tf 
 
 *> t 
 
 HE THIRD 
 IOLET 
 
 BY 
 
 STEPHEN RANE 
 
University of California Berkeley 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET 
 
Other Books by Stephen Crane. 
 
 The Red Badge of Courage* 
 
 An Episode of the American Civil War. (Four- 
 teenth edition.} I2mo. Cloth, $1.00. 
 
 " Never before have we had the seamy side of glorious war so 
 well depicted." Chicago Evening Post. 
 
 " We have had many stories of the war; this stands absolutely 
 alone." Boston Transcript. 
 
 "Has no parallel, unless it be Tolstoy's 'Sebastopol.'" San 
 Francisco Chronicle. 
 
 " Has been surpassed by few writers dealing with war." New 
 York Mail and Express. 
 
 The Little Regiment* 
 
 And Other Episodes of the American Civil War. 
 {Second edition^ I2mo. Cloth, $1.00. 
 
 " The reader has no privileges. He must, it seems, take his 
 place in the ranks, and stand in the mud, wade in the river, fight, 
 yell, swear and sweat with the men. He has some sort of feeling, 
 when it is all over, that he has been doing just these things. This 
 sort of writing needs no praise. It will make its way to the hearts 
 of men without praise." New York Times. 
 
 Maggie: A Girl of the Streets* 
 
 {Fourth edition!) I2mo. Cloth, 75 cents. 
 
 " By writing ' Maggie ' Mr. Crane has made for himself a per- 
 manent place in literature." New York Mail and Express. 
 
 "Full of clever descriptions. . . . Written in short, terse 
 sentences, which compel the imagination rather than stimulate it" 
 Boston Herald. 
 
 New York: D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 72 Fifth Avenue. 
 
Cbe Cbird Uiolet 
 
 By 
 Stephen Crane 
 
 Huflw of the Red Badge of Courage, 
 the Eittle Regiment, and Itlaggie 
 
 Vork 
 D. Hpplcton and Company 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1897, 
 BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 
 
 Copyright, 1896, by Stephen Crane. 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE engine bellowed its way up the 
 slanting, winding valley. Grey crags, and 
 trees with roots fastened cleverly to the 
 steeps looked down at the struggles of the 
 black monster. 
 
 When the train finally released its passen- 
 gers they burst forth with the enthusiasm of 
 escaping convicts. A great bustle ensued on 
 the platform of the little mountain station. 
 The idlers and philosophers from the village 
 were present to examine the consignment of 
 people from the city. These latter, loaded 
 with bundles and children, thronged at the 
 stage drivers. The stage drivers thronged at 
 the people from the city. 
 
 Hawker, with his clothes case, his paint- 
 box, his easel, climbed awkwardly down the 
 
4 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 vehicle the little boy gave Hawker a glance 
 of recognition. " It hurted then, but it's all 
 right now," he informed him cheerfully. 
 
 "Did it?" replied Hawker. "I'm sor- 
 ry." 
 
 " Oh, I didn't mind it much," continued the 
 little boy, swinging his long, red-leather leg- 
 gings bravely to and fro. " I don't cry when 
 I'm hurt, anyhow." He cast a meaning look 
 at his tiny sister, whose soft lips set defen- 
 sively. 
 
 The driver climbed into his seat, and after 
 a scrutiny of the group in the gloom of the 
 stage he chirped to his horses. They began a 
 slow and thoughtful trotting. Dust streamed 
 out behind the vehicle. In front, the green 
 hills were still and serene in the evening air. 
 A beam of gold struck them aslant, and on 
 the sky was lemon and pink information of 
 the sun's sinking. The driver knew many 
 people along the road, and from time to time 
 he conversed with them in yells. 
 
 The two children were opposite Hawker. 
 They sat very correctly mucilaged to their 
 seats, but their large eyes were always upon 
 Hawker, calmly valuing him. 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 5 
 
 " Do you think it nice to be in the coun- 
 try ? I do," said the boy. 
 
 " I like it very well," answered Hawker. 
 
 " I shall go fishing, and hunting, and every- 
 thing. Maybe I shall shoot a bears." 
 
 11 1 hope you may." 
 
 " Did you ever shoot a bears ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 "Well, I didn't, too, but maybe I will. 
 Mister Hollanden, he said he'd look around for 
 one. Where I live " 
 
 " Roger," interrupted the mother from her 
 seat at Hawker's side, " perhaps every one is 
 not interested in your conversation." The 
 boy seemed embarrassed at this interruption, 
 for he leaned back in silence with an apolo- 
 getic look at Hawker. Presently the stage 
 began to climb the hills, and the two children 
 were obliged to take grip upon the cushions 
 for fear of being precipitated upon the nurse- 
 maid. 
 
 Fate had arranged it so that Hawker could 
 not observe the girl with the the the dis- 
 tance in her eyes without leaning forward and 
 discovering to her his interest. Secretly and 
 impiously he wriggled in his seat, and as the 
 
6 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 bumping stage swung its passengers this way 
 and that way, he obtained fleeting glances of 
 a cheek, an arm, or a shoulder. 
 
 The driver's conversation tone to his 
 passengers was also a yell. " Train was 
 an hour late t'night," he said, addressing 
 the interior. " It'll be nine o'clock before 
 we git t' th' inn, an' it'll be perty dark trav- 
 ellin'." 
 
 Hawker waited decently, but at last he 
 said, -Will it?" 
 
 "Yes. No moon." He turned to face 
 Hawker, and roared, "You're ol' Jim Haw- 
 ker's son, hain't yeh?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I thort I'd seen yeh b'fore. Live in the 
 city now, don't yeh ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Want t' git off at th' cross-road ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Come up fer a little stay doorin' th' sum- 
 mer?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " On'y charge yeh a quarter if yeh git off 
 at cross-road. Useter charge 'em fifty cents, 
 but I ses t' th' oF man, * Tain't no use. Gol- 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. j 
 
 dern 'em, they'll walk ruther'n put up fifty 
 cents.' Yep. On'y a quarter." 
 
 In the shadows Hawker's expression 
 seemed assassinlike. He glanced furtively 
 down the stage. She was apparently deep in 
 talk with the mother of the children. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 WHEN Hawker pushed at the old gate, it 
 hesitated because of a broken hinge. A dog 
 barked with loud ferocity and came headlong 
 over the grass. 
 
 " Hello, Stanley, old man ! " cried Hawker. 
 The ardour for battle was instantly smitten 
 from the dog, and his barking swallowed in 
 a gurgle of delight. He was a large orange 
 and white setter, and he partly expressed his 
 emotion by twisting his body into a fantastic 
 curve and then dancing over the ground with 
 his head and his tail very near to each other. 
 He gave vent to little sobs in a wild attempt 
 to vocally describe his gladness. " Well, 'e 
 was a dreat dod," said Hawker, and the setter, 
 overwhelmed, contorted himself wonderfully. 
 
 There were lights in the kitchen, and at the 
 first barking of the dog the door had been 
 thrown open. Hawker saw his two sisters 
 
 shading their eyes and peering down the yel- 
 
 8 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 9 
 
 low stream. Presently they shouted, " Here 
 he is ! " They flung themselves out and upon 
 him. " Why, Will ! why, Will ! " they panted. 
 " We're awful glad to see you ! " In a whirl- 
 wind of ejaculation and unanswerable interro- 
 gation they grappled the clothes case, the 
 paint-box, the easel, and dragged him toward 
 the house. 
 
 He saw his old mother seated in a rocking- 
 chair by the table. She had laid aside her 
 paper and was adjusting her glasses as she 
 scanned the darkness. " Hello, mother ! " 
 cried Hawker, as he entered. His eyes were 
 bright. The old mother reached her arms to 
 his neck. She murmured soft and half-articu- 
 late words. Meanwhile the dog writhed from 
 one to another. He raised his muzzle high to 
 express his delight. He was always fully con- 
 vinced that he was taking a principal part in 
 this ceremony of welcome and that everybody 
 was heeding him. 
 
 "Have you had your supper ?" asked the 
 old mother as soon as she recovered herself. 
 The girls clamoured sentences at him. " Pa's 
 out in the barn, Will. What made you so 
 late ? He said maybe he'd go up to the cross- 
 
IO THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 roads to see if he could see the stage. Maybe 
 he's gone. What made you so late? And, 
 oh, we got a new buggy ! " 
 
 The old mother repeated anxiously, " Have 
 you had your supper ? " 
 
 " No," said Hawker, " but " 
 
 The three women sprang to their feet. 
 " Well, we'll git you something right away." 
 They bustled about the kitchen and dove 
 from time to time into the cellar. They 
 called to each other in happy voices. 
 
 Steps sounded on the line of stones that 
 led from the door toward the barn, and a 
 shout came from the darkness. " Well, Wil- 
 liam, home again, hey?" Hawker's grey 
 father came stamping genially into the room. 
 " I thought maybe you got lost. I was corn- 
 in' to hunt you," he said, grinning, as they 
 stood with gripped hands. " What made you 
 so late ? " 
 
 While Hawker confronted the supper the 
 family sat about and contemplated him with 
 shining eyes. His sisters noted his tie and 
 propounded some questions concerning it. 
 His mother watched to make sure that he 
 should consume a notable quantity of the pre- 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. u 
 
 served cherries. " He used to be so fond of 
 'em when he was little," she said. 
 
 " Oh, Will," cried the younger sister, " do 
 you remember Lil' Johnson ? Yeh ? She's 
 married. Married las' June." 
 
 "Is the boy's room all ready, mother?" 
 asked the father. 
 
 " We fixed it this mornin'," she said. 
 
 "And do you remember Jeff Decker?" 
 shouted the elder sister. " Well, he's dead. 
 Yep. Drowned, pickerel fishin' poor fel- 
 ler ! " 
 
 " Well, how are you gitting along, Wil- 
 liam ? " asked the father. " Sell many pic- 
 tures ? " 
 
 " An occasional one." 
 
 " Saw your illustrations in the May num- 
 ber of Perkinson's." The old man paused for 
 a moment, and then added, quite weakly, 
 " Pretty good." 
 
 " How's everything about the place ? " 
 
 " Oh, just about the same 'bout the same. 
 The colt run away with me last week, but 
 didn't break nothin', though. I was scared, 
 because I had out the new buggy we got a 
 new buggy but it didn't break nothin'. I'm 
 
12 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 goin' to sell the oxen in the fall ; I don't want 
 to winter 'em. And then in the spring I'll 
 get a good hoss team. I rented th' back five- 
 acre to John Westfall. I had more'n I could 
 handle with only one hired hand. Times is 
 pickin' up a little, but not much not much." 
 
 " And we got a new school-teacher," said 
 one of the girls. 
 
 " Will, you never noticed my new rocker," 
 said the old mother, pointing. " I set it right 
 where I thought you'd see it, and you never 
 took no notice. Ain't it nice ? Father bought 
 it at Monticello for my birthday. I thought 
 you'd notice it first thing." 
 
 When Hawker had retired for the night, 
 he raised a sash and sat by the window smok- 
 ing. The odour of the woods and the fields 
 came sweetly to his nostrils. The crickets 
 chanted their hymn of the night. On the 
 black brow of the mountain he could see two 
 long rows of twinkling dots which marked 
 the position of Hemlock Inn. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 HAWKER had a writing friend named Hol- 
 landen. In New York Hollanden had an- 
 nounced his resolution to spend the summer 
 at Hemlock Inn. " I don't like to see the 
 world progressing," he had said ; " I shall go 
 to Sullivan County for a time." 
 
 In the morning Hawker took his painting 
 equipment, and after manoeuvring in the fields 
 until he had proved to himself that he had no 
 desire to go toward the inn, he went toward 
 it. The time was only nine o'clock, and he 
 knew that he could not hope to see Hollanden 
 before eleven, as it was only through rumour 
 that Hollanden was aware that there was a 
 sunrise and an early morning. 
 
 Hawker encamped in front of some fields 
 of vivid yellow stubble on which trees made 
 olive shadows, and which was overhung by a 
 china-blue sky and sundry little white clouds. 
 
 He fiddled away perfunctorily at it. A spec- 
 2 13 
 
14 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 tator would have believed, probably, that he 
 was sketching the pines on the hill where 
 shone the red porches of Hemlock Inn. 
 
 Finally, a white-flannel young man walked 
 into the landscape. Hawker waved a brush. 
 " Hi, Hollie, get out of the colour-scheme ! " 
 
 At this cry the white-flannel young man 
 looked down at his feet apprehensively. Fi- 
 nally he came forward grinning. " Why, 
 hello, Hawker, old boy ! Glad to find you 
 here." He perched on a boulder and began 
 to study Hawker's canvas and the vivid 
 yellow stubble with the olive shadows. He 
 wheeled his eyes from one to the other. " Say, 
 Hawker," he said suddenly, " why don't you 
 marry Miss Fanhall?" 
 
 Hawker had a brush in his mouth, but he 
 took it quickly out, and said, " Marry Miss 
 Fanhall ? Who the devil is Miss Fanhall ? " 
 
 Hollanden clasped both hands about his 
 knee and looked thoughtfully away. " Oh, 
 she's a girl." 
 
 "She is?" said Hawker. 
 
 "Yes. She came to the inn last night 
 with her sister-in-law and a small tribe of 
 young Fanhalls. There's six of them, I think." 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. jj 
 
 " Two," said Hawker, " a boy and a girl." 
 
 " How do you oh, you must have come 
 up with them. Of course. Why, then you 
 saw her." 
 
 " Was that her ? " asked Hawker list- 
 lessly. 
 
 "Was that her?" cried Hollanden, with 
 indignation. " Was that her ?" 
 
 " Oh ! " said Hawker. 
 
 Hollanden mused again. " She's got lots 
 of money," he said. " Loads of it. And I 
 think she would be fool enough to have sym- 
 pathy for you in your work. They are a 
 tremendously wealthy crowd, although they 
 treat it simply. It would be a good thing for 
 you. I believe yes, I am sure she could be 
 fool enough to have sympathy for you in your 
 work. And now, if you weren't such a hope- 
 less chump " 
 
 " Oh, shut up, Hollie," said the painter. 
 
 For a time Hollanden did as he was bid, 
 but at last he talked again. " Can't think why 
 they came up here. Must be her sister-in- 
 law's health. Something like that. She " 
 
 "Great heavens," said Hawker, "you 
 speak of nothing else ! " 
 
l6 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 "Well, you saw her, didn't you?" de- 
 manded Hollanden. "What can you expect, 
 then, from a man of my sense? You you 
 old stick you " 
 
 " It was quite dark," protested the painter. 
 
 " Quite dark," repeated Hollanden, in a 
 wrathful voice. " What if it was ? " 
 
 " Well, that is bound to make a difference 
 in a man's opinion, you know." 
 
 " No, it isn't. It was light down at the 
 railroad station, anyhow. If you had any 
 sand thunder, but I did get up early this 
 morning ! Say, do you play tennis ? " 
 
 " After a fashion," said Hawker. " Why ? " 
 
 " Oh, nothing," replied Hollanden sadly. 
 " Only they are wearing me out at the game. 
 I had to get up and play before breakfast this 
 morning with the Worcester girls, and there 
 is a lot more mad players who will be down 
 on me before long. It's a terrible thing to be 
 a tennis player." 
 
 " Why, you used to put yourself out so 
 little for people," remarked Hawker. 
 
 " Yes, but up there " Hollanden jerked 
 his thumb in the direction of the inn " they 
 think I'm so amiable." 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. iy 
 
 " Well, I'll come up and help you out." 
 
 " Do," Hollanden laughed ; " you and Miss 
 Fanhall can team it against the littlest Worces- 
 ter girl and me." He regarded the landscape 
 and meditated. Hawker struggled for a grip 
 on the thought of the stubble. 
 
 "That colour of hair and eyes always knocks 
 me kerplunk," observed Hollanden softly. 
 
 Hawker looked up irascibly. " What 
 colour hair and eyes ? " he demanded. " I 
 believe you're crazy." 
 
 "What colour hair and eyes?" repeated 
 Hollanden, with a savage gesture. "You've 
 got no more appreciation than a post." 
 
 "They are good enough for me," mut- 
 tered Hawker, turning again to his work. He 
 scowled first at the canvas and then at the 
 stubble. " Seems to me you had best take 
 care of yourself, instead of planning for me," 
 he said. 
 
 "Me!" cried Hollanden. "Me! Take 
 care of myself ! My boy, I've got a past of 
 sorrow and gloom. I " 
 
 "You're nothing but a kid," said Hawker, 
 glaring at the other man. 
 
 " Oh, of course," said Hollanden, wagging 
 
18 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 his head with midnight wisdom. " Oh, of 
 course." 
 
 " Well, Hollie," said Hawker, with sudden 
 affability, " I didn't mean to be unpleasant, but 
 then you are rather ridiculous, you know, sit- 
 ting up there and howling about the colour of 
 hair and eyes." 
 
 " I'm not ridiculous." 
 
 " Yes, you are, you know, Hollie." 
 
 The writer waved his hand despairingly. 
 " And you rode in the train with her, and in 
 the stage." 
 
 " I didn't see her in the train," said Haw- 
 ker. 
 
 " Oh, then you saw her in the stage. Ha- 
 ha, you old thief ! I sat up here, and you sat 
 down there and lied." He jumped from his 
 perch and belaboured Hawker's shoulders. 
 
 "Stop that!" said the painter. 
 
 " Oh, you old thief, you lied to me ! You 
 
 lied Hold on bless my life, here she 
 
 comes now ! " 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ONE day Hollanden said : " There are 
 forty-two people at Hemlock Inn, I think. 
 Fifteen are middle-aged ladies of the most 
 aggressive respectability. They have come 
 here for no discernible purpose save to get 
 where they can see people and be displeased 
 at them. They sit in a large group on that 
 porch and take measurements of character as 
 importantly as if they constituted the jury of 
 heaven. When I arrived at Hemlock Inn I 
 at once cast my eye searchingly about me. 
 Perceiving this assemblage, I cried, 'There 
 they are ! ' Barely waiting to change my 
 clothes, I made for this formidable body and 
 endeavoured to conciliate it. Almost every 
 day I sit down among them and lie like a 
 machine. Privately I believe they should be 
 hanged, but publicly I glisten with admira- 
 tion. Do you know, there is one of 'em who 
 
 I know has not moved from the inn in eight 
 
 19 
 
20 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 days, and this morning I said to her, ' These 
 long walks in the clear mountain air are doing 
 you a world of good/ And I keep contin- 
 ually saying, * Your frankness is so charm- 
 ing ! ' Because of the great law of universal 
 balance, I know that this illustrious corps will 
 believe good of themselves with exactly the 
 same readiness that they will believe ill of 
 others. So I ply them with it. In conse- 
 quence, the worst they ever say of me is, ' Isn't 
 that Mr. Hollanden a peculiar man?' And 
 you know, my boy, that's not so bad for a 
 literary person." After some thought he 
 added : " Good people, too. Good wives, 
 good mothers, and everything of that kind, 
 you know. But conservative, very conserva- 
 tive. Hate anything radical. Can not en- 
 dure it. Were that way themselves once, you 
 know. They hit the mark, too, sometimes. 
 Such general volleyings can't fail to hit every- 
 thing. May the devil fly away with them ! " 
 
 Hawker regarded the group nervously, 
 and at last propounded a great question : 
 " Say, I wonder where they all are recruited ? 
 When you come to think that almost every 
 summer hotel " 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 2 I 
 
 " Certainly," said Hollander!, " almost 
 every summer hotel. I've studied the ques- 
 tion, and have nearly established the fact that 
 almost every summer hotel is furnished with 
 a full corps of " 
 
 " To be sure," said Hawker ; " and if you 
 search for them in the winter, you can find 
 barely a sign of them, until you examine the 
 boarding houses, and then you observe " 
 
 "Certainly," said Hollanden, "of course. 
 By the way," he added, "you haven't got any 
 obviously loose screws in your character, 
 have you ? " 
 
 " No," said Hawker, after consideration, 
 "only general poverty that's all." 
 
 " Of course, of course," said Hollanden. 
 " But that's bad. They'll get on to you, sure. 
 Particularly since you come up here to see 
 Miss Fanhall so much." 
 
 Hawker glinted his eyes at his friend. 
 " You've got a deuced open way of speaking," 
 he observed. 
 
 " Deuced open, is it ? " cried Hollanden. 
 " It isn't near so open as your devotion to 
 Miss Fanhall, which is as plain as a red pet- 
 ticoat hung on a hedge." 
 
22 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 Hawker's face gloomed, and he said, 
 " Well, it might be plain to you, you infernal 
 cat, but that doesn't prove that all those old 
 hens can see it." 
 
 " I tell you that if they look twice at you 
 they can't fail to see it. And it's bad, too. 
 Very bad. What's the matter with you? 
 Haven't you ever been in love before?" 
 
 " None of your business," replied Hawker. 
 
 Hollanden thought upon this point for a 
 time. "Well," he admitted finally, "that's 
 true in a general way, but I hate to see you 
 managing your affairs so stupidly." 
 
 Rage flamed into Hawker's face, and he 
 cried passionately, " I tell you it is none of 
 your business ! " He suddenly confronted the 
 other man. 
 
 Hollanden surveyed this outburst with a 
 critical eye, and then slapped his knee with 
 emphasis. " You certainly have got it a 
 million times worse than I thought. Why, 
 you you you're heels over head." 
 
 " What if I am ? " said Hawker, with a 
 gesture of defiance and despair. 
 
 Hollanden saw a dramatic situation in the 
 distance, and with a bright smile he studied it. 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 23 
 
 " Say," he exclaimed, " suppose she should 
 not go to the picnic to-morrow ? She said 
 this morning she did not know if she could 
 go. Somebody was expected from New 
 York, I think. Wouldn't it break you up, 
 though! Eh?" 
 
 " You're so dev'lish clever ! " said Hawker, 
 with sullen irony. 
 
 Hollanden was still regarding the distant 
 dramatic situation. "And rivals, too! The 
 woods must be crowded with them. A girl 
 like that, you know. And then all that 
 money ! Say, your rivals must number 
 enough to make a brigade of militia. Im- 
 agine them swarming around ! But then it 
 doesn't matter so much," he went on cheer- 
 fully ; " you've got a good play there. You 
 must appreciate them to her you under- 
 stand ? appreciate them kindly, like a man in 
 a watch-tower. You must laugh at them only 
 about once a week, and then very tolerantly 
 you understand? and kindly, and and ap- 
 preciatively." 
 
 " You're a colossal ass, Hollie ! " said Haw- 
 ker. "You " 
 
 "Yes, yes, I know," replied the other 
 
24 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 peacefully ; " a colossal ass. Of course." 
 After looking into the distance again, he mur- 
 mured : " I'm worried about that picnic. I 
 wish I knew she was going. By heavens, as 
 a matter of fact, she must be made to go ! " 
 
 " What have you got to do with it ? " cried 
 the painter, in another sudden outburst. 
 
 "There! there!" said Hollanden, waving 
 his hand. "You fool! Only a spectator, I 
 assure you." 
 
 Hawker seemed overcome then with a 
 deep dislike of himself. " Oh, well, you 
 
 know, Hollie, this sort of thing " He 
 
 broke off and gazed at the trees. " This sort 
 of thing It " 
 
 "How?" asked Hollanden. 
 
 " Confound you for a meddling, gabbling 
 idiot ! " cried Hawker suddenly. 
 
 Hollanden replied, " What did you do 
 with that violet she dropped at the side of the 
 tennis court yesterday ? " 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 MRS. FANHALL, with the two children, the 
 Worcester girls, and Hollanden, clambered 
 down the rocky path. Miss Fanhall and 
 Hawker had remained on top of the ledge. 
 Hollanden showed much zeal in conducting 
 his contingent to the foot of the falls. 
 Through the trees they could see the cata- 
 ract, a great shimmering white thing, boom- 
 ing and thundering until all the leaves gently 
 shuddered. 
 
 "I wonder where Miss Fanhall and Mr. 
 Hawker have gone?" said the younger Miss 
 Worcester. " I wonder where they've gone? " 
 
 " Millicent," said Hollander, looking at her 
 fondly, "you always had such great thought 
 for others." 
 
 " Well, I wonder where they've gone ? " 
 
 At the foot of the falls, where the mist 
 arose in silver clouds and the green water 
 
 swept into the pool, Miss Worcester, the 
 25 
 
26 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 elder, seated on the moss, exclaimed, " Oh, 
 Mr. Hollander!, what makes all literary men 
 so peculiar?" 
 
 "And all that just because I said that I 
 could have made better digestive organs than 
 Providence, if it is true that he made mine," 
 replied Hollanden, with reproach. "Here, 
 Roger," he cried, as he dragged the child 
 away from the brink, "don't fall in there, or 
 you won't be the full-back at Yale in 1907, as 
 you have planned. I'm sure I don't know 
 how to answer you, Miss Worcester. I've 
 inquired of innumerable literary men, and 
 none of 'em know. I may say I have chased 
 that problem for years. I might give you my 
 personal history, and see if that would throw 
 any light on the subject." He looked about 
 him with chin high until his glance had noted 
 the two vague figures at the top of the cliff. 
 " I might give you my personal history " 
 
 Mrs. Fanhall looked at him curiously, and 
 the elder Worcester girl cried, " Oh, do ! " 
 
 After another scanning of the figures at 
 the top of the cliff, Hollanden established him- 
 self in an oratorical pose on a great weather- 
 beaten stone. " Well you must understand 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 27 
 
 I started my career my career, you under- 
 stand with a determination to be a prophet, 
 and, although I have ended in being an acro- 
 bat, a trained bear of the magazines, and a 
 juggler of comic paragraphs, there was once 
 carved upon my lips a smile which made 
 many people detest me, for it hung before 
 them like a banshee whenever they tried to 
 be satisfied with themselves. I was informed 
 from time to time that I was making no great 
 holes in the universal plan, and I came to 
 know that one person in every two thousand 
 of the people I saw had heard of me, and that 
 four out of five of these had forgotten it. 
 And then one in every two of those who re- 
 membered that they had heard of me regarded 
 the fact that I wrote as a great impertinence. 
 I admitted these things, and in defence merely 
 builded a maxim that stated that each wise 
 man in this world is concealed amid some 
 twenty thousand fools. If you have eyes for 
 mathematics, this conclusion should interest 
 you. Meanwhile I created a gigantic dignity, 
 and when men saw this dignity and heard 
 that I was a literary man they respected me. 
 I concluded that the simple campaign of exist- 
 
28 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 ence for me was to delude the populace, or as 
 much of it as would look at me. I did. I do. 
 And now I can make myself quite happy con- 
 cocting sneers about it. Others may do as 
 they please, but as for me," he concluded 
 ferociously, " I shall never disclose to any- 
 body that an acrobat, a trained bear of the 
 magazines, a juggler of comic paragraphs, is 
 not a priceless pearl of art and philosophy." 
 
 " I don't believe a word of it is true," said 
 Miss Worcester. 
 
 " What do you expect of autobiography ? " 
 demanded Hollanden, with asperity. 
 
 " Well, anyhow, Hollie," exclaimed the 
 younger sister, "you didn't explain a thing 
 about how literary men came to be so pecul- 
 iar, and that's what you started out to do, you 
 know." 
 
 " Well," said Hollanden crossly, " you 
 must never expect a man to do what he starts 
 to do, Millicent. And besides," he went on, 
 with the gleam of a sudden idea in his eyes, 
 " literary men are not peculiar, anyhow." 
 
 The elder Worcester girl looked angrily 
 at him. " Indeed ? Not you, of course, but 
 the others." 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 2 9 
 
 " They are all asses," said Hollander! gen- 
 ially. 
 
 The elder Worcester girl reflected. " I 
 believe you try to make us think and then just 
 tangle us up purposely I " 
 
 The younger Worcester girl reflected. 
 "You are an absurd old thing, you know, 
 Hollie I " 
 
 Hollanden climbed offendedly from the 
 great weather-beaten stone. " Well, I shall 
 go and see that the men have not spilled the 
 luncheon while breaking their necks over 
 these rocks. Would you like to have it 
 spread here, Mrs. Fanhall ? Never mind con- 
 sulting the girls. I assure you I shall spend a 
 great deal of energy and temper in bullying 
 them into doing just as they please. Why, 
 when I was in Brussels " 
 
 " Oh, come now, Hollie, you never were 
 in Brussels, you know," said the younger 
 Worcester girl. 
 
 ''What of that, Millicent?" demanded 
 Hollanden. " This is autobiography." 
 
 " Well, I don't care, Hollie. You tell such 
 whoppers." 
 
 With a gesture of despair he again start- 
 
30 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 ed away ; whereupon the Worcester girls 
 shouted in chorus, " Oh, I say, Hollie, come 
 back ! Don't be angry. We didn't mean to 
 tease you, Hollie really, we didn't ! " 
 
 "Well, if you didn't," said Hollanden, 
 " why did you " 
 
 The elder Worcester girl was gazing fixed- 
 ly at the top of the cliff. " Oh, there they are ! 
 I wonder why they don't come down ? " 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 STANLEY, the setter, walked to the edge of 
 the precipice and, looking over at the falls, 
 wagged his tail in friendly greeting. He was 
 braced warily, so that if this howling white 
 animal should reach up a hand for him he 
 could flee in time. 
 
 The girl stared dreamily at the red-stained 
 crags that projected from the pines of the hill 
 across the stream. Hawker lazily aimed bits 
 of moss at the oblivious dog and missed him. 
 
 " It must be fine to have something to 
 think of beyond just living," said the girl to 
 the crags. 
 
 " I suppose you mean art ? " said Hawker. 
 
 " Yes, of course. It must be finer, at any 
 rate, than the ordinary thing." 
 
 He mused for a time. "Yes. It is it 
 must be," he said. " But then I'd rather just 
 lie here." 
 
 The girl seemed aggrieved. " Oh, no, you 
 31 
 
32 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 wouldn't. You couldn't stop. It's dreadful 
 to talk like that, isn't it? I always thought 
 that painters were " 
 
 " Of course. They should be. Maybe 
 they are. I don't know. Sometimes I am. 
 But not to-day." 
 
 " Well, I should think you ought to be so 
 much more contented than just ordinary peo- 
 ple. Now, I " 
 
 " You ! " he cried "you are not 'just ordi- 
 nary people.' ' 
 
 " Well, but when I try to recall what I 
 have thought about in my life, I can't remem- 
 ber, you know. That's what I mean." 
 
 " You shouldn't talk that way," he told her. 
 
 " But why do you insist that life should be 
 so highly absorbing for me ? " 
 
 "You have everything you wish for," he 
 answered, in a voice of deep gloom. 
 
 " Certainly not. I am a woman." 
 
 " But " 
 
 " A woman, to have everything she wishes 
 for, would have to be Providence. There are 
 some things that are not in the world." 
 
 " Well, what are they ? " he asked of her. 
 
 " That's just it," she said, nodding her 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 33 
 
 head, "no one knows. That's what makes the 
 trouble." 
 
 " Well, you are very unreasonable." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " You are very unreasonable. If I were 
 you an heiress " 
 
 The girl flushed and turned upon him an- 
 grily. 
 
 " Well ! " he glowered back at her. " You 
 are, you know. You can't deny it." 
 
 She looked at the red-stained crags. At 
 last she said, " You seemed really contemptu- 
 ous." 
 
 " Well, I assure you that I do not feel con- 
 temptuous. On the contrary, I am filled with 
 admiration. Thank Heaven, I am a man of 
 the world. Whenever I meet heiresses I al- 
 ways have the deepest admiration." As he 
 said this he wore a brave hang-dog expression. 
 The girl surveyed him coldly from his chin to 
 his eyebrows. " You have a handsome audac- 
 ity, too." 
 
 He lay back in the long grass and contem- 
 plated the clouds. 
 
 " You should have been a Chinese soldier 
 of fortune," she said. 
 
34 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 He threw another little clod at Stanley 
 and struck him on the head. 
 
 " You are the most scientifically unbear- 
 able person in the world/' she said. 
 
 Stanley came back to see his master and to 
 assure himself that the clump on the head was 
 not intended as a sign of serious displeasure. 
 Hawker took the dog's long ears and tried to 
 tie them into a knot. 
 
 "And I don't see why you so delight in 
 making people detest you," she continued. 
 
 Having failed to make a knot of the dog's 
 ears, Hawker leaned back and surveyed his 
 failure admiringly. " Well, I don't," he 
 said. 
 
 " You do." 
 
 " No, I don't." 
 
 " Yes, you do. You just say the most ter- 
 rible things as if you positively enjoyed saying 
 them." 
 
 " Well, what did I say, now ? What did I 
 say ? " 
 
 " Why, you said that you always had the 
 most extraordinary admiration for heiresses 
 whenever you met them." 
 
 " Well, what's wrong with that senti- 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 35 
 
 ment ? " he said. " You can't find fault with 
 that ! " 
 
 " It is utterly detestable." 
 
 " Not at all," he answered sullenly. " I 
 consider it a tribute a graceful tribute." 
 
 Miss Fanhall arose and went forward to 
 the edge of the cliff. She became absorbed in 
 the falls. Far below her a bough of a hem- 
 lock drooped to the water, and each swirling, 
 mad wave caught it and made it nod nod 
 nod. Her back was half turned toward 
 Hawker. 
 
 After a time Stanley, the dog, discovered 
 some ants scurrying in the moss, and he at 
 once began to watch them and wag his tail. 
 
 " Isn't it curious," observed Hawker, " how 
 an animal as large as a dog will sometimes be 
 so entertained by the very smallest things ? " 
 
 Stanley pawed gently at the moss, and 
 then thrust his head forward to see what the 
 ants did under the circumstances. 
 
 " In the hunting season," continued Haw- 
 ker, having waited a moment, " this dog 
 knows nothing on earth but his master and 
 the partridges. He is lost to all other sound 
 and movement. He moves through the 
 
36 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 woods like a steel machine. And when he 
 scents the bird ah, it is beautiful! Shouldn't 
 you like to see him then ? " 
 
 Some of the ants had perhaps made war- 
 like motions, and Stanley was pretending that 
 this was a reason for excitement. He reared 
 aback, and made grumbling noises in his 
 throat. 
 
 After another pause Hawker went on: 
 " And now see the precious old fool ! He is 
 deeply interested in the movements of the lit- 
 tle ants, and as childish and ridiculous over 
 them as if they were highly important. 
 There, you old blockhead, let them alone ! " 
 
 Stanley could not be induced to end his 
 investigations, and he told his master that the 
 ants were the most thrilling and dramatic 
 animals of his experience. 
 
 " Oh, by the way," said Hawker at last, as 
 his glance caught upon the crags across the 
 river, " did you ever hear the legend of those 
 rocks yonder? Over there where I am point- 
 ing? Where I'm pointing? Did you ever 
 hear it? What? Yes? No? Well, I shall 
 tell it to you." He settled comfortably in the 
 long grass. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 " ONCE upon a time there was a beautiful 
 Indian maiden, of course. And she was, of 
 course, beloved by a youth from another tribe 
 who was very handsome and stalwart and a 
 mighty hunter, of course. But the maiden's 
 father was, of course, a stern old chief, and 
 when the question of his daughter's marriage 
 came up, he, of course, declared that the 
 maiden should be wedded only to a warrior of 
 her tribe. And, of course, when the young 
 man heard this he said that in such case he 
 would, of course, fling himself headlong from 
 that crag. The old chief was, of course, ob- 
 durate, and, of course, the youth did, of 
 course, as he had said. And, of course, the 
 maiden wept." After Hawker had waited for 
 some time, he said with severity, " You seem 
 to have no great appreciation of folklore." 
 
 The girl suddenly bent her head. " Lis- 
 
 37 
 
38 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 ten," she said, " they're calling. Don't you 
 hear Hollie's voice ? " 
 
 They went to another place, and, looking 
 down over the shimmering tree-tops, they saw 
 Hollanden waving his arms. " It's lunch- 
 eon," said Hawker. " Look how frantic he 
 is!" 
 
 The path required that Hawker should as- 
 sist the girl very often. His eyes shone at 
 her whenever he held forth his hand to help 
 her down a blessed steep place. She seemed 
 rather pensive. The route to luncheon was 
 very long. Suddenly he took a seat on an old 
 tree, and said : " Oh, I don't know why it is, 
 whenever I'm with you, I I have no wits, nor 
 good nature, nor anything. It's the worst 
 luck!" 
 
 He had left her standing on a boulder, 
 where she was provisionally helpless. " Hur- 
 ry ! " she said ; " they're waiting for us." 
 
 Stanley, the setter, had been sliding down 
 cautiously behind them. He now stood wag- 
 ging his tail and waiting for the way to be 
 cleared. 
 
 Hawker leaned his head on his hand and 
 pondered dejectedly. " It's the worst luck ! " 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 39 
 
 "Hurry!" she said; "they're waiting for 
 us." 
 
 At luncheon the girl was for the most part 
 silent. Hawker was superhumanly amiable. 
 Somehow he gained the impression that they 
 all quite fancied him, and it followed that 
 being clever was very easy. Hollanden lis- 
 tened, and approved him with a benign coun- 
 tenance. 
 
 There was a little boat fastened to the wil- 
 lows at the edge of the black pool. After the 
 spread, Hollanden navigated various parties 
 around to where they could hear the great 
 hollow roar of the falls beating against the 
 sheer rocks. Stanley swam after sticks at the 
 request of little Roger. 
 
 Once Hollanden succeeded in making the 
 others so engrossed in being amused that 
 Hawker and Miss Fanhall were left alone 
 staring at the white bubbles that floated 
 solemnly on the black water. After Hawker 
 had stared at them a sufficient time, he said, 
 " Well, you are an heiress, you know." 
 
 In return she chose to smile radiantly. 
 Turning toward him, she said, " If you will be 
 good now always perhaps I'll forgive you." 
 
40 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 They drove home in the sombre shadows 
 of the hills, with Stanley padding along under 
 the wagon. The Worcester girls tried to in- 
 duce Hollanden to sing, and in consequence 
 there was quarrelling until the blinking lights 
 of the inn appeared above them as if a great 
 lantern hung there. 
 
 Hollanden conveyed his friend some dis- 
 tance on the way home from the inn to the 
 farm. "Good time at the picnic? "said the 
 writer. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Picnics are mainly places where the jam 
 gets on the dead leaves, and from thence to 
 your trousers. But this was a good little 
 picnic." He glanced at Hawker. " But you 
 don't look as if you had such a swell time." 
 
 Hawker waved his hand tragically. " Yes 
 no I don't know." 
 
 " What's wrong with you ? " asked Hol- 
 landen. 
 
 " I tell you what it is, Hollie," said the 
 painter darkly, " whenever I'm with that 
 girl I'm such a blockhead. I'm not so stupid, 
 Hollie. You know I'm not. But when I'm 
 with her I can't be clever to save my life." 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 4! 
 
 Hollander! pulled contentedly at his pipe. 
 " Maybe she don't notice it." 
 
 " Notice it! " muttered Hawker, scornfully ; 
 " of course she notices it. In conversation 
 with her, I tell you, I am as interesting as an 
 iron dog-." His voice changed as he cried, " I 
 don't know why it is. I don't know why it is." 
 
 Blowing a huge cloud of smoke into the 
 air, Hollanden studied it thoughtfully. " Hits 
 some fellows that way," he said. "And, of 
 course, it must be deuced annoying. Strange 
 thing, but now, under those circumstances, 
 I'm very glib. Very glib, I assure you." 
 
 " I don't care what you are," answered 
 Hawker. " All those confounded affairs of 
 yours they were not " 
 
 " No," said Hollanden, stolidly puffing, " of 
 course not. I understand that. But, look 
 here, Billie," he added, with sudden bright- 
 ness, " maybe you are not a blockhead, after 
 all. You are on the inside, you know, and 
 you can't see from there. Besides, you can't 
 tell what a woman will think. You can't tell 
 what a woman will think." 
 
 " No," said Hawker, grimly, " and you 
 suppose that is my only chance ? " 
 
42 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 " Oh, don't be such a chump ! " said Hol- 
 landen, in a tone of vast exasperation. 
 
 They strode for some time in silence. The 
 mystic pines swaying over the narrow road 
 made talk sibilantly to the wind. Stanley, 
 the setter, took it upon himself to discover 
 some menacing presence in the woods. He 
 walked on his toes and with his eyes glinting 
 sideways. He swore half under his breath. 
 
 "And work, too," burst out Hawker, at 
 last. " T came up here this season to work, 
 and I haven't done a thing that ought not be 
 shot at." 
 
 " Don't you find that your love sets fire to 
 your genius ? " asked Hollanden gravely. 
 
 " No, I'm hanged if I do." 
 
 Hollanden sighed then with an air of re- 
 lief. " I was afraid that a popular impression 
 was true," he said, " but it's all right. You 
 would rather sit still and moon, wouldn't 
 you?" 
 
 " Moon blast you ! I couldn't moon to 
 save my life." 
 
 " Oh, well, I didn't mean moon exactly." 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE blue night of the lake was embroid- 
 ered with black tree forms. Silver drops 
 sprinkled from the lifted oars. Somewhere in 
 the gloom of the shore there was a dog, who 
 from time to time raised his sad voice to the 
 stars. 
 
 " But still, the life of the studios " be- 
 gan the girl. 
 
 Hawker scoffed. " There were six of us. 
 Mainly we smoked. Sometimes we played 
 hearts and at other times poker on credit, 
 you know credit. And when we had the 
 materials and got something to do, we 
 worked. Did you ever see these beautiful 
 red and green designs that surround the com- 
 mon tomato can?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well," he said proudly, "I have made 
 them. Whenever you come upon tomatoes, 
 remember that they might once have been 
 
 43 
 
44 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 encompassed in my design. When first I 
 came back from Paris I began to paint, but 
 nobody wanted me to paint. Later, I got into 
 green corn and asparagus " 
 
 "Truly?" 
 
 " Yes, indeed. It is true." 
 
 " But still, the life of the studios " 
 
 " There were six of us. Fate ordained 
 that only one in the crowd could have money 
 at one time. The other five lived off him and 
 despised themselves. We despised ourselves 
 five times as long as we had admiration." 
 
 "And was this just because you had no 
 money ? " 
 
 " It was because we had no money in New 
 York," said Hawker. 
 
 " Well, after a while something hap- 
 pened " 
 
 " Oh, no, it didn't. Something impended 
 always, but it never happened." 
 
 " In a case like that one's own people must 
 be such a blessing. The sympathy " 
 
 " One's own people ! " said Hawker. 
 
 "Yes," she said, "one's own people and 
 more intimate friends. The apprecia- 
 tion " 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 45 
 
 " ' The appreciation ! ' ' said Hawker. 
 " Yes, indeed ! " 
 
 He seemed so ill-tempered that she be- 
 came silent. The boat floated through the 
 shadows of the trees and out to where the 
 water was like a blue crystal. The dog on 
 the shore thrashed about in the reeds and 
 waded in the shallows, mourning his unhappy 
 state in an occasional cry. Hawker stood up 
 and sternly shouted. Thereafter silence was 
 among the reeds. The moon slipped sharply 
 through the little clouds. 
 
 The girl said, " I liked that last picture of 
 yours." 
 
 -What?" 
 
 " At the last exhibition, you know, you 
 had that one with the cows and things in 
 the snow and and a haystack." 
 
 " Yes," he said, " of course. Did you like 
 it, really ? I thought it about my best. And 
 you really remembered it ? Oh," he cried, 
 " Hollanden perhaps recalled it to you." 
 
 " Why, no," she said. " I remembered it, 
 of course." 
 
 " Well, what made you remember it ? " he 
 demanded, as if he had cause to be indignant. 
 
46 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 " Why I just remembered it because I 
 liked it, and because well, the people with 
 me said said it was about the best thing in 
 the exhibit, and they talked about it a good 
 deal. And then I remember that Hollie had 
 spoken of you, and then I I " 
 
 " Never mind," he said. After a moment, 
 he added, " The confounded picture was no 
 good, anyhow ! " 
 
 The girl started. " What makes you 
 speak so of it? It was good. Of course, I 
 don't know I can't talk about pictures, but," 
 she said in distress, " everybody said it was 
 fine." 
 
 " It wasn't any good," he persisted, with 
 dogged shakes of the head. 
 
 From off in the darkness they heard the 
 sound of Hollanders oars splashing in the 
 water. Sometimes there was squealing by 
 the Worcester girls, and at other times loud 
 arguments on points of navigation. 
 
 " Oh," said the girl suddenly, " Mr. Ogle- 
 thorpe is coming to-morrow ! " 
 
 "Mr. Oglethorpe?" said Hawker. " Is 
 he?" 
 
 "Yes." She gazed off at the water. 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 47 
 
 " He's an old friend of ours. He is always 
 so good, and Roger and little Helen simply 
 adore him. He was my brother's chum in 
 college, and they were quite inseparable until 
 Herbert's death. He always brings me vio- 
 lets. But I know you will like him." 
 
 " I shall expect to," said Hawker. 
 
 " I'm so glad he is coming. What time 
 does that morning stage get here ? " 
 
 "About eleven," said Hawker. 
 
 " He wrote that he would come then. I 
 hope he won't disappoint us." 
 
 " Undoubtedly he will be here," said 
 Hawker. 
 
 The wind swept from the ridge top, where 
 some great bare pines stood in the moonlight. 
 A loon called in its strange, unearthly note 
 from the lakeshore. As Hawker turned the 
 boat toward the dock, the flashing rays from 
 the boat fell upon the head of the girl in the 
 rear seat, and he rowed very slowly. 
 
 The girl was looking away somewhere 
 with a mystic, shining glance. She leaned 
 her chin in her hand. Hawker, facing her, 
 merely paddled subconsciously. He seemed 
 greatly impressed and expectant. 
 
48 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 At last she spoke very slowly. " I wish I 
 knew Mr. Oglethorpe was not going- to dis- 
 appoint us." 
 
 Hawker said, " Why, no, I imagine not." 
 " Well, he is a trifle uncertain in matters of 
 time. The children and all of us shall be 
 anxious. I know you will like him." 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 " EH ? " said Hollanden. " Oglethorpe ? 
 Oglethorpe? Why, he's that friend of the 
 Fanhalls ! Yes, of course, I know him ! 
 Deuced good fellow, too ! What about him ? " 
 " Oh, nothing, only he's coming here to- 
 morrow," answered Hawker. " What kind 
 of a fellow did you say he was ? " 
 
 " Deuced good fellow ! What are you 
 
 so Say, by the nine mad blacksmiths of 
 
 Donawhiroo, he's your rival ! Why, of course ! 
 Glory, but I must be thick-headed to-night ! " 
 Hawker said, "Where's your tobacco?" 
 " Yonder, in that jar. Got a pipe ? " 
 " Yes. How do you know he's my rival ?" 
 
 " Know it ? Why, hasn't he been Say, 
 
 this is getting thrilling!" Hollanden sprang 
 to his feet and, filling a pipe, flung himself 
 into the chair and began to rock himself 
 madly to and fro. He puffed clouds of 
 
 smoke. 
 
 49 
 
50 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 Hawker stood with his face in shadow. 
 At last he said, in tones of deep weariness, 
 " Well, I think I'd better be going home and 
 turning in." 
 
 " Hold on ! " Hollanden exclaimed, turn- 
 ing his eyes from a prolonged stare at the 
 ceiling, " don't go yet ! Why, man, this is 
 
 just the time when Say, who would ever 
 
 think of Jem Oglethorpe's turning up to har- 
 rie you ! Just at this time, too ! " 
 
 " Oh," cried Hawker suddenly, filled with 
 rage, "you remind me of an accursed duffer! 
 Why can't you tell me something about the 
 man, instead of sitting there and gibbering 
 those crazy things at the ceiling?" 
 
 "By the piper " 
 
 " Oh, shut up ! Tell me something about 
 Oglethorpe, can't you ? I want to hear about 
 him. Quit all that other business ! " 
 
 " Why, Jem Oglethorpe, he why, say, 
 he's one of the best fellows going. If he 
 were only an ass! If he were only an ass, 
 now, you could feel easy in your mind. But 
 he isn't. No, indeed. Why, blast him, there 
 isn't a man that knows him who doesn't like 
 Jem Oglethorpe ! Excepting the chumps ! " 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. $ r 
 
 The window of the little room was open, 
 and the voices of the pines could be heard as 
 they sang of their long- sorrow. Hawker 
 pulled a chair close and stared out into the 
 darkness. The people on the porch of the inn 
 were frequently calling, " Good-night ! Good- 
 night ! " 
 
 Hawker said, " And of course he's got 
 train loads of money?" 
 
 "You bet he has! He can pave streets 
 with it. Lordie, but this is a situation ! " 
 
 A heavy scowl settled upon Hawker's 
 brow, and he kicked at the dressing case. 
 " Say, Hollie, look here ! Sometimes I think 
 you regard me as a bug and like to see me 
 wriggle. But " 
 
 "Oh, don't be a fool!" said Hollanden, 
 glaring through the smoke. " Under the cir- 
 cumstances, you are privileged to rave and 
 ramp around like a wounded lunatic, but for 
 heaven's sake don't swoop down on me like 
 that ! Especially when I'm when I'm doing 
 all I can for you." 
 
 " Doing all you can for me ! Nobody 
 asked you to. You talk as if I were an in- 
 fant." 
 
52 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 "There! That's right! Blaze up like a 
 fire balloon just because I said that, will you ? 
 A man in your condition why, confound 
 you, you are an infant ! " 
 
 Hawker seemed again overwhelmed in a 
 great dislike of himself. " Oh, well, of course, 
 
 Hollie, it " He waved his hand. " A man 
 
 feels like like " 
 
 " Certainly he does," said Hollanden. 
 " That's all right, old man." 
 
 " And look now, Hollie, here's this Ogle- 
 thorpe " 
 
 " May the devil fly away with him ! " 
 
 "Well, here he is, coming along when I 
 thought maybe after a while, you know I 
 might stand some show. And you are ac- 
 quainted with him, so give me a line on him." 
 
 " Well, I should advise you to " 
 
 " Blow your advice ! I want to hear about 
 Oglethorpe." 
 
 " Well, in the first place, he is a rattling 
 good fellow, as I told you before, and this is 
 what makes it so " 
 
 " Oh, hang what it makes it ! Go on." 
 
 " He is a rattling good fellow and he has 
 stacks of money. Of course, in this case his 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 53 
 
 having money doesn't affect the situation 
 much. Miss Fanhall " 
 
 " Say, can you keep to the thread of the 
 story, you infernal literary man ! " 
 
 " Well, he's popular. He don't talk money 
 ever. And if he's wicked, he's not suffi- 
 ciently proud of it to be perpetually describ- 
 ing his sins. And then he is not so hideously 
 brilliant, either. That's great credit to a man 
 in these days. And then he well, take it al- 
 together, I should say Jem Oglethorpe was a 
 smashing good fellow." 
 
 " I wonder how long he is going to stay ? " 
 murmured Hawker. 
 
 During this conversation his pipe had 
 often died out. It was out at this time. He 
 lit another match. Hollanden had watched 
 the fingers of his friend as the match was 
 scratched. " You're nervous, Billie," he said. 
 
 Hawker straightened in his chair. " No, 
 I'm not." 
 
 " I saw your fingers tremble when you lit 
 that match." 
 
 " Oh, you lie ! " 
 
 Hollanden mused again. " He's popular 
 with women, too," he said ultimately; "and 
 
54 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 often a woman will like a man and hunt his 
 scalp just because she knows other women 
 like him and want his scalp." 
 
 " Yes, but not " 
 
 " Hold on ! You were going to say that 
 she was not like other women, weren't you ? " 
 
 " Not exactly that, but " 
 
 " Well, we will have all that understood." 
 
 After a period of silence Hawker said, " I 
 must be going." 
 
 As the painter walked toward the door 
 Hollanden cried to him : " Heavens ! Of all 
 pictures of a weary pilgrim ! " His voice was 
 very compassionate. 
 
 Hawker wheeled, and an oath spun through 
 the smoke clouds. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 "WHERE'S Mr. Hawker this morning?" 
 asked the younger Miss Worcester. " I 
 thought he was coming up to play tennis?" 
 
 " I don't know. Confound him ! I don't 
 see why he didn't come," said Hollanden, 
 looking across the shining valley. He 
 frowned questioningly at the landscape. " I 
 wonder where in the mischief he is ? " 
 
 The Worcester girls began also to stare at 
 the great gleaming stretch of green and gold. 
 "Didn't he tell you he was coming?" they 
 demanded. 
 
 " He didn't say a word about it," answered 
 Hollanden. " I supposed, of course, he was 
 coming. We will have to postpone the m$tte" 
 
 Later he met Miss Fanhall. " You look as 
 if you were going for a walk ? " 
 
 " I am," she said, swinging her parasol. 
 "To meet the stage. Have you seen Mr. 
 Hawker to-day ? " 
 
 55 
 
56 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 " No," he said. " He is not coming- up this 
 morning. He is in a great fret about that 
 field of stubble, and I suppose he is down 
 there sketching the life out of it. These art- 
 ists they take such a fiendish interest in their 
 work. I dare say we won't see much of him 
 until he has finished it. Where did you say 
 you were going to walk ? " 
 
 " To meet the stage." 
 
 " Oh, well, I won't have to play tennis for 
 an hour, and if you insist " 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 As they strolled slowly in the shade of the 
 trees Hollanden began, " Isn't that Hawker an 
 ill-bred old thing ? " 
 
 "No, he is not." Then after a time she 
 said, " Why ? " 
 
 "Oh, he gets so absorbed in a beastly 
 smudge of paint that I really suppose he cares 
 nothing for anything else in the world. Men 
 who are really artists I don't believe they 
 are capable of deep human affections. So 
 much of them is occupied by art. There's 
 not much left over, you see." 
 
 " I don't believe it at all," she exclaimed. 
 
 " You don't, eh ? " cried Hollanden scorn- 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 57 
 
 fully. " Well, let me tell you, young woman, 
 there is a great deal of truth in it. Now, 
 there's Hawker as good a fellow as ever 
 lived, too, in a way, and yet he's an artist. 
 Why, look how he treats look how he treats 
 that poor setter dog ! " 
 
 " Why, he's as kind to him as he can be," 
 she declared. 
 
 " And I tell you he is not ! " cried Hollan- 
 den. 
 
 " He is, Hollie. You you are unspeak- 
 able when you get in these moods." 
 
 " There that's just you in an argument. 
 I'm not in a mood at all. Now, look the 
 dog loves him with simple, unquestioning 
 devotion that fairly brings tears to one's 
 eyes " 
 
 " Yes," she said. 
 
 " And he why, he's as cold and stern " 
 
 " He isn't. He isn't, Holly. You are aw- 
 f'ly unfair." 
 
 " No, I'm not. I am simply a liberal ob- 
 server. And Hawker, with his people, too," 
 he went on darkly ; " you can't tell you 
 don't know anything about it but I tell you 
 that what I have seen proves my assertion 
 
58 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 that the artistic mind has no space left for the 
 human affections. And as for the dog " 
 
 " I thought you were his friend, Hollie ? " 
 
 " Whose ? " 
 
 " No, not the dog's. And yet you really, 
 Hollie, there is something unnatural in you. 
 You are so stupidly keen in looking at people 
 that you do not possess common loyalty to 
 your friends. It is because you are a writer, 
 I suppose. That has to explain so many 
 things. Some of your traits are very disa- 
 greeable." 
 
 " There ! there ! " plaintively cried Hol- 
 landen. " This is only about the treatment of 
 a dog, mind you. Goodness, what an ora- 
 tion ! " 
 
 " It wasn't about the treatment of a dog. 
 It was about your treatment of your friends." 
 
 " Well," he said sagely, " it only goes to 
 show that there is nothing impersonal in the 
 mind of a woman. I undertook to discuss 
 broadly 
 
 " Oh, Hollie ! " 
 
 " At any rate, it was rather below you to 
 do such scoffing at me." 
 
 " Well, I didn't mean not all of it, Hollie." 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 59 
 
 " Well, I didn't mean what I said about 
 the dog and all that, either." 
 
 "You didn't?" She turned toward him, 
 large-eyed. 
 
 " No. Not a single word of it." 
 
 " Well, what did you say it for, then ? " she 
 demanded indignantly. 
 
 " I said it," answered Hollanden placidly, 
 " just to tease you." He looked abstractedly 
 up to the trees. 
 
 Presently she said slowly, "Just to tease 
 me?" 
 
 At this time Hollanden wore an unmistak- 
 able air of having a desire to turn up his coat 
 collar. " Oh, come now " he began nerv- 
 ously. 
 
 " George Hollanden," said the voice at his 
 shoulder, " you are not only disagreeable, but 
 you are hopelessly ridiculous. I I wish you 
 would never speak to me again ! " 
 
 " Oh, come now, Grace, don't don't 
 
 Look ! There's the stage coming, isn't it ? ' ' 
 
 " No, the stage is not coming. I wish I 
 wish you were at the bottom of the sea, 
 George Hollanden. And and Mr. Hawker, 
 too. There ! " 
 
60 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 " Oh, bless my soul ! And all about an 
 infernal dog," wailed Hollanden. " Look ! 
 Honest, now, there's the stage. See it? See 
 it?" 
 
 " It isn't there at all," she said. 
 
 Gradually he seemed to recover his cour- 
 age. " What made you so tremendously an- 
 gry ? I don't see why." 
 
 After consideration, she said decisively, 
 "Well, because." 
 
 " That's why I teased you," he rejoined. 
 
 " Well, because because " 
 
 " Go on," he told her finally. " You are 
 doing very well." He waited patiently. 
 
 "Well," she said, "it is dreadful to defend 
 somebody so so excitedly, and then have it 
 turned out just a tease. I don't know what 
 he would think." 
 
 " Who would think ? " 
 
 " Why he." 
 
 " What could he think? Now, what could 
 he think? Why," said Hollanden, waxing 
 eloquent, " he couldn't under any circum- 
 stances think think anything at all. Now, 
 could he?" 
 
 She made no reply. 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 6l 
 
 "Could he?" 
 
 She was apparently reflecting. 
 
 " Under any circumstances," persisted 
 Hollanden, " he couldn't think anything at 
 all. Now, could he ? " 
 
 " No," she said. 
 
 " Well, why are you angry at me, then ? " 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 " JOHN," said the old mother, from the pro- 
 found mufflings of the pillow and quilts. 
 
 " What?" said the old man. He was tug- 
 ging at his right boot, and his tone was very 
 irascible. 
 
 " I think William's changed a good deal." 
 
 " Well, what if he has?" replied the father, 
 in another burst of ill-temper. He was then 
 tugging at his left boot. 
 
 "Yes, I'm afraid he's changed a good 
 deal," said the muffled voice from the bed. 
 " He's got a good many fine friends, now, 
 John folks what put on a good many airs; 
 and he don't care for his home like he did." 
 
 " Oh, well, I don't guess he's changed very 
 much," said the old man cheerfully. He was 
 now free of both boots. 
 
 She raised herself on an elbow and looked 
 out with a troubled face. " John, I think he 
 
 likes that girl." 
 
 62 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 63 
 
 " What girl ? " said he. 
 
 " What girl ? Why, that awful handsome 
 girl you see around of course." 
 
 " Do you think he likes 'er ? " 
 
 " I'm afraid so I'm afraid so," murmured 
 the mother mournfully. 
 
 " Oh, well," said the old man, without 
 alarm, or grief, or pleasure in his tone. 
 
 He turned the lamp's wick very low and 
 carried the lamp to the head of the stairs, 
 where he perched it on the step. When he 
 returned he said, " She's mighty good-look- 
 in' !" 
 
 " Well, that ain't everything," she snapped. 
 " How do we know she ain't proud, and self- 
 ish, and everything?" 
 
 " How do you know she is? " returned the 
 old man. 
 
 " And she may just be leading him on." 
 
 " Do him good, then," said he, with im- 
 pregnable serenity. " Next time he'll know 
 better." 
 
 " Well, I'm worried about it," she said, as 
 she sank back on the pillow again. " I think 
 William's changed a good deal. He don't 
 seem to care about us like he did." 
 
64 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 "Oh, go to sleep!" said the father drowsily. 
 
 She was silent for a time, and then she 
 said, " John ? " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Do you think I better speak to him about 
 that girl?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 She grew silent again, but at last she de- 
 manded, "Why not?" 
 
 " 'Cause it's none of your business. Go to 
 sleep, will you ? " And presently he did, but 
 the old mother lay blinking wild-eyed into the 
 darkness. 
 
 In the morning Hawker did not appear at 
 the early breakfast, eaten when the blue glow 
 of dawn shed its ghostly lights upon the val- 
 ley. The old mother placed various dishes on 
 the back part of the stove. At ten o'clock he 
 came downstairs. His mother was sweeping 
 busily in the parlour at the time, but she saw 
 him and ran to the back part of the stove. 
 She slid the various dishes on to the table. 
 " Did you oversleep ? " she asked. 
 
 " Yes. I don't feel very well this morn- 
 ing," he said. He pulled his chair close to 
 the table and sat there staring. 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 65 
 
 She renewed her sweeping- in the parlour. 
 When she returned he sat still staring undevi- 
 atingly at nothing. 
 
 " Why don't you eat your breakfast ? " she 
 said anxiously. 
 
 " I tell you, mother, I don't feel very well 
 this morning," he answered quite sharply. 
 
 "Well," she said meekly, "drink some 
 coffee and you'll feel better." 
 
 Afterward he took his painting machinery 
 and left the house. His younger sister was 
 at the well. She looked at him with a little 
 smile and a little sneer. " Going up to the 
 inn this morning?" she said. 
 
 " I don't see how that concerns you, 
 Mary?" he rejoined, with dignity. 
 
 " Oh, my ! " she said airily. 
 
 " But since you are so interested, I don't 
 mind telling you that I'm not going up to the 
 inn this morning." 
 
 His sister fixed him with her eye. " She 
 ain't mad at you, is she, Will ? " 
 
 " I don't know what you mean, Mary." 
 He glared hatefully at her and strode 
 away. 
 
 Stanley saw him going through the fields 
 
66 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 and leaped a fence jubilantly in pursuit. In a 
 wood the light sifted through the foliage and 
 burned with a peculiar reddish lustre on the 
 masses of dead leaves. He frowned at it for 
 a while from different points. Presently he 
 erected his easel and began to paint. After a 
 a time he threw down his brush and swore. 
 Stanley, who had been solemnly staring at the 
 scene as if he too was sketching it, looked up 
 in surprise. 
 
 In wandering aimlessly through the fields 
 and the forest Hawker once found himself 
 near the road to Hemlock Inn. He shied 
 away from it quickly as if it were a great 
 snake. 
 
 While most of the family were at supper, 
 Mary, the younger sister, came charging 
 breathlessly into the kitchen. " Ma sister," 
 she cried, " I know why why Will didn't go 
 to the inn to-day. There's another fellow 
 come. Another fellow." 
 
 "Who? Where? What do you mean?" 
 exclaimed her mother and her sister. 
 
 " Why, another fellow up at the inn," 
 she shouted, triumphant in her information. 
 " Another fellow come up on the stage this 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 6/ 
 
 morning. And she went out driving with 
 him this afternoon." 
 
 " Well," exclaimed her mother and her 
 sister. 
 
 " Yep. And he's an awful good-looking 
 fellow, too. And she oh, my she looked as 
 if she thought the world and all of him." 
 
 " Well," exclaimed her mother and her sis- 
 ter again. 
 
 " Sho ! " said the old man. " You wimen 
 leave William alone and quit your gabbling." 
 
 The three women made a combined assault 
 upon him. " Well, we ain't a-hurting him, are 
 we, pa ? You needn't be so snifty. I guess 
 we ain't a-hurting him much." 
 
 "Well," said the old man. And to this 
 argument he added, " Sho ! " 
 
 They kept him out of the subsequent con- 
 sultations. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE next day, as little Roger was going 
 toward the tennis court, a large orange and 
 white setter ran effusively from around the 
 corner of the inn and greeted him. Miss Fan- 
 hall, the Worcester girls, Hollanden, and 
 Oglethorpe faced to the front like soldiers. 
 Hollanden cried, " Why, Billie Hawker must 
 be coming ! " Hawker at that moment ap- 
 peared, coming toward them with a smile 
 which was not overconfident. 
 
 Little Roger went off to perform some 
 festivities of his own on the brown carpet 
 under a clump of pines. The dog, to join 
 him, felt obliged to circle widely about the 
 tennis court. He was much afraid of this 
 tennis court, with its tiny round things that 
 sometimes hit him. When near it he usually 
 slunk along at a little sheep trot and with an 
 eye of wariness upon it. 
 
 At her first opportunity the younger Wor- 
 
 68 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 69 
 
 cester girl said, " You didn't come up yester- 
 day, Mr. Hawker." 
 
 Hollander! seemed to think that Miss Fan- 
 hall turned her head as if she wished to hear 
 the explanation of the painter's absence, so he 
 engaged her in swift and fierce conversation. 
 
 " No," said Hawker. " I was resolved to 
 finish a sketch of a stubble field which I began 
 a good many days ago. You see, I was going 
 to do such a great lot of work this summer, 
 and I've done hardly a thing. I really ought 
 to compel myself to do some, you know." 
 
 " There," said Hollanden, with a victori- 
 ous nod, " just what I told you ! " 
 
 " You didn't tell us anything of the kind," 
 retorted the Worcester girls with one voice. 
 
 A middle-aged woman came upon the 
 porch of the inn, and after scanning for a 
 moment the group at the tennis court she 
 hurriedly withdrew. Presently she appeared 
 again, accompanied by five more middle-aged 
 women. " You see," she said to the others, 
 " it is as I said. He has come back." 
 
 The five surveyed the group at the tennis 
 court, and then said : " So he has. I knew 
 he would. Well, I declare! Did you ever?" 
 
70 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 Their voices were pitched at low keys and 
 they moved with care, but their smiles were 
 broad and full of a strange glee. 
 
 " I wonder how he feels," said one in sub- 
 tle ecstasy. 
 
 Another laughed. " You know how you 
 would feel, my dear, if you were him and saw 
 yourself suddenly cut out by a man who was 
 so hopelessly superior to you. Why, Ogle- 
 thorpe's a thousand times better looking. And 
 then think of his wealth and social position ! " 
 
 One whispered dramatically, " They say 
 he never came up here at all yesterday." 
 
 Another replied : " No more he did. 
 That's what we've been talking about. Stayed 
 down at the farm all day, poor fellow ! " 
 
 "Do you really think she cares for Ogle- 
 thorpe ? " 
 
 " Care for him ? Why, of course she 
 does. Why, when they came up the path 
 yesterday morning I never saw a girl's face 
 so bright. I asked my husband how much of 
 the Chambers Street Bank stock Oglethorpe 
 owned, and he said that if Oglethorpe took 
 his money out there wouldn't be enough left 
 to buy a pie." 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 7! 
 
 The youngest woman in the corps said : 
 " Well, I don't care. I think it is too bad. I 
 don't see anything so much in that Mr. Ogle- 
 thorpe." 
 
 The others at once patronized her. " Oh, 
 you don't, my dear? Well, let me tell you 
 that bank stock waves in the air like a banner. 
 You would see it if you were her." 
 
 " Well, she don't have to care for his 
 money." 
 
 " Oh, no, of course she don't have to. But 
 they are just the ones that do, my dear. They 
 are just the ones that do." 
 
 " Well, it's a shame." 
 
 " Oh, of course it's a shame." 
 
 The woman who had assembled the corps 
 said to one at her side : " Oh, the commonest 
 kind of people, my dear, the commonest kind. 
 The father is a regular farmer, you know. 
 He drives oxen. Such language ! You can 
 really hear him miles away bellowing at those 
 oxen. And the girls are shy, half-wild things 
 oh, you have no idea ! I saw one of them 
 yesterday when we were out driving. She 
 dodged as we came along, for I suppose she 
 was ashamed of her frock, poor child ! And 
 
72 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 the mother well, I wish you could see her ! 
 A little, old, dried-up thing. We saw her 
 carrying a pail of water from the well, and, 
 oh, she bent and staggered dreadfully, poor 
 thing ! " 
 
 " And the gate to their front yard, it has a 
 broken hinge, you know. Of course, that's an 
 awful bad sign. When people let their front 
 gate hang on one hinge you know what that 
 means." 
 
 After gazing again at the group at the 
 court, the youngest member of the corps said, 
 " Well, he's a good tennis player anyhow." 
 
 The others smiled indulgently. " Oh, yes, 
 my dear, he's a good tennis player." 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 ONE day Hollander! said, in greeting, to 
 Hawker, " Well, he's gone." 
 
 " Who ? " asked Hawker. 
 
 " Why, Oglethorpe, of course. Who did 
 you think I meant ? " 
 
 " How did I know ? " said Hawker an- 
 grily. 
 
 "Well," retorted Hollanden, "your chief 
 interest was in his movements, I thought." 
 
 " Why, of course not, hang you ! Why 
 should I be interested in his movements ? " 
 
 " Well, you weren't, then. Does that suit 
 you?" 
 
 After a period of silence Hawker asked, 
 " What did he what made him go ? " 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 " Why Oglethorpe." 
 
 " How was I to know you meant him ? 
 Well, he went because some important busi- 
 ness affairs in New York demanded it, he said ; 
 73 
 
74 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 but he is coming back again in a week. They 
 had rather a late interview on the porch last 
 evening." 
 
 " Indeed," said Hawker stiffly. 
 
 "Yes, and he went away this morning 
 looking particularly elated. Aren't you 
 glad?" 
 
 " I don't see how it concerns me," said 
 Hawker, with still greater stiffness. 
 
 In a walk to the lake that afternoon 
 Hawker and Miss Fanhall found themselves 
 side by side and silent. The girl contem- 
 plated the distant purple hills as if Hawker 
 were not at her side and silent. Hawker 
 frowned at the roadway. Stanley, the setter, 
 scouted the fields in a genial gallop. 
 
 At last the girl turned to him. " Seems to 
 me," she said, " seems to me you are dreadful- 
 ly quiet this afternoon." 
 
 " I am thinking about my wretched field 
 of stubble," he answered, still frowning. 
 
 Her parasol swung about until the girl 
 was looking up at his inscrutable profile. " Is 
 it, then, so important that you haven't time to 
 talk to me ? " she asked with an air of what 
 might have been timidity. 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 75 
 
 A smile swept the scowl from his face. 
 " No, indeed," he said, instantly ; " nothing is 
 so important as that." 
 
 She seemed aggrieved then. " Hum you 
 didn't look so," she told him. 
 
 " Well, I didn't mean to look any other 
 way," he said contritely. " You know what 
 a bear I am sometimes. Hollanden says it is 
 a fixed scowl from trying to see uproarious 
 pinks, yellows, and blues." 
 
 A little brook, a brawling, ruffianly little 
 brook, swaggered from side to side down 
 the glade, swirling in white leaps over the 
 great dark rocks and shouting challenge to 
 the hillsides. Hollanden and the Wor- 
 cester girls had halted in a place of ferns 
 and wet moss. Their voices could be heard 
 quarrelling above the clamour of the stream. 
 Stanley, the setter, had sousled himself in a 
 pool and then gone and rolled in the dust 
 of the road. He blissfully lolled there, 
 with his coat now resembling an old door 
 mat. 
 
 " Don't you think Jem is a wonderfully good 
 fellow ? " said the girl to the painter. 
 
 " Why, yes, of course," said Hawker. 
 
76 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 " Well, he is," she retorted, suddenly de- 
 fensive. 
 
 " Of course," he repeated loudly. 
 
 She said, " Well, I don't think you like 
 him as well as I like him." 
 
 " Certainly not," said Hawker. 
 
 " You don't ? " She looked at him in a 
 kind of astonishment. 
 
 " Certainly not," said Hawker again, and 
 very irritably. " How in the wide world do 
 you expect me to like him as well as you like 
 him ? " 
 
 " I don't mean as well," she explained. 
 
 " Oh ! " said Hawker. 
 
 " But I mean you don't like him the way I 
 do at all the way I expected you to like him. 
 I thought men of a certain pattern always 
 fancied their kind of men wherever they met 
 them, don't you know? And I was so sure 
 you and Jem would be friends." 
 
 " Oh ! " cried Hawker. Presently he added, 
 " But he isn't my kind of a man at all." 
 
 " He is. Jem is one of the best fellows in 
 the world." 
 
 Again Hawker cried " Oh ! " 
 
 They paused and looked down at the 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 77 
 
 brook. Stanley sprawled panting in the dust 
 and watched them. Hawker leaned against a 
 hemlock. He sighed and frowned, and then 
 finally coughed with great resolution. " I sup- 
 pose, of course, that I am unjust to him. I 
 care for you myself, you understand, and so 
 it becomes " 
 
 He paused for a moment because he heard 
 a rustling of her skirts as if she had moved 
 suddenly. Then he continued : " And so it 
 becomes difficult for me to be fair to him. I 
 am not able to see him with a true eye." He 
 bitterly addressed the trees on the opposite 
 side of the glen. " Oh, I care for you, of 
 course. You might have expected it." He 
 turned from the trees and strode toward the 
 roadway. The uninformed and disreputable 
 Stanley arose and wagged his tail. 
 
 As if the girl had cried out at a calamity, 
 Hawker said again, " Well, you might have 
 expected it." 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 i 
 
 AT the lake, Hollander! went pickerel fish- 
 ing, lost his hook in a gaunt, gray stump, 
 and earned much distinction by his skill in 
 discovering words to express his emotion 
 without resorting to the list ordinarily used 
 in such cases. The younger Miss Worcester 
 ruined a new pair of boots, and Stanley sat on 
 the bank and howled the song of the forsaken. 
 At the conclusion of the festivities Hollanden 
 said, " Billie, you ought to take the boat 
 back." 
 
 " Why had I ? You borrowed it." 
 
 " Well, I borrowed it and it was a lot of 
 trouble, and now you ought to take it back." 
 
 Ultimately Hawker said, "Oh, let's both 
 go!" 
 
 On this journey Hawker made a long 
 speech to his friend, and at the end of it he 
 exclaimed : " And now do you think she cares 
 
 so much for Oglethorpe? Why, she as good 
 
 78 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 79 
 
 as told me that he was only a very great 
 friend." 
 
 Hollanden wagged his head dubiously. 
 " What a woman says doesn't amount to 
 shucks. It's the way she says it that's what 
 counts. Besides," he cried in a brilliant after- 
 thought, " she wouldn't tell you, anyhow, you 
 fool ! " 
 
 " You're an encouraging brute," said Haw- 
 ker, with a rueful grin. 
 
 Later the Worcester girls seized upon 
 Hollanden and piled him high with ferns and 
 mosses. They dragged the long gray lichens 
 from the chins of venerable pines, and ran 
 with them to Hollanden, and dashed them 
 into his arms. " Oh, hurry up, Hollie ! " they 
 cried, because with his great load he fre- 
 quently fell behind them in the march. He 
 once positively refused to carry these things 
 another step. Some distance farther on the 
 road he positively refused to carry this old 
 truck another step. When almost to the inn 
 he positively refused to carry this senseless 
 rubbish another step. The Worcester girls 
 had such vivid contempt for his expressed 
 unwillingness that they neglected to tell him 
 
80 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 of any appreciation they might have had for 
 his noble struggle. 
 
 As Hawker and Miss Fanhall proceeded 
 slowly they heard a voice ringing through 
 the foliage : " Whoa ! Haw ! Git-ap, blast 
 you ! Haw ! Haw, drat your hides ! Will 
 you haw ? Git-ap ! Gee ! Whoa ! " 
 
 Hawker said, "The others are a good 
 ways ahead. Hadn't we better hurry a 
 little?" 
 
 The girl obediently mended her pace. 
 
 " Whoa ! haw ! git-ap !" shouted the voice in 
 the distance. " Git over there, Red, git over! 
 Gee! Git-ap! And these cries pursued the 
 man and the maid. 
 
 At last Hawker said, " That's my father." 
 
 " Where? " she asked, looking bewildered. 
 
 " Back there, driving those oxen." 
 
 The voice shouted : "Whoa! Git-ap! Gee! 
 Red, git over there now, will you? I'll trim 
 the shin off' n you in a minute. Whoa ! Haw ! 
 Haw! Whoa! Git-ap ! " 
 
 Hawker repeated, " Yes, that's my father." 
 
 "Oh, is it?" she said. "Let's wait for 
 him." 
 
 " All right," said Hawker sullenly. 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 8 1 
 
 Presently a team of oxen waddled into 
 view around the curve of the road. They 
 swung their heads slowly from side to side, 
 bent under the yoke, and looked out at the 
 world with their great eyes, in which was a 
 mystic note of their humble, submissive, toil- 
 some lives. An old wagon creaked after them, 
 and erect upon it was the tall and tattered 
 figure of the farmer swinging his whip and 
 yelling: "Whoa! Haw there! Git-ap ! " The 
 lash flicked and flew over the broad backs of 
 the animals. 
 
 " Hello, father ! " said Hawker. 
 
 "Whoa! Back! Whoa! Why, hello, Wil- 
 liam, what you doing here ? " 
 
 " Oh, just taking a walk. Miss Fanhall, 
 this is my father. Father ' 
 
 " How d' you do ? " The old man balanced 
 himself with care and then raised his straw 
 hat from his head with a quick gesture and 
 with what was perhaps a slightly apologetic 
 air, as if he feared that he was rather over- 
 doing the ceremonial part. 
 
 The girl later became very intent upon the 
 oxen. " Aren't they nice old things ? " she 
 said, as she stood looking into the faces of 
 
82 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 the team. " But what makes their eyes so 
 very sad ? " 
 
 " I dunno," said the old man. 
 
 She was apparently unable to resist a de- 
 sire to pat the nose of the nearest ox, and for 
 that purpose she stretched forth a cautious 
 hand. But the ox moved restlessly at the 
 moment and the girl put her hand apprehen- 
 sively behind herself and backed away. The 
 old man on the wagon grinned. " They won't 
 hurt you/' he told her. 
 
 " They won't bite, will they ? " she asked, 
 casting a glance of inquiry at the old man and 
 then turning her eyes again upon the fascinat- 
 ing animals. 
 
 " No," said the old man, still grinning, 
 " just as gentle as kittens." 
 
 She approached them circuitously. " Sure ? " 
 she said. 
 
 " Sure," replied the old man. He climbed 
 from the wagon and came to the heads of the 
 oxen. With him as an ally, she finally suc- 
 ceeded in patting the nose of the nearest ox. 
 " Aren't they solemn, kind old fellows ? Don't 
 you get to think a great deal of them ? " 
 
 " Well, they're kind of aggravating beasts 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 83 
 
 sometimes," he said. " But they're a good 
 yoke a good yoke. They can haul with any- 
 thing in this region." 
 
 " It doesn't make them so terribly tired, 
 does it ? " she said hopefully. " They are such 
 strong animals." 
 
 " No-o-o," he said. " I dunno. I never 
 thought much about it." 
 
 With their heads close together they be- 
 came so absorbed in their conversation that 
 they seemed to forget the painter. He sat on 
 a log and watched them. 
 
 Ultimately the girl said, " Won't you give 
 us a ride ? " 
 
 " Sure," said the old man. " Come on, and 
 I'll help you up." He assisted her very pains- 
 takingly to the old board that usually served 
 him as a seat, and he clambered to a place 
 beside her. " Come on, William," he called. 
 The painter climbed into the wagon and stood 
 behind his father, putting his hand on the old 
 man's shoulder to preserve his balance. 
 
 " Which is the near ox ? " asked the girl ? 
 with a serious frown. 
 
 " Git-ap ! Haw ! That one there," said the 
 old man. 
 
84 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 " And this one is the off ox ? " 
 
 " Yep." 
 
 " Well, suppose you sat here where I do ; 
 would this one be the near ox and that one 
 the off ox, then ? " 
 
 " Nope. Be just same." 
 
 " Then the near ox isn't always the nearest 
 one to a person, at all ? That ox there is al- 
 ways the near ox ? " 
 
 " Yep, always. 'Cause when you drive 
 'em a-foot you always walk on the left side." 
 
 " Well, I never knew that before." 
 
 After studying them in silence for a while, 
 she said, " Do you think they are happy ? " 
 
 " I dunno," said the old man. " I never 
 thought." As the wagon creaked on they 
 gravely discussed this problem, contemplating 
 profoundly the backs of the animals. Hawker 
 gazed in silence at the meditating two before 
 him. Under the wagon Stanley, the setter, 
 walked slowly, wagging his tail in placid con- 
 tentment and ruminating upon his experiences. 
 
 At last the old man said cheerfully, " Shall 
 I take you around by the inn ? " 
 
 Hawker started and seemed to wince at 
 the question. Perhaps he was about to inter- 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 8$ 
 
 rupt, but the girl cried: " Oh, will you ? Take 
 us right to the door ? Oh, that will be aw- 
 fully good of you ! " 
 
 " Why," began Hawker, " you don't want 
 you don't want to ride to the inn on an on 
 an ox wagon, do you ? " 
 
 " Why, of course I do," she retorted, 
 directing a withering glance at him. 
 
 " Well " he protested. 
 
 " Let 'er be, William," interrupted the old 
 man. " Let 'er do what she wants to. I guess 
 everybody in th' world ain't even got an ox 
 wagon to ride in. Have they ? " 
 
 " No, indeed," she returned, while wither- 
 ing Hawker again. 
 
 " Gee ! Gee ! Whoa ! Haw ! Git-ap ! 
 Haw! Whoa! Back!" 
 
 After these two attacks Hawker became 
 silent. 
 
 " Gee ! Gee ! Gee there, blast s'cuse 
 me. Gee! Whoa! Git-ap!" 
 
 All the boarders of the inn were upon its 
 porches waiting for the dinner gong. There 
 was a surge toward the railing as a middle- 
 aged woman passed the word along her mid- 
 dle-aged friends that Miss Fanhall, accom- 
 
86 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 panied by Mr. Hawker, had arrived on the 
 ox cart of Mr. Hawker's father. 
 
 " Whoa ! Ha ! Git-ap ! " said the old man 
 in more subdued tones. " Whoa there, Red ! 
 Whoa, now ! Wh-o-a ! " 
 
 Hawker helped the girl to alight, and she 
 paused for a moment conversing with the old 
 man about the oxen. Then she ran smiling 
 up the steps to meet the Worcester girls. 
 
 " Oh, such a lovely time ! Those dear old 
 oxen you should have been with us ! " 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 " OH, Miss Fanhall ! " 
 
 " What is it, Mrs. Truscot ? " 
 
 " That was a great prank of yours last 
 night, my dear. We all enjoyed the joke so 
 much." 
 
 "Prank?" 
 
 " Yes, your riding on the ox cart with that 
 old farmer and that young Mr. What's-his- 
 name, you know. We all thought it delicious. 
 Ah, my dear, after all don't be offended if 
 we had your people's wealth and position we 
 might do that sort of unconventional thing, 
 too ; but, ah, my dear, we can't, we can't ! 
 Isn't the young painter a charming man ? " 
 
 Out on the porch Hollanden was ha- 
 ranguing his friends. He heard a step and 
 glanced over his shoulder to see who was 
 about to interrupt him. He suddenly ceased 
 his oration, and said, " Hello ! what's the mat- 
 ter with Grace ? " The heads turned promptlv. 
 87 
 
88 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 As the girl came toward them it could be 
 seen that her cheeks were very pink and her 
 eyes were flashing general wrath and defiance. 
 
 The Worcester girls burst into eager in- 
 terrogation. " Oh, nothing ! " she replied at 
 first, but later she added in an undertone, 
 " That wretched Mrs. Truscot " 
 
 " What did she say ? " whispered the 
 younger Worcester girl. 
 
 " Why, she said oh, nothing! " 
 
 Both Hollanden and Hawker were indus- 
 triously reflecting. 
 
 Later in the morning Hawker said pri- 
 vately to the girl, " I know what Mrs. Truscot 
 talked to you about." 
 
 She turned upon him belligerently. " You 
 do?" 
 
 " Yes," he answered with meekness. " It 
 was undoubtedly some reference to your ride 
 upon the ox wagon." 
 
 She hesitated a moment, and then said, 
 ''Well?" 
 
 With still greater meekness he said, " I am 
 very sorry." 
 
 " Are you, indeed ? " she inquired loftily. 
 "Sorry for what? Sorry that I rode upon 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 89 
 
 your father's ox wagon, or sorry that Mrs. 
 Truscot was rude to me about it ? " 
 
 " Well, in some ways it was my fault." 
 
 " Was it ? I suppose you intend to apolo- 
 gize for your father's owning an ox wagon, 
 don't you?" 
 
 No, but " 
 
 " Well, I am going to ride in the ox wagon 
 whenever I choose. Your father, I know, 
 will always be glad to have me. And if it so 
 shocks you, there is not the slightest necessity 
 of your coming with us." 
 
 They glowered at each other, and he said, 
 " You have twisted the question with the 
 usual ability of your sex." 
 
 She pondered as if seeking some particu- 
 larly destructive retort. She ended by saying 
 bluntly, " Did you know that we were going 
 home next week?" 
 
 A flush came suddenly to his face. " No. 
 Going home ? Who ? You ? " 
 
 " Why, of course." And then with an 
 indolent air she continued, " I meant to have 
 told you before this, but somehow it quite 
 escaped me." 
 
 He stammered, " Are are you, honestly ? " 
 
go THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 She nodded. " Why, of course. Can't 
 stay here forever, you know." 
 
 They were then silent for a long time. 
 
 At last Hawker said, " Do you remember 
 what I told you yesterday ? " 
 
 "No. What was it?" 
 
 He cried indignantly, " You know very 
 well what I told you ! " 
 
 " I do not." 
 
 " No," he sneered, " of course not ! You 
 never take the trouble to remember such 
 things. Of course not ! Of course not ! " 
 
 " You are a very ridiculous person," she 
 vouchsafed, after eying him coldly. 
 
 He arose abruptly. " I believe I am. By 
 heavens, I believe I am ! " he cried in a 
 fury. 
 
 She laughed. " You are more ridiculous 
 now than I have yet seen you." 
 
 After a pause he said magnificently, " Well, 
 Miss Fanhall, you will doubtless find Mr. Hol- 
 landen's conversation to have a much greater 
 interest than that of such a ridiculous per- 
 son." 
 
 Hollanden approached them with the 
 blithesome step of an untroubled man. " Hello, 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 9 ! 
 
 you two people, why don't you oh ahem ! 
 Hold on, Billie, where are you going? " 
 
 " I " began Hawker. 
 
 " Oh, Hollie," cried the girl impetuously, 
 " do tell me how to do that slam thing, you 
 know. I've tried it so often, but I don't be- 
 lieve I hold my racket right. And you do it 
 so beautifully." 
 
 " Oh, that," said Hollanden. " It's not so 
 very difficult. I'll show it to you. You don't 
 want to know this minute, do you ? " 
 
 " Yes," she answered. 
 
 " Well, come over to the court, then. 
 Come ahead, Billie!" 
 
 " No," said Hawker, without looking at his 
 friend, " I can't this morning, Hoilie. I've got 
 to go to work. Good-bye ! " He compre- 
 hended them both in a swift bow and stalked 
 away. 
 
 Hollanden turned quickly to the girl. 
 "What was the matter with Billie? What 
 was he grinding his teeth for ? What was the 
 matter with him?" 
 
 " Why, nothing was there ? " she asked in 
 surprise. 
 
 " Why, he was grinding his teeth until he 
 
g2 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 sounded like a stone crusher," said Hollanden 
 in a severe tone. " What was the matter with 
 him?" 
 
 " How should I know?" she retorted. 
 
 " You've been saying something to him." 
 
 " I ! I didn't say a thing." 
 
 " Yes, you did." 
 
 " Hollie, don't be absurd." 
 
 Hollanden debated with himself for a time, 
 and then observed, " Oh, well, I always said 
 he was an ugly-tempered fellow " 
 
 The girl flashed him a little glance. 
 
 " And now I am sure of it as ugly-tem- 
 pered a fellow as ever lived." 
 
 " I believe you," said the girl. Then she 
 added : " All men are. I declare, I think you 
 to be the most incomprehensible creatures. 
 One never knows what to expect of you. 
 And you explode and go into rages and make 
 yourselves utterly detestable over the most 
 trivial matters and at the most unexpected 
 times. You are all mad, I think." 
 
 "I!" cried Hollanden wildly. " What in 
 the mischief have I done?" 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 "LOOK here," said Hollanden, at length, 
 " I thought you were so wonderfully anxious 
 to learn that stroke ? " 
 
 " Well, I am," she said. 
 
 " Come on, then." As they walked toward 
 the tennis court he seemed to be plunged into 
 mournful thought. In his eyes was a singular 
 expression, which perhaps denoted the woe of 
 the optimist pushed suddenly from its height. 
 He sighed. " Oh, well, I suppose all women, 
 even the best of them, are that way." 
 
 " What way ? " she said. 
 
 " My dear child," he answered, in a benevo- 
 lent manner, " you have disappointed me, be- 
 cause I have discovered that you resemble the 
 rest of your sex." 
 
 " Ah ! " she remarked, maintaining a non- 
 committal attitude. 
 
 " Yes," continued Hollanden, with a sad 
 
 but kindly smile, " even you, Grace, were not 
 7 93 
 
94 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 above fooling with the affections of a poor 
 country swain, until he don't know his ear 
 from the tooth he had pulled two years ago." 
 
 She laughed. " He would be furious if he 
 heard you call him a country swain." 
 
 " Who would ? " said Hollanden. 
 
 " Why, the country swain, of course," she 
 rejoined. 
 
 Hollanden seemed plunged in mournful 
 reflection again. " Well, it's a shame, Grace, 
 anyhow," he observed, wagging his head 
 dolefully. " It's a howling, wicked shame." 
 
 " Hollie, you have no brains at all," she 
 said, " despite your opinion." 
 
 " No," he replied ironically, " not a bit." 
 
 " Well, you haven't, you know, Hollie." 
 
 " At any rate," he said in an angry voice, 
 " I have some comprehension and sympathy 
 for the feelings of others." 
 
 " Have you ? " she asked. " How do you 
 mean, Hollie ? Do you mean you have feel- 
 ing for them in their various sorrows ? Or do 
 you mean that you understand their minds ?" 
 
 Hollanden ponderously began, " There 
 have been people who have not questioned 
 my ability to " 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 95 
 
 " Oh, then, you mean that you both feel 
 for them in their sorrows and comprehend the 
 machinery of their minds. Well, let me tell 
 you that in regard to the last thing you are 
 wrong. You know nothing of anyone's mind. 
 You know less about human nature than any- 
 body I have met." 
 
 Hollanden looked at her in artless astonish- 
 ment. He said, " Now, I wonder what made 
 you say that ? " This interrogation did not 
 seem to be addressed to her, but was evidently 
 a statement to himself of a problem. He 
 meditated for some moments. Eventually he 
 said, " I suppose you mean that I do not un- 
 derstand you?" 
 
 " Why do you suppose I mean that ? " 
 
 " That's what a person usually means when 
 he or she charges another with not under- 
 standing the entire world." 
 
 " Well, at any rate, it is not what I mean 
 at all," she said. " I mean that you habitually 
 blunder about other people's affairs, in the be- 
 lief, I imagine, that you are a great philan- 
 thropist, when you are only making an ex- 
 traordinary exhibition of yourself." 
 
 " The dev " began Hollanden. After- 
 
96 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 ward he said, " Now, I wonder what in blue 
 thunder you mean this time ? " 
 
 " Mean this time ? My meaning- is very 
 plain, Hollie. I supposed the words were 
 clear enough." 
 
 " Yes," he said thoughtfully, " your words 
 were clear enough, but then you were of 
 course referring back to some event, or series 
 of events, in which I had the singular ill for- 
 tune to displease you. Maybe you don't know 
 yourself, and spoke only from the emotion 
 generated by the event, or series of events, in 
 which, as I have said, I had the singular ill 
 fortune to displease you." 
 
 " How awf'ly clever ! " she said. 
 
 " But I can't recall the event, or series of 
 events, at all," he continued, musing with a 
 scholarly air and disregarding her mockery. 
 " I can't remember a thing about it. To be 
 sure, it might have been that time when " 
 
 " I think it very stupid of you to hunt 
 for a meaning when I believe I made every- 
 thing so perfectly clear," she said wrathfully. 
 
 " Well, you yourself might not be aware of 
 what you really meant," he answered sagely. 
 "Women often do that sort of thing, you 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 97 
 
 know. Women often speak from motives 
 which, if brought face to face with them, they 
 wouldn't be able to distinguish from any other 
 thing which they had never before seen." 
 
 " Hollie, if there is a disgusting person in 
 the world it is he who pretends to know so 
 much concerning a woman's mind." 
 
 " Well, that's because they who know, or 
 pretend to know, so much about a woman's 
 mind are invariably satirical, you understand," 
 said Hollanden cheerfully. 
 
 A dog ran frantically across the lawn, his 
 nose high in the air and his countenance 
 expressing vast perturbation and alarm. 
 " Why, Billie forgot to whistle for his dog 
 when he started for home," said Hollanden. 
 "Come here, old man! Well, 'e was a nice 
 dog ! " The girl also gave invitation, but the 
 setter would not heed them. He spun wildly 
 about the lawn until he seemed to strike his 
 master's trail, and then, with his nose near 
 to the ground, went down the road at an 
 eager gallop. They stood and watched him. 
 
 " Stanley's a nice dog," said Hollanden. 
 
 " Indeed he is ! " replied the girl fervently. 
 
 Presently Hollanden remarked : " Well, 
 
98 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 don't let's fight any more, particularly since 
 we can't decide what we're fighting about. I 
 can't discover the reason, and you don't know 
 it, so " 
 
 " I do know it. I told you very plainly." 
 
 " Well, all right. Now, this is the way to 
 work that slam : You give the ball a sort of a 
 lift see ! underhanded and with your arm 
 crooked and stiff. Here, you smash this 
 other ball into the net. Hi ! Look out ! If 
 you hit it that way you'll knock it over the 
 hotel. Let the ball drop nearer to the ground. 
 Oh, heavens, not on the ground ! Well, it's 
 hard to do it from the serve, anyhow. I'll go 
 over to the other court and bat you some easy 
 ones." 
 
 Afterward, when they were going toward 
 the inn, the girl suddenly began to laugh. 
 
 " What are you giggling at ? " said Hol- 
 landen. 
 
 " I was thinking how furious he would be 
 if he heard you call him a country swain," she 
 rejoined. 
 
 " Who ? " asked Hollanden. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 OGLETHORPE contended that the men who 
 made the most money from books were the 
 best authors. Hollanden contended that they 
 were the worst. Oglethorpe said that such a 
 question should be left to the people. Hol- 
 landen said that the people habitually made 
 wrong decisions on questions that were left to 
 them. " That is the most odiously aristocratic 
 belief," said Oglethorpe. 
 
 " No," said Hollanden, " I like the people. 
 But, considered generally, they are a collec- 
 tion of ingenious blockheads." 
 
 " But they read your books," said Ogle- 
 thorpe, grinning. 
 
 " That is through a mistake," replied Hol- 
 landen. 
 
 As the discussion grew in size it incited the 
 close attention of the Worcester girls, but Miss 
 
 Fanhall did not seem to hear it. Hawker, too, 
 99 
 
100 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 was staring into the darkness with a gloomy 
 and preoccupied air. 
 
 " Are you sorry that this is your last even- 
 ing at Hemlock Inn ? " said the painter at last, 
 in a low tone. 
 
 " Why, yes certainly," said the girl. 
 
 Under the sloping porch of the inn the 
 vague orange light from the parlours drifted 
 to the black wall of the night. 
 
 " I shall miss you," said the painter. 
 
 " Oh, I dare say," said the girl. 
 
 Hollanden was lecturing at length and 
 wonderfully. In the mystic spaces of the 
 night the pines could be heard in their weird 
 monotone, as they softly smote branch and 
 branch, as if moving in some solemn and sor- 
 rowful dance. 
 
 " This has been quite the most delightful 
 summer of my experience," said the painter. 
 
 " I have found it very pleasant," said the 
 girl. 
 
 From time to time Hawker glanced fur- 
 tively at Oglethorpe, Hollanden, and the 
 Worcester girl. This glance expressed no 
 desire for their well-being. 
 
 " I shall miss you," he said to the girl 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. IO i 
 
 again. His manner was rather desperate. She 
 made no reply, and, after leaning toward her, 
 he subsided with an air of defeat. 
 
 Eventually he remarked : " It will be very 
 lonely here again. I dare say I shall return to 
 New York myself in a few weeks." 
 
 " I hope you will call," she said. 
 
 " I shall be delighted," he answered stiffly, 
 and with a dissatisfied look at her. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Hawker," cried the younger 
 Worcester girl, suddenly emerging from the 
 cloud of argument which Hollanden and 
 Oglethorpe kept in the air, " won't it be 
 sad to lose Grace ? Indeed, I don't know 
 what we shall do. Sha'n't we miss her dread- 
 fully ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Hawker, " we shall of course 
 miss her dreadfully." 
 
 " Yes, won't it be frightful ? " said the elder 
 Worcester girl. " I can't imagine what we 
 will do without her. And Hollie is only go- 
 ing to spend ten more days. Oh, dear ! 
 mamma, I believe, will insist on staying the 
 entire summer. It was papa's orders, you 
 know, and I really think she is going to obey 
 them. He said he wanted her to have one 
 
102 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 period of rest at any rate. She is such a busy 
 woman in town, you know." 
 
 " Here/' said Hollanden, wheeling to them 
 suddenly, " you all look as if you were badger- 
 ing Hawker, and he looks badgered. What 
 are you saying to him ? " 
 
 " Why," answered the younger Worcester 
 girl, " we were only saying to him how lonely 
 it would be without Grace." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Hollanden. 
 
 As the evening grew old, the mother of the 
 Worcester girls joined the group. This was a 
 sign that the girls were not to long delay the 
 vanishing time. She sat almost upon the edge 
 of her chair, as if she expected to be called 
 upon at any moment to arise and bow " Good- 
 night," and she repaid Hollanden's eloquent 
 attention with the placid and absent-minded 
 smiles of the chaperon who waits. 
 
 Once the younger Worcester girl shrugged 
 her shoulders and turned to say, " Mamma, 
 you make me nervous ! " Her mother merely 
 smiled in a still more placid and absent-minded 
 manner. 
 
 Oglethorpe arose to drag his chair nearer 
 to the railing, and when he stood the Worces- 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 103 
 
 ter mother moved and looked around expect 
 antly, but Oglethorpe took seat again. Haw- 
 ker kept an anxious eye upon her. 
 
 Presently Miss Fanhall arose. 
 
 " Why, you are not going in already, are 
 you ? " said Hawker and Hollanden and Ogle- 
 thorpe. The Worcester mother moved to- 
 ward the door followed by her daughters, 
 who were protesting in muffled tones. Hol- 
 landen pitched violently upon Oglethorpe. 
 
 " Well, at any rate " he said. He picked 
 
 the thread of a past argument with great 
 agility. 
 
 Hawker said to the girl, " I I I shall 
 miss you dreadfully." 
 
 She turned to look at him and smiled. 
 " Shall you ? " she said in a low voice. 
 
 " Yes," he said. Thereafter he stood be- 
 fore her awkwardly and in silence. She scru- 
 tinized the boards of the floor. Suddenly she 
 drew a violet from a cluster of them upon her 
 gown and thrust it out to him as she turned 
 toward the approaching Oglethorpe. 
 
 " Good-night, Mr. Hawker," said the lat- 
 ter. " I am very glad to have met you, I'm 
 sure. Hope to see you in town. Good-night." 
 
104 THE THI ^ D VIOLET. 
 
 He stood near when the girl said to Haw- 
 ker : " Good-bye. You have given us such a 
 charming summer. We shall be delighted to 
 see you in town. You must come some time 
 when the children can see you, too. Good- 
 bye." 
 
 " Good-bye," replied Hawker, eagerly and 
 feverishly, trying to interpret the inscrutable 
 feminine face before him. " I shall come at my 
 first opportunity." 
 
 " Good-bye." 
 
 " Good-bye." 
 
 Down at the farmhouse, in the black quiet 
 of the night, a dog lay curled on the door-mat. 
 Of a sudden the tail of this dog began to 
 thump, thump, on the boards. It began as a 
 lazy movement, but it passed into a state of 
 gentle enthusiasm, and then into one of curi- 
 ously loud and joyful celebration. At last the 
 gate clicked. The dog uncurled, and went to 
 the edge of the steps to greet his master. He 
 gave adoring, tremulous welcome with his 
 clear eyes shining in the darkness. "Well, 
 Stan, old boy," said Hawker, stooping to 
 stroke the dog's head. After his master had 
 entered the house the dog went forward and 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. IO 5 
 
 sniffed at something that lay on the top step. 
 Apparently it did not interest him greatly, for 
 he returned in a moment to the door-mat. 
 
 But he was again obliged to uncurl him- 
 self, for his master came out of the house with 
 a lighted lamp and made search of the door- 
 mat, the steps, and the walk, swearing mean- 
 while in an undertone. The dog wagged his 
 tail and sleepily watched this ceremony. 
 When his master had again entered the house 
 the dog went forward and sniffed at the top 
 step, but the thing that had lain there was 
 gone. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 IT was evident at breakfast that Hawker's 
 sisters had achieved information. "What's 
 the matter with you this morning ? " asked 
 one. " You look as if you hadn't slep' well." 
 
 " There is nothing the matter with me," he 
 rejoined, looking glumly at his plate. 
 
 " Well, you look kind of broke up." 
 
 " How I look is of no consequence. I tell 
 you there is nothing the matter with me." 
 
 " Oh ! " said his sister. She exchanged 
 meaning glances with the other feminine 
 members of the family. Presently the other 
 sister observed, " I heard she was going home 
 to-day." 
 
 " Who ? " said Hawker, with a challenge in 
 his tone. 
 
 " Why, that New York girl Miss What's- 
 her-name," replied the sister, with an un- 
 daunted smile. 
 
 " Did you, indeed ? Well, perhaps she is." 
 106 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 " Oh, you don't know for sure, I s'pose." 
 
 Hawker arose from the table, and, taking 
 his hat, went away. 
 
 " Mary!" said the mother, in the sepulchral 
 tone of belated but conscientious reproof. 
 
 " Well, I don't care. He needn't be so 
 grand. I didn't go to tease him. I don't care." 
 
 " Well, you ought to care," said the old 
 man suddenly. " There's no sense in you 
 wimen folks pestering the boy all the time. 
 Let him alone with his own business, can't 
 you? " 
 
 " Well, ain't we leaving him alone ? " 
 
 " No, you ain't 'cept when he ain't here. 
 I don't wonder the boy grabs his hat and skips 
 out when you git to going." 
 
 " Well, what did we say to him now ? 
 Tell us what we said to him that was so 
 dreadful." 
 
 " Aw, thunder an' lightnin' ! " cried the old 
 man with a sudden great snarl. They seemed 
 to know by this ejaculation that he had 
 emerged in an instant from that place where 
 man endures, and they ended the discussion. 
 The old man continued his breakfast. 
 
 During his walk that morning Hawker 
 
IO8 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 visited a certain cascade, a certain lake, and 
 some roads, paths, groves, nooks. Later in 
 the day he made a sketch, choosing an hour 
 when the atmosphere was of a dark blue, like 
 powder smoke in the shade of trees, and the 
 western sky was burning in strips of red. He 
 painted with a wild face, like a man who is 
 killing. 
 
 After supper he and his father strolled 
 under the apple boughs in the orchard and 
 smoked. Once he gestured wearily. " Oh, I 
 guess I'll go back to New York in 'a few 
 days." . 
 
 " Urn," replied his father calmly. " All 
 right, William." 
 
 Several days later Hawker accosted his 
 father in the barnyard. " I suppose you think 
 sometimes I don't care so much about you 
 and the folks and the old place any more ; but 
 I do." 
 
 " Um," said the old man. " When you 
 goin'?" 
 
 " Where ? " asked Hawker, flushing. 
 
 " Back to New York." 
 
 " Why I hadn't thought much about 
 
 Oh, next week, I guess." 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 I0 9 
 
 " Well, do as you like, William. You 
 know how glad me an* mother and the girls 
 are to have you come home with us whenever 
 you can come. You know that. But you 
 must do as you think best, and if you ought to 
 go back to New York now, William, why do 
 as you think best." 
 
 " Well, my work " said Hawker. 
 
 From time to time the mother made won- 
 dering speech to the sisters. " How much 
 nicer William is now ! He's just as good as he 
 can be. There for a while he was so cross and 
 out of sorts. 1 don't see what could have 
 come over him. But now he's just as good as 
 he can be." 
 
 Hollanden told him, " Come up to the inn 
 more, you fool." 
 
 " I was up there yesterday." 
 
 " Yesterday ! What of that? I've seen the 
 time when the farm couldn't hold you for two 
 hours during the day." 
 
 " Go to blazes ! " 
 
 " Millicent got a letter from Grace Fanhall 
 the other day." 
 
 "That so?" 
 
 " Yes, she did. Grace wrote Say, 
 
 8 
 
1 10 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 does that shadow look pure purple to 
 you ? " 
 
 " Certainly it does, or I wouldn't paint it 
 so, duffer. What did she write ? " 
 
 " Well, if that shadow is pure purple my 
 eyes are liars. It looks a kind of slate 
 colour to me. Lord ! if what you fellows 
 say in your pictures is true, the whole earth 
 must be blazing and burning and glowing 
 and " 
 
 Hawker went into a rage. " Oh, you don't 
 know anything about colour, Hollie. For 
 heaven's sake, shut up, or I'll smash you with 
 the easel." 
 
 " Well, I was going to tell you what Grace 
 wrote in her letter. She said " 
 
 " Go on." 
 
 " Gimme time, can't you ? She said that 
 town was stupid, and that she wished she was 
 back at Hemlock Inn." 
 
 "Oh! Is that all?" 
 
 " Is that all ? I wonder what you ex- 
 pected ? Well, and she asked to be recalled 
 to you." 
 
 -Yes? Thanks." 
 
 " And that's all. 'Gad, for such a devoted 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. m 
 
 man as you were, your enthusiasm and inter- 
 est is stupendous." 
 
 The father said to the mother, " Well, 
 William's going back to New York next 
 week." 
 
 " Is he ? Why, he ain't said nothing to me 
 about it." 
 
 " Well, he is, anyhow." 
 
 " I declare ! What do you s'pose he's going 
 back before September for, John ? " 
 
 " How do I know?" 
 
 " Well, it's funny, John. I bet I bet he's 
 going back so's he can see that girl." 
 
 " He says it's his work." 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 WRINKLES had been peering into the little 
 dry-goods box that acted as a cupboard. 
 " There are only two eggs and half a loaf of 
 bread left," he announced brutally. 
 
 " Heavens ! " said Warwickson from where 
 he lay smoking on the bed. He spoke in a 
 dismal voice. This tone, it is said, had earned 
 him his popular name of Great Grief. 
 
 From different points of the compass 
 Wrinkles looked at the little cupboard with 
 a tremendous scowl, as if he intended thus to 
 frighten the eggs into becoming more than 
 two, and the bread into becoming a loaf. 
 " Plague take it ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 "Oh, shut up, Wrinkles!" said Grief from 
 the bed. 
 
 Wrinkles sat down with an air austere and 
 virtuous. " Well, what are we going to do ? " 
 he demanded of the others. 
 
 Grief, after swearing, said : " There, 
 
 112 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. n$ 
 
 that's right! Now you're happy. The holy 
 office of the inquisition ! Blast your buttons, 
 Wrinkles, you always try to keep us from 
 starving peacefully ! It is two hours before 
 dinner, anyhow, and 
 
 " Well, but what are you going to do ? " 
 persisted Wrinkles. 
 
 Pennoyer, with his head afar down, had 
 been busily scratching at a pen-and-ink draw- 
 ing. He looked up from his board to utter a 
 plaintive optimism. " The Monthly Amaze- 
 ment will pay me to-morrow. They ought 
 to. I've waited over three months now. I'm 
 going down there to-morrow, and perhaps I'll 
 get it." 
 
 His friends listened with airs of tolerance. 
 " Oh, no doubt, Penny, old man." But at last 
 Wrinkles giggled pityingly. Over on the 
 bed Grief croaked deep down in his throat. 
 Nothing was said for a long time thereafter. 
 
 The crash of the New York streets came 
 faintly to this room. 
 
 Occasionally one could hear the tramp of 
 feet in the intricate corridors of the begrimed 
 building which squatted, slumbering, and old, 
 between two exalted commercial structures 
 
II 4 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 which would have had to bend afar down to 
 perceive it. The northward march of the 
 city's progress had happened not to overturn 
 this aged structure, and it huddled there, lost 
 and forgotten, while the cloud-veering towers 
 strode on. 
 
 Meanwhile the first shadows of dusk came 
 in at the blurred windows of the room. Pen- 
 noyer threw down his pen and tossed his 
 drawing over on the wonderful heap of stuff 
 that hid the table. " It's too dark to work." 
 He lit a pipe and walked about, stretching his 
 shoulders like a man whose labour was valu- 
 able. 
 
 When the dusk came fully the youths 
 grew apparently sad. The solemnity of the 
 gloom seemed to make them ponder. " Light 
 the gas, Wrinkles," said Grief fretfully. 
 
 The flood of orange light showed clearly 
 the dull walls lined with sketches, the tousled 
 bed in one corner, the masses of boxes and 
 trunks in another, a little dead stove, and 
 the wonderful table. Moreover, there were 
 wine-coloured draperies flung in some places, 
 and on a shelf, high up, there were plaster 
 casts, with dust in the creases. A long stove- 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. ug 
 
 pipe wandered off in the wrong direction and 
 then turned impulsively toward a hole in the 
 wall. There were some elaborate cobwebs on 
 the ceiling. 
 
 " Well, let's eat," said Grief. 
 
 " Eat," said Wrinkles, with a jeer ; " I told 
 you there was only two eggs and a little bread 
 left. How are we going to eat?" 
 
 Again brought face to face with this prob- 
 lem, and at the hour for dinner, Pennoyer and 
 Grief thought profoundly. " Thunder and 
 turf ! " Grief finally announced as the result of 
 his deliberations. 
 
 " Well, if Billie Hawker was only home " 
 
 began Pennoyer. 
 
 "But he isn't," objected Wrinkles, "and 
 that settles that." 
 
 Grief and Pennoyer thought more. Ulti- 
 mately Grief said, " Oh, well, let's eat what 
 we've got." The others at once agreed to 
 this suggestion, as if it had been in their 
 minds. 
 
 Later there came a quick step in the pas- 
 sage and a confident little thunder upon the 
 door. Wrinkles arranging the tin pail on the 
 gas stove, Pennoyer engaged in slicing the 
 
Il6 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 bread, and Great Grief affixing the rubber 
 tube to the gas stove, yelled, " Come in ! " 
 
 The door opened, and Miss Florinda 
 O'Connor, the model, dashed into the room 
 like a gale of obstreperous autumn leaves. 
 
 " Why, hello, Splutter ! " they cried. 
 
 " Oh, boys, I've come to dine with you." 
 
 It was like a squall striking a fleet of 
 yachts. 
 
 Grief spoke first. " Yes, you have ? " he 
 said incredulously. 
 
 "Why, certainly I have. What's the 
 matter?" 
 
 They grinned. " Well, old lady," respond- 
 ed Grief, "you've hit us at the wrong time. 
 We are, in fact, all out of everything. No 
 dinner, to mention, and, what's more, we 
 haven't got a sou." 
 
 " What ? Again ? " cried Florinda. 
 
 "Yes, again. You'd better dine home to- 
 night." 
 
 "But I'll I'll stake you," said the girl 
 eagerly. " Oh, you poor old idiots ! It's a 
 shame! Say, I'll stake you." 
 
 " Certainly not," said Pennoyer sternly. 
 
 " What are you talking about, Splut- 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 ter ? " demanded Wrinkles in an angry 
 voice. 
 
 " No, that won't go down," said Grief, in a 
 resolute yet wistful tone. 
 
 Florinda divested herself of her hat, jacket, 
 and gloves, and put them where she pleased. 
 "Got coffee, haven't you? Well, I'm not 
 going to stir a step. You're a fine lot of 
 birds ! " she added bitterly. " You've all pulled 
 me out of a whole lot of scrape oh, any num- 
 ber of times and now you're broke, you go 
 acting like a set of dudes." 
 
 Great Grief had fixed the coffee to boil on 
 the gas stove, but he had to watch it closely, 
 for the rubber tube was short, and a chair was 
 balanced on a trunk, and two bundles of kin- 
 dling was balanced on the chair, and the gas 
 stove was balanced on the kindling. Coffee- 
 making was here accounted a feat. 
 
 Pennoyer dropped a piece of bread to 
 the floor. " There ! I'll have to go shy 
 one." 
 
 Wrinkles sat playing serenades on his 
 guitar and staring with a frown at the table, 
 as if he was applying some strange method of 
 clearing it of its litter. 
 
n g THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 Florinda assaulted Great Grief. " Here, 
 that's not the way to make coffee ! " 
 
 "What ain't?" 
 
 " Why, the way you're making it. You 
 
 want to take " She explained some way 
 
 to him which he couldn't understand. 
 
 " For heaven's sake, Wrinkles, tackle that 
 table ! Don't sit there like a music box," said 
 Pennoyer, grappling the eggs and starting for 
 the gas stove. 
 
 Later, as they sat around the board, Wrin- 
 kles said with satisfaction, " Well, the coffee's 
 good, anyhow." 
 
 "'Tis good," said Florinda, "but it isn't 
 made right. I'll show you how, Penny. You 
 first " 
 
 " Oh, dry up, Splutter," said Grief. " Here, 
 take an egg." 
 
 " I don't like eggs," said Florinda. 
 
 " Take an egg," said the three hosts 
 menacingly. 
 
 " I tell you I don't like eggs." 
 
 " Take an egg ! " they said again. 
 
 "Oh, well," said Florinda, "I'll take one, 
 then ; but you needn't act like such a set of 
 dudes and, oh, maybe you didn't have much 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 119 
 
 lunch. I had such a daisy lunch ! Up at 
 Pontiac's studio. He's got a lovely studio." 
 
 The three looked to be oppressed. Grief 
 said sullenly, " I saw some of his things over 
 in Stencil's gallery, and they're rotten." 
 
 " Yes rotten," said Pennoyer. 
 
 " Rotten," said Grief. 
 
 " Oh, well," retorted Florinda, " if a man 
 has a swell studio and dresses oh, sort of like 
 a Willie, you know, you fellows sit here like 
 owls in a cave and say rotten rotten rotten. 
 You're away off. Pontiac's landscapes " 
 
 " Landscapes be blowed ! Put any of his 
 work alongside of Billie Hawker's and see 
 how it looks." 
 
 " Oh, well, Billie Hawker's," said Florinda. 
 " Oh, well." 
 
 At the mention of Hawker's name they 
 had all turned to scan her face. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 " HE wrote that he was coming home this 
 week," said Pennoyer. 
 
 " Did he ? " asked Florinda indifferently. 
 
 " Yes. Aren't you glad ? " 
 
 They were still watching her face. 
 
 " Yes, of course I'm glad. Why shouldn't 
 I be glad ? " cried the girl with defiance. 
 
 They grinned. 
 
 " Oh, certainly. Billie Hawker is a good 
 fellow, Splutter. You have a particular right 
 to be glad." 
 
 " You people make me tired," Florinda re- 
 torted. " Billie Hawker doesn't give a rap 
 about me, and he never tried to make out that 
 he did." 
 
 " No," said Grief. " But that isn't saying 
 that you don't care a rap about Billie Hawker. 
 Ah, Florinda ! " 
 
 It seemed that the girl's throat suffered a 
 
 I2O 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. I2 j 
 
 slight contraction. " Well, and what if I do?" 
 she demanded finally. 
 
 " Have a cigarette ? " answered Grief. 
 
 Florinda took a cigarette, lit it, and, perch- 
 ing herself on a divan, which was secretly a 
 coal box, she smoked fiercely. 
 
 "What if I do?" she again demanded. 
 " It's better than liking one of you dubs, any- 
 how." 
 
 " Oh, Splutter, you poor little outspoken 
 kid ! " said Wrinkle in a sad voice. 
 
 Grief searched among the pipes until he 
 found the best one. " Yes, Splutter, don't 
 you know that when you are so frank you 
 defy every law of your sex, and wild eyes will 
 take your trail ? " 
 
 " Oh, you talk through your hat," replied 
 Florinda. " Billie don't care whether I like 
 him or whether I don't. And if he should 
 hear me now, he wouldn't be glad or give a 
 hang, either way. I know that." The girl 
 paused and looked at the row of plaster casts. 
 " Still, you needn't be throwing it at me all 
 the time." 
 
 "We didn't," said Wrinkles indignantly. 
 " You threw it at yourself." 
 
122 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 "Well," continued Florinda, "it's better 
 than liking one of you dubs, anyhow. He 
 makes money and " 
 
 " There," said Grief, " now you've hit it ! 
 Bedad, you've reached a point in eulogy 
 where if you move again you will have to go 
 backward." 
 
 " Of course I don't care anything about a 
 fellow's having money " 
 
 " No, indeed you don't, Splutter," said 
 Pennoyer. 
 
 " But then, you know what I mean. A 
 fellow isn't a man and doesn't stand up 
 straight unless he has some money. And 
 Billie Hawker makes enough so that you feel 
 that nobody could walk over him, don't you 
 know? And there isn't anything jay about 
 him, either. He's a thoroughbred, don't you 
 know ? " 
 
 After reflection, Pennoyer said, " It's 
 pretty hard on the rest of us, Splutter." 
 
 " Well, of course I like him, but but " 
 
 " What ? " said Pennoyer. 
 
 " I don't know," said Florinda. 
 
 Purple Sanderson lived in this room, but 
 he usually dined out. At a certain time in his 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 123 
 
 life, before he came to be a great artist, he 
 had learned the gas-fitter's trade, and when 
 his opinions were not identical with the opin- 
 ions of the art managers of the greater num- 
 ber of New York publications he went to see 
 a friend who was a plumber, and the opinions 
 of this man he was thereafter said to respect. 
 He frequented a very neat restaurant on 
 Twenty-third Street. It was known that on 
 Saturday nights Wrinkles, Grief, and Pen- 
 noyer frequently quarreled with him. 
 
 As Florinda ceased speaking Purple en- 
 tered. " Hello, there, Splutter ! " As he was 
 neatly hanging up his coat, he said to the oth- 
 ers, " Well, the rent will be due in four days." 
 
 "Will it?" asked Pennoyer, astounded. 
 
 "Certainly it will," responded Purple, 
 with the air of a superior financial man. 
 
 " My soul ! " said Wrinkles. 
 
 " Oh, shut up, Purple ! " said Grief. " You 
 make me weary, coming around here with 
 your chin about rent. I was just getting 
 happy." 
 
 "Well, how are we going to pay it? 
 That's the point," said Sanderson. 
 
 Wrinkles sank deeper in his chair and 
 
124 
 
 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 played despondently on his guitar. Grief 
 cast a look of rage at Sanderson, and then 
 stared at the wall. Pennoyer said, " Well, we 
 might borrow it from Billie Hawker." 
 
 Florinda laughed then. 
 
 " Oh," continued Pennoyer hastily, " if 
 those Amazement people pay me when they 
 said they would I'll have the money." 
 
 "So you will," said Grief. "You will 
 have money to burn. Did the Amazement peo- 
 ple ever pay you when they said they would ? 
 You are wonderfully important all of a sud- 
 den, it seems to me. You talk like an artist." 
 
 Wrinkles, too, smiled at Pennoyer. " The 
 Eminent Magazine people wanted Penny to 
 hire models and make a try for them, too. It 
 would only cost him a stack of blues. By the 
 time he has invested all his money he hasn't 
 got, and the rent is three weeks overdue, 
 he will be able to tell the landlord to wait 
 seven months until the Monday morning after 
 the day of publication. Go ahead, Penny." 
 
 After a period of silence, Sanderson, in an 
 obstinate manner, said, " Well, what's to be 
 done ? The rent has got to be paid." 
 
 Wrinkles played more sad music. Grief 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 125 
 
 frowned deeper. Pennoyer was evidently 
 searching his mind for a plan. 
 
 Florinda took the cigarette from between 
 her lips that she might grin with greater 
 freedom. 
 
 " We might throw Purple out," said Grief, 
 with an inspired air. " That would stop all 
 this discussion." 
 
 " You ! " said Sanderson furiously. " You 
 can't keep serious a minute. If you didn't 
 have us to take care of you, you wouldn't 
 even know when they threw you out into the 
 street." 
 
 " Wouldn't I ? " said Grief. 
 
 "Well, look here," interposed Florinda, 
 " I'm going home unless you can be more 
 interesting. I am dead sorry about the rent, 
 but I can't help it, and " 
 
 " Here ! Sit down ! Hold on, Splutter ! " 
 they shouted. Grief turned to Sanderson : 
 " Purple, you shut up ! " 
 
 Florinda curled again on the divan and lit 
 another cigarette. The talk waged about the 
 names of other and more successful painters, 
 whose work they usually pronounced "rot- 
 ten." 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 PENNOYER, coming home one morning 
 with two gigantic cakes to accompany the 
 coffee at the breakfast in the den, saw a young 
 man bounce from a horse car. He gave a 
 shout. " Hello, there, Billie ! Hello ! " 
 
 " Hello, Penny ! " said Hawker. " What 
 are you doing out so early ? " It was some- 
 what after nine o'clock. 
 
 " Out to get breakfast," said Pennoyer, 
 waving the cakes. " Have a good time, old 
 man?" 
 
 " Great." 
 
 "Do much work?" 
 
 " No. Not so much. How are all the 
 people?" 
 
 " Oh, pretty good. Come in and see us 
 eat breakfast," said Pennoyer, throwing open 
 the door of the den. Wrinkles, in his shirt, 
 
 was making coffee. Grief sat in a chair try- 
 126 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 ing to loosen the grasp of sleep. " Why, 
 Billie Hawker, b'ginger ! " they cried. 
 
 " How's the wolf, boys ? At the door 
 yet?" 
 
 "'At the door yet?' He's halfway up 
 the back stairs, and coming fast. He and the 
 landlord will be here to-morrow. ' Mr. Land- 
 lord, allow me to present Mr. F. Wolf, of 
 Hunger, N. J. Mr. Wolf Mr. Landlord.'" 
 
 "Bad as that?" said Hawker. 
 
 " You bet it is ! Easy Street is somewhere 
 in heaven, for all we know. Have some break- 
 fast ? coffee and cake, I mean." 
 
 " No, thanks, boys. Had breakfast." 
 
 Wrinkles added to the shirt, Grief aroused 
 himself, and Pennoyer brought the coffee. 
 Cheerfully throwing some drawings from the 
 table to the floor, they thus made room for 
 the breakfast, and grouped themselves with 
 beaming smiles at the board. 
 
 " Well, Billie, come back to the old gang 
 again, eh ? How did the country seem ? Do 
 much work ? " 
 
 " Not very much. A few things. How's 
 everybody ? " 
 
 " Splutter was in last night. Looking out 
 
!28 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 of sight. Seemed glad to hear that you were 
 coming back soon." 
 
 " Did she ? Penny, did anybody call want- 
 ing me to do a ten-thousand-dollar portrait for 
 them ? " 
 
 " No. That frame - maker, though, was 
 here with a bill. I told him " 
 
 Afterward Hawker crossed the corridor and 
 threw open the door of his own large studio. 
 The great skylight, far above his head, shed 
 its clear rays upon a scene which appeared to 
 indicate that some one had very recently 
 ceased work here and started for the country. 
 A distant closet door was open, and the in- 
 terior showed the effects of a sudden pillage. 
 
 There was an unfinished " Girl in Apple 
 Orchard " upon the tall Dutch easel, and 
 sketches and studies were thick upon the 
 floor. Hawker took a pipe and filled it from 
 his friend the tan and gold jar. He cast him- 
 self into a chair and, taking an envelope from 
 his pocket, emptied two violets from it to the 
 palm of his hand and stared long at them. 
 Upon the walls of the studio various labours 
 of his life, in heavy gilt frames, contemplated 
 him and the violets. 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 129 
 
 At last Pennoyer burst impetuously in 
 
 upon him. " Hi, Billie ! come over and 
 
 What's the matter?" 
 
 Hawker had hastily placed the violets in 
 the envelope and hurried it to his pocket. 
 " Nothing," he answered. 
 
 "Why, I thought" said Pennoyer, "I 
 thought you looked rather rattled. Didn't 
 you have I thought I saw something in your 
 hand." 
 
 "Nothing, I tell you!" cried Hawker. 
 
 " Er oh, I beg your pardon," said Pen- 
 noyer. " Why, I was going to tell you that 
 Splutter is over in our place, and she wants to 
 see you." 
 
 " Wants to see me ? What for? " demanded 
 Hawker. " Why don't she come over here, 
 then?" 
 
 " I'm sure I don't know," replied Pennoyer. 
 " She sent me to call you." 
 
 "Well, do you think I'm going to Oh, 
 
 well, I suppose she wants to be unpleasant, and 
 knows she loses a certain mental position if she 
 comes over here, but if she meets me in your 
 place she can be as infernally disagreeable as 
 she That's it, I'll bet." 
 
130 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 When they entered the den Florinda was 
 gazing from the window. Her back was 
 toward the door. 
 
 At last she turned to them, holding herself 
 very straight. " Well, Billie Hawker," she 
 said grimly, "you don't seem very glad to 
 see a fellow." 
 
 " Why, heavens, did you think I was going 
 to turn somersaults in the air ? " 
 
 " Well, you didn't come out when you 
 heard me pass your door," said Florinda, with 
 gloomy resentment. 
 
 Hawker appeared to be ruffled and vexed. 
 " Oh, great Scott ! " he said, making a gesture 
 of despair. 
 
 Florinda returned to the window. In the 
 ensuing conversation she took no part, save 
 when there was an opportunity to harry 
 some speech of Hawker's, which she did in 
 short contemptuous sentences. Hawker made 
 no reply save to glare in her direction. At 
 last he said, " Well, I must go over and do 
 some work." Florinda did not turn from the 
 window. " Well, so-long, boys," said Haw- 
 ker, " I'll see you later." 
 
 As the door slammed Pennoyer apologet- 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 131 
 
 ically said, " Billie is a trifle off his feed this 
 morning." 
 
 " What about ? " asked Grief. 
 
 " I don't know ; but when I went to call 
 him he was sitting deep in his chair staring 
 
 at some " He looked at Florinda and 
 
 became silent. 
 
 "Staring at what? "asked Florinda, turn- 
 ing then from the window. 
 
 Pennoyer seemed embarrassed. " Why, I 
 don't know nothing, I guess I couldn't see 
 very well. I was only fooling." 
 
 Florinda scanned his face suspiciously. 
 " Staring at what ? " she demanded impera- 
 tively. 
 
 " Nothing, I tell you ! " shouted Pennoyer. 
 
 Florinda looked at him, and wavered and 
 debated. Presently she said, softly : " Ah, go 
 on, Penny. Tell me." 
 
 "It wasn't anything at all, I say!" cried 
 Pennoyer stoutly. " I was only giving you a 
 jolly. Sit down, Splutter, and hit a ciga- 
 rette." 
 
 She obeyed, but she continued to cast the 
 dubious eye at Pennoyer. Once she said to 
 him privately : " Go on, Penny, tell me. I 
 
I3 2 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 know it was something from the way you 
 are acting." 
 
 " Oh, let up, Splutter, for heaven's sake ! " 
 
 " Tell me,'* beseeched Florinda. 
 
 " No." 
 
 "Tell me." 
 
 No." 
 
 "Pl-e-a-se tell me." 
 
 " No." 
 
 "Oh, go on." 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Ah, what makes you so mean, Penny ? 
 You know I'd tell you, if it was the other way 
 about." 
 
 " But it's none of my business, Splutter. 
 I can't tell you something which is Billie 
 Hawker's private affair. If I did I would be 
 a chump." 
 
 " But I'll never say you told me. Go on." 
 
 " No." 
 
 "Pl-e-a-se tell me." 
 
 " No." 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 WHEN Florinda had gone, Grief said, 
 "Well, what was it?" Wrinkles looked 
 curiously from his drawing-board. 
 
 Pennoyer lit his pipe and held it at the 
 side of his mouth in the manner of a delib- 
 erate man. At last he said, " It was two 
 violets." 
 
 " You don't say ! " ejaculated Wrinkles. 
 
 " Well, I'm hanged ! " cried Grief. " Hold- 
 ing them in his hand and moping over them, 
 eh?" 
 
 " Yes," responded Pennoyer. " Rather 
 that way." 
 
 " Well, I'm hanged ! " said both Grief and 
 Wrinkles. They grinned in a pleased, urchin- 
 like manner. " Say, who do you suppose she 
 is ? Somebody he met this summer, no doubt. 
 Would you ever think old Billie would get 
 into that sort of a thing ? Well, I'll be gol- 
 
 durned ! " 
 
 133 
 
134 
 
 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 Ultimately Wrinkles said, "Well, it's his 
 own business." This was spoken in a tone of 
 duty. 
 
 " Of course it's his own business," retorted 
 
 Grief. " But who would ever think " 
 
 Again they grinned. 
 
 When Hawker entered the den some min- 
 utes later he might have noticed something un- 
 usual in the general demeanour. " Say, Grief, 
 
 will you loan me your What's up?" he 
 
 asked. 
 
 For answer they grinned at each other, 
 and then grinned at him. 
 
 "You look like a lot of Chessy cats," he 
 told them. 
 
 They grinned on. 
 
 Apparently feeling unable to deal with 
 these phenomena, he went at last to the door. 
 " Well, this is a fine exhibition," he said, stand- 
 ing with his hand on the knob and regarding 
 them. " Won election bets ? Some good old 
 auntie just died? Found something new to 
 pawn? No? Well, I can't stand this. You 
 resemble those fish they discover at deep sea. 
 Good-bye ! " 
 
 As he opened the door they cried out: 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 135 
 
 11 Hold on, Billie ! Billie, look here ! Say, 
 who is she? " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Who is she?" 
 
 "Who is who?" 
 
 They laughed and nodded. "Why, you 
 know. She. Don't you understand ? She." 
 
 "You talk like a lot of crazy men," said 
 Hawker. " I don't know what you mean." 
 
 " Oh, you don't, eh ? You don't ? Oh, no ! 
 How about those violets you were moping 
 over this morning? Eh, old man! Oh, no, 
 you don't know what we mean! Oh, no! 
 How about those violets, eh? How about 
 'em?" 
 
 Hawker, with flushed and wrathful face, 
 
 looked at Pennoyer. " Penny " But 
 
 Grief and Wrinkles roared an interruption. 
 " Oh, ho, Mr. Hawker ! so it's true, is it ? 
 It's true. You are a nice bird, you are. 
 Well, you old rascal ! Durn your pic- 
 ture ! " 
 
 Hawker, menacing them once with his 
 eyes, went away. They sat cackling. 
 
 At noon, when he met Wrinkles in the 
 corridor, he said : " Hey, Wrinkles, come here 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 for a minute, will you? Say, old man, I 
 I " 
 
 "What? "said Wrinkles. 
 
 " Well, you know, I I of course, every 
 man is likely to make an accursed idiot of 
 himself once in a while, and I " 
 
 "And you what?" asked Wrinkles. 
 
 " Well, we are a kind of a band of hood- 
 lums, you know, and I'm just enough idiot to 
 feel that I don't care to hear don't care to 
 hear well, her name used, you know." 
 
 " Bless your heart," replied Wrinkles, 
 " we haven't used her name. We don't 
 know her name. How could we use it?" 
 
 " Well, I know," said Hawker. " But you 
 understand what I mean, Wrinkles." 
 
 " Yes, I understand what you mean," said 
 Wrinkles, with dignity. " I don't suppose 
 you are any worse of a stuff than common. 
 Still, I didn't know that we were such out- 
 laws." 
 
 "Of course, I have overdone the thing," 
 responded Hawker hastily. " But you 
 ought to understand how I mean it, Wrin- 
 kles." 
 
 After Wrinkles had thought for a time, he 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 137 
 
 said : " Well, I guess I do. All right. That 
 goes." 
 
 Upon entering the den, Wrinkles said, 
 " You fellows have got to quit guying Billie, 
 do you hear?" 
 
 " We ? " cried Grief. " We've got to quit ? 
 What do you do ? " 
 
 "Well, I quit too." 
 
 Pennoyer said: "Ah, ha! Billie has been 
 jumping on you." 
 
 "No, he didn't," maintained Wrinkles; 
 " but he let me know it was well, rather a 
 rather a sacred subject." Wrinkles blushed 
 when the others snickered. 
 
 In the afternoon, as Hawker was going 
 slowly down the stairs, he was almost impaled 
 upon the feather of a hat which, upon the 
 head of a lithe and rather slight girl, charged 
 up at him through the gloom. 
 
 "Hello, Splutter!" he cried. "You are 
 in a hurry." 
 
 " That you, Billie ? " said the girl, peering, 
 for the hallways of this old building remained 
 always in a dungeonlike darkness. 
 
 " Yes, it is. Where are you going at such 
 a headlong gait?" 
 
138 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 " Up to see the boys. I've got a bottle of 
 wine and some some pickles, you know. 
 I'm going to make them let me dine with 
 them to-night. Coming back, Billie ? " 
 
 " Why, no, I don't expect to." 
 
 He moved then accidentally in front of the 
 light that sifted through the dull, gray panes 
 of a little window. 
 
 " Oh, cracky ! " cried the girl ; " how 
 fine you are, Billie ! Going to a coronation ? " 
 
 "No," said Hawker, looking seriously 
 over his collar and down at his clothes. 
 "Fact is er well, I've got to make a 
 call." 
 
 "A call bless us! And are you really 
 going to wear those gray gloves you're hold- 
 ing there, Billie? Say, wait until you get 
 around the corner. They won't stand 'em on 
 this street." 
 
 " Oh, well," said Hawker, depreciating the 
 gloves " oh, well." 
 
 The girl looked up at him. " Who you 
 going to call on ?" 
 
 " Oh," said Hawker, "a friend." 
 
 " Must be somebody most extraordinary, 
 you look so dreadfully correct. Come back, 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 139 
 
 Billie, won't you ? Come back and dine with 
 us." 
 
 " Why, I I don't believe I can." 
 
 " Oh, come on ! It's fun when we all dine 
 together. Won't you, Billie ? " 
 
 Well, I " 
 
 " Oh, don't be so stupid ! " The girl 
 stamped her foot and flashed her eyes at 
 him angrily. 
 
 "Well, I'll see I will if I can I can't 
 tell " He left her rather precipitately. 
 
 Hawker eventually appeared at a certain 
 austere house where he rang the bell with 
 quite nervous fingers. 
 
 But she was not at home. As he went 
 down the steps his eyes were as those of a 
 man whose fortunes have tumbled upon him. 
 As he walked down the street he wore in 
 some subtle way the air of a man who has 
 been grievously wronged. When he rounded 
 the corner, his lips were set strangely, as if he 
 were a man seeking revenge. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 " IT'S just right," said Grief. 
 
 " It isn't quite cool enough," said Wrin- 
 kles. 
 
 " Well, I guess I know the proper tem- 
 perature for claret." 
 
 " Well, I guess you don't. If it was 
 buttermilk, now, you would know, but you 
 can't tell anything about claret." 
 
 Florinda ultimately decided the question. 
 " It isn't quite cool enough," she said, laying 
 her hand on the bottle. " Put it on the win- 
 dow ledge, Grief." 
 
 " Hum ! Splutter, I thought you knew 
 more than " 
 
 " Oh, shut up ! " interposed the busy Pen- 
 noyer from a remote corner. " Who is going 
 after the potato salad ? That's what I want to 
 know. Who is going ? " 
 
 " Wrinkles," said Grief. 
 
 " Grief," said Wrinkles. 
 140 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. I4I 
 
 "There," said Pennoyer, coming forward 
 and scanning a late work with an eye of satis- 
 faction. "There's the three glasses and the 
 little tumbler ; and then, Grief, you will have 
 to drink out of a mug." 
 
 " I'll be double-dyed black if I will ! " cried 
 Grief. " I wouldn't drink claret out of a mug 
 to save my soul from being pinched ! " 
 
 "You duffer, you talk like a bloomin' 
 British chump on whom the sun never sets ! 
 What do you want? " 
 
 " Well, there's enough without that 
 what's the matter with you? Three glasses 
 and the little tumbler." 
 
 " Yes, but if Billie Hawker comes " 
 
 " Well, let him drink out of the mug, then. 
 He " 
 
 " No, he won't," said Florinda suddenly. 
 " I'll take the mug myself." 
 
 "All right, Splutter," rejoined Grief 
 meekly. "I'll keep the mug. But, still, I 
 don't see why Billie Hawker " 
 
 "I shall take the mug," reiterated Flo- 
 rinda firmly. 
 
 " But I don't see why " 
 
 "Let her alone, Grief," said Wrinkles. 
 
 10 
 
I4 2 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 " She has decided that it is heroic. You can't 
 move her now." 
 
 "Well, who is going for the potato salad?" 
 cried Pennoyer again. " That's what I want 
 to know." 
 
 "Wrinkles," said Grief. 
 
 " Grief," said Wrinkles. 
 
 " Do you know," remarked Florinda, rais- 
 ing her head from where she had been toiling 
 over the spaghetti, " I don't care so much for 
 Billie Hawker as I did once ? " Her sleeves 
 were rolled above the elbows of her wonder- 
 ful arms, and she turned from the stove and 
 poised a fork as if she had been smitten at her 
 task with this inspiration. 
 
 There was a short silence, and then Wrin- 
 kles said politely, " No." 
 
 " No," continued Florinda, " I really don't 
 believe I do." She suddenly started. " Listen! 
 Isn't that him coming now ? " 
 
 The dull trample of a step could be heard 
 in some distant corridor, but it died slowly to 
 silence. 
 
 " I thought that might be him," she said, 
 turning to the spaghetti again. 
 
 " I hope the old Indian comes," said Pen- 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 143 
 
 noyer, "but I don't believe he will. Seems 
 to me he must be going to see 
 
 " Who? " asked Florinda. 
 
 " Well, you know, Hollanden and he usu- 
 ally dine together when they are both in 
 town." 
 
 Florinda looked at Pennoyer. " I know, 
 Penny. You must have thought I was re- 
 markably clever not to understand all your 
 blundering. But I don't care so much. 
 Really I don't." 
 
 " Of course not," assented Pennoyer. 
 
 " Really I don't." 
 
 " Of course not." 
 
 "Listen!" exclaimed Grief, who was near 
 the door. " There he comes now." Some- 
 body approached, whistling an air from "Tra- 
 viata," which rang loud and clear, and low and 
 muffled, as the whistler wound among the 
 intricate hallways. This air was as much a 
 part of Hawker as his coat. The spaghetti had 
 arrived at a critical stage. Florinda gave it 
 her complete attention. 
 
 When Hawker opened the door he ceased 
 whistling and said gruffly, " Hello ! " 
 
 " Just the man ! " said Grief. " Go after 
 
144 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 the potato salad, will you, Billie? There's a 
 good boy ! Wrinkles has refused." 
 
 "He can't carry the salad with those 
 gloves," interrupted Florinda, raising her 
 eyes from her work and contemplating them 
 with displeasure. 
 
 " Hang the gloves ! " cried Hawker, drag- 
 ging them from his hands and hurling them 
 at the divan. " What's the matter with you, 
 Splutter?" 
 
 Pennoyer said, " My, what a temper you 
 are in, Billie ! " 
 
 " I am," replied Hawker. " I feel like an 
 Apache. Where do you get this accursed 
 potato salad ? " 
 
 " In Second Avenue. You know where. 
 At the old place." 
 
 " No, I don't ! " snapped Hawker. 
 
 - Why " 
 
 " Here," said Florinda, " I'll go." She had 
 already rolled down her sleeves and was ar- 
 raying herself in her hat and jacket. 
 
 " No, you won't," said Hawker, filled with 
 wrath. " I'll go myself." 
 
 " We can both go, Billie, if you are so 
 bent," replied the girl in a conciliatory voice. 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 145 
 
 " Well, come on, then. What are you 
 standing there for ? " 
 
 When these two had departed, Wrinkles 
 said : " Lordie ! What's wrong with Billie ? " 
 
 " He's been discussing art with some pot- 
 boiler," said Grief, speaking as if this was the 
 final condition of human misery. 
 
 " No, sir," said Pennoyer. " It's something 
 connected with the now celebrated violets." 
 
 Out in the corridor Florinda said, " What 
 what makes you so ugly, Billie ? " 
 
 " Why, I am not ugly, am I ? " 
 
 " Yes, you are ugly as anything." 
 
 Probably he saw a grievance in her eyes, 
 for he said, " Well, I don't want to be ugly." 
 His tone seemed tender. The halls were in- 
 tensely dark, and the girl placed her hand on 
 his arm. As they rounded a turn in the stairs 
 a straying lock of her hair brushed against 
 his temple. " Oh ! " said Florinda, in a low 
 voice. 
 
 " We'll get some more claret," observed 
 Hawker musingly. "And some cognac for 
 the coffee. And some cigarettes. Do you 
 think of anything more, Splutter?" 
 
 As they came from the shop of the illus- 
 
146 
 
 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 trious purveyors of potato salad in Second 
 Avenue, Florinda cried anxiously, " Here, 
 Billie, you let me carry that ! " 
 
 " What infernal nonsense ! " said Hawker, 
 flushing. " Certainly not ! " 
 
 " Well/' protested Florinda, " it might soil 
 your gloves somehow." 
 
 " In heaven's name, what if it does ? Say, 
 young woman, do you think I am one of these 
 cholly boys ? " 
 
 " No, Billie ; but then, you know " 
 
 " Well, if you don't take me for some kind 
 of a Willie, give us peace on this blasted glove 
 business ! " 
 
 " I didn't mean " 
 
 " Well, you've been intimating that I've 
 got the only pair of gray gloves in the uni- 
 verse, but you are wrong. There are several 
 pairs, and these need not be preserved as 
 unique in history." 
 
 " They're not gray. They're " 
 
 " They are gray ! I suppose your distin- 
 guished ancestors in Ireland did not educate 
 their families in the matter of gloves, and so 
 you are not expected to " 
 
 " Billie ! " 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 147 
 
 " You are not expected to believe that 
 people wear gloves only in cold weather, and 
 then you expect to see mittens." 
 
 On the stairs, in the darkness, he suddenly 
 exclaimed, " Here, look out, or you'll fall ! " 
 He reached for her arm, but she evaded him. 
 Later he said again : " Look out, girl ! What 
 makes you stumble around so? Here, give 
 me the bottle of wine. I can carry it all right. 
 There now can you manage ? " 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 " PENNY," said Grief, looking across the 
 table at his friend, " if a man thinks a heap 
 of two violets, how much would he think of 
 a thousand violets ? " 
 
 " Two into a thousand goes five hundred 
 times, you fool ! " said Pennoyer. " I would 
 answer your question if it were not upon a 
 forbidden subject." 
 
 In the distance Wrinkles and Florinda 
 were making Welsh rarebits. 
 
 " Hold your tongues ! " said Hawker. 
 " Barbarians ! " 
 
 " Grief," said Pennoyer, " if a man loves 
 a woman better than the whole universe, 
 how much does he love the whole universe ? " 
 
 "Gawd knows," said Grief piously. 
 "Although it ill befits me to answer your 
 question." 
 
 Wrinkles and Florinda came with the 
 
 Welsh rarebits, very triumphant. " There," 
 148 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 149 
 
 said Florinda, "soon as these are finished 
 I must go home. It is after eleven o'clock. 
 Pour the ale, Grief." 
 
 At a later time, Purple Sanderson entered 
 from the world. He hung up his hat and cast 
 a look of proper financial dissatisfaction at the 
 remnants of the feast. <l Who has been " 
 
 " Before you breathe, Purple, you grace- 
 less scum, let me tell you that we will stand 
 no reference to the two violets here," said 
 Pennoyer. 
 
 " What the " 
 
 " Oh, that's all right, Purple," said Grief, 
 " but you were going to say something about 
 the two violets, right then. Weren't you, 
 now, you old bat?" 
 
 Sanderson grinned expectantly. " What's 
 the row ? " said he. 
 
 " No row at all," they told him. " Just an 
 agreement to keep you from chattering obsti- 
 nately about the two violets." 
 
 " What two violets ? " 
 
 " Have a rarebit, Purple," advised Wrin- 
 kles, " and never mind those maniacs." 
 
 " Well, what is this business about two 
 violets?" 
 
150 
 
 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 " Oh, it's just some dream . They gibber at 
 anything." 
 
 " I think I know," said Florinda, nodding. 
 " It is something that concerns Billie Hawker." 
 
 Grief and Pennoyer scoffed, and Wrinkles 
 said : " You know nothing about it, Splut- 
 ter. It doesn't concern Biliie Hawker at 
 all." 
 
 " Well, then, what is he looking sideways 
 for?" cried Florinda. 
 
 Wrinkles reached for his guitar, and played 
 a serenade, " The silver moon is shining " 
 
 " Dry up ! " said Pennoyer. 
 
 Then Florinda cried again, " What does 
 he look sideways for ? " 
 
 Pennoyer and Grief giggled at the 
 imperturbable Hawker, who destroyed rare- 
 bit in silence. 
 
 "It's you, is it, Billie?" said Sanderson. 
 " You are in this two-violet business ? " 
 
 " I don't know what they're talking about," 
 replied Hawker. 
 
 " Don't you, honestly ? " asked Florinda. 
 
 " Well, only a little." 
 
 "There!" said Florinda, nodding again. 
 " I knew he was in it." 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. j^j 
 
 " He isn't in it at all," said Pennoyer and 
 Grief. 
 
 Later, when the cigarettes had become 
 exhausted, Hawker volunteered to go after 
 a further supply, and as he arose, a question 
 seemed to come to the edge of Florinda's 
 lips and pend there. The moment that the 
 door was closed upon him she demanded, 
 " What is that about the two violets ? " 
 
 "Nothing at all," answered Pennoyer, 
 apparently much aggrieved. He sat back 
 with an air of being a fortress of reticence. 
 
 " Oh, go on tell me ! Penny, I think you 
 are very mean. Grief, you tell me ! " 
 
 " The silver moon is shining ; 
 
 Oh, come, my love, to me ! 
 My heart " 
 
 " Be still, Wrinkles, will you ? What was 
 it, Grief ? Oh, go ahead and tell me ! " 
 
 "What do you want to know for?" cried 
 Grief, vastly exasperated. " You've got more 
 
 blamed curiosity It isn't anything at all, I 
 
 keep saying to you." 
 
 " Well, I know it is," said Florinda sul- 
 lenly, " or you would tell me." 
 
152 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 When Hawker brought the cigarettes, 
 Florinda smoked one, and then announced, 
 " Well, I must go now." 
 
 " Who is going to take you home, 
 Splutter?" 
 
 " Oh, anyone," replied Florinda. 
 
 "I tell you what," said Grief, " we'll 
 throw some poker hands, and the one who 
 wins will have the distinguished honour of 
 conveying Miss Splutter to her home and 
 mother." 
 
 Pennoyer and Wrinkles speedily routed 
 the dishes to one end of the table. Grief's 
 fingers spun the halves of a pack of cards 
 together with the pleased eagerness of a good 
 player. The faces grew solemn with the 
 gambling solemnity. " Now, you Indians," 
 said Grief, dealing, "a draw, you under- 
 stand, and then a show-down." 
 
 Florinda leaned forward in her chair until 
 it was poised on two legs. The cards of 
 Purple Sanderson and of Hawker were faced 
 toward her. Sanderson was gravely regard- 
 ing two pair aces and queens. Hawker 
 scanned a little pair of sevens. " They draw, 
 don't they ? " she said to Grief. 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 153 
 
 "Certainly," said Grief. "How many, 
 Wrink?" 
 
 " Four," replied Wrinkles, plaintively. 
 
 11 Gimme three," said Pennoyer. 
 
 " Gimme one," said Sanderson. 
 
 " Gimme three," said Hawker. When he 
 picked up his hand again Florinda's chair 
 was tilted perilously. She saw another seven 
 added to the little pair. Sanderson's draw 
 had not assisted him. 
 
 " Same to the dealer," said Grief. " What 
 you got, Wrink ? " 
 
 "Nothing," said Wrinkles, exhibiting it 
 face upward on the table. "Good-bye, 
 Florinda." 
 
 " Well, I've got two small pair," ventured 
 Pennoyer hopefully. " Beat 'em ? " 
 
 " No good," said Sanderson. " Two pair 
 aces up." 
 
 "No good," said Hawker. "Three 
 
 sevens." 
 
 " Beats me," said Grief. " Billie, you are 
 the fortunate man. Heaven guide you in 
 Third Avenue ! " 
 
 Florinda had gone to the window. " Who 
 won?" she asked, wheeling about carelessly. 
 
154 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 " Billie Hawker." 
 
 " What ! Did he ? " she said in surprise. 
 
 " Never mind, Splutter. I'll win some- 
 time," said Pennoyer. " Me too," cried Grief. 
 " Good night, old girl ! " said Wrinkles. They 
 crowded in the doorway. " Hold on to 
 Billie. Remember the two steps going up," 
 Pennoyer called intelligently into the Stygian 
 blackness. " Can you see all right? " 
 
 Florinda lived in a flat with fire-escapes 
 written all over the front of it. The street in 
 front was being repaired. It had been said 
 by imbecile residents of the vicinity that the 
 paving was never allowed to remain down for 
 a sufficient time to be invalided by the tramp- 
 ing millions, but that it was kept perpetually 
 stacked in little mountains through the un- 
 ceasing vigilance of a virtuous and heroic city 
 government, which insisted that everything 
 should be repaired. The alderman for the 
 district had sometimes asked indignantly of 
 his fellow-members why this street had not 
 been repaired, and they, aroused, had at once 
 ordered it to be repaired. Moreover, shop- 
 keepers, whose stables were adjacent, placed 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. ^5 
 
 trucks and other vehicles strategically in the 
 darkness. Into this tangled midnight 
 Hawker conducted Florinda. The great 
 avenue behind them was no more than a 
 level stream of yellow light, and the distant 
 merry bells might have been boats floating 
 down it. Grim loneliness hung over the un- 
 couth shapes in the street which was being 
 repaired. 
 
 "Billie," said the girl suddenly, "what 
 makes you so mean to me?" 
 
 A peaceful citizen emerged from behind 
 a pile of ddbris, but he might not have been 
 a peaceful citizen, so the girl clung to 
 Hawker. 
 
 " Why, I'm not mean to you, am I ? " 
 
 " Yes," she answered. As they stood on 
 the steps of the flat of innumerable fire- 
 escapes she slowly turned and looked up at 
 him. Her face was of a strange pallour in this 
 darkness, and her eyes were as when the 
 moon shines in a lake of the hills. 
 
 He returned her glance. " Florinda ! " he 
 cried, as if enlightened, and gulping suddenly 
 at something in his throat. The girl studied 
 the steps and moved from side to side, as 
 
156 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 do the guilty ones in country schoolhouses. 
 Then she went slowly into the flat. 
 
 There was a little red lamp hanging on a 
 pile of stones to warn people that the street 
 was being repaired. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 " I'LL get my check from the Gamin on 
 Saturday," said Grief. " They bought that 
 string of comics." 
 
 " Well, then, we'll arrange the present 
 funds to last until Saturday noon," said 
 Wrinkles. " That gives us quite a lot. We 
 can have a table d'hdte on Friday night." 
 
 However, the cashier of the Gamin office 
 looked under his respectable brass wiring and 
 said : " Very sorry, Mr. er Warwickson, 
 but our pay-day is Monday. Come around 
 any time after ten." 
 
 " Oh, it doesn't matter," said Grief. 
 
 When he plunged into the den his visage 
 flamed with rage. " Don't get my check until 
 Monday morning, any time after ten ! " he 
 yelled, and flung a portfolio of mottled green 
 into the danger zone of the casts. 
 
 " Thunder ! " said Pennoy er, sinking at once 
 
 into a profound despair. 
 ii 157 
 
158 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 " Monday morning, any time after ten," 
 murmured Wrinkles, in astonishment and 
 sorrow. 
 
 While Grief marched to and fro threat- 
 ening the furniture, Pennoyer and Wrinkles 
 allowed their under jaws to fall, and remained 
 as men smitten between the eyes by the god 
 of calamity. 
 
 " Singular thing ! " muttered Pennoyer at 
 last. " You get so frightfully hungry as soon 
 as you learn that there are no more meals 
 coming." 
 
 Oh, well " said Wrinkles. He took 
 
 up his guitar. 
 
 Oh, some folks say dat a niggah won' steal, 
 'Way down yondeh in d' cohn'-fiel' ; 
 
 But Ah caught two in my cohn'-fiel', 
 Way down yondeh in d' cohn'-fiel'. 
 
 " Oh, let up ! " said Grief, as if unwilling to 
 be moved from his despair. 
 
 " Oh, let up ! " said Pennoyer, as if he dis- 
 liked the voice and the ballad. 
 
 In his studio, Hawker sat braced nervously 
 forward on a little stool before his tall Dutch 
 easel. Three sketches lay on the floor near 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 him, and he glared at them constantly while 
 painting at the large canvas on the easel. 
 
 He seemed engaged in some kind of a 
 duel. His hair dishevelled, his eyes gleam- 
 ing, he was in a deadly scuffle. In the 
 sketches was the landscape of heavy blue, 
 as if seen through powder-smoke, and all the 
 skies burned red. There was in these notes 
 a sinister quality of hopelessness, eloquent of 
 a defeat, as if the scene represented the last 
 hour on a field of disastrous battle. Hawker 
 seemed attacking with this picture something 
 fair and beautiful of his own life, a possession 
 of his mind, and he did it fiercely, mercilessly, 
 formidably. His arm moved with the energy 
 of a strange wrath. He might have been 
 thrusting with a sword. 
 
 There was a knock at the door. " Come 
 in." Pennoyer entered sheepishly. " Well ? " 
 cried Hawker, with an echo of savagery in his 
 voice. He turned from the canvas precisely 
 as one might emerge from a fight. " Oh ! " 
 he said, perceiving Pennoyer. The glow in 
 his eyes slowly changed. " What is it, Pen- 
 ny?" 
 
 " Billie," said Pennoyer, " Grief was to get 
 
l6o THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 his check to-day, but they put him off until 
 Monday, and so, you know er well " 
 
 " Oh ! " said Hawker again. 
 
 When Pennoyer had gone Hawker sat 
 motionless before his work. He stared at the 
 canvas in a meditation so profound that it 
 was probably unconscious of itself. 
 
 The light from above his head slanted 
 more and more toward the east. 
 
 Once he arose and lighted a pipe. He 
 returned to the easel and stood staring with 
 his hands in his pockets. He moved like one 
 in a sleep. Suddenly the gleam shot into his 
 eyes again. He dropped to the stool and 
 grabbed a brush. At the end of a certain 
 long, tumultuous period he clinched his pipe 
 more firmly in his teeth and puffed strongly. 
 The thought might have occurred to him 
 that it was not alight, for he looked at it with 
 a vague, questioning glance. There came 
 another knock at the door. " Go to the 
 devil ! " he shouted, without turning his head. 
 
 Hollanden crossed the corridor then to 
 the den. 
 
 " Hi, there, Hollie ! Hello, boy ! Just the 
 fellow we want to see. Come in sit down 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 161 
 
 hit a pipe. Say, who was the girl Billie 
 Hawker went mad over this summer?" 
 
 " Blazes ! " said Hollander!, recovering 
 slowly from this onslaught. " Who what 
 how did you Indians find it out?" 
 
 "Oh, we tumbled!" they cried in delight, 
 " we tumbled." 
 
 " There ! " said Hollanden, reproaching 
 himself. "And I thought you were such a 
 lot of blockheads." 
 
 " Oh, we tumbled ! " they cried again in 
 their ecstasy. " But who is she ? That's the 
 point." 
 
 " Well, she was a girl." 
 
 " Yes, go on." 
 
 "A New York girl." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " A perfectly stunning New York girl." 
 
 " Yes. Go ahead." 
 
 " A perfectly stunning New York girl of a 
 very wealthy and rather old-fashioned family." 
 
 " Well, I'll be shot ! You don't mean it ! 
 She is practically seated on top of the Matter- 
 horn. Poor old Billie ! " 
 
 " Not at all," said Hollanden composedly. 
 
 It was a common habit of Purple Sander- 
 
!62 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 son to call attention at night to the resemblance 
 of the den to some little ward in a hospital. 
 Upon this night, when Sanderson and Grief 
 were buried in slumber, Pennoyer moved 
 restlessly. " Wrink ! " he called softly into the 
 darkness in the direction of the divan which 
 was secretly a coal-box. 
 
 "What?" said Wrinkles in a surly voice. 
 His mind had evidently been caught at the 
 threshold of sleep. 
 
 " Do you think Florinda cares much for 
 Billie Hawker?" 
 
 Wrinkles fretted through some oaths. 
 "How in thunder do I know?" The divan 
 creaked as he turned his face to the wall. 
 
 " Well " muttered Pennoyer. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 THE harmony of summer sunlight on leaf 
 and blade of green was not known to the two 
 windows, which looked forth at an obviously 
 endless building of brownstone about which 
 there was the poetry of a prison. Inside, 
 great folds of lace swept down in orderly 
 cascades, as water trained to fall mathemat- 
 ically. The colossal chandelier, gleaming like 
 a Siamese headdress, caught the subtle flashes 
 from unknown places. 
 
 Hawker heard a step and the soft swishing 
 of a woman's dress. He turned toward the 
 door swiftly, with a certain dramatic impul- 
 siveness. But when she entered the room he 
 said, " How delighted I am to see you 
 again ! " 
 
 She had said, " Why, Mr. Hawker, it was 
 so charming in you to come ! " 
 
 It did not appear that Hawker's tongue 
 
 could wag to his purpose. The girl seemed 
 163 
 
164 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 in her mind to be frantically shuffling her 
 pack of social receipts and finding- none of 
 them made to meet this situation. Finally, 
 Hawker said that he thought Hearts at War 
 was a very good play. 
 
 "Did you?" she said in surprise. "I 
 thought it much like the others." 
 
 "Well, so did I," he cried hastily " the 
 same figures moving around in the mud of 
 modern confusion. I really didn't intend to 
 say that I liked it. Fact is, meeting you 
 rather moved me out of my mental track." 
 
 " Mental track ? " she said. " I didn't 
 know clever people had mental tracks. I 
 thought it was a privilege of the theolo- 
 gians." 
 
 " Who told you I was clever ? " he de- 
 manded. 
 
 " Why," she said, opening her eyes wider, 
 " nobody." 
 
 Hawker smiled and looked upon her with 
 gratitude. " Of course, nobody. There 
 couldn't be such an idiot. I am sure you 
 should be astonished to learn that I believed 
 such an imbecile existed. But " 
 
 " Oh ! " she said. 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 165 
 
 " But I think you might have spoken less 
 bluntly." 
 
 " Well," she said, after wavering for a time, 
 " you are clever, aren't you ? " 
 
 " Certainly," he answered reassuringly. 
 
 " Well, then ? " she retorted, with triumph 
 in her tone. And this interrogation was ap- 
 parently to her the final victorious argument. 
 
 At his discomfiture Hawker grinned. 
 
 " You haven't asked news of Stanley," he 
 said. " Why don't you ask news of Stanley ? " 
 
 " Oh ! and how was he ? " 
 
 " The last I saw of him he stood down at 
 the end of the pasture the pasture, you know 
 wagging his tail in blissful anticipation of 
 an invitation to come with me, and when it 
 finally dawned upon him that he was not to 
 receive it, he turned and went back toward 
 the house ' like a man suddenly stricken with 
 age,' as the story-tellers eloquently say. Poor 
 old dog ! " 
 
 " And you left him ? " she said reproach- 
 fully. Then she asked, " Do you remember 
 how he amused you playing with the ants at 
 the falls?" 
 
 " No." 
 
1 66 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 " Why, he did. He pawed at the moss, 
 and you sat there laughing. I remember it 
 distinctly." 
 
 " You remember distinctly ? Why, I 
 thought well, your back was turned, you 
 know. Your gaze was fixed upon something 
 before you, and you were utterly lost to the 
 rest of the world. You could not have known 
 if Stanley pawed the moss and I laughed. 
 So, you see, you are mistaken. As a matter 
 of fact, I utterly deny that Stanley pawed the 
 moss or that I laughed, or that any ants ap- 
 peared at the falls at all." 
 
 " I have always said that you should have 
 been a Chinese soldier of fortune," she ob- 
 served musingly. " Your daring and inge- 
 nuity would be prized by the Chinese." 
 
 " There are innumerable tobacco jars in 
 China," he said, measuring "the advantages. 
 " Moreover, there is no perspective. You 
 don't have to walk two miles to see a friend. 
 No. He is always there near you, so that you 
 can't move a chair without hitting your dis- 
 tant friend. You " 
 
 " Did Hollie remain as attentive as ever to 
 the Worcester girls ? " 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. ify 
 
 "Yes, of course, as attentive as ever. 
 He dragged me into all manner of tennis 
 games " 
 
 " Why, I thought you loved to play ten- 
 nis ? " 
 
 " Oh, well," said Hawker, " I did until you 
 left." 
 
 " My sister has gone to the park with the 
 children. I know she will be vexed when she 
 finds that you have called." 
 
 Ultimately Hawker said, " Do you re- 
 member our ride behind my father's oxen ? " 
 
 " No," she answered ; " I had forgotten it 
 completely. Did we ride behind your father's 
 oxen ? " 
 
 After a moment he said : " That remark 
 would be prized by the Chinese. We did. 
 And you most graciously professed to enjoy 
 it, which earned my deep gratitude and admi- 
 ration. For no one knows better than I," he 
 added meekly, " that it is no great comfort or 
 pleasure to ride behind my father's oxen." 
 
 She smiled retrospectively. " Do you re- 
 member how the people on the porch hurried 
 to the railing?" 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 NEAR the door the stout proprietress sat 
 intrenched behind the cash-box in a Parisian 
 manner. She looked with practical amiabil- 
 ity at her guests, who dined noisily and with 
 great fire, discussing momentous problems 
 furiously, making wide, maniacal gestures 
 through the cigarette smoke. Meanwhile the 
 little handful of waiters ran to and fro wildly. 
 Imperious and importunate cries rang at them 
 from all directions. " Gustave ! Adolphe ! " 
 Their faces expressed a settled despair. They 
 answered calls, commands, oaths in a semi- 
 distraction, fleeting among the tables as if 
 pursued by some dodging animal. Their 
 breaths came in gasps. If they had been con- 
 vict labourers they could not have surveyed 
 their positions with countenances of more un- 
 speakable injury. Withal, they carried in- 
 credible masses of dishes and threaded their 
 ways with skill. They served people with 
 
 168 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 169 
 
 such speed and violence that it often resem- 
 bled a personal assault. They struck two 
 blows at a table and left there a knife and fork. 
 Then came the viands in a volley. The clat- 
 ter of this business was loud and bewilder- 
 ingly rapid, like the gallop of a thousand 
 horses. 
 
 In a remote corner a band of mandolins 
 and guitars played the long, sweeping, mad 
 melody of a Spanish waltz. It seemed to go 
 tingling to the hearts of many of the diners. 
 Their eyes glittered with enthusiasm, with 
 abandon, with deviltry. They swung their 
 heads from side to side in rhythmic move- 
 ment. High in air curled the smoke from 
 the innumerable cigarettes. The long, black 
 claret bottles were in clusters upon the tables. 
 At an end of the hall two men with maudlin 
 grins sang the waltz uproariously, but always 
 a trifle belated. 
 
 An unsteady person, leaning back in his 
 chair to murmur swift compliments to a 
 woman at another table, suddenly sprawled 
 out upon the floor. He scrambled to his feet, 
 and, turning to the escort of the woman, heat- 
 edly blamed him for the accident. They ex- 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 changed a series of tense, bitter insults, which 
 spatted back and forth between them like pel- 
 lets. People arose from their chairs and 
 stretched their necks. The musicians stood 
 in a body, their faces turned with expressions 
 of keen excitement toward this quarrel, but 
 their fingers still twinkling over their instru- 
 ments, sending into the middle of this turmoil 
 the passionate, mad, Spanish music. The pro- 
 prietor of the place came in agitation and 
 plunged headlong into the argument, where 
 he thereafter appeared as a frantic creature 
 harried to the point of insanity, for they buried 
 him at once in long, vociferous threats, expla- 
 nations, charges, every form of declamation 
 known to their voices. The music, the noise 
 of the galloping horses, the voices of the 
 brawlers, gave the whole thing the quality of 
 war. 
 
 There were two men in the cafe who 
 seemed to be tranquil. Hollanden carefully 
 stacked one lump of sugar upon another in 
 the middle of his saucer and poured cognac 
 over them. He touched a match to the 
 cognac and the blue and yellow flames eddied 
 in the saucer. " I wonder what those two 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. j^r 
 
 fools are bellowing at ? " he said, turning 
 about irritably. 
 
 " Hanged if I know ! " muttered Hawker in 
 reply. " This place makes me weary, any- 
 how. Hear the blooming din ! " 
 
 " What's the matter ? " said Hollanden. 
 " You used to say this was the one natural, 
 the one truly Bohemian, resort in the city. 
 You swore by it." 
 
 " Well, I don't like it so much any more." 
 
 " Ho ! " cried Hollanden, " you're getting 
 correct that's it exactly. You will become 
 
 one of these intensely Look, Billie, the 
 
 little one is going to punch him ! " 
 
 " No, he isn't. They never do," said Haw- 
 ker morosely. " Why did you bring me here 
 to-night, Hollie ? " 
 
 " I ? I bring you ? Good heavens, I came 
 as a concession to you ! What are you talk- 
 ing about? Hi! the little one is going to 
 punch him, sure ! " 
 
 He gave the scene his undivided attention 
 for a moment ; then he turned again : " You 
 will become correct. I know you will. I 
 have been watching. You are about to 
 achieve a respectability that will make a stone 
 
172 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 saint blush for himself. What's the matter 
 with you ? You act as if you thought falling 
 in love with a girl was a most extraordinary 
 circumstance. I wish they would put those 
 
 people out. Of course I know that you 
 
 There ! The little one has swiped at him at 
 last ! " 
 
 After a time he resumed his oration. " Of 
 course, I know that you are not reformed in 
 the matter of this uproar and this remarkable 
 consumption of bad wine. It is not that. It 
 is a fact that there are indications that some 
 other citizen was fortunate enough to possess 
 your napkin before you ; and, moreover, you 
 are sure that you would hate to be caught by 
 your correct friends with any such consommt 
 in front of you as we had to-night. You have 
 got an eye suddenly for all kinds of gilt. You 
 are in the way of becoming a most unbear- 
 able person. Oh, look ! the little one and the 
 proprietor are having it now. You are in the 
 way of becoming a most unbearable person. 
 Presently many of your friends will not be fine 
 enough. In heaven's name, why don't they 
 throw him out ? Are you going to howl and 
 gesticulate there all night ? " 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 " Well," said Hawker, " a man would be a 
 fool if he did like this dinner." 
 
 " Certainly. But what an immaterial part 
 in the glory of this joint is the dinner ! Who 
 cares about dinner ? No one comes here to 
 eat ; that's what you always claimed. Well, 
 there, at last they are throwing him out. I 
 hope he lands on his head. Really, you know, 
 Billie, it is such a fine thing being in love that 
 one is sure to be detestable to the rest of the 
 world, and that is the reason they created a 
 proverb to the other effect. You want to 
 look out." 
 
 " You talk like a blasted old granny ! " said 
 Hawker. " Haven't changed at all. This 
 place is all right, only " 
 
 " You are gone," interrupted Hollanden in 
 a sad voice. "It is very plain you are 
 gone." 
 
 12 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 THE proprietor of the place, having pushed 
 to the street the little man, who may have been 
 the most vehement, came again and resumed 
 the discussion with the remainder of the men of 
 war. Many of these had volunteered, and they 
 were very enduring. 
 
 " Yes, you are gone," said Hollanden, with 
 the sobriety of graves in his voice. " You are 
 gone. " Hi ! " he cried, " there is Lucian Pon- 
 tiac. Hi, Pontiac ! Sit down here." 
 
 A man with a tangle of hair, and with that 
 about his mouth which showed that he had 
 spent many years in manufacturing a proper 
 modesty with which to bear his greatness, 
 came toward them, smiling. 
 
 " Hello, Pontiac! " said Hollanden. " Here's 
 another great painter. Do you know Mr. 
 Hawker ? Mr. William Hawker Mr. Pon- 
 tiac." 
 
 " Mr. Hawker delighted," said Pontiac. 
 174 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 175 
 
 " Although I have not known you personally, 
 I can assure you that I have long been a great 
 admirer of your abilities." 
 
 The proprietor of the place and the men of 
 war had at length agreed to come to an amica- 
 ble understanding. They drank liquors, while 
 each firmly, but now silently, upheld his dig- 
 nity. 
 
 " Charming place," said Pontiac. " So thor- 
 oughly Parisian in spirit. And from time to 
 time, Mr. Hawker, I use one of your models. 
 Must say she has the best arm and wrist in the 
 universe. Stunning figure stunning ! " 
 
 " You mean Florinda ? " said Hawker. 
 
 " Yes, that's the name. Very fine girl. 
 Lunches with me from time to time and chat- 
 ters so volubly. That's how I learned you 
 posed her occasionally. If 'the models didn't 
 gossip we would never know what painters 
 were addicted to profanity. Now that old 
 Thorndike he told me you swore like a drill- 
 sergeant if the model winked a finger at the 
 critical time. Very fine girl, Florinda. And 
 honest, too honest as the devil. Very curi- 
 ous thing. Of course honesty among the girl 
 models is very common, very common quite 
 
176 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 universal thing, you know but then it always 
 strikes me as being very curious, very curi- 
 ous. I've been much attracted by your girl 
 Florinda." 
 
 " My girl ? " said Hawker. 
 
 " Well, she always speaks of you in a pro- 
 prietary way, you know. And then she con- 
 siders that she owes you some kind of obedi- 
 ence and allegiance and devotion. I remem- 
 ber last week I said to her : * You can go now. 
 Come again Friday/ But she said : ' I don't 
 think I can come on Friday. Billie Hawker 
 is home now, and he may want me then.' Said 
 I : ' The devil take Billie Hawker ! He hasn't 
 engaged you for Friday, has he ? Well, then, 
 I engage you now.' But she shook her head. 
 No, she couldn't come on Friday. Billie 
 Hawker was home, and he might want her 
 any day. ' Well, then,' said I, ' you have my 
 permission to do as you please, since you are 
 resolved upon it anyway. Go to your Billie 
 Hawker.' Did you need her on Friday ? " 
 
 " No," said Hawker. 
 
 " Well, then, the minx, I shall scold her. 
 Stunning figure stunning! It was only last 
 week that old Charley Master said to me 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 mournfully : ' There are no more good models. 
 Great Scott ! not a one.' ' You're 'way off, my 
 boy,' I said ; ' there is one good model,' and 
 then I named your girl. I mean the girl who 
 claims to be yours." 
 
 " Poor little beggar ! " said Hollanden. 
 
 " Who?" said Pontiac. 
 
 " Florinda," answered Hollanden. " I sup- 
 pose " 
 
 Pontiac interrupted. " Oh, of course, it is 
 too bad. Everything is too bad. My dear 
 sir, nothing is so much to be regretted as the 
 universe. But this Florinda is such a sturdy 
 young soul ! The world is against her, but, 
 bless your heart, she is equal to the battle. 
 She is strong in the manner of a little child. 
 Why, you don't know her. She " 
 
 " I know her very well.' ? 
 
 " Well, perhaps you do, but for my part I 
 think you don't appreciate her formidable 
 character and stunning figure stunning ! " 
 
 " Damn it ! " said Hawker to his coffee cup, 
 which he had accidentally overturned. 
 
 " Well," resumed Pontiac, " she is a stun- 
 ning model, and I think, Mr. Hawker, you are 
 to be envied." 
 
i;8 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 " Eh ? " said Hawker. 
 
 " I wish I could inspire my models with 
 such obedience and devotion. Then I would 
 not be obliged to rail at them for being late, 
 and have to badger them for not showing up 
 at all. She has a beautiful figure beautiful." 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 WHEN Hawker went again to the house of 
 the great window she looked first at the colos- 
 sal chandelier, and, perceiving that it had not 
 moved, he smiled in a certain friendly and 
 familiar way. 
 
 " It must be a fine thing," said the girl 
 dreamily. " I always feel envious of that sort 
 of life." 
 
 "What sort of life?" 
 
 " Why I don't know exactly ; but there 
 must be a great deal of freedom about it. I 
 went to a studio tea once, and " 
 
 " A studio tea ! Merciful heavens 
 
 Go on." 
 
 " Yes, a studio tea. Don't you like them ? 
 To be sure, we didn't know whether the man 
 could paint very well, and I suppose you think 
 it is an imposition for anyone who is not a 
 great painter to give a tea." 
 
 " Go on." 
 
 I7 9 
 
l8o THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 " Well, he had the dearest little Japanese 
 servants, and some of the cups came from 
 Algiers, and some from Turkey, and some 
 from What's the matter? " 
 
 " Go on. I'm not interrupting you." 
 
 " Well, that's all ; excepting that everything 
 was charming in colour, and I thought what a 
 lazy, beautiful life the man must lead, loung- 
 ing in such a studio, smoking monogrammed 
 cigarettes, and remarking how badly all the 
 other men painted." 
 
 " Very fascinating. But " 
 
 " Oh ! you are going to ask if he could 
 draw. I'm sure I don't know, but the tea that 
 he gave was charming." 
 
 " I was on the verge of telling you some- 
 thing about artist life, but if you have seen a 
 lot of draperies and drunk from a cup of 
 Algiers, you know all about it." 
 
 " You, then, were going to make it some- 
 thing very terrible, and tell how young paint- 
 ers struggled, and all that." 
 
 " No, not exactly. But listen : I suppose 
 there is an aristocracy who, whether they 
 paint well or paint ill, certainly do give 
 charming teas, as you say, and all other kinds 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. igl 
 
 of charming affairs too ; but when I hear peo- 
 ple talk as if that was the whole life, it makes 
 my hair rise, you know, because I am sure 
 that as they get to know me better and better 
 they will see how I fall short of that kind of 
 an existence, and I shall probably take a great 
 tumble in their estimation. They might even 
 conclude that I can not paint, which would be 
 very unfair, because I can paint, you know." 
 
 " Well, proceed to arrange my point of 
 view, so that you sha'n't tumble in my estima- 
 tion when I discover that you don't lounge in 
 a studio, smoke monogrammed cigarettes, and 
 remark how badly the other men paint." 
 
 " That's it. That's precisely what I wish 
 to do." 
 
 " Begin." 
 
 " Well, in the first place 1 " 
 
 " In the first place what ? " 
 
 " Well, I started to study when I was very 
 poor, you understand. Look here ! I'm telling 
 you these things because I want you to know, 
 somehow. It isn't that I'm not ashamed of it. 
 Well, I began very poor, and I as a matter 
 of fact I well, I earned myself over half the 
 money for my studying, and the other half I 
 
1 82 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 bullied and badgered and beat out of my poor 
 old dad. I worked pretty hard in Paris, and 
 I returned here expecting- to become a great 
 painter at once. I didn't, though. In fact, I 
 had my worst moments then. It lasted for 
 some years. Of course, the faith and endur- 
 ance of my father were by this time worn to a 
 shadow this time, when I needed him the 
 most. However, things got a little better and 
 a little better, until I found that by work- 
 ing quite hard I could make what was to 
 me a fair income. That's where I am now, 
 too." 
 
 " Why are you so ashamed of this story ? " 
 
 " The poverty." 
 
 " Poverty isn't anything to be ashamed 
 of." 
 
 " Great heavens ! Have you the temerity 
 to get off that old nonsensical remark ? Pov- 
 erty is everything to be ashamed of. Did you 
 ever see a person not ashamed of his poverty ? 
 Certainly not. Of course, when a man gets 
 very rich he will brag so loudly of the pov- 
 erty of his youth that one would never sup- 
 pose that he was once ashamed of it. But he 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 183 
 
 " Well, anyhow, you shouldn't be ashamed 
 of the story you have just told me." 
 
 " Why not ? Do you refuse to allow me 
 the great right of being like other men?" 
 
 " I think it was brave, you know." 
 
 " Brave ? Nonsense ! Those things are not 
 brave. Impression to that effect created by 
 the men who have been through the mill for 
 the greater glory of the men who have been 
 through the mill." 
 
 " I don't like to hear you talk that way. It 
 sounds wicked, you know." 
 
 " Well, it certainly wasn't heroic. I can 
 remember distinctly that there was not one 
 heroic moment." 
 
 " No, but it was it was " 
 
 " It was what ? " 
 
 " Well, somehow I like k, you know." 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 " THERE'S three of them," said Grief in a 
 hoarse whisper. 
 
 " Four, I tell you ! " said Wrinkles in a low, 
 excited tone. 
 
 " Four," breathed Pennoyer with decision. 
 
 They held fierce pantomimic argument. 
 From the corridor came sounds of rustling 
 dresses and rapid feminine conversation. 
 
 Grief had kept his ear to the panel of the 
 door. His hand was stretched back, warning 
 the others to silence. Presently he turned his 
 head and whispered, " Three." 
 
 " Four," whispered Pennoyer and Wrin- 
 kles. 
 
 " Hollie is there, too," whispered Grief. 
 " Billie is unlocking the door. Now they're 
 going in. Hear them cry out, ' Oh, isn't it 
 lovely ! ' Jinks ! " He began a noiseless dance 
 about the room. " Jinks ! Don't I wish I 
 
 had a big studio and a little reputation! 
 184 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 185 
 
 Wouldn't I have my swell friends come to 
 see me, and wouldn't I entertain 'em ! " He 
 adopted a descriptive manner, and with his 
 forefinger indicated various spaces of the wall. 
 " Here is a little thing I did in Brittany. 
 Peasant woman in sabots. This brown spot 
 here is the peasant woman, and those two 
 white things are the sabots. Peasant woman 
 in sabots, don't you see ? Women in Brit- 
 tany, of course, all wear sabots, you under- 
 stand. Convenience of the painters. I see 
 you are looking at that little thing I did in 
 Morocco. Ah, you admire it ? Well, not so 
 bad not so bad. Arab smoking pipe, squat- 
 ting in doorway. This long streak here is the 
 pipe. Clever, you say ? Oh, thanks ! You 
 are too kind. Well, all Arabs do that, you 
 know. Sole occupation. Convenience of the 
 painters. Now, this little thing here I did in 
 Venice. Grand Canal, you know. Gondolier 
 leaning on his oar. Convenience of the paint- 
 ers. Oh, yes, American subjects are well 
 enough, but hard to find, you know hard to 
 find. Morocco, Venice, Brittany, Holland 
 all oblige with colour, you know quaint form 
 all that. We are so hideously modern over 
 
1 86 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 here ; and, besides, nobody has painted us 
 much. How the devil can I paint America 
 when nobody has done it before me ? My 
 dear sir, are you aware that that would be 
 originality ? Good heavens ! we are not aes- 
 thetic, you understand. Oh, yes, some good 
 mind comes along and understands a thing 
 and does it, and after that it is aesthetic. Yes, 
 
 of course, but then well Now, here is a 
 
 little Holland thing of mine ; it " 
 
 The others had evidently not been heeding 
 him. " Shut up ! " said Wrinkles suddenly. 
 " Listen ! " Grief paused his harangue and 
 they sat in silence, their lips apart, their eyes 
 from time to time exchanging eloquent mes- 
 sages. A dulled melodious babble came from 
 Hawker's studio. 
 
 At length Pennoyer murmured wistfully, 
 " I would like to see her." 
 
 Wrinkles started noiselessly to his feet. 
 " Well, I tell you she's a peach. I was going 
 up the steps, you know, with a loaf of bread 
 under my arm, when I chanced to look up the 
 street and saw Billie and Hollanden coming 
 with four of them." 
 
 " Three," said Grief. 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 I8 7 
 
 " Four ; and I tell you I scattered. One 
 of the two with Billie was a peach a peach." 
 
 " O, Lord ! " groaned the others enviously. 
 " Billie's in luck." 
 
 "How do you know?" said Wrinkles. 
 " Billie is a blamed good fellow, but that 
 doesn't say she will care for him more likely 
 that she won't." 
 
 They sat again in silence, grinning, and 
 listening to the murmur of voices. 
 
 There came the sound of a step in the hall- 
 way. It ceased at a point opposite the door 
 of Hawker's studio. Presently it was heard 
 again. Florinda entered the den. " Hello ! " 
 she cried, " who is over in Billie' s place ? I 
 was just going to knock " 
 
 They motioned at her violently. " Sh ! " 
 they whispered. Their countenances were 
 very impressive. 
 
 " What's the matter with you fellows ? " 
 asked Florinda in her ordinary tone ; where- 
 upon they made gestures of still greater wild- 
 ness. " S-s-sh ! " 
 
 Florinda lowered her voice properly. 
 " Who is over there ? " 
 
 " Some swells," they whispered. 
 
1 88 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 Florinda bent her head. Presently she 
 gave a little start. " Who is over there ? " 
 Her voice became a tone of deep awe. 
 "She?" 
 
 Wrinkles and Grief exchanged a swift 
 glance. Pennoyer said gruffly, " Who do 
 you mean ? " 
 
 " Why," said Florinda, " you know. She. 
 The the girl that Billie likes." 
 
 Pennoyer hesitated for a moment and then 
 said wrathfully : " Of course she is ! Who do 
 you suppose?" 
 
 " Oh ! " said Florinda. She took a seat 
 upon the divan, which was privately a coal- 
 box, and unbuttoned her jacket at the throat. 
 " Is she is she very handsome, Wrink ? " 
 
 Wrinkles replied stoutly, " No." 
 
 Grief said : " Let's make a sneak down the 
 hall to the little unoccupied room at the front 
 of the building and look from the window 
 there. When they go out we can pipe 'em 
 off." 
 
 " Come on ! " they exclaimed, accepting this 
 plan with glee. 
 
 Wrinkles opened the door and seemed 
 about to glide away, when he suddenly turned 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 189 
 
 and shook his head. " It's dead wrong/' he 
 said, ashamed. 
 
 " Oh, go on ! " eagerly whispered the others* 
 Presently they stole pattering down the corri- 
 dor, grinning, exclaiming, and cautioning each 
 other. 
 
 At the window Pennoyer said : " Now, for 
 heaven's sake, don't let them see you! Be 
 careful, Grief, you'll tumble. Don't lean on 
 me that way, Wrink ; think I'm a barn door? 
 Here they come. Keep back. Don't let them 
 see you." 
 
 "O-o-oh!" said Grief. "Talk about a 
 peach ! Well, I should say so." 
 
 Florinda's fingers tore at Wrinkle's coat 
 sleeve. " Wrink, Wrink, is that her ? Is that 
 her? On the left of Billie? Is that her, 
 Wrink ? " 
 
 "What? Yes. Stop punching me! Yes, 
 I tell you ! That's her. Are you deaf ? " 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 IN the evening Pennoyer conducted Flo- 
 rinda to the flat of many fire-escapes. After a 
 period of silent tramping through the great 
 golden avenue and the street that was being 
 repaired, she said, " Penny, you are very good 
 to me." 
 
 " Why ? " said Pennoyer. 
 
 " Oh, because you are. You you are very 
 good to me, Penny." 
 
 " Well, I guess I'm not killing myself." 
 
 " There isn't many fellows like you." 
 
 "No?" 
 
 " No. There isn't many fellows like you, 
 Penny. I tell you 'most everything, and you 
 just listen, and don't argue with me and tell 
 me I'm a fool, because you know that it be- 
 cause you know that it can't be helped, any- 
 how." 
 
 " Oh, nonsense, you kid ! Almost anybody 
 
 would be glad to " 
 
 190 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 191 
 
 " Penny, do you think she is very beauti- 
 ful ? " Florinda's voice had a singular quality 
 of awe in it. 
 
 " Well," replied Pennoyer, " I don't know." 
 
 " Yes, you do, Penny. Go ahead and tell 
 me." 
 
 Well " 
 
 " Go ahead." 
 
 " Well, she is rather handsome, you 
 know." 
 
 " Yes," said Florinda, dejectedly, " I sup- 
 pose she is." After a time she cleared her 
 throat and remarked indifferently, " I suppose 
 Billie cares a lot for her ? " 
 
 " Oh, I imagine that he does in a way." 
 
 " Why, of course he does," insisted Florin- 
 da. " What do you mean by * in a way ' ? 
 You know very well that Billie thinks his 
 eyes of her." 
 
 " No, I don't." 
 
 " Yes, you do. You know you do. You 
 are talking in that way just to brace me up. 
 You know you are." 
 
 " No, I'm not." 
 
 " Penny," said Florinda thankfully, " what 
 makes you so good to me ? " 
 
10.2 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 " Oh, I guess I'm not so astonishingly good 
 to you. Don't be silly." 
 
 " But you are good to me, Penny. You 
 don't make fun of me the way the way the 
 other boys would. You are just as good as 
 you can be. But you do think she is beau- 
 tiful, don't you?" 
 
 " They wouldn't make fun of you," said 
 Pennoyer. 
 
 " But do you think she is beautiful ? " 
 
 " Look here, Splutter, let up on that, will 
 you ? You keep harping on one string all the 
 time. Don't bother me ! " 
 
 " But, honest now, Penny, you do think 
 she is beautiful ? " 
 
 " Well, then, confound it no! no ! no ! " 
 
 " Oh, yes, you do, Penny. Go ahead now. 
 Don't deny it just because you are talking to 
 me. Own up, now, Penny. You do think 
 she is beautiful ? " 
 
 " Well," said Pennoyer, in a dull roar of 
 irritation, " do you ? " 
 
 Florinda walked in silence, her eyes upon 
 the yellow flashes which lights sent to the 
 pavement. In the end she said, " Yes." 
 
 " Yes, what ? " asked Pennoyer sharply. 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 193 
 
 " Yes, she yes, she is beautiful." 
 
 " Well, then ? " cried Pennoyer, abruptly 
 closing the discussion. 
 
 Florinda announced something as a fact. 
 " Billie thinks his eyes of her." 
 
 " How do you know he does ? " 
 
 " Don't scold at me, Penny. You 
 you " 
 
 " I'm not scolding at you. There ! What 
 a goose you are, Splutter ! Don't, for heaven's 
 sake, go to whimpering on the street ! I didn't 
 say anything to make you feel that way. 
 Come, pull yourself together." 
 
 " I'm not whimpering." 
 
 " No, of course not ; but then you look as 
 if you were on the edge of it. What a little 
 idiot ! " 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 WHEN the snow fell upon the clashing life 
 of the city, the exiled stones, beaten by myr- 
 iad strange feet, were told of the dark, silent 
 forests where the flakes swept through the 
 hemlocks and swished softly against the boul- 
 ders. 
 
 In his studio Hawker smoked a pipe, clasp- 
 ing his knee with thoughtful, interlocked fin- 
 gers. He was gazing sourly at his finished 
 picture. Once he started to his feet with 
 a cry of vexation. Looking back over his 
 shoulder, he swore an insult into the face of 
 the picture. He paced to and fro, smoking 
 belligerently and from time to time eying it. 
 The helpless thing remained upon the easel, 
 facing him. 
 
 Hollanden entered and stopped abruptly 
 at sight of the great scowl. " What's wrong 
 
 now ? " he said. 
 
 194 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 195 
 
 Hawker gestured at the picture. " That 
 dunce of a thing. It makes me tired. It 
 isn't worth a hang. Blame it ! " 
 
 " What ? " Hollanden strode forward and 
 stood before the painting with legs apart, in 
 a properly critical manner. " What ? Why, 
 you said it was your best thing." 
 
 " Aw ! " said Hawker, waving his arms, " it's 
 no good ! I abominate it ! I didn't get what 
 I wanted, I tell you. I didn't get what I 
 wanted. That ? " he shouted, pointing thrust- 
 way at it " that ? It's vile ! Aw ! it makes 
 me weary." 
 
 " You're in a nice state," said Hollanden, 
 turning to take a critical view of the painter. 
 " What has got into you now ? I swear, you 
 are more kinds of a chump,! " 
 
 Hawker crooned dismally : " I can't paint ! 
 I can't paint for a damn ! I'm no good. 
 What in thunder was I invented for, anyhow, 
 Hollie ? " 
 
 " You're a fool," said Hollanden. " I hope 
 to die if I ever saw such a complete idiot ! 
 You give me a pain. Just because she 
 don't " 
 
 " It isn't that. She has nothing to do with 
 
196 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 it, although I know well enough I know well 
 enough " 
 
 " What ? " 
 
 " I know well enough she doesn't care a 
 hang for me. It isn't that. It is because it 
 is because I can't paint. Look at that thing 
 over there ! Remember the thought and en- 
 ergy I Damn the thing ! " 
 
 " Why, did you have a row with her ? " 
 asked Hollanden, perplexed. " I didn't 
 know " 
 
 " No, of course you didn't know," cried 
 Hawker, sneering ; " because I had no row. 
 It isn't that, I tell you. But I know well 
 enough " he shook his fist vaguely " that 
 she don't care an old tomato can for me. 
 Why should she ? " he demanded with a curi- 
 ous defiance. " In the name of Heaven, why 
 should she ? " 
 
 " I don't know," said Hollanden ; " I don't 
 know, I'm sure. But, then, women have no 
 social logic. This is the great blessing of the 
 world. There is only one thing which is su- 
 perior to the multiplicity of social forms, and 
 that is a woman's mind a young woman's 
 mind. Oh, of course, sometimes they are 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 logical, but let a woman be so once, and she 
 will repent of it to the end of her days. The 
 safety of the world's balance lies in woman's 
 illogical mind. I think " 
 
 " Go to blazes ! " said Hawker. " I don't 
 care what you think. I am sure of one thing, 
 and that is that she doesn't care a hang for 
 me!" 
 
 " I think," Hollanden continued, " that 
 society is doing very well in its work of 
 bravely la wing away at Nature ; but there is 
 one immovable thing a woman's illogical 
 mind. That is our safety. Thank Heaven, 
 it " 
 
 " Go to blazes ! " said Hawker again. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 As Hawker again entered the room of the 
 great windows he glanced in sidelong bitter- 
 ness at the chandelier. When he was seated 
 he looked at it in open defiance and hatred. 
 
 Men in the street were shovelling at the 
 snow. The noise of their instruments scrap- 
 ing on the stones came plainly to Hawker's 
 ears in a harsh chorus, and this sound at this 
 time was perhaps to him a miserere. 
 
 " I came to tell you," he began, " I came 
 to tell you that perhaps I am going away." 
 
 " Going away ! " she cried. " Where ? " 
 
 " Well, I don't know quite. You see, I 
 am rather indefinite as yet. I thought of 
 going for the winter somewhere in the South- 
 ern States. I am decided merely this much, 
 you know I am going somewhere. But I 
 don't know where. 'Way off, anyhow." 
 
 " We shall be very sorry to lose you," she 
 
 remarked. " We " 
 
 198 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 199 
 
 "And I thought," he continued, "that I 
 would come and say * adios ' now for fear 
 that I might leave very suddenly. I do 
 that sometimes. I'm afraid you will for- 
 get me very soon, but I want to tell you 
 that " 
 
 "Why," said the girl in some surprise, 
 " you speak as if you were going away for all 
 time. You surely do not mean to utterly 
 desert New York?" 
 
 " I think you misunderstand me," he said. 
 " I give this important air to my farewell to 
 you because to me it is a very important 
 event. Perhaps you recollect that once I 
 told you that I cared for you. Well, I still 
 care for you, and so I can only go away 
 somewhere some place Vay off where 
 where See?" 
 
 " New York is a very large place," she 
 observed. 
 
 " Yes, New York is a very large How 
 
 good of you to remind me ! But then you 
 don't understand. You can't understand. I 
 know I can find no place where I will cease 
 to remember you, but then I can find some 
 place where I can cease to remember in a 
 
200 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 way that I am myself. I shall never try to 
 forget you. Those two violets, you know 
 one I found near the tennis court and the 
 other you gave me, you remember I shall 
 take them with me." 
 
 " Here," said the girl, tugging at her gown 
 for a moment " Here ! Here's a third one." 
 She thrust a violet toward him. 
 
 " If you were not so serenely insolent," 
 said Hawker, " I would think that you felt 
 sorry for me. I don't wish you to feel sorry 
 for me. And I don't wish to be melodramatic. 
 I know it is all commonplace enough, and I 
 didn't mean to act like a tenor. Please don't 
 pity me." 
 
 " I don't," she replied. She gave the violet 
 a little fling. 
 
 Hawker lifted his head suddenly and glow- 
 ered at her. " No, you don't," he at last said 
 slowly, "you don't. Moreover, there is no 
 reason why you should take the trouble. 
 But " 
 
 He paused when the girl leaned and 
 peered over the arm of her chair precisely in 
 the manner of a child at the brink of a foun- 
 tain. "There's my violet on the floor," she 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 2 QI 
 
 said. " You treated it quite contemptuously, 
 didn't you ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Together they started at the violet. Fi- 
 nally he stooped and took it in his fingers. " I 
 feel as if this third one was pelted at me, but I 
 shall keep it. You are rather a cruel person, 
 but, Heaven guard us ! that only fastens a 
 man's love the more upon a woman." 
 
 She laughed. " That is not a very good 
 thing to tell a woman." 
 
 " No," he said gravely, " it is not, but then 
 I fancy that somebody may have told you 
 previously." 
 
 She stared at him, and then said, " I think 
 you are revenged for my serene insolence." 
 
 "Great heavens, what .an armour!" he 
 cried. " I suppose, after all, I did feel a trifle 
 like a tenor when I first came here, but you 
 have chilled it all out of me. Let's talk upon 
 indifferent topics." But he started abruptly 
 to his feet. " No," he said, " let us not talk 
 upon indifferent topics. I am not brave, I 
 assure you, and it it might be too much for 
 me." He held out his hand. " Good-bye." 
 
 " You are going ? " 
 
202 THE THIRD VIOLET. 
 
 " Yes, I am going. Really I didn't think 
 how it would bore you for me to come around 
 here and croak in this fashion." 
 
 " And you are not coming back for a long, 
 long time ? " 
 
 " Not for a long, long time." He mimicked 
 her tone. " I have the three violets now, you 
 know, and you must remember that I took 
 the third one even when you flung it at my 
 head. That will remind you how submissive 
 I was in my devotion. When you recall the 
 two others it will remind you of what a fool I 
 was. Dare say you won't miss three violets." 
 
 " No," she said. 
 
 "Particularly the one you flung at my 
 head. That violet was certainly freely 
 given." 
 
 " I didn't fling it at your head." She pon- 
 dered for a time with her eyes upon the floor. 
 Then she murmured, " No more freely given 
 than the one I gave you that night that night 
 at the inn." 
 
 " So very good of you to tell me so ! " 
 
 Her eyes were still upon the floor. 
 
 " Do you know," said Hawker, " it is very 
 hard to go away and leave an impression in 
 
THE THIRD VIOLET. 203 
 
 your mind that I am a fool? That is very 
 hard. Now, you do think I am a fool, don't 
 you?" 
 
 She remained silent. Once she lifted her 
 eyes and gave him a swift look with much in- 
 dignation in it. 
 
 " Now you are enraged. Well, what have 
 I done?" 
 
 It seemed that some tumult was in her 
 mind, for she cried out to him at last in sud- 
 den tearfulness : " Oh, do go ! Go ! Please ! 
 I want you to go ! " 
 
 Under this swift change Hawker appeared 
 as a man struck from the sky. He sprang to 
 his feet, took two steps forward, and spoke a 
 word which was an explosion of delight and 
 amazement. He said, " What?" 
 
 With heroic effort she slowly raised her 
 eyes until, alight with anger, defiance, unhap- 
 piness, they met his eyes. 
 
 Later, she told him that he was perfectly 
 ridiculous. 
 
 THE END.