything to them that they would remember anything that might return to them hereafter if only to one of them at some future hour of contempt for good and thirst for evil." The narrow hallway was quite crowded now. "Are they not a horrible looking pair?" whispered one of the ladies to Crevelling. "And such opposites, yet both wearing so strong a stamp of wickedness!" Others, too, had noticed them. Nearly all the ladies held aloof from all the male prisoners, though Doris, not far off, could be seen exchanging words with a meek- faced elderly man, who bore on one cheek a hideous open cut. "I'll try a sentence or two, anyway," muttered Crevel ling; and as he drew near the bars of the cell whose 284 NEW YORK. inmates had caused this special heed, both men pressed forward with scorn aud arrogance keenly marked on their differing visages. A strong curiosity seized George. He knew the desperado types to which either man belonged one wily and malign, like a snake, the other ferocious aud pon derous, like a bear. He waited for a few moments after Crevelling began speech with them. Meanwhile he had not observed a man in the next cell (which was the last on this corridor) staring at him with fixed intentness. The unobserved watcher was perhaps of his own age, with a hard face, tinted as though cut from some light- hued bronze. He slowly reached forth the fingers of one hand between the bars of his cell and plucked the skirt of George's coat. Then he laughed, with tones low yet sharp. "Say, old feller, what are you doin' here, eh? Don't ye know me, number eighty-six? You and me was both together in Sing Sing once, and not so long ago, neither." George had turned by this, and recognized the speaker in an instant. If the words had not been so loud if a swift agony of dread lest Doris might hear them had not assailed him he would have minded them far less. As it was, in abrupt torment, he dragged his coat from the maliciously tight clutch. And then a great guffaw of laughter, utterly pitiless and mocking, rang through the hall. Crevelling veered round and saw George's white face. "I know I see," shot from him. "You're try in' the respectable dodge, Eighty-six? Damme if I can recol lect yer name, or I'd shout it out so's it could be heard by all those ladies and gents you've rung in with." A broadside of blasphemy was rattled out the next minute. "But I'll swear it's you that beard and them fine togs can't fool me. You was always an airy cuss up there on the river. Ho, ho, ho! So ye've come here to preach and pray, have ye, among us miserable sinners? What a joke! What a big joke! Ho, ho, ho!" "Go forward; leave it all to ine, "said Crevelling, very quickly, in George's ear. NEW YORK. Everybody along the corridor had heard. It seemed to George, while he moved past his companions, as if scores of eyes were stabbing him with astonished and contemptuous looks. But, all the time, he thought only of her. His feet felt numb as they struck the second step of the narrow stair leading below; his hands had a desire to grasp something, as though for suppdrt; he clinched his lips together, to keep them from fluttering and sagging apart. Oh, the mortification of it! Oh, the savage unex pectedness! Here, once more, was the curse of his stained name. How could he have dreamed that this fresh torment lay in ambush for him? If he had spent his earlier term of imprisonment in this jail instead of a Brooklyn one, no power could have induced him to pass within these walls. Here he had had no reason to suspect the dimmest chance of exposure. And yet exposure had come. It was alwa3'S waiting for him, in loathed ambush like this it would always be waiting, somehow, some where, from now until his death ! He had reached the lower floor of the prison, and stood there, inwardly shivering, undecided whether to remain or depart. Suddenly the thought of Crevelling recurred to him. An infinite sense of aid, sympathy, friendship, swept through his heart. "Go forward; leave it all to me!" In his perturbation, his misery, he repeated that gentle command, whispering it to his vexed and anguished spirit. A keeper approached him. "You ain't goin' to quit, I s'pose," he asked, sociably and half questioningly, "without the comp'ny you come with?" "N no," said George, scarcely sure if his 'no' were not a 'yes.' Then the thought smote him that he must "quit, "and very promptly. What other course could he take? How could he face again those men and women upstairs? Just at this point Crevelling dawned on hia view. As they met Crevelling caught his hand, pressed it for a moment, and then murmured: "You're knocked over I see that by your face." "Why not? Why not?" "You're safe perfectly safe." "Safe?" NEW YORK. "Yes. Nobody except myself really heard any con nected series of words. I assure you of this on my honor it is true." "No no; you must be wrong, Mr. Crevelling!" "I ara not wrong. Miss Doris, who was just beyond me, heard the scornful laughter and caught some frag ments of sentences. But I almost pushed her away from the cell near which she stood, and told her that there was an impudent fellow a few yards off who had the wish to make himself hostile and who had just flung a blast of insult at both you and myself. I asked her to warn the others to get them out of the corridor as soon as possi ble. She at once acted on my request. It is almost time for us to depart, anyway. I then told them so, and emphasized the little alarm which I knew she had al ready spread. Result they are all coming downstairs. See here they troop. Nobody, believe me, for I speak with certainty, has a glimmer of suspicion. If you are spoken to on the subject it will be only with regret that you should unluckily have fallen in with a prisoner who lacked decent civility and your misfortune will be classed with my own." Even if he had doubted this declaration, George must soon have seen the truth of it. Doris presently came up to him, her smile radiant with a kind of amused condo lence. "I hope you were not seriously disturbed," she said, "by that very explosive person. Mr. Crevelling tells me that he attacked you both in the most offensive way. I'm afraid you will feel like scolding me for hav ing brought you here. If so, have it out with me at once, and don't regard me with that hurt, reproachful air." The intensity of George's relief made him break into a joyful laugh. "I'll postpone my scolding," he said, "with j'our permission." "That sounds ominous," she replied archly. "Will the postponement last long?" "I'm afraid," he said, "it will be indefinite." As she echoed his laugh he felt his ej'es moisten. And mixed with his new happiness was a sense of almost reverential gratitude toward Crevelliug. NEW YORK. 287 VII. "WHAT a day!" thought George, when once more alone in his lodgings. "What a day!" Of course he must accept the grandly generous propo sition which Crevelling had made to him. And yet, while feeling like the worst of ingrates, he determined to ask for time. "You shall have all the time you want," Crevelling said to him, when they met by appointment, that even ing, at the home of the latter. "Say a fortnight?" he added. "Or would a longer term suit you better?" "A fortnight would be ample," George said. He was thinking of Doris of what he should say to her when the occasion came for a full avowal of his identity of how he would bring about the shock of so stinging a revelation. At this moment a most painful and unforeseen thing happened. A servant appeared, and handed Crevelling a card. He glanced at it, paused, looked at George, and then said: "Tell Mr. Courtelyou I am here." As the servant was vanishing, George exclaimed : "Osborne Courtelyou! I did not want to meet him it will be almost a misery for me to meet him now!" "Really? I thought you and he were the best of friends. Did you not appear at the trial of Lynsko as chief witness for the prosecution?" "Yes yes," George faltered. "But we have never been friends. And, beside, my alias my position as Mr. Josselyn's secretary he knows nothing of either fact. Of course he will recognize me at once, in spite of my changed aspect." But Courtelyou, who soon afterward entered, gave not a sign of such recognition. Crevelling merely said "Mr. George Mr. Courtelyou/' and bows were exchanged. 288 NEW YOkK. "He doesn't know me," George told himself, thank fully. "I hoped to find you in," said Courtelyou to Crevel- ling, "but still I felt doubtful. You are a man of so many engagements, you know. And now " Here he looked full at George, with a glance that made its recipi ent coucious of every hair of his concealing, disfeaturing beard. "This gentleman claims you, I fear," he added, with placid politeness. "N no," loitered Grovelling, .whose expressive face was now a study. "Mr. George and I have finished our discussion not so important a one, after all." Here he smiled his candid, brilliant smile. "My dear Courtel- you, I know that yon have come to talk with me aboub the case of that poor Italian woman, concerning which I wrote you. It is all just as I stated. She has been horribly persecuted by the family of her infamous hus band. I am convinced that they have got her into prison on a totally false charge." He continued to speak in a rapid, earnest way, telling how the relatives of the woman's husband were, to the best of his belief, a bad set, with a certain sum of dollars to spend in trying to turn the tables upon her and cause her to receive a sentence which should far more justly be passed upon her drunken and blackguard lord. "You," he added, "could drive this little bevy of persecutors into the limbo they deserve. Your legal lightning would shrivel them. I know how expensive it is, my dear Courtelyou, when required by those who can pay for it, and yet how philanthropically you sometimes discharge it at the entreaty of beggars even as audacious as myself." George felt that here was a hint of departure which ho could opportunely take, and he soon got himself away with more felicity than he had believed the whole awk ward situation would permit. "I met your friend, Mr. Courtelyou," he said to Doris a day later, while she was paying one of her visits to the library of her cousin. Then he looked at Josselyu, who was absorbed in a letter, several yards away. "He did not recognize me." "Did not recognize you?" queried Doris, with sur prised air. "You haveinown him, then?" NEW YORK. 289 George, inwardly agitated, feeling himself at the com mencement of an unmasking process which he wished to make as gradual as its inseparable violence of disclosure would allow, gave a little flourishing gesture with one hand. "Yes before I grew this big disguising beard, I knew him rather well." "Knew him personally you!" "Yes. Please promise me that for the present you will not speak of our having ever been acquainted." "I will promise," she answered slowly. Then, with decision and gentleness oddly mixed: "I dislike, how ever, to make such an agreement." "May I ask you why?" "It flavors of deception." "Not culpably, I hope." "No no. I can't distrust you, if you mean that. I can't believe you would stoop to anything like false hood." George felt himself turning pale. But with resolute ness that had in it a kind of secret heart-failure, he went on : "May you not err in your estimate of my honesty? Or have you not cared to give that subject any special thought?" "I somehow believe in you that's all. It's instinc tive, 1 suppose." "Are these intuitions which we call instincts alwaj's trustworthy?" "Come, now," she said, challengiugly and a little curtly, "do you wish to make me think you less honora ble than you seem?" "And do I then seem honorable?" he asked. "Seem! You are! I know it!" She spoke impetuously, and then burst into a little nervous laugh, as though ashamed of her ardor. George meanwhile watched her with covert agony. "I'll keep my promise regarding yourself and Mr. Courtelyou, " she continued, with a levity for which he was totally unprepared, "provided you will appear down in our drawing rooms, this evening, and make yourself 290 NEW YORK. conventionally civil to a handful of very stupid people. It will be the meeting of the Tuesday Evening Club. You don't know anything about the Tuesday Evening Club? Neither do I; neither does anybody. It is a collection of fashionables, and it meets at certain houses of its members with an idea that it is somehow intel lectual. Cousin Ellen Mrs. Josselyn belongs to it, and to-night is her turn to entertain it. Somebody, I have heard, is to read a paper on the flora and fauna of Japan. Everybody will say 'how delightful/ when it is finished, though it may have been the sorriest of bores. Have I frightened you into refusing my invita tion, or will you be brave enough to come?" "You are more than good to ask me, " said George, "but this fashionable world and I have little in common." "Hardly less than the same world and myself. Then I have frightened you?" "I should cut the most incongruous figure." Doris frowned. "Why, pray? You have the man ners of a gentleman." "Thanks." "You speak like one you dress like one. Ah, I see: the flora and fauna of Japan appal you. But there is always conversation afterward." "Conversation in which I could bear no part." "Is not that a trifle arrogant?" "Arrogant?" he exclaimed. "Have you no adaptability? Can't you sometimes descend gracefully to your mental inferiors?" "I meant no such view of the case. That would in deed be arrogance." "How you wrap yourself in mystery!" "I?" "Cousin Albert, there, knows scarcely anything about you." "Did he tell you that?" queried George quickly. "Not in so many words. But I inferred it." "Do j r ou want me to tell you all about myself?" came the slow response, leaving his lips lingeringly like a sigh. "You can tell me at the Tuesday Evening Club to night. I'll give you a long audience. There's conde scension, isn't it?" NEW YORK. 291 "1 should call it simple graciousness. But the place, the hour 'Would they not be inappi'opriate?" "How can I tell?" Her voice and eyes now equally softened. "Is it something very sorrowful?" "Yes something very sorrowful indeed." She made no answer, though he saw a sympathetic tremor steal into her closed lips. "Suppose," he pursued, "you consented to go with me on that visit to Mrs. Monahan's unrelenting son? Or am I too audacious in seeking to take Mr. Crevelliug's place?" She started. "To go with Frank Grovelling would be like going with a brother!" "I understand. Pardon me." His apologetic humility seemed to vex her. "Beside, how could this possibly concern the question?" "What question?" "That of your volunteered revelation. No! I must learn more about you first. I must hear your history, however sorrowful. Come this evening or not, as you please. I shall welcome you if you do come. You need not talk to the fashionables unless you please. As for my visit to Hugh Monahau, I could only make it in your company with both my cousins' full consent; and even then " Here she paused, drew out a little watch, and looked down at it. "I'm darting off now. If you appear this evening I shall be very glad. You need not come till nine. The lecture usually begins even later." She glided over toward Mr. Josselyn, rested an arm on his shoulder, and spoke with him for several minutes in low tones. Then, with a nod and smile for George, she quitted the room. Josselyn had already laid down his pen. When left alone with George, he rose, and said in rather flurried accents : "You've interested Doris; do you know it?" "She has interested me," George murmured. Josselyn gave him an odd stare. "She does that to everybody whom she talks with at all seriously, I've noticed. And she has talked somewhat seriously with you, has she not?" "Yes," 292 NEW YORK. "Ah I see. She wants you to make one of the guests to-night at this entertainment my "wife is giving." George looked intently for a moment into his kinn- man's mild, worried eyes. "I haven't agreed to appear, " he said. "How could I do so without your consent?" "Oh, you have it, you have it," said Josselyn, with an uneasy lifting of both hands. "Thanks," George answered. He was on the verge of making a full disclosure of Crevelling's noble proposal and his own acceptance of it. But Josselyn repelled this impulse by almost fretfully muttering: "Don't in heaven's name, let yourself be foolish enough to fall in love with Doris. Crevelling is daft about her, and so is Courtelyou, and so are three or four other men, unless I'm wrong. She isn't in the least a coquette I don't mean that. But she fascinates with out knowing it; her cruelty is unconscious; she doesn't realize her own coldness." "Coldness!" "A kind of virginal coldness yes. Oh, I've studied her well! I believe she will never marry; she has pas sion, if you please, but it is spiritual, not sexual. In other times she might have made a sublime nun or priestess. To-day she will live and die a fervent humani tarian." "Thank you for your warning," said George gloomily. "I should be a fine fool to fall in love with her I!" He gnawed his lips for a moment, keeping back a tumult of what he deemed futile words. "I feel," he went on, "that my presence among your wife's guests to-night cannot please you. Why should it? You bargained for no such deception. Mrs. Josselyn would bitterly resent my coming if she knew the truth. And so I will stay away. It is best. There; the whole matter is settled. Let us not refer to it again." "No, no," Josselyn said. "Doris will smell a mystery and torment me with questions and you as well. Per haps, after all, it is safer for you to appear. I I wish it. Yes, on the whole, George, I really request it." George's later preparations for the coming reception were mingled with sharpest pity. By what right, he NEW YORK. 293 asked himself, should he distress still more this man who had accepted the worriment and dread of his secretary ship? Josselyn had given him refuge at a time when all society bristled toward him like a phalanx of hostile spearmen. Was it just, was it even honorable, not to make, now, a firm stand of refusal, withdrawal, avoid ance? And yet the thought of soon again seeing Doris, no matter among what kinds of unsatisfactory and disheart ening environments, teemed for him with delicious temp tations. He had no evening gear of the needful sort; he was compelled to get it at short notice and with extreme haste. But past experience aided him in conforming to current modish demands. His tall, flexile figure needed no artful efforts of tailoring. When he presented him self in. Mrs. Josselyn's drawing rooms with white necktie and a pair of light-tinted gloves he had not the air of one to whom life has imparted many of its disrnaler secrets. People looked at him with curiosity, it is true, but often with admiration as well. It annoyed him that Mrs. Josseiyn should smile so cordially as she gave him her hand. "Doris told me you were coming, Mr. George," she said. "I am so pleased that you accepted her invitation, which I beg you will also look upon as my own." And then another arrival pushed George aside. He marveled at this graciousriess from a woman notoriously cool to 'nobodies' like himself. Doris, he felt, had been at the root of it; and he was right. Not long ago the girl had said, in plaintive explosion to her cousin: "There! You don't like my having asked him, and I am sorry I did, and you will be frigidly polite and make him wish he hadn't come." "Suppose I disappoint you," Mrs. Jossel.vn had said. No one could sting her worldliness into conscience pangs like this beloved relative, whom she disapproved yet adored. "That's right," cried Doris, "do disappoint me. I shall expect it of you now that you've hinted it." "My social tendencies are exclusive, Doris, as you know." 294 NEW YORK. "Oh, Cousin Ellen! There will be men in your draw ing rooms to-night without half Mr. George's brains, education or breeding." "But they are in society. They have been accepted. I put it cold-bloodedly, like that, for the simple reason that there is no other way to put it. I meet society on its own terms, my dear, as you are well aware, and be cause I believe there is no other way of meeting it." "But if you would only look into your naturally kind heart " "How often must I tell you that as a woman of the world I have no heart at all?" "And how often must I answer you that you are far too good and lovable too lower yourself by being a woman of the world at all?" "Lower myself ? Impudent vixen! Since you are so captivated by this young man, where on earth is your policy? Do you want me to give him uncomfortable twinges? Take care, or I will." Doris raised a forefinger, looking very serious. "If you do, you'll try my affection for you. And I'm per fectly certain you're too fond of me to take any such rash step. Eecollect our fondness for one another wasn't born yesterday. If I can't reform you I can at least make you feel that my regard for your real self not your 'society' self is worth preserving." Mrs. Josselyn attempted a frown, but it ended in a smile. "Upon my word, Doris," she said, "you're be ginning to frighten me. I must study this Mr. George, in order to see whether your fancy for him can have any deep foundation. It surely seems peculiar in a girl who need but to choose between two men who are rated, in their different ways, among the best matches in town." But Doris had no intention of giving her cousin, that evening, any opportunity to "study" the guest under discussion. She swept up to him, all smiles, a moment after he had received Mrs. Josselyn 's greeting, and brought him to a pleasant nook under a bower of palms, and sat there with him, saying light, graceful things on no subject in particular till the rooms had filled with ladies in splendid gear and gentlemen with snowy ovals NEW YORK. 295 of shirt-bosom, and the lecturer (a sallow man -whose head was too small and whose hands were too big) com menced his Japanese discourse, zoologic and botanic. It was excessively interesting, and everybody enjoyed it except George, whose attention did not wander but remained permanently null. He had ears and eyes only for Doris, in a violet-hued gown with pink roses at her breast. She seemed to him the most simply dressed woman in the room, though by all odds the most beauti ful. Before the lecture began she said to him : "There are some charming ladies here. Can I not make you acquainted with two or three of them?" "Why?" he answered. "To have them wonder how I managed to get within their sacred limits, and to feel that they would almost openly curl their lips at me if they knew I am your cousin's secretary?" "Oh, they're not all like that." "No? Well, unless you prefer to escape from me, I'll forego the honor of their acquaintance." "You're quite without social ambitions, then? How refreshing! And I've not the least wish to escape from you. Don't you remember what I said this afternoon? That I'd give you a long audience on a certain subject?" "Yes but I can't claim it now, can I? The lecturer is about to begin." "You can claim it afterward, if you please. There will be time." "Here comes Mr. Courtelyou," said George. "He sees you. There you have exchanged bows." "Afterward, as you say I maybe left quite in the cold. He will probably want you all to himself." "And he shall not have me. It's a promise." Hardly three minutes later Courtelyou was shaking hands with Doris. He appeared not to notice George's presence at her side. Nearly everybody was seated. A few yards away the lecturer, standing where two rose- shaded lamps could pour the most effective beams upon an upheld manuscript, had audibly and significantly cleared his throat. "You must hurry and find a seat," George heard Doris say to Courtelyou. "There are none here, you see, even if you cared to take one." 296 NEW YORK. "I should very much like to take one." While he thus spoke, George glanced at him, and their eyes met. Courtelyou's were mercilessly accusing. George at once understood that he had not only been recognized but that behind such recognition lurked savage disapproval. In another minute Gourtelyou had turned on his heel and moved away. Something made George say to Doris: "I have not seen Mr. Crevelling as yet. Do you think he will come?" "No; he cannot. Important engagements \vill pre vent." When the lecture was over every body rose, and a babble of conversation at once ensued. Doris pointed with her fan toward two empty chairs in a remote corner, half concealed by a massive cabinet, "We can have it out with one another over there," she said, "provided you are willing." "Have it out with one another?" George faltered. He followed her, and in a trice they were again seated side by side, this time very obscurely. "Did I speak with too much brusqueness?" she asked, while his gaze fell before the search of her own. "If so, pardon me." "I I can't tell you here, " he said brokenly. "It is no time no place." He did not lift his eyes, but felt the steady scrutiny of hers. "Just as you please," he heard her say, quite softly. *'But you seem disturbed even agitated." "lam." "Is it because of what you might have to tell me?" ' ' About my past ? ' ' "Yes." "It is partly because of that." "Do you mean " She suddenly paused. "Oh," he said, with a great throb in his throat, "I mean that my past, as you yourself phrase it, has been one of which I terribly, torturingly repent." They looked at one another in silence for a longer time than perhaps either guessed. "Is it something," she presently asked, "that you think I would not be willing to forgive?'* NEW YORK. 297 "I know you are wondrously merciful. And yet "And yet?" "Spare me do! he pleaded. And then a new thought struck him, and his low words rushed forth in tumult. "If you would consent to go with me there to-morrow evening instead of with Mr. Ore veiling! I feel I know that I might speak then as I cannot speak now!" "Then? While I went with you into those dismal and dangerous quarters alone? What are you saying?" "You would understand if you went with me." "More mystery?" "Yes, if you please. But my reasons are not idle ones." "And I must take them on trust?" "Take nothing on trust, " he answered, with altering tones. "Of course you would not, could not go. Even if your cousins acceded, you could not. I have been very wrong very insolent. You should have frowned down my proposition at the outset." "Quite true. " "You say that coldly and chidingly. Let me make you my most earnest apologies and then slip away." "Wait a moment. " Her mild voice teemed with com mand. "Tell me your past history now. Tell it in a few words. You have done something or been some thing you are horribly ashamed of. What is it? or, rather, what was it? Never mind time or place. Here is the place and now is the time." He did not answer. "Well, as you will," came her next words, full of smothered indignation. "This evening must end all further trifling. I cannot know you any longer "Ah, don't say that!" "I do say it. This is the end of our acquaintance, unless you choose a franker course with me." The pallor and resolution in her face dizzied him, for an instant, with distress. Furtively he knotted both hands where they hung at his side. Then he leaned a little nearer to her, and said, with the speed and fire born of great suffering : "Courtelyou recognized me, just now. Crevelling has 298 NEW YORK. already both recognized and pitied me. I wonder if you will be merciful as he. Your cousin, Albert Josselyn, was merciful ; he gave me the place I hold with him, but because of his wife, because of public opinion, he would not have the real truth transpire. Still, I don't reproach him. There was a bond of blood between us, but what did that mean, after all? He did marvels, and I bless him for it. Every man's hand was against me; I would have killed myself if he had not stretched out his. Not so long ago you said that you knew of his having spoken certain things which moved you to the soul. Now you have guessed, of course, who I am." She drew back from him. A shadow of rose color swept up over her pale features, dim as if some far-away passing lamp had reflected it there. "No, no, " she said. "Who are you? You you tell me that I said of you Ah! I see! You are " "George Oliver," he supplied. He heard her give a short, faint cry as he rose. Press ing out among crowded forms and genial faces, he felt the bright lights of the festal rooms swim before his eyes. He had but one idea to escape from the house, to reach the open street. The humiliation of having told her of knowing that she knew at last ravaged him, soul and body. "Pardon me," said a voice, low and cool. Courtelyou stood before him, barring the way. Once more their eyes met. George, by a sudden pang of realization, comprehended that from this man he had now nothing further to fear. And in consequence his own look, as he paused and let it clash lance-like with Courtelyou 's, was no less bold than sad. NEW YORK. 29D VIII. UNDER his breath, yet with much distinctness, the lawyer said : "I must tell you that I know who you are," "That does not surprise me." "I knew on seeing you at Mr. Crevelling's. " "You .chose to give no sign of it." "No. This evening is different, however." "Yes? And why?" "Because your presence here is an unwarrantable deception. " "To whom?" asked George, with a smile that seemed to glitter visible scorn. "Your faultless and immaculate self?" Not a trace of anger was disclosed in the answer. "I resent your appearance here under an alias." "One of which my host and cousin Mr. Josselyn, is aware?" "Yes notwithstanding such fact. You are 'Mr. George,' Josselyn's secretary. I heard as much, after you quitted Crevelling and myself; Josselyn may know everything; lam far from doubting your statement to that effect provided you actually make it and not hint it." "Thanks; you are really most benevolent. I do make it." "Very well. But does Mrs. Josselyn know?" "You are not privileged to inquire." "Does Miss Josselyn know?" "Again, you are not privileged to inquire." "Ah, I see. You choose to be high-handed." "I choose to tell you that you are posing as an insolent meddler." 3oO NEW Yoktf. " 'Posing, ' seems a strange word from the lips of a man who enters this sort of society well aware that if his real name were known here not a person in the rooms would associate with him." "This is your way of showing your wrath. It's a calm way, I admit, but it is also the way of a coward." "How purely ridiculous! Miss Josselyn is one of my dearest friends. Do you suppose I will endure having you deceive her, as you have no doubt deceived Grovel ling? I had every sort of sympathy for you till you at tempted to impose (as too evidently you have done) on poor Josselyn's weakness." "Sympathy! your sympathy !" sneered George, under his breath. "It's like hearing a toad boast of quick cir culation! But, after all, you are no doubt acting from a sense of duty your sort of duty. I read your character long ago. In a way, sir, you are a man of principle, you are even what the world at large might call a good man. But I showed you, some time since, that your goodness and your principle were of the kind I dislike and shun. As we stand, you are my debtor, and I owe you nothing. Now please to cease from ever addressing me again." "Debtor? I your debtor? How?" broke from Cour- telyou, as George was passing him. "How? Why, simply through the use you made of me in advancing your legal reputation." George had turned again. His interlocutor was now smiling and shaking his head. "My dear man, you can not behave like this with me. I am accustomed to bravado. You must leave this house. You must leave it at once. My feelings toward .you are of the kindest. I have offered to aid you in any reasonable way. But I do not tolerate imposture, and I will not tolerate it any the more because you choose to call me names." George knew that he must now be very pale. But he knew, also, that he was guarding every feature from the least disclosure of what rage and couteDipt surged within him. As for any shadow of publicity in this quick con fab they might both have been whispering together in some corner. Amid the polite and copious chatter that NEW YORK. BOi surrounded them their words were unnoticed, unnoticea- ble, as though concerned with some appointment to lunch or dine on the morrow. "You will not tolerate it?" said George. "Does that mean that you desire me to give you a little more notoriety?" "I have told you," Courtelyou softly insisted, "that you must leave this house, and leave it at once. Other wise " "Otherwise?" queried George, with a hearty ripple of laughter or one that he at least made appear so. "Ah, come, now. You're talking seriously at last. Otherwise you will do what?" "I will expose you." As Courtelyou made this reply, his tone and mien underwent a wavering change. George's defiance, tran quil yet clear, had told upon him. Beyond all question he believed himself wholly in the right. At this very mo ment he would have given George a sum of money large for a man of his income, have given it with motives of the purest charity, have given it despite recent language which he held to be packed with the most unprovoked insult. And yet he had morally sprung to arms at what he deemed a scandalous imposition, a brazen hypoc risy. "You will expose me?" said George. "How, and to whom? Will you mount a chair like an auctioneer and shout out, or will you glide to this person and that, like a wily sneak, and whisper your precious little budget of information?" "These questions are evidently cast in the form of a threat." Again George laughed. "What a figure you cut, with your pompous morality!" And now he leaned his lips close to the other's ear. "I dare you to make a public show. Understand I dare you. As for your demand, I would no more think of acceding to it than I would be stupid enough to slap your face or kick you." At this the cold eyes flashed. "Do either, and you may again get a taste of your old prison life not so un familiar, as yet, I should judge." 302 NEW YORK. "True. Not so unfamiliar that I care to risk a recur rence of it in so mean and petty an encounter. But you've waved your little flag. Now stand to your little gun. Consider my fingers, if you please, snapped in your face." At this point George folded his arms, and intentionally loudened his voice, though its key still stayed moderate. "All in all, do you know, you strike me as the most preposterous bully of whom I have ever heard or read? And please listen to this: I shall now insist on your carrying out your brutal and idiotic menace. Insist, you will be good enough to compre hend. You shall not back down and slink off. You must do something. I refuse, and with utter disdain, to leave this house. But you must either try to have me ordered out of it by some one in authority here, or you must admit to me that you have merely flaunted before me the flimsiest braggadocio." Just then a gentleman jovially slapped Courtelyou on the shoulder. He was a big, florid man, with a visage whose amiability might instantly change, you felt, to haughtiness. "Ah, Courtelyou," he said, "so your growing legal greatness does not yet prevent you from honoring our humble Tuesday Evening Club?" "No no Onderdonk, " almost stammered Courtel you. He was smiling, and while the gentleman shook his hand he made a receding movement, away from George. But the latter, every nerve strung to its tensest pitch, inwardly boiling with rage and challenge, took a new chance and shot a new sentence into the ear of his late assailant. "Now now is your time! Tell him. Tell whom you will ! I'm waiting. I have called you by two rather unflattering names. Prove you're something at least a little less debased!" But Courtelyou turned his back upon the speaker, and with some words which George failed to catch, walked away, his arm linked in that of Mr. Onderdonk a per son of high social place. NEW YORK. o03 "Triumph!" George said to himself. "I shall stay here now till the last guest goes." But he did not keep this resolve. The thought of see ing Doris again dismayed him. In less than five minutes longer he had quitted the house. Let Courtel- you, he decided, claim the exit as a flight. In doing so he could not shirk the actuality of his own distinct re pulse and retreat. Meanwhile, as refreshments were being served the guests, Courtelyou espied Doris, still seated in the corner where George had left her. Straightway he took the empty chair at her side. "I'm fortunate in finding you here alone," he said. "It strikes mo that you're somewhat unlucky," she answered him, with an absent, colorless air. "Why? You're feeling unsocial?" "Very." "I should judge so, from the extreme retirement of this nook, which I've ventured to invade. Pray tell me has Mr. George been sharing it with you?" She started, then gave a slow nod. "Yes." "You er seem to have dismissed him." "No he went of his own accord." Suddenly her languor disappeared. She fixed an intent look upon him. "By the way, he tells me that he thought you recognized him a little while ago." It was Courtelyou's turn to show surprise. "Becog- nizedhim? He told you that? Then you know who ho is?" "I I've just found out," she replied unsteadily. "Ah he's made an open confession, then? No doubt you sent him away after hearing it. If so you were very sensible." "He went of his own accord." "Indeed?" "Yes." She leaned forward, looking into a section of the crowded room beyond. "But perhaps he will return soon," she added, with an evident nervousness. "And if so I want you, please, to leave us together." "Leave you together!" he exclaimed. "Leave you with George Oliver!" 304 NEW YORK. She drew herself up and stared at him. "George Oliver is my cousin." "A sort of cousin, I believe yes." "A cousin twice or thrice removed, perhaps, but still, a cousin. "We are, more or less, of the same stock, the same blood. " Courtelyou repressed a gathering frown. "That is strange talk, surely. These rooms are no place for him, and I made it very plain to him just now that I thought so. He responded with insolence; he defied me. But of course I could not publicly resent his attitude. I lost no time, however, in seeking to inform you " "Of what I already knew, " she cut in sharply. "So you were cruel to him, then?" "Cruel? You call it so?" "I do call it so." She gathered her brows, and the thin curves of her nostrils tightened. "I call it most officious and self-righteous as well! How dared you do it, Osborne Courtelyou? Are you the host here? How dared you persecute him like that?" "You think it persecution!" he said, aghast. "Worse!" She dashed a handkerchief across her eyes, and they shone brighter for the tears thus swept from them, their brightness being that of wrath. "I shall never forgive you. It was infamous! What earthly right had you to bid him go." "The right, as I thought, of protecting you and other reputable people against unfit associates." "Unfit! And you can talk like that, knowing all he went through! 1 only read his words at the trial that trial where you were aided by his evidence to shine as a legal craftsman and win a difficult case! You heard his words, and you must have known him beforehand, in all the pathos of his remorse, his despair! No wonder he did not like you. He said to me once that he did not, when I hadn't a suspicion who he was. No, I shall never forgive this meanness in you never! And you came here to me as an informer against him! Shame!" She rose now. "Where is he? I wish to see him. I am certain he had more spirit than to take orders from you to leave a house in which you have no authority NEW YORK. 305 whatever. He responded with insolence, eh? You pre sume to term it insolence! What, pray, was your de mand? He defied you, eh? You presume to term it defiance? Shall I tell you what / term it? Honest and natural anger mixed, no doubt, with a great deal of wholesome disgust." "Doris, I "Do not ever again dare to call me Doris. Be as much of a personage among others as they will permit you to appear. But please remember this : you will seem to me a very small and petty creature, now and for the future. I have not the power to insist on your leaving this house, but I have more power so to insist than you had in your recent contemptible course toward him. And slight as that power is, I should like you to consider that I use it now. I should like you to feel sure that as the cousin of Albert Josselyn who gave George Oliver shelter here I heartily wish you would make a speedy departure." She hurried away, and left Courtelyou stung by the first real anguish of his life. In a flash he had perceived that her auger against him was unpropitiable ; but in the same flash he had also perceived not only that she had never loved him but that she now despised him, once and for all. And yet he loved her, and must go on loving her, go on longing to make her his wife. And such was the shape, the poise, the plan, the bent of his nature, that no earthly persuasive force could ever convince him he had not acted, in this recent affair, with soundest moral motive, with stanchest moral support. 306 - NEW YORK. IX. "SHE has at least told him nothing, " thought George, during the first hour of his intercourse, on the morrow with Albert Josselyn. "He is such a kindly simple old fellow that he would be sure to show me whether she had given him her confidence or no. Not a sign of it, however. And will she appear to-day? Well, I have only anticipated Crevelling's future revelation. And what an answer that will be to Courtelyou's audacious impudence! God bless Frank Crevelling! And yet he loves her. What if he knew I loved her as well? Would lie not shirk this noble design? Would he not be saint- lier than humanity may allow if he failed to shirk it?" Josselyn had some hard work for his secretary all through that special forenoon, and George was compelled to fight valiantly with jarred nerves and a buzzing head while he supplied certain marked deficiencies in his em ployer's epistolary dictations. For the merchant had already grown to place signal reliance on the quickness and capacity of his clerk. But at length, to George's acute relief, he said : "There, that will do for to-day. I'm a little tired by the late hours of last night. I think I shall take a long nap after lunch, and you can either give yourself a half holiday this afternoon or unravel that tangle of the Dempster mortgage. I dare say it will keep, however; do just as you please. We shall have to come to law about it, in the end, more's the pity and I do so hate, at my time of life, these real-estate litigations." "Dempster has a bad case, I should say," answered George, "but he seems just foolhardy enough to get himself in a worse muddle by refusing sane compromise." "True confound him! By the way, you left rather early last night, did you not?" NEW YORK. 307 "Yes. I saw yon speaking with some ladies and I didn't want to disturb you with my farewells." He added, a little confusedly: "It was the same more or less with Mrs. Josselyn." "M yes." Josselyn took out his watch, stared down at it obviously longer than was needful, and then closed its gold case with a click that startled even himself. The next minute he transferred his look to George's face. But the eyes of the latter were drooped. "Lunch-time, "said Josselyn. "Well, good-day, George." "Good. day, Mr. Josselyn." Seated at his desk, George scanned certain papers. As Josselyn neared the door, he paused. "George," he said, in a new voice. "Yes,." his kinsman answered, looking up. "I I should like to tell my wife everything, and take the chances with her." The bland eyes were full of a gentle, sympathetic light; the weak yet sweetly amiable mouth trembled. George rose at once and went close to the speaker's side. "I feel it would be of no use," he said. "But I thank you for the impulse, sir I thank you from my soul!" When alone in the library he muttered half-aloud to him self. "Hypocrite that I am! How far he is from sus pecting that I will soon tell him of Crevelling's priceless proposal." Usually, by about this hour, he went and lunched at his own lodgings. But to-day he forgot appetite in the sense of another gratified sort of hunger that of being left to the solitude and idleness which brought him such unexpected repose. And yet repose was not the word! How his heart throbbed with anxiety! How the image of Doris loomed austere to him one minute, forgiving the next, and still the next a sub tle blending of clemency and rebuke. He did not know how long he had sat with face shaded by one hand, when suddenly, lifting his head, he per ceived that a white square of paper gleamed near the threshold of the door. In surprise he went forward, picked up a letter, and his own name. Doris had written him these lines: 308 NEW YORK. "What you told me last night you should have told me before. My pity for you is very great, and my sympathy as well. You should have known this earlier, because of certain words I spoke, not dreaming to whom I spoke them. Last night I saw Osborne Courtelyou, and ho made me aware of his conduct to you. He supposed, no doubt, that I would approve it. His disappointment must have been sharp; I reproached, upbraided him; I was very accusative, very condemning. I think the course he took unpardonable. In explicit terms I made him understand that our further acquaintance must cease. "Perhaps, however, I was wrong. When we are angry we are nearly always wrong, and I have never in my life been more angry. Afterward I remembered his sister, Martha, whom I love, and on her account I felt repent ant. She adores him ; he is the apple of her eye. This morning, while I was thinking of her, and wondering if we were to be divided forever by her brother's hateful conduct, she wrote me the sweetest of notes, stating that Osborne had disclosed everything to her on the previous night and that she was plunged in grief by what had occurred. But she also informed me that her brother had suddenly been called to Boston for two or three days by legal business, abrupt and pressing. And so I went to her, and we have had a long talk, and our friendship, as I am happy to think, remains unmarred by the rup ture between Osborne and myself. "Of course I can understand your reluctance to enter his house. But if you will go there this evening by seven o'clock you will find that I have dined there with Martha Courtelyou, and that I shall be ready to accom pany you on that 'downtown' trip to poor Mrs. Mona- han's implacable son. It is absolutely certain that you will not meet Osborne Courtelyou ; if there were the vaguest chance of it I would not make this request. I no longer hesitate to go with you; our blood-relationship makes the sanction of others needless. And here I must add that your reticence has astonished me. Not dream ing who you were, I spoke to you so frankly of yourself - of my belief in the sincerity of your sorrowful admis.- NEW YORK. 309 sions at the trial of Lo r nsko. It seems to me that I made it very plain how savagely life had scourged you for an offense grave indeed, yet not so grave as your tragic and palpable repentance of it. "Well, come to me at seven this evening, and forget for a time that it is his house in which you will find me. I must not break faith with Mrs. Monahan, and I can find her son only at night. Frank Grovelling will go with me to-morrow night if I ask him, but I prefer your company to his. We can jingle down there slowly in a horse-car; steam and electricity have not yet quite de stroyed, I believe, this mode of conveyance. Let us therefore be thankful, since a long and earnest talk with you is deeply desired by "Your cousin, "DOBIS JOSSELYN. " George read this letter three times without realizing that he had read it even once. Then he fell to pas sionately kissing it. Then, with tears in his eyes, he concealed it, and told himself that he had somehow got an appetite for lunch and would go and find a quiet restaurant where he could mingle meat and drink with many beatific repei'usals of these precious lines. Courtelyou's house, forsooth! What did he care for that? Was there any kind of tenement that could stand in the way of his keeping so treasured a tryst? The hours dragged cruelly with him from then till seven. And at last, in the still autumn starlight, while he ascended Courtelyou's stoop, a tide of embittering recollections beset him. With what trustful and hopeful feelings, in the recent past, had he sought this same door, and how keenly disappointed had he afterward quitted it, stripped of every illusion which had clad for him the son of his father's old and honored friend! Scarcely had he entered the dim, rich-tinted drawing room, when Doris rustled toward him enchantingly, dressed with great plainness in bonnet and street gear. She gave him her hand. Then he was vaguely con scious that they sat together on a lounge. But her voice was very clear to him, and not a word of what she was saying escaped the almost avid hunger of his hearing. 310 NEW YORK. "Poor, dear Martha thinks it best she should not come to receive you. Her position, you know, is difficult. My quarrel with her brother is a great blow; she is so attached to us both. But she does not defend Osborne. I almost wished that she. would; it might have given me a chance to appear meek, and so convince myself that I had a vestige of self-control left. For last night, I fear, I was very eruptive, very volcanic in your behalf, or at least in your cause, as I wrote yon." "Yes you wrote me I know," he floundered help lessly. Then a great sigh left him, and in the dimness he searched her face, flowerlike for loveliness yet to him lovelier than any flower. "You have made me very happy you have given me great courage and hope." "Shall we go?" she said, a little primly, rising. "We need not get there, you know, till about eight. He will be in, then, and not supposedly have gone to bed yet. I shall carry him his mother's message, and beg him to forgive her, at least partially. Of course, you know, what she did was horrible in the extreme. Hughey, she admits, was a decent, hard-working fellow, and for three years after her confirmed drunkenness forced him to leave her she kept constantly tormenting him by all sorts of rowdy and untimely visits. And at last, knowing he was on the verge of making a certain good and harmless girl his wife, she sought this poor j'oung creature out, while in a state of crazy intoxication, and narrowly missed becoming a murderess. Hughey is not to be her prosecutor at the coming trial; his sweetheart's relations and friends are very fiercely massing together. Mrs. Monahan has no sort of defense, and freely admits it. She expects to go to prison for a long term of years. But she wants an audience with her son before the trial occurs. She maintains that except while the curse of drink has had its clutch on her she has never been a bad mother to him, and her desire to remind him of earlier days when she was both devoted and tender days which she insists he must agree to have filled a large part of the mutual lives strikes me as intensely pitiful." "You are right it is," George answered. They had left the drawing room and gone out into the hall. Dorig NEW YORK. 311 herself opened the door leading into the street. When they had descended the stoop she slipped her arm into his with a prompt naturalness. And while the}' walked eastward together she somehow directing their course, though not with any marked decisiveness her tones continued: "I had thought of one of those Second Avenue horse cars; it will not be much of a walk before we reach one. You know, I've an idea of persuading this Hughey Monahan not only to see and talk with his miserable mother .but to induce the prosecution, as well, to with draw its charge. Why not? His sweetheart is now quite recovered from her dangerous wound or so Mrs. Monahan states. If this is true Hughey might be pre vailed upon to induce leniency in the rageful relatives. And The Clasping Hand will take charge of his mother. It has dealt with worse cases." 'And so," said George, after a silence, "j'ou've a great deal to say to Hughey when you meet him." "Oh, a great deal." "More, apparently, than you have to say to me." "You! Well, no." He felt her arm press against his own, and as it did so the light of a near street lamp dimmed before his misting eyes. "It's so utterly differ ent! There are things I want to axk you things that puzzle me. Say frankly thix, will you? Do you still care in the least for that woman who tempted you?" "No." "Not in the least?" "I abhor her." They walked on in silence. Then she amazed him by saying: "You and I are cousins twice removed isn't it? Well, no matter, we are cousins, and I can speak now as I could not, would not, have spoken when we last met. Was this woman the one to whom you referred at the trial your " She stopped short. "Yes," he returned. "For a time a rather short time. But it's true. I want to keep nothing back. " She drew her arm from his. He turned toward her with an imploring look. He did not really know where. 312 NEW YORK. they were. But Doris, who knew very well, was hailing a Second Avenue horse car. It stopped, and they entered it, and found comfortable seats in its half-filled interior. "Tell me," said Doris, after a few minutes of silence, "just what the circum stances were that brought you to engage yourself with Cousin Albert Josselyn under an assumed name." Just what the circumstances were! George mused, for a moment, his heart swelling, his nerves tingling. He wanted this woman whom he loved to know all the agony that his stained name had cost him, and he slowly poured forth to her listening ears a recital at once terri bly real and terribly pathetic. A sort of solemn ecstasy seemed to possess him. He spoke with great uncon scious fluency and with a simplicity born of his vital earnestness. Every incident of his struggle from the time of his leaving prison, parting from Lydia after his mother's death and seeking to secure some sort of decent foothold, was dwelt upon with its due desert. Only once Doris gave any answer, and then she did so with bowed head and in set murmur: "You make me despise Osborne Courtelyou more than ever. But go on, please." George had finished it all by the time the car was at its terminus. After this they walked for quite a dis tance. Doris had remained silent, and he suddenly broke his own silence by telling her so. "What can I say?" she exclaimed. "I pity you from my soul!" She had not taken his arm again till now, but now she took it, and in the lamplight he caught a glimpse of tears on her cheeks, just as he had heard them in her voice. When they got to Hughey Monahan's residence Doris made clear to him how distinct had been her information from that person's mother. "Here we are," she said, "and happily the door is open, with nobody prowling near it to watch us. We go up two stairs, and turn to our left. It's the first door, after that, and it's near the second landing." They ascended the first staircase, meeting no one. NEW YORK. 313 Then, as they were about to pass onward toward the second staircase, a door opened, and in the extremely dim light of this narrow hall they saw a woman's shape. "Mr. Hugh Monahan lives up on the next floor, doesn't he?" said Doris politely, addressing the vague feminine presence. "He used to live there," was the answer, "till about four days ago. He's gone away I don't know where. There's somebody else in his old room now." George, who was several paces ahead of Doris, turned and looked at the speaker. As it chanced, he was just below a gas jet, whose rays, 3 r ellow and feeble, were still sufficient to flood his face. Something in the tone and accent of the woman's speech had oddly reminded him of his past life in this same riverside district. But the reminiscence was just as faint to him as the visage and form of the woman herself. "Don't you think," he asked, "that the person who now has Hugh Monahan 's room could tell us where he has gone?" There was no response. Doris, who stood directly opposite the woman, made out a pale, thin face, lifted on a paler stem of throat and lit by a flash or two as of big black eyes. She was on the verge of repeating George's question when an answer came. "Yes. It's a laborer like himself. He may be out, though. I think his name is Lynch. You might knock on his door and see." "I will," said George. He turned to Doris. ""Will you wait here for a moment?" "Yes." George moved upstairs, and as he did so the strangest of mental operations took place. Something in the voice of the woman had struck him as remotely and bafflingly familiar. Whose voice was it? He had heard it down here in these quarters. Had he heard it often? Yes, surely yes, or its echoes would not so haunt his ears. By this time he had reached the upper hall. He re membered Doris's instructions received from Mrs, 314 NEW YORK. ban. He knocked at the first door on bis left. No answer came, and lie gave a louder summons. Then, while waiting, the conviction flashed upon him that the voice just heard downstairs had been that of his old acquaintance, the Polish woman, Mrs. Volatski. This conception, so to speak, shaped itself, rounded and com plete, within his intelligence. Then, sharpened by fear, another thought pierced him. She was the sister (actual or spurious) of Lyusko, and he had left Doris alone with her. What vengeful hate might she not bear toward bim at the present time? He had been the means of consigning Lynsko to a prison. And yet had she recognized bim? Why not, if by her voice alone he had recognized her? A few seconds longer he stood irresolute. Then, just as he was on the point of turning away from the door near which he stood, it opened, and a young man, stal wart, rather handsome, with the look and dress of a laborer, came forth. He had a drowsy air, but the mists of sleep seemed already quickly clearing from eyes that gleamed big and honest below a shock of somewhat tumbled flaxen hair. "Excuse me, sir," he said, "but I'd got into a kind of doze. Did you want me for anything?" "I wanted to ask you about Hugh Monahan," said George, rattling off the words in his new mood of dread and doubt. "You're not he, I suppose, are you?" "Me? Oh, no, sir. I'm James Lynch. This was his room, though. I've got it now, since he went away. j "Hark!" George tossed off the word in wild interruption. He had heard downstairs a cry, low yet keen. All he had it in him to do, after that, was to make a flourish of both hands as he swerved back toward the staircase just mounted. There are swift' signals like these that for clarity and conciseness almost transcend even the curtest monosyllables of speech. " Tiiat cry was hers," leaped through his brain. "She is inside dragged there, perhaps, and that woman is capable of killing her because of me." NEW YORK. 315 X. As it happened, George had no sooner disappeared upstairs than Mrs. Volatski had said most suavely to Doris "Come in here, won't you, while the gentleman is finding out what he wants to know?" Doris stood so near the threshold that as her new com panion now pushed the door backward she could get a glimpse of shabby interior, where a consumptive lamp struggled, illuminatively, with a little red-heated stove. "Thank j r ou," she said, feeling not a shade of suspicion. "He may be quite awhile up there," came the urging answer. "And here it's chilly too chilly for so delicate and refined a young lady as yourself." "I don't feel it so at all," said Doris, in kindest tones. She had already noted that the woman's face, with its great dusky eyes, looked both haggard and woebegone. But now she saw a change cross it one of stubborn fierceness. "Come in you must." And then her wrist was tensely clutched. Between her feet and the threshold were only a few inches. She felt herself dragged but stood her ground firmly. "Let me go," she said. "How dare you?" At this, mad with the sudden wrath of a long-nursed hate, Mrs. Yolatski released her. But it was only a re coil of the kind that seeks to gain fresh force.. The Polish woman seemed to herself as though transformed into a tigress. She flung her slim shape upon Doris, with rageful purpose of capture in both lean, strong arms. Somehow Doris felt less fear than anger. She strug gled with the engirding, tugging clasp. Then a force beset her that had in it hopeless vehemence. But still 316 NEW YORK. she steadied herself against it, and now a curious reluct ance to cry out, in such a place and at such a time, tinged with strange prudence her indignation and revolt. "Let me go," she again said, gasping the words. "You know I could call for help, and get it, too, in an instant. But I " With a dizzying whirl she was spun through the open space. Hurled upon the floor of the room, she gave an unconscious cry of affright and despair. This was the cry heard upstairs by George. Mrs. Volatski now sprang to the door, and closed it with astonishing softness and speed, turning a key on the inside and then snatching it from its lock. When she faced Doris the girl had already risen. She was terribly frightened. But she did not even speak; she simply stood erect, with her hands tight knotted, her breath making low, short rushes. "That man up yonder cares for you, I know," said Mrs. Volatski, her white face grown demoniac, her lower jaws oscillant, as though some grotesque palsy had come upon them. "He took from me a man 1 cared for put him into a prison by his treacheries, his sneaking, cowardly tricks!" Courtelyou's account of this woman's relations with Lj'nsko, although vague, had been true. The ruin of the Pole had been more than her own. It had filled her with a fiery thirst for vengeance upon George which at times had literally deprived her of reason, and made those nearest her believe she was not fit to live at liberty. Fearing to be called as a witness against Lynsko after his arrest, she had fled and remained somewhere in hid ing till his condemnation occurred. Afterward, though but recently, she had taken two rooms in this same building, and dwelt here solitary, suspected, pinchingly poor. Loathing of George, and a passionate longing to deal punishment upon him, had so possessed her Aveak- eued mind that there had been, for months past, no criminal act toward him of which, in certain lurid moods, she was not capable. Lyusko, who had scarcely more than just permitted. NEW YORK. 317 her to state that he was her "brother, " had been, and still remained her worshipped idol. She was not the only woman he had fascinated and subjugated, but in none had he ever wakened a devotion at once so servile and so dominant. She had been contented, for several years, to live aloof from him, and to see him only at in tervals. But while he was comparatively near by she had regarded her fate as a measurably blessed one, and had gone on in the administration of her modest sailors' lodging-house with characteristic Hebrew greed and thrift. Some day, she had always told herself, he would want to let her dwell with him as his wife even if he should not care legally to make her so. She knew the full depth and breadth of his depravity, and often had thrilled with dread of the very downfall which had finally overtaken him. And when it did overtake him the anguish of her spirit became a power to craze or kill. At -first she had hoped fiercely for his release ; then she had gone through agonies of doubt; then despair had brought its horrible glooms. A kind of dementia had dwelt with her, like a skulking shadow, for weeks past. At this vivid and unforeseen time the shadow had assumed giant and tangible shape. "If you are mad, " said Doris, gathering herself to gether, with knit brows and clinched hands, "I can only try to fight you as we fight all mad things." And with these words, poor girl, she dashed toward the locked door. Again and again and again she cried "Help!" Each instant she expected some sort of new dire assault, while her hands pounded on the wooden panels. The Polish woman meant to kill her, and was even then intent on how most quickly to achieve such ghastly work. She sought for a great knife which she knew lay somewhere near one that cut her daily meat or bread, meager as must have been the supply of either. She meant to end her own life afterward; it was a sudden hideous project born of a slow-growing madness that the sight of George had pushed from surly bud to baleful flower. A kind of clear reasoning process, however in furiate, swayed her design. She could not kill George, 318 NEW YORK. but she could possibly deal him a still deadlier stroke ; the grace and beauty of Doris had seemed to flash upon her that belief. And now, not lighting on the knife, yet knowing it somewhere near, she saw a means of stop ping Doris's further handstrokes against the door. A coil of rope glimmered like a snake beside the red glow of the stove. She caught it up, and like a living snake she strove to make it aid her. Hurling it round Doris she tightened it there in the fashion of a lasso, darting closer to the girl's form. Doris felt one arm corded tight against her side. Then, while reeling backward, she clutched the next fly ing circlet of rope, abrading palm and fingers. But the outward push of her clasp had no mean power. She divined the devilish import, and struggled with the strength of health, youth, and a sense of odious outrage. And even while she thus struggled it chanced that George himself saw her peril from the stairs he was de scending. Like the outer doors of nearly all tenement houses, this of Mrs. Yolatski had a transom. It was cur tained, but something, very probably the agitation wrought by Doris' blows, had caused a good half of its flimsy draping to sag from the pane. George, pausing a moment, looked down on a sight that froze his blood. He turned, and saw James Lynch a few steps above him. What he said to the young man he could never afterward recollect or if indeed he spoke at all. The next thing that his memory could ever in later time deal with was the presence of both himself and Lynch close at the stout-locked door. "We must break it open, if we can," George said. "Quick quick. Come like this shoulder to shoul der." Lynch, an alert and splendid ally, did his best. His force, blended with George's, made the woodwork tremble and crack. Still, however, a new strain was needed. Both men drew back. "Help! help!" rang to them from within. They looked into one another's eyes. George's face was ghastly. "Once more," he said. This time the heavy and stubborn lock still stayed ob durate, but the wood fell splitting and crashing. George was first to dash through the splintery aperture. NEW YORK. 319 He was in time, yet bareb r so. Mrs. Volatsld had overthrown Doris, and might in another second have gored her throat with a tigerish clutch deadly as any stab of the knife she had failed to find. George caught her. In his grasp she was like a scratching, snarling animal, yet helpless because rela tively so feeble. "You can't even bite me, you devil," he said; and then Lynch took her from him, and pushed her into a corner, careless of her writhings and twistings, and well on guard against the rabid snap and twitch of her jaws and lips. George flung himself down at Doris' side. But even as he did so the girl, with her one freed hand, was lifting herself from the floor. "I I'm not much hurt," she stammered bravely. "I don't think, really, that I'm hurt at all. This arm " But already George had made the bound arm free. "Now if we could only get away together!" she went on, her excitement oddly intense behind her measured tones. Just then a growing murmur of voices met them from the hall beyond. Doris' cries, her beatings at the door, the loud ruin of the door itself, had all served to rouse the other inmates of the house. Through the big, ragged opening figures now began to press. "Keep close to me, " said George, in eager whisper, and we may slip out before they know it. Doris obeyed him. They had hardly got forth into the hall when a rough-looking man fronted George. "What's all this row? An' who are you?" "I came here with this lady," returned George, "and left her a moment in this hall here, while I went upstairs to find a certain Mr. Hugh Monahan, who lives on the next floor. Then, while I was away, a kind of mad woman came from that room and tried to make the lady her prisoner. Luckily, James Lynch, who now occupies Monahan 's former room, came and helped me to release the lady." His listener scowled dubiously. He was large of stature, looming above George. "Jus' like that furriner!" cried a stout woman, with 320 NEW YORK. flashing black eyes. "I've hated her ever since she come! I knowed she'd soon be up to some mischief. They say she was in with a gang o' firebugs, and kep' a sailors' boardin '-house somewheres near here. I dunno if it's true, but I shouldn't be surprised she's acted strange enough to be anything. Are you hurt, ma'am?" pursued the woman, sympathetically, to Doris. "Why, your hand's all bleedin'. " "It's because of a rope she threw round me," replied Doris. "She wanted to tie me hand and foot, I think, and then But don't let them keep us!" she pleaded, seeing a look of mingled wrath and pity on the woman's face. "I only came here with this gentleman to find Hugh Monahan. I've never before even seen the woman who attacked me. It was a charitable mission with both of us. I I'm a person who goes about, you know, among prisons, and places like that, trying to do what little good I can. The other day, in the Tombs, I saw Hugh Monahan's mother " And then, bridling her passionate desire to escape as best she could, Doris gal loped through the rest of the story. By the time she had ended it there were at least twenty gaping auditors grouped round herself and George. "We only want to get away, " she hurried on. "I would rather make no complaint against the foreigner, as you called her. I think she must be quite out of her mind. Please let us go, will you not?" "Why, o' course, you poor thing!" cried the stout woman, warmly compassionate. "Now, you stop, Jim!" she went on, as the large, rough-looking man gave a growl of dissent. "It's a good deal better they should get off. I guess I know a real lady when I see one ! No, no, Jim Strickny. You ain't goin' to make it worse for her nor the gentleman than 'tis already. There, ma'am there, sir!" And with both hands she caught her husband's sleeve as he was pointing to the shattered door and arraigning George with a frown of fresh obstinacy and suspicion. "Of course they're following us, some of them," said Doris, after an interval during which it had seemed as if NEW YORK. 321 George were supporting her along the pavement so that she needed only to use her feet and nothing more. "Let's be hopeful," he said. "You saved the situa tion. I could never have done it. You found a woman who had in her a touch of yourself. That was great good fortune for both of us." "Oh, I'm not so rare a type. Beside, she hated my enemy. I can imagine it. And she was your enemy, too, I found." "God pardon my stupidity yes." "Your stupidity?" "She wanted to harm you because of her hate forme." "Yes I found that out." "She told you?" "Quickly and surely. She told me you had taken from her a man she cared for put him into a prison by your treacheries and sneaking, cowardly tricks. I am quoting almost her precise words. "Why shouldn't I? They're burned into my memory. Of course I knew she meant Lynsko. And what was she to that villainous Lynsko?" "Nothing to him, I suppose. But he to her poor, mad wretch was everything." "She recognized you, and you failed to recognize her? But the light was dim I see. And yet, where she stood, some accidental flood of it must have shown her your face. Stop, now stop just here. I can see the water beyond those dark buildings. What street is this? Oh, I know; it must be South Street." "It is. A little further on, toward the bridge the Brooklyn Bridge, you know we can find a cab. Are you very tired?" "Tired? No. I'm unstrung, that's all." "Why should you not be? You're trembling. Let me hold you just like this for a short while. I've looked back. We're not followed. They have let us go in peace thank heaven!" Doris laughed, a little dismally. "Thank that woman! I dare say she's a termagant I seemed to see it in her. But even termagants have their uses, have they not? Think what might have happened! The police the 322 NEW YORK. newspaper publicity oh, how precious a deliverance! Shall we not go on now?" "You're trembling. I thought " "Never mind my trembling. It's only a kind of reac tion. Don't heed it. Still, I do wish we were nearer that cab you spoke of. Let us move forward. Ah, that arch of lights yonder! They mean the Bridge, do they not?" "Yes." "And they are further away than they seem?" "Not so much." In silence they now pushed onward. Not long after ward, with a great heart-throb of relief, George saw a cab and hailed it. "Tell him Courtelyou's house," said Doris. Her voice came resolute, yet somewhat pantingly and feebly. "I shall stay all night with Martha. I'll get her to write my cousins that I'm there with her. It will not be very late by the time we " Her tones died away, and she did not speak again till they were side by side in the cab together, being driven uptown. "Do you know," she then said, with a wandering slowness of intonation that she seemed to try and resist "do you know, I have never fainted in my life, and yet I I felt like it a few minutes ago?" "No wonder, " said George, peering into her dim face. He saw her eyes close ; already her head had fallen back ward against the cushioned rear of the carriage. He caught her left hand, the one that was unhurt, and drew off its glove. Then he began to chafe it between both his own, inwardly horrified at its coldness. She re mained quite motionless while he did this, and by transient gleams from the street lamps he saw that her eyes were still shut. Then he took her other hand, lifting it with great tenderness. She started, at this, and sat upright, her eyes unclosing and a smile parting her lips. "That's wounded," she said, making no motion, how ever, to withdraw it from his gentle touch. "I I got the glove off, somehow I can't remember when or how. But I don't think it's bleeding any longer, is it?" NEW YORK. 333 "No, "he said. "And the cut of the rope wasn't severe." She laughed again, with a fresh blitlmess that gladdened his anxious heart. "Oh, its nothing. The pressure of your fingers on the swollen place gives me very little pain. She drew in a deep breath, and once more laughed, this time with all her natural gayety. "Oh, I'm ever so much better, now ever so much! I'm coming round. How nice, isn't it, that we're rolling quietly up town like this! I'm sure you are just as delighted as I am." "I'm delighted that you feel like yourself again." "Dear, dear! how soberly you say that! I can hardly recognize your old voice. Now don't worry about me an instant longer. I'm a strong, healthy girl stronger and healthier, no doubt, than I look. I : ve had a hard shock, but its effects have passed. I can feel them de part from me. I shall reach Martha quite fresh and well again." George lifted the hurt hand to his lips. Tears fell upon it. "Doris, Doris, how I love you! How I have loved you from the first moment I met you at the mission here, in this very quarter of the town we have just left! And to think of your danger! I'd have given twenty lives, if I'd had them, to save you from it! And after to-night I must never see you again!" She drew away her hand. They sat together in dark ness and silence for some time. "You must never see me again?" she presently said. "And why?" "Why? Because I love you can't you understand?" He waited for her answer. It came after a long pause. "No." He leaned closer to her. "Doris, Doris, I've told you that I love you 1! Think of it ! " "I have thought of it," she said. "And yet you Oh, Doris, spare me! To see you and feel that you never could, never would, be my wife! To go on realizing that if I asked you I would insult you!" A new passing gleam on her face made him feel like crying out. But he sat perfectly still, with his heart in his throat. 334 NEW YORK. "I should not take it as an insult," she "Doris! You're torturing me!" "No; you're torturing yourself, George and needy lessly. " "Needlessly! Ah, what are you saying? If I did not know that you and coquetry were like oil and water "Well? What then?" "I might imagine" he broke off, with a sigh just loud enough for the clash of the wheels not to drown it. "Then you do imagine," she said, with a sweet stern ness, "that I am leading you into an avowal for the pleasure of my own vanity." "You haven't a shred of vanity in your composition!" he cried. "You're the soul of honesty and truth and purity!" "Idealize me that way if you will. And yet I'm very human." "Ah, not human enough to " She laid a hand on his arm. "Do you mean not human enough to love you? Not human enough to take your name if you asked me to take it?" "My name! Good God! My name! My stained name! You!" He felt her hand her wounded hand slip into his. From its delicate fingers an arrowy fire seemed to sweep toward his brain. "I deny that the stain on your name is ineffaceable, George. Or, if the world says so, I deny that the world has a right to say so. If you ask me to bear that name I will not refuse. And I will not refuse because I would rather bear that than any other. My reason is simple enough. In the first place I believe that a great and terribly sincere remorse has long ago washed you clean from guilt. And in the second place well, in the second place, George I love you." He shuddered for an instant. The heart is sometimes like a harp, and life smites it, now and then, with a stress of joy that becomes intolerable pain. Then the pain dies, as with George it soon died, and a splendid happiness blossoms out of torment, like a sweet melody shattering its way through discord. NEW YORK. 325 In the gloom their lips met. He did not know, while his arms wrapped her, that great, slow tears were drop ping from his eyes. But Doris knew. They blended with his kisses and made them all the dearer, all the more sacred ! 326 NEW YORK. XI. "DoRis," he said, at length, '"our uptown journey is more than half done. Before it ends before we meet again I must tell 3 r ou of a late interview I held with a man I myself revere a man whom I believed that you could not help loving a man who has offered you his love, unless I am in error a man infinitely worthier than I to be loved by you in return." "Crevelling?" she said. "Yes." Her tones were a trifle imperious. "How do you know that he has ever cared for me like that?" "Even if Albert Josselyu had not more than hinted it, I think I should have guessed it from merely watching you together." "Well and this interview?" George spoke unreservedly of all which had passed of late between himself and Crevelling. "God bless him!" said Doris, with shaken voice. "How magnificent, yet how like Frank!" "And now I have only oire course open to me." "One course? You mean that you will accept the pro posal. Of course, George, you mean that you will accept it." "How can I? How could he Jet me, even if I would?" "He will let you," she said slowly, after a silence. "He will let you, and you must." "What are you saying, Doris? This man loves you; he has asked you to be his wife. I I suspect that he has asked you more than once." "That will not matter with him. Your chance is marvelous." Her tones rang excitedly now. "Your marrj'ing poor me is nothing compared with it." "And you would martyrize him like that." NEW YORK. 327" "Oh," she laughed, with little catchings of the breath, "you accuse me, do you, of cruelty at this early hour? Well, it will be a cruelty in your own cause. I will give you up if you refuse. There!" "Not that not that!" "Listen. I would never have married Frank Crevel- ling anywaj'. In his heart of hearts I think he knows this. I adore him, in one sense; in another I do not love him. He is doing a brave and glorious thing. It makes me adore him all the more, in one way, but it does not make me care for him a jot the more, in another way. Come now : I will put the case to you selfishly. Admit that I, by becoming your wife, astonish society or, as you, in your humility would brutally put it, lower myself. Soil, as the epigrammatic Gaul says. I take you on your own terms. Marry me after you. have been a year with Crevelling, openly acknowledged by him as one whom he trusts and respects. Call me politic and self-serving, if you please. Agree that I am worldly- wise and circumspect enough to wish to make a better match than you would be if you stood at the altar beside me without this handsome and lordly indorsement " "Hush, Doris! Don't try to mask your noble, beauti ful, generous love! I will consent, dearest, though the ordeal of telling him everything will cost me greater pain if he now concedes than if he should roundly refuse." But Doris' pity was grand and fine as her love. Be fore she parted with George that night she had made a resolve, and before the following night she kept it. Meanwhile, on the morning of the next day, she had a stern trial to face. Arriving home at about eleven o'clock, she went straight into the presence of Mrs. Josselyn. "Doris!" exclaimed that lady. "Your note last night startled me. Why on earth did you staj- all night with Martha Courteb'ou?" "To console her," said Doris, rather griinlj'. "Console her! For what, pray?" "Oh, because I've made a final resolution never to marry her brother." 328 NEW YORIi. "How strangely you speak! Those words are not like you. What has happened, my child?" "A great deal has happened, Cousin Ellen." "You said in your note that Mr. Courtelyou had been called to Boston." "Yes. I knew it before I went to Martha. I would not have gone if I had not known it. Sit here beside me, Cousin Ellen, for a few minutes, please." And Doris motioned toward a lounge in the daintily appointed bedroom. "At least," she added, while Mrs. Josselyn wonderingly obeyed her, "sit beside me until you have heard dreadful things that will make you rise in wrath and scorn." "My dear girl! what are you saying?" "Oh, I've said nothing, as yet. It is what I am going to say." And then, for many minutes, Doris spoke on and on, with lowered eyes that seemed to follow assidu ously the plaits she made and unmade in the lap of her gown. A cry from Mrs. Josselyn caused her to lift her look. The faded face was filled with asonishment and anger. "He my husband has deceived me like this! He has brought that young man into our house under a false name! Ah! the thought of it all sickens me!" Here, regaining her feet with visible effort, "I do rise, Doris," she said, "but rather in sorrow than either wrath or scorn." "Sorrow!" broke from Doris, as she hurried toward her. "No no, Cousin Ellen ! Call it pride. Your hus band brought him here in secret because of that pride. You had stood between him and his natural impulse of helpfulness. You have played a wrong, almost a sinful part." "Doris! How dare you " "Oh, you know how much I dare both do and say when I feel my cause a just one." "A just one! To consort with a criminal!" "There's many a criminal whom it would be far more of honor than shame to consort with. George Oliver was of Cousin Albert's blood my blood as well. You knew his youth at the time he was so terribly tempted ; you NEW YORK. 329 knew his mother's agony; you knew of her pathetic insanity. And yet, with your great influence over your husband, you kept him from plying the humane part his gentle and genial spirit longed to play." Mrs. Josselyn's lips had blanched, and she was gnaw ing them. "Doris, by what right do you presume to lecture me like this?" "By what right have you presumed, thus far, to keep from a repentant man his one chance of social redemp tion?" "Kepentant, indeed! What knowledge could I possi bly have had that his so-called repentance was sincere?" "You read his words at the trial of that man, Lynsko. They sent a thrill of pity through many hearts, but they sent none through yours. You were obdurate when Cousin Albert begged you " "Doris, this must not go on. I will not endure it!" "You must endure it, because you deserve it," said Doris, pale and resolute. "We love one another. Cousin Ellen, but in a certain sense we have never been friends. Often I have been frank with you, but never so frank as I shall be now. You are a product of this big little New York this New York where two or three enormously rich families hold an absurd position of dic tatorship, autocracy. There was never, I believe so large a city with so small a provincialism. Not to know one particular family here means not to hold (in the opinion of many actually sensible people) any position whatever. To know this family fairly well confers a certain cachet. To know jt fairly intimately confers partial distinction that and that alone. To know it intimately means to bear the royal stamp. It is all too preposterous too un speakably stupid! And yet you, a woman of force, of striking character, of marked personality, have wasted half your life for what purpose? To push yourself in side a certain fashionable circle where some Chicago millionaire, with more money than Cousin Albert's, would be welcomed at a waving of the hand. This im pulse in you has crushed ail your native charity ; it has made you regard me, in my aims and efforts, as a mere curious fanatic. It has made you crush in your hus- 330 NEW YORK. band the noblest and finest impulses. It has dwarfed and deformed you, in a spiritual and moral sense. It means all that is deplorable in your character, your tem perament, your will, purpose, energy. AVhat has sur vived in you I esteem and treasure yet what, after all, does survive? Love for your husband, whom you bend into submission. Love for your child (poor Grace ! ) whom you have educated with shameless worldliuess. For me some love unless these words kill it. For your fellow creatures the immense suffering mass of them, many of whom a walk of ten minutes will let you look upon no love whatever. Ah, here is Cousin Albert; I asked him to come." And Doris went to meet Josselyn as he entered the room. "I have told her," she said, with a little dramatic sweep of the hand toward Mrs. Josselyn. "She is very angry. But we expected that, did we not?" " We !" fell from Mrs. Josselyn, coldly and bitterly. "I wish I were he!" Doris exclaimed. "I wouldn't be half so meek with you as Cousin Albert." "Ellen!" said Josselyn, looking imploringly at his wife. "After all, you know, he was my kith and kin." "Don't attempt to excuse yourself!" burst from Doris. "It is for her to approve, to justify you!" "You still go on teaching me my proper paces, then?" flared Mrs. Josselyn, with knotted hands and gathered brows. "I have had enough of this from you Doris. It is intolerable. I will bear it no longer." "Oh, I see," said Doris, with a slight high laugh. "You wish me to leave you alone with Cousin Albert, that you may cover him with undeserved reproaches." "Ah," cried Mrs. Josselyn, "do you want me to hate you?" "No; I want you to hate yourself, or rather, the hate ful part of yourself. What Cousin Albert did to his kinsman, George Oliver, was a right and honorable thing to do. If you blame him for it I shall think less of you, Ellen Josselyn, than I think now. You must not forgive him ; you must ask him to forgive you /" "Doris," said Mrs. Josselyn, trembling, "I will not allow from you another such insolent sentence. You may speak on, if you please, but if you do our friendship ends forever." NEW YORK. 331 "Then let it end. I will go a\vay from this house at once. You know very well I am no dependent here. But even if I were I would go, just the same." "Doris! No! no!" said Mrs. Josselyn, springing toward her. And then there was an embace, passionately clasping on the elder woman's part. Between tears and laughter Mrs. Josselyn broke forth, kissing Doris on cheeks and forehead, "You impudence! you audacity! you living torment! Think how scandalously you've lectured me me, old enough to be your grandmother." Doris returned the kisses. "Old enough to be more human and more humane, Cousin Ellen. Here!" and she motioned imperiously toward Josselyn, who obeyed the gesture. "Now tell him you are sorry for having forced him to deceive you for the first and only time in his life." And she widened her young, strong arms, closing them with husband and wife in the outward embrace. "There that's right!" she said, as Mrs. Josselyn let her husband's lips touch her own. "That's my begin ning as it were. There's a hope for me, now. Clemency and reconciliation are in the air. It's quite possible that my coming disclosure may have a dim chance of not being shrieked at with horror." Josselyn's hand had stolen into his wife's and now held it firmly clasped. But they both turned toward Doris, interrogation on either face. "Your coming disclosure?" breathed Mrs. Josselyn. "Yes," said Doris meekly. "I have been asked by George Oliver to marry him, and I have agreed to be come his wife." 332 ttEW YORK. xn. THAT afternoon Frank Crevelling came, by appoint ment, to Doris. She received him in the second draw ing room. A faint fire crawled in snakes of flame about a few black blocks of coal on the hearth. Its fitful glim mers lit pictures and bronzes, giving glimpses of elegance and luxury here and there. "Frank!" she said, "I have had a dreadful time." She had risen from a sofa while speaking, and had warmly clasped his outstretched hand. Then she dropped the hand, shudderingly, and for a second hid her face. "I know I understand, " he said. "You have found him out. He has either told you or you have guessed. Then has come your 'dreadful time 1 with Mrs. Josselyn." "Wizard!" she answered, staring at him. "Have you seen George Oliver?" "No not to-d.ay. He missed an appointment with me." "And yet you " "And yet I divine your agitation." He smiled, giv ing his lithe, strong body an impatient motion. "Of course the discovery was certain, sooner or later. Did he aid you in it?" "Yes." "Naturally, all things considered. Then he has told you of my proposal." She spoke with speed and great eagerness. "Yes he has told me! Ah, you glorious Frank. It's so like you!" She saw him change color. Then he receded from her a little. "Doris!" She had drooped her head, but raised it the next in- NEW YORK. 333 stant, with a sudden piteous kind of defiance. And then they gazed steadily into one another's eyes. "Doris," he said again, brokenly. "Well," she fal tered. Once more came the earnest meeting of their look. Her glance fell; she sank upon the sofa. With out seeing him she knew that he was seated at her side. "Doris," came his voice, seeming to sweep with its soft ness through depths of her soul, "do you mean that you love this man?" "Yes." She turned and fingered a bit of tapestry at the win dow near her. As if speaking to the dim figures on the heavy folds, she murmured many sentences. "He has my heart," she tremulously finished. "No one else can ever have it." Then she veered closer to the tape.stry arid almost smothered in it her next words. "I suppose I fear that you will not do this greatly generous thing, now. I know you care for me; you have said so more than once. I care for you, too, Frank, but not in that one way. Act as you please I shall never dream of blaming you. I should have loved you ; I should have been gladly grateful to become your wife. But that is one of human nature's many mysteries. Him, a criminal, with his stained name a name you have so nobly offered to cleanse him I love yes, I love, in that other strange, unexplainable way." Then she shrouded her face in the curtain and waited. She waited thus, racked with pity and sympathy, and yet quivering inwardly with a hope that she felt impious in its selfish demand. Crevelling's voice came to her after a few more minutes. "You love George Oliver, then, Doris? You mean to marry him?" "Yes." She heard him rise. She knew that he was standing near her. She knew that he had not left her. She sat perfectly still, and she was also aware that he was per fectly still. On a sudden she whirled round, sprang up, and faced him. His pallor made her almost stumble backward. "Frank!" she said, "you must not you need not!" S34 NEW YORK. "I will," he said; "George Oliver's place is ready for him." "Frank! After what I've told you!" He lowered his head a little. "After what you have told me. Delay your marriage, Doris, for a year. Let him serve his time with me through that year. At the end of it the marriage could take place." She lifted both arms. She had never looked so beau tiful to him. With her eyes swimming in tears, with a great eglantine-tinted rose spot in either cheek, with parted lips, with every marble outline visible of back- thrown throat and clear-curved cheeks, strained into a more exquisite oval than their wonted one, she had per haps never at all before looked so beautiful. "You will do this for me, Frank! You will help him like this! You will do it for me because you love me!" "Because I love you," his answer slowly came. "It is not easy, Doris, but I will do it!" "Kiss me, Frank kiss me on the lips! Yes, I com mand I " But he drew away. In a kind of delicate blaze refusal and denial flashed from his face. "If I kissed you on the lips, Doris, I might lose power to make this sacrifice." "Frank, it is a martyrdom!" she cried. "I know how you love me! I realize what you are consenting to! Frank, I I beg of you to let him and me fight our way together! Eefuse to aid him with your power and posi tion. I will make it all plain. He will not reproach you; he will understand. Reproach you, indeed! What am I saying? What conceivable right could he have? Frank, I spoke to-day with Martha Courtelyou about it. She, too, advises me to beg of you that you shall relin quish your plan. You know how kind and good and disinterested Martha is. And you have not in the world a more devout admirer. Frank! You can't do it! You can't you can't. It is too big a strain, with all j-our work, so absorbing, so compelling! Let our marriage take place privately. Cousin Albert has that Denver property, which needs to be looked after. When George and I are married we will start at once for Denver. The NEW YORK. 335 marriage itself will mean much for him, in the way 9f restitution, rehabilitation. Come, now; give up your plan of making George your secretary! I am terriblj' candid, as you see; I realize only too well that you must suffer unspeakably. Frank, I love you "Doris!" "With my soul, Frank, but not that other way not that other way!" "Doris!" He sprang toward her and took her straiuingly in his arms. "You asked me to kiss you on the lips. " And he kissed her so, vehemently, once twice. "Ah!" She turned and dashed back from him, fiery, both hands clinched. "I 7-1 hate you that way, Frank! It's horrible to me!" And she burst into tears, sinking upon a chair. He stood close to her, his face working, his beautiful eyes full of passion, his lips so tremulous that he could not control their twitchings. "I love you that way. There's the difference. It's life, Doris it's one of life's mysteries!" She saw him draw away from her, and a certain look of spiritual sweetness swept across his face. "Very well," he said, "George Oliver shall be my secretary, publicly proclaimed so. For a year I will keep him in this capacity. It is better. I will do every thing. Of course the postponement of your marriage with him will be far more desirable, in every sense. I will do this. Doris, I insist upon doing it. Your mar riage will wear a wholesomer color, so to speak. I need not explain; you must see. Do not think of my suffer ing more than you can help. I know you so well that I know you will think of it " "As I do now!" cried Doris. She sprang up from her seat and flung both arms about him and kissed him on either cheek. "As I do now," she repeated, her eyes streaming with tears. "That, Frank, is how I love yon! A loftier way, after all a way of the spirit, not of the flesh." "The flesh," he answered, covering his face for an 336 NEW YORK. instant, "is an unconquerable element. The boundary between spiritual love and physical love who has ever defined it? It's like the boundary between motion and stillness between light and darkness between silence and sound. I love you, Doris, with the flesh, and I love you with the spirit also. You lovo me, as .you say " "With the spirit, Frank! With the spirit!" she cried. He smiled, and his sinila was filled with an infinite sadness. "Which means," he murmured, "that you do not love me at all." "No, no," she urged. "I " "Enough enough, my dear Doris." His face to her, at this instant, was somehow sublime. "You shall have the man whom you love with the spirit and flesh both together. You shall have him I promise him to you. But if you are wise wise in what I would call the world lier wisdom you will let me take him and keep him near me, and wait for him till I give him you with that stain on his name washed away. Not absolutely washed away, Doris, but cleansed better than the sud den marriage and the sudden flight to Denver could possibly do." "Frank, Frank," she sobbed, "you make me hate my self that I have not loved you that other way!" "It will be a year," ho answered, as if communing now with his own thoughts. His face was grave, medi tative, but wholly unemotional, as he pursued "Can you live this year through without too much mental tumult and longing?" "Every day of it, Frank," she answered, "I will shower blessings of gratitude on your head!" When Doris and George met again almost her first words to him, after she had told him of the late interview between Crevelling and herself, were these : "He is less man than god. You know^it, now, since I've told you evei'y thing. Do you not admit it?" "Yes," George answered, with drooped eyes. "Why," he slowly added, "do you not give yourself to him?" "Why? To quote his own words, 'it's life it's one of life's mysteries. ' ' "He is so much worthier of you, Doris, than I am!" NEW YORK. 337 "He is worthy of the best woman that ever lived." "You are that or almost that!" said George. "How can we ever be sure on such a question? But you are very lovely, humane, charitable, self-effacing. The pic ture I make of you is perfection. Just that, and noth ing less. " "Hush. I hate to hear you speak so, George." "I can't help it. The truth claims a hearing." "Ah," she said, catching his hand, "save all your eulogies for him!" "I have many." "It's arranged. You're to accept the secretaryship publicly, with your past known with everything known." "Yes. And " he paused, looking searchingly at her. "Well?" "Our marriage, Doris?" "It is to be delayed for a year." "So long?" "For a j r ear yes. A thousand times better." "And meanwhile?" he asked. "Meanwhile?" she repeated. "You have quarreled with your cousin." "With Albert Josselyn! Quarreled with him! George! What are you saying?" "No no. I did not mean him, of course. I meant " "Cousin Ellen? Oh, yes. I've quarreled with her. But then we've had so many disturbances, don't you know? This evening I shan't go down to dinner unless she comes up and asks me. If she doesn't it will be im mensely serious. I shall think of packing up my things and going somewhere else. After all. I'm not afraid of living alone for a year to come." "I don't want you to live alone," murmured George, with his lips laid on her joined hands. "I I somehow can't consent to it." Just then a knock sounded at the door. Doris rose with a smile and a lifted finger. "Perhaps that is she now. Perhaps, having learned that you are here, she has come to make peace with us both who knows? She. 338 NEW YORK, is a very proud woman, and a very faulty one. But she has her good side, after all." Doris went to the door. She opened it slowly, and Mrs. Josselj-n came into the room. In a minute more, after scanning her face steadily, for a moment Doris kissed her. Then she took both her hands and drew her not by any means with difficulty toward George. As Mrs. Josselyn began to address her hus band's kinsman (which she did with distinct effort though marked courtesy) Doris perceived Grace iu the aperture of the half-opened doorway. "Grace," she said, advancing. "Doris, Martha Courtelyou is here. Perhaps she had best not come to you now, however." Doris slipped instantly out into the hall. There stood Martha, her face flushed, her eyes misted with tears. "Oh, Doris! Osborne is home!" "Yes." "Yes. And he is overwhelmed by the news. I have never seen him so unstrung so agitated. He keeps walking up and down his library with clouded brows and clinched hands, muttering to himself that it shall not be, it cannot be. Doris, he he terrifies me!" Doris took Martha's hand and gently patted it. "Don't allow yourself to feel the least alarmed," she said. Then her face flushed a little, and her e3'es caught an indignant sparkle. "Tell him, if his imperious and indignant mood continues, to go and have a talk with Frank Crevelling. He can teach him lessons in manli ness, dignity, generosity, humanity that all his fine in tellect has yet failed to make him learn!" "Ah, Doris, if you could but see him now I know you would pity him. I I truly believe that his heart is broken. ' ' "His heart? Then the accident cannot prove fatal. For his heart is the least important organ possessed by his anatomy." "Oh, Doris, you're speaking of my brother!" "I know, dear and you're right to resent my words. Assail me as violently as you will." Here, by the hand that she still clasped, she drew Martha toward the near NEW YORK. 339 doorway. "Only postpone your reproaches for a little while, please, till I've given mj'self the great pleasure of presenting to you the man I've chosen for my future husband." But Martha recoiled. "Remember, Doris, I'm his sister." "You are my friend." Just then Albert Josselyn appeared in the hall. Doris held out to him her other hand. Then, between her cousin and Martha, and seeming to lead them both, she passed into the room where Mrs. Josselyn, Grace, and George stood together. Her face was radiant; her gray eyes glittered with joyful light. "Our little group is complete!" she murmured. "I wanted just such a meet ing as this at the beginning of my engagement." "Do you not forget one absentee?" whispered Martha, with a touch of mingled irony and humor in her tones. "Nol Whom?" returned Doris, dubiously, at first. Then her face on a sudden blended gravity with its glad ness. "Oh, I see," she said. "You mean Frank Crevel- ling! But in spirit he is with me now ! And in spirit he shall be with me always." 340 NEW YORK, xm. SLOWLY the year lapsed for our two lovers. For Crevelling every day of it seemed to leap along. He sometimes felt that the relations which he now held toward George were almost too arduous. Then there came periods of joyous exultance. The stained name was being cleansed. He trusted this man. Not only that: the man's quick perceptions and deep intellectual sympathy proved of a worth which constantly augmented. His new position brought him into contact with people of highest repute. Each new week lessened the darkness of the curse. Crevelling 's indorsement and protection were mightily aidful. This great benefaction was liter ally bathing George in its light. "With a lesser soul than Crevelliug's, " George said one day to Doris, "the situation would be impossible." "Such grand charity and self-effacement as his," Doris answered, "make the impossible, in even this curious case, a shadow. Well, I'm ready for our walk." They made it a long one, that afternoon. The weather was mild, the sky brilliantly blue. Nor was it altogether a walk. "I would like, just for once," Doris said, "to be near those old haunts again. Heaven knows they are hideous enough. But the memory of your sufferings will for me always touch them with a sort of sacred appeal." "Sacred, Doris? No, no!" George spoke below his breath. At this time the elevated was speeding them downtown. "'I will not go there, " George added, after awhile. "But we can survey the whole wretched region from a distance, if so you please." A half-hour later, perhaps, they were standing on the Brooklyn Bridge. It was one of those hard, dry, scintil- laut New York days. There seemed to be the vaunt of NEW YORK. 311 democracy in it. To their right they saw Staten Island, cut cameo-like against the sternly lucid horizon. Just below them shimmered the beautiful confluence of East and Hudson rivers, its twinkling azure dotted with countless dark craft. The glorious expanse of bay was overstrewn with sailboats, tugs, barges, and occasional black bulks of ocean liners. Doris and George glanced , overhead. Vast slanted networks of cordage made them conscious of how prodigious was the masterpiece of en gineering on which they stood. Throngs of people were moving past them along this cyclopean passage one which the Hudson, after centuries of human struggle, had alone been allowed to behold, which the Nile, in all its pride, had never looked upon, nor the Danube, nor the storied Ehine, nor even the tropic yet stupendous Amazon. Civilization had come to this, and civilization, in its imperious westward march, had wrought the bril liant, audacious, vulgar, yet terribly appreciable New York, which loomed its immediate cause. Here was a monstrous town the Greater New York, as already it had begun to be called, with Brooklyn yonder, with Jersey City not far away, at this moment eclipsing in. size all other cities of the world save one, and promis ing, within a decade or so, even to eclipse that. What was its destiny? Other like cities had, in a sense, achieved theirs. Surely Home, on her seven hills, had told in terms of anguish, superstition and bloodshed, the tale of her long and awful life. Paris, London, Ber lin, even St. Petersburg, had all vestured themselves in the robes of history. And such history! Such unuttera ble crime and misery and despair! The lovers looked into one another's eyes; they read one another's thoughts; in murmured words they trans lated their meditations each to each. The tremen-, clous flux of life had hurled itself hither, over seas. Westward had been the march of progress in good sooth, for everywhere below the two watchers its mysterious and herculean energy seemed to throb and twinkle. This New York, a boiling point of human power, fated to contain twenty millions of inhabitants hereafter, what would it ultimately become? What promises had it al ready given and how would these be fulfilled? The 342 NEW YORK. lovers' thoughts were in curious harmony. During the silence which had now grown up between them, like some delicate, diaphanous breadth of screening, it was almost as if their souls dealt in some sort of mutual clairvoyant intercourse to which spoken language would coarsely have compared. The memory of each was at work, and the experience as well. George felt the vital ity of the vague metropolis assault him as never before. He measured it, so to speak, by the suffering which it had cost him. He glanced at Brooklyn, and thought of his early crime, engendered by the passion which har lotry had laid in wait to kindle. He swept his eyes toward the Hudson, and remembered those anguishful months of durance, repentance, self-disgust. He sur veyed the dim lines of roofage that had meant more months of servitude and disgrace. Then, as his gaze wandered further northward, came memories of pain still more intense. That episode of Lydia's desperate death! What ghastly problem must spring from the education of the negroes here and elsewhere? And was not New York already filling her poverty-stricken districts with their dusky faces? Did such horror as that which had beset Lydia not point to thousands of like horrors yet unborn? Was this advancement? Was it not retrogres sion? Then he recalled Lynsko, the infamous, the dis- picable. Here was the nineteenth century and here was an enormous city boasting with an openness that too often ran like rank braggadocio in the ears of Europe that she represented this nineteenth century's loftiest ideas and ideals. Was the turpitude of Lynsko, and of "firebugs" like him, an evidence of such healthful growth? If not, where could the real evidence be found? In the brutal "morality" of Osborne Courtelyou, who clad with fancied righteousness his ichor-blooded wor ship of self? And alas! there were so many Courtelyous, with faults more or less salient, in this New York, that claimed to stand before all Christendom as the noblest municipal development of the noblest republic ever yet established within the knowledge of mankind. Could not one plunge back into the past hundreds of years and find prototypes of just such cruelty as either Lynsko 's or NEW YORK. 343 Courtelyou's? Chasms of difference might divide them; but was not their essential kinship patent? To the northward George perceived a white speck which may or may not have been the City Hall. He thought of the suicide of Captain Cummisky, and of the vile civic con ditions that had caused it. This New York, ah, this im perially insolent New York! Had it not already a polit ical past more packed with shame than that of any republican city the world had yet seen? And to think that thousands were immigrating to it every year! Im migrating in the hope of a larger liberty! And what did it make of them when they came? Cummiskys, or men of his hateful stamp. Cummiskys, or corruption- ists, either smaller or greater in their potencies of traitorous crime! He turned to Doris. Their hands stole together, for a moment, then fell apart. "You are thinking?" she said softlj-. "Of this massive monument stretched all about us. What is its meaning, Doris? Can it have a meaning for good ? The old republic, a hundred years ago, seemed KO splendidly promiseful. But now! Is there much apparent hope? Is there?" "Not apparent, George. I, too, have been musing, marveling, asking myself bitter and mournful questions. A thousand years hence possibly two thousand this bridge may still be spanning the wide stream below it." "Say three thousand even five. Nothing but an earthquake could destroy it. An earthquake, or \var. " "I have been thinking of all the mad sin I have seen, George, over yonder, beneath some of those dim-seen roofs. And of the folly, too the infinite selfishness fashion, society, struggling pretension, overbearing plutocracy, stony-hearted aristocracy. I have been thinking of how evil thrives, of how good lies abased. All the darkness and melancholy of it has pierced me! And yet I cannot despair. There ivill be a change, George, however long delayed. It may take centuries in coming, but the real result is sure. I will tell you why." She leaned closer to him, with parted lips. "Already, amid all that gross wprldliness, there are higher, wiser. 344 NEW YORK. brighter spirits at work. I know of one, George so do you as well." "Your own, Doris!" "Not mine, not mine." "Whose, then?" A pink veil of color seemed flung across the eager face. "His! Need I name his name?" "No," said George. And in a sanctity of silence their eyes again met. THE END. A NEW ARISTOCRACY. BY Birch Arnold, Neely's Library of Choice Literature. Paper, 500. "A New Aristocracy," by Birch Arnold, is full of humor and pathos, appealing to the heart with an ever growing interest. It is a brilliantly written novel, with a mighty lesson beneath its surface. It must undoubt edly be popular with the masses, and should receive the earnest attention of all those who call themselves students of the labor problem. The author has undoubted genius in discussing the abuses and remedies concerned in this great question. The story is also bound to be a text book among those interested in the profit-sharing idea as the solution to all antagonism between capital and labor. A third edition has been issued, to meet the demand Large discount to societies and labor unions who found iheir faith upon the sturdy principles treated with such masterly skill in this book, and would desire to influence Others. For sale everywhere, or sent post-paid on receipt of price. F. TENNYSON NEELY, Publisher, ** Qu<-*tJ Street, London. n> Fifth AVCJW*. 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In "A Bar Sinister," St. George Rathborne has hinged the leading- dramatic features of his romance upon a remarkable decision of a New York judge, whereby a man was declared to have committed bigamy with one wife, and which strange charge was borne out by the laws of the State. The scene of action is transferred from beautiful Naples, under the shadow of Vesuvius, to the wonder land of Peru, where, amid the towering Andes, the various interesting characters work out their destiny. " Masked in Mystery, A Romantic Story of Adventure under Egyptian Skies," is another of those readable, up-to-date romances of foreign travel and strange intrigues, from the pen of St. George Rathborne, who has given the reading public many bright tales of American pluck and heroism the world over, among which we recall his " Doctor Jack" and a volume recently issued called " Her Rescue from the Turks." " Her Rescue from the Turks," by St. George Rathborne, is the very latest romance of foreign adventure, written by the well-known author of " Doctor Jack." The field chosen could hardly have been more timely, since the eyes of the whole civilized world are at present turned toward the Orient, and armed Europe might be compared to an arch of which Turkey is the keystone. This story is rapid in action, with a vein of comedy illuminating the whole. Uniform editions, cloth, $1.00; paper, 5 oc. 5QUIRE JOHN. A SON OF MARS. A BAR SINISTER. A GODDESS OF AFRICA. MASKED IN MYSTERY. HER RESCUE FROM THE TURKS. For sale everywhere, or sent post-paid on receipt of price; F. TENNYSON NEELY, Publisher, 96 Queen Street, London. 114 Fifth Avenue, New York. Two Famous Authors. To lovers of military tales and stories of romantic adventure the world over the names of AND ST. GEORGE RATHORNE, Author of Dr. Jack," have indeed become household words. 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The charm of the book, however, lies in the briskness of the dialogue, which is as finely finished as any of Hope's novels." NASHVILLE BANNER: "' Father Stafford' is a chai ming story. Thewhoie book sustains the reputation that Anthony Hope has made, and adds another proof that as a portrayer of character of sharp distinctness and individuality ha has no superior." EVENING WISCONSIN : " A write' of great merit. . . . Mr. Hope's work has a quality of straightforwardness that recommends it to readers who have grown tired of the loaded novel." PHILLIPSHURGH JOURNAL : " This is considered by his critics to be one of the strongest, most beautiful and interesting novels Mr. Hope has ever written. There is not a dull line in the entire volume. VANITY, NEW YORK :" A very interesting narrative, and Mr. Hope tells the story after that fashion which he would seem to have made peculiarly his own." KANSAS CITY JOURNAL: "There is something more than the romance of ihe action to hold the reader's mind. It is one of the author's best productions." EVERY SATURDAY, ELGIN, ILL. : " Anthony Hope is a master of dialogue, and to his art in this particular is clue the enticing interest which leads the reader on from page to page." HEBREW STANDARD : " The strife bet-ween the obligation of a vow of cell bacy and the promptings of true love are vividly portrayed in this little book. ... It contains an admirable description of English country life and is well written." BOSTON DAILY GLOBE: "It has enough of the charm of the author's thought and style to identify it as characteristic, and make it very pleasing." For sale everywhere, or sent post-paid on receipt of price. F. TENNYSON NEELY, Publisher, 96 Queen Street, London. 114 Fifth Avenue, New York* REI ORION LD/URL University of California , A N REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. Form UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A A 000035793 9 3 1158 01332 7159 i